Before, the breakfast had continued to seem an important incident temporarily suspended. Now Peaceful Hart laid hand to his beard, eyed his wife questioningly, let his glance flicker over the faces of his sons, and straightened his shoulders unconsciously. Good Indian was at the door, his mouth set in a thin, straight, fighting line. Wally and Jack were sliding their chairs back from the table preparing to follow him.
“I guess it ain’t anything much,” Peaceful opined optimistically. “They can’t do anything but steal berries, and they’re most gone, anyhow. Go ask him what he wants, down there.” The last sentence was but feeble sort of fiction that his boys would await his commands; as a matter of fact, they were outside before he spoke.
“Take the dogs along,” called out Baumberger, quite as futilely, for not one of the boys was within hearing.
Until they heard footsteps returning at a run, the four stayed where they were. Baumberger rumbled on in a desultory sort of way, which might have caused an observant person to wonder where was his lawyer training, and the deep cunning and skill with which he was credited, for his words were as profitless and inconsequential as an old woman’s. He talked about tramps, and dogs that barked o’ nights, and touched gallantly upon feminine timidity and the natural, protective instincts of men.
Peaceful Hart may have heard half of what he said—but more likely he heard none of it. He sat drawing his white beard through his hand, and his mild, blue eyes were turned often to Phoebe in mute question. Phoebe herself was listening, but not to Baumberger; she was permitting Evadna to tuck in stray locks of her soft, brown hair, but her face was turned to the door which opened upon the porch. At the first clatter of running footsteps on the porch, she and Peaceful pushed back their chairs instinctively.
The runner was Donny, and every freckle stood out distinctly upon his face.
“There’s four of ’em, papa!” he shouted, all in one breath. “They’re jumpin’ the ranch for placer claims. They said so. Each one’s got a claim, and they’re campin’ on the corners, so they’ll be close together. They’re goin’ to wash gold. Good Injun—”
“Oh!” screamed Evadna suddenly. “Don’t let him—don’t let them hurt him, Uncle Hart!”
“Aw, they ain’t fightin’,” Donny assured her disgustedly. “They’re chewin’ the rag down there, is all. Good Injun knows one of ’em.”
Peaceful Hart stood indecisively, and stared, one and gripping the back of his chair. His lips were working so that his beard bristled about his mouth.
“They can’t do nothing—the ranch belongs to me,” he said, his eyes turning rather helplessly to Baumberger. “I’ve got my patent.”
“Jumping our ranch!—for placer claims!” Phoebe stood up, leaning hard upon the table with both hands. “And we’ve lived here ever since Clark was a baby!”
“Now, now, let’s not get excited over this,” soothed Baumberger, getting out of his chair slowly, like the overfed glutton he was. He picked up a crisp fragment of biscuit, crunched it between his teeth, and chewed it slowly. “Can’t be anything serious—and if it is, why—I’m here. A lawyer right on the spot may save a lot of trouble. The main thing is, let’s not get excited and do something rash. Those boys—”
“Not excited?—and somebody jumping—our—ranch?” Phoebe’s soft eyes gleamed at him. She was pale, so that her face had a peculiar, ivory tint.
“Now, now!” Baumberger put out a puffy hand admonishingly. “Let’s keep cool—that’s half the battle won. Keep cool.” He reached for his pipe, got out his twisted leather tobacco pouch, and opened it with a twirl of his thumb and finger.
“You’re a lawyer, Mr. Baumberger,” Peaceful turned to him, still helpless in his manner. “What’s the best thing to be done?”
“Don’t—get—excited.” Baumberger nodded his head for every word. “That’s what I always say when a client comes to me all worked up. We’ll go down there and see just how much there is to this, and—order ’em off. Calmly, calmly! No violence—no threats—just tell ’em firmly and quietly to leave.” He stuffed his pipe carefully, pressing down the tobacco with the tip of a finger. “Then,” he added with slow emphasis, “if they don’t go, after—say twenty-four hours’ notice—why, we’ll proceed to serve an injunction.” He drew a match along the back of his chair, and lighted his pipe.
“I reckon we’d better go and look after those boys of yours,” he suggested, moving toward the door rather quickly, for all his apparent deliberation. “They’re inclined to be hot-headed, and we must have no violence, above all things. Keep it a civil matter right through. Much easier to handle in court, if there’s no violence to complicate the case.”
“They’re looking for it,” Phoebe reminded him bluntly. “The man had a gun, and threw down on Vadnie.”
“He only pointed it at me, auntie,” Evadna corrected, ignorant of the Western phrase.
The two women followed the men outside and into the shady yard, where the trees hid completely what lay across the road and beyond the double row of poplars. Donny, leaning far forward and digging his bare toes into the loose soil for more speed, raced on ahead, anxious to see and hear all that took place.
“If the boys don’t stir up a lot of antagonism,” Baumberger kept urging Peaceful and Phoebe, as they hurried into the garden, “the matter ought to be settled without much trouble. You can get an injunction, and—”
“The idea of anybody trying to hold our place for mineral land!” Phoebe’s indignation was cumulative always, and was now bubbling into wrath. “Why, my grief! Thomas spent one whole summer washing every likely spot around here. He never got anything better than colors on this ranch—and you can get them anywhere in Idaho, almost. And to come right into our garden, in the right—and stake a placer claim!” Her anger seemed beyond further utterance. “The idea!” she finished weakly.
“Well—but we mustn’t let ourselves get excited,” soothed Baumberger, the shadow of him falling darkly upon Peaceful and Phoebe as he strode along, upon the side next the sun. Peppajee would have called that an evil thing, portending much trouble and black treachery.
“That’s where people always blunder in a thing like this. A little cool-headedness goes farther than hard words or lead. And,” he added cheeringly, “it may be a false alarm, remember. We won’t borrow trouble. We’ll just make sure of our ground, first thing we do.”
“It’s always easy enough to be calm over the other fellow’s trouble,” said Phoebe sharply, irritated in an indefinable way by the oily optimism of the other. “It ain’t your ox that’s gored, Mr. Baumberger.”
They skirted the double row of grapevines, picked their way over a spot lately flooded from the ditch, which they crossed upon two planks laid side by side, went through an end of the currant patch, made a detour around a small jungle of gooseberry bushes, and so came in sight of the strawberry patch and what was taking place near the lightning-scarred apricot tree. Baumberger lengthened his stride, and so reached the spot first.
The boys were grouped belligerently in the strawberry patch, just outside a line of new stakes, freshly driven in the ground. Beyond that line stood a man facing them with a.45-.70 balanced in the hollow of his arm. In the background stood three other men in open spaces in the shrubbery, at intervals of ten rods or so, and they also had rifles rather conspicuously displayed. They were grinning, all three. The man just over the line was listening while Good Indian spoke; the voice of Good Indian was even and quiet, as if he were indulging in casual small talk of the country, but that particular claim-jumper was not smiling. Even from a distance they could see that he was fidgeting uncomfortably while he listened, and that his breath was beginning to come jerkily.
“Now, roll your blankets and git!” Good Indian finished sharply, and with the toe of his boot kicked the nearest stake clear of the loose soil. He stooped, picked it up, and