Breckenridge saw the veins swell up on his comrade’s forehead and the trembling of his hands. “Don’t worry about them. They are beasts, old man,” he said.
Grant said nothing for at least a minute, and then clenched one lean brown hand. “I felt it would come, and yet it has shaken most of the grit out of me. I did what I could for them—it was not easy—and they have thrown me over. That is hard to bear, but there’s more. No man can tell, now there is no one to hold them in, how far they will go.”
Breckenridge’s answer was to fling a cloth upon the table and lay out the plates. Grant sat very still; his voice had been curiously even, but his set face betrayed what he was feeling, and there was something in his eyes that Breckenridge did not care to see. He also felt that there were troubles too deep for any blundering attempt at sympathy, but the silence grew oppressive, and by and by he turned to his companion again.
“We’ll presume the fellow who wrote that means well,” he said. “What does his warning point to?”
Grant smiled bitterly. “An attempt upon my homestead or my life, and I have given them already rather more than either is worth to me,” he said.
Breckenridge was perfectly sensible that he was not shining in the rôle of comforter; but he felt it would be something accomplished if he could keep his comrade talking. He had discovered that verbal expression is occasionally almost a necessity to the burdened mind, though Larry was not greatly addicted to relief of that description.
“Of course, this campaign has cost you a good deal,” he said.
“Probably five thousand dollars—all that seemed good in life—and every friend I had.”
“After all, Larry, the thing may be no more than a joke or an attempt at bluff. Even admitting that it is not, it probably only expresses the views of a few of the boys.”
Grant shook his head. “No. I believe it is quite genuine. I saw how affairs were going even before I wouldn’t give Chilton the packet; most of the boys were ready to break away then. Well, one could scarcely blame them for not trusting me, and I felt I was laying down my authority when I sent the stock train through.”