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.