They approached the point where the road to the post branched.
“There’s goin’ to be fightin’ over here if Chadron tries to drive us out,” Tom said, “and we know he’s sent for men to come in and help him try it. We don’t want to fight, but men that won’t fight for their homes ain’t the kind you’d like to ride along the road with, ma’am.”
“Maybe the trouble can be settled some other way,” she suggested, thinking again of the hope that she had brought with her to the ranch the day before.
“When we bring the law in here, and elect officers to see it put in force for every man alike, then this trouble it’ll come to an end. Well, if you ever feel like we deserve a good word, colonel’s daughter, we’d be proud to have you say it, for the feller that stands up for the law and the Lord and his home agin the 181 cattlemen in this land, ma’am, he’s got a hard row to hoe. Yes, we’ll count any good words you might say for us as so much gold. ‘And the Levite, thou shalt not forsake him, for he hath no part nor inheritance with thee.’”
Tom’s voice was slow and solemn when he quoted that Mosaic injunction. The appeal of the disinherited was in it, and the pain of lost years. It touched her like a sorrow of her own. Tears were on her cheeks again as she parted from him, giving him her hand in token of trust and faith, and rode on toward the ranchhouse by the river.
CHAPTER XIV
WHEN FRIENDS PART
Banjo had returned, with fever in his wound. Mrs. Chadron was putting horse liniment on it when Frances entered the sitting-room where the news of the tragedy had visited them the night past.
“I didn’t go to the post—I saw some men in the road and turned back,” Frances told them, sinking down wearily in a chair before the fire.