"I really think, sergeant, that I should have ridden over them."
Mackay seemed to struggle with some natural feeling; but the silent rancher smote the table. "By the Lord, you would, and I'd have given five hundred dollars to go through beside you!" he said.
"Ye are quite old enough to ken better," said Mackay sententiously; and the rancher squared his shoulders as he answered:
"I'm as good as any two of your troopers yet, and was never run into a cattle corral. When I'm old enough to be useless I'll join the police."
"What were ye meaning?" asked the sergeant.
Gordon laughed. "Just that, for a tired man, it's a nice soft berth. You take your money and as much care as you can that you never turn up until the trouble's over!"
Before Mackay could retort, Lucille, smiling, raised her hand. "I think you should both know better, and I want you to tell me, sergeant, what will be the end of this. Surely nobody has any right to drive off cattle and horses that don't belong to him?"
Mackay looked somewhat troubled, and one could guess that while eager to please the fair questioner, he shrank with official caution from committing himself. "It's not my part to express an opinion on points that puzzle some lawyers," he said. "Still, I might tell ye that it will cost one man his position. Human nature's aye deceitful, Miss Haldane, and if Rancher Ormesby prosecuted them it would be just two or three men's word against a dozen. Forby, they might make out illegal resistance against him!"
"Sergeant," said Lucille Haldane, looking at him severely, "dare you tell me that you would not take the word of three ranchers against the oath of a dozen such men as Lane?"
Mackay smiled, though he answered dryly: "They're both hard to manage, and ungrateful for their benefits; but maybe I would. Still, I am, ye see, neither judge nor jury. Would ye prefer a charge against them, Ormesby?"