"Who are you, friends?" The shrewd grey eyes were observing them
collectively, compellingly.
"My name is McPherson."
"Mine is Horton."
"Never mind the names," shortly. "I can learn them later."
"We're homesteaders." Again it was stubby, sandy-whiskered McPherson who
took the lead.
"From where?"
"Sioux Falls."
"Any news?"
Curt as the question came the answer, the tale of massacre now a day
old.
"And the rest of your settlement--where are they?"
McPherson told him.
"They all went, you say?"
For the first time the Scotchman hesitated. "All except one family," he
qualified.
"There was but one family there." Landor was not observing the company
collectively now. "You mean to tell me Sam Rowland did not go?"
"Yes."
"That you--men here went off and left him and his wife and little girl
alone at this time?" The questioner's eyelids were closing ominously.
"You come here with that story and ask me to let you inside?"
McPherson was no coward. His short legs spread belligerently, his
shoulders squared.
"We're here," he announced laconically.
"I observe." Just a shade closer came the tightened eyelids. "Moreover,
strange to say, I'm glad to see you." He leaned forward involuntarily;
his breath came quick. "It gives me the opportunity, sir, to tell you to
your face that you're a damned coward." In spite of an obvious effort at
repression, the great veins of the speaker's throat swelled visibly.
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