love
between them had seemed strong and unbreakable until Smith's coming. They
had been all in all to each other in their unemotional way; and now this
unexpected tragedy seemed to crush the child, because it was something
which never had entered her thoughts. It was a crisis with which she did
not know how to cope or to bear. The world could never be blacker for her
than it was when she clung sobbing to the little sorrel pony's thick neck
that morning. The future looked utterly cheerless and impossible to
endure. She had not learned that no tragedy is so blighting that there is
not a way out--a way which the sufferer makes himself, which comes to him,
or into which he is forced. Nothing stays as it is. But it appeared to
Susie that life could never be different, except to be worse.

She had talked much to McArthur of the outside world, and questioned him,
and a doubt had sprung up as to the feasibility of searching for her
kinsfolk, as she had planned. There were many, many trails and wire fences
to bewilder one, and people--hundreds of people--people who were not
always kind. His answers filled her with vague fears. To be only sixteen,
and alone, is cause enough for tears, and Susie shed them now.

McArthur, with a radiant face, was riding toward the ranch to which he had
become singularly attached. His saddle-pockets bulged with mail, and his
elbows flapped joyously as he urged his horse to greater speed. He looked
up eagerly at the house as he crossed the ford, and his kind eyes shone
with happiness when he rode into the stable-yard and swung out of the
saddle.

He heard a sound, the unmistakable sound of sobbing, as he was unsaddling.
Listening, he knew it came from somewhere in the stable, so he left his
horse and went inside.

It was Susie, as he had thought. She lifted her tear-stained face from the
pony's mane when he spoke, and he knew that she was glad to see him.

"Oh, pardner, I thought you'd _never_ come!"

"The mail was late, and I stayed with the Major to wait for it. What has
gone wrong?"

"Mother's dead," she said. "She was poisoned accidentally."

"Susie! And there was no one here?" The news seemed incredible.

"Only Teacher and me--no one that knew what to do. We sent Meeteetse for a
doctor, but he hasn't come yet. He probably got drunk and forgot what he
went for. It's been a terrible night, pardner, and a terrible day!"

McArthur looked at her with troubled eyes, and once more he stroked