re, at my ranch at last."

"Where are the Indians?" asked Russ eagerly.

And just then came wild yells and whoops, and the air resounded with the
firing of what the children thought must be giant fire-crackers, bigger
than any they had ever heard.

"Whoop-ee! Whoop! Bang! Bang!" sounded on all sides.

CHAPTER VIII

RUSS MAKES A LASSO

There was so much noise that, at first, no one could make his or her
voice heard. Then, as the sound of the shooting died away a little, and
the whoops and shouts were not so loud, Laddie cried:

"Is that the Indians, Uncle Fred? Are they trying to get us?"

"Where's my lasso?" demanded Russ. "I had one on the train! Where is it,
Mother? I want to lasso an Indian for Jerry Simms."

"Can't the cowboys help fight the Indians?" demanded Laddie, capering
about in his excitement.

"Oh, look!" suddenly exclaimed Rose, and she pointed to a lot of men on
horses coming around the corner of the big ranch house.

And as the children looked, these men again fired their big revolvers in
the air, making such a racket that Mother Bunker covered her ears with
her hands.

"Oh, here come the cowboys!" yelled Russ. "Now the Indians will run!"

"Let me see the cowboys! Let me see the cowboys!" cried Mun Bun. "Has
they got any cows?"

Right up to where the six little Bunkers stood rode the cowboys on their
horses, or "ponies," as they are more often called. Then the men
suddenly pulled back on the reins, and up in the air on their hind legs
stood the horses, the men clinging to their backs, swinging their big
hats and yelling as loudly as they could.

"Oh, it's just like a circus!" cried Rose.

"Indeed it is," said her father. "More like a Wild West circus, I
suppose."

"Did you get this show up for us, Fred?" asked Mother Bunker, when the
cowboys had quieted down, and had ridden off to the corral, or place
where they kept their horses.

"No, I didn't know anything about it," answered Uncle Fred. "But the
cowboys often ride wild like that when they come in from their work and
find visitors. They shoot off their revolvers, 'guns,' as they call
them, and make as much noise as they can."

"What for?" asked Violet.

"Oh, just because they feel good, and they want to make everybody else
feel good, too, I suppose."

"Will the Indians come?" asked Laddie hopefully.

"No, there aren't any Indians," his uncle told him. "At least not any
around here now. Sometimes a few come from the