"Everybody will know to-morrow or the next day, and I may as well tell you now," I said, in a voice which sounded, even in my own ears, hoarse with bitterness. "I am to be tried for burning down the homestead of Gaspard's Trail."
Beatrice Haldane certainly showed surprise, but she seemed more thoughtful than indignant, and still fixed me with her eyes. They were clear and very beautiful, but I had begun to wonder if a spark of human passion would ever burn within them.
"It is absurd—preposterous. Come here at once, Sergeant!" a clear young voice with a thrill of unmistakable anger in it said; but Mackay seemed desirous of backing into the station agent's office instead.
"I want you," added Lucille Haldane. "Come at once, and tell me why you have done this."
The sergeant's courage was evidently unequal to the task, for with a brief, "I will try to satisfy ye when I have transacted my business," he disappeared into the office, and I turned again to Beatrice Haldane.
"You see it is unfortunately true; but you do not appear astonished," I said.
Beatrice Haldane looked at me sharply, but without indignation, for she was always mistress of herself, and before she could speak her sister broke in: "Do you wish to make us angry, when we are only sorry for you, Mr. Ormesby? Everybody knows that neither you nor any rancher in this district could be guilty. Corporal Cotton, will you inquire if your superior has finished his business, and tell him that I am waiting?"
"The old heathen deserves it!" said Cotton aside to me, as, with unfeigned relief, he hurried away, and it was only by an effort I refrained from following him. The interview was growing painful in the extreme. Still, I was respited, for Beatrice Haldane turned from us suddenly.
"What can this mean? There is a troop of horsemen riding as for their lives towards the station," she said.
It was growing dark, but not too dark to see a band of mounted men converge at a gallop upon the station, and for the first time I noticed how the loungers stared at them, and heard the jingle of harness and thud of drumming hoofs. None of them shouted or spoke. They came on in ominous silence, the spume flakes flying from the lathered beasts, the clods whirling up, until a voice cried: