"Are you very cold? Just a minute and I'll have a fire going. I came in only a moment before I heard your knock." She did not speak until he had gathered an armful of wood from the box at the side of the fireplace and had flung it upon the blaze that a match had started from a bit of paper and some pitch pine. Nor did she seem in haste to speak even then when he stood across the hearth looking at her. But not for a second had her approving eyes left him; no opportunity had they lost to watch the man's face intently. "Where did you come from in all this storm?" he asked curiously. "Remotely, from New York. Immediately from El Toyen." "Lord!" he ejaculated. "You must be dead. I'll get you something hot, some coffee. We haven't any tea, I'm afraid." She laughed coolly, evidently quite at home with him. "If a man came in, frozen stiff, would you offer him a cup of tea?" "What do you mean?" He had started toward the kitchen, and stopped. "I mean brandy, if you've got any. It would do me a lot of good. Wanda Leland just poured some tea down me and I didn't want to shock her." Wayne stood frowning at her a moment, a question on his lips. Then he went to the kitchen and got a bottle and a glass. She had drawn a chair close up to the fire when he returned and was leaning back in it luxuriously, her feet thrust out to the blaze. "Thanks," she said, taking the glass he handed her. "I am drinking to our better acquaintance." She set the glass down upon the arm of her chair, half emptied, and smiled up at him. "I want a good long talk if you can spare the time. Can you?" "Of course," he said briefly. "It is my particular desire that no one but yourself hears what I have to say." "No one is here except Garth and myself. And Garth hasn't come in from the corrals yet." "Excellent." Her black eyes flashed from him to the various rude appointments of the room, flashed back to him. "I am Helga Strawn," she said abruptly. He repeated the name after her in surprise: "Helga Strawn?" "Yes. Perhaps you guess right away what has brought me West, to you first of all?" "No," he said. "I don't think that I do." "Then I'll tell you. That's what I am here for. Don't begin to think that I saw a picture of you somewhere and fell in love with it." The finely chiselled lips, too faultlessly perfect at any time to be warmly womanly, were suddenly hard. Her eyes had become brilliant, twin spots of colour came into her cheeks. "At least you remember my name?" "Helga Strawn? Yes, I remember it. You learned from a mutual acquaintance that I was in New York some time ago. You wrote me then. You are a cousin of Sledge Hume." "Not exactly a cousin," she corrected him. "I am not so proud of the relationship as to wish to make it closer than it is. But that does not matter. You remember also why I wrote you?"