“Up? Up? What’s up?” The old man was saddling a big raw-boned mare with almost feverish haste. “She’s no right goin’ that aways. An’ I promised Seth, too. I didn’t know but what she wus in the kitchen. Here, fix that bridle while I get into the house. Ha’ y’ got your gun?”
“Wal—y’ never can figger to these durned Injuns when they’re raisin’ trouble.”
The old man was off like a shot, while Charlie fixed the great mare’s bridle. He returned almost immediately armed with a brace of guns.
“Say, ken y’ spare an hour or so?”
As Charlie looked into the old farmer’s face when he made his reply he read the answer to all he would have liked to ask him. Rube was consumed with an anxiety that no words, delivered in his slow fashion, could have conveyed to any one but Seth.
“Certainly, as long as you like.”
“Good boy,” said Rube, with an air of relief. “I wouldn’t ask you, but it’s fer her.” And the two men rode off hastily, with Rube leading.
“By-the-way,” said Charlie, drawing his horse up alongside the dun-colored mare, “Joe Smith, north of us, says some neighbor of his told him there were tents on the plains further north. I was wondering. The troops haven’t been sent for, have they?”
“Can’t say,” said Rube, without much interest. Then he asked hastily, “Which way was she headin’?”