It was two days before Cotton could be sent to the police outpost in a wagon, but, so far as we could gather, the officer temporarily in charge took it for granted he had been injured on his homeward ride around by the Indian reserve which would have led him through Crane Valley. Some time, however, passed before he was fit for the saddle. Meanwhile Steel and I discussed Lane's latest move, and the best means of counteracting it.
"If we knew just what he wanted it would give us a better show, but we don't, and Lane doesn't tell anybody," my comrade observed gloomily.
"It's tolerably clear that he wants Crane Valley," said I. And Steel proceeded: "Then why doesn't he sail in and take all he's entitled to?"
"A part would not satisfy him when he wants it all," I said. "If he seizes the working beasts and breeding stock now we shall be left helpless for the season. He will take just enough to cripple me, and leave me still in debt, while it would be useless to try to raise money to pay him off until the question of the railroad is settled."
"Will it ever be built?" asked Steel.
"It must be, some day; but whether that will be before we are ruined or buried, heaven only knows," I said. "Haldane seems to think the time will not be long, and judging by his tactics, Lane agrees with him. Still, the newspapers take an opposite view."
"If it isn't"—and Steel frowned at the harness he was mending—"what will we poor fools do?"
"Stand Lane off as long as possible, and then strike for the mines in British Columbia. That, however, concerns the future, and we have first to decide what we will do if Lane arrives to-morrow."
Steel's face grew somber, but he waited until I added: "Then, because they're not my beasts as yet, if he can take them by main force—and I almost hope he'll try—he is welcome to do so."
"Now you're talking," and Steel smote a dilapidated saddle until the dust leaped forth from it. "The law on debt liens is mighty mixed, but I figure that the man who can keep hold has the best of it. Jacques, Gordon, and the rest will stand by us solid, and I'd work two years for nothing to get a fair chance at Lane."
We both determined on resistance; but it struck me that ours was a very forlorn hope, and that the odds were heavily against two plain farmers, equally devoid of legal knowledge and of capital, who had pitted themselves against a clever, unscrupulous man with the command of apparently an unlimited amount of money.
Lane did not come next day, nor the following one.
Indeed, a number passed without bringing any word of him, and because idleness meant disaster, we perforce relaxed our vigilance and resumed our plowing. I had just yoked a pair of oxen to a double plow one morning, when Boone's wagon came lurching up as fast as two whitened horses could haul it across the prairie.
"Lane came in with a hard-looking band of rascals by the Pacific Mail last night," he said. "They had got whisky somewhere, and smashed the hotel windows because Imrie wouldn't get them supper in the middle of the night. He would start as soon as they were partly sober. Are you prepared to protect your property, Ormesby?"
"I am ready to protect other people's, which will suit me a good deal better in this instance," I said, with a certain satisfaction that the time for open resistance had come at last, though Lane had cunningly chosen a season when every man's presence was necessary at his own homestead.
"Don't count too much on that," said Boone. "If you have no documentary evidence, even the actual owners might have difficulty in substantiating your claim. Now you see why I demanded a written agreement. It strikes me that in this case possession is everything."
"If I can keep whole in body until sundown, possession will remain with us," I said. "But there is no time to spare for talking. It will take hours to bring my neighbors up."
"Of course you arranged with Haldane to send you assistance?" said Boone; and hurled out an expletive when I answered stolidly: "That is just what I did not do. I do not even know whether he is at home. It is not necessary to drag all one's friends into a private quarrel."
"Goodness knows why you are so unwarrantably proud, and it is not worth while wasting time over that question now," said Boone. "Roll up your thick-headed stockmen. I'm going on to Bonaventure for the one man whose presence would be worth a hundred of them."
He lashed his horses as he spoke, and I roused myself to action, while long before his wagon dipped over the rim of the prairie Thorn had set out at a gallop to bring our neighbors in. A neighbor may dwell from one to ten leagues away in that country. This left only Steel and me to hold Crane Valley, with the exception of Sally. The girl absolutely refused to leave us, and it may not have been by accident that several heavy-handled brushes lay convenient beside the stove. The stock were driven off as far as we dare follow them across the prairie, and we hoped they would remain unseen in a hollow; the working horses were made fast in the stable; and when a few head of pedigree cattle had been secured in the corral, we could only sit down and wait the siege.
I spent several hours perched most uncomfortably on the roof with a pair of glasses; but though the day was clear, nothing appeared above the rim of the prairie. It spread all around the horizon in low rolling rises, empty and desolate. My eyes grew dazzled, the continued use of the glasses produced a distressful headache; but still nothing moved on either rise or level, and it was a reliefwhen at last Sally hailed me: "Come down and get your dinner; scenery won't feed anybody."
I had forgotten there was such a thing as food, and my throat and lips were dry; but on descending I was surprised to find myself capable of making an excellent meal.
"You'll feel considerably better after that," said Sally, who watched our efforts with much approval. "I guess you have forgotten you had no breakfast, either of you."
"That's so," assented her brother. "It's the first time I ever forgot it in my life. Say, what are you going to do with that big hasp-bar, Sally?"
Miss Steel's movements were perhaps a little nervous, but she was evidently not troubled by timidity. "I figured if anybody wanted to come poking in here it might keep them out—if it was nicely warmed," she said.
"You must do nothing rash; and you must keep out of harm's way, Sally," I said sternly. "They would be justified in seizing my household property."
"There's mighty little of it." And Miss Steel glanced around the room with contempt. "Do you figure Lane would come out hundreds of miles for your old crockery? Anything that's pretty round this place is mine, and I'm anxious to see the man who's going to take it from me."
I looked at the excited girl and then at her brother, who shook his head in signal that further remonstrance would be useless. My ideas respecting women had changed of late, and I somewhat resented the fact that they would not be content to sit still and be worshiped, but must insist on playing an active, and often a leading, part in all that happened.
"When Sally has made up her mind there's no use for anybody to talk," said Steel.
I had hardly mounted to the roof again before a line of diminutive objects straggled up above the horizon, and I called down: "They're coming!"
"Which way?" was the eager question; and Steel stamped when I answered moodily: "From the south."
"Lane's outfit. Can't you see the others?" he shouted.
I swept the glasses around the circumference of the prairie, and my voice was thick with disappointment as I answered: "No."
"Then you and I will have all we can do; and I wish to the Lord Sally were anywhere else," said Steel.
The diminutive figures rapidly resolved themselves into mounted men, with a wagon behind them, but still all the rest of the prairie was empty, and each time Steel asked the question: "Can't you see them yet?" I grew more doggedly savage as I answered: "No."
At last, when the money-lender's party were close at hand, I called out that three horsemen were just visible in the north. "That's Gordon; Jacques and the rest can't be here for a long while. It's time to come down," said Steel.
I came down, guessing that Lane, being on a lower level, could not see our allies, and waited with Steel, apparently unarmed, though we had weapons handy, in the space between the house and the stable. Sally had disappeared inside the dwelling, and I trusted that she would remain there. Presently, amid a rattle of gear and a confused trampling, a band of men rode up to the homestead and ranged themselves in rude order on each side of a wagon, some of them yelling in imitation of the American cowboy as they wheeled. They were unkempt, dirty, and dissolute in appearance, and I was not altogether surprised to see that most of them were English or Americans. One finds very little errant rascality on the Canadian prairie, perhaps because our money is very hardly earned, and there are few people worth exploiting there; but odd specimens exported from the great Republic and from the Old Country by disgusted friends gravitate towards the smaller Western cities when they find life in the waste too hard, and Lane had evidently collected some of the worst of them. He sat in the wagon, smoking, and actually smiled at me.
"Kind of surprise party, isn't it, Ormesby?" he said. "I've come round to collect what I can in accordance with the notice served on you. Here's a wallet full of papers, and this gentleman represents legal authority. He had a partner, but we lost him. Now, I've no personal feeling against you, and won't give you any trouble if it can be avoided."
Strange to say, I believed he spoke no more than the truth, and regarded us dispassionately as merely a source from which a little profit might be wrung. Neither Steel nor I, however, could look at the matter with equal calmness. We were standing for our rights, and ready to strike for shelter and daily bread, while the memory of former wrongs and a fierce revolt against the rich man's oppression fired our blood. Nevertheless, I remembered that it was necessary to gain time, and answered as coolly as I could:
"In the first place, the stock and horses belong to my neighbors, and in the second, you will be overstepping limits if you violently break into any part of my homestead. Neither does the law allow any private individual to gather a band of ruffians and forcibly seize his debtor's property."
Lane probed his cigar with slow deliberateness. "You are growing quite smart, Ormesby; but isn't it a pity you didn't display your acumen earlier? I don't know that a stable can be considered a dwelling under the homestead regulations, and there's nothing to prevent any man from hiring assistance to drive home sequestrated cattle. It is this gentleman's business to seize them, not mine. Neither is it clear how far a proved agreement to feed another person's stock frees them of a lien for debt. Have you got any in writing?"
It was evident that, in homely parlance, my adversary held the best end of the stick. The administration of justice is necessarily somewhat rough-and-ready in the West, and I saw that the representative of legal authority was at least two-thirds drunk. I also had little doubt that Lane's mercenaries would act independently of him; while if they exceeded legal limits there wouldbe only our testimony to prove it against a dozen witnesses. Possession was evidently everything.
Lane had possibly guessed my thoughts, for he said: "Don't be mad enough to start a circus, Ormesby. We have come a long way for the beasts, and mean to get them. Can't you see that we could beat you if it came to testimony? And I don't mind admitting that these rascals are not particular."
His tranquillity enraged me, but I managed to answer him: "If you drive a hoof off you will have to defend your action against richer men than I."
"Well, I'll take my chances. It would cost them piles of money, and they would gain nothing then," he said. "Say, officer, hadn't you better begin?"
"Gotsh any papersh to prove objection?" demanded that individual, turning to me. And I took no pains to hide my disgust as I answered: "If I had I should not trouble to show them to you."
Steel, however, broke in: "We have. I'll show you a receipt for so many beasts to be fattened for Roland Adams."
"Whersh you keep them?" demanded the other.
"Where you won't find them; 'way back on the prairie," Steel answered triumphantly.
It was a blunder, for the other, who had a little shrewdness left, straightened himself. "Then all the beastsh heah belong to someone else," he said, with a tipsy leer, and waved his hand to the rest. "No papersh worth a shent. Whasher foolin' for? We'll just walk into the stable."
Several men sprang from their saddles, but Steel reached the door ahead of them, and stood with his back against it, swinging a great birch staff. "Nobody comes in here," he said.
I was at his side the next moment with a keen hay-fork, and the men halted in a semi-circle at the sight of our grim faces.
"These points will reach anybody within six feet," I said.
"Better quit fooling while your hide's whole. There's'most a dozen of us," said one, while another criticised my personal appearance in uncomplimentary terms. One or two in the background advised their comrades as to how we might best be maimed, but stood fast themselves, for Steel was big and brawny, and looked coolly murderous as he balanced the heavy staff; while whoever looked at me did so over the twin points of steel. The interlude lasted at least a minute, and I listened with strained attention for the thud of hoofs. Gordon could not be far off, but he remained invisible behind a low rise, even if the buildings had not obscured our view. Then a newcomer shoved his way through the rest, and I saw that he was the genuine article as he stood before me in Montana cattle-rider's dress.
"It's a mighty poor show you're making, boys," he said contemptuously. "Stand out of my way. You can pick up the pieces when I've done with them."
He danced up and down a few paces and yelled, either to bewilder or to impress us, and I was conscious of a grim amusement, while Steel watched him narrowly. Then, for the man had spirit enough, he leaped at Steel like a panther, with something in his hand that twinkled. He was, however, a second too late, for the birch staff met him in the center of his face, and, falling like a log, he lay where he fell. Steel deliberately snapped the knife beneath his heel, and Lane shouted something as my comrade said: "The next man I down at that trick will get his skull smashed in."
There was a wrathful cry from the others, which convinced me that if we took our eyes off them for an instant the rush would come; but they hesitated, and Steel, standing poised with one foot forward and baleful eyes, made the staff whistle round his head. "You're a mighty long time beginning. Who's next—or maybe you only brought one man along?" he said.
"Where's that blamed officer? I guess this is his job," said one; but the worthy mentioned drew further back from the edge of the group.
"Deputsh you my authority. Thish not a house. Only beastsh live in stables," he explained.
"Better get it over. Sail in!" said one of the biggest, and there was a shout of "Look out!" from Steel.
Four or five men made a rush upon us, and, not wishing to inflict lethal injuries unless my life were threatened, I had barely time to reverse the fork before they were within striking distance. Another reeled backwards headlong beneath the staff, and, knowing that a thrust is more effective and harder to evade than a blow, I used the long-hafted fork, blunt-end foremost, as a pike with considerable success. The struggle continued for perhaps a minute, and was sharp while it lasted. Several times a panting man got within my guard, and Steel brought him down; but I was struck heavily, and had only a blurred vision of waving arms, scowling faces, and the whirling staff, while the air seemed filled with discordant shouts of encouragement from those outside. Either by sheer force of desperation, or by the power of better weapons, we wore them out, and the group broke up. One or two limped badly as they straggled back, some swore, and there was blood on the faces and garments of the rest.
"One fellow got me badly on the chest," said Steel, who breathed heavily, and I was conscious of several painful spots; and when I had recovered breath I saw that Lane had drawn his wagon back some distance, and was apparently upbraiding his bodyguard in no measured terms.
"Jump clear!" cried Steel presently, and I sprang aside a moment too late, for an exultant shout went up when a heavy billet struck me on the head. I felt the blood trickle warm and sticky into one eye, and I fell against the door feeling faint and sick, then stiffened myself again, with the fork held points foremost this time. Lane, it seemed, had lost control of his followers, and would doubtless rely on hard swearing to protect himself from unfortunate consequences, for I now suspected there would be bloodshed unless help arrived very shortly.
"They're going for the house, and Sally's insidethere," cried Steel; and for the first time I remembered that the dwelling was unprotected, and feared that the girl had not slipped away, as she might have done by a rear window.
One of Lane's men reached the threshold before we did, and three or four others followed hard upon his heels. The door was wide open, and I sincerely trusted that Sally had made her escape. She had not, however, for the handle of a long brush swung out, and the first ruffian who rushed at the entrance staggered backwards against the comrade behind him. Steel flung him headlong the next moment; the rest yielded passage before the tines of the fork, and we sprang into the house, while our enemy's reinforcements came up at a run. So far we had succeeded better than might have been expected, but our adversaries were growing furious, and the defense of our property no longer appeared the main question. The girl had dropped the brush and grasped a red-ended iron bar.
"Give it to me, and reach down that rifle, Sally," I gasped, and while Steel dragged up furniture for a barricade, the rest, not knowing its magazine was empty, recoiled before the Winchester muzzle.
"I'll be through in another minute. Keep them out," Steel said.
A brief respite followed, for the iron was glowing still, and our enemies' supply of missiles was evidently exhausted; but as we waited, wondering what would happen next, I heard a beat of hoofs, and Sally cried out triumphantly as three well-mounted men swept up at a gallop.
"Ride over them!" shouted somebody. Warning cries went up, there was a scattering of Lane's ruffians, and the leading horseman pulled up his beast just outside the door. He was dripping with perspiration, bespattered all over, and his horse was white with lather.
"Couldn't get through earlier. Jacques' boys are away, but we sent a man to look for them, and he'll bring them along," he said.
We were very glad to see Rancher Gordon and hissturdy followers, though it was bad news he brought. Further reinforcements could hardly arrive in time to be of service, and where we had expected more than a dozen we must be content with three. Meanwhile, Lane's men had mounted and were trotting off across the prairie.
"They have probably gone in search of the loose stock. Come in. We have got to talk over our next step," I said.
The newcomers did so, and we were all glad of a breathing space. My head was somewhat badly cut, several purple bruises adorned my comrade's countenance, and the rest had ridden a long way in furious haste. At first the conference was conducted in half-breathless gasps, then the voices deepened into a sonorous ring, and I can recall the intent bronzed faces turned towards me, the thoughtful pauses when each speaker had aired his views, and how the slanting sunlight beat into the partly shadowed room. Last of all Rancher Gordon spoke: "We are waiting to hear your notions, Ormesby."
"The stable and corral must be held at any cost," I said, smearing my hands as I tried to clear my eye, while red drops splashed from them on to the table. "While that ought to be possible, we are hardly strong enough to force a fight in the open unless it is necessary. Lane's rascals may not find the stock, and may only be trying to draw us off, so my decision is to remain here. If they are successful we can see them from the roof, and must run the risk of taking their plunder from them. Should we fail we could follow them when our friends turn up."
"That's about my notion. We'll see you through with it," said Gordon quietly.
We had waited a considerable time before Steel hailed us from the roof that he could see our enemies riding south behind a bunch of cattle, and we mounted forthwith. There were now three rifles among us, but we had agreed these were not to be used unless somebody fired upon us. Riders and cattle dipped into a hollow,and we had covered several miles before we sighted them again. Lane and the representative of authority no longer accompanied them. The whole body wheeled around and halted when we came up. There was sweet grass in the hollow, so the cattle halted too, and for a space we sat silent, looking at one another. I dare not risk a blunder in face of such odds, though I determined to make an effort to recover the stock.
"You make us tired," said the American, whose face was partly covered by a dirty rag. "Go to perdition, before we make you!"
He waved his arm around the horizon, as though to indicate where the place in question lay, and I edged my horse a little nearer to him. He was the leading spirit, and it seemed possible that we might perhaps disperse the rest if I could dismount him. The man had evidently recovered from Steel's blow.
"We are not going away without the cattle, and you can see there are more of us now, while two proved too many for you before," I said, still decreasing the distance between us; but my adversary perhaps divined my intention, for a short barrel glinted in his hand when he raised it.
"It's going to be different this time. Keep back while you're safe," he said.
There was apparently no help for it, and I was not quite certain he would shoot, so balancing the long fork, lance fashion, I tightened my grip on the bridle, when Gordon drove his horse against me and gripped it violently. "Hold on; the boys are coming!" he said.
Friends and foes alike had been too intent to notice anything beyond each other during the past few minutes; but now a drumming of hoofs rose from behind the rise which shut in the hollow. Then a drawn-out line of mounted men came flying down the slope, and Steel flung his hat up with a triumphant yell. "It's the Bonaventure boys," he said. "There's Adams and Miss Haldane leading them."
The American looked in my direction, and raised his hand in ironical salute. "I'm sorry to miss a clinch withyou. It would have been a good one, but I can't stay," he said. "Get on, you skulking coyotes. Unless you're smart in lighting out those cow drivers won't leave much of you."
His subordinates took the hint, and bolted down the hollow as hard as they could ride, while I drew a deep breath and turned towards the rescue party.
They were splendid horsemen who rode to our assistance, and their beasts as fine; but a slight figure led them a clear length ahead. In another minute Gordon's men copied their leader, who trotted forward with his broad hat at his knee, and I rode bareheaded with—though I had forgotten this—an ensanguined face, to greet the mistress of Bonaventure. She was glowing with excitement, and I had never seen anything equal the fine damask in her cheeks. She started at the sight of me, and then impulsively held out a well-gloved hand.
"I hope you are not badly hurt?" she said.
"Only cut a trifle," I answered, gripping the little hand fervently. "You have done a great deal for us, and no doubt prevented serious bloodshed. It was wonderfully——"
"Don't. It was not in any way wonderful. My father was absent when Mr. Boone brought me the news, and, as you know, I am responsible for the prosperity of Bonaventure in his absence. Our cattle were in jeopardy."
She ceased abruptly, and grew pale, while I felt ashamed when I saw the cause of it. My hands had been reddened from clearing my eyes, and glove and wrist were foul with crimson stains. Courageous as she was, the girl had sickened at the sight of them.
"I can't excuse myself. You must try to forgive me," I said. "Please don't look at it."
Lucille Haldane promptly recovered from the shock of repulsion. "How could you help it—and you were hurt protecting our cattle. I can see the brand on some," she said. "It was very foolish of me to show such weakness."
"You must come back to the house with me at once and rest," I said. "I'm indebted to you, boys, but the best way you could help me would be to drive those cattle into the corral. Then, for you are probably tired and hungry, come up and see what Sally Steel can find for you."
The newcomers hesitated, and inquired whether they might not pursue and chastise our adversaries instead, but Lucille Haldane rebuked them. "You will do just what Rancher Ormesby tells you," she said; and, turning towards me, added: "I am ready to go with you."
Lucille was still a trifle pale, and wondering, because I could not see myself, that one with so much spirit should be affected by such a small thing, I presently dismounted and led her horse by the bridle. I had torn off the offending glove, and when we halted by the corral would have removed the stains from the wrist with a handkerchief.
"No," said Lucile, snatching her hand away just too late, with a gesture of dismay, "do not touch it with that, please."
Then I remembered that the handkerchief had last been used to rub out the fouled breach of a gun. The girl looked at the blur of red and black which resulted from my efforts, and frowned, then broke out into a rippling laugh. "Beatrice said your ways were refreshingly primitive, and I think she was right," she said.
The laugh put heart into me, but I still held the bridle with an ensanguined hand close beside the little smeared one; and so, followed by as fine an escort as a princess could desire, we came to my door side by side.
However, when I helped Lucille Haldane from the saddle I had misgivings concerning the reception Steel's sister might accord her. Sally's loyalty to her friends was worthy of her name; but she was stanchly democratic, more than a little jealous, and not addicted to concealing her prejudices. The fears were groundless. Sally was waiting in the doorway she had defended, and while I hoped for the best, the two stood a moment face to face. They were both worthy of inspection, thoughthe contrast between them was marked. Haldane's daughter was slight and slender, with grace and refinement stamped equally on every line of her delicately chiseled face and on the curve of her dainty figure down to the little feet beneath the riding skirt. Sally was round and ruddy of countenance, stalwart in frame, with the carriage of an Amazon, and, I think, could have crushed Lucille with a grip of her arms; but both had an ample portion of the spirit of their race.
Then Steel's sister, stepping forward, took both the girl's hands within her own, stooped a little, and kissed her on each cheek, after which she drew her into the house, leaving her brother and myself equally astonished. He looked at me whimsically, and though I tried, I could not frown.
"That's about the last thing I expected. How does it strike you?" he said. "Afraid of committing yourself? Well, I don't mind allowing I expected most anything else. All women are curious, but there's no understanding Sally."
We were not left long to wonder, for Miss Steel reappeared in the doorway.
"You two still standing there as if there were nothing to do! Get a big fire on in the outside stove and kill about half the chickens. You're not to come in, Harry Ormesby, until I've fixed you so you're fit to be seen."
I feared that Lucille heard her, and wondered what she thought. Our mode of life was widely different from that at Bonaventure and from what would have been for me possible had I not fallen into the hands of Lane.
We slew the chickens with the assistance of the newcomers, and sat down on the grass to pluck them, a fowl for every guest, although I was slightly uncertain whether that would be sufficient. There is a similarity between the very old and the very new, and ancient poets perhaps best portray the primitive, sometimes heroic, life of effort the modern stockrider and plowman lead on the prairie.
"Why did you bring Miss Haldane, Boone? Youshould have known better than to allow her to run the slightest risk," I said, on opportunity; and the photographer smiled enigmatically.
"Miss Haldane did not ask my permission, and I am doubtful whether anybody could have prevented her. She said she was mistress of Bonaventure, and the way the men stirred when she told them was proof enough that one could believe her."
Presently Sally came out with a roll of sticking-plaster, and, while every bachelor present offered assistance and advice, she proceeded to "fix me," as she expressed it. Then, amid a burst of laughter, she stood back a little to survey her work with pride.
"I guess you can come in. You look too nice for anything. Gordon and Adams, you'll walk in, too. The rest will find all you want in the cook shed, and it will be your own fault if you don't help yourselves."
I was a little astonished when, with a cloth bound round my head, I entered the house, for Miss Steel was in some respects a genius. There was no trace of disorder. Sally was immaculately neat; Lucille Haldane might never have passed the door of Bonaventure; and the two had apparently become good friends, while a table had been set out with Sally's pretty crockery, and, as I noticed, an absolutely spotless cloth, which was something of a rarity. I was glad of the presence of Boone, for Gordon was a big, gaunt, silent man, and the events of the day had driven any conversational gifts we possessed out of both Steel and myself. When it pleased him, Adams, by which name alone he was known to the rest, could entertain anybody, and that, too, in their own particular idiom. There was no trace of the pedlar about him now, and his English was the best spoken in the Old Country. I noticed Lucille Haldane looked hard at him when she took her place at the table.
"It is curious, but I have been haunted by a feeling that we have met before to-day," she said. "If I am mistaken, it must have been somebody who strongly resembles you."
For just a moment Boone looked uneasy, but he answered with a smile: "I don't monopolize all the good looks on the prairie."
The girl flashed a swift sidelong glance at me, and I feared my countenance was too wooden to be natural. "I am sure of the resemblance now, though there is a change. It was one evening at Bonaventure, was it not?" she said. "Have you forgotten me?"
"That would be impossible," and Boone bent his head a little as he made the best of it. "I see that, if necessary I could rely on Miss Haldane's kindness a second time."
Lucille looked thoughtful, Sally inquisitive, and I feared the latter might complicate circumstances by attempting to probe the mystery. Neither Gordon nor Steel noticed anything, but Boone was a judge of character and Lucille keen of wit. He asked nothing further, but I saw a question in his eyes.
"I think you could do so," she said. "You seem to have trusty friends, Rancher Ormesby; though that is not surprising on the prairie."
The words were simply spoken, and wholly unstudied; but Lucille Haldane had a very graceful way, and there was that in her eyes which brought a sparkle into those of Sally, and I saw had made the silent Gordon her slave. Her gift of fascination was part of her birthright, and she used it naturally without taint of artifice.
"Could anybody doubt it after to-day?" I said.
Then Boone smiled dryly. "I suppose it devolves upon me to acknowledge the compliment, and I am afraid that some of his friends are better than he deserves," he said. "At least, I am willing to testify that Rancher Ormesby does not importune them, for I never met any man slower to accept either good advice or well-meant assistance. Have you not found it so, Miss Steel?"
"All you men are foolish, and most of you slow," Sally answered archly. "I had to convince one with a big hard brush to-day."
This commenced the relation of reminiscences, mostly humorous, of the affray, for we could afford to laugh,and all joined in the burst of merriment which rose from outside when several horsemen came up at a gallop across the prairie. A stockrider of Caledonian extraction had borrowed my banjo to amuse his comrades, and they appreciated his irony when he played the new arrivals in to the tune of "The Campbells are coming."
Then he took off his hat to the uniformed figure which led the advance. "Ye're surely lang in comin', Sergeant, dear," he said.
There was another roar of laughter, and I heard Mackay's voice. "It was no' my fault, and ye should ken what kind of horses ye sell the Government; but now I'm here I'm tempted to arrest the whole of ye for unlawful rioting!"
He halted in the doorway with displeasure in his face, and, disregarding my invitation, waited until Miss Haldane bade him be seated, while before commencing an attack upon a fowl, he said dryly: "Maybe I had better begin my business first. It would be a poor return to eat your supper and than arrest ye, Ormesby."
"You had better make sure of the supper, and if you can take me out of the hands of my allies you are welcome to," I said.
Boone's lips twitched once or twice as though in enjoyment of a hidden joke as he discoursed with the sergeant upon the handling of mounted men and horses. He showed, I fancied, a curious knowledge of cavalry equipment and maneuvers, and Mackay was evidently struck with his opinions. I also saw Lucille Haldane smile when the sergeant said: "If ever ye pass my station come in and see me. It's a matter o' regret to me I had not already met ye."
"Thanks," said Boone, just moving his eyebrows as he looked across at me. "I narrowly missed spending some time in your company a little while ago."
"And now to business," said Mackay, with a last regretful glance at the skeletonized chicken. "From what I gather ye are all of ye implicated. I would like an account from Mr. Adams and Miss Haldane first."
"How did you come here instead of Gardiner; andhow do you know there is anything for you to trouble about?" I asked, and the sergeant showed a trace of impatience.
"Gardiner goes back to-morrow. Ye are my own particular sheep, and it would take a new man ten years to learn the contrariness of ye. I heard some talk at the railroad and came on in a hurry. Do ye usually nail your stable or cut your own head open, Rancher Ormesby?"
Each in turn furnished an account of the affray, I last of all; and Mackay expressed no opinion until Lucille Haldane asked him: "Was it not justifiable for me to take measures to protect my father's cattle?"
"Supposing the Bonaventure brand had not been on that draft, and Lane's men retained possession, what would ye have done?" was the shrewd rejoinder; and Lucille smiled as she looked steadily at the speaker.
"I really think, sergeant, that I should have ridden over them."
Mackay seemed to struggle with some natural feeling; but the silent rancher smote the table. "By the Lord, you would, and I'd have given five hundred dollars to go through beside you!" he said.
"Ye are quite old enough to ken better," said Mackay sententiously; and the rancher squared his shoulders as he answered:
"I'm as good as any two of your troopers yet, and was never run into a cattle corral. When I'm old enough to be useless I'll join the police."
"What were ye meaning?" asked the sergeant.
Gordon laughed. "Just that, for a tired man, it's a nice soft berth. You take your money and as much care as you can that you never turn up until the trouble's over!"
Before Mackay could retort, Lucille, smiling, raised her hand. "I think you should both know better, and I want you to tell me, sergeant, what will be the end of this. Surely nobody has any right to drive off cattle and horses that don't belong to him?"
Mackay looked somewhat troubled, and one couldguess that while eager to please the fair questioner, he shrank with official caution from committing himself. "It's not my part to express an opinion on points that puzzle some lawyers," he said. "Still, I might tell ye that it will cost one man his position. Human nature's aye deceitful, Miss Haldane, and if Rancher Ormesby prosecuted them it would be just two or three men's word against a dozen. Forby, they might make out illegal resistance against him!"
"Sergeant," said Lucille Haldane, looking at him severely, "dare you tell me that you would not take the word of three ranchers against the oath of a dozen such men as Lane?"
Mackay smiled, though he answered dryly: "They're both hard to manage, and ungrateful for their benefits; but maybe I would. Still, I am, ye see, neither judge nor jury. Would ye prefer a charge against them, Ormesby?"
I was willing enough to do so, but had already reflected. Every moment of my time was needed, the nearest seat of justice was far away, and it would be only helping Lane if I wasted days attempting to substantiate a charge. I also surmised by his prompt disappearance when the fracas became serious that it would be very difficult to implicate my enemy, even if he did not turn the tables on me. Boone, when I looked at him, made a just perceptible negative movement with his head.
"I must leave this affair to the discretion of the police," I said. "Several of Lane's friends have good cause to be sorry for themselves already, and it is hardly likely his action will be repeated."
Mackay said nothing further, and shortly afterwards Lucille said she must take her departure. Sally stood smiling in the doorway while the riders of Bonaventure did her homage, and those whose compliments did not please her suffered for their clumsiness. When I rode out with Lucille Haldane there was a lifting of wide hats, and the sergeant, sitting upright in his saddle, salutedher as we passed with several splendid horsemen riding on each side.
I afterwards heard that Sally said to him mischievously: "I guess you men don't quite know everything. How long did it take you to break your troopers in? Yonder's a slip of a girl who knows nothing of discipline or drill, and there's not a man in all that outfit wouldn't ride right into the place where bad policemen go if she told him to. As good as your troopers, aren't they? What are you thinking now?"
The sergeant followed her pointing hand, and, as it happened, Lucille and I were just passing beyond the rise riding close together side by side. Mackay looked steadily after us, and doubtless noticed that Lucille rode very well. "I would not blame them. I'm just thinking I'm sorry for Corporal Cotton," he said.
Sally looked away across the prairie, and, turning, saw a faint smile fade out of the sergeant's face. "What do you mean? Can't you ever talk straight like a sensible man?" she asked.
"The corporal's young, an' needs considerable convincing," was the dry answer.
When we dipped beyond the rise I turned to Lucille Haldane. "What did you think of Sally? She is a stanch ally, but not always effusive to strangers," I said.
I could not at the moment understand Lucille Haldane's expression. The question was very simple, but the girl showed a trace of confusion, and was apparently troubled as to how she should frame the answer. This did not, however, last long, and when she raised her eyes to mine there was in them the same look of confidence there had been when she said, "I believe in you." It was very pleasant to see.
"I think a great deal of her, and must repeat what I said already. You have very loyal friends. Miss Steel told me at length how kind you had been to her and her brother, and I think they will fully repay you."
My wits must have been sharpened, for I understood, and blessed both Sally and the speaker. If Lucille Haldane, being slow to think evil, had faith in those she knew, it was possible she was glad of proof to justify the confidence, and Sally must have furnished it.
"They have done so already," I said.
There was always something very winning about my companion, but she had never appeared so desirable as she did just then. The day was drawing towards its close, and the light in the west called up the warm coloring that the wind and sun had brought into her face and showed each grace of the slight figure silhouetted against it. The former was, perhaps, not striking at first sight, though, with its setting of ruddy gold, and its hazel eyes filled with swift changes, it was pretty enough; but its charm grew upon one, and I noticed that when she patted the horse's neck the dumb beast moved as though it loved her. There was nothing of the Amazon about its rider except her courage.
"I have heard a good deal about your enemy and yourself of late, but there are several points that puzzle me, and, though I know you have his sympathies, father is not communicative," she said. "For instance, if you do not resent the allusion, he could with so little trouble have made a difference in the result of your sale."
"How could that be?" I asked, merely to see how far the speaker's interest in my affairs had carried her, and she answered: "Even if there had been nothing we needed at Bonaventure he could have made the others pay fair prices for all they bought. I cannot understand why he said it was better not to do so."
I also failed to understand; but a light broke in upon me. "Did you suggest that he should?" I asked, and the girl answered with some reluctance: "Yes; was it not natural that I should?"
"No one who knew you could doubt it," I said; and Lucille Haldane presently dismissed me. I sat still and watched her and her escort diminish across the long levels, and then rode slowly back towards Crane Valley. Remembering Haldane's mention of a promise, the news that it was his younger daughter who sent him to my assistance brought at first a shock of disappointment. Ihad already convinced myself that Beatrice Haldane must remain very far beyond my reach, but the thought that she had remembered me and sent what help she could had been comforting, nevertheless. Now it seemed that she had forgotten, and that that consolation must be abandoned, too. And yet the disappointment was not so crushing but that I could bear it with the rest. What might have been had passed beyond the limits of possibility, and there was nothing in the future to look forward to except a struggle against poverty and the wiles of my enemy.
Steel took my horse when I rode up to the house, and it was a coincidence that his first remark should be: "We beat him badly this time and he'll lie low a while. Then I guess you'll want both eyes open when he tries his luck again."
It was a clear starlit night when I rode across a tract of the Assiniboian prairie, some two hundred miles east of Crane Valley. A half-moon hung in the cloudless ether, and the endless levels, lying very silent under its pale radiance, seemed to roll away into infinity. They had no boundary, for the blueness above them melted imperceptibly through neutral gradations into the earth below, which, gathering strength of tone, stretched back again to the center of the lower circle a vast sweep of silvery gray.
There was absolute stillness, not even a grass blade moved; but the air was filled with the presage of summer, and the softness of the carpet, which returned no sound beneath the horse's feet, had its significance. That sod had been bleached by wind-packed snow and bound into iron hardness by months of arctic frost. Bird and beast had left it, and the waste had lain empty under the coldness of death; but life had once more conquered, and the earth was green again. Even among the almost unlettered born upon it there are few men impervious to the influence of the prairie on such a night; and in days not long gone by the half-breedvoyageurstold strange stories of visions seen on it during the lonely journeys they made for the great fur-trading company. Its vastness and its emptiness impresses the human atom who becomes conscious of an indefinite awe or is uplifted by an exaltation which vanishes with the dawn, for there are times when, through the silence of measureless spaces, man's spirit rises into partial touch with the greater things unseen.
My errand was prosaic enough—merely to buy cattle for Haldane and others on a sliding-scale arrangement.I could see a possibility of some small financial benefit, and that being so had reluctantly left Crane Valley, where I was badly needed, because the need of money was even greater. Also, as time was precious, I had decided to travel all night instead of spending it as a guest of the last farmer with whom I bargained. I was at that time neither very imaginative nor oversentimental; but the spell of the prairie was stronger than my will, and, yielding to it, I rode dreamily, so it seemed, beyond the reach of petty troubles and the clamor of our sordid strife into a shadowy land of peace which, defying the centuries, had retained unchanged its solemn stillness. The stars alone sufficed to call up the fancy, for there being neither visible heavens nor palpable atmosphere, only a blue transparency, the eye could follow the twinkling points of flame far backwards from one to another through the unknown spaces beyond our little globe. Nothing seemed impossible on such a night, and only the touch of the bridle and the faint jingle of metal material.
It was in this mood that I became conscious of a shadow object near the foot of a rise. It did not seem a natural portion of the prairie, and when I had covered some distance it resolved itself into a horse and a dismounted man. His broad hat hung low in his hand, his head was bent, and he stood so intent that I had almost ridden up to him before he turned and noticed me. Then, as I checked my horse, I saw that it was Boone.
"What has brought you here?" I asked.
"That I cannot exactly tell you when we know so little of the influences about us on such a night as this. It is at least one stage of a pilgrimage I must make," he said.
Had this answer been given me in the sunlight I should have doubted the speaker's mental balance, but one sets up a new standard of sanity on the starlit prairie on a night of spring, and I saw only that the spell was also upon him. He held a great bunch of lilies (which do not grow on the bare Western levels) in one hand, and his face was changed. Even in Boone's recklesshumor there had been a sardonic vein which sometimes added a sting to the jest, and I knew what the shadow was that accounted for his fits of silent grimness. Now he seemed strangely calm, but rather reverent than sad.
"I cannot understand you," I said.
"No?" he answered quietly. "How soon you have forgotten; but you helped me once. Come, and I will show you."
He tethered his horse to an iron peg, beckoned me to do the same, and then, moving forward until we stood on the highest of the rise, pointed to something that rose darkly from the grass. Then I remembered, and swung my hat to my knee, as my eyes rested on a little wooden cross. Following the hand he stretched out, I could read the rude letters cut on it—"Helen Boone."
He stooped, and, I fancied with some surprise, lifted a glass vessel from beneath a handful of withered stalks. He shook them out gently, laid the fresh blossoms in their place, and a faint fragrance rose like incense through the coolness of the dew. Then he turned, and I followed him to where we had left the horses. "There are still kind souls on this earth, and one of them placed that vessel under the last flowers I left. You have a partial answer to your question now."
I bent my head, and seeing that he was not averse to speech, said quietly: "You come here sometimes? It is a long journey."
"Yes," was the answer; and Boone's voice vibrated. "She who sleeps there gave up a life of luxury for me; and is a three-hundred-mile journey too much to make, or a summer night too long to watch beside her? I am drawn here, and there are times when one wonders if it is possible for us to rise into partial communion with those who have passed into the darkness before us."
"It is all," I answered gravely, "a mystery to me. Can you conceive such a possibility?"
"Not in any tangible shape to such as I, but this at least I know. In spite of the destruction of the mortal clay, when I can see my way no further, and lose couragein my task, fresh strength comes to me after a night spent here."
"Your task?" I said. "I guessed that there was a motive behind your wanderings."
"There is one," and Boone's voice rose to its natural level. "The wagon journeys suit it well. Had Lane ruined me alone I should have tried to pay my forfeit for inexperience and the risk I took gracefully; but when I saw the woman, who had lain down so much for me, fading day by day that he might add to his power of oppressing others the money which would have saved her life, the case was different. The last part he played in the pitiful drama was that of murderer, and the loss he inflicted on me one that could never be forgiven."
"And you are waiting revenge?" I asked.
"No." Boone looked back towards the crest of the rise. "At first I did so, but it is justice that prompts me now. I have a full share of human passions, and once I lay in wait for him with a rifle—my throat parched and a fire of torment in my heart; but when he passed at midnight within ten paces I held my hand and let him go. Perhaps it was because I could not take the life of even that venomous creature in cold blood, and feared he would not face me. Perhaps another will was stronger than my own, for, with every purpose strained against what seemed weakness, it was borne in on me that I could not force him to stand with a weapon, and that I dare not kill him groveling. Then the power went out of me, and I let him go. Yet I have twice lain long hours in hot sand under a deadly rifle fire, Ormesby. There are many mysteries, and as yet it is very little that we know."
"But you are following him still, are you not?" I asked. And Boone continued: "As I said, it is for justice, and it was here I learned the difference. I would not take the reptile's life unless he met me armed in the daylight, which he would never do; but for the sake of others—you and the rest, whose toil and blood he fattens on—I am waiting and working for the time when, without a crime, it may be possible to end his career of evil."
We were both silent for a few minutes, and I felt that Boone's task, self-imposed or otherwise, was a worthy one. Lane was a man without either anger or compassion—an incarnation of cunning and avarice more terrible to human welfare than any legendary monster of the olden time. It was no figure of speech to declare that he fattened on poor men's blood and agony, and his overthrow could not be anything but a blessing. Still, it was in prosaic speech that, considering the practical aspect of the question, I said: "I wish you luck, but you will need a long patience, besides time and money."
"I have them," was the answer. "The first was the hardest to acquire. Time—I could wait ages if I knew the end was certain; and, as to money, when it came too late to save her, someone died in the old country, and part of the property fell to me. Well, you can guess my purpose—using all means short of bloodshed and perjury to take him in his own net. She who sleeps there was pitiful and gentle, but she hated oppression and cruelty, and I feel that if she knows—and I think it is so—she would smile on me."
Boone's face was plain before me under the moon. It was quietly confident, calm, and yet stamped with a solemn purpose. He had, it seemed, mastered his passions, and would perhaps be the more dangerous because he followed tirelessly, with brain unclouded by hatred or impatience. I felt that there was much I should say in the shape of encouragement and sympathy, but the only words that rose to my lips were: "He has fiendish cunning."
"And I was once a careless fool!" said Boone. "Still, the most cunning forget, and blunder at times. I, however, can never forget, and when he does, it will be ill for Lane. I have—I don't know why—spoken to you, Ormesby, as I have spoken to no man in the Dominion before, and I feel I need ask no promise of you. I am going east with the sunrise, but I must be alone now."
I left him to keep his vigil with his dead, and camped in a hollow some distance away. That is to say, Itethered the horse, rolled a thick brown blanket round me, and used the saddle for a pillow. There was no hardship in this. The grasses, if a trifle damp, were soft and springy, the night still and warm; and many a better man has slept on a worse bed in the Western Dominion. Slumber did not, however, come at first, and I lay watching the stars, neither asleep nor wholly awake, until they grew indistinct, and a woman's figure, impalpable as the moonlight, gathered shape upon a rise of the prairie.
It was borne in on me that this was Helen Boone risen from her sleep; for she was ethereal, and her face with its passionless calmness not that of a mortal, while no shadow touched the grasses when she passed, and, fading, gave place or changed into one I knew. Haldane's elder daughter looked down at me from the rise, but she, too, seemed of another world, wearing a cold serenity and a beauty that was not of this earth. She also changed with a marvelous swiftness before my bewildered vision, and it was now Lucille Haldane who moved across the prairie with soft words of pity on her lips and yet anger in her eyes. She, at least, appeared not transcendental, but a living, breathing creature of flesh and blood subject to human weaknesses, and I raised myself on one elbow to speak to her.
The prairie was empty. Nothing moved on it; even the horse stood still, while, when I sank back again, moonlight and starlight went out together; and perhaps it was as well, for, sleeping or waking, a plain stock-raiser has no business with such fancies, and next morning I convinced myself that I had dreamed it all. I had doubtless done so, and the explanation was simple. The influence of the night, or the words of Boone, had galvanized into abnormal activity some tiny convolution of the brain; but, even that once granted, it formed the beginning, not the end, of the question, and Boone had, it seemed, supplied the best solution when he said we know so little as yet.
The sun was lifting above the prairie when I set out in search of Boone with my horse's bridle over my arm.I met him swinging across the springy sod in long elastic strides, but there was nothing about him which suggested one preyed upon by morbid fancies or the visionary. His eyes were a little heavy, but that was all, for with both of us the dreams of the night had melted before the rising sun. The air had been freshened by the dew, and the breeze, which dried the grasses, roused one to a sense of human necessities and the knowledge that there was a day's work to be done. I was also conscious of an unfanciful and very prosaic emptiness.
"I wonder where we could get anything to eat. I have a long ride before me," said Boone, when he greeted me.
"It can hardly be safe for you to be seen anywhere in this neighborhood," I said; and Boone smiled.
"I walked openly into the railroad depot and asked for a package yesterday. You forget that I partly changed my appearance, while, so far as memory serves, only two police troopers occasionally saw me. The others?—you should know your own kind better, Ormesby. Do you think any settler in this region would take money—and Lane offered a round sum—for betraying me?"
"No," I answered with a certain pride; "that is to say, not unless he were a nominee of the man you name."
No proof of this was needed, but one was supplied us. A man who presently strode out of a hollow stopped and stared at Boone. He was, to judge from his appearance, one of the stolid bushmen who come out West from the forests of Northern Ontario—tireless men with ax and plow, but with little knowledge of anything else.
"I'm kind of good at remembering faces, and I've seen you before," he said. "You are the man who used to own my place."
"How often have you seen me?" asked Boone.
"Once in clear daylight, twice back there at night," answered the stranger.
"Did you know that you could have earned a goodmany dollars by telling the police as much?" asked Boone; and the other regarded him with a frown.
"I'm a peaceable man when people will let me be; but I don't take that kind of talk from anybody."
"I was sure, or I shouldn't have asked you," said Boone. "They don't raise mean Canadians yonder in the country you came from among the rocks and trees. You're not overrich, either, are you? to judge from my own experience, for I put more money into the land than I ever took out of it. However, that doesn't concern the main thing. Just now I'm a hungry man."
The big axman's face relaxed, and he laughed the deep, almost silent, laugh which those like him learn in the shadow of the northern pines. There is as little mirth in it as there is in most of their hard lives, but one can generally trust them with soul and body.
"Breakfast will be ready soon's I get home. You just come along," he said.
We followed him to the log-house which had risen beside Boone's dilapidated dwelling. A neatly-dressed, dark-haired woman was busy about the stove, and our host presented us very simply. "Here's the man who shot the money-lender, and a partner, Lou."
The woman, who laid down the pan she held, cast a quick glance of interest at my companion. "We have seen you, and wondered why you never looked in," she said.
"Did you twice do a great kindness for me?" asked Boone.
The woman's black eyes softened. "Sure, that was a little thing, and don't count for much. The posies were so pretty, and I figured they'd keep fresh a little longer," she said.
"It was one of the little things which count the most," said Boone.
Thereupon the woman's olive-tinted face flushed into warmer color, while her long-limbed spouse observed: "She's of the French habitant stock, and their ways of showing they haven't forgotten aren't the same as ours."
Breakfast was set before us, and I think Boone hadmade firm friends of our hosts before we finished the meal. He had abilities in this direction. They, on their part, were very simple people, the man silent for the most part, rugged in face, and abrupt when he spoke, but shrewd in his own way it seemed withal, and probably as generous as he was hard at a bargain. His wife was of the more emotional Latin stock, quick in her movements, and one might surmise equally quick in sympathy.
"You are not the man who bought the place at the sale," said Boone, at length. "I can remember him tolerably well, and, if I couldn't, one would hardly figure you were likely to work under Lane."
"No!" and the farmer laughed his curious laugh again. "No. I shouldn't say. We never worked for any master since my grandfather got fired for wanting his own way by the Hudson's Bay, and I guess neither Lane nor the devil could handle the rest of us. He once came round to try."
"How?" I asked, and the gaunt farmer sighed a little as he filled his pipe. "This way. He was open to finance me to buy up a poor devil's place, and if I'd had a little less temper and a little more sense I might have obliged him, and landed a good pile of money, too."
"He's just talking. Don't you believe him," broke in the woman, with an indignant glance at her spouse.
I fancied Boone saw the drift of this, which was more than I did, and the farmer nodded oracularly in his direction when I asked: "What did you do instead?"
"Just reached for a big ox-goad, and walked up to him like a blame millionaire or a hot-headed fool. Them negotiations broke right off, and he lit out across the prairie talking 'bout assaults and violences at twenty mile an hour. Some other man will know better, and that's just how Lane will get badly left some day."
The woman laughed immoderately. "It was way better'n a circus," she said. "He didn't tell you he rammed the ox-goad into the skittish horse, and Lane he just hugged the beast."
The picture of the full-fledged Lane, who made a very poor figure in the saddle at any time, careering panic stricken across the prairie with his arms about the neck of a bolting horse appealed to me; but as to the possibility of the usurer's future discomfiture I was still in the dark, and asked for enlightenment.
"It's easy," said the farmer. "Lane he squeezes somebody until he can't hold on to his property, then he puts up the money and another man buys the place dirt-cheap for him, in his own name. Suppose that man goes back on Lane? 'This place is my own,' says he. Well, he's recorded owner, isn't he? and I figure Lane wouldn't be mighty keen on dragging that kind of case into the courts."
"But he wouldn't put any man in unless he had him by the throat," said I; and the farmer grinned.
"Juss so! He'll choke some fellow with grit in him a bit too much some day, and when the wrong breed of scoundrel is jammed right up between the devil and the sea, it's quite likely he'll go for the devil before he starts swimming."
"I"—and Boone regarded the farmer fixedly—"quite agree with you. Do you mind telling me what you gave for this place?"
Our host named the sum without hesitation, adding that he would be glad to show us over it; and Boone's face grew somber as he said: "It is more than twice what it was sold for when it was stolen from me."
We walked around the plowed land, inspected the stock, stables, and barns, and when, after a cordial parting with our hosts, we rode away, Boone turned to me: "It was an ordeal, and harrowing to see what might have been but for an insatiable man's cunning and my poverty. Another half-hour of the memories would have been too much for me. Well, we can let that pass. They were kind souls, and this last lesson may have been necessary. Strange, isn't it, that the simple are sometimes shrewder than the wise?"
"For instance?" I said; and Boone smiled significantly.
"Yonder very plain farmer has hit upon a weak spot in Lane's armor which the keenest brain on this prairie—I don't mean my own, of course—has hitherto failed to see."
Soon afterwards we separated, each going his different way.