"You bet he's going to ride to Emerald!" blustered the ranchman. "I'll have him in jail there before supper-time! Come on, Tom, we'll go in and wake the young gentleman. Fetch your rope. Keep your gun handy. You never know what a young, dime-novel-crazy idiot like that will do."
He sprang from the buckboard, and both men were starting for the house when Mrs. Spooner barred their way.
"You can't go in there, Harvey," she told him. And now she was trembling so that Tom, of the rope and gun, was sorry for her, and heartily sick of his errand. No doubt Harvey Grannis was too, which merely made him talk louder and more harshly.
"Well, I'd like to know why I can't?" he demurred, pretending to laugh at her a bit. "Who's going to stop me? Now see here, Jennie, you always were a simple-hearted, soft-natured little goose. Anybody can bamboozle you. Look at the way John Spooner--"
"We won't go into that," warned Mrs. Spooner, with a flash in her eyes that made Grannis's cowboy chuckle inwardly.
"What's your reason for defending this boy?" Grannis argued. "He's a thief."
"I'm not defending Roy Lambert alone," said Mrs. Spooner. "I'm defending my brother--a brother I used to be very fond of--from doing a thing he'll be sorry for all the days of his life."
Grannis flushed redly through the deep tan of his sunburned skin, while Tom, standing by and listening, enjoyed himself thoroughly over his employer's discomfiture.
"These boys come west crazy for ranch life," Grannis said dogmatically. "They soon get sick of honest work, and invent any kind of story to get away. This boy's lying to you, and he's stolen a pony from me. Move out of the way, Jennie, and let me handle him."
The men had been standing with their backs to the trail. Mrs. Spooner noted a little figure on a gaunt pony whose gaits were familiar to her approaching from the direction of Emerald. Now small Harvey rose in her stirrups and shouted, waving an envelope above her head. Mrs. Spooner was sorry she had not got rid of her brother before the girls returned. Grannis looked over his shoulder, and feeling unwilling that his beloved namesake should see him doing anything unkind rushed the matter hastily.