Torrance opened his letter and smiled somewhat drily. It was affectionate and not without its faint pathos, for Hetty had been stirred when she wrote; but the grim old widower felt no great desire for the gentle attentions of a dutiful daughter just then.
“We shall be at Cedar soon after you get this,” he read among the rest. “I know if I had told you earlier you would have protested you didn’t want me, just because you foolishly fancied I should be lonely at the Range; but I have been very selfish, and you must have been horribly lonely too; and one of the nicest girls you ever saw is coming to amuse you. You can’t help liking Flo. Of course I had to bring a maid; but you will have to make the best of us, because you couldn’t stop us now if you wanted to.”
It was noticeable that Torrance took the pains to confirm this fact by reference to a railroad schedule, and, finding it incontrovertible, shook his head.
“Three of them,” he said.
Then he sat still with the letter in his hand, while a trace of tenderness crept into his face, which, however, grew grave again, until there was a tapping at the door, and Clavering came in.
“You seem a trifle worried, sir, and if you’re busy I needn’t keep you long,” he said. “I just wanted to hand you a cheque for the subscription you paid for me.”
“Sit down,” said Torrance. “Where did you get the dollars from?”
Clavering appeared almost uneasy for a moment, but he laughed. “I’ve been thinning out my cattle.”
“That’s not a policy I approve of just now. We’ll have the rabble down upon us as soon as we show any sign of weakening.”
Clavering made a little deprecatory gesture. “It wasn’t a question of policy. I had to have the dollars. Still, you haven’t told me if you have heard anything unpleasant from the other committees.”
Torrance appeared thoughtful. He suspected that Clavering’s ranch was embarrassed, and the explanation was plausible.
“No,” he said. “It was something else. Hetty is on her way home, and she is bringing another young woman and a maid with her. They will be here before I can stop them. Still, I could, if it was necessary, send them back.”
Clavering did not answer for a moment, though Torrance saw the faint gleam in his dark eyes, and watched him narrowly. Then he said, “You will find a change in Miss Torrance, sir. She has grown into a beautiful young woman, and has, I fancy, been taught to think for herself in the city; you could not expect her to come back as she left the prairie. And if anything has induced her to decide that her place is here, she will probably stay.”
“You’re not quite plain. What could induce her?”
Clavering smiled, though he saw that the shot had told. “It was astonishing that Miss Torrance did not honour me with her confidence. A sense of duty, perhaps, although one notices that the motives of young women are usually a trifle involved. It, however, appears to me that if Miss Torrance makes up her mind to stay, we are still quite capable of guarding our women from anxiety or molestation.”
“Yes,” said Torrance grimly. “Of course. Still, we may have to do things we would sooner they didn’t hear about or see. Well, you have some news?”
Clavering nodded. “I was in at the railroad, and fifty Dakota men came in on the cars. I went round to the hotel with the committee, and, though it cost some dollars to fix the thing, they wouldn’t take them in. The boys, who got kind of savage, found a pole and drove the door in, but we turned the Sheriff, who had already sworn some of us in, loose on them. Four or five men were nastily clubbed, and one of James’s boys was shot through the arm, while I have a fancy that the citizens would have stood in with the other crowd; but seeing they were not going to get anything to eat there, they held up a store, and as we told the man who kept it how their friends had sacked Regent, he fired at them. The consequence is that the Sheriff has some of them in jail, and the rest are camped down on the prairie. We hold the town.”
“Through the Sheriff?”
Clavering laughed. “He’ll earn his pay. Has it struck you that this campaign is going to cost us a good deal? Allonby hasn’t much left in hand already.”
“Oh, yes,” said the older man, with a little grim smile. “If it’s wanted I’ll throw my last dollar in. Beaten now and we’re beaten for ever. We have got to win.”
Clavering said nothing further, though he realized, perhaps more clearly than his leader, that it was only by the downfall of the cattle-men the small farmer could establish himself, and, when he had handed a cheque to Torrance, went out.
It was three days later when Hetty Torrance rose from her seat in a big vestibule car as the long train slackened speed outside a little Western station. She laughed as she swept her glance round the car.
“Look at it, Flo,” she said; “gilding and velvet and nickel, all quite in keeping with the luxury of the East. You are environed by civilization still; but once you step off the platform there will be a difference.”
Flora Schuyler, who noticed the little flush in her companion’s face, glanced out of the dusty window, for the interior of the gently-rocking car, with its lavish decoration and upholstery, was not new to her, and the first thing that caught her eye was the miscellaneous deposit of rubbish, old boots, and discarded clothing, amidst the willows that slowly flitted by. Then she saw a towering water-tank, wooden houses that rose through a haze of blowing dust, hideous in their unadornment, against a crystalline sky, and a row of close-packed stock-cars which announced that they were in the station.
It seemed to be thronged with the populace, and there was a murmur, apparently of disappointed expectancy, when, as the cars stopped, the three women alone appeared on the platform. Then there was a shout for the conductor, and somebody said, “You’ve no rustlers aboard for us?”
“No,” said the grinning official who leaned out from the door of the baggage-car. “The next crowd are waiting until they can buy rifles to whip you with.”
Hoarse laughter followed, and somebody said, “Boys, your friends aren’t coming. You can take your band home again.”
Then out of the clamour came the roll of a drum, and, clear and musical, the ringing of bugles blown by men who had marched with Grant and Sherman when they were young. The effect was stirring, and a cheer went up, for there were other men present in whom the spirit which, underlying immediate issues, had roused the North to arms was living yet; but it broke off into laughter when, one by one, discordant instruments and beaten pans joined in. The din, however, ceased suddenly, when somebody said, “Hadn’t you better let up, boys, or Torrance will figure you sent the band for him?”
Miss Schuyler appeared a trifle bewildered, the maid frightened; but Hetty’s cheeks were glowing.
“Flo,” she said, “aren’t you glad you came? The boys are taking the trail. We’ll show you how we stir the prairie up by and by!”
Miss Schuyler was very doubtful as to whether the prospect afforded her any pleasure; but just then a grey-haired man, dressed immaculately in white shirt and city clothes, kissed her companion, and then, taking off his hat, handed her down from the platform with ceremonious