CHAPTER XVII.
KILLED BY HIS FATHER.
When Smithers reached Silver City he felt sure that the people would help him to rescue her, but he was afraid to make any noise about it.
Not that he had valued the oath he had taken, but he remembered the robber's threat, and was alarmed lest he might have been shot, for not keeping faith with him. What the desperado's motive was for making a prisoner of Mrs. Smithers he could not imagine. With the resignation of a self-seeking coward, he made up his mind that she was lost to him forever. "Papa," said Alice, "won't you try to get mamma away from that awful, mean man?"
"I fear, my dear," he replied, "that the attempt would not only be attended with great danger, but would also be useless."
"Shall we never see her again?"
"Never," answered the coward, emphatically.
"I don't care much," said Harold; "we can get along just as well without her as with her."
"But she is our mother," exclaimed Alice, "and I am very sorry for ever being rude and naughty to her, and I don't want to lose her. If papa won't try to get her back again, I will."
"You?" said her father, in astonishment.