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14 mustang last week. I don't believe the old gun is of much account, but it will be better than nothing."

"Father wouldn't take it from the greaser if it wasn't all right. But why must we both be armed? Do you think the Indians are close by?"

"As I said before, I don't believe in trusting these bloodthirsty Comanches. Poke Stover knows them like a book, and he says they are just aching to go on the war-path, now the government is having so much trouble of its own."

"If the Indians are around it won't be safe to leave the cabin alone," was the younger boy's comment.

"I reckon we can leave it for awhile, Ralph. We won't be gone more than an hour, at the most," concluded Dan Radbury, as he disappeared into the cabin for the firearm he had mentioned.

The scene was that of a typical frontier home, in the heart of Texas, close to the Guadalupe River, and about ten miles from what was then the village of Gonzales. It was the year 1835, and the whole of northern and western Texas could truthfully be put down as a "howling wilderness," overrun with deer, bison, bears, and other wild animals, wild horses, and inhabited only by the savage and lawless Comanche, Apache, Cherokee, and numerous other tribes of Indians. As regards