. She might have been a help to Helen if she had not assimilated
Western ways so swiftly. Helen wished to decide things in her own way,
which was as yet quite far from Western. So Helen had been thrown more
and more upon her own resources, with the cowboy Carmichael the only one
who had come forward voluntarily to her aid.

For an hour Helen sat alone in the room, looking out of the window, and
facing stern reality with a colder, graver, keener sense of intimacy
than ever before. To hold her property and to live her life in this
community according to her ideas of honesty, justice, and law might well
be beyond her powers. To-day she had been convinced that she could not
do so without fighting for them, and to fight she must have friends.
That conviction warmed her toward Carmichael, and a thoughtful
consideration of all he had done for her proved that she had not fully
appreciated him. She would make up for her oversight.

There were no Mormons in her employ, for the good reason that
Auchincloss would not hire them. But in one of his kindlier hours,
growing rare now, he had admitted that the Mormons were the best and the
most sober, faithful workers on the ranges, and that his sole objection
to them was just this fact of their superiority. Helen decided to hire
the four Beemans and any of their relatives or friends who would come;
and to do this, if possible, without letting her uncle know. His temper
now, as well as his judgment, was a hindrance to efficiency. This
decision regarding the Beemans; brought Helen back to Carmichael's
fervent wish for Dale, and then to her own.

Soon spring would be at hand, with its multiplicity of range tasks. Dale
had promised to come to Pine then, and Helen knew that promise would be
kept. Her heart beat a little faster, in spite of her business-centered
thoughts. Dale was there, over the black-sloped, snowy-tipped mountain,
shut away from the world. Helen almost envied him. No wonder he loved
loneliness, solitude, the sweet, wild silence and beauty of Paradise
Park! But he was selfish, and Helen meant to show him that. She needed
his help. When she recalled his physical prowess with animals, and
imagined what it must be in relation to men, she actually smiled at the
thought of Beasley forcing her off her property, if Dale were there.
Beasley would only force disaster upon himself. Then Helen experienced
a quick shock. Would Dale answer to this situation as Carmichael had
answered? I