“I’m glad you’re so sure,” he returned, grimly. “I can’t see the ground, even.”
“But the ponies know, if I don’t,” observed Helen, cheerfully. “Nothing to be afraid of.”
“I guess you think I am kind of a tenderfoot?” he returned.
“You’re not used to night traveling on the cattle range,” she said. “You see, we lay our courses by the stars, just as mariners do at sea. I can find my way to the ranch-house from clear beyond Elberon, as long as the stars show.”
“Well,” he sighed, “this is some different from riding on the bridle-path in Central Park.”
“That’s in New York?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“I mean to go there. It’s really a big city, I suppose?”
“Makes Denver look like a village,” said Stone, laughing to smother a groan.
“So father said.”
“You have people there, I hope?”
“Yes. Father and mother came from there. It was before I was born, though. You see, I’m a real Montana product.”
“And a mighty fine one!” he murmured. Then he said aloud: “Well, as long as you’ve got folks in the big city, it’s all right. But it’s the loneliest place on God’s earth if one has no friends and no confidants. I know that to be true from what boys have told me who have come there from out of town.”
“Oh, I’ve got folks,” said Helen, lightly. “How’s the foot now?”
“Bad,” he admitted. “It hangs loose, you see – ”
“Hold on!” commanded Helen, dismounting. “We’ve a long way to travel yet. That foot must be strapped so that it will ride easier. Wait!”
She handed him her rein to hold and went around to the other side of the Rose pony. She removed her belt, unhooked the empty holster that hung from it, and slipped the holster into her pocket. Few of the riders carried a gun on Sunset Ranch unless the coyotes proved troublesome.
With her belt Helen strapped the dangling leg to the saddle girth. The useless stirrup, that flopped and struck the lame foot, she tucked up out of the way.
With tender fingers she touched the wounded foot. She could feel the fever through the boot.
“But you’d better keep your boot on till we get home, Dud Stone,” advised Helen. “It will sort of hold it together and perhaps keep the pain from becoming greater than you can bear. But I guess it hurts mighty bad.”
“It sure does, Miss Morrell,” he returned, grimly. “Is – is the ranch far?”
“Some distance. And we’ve got to walk. But bear up if you can – ”
She saw him waver in the saddle. If he fell, she could not be sure just how Rose, the spirited pony, would act.
“Say!” she said, coming around and walking by his side, leading the other mount by the bridle. “You lean on me. Don’t want you falling out of the saddle. Too hard work to get you back again.”
“I guess you think I am a tenderfoot!” muttered young Stone.
He never knew how they reached Sunset Ranch. The fall, the terrible wrench of his foot, and the endurance of the pain was finally too much for him. In a half-fainting condition he sank part of his weight on the girl’s shoulder, and she sturdily trudged along the rough trail, bearing him up until she thought her own limbs would give way.
At last she even had to let the buckskin run at large, he made her so much trouble. But the Rose pony was “a dear!”
Somewhere about ten o’clock the dogs began to bark. She saw the flash of lanterns and heard the patter of hoofs.
She gave voice to the long range yell, and a dozen anxious punchers replied. Great discussion had arisen over where she could have gone, for nobody had seen her ride off toward the View that afternoon.
“Whar you been, gal?” demanded Big Hen Billings, bringing his horse to a sudden stop across the trail. “Hul-lo! What’s that you got with yer?”
“A tenderfoot. Easy, Hen! I’ve got his leg strapped to the girth. He’s in bad shape,” and she related, briefly, the particulars of the accident.
Dudley Stone had only a hazy recollection later of the noise and confusion of his arrival. He was borne into the house by two men – one of them the ranch foreman himself.
They laid him on a couch, cut the boot from his injured foot, and then the sock he wore.
Hen Billings, with bushy whiskers and the frame of a giant, was nevertheless as tender with the injured foot as a woman. Water with a chunk of ice floating in it was used to reduce the swelling. The foreman’s blunted fingers probed for broken bones.
But it seemed there was none. It was only a bad sprain, and they finally stripped him to his underclothes and bandaged the foot with cloths soaked with ice water.
When they got him into bed – in an adjoining room – the young mistress of Sunset Ranch reappeared, with a tray and napkins, with which she arranged a table.
“That’s what he wants – some good grub under his belt, Snuggy,” said the gigantic foreman, finally lighting his pipe. “He’ll be all right in a few days. I’ll send word to Creeping Ford for one of the boys to ride down to Badger’s and tell ’em. That’s where Mr. Stone says he’s been stopping.”
“You’re mighty kind,” said the Easterner, gratefully, as Sing, the Chinese servant, shuffled in with a steaming supper.
“We’re glad to have a chance to play Good Samaritan in this part of the country,” said Helen, laughing. “Isn’t that so, Hen?”
“That’s right, Snuggy,” replied the foreman, patting her on the shoulder.
Dud Stone looked at Helen curiously, as the big man strode out of the room.
“What an odd name!” he commented.
“My father called me that, when I was a tiny baby,” replied the girl. “And I love it. All my friends call me ‘Snuggy.’ At least, all my ranch friends.”
“Well, it’s too soon for me to begin, I suppose?” he said, laughing.
“Oh, quite too soon,” returned Helen, as composedly as a person twice her age. “You had better stick to ‘Miss Morrell,’ and remember that I am the mistress of Sunset Ranch.”
“But I notice that you take liberties with my name,” he said, quickly.
“That’s different. You’re a man. Men around here always shorten their names, or have nicknames. If they call you by your full name that means the boys don’t like you. And I liked you from the start,” said the Western girl, quite frankly.
“Thank you!” he responded, his eyes twinkling. “I expect it must have been my fine riding that attracted you.”
“No. Nor it wasn’t your city cowpuncher clothes,” she retorted. “I know those things weren’t bought farther West than Chicago.”
“A palpable hit!” admitted Dudley Stone.
“No. It was when you took that tumble into the tree; was hanging on by your eyelashes, yet could joke about it,” declared Helen, warmly.
She might have added, too, that now he had been washed and his hair combed, he was an attractive-looking young man. She did not believe Dudley Stone was of age. His brown hair curled tightly all over his head, and he sported a tiny golden mustache. He had good color and was somewhat bronzed.
Dud’s blue eyes were frank, his lips were red and nicely curved; but his square chin took away from the lower part of his face any suggestion of effeminacy. His ears were generous, as was his nose. He had the clean-cut, intelligent look of the better class