Torrance appeared thoughtful. He suspected that Clavering’s ranch was embarrassed, and the explanation was plausible.
“No,” he said. “It was something else. Hetty is on her way home, and she is bringing another young woman and a maid with her. They will be here before I can stop them. Still, I could, if it was necessary, send them back.”
Clavering did not answer for a moment, though Torrance saw the faint gleam in his dark eyes, and watched him narrowly. Then he said, “You will find a change in Miss Torrance, sir. She has grown into a beautiful young woman, and has, I fancy, been taught to think for herself in the city; you could not expect her to come back as she left the prairie. And if anything has induced her to decide that her place is here, she will probably stay.”
“You’re not quite plain. What could induce her?”
Clavering smiled, though he saw that the shot had told. “It was astonishing that Miss Torrance did not honour me with her confidence. A sense of duty, perhaps, although one notices that the motives of young women are usually a trifle involved. It, however, appears to me that if Miss Torrance makes up her mind to stay, we are still quite capable of guarding our women from anxiety or molestation.”
“Yes,” said Torrance grimly. “Of course. Still, we may have to do things we would sooner they didn’t hear about or see. Well, you have some news?”
Clavering nodded. “I was in at the railroad, and fifty Dakota men came in on the cars. I went round to the hotel with the committee, and, though it cost some dollars to fix the thing, they wouldn’t take them in. The boys, who got kind of savage, found a pole and drove the door in, but we turned the Sheriff, who had already sworn some of us in, loose on them. Four or five men were nastily clubbed, and one of James’s boys was shot through the arm, while I have a fancy that the citizens would have stood in with the other crowd; but seeing they were not going to get anything to eat there, they held up a store, and as we told the man who kept it how their friends had sacked Regent, he fired at them. The consequence is that the Sheriff has some of them in jail, and the rest are camped down on the prairie. We hold the town.”
“Through the Sheriff?”
Clavering laughed. “He’ll earn his pay. Has it struck you that this campaign is going to cost us a good deal? Allonby hasn’t much left in hand already.”
“Oh, yes,” said the older man, with a little grim smile. “If it’s wanted I’ll throw my last dollar in. Beaten now and we’re beaten for ever. We have got to win.”