“My dear Stanton,” replied the major, smiling, “I am protected, fully and absolutely; therefore give yourself no uneasiness on my account. By the way, have you an extra cigar with you?”
Hugh handed him a cigar, one of the major’s favorite brand.
“Thank you,” said he, with his old-time politeness.
“I must admit, Major, that you inspire me with a sense of security such as I have not before experienced to-day. The Barley Hullers are out en masse. They are the protection to which you refer, I presume. What we all fear is a riot. The cowboys, as you know, are veritable devils when they get into a row, and one of them can usually whip half a dozen farmers in a rough-and-tumble shooting scrape.”
The major threw back his clustering iron-gray hair, and, with a smile, said: “Stanton, I have learned to love you, and therefore have concluded to tell you what no man living in America knows to-day.”
He paused a moment, and lighted his cigar.
“Well?” said Hugh, as if impatiently asking a question.
“They cannot harm me,” said he, jerking his thumb over his shoulder toward the howling mob, whose angry mutterings could be plainly heard. “But I will tell you what may happen.”
He spoke slowly and seemed to Hugh to change for the moment from the Major Hampton he had admired so much into a patriarch with gullied furrows on his brow. Hugh concluded that his light remarks of a few moments before had been assumed, and intended simply to cover the deep emotion that he really felt.
“Captain Osborn will make a speech,” the major continued, “and it will be an impassioned one, seasoned with the eloquence of rare power, inspired by his deep love of justice as well as of myself. The crowd will gradually disperse and wander across the bleak prairies to their miserable homes, furnished principally with poverty and hunger and deferred hopes. The Vigilantes, composed of cattlemen, will come back after midnight and probably select by ballot three of their number to kill me. I will be taken away from here, and will accompany the committee over into Dead Man’s Hollow, where already a grave is being dug and a rough board coffin prepared. The sheriff will be bought with the promise of reelection; he will discharge his deputies and turn me over to these would-be murderers.”