Bo sat up straighter, as if better to defend herself.

"Oh! So you have? And I suppose you'll take his part--even about
that--that bearish trick."

"No. I think that rude and bold. But, Bo, I don't believe he meant to
be either rude or bold. From what he confessed to me I gather that he
believed he'd lose you outright or win you outright by that violence. It
seems girls can't play at love out here in this wild West. He said there
would be blood shed over you. I begin to realize what he meant. He's
not sorry for what he did. Think how strange that is. For he has the
instincts of a gentleman. He's kind, gentle, chivalrous. Evidently he
had tried every way to win your favor except any familiar advance. He
did that as a last resort. In my opinion his motives were to force you
to accept or refuse him, and in case you refused him he'd always have
those forbidden stolen kisses to assuage his self-respect--when he
thought of Turner or any one else daring to be familiar with you. Bo,
I see through Carmichael, even if I don't make him clear to you. You've
got to be honest with yourself. Did that act of his win or lose you? In
other words, do you love him or not?"

Bo hid her face.

"Oh, Nell! it made me see how I loved him--and that made me so--so sick
I hated him.... But now--the hate is all gone."

CHAPTER XVII

When spring came at last and the willows drooped green and fresh over
the brook and the range rang with bray of burro and whistle of stallion,
old Al Auchincloss had been a month in his grave.

To Helen it seemed longer. The month had been crowded with work, events,
and growing, more hopeful duties, so that it contained a world
of living. The uncle had not been forgotten, but the innumerable
restrictions to development and progress were no longer manifest.
Beasley had not presented himself or any claim upon Helen; and she,
gathering confidence day by day, began to believe all that purport of
trouble had been exaggerated.

In this time she had come to love her work and all that pertained to it.
The estate was large. She had no accurate knowledge of how many acres
she owned, but it was more than two thousand. The fine, old, rambling
ranch-house, set like a fort on the last of the foot-hills, corrals and
fields and barns and meadows, and the rolling green range beyond, and
innumerable sheep, horses, cattle--all these belonged to Helen, to her
ever-wondering realization and ever-growing joy. Still, she was afra