The Girl from Sunset Ranch by AMY BELL MARLOWE (best ereader for manga .TXT) 📖

a bear had killed the calf's mother in a coulée. She had tried to fight Mr. Bear, of course, or he never would have killed her at that time of year. Bears aren't dangerous unless they're hungry."

"My! but they look dangerous enough--at the zoo," observed Flossie.

"I tell ye," said Helen, reflectively, "that was a pretty calf. And I was little, and I hated to hear them blat when the boys burned them----"

"Burned them! Burned little calves! How cruel! What for?"

These were some of the excited comments. And in spite of Belle and Hortense, most of the visitors were now interested in the Western girl's narration.

"They have to brand 'em, you see," explained Helen. "Otherwise we never could pick our cattle out from other herds at the round-up. You see, on the ranges--even the fenced ranges--cattle from several ranches often get mixed up. Our brand is the Link-A. Our ranch was known, in the old days, as the 'Link-A.' It's only late years that we got to calling it Sunset Ranch."

"Sunset Ranch!" cried Miss Van Ramsden, quickly. "Haven't I heard something about that ranch? Isn't it one of the big, big cattle and horse-breeding ranches?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Helen, slowly, fearing that she had unwittingly got into a blind alley of conversation.

"And your father owns that ranch?" cried Miss Van Ramsden.

"My--my father is dead," said Helen. "I am an orphan."

"Oh, dear me! I am so sorry," murmured the wealthy young lady.

But here Belle broke in, rather scornfully:

"The child means that her father worked on that ranch. She has lived there all her life. Quite a rude place, I fawncy."

Helen's eyes snapped. "Yes. He worked there," she admitted, which was true enough, for nobody could honestly have called Prince Morrell a sluggard.

"He was--what you call it--a cowpuncher, I believe," whispered Belle, in an aside.

If Helen heard she made no sign, but went on with her story.

"You see, it was such a pretty calf," she repeated. "It had big blue eyes at first--calves often do. And it was all sleek and brown, and it played so cunning. Of course, its mother being dead, I had a lot of trouble with it at first. I brought it up by hand.

"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.

"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 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 had finished and kissing her on both cheeks. "And you only ten years old?"

"But, you see," said Helen, more quietly, "we are brought up that way in Montana. We would die a thousand deaths if we were taught to be afraid of anything on four legs."

"It must be an exceedingly crude country," remarked Hortense, her nose tip-tilted.

"Shocking!" agreed Belle.

"I'd like to go there," announced Flossie, suddenly. "I think it must be fine."

"Quite right," agreed Miss Van Ramsden.

The older Starkweather girls could not go against their most influential caller. They were only too glad to have the Van Ramsden girl come to see them. But while the group were discussing Helen's story, the girl from Sunset Ranch stole away and went up to her room.

She had not meant to tell about her life in the West--not in just this way. She had tried to talk about as her cousins expected her to, when once she got into the story; but its effect upon the visitors had not been just what either the Starkweather girls, or Helen herself, had expected.

She saw that she was much out of the good graces of Belle and Hortense at dinner; they hardly spoke to her. But Flossie seemed to delight in rubbing her sisters against the grain.

"Oh, Pa," she cried, "when Helen goes home, let me go with her; will you? I'd just love to be on a ranch for a while--I know I should! And I do need a vacation."

"Nonsense, Floss!" gasped Hortense.

"You are a perfectly vulgar little thing," declared Belle. "I don't know where you get such low tastes."

Mr. Starkweather looked at his youngest daughter in amazement. "How very ridiculous," he said. "Ahem! You do not know what you ask, Flossie."

"Oh! I never can have anything I want," whined Miss Flossie. "And it must be great fun out on that ranch. You ought to hear Helen tell about it, Pa."

"Ahem! I have no interest in such things," said her father, sternly. "Nor should you. No well conducted and well brought up girl would wish to live among such rude surroundings."

"Very true, Pa," sighed Hortense, shrugging her shoulders.

"You are a very common little thing, with very common tastes, Floss," admonished her oldest sister.

Now, all this was whipping Helen over Flossie's shoulders. The latter grinned wickedly; but Helen felt hurt. These people were determined to consider Sunset Ranch an utterly uncivilized place, and her associates there beneath contempt.

The following morning she set out to find the address upon the letter Mr. Starkweather had given to her. Whether she should present this letter to Mr. Grimes at once, Helen was not sure. It might be that she would wish to get acquainted with him before he knew her identity. Her expectations were very vague, at best; and yet she had hope.

She hoped that through this old-time partner of her father's she might pick up some clue to the truth about the lost money. The firm of Grimes & Morrell had been on the point of paying several heavy bills and notes. The money for this purpose, as well as the working capital of the firm, had been in two banks. Either partner could draw checks against these accounts.

When the deposits in both banks had been withdrawn it had been done by checks for each complete balance being presented at the teller's window of both banks. And the tellers were quite sure that the person presenting the checks was Prince Morrell.

In the rush of business, however, neither teller had been positive of this. Of course, it might have been the bookkeeper, or Mr. Grimes, who had got the money on the checks. However it might be, the money disappeared; there was none with which to pay the creditors or to continue the business of the firm.

Fenwick Grimes had been a sufferer; Willets Starkweather had been a sufferer. What Allen Chesterton, the bookkeeper, had been, it was hard to say. He had walked out of the office of the firm and had never come back. Likewise after a few days of worry and disturbance, Prince Morrell had done the same.

At least, the general public presumed that Mr. Morrell had run away without leaving any clue. It looked as though the senior partner and the bookkeeper were in league.

But public interest in the mystery had soon died out. Only the