"Some distance. And we've got to walk. But bear up if you can----" She saw him waver in the saddle. If he fell, she could not be sure just how Rose, the spirited pony, would act. "Say!" she said, coming around and walking by his side, leading the other mount by the bridle. "You lean on me. Don't want you falling out of the saddle. Too hard work to get you back again." "I guess you think I _am_ a tenderfoot!" muttered young Stone. He never knew how they reached Sunset Ranch. The fall, the terrible wrench of his foot, and the endurance of the pain was finally too much for him. In a half-fainting condition he sank part of his weight on the girl's shoulder, and she sturdily trudged along the rough trail, bearing him up until she thought her own limbs would give way. At last she even had to let the buckskin run at large, he made her so much trouble. But the Rose pony was "a dear!" Somewhere about ten o'clock the dogs began to bark. She saw the flash of lanterns and heard the patter of hoofs. She gave voice to the long range yell, and a dozen anxious punchers replied. Great discussion had arisen over where she could have gone, for nobody had seen her ride off toward the View that afternoon. "Whar you been, gal?" demanded Big Hen Billings, bringing his horse to a sudden stop across the trail. "Hul-_lo!_ What's that you got with yer?" "A tenderfoot. Easy, Hen! I've got his leg strapped to the girth. He's in bad shape," and she related, briefly, the particulars of the accident. Dudley Stone had only a hazy recollection later of the noise and confusion of his arrival. He was borne into the house by two men--one of them the ranch foreman himself. They laid him on a couch, cut the boot from his injured foot, and then the sock he wore. Hen Billings, with bushy whiskers and the frame of a giant, was nevertheless as tender with the injured foot as a woman. Water with a chunk of ice floating in it was used to reduce the swelling. The foreman's blunted fingers probed for broken bones. But it seemed there was none. It was only a bad sprain, and they finally stripped him to his underclothes and bandaged the foot with cloths soaked with ice water. When they got him into bed--in an adjoining room--the young mistress of Sunset Ranch reappeared, with a tray and napkins, with which she arranged a table. "That's what he wants--some good grub under his belt, Snuggy," said the gigantic foreman, finally lighting his pipe. "He'll be all right in a few days. I'll send word to Creeping Ford for one of the boys to ride down to Badger's and tell 'em. That's where Mr. Stone says he's been stopping." "You're mighty kind," said the Easterner, gratefully, as Sing, the Chinese servant, shuffled in with a steaming supper. "We're glad to have a chance to play Good Samaritan in this part of the country," said Helen, laughing. "Isn't that so, Hen?" "That's right, Snuggy," replied the foreman, patting her on the shoulder.