When he awoke it was with a start and a vague wonder as to his whereabouts.  Then memory returned, and he listened intently.  Not a sound could he distinguish save his own breathing, as he slowly made his way to the mouth of the kennel.  Before him was the opposite sod wall of the house standing as high as his head; above that, the blue of the sky; upon what had been the earthen floor, a strewing of ashes; over all, calm, glorious, the slanting rays of the low afternoon sun.  A moment the boy lay gazing out; then he crawled to his feet, shaking off the dirt as a dog does.  One glance about, and the blue eyes halted.  A moisture came into them, gathered into drops, and then, breaking over the barrier of the long lashes, tears flowed through the accumulated grime, down the thin cheeks, leaving a clean pathway behind.  That was all, for an instant; then a look—­terrible in a mature person and doubly so in a child—­came over the long face,—­an expression partaking of both hate and vengeance.  It mirrored an emotion that in a nature such as that of Benjamin Blair would never be forgotten.  Some day, for some one, there would be a moment of reckoning; for the child was looking at the charred, unrecognizable corpse of his mother.

* * * * *

A half-hour later, Rankin, steaming into the yard of the Big B Ranch, came upon a scene that savored much of a play.  It was so dramatic that the big man paused in contemplation of it.  He saw there the sod and ashes of what had once been a home.  The place must have burned like tinder, for now, but a few hours from the time when Grannis had first given the alarm, not an atom of smoke ascended.  At one end of the quadrangular space enclosed by the walls stood the makeshift stove, discolored with the heat, as was the length of pipe by its side.  Near by was a heap of warped iron and tin cooking utensils.  At one side, covered by an old gunny-sack and a boy’s tattered coat, was another object the form of which the observer could not distinguish.

In the middle of the plat, standing a few inches below the surface, was a small boy, and in his hands a very large spade.  He wore a man’s discarded shirt, with sleeves rolled up at the wrist, and neck-band pinned tight at one side.  Obviously, he had been digging, for a small pile of fresh dirt was heaped at his right.  Now, however, he was motionless, the blue eyes beneath the long lashes observing the new-comer inquiringly.  That was all, save that to the picture was added the background of the unbroken silence of the prairie.

The man was the first to break the spell.  He got out of the wagon clumsily, walked around the wall, and entered the quadrangle by what had been the door.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Digging,” replied the boy, resuming his work.

“Digging what?”

The boy lifted out a double handful of dirt upon the big spade.

“A grave.”