“Let me have a hundred pounds of flour, sir,” she said, approaching the counter, behind which the trader stood, smoking a huge meerschaum. “Anything else?” “Yes; the balance of this twenty-dollar gold-piece in dried peaches, please.” In filling her order, the trader raised the cloth partition of the tent to reach his base of supplies, and in the middle of the tent Sally espied an unkempt squaw and half-a-dozen dusky children. “I’ll be compelled to hurry,” she said, as he leisurely weighed her fruit. “Captain Ranger is always demanding haste.” The trader started suddenly, his face blanching. “Where does your train hail from?” he asked. “From the middle West, sir. We are going from the West to the West.” The trader balanced two sacks of Salt Lake flour on his shoulders, and grasping the smaller package of peaches, strode out hurriedly toward the wagon near which Captain Ranger was standing, impatient to be gone. “These purchases are for the lady, sir. Where will you have them dumped?” “Any place where there’s room, and don’t let any grass grow under your feet!” “The lady tells me your name is Ranger, sir.” “Yes. What of it?” “Will you walk with me a little way ahead of the wagons? I have something important to say to you alone.” “We are scarce of drivers,” replied the Captain, hesitating. “Two of my men are out hunting.” “I can drive,” exclaimed Jean, reaching for the whip, which she handled with the skill of a freighter, finishing her flourishes with a series of snaps at the end of a deerskin cracker, like the explosion of a bunch of fire-crackers. “If we’ll take this cut-off, we’ll come out a mile or more ahead of the wagons,” said the trader. “Then we can rest by the roadside till they catch up.” The Captain strode by his side in silence. “Don’t you know me, John?” asked the stranger, grasping him by the arm, and speaking in a hoarse whisper. Captain Ranger eyed him earnestly, his cheeks paling. “Can it be possible that you are—Joe?” he asked, seizing his hand with a vise-like grip. “I am indeed your brother Joe,—an outlaw, now and always.” “No, you are not an outlaw; the fellow over whom you got into that trouble is alive and well. You’d have got out of that scrape all right if you hadn’t jumped your bail and left all the rest of us in the lurch. Why didn’t you stand your trial, like a man?” John Ranger’s feelings overcame him, and he sank upon the ground, filled with old-time memories. He buried his face in his hands. Time and distance faded away, and he saw, with eyes of memory, the gentle, fading face of his toiling, uncomplaining wife, whose life had been for years a sacrifice to penury through the debt entailed by this brother’s cowardice. “Do you mean to tell me that Elmer Edson is not dead?” The question called him back to present conditions with a sudden start.