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Beyond the loungers in the saloon and old Louis Roiheim no one worth any remark approached him. He sat watching the passers-by, but went on smoking idly. There were some children playing a sort of "King-of-the-Castle" game on a heap of ballast lying beside the track, and these seemed to interest him most.
Plainsmen had a knack of quitting his execrable drink when there was fighting to be done and Louis Roiheim was an Israelite. A silence fell upon the bar-room on the appearance of Julie Roiheim. She saw Seth, and beckoned him over to her. "There are initials on the little one's clothing. M. R.," she said. And Seth nodded. "Any name?" he asked. The stout old woman shook her greasy head.
"Ah!" murmured the plainsman, without any responsive enthusiasm, while his dark eyes watched the triumphant features of the woman to whom these things were of such consequence. "And has the Doc. got around?" "He's fixin' her up," Julie Roiheim went on. "Oh, yes, you were right, she's alive, but he can't wake her up. He says if she's to be moved, it had best be at once." "Good."
He had left the farm on Saturday morning, and at midnight had roused the postmaster of Beacon Crossing from his bed. Then, at the hotel of Louis Roiheim, he had obtained a fresh horse, and, by daylight on Monday morning, after traveling the distance through nothing but mazy woodland, had reached the locality of Little Black Fox's abode.
But a handful of cavalry is no backing to any bluff. The older settlers shook their heads; the more timorous dared to hope; even old Roiheim, who would make profit by the adjacency of soldiers, would willingly have foregone the extra trade. Rube and Seth offered no comment outside their own house; but their opinion was worth considering.
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