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.
"Bozie broke away from me, and the wolves leaped after him--full chase. I
knelt right down----"

"And prayed!" gasped Flossie. "I should think you would!"

"I _did_ pray--yes, ma'am! I prayed that the bullet would go true. But I
knelt down to steady my aim," said Helen, chuckling again. "And I broke
the back of one of them wolves with my first shot. That was wonderful
luck--with a twenty-two rifle. The bullet's only a tiny thing.

"But I bowled Mr. Wolf over, and then I ran after the other one and the
blatting Bozie. Bozie dodged the wolf somehow and came circling back at
me, his tail flirting in the air, coming in stiff-legged jumps as a calf
does, and searching his soul for sounds to tell how scart he was!

"I'd pushed another cartridge into my gun. But when Bozie came he bowled
me over--flat on my back. Then the wolf made a leap, and I saw his
light-gray underbody right over my head as he flashed after poor Bozie.

"I jest let go with the gun! Crackey! I didn't have time to shoulder it,
and it kicked and hit me in the nose and made my nose bleed awful. I was
'all in,' too, and I thought the wolf was going to eat Bozie, and then
mebbe _me_, and I set up to bawl so't Big Hen heard me farther than he
could have heard my little rifle.

"Big Hen was always expectin' me to get inter some kind of trouble, and he
come tearin' along lookin' for me. And there I was, rolling in the grass
an' bawling, the second wolf kicking his life out with the blood pumping
from his chest, not three yards away from me, and Bozie streakin' it
acrost the hill, his tail so stiff with fright you could ha' hung yer hat
on it!"

"Isn't that perfectly grand!" cried Miss Van Ramsden, seizing Helen by the
shoulders when she h