THE MAN OF THE FOREST

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

At sunset hour the forest was still, lonely, sweet with tang of fir and spruce, blazing in gold and red and green; and the man who glided on under the great trees seemed to blend with the colors and, disappearing, to have become a part of the wild woodland.

Old Baldy, highest of the White Mountains, stood up round and bare, rimmed bright gold in the last glow of the setting sun. Then, as the fire dropped behind the domed peak, a change, a cold and darkening blight, passed down the black spear-pointed slopes over all that mountain world.

It was a wild, richly timbered, and abundantly watered region of dark forests and grassy parks, ten thousand feet above sea-level, isolated on all sides by the southern Arizona desert—the virgin home of elk and deer, of bear and lion, of wolf and fox, and the birthplace as well as the hiding-place of the fierce Apache.

September in that latitude was marked by the sudden cool night breeze following shortly after sundown. Twilight appeared to come on its wings, as did faint sounds, not distinguishable before in the stillness.

Milt Dale, man of the forest, halted at the edge of a timbered ridge, to listen and to watch. Beneath him lay a narrow valley, open and grassy, from which rose a faint murmur of running water. Its music was pierced by the wild staccato yelp of a hunting coyote. From overhead in the giant fir came a twittering and rustling of grouse settling for the night; and from across the valley drifted the last low calls of wild turkeys going to roost.

To Dale's keen ear these sounds were all they should have been, betokening an unchanged serenity of forestland. He was glad, for he had expected to hear the clipclop of white men's horses—which to hear up in those fastnesses was hateful to him. He and the Indian were friends. That fierce foe had no enmity toward the lone hunter. But there hid somewhere in the forest a gang of bad men, sheep-thieves, whom Dale did not want to meet.

As he started out upon the slope, a sudden flaring of the afterglow of sunset flooded down from Old Baldy, filling the valley with lights and shadows, yellow and blue, like the radiance of the sky. The pools in the curves of the brook shone darkly bright. Dale's gaze swept up and down the valley, and then tried to pierce the black shadows across the brook where the wall of spruce stood up, its speared and spiked crest against the pale clouds. The wind began to moan in the trees and there was a feeling of rain in the air. Dale, striking a trail, turned his back to the fading afterglow and strode down the valley.

With night at hand and a rain-storm brewing, he did not head for his own camp, some miles distant, but directed his steps toward an old log cabin. When he reached it darkness had almost set in. He approached with caution. This cabin, like the few others scattered in the valleys, might harbor Indians or a bear or a panther. Nothing, however, appeared to be there. Then Dale studied the clouds driving across the sky, and he felt the cool dampness of a fine, misty rain on his face. It would rain off and on during the night. Whereupon he entered the cabin.

And the next moment he heard quick hoof-beats of trotting horses. Peering out, he saw dim, moving forms in the darkness, quite close at hand. They had approached against the wind so that sound had been deadened. Five horses with riders, Dale made out—saw them loom close. Then he heard rough voices. Quickly he turned to feel in the dark for a ladder he knew led to a loft; and finding it, he quickly mounted, taking care not to make a noise with his rifle, and lay down upon the floor of brush and poles. Scarcely had he done so when heavy steps, with accompaniment of clinking spurs, passed through the door below into the cabin.

“Wal, Beasley, are you here?” queried a loud voice.

There was no reply. The man below growled under his breath, and again the spurs jingled.

“Fellars, Beasley ain't here yet,” he called. “Put the hosses under the shed. We'll wait.”

“Wait, huh!” came a harsh reply. “Mebbe all night—an' we got nuthin' to eat.”

“Shut up, Moze. Reckon you're no good for anythin' but eatin'. Put them hosses away an' some of you rustle fire-wood in here.”

Low, muttered curses, then mingled with dull thuds of hoofs and strain of leather and heaves of tired horses.

Another shuffling, clinking footstep entered the cabin.

“Snake, it'd been sense to fetch a pack along,” drawled this newcomer.

“Reckon so, Jim. But we didn't, an' what's the use hollerin'? Beasley won't keep us waitin' long.”

Dale, lying still and prone, felt a slow start in all his blood—a thrilling wave. That deep-voiced man below was Snake Anson, the worst and most dangerous character of the region; and the others, undoubtedly, composed his gang, long notorious in that sparsely settled country. And the Beasley mentioned—he was one of the two biggest ranchers and sheep-raisers of the White Mountain ranges. What was the meaning of a rendezvous between Snake Anson and Beasley? Milt Dale answered that question to Beasley's discredit; and many strange matters pertaining to sheep and herders, always a mystery to the little village of Pine, now became as clear as daylight.

Other men entered the cabin.

“It ain't a-goin' to rain much,” said one. Then came a crash of wood thrown to the ground.

“Jim, hyar's a chunk of pine log, dry as punk,” said another.

Rustlings and slow footsteps, and then heavy thuds attested to the probability that Jim was knocking the end of a log upon the ground to split off a corner whereby a handful of dry splinters could be procured.

“Snake, lemme your pipe, an' I'll hev a fire in a jiffy.”

“Wal, I want my terbacco an' I ain't carin' about no fire,” replied Snake.

“Reckon you're the meanest cuss in these woods,” drawled Jim.

Sharp click of steel on flint—many times—and then a sound of hard blowing and sputtering told of Jim's efforts to start a fire. Presently the pitchy blackness of the cabin changed; there came a little crackling of wood and the rustle of flame, and then a steady growing roar.

As it chanced, Dale lay face down upon the floor of the loft, and right near his eyes there were cracks between the boughs. When the fire blazed up he was fairly well able to see the men below. The only one he had ever seen was Jim Wilson, who had been well known at Pine before Snake Anson had ever been heard of. Jim was the best of a bad lot, and he had friends among the honest people. It was rumored that he and Snake did not pull well together.

“Fire feels good,” said the burly Moze, who appeared as broad as he was black-visaged. “Fall's sure a-comin'... Now if only we had some grub!”

“Moze, there's a hunk of deer meat in my saddle-bag, an' if you git it you can have half,” spoke up another voice.

Moze shuffled out with alacrity.

In the firelight Snake Anson's face looked lean and serpent-like, his eyes glittered, and his long neck and all of his long length carried out the analogy of his name.

“Snake, what's this here deal with Beasley?” inquired Jim.

“Reckon you'll l'arn when I do,” replied the leader. He appeared tired and thoughtful.

“Ain't we done away with enough of them poor greaser herders—for nothin'?” queried the youngest of the gang, a boy in years, whose hard, bitter lips and hungry eyes somehow set him apart from his comrades.

“You're dead right, Burt—an' that's my stand,” replied the man who had sent Moze out. “Snake, snow 'll be flyin' round these woods before long,” said Jim Wilson. “Are we goin' to winter down in the Tonto Basin or over on the Gila?”

“Reckon we'll do some tall ridin' before we strike south,” replied Snake, gruffly.

At the juncture Moze returned.

“Boss, I heerd a hoss comin' up the trail,” he said.

Snake rose and stood at the door, listening. Outside the wind moaned fitfully and scattering raindrops pattered upon the cabin.

“A-huh!” exclaimed Snake, in relief.

Silence ensued then for a moment, at the end of which interval Dale heard a rapid clip-clop on the rocky trail outside. The men below shuffled uneasily, but none of them spoke. The fire cracked cheerily. Snake Anson stepped back from before the door with an action that expressed both doubt and caution.

The trotting horse had halted out there somewhere.

“Ho there, inside!” called a voice from the darkness.

“Ho yourself!” replied Anson.

“That you, Snake?” quickly followed the query.

“Reckon so,” returned Anson, showing himself.

The newcomer entered. He was a large man, wearing a slicker that shone wet in the firelight. His sombrero, pulled well down, shadowed his face, so that the upper half of his features might as well have been masked. He had a black, drooping mustache, and a chin like a rock. A potential force, matured and powerful, seemed to be wrapped in his movements.

“Hullo, Snake! Hullo, Wilson!” he said. “I've backed out on the other deal. Sent for you on—on another little matter... particular private.”

Here he indicated with a significant gesture that Snake's men were to leave the cabin.

“A-huh! ejaculated Anson, dubiously. Then he turned abruptly. Moze, you an' Shady an' Burt go wait outside. Reckon this ain't the deal I expected.... An' you can saddle the hosses.”

The three members of the gang filed out, all glancing keenly at the stranger, who had moved back into the shadow.

“All right now, Beasley,” said Anson, low-voiced. “What's your game? Jim, here, is in on my deals.”

Then Beasley came forward to the fire, stretching his hands to the blaze.

“Nothin' to do with sheep,” replied he.

“Wal, I reckoned not,” assented the other. “An' say—whatever your game is, I ain't likin' the way you kept me waitin' an' ridin' around. We waited near all day at Big Spring. Then thet greaser rode up an' sent us here. We're a long way from camp with no grub an' no blankets.”

“I won't keep you long,” said Beasley. “But even if I did you'd not mind—when I tell you this deal concerns Al Auchincloss—the man who made an outlaw of you!”

Anson's sudden action then seemed a leap of his whole frame. Wilson, likewise, bent forward eagerly. Beasley glanced at the door—then began to whisper.

“Old Auchincloss is on his last legs. He's goin' to croak. He's sent back to Missouri for a niece—a young girl—an' he means to leave his ranches an' sheep—all his stock to her. Seems he has no one else.... Them ranches—an' all them sheep an' hosses! You know me an' Al were pardners in sheep-raisin' for years. He swore I cheated him an' he threw me out. An' all these years I've been swearin' he did me dirt—owed me sheep an' money. I've got as many friends in Pine—an' all the way down the trail—as Auchincloss has.... An' Snake, see here—”

He paused to draw a deep breath and his big hands trembled over the blaze. Anson leaned forward, like a serpent ready to strike, and Jim Wilson was as tense with his divination of the plot at hand.

“See here,” panted Beasley. “The girl's due to arrive at Magdalena on the sixteenth. That's a week from to-morrow. She'll take the stage to Snowdrop, where some of Auchincloss's men will meet her with a team.”

“A-huh!” grunted Anson as Beasley halted again. “An' what of all thet?”

“She mustn't never get as far as Snowdrop!”

“You want me to hold up the stage—an' get the girl?”

“Exactly.”

“Wal—an' what then?”

“Make off with her.... She disappears. That's your affair. ... I'll press my claims on Auchincloss—hound him—an' be ready when he croaks to take over his property. Then the girl can come back, for all I care.... You an' Wilson fix up the deal between you. If you have to let the gang in on it don't give them any hunch as to who an' what. This 'll make you a rich stake. An' providin', when it's paid, you strike for new territory.”

“Thet might be wise,” muttered Snake Anson. “Beasley, the weak point in your game is the uncertainty of life. Old Al is tough. He may fool you.”

“Auchincloss is a dyin' man,” declared Beasley, with such positiveness that it could not be doubted.

“Wal, he sure wasn't plumb hearty when I last seen him.... Beasley, in case I play your game—how'm I to know that girl?”

“Her name's Helen Rayner,” replied Beasley, eagerly. “She's twenty years old. All of them Auchinclosses was handsome an' they say she's the handsomest.”

“A-huh!... Beasley, this 's sure a bigger deal—an' one I ain't fancyin'.... But I never doubted your word.... Come on—an' talk out. What's in it for me?”

“Don't let any one in on this. You two can hold up the stage. Why, it was never held up.... But you want to mask.... How about ten thousand sheep—or what they bring at Phenix in gold?”

Jim Wilson whistled low.

“An' leave for new territory?” repeated Snake Anson, under his breath.

“You've said it.”

“Wal, I ain't fancyin' the girl end of this deal, but you can count on me.... September sixteenth at Magdalena—an' her name's Helen—an' she's handsome?”

“Yes. My herders will begin drivin' south in about two weeks. Later, if the weather holds good, send me word by one of them an' I'll meet you.”

Beasley spread his hands once more over the blaze, pulled on his gloves and pulled down his sombrero, and with an abrupt word of parting strode out into the night.

“Jim, what do you make of him?” queried Snake Anson.

“Pard, he's got us beat two ways for Sunday,” replied Wilson.

“A-huh!... Wal, let's get back to camp.” And he led the way out.

Low voices drifted into the cabin, then came snorts of horses and striking hoofs, and after that a steady trot, gradually ceasing. Once more the moan of wind and soft patter of rain filled the forest stillness.

He was thirty years old. As a boy of fourteen he had run off from his school and home in Iowa and, joining a wagon-train of pioneers, he was one of the first to see log cabins built on the slopes of the White Mountains. But he had not taken kindly to farming or sheep-raising or monotonous home toil, and for twelve years he had lived in the forest, with only infrequent visits to Pine and Show Down and Snowdrop. This wandering forest life of his did not indicate that he did not care for the villagers, for he did care, and he was welcome everywhere, but that he loved wild life and solitude and beauty with the primitive instinctive force of a savage.

And on this night he had stumbled upon a dark plot against the only one of all the honest white people in that region whom he could not call a friend.

“That man Beasley!” he soliloquized. “Beasley—in cahoots with Snake Anson!... Well, he was right. Al Auchincloss is on his last legs. Poor old man! When I tell him he'll never believe ME, that's sure!”

Discovery of the plot meant to Dale that he must hurry down to Pine.

“A girl—Helen Rayner—twenty years old,” he mused. “Beasley wants her made off with.... That means—worse than killed!”

Dale accepted facts of life with that equanimity and fatality acquired by one long versed in the cruel annals of forest lore. Bad men worked their evil just as savage wolves relayed a deer. He had shot wolves for that trick. With men, good or bad, he had not clashed. Old women and children appealed to him, but he had never had any interest in girls. The image, then, of this Helen Rayner came strangely to Dale; and he suddenly realized that he had meant somehow to circumvent Beasley, not to befriend old Al Auchincloss, but for the sake of the girl. Probably she was already on her way West, alone, eager, hopeful of a future home. How little people guessed what awaited them at a journey's end! Many trails ended abruptly in the forest—and only trained woodsmen could read the tragedy.

“Strange how I cut across country to-day from Spruce Swamp,” reflected Dale. Circumstances, movements, usually were not strange to him. His methods and habits were seldom changed by chance. The matter, then, of his turning off a course out of his way for no apparent reason, and of his having overheard a plot singularly involving a young girl, was indeed an adventure to provoke thought. It provoked more, for Dale grew conscious of an unfamiliar smoldering heat along his veins. He who had little to do with the strife of men, and nothing to do with anger, felt his blood grow hot at the cowardly trap laid for an innocent girl.

“Old Al won't listen to me,” pondered Dale. “An' even if he did, he wouldn't believe me. Maybe nobody will.... All the same, Snake Anson won't get that girl.”

With these last words Dale satisfied himself of his own position, and his pondering ceased. Taking his rifle, he descended from the loft and peered out of the door. The night had grown darker, windier, cooler; broken clouds were scudding across the sky; only a few stars showed; fine rain was blowing from the northwest; and the forest seemed full of a low, dull roar.

“Reckon I'd better hang up here,” he said, and turned to the fire. The coals were red now. From the depths of his hunting-coat he procured a little bag of salt and some strips of dried meat. These strips he laid for a moment on the hot embers, until they began to sizzle and curl; then with a sharpened stick he removed them and ate like a hungry hunter grateful for little.

He sat on a block of wood with his palms spread to the dying warmth of the fire and his eyes fixed upon the changing, glowing, golden embers. Outside, the wind continued to rise and the moan of the forest increased to a roar. Dale felt the comfortable warmth stealing over him, drowsily lulling; and he heard the storm-wind in the trees, now like a waterfall, and anon like a retreating army, and again low and sad; and he saw pictures in the glowing embers, strange as dreams.

Presently he rose and, climbing to the loft, he stretched himself out, and soon fell asleep.

When the gray dawn broke he was on his way, 'cross-country, to the village of Pine.

During the night the wind had shifted and the rain had ceased. A suspicion of frost shone on the grass in open places. All was gray—the parks, the glades—and deeper, darker gray marked the aisles of the forest. Shadows lurked under the trees and the silence seemed consistent with spectral forms. Then the east kindled, the gray lightened, the dreaming woodland awoke to the far-reaching rays of a bursting red sun.

This was always the happiest moment of Dale's lonely days, as sunset was his saddest. He responded, and there was something in his blood that answered the whistle of a stag from a near-by ridge. His strides were long, noiseless, and they left dark trace where his feet brushed the dew-laden grass.

Dale pursued a zigzag course over the ridges to escape the hardest climbing, but the “senacas”—those parklike meadows so named by Mexican sheep-herders—were as round and level as if they had been made by man in beautiful contrast to the dark-green, rough, and rugged ridges. Both open senaca and dense wooded ridge showed to his quick eye an abundance of game. The cracking of twigs and disappearing flash of gray among the spruces, a round black lumbering object, a twittering in the brush, and stealthy steps, were all easy signs for Dale to read. Once, as he noiselessly emerged into a little glade, he espied a red fox stalking some quarry, which, as he advanced, proved to be a flock of partridges. They whirred up, brushing the branches, and the fox trotted away. In every senaca Dale encountered wild turkeys feeding on the seeds of the high grass.

It had always been his custom, on his visits to Pine, to kill and pack fresh meat down to several old friends, who were glad to give him lodging. And, hurried though he was now, he did not intend to make an exception of this trip.

At length he got down into the pine belt, where the great, gnarled, yellow trees soared aloft, stately, and aloof from one another, and the ground was a brown, odorous, springy mat of pine-needles, level as a floor. Squirrels watched him from all around, scurrying away at his near approach—tiny, brown, light-striped squirrels, and larger ones, russet-colored, and the splendid dark-grays with their white bushy tails and plumed ears.

This belt of pine ended abruptly upon wide, gray, rolling, open land, almost like a prairie, with foot-hills lifting near and far, and the red-gold blaze of aspen thickets catching the morning sun. Here Dale flushed a flock of wild turkeys, upward of forty in number, and their subdued color of gray flecked with white, and graceful, sleek build, showed them to be hens. There was not a gobbler in the flock. They began to run pell-mell out into the grass, until only their heads appeared bobbing along, and finally disappeared. Dale caught a glimpse of skulking coyotes that evidently had been stalking the turkeys, and as they saw him and darted into the timber he took a quick shot at the hindmost. His bullet struck low, as he had meant it to, but too low, and the coyote got only a dusting of earth and pine-needles thrown up into his face. This frightened him so that he leaped aside blindly to butt into a tree, rolled over, gained his feet, and then the cover of the forest. Dale was amused at this. His hand was against all the predatory beasts of the forest, though he had learned that lion and bear and wolf and fox were all as necessary to the great scheme of nature as were the gentle, beautiful wild creatures upon which they preyed. But some he loved better than others, and so he deplored the inexplicable cruelty.

He crossed the wide, grassy plain and struck another gradual descent where aspens and pines crowded a shallow ravine and warm, sun-lighted glades bordered along a sparkling brook. Here he heard a turkey gobble, and that was a signal for him to change his course and make a crouching, silent detour around a clump of aspens. In a sunny patch of grass a dozen or more big gobblers stood, all suspiciously facing in his direction, heads erect, with that wild aspect peculiar to their species. Old wild turkey gobblers were the most difficult game to stalk. Dale shot two of them. The others began to run like ostriches, thudding over the ground, spreading their wings, and with that running start launched their heavy bodies into whirring flight. They flew low, at about the height of a man from the grass, and vanished in the woods.

Dale threw the two turkeys over his shoulder and went on his way. Soon he came to a break in the forest level, from which he gazed down a league-long slope of pine and cedar, out upon the bare, glistening desert, stretching away, endlessly rolling out to the dim, dark horizon line.

The little hamlet of Pine lay on the last level of sparsely timbered forest. A road, running parallel with a dark-watered, swift-flowing stream, divided the cluster of log cabins from which columns of blue smoke drifted lazily aloft. Fields of corn and fields of oats, yellow in the sunlight, surrounded the village; and green pastures, dotted with horses and cattle, reached away to the denser woodland. This site appeared to be a natural clearing, for there was no evidence of cut timber. The scene was rather too wild to be pastoral, but it was serene, tranquil, giving the impression of a remote community, prosperous and happy, drifting along the peaceful tenor of sequestered lives.

Dale halted before a neat little log cabin and a little patch of garden bordered with sunflowers. His call was answered by an old woman, gray and bent, but remarkably spry, who appeared at the door.

“Why, land's sakes, if it ain't Milt Dale!” she exclaimed, in welcome.

“Reckon it's me, Mrs. Cass,” he replied. “An' I've brought you a turkey.”

“Milt, you're that good boy who never forgits old Widow Cass.... What a gobbler! First one I've seen this fall. My man Tom used to fetch home gobblers like that.... An' mebbe he'll come home again sometime.”

Her husband, Tom Cass, had gone into the forest years before and had never returned. But the old woman always looked for him and never gave up hope.

“Men have been lost in the forest an' yet come back,” replied Dale, as he had said to her many a time.

“Come right in. You air hungry, I know. Now, son, when last did you eat a fresh egg or a flapjack?”

“You should remember,” he answered, laughing, as he followed her into a small, clean kitchen.

“Laws-a'-me! An' thet's months ago,” she replied, shaking her gray head. “Milt, you should give up that wild life—an' marry—an' have a home.”

“You always tell me that.”

“Yes, an' I'll see you do it yet.... Now you set there, an' pretty soon I'll give you thet to eat which 'll make your mouth water.”

“What's the news, Auntie?” he asked.

“Nary news in this dead place. Why, nobody's been to Snowdrop in two weeks!... Sary Jones died, poor old soul—she's better off—an' one of my cows run away. Milt, she's wild when she gits loose in the woods. An' you'll have to track her, 'cause nobody else can. An' John Dakker's heifer was killed by a lion, an' Lem Harden's fast hoss—you know his favorite—was stole by hoss-thieves. Lem is jest crazy. An' that reminds me, Milt, where's your big ranger, thet you'd never sell or lend?”

“My horses are up in the woods, Auntie; safe, I reckon, from horse-thieves.”

“Well, that's a blessin'. We've had some stock stole this summer, Milt, an' no mistake.”

Thus, while preparing a meal for Dale, the old woman went on recounting all that had happened in the little village since his last visit. Dale enjoyed her gossip and quaint philosophy, and it was exceedingly good to sit at her table. In his opinion, nowhere else could there have been such butter and cream, such ham and eggs. Besides, she always had apple pie, it seemed, at any time he happened in; and apple pie was one of Dale's few regrets while up in the lonely forest.

“How's old Al Auchincloss?” presently inquired Dale.

“Poorly—poorly,” sighed Mrs. Cass. “But he tramps an' rides around same as ever. Al's not long for this world.... An', Milt, that reminds me—there's the biggest news you ever heard.”

“You don't say so!” exclaimed Dale, to encourage the excited old woman.

“Al has sent back to Saint Joe for his niece, Helen Rayner. She's to inherit all his property. We've heard much of her—a purty lass, they say.... Now, Milt Dale, here's your chance. Stay out of the woods an' go to work.... You can marry that girl!”

“No chance for me, Auntie,” replied Dale, smiling.

The old woman snorted. “Much you know! Any girl would have you, Milt Dale, if you'd only throw a kerchief.”

“Me!... An' why, Auntie?” he queried, half amused, half thoughtful. When he got back to civilization he always had to adjust his thoughts to the ideas of people.

“Why? I declare, Milt, you live so in the woods you're like a boy of ten—an' then sometimes as old as the hills.... There's no young man to compare with you, hereabouts. An' this girl—she'll have all the spunk of the Auchinclosses.”

“Then maybe she'd not be such a catch, after all,” replied Dale.

“Wal, you've no cause to love them, that's sure. But, Milt, the Auchincloss women are always good wives.”

“Dear Auntie, you're dreamin',” said Dale, soberly. “I want no wife. I'm happy in the woods.”

“Air you goin' to live like an Injun all your days, Milt Dale?” she queried, sharply.

“I hope so.”

“You ought to be ashamed. But some lass will change you, boy, an' mebbe it'll be this Helen Rayner. I hope an' pray so to thet.”

“Auntie, supposin' she did change me. She'd never change old Al. He hates me, you know.”

“Wal, I ain't so sure, Milt. I met Al the other day. He inquired for you, an' said you was wild, but he reckoned men like you was good for pioneer settlements. Lord knows the good turns you've done this village! Milt, old Al doesn't approve of your wild life, but he never had no hard feelin's till thet tame lion of yours killed so many of his sheep.”

“Auntie, I don't believe Tom ever killed Al's sheep,” declared Dale, positively.

“Wal, Al thinks so, an' many other people,” replied Mrs. Cass, shaking her gray head doubtfully. “You never swore he didn't. An' there was them two sheep-herders who did swear they seen him.”

“They only saw a cougar. An' they were so scared they ran.”

“Who wouldn't? Thet big beast is enough to scare any one. For land's sakes, don't ever fetch him down here again! I'll never forgit the time you did. All the folks an' children an' hosses in Pine broke an' run thet day.”

“Yes; but Tom wasn't to blame. Auntie, he's the tamest of my pets. Didn't he try to put his head on your lap an' lick your hand?”

“Wal, Milt, I ain't gainsayin' your cougar pet didn't act better 'n a lot of people I know. Fer he did. But the looks of him an' what's been said was enough for me.”

“An' what's all that, Auntie?”

“They say he's wild when out of your sight. An' thet he'd trail an' kill anythin' you put him after.”

“I trained him to be just that way.”

“Wal, leave Tom to home up in the woods—when you visit us.”

Dale finished his hearty meal, and listened awhile longer to the old woman's talk; then, taking his rifle and the other turkey, he bade her good-by. She followed him out.

“Now, Milt, you'll come soon again, won't you—jest to see Al's niece—who'll be here in a week?”

“I reckon I'll drop in some day.... Auntie, have you seen my friends, the Mormon boys?”

“No, I 'ain't seen them an' don't want to,” she retorted. “Milt Dale, if any one ever corrals you it'll be Mormons.”

“Don't worry, Auntie. I like those boys. They often see me up in the woods an' ask me to help them track a hoss or help kill some fresh meat.”

“They're workin' for Beasley now.”

“Is that so?” rejoined Dale, with a sudden start. “An' what doin'?”

“Beasley is gettin' so rich he's buildin' a fence, an' didn't have enough help, so I hear.”

“Beasley gettin' rich!” repeated Dale, thoughtfully. “More sheep an' horses an' cattle than ever, I reckon?”

“Laws-a'-me! Why, Milt, Beasley 'ain't any idea what he owns. Yes, he's the biggest man in these parts, since poor old Al's took to failin'. I reckon Al's health ain't none improved by Beasley's success. They've bad some bitter quarrels lately—so I hear. Al ain't what he was.”

Dale bade good-by again to his old friend and strode away, thoughtful and serious. Beasley would not only be difficult to circumvent, but he would be dangerous to oppose. There did not appear much doubt of his driving his way rough-shod to the dominance of affairs there in Pine. Dale, passing down the road, began to meet acquaintances who had hearty welcome for his presence and interest in his doings, so that his pondering was interrupted for the time being. He carried the turkey to another old friend, and when he left her house he went on to the village store. This was a large log cabin, roughly covered with clapboards, with a wide plank platform in front and a hitching-rail in the road. Several horses were standing there, and a group of lazy, shirt-sleeved loungers.

“I'll be doggoned if it ain't Milt Dale!” exclaimed one.

“Howdy, Milt, old buckskin! Right down glad to see you,” greeted another.

“Hello, Dale! You air shore good for sore eyes,” drawled still another.

After a long period of absence Dale always experienced a singular warmth of feeling when he met these acquaintances. It faded quickly when he got back to the intimacy of his woodland, and that was because the people of Pine, with few exceptions—though they liked him and greatly admired his outdoor wisdom—regarded him as a sort of nonentity. Because he loved the wild and preferred it to village and range life, they had classed him as not one of them. Some believed him lazy; others believed him shiftless; others thought him an Indian in mind and habits; and there were many who called him slow-witted. Then there was another side to their regard for him, which always afforded him good-natured amusement. Two of this group asked him to bring in some turkey or venison; another wanted to hunt with him. Lem Harden came out of the store and appealed to Dale to recover his stolen horse. Lem's brother wanted a wild-running mare tracked and brought home. Jesse Lyons wanted a colt broken, and broken with patience, not violence, as was the method of the hard-riding boys at Pine. So one and all they besieged Dale with their selfish needs, all unconscious of the flattering nature of these overtures. And on the moment there happened by two women whose remarks, as they entered the store, bore strong testimony to Dale's personality.

“If there ain't Milt Dale!” exclaimed the older of the two. “How lucky! My cow's sick, an' the men are no good doctorin'. I'll jest ask Milt over.”

“No one like Milt!” responded the other woman, heartily.

“Good day there—you Milt Dale!” called the first speaker. “When you git away from these lazy men come over.”

Dale never refused a service, and that was why his infrequent visits to Pine were wont to be prolonged beyond his own pleasure.

Presently Beasley strode down the street, and when about to enter the store he espied Dale.

“Hullo there, Milt!” he called, cordially, as he came forward with extended hand. His greeting was sincere, but the lightning glance he shot over Dale was not born of his pleasure. Seen in daylight, Beasley was a big, bold, bluff man, with strong, dark features. His aggressive presence suggested that he was a good friend and a bad enemy.

Dale shook hands with him.

“How are you, Beasley?”

“Ain't complainin', Milt, though I got more work than I can rustle. Reckon you wouldn't take a job bossin' my sheep-herders?”

“Reckon I wouldn't,” replied Dale. “Thanks all the same.”

“What's goin' on up in the woods?”

“Plenty of turkey an' deer. Lots of bear, too. The Indians have worked back on the south side early this fall. But I reckon winter will come late an' be mild.”

“Good! An' where 're you headin' from?”

“'Cross-country from my camp,” replied Dale, rather evasively.

“Your camp! Nobody ever found that yet,” declared Beasley, gruffly.

“It's up there,” said Dale.

“Reckon you've got that cougar chained in your cabin door?” queried Beasley, and there was a barely distinguishable shudder of his muscular frame. Also the pupils dilated in his hard brown eyes.

“Tom ain't chained. An' I haven't no cabin, Beasley.”

“You mean to tell me that big brute stays in your camp without bein' hog-tied or corralled!” demanded Beasley.

“Sure he does.”

“Beats me! But, then, I'm queer on cougars. Have had many a cougar trail me at night. Ain't sayin' I was scared. But I don't care for that brand of varmint.... Milt, you goin' to stay down awhile?”

“Yes, I'll hang around some.”

“Come over to the ranch. Glad to see you any time. Some old huntin' pards of yours are workin' for me.”

“Thanks, Beasley. I reckon I'll come over.”

Beasley turned away and took a step, and then, as if with an after-thought, he wheeled again.

“Suppose you've heard about old Al Auchincloss bein' near petered out?” queried Beasley. A strong, ponderous cast of thought seemed to emanate from his features. Dale divined that Beasley's next step would be to further his advancement by some word or hint.

“Widow Cass was tellin' me all the news. Too bad about old Al,” replied Dale.

“Sure is. He's done for. An' I'm sorry—though Al's never been square—”

“Beasley,” interrupted Dale, quickly, “you can't say that to me. Al Auchincloss always was the whitest an' squarest man in this sheep country.”

Beasley gave Dale a fleeting, dark glance.

“Dale, what you think ain't goin' to influence feelin' on this range,” returned Beasley, deliberately. “You live in the woods an'—”

“Reckon livin' in the woods I might think—an' know a whole lot,” interposed Dale, just as deliberately. The group of men exchanged surprised glances. This was Milt Dale in different aspect. And Beasley did not conceal a puzzled surprise.

“About what—now?” he asked, bluntly.

“Why, about what's goin' on in Pine,” replied Dale.

Some of the men laughed.

“Shore lots goin' on—an' no mistake,” put in Lem Harden.

Probably the keen Beasley had never before considered Milt Dale as a responsible person; certainly never one in any way to cross his trail. But on the instant, perhaps, some instinct was born, or he divined an antagonism in Dale that was both surprising and perplexing.

“Dale, I've differences with Al Auchincloss—have had them for years,” said Beasley. “Much of what he owns is mine. An' it's goin' to come to me. Now I reckon people will be takin' sides—some for me an' some for Al. Most are for me.... Where do you stand? Al Auchincloss never had no use for you, an' besides he's a dyin' man. Are you goin' on his side?”

“Yes, I reckon I am.”

“Wal, I'm glad you've declared yourself,” rejoined Beasley, shortly, and he strode away with the ponderous gait of a man who would brush any obstacle from his path.

“Milt, thet's bad—makin' Beasley sore at you,” said Lem Harden. “He's on the way to boss this outfit.”

“He's sure goin' to step into Al's boots,” said another.

“Thet was white of Milt to stick up fer poor old Al,” declared Lem's brother.

Dale broke away from them and wended a thoughtful way down the road. The burden of what he knew about Beasley weighed less heavily upon him, and the close-lipped course he had decided upon appeared wisest. He needed to think before undertaking to call upon old Al Auchincloss; and to that end he sought an hour's seclusion under the pines.

In the afternoon, Dale, having accomplished some tasks imposed upon him by his old friends at Pine, directed slow steps toward the Auchincloss ranch.

The flat, square stone and log cabin of unusually large size stood upon a little hill half a mile out of the village. A home as well as a fort, it had been the first structure erected in that region, and the process of building had more than once been interrupted by Indian attacks. The Apaches had for some time, however, confined their fierce raids to points south of the White Mountain range. Auchincloss's house looked down upon barns and sheds and corrals of all sizes and shapes, and hundreds of acres of well-cultivated soil. Fields of oats waved gray and yellow in the afternoon sun; an immense green pasture was divided by a willow-bordered brook, and here were droves of horses, and out on the rolling bare flats were straggling herds of cattle.

The whole ranch showed many years of toil and the perseverance of man. The brook irrigated the verdant valley between the ranch and the village. Water for the house, however, came down from the high, wooded slope of the mountain, and had been brought there by a simple expedient. Pine logs of uniform size had been laid end to end, with a deep trough cut in them, and they made a shining line down the slope, across the valley, and up the little hill to the Auchincloss home. Near the house the hollowed halves of logs had been bound together, making a crude pipe. Water ran uphill in this case, one of the facts that made the ranch famous, as it had always been a wonder and delight to the small boys of Pine. The two good women who managed Auchincloss's large household were often shocked by the strange things that floated into their kitchen with the ever-flowing stream of clear, cold mountain water.

As it happened this day Dale encountered Al Auchincloss sitting in the shade of a porch, talking to some of his sheep-herders and stockmen. Auchincloss was a short man of extremely powerful build and great width of shoulder. He had no gray hairs, and he did not look old, yet there was in his face a certain weariness, something that resembled sloping lines of distress, dim and pale, that told of age and the ebb-tide of vitality. His features, cast in large mold, were clean-cut and comely, and he had frank blue eyes, somewhat sad, yet still full of spirit.

Dale had no idea how his visit would be taken, and he certainly would not have been surprised to be ordered off the place. He had not set foot there for years. Therefore it was with surprise that he saw Auchincloss wave away the herders and take his entrance without any particular expression.

“Howdy, Al! How are you?” greeted Dale, easily, as he leaned his rifle against the log wall.

Auchincloss did not rise, but he offered his hand.

“Wal, Milt Dale, I reckon this is the first time I ever seen you that I couldn't lay you flat on your back,” replied the rancher. His tone was both testy and full of pathos.

“I take it you mean you ain't very well,” replied Dale. “I'm sorry, Al.”

“No, it ain't thet. Never was sick in my life. I'm just played out, like a hoss thet had been strong an' willin', an' did too much.... Wal, you don't look a day older, Milt. Livin' in the woods rolls over a man's head.”

“Yes, I'm feelin' fine, an' time never bothers me.”

“Wal, mebbe you ain't such a fool, after all. I've wondered lately—since I had time to think.... But, Milt, you don't git no richer.”

“Al, I have all I want an' need.”

“Wal, then, you don't support anybody; you don't do any good in the world.”

“We don't agree, Al,” replied Dale, with his slow smile.

“Reckon we never did.... An' you jest come over to pay your respects to me, eh?”

“Not altogether,” answered Dale, ponderingly. “First off, I'd like to say I'll pay back them sheep you always claimed my tame cougar killed.”

“You will! An' how'd you go about that?”

“Wasn't very many sheep, was there?

“A matter of fifty head.”

“So many! Al, do you still think old Tom killed them sheep?”

“Humph! Milt, I know damn well he did.”

“Al, now how could you know somethin' I don't? Be reasonable, now. Let's don't fall out about this again. I'll pay back the sheep. Work it out—”

“Milt Dale, you'll come down here an' work out that fifty head of sheep!” ejaculated the old rancher, incredulously.

“Sure.”

“Wal, I'll be damned!” He sat back and gazed with shrewd eyes at Dale. “What's got into you, Milt? Hev you heard about my niece thet's comin', an' think you'll shine up to her?”

“Yes, Al, her comin' has a good deal to do with my deal,” replied Dale, soberly. “But I never thought to shine up to her, as you hint.”

“Haw! Haw! You're just like all the other colts hereabouts. Reckon it's a good sign, too. It'll take a woman to fetch you out of the woods. But, boy, this niece of mine, Helen Rayner, will stand you on your head. I never seen her. They say she's jest like her mother. An' Nell Auchincloss—what a girl she was!”

Dale felt his face grow red. Indeed, this was strange conversation for him.

“Honest, Al—” he began.

“Son, don't lie to an old man.”

“Lie! I wouldn't lie to any one. Al, it's only men who live in towns an' are always makin' deals. I live in the forest, where there's nothin' to make me lie.”

“Wal, no offense meant, I'm sure,” responded Auchincloss. “An' mebbe there's somethin' in what you say... We was talkin' about them sheep your big cat killed. Wal, Milt, I can't prove it, that's sure. An' mebbe you'll think me doddery when I tell you my reason. It wasn't what them greaser herders said about seein' a cougar in the herd.”

“What was it, then?” queried Dale, much interested.

“Wal, thet day a year ago I seen your pet. He was lyin' in front of the store an' you was inside tradin', fer supplies, I reckon. It was like meetin' an enemy face to face. Because, damn me if I didn't know that cougar was guilty when he looked in my eyes! There!”

The old rancher expected to be laughed at. But Dale was grave.

“Al, I know how you felt,” he replied, as if they were discussing an action of a human being. “Sure I'd hate to doubt old Tom. But he's a cougar. An' the ways of animals are strange... Anyway, Al, I'll make good the loss of your sheep.”

“No, you won't,” rejoined Auchincloss, quickly. “We'll call it off. I'm takin' it square of you to make the offer. Thet's enough. So forget your worry about work, if you had any.”

“There's somethin' else, Al, I wanted to say,” began Dale, with hesitation. “An' it's about Beasley.”

Auchincloss started violently, and a flame of red shot into his face. Then he raised a big hand that shook. Dale saw in a flash how the old man's nerves had gone.

“Don't mention—thet—thet greaser—to me!” burst out the rancher. “It makes me see—red.... Dale, I ain't overlookin' that you spoke up fer me to-day—stood fer my side. Lem Harden told me. I was glad. An' thet's why—to-day—I forgot our old quarrel.... But not a word about thet sheep-thief—or I'll drive you off the place!”

“But, Al—be reasonable,” remonstrated Dale. “It's necessary thet I speak of—of Beasley.”

“It ain't. Not to me. I won't listen.”

“Reckon you'll have to, Al,” returned Dale. “Beasley's after your property. He's made a deal—”

“By Heaven! I know that!” shouted Auchincloss, tottering up, with his face now black-red. “Do you think thet's new to me? Shut up, Dale! I can't stand it.”

“But Al—there's worse,” went on Dale, hurriedly. “Worse! Your life's threatened—an' your niece, Helen—she's to be—”

“Shut up—an' clear out!” roared Auchincloss, waving his huge fists.

He seemed on the verge of a collapse as, shaking all over, he backed into the door. A few seconds of rage had transformed him into a pitiful old man.

“But, Al—I'm your friend—” began Dale, appealingly.

“Friend, hey?” returned the rancher, with grim, bitter passion. “Then you're the only one.... Milt Dale, I'm rich an' I'm a dyin' man. I trust nobody... But, you wild hunter—if you're my friend—prove it!... Go kill thet greaser sheep-thief! DO somethin'—an' then come talk to me!”

With that he lurched, half falling, into the house, and slammed the door.

Dale stood there for a blank moment, and then, taking up his rifle, he strode away.

Toward sunset Dale located the camp of his four Mormon friends, and reached it in time for supper.

John, Roy, Joe, and Hal Beeman were sons of a pioneer Mormon who had settled the little community of Snowdrop. They were young men in years, but hard labor and hard life in the open had made them look matured. Only a year's difference in age stood between John and Roy, and between Roy and Joe, and likewise Joe and Hal. When it came to appearance they were difficult to distinguish from one another. Horsemen, sheep-herders, cattle-raisers, hunters—they all possessed long, wiry, powerful frames, lean, bronzed, still faces, and the quiet, keen eyes of men used to the open.

Their camp was situated beside a spring in a cove surrounded by aspens, some three miles from Pine; and, though working for Beasley, near the village, they had ridden to and fro from camp, after the habit of seclusion peculiar to their kind.

Dale and the brothers had much in common, and a warm regard had sprang up. But their exchange of confidences had wholly concerned things pertaining to the forest. Dale ate supper with them, and talked as usual when he met them, without giving any hint of the purpose forming in his mind. After the meal he helped Joe round up the horses, hobble them for the night, and drive them into a grassy glade among the pines. Later, when the shadows stole through the forest on the cool wind, and the camp-fire glowed comfortably, Dale broached the subject that possessed him.

“An' so you're working for Beasley?” he queried, by way of starting conversation.

“We was,” drawled John. “But to-day, bein' the end of our month, we got our pay an' quit. Beasley sure was sore.”

“Why'd you knock off?”

John essayed no reply, and his brothers all had that quiet, suppressed look of knowledge under restraint.

“Listen to what I come to tell you, then you'll talk,” went on Dale. And hurriedly he told of Beasley's plot to abduct Al Auchincloss's niece and claim the dying man's property.

When Dale ended, rather breathlessly, the Mormon boys sat without any show of surprise or feeling. John, the eldest, took up a stick and slowly poked the red embers of the fire, making the white sparks fly.

“Now, Milt, why'd you tell us thet?” he asked, guardedly.

“You're the only friends I've got,” replied Dale. “It didn't seem safe for me to talk down in the village. I thought of you boys right off. I ain't goin' to let Snake Anson get that girl. An' I need help, so I come to you.”

“Beasley's strong around Pine, an' old Al's weakenin'. Beasley will git the property, girl or no girl,” said John.

“Things don't always turn out as they look. But no matter about that. The girl deal is what riled me.... She's to arrive at Magdalena on the sixteenth, an' take stage for Snowdrop.... Now what to do? If she travels on that stage I'll be on it, you bet. But she oughtn't to be in it at all. ... Boys, somehow I'm goin' to save her. Will you help me? I reckon I've been in some tight corners for you. Sure, this 's different. But are you my friends? You know now what Beasley is. An' you're all lost at the hands of Snake Anson's gang. You've got fast hosses, eyes for trackin', an' you can handle a rifle. You're the kind of fellows I'd want in a tight pinch with a bad gang. Will you stand by me or see me go alone?”

Then John Beeman, silently, and with pale face, gave Dale's hand a powerful grip, and one by one the other brothers rose to do likewise. Their eyes flashed with hard glint and a strange bitterness hovered around their thin lips.

“Milt, mebbe we know what Beasley is better 'n you,” said John, at length. “He ruined my father. He's cheated other Mormons. We boys have proved to ourselves thet he gets the sheep Anson's gang steals.... An' drives the herds to Phenix! Our people won't let us accuse Beasley. So we've suffered in silence. My father always said, let some one else say the first word against Beasley, an' you've come to us!”

Roy Beeman put a hand on Dale's shoulder. He, perhaps, was the keenest of the brothers and the one to whom adventure and peril called most. He had been oftenest with Dale, on many a long trail, and he was the hardest rider and the most relentless tracker in all that range country.

“An' we're goin' with you,” he said, in a strong and rolling voice.

They resumed their seats before the fire. John threw on more wood, and with a crackling and sparkling the blaze curled up, fanned by the wind. As twilight deepened into night the moan in the pines increased to a roar. A pack of coyotes commenced to pierce the air in staccato cries.

The five young men conversed long and earnestly, considering, planning, rejecting ideas advanced by each. Dale and Roy Beeman suggested most of what became acceptable to all. Hunters of their type resembled explorers in slow and deliberate attention to details. What they had to deal with here was a situation of unlimited possibilities; the horses and outfit needed; a long detour to reach Magdalena unobserved; the rescue of a strange girl who would no doubt be self-willed and determined to ride on the stage—the rescue forcible, if necessary; the fight and the inevitable pursuit; the flight into the forest, and the safe delivery of the girl to Auchincloss.

“Then, Milt, will we go after Beasley?” queried Roy Beeman, significantly.

Dale was silent and thoughtful.

“Sufficient unto the day!” said John. “An' fellars, let's go to bed.”

They rolled out their tarpaulins, Dale sharing Roy's blankets, and soon were asleep, while the red embers slowly faded, and the great roar of wind died down, and the forest stillness set in.

Helen Rayner had been on the westbound overland train fully twenty-four hours before she made an alarming discovery.

Accompanied by her sister Bo, a precocious girl of sixteen, Helen had left St. Joseph with a heart saddened by farewells to loved ones at home, yet full of thrilling and vivid anticipations of the strange life in the Far West. All her people had the pioneer spirit; love of change, action, adventure, was in her blood. Then duty to a widowed mother with a large and growing family had called to Helen to accept this rich uncle's offer. She had taught school and also her little brothers and sisters; she had helped along in other ways. And now, though the tearing up of the roots of old loved ties was hard, this opportunity was irresistible in its call. The prayer of her dreams had been answered. To bring good fortune to her family; to take care of this beautiful, wild little sister; to leave the yellow, sordid, humdrum towns for the great, rolling, boundless open; to live on a wonderful ranch that was some day to be her own; to have fulfilled a deep, instinctive, and undeveloped love of horses, cattle, sheep, of desert and mountain, of trees and brooks and wild flowers—all this was the sum of her most passionate longings, now in some marvelous, fairylike way to come true.

A check to her happy anticipations, a blank, sickening dash of cold water upon her warm and intimate dreams, had been the discovery that Harve Riggs was on the train. His presence could mean only one thing—that he had followed her. Riggs had been the worst of many sore trials back there in St. Joseph. He had possessed some claim or influence upon her mother, who favored his offer of marriage to Helen; he was neither attractive, nor good, nor industrious, nor anything that interested her; he was the boastful, strutting adventurer, not genuinely Western, and he affected long hair and guns and notoriety. Helen had suspected the veracity of the many fights he claimed had been his, and also she suspected that he was not really big enough to be bad—as Western men were bad. But on the train, in the station at La Junta, one glimpse of him, manifestly spying upon her while trying to keep out of her sight, warned Helen that she now might have a problem on her hands.

The recognition sobered her. All was not to be a road of roses to this new home in the West. Riggs would follow her, if he could not accompany her, and to gain his own ends he would stoop to anything. Helen felt the startling realization of being cast upon her own resources, and then a numbing discouragement and loneliness and helplessness. But these feelings did not long persist in the quick pride and flash of her temper. Opportunity knocked at her door and she meant to be at home to it. She would not have been Al Auchincloss's niece if she had faltered. And, when temper was succeeded by genuine anger, she could have laughed to scorn this Harve Riggs and his schemes, whatever they were. Once and for all she dismissed fear of him. When she left St. Joseph she had faced the West with a beating heart and a high resolve to be worthy of that West. Homes had to be made out there in that far country, so Uncle Al had written, and women were needed to make homes. She meant to be one of these women and to make of her sister another. And with the thought that she would know definitely what to say to Riggs when he approached her, sooner or later, Helen dismissed him from mind.

While the train was in motion, enabling Helen to watch the ever-changing scenery, and resting her from the strenuous task of keeping Bo well in hand at stations, she lapsed again into dreamy gaze at the pine forests and the red, rocky gullies and the dim, bold mountains. She saw the sun set over distant ranges of New Mexico—a golden blaze of glory, as new to her as the strange fancies born in her, thrilling and fleeting by. Bo's raptures were not silent, and the instant the sun sank and the color faded she just as rapturously importuned Helen to get out the huge basket of food they had brought from home.

They had two seats, facing each other, at the end of the coach, and piled there, with the basket on top, was luggage that constituted all the girls owned in the world. Indeed, it was very much more than they had ever owned before, because their mother, in her care for them and desire to have them look well in the eyes of this rich uncle, had spent money and pains to give them pretty and serviceable clothes.

The girls sat together, with the heavy basket on their knees, and ate while they gazed out at the cool, dark ridges. The train clattered slowly on, apparently over a road that was all curves. And it was supper-time for everybody in that crowded coach. If Helen had not been so absorbed by the great, wild mountain-land she would have had more interest in the passengers. As it was she saw them, and was amused and thoughtful at the men and women and a few children in the car, all middle-class people, poor and hopeful, traveling out there to the New West to find homes. It was splendid and beautiful, this fact, yet it inspired a brief and inexplicable sadness. From the train window, that world of forest and crag, with its long bare reaches between, seemed so lonely, so wild, so unlivable. How endless the distance! For hours and miles upon miles no house, no hut, no Indian tepee! It was amazing, the length and breadth of this beautiful land. And Helen, who loved brooks and running streams, saw no water at all.

Then darkness settled down over the slow-moving panorama; a cool night wind blew in at the window; white stars began to blink out of the blue. The sisters, with hands clasped and heads nestled together, went to sleep under a heavy cloak.

Early the next morning, while the girls were again delving into their apparently bottomless basket, the train stopped at Las Vegas.

“Look! Look!” cried Bo, in thrilling voice. “Cowboys! Oh, Nell, look!”

Helen, laughing, looked first at her sister, and thought how most of all she was good to look at. Bo was little, instinct with pulsating life, and she had chestnut hair and dark-blue eyes. These eyes were flashing, roguish, and they drew like magnets.

Outside on the rude station platform were railroad men, Mexicans, and a group of lounging cowboys. Long, lean, bow-legged fellows they were, with young, frank faces and intent eyes. One of them seemed particularly attractive with his superb build, his red-bronze face and bright-red scarf, his swinging gun, and the huge, long, curved spurs. Evidently he caught Bo's admiring gaze, for, with a word to his companions, he sauntered toward the window where the girls sat. His gait was singular, almost awkward, as if he was not accustomed to walking. The long spurs jingled musically. He removed his sombrero and stood at ease, frank, cool, smiling. Helen liked him on sight, and, looking to see what effect he had upon Bo, she found that young lady staring, frightened stiff.

“Good mawnin',” drawled the cowboy, with slow, good-humored smile. “Now where might you-all be travelin'?”

The sound of his voice, the clean-cut and droll geniality; seemed new and delightful to Helen.

“We go to Magdalena—then take stage for the White Mountains,” replied Helen.

The cowboy's still, intent eyes showed surprise.

“Apache country, miss,” he said. “I reckon I'm sorry. Thet's shore no place for you-all... Beggin' your pawdin—you ain't Mormons?”

“No. We're nieces of Al Auchincloss,” rejoined Helen.

“Wal, you don't say! I've been down Magdalena way an' heerd of Al.... Reckon you're goin' a-visitin'?”

“It's to be home for us.”

“Shore thet's fine. The West needs girls.... Yes, I've heerd of Al. An old Arizona cattle-man in a sheep country! Thet's bad.... Now I'm wonderin'—if I'd drift down there an' ask him for a job ridin' for him—would I get it?”

His lazy smile was infectious and his meaning was as clear as crystal water. The gaze he bent upon Bo somehow pleased Helen. The last year or two, since Bo had grown prettier all the time, she had been a magnet for admiring glances. This one of the cowboy's inspired respect and liking, as well as amusement. It certainly was not lost upon Bo.

“My uncle once said in a letter that he never had enough men to run his ranch,” replied Helen, smiling.

“Shore I'll go. I reckon I'd jest naturally drift that way—now.”

He seemed so laconic, so easy, so nice, that he could not have been taken seriously, yet Helen's quick perceptions registered a daring, a something that was both sudden and inevitable in him. His last word was as clear as the soft look he fixed upon Bo.

Helen had a mischievous trait, which, subdue it as she would, occasionally cropped out; and Bo, who once in her wilful life had been rendered speechless, offered such a temptation.

“Maybe my little sister will put in a good word for you—to Uncle Al,” said Helen. Just then the train jerked, and started slowly. The cowboy took two long strides beside the car, his heated boyish face almost on a level with the window, his eyes, now shy and a little wistful, yet bold, too, fixed upon Bo.

“Good-by—Sweetheart!” he called.

He halted—was lost to view.

“Well!” ejaculated Helen, contritely, half sorry, half amused. “What a sudden young gentleman!”

Bo had blushed beautifully.

“Nell, wasn't he glorious!” she burst out, with eyes shining.

“I'd hardly call him that, but he was—nice,” replied Helen, much relieved that Bo had apparently not taken offense at her.

It appeared plain that Bo resisted a frantic desire to look out of the window and to wave her hand. But she only peeped out, manifestly to her disappointment.

“Do you think he—he'll come to Uncle Al's?” asked Bo.

“Child, he was only in fun.”

“Nell, I'll bet you he comes. Oh, it'd be great! I'm going to love cowboys. They don't look like that Harve Riggs who ran after you so.”

Helen sighed, partly because of the reminder of her odious suitor, and partly because Bo's future already called mysteriously to the child. Helen had to be at once a mother and a protector to a girl of intense and wilful spirit.

One of the trainmen directed the girls' attention to a green, sloping mountain rising to a bold, blunt bluff of bare rock; and, calling it Starvation Peak, he told a story of how Indians had once driven Spaniards up there and starved them. Bo was intensely interested, and thereafter she watched more keenly than ever, and always had a question for a passing trainman. The adobe houses of the Mexicans pleased her, and, then the train got out into Indian country, where pueblos appeared near the track and Indians with their bright colors and shaggy wild mustangs—then she was enraptured.

“But these Indians are peaceful!” she exclaimed once, regretfully.

“Gracious, child! You don't want to see hostile Indians, do you?” queried Helen.

“I do, you bet,” was the frank rejoinder.

“Well, I'LL bet that I'll be sorry I didn't leave you with mother.”

“Nell—you never will!”

They reached Albuquerque about noon, and this important station, where they had to change trains, had been the first dreaded anticipation of the journey. It certainly was a busy place—full of jabbering Mexicans, stalking, red-faced, wicked-looking cowboys, lolling Indians. In the confusion Helen would have been hard put to it to preserve calmness, with Bo to watch, and all that baggage to carry, and the other train to find; but the kindly brakeman who had been attentive to them now helped them off the train into the other—a service for which Helen was very grateful.

“Albuquerque's a hard place,” confided the trainman. “Better stay in the car—and don't hang out the windows.... Good luck to you!”

Only a few passengers were in the car and they were Mexicans at the forward end. This branch train consisted of one passenger-coach, with a baggage-car, attached to a string of freight-cars. Helen told herself, somewhat grimly, that soon she would know surely whether or not her suspicions of Harve Riggs had warrant. If he was going on to Magdalena on that day he must go in this coach. Presently Bo, who was not obeying admonitions, drew her head out of the window. Her eyes were wide in amaze, her mouth open.

“Nell! I saw that man Riggs!” she whispered. “He's going to get on this train.”

“Bo, I saw him yesterday,” replied Helen, soberly.

“He's followed you—the—the—”

“Now, Bo, don't get excited,” remonstrated Helen. “We've left home now. We've got to take things as they come. Never mind if Riggs has followed me. I'll settle him.”

“Oh! Then you won't speak—have anything to do with him?”

“I won't if I can help it.”

Other passengers boarded the train, dusty, uncouth, ragged men, and some hard-featured, poorly clad women, marked by toil, and several more Mexicans. With bustle and loud talk they found their several seats.

Then Helen saw Harve Riggs enter, burdened with much luggage. He was a man of about medium height, of dark, flashy appearance, cultivating long black mustache and hair. His apparel was striking, as it consisted of black frock-coat, black trousers stuffed in high, fancy-topped boots, an embroidered vest, and flowing tie, and a black sombrero. His belt and gun were prominent. It was significant that he excited comment among the other passengers.

When he had deposited his pieces of baggage he seemed to square himself, and, turning abruptly, approached the seat occupied by the girls. When he reached it he sat down upon the arm of the one opposite, took off his sombrero, and deliberately looked at Helen. His eyes were light, glinting, with hard, restless quiver, and his mouth was coarse and arrogant. Helen had never seen him detached from her home surroundings, and now the difference struck cold upon her heart.

“Hello, Nell!” he said. “Surprised to see me?”

“No,” she replied, coldly.

“I'll gamble you are.”

“Harve Riggs, I told you the day before I left home that nothing you could do or say mattered to me.”

“Reckon that ain't so, Nell. Any woman I keep track of has reason to think. An' you know it.”

“Then you followed me—out here?” demanded Helen, and her voice, despite her control, quivered with anger.

“I sure did,” he replied, and there was as much thought of himself in the act as there was of her.

“Why? Why? It's useless—hopeless.”

“I swore I'd have you, or nobody else would,” he replied, and here, in the passion of his voice there sounded egotism rather than hunger for a woman's love. “But I reckon I'd have struck West anyhow, sooner or later.”

“You're not going to—all the way—to Pine?” faltered Helen, momentarily weakening.

“Nell, I'll camp on your trail from now on,” he declared.

Then Bo sat bolt-upright, with pale face and flashing eyes.

“Harve Riggs, you leave Nell alone,” she burst out, in ringing, brave young voice. “I'll tell you what—I'll bet—if you follow her and nag her any more, my uncle Al or some cowboy will run you out of the country.”

“Hello, Pepper!” replied Riggs, coolly. “I see your manners haven't improved an' you're still wild about cowboys.”

“People don't have good manners with—with—”

“Bo, hush!” admonished Helen. It was difficult to reprove Bo just then, for that young lady had not the slightest fear of Riggs. Indeed, she looked as if she could slap his face. And Helen realized that however her intelligence had grasped the possibilities of leaving home for a wild country, and whatever her determination to be brave, the actual beginning of self-reliance had left her spirit weak. She would rise out of that. But just now this flashing-eyed little sister seemed a protector. Bo would readily adapt herself to the West, Helen thought, because she was so young, primitive, elemental.

Whereupon Bo turned her back to Riggs and looked out of the window. The man laughed. Then he stood up and leaned over Helen.

“Nell, I'm goin' wherever you go,” he said, steadily. “You can take that friendly or not, just as it pleases you. But if you've got any sense you'll not give these people out here a hunch against me. I might hurt somebody.... An' wouldn't it be better—to act friends? For I'm goin' to look after you, whether you like it or not.”

Helen had considered this man an annoyance, and later a menace, and now she must declare open enmity with him. However disgusting the idea that he considered himself a factor in her new life, it was the truth. He existed, he had control over his movements. She could not change that. She hated the need of thinking so much about him; and suddenly, with a hot, bursting anger, she hated the man.

“You'll not look after me. I'll take care of myself,” she said, and she turned her back upon him. She heard him mutter under his breath and slowly move away down the car. Then Bo slipped a hand in hers.

“Never mind, Nell,” she whispered. “You know what old Sheriff Haines said about Harve Riggs. 'A four-flush would-be gun-fighter! If he ever strikes a real Western town he'll get run out of it.' I just wish my red-faced cowboy had got on this train!”

Helen felt a rush of gladness that she had yielded to Bo's wild importunities to take her West. The spirit which had made Bo incorrigible at home probably would make her react happily to life out in this free country. Yet Helen, with all her warmth and gratefulness, had to laugh at her sister.

“Your red-faced cowboy! Why, Bo, you were scared stiff. And now you claim him!”

“I certainly could love that fellow,” replied Bo, dreamily.

“Child, you've been saying that about fellows for a long time. And you've never looked twice at any of them yet.”

“He was different.... Nell, I'll bet he comes to Pine.”

“I hope he does. I wish he was on this train. I liked his looks, Bo.”

“Well, Nell dear, he looked at ME first and last—so don't get your hopes up.... Oh, the train's starting!... Good-by, Albu-ker—what's that awful name?... Nell, let's eat dinner. I'm starved.”

Then Helen forgot her troubles and the uncertain future, and what with listening to Bo's chatter, and partaking again of the endless good things to eat in the huge basket, and watching the noble mountains, she drew once more into happy mood.

The valley of the Rio Grande opened to view, wide near at hand in a great gray-green gap between the bare black mountains, narrow in the distance, where the yellow river wound away, glistening under a hot sun. Bo squealed in glee at sight of naked little Mexican children that darted into adobe huts as the train clattered by, and she exclaimed her pleasure in the Indians, and the mustangs, and particularly in a group of cowboys riding into town on spirited horses. Helen saw all Bo pointed out, but it was to the wonderful rolling valley that her gaze clung longest, and to the dim purple distance that seemed to hold something from her. She had never before experienced any feeling like that; she had never seen a tenth so far. And the sight awoke something strange in her. The sun was burning hot, as she could tell when she put a hand outside the window, and a strong wind blew sheets of dry dust at the train. She gathered at once what tremendous factors in the Southwest were the sun and the dust and the wind. And her realization made her love them. It was there; the open, the wild, the beautiful, the lonely land; and she felt the poignant call of blood in her—to seek, to strive, to find, to live. One look down that yellow valley, endless between its dark iron ramparts, had given her understanding of her uncle. She must be like him in spirit, as it was claimed she resembled him otherwise.

At length Bo grew tired of watching scenery that contained no life, and, with her bright head on the faded cloak, she went to sleep. But Helen kept steady, farseeing gaze out upon that land of rock and plain; and during the long hours, as she watched through clouds of dust and veils of heat, some strong and doubtful and restless sentiment seemed to change and then to fix. It was her physical acceptance—her eyes and her senses taking the West as she had already taken it in spirit.

A woman should love her home wherever fate placed her, Helen believed, and not so much from duty as from delight and romance and living. How could life ever be tedious or monotonous out here in this tremendous vastness of bare earth and open sky, where the need to achieve made thinking and pondering superficial?

It was with regret that she saw the last of the valley of the Rio Grande, and then of its paralleled mountain ranges. But the miles brought compensation in other valleys, other bold, black upheavals of rock, and then again bare, boundless yellow plains, and sparsely cedared ridges, and white dry washes, ghastly in the sunlight, and dazzling beds of alkali, and then a desert space where golden and blue flowers bloomed.

She noted, too, that the whites and yellows of earth and rock had begun to shade to red—and this she knew meant an approach to Arizona. Arizona, the wild, the lonely, the red desert, the green plateau—Arizona with its thundering rivers, its unknown spaces, its pasture-lands and timber-lands, its wild horses, cowboys, outlaws, wolves and lions and savages! As to a boy, that name stirred and thrilled and sang to her of nameless, sweet, intangible things, mysterious and all of adventure. But she, being a girl of twenty, who had accepted responsibilities, must conceal the depths of her heart and that which her mother had complained was her misfortune in not being born a boy.

Time passed, while Helen watched and learned and dreamed. The train stopped, at long intervals, at wayside stations where there seemed nothing but adobe sheds and lazy Mexicans, and dust and heat. Bo awoke and began to chatter, and to dig into the basket. She learned from the conductor that Magdalena was only two stations on. And she was full of conjectures as to who would meet them, what would happen. So Helen was drawn back to sober realities, in which there was considerable zest. Assuredly she did not know what was going to happen. Twice Riggs passed up and down the aisle, his dark face and light eyes and sardonic smile deliberately forced upon her sight. But again Helen fought a growing dread with contemptuous scorn. This fellow was not half a man. It was not conceivable what he could do, except annoy her, until she arrived at Pine. Her uncle was to meet her or send for her at Snowdrop, which place, Helen knew, was distant a good long ride by stage from Magdalena. This stage-ride was the climax and the dread of all the long journey, in Helen's considerations.

“Oh, Nell!” cried Bo, with delight. “We're nearly there! Next station, the conductor said.”

“I wonder if the stage travels at night,” said Helen, thoughtfully.

“Sure it does!” replied the irrepressible Bo.

The train, though it clattered along as usual, seemed to Helen to fly. There the sun was setting over bleak New Mexican bluffs, Magdalena was at hand, and night, and adventure. Helen's heart beat fast. She watched the yellow plains where the cattle grazed; their presence, and irrigation ditches and cottonwood-trees told her that the railroad part of the journey was nearly ended. Then, at Bo's little scream, she looked across the car and out of the window to see a line of low, flat, red-adobe houses. The train began to slow down. Helen saw children run, white children and Mexican together; then more houses, and high upon a hill an immense adobe church, crude and glaring, yet somehow beautiful.

Helen told Bo to put on her bonnet, and, performing a like office for herself, she was ashamed of the trembling of her fingers. There were bustle and talk in the car.

The train stopped. Helen peered out to see a straggling crowd of Mexicans and Indians, all motionless and stolid, as if trains or nothing else mattered. Next Helen saw a white man, and that was a relief. He stood out in front of the others. Tall and broad, somehow striking, he drew a second glance that showed him to be a hunter clad in gray-fringed buckskin, and carrying a rifle.

Here, there was no kindly brakeman to help the sisters with their luggage. Helen bade Bo take her share; thus burdened, they made an awkward and laborious shift to get off the train.

Upon the platform of the car a strong hand seized Helen's heavy bag, with which she was straining, and a loud voice called out:

“Girls, we're here—sure out in the wild an' woolly West!”

The speaker was Riggs, and he had possessed himself of part of her baggage with action and speech meant more to impress the curious crowd than to be really kind. In the excitement of arriving Helen had forgotten him. The manner of sudden reminder—the insincerity of it—made her temper flash. She almost fell, encumbered as she was, in her hurry to descend the steps. She saw the tall hunter in gray step forward close to her as she reached for the bag Riggs held.

“Mr. Riggs, I'll carry my bag,” she said.

“Let me lug this. You help Bo with hers,” he replied, familiarly.

“But I want it,” she rejoined, quietly, with sharp determination. No little force was needed to pull the bag away from Riggs.

“See here, Helen, you ain't goin' any farther with that joke, are you?” he queried, deprecatingly, and he still spoke quite loud.

“It's no joke to me,” replied Helen. “I told you I didn't want your attention.”

“Sure. But that was temper. I'm your friend—from your home town. An' I ain't goin' to let a quarrel keep me from lookin' after you till you're safe at your uncle's.”

Helen turned her back upon him. The tall hunter had just helped Bo off the car. Then Helen looked up into a smooth bronzed face and piercing gray eyes.

“Are you Helen Rayner?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“My name's Dale. I've come to meet you.”

“Ah! My uncle sent you?” added Helen, in quick relief.

“No; I can't say Al sent me,” began the man, “but I reckon—”

He was interrupted by Riggs, who, grasping Helen by the arm, pulled her back a step.

“Say, mister, did Auchincloss send you to meet my young friends here?” he demanded, arrogantly.

Dale's glance turned from Helen to Riggs. She could not read this quiet gray gaze, but it thrilled her.

“No. I come on my own hook,” he answered.

“You'll understand, then—they're in my charge,” added Riggs.

This time the steady light-gray eyes met Helen's, and if there was not a smile in them or behind them she was still further baffled.

“Helen, I reckon you said you didn't want this fellow's attention.”

“I certainly said that,” replied Helen, quickly. Just then Bo slipped close to her and gave her arm a little squeeze. Probably Bo's thought was like hers—here was a real Western man. That was her first impression, and following swiftly upon it was a sensation of eased nerves.

Riggs swaggered closer to Dale.

“Say, Buckskin, I hail from Texas—”

“You're wastin' our time an' we've need to hurry,” interrupted Dale. His tone seemed friendly. “An' if you ever lived long in Texas you wouldn't pester a lady an' you sure wouldn't talk like you do.”

“What!” shouted Riggs, hotly. He dropped his right hand significantly to his hip.

“Don't throw your gun. It might go off,” said Dale.

Whatever Riggs's intention had been—and it was probably just what Dale evidently had read it—he now flushed an angry red and jerked at his gun.

Dale's hand flashed too swiftly for Helen's eye to follow it. But she heard the thud as it struck. The gun went flying to the platform and scattered a group of Indians and Mexicans.

“You'll hurt yourself some day,” said Dale.

Helen had never heard a slow, cool voice like this hunter's. Without excitement or emotion or hurry, it yet seemed full and significant of things the words did not mean. Bo uttered a strange little exultant cry.

Riggs's arm had dropped limp. No doubt it was numb. He stared, and his predominating expression was surprise. As the shuffling crowd began to snicker and whisper, Riggs gave Dale a malignant glance, shifted it to Helen, and then lurched away in the direction of his gun.

Dale did not pay any more attention to him. Gathering up Helen's baggage, he said, “Come on,” and shouldered a lane through the gaping crowd. The girls followed close at his heels.

“Nell! what 'd I tell you?” whispered Bo. “Oh, you're all atremble!”

Helen was aware of her unsteadiness; anger and fear and relief in quick succession had left her rather weak. Once through the motley crowd of loungers, she saw an old gray stage-coach and four lean horses. A grizzled, sunburned man sat on the driver's seat, whip and reins in hand. Beside him was a younger man with rifle across his knees. Another man, young, tall, lean, dark, stood holding the coach door open. He touched his sombrero to the girls. His eyes were sharp as he addressed Dale.

“Milt, wasn't you held up?”

“No. But some long-haired galoot was tryin' to hold up the girls. Wanted to throw his gun on me. I was sure scared,” replied Dale, as he deposited the luggage.

Bo laughed. Her eyes, resting upon Dale, were warm and bright. The young man at the coach door took a second look at her, and then a smile changed the dark hardness of his face.

Dale helped the girls up the high step into the stage, and then, placing the lighter luggage, in with them, he threw the heavier pieces on top.

“Joe, climb up,” he said.

“Wal, Milt,” drawled the driver, “let's ooze along.”

Dale hesitated, with his hand on the door. He glanced at the crowd, now edging close again, and then at Helen.

“I reckon I ought to tell you,” he said, and indecision appeared to concern him.

“What?” exclaimed Helen.

“Bad news. But talkin' takes time. An' we mustn't lose any.”

“There's need of hurry?” queried Helen, sitting up sharply.

“I reckon.”

“Is this the stage to Snowdrop?

“No. That leaves in the mornin'. We rustled this old trap to get a start to-night.”

“The sooner the better. But I—I don't understand,” said Helen, bewildered.

“It'll not be safe for you to ride on the mornin' stage,” returned Dale.

“Safe! Oh, what do you mean?” exclaimed Helen. Apprehensively she gazed at him and then back at Bo.

“Explainin' will take time. An' facts may change your mind. But if you can't trust me—”

“Trust you!” interposed Helen, blankly. “You mean to take us to Snowdrop?”

“I reckon we'd better go roundabout an' not hit Snowdrop,” he replied, shortly.

“Then to Pine—to my uncle—Al Auchincloss?

“Yes, I'm goin' to try hard.”

Helen caught her breath. She divined that some peril menaced her. She looked steadily, with all a woman's keenness, into this man's face. The moment was one of the fateful decisions she knew the West had in store for her. Her future and that of Bo's were now to be dependent upon her judgments. It was a hard moment and, though she shivered inwardly, she welcomed the initial and inevitable step. This man Dale, by his dress of buckskin, must be either scout or hunter. His size, his action, the tone of his voice had been reassuring. But Helen must decide from what she saw in his face whether or not to trust him. And that face was clear bronze, unlined, unshadowed, like a tranquil mask, clean-cut, strong-jawed, with eyes of wonderful transparent gray.

“Yes, I'll trust you,” she said. “Get in, and let us hurry. Then you can explain.”

“All ready, Bill. Send 'em along,” called Dale.

He had to stoop to enter the stage, and, once in, he appeared to fill that side upon which he sat. Then the driver cracked his whip; the stage lurched and began to roll; the motley crowd was left behind. Helen awakened to the reality, as she saw Bo staring with big eyes at the hunter, that a stranger adventure than she had ever dreamed of had began with the rattling roll of that old stage-coach.

Dale laid off his sombrero and leaned forward, holding his rifle between his knees. The light shone better upon his features now that he was bareheaded. Helen had never seen a face like that, which at first glance appeared darkly bronzed and hard, and then became clear, cold, aloof, still, intense. She wished she might see a smile upon it. And now that the die was cast she could not tell why she had trusted it. There was singular force in it, but she did not recognize what kind of force. One instant she thought it was stern, and the next that it was sweet, and again that it was neither.

“I'm glad you've got your sister,” he said, presently.

“How did you know she's my sister?”

“I reckon she looks like you.”

“No one else ever thought so,” replied Helen, trying to smile.

Bo had no difficulty in smiling, as she said, “Wish I was half as pretty as Nell.”

“Nell. Isn't your name Helen?” queried Dale.

“Yes. But my—some few call me Nell.”

“I like Nell better than Helen. An' what's yours?” went on Dale, looking at Bo.

“Mine's Bo. Just plain B-o. Isn't it silly? But I wasn't asked when they gave it to me,” she replied.

“Bo. It's nice an' short. Never heard it before. But I haven't met many people for years.”

“Oh! we've left the town!” cried Bo. “Look, Nell! How bare! It's just like desert.”

“It is desert. We've forty miles of that before we come to a hill or a tree.”

Helen glanced out. A flat, dull-green expanse waved away from the road on and on to a bright, dark horizon-line, where the sun was setting rayless in a clear sky. Open, desolate, and lonely, the scene gave her a cold thrill.

“Did your uncle Al ever write anythin' about a man named Beasley?” asked Dale.

“Indeed he did,” replied Helen, with a start of surprise. “Beasley! That name is familiar to us—and detestable. My uncle complained of this man for years. Then he grew bitter—accused Beasley. But the last year or so not a word!”

“Well, now,” began the hunter, earnestly, “let's get the bad news over. I'm sorry you must be worried. But you must learn to take the West as it is. There's good an' bad, maybe more bad. That's because the country's young.... So to come right out with it—this Beasley hired a gang of outlaws to meet the stage you was goin' in to Snowdrop—to-morrow—an' to make off with you.”

“Make off with me?” ejaculated Helen, bewildered.

“Kidnap you! Which, in that gang, would be worse than killing you!” declared Dale, grimly, and he closed a huge fist on his knee.

Helen was utterly astounded.

“How hor-rible!” she gasped out. “Make off with me!... What in Heaven's name for?”

Bo gave vent to a fierce little utterance.

“For reasons you ought to guess,” replied Dale, and he leaned forward again. Neither his voice nor face changed in the least, but yet there was a something about him that fascinated Helen. “I'm a hunter. I live in the woods. A few nights ago I happened to be caught out in a storm an' I took to an old log cabin. Soon as I got there I heard horses. I hid up in the loft. Some men rode up an' come in. It was dark. They couldn't see me. An' they talked. It turned out they were Snake Anson an' his gang of sheep-thieves. They expected to meet Beasley there. Pretty soon he came. He told Anson how old Al, your uncle, was on his last legs—how he had sent for you to have his property when he died. Beasley swore he had claims on Al. An' he made a deal with Anson to get you out of the way. He named the day you were to reach Magdalena. With Al dead an' you not there, Beasley could get the property. An' then he wouldn't care if you did come to claim it. It 'd be too late.... Well, they rode away that night. An' next day I rustled down to Pine. They're all my friends at Pine, except old Al. But they think I'm queer. I didn't want to confide in many people. Beasley is strong in Pine, an' for that matter I suspect Snake Anson has other friends there besides Beasley. So I went to see your uncle. He never had any use for me because he thought I was lazy like an Indian. Old Al hates lazy men. Then we fell out—or he fell out—because he believed a tame lion of mine had killed some of his sheep. An' now I reckon that Tom might have done it. I tried to lead up to this deal of Beasley's about you, but old Al wouldn't listen. He's cross—very cross. An' when I tried to tell him, why, he went right out of his head. Sent me off the ranch. Now I reckon you begin to see what a pickle I was in. Finally I went to four friends I could trust. They're Mormon boys—brothers. That's Joe out on top, with the driver. I told them all about Beasley's deal an' asked them to help me. So we planned to beat Anson an' his gang to Magdalena. It happens that Beasley is as strong in Magdalena as he is in Pine. An' we had to go careful. But the boys had a couple of friends here—Mormons, too, who agreed to help us. They had this old stage.... An' here you are.” Dale spread out his big hands and looked gravely at Helen and then at Bo.

“You're perfectly splendid!” cried Bo, ringingly. She was white; her fingers were clenched; her eyes blazed.

Dale appeared startled out of his gravity, and surprised, then pleased. A smile made his face like a boy's. Helen felt her body all rigid, yet slightly trembling. Her hands were cold. The horror of this revelation held her speechless. But in her heart she echoed Bo's exclamation of admiration and gratitude.

“So far, then,” resumed Dale, with a heavy breath of relief. “No wonder you're upset. I've a blunt way of talkin'.... Now we've thirty miles to ride on this Snowdrop road before we can turn off. To-day sometime the rest of the boys—Roy, John, an' Hal—were to leave Show Down, which's a town farther on from Snowdrop. They have my horses an' packs besides their own. Somewhere on the road we'll meet them—to-night, maybe—or tomorrow. I hope not to-night, because that 'd mean Anson's gang was ridin' in to Magdalena.”

Helen wrung her hands helplessly.

“Oh, have I no courage?” she whispered.

“Nell, I'm as scared as you are,” said Bo, consolingly, embracing her sister.

“I reckon that's natural,” said Dale, as if excusing them. “But, scared or not, you both brace up. It's a bad job. But I've done my best. An' you'll be safer with me an' the Beeman boys than you'd be in Magdalena, or anywhere else, except your uncle's.”

“Mr.—Mr. Dale,” faltered Helen, with her tears falling, “don't think me a coward—or—or ungrateful. I'm neither. It's only I'm so—so shocked. After all we hoped and expected—this—this—is such a—a terrible surprise.”

“Never mind, Nell dear. Let's take what comes,” murmured Bo.

“That's the talk,” said Dale. “You see, I've come right out with the worst. Maybe we'll get through easy. When we meet the boys we'll take to the horses an' the trails. Can you ride?”

“Bo has been used to horses all her life and I ride fairly well,” responded Helen. The idea of riding quickened her spirit.

“Good! We may have some hard ridin' before I get you up to Pine. Hello! What's that?”

Above the creaking, rattling, rolling roar of the stage Helen heard a rapid beat of hoofs. A horse flashed by, galloping hard.

Dale opened the door and peered out. The stage rolled to a halt. He stepped down and gazed ahead.

“Joe, who was that?” he queried.

“Nary me. An' Bill didn't know him, either,” replied Joe. “I seen him 'way back. He was ridin' some. An' he slowed up goin' past us. Now he's runnin' again.”

Dale shook his head as if he did not like the circumstances.

“Milt, he'll never get by Roy on this road,” said Joe.

“Maybe he'll get by before Roy strikes in on the road.”

“It ain't likely.”

Helen could not restrain her fears. “Mr. Dale, you think he was a messenger—going ahead to post that—that Anson gang?”

“He might be,” replied Dale, simply.

Then the young man called Joe leaned out from the seat above and called: “Miss Helen, don't you worry. Thet fellar is more liable to stop lead than anythin' else.”

His words, meant to be kind and reassuring, were almost as sinister to Helen as the menace to her own life. Long had she known how cheap life was held in the West, but she had only known it abstractly, and she had never let the fact remain before her consciousness. This cheerful young man spoke calmly of spilling blood in her behalf. The thought it roused was tragic—for bloodshed was insupportable to her—and then the thrills which followed were so new, strange, bold, and tingling that they were revolting. Helen grew conscious of unplumbed depths, of instincts at which she was amazed and ashamed.

“Joe, hand down that basket of grub—the small one with the canteen,” said Dale, reaching out a long arm. Presently he placed a cloth-covered basket inside the stage. “Girls, eat all you want an' then some.”

“We have a basket half full yet,” replied Helen.

“You'll need it all before we get to Pine.... Now, I'll ride up on top with the boys an' eat my supper. It'll be dark, presently, an' we'll stop often to listen. But don't be scared.”

With that he took his rifle and, closing the door, clambered up to the driver's seat. Then the stage lurched again and began to roll along.

Not the least thing to wonder at of this eventful evening was the way Bo reached for the basket of food. Helen simply stared at her.

“Bo, you CAN'T EAT!” she exclaimed.

“I should smile I can,” replied that practical young lady. “And you're going to if I have to stuff things in your mouth. Where's your wits, Nell? He said we must eat. That means our strength is going to have some pretty severe trials.... Gee! it's all great—just like a story! The unexpected—why, he looks like a prince turned hunter!—long, dark, stage journey—held up—fight—escape—wild ride on horses—woods and camps and wild places—pursued—hidden in the forest—more hard rides—then safe at the ranch. And of course he falls madly in love with me—no, you, for I'll be true to my Las Vegas lover—”

“Hush, silly! Bo, tell me, aren't you SCARED?”

“Scared! I'm scared stiff. But if Western girls stand such things, we can. No Western girl is going to beat ME!”

That brought Helen to a realization of the brave place she had given herself in dreams, and she was at once ashamed of herself and wildly proud of this little sister.

“Bo, thank Heaven I brought you with me!” exclaimed Helen, fervently. “I'll eat if it chokes me.”

Whereupon she found herself actually hungry, and while she ate she glanced out of the stage, first from one side and then from the other. These windows had no glass and they let the cool night air blow in. The sun had long since sunk. Out to the west, where a bold, black horizon-line swept away endlessly, the sky was clear gold, shading to yellow and blue above. Stars were out, pale and wan, but growing brighter. The earth appeared bare and heaving, like a calm sea. The wind bore a fragrance new to Helen, acridly sweet and clean, and it was so cold it made her fingers numb.

“I heard some animal yelp,” said Bo, suddenly, and she listened with head poised.

But Helen heard nothing save the steady clip-clop of hoofs, the clink of chains, the creak and rattle of the old stage, and occasionally the low voices of the men above.

When the girls had satisfied hunger and thirst, night had settled down black. They pulled the cloaks up over them, and close together leaned back in a corner of the seat and talked in whispers. Helen did not have much to say, but Bo was talkative.

“This beats me!” she said once, after an interval. “Where are we, Nell? Those men up there are Mormons. Maybe they are abducting us!”

“Mr. Dale isn't a Mormon,” replied Helen.

“How do you know?”

“I could tell by the way he spoke of his friends.”

“Well, I wish it wasn't so dark. I'm not afraid of men in daylight.... Nell, did you ever see such a wonderful looking fellow? What'd they call him? Milt—Milt Dale. He said he lived in the woods. If I hadn't fallen in love with that cowboy who called me—well, I'd be a goner now.”

After an interval of silence Bo whispered, startlingly, “Wonder if Harve Riggs is following us now?”

“Of course he is,” replied Helen, hopelessly.

“He'd better look out. Why, Nell, he never saw—he never—what did Uncle Al used to call it?—sav—savvied—that's it. Riggs never savvied that hunter. But I did, you bet.”

“Savvied! What do you mean, Bo?”

“I mean that long-haired galoot never saw his real danger. But I felt it. Something went light inside me. Dale never took him seriously at all.”

“Riggs will turn up at Uncle Al's, sure as I'm born,” said Helen.

“Let him turn,” replied Bo, contemptuously. “Nell, don't you ever bother your head again about him. I'll bet they're all men out here. And I wouldn't be in Harve Riggs's boots for a lot.”

After that Bo talked of her uncle and his fatal illness, and from that she drifted back to the loved ones at home, now seemingly at the other side of the world, and then she broke down and cried, after which she fell asleep on Helen's shoulder.

But Helen could not have fallen asleep if she had wanted to.

She had always, since she could remember, longed for a moving, active life; and for want of a better idea she had chosen to dream of gipsies. And now it struck her grimly that, if these first few hours of her advent in the West were forecasts of the future, she was destined to have her longings more than fulfilled.

Presently the stage rolled slower and slower, until it came to a halt. Then the horses heaved, the harnesses clinked, the men whispered. Otherwise there was an intense quiet. She looked out, expecting to find it pitch-dark. It was black, yet a transparent blackness. To her surprise she could see a long way. A shooting-star electrified her. The men were listening. She listened, too, but beyond the slight sounds about the stage she heard nothing. Presently the driver clucked to his horses, and travel was resumed.

For a while the stage rolled on rapidly, evidently downhill, swaying from side to side, and rattling as if about to fall to pieces. Then it slowed on a level, and again it halted for a few moments, and once more in motion it began a laborsome climb. Helen imagined miles had been covered. The desert appeared to heave into billows, growing rougher, and dark, round bushes dimly stood out. The road grew uneven and rocky, and when the stage began another descent its violent rocking jolted Bo out of her sleep and in fact almost out of Helen's arms.

“Where am I?” asked Bo, dazedly.

“Bo, you're having your heart's desire, but I can't tell you where you are,” replied Helen.

Bo awakened thoroughly, which fact was now no wonder, considering the jostling of the old stage.

“Hold on to me, Nell!... Is it a runaway?”

“We've come about a thousand miles like this, I think,” replied Helen. “I've not a whole bone in my body.”

Bo peered out of the window.

“Oh, how dark and lonesome! But it'd be nice if it wasn't so cold. I'm freezing.”

“I thought you loved cold air,” taunted Helen.

“Say, Nell, you begin to talk like yourself,” responded Bo.

It was difficult to hold on to the stage and each other and the cloak all at once, but they succeeded, except in the roughest places, when from time to time they were bounced around. Bo sustained a sharp rap on the head.

“Oooooo!” she moaned. “Nell Rayner, I'll never forgive you for fetching me on this awful trip.”

“Just think of your handsome Las Vegas cowboy,” replied Helen.

Either this remark subdued Bo or the suggestion sufficed to reconcile her to the hardships of the ride.

Meanwhile, as they talked and maintained silence and tried to sleep, the driver of the stage kept at his task after the manner of Western men who knew how to get the best out of horses and bad roads and distance.

By and by the stage halted again and remained at a standstill for so long, with the men whispering on top, that Helen and Bo were roused to apprehension.

Suddenly a sharp whistle came from the darkness ahead.

“Thet's Roy,” said Joe Beeman, in a low voice.

“I reckon. An' meetin' us so quick looks bad,” replied Dale. “Drive on, Bill.”

“Mebbe it seems quick to you,” muttered the driver, “but if we hain't come thirty mile, an' if thet ridge thar hain't your turnin'-off place, why, I don't know nothin'.”

The stage rolled on a little farther, while Helen and Bo sat clasping each other tight, wondering with bated breath what was to be the next thing to happen.

Then once more they were at a standstill. Helen heard the thud of boots striking the ground, and the snorts of horses.

“Nell, I see horses,” whispered Bo, excitedly. “There, to the side of the road... and here comes a man.... Oh, if he shouldn't be the one they're expecting!”

Helen peered out to see a tall, dark form, moving silently, and beyond it a vague outline of horses, and then pale gleams of what must have been pack-loads.

Dale loomed up, and met the stranger in the road.

“Howdy, Milt? You got the girl sure, or you wouldn't be here,” said a low voice.

“Roy, I've got two girls—sisters,” replied Dale.

The man Roy whistled softly under his breath. Then another lean, rangy form strode out of the darkness, and was met by Dale.

“Now, boys—how about Anson's gang?” queried Dale.

“At Snowdrop, drinkin' an' quarrelin'. Reckon they'll leave there about daybreak,” replied Roy.

“How long have you been here?”

“Mebbe a couple of hours.”

“Any horse go by?”

“No.”

“Roy, a strange rider passed us before dark. He was hittin' the road. An' he's got by here before you came.”

“I don't like thet news,” replied Roy, tersely. “Let's rustle. With girls on hossback you'll need all the start you can get. Hey, John?”

“Snake Anson shore can foller hoss tracks,” replied the third man.

“Milt, say the word,” went on Roy, as he looked up at the stars. “Daylight not far away. Here's the forks of the road, an' your hosses, an' our outfit. You can be in the pines by sunup.”

In the silence that ensued Helen heard the throb of her heart and the panting little breaths of her sister. They both peered out, hands clenched together, watching and listening in strained attention.

“It's possible that rider last night wasn't a messenger to Anson,” said Dale. “In that case Anson won't make anythin' of our wheel tracks or horse tracks. He'll go right on to meet the regular stage. Bill, can you go back an' meet the stage comin' before Anson does?”

“Wal, I reckon so—an' take it easy at thet,” replied Bill.

“All right,” continued Dale, instantly. “John, you an' Joe an' Hal ride back to meet the regular stage. An' when you meet it get on an' be on it when Anson holds it up.”

“Thet's shore agreeable to me,” drawled John.

“I'd like to be on it, too,” said Roy, grimly.

“No. I'll need you till I'm safe in the woods. Bill, hand down the bags. An' you, Roy, help me pack them. Did you get all the supplies I wanted?”

“Shore did. If the young ladies ain't powerful particular you can feed them well for a couple of months.”

Dale wheeled and, striding to the stage, he opened the door.

“Girls, you're not asleep? Come,” he called.

Bo stepped down first.

“I was asleep till this—this vehicle fell off the road back a ways,” she replied.

Roy Beeman's low laugh was significant. He took off his sombrero and stood silent. The old driver smothered a loud guffaw.

“Veehicle! Wal, I'll be doggoned! Joe, did you hear thet? All the spunky gurls ain't born out West.”

As Helen followed with cloak and bag Roy assisted her, and she encountered keen eyes upon her face. He seemed both gentle and respectful, and she felt his solicitude. His heavy gun, swinging low, struck her as she stepped down.

Dale reached into the stage and hauled out baskets and bags. These he set down on the ground.

“Turn around, Bill, an' go along with you. John an' Hal will follow presently,” ordered Dale.

“Wal, gurls,” said Bill, looking down upon them, “I was shore powerful glad to meet you-all. An' I'm ashamed of my country—offerin' two sich purty gurls insults an' low-down tricks. But shore you'll go through safe now. You couldn't be in better company fer ridin' or huntin' or marryin' or gittin' religion—”

“Shut up, you old grizzly!” broke in Dale, sharply.

“Haw! Haw! Good-by, gurls, an' good luck!” ended Bill, as he began to whip the reins.

Bo said good-by quite distinctly, but Helen could only murmur hers. The old driver seemed a friend.

Then the horses wheeled and stamped, the stage careened and creaked, presently to roll out of sight in the gloom.

“You're shiverin',” said Dale, suddenly, looking down upon Helen. She felt his big, hard hand clasp hers. “Cold as ice!”

“I am c-cold,” replied Helen. “I guess we're not warmly dressed.”

“Nell, we roasted all day, and now we're freezing,” declared Bo. “I didn't know it was winter at night out here.”

“Miss, haven't you some warm gloves an' a coat?” asked Roy, anxiously. “It 'ain't begun to get cold yet.”

“Nell, we've heavy gloves, riding-suits and boots—all fine and new—in this black bag,” said Bo, enthusiastically kicking a bag at her feet.

“Yes, so we have. But a lot of good they'll do us, to-night,” returned Helen.

“Miss, you'd do well to change right here,” said Roy, earnestly. “It'll save time in the long run an' a lot of sufferin' before sunup.”

Helen stared at the young man, absolutely amazed with his simplicity. She was advised to change her traveling-dress for a riding-suit—out somewhere in a cold, windy desert—in the middle of the night—among strange young men!

“Bo, which bag is it?” asked Dale, as if she were his sister. And when she indicated the one, he picked it up. “Come off the road.”

Bo followed him, and Helen found herself mechanically at their heels. Dale led them a few paces off the road behind some low bushes.

“Hurry an' change here,” he said. “We'll make a pack of your outfit an' leave room for this bag.”

Then he stalked away and in a few strides disappeared.

Bo sat down to begin unlacing her shoes. Helen could just see her pale, pretty face and big, gleaming eyes by the light of the stars. It struck her then that Bo was going to make eminently more of a success of Western life than she was.

“Nell, those fellows are n-nice,” said Bo, reflectively. “Aren't you c-cold? Say, he said hurry!”

It was beyond Helen's comprehension how she ever began to disrobe out there in that open, windy desert, but after she had gotten launched on the task she found that it required more fortitude than courage. The cold wind pierced right through her. Almost she could have laughed at the way Bo made things fly.

“G-g-g-gee!” chattered Bo. “I n-never w-was so c-c-cold in all my life. Nell Rayner, m-may the g-good Lord forgive y-you!”

Helen was too intent on her own troubles to take breath to talk. She was a strong, healthy girl, swift and efficient with her hands, yet this, the hardest physical ordeal she had ever experienced, almost overcame her. Bo outdistanced her by moments, helped her with buttons, and laced one whole boot for her. Then, with hands that stung, Helen packed the traveling-suits in the bag.

“There! But what an awful mess!” exclaimed Helen. “Oh, Bo, our pretty traveling-dresses!”

“We'll press them t-to-morrow—on a l-log,” replied Bo, and she giggled.

They started for the road. Bo, strange to note, did not carry her share of the burden, and she seemed unsteady on her feet.

The men were waiting beside a group of horses, one of which carried a pack.

“Nothin' slow about you,” said Dale, relieving Helen of the grip. “Roy, put them up while I sling on this bag.”

Roy led out two of the horses.

“Get up,” he said, indicating Bo. “The stirrups are short on this saddle.”

Bo was an adept at mounting, but she made such awkward and slow work of it in this instance that Helen could not believe her eyes.

“Haw 're the stirrups?” asked Roy. “Stand in them. Guess they're about right.... Careful now! Thet hoss is skittish. Hold him in.”

Bo was not living up to the reputation with which Helen had credited her.

“Now, miss, you get up,” said Roy to Helen. And in another instant she found herself astride a black, spirited horse. Numb with cold as she was, she yet felt the coursing thrills along her veins.

Roy was at the stirrups with swift hands.

“You're taller 'n I guessed,” he said. “Stay up, but lift your foot.... Shore now, I'm glad you have them thick, soft boots. Mebbe we'll ride all over the White Mountains.”

“Bo, do you hear that?” called Helen.

But Bo did not answer. She was leaning rather unnaturally in her saddle. Helen became anxious. Just then Dale strode back to them.

“All cinched up, Roy?”

“Jest ready,” replied Roy.

Then Dale stood beside Helen. How tall he was! His wide shoulders seemed on a level with the pommel of her saddle. He put an affectionate hand on the horse.

“His name's Ranger an' he's the fastest an' finest horse in this country.”

“I reckon he shore is—along with my bay,” corroborated Roy.

“Roy, if you rode Ranger he'd beat your pet,” said Dale. “We can start now. Roy, you drive the pack-horses.”

He took another look at Helen's saddle and then moved to do likewise with Bo's.

“Are you—all right?” he asked, quickly.

Bo reeled in her seat.

“I'm n-near froze,” she replied, in a faint voice. Her face shone white in the starlight. Helen recognized that Bo was more than cold.

“Oh, Bo!” she called, in distress.

“Nell, don't you worry, now.”

“Let me carry you,” suggested Dale.

“No. I'll s-s-stick on this horse or d-die,” fiercely retorted Bo.

The two men looked up at her white face and then at each other. Then Roy walked away toward the dark bunch of horses off the road and Dale swung astride the one horse left.

“Keep close to me,” he said.

Bo fell in line and Helen brought up the rear.

Helen imagined she was near the end of a dream. Presently she would awaken with a start and see the pale walls of her little room at home, and hear the cherry branches brushing her window, and the old clarion-voiced cock proclaim the hour of dawn.

The horses trotted. And the exercise soon warmed Helen, until she was fairly comfortable except in her fingers. In mind, however, she grew more miserable as she more fully realized her situation. The night now became so dark that, although the head of her horse was alongside the flank of Bo's, she could scarcely see Bo. From time to time Helen's anxious query brought from her sister the answer that she was all right.

Helen had not ridden a horse for more than a year, and for several years she had not ridden with any regularity. Despite her thrills upon mounting, she had entertained misgivings. But she was agreeably surprised, for the horse, Ranger, had an easy gait, and she found she had not forgotten how to ride. Bo, having been used to riding on a farm near home, might be expected to acquit herself admirably. It occurred to Helen what a plight they would have been in but for the thick, comfortable riding outfits.

Dark as the night was, Helen could dimly make out the road underneath. It was rocky, and apparently little used. When Dale turned off the road into the low brush or sage of what seemed a level plain, the traveling was harder, rougher, and yet no slower. The horses kept to the gait of the leaders. Helen, discovering it unnecessary, ceased attempting to guide Ranger. There were dim shapes in the gloom ahead, and always they gave Helen uneasiness, until closer approach proved them to be rocks or low, scrubby trees. These increased in both size and number as the horses progressed. Often Helen looked back into the gloom behind. This act was involuntary and occasioned her sensations of dread. Dale expected to be pursued. And Helen experienced, along with the dread, flashes of unfamiliar resentment. Not only was there an attempt afoot to rob her of her heritage, but even her personal liberty. Then she shuddered at the significance of Dale's words regarding her possible abduction by this hired gang. It seemed monstrous, impossible. Yet, manifestly it was true enough to Dale and his allies. The West, then, in reality was raw, hard, inevitable.

Suddenly her horse stopped. He had come up alongside Bo's horse. Dale had halted ahead, and apparently was listening. Roy and the pack-train were out of sight in the gloom.

“What is it?” whispered Helen.

“Reckon I heard a wolf,” replied Dale.

“Was that cry a wolf's?” asked Bo. “I heard. It was wild.”

“We're gettin' up close to the foot-hills,” said Dale. “Feel how much colder the air is.”

“I'm warm now,” replied Bo. “I guess being near froze was what ailed me.... Nell, how 're you?”

“I'm warm, too, but—” Helen answered.

“If you had your choice of being here or back home, snug in bed—which would you take?” asked Bo.

“Bo!” exclaimed Helen, aghast.

“Well, I'd choose to be right here on this horse,” rejoined Bo.

Dale heard her, for he turned an instant, then slapped his horse and started on.

Helen now rode beside Bo, and for a long time they climbed steadily in silence. Helen knew when that dark hour before dawn had passed, and she welcomed an almost imperceptible lightening in the east. Then the stars paled. Gradually a grayness absorbed all but the larger stars. The great white morning star, wonderful as Helen had never seen it, lost its brilliance and life and seemed to retreat into the dimming blue.

Daylight came gradually, so that the gray desert became distinguishable by degrees. Rolling bare hills, half obscured by the gray lifting mantle of night, rose in the foreground, and behind was gray space, slowly taking form and substance. In the east there was a kindling of pale rose and silver that lengthened and brightened along a horizon growing visibly rugged.

“Reckon we'd better catch up with Roy,” said Dale, and he spurred his horse.

Ranger and Bo's mount needed no other urging, and they swung into a canter. Far ahead the pack-animals showed with Roy driving them. The cold wind was so keen in Helen's face that tears blurred her eyes and froze her cheeks. And riding Ranger at that pace was like riding in a rocking-chair. That ride, invigorating and exciting, seemed all too short.

“Oh, Nell, I don't care—what becomes of—me!” exclaimed Bo, breathlessly.

Her face was white and red, fresh as a rose, her eyes glanced darkly blue, her hair blew out in bright, unruly strands. Helen knew she felt some of the physical stimulation that had so roused Bo, and seemed so irresistible, but somber thought was not deflected thereby.

It was clear daylight when Roy led off round a knoll from which patches of scrubby trees—cedars, Dale called them—straggled up on the side of the foot-hills.

“They grow on the north slopes, where the snow stays longest,” said Dale.

They descended into a valley that looked shallow, but proved to be deep and wide, and then began to climb another foot-hill. Upon surmounting it Helen saw the rising sun, and so glorious a view confronted her that she was unable to answer Bo's wild exclamations.

Bare, yellow, cedar-dotted slopes, apparently level, so gradual was the ascent, stretched away to a dense ragged line of forest that rose black over range after range, at last to fail near the bare summit of a magnificent mountain, sunrise-flushed against the blue sky.

“Oh, beautiful!” cried Bo. “But they ought to be called Black Mountains.”

“Old Baldy, there, is white half the year,” replied Dale.

“Look back an' see what you say,” suggested Roy.

The girls turned to gaze silently. Helen imagined she looked down upon the whole wide world. How vastly different was the desert! Verily it yawned away from her, red and gold near at hand, growing softly flushed with purple far away, a barren void, borderless and immense, where dark-green patches and black lines and upheaved ridges only served to emphasize distance and space.

“See thet little green spot,” said Roy, pointing. “Thet's Snowdrop. An' the other one—'way to the right—thet's Show Down.”

“Where is Pine?” queried Helen, eagerly.

“Farther still, up over the foot-hills at the edge of the woods.”

“Then we're riding away from it.”

“Yes. If we'd gone straight for Pine thet gang could overtake us. Pine is four days' ride. An' by takin' to the mountains Milt can hide his tracks. An' when he's thrown Anson off the scent, then he'll circle down to Pine.”

“Mr. Dale, do you think you'll get us there safely—and soon?” asked Helen, wistfully.

“I won't promise soon, but I promise safe. An' I don't like bein' called Mister,” he replied.

“Are we ever going to eat?” inquired Bo, demurely.

At this query Roy Beeman turned with a laugh to look at Bo. Helen saw his face fully in the light, and it was thin and hard, darkly bronzed, with eyes like those of a hawk, and with square chin and lean jaws showing scant, light beard.

“We shore are,” he replied. “Soon as we reach the timber. Thet won't be long.”

“Reckon we can rustle some an' then take a good rest,” said Dale, and he urged his horse into a jog-trot.

During a steady trot for a long hour, Helen's roving eyes were everywhere, taking note of the things from near to far—the scant sage that soon gave place to as scanty a grass, and the dark blots that proved to be dwarf cedars, and the ravines opening out as if by magic from what had appeared level ground, to wind away widening between gray stone walls, and farther on, patches of lonely pine-trees, two and three together, and then a straggling clump of yellow aspens, and up beyond the fringed border of forest, growing nearer all the while, the black sweeping benches rising to the noble dome of the dominant mountain of the range.

No birds or animals were seen in that long ride up toward the timber, which fact seemed strange to Helen. The air lost something of its cold, cutting edge as the sun rose higher, and it gained sweeter tang of forest-land. The first faint suggestion of that fragrance was utterly new to Helen, yet it brought a vague sensation of familiarity and with it an emotion as strange. It was as if she had smelled that keen, pungent tang long ago, and her physical sense caught it before her memory.

The yellow plain had only appeared to be level. Roy led down into a shallow ravine, where a tiny stream meandered, and he followed this around to the left, coming at length to a point where cedars and dwarf pines formed a little grove. Here, as the others rode up, he sat cross-legged in his saddle, and waited.

“We'll hang up awhile,” he said. “Reckon you're tired?”

“I'm hungry, but not tired yet,” replied Bo.

Helen dismounted, to find that walking was something she had apparently lost the power to do. Bo laughed at her, but she, too, was awkward when once more upon the ground.

Then Roy got down. Helen was surprised to find him lame. He caught her quick glance.

“A hoss threw me once an' rolled on me. Only broke my collar-bone, five ribs, one arm, an' my bow-legs in two places!”

Notwithstanding this evidence that he was a cripple, as he stood there tall and lithe in his homespun, ragged garments, he looked singularly powerful and capable.

“Reckon walkin' around would be good for you girls,” advised Dale. “If you ain't stiff yet, you'll be soon. An' walkin' will help. Don't go far. I'll call when breakfast's ready.”

A little while later the girls were whistled in from their walk and found camp-fire and meal awaiting them. Roy was sitting cross-legged, like an Indian, in front of a tarpaulin, upon which was spread a homely but substantial fare. Helen's quick eye detected a cleanliness and thoroughness she had scarcely expected to find in the camp cooking of men of the wilds. Moreover, the fare was good. She ate heartily, and as for Bo's appetite, she was inclined to be as much ashamed of that as amused at it. The young men were all eyes, assiduous in their service to the girls, but speaking seldom. It was not lost upon Helen how Dale's gray gaze went often down across the open country. She divined apprehension from it rather than saw much expression in it.

“I—declare,” burst out Bo, when she could not eat any more, “this isn't believable. I'm dreaming.... Nell, the black horse you rode is the prettiest I ever saw.”

Ranger, with the other animals, was grazing along the little brook. Packs and saddles had been removed. The men ate leisurely. There was little evidence of hurried flight. Yet Helen could not cast off uneasiness. Roy might have been deep, and careless, with a motive to spare the girls' anxiety, but Dale seemed incapable of anything he did not absolutely mean.

“Rest or walk,” he advised the girls. “We've got forty miles to ride before dark.”

Helen preferred to rest, but Bo walked about, petting the horses and prying into the packs. She was curious and eager.

Dale and Roy talked in low tones while they cleaned up the utensils and packed them away in a heavy canvas bag.

“You really expect Anson 'll strike my trail this mornin'?” Dale was asking.

“I shore do,” replied Roy.

“An' how do you figure that so soon?”

“How'd you figure it—if you was Snake Anson?” queried Roy, in reply.

“Depends on that rider from Magdalena,” said Dale, soberly. “Although it's likely I'd seen them wheel tracks an' hoss tracks made where we turned off. But supposin' he does.”

“Milt, listen. I told you Snake met us boys face to face day before yesterday in Show Down. An' he was plumb curious.”

“But he missed seein' or hearin' about me,” replied Dale.

“Mebbe he did an' mebbe he didn't. Anyway, what's the difference whether he finds out this mornin' or this evenin'?”

“Then you ain't expectin' a fight if Anson holds up the stage?”

“Wal, he'd have to shoot first, which ain't likely. John an' Hal, since thet shootin'-scrape a year ago, have been sort of gun-shy. Joe might get riled. But I reckon the best we can be shore of is a delay. An' it'd be sense not to count on thet.”

“Then you hang up here an' keep watch for Anson's gang—say long enough so's to be sure they'd be in sight if they find our tracks this mornin'. Makin' sure one way or another, you ride 'cross-country to Big Spring, where I'll camp to-night.”

Roy nodded approval of that suggestion. Then without more words both men picked up ropes and went after the horses. Helen was watching Dale, so that when Bo cried out in great excitement Helen turned to see a savage yellow little mustang standing straight up on his hind legs and pawing the air. Roy had roped him and was now dragging him into camp.

“Nell, look at that for a wild pony!” exclaimed Bo.

Helen busied herself getting well out of the way of the infuriated mustang. Roy dragged him to a cedar near by.

“Come now, Buckskin,” said Roy, soothingly, and he slowly approached the quivering animal. He went closer, hand over hand, on the lasso. Buckskin showed the whites of his eyes and also his white teeth. But he stood while Roy loosened the loop and, slipping it down over his head, fastened it in a complicated knot round his nose.

“Thet's a hackamore,” he said, indicating the knot. “He's never had a bridle, an' never will have one, I reckon.”

“You don't ride him?” queried Helen.

“Sometimes I do,” replied Roy, with a smile. “Would you girls like to try him?”

“Excuse me,” answered Helen.

“Gee!” ejaculated Bo. “He looks like a devil. But I'd tackle him—if you think I could.”

The wild leaven of the West had found quick root in Bo Rayner.

“Wal, I'm sorry, but I reckon I'll not let you—for a spell,” replied Roy, dryly.

“He pitches somethin' powerful bad.”

“Pitches. You mean bucks?”

“I reckon.”

In the next half-hour Helen saw more and learned more about how horses of the open range were handled than she had ever heard of. Excepting Ranger, and Roy's bay, and the white pony Bo rode, the rest of the horses had actually to be roped and hauled into camp to be saddled and packed. It was a job for fearless, strong men, and one that called for patience as well as arms of iron. So that for Helen Rayner the thing succeeding the confidence she had placed in these men was respect. To an observing woman that half-hour told much.

When all was in readiness for a start Dale mounted, and said, significantly: “Roy, I'll look for you about sundown. I hope no sooner.”

“Wal, it'd be bad if I had to rustle along soon with bad news. Let's hope for the best. We've been shore lucky so far. Now you take to the pine-mats in the woods an' hide your trail.”

Dale turned away. Then the girls bade Roy good-by, and followed. Soon Roy and his buckskin-colored mustang were lost to sight round a clump of trees.

The unhampered horses led the way; the pack-animals trotted after them; the riders were close behind. All traveled at a jog-trot. And this gait made the packs bob up and down and from side to side. The sun felt warm at Helen's back and the wind lost its frosty coldness, that almost appeared damp, for a dry, sweet fragrance. Dale drove up the shallow valley that showed timber on the levels above and a black border of timber some few miles ahead. It did not take long to reach the edge of the forest.

Helen wondered why the big pines grew so far on that plain and no farther. Probably the growth had to do with snow, but, as the ground was level, she could not see why the edge of the woods should come just there.

They rode into the forest.

To Helen it seemed a strange, critical entrance into another world, which she was destined to know and to love. The pines were big, brown-barked, seamed, and knotted, with no typical conformation except a majesty and beauty. They grew far apart. Few small pines and little underbrush flourished beneath them. The floor of this forest appeared remarkable in that it consisted of patches of high silvery grass and wide brown areas of pine-needles. These manifestly were what Roy had meant by pine-mats. Here and there a fallen monarch lay riven or rotting. Helen was presently struck with the silence of the forest and the strange fact that the horses seldom made any sound at all, and when they did it was a cracking of dead twig or thud of hoof on log. Likewise she became aware of a springy nature of the ground. And then she saw that the pine-mats gave like rubber cushions under the hoofs of the horses, and after they had passed sprang back to place again, leaving no track. Helen could not see a sign of a trail they left behind. Indeed, it would take a sharp eye to follow Dale through that forest. This knowledge was infinitely comforting to Helen, and for the first time since the flight had begun she felt a lessening of the weight upon mind and heart. It left her free for some of the appreciation she might have had in this wonderful ride under happier circumstances.

Bo, however, seemed too young, too wild, too intense to mind what the circumstances were. She responded to reality. Helen began to suspect that the girl would welcome any adventure, and Helen knew surely now that Bo was a true Auchincloss. For three long days Helen had felt a constraint with which heretofore she had been unfamiliar; for the last hours it had been submerged under dread. But it must be, she concluded, blood like her sister's, pounding at her veins to be set free to race and to burn.

Bo loved action. She had an eye for beauty, but she was not contemplative. She was now helping Dale drive the horses and hold them in rather close formation. She rode well, and as yet showed no symptoms of fatigue or pain. Helen began to be aware of both, but not enough yet to limit her interest.

A wonderful forest without birds did not seem real to her. Of all living creatures in nature Helen liked birds best, and she knew many and could imitate the songs of a few. But here under the stately pines there were no birds. Squirrels, however, began to be seen here and there, and in the course of an hour's travel became abundant. The only one with which she was familiar was the chipmunk. All the others, from the slim bright blacks to the striped russets and the white-tailed grays, were totally new to her. They appeared tame and curious. The reds barked and scolded at the passing cavalcade; the blacks glided to some safe branch, there to watch; the grays paid no especial heed to this invasion of their domain.

Once Dale, halting his horse, pointed with long arm, and Helen, following the direction, descried several gray deer standing in a glade, motionless, with long ears up. They made a wild and beautiful picture. Suddenly they bounded away with remarkable springy strides.

The forest on the whole held to the level, open character, but there were swales and stream-beds breaking up its regular conformity. Toward noon, however, it gradually changed, a fact that Helen believed she might have observed sooner had she been more keen. The general lay of the land began to ascend, and the trees to grow denser.

She made another discovery. Ever since she had entered the forest she had become aware of a fullness in her head and a something affecting her nostrils. She imagined, with regret, that she had taken cold. But presently her head cleared somewhat and she realized that the thick pine odor of the forest had clogged her nostrils as if with a sweet pitch. The smell was overpowering and disagreeable because of its strength. Also her throat and lungs seemed to burn.

When she began to lose interest in the forest and her surroundings it was because of aches and pains which would no longer be denied recognition. Thereafter she was not permitted to forget them and they grew worse. One, especially, was a pain beyond all her experience. It lay in the muscles of her side, above her hip, and it grew to be a treacherous thing, for it was not persistent. It came and went. After it did come, with a terrible flash, it could be borne by shifting or easing the body. But it gave no warning. When she expected it she was mistaken; when she dared to breathe again, then, with piercing swiftness, it returned like a blade in her side. This, then, was one of the riding-pains that made a victim of a tenderfoot on a long ride. It was almost too much to be borne. The beauty of the forest, the living creatures to be seen scurrying away, the time, distance—everything faded before that stablike pain. To her infinite relief she found that it was the trot that caused this torture. When Ranger walked she did not have to suffer it. Therefore she held him to a walk as long as she dared or until Dale and Bo were almost out of sight; then she loped him ahead until he had caught up.

So the hours passed, the sun got around low, sending golden shafts under the trees, and the forest gradually changed to a brighter, but a thicker, color. This slowly darkened. Sunset was not far away.

She heard the horses splashing in water, and soon she rode up to see the tiny streams of crystal water running swiftly over beds of green moss. She crossed a number of these and followed along the last one into a more open place in the forest where the pines were huge, towering, and far apart. A low, gray bluff of stone rose to the right, perhaps one-third as high as the trees. From somewhere came the rushing sound of running water.

“Big Spring,” announced Dale. “We camp here. You girls have done well.”

Another glance proved to Helen that all those little streams poured from under this gray bluff.

“I'm dying for a drink,” cried Bo with her customary hyperbole.

“I reckon you'll never forget your first drink here,” remarked Dale.

Bo essayed to dismount, and finally fell off, and when she did get to the ground her legs appeared to refuse their natural function, and she fell flat. Dale helped her up.

“What's wrong with me, anyhow?” she demanded, in great amaze.

“Just stiff, I reckon,” replied Dale, as he led her a few awkward steps.

“Bo, have you any hurts?” queried Helen, who still sat her horse, loath to try dismounting, yet wanting to beyond all words.

Bo gave her an eloquent glance.

“Nell, did you have one in your side, like a wicked, long darning-needle, punching deep when you weren't ready?”

“That one I'll never get over!” exclaimed Helen, softly. Then, profiting by Bo's experience, she dismounted cautiously, and managed to keep upright. Her legs felt like wooden things.

Presently the girls went toward the spring.

“Drink slow,” called out Dale.

Big Spring had its source somewhere deep under the gray, weathered bluff, from which came a hollow subterranean gurgle and roar of water. Its fountainhead must have been a great well rushing up through the cold stone.

Helen and Bo lay flat on a mossy bank, seeing their faces as they bent over, and they sipped a mouthful, by Dale's advice, and because they were so hot and parched and burning they wanted to tarry a moment with a precious opportunity.

The water was so cold that it sent a shock over Helen, made her teeth ache, and a singular, revivifying current steal all through her, wonderful in its cool absorption of that dry heat of flesh, irresistible in its appeal to thirst. Helen raised her head to look at this water. It was colorless as she had found it tasteless.

“Nell—drink!” panted Bo. “Think of our—old spring—in the orchard—full of pollywogs!”

And then Helen drank thirstily, with closed eyes, while a memory of home stirred from Bo's gift of poignant speech.

The first camp duty Dale performed was to throw a pack off one of the horses, and, opening it, he took out tarpaulin and blankets, which he arranged on the ground under a pine-tree.

“You girls rest,” he said, briefly.

“Can't we help?” asked Helen, though she could scarcely stand.

“You'll be welcome to do all you like after you're broke in.”

“Broke in!” ejaculated Bo, with a little laugh. “I'm all broke UP now.”

“Bo, it looks as if Mr. Dale expects us to have quite a stay with him in the woods.”

“It does,” replied Bo, as slowly she sat down upon the blankets, stretched out with a long sigh, and laid her head on a saddle. “Nell, didn't he say not to call him Mister?”

Dale was throwing the packs off the other horses.

Helen lay down beside Bo, and then for once in her life she experienced the sweetness of rest.

“Well, sister, what do you intend to call him?” queried Helen, curiously.

“Milt, of course,” replied Bo.

Helen had to laugh despite her weariness and aches.

“I suppose, then, when your Las Vegas cowboy comes along you will call him what he called you.”

Bo blushed, which was a rather unusual thing for her.

“I will if I like,” she retorted. “Nell, ever since I could remember you've raved about the West. Now you're OUT West, right in it good and deep. So wake up!”

That was Bo's blunt and characteristic way of advising the elimination of Helen's superficialities. It sank deep. Helen had no retort. Her ambition, as far as the West was concerned, had most assuredly not been for such a wild, unheard-of jaunt as this. But possibly the West—a living from day to day—was one succession of adventures, trials, tests, troubles, and achievements. To make a place for others to live comfortably some day! That might be Bo's meaning, embodied in her forceful hint. But Helen was too tired to think it out then. She found it interesting and vaguely pleasant to watch Dale.

He hobbled the horses and turned them loose. Then with ax in hand he approached a short, dead tree, standing among a few white-barked aspens. Dale appeared to advantage swinging the ax. With his coat off, displaying his wide shoulders, straight back, and long, powerful arms, he looked a young giant. He was lithe and supple, brawny but not bulky. The ax rang on the hard wood, reverberating through the forest. A few strokes sufficed to bring down the stub. Then he split it up. Helen was curious to see how he kindled a fire. First he ripped splinters out of the heart of the log, and laid them with coarser pieces on the ground. Then from a saddlebag which hung on a near-by branch he took flint and steel and a piece of what Helen supposed was rag or buckskin, upon which powder had been rubbed. At any rate, the first strike of the steel brought sparks, a blaze, and burning splinters. Instantly the flame leaped a foot high. He put on larger pieces of wood crosswise, and the fire roared.

That done, he stood erect, and, facing the north, he listened. Helen remembered now that she had seen him do the same thing twice before since the arrival at Big Spring. It was Roy for whom he was listening and watching. The sun had set and across the open space the tips of the pines were losing their brightness.

The camp utensils, which the hunter emptied out of a sack, gave forth a jangle of iron and tin. Next he unrolled a large pack, the contents of which appeared to be numerous sacks of all sizes. These evidently contained food supplies. The bucket looked as if a horse had rolled over it, pack and all. Dale filled it at the spring. Upon returning to the camp-fire he poured water into a washbasin, and, getting down to his knees, proceeded to wash his hands thoroughly. The act seemed a habit, for Helen saw that while he was doing it he gazed off into the woods and listened. Then he dried his hands over the fire, and, turning to the spread-out pack, he began preparations for the meal.

Suddenly Helen thought of the man and all that his actions implied. At Magdalena, on the stage-ride, and last night, she had trusted this stranger, a hunter of the White Mountains, who appeared ready to befriend her. And she had felt an exceeding gratitude. Still, she had looked at him impersonally. But it began to dawn upon her that chance had thrown her in the company of a remarkable man. That impression baffled her. It did not spring from the fact that he was brave and kind to help a young woman in peril, or that he appeared deft and quick at camp-fire chores. Most Western men were brave, her uncle had told her, and many were roughly kind, and all of them could cook. This hunter was physically a wonderful specimen of manhood, with something leonine about his stature. But that did not give rise to her impression. Helen had been a school-teacher and used to boys, and she sensed a boyish simplicity or vigor or freshness in this hunter. She believed, however, that it was a mental and spiritual force in Dale which had drawn her to think of it.

“Nell, I've spoken to you three times,” protested Bo, petulantly. “What 're you mooning over?”

“I'm pretty tired—and far away, Bo,” replied Helen. “What did you say?”

“I said I had an e-normous appetite.”

“Really. That's not remarkable for you. I'm too tired to eat. And afraid to shut my eyes. They'd never come open. When did we sleep last, Bo?”

“Second night before we left home,” declared Bo.

“Four nights! Oh, we've slept some.”

“I'll bet I make mine up in this woods. Do you suppose we'll sleep right here—under this tree—with no covering?”

“It looks so,” replied Helen, dubiously.

“How perfectly lovely!” exclaimed Bo, in delight. “We'll see the stars through the pines.”

“Seems to be clouding over. Wouldn't it be awful if we had a storm?”

“Why, I don't know,” answered Bo, thoughtfully. “It must storm out West.”

Again Helen felt a quality of inevitableness in Bo. It was something that had appeared only practical in the humdrum home life in St. Joseph. All of a sudden Helen received a flash of wondering thought—a thrilling consciousness that she and Bo had begun to develop in a new and wild environment. How strange, and fearful, perhaps, to watch that growth! Bo, being younger, more impressionable, with elemental rather than intellectual instincts, would grow stronger more swiftly. Helen wondered if she could yield to her own leaning to the primitive. But how could anyone with a thoughtful and grasping mind yield that way? It was the savage who did not think.

Helen saw Dale stand erect once more and gaze into the forest.

“Reckon Roy ain't comin',” he soliloquized. “An' that's good.” Then he turned to the girls. “Supper's ready.”

The girls responded with a spirit greater than their activity. And they ate like famished children that had been lost in the woods. Dale attended them with a pleasant light upon his still face.

“To-morrow night we'll have meat,” he said.

“What kind?” asked Bo.

“Wild turkey or deer. Maybe both, if you like. But it's well to take wild meat slow. An' turkey—that 'll melt in your mouth.”

“Uummm!” murmured Bo, greedily. “I've heard of wild turkey.”

When they had finished Dale ate his meal, listening to the talk of the girls, and occasionally replying briefly to some query of Bo's. It was twilight when he began to wash the pots and pans, and almost dark by the time his duties appeared ended. Then he replenished the campfire and sat down on a log to gaze into the fire. The girls leaned comfortably propped against the saddles.

“Nell, I'll keel over in a minute,” said Bo. “And I oughtn't—right on such a big supper.”

“I don't see how I can sleep, and I know I can't stay awake,” rejoined Helen.

Dale lifted his head alertly.

“Listen.”

The girls grew tense and still. Helen could not hear a sound, unless it was a low thud of hoof out in the gloom. The forest seemed sleeping. She knew from Bo's eyes, wide and shining in the camp-fire light, that she, too, had failed to catch whatever it was Dale meant.

“Bunch of coyotes comin',” he explained.

Suddenly the quietness split to a chorus of snappy, high-strung, strange barks. They sounded wild, yet they held something of a friendly or inquisitive note. Presently gray forms could be descried just at the edge of the circle of light. Soft rustlings of stealthy feet surrounded the camp, and then barks and yelps broke out all around. It was a restless and sneaking pack of animals, thought Helen; she was glad after the chorus ended and with a few desultory, spiteful yelps the coyotes went away.

Silence again settled down. If it had not been for the anxiety always present in Helen's mind she would have thought this silence sweet and unfamiliarly beautiful.

“Ah! Listen to that fellow,” spoke up Dale. His voice was thrilling.

Again the girls strained their ears. That was not necessary, for presently, clear and cold out of the silence, pealed a mournful howl, long drawn, strange and full and wild.

“Oh! What's that?” whispered Bo.

“That's a big gray wolf—a timber-wolf, or lofer, as he's sometimes called,” replied Dale. “He's high on some rocky ridge back there. He scents us, an' he doesn't like it.... There he goes again. Listen! Ah, he's hungry.”

While Helen listened to this exceedingly wild cry—so wild that it made her flesh creep and the most indescribable sensations of loneliness come over her—she kept her glance upon Dale.

“You love him?” she murmured involuntarily, quite without understanding the motive of her query.

Assuredly Dale had never had that question asked of him before, and it seemed to Helen, as he pondered, that he had never even asked it of himself.

“I reckon so,” he replied, presently.

“But wolves kill deer, and little fawns, and everything helpless in the forest,” expostulated Bo.

The hunter nodded his head.

“Why, then, can you love him?” repeated Helen.

“Come to think of it, I reckon it's because of lots of reasons,” returned Dale. “He kills clean. He eats no carrion. He's no coward. He fights. He dies game.... An' he likes to be alone.”

“Kills clean. What do you mean by that?”

“A cougar, now, he mangles a deer. An' a silvertip, when killin' a cow or colt, he makes a mess of it. But a wolf kills clean, with sharp snaps.”

“What are a cougar and a silvertip?”

“Cougar means mountain-lion or panther, an' a silvertip is a grizzly bear.”

“Oh, they're all cruel!” exclaimed Helen, shrinking.

“I reckon. Often I've shot wolves for relayin' a deer.”

“What's that?”

“Sometimes two or more wolves will run a deer, an' while one of them rests the other will drive the deer around to his pardner, who'll, take up the chase. That way they run the deer down. Cruel it is, but nature, an' no worse than snow an' ice that starve deer, or a fox that kills turkey-chicks breakin' out of the egg, or ravens that pick the eyes out of new-born lambs an' wait till they die. An' for that matter, men are crueler than beasts of prey, for men add to nature, an' have more than instincts.”

Helen was silenced, as well as shocked. She had not only learned a new and striking viewpoint in natural history, but a clear intimation to the reason why she had vaguely imagined or divined a remarkable character in this man. A hunter was one who killed animals for their fur, for their meat or horns, or for some lust for blood—that was Helen's definition of a hunter, and she believed it was held by the majority of people living in settled states. But the majority might be wrong. A hunter might be vastly different, and vastly more than a tracker and slayer of game. The mountain world of forest was a mystery to almost all men. Perhaps Dale knew its secrets, its life, its terror, its beauty, its sadness, and its joy; and if so, how full, how wonderful must be his mind! He spoke of men as no better than wolves. Could a lonely life in the wilderness teach a man that? Bitterness, envy, jealousy, spite, greed, and hate—these had no place in this hunter's heart. It was not Helen's shrewdness, but a woman's intuition, which divined that.

Dale rose to his feet and, turning his ear to the north, listened once more.

“Are you expecting Roy still?” inquired Helen.

“No, it ain't likely he'll turn up to-night,” replied Dale, and then he strode over to put a hand on the pine-tree that soared above where the girls lay. His action, and the way he looked up at the tree-top and then at adjacent trees, held more of that significance which so interested Helen.

“I reckon he's stood there some five hundred years an' will stand through to-night,” muttered Dale.

This pine was the monarch of that wide-spread group.

“Listen again,” said Dale.

Bo was asleep. And Helen, listening, at once caught low, distant roar.

“Wind. It's goin' to storm,” explained Dale. “You'll hear somethin' worth while. But don't be scared. Reckon we'll be safe. Pines blow down often. But this fellow will stand any fall wind that ever was.... Better slip under the blankets so I can pull the tarp up.”

Helen slid down, just as she was, fully dressed except for boots, which she and Bo had removed; and she laid her head close to Bo's. Dale pulled the tarpaulin up and folded it back just below their heads.

“When it rains you'll wake, an' then just pull the tarp up over you,” he said.

“Will it rain?” Helen asked. But she was thinking that this moment was the strangest that had ever happened to her. By the light of the camp-fire she saw Dale's face, just as usual, still, darkly serene, expressing no thought. He was kind, but he was not thinking of these sisters as girls, alone with him in a pitch-black forest, helpless and defenseless. He did not seem to be thinking at all. But Helen had never before in her life been so keenly susceptible to experience.

“I'll be close by an' keep the fire goin' all night,” he said.

She heard him stride off into the darkness. Presently there came a dragging, bumping sound, then a crash of a log dropped upon the fire. A cloud of sparks shot up, and many pattered down to hiss upon the damp ground. Smoke again curled upward along the great, seamed tree-trunk, and flames sputtered and crackled.

Helen listened again for the roar of wind. It seemed to come on a breath of air that fanned her cheek and softly blew Bo's curls, and it was stronger. But it died out presently, only to come again, and still stronger. Helen realized then that the sound was that of an approaching storm. Her heavy eyelids almost refused to stay open, and she knew if she let them close she would instantly drop to sleep. And she wanted to hear the storm-wind in the pines.

A few drops of cold rain fell upon her face, thrilling her with the proof that no roof stood between her and the elements. Then a breeze bore the smell of burnt wood into her face, and somehow her quick mind flew to girlhood days when she burned brush and leaves with her little brothers. The memory faded. The roar that had seemed distant was now back in the forest, coming swiftly, increasing in volume. Like a stream in flood it bore down. Helen grew amazed, startled. How rushing, oncoming, and heavy this storm-wind! She likened its approach to the tread of an army. Then the roar filled the forest, yet it was back there behind her. Not a pine-needle quivered in the light of the camp-fire. But the air seemed to be oppressed with a terrible charge. The roar augmented till it was no longer a roar, but an on-sweeping crash, like an ocean torrent engulfing the earth. Bo awoke to cling to Helen with fright. The deafening storm-blast was upon them. Helen felt the saddle-pillow move under her head. The giant pine had trembled to its very roots. That mighty fury of wind was all aloft, in the tree-tops. And for a long moment it bowed the forest under its tremendous power. Then the deafening crash passed to roar, and that swept on and on, lessening in volume, deepening in low detonation, at last to die in the distance.

No sooner had it died than back to the north another low roar rose and ceased and rose again. Helen lay there, whispering to Bo, and heard again the great wave of wind come and crash and cease. That was the way of this storm-wind of the mountain forest.

A soft patter of rain on the tarpaulin warned Helen to remember Dale's directions, and, pulling up the heavy covering, she arranged it hoodlike over the saddle. Then, with Bo close and warm beside her, she closed her eyes, and the sense of the black forest and the wind and rain faded. Last of all sensations was the smell of smoke that blew under the tarpaulin.

When she opened her eyes she remembered everything, as if only a moment had elapsed. But it was daylight, though gray and cloudy. The pines were dripping mist. A fire crackled cheerily and blue smoke curled upward and a savory odor of hot coffee hung in the air. Horses were standing near by, biting and kicking at one another. Bo was sound asleep. Dale appeared busy around the camp-fire. As Helen watched the hunter she saw him pause in his task, turn his ear to listen, and then look expectantly. And at that juncture a shout pealed from the forest. Helen recognized Roy's voice. Then she heard a splashing of water, and hoof-beats coming closer. With that the buckskin mustang trotted into camp, carrying Roy.

“Bad mornin' for ducks, but good for us,” he called.

“Howdy, Roy!” greeted Dale, and his gladness was unmistakable. “I was lookin' for you.”

Roy appeared to slide off the mustang without effort, and his swift hands slapped the straps as he unsaddled. Buckskin was wet with sweat and foam mixed with rain. He heaved. And steam rose from him.

“Must have rode hard,” observed Dale.

“I shore did,” replied Roy. Then he espied Helen, who had sat up, with hands to her hair, and eyes staring at him.

“Mornin', miss. It's good news.”

“Thank Heaven!” murmured Helen, and then she shook Bo. That young lady awoke, but was loath to give up slumber. “Bo! Bo! Wake up! Mr. Roy is back.”

Whereupon Bo sat up, disheveled and sleepy-eyed.

“Oh-h, but I ache!” she moaned. But her eyes took in the camp scene to the effect that she added, “Is breakfast ready?”

“Almost. An' flapjacks this mornin',” replied Dale.

Bo manifested active symptoms of health in the manner with which she laced her boots. Helen got their traveling-bag, and with this they repaired to a flat stone beside the spring, not, however, out of earshot of the men.

“How long are you goin' to hang around camp before tellin' me?” inquired Dale.

“Jest as I figgered, Milt,” replied Roy. “Thet rider who passed you was a messenger to Anson. He an' his gang got on our trail quick. About ten o'clock I seen them comin'. Then I lit out for the woods. I stayed off in the woods close enough to see where they come in. An' shore they lost your trail. Then they spread through the woods, workin' off to the south, thinkin', of course, thet you would circle round to Pine on the south side of Old Baldy. There ain't a hoss-tracker in Snake Anson's gang, thet's shore. Wal, I follered them for an hour till they'd rustled some miles off our trail. Then I went back to where you struck into the woods. An' I waited there all afternoon till dark, expectin' mebbe they'd back-trail. But they didn't. I rode on a ways an' camped in the woods till jest before daylight.”

“So far so good,” declared Dale.

“Shore. There's rough country south of Baldy an' along the two or three trails Anson an' his outfit will camp, you bet.”

“It ain't to be thought of,” muttered Dale, at some idea that had struck him.

“What ain't?”

“Goin' round the north side of Baldy.”

“It shore ain't,” rejoined Roy, bluntly.

“Then I've got to hide tracks certain—rustle to my camp an' stay there till you say it's safe to risk takin' the girls to Pine.”

“Milt, you're talkin' the wisdom of the prophets.”

“I ain't so sure we can hide tracks altogether. If Anson had any eyes for the woods he'd not have lost me so soon.

“No. But, you see, he's figgerin' to cross your trail.”

“If I could get fifteen or twenty mile farther on an' hide tracks certain, I'd feel safe from pursuit, anyway,” said the hunter, reflectively.

“Shore an' easy,” responded Roy, quickly. “I jest met up with some greaser sheep-herders drivin' a big flock. They've come up from the south an' are goin' to fatten up at Turkey Senacas. Then they'll drive back south an' go on to Phenix. Wal, it's muddy weather. Now you break camp quick an' make a plain trail out to thet sheep trail, as if you was travelin' south. But, instead, you ride round ahead of thet flock of sheep. They'll keep to the open parks an' the trails through them necks of woods out here. An', passin' over your tracks, they'll hide 'em.”

“But supposin' Anson circles an' hits this camp? He'll track me easy out to that sheep trail. What then?”

“Jest what you want. Goin' south thet sheep trail is downhill an' muddy. It's goin' to rain hard. Your tracks would get washed out even if you did go south. An' Anson would keep on thet way till he was clear off the scent. Leave it to me, Milt. You're a hunter. But I'm a hoss-tracker.”

“All right. We'll rustle.”

Then he called the girls to hurry.

Once astride the horse again, Helen had to congratulate herself upon not being so crippled as she had imagined. Indeed, Bo made all the audible complaints.

Both girls had long water-proof coats, brand-new, and of which they were considerably proud. New clothes had not been a common event in their lives.

“Reckon I'll have to slit these,” Dale had said, whipping out a huge knife.

“What for?” had been Bo's feeble protest.

“They wasn't made for ridin'. An' you'll get wet enough even if I do cut them. An' if I don't, you'll get soaked.”

“Go ahead,” had been Helen's reluctant permission.

So their long new coats were slit half-way up the back. The exigency of the case was manifest to Helen, when she saw how they came down over the cantles of the saddles and to their boot-tops.

The morning was gray and cold. A fine, misty rain fell and the trees dripped steadily. Helen was surprised to see the open country again and that apparently they were to leave the forest behind for a while. The country was wide and flat on the right, and to the left it rolled and heaved along a black, scalloped timber-line. Above this bordering of the forest low, drifting clouds obscured the mountains. The wind was at Helen's back and seemed to be growing stronger. Dale and Roy were ahead, traveling at a good trot, with the pack-animals bunched before them. Helen and Bo had enough to do to keep up.

The first hour's ride brought little change in weather or scenery, but it gave Helen an inkling of what she must endure if they kept that up all day. She began to welcome the places where the horses walked, but she disliked the levels. As for the descents, she hated those. Ranger would not go down slowly and the shake-up she received was unpleasant. Moreover, the spirited black horse insisted on jumping the ditches and washes. He sailed over them like a bird. Helen could not acquire the knack of sitting the saddle properly, and so, not only was her person bruised on these occasions, but her feelings were hurt. Helen had never before been conscious of vanity. Still, she had never rejoiced in looking at a disadvantage, and her exhibitions here must have been frightful. Bo always would forge to the front, and she seldom looked back, for which Helen was grateful.

Before long they struck into a broad, muddy belt, full of innumerable small hoof tracks. This, then, was the sheep trail Roy had advised following. They rode on it for three or four miles, and at length, coming to a gray-green valley, they saw a huge flock of sheep. Soon the air was full of bleats and baas as well as the odor of sheep, and a low, soft roar of pattering hoofs. The flock held a compact formation, covering several acres, and grazed along rapidly. There were three herders on horses and several pack-burros. Dale engaged one of the Mexicans in conversation, and passed something to him, then pointed northward and down along the trail. The Mexican grinned from ear to ear, and Helen caught the quick “SI, SENOR! GRACIAS, SENOR!” It was a pretty sight, that flock of sheep, as it rolled along like a rounded woolly stream of grays and browns and here and there a black. They were keeping to a trail over the flats. Dale headed into this trail and, if anything, trotted a little faster.

Presently the clouds lifted and broke, showing blue sky and one streak of sunshine. But the augury was without warrant. The wind increased. A huge black pall bore down from the mountains and it brought rain that could be seen falling in sheets from above and approaching like a swiftly moving wall. Soon it enveloped the fugitives.

With head bowed, Helen rode along for what seemed ages in a cold, gray rain that blew almost on a level. Finally the heavy downpour passed, leaving a fine mist. The clouds scurried low and dark, hiding the mountains altogether and making the gray, wet plain a dreary sight. Helen's feet and knees were as wet as if she had waded in water. And they were cold. Her gloves, too, had not been intended for rain, and they were wet through. The cold bit at her fingers so that she had to beat her hands together. Ranger misunderstood this to mean that he was to trot faster, which event was worse for Helen than freezing.

She saw another black, scudding mass of clouds bearing down with its trailing sheets of rain, and this one appeared streaked with white. Snow! The wind was now piercingly cold. Helen's body kept warm, but her extremities and ears began to suffer exceedingly. She gazed ahead grimly. There was no help; she had to go on. Dale and Roy were hunched down in their saddles, probably wet through, for they wore no rain-proof coats. Bo kept close behind them, and plain it was that she felt the cold.

This second storm was not so bad as the first, because there was less rain. Still, the icy keenness of the wind bit into the marrow. It lasted for an hour, during which the horses trotted on, trotted on. Again the gray torrent roared away, the fine mist blew, the clouds lifted and separated, and, closing again, darkened for another onslaught. This one brought sleet. The driving pellets stung Helen's neck and cheeks, and for a while they fell so thick and so hard upon her back that she was afraid she could not hold up under them. The bare places on the ground showed a sparkling coverlet of marbles of ice.

Thus, storm after storm rolled over Helen's head. Her feet grew numb and ceased to hurt. But her fingers, because of her ceaseless efforts to keep up the circulation, retained the stinging pain. And now the wind pierced right through her. She marveled at her endurance, and there were many times that she believed she could not ride farther. Yet she kept on. All the winters she had ever lived had not brought such a day as this. Hard and cold, wet and windy, at an increasing elevation—that was the explanation. The air did not have sufficient oxygen for her blood.

Still, during all those interminable hours, Helen watched where she was traveling, and if she ever returned over that trail she would recognize it. The afternoon appeared far advanced when Dale and Roy led down into an immense basin where a reedy lake spread over the flats. They rode along its margin, splashing up to the knees of the horses. Cranes and herons flew on with lumbering motion; flocks of ducks winged swift flight from one side to the other. Beyond this depression the land sloped rather abruptly; outcroppings of rock circled along the edge of the highest ground, and again a dark fringe of trees appeared.

How many miles! wondered Helen. They seemed as many and as long as the hours. But at last, just as another hard rain came, the pines were reached. They proved to be widely scattered and afforded little protection from the storm.

Helen sat her saddle, a dead weight. Whenever Ranger quickened his gait or crossed a ditch she held on to the pommel to keep from falling off. Her mind harbored only sensations of misery, and a persistent thought—why did she ever leave home for the West? Her solicitude for Bo had been forgotten. Nevertheless, any marked change in the topography of the country was registered, perhaps photographed on her memory by the torturing vividness of her experience.

The forest grew more level and denser. Shadows of twilight or gloom lay under the trees. Presently Dale and Roy, disappeared, going downhill, and likewise Bo. Then Helen's ears suddenly filled with a roar of rapid water. Ranger trotted faster. Soon Helen came to the edge of a great valley, black and gray, so full of obscurity that she could not see across or down into it. But she knew there was a rushing river at the bottom. The sound was deep, continuous, a heavy, murmuring roar, singularly musical. The trail was steep. Helen had not lost all feeling, as she had believed and hoped. Her poor, mistreated body still responded excruciatingly to concussions, jars, wrenches, and all the other horrible movements making up a horse-trot.

For long Helen did not look up. When she did so there lay a green, willow-bordered, treeless space at the bottom of the valley, through which a brown-white stream rushed with steady, ear-filling roar.

Dale and Roy drove the pack-animals across the stream, and followed, going deep to the flanks of their horses. Bo rode into the foaming water as if she had been used to it all her days. A slip, a fall, would have meant that Bo must drown in that mountain torrent.

Ranger trotted straight to the edge, and there, obedient to Helen's clutch on the bridle, he halted. The stream was fifty feet wide, shallow on the near side, deep on the opposite, with fast current and big waves. Helen was simply too frightened to follow.

“Let him come!” yelled Dale. “Stick on now!... Ranger!”

The big black plunged in, making the water fly. That stream was nothing for him, though it seemed impassable to Helen. She had not the strength left to lift her stirrups and the water surged over them. Ranger, in two more plunges, surmounted the bank, and then, trotting across the green to where the other horses stood steaming under some pines, he gave a great heave and halted.

Roy reached up to help her off.

“Thirty miles, Miss Helen,” he said, and the way he spoke was a compliment.

He had to lift her off and help her to the tree where Bo leaned. Dale had ripped off a saddle and was spreading saddle-blankets on the ground under the pine.

“Nell—you swore—you loved me!” was Bo's mournful greeting. The girl was pale, drawn, blue-lipped, and she could not stand up.

“Bo, I never did—or I'd never have brought you to this—wretch that I am!” cried Helen. “Oh, what a horrible ride!”

Rain was falling, the trees were dripping, the sky was lowering. All the ground was soaking wet, with pools and puddles everywhere. Helen could imagine nothing but a heartless, dreary, cold prospect. Just then home was vivid and poignant in her thoughts. Indeed, so utterly miserable was she that the exquisite relief of sitting down, of a cessation of movement, of a release from that infernal perpetual-trotting horse, seemed only a mockery. It could not be true that the time had come for rest.

Evidently this place had been a camp site for hunters or sheep-herders, for there were remains of a fire. Dale lifted the burnt end of a log and brought it down hard upon the ground, splitting off pieces. Several times he did this. It was amazing to see his strength, his facility, as he split off handfuls of splinters. He collected a bundle of them, and, laying them down, he bent over them. Roy wielded the ax on another log, and each stroke split off a long strip. Then a tiny column of smoke drifted up over Dale's shoulder as he leaned, bareheaded, sheltering the splinters with his hat. A blaze leaped up. Roy came with an armful of strips all white and dry, out of the inside of a log. Crosswise these were laid over the blaze, and it began to roar. Then piece by piece the men built up a frame upon which they added heavier woods, branches and stumps and logs, erecting a pyramid through which flames and smoke roared upward. It had not taken two minutes. Already Helen felt the warmth on her icy face. She held up her bare, numb hands.

Both Dale and Roy were wet through to the skin, yet they did not tarry beside the fire. They relieved the horses. A lasso went up between two pines, and a tarpaulin over it, V-shaped and pegged down at the four ends. The packs containing the baggage of the girls and the supplies and bedding were placed under this shelter.

Helen thought this might have taken five minutes more. In this short space of time the fire had leaped and flamed until it was huge and hot. Rain was falling steadily all around, but over and near that roaring blaze, ten feet high, no water fell. It evaporated. The ground began to steam and to dry. Helen suffered at first while the heat was driving out the cold. But presently the pain ceased.

“Nell, I never knew before how good a fire could feel,” declared Bo.

And therein lay more food for Helen's reflection.

In ten minutes Helen was dry and hot. Darkness came down upon the dreary, sodden forest, but that great camp-fire made it a different world from the one Helen had anticipated. It blazed and roared, cracked like a pistol, hissed and sputtered, shot sparks everywhere, and sent aloft a dense, yellow, whirling column of smoke. It began to have a heart of gold.

Dale took a long pole and raked out a pile of red embers upon which the coffee-pot and oven soon began to steam.

“Roy, I promised the girls turkey to-night,” said the hunter.

“Mebbe to-morrow, if the wind shifts. This 's turkey country.”

“Roy, a potato will do me!” exclaimed Bo. “Never again will I ask for cake and pie! I never appreciated good things to eat. And I've been a little pig, always. I never—never knew what it was to be hungry—until now.”

Dale glanced up quickly.

“Lass, it's worth learnin',” he said.

Helen's thought was too deep for words. In such brief space had she been transformed from misery to comfort!

The rain kept on falling, though it appeared to grow softer as night settled down black. The wind died away and the forest was still, except for the steady roar of the stream. A folded tarpaulin was laid between the pine and the fire, well in the light and warmth, and upon it the men set steaming pots and plates and cups, the fragrance from which was strong and inviting.

“Fetch the saddle-blanket an' set with your backs to the fire,” said Roy.

Later, when the girls were tucked away snugly in their blankets and sheltered from the rain, Helen remained awake after Bo had fallen asleep. The big blaze made the improvised tent as bright as day. She could see the smoke, the trunk of the big pine towering aloft, and a blank space of sky. The stream hummed a song, seemingly musical at times, and then discordant and dull, now low, now roaring, and always rushing, gurgling, babbling, flowing, chafing in its hurry.

Presently the hunter and his friend returned from hobbling the horses, and beside the fire they conversed in low tones.

“Wal, thet trail we made to-day will be hid, I reckon,” said Roy, with satisfaction.

“What wasn't sheeped over would be washed out. We've had luck. An' now I ain't worryin',” returned Dale.

“Worryin'? Then it's the first I ever knowed you to do.”

“Man, I never had a job like this,” protested the hunter.

“Wal, thet's so.”

“Now, Roy, when old Al Auchincloss finds out about this deal, as he's bound to when you or the boys get back to Pine, he's goin' to roar.”

“Do you reckon folks will side with him against Beasley?”

“Some of them. But Al, like as not, will tell folks to go where it's hot. He'll bunch his men an' strike for the mountains to find his nieces.”

“Wal, all you've got to do is to keep the girls hid till I can guide him up to your camp. Or, failin' thet, till you can slip the girls down to Pine.”

“No one but you an' your brothers ever seen my senaca. But it could be found easy enough.”

“Anson might blunder on it. But thet ain't likely.”

“Why ain't it?”

“Because I'll stick to thet sheep-thief's tracks like a wolf after a bleedin' deer. An' if he ever gets near your camp I'll ride in ahead of him.”

“Good!” declared Dale. “I was calculatin' you'd go down to Pine, sooner or later.”

“Not unless Anson goes. I told John thet in case there was no fight on the stage to make a bee-line back to Pine. He was to tell Al an' offer his services along with Joe an' Hal.”

“One way or another, then, there's bound to be blood spilled over this.”

“Shore! An' high time. I jest hope I get a look down my old 'forty-four' at thet Beasley.”

“In that case I hope you hold straighter than times I've seen you.”

“Milt Dale, I'm a good shot,” declared Roy, stoutly.

“You're no good on movin' targets.”

“Wal, mebbe so. But I'm not lookin' for a movin' target when I meet up with Beasley. I'm a hossman, not a hunter. You're used to shootin' flies off deer's horns, jest for practice.”

“Roy, can we make my camp by to-morrow night?” queried Dale, more seriously.

“We will, if each of us has to carry one of the girls. But they'll do it or die. Dale, did you ever see a gamer girl than thet kid Bo?”

“Me! Where'd I ever see any girls?” ejaculated Dale. “I remember some when I was a boy, but I was only fourteen then. Never had much use for girls.”

“I'd like to have a wife like that Bo,” declared Roy, fervidly.

There ensued a moment's silence.

“Roy, you're a Mormon an' you already got a wife,” was Dale's reply.

“Now, Milt, have you lived so long in the woods thet you never heard of a Mormon with two wives?” returned Roy, and then he laughed heartily.

“I never could stomach what I did hear pertainin' to more than one wife for a man.”

“Wal, my friend, you go an' get yourself ONE. An' see then if you wouldn't like to have TWO.”

“I reckon one 'd be more than enough for Milt Dale.”

“Milt, old man, let me tell you thet I always envied you your freedom,” said Roy, earnestly. “But it ain't life.”

“You mean life is love of a woman?”

“No. Thet's only part. I mean a son—a boy thet's like you—thet you feel will go on with your life after you're gone.”

“I've thought of that—thought it all out, watchin' the birds an' animals mate in the woods.... If I have no son I'll never live hereafter.”

“Wal,” replied Roy, hesitatingly, “I don't go in so deep as thet. I mean a son goes on with your blood an' your work.”

“Exactly... An', Roy, I envy you what you've got, because it's out of all bounds for Milt Dale.”

Those words, sad and deep, ended the conversation. Again the rumbling, rushing stream dominated the forest. An owl hooted dismally. A horse trod thuddingly near by and from that direction came a cutting tear of teeth on grass.

A voice pierced Helen's deep dreams and, awaking, she found Bo shaking and calling her.

“Are you dead?” came the gay voice.

“Almost. Oh, my back's broken,” replied Helen. The desire to move seemed clamped in a vise, and even if that came she believed the effort would be impossible.

“Roy called us,” said Bo. “He said hurry. I thought I'd die just sitting up, and I'd give you a million dollars to lace my boots. Wait, sister, till you try to pull on one of those stiff boots!”

With heroic and violent spirit Helen sat up to find that in the act her aches and pains appeared beyond number. Reaching for her boots, she found them cold and stiff. Helen unlaced one and, opening it wide, essayed to get her sore foot down into it. But her foot appeared swollen and the boot appeared shrunken. She could not get it half on, though she expended what little strength seemed left in her aching arms. She groaned.

Bo laughed wickedly. Her hair was tousled, her eyes dancing, her cheeks red.

“Be game!” she said. “Stand up like a real Western girl and PULL your boot on.”

Whether Bo's scorn or advice made the task easier did not occur to Helen, but the fact was that she got into her boots. Walking and moving a little appeared to loosen the stiff joints and ease that tired feeling. The water of the stream where the girls washed was colder than any ice Helen had ever felt. It almost paralyzed her hands. Bo mumbled, and blew like a porpoise. They had to run to the fire before being able to comb their hair. The air was wonderfully keen. The dawn was clear, bright, with a red glow in the east where the sun was about to rise.

“All ready, girls,” called Roy. “Reckon you can help yourselves. Milt ain't comin' in very fast with the hosses. I'll rustle off to help him. We've got a hard day before us. Yesterday wasn't nowhere to what to-day 'll be.”

“But the sun's going to shine?” implored Bo.

“Wal, you bet,” rejoined Roy, as he strode off.

Helen and Bo ate breakfast and had the camp to themselves for perhaps half an hour; then the horses came thudding down, with Dale and Roy riding bareback.

By the time all was in readiness to start the sun was up, melting the frost and ice, so that a dazzling, bright mist, full of rainbows, shone under the trees.

Dale looked Ranger over, and tried the cinches of Bo's horse.

“What's your choice—a long ride behind the packs with me—or a short cut over the hills with Roy?” he asked.

“I choose the lesser of two rides,” replied Helen, smiling.

“Reckon that 'll be easier, but you'll know you've had a ride,” said Dale, significantly.

“What was that we had yesterday?” asked Bo, archly.

“Only thirty miles, but cold an' wet. To-day will be fine for ridin'.”

“Milt, I'll take a blanket an' some grub in case you don't meet us to-night,” said Roy. “An' I reckon we'll split up here where I'll have to strike out on thet short cut.”

Bo mounted without a helping hand, but Helen's limbs were so stiff that she could not get astride the high Ranger without assistance. The hunter headed up the slope of the canyon, which on that side was not steep. It was brown pine forest, with here and there a clump of dark, silver-pointed evergreens that Roy called spruce. By the time this slope was surmounted Helen's aches were not so bad. The saddle appeared to fit her better, and the gait of the horse was not so unfamiliar. She reflected, however, that she always had done pretty well uphill. Here it was beautiful forest-land, uneven and wilder. They rode for a time along the rim, with the white rushing stream in plain sight far below, with its melodious roar ever thrumming in the ear.

Dale reined in and peered down at the pine-mat.

“Fresh deer sign all along here,” he said, pointing.

“Wal, I seen thet long ago,” rejoined Roy.

Helen's scrutiny was rewarded by descrying several tiny depressions in the pine-needles, dark in color and sharply defined.

“We may never get a better chance,” said Dale. “Those deer are workin' up our way. Get your rifle out.”

Travel was resumed then, with Roy a little in advance of the pack-train. Presently he dismounted, threw his bridle, and cautiously peered ahead. Then, turning, he waved his sombrero. The pack-animals halted in a bunch. Dale beckoned for the girls to follow and rode up to Roy's horse. This point, Helen saw, was at the top of an intersecting canuon. Dale dismounted, without drawing his rifle from its saddle-sheath, and approached Roy.

“Buck an' two does,” he said, low-voiced. “An' they've winded us, but don't see us yet.... Girls, ride up closer.”

Following the directions indicated by Dale's long arm, Helen looked down the slope. It was open, with tall pines here and there, and clumps of silver spruce, and aspens shining like gold in the morning sunlight. Presently Bo exclaimed: “Oh, look! I see! I see!” Then Helen's roving glance passed something different from green and gold and brown. Shifting back to it she saw a magnificent stag, with noble spreading antlers, standing like a statue, his head up in alert and wild posture. His color was gray. Beside him grazed two deer of slighter and more graceful build, without horns.

“It's downhill,” whispered Dale. “An' you're goin' to overshoot.”

Then Helen saw that Roy had his rifle leveled.

“Oh, don't!” she cried.

Dale's remark evidently nettled Roy. He lowered the rifle.

“Milt, it's me lookin' over this gun. How can you stand there an' tell me I'm goin' to shoot high? I had a dead bead on him.”

“Roy, you didn't allow for downhill... Hurry. He sees us now.”

Roy leveled the rifle and, taking aim as before, he fired. The buck stood perfectly motionless, as if he had indeed been stone. The does, however, jumped with a start, and gazed in fright in every direction.

“Told you! I seen where your bullet hit thet pine—half a foot over his shoulder. Try again an' aim at his legs.”

Roy now took a quicker aim and pulled trigger. A puff of dust right at the feet of the buck showed where Roy's lead had struck this time. With a single bound, wonderful to see, the big deer was out of sight behind trees and brush. The does leaped after him.

“Doggone the luck!” ejaculated Roy, red in the face, as he worked the lever of his rifle. “Never could shoot downhill, nohow!”

His rueful apology to the girls for missing brought a merry laugh from Bo.

“Not for worlds would I have had you kill that beautiful deer!” she exclaimed.

“We won't have venison steak off him, that's certain,” remarked Dale, dryly. “An' maybe none off any deer, if Roy does the shootin'.”

They resumed travel, sheering off to the right and keeping to the edge of the intersecting canuon. At length they rode down to the bottom, where a tiny brook babbled through willows, and they followed this for a mile or so down to where it flowed into the larger stream. A dim trail overgrown with grass showed at this point.

“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.

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!”

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.

“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.”

“Will the lion go back to his—his kill, I think you called it?” asked Bo.

“I've chased one away from his kill half a dozen times. Lions are not plentiful here an' they don't get overfed. I reckon the balance is pretty even.”

This last remark made Helen inquisitive. And as they slowly rode on the back-trail Dale talked.

“You girls, bein' tender-hearted an' not knowin' the life of the forest, what's good an' what's bad, think it was a pity the poor deer was killed by a murderous lion. But you're wrong. As I told you, the lion is absolutely necessary to the health an' joy of wild life—or deer's wild life, so to speak. When deer were created or came into existence, then the lion must have come, too. They can't live without each other. Wolves, now, are not particularly deer-killers. They live off elk an' anythin' they can catch. So will lions, for that matter. But I mean lions follow the deer to an' fro from winter to summer feedin'-grounds. Where there's no deer you will find no lions. Well, now, if left alone deer would multiply very fast. In a few years there would be hundreds where now there's only one. An' in time, as the generations passed, they'd lose the fear, the alertness, the speed an' strength, the eternal vigilance that is love of life—they'd lose that an' begin to deteriorate, an' disease would carry them off. I saw one season of black-tongue among deer. It killed them off, an' I believe that is one of the diseases of over-production. The lions, now, are forever on the trail of the deer. They have learned. Wariness is an instinct born in the fawn. It makes him keen, quick, active, fearful, an' so he grows up strong an' healthy to become the smooth, sleek, beautiful, soft-eyed, an' wild-lookin' deer you girls love to watch. But if it wasn't for the lions, the deer would not thrive. Only the strongest an' swiftest survive. That is the meanin' of nature. There is always a perfect balance kept by nature. It may vary in different years, but on the whole, in the long years, it averages an even balance.”

“How wonderfully you put it!” exclaimed Bo, with all her impulsiveness. “Oh, I'm glad I didn't kill the lion.”

“What you say somehow hurts me,” said Helen, wistfully, to the hunter. “I see—I feel how true—how inevitable it is. But it changes my—my feelings. Almost I'd rather not acquire such knowledge as yours. This balance of nature—how tragic—how sad!”

“But why?” asked Dale. “You love birds, an' birds are the greatest killers in the forest.”

“Don't tell me that—don't prove it,” implored Helen. “It is not so much the love of life in a deer or any creature, and the terrible clinging to life, that gives me distress. It is suffering. I can't bear to see pain. I can STAND pain myself, but I can't BEAR to see or think of it.”

“Well,” replied. Dale, thoughtfully, “There you stump me again. I've lived long in the forest an' when a man's alone he does a heap of thinkin'. An' always I couldn't understand a reason or a meanin' for pain. Of all the bafflin' things of life, that is the hardest to understand an' to forgive—pain!”

That evening, as they sat in restful places round the camp-fire, with the still twilight fading into night, Dale seriously asked the girls what the day's chase had meant to them. His manner of asking was productive of thought. Both girls were silent for a moment.

“Glorious!” was Bo's brief and eloquent reply.

“Why?” asked. Dale, curiously. “You are a girl. You've been used to home, people, love, comfort, safety, quiet.”

“Maybe that is just why it was glorious,” said Bo, earnestly. “I can hardly explain. I loved the motion of the horse, the feel of wind in my face, the smell of the pine, the sight of slope and forest glade and windfall and rocks, and the black shade under the spruces. My blood beat and burned. My teeth clicked. My nerves all quivered. My heart sometimes, at dangerous moments, almost choked me, and all the time it pounded hard. Now my skin was hot and then it was cold. But I think the best of that chase for me was that I was on a fast horse, guiding him, controlling him. He was alive. Oh, how I felt his running!”

“Well, what you say is as natural to me as if I felt it,” said Dale. “I wondered. You're certainly full of fire, An', Helen, what do you say?”

“Bo has answered you with her feelings,” replied Helen, “I could not do that and be honest. The fact that Bo wouldn't shoot the lion after we treed him acquits her. Nevertheless, her answer is purely physical. You know, Mr. Dale, how you talk about the physical. I should say my sister was just a young, wild, highly sensitive, hot-blooded female of the species. She exulted in that chase as an Indian. Her sensations were inherited ones—certainly not acquired by education. Bo always hated study. The ride was a revelation to me. I had a good many of Bo's feelings—though not so strong. But over against them was the opposition of reason, of consciousness. A new-born side of my nature confronted me, strange, surprising, violent, irresistible. It was as if another side of my personality suddenly said: 'Here I am. Reckon with me now!' And there was no use for the moment to oppose that strange side. I—the thinking Helen Rayner, was powerless. Oh yes, I had such thoughts even when the branches were stinging my face and I was thrilling to the bay of the hound. Once my horse fell and threw me.... You needn't look alarmed. It was fine. I went into a soft place and was unhurt. But when I was sailing through the air a thought flashed: this is the end of me! It was like a dream when you are falling dreadfully. Much of what I felt and thought on that chase must have been because of what I have studied and read and taught. The reality of it, the action and flash, were splendid. But fear of danger, pity for the chased lion, consciousness of foolish risk, of a reckless disregard for the serious responsibility I have taken—all these worked in my mind and held back what might have been a sheer physical, primitive joy of the wild moment.”

Dale listened intently, and after Helen had finished he studied the fire and thoughtfully poked the red embers with his stick. His face was still and serene, untroubled and unlined, but to Helen his eyes seemed sad, pensive, expressive of an unsatisfied yearning and wonder. She had carefully and earnestly spoken, because she was very curious to hear what he might say.

“I understand you,” he replied, presently. “An' I'm sure surprised that I can. I've read my books—an' reread them, but no one ever talked like that to me. What I make of it is this. You've the same blood in you that's in Bo. An' blood is stronger than brain. Remember that blood is life. It would be good for you to have it run an' beat an' burn, as Bo's did. Your blood did that a thousand years or ten thousand before intellect was born in your ancestors. Instinct may not be greater than reason, but it's a million years older. Don't fight your instincts so hard. If they were not good the God of Creation would not have given them to you. To-day your mind was full of self-restraint that did not altogether restrain. You couldn't forget yourself. You couldn't FEEL only, as Bo did. You couldn't be true to your real nature.”

“I don't agree with you,” replied Helen, quickly. “I don't have to be an Indian to be true to myself.”

“Why, yes you do,” said Dale.

“But I couldn't be an Indian,” declared Helen, spiritedly. “I couldn't FEEL only, as you say Bo did. I couldn't go back in the scale, as you hint. What would all my education amount to—though goodness knows it's little enough—if I had no control over primitive feelings that happened to be born in me?”

“You'll have little or no control over them when the right time comes,” replied Dale. “Your sheltered life an' education have led you away from natural instincts. But they're in you an' you'll learn the proof of that out here.”

“No. Not if I lived a hundred years in the West,” asserted Helen.

“But, child, do you know what you're talkin' about?”

Here Bo let out a blissful peal of laughter.

“Mr. Dale!” exclaimed Helen, almost affronted. She was stirred. “I know MYSELF, at least.”

“But you do not. You've no idea of yourself. You've education, yes, but not in nature an' life. An' after all, they are the real things. Answer me, now—honestly, will you?”

“Certainly, if I can. Some of your questions are hard to answer.”

“Have you ever been starved?” he asked.

“No,” replied Helen.

“Have you ever been lost away from home?”

“No.”

“Have you ever faced death—real stark an' naked death, close an' terrible?”

“No, indeed.”

“Have you ever wanted to kill any one with your bare hands?”

“Oh, Mr. Dale, you—you amaze me. No!... No!”

“I reckon I know your answer to my last question, but I'll ask it, anyhow.... Have you ever been so madly in love with a man that you could not live without him?”

Bo fell off her seat with a high, trilling laugh. “Oh, you two are great!”

“Thank Heaven, I haven't been,” replied Helen, shortly.

“Then you don't know anythin' about life,” declared Dale, with finality.

Helen was not to be put down by that, dubious and troubled as it made her.

“Have you experienced all those things?” she queried, stubbornly.

“All but the last one. Love never came my way. How could it? I live alone. I seldom go to the villages where there are girls. No girl would ever care for me. I have nothin'.... But, all the same, I understand love a little, just by comparison with strong feelin's I've lived.”

Helen watched the hunter and marveled at his simplicity. His sad and penetrating gaze was on the fire, as if in its white heart to read the secret denied him. He had said that no girl would ever love him. She imagined he might know considerably less about the nature of girls than of the forest.

“To come back to myself,” said Helen, wanting to continue the argument. “You declared I didn't know myself. That I would have no self-control. I will!”

“I meant the big things of life,” he said, patiently.

“What things?”

“I told you. By askin' what had never happened to you I learned what will happen.”

“Those experiences to come to ME!” breathed Helen, incredulously. “Never!”

“Sister Nell, they sure will—particularly the last-named one—the mad love,” chimed in Bo, mischievously, yet believingly.

Neither Dale nor Helen appeared to hear her interruption.

“Let me put it simpler,” began Dale, evidently racking his brain for analogy. His perplexity appeared painful to him, because he had a great faith, a great conviction that he could not make clear. “Here I am, the natural physical man, livin' in the wilds. An' here you come, the complex, intellectual woman. Remember, for my argument's sake, that you're here. An' suppose circumstances forced you to stay here. You'd fight the elements with me an' work with me to sustain life. There must be a great change in either you or me, accordin' to the other's influence. An' can't you see that change must come in you, not because of anythin' superior in me—I'm really inferior to you—but because of our environment? You'd lose your complexity. An' in years to come you'd be a natural physical woman, because you'd live through an' by the physical.”

“Oh dear, will not education be of help to the Western woman?” queried Helen, almost in despair.

“Sure it will,” answered Dale, promptly. “What the West needs is women who can raise an' teach children. But you don't understand me. You don't get under your skin. I reckon I can't make you see my argument as I feel it. You take my word for this, though. Sooner or later you WILL wake up an' forget yourself. Remember.”

“Nell, I'll bet you do, too,” said Bo, seriously for her. “It may seem strange to you, but I understand Dale. I feel what he means. It's a sort of shock. Nell, we're not what we seem. We're not what we fondly imagine we are. We've lived too long with people—too far away from the earth. You know the Bible says something like this: 'Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return.' Where DO we come from?”

Every morning Helen awoke with a wondering question as to what this day would bring forth, especially with regard to possible news from her uncle. It must come sometime and she was anxious for it. Something about this simple, wild camp life had begun to grip her. She found herself shirking daily attention to the clothes she had brought West. They needed it, but she had begun to see how superficial they really were. On the other hand, camp-fire tasks had come to be a pleasure. She had learned a great deal more about them than had Bo. Worry and dread were always impinging upon the fringe of her thoughts—always vaguely present, though seldom annoying. They were like shadows in dreams. She wanted to get to her uncle's ranch, to take up the duties of her new life. But she was not prepared to believe she would not regret this wild experience. She must get away from that in order to see it clearly, and she began to have doubts of herself.

Meanwhile the active and restful outdoor life went on. Bo leaned more and more toward utter reconciliation to it. Her eyes had a wonderful flash, like blue lightning; her cheeks were gold and brown; her hands tanned dark as an Indian's.

She could vault upon the gray mustang, or, for that matter, clear over his back. She learned to shoot a rifle accurately enough to win Dale's praise, and vowed she would like to draw a bead upon a grizzly bear or upon Snake Anson.

“Bo, if you met that grizzly Dale said has been prowling round camp lately you'd run right up a tree,” declared Helen, one morning, when Bo seemed particularly boastful.

“Don't fool yourself,” retorted Bo.

“But I've seen you run from a mouse!”

“Sister, couldn't I be afraid of a mouse and not a bear?”

“I don't see how.”

“Well, bears, lions, outlaws, and other wild beasts are to be met with here in the West, and my mind's made up,” said Bo, in slow-nodding deliberation.

They argued as they had always argued, Helen for reason and common sense and restraint, Bo on the principle that if she must fight it was better to get in the first blow.

The morning on which this argument took place Dale was a long time in catching the horses. When he did come in he shook his head seriously.

“Some varmint's been chasin' the horses,” he said, as he reached for his saddle. “Did you hear them snortin' an' runnin' last night?”

Neither of the girls had been awakened.

“I missed one of the colts,” went on Dale, “an' I'm goin' to ride across the park.”

Dale's movements were quick and stern. It was significant that he chose his heavier rifle, and, mounting, with a sharp call to Pedro, he rode off without another word to the girls.

Bo watched him for a moment and then began to saddle the mustang.

“You won't follow him?” asked Helen, quickly.

“I sure will,” replied Bo. “He didn't forbid it.”

“But he certainly did not want us.”

“He might not want you, but I'll bet he wouldn't object to me, whatever's up,” said Bo, shortly.

“Oh! So you think—” exclaimed Helen, keenly hurt. She bit her tongue to keep back a hot reply. And it was certain that a bursting gush of anger flooded over her. Was she, then, such a coward? Did Dale think this slip of a sister, so wild and wilful, was a stronger woman than she? A moment's silent strife convinced her that no doubt he thought so and no doubt he was right. Then the anger centered upon herself, and Helen neither understood nor trusted herself.

The outcome proved an uncontrollable impulse. Helen began to saddle her horse. She had the task half accomplished when Bo's call made her look up.

“Listen!”

Helen heard a ringing, wild bay of the hound.

“That's Pedro,” she said, with a thrill.

“Sure. He's running. We never heard him bay like that before.”

“Where's Dale?”

“He rode out of sight across there,” replied Bo, pointing. “And Pedro's running toward us along that slope. He must be a mile—two miles from Dale.”

“But Dale will follow.”

“Sure. But he'd need wings to get near that hound now. Pedro couldn't have gone across there with him... just listen.”

The wild note of the hound manifestly stirred Bo to irrepressible action. Snatching up Dale's lighter rifle, she shoved it into her saddle-sheath, and, leaping on the mustang, she ran him over brush and brook, straight down the park toward the place Pedro was climbing. For an instant Helen stood amazed beyond speech. When Bo sailed over a big log, like a steeple-chaser, then Helen answered to further unconsidered impulse by frantically getting her saddle fastened. Without coat or hat she mounted. The nervous horse bolted almost before she got into the saddle. A strange, trenchant trembling coursed through all her veins. She wanted to scream for Bo to wait. Bo was out of sight, but the deep, muddy tracks in wet places and the path through the long grass afforded Helen an easy trail to follow. In fact, her horse needed no guiding. He ran in and out of the straggling spruces along the edge of the park, and suddenly wheeled around a corner of trees to come upon the gray mustang standing still. Bo was looking up and listening.

“There he is!” cried Bo, as the hound bayed ringingly, closer to them this time, and she spurred away.

Helen's horse followed without urging. He was excited. His ears were up. Something was in the wind. Helen had never ridden along this broken end of the park, and Bo was not easy to keep up with. She led across bogs, brooks, swales, rocky little ridges, through stretches of timber and groves of aspen so thick Helen could scarcely squeeze through. Then Bo came out into a large open offshoot of the park, right under the mountain slope, and here she sat, her horse watching and listening. Helen rode up to her, imagining once that she had heard the hound.

“Look! Look!” Bo's scream made her mustang stand almost straight up.

Helen gazed up to see a big brown bear with a frosted coat go lumbering across an opening on the slope.

“It's a grizzly! He'll kill Pedro! Oh, where is Dale!” cried Bo, with intense excitement.

“Bo! That bear is running down! We—we must get—out of his road,” panted Helen, in breathless alarm.

“Dale hasn't had time to be close.... Oh, I wish he'd come! I don't know what to do.”

“Ride back. At least wait for him.”

Just then Pedro spoke differently, in savage barks, and following that came a loud growl and crashings in the brush. These sounds appeared to be not far up the slope.

“Nell! Do you hear? Pedro's fighting the bear,” burst out Bo. Her face paled, her eyes flashed like blue steel. “The bear 'll kill him!”

“Oh, that would be dreadful!” replied Helen, in distress. “But what on earth can we do?”

“HEL-LO, DALE!” called Bo, at the highest pitch of her piercing voice.

No answer came. A heavy crash of brush, a rolling of stones, another growl from the slope told Helen that the hound had brought the bear to bay.

“Nell, I'm going up,” said Bo, deliberately.

“No-no! Are you mad?” returned Helen.

“The bear will kill Pedro.”

“He might kill you.”

“You ride that way and yell for Dale,” rejoined Bo.

“What will—you do?” gasped Helen.

“I'll shoot at the bear—scare him off. If he chases me he can't catch me coming downhill. Dale said that.”

“You're crazy!” cried Helen, as Bo looked up the slope, searching for open ground. Then she pulled the rifle from its sheath.

But Bo did not hear or did not care. She spurred the mustang, and he, wild to run, flung grass and dirt from his heels. What Helen would have done then she never knew, but the fact was that her horse bolted after the mustang. In an instant, seemingly, Bo had disappeared in the gold and green of the forest slope. Helen's mount climbed on a run, snorting and heaving, through aspens, brush, and timber, to come out into a narrow, long opening extending lengthwise up the slope.

A sudden prolonged crash ahead alarmed Helen and halted her horse. She saw a shaking of aspens. Then a huge brown beast leaped as a cat out of the woods. It was a bear of enormous size. Helen's heart stopped—her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. The bear turned. His mouth was open, red and dripping. He looked shaggy, gray. He let out a terrible bawl. Helen's every muscle froze stiff. Her horse plunged high and sidewise, wheeling almost in the air, neighing his terror. Like a stone she dropped from the saddle. She did not see the horse break into the woods, but she heard him. Her gaze never left the bear even while she was falling, and it seemed she alighted in an upright position with her back against a bush. It upheld her. The bear wagged his huge head from side to side. Then, as the hound barked close at hand, he turned to run heavily uphill and out of the opening.

The instant of his disappearance was one of collapse for Helen. Frozen with horror, she had been unable to move or feel or think. All at once she was a quivering mass of cold, helpless flesh, wet with perspiration, sick with a shuddering, retching, internal convulsion, her mind liberated from paralyzing shock. The moment was as horrible as that in which the bear had bawled his frightful rage. A stark, icy, black emotion seemed in possession of her. She could not lift a hand, yet all of her body appeared shaking. There was a fluttering, a strangling in her throat. The crushing weight that surrounded her heart eased before she recovered use of her limbs. Then, the naked and terrible thing was gone, like a nightmare giving way to consciousness. What blessed relief! Helen wildly gazed about her. The bear and hound were out of sight, and so was her horse. She stood up very dizzy and weak. Thought of Bo then seemed to revive her, to shock different life and feeling throughout all her cold extremities. She listened.

She heard a thudding of hoofs down the slope, then Dale's clear, strong call. She answered. It appeared long before he burst out of the woods, riding hard and leading her horse. In that time she recovered fully, and when he reached her, to put a sudden halt upon the fiery Ranger, she caught the bridle he threw and swiftly mounted her horse. The feel of the saddle seemed different. Dale's piercing gray glance thrilled her strangely.

“You're white. Are you hurt?” he said.

“No. I was scared.”

“But he threw you?”

“Yes, he certainly threw me.”

“What happened?”

“We heard the hound and we rode along the timber. Then we saw the bear—a monster—white—coated—”