“Yes, God knows I would have done it a thousand times over; mother will never recover from the blow.”

“And yet you may be the next to fall during this frightful state of affairs.  If the situation of your mother and sister is so sad because of the loss of the head of the household, what will it be if you should be taken?”

“I appreciate your kindness, Mont, but you put the case too strongly; in one sense we all stand in danger of sudden death every day.  I might live to threescore and ten in Wyoming, and be killed in a railroad accident or some other way the first day I left it.  There is no particular enmity between the rustlers and me; that brush yesterday was one of those sudden outbursts that was not premeditated by them.”

“It didn’t look that way to me.”

“You were not there when it opened.  They were driving a lot of mavericks toward their ranch down the river, when Budd Hankinson saw a steer among them with our brand.  You know it—­a sort of cross with father’s initials.  Without asking for its return, Budd called them a gang of thieves, cut out the steer and drove him toward our range.  If he had gone at the thing in the right way there would have been no trouble, but his ugly words made them mad, and the next thing we were all shooting at each other.”

“You inflicted more harm than they, and they won’t forget it.”

“I don’t want them to forget it,” said Fred, bitterly, “but they won’t carry their enmity to the extent of making an unprovoked attack on me or any of my people.”

“Possibly not, but you don’t want to bank on the theory.”

“You must not forget,” continued the practical Whitney, “that all we have in the world is invested in this business, and it would be a sacrifice for us to sell out and move eastward, where I would be without any business.”

“You could soon make one for yourself.”

“Well,” said Whitney, thoughtfully, “I will promise to turn it over in my mind; the associations, however, that will always cling to this place, and particularly my sympathy for mother and Jennie, will be the strongest influences actuating me, provided I decide to change.”

Mont Sterry experienced a thrill of delight, for he knew that when a man talks in that fashion he is on the point of yielding.  He determined to urge the matter upon Jennie, and there was just enough hope in his heart that the prospect of being on the same side of the Mississippi with him would have some slight weight.

“I am glad to hear you speak thus, for it is certain there will be serious trouble with the rustlers.”

“All which emphasizes what I said earlier in the evening about your duty to make a change of location.”

The proposition, now that there was reason to believe that Fred Whitney had come over to his way of thinking, struck Sterry more favourably than before.  In fact he reflected, with a shudder, what a dismal, unattractive section this would be, after the removal of his friends.