Again the spade resumed its work; and the impassive earth returned dully
to its former resting-place. Dusk came on, but Rankin did not look about
him until the mound was neatly rounded; then he turned to where he had
left the little boy so bravely erect. But the small figure was not
standing now; instead, it was prone on the ground amid the dust and
ashes.

"Ben!" said Rankin, gently. "Ben!"

No answer.

"Ben!" he repeated.

"Yes, sir."

For a moment a small thin face appeared above the dishevelled figure,
and a great sob shook the little frame. Then the head disappeared again.

"I can't help it, sir," wailed a muffled voice. "She was my mamma!"

CHAPTER IV

BEN'S NEW HOME

Supper was over at the Box R Ranch. From the tiny lean-to the muffled
rattle of heavy table-ware proclaimed the fact that Ma Graham was
putting things in readiness for breakfast. Beside the sheet-iron heater
in the front room, her husband, carefully swaddled in a big checked
apron with the strings tied in a bow under his left ear, was busily
engaged in dressing the half-dozen prairie chickens he had trapped that
day. As fast as he removed the feathers he thrust them into the stove,
and the pungent odor mingled with the suggestive tang of the bacon that
had been the foundation of the past supper, and with the odor of
cigarettes with which the other four men were permeating the place.

Graham critically held up to the light the bird upon which he had just
been operating, removed a few scattered feathers, and, with practised
hand, attacked its successor.

"If I were doing this job for myself," he commented, "I'd skin the
beasts. Life is too blamed short to waste it in pulling out feathers!"

Grannis, the new-comer from no one knew where, smiled.

"It would look to me that you were doing it," he remarked. "I'd like to
ask for information, who is if you ain't?"

The clatter of dishes suddenly ceased, and Graham's labor stopped in
sympathy.

"My boy," he asked in reply, "were you ever married?"

Beneath its coat of tan, Grannis's face flushed; but he did not answer.

A second passed; then the plucking of feathers was continued.

"I reckon you've never been, though," Graham went on, "else you'd never
ask that question."

During the remainder of the evening, Grannis sought no further
information; and to Ma Graham's narrow life a new interest was added.

Ordinarily the cowboys went to their bunks in an adjoining shed almost
d