"That's so," assented her brother. "It's the first time I ever forgot it in my life. Say, what are you going to do with that big hasp-bar, Sally?"
Miss Steel's movements were perhaps a little nervous, but she was evidently not troubled by timidity. "I figured if anybody wanted to come poking in here it might keep them out—if it was nicely warmed," she said.
"You must do nothing rash; and you must keep out of harm's way, Sally," I said sternly. "They would be justified in seizing my household property."
"There's mighty little of it." And Miss Steel glanced around the room with contempt. "Do you figure Lane would come out hundreds of miles for your old crockery? Anything that's pretty round this place is mine, and I'm anxious to see the man who's going to take it from me."
I looked at the excited girl and then at her brother, who shook his head in signal that further remonstrance would be useless. My ideas respecting women had changed of late, and I somewhat resented the fact that they would not be content to sit still and be worshiped, but must insist on playing an active, and often a leading, part in all that happened.
"When Sally has made up her mind there's no use for anybody to talk," said Steel.
I had hardly mounted to the roof again before a line of diminutive objects straggled up above the horizon, and I called down: "They're coming!"
"Which way?" was the eager question; and Steel stamped when I answered moodily: "From the south."
"Lane's outfit. Can't you see the others?" he shouted.
I swept the glasses around the circumference of the prairie, and my voice was thick with disappointment as I answered: "No."