Long, anxiously, and prayerfully did that mother and sister wait for his return.

Did he come?
No; but the soul-blighting news came, which, like a thunderbolt, struck that mother--my mother--dead! Wild and despairing, I heard it--heard _this._ "The son, the brother, who never used a drop of strong drink in all his life; who never uttered an oath, or raised a hand in unkindness to man or woman, had been murdered--killed without provocation--no chance to defend his life, no warning to prepare for another world--shot down in mere wantonness.

There lies the body of him who did it.

Do you wonder that, over my dead mother's body, girl though I was, I swore to follow to the death him who killed my brother?
It is not my fault that I have not kept my oath.

I would have done it had I known that you, his friends, would have torn me limb from limb before his body was cold." "And served him right!" said an old miner, whose eyes were dimmed with moisture while the Texan girl told her story.
"Where is McCall?
His act was murder," cried Sam Chichester.
"He has sloped, but I'll take his trail, and if there is law in Montana he shall hang," said California Joe, who bounded from the house, when it was discovered that the murderer had slipped away in the moment of excitement.
How well California Joe kept his promise, history has already recorded.
Followed over many a weary mile of hill and prairie, McCall was finally arrested, tried and convicted, as well by his own boast as the evidence of others, and he was hanged.
But one glance at our heroine, for such the red-haired Texan is.
With a look of haughty defiance, she asked: "Have I done aught that requires my detention here ?" "No," said Captain Jack; "thank Heaven you have not.