"How are you feelin'?" he asked.

"I'm better to-day," she replied, with downcast eyes. "But I'm lame yet."

"Reckon that bronc piled you up. Miss Helen said there sh.o.r.e wasn't any joke about the cut on your knee. Now, a fellar's knee is a bad place to hurt, if he has to keep on ridin'."

"Oh, I'll be well soon. How's Sam? I hope he wasn't crippled."

"Thet Sam--why, he's so tough he never knowed he had a fall."

"Tom--I--I want to thank you for giving Riggs what he deserved."

She spoke it earnestly, eloquently, and for once she had no sly little intonation or pert allurement, such as was her wont to use on this infatuated young man.

"Aw, you heard about that," replied Carmichael, with a wave of his hand to make light of it. "Nothin' much. It had to be done. An' sh.o.r.e I was afraid of Roy. He'd been bad. An' so would any of the other boys. I'm sorta lookin' out for all of them, you know, actin' as Miss Helen's foreman now."

Helen was unutterably tickled. The effect of his speech upon Bo was stupendous. He had disarmed her. He had, with the finesse and tact and suavity of a diplomat, removed himself from obligation, and the detachment of self, the casual thing be apparently made out of his magnificent championship, was bewildering and humiliating to Bo. She sat silent for a moment or two while Helen tried to fit easily into the conversation. It was not likely that Bo would long be at a loss for words, and also it was immensely probable that with a flash of her wonderful spirit she would turn the tables on her perverse lover in a twinkling. Anyway, plain it was that a lesson had sunk deep. She looked startled, hurt, wistful, and finally sweetly defiant.

"But--you told Riggs I was your girl!" Thus Bo unmasked her battery. And Helen could not imagine how Carmichael would ever resist that and the soft, arch glance which accompanied it.

Helen did not yet know the cowboy, any more than did Bo.

"Sh.o.r.e. I had to say thet. I had to make it strong before thet gang. I reckon it was presumin' of me, an' I sh.o.r.e apologize."

Bo stared at him, and then, giving a little gasp, she drooped.

"Wal, I just run in to say howdy an' to inquire after you-all," said Carmichael. "I'm goin' to the dance, an' as Flo lives out of town a ways I'd sh.o.r.e better rustle.... Good night, Miss Bo; I hope you'll be ridin'

Sam soon. An' good night, Miss Helen."

Bo roused to a very friendly and laconic little speech, much overdone.

Carmichael strode out, and Helen, bidding him good-by, closed the door after him.

The instant he had departed Bo's transformation was tragic.

"Flo! He meant Flo Stubbs--that ugly, cross-eyed, bold, little frump!"

"Bo!" expostulated Helen. "The young lady is not beautiful, I grant, but she's very nice and pleasant. I liked her."

"Nell Rayner, men are no good! And cowboys are the worst!" declared Bo, terribly.

"Why didn't you appreciate Tom when you had him?" asked Helen.

Bo had been growing furious, but now the allusion, in past tense, to the conquest she had suddenly and amazingly found dear quite broke her spirit. It was a very pale, unsteady, and miserable girl who avoided Helen's gaze and left the room.

Next day Bo was not approachable from any direction. Helen found her a victim to a multiplicity of moods, ranging from woe to dire, dark broodings, from them to' wistfulness, and at last to a pride that sustained her.

Late in the afternoon, at Helen's leisure hour, when she and Bo were in the sitting-room, horses tramped into the court and footsteps mounted the porch. Opening to a loud knock, Helen was surprised to see Beasley.

And out in the court were several mounted hors.e.m.e.n. Helen's heart sank.

This visit, indeed, had been foreshadowed.

"Afternoon, Miss Rayner," said Beasley, doffing his sombrero. "I've called on a little business deal. Will you see me?"

Helen acknowledged his greeting while she thought rapidly. She might just as well see him and have that inevitable interview done with.

"Come in," she said, and when he had entered she closed the door. "My sister, Mr. Beasley."

"How d' you do, Miss?" said the rancher, in bluff, loud voice.

Bo acknowledged the introduction with a frigid little bow.

At close range Beasley seemed a forceful personality as well as a rather handsome man of perhaps thirty-five, heavy of build, swarthy of skin, and sloe-black of eye, like that of the Mexicans whose blood was reported to be in him. He looked crafty, confident, and self-centered.

If Helen had never heard of him before that visit she would have distrusted him.

"I'd called sooner, but I was waitin' for old Jose, the Mexican who herded for me when I was pardner to your uncle," said Beasley, and he sat down to put his huge gloved hands on his knees.

"Yes?" queried Helen, interrogatively.

"Jose rustled over from Magdalena, an' now I can back up my claim....

Miss Rayner, this hyar ranch ought to be mine an' is mine. It wasn't so big or so well stocked when Al Auchincloss beat me out of it. I reckon I'll allow for thet. I've papers, an' old Jose for witness. An' I calculate you'll pay me eighty thousand dollars, or else I'll take over the ranch."

Beasley spoke in an ordinary, matter-of-fact tone that certainly seemed sincere, and his manner was blunt, but perfectly natural.

"Mr. Beasley, your claim is no news to me," responded Helen, quietly.

"I've heard about it. And I questioned my uncle. He swore on his death-bed that he did not owe you a dollar. Indeed, he claimed the indebtedness was yours to him. I could find nothing in his papers, so I must repudiate your claim. I will not take it seriously."

"Miss Rayner, I can't blame you for takin' Al's word against mine," said Beasley. "An' your stand is natural. But you're a stranger here an' you know nothin' of stock deals in these ranges. It ain't fair to speak bad of the dead, but the truth is thet Al Auchincloss got his start by stealin' sheep an' unbranded cattle. Thet was the start of every rancher I know. It was mine. An' we none of us ever thought of it as rustlin'."

Helen could only stare her surprise and doubt at this statement.

"Talk's cheap anywhere, an' in the West talk ain't much at all,"

continued Beasley. "I'm no talker. I jest want to tell my case an' make a deal if you'll have it. I can prove more in black an' white, an' with witness, than you can. Thet's my case. The deal I'd make is this....

Let's marry an' settle a bad deal thet way."

The man's direct a.s.sumption, absolutely without a qualifying consideration for her woman's att.i.tude, was amazing, ignorant, and base; but Helen was so well prepared for it that she hid her disgust.

"Thank you, Mr. Beasley, but I can't accept your offer," she replied.

"Would you take time an' consider?" he asked, spreading wide his huge gloved hands.

"Absolutely no."

Beasley rose to his feet. He showed no disappointment or chagrin, but the bold pleasantness left his face, and, slight as that change was, it stripped him of the only redeeming quality he showed.

"Thet means I'll force you to pay me the eighty thousand or put you off," he said.

"Mr. Beasley, even if I owed you that, how could I raise so enormous a sum? I don't owe it. And I certainly won't be put off my property. You can't put me off."

"An' why can't I?" he demanded, with lowering, dark gaze.

"Because your claim is dishonest. And I can prove it," declared Helen, forcibly.