"Then I mean to stick to you."
"Very well."
"But think—think before it's too late! They are devils, Miss Pryse—beasts! I have seen them and heard them. Better a hundred times be dead than at their mercy. For God's sake, take the horse before they are upon us!"
"I stop here," said Naomi, decidedly.
"Yet Mrs. Potter and I could hold the store as easily as you could. They shall not get your silver while I'm alive."
"My mind is made up," said the girl, in a voice which silenced his remonstrances; "but I agree with you that somebody ought to start off for the shed. I think that you should, Mr. Engelhardt, if you feel equal to it."
"Equal to it! It's so likely I would ride off and leave two women to the mercy of those brutes! If it really must be so, then I think the sooner we all three get into the store——"
It was Mrs. Potter who here put in her amazing word. While the young people stood and argued, her eyes had travelled over every point of the saddled horse. And now she proposed that she should be the one to ride to the shed for help.
"You!" the two cried in one breath, as they gazed at her ample figure.
"And why not?" said the hardy woman. "Wasn't I born and bred in the bush? Couldn't I ride—bareback, too—before either of you was born? I'm not so light as I used to be, and I haven't the nerve either; but what I have is all there in the hour of need, Miss Naomi. Let me go now. I'm ready this minute."