Torrance smiled grimly. “Yes. The State offered me a few paltry concessions, and a little of what was all mine by right. It didn’t seem a fit thing to accept their charity. Well, you have beaten us, Larry.”
Grant’s face flushed a little. “Only that the rest will gain more than the few will lose I could almost be sorry, sir.”
Torrance swung himself down from the saddle and laid his hand on Hetty’s shoulder.
“You have chosen your husband among the men who pulled us down, and nothing can be quite the same between you and me,” he said. “But I am getting an old man, and may never see you again.”
Hetty looked up at him with a faint trace of pride in her misty eyes. “There was nobody among our friends fit to stand beside him,” she said. “If you kiss me you will shake hands with Larry.”
“I can do both,” and Torrance held out his hand when he turned to Grant. “Larry, I believe now you tried to do the square thing, and there might have been less trouble between us but for Clavering. I hope you will bear me no ill will, and while we can’t quite wipe out the bitterness yet, by and by we may be friends again.”
“I hope so, sir,” said Larry.
Torrance said nothing further, but, moving stiffly, swung himself into the saddle and slowly rode away. Hetty watched him with a curious wistfulness in her eyes until he wheeled his horse on the crest of the rise, and sat still a moment looking back on them, a lonely, dusky object silhouetted against the paling sky. Then he turned again, and sank into the shadowy prairie. Hetty clung a little more tightly to her husband’s arm, and for a time they stood watching the crawling cattle and dim shapes of the stockriders slowly fade, until the last pale flicker of saffron died out and man and beast sank into the night. A little cold wind came sighing out of the emptiness and emphasized its silence.
Hetty shivered. “Larry,” she said, “they will never come back.”
Grant drew her closer to him. “It had to be, my dear,” he said. “They blocked the way, and nothing can stop the people you and I—and they—belong to, moving on. Well, we will look forward and do what we can, for we must be ready to step out when our turn comes and watch the rest go by.”