tack
of which an account has been given.

"I think, Fred," said his sister, oppressed by the shadow that had
fallen across the threshold, "we ought to sell out and leave this
country."

"Why?" he gently asked.

"Because not only of what happened yesterday, but of the certainty
that such attacks will be repeated."

"What reason have you to fear their repetition?" asked Monteith.

"Matters are growing worse between the cowmen and the rustlers; I have
heard our men talk, and you have said so yourself."

"I cannot deny it," replied their visitor, thoughtfully smoking his
cigar. He would have been pleased had her brother, now the head of the
little household, decided to make his home once more in the East, for
then he would take up the study of his profession of law and be placed
where he could often meet them.

"It would be cowardly to sell out and abandon the country through
fear of those men," said the brother, to whom the proposition was not
pleasant.

"But suppose you should be their next victim?" suggested Jennie, with
a shudder.

"I don't think I shall be a victim," he quietly responded; "this wound
won't bother me long, and with Budd and Grizzly to help, we can laugh
at all the rustlers in the country."

"It is hardly a matter of courage," ventured Sterry, "for no one
knowing you or your sister would question your bravery, but it is
rather the peace of mind of your mother and her. It will be a
long time, if ever, before your parent recovers from the shock of
yesterday. No matter how confident and plucky you may be, Fred, you
know it is no guarantee against a bullet from one of those scamps at
five hundred or a thousand yards. I shudder to think of what might
happen."

Fred turned and looked full in the handsome face of the fellow beside
him.

"It strikes me that you are showing little faith in your own words.
Why do you remain where you are a marked man when there is no need of
it, and where your personal danger is certainly as great as mine?"

This _argumentum ad hominem_ was so unexpected that Sterry was
embarrassed for the moment, but found voice to reply:

"I have no mother and sister dependent on me, as you have."

"But you have brothers, sisters, father and mother, and therefore the
more to mourn if you should fall. The fact is, Mont, I feel that it
is a duty you owe to them to give up the dangerous calling you have
adopted. You not only do not need it, but are squandering time that
ought