at the railroad, and fifty Dakota men came in
on the cars. I went round to the hotel with the committee, and, though it
cost some dollars to fix the thing, they wouldn't take them in. The boys,
who got kind of savage, found a pole and drove the door in, but we turned
the Sheriff, who had already sworn some of us in, loose on them. Four or
five men were nastily clubbed, and one of James's boys was shot through
the arm, while I have a fancy that the citizens would have stood in with
the other crowd; but seeing they were not going to get anything to eat
there, they held up a store, and as we told the man who kept it how their
friends had sacked Regent, he fired at them. The consequence is that the
Sheriff has some of them in jail, and the rest are camped down on the
prairie. We hold the town."

"Through the Sheriff?"

Clavering laughed. "He'll earn his pay. Has it struck you that this
campaign is going to cost us a good deal? Allonby hasn't much left in hand
already."

"Oh, yes," said the older man, with a little grim smile. "If it's wanted
I'll throw my last dollar in. Beaten now and we're beaten for ever. We
have got to win."

Clavering said nothing further, though he realized, perhaps more clearly
than his leader, that it was only by the downfall of the cattle-men the
small farmer could establish himself, and, when he had handed a cheque to
Torrance, went out.

It was three days later when Hetty Torrance rose from her seat in a big
vestibule car as the long train slackened speed outside a little Western
station. She laughed as she swept her glance round the car.

"Look at it, Flo," she said; "gilding and velvet and nickel, all quite in
keeping with the luxury of the East. You are environed by civilization
still; but once you step off the platform there will be a difference."

Flora Schuyler, who noticed the little flush in her companion's face,
glanced out of the dusty window, for the interior of the gently-rocking
car, with its lavish decoration and upholstery, was not new to her, and
the first thing that caught her eye was the miscellaneous deposit of
rubbish, old boots, and discarded clothing, amidst the willows that slowly
flitted by. Then she saw a towering water-tank, wooden houses that rose
through a haze of blowing dust, hideous in their unadornment, against a
crystalline sky, and a row of close-packed stock-cars which announced that
they were in the station.

It seemed to be thronged with the populace,