"He and his wife had been prospecting in these very mountains, she had fallen over a cliff and broken herself so terribly that Newbold had to shoot her."
"What!" exclaimed Bradshaw. "You don't mean that he actually killed her?"
"That's what he done," answered old Kirkby.
"Poor man," murmured Enid.
"But why?" asked Phillips.
"They were five days away from a settlement, there wasn't a human being within a hundred and fifty miles of them, not even an Indian," continued Maitland. "She was so frightfully broken and mangled that he couldn't carry her away."
"But why couldn't he leave her and go for help?" asked Bradshaw.
"The wolves, the bears, or the vultures would have got her. These woods and mountains were full of them then and there are some of them, left now, I guess."
The two little girls crept closer to their grown up cousin, each casting anxious glances beyond the fire light.
"Oh, you're all right, little gals," said Kirkby, reassuringly, "they wouldn't come nigh us while this fire is burnin' an' they're pretty well hunted out I guess; 'sides, there's men yere who'd like nothin' better'n drawin' a bead on a big b'ar."