"Here's where we part," said Dale. "You'll beat me into my camp, but I'll get there sometime after dark."

"Hey, Milt, I forgot about thet darned pet cougar of yours an' the rest of your menagerie. Reckon they won't scare the girls? Especially old Tom?"

"You won't see Tom till I get home," replied Dale.

"Ain't he corralled or tied up?"

"No. He has the run of the place."

"Wal, good-by, then, an' rustle along."

Dale nodded to the girls, and, turning his horse, he drove the pack-train before him up the open space between the stream and the wooded slope.

Roy stepped off his horse with that single action which appeared such a feat to Helen.

"Guess I'd better cinch up," he said, as he threw a stirrup up over the pommel of his saddle. "You girls are goin' to see wild country."

"Who's old Tom?" queried Bo, curiously.

"Why, he's Milt's pet cougar."

"Cougar? That's a panther—a mountain-lion, didn't he say?"

"Shore is. Tom is a beauty. An' if he takes a likin' to you he'll love you, play with you, maul you half to death."

Bo was all eyes.

"Dale has other pets, too?" she questioned, eagerly.

"I never was up to his camp but what it was overrun with birds an' squirrels an' vermin of all kinds, as tame as tame as cows. Too darn tame, Milt says. But I can't figger thet. You girls will never want to leave thet senaca of his."

"What's a senaca?" asked Helen, as she shifted her foot to let him tighten the cinches on her saddle.

"Thet's Mexican for park, I guess," he replied. "These mountains are full of parks; an', say, I don't ever want to see no prettier place till I get to heaven.... There, Ranger, old boy, thet's tight."

He slapped the horse affectionately, and, turning to his own, he stepped and swung his long length up.

"It ain't deep crossin' here. Come on," he called, and spurred his bay.

The stream here was wide and it looked deep, but turned out to be deceptive.

"Wal, girls, here beginneth the second lesson," he drawled, cheerily. "Ride one behind the other—stick close to me—do what I do—an' holler when you want to rest or if somethin' goes bad."

With that he spurred into the thicket. Bo went next and Helen followed. The willows dragged at her so hard that she was unable to watch Roy, and the result was that a low-sweeping branch of a tree knocked her hard on the head. It hurt and startled her, and roused her mettle. Roy was keeping to the easy trot that covered ground so well, and he led up a slope to the open pine forest. Here the ride for several miles was straight, level, and open. Helen liked the forest to-day. It was brown and green, with patches of gold where the sun struck. She saw her first bird—big blue grouse that whirred up from under her horse, and little checkered gray quail that appeared awkward on the wing. Several times Roy pointed out deer flashing gray across some forest aisle, and often when he pointed Helen was not quick enough to see.

Helen realized that this ride would make up for the hideous one of yesterday. So far she had been only barely conscious of sore places and aching bones. These she would bear with. She loved the wild and the beautiful, both of which increased manifestly with every mile. The sun was warm, the air fragrant and cool, the sky blue as azure and so deep that she imagined that she could look far up into it.

Suddenly Roy reined in so sharply that he pulled the bay up short.

"Look!" he called, sharply.

Bo screamed.

"Not thet way! Here! Aw, he's gone!"

"Nell! It was a bear! I saw it! Oh! not like circus bears at all!" cried Bo.

Helen had missed her opportunity.

"Reckon he was a grizzly, an' I'm jest as well pleased thet he loped off," said Roy. Altering his course somewhat, he led to an old rotten log that the bear had been digging in. "After grubs. There, see his track. He was a whopper shore enough."

They rode on, out to a high point that overlooked canuon and range, gorge and ridge, green and black as far as Helen could see. The ranges were bold and long, climbing to the central uplift, where a number of fringed peaks raised their heads to the vast bare dome of Old Baldy. Far as vision could see, to the right lay one rolling forest of pine, beautiful and serene. Somewhere down beyond must have lain the desert, but it was not in sight.

"I see turkeys 'way down there," said Roy, backing away. "We'll go down and around an' mebbe I'll get a shot."

Descent beyond a rocky point was made through thick brush. This slope consisted of wide benches covered with copses and scattered pines and many oaks. Helen was delighted to see the familiar trees, although these were different from Missouri oaks. Rugged and gnarled, but not tall, these trees spread wide branches, the leaves of which were yellowing. Roy led into a grassy glade, and, leaping off his horse, rifle in hand, he prepared to shoot at something. Again Bo cried out, but this time it was in delight. Then Helen saw an immense flock of turkeys, apparently like the turkeys she knew at home, but these had bronze and checks of white, and they looked wild. There must have been a hundred in the flock, most of them hens. A few gobblers on the far side began the flight, running swiftly off. Helen plainly heard the thud of their feet. Roy shot once—twice—three times. Then rose a great commotion and thumping, and a loud roar of many wings. Dust and leaves whirling in the air were left where the turkeys had been.

"Wal, I got two," said Roy, and he strode forward to pick up his game. Returning, he tied two shiny, plump gobblers back of his saddle and remounted his horse. "We'll have turkey to-night, if Milt gets to camp in time."

The ride was resumed. Helen never would have tired riding through those oak groves, brown and sear and yellow, with leaves and acorns falling.

"Bears have been workin' in here already," said Roy. "I see tracks all over. They eat acorns in the fall. An' mebbe we'll run into one yet."

The farther down he led the wilder and thicker grew the trees, so that dodging branches was no light task. Ranger did not seem to care how close he passed a tree or under a limb, so that he missed them himself; but Helen thereby got some additional bruises. Particularly hard was it, when passing a tree, to get her knee out of the way in time.

Roy halted next at what appeared a large green pond full of vegetation and in places covered with a thick scum. But it had a current and an outlet, proving it to be a huge, spring. Roy pointed down at a muddy place.

"Bear-wallow. He heard us comin'. Look at thet little track. Cub track. An' look at these scratches on this tree, higher 'n my head. An old she-bear stood up, an' scratched them."

Roy sat his saddle and reached up to touch fresh marks on the tree.

"Woods's full of big bears," he said, grinning. "An' I take it particular kind of this old she rustlin' off with her cub. She-bears with cubs are dangerous."

The next place to stir Helen to enthusiasm was the glen at the bottom of this canuon. Beech-trees, maples, aspens, overtopped by lofty pines, made dense shade over a brook where trout splashed on the brown, swirling current, and leaves drifted down, and stray flecks of golden sunlight lightened the gloom. Here was hard riding to and fro across the brook, between huge mossy boulders, and between aspens so close together that Helen could scarce squeeze her knees through.

Once more Roy climbed out of that canuon, over a ridge into another, down long wooded slopes and through scrub-oak thickets, on and on till the sun stood straight overhead. Then he halted for a short rest, unsaddled the horses to let them roll, and gave the girls some cold lunch that he had packed. He strolled off with his gun, and, upon returning, resaddled and gave the word to start.

That was the last of rest and easy traveling for the girls. The forest that he struck into seemed ribbed like a washboard with deep ravines so steep of slope as to make precarious travel. Mostly he kept to the bottom where dry washes afforded a kind of trail. But it was necessary to cross these ravines when they were too long to be headed, and this crossing was work.

The locust thickets characteristic of these slopes were thorny and close knit. They tore and scratched and stung both horses and riders. Ranger appeared to be the most intelligent of the horses and suffered less. Bo's white mustang dragged her through more than one brambly place. On the other hand, some of these steep slopes, were comparatively free of underbrush. Great firs and pines loomed up on all sides. The earth was soft and the hoofs sank deep. Toward the bottom of a descent Ranger would brace his front feet and then slide down on his haunches. This mode facilitated travel, but it frightened Helen. The climb out then on the other side had to be done on foot.

After half a dozen slopes surmounted in this way Helen's strength was spent and her breath was gone. She felt light-headed. She could not get enough air. Her feet felt like lead, and her riding-coat was a burden. A hundred times, hot and wet and throbbing, she was compelled to stop. Always she had been a splendid walker and climber. And here, to break up the long ride, she was glad to be on her feet. But she could only drag one foot up after the other. Then, when her nose began to bleed, she realized that it was the elevation which was causing all the trouble. Her heart, however, did not hurt her, though she was conscious of an oppression on her breast.

At last Roy led into a ravine so deep and wide and full of forest verdure that it appeared impossible to cross. Nevertheless, he started down, dismounting after a little way. Helen found that leading Ranger down was worse than riding him. He came fast and he would step right in her tracks. She was not quick enough to get away from him. Twice he stepped on her foot, and again his broad chest hit her shoulder and threw her flat. When he began to slide, near the bottom, Helen had to run for her life.

"Oh, Nell! Isn't—this—great?" panted Bo, from somewhere ahead.

"Bo—your—mind's—gone," panted Helen, in reply.

Roy tried several places to climb out, and failed in each. Leading down the ravine for a hundred yards or more, he essayed another attempt. Here there had been a slide, and in part the earth was bare. When he had worked up this, he halted above, and called:

"Bad place! Keep on the up side of the hosses!"

This appeared easier said than done. Helen could not watch Bo, because Ranger would not wait. He pulled at the bridle and snorted.

"Faster you come the better," called Roy.

Helen could not see the sense of that, but she tried. Roy and Bo had dug a deep trail zigzag up that treacherous slide. Helen made the mistake of starting to follow in their tracks, and when she realized this Ranger was climbing fast, almost dragging her, and it was too late to get above. Helen began to labor. She slid down right in front of Ranger. The intelligent animal, with a snort, plunged out of the trail to keep from stepping on her. Then he was above her.

"Lookout down there," yelled Roy, in warning. "Get on the up side!"

But that did not appear possible. The earth began to slide under Ranger, and that impeded Helen's progress. He got in advance of her, straining on the bridle.

"Let go!" yelled Roy.

Helen dropped the bridle just as a heavy slide began to move with Ranger. He snorted fiercely, and, rearing high, in a mighty plunge he gained solid ground. Helen was buried to her knees, but, extricating herself, she crawled to a safe point and rested before climbing farther.

"Bad cave-in, thet," was Roy's comment, when at last she joined him and Bo at the top.

Roy appeared at a loss as to which way to go. He rode to high ground and looked in all directions. To Helen, one way appeared as wild and rough as another, and all was yellow, green, and black under the westering sun. Roy rode a short distance in one direction, then changed for another.

Presently he stopped.

"Wal, I'm shore turned round," he said.

"You're not lost?" cried Bo.

"Reckon I've been thet for a couple of hours," he replied, cheerfully. "Never did ride across here I had the direction, but I'm blamed now if I can tell which way thet was."

Helen gazed at him in consternation.

"Lost!" she echoed.



CHAPTER IX

A silence ensued, fraught with poignant fear for Helen, as she gazed into Bo's whitening face. She read her sister's mind. Bo was remembering tales of lost people who never were found.

"Me an' Milt get lost every day," said Roy. "You don't suppose any man can know all this big country. It's nothin' for us to be lost."

"Oh!... I was lost when I was little," said Bo.

"Wal, I reckon it'd been better not to tell you so offhand like," replied Roy, contritely. "Don't feel bad, now. All I need is a peek at Old Baldy. Then I'll have my bearin'. Come on."

Helen's confidence returned as Roy led off at a fast trot. He rode toward the westering sun, keeping to the ridge they had ascended, until once more he came out upon a promontory. Old Baldy loomed there, blacker and higher and closer. The dark forest showed round, yellow, bare spots like parks.

"Not so far off the track," said Roy, as he wheeled his horse. "We'll make camp in Milt's senaca to-night."

He led down off the ridge into a valley and then up to higher altitude, where the character of the forest changed. The trees were no longer pines, but firs and spruce, growing thin and exceedingly tall, with few branches below the topmost foliage. So dense was this forest that twilight seemed to have come.

Travel was arduous. Everywhere were windfalls that had to be avoided, and not a rod was there without a fallen tree. The horses, laboring slowly, sometimes sank knee-deep into the brown duff. Gray moss festooned the tree-trunks and an amber-green moss grew thick on the rotting logs.

Helen loved this forest primeval. It was so still, so dark, so gloomy, so full of shadows and shade, and a dank smell of rotting wood, and sweet fragrance of spruce. The great windfalls, where trees were jammed together in dozens, showed the savagery of the storms. Wherever a single monarch lay uprooted there had sprung up a number of ambitious sons, jealous of one another, fighting for place. Even the trees fought one another! The forest was a place of mystery, but its strife could be read by any eye. The lightnings had split firs clear to the roots, and others it had circled with ripping tear from top to trunk.

Time came, however, when the exceeding wildness of the forest, in density and fallen timber, made it imperative for Helen to put all her attention on the ground and trees in her immediate vicinity. So the pleasure of gazing ahead at the beautiful wilderness was denied her. Thereafter travel became toil and the hours endless.

Roy led on, and Ranger followed, while the shadows darkened under the trees. She was reeling in her saddle, half blind and sick, when Roy called out cheerily that they were almost there.

Whatever his idea was, to Helen it seemed many miles that she followed him farther, out of the heavy-timbered forest down upon slopes of low spruce, like evergreen, which descended sharply to another level, where dark, shallow streams flowed gently and the solemn stillness held a low murmur of falling water, and at last the wood ended upon a wonderful park full of a thick, rich, golden light of fast-fading sunset.

"Smell the smoke," said Roy. "By Solomon! if Milt ain't here ahead of me!"

He rode on. Helen's weary gaze took in the round senaca, the circling black slopes, leading up to craggy rims all gold and red in the last flare of the sun; then all the spirit left in her flashed up in thrilling wonder at this exquisite, wild, and colorful spot.

Horses were grazing out in the long grass and there were deer grazing with them. Roy led round a corner of the fringed, bordering woodland, and there, under lofty trees, shone a camp-fire. Huge gray rocks loomed beyond, and then cliffs rose step by step to a notch in the mountain wall, over which poured a thin, lacy waterfall. As Helen gazed in rapture the sunset gold faded to white and all the western slope of the amphitheater darkened.

Dale's tall form appeared.

"Reckon you're late," he said, as with a comprehensive flash of eye he took in the three.

"Milt, I got lost," replied Roy.

"I feared as much.... You girls look like you'd done better to ride with me," went on Dale, as he offered a hand to help Bo off. She took it, tried to get her foot out of the stirrups, and then she slid from the saddle into Dale's arms. He placed her on her feet and, supporting her, said, solicitously: "A hundred-mile ride in three days for a tenderfoot is somethin' your uncle Al won't believe.... Come, walk if it kills you!"

Whereupon he led Bo, very much as if he were teaching a child to walk. The fact that the voluble Bo had nothing to say was significant to Helen, who was following, with the assistance of Roy.

One of the huge rocks resembled a sea-shell in that it contained a hollow over which the wide-spreading shelf flared out. It reached toward branches of great pines. A spring burst from a crack in the solid rock. The campfire blazed under a pine, and the blue column of smoke rose just in front of the shelving rock. Packs were lying on the grass and some of them were open. There were no signs here of a permanent habitation of the hunter. But farther on were other huge rocks, leaning, cracked, and forming caverns, some of which perhaps he utilized.

"My camp is just back," said Dale, as if he had read Helen's mind. "To-morrow we'll fix up comfortable-like round here for you girls."

Helen and Bo were made as easy as blankets and saddles could make them, and the men went about their tasks.

"Nell—isn't this—a dream?" murmured Bo.

"No, child. It's real—terribly real," replied Helen. "Now that we're here—with that awful ride over—we can think."

"It's so pretty—here," yawned Bo. "I'd just as lief Uncle Al didn't find us very soon."

"Bo! He's a sick man. Think what the worry will be to him."

"I'll bet if he knows Dale he won't be so worried."

"Dale told us Uncle Al disliked him."

"Pooh! What difference does that make?... Oh, I don't know which I am—hungrier or tireder!"

"I couldn't eat to-night," said Helen, wearily.

When she stretched out she had a vague, delicious sensation that that was the end of Helen Rayner, and she was glad. Above her, through the lacy, fernlike pine-needles, she saw blue sky and a pale star just showing. Twilight was stealing down swiftly. The silence was beautiful, seemingly undisturbed by the soft, silky, dreamy fall of water. Helen closed her eyes, ready for sleep, with the physical commotion within her body gradually yielding. In some places her bones felt as if they had come out through her flesh; in others throbbed deep-seated aches; her muscles appeared slowly to subside, to relax, with the quivering twinges ceasing one by one; through muscle and bone, through all her body, pulsed a burning current.

Bo's head dropped on Helen's shoulder. Sense became vague to Helen. She lost the low murmur of the waterfall, and then the sound or feeling of some one at the campfire. And her last conscious thought was that she tried to open her eyes and could not.

When she awoke all was bright. The sun shone almost directly overhead. Helen was astounded. Bo lay wrapped in deep sleep, her face flushed, with beads of perspiration on her brow and the chestnut curls damp. Helen threw down the blankets, and then, gathering courage—for she felt as if her back was broken—she endeavored to sit up. In vain! Her spirit was willing, but her muscles refused to act. It must take a violent spasmodic effort. She tried it with shut eyes, and, succeeding, sat there trembling. The commotion she had made in the blankets awoke Bo, and she blinked her surprised blue eyes in the sunlight.

"Hello—Nell! do I have to—get up?" she asked, sleepily.

"Can you?" queried Helen.

"Can I what?" Bo was now thoroughly awake and lay there staring at her sister.

"Why—get up."

"I'd like to know why not," retorted Bo, as she made the effort. She got one arm and shoulder up, only to flop back like a crippled thing. And she uttered the most piteous little moan. "I'm dead! I know—I am!"

"Well, if you're going to be a Western girl you'd better have spunk enough to move."

"A-huh!" ejaculated Bo. Then she rolled over, not without groans, and, once upon her face, she raised herself on her hands and turned to a sitting posture. "Where's everybody?... Oh, Nell, it's perfectly lovely here. Paradise!"

Helen looked around. A fire was smoldering. No one was in sight. Wonderful distant colors seemed to strike her glance as she tried to fix it upon near-by objects. A beautiful little green tent or shack had been erected out of spruce boughs. It had a slanting roof that sloped all the way from a ridge-pole to the ground; half of the opening in front was closed, as were the sides. The spruce boughs appeared all to be laid in the same direction, giving it a smooth, compact appearance, actually as if it had grown there.

"That lean-to wasn't there last night?" inquired Bo.

"I didn't see it. Lean-to? Where'd you get that name?"

"It's Western, my dear. I'll bet they put it up for us.... Sure, I see our bags inside. Let's get up. It must be late."

The girls had considerable fun as well as pain in getting up and keeping each other erect until their limbs would hold them firmly. They were delighted with the spruce lean-to. It faced the open and stood just under the wide-spreading shelf of rock. The tiny outlet from the spring flowed beside it and spilled its clear water over a stone, to fall into a little pool. The floor of this woodland habitation consisted of tips of spruce boughs to about a foot in depth, all laid one way, smooth and springy, and so sweetly odorous that the air seemed intoxicating. Helen and Bo opened their baggage, and what with use of the cold water, brush and comb, and clean blouses, they made themselves feel as comfortable as possible, considering the excruciating aches. Then they went out to the campfire.

Helen's eye was attracted by moving objects near at hand. Then simultaneously with Bo's cry of delight Helen saw a beautiful doe approaching under the trees. Dale walked beside it.

"You sure had a long sleep," was the hunter's greeting. "I reckon you both look better."

"Good morning. Or is it afternoon? We're just able to move about," said Helen.

"I could ride," declared Bo, stoutly. "Oh, Nell, look at the deer! It's coming to me."

The doe had hung back a little as Dale reached the camp-fire. It was a gray, slender creature, smooth as silk, with great dark eyes. It stood a moment, long ears erect, and then with a graceful little trot came up to Bo and reached a slim nose for her outstretched hand. All about it, except the beautiful soft eyes, seemed wild, and yet it was as tame as a kitten. Then, suddenly, as Bo fondled the long ears, it gave a start and, breaking away, ran back out of sight under the pines.

"What frightened it?" asked Bo.

Dale pointed up at the wall under the shelving roof of rock. There, twenty feet from the ground, curled up on a ledge, lay a huge tawny animal with a face like that of a cat.

"She's afraid of Tom," replied Dale. "Recognizes him as a hereditary foe, I guess. I can't make friends of them."

"Oh! So that's Tom—the pet lion!" exclaimed Bo. "Ugh! No wonder that deer ran off!"

"How long has he been up there?" queried Helen, gazing fascinated at Dale's famous pet.

"I couldn't say. Tom comes an' goes," replied Dale. "But I sent him up there last night."

"And he was there—perfectly free—right over us—while we slept!" burst out Bo.

"Yes. An' I reckon you slept the safer for that."

"Of all things! Nell, isn't he a monster? But he doesn't look like a lion—an African lion. He's a panther. I saw his like at the circus once."

"He's a cougar," said Dale. "The panther is long and slim. Tom is not only long, but thick an' round. I've had him four years. An' he was a kitten no bigger 'n my fist when I got him."

"Is he perfectly tame—safe?" asked Helen, anxiously.

"I've never told anybody that Tom was safe, but he is," replied Dale. "You can absolutely believe it. A wild cougar wouldn't attack a man unless cornered or starved. An' Tom is like a big kitten."

The beast raised his great catlike face, with its sleepy, half-shut eyes, and looked down upon them.

"Shall I call him down?" inquired Dale.

For once Bo did not find her voice.

"Let us—get a little more used to him—at a distance," replied Helen, with a little laugh.

"If he comes to you, just rub his head an' you'll see how tame he is," said Dale. "Reckon you're both hungry?"

"Not so very," returned Helen, aware of his penetrating gray gaze upon her.

"Well, I am," vouchsafed Bo.

"Soon as the turkey's done we'll eat. My camp is round between the rocks. I'll call you."

Not until his broad back was turned did Helen notice that the hunter looked different. Then she saw he wore a lighter, cleaner suit of buckskin, with no coat, and instead of the high-heeled horseman's boots he wore moccasins and leggings. The change made him appear more lithe.

"Nell, I don't know what you think, but I call him handsome," declared Bo.

Helen had no idea what she thought.

"Let's try to walk some," she suggested.

So they essayed that painful task and got as far as a pine log some few rods from their camp. This point was close to the edge of the park, from which there was an unobstructed view.

"My! What a place!" exclaimed Bo, with eyes wide and round.

"Oh, beautiful!" breathed Helen.

An unexpected blaze of color drew her gaze first. Out of the black spruce slopes shone patches of aspens, gloriously red and gold, and low down along the edge of timber troops of aspens ran out into the park, not yet so blazing as those above, but purple and yellow and white in the sunshine. Masses of silver spruce, like trees in moonlight, bordered the park, sending out here and there an isolated tree, sharp as a spear, with under-branches close to the ground. Long golden-green grass, resembling half-ripe wheat, covered the entire floor of the park, gently waving to the wind. Above sheered the black, gold-patched slopes, steep and unscalable, rising to buttresses of dark, iron-hued rock. And to the east circled the rows of cliff-bench, gray and old and fringed, splitting at the top in the notch where the lacy, slumberous waterfall, like white smoke, fell and vanished, to reappear in wider sheet of lace, only to fall and vanish again in the green depths.

It was a verdant valley, deep-set in the mountain walls, wild and sad and lonesome. The waterfall dominated the spirit of the place, dreamy and sleepy and tranquil; it murmured sweetly on one breath of wind, and lulled with another, and sometimes died out altogether, only to come again in soft, strange roar.

"Paradise Park!" whispered Bo to herself.

A call from Dale disturbed their raptures. Turning, they hobbled with eager but painful steps in the direction of a larger camp-fire, situated to the right of the great rock that sheltered their lean-to. No hut or house showed there and none was needed. Hiding-places and homes for a hundred hunters were there in the sections of caverned cliffs, split off in bygone ages from the mountain wall above. A few stately pines stood out from the rocks, and a clump of silver spruce ran down to a brown brook. This camp was only a step from the lean-to, round the corner of a huge rock, yet it had been out of sight. Here indeed was evidence of a hunter's home—pelts and skins and antlers, a neat pile of split fire-wood, a long ledge of rock, well sheltered, and loaded with bags like a huge pantry-shelf, packs and ropes and saddles, tools and weapons, and a platform of dry brush as shelter for a fire around which hung on poles a various assortment of utensils for camp.

"Hyar—you git!" shouted Dale, and he threw a stick at something. A bear cub scampered away in haste. He was small and woolly and brown, and he grunted as he ran. Soon he halted.

"That's Bud," said Dale, as the girls came up. "Guess he near starved in my absence. An' now he wants everythin', especially the sugar. We don't have sugar often up here."

"Isn't he dear? Oh, I love him!" cried Bo. "Come back, Bud. Come, Buddie."

The cub, however, kept his distance, watching Dale with bright little eyes.

"Where's Mr. Roy?" asked Helen.

"Roy's gone. He was sorry not to say good-by. But it's important he gets down in the pines on Anson's trail. He'll hang to Anson, an' in case they get near Pine he'll ride in to see where your uncle is."

"What do you expect?" questioned Helen, gravely.

"'Most anythin'," he replied. "Al, I reckon, knows now. Maybe he's rustlin' into the mountains by this time. If he meets up with Anson, well an' good, for Roy won't be far off. An' sure if he runs across Roy, why they'll soon be here. But if I were you I wouldn't count on seein' your uncle very soon. I'm sorry. I've done my best. It sure is a bad deal."

"Don't think me ungracious," replied Helen, hastily. How plainly he had intimated that it must be privation and annoyance for her to be compelled to accept his hospitality! "You are good—kind. I owe you much. I'll be eternally grateful."

Dale straightened as he looked at her. His glance was intent, piercing. He seemed to be receiving a strange or unusual portent. No need for him to say he had never before been spoken to like that!

"You may have to stay here with me—for weeks—maybe months—if we've the bad luck to get snowed in," he said, slowly, as if startled at this deduction. "You're safe here. No sheep-thief could ever find this camp. I'll take risks to get you safe into Al's hands. But I'm goin' to be pretty sure about what I'm doin'.... So—there's plenty to eat an' it's a pretty place."

"Pretty! Why, it's grand!" exclaimed Bo. "I've called it Paradise Park."

"Paradise Park," he repeated, weighing the words. "You've named it an' also the creek. Paradise Creek! I've been here twelve years with no fit name for my home till you said that."

"Oh, that pleases me!" returned Bo, with shining eyes.

"Eat now," said Dale. "An' I reckon you'll like that turkey."

There was a clean tarpaulin upon which were spread steaming, fragrant pans—roast turkey, hot biscuits and gravy, mashed potatoes as white as if prepared at home, stewed dried apples, and butter and coffee. This bounteous repast surprised and delighted the girls; when they had once tasted the roast wild turkey, then Milt Dale had occasion to blush at their encomiums.

"I hope—Uncle Al—doesn't come for a month," declared Bo, as she tried to get her breath. There was a brown spot on her nose and one on each cheek, suspiciously close to her mouth.

Dale laughed. It was pleasant to hear him, for his laugh seemed unused and deep, as if it came from tranquil depths.

"Won't you eat with us?" asked Helen.

"Reckon I will," he said, "it'll save time, an' hot grub tastes better."

Quite an interval of silence ensued, which presently was broken by Dale.

"Here comes Tom."

Helen observed with a thrill that the cougar was magnificent, seen erect on all-fours, approaching with slow, sinuous grace. His color was tawny, with spots of whitish gray. He had bow-legs, big and round and furry, and a huge head with great tawny eyes. No matter how tame he was said to be, he looked wild. Like a dog he walked right up, and it so happened that he was directly behind Bo, within reach of her when she turned.

"Oh, Lord!" cried Bo, and up went both of her hands, in one of which was a huge piece of turkey. Tom took it, not viciously, but nevertheless with a snap that made Helen jump. As if by magic the turkey vanished. And Tom took a closer step toward Bo. Her expression of fright changed to consternation.

"He stole my turkey!"

"Tom, come here," ordered Dale, sharply. The cougar glided round rather sheepishly. "Now lie down an' behave."

Tom crouched on all-fours, his head resting on his paws, with his beautiful tawny eyes, light and piercing, fixed upon the hunter.

"Don't grab," said Dale, holding out a piece of turkey. Whereupon Tom took it less voraciously.

As it happened, the little bear cub saw this transaction, and he plainly indicated his opinion of the preference shown to Tom.

"Oh, the dear!" exclaimed Bo. "He means it's not fair.... Come, Bud—come on."

But Bud would not approach the group until called by Dale. Then he scrambled to them with every manifestation of delight. Bo almost forgot her own needs in feeding him and getting acquainted with him. Tom plainly showed his jealousy of Bud, and Bud likewise showed his fear of the great cat.

Helen could not believe the evidence of her eyes—that she was in the woods calmly and hungrily partaking of sweet, wild-flavored meat—that a full-grown mountain lion lay on one side of her and a baby brown bear sat on the other—that a strange hunter, a man of the forest, there in his lonely and isolated fastness, appealed to the romance in her and interested her as no one else she had ever met.

When the wonderful meal was at last finished Bo enticed the bear cub around to the camp of the girls, and there soon became great comrades with him. Helen, watching Bo play, was inclined to envy her. No matter where Bo was placed, she always got something out of it. She adapted herself. She, who could have a good time with almost any one or anything, would find the hours sweet and fleeting in this beautiful park of wild wonders.

But merely objective actions—merely physical movements, had never yet contented Helen. She could run and climb and ride and play with hearty and healthy abandon, but those things would not suffice long for her, and her mind needed food. Helen was a thinker. One reason she had desired to make her home in the West was that by taking up a life of the open, of action, she might think and dream and brood less. And here she was in the wild West, after the three most strenuously active days of her career, and still the same old giant revolved her mind and turned it upon herself and upon all she saw.

"What can I do?" she asked Bo, almost helplessly.

"Why, rest, you silly!" retorted Bo. "You walk like an old, crippled woman with only one leg."

Helen hoped the comparison was undeserved, but the advice was sound. The blankets spread out on the grass looked inviting and they felt comfortably warm in the sunshine. The breeze was slow, languorous, fragrant, and it brought the low hum of the murmuring waterfall, like a melody of bees. Helen made a pillow and lay down to rest. The green pine-needles, so thin and fine in their crisscross network, showed clearly against the blue sky. She looked in vain for birds. Then her gaze went wonderingly to the lofty fringed rim of the great amphitheater, and as she studied it she began to grasp its remoteness, how far away it was in the rarefied atmosphere. A black eagle, sweeping along, looked of tiny size, and yet he was far under the heights above. How pleasant she fancied it to be up there! And drowsy fancy lulled her to sleep.

Helen slept all afternoon, and upon awakening, toward sunset, found Bo curled beside her. Dale had thoughtfully covered them with a blanket; also he had built a camp-fire. The air was growing keen and cold.

Later, when they had put their coats on and made comfortable seats beside the fire, Dale came over, apparently to visit them.

"I reckon you can't sleep all the time," he said. "An' bein' city girls, you'll get lonesome."

"Lonesome!" echoed Helen. The idea of her being lonesome here had not occurred to her.

"I've thought that all out," went on Dale, as he sat down, Indian fashion, before the blaze. "It's natural you'd find time drag up here, bein' used to lots of people an' goin's-on, an' work, an' all girls like."

"I'd never be lonesome here," replied Helen, with her direct force.

Dale did not betray surprise, but he showed that his mistake was something to ponder over.

"Excuse me," he said, presently, as his gray eyes held hers. "That's how I had it. As I remember girls—an' it doesn't seem long since I left home—most of them would die of lonesomeness up here." Then he addressed himself to Bo. "How about you? You see, I figured you'd be the one that liked it, an' your sister the one who wouldn't."

"I won't get lonesome very soon," replied Bo.

"I'm glad. It worried me some—not ever havin' girls as company before. An' in a day or so, when you're rested, I'll help you pass the time."

Bo's eyes were full of flashing interest, and Helen asked him, "How?"

It was a sincere expression of her curiosity and not doubtful or ironic challenge of an educated woman to a man of the forest. But as a challenge he took it.

"How!" he repeated, and a strange smile flitted across his face. "Why, by givin' you rides an' climbs to beautiful places. An' then, if you're interested,' to show you how little so-called civilized people know of nature."

Helen realized then that whatever his calling, hunter or wanderer or hermit, he was not uneducated, even if he appeared illiterate.

"I'll be happy to learn from you," she said.

"Me, too!" chimed in Bo. "You can't tell too much to any one from Missouri."

He smiled, and that warmed Helen to him, for then he seemed less removed from other people. About this hunter there began to be something of the very nature of which he spoke—a stillness, aloofness, an unbreakable tranquillity, a cold, clear spirit like that in the mountain air, a physical something not unlike the tamed wildness of his pets or the strength of the pines.

"I'll bet I can tell you more 'n you'll ever remember," he said.

"What 'll you bet?" retorted Bo.

"Well, more roast turkey against—say somethin' nice when you're safe an' home to your uncle Al's, runnin' his ranch."

"Agreed. Nell, you hear?"

Helen nodded her head.

"All right. We'll leave it to Nell," began Dale, half seriously. "Now I'll tell you, first, for the fun of passin' time we'll ride an' race my horses out in the park. An' we'll fish in the brooks an' hunt in the woods. There's an old silvertip around that you can see me kill. An' we'll climb to the peaks an' see wonderful sights.... So much for that. Now, if you really want to learn—or if you only want me to tell you—well, that's no matter. Only I'll win the bet!... You'll see how this park lies in the crater of a volcano an' was once full of water—an' how the snow blows in on one side in winter, a hundred feet deep, when there's none on the other. An' the trees—how they grow an' live an' fight one another an' depend on one another, an' protect the forest from storm-winds. An' how they hold the water that is the fountains of the great rivers. An' how the creatures an' things that live in them or on them are good for them, an' neither could live without the other. An' then I'll show you my pets tame an' untamed, an' tell you how it's man that makes any creature wild—how easy they are to tame—an' how they learn to love you. An' there's the life of the forest, the strife of it—how the bear lives, an' the cats, an' the wolves, an' the deer. You'll see how cruel nature is how savage an' wild the wolf or cougar tears down the deer—how a wolf loves fresh, hot blood, an' how a cougar unrolls the skin of a deer back from his neck. An' you'll see that this cruelty of nature—this work of the wolf an' cougar—is what makes the deer so beautiful an' healthy an' swift an' sensitive. Without his deadly foes the deer would deteriorate an' die out. An' you'll see how this principle works out among all creatures of the forest. Strife! It's the meanin' of all creation, an' the salvation. If you're quick to see, you'll learn that the nature here in the wilds is the same as that of men—only men are no longer cannibals. Trees fight to live—birds fight—animals fight—men fight. They all live off one another. An' it's this fightin' that brings them all closer an' closer to bein' perfect. But nothin' will ever be perfect."

"But how about religion?" interrupted Helen, earnestly.

"Nature has a religion, an' it's to live—to grow—to reproduce, each of its kind."

"But that is not God or the immortality of the soul," declared Helen.

"Well, it's as close to God an' immortality as nature ever gets."

"Oh, you would rob me of my religion!"

"No, I just talk as I see life," replied Dale, reflectively, as he poked a stick into the red embers of the fire. "Maybe I have a religion. I don't know. But it's not the kind you have—not the Bible kind. That kind doesn't keep the men in Pine an' Snowdrop an' all over—sheepmen an' ranchers an' farmers an' travelers, such as I've known—the religion they profess doesn't keep them from lyin', cheatin', stealin', an' killin'. I reckon no man who lives as I do—which perhaps is my religion—will lie or cheat or steal or kill, unless it's to kill in self-defense or like I'd do if Snake Anson would ride up here now. My religion, maybe, is love of life—wild life as it was in the beginnin'—an' the wind that blows secrets from everywhere, an' the water that sings all day an' night, an' the stars that shine constant, an' the trees that speak somehow, an' the rocks that aren't dead. I'm never alone here or on the trails. There's somethin' unseen, but always with me. An' that's It! Call it God if you like. But what stalls me is—where was that Spirit when this earth was a ball of fiery gas? Where will that Spirit be when all life is frozen out or burned out on this globe an' it hangs dead in space like the moon? That time will come. There's no waste in nature. Not the littlest atom is destroyed. It changes, that's all, as you see this pine wood go up in smoke an' feel somethin' that's heat come out of it. Where does that go? It's not lost. Nothin' is lost. So, the beautiful an' savin' thought is, maybe all rock an' wood, water an' blood an' flesh, are resolved back into the elements, to come to life somewhere again sometime."

"Oh, what you say is wonderful, but it's terrible!" exclaimed Helen. He had struck deep into her soul.

"Terrible? I reckon," he replied, sadly.

Then ensued a little interval of silence.

"Milt Dale, I lose the bet," declared Bo, with earnestness behind her frivolity.

"I'd forgotten that. Reckon I talked a lot," he said, apologetically. "You see, I don't get much chance to talk, except to myself or Tom. Years ago, when I found the habit of silence settlin' down on me, I took to thinkin' out loud an' talkin' to anythin'."

"I could listen to you all night," returned Bo, dreamily.

"Do you read—do you have books?" inquired Helen, suddenly.

"Yes, I read tolerable well; a good deal better than I talk or write," he replied. "I went to school till I was fifteen. Always hated study, but liked to read. Years ago an old friend of mine down here at Pine—Widow Cass—she gave me a lot of old books. An' I packed them up here. Winter's the time I read."

Conversation lagged after that, except for desultory remarks, and presently Dale bade the girls good night and left them. Helen watched his tall form vanish in the gloom under the pines, and after he had disappeared she still stared.

"Nell!" called Bo, shrilly. "I've called you three times. I want to go to bed."

"Oh! I—I was thinking," rejoined Helen, half embarrassed, half wondering at herself. "I didn't hear you."

"I should smile you didn't," retorted Bo. "Wish you could just have seen your eyes. Nell, do you want me to tell you something?

"Why—yes," said Helen, rather feebly. She did not at all, when Bo talked like that.

"You're going to fall in love with that wild hunter," declared Bo in a voice that rang like a bell.

Helen was not only amazed, but enraged. She caught her breath preparatory to giving this incorrigible sister a piece of her mind. Bo went calmly on.

"I can feel it in my bones."

"Bo, you're a little fool—a sentimental, romancing, gushy little fool!" retorted Helen. "All you seem to hold in your head is some rot about love. To hear you talk one would think there's nothing else in the world but love."

Bo's eyes were bright, shrewd, affectionate, and laughing as she bent their steady gaze upon Helen.

"Nell, that's just it. There IS nothing else!"



CHAPTER X

The night of sleep was so short that it was difficult for Helen to believe that hours had passed. Bo appeared livelier this morning, with less complaint of aches.

"Nell, you've got color!" exclaimed Bo. "And your eyes are bright. Isn't the morning perfectly lovely?... Couldn't you get drunk on that air? I smell flowers. And oh! I'm hungry!"

"Bo, our host will soon have need of his hunting abilities if your appetite holds," said Helen, as she tried to keep her hair out of her eyes while she laced her boots.

"Look! there's a big dog—a hound."

Helen looked as Bo directed, and saw a hound of unusually large proportions, black and tan in color, with long, drooping ears. Curiously he trotted nearer to the door of their hut and then stopped to gaze at them. His head was noble, his eyes shone dark and sad. He seemed neither friendly nor unfriendly.

"Hello, doggie! Come right in—we won't hurt you," called Bo, but without enthusiasm.

This made Helen laugh. "Bo, you're simply delicious," she said. "You're afraid of that dog."

"Sure. Wonder if he's Dale's. Of course he must be."

Presently the hound trotted away out of sight. When the girls presented themselves at the camp-fire they espied their curious canine visitor lying down. His ears were so long that half of them lay on the ground.

"I sent Pedro over to wake you girls up," said Dale, after greeting them. "Did he scare you?"

"Pedro. So that's his name. No, he didn't exactly scare me. He did Nell, though. She's an awful tenderfoot," replied Bo.

"He's a splendid-looking dog," said Helen, ignoring her sister's sally. "I love dogs. Will he make friends?"

"He's shy an' wild. You see, when I leave camp he won't hang around. He an' Tom are jealous of each other. I had a pack of hounds an' lost all but Pedro on account of Tom. I think you can make friends with Pedro. Try it."

Whereupon Helen made overtures to Pedro, and not wholly in vain. The dog was matured, of almost stern aloofness, and manifestly not used to people. His deep, wine-dark eyes seemed to search Helen's soul. They were honest and wise, with a strange sadness.

"He looks intelligent," observed Helen, as she smoothed the long, dark ears.

"That hound is nigh human," responded Dale. "Come, an' while you eat I'll tell you about Pedro."

Dale had gotten the hound as a pup from a Mexican sheep-herder who claimed he was part California bloodhound. He grew up, becoming attached to Dale. In his younger days he did not get along well with Dale's other pets and Dale gave him to a rancher down in the valley. Pedro was back in Dale's camp next day. From that day Dale began to care more for the hound, but he did not want to keep him, for various reasons, chief of which was the fact that Pedro was too fine a dog to be left alone half the time to shift for himself. That fall Dale had need to go to the farthest village, Snowdrop, where he left Pedro with a friend. Then Dale rode to Show Down and Pine, and the camp of the Beemans' and with them he trailed some wild horses for a hundred miles, over into New Mexico. The snow was flying when Dale got back to his camp in the mountains. And there was Pedro, gaunt and worn, overjoyed to welcome him home. Roy Beeman visited Dale that October and told that Dale's friend in Snowdrop had not been able to keep Pedro. He broke a chain and scaled a ten-foot fence to escape. He trailed Dale to Show Down, where one of Dale's friends, recognizing the hound, caught him, and meant to keep him until Dale's return. But Pedro refused to eat. It happened that a freighter was going out to the Beeman camp, and Dale's friend boxed Pedro up and put him on the wagon. Pedro broke out of the box, returned to Show Down, took up Dale's trail to Pine, and then on to the Beeman camp. That was as far as Roy could trace the movements of the hound. But he believed, and so did Dale, that Pedro had trailed them out on the wild-horse hunt. The following spring Dale learned more from the herder of a sheepman at whose camp he and the Beemans; had rested on the way into New Mexico. It appeared that after Dale had left this camp Pedro had arrived, and another Mexican herder had stolen the hound. But Pedro got away.

"An' he was here when I arrived," concluded Dale, smiling. "I never wanted to get rid of him after that. He's turned out to be the finest dog I ever knew. He knows what I say. He can almost talk. An' I swear he can cry. He does whenever I start off without him."

"How perfectly wonderful!" exclaimed Bo. "Aren't animals great?... But I love horses best."

It seemed to Helen that Pedro understood they were talking about him, for he looked ashamed, and swallowed hard, and dropped his gaze. She knew something of the truth about the love of dogs for their owners. This story of Dale's, however, was stranger than any she had ever heard.

Tom, the cougar, put in an appearance then, and there was scarcely love in the tawny eyes he bent upon Pedro. But the hound did not deign to notice him. Tom sidled up to Bo, who sat on the farther side of the tarpaulin table-cloth, and manifestly wanted part of her breakfast.

"Gee! I love the look of him," she said. "But when he's close he makes my flesh creep."

"Beasts are as queer as people," observed Dale. "They take likes an' dislikes. I believe Tom has taken a shine to you an' Pedro begins to be interested in your sister. I can tell."

"Where's Bud?" inquired Bo.

"He's asleep or around somewhere. Now, soon as I get the work done, what would you girls like to do?"

"Ride!" declared Bo, eagerly.

"Aren't you sore an' stiff?"

"I am that. But I don't care. Besides, when I used to go out to my uncle's farm near Saint Joe I always found riding to be a cure for aches."

"Sure is, if you can stand it. An' what will your sister like to do?" returned Dale, turning to Helen.

"Oh, I'll rest, and watch you folks—and dream," replied Helen.

"But after you've rested you must be active," said Dale, seriously. "You must do things. It doesn't matter what, just as long as you don't sit idle."

"Why?" queried Helen, in surprise. "Why not be idle here in this beautiful, wild place? just to dream away the hours—the days! I could do it."

"But you mustn't. It took me years to learn how bad that was for me. An' right now I would love nothin' more than to forget my work, my horses an' pets—everythin', an' just lay around, seein' an' feelin'."

"Seeing and feeling? Yes, that must be what I mean. But why—what is it? There are the beauty and color—the wild, shaggy slopes—the gray cliffs—the singing wind—the lulling water—the clouds—the sky. And the silence, loneliness, sweetness of it all."

"It's a driftin' back. What I love to do an' yet fear most. It's what makes a lone hunter of a man. An' it can grow so strong that it binds a man to the wilds."

"How strange!" murmured Helen. "But that could never bind ME. Why, I must live and fulfil my mission, my work in the civilized world."

It seemed to Helen that Dale almost imperceptibly shrank at her earnest words.

"The ways of Nature are strange," he said. "I look at it different. Nature's just as keen to wean you back to a savage state as you are to be civilized. An' if Nature won, you would carry out her design all the better."

This hunter's talk shocked Helen and yet stimulated her mind.

"Me—a savage? Oh no!" she exclaimed. "But, if that were possible, what would Nature's design be?"

"You spoke of your mission in life," he replied. "A woman's mission is to have children. The female of any species has only one mission—to reproduce its kind. An' Nature has only one mission—toward greater strength, virility, efficiency—absolute perfection, which is unattainable."

"What of mental and spiritual development of man and woman?" asked Helen.

"Both are direct obstacles to the design of Nature. Nature is physical. To create for limitless endurance for eternal life. That must be Nature's inscrutable design. An' why she must fail."

"But the soul!" whispered Helen.

"Ah! When you speak of the soul an' I speak of life we mean the same. You an' I will have some talks while you're here. I must brush up my thoughts."

"So must I, it seems," said Helen, with a slow smile. She had been rendered grave and thoughtful. "But I guess I'll risk dreaming under the pines."

Bo had been watching them with her keen blue eyes.

"Nell, it'd take a thousand years to make a savage of you," she said. "But a week will do for me."

"Bo, you were one before you left Saint Joe," replied Helen. "Don't you remember that school-teacher Barnes who said you were a wildcat and an Indian mixed? He spanked you with a ruler."

"Never! He missed me," retorted Bo, with red in her cheeks. "Nell, I wish you'd not tell things about me when I was a kid."

"That was only two years ago," expostulated Helen, in mild surprise.

"Suppose it was. I was a kid all right. I'll bet you—" Bo broke up abruptly, and, tossing her head, she gave Tom a pat and then ran away around the corner of cliff wall.

Helen followed leisurely.

"Say, Nell," said Bo, when Helen arrived at their little green ledge-pole hut, "do you know that hunter fellow will upset some of your theories?"

"Maybe. I'll admit he amazes me—and affronts me, too, I'm afraid," replied Helen. "What surprises me is that in spite of his evident lack of schooling he's not raw or crude. He's elemental."

"Sister dear, wake up. The man's wonderful. You can learn more from him than you ever learned in your life. So can I. I always hated books, anyway."

When, a little later, Dale approached carrying some bridles, the hound Pedro trotted at his heels.

"I reckon you'd better ride the horse you had," he said to Bo.

"Whatever you say. But I hope you let me ride them all, by and by."

"Sure. I've a mustang out there you'll like. But he pitches a little," he rejoined, and turned away toward the park. The hound looked after him and then at Helen.

"Come, Pedro. Stay with me," called Helen.

Dale, hearing her, motioned the hound back. Obediently Pedro trotted to her, still shy and soberly watchful, as if not sure of her intentions, but with something of friendliness about him now. Helen found a soft, restful seat in the sun facing the park, and there composed herself for what she felt would be slow, sweet, idle hours. Pedro curled down beside her. The tall form of Dale stalked across the park, out toward the straggling horses. Again she saw a deer grazing among them. How erect and motionless it stood watching Dale! Presently it bounded away toward the edge of the forest. Some of the horses whistled and ran, kicking heels high in the air. The shrill whistles rang clear in the stillness.

"Gee! Look at them go!" exclaimed Bo, gleefully, coming up to where Helen sat. Bo threw herself down upon the fragrant pine-needles and stretched herself languorously, like a lazy kitten. There was something feline in her lithe, graceful outline. She lay flat and looked up through the pines.

"Wouldn't it be great, now," she murmured, dreamily, half to herself, "if that Las Vegas cowboy would happen somehow to come, and then an earthquake would shut us up here in this Paradise valley so we'd never get out?"

"Bo! What would mother say to such talk as that?" gasped Helen.

"But, Nell, wouldn't it be great?"

"It would be terrible."

"Oh, there never was any romance in you, Nell Rayner," replied Bo. "That very thing has actually happened out here in this wonderful country of wild places. You need not tell me! Sure it's happened. With the cliff-dwellers and the Indians and then white people. Every place I look makes me feel that. Nell, you'd have to see people in the moon through a telescope before you'd believe that."

"I'm practical and sensible, thank goodness!"

"But, for the sake of argument," protested Bo, with flashing eyes, "suppose it MIGHT happen. Just to please me, suppose we DID get shut up here with Dale and that cowboy we saw from the train. Shut in without any hope of ever climbing out.... What would you do? Would you give up and pine away and die? Or would you fight for life and whatever joy it might mean?"

"Self-preservation is the first instinct," replied Helen, surprised at a strange, deep thrill in the depths of her. "I'd fight for life, of course."

"Yes. Well, really, when I think seriously I don't want anything like that to happen. But, just the same, if it DID happen I would glory in it."

While they were talking Dale returned with the horses.

"Can you bridle an' saddle your own horse?" he asked.

"No. I'm ashamed to say I can't," replied Bo.

"Time to learn then. Come on. Watch me first when I saddle mine."

Bo was all eyes while Dale slipped off the bridle from his horse and then with slow, plain action readjusted it. Next he smoothed the back of the horse, shook out the blanket, and, folding it half over, he threw it in place, being careful to explain to Bo just the right position. He lifted his saddle in a certain way and put that in place, and then he tightened the cinches.

"Now you try," he said.

According to Helen's judgment Bo might have been a Western girl all her days. But Dale shook his head and made her do it over.

"That was better. Of course, the saddle is too heavy for you to sling it up. You can learn that with a light one. Now put the bridle on again. Don't be afraid of your hands. He won't bite. Slip the bit in sideways.... There. Now let's see you mount."

When Bo got into the saddle Dale continued: "You went up quick an' light, but the wrong way. Watch me."

Bo had to mount several times before Dale was satisfied. Then he told her to ride off a little distance. When Bo had gotten out of earshot Dale said to Helen: "She'll take to a horse like a duck takes to water." Then, mounting, he rode out after her.

Helen watched them trotting and galloping and running the horses round the grassy park, and rather regretted she had not gone with them. Eventually Bo rode back, to dismount and fling herself down, red-cheeked and radiant, with disheveled hair, and curls damp on her temples. How alive she seemed! Helen's senses thrilled with the grace and charm and vitality of this surprising sister, and she was aware of a sheer physical joy in her presence. Bo rested, but she did not rest long. She was soon off to play with Bud. Then she coaxed the tame doe to eat out of her hand. She dragged Helen off for wild flowers, curious and thoughtless by turns. And at length she fell asleep, quickly, in a way that reminded Helen of the childhood now gone forever.

Dale called them to dinner about four o'clock, as the sun was reddening the western rampart of the park. Helen wondered where the day had gone. The hours had flown swiftly, serenely, bringing her scarcely a thought of her uncle or dread of her forced detention there or possible discovery by those outlaws supposed to be hunting for her. After she realized the passing of those hours she had an intangible and indescribable feeling of what Dale had meant about dreaming the hours away. The nature of Paradise Park was inimical to the kind of thought that had habitually been hers. She found the new thought absorbing, yet when she tried to name it she found that, after all, she had only felt. At the meal hour she was more than usually quiet. She saw that Dale noticed it and was trying to interest her or distract her attention. He succeeded, but she did not choose to let him see that. She strolled away alone to her seat under the pine. Bo passed her once, and cried, tantalizingly:

"My, Nell, but you're growing romantic!"

Never before in Helen's life had the beauty of the evening star seemed so exquisite or the twilight so moving and shadowy or the darkness so charged with loneliness. It was their environment—the accompaniment of wild wolf-mourn, of the murmuring waterfall, of this strange man of the forest and the unfamiliar elements among which he made his home.

Next morning, her energy having returned, Helen shared Bo's lesson in bridling and saddling her horse, and in riding. Bo, however, rode so fast and so hard that for Helen to share her company was impossible. And Dale, interested and amused, yet anxious, spent most of his time with Bo. It was thus that Helen rode all over the park alone. She was astonished at its size, when from almost any point it looked so small. The atmosphere deceived her. How clearly she could see! And she began to judge distance by the size of familiar things. A horse, looked at across the longest length of the park, seemed very small indeed. Here and there she rode upon dark, swift, little brooks, exquisitely clear and amber-colored and almost hidden from sight by the long grass. These all ran one way, and united to form a deeper brook that apparently wound under the cliffs at the west end, and plunged to an outlet in narrow clefts. When Dale and Bo came to her once she made inquiry, and she was surprised to learn from Dale that this brook disappeared in a hole in the rocks and had an outlet on the other side of the mountain. Sometime he would take them to the lake it formed.

"Over the mountain?" asked Helen, again remembering that she must regard herself as a fugitive. "Will it be safe to leave our hiding-place? I forget so often why we are here."

"We would be better hidden over there than here," replied Dale. "The valley on that side is accessible only from that ridge. An' don't worry about bein' found. I told you Roy Beeman is watchin' Anson an' his gang. Roy will keep between them an' us."

Helen was reassured, yet there must always linger in the background of her mind a sense of dread. In spite of this, she determined to make the most of her opportunity. Bo was a stimulus. And so Helen spent the rest of that day riding and tagging after her sister.

The next day was less hard on Helen. Activity, rest, eating, and sleeping took on a wonderful new meaning to her. She had really never known them as strange joys. She rode, she walked, she climbed a little, she dozed under her pine-tree, she worked helping Dale at camp-fire tasks, and when night came she said she did not know herself. That fact haunted her in vague, deep dreams. Upon awakening she forgot her resolve to study herself. That day passed. And then several more went swiftly before she adapted herself to a situation she had reason to believe might last for weeks and even months.

It was afternoon that Helen loved best of all the time of the day. The sunrise was fresh, beautiful; the morning was windy, fragrant; the sunset was rosy, glorious; the twilight was sad, changing; and night seemed infinitely sweet with its stars and silence and sleep. But the afternoon, when nothing changed, when all was serene, when time seemed to halt, that was her choice, and her solace.

One afternoon she had camp all to herself. Bo was riding. Dale had climbed the mountain to see if he could find any trace of tracks or see any smoke from camp-fire. Bud was nowhere to be seen, nor any of the other pets. Tom had gone off to some sunny ledge where he could bask in the sun, after the habit of the wilder brothers of his species. Pedro had not been seen for a night and a day, a fact that Helen had noted with concern. However, she had forgotten him, and therefore was the more surprised to see him coming limping into camp on three legs.

"Why, Pedro! You have been fighting. Come here," she called.

The hound did not look guilty. He limped to her and held up his right fore paw. The action was unmistakable. Helen examined the injured member and presently found a piece of what looked like mussel-shell embedded deeply between the toes. The wound was swollen, bloody, and evidently very painful. Pedro whined. Helen had to exert all the strength of her fingers to pull it out. Then Pedro howled. But immediately he showed his gratitude by licking her hand. Helen bathed his paw and bound it up.

When Dale returned she related the incident and, showing the piece of shell, she asked: "Where did that come from? Are there shells in the mountains?"

"Once this country was under the sea," replied Dale. "I've found things that 'd make you wonder."

"Under the sea!" ejaculated Helen. It was one thing to have read of such a strange fact, but a vastly different one to realize it here among these lofty peaks. Dale was always showing her something or telling her something that astounded her.

"Look here," he said one day. "What do you make of that little bunch of aspens?"

They were on the farther side of the park and were resting under a pine-tree. The forest here encroached upon the park with its straggling lines of spruce and groves of aspen. The little clump of aspens did not differ from hundreds Helen had seen.

"I don't make anything particularly of it," replied Helen, dubiously. "Just a tiny grove of aspens—some very small, some larger, but none very big. But it's pretty with its green and yellow leaves fluttering and quivering."

"It doesn't make you think of a fight?"

"Fight? No, it certainly does not," replied Helen.

"Well, it's as good an example of fight, of strife, of selfishness, as you will find in the forest," he said. "Now come over, you an' Bo, an' let me show you what I mean."

"Come on, Nell," cried Bo, with enthusiasm. "He'll open our eyes some more."

Nothing loath, Helen went with them to the little clump of aspens.

"About a hundred altogether," said Dale. "They're pretty well shaded by the spruces, but they get the sunlight from east an' south. These little trees all came from the same seedlings. They're all the same age. Four of them stand, say, ten feet or more high an' they're as large around as my wrist. Here's one that's largest. See how full-foliaged he is—how he stands over most of the others, but not so much over these four next to him. They all stand close together, very close, you see. Most of them are no larger than my thumb. Look how few branches they have, an' none low down. Look at how few leaves. Do you see how all the branches stand out toward the east an' south—how the leaves, of course, face the same way? See how one branch of one tree bends aside one from another tree. That's a fight for the sunlight. Here are one—two—three dead trees. Look, I can snap them off. An' now look down under them. Here are little trees five feet high—four feet high—down to these only a foot high. Look how pale, delicate, fragile, unhealthy! They get so little sunshine. They were born with the other trees, but did not get an equal start. Position gives the advantage, perhaps."

Dale led the girls around the little grove, illustrating his words by action. He seemed deeply in earnest.

"You understand it's a fight for water an' sun. But mostly sun, because, if the leaves can absorb the sun, the tree an' roots will grow to grasp the needed moisture. Shade is death—slow death to the life of trees. These little aspens are fightin' for place in the sunlight. It is a merciless battle. They push an' bend one another's branches aside an' choke them. Only perhaps half of these aspens will survive, to make one of the larger clumps, such as that one of full-grown trees over there. One season will give advantage to this saplin' an' next year to that one. A few seasons' advantage to one assures its dominance over the others. But it is never sure of holdin' that dominance. An 'if wind or storm or a strong-growin' rival does not overthrow it, then sooner or later old age will. For there is absolute and continual fight. What is true of these aspens is true of all the trees in the forest an' of all plant life in the forest. What is most wonderful to me is the tenacity of life."

And next day Dale showed them an even more striking example of this mystery of nature.

He guided them on horseback up one of the thick, verdant-wooded slopes, calling their attention at various times to the different growths, until they emerged on the summit of the ridge where the timber grew scant and dwarfed. At the edge of timber-line he showed a gnarled and knotted spruce-tree, twisted out of all semblance to a beautiful spruce, bent and storm-blasted, with almost bare branches, all reaching one' way. The tree was a specter. It stood alone. It had little green upon it. There seemed something tragic about its contortions. But it was alive and strong. It had no rivals to take sun or moisture. Its enemies were the snow and wind and cold of the heights.

Helen felt, as the realization came to her, the knowledge Dale wished to impart, that it was as sad as wonderful, and as mysterious as it was inspiring. At that moment there were both the sting and sweetness of life—the pain and the joy—in Helen's heart. These strange facts were going to teach her—to transform her. And even if they hurt, she welcomed them.



CHAPTER XI

"I'll ride you if it breaks—my neck!" panted Bo, passionately, shaking her gloved fist at the gray pony.

Dale stood near with a broad smile on his face. Helen was within earshot, watching from the edge of the park, and she felt so fascinated and frightened that she could not call out for Bo to stop. The little gray mustang was a beauty, clean-limbed and racy, with long black mane and tail, and a fine, spirited head. There was a blanket strapped on his back, but no saddle. Bo held the short halter that had been fastened in a hackamore knot round his nose. She wore no coat; her blouse was covered with grass and seeds, and it was open at the neck; her hair hung loose and disheveled; one side of her face bore a stain of grass and dirt and a suspicion of blood; the other was red and white; her eyes blazed; beads of sweat stood out on her brow and wet places shone on her cheeks. As she began to strain on the halter, pulling herself closer to the fiery pony, the outline of her slender shape stood out lithe and strong.

Bo had been defeated in her cherished and determined ambition to ride Dale's mustang, and she was furious. The mustang did not appear to be vicious or mean. But he was spirited, tricky, mischievous, and he had thrown her six times. The scene of Bo's defeat was at the edge of the park, where thick moss and grass afforded soft places for her to fall. It also afforded poor foothold for the gray mustang, obviously placing him at a disadvantage. Dale did not bridle him, because he had not been broken to a bridle; and though it was harder for Bo to try to ride him bareback, there was less risk of her being hurt. Bo had begun in all eagerness and enthusiasm, loving and petting the mustang, which she named "Pony." She had evidently anticipated an adventure, but her smiling, resolute face had denoted confidence. Pony had stood fairly well to be mounted, and then had pitched and tossed until Bo had slid off or been upset or thrown. After each fall Bo bounced up with less of a smile, and more of spirit, until now the Western passion to master a horse had suddenly leaped to life within her. It was no longer fun, no more a daring circus trick to scare Helen and rouse Dale's admiration. The issue now lay between Bo and the mustang.

Pony reared, snorting, tossing his head, and pawing with front feet.

"Pull him down!" yelled Dale.

Bo did not have much weight, but she had strength, an she hauled with all her might, finally bringing him down.

"Now hold hard an' take up rope an' get in to him," called Dale. "Good! You're sure not afraid of him. He sees that. Now hold him, talk to him, tell him you're goin' to ride him. Pet him a little. An' when he quits shakin', grab his mane an' jump up an' slide a leg over him. Then hook your feet under him, hard as you can, an' stick on."

If Helen had not been so frightened for Bo she would have been able to enjoy her other sensations. Creeping, cold thrills chased over her as Bo, supple and quick, slid an arm and a leg over Pony and straightened up on him with a defiant cry. Pony jerked his head down, brought his feet together in one jump, and began to bounce. Bo got the swing of him this time and stayed on.

"You're ridin' him," yelled Dale. "Now squeeze hard with your knees. Crack him over the head with your rope.... That's the way. Hang on now an' you'll have him beat."

The mustang pitched all over the space adjacent to Dale and Helen, tearing up the moss and grass. Several times he tossed Bo high, but she slid back to grip him again with her legs, and he could not throw her. Suddenly he raised his head and bolted. Dale answered Bo's triumphant cry. But Pony had not run fifty feet before he tripped and fell, throwing Bo far over his head. As luck would have it—good luck, Dale afterward said—she landed in a boggy place and the force of her momentum was such that she slid several yards, face down, in wet moss and black ooze.

Helen uttered a scream and ran forward. Bo was getting to her knees when Dale reached her. He helped her up and half led, half carried her out of the boggy place. Bo was not recognizable. From head to foot she was dripping black ooze.

"Oh, Bo! Are you hurt?" cried Helen.

Evidently Bo's mouth was full of mud.

"Pp—su—tt! Ough! Whew!" she sputtered. "Hurt? No! Can't you see what I lit in? Dale, the sun-of-a-gun didn't throw me. He fell, and I went over his head."

"Right. You sure rode him. An' he tripped an' slung you a mile," replied Dale. "It's lucky you lit in that bog."

"Lucky! With eyes and nose stopped up? Oooo! I'm full of mud. And my nice—new riding-suit!"

Bo's tones indicated that she was ready to cry. Helen, realizing Bo had not been hurt, began to laugh. Her sister was the funniest-looking object that had ever come before her eyes.

"Nell Rayner—are you—laughing—at me?" demanded Bo, in most righteous amaze and anger.

"Me laugh-ing? N-never, Bo," replied Helen. "Can't you see I'm just—just—"

"See? You idiot! my eyes are full of mud!" flashed Bo. "But I hear you. I'll—I'll get even."

Dale was laughing, too, but noiselessly, and Bo, being blind for the moment, could not be aware of that. By this time they had reached camp. Helen fell flat and laughed as she had never laughed before. When Helen forgot herself so far as to roll on the ground it was indeed a laughing matter. Dale's big frame shook as he possessed himself of a towel and, wetting it at the spring, began to wipe the mud off Bo's face. But that did not serve. Bo asked to be led to the water, where she knelt and, with splashing, washed out her eyes, and then her face, and then the bedraggled strands of hair.

"That mustang didn't break my neck, but he rooted my face in the mud. I'll fix him," she muttered, as she got up. "Please let me have the towel, now.... Well! Milt Dale, you're laughing!"

"Ex-cuse me, Bo. I—Haw! haw! haw!" Then Dale lurched off, holding his sides.

Bo gazed after him and then back at Helen.

"I suppose if I'd been kicked and smashed and killed you'd laugh," she said. And then she melted. "Oh, my pretty riding-suit! What a mess! I must be a sight.... Nell, I rode that wild pony—the sun-of-a-gun! I rode him! That's enough for me. YOU try it. Laugh all you want. It was funny. But if you want to square yourself with me, help me clean my clothes."

Late in the night Helen heard Dale sternly calling Pedro. She felt some little alarm. However, nothing happened, and she soon went to sleep again. At the morning meal Dale explained.

"Pedro an' Tom were uneasy last night. I think there are lions workin' over the ridge somewhere. I heard one scream."

"Scream?" inquired Bo, with interest.

"Yes, an' if you ever hear a lion scream you will think it a woman in mortal agony. The cougar cry, as Roy calls it, is the wildest to be heard in the woods. A wolf howls. He is sad, hungry, and wild. But a cougar seems human an' dyin' an' wild. We'll saddle up an' ride over there. Maybe Pedro will tree a lion. Bo, if he does will you shoot it?"

"Sure," replied Bo, with her mouth full of biscuit.

That was how they came to take a long, slow, steep ride under cover of dense spruce. Helen liked the ride after they got on the heights. But they did not get to any point where she could indulge in her pleasure of gazing afar over the ranges. Dale led up and down, and finally mostly down, until they came out within sight of sparser wooded ridges with parks lying below and streams shining in the sun.

More than once Pedro had to be harshly called by Dale. The hound scented game.

"Here's an old kill," said Dale, halting to point at some bleached bones scattered under a spruce. Tufts of grayish-white hair lay strewn around.

"What was it?" asked Bo.

"Deer, of course. Killed there an' eaten by a lion. Sometime last fall. See, even the skull is split. But I could not say that the lion did it."

Helen shuddered. She thought of the tame deer down at Dale's camp. How beautiful and graceful, and responsive to kindness!

They rode out of the woods into a grassy swale with rocks and clumps of some green bushes bordering it. Here Pedro barked, the first time Helen had heard him. The hair on his neck bristled, and it required stern calls from Dale to hold him in. Dale dismounted.

"Hyar, Pede, you get back," he ordered. "I'll let you go presently.... Girls, you're goin' to see somethin'. But stay on your horses."

Dale, with the hound tense and bristling beside him, strode here and there at the edge of the swale. Presently he halted on a slight elevation and beckoned for the girls to ride over.

"Here, see where the grass is pressed down all nice an' round," he said, pointing. "A lion made that. He sneaked there, watchin' for deer. That was done this mornin'. Come on, now. Let's see if we can trail him."

Dale stooped now, studying the grass, and holding Pedro. Suddenly he straightened up with a flash in his gray eyes.

"Here's where he jumped."

But Helen could not see any reason why Dale should say that. The man of the forest took a long stride then another.

"An' here's where that lion lit on the back of the deer. It was a big jump. See the sharp hoof tracks of the deer." Dale pressed aside tall grass to show dark, rough, fresh tracks of a deer, evidently made by violent action.

"Come on," called Dale, walking swiftly. "You're sure goin' to see somethin' now.... Here's where the deer bounded, carryin' the lion."

"What!" exclaimed Bo, incredulously.

"The deer was runnin' here with the lion on his back. I'll prove it to you. Come on, now. Pedro, you stay with me. Girls, it's a fresh trail." Dale walked along, leading his horse, and occasionally he pointed down into the grass. "There! See that! That's hair."

Helen did see some tufts of grayish hair scattered on the ground, and she believed she saw little, dark separations in the grass, where an animal had recently passed. All at once Dale halted. When Helen reached him Bo was already there and they were gazing down at a wide, flattened space in the grass. Even Helen's inexperienced eyes could make out evidences of a struggle. Tufts of gray-white hair lay upon the crushed grass. Helen did not need to see any more, but Dale silently pointed to a patch of blood. Then he spoke:

"The lion brought the deer down here an' killed him. Probably broke his neck. That deer ran a hundred yards with the lion. See, here's the trail left where the lion dragged the deer off."

A well-defined path showed across the swale.

"Girls, you'll see that deer pretty quick," declared Dale, starting forward. "This work has just been done. Only a few minutes ago."

"How can you tell?" queried Bo.

"Look! See that grass. It has been bent down by the deer bein' dragged over it. Now it's springin' up."

Dale's next stop was on the other side of the swale, under a spruce with low, spreading branches. The look of Pedro quickened Helen's pulse. He was wild to give chase. Fearfully Helen looked where Dale pointed, expecting to see the lion. But she saw instead a deer lying prostrate with tongue out and sightless eyes and bloody hair.

"Girls, that lion heard us an' left. He's not far," said Dale, as he stooped to lift the head of the deer. "Warm! Neck broken. See the lion's teeth an' claw marks.... It's a doe. Look here. Don't be squeamish, girls. This is only an hourly incident of everyday life in the forest. See where the lion has rolled the skin down as neat as I could do it, an' he'd just begun to bite in there when he heard us."

"What murderous work, The sight sickens me!" exclaimed Helen.

"It is nature," said Dale, simply.

"Let's kill the lion," added Bo.

For answer Dale took a quick turn at their saddle-girths, and then, mounting, he called to the hound. "Hunt him up, Pedro."

Like a shot the hound was off.

"Ride in my tracks an' keep close to me," called Dale, as he wheeled his horse.

"We're off!" squealed Bo, in wild delight, and she made her mount plunge.

Helen urged her horse after them and they broke across a corner of the swale to the woods. Pedro was running straight, with his nose high. He let out one short bark. He headed into the woods, with Dale not far behind. Helen was on one of Dale's best horses, but that fact scarcely manifested itself, because the others began to increase their lead. They entered the woods. It was open, and fairly good going. Bo's horse ran as fast in the woods as he did in the open. That frightened Helen and she yelled to Bo to hold him in. She yelled to deaf ears. That was Bo's great risk—she did not intend to be careful. Suddenly the forest rang with Dale's encouraging yell, meant to aid the girls in following him. Helen's horse caught the spirit of the chase. He gained somewhat on Bo, hurdling logs, sometimes two at once. Helen's blood leaped with a strange excitement, utterly unfamiliar and as utterly resistless. Yet her natural fear, and the intelligence that reckoned with the foolish risk of this ride, shared alike in her sum of sensations. She tried to remember Dale's caution about dodging branches and snags, and sliding her knees back to avoid knocks from trees. She barely missed some frightful reaching branches. She received a hard knock, then another, that unseated her, but frantically she held on and slid back, and at the end of a long run through comparatively open forest she got a stinging blow in the face from a far-spreading branch of pine. Bo missed, by what seemed only an inch, a solid snag that would have broken her in two. Both Pedro and Dale got out of Helen's sight. Then Helen, as she began to lose Bo, felt that she would rather run greater risks than be left behind to get lost in the forest, and she urged her horse. Dale's yell pealed back. Then it seemed even more thrilling to follow by sound than by sight. Wind and brush tore at her. The air was heavily pungent with odor of pine. Helen heard a wild, full bay of the hound, ringing back, full of savage eagerness, and she believed Pedro had roused out the lion from some covert. It lent more stir to her blood and it surely urged her horse on faster.

Then the swift pace slackened. A windfall of timber delayed Helen. She caught a glimpse of Dale far ahead, climbing a slope. The forest seemed full of his ringing yell. Helen strangely wished for level ground and the former swift motion. Next she saw Bo working down to the right, and Dale's yell now came from that direction. Helen followed, got out of the timber, and made better time on a gradual slope down to another park.

When she reached the open she saw Bo almost across this narrow open ground. Here Helen did not need to urge her mount. He snorted and plunged at the level and he got to going so fast that Helen would have screamed aloud in mingled fear and delight if she had not been breathless.

Her horse had the bad luck to cross soft ground. He went to his knees and Helen sailed out of the saddle over his head. Soft willows and wet grass broke her fall. She was surprised to find herself unhurt. Up she bounded and certainly did not know this new Helen Rayner. Her horse was coming, and he had patience with her, but he wanted to hurry. Helen made the quickest mount of her experience and somehow felt a pride in it. She would tell Bo that. But just then Bo flashed into the woods out of sight. Helen fairly charged into that green foliage, breaking brush and branches. She broke through into open forest. Bo was inside, riding down an aisle between pines and spruces. At that juncture Helen heard Dale's melodious yell near at hand. Coming into still more open forest, with rocks here and there, she saw Dale dismounted under a pine, and Pedro standing with fore paws upon the tree-trunk, and then high up on a branch a huge tawny colored lion, just like Tom.

Bo's horse slowed up and showed fear, but he kept on as far as Dale's horse. But Helen's refused to go any nearer. She had difficulty in halting him. Presently she dismounted and, throwing her bridle over a stump, she ran on, panting and fearful, yet tingling all over, up to her sister and Dale.

"Nell, you did pretty good for a tenderfoot," was Bo's greeting.

"It was a fine chase," said Dale. "You both rode well. I wish you could have seen the lion on the ground. He bounded—great long bounds with his tail up in the air—very funny. An' Pedro almost caught up with him. That scared me, because he would have killed the hound. Pedro was close to him when he treed. An' there he is—the yellow deer-killer. He's a male an' full grown."

With that Dale pulled his rifle from its saddle-sheath and looked expectantly at Bo. But she was gazing with great interest and admiration up at the lion.

"Isn't he just beautiful?" she burst out. "Oh, look at him spit! Just like a cat! Dale, he looks afraid he might fall off."

"He sure does. Lions are never sure of their balance in a tree. But I never saw one make a misstep. He knows he doesn't belong there."

To Helen the lion looked splendid perched up there. He was long and round and graceful and tawny. His tongue hung out and his plump sides heaved, showing what a quick, hard run he had been driven to. What struck Helen most forcibly about him was something in his face as he looked down at the hound. He was scared. He realized his peril. It was not possible for Helen to watch him killed, yet she could not bring herself to beg Bo not to shoot. Helen confessed she was a tenderfoot.

"Get down, Bo, an' let's see how good a shot you are, said Dale. Bo slowly withdrew her fascinated gaze from the lion and looked with a rueful smile at Dale.

"I've changed my mind. I said I would kill him, but now I can't. He looks so—so different from what I'd imagined."

Dale's answer was a rare smile of understanding and approval that warmed Helen's heart toward him. All the same, he was amused. Sheathing the gun, he mounted his horse.

"Come on, Pedro," he called. "Come, I tell you," he added, sharply, "Well, girls, we treed him, anyhow, an' it was fun. Now we'll ride back to the deer he killed an' pack a haunch to camp for our own use."