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"Of course, and I can tell you something more; he was among the rustlers with whom we had the fight yesterday. He did his best to kill me, and came pretty near succeeding. It wasn't he, however, who put the bullet through my arm, for I dropped that fellow." "You frighten me!" was all that Jennie Whitney could say. Sterry still smoked in silence.
"I haven't said that," remarked Sterry, more thoughtfully; "I may soon leave for a more civilized section, much as I hate to play the seeming coward; but what you said about my parents, brothers and sisters at home, gave me something to think over while riding across the prairie to-night."
Young Sterry, as already stated, had accepted an engagement with the Live Stock Association, which required him to investigate the operations of the rustlers over a large portion of Wyoming and Montana, and to report at regular intervals to his superior officers.
Looking in that direction, the rider saw the figure of a horseman assume shape in the glow as his animal advanced at a slow step. He must have detected Sterry before the latter saw him, and was studying him with close attention, his rifle supported across his saddle in front, ready for instant use. Reading his suspicion, the young man called out: "Come on, partner!
Whitney hastened to say; "dismount and come in as soon as you can." Sterry, Hawkridge and Capt. Asbury thanked her simultaneously. Time was beyond value. They expected every instant to hear the crack of the rifles and the shouts of their enemies on the crest of the ridge, and could not comprehend why they were delayed.
"Sterry," said Asbury, drawing him and Hawkridge aside, "you were saying awhile ago that nothing could induce you to accept the offer of Vesey to slip out in the darkness of the night." "No; as he presented it, such a flight would have been a piece of cowardice altogether different from my flight last night. It would have weakened your defensive force and helped no one but me."
It might have been expected that a man of his religious disposition would have felt some compunctious visitings, when from the bed of death he looked back on the strange eventful career of his past life. But he had adopted a doctrine admirably calculated to lull and tranquillize the misgivings of conscience. "Tell me," said he to Sterry, one of his chaplains, "Is it possible to fall from grace?"
What will become of her?" Fred Whitney, it was now apparent, was alone. Forgetful of the savage brutes, Monteith Sterry slackened his pace, and in a scared voice demanded: "What has become of her? Where is she?" "She darted into the mouth of that creek." "Why didn't you follow?" "I could not; it was done in a flash; she called to me to keep on and said something else which I could not catch."
"For which you cannot be blamed," remarked her brother; "but I don't understand how she expected to slip off unobserved." "Nor do I," added Sterry, with a meaning glance at Capt. Asbury. "I assure you I am innocent of complicity in the matter, for I would have opposed as strongly as any of you." "It was that single difficulty which puzzled her," said the mother, "but Providence opened the way.
Suspecting his dilemma, Sterry said: "You can readily arrange it by taking me in as prisoner and allowing Vesey to go." "That is all well enough, but it will put me in a hole that I don't intend to be put in. Capt. Asbury is the boss of this business; you two can ride up to him and make your report; that will place the responsibility where it belongs."
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