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 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 _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!

[Illustration: "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