"O, Uncle Harvey!" cried the Babe, rushing forward at the sound of his voice, clasping his knees, bumping him with the wire-clippers, looking up at him, her face streaming with tears.
"It wasn't this child," he declared fiercely, catching her up in his arms and glaring across her head at the others. "The rest of you are puttin' it on her--of if her poor little hands done the work, you all egged her on and made her do it."
"No, they didn't," declared the child, squirming free and getting to her feet, her real courage coming to her aid and sweeping away the nervous fright that had possessed her. "I cut the wire that first night--and then I cut it the next night, because the cows were thirsty, and I knew you wouldn't be mad after all--you were just making believe, weren't you, Uncle Harvey?"
She turned confidentially to him, and the big man looked exceedingly foolish. The tension of the scene slackened a bit, and one or two of the cowboys snickered. But Mrs. Spooner's face was stern as she came forward and took her little girl by the hand.
"You see, Harvey, why I don't want to come and live in your house," she said clearly and distinctly. "Perhaps you understand now why I'm not willing that you should have a chance to discipline my girls. Look what you drive people into!"
Her glance went fleetingly to Roy, and everybody in the cow-camp remembered how Grannis's ideas of discipline had made a sort of horse thief out of a very honest lad.
"This child's a minor," began Grannis, sulkily. "She's not to blame. If you have a mind to let her come and live with me--even part of the time--I'll give her the key to the gate. What do you say?"
Mrs. Spooner looked at her little girl's face and read the terror and distaste in it.
"Please, O, please don't, mother!" came the imploring whisper. The Babe had visions of Queen Berengaria slain and herself set to careering about on a strange pinto that she could never love--and yet expected to be thankful for the change!
"I say that you've proved yourself as hard as usual, Harvey," Mrs. Spooner returned quietly. "I couldn't spare my baby--even if she were willing to go. Why can't you be contented with the children loving and respecting you--and staying independently in their own home?"