that mysterious warm-air current known as the chinook wind steals through the depressions of the rocky mountains, at certain seasons of the year, from the mild surface of the pacific, and tempers the severity of the winters in some portions of montana, wyoming, and the great west to a degree that renders them milder than many places farther south.
it was early in the month of may, when even in the middle states it is not often comfortable to remain seated out of doors after the close of day, but sterry and whitney found it pleasant to occupy their chairs in front of the building, with no other protection then their own warm garments.
whitney's wound was doing so well that he expressed himself ashamed to wear his arm in a sling. he freed it from the support, moved it readily about, and declared that after the next morning he would no longer shirk duty.
in one sense, monteith sterry was disappointed. he hoped they would be joined by jennie, from whom he parted earlier in the evening, but he reflected that the hour was late, and she probably felt that her duty was with her sorrowing mother.
"she belongs there," he concluded, "and i respect her for doing her duty."
but she heard the murmur of voices after they had talked a few minutes, and appeared at the outer door, where she greeted her friend and listened with an intensity of interest that may be imagined to his account of his brush with the rustlers. although she had become accustomed to danger during her life in the west, there could be no mistaking her solicitude for him. she said little, however, and, excusing herself, bade the two good-night.
"i tell you," said her brother, when she was gone, "if you stay, or rather attempt to stay, in this section, mont, it is suicide—nothing more nor less."
"well, i know times are likely to be warm, but, hang it, i can't bear the thought of being run out of wyoming. it's a mighty big state, and there ought to be room enough for me."
"you persist in treating it lightly, but it is no trifling matter; you have been warned; were shot at, when we had our flurry with the rustlers; and, even while attempting to ride across the country, had the narrowest escape of your life—an escape so curious that it couldn't be repeated in a hundred years."
"it's the unexpected that happens."
"not so often as the expected. mont, what made you leave us so abruptly to-night?"
"o, i can hardly tell," replied the other, carelessly flinging one leg over the other and puffing at his cigar, as though the matter was of no importance.
"i know; you believed that if you stayed here you would increase the peril to us."
"you've hit it exactly; that was it."
"what sort of friends do you take us to be?"
"that isn't it; rather, what sort of friend would i be, thus knowingly to place you and your mother and sister in danger? if those rustlers knew where i am, a dozen would be here before sunrise."
"what of it? we are ready for them."
"that's a poor answer to my statement; you had enough of that woeful business yesterday; they hold me in such hatred that they would burn down your place, if they could reach me in no other way."
"and yet you propose to stay in wyoming and have it out with them?"
"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."
"i shall hate to lose your company, for it is like old times to talk over our school days, but i would not be a friend to allow my selfishness to stand in the way of your good."
sterry smoked a moment in silence, and then flung away his cigar and turned abruptly on his companion.
"fred, if you could have prevented what took place yesterday by sacrificing every dollar of the property you have in wyoming, you would have done it."
"yes, god knows i would have done it a thousand times over; mother will never recover from the blow."
"and yet you may be the next to fall during this frightful state of affairs. if the situation of your mother and sister is so sad because of the loss of the head of the household, what will it be if you should be taken?"
"i appreciate your kindness, mont, but you put the case too strongly; in one sense we all stand in danger of sudden death every day. i might live to threescore and ten in wyoming, and be killed in a railroad accident or some other way the first day i left it. there is no particular enmity between the rustlers and me; that brush yesterday was one of those sudden outbursts that was not premeditated by them."
"it didn't look that way to me."
"you were not there when it opened. they were driving a lot of mavericks toward their ranch down the river, when budd hankinson saw a steer among them with our brand. you know it—a sort of cross with father's initials. without asking for its return, budd called them a gang of thieves, cut out the steer and drove him toward our range. if he had gone at the thing in the right way there would have been no trouble, but his ugly words made them mad, and the next thing we were all shooting at each other."
"you inflicted more harm than they, and they won't forget it."
"i don't want them to forget it," said fred, bitterly, "but they won't carry their enmity to the extent of making an unprovoked attack on me or any of my people."
"possibly not, but you don't want to bank on the theory."
"you must not forget," continued the practical whitney, "that all we have in the world is invested in this business, and it would be a sacrifice for us to sell out and move eastward, where i would be without any business."
"you could soon make one for yourself."
"well," said whitney, thoughtfully, "i will promise to turn it over in my mind; the associations, however, that will always cling to this place, and particularly my sympathy for mother and jennie, will be the strongest influences actuating me, provided i decide to change."
mont sterry experienced a thrill of delight, for he knew that when a man talks in that fashion he is on the point of yielding. he determined to urge the matter upon jennie, and there was just enough hope in his heart that the prospect of being on the same side of the mississippi with him would have some slight weight.
"i am glad to hear you speak thus, for it is certain there will be serious trouble with the rustlers."
"all which emphasizes what i said earlier in the evening about your duty to make a change of location."
the proposition, now that there was reason to believe that fred whitney had come over to his way of thinking, struck sterry more favourably than before. in fact he reflected, with a shudder, what a dismal, unattractive section this would be, after the removal of his friends.
"i shall not forget your words; what you said has great influence with me, and you need not be surprised if i bid adieu to wyoming within a week or a few days."
"it can't be too soon for your own safety, much as we shall regret to lose your company."
