"Don't, Hope!" he exclaimed, bending close to her. "I can't stand anything like that! Don't cry. I'm sorry, girlie. I've been a fool, a brute, a low-lived beggar, but I can't stand tears from _you_! Here you're hungry, starving, living among a lot of breeds, and I've added more to your misery. It's all a mistake. I know now when I see you crying--don't do it, dear! You've never cried since you were a baby, and now you're such a great big girl. The other feeling's all gone. I guess it must have been because you were the only girl out here and I let myself think of you that way until it grew on me. But you are my sister--my dear little pard!" He had dismounted and stood beside her. Now he reached up and took her hands away from her face. She was ashamed of her tears, as people are who seldom cry, and hastily mopped her face with her handkerchief. "I'm so glad, Syd, dear!" she exclaimed in a moment, then reached down and kissed him. "What a baby you must think I am!" "Your tears woke me up, dear; don't be sorry. Maybe some time they'll make a man out of me." "Nonsense! you were a man all the time, only you didn't know it. You don't know how happy I was all at once when you called me 'pard' again. I knew then I had my brother back." The young fellow mounted his horse again. His own eyes were suspiciously moist. "And I have my sister, which seems better than anything to me," he said. Then they both laughed. "I was going to the Englishman's," said Hope, "to see if I could help any about the poor herder who was shot." "They're burying him now," announced her cousin, "right around the bend of this hill just inside the fence. Do you want to go over there?" "Yes, I think I do," she replied. "I want to ask Mr. Livingston when the little German girl is expected to arrive and what is going to be done about her." "The herder's sister?" asked Sydney. "No, his sweetheart. Just think, Sydney, his little sweetheart, who is on her way to marry him! Isn't it sad? Who will meet her and who will tell her, I wonder, and what will she do? How are such things managed, I wonder. Isn't it terrible, Syd?" "Some beggars around here shot the poor fellow, Livingston told me. The whole bunch ought to be hanged for it." "It was a cowardly thing to do!" exclaimed the girl. "Sheep in a cattle country, the same old story. I imagine old Harris is a pretty strong element here. They've driven out a couple of bands already. Someone ought to put Livingston next. But he probably scents the situation now from this occurrence. He is one of the kind who trusts everyone. I met him last fall in town when he first came out here. He has put a lot of money into this business, and I'd like to see him make it a go. He'll have something to learn by experience." "Isn't it too bad he didn't invest in cattle?" deplored Hope.