tter with
him, Dave?"

"A little accident--just a little accident, kid. He--he--now you don't
want to go worryin' about it; not yet, anyway."

But Rennie's effort to break bad news gently was too obvious. The boy's
voice took on a sharp note of alarm.

"What sort of an accident?" he demanded. "Is he hurt? Talk up, can't
you?"

"Well, now, durn it, kid, I'd ruther break a leg than tell you--but your
daddy, he's been shot up some."

"Do you mean he's dead?" the boy cried in wide-eyed horror.

"No, he ain't dead--or he wasn't when I started out to find you.
But--but he's plugged plumb center, and--and--Oh, hell, I guess you
know what I'm tryin' to say!"

The boy stared at him dumbly while the slow thudding pad of the horses'
feet on the soft trail smote on his ears like the sound of muffled
drums. He failed at first, as the young must ever fail, to comprehend
the full meaning of the message. His father dead or dying! His father,
Adam Mackay, that living tower of muscle and sinew who could lift with
his hands logs with which other men struggled with cant-hook and peavie,
who could throw a steel-beamed breaking plow aboard a wagon as another
man would handle a wheel-hoe? It was unbelievable.

But slowly the realization was forced upon him. His father had been
shot, and with the knowledge came the flame of bitter anger and desire
for revenge that was his in right of the blood in his veins. And the
desire momentarily overwhelmed sorrow.

"Who did it?" he asked, his young voice a fierce, croaking whisper.

"I dunno. He won't tell anybody. Maybe he'll tell you."

"Come on!" Angus Mackay cried, and dug heels into his pony.

The pony was blown and gasping as they rode up to the ranch and Angus
leaped from his back. Rennie's hand fell on his shoulder.

"Kid," he said earnestly, "you want to brace up and keep braced. If it's
a show-down for your daddy he'll like to know you're takin' it like a
man. Then there's Jean and Turkey. This here happens to everybody, and
while it's tough it's a part of the game. And just one more thing: If
you find out who done the shootin', let me know!"

The boy nodded, because he could not trust himself to speak, and ran
into the house. It was hushed in the twilight. Already it seemed to hold
a little of the strange stillness which comes with the departure of a
familiar presence. As the boy paused, from a corner came a little,
sniffling sob, and in the semi-darkness he saw his young brot