From out the group of newcomers one man emerged.  It was McPherson.

“Who’ll lend me a horse?” he queried.

No man gave answer.  Already the group had separated.

For a moment the Scotchman halted, grim-jawed, his legs an inverted V; then silent as they, equally swiftly, he followed.

Very soon, almost unbelievably soon, they began to trickle back.  Not in ignorance of possibilities in store did they come.  They had no delusions concerning the red brother, these frontiersmen.  Nor in the hot adventurous blood of youth did they respond.  One and all were middle-aged men; many had families.  All save Landor were strangers to the man they went to seek.  Yet at a moment’s call they responded; as they took it for granted others would respond were they in need.  Had they been conscious of the fact, the action was magnificent; but of it they were not conscious.  They but answered an instinct:  the eternal brotherhood of the frontier.  Far away in his well-policed, steam-heated abode urban man listens to the tale of unselfishness, and, supercilious, smiles.  We believe what we have ourselves felt, we humans.  First of all to come was lean-faced Crosby, one cheek swelled round with a giant quid.  Close at his heels followed Trapper Conway:  grizzled, parchment-faced veteran, who alone had followed the Missouri to its source and, stranger to relate, had alone returned with his scalp.  Then came Landor himself, the wiry little mustang he rode all but blanketed under the big army saddle.  Following him, impassive, noncommittal as though an event of the recent past had not occurred, came McPherson, drew up in place beside the leader.  All-seeing, Crosby spat appreciatively, but Landor gave never a glance.  Following came not one but many riders; a half dozen, a score,—­enough to make up the allotment, and again.  In silence they came, grim-faced, more grimly accoutred.  All manner of horseflesh was represented:  the broncho, the mustang, the frontier scrub, the thoroughbred; all manner of apparel, from chaperajos to weather-beaten denim; but, saddled or saddleless, across the neck of every beast stretched the barrel of a long rifle, at the hip of every rider hung a holster, from every belt peeped the hilt of a great knife.  Long ere this word of the unusual had passed about, and now, on the rise of ground at the back of the stockade, a goodly group had gathered.  Silent as the prairies, as the morning itself, they watched the scene below, awaited the denouement. Not without influence was the taciturn example of the red man in this land from which he was slowly being crowded.  From over the uplands to the east the red face of the morning sun was just peeping when Landor separated himself from the waiting group, led the way to the big gate and paused.  “Twenty only, men,” he repeated.  “All ready.”

First through the opening went Crosby.

“One.”

Close as before, at his horse’s heels followed Conway.