“Whether it was that they were weary or disillusioned and skeptical of all mankind through Paul Mitchell’s act, I do not know. At all events they decided to live their lives alone and unmolested, and stayed on here, enduring terrible hardships in their endeavors to make possible this little garden spot as a retreat from all the world.
“One son was born to them, who afterward married an English girl, his second cousin, and now my grandmother. They also stayed on here with the parents and in the due course of time a son was born to them—my father.
“In his young manhood he brought to the home of his father a young bride of gentle bearing whose forefathers had also fought and triumphed over great odds on the Old Trail.
“They, too, stayed on, building the old cabin anew and at my birth my mother died. My father was deeply grieved and when the war came he went to France—never to return. Like his grandfather who had lived bravely—he died bravely.
“John Redmond and Lone Star passed out of this life within a few minutes of one another—loyal even unto Death. Unhappily, I do not remember them; they died when I was an infant.
“After my father’s death in France my grandfather also left this life and they are all lying peacefully over there on the hillside.”
She waved her hand to the right, where four little white stones on a grassy slope stood out visibly in the bright moonlight.
“Just grandmother and I now—that is all, dear friends, for you have just heard a tale of three generations.”
CHAPTER XVI—THOUGHTS
Late that night when they got back to the little shack every one was sleepy enough to turn in. Long after Mr. Wilde and Billy had entered the somnolent state, Westy and Rip lay wide awake, eyes boring the darkness, and thinking.