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.