"If you fellows will ride past me I'll rope you all," and Four
Eyes indicated Snake, Yellin' Kid, Old Billee and Buck Tooth.
They mounted horses, and as Bud, Nort and Dick watched, the
newcomer prepared for the test.
CHAPTER IX
THE FIRE
"Say when!" called Snake to the spectacle-wearing cowboy, as the reptile-fearing cow puncher and his companions prepared to let themselves be roped by the new arrival—providing he could do it.
"I'll be ready in a moment," remarked Henry Mellon, and Bud and his cousins could not but note how differently he spoke from the average run of ranch hands.
"More like one of those college professors who were after the ten-million-year-old Triceratops," remarked Nort, commenting on the talk.
"Yes, he is a bit cultured in his speech," assented Bud. "Guess he hasn't been out west long."
"Then how can he be such a wonderful roper?" Dick wanted to know, for there was no doubt about the ability of Four Eyes, even if he had not yet made good oh his boast of putting his lariat around four galloping horses at once.
"Oh, well, it comes natural to some people," said Bud, "and then, too, he may have been in Mexico. Some of the Greasers are pretty slick with the horsehair. But let's watch."
By this time the four cow punchers, counting Buck Tooth as one, for the Indian was a good herdsman, had lined themselves up about a hundred feet from where Four Eyes sat on his horse—not the same black one he had ridden in, but another, of Bud's stock, that had been assigned him.