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

about that old trouble. Uncle Starkweather can tell me, probably.

"And then it will please father." She spoke as though Mr. Morrell was sure to know her decision. "He will like it if I go to live with them a spell. He said it is what I need--the refining influence of a nice home.

"And I would love to be with nice girls again--and to hear good music--and put on something beside a riding skirt when I go out of the house."

She sighed. "One cannot have a cow ranch and all the fripperies of civilization, too. Not very well. I--I guess I am longing for the flesh-pots of Egypt. Perhaps poor dad did, too. Well, I'll give them a whirl. I'll go East----

"Why, where's that fellow's fire?"

She was descending the trail into the pall of dusk that had now spread over the valley. Far away she caught a glimmer of light--a lantern on the porch at the ranch-house. But right below here where she wished to see a light, there was not a spark.

"I hope nothing's happened to him," she mused. "I don't believe he is one of us; if he had been he wouldn't have raced a pony so close to the edge of the bluff."

She began to "co-ee! co-ee!" as the ponies clattered down the remainder of the pathway. And finally there came an answering shout. Then a little glimmer of light flashed up--again and yet again.

"Matches!" grumbled Helen. "Can't he find anything dry to burn down there and so make a steady light?"

She shouted again.

"This way, Miss!" she heard the stranger cry.

The ponies picked their way carefully over the loose shale that had fallen to the foot of the bluff. There were trees, too, to make the way darker.

"Hi!" cried Helen. "Why didn't you light a fire?"

"Why, to tell you the truth, I had some difficulty in getting down here, and I--I had to rest."

The words were followed by a groan that the young man evidently could not suppress.

"Why, you're more badly hurt than you said!" cried the girl. "I'd better get help; hadn't I?"

"A doctor is out of the question, I guess. I believe that foot's broken."

"Huh! You're from the East!" she said, suddenly.

"How so?"

"You say 'guess' in that funny way. And that explains it."

"Explains what?"

"Your riding so recklessly."

"My goodness!" exclaimed the other, with a short laugh. "I thought the whole West was noted for reckless riding."

"Oh, no. It only looks reckless," she returned, quietly. "Our boys wouldn't ride a pony close to the edge of a steep descent like that up yonder."

"All right. I'm in the wrong," admitted the stranger. "But you needn't rub it in."

"I didn't mean to," said Helen, quickly. "I have a bad habit of talking out loud."

He laughed at that. "You're frank, you mean? I like that. Be frank enough to tell me how I am to get back to Badger's--even on ponyback--to-night?"

"Impossible," declared Helen.

"Then, perhaps I had better make an effort to make camp."

"Why, no! It's only a few miles to the ranch-house. I'll hoist you up on your pony. The trail's easy."

"Whose ranch is it?" he asked, with another suppressed groan.

"Mine--Sunset Ranch."

"Sunset Ranch! Why, I've heard of that. One of the last big ranches remaining in Montana; Isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Almost as big as 101?"

"That's right," said Helen, briefly.

"But I didn't know a girl owned it," said the other, curiously.

"She didn't--until lately. My father, Prince Morrell, has just died."

"Oh!" exclaimed the other, in a softened tone. "And you are Miss Morrell?"

"I am. And who are you? Easterner, of course?"

"You guessed right--though, I suppose, you 'reckon' instead of 'guess.' I'm from New York."

"Is that so?" queried Helen. "That's a place I want to see before long."

"Well, you'll be disappointed," remarked the other. "My name is Dudley Stone, and I was born and brought up in New York and have lived there all my life until I got away for this trip West. But, believe me, if I didn't have to I would never go back!"

"Why do you have to go back?" asked Helen, simply.

"Business. Necessity of earning one's living. I'm in the way of being a lawyer--when my days of studying, and all, are over. And then, I've got a sister who might not fit into the mosaic of this freer country, either."

"Well, Dudley Stone," quoth the girl from Sunset Ranch, "we'd better not stay talking here. It's getting darker every minute. And I reckon your foot needs attention."

"I hate to move it," confessed the young Easterner.

"You can't stay here, you know," insisted Helen. "Where's my rope?"

"I'm sorry. I had to hitch one end of it up above and let myself down by it."

"Well, it might have come in handy to lash you on the pony. I don't mind about the rope otherwise. One of the boys will bring it in for me to-morrow. Now, let's see what we can do towards hoisting you into your saddle."

CHAPTER III (THE MISTRESS OF SUNSET RANCH)

 

Dudley Stone had begun to peer wonderingly at this strange girl. When he had first sighted her riding her strawberry roan across the plateau he supposed her to be a little girl--and really, physically, she did not seem much different from what he had first supposed.

But she handled this situation with all the calmness and good sense of a much older person. She spoke like the men and women he had met during his sojourn in the West, too.

Yet, when he was close to her, he saw that she was simply a young girl with good health, good muscles, and a rather pretty face and figure. He called her "Miss" because it seemed to flatter her; but Dud Stone felt himself infinitely older than this girl of Sunset Ranch.

It was she who went about getting him aboard the pony, however; he never could have done it by himself. Nor was it so easily done as said.

In the first place, the badly trained buckskin didn't want to stand still. And the young man was in such pain that he really was unable to aid Helen in securing the pony.

"Here, you take Rose," commanded the girl, at length. "She'd stand for anything. Up you come, now, sir!"

The young fellow was no weakling. But when he put one arm over the girl's strong shoulder, and was hoisted erect, she felt him quiver all over. She knew that the pain he suffered must be intense.

"Whoa, Rose, girl!" commanded Helen. "Back around! Now, sir, up with that lame leg. It's got to be done----"

"I know it!" he panted, and by a desperate effort managed to get the broken foot over the saddle.

"Up with you!" said Helen, and hoisted him with a man's strength into the saddle. "Are you there?"

"Oh! Ouch! Yes," returned the Easterner. "I'm here. No knowing how long I'll stick, though."

"You'd better stick. Here! Put this foot in the stirrup. Don't suppose you can stand the other in it?"

"Oh, no! I really couldn't," he exclaimed.

"Well, we'll go slow. Hi, there! Come here, you Buck!"

"He's a vicious little scoundrel," said the young man.

"He ought to have a course of sprouts under one of our wranglers," remarked the girl from Sunset Ranch. "Now let's go along."

Despite the buckskin's dancing and cavorting, she mounted, stuck the spurs into him a couple of times, and the ill-mannered pony decided that walking properly was better than bucking.

"You're a wonder!" exclaimed Dud Stone, admiringly.

"You haven't been West long," she replied, with a smile. "Women folk out here aren't much afraid of horses."

"I should say they were not--if you are a specimen."

"I'm just ordinary. I spent four school terms in Denver, and I never rode there, so I kind of lost the hang of it."

Dud Stone was becoming anxious over another matter.

"Are you sure you can find the trail when it's so dark?" he asked.

"We're on it now," she said.

"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