"Just so!" and Lane rose lazily. "It's rather a pity you sent for me, because you have not had much for your money. Being rather pressed just now, I won't stay."
I had no intention of requesting him to do so, for the air seemed clearer without him, and presently Cotton returned. For the first time, I told him all my suspicions concerning Redmond, and he looked grave as he listened. "It would have saved some people sorrow if I could only have run that horse-leach in," he commented, gazing regretfully after the diminishing figure of the rider. "Yes; it's curious about Redmond. Lane was over at his place a little while before your accident, and I believe afterwards as well, and since then nobody has seen Redmond. I'll have a talk with Mackay, and put some of our men on his trail. If he's still on top of the prairie they'll find him."
Cotton rode away; and late that evening Steel returned from his own holding with a very grim face, while the eyes of his sister were suspiciously red.
"I'm to be sold up, and am turned out now," he said. "Lane, who won't wait any longer, is foreclosing, and he'll fix things so there will be no balance left. God knows what's to become of Sally and me."
"You need not trouble about Sally," the girl said, with a flash in her eyes. "We'll worry along somehow, and we'll live to see that devil sorry."
Practical counsel seemed the best sympathy, and after asking a few questions, I said: "This is going to be a grain-producing country, and there are plenty acres ready for breaking and horses idle at Crane Valley. When Lane seizes Gaspard's Trail, as he probably will, we must see what can be done with them on the share arrangement; and meantime, since I paid two hired men off, there is plenty for you to do here helping me."
Steel eventually agreed, and as soon as I was fit for the saddle I rode over to Mackay's quarters; but, though he stated that if Redmond were anywhere in the Territories he would sooner or later be found, nothing had so far resulted from his inquiries.
It was some weeks later, and towards the close of a sultry afternoon, when I rode homewards with Cotton and Steel towards the Sweetwater. We had much thunder that season, and though there had been a heavy storm the night before, a stagnant, oppressive atmosphere still hung over the prairie. It suited the somber mood of two of the party, while even Cotton seemed unusually subdued.