st 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 _coulees_.

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 ma