"I'd like to know what you are now," drawled Hortense, trying to draw attention from her cousin, who was becoming altogether too popular. "And you should know that children are better seen than heard."

"Let's see," said Helen, quickly, "our birthdays are in the same month; aren't they, 'Tense? I believe mother used to tell me so."

"Oh, never mind your birthdays," urged Miss Van Ramsden, while some of the other girls smiled at the repartee. "Let's hear about your adventure with the coyote, Miss Morrell."

"Why, ye see," said Helen, "it wasn't much. I was just a kid, as I say--mebbe ten year old. Dad had given me a light rifle--just a twenty-two, you know--to learn to shoot with. And Big Hen Billings----"

"Doesn't that sound just like those dear Western plays?" gasped one young lady. "You know--'The Squaw Man of the Golden West,' or 'Missouri,'

or----"

"Hold on! You're getting your t.i.tles mixed, Lettie," cried Miss Van Ramsden. "Do let Miss Morrell tell it."

"To give that child the center of the stage!" snapped Hortense, to Belle.

"I could shake Flossie for bringing her in here," returned the oldest Starkweather girl, quite as angrily.

"Tell us about your friend, Big Hen Billings," drawled another visitor.

"He _does_ sound so romantic!"

Helen almost giggled. To consider the giant foreman of Sunset Ranch a romantic type was certainly "going some." She had the wicked thought that she would have given a large sum of money, right then and there, to have had Big Hen announced by Gregson and ushered into the presence of this group of city girls.

"Well," continued Helen, thus urged, "father had given me a little rifle and Big Hen gave me a maverick----"

"What's that?" demanded Flossie.

"Well, in this case," explained Helen, "it was an orphaned calf. Sometimes they're strays that haven't been branded. But in this case a bear had killed the calf's mother in a _coulee_. She had tried to fight Mr. Bear, of course, or he never would have killed her at that time of year. Bears aren't dangerous unless they're hungry."

"My! but they look dangerous enough--at the zoo," observed Flossie.

"I tell ye," said Helen, reflectively, "that was a pretty calf. And I was little, and I hated to hear them blat when the boys burned them----"

"Burned them! Burned little calves! How cruel! What for?"

These were some of the excited comments. And in spite of Belle and Hortense, most of the visitors were now interested in the Western girl's narration.

"They have to brand 'em, you see," explained Helen. "Otherwise we never could pick our cattle out from other herds at the round-up. You see, on the ranges--even the fenced ranges--cattle from several ranches often get mixed up. Our brand is the Link-A. Our ranch was known, in the old days, as the 'Link-A.' It's only late years that we got to calling it Sunset Ranch."

"Sunset Ranch!" cried Miss Van Ramsden, quickly. "Haven't I heard something about _that_ ranch? Isn't it one of the big, big cattle and horse-breeding ranches?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Helen, slowly, fearing that she had unwittingly got into a blind alley of conversation.

"And your father owns _that_ ranch?" cried Miss Van Ramsden.

"My--my father is dead," said Helen. "I am an orphan."

"Oh, dear me! I am so sorry," murmured the wealthy young lady.

But here Belle broke in, rather scornfully:

"The child means that her father worked on that ranch. She has lived there all her life. Quite a rude place, I fawncy."

Helen's eyes snapped. "Yes. He worked there," she admitted, which was true enough, for n.o.body could honestly have called Prince Morrell a sluggard.

"He was--what you call it--a cowpuncher, I believe," whispered Belle, in an aside.

If Helen heard she made no sign, but went on with her story.

"You see, it was _such_ a pretty calf," she repeated. "It had big blue eyes at first--calves often do. And it was all sleek and brown, and it played so cunning. Of course, its mother being dead, I had a lot of trouble with it at first. I brought it up by hand.

"And I tied a broad pink ribbon around its neck, with a big bow at the back. When it slipped around under its neck Bozie would somehow get the end of the ribbon in its mouth, and chew, and chew on it till it was nothing but pulp."

She laughed reminiscently, and the others, watching her pretty face in the firelight, smiled too.

"So you called it Bozie?" asked Miss Van Ramsden.

"Yes. And it followed me everywhere. If I went out to try and shoot plover or whistlers with my little rifle, there was Bozie tagging after me. So, you see when it came calf-branding time, I hid Bozie."

"You hid it? How?" demanded Flossie. "Seems to me a calf would be a big thing to hide."

"I didn't hide it under my bed," laughed Helen. "No, sir! I took it out to a far distant _coulee_ where I used to go to play--a long way from the bunk-house--and I hitched Bozie to a stub of a tree where there was nice, short, sweet gra.s.s for him.

"I hitched him in the morning, for the branding fires were going to be built right after dinner. But I had to show up at dinner--sure. The whole gang would have been out hunting me if I didn't report for meals."

"Yes. I presume you ran perfectly wild," sighed Hortense, trying to look as though she were sorry for this half-savage little cousin from the "wild and woolly."

"Oh, very wild indeed," drawled Helen. "And after dinner I raced back to the _coulee_ to see that Bozie was all right. I took my rifle along so the boys would think I'd gone hunting and wouldn't tell father.

"I'd heard coyotes barking, as I thought, all the forenoon. And when I came to the hollow, there was Bozie running around and around his stub, and getting all tangled up, blatting his heart out, while two big old coyotes (or so I thought they were) circled around him.

"They ran a little way when they saw me coming. Coyotes sometimes _will_ kill calves. But I had never seen one before that wouldn't hunt the tall pines when they saw me coming.

"Crackey, those two were big fellers! I'd seen big coyotes, but never none like them two gray fellers. And they snarled at me when I made out to chase 'em--me wavin' my arms and hollerin' like a Piute buck. I never had seen coyotes like them before, and it throwed a scare into me--it sure did!

"And Bozie was so scared that he helped to scare me. I dropped my gun and started to untangle him. And when I got him loose he acted like all possessed!

[Ill.u.s.tration: "LET'S HEAR ABOUT YOUR ADVENTURE WITH THE COYOTE, MISS MORRELL." (Page 180.)]

"He wanted to run wild," proceeded Helen. "He yanked me over the ground at a great rate. And all the time those two gray fellers was sneakin' up behind me. Crackey, but I got scared!

"A calf is awful strong--'specially when it's scared. You don't know! I had to leave go of either the rope, or the gun, and somehow," and Helen smiled suddenly into Miss Van Ramsden's face--who understood--"somehow I felt like I'd better hang onter the gun."

"They weren't coyotes!" exclaimed Miss Van Ramsden.

"No. They was wolves--real old, gray, timber-wolves. We hadn't been bothered by them for years. Two of 'em, working together, would pull down a full-grown cow, let alone a little bit of a calf and a little bit of a gal," said Helen.

"O-o-o!" squealed the excited Flossie. "But they didn't?"

"I'm here to tell the tale," returned her cousin, laughing outright.