Grant’s face was very stern. “When they’re wanted, your leaders will be there,” he said. “They’ve got hold, and they’ll keep it, if they have to whip the sense into some of you. Now give me that axe of yours, and we’ll get some wood. I don’t want to hear any more wild talking.”
He went out, taking Breckenridge with him, and an hour later returned with a sleigh-load of birch branches, which he flung down before the shanty. Then, he turned the team towards Fremont ranch, and his face was grave as he stared over the horses’ heads at the smear of trail that wound away, a blue-grey riband, before the gliding sleigh.
“I wonder if that fellow meant to give us a hint,” said Breckenridge.
Grant nodded. “I think he did—and he was right about the rest. Two years ago I was a prosperous rancher, proud of the prairie I belonged to, and without a care; but I could see what this country was meant to be, and when the others started talking about the homestead movement I did my share. Folks seemed keen to listen; we got letters from everywhere, and we told the men who wrote them just what the land could do. It was sowing blindfold, and now the crop’s above the sod it ’most frightens me. No man can tell what it will grow to be before it’s ready for the binder, and while we’ve got the wheat we’ve got the weeds as well.”
“Wasn’t it always like that? At least, it seems so from reading a little history. I don’t know that I envy you, Larry. In the tongue of this country, it’s a hard row you have to hoe. Of course, there are folks who would consider they had done enough in planting it.”
“Yes,” Grant agreed, “we have quite a few of them over here; but, if more than we’ve planted has come up, I’m going right through.”
Breckenridge said nothing further, and there was silence until the lights of Fremont rose out of the snowy wilderness. When they reached it they found a weary man lying in a big chair; he pointed to the litter of plates on the table as he handed Grant a letter.
“I haven’t eaten since sun up, and drove most of sixty miles, so I didn’t wait,” he said. “Our executive boss, who told me to lose no time, seemed kind of worried about something.”
Grant opened the letter, which was terse. “Look out,” he read. “We had to put the screw on a crazy Pole who has been making wild speeches here, and as he lit out I have a notion he means to see what he can do with the discontented in your district. We couldn’t have him raising trouble round this place, any way. It’s taking us both hands to hold the boys in already.”
“Bad news?” said Breckenridge sympathetically.