The Frontiersmen | Page 9

was not a horn
nor a hoof to be seen when I fired."
Mivane turned to "X" with both hands outstretched as much as to say,
"Take that for your quietus!" and shouldering his stick, which had an
ivory head and a sword within, strode off after his jaunty fashion as if
there were no more to be said.
It was now Alexander Anxley's turn to sustain the questioning clamor.
"I will not deny"--"That is, I said"--"I meant to say,"--but these
qualifications were lost in the stress of Emsden's voice, once more
rising stridently.
"Not a horn nor a hoof to be seen till after I had fired. I didn't know
there were any cow-pens about--didn't use to be till after you had
crossed the Keowee. But if there had been, is a man to see a wolf pull
down a yearling, say, and not fire a rifle because Madam Cow will take
the high-strikes or Cap'n Bull will go on the rampage? Must I wait till I
can make a leg,"--he paused to execute an exaggerated obeisance,
graceful enough despite its mockery,--"'Under your favor, Cap'n Bull,'
and 'With your ladyship's permission,' before I kill the ravening brute,
big enough to pull down a yearling? Don't talk to me! Don't talk to
me!" He held out the palms of his hands toward them in interdiction,
and made as if to go--yet went not!
For a reactionary sentiment toward him had set in, and there were those
fair-minded enough, although with their little all at stake, to admit that
he had acted with reasonable prudence, and that it was only an unlucky
chance which had sent the panic through the herds with such disastrous
effect.
"The herders should not stop the pack-train, if I had my will," declared
one of the settlers with a belligerent note.
"No, no," proclaimed another; "not if it takes all the men at Blue Lick
Station to escort it!"
"Those blistered redcoats at Fort Prince George are a deal too handy to
be called on by such make-bates as the herders on the Keowee River."

"Fudge! The commandant would never let a bayonet stir."
"Gad! I'd send an ambassador for an ambassador. Tit for tat," declared
Emsden. "I'd ask 'em what's gone with all our horses,--last seen in those
desolated cow-pens,--that the voice of mourning is now lifted about!"
There was a chuckle of sheer joy, so abrupt and unexpected that it rose
with a clatter and a cackle of delight, and culminated in a yell of
pleasurable derision.
Now everybody knew that the horses bought in that wild country would,
unless restrained, return every spring to "their old grass," as it was
called,--to the places where they had formerly lived. When this annual
hegira took place in large numbers, some permanent losses were sure to
ensue. The settlers at Blue Lick had experienced this disaster, and had
accepted it as partly the result of their own lack of precaution during
the homing fancy of the horses. But since the herders manifested so
little of the suavity that graces commercial intercourse, and as some of
the horses had been seen in their cow-pens, it was a happy thought to
feather the arrow with this taunt.
"And who do you suppose will promise to carry such a message to
those desperate, misguided men, riding hither an' thither, searching this
wild and woeful wilderness for hundreds o' head o' cattle lost like
needles in a hayrick, and eat by wolves an' painters by this time?"
demanded "X" derisively.
"I promise, I promise!--and with hearty good will, too!" declared
Emsden. "And I'll tell 'em that we are coming down soon armed to the
teeth to guard our pack-train, and fight our way through any resistance
to its passage through the country on the open trading-path. And I'll
acquaint the commandant of Fort Prince George of the threats of the
herders against the Blue Lick Stationers, and warn him how he attempts
to interfere with the liberties of the king's loyal subjects in their
peaceful vocations."
Thus Emsden gayly volunteered for the mission.
The next morning old Richard Mivane, thinking of it, shook his head
over the fire,--and not only once, but shook it again, which was a great
deal of trouble for him to take. Having thus exerted his altruistic
interest to the utmost, Richard Mivane relapsed into his normal
placidity. He leaned back in his arm-chair, the only one at the station,
fingering his gold-lined silver snuffbox, with its chain and ladle, his

eyes dwelling calmly on the fire, and his thoughts busy with far away
and long ago.
He was old enough now to enter into the past as a sort of heritage, a
promised land which memory had glozed with a glamour that can never
shine upon the