IN THE SADDLE
The little old lady "tidied" her own room. She hopped about like a bird
with the aid of the ebony crutch, and Helen and Miss Van Ramsden heard the
"step--put" of her movements when they entered the first room.
"Come in, deary!" cried the dear old soul. "I was expecting you. Ah, whom
have we here? Good-day to you, ma'am!"
"Nurse Boyle! don't you remember me?" cried the visitor, going immediately
to the old lady and kissing her on both cheeks.
"Bless us, now! How would I know ye?" cried the old woman. "Is it me old
eyes I have set on ye for many a long year now?"
"And I blame myself for it, Nurse," cried May Van Ramsden. "Don't you
remember little May--the Van Ramsdens' May--who used to come to see you so
often when she was about so-o high?" cried the girl, measuring the height
of a five or six-year-old.
"A neighbor's baby _did_ come to see Old Mary now and then," cried the
nurse. "But you're never May?"
"I am, Nurse."
"And growed so tall and handsome? Well, well, well! It does bate all, so
it does. Everybody grows up but Mary Boyle; don't they?" and the old woman
cackled out a sweet, high laugh, and sat down to "visit" with her
callers.
The two girls had a very charming time with Mary Boyle. And May Van
Ramsden promised to come again. When they left the old lady she said,
earnestly, to Helen:
"And there are others that will be glad to come and see Nurse Boyle. When
she was well and strong--before she had to use that crutch--she often
appeared at our houses when there was trouble--serious trouble--especially
with the babies or little children. And what Mary Boyle did not know about
pulling young ones out of the mires of illness, wasn't worth knowing. Why,
I know a dozen boys and girls whose lives were probably saved by her. They
shall be reminded of her existence. And--it shall be due to you, Little
Cinderella!"
Helen smiled deprecatingly. "It will be due to your own kind heart, Miss
Van Ramsden," she returned. "I see that everybody in the city is not so
busy with their own affairs that they cannot think of other people."
The young lady kissed her again and said goodbye. But that did not end the
matter--no, indeed! The news that Miss Van Ramsden had been taken to the
topmost story of the Starkweather mansion--supposedly to Helen's own room
only--by the Western girl, dribbled through the servants to Belle
Starkweather herself when she came home.
"Now, Pa! I won't stand that common little thing being here any
longer--no, I won't! Why, she did that just on purpose to make folks
talk--to make people believe that we abuse her. Of course, she told May
that _I_ sent her to the top story to sleep. You get rid of that girl, Pa,
or I declare I'll go away. I guess I can find somebody to take me in as
long as you wish to keep Prince Morrell's daughter here in _my_ place."
"Ahem! I--I must beg you to compose yourself, Belle----"
"I won't--and that's flat!" declared his eldest daughter. "Either she
goes; or I do."
"Do let Belle go, Pa," drawled Flossie. "She is getting too bossy, anyway.
_I_ don't mind having Helen here. She is rather good fun. And May Van
Ramsden came here particularly to see Helen."
"That's not so!" cried Belle, stamping her foot.
"It is. Maggie heard her say so. Maggie was coming up the stairs and heard
May ask Helen to take her to her room. What could the poor girl do?"
"Ahem! Flossie--I am amazed at you--amazed at you!" gasped Mr.
Starkweather. "What do you learn at school?"
"Goodness me! I couldn't tell you," returned the youngest of his
daughters, carelessly. "It's none of it any good, though, Pa. You might as
well take me out."
"I've told that girl to use the back stairs, and to keep out of the front
of the house," went on Belle, ignoring Flossie. "If she had not been
hanging about the front of the house, May Van Ramsden would not have seen
her----"
"'Tain't so!" snapped Flossie.
"_Will_ you be still, minx?" demanded the older sister.
"I don't care. Let's give Helen a fair deal. I tell you, Pa, May said she
came particularly to see Helen. Besides, Helen had been in Hortense's
room, and that is where May found her. Helen was brushing Hortense's hair.
Hortense told me so."
"Ahem! I am astonished at you, Flossie. The fact remains that Helen is a
source of trouble in the house. I really do wish I knew how to get rid of
her."
"You give me permission, Pa," sneered Belle, "and I'll get rid of her very
quickly--you see!"
"No, no!" exclaimed the troubled father. "I--I cannot use the iron hand at
present--not at present."
"Humph!" exclaimed the shrewd Belle. "I'd like to know what you are afraid
of, Pa?"
Mr. Starkweather tried to frown down his daughter, but was unsuccessful.
He merely presented a picture of a very cowardly man trying to look brave.
It wasn't much of a picture.
So--as may be easily conceived--Helen was not met at dinner by her
relatives in any conciliatory manner. Yet the girl from the West really
wished she might make friends with Uncle Starkweather and her cousins.
"It must be that a part of the fault is with me," she told herself, when
she crept up to her room after a gloomy time in the dining-room. "If I had
it in me to please them--to make them happier--surely they could not treat
me as they do. Oh, dear, I wish I had learned better how to be popular."
That night Helen felt about as bad as she had any time since she arrived
in the great city. She was too disturbed to read. She lay in bed until the
small hours of the morning, unable to sleep, and worrying over all her
affairs, which seemed, since she had arrived in New York, to go altogether
wrong.
She had not made an atom of progress in that investigation which she had
hoped would bring to light the truth about the mystery which had sent her
father and mother West--fugitives--before she was born. She had only
succeeded in becoming thoroughly suspicious of her Uncle Starkweather and
of Fenwick Grimes.
Nor had she made any advance in the discovery of the mysterious Allen
Chesterton, the bookkeeper of her father's old firm, who held, she
believed, the key to the mystery. She did not know what step to take next.
She did not know what to do. And there was nobody with whom she could
consult--nobody in all this great city to whom she could go.
Never before had Helen felt so lonely as she did this night. She had money
enough with her to pay somebody to help her dig back for facts regarding
the disappearance of the money belonging to the old firm of Grimes &
Morrell. But she did not know how to go about getting the help she
needed.
Her only real confidante--Sadie Goronsky--would not know how to advise her
in this emergency.
"I wish I had let Dud Stone give me his address. He said he was learning
to be a lawyer," thought Helen. "And just now, I s'pose, a lawyer is what
I need most. But I wouldn't know how to go about engaging a lawyer--not a
good one."
She awoke at her usual time next morning, and the depression of the night
before was still with her. But when she jumped up she saw that it was no
longer raining. The sky was overcast, but she could venture forth without
running the risk of spoiling her new suit.
And right there a desperate determination came into Helen Morrell's mind.
She had learned that on the west side of Central Park there was a riding
academy. She was _hungry_ for an hour in the saddle. It seemed to her that
a gallop would clear all the cobwebs away and make her feel like herself
once more.
The house was still silent and dark. She took her riding habit out of the
closet, made it up into a bundle, and crept downstairs with it under her
arm. She escaped the watchful Lawdor for once, and got out by the area
door before even the cook had crept, yawning, downstairs to begin her
day's work.
Helen, hurrying through the dark, dripping streets, found a little
restaurant where she could get rolls and coffee on her way to the Columbus
Circle riding academy. It was still early when the girl from Sunset Ranch
reached her goal. Yes, a mount was to be had, and she could change her
street clothes for her riding suit in the dressing-rooms.
The city--at least, that part of it around Central Park--was scarcely
awake when Helen walked her mount out of the stable and into the park. The
man in charge had given her to understand that there were few riders astir
so early.
"You'll have the bridle-path to yourself, Miss, going out," he said.
Helen had picked up a little cap to wear, and astride the saddle, with her
hair tied with a big bow of ribbon at the nape of her neck, she looked
very pretty as the horse picked his way across the esplanade into the
bridle-path. But there were few, as the stableman had said, to see her so
early in the morning.
It did not rain, however. Indeed, there was a fresh breeze which, she saw,
was tearing the low-hung clouds to shreds. And in the east a rosy spot in
the fog announced the presence of the sun himself, ready to burst through
the fleecy veil and smile once more upon the world.
The trees and brush dripped upon the fallen leaves. For days the park
caretakers had been unable to rake up these, and they had become almost a
solid pattern of carpeting for the lawns. And down here in the
bridle-path, as she cantered along, their pungent odor, stirred by the
hoofs of her mount, rose in her nostrils.
This wasn't much like galloping over an open trail on a nervous little
cow-pony. But it was both a bodily and mental relief for the outdoor girl
who had been, for these past weeks, shut into a groove for which she was
so badly fitted.
She saw nobody on horseback but a mounted policeman, who turned and
trotted along beside her, and was pleasant and friendly. This pleased
Helen; and especially was she pleased when she learned that he had been
West and had "punched cows" himself. That had been some years ago, but he
remembered the Link-A--now the Sunset--Ranch, although he had never worked
for that outfit.
Helen's heart expanded as she cantered along. The sun dispelled the mist
and shone warm upon the path. The policeman left her, but now there were
other riders abroad. She went far out of town, as directed by the officer,
and found the ride beautiful. After all, there were some lovely spots in
this great city, if one only knew where to find them.
She had engaged a strong horse with good wind; but she did not want to
break him down. So she finally turned her face toward the city again and
let the animal take its own pace home.
She had ridden down as far as 110th Street and had crossed over into the
park once more, when she saw a couple of riders advancing toward her from
the south. They were a young man and a girl, both well mounted, and Helen
noted instantly that they handled their spirited horses with ease.
Indeed, she was so much interested in the mounts themselves, that she came
near passing the two without a look at their faces. Suddenly she heard an
exclamation from the young fellow, she looked up, and found herself gazing
straight into the handsome face of Dudley Stone.
"For the love of heaven!" gasped that astonished young man. "It surely
_is_ Helen Morrell! Jess! See here! Here's the very nicest girl who ever
came out of Montana!"
Dud's sister--Helen knew she must be his sister, for she had the same
coloring as and a strong family resemblance to the budding lawyer--wheeled
her horse and rode directly to Helen's side.
"Oh, Miss Morrell!" she cried, putting out her gauntleted hand. "Is it
really she, Dud? How wonderful!"
Helen shook hands rather timidly, for Miss Jessie Stone was torrential in
her speech. There wasn't a chance to "get a word in edgewise" when once
she was started upon a subject that interested her.
"My goodness me!" she cried, still shaking Helen's hand. "Is this really
the girl who pulled you out of that tree, Dud? Who saved your life and
took you on her pony to the big ranch? My, how romantic!
"And you really own a ranch, Miss Morrell? How nice that must be! And
plenty of cattle on it--Why! you don't mind the price of beef at all; do
you? And what a clever girl you must be, too. Dud came back full of your
praise, now I tell you----"
"There, there!" cried Dud. "Hold on a bit, Jess, and let's hear how Miss
Morrell is--and what she is doing here in the big city, and all that."
"Well, I declare, Dud! You take the words right out of my mouth," said his
sister, warmly. "I was just going to ask her that. And we're going to the
Casino for breakfast, Miss Morrell, and you must come with us. You've had
your ride; haven't you?"
"I--I'm just returning," admitted Helen, rather breathless, if Jess was
not.
"Come on, then!" cried the good-natured but talkative city girl. "Come,
Dud, you ride ahead and engage a table and order something nice. I'm as
ravenous as a wolf. Dear me, Miss Morrell, if you have been riding long
you must be quite famished, too!"
"I had coffee and rolls early," said Helen, as Dud spurred his horse
away.
"Oh, what's coffee and rolls? Nothing at all--nothing at all! After I've
been jounced around on this saddle for an hour I feel as though I never
_had_ eaten. I don't care much for riding myself, but Dud is crazy for it,
and I come to keep him company. You must ride with us, Miss Morrell. How
long are you going to stay in town? And to think of your having saved
Dud's life--Well! he'll never get over talking about it."
"He makes too much of the incident," declared Helen, determined to get in
a word. "I only lent him a rope and he saved himself."
"No. You carried him on your pony to that ranch. Oh, I know it all by
heart. He talks about it to everybody. Dud is _so_ enthusiastic about the
West. He is crazy to go back again--he wants to live there. I tell him
I'll go out and try it for a while, and if I find I can stand it, he can
hang out his shingle in that cow-town--what do you call it?"
"Elberon?" suggested Helen.
"Yes--Elberon. Dud says there is a chance for another lawyer there. And he
came back here and entered the offices of Larribee & Polk right away, so
as to get working experience, and be entered at the bar all the sooner.
But say!" exclaimed Jess, "I believe one reason why he is so eager to go
back to the West is because _you_ live there."
"Oh, Miss Stone!"
"Do call me Jess. 'Miss Stone' is so stiff. And you and I are going to be
the very best of friends."
"I really hope so, Jess. But you must call me Helen, too," said the girl
from Sunset Ranch.
Jess leaned out from her saddle, putting the horses so close that the
trappings rubbed, and kissed the Western girl resoundingly on the cheek.
"I just _loved_ you!" said the warm-hearted creature, "when Dud first told
me about you. But now that I see you in the flesh, I love you for your
very own self! I hope you'll love me, too, Helen Morrell--And you won't
mind if I talk a good deal?"
[Illustration: "HERE'S THE VERY NICEST GIRL WHO EVER CAME OUT OF MONTANA."
(Page 246.)]
"Not in the least!" laughed Helen. "And I _do_ love you already. I am so,
so glad that you and Dud both like me," she added, "for my cousins do not
like me at all, and I have been very unhappy since coming to New York."
"Here we are!" cried Jess, without noting closely what her new friend
said. "And there is Dud waiting for us on the porch. Dear old Dud!
Whatever should I have done if you hadn't got him out of that tree-top,
Helen?"