"A part would not satisfy him when he wants it all," I said. "If he seizes the working beasts and breeding stock now we shall be left helpless for the season. He will take just enough to cripple me, and leave me still in debt, while it would be useless to try to raise money to pay him off until the question of the railroad is settled."
"Will it ever be built?" asked Steel.
"It must be, some day; but whether that will be before we are ruined or buried, heaven only knows," I said. "Haldane seems to think the time will not be long, and judging by his tactics, Lane agrees with him. Still, the newspapers take an opposite view."
"If it isn't"—and Steel frowned at the harness he was mending—"what will we poor fools do?"
"Stand Lane off as long as possible, and then strike for the mines in British Columbia. That, however, concerns the future, and we have first to decide what we will do if Lane arrives to-morrow."
Steel's face grew somber, but he waited until I added: "Then, because they're not my beasts as yet, if he can take them by main force—and I almost hope he'll try—he is welcome to do so."
"Now you're talking," and Steel smote a dilapidated saddle until the dust leaped forth from it. "The law on debt liens is mighty mixed, but I figure that the man who can keep hold has the best of it. Jacques, Gordon, and the rest will stand by us solid, and I'd work two years for nothing to get a fair chance at Lane."
We both determined on resistance; but it struck me that ours was a very forlorn hope, and that the odds were heavily against two plain farmers, equally devoid of legal knowledge and of capital, who had pitted themselves against a clever, unscrupulous man with the command of apparently an unlimited amount of money.
Lane did not come next day, nor the following one.
Indeed, a number passed without bringing any word of him, and because idleness meant disaster, we perforce relaxed our vigilance and resumed our plowing. I had just yoked a pair of oxen to a double plow one morning, when Boone's wagon came lurching up as fast as two whitened horses could haul it across the prairie.