now. Those old dead bones won't hurt us. Let's go back."

"Not if I know myself, sonny," returned one of the men decidedly, and
the other heartily agreed with him, swearing that as it was, he should
not be able to close his eyes for a week. So, after a hurried lunch upon
the cold provisions, the party mounted their ponies and pushed on. The
promised snowstorm materialized, and shortly became a young blizzard,
and obliged to dismount and camp in the open prairie, they made a
miserable night of it.

But it had an end, as all things have, and with the morning they resumed
the trail, reaching Marysville, on the Big Blue, after many trials and
privations.

From here the trail was easier, as the country was pretty well settled,
and Will reached home without further adventure or misadventure. Here
there was compensation for hardship in the joy of handing over to mother
all his money, realizing that it would lighten her burdens--burdens
borne that she might leave her children provided for when she could
no longer repel the dread messenger, that in all those years seemed to
hover so near that even our childish hearts felt its presence ere it
actually crossed the threshold.

It was early in March when Will returned from his trapping expedition.
Mother's business was flourishing, though she herself grew frailer with
the passing of each day. The summer that came on was a sad one for us
all, for it marked Turk's last days on earth. One evening he was lying
in the yard, when a strange dog came up the road, bounded in, gave Turk
a vicious bite, and went on. We dressed the wound, and thought little of
it, until some horsemen rode up, with the inquiry, "Have you seen a dog
pass here?"

We answered indignantly that a strange dog had passed, and had bitten
our dog.

"Better look out for him, then," warned the men as they rode away. "The
dog is mad."

Consternation seized us. It was dreadful to think of Turk going mad--he
who had been our playmate from infancy, and who, through childhood's
years, had grown more dear to us than many human beings could; but
mother knew the matter was serious, and issued her commands. Turk must
be shut up, and we must not even visit him for a certain space. And so
we shut him up, hoping for the best; but it speedily became plain that
the poison was working in his veins, and that the greatest kindness we
could do him was to kill him.

That was a frightful alternative. Will utterly refused to shoot