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For Helen Rayner that brief, dark period of expulsion frootten

Two s of love and work and the joy of finding her place there in the West All her old lad of the opportunity to come back to her, and under Dale and Roy Beeman a different and prosperous order es in the house by altering the arrange a new section Only once had she ventured into the old dining-rooas Carmichael had sat down to that fatal dinner for Beasley She ain enter

Helen was happy, alht, and therefore made more than needful of the several bitter drops in her sweet cup of life Carmichael had ridden out of Pine, ostensibly on the trail of the Mexicans who had executed Beasley's commands The last seen of him had been reported froerous, like a hound on a scent Then two months had flown by without a word

Dale had shaken his head doubtfully when interrogated about the cowboy's absence It would be just like Las Vegas never to be heard of again Also it would be more like hie spell had departed frootten by his friends Bo took his disappearance apparently less to heart than Helen But Bo grew ht she guessed Bo's secret; and once she ventured a hint concerning Carmichael's return

"If Tom doesn't come back pretty soon I'll ly

This fired Helen's cheeks with red

"But, child," she protested, half angry, half grave "Milt and I are engaged"

"Sure Only you're so slow There's many a slip--you know"

"Bo, I tell you Tom will come back," replied Helen, earnestly "I feel it There was so fine in that cowboy He understood me better than you or Milt, either And he was perfectly wild in love with you"

"Oh! WAS he?"

"Very much more than you deserved, Bo Rayner"

Then occurred one of Bo's sweet, bewildering, unexpected transformations Her defiance, resentitated face

"Oh, Nell, I know that You just watch et another chance at hiain!"