Late in October the first snow fell. It melted at once on the south side of the park, but the north slopes and the rims and domes above stayed white.

Dale had worked quick and hard at curing and storing his winter supply of food, and now he spent days chopping and splitting wood to burn during the months he would be snowed-in. He watched for the dark-gray, fast-scudding storm-clouds, and welcomed them when they came. Once there lay ten feet of snow on the trails he would be snowed-in until spring. It would be impossible to go down to Pine. And perhaps during the long winter he would be cured of this strange, nameless disorder of his feelings.

November brought storms up on the peaks. Flurries of snow fell in the park every day, but the sunny south side, where Dale's camp lay, retained its autumnal color and warmth. Not till late in winter did the snow creep over this secluded nook.

The morning came at last, piercingly keen and bright, when Dale saw that the heights were impassable; the realization brought him a poignant regret. He had not guessed how he had wanted to see Helen Rayner again until it was too late. That opened his eyes. A raging frenzy of action followed, in which he only tired himself physically without helping himself spiritually.

It was sunset when he faced the west, looking up at the pink snow-domes and the dark-golden fringe of spruce, and in that moment he found the truth.

"I love that girl! I love that girl!" he spoke aloud, to the distant white peaks, to the winds, to the loneliness and silence of his prison, to the great pines and to the murmuring stream, and to his faithful pets. It was his tragic confession of weakness, of amazing truth, of hopeless position, of pitiful excuse for the transformation wrought in him.

Dale's struggle ended there when he faced his soul. To understand himself was to be released from strain, worry, ceaseless importuning doubt and wonder and fear. But the fever of unrest, of uncertainty, had been nothing compared to a sudden upflashing torment of love.

With somber deliberation he set about the tasks needful, and others that he might make—his camp-fires and meals, the care of his pets and horses, the mending of saddles and pack-harness, the curing of buckskin for moccasins and hunting-suits. So his days were not idle. But all this work was habit for him and needed no application of mind.

And Dale, like some men of lonely wilderness lives who did not retrograde toward the savage, was a thinker. Love made him a sufferer.

The surprise and shame of his unconscious surrender, the certain hopelessness of it, the long years of communion with all that was wild, lonely, and beautiful, the wonderfully developed insight into nature's secrets, and the sudden-dawning revelation that he was no omniscient being exempt from the ruthless ordinary destiny of man—all these showed him the strength of his manhood and of his passion, and that the life he had chosen was of all lives the one calculated to make love sad and terrible.

Helen Rayner haunted him. In the sunlight there was not a place around camp which did not picture her lithe, vigorous body, her dark, thoughtful eyes, her eloquent, resolute lips, and the smile that was so sweet and strong. At night she was there like a slender specter, pacing beside him under the moaning pines. Every camp-fire held in its heart the glowing white radiance of her spirit.

Nature had taught Dale to love solitude and silence, but love itself taught him their meaning. Solitude had been created for the eagle on his crag, for the blasted mountain fir, lonely and gnarled on its peak, for the elk and the wolf. But it had not been intended for man. And to live always in the silence of wild places was to become obsessed with self—to think and dream—to be happy, which state, however pursued by man, was not good for him. Man must be given imperious longings for the unattainable.

It needed, then, only the memory of an unattainable woman to render solitude passionately desired by a man, yet almost unendurable. Dale was alone with his secret; and every pine, everything in that park saw him shaken and undone.

In the dark, pitchy deadness of night, when there was no wind and the cold on the peaks had frozen the waterfall, then the silence seemed insupportable. Many hours that should have been given to slumber were paced out under the cold, white, pitiless stars, under the lonely pines.

Dale's memory betrayed him, mocked his restraint, cheated him of any peace; and his imagination, sharpened by love, created pictures, fancies, feelings, that drove him frantic.

He thought of Helen Rayner's strong, shapely brown hand. In a thousand different actions it haunted him. How quick and deft in camp-fire tasks! how graceful and swift as she plaited her dark hair! how tender and skilful in its ministration when one of his pets had been injured! how eloquent when pressed tight against her breast in a moment of fear on the dangerous heights! how expressive of unutterable things when laid on his arm!

Dale saw that beautiful hand slowly creep up his arm, across his shoulder, and slide round his neck to clasp there. He was powerless to inhibit the picture. And what he felt then was boundless, unutterable. No woman had ever yet so much as clasped his hand, and heretofore no such imaginings had ever crossed his mind, yet deep in him, somewhere hidden, had been this waiting, sweet, and imperious need. In the bright day he appeared to ward off such fancies, but at night he was helpless. And every fancy left him weaker, wilder.

When, at the culmination of this phase of his passion, Dale, who had never known the touch of a woman's lips, suddenly yielded to the illusion of Helen Rayner's kisses, he found himself quite mad, filled with rapture and despair, loving her as he hated himself. It seemed as if he had experienced all these terrible feelings in some former life and had forgotten them in this life. He had no right to think of her, but he could not resist it. Imagining the sweet surrender of her lips was a sacrilege, yet here, in spite of will and honor and shame, he was lost.

Dale, at length, was vanquished, and he ceased to rail at himself, or restrain his fancies. He became a dreamy, sad-eyed, camp-fire gazer, like many another lonely man, separated, by chance or error, from what the heart hungered most for. But this great experience, when all its significance had clarified in his mind, immeasurably broadened his understanding of the principles of nature applied to life.

Love had been in him stronger than in most men, because of his keen, vigorous, lonely years in the forest, where health of mind and body were intensified and preserved. How simple, how natural, how inevitable! He might have loved any fine-spirited, healthy-bodied girl. Like a tree shooting its branches and leaves, its whole entity, toward the sunlight, so had he grown toward a woman's love. Why? Because the thing he revered in nature, the spirit, the universal, the life that was God, had created at his birth or before his birth the three tremendous instincts of nature—to fight for life, to feed himself, to reproduce his kind. That was all there was to it. But oh! the mystery, the beauty, the torment, and the terror of this third instinct—this hunger for the sweetness and the glory of a woman's love!



CHAPTER XVI

Helen Rayner dropped her knitting into her lap and sat pensively gazing out of the window over the bare yellow ranges of her uncle's ranch.

The winter day was bright, but steely, and the wind that whipped down from the white-capped mountains had a keen, frosty edge. A scant snow lay in protected places; cattle stood bunched in the lee of ridges; low sheets of dust scurried across the flats.

The big living-room of the ranch-house was warm and comfortable with its red adobe walls, its huge stone fireplace where cedar logs blazed, and its many-colored blankets. Bo Rayner sat before the fire, curled up in an armchair, absorbed in a book. On the floor lay the hound Pedro, his racy, fine head stretched toward the warmth.

"Did uncle call?" asked Helen, with a start out of her reverie.

"I didn't hear him," replied Bo.

Helen rose to tiptoe across the floor, and, softly parting some curtains, she looked into the room where her uncle lay. He was asleep. Sometimes he called out in his slumbers. For weeks now he had been confined to his bed, slowly growing weaker. With a sigh Helen returned to her window-seat and took up her work.

"Bo, the sun is bright," she said. "The days are growing longer. I'm so glad."

"Nell, you're always wishing time away. For me it passes quickly enough," replied the sister.

"But I love spring and summer and fall—and I guess I hate winter," returned Helen, thoughtfully.

The yellow ranges rolled away up to the black ridges and they in turn swept up to the cold, white mountains. Helen's gaze seemed to go beyond that snowy barrier. And Bo's keen eyes studied her sister's earnest, sad face.

"Nell, do you ever think of Dale?" she queried, suddenly.

The question startled Helen. A slow blush suffused neck and cheek.

"Of course," she replied, as if surprised that Bo should ask such a thing.

"I—I shouldn't have asked that," said Bo, softly, and then bent again over her book.

Helen gazed tenderly at that bright, bowed head. In this swift-flying, eventful, busy winter, during which the management of the ranch had devolved wholly upon Helen, the little sister had grown away from her. Bo had insisted upon her own free will and she had followed it, to the amusement of her uncle, to the concern of Helen, to the dismay and bewilderment of the faithful Mexican housekeeper, and to the undoing of all the young men on the ranch.

Helen had always been hoping and waiting for a favorable hour in which she might find this wilful sister once more susceptible to wise and loving influence. But while she hesitated to speak, slow footsteps and a jingle of spurs sounded without, and then came a timid knock. Bo looked up brightly and ran to open the door.

"Oh! It's only—YOU!" she uttered, in withering scorn, to the one who knocked.

Helen thought she could guess who that was.

"How are you-all?" asked a drawling voice.

"Well, Mister Carmichael, if that interests you—I'm quite ill," replied Bo, freezingly.

"Ill! Aw no, now?"

"It's a fact. If I don't die right off I'll have to be taken back to Missouri," said Bo, casually.

"Are you goin' to ask me in?" queried Carmichael, bluntly. "It's cold—an' I've got somethin' to say to—"

"To ME? Well, you're not backward, I declare," retorted Bo.

"Miss Rayner, I reckon it 'll be strange to you—findin' out I didn't come to see you."

"Indeed! No. But what was strange was the deluded idea I had—that you meant to apologize to me—like a gentleman.... Come in, Mr. Carmichael. My sister is here."

The door closed as Helen turned round. Carmichael stood just inside with his sombrero in hand, and as he gazed at Bo his lean face seemed hard. In the few months since autumn he had changed—aged, it seemed, and the once young, frank, alert, and careless cowboy traits had merged into the making of a man. Helen knew just how much of a man he really was. He had been her mainstay during all the complex working of the ranch that had fallen upon her shoulders.

"Wal, I reckon you was deluded, all right—if you thought I'd crawl like them other lovers of yours," he said, with cool deliberation.

Bo turned pale, and her eyes fairly blazed, yet even in what must have been her fury Helen saw amaze and pain.

"OTHER lovers? I think the biggest delusion here is the way you flatter yourself," replied Bo, stingingly.

"Me flatter myself? Nope. You don't savvy me. I'm shore hatin' myself these days."

"Small wonder. I certainly hate you—with all my heart!"

At this retort the cowboy dropped his head and did not see Bo flaunt herself out of the room. But he heard the door close, and then slowly came toward Helen.

"Cheer up, Las Vegas," said Helen, smiling. "Bo's hot-tempered."

"Miss Nell, I'm just like a dog. The meaner she treats me the more I love her," he replied, dejectedly.

To Helen's first instinct of liking for this cowboy there had been added admiration, respect, and a growing appreciation of strong, faithful, developing character. Carmichael's face and hands were red and chapped from winter winds; the leather of wrist-bands, belt, and boots was all worn shiny and thin; little streaks of dust fell from him as he breathed heavily. He no longer looked the dashing cowboy, ready for a dance or lark or fight.

"How in the world did you offend her so?" asked Helen. "Bo is furious. I never saw her so angry as that."

"Miss Nell, it was jest this way," began Carmichael. "Shore Bo's knowed I was in love with her. I asked her to marry me an' she wouldn't say yes or no.... An', mean as it sounds—she never run away from it, thet's shore. We've had some quarrels—two of them bad, an' this last's the worst."

"Bo told me about one quarrel," said Helen. "It was—because you drank—that time."

"Shore it was. She took one of her cold spells an' I jest got drunk."

"But that was wrong," protested Helen.

"I ain't so shore. You see, I used to get drunk often—before I come here. An' I've been drunk only once. Back at Las Vegas the outfit would never believe thet. Wal, I promised Bo I wouldn't do it again, an' I've kept my word."

"That is fine of you. But tell me, why is she angry now?"

"Bo makes up to all the fellars," confessed Carmichael, hanging his head. "I took her to the dance last week—over in the town-hall. Thet's the first time she'd gone anywhere with me. I shore was proud.... But thet dance was hell. Bo carried on somethin' turrible, an' I—"

"Tell me. What did she do?" demanded Helen, anxiously. "I'm responsible for her. I've got to see that she behaves."

"Aw, I ain't sayin' she didn't behave like a lady," replied Carmichael. "It was—she—wal, all them fellars are fools over her—an' Bo wasn't true to me."

"My dear boy, is Bo engaged to you?"

"Lord—if she only was!" he sighed.

"Then how can you say she wasn't true to you? Be reasonable."

"I reckon now, Miss Nell, thet no one can be in love an' act reasonable," rejoined the cowboy. "I don't know how to explain, but the fact is I feel thet Bo has played the—the devil with me an' all the other fellars."

"You mean she has flirted?"

"I reckon."

"Las Vegas, I'm afraid you're right," said Helen, with growing apprehension. "Go on. Tell me what's happened."

"Wal, thet Turner boy, who rides for Beasley, he was hot after Bo," returned Carmichael, and he spoke as if memory hurt him. "Reckon I've no use for Turner. He's a fine-lookin', strappin', big cow-puncher, an' calculated to win the girls. He brags thet he can, an' I reckon he's right. Wal, he was always hangin' round Bo. An' he stole one of my dances with Bo. I only had three, an' he comes up to say this one was his; Bo, very innocent—oh, she's a cute one!—she says, 'Why, Mister Turner—is it really yours?' An' she looked so full of joy thet when he says to me, 'Excoose us, friend Carmichael,' I sat there like a locoed jackass an' let them go. But I wasn't mad at thet. He was a better dancer than me an' I wanted her to have a good time. What started the hell was I seen him put his arm round her when it wasn't just time, accordin' to the dance, an' Bo—she didn't break any records gettin' away from him. She pushed him away—after a little—after I near died. Wal, on the way home I had to tell her. I shore did. An' she said what I'd love to forget. Then—then, Miss Nell, I grabbed her—it was outside here by the porch an' all bright moonlight—I grabbed her an' hugged an' kissed her good. When I let her go I says, sorta brave, but I was plumb scared—I says, 'Wal, are you goin' to marry me now?'"

He concluded with a gulp, and looked at Helen with woe in his eyes.

"Oh! What did Bo do?" breathlessly queried Helen.

"She slapped me," he replied. "An' then she says, I did like you best, but NOW I hate you!' An' she slammed the door in my face."

"I think you made a great mistake," said Helen, gravely.

"Wal, if I thought so I'd beg her forgiveness. But I reckon I don't. What's more, I feel better than before. I'm only a cowboy an' never was much good till I met her. Then I braced. I got to havin' hopes, studyin' books, an' you know how I've been lookin' into this ranchin' game. I stopped drinkin' an' saved my money. Wal, she knows all thet. Once she said she was proud of me. But it didn't seem to count big with her. An' if it can't count big I don't want it to count at all. I reckon the madder Bo is at me the more chance I've got. She knows I love her—thet I'd die for her—thet I'm a changed man. An' she knows I never before thought of darin' to touch her hand. An' she knows she flirted with Turner."

"She's only a child," replied Helen. "And all this change—the West—the wildness—and you boys making much of her—why, it's turned her head. But Bo will come out of it true blue. She is good, loving. Her heart is gold."

"I reckon I know, an' my faith can't be shook," rejoined Carmichael, simply. "But she ought to believe thet she'll make bad blood out here. The West is the West. Any kind of girls are scarce. An' one like Bo—Lord! we cowboys never seen none to compare with her. She'll make bad blood an' some of it will be spilled."

"Uncle Al encourages her," said Helen, apprehensively. "It tickles him to hear how the boys are after her. Oh, she doesn't tell him. But he hears. And I, who must stand in mother's place to her, what can I do?"

"Miss Nell, are you on my side?" asked the cowboy, wistfully. He was strong and elemental, caught in the toils of some power beyond him.

Yesterday Helen might have hesitated at that question. But to-day Carmichael brought some proven quality of loyalty, some strange depth of rugged sincerity, as if she had learned his future worth.

"Yes, I am," Helen replied, earnestly. And she offered her hand.

"Wal, then it 'll shore turn out happy," he said, squeezing her hand. His smile was grateful, but there was nothing in it of the victory he hinted at. Some of his ruddy color had gone. "An' now I want to tell you why I come."

He had lowered his voice. "Is Al asleep?" he whispered.

"Yes," replied Helen. "He was a little while ago."

"Reckon I'd better shut his door."

Helen watched the cowboy glide across the room and carefully close the door, then return to her with intent eyes. She sensed events in his look, and she divined suddenly that he must feel as if he were her brother.

"Shore I'm the one thet fetches all the bad news to you," he said, regretfully.

Helen caught her breath. There had indeed been many little calamities to mar her management of the ranch—loss of cattle, horses, sheep—the desertion of herders to Beasley—failure of freighters to arrive when most needed—fights among the cowboys—and disagreements over long-arranged deals.

"Your uncle Al makes a heap of this here Jeff Mulvey," asserted Carmichael.

"Yes, indeed. Uncle absolutely relies on Jeff," replied Helen.

"Wal, I hate to tell you, Miss Nell," said the cowboy, bitterly, "thet Mulvey ain't the man he seems."

"Oh, what do you mean?"

"When your uncle dies Mulvey is goin' over to Beasley an' he's goin' to take all the fellars who'll stick to him."

"Could Jeff be so faithless—after so many years my uncle's foreman? Oh, how do you know?"

"Reckon I guessed long ago. But wasn't shore. Miss Nell, there's a lot in the wind lately, as poor old Al grows weaker. Mulvey has been particular friendly to me an' I've nursed him along, 'cept I wouldn't drink. An' his pards have been particular friends with me, too, more an' more as I loosened up. You see, they was shy of me when I first got here. To-day the whole deal showed clear to me like a hoof track in soft ground. Bud Lewis, who's bunked with me, come out an' tried to win me over to Beasley—soon as Auchincloss dies. I palavered with Bud an' I wanted to know. But Bud would only say he was goin' along with Jeff an' others of the outfit. I told him I'd reckon over it an' let him know. He thinks I'll come round."

"Why—why will these men leave me when—when—Oh, poor uncle! They bargain on his death. But why—tell me why?"

"Beasley has worked on them—won them over," replied Carmichael, grimly. "After Al dies the ranch will go to you. Beasley means to have it. He an' Al was pards once, an' now Beasley has most folks here believin' he got the short end of thet deal. He'll have papers—shore—an' he'll have most of the men. So he'll just put you off an' take possession. Thet's all, Miss Nell, an' you can rely on its bein' true."

"I—I believe you—but I can't believe such—such robbery possible," gasped Helen.

"It's simple as two an' two. Possession is law out here. Once Beasley gets on the ground it's settled. What could you do with no men to fight for your property?"

"But, surely, some of the men will stay with me?"

"I reckon. But not enough."

"Then I can hire more. The Beeman boys. And Dale would come to help me."

"Dale would come. An' he'd help a heap. I wish he was here," replied Carmichael, soberly. "But there's no way to get him. He's snowed-up till May."

"I dare not confide in uncle," said Helen, with agitation. "The shock might kill him. Then to tell him of the unfaithfulness of his old men—that would be cruel.... Oh, it can't be so bad as you think."

"I reckon it couldn't be no worse. An'—Miss Nell, there's only one way to get out of it—an' thet's the way of the West."

"How?" queried Helen, eagerly.

Carmichael lunged himself erect and stood gazing down at her. He seemed completely detached now from that frank, amiable cowboy of her first impressions. The redness was totally gone from his face. Something strange and cold and sure looked out of his eyes.

"I seen Beasley go in the saloon as I rode past. Suppose I go down there, pick a quarrel with him—an' kill him?"

Helen sat bolt-upright with a cold shock.

"Carmichael! you're not serious?" she exclaimed.

"Serious? I shore am. Thet's the only way, Miss Nell. An' I reckon it's what Al would want. An' between you an' me—it would be easier than ropin' a calf. These fellars round Pine don't savvy guns. Now, I come from where guns mean somethin'. An' when I tell you I can throw a gun slick an' fast, why I shore ain't braggin'. You needn't worry none about me, Miss Nell."

Helen grasped that he had taken the signs of her shocked sensibility to mean she feared for his life. But what had sickened her was the mere idea of bloodshed in her behalf.

"You'd—kill Beasley—just because there are rumors of his—treachery?" gasped Helen.

"Shore. It'll have to be done, anyhow," replied the cowboy.

"No! No! It's too dreadful to think of. Why, that would be murder. I—I can't understand how you speak of it—so—so calmly."

"Reckon I ain't doin' it calmly. I'm as mad as hell," said Carmichael, with a reckless smile.

"Oh, if you are serious then, I say no—no—no! I forbid you. I don't believe I'll be robbed of my property."

"Wal, supposin' Beasley does put you off—an' takes possession. What 're you goin' to say then?" demanded the cowboy, in slow, cool deliberation.

"I'd say the same then as now," she replied.

He bent his head thoughtfully while his red hands smoothed his sombrero.

"Shore you girls haven't been West very long," he muttered, as if apologizing for them. "An' I reckon it takes time to learn the ways of a country."

"West or no West, I won't have fights deliberately picked, and men shot, even if they do threaten me," declared Helen, positively.

"All right, Miss Nell, shore I respect your wishes," he returned. "But I'll tell you this. If Beasley turns you an' Bo out of your home—wal, I'll look him up on my own account."

Helen could only gaze at him as he backed to the door, and she thrilled and shuddered at what seemed his loyalty to her, his love for Bo, and that which was inevitable in himself.

"Reckon you might save us all some trouble—now if you'd—just get mad—an' let me go after thet greaser."

"Greaser! Do you mean Beasley?"

"Shore. He's a half-breed. He was born in Magdalena, where I heard folks say nary one of his parents was no good."

"That doesn't matter. I'm thinking of humanity of law and order. Of what is right."

"Wal, Miss Nell, I'll wait till you get real mad—or till Beasley—"

"But, my friend, I'll not get mad," interrupted Helen. "I'll keep my temper."

"I'll bet you don't," he retorted. "Mebbe you think you've none of Bo in you. But I'll bet you could get so mad—once you started—thet you'd be turrible. What 've you got them eyes for, Miss Nell, if you ain't an Auchincloss?"

He was smiling, yet he meant every word. Helen felt the truth as something she feared.

"Las Vegas, I won't bet. But you—you will always come to me—first—if there's trouble."

"I promise," he replied, soberly, and then went out.

Helen found that she was trembling, and that there was a commotion in her breast. Carmichael had frightened her. No longer did she hold doubt of the gravity of the situation. She had seen Beasley often, several times close at hand, and once she had been forced to meet him. That time had convinced her that he had evinced personal interest in her. And on this account, coupled with the fact that Riggs appeared to have nothing else to do but shadow her, she had been slow in developing her intention of organizing and teaching a school for the children of Pine. Riggs had become rather a doubtful celebrity in the settlements. Yet his bold, apparent badness had made its impression. From all reports he spent his time gambling, drinking, and bragging. It was no longer news in Pine what his intentions were toward Helen Rayner. Twice he had ridden up to the ranch-house, upon one occasion securing an interview with Helen. In spite of her contempt and indifference, he was actually influencing her life there in Pine. And it began to appear that the other man, Beasley, might soon direct stronger significance upon the liberty of her actions.

The responsibility of the ranch had turned out to be a heavy burden. It could not be managed, at least by her, in the way Auchincloss wanted it done. He was old, irritable, irrational, and hard. Almost all the neighbors were set against him, and naturally did not take kindly to Helen.

She had not found the slightest evidence of unfair dealing on the part of her uncle, but he had been a hard driver. Then his shrewd, far-seeing judgment had made all his deals fortunate for him, which fact had not brought a profit of friendship.

Of late, since Auchincloss had grown weaker and less dominating, Helen had taken many decisions upon herself, with gratifying and hopeful results. But the wonderful happiness that she had expected to find in the West still held aloof. The memory of Paradise Park seemed only a dream, sweeter and more intangible as time passed, and fuller of vague regrets. Bo was a comfort, but also a very considerable source of anxiety. She might have been a help to Helen if she had not assimilated Western ways so swiftly. Helen wished to decide things in her own way, which was as yet quite far from Western. So Helen had been thrown more and more upon her own resources, with the cowboy Carmichael the only one who had come forward voluntarily to her aid.

For an hour Helen sat alone in the room, looking out of the window, and facing stern reality with a colder, graver, keener sense of intimacy than ever before. To hold her property and to live her life in this community according to her ideas of honesty, justice, and law might well be beyond her powers. To-day she had been convinced that she could not do so without fighting for them, and to fight she must have friends. That conviction warmed her toward Carmichael, and a thoughtful consideration of all he had done for her proved that she had not fully appreciated him. She would make up for her oversight.

There were no Mormons in her employ, for the good reason that Auchincloss would not hire them. But in one of his kindlier hours, growing rare now, he had admitted that the Mormons were the best and the most sober, faithful workers on the ranges, and that his sole objection to them was just this fact of their superiority. Helen decided to hire the four Beemans and any of their relatives or friends who would come; and to do this, if possible, without letting her uncle know. His temper now, as well as his judgment, was a hindrance to efficiency. This decision regarding the Beemans; brought Helen back to Carmichael's fervent wish for Dale, and then to her own.

Soon spring would be at hand, with its multiplicity of range tasks. Dale had promised to come to Pine then, and Helen knew that promise would be kept. Her heart beat a little faster, in spite of her business-centered thoughts. Dale was there, over the black-sloped, snowy-tipped mountain, shut away from the world. Helen almost envied him. No wonder he loved loneliness, solitude, the sweet, wild silence and beauty of Paradise Park! But he was selfish, and Helen meant to show him that. She needed his help. When she recalled his physical prowess with animals, and imagined what it must be in relation to men, she actually smiled at the thought of Beasley forcing her off her property, if Dale were there. Beasley would only force disaster upon himself. Then Helen experienced a quick shock. Would Dale answer to this situation as Carmichael had answered? It afforded her relief to assure herself to the contrary. The cowboy was one of a blood-letting breed; the hunter was a man of thought, gentleness, humanity. This situation was one of the kind that had made him despise the littleness of men. Helen assured herself that he was different from her uncle and from the cowboy, in all the relations of life which she had observed while with him. But a doubt lingered in her mind. She remembered his calm reference to Snake Anson, and that caused a recurrence of the little shiver Carmichael had given her. When the doubt augmented to a possibility that she might not be able to control Dale, then she tried not to think of it any more. It confused and perplexed her that into her mind should flash a thought that, though it would be dreadful for Carmichael to kill Beasley, for Dale to do it would be a calamity—a terrible thing. Helen did not analyze that strange thought. She was as afraid of it as she was of the stir in her blood when she visualized Dale.

Her meditation was interrupted by Bo, who entered the room, rebellious-eyed and very lofty. Her manner changed, which apparently owed its cause to the fact that Helen was alone.

"Is that—cowboy gone?" she asked.

"Yes. He left quite some time ago," replied Helen.

"I wondered if he made your eyes shine—your color burn so. Nell, you're just beautiful."

"Is my face burning?" asked Helen, with a little laugh. "So it is. Well, Bo, you've no cause for jealousy. Las Vegas can't be blamed for my blushes."

"Jealous! Me? Of that wild-eyed, soft-voiced, two-faced cow-puncher? I guess not, Nell Rayner. What 'd he say about me?"

"Bo, he said a lot," replied Helen, reflectively. "I'll tell you presently. First I want to ask you—has Carmichael ever told you how he's helped me?"

"No! When I see him—which hasn't been often lately—he—I—Well, we fight. Nell, has he helped you?"

Helen smiled in faint amusement. She was going to be sincere, but she meant to keep her word to the cowboy. The fact was that reflection had acquainted her with her indebtedness to Carmichael.

"Bo, you've been so wild to ride half-broken mustangs—and carry on with cowboys—and read—and sew—and keep your secrets that you've had no time for your sister or her troubles."

"Nell!" burst out Bo, in amaze and pain. She flew to Helen and seized her hands. "What 're you saying?"

"It's all true," replied Helen, thrilling and softening. This sweet sister, once aroused, would be hard to resist. Helen imagined she should hold to her tone of reproach and severity.

"Sure it's true," cried Bo, fiercely. "But what's my fooling got to do with the—the rest you said? Nell, are you keeping things from me?"

"My dear, I never get any encouragement to tell you my troubles."

"But I've—I've nursed uncle—sat up with him—just the same as you," said Bo, with quivering lips.

"Yes, you've been good to him."

"We've no other troubles, have we, Nell?"

"You haven't, but I have," responded Helen, reproachfully.

"Why—why didn't you tell me?" cried Bo, passionately. "What are they? Tell me now. You must think me a—a selfish, hateful cat."

"Bo, I've had much to worry me—and the worst is yet to come," replied Helen. Then she told Bo how complicated and bewildering was the management of a big ranch—when the owner was ill, testy, defective in memory, and hard as steel—when he had hoards of gold and notes, but could not or would not remember his obligations—when the neighbor ranchers had just claims—when cowboys and sheep-herders were discontented, and wrangled among themselves—when great herds of cattle and flocks of sheep had to be fed in winter—when supplies had to be continually freighted across a muddy desert and lastly, when an enemy rancher was slowly winning away the best hands with the end in view of deliberately taking over the property when the owner died. Then Helen told how she had only that day realized the extent of Carmichael's advice and help and labor—how, indeed, he had been a brother to her—how—

But at this juncture Bo buried her face in Helen's breast and began to cry wildly.

"I—I—don't want—to hear—any more," she sobbed.

"Well, you've got to hear it," replied Helen, inexorably "I want you to know how he's stood by me."

"But I hate him."

"Bo, I suspect that's not true."

"I do—I do."

"Well, you act and talk very strangely then."

"Nell Rayner—are—you—you sticking up for that—that devil?"

"I am, yes, so far as it concerns my conscience," rejoined Helen, earnestly. "I never appreciated him as he deserved—not until now. He's a man, Bo, every inch of him. I've seen him grow up to that in three months. I'd never have gotten along without him. I think he's fine, manly, big. I—"

"I'll bet—he's made love—to you, too," replied Bo, woefully.

"Talk sense," said Helen, sharply. "He has been a brother to me. But, Bo Rayner, if he HAD made love to me I—I might have appreciated it more than you."

Bo raised her face, flushed in part and also pale, with tear-wet cheeks and the telltale blaze in the blue eyes.

"I've been wild about that fellow. But I hate him, too," she said, with flashing spirit. "And I want to go on hating him. So don't tell me any more."

Whereupon Helen briefly and graphically related how Carmichael had offered to kill Beasley, as the only way to save her property, and how, when she refused, that he threatened he would do it anyhow.

Bo fell over with a gasp and clung to Helen.

"Oh—Nell! Oh, now I love him more than—ever," she cried, in mingled rage and despair.

Helen clasped her closely and tried to comfort her as in the old days, not so very far back, when troubles were not so serious as now.

"Of course you love him," she concluded. "I guessed that long ago. And I'm glad. But you've been wilful—foolish. You wouldn't surrender to it. You wanted your fling with the other boys. You're—Oh, Bo, I fear you have been a sad little flirt."

"I—I wasn't very bad till—till he got bossy. Why, Nell, he acted—right off—just as if he OWNED me. But he didn't.... And to show him—I—I really did flirt with that Turner fellow. Then he—he insulted me.... Oh, I hate him!"

"Nonsense, Bo. You can't hate any one while you love him," protested Helen.

"Much you know about that," flashed Bo. "You just can! Look here. Did you ever see a cowboy rope and throw and tie up a mean horse?"

"Yes, I have."

"Do you have any idea how strong a cowboy is—how his hands and arms are like iron?"

"Yes, I'm sure I know that, too."

"And how savage he is?"

"Yes."

"And how he goes at anything he wants to do?"

"I must admit cowboys are abrupt," responded Helen, with a smile.

"Well, Miss Rayner, did you ever—when you were standing quiet like a lady—did you ever have a cowboy dive at you with a terrible lunge—grab you and hold you so you couldn't move or breathe or scream—hug you till all your bones cracked—and kiss you so fierce and so hard that you wanted to kill him and die?"

Helen had gradually drawn back from this blazing-eyed, eloquent sister, and when the end of that remarkable question came it was impossible to reply.

"There! I see you never had that done to you," resumed Bo, with satisfaction. "So don't ever talk to me."

"I've heard his side of the story," said Helen, constrainedly.

With a start Bo sat up straighter, as if better to defend herself.

"Oh! So you have? And I suppose you'll take his part—even about that—that bearish trick."

"No. I think that rude and bold. But, Bo, I don't believe he meant to be either rude or bold. From what he confessed to me I gather that he believed he'd lose you outright or win you outright by that violence. It seems girls can't play at love out here in this wild West. He said there would be blood shed over you. I begin to realize what he meant. He's not sorry for what he did. Think how strange that is. For he has the instincts of a gentleman. He's kind, gentle, chivalrous. Evidently he had tried every way to win your favor except any familiar advance. He did that as a last resort. In my opinion his motives were to force you to accept or refuse him, and in case you refused him he'd always have those forbidden stolen kisses to assuage his self-respect—when he thought of Turner or any one else daring to be familiar with you. Bo, I see through Carmichael, even if I don't make him clear to you. You've got to be honest with yourself. Did that act of his win or lose you? In other words, do you love him or not?"

Bo hid her face.

"Oh, Nell! it made me see how I loved him—and that made me so—so sick I hated him.... But now—the hate is all gone."



CHAPTER XVII

When spring came at last and the willows drooped green and fresh over the brook and the range rang with bray of burro and whistle of stallion, old Al Auchincloss had been a month in his grave.

To Helen it seemed longer. The month had been crowded with work, events, and growing, more hopeful duties, so that it contained a world of living. The uncle had not been forgotten, but the innumerable restrictions to development and progress were no longer manifest. Beasley had not presented himself or any claim upon Helen; and she, gathering confidence day by day, began to believe all that purport of trouble had been exaggerated.

In this time she had come to love her work and all that pertained to it. The estate was large. She had no accurate knowledge of how many acres she owned, but it was more than two thousand. The fine, old, rambling ranch-house, set like a fort on the last of the foot-hills, corrals and fields and barns and meadows, and the rolling green range beyond, and innumerable sheep, horses, cattle—all these belonged to Helen, to her ever-wondering realization and ever-growing joy. Still, she was afraid to let herself go and be perfectly happy. Always there was the fear that had been too deep and strong to forget so soon.

This bright, fresh morning, in March, Helen came out upon the porch to revel a little in the warmth of sunshine and the crisp, pine-scented wind that swept down from the mountains. There was never a morning that she did not gaze mountainward, trying to see, with a folly she realized, if the snow had melted more perceptibly away on the bold white ridge. For all she could see it had not melted an inch, and she would not confess why she sighed. The desert had become green and fresh, stretching away there far below her range, growing dark and purple in the distance with vague buttes rising. The air was full of sound—notes of blackbirds and the baas of sheep, and blasts from the corrals, and the clatter of light hoofs on the court below.

Bo was riding in from the stables. Helen loved to watch her on one of those fiery little mustangs, but the sight was likewise given to rousing apprehensions. This morning Bo appeared particularly bent on frightening Helen. Down the lane Carmichael appeared, waving his arms, and Helen at once connected him with Bo's manifest desire to fly away from that particular place. Since that day, a month back, when Bo had confessed her love for Carmichael, she and Helen had not spoken of it or of the cowboy. The boy and girl were still at odds. But this did not worry Helen. Bo had changed much for the better, especially in that she devoted herself to Helen and to her work. Helen knew that all would turn out well in the end, and so she had been careful of her rather precarious position between these two young firebrands.

Bo reined in the mustang at the porch steps. She wore a buckskin riding-suit which she had made herself, and its soft gray with the touches of red beads was mightily becoming to her. Then she had grown considerably during the winter and now looked too flashing and pretty to resemble a boy, yet singularly healthy and strong and lithe. Red spots shone in her cheeks and her eyes held that ever-dangerous blaze.

"Nell, did you give me away to that cowboy?" she demanded.

"Give you away!" exclaimed Helen, blankly.

"Yes. You know I told you—awhile back—that I was wildly in love with him. Did you give me away—tell on me?"

She might have been furious, but she certainly was not confused.

"Why, Bo! How could you? No. I did not," replied Helen.

"Never gave him a hint?"

"Not even a hint. You have my word for that. Why? What's happened?"

"He makes me sick."

Bo would not say any more, owing to the near approach of the cowboy.

"Mawnin', Miss Nell," he drawled. "I was just tellin' this here Miss Bo-Peep Rayner—"

"Don't call me that!" broke in Bo, with fire in her voice.

"Wal, I was just tellin' her thet she wasn't goin' off on any more of them long rides. Honest now, Miss Nell, it ain't safe, an'—"

"You're not my boss," retorted Bo.

"Indeed, sister, I agree with him. You won't obey me."

"Reckon some one's got to be your boss," drawled Carmichael. "Shore I ain't hankerin' for the job. You could ride to Kingdom Come or off among the Apaches—or over here a ways"—at this he grinned knowingly—"or anywheres, for all I cared. But I'm workin' for Miss Nell, an' she's boss. An' if she says you're not to take them rides—you won't. Savvy that, miss?"

It was a treat for Helen to see Bo look at the cowboy.

"Mis-ter Carmichael, may I ask how you are going to prevent me from riding where I like?"

"Wal, if you're goin' worse locoed this way I'll keep you off'n a hoss if I have to rope you an' tie you up. By golly, I will!"

His dry humor was gone and manifestly he meant what he said.

"Wal," she drawled it very softly and sweetly, but venomously, "if—you—ever—touch—me again!"

At this he flushed, then made a quick, passionate gesture with his hand, expressive of heat and shame.

"You an' me will never get along," he said, with a dignity full of pathos. "I seen thet a month back when you changed sudden-like to me. But nothin' I say to you has any reckonin' of mine. I'm talkin' for your sister. It's for her sake. An' your own.... I never told her an' I never told you thet I've seen Riggs sneakin' after you twice on them desert rides. Wal, I tell you now."

The intelligence apparently had not the slightest effect on Bo. But Helen was astonished and alarmed.

"Riggs! Oh, Bo, I've seen him myself—riding around. He does not mean well. You must be careful."

"If I ketch him again," went on Carmichael, with his mouth lining hard, "I'm goin' after him."

He gave her a cool, intent, piercing look, then he dropped his head and turned away, to stride back toward the corrals.

Helen could make little of the manner in which her sister watched the cowboy pass out of sight.

"A month back—when I changed sudden-like," mused Bo. "I wonder what he meant by that.... Nell, did I change—right after the talk you had with me—about him?"

"Indeed you did, Bo," replied Helen. "But it was for the better. Only he can't see it. How proud and sensitive he is! You wouldn't guess it at first. Bo, your reserve has wounded him more than your flirting. He thinks it's indifference."

"Maybe that 'll be good for him," declared Bo. "Does he expect me to fall on his neck? He's that thick-headed! Why, he's the locoed one, not me."

"I'd like to ask you, Bo, if you've seen how he has changed?" queried Helen, earnestly. "He's older. He's worried. Either his heart is breaking for you or else he fears trouble for us. I fear it's both. How he watches you! Bo, he knows all you do—where you go. That about Riggs sickens me."

"If Riggs follows me and tries any of his four-flush desperado games he'll have his hands full," said Bo, grimly. "And that without my cowboy protector! But I just wish Riggs would do something. Then we'll see what Las Vegas Tom Carmichael cares. Then we'll see!"

Bo bit out the last words passionately and jealously, then she lifted her bridle to the spirited mustang.

"Nell, don't you fear for me," she said. "I can take care of myself."

Helen watched her ride away, all but willing to confess that there might be truth in what Bo said. Then Helen went about her work, which consisted of routine duties as well as an earnest study to familiarize herself with continually new and complex conditions of ranch life. Every day brought new problems. She made notes of all that she observed, and all that was told her, which habit she had found, after a few weeks of trial, was going to be exceedingly valuable to her. She did not intend always to be dependent upon the knowledge of hired men, however faithful some of them might be.

This morning on her rounds she had expected developments of some kind, owing to the presence of Roy Beeman and two of his brothers, who had arrived yesterday. And she was to discover that Jeff Mulvey, accompanied by six of his co-workers and associates, had deserted her without a word or even sending for their pay. Carmichael had predicted this. Helen had half doubted. It was a relief now to be confronted with facts, however disturbing. She had fortified herself to withstand a great deal more trouble than had happened. At the gateway of the main corral, a huge inclosure fenced high with peeled logs, she met Roy Beeman, lasso in hand, the same tall, lean, limping figure she remembered so well. Sight of him gave her an inexplicable thrill—a flashing memory of an unforgettable night ride. Roy was to have charge of the horses on the ranch, of which there were several hundred, not counting many lost on range and mountain, or the unbranded colts.

Roy took off his sombrero and greeted her. This Mormon had a courtesy for women that spoke well for him. Helen wished she had more employees like him.

"It's jest as Las Vegas told us it 'd be," he said, regretfully. "Mulvey an' his pards lit out this mornin'. I'm sorry, Miss Helen. Reckon thet's all because I come over."

"I heard the news," replied Helen. "You needn't be sorry, Roy, for I'm not. I'm glad. I want to know whom I can trust."

"Las Vegas says we're shore in for it now."

"Roy, what do you think?"

"I reckon so. Still, Las Vegas is powerful cross these days an' always lookin' on the dark side. With us boys, now, it's sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. But, Miss Helen, if Beasley forces the deal there will be serious trouble. I've seen thet happen. Four or five years ago Beasley rode some greasers off their farms an' no one ever knowed if he had a just claim."

"Beasley has no claim on my property. My uncle solemnly swore that on his death-bed. And I find nothing in his books or papers of those years when he employed Beasley. In fact, Beasley was never uncle's partner. The truth is that my uncle took Beasley up when he was a poor, homeless boy."

"So my old dad says," replied Roy. "But what's right don't always prevail in these parts."

"Roy, you're the keenest man I've met since I came West. Tell me what you think will happen."

Beeman appeared flattered, but he hesitated to reply. Helen had long been aware of the reticence of these outdoor men.

"I reckon you mean cause an' effect, as Milt Dale would say," responded Roy, thoughtfully.

"Yes. If Beasley attempts to force me off my ranch what will happen?"

Roy looked up and met her gaze. Helen remembered that singular stillness, intentness of his face.

"Wal, if Dale an' John get here in time I reckon we can bluff thet Beasley outfit."

"You mean my friends—my men would confront Beasley—refuse his demands—and if necessary fight him off?"

"I shore do," replied Roy.

"But suppose you're not all here? Beasley would be smart enough to choose an opportune time. Suppose he did put me off and take possession? What then?"

"Then it 'd only be a matter of how soon Dale or Carmichael—or I—got to Beasley."

"Roy! I feared just that. It haunts me. Carmichael asked me to let him go pick a fight with Beasley. Asked me, just as he would ask me about his work! I was shocked. And now you say Dale—and you—"

Helen choked in her agitation.

"Miss Helen, what else could you look for? Las Vegas is in love with Miss Bo. Shore he told me so. An' Dale's in love with you!... Why, you couldn't stop them any more 'n you could stop the wind from blowin' down a pine, when it got ready.... Now, it's some different with me. I'm a Mormon an' I'm married. But I'm Dale's pard, these many years. An' I care a powerful sight for you an' Miss Bo. So I reckon I'd draw on Beasley the first chance I got."

Helen strove for utterance, but it was denied her. Roy's simple statement of Dale's love had magnified her emotion by completely changing its direction. She forgot what she had felt wretched about. She could not look at Roy.

"Miss Helen, don't feel bad," he said, kindly. "Shore you're not to blame. Your comin' West hasn't made any difference in Beasley's fate, except mebbe to hurry it a little. My dad is old, an' when he talks it's like history. He looks back on happenin's. Wal, it's the nature of happenin's that Beasley passes away before his prime. Them of his breed don't live old in the West.... So I reckon you needn't feel bad or worry. You've got friends."

Helen incoherently thanked him, and, forgetting her usual round of corrals and stables, she hurried back toward the house, deeply stirred, throbbing and dim-eyed, with a feeling she could not control. Roy Beeman had made a statement that had upset her equilibrium. It seemed simple and natural, yet momentous and staggering. To hear that Dale loved her—to hear it spoken frankly, earnestly, by Dale's best friend, was strange, sweet, terrifying. But was it true? Her own consciousness had admitted it. Yet that was vastly different from a man's open statement. No longer was it a dear dream, a secret that seemed hers alone. How she had lived on that secret hidden deep in her breast!

Something burned the dimness from her eyes as she looked toward the mountains and her sight became clear, telescopic with its intensity. Magnificently the mountains loomed. Black inroads and patches on the slopes showed where a few days back all bad been white. The snow was melting fast. Dale would soon be free to ride down to Pine. And that was an event Helen prayed for, yet feared as she had never feared anything.

The noonday dinner-bell startled Helen from a reverie that was a pleasant aftermath of her unrestraint. How the hours had flown! This morning at least must be credited to indolence.

Bo was not in the dining-room, nor in her own room, nor was she in sight from window or door. This absence had occurred before, but not particularly to disturb Helen. In this instance, however, she grew worried. Her nerves presaged strain. There was an overcharge of sensibility in her feelings or a strange pressure in the very atmosphere. She ate dinner alone, looking her apprehension, which was not mitigated by the expressive fears of old Maria, the Mexican woman who served her.

After dinner she sent word to Roy and Carmichael that they had better ride out to look for Bo. Then Helen applied herself resolutely to her books until a rapid clatter of hoofs out in the court caused her to jump up and hurry to the porch. Roy was riding in.

"Did you find her?" queried Helen, hurriedly.

"Wasn't no track or sign of her up the north range," replied Roy, as he dismounted and threw his bridle. "An' I was ridin' back to take up her tracks from the corral an' trail her. But I seen Las Vegas comin' an' he waved his sombrero. He was comin' up from the south. There he is now."

Carmichael appeared swinging into the lane. He was mounted on Helen's big black Ranger, and he made the dust fly.

"Wal, he's seen her, thet's shore," vouchsafed Roy, with relief, as Carmichael rode up.

"Miss Nell, she's comin'," said the cowboy, as he reined in and slid down with his graceful single motion. Then in a violent action, characteristic of him, he slammed his sombrero down on the porch and threw up both arms. "I've a hunch it's come off!"

"Oh, what?" exclaimed Helen.

"Now, Las Vegas, talk sense," expostulated Roy. "Miss Helen is shore nervous to-day. Has anythin' happened?"

"I reckon, but I don't know what," replied Carmichael, drawing a long breath. "Folks, I must be gettin' old. For I shore felt orful queer till I seen Bo. She was ridin' down the ridge across the valley. Ridin' some fast, too, an' she'll be here right off, if she doesn't stop in the village."

"Wal, I hear her comin' now," said Roy. "An'—if you asked me I'd say she WAS ridin' some fast."

Helen heard the light, swift, rhythmic beat of hoofs, and then out on the curve of the road that led down to Pine she saw Bo's mustang, white with lather, coming on a dead run.

"Las Vegas, do you see any Apaches?" asked Roy, quizzingly.

The cowboy made no reply, but he strode out from the porch, directly in front of the mustang. Bo was pulling hard on the bridle, and had him slowing down, but not controlled. When he reached the house it could easily be seen that Bo had pulled him to the limit of her strength, which was not enough to halt him. Carmichael lunged for the bridle and, seizing it, hauled him to a standstill.

At close sight of Bo Helen uttered a startled cry. Bo was white; her sombrero was gone and her hair undone; there were blood and dirt on her face, and her riding-suit was torn and muddy. She had evidently sustained a fall. Roy gazed at her in admiring consternation, but Carmichael never looked at her at all. Apparently he was examining the horse. "Well, help me off—somebody," cried Bo, peremptorily. Her voice was weak, but not her spirit.

Roy sprang to help her off, and when she was down it developed that she was lame.

"Oh, Bo! You've had a tumble," exclaimed Helen, anxiously, and she ran to assist Roy. They led her up the porch and to the door. There she turned to look at Carmichael, who was still examining the spent mustang.

"Tell him—to come in," she whispered.

"Hey, there, Las Vegas!" called Roy. "Rustle hyar, will you?"

When Bo had been led into the sitting-room and seated in a chair Carmichael entered. His face was a study, as slowly he walked up to Bo.

"Girl, you—ain't hurt?" he asked, huskily.

"It's no fault of yours that I'm not crippled—or dead or worse," retorted Bo. "You said the south range was the only safe ride for me. And there—I—it happened."

She panted a little and her bosom heaved. One of her gauntlets was gone, and the bare band, that was bruised and bloody, trembled as she held it out.

"Dear, tell us—are you badly hurt?" queried Helen, with hurried gentleness.

"Not much. I've had a spill," replied Bo. "But oh! I'm mad—I'm boiling!"

She looked as if she might have exaggerated her doubt of injuries, but certainly she had not overestimated her state of mind. Any blaze Helen had heretofore seen in those quick eyes was tame compared to this one. It actually leaped. Bo was more than pretty then. Manifestly Roy was admiring her looks, but Carmichael saw beyond her charm. And slowly he was growing pale.

"I rode out the south range—as I was told," began Bo, breathing hard and trying to control her feelings. "That's the ride you usually take, Nell, and you bet—if you'd taken it to-day—you'd not be here now.... About three miles out I climbed off the range up that cedar slope. I always keep to high ground. When I got up I saw two horsemen ride out of some broken rocks off to the east. They rode as if to come between me and home. I didn't like that. I circled south. About a mile farther on I spied another horseman and he showed up directly in front of me and came along slow. That I liked still less. It might have been accident, but it looked to me as if those riders had some intent. All I could do was head off to the southeast and ride. You bet I did ride. But I got into rough ground where I'd never been before. It was slow going. At last I made the cedars and here I cut loose, believing I could circle ahead of those strange riders and come round through Pine. I had it wrong."

Here she hesitated, perhaps for breath, for she had spoken rapidly, or perhaps to get better hold on her subject. Not improbably the effect she was creating on her listeners began to be significant. Roy sat absorbed, perfectly motionless, eyes keen as steel, his mouth open. Carmichael was gazing over Bo's head, out of the window, and it seemed that he must know the rest of her narrative. Helen knew that her own wide-eyed attention alone would have been all-compelling inspiration to Bo Rayner.

"Sure I had it wrong," resumed Bo. "Pretty soon heard a horse behind. I looked back. I saw a big bay riding down on me. Oh, but he was running! He just tore through the cedars. ... I was scared half out of my senses. But I spurred and beat my mustang. Then began a race! Rough going—thick cedars—washes and gullies I had to make him run—to keep my saddle—to pick my way. Oh-h-h! but it was glorious! To race for fun—that's one thing; to race for your life is another! My heart was in my mouth—choking me. I couldn't have yelled. I was as cold as ice—dizzy sometimes—blind others—then my stomach turned—and I couldn't get my breath. Yet the wild thrills I had!... But I stuck on and held my own for several miles—to the edge of the cedars. There the big horse gained on me. He came pounding closer—perhaps as close as a hundred yards—I could hear him plain enough. Then I had my spill. Oh, my mustang tripped—threw me 'way over his head. I hit light, but slid far—and that's what scraped me so. I know my knee is raw.... When I got to my feet the big horse dashed up, throwing gravel all over me—and his rider jumped off.... Now who do you think he was?"

Helen knew, but she did not voice her conviction. Carmichael knew positively, yet he kept silent. Roy was smiling, as if the narrative told did not seem so alarming to him.

"Wal, the fact of you bein' here, safe an' sound, sorta makes no difference who thet son-of-a-gun was," he said.

"Riggs! Harve Riggs!" blazed Bo. "The instant I recognized him I got over my scare. And so mad I burned all through like fire. I don't know what I said, but it was wild—and it was a whole lot, you bet.

"You sure can ride,' he said.

"I demanded why he had dared to chase me, and he said he had an important message for Nell. This was it: 'Tell your sister that Beasley means to put her off an' take the ranch. If she'll marry me I'll block his deal. If she won't marry me, I'll go in with Beasley.' Then he told me to hurry home and not to breathe a word to any one except Nell. Well, here I am—and I seem to have been breathing rather fast."

She looked from Helen to Roy and from Roy to Las Vegas. Her smile was for the latter, and to any one not overexcited by her story that smile would have told volumes.

"Wal, I'll be doggoned!" ejaculated Roy, feelingly.

Helen laughed.

"Indeed, the working of that man's mind is beyond me.... Marry him to save my ranch? I wouldn't marry him to save my life!"

Carmichael suddenly broke his silence.

"Bo, did you see the other men?"

"Yes. I was coming to that," she replied. "I caught a glimpse of them back in the cedars. The three were together, or, at least, three horsemen were there. They had halted behind some trees. Then on the way home I began to think. Even in my fury I had received impressions. Riggs was SURPRISED when I got up. I'll bet he had not expected me to be who I was. He thought I was NELL!... I look bigger in this buckskin outfit. My hair was up till I lost my hat, and that was when I had the tumble. He took me for Nell. Another thing, I remember—he made some sign—some motion while I was calling him names, and I believe that was to keep those other men back.... I believe Riggs had a plan with those other men to waylay Nell and make off with her. I absolutely know it."

"Bo, you're so—so—you jump at wild ideas so," protested Helen, trying to believe in her own assurance. But inwardly she was trembling.

"Miss Helen, that ain't a wild idee," said Roy, seriously. "I reckon your sister is pretty close on the trail. Las Vegas, don't you savvy it thet way?"

Carmichael's answer was to stalk out of the room.

"Call him back!" cried Helen, apprehensively.

"Hold on, boy!" called Roy, sharply.

Helen reached the door simultaneously with Roy. The cowboy picked up his sombrero, jammed it on his head, gave his belt a vicious hitch that made the gun-sheath jump, and then in one giant step he was astride Ranger.

"Carmichael! Stay!" cried Helen.

The cowboy spurred the black, and the stones rang under iron-shod hoofs.

"Bo! Call him back! Please call him back!" importuned Helen, in distress.

"I won't," declared Bo Rayner. Her face shone whiter now and her eyes were like fiery flint. That was her answer to a loving, gentle-hearted sister; that was her answer to the call of the West.

"No use," said Roy, quietly. "An' I reckon I'd better trail him up."

He, too, strode out and, mounting his horse, galloped swiftly away.

It turned out that Bo, was more bruised and scraped and shaken than she had imagined. One knee was rather badly cut, which injury alone would have kept her from riding again very soon. Helen, who was somewhat skilled at bandaging wounds, worried a great deal over these sundry blotches on Bo's fair skin, and it took considerable time to wash and dress them. Long after this was done, and during the early supper, and afterward, Bo's excitement remained unabated. The whiteness stayed on her face and the blaze in her eyes. Helen ordered and begged her to go to bed, for the fact was Bo could not stand up and her hands shook.

"Go to bed? Not much," she said. "I want to know what he does to Riggs."

It was that possibility which had Helen in dreadful suspense. If Carmichael killed Riggs, it seemed to Helen that the bottom would drop out of this structure of Western life she had begun to build so earnestly and fearfully. She did not believe that he would do so. But the uncertainty was torturing.

"Dear Bo," appealed Helen, "you don't want—Oh! you do want Carmichael to—to kill Riggs?"

"No, I don't, but I wouldn't care if he did," replied Bo, bluntly.

"Do you think—he will?"

"Nell, if that cowboy really loves me he read my mind right here before he left," declared Bo. "And he knew what I thought he'd do."

"And what's—that?" faltered Helen.

"I want him to round Riggs up down in the village—somewhere in a crowd. I want Riggs shown up as the coward, braggart, four-flush that he is. And insulted, slapped, kicked—driven out of Pine!"

Her passionate speech still rang throughout the room when there came footsteps on the porch. Helen hurried to raise the bar from the door and open it just as a tap sounded on the door-post. Roy's face stood white out of the darkness. His eyes were bright. And his smile made Helen's fearful query needless.

"How are you-all this evenin'?" he drawled, as he came in.

A fire blazed on the hearth and a lamp burned on the table. By their light Bo looked white and eager-eyed as she reclined in the big arm-chair.

"What 'd he do?" she asked, with all her amazing force.

"Wal, now, ain't you goin' to tell me how you are?"

"Roy, I'm all bunged up. I ought to be in bed, but I just couldn't sleep till I hear what Las Vegas did. I'd forgive anything except him getting drunk."

"Wal, I shore can ease your mind on thet," replied Roy. "He never drank a drop."

Roy was distractingly slow about beginning the tale any child could have guessed he was eager to tell. For once the hard, intent quietness, the soul of labor, pain, and endurance so plain in his face was softened by pleasurable emotion. He poked at the burning logs with the toe of his boot. Helen observed that he had changed his boots and now wore no spurs. Then he had gone to his quarters after whatever had happened down in Pine.

"Where IS he?" asked Bo.

"Who? Riggs? Wal, I don't know. But I reckon he's somewhere out in the woods nursin' himself."

"Not Riggs. First tell me where HE is."

"Shore, then, you must mean Las Vegas. I just left him down at the cabin. He was gettin' ready for bed, early as it is. All tired out he was an' thet white you wouldn't have knowed him. But he looked happy at thet, an' the last words he said, more to himself than to me, I reckon, was, 'I'm some locoed gent, but if she doesn't call me Tom now she's no good!'"

Bo actually clapped her hands, notwithstanding that one of them was bandaged.

"Call him Tom? I should smile I will," she declared, in delight. "Hurry now—what 'd—"

"It's shore powerful strange how he hates thet handle Las Vegas," went on Roy, imperturbably.

"Roy, tell me what he did—what TOM did—or I'll scream," cried Bo.

"Miss Helen, did you ever see the likes of thet girl?" asked Roy, appealing to Helen.

"No, Roy, I never did," agreed Helen. "But please—please tell us what has happened."

Roy grinned and rubbed his hands together in a dark delight, almost fiendish in its sudden revelation of a gulf of strange emotion deep within him. Whatever had happened to Riggs had not been too much for Roy Beeman. Helen remembered hearing her uncle say that a real Westerner hated nothing so hard as the swaggering desperado, the make-believe gunman who pretended to sail under the true, wild, and reckoning colors of the West.

Roy leaned his lithe, tall form against the stone mantelpiece and faced the girls.

"When I rode out after Las Vegas I seen him 'way down the road," began Roy, rapidly. "An' I seen another man ridin' down into Pine from the other side. Thet was Riggs, only I didn't know it then. Las Vegas rode up to the store, where some fellars was hangin' round, an' he spoke to them. When I come up they was all headin' for Turner's saloon. I seen a dozen hosses hitched to the rails. Las Vegas rode on. But I got off at Turner's an' went in with the bunch. Whatever it was Las Vegas said to them fellars, shore they didn't give him away. Pretty soon more men strolled into Turner's an' there got to be 'most twenty altogether, I reckon. Jeff Mulvey was there with his pards. They had been drinkin' sorta free. An' I didn't like the way Mulvey watched me. So I went out an' into the store, but kept a-lookin' for Las Vegas. He wasn't in sight. But I seen Riggs ridin' up. Now, Turner's is where Riggs hangs out an' does his braggin'. He looked powerful deep an' thoughtful, dismounted slow without seein' the unusual number of hosses there, an' then he slouches into Turner's. No more 'n a minute after Las Vegas rode down there like a streak. An' just as quick he was off an' through thet door."

Roy paused as if to gain force or to choose his words. His tale now appeared all directed to Bo, who gazed at him, spellbound, a fascinated listener.

"Before I got to Turner's door—an' thet was only a little ways—I heard Las Vegas yell. Did you ever hear him? Wal, he's got the wildest yell of any cow-puncher I ever beard. Quicklike I opened the door an' slipped in. There was Riggs an' Las Vegas alone in the center of the big saloon, with the crowd edgin' to the walls an' slidin' back of the bar. Riggs was whiter 'n a dead man. I didn't hear an' I don't know what Las Vegas yelled at him. But Riggs knew an' so did the gang. All of a sudden every man there shore seen in Las Vegas what Riggs had always bragged HE was. Thet time comes to every man like Riggs.

"'What 'd you call me?' he asked, his jaw shakin'.

"'I 'ain't called you yet,' answered Las Vegas. 'I just whooped.'

"'What d'ye want?'

"'You scared my girl.'

"'The hell ye say! Who's she?' blustered Riggs, an' he began to take quick looks 'round. But he never moved a hand. There was somethin' tight about the way he stood. Las Vegas had both arms half out, stretched as if he meant to leap. But he wasn't. I never seen Las Vegas do thet, but when I seen him then I understood it.

"'You know. An' you threatened her an' her sister. Go for your gun,' called Las Vegas, low an' sharp.

"Thet put the crowd right an' nobody moved. Riggs turned green then. I almost felt sorry for him. He began to shake so he'd dropped a gun if he had pulled one.

"'Hyar, you're off—some mistake—I 'ain't seen no gurls—I—'

"'Shut up an' draw!' yelled Las Vegas. His voice just pierced holes in the roof, an' it might have been a bullet from the way Riggs collapsed. Every man seen in a second more thet Riggs wouldn't an' couldn't draw. He was afraid for his life. He was not what he had claimed to be. I don't know if he had any friends there. But in the West good men an' bad men, all alike, have no use for Riggs's kind. An' thet stony quiet broke with haw—haw. It shore was as pitiful to see Riggs as it was fine to see Las Vegas.

"When he dropped his arms then I knowed there would be no gun-play. An' then Las Vegas got red in the face. He slapped Riggs with one hand, then with the other. An' he began to cuss him. I shore never knowed thet nice-spoken Las Vegas Carmichael could use such language. It was a stream of the baddest names known out here, an' lots I never heard of. Now an' then I caught somethin' like low-down an' sneak an' four-flush an' long-haired skunk, but for the most part they was just the cussedest kind of names. An' Las Vegas spouted them till he was black in the face, an' foamin' at the mouth, an' hoarser 'n a bawlin' cow.

"When he got out of breath from cussin' he punched Riggs all about the saloon, threw him outdoors, knocked him down an' kicked him till he got kickin' him down the road with the whole haw-hawed gang behind. An' he drove him out of town!"



CHAPTER XVIII

For two days Bo was confined to her bed, suffering considerable pain, and subject to fever, during which she talked irrationally. Some of this talk afforded Helen as vast an amusement as she was certain it would have lifted Tom Carmichael to a seventh heaven.

The third day, however, Bo was better, and, refusing to remain in bed, she hobbled to the sitting-room, where she divided her time between staring out of the window toward the corrals and pestering Helen with questions she tried to make appear casual. But Helen saw through her case and was in a state of glee. What she hoped most for was that Carmichael would suddenly develop a little less inclination for Bo. It was that kind of treatment the young lady needed. And now was the great opportunity. Helen almost felt tempted to give the cowboy a hint.

Neither this day, nor the next, however, did he put in an appearance at the house, though Helen saw him twice on her rounds. He was busy, as usual, and greeted her as if nothing particular had happened.

Roy called twice, once in the afternoon, and again during the evening. He grew more likable upon longer acquaintance. This last visit he rendered Bo speechless by teasing her about another girl Carmichael was going to take to a dance. Bo's face showed that her vanity could not believe this statement, but that her intelligence of young men credited it with being possible. Roy evidently was as penetrating as he was kind. He made a dry, casual little remark about the snow never melting on the mountains during the latter part of March; and the look with which he accompanied this remark brought a blush to Helen's cheek.

After Roy had departed Bo said to Helen: "Confound that fellow! He sees right through me."

"My dear, you're rather transparent these days," murmured Helen.

"You needn't talk. He gave you a dig," retorted Bo. "He just knows you're dying to see the snow melt."

"Gracious! I hope I'm not so bad as that. Of course I want the snow melted and spring to come, and flowers—"

"Hal Ha! Ha!" taunted Bo. "Nell Rayner, do you see any green in my eyes? Spring to come! Yes, the poet said in the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. But that poet meant a young woman."

Helen gazed out of the window at the white stars.

"Nell, have you seen him—since I was hurt?" continued Bo, with an effort.

"Him? Who?"

"Oh, whom do you suppose? I mean Tom!" she responded, and the last word came with a burst.

"Tom? Who's he? Ah, you mean Las Vegas. Yes, I've seen him."

"Well, did he ask a-about me?"

"I believe he did ask how you were—something like that."

"Humph! Nell, I don't always trust you." After that she relapsed into silence, read awhile, and dreamed awhile, looking into the fire, and then she limped over to kiss Helen good night and left the room.

Next day she was rather quiet, seeming upon the verge of one of the dispirited spells she got infrequently. Early in the evening, just after the lights had been lit and she had joined Helen in the sitting-room, a familiar step sounded on the loose boards of the porch.

Helen went to the door to admit Carmichael. He was clean-shaven, dressed in his dark suit, which presented such marked contrast from his riding-garb, and he wore a flower in his buttonhole. Nevertheless, despite all this style, he seemed more than usually the cool, easy, careless cowboy.

"Evenin', Miss Helen," he said, as he stalked in. "Evenin', Miss Bo. How are you-all?"

Helen returned his greeting with a welcoming smile.

"Good evening—TOM," said Bo, demurely.

That assuredly was the first time she had ever called him Tom. As she spoke she looked distractingly pretty and tantalizing. But if she had calculated to floor Carmichael with the initial, half-promising, wholly mocking use of his name she had reckoned without cause. The cowboy received that greeting as if he had heard her use it a thousand times or had not heard it at all. Helen decided if he was acting a part he was certainly a clever actor. He puzzled her somewhat, but she liked his look, and his easy manner, and the something about him that must have been his unconscious sense of pride. He had gone far enough, perhaps too far, in his overtures to Bo.

"How are you feelin'?" he asked.

"I'm better to-day," she replied, with downcast eyes. "But I'm lame yet."

"Reckon that bronc piled you up. Miss Helen said there shore wasn't any joke about the cut on your knee. Now, a fellar's knee is a bad place to hurt, if he has to keep on ridin'."

"Oh, I'll be well soon. How's Sam? I hope he wasn't crippled."

"Thet Sam—why, he's so tough he never knowed he had a fall."

"Tom—I—I want to thank you for giving Riggs what he deserved."

She spoke it earnestly, eloquently, and for once she had no sly little intonation or pert allurement, such as was her wont to use on this infatuated young man.

"Aw, you heard about that," replied Carmichael, with a wave of his hand to make light of it. "Nothin' much. It had to be done. An' shore I was afraid of Roy. He'd been bad. An' so would any of the other boys. I'm sorta lookin' out for all of them, you know, actin' as Miss Helen's foreman now."

Helen was unutterably tickled. The effect of his speech upon Bo was stupendous. He had disarmed her. He had, with the finesse and tact and suavity of a diplomat, removed himself from obligation, and the detachment of self, the casual thing be apparently made out of his magnificent championship, was bewildering and humiliating to Bo. She sat silent for a moment or two while Helen tried to fit easily into the conversation. It was not likely that Bo would long be at a loss for words, and also it was immensely probable that with a flash of her wonderful spirit she would turn the tables on her perverse lover in a twinkling. Anyway, plain it was that a lesson had sunk deep. She looked startled, hurt, wistful, and finally sweetly defiant.

"But—you told Riggs I was your girl!" Thus Bo unmasked her battery. And Helen could not imagine how Carmichael would ever resist that and the soft, arch glance which accompanied it.

Helen did not yet know the cowboy, any more than did Bo.

"Shore. I had to say thet. I had to make it strong before thet gang. I reckon it was presumin' of me, an' I shore apologize."

Bo stared at him, and then, giving a little gasp, she drooped.

"Wal, I just run in to say howdy an' to inquire after you-all," said Carmichael. "I'm goin' to the dance, an' as Flo lives out of town a ways I'd shore better rustle.... Good night, Miss Bo; I hope you'll be ridin' Sam soon. An' good night, Miss Helen."

Bo roused to a very friendly and laconic little speech, much overdone. Carmichael strode out, and Helen, bidding him good-by, closed the door after him.

The instant he had departed Bo's transformation was tragic.

"Flo! He meant Flo Stubbs—that ugly, cross-eyed, bold, little frump!"

"Bo!" expostulated Helen. "The young lady is not beautiful, I grant, but she's very nice and pleasant. I liked her."

"Nell Rayner, men are no good! And cowboys are the worst!" declared Bo, terribly.

"Why didn't you appreciate Tom when you had him?" asked Helen.

Bo had been growing furious, but now the allusion, in past tense, to the conquest she had suddenly and amazingly found dear quite broke her spirit. It was a very pale, unsteady, and miserable girl who avoided Helen's gaze and left the room.

Next day Bo was not approachable from any direction. Helen found her a victim to a multiplicity of moods, ranging from woe to dire, dark broodings, from them to' wistfulness, and at last to a pride that sustained her.

Late in the afternoon, at Helen's leisure hour, when she and Bo were in the sitting-room, horses tramped into the court and footsteps mounted the porch. Opening to a loud knock, Helen was surprised to see Beasley. And out in the court were several mounted horsemen. Helen's heart sank. This visit, indeed, had been foreshadowed.

"Afternoon, Miss Rayner," said Beasley, doffing his sombrero. "I've called on a little business deal. Will you see me?"

Helen acknowledged his greeting while she thought rapidly. She might just as well see him and have that inevitable interview done with.

"Come in," she said, and when he had entered she closed the door. "My sister, Mr. Beasley."

"How d' you do, Miss?" said the rancher, in bluff, loud voice.

Bo acknowledged the introduction with a frigid little bow.

At close range Beasley seemed a forceful personality as well as a rather handsome man of perhaps thirty-five, heavy of build, swarthy of skin, and sloe-black of eye, like that of the Mexicans whose blood was reported to be in him. He looked crafty, confident, and self-centered. If Helen had never heard of him before that visit she would have distrusted him.

"I'd called sooner, but I was waitin' for old Jose, the Mexican who herded for me when I was pardner to your uncle," said Beasley, and he sat down to put his huge gloved hands on his knees.

"Yes?" queried Helen, interrogatively.

"Jose rustled over from Magdalena, an' now I can back up my claim.... Miss Rayner, this hyar ranch ought to be mine an' is mine. It wasn't so big or so well stocked when Al Auchincloss beat me out of it. I reckon I'll allow for thet. I've papers, an' old Jose for witness. An' I calculate you'll pay me eighty thousand dollars, or else I'll take over the ranch."

Beasley spoke in an ordinary, matter-of-fact tone that certainly seemed sincere, and his manner was blunt, but perfectly natural.

"Mr. Beasley, your claim is no news to me," responded Helen, quietly. "I've heard about it. And I questioned my uncle. He swore on his death-bed that he did not owe you a dollar. Indeed, he claimed the indebtedness was yours to him. I could find nothing in his papers, so I must repudiate your claim. I will not take it seriously."

"Miss Rayner, I can't blame you for takin' Al's word against mine," said Beasley. "An' your stand is natural. But you're a stranger here an' you know nothin' of stock deals in these ranges. It ain't fair to speak bad of the dead, but the truth is thet Al Auchincloss got his start by stealin' sheep an' unbranded cattle. Thet was the start of every rancher I know. It was mine. An' we none of us ever thought of it as rustlin'."

Helen could only stare her surprise and doubt at this statement.

"Talk's cheap anywhere, an' in the West talk ain't much at all," continued Beasley. "I'm no talker. I jest want to tell my case an' make a deal if you'll have it. I can prove more in black an' white, an' with witness, than you can. Thet's my case. The deal I'd make is this.... Let's marry an' settle a bad deal thet way."

The man's direct assumption, absolutely without a qualifying consideration for her woman's attitude, was amazing, ignorant, and base; but Helen was so well prepared for it that she hid her disgust.

"Thank you, Mr. Beasley, but I can't accept your offer," she replied.

"Would you take time an' consider?" he asked, spreading wide his huge gloved hands.

"Absolutely no."

Beasley rose to his feet. He showed no disappointment or chagrin, but the bold pleasantness left his face, and, slight as that change was, it stripped him of the only redeeming quality he showed.

"Thet means I'll force you to pay me the eighty thousand or put you off," he said.

"Mr. Beasley, even if I owed you that, how could I raise so enormous a sum? I don't owe it. And I certainly won't be put off my property. You can't put me off."

"An' why can't I?" he demanded, with lowering, dark gaze.

"Because your claim is dishonest. And I can prove it," declared Helen, forcibly.

"Who 're you goin' to prove it to—thet I'm dishonest?"

"To my men—to your men—to the people of Pine—to everybody. There's not a person who won't believe me."

He seemed curious, discomfited, surlily annoyed, and yet fascinated by her statement or else by the quality and appearance of her as she spiritedly defended her cause.

"An' how 're you goin' to prove all thet?" he growled.

"Mr. Beasley, do you remember last fall when you met Snake Anson with his gang up in the woods—and hired him to make off with me?" asked Helen, in swift, ringing words.

The dark olive of Beasley's bold face shaded to a dirty white.

"Wha-at?" he jerked out, hoarsely.

"I see you remember. Well, Milt Dale was hidden in the loft of that cabin where you met Anson. He heard every word of your deal with the outlaw."

Beasley swung his arm in sudden violence, so hard that he flung his glove to the floor. As he stooped to snatch it up he uttered a sibilant hiss. Then, stalking to the door, he jerked it open, and slammed it behind him. His loud voice, hoarse with passion, preceded the scrape and crack of hoofs.

Shortly after supper that day, when Helen was just recovering her composure, Carmichael presented himself at the open door. Bo was not there. In the dimming twilight Helen saw that the cowboy was pale, somber, grim.

"Oh, what's happened?" cried Helen.

"Roy's been shot. It come off in Turner's saloon But he ain't dead. We packed him over to Widow Cass's. An' he said for me to tell you he'd pull through."

"Shot! Pull through!" repeated Helen, in slow, unrealizing exclamation. She was conscious of a deep internal tumult and a cold checking of blood in all her external body.

"Yes, shot," replied Carmichael, fiercely.

"An', whatever he says, I reckon he won't pull through."

"O Heaven, how terrible!" burst out Helen. "He was so good—such a man! What a pity! Oh, he must have met that in my behalf. Tell me, what happened? Who shot him?"

"Wal, I don't know. An' thet's what's made me hoppin' mad. I wasn't there when it come off. An' he won't tell me."

"Why not?"

"I don't know thet, either. I reckoned first it was because he wanted to get even. But, after thinkin' it over, I guess he doesn't want me lookin' up any one right now for fear I might get hurt. An' you're goin' to need your friends. Thet's all I can make of Roy."

Then Helen hurriedly related the event of Beasley's call on her that afternoon and all that had occurred.

"Wal, the half-breed son-of-a-greaser!" ejaculated Carmichael, in utter confoundment. "He wanted you to marry him!"

"He certainly did. I must say it was a—a rather abrupt proposal."

Carmichael appeared to be laboring with speech that had to be smothered behind his teeth. At last he let out an explosive breath.

"Miss Nell, I've shore felt in my bones thet I'm the boy slated to brand thet big bull."

"Oh, he must have shot Roy. He left here in a rage."

"I reckon you can coax it out of Roy. Fact is, all I could learn was thet Roy come in the saloon alone. Beasley was there, an' Riggs—"

"Riggs!" interrupted Helen.

"Shore, Riggs. He come back again. But he'd better keep out of my way.... An' Jeff Mulvey with his outfit. Turner told me he heard an argument an' then a shot. The gang cleared out, leavin' Roy on the floor. I come in a little later. Roy was still layin' there. Nobody was doin' anythin' for him. An' nobody had. I hold that against Turner. Wal, I got help an' packed Roy over to Widow Cass's. Roy seemed all right. But he was too bright an' talky to suit me. The bullet hit his lung, thet's shore. An' he lost a sight of blood before we stopped it. Thet skunk Turner might have lent a hand. An' if Roy croaks I reckon I'll—"

"Tom, why must you always be reckoning to kill somebody?" demanded Helen, angrily.

"'Cause somebody's got to be killed 'round here. Thet's why!" he snapped back.

"Even so—should you risk leaving Bo and me without a friend?" asked Helen, reproachfully.

At that Carmichael wavered and lost something of his sullen deadliness.

"Aw, Miss Nell, I'm only mad. If you'll just be patient with me—an' mebbe coax me.... But I can't see no other way out."

"Let's hope and pray," said Helen, earnestly. "You spoke of my coaxing Roy to tell who shot him. When can I see him?"

"To-morrow, I reckon. I'll come for you. Fetch Bo along with you. We've got to play safe from now on. An' what do you say to me an' Hal sleepin' here at the ranch-house?"

"Indeed I'd feel safer," she replied. "There are rooms. Please come."

"Allright. An' now I'll be goin' to fetch Hal. Shore wish I hadn't made you pale an' scared like this."

About ten o'clock next morning Carmichael drove Helen and Bo into Pine, and tied up the team before Widow Cass's cottage.

The peach and apple-trees were mingling blossoms of pink and white; a drowsy hum of bees filled the fragrant air; rich, dark-green alfalfa covered the small orchard flat; a wood fire sent up a lazy column of blue smoke; and birds were singing sweetly.

Helen could scarcely believe that amid all this tranquillity a man lay perhaps fatally injured. Assuredly Carmichael had been somber and reticent enough to rouse the gravest fears.

Widow Cass appeared on the little porch, a gray, bent, worn, but cheerful old woman whom Helen had come to know as her friend.

"My land! I'm thet glad to see you, Miss Helen," she said. "An' you've fetched the little lass as I've not got acquainted with yet."

"Good morning, Mrs. Cass. How—how is Roy?" replied Helen, anxiously scanning the wrinkled face.

"Roy? Now don't you look so scared. Roy's 'most ready to git on his hoss an' ride home, if I let him. He knowed you was a-comin'. An' he made me hold a lookin'-glass for him to shave. How's thet fer a man with a bullet-hole through him! You can't kill them Mormons, nohow."

She led them into a little sitting-room, where on a couch underneath a window Roy Beeman lay. He was wide awake and smiling, but haggard. He lay partly covered with a blanket. His gray shirt was open at the neck, disclosing bandages.

"Mornin'—girls," he drawled. "Shore is good of you, now, comin' down."

Helen stood beside him, bent over him, in her earnestness, as she greeted him. She saw a shade of pain in his eyes and his immobility struck her, but he did not seem badly off. Bo was pale, round-eyed, and apparently too agitated to speak. Carmichael placed chairs beside the couch for the girls.

"Wal, what's ailin' you this nice mornin'?" asked Roy, eyes on the cowboy.

"Huh! Would you expect me to be wearin' the smile of a fellar goin' to be married?" retorted Carmichael.