n. This is a rough
place out here. And even the best of our friends and neighbors are crude.
You want refinement, and pretty dresses, and soft beds, and fine
furniture----"

"No, no, Father! I love Sunset Ranch just as it is," Helen declared,
wiping away her tears.

"Aye. 'Tis a beauty spot--the beauty spot of all Montana, I believe,"
agreed the dying man. "But you need something more than a beautiful
landscape."

"But there are true hearts here--all our friends!" cried Helen.

"And so they are--God bless them!" responded Prince Morrell, fervently.
"But, Snuggy, you were born to something better than being a 'cowgirl.'
Your mother was a refined woman. I have forgotten most of my college
education; but I had it once.

"_This_ was not our original environment. It was not meant that we should
be shut away from all the gentler things of life, and live rudely as we
have. Unhappy circumstances did that for us."

He was silent for a moment, his face working with suppressed emotion.
Suddenly his grasp tightened on the girl's hand and he continued:

"Snuggy! I'm going to tell you something. It's something you ought to
know, I believe. Your mother was made unhappy by it, and I wouldn't want a
knowledge of it to come upon you unaware, in the after time when you are
alone. Let me tell you with my own lips, girl."

"Why, Father, what is it?"

"Your father's name is under a cloud. There is a smirch on my reputation.
I--I ran away from New York to escape arrest, and I have lived here in the
wilderness, without communicating with old friends and associates, because
I did not want the matter stirred up."

"Afraid of arrest, Father?" gasped Helen.

"For your mother's sake, and for yours," he said. "She couldn't have borne
it. It would have killed her."

"But you were not guilty, Father!" cried Helen.

"How do you know I wasn't?"

"Why, Father, you could never have done anything dishonorable or mean--I
know you could not!"

"Thank you, Snuggy!" the dying man replied, with a smile hovering about
his pain-drawn lips. "You've been the greatest comfort a father ever had,
ever since you was a little, cuddly baby, and liked to snuggle up against
father under the blankets.

"That was before the big ranch-house was built, and we lived in a shack. I
don't know how your mother managed to stand it, winters. _You_ just
snuggled into my arms under the blankets--that's how we came to call you
'Snuggy.'"

"'Snuggy' is a good name,