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+Project Gutenberg's The Girl from Sunset Ranch, by Amy Bell Marlowe
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Girl from Sunset Ranch
+       Alone in a Great City
+
+Author: Amy Bell Marlowe
+
+Release Date: September 5, 2008 [EBook #26534]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL FROM SUNSET RANCH ***
+
+
+
+
+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 _coulées_.
+
+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 _coulée_ 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 portières 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 portière, 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 employés 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, that's perfectly grand! What fun you must have! Do hear her, girls!
+Why, what we do is tame and insipid beside things that happen out there in
+Montana every day."
+
+"Oh, don't bother about her, May!" cried Belle. "Come on and let's plan
+what we'll do Saturday if we go to the Nassau links."
+
+"Listen here!" cried Miss Van Ramsden, eagerly. "Golf can wait. We can
+always golf. But your cousin tells the very bulliest stories. Go on, Miss
+Morrell. Tell some more."
+
+"Do, do!" begged some of the other girls, drawing their chairs nearer.
+
+Helen was not a little embarrassed. She would have been glad to withdraw
+from the party. But then she saw the looks exchanged between Belle and
+Hortense, and they fathered a wicked desire in the Western girl's heart to
+give her proud cousins just what they were looking for.
+
+She began, almost unconsciously, to stretch her legs out in a mannish
+style, and drop into the drawl of the range.
+
+"Coyote running is about as good fun as we have," she told Miss Van
+Ramsden in answer to a question. "Yes, they're cowardly critters; but they
+can run like a streak o' greased lightning--yes-sir-ree-bob!" Then she
+began to laugh a little. "I remember once when I was a kid, that I got
+fooled about coyotes."
+
+"I'd like to know what you are now," drawled Hortense, trying to draw
+attention from her cousin, who was becoming altogether too popular. "And
+you should know that children are better seen than heard."
+
+"Let's see," said Helen, quickly, "our birthdays are in the same month;
+aren't they, 'Tense? I believe mother used to tell me so."
+
+"Oh, never mind your birthdays," urged Miss Van Ramsden, while some of the
+other girls smiled at the repartee. "Let's hear about your adventure with
+the coyote, Miss Morrell."
+
+"Why, ye see," said Helen, "it wasn't much. I was just a kid, as I
+say--mebbe ten year old. Dad had given me a light rifle--just a
+twenty-two, you know--to learn to shoot with. And Big Hen Billings----"
+
+"Doesn't that sound just like those dear Western plays?" gasped one young
+lady. "You know--'The Squaw Man of the Golden West,' or 'Missouri,'
+or----"
+
+"Hold on! You're getting your titles mixed, Lettie," cried Miss Van
+Ramsden. "Do let Miss Morrell tell it."
+
+"To give that child the center of the stage!" snapped Hortense, to Belle.
+
+"I could shake Flossie for bringing her in here," returned the oldest
+Starkweather girl, quite as angrily.
+
+"Tell us about your friend, Big Hen Billings," drawled another visitor.
+"He _does_ sound so romantic!"
+
+Helen almost giggled. To consider the giant foreman of Sunset Ranch a
+romantic type was certainly "going some." She had the wicked thought that
+she would have given a large sum of money, right then and there, to have
+had Big Hen announced by Gregson and ushered into the presence of this
+group of city girls.
+
+"Well," continued Helen, thus urged, "father had given me a little rifle
+and Big Hen gave me a maverick----"
+
+"What's that?" demanded Flossie.
+
+"Well, in this case," explained Helen, "it was an orphaned calf. Sometimes
+they're strays that haven't been branded. But in this case a bear had
+killed the calf's mother in a _coulée_. She had tried to fight Mr. Bear,
+of course, or he never would have killed her at that time of year. Bears
+aren't dangerous unless they're hungry."
+
+"My! but they look dangerous enough--at the zoo," observed Flossie.
+
+"I tell ye," said Helen, reflectively, "that was a pretty calf. And I was
+little, and I hated to hear them blat when the boys burned them----"
+
+"Burned them! Burned little calves! How cruel! What for?"
+
+These were some of the excited comments. And in spite of Belle and
+Hortense, most of the visitors were now interested in the Western girl's
+narration.
+
+"They have to brand 'em, you see," explained Helen. "Otherwise we never
+could pick our cattle out from other herds at the round-up. You see, on
+the ranges--even the fenced ranges--cattle from several ranches often get
+mixed up. Our brand is the Link-A. Our ranch was known, in the old days,
+as the 'Link-A.' It's only late years that we got to calling it Sunset
+Ranch."
+
+"Sunset Ranch!" cried Miss Van Ramsden, quickly. "Haven't I heard
+something about _that_ ranch? Isn't it one of the big, big cattle and
+horse-breeding ranches?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am," said Helen, slowly, fearing that she had unwittingly got
+into a blind alley of conversation.
+
+"And your father owns _that_ ranch?" cried Miss Van Ramsden.
+
+"My--my father is dead," said Helen. "I am an orphan."
+
+"Oh, dear me! I am so sorry," murmured the wealthy young lady.
+
+But here Belle broke in, rather scornfully:
+
+"The child means that her father worked on that ranch. She has lived there
+all her life. Quite a rude place, I fawncy."
+
+Helen's eyes snapped. "Yes. He worked there," she admitted, which was true
+enough, for nobody could honestly have called Prince Morrell a sluggard.
+
+"He was--what you call it--a cowpuncher, I believe," whispered Belle, in
+an aside.
+
+If Helen heard she made no sign, but went on with her story.
+
+"You see, it was _such_ a pretty calf," she repeated. "It had big blue
+eyes at first--calves often do. And it was all sleek and brown, and it
+played so cunning. Of course, its mother being dead, I had a lot of
+trouble with it at first. I brought it up by hand.
+
+"And I tied a broad pink ribbon around its neck, with a big bow at the
+back. When it slipped around under its neck Bozie would somehow get the
+end of the ribbon in its mouth, and chew, and chew on it till it was
+nothing but pulp."
+
+She laughed reminiscently, and the others, watching her pretty face in the
+firelight, smiled too.
+
+"So you called it Bozie?" asked Miss Van Ramsden.
+
+"Yes. And it followed me everywhere. If I went out to try and shoot plover
+or whistlers with my little rifle, there was Bozie tagging after me. So,
+you see when it came calf-branding time, I hid Bozie."
+
+"You hid it? How?" demanded Flossie. "Seems to me a calf would be a big
+thing to hide."
+
+"I didn't hide it under my bed," laughed Helen. "No, sir! I took it out to
+a far distant _coulée_ where I used to go to play--a long way from the
+bunk-house--and I hitched Bozie to a stub of a tree where there was nice,
+short, sweet grass for him.
+
+"I hitched him in the morning, for the branding fires were going to be
+built right after dinner. But I had to show up at dinner--sure. The whole
+gang would have been out hunting me if I didn't report for meals."
+
+"Yes. I presume you ran perfectly wild," sighed Hortense, trying to look
+as though she were sorry for this half-savage little cousin from the "wild
+and woolly."
+
+"Oh, very wild indeed," drawled Helen. "And after dinner I raced back to
+the _coulée_ to see that Bozie was all right. I took my rifle along so the
+boys would think I'd gone hunting and wouldn't tell father.
+
+"I'd heard coyotes barking, as I thought, all the forenoon. And when I
+came to the hollow, there was Bozie running around and around his stub,
+and getting all tangled up, blatting his heart out, while two big old
+coyotes (or so I thought they were) circled around him.
+
+"They ran a little way when they saw me coming. Coyotes sometimes _will_
+kill calves. But I had never seen one before that wouldn't hunt the tall
+pines when they saw me coming.
+
+"Crackey, those two were big fellers! I'd seen big coyotes, but never none
+like them two gray fellers. And they snarled at me when I made out to
+chase 'em--me wavin' my arms and hollerin' like a Piute buck. I never had
+seen coyotes like them before, and it throwed a scare into me--it sure
+did!
+
+"And Bozie was so scared that he helped to scare me. I dropped my gun and
+started to untangle him. And when I got him loose he acted like all
+possessed!
+
+[Illustration: "LET'S HEAR ABOUT YOUR ADVENTURE WITH THE COYOTE,
+MISS MORRELL." (Page 180.)]
+
+"He wanted to run wild," proceeded Helen. "He yanked me over the ground at
+a great rate. And all the time those two gray fellers was sneakin' up
+behind me. Crackey, but I got scared!
+
+"A calf is awful strong--'specially when it's scared. You don't know! I
+had to leave go of either the rope, or the gun, and somehow," and Helen
+smiled suddenly into Miss Van Ramsden's face--who understood--"somehow I
+felt like I'd better hang onter the gun."
+
+"They weren't coyotes!" exclaimed Miss Van Ramsden.
+
+"No. They was wolves--real old, gray, timber-wolves. We hadn't been
+bothered by them for years. Two of 'em, working together, would pull down
+a full-grown cow, let alone a little bit of a calf and a little bit of a
+gal," said Helen.
+
+"O-o-o!" squealed the excited Flossie. "But they didn't?"
+
+"I'm here to tell the tale," returned her cousin, laughing outright.
+"Bozie broke away from me, and the wolves leaped after him--full chase. I
+knelt right down----"
+
+"And prayed!" gasped Flossie. "I should think you would!"
+
+"I _did_ pray--yes, ma'am! I prayed that the bullet would go true. But I
+knelt down to steady my aim," said Helen, chuckling again. "And I broke
+the back of one of them wolves with my first shot. That was wonderful
+luck--with a twenty-two rifle. The bullet's only a tiny thing.
+
+"But I bowled Mr. Wolf over, and then I ran after the other one and the
+blatting Bozie. Bozie dodged the wolf somehow and came circling back at
+me, his tail flirting in the air, coming in stiff-legged jumps as a calf
+does, and searching his soul for sounds to tell how scart he was!
+
+"I'd pushed another cartridge into my gun. But when Bozie came he bowled
+me over--flat on my back. Then the wolf made a leap, and I saw his
+light-gray underbody right over my head as he flashed after poor Bozie.
+
+"I jest let go with the gun! Crackey! I didn't have time to shoulder it,
+and it kicked and hit me in the nose and made my nose bleed awful. I was
+'all in,' too, and I thought the wolf was going to eat Bozie, and then
+mebbe _me_, and I set up to bawl so't Big Hen heard me farther than he
+could have heard my little rifle.
+
+"Big Hen was always expectin' me to get inter some kind of trouble, and he
+come tearin' along lookin' for me. And there I was, rolling in the grass
+an' bawling, the second wolf kicking his life out with the blood pumping
+from his chest, not three yards away from me, and Bozie streakin' it
+acrost the hill, his tail so stiff with fright you could ha' hung yer hat
+on it!"
+
+"Isn't that perfectly grand!" cried Miss Van Ramsden, seizing Helen by the
+shoulders when she had finished and kissing her on both cheeks. "And you
+only ten years old?"
+
+"But, you see," said Helen, more quietly, "we are brought up that way in
+Montana. We would die a thousand deaths if we were taught to be afraid of
+anything on four legs."
+
+"It must be an exceedingly crude country," remarked Hortense, her nose
+tip-tilted.
+
+"Shocking!" agreed Belle.
+
+"I'd like to go there," announced Flossie, suddenly. "I think it must be
+fine."
+
+"Quite right," agreed Miss Van Ramsden.
+
+The older Starkweather girls could not go against their most influential
+caller. They were only too glad to have the Van Ramsden girl come to see
+them. But while the group were discussing Helen's story, the girl from
+Sunset Ranch stole away and went up to her room.
+
+She had not meant to tell about her life in the West--not in just this
+way. She had tried to talk about as her cousins expected her to, when once
+she got into the story; but its effect upon the visitors had not been just
+what either the Starkweather girls, or Helen herself, had expected.
+
+She saw that she was much out of the good graces of Belle and Hortense at
+dinner; they hardly spoke to her. But Flossie seemed to delight in rubbing
+her sisters against the grain.
+
+"Oh, Pa," she cried, "when Helen goes home, let me go with her; will you?
+I'd just love to be on a ranch for a while--I know I should! And I _do_
+need a vacation."
+
+"Nonsense, Floss!" gasped Hortense.
+
+"You are a perfectly vulgar little thing," declared Belle. "I don't know
+where you get such low tastes."
+
+Mr. Starkweather looked at his youngest daughter in amazement. "How very
+ridiculous," he said. "Ahem! You do not know what you ask, Flossie."
+
+"Oh! I never can have anything I want," whined Miss Flossie. "And it must
+be great fun out on that ranch. You ought to hear Helen tell about it,
+Pa."
+
+"Ahem! I have no interest in such things," said her father, sternly. "Nor
+should you. No well conducted and well brought up girl would wish to live
+among such rude surroundings."
+
+"Very true, Pa," sighed Hortense, shrugging her shoulders.
+
+"You are a very common little thing, with very common tastes, Floss,"
+admonished her oldest sister.
+
+Now, all this was whipping Helen over Flossie's shoulders. The latter
+grinned wickedly; but Helen felt hurt. These people were determined to
+consider Sunset Ranch an utterly uncivilized place, and her associates
+there beneath contempt.
+
+The following morning she set out to find the address upon the letter Mr.
+Starkweather had given to her. Whether she should present this letter to
+Mr. Grimes at once, Helen was not sure. It might be that she would wish to
+get acquainted with him before he knew her identity. Her expectations were
+very vague, at best; and yet she had hope.
+
+She hoped that through this old-time partner of her father's she might
+pick up some clue to the truth about the lost money. The firm of Grimes &
+Morrell had been on the point of paying several heavy bills and notes. The
+money for this purpose, as well as the working capital of the firm, had
+been in two banks. Either partner could draw checks against these
+accounts.
+
+When the deposits in both banks had been withdrawn it had been done by
+checks for each complete balance being presented at the teller's window of
+both banks. And the tellers were quite sure that the person presenting the
+checks was Prince Morrell.
+
+In the rush of business, however, neither teller had been positive of
+this. Of course, it might have been the bookkeeper, or Mr. Grimes, who had
+got the money on the checks. However it might be, the money disappeared;
+there was none with which to pay the creditors or to continue the business
+of the firm.
+
+Fenwick Grimes had been a sufferer; Willets Starkweather had been a
+sufferer. What Allen Chesterton, the bookkeeper, had been, it was hard to
+say. He had walked out of the office of the firm and had never come back.
+Likewise after a few days of worry and disturbance, Prince Morrell had
+done the same.
+
+At least, the general public presumed that Mr. Morrell had run away
+without leaving any clue. It looked as though the senior partner and the
+bookkeeper were in league.
+
+But public interest in the mystery had soon died out. Only the creditors
+remembered. After ten years they were pleasantly reminded of the wreck of
+the firm of Grimes & Morrell by the receipt of their lost money, with
+interest compounded to date. The lawyer that had come on from the West to
+make the settlement for Prince Morrell bound the creditors to secrecy. The
+bankruptcy court had long since absolved Fenwick Grimes from
+responsibility for the debts of the old firm. Neither he nor Mr.
+Starkweather had to know that the partner who ran away had legally cleared
+his name.
+
+But there was something more. The suspicion against Prince Morrell had
+burdened the cattle king's mind and heart when he died. And his little
+daughter felt it to be her sacred duty to try, at least, to uncover that
+old mystery and to prove to the world that her father had been guiltless.
+
+Mr. Grimes lived in an old house in a rather shabby old street just off
+Washington Square. Helen asked Mr. Lawdor how to find the place, and she
+rode downtown upon a Fifth Avenue 'bus.
+
+The house was a half-business, half-studio building; and Mr. Grimes's
+name--graven on a small brass plate--was upon a door in the lower hall. In
+fact, Mr. Grimes, and his clerk, occupied this lower floor, the gentleman
+owning the building, which he was holding for a rise in real estate values
+in that neighborhood.
+
+The clerk, a sharp-looking young man with a pen behind his ear, answered
+Helen's somewhat timid knock. He looked her over severely before he even
+offered to admit her, asking:
+
+"What's your business, please?"
+
+"I came to see Mr. Grimes, sir."
+
+"By appointment?"
+
+"No-o, sir. But----"
+
+"He is very busy. He seldom sees anybody save by appointment. Are--are you
+acquainted with him?"
+
+"No, sir. But my business is important."
+
+"To you, perhaps," said the clerk, with a sneering smile. "But if it isn't
+important to _him_ I shall catch it for letting you in. What is it?"
+
+"It is business that I can tell to nobody except Mr. Grimes. Not in
+detail. But I can say this much: It concerns a time when Mr. Grimes was in
+business with another man--sixteen years or more ago and I have come--come
+from his old partner."
+
+"Humph!" said the clerk. "A begging interview? For, if so, take my
+advice--don't try it. It would be no use. Mr. Grimes never gives anything
+away. He wouldn't even bait a rat-trap with cheese-parings."
+
+"I have not come here to beg money of Mr. Grimes," said Helen, drawing
+herself up.
+
+"Well, you can come in and wait. Perhaps he'll see you."
+
+This had all been said very low in the public hall, the clerk holding the
+door jealously shut behind him. Now he opened it slowly and let her enter
+a large room, with old and dusty furniture set about it, and the clerk's
+own desk far back, by another door--which latter he guarded against all
+intrusion. Behind that door, of course, was the man she had come to see.
+
+But as Helen turned to take a seat on the couch which the clerk indicated
+with a gesture of his pen, she suddenly discovered that she was not the
+only person waiting in the room. In a decrepit armchair by one of the
+front windows, and reading the morning paper, with his wig pushed back
+upon his bald brow, was the queer old gentleman with whom she had ridden
+across the continent when she had come to New York.
+
+The discovery of this acquaintance here in Mr. Grimes's office gave Helen
+a distinct shock.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+PROBING FOR FACTS
+
+
+Helen sat down quickly and stared across the room at the queer old man.
+The latter at first seemed to pay her no attention. But finally she saw
+that he was skillfully "taking stock" of her from behind the shelter of
+the printed sheet.
+
+The Western girl was more direct than that. She got up and walked across
+to him. The clerk uttered a very loud "Ahem!" as though to warn her to
+drop her intention; but Helen said coolly:
+
+"Don't you remember me, sir?"
+
+"Ha! I believe it _is_ the little girl who came from the coast with me
+last week," said the man.
+
+"Not from the coast; from Montana," corrected Helen.
+
+"But you are dressed differently now and I was not sure," he said. "How
+have you been?"
+
+"Very well, I thank you. And you, sir?"
+
+"Well. Very. But I did not expect to see you again--er--_here_."
+
+"No, sir. And you are waiting to see Mr. Grimes, too?"
+
+"Er--something like that," admitted the old man.
+
+Helen eyed him thoughtfully. She had already glanced covertly once or
+twice at the clerk across the room. She was quite bright enough to see
+between the rungs of a ladder.
+
+"_You_ are Mr. Grimes," she said, bluntly, looking again at the old man,
+who was adjusting his wig.
+
+He looked up at her slily, his avaricious little eyes twinkling as they
+had aboard the train when he had looked over her shoulder and caught her
+counting her money.
+
+"You're a very smart little girl," he said, with a short laugh. "What have
+you come to see me about? Do you think of investing some of your money in
+mining stocks?"
+
+"No," said Helen. "I have no money to invest."
+
+"Humph. Did you find your folks?" he asked, turning the subject quickly.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What's the matter with you, then? What do you want?"
+
+"You _are_ Mr. Grimes?" she pursued, to make sure.
+
+"Well, I don't deny it."
+
+"I have come to talk to you about--about Prince Morrell," she said, in a
+very low voice so that the clerk could not hear.
+
+"_Who_?" gasped the man, falling back in his chair. Evidently Helen had
+startled him.
+
+"Prince Morrell," she replied.
+
+"What are you to Prince Morrell?" demanded the man.
+
+"I am his daughter. He is dead. I have come here to talk with you about
+the time--the time he left New York," said the girl from Sunset Ranch,
+hesitatingly.
+
+Mr. Grimes stared at her, with his wig still awry, for some moments; then
+the color began to come back into his face. Helen had not realized before
+that he had turned pale.
+
+"You come into my office," he snapped, jumping up briskly. "I'll get to
+the bottom of this!"
+
+His movements were so very abrupt and he looked at her so strangely that,
+to tell the truth, the girl from Sunset Ranch was a bit frightened. She
+trailed along behind him, however, with only a hesitating step, passing
+the wondering clerk, and heard the lock of the door of the inner office
+snap behind her as Mr. Grimes shut it.
+
+He drew heavy curtains over the door, too. The place was a gloomy
+apartment until he turned on the electric light over a desk table. She saw
+that there were curtains at all the windows, and at the other door, too.
+
+"Come here," he said, beckoning her to the desk, and to a chair that stood
+by it, and still speaking softly. "We will not be overheard here. Now!
+Tell me what you mean by coming to me in this way?"
+
+He shot such an ugly look at her that Helen was again startled.
+
+"What do _you_ mean?" she returned, hiding her real emotion. "I have come
+to ask some questions. Why shouldn't I?"
+
+"You say Prince Morrell is dead?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Nearly two months, now."
+
+"Who sent you, then?"
+
+"Sent me to you?" queried Helen, in wonder.
+
+"Yes. Somebody must have sent you," said Mr. Grimes, watching her with his
+little eyes, in which there seemed to burn a very baleful look.
+
+"You are mistaken. Nobody sent me," said Helen, recovering a measure of
+her courage. She believed that this strange man was a coward. But why
+should he be afraid of her?
+
+"You came clear across this continent to interview me about--about
+something that is gone and forgotten--almost before you were born?"
+
+"It isn't forgotten," returned Helen, meaningly. "Such things are never
+forgotten. My father said so."
+
+"But it's no use hauling everything to the surface of the pool again,"
+grumbled Mr. Grimes.
+
+"That is about what Uncle Starkweather says; but I do not feel that way,"
+said Helen, slowly.
+
+"Ha! Starkweather! Of course he's in it. I might have known," muttered the
+old man. "So _he_ sent you to me?"
+
+"No, sir. He objected to my coming," declared Helen, quite convinced now
+that she should not deliver her uncle's letter.
+
+"The Starkweathers are the people you came East to visit?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And how did _they_ receive you in their fine Madison Avenue mansion?"
+queried Mr. Grimes, looking up at her slily again.
+
+"Just as you know they did," returned Helen, briefly.
+
+"Ha! How's that? And you with all that----"
+
+He halted and--for a moment--had the grace to blush. He saw that she read
+his mind.
+
+"They do not know that I have some money for emergencies," said Helen,
+coolly.
+
+"Ho, ho!" chuckled Mr. Grimes, suddenly.
+
+"So they consider you a pauper relative from the West?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Ho, ho!" he laughed again, and rubbed his hands. "How _did_ Prince leave
+you fixed?"
+
+"I--I have something beside the money you saw me counting," she told him,
+bluntly.
+
+"And Willets Starkweather doesn't know it?"
+
+"He has never asked me if I were in funds."
+
+"I bet you!" cackled Grimes, at last giving way to a spasm of mirth which,
+Helen thought, was not nice to look upon. "And how does he fancy having
+you in his family?"
+
+"He does not like it. Neither do his daughters. And one of their reasons
+is because people will ask questions about Prince Morrell's daughter. They
+are afraid their friends will bring up father's old trouble," continued
+Helen, her voice quivering. "So that is why, Mr. Grime's, I am determined
+to know the truth about it."
+
+"The truth? What do you mean?" snarled Grimes, suddenly starting out of
+his chair.
+
+"Why, sir," said Helen, amazed, "dad told me all about it when he was
+dying. All he knew. But he said by this time surely the truth of the
+matter must have come to light. I want to clear his name----"
+
+"How are you going to do _that_?" demanded Mr. Grimes.
+
+"I hope you will help me--if you can, sir," she said, pleadingly.
+
+"How can I help more now than I could at the time he was charged with the
+crime?"
+
+"I do not know. Perhaps you can't. Perhaps Uncle Starkweather cannot,
+either. But, it seems to me, if anything had been heard from that
+bookkeeper----"
+
+"Allen Chesterton?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well! I don't know how you are going to prove it, but I have always
+believed Allen was guilty," declared Mr. Grimes, nodding his head
+vigorously, and still watching her face.
+
+"Oh, have you, Mr. Grimes?" cried the girl, eagerly, clasping her hands.
+"You have _always_ believed it?"
+
+"Quite so. Evidence was against my old partner--yes. But it wasn't very
+direct. And then--what became of Allen? Why did he run away?"
+
+"That is what other people said about father," said Helen, doubtfully. "It
+did not make him guilty, but it made him _look_ guilty. The same can be
+said of the bookkeeper."
+
+"But how can you go farther than that?" asked Mr. Grimes. "It's too long
+ago for the facts to be brought out. We can have our suspicions. We might
+even publish our suspicions. Let us get something in the papers--I can do
+it," and he nodded, decisively, "stating that facts recently brought to
+light seemed to prove conclusively that Prince Morrell, once accused of
+embezzlement of the bank accounts of the firm of Grimes & Morrell, was
+guiltless of that crime. And we will state that the surviving partner of
+the firm is convinced that the only person guilty of that embezzlement was
+one Allen Chesterton, who was the firm's bookkeeper. How about _that_?
+Wouldn't that fill the bill?" asked Mr. Grimes, rubbing his hands
+together.
+
+"If we had such an article published in the papers and circulated among
+his old friends, wouldn't that satisfy you, my dear? Then you would do no
+more of this foolish probing for facts that cannot possibly be
+reached--eh? What do you say, Helen Morrell? Isn't that a famous idea?"
+
+But the girl from Sunset Ranch was, for the moment, speechless. For a
+second time, it seemed to her, she was being bribed to make no serious
+investigation of the evidence connected with her father's old trouble.
+Both Uncle Starkweather and this old man seemed to desire to head her
+off!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+"JONES"
+
+
+"Isn't that a famous idea?" demanded Mr. Grimes, for the second time.
+
+"I--I am not so sure, sir," Helen stammered.
+
+"Why, of course it is!" he cried, smiting the desk before him with the
+flat of his palm. "Don't you see that your father's name will be cleared
+of all doubt? And quite right, too! He never _was_ guilty."
+
+"It makes me quite happy to hear you say so," said the girl, wiping her
+eyes. "But how about the bookkeeper?"
+
+"Who--Allen?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, we couldn't find him now. If he kept hidden then, when there was a
+hue and cry out for him, what chance would there be of finding him after
+seventeen years? Oh, no! Allen can't be found. And, even if he could, I
+doubt but the thing is outlawed. I don't know that the authorities would
+take it up. And I am pretty sure the creditors of the old firm would
+not."
+
+"That is not what I mean," said Helen, softly. "But suppose we accuse this
+bookkeeper--_and he is not guilty, either_?"
+
+"Well! Is that any great odds? Nobody knows where he is----"
+
+"But suppose he should reappear," persisted Helen. "Suppose somebody who
+loved him--a daughter, perhaps, as I am the daughter of Prince
+Morrell--with just as great a desire to clear her father's name as I have
+to clear mine---- Suppose such a person should appear determined to prove
+Mr. Chesterton not guilty, too?"
+
+"Ha, but we've beat 'em to it--don't you see?" demanded Mr. Grimes,
+heartlessly.
+
+"Oh, sir! I could not take such an apparent victory at such a cost!" cried
+Helen, wiping her eyes again. "You say you _believe_ Allen Chesterton was
+guilty instead of father. But you put forward no evidence--no more than
+the mere suspicion that cursed poor dad. No, no, sir! To claim new
+evidence, but to show no new evidence, is not enough. I must find out for
+sure just who stole that money. That is what dad himself said would be the
+only way in which his name could be cleared."
+
+"Nonsense, girl!" ejaculated Fenwick Grimes, scowling again.
+
+"I am sorry to go against both your wishes and Uncle Starkweather's," said
+Helen, slowly. "But I want the truth! I can't be satisfied with anything
+but the truth about this whole unfortunate business.
+
+"It made poor dad very unhappy when he was dying. It troubled my poor
+mother--so _he_ said--all her life out there in Montana. I want to know
+where the money went--who got it--all about it. Then I can prove to people
+that it was not _my_ father who committed the crime."
+
+"This is a very quixotic thing you have undertaken, my girl," remarked Mr.
+Grimes, with a sudden change in his manner.
+
+"I hope not. I hope I shall learn the truth."
+
+"How?"
+
+He shot the question at her as from a gun. His face had grown very grim
+and his sly little eyes gleamed threateningly. More than ever did Helen
+dislike and fear this man. The avaricious light in his eyes as he noted
+the money she carried on the train, had first warned her against him. Now,
+when she knew so much more about him, and how he was immediately connected
+with her father's old trouble, Helen feared him all the more.
+
+Because of his love of money alone, she could not trust him. And he had
+suggested something which was, upon the face of it, dishonest and unfair.
+She rose from her seat and shook her head slowly.
+
+"I do not know how," Helen said, sadly. "But I hope something may turn up
+to help me. I understand that you have never known anything about Allen
+Chesterton since he ran away?"
+
+"Not a thing," declared Mr. Grimes, shortly, rising as well.
+
+"It is through him I hoped to find the truth," she murmured.
+
+"So you won't accept my help?" growled Mr. Grimes.
+
+"Not--not the kind you offer. It--it wouldn't be right," Helen replied.
+
+"Very well, then!" snapped the man, and opened the door into the outer
+office. As he ushered her into the other room the outer door opened and a
+shabby man poked his head and shoulders in at the door.
+
+"I say!" he said, quaveringly. "Is Mr. Grimes----"
+
+"Get out of here, you old ruffian!" cried Fenwick Grimes, flying into a
+sudden passion. "Of course, you'd got to come around to-day!"
+
+"I only wanted to say, Mr. Grimes----"
+
+"Out of my sight!" roared Grimes. "Here, Leggett!" to his clerk; "give
+Jones a dollar and let him go. I can't see him now."
+
+"Jones, sir?" queried the clerk, seemingly somewhat staggered, and looking
+from his employer to the old scarecrow in the doorway.
+
+"Yes, sir!" snarled Mr. Grimes. "I said Jones, sir--Jones, Jones, Jones!
+Do you understand plain English, Mr. Leggett? Take that dollar on the desk
+and give it into the hands of _Jones_ there at the door. And then oblige
+me by kicking him down the steps if he doesn't move fast enough."
+
+Leggett moved rapidly himself after this. He seemed to catch his
+employer's real meaning, and he grabbed the dollar and chased the beggar
+out into the hall. Grimes, meanwhile, held Helen back a bit. But he had
+nothing of any consequence to say.
+
+Finally she bade him good-morning and went out of the office. She had not
+given him Uncle Starkweather's letter. Somehow, she thought it best not to
+do so. If she had been doubtful of the sincerity of her uncle when she
+broached the subject nearest her heart, she had been much more suspicious
+of Fenwick Grimes.
+
+She walked composedly enough out of the building; but it was hard work to
+keep back the tears. It _did_ seem such a great task for a mere girl to
+attempt! And nobody would help her. She had nobody in whom to
+confide--nobody with whom she might discuss the mystery.
+
+And when she told herself this her mind naturally flashed to the only real
+friend she had made in New York--Sadie Goronsky. Helen had looked up a map
+of the city the evening before in her uncle's library, and she had marked
+the streets intervening between this place where she had interviewed her
+father's old partner, and Madison Street on the East Side.
+
+She had ridden downtown to Washington Arch; so she felt equal to the walk
+across town and down the Bowery to the busy street where Sadie plied her
+peculiar trade.
+
+She crossed the Square and went through West Broadway to Bleecker Street
+and turned east on that busy and interesting thoroughfare. Suddenly, right
+ahead of her, she beheld the shabby brown hat and wrinkled coat of the old
+man who had stuck his head in at the door of Mr. Grimes's office, and so
+disturbed the equilibrium of that individual.
+
+Here was "Jones." At first Helen thought him to be under the influence of
+drink. Then she saw that the man's erratic actions must be the result of
+some physical or mental disability.
+
+The old man could not walk in a straight line; but he tacked from one side
+of the walk to the other, taking long "slants" across the walk, first
+touching the iron balustrade of a step on one hand, and then bringing up
+at a post on the edge of the curb.
+
+He seemed to mutter all the time to himself, too; but what he said, or
+whether it was sense, or nonsense, Helen (although she walked near him)
+could not make out. She did not wish to offend the old man; yet he seemed
+so helpless and peculiar that for several blocks she trailed him (as he
+seemed to be going her way), fearing that he would get into some trouble.
+
+At the busy crossings Helen was really worried. The man first started,
+then dodged back, scouted up and down the way, seemed undecided, looked
+all around as though for help, and then, at the very worst time, when the
+vehicles in the street were the most numerous, he darted across, escaping
+death and destruction half a dozen times between curb and curb.
+
+But somehow the angel that directs the destinies of foolish people who
+cross busy city streets, shielded him from harm, and Helen finally lost
+him as he turned down one of the main stems of the town while she kept on
+into the heart of the East Side.
+
+And to Helen Morrell, the very "heart of the East Side" was right in the
+Goronsky flat on Madison Street. She had been comparing that home at the
+same number on Madison Street with that her uncle's house boasted on
+Madison Avenue, with the latter mansion. The Goronsky tenement was a
+_home_, for love and contentment dwelt there; the stately Starkweather
+dwelling housed too many warring factions to be a real home.
+
+Helen came, at length, to Madison Street. She had timed her coming so as
+to reach Jacob Finkelstein's shop just about the time Sadie would be going
+to dinner.
+
+"Miss Helen! Ain't I glad to see you?" cried Sadie. "Is there anything the
+matter with the dress, yet?"
+
+"No, Miss Sadie. I was downtown and thought I would ask you to go to
+dinner with me. I went with you yesterday."
+
+"O-oo my! I don't know," said Sadie, shaking her head. "I bet you'd like
+to come home with me instead--no?"
+
+"I would like to. But it would not be right for me to accept your
+hospitality and never return it," said Helen.
+
+"Chee! you must 'a' had a legacy," laughed Sadie.
+
+"I--I have a little more money than I had yesterday," admitted Helen,
+which was true, for she had taken some out of the wallet in the trunk
+before she left her uncle's house.
+
+"Well, when you swells feel like spendin' there ain't no stoppin' youse, I
+suppose," declared Sadie. "Do you wanter fly real high?"
+
+"I guess we can afford a real nice dinner," said Helen, smiling.
+
+"Are you good for as high as thirty-fi' cents apiece?" demanded Sadie.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Chee! Then I can take you to a stylish place where we can get a swell
+feed at noon, for that. It's up on Grand Street. All the buyers and
+department store heads go there with the wholesale salesmen for lunch.
+Wait till I git me hat!" and away Sadie shot, up the tenement house
+stairs, so fast that her little feet, bound by the tight skirt she wore,
+seemed fairly to twinkle.
+
+Helen had but a few moments to wait on the sidewalk; yet within that short
+time something happened to change the entire current of the day's
+adventures. She heard some boys shouting from the direction of the Bowery;
+there was a crowd crossing the street diagonally; she watched it with some
+apprehension at first, for it came right along the sidewalk toward her.
+
+"Hi, fellers! See de Lurcher! Here comes de Lurcher!" yelled one ribald
+youth, who leaped on the stoop to which Helen had retreated the better to
+see over the heads of the crowd at the person who was the core of it.
+
+And then Helen, in no little amazement, saw that this individual was none
+other than the man whom she had seen driven out of Fenwick Grimes's
+office. A gang of hoodlums surrounded him. They jeered at him, tore at his
+ragged clothes, hooted, and otherwise nagged the poor old fellow.
+
+At every halt he made they pressed closer upon the "Lurcher." It was easy
+to see why he had been given that name. He was probably an old inhabitant
+of the neighborhood, and his lurching from side to side of the walk had
+suggested the nickname to some local wit.
+
+Just as he steered for the rail of the step on which Helen stood, half
+fearful, and reached it, Sadie Goronsky came bounding out of the house.
+Instantly she took a hand--and as usual a master hand--in the affair.
+
+"What you doin' to that old man, you Izzy Strefonifsky? And, Freddie
+Bloom, you stop or I'll tell your mommer! Ike, let him alone, or I'll make
+your ears tingle myself--I can do it, too!"
+
+Sadie charged as she commanded. The hoodlums scattered--some laughing,
+some not so easily intimidated. But the old man was clinging to the rail
+and muttering over and over to himself:
+
+"They got my dollar--they got my dollar."
+
+"What's that?" cried Sadie, coming back after chasing the last of the boys
+off the block. "What's the matter, Mr. Lurcher?"
+
+"My dollar--they got my dollar," muttered the old man.
+
+"Oh, dear!" whispered Helen. "And perhaps it was all he had."
+
+"You can bet it was," said Sadie, angrily. "The likes of him wouldn't
+likely have _two_ dollars all at once! I'd like to scalp those imps! That
+I would!"
+
+The old man, paying little attention to the two girls, but still muttering
+about his loss, lurched away on his erratic course homeward.
+
+"Chee!" said Sadie. "Ain't that tough luck? He lives right around the
+corner, all alone. And he's just as poor as he can be. I don't know what
+his real name is. But the boys guy him sumpin' fierce! Ain't it mean?"
+
+"It certainly is," agreed Helen.
+
+"Say!" said Sadie, abruptly, but looking at Helen with sheepish eye.
+
+"Well, what?"
+
+"Say, was yer _honest_ goin' to blow seventy cents for that feed I spoke
+of up on Grand Street?"
+
+"Certainly. And I----"
+
+"And a dime to the waiter?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"That's eighty cents," ran on Sadie, glibly enough now. "And twenty would
+make a dollar. I'll dig up the twenty cents to put with your eighty, and
+what d'ye say we run after old Lurcher an' give him a dollar--say we found
+it, you know--and then go upstairs to my house for dinner? Mommer's got a
+nice dinner, and she'd like to see you again fine!"
+
+"I'll do it!" cried Helen, pulling out her purse at once. "Here! Here's a
+dollar bill. You run after him and give it to him. You can give me the
+twenty cents later."
+
+"Sure!" cried the Russian girl, and she was off around the corner in the
+wake of the Lurcher, with flying feet.
+
+Helen waited for her friend to return, just inside the tenement house
+door. When Sadie reappeared, Helen hugged her tight and kissed her.
+
+"You are a _dear_!" the Western girl cried. "I do love you, Sadie!"
+
+"Aw, chee! That ain't nothin'," objected the East Side girl. "We poor
+folks has gotter help each other."
+
+So Helen would not spoil the little sacrifice by acknowledging to more
+money, and they climbed the stairs again to the Goronsky tenement. The
+girl from Sunset Ranch was glad--oh, so glad!--of this incident. Chilled
+as she had been by the selfishness in her uncle's Madison Avenue mansion,
+she was glad to have her heart warmed down here among the poor of Madison
+Street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+OUT OF STEP WITH THE TIMES
+
+
+"No," Sadie told Helen, afterward, "I am very sure that poor Lurcher man
+doesn't drink. Some says he does; but you never notice it on him. It's
+just his eyes."
+
+"His eyes?" queried Helen, wonderingly.
+
+"Yes. He's sort of blind. His eyelids keep fluttering all the time. He
+can't control them. And, if you notice, he usually lifts up the lid of one
+eye with his finger before he makes one of his base-runs for the next
+post. Chee! I'd hate to be like that."
+
+"The poor old man! And can nothing be done for it?"
+
+"Plenty, I reckon. But who's goin' to pay for it? Not him--he ain't got it
+to pay. We all has our troubles down here, Helen."
+
+The girls had come down from the home of Sadie again, and Helen was
+preparing to leave her friend.
+
+"Aren't there places to go in the city to have one's eyes examined? Free
+hospitals, I mean?"
+
+"Sure! And they got Lurcher to one, once. But all they give him was a
+prescription for glasses, and it would cost a lot to get 'em. So it didn't
+do him no good."
+
+Helen looked at Sadie suddenly. "How much would it take for the glasses?"
+she asked.
+
+"I dunno. Ten dollars, mebbe."
+
+"And do you s'pose he could have that prescription now?" asked Helen,
+eagerly.
+
+"Mebbe. But why for?"
+
+"Perhaps I could--could get somebody uptown interested in his case who is
+able to pay for the spectacles."
+
+"Chee, that would be bully!" cried Sadie.
+
+"Will you find out about the prescription?"
+
+"Sure I will," declared Sadie. "Nex' time you come down here, Helen, I'll
+know all about it. And if you can get one of them rich ladies up there to
+pay for 'em--Well! it would beat goin' to a swell restaurant for a
+feed--eh?" and she laughed, hugged the Western girl, and then darted
+across the sidewalk to intercept a possible customer who was loitering
+past the row of garments displayed in front of the Finkelstein shop.
+
+But Helen did not get downtown again as soon as she expected. When she
+awoke the next morning there had set in a steady drizzle--cold and
+raw--and the panes of her windows were so murky that she could not see
+even the chimneys and roofs, or down into the barren little yards.
+
+This--nor a much heavier--rain would not have ordinarily balked Helen. She
+was used to being out in all winds and weathers. But she actually had
+nothing fit to wear in the rain.
+
+If she had worn the new cheap dress out of doors she knew what would
+happen. It would shrink all out of shape. And she had no raincoat, nor
+would she ask her cousins--so she told herself--for the loan of an
+umbrella.
+
+So, as long as it rained steadily, it looked as though the girl from
+Sunset Ranch was a sure-enough "shut-in." Nor did she contemplate this
+possibility with any pleasure.
+
+There was nothing for her to do but read. And one cannot read all the
+time. She had no "fancy-work" with which to keep her hands and mind busy.
+She wondered what her cousins did on such days. She found out by keeping
+her ears and eyes open. After breakfast Belle went shopping in the
+limousine. There was an early luncheon and all three of the Starkweather
+girls went to a matinée. In neither case was Helen invited to go--no,
+indeed! She was treated as though she were not even in the house. Seldom
+did either of the older girls speak to her.
+
+"I might as well be a ghost," thought Helen.
+
+And this reminded her of the little old lady who paced the ghost-walk
+every night--the ex-nurse, Mary Boyle. She had thought of going to see her
+on the top floor before; but she had not been able to pluck up the
+courage.
+
+Now that her cousins were gone from the house, however, and Mrs. Olstrom
+was taking a nap in her room, and Mr. Lawdor was out of the way, and all
+the under-servants mildly celebrating the free afternoon below stairs,
+Helen determined to venture out of her own room, along the main passage of
+the top floor, to the door which she believed must give upon the front
+suite of rooms which the little old lady occupied.
+
+She knocked, but there was no response. Nor could she hear any sound from
+within. It struck Helen that the principal cruelty of the Starkweathers'
+treatment of this old soul was her being shut away alone up here at the
+top of the house--too far away from the rest of its occupants for a cry to
+be heard if the old lady should be in trouble.
+
+"If they shut up a dog like this, he would howl and thus attract attention
+to his state," muttered Helen. "But here is a human being----"
+
+She tried the door. The latch clicked and the door swung open. Helen
+stepped into a narrow, hall-like room, well furnished with old-fashioned
+furniture (probably brought from below stairs when Mr. Starkweather
+re-decorated the mansion) with one window in it. The door which evidently
+gave upon the remainder of the suite was closed.
+
+As Helen listened, however, from behind this closed door came a cheerful,
+cracked voice--the same voice she had heard whispering the lullaby in the
+middle of the night. But now it was tuning up on an old-time ballad, very
+popular in its day:
+
+                "Wait till the clouds roll by, Jennie--
+                Wait till the clouds roll by!
+                Jennie, my own true loved one--
+                Wait till the clouds roll by."
+
+"She doesn't sound like a hopeless prisoner," thought Helen, with
+surprise.
+
+She waited a minute longer and, as the thin yet still sweet voice stopped,
+Helen knocked timidly on the inner door. Immediately the voice said, "Come
+in, deary. 'Tis not for the likes of you to be knockin' at old Mary's
+door. Come in!"
+
+Helen turned the knob slowly and went into the room. The moment she
+crossed the threshold she forgot the clouds and rain and gloominess which
+had depressed her. Indeed, it seemed as though the sun must be ever
+shining into this room, high up under the roof of the Starkweather
+mansion.
+
+In the first place, it was most cheerfully papered and painted. There were
+pretty, simple, yellow and white hangings. The heavier pieces of old
+furniture had gay "tidies" or "throws" upon them to relieve the sombreness
+of the dark wood. The pictures on the walls were all in white or gold
+frames, and were of a cheerful nature--mostly pictures of childhood, or
+pictures which would amuse children. Evidently much of the furnishings of
+the old nursery had been brought up here to Mary Boyle's sitting-room.
+
+Helen had a glimpse, through a half-open door, of the bedroom--quite as
+bright and pretty. There was a little stove set up here, and a fire burned
+in it. It was one of those stoves that have isinglass all around it so
+that the fire can be seen when it burns red. It added mightily to the
+cheerful tone of the room.
+
+How neat everything appeared! Yet the very neatest thing in sight was the
+little old lady herself, sitting in a green-painted rocker, with a low
+sewing-table at her side, wooden needles clicking fast in her fleecy
+knitting.
+
+She looked up at Helen with a little, bird-like motion--her head a bit on
+one side and her glance quizzical. This, it proved, was typical of Mary
+Boyle.
+
+"Deary, deary me!" she said. "You're a _new_ girl. And what do you want
+Mary to do for you?"
+
+"I--I thought I'd come and make you a little call," said Helen, timidly.
+
+This wasn't at all as she expected to find the shut-in! Instead of gloom,
+and tears, and the weakness of age, here were displayed all the opposite
+emotions and qualities. The woman who was forgotten did not appear to be
+an object of pity at all. She merely seemed out of step with the times.
+
+"I'm sure you're very welcome, deary," said the old nurse. "Draw up the
+little rocker yonder. I always keep it for young company," and Mary Boyle,
+who had had no young company up here for ten or a dozen years, spoke as
+though the appearance of a youthful face and form was of daily
+occurrence.
+
+"You see," spoke Helen, more confidently, "we are neighbors on this top
+floor."
+
+"Neighbors; air we?"
+
+"I live up here, too. The family have tucked me away out of sight."
+
+"Hush!" said the little old woman. "We shouldn't criticise our bethers.
+No, no! And this is a very cheerful par-r-rt of the house, so it is."
+
+"But it must be awful," exclaimed Helen, "to have to stay in it all the
+time!"
+
+"I don't have to stay in it all the time," replied the nurse, quickly.
+
+"No, ma'am. I hear you in the night going downstairs and walking in the
+corridor," Helen said, softly.
+
+The wrinkled old face blushed very prettily, and Mary Boyle looked at her
+visitor doubtfully.
+
+"Sure, 'tis such a comfort for an old body like me," she said, at last,
+"to make believe."
+
+"Make believe?" cried Helen, with a smile. "Why, _I'm_ not old, and I love
+to make believe."
+
+"Ah, yis! But there is a differ bechune the make-believes of the young and
+the make-believes of the old. _You_ are playin' you're grown up, or
+dramin' of what's comin' to you in th' future--sure, I know! I've had them
+drames, too, in me day.
+
+"But with old folks 'tis different. We do be har-r-rking back instead of
+lookin' for'ard. And with me, it's thinkin' of the babies I've held in me
+ar-r-rms, and rocked on me knee, and walked the flure wid when they was
+ailin'--An' sure the babies of _this_ house was always ailin', poor little
+things."
+
+"They were a great trouble to you, then?" asked Helen, softly.
+
+"Trouble, is it?" cried Mary Boyle, her eyes shining again. "Sure, how
+could a blessid infant be a trouble? 'Tis a means of grace they be to the
+hear-r-rt--I nade no preacher to tell me that, deary. I found thim so. And
+they loved me and was happy wid me," she added, cheerfully.
+
+"The folks below think me a little quare in me head," she confided to her
+visitor. "But they don't understand. To walk up and down the nursery
+corridor late at night relaves the ache here," and she put her little,
+mitted hand upon her heart. "Ye see, I trod that path so often--so
+often----"
+
+Her voice trailed off and she fell silent, gazing into the glow of the
+fire in the stove. But there was a smile on her lips. The past was no time
+to weep over. This cheerful body saw only the bright spots in her long,
+long life.
+
+Helen loved to hear her talk. And soon she and Mary Boyle were very well
+acquainted. One thing about the old nurse Helen liked immensely. She asked
+no questions. She accepted Helen's visit as a matter of course; yet she
+showed very plainly that she was glad to have a young face before her.
+
+But the girl from Sunset Ranch did not know how Mrs. Olstrom might view
+her making friends with the old lady; so she made her visit brief. But she
+promised to come again and bring a book to read to Mary Boyle.
+
+"Radin' is a great accomplishment, deary," declared the old woman. "I
+niver seemed able to masther it--although me mistress oft tried to tache
+me. But, sure, there was so much to l'arn about babies, that ain't printed
+in no book, that I was always radin' them an' niver missed the book
+eddication till I come to be old. But th' foine poethry me mistress useter
+be radin' me! Sure, 'twould almost put a body to slape, so swate and grand
+it was."
+
+So, Helen searched out a book of poems downstairs, and the next forenoon
+she ventured into the front suite again, and read ta Mary Boyle for an
+hour. The storm lasted several days, and each day the girl from the West
+spent more and more time with the little old woman.
+
+But this was all unsuspected by Uncle Starkweather and the three girls. If
+Mrs. Olstrom knew she said nothing. At least, she timed her own daily
+visits to the little old woman so that she would not meet Helen in the
+rooms devoted to old Mary's comfort.
+
+Nor were Helen's visits continued solely because she pitied Mary Boyle.
+How could she continue to pity one who did not pity herself?
+
+No. Helen received more than she gave in this strange friendship. Seeking
+to amuse the old nurse, she herself gained such an uplift of heart and
+mind that it began to counteract that spirit of sullenness that had
+entered into the Western girl when she had first come to this house and
+had been received so unkindly by her relatives.
+
+Instead of hating them, she began to pity them. How much Uncle
+Starkweather was missing by being so utterly selfish! How much the girls
+were missing by being self-centred!
+
+Why, see it right here in Mary Boyle's case! Nobody could associate with
+the delightful little old woman without gaining good from the association.
+Instead of being friends with the old nurse, and loving her and being
+loved by her, the Starkweather girls tucked her away in the attic and
+tried to ignore her existence.
+
+"They don't know what they're missing--poor things!" murmured Helen,
+thinking the situation over.
+
+And from that time her own attitude changed toward her cousins. She began
+to look out for chances to help them, instead of making herself more and
+more objectionable to Belle, Hortense, and Flossie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+BREAKING THE ICE
+
+
+As for Floss, Helen had already got a hold upon that young lady.
+
+"Come on, Helen!" the younger cousin would whisper after dinner. "Come up
+to my room and give me a start on these lessons; will you? That's a good
+chap."
+
+And often when the rest of the family thought the unwelcome visitor had
+retired to her room at the top of the house, she was shut in with Flossie,
+trying to guide the stumbling feet of that rather dull girl over the hard
+places in her various studies.
+
+For Floss had soon discovered that the girl from Sunset Ranch somehow had
+a wonderful insight into every problem she put up to her. Nor were they
+all in algebra.
+
+"I don't see how you managed to do it, 'way out there in that wild place
+you lived in; but you must have gone through 'most all the text-books I
+have," declared Flossie, once.
+
+"Oh, I had to grab every chance there was for schooling," Helen responded,
+and changed the subject instantly.
+
+Flossie thought she had a secret from her sisters, however, and she hugged
+it to her with much glee. She realized that Helen was by no means the
+ignoramus Belle and Hortense said.
+
+"And let 'em keep on thinking it," Flossie said, to herself, with a
+chuckle. "I don't know what Helen has got up her sleeve; but I believe she
+is fooling all of us."
+
+A long, dreary fortnight of inclement weather finally got on the nerves of
+Hortense. Belle could go out tramping in it, or cab-riding, or what-not.
+She was athletic, and loved exercise in the open air, no matter what the
+weather might be. But the second sister was just like a pussy-cat; she
+loved comfort and the warm corners. However, being left alone by Belle,
+and nobody coming in to call for several days, Hortense was completely
+overpowered by loneliness.
+
+She had nothing within herself to fight off nervousness and depression.
+So, having caught a little, sniffly cold, she decided that she was sick
+and went to bed.
+
+The Starkweather girls did not each have a maid. Mr. Starkweather could
+not afford that luxury. But Hortense at once requisitioned one of the
+housemaids to wait upon her and of course Mrs. Olstrom's very
+carefully-thought-out system was immediately turned topsy-turvy.
+
+"I cannot allow you, Miss, to have the services of Maggie all day long,"
+Helen heard the housekeeper announce at the door of the invalid's room.
+"We are not prepared to do double work in this house. You must either
+speak to your father and have a nurse brought in, or wait upon yourself."
+
+"Oh, you heartless, wicked thing!" cried Hortense. "How can you be so
+cruel? I couldn't wait upon myself. I want my broth. And I want my hair
+done. And you can see yourself how the room is all in a mess. And----"
+
+"Maggie must do her parlor work to-day. You know that. If you want to be
+waited upon, Miss, get your sister to do it," concluded the housekeeper,
+and marched away.
+
+"And she very well knows that Belle has gone out somewhere and Flossie is
+at school. I could _die_ here, and nobody would care," wailed Hortense.
+
+Helen walked into the richly furnished room. Hortense was crying into her
+pillow. Her hair was still in two unkempt braids and she _did_ need a
+fresh boudoir cap and gown.
+
+"Can I do anything to help you, 'Tense?" asked Helen, cheerfully.
+
+"Oh, dear me--no!" exclaimed her cousin. "You're so loud and noisy. And
+do, _do_ call me by my proper name."
+
+"I forgot. Sure, I'll call you anything you say," returned the Western
+girl, smiling at her. Meanwhile she was moving about the room, deftly
+putting things to rights.
+
+"I'm going to tell father the minute he comes home!" wailed Hortense,
+ignoring her cousin for the time and going back to her immediate troubles.
+"I am left all alone--and I'm sick--and nobody cares--and--and----"
+
+"Where do you keep your caps, Hortense?" interrupted Helen. "And if you'll
+let me, I'll brush your hair and make it look pretty. And then you get
+into a fresh nightgown----"
+
+"Oh, I couldn't sit up," moaned Hortense. "I really couldn't. I'm too
+weak."
+
+"I'll show you how. Let me fix the pillows--_so!_ And _so!_ There--nothing
+like trying; is there? You're comfortable; aren't you?"
+
+"We-ell----"
+
+Helen was already manipulating the hairbrush. She did it so well, and
+managed to arrange Hortense's really beautiful hair so simply yet easily
+on her head that the latter quite approved of it--and said so--when she
+looked into her hand-mirror.
+
+Then Helen got her into a chair, in a fresh robe and a pretty kimono,
+while she made the bed--putting on new sheets and cases for the pillows so
+that all should be sweet and clean. Of course, Hortense wasn't really
+sick--only lazy. But she thought she was sick and Helen's attentions
+pleased the spoiled girl.
+
+"Why, you're not such a bad little thing, Helen," she said, dipping into a
+box of chocolates on the stand by her bedside. Chocolates were about all
+the medicine Hortense took during this "bad attack." And she was really
+grateful--in her way--to her cousin.
+
+It was later on this day that Helen plucked up courage to go to her uncle
+and give him back the letter he had written to Fenwick Grimes.
+
+"I did not use it, sir," she said.
+
+"Ahem!" he said, and with evident relief. "You have thought better of it,
+I hope? You mean to let the matter rest where it is?"
+
+"I have not abandoned my attempt to get at the truth--no, Uncle
+Starkweather."
+
+"How foolish of you, child!" he cried.
+
+"I do not think it is foolish. But I will try not to mix you up in my
+inquiries. That is why I did not use the letter."
+
+"And you have seen Grimes?" he asked, hastily.
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"Does he know who you are?"
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"And you reached him without an introduction? I understand he is hard to
+approach. He is a money-lender, in a way, and he has an odd manner of
+never appearing to come into personal contact with his clients."
+
+"Yes, sir. I think him odd."
+
+"Did--did he think he could help you?"
+
+"He thinks just as you do, sir," stated Helen, honestly. "And, then, he
+accused you of sending me to him at first; so I would not use your letter
+and so compromise you."
+
+"Ahem!" said the gentleman, surprised that this young girl should be so
+circumspect. It rather startled him to discover that she was thoughtful
+far beyond her years. Was it possible that--somehow--she _might_ bring to
+light the truth regarding the unhappy difficulty that had made Prince
+Morrell an exile from his old home for so many years?
+
+Once May Van Ramsden ran in to see Belle and caught Helen going through
+the hall on her way to her own room. It was just after luncheon, which she
+and Belle had eaten in a silence that could be felt. Belle would not speak
+to her cousin unless she was obliged to, and Helen did not see that
+forcing her attentions upon the other girl would do any good.
+
+"Why, here you are, Helen Morrell! Why don't I ever see you when I come
+here?" cried the caller, shaking Helen by both hands and smiling upon her
+heartily from her superior height. "When are your cousins going to bring
+you to call upon me?"
+
+Helen might have replied, truthfully, "Never;" but she only shook her head
+and smilingly declared: "I hope to see you again soon, Miss Van Ramsden."
+
+"Well, I guess you must!" cried the caller. "I want to hear some more of
+your experiences," and she went on to meet the scowling Belle at the door
+of the reception parlor.
+
+Later her eldest cousin said to the Western girl:
+
+"In going up and down to your room, Miss, I want you to remember that
+there is a back stairway. Use the servants' stairs, if you please!"
+
+Helen made no reply. She wasn't breaking much of the ice between her and
+Belle Starkweather, that was sure. And to add to Belle's dislike for her
+cousin, there was another happening in which Miss Van Ramsden was
+concerned, soon after this.
+
+Hortense was still abed, for the weather remained unpleasant--and there
+really was nothing else for the languid cousin to do. Miss Van Ramsden
+found Belle out, and she went upstairs to say "how-do" to the invalid.
+Helen was in the room making the spoiled girl more comfortable, and Miss
+Van Ramsden drew the younger girl out into the hall when she left.
+
+"I really have come to see _you_, child," she said to Helen, frankly. "I
+was telling papa about you and he said he would dearly love to meet Prince
+Morrell's daughter. Papa went to college with your father, my dear."
+
+Helen was glad of this, and yet she flushed a little. She was quite frank,
+however: "Does--does your father know about poor dad's trouble?" she
+whispered.
+
+"He does. And he always believed Mr. Morrell not guilty. Father was one of
+the firm's creditors, and he has always wished your father had come to him
+instead of leaving the city so long ago."
+
+"Then he's been paid?" cried Helen, eagerly.
+
+"Certainly. It is a secret, I believe--father warned me not to speak of it
+unless you did; but everybody was paid by your father after a time. _That_
+did not look as though he were dishonest. His partner took advantage of
+the bankruptcy courts."
+
+"Of--of course your father has no idea who _was_ guilty?" whispered Helen,
+anxiously.
+
+"None at all," replied Miss Van Ramsden. "It was a mystery then and
+remains so to this day. That bookkeeper was a peculiar man, but had a good
+record; and it seems that he left the city before the checks were cashed.
+Or, so the evidence seemed to prove.
+
+"Now, don't cry, my dear! Come! I wish we could help you clear up that old
+trouble. But many of your father's old friends--like papa--never believed
+Prince Morrell guilty."
+
+Helen was crying by this time. The kindness of this older girl broke down
+her self-possession. They heard somebody coming up the stairs, and Miss
+Van Ramsden said, quickly:
+
+"Take me to your room, dear. We can talk there."
+
+Helen never thought that she might be giving the Starkweather family
+deadly offence by doing this. She led Miss Van Ramsden immediately to the
+rear of the house and up the back stairway to the attic floor. The caller
+looked somewhat amazed when Helen ushered her into the room.
+
+"Well, they could not have put you much nearer the sky; could they?" she
+said, laughing, yet eyeing Helen askance.
+
+"Oh, I don't mind it up here," returned Helen, truthfully enough. "And I
+have some company on this floor."
+
+"Ahem! The maids, I suppose?" said May Van Ramsden.
+
+"No, no," Helen assured her, eagerly. "The dearest little old lady you
+ever saw."
+
+Then she stopped and looked at her caller in some distress. For the moment
+she had forgotten that she was probably on the way to reveal the
+Starkweather family skeleton!
+
+"A little old lady? Who can _that_ be?" cried the caller. "You interest
+me."
+
+"I--I--Well, it is an old lady who was once nurse in the family and I
+believe Uncle Starkweather cares for her----"
+
+"It's never Nurse Boyle?" cried Miss Van Ramsden, suddenly starting up.
+"Why! I remember about her. But somehow, I thought she had died years ago.
+Why, as a child I used to visit her at the house, and she used to like to
+have me come to see her. That was before your cousins lived here, Helen.
+Then I went to Europe for several years and when we returned the house had
+all been done over, your uncle's family was here, and I think--I am not
+sure--somebody told me dear old Mary Boyle was dead."
+
+"No," observed Helen, thoughtfully. "She is not dead. She is only
+forgotten."
+
+Miss Van Ramsden looked at the Western girl for some moments in silence.
+She seemed to understand the whole matter without a word of further
+explanation.
+
+"Would you mind letting me see Mary Boyle while I am here?" she asked,
+gravely. "She was a very lovely old soul, and all the families
+hereabout--I have heard my mother often say--quite envied the
+Starkweathers their possession of such a treasure."
+
+"Certainly we can go in and see her," declared Helen, throwing all
+discretion to the winds. "I was going to read to her this afternoon,
+anyway. Come along!"
+
+She led the caller through the hall to Mary Boyle's little suite of rooms.
+To herself Helen said:
+
+"Let the wild winds of disaster blow! Whew! If the family hears of this I
+don't know but they will want to have me arrested--or worse! But what can
+I do? And then--Mary Boyle deserves better treatment at their hands."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+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?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+MY LADY BOUNTIFUL
+
+
+That was a wonderful breakfast at the Casino. Not that Helen ever
+remembered much about what she ate, although Dud had ordered choice fruit
+and heartier food that would have tempted the most jaded appetite instead
+of that of a healthy girl who had been riding horseback for two hours and
+a half.
+
+But, it was so heartening to be with people at the table who "talked one's
+own language." The Stones and Helen chattered like a trio of young crows.
+Dud threatened to chloroform his sister so that he and Helen could get in
+a word or two during Jess's lapse into unconsciousness; but finally _that_
+did not become necessary because of the talkative girl's interest in a
+story that Helen related.
+
+They had discussed many other topics before this subject was broached. And
+it was the real reason for Helen's coming East to visit the Starkweathers.
+"Dud" was "in the way of being a lawyer," as he had previously told her,
+and Helen had come to realize that it was a lawyer's advice she needed
+more than anything else.
+
+"Now, Jess, will you keep still long enough for me to listen to the story
+of my very first client?" demanded Dud, sternly, of his sister.
+
+"Oh, I'll stuff the napkin into my mouth! You can gag me! Your very first
+client, Dud! And it's so interesting."
+
+"It is customary for clients to pay over a retainer; isn't it?" queried
+Helen, her eyes dancing. "How much shall it be, Mr. Lawyer?" and she
+opened her purse.
+
+There was the glint of a gold piece at the bottom of the bag. Dud flushed
+and reached out his hand for it.
+
+"That five dollars, Miss Helen. Thank you. I shall never spend this coin,"
+declared Dud, earnestly. "And I shall take it to a jeweler's and have it
+properly engraved."
+
+"What will you have put on it?" asked Helen, laughing.
+
+He looked at her from under level brows, smiling yet quite serious.
+
+"I shall have engraved on it 'Snuggy, to Dud'--if I may?" he said.
+
+But Helen shook her head and although she still smiled, she said:
+
+"You'd better wait a bit, Mr. Lawyer, and see if your advice brings about
+any happy conclusion of my trouble. But you can keep the gold piece, just
+the same, to remember me by."
+
+"As though I needed _that_ reminder!" he cried.
+
+Jess removed the corner of the napkin from between her pretty teeth. "Get
+busy, do!" she cried. "I'm dying to hear about this strange affair you say
+you have come East to straighten out, Helen."
+
+So the girl from Sunset Ranch told all her story. Everything her father
+had said to her upon the topic before his death, and all she suspected
+about Fenwick Grimes and Allen Chesterton--even to the attitude Uncle
+Starkweather took in the matter--she placed before Dud Stone.
+
+He gave it grave attention. Helen was not afraid to talk plainly to him,
+and she held nothing back. But at the best, her story was somewhat
+disconnected and incomplete. She possessed very few details of the crime
+which had been committed. Mr. Morrell himself had been very hazy in his
+statements regarding the affair.
+
+"What we want first," declared Dud, impressively, "is to get the _facts_.
+Of course, at the time, the trouble must have made some stir. It got into
+the newspapers."
+
+"Oh, dear, yes," said Helen. "And that is what Uncle Starkweather is
+afraid of. He fears it will get into the papers again if I make any stir
+about it, and then there will be a scandal."
+
+"With his name connected with it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He's dreadfully timid for his own good name; isn't he?" remarked Dud,
+sarcastically. "Well, first of all, I'll get the date of the occurrence
+and then search the files of all the city papers. The reporters usually
+get such matters pretty straight. To misstate such business troubles is
+skating on the thin ice of libel, and newspapers are careful.
+
+"Well, when we have all the facts before us--what people surmised, even,
+and how it looked to 'the man on the street,' as the saying is--then we'll
+know better how to go ahead.
+
+"Are you willing to leave the matter to me, Helen?"
+
+"What did I give you a retainer for?" demanded the girl from Sunset Ranch,
+smiling.
+
+"True," he replied, his own eyes dancing; "but there is a saying among
+lawyers that the feminine client does not really come to a lawyer for
+advice; rather, she pays him to listen to her talk."
+
+"Isn't that horrid of him?" cried Jess, unable to keep still any longer.
+"As though we girls talked any more than the men do. I should say not!"
+
+But Helen agreed to let Dud govern her future course in trying to untangle
+the web of circumstance that had driven her father out of New York years
+before. As Dud said, somebody was guilty, and that somebody was the person
+they must find.
+
+It encouraged Helen mightily to have someone talk this way about the
+matter. A solution of the problem seemed so imminent after she parted from
+the fledgling lawyer and his sister, that Helen determined to hasten to
+their conclusion certain plans she had made, before she returned to the
+West.
+
+For Helen could not remain here. Her uncle's home was not the refined
+household that dear dad had thought, in which she would be sheltered and
+aided in improving herself.
+
+"I might as well take board at the Zoo and live in the bear's den,"
+declared Helen, perhaps a little harsh in her criticism. "There are no
+civilizing influences in _that_ house. I'd never get a particle of
+'culture' there. I'd rather associate with Sing, and Jo-Rab, and the boys,
+and Hen Billings."
+
+Her experience in the great city had satisfied Helen that its life was not
+for her. Some things she had learned, it was true; but most of them were
+unpleasant things.
+
+"I'd rather hire some lady to come out to Sunset and live with me and
+teach me how to act gracefully in society, and all that. There are a lot
+of 'poor, but proud' people who would be glad of the chance, I know."
+
+But on this day--after she had left her riding habit at a tailor's to be
+brushed and pressed, and had made arrangements to make her changes there
+whenever she wished to ride in the morning--on this day Helen had
+something else to do beside thinking of her proper introduction to
+society. This was the first day it had been fit for her to go downtown
+since she and Sadie Goronsky had had their adventure with the old man whom
+Sadie called "Lurcher," but whom Fenwick Grimes had called "Jones."
+
+Helen was deeply interested in the old man's case, and if he could be
+helped in any proper way, she wanted to do it. Also, there was Sadie
+herself. Helen believed that the Russian girl, with her business ability
+and racial sharpness, could help herself and her family much more than she
+now was doing, if she had the right kind of a chance.
+
+"And I am going to give her the chance," Helen told herself, delightedly.
+"She has been, as unselfish and kind to me--a stranger to her and her
+people--as she could be. I am determined that Sadie Goronsky and her
+family shall always be glad that Sadie was kind to the 'greenie' who
+hunted for Uncle Starkweather's house on Madison Street instead of Madison
+Avenue."
+
+After luncheon at the Starkweathers' Helen started downtown with plenty of
+money in her purse. She rode to Madison Street and was but a few minutes
+in reaching the Finkelstein store. To her surprise the front of the
+building was covered with big signs reading "Bankrupt Sale! Prices Cut in
+Half!"
+
+Sadie was not in sight. Indeed, the store was full of excited people
+hauling over old Jacob Finkelstein's stock of goods, and no "puller-in"
+was needed to draw a crowd. The salespeople seemed to have their hands
+full.
+
+Not seeing Sadie anywhere, Helen ventured to mount to the Goronsky flat.
+Mrs. Goronsky opened the door, recognized her visitor, and in shrill
+Yiddish and broken English bade her welcome.
+
+"You gome py mein house to see mein Sarah? Sure! Gome in! Gome in! Sarah
+iss home to-day."
+
+"Why, see who's here!" exclaimed Sadie, appearing with a partly-completed
+hat, of the very newest style, in her hand. "I thought the wet weather had
+drowned you out."
+
+"It kept me in," said Helen, "for I had nothing fit to wear out in the
+rain."
+
+"Well, business was so poor that Jacob had to fail. And that always gives
+me a few days' rest. I'm glad to get 'em, believe me!"
+
+"Why--why, can a man fail more than once?" gasped Helen.
+
+"He can in the clothing business," responded Sadie, laughing, and leading
+the way into the tiny parlor. "I bet there was a crowd in there when you
+come by?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," agreed Helen.
+
+"Sure! he'll get rid of all the 'stickers' he's got it in the shop, and
+when we open again next week for ordinary business, everything will be
+fresh and new."
+
+"Oh, then, you're really not out of a job?" asked Helen, relieved for her
+friend's sake.
+
+"No. I'm all right. And you?"
+
+"I came down particularly to see about that poor old man's spectacles,"
+Helen said.
+
+"Then you didn't forget about him?"
+
+"No, indeed. Did you see him? Has he got the prescription? Is it right
+about his eyes being the trouble?"
+
+"Sure that's what the matter is. And he's dreadful poor, Helen. If he
+could see better he might find some work. He wore his eyes out, he told
+me, by writing in books. That's a business!"
+
+"Then he has the prescription."
+
+"Sure. I seen it. He's always hoping he'd get enough money to have the
+glasses. That's all he needs, the doctor told him. But they cost fourteen
+dollars."
+
+"He shall have them!" declared Helen.
+
+"You don't mean it, Helen?" cried the Russian girl. "You haven't got that
+much money for him?"
+
+"Yes, I have. Will you go around there with me? We'll get the prescription
+and have it filled."
+
+"Wait a bit," said Sadie. "I want to finish this hat. And lemme tell
+you--it's right in style. What do you think?"
+
+"How wonderfully clever you are!" cried the Western girl. "It looks as
+though it had just come out of a shop."
+
+"Sure it does. I could work in a hat shop. Only they wouldn't pay me
+anything at first, and they wouldn't let me trim. But I know a girl that
+ain't a year older nor me what gets sixteen dollars a week trimming in a
+millinery store on Grand Street. O' course, she ain't the _madame_; she's
+only assistant. But sixteen dollars is a good bunch of money to bring home
+on a Saturday night--believe me!"
+
+"Is that what you'd like to do--keep a millinery shop?" asked Helen.
+
+"Wouldn't I--just?" gasped Sadie. "Why, Helen--I dream about it nights!"
+
+Helen became suddenly interested. "Would a little shop pay, Sadie? Could
+you earn your living in a little shop of your own--say, right around here
+somewhere?"
+
+"Huh! I've had me eye on a place for months. But it ain't no use. You got
+to put up for the rent, and the wholesalers ain't goin' to let a girl like
+me have stock on credit. And there's the fixtures--Aw, well, what's the
+use? It's only a dream."
+
+Helen was determined it should not remain "only a dream." But she said
+nothing further.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE HAT SHOP
+
+
+"Them folks you're living with must have had a change of heart, Helen,"
+said Sadie Goronsky, as the two girls sallied forth--Sadie with her new
+hat set jauntily on her sleek head.
+
+"Why do you say that?"
+
+"If they are willing to spend fourteen dollars on old Lurcher's eyes."
+
+"Oh, it isn't a member of my uncle's family who is furnishing the money
+for this charity," Helen replied. Sadie asked no further questions,
+fortunately.
+
+It was a very miserable house in which the old man lodged. Helen's heart
+ached as she beheld the poverty and misery so evident all about her.
+"Lurcher" lived on the top floor at the back--a squalid, badly-lighted
+room--and alone.
+
+"But a man with eyes as bad as mine don't really need light, you see,
+young ladies," he whispered, when Sadie had ushered herself and Helen into
+the room.
+
+He had tried to keep it neat; but his housekeeping arrangements were most
+primitive, and cold as the weather had now become, he had no stove save a
+one-wick oil stove on which he cooked his meals--such as they were.
+
+"You see," Sadie told him, "this is my friend, Helen, and she seen you the
+other day when you--you lost that dollar, you know."
+
+"Ah, yes, wonderful bright eyes you have, Miss, to find a dollar in the
+street."
+
+"Ain't they?" cried Sadie, grinning broadly at Helen. "Chee, it ain't
+everybody that can pick up money in the streets of New York--though we all
+believed we could before we come over here from Russia. Sure!"
+
+"You see," said Helen, softly, "I had seen you before, Mr.--er--Lurcher. I
+saw you over on the West Side that morning."
+
+"You saw me over there?" asked the old man, yet still in a very low
+voice--a sort of a faded-out voice--and he seemed not a little startled.
+"You saw me over there, Miss? _Where_ did you see me?"
+
+"On--on Bleecker Street," responded Helen, which was quite true. She saw
+that the man evidently did not wish his visit to Fenwick Grimes to be
+known. Perhaps he had some unpleasant connection with the money-lender.
+
+"Yes, yes!" said Lurcher, with relief. "I--I come through there
+frequently. But I have such difficulty in seeing my way about, that I
+follow a beaten path--yes! a beaten path."
+
+Helen was very curious about the old man's acquaintance with Fenwick
+Grimes. The more she thought over her own interview with the money-lender
+and mine-owner, the deeper became her suspicion that her father's one-time
+partner was an untrustworthy man.
+
+Anybody who seemed to know him better than _she_ did, naturally interested
+Helen. Dud Stone had promised to find out all about Grimes, and Helen knew
+that she would wait impatiently for his report.
+
+But she was interested in Lurcher for his own miserable sake, too. He had
+lived by himself in this wretched lodging for years. How he lived he did
+not say; but it was evident that his income was both infinitesimal and
+uncertain.
+
+Nevertheless, he was not a mean-looking man, nor were his garments
+unclean. They _were_ ragged. He admitted, apologetically, that he could
+not see to use a needle and so "had sort o' got run down."
+
+"I'll come some day soon and mend you up," promised Helen, when the old
+man gave her the prescription he had received from the oculist at the Eye
+and Ear Hospital. "And you shall have these glasses just as soon as the
+lenses can be ground."
+
+"God bless you, Miss!" said the old man, simply.
+
+He had a quiet, "listening" face, and seldom spoke above a whisper. He was
+more the shadow of a man than the substance.
+
+"Ain't that a terrible end to look forward to, Helen?" remarked Sadie,
+seriously, as they descended the stairs to the street. "He ain't got no
+friends, and no family, and no way to make a decent livin'. They wouldn't
+have the likes of him around in offices, writin' in books."
+
+"Oh, you mean he is a bookkeeper?" cried Helen.
+
+"Sure, I do. That's a business! My papa is going to be in business for
+himself again. And so will I--you see! That's the only way to get on, and
+lay up something for your old age. Work for yourself----"
+
+"In a millinery store; eh?" suggested Helen, smiling.
+
+"That's right!" declared Sadie, boldly.
+
+"Where is the little store you spoke of? Do you suppose you can ever get
+it, Sadie?"
+
+"Don't! You make me feel bad here," said Sadie, with her hand on her
+heart. "Say! I just _ache_ to try what I can do makin' lids for the East
+Side Four Hundred. The wholesale houses let youse come there and work when
+they're makin' up the season's pattern hats, and then you can get all the
+new wrinkles. Oh, I wish I was goin' to start next season in me own store
+instead of pullin' greenies into Papa Yawcob's suit shop," and the East
+Side girl sighed dolefully.
+
+"Let's go see the shop you want," suggested Helen.
+
+"Oh, dear! It don't do no good," said Sadie. "But I often go out of my way
+to take a peek at it."
+
+They went a little farther uptown and Helen was shown the tiny little
+store which Sadie had picked out as just the situation for a millinery
+shop.
+
+"Ye see, there's other stores all around; but no millinery. Women come
+here to buy other things, and if I had that little winder full of tasty
+hats--Chee! wouldn't it pull 'em in?"
+
+They stood there some minutes, while the young East Side girl, so wise in
+the ways of earning a living, so sharp of apprehension in most things,
+told her whole heart to the girl who had never had to worry about money
+matters at all--told it with no suspicion that My Lady Bountiful stood by
+her side.
+
+She pointed out to Helen just where she would have her little counter, and
+the glass-fronted wall cases for the trimmed hats, and the deep drawers
+for "shapes," and the little case in which to show the flowers and
+buckles, and the chair and table and mirror for the particular customers
+to sit at while they were being fitted.
+
+"And I'd take that hunchback girl--Rosie Seldt--away from the millinery
+store on my block--she _hates_ to work on the sidewalk the way they make
+her--she could help me lots. Rosie is a smart girl with some ideas of her
+own. And I'd curtain off the end of the store down there for a workroom,
+and for stock--Chee, but I'd make this place look swell!"
+
+Helen, who had noted the name and address of the rental agent on the card
+in the window, cut her visit with Sadie short, so afraid was she that she
+would be tempted to tell her friend of the good fortune that was going to
+overtake her. For the girl from Sunset Ranch knew just what she was going
+to do.
+
+Dud Stone had given her the address of the law firm where he was to be
+found, and the very next morning she went to the offices of Larribee &
+Polk and saw Dud. In his hands she put a sum of money and told him what
+she wished done. But when Dud learned that the girl had the better part of
+eight hundred dollars in cash with her, he took her to a bank and made her
+open an account at once.
+
+"Where do you think you are--still in the wild and woolly West where
+pretty near everybody you meet is honest?" demanded Dud. "You ought to be
+shaken! That money here in the big city is a temptation to half the people
+you pass on the street. Suppose one of the servants at your uncle's house
+should see it? You have no right to put temptation in people's way."
+
+Helen accepted his scolding meekly as long as he did not refuse to carry
+out her plan for Sadie Goronsky. When Dud heard the full particulars of
+the Western girl's acquaintanceship with Sadie, he had no criticism to
+offer. That very day Dud engaged the store, paid three months' rent, and
+bought the furnishings. Sadie was not to be told until the store was ready
+for occupancy. There was still time enough. Helen knew that the millinery
+season did not open until February.
+
+Meanwhile, although Helen's goings and comings were quite ignored by Uncle
+Starkweather and the girls, some incidents connected with Helen Morrell
+had begun to stir to its depth the fountain of the family's wrath against
+the girl from Sunset Ranch.
+
+Twice May Van Ramsden had come to call on Helen. Once she had brought Ruth
+and Mercy De Vorne with her. And on each occasion she had demanded that
+Gregson take their cards to Helen.
+
+Gregson had taken the cards up one flight and then had sent on the cards
+by Maggie to Helen's room. Gregson said below stairs that he would "give
+notice" if he were obliged to take cards to anybody who roomed in the
+attic.
+
+May and her friends trooped up the stairs in the wake of their cards,
+however--for so it had been arranged with Helen, who expected them on both
+occasions.
+
+The anger of the Starkweather family would have been greater had they
+known that these calls of their own most treasured social acquaintances
+were really upon the little old lady who had been shut away into the front
+attic suite, and whose existence even was not known to some of the
+servants in the Starkweather mansion.
+
+May, as she had promised, was bringing, one or two at a time, her friends
+who, as children when Cornelius Starkweather was alive, had haunted this
+old house because they loved old Mary Boyle. And May was proving, too, to
+the Western girl, that all New York people of wealth were neither
+heartless or ungrateful. Yet the crime of forgetfulness these young women
+must plead to.
+
+The visits delighted Mary Boyle. Helen knew that she slept better--after
+these little excitements of the calls--and did not go pattering up and
+down the halls with her crutch in the dead of night.
+
+So the days passed, each one bringing so much of interest into the life of
+Helen Morrell that she forgot to be lonely, or to bewail her lot. She was
+still homesick for the ranch--when she stopped to think about it. But she
+was willing to wait a while longer before she flitted homeward to Big Hen
+and the boys.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE MISSING LINK
+
+
+Helen met Dud Stone and his sister on the bridle-path one morning by
+particular invitation. The message had come to the house for her late the
+evening before and had been put into the trusty hand of old Lawdor, the
+butler. Dud had learned the particulars of the old embezzlement charge
+against Prince Morrell.
+
+"I've got here in typewriting the reports from three papers--everything
+they had to say about it for the several weeks that it was kept alive as a
+news story. It was not so great a crime that the metropolitan papers were
+likely to give much space to it," Dud said.
+
+"You can read over the reports at your leisure, if you like. But the main
+points for us to know are these:
+
+"In the two banks were, in the names of Morrell & Grimes, something over
+thirty-three thousand dollars. Either partner could draw the money. The
+missing bookkeeper could _not_ draw the money.
+
+"The checks came to the banks in the course of the day's business, and
+neither teller could swear that he actually remembered giving the money to
+Mr. Morrell; yet because the checks were signed in his name, and
+apparently in his handwriting, they both 'thought' it must have been Mr.
+Morrell who presented the checks.
+
+"Now, mind you, Fenwick Grimes had gone off on a business trip of some
+duration, and Allen Chesterton had disappeared several days before the
+checks were drawn and the money removed from the banks.
+
+"It was hinted by one ingenious police reporter that the bookkeeper was
+really the guilty man. He even raked up some story of the man at his
+lodgings which intimated that Chesterton had some art as an actor. Parts
+of disguises were found abandoned at his empty rooms. This suggestion was
+made: That Chesterton was a forger and had disguised himself as Mr.
+Morrell so as to cash the checks without question. Then Fenwick Grimes
+returned and discovered that the bank balances were gone.
+
+"At first your father was no more suspected than was Grimes himself. Then,
+one paper printed an article intimating that your father, the senior
+partner of the firm, might be the criminal. You see, the bank tellers had
+been interviewed. Before that the suggestion that by any possibility Mr.
+Morrell was guilty had been scouted. But the next day it was learned your
+father and mother had gone away. Immediately the bookkeeper was forgotten
+and the papers all seemed to agree that Prince Morrell had really stolen
+the money.
+
+"Oddly enough the creditors made little trouble at first. Your Uncle
+Starkweather was mentioned as having been a silent partner in the concern
+and having lost heavily himself----"
+
+"Poor dad was able to pay Uncle Starkweather first of all--years and years
+ago," interposed Helen.
+
+"Ah! and Grimes? Do you know if he made any claim on your father at any
+time?"
+
+"I think not. You see, he was freed of all debt almost at once through
+bankruptcy. Mr. Grimes really had a very small financial interest in the
+firm. Dad said he was more like a confidential clerk. Both he and Uncle
+Starkweather considered Grimes a very good asset to the firm, although he
+had no money to put into it. That is the way it was told to me."
+
+"And very probable. This Grimes is notoriously sharp," said Dud,
+reflectively. "And right after he went through bankruptcy he began to do
+business as a money-lender. Supposedly he lent other people's money; but
+he is now worth a million, or more. Question is: Where did he get his
+start in business after the robbery and the failure of Grimes & Morrell?"
+
+"Oh, Dud!"
+
+"Don't you suspect him, too?" demanded the young man.
+
+"I--I am prejudiced, I fear."
+
+"So am I," agreed Dud, with a grim chuckle. "I'm going after that man
+Grimes. It's funny he should go into business with a mysterious capital
+right after the old firm was closed out, when before that he had had no
+money to invest in the firm of which he was a member."
+
+"I feared as much," sighed Helen. "And he was so eager to throw suspicion
+on the lost bookkeeper, just to satisfy my curiosity and put me off the
+track. He's as bad as Uncle Starkweather. _He_ doesn't want me to go ahead
+because of the possible scandal, and Mr. Grimes is afraid for his own
+sake, I very much fear. What a wicked man he must be!"
+
+"Possibly," said Dud, eyeing the girl sharply. "Have you told me all your
+uncle has said to you about the affair?"
+
+"I think so, Dud. Why?"
+
+"Well, nothing much. Only, in hunting through the files of the newspapers
+for articles about the troubles of Grimes & Morrell I came across the
+statement that Mr. Starkweather was in financial difficulties about the
+same time. _He_ settled with his creditors for forty cents on the dollar.
+This was before your uncle came into _his_ uncle's fortune, of course, and
+went to live on Madison Avenue."
+
+"Well--is that significant?" asked the girl, puzzled.
+
+"I don't know that it is. But there is something you mentioned just now
+that _is_ of importance."
+
+"What is that, Dud?"
+
+"Why, the bookkeeper--Allen Chesterton. He's the missing link. If we could
+get him I believe the truth would easily be learned. In one newspaper
+story of the Grimes & Morrell trouble, it was said that Grimes and
+Chesterton had been close friends at one time--had roomed together in the
+very house from which the bookkeeper seemed to have fled a couple of days
+before the embezzlement was discovered."
+
+"Would detectives be able to pick up any clue to the missing man--and
+missing link?" asked Helen, thoughtfully.
+
+"It's a cold trail," Dud observed, shaking his head.
+
+"I don't mind spending some money. I can send to Big Hen for more----"
+
+"Of course you can. I don't believe you realize how rich you are, Helen."
+
+"I--I never had to think about it."
+
+"No. But about hiring a detective. I hate to waste money. Wait a few days
+and see if I can get on the blind side of Mr. Grimes in some way."
+
+So the matter rested; but it was Helen herself who made the first
+discovery which seemed to point to a weak place in Fenwick Grimes's
+armor.
+
+Helen had been once to the poor lodging of Mr. Lurcher to "mend him up";
+for she was a good little needlewoman and she knew she could make the old
+fellow look neater. He had got his glasses, and at first could only wear
+them a part of the day. The doctor at the hospital gave him an ointment
+for his eyelids, too, and he was on a fair road to recovery.
+
+"I can cobble shoes pretty good, Miss," he said. "And there is work to be
+had at that industry in several shops in the neighborhood. Once I was a
+clerk; but all that is past, of course."
+
+Helen did not propose to let the old fellow suffer; but just yet she did
+not wish to do anything further for him, or Sadie might suspect that her
+friend, Helen, was something different from the poor girl Sadie thought
+she was.
+
+After the above interview with Dud, Helen went downtown to see Sadie
+again; and she ran around the corner to spend a few minutes with Mr.
+Lurcher. As she went up the stairs she passed a man coming down. It was
+dark, and she could not see the person clearly. Yet Helen realized that
+the individual eyed her sharply, and even stopped and came part way up the
+stairs again to see where she went.
+
+When she came down to the street again she was startled by almost running
+into Mr. Grimes, who was passing the house.
+
+"What! what! what!" he snapped, staring at her. "What brings you down in
+_this_ neighborhood? A nice place for Mr. Willets Starkweather's niece to
+be seen in. I warrant he doesn't know where you are?"
+
+"You are quite right, Mr. Grimes," Helen returned, quietly.
+
+"What are you doing here?" asked Grimes, rather rudely.
+
+"Visiting friends," replied Helen, without further explanation.
+
+"You're still trying to rake up that old trouble of your father's?"
+demanded Grimes, scowling.
+
+"Not down here," returned Helen, with a quiet smile. "That is sure. But I
+_am_ doing what I can to learn all the particulars of the affair. Mr. Van
+Ramsden was a creditor and father's friend, and his daughter tells me that
+_he_ will do all in his power to help me."
+
+"Ha! Van Ramsden! Well, it's little you'll ever find out through _him_.
+Well! you'd much better have let me do as I suggested and cleared up the
+whole story in the newspapers," growled Grimes. "Now, now! Where's that
+clerk of mine, I wonder? He was to meet me here."
+
+And he went muttering along the walk; but Helen stood still and gazed
+after him in some bewilderment. For it dawned on the girl that the man who
+had passed her as she went up to see old Mr. Lurcher, or "Jones," was
+Leggett, Fenwick Grimes's confidential man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+THEIR EYES ARE OPENED
+
+
+As her cousins were not at all interested in what became of Helen during
+the day, neither was Helen interested in how the three Starkweather girls
+occupied their time. But on this particular afternoon, while Helen was
+visiting Lurcher, and chatting with Sadie Goronsky on the sidewalk in
+front of the Finkelstein shop, she would have been deeply interested in
+what interested the Starkweather girls.
+
+All three chanced to be in the drawing-room when Gregson came past the
+door in his stiffest manner, holding the tray with a single card on it.
+
+"Who is it, Gregson?" asked Belle. "I heard the bell ring. Somebody to see
+me?"
+
+"No, mem, it his not," declared the footman.
+
+"Me?" said Hortense, holding out her hand. "Who is it, I wonder?"
+
+"Nor is hit for you, mem," repeated Gregson.
+
+"It can't be for _me_?" cried Flossie.
+
+But before the footman could speak again, Belle rose majestically and
+crossed the room.
+
+"I believe I know what it is," she said, angrily. "And it is going to
+stop. You were going to take the card upstairs, Gregson?"
+
+"No, mem!" said Gregson, somewhat heated. "Hi do not carry cards above the
+second floor."
+
+"It's somebody to see Helen!" cried Flossie, clapping her hands softly and
+enjoying her older sister's rage.
+
+"Give it to me!" exclaimed Belle, snatching the card from the tray. She
+turned toward her sisters to read it. But when her eye lit upon the name
+she was for the moment surprised out of speech.
+
+"Goodness me! who is it?" gasped Hortense.
+
+"Jessie Stone--'Miss Jessie Dolliver Stone.' Goodness me!" whispered
+Belle.
+
+"Not the Stones of Riverside Drive--_the_ Stones?" from Hortense.
+
+"Dud Stone's sister?" exclaimed Flossie.
+
+"And Dud Stone is the very nicest boy I ever met," quoth Hortense,
+clasping her hands.
+
+"I know Miss Jessie. Jess, they all call her. I saw her on the Westchester
+Links only last week and she never said a word about this."
+
+"About coming to see Helen--it isn't possible!" cried Hortense. "Gregson,
+you have made a mistake."
+
+"Hi beg your pardon--no, mem. She asked for Miss Helen. I left 'er in the
+reception parlor, mem----"
+
+"She thinks one of us is named Helen!" cried Belle, suddenly. "Show her
+up, Gregson."
+
+Gregson might have told her different; but he saw it would only involve
+him in more explanation; therefore he turned on his heel and in his usual
+stately manner went to lead Dud Stone's sister into the presence of the
+three excited girls.
+
+Jessie by no means understood the situation at the Starkweather house
+between Helen and her cousins. It had never entered Miss Stone's head, in
+fact, that anybody could be unkind to, or dislike, "such a nice little
+thing as Helen Morrell."
+
+So she greeted the Starkweather girls in her very frankest manner.
+
+"I really am delighted to see you again, Miss Starkweather," Jess said,
+being met by Belle at the door. "And are these your sisters? I'm charmed,
+I am sure."
+
+Hortense and Flossie were introduced. The girls sat down.
+
+"You don't mean to say Helen isn't here?" demanded Jess. "I came
+particularly to invite her to dinner to-morrow night. We're going to have
+a little celebration and Dud and I are determined to have her with us."
+
+"Helen?" gasped Belle.
+
+"Not Helen Morrell?" demanded Hortense.
+
+"Why, yes--of course--your Cousin Helen. How funny! Of course she's here?
+She lives with you; doesn't she?"
+
+"Why--er--we have a--a distant relative of poor mamma's by that name,"
+said Belle, haughtily. "She--she came here quite unexpectedly--er quite
+uninvited, I may say. Pa is _so-o_ easy, you know; he won't send her
+away----"
+
+"Send her away! Send Helen Morrell away?" gasped Jess Stone. "Are--are we
+talking about the same girl, I wonder? Why, Helen is a most charming
+girl--and pretty as a picture. And brave no end!
+
+"Why, it was she who saved my brother's life when he was away out
+West----"
+
+"Mr. Stone never went to Montana?" cried Flossie. "He never met Helen at
+Sunset Ranch?"
+
+"Be still, Floss!" commanded Belle; but Miss Stone turned to answer the
+younger girl.
+
+"Of course. Dud stopped at the ranch some days, too. He had to, for he
+hurt his foot. That's when Helen saved his life. He was flung from the
+back of a horse over the edge of a cliff and fortunately landed in the top
+of a tree.
+
+"But the tree was very tall and he could not have gotten out of it safely
+with his wounded foot had not Helen ridden up to the brink of the
+precipice, thrown him a rope, and swung him out of the tree upon a ledge
+of rock. Then he worked his way down the side of the cliff while Helen
+caught his horse. But his foot hurt him so that he could never have got
+into the saddle alone; and Helen put him on her own pony and led the pony
+to the ranch house."
+
+"Bully for Helen!" ejaculated Flossie, under her breath. Even Hortense was
+flushed a bit over the story. But Belle could see nothing to admire in her
+cousin from the West, and she only said, harshly:
+
+"Very likely, Miss Stone. Helen seems to be a veritable hoyden. These
+ranch girls are so unfortunate in their bringing up and their environment.
+In the wilds I presume Helen may be passable; but she is quite, quite
+impossible here in the city----"
+
+"I don't know what you mean by being 'impossible,'" interrupted Jess
+Stone. "She is a lovely girl."
+
+"You haven't met her?" cried Belle. "It's only Mr. Stone's talk."
+
+"I certainly _have_ met her, Miss Starkweather. Certainly I know her--and
+know her well. Had I known when she was coming to New York I would have
+begged her to come to us. It is plain that her own relatives do not care
+much for Helen Morrell," said the very frank young lady.
+
+"Well--we--er----"
+
+"Why, Helen has been meeting me in the bridle-path almost every morning.
+And she rides wonderfully."
+
+"Riding in Central Park!" cried Hortense.
+
+"Why--why, the child has nothing decent to wear," declared Belle. "How
+could she get a riding habit--or hire a horse? I do not understand this,
+Miss Stone, but I can tell you right now, that Helen has nothing fit to
+wear to your dinner party. She came here a little pauper--with nothing fit
+to wear in her trunk. Pa _did_ find money enough for a new street dress
+and hat for her; but he did not feel that he could support in luxury every
+pauper who came here and claimed relationship with him."
+
+Miss Stone's mouth fairly hung open, and her eyes were as round as eyes
+could be, with wonder and surprise.
+
+"What is this you tell me?" she murmured. "Helen Morrell a pauper?"
+
+"I presume those people out there in Montana wanted to get the girl off
+their hands," said Belle, coldly, "and merely shipped her East, hoping
+that Pa would make provision for her. She has been a great source of
+annoyance to us, I do assure you."
+
+"A source of annoyance?" repeated the caller.
+
+"And why not? Without a rag decent to wear. With no money. Scarcely
+education enough to make herself intelligibly understood----"
+
+Flossie began to giggle. But Jessie Stone rose to her feet. This volatile,
+talkative girl could be very dignified when she was aroused.
+
+"You are speaking of _my_ friend, Helen Morrell," she interrupted Belle's
+flow of angry language, sternly. "Whether she is your cousin, or not, she
+is _my_ friend, and I will not listen to you talk about her in that way.
+Besides, you must be crazy if you believe your own words! Helen Morrell
+poor! Helen Morrell uneducated!
+
+"Why, Helen was four years in one of the best preparatory schools of the
+West--in Denver. Let me tell you that Denver is some city, too. And as for
+being poor and having nothing to wear--Why, whatever can you mean? She
+owns one of the few big ranches left in the West, with thousands upon
+thousands of cattle and horses upon it. And her father left her all that,
+and perhaps a quarter of a million in cash or investments beside."
+
+"Not Helen?" shrieked Belle, sitting down very suddenly.
+
+"Little Helen--_rich_?" murmured Hortense.
+
+"Does Helen really _own_ Sunset Ranch?" cried Flossie, eagerly.
+
+"She certainly does--every acre of it. Why, Dud knows all about her and
+all about her affairs. If you consider that girl poor and uneducated you
+have fooled yourselves nicely."
+
+"I'm glad of it! I'm glad of it!" exclaimed Flossie, clapping her hands
+and pirouetting about the room. "Serves you right, Belle! _I_ found out
+she knew a whole lot more than I did, long ago. She's been helping me with
+my lessons."
+
+"And she _is_ a nice little thing," joined in Hortense, "I don't care what
+you say to the contrary, Belle. She was the only one in this house that
+showed me any real sympathy when I was sick----"
+
+Belle only looked at her sisters, but could say nothing.
+
+"And if Helen hasn't anything fit to wear to your party to-morrow night, I
+will lend her something," declared Hortense.
+
+"You need not bother," said Jess, scornfully. "If Helen came in the
+plainest and most miserable frock to be found she would be welcome.
+Good-day to you, Miss Starkweather--and Miss Hortense--and Miss Flossie."
+
+She swept out of the room and did not even need the gorgeous Gregson to
+show her to the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE PARTY
+
+
+Helen chanced that evening to be entering the area door just as Mr.
+Starkweather himself was mounting the steps of the mansion. Her uncle
+recognized the girl and scowled over the balustrade at her.
+
+"Come to the den at once; I wish to speak to you Helen--Ahem!" he said in
+his most severe tones.
+
+"Yes, sir," responded the girl respectfully, and she passed up the back
+stairway while Mr. Starkweather went directly to his library. Therefore he
+did not chance to meet either of his daughters and so was not warned of
+what had occurred in the house that afternoon.
+
+"Helen," said Uncle Starkweather, viewing her with the same stern look
+when she approached his desk. "I must know how you have been using your
+time while outside of my house? Something has reached my ear which
+greatly--ahem!--displeases me."
+
+"Why--I--I----" The girl was really at a loss what to say. She did not
+know what he was driving at and she doubted the advisability of telling
+Uncle Starkweather everything that she had done while here in the city as
+his guest.
+
+"I was told this afternoon--not an hour ago--that you have been seen
+lurking about the most disreputable parts of the city. That you are a
+frequenter of low tenement houses; that you associate with foreigners and
+the most disgusting of beggars----"
+
+"I wish you would stop, Uncle," said Helen, quickly, her face flushing now
+and her eyes sparkling. "Sadie Goronsky is a nice girl, and her family is
+respectable. And poor old Mr. Lurcher is only unfortunate and half-blind.
+He will not harm me."
+
+"Beggars! Yiddish shoestring pedlars! A girl like you!
+Where--ahem!--_where_ did you ever get such low tastes, girl?"
+
+"Don't blame yourself, Uncle," said Helen, with some bitterness. "I
+certainly did not learn to be kind to poor people from _your_ example. And
+I am sure I have gained no harm from being with them once in a while--only
+good. To help them a little has helped me--I assure you!"
+
+But Mr. Starkweather listened not at all to this. "Where did you find
+these low companions?" he demanded.
+
+"I met Sadie the night I arrived here in the city. The taxicab driver
+carried me to Madison Street instead of Madison Avenue. Sadie was kind to
+me. As for old Mr. Lurcher, I saw him first in Mr. Grimes's office."
+
+Uncle Starkweather suddenly lost his color and fell back in his chair. For
+a moment or two he seemed unable to speak at all. Then he stammered:
+
+"In Fenwick Grimes's office?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What--what was this--ahem!--this beggar doing there?"
+
+"If he is a beggar, perhaps he was begging. At least, Mr. Grimes seemed
+very anxious to get rid of him, and gave him a dollar to go away."
+
+"And you followed him?" gasped Mr. Starkweather.
+
+"No. I went to see Sadie, and it seems Mr. Lurcher lives right in that
+neighborhood. I found he needed spectacles and was half-blind and I----"
+
+"Tell me nothing more about it! Nothing more about it!" commanded her
+uncle, holding up a warning hand. "I will not--ahem!--listen. This has
+gone too far. I gave you shelter--an act of charity, girl! And you have
+abused my confidence by consorting with low company, and spending your
+time in a mean part of the town."
+
+"You are wrong, sir. I have done nothing of the kind," said Helen, firmly,
+but growing angry herself, now. "My friends are decent people, and a poor
+part of the city does not necessarily mean a criminal part."
+
+"Hush! How dare you contradict me?" demanded her uncle. "You shall go
+home. You shall go back to the West at once! Ahem! At once. I could not
+assume the responsibility of your presence here in my house any longer."
+
+"Then I will find a position and support myself, Uncle Starkweather. I
+have told you I could do that before."
+
+"No, indeed!" exclaimed Mr. Starkweather, at once. "I will not allow it.
+You are not to be trusted in this city. I shall send you back to that
+place you came from--ahem!--Sunset Ranch, is it? That is the place for a
+girl like you."
+
+"But, Uncle----"
+
+"No more! I will listen to nothing else from you," he declared, harshly.
+"I shall purchase your ticket through to-morrow, and the next day you must
+go. Ahem! Remember that I _will_ be obeyed."
+
+Helen looked at him with tear-dimmed eyes for fully a minute. But he said
+no more and his stern countenance, as well as his unkind words and tone,
+repelled her. She put out her hand once, as though to speak, but he turned
+away, scornfully.
+
+It was her last attempt to soften him toward her. He might then, had he
+not been so selfish and haughty, have made his peace with the girl and
+saved himself much trouble and misery in the end. But he ignored her, and
+Helen, crying softly, left the room and stole up to her own place in the
+attic.
+
+She could not see anybody that evening, and so did not go down to dinner.
+Later, to her amazement, Maggie came to her door with a tray piled high
+with good things--a very elaborate repast, indeed. But Helen was too
+heartsick to eat much, although she did not refuse the attention--which
+she laid to the kindness of Lawdor, the butler.
+
+But for once she was mistaken. The tray of food did not come from Lawdor.
+Nor was it the outward semblance of anybody's kindness. The tray delivered
+at Helen's door was the first result of a great fright!
+
+At dinner the girls could not wait for their father to be seated before
+they began to tell him of the amazing thing that had been revealed to them
+that afternoon by Jessie Stone.
+
+"Where's Cousin Helen, Gregson?" asked Belle, before seating herself. "See
+that she is called. She may not have heard the gong."
+
+If Gregson's face could display surprise, it displayed it then.
+
+"Of course, dear Helen has returned; hasn't she?" added Hortense.
+
+"I'll go up myself and see if she's here," Flossie suggested.
+
+"Ahem!" said the surprised Mr. Starkweather.
+
+"I listened sharply for her, but I did not hear her pass my door," said
+Hortense.
+
+"I must ask her to come back to that spare room on the lower floor,"
+sighed Belle. "She is too far away from the rest of the family."
+
+"Girls!" gasped Mr. Starkweather, at length finding speech.
+
+"Oh, you needn't explode, Pa!" ejaculated Belle. "We are aware of
+something about Helen that changes the complexion of affairs entirely."
+
+"What does this mean?" demanded Mr. Starkweather, blankly. "Something
+about Helen?"
+
+"Yes, indeed, Pa," said Flossie, spiritedly. "Who do you suppose owns that
+Sunset Ranch she talks about?"
+
+"And who do you suppose is worth a quarter of a million dollars--more than
+_you_ are worth, Pa, I declare?" cried Hortense.
+
+"Girls!" exclaimed Belle. "That is very low. If we have made a mistake
+regarding Cousin Helen, of course it can be adjusted. But we need not be
+vulgar enough to say _why_ we change toward her."
+
+Mr. Starkweather thumped upon the table with the handle of his knife.
+
+"Girls!" he commanded. "I will have this explained. What do you mean?"
+
+Out it came then--in a torrent. Three girls can do a great deal of talking
+in a few minutes--especially if they all talk at once.
+
+But Mr. Starkweather got the gist of it. He understood what it all meant,
+and he realized what it meant to _him_, as well, better than his daughters
+could.
+
+Prince Morrell, whom he had always considered a bit of a fool, and
+therefore had not even inquired about after he left for the West, had died
+a rich man. He had left this only daughter, who was an heiress to great
+wealth. And he, Willets Starkweather, had allowed the chance of a lifetime
+to slip through his fingers!
+
+If he had only made inquiries about the girl and her circumstances! He
+might have done that when he learned that Mr. Morrell was dead. When Helen
+had told him her father wished her to be in the care of her mother's
+relatives, Mr. Starkweather could have then taken warning and learned the
+girl's true circumstances. He had not even accepted her confidences. Why,
+he might have been made the guardian of the girl, and handled all her
+fortune!
+
+These thoughts and a thousand others raced through the scheming brain of
+the man. Could he correct his fault at this late date? If he had only
+known of this that his daughters had learned from Jess Stone, before he
+had taken Helen to task as he had that very evening!
+
+Fenwick Grimes had telephoned to him at his office. Something Mr. Grimes
+had said--and he had not seen Mr. Grimes nor talked personally with him
+for years--had put Mr. Starkweather into a great fright. He had decided
+that the only safe place for Helen Morrell was back in the West--he
+supposed with the poor and ignorant people on the ranch where her father
+had worked.
+
+Where Prince Morrell had _worked_! Why, if Morrell had owned Sunset Ranch,
+Helen was one of the wealthiest heiresses in the whole Western country.
+Mr. Starkweather had asked a few questions about Sunset Ranch of men who
+knew. But, as the owner had never given himself any publicity, the name of
+Morrell was never connected with it.
+
+While the three girls chattered over the details of the story Mr.
+Starkweather merely played with his food, and sat staring into a corner of
+the room. He was trying to scheme his way out of the difficulty--the
+dangerous difficulty, indeed--in which he found himself.
+
+So, his first move was characteristic. He sent the tray upstairs to Helen.
+But none of the family saw Helen again that night.
+
+However, there was another caller. This was May Van Ramsden. She did not
+ask for Helen, however, but for Mr. Starkweather himself, and that
+gentleman came graciously into the room where May was sitting with the
+three much excited sisters.
+
+Belle and Hortense and Flossie were bubbling over with the desire to ask
+Miss Van Ramsden if _she_ knew that Helen was a rich girl and not a poor
+one. But there was no opportunity. The caller broached the reason for her
+visit at once, when she saw Mr. Starkweather.
+
+"We are going to ask a great favor of you, sir," she said, shaking hands.
+"And it does seem like a very great impudence on our part. But please
+remember that, as children, we were all very much attached to her. You
+see," pursued Miss Van Ramsden, "there are the De Vorne girls, and Jo and
+Nat Paisley, and Adeline Schenk, and some of the Blutcher boys and
+girls--although the younger ones were born in Europe--and Sue Livingstone,
+and Crayton Ballou. Oh! there really is a score or more."
+
+"Ahem!" said Mr. Starkweather, not only solemnly, but reverently. These
+were names he worshipped. He could have refused such young people
+nothing--nothing!--and would have told Miss Van Ramsden so had what she
+said next not stricken him dumb for the time.
+
+"You see, some of us have called on Nurse Boyle, and found her so bright
+and so delighted with our coming, that we want to give her a little
+tea-party to-morrow afternoon. It would be so delightful to have her greet
+the girls and boys who used to be such friends of hers in the time of Mr.
+Cornelius, right up there in those cunning rooms of hers.
+
+"We always used to see her in the nursery suite, and there are the same
+furniture, and hangings, and pictures, and all. And Nurse Boyle herself is
+just the same--only a bit older--Ah! girls!" she added, turning suddenly
+to the three sisters, "you don't know what it means to have been cared
+for, and rocked, and sung to, when you were ill, perhaps, by Mary Boyle!
+You missed a great deal in not having a Mary Boyle in your family."
+
+"_Mary Boyle!_" gasped Mr. Starkweather.
+
+"Yes. Can we all come to see her to-morrow afternoon? I am sure if you
+tell Mrs. Olstrom, your housekeeper will attend to all the arrangements.
+Helen knows about it, and she'll help pour the tea. Mary thinks there is
+nobody quite like Helen."
+
+These shocks were coming too fast for Mr. Starkweather. Had anything
+further occurred that evening to torment him it is doubtful if he would
+have got through it as gracefully as he did through this call. May Van
+Ramsden went away assured that no obstacle would be placed in the way of
+Mary Boyle's party in the attic. But neither Mr. Starkweather, nor his
+three daughters, could really look straight into each other's faces for
+the remainder of that evening. And they were all four remarkably silent,
+despite the exciting things that had so recently occurred to disturb
+them.
+
+In the morning Helen got an invitation from Jess Stone to dinner that
+evening. She said "come just as you are"; but she did not tell Helen that
+she had innocently betrayed her true condition to the Starkweathers. Helen
+wrote a long reply and sent it by special messenger through old Lawdor,
+the butler. Then she prepared for the tea in Mary Boyle's rooms.
+
+At breakfast time Helen met the family for the first time since the
+explosion. Self-consciousness troubled the countenances and likewise the
+manner of Mr. Starkweather and his three daughters.
+
+"Ahem! A very fine morning, Helen. Have you been out for your usual
+ramble, my dear?"
+
+"How-do, Helen? Hope you're feeling quite fit."
+
+"Dear me, Helen! How pretty your hair is, child. You must show me how you
+do it in that simple way."
+
+But Flossie was more honest. She only nodded to Helen at first. Then, when
+Gregson was out of the room, she jumped up, went around the table swiftly,
+and caught the Western girl about the neck.
+
+"Helen! I'm just as ashamed of myself as I can be!" she cried, her tears
+flowing copiously. "I treated you so mean all the time, and you have been
+so very, very decent about helping me in my lessons. Forgive me; will you?
+Oh, please say you will!"
+
+Helen kissed her warmly. "Nothing to forgive, Floss," she said, a little
+bruskly, perhaps. "Don't let's speak about it."
+
+She merely bowed and said a word in reply to the others. Nor could Mr.
+Starkweather's unctuous conversation arouse her interest.
+
+"You have a part in the very worthy effort to liven up old Nurse Boyle, I
+understand?" said Mr. Starkweather, graciously. "Is there anything needed
+that I can have sent in, Helen?"
+
+"Oh, no, sir. I am only helping Miss Van Ramsden," Helen replied,
+timidly.
+
+"I think May Van Ramsden should have told _me_ of her plans," said Belle,
+tossing her head.
+
+"Or, _me_," rejoined Hortense.
+
+"Pah!" snapped Flossie. "None of us ever cared a straw for the old woman.
+Queer old thing. I thought she was more than a little cracked."
+
+"Flossie!" ejaculated Mr. Starkweather, angrily, "unless you can speak
+with more respect for--ahem!--for a faithful old servitor of the
+Starkweather family, I shall have to--ahem!--ask you to leave the table."
+
+"You won't have to ask me--I'm going!" exclaimed Flossie, flirting out of
+her chair and picking up her books. "But I want to say one thing while I'm
+on my way," observed the slangy youngster: "You're all just as tiresome as
+you can be! Why don't you own up that you'd never have given the old woman
+a thought if it wasn't for May Van Ramsden and her friends--and Helen?"
+and she beat a retreat in quick order.
+
+It was an unpleasant breakfast for Helen, and she retired from the table
+as soon as she could. She felt that this attitude of the Starkweathers
+toward her was really more unhappy than their former treatment. For she
+somehow suspected that this overpowering kindness was founded upon a
+sudden discovery that she was a rich girl instead of an object of charity.
+How well-founded this suspicion was she learned when she and Jess met.
+
+Hortense brought her up two very elaborate frocks that forenoon, one for
+her to wear when she poured tea in Mary Boyle's rooms, and the other for
+her to put on for the Stones' dinner party.
+
+"They will just about fit you. I'm a mite taller, but that won't matter,"
+said the languid Hortense. "And really, Helen, I am just as sorry as I can
+be for the mean way you have been treated while you have been here. You
+have been so good-natured, too, in helping a chap. Hope you won't hold it
+against me--and _do_ wear the dresses, dear."
+
+"I will put on this one for the afternoon," said Helen, smiling. "But I do
+not need the evening dress. I never wore one quite--quite like that, you
+see," as she noted the straps over the shoulders and the low corsage. "But
+I thank you just the same."
+
+Later Belle said to her airily: "Dear Cousin Helen! I have spoken to
+Gustaf about taking you to the Stones' in the limousine to-night. And he
+will call for you at any hour you say."
+
+"I cannot avail myself of that privilege, Belle," responded Helen,
+quietly. "Jess will send for me at half-past six. She has already arranged
+to do so. Thank you."
+
+There was so much going on above stairs that day that Helen was able to
+escape most of the oppressive attentions of her cousins. Great baskets of
+flowers were sent in by some of the young people who remembered and loved
+Mary Boyle, and Helen helped to arrange them in the little old lady's
+rooms.
+
+Tea things for a score of people came in, too. And cookies and cakes from
+the caterer's. At three o'clock, or a little after, the callers began to
+arrive. Belle, and Hortense, and Flossie received them in the reception
+hall, had them remove their cloaks below stairs, and otherwise tried to
+make it appear that the function was really of their own planning.
+
+But nobody invited either of the Starkweather girls upstairs to Mary
+Boyle's rooms. Perhaps it was an oversight. But it certainly _did_ look as
+though they had been forgotten.
+
+But the party on the attic floor was certainly a success. How pretty the
+little old lady looked, sitting in state with all the young and blooming
+faces about her! Here were growing up into womanhood and manhood (for some
+of the boys had not been ashamed to come) the children whom she had tended
+and played with and sung to.
+
+And she sung to them again--verses of forgotten songs, lullabies she had
+crooned over some of their cradles when they were ill, little broken
+chants that had sent many of them, many times, to sleep.
+
+Altogether it was a most enjoyable afternoon, and Nurse Boyle was promised
+that it should not be the last tea-party she would have. "If you are 'way
+up here in the top of the house, you shall no more be forgotten," they
+told her.
+
+Helen was the object next in interest to Nurse Boyle. May Van Ramsden had
+told about the Starkweathers' little "Cinderella Cousin"; and although
+none of these girls and boys who had gathered knew the truth about Helen's
+wealth and her position in life, they all treated her cordially.
+
+When they trooped away and left the little old lady to lie down to
+recuperate after the excitement, Helen went to her own room, and remained
+closely shut up for the rest of the day.
+
+At half-past six she came downstairs, bag in hand. She descended the
+servants' staircase, told Mr. Lawdor that her trunk, packed and locked,
+was ready for the expressman when he came, and so stole out of the area
+door. She escaped any interview with her uncle, or with the girls. She
+could not bid them good-by, yet she was determined not to go back to
+Sunset Ranch on the morrow, nor would she remain another night under her
+uncle's roof.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+A STATEMENT OF FACT
+
+
+Dud Stone had that very day seen the fixtures put into the little
+millinery store downtown, and it was ready for Sadie Goronsky to take
+charge; there being a fund of two hundred dollars to Sadie's credit at a
+nearby bank, with which she could buy stock and pay her running expenses
+for the first few weeks.
+
+Yet Sadie didn't know a thing about it.
+
+This last was the reason Helen went downtown early in the morning
+following the little dinner party at the Stones'. At that party Helen had
+met the uncle, aunt, and cousins of Dud and Jess Stone, with whom the
+orphaned brother and sister lived, and she had found them a most charming
+family.
+
+Jess had invited Helen to bring her trunk and remain with her as long as
+she contemplated staying in New York, and this Helen was determined to do.
+Even if the Starkweathers would not let the expressman have her trunk, she
+was prepared to blossom out now in a butterfly outfit, and take the place
+in society that was rightfully hers.
+
+But Helen hadn't time to go shopping as yet. She was too eager to tell
+Sadie of her good fortune. Sadie was to be found--cold as the day
+was--pacing the walk before Finkelstein's shop, on the sharp lookout for a
+customer. But there were a few flakes of snow in the air, the wind from
+the river was very raw, and it did seem to Helen as though the Russian
+girl was endangering her health.
+
+"But what can poor folks do?" demanded Sadie, hoarsely, for she already
+had a heavy cold. "There is nothing for me to do inside the store. If I
+catch a customer I make somet'ings yet. Well, we must all work!"
+
+"Some other kind of work would be easier," suggested Helen.
+
+"But not so much money, maybe."
+
+"If you only had your millinery store."
+
+"Don't make me laugh! Me lip's cracked," grumbled Sadie. "Have a heart,
+Helen! I ain't never goin' to git a store like I showed you."
+
+Sadie was evidently short of hope on this cold day. Helen seized her arm.
+"Let's go up and look at that store again," she urged.
+
+"Have a heart, I tell ye!" exclaimed Sadie Goronsky. "Whaddeyer wanter rub
+it in for?"
+
+"Anyway, if we run it will help warm you."
+
+"All ri'. Come on," said Sadie, with deep disgust, but she started on a
+heavy trot towards the block on which her heart had been set. And when
+they rounded the corner and came before the little shop window, Sadie
+stopped with a gasp of amazement.
+
+Freshly varnished cases, and counter, and drawers, and all were in the
+store just as she had dreamed of them. There were mirrors, too, and in the
+window little forms on which to set up the trimmed hats and one big,
+pink-cheeked, dolly-looking wax bust, with a great mass of tow-colored
+hair piled high in the very latest mode, on which was to be set the very
+finest hat to be evolved in that particular East Side shop.
+
+"Wha--wha--what----"
+
+"Let's go in and look at it," said Helen, eagerly, seizing her friend's
+arm again.
+
+"No, no, no!" gasped Sadie. "We can't. It ain't open. Oh, oh, oh!
+Somebody's got _my_ shop!"
+
+Helen produced the key and opened the door. She fairly pushed the amazed
+Russian girl inside, and then closed the door. It was nice and warm. There
+were chairs. There was a half-length partition at the rear to separate the
+workroom from the showroom. And behind that partition were low sewing
+chairs to work in, and a long work-table.
+
+Helen led the dazed Sadie into this rear room and sat her down in one of
+the chairs. Then she took one facing her and said:
+
+"Now, you sit right there and make up in your mind the very prettiest hat
+for _me_ that you can possibly invent. The first hat you trim in this
+store must be for me."
+
+"Helen! Helen!" cried Sadie, almost wildly. "You're crazy yet--or is it
+me? I don't know what you mean----"
+
+"Yes, you do, dear," replied Helen, putting her arms about the other
+girl's neck. "You were kind to me when I was lost in this city. You were
+kind to me just for nothing--when I appeared poor and forlorn and--and a
+greenie! Now, I am sorry that it seemed best for me to let your mistake
+stand. I did not tell my uncle and cousins either, that I was not as poor
+and helpless as I appeared."
+
+"And you're rich?" shrieked Sadie. "You're doing this yourself? This is
+_your_ store?"
+
+"No, it is _your_ store," returned Helen, firmly. "Of course, by and by,
+when you are established and are making lots of money, if you can ever
+afford to pay me back, you may do so. The money is yours without interest
+until that time."
+
+"I got to cry, Helen! I got to cry!" sobbed Sadie Goronsky. "If an angel
+right down out of heaven had done it like you done it, I'd worship him on
+my knees. And you're a rich girl--not a poor one?"
+
+Helen then told her all about herself, and all about her adventures since
+coming alone to New York. But after that Sadie wanted to keep telling her
+how thankful she was for the store, and that Helen must come home and see
+mommer, and that mommer must be brought to see the shop, too. So Helen ran
+away. She could not bear any more gratitude from Sadie. Her heart was too
+full.
+
+She went over to poor Lurcher's lodgings and climbed the dark stairs to
+his rooms. She had something to tell him, as well.
+
+The purblind old man knew her step, although she had been there but a few
+times.
+
+"Come in, Miss. Yours are angel's visits, although they are more frequent
+than angel's visits are supposed to be," he cried.
+
+"I do hope you are keeping off the street this weather, Mr. Lurcher," she
+said. "If you can mend shoes I have heard of a place where they will send
+work to you, and call for it, and you can afford to have a warmer and
+lighter room than this one."
+
+"Ah, my dear Miss! that is good of you--that is good of you," mumbled the
+old man. "And why you should take such an interest in _me_----?"
+
+"I feel sure that you would be interested in me, if I were poor and
+unhappy and you were rich and able to get about. Isn't that so?" she said,
+laughing.
+
+"Aye. Truly. And you _are_ rich, my dear Miss?"
+
+"Very rich, indeed. Father was one of the big cattle kings of Montana, and
+Prince Morrell's Sunset Ranch, they tell me, is one of the _great_
+properties of the West."
+
+The old man turned to look at her with some eagerness. "That name?" he
+whispered. "_Who_ did you say?"
+
+"Why--my father, Prince Morrell."
+
+"Your father? Prince Morrell your father?" gasped the old man, and sat
+down suddenly, shaking in every limb.
+
+The girl instantly became excited, too. She stepped quickly to him and
+laid her hand upon his shoulder.
+
+"Did you ever know my father?" she asked him.
+
+"I--I once knew a Mr. Prince Morrell."
+
+"Was it here in New York you knew him?"
+
+"Yes. It was years ago. He--he was a good man. I--I had not heard of him
+for years. I was away from the city myself for ten years--in New Orleans.
+I went there suddenly to take the position of head bookkeeper in a
+shipping firm. Then the firm failed, my health was broken by the climate,
+and I returned here."
+
+Helen was staring at him in wonder and almost in alarm. She backed away
+from him a bit toward the door.
+
+"Tell me your real name!" she cried. "It's not Lurcher. Nor is it Jones.
+No! don't tell me. I know--I know! You are Allen Chesterton, who was once
+bookkeeper for the firm of Grimes & Morrell!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+"THE WHIP HAND"
+
+
+An hour later Helen and the old man hurried out of the lodging house and
+Helen led him across town to the office where Dudley Stone worked. At
+first the old man peered all about, on the watch for Fenwick Grimes or his
+clerk.
+
+"They have been after me every few days to agree to leave New York. I did
+not know what for, but I knew Fenwick was up to some game. He always _was_
+up to some game, even when we were young fellows together.
+
+"Now he is rich, and he might have found me better lodgings and something
+to do. But after I came back from the South and was unfit to do clerical
+work because of my eyes, he only threw me a dollar now and then--like
+throwing a bone to a starving dog."
+
+That explained how Helen had chanced to see the old man at Fenwick
+Grimes's door on the occasion of her visit to her father's old partner.
+And later, in the presence of Dudley Stone--who was almost as eager as
+Helen herself--the old man related the facts that served to explain the
+whole mystery surrounding the trouble that had darkened Prince Morrell's
+life for so long.
+
+Briefly, Allen Chesterton and Fenwick Grimes had grown up together in the
+same town, as boys had come to New York, and had kept in touch with each
+other for years. Neither had married and for years they had roomed
+together.
+
+But Chesterton was a plodding bookkeeper and would never be anything else.
+Grimes was mad for money, but he was always complaining that he never had
+a chance.
+
+His chance came through Willets Starkweather, when the latter's
+brother-in-law was looking for a working partner--a man right in Grimes's
+line, and who was a good salesman. Grimes got into the firm on very
+limited capital, yet he was a trusted member and Prince Morrell depended
+on his judgment in most things.
+
+Allen Chesterton had been brought into the firm's office to keep the books
+through Grimes's influence, of course. By and by it seemed to Chesterton
+that his old comrade was running pretty close to the wind. The bookkeeper
+feared that _he_ might be involved in some dubious enterprise.
+
+There was flung in Chesterton's way (perhaps _that_ was by the influence
+of Grimes, too) a chance to go to New Orleans to be bookkeeper in a
+shipping firm. He could get passage upon a vessel belonging to the firm.
+
+He had this to decide between the time of leaving the office one afternoon
+and early the next morning. He took the place and bundled his things
+aboard, leaving a letter for Fenwick Grimes. That letter, it is needless
+to say, Grimes never made public. And by the time the slow craft
+Chesterton was on reached her destination, the firm of Grimes & Morrell
+had gone to smash, Morrell was a fugitive, and the papers had ceased to
+talk about the matter.
+
+The true explanation of the mystery was now plain. Chesterton said that it
+was not himself, but Grimes, who had been successful as an amateur actor.
+Grimes had often disguised himself so well as different people that he
+might have made something by the art in a "protean turn" on the vaudeville
+stage.
+
+Chesterton had known all about the thirty-three thousand dollars belonging
+to Morrell & Grimes in the banks. Grimes had hinted to his friend how easy
+it would be to sequestrate this money without Morrell knowing it. At
+first, evidently, Grimes had wished to use the bookkeeper as a tool.
+
+Then he improved upon his plan. He had gotten rid of Chesterton by getting
+him the position at a distance. His going out of town himself had been
+merely a blind. He had imitated Prince Morrell so perfectly--after forging
+the checks in his partner's handwriting--that the tellers of the two banks
+had thought Morrell really guilty as charged.
+
+"So Fenwick Grimes got thirty-three thousand dollars with which to begin
+business on, after the bankruptcy proceedings had freed him of all debts,"
+said Dud Stone, reflectively. "Yet there must have been one other person
+who knew, or suspected, his crime."
+
+"Who could that be?" cried Helen. "Surely Mr. Chesterton is guiltless."
+
+"Personally I would have taken the old man's statement without his
+swearing to it. _That_ is the confidence I have in him. I only wished it
+to be put into affidavit form that it might be presented to the courts--if
+necessary."
+
+"If necessary?" repeated Helen, faintly.
+
+"You see, my dear girl, you now have the whip hand," said Dud. "You can
+make the man--or men--who ill-used your father suffer for the crime----"
+
+"But, is there more than Grimes? Are you _sure_?"
+
+"I believe that there is another who _knew_. Either legally, or morally,
+he is guilty. In either case he was and is a despicable man!" exclaimed
+Dud, hotly.
+
+"You mean my uncle," observed Helen, quietly. "I know you do. How do you
+think he benefited by this crime?"
+
+"I believe he had a share of the money. He held Grimes up, undoubtedly.
+Grimes is the bigger criminal in a legal sense. But Starkweather
+benefited, I believe, after the fact. And _he_ let your father remain in
+ignorance----"
+
+"And let poor dad pay him back the money he was supposed to have lost in
+the smashing of the firm?" murmured Helen. "Do--do you think he was paid
+twice--that he got money from both Grimes and father?"
+
+"We'll prove that by Grimes," said the fledgling lawyer who, in time, was
+likely to prove himself a successful one indeed.
+
+He sent for Mr. Grimes to come to see him on important business. When the
+money-lender arrived, Dud got him into a corner immediately, showed the
+affidavit, and hinted that Starkweather had divulged something.
+
+Immediately Grimes accused Helen's uncle of exactly the part in the crime
+Dud had suspected him of committing. After the affair blew over and Grimes
+had set up in business, Starkweather had come to him and threatened to
+tell certain things which he knew, and others that he suspected, unless he
+was given the money he had originally invested in the firm of Grimes &
+Morrell.
+
+"I shut his mouth. That's all he took--his rightful share; but I've got
+his receipts, and I can make it look bad for him. And I _will_ make it
+look bad for that old stiff-and-starched hypocrite if he lets me be driven
+to the wall."
+
+This defiance of Fenwick Grimes closed the case as far as any legal
+proceedings were concerned. The matter of recovering the money from Grimes
+would have to be tried in the civil courts. All the creditors of the firm
+were satisfied. To get Grimes indicted for his old crime would be a
+difficult matter in New York County.
+
+"But you have the whip hand," Dud Stone told the girl from Sunset Ranch
+again. "If you want satisfaction, you can spread the story broadcast by
+means of the newspapers, and you will involve Starkweather in it just as
+much as you will Grimes. And between you and me, Helen, I think Willets
+Starkweather richly deserves just that punishment."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+HEADED WEST
+
+
+Just at this time Helen Morrell wasn't thinking at all about wreaking
+vengeance upon those who might have ill-treated her when she was alone in
+the great city. Instead, her heart was made very tender by the delightful
+things that were being done for her by those who loved and admired the
+sturdy little girl from Sunset Ranch.
+
+In the first place, Jess and Dud Stone, and their cousins, gave Helen
+every chance possible to see the pleasanter side of city life. She had
+gone shopping with the girls and bought frocks and hats galore. Indeed,
+she had had to telegraph to Big Hen for more money. She got the money; but
+likewise she received the following letter:
+
+  "Dear Snuggy:--
+
+  "We lets colts get inter the alfalfa an' kick up their heels for a
+  while; but they got to steady down and come home some time. Ain't you
+  kicked up your heels sufficient in that lonesome city? And it looks
+  like somebody was getting money away from you--or have you learnt to
+  spend it down East there? Come on home, Snuggy! The hull endurin' ranch
+  is jest a-honin' for you. Sing's that despondint I expects to see him
+  cut off his pigtail. Jo-Rab has gone back on his rice-and-curry
+  rations, the Greasers don't plunk their mandolins no more, and the
+  punchers are as sorry lookin' as winter-kept steers. Come back, Snuggy,
+  and liven up the old place, is the sincere wish of, yours warmly,
+
+                                                   "Henry Billings."
+
+Helen only waited to see some few matters cleared up before she left for
+the West. As it happened, Dud Stone obtained a chance to represent a big
+corporation for some months, in Elberon and Helena. His smattering of
+legal knowledge was sufficient to enable him to accept the job. It was a
+good chance for Jess to go out, too, and try the climate and the life,
+over both of which her brother was so enthusiastic.
+
+But she would go to Sunset Ranch to remain for some time if Helen went
+West with them and--of course--Helen was only too glad to agree to such a
+proposition.
+
+Meanwhile the Western girl was taken to museums, and parks, and theaters,
+and all kinds of show places, and thoroughly enjoyed herself. May Van
+Ramsden and others of those who had attended Mary Boyle's tea party in the
+attic of the Starkweather house hunted Helen out, too, in the home of her
+friends on Riverside Drive, and the last few weeks of Helen's stay were as
+wonderful and exciting as the first few weeks had been lonely and sad.
+
+Dud had insisted upon publishing the facts of the old trouble which had
+come upon the firm of Grimes & Morrell, in pamphlet form, including Allen
+Chesterton's affidavit, and this pamphlet was mailed to the creditors of
+the old firm and to all of Prince Morrel's old friends in New York. But
+nothing was said in the printed matter about Willets Starkweather.
+
+Fenwick Grimes took a long trip out of town, and made no attempt to put in
+an answer to the case. But Mr. Starkweather was a very much frightened
+man.
+
+Dud came home one afternoon and advised Helen to go and see her uncle.
+Since her departure from the Starkweather mansion she had seen neither the
+girls nor Uncle Starkweather himself.
+
+"He doesn't know what you are going to do with him. He brought the money
+he received from your father to my office; but, of course, I would not
+accept it. You've got the whip hand, Helen----"
+
+"But I do not propose to crack the whip, Dud," declared the Western girl,
+quickly.
+
+"You're a good chap, Snuggy!" exclaimed Dud, warmly, and Helen smiled and
+forgave him for using the intimate nickname.
+
+But Helen went across town the very next day and called upon her uncle.
+This time she mounted the broad stone steps, instead of descending to the
+basement door.
+
+Gregson opened the door and, by his manner, showed that even with the
+servants the girl from Sunset Ranch was upon a different footing in her
+uncle's house. Mr. Starkweather was in his den and Helen was ushered into
+the room without crossing the path of any other member of the family.
+
+"Helen!" he ejaculated, when he saw her, and to tell the truth the girl
+was shocked by his changed appearance. Mr. Starkweather was quite broken
+down. The cloud of scandal that seemed to be menacing him had worn his
+pomposity to a thread, and his dignified "Ahem!" had quite disappeared.
+
+Indeed, to see this once proud and selfish man fairly groveling before the
+daughter of the man he had helped injure in the old times, was not a
+pleasant sight. Helen cut the interview as short as she could.
+
+She managed to assure Uncle Starkweather that he need have no
+apprehension. That he had known all the time Grimes was guilty, and that
+he had benefited from that knowledge, was the sum and substance of Willets
+Starkweather's connection with the old crime. At that time he had been, as
+Dud Stone learned, in serious financial difficulties. He used the money
+received from Grimes's ill-gotten gains, to put himself on his feet.
+
+Then had come the death of old Cornelius Starkweather and the legacy.
+After that, when Prince Morrell sent Starkweather the money he was
+supposed to have lost in the bankruptcy of Grimes & Morrell, Starkweather
+did not dare refuse it. He feared always that it would be discovered he
+had known who was really guilty of the embezzlement.
+
+Flossie met Helen in the hall and hugged her. "Don't you go away mad at
+me, Helen," she cried. "I know we all treated you mean; but--but I guess I
+wouldn't act that way again, to any girl, no matter what Belle does."
+
+"I do not believe you would, Floss," agreed Helen, kissing her warmly.
+
+"And are you really going back to that lovely ranch?"
+
+"Very soon. And some time, if you care to and your father will let you,
+I'll be glad to have you come out there for a visit."
+
+"Bully for you, Helen! I'll surely come," cried Flossie.
+
+Hortense was on hand to speak to her cousin, too. "You are much too nice a
+girl to bear malice, I am sure, Helen," she said. "But we do not deserve
+very good treatment at your hands. I hope you will forgive us and, when
+you come to New York again, come to visit us."
+
+"I am sure you would not treat me again as you did this time," said Helen,
+rather sternly.
+
+"You can be sure we wouldn't. Not even Belle. She's awfully sorry, but
+she's too proud to say so. She wants father to bring old Mary Boyle
+downstairs into the old nursery suite that she used to occupy when Uncle
+Cornelius was alive; only the old lady doesn't want to come. She says
+she's only a few more years at best to live and she doesn't like
+changes."
+
+Helen saw the nurse before she left the house, and left the dear old
+creature very happy indeed. Helen was sure Nurse Boyle would never be so
+lonely again, for her friends had remembered her.
+
+Even Mrs. Olstrom, the housekeeper, came to shake hands with the girl who
+had been tucked away into an attic bedroom as "a pauper cousin." And old
+Mr. Lawdor fairly shed tears when he learned that he was not likely to see
+Helen again.
+
+There were other people in the great city who were sorry to see Helen
+Morrell start West. Through Dud Stone, Allen Chesterton had been found
+light work and a pleasant boarding place. There would always be a
+watchful eye upon the old man--and that eye belonged to Miss Sadie
+Goronsky--rather, "S. Goron, Milliner," as the new sign over the hat shop
+door read.
+
+"For you see," said Miss Sadie, with a toss of her head, "there ain't no
+use in advertisin' it that you are a Yid. _That_ don't do no good, as I
+tell mommer. Sure, I'm proud I'm a Jew. We're the greatest people in the
+world yet. But it ain't good for business.
+
+"Now, 'Goron' sounds Frenchy; don't it, Helen? And when I get a-going down
+here good, I'll be wantin' some time to look at a place on Fift' Av'ner,
+maybe. 'Madame Goron' would be dead swell--yes? But you put the 'sky' to
+it and it's like tying a can to a dog's tail. There ain't nowhere to go
+then but _home_," declared this worldly wise young girl.
+
+Helen had dinner again with the Goronskys, and Sadie's mother could not do
+enough to show her fondness for her daughter's benefactor. Sadie promised
+to write to Helen frequently and the two girls--so much alike in some
+ways, yet as far apart as the poles in others--bade each other an
+affectionate farewell.
+
+The next day Helen Morrell and her two friends, Dud and Jess Stone, were
+headed West. That second trip across the continent was a very different
+journey for Helen than the first had been.
+
+She and Jess Stone had become the best of friends. And as the months slid
+by the two girls--Helen, a product of the West, and Jessie, a product of
+the great Eastern city--became dearer and dearer companions.
+
+As for Dud--of course he was always hanging around. His sister sometimes
+wondered--and that audibly--how he found time for business, he was so
+frequently at Sunset Ranch. This was only said, however, in wicked
+enjoyment of his discomfiture--and of Helen's blushes.
+
+For by that time it was an understood thing about Sunset Ranch that in
+time Dud was going to have the right to call its mistress "Snuggy" for all
+the years of her life--just as her father had. And Helen, contemplating
+this possibility, did not seem to mind.
+
+THE END
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+SOMETHING ABOUT
+AMY BELL MARLOWE
+AND HER BOOKS FOR GIRLS
+
+In these days, when the printing presses are turning out so many books for
+girls that are good, bad and indifferent, it is refreshing to come upon
+the works of such a gifted authoress as Miss Amy Bell Marlowe, who is now
+under contract to write exclusively for Messrs. Grosset & Dunlap.
+
+In many ways Miss Marlowe's books may be compared with those of Miss
+Alcott and Mrs. Meade, but all are thoroughly modern and wholly American
+in scene and action. Her plots, while never improbable, are exceedingly
+clever, and her girlish characters are as natural as they are
+interesting.
+
+On the following pages will be found a list of Miss Marlowe's books. Every
+girl in our land ought to read these fresh and wholesome tales. They are
+to be found at all booksellers. Each volume is handsomely illustrated and
+bound in cloth, stamped in colors. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, New
+York. A free catalogue of Miss Marlowe's books may be had for the asking.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+THE OLDEST OF FOUR
+
+"I don't see any way out!"
+
+It was Natalie's mother who said that, after the awful news had been
+received that Mr. Raymond had been lost in a shipwreck on the Atlantic.
+Natalie was the oldest of four children, and the family was left with but
+scant means for support.
+
+"I've got to do something--yes, I've just got to!" Natalie said to
+herself, and what the brave girl did is well related in "The Oldest of
+Four; Or, Natalie's Way Out." In this volume we find Natalie with a strong
+desire to become a writer. At first she contributes to a local paper, but
+soon she aspires to larger things, and comes in contact with the editor of
+a popular magazine. This man becomes her warm friend, and not only aids
+her in a literary way but also helps in a hunt for the missing Mr.
+Raymond.
+
+Natalie has many ups and downs, and has to face more than one bitter
+disappointment. But she is a plucky girl through and through.
+
+"One of the brightest girls' stories ever penned," one well-known author
+has said of this book, and we agree with him. Natalie is a thoroughly
+lovable character, and one long to be remembered. Published as are all the
+Amy Bell Marlowe books, by Grosset & Dunlap, New York, and for sale by all
+booksellers. Ask your dealer to let you look the volume over.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+THE GIRLS OF HILLCREST FARM
+
+"We'll go to the old farm, and we'll take boarders! We can fix the old
+place up, and, maybe, make money!"
+
+The father of the two girls was broken down in health and a physician had
+recommended that he go to the country, where he could get plenty of fresh
+air and sunshine. An aunt owned an abandoned farm and she said the family
+could live on this and use the place as they pleased. It was great sport
+moving and getting settled, and the boarders offered one surprise after
+another. There was a mystery about the old farm, and a mystery concerning
+one of the boarders, and how the girls got to the bottom of affairs is
+told in detail in the story, which is called, "The Girls of Hillcrest
+Farm; Or, The Secret of the Rocks."
+
+It was great fun to move to the farm, and once the girls had the scare of
+their lives. And they attended a great "vendue" too.
+
+"I just had to write that story--I couldn't help, it," said Miss Marlowe,
+when she handed in the manuscript. "I knew just such a farm when I was a
+little girl, and oh! what fun I had there! And there was a mystery about
+that place, too!"
+
+Published, like all the Marlowe books, by Grosset & Dunlap, New York, and
+for sale wherever good books are sold.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+A LITTLE MISS NOBODY
+
+"Oh, she's only a little nobody! Don't have anything to do with her!"
+
+How often poor Nancy Nelson heard those words, and how they cut her to the
+heart. And the saying was true, she _was_ a nobody. She had no folks, and
+she did not know where she had come from. All she did know was that she
+was at a boarding school and that a lawyer paid her tuition bills and gave
+her a mite of spending money.
+
+"I am going to find out who I am, and where I came from," said Nancy to
+herself, one day, and what she did, and how it all ended, is absorbingly
+related in "A Little Miss Nobody; Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall."
+Nancy made a warm friend of a poor office boy who worked for that lawyer,
+and this boy kept his eyes and ears open and learned many things.
+
+The book tells much about boarding school life, of study and fun mixed,
+and of a great race on skates. Nancy made some friends as well as enemies,
+and on more than one occasion proved that she was "true blue" in the best
+meaning of that term.
+
+Published by Grosset & Dunlap, New York, and for sale by booksellers
+everywhere. If you desire a catalogue of Amy Bell Marlowe books send to
+the publishers for it and it will come free.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+THE GIRL FROM SUNSET RANCH
+
+Helen was very thoughtful as she rode along the trail from Sunset Ranch to
+the View. She had lost her father but a month before, and he had passed
+away with a stain on his name--a stain of many years' standing, as the
+girl had just found out.
+
+"I am going to New York and I am going to clear his name!" she resolved,
+and just then she saw a young man dashing along, close to the edge of a
+cliff. Over he went, and Helen, with no thought of the danger to herself,
+went to the rescue.
+
+Then the brave Western girl found herself set down at the Grand Central
+Terminal in New York City. She knew not which way to go or what to do. Her
+relatives, who thought she was poor and ignorant, had refused to even meet
+her. She had to fight her way along from the start, and how she did this,
+and won out, is well related in "The Girl from Sunset Ranch; Or, Alone in
+a Great City."
+
+This is one of the finest of Amy Bell Marlowe's books, with its
+true-to-life scenes of the plains and mountains, and of the great
+metropolis. Helen is a girl all readers will love from the start.
+
+Published by Grosset & Dunlap, New York, and for sale by booksellers
+everywhere.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+WYN'S CAMPING DAYS
+
+"Oh, girls, such news!" cried Wynifred Mallory to her chums, one day. "We
+can go camping on Lake Honotonka! Isn't it grand!"
+
+It certainly was, and the members of the Go-Ahead Club were delighted.
+Soon they set off, with their boy friends to keep them company in another
+camp not far away. Those boys played numerous tricks on the girls, and the
+girls retaliated, you may be sure. And then Wyn did a strange girl a
+favor, and learned how some ancient statues of rare value had been lost in
+the lake, and how the girl's father was accused of stealing them.
+
+"We must do all we can for that girl," said Wyn. But this was not so easy,
+for the girl campers had many troubles of their own. They had canoe races,
+and one of them fell overboard and came close to drowning, and then came a
+big storm, and a nearby tree was struck by lightning.
+
+"I used to love to go camping when a girl, and I love to go yet," said
+Miss Marlowe, in speaking of this tale, which is called, "Wyn's Camping
+Days; Or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club." "I think all girls ought to
+know the pleasures of summer life under canvas."
+
+A book that ought to be in the hands of all girls. Issued by Grosset &
+Dunlap, New York, and for sale by booksellers everywhere.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Girl from Sunset Ranch, by Amy Bell Marlowe
+
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