“Lord, you can’t expect me to be accountable for what other men do. They came along to be company an’ the temptation was too great. One pore old wounded man couldn’t hold ’em back when they had once made up their minds. It was as much as my life was worth to battle with two great, powerful men. They knowed nobody was here to foller ’em and they saw a chanst of bettering therselves. I couldn’t do nothin’, yet here I lay takin’ the brunt of it all.” All this was amazing to Louisa. She hardly knew what to believe. He spoke so plausibly, in such an injured tone, that she began to feel herself in the wrong. “Moreover,” Cyrus Sparks went on, “I’d like to know what right any one has to Stephen Hayward’s property. Ef he’s dead an’ gone why don’t his heirs come forrard? Ef he ain’t got no heirs one has as much right as another and I can’t see that I’d be any more stealin’ than John Ross is. ’Tain’t his, and if it ain’t mine whose is it? Not John Ross’s.” This logic added to Louisa’s bewilderment. She felt as if the world were suddenly turned upside down. All her preconceived ideas were overthrown and she looked at the man in helpless amazement. “Now, you see then, I’m the fellow that’s got the law on my side. I’m taking peaceable possession of my property and first thing I get a bullet in me.” He edged nearer Louisa. “Now, I ain’t goin’ to be hard on nobody, especially on no women folks. You just leave me loose an’ come go home with me and I’ll promise not to prosecute none of ’em. I see that little gal don’t know she was actin’ agin the law and I’d hate to see her in jail, so I’ll keep quiet if you will. What d’ye say? Is it a bargain?” Poor Louisa, this turning of the tables was too much for her loyalty and she murmured a faint: “Yes.” “Ye see,” continued Cyrus pressing his advantage, “I ain’t got no witnesses nor no writin’ to prove I bought that hoss often Steve, but ef he was here he’d tell ye it was all right. Now, as I ain’t got no guarantee, an’ nobody knows about the transaction, these fellers about here might think I really did try to steal him and you know what would happen ef ye give me up. You know I wouldn’t stand no kind of chanst; I’d git strung up instid of dyin’ fer my country or in my bed like an honest man. You’d hate to hev ’em say your dad died like a horse thief, now wouldn’t ye, Lou? An’ him innercent, too.” “Oh, it would be dreadful,” murmured Louisa. “Thought you’d feel as I do about it. So then, I’ll be generous an’ not press my claim to the hoss, not yet, anyhow. I’ll jest leave him here for the present, and if Steve never comes back to prove my word is true, why let these people keep him fer what they’ve done fer you.”