sat very still at the head of the table,
until Breckenridge laid his hand on his shoulder.

"Shake it off, Larry. You couldn't have done anything else," he said.

"No," said Grant, with a groan. "Still, I could have wished this duty had
not been laid on me."

When they next stood side by side the early daylight was creeping across
the little railroad town, and Breckenridge, whose young face was white,
shivered with more than the bitter cold. He never wished to recall it, but
the details of that scene would return to him--the square frame houses
under the driving snow-cloud, the white waste they rose from, the grim,
silent horsemen with the rifles across their saddles, and the intent faces
beyond them in the close-packed street. He saw the prisoner standing
rigidly erect in a wagon drawn up beside a towering telegraph-pole, and
heard a voice reading hoarsely.

A man raised his hand, somebody lashed the horses, the wagon lurched away,
a dusky object cut against the sky, and Breckenridge turned his eyes away.
A sound that might have been a groan or murmur broke from the crowd and
the momentary silence that followed it was rent by the crackle of riflery.
After that, Breckenridge only recollected riding across the prairie amidst
a group of silent men, and feeling very cold.

In the meanwhile the citizens were gazing at a board nailed to the
telegraph-pole: "For murder and robbery. Take warning! Anyone offending in
the same way will be treated similarly!"

XI

LARRY'S ACQUITTAL

A warm wind from the Pacific, which had swept down through the Rockies'
passes, had mitigated the Arctic cold, and the snow lay no more than
thinly sprinkled upon the prairie. Hetty Torrance and Miss Schuyler were
riding up through the birch bluff from the bridge of the Cedar. It was dim
among the trees, for dusk was closing in, the trail was rough and steep,
and Hetty drew bridle at a turn of it.

"I quite fancied we would have been home before it was dark, and my father
would be just savage if he knew we were out alone," she said. "Of course,
he wouldn't have let us go if he had been at Cedar."

Flora Schuyler looked about her with a shiver. The wind that shook the
birches had grown perceptibly colder: the gloom beneath them deepened
rapidly, and there was a doleful wailing amidst the swinging boughs.
Beyond the bluff the white wilderness, sinking into dimness now, ran back,
waste and empty, to the horizon. Miss Schuyler was from