"If you do," Pete warned, "somebody else will stake your claim."
"Let me stay!" Cindy pleaded. "Let me stay, Dad! I won't be in the way, and maybe I can help!"
Her father said uncertainly, "It's no place for a girl."
"Please!" Cindy begged.
"It looks," Pete grinned, "as though we're three homesteaders instead of two."
CHAPTER EIGHT
Alec
Alec never acted without first planning, and the action he took depended on whatever his plan called for. Right now, he decided, he'd have to move swiftly if he hoped to catch Cindy before she was out of sight. He bridled Pete's sorrel pony, whose name was Carrots, and leaped astride him. Then he shouted his intentions to his mother and whirled Carrots toward Oklahoma.
At once, though it had taken less than a minute to reach and bridle the pony, he knew that he was too late. He'd noticed the running men and depended upon them to delay Cindy. But he had not counted on his sister's skill as a rider. Cindy was nowhere to be seen.