"It's too little to travel and the mean old mother's gone off with the flock," Blue Bonnet said, coming up with the deserted baby.
"What are you going to do with it?" demanded Kitty helplessly.
"I'm going to find the flock. It's been driven along here and inside that fence. I'm going to let down the bars and cross the field. You see the little shanty over there?—I believe there must be a shepherd somewhere about, and I'll give him the lamb. He isn't a very good shepherd or he'd have been looking out for poor little lambs. Shady used to herd sheep and he's told me lots about it."
"And what shall I do?" asked Kitty. "I'm afraid to hold Firefly,—he nearly pulls me off the saddle."
"Then tie both horses to the bars here and help me with the lamb."
Kitty offered no protest. This was so like Blue Bonnet. It was always a stray dog or a lost baby, or an old woman at the poor-house that enlisted her ready sympathy; Kitty ran over a long list in her mind. Of course it had to be a lost lamb or a calf in Texas; the wonder was there hadn't been more of them.
Hastily tying both ponies to a fence-post with a scrambling knot of the reins that would have brought down Blue Bonnet's wrath upon her hapless head, Kitty hastened across the close-cropped meadow. It seemed to her they trudged miles, taking turns carrying the lamb, before they reached the little shack. A stupid young fellow, half-asleep, lay sprawled in the shade.
"Here's a lamb we found by the road," said Blue Bonnet, proffering her woolly burden.
Without uttering a word the sleepy youth took the lamb from her; but Blue Bonnet, observing his manner of handling it, saw that he was wise in the ways of sheep, and she was content to leave her charge with him.
"Flock's over there," he said at length, pointing vaguely with his thumb.