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

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

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

"Why--why didn't you tell me?" cried Bo, pa.s.sionately. "What are they?

Tell me now. You must think me a--a selfish, hateful cat."

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

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

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

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

"But I hate him."

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

"I do--I do."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bo fell over with a gasp and clung to Helen.

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

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

"Of course you love him," she concluded. "I guessed that long ago. And I'm glad. But you've been wilful--foolish. You wouldn't surrender to it.

You wanted your fling with the other boys. You're--Oh, Bo, I fear you have been a sad little flirt."

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

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

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

"Yes, I have."

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

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

"And how savage he is?"

"Yes."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bo hid her face.

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

CHAPTER XVII

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

To Helen it seemed longer. The month had been crowded with work, events, and growing, more hopeful duties, so that it contained a world of living. The uncle had not been forgotten, but the innumerable restrictions to development and progress were no longer manifest.

Beasley had not presented himself or any claim upon Helen; and she, gathering confidence day by day, began to believe all that purport of trouble had been exaggerated.

In this time she had come to love her work and all that pertained to it.

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

This bright, fresh morning, in March, Helen came out upon the porch to revel a little in the warmth of sunshine and the crisp, pine-scented wind that swept down from the mountains. There was never a morning that she did not gaze mountainward, trying to see, with a folly she realized, if the snow had melted more perceptibly away on the bold white ridge.