to be given to the study of your profession, and you have become
so feared and hated by the rustlers that they will go to any length to
'remove' you."

"The more cause, therefore, why I should stay," responded the other.

"A poor argument--"

The discussion was interrupted by the sound of a horse's hoofs. Some
one was riding toward them on a gallop, and speedily loomed to view
in the bright moonlight. The three instinctively ceased speaking and
gazed curiously at the horseman, who reined up in front of where they
were sitting.

Hospitality is limitless in the West, and, before the stranger had
halted, Fred Whitney rose from his chair and walked forward to welcome
him.

The man was in the costume of a cowboy, with rifle, revolver and all
the paraphernalia of the craft.

"Is your name Whitney?" asked the horseman, speaking first.

"It is; what can I do for you?"

"Do you know Mont Sterry?"

"He is a particular friend of mine," replied Whitney, refraining from
adding that he was the young man sitting a few paces away with his
sister and hearing every word said.

"Well, there's a letter for him; if I knew where to find him I would
deliver it myself. Will you hand it to him the next time you meet
him?"

As he spoke he leaned forward from his saddle and handed a sealed
envelope to Fred Whitney, who remarked, as he accepted it:

"I will do as you wish; I expect to see him soon; won't you dismount
and stay over night with us?"

"No; I have business elsewhere," was the curt answer, as the fellow
wheeled and spurred off on a gallop.

Budd Hankinson and Grizzly Weber, the two hired men, were absent,
looking after the cattle, for the rustler is a night hawk who often
gets in the best part of his work between the set and rise of sun.

Mrs. Whitney was sitting in the gloom, alone in her sorrow. Jennie
wished to stay with her, but the mother gently refused, saying she
preferred to have none with her. No light was burning in the building,
and that night the weather was unusually mild.

Mont Sterry accepted the paper from the hand of his friend and
remarked, with a smile:

"I suspect what it is. When the rustlers don't like a man they have a
frank way of telling him so, supplemented by a little good advice, I
fancy I have been honoured in a similar way."

He deliberately tore open the envelope, while Jennie and her brother
looked curiously at him. The moonlight, although strong, was not
sufficiently so to show t