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Updated: May 24, 2025
Along with this came self-arraignment: After all, he should have told Lancaster that a man who claimed the quarter-section on the peninsula had been called from Dodge City. Lounsbury had been certain that Matthews could not reach Fort Brannon before the spring. But it had never occurred to him that the section-boss would leave his girls alone!
Both girls looked from the opening. With all Matthews' hostile intent, it must be said that the moment found him disconcerted. He had learned on arriving that the section-boss had two daughters. The news did not alter his determination one whit. Had anyone suggested such a thing, he would have been moved to laughter.
"Good-by." She opened the door for him. John Lounsbury passed out, regretting that he had been unwelcome; indignant that the section-boss had misjudged his interest in the ownership of the claim.
At once, he quickened his speed, pulling the reins taut. Behind him, his master, though utterly wearied, kept awake to watch their course and commend him kindly. Not so the section-boss. His anger finally spent, he put up his crutch and made himself comfortable. Then, swaying as the pung swayed, he slept. Far away at Fort Brannon the council was at an end.
An instant the section-boss stared, then with the promptitude of the old railroader seized his cap, exclaiming "Go ahead!" and together they dashed out to the gate, and across the tracks in the direction of the tool-house. "Where did they start from? How many cars?" asked the foreman as they ran. "Indian Canyon. Ten, and all loaded." The section-man whistled.
One troop of cavalry had remained at Brannon throughout the summer to give protection to the wives and children of officers and enlisted men. The remaining troops belonging at the fort were away on Indian service. They were to return soon, and the section-boss believed he saw in the nearing traveller the herald of the home-coming force.
Soon Lounsbury's favorite saddler, urged on by a quirt, was kicking up a path across the crusted drifts that Shadrach had so recently surmounted. As the storekeeper cantered swiftly forward, a new question presented itself to him: Was the "preacher" in league with Matthews, and so was carrying the section-boss out of the way? He decided negatively.
Eager to prove his good intent, he had hastened forward; and she, just as eager to show her thankfulness, had led him into the house. There, with the distrustful eye of the section-boss upon him, and with Marylyn watching in trepidation from a distance, he had eaten and drunk at Dallas' bidding. At the very moment when Dallas decided to confide in him, Squaw Charley was not unmindful of her.
He determined to tell them that he, too, knew what and whom they feared. "Expecting someone, Miss Dallas?" he asked tentatively. The section-boss hastened to answer. "Expectin' nothin'," he snapped. Then, to cut short any further questioning, "Dallas, y' clean forgot them mules t'-day. Lawd help us! y' goin' t' let 'em starve?" The elder girl found her cloak, picked up a bucket and left the room.
"Yestiddy," observed the section-boss, as he unfastened the tugs, "y' said it wouldn' matter ef Ah didn' go now." He was somewhat complacent over the outcome of the hitch-up. "I don't feel that way now," asserted Dallas. "Thet ol' man up at th' leetle ben' has hosses," he volunteered when they were again within the shack. "He took 'em to Clark's two months ago, and walked back."
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