Julia, I just couldn't help it. I had to!"

"I don't doubt it," smiled back Mrs. Kennedy; and at the meaning
emphasis in her voice there was a general laugh.

"Well, what shall we do first?" demanded Tilly, when breakfast was over.

Genevieve put her finger to her lips.

"I wonder, now. Oh, I know! Let's go out and see if they've driven in
the saddle band yet; then we'll watch the boys rope them and start to
work."

"What's a saddle band?--sounds like a girth," frowned Tilly.

"Humph! I reckon it isn't one, all the same," laughed Genevieve. "It's
the horses the boys ride. Each one has his own string, you know."

"No, I don't know," retorted Tilly, aggrievedly. "And you needn't use
all those funny words--'string' and 'saddle band' and 'rope
them'--without explaining them, either, Genevieve Hartley. You've been
talking like that ever since we came. Just as if we knew what all that
meant!"

Genevieve laughed again.

"No, you don't, of course," she admitted, "any more than I understood
some of your terms back East. But come; let's go out and watch the boys.
One of the sheds has a lovely low, flat roof, and we can see right over
into the horse corral from there. It's easy; there's a ladder. Come on!"

"Why, what a lot of horses!" cried Tilly, a moment later, as they
stepped out of doors. "Do they ride all those?"

"Not this morning," laughed Genevieve. "You see, each man has his own
string of horses, and he picks out some one of the bunch, and lets the
rest go. That's Reddy, now, driving them into the corral. The other boys
will be here pretty quick now, and the fun will begin. You'll see!"

The horse corral was high and circular, and there was a fine view of it
from the shed roof. A snubbing post was in the middle of the corral, and
a wing was built out at one side from the entrance gate, so that the
horses could be driven in more easily; yet Reddy quite had his hands
full as it was. At last they were all in, and a merry time they were
having of it, racing in a circle about the enclosure, heads up, and
tails and manes flying.

"Regular merry-go-round, isn't it?" giggled Tilly. But Cordelia clutched
Genevieve's arm.

"Genevieve, look--they've got ropes! Genevieve, what _are_ they going to
do?" she gasped, her eyes on the boys who were running from all
directions now, toward the corral. "Why, Genevieve, they're going _in_
there, with all those horses!"

"I reckon they are," rejoined the mistress of the Six