"The Cow-pens ain't
against 'em--when the French are coming!"
"Why haven't they sent word to the soldiers?" demanded another of the
cow-drivers suspiciously.
"The soldiers?" she exclaimed incredulously. "Why--the Cow-pens sent
word that the soldiers were against Blue Lick too, and were going to
stop the station's pack-train. Maybe the stationers were afraid of the
soldiers."
To a torrent of questions as to how the news had first come, how the
menace lowered, what disposition for defense the stationers could make,
the little girl seemed bewildered. She only answered definitely and very
indifferently that they could easily get Ralph Emsden if they would go
now to Blue Lick, and take his hide,--that is, if the French and their
Choctaw Indians had not already possessed themselves of that valuable
integument,--as if this were their primal object.
"Why, God-a-mercy, child," cried the superintendent of the ranch, "this
news settles all scores; when it comes to a foreign foe the colonists
are brothers."
"And besides," admitted one of the most truculent of the cow-drivers,
"the cattle are all pretty well rounded in again; I doubt if more are
lost than the wolves would have pulled down anyhow.
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