“To-morrow, I reckon. I'll come for you. Fetch Bo along with you. We've got to play safe from now on. An' what do you say to me an' Hal sleepin' here at the ranch-house?”
“Indeed I'd feel safer,” she replied. “There are rooms. Please come.”
“Allright. An' now I'll be goin' to fetch Hal. Shore wish I hadn't made you pale an' scared like this.”
About ten o'clock next morning Carmichael drove Helen and Bo into Pine, and tied up the team before Widow Cass's cottage.
The peach and apple-trees were mingling blossoms of pink and white; a drowsy hum of bees filled the fragrant air; rich, dark-green alfalfa covered the small orchard flat; a wood fire sent up a lazy column of blue smoke; and birds were singing sweetly.
Helen could scarcely believe that amid all this tranquillity a man lay perhaps fatally injured. Assuredly Carmichael had been somber and reticent enough to rouse the gravest fears.
Widow Cass appeared on the little porch, a gray, bent, worn, but cheerful old woman whom Helen had come to know as her friend.
“My land! I'm thet glad to see you, Miss Helen,” she said. “An' you've fetched the little lass as I've not got acquainted with yet.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Cass. How—how is Roy?” replied Helen, anxiously scanning the wrinkled face.
“Roy? Now don't you look so scared. Roy's 'most ready to git on his hoss an' ride home, if I let him. He knowed you was a-comin'. An' he made me hold a lookin'-glass for him to shave. How's thet fer a man with a bullet-hole through him! You can't kill them Mormons, nohow.”