"Not so's you'd notice it. I guess I can get down after a fashion." "Hurt bad?" "It's my foot, mostly--right foot. I believe it's sprained, or broken. It's sort of in the way when I move about." "Your face looks as if that tree had combed it some," commented Helen. "Never mind," replied the youth. "Beauty's only skin deep, at best. And I'm not proud." She could not see him very well, for the sun had dropped so low that down where he lay the face of the bluff was in shadow. "Well, what are you going to do? Climb up, or down?" "I believe getting down would be easier--'specially if you let me use your rope." "Sure!" "But then, there'd be my pony. I couldn't get him with this foot----" "I'll catch him. My Rose can run down anything on four legs in these parts," declared the girl, briskly. "And can you get down here to the foot of this cliff where I'm bound to land?" "Yes. I know the way in the dark. Got matches?" "Yes." "Then you build some kind of a smudge when you reach the bottom. That'll show me where you are. Now I'm going to drop the rope to you. Look out it doesn't get tangled." "All right! Let 'er come!" "I'll have to leave you if I'm to catch that buckskin before it gets dark, stranger. You'll get along all right?" she added. "Surest thing you know!" She dropped the rope. He gathered it in quickly and then uttered a cheerful shout. "All clear?" asked Helen. "Don't worry about me. I'm all right," he assured her. Helen leaped back to her waiting pony. Already the golden light was dying out of the sky. Up here in the foothills the "evening died hard" as the saying is; but the buckskin pony had romped clear across the plateau. He was now, indeed, out of sight. She whirled Rose about and set off at a gallop after the runaway. It was not until then that she remembered she had no rope. That buckskin would have to be fairly run down. There would be no roping him. "But if you can't do it, no other horsie can," she said, aloud, patting the Rose pony on her arching neck. "Go it, girl! Let's see if we can't beat any miserable little buckskin that ever came into this country. A strawberry roan forever!" Her "E-e-e-yow! yow!" awoke the pony to desperate endeavor. She seemed to merely skim the dry grass of the open plateau, and in ten minutes Helen saw a riderless mount plunging up the side of a _coulee_ far ahead. "There he goes!" cried the girl. "After him, Rosie! Make your pretty hoofs fly!" The excitement of the chase roused in Helen that feeling of freedom and confidence that is a part of life on the plains. Those who live much in the open air, and especially in the saddle, seldom think of failure. She knew she was going to catch the runaway pony. Such an idea as non-success never entered her mind. This was the first hard riding she had done since Mr. Morrell died; and now her thoughts expanded and she shook off the hopeless feeling which had clouded her young heart and mind since they had buried her father.