"No one knows, unless it is to rob and murder us again, as mobs have tried to do so often before."
"And will they do it?" breathlessly asked Ellen.
"Not this year," grimly answered John. "There is only one entrance into this valley, through the canyon. And forty men could hold an army at bay for a year in our canyons."
"But, John, where are they? and how many are there of them? and when will they get here? and who is going out to meet them and fight them, and—"
"Well, Ellie, we shall give you the credit of asking more questions in a minute than even President Young could answer in a day. Say, boys, where is Henry Boyle?"
"Henry Boyle, did you say, Henry Boyle?" and Tom Allen, who had thus repeated the question, began to laugh, and as he laughed he fairly tumbled off his chair in his efforts to control his merriment. The others smiled and some even laughed aloud to see fat Tom laugh, for his merriment was always as contagious as a clown's.
"Do tell us what is the matter with Henry Boyle?" snapped Diantha, at last, worn out by his long continued, mysterious laughter.
"Oh, dear, I forget all about it, this war talk drove it all out of my head. But it is too ridiculous for anything," and he went off into another peal of laughter and exhausted himself, before they could calm him down to tell his story.
"You see, early this morning, far too early, it could not have been more than half an hour after sunrise, I was just taking my last beauty sleep, when a little boy rapped at my door; and when I succeeded in tearing myself from the arms of Morpheus sufficiently to find out what he wanted, he said Brother Boyle wanted to see me. I got myself over to Henry's and on entering the room," here another burst of laughter rendered Tom speechless for a moment, "there lay Henry on his bed, his legs stretched out and covered with his hard shrunken buckskin pants. I don't know where he got those pants, but they were not half tanned, and yesterday after that fall in the lake with them, fringes and all, he slept in them, for he said he could not get them off; and he had to let Charlie Rose drive the folks down in the wagon, while he coaxed another family to let him travel down in the bottom of their wagon, for he couldn't bend his knees. He got on to his bed someway, and there he lies. He wanted me to help him out of his scrape, for he says he can not afford to lose his precious pants; they cost him too much."
"What did you tell him to do?" asked Ellen.