"It likely was 'someone else,'" she said.
"God bless you anyway! To think of such a thing in the midst of your worry! Even if you did owe B Troop, it would vote you its full rations, and be proud to go hungry. Please think again about Bismarck for the summer."
"I can't give up the claim, Captain. I want to know what happened—I want to be here if—if dad comes back."
"But aren't you forgetting that, Indians or no Indians, there's danger from this secret enemy?"
"Secret enemy," she echoed; "secret enemy. Go to Bismarck is just the thing he wants to see us do. You heard what he did in the winter? Well, he came again yesterday. He saw the wagon leave, and he thought it was a good chance to move in."
"Move in?" rejoined Oliver. "If that was all, why did he bother about moccasins?"
"You're right," she cried. "He meant to kill!"
And now as if some great hidden spring of feeling had been touched, she came round upon the officer, defiant, resolute and undaunted.
"Maybe I'd 'a' gone before—I'd go this minute for Indians. But that man!—he's had his price for this claim, he's had his price! Now, the Bend belongs to me—and I'm going to stay."
The captain bent toward her. "Too risky, too risky, Miss Lancaster," he advised, "unless we get the man. For how could you ever do any outside work——"