"Sam Herrick," said the colonel, "keep the gray you're on. It's your horse. I can read the whole thing like a book. Of course they wanted beef and horses, but they may go for the ranch. Come on!"
There was an angry shake, now, in the deep, ringing tones of his voice, and the veins in his forehead were swelling. He sprang to the saddle of the broad-chested, strong limbed thoroughbred held for him, and that seemed just the horse for the strongest man in southern New Mexico.
"Sam," said he, as they rode away, "what's your opinion?"
"Cal got there safe, long before the redskins could. We can do it, too, if they worked long enough over their beef. If we get there first, we can hold Saint Lucy against twice as many. But if we don't—"
Neither of those horsemen said another word after that. Sam knew no more than the rest did of what was actually going on at the ranch.
More than a little had been going on, and with quite remarkable results.
Hardly had Cal disappeared through the gateway of the stockade before the two in the veranda turned and looked wistfully at one another.
"Mother," said Victoria, "do you think there is really any danger?"
"Terrible danger, my dear," said Mrs. Evans, with a quiver in her firm lips.
"Then what made you send Cal away? Oh, mother!"