"Goodness! here comes that ram again!"
Down the road, with the two sheep drivers at its heels, the beast was indeed coming. It advanced at a hard gallop, with head lowered and formidable horns ready for a charge, into the midst of the group.
"Look out for him!" yelled the sheep herders.
They needed no second injunction. All skipped adroitly out of the path of the oncoming beast, which was rushing on like a whirlwind. Jimsy proved equal to the emergency. From his aëroplane he took the rope which had already done good service in rescuing the Golden Butterfly from the pond. He formed it into a loop—the lariat of the Western plains.
"Now we've got him!" he exclaimed; "that is, if we are careful. But watch out!"
"No danger of that," responded Peggy, from the vantage of the tonneau of the car; "but how are you going to rope him?"
"Watch!"
Jimsy began swinging his loop in ever widening circles. The ram was now within a few feet of him.
"Oh, the Dart!" shrieked Bess; "he'll go right through it!"
Indeed it did appear as if the maddened animal would. But just as there are many slips between cup and lip so there are many slips between the ram and the aëroplane.