When Helen Morrell made up her mind to do a thing, she usually did it. A cataclysm of nature was about all that would thwart her determination. This being yielded to and never thwarted, even by her father, might have spoiled a girl of different calibre. But there was a foundation of good common sense to Helen's nature. "Snuggy won't kick over the traces much," Prince Morrell had been wont to say. "Right you are, Boss," had declared Big Hen Billings. "It's usually safe to give her her head. She'll bring up somewhar." But when Helen mentioned her eastern trip to the old foreman he came "purty nigh goin' up in th' air his own se'f!" as he expressed it. "What d'yer wanter do anythin' like that air for, Snuggy?" he demanded, in a horrified tone. "Great jumping Jehosaphat! Ain't this yere valley big enough fo' you?" "Sometimes I think it's too big," admitted Helen, laughing. "Well, by jo! you'll fin' city quarters close't 'nough--an' that's no josh. Huh! Las' time ever I went to Chicago with a train-load of beeves I went to see Kellup Flemming what useter work here on this very same livin' Sunset Ranch. You don't remember him. You was too little, Snuggy." "I've heard you speak of him, Hen," observed the girl. "Well, thar was Kellup, as smart a young feller as you'd find in a day's ride, livin' with his wife an' kids in what he called a _flat_. Be-lieve me! It was some perpendicular to git into, an' no _flat_. "When we gits inside and inter what he called his parlor, he looks around like he was proud of it (By jo! I'd be afraid ter shrug my shoulders in it, 'twas so small) an' says he: 'What d'ye think of the ranch, Hen?' "'Ranch,' mind yeh! I was plumb insulted. I says: 'It's all right--what there is of it--only, what's that crack in the wall for, Kellup?' "'Sufferin' tadpoles!' yells Kellup--jest like that! 'Sufferin' tadpoles! That ain't no crack in the wall. That's our private hall.' "Great jumping Jehosaphat!" exclaimed Hen, roaring with laughter. "Yuh don't wanter git inter no place like that in New York. Can't breathe in the house." "I guess Uncle Starkweather lives in a little better place than that," said Helen, after laughing with the old foreman. "His house is on Madison Avenue." "Don't care where it is; there natcherly won't be no such room in a city dwelling as there is here at Sunset Ranch." "I suppose not," admitted the girl. "Huh! Won't be room in the yard for a cow," growled Big Hen. "Nor chickens. Whatter yer goin' to do without a fresh aig, Snuggy?" "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?"