“I guess it is,” said Torrance sharply. “He is living at his homestead, and we need not be afraid of a hundred men with rifles coming to take him from us now.”
“He has a few neighbours who believe in him,” one of the men said. “They are not rabble, but level-headed Americans, with the hardest kind of grit in them. It wouldn’t suit us to be whipped again.”
Clavering stood up, with his eyes fixed on Torrance. “I agree with our leader—it can be done. In fact, I quite believe we can lay our hands on Larry alone,” he said. “Can I have a word with you, Mr. Torrance?”
Torrance nodded, and, leaving Allonby speaking, led Clavering into an adjoining room. “Sit down, and get through as quick as you can,” he said.
For five minutes Clavering spoke rapidly, in a slightly strained voice, and a dark flush spread across the old man’s face and grew deeper on his forehead, from which the veins swelled. It had faded before he finished, and there were paler patches in the cattle-baron’s cheeks when he struck the table with his fist.
“Clavering,” he said hoarsely, “if you are deceiving me you are not going to find a hole in this country that would hide you.”
Clavering contrived to meet his gaze, though it was difficult. “I was very unwilling to mention it,” he said. “Still, if you will call Miss Torrance’s maid, and the man who grooms her horses, you can convince yourself. It would be better if I was not present when you talk to them.”
Torrance said nothing, but pointed to the door, and when the maid and man he sent for had gone, sat for five long minutes rigidly still with a set white face and his hands clenched on the table.
“My daughter—playing the traitress—and worse! It is too hard to bear,” he said.
Then he stood up, shaking the passion from him, when Clavering came in, and, holding himself very stiff and square, turned to him.