onteith Sterry with the wolves. He
was so pleased with the western country that he made his decision to
remove thither. He met with no difficulty in selling at a fair price
his little property in the Pine-Tree State, and with a portion of the
proceeds he bought a ranch near the headwaters of Powder River, to
which place he removed, with his family, in the spring of 1890,
directly after the incidents related in the preceding chapters.

One of the pleasures of this radical change of residence and
occupation was that it was pleasing to his son Fred and his twin
sister Jennie, now about nineteen years of age.

Whether the wife shared in the desire to make her home in that new
country, or whether she expressed the wish to do so because she saw it
would gratify her husband, cannot be said with certainty. There was no
doubt, however, about the eagerness with which the brother and sister
took part in the removal.

Young, ardent, and of sturdy frame, with all the natural yearning of
imaginative youth for adventure, the prospect was an inviting one to
them. Their father's glowing accounts of the magnificent scenery, its
vast resources and limitless possibilities, caused a yearning on their
part probably deeper than his own.

It is rare that such expectations are fully realized in this life. It
cannot be said that those of the brother and sister found more than
a partial fulfilment, but, though the fateful day came when they
regretted the change beyond the power of language to express, yet it
was many months before it dawned upon them.

Hugh Whitney's herd of cattle numbered several thousand, and, on the
day when we take up the eventful history of the family, they were
grazing on the open ranges along the spurs of the Big Horn Mountains.

The two cowmen engaged by Whitney to assist him in the duty of looking
after his property were Budd Hankinson and Grizzly Weber. They were
veterans in the business, brave and true and tried. Under their
tuition, and that of his father, Fred Whitney became a skilful
horseman and rancher. He learned to lasso and bring down an obdurate
steer, to give valuable help in the round-ups, to assist in branding
the registered trademark of his father on the haunches of his animals.

This brand consisted of a cross, with two stars above, one below, the
initial letter of his given name on the left, and that of his surname
on the right. When this was burned into the flesh of the yearlings,
it identified