Genevieve shook her head. A look of pain crossed her face.
"Don't ask me, Elsie, please. You'll find out soon enough. Branding is business, too, I suppose—but it's horrid. Mammy Lindy says that the first time I saw our brand on a calf and realized what it meant and how it got there, I cried for hours—for days, in fact, much of the time."
"Why, Genevieve," cried Elsie, wonderingly. "How dreadful! What is a brand? I thought 'brand' meant the kind of coffee or tea one drank."
Alma frowned and threw a quick look into Genevieve's face.
"What a funny little town Bolo is!" she exclaimed, with a swift change of subject. "I declare, it looked 'most as sleepy as Sunbridge."
"Sleepy!" laughed Genevieve, her face clearing, much to Alma's satisfaction. "You should see Bolo when it's really awake—say when some association of cattlemen meet there. And there's going to be one next month, I think. There's no end of fun and frolic and horse-racing then, with everybody there, from the cowboys and cattle-kings to the trappers and Indians. You wouldn't think there was anything sleepy about Bolo then, I reckon," nodded Genevieve, gayly.
"Genevieve, quick—look!—off there," cried Elsie, excitedly.
"Some more of Fred's 'boats'—three of them this time," laughed Alma, her eyes on the three white-topped wagons glistening in the sunlight.
"Boats?" questioned Genevieve.
"That's what little Fred Wilson told us we were going to ride in," explained Alma. "He said they had prairie schooners here, and schooners were boats, of course."