"Of course. I had forgotten. All the ghosts of the past crowded in upon me until I forgot my duty to the dead. We will go at once. Will you take charge of things? I am not able yet to do so."
"Certainly. Leave it all to me."
Ted left the major with his relics of the dead and the revelations of the present to compose himself, while he went out to make arrangements for the ride to Rodeo.
Ted knew the difficulties and prejudices they would meet when they got to Rodeo, and feared that before the unpleasant details attending the burial of the dead woman were finished they might clash with the authorities or the townspeople.
Therefore, he decided that they should go well able to defend their rights, and, calling the boys together, he told them as briefly as possible the story of the major and his newly found brother and sister, as the reader knows it.
"Now, fellows, we must help the major straighten out this tangle, bury the dead, defend the innocent, and punish the guilty," he said gravely. "Arm yourselves and saddle, ready to take the road to Rodeo as quickly as you can."
CHAPTER XVII.
BESIEGED.
The broncho boys galloped into the town of Rodeo early in the afternoon, having put their horses to full speed, only stopping now and then to give them a blow.