venture in his blue eyes, although his only weapon was a single-barreled, breech-loading shotgun of the type called Zulu.
Eleven men gathered at the crossing of the old cattle trail, including Wallace and Waco, within an hour of the first appeal for help. They were all fairly well mounted; all were accustomed to the saddle, and if luck was with them they could make the thirty-two miles, more or less, between that point and Drumwell in five hours. There was scarcely a man among them that had not suffered some insult or humiliation at the hands of the Drumwell roughs. One's wife had been affronted; another's daughter. One had lost a son in a gambling brawl there; all were bitter against the conditions which made the town a place to be avoided.
Added to this was the recent terrifying ordeal they had experienced in being stripped of the very means of existence by the thieves from the Cherokee trails. Simpson had restored their property, by a feat of admirable heroism in their eyes; their gratitude was as great as their relief, and most of them were steady brave men who had faced death in more than one guise before that day.
Eudora would have gone with them, but Waco, who had taken the lead by a kind of inherent generalship which all appeared to recognize, lifted his hand sternly and said that was where she turned back. But he lowred his hand slowly, until his finger-tips touched her hair as in a benediction. Then he wheeled his horse, set himself at the head of the little force, Wallace tight beside him, and the girl was alone at the crossing of the trails, the cold track of tears on her white face.
