“Knew more trouble was comin’,” said he, and contented himself by dismissing the situation with that.

“I’ve got good news for you,” said Jimsy, coming up; “your car isn’t hurt a bit.”

“Oh, good!” cried the girl, clasping her hands and flushing.  Her veil was raised now and they saw that she was very blonde, very pretty and just now very pale.

“My, what a rambunctious ram!” punned Roy; “he ramified all over, didn’t he?”

“Gracious, for a time I thought I was seeing things!” gasped the girl, who was seated on a tufted hummock of grass at the side of the road.

“And then you felt them,” laughed Jimsy.  “That’s the way such things run.”

They all laughed.  Soon after, Roy, Jimsy and Jake dragged the small runabout out of the ditch.  In the meantime Peggy had introduced herself and Jess to the young girl.  The latter’s name was Lavinia Nesbitt.  She lived not far from the scene of the accident, and had been taking a jaunt in her machine.

The runabout had been rescued, and the whole party introduced and talking merrily when Jess set up a cry.

“Goodness! here comes that ram again!”

Down the road, with the two sheep drivers at its heels, the beast was indeed coming.  It advanced at a hard gallop, with head lowered and formidable horns ready for a charge, into the midst of the group.

“Look out for him!” yelled the sheep herders.

They needed no second injunction.  All skipped adroitly out of the path of the oncoming beast, which was rushing on like a whirlwind.  Jimsy proved equal to the emergency.  From his aeroplane he took the rope which had already done good service in rescuing the Golden Butterfly from the pond.  He formed it into a loop—­the lariat of the Western plains.

“Now we’ve got him!” he exclaimed; “that is, if we are careful.  But watch out!”

“No danger of that,” responded Peggy, from the vantage of the tonneau of the car; “but how are you going to rope him?”

“Watch!”

Jimsy began swinging his loop in ever widening circles.  The ram was now within a few feet of him.

“Oh, the Dart!” shrieked Bess; “he’ll go right through it!”

Indeed it did appear as if the maddened animal would.  But just as there are many slips between cup and lip so there are many slips between the ram and the aeroplane.

Just as it appeared that he would plow his way right through the delicate fabric, Jimsy hurled his loop.  It settled round the animal’s horns.  Planting his heels in the ground Jimsy held tight to the rope.  The next minute he “snubbed” it tight and the ram lost its feet and rolled over and over in the dust.

Jake and Roy rushed in and completed the job of tying the creature.

“Goodness, Jimsy, you’re a regular broncho buster!” cried Peggy admiringly.

“Oh, I learned to do some tricks with a rope with the horse hunters out in Nevada,” was the response.