The excitement of the chase roused in Helen that feeling of freedom and confidence that is a part of life on the plains. Those who live much in the open air, and especially in the saddle, seldom think of failure.
She knew she was going to catch the runaway pony. Such an idea as non-success never entered her mind. This was the first hard riding she had done since Mr. Morrell died; and now her thoughts expanded and she shook off the hopeless feeling which had clouded her young heart and mind since they had buried her father.
While she rode on, and rode hard, after the fleeing buckskin her revived thought kept time with the pony’s hoofbeats.
No longer did the old tune run in her head: “If I only could clear dad’s name!” Instead the drum of confidence beat a charge to arms: “I know I can clear his name!
“To think of poor dad living out here all these years, with suspicion resting on his reputation back there in New York. And he wasn’t guilty! It was that partner of his, or that bookkeeper, who was guilty. That is the secret of it,” Helen told herself.
“I’ll go back East and find out all about it,” determined the girl, as her pony carried her swiftly over the ground. “Up, Rose! There he is! Don’t let him get away from us!”
Her interest in the chase of the buckskin pony and in the mystery of her father’s trouble ran side by side.
“On, on!” she urged Rose. “Why shouldn’t I go East? Big Hen can run the ranch well enough. And there are my cousins—and auntie. If Aunt Eunice resembles mother——
“Go it, Rose! There’s our quarry!”
She stooped forward in the saddle, and as the Rose pony, running like the wind, passed the now staggering buckskin, Helen snatched the dragging rein, and pulled the runaway around to follow in her own wake.