Neal’s happy smile brightened his face. “That’s right. I want you to feel that you can do that. I know how Steve looked forward to your coming and what his dreams were. I know that we hadn’t a man in the country that I’d rather call my friend than Steve Hayward. Now, Miss Christine, don’t let your feelings interfere with the needs of our army. We want John and you must let him go. That little sister of yours has grit; she’ll stand by you.”
“Alison? She is still such a child. She doesn’t know the troubles that lie in wait for us; she doesn’t understand the bitterness of disappointment.”
“She’s got the grit to stand it when it comes, and that red-headed Lou of yours ain’t far behind her. She don’t stand at anything. I’d as lief have her about as a man.”
“I suppose I do seem very foolish, a silly, weak sort of creature, to you,” returned Christine with a little show of petulance.
“No, I can’t say that,” returned Neal candidly, “but I think you let yourself mope too much. You’re the oldest; you owe it to that little sister of yours to brace up and get through this with all the courage that’s in you. I’m pretty free-spoken, I know, Miss Christine, but—it hurts a fellow to see a girl like you spending her life pining after what can’t be helped.” He drew out his bowie-knife and fell to examining the keen blade, and then John came in.
“Well, it’s come, has it?” was John’s greeting.
Neal nodded.
“Then I’m off with the rest.”
“But not yet, not just yet,” pleaded Christine.
“To be sure I must see that you girls have some one here to look after you. Fortunately we’ve nearer neighbors than we had six months ago; the settlement’s growing, and since the treaty, and the coming in of the troops, there’s no fear of Injuns, so I reckon you won’t be carried off. I’ll see if Bud Haley will look after the crops and we’ll have to get some one to stay on the place to see to the stock.” John’s mind was working rapidly. He never delayed when there was any important matter to be settled.