"I see," said Mr. McAllister, somewhat grimly, remembering the other’s greeting. "Sit down, Whitby. The night is young, you can’t miss them, and I am so sure of the badness of your luck that I should like to give you a little encouragement to fall back on." Whitby resumed his seat and Mr. McAllister puffed thoughtfully at his cigar for a few moments before speaking. "Not to go too far back," he began, "my grandfather was a boy when his father took him from Ireland, the birthplace of the family, to France, the birthplace of liberty, as the old man thought. Those were stirring times for that boy and the iron of life entered into him at an early age. He married and had one son, my father, who thought the liberty of this country so much better than that of France, that he came here, bringing his young wife with him; the wife died in giving birth to my younger brother, John. All that line were hustlers, Whitby. They had to be, to keep alive. Margaret knows their history better than I do and glories in it. You see?" Whitby nodded mournfully. He was beginning to lose confidence again. "My father would have been alive to-day but for an unfortunate accident which carried off both him and my mother within a few days. My brother and myself were found pretty well provided for. My share has not decreased. In fact I have done very well for a man who is not avaricious. But I had to fight; and more than once it was a close call, win or lose. Margaret knows all that, Whitby, and the dear girl is as proud of her father, I do believe, as of any who went before him. Her mother left us very soon and Margaret has been my companion ever since she could talk. Are you beginning to understand?" "I am, indeed," was the reluctant acknowledgment. "Very good. Then here is where you come in." His face clouded and he was silent so long that Whitby looked up inquiringly. The motion aroused McAllister and he continued: "My brother was queer. I have always thought his birth had something to do with it; but however that may be, he was, in my opinion, peculiar in many of his ways. The choice of his path in life was quite on a par with his character: he invested every dollar he had in land out West, he and a partner whom I have never seen; bought and paid for land and stock at a time when Government land was used by any one without payment of any kind and when live-stock raising was almost an unknown industry, at least in that part of the country. But that was n’t all. He went out to the ranch and took his delicate young wife with him, a bride, and lived in a wild region where they saw only Indians, outlaws, and those who were worse than either." His face hardened and the hand he laid on the table trembled as he turned to face to his listener. "Worse than either, Whitby," he repeated. "The Indians were bad enough at times, God knows, but there is excuse for their deviltry; there could be no excuse for those others.