Select first N words of a local macro in Stata

Question

Let's say I have the macro:

local words = "first second third fourth"

I want to select the first 3 words of it. I know that I can select, say the second, the word using:

local select: word 2  of `words' 
di "`select'"

However, I would like to have a line that selects the first N words (in this case N=3) of the said macro. For now, I am using a loop structure that seems quite overkill for such a simple procedure.

local words = "first second third fourth"
local select: word 1  of `words' 
forvalues i=2/3 {
    local rest : word `i' of `words' 
    local select `select'  `rest'
}

di "`select'"
first second third

Any better solution? Thank you