Page:Patches (1928).pdf/57

 "Yes," said Mr. Brodie, "I sent down to Wyanne and got them for you just as soon as I received your letter saying you were coming. I want you to be a real cow-puncher from the start. You are going with the round-up men today. I am going to let you ride Old Dobbin. He is a native horse and doesn't know what the word buck means, besides he isn't old either."

Presently Larry found himself seated once more at the long table in the ranch house where several platters of hot sourdough griddle cakes were waiting the cow-punchers. These, with bacon and hot coffee and plenty of maple syrup and butter, were the regulation morning meal at the ranch house. A big crock behind the kitchen stove was always filled with the sourdough.

The morning meal was not eaten as leisurely as supper had been. This was the beginning of the day's work and the cow-punchers went at it in a business-like manner. Soon the griddle cakes and bacon were dispatched and all were off to the corral for their ponies.

To lasso one's favorite pony in the corral with a hundred others, all moving about and restless, was not an easy matter, but to do this in semi-darkness and with the ponies ducking to escape the flying nooses was quite a difficult matter. But one by one the ponies