tidings; "nothing has happened to him."

"Wal, I'm sorry to say that he has been hurt worse than Fred," was the
alarming response, accompanied by a deep sigh.

"How bad? How much worse? Tell us, tell us," insisted the wife.

"Thar's no use of denyin' that he got it bad; fact is he couldn't have
been hit harder."

The distressed fellow was so worked up that he turned his head and
looked over his shoulder, as if to avoid those yearning eyes fixed
upon him. That aimless glance revealed the approaching horsemen and
nerved him with new courage.

"Now, Mrs. Whitney and Jennie, you must be brave. Bear it as he would
bear the news about you and Fred if he was--alive!"

A shriek accompanied the words of the cowman, and Jennie caught her
mother in time to save her from falling. Her own heart was breaking,
but she did her utmost, poor thing, to cheer the one to whom the
sunlight of happiness could never come again.

"There, mother, try to bear it. We have Fred left to us, and I am with
you. God will not desert us."

Hugh Whitney had never spoken after that first interchange of volleys
with the rustlers. He died bravely at the post of duty and was
tenderly borne homeward, where he was given a decent burial, his grave
bedewed not only by the tears of the stricken widow and children, but