Late that afternoon, Matt and Chester dismounted before they reached the Tennis ranch, walked the rest of the way and hid in the barn. Matt was counting on whoever came into the barn to solve the mystery.

A short time after their arrival in the dim barn, they heard a rider approaching, and Andy Tennis led his horse in.

Matt grabbed him and covered his mouth until he calmed down.

"MA killed Ben, not me!" he blurted.

Mrs. Tennis, hearing someone arrive, entered the barn.

"Why'd you come back, Andy?!" She looked at her boy in disgust and exasperation.

"I ran out of food and got hungry! Ma, they're going to take me to jail!"

Ma Tennis looked at the Marshal's steely face.

"Can I talk to him for just a minute in private before you take him? Please, Marshal." Her voice was uncharacteristically soft and pleading. She nodded towards the nearby closed door to the tack room.

Matt agreed but first had Chester check the room for a window or other exit. Chester came back out and Ma led her younger son into the room and closed the door behind them.

When the shotgun blast rang out, Matt and Chester rushed in. Andy's mangled body was lying sprawled on the floor. Ma Tennis stood over him, shotgun in her hands, a blank look on her face.

"Marshal, he killed Ben, too. You'd have found out. I had to do it. I couldn't see him hang." Her words were said in an emotionless monotone before she fell to her knees by her second dead son.

At the trial two weeks later, Mrs. Tennis sat motionlessly, a vacant stare on her face. She offered no explanations and answered questions with one or two words.

Her once dark hair had turned completely white, and her once ample figure had shrunk so that her drab dress hung on her.

Doc Adams felt compelled to testify that the woman was broken so badly in spirit that her health would be seriously endangered with any more jail time.

Judge Brooking scratched his chin and pondered silently for five minutes after all of the testimony was in and the woman was found guilty of murder. There could be no other verdict after the Marshal and Chester had been questioned.

Clearing his throat, the judge rapped his gavel and pronounced sentence:

"I feel that this poor woman has already received the worst punishment any mother could ever dread to imagine. Normally, a woman who murders might get twenty years or so in prison. Mrs. Tennis has already started her life sentence. The only further stipulation is a prohibition on ever owning any firearm again. Case dismissed."

Matt and Chester slowly walked out of the courtroom, each thinking about the change in the once menacing woman.

Doc made up his mind to drive out to check on her frequently, especially in the next few days. The first time he went, he wasn't surprised to find Matt and Chester following closely on horseback.

The three men paused near the house, each silently sitting and gazing over at the now old-looking woman. She was sitting on the ground between the flower-decorated graves of her two dead sons, one hand on each grave.

End.