“I am.  Boss’s orders, Miss Lenore.  I’m dog-gone sorry.  But you sure oughtn’t to be outdoors this far,” replied Jake.

“Look here, my cowboy dictator.  I’m going to see where those men went,” said Lenore, and forthwith she stepped down to the path.

Then Jake deliberately leaned his rifle against a post and, laying hold of her with no gentle hands, he swung her in one motion back upon the porch.  The broad light streaming out of the open door showed that, whatever his force meant, it had paled his face to exercise it.

“Why, Jake—­to handle me that way!” cried Lenore, in pretended reproach.  She meant to frighten or coax the truth out of him.  “You hurt me!”

“I’m beggin’ your pardon if I was rough,” said Jake.  “Fact is, I’m a little upset an’ I mean bizness.”

Whereupon Lenore stepped back to close the door, and then, in the shadow, she returned to Jake and whispered:  “I was only in fun.  I would not think of disobeying you.  But you can trust me.  I’ll not tell, and I’ll worry less if I know what’s what....  Jake, is father in danger?”

“I reckon.  But the best we could do was to make him stand fer a guard.  There’s four of us cowpunchers with him all day, an’ at night he’s surrounded by guards.  There ain’t much chance of his gittin’ hurt.  So you needn’t worry about thet.”

“Who are these men I heard passing?  Where are they from?”

“Farmers, ranchers, cowboys, from all over this side of the river.”

“There must have been a lot of them,” said Lenore, curiously.

“Reckon you never heerd the quarter of what’s come to attend Anderson’s meetin’.”

“What for?  Tell me, Jake.”

The cowboy hesitated.  Lenore heard his big hand slap round the rifle-stock.

“We’ve orders not to tell thet,” he replied.

“But, Jake, you can tell me.  You always tell me secrets.  I’ll not breathe it.”

Jake came closer to her, and his tall head reached to a level with hers, where she stood on the porch.  Lenore saw his dark, set face, his gleaming eyes.

“Wal, it’s jest this here,” he whispered, hoarsely.  “Your dad has organized vigilantes, like he belonged to in the early days....  An’ it’s the vigilantes thet will attend to this I.W.W. outfit.”

Those were thrilling words to Jake, as was attested by his emotion, and they surely made Lenore’s knees knock together.  She had heard many stories from her father of that famous old vigilante band, secret, making the law where there was no law.

“Oh, I might have expected that of dad!” she murmured.

“Wal, it’s sure the trick out here.  An’ your father’s the man to deal it.  There’ll be dog-goned little wheat burned in this valley, you can gamble on thet.”

“I’m glad.  I hate the very thought....  Jake, you know about Mr. Dorn’s misfortune?”

“No, I ain’t heerd about him.  But I knowed the Bend was burnin’ over, an’ of course I reckoned Dorn would lose his wheat.  Fact is, he had the only wheat up there worth savin’ ...  Wal, these I.W.W.’s an’ their German bosses hev put it all over the early days when rustlin’ cattle, holdin’ up stage-coaches, an’ jest plain cussedness was stylish.”