The Girl from Sunset Ranch Part 39

"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 s.h.i.+ngle 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?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "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 appet.i.te 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 att.i.tude 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?"