"I--I--don't want--to hear--any more," she sobbed.
"Well, you've got to hear it," replied Helen, inexorably "I want you to know how he's stood by me."
"But I hate him."
"Bo, I suspect that's not true."
"I do--I do."
"Well, you act and talk very strangely then."
"Nell Rayner--are--you--you sticking up for that--that devil?"
"I am, yes, so far as it concerns my conscience," rejoined Helen, earnestly. "I never appreciated him as he deserved--not until now. He's a man, Bo, every inch of him. I've seen him grow up to that in three months. I'd never have gotten along without him. I think he's fine, manly, big. I--"
"I'll bet--he's made love--to you, too," replied Bo, woefully.
"Talk sense," said Helen, sharply. "He has been a brother to me. But, Bo Rayner, if he HAD made love to me I--I might have appreciated it more than you."
Bo raised her face, flushed in part and also pale, with tear-wet cheeks and the telltale blaze in the blue eyes.
"I've been wild about that fellow. But I hate him, too," she said, with flashing spirit. "And I want to go on hating him. So don't tell me any more."
Whereupon Helen briefly and graphically related how Carmichael had offered to kill Beasley, as the only way to save her property, and how, when she refused, that he threatened he would do it anyhow.
Bo fell over with a gasp and clung to Helen.
"Oh--Nell! Oh, now I love him more than--ever," she cried, in mingled rage and despair.
Helen clasped her closely and tried to comfort her as in the old days, not so very far back, when troubles were not so serious as now.
"Of course you love him," she concluded. "I guessed that long ago. And I'm glad. But you've been wilful--foolish. You wouldn't surrender to it. You wanted your fling with the other boys. You're--Oh, Bo, I fear you have been a sad little flirt."
"I--I wasn't very bad till--till he got bossy. Why, Nell, he acted--right off--just as if he OWNED me. But he didn't.... And to show him--I--I really did flirt with that Turner fellow. Then he--he insulted me.... Oh, I hate him!"
"Nonsense, Bo. You can't hate any one while you love him," protested Helen.
"Much you know about that," flashed Bo. "You just can! Look here. Did you ever see a cowboy rope and throw and tie up a mean horse?"