"Tolerably well," and I surveyed her critically. "It is a trifle large, but if you don't draw it in too much at the waist it wouldn't fit you badly. Are you going to turn police trooper, Sally?"

Miss Steel was not generally bashful, but she looked a trifle confused as she answered: "Don't ask any more fool questions."

I went out soon afterwards to overhaul a plow under a shed, and had spent considerable time over it, when Steel approached with a lantern.

"Have you seen anything of Sally?" he asked.

"No," I answered carelessly. "What mischief has she been contriving now?"

"That's just what I'm anxious to know; that, and where the corporal's horse is," he said. "They're both missing, and Cotton's fast asleep.

I"--and Steel used a few illegal expletives before he continued--"I can't find his uniform either."

"It must be somewhere. You can't have looked properly," I said; and Steel restrained himself with an effort.

"You can try yourself, and I'd give a hundred dollars, if I had it, to see you find it," he said.

I hurriedly left the plow, but though we hunted everywhere could discover no trace of the missing uniform. "I didn't think we would,"

said the hara.s.sed brother, with a groan of dismay. "She's--well, the Lord only knows what Sally would do if she took the notion, and there's no shirking the trouble. I've got to find out if she has the whole blame outfit on."

"I'll leave you to settle that point," I said; and hearing the locked door of Sally's portion of the house wrenched open and garments being hurled about, I surmised that Steel was prosecuting his inquiries. He flung the split door to with a crash when he came out, leaving, as I saw by a brief glimpse, ruin behind him, and he grew very red in the face as he looked at me.

"It will be a mighty relief when she marries somebody," he said gloomily. "The only comfort is that you're a sensible man, and one could trust you, Ormesby. You will never breathe a word of this. There's no use trying to catch her, for she can get as much out of a beast as any man."

I pledged myself willingly, smothering a wild desire to laugh; and, as it happened, it was I who met the truant riding home very wearily two days later. Her mount was a chestnut, while Cotton's horse was gray, and there was a bundle strapped before her. Still, except for a spattering of mire, she was dressed in a manner befitting a young lady, and actually blushed crimson when I accosted her.

"Where have you been, Sally, and where did you get the horse?"

"In to the railroad; and I borrowed him from Carsley's wife. They'll send the corporal's over," she said. "I'm very tired, Harry Ormesby.

Won't you get me supper instead of worrying me?"

Silence seemed best, and I could not resist the appeal, and so hurried back to set about the supper; while what pa.s.sed between brother and sister I do not know, though when they came in together Sally appeared triumphant and Steel in a very bad humor.

"I'm going to see whether you have let the patient starve. You'll come along with me," she said, when she came out of her own quarters, with no trace of the journey about her. We entered the lean-to shed, which Steel and I occupied together, and found Cotton better in health, though as depressed as he had been all day. Sally held out a bag and a handful of doc.u.ments towards him.

"There are your papers and money. Now all you have to do is to get well again," she said demurely.

There was no mistaking the relief in the corporal's face, and he positively clutched at the articles she handed him. "You don't know what this has saved me from. But how did you get them?"

A flush of tell-tale color crept into Sally's cheeks, and I noticed that her voice was not quite steady as she answered him. "You must solemnly promise never to ask that again, or to tell anyone you were not at the depot yourself. n.o.body will ask you, we fixed it up so well. Now promise, before I take them back again."

The lad did so, and Sally glanced at me. "If Harry Ormesby ever tells you I'll poison him."

I do not think Corporal Cotton ever discovered Sally's part, or who personated him, though he apparently suspected both Steel and myself; but when we went out together I turned to the girl: "Just one question, and then we'll forget it. How did you manage at the depot, Sally?"

Miss Steel avoided my glance, but she laughed. "It was very dark, there was only a half-trimmed lamp, and the agent was 'most asleep. It's pretty easy, anyway, to fool a man," she said.

CHAPTER XVI

THE DEFENSE OF CRANE VALLEY

It was two days before Cotton could be sent to the police outpost in a wagon, but, so far as we could gather, the officer temporarily in charge took it for granted he had been injured on his homeward ride around by the Indian reserve which would have led him through Crane Valley. Some time, however, pa.s.sed before he was fit for the saddle. Meanwhile Steel and I discussed Lane's latest move, and the best means of counteracting it.

"If we knew just what he wanted it would give us a better show, but we don't, and Lane doesn't tell anybody," my comrade observed gloomily.

"It's tolerably clear that he wants Crane Valley," said I. And Steel proceeded: "Then why doesn't he sail in and take all he's ent.i.tled to?"

"A part would not satisfy him when he wants it all," I said. "If he seizes the working beasts and breeding stock now we shall be left helpless for the season. He will take just enough to cripple me, and leave me still in debt, while it would be useless to try to raise money to pay him off until the question of the railroad is settled."

"Will it ever be built?" asked Steel.

"It must be, some day; but whether that will be before we are ruined or buried, heaven only knows," I said. "Haldane seems to think the time will not be long, and judging by his tactics, Lane agrees with him.

Still, the newspapers take an opposite view."

"If it isn't"--and Steel frowned at the harness he was mending--"what will we poor fools do?"

"Stand Lane off as long as possible, and then strike for the mines in British Columbia. That, however, concerns the future, and we have first to decide what we will do if Lane arrives to-morrow."

Steel's face grew somber, but he waited until I added: "Then, because they're not my beasts as yet, if he can take them by main force--and I almost hope he'll try--he is welcome to do so."

"Now you're talking," and Steel smote a dilapidated saddle until the dust leaped forth from it. "The law on debt liens is mighty mixed, but I figure that the man who can keep hold has the best of it. Jacques, Gordon, and the rest will stand by us solid, and I'd work two years for nothing to get a fair chance at Lane."

We both determined on resistance; but it struck me that ours was a very forlorn hope, and that the odds were heavily against two plain farmers, equally devoid of legal knowledge and of capital, who had pitted themselves against a clever, unscrupulous man with the command of apparently an unlimited amount of money.

Lane did not come next day, nor the following one.

Indeed, a number pa.s.sed without bringing any word of him, and because idleness meant disaster, we perforce relaxed our vigilance and resumed our plowing. I had just yoked a pair of oxen to a double plow one morning, when Boone's wagon came lurching up as fast as two whitened horses could haul it across the prairie.

"Lane came in with a hard-looking band of rascals by the Pacific Mail last night," he said. "They had got whisky somewhere, and smashed the hotel windows because Imrie wouldn't get them supper in the middle of the night. He would start as soon as they were partly sober. Are you prepared to protect your property, Ormesby?"

"I am ready to protect other people's, which will suit me a good deal better in this instance," I said, with a certain satisfaction that the time for open resistance had come at last, though Lane had cunningly chosen a season when every man's presence was necessary at his own homestead.

"Don't count too much on that," said Boone. "If you have no doc.u.mentary evidence, even the actual owners might have difficulty in substantiating your claim. Now you see why I demanded a written agreement. It strikes me that in this case possession is everything."

"If I can keep whole in body until sundown, possession will remain with us," I said. "But there is no time to spare for talking. It will take hours to bring my neighbors up."

"Of course you arranged with Haldane to send you a.s.sistance?" said Boone; and hurled out an expletive when I answered stolidly: "That is just what I did not do. I do not even know whether he is at home. It is not necessary to drag all one's friends into a private quarrel."

"Goodness knows why you are so unwarrantably proud, and it is not worth while wasting time over that question now," said Boone. "Roll up your thick-headed stockmen. I'm going on to Bonaventure for the one man whose presence would be worth a hundred of them."

He lashed his horses as he spoke, and I roused myself to action, while long before his wagon dipped over the rim of the prairie Thorn had set out at a gallop to bring our neighbors in. A neighbor may dwell from one to ten leagues away in that country. This left only Steel and me to hold Crane Valley, with the exception of Sally. The girl absolutely refused to leave us, and it may not have been by accident that several heavy-handled brushes lay convenient beside the stove. The stock were driven off as far as we dare follow them across the prairie, and we hoped they would remain unseen in a hollow; the working horses were made fast in the stable; and when a few head of pedigree cattle had been secured in the corral, we could only sit down and wait the siege.

I spent several hours perched most uncomfortably on the roof with a pair of gla.s.ses; but though the day was clear, nothing appeared above the rim of the prairie. It spread all around the horizon in low rolling rises, empty and desolate. My eyes grew dazzled, the continued use of the gla.s.ses produced a distressful headache; but still nothing moved on either rise or level, and it was a relief when at last Sally hailed me: "Come down and get your dinner; scenery won't feed anybody."

I had forgotten there was such a thing as food, and my throat and lips were dry; but on descending I was surprised to find myself capable of making an excellent meal.

"You'll feel considerably better after that," said Sally, who watched our efforts with much approval. "I guess you have forgotten you had no breakfast, either of you."