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THE GIRL FROM SUNSET RANCH

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BOOKS FOR GIRLS
By AMY BELL MARLOWE
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.

THE OLDEST OF FOUR
  Or Natalie's Way Out
THE GIRLS OF HILLCREST FARM
  Or The Secret of the Rocks
A LITTLE MISS NOBODY
  Or With the Girls of Pinewood Hall
THE GIRL FROM SUNSET RANCH
  Or Alone in a Great City
WYN'S CAMPING DAYS
  Or The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club
FRANCES OF THE RANGES
  Or The Old Ranchman's Treasure
THE GIRLS OF RIVERCLIFF SCHOOL
  Or Beth Baldwin's Resolve

THE ORIOLE BOOKS

WHEN ORIOLE CAME TO HARBOR LIGHT
WHEN ORIOLE TRAVELED WESTWARD
(Other volumes in preparation)

GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS--NEW YORK

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[Illustration: "CAB, MISS? TAKE YOU ANYWHERE YOU SAY."
Frontispiece (Page 67).]

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THE GIRL FROM SUNSET RANCH
OR
ALONE IN A GREAT CITY

BY
AMY BELL MARLOWE

AUTHOR OF
THE OLDEST OF FOUR, THE GIRLS OF HILLCREST
FARM, WYN'S CAMPING DAYS, ETC.

Illustrated

NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS

Made in the United States of America

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Copyright, 1914, by
GROSSET & DUNLAP

The Girl from Sunset Ranch

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER                                 PAGE
     I.  "Snuggy" and the Rose Pony        1
    II.  Dudley Stone                     14
   III.  The Mistress Of Sunset Ranch     26
    IV.  Headed East                      36
     V.  At Both Ends Of The Route        45
    VI.  Across The Continent             56
   VII.  The Great City                   65
  VIII.  The Welcome                      72
    IX.  The Ghost Walk                   83
     X.  Morning                          92
    XI.  Living Up To One's Reputation   102
   XII.  "I Must Learn The Truth"        111
  XIII.  Sadie Again                     128
   XIV.  A New World                     142
    XV.  "Step--Put; Step--Put"          152
   XVI.  Forgotten                       164
  XVII.  A Distinct Shock                176
 XVIII.  Probing For Facts               196
   XIX.  "Jones"                         204
    XX.  Out Of Step With The Times      216
   XXI.  Breaking The Ice                227
  XXII.  In The Saddle                   238
 XXIII.  My Lady Bountiful               252
  XXIV.  The Hat Shop                    262
   XXV.  The Missing Link                271
  XXVI.  Their Eyes Are Opened           279
 XXVII.  The Party                       287
XXVIII.  A Statement Of Fact             304
  XXIX.  "The Whip Hand"                 311
   XXX.  Headed West                     317

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THE GIRL FROM SUNSET
RANCH

CHAPTER I

"SNUGGY" AND THE ROSE PONY


"Hi, Rose! Up, girl! There's another party making for the View by the far
path. Get a move on, Rosie."

The strawberry roan tossed her cropped mane and her dainty little hoofs
clattered more quickly over the rocky path which led up from the
far-reaching grazing lands of Sunset Ranch to the summit of the rocky
eminence that bounded the valley upon the east.

To the west lay a great, rolling plain, covered with buffalo grass and
sage; and dropping down the arc of the sky was the setting sun,
ruddy-countenanced, whose almost level rays played full upon the face of
the bluff up which the pony climbed so nimbly.

"On, Rosie, girl!" repeated the rider. "Don't let him get to the View
before us. I don't see why anybody would wish to go there," she added,
with a jealous pang, "for it was father's favorite outlook. None of our
boys, I am sure, would come up here at this hour."

Helen Morrell was secure in this final opinion. It was but a short month
since Prince Morrell had gone down under the hoofs of the steers in an
unfortunate stampede that had cost the Sunset Ranch much beside the life
of its well-liked owner.

The View--a flat table of rock on the summit overlooking the valley--had
become almost sacred in the eyes of the punchers of Sunset Ranch since Mr.
Morrell's death. For it was to that spot the ranchman had betaken
himself--usually with his daughter--on almost every fair evening, to
overlook the valley and count the roaming herds which grazed under his
brand.

Helen, who was sixteen and of sturdy build, could see the nearer herds now
dotting the plain. She had her father's glasses slung over her shoulder,
and she had come to-night partly for the purpose of spying out the strays
along the watercourses or hiding in the distant _coulees_.

But mainly her visit to the View was because her father had loved to ride
here. She could think about him here undisturbed by the confusion and
bustle at the ranch-house. And there were some things--things about her
father and the sad conversation they had had together before his taking
away--that Helen wanted to speculate upon alone.

The boys had picked him up after the accident and brought him home; and
doctors had been brought all the way from Helena to do what they could for
him. But Mr. Morrell had suffered many bruises and broken bones, and there
had been no hope for him from the first.

He was not, however, always unconscious. He was a masterful man and he
refused to take drugs to deaden the pain.

"Let me know what I am about until I meet death," he had whispered.
"I--am--not--afraid."

And yet, there was one thing of which he had been sorely afraid. It was
the thought of leaving his daughter alone.

"Oh, Snuggy!" he groaned, clinging to the girl's plump hand with his own
weak one. "If there were some of your own kind to--to leave you with. A
girl like you needs women about--good women, and refined women. Squaws,
and Greasers, and half-breeds aren't the kind of women-folk your mother
was brought up among.

"I don't know but I've done wrong these past few years--since your mother
died, anyway. I've been making money here, and it's all for you, Snuggy.
That's fixed by the lawyer in Elberon.

"Big Hen Billings is executor and guardian of you and the ranch. I know I
can trust him. But there ought to be nice women and girls for you to live
with--like those girls who went to school with you the four years you were
in Denver.

"Yet, this is your home. And your money is going to be made here. It would
be a crime to sell out now.

"Ah, Snuggy! Snuggy! If your mother had only lived!" groaned Mr. Morrell.
"A woman knows what's right for a girl better than a man. This is a rough
place out here. And even the best of our friends and neighbors are crude.
You want refinement, and pretty dresses, and soft beds, and fine
furniture----"

"No, no, Father! I love Sunset Ranch just as it is," Helen declared,
wiping away her tears.

"Aye. 'Tis a beauty spot--the beauty spot of all Montana, I believe,"
agreed the dying man. "But you need something more than a beautiful
landscape."

"But there are true hearts here--all our friends!" cried Helen.

"And so they are--God bless them!" responded Prince Morrell, fervently.
"But, Snuggy, you were born to something better than being a 'cowgirl.'
Your mother was a refined woman. I have forgotten most of my college
education; but I had it once.

"_This_ was not our original environment. It was not meant that we should
be shut away from all the gentler things of life, and live rudely as we
have. Unhappy circumstances did that for us."

He was silent for a moment, his face working with suppressed emotion.
Suddenly his grasp tightened on the girl's hand and he continued:

"Snuggy! I'm going to tell you something. It's something you ought to
know, I believe. Your mother was made unhappy by it, and I wouldn't want a
knowledge of it to come upon you unaware, in the after time when you are
alone. Let me tell you with my own lips, girl."

"Why, Father, what is it?"

"Your father's name is under a cloud. There is a smirch on my reputation.
I--I ran away from New York to escape arrest, and I have lived here in the
wilderness, without communicating with old friends and associates, because
I did not want the matter stirred up."

"Afraid of arrest, Father?" gasped Helen.

"For your mother's sake, and for yours," he said. "She couldn't have borne
it. It would have killed her."

"But you were not guilty, Father!" cried Helen.

"How do you know I wasn't?"

"Why, Father, you could never have done anything dishonorable or mean--I
know you could not!"

"Thank you, Snuggy!" the dying man replied, with a smile hovering about
his pain-drawn lips. "You've been the greatest comfort a father ever had,
ever since you was a little, cuddly baby, and liked to snuggle up against
father under the blankets.

"That was before the big ranch-house was built, and we lived in a shack. I
don't know how your mother managed to stand it, winters. _You_ just
snuggled into my arms under the blankets--that's how we came to call you
'Snuggy.'"

"'Snuggy' is a good name, Dad," she declared. "I love it, because _you_
love it. And I know I gave you comfort when I was little."

"Indeed, yes! _What_ a comfort you were after your poor mother died,
Snuggy! Ah, well! you shall have your reward, dear. I am sure of that.
Only I am worried that you should be left alone now."

"Big Hen and the boys will take care of me," Helen said, stifling her
sobs.

"Nay, but you need women-folk about. Your mother's sister, now--The
Starkweathers, if they knew, might offer you a home."

"That is,