"Don't let anything of that sort happen!" she cried. "Use all your influence. Get the men out of the country if you can. But don't let innocent men be slain." Lowell attempted to divert her mind to other things. He spoke of the changed appearance of the ranch. "Your coming has made a great difference here," he said. "This doesn't look like the place where I left you not many days ago." Helen closed her eyes involuntarily, as if to blot out some vision in her memory. "That terrible night!" she exclaimed. "I--" She paused, and Lowell looked at her in surprise and alarm. "What is it?" he asked. "Is there anything wrong--anything I can do to help you?" "No," she said. "Truly there is not, now. But there was. It was only the recollection of my coming here that made me act so queerly." "Look here," said Lowell bluntly, "is that stepfather of yours treating you all right? To put it frankly, he hasn't a very good reputation around here. I've often regretted not telling you more when I brought you over here. But you know how people feel about minding their own affairs. It's a foolish sort of reserve that keeps us quiet when we feel that we should speak." "No, I'm treated all right," said the girl. "It was just homesickness for my school, I guess, that worked on me when I first came here. But I can't get over the recollection of that night you brought me to this place. Everything seemed so chilling and desolate--and dead! And then those few days that followed!" She buried her face in her hands a moment, and then said, quietly: "Did you know that my stepfather had married an Indian woman?" "Yes. Do you mean that you didn't know?" "No, I didn't know." "What a fool I was for not telling you these things!" exclaimed Lowell. "I might have saved you a lot of humiliation." "You could have saved me more than humiliation. He told me all about her--the Indian woman. He laughed when he told me. He said he was going to kill me as he had killed her--by inches." Lowell grew cold with horror. "But this is criminal!" he declared. "Let me take you away from this place at once. I'll find some place where you can go--back to my mother's home in the East." "No, it's all right now. I'm in no danger, and I can't leave this place. In fact I don't want to," said the girl, putting her hand on Lowell's arm. "Do you mean to tell me that he treated you so fiendishly during the first few days, and then suddenly changed and became the most considerate of relatives?" "I tell you I am being treated all right now. I merely told you what happened at first--part of the cruel things he said--because I couldn't keep it all to myself any longer. Besides, that Indian woman--poor little thing!--is on my mind all the time." "Then you won't come away?" "No--he needs me."