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