Miss Schuyler had conjectured correctly respecting the rifle-shot which announced the arrival of a messenger; a few minutes after the puff of white smoke on the crest of the rise had drifted away, a mounted man rode up to Grant at a gallop. His horse was white with dust and spume, but his spurs were red.

“Railroad district executive sent me on to let you know the Sheriff had lost your man,” he said.

“Lost him,” said Grant.

“Well,” said the horseman, “put it as it pleases you, but, as he had him in the jail, it seems quite likely he let him go.”

There was a growl from the teamsters who had clustered round, and Grant’s face grew stern. “He was able to hold the two homesteaders Clavering’s boys brought him.”

“Oh, yes,” said the other, “he has them tight enough. You’ll remember one of the cattle-boys and a storekeeper got hurt during the trouble, and our men are not going to have much show at the trial Torrance and the Sheriff are fixing up!”

“Then,” said Grant wearily, “we’ll stop that trial. You will get a fresh horse in my stable and tell your executive I’m going to take our men out of jail, and if it suits them to stand in they can meet us at the trail forks, Thursday, ten at night.”

The man nodded. “I’m tolerably played out, but I’ll start back right now,” he said.

He rode off towards the homestead, and Grant turned to the rest. “Jake, you’ll take the eastern round; Charley, you’ll ride west. Give them the handful of oats at every shanty to show it’s urgent. They’re to be at Fremont in riding order at nine to-morrow night.”

In another ten minutes the men were riding hard across the prairie, and Grant, with a sigh, went on with his ploughing. It would be next year before he could sow, and whether he would ever reap the crop was more than any man in that region would have ventured to predict. He worked however, until the stars were out that night and commenced again when the red sun crept up above the prairie rim the next day; but soon after dusk mounted men rode up one by one to Fremont ranch. They rode good horses, and each carried a Winchester rifle slung behind him when they assembled, silent and grim, in the big living-room.

“Boys,” said Grant quietly, “we have borne a good deal, and tried to keep the law, but it is plain that the cattle-men, who bought it up, have left none for us. Now, the Sheriff, who has the two homesteaders safe, has let the man we sent him go.”

There was an ominous murmur and Grant went on. “The homesteaders, who only wanted to buy food and raised no trouble until they were fired on, will be tried by the cattle-men, and I needn’t tell you what kind of chance they’ll get. We pledged ourselves to see they had fair play when they came in, and there’s only one means of getting it. We are going to take them from the Sheriff, but there will be no fighting. We’ll ride in strong enough to leave no use for that. Now, before we start, are you all willing to ride with me?”

Again a hoarse murmur answered him, and Grant, glancing down the row of set faces under the big lamps, was satisfied.

“Then we’ll have supper,” he said quietly. “It may be a long while before any of us gets a meal again.”

It was a silent repast. As yet the homesteaders, at least in that district, had met contumely with patience and resisted passively each attempt to dislodge them, though it had cost their leader a strenuous effort to restrain the more ardent from the excesses some of their comrades farther east had already committed; but at last the most peaceful of them felt that the time to strike in turn had come. They mounted when supper was over and rode in silence past willow bluff and dusky rise across the desolate waste. The badger heard the jingle of their bridles, and now and then a lonely coyote, startled by the soft drumming of the hoofs, rose with bristling fur and howled; but no cow-boy heard their passage, or saw them wind in and out through devious hollows when daylight came. Still, here and there an anxious woman stood, with hazy eyes, in the door of a lonely shanty, wondering whether the man she had sent out to strike for the home he had built her would ever ride back again. For they, too, had their part in the struggle, and it was perhaps the hardest one.

It was late at night when they rode into the wooden town. Here and there a window was flung open; but the night was thick and dark, and there was little to see but the dust that whirled about the dimly flitting forms. That, however, was nothing unusual, for of late squadrons of stockriders and droves of weary cattle had passed into the town; and a long row of shadowy frame houses had been left behind before the fears of any citizen were aroused. It was, perhaps, their silent haste that betrayed the horsemen, for they rode in ordered ranks without a word, as men who have grim business in hand, until a hoarse shout went up. Then a pistol flashed in the darkness in front of them, doors were flung open, lights began to blink, and a half-seen horseman came on at a gallop down the shadowy street. He pulled his horse up within a pistol-shot from the homesteaders, and sat still in his saddle staring at them.

“You’ll have to get down, boys, or tell me what you want,” he said. “You can’t ride through here at night without a permit.”

There was a little ironical laughter, and somebody asked, “Who’s going to stop us?”

“The Sheriff’s guard,” said the horseman. “Stop right where you are until I bring them.”

“Keep clear,” said Grant sternly, “or we’ll ride over you. Forward, boys!”

There was a jingle of bridles, and the other man wheeled his horse as the heels went home. Quick as he was, the foremost riders were almost upon him, and as he went down the street at a gallop the wooden houses flung back a roar of hoofs. Every door was open now and the citizens peering out. Lights flashed in the windows, and somebody cried, “The rustler boys are coming!”

Other voices took up the cry; hoots of derision mingled with shouts of greeting, but still, without an answer, the men from the prairie rode on, Grant peering into the darkness as he swung in his saddle at the head of them. He saw one or two mounted men wheel their horses, and more on foot spring clear of the hoofs, and then the flash of a rifle beneath the black front of a building. A flagstaff ran up into the night above it, and there were shadowy objects upon the verandah. Grant threw up a hand.

“We’re here, boys,” he said.

Then it became evident that every man’s part had been allotted him, for while the hindmost wheeled their horses, and then sat still, with rifles across their saddles, barring the road by which they had come, the foremost pressed on, until, pulling up, they left a space behind them and commanded the street in front. The rest dismounted, and while one man stood at the heads of every pair of horses, the rest clustered round Grant in the middle of the open space. The jail rose dark and silent before them, and for the space of a moment or two there was an impressive stillness. It was broken by a shout from one of the rearguard.

“There’s quite a crowd rolling up. Get through as quick as you can!”

Grant stood forward. “We’ll give you half a minute to send somebody out to talk to us, and then we’re coming in,” he said.

The time was almost up before a voice rose from the building: “Who are you, any way, and what do you want?”

“Homesteaders,” was the answer. “We want the Sheriff.”

“Well,” said somebody, “I’ll tell him.”

Except for a growing clamour in the street behind there was silence until Breckenridge, who stood near Grant touched him,

“I don’t want to meddle, but aren’t we giving them an opportunity of securing their prisoners or making their defences good?” he said.

“That’s sense, any way,” said another man. “It would be ’way better to go right in now, while we can.”

Grant shook his head. “You have left this thing to me, and I want to put it through without losing a man. Men don’t usually back down when the shooting begins.”

Then a voice rose from the building: “You wanted the Sheriff. Here he is.”

A shadowy figure appeared at a window, and there was a murmur from Grant’s men.

“He needn’t be bashful,” said one of them. “Nobody’s going to hurt him. Can’t you bring a light, so we can see him?”

A burst of laughter followed, and Grant held up his hand. “It would be better, Sheriff; and you have my word that we’ll give you notice before we do anything if we can’t come to terms.”

It seemed from the delay that the Sheriff was undecided, but at last a light was brought, and the men below saw him standing at the window with an anxious face, and behind him two men with rifles, whose dress proclaimed them stockriders. He could also see the horsemen below, as Grant, who waited until the sight had made its due impression, had intended that he should. There were a good many of them, and the effect of their silence and the twinkling of light on their rifles was greater than that of any uproar would have been.

“Now you can see me, you needn’t keep me waiting,” said the Sheriff, with an attempt at jauntiness which betrayed his anxiety. “What do you want?”

“Two of your prisoners,” said Grant.

“I’m sorry you can’t have them,” said the Sheriff. “Hadn’t you better ride home again before I turn the boys loose on you?”

But his voice was not quite in keeping with his words, and it would have been wiser if he had turned his face aside.

“It’s a little too far to ride back without getting what we came for,” said Grant quietly. “Now, we have no great use for talking. We want two homesteaders, and we mean to get them; but that will satisfy us.”

“You want nobody else?”

“No. You can keep your criminals, or let them go, just as it suits you.”

There was a laugh from some of the horsemen, which was taken up by the crowd and swelled into a storm of cries. Some expressed approval, others anger, and the Sheriff stepped backwards.

“Then,” he said hoarsely, “if you want your friends, you must take them.”

The next moment the window shut with a bang, and the light died out, leaving the building once more in darkness.

“Get to work,” said Grant. “Forward, those who are going to cover the axe-men!”

There was a flash from the verandah, apparently in protest and without intent to hurt, for the next moment a few half-seen objects flung themselves over the balustrade as the men with the axes came up, and others with rifles took their places a few paces behind them. Then one of the horsemen shouted a question.

“Let them pass,” said Grant.

The door was solid and braced with iron, but those who assailed it had swung the axe since they had the strength to lift it, and in the hands of such men it is a very effective implement. The door shook and rattled as the great blades whirled and fell, each one dropping into the notch the other had made; the men panted as they smote; the splinters flew in showers.

“Holding out still!” gasped one of them. “There’s iron here. Get some of the boys to chop that redwood pillar, and we’ll drive it down.”

There was an approving murmur, but Grant grasped the man by the shoulder. “No,” he said. “We haven’t come to wreck the town. I’ve another plan if you’re more than two minutes getting in.”

The axes whirled faster, and at last a man turned breathlessly. “Get ready, boys,” he said. “One more on the bolt head, Jake, and we’re in!”

A brawny man twice whirled the hissing blade about his head, and as he swung forward with both hands on the haft with a dull crash the wedge of tempered steel clove the softer metal. The great door tilted and went down, and Breckenridge sprang past the axe-men through the opening. His voice came back exultantly out of the shadowy building. “It was the old country sent you the first man in!”

The men’s answer was a shout as they followed him, with a great trampling down the corridor, but the rest of the building was very silent, and nobody disputed their passage until at last a man with grey hair appeared with a lantern behind an iron grille.

“Open that thing,” said somebody.

The man smiled drily. “I couldn’t do it if I wanted to. I’ve given my keys away.”

One or two of the homesteaders glanced a trifle anxiously behind them. The corridor was filling up, and it dawned upon them that if anything barred their egress they would be helpless.

“Then what are you stopping for?” asked somebody.

“It’s in my contract,” said the jailer quietly. “I was raised in Kentucky. You don’t figure I’m scared of you?”

“No use for talking,” said a man. “You can’t argue with him. Go ahead with your axes and beat the blamed thing in.”

It cost them twenty minutes’ strenuous toil; but the grille went down, and two of the foremost seized the jailer.

“Let him go,” said Grant quietly. “Now, we can’t fool time away with you. Where’s the Sheriff?”

“I don’t quite know,” said the jailer, and the contempt in his voice answered the question.

Grant laughed a little. “Well,” he said, “I guess he’s sensible. Now, what you have got to do is to bring out the two homesteaders as quick as you can.”

“I told you I couldn’t do it,” said the other man.

“You listen to me. We are going to take those men out, if we have to pull this place to pieces until we find them. That, it’s quite plain, would let the others go, and you would lose the whole of your prisoners instead of two of them. Tell us where you put them, and you can keep the rest.”

“That’s square?”

“Oh, yes,” said Grant. “There are quite enough men of their kind loose in this country already.”

“Straight on,” said the jailer. “First door.”

They went on in silence, but there was a shout when somebody answered their questions from behind a door, which a few minutes later tottered and fell beneath the axes. Then, amidst acclamation, they led two men out, and showed them to the jailer.

“You know them?” said Grant. “Well, you can tell your Sheriff there wasn’t a cartridge in the rifles of the men who opened his jail. He’ll come back when the trouble’s over, but it seems to me the cattle-men have wasted a pile of dollars over him.”

He laughed when a question met them as they once more trampled into the verandah.

“Yes,” he said. “The boys are bringing them!”

Two horses were led forward, and the released men swung themselves into the saddle. There was a hasty mounting, and when the men swung into open fours a shout went up from the surging crowd.

“They have taken the homesteaders out. The Sheriff has backed down.”

A roar followed that expressed approbation and disgust; it was evident that the sympathies of the citizens were divided. In the momentary silence Grant’s voice rang out:

“Sling rifles! Keep your order and distance! Forward, boys!”

Again a hoarse cry went up, but there was only applause in it now, for the crowd recognized the boldness of the command and opened out, pressing back against the houses as the little band rode forward. Their silence was impressive, but the leader knew his countrymen, for, while taunts and display would have courted an onset, nobody seemed anxious to obstruct the men who sat unconcernedly in their saddles, with the rifles which alone warranted their daring disdainfully slung behind them.

On they went past clusters of wondering citizens, shouting sympathizers, and silent cattle-men, until there was a hoot of derision, and, perhaps in the hope of provoking a conflict in which the rest would join, a knot of men pushed out into the street from the verandah of the wooden hotel. Grant realized that a rash blow might unloose a storm of passion and rouse to fury men who were already regretting their supineness.

“Keep your pace and distance!” he commanded.

Looking straight in front of them, shadowy and silent, the leading four rode on, and once more the crowd melted from in front of them. As the last of the band passed through the opening that was made for them a man laughed as he turned in his saddle.

“We can’t stay any longer, boys, but it wasn’t your fault. It’s a man you want for Sheriff,” he said.

“No talking there! Gallop!” said Grant, and the horsemen flitted across the railroad track, and with a sinking thud of hoofs melted into the prairie. They had accomplished their purpose, and the cattle-men, going back disgustedly to remonstrate with the Sheriff, for a while failed to find him.