“Don’t wonder, son. If that’d been me I’d have felt all missin’. But Roy’s right--in the house for yours. What under the sun made that cinch strap break?” Teddy shook his head. “It’s beyond me. Everything happened so quickly I didn’t have time to take an observation. Roy, that was a wonderful throw of yours. Standing on the rails! If you hadn’t, I--” “Just what Bug Eye did to stop his lawnmower,” Roy declared, and grinned. “Funny, as the rope left my hand I was thinking of him. I figured he could do it, so--” Teddy reached out and rested his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “I’ll let you get away with it, Roy, old boy,” he said quietly. “We won’t talk about what would have happened if you’d missed. Let’s get out of here.” The three walked toward the gate. Pop and Nick had dismounted, and had turned their ponies loose. They watched Teddy carefully, to see that he was able to walk without assistance. “Don’t bother about me,” the boy laughed as he saw them staring at him. “And for the love of Pete, don’t anybody mention it to mother. I don’t want her to worry.” “If she worried, Teddy, you’d never know it,” Pop said in a low voice. “She knows a man on a ranch can’t be safe all the time. She’d take it standing up, and never a whimper out of her.” They came to the gate, and went through. Teddy turned and looked at Pop. “You’re right, Pop. In all my life I’ve not heard her say she was afraid. Roy, let’s go in. Want to put some liniment on my leg.” Nick and Pop stood at the foot of the steps as the two brothers entered the door of the ranch house. They gazed in open admiration at the departing figures. “The best thing I can say about ’em--” said Nick musingly, “the thing that takes in all the rest of it--is that they’re the sons of their mother and father. Come on, Pop, let’s eat.” CHAPTER XI THE FLYING HAT Stiff and sore in every muscle, Teddy arose from his bed the morning following his disastrous ride and bent over experimentally. Roy, who had a bed on the other side of the room, grinned widely. “Are you a little stiff from bowling?” “I’m a big stiff from bowling. Where is Bowling, anyhow, that so many stiffs come from there? Golly, if someone took a swing at me now I’d break right in two. Say--” he sat on the side of the bed and observed his brother--“suppose the cinch straps break in the rodeo. Does it count as a throw?” “Hum! Have to ask Pop about that. Don’t see why it should. Now take that pony yesterday, for instance--you had him beaten. It wasn’t your fault that the girths broke. He was trotting for you when it happened. You went over his head like a skyrocket, I’ll tell a maverick!”