"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.