"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 gra.s.s 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 a.s.sociates 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 ident.i.ty. 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 bra.s.s 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 n.o.body 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.