"Two of you stand by to hold up the train! The rest will come along with me!"
Amid a musical jingling, the horses were pulled up close beside the track, and men in embroidered deerskin with broad white hats and men in old blue-jean leaped hurriedly down. Several carried rifles, while, guessing their purpose, I pointed towards the frame houses across the unfenced track. "You must go at once, Miss Haldane. There may be a tumult," I said.
Lucille seemed reluctant, Beatrice by no means hurried, and I do not remember whether I bade either of them farewell, for as the newcomers came swiftly into the station a gaunt commanding figure holding a carbine barred their way, and Corporal Cotton leaped out from the office. The station agent, holding a revolver, also placed himself between them and me.
"What are ye wanting, boys?" a steady voice asked; and the men halted within a few paces of the carbine's muzzle. I could just see that they were my friends and neighbors, and I noticed that one who rode up and down the track seemed inclined to civilly prevent the ladies from retiring to the wooden settlement. Perhaps he feared they intended to raise its inhabitants.
"We want Harry Ormesby," answered a voice I recognized as belonging to Steel. "Stand out of the daylight, Sergeant. We have no call to hurt you."
"I'm thinking that's true," said Mackay; and I admired his coolness as he stood alone, save for the young corporal, grimly eying the crowd. "It will, however, be my distressful duty to damage the first of ye who moves a foot nearer my prisoner. Noo will ye hear reason, boys, or will I wire for a squadron to convince ye? Ormesby ye cannot have, and will ye shame your own credit and me?"
There was a murmur of consultation, but no disorderly clamor. The men whom Thorn had raised to rescue me were neither habitual brawlers nor desperadoes, but sturdy stock-riders and tillers of the soil, smarting under a sense of oppression. They were all fearless, and would, I knew, have faced a cavalry brigade to uphold what appeared their rights, but they were equally averse to any bloodshed or violence that was not necessary.
"There's no use talking, Sergeant," somebody said. "We don't go back without our man, and it will be better for all of us if you release him. You know as well as we do there's nothing against him."
Meanwhile, I could not well interfere without precipitating a crisis. The station agent, who stated that Mackay had deputed him authority, stood beside me with the pistol in his hand. Neither was I certain what my part would be, for, stung to white heat by Beatrice Haldane's coldness, which suggested suspicion, and came as a climax to a series of injuries, I wondered whether it might not be better to make a dash for liberty and leave the old hard life behind me. There might be better fortune beyond the Rockies, and I felt that Lane would not have instigated the charge of arson unless he saw his way to substantiate it.
Nevertheless, I could watch the others with a strange and almost impersonal curiosity—the group of men standing with hard hands on the rifle barrels ready for a rush; the grim figure of the sergeant, and the young corporal poised with head held high, left foot flung forward, and carbine at hip, in front of them.