The Girl from Sunset Ranch; Or, Alone in a Great City
by Amy Bell Marlowe · English · Gutenberg #26534 · 386,776 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Girl from Sunset Ranch; Or, Alone in a Great City
Author: Amy Bell Marlowe
Release date: September 5, 2008 [eBook #26534]
Most recently updated: January 4, 2021
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL FROM SUNSET RANCH; OR, ALONE IN A GREAT CITY ***
Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
THE GIRL FROM SUNSET RANCH
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOOKS FOR GIRLS
By AMY BELL MARLOWE
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
THE OLDEST OF FOUR
Or Natalie's Way Out
THE GIRLS OF HILLCREST FARM
Or The Secret of the Rocks
A LITTLE MISS NOBODY
Or With the Girls of Pinewood Hall
THE GIRL FROM SUNSET RANCH
Or Alone in a Great City
WYN'S CAMPING DAYS
Or The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club
FRANCES OF THE RANGES
Or The Old Ranchman's Treasure
THE GIRLS OF RIVERCLIFF SCHOOL
Or Beth Baldwin's Resolve
THE ORIOLE BOOKS
WHEN ORIOLE CAME TO HARBOR LIGHT
WHEN ORIOLE TRAVELED WESTWARD
(Other volumes in preparation)
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS--NEW YORK
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: "CAB, MISS? TAKE YOU ANYWHERE YOU SAY."
Frontispiece (Page 67).]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE GIRL FROM SUNSET RANCH
OR
ALONE IN A GREAT CITY
BY
AMY BELL MARLOWE
AUTHOR OF
THE OLDEST OF FOUR, THE GIRLS OF HILLCREST
FARM, WYN'S CAMPING DAYS, ETC.
Illustrated
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Made in the United States of America
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright, 1914, by
GROSSET & DUNLAP
The Girl from Sunset Ranch
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. "Snuggy" and the Rose Pony 1
II. Dudley Stone 14
III. The Mistress Of Sunset Ranch 26
IV. Headed East 36
V. At Both Ends Of The Route 45
VI. Across The Continent 56
VII. The Great City 65
VIII. The Welcome 72
IX. The Ghost Walk 83
X. Morning 92
XI. Living Up To One's Reputation 102
XII. "I Must Learn The Truth" 111
XIII. Sadie Again 128
XIV. A New World 142
XV. "Step--Put; Step--Put" 152
XVI. Forgotten 164
XVII. A Distinct Shock 176
XVIII. Probing For Facts 196
XIX. "Jones" 204
XX. Out Of Step With The Times 216
XXI. Breaking The Ice 227
XXII. In The Saddle 238
XXIII. My Lady Bountiful 252
XXIV. The Hat Shop 262
XXV. The Missing Link 271
XXVI. Their Eyes Are Opened 279
XXVII. The Party 287
XXVIII. A Statement Of Fact 304
XXIX. "The Whip Hand" 311
XXX. Headed West 317
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE GIRL FROM SUNSET
RANCH
CHAPTER I
"SNUGGY" AND THE ROSE PONY
"Hi, Rose! Up, girl! There's another party making for the View by the far
path. Get a move on, Rosie."
The strawberry roan tossed her cropped mane and her dainty little hoofs
clattered more quickly over the rocky path which led up from the
far-reaching grazing lands of Sunset Ranch to the summit of the rocky
eminence that bounded the valley upon the east.
To the west lay a great, rolling plain, covered with buffalo grass and
sage; and dropping down the arc of the sky was the setting sun,
ruddy-countenanced, whose almost level rays played full upon the face of
the bluff up which the pony climbed so nimbly.
"On, Rosie, girl!" repeated the rider. "Don't let him get to the View
before us. I don't see why anybody would wish to go there," she added,
with a jealous pang, "for it was father's favorite outlook. None of our
boys, I am sure, would come up here at this hour."
Helen Morrell was secure in this final opinion. It was but a short month
since Prince Morrell had gone down under the hoofs of the steers in an
unfortunate stampede that had cost the Sunset Ranch much beside the life
of its well-liked owner.
The View--a flat table of rock on the summit overlooking the valley--had
become almost sacred in the eyes of the punchers of Sunset Ranch since Mr.
Morrell's death. For it was to that spot the ranchman had betaken
himself--usually with his daughter--on almost every fair evening, to
overlook the valley and count the roaming herds which grazed under his
brand.
Helen, who was sixteen and of sturdy build, could see the nearer herds now
dotting the plain. She had her father's glasses slung over her shoulder,
and she had come to-night partly for the purpose of spying out the strays
along the watercourses or hiding in the distant _coulees_.
But mainly her visit to the View was because her father had loved to ride
here. She could think about him here undisturbed by the confusion and
bustle at the ranch-house. And there were some things--things about her
father and the sad conversation they had had together before his taking
away--that Helen wanted to speculate upon alone.
The boys had picked him up after the accident and brought him home; and
doctors had been brought all the way from Helena to do what they could for
him. But Mr. Morrell had suffered many bruises and broken bones, and there
had been no hope for him from the first.
He was not, however, always unconscious. He was a masterful man and he
refused to take drugs to deaden the pain.
"Let me know what I am about until I meet death," he had whispered.
"I--am--not--afraid."
And yet, there was one thing of which he had been sorely afraid. It was
the thought of leaving his daughter alone.
"Oh, Snuggy!" he groaned, clinging to the girl's plump hand with his own
weak one. "If there were some of your own kind to--to leave you with. A
girl like you needs women about--good women, and refined women. Squaws,
and Greasers, and half-breeds aren't the kind of women-folk your mother
was brought up among.
"I don't know but I've done wrong these past few years--since your mother
died, anyway. I've been making money here, and it's all for you, Snuggy.
That's fixed by the lawyer in Elberon.
"Big Hen Billings is executor and guardian of you and the ranch. I know I
can trust him. But there ought to be nice women and girls for you to live
with--like those girls who went to school with you the four years you were
in Denver.
"Yet, this is your home. And your money is going to be made here. It would
be a crime to sell out now.
"Ah, Snuggy! Snuggy! If your mother had only lived!" groaned Mr. Morrell.
"A woman knows what's right for a girl better than a man. This is a rough
place out here. And even the best of our friends and neighbors are crude.
You want refinement, and pretty dresses, and soft beds, and fine
furniture----"
"No, no, Father! I love Sunset Ranch just as it is," Helen declared,
wiping away her tears.
"Aye. 'Tis a beauty spot--the beauty spot of all Montana, I believe,"
agreed the dying man. "But you need something more than a beautiful
landscape."
"But there are true hearts here--all our friends!" cried Helen.
"And so they are--God bless them!" responded Prince Morrell, fervently.
"But, Snuggy, you were born to something better than being a 'cowgirl.'
Your mother was a refined woman. I have forgotten most of my college
education; but I had it once.
"_This_ was not our original environment. It was not meant that we should
be shut away from all the gentler things of life, and live rudely as we
have. Unhappy circumstances did that for us."
He was silent for a moment, his face working with suppressed emotion.
Suddenly his grasp tightened on the girl's hand and he continued:
"Snuggy! I'm going to tell you something. It's something you ought to
know, I believe. Your mother was made unhappy by it, and I wouldn't want a
knowledge of it to come upon you unaware, in the after time when you are
alone. Let me tell you with my own lips, girl."
"Why, Father, what is it?"
"Your father's name is under a cloud. There is a smirch on my reputation.
I--I ran away from New York to escape arrest, and I have lived here in the
wilderness, without communicating with old friends and associates, because
I did not want the matter stirred up."
"Afraid of arrest, Father?" gasped Helen.
"For your mother's sake, and for yours," he said. "She couldn't have borne
it. It would have killed her."
"But you were not guilty, Father!" cried Helen.
"How do you know I wasn't?"
"Why, Father, you could never have done anything dishonorable or mean--I
know you could not!"
"Thank you, Snuggy!" the dying man replied, with a smile hovering about
his pain-drawn lips. "You've been the greatest comfort a father ever had,
ever since you was a little, cuddly baby, and liked to snuggle up against
father under the blankets.
"That was before the big ranch-house was built, and we lived in a shack. I
don't know how your mother managed to stand it, winters. _You_ just
snuggled into my arms under the blankets--that's how we came to call you
'Snuggy.'"
"'Snuggy' is a good name, Dad," she declared. "I love it, because _you_
love it. And I know I gave you comfort when I was little."
"Indeed, yes! _What_ a comfort you were after your poor mother died,
Snuggy! Ah, well! you shall have your reward, dear. I am sure of that.
Only I am worried that you should be left alone now."
"Big Hen and the boys will take care of me," Helen said, stifling her
sobs.
"Nay, but you need women-folk about. Your mother's sister, now--The
Starkweathers, if they knew, might offer you a home."
"That is, Aunt Eunice's folks?" asked Helen. "I remember mother speaking
of Aunt Eunice."
"Yes. She corresponded with Eunice until her death. Of course, we haven't
heard from them since. The Starkweathers naturally did not wish to keep up
a close acquaintanceship with me after what happened."
"But, dear Dad! you haven't told me what happened. _Do_ tell me!" begged
the anxious girl.
Then the girl's dying father told her of the looted bank account of Grimes
& Morrell. The cash assets of the firm had suddenly disappeared.
Circumstantial evidence pointed at Prince Morrell. His partner and
Starkweather, who had a small interest in the firm, showed their doubt of
him. The creditors were clamorous and ugly. The bookkeeper of the firm
disappeared.
"They advised me to go away for a while; your mother was delicate and the
trouble was wearing her into her grave. And so," Mr. Morrell said, in a
shaking voice, "I ran away. We came out here. You were born in this
valley, Snuggy. We hoped at first to take you back to New York, where all
the mystery would be explained. But that time never came.
"Neither Starkweather, nor Grimes, seemed able to help me with advice or
information. Gradually I got into the cattle business here. I prospered
here, while Fenwick Grimes prospered in New York. I understand he is a
very wealthy man.
"Soon after we came out here your Uncle Starkweather fell heir to a big
property and moved into a mansion on Madison Avenue. He, and his wife, and
the three girls--Belle, Hortense and Flossie--have everything heart could
desire.
"And they have all I want my Snuggy to have," groaned Mr. Morrell. "They
have refinement, and books, and music, and all the things that make life
worth living for a woman."
"But I _love_ Sunset Ranch!" cried Helen again.
"Aye. But I watched your mother. I know how much she missed the gentler
things she had been brought up to. Had I been able to pay off those old
creditors while she was alive, she might have gone back.
"And yet," the ranchman sighed, "the stigma is there. The blot is still on
your father's name, Snuggy. People in New York still believe that I was
dishonest. They believe that with the proceeds of my dishonesty I came out
here and went into the cattle business.
"You see, my dear? Even the settling with our old creditors--the creditors
of Grimes & Morrell--made suspicion wag her tongue more eagerly than ever.
I paid every cent, with interest compounded to the date of settlement.
Grimes had long since had himself cleared of his debts and started over
again. I do not know even that he and Starkweather know that I have been
able to clear up the whole matter.
"However, as I say, the stain upon my reputation remains. I could never
explain my flight. I could never imagine what became of the money.
Somebody embezzled it, and _I_ was the one who ran away. Do you see, my
dear?"
And Helen told him that she _did_ see, and assured him again and again of
her entire trust in his honor. But Mr. Morrell died with the worry of the
old trouble--the trouble that had driven him across the continent--heavy
upon his mind.
And now it was serving to make Helen's mind most uneasy. The crime of
which her father had been accused was continually in her thoughts.
Who had really been guilty of the embezzlement? The bookkeeper, who
disappeared? Fenwick Grimes, the partner? Or, _Who?_
As the Rose pony--her own favorite mount--took Helen Morrell up the bluff
path to the View on this evening, the remembrance of this long talk with
her father before he died was running in the girl's mind.
Perhaps she was a girl who would naturally be more seriously impressed
than most, at sixteen. She had been brought up among older people. She was
a wise little thing when she was a mere toddler.
And after her mother's death she had been her father's daily companion
until she was old enough to be sent away to be educated. The four long
terms at the Denver school had carried Helen Morrell (for she had a quick
mind) through those grades which usually prepare girls for college.
When she came back after graduation, however, she saw that her father
needed her companionship more than she needed college. And, again, she was
too domestic by nature to really long for a higher education.
She was glad now--oh! so glad--that she had remained at Sunset Ranch
during these last few months. Her father had died with her arms about him.
As far as he could be comforted, Helen had comforted him.
But now, as she rode up the rocky trail, she murmured to herself:
"If I could only clear dad's name!"
Again she raised her eyes and saw a buckskin pony and its rider getting
nearer and nearer to the summit.
"Get on, Rose!" she exclaimed. "That chap will beat us out. Who under the
sun can he be?"
[Illustration: "HELEN CREPT ON HANDS AND KNEES TO THE EDGE OF THE BLUFF."
(Page 14)]
She was sure the rider of the buckskin was no Sunset puncher. Yet he
seemed garbed in the usual chaps, sombrero, flannel shirt and gay
neckerchief of the cowpuncher.
"And there isn't another band of cattle nearer than Froghole," thought the
girl, adjusting her body to the Rose pony's quickened gait.
She did not know it, but she was quite as much an object of interest to
the strange rider as he was to her. And it was worth while watching Helen
Morrell ride a pony.
The deep brown of her cheek was relieved by a glow of healthful red. Her
thick plaits of hair were really sunburned; her thick eyebrows were
startlingly light compared with her complexion.
Her eyes were dark gray, with little golden lights playing in them; they
seemed fairly to twinkle when she laughed. Her lips were as red as ripe
sumac berries; her nose, straight, long, and generously moulded, was
really her handsomest feature, for of course her hair covered her dainty
ears more or less.
From the rolling collar of her blouse her neck rose firm and solid--as
strong-looking as a boy's. She was plump of body, with good shoulders, a
well-developed arm, and her ornamented russet riding boots, with a tiny
silver spur in each heel, covered very pretty and very small feet.
Her hand, if plump, was small, too; but the gauntlets she wore made it
seem larger and more mannish than it was. She rode as though she were a
part of the pony.
She had urged on the strawberry roan and now came out upon the open
plateau at the top of the bluff just as the buckskin mounted to the same
level from the other side.
The rock called "the View" was nearer to the stranger than to herself. It
overhung the very steepest drop of the eminence.
Helen touched Rose with the spur, and the pony whisked her tail and shot
across the uneven sward toward the big boulder where Helen and her father
had so often stood to survey the rolling acres of Sunset Ranch.
Whether the stranger on the buckskin thought her mount had bolted with
her, Helen did not know. But she heard him cry out, saw him swing his hat,
and the buckskin started on a hard gallop along the verge of the precipice
toward the very goal for which the Rose pony was headed.
"The foolish fellow! He'll be killed!" gasped Helen, in sudden fright.
"That soil there crumbles like cheese! There! He's down!"
She saw the buckskin's forefoot sink. The brute stumbled and rolled
over--fortunately for the pony _away_ from the cliff's edge.
But the buckskin's rider was hurled into the air. He sprawled forward like
a frog diving and--without touching the ground--passed over the brink of
the precipice and disappeared from Helen's startled gaze.
CHAPTER II
DUDLEY STONE
The victim of the accident made no sound. No scream rose from the depths
after he disappeared. The buckskin pony rolled over, scrambled to its
feet, and cantered off across the plateau.
Helen Morrell had swerved her own mount farther to the south and came to
the edge of the caved-in bit of bank with a rush of hoofs that ended in a
wild scramble as she bore down upon the Rose pony's bit.
She was out of her saddle, and had flung the reins over Rose's head, on
the instant. The well-trained pony stood like a rock.
The girl, her heart beating tumultuously, crept on hands and knees to the
crumbling edge of the bluff.
She knew its scarred face well. There were outcropping boulders, gravel
pits, ledges of shale, brush clumps and a few ragged trees clinging
tenaciously to the water-worn gullies.
She expected to see the man crushed and bleeding on some rock below.
Perhaps he had rolled clear to the bottom.
But as her swift gaze searched the face of the bluff, there was no rock,
splotched with red, in her line of vision. Then she saw something in the
top of one of the trees, far down.
It was the yellow handkerchief which the stranger had worn. It fluttered
in the evening breeze like a flag of distress.
"E-e-e-_yow!_" cried Helen, making a horn of her hands as she leaned over
the edge of the precipice, and uttering the puncher's signal call.
"E-e-e-_yow!_" came up a faint reply.
She saw the green top of the tree stir. Then a face--scratched and
streaked with blood--appeared.
"For the love of heaven!" called a thin voice. "Get somebody with a rope.
I've got to have some help."
"I have a rope right here. Pass it under your arms, and I'll swing you out
of that tree-top," replied Helen, promptly.
She jumped up and went to the pony. Her rope--she would no more think of
traveling without it than would one of the Sunset punchers--was coiled at
the saddlebow.
Running back to the verge of the bluff she planted her feet on a firm
boulder and dropped the coil into the depths. In a moment it was in the
hands of the man below.
"Over your head and shoulders!" she cried.
"You can never hold me!" he called back, faintly.
"You do as you're told!" she returned, in a severe tone. "I'll hold
you--don't you fear."
She had already looped her end of the rope over the limb of a tree that
stood rooted upon the brink of the bluff. With such a purchase she would
be able to hold all the rope itself would hold.
"Ready!" she called down to him.
"All right! Here I swing!" was the reply.
Leaning over the brink, rather breathless, it must be confessed, the girl
from Sunset Ranch saw him swing out of the top of the tree.
The tree-top was all of seventy feet from its roots. If he slipped now he
would suffer a fall that surely would kill him.
But he was able to help himself. Although he crashed once against the side
of the bluff and set a bushel of gravel rattling down, in a moment he
gained foothold on a ledge. There he stood, wavering until she paid off a
little of the line. Then he dropped down to get his breath.
"Are you safe?" she shouted down to him.
"Sure! I can sit here all night."
"You don't want to, I suppose?" she asked.
"Not so's you'd notice it. I guess I can get down after a fashion."
"Hurt bad?"
"It's my foot, mostly--right foot. I believe it's sprained, or broken.
It's sort of in the way when I move about."
"Your face looks as if that tree had combed it some," commented Helen.
"Never mind," replied the youth. "Beauty's only skin deep, at best. And
I'm not proud."
She could not see him very well, for the sun had dropped so low that down
where he lay the face of the bluff was in shadow.
"Well, what are you going to do? Climb up, or down?"
"I believe getting down would be easier--'specially if you let me use your
rope."
"Sure!"
"But then, there'd be my pony. I couldn't get him with this foot----"
"I'll catch him. My Rose can run down anything on four legs in these
parts," declared the girl, briskly.
"And can you get down here to the foot of this cliff where I'm bound to
land?"
"Yes. I know the way in the dark. Got matches?"
"Yes."
"Then you build some kind of a smudge when you reach the bottom. That'll
show me where you are. Now I'm going to drop the rope to you. Look out it
doesn't get tangled."
"All right! Let 'er come!"
"I'll have to leave you if I'm to catch that buckskin before it gets dark,
stranger. You'll get along all right?" she added.
"Surest thing you know!"
She dropped the rope. He gathered it in quickly and then uttered a
cheerful shout.
"All clear?" asked Helen.
"Don't worry about me. I'm all right," he assured her.
Helen leaped back to her waiting pony. Already the golden light was dying
out of the sky. Up here in the foothills the "evening died hard" as the
saying is; but the buckskin pony had romped clear across the plateau. He
was now, indeed, out of sight.
She whirled Rose about and set off at a gallop after the runaway. It was
not until then that she remembered she had no rope. That buckskin would
have to be fairly run down. There would be no roping him.
"But if you can't do it, no other horsie can," she said, aloud, patting
the Rose pony on her arching neck. "Go it, girl! Let's see if we can't
beat any miserable little buckskin that ever came into this country. A
strawberry roan forever!"
Her "E-e-e-yow! yow!" awoke the pony to desperate endeavor. She seemed to
merely skim the dry grass of the open plateau, and in ten minutes Helen
saw a riderless mount plunging up the side of a _coulee_ far ahead.
"There he goes!" cried the girl. "After him, Rosie! Make your pretty hoofs
fly!"
The excitement of the chase roused in Helen that feeling of freedom and
confidence that is a part of life on the plains. Those who live much in
the open air, and especially in the saddle, seldom think of failure.
She knew she was going to catch the runaway pony. Such an idea as
non-success never entered her mind. This was the first hard riding she had
done since Mr. Morrell died; and now her thoughts expanded and she shook
off the hopeless feeling which had clouded her young heart and mind since
they had buried her father.
While she rode on, and rode hard, after the fleeing buckskin her revived
thought kept time with the pony's hoofbeats.
No longer did the old tune run in her head: "If I only _could_ clear dad's
name!" Instead the drum of confidence beat a charge to arms: "I know I
_can_ clear his name!
"To think of poor dad living out here all these years, with suspicion
resting on his reputation back there in New York. And he wasn't guilty! It
was that partner of his, or that bookkeeper, who was guilty. That is the
secret of it," Helen told herself.
"I'll go back East and find out all about it," determined the girl, as her
pony carried her swiftly over the ground. "Up, Rose! There he is! Don't
let him get away from us!"
Her interest in the chase of the buckskin pony and in the mystery of her
father's trouble ran side by side.
"On, on!" she urged Rose. "Why shouldn't I go East? Big Hen can run the
ranch well enough. And there are my cousins--and auntie. If Aunt Eunice
resembles mother----
"Go it, Rose! There's our quarry!"
She stooped forward in the saddle, and as the Rose pony, running like the
wind, passed the now staggering buckskin, Helen snatched the dragging
rein, and pulled the runaway around to follow in her own wake.
"Hush, now! Easy!" she commanded her mount, who obeyed her voice quite as
well as though she had tugged at the reins. "Now we'll go back quietly and
trail this useless one along with us.
"Come up, Buck! Easy, Rose!" So she urged them into the same gait,
returning in a wide circle toward the path up which she had climbed before
the sun went down--the trail to Sunset Ranch.
"Yes! I can do it!" she cried, thinking aloud. "I can and will go to New
York. I'll find out all 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 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 of educated Atlantic seaboard youth.
There is a difference between them and the young Westerner. The latter are
apt to be hung loosely, and usually show the effect of range-riding--at
least, back here in Montana. Whereas Dud Stone was compactly built.
They chatted quite frankly while the patient ate his supper. Dud found
that, although Helen used many Western idioms, and spoke with an
abruptness that showed her bringing up among plain-spoken ranch people,
she could, if she so desired, use "school English" with good taste, and
gave other evidences in her conversation of being quite conversant with
the world of which he was himself a part when he was at home.
"Oh, you would get along all right in New York," he said, laughing, when
she suggested a doubt as to the impression she might make upon her
relatives in the big town. "You'd not be half the 'tenderfoot' there that
I am here."
"No? Then I reckon I can risk shocking them," laughed Helen, her gray eyes
dancing.
This talk she had with Dud Stone on the evening of his arrival confirmed
the young mistress of Sunset Ranch in her intention of going to the great
city.
CHAPTER IV
HEADED EAST
When Helen Morrell made up her mind to do a thing, she usually did it. A
cataclysm of nature was about all that would thwart her determination.
This being yielded to and never thwarted, even by her father, might have
spoiled a girl of different calibre. But there was a foundation of good
common sense to Helen's nature.
"Snuggy won't kick over the traces much," Prince Morrell had been wont to
say.
"Right you are, Boss," had declared Big Hen Billings. "It's usually safe
to give her her head. She'll bring up somewhar."
But when Helen mentioned her eastern trip to the old foreman he came
"purty nigh goin' up in th' air his own se'f!" as he expressed it.
"What d'yer wanter do anythin' like that air for, Snuggy?" he demanded, in
a horrified tone. "Great jumping Jehosaphat! Ain't this yere valley big
enough fo' you?"
"Sometimes I think it's too big," admitted Helen, laughing.
"Well, by jo! you'll fin' city quarters close't 'nough--an' that's no
josh. Huh! Las' time ever I went to Chicago with a train-load of beeves I
went to see Kellup Flemming what useter work here on this very same livin'
Sunset Ranch. You don't remember him. You was too little, Snuggy."
"I've heard you speak of him, Hen," observed the girl.
"Well, thar was Kellup, as smart a young feller as you'd find in a day's
ride, livin' with his wife an' kids in what he called a _flat_. Be-lieve
me! It was some perpendicular to git into, an' no _flat_.
"When we gits inside and inter what he called his parlor, he looks around
like he was proud of it (By jo! I'd be afraid ter shrug my shoulders in
it, 'twas so small) an' says he: 'What d'ye think of the ranch, Hen?'
"'Ranch,' mind yeh! I was plumb insulted. I says: 'It's all right--what
there is of it--only, what's that crack in the wall for, Kellup?'
"'Sufferin' tadpoles!' yells Kellup--jest like that! 'Sufferin' tadpoles!
That ain't no crack in the wall. That's our private hall.'
"Great jumping Jehosaphat!" exclaimed Hen, roaring with laughter. "Yuh
don't wanter git inter no place like that in New York. Can't breathe in
the house."
"I guess Uncle Starkweather lives in a little better place than that,"
said Helen, after laughing with the old foreman. "His house is on Madison
Avenue."
"Don't care where it is; there natcherly won't be no such room in a city
dwelling as there is here at Sunset Ranch."
"I suppose not," admitted the girl.
"Huh! Won't be room in the yard for a cow," growled Big Hen. "Nor
chickens. Whatter yer goin' to do without a fresh aig, Snuggy?"
"I expect that will be pretty tough, Hen. But I feel like I must go, you
see," said the girl, dropping into the idiom of Sunset Ranch. "Dad wanted
me to."
"The Boss _wanted_ yuh to?" gasped the giant, surprised.
"Yes, Hen."
"He never said nothin' to me about it," declared the foreman of Sunset
Ranch, shaking his bushy head.
"No? Didn't he say anything about my being with women folk, and under
different circumstances?"
"Gosh, yes! But I reckoned on getting Mis' Polk and Mis' Harry Frieze to
take turns coming over yere and livin' with yuh."
"But that isn't all dad wanted," continued the girl, shaking her head.
"Besides, you know both Mrs. Polk and Mrs. Frieze are widows, and will be
looking for husbands. We'd maybe lose some of the best boys we've got, if
they came here," said Helen, her eyes twinkling.
"Great jumping Jehosaphat! I never thought of that," declared the foreman,
suddenly scared. "I never _did_ like that Polk woman's eye. I wouldn't,
mebbe, be safe myse'f; would I?"
"I'm afraid not," Helen gravely agreed. "So, you see, to please dad, I'll
have to go to New York. I don't mean to stay for all time, Hen. But I want
to give it a try-out."
She sounded Dud Stone a good bit about the big city. Dud had to stay
several days at Sunset Ranch because he couldn't ride very well with his
injured foot. And finally, when he did go back to Badger's, they took him
in a buckboard.
To tell the truth, Dud was not altogether glad to go. He was a boyish chap
despite the fact that he was nearly through law school, and a
sixteen-year-old girl like Helen Morrell--especially one of her
character--appealed to him strongly.
He admired the capable way in which she managed things about the
ranch-house. Sing obeyed her as though she were a man. There was a
"rag-head" who had somehow worked his way across the mountains from the
coast, and that Hindoo about worshipped "Missee Sahib." The two or three
Greasers working about the ranch showed their teeth in broad smiles, and
bowed most politely when she appeared. And as for the punchers and
wranglers, they were every one as loyal to Snuggy as they had been to her
father.
The Easterner realized that among all the girls he knew back home, either
of her age or older, there was none so capable as Helen Morrell. And there
were few any prettier.
"You're going right to relatives when you reach New York; are you, Miss
Morrell?" asked Dud, just before he climbed into the buckboard to return
to his friend's ranch.
"Oh, yes. I shall go to Aunt Eunice," said the girl, decidedly.
"No need of my warning you against bunco men and card sharpers," chuckled
Dud, "for your folks will look out for you. But remember: You'll be just
as much a tenderfoot there as I am here."
"I shall take care," she returned, laughing.
"And--and I hope I may see you in New York," said Dud, hesitatingly.
"Why, I hope we shall run across each other," replied Helen, calmly. She
was not sure that it would be the right thing to invite this young man to
call upon her at the Starkweathers'.
"I'd better ask Aunt Eunice about that first," she decided, to herself.
So she shook hands heartily with Dud Stone and let him ride away, never
appearing to notice his rather wistful look. She was to see the time,
however, when she would be very glad of a friend like Dud Stone in the
great city.
Helen made her preparations for her trip to New York without any advice
from another woman. To tell the truth she had little but riding habits
which were fit to wear, save the house frocks which she wore around the
ranch.
When she had gone to school in Denver, her father had sent a sum of money
to the principal and that lady had seen that Helen was dressed tastefully
and well. But all these garments she had outgrown.
To tell the truth, Helen had spent little of her time in studying the
pictures in fashion magazines. In fact, there were no such books about
Sunset Ranch.
The girl realized that the rough and ready frocks she possessed were not
in style. There was but one store in Elberon, the nearest town, where
ready-to-wear garments were sold. She went there and purchased the best
they had; but they left much to be desired.
She got a brown dress to travel in, and a shirtwaist or two; but beyond
that she dared not go. Helen was wise enough to realize that, after she
arrived at her Uncle Starkweather's, it would be time enough to purchase
proper raiment.
She "dressed up" in the new frock for the boys to admire, the evening
before she left. Every man who could be spared from the range--even as far
as Creeping Ford--came in to the "party." They all admired Helen and were
sorry to see her go away. Yet they gave her their best wishes.
Big Hen Billings rode part of the way to Elberon with her in the morning.
She was going to send the strawberry roan back hitched behind the supply
wagon. Her riding dress she would change in the station agent's parlor for
the new dress which was in the tray of her small trunk.
"Keep yer eyes peeled, Snuggy," advised the old foreman, with gravity,
"when ye come up against that New York town. 'Tain't like Elberon--no,
sir! 'Tain't even like Helena.
"Them folks in New York is rubbing up against each other so close, that it
makes 'em moughty sharp--yessir! Jumping Jehosaphat! I knowed a feller
that went there onct and he lost ten dollars and his watch before he'd
been off the train an hour. They can do ye that quick!"
"I believe that fellow must have been _you_, Hen," declared Helen,
laughing.
The foreman looked shamefaced. "Wal, it were," he admitted. "But they
never got nothin' more out o' me. It was the hottest kind o' summer
weather--an' lemme tell yuh, it can be some hot in that man's town.
"Wal, I had a sheepskin coat with me. I put it on, and I buttoned it from
my throat-latch down to my boot-tops. They'd had to pry a dollar out o' my
pocket with a crowbar, and I wouldn't have had a drink with the mayor of
the city if he'd invited me. No, sirree, sir!"
Helen laughed again. "Don't you fear for me, Hen. I shall be in the best
of hands, and shall have plenty of friends around me. I'll never feel
lonely in New York, I am sure."
"I hope not. But, Snuggy, you know what to do if anything goes wrong. Just
telegraph me. If you want me to come on, say the word----"
"Why, Hen! How ridiculous you talk," she cried. "I'll be with relatives."
"Ya-as. I know," said the giant, shaking his head. "But relatives ain't
like them that's knowed and loved yuh all yuh life. Don't forgit us out
yere, Snuggy--and if ye want anything----" His heart was evidently too
full for further utterance. He jerked his pony's head around, waved his
hand to the girl who likewise was all but in tears, and dashed back over
the trail toward Sunset Ranch.
Helen pulled the Rose pony's head around and jogged on, headed east.
CHAPTER V
AT BOTH ENDS OF THE ROUTE
As Helen walked up and down the platform at Elberon, waiting for the
east-bound Transcontinental, she looked to be a very plain country girl
with nothing in her dress to denote that she was one of the wealthiest
young women in the State of Montana.
Sunset Ranch was one of the few remaining great cattle ranches of the
West. Her father could justly have been called "a cattle king," only
Prince Morrell was not the sort of man who likes to see his name in
print.
Indeed, there was a good reason why Helen's father had not wished to
advertise himself. That old misfortune, which had borne so heavily upon
his mind and heart when he came to die, had made him shrink from
publicity.
However, business at Sunset Ranch had prospered both before and since Mr.
Morrell's death. The money had rolled in and the bank accounts which had
been put under the administration of Big Hen Billings and the lawyer at
Elberon, increased steadily.
Big Hen was a generous-handed administrator and guardian. Of course, the
foreman of the ranch was, perhaps, not the best person to be guardian of a
sixteen-year-old girl. He did not treat her, in regard to money matters,
as the ordinary guardian would have treated a ward.
Big Hen didn't know how to limit a girl's expenditures; but he knew how to
treat a man right. And he treated Helen Morrell just as though she were a
sane and responsible man.
"There's a thousand dollars in cash for you, Snuggy," he had said. "I got
it in soft money, for it's a fac' that they use that stuff a good deal in
the East. Besides, the hard money would have made a good deal of a load
for you to tote in them leetle war-bags of yourn."
"But shall I ever need a thousand dollars?" asked Helen, doubtfully.
"Don't know. Can't tell. Sometimes ye need money when ye least expect it.
Ye needn't tell anybody how much you've got. Only, it's _there_--and a
full pocket is a mighty nice backin' for anybody to have.
"And if ye find any time ye want more, jest telegraph. We'll send ye what
they call a draft for all ye want. Cut a dash. Show 'em that the girl from
Sunset Ranch is the real thing, Snuggy."
But she had only laughed at this. It never entered Helen Morrell's mind
that she should ever wish to "cut a dash" before her relatives in New
York.
She had filed a telegram to Mr. Willets Starkweather, on Madison Avenue,
before the train arrived, saying that she was coming. She hoped that her
relatives would reply and she would get the reply en route.
When her father died, she had written to the Starkweathers. She had
received a brief, but kindly worded note from Uncle Starkweather. And it
had scarcely been time yet, so Helen thought, for Aunt Eunice or the girls
to write.
But could Helen have arrived at the Madison Avenue mansion of Willets
Starkweather at the same hour her message arrived and heard the family's
comments on it, it is very doubtful if she would have swung herself aboard
the parlor car of the Transcontinental, without the porter's help, and
sought her seat.
The Starkweathers lived in very good style, indeed. The mansion was one of
several remaining in that section, all occupied by the very oldest and
most elevated socially of New York's solid families. They were not people
whose names appeared in the gossip columns of the papers to any extent;
but to live in their neighborhood, and to meet them socially, was
sufficient to insure one's welcome anywhere.
The Starkweather mansion had descended to Willets Starkweather with the
money--all from his great-uncle--which had finally put the family upon its
feet. When Prince Morrell had left New York under a cloud, his
brother-in-law was a struggling merchant himself.
Now, in sixteen years, he had practically retired. At least, he was no
longer "in trade." He merely went to an office, or to his broker's, each
day, and watched his investments and his real estate holdings.
A pompous, well-fed man was Willets Starkweather--and always imposingly
dressed. He was very bald, wore a closely cropped gray beard, eyeglasses,
and "Ahem!" was an introduction to almost everything he said. That
clearing of the bronchial tubes was an announcement to the listening world
that he, Willets Starkweather, of Madison Avenue, was about to make a
remark. And no matter how trivial that remark might be, coming from the
lips of the great man, it should be pondered upon and regarded with awe.
Mr. Starkweather was a widower. Helen's Aunt Eunice had been dead three
years. It had never been considered necessary by either Mr. Starkweather,
or his daughters, to write "Aunt Mary's folks in Montana" of Mrs.
Starkweather's death.
Correspondence between the families had ceased at the time of Mrs.
Morrell's death. The Starkweather girls understood that Aunt Mary's
husband had "done something" before he left New York for the wild and
woolly West. The family did not--Ahem!--speak of him.
The three girls were respectively eighteen, sixteen, and fourteen. Even
Flossie considered herself entirely grown up. She attended a private
school not far from Central Park, and went each day dressed as elaborately
as a matron of thirty.
For Hortense, who was just Helen Morrell's age, "school had become a
bore." She had a smattering of French, knew how to drum nicely on the
piano--she was still taking lessons in _that_ polite accomplishment--had
only a vague idea of the ordinary rules of English grammar, and couldn't
write a decent letter, or spell words of more than two syllables, to save
her life.
Belle golfed. She did little else just now, for she was a creature of
fads. Occasionally she got a new one, and with kindred spirits played that
particular fad to death.
She might have found a much worse hobby to ride. Getting up early and
starting for the Long Island links, or for Westchester, before her sisters
had had their breakfast, was not doing Belle a bit of harm. Only, she was
getting in with a somewhat "sporty" class of girls and women older than
herself, and the bloom of youth had been quite rubbed off.
Indeed, these three girls were about as fresh as is a dried prune. They
had jumped from childhood into full-blown womanhood (or thought they had),
thereby missing the very best and sweetest part of their girls' life.
They had come in from their various activities of the day when Helen's
telegram arrived. Naturally they ran with it to their father's "den"--a
gorgeously upholstered yet small library on the ground floor, at the
back.
"What is it now, girls?" demanded Mr. Starkweather, looking up in some
dismay at this general onslaught. "I don't want you to suggest any further
expenditures this month. I have paid all the bills I possibly can pay. We
must retrench--we must retrench."
"Oh, Pa!" said Flossie, saucily, "you're always saying that. I believe you
say 'We must retrench!' in your sleep."
"And small wonder if I do," he grumbled. "I have lost some money; the
stock market is very dull. And nobody is buying real estate. I--I am quite
at my wits' ends, I assure you, girls."
"Dear me! and another mouth to feed!" laughed Hortense, tossing her head.
"_That_ will be excuse enough for telling her to go to a hotel when she
arrives."
"Probably the poor thing won't have the price of a room," observed Belle,
looking again at the telegram.
"What is that in your hand, child?" demanded Mr. Starkweather, suddenly
seeing the yellow slip of paper.
"A dispatch, Pa," said Flossie, snatching it out of Belle's hand.
"A telegram?"
"And you'd never guess from whom," cried the youngest girl.
"I--I----Let me see it," said her father, with some abruptness. "No bad
news, I hope?"
"Well, I don't call it _good_ news," said the oldest girl, with a sniff.
Mr. Starkweather read it aloud:
"Coming on Transcontinental. Arrive Grand
Central Terminal 9 P.M. the third.
"Helen Morrell."
"Now! What do you think of that, Pa?" demanded Flossie.
"'Helen Morrell,'" repeated Mr. Starkweather, and a person more observant
than any of his daughters might have seen that his lips had grown suddenly
gray. He dropped into his chair rather heavily. "Your cousin, girls."
"Fol-de-rol!" exclaimed Belle. "I don't see why she should claim
relationship."
"Send her to a hotel, Pa," said Flossie.
"I'm sure _I_ do not wish to be bothered by a common ranch girl. Why! she
was born and brought up out in the wilds; wasn't she?" demanded Hortense.
"Her father and mother went West before this girl was born--yes," murmured
Mr. Starkweather.
He was strangely agitated by the message. But the girls did not notice
this. They were not likely to notice anything but their own disturbance
over the coming of "that ranch girl."
"Why, Pa, we can't have her here!" cried Belle.
"Of course we can't, Pa," agreed Hortense.
"I'm sure _I_ don't want the common little thing around," added Flossie,
who, as has been said, was quite two years Helen's junior.
"We couldn't introduce her to our friends," declared Belle.
"What a _fright_ she'll be!" wailed Hortense.
"She'll wear a sombrero and a split riding skirt, I suppose," scoffed
Flossie, who madly desired a slit skirt, herself.
"Of course she'll be a perfect dowdy," Belle observed.
"And be loud and wear heavy boots, and stamp through the house," sighed
Hortense. "We just _can't_ have her, Pa."
"Why, I wouldn't let any of the girls of _our_ set see her for the world,"
cried Flossie.
Their father finally spoke. He had recovered from his secret emotion, but
he was still mopping the perspiration from his bald brow.
"I don't really see how I can prevent her coming," he said, rather
weakly.
"What nonsense, Pa!"
"Of course you can!"
"Telegraph her not to come."
"But she is already aboard the train," objected Mr. Starkweather,
gloomily.
"Then, I tell you," snapped Flossie, who was the most unkind of the girls.
"Don't telegraph her at all. Don't answer her message. Don't send to the
station to meet her. Maybe she won't be too dense to take _that_ hint."
"Pooh! these wild and woolly Western girls!" grumbled Hortense. "I don't
believe she'll know enough to stay away."
"We can try it," persisted Flossie.
"She ought to realize that we're not dying to see her when we don't come
to the train," said Belle.
"I--don't--know," mused their father.
"Now, Pa!" cried Flossie. "You know very well you don't want that girl
here."
"No," he admitted. "But--Ahem!--we have certain duties----"
"Bother duties!" said Hortense.
"Ahem! She is your mother's sister's child," spoke Mr. Starkweather,
heavily. "She is a young and unprotected female----"
"Seems to me," said Belle, crossly, "the relationship is far enough
removed for us to ignore it. Mother's sister, Aunt Mary, is dead."
"True--true. Ahem!" said her father.
"And isn't it true that this man, Morrell, whom she married, left New York
under a cloud?"
"O--oh!" cried Hortense. "So he did."
"What did he do?" Flossie asked, bluntly.
"Embezzled; didn't he, Pa?" asked Belle.
"That's enough!" cried Flossie, tossing her head. "We certainly don't want
a convict's daughter in the house."
"Hush, Flossie!" said her father, with sudden sternness. "Prince Morrell
was never a convict."
"No," sneered Hortense. "He ran away. He didn't get that far."
"Ahem! Daughters, we have no right to talk in this way--even in fun----"
"Well, I don't care," cried Belle, impatiently. "Whether she's a
criminal's child or not; I don't want her. None of us wants her. Why,
then, should we have her?"
"But where will she go?" demanded Mr. Starkweather, almost desperately.
"What do we care?" cried Flossie, callously. "She can be sent back; can't
she?"
"I tell you what it is," said Belle, getting up and speaking with
determination. "We don't want Helen Morrell here. We will not meet her at
the train. We will not send any reply to this message from her. And if she
has the effrontery to come here to the house after our ignoring her in
this way, we'll send her back where she came from just as soon as it can
be done. What do you say, girls?"
"Fine!" from Hortense and Flossie.
But their father said "Ahem!" and still looked troubled.
CHAPTER VI
ACROSS THE CONTINENT
It was not as though Helen Morrell had never been in a train before. Eight
times she had gone back and forth to Denver, and she had always ridden in
the best style. So sleepers, chair cars, private compartments, and
observation coaches were no novelty to her.
She had discussed the matter with her friend, the Elberon station agent,
and had bought her ticket through to New York, with a berth section to
herself. It cost a good bit of money, but Helen knew no better way to
spend some of that thousand dollars that Big Hen had given to her.
Her small trunk was put in the baggage car, and all she carried was a
hand-satchel with toilet articles and kimono; and in it likewise was her
father's big wallet stuffed with the yellow-backed notes--all crisp and
new--that Big Hen Billings had brought to her from the bank.
When she was comfortably seated in her particular section, and the porter
had seen that her footstool was right, and had hovered about her with
offers of other assistance until she had put a silver dollar into his
itching palm, Helen first stared about her frankly at the other occupants
of the car.
Nobody paid much attention to the countrified girl who had come aboard at
the way-station. The Transcontinental's cars are always well filled. There
were family parties, and single tourists, with part of a grand opera
troupe, and traveling men of the better class.
Helen would have been glad to join one of the family groups. In one there
were two girls and a boy beside the parents and a lady who must have been
the governess. One of the girls, and the boy, were quite as old as Helen.
They were all so well behaved, and polite to each other, yet jolly and
companionable, that Helen knew she could have liked them immensely.
But there was nobody to introduce the lonely girl to them, nor to any
others of her fellow travelers. The conductor, even, did not take much
interest in the girl in brown.
She began to realize that what was the height of fashion in Elberon was
several seasons behind the style in larger communities. There was not a
pretty or attractive thing about Helen's dress; and even a very pretty
girl will seem a frump in an out-of-style and unbecoming frock.
It might have been better for the girl from Sunset Ranch if she had worn
on the train the very riding habit she had in her trunk. At least, it
would have become her and she would have felt natural in it.
She knew now--when she had seen the hats of her fellow passengers--that
her own was an atrocity. And, then, Helen had "put her hair up," which was
something she had not been used to doing. Without practice, or some
example to work by, how could this unsophisticated young girl have
produced a specimen of modern hair-dressing fit to be seen?
Even Dudley Stone could not have thought Helen Morrell pretty as she
looked now. And when she gazed in the glass herself, the girl from Sunset
Ranch was more than a little disgusted.
"I know I'm a fright. I've got 'such a muchness' of hair and it's so
sunburned, and all! What those girls I'm going to see will say to me, I
don't know. But if they're good-natured they'll soon show me how to handle
this mop--and of course I can buy any quantity of pretty frocks when I get
to New York."
So she only looked at the other people on the train and made no
acquaintances at all that first day. She slept soundly at night while the
Transcontinental raced on over the undulating plains on which the stars
shone so peacefully. Each roll of the drumming wheels was carrying her
nearer and nearer to that new world of which she knew so little, but from
which she hoped so much.
She dreamed that she had reached her goal--Uncle Starkweather's house.
Aunt Eunice met her. She had never even seen a photograph of her aunt; but
the lady who gathered her so closely into her arms and kissed her so
tenderly, looked just as Helen's own mother had looked.
She awoke crying, and hugging the tiny pillow which the Pullman Company
furnishes its patrons as a sample--the _real_ pillow never materializes.
But to the healthy girl from the wide reaches of the Montana range, the
berth was quite comfortable enough. She had slept on the open ground many
a night, rolled only in a blanket and without any pillow at all. So she
arose fresher than most of her fellow-passengers.
One man--whom she had noticed the evening before--was adjusting a wig
behind the curtain of his section. He looked when he was completely
dressed rather a well-preserved person; and Helen was impressed with the
thought that he must still feel young to wish to appear so juvenile.
Even with his wig adjusted--a very curly brown affair--the man looked,
however, to be upward of sixty. There were many fine wrinkles about his
eyes and deep lines graven in his cheeks.
His section was just behind that of the girl from Sunset Ranch, on the
other side of the car. After returning from the breakfast table this first
morning Helen thought she would better take a little more money out of the
wallet to put in her purse for emergencies on the train. So she opened the
locked bag and dragged out the well-stuffed wallet from underneath her
other possessions.
The roll of yellow-backed notes _was_ a large one. Helen, lacking more
interesting occupation, unfolded the crisp banknotes and counted them to
make sure of her balance. As she sat in her seat she thought nobody could
observe her.
Then she withdrew what she thought she might need, and put the remainder
of the money back into the old wallet, snapped the strong elastic about
it, and slid it down to the bottom of the bag again.
The key of the bag she carried on the chain with her locket, which locket
contained the miniatures of her mother and father. Key and locket she hid
in the bosom of her dress.
She looked up suddenly. There was the fatherly-looking old person almost
bending over her chair back. For an instant the girl was very much
startled. The old man's eyes were wonderfully keen and twinkling, and
there was an expression in them which Helen at first did not understand.
"If you have finished with that magazine, my dear, I'll exchange it for
one of mine," said the old gentleman coolly. "What! did I frighten you?"
"Not exactly, sir," returned Helen, watching him curiously. "But I _was_
startled."
"Beg pardon. You do not look like a young person who would be easily
frightened," he said, laughing. "You are traveling alone?"
"Yes, sir."
"Far?"
"To New York, sir," said Helen.
"Ah! a long way for a girl to go by herself--even a self-possessed one
like you," said the fatherly old fellow. "I hope you have friends to meet
you there?"
"Relatives."
"You have never been there, I take it?"
"I have never been farther east than Denver before," she replied.
"Indeed! And so you have not met the relatives you are going to?" he
suggested, shrewdly.
"You are right, sir."
"But, of course, they will not fail to meet you?"
"I telegraphed to them. I expect to get a reply somewhere on the way."
"Then you are well provided for," said the old gentleman, kindly. "Yet, if
you should need any assistance--of any kind--do not fail to call upon me.
I am going through to New York, too."
He went back to his seat after making the exchange of magazines, and did
not force his attentions upon her further. He was, however, almost the
only person who spoke to her all the way across the continent.
Frequently they ate together at the same table, both being alone. He
bought newspapers and magazines and exchanged with her. He never became
personal and asked her questions again, nor did Helen learn his name; but
in little ways which were not really objectionable, he showed that he took
an interest in her. There remained, however, the belief in Helen's mind
that he had seen her counting the money.
"I expect I'd like the old chap if he didn't wear a wig," thought Helen.
"I never could see why people wished to hide the mistakes of Nature. And
he's an old gentleman, too."
Yet again and again she recalled that avaricious gleam in his eyes and how
eager he had seemed when she had first caught sight of his face looking
over her shoulder that first morning on the train. She couldn't forget
that. She kept the locked bag near her hand all the time.
With lively company a journey across this great continent of ours is a
cheerful and inspiring experience. And, of course, Youth can never remain
depressed for long. But in Helen Morrell's case the trip could not be
counted as an enjoyable one.
She was always solitary amid the crowd of travelers. Even when she went
back to the observation platform she was alone. She had nobody with whom
to discuss the beauties of the landscape, or the wonders of Nature past
which the train flashed.
This was her own fault to a degree, of course. The girl from Sunset Ranch
was diffident. These people aboard were all Easterners, or foreigners.
There were no open-hearted, friendly Western folk such as she had been
used to all her life.
She felt herself among a strange people. She scarcely spoke the same
language, or so it seemed. She had felt less awkward and bashful when she
had first gone to the school at Denver as a little girl.
And, again, she was troubled because she had received no reply from her
message to Uncle Starkweather. Of course, he might not have been at home
to receive it; but surely some of the family must have received it.
Every time the brakeman, or porter, or conductor, came through with a
message for some passenger, she hoped he would call her name. But the
Transcontinental brought her across the Western plains, over the two great
rivers, through the Mid-West prairies, skirted two of the Great Lakes,
rushed across the wooded and mountainous Empire State, and finally dashed
down the length of the embattled Hudson toward the Great City of the New
World--the goal of Helen Morrell's late desires, with no word from the
relatives whom she so hoped would welcome her to their hearts and home.
CHAPTER VII
THE GREAT CITY
Helen Morrell never forgot her initial impressions of the great city.
These impressions were at first rather startling--then intensely
interesting. And they all culminated in a single opinion which time only
could prove either true or erroneous.
That belief or opinion Helen expressed in an almost audible exclamation:
"Why! there are so many people here one could _never_ feel lonely!"
This impression came to her after the train had rolled past miles of
streets--all perfectly straight, bearing off on either hand to the two
rivers that wash Manhattan's shores; all illuminated exactly alike; all
bordered by cliffs of dwellings seemingly cut on the same pattern and from
the same material.
With clasped hands and parted lips the girl from Sunset Ranch watched
eagerly the glowing streets, parted by the rushing train. As it slowed
down at 125th Street she could see far along that broad thoroughfare--an
uptown Broadway. There were thousands and thousands of people in
sight--with the glare of shoplights--the clanging electric cars--the
taxicabs and autos shooting across the main stem of Harlem into the
avenues running north and south.
It was as marvelous to the Montana girl as the views of a foreign land
upon the screen of a moving picture theatre. She sank back in her seat
with a sigh as the train moved on.
"What a wonderful, wonderful place!" she thought. "It looks like
fairyland. It is an enchanted place----"
The train, now under electric power, shot suddenly into the ground. The
tunnel was odorous and ill-lighted.
"Well," the girl thought, "I suppose there _is_ another side to the big
city, too!"
The passengers began to put on their wraps and gather together their
hand-luggage. There was much talking and confusion. Some of the tourists
had been met at 125th Street by friends who came that far to greet them.
But there was nobody to greet Helen. There was nobody waiting on the
platform, to come and clasp her hand and bid her welcome, when the train
stopped.
She got down, with her bag, and looked about her. She saw that the old
gentleman with the wig kept step with her. But he did not seem to be
noticing her, and presently he disappeared.
The girl from Sunset Ranch walked slowly up into the main building of the
Grand Central Terminal with the crowd. There was chattering all about
her--young voices, old voices, laughter, squeals of delight and
surprise--all the hubbub of a homing crowd meeting a crowd of friends.
And through it all Helen walked, a stranger in a strange land.
She lingered, hoping that Uncle Starkweather's people might be late. But
nobody spoke to her. She did not know that there were matrons and police
officers in the building to whom she could apply for advice or
assistance.
Naturally independent, this girl of the ranges was not likely to ask a
stranger for help. She could find her own way.
She smiled--yet it was a rather wry smile--when she thought of how Dud
Stone had told her she would be as much of a tenderfoot in New York as he
had been on the plains.
"It's a fact," she thought. "But, if they didn't get my message, I reckon
I can find the house, just the same."
Having been so much in Denver she knew a good deal about city ways. She
did not linger about the station long.
Outside there was a row of taxicabs and cabmen. There was an officer, too;
but he was engaged at the moment in helping a fussy old lady get seven
parcels, a hat box, and a dog basket into a cab.
So Helen walked down the row of waiting taxicabs. At the end cab the
chauffeur on the seat turned around and beckoned.
"Cab, Miss? Take you anywhere you say."
"You know where this number on Madison Street is, of course?" she said,
showing a card with the address on it.
"Sure, Miss. Jump right in."
"How much will it be?"
"Trunk, Miss?"
"Yes. Here is the check."
The chauffeur got out of his seat quickly and took the check.
"It's so much a mile. The little clock tells you the fare," he said,
pleasantly.
"All right," replied Helen. "You get the trunk," and she stepped into the
vehicle.
In a few moments he was back with the trunk and secured it on the roof of
his cab. Then he reached in and tucked a cloth around his passenger,
although the evening was not cold, and got in under the wheel. In another
moment the taxicab rolled out from under the roofed concourse.
Helen had never ridden in any vehicle that went so smoothly and so fast.
It shot right downtown, mile after mile; but Helen was so interested in
the sights she saw from the window of the cab that she did not worry about
the time that elapsed.
By and by they went under an elevated railroad structure; the street grew
more narrow and--to tell the truth--Helen thought the place appeared
rather dirty and unkempt.
Then the cab was turned suddenly across the way, under another elevated
structure, and into a narrow, noisy, ill-kept street.
"Can it be that Uncle Starkweather lives in this part of the town?"
thought Helen, in amazement.
She had always understood that the Starkweather mansion was in one of the
oldest and most respectable parts of New York. But although _this_ might
be one of the older parts of the city, to Helen's eyes it did _not_ look
respectable.
The street was full of children and grown people in odd costumes. And
there was a babel of voices that certainly were not English.
They shot across another narrow street--then another. And then the cab
stopped beside the curb near a corner gaslight.
"Surely this is not Madison?" demanded Helen, of the driver, as her door
was opened.
"There's the name, Miss," said the man, pointing to the street light.
Helen looked. She really _did_ see "MADISON" in blue letters on the sign.
"And is this the number?" she asked again, looking at the three-story,
shabby house before which the cab had stopped.
"Yes, Miss. Don't you see it on the fanlight?"
The dull light in the hall of the house was sufficient to reveal to her
the number painted on the glass above the door. It was an old, old house,
with grimy panes in the windows, and more dull lights behind the shades
drawn down over them. But there really could be no mistake, Helen thought.
The number over the door and the name on the lamp-post reassured her.
She stepped out of the cab, her bag in her hand.
"See if your folks are here, Miss," said the driver, "before I take off
the trunk."
Helen crossed the walk, clinging to her precious bag. She was not a little
disturbed by this strange situation. These streets about here were the
commonest of the common! And she was carrying a large sum of money, quite
unprotected.
When she mounted the steps and touched the door, it opened. A bustle of
sound came from the house; yet it was not the kind of bustle that she had
expected to hear in her uncle's home.
There were the crying of children, the shrieking of a woman's angry
voice--another singing--language in guttural tones which she could not
understand--heavy boots tramping upon the bare boards overhead.
This lower hall was unfurnished. Indeed, it was a most unlovely place as
far as Helen could see by the light of a single flaring gas jet.
"What kind of a place have I got into?" murmured the Western girl, staring
about in disgust and horror, and clinging tightly to the locked bag.
CHAPTER VIII
THE WELCOME
Helen would have faced almost any peril of the range--wolves, a bear even,
a stampede, flood, or fire--with more confidence than she felt at this
moment.
She had some idea of how city people lived, having been to school in
Denver. It seemed impossible that Uncle Starkweather and his family could
reside in such a place as this. And yet the street and number were
correct. Surely, the taxicab driver must know his way about the city!
From behind the door on her right came the rattle of dishes and voices.
Putting her courage to the test, Helen rapped on the door. But she had to
repeat the summons before she was heard.
Then she heard a shuffling step approach the door, it was unlocked, and a
gray old woman, with a huge horsehair wig upon her head, peered out at
her.
"Vot you vant?" this apparition asked, her black eyes growing round in
wonder at the appearance of the girl and her bag. "Ve puys noddings; ve
sells noddings. Vot you vant--eh?"
"I am looking for my Uncle Starkweather," said Helen, doubtfully.
"Vor your ungle?" repeated the old woman.
"Mr. Starkweather. Does he live in this house?"
"'S'arkwesser'? I neffer heard," said the old woman, shaking her huge
head. "Abramovitch lifs here, and Abelosky, and Seldt, and--and Goronsky.
You sure you god de name ride, Miss?"
"Quite sure," replied the puzzled Helen.
"Meppe ubstairs," said the woman, eyeing Helen curiously. "Vot you god in
de pag, lady?"
To tell the truth this query rather frightened the girl. She did not reply
to the question, but started half-blindly for the stairs, clinging to the
bag with both hands.
Suddenly a door banged above and a quick and light step began to descend
the upper flight. Helen halted and looked expectantly upward. The
approaching step was that of a young person.
In a moment a girl appeared, descending the stairs like a young whirlwind.
She was a vigorous, red-cheeked girl, with dark complexion, a prominent
nose, flashing black eyes, and plump, sturdy arms bared to her dimpled
elbows. She saw Helen there in the hall and stopped, questioningly. The
old woman said something to the newcomer in what Helen supposed must be
Yiddish, and banged shut her own door.
"Whaddeyer want, Miss?" asked the dark girl, coming nearer to Helen and
smiling, showing two rows of perfect teeth. "Got lost?"
"I don't know but what I have," admitted the girl from the West.
"Chee! You're a greenie, too; ain't you?"
"I reckon so," replied Helen, smiling in return. "At least, I've just
arrived in town."
The girl had now opened the door and looked out. "Look at this, now!" she
exclaimed. "Did you come in that taxi?"
"Yes," admitted Helen.
"Chee! you're some swell; aren't you?" said the other. "We don't have them
things stopping at the house every day."
"I am looking for my uncle, Mr. Willets Starkweather."
"That's no Jewish name. I don't believe he lives in this house," said the
black-eyed girl, curiously.
"But, this is the number--I saw it," said Helen, faintly. "And it's
Madison Avenue; isn't it? I saw the name on the corner lamp-post."
"_Madison Avenyer?_" gasped the other girl.
"Yes."
"Yer kiddin'; ain't yer?" demanded the stranger.
"Why---- What do you mean?"
"This ain't Madison Avenyer," said the black-eyed girl, with a loud laugh.
"Ain't you the greenie? Why, this is Madison _Street!_"
"Oh, then, there's a difference?" cried Helen, much relieved. "I didn't
get to Uncle Starkweather's, then?"
"Not if he lives on Madison Avenyer," said her new friend. "What's his
number? I got a cousin that married a man in Harlem. _She_ lives on
Madison Avenyer; but it's a long ways up town."
"Why, Uncle Starkweather has his home at the same number on Madison Avenue
that is on that fanlight," and Helen pointed over the door.
"Then he's some swell; eh?"
"I--I guess so," admitted Helen, doubtfully.
"D'jer jest come to town?"
"Yes."
"And told the taxi driver to come down here?"
"Yes."
"Well, he'll take you back. I'll take the number of the cab and scare him
pretty near into a fit," said the black-eyed girl, laughing. "Then he's
sure to take you right to your uncle's house."
"Oh, I'm a thousand times obliged!" cried Helen. "I _am_ a tenderfoot; am
I not?" and she laughed.
The girl looked at her curiously. "I don't know much about tender feet.
Mine never bother me," she said. "But I could see right away that you
didn't belong in this part of town."
"Well, you've been real kind to me," Helen said. "I hope I'll see you
again."
"Not likely," said the other, shaking her head.
"Why not?"
"And you livin' on Madison Avenyer, and me on Madison Street?"
"I can come down to see you," said Helen, frankly. "My name is Helen
Morrell. What's yours?"
"Sadie Goronsky. You see, I'm a Russian," and she smiled. "You wouldn't
know it by the way I talk; would you? I learned English over there. But
some folks in Russia don't care to mix much with our people."
"I don't know anything about that," said Helen. "But I know when I like a
person. And I've got reason for liking you."
"That goes--double," returned the other, warmly. "I bet you come from a
place far away from this city."
"Montana," said Helen.
"I ain't up in United States geography. But I know there's a big country
the other side of the North River."
Helen laughed. "I come from a good ways beyond the river," she said.
"Well, I'll have to get back to the store. Old Jacob will give me fits."
"Oh, dear! and I'm keeping you," cried Helen.
"I should worry!" exploded the other, slangily. "I'm only a 'puller-in.' I
ain't a saleslady. Come on and I'll throw a scare into that taxi-driver.
Watch me."
This sort of girl was a revelation to Helen. She was frankly independent
herself; but Sadie Goronsky showed an entirely different sort of
independence.
"See here you, Mr. Man!" exclaimed the Jewish girl, attracting the
attention of the taxicab driver, who had not left his seat. "Whadderyer
mean by bringing this young lady down here to Madison Street when with
half an eye you could ha' told that she belonged on Madison _Avenyer_?"
"Heh?" grunted the man.
"Now, don't play no greenie trick with _me_," commanded Sadie. "I gotcher
number, and I know the company youse woik for. You take this young lady
right to the correct address on the avenyer--and see that she don't get
robbed before you get her there. You get in, Miss Morrell. Don't you be
afraid. This chap won't dare take you anywhere but to your uncle's house
now."
"She said Madison Street," declared the taxicab driver, doggedly.
"Well, now _I_ says Madison Avenyer!" exclaimed Sadie. "Get in, Miss."
"But where'll I find you, Sadie?" asked the Western girl, holding the
rough hand of her new friend.
"Right at that shop yonder," said the black-eyed girl, pointing to a store
only two doors beyond the house which Helen had entered. "Ladies'
garments. You'll see me pullin' 'em in. If you _don't_ see me, ask for
Miss Goronsky. Good-night, Miss! You'll get to your uncle's all right
now."
The taxicab driver had started the machine again. They darted off through
a side street, and soon came out upon the broader thoroughfare down which
they had come so swiftly. She saw by a street sign that it was the
Bowery.
The man slowed down and spoke to her through the tube.
"I hope you don't bear no ill-will, Miss," he said, humbly enough. "You
said Madison----"
"All right. See if you can take me to the right place now," returned
Helen, brusquely.
Her talk with Sadie Goronsky had given her more confidence. She was awake
to the wiles of the city now. Dud Stone had been right. Even Big Hen
Billings's warnings were well placed. A stranger like herself had to be on
the lookout all the time.
After a time the taxicab turned up a wider thoroughfare that had no
elevated trains roaring overhead. At Twenty-third Street it turned west
and then north again at Madison Square.
There was a little haze in the air--an October haze. Through this the
lamps twinkled blithely. There were people on the dusky benches, and many
on the walks strolling to and fro, although it was now growing quite
late.
In the park she caught a glimpse of water in a fountain, splashing high,
then low, with a rainbow in it. Altogether it was a beautiful sight.
The hum of night traffic--the murmur of voices--they flashed past a
theatre just sending forth its audience--and all the subdued sights and
sounds of the city delighted her again.
Suddenly the taxicab stopped.
"This is the number, Miss," said the driver.
Helen looked out first. Not much like the same number on Madison Street!
This block was a slice of old-fashioned New York. On either side was a row
of handsome, plain old houses, a few with lanterns at their steps, and
some with windows on several floors brilliantly lighted.
There were carriages and automobiles waiting at these doors. Evening
parties were evidently in progress.
The house before which the taxicab had stopped showed no light in front,
however, except at the door and in one or two of the basement windows.
"Is this the place you want?" asked the driver, with some impatience.
"I'll see," said Helen, and hopped out of the cab.
She ran boldly up the steps and rang the bell. In a minute the inner door
swung open; but the outer grating remained locked. A man in livery stood
in the opening.
"What did you wish, ma'am?" he asked in a perfectly placid voice.
"Does Mr. Willets Starkweather reside here?" asked Helen.
"Mr. Starkweather is not at home, ma'am."
"Oh! then he could not have received my telegram!" gasped Helen.
The footman remained silent, but partly closed the door.
"Any message, ma'am?" he asked, perfunctorily.
"But surely the family is at home?" cried Helen.
"Not at this hour of the hevening, ma'am," declared the English servant,
with plain disdain.
"But I must see them!" cried Helen, again. "I am Mr. Starkweather's niece.
I have come all the way from Montana, and have just got into the city. You
must let me in."
"Hi 'ave no orders regarding you, ma'am," declared the footman, slowly.
"Mr. Starkweather is at 'is club. The young ladies are hat an evening
haffair."
"But auntie--surely there must be _somebody_ here to welcome me?" said
Helen, in more wonder than anger as yet.
"You may come in, Miss," said the footman at last. "Hi will speak to the
'ousekeeper--though I fear she is abed."
"But I have the taxicab driver to pay, and my trunk is here," declared
Helen, beginning suddenly to feel very helpless.
The man had opened the grilled door. He gazed down at the cab and shook
his head.
"Wait hand see Mrs. Olstrom, first, Miss," he said.
She stepped in. He closed both doors and chained the inner one. He pointed
to a hard seat in a corner of the hall and then stepped softly away upon
the thick carpet to the rear of the premises, leaving the girl from Sunset
Ranch alone.
_This_ was her welcome to the home of her only relatives, and to the heart
of the great city!
CHAPTER IX
THE GHOST WALK
Helen had to wait only a short time; but during that wait she was aware
that she was being watched by a pair of bright eyes at a crevice between
the portieres at the end of the hall.
"They act as though I came to rob them," thought the girl from the ranch,
sitting in the gloomy hall with the satchel at her feet.
This was not the welcome she had expected when she started East. Could it
be possible that her message to Uncle Starkweather had not been delivered?
Otherwise, how could this situation be explained?
Such a thing as inhospitality could not be imagined by Helen Morrell. A
begging Indian was never turned away from Sunset Ranch. A perfect
stranger--even a sheepman--would be hospitably treated in Montana.
The soft patter of the footman's steps soon sounded and the sharp eyes
disappeared. There was a moment's whispering behind the curtain. Then the
liveried Englishman appeared.
"Will you step this way, Miss?" he said, gravely. "Mrs. Olstrom will see
you in her sitting-room. Leave your bag there, Miss."
"No. I guess I'll hold onto it," she said, aloud.
The footman looked pained, but said nothing. He led the way haughtily into
the rear of the premises again. At a door he knocked.
"Come in!" said a sharp voice, and Helen was ushered into the presence of
a female with a face quite in keeping with the tone of her voice.
The lady was of uncertain age. She wore a cap, but it did not entirely
hide the fact that her thin, straw-colored hair was done up in
curl-papers. She was vinegary of feature, her light blue eyes were as
sharp as gimlets, and her lips were continually screwed up into the
expression of one determined to say "prunes."
She sat in a straight-backed chair in the sitting-room, in a flowered silk
bed-wrapper, and she looked just as glad to see Helen as though the girl
were her deadliest enemy.
"Who are you?" she demanded.
"I am Helen Morrell," said the girl.
"What do you want of Mr. Starkweather at this hour?"
"Just what I would want of him at any hour," returned the Western girl,
who was beginning to become heartily exasperated.
"What's that, Miss?" snapped the housekeeper.
"I have come to him for hospitality. I am his relative--rather, I am Aunt
Eunice's relative----"
"What do you mean, child?" exclaimed the lady, with sudden emotion. "Who
is your Aunt Eunice?"
"Mrs. Starkweather. He married my mother's sister--my Aunt Eunice."
"Mrs. Starkweather!" gasped Mrs. Olstrom.
"Of course."
"Then, where have _you_ been these past three years?" demanded the
housekeeper in wonder. "Mrs. Starkweather has been dead all of that time.
Mr. Willets Starkweather is a widower."
"Aunt Eunice dead?" cried Helen.
The news was a distinct shock to the girl. She forgot everything else for
the moment. Her face told her story all too well, and the housekeeper
could not doubt her longer.
"You're a relative, then?"
"Her--her niece, Helen Morrell," sobbed Helen. "Oh! I did not know--I did
not know----"
"Never mind. You are entitled to hospitality and protection. Did you just
arrive?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Your home is not near?"
"In Montana."
"My goodness! You cannot go back to-night, that is sure. But why did you
not write?"
"I telegraphed I was coming."
"I never heard of it. Perhaps the message was not received. Gregson!"
"Yes, ma'am," replied the footman.
"You said something about a taxicab waiting outside with this young lady's
luggage?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Go and pay the man and have the baggage brought in----"
"I'll pay for it, ma'am," said Helen, hastily, trying to unlock her bag.
"That will be all right. I will settle it with Mr. Starkweather. Here is
money, Gregson. Pay the fare and give the man a quarter for himself. Have
the trunk brought into the basement. I will attend to Miss--er----?"
"Morrell."
"Miss Morrell, myself," finished the housekeeper.
The footman withdrew. The housekeeper looked hard at Helen for several
moments.
"So you came here expecting hospitality--in your uncle's house--and from
your cousins?" she observed, jerkily. "Well!"
She got up and motioned Helen to take up her bag.
"Come. I have no orders regarding you. I shall give you one of the spare
rooms. You are entitled to that much. No knowing when either Mr.
Starkweather or the young ladies will be at home," she said, grimly.
"I hope you won't put yourself out," observed Helen, politely.
"I am not likely to," returned Mrs. Olstrom. "It is you who will be more
likely---- Well!" she finished, without making her meaning very plain.
This reception, to cap all that had gone before since she had arrived at
the Grand Central Terminal, chilled Helen. The shock of discovering that
her mother's sister was dead--and she and her father had not been informed
of it--was no small one, either. She wished now that she had not come to
the house at all.
"I would better have gone to a hotel until I found out how they felt
toward me," thought the girl from the ranch.
Yet Helen was just. She began to tell herself that neither Mr.
Starkweather nor her cousins were proved guilty of the rudeness of her
reception. The telegram might have gone astray. They might never have
dreamed of her coming on from Sunset Ranch to pay them a visit.
The housekeeper began to warm toward her in manner, at least. She took her
up another flight of stairs and to a very large and handsomely furnished
chamber, although it was at the rear of the house, and right beside the
stairs leading to the servants' quarters. At least, so Mrs. Olstrom said
they were.
"You will not mind, Miss," she said, grimly. "You may hear the sound of
walking in this hall. It is nothing. The foolish maids call it 'the ghost
walk'; but it is only a sound. You're not superstitious; are you?"
"I hope not!" exclaimed Helen.
"Well! I have had to send away one or two girls. The house is very old.
There are some queer stories about it. Well! What is a sound?"
"Very true, ma'am," agreed Helen, rather confused, but bound to be
polite.
"Now, Miss, will you have some supper? Mr. Lawdor can get you some in the
butler's pantry. He has a chafing dish there and often prepares late bites
for his master."
"No, ma'am; I am not hungry," Helen declared. "I had dinner in the dining
car at seven."
"Then I will leave you--unless you should wish something further?" said
the housekeeper.
"Here is your bath," opening a door into the anteroom. "I will place a
note upon Mr. Starkweather's desk saying that you are here. Will you need
your trunk up to-night, Miss?"
"Oh, no, indeed," Helen declared. "I have a kimono here--and other things.
I'll be glad of the bath, though. One does get so dusty traveling."
She was unlocking her bag. For a moment she hesitated, half tempted to
take the housekeeper into her confidence regarding her money. But the
woman went directly to the door and bowed herself out with a stiff:
"Good-night, Miss."
"My! But this is a friendly place!" mused Helen, when she was left alone.
"And they seem to have so much confidence in strangers!"
Therefore, she went to the door into the hall, found there was a bolt upon
it, and shot it home. Then she pulled the curtain across the keyhole
before sitting down and counting all her money over again.
"They got _me_ doing it!" muttered Helen. "I shall be afraid of every
person I meet in this man's town."
But by and by she hopped up, hid the wallet under her pillow (the bed was
a big one with deep mattress and downy pillows) and then ran to let her
bath run in the little room where Mrs. Olstrom had snapped on the electric
light.
She undressed slowly, shook out her garments, hung them properly to air,
and stepped into the grateful bath. How good it felt after her long and
tiresome journey by train!
But as she was drying herself on the fleecy towels she suddenly heard a
sound outside her door. After the housekeeper left her the whole building
had seemed as silent as a tomb. Now there was a steady rustling noise in
the short corridor on which her room opened.
"What _did_ that woman ask me?" murmured Helen. "Was I afraid of ghosts?"
She laughed a little. To a healthy, normal, outdoor girl the supernatural
had few terrors.
"It _is_ a funny sound," she admitted, hastily finished the drying process
and then slipping into her nightrobe, kimono, and bed slippers.
All the time her ear seemed preternaturally attuned to that rising and
waning sound without her chamber. It seemed to come toward the door, pass
it, move lightly away, and then turn and repass again. It was a steady,
regular----
_Step--put; step--put; step--put----_
And with it was the rustle of garments--or so it seemed. The girl grew
momentarily more curious. The mystery of the strange sound certainly was
puzzling.
"Who ever heard of a ghost with a wooden leg?" she thought, chuckling
softly to herself. "And that is what it sounds like. No wonder the
servants call this corridor 'the ghost walk.' Well, me for bed!"
She had already snapped out the electric light in the bathroom, and now
hopped into bed, reaching up to pull the chain of the reading light as she
did so. The top of one window was down half-way and the noise of the city
at midnight reached her ear in a dull monotone.
Back here at the rear of the great mansion, street sounds were faint. In
the distance, to the eastward, was the roar of a passing elevated train.
An automobile horn hooted raucously.
But steadily, through all other sounds, as an accompaniment to them and to
Helen Morrell's own thoughts, was the continuous rustle in the corridor
outside her door:
_Step--put; step--put; step--put._
CHAPTER X
MORNING
The Starkweather mansion was a large dwelling. Built some years before the
Civil War, it had been one of the "great houses" in its day, to be pointed
out to the mid-nineteenth century visitor to the metropolis. Of course,
when the sightseeing coaches came in fashion they went up Fifth Avenue and
passed by the stately mansions of the Victorian era, on Madison Avenue,
without comment.
Willets Starkweather had sprung from a quite mean and un-noted branch of
the family, and had never, until middle life, expected to live in the
Madison Avenue homestead. The important members of his clan were dead and
gone and their great fortunes scattered. Willets Starkweather could barely
keep up with the expenditures of his great household.
There were never servants enough, and Mrs. Olstrom, the very capable
housekeeper, who had served the present master's great-uncle before the
day of the new generation, had hard work to satisfy the demands of those
there were upon the means allowed her by Mr. Starkweather.
There were rooms in the house--especially upon the topmost floor--into
which even the servants seldom went. There were vacant rooms which never
knew broom nor duster. The dwelling, indeed, was altogether too large for
the needs of Mr. Starkweather and his three motherless daughters.
But their living in it gave them a prestige which nothing else could. As
wise as any match-making matron, Willets Starkweather knew that the
family's address at this particular number on Madison Avenue would aid his
daughters more in "making a good match" than anything else.
He could not dower them. Really, they needed no dower with their good
looks, for they were all pretty. The Madison Avenue mansion gave them the
open sesame into good society--choice society, in fact--and there some
wealthy trio of unattached young men must see and fall in love with them.
And the girls understood this, too--right down to fourteen-year-old
Flossie. They all three knew that to "pay poor papa" for reckless
expenditures now, they must sooner or later capture moneyed husbands.
So, there was more than one reason why the three Starkweather girls leaped
immediately from childhood into full-blown womanhood. Flossie had already
privately studied the characters--and possible bank accounts--of the boys
of her acquaintance, to decide upon whom she should smile her sweetest.
These facts--save that the mansion was enormous--were hidden from Helen
when she arose on the first morning of her city experience. She had slept
soundly and sweetly. Even the rustling steps on the ghost walk had not
bothered her for long.
Used to being up and out by sunrise, she could not easily fall in with
city ways. She hustled out of bed soon after daybreak, took a cold sponge,
which made her body tingle delightfully, and got into her clothes as
rapidly as any boy.
She had only the shoddy-looking brown traveling dress to wear, and the
out-of-date hat. But she put them on, and ventured downstairs, intent upon
going out for a walk before breakfast.
The solemn clock in the hall chimed seven as she found her way down the
lower flight of front stairs. As she came through the curtain-hung halls
and down the stairs, not a soul did she meet until she reached the front
hall. There a rather decrepit-looking man, with a bleared eye, and dressed
in decent black, hobbled out of a parlor to meet her.
"Bless me!" he ejaculated. "What--what--what----"
"I am Helen Morrell," said the girl from Sunset Ranch, smiling, and
judging that this must be the butler of whom the housekeeper had spoken
the night before. "I have just come to visit my uncle and cousins."
"Bless me!" said the old man again. "Gregson told me. Proud to see you,
Miss. But--you're dressed to go out, Miss?"
"For a walk, sir," replied Helen, nodding.
"At this hour? Bless me--bless me--bless me----"
He seemed apt to run off in this style, in an unending string of mild
expletives. His head shook and his hands seemed palsied. But he was a
polite old man.
"I beg of you, Miss, don't go out without a bit of breakfast. My own
coffee is dripping in the percolator. Let me give you a cup," he said.
"Why--if it's not too much trouble, sir----"
"This way, Miss," he said, hurrying on before, and leading Helen to a cozy
little room at the back. This corresponded with the housekeeper's
sitting-room and Helen believed it must be Mr. Lawdor's own apartment.
He laid a small cloth with a flourish. He set forth a silver breakfast
set. He did everything neatly and with an alacrity that surprised Helen in
one so evidently decrepit.
"A chop, now, Miss? Or a rasher?" he asked, pointing to an array of
electric appliances on the sideboard by which a breakfast might be "tossed
up" in a hurry.
"No, no," Helen declared. "Not so early. This nice coffee and these
delicious rolls are enough until I have earned more."
"Earned more, Miss?" he asked, in surprise.
"By exercise," she explained. "I am going to take a good tramp. Then I
shall come back as hungry as a mountain lion."
"The family breakfasts at nine, Miss," said the butler, bowing. "But if
you are an early riser you will always find something tidy here in my
room, Miss. You are very welcome."
She thanked him and went out into the hall again. The footman in
livery--very sleepy and tousled as yet--was unchaining the front door. A
yawning maid was at work in one of the parlors with a duster. She stared
at Helen in amazement, but Gregson stood stiffly at attention as the
visitor went forth into the daylight.
"My, how funny city people live!" thought Helen Morrell. "I don't believe
I ever could stand it. Up till all hours, and then no breakfast until
nine. _What_ a way to live!
"And there must be twice as many servants as there are members of the
family---- Why! more than that! And all that big house to get lost in,"
she added, glancing up at it as she started off upon her walk.
She turned the first corner and went through a side street toward the
west. This was not a business side street. There were several tall
apartment hotels interspersed with old houses.
She came to Fifth Avenue--"the most beautiful street in the world." It had
been swept and garnished by a horde of white-robed men since two o'clock.
On this brisk October morning, from the Washington Arch to 110th Street,
it was as clean as a whistle.
She walked uptown. At Thirty-fourth and Forty-second streets the crosstown
traffic had already begun. She passed the new department stores, already
opening their eyes and yawning in advance of the day's trade.
There were a few pedestrians headed uptown like herself. Some well-dressed
men seemed walking to business. A few neat shop girls were hurrying along
the pavement, too. But Helen, and the dogs in leash, had the avenue mostly
to themselves at this hour.
The sleepy maids, or footmen, or pages stared at the Western girl with
curiosity as she strode along. For, unlike many from the plains, Helen
could walk well in addition to riding well.
She reached the plaza, and crossing it, entered the park. The trees were
just coloring prettily. There were morning sounds from the not-far-distant
zoo. A few early nursemaids and their charges asleep in baby carriages,
were abroad. Several old gentlemen read their morning papers upon the
benches, or fed the squirrels who were skirmishing for their breakfasts.
Several plainly-dressed people were evidently taking their own
"constitutionals" through the park paths. Swinging down from the north
come square-shouldered, cleanly-shaven young men of the same type as Dud
Stone. Helen believed that Dud must be a typical New Yorker.
But there were no girls abroad--at least, girls like herself who had
leisure. And Helen was timid about making friends with the nursemaids.
In fact, there wasn't a soul who smiled upon her as she walked through the
paths. She would not have dared approach any person she met for any
purpose whatsoever.
"They haven't a grain of interest in me," thought Helen. "Many of them, I
suppose, don't even see me. Goodness, what a lot of self-centred people
there must be in New York!"
She wandered on and on. She had no watch--never had owned one. As she had
told Dud Stone, the stars at night were her clock, and by day she judged
the hour by the sun.
The sun was behind a haze now; but she had another sure timekeeper. There
was nothing the matter with Helen's appetite.
"I'll go back and join the family at breakfast," the girl thought. "I hope
they'll be nice to me. And poor Aunt Eunice dead without our ever being
told of it! Strange!"
She had come a good way. Indeed, she was some time in finding an outlet
from the park. The sun was behind the morning haze as yet, but she turned
east, and finally came out upon the avenue some distance above the gateway
by which she had entered.
A southbound auto-bus caught her eye and she signaled it. She not only had
brought her purse with her, but the wallet with her money was stuffed
inside her blouse and made an uncomfortable lump there at her waist. But
she hid this with her arm, feeling that she must be on the watch for some
sharper all the time.
"Big Hen was right when he warned me," she repeated, eyeing suspiciously
the several passengers in the Fifth Avenue bus.
They were mostly early shoppers, however, or gentlemen riding to their
offices. She had noticed the number of the street nearest her uncle's
house, and so got out at the right corner.
The change in this part of the town since she had walked away from it soon
after seven, amazed her. She almost became confused and started in the
wrong direction. The roar of traffic, the rattle of riveters at work on
several new buildings in the neighborhood, the hoarse honking of
automobiles, the shrill whistles of the traffic policemen at the corners,
and the various other sounds seemed to make another place of the
old-fashioned Madison Avenue block.
"My goodness! To live in such confusion, and yet have money enough to be
able to enjoy a home out of town," thought Helen. "How foolish of Uncle
Starkweather."
She made no mistake in the house this time. There was Gregson--now spick
and span in his maroon livery--haughtily mounting guard over the open
doorway while a belated scrubwoman was cleaning the steps and areaway.
Helen tripped up the steps with a smile for Gregson; but that wooden-faced
subject of King George had no joint in his neck. He could merely raise a
finger in salute.
"Is the family up, sir?" she asked, politely.
"In Mr. Starkweather's den, Miss," said the footman, being unable to leave
his post at the moment. Mr. Lawdor was not in sight and Helen set out to
find the room in question, wondering if the family had already
breakfasted. The clock in the hall chimed the quarter to ten as she passed
it.
The great rooms on this floor were open now; but empty. She suddenly heard
voices. She found a cross passage that she had not noticed before, and
entered it, the voices growing louder.
She came to a door before which hung heavy curtains; but these curtains
did not deaden the sound entirely. Indeed, as Helen hesitated, with her
hand stretched out to seize the portiere, she heard something that halted
her.
Indeed, what she heard within the next few moments entirely changed the
outlook of the girl from Sunset Ranch. It matured that doubt of humanity
that had been born the night before in her breast.
And it changed--for the time being at least--Helen's nature. From a frank,
open-hearted, loving girl she became suspicious, morose and secretive. The
first words she heard held her spell-bound--an unintentional eavesdropper.
And what she heard made her determined to appear to her unkind relatives
quite as they expected her to appear.
CHAPTER XI
LIVING UP TO ONE'S REPUTATION
"Well! my lady certainly takes her time about getting up," Belle
Starkweather was saying.
"She was tired after her journey, I presume," her father said.
"Across the continent in a day-coach, I suppose," laughed Hortense,
yawning.
"I _was_ astonished at that bill for taxi hire Olstrom put on your desk,
Pa," said Belle. "She must have ridden all over town before she came
here."
"A girl who couldn't take a plain hint," cried Hortense, "and stay away
altogether when we didn't answer her telegram----"
"Hush, girls. We must treat her kindly," said their father. "Ahem!"
"I don't see _why_?" demanded Hortense, bluntly.
"You don't understand everything," responded Mr. Starkweather, rather
weakly.
"I don't understand _you_, Pa, sometimes," declared Hortense.
"Well, I'll tell you one thing right now!" snapped the older girl. "I've
ordered her things taken out of that chamber. Her shabby old trunk has
gone up to the room at the top of the servants' stairway. It's good enough
for her."
"We certainly have not got to have this cowgirl around for long,"
continued Hortense. "She'd be no fit company for Flossie. Flossie's rude
enough as it is."
The youngest daughter had gone to school, so she was not present with her
saucy tongue to hold up her own end of the argument.
"Think of a girl right from a cattle ranch!" laughed Belle. "Fine! I
suppose she knows how to rope steers, and break ponies, and ride bareback
like an Indian, and all that. Fine accomplishments for a New York
drawing-room, I must say."
"Oh, yes," joined in Hortense. "And she'll say 'I reckon,' and drop her
'g's' and otherwise insult the King's English."
"Ahem! I must warn you girls to be less boisterous," advised their
father.
"Why, you sound as though you were almost afraid of this cowgirl, Pa,"
said Belle, curiously.
"No, no!" protested Mr. Starkweather, hurriedly.
"Pa's so easy," complained Hortense. "If I had my way I wouldn't let her
stay the day out."
"But where would she go?" almost whined Mr. Starkweather.
"Back where she came from."
"Perhaps the folks there don't want her," said Belle.
"Of course she's a pauper," observed Hortense.
"Give her some money and send her away, Pa," begged Belle.
"You ought to. She's not fit to associate with Flossie. You know just how
Floss picks up every little thing----"
"And she's that man's daughter, too, you know," remarked Belle.
"Ahem!" said their father, weakly.
"It's not decent to have her here."
"Of course, other people will remember what Morrell did. It will make a
scandal for us."
"I cannot help it! I cannot help it!" cried Mr. Starkweather, suddenly
breaking out and battling against his daughters as he sometimes did when
they pressed him too closely. "I cannot send her away."
"Well, she mustn't be encouraged to stay," declared Hortense.
"I should say not," rejoined Belle.
"And getting up at this hour to breakfast," Hortense sniffed.
Helen Morrell wore strong, well-made walking boots. Good shoes were
something that she could always buy in Elberon. But usually she walked
lightly and springily.
Now she came stamping through the small hall, and on the heels of the last
remark, flung back the curtain and strode into the den.
"Hullo, folks!" she cried. "Goodness! don't you get up till noon here in
town? I've been clean out to your city park while I waited for you to wash
your faces. Uncle Starkweather! how be you?"
She had grabbed the hand of the amazed gentleman and was now pumping it
with a vigor that left him breathless.
"And these air two of your gals?" quoth Helen. "I bet I can pick 'em out
by name," and she laughed loudly. "This is Belle; ain't it? Put it thar!"
and she took the resisting Belle's hand and squeezed it in her own brown
one until the older girl winced, muscular as she herself was.
"And this is 'Tense--I know!" added the girl from Sunset Ranch, reaching
for the hand of her other cousin.
"No, you don't!" cried Hortense, putting her hands behind her. "Why! you'd
crush my hand."
"Ho, ho!" laughed Helen, slapping her hand heartily upon her knee as she
sat down. "Ain't you the puny one!"
"I'm no great, rude----"
"Ahem!" exclaimed Mr. Starkweather, recovering from his amazement in time
to shut off the snappy remark of Hortense. "We--we are glad to see you,
girl----"
"I knew you'd be!" cried Helen, loudly. "I told 'em back on the ranch that
you an' the gals would jest about eat me up, you'd be so glad, when ye
seen me. Relatives oughter be neighborly."
"Neighborly!" murmured Hortense. "And from Montana!"
"Butcher got another one; ain't ye, Uncle Starkweather?" demanded the
metamorphosed Helen, looking about with a broad smile. "Where's the little
tad?"
"'Little tad'! Oh, won't Flossie be pleased?" again murmured Hortense.
"My youngest daughter is at school," replied Mr. Starkweather, nervously.
"Shucks! of course," said Helen, nodding. "I forgot they go to school half
their lives down east here. Out my way we don't get much chance at
schoolin'."
"So I perceive," remarked Hortense, aloud.
"Now I expect _you_,'Tense," said Helen, wickedly, "have been through all
the isms and the ologies there be--eh? You look like you'd been all worn
to a frazzle studyin'."
Belle giggled. Hortense bridled.
"I really wish you wouldn't call me out of my name," she said.
"Huh?"
"My name is Hortense," said that young lady, coldly.
"Shucks! So it is. But that's moughty long for a single mouthful."
Belle giggled again. Hortense looked disgusted. Uncle Starkweather was
somewhat shocked.
"We--ahem!--hope you will enjoy yourself here while you--er--remain," he
began. "Of course, your visit will be more or less brief, I suppose?"
"Jest accordin' to how ye like me and how I like you folks," returned the
girl from Sunset Ranch, heartily. "When Big Hen seen me off----"
"Who--_who_?" demanded Hortense, faintly.
"Big Hen Billings," said Helen, in an explanatory manner. "Hen was
dad's--that is he worked with dad on the ranch. When I come away I told
Big Hen not to look for me back till I arrove. Didn't know how I'd find
you-all, or how I'd like the city. City's all right; only nobody gets up
early. And I expect we-all can't tell how we like each other until we get
better acquainted."
"Very true--very true," remarked Mr. Starkweather, faintly.
"But, goodness! I'm hungry!" exclaimed Helen. "You folks ain't fed yet;
have ye?"
"We have breakfasted," said Belle, scornfully. "I will ring for the
butler. You may tell Lawdor what you want--er--_Cousin_ Helen," and she
looked at Hortense.
"Sure!" cried Helen. "Sorry to keep you waiting. Ye see, I didn't have any
watch and the sun was clouded over this morning. Sort of run over my time
limit--eh? Ah!--is this Mr. Lawdor?"
The shaky old butler stood in the doorway.
"It is _Lawdor_," said Belle, emphatically. "Is there any breakfast left,
Lawdor?"
"Yes, Miss Belle. When Gregson told me the young miss was not at the table
I kept something hot and hot for her, Miss. Shall I serve it in my room?"
"You may as well," said Belle, carelessly. "And, _Cousin_ Helen!"
"Yep?" chirped the girl from the ranch.
"Of course, while you are here, we could not have you in the room you
occupied last night. It--it might be needed. I have already told Olstrom,
the housekeeper, to take your bag and other things up to the next floor.
Ask one of the maids to show you the room you are to occupy--_while you
remain_."
"That's all right, Belle," returned the Western girl, with great
heartiness. "Any old place will do for me. Why! I've slept on the ground
more nights than you could shake a stick at," and she tramped off after
the tottering butler.
"Well!" gasped Hortense when she was out of hearing, "what do you know
about _that_?"
"Pa, do you intend to let that dowdy little thing stay here?" cried
Belle.
"Ahem!" murmured Mr. Starkweather, running a finger around between his
collar and his neck, as though to relieve the pressure there.
"Her clothes came out of the ark!" declared Hortense.
"And that hat!"
"And those boots--or is it because she clumps them so? I expect she is
more used to riding than to walking."
"And her language!" rejoined Belle.
"Ahem! What--what can we do, girls?" gasped Mr. Starkweather.
"Put her out!" cried Belle, loudly and angrily.
"She is quite too, too impossible, Pa," agreed Hortense.
"With her coarse jokes," said the older sister.
"And her rough way," echoed the other.
"And that ugly dress and hat."
"A pauper relation! Faugh! I didn't know the Starkweathers owned one."
"Seems to me, _one_ queer person in the house is enough," began Hortense.
Her father and sister looked at her sharply.
"Why, Hortense!" exclaimed Belle.
"Ahem!" observed Mr. Starkweather, warningly.
"Well! we don't want _that_ freak in the house," grumbled the younger
sister.
"There are--ahem!--some things best left unsaid," observed her father,
pompously. "But about this girl from the West----"
"Yes, Pa!" cried his daughters in duet.
"I will see what can be done. Of course, she cannot expect me to support
her for long. I will have a serious talk with her."
"When, Pa?" cried the two girls again.
"Er--ahem!--soon," declared the gentleman, and beat a hasty retreat.
"It had better be pretty soon," said Belle, bitterly, to her sister. "For
I won't stand that dowdy thing here for long, now I tell you!"
"Good for you, Belle!" rejoined Hortense, warmly. "It's strange if we
can't--with Flossie's help--soon make her sick of her visit."
CHAPTER XII
"I MUST LEARN THE TRUTH"
Helen was already very sick of her Uncle Starkweather's home and family.
But she was too proud to show the depth of her feeling before the old
serving man in whose charge she had been momentarily placed.
Lawdor was plainly pleased to wait upon her. He made fresh coffee in his
own percolator; there was a cutlet kept warm upon an electric stove, and
he insisted upon frying her a rasher of bacon and some eggs.
Despite all that mentally troubled her, her healthy body needed
nourishment and Helen ate with an appetite that pleased the old man
immensely.
"If--if you go out early, Miss, don't forget to come here for your
coffee," he said. "Or more, if you please. I shall be happy to serve
you."
"And I'm happy to have you," returned the girl, heartily.
She could not assume to him the rude tone and manner which she had
displayed to her uncle and cousins. _That_ had been the outcome of an
impulse which had risen from the unkind expressions she had heard them use
about her.
As soon as she could get away, she had ceased being an eavesdropper. But
she had heard enough to assure her that her relatives were not glad to see
her; that they were rude and unkind, and that they were disturbed by her
presence among them.
But there was another thing she had drawn from their ill-advised talk,
too. She had heard her father mentioned in no kind way. Hints were thrown
out that Prince Morrell's crime--or the crime of which he had been
accused--was still remembered in New York.
Back into her soul had come that wave of feeling she experienced after her
father's death. He had been so troubled by the smirch upon his name--the
cloud that had blighted his young manhood in the great city.
"I'll know the truth," she thought again. "I'll find out who _was_ guilty.
They sha'n't drive me away until I have accomplished my object in coming
East."
This was the only thought she had while she remained under old Lawdor's
eye. She had to bear up, and seem unruffled until the breakfast was
disposed of and she could escape upstairs.
She went up the servants' way. She saw the same girl she had noticed in
the parlor early in the morning.
"Can you show me my room?" she asked her, timidly.
"Top o' the next flight. Door's open," replied the girl, shortly.
Already the news had gone abroad among the under servants that this was a
poor relation. No tips need be expected. The girl flirted her cloth and
turned her back upon Helen as the latter started through the ghost walk
and up the other stairway.
She easily found the room. It was quite as good as her own room at the
ranch, as far as size and furniture went. Helen would have been amply
satisfied with it had the room been given to her in a different spirit.
But now she closed her door, locked it carefully, hung her jacket over the
knob that she should be sure she was not spied upon, and sat down beside
the bed.
She was not a girl who cried often. She had wept sincere tears the evening
before when she learned that Aunt Eunice was dead. But she could not weep
now.
Her emotion was emphatically wrathful. Without cause--that she could
see--these city relatives had maligned her--had maligned her father's
memory--and had cruelly shown her, a stranger, how they thoroughly hated
her presence.
She had come away from Sunset Ranch with two well-devised ideas in her
mind. First of all, she hoped to clear her father's name of that old
smirch upon it. Secondly, he had wished her to live with her relatives if
possible, that she might become used to the refinements and circumstances
of a more civilized life.
Refinements! Why, these cousins of hers hadn't the decencies of red
Indians!
On impulse Helen had taken the tone she had with them--had showed them in
"that cowgirl" just what they had expected to find. She would be bluff and
rude and ungrammatical and ill-bred. Perhaps the spirit in which Helen did
this was not to be commended; but she had begun it on the impulse of the
moment and she felt she must keep it up during her stay in the
Starkweather house.
How long that would be Helen was not prepared to say now. It was in her
heart one moment not to unpack her trunk at all. She could go to a
hotel--the best in New York, if she so desired. How amazed her cousins
would be if they knew that she was at this moment carrying more than eight
hundred dollars in cash on her person? And suppose they learned that she
owned thousands upon thousands of acres of grazing land in her own right,
on which roamed unnumbered cattle and horses?
Suppose they found out that she had been schooled in a first-class
institution in Denver--probably as well schooled as they themselves? What
would they say? How would they feel should they suddenly make these
discoveries?
But, while she sat there and studied the problem out, Helen came to at
least one determination: While she remained in the Starkweather house she
would keep from her uncle and cousins the knowledge of these facts.
She would not reveal her real character to them. She would continue to
parade before them and before their friends the very rudeness and
ignorance that they had expected her to betray.
"They are ashamed of me--let them be ashamed," she said, to herself,
bitterly. "They hate me--I'll give them no reason for loving me, I promise
you! They think me a pauper--I'll _be_ a pauper. Until I get ready to
leave here, at least. Then I can settle with Uncle Starkweather in one
lump for all the expense to which he may be put for me.
"I'll buy no nice dresses--or hats--or anything else. They sha'n't know I
have a penny to spend. If they want to treat me like a poor relation, let
them. I'll _be_ a poor relation.
"I must learn the truth about poor dad's trouble," she told herself again.
"Uncle Starkweather must know something about it. I want to question him.
He may be able to help me. I may get on the track of that bookkeeper. And
he can tell me, surely, where to find Fenwick Grimes, father's old
partner.
"No. They shall serve me without knowing it. I will be beholden to them
for my bread and butter and shelter--for a time. Let them hate and despise
me. What I have to do I will do. Then I'll 'pay the shot,' as Big Hen
would say, and walk out and leave them."
It was a bold determination, but not one that is to be praised. Yet, Helen
had provocation for the course she proposed to pursue.
She finally unlocked her trunk and hung up the common dresses and other
garments she had brought with her. She had intended to ask her cousins to
take her shopping right away, and she, like any other girl of her age,
longed for new frocks and pretty hats.
But there was a lot of force in Helen's character. She would go without
anything pretty unless her cousins offered to buy it themselves. She would
bide her time.
One thing she hid far back in her closet under the other things--her
riding habit. She knew it would give the lie to her supposed poverty. She
had sent to Chicago for that, and it had cost a hundred dollars.
"But I don't suppose there'd be a chance to ride in this big town," she
thought, with a sigh. "Unless it is hobby-horses in the park. Well! I can
get on for a time without the Rose pony, or any other critter on four
legs, to love me."
But she was hungry for the companionship of the animals whom she had seen
daily on the ranch.
"Why, even the yip of a coyote would be sweet," she mused, putting her
head out of the window and scanning nothing but chimneys and tin roofs,
with bare little yards far below.
Finally she heard a Japanese gong's mellow note, and presumed it must
announce luncheon. It was already two o'clock. People who breakfasted at
nine or ten, of course did not need a midday meal.
"I expect they don't have supper till bedtime," thought Helen.
First she hid her wallet in the bottom of her trunk, locked the trunk and
set it up on end in the closet. Then she locked the closet door and took
out the key, hiding the latter under the edge of the carpet.
"I'm getting as bad as the rest of 'em," she muttered. "I won't trust
anybody, either. Now for meeting my dear cousins at lunch."
She had slipped into one of the simple house dresses she had worn at the
ranch. She had noticed that forenoon that both Belle and Hortense
Starkweather were dressed in the most modish of gowns--as elaborate as
those of fashionable ladies. With no mother to say them nay, these young
girls aped every new fashion as they pleased.
Helen started downstairs at first with her usual light step. Then she
bethought herself, stumbled on a stair, slipped part of the way, and
continued to the very bottom of the last flight with a noise and clatter
which must have announced her coming long in advance of her actual
presence.
"I don't want to play eavesdropper again," she told herself, grimly. "I
always understood that listeners hear no good of themselves, and now I
know it to be a fact."
Gregson stood at the bottom of the last flight. His face was as wooden as
ever, but he managed to open his lips far enough to observe:
"Luncheon is served in the breakfast room, Miss."
A sweep of his arm pointed the way. Then she saw old Lawdor pottering in
and out of a room into which she had not yet looked.
It proved to be a sunny, small dining-room. When alone the family usually
ate here, Helen discovered. The real dining-room was big enough for a
dancing floor, with an enormous table, preposterously heavy furniture all
around the four sides of the room, and an air of gloom that would have
removed, before the food appeared, even, all trace of a healthy appetite.
When Helen entered the brighter apartment her three cousins were already
before her. The noise she made coming along the hall, despite the heavy
carpets, had quite prepared them for her appearance.
Belle and Hortense met her with covert smiles. And they watched their
younger sister to see what impression the girl from Sunset Ranch made upon
Flossie.
"And this is Flossie; is it?" cried Helen, going boisterously into the
room and heading full tilt around the table for the amazed Flossie. "Why,
you look like a smart young'un! And you're only fourteen? Well, I never!"
She seized Flossie by both hands, in spite of that young lady's desire to
keep them free.
"Goodness me! Keep your paws off--do!" ejaculated Flossie, in great
disgust. "And let me tell you, if I _am_ only fourteen I'm 'most as big as
you are and I know a whole lot more."
"Why, Floss!" exclaimed Hortense, but unable to hide her amusement.
The girl from Sunset Ranch took it all with apparent good nature,
however.
"I reckon you _do_ know a lot. You've had advantages, you see. Girls out
my way don't have much chance, and that's a fact. But if I stay here,
don't you reckon I'll learn?"
The Starkweather girls exchanged glances of amusement.
"I do not think," said Belle, calmly, "that you would better think of
remaining with us for long. It would be rather bad for you, I am sure, and
inconvenient for us."
"How's that?" demanded Helen, looking at her blankly. "Inconvenient--and
with all this big house?"
"Ahem!" began Belle, copying her father. "The house is not always as free
of visitors as it is now. And of course, a girl who has no means and must
earn her living, should not live in luxury."
"Why not?" asked Helen, quickly.
"Why--er--well, it would not be nice to have a working girl go in and out
of our house."
"And you think I shall have to go to work?"
"Why, of course, you may remain here--father says--until you can place
yourself. But he does not believe in fostering idleness. He often says
so," said Belle, heaping it all on "poor Pa."
Helen had taken her seat at the table and Gregson was serving. It mattered
nothing to these ill-bred Starkweather girls that the serving people heard
how they treated this "poor relation."
Helen remained silent for several minutes. She tried to look sad. Within,
however, she was furiously angry. But this was not the hour for her to
triumph.
Flossie had been giggling for a few moments. Now she asked her cousin,
saucily:
"I say! Where did you pick up that calico dress, Helen?"
"This?" returned the visitor, looking down at the rather ugly print. "It's
a gingham. Bought it ready-made in Elberon. Do you like it?"
"I love it!" giggled Flossie. "And it's made in quite a new style, too."
"Do you think so? Why, I reckoned it was old," said Helen, smoothly. "But
I'm glad to hear it's so fitten to wear. For, you see, I ain't got many
clo'es."
"Don't you have dressmakers out there in Montana?" asked Hortense, eyeing
the print garment as though it was something entirely foreign.
"I reckon. But we folks on the range don't get much chance at 'em.
Dressmakers is as scurce around Sunset Ranch as killyloo birds. Unless ye
mought call Injun squaws dressmakers."
"What are killyloo birds?" demanded Flossie, hearing something new.
"Well now! don't you have them here?" asked Helen, smiling broadly.
"Never heard of them. And I've been to Bronx Park and seen all the birds
in the flying cage," said Flossie. "Our Nature teacher takes us out there
frequently. It's a dreadful bore."
"Well, I didn't know but you might have 'em East here," observed Helen,
pushing along the time-worn cowboy joke. "I said they was scurce around
the ranch; and they be. I never saw one."
"Really!" ejaculated Hortense. "What are killyloo birds good for?"
"Why, near as I ever heard," replied Helen, chuckling, "they are mostly
used for making folks ask questions."
"I declare!" snapped Belle. "She is laughing at you, girls. You're very
dense, I'm sure, Hortense."
"Say! that's a good one!" laughed Flossie. But Hortense muttered:
"Vulgar little thing!"
Helen smiled tranquilly upon them. Nothing they said to her could shake
her calm. And once in a while--as in the case above--she "got back" at
them. She kept consistently to her rude way of speaking; but she used the
tableware with little awkwardness, and Belle said to Hortense:
"At least somebody's tried to teach her a few things. She is no
sword-swallower."
"I suppose Aunt Mary had some refinement," returned Hortense, languidly.
Helen's ears were preternaturally sharp. She heard everything. But she had
such good command of her features that she showed no emotion at these side
remarks.
After luncheon the three sisters separated for their usual afternoon
amusements. Neither of them gave a thought to Helen's loneliness. They did
not ask her what she was going to do, or suggest anything to her save
that, an hour later, when Belle saw her cousin preparing to leave the
house in the same dress she had worn at luncheon, she cried:
"Oh, Helen, _do_ go out and come in by the lower door; will you? The
basement door, you know."
"Sure!" replied Helen, cheerfully. "Saves the servants work, I suppose,
answering the bell."
But she knew as well as Belle why the request was made. Belle was ashamed
to have her appear to be one of the family. If she went in and out by the
servants' door it would not look so bad.
Helen walked over to the avenue and looked at the frocks in the store
windows. By their richness she saw that in this neighborhood, at least, to
refit in a style which would please her cousins would cost quite a sum of
money.
"I won't do it!" she told herself, stubbornly. "If they want me to look
well enough to go in and out of the front door, let them suggest buying
something for me."
She went back to the Starkweather mansion in good season; but she entered,
as she had been told, by the area door. One of the maids let her in and
tossed her head when she saw what an out-of-date appearance this poor
relation of her master made.
"Sure," this girl said to the cook, "if I didn't dress better nor _her_
when I went out, I'd wait till afther dark, so I would!"
Helen heard this, too. But she was a girl who could stick to her purpose.
Criticism should not move her, she determined; she would continue to play
her part.
"Mr. Starkweather is in the den, Miss," said the housekeeper, meeting
Helen on the stairs. "He has asked for you."
Mrs. Olstrom was a very grim person, indeed. If she had shown the girl
from the ranch some little kindliness the night before, she now hid it all
very successfully.
Helen returned to the lower floor and sought that room in which she had
had her first interview with her relatives. Mr. Starkweather was alone. He
looked more than a little disturbed; and of the two he was the more
confused.
"Ahem! I feel that we must have a serious talk together, Helen," he said,
in his pompous manner. "It--it will be quite necessary--ahem!"
"Sure!" returned the girl. "Glad to. I've got some serious things to ask
you, too, sir."
"Eh? Eh?" exclaimed the gentleman, worried at once.
"You fire ahead, sir," said Helen, sitting down and crossing one knee over
the other in a boyish fashion. "My questions will wait."
"I--ahem!--I wish to know who suggested your coming here to New York?"
"My father," replied Helen, simply and truthfully.
"Your father?" The reply evidently both surprised and discomposed Mr.
Starkweather. "I do not understand. Your--your father is dead----"
"Yes, sir. It was just before he died."
"And he told you to come here to--to _us_?"
"Yes, sir."
"But why?" demanded the gentleman with some warmth.
"Dad said as how you folks lived nice, and knew all about refinement and
eddication and all that. He wanted me to have a better chance than what I
could get on the ranch."
Mr. Starkweather glared at her in amazement. He was not at all a
kind-hearted man; but he was very cowardly. He had feared her answer would
be quite different from this, and now took courage.
"Do you mean to say that merely this expressed wish that you might live
at--ahem!--at my expense, and as my daughters live, brought you here to
New York?"
"That begun it, Uncle," said Helen, coolly.
"Preposterous! What could Prince Morrell be thinking of? Why should I
support you, Miss?"
"Why, that don't matter so much," remarked Helen, calmly. "I can earn my
keep, I reckon. If there's nothing to do in the house I'll go and find me
a job and pay my board. But, you see, dad thought I ought to have the
refining influences of city life. Good idea; eh?"
"A very ridiculous idea! A very ridiculous idea, indeed!" cried Mr.
Starkweather. "I never heard the like."
"Well, you see, there's another reason why I came, too, Uncle," Helen
said, blandly.
"What's that?" demanded the gentleman, startled again.
"Why, dad told me everything when he died. He--he told me how he got into
trouble before he left New York--'way back there before I was born," spoke
Helen, softly. "It troubled dad all his life, Uncle Starkweather.
Especially after mother died. He feared he had not done right by her and
me, after all, in running away when he was not guilty----"
"Not guilty!"
"Not guilty," repeated Helen, sternly. "Of course, we all know _that_.
Somebody got all that money the firm had in bank; but it was not my
father, sir."
She gazed straight into the face of Mr. Starkweather. He did not seem to
be willing to look at her in return; nor could he pluck up the courage to
deny her statement.
"I see," he finally murmured.
"That is the second reason that has brought me to New York," said Helen,
more softly. "And it is the more important reason. If you don't care to
have me here, Uncle, I will find work that will support me, and live
elsewhere. But I _must_ learn the truth about that old story against
father. I sha'n't leave New York until I have cleared his name."
CHAPTER XIII
SADIE AGAIN
Mr. Starkweather appeared to recover his equanimity. He looked askance at
his niece, however, as she announced her intention.
"You are very young and very foolish, Helen--ahem! A mystery of sixteen or
seventeen years' standing, which the best detectives could not unravel, is
scarcely a task to be attempted by a mere girl."
"Who else is there to do it?" Helen demanded, quickly. "I mean to find out
the truth, if I can. I want you to tell me all you know, and I want you to
tell me how to find Fenwick Grimes----"
"Nonsense, nonsense, girl!" exclaimed her uncle, testily. "What good would
it do you to find Grimes?"
"He was the other partner in the concern. He had just as good a chance to
steal the money as father."
"Ridiculous! Mr. Grimes was away from the city at the time."
"Then you _do_ remember all about it, sir?" asked Helen, quickly.
"Ahem! _That_ fact had not slipped my mind," replied her uncle, weakly.
"And then, there was Allen Chesterton, the bookkeeper. Was a search ever
made for him?"
"High and low," returned her uncle, promptly. "But nobody ever heard of
him thereafter."
"And why did the shadow of suspicion not fall upon him as strongly as it
did upon my father?" cried the girl, dropping, in her earnestness, her
assumed uncouthness of speech.
"Perhaps it did--perhaps it did," muttered Mr. Starkweather. "Yes, of
course it did! They both ran away, you see----"
"Didn't you advise dad to go away--until the matter could be cleared up?"
demanded Helen.
"Why--I--ahem!"
"Both you and Mr. Grimes advised it," went on the girl, quite firmly. "And
father did so because of the effect his arrest might have upon mother in
her delicate health. Wasn't that the way it was?"
"I--I presume that is so," agreed Mr. Starkweather.
"And it was wrong," declared the girl, with all the confidence of youth.
"Poor dad realized it before he died. It made all the firm's creditors
believe that he was guilty. No matter what he did thereafter----"
"Stop, girl!" exclaimed Mr. Starkweather. "Don't you know that if you stir
up this old business the scandal will all come to light? Why--why, even
_my_ name might be attached to it."
"But poor dad suffered under the blight of it all for more than sixteen
years."
"Ahem! It is a fact. It was a great misfortune. Perhaps he _was_ advised
wrongly," said Mr. Starkweather, with trembling lips. "But I want you to
understand, Helen, that if he had not left the city he would undoubtedly
have been in a cell when you were born."
"I don't know that that would have killed me--especially, if by staying
here, he might have come to trial and been freed of suspicion."
"But he could not be freed of suspicion."
"Why not? I don't see that the evidence was conclusive," declared the
girl, hotly. "At least, _he_ knew of none such. And I want to know now
every bit of evidence that could be brought against him."
"Useless! Useless!" muttered her uncle, wiping his brow.
"It is not useless. My father was accused of a crime of which he wasn't
guilty. Why, his friends here--those who knew him in the old days--will
think me the daughter of a criminal!"
"But you are not likely to meet any of them----"
"Why not?" demanded Helen, quickly.
"Surely you do not expect to remain here in New York long enough for
that?" said Uncle Starkweather, exasperated. "I tell you, I cannot permit
it."
"I must learn what I can about that old trouble before I go back--if I go
back to Montana at all," declared his niece, doggedly.
Mr. Starkweather was silent for a few moments. He had begun the discussion
with the settled intention of telling Helen that she must return at once
to the West. But he knew he had no real right of control over the girl,
and to claim one would put him at the disadvantage, perhaps, of being made
to support her.
He saw she was a very determined creature, young as she was. If he
antagonized her too much, she might, indeed, go out and get a position to
support herself and remain a continual thorn in the side of the family.
So he took another tack. He was not a successful merchant and real estate
operator for nothing. He said:
"I do not blame you, Helen, for _wishing_ that that old cloud over your
father's name might be dissipated. I wish so, too. But, remember, long ago
your--ahem!--your aunt and I, as well as Fenwick Grimes, endeavored to get
to the bottom of the mystery. Detectives were hired. Everything possible
was done. And to no avail."
She watched him narrowly, but said nothing.
"So, how can you be expected to do now what was impossible when the matter
was fresh?" pursued her uncle, suavely. "If I could help you----"
"You can," declared the girl, suddenly.
"Will you tell me how?" he asked, in a rather vexed tone.
"By telling me where to find Mr. Grimes," said Helen.
"Why--er--that is easily done, although I have had no dealings with Mr.
Grimes for many years. But if he is at home--he travels over the country a
great deal--I can give you a letter to him and he will see you."
"Thank you, sir."
"You are determined to try to rake up all this trouble?"
"I will see Mr. Grimes. And I will try to find Allen Chesterton."
"Out of the question!" cried her uncle. "Chesterton is dead. He dropped
out of sight long ago. A strange character at best, I believe. And if he
was the thief----"
"Well, sir?"
"He certainly would not help you convict himself."
"Not intentionally, sir," admitted Helen.
"I never did see such an opinionated girl," cried Mr. Starkweather, in
sudden wrath.
"I'm sorry, sir, if I trouble you. If you don't want me here----"
Now, her uncle had decided that it would not be safe to have the girl
elsewhere in New York. At least, if she was under his roof, he could keep
track of her activities. He began to be a little afraid of this very
determined, unruffled young woman.
"She's a little savage! No knowing what she might do, after all," he
thought.
Finally he said aloud: "Well, Helen, I will do what I can. I will
communicate with Mr. Grimes and arrange for you to visit him--soon. I will
tell you--ahem!--in the near future, all I can recollect of the affair.
Will that satisfy you?"
"I will take it very kindly of you, Uncle," said Helen non-committally.
"And when you are satisfied of the impossibility of your doing yourself,
or your father's name, any good in this direction, I shall expect you to
close your visit in the East here and return to your friends in Montana."
She nodded, looking at him with a strange expression on her shrewd face.
"You mean to help me as a sort of a bribe," she observed, slowly. "To pay
you I am to return home and never trouble you any more?"
"Well--er--ahem!"
"Is that it, Uncle Starkweather?"
"You see, my dear," he began again, rather red in the face, but glad that
he was getting out of a bad corner so easily, "you do not just fit in,
here, with our family life. You see it yourself, perhaps?"
"Perhaps I do, sir," replied the girl from Sunset Ranch.
"You would be quite at a disadvantage beside my girls--ahem! You would not
be happy here. And of course, you haven't a particle of claim upon us."
"No, sir; not a particle," repeated Helen.
"So you see, all things considered, it would be much better for you to
return to your own people--ahem--_own people_," said Mr. Starkweather,
with emphasis. "Now--er--you are rather shabby, I fear, Helen. I am not as
rich a man as you may suppose. But I---- The fact is, the girls are
ashamed of your appearance," he pursued, without looking at her, and
opening his bill case.
"Here is ten dollars. I understand that a young miss like you can be
fitted very nicely to a frock downtown for less than ten dollars. I advise
you to go out to-morrow and find yourself a more up-to-date frock
than--than that one you have on, for instance.
"Somebody might see you come into the house--ahem!--some of our friends, I
mean, and they would not understand. Get a new dress, Helen. While you are
here look your best. Ahem! We all must give the hostage of a neat
appearance to society."
"Yes, sir," said Helen, simply.
She took the money. Her throat had contracted so that she could not thank
him for it in words. But she retained a humble, thankful attitude, and it
sufficed.
He cared nothing about hurting the feelings of the girl. He did not even
inquire--in his own mind--if she _had_ any feelings to be hurt! He was so
self-centred, so pompous, so utterly selfish, that he never thought how he
might wrong other people.
Willets Starkweather was very tenacious of his own dignity and his own
rights. But for the rights of others he cared not at all. And there was
not an iota of tenderness in his heart for the orphan who had come so
trustingly across the continent and put herself in his charge. Indeed,
aside from a feeling of something like fear of Helen, he betrayed no
interest in her at all.
Helen went out of the room without a further word. She was more subdued
that evening at dinner than she had been before. She did not break out in
rude speeches, nor talk very much. But she was distinctly out of her
element--or so her cousins thought--at their dinner table.
"I tell you what it is, girls," Belle, the oldest cousin, said after the
meal and when Helen had gone up to her room without being invited to join
the family for the evening, "I tell you what it is: If we chance to have
company to dinner while she remains, I shall send a tray up to her room
with her dinner on it. I certainly could not _bear_ to have the Van
Ramsdens, or the De Vornes, see her at our table."
"Quite true," agreed Hortense. "We never could explain having such a
cousin."
"Horrors, no!" gasped Flossie.
Helen had found a book in the library, and she lit the gas in her room
(there was no electricity on this upper floor) and forgot her troubles and
unhappiness in following the fortunes of the heroine of her story-book. It
was late when she heard the maids retire. They slept in rooms opening out
of a side hall.
By and by--after the clock in the Metropolitan tower had struck the hour
of eleven--Helen heard the rustle and step outside her door which she had
heard in the corridor downstairs. She crept to her door, after turning out
her light, and opening it a crack, listened.
Had somebody gone downstairs? Was that a rustling dress in the corridor
down there--the ghost walk? Did she hear again the "step--put; step--put"
that had puzzled her already?
She did not like to go out into the hall and, perhaps, meet one of the
servants. So, after a time, she went back to her book.
But the incident had given her a distaste for reading. She kept listening
for the return of the ghostly step. So she undressed and went to bed. Long
afterward (or so it seemed to her, for she had been asleep and slept
soundly) she was aroused again by the "step--put; step--put" past her
door.
Half asleep as she was, she jumped up and ran to the door. When she opened
it, it seemed as though the sound was far down the main corridor--and she
thought she could see the entire length of that passage. At least, there
was a great window at the far end, and the moonlight looked ghostily in.
No shadow crossed this band of light, and yet the rustle and step
continued after she reached her door and opened it.
Then----
Was that a door closed softly in the distance? She could not be sure.
After a minute or two one thing she _was_ sure of, however; she was
getting cold here in the draught, so she scurried back to bed, covered her
ears, and went to sleep again.
Helen got up the next morning with one well-defined determination. She
would put into practice her uncle's suggestion. She would buy one of the
cheap but showy dresses which shopgirls and minor clerks had to buy to
keep up appearances.
It was a very serious trouble to Helen that she was not to buy and disport
herself in pretty frocks and hats. The desire to dress prettily and
tastefully is born in most girls--just as surely as is the desire to
breathe. And Helen was no exception.
She was obstinate, however, and could keep to her purpose. Let the
Starkweathers think she was poor. Let them continue to think so until her
play was all over and she was ready to go home again.
Her experience in the great city had told Helen already that she could
never be happy there. She longed for the ranch, and for the Rose
pony--even for Big Hen Billings and Sing and the rag-head, Jo-Rab, and
Manuel and Jose, and all the good-hearted, honest "punchers" who loved her
and who would no more have hurt her feelings than they would have made an
infant cry.
She longed to have somebody call her "Snuggy" and to smile upon her in
good-fellowship. As she walked the streets nobody appeared to heed her. If
they did, their expression of countenance merely showed curiosity, or a
scorn of her clothes.
She was alone. She had never felt so much alone when miles from any other
human being, as she sometimes had been on the range. What had Dud said
about this? That one could be very much alone in the big city? Dud was
right.
She wished that she had Dud Stone's address. She surely would have
communicated with him now, for he was probably back in New York by this
time.
However, there was just one person whom she had met in New York who seemed
to the girl from Sunset Ranch as being "all right." And when she made up
her mind to do as her uncle had directed about the new frock, it was of
this person Helen naturally thought.
Sadie Goronsky! The girl who had shown herself so friendly the night Helen
had come to town. She worked in a store where they sold ladies' clothing.
With no knowledge of the cheaper department stores than those she had seen
on the avenue, it seemed quite the right thing to Helen's mind for her to
search out Sadie and her store.
So, after an early breakfast taken in Mr. Lawdor's little room, and under
the ministrations of that kind old man, Helen left the house--by the area
door as requested--and started downtown.
She didn't think of riding. Indeed, she had no idea how far Madison Street
was. But she remembered the route the taxicab had taken uptown that first
evening, and she could not easily lose her way.
And there was so much for the girl from the ranch to see--so much that was
new and curious to her--that she did not mind the walk; although it took
her until almost noon, and she was quite tired when she got to Chatham
Square.
Here she timidly inquired of a policeman, who kindly crossed the wide
street with her and showed her the way. On the southern side of Madison
Street she wandered, curiously alive to everything about the district, and
the people in it, that made them both seem so strange to her.
"A dress, lady! A hat, lady!"
The buxom Jewish girls and women, who paraded the street before the shops
for which they worked, would give her little peace. Yet it was all done
good-naturedly, and when she smiled and shook her head they smiled, too,
and let her pass.
Suddenly she saw the sturdy figure of Sadie Goronsky right ahead. She had
stopped a rather over-dressed, loud-voiced woman with a child, and Helen
heard a good deal of the conversation while she waited for Sadie (whose
back was toward her) to be free.
The "puller-in" and the possible customer wrangled some few moments, both
in Yiddish and broken English; but Sadie finally carried her point--and
the child--into the store! The woman had to follow her offspring, and once
inside some of the clerks got hold of her and Sadie could come forth to
lurk for another possible customer.
"Well, see who's here!" exclaimed the Jewish girl, catching sight of
Helen. "What's the matter, Miss? Did they turn you out of your uncle's
house upon Madison Avenyer? I never _did_ expect to see you again."
"But I expected to see you again, Sadie; I told you I'd come," said Helen,
simply.
"So it wasn't just a josh; eh?"
"I always keep my word," said the girl from the West.
"Chee!" gasped Sadie. "We ain't so partic'lar around here. But I'm glad to
see you, Miss, just the same. Be-lieve me!"
CHAPTER XIV
A NEW WORLD
The two girls stood on the sidewalk and let the tide of busy humanity flow
by unnoticed. Both were healthy types of youth--one from the open ranges
of the Great West, the other from a land far, far to the East.
Helen Morrell was brown, smiling, hopeful-looking; but she certainly was
not "up to date" in dress and appearance. The black-eyed and black-haired
Russian girl was just as well developed for her age and as rugged as she
could be; but in her cheap way her frock was the "very latest thing," her
hair was dressed wonderfully, and the air of "city smartness" about her
made the difference between her and Helen even more marked.
"I never s'posed you'd come down here," said Sadie again.
"You asked was I turned out of my uncle's house," responded Helen,
seriously. "Well, it does about amount to that."
"Oh, no! Never!" cried the other girl.
"Let me tell you," said Helen, whose heart was so full that she longed for
a confidant. Besides, Sadie Goronsky would never know the Starkweather
family and their friends, and she felt free to speak fully. So, without
much reserve, she related her experiences in her uncle's house.
"Now, ain't they the mean things!" ejaculated Sadie, referring to the
cousins. "And I suppose they're awful rich?"
"I presume so. The house is very large," declared Helen.
"And they've got loads and loads of dresses, too?" demanded the working
girl.
"Oh, yes. They are very fashionably dressed," Helen told her. "But see! I
am going to have a new dress myself. Uncle Starkweather gave me ten
dollars."
"Chee!" ejaculated Sadie. "Wouldn't it give him a cramp in his pocket-book
to part with so much mazouma?"
"Mazouma?"
"That's Hebrew for money," laughed Sadie. "But you _do_ need a dress.
Where did you get that thing you've got on?"
"Out home," replied Helen. "I see it isn't very fashionable."
"Say! we got through sellin' them things to greenies two years back,"
declared Sadie.
"You haven't been at work all that time; have you?" gasped the girl from
the ranch.
"Sure. I got my working papers four years ago. You see, I looked a lot
older than I really was, and comin' across from the old country all us
children changed our ages, so't we could go right to work when we come
here without having to spend all day in school. We had an uncle what come
over first, and he told us what to do."
Helen listened to this with some wonder. She felt perfectly safe with
Sadie, and would have trusted her, if it were necessary, with the money
she had hidden away in her closet at Uncle Starkweather's; yet the other
girl looked upon the laws of the land to which she had come for freedom as
merely harsh rules to be broken at one's convenience.
"Of course," said Sadie, "I didn't work on the sidewalk here at first. I
worked back in Old Yawcob's shop--making changes in the garments for fussy
customers. I was always quick with my needle.
"Then I helped the salesladies. But business was slack, and people went
right by our door, and I jumped out one day and started to pull 'em in.
And I was better at it----
"Good-day, ma'am! Will you look at a beautiful skirt--just the very latest
style--we've only got a few of them for samples?" She broke off and left
Helen to stand wondering while Sadie chaffered with another woman, who had
hesitated a trifle as she passed the shop.
"Oh, no, ma'am! You was no greenie. I could tell that at once. That's why
I spoke English to you yet," Sadie said, flattering the prospective buyer,
and smiling at her pleasantly. "If you will just step in and see these
skirts--or a two-piece suit if you will?"
Helen observed her new friend with amazement. Although she knew Sadie
could be no older than herself, she used the tact of long business
experience in handling the woman. And she got her into the store, too!
"I wash my hands of 'em when they get inside," she said, laughing, and
coming back to Helen. "If Old Yawcob and his wife and his salesladies
can't hold 'em, it isn't _my_ fault, you understand. I'm about the
youngest puller-in there is along Madison Street--although that little
hunchback in front of the millinery shop yonder _looks_ younger."
"But you don't try to pull _me_ in," said Helen, laughing. "And I've got
ten whole dollars to spend."
"That's right. But then, you see, you're my friend, Miss," said Sadie. "I
want to be sure you get your money's worth. So I'm going with you when you
buy your dress--that is, if you'll let me."
"Let you? Why, I'd dearly love to have you advise me," declared the
Western girl. "And don't--_don't_--call me 'Miss.' I'm Helen Morrell, I
tell you."
"All right. If you say so. But, you know, you _are_ from Madison Avenyer
just the same."
"No. I'm from a great big ranch out West."
"That's like a farm--yes? I gotter cousin that works on a farm over on
Long Island. It's a big farm--it's eighty acres. Is that farm you come
from as big as that?"
Helen nodded and did not smile at the girl's ignorance. "Very much bigger
than eighty acres," she said. "You see, it has to be, for we raise cattle
instead of vegetables."
"Well, I guess I don't know much about it," admitted Sadie, frankly. "All
I know is this city and mostly this part of it down here on the East Side.
We all have to work so hard, you know. But we're getting along better than
we did at first, for more of us children can work.
"And now I want you should go home with me for dinner, Helen--yes! It is
my dinner hour quick now; and then we will have time to pick you out a
bargain for a dress. Sure! You'll come?"
"If I won't be imposing on you?" said Helen, slowly.
"Huh! That's all right. We'll have enough to eat _this_ noon. And it ain't
so Jewish, either, for father don't come home till night. Father's awful
religious; but I tell mommer she must be up-to-date and have some 'Merican
style about her. I got her to leave off her wig yet. Catch _me_ wearin' a
wig when I'm married just to make me look ugly. Not!"
All this rather puzzled Helen; but she was too polite to ask questions.
She knew vaguely that Jewish people followed peculiar rabbinical laws and
customs; but what they were she had no idea. However, she liked Sadie, and
it mattered nothing to Helen what the East Side girl's faith or bringing
up had been. Sadie was kind, and friendly, and was really the only person
in all this big city in whom the ranch girl could place the smallest
confidence.
Sadie ran into the store for a moment and soon a big woman with an
unctuous smile, a ruffled white apron about as big as a postage stamp, and
her gray hair dressed as remarkably as Sadie's own, came out upon the
sidewalk to take the young girl's place.
"Can't I sell you somedings, lady?" she said to the waiting Helen.
"Now, don't you go and run _my_ customer in, Ma Finkelstein!" cried Sadie,
running out and hugging the big woman. "Helen is my friend and she's going
home to eat mit me."
"_Ach!_ you are already a United Stater yet," declared the big woman,
laughing. "Undt the friends you have it from Number Five Av'noo--yes?"
"You guessed it pretty near right," cried Sadie. "Helen lives on Madison
Avenyer--and it ain't Madison Avenyer _uptown_, neither!"
She slipped her hand in Helen's and bore her off to the tenement house in
which Helen had had her first adventure in the great city.
"Come on up," said Sadie, hospitably. "You look tired, and I bet you
walked clear down here?"
"Yes, I did," admitted Helen.
"Some o' mommer's soup mit lentils will rest you, I bet. It ain't far
yet--only two flights."
Helen followed her cheerfully. But she wondered if she was doing just
right in letting this friendly girl believe that she was just as poor as
the Starkweathers thought she was. Yet, on the other hand, wouldn't Sadie
Goronsky have felt embarrassed and have been afraid to be her friend, if
she knew that Helen Morrell was a very, very wealthy girl and had at her
command what would seem to the Russian girl "untold wealth"?
"I'll pay her for this," thought Helen, with the first feeling of real
happiness she had experienced since leaving the ranch. "She shall never be
sorry that she was kind to me."
So she followed Sadie into the humble home of the latter on the third
floor of the tenement with a smiling face and real warmth at her heart. In
Yiddish the downtown girl explained rapidly her acquaintance with "the
Gentile." But, as she had told Helen, Sadie's mother had begun to break
away from some of the traditions of her people. She was fast becoming "a
United Stater," too.
She was a handsome, beaming woman, and she was as generous-hearted as
Sadie herself. The rooms were a little steamy, for Mrs. Goronsky had been
doing the family wash that morning. But the table was set neatly and the
food that came on was well prepared and--to Helen--much more acceptable
than the dainties she had been having at Uncle Starkweather's.
The younger children, who appeared for the meal, were right from the
street where they had been playing, or from work in neighboring factories,
and were more than a little grimy. But they were not clamorous and they
ate with due regard to "manners."
"Ve haf nine, Mees," said Mrs. Goronsky, proudly. "Undt they all are
healt'y--_ach! so_ healt'y. It takes mooch to feed them yet."
"Don't tell about it, Mommer" cried Sadie. "It aint stylish to have big
fam'lies no more. Don't I tell you?"
"What about that Preesident we hadt--that Teddy Sullivan--what said big
fam'lies was a good d'ing? Aindt that enough? Sure, Sarah, a _Preesident_
iss stylish."
"Oh, Mommer!" screamed Sadie. "You gotcher politics mixed. 'Sullivan' is
the district leader wot gifs popper a job; but 'Teddy' was the President
yet. You ain't never goin' to be real American."
But her mother only laughed. Indeed, the light-heartedness of these poor
people was a revelation to Helen. She had supposed vaguely that very poor
people must be all the time serious, if not actually in tears.
"Now, Helen, we'll rush right back to the shop and I'll make Old Yawcob
sell you a bargain. She's goin' to get her new dress, Mommer. Ain't that
fine?"
"Sure it iss," declared the good woman. "Undt you get her a bargain,
Sarah."
"_Don't_ call me 'Sarah,' Mommer!" cried the daughter. "It ain't stylish,
I tell you. Call me 'Sadie.'"
Her mother kissed her on both plump cheeks. "What matters it, my little
lamb?" she said, in their own tongue. "Mother love makes _any_ name
sweet."
Helen did not, of course, understand these words; but the caress, the look
on their faces, and the way Sadie returned her mother's kiss made a great
lump come into the orphan girl's throat. She could hardly find her way in
the dim hall to the stairway, she was so blinded by tears.
CHAPTER XV
"STEP--PUT; STEP--PUT"
An hour later Helen was dressed in a two-piece suit, cut in what a chorus
of salesladies, including old Mrs. Finkelstein and Sadie herself, declared
were most "stylish" lines--and it did not cost her ten dollars, either!
Indeed, Sadie insisted upon going with her to a neighboring millinery
store and purchasing a smart little hat for $1.59, which set off the new
suit very nicely.
"Sure, this old hat and suit of yours is wort' a lot more money, Helen,"
declared the Russian girl. "But they ain't just the style, yuh see. And
style is everything to a girl. Why, nobody'd take you for a greenie
_now_!"
Helen was quite wise enough to know that she had never been dressed so
cheaply before; but she recognized, too, the truth of her friend's
statement.
"Now, you take the dress home, and the hat. Maybe you can find a cheap
tailor who will make over the dress. There's enough material in it. That's
an awful wide skirt, you know."
"But I couldn't walk in a skirt as narrow as the one you have on, Sadie."
"Chee! if it was stylish," confessed Sadie, "I'd find a way to walk in a
piece of stove-pipe!" and she giggled.
So Helen left for uptown with her bundles, wearing her new suit and hat.
She took a Fourth Avenue car and got out only a block from her uncle's
house. As she hurried through the side street and came to the Madison
Avenue corner, she came face-to-face with Flossie, coming home from school
with a pile of books under her arm.
Flossie looked quite startled when she saw her cousin. Her eyes grew wide
and she swept the natty looking, if cheaply-dressed Western girl, with an
appreciative glance.
"Goodness me! What fine feathers!" she cried. "You've been loading up with
new clothes--eh? Say, I like that dress."
"Better than the caliker one?" asked Helen, slily.
"You're not so foolish as to believe I liked _that_," returned Flossie,
coolly. "I told Belle and Hortense that you weren't as dense as they
seemed to think you."
"Thanks!" said Helen, drily.
"But that dress is just in the mode," repeated Flossie, with some
admiration.
"Your father's kindness enabled me to get it," said Helen, briefly.
"Humph!" said Flossie, frankly. "I guess it didn't cost you much, then."
Helen did not reply to this comment; but as she turned to go down to the
basement door, Flossie caught her by the arm.
"Don't you do that!" she exclaimed. "Belle can be pretty mean sometimes.
You come in at the front door with me."
"No," said Helen, smiling. "You come in at the area door with _me_. It's
easier, anyway. There's a maid just opening it."
So the two girls entered the house together. They were late to
lunch--indeed, Helen did not wish any; but she did not care to explain why
she was not hungry.
"What's the matter with you, Flossie?" demanded Hortense. "We've done
eating, Belle and I. And if you wish your meals here, Helen, please get
here on time for them."
"You mind your own business!" cried Flossie, suddenly taking up the
cudgels for her cousin as well as herself. "You aren't the boss, Hortense!
I got kept after school, anyway. And cook can make something hot for me
and Helen."
"You _need_ to be kept after school--from the kind of English you use,"
sniffed her sister.
"I don't care! I hate the old studies!" declared Flossie, slamming her
books down upon the table. "I don't see why I have to go to school at all.
I'm going to ask Pa to take me out. I need a rest."
Which was very likely true, for Miss Flossie was out almost every night to
some party, or to the theater, or at some place which kept her up very
late. She had no time for study, and therefore was behind in all her
classes. That day she had been censured for it at school--and when they
took a girl to task for falling behind in studies at _that_ school, she
was very far behind, indeed!
Flossie grumbled about her hard lot all through luncheon. Helen kept her
company; then, when it was over, she slipped up to her own room with her
bundles. Both Hortense and Belle had taken a good look at her, however,
and they plainly approved of her appearance.
"She's not such a dowdy as she seemed," whispered Hortense to the oldest
sister.
"No," admitted Belle. "But that's an awful cheap dress she bought."
"I guess she didn't have much to spend," laughed Hortense. "Pa wasn't
likely to be very liberal. It puzzles me why he should have kept her here
at all."
"He says it is his duty," scoffed Belle. "Now, you know Pa! He never was
so worried about duty before; was he?"
These girls, brought up as they were, steeped in selfishness and seeing
their father likewise so selfish, had no respect for their parent. Nor
could this be wondered at.
Going up to her room that afternoon Helen met Mrs. Olstrom coming down.
The housekeeper started when she saw the young girl, and drew back. But
Helen had already seen the great tray of dishes the housekeeper carried.
And she wondered.
Who took their meals up on this top floor? The maids who slept here were
all accounted for. She had seen them about the house. And Gregson, too. Of
course Mr. Lawdor and Mrs. Olstrom had their own rooms below.
Then who could it be who was being served on this upper floor? Helen was
more than a little curious. The sounds she had heard the night before
dove-tailed in her mind with these soiled dishes on the tray.
She was almost tempted to walk through the long corridor in which she
thought she had heard the scurrying footsteps pass the night before. Yet,
suppose she was caught by Mrs. Olstrom--or by anybody else--peering about
the house?
"_That_ wouldn't be very nice," mused the girl.
"Because these people think I am rude and untaught, is no reason why I
should display any _real_ rudeness."
She was very curious, however; the thought of the tray-load of dishes
remained in her mind all day.
At dinner that night even Mr. Starkweather gave Helen a glance of approval
when she appeared in her new frock.
"Ahem!" he said. "I see you have taken my advice, Helen. We none of us can
afford to forget what is due to custom. You are much more presentable."
"Thank you, Uncle Starkweather," replied Helen, demurely. "But out our way
we say: 'Fine feathers don't make fine birds.'"
"You needn't fret," giggled Flossie. "Your feather's aren't a bit too
fine."
But Flossie's eyes were red, and she plainly had been crying.
"I _hate_ the old books!" she said, suddenly. "Pa, why do I have to go to
school any more?"
"Because I am determined you shall, young lady," said Mr. Starkweather,
firmly. "We all have to learn."
"Hortense doesn't go."
"But you are not Hortense's age," returned her father, coolly. "Remember
that. And I must have better reports of your conduct in school than have
reached me lately," he added.
Flossie sulked over the rest of her dinner. Helen, going up slowly to her
room later, saw the door of her youngest cousin's room open, and glancing
in, beheld Flossie with her head on her book, crying hard.
Each of these girls had a beautiful room of her own. Flossie's was
decorated in pink, with chintz hangings, a lovely bed, bookshelves, a desk
of inlaid wood, and everything to delight the eye and taste of any girl.
Beside the common room Helen occupied, this of Flossie's was a fairy
palace.
But Helen was naturally tender-hearted. She could not bear to see the
younger girl crying. She ventured to step inside the door and whisper:
"Flossie?"
Up came the other's head, her face flushed and wet and her brow a-scowl.
"What do _you_ want?" she demanded, quickly.
"Nothing. Unless I can help you. And if so, _that_ is what I want," said
the ranch girl, softly.
"Goodness me! _You_ can't help me with algebra. What do I want to know
higher mathematics for? I'll never have use for such knowledge."
"I don't suppose we can ever learn _too_ much," said Helen, quietly.
"Huh! Lots you know about it. You never were driven to school against your
will."
"No. Whenever I got a chance to go I was glad."
"Maybe I'd be glad, too, if I lived on a ranch," returned Flossie,
scornfully.
Helen came nearer to the desk and sat down beside her.
"You don't look a bit pretty with your eyes all red and hot. Crying isn't
going to help," she said, smiling.
"I suppose not," grumbled Flossie, ungrateful of tone.
"Come, let me get some water and cologne and bathe your face." Helen
jumped up and went to the tiny bathroom. "Now, I'll play maid for you,
Flossie."
"Oh, all right," said the younger girl. "I suppose, as you say, crying
isn't going to help."
"Not at all. No amount of tears will solve a problem in algebra. And you
let me see the questions. You see," added Helen, slowly, beginning to
bathe her cousin's forehead and swollen eyes, "we once had a very fine
school-teacher at the ranch. He was a college professor. But he had weak
lungs and he came out there to Montana to rest."
"That's good!" murmured Flossie, meaning bathing process, for she was not
listening much to Helen's remarks.
"I knew it would make you feel better. But now, let me see these algebra
problems. I took it up a little when--when Professor Payton was at the
ranch."
"You didn't!" cried Flossie, in wonder.
"Let me see them," pursued her cousin, nodding.
She had told the truth--as far as she went. After Professor Payton had
left the ranch and Helen had gone to Denver to school, she had showed a
marked taste for mathematics and had been allowed to go far ahead of her
fellow-pupils in that study.
Now, at a glance, she saw what was the matter with Flossie's attempts to
solve the problems. She slipped into a seat beside the younger girl again
and, in a few minutes, showed Flossie just how to solve them.
"Why, Helen! I didn't suppose you knew so much," said Flossie, in
surprise.
"You see, _that_ is something I had a chance to learn between times--when
I wasn't roping cows or breaking ponies," said Helen, drily.
"Humph! I don't believe you did either of those vulgar things," declared
Flossie, suddenly.
"You are mistaken. I do them both, and do them well," returned Helen,
gravely. "But they are _not_ vulgar. No more vulgar than your sister
Belle's golf. It is outdoor exercise, and living outdoors as much as one
can is a sort of religion in the West."
"Well," said Flossie, who had recovered her breath now. "I don't care what
you do outdoors. You can do algebra in the house! And I'm real thankful to
you, Cousin Helen."
"You are welcome, Flossie," returned the other, gravely; but then she went
her way to her own room at the top of the house. Flossie did not ask her
to remain after she had done all she could for her.
But Helen had found plenty of reading matter in the house. Her cousins and
uncle might ignore her as they pleased. With a good book in her hand she
could forget all her troubles.
Now she slipped into her kimono, propped herself up in bed, turned the
gas-jet high, and lost herself in the adventures of her favorite heroine.
The little clock on the mantel ticked on unheeded. The house grew still.
The maids came up to bed chattering. But still Helen read on.
She had forgotten the sounds she had heard in the old house at night. Mrs.
Olstrom had mentioned that there were "queer stories" about the
Starkweather mansion. But Helen would not have thought of them at this
time, had something not rattled her doorknob and startled her.
"Somebody wants to come in," was the girl's first thought, and she hopped
out of bed and ran to unlock it.
Then she halted, with her hand upon the knob. A sound outside had arrested
her. But it was not the sound of somebody trying the latch.
Instead she plainly heard the mysterious "step--put; step--put" again. Was
it descending the stairs? It seemed to grow fainter as she listened.
At length the girl--somewhat shaken--reached for the key of her door
again, and turned it. Then she opened it and peered out.
The corridor was faintly illuminated. The stairway itself was quite dark,
for there was no light in the short passage below called "the
ghost-walk."
The girl, in her slippers, crept to the head of the flight. There she
could hear the steady, ghostly footstep from below. No other sound within
the great mansion reached her ears. It _was_ queer.
To and fro the odd step went. It apparently drew nearer, then
receded--again and again.
Helen could not see any of the corridor from the top of the flight. So she
began to creep down, determined to know for sure if there really was
something or somebody there.
Nor was she entirely unafraid now. The mysterious sounds had got upon her
nerves. Whether they were supernatural, or natural, she was determined to
solve the mystery here and now.
Half-way down the stair she halted. The sound of the ghostly step was at
the far end of the hall. But it would now return, and the girl could see
(her eyes having become used to the dim light) more than half of the
passage.
There was the usual rustling sound at the end of the passage. Then the
steady "step--put" approached.
CHAPTER XVI
FORGOTTEN
From the stair-well some little light streamed up into the darkness of the
ghost-walk. And into this dim radiance came a little old lady--her
old-fashioned crimped hair an aureole of beautiful gray--leaning lightly
on an ebony crutch, which in turn tapped the floor in accompaniment to her
clicking step--
"Step--put; step--put; step--put."
Then she was out of the range of Helen's vision again. But she turned and
came back--her silken skirts rustling, her crutch tapping in perfect
time.
This was no ghost. Although slender--ethereal--almost bird-like in her
motions--the little old lady was very human indeed. She had a pink flush
in her cheeks, and her skin was as soft as velvet. Of course there were
wrinkles; but they were beautiful wrinkles, Helen thought.
She wore black half-mitts of lace, and her old-fashioned gown was of
delightfully soft, yet rich silk. The silk was brown--not many old ladies
could have worn that shade of brown and found it becoming. Her eyes were
bright--the unseen girl saw them sparkle as she turned her head, in that
bird-like manner, from side to side.
She was a dear, doll-like old lady! Helen longed to hurry down the
remaining steps and take her in her arms.
But, instead, she crept softly back to the head of the stairs, and slipped
into her own room again. _This_ was the mystery of the Starkweather
mansion. The nightly exercise of this mysterious old lady was the
foundation for the "ghost-walk." The maids of the household feared the
supernatural; therefore they easily found a legend to explain the rustling
step of the old lady with the crutch.
And all day long the old lady kept to her room. That room must be in the
front of the house on this upper floor--shut away, it was likely, from the
knowledge of most of the servants.
Mrs. Olstrom, of course, knew about the old lady--who she was--what she
was. It was the housekeeper who looked after the simple wants of the
mysterious occupant of the Starkweather mansion.
Helen wondered if Mr. Lawdor, the old butler, knew about the mystery? And
did the Starkweathers themselves know?
The girl from the ranch was too excited and curious to go to sleep now.
She had to remain right by her door, opened on a crack, and learn what
would happen next.
For an hour at least she heard the steady stepping of the old lady. Then
the crutch rapped out an accompaniment to her coming upstairs. She was
humming softly to herself, too. Helen, crouched behind the door,
distinguished the sweet, cracked voice humming a fragment of the old
lullaby:
"Rock-a-by, baby, on the tree-top,
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock,
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,
Down will come baby----"
Thus humming, and the crutch tapping--a mere whisper of sound--the old
lady rustled by Helen's door, on into the long corridor, and disappeared
through some door, which closed behind her and smothered all further
sound.
Helen went to bed; but she could not sleep--not at first. The mystery of
the little old lady and her ghostly walk kept her eyes wide open and her
brain afire for hours.
She asked question after question into the dark of the night, and only
imagination answered. Some of the answers were fairly reasonable; others
were as impossible as the story of Jack the Giant Killer.
Finally, however, Helen dropped asleep. She awoke at her usual
hour--daybreak--and her eager mind began again asking questions about the
mystery. She went down in her outdoor clothes for a morning walk, with the
little old lady uppermost in her thoughts.
As usual, Mr. Lawdor was on the lookout for her. The shaky old man loved
to have her that few minutes in his room in the early morning. Although he
always presided over the dinner, with Gregson under him, the old butler
seldom seemed to speak, or be spoken to. Helen understood that, like Mrs.
Olstrom, Lawdor was a relic of the late owner--Mr. Starkweather's
great-uncle's--household.
Cornelius Starkweather had been a bachelor. The mansion had descended to
him from a member of the family who had been a family man. But that family
had died young--wife and all--and the master had handed the old homestead
over to Mr. Cornelius and had gone traveling himself--to die in a foreign
land.
Once Helen had heard Lawdor murmur something about "Mr. Cornelius" and she
had picked up the remainder of her information from things she had heard
Mr. Starkweather and the girls say.
Now the old butler met her with an ingratiating smile and begged her to
have something beside her customary coffee and roll.
"I have a lovely steak, Miss. The butcher remembers me once in a while,
and he knows I am fond of a bit of tender beef. My teeth are not what they
were once, you know, Miss."
"But why should I eat your nice steak?" demanded Helen, laughing at him.
"My teeth are good for what the boys on the range call 'bootleg.' That's
steak cut right next to the hoof!"
"Ah, but, Miss! There is so much more than I could possibly eat," he
urged.
He had already turned the electricity into his grill. The ruddy
steak--salted, peppered, with tiny flakes of garlic upon it--he brought
from his own little icebox. The appetizing odor of the meat sharpened
Helen's appetite even as she sipped the first of her coffee.
"I'll just _have_ to eat some, I expect, Mr. Lawdor," she said. Then she
had a sudden thought, and added: "Or perhaps you'd like to save this
tidbit for the little old lady in the attic?"
Mr. Lawdor turned--not suddenly; he never did anything with suddenness;
but it was plain she had startled him.
"Bless me, Miss--bless me--bless me----"
He trailed off in his usual shaky way; but his lips were white and he
stared at Helen like an owl for a full minute. Then he added:
"Is there a lady in the attic, Miss?" And he said it in his most polite
way.
"Of course there is, Mr. Lawdor; and you know it. Who is she? I am only
curious."
"I--I hear the maids talking about a ghost, Miss--foolish things----"
"And I'm not foolish, Mr. Lawdor," said the Western girl, laughing
shortly. "Not that way, at least. I heard her; last night I saw her. Next
time I'm going to speak to her--Unless it isn't allowed."
"It--it isn't allowed, Miss," said Lawdor, speaking softly, and with a
glance at the closed door of the room.
"Nobody has forbidden _me_ to speak to her," declared Helen, boldly. "And
I'm curious--mighty curious, Mr. Lawdor. Surely she is a nice old
lady--there is nothing the matter with her?"
The butler touched his forehead with a shaking finger. "A little wrong
there, Miss," he whispered. "But Mary Boyle is as innocent and harmless as
a baby herself."
"Can't you tell me about her--who she is--why she lives up there--and
all?"
"Not here, Miss."
"Why not?" demanded Helen, boldly.
"It might offend Mr. Starkweather, Miss. Not that he has anything to do
with Mary Boyle. He had to take the old house with her in it."
"What _do_ you mean, Lawdor?" gasped Helen, growing more and more amazed
and--naturally--more and more curious.
The butler flopped the steak suddenly upon the sizzling hot plate and in
another moment the delicious bit was before her. The old man served her as
expertly as ever, but his face was working strangely.
"I couldn't tell you here, Miss. Walls have ears, they say," he whispered.
"But if you'll be on the first bench beyond the Sixth Avenue entrance to
Central Park at ten o'clock this morning, I will meet you there.
"Yes, Miss--the rolls. Some more butter, Miss? I hope the coffee is to
your taste, Miss?"
"It is all very delicious, Lawdor," said Helen, rather weakly, and feeling
somewhat confused. "I will surely be there. I shall not need to come back
for the regular breakfast after having this nice bit."
Helen attracted much less attention upon her usual early morning walk this
time. She was dressed in the mode, if cheaply, and she was not so
self-conscious. But, in addition, she thought but little of herself or her
own appearance or troubles while she walked briskly uptown.
It was of the little old woman, and her mystery, and the butler's words
that she thought. She strode along to the park, and walked west until she
reached the bridle-path. She had found this before, and came to see the
riders as they cantered by.
How Helen longed to put on her riding clothes and get astride a lively
mount and gallop up the park-way! But she feared that, in doing so, she
might betray to her uncle or the girls the fact that she was not the
"pauper cowgirl" they thought her to be.
She found a seat overlooking the path, at last, and rested for a while;
but her mind was not upon the riders. Before ten o'clock she had walked
back south, found the entrance to the park opposite Sixth Avenue, and sat
down upon the bench specified by the old butler. At the stroke of the hour
the old man appeared.
"You could not have walked all this way, Lawdor?" said the girl, smiling
upon him. "You are not at all winded."
"No, Miss. I took the car. I am not up to such walks as you can take," and
he shook his head, mumbling: "Oh, no, no, no, no----"
"And now, what can you tell me, sir?" she said, breaking in upon his
dribbling speech. "I am just as curious as I can be. That dear little old
lady! Why is she in uncle's house?"
"Ah, Miss! I fancy she will not be there for long, but she was an
encumbrance upon it when Mr. Willets Starkweather came with his family to
occupy it."
"What _do_ you mean?" cried the girl.
"Mary Boyle served in the Starkweather family long, long ago. Before I
came to valet for Mr. Cornelius, Mary Boyle had her own room and was a
fixture in the house. Mr. Cornelius took her more--more philosophically,
as you might say, Miss. My present master and his daughters look upon poor
Mary Boyle as a nuisance. They have to allow her to remain. She is a life
charge upon the estate--that, indeed, was fixed before Mr. Cornelius's
time. But the present family are ashamed of her. Perhaps I ought not to
say it, but it is true. They have relegated her to a suite upon the top
floor, and other people have quite forgotten Mary Boyle--yes, oh, yes,
indeed! Quite forgotten her--quite forgotten her----"
Then, with the aid of some questioning, Helen heard the whole sad story of
Mary Boyle, who was a nurse girl in the family of the older generation of
Starkweathers. It was in her arms the last baby of the family had panted
his weakly little life out. She, too, had watched by the bed of the lady
of the mansion, who had borne these unfortunate children only to see them
die.
And Mary Boyle was one of that race who often lose their own identity in
the families they serve. She had loved the lost babies as though they had
been of her own flesh. She had walked the little passage at the back of
the house (out of which had opened the nursery in those days) so many,
many nights with one or the other of her fretful charges, that by and by
she thought, at night, that she had them yet to soothe.
Mary Boyle, the weak-minded yet harmless ex-nurse, had been cherished by
her old master. And in his will he had left her to the care of Mr.
Cornelius, the heir. In turn she had been left a life interest in the
mansion--to the extent of shelter and food and proper clothes--when
Willets Starkweather became proprietor.
He could not get rid of the old lady. But, when he refurnished the house
and made it over, he had banished Mary Boyle to the attic rooms. The girls
were ashamed of her. She sometimes talked loudly if company was about. And
always of the children she had once attended. She spoke of them as though
they were still in her care, and told how she had walked the hall with
one, or the other, of her dead and gone treasures the very night before!
For it was found necessary to allow Mary Boyle to have the freedom of that
short corridor on the chamber floor late at night. Otherwise she would not
remain secluded in her own rooms at the top of the house during the
daytime.
As the lower servants came and went, finally only Mrs. Olstrom and Mr.
Lawdor knew about the old lady, save the family. And Mr. Starkweather
impressed it upon the minds of both these employes that he did not wish
the old lady discussed below stairs.
So the story had risen that the house was haunted. The legend of the
"ghost walk" was established. And Mary Boyle lived out her lonely life,
with nobody to speak to save the housekeeper, who saw her daily; Mr.
Lawdor, who climbed to her rooms perhaps once each week, and Mr.
Starkweather himself, who saw and reported upon her case to his fellow
trustees each month.
It was, to Helen, an unpleasant story. It threw a light on the characters
of her uncle and cousins which did not enhance her admiration of them, to
say the least. She had found them unkind, purse-proud heretofore; but to
her generous soul their treatment of the little old woman, who must be but
a small charge upon the estate, seemed far more blameworthy than their
treatment of herself.
The story of the old butler made Helen quiver with indignation. It was
like keeping the old lady in jail--this shutting her away into the attic
of the great house. The Western girl went back to Madison Avenue (she
walked, but the old butler rode) with a thought in her mind that she was
not quite sure was a wise one. Yet she had nobody to discuss her idea
with--nobody whom she wished to take into her confidence.
There were two lonely and neglected people in that fine mansion. She,
herself, was one. The old nurse, Mary Boyle, was the other. And Helen felt
a strong desire to see and talk with her fellow-sufferer.
CHAPTER XVII
A DISTINCT SHOCK
That evening when Mr. Starkweather came home, he handed Helen a sealed
letter.
"I have ascertained," the gentleman said, in his most pompous way, "that
Mr. Fenwick Grimes is in town. He has recently returned from a tour of the
West, where he has several mining interests. You will find his address on
that envelope. Give the letter to him. It will serve to introduce you."
He watched her closely while he said this, but did not appear to do so.
Helen thanked him with some warmth.
"This is very good of you, Uncle Starkweather--especially when I know you
do not approve."
"Ahem! Sleeping dogs are much better left alone. To stir a puddle is only
to agitate the mud. This old business would much better be forgotten. You
know all that there is to be known about the unfortunate affair, I am
quite sure."
"I cannot believe that, Uncle," Helen replied. "Had you seen how my dear
father worried about it when he was dying----"
Mr. Starkweather could look at her no longer--not even askance. He shook
his head and murmured some commonplace, sympathetic phrase. But it did not
seem genuine to his niece.
She knew very well that Mr. Starkweather had no real sympathy for her; nor
did he care a particle about her father's death. But she tucked the letter
into her pocket and went her way.
As she passed through the upstairs corridor Flossie was entering one of
the drawing-rooms, and she caught her cousin by the hand. Flossie had been
distinctly nicer to Helen--in private--since the latter had helped her
with the algebra problems.
"Come on in, Helen. Belle's just pouring tea. Don't you want some?" said
the youngest Starkweather girl.
It was in Helen's mind to excuse herself. Yet she was naturally too kindly
to refuse to accept an advance like this. And she, like Flossie, had no
idea that there was anybody in the drawing-room save Belle and Hortense.
In they marched--and there were three young ladies--friends of
Belle--sipping tea and eating macaroons by the log fire, for the evening
was drawing in cold.
"Goodness me!" ejaculated Belle.
"Well, I never!" gasped Hortense. "Have _you_ got to butt in, Floss?"
"We want some tea, too," said the younger girl, boldly, angered by her
sisters' manner.
"You'd better have it in the nursery," yawned Hortense. "This is no place
for kids in the bread-and-butter stage of growth."
"Oh, is that so?" cried Flossie. "Helen and I are not kids--distinctly
_not_! I hope I know my way about a bit--and as for Helen," she added,
with a wicked grin, knowing that the speech would annoy her sisters,
"Helen can shoot, and rope steers, and break ponies to saddle, and all
that. She told me so the other evening. Isn't that right, Cousin Helen?"
"Why, your cousin must be quite a wonderful girl," said Miss Van Ramsden,
one of the visitors, to Flossie. "Introduce me; won't you, Flossie?"
Belle was furious; and Hortense would have been, too, only she was too
languid to feel such an emotion. Flossie proceeded to introduce Helen to
the three visitors--all of whom chanced to be young ladies whom Belle was
striving her best to cultivate.
And before Flossie and Helen had swallowed their tea, which Belle gave
them ungraciously, Gregson announced a bevy of other girls, until quite a
dozen gaily dressed and chattering misses were gathered before the fire.
At first Helen had merely bowed to the girls to whom she was introduced.
She had meant to drink her tea quietly and excuse herself. She did not
wish now to display a rude manner before Belle's guests; but her oldest
cousin seemed determined to rouse animosity in her soul.
"Yes," she said, "Helen is paying us a little visit--a very brief one. She
is not at all used to our ways. In fact, Indian squaws and what-do-you
call-'ems--Greasers--are about all the people she sees out her way."
"Is that so?" cried Miss Van Ramsden. "It must be a perfectly charming
country. Come and sit down by me, Miss Morrell, and tell me about it."
Indeed, at the moment, there was only one vacant chair handy, and that was
beside Miss Van Ramsden. So Helen took it and immediately the young lady
began to ask questions about Montana and the life Helen had lived there.
Really, the young society woman was not offensive; the questions were
kindly meant. But Helen saw that Belle was furious and she began to take a
wicked delight in expatiating upon her home and her own outdoor
accomplishments.
When she told Miss Van Ramsden how she and her cowboy friends rode after
jack-rabbits and roped them--if they could!--and shot antelope from the
saddle, and that the boys sometimes attacked a mountain lion with nothing
but their lariats, Miss Van Ramsden burst out with:
"Why, tha
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