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

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

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

Helen rose to tiptoe across the floor, and, softly parting some curtains, she looked into the room where her uncle lay. He was asleep.

Sometimes he called out in his slumbers. For weeks now he had been confined to his bed, slowly growing weaker. With a sigh Helen returned to her window-seat and took up her work.

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

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

"But I love spring and summer and fall--and I guess I hate winter,"

returned Helen, thoughtfully.

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

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

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

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

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

Helen gazed tenderly at that bright, bowed head. In this swift-flying, eventful, busy winter, during which the management of the ranch had devolved wholly upon Helen, the little sister had grown away from her.

Bo had insisted upon her own free will and she had followed it, to the amus.e.m.e.nt of her uncle, to the concern of Helen, to the dismay and bewilderment of the faithful Mexican housekeeper, and to the undoing of all the young men on the ranch.

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

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

Helen thought she could guess who that was.

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

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

"Ill! Aw no, now?"

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

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

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

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

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

My sister is here."

The door closed as Helen turned round. Carmichael stood just inside with his sombrero in hand, and as he gazed at Bo his lean face seemed hard.

In the few months since autumn he had changed--aged, it seemed, and the once young, frank, alert, and careless cowboy traits had merged into the making of a man. Helen knew just how much of a man he really was. He had been her mainstay during all the complex working of the ranch that had fallen upon her shoulders.

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

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

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

"Me flatter myself? Nope. You don't savvy me. I'm sh.o.r.e hatin' myself these days."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Sh.o.r.e it was. She took one of her cold spells an' I jest got drunk."

"But that was wrong," protested Helen.

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

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

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

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

"Aw, I ain't sayin' she didn't behave like a lady," replied Carmichael.

"It was--she--wal, all them fellars are fools over her--an' Bo wasn't true to me."

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

"Lord--if she only was!" he sighed.

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