"I'll take you up on that, Gordon. Not that we need help, you understand, but because it'll be best for us to present a united front in this business. United, we stand; divided, we fall; that's the word, eh?"
Dorothy leaned forward, with an anxious look.
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "I hope neither one of you will get shot."
Trowbridge made her a bow from his chair.
"We'll try not to," he said mockingly, and she was obliged to join in the general laugh.
"If you feel that you ought to do it, of course you will—fight, I mean," she said, helplessly. "But I think it's dreadful, all the same."
"What has Thomas done about me?" Wade asked. "I understand that he's holding quite a bunch of warrants up his sleeve?"
"I don't think he's done anything, and I don't believe he's anxious to," Trowbridge answered. "He's shown some courage, that fellow, in the past, but I always thought he had a yellow streak in him somewhere. I don't think you need fear him much."
"Well, I'm glad to know that, not that I've been very uneasy, but we've had to keep a pretty close look-out here, and it's doubled us up uncomfortably. I want to go out to my timber claim this afternoon, and but for what you've said, I know Bill would insist on going along. Now I can leave him here to attend to his work."