Cal seized the chance to say: "It ain't so lonesome as it looks now.
We're a lively lot here sometimes."
Streeter gave him a glance which stopped him. "Cal, you take Hosy and go
over to the camp and tell the boys to hustle in two hundred steers. I
want to get 'em passed on to-morrow afternoon, or next day sure."
Calvin's face fell. "I don't think I need to go. Hosy can carry the
orders just as well as me," he said, boyishly sullen.
"I want _you_ to go!" was the stern answer, and it was plain that
Streeter was commander even of his reckless son.
As he rose from the table, Calvin said, in a low voice, to Jennie, "I'll
be here to breakfast all right, and I'll see that you get over to the
agency."
Streeter the elder upon reflection considered that his guests had not
sufficiently accounted for themselves, and, after Calvin left, again
turned a penetrating glance on Curtis, saying, in a peculiar way, "Where
did you say you were from?"
"San Francisco," replied Curtis, promptly, and cut in ahead with a
question of his own. "You seem to be well supplied with munitions of
war. Do you need all those guns now?"
"Need every shell. We're going to oust these devils pretty soon, and
they know it, and they're ugly."
"What do you mean by ousting 'em?"
"We're pushing a bill to have 'em removed."
"Where to?"
"Oh, to the Red River reservation, or the Powder Valley; we're not
particular, so that we get rid of 'em."
Jennie tingled with indignation as Streeter outlined the plans of the
settlers and told of his friction with the redmen, but Curtis remained
calm and smiling.
"You'll miss their market for your beef, won't you?"
"Oh, that's a small item in comparison with the extra range we'll get,"
and thereupon he entered upon a long statement of what the government
ought to do.
Jennie rose wearily, and the old man was all attention.
"I suppose you are tired and would like to go to bed?"
"We are rather limp," confessed Curtis, glad to escape the searching
cross-examination which he knew would follow Jennie's retirement.
When they were alone the two young people looked at each other in
silence, Jennie with big, horrified eyes, Curtis with an amused
comprehension of his sister's feeling. "Isn't he a pirate? He doesn't
know it, but his state of mind makes him indictable for murder on the
high seas."
"George, I don't like this. We are going to have trouble if this old man
and his like are not put off this reservation."
"Well, now, we won't put him off to-night, especially as he is a gallant
host. But this visit here has put me in touch with the cattlemen. I feel
that I know their plans and their temper very clearly."
"George, I will not sleep here in this room alone. You must make up a
cot-bed or something. These people make me nervous, with their guns and
Mexican servants."
"Don't you worry, sis. I'll roll up in a blanket and sleep across your
door-sill," and this he did, acknowledging the reasonableness of her
fears.