With love,HETTIE. When Ben finished the letter his eyes were blurred and he had a hard dry contraction of his throat, a pang deep in his breastbone. Wave after wave of emotion had swept over him. And then he sat there motionless, the open letter in his hands, his gaze across the gray melancholy river to the dim gray hills of sage. He did not see them. The eyes of his mind were fixed on the dear familiar scenes of boyhood, home and mother, and freckled–faced Hettie with her big loving blue eyes, on the miles of wind–swept swamp land along Tule Lake, on the schoolhouse at Hammell, and the long lane that led from the Ide ranch down to Blaines’. He saw a girl of fourteen with a chestnut braid down her back, a white pearly skin that even the summer sun could not tan, and dark eyes of velvet softness. Then the heart–numbing pictures faded for the stalwart figure of his father, iron of muscle and of mind, the gray clear eye like sunlight on ice, and the weathered wrinkled face, a record of labor and strife.

* * * * *

A second and more thoughtful perusal of Hettie’s letter fixed Ben’s mind upon the most poignant and unavoidable fact of it—that pertaining to his mother. She was failing. What a terrible sickening shock ran through him! Then he was gripped in the cruel clutches of remorse. It was a bitter moment, but short because his decision to go was almost instantaneous. Folding Hettie’s letter, Ben went into the cabin.

“Modoc, saddle the gray,” he said, shortly.

The Indian laid down pan and dishcloth and abruptly glided out. Nevada looked up quickly from his task, with swift curious gleam of eyes searching Ben’s face.

“Bad news, pard?” he queried.

“Yes. Hettie says mother is—is failing, and I must come in to see her,” returned Ben, getting down his spurs and chaps. “It’d hurt like hell, Nevada, in any case, but to realize I’ve broken mother’s heart—it’s—it’s—”

With bowed head he slouched to the bed, dragging his chaps and dropping the clinking spurs, and sat down heavily.

“Ben, it’s tough news, but don’t look on the dark side,” said Nevada, with swift hand going to Ben’s shoulder. “Your mother’s not old. Seein’ you will cheer her. She’ll get well. Don’t be downcast, Ben. That’s been your disease as drink was mine. Let’s make an end to both of them…. Shake on it, pard!”

“By Heaven! Nevada, you’ve got something in your mind that you must drive into mine,” replied Ben, rising with violence, and jerking up his head he wrung Nevada’s hand. “I’ve got to get over not caring. Oh, it’s not that. It was that I cared too much.”

“Ben, you can’t care too much,” went on Nevada. “When you don’t care you’re no good. I never cared—till I rode into your camp on Forlorn River…. Let’s brace up an’ fool the whole country.”

“If I only had in—in me what Hettie believes—what you believe—” muttered Ben, thickly, struggling for self–control. He flung his chaps on and buckled them with shaking hands. There seemed to be a tight painful knot in his breast that must burst before he could feel relief.