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"I'll furnish " began Chadron, in amazement at this unexpected turn. "Transportation, sir," completed Major King, in his cold way. "These men should be held to the civil authorities for trial in this county, and not set free," Macdonald protested, indignant over the order. Major King ignored him. He was still looking at Chadron, who was almost choking on his rage. "Hell!
Outside, the soldiers lifted Mark Thorn, a bullet through his heart. They buried Saul Chadron next day in a corner of the garden by the river. And there was the benediction of tender autumn sunshine over the place where they laid him down, away from the turmoil of his life, and the tangle of injustices that he left behind. But there was none to come forward and speak for the body of Mark Thorn.
The men had scattered at daybreak to search for the trail of the man who had carried Nola away, but Banjo, sore and shaken, had come back depressed and full of pains. Mrs. Chadron said that Saul surely would be home before noonday, and urged Frances to go to her room and sleep.
"Mothers do that, right along," Nola nodded. "Here's somebody else up early" Frances held the curtain aside as she spoke, and leaned a little to see "here's your father, just turning in." "The señor boss?" said Nola, hurrying to the window. Saul Chadron was mounting the steps booted and dusty, his revolvers belted over his coat. "I wonder what's the matter?
Chadron when she had spoken to Frances with such resentment of the homesteaders standing up to fight. That was an unprecedented contingency. The "holy scare," such as Mark Thorn and similar hired assassins spread in communities of homesteaders, had been sufficient up to that day.
There was satisfaction in them, a triumphant glow. She moved a step toward the door, and the colonel, seeing her there, rushed to her and clasped her against his dusty breast. "Standing armed against you in your own house, before your own wife and daughter!" said he, turning like the old tiger that he was upon Chadron again.
"It was somebody that knowed the lay of the land," Mrs. Chadron said, "for that gate down there back of the house is open. That's the way they come and went somebody that knowed the lay of the land." Frances felt her heart die within her as the recollection of another night in that garden flashed like red fire in her mind.
"If any reward in this world could drive me through hell fire to lay my hands on it, you've named it," he said. Frances saw that Mrs. Chadron could be reasoned with now, and she was grateful to Banjo for his opportune arrival. For the night was vast and unfriendly over that empty land, and filled with a thousand shudderful dangers.
It's a story that'll give the other side of this situation up here to the war department, and it'll make this whole nation climb up on its hind legs and howl. Murder? Huh, murder's no name for it!" Chadron was growling something below his breath into King's ear.
"I don't hand my gun to any man; if you want it, come and take it," Macdonald said, feeling that the end was rushing upon him, and wondering what it would be. A bullet was better than a rope, which Chadron had publicly boasted he had laid up for him. There was a long chance if Dalton reached for that gun a long and desperate chance.
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