"Don't count too much on that," said Boone. "If you have no documentary evidence, even the actual owners might have difficulty in substantiating your claim. Now you see why I demanded a written agreement. It strikes me that in this case possession is everything."
"If I can keep whole in body until sundown, possession will remain with us," I said. "But there is no time to spare for talking. It will take hours to bring my neighbors up."
"Of course you arranged with Haldane to send you assistance?" said Boone; and hurled out an expletive when I answered stolidly: "That is just what I did not do. I do not even know whether he is at home. It is not necessary to drag all one's friends into a private quarrel."
"Goodness knows why you are so unwarrantably proud, and it is not worth while wasting time over that question now," said Boone. "Roll up your thick-headed stockmen. I'm going on to Bonaventure for the one man whose presence would be worth a hundred of them."
He lashed his horses as he spoke, and I roused myself to action, while long before his wagon dipped over the rim of the prairie Thorn had set out at a gallop to bring our neighbors in. A neighbor may dwell from one to ten leagues away in that country. This left only Steel and me to hold Crane Valley, with the exception of Sally. The girl absolutely refused to leave us, and it may not have been by accident that several heavy-handled brushes lay convenient beside the stove. The stock were driven off as far as we dare follow them across the prairie, and we hoped they would remain unseen in a hollow; the working horses were made fast in the stable; and when a few head of pedigree cattle had been secured in the corral, we could only sit down and wait the siege.
I spent several hours perched most uncomfortably on the roof with a pair of glasses; but though the day was clear, nothing appeared above the rim of the prairie. It spread all around the horizon in low rolling rises, empty and desolate. My eyes grew dazzled, the continued use of the glasses produced a distressful headache; but still nothing moved on either rise or level, and it was a relief when at last Sally hailed me: "Come down and get your dinner; scenery won't feed anybody."