“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 coulée 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 grass 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 coulée 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.