“Keep a civil tongue in your head, rascal.”
“Returnin’ the compliment, if you please. All the same, don’t you know that a man–a man–doesn’t go around worrying women as you worry Mrs. Trent? You, that hadn’t a shirt to your back when the boss took you in and made you what you are! I’m anticipatin’ a mite, and I don’t know just how some of the boys’ll take it, but we’d laid out this very night at moon-up–if there’d been a moon sensible enough to get up, which there isn’t–to haul you and a few other matters over the coals and stir up a fresh sort of blaze. Now, I warn you, just you let matters slide, peaceable, and you–just you, yourself, keep that civil tongue you recommend, or you’ll light out of here so quick ye won’t see your heels for dust, dry season though it is. Hear?”
“Hear? Yes, I hear. Now, ’tis your turn. You go tell those malcontents you call ‘the boys’ to take their packs and foot it. Times have changed. Things have changed. There’s another master here now, and not a weak-willed mistress. That is me–I–Antonio Bernal, owner of Sobrante rancho and all that appertains thereto. Now, go. Vamos. Depart. Clear out. Get!”
Samson went–as far as the long, open window, and stepped out upon the porch. He did not see Mr. Hale, who had seated himself in a rocker, an unintentional witness of a scene he would gladly have missed, and putting a whistle to his lips blew a summons which was understood by every fellow-workman on the ranch. Then he quietly re-entered the house, folded his arms, and leaned carelessly against the door frame.
Senor Bernal started up as if he would forcibly eject the herder, but thought better of this and sank back nonchalantly in his great chair. Jessica had placed herself behind her mother, and clasped Mrs. Trent’s shoulders with the protecting tenderness habitual to her. Ned had sprung to his mother’s lap and Luis continued his nap at her feet; while all seemed waiting for some fresh development of the affair.
This came and speedily; for, in answer to Samson’s whistle, there filed over the porch and into the room, Joe, the smith; Marty, the gardener; and Carpenter John. There was missing old “Forty-niner,” commonly the dominant fifth of this odd quintet, but nobody wondered much at that. Doubtless he was polishing his darling’s rifle and making ready for some astonishing display of her skill wherewith to dazzle the stranger upon the morrow. In any case he rarely disagreed with the opinions of his cronies and was sure to be one with them in the matter of that hour.
With a respectful salute to Mrs. Trent, a grin toward the children, and a scowl for Antonio, these stalwart ranchmen lined up against the wall and stood at attention. Mr. Hale, observant through the doorway, again noticed that each of these was well along in years, that each had some slight physical infirmity, and that, despite these facts, each looked a man of unusual strength and most entire devotion. Indeed, the gaze fixed upon the little lady, was one of adoration, and the situation boded ill for anybody who meant harm to her.
“Ahem. What say, mates? Has the hour struck?”
“The hour has struck,” answered John Benton, solemnly, shifting his weight from his lame leg to his sound one.
Samson strode a mighty step forward and pulled his forelock.