"I don't think I shall be a victim," he quietly responded; "this wound won't bother me long, and with Budd and Grizzly to help, we can laugh at all the rustlers in the country." "It is hardly a matter of courage," ventured Sterry, "for no one knowing you or your sister would question your bravery, but it is rather the peace of mind of your mother and her. It will be a long time, if ever, before your parent recovers from the shock of yesterday. No matter how confident and plucky you may be, Fred, you know it is no guarantee against a bullet from one of those scamps at five hundred or a thousand yards. I shudder to think of what might happen." Fred turned and looked full in the handsome face of the fellow beside him. "It strikes me that you are showing little faith in your own words. Why do you remain where you are a marked man when there is no need of it, and where your personal danger is certainly as great as mine?" This _argumentum ad hominem_ was so unexpected that Sterry was embarrassed for the moment, but found voice to reply: "I have no mother and sister dependent on me, as you have." "But you have brothers, sisters, father and mother, and therefore the more to mourn if you should fall. The fact is, Mont, I feel that it is a duty you owe to them to give up the dangerous calling you have adopted. You not only do not need it, but are squandering time that ought to be given to the study of your profession, and you have become so feared and hated by the rustlers that they will go to any length to 'remove' you." "The more cause, therefore, why I should stay," responded the other. "A poor argument--" The discussion was interrupted by the sound of a horse's hoofs. Some one was riding toward them on a gallop, and speedily loomed to view in the bright moonlight. The three instinctively ceased speaking and gazed curiously at the horseman, who reined up in front of where they were sitting. Hospitality is limitless in the West, and, before the stranger had halted, Fred Whitney rose from his chair and walked forward to welcome him. The man was in the costume of a cowboy, with rifle, revolver and all the paraphernalia of the craft. "Is your name Whitney?" asked the horseman, speaking first. "It is; what can I do for you?" "Do you know Mont Sterry?" "He is a particular friend of mine," replied Whitney, refraining from adding that he was the young man sitting a few paces away with his sister and hearing every word said. "Well, there's a letter for him; if I knew where to find him I would deliver it myself. Will you hand it to him the next time you meet him?" As he spoke he leaned forward from his saddle and handed a sealed envelope to Fred Whitney, who remarked, as he accepted it: "I will do as you wish; I expect to see him soon; won't you dismount and stay over night with us?" "No; I have business elsewhere," was the curt answer, as the fellow wheeled and spurred off on a gallop.