ut I would not be a friend to allow my
selfishness to stand in the way of your good."

Sterry smoked a moment in silence, and then flung away his cigar and
turned abruptly on his companion.

"Fred, if you could have prevented what took place yesterday by
sacrificing every dollar of the property you have in Wyoming, you
would have done it."

"Yes, God knows I would have done it a thousand times over; mother
will never recover from the blow."

"And yet you may be the next to fall during this frightful state of
affairs. If the situation of your mother and sister is so sad because
of the loss of the head of the household, what will it be if you
should be taken?"

"I appreciate your kindness, Mont, but you put the case too strongly;
in one sense we all stand in danger of sudden death every day. I might
live to threescore and ten in Wyoming, and be killed in a railroad
accident or some other way the first day I left it. There is no
particular enmity between the rustlers and me; that brush yesterday
was one of those sudden outbursts that was not premeditated by them."

"It didn't look that way to me."

"You were not there when it opened. They were driving a lot of
mavericks toward their ranch down the river, when Budd Hankinson saw
a steer among them with our brand. You know it--a sort of cross with
father's initials. Without asking for its return, Budd called them a
gang of thieves, cut out the steer and drove him toward our range. If
he had gone at the thing in the right way there would have been no
trouble, but his ugly words made them mad, and the next thing we were
all shooting at each other."

"You inflicted more harm than they, and they won't forget it."

"I don't want them to forget it," said Fred, bitterly, "but they won't
carry their enmity to the extent of making an unprovoked attack on me
or any of my people."

"Possibly not, but you don't want to bank on the theory."

"You must not forget," continued the practical Whitney, "that all we
have in the world is invested in this business, and it would be a
sacrifice for us to sell out and move eastward, where I would be
without any business."

"You could soon make one for yourself."

"Well," said Whitney, thoughtfully, "I will promise to turn it over
in my mind; the associations, however, that will always cling to this
place, and particularly my sympathy for mother and Jennie, will be the
strongest influences actuating me, provided I decide to change."