There was a little murmur of approbation, and Clavering laughed. “Buy him off,” he said tentatively. “We have laid out a few thousand dollars in that way before.”
Some of the men made gestures of decided negation, and Torrance looked at the speaker a trifle sternly.
“No, sir,” he said. “Larry may be foolish, but he’s one of us.”
“Then,” said somebody, “we’ve got to give him time. Let it pass. You have something to tell us, Torrance?”
Torrance signed to one of them. “You had better tell them, Allonby.”
A grey-haired man stood up, and his fingers shook a little on the table. “My lease has fallen in, and the Bureau will not renew it,” he said. “I’m not going to moan about my wrongs, but some of you know what it cost me to break in that place of mine. You have lived on the bitter water and the saleratus bread, but none of you has seen his wife die for the want of the few things he couldn’t give her, as I did. I gave the nation my two boys when the good times came, and they’re dead—buried in their uniform both of them—and now, when I’d laid out my last dollar on the ranch, that the one girl I’ve left me might have something when I’d gone, the Government will take it away from me. Gentlemen, is it my duty to sit down quietly?”
There was a murmur, and the men looked at one another with an ominous question in their eyes, until Torrance raised his hand.
“The land’s not open to location. I guess they’re afraid of us, and Allonby’s there on toleration yet,” he said. “Gentlemen, we mean to keep him just where he is, because when he pulls out we will have to go too. But this thing has to be done quietly. When the official machinery moves down here it’s because we pull the strings, and we have got to have the law upon our side as far as we can. Well, that’s going to cost us money, and we want a campaign fund. I’ll give Allonby a cheque for five hundred dollars in the meanwhile, if he’ll be treasurer; but as we may all be fixed as he is presently, we’ll want a good deal more before we’re through. Who will follow me?”
Each of them promised five hundred, and then looked at Clavering, who had not spoken. One of them also fancied that there was for a moment a trace of embarrassment in his face; but he smiled carelessly.
“The fact is, dollars are rather tight with me just now,” he said. “You’ll have to wait a little if I’m to do as much as the rest of you. I am, however, quite willing.”