Then, too, we were never allowed anything we could not take care of ourselves.

Of course the cowboys always roped and saddled our horses, but we had to be able ourselves to go out in the paddock and rope our horses--" "What do you mean by _rope_ ?" Sheldon asked.
"To lariat them, to lasso them.

And Dad and Von timed us in the saddling and made a most rigid examination of the result.

It was the same way with our revolvers and rifles.

The house-boys always cleaned them and greased them; but we had to learn how in order to see that they did it properly.