SHAWNEE, COLO. -- The crowd cheers and calls out encouragement as the rider nudges her horse faster past the barrels -- and then they both seem to lean their heads at the same angle as they race toward the wrangler waiting at the end of the rodeo arena.

''Go, Sheryl! You can do it!'' folks are yelling from the stands, and Sheryl Wallace grins as she waves before bringing her gelding to a textbook-clean stop. She dismounts, swats the dust from her backside and walks back to her place with the rest of the group as the next rider is called.

It's Saturday afternoon at Tarryall River Ranch, and this is the end-of-the-week rodeo, the chance for guests at the 100-acre ranch to cowboy up and strut their stuff, proving that their time spent with a horse chosen just for them -- and the ensuing sore rear ends -- wasn't for naught.

''I just turned 50, and I promised myself that as a present to me, I would do something I had never done before,'' said Wallace, who was visiting from Pierceton, Ind. ``Well, coming to a dude ranch out West was it.''

She had packed up her SUV and driven from Indiana by herself after choosing Tarryall from a dude-ranch Web site. ``It was so cool, seeing this part of the country and then doing something like this. You learn a lot about yourself and other people in this kind of setting.''

The setting at Tarryall couldn't be more picture-perfect: The mountain ranch sits in a sea of aspens and ponderosa pines, adjacent to Lost Creek Wilderness Area with a clear view of Pikes Peak and the Tarryall River to play in.

Play is uppermost on the minds of the kids who are running around the ranch, many of whom seem to be veteran dude-ranch guests. One particularly articulate young lady informs me that she was recently at a ranch where there were 150 guests, and no one there could remember her name. ''I like smaller ranches like this one,'' said Emily McCoy, 13, from Omaha, Neb. ``It's just friendlier. The staff here is so nice, I wish I were related to them.''

You can't pay guests to be better ambassadors than that.

RODEO TIME

The McCoy kids -- including Maggie, 12, Sam, 9, and Kate, 7 -- actually were some of the best entertainment of the week, especially during the finale of the rodeo when they got to pick the horses that the wranglers would ride to show off their skills. After a week of the guests feeling a bit self-conscious because they were learning, it was quite humorous to let them feel a little smug as the youngsters forced hunky wrangler Matt Montei to climb on one of the tiniest mares -- he wasn't allowed to adjust the stirrups, either, so that his knees were up around his ears -- and run the barrels.

That evening brought the talent show, when several kids, including the McCoys and their newfound friends Molly Konopik, 9, and Joe Konopik, 6, from Clive, Iowa, and Clara Ganz, 7, from Portland, Ore., were brave enough to sing on their own. A few even played the piano and sang Home on the Range. Everyone pitched in to sing the old standards -- Don't Fence Me In and She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain -- and the staff ran through a few goofy routines they had worked up as well.

Then the staff that had spent the week with the youngsters went over what they had been doing, and it became clear that this is a place that spends some serious time on its kids' programs.

''I know I'm getting old for some of this stuff,'' Emily said as she showed off her crafts. ``But it's still fun, and I like to keep busy.''

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