“Well,” said Breckenridge, “if it was daylight I’d be sure.”
Grant fancied that it was not without a purpose his companion checked her horse to let the others come up, and, though it cost him an effort, acquiesced. His laugh was almost as ready as that of the rest as they rode on four abreast, until at last the lights of Cedar Range blinked beside the bluff. Then, they grew suddenly silent again as Muller, who it seemed remembered that he had been taught by the franc tireurs, rode past them with his rifle across his saddle. They pulled up when his figure cut blackly against the sky on the crest of a rise, and Hetty’s laugh was scarcely light-hearted.
“You have been very good, and I am sorry I can’t ask you to come in,” she said. “Still, I don’t know that it’s all our fault; we are under martial law just now.”
Grant took off his hat and wheeled his horse, and when the girls rode forward sat rigid and motionless, watching them until he saw the ray from the open door of Cedar Range. Then, Muller trotted up, and with a little sigh he turned homewards across the prairie.
About the same time Richard Clavering lay smoking, in a big chair in the room where he kept his business books and papers. He wore, among other somewhat unusual things, a velvet jacket, very fine linen, and on one of his long, slim fingers a ring of curious Eastern workmanship. Clavering was a man of somewhat expensive tastes, and his occasional visits to the cities had cost him a good deal, which was partly why an accountant, famous for his knowledge of ranching property, now sat busy at a table. He was a shrewd, direct American, and had already spent several days endeavouring to ascertain the state of Clavering’s finances.
“Nearly through?” the rancher asked, with a languidness which the accountant fancied was assumed.
“I can give you a notion of how you stand, right now,” he answered. “You want me to be quite candid?”
“Oh, yes,” said Clavering, with a smile of indifference. “I’m in a tight place, Hopkins?”
“I guess you are—any way, if you go on as you’re doing. You see what I consider it prudent to write off the value of your property?”
Clavering examined the paper handed him with visible astonishment. “Why have you whittled so much off the face value?”