at whipped down
from the white-capped mountains had a keen, frosty edge. A scant snow
lay in protected places; cattle stood bunched in the lee of ridges; low
sheets of dust scurried across the flats.

The big living-room of the ranch-house was warm and comfortable with its
red adobe walls, its huge stone fireplace where cedar logs blazed, and
its many-colored blankets. Bo Rayner sat before the fire, curled up in
an armchair, absorbed in a book. On the floor lay the hound Pedro, his
racy, fine head stretched toward the warmth.

"Did uncle call?" asked Helen, with a start out of her reverie.

"I didn't hear him," replied Bo.

Helen rose to tiptoe across the floor, and, softly parting some
curtains, she looked into the room where her uncle lay. He was asleep.
Sometimes he called out in his slumbers. For weeks now he had been
confined to his bed, slowly growing weaker. With a sigh Helen returned
to her window-seat and took up her work.

"Bo, the sun is bright," she said. "The days are growing longer. I'm so
glad."

"Nell, you're always wishing time away. For me it passes quickly
enough," replied the sister.

"But I love spring and summer and fall--and I guess I hate winter,"
returned Helen, thoughtfully.

The yellow ranges rolled away up to the black ridges and they in turn
swept up to the cold, white mountains. Helen's gaze seemed to go beyond
that snowy barrier. And Bo's keen eyes studied her sister's earnest, sad
face.

"Nell, do you ever think of Dale?" she queried, suddenly.

The question startled Helen. A slow blush suffused neck and cheek.

"Of course," she replied, as if surprised that Bo should ask such a
thing.

"I--I shouldn't have asked that," said Bo, softly, and then bent again
over her book.

Helen gazed tenderly at that bright, bowed head. In this swift-flying,
eventful, busy winter, during which the management of the ranch had
devolved wholly upon Helen, the little sister had grown away from her.
Bo had insisted upon her own free will and she had followed it, to
the amusement of her uncle, to the concern of Helen, to the dismay and
bewilderment of the faithful Mexican housekeeper, and to the undoing of
all the young men on the ranch.

Helen had always been hoping and waiting for a favorable hour in which
she might find this wilful sister once more susceptible to wise and
loving influence. But while she hesitated to speak, slow footsteps and a
jingle of spurs sounded without, and then came