“I do not see how Sister Olive can have any experience that would enable her to give good advice on this subject,” said Madame acidly.
“Oh, Sister Olive has consider’ble ’cuteness,” remarked Uncle David. “Now you’d be ’stonished to hear the wise things she says, an’ she as purty as a kitten or a rose all the while.”
“Then I guess we’ll just do nothing at all? Is that the decision of this Assembly?” asked Brother Wright abruptly.
“There is great force in passive resistance,” said Brother Carpenter, a boneless individual who counted for little either for work in the fields, or for advice in the councils, of Perfection City. “Where passive resistance has been applied by large numbers and for a long time it has effected great changes,” he observed conversationally.
“I think principles are principles,” said Brother Green, “and may not be lightly set aside.”
“Well, I guess I’ll go home then, since nothing is going to be done,” said Brother Wright angrily, “and I’ll try and keep hold of the last horse, else that thief will come and take him too, when he finds what fools he’s got to deal with.”
The Assembly broke up, having decided nothing at all, and having only succeeded in embittering the feelings of several persons, and in widening the chasm of differences which had revealed itself in the course of the debate, a result that has often followed the meeting of larger and more notorious Assemblies.
Although Brother Wright could not now violate one of the fundamental doctrines of Perfection City, it was open to him to use a little worldly wisdom in the way of setting others upon the track of the thief. Accordingly, without saying a single word to Mary Winkle or anyone else, he mounted Rebel and proceeded to rouse the neighbours who were not at all bound by non-resistant theories. Nothing gets up a prairie man’s anger quicker than the knowledge that a horse-thief has begun active operations in his vicinity. Horses are absolutely necessary to his daily life, and to be suddenly deprived of his horses is one of the greatest calamities that can overtake a settler. They can take a merciful view of homicide at times, but never of horse-stealing. Brother Wright relied on this known propensity, and by visiting the most hardy of his neighbours had before night started as relentless a set of hunters after Queen Katharine as ever put leg over horse or drew pistol from belt.
Olive meanwhile remained at home all unconscious of what had taken place at the Assembly, and of the pursuit organized afterwards as the effect of Brother Wright’s embassies. She had decided in her own mind that the best course for her to adopt was to keep absolute silence until Ezra should come home. To him she would explain everything, and she felt convinced that he was just enough, albeit no friend of Cotterell’s, to be ready to sacrifice a horse in order to facilitate his escape. She did not feel at all so sure about some of the other members of the Community. At all events Cotterell’s best chance of safety lay in her keeping firmly to her resolution of silence about him. The best way for her to keep silent without exciting suspicion was not to talk with anyone, and feeling pretty well convinced that somebody would come to talk over the great calamity with her, she resolved to be out of the way. In any case she was very miserable and very anxious, and could not stay at home, so she wandered off for a walk. She went to the spring, then she went to Weddell’s Gully and looked at the black burnt waste. She tried to think about the interest and excitement of the fire, but could think of nothing but Cotterell riding for his life and of the men who were riding after him. Olive knew nothing of the second set of men sent after the horse-thief; her mind was still anxiously dwelling on the probability of his being captured by those who had “wanted” him for the murder of Jake Mills. The fact was, however, that this first hunting-party had given over their quest, for a man must be caught by the second day on the prairie if he is to be caught at all. This, however, Olive did not know, and she kept wondering and picturing all sorts of terrible possibilities. Had the men found the trail? Would Queen Katharine hold out till he got to the border? True she had been resting for a whole day, but then a man’s life depended on her endurance, and Olive remembered with a cold dread that Queen Katharine was only a farm-horse and not trained to such desperate efforts as this. Then she remembered the others, those dreadful hunters, were also mounted on farm horses, and this thought gave her some small comfort. She came home again after a most wretched day spent in aimless rambling over the hopeless black prairie and crept up to the outside platform to scan once more that dreary waste towards the endless western horizon. Far away towards the north-west she saw a band of horsemen huddled together and moving rapidly in an easterly direction. Olive’s heart stood still with terror. Oh! who were they? And why were they riding rapidly? Men rode in bands to funerals, but then they went slowly: they rode fast only when out on a man-hunt. She did not call up Napoleon Pompey, although he could see like a hawk; she dreaded to hear what his explanation would be. She watched with straining eyes until the men had disappeared within the belt of timber that marked the course of the Creek, then she came downstairs with her miserable discovery hidden in her heart.
The next day dragged slowly by, Olive feeling more and more wretched and anxious each moment, and longing for Ezra’s return. Napoleon Pompey did nothing but speculate about the horse-thief and the probabilities of his capture. He regaled Olive with accounts of the numbers of men out on the hunt, the desperate character of their courage, and the murderous accuracy of their aim with revolvers. Sick at heart she had to listen to him and try and collect her terrified senses in order to make occasional comments and replies. Again she hid herself away from her neighbours and spent most of the day in a corn-stack, not two hundred yards from the house, whence she could see plainly without being seen. Uncle David came and stayed so long waiting for her, that she nearly smothered in the corn-stack before he went away, and she was able to come out and catch a breath of fresh air. Then Aunt Ruby came and peered all about everywhere, even down into the cellar, and stayed a good while there examining Olive’s milkpans, until Olive bethought herself of the device of sending off Diana to hasten Aunt Ruby’s exit from the cellar. This device succeeded: Aunt Ruby was so dismayed at seeing that redoubtable puppy lolloping up to her that she incontinently fled, and Olive emerged once more from the suffocation of the corn-stack.