A blustering wind moaned outside the lonely building, and the stove snapped and crackled as the chilly draughts swept into the hall at Cedar Range. Jackson Cheyne had arrived on horseback in the creeping dusk an hour or two earlier, after spending most of four nights and days in the slushy snow, and was now resting contentedly in a big hide chair. Indeed, notwithstanding the fact that Hetty sat close by, he was feeling pleasantly drowsy when she turned to him.

“You have only told us that you didn’t find the train-wreckers, and you know we are just dying with curiosity,” she said.

Cheyne looked up languidly, wondering whether the half-indifferent inquisitiveness was assumed, as he remembered the anxiety he had seen in Hetty’s face when he first came in. Instead of answering directly, he glanced round the little group sitting about the stove—for Miss Schuyler, and Christopher Allonby and his cousin were there, as well as Hetty.

“One would scarcely fancy you were dying of anything,” he said. “In fact, it would be difficult to imagine any of you looking better. I wonder if you know that with the way that the light falls that dusky panelling forms a most effective background, Miss Schuyler?”

Flora Schuyler laughed. “We are not to be put off. Tell us what you found—and you needn’t have any diffidence: we are quite accustomed to hearing the most astonishing things at Cedar.”

“The trouble is that I didn’t find anything. I spent several most unpleasant hours watching a railroad-trestle in blinding snow, until the cattle-train went by in safety. Nobody seemed to have the slightest wish to meddle with it.”

Without exactly intending it he allowed his eyes to rest on Hetty a moment, and fancied he saw relief in her face. But it was Flora Schuyler who turned to him.

“What did you do then?”

“I and the boys then decided it would be advisable to look for a ranch where we could get food and shelter, and had some difficulty in finding one. In the morning, we made our way back to the depot, and discovered that a gentleman you know had hired a locomotive a little while after the cattle-train started.”

“Larry, of course!” ejaculated Chris Allonby. “I wanted to stake five dollars with Clavering that he would be too smart for him again.”

Cheyne looked at him inquiringly. “I don’t quite understand.”

“No?” and Allonby’s embarrassment was unmistakable. “Well, there is no great reason why you should. I have a habit of talking at random occasionally. There are quite enough sensible people in this country without me just now.”

“Then,” said Cheyne, “I went on to an especially forlorn place called Boynton, and discovered with some difficulty that Mr. Grant, who hired the locomotive, had stopped it at a dangerous curve and picked several men up. He took them on to Boynton, and there they seem to have disappeared, though it was suggested that they had departed for a place unknown, either on the top of, or underneath a fast freight train.”

Chris Allonby chuckled. “Well,” he said, “we haven’t the least use for Larry here, but I am almost proud he was a friend of mine.”

Cheyne glancing round at the others fancied there was a little glow in Hetty’s eyes and a trace of warmer colour in Flora Schuyler’s face. It was only just perceptible to him, but he had less doubt when he saw that Miss Allonby was watching her companion covertly, for he was quite aware that the perceptions of the average young woman were likely to be much keener than his own in such affairs.

“I can’t help fancying you have a clue to what really happened, Miss Torrance,” he said.

“Yes,” said Hetty quietly. “It is quite plain to me that Larry saved the train.”

Cheyne glanced at her sharply, and then turned to Allonby. “It strikes you that way, too?”

“Of course,” said Allonby unguardedly. “It is too bad of Larry. He has beaten us again, though Clavering fixed the thing quite nicely.”

Cheyne’s face grew stern. “I am to understand that you did not warn the engineer or any of the railroad men?”

“No,” said Allonby, with evident embarrassment. “We didn’t. It was necessary to make the thing as ugly for Larry’s friends as we could, and we knew you would be at the bridge. If you had caught them in the act, with the train not far away, it would have looked ever so much better for us—and you.”

He stopped, with an unpleasant feeling that he had blundered. Cheyne’s face had become grimmer. Miss Schuyler’s lips were curled in a little scornful smile, and there was a curious sparkle in Hetty’s eyes.

“I wonder if you quite recognize the depth of Mr. Grant’s iniquity yet?” Flora Schuyler asked.

Cheyne smiled. “I confess I should very much like to meet the man. You see, my profession prevents my being a partisan, and the cleverness and daring of what he has evidently done appeals to me. He took the chances of his own men turning on him to save them from an affray with us, brought them off, and sent your cattle-train through; and what, it seems to me, was more than all, disregarded the probability of his enemies associating him with the contriving of the outrage.”

“Wouldn’t you have done that?” asked Miss Allonby.

“No,” said the soldier quietly. “I don’t think I should. A man who would do what this one has done would be very likely to take a hand in that kind of thing.”

Again there was an almost embarrassing silence broken by Miss Allonby. “I wonder who could have told him.”

Nobody spoke until Cheyne felt it advisable to break the silence.

“You have no sympathy with Grant, Miss Allonby?”

“No,” said the girl plaintively. “I don’t go quite as far as Mr. Clavering and my cousin do—though Chris generally talks too much—but Larry is a nuisance, and really ought to be crushed. You see, we had everything we wanted before he and the others made the trouble here.”

“That is quite convincing,” Cheyne said, with somewhat suspicious gravity. He looked at the others, and fancied that Hetty would have answered but that Flora Schuyler flashed a warning glance at her.

“One could almost fancy that most of us have too much now,” she said. “Are we better, braver, stronger, or of choicer stuff than those others who have nothing, and only want the little the law would give them? Oh, yes, we are accomplished—very indifferently, some of us—and have been better taught, though one sometimes wonders at the use we make of it; but was that education given us for our virtues, or thrust upon us by the accident that our fathers happened to be rich?”

“You will scarcely approve, Miss Allonby?” said Cheyne.

The girl’s lips curled scornfully. “I never argue with people who talk like that. It would not be any use—and they would never understand me; but everybody knows we were born different from the rabble. It is unfortunate you and Larry couldn’t go up and down the country together, convincing people, Flo.”

Cheyne, seeing the gleam in Miss Schuyler’s eyes, wondered whether there had been malice in the speech, and was not sorry that Torrance and Clavering came in just then.

“I have just come from Newcombe’s and heard that you had failed,” said Torrance. “If you will come along to my room, I should like to hear about it.”

Cheyne smiled as he rose. “I don’t know that failed was quite the correct word. My object was to protect the track, and so far as I could discover, no attempt was made to damage it.”

Torrance glanced at him sharply as they moved away. “Now, we were under the impression that it was the capture of the man responsible for the affair.”

“Then,” said the soldier drily, “I am afraid you were under a misapprehension.”

He passed the next half-hour with Torrance amicably, and it was not until he was returning to the hall with Clavering that he found an opportunity of expressing himself freely. Torrance, he realized, was an old man, and quite incapable of regarding the question except from his own point of view.

“I am just a little astonished you did not consider it advisable to follow the thing up further, when you must have seen what it pointed to,” said Clavering.

“That,” said Cheyne, smiling, “is foolish of you. I would like to explain that I am not a detective or a police officer.”

“You were, at least, sent here to restore tranquillity.”

“Precisely!” said Cheyne. “By the State. To maintain peace, and not further the cattle-men’s schemes. I am, for the present, your leader’s guest; but I have no reason for thinking he believes that in any way constitutes me his ally. In his case I could not use the word accomplice.”

Clavering flashed an observant glance at him. “It should be evident which party is doing the most to bring about tranquillity.”

“It is not,” said Cheyne. “I don’t know that it is my business to go into that question; but one or two of the efforts you have made lately would scarcely impress the fact on me.”

“You are frank, any way,” with a disagreeable laugh.

“No,” said Cheyne, with a twinkle in his eyes, “I’m not sure that I am. We occasionally talk a good deal more plainly in the United States cavalry.”

He passed on to the hall and Clavering went back to Torrance’s room. “We have got to get rid of that man, sir,” he said. “If we don’t, Larry will have him. Allonby had better go and worry the Bureau into sending for another two or three squadrons under a superior officer.”

Torrance sighed heavily. “I’m ’most afraid they are not going to take kindly to any more worrying,” he said. “In fact, now it’s evident how the feeling of the State is going, I have an idea they’d sooner stand in with the homestead boys. Still, we can try it, any way.”

It was about the same time that Grant flung himself wearily into a chair in the great bare room at Fremont ranch. His face was haggard, his eyes heavy, for he had spent the greater part of several anxious days and nights endeavouring to curb the headstrong passions of his followers, and riding through leagues of slushy snow.

“Will you hurry Tom up with the supper, while I look through my letters?” he said.

Breckenridge went out, and, when he came back a little while later, found Grant with a strip of paper on his knee.

“More bad news?” he asked.

Grant made no answer, but passed the strip of paper across to him, and Breckenridge’s pulses throbbed fast with anger as he read: “It is quite difficult to sit on both sides of the fence, and the boys have no more use for you. Still, there was a time when you did what you could for us, and that is why I am giving you good advice. Sit tight at Fremont, and don’t go out at nights.”

“The consumed asses!” he said. “You see what he means? They have gone after the herring Clavering drew across the trail.”

The bronze grew darker in Larry’s face, and his voice was hoarse. “Yes—they figure the cattle-men have bought me over. Well, there were points that would have drawn any man’s suspicions—the packet I would not give up to Chilton—and, as you mention, Miss Torrance’s wallet. Still, it hurts.”

Breckenridge saw the veins swell up on his comrade’s forehead and the trembling of his hands. “Don’t worry about them. They are beasts, old man,” he said.

Grant said nothing for at least a minute, and then clenched one lean brown hand. “I felt it would come, and yet it has shaken most of the grit out of me. I did what I could for them—it was not easy—and they have thrown me over. That is hard to bear, but there’s more. No man can tell, now there is no one to hold them in, how far they will go.”

Breckenridge’s answer was to fling a cloth upon the table and lay out the plates. Grant sat very still; his voice had been curiously even, but his set face betrayed what he was feeling, and there was something in his eyes that Breckenridge did not care to see. He also felt that there were troubles too deep for any blundering attempt at sympathy, but the silence grew oppressive, and by and by he turned to his companion again.

“We’ll presume the fellow who wrote that means well,” he said. “What does his warning point to?”

Grant smiled bitterly. “An attempt upon my homestead or my life, and I have given them already rather more than either is worth to me,” he said.

Breckenridge was perfectly sensible that he was not shining in the rÔle of comforter; but he felt it would be something accomplished if he could keep his comrade talking. He had discovered that verbal expression is occasionally almost a necessity to the burdened mind, though Larry was not greatly addicted to relief of that description.

“Of course, this campaign has cost you a good deal,” he said.

“Probably five thousand dollars—all that seemed good in life—and every friend I had.”

“After all, Larry, the thing may be no more than a joke or an attempt at bluff. Even admitting that it is not, it probably only expresses the views of a few of the boys.”

Grant shook his head. “No. I believe it is quite genuine. I saw how affairs were going even before I wouldn’t give Chilton the packet; most of the boys were ready to break away then. Well, one could scarcely blame them for not trusting me, and I felt I was laying down my authority when I sent the stock train through.”

“Not blame them!” said Breckenridge, clenching his fist, his eyes blazing. “Where in the wide world would the crazy fools get another man like you? But if you can take it quietly, I ought to, and the question is, what are you going to do?”

“What I can,” said Grant. “Hold the boys clear of trouble where it is possible. There are still one or two who will stand behind me, and what we can’t do may be done for us. When a man is badly wanted in this country he usually comes to the front, and I will be glad to drop out when I see him.”

“Larry,” Breckenridge said slowly, “I am younger than you are, and I haven’t seen as much, but it would be better for me if I had half your optimism. Still, that was not quite what I was asking. If the beasts actually mean to burn your place or attempt your life you are surely not going to give them the opportunity. Can’t we fix up a guard among the few sensible men or send for the cavalry?”

Grant smiled wearily as he shook his head. “No,” he said. “The one thing I can’t do is to lift my hand against the men I brought here in a private quarrel.”

Just then the cook came in with the supper, and, though the pair had eaten nothing since sunrise and ridden through soft snow most of that day, it cost Breckenridge an effort to clear the plate set before him. Grant scarcely touched the food, and it was a relief to both when the meal was over, and Grant’s plate, still half-filled, was taken away. After he had several times lighted a cigar and let it go out again, Breckenridge glanced at him deprecatingly.

“I can’t keep it up any longer, and I know how it is with you, because I feel the thing myself,” he said. “Now, if you want me here, I’ll stay, but I have a notion the poor attempts at talk I’m making are only worrying you.”

Grant smiled, but Breckenridge saw the answer in his face, and went out hastily, which was, under the circumstances, the wisest thing he could do. Then, Grant stretched his arms wearily above his head, and a faint groan escaped him.

“It had to come—but it hurts,” he said.