“I expect that will be pretty tough, Hen. But I feel like I must go, you see,” said the girl, dropping into the idiom of Sunset Ranch. “Dad wanted me to.”
“The Boss wanted yuh to?” gasped the giant, surprised.
“Yes, Hen.”
“He never said nothin’ to me about it,” declared the foreman of Sunset Ranch, shaking his bushy head.
“No? Didn’t he say anything about my being with women folk, and under different circumstances?”
“Gosh, yes! But I reckoned on getting Mis’ Polk and Mis’ Harry Frieze to take turns coming over yere and livin’ with yuh.”
“But that isn’t all dad wanted,” continued the girl, shaking her head. “Besides, you know both Mrs. Polk and Mrs. Frieze are widows, and will be looking for husbands. We’d maybe lose some of the best boys we’ve got, if they came here,” said Helen, her eyes twinkling.
“Great jumping Jehosaphat! I never thought of that,” declared the foreman, suddenly scared. “I never did like that Polk woman’s eye. I wouldn’t, mebbe, be safe myse’f; would I?”
“I’m afraid not,” Helen gravely agreed. “So, you see, to please dad, I’ll have to go to New York. I don’t mean to stay for all time, Hen. But I want to give it a try-out.”
She sounded Dud Stone a good bit about the big city. Dud had to stay several days at Sunset Ranch because he couldn’t ride very well with his injured foot. And finally, when he did go back to Badger’s, they took him in a buckboard.