“Crops plumb ruined, you say, Miss Leslie?”
“Oh, yes; entirely; I think the whole herd must have been there; not feeding quietly so much as tearing through—”
“You say the whole herd? Know of any herd, now, that you could spot?”
“It was Mr. Horton’s herd; we all know his brand.”
“R, half-circle, A; yes. Now, young folks,”—he paused to roll his eyes impressively from one to the other of us—“I’ll tell you what you want to do about this affair. You want to keep still; to keep still!”
“And be ruined!” cried Jessie, her eyes flashing.
“And not be ruined! There’s where the fun’s going to come in, Miss Jessie. ’Spose you go to work now to try to prove malicious mischief on the part of Horton in driving his cattle into your fields, for that’s what he’s deliberately done, no doubt of that, why all he’s got to do is to take his stand on the law and say that you had no business to sow grain on the range and expect cattle to keep out of it; you’ve no title to this place, and your grain fields are not even fenced. Horton’s got the law on his side, you may be sure of that, but he hasn’t got the right, and some day he’ll find it out; he’ll find it out to his cost, no matter what the law says, now you mark my words!”
“There hasn’t been a year since we’ve been here that Mr. Horton’s cattle—always Mr. Horton’s cattle—haven’t destroyed our crops,” Jessie said, her voice trembling.
“And it has always been an ‘accident,’” I added, “but I did think that maybe there would be no such accident this year; it couldn’t have occurred at a time when it would be more effective.”
“No, you may count on that; that’s just the reason why it hasn’t taken place before this. Now, the rest of us folks around here don’t propose to see you two girls and that purty little orphan boy drove off of this place that you’ve tried so hard and so bravely to keep, but we’ve all got to sing low until you get your title. Then, Mr. Man, let that—well, I won’t call names—just let Mr. Horton try his little games and he’ll find that there are laws that will fit his case. The reasons that that man hasn’t landed in the penitentiary before this are, first, that the Lord was mighty lenient toward him when he went a courtin’ and induced that good woman to become his wife; second, he’s so sly. There’s never been a time yet when a body could produce direct, damaging evidence against him. It’s all ‘accident.’”