"
She stopped milking while she looked at me, anxiously awaiting my
reply.

"Just about that, Jessie."

"It would kill me to keep up such a gait as you and Frank seem to both
take delight in," she continued. "So I must be poking along for four
hours doing the distance that you could cover in two. The Land Office
opens at seven o'clock--there's a rush of business just now, Mr.
Wilson says--and I must start not later than half-past two."

"Dear me, Jessie, I hate to have you start out alone in the night,
that way!"

"I don't like it very well myself," Jessie admitted. "But Mr. Wilson
thought we'd better not say a word to any one about my going--lest it
should get to Mr. Horton's ears some way, and he will drive around
later in the morning and pick up the witnesses and bring them down.
Oh, and Leslie, above all things, don't forget the Bible. Be sure to
put that in the wagon when Mr. Wilson comes."

"Certainly I shall! Do you imagine that I would forget the one
fundamental clause of our proving up?"

"No, of course you wouldn't. Mr. Wilson said that he would go down
with me--we could drive his fast horse down in the light cart, if only
Joe were here to bring down our witnesses. But he isn't, and I must go
alone."

It was evident that Jessie did not relish the prospect of taking a
lonely night ride.

"I will leave the money--what little there is of it--for Mr. Wilson
to bring down," Jessie presently remarked. "Then, if I am held up,
we will have saved that much, anyhow."

"And much good it will do us, with our fundamental clause in the hands
of brigands," I retorted laughingly. For, indeed, there was about as
much danger of a hold-up as of an earthquake.

"What a fuss you are making, Guard--what's the matter?" Jesse said, in
a tone of remonstrance, as she resumed the milking. The dog had been
looking toward the house, growling and bristling, for some minutes.
His response to Jessie's remonstrance was a tumultuous rush toward the
house, around the corner of which he disappeared. Presently we saw
him bounding away into the oak scrub beyond, apparently in hot pursuit
of some retreating object, for his voice, breaking out occasionally in
angry clamor, soon died away in the distance.

"I hope there isn't another wildcat after the chickens," Jessie
remarked, as, the milking finished, we started toward the house.

"I don't think it's a wildcat," I said; "from all the legends we have
heard lately, a wildcat would h