“Not at all—­not at all; and I hope, Jennie, you don’t blame me for all that your folks have suffered.”

“Why, Larch, why should I blame you?” asked the young lady, coming fearfully near a fiction in making the query, for she knew many good reasons for censuring him in her heart.  “But how soon do you intend—­that is, how soon do the rest of your folks intend to attack the cowmen?”

“We—­that is, they—­expected to do so long ago, but there have been all sorts of delays; it will come pretty soon now.”

“Where are you to place mother and me?”

“Over the ridge, yonder; you will be out of danger; you need fear nothing; why should you, for your mother will be with you and your brother will be with us, so that he can take no part in the fight.”

He made no reference to Mont Sterry, and she was too wise to let fall a hint of her anxiety concerning him.

“But, Larch, suppose, when you set fire to the house, as I heard your folks intended, our people rush out and attack you?”

“Do they intend to do that?” he asked.

“I am sure I don’t know; but you can see, if they do, the shooting will be going on all around mother and me.”

“You can pass farther out on the plain or take shelter in the stable, among the horses.”

“But that may be too late,” interposed Jennie, in well-feigned alarm.

“You can take refuge here now.”

“I can’t bear to stay in the stable, for the horses will become terrified when the shooting begins; they may break loose and prove more dangerous than the flying bullets.”

There was sense in this objection, and the rustler saw it.  He was anxious to propitiate the young woman, whom he admired so ardently.

“Well, my dear, what would you like to do?”

“Now, Larch, you won’t laugh at me if I tell you,” she replied, in her most coquettish manner.

“Laugh at you!” he protested; “this is no time for laughing; it was a shame that those people should turn your house into a fort, when it could do them no good.  Tell me what you want and it shall be done, if it is in my power.”

“Thanks!  You are very kind, and I shall never forget this favour; I want to mount one of the best horses in the stable and ride out so far that I am sure to be beyond reach of danger.”

The proposition staggered the rustler—­so much so that it did not occur to him, just then, that the daughter appeared a great deal more anxious to look after her own safety than her mother’s.

“You have a horse in the stable, haven’t you?”

“Yes, Jack is there, and he is a splendid fellow; he is the one I want.”

“But the saddle?”

“I have it with me; here it is; you and I will adjust it together.”

And the impulsive miss placed the saddle in his grasp before he knew it.  She certainly was rushing things.  It must be admitted, too, that she showed fine discretion.  There was but one way of handling Mr. Larch Cadmus, and she was using that way.