the poor things ain’t worried more than is necessary.  I bet she thought I was a short sport, not doing a thing on my place that would look well in a moving picture.  She got a lot of ripping sport out of this branding.  Made no difference if they was already branded, they got it again; she’d brand ’em over and over.  Two or three of that herd got it so often that they looked like these leather suitcases parties bring back from Europe stuck all over with hotel labels.

“Well, this branch of sport lasted quite a while, with them steers developing speed every day till they got too fast for any one but the old lady.  Brother and sister would be left far behind, or mebbe get stacked up and discouraged or sprained for the day.  The old dame said it was disheartening, indeed, trying to make companions of one’s children when they showed such a low order of intelligence for it.  Still, she was fair-minded; so she had a golf links made, and put ’em at that.  She wouldn’t play herself, saying it was an effeminate game, good for fat old men or schoolboys, but mebbe her chits would benefit by it and get a taste for proper sports, where you can break a bone now and then by not using care.

“But golf wasn’t much better.  Sister would carry a book of poetry with her and read it as she loafed from one hit to another.  The old lady near shed tears at the sight.  And brother was about as bad, getting hypnotized by passing insect life and forgetting his score while prodding some new kind of bug.

“The old lady said I’d never believe what a care and responsibility children was.  She had wanted ’em to go in for ranching and be awfully keen about it, and look how they acted!  Still, she wouldn’t give up.  She suggested polo next; but sister said it wasn’t a lady’s game, making no demand upon the higher attributes of womanhood, and brother said he might go in for it if she’d let him play his on a bicycle, as being more reliable or stauncher than a pony.

“So she throws up her hands in despair, but thinks hard again; and at last she says she has the right sport for ’em and why didn’t she think of it before!  This new idea is to bring up her pack of prize-winning beagles, the sport being full of excitement, and yet safe enough for all concerned if they’ll look where they walk and not stop to read slushy poems or collect insect life.  Sister and brother said beagles, by all means, like drowning sailors clutching at a straw or something; and the old lady sent off a telegram.

“I admit I didn’t know what kind of a game beagles was, but I didn’t betray the fact when she told me about it.  I was over to Egbert Floud’s place next day and I asked him.  But he didn’t know and he couldn’t even get the name right.  He says:  ‘You mean beetles.’  I says, ‘Not at all’; that it’s beagles.  Then he says I must of got the name twisted, and probably it’s one of these curly horns.  That’s as close as he ever did come to the name; and until he actually saw the things he insisted they was either something to blow on or something that crawled.  ’Mark my words,’ he says,’they’re either a horn or a bug; and I wonder what this here blond guy will be doing next.’  So I saw nothing sensible was to be had out of him, and I left him there, doddering.