monteith sterry read the "warning" through in a voice without the slightest tremor. then he quietly smoked his cigar and looked off in the moonlight, as though thinking of something of a different nature.
it was natural that jennie whitney should be more impressed by the occurrence, with the memory of the recent tragedy crushing her to the earth. she exclaimed:
"larch cadmus! why, fred, he has visited our house several times; he was here last week."
"yes," replied her brother; "he has often sat at our table; and, by the way, he is a great admirer of yours."
"nonsense!" was the response; "why do you say that?"
"it may be nonsense, but it is true, nevertheless. your mother noticed it; and, that there might be no mistake, larch had the impudence to tell me so himself."
"i never liked him; he is a bad man," said jennie, much to the relief of sterry, who felt a little uncomfortable. "i did not know he belonged to the rustlers."
"he was a cowboy until last fall. he had a quarrel with col. ringgold and went off with the others, and has been on the blacklist ever since."
"why didn't he bring the message himself," continued the sister, "instead of sending it?"
"he did," was the significant reply of the brother.
"what! that surely was not he?"
"it was. i knew his voice the moment he spoke; those whiskers were false; he didn't want to be recognized, and i thought it as well to humor his fancy, but i could not be mistaken."
"now that i recall it, his voice did resemble cadmus'," said the sister, more thoughtfully.
"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. he was thinking hard, but it was his turn to be startled by the next remark.
"larch cadmus hates you, mont, not so much because you are the enemy of all rustlers, but more because he believes my sister holds you in higher esteem than she does him."
sterry was clever enough to parry this compliment with considerable skill.
"for the same reason he is jealous of every gentleman whom miss whitney has ever met, for it would be a sorry tribute to any man's worth if he did not stand higher in her regard than larch cadmus."
"well spoken!" said the young lady, relieved from what threatened to become an embarrassing situation for her.
had her brother chosen he might have expressed what was in his mind, but he had the good taste to refrain. none knew better than he the deep, tender affection existing between his friend and his sister, though it had not yet reached the point of avowal and confession.
"well, mont, what are you going to do about it?" asked whitney.
by way of reply, the latter twisted the "warning" into the form of a lamplighter. then he applied a match to one corner, and held the paper until it had burned to the last fragment.
"that's my opinion of mr. larch cadmus and his gang, and i shall pay the same attention to them."
"you are not wise," ventured jennie, who, with the awful memory of the preceding day upon her, could not but shudder at the peril to her friend, who had never been quite so near to her as during the last few hours, when he showed so much tender sympathy for her and her mother and brother in the depth of their desolation and woe.
"i thank you," he said, with the same manly frankness he had always shown; "i have no desire to appear as a boaster or to make light of danger, but one of the truest adages is that it is not the barking dog that does the biting."
"don't make the mistake of supposing it is not so in this case," said whitney, "and none should know it better than you."
"i do not underestimate the courage of those fellows; they will shrink at nothing, but there is no more excuse for my running away upon receiving such a warning than there would be for all the inhabitants of wyoming to leave the state at such a command."
"the case is not parallel," was the comment of fred whitney.
"bear in mind that if i stay, as i intend to do, i do not mean to sit down and wait for those rustlers to pick me off. i count on having something to say and do in the matter; but, friends, i must bid you good-night."
"what do you mean?" asked the astonished fred whitney.
"i must leave," replied sterry, rising to his feet; "i have already staid too long."
