Torrance looked at her in astonishment. "He brought back my letter to the Sheriff?" "Yes. There was nothing else a man of that kind could have done." Torrance stood silent for a space, and then, stooping, picked up a half-burnt paper from the hearth, glanced at it with a curious expression, and flung it into the embers. When it had charred away he turned to Miss Schuyler. "You have shown yourself a good friend," he said gravely. "Still, you may understand the other side of the question if you listen to me." He turned and pointed to an empty tin case, and the charred papers in the hearth. "That is the end of the plans of half a lifetime--and they were all for Hetty. I had no one else after her mother was taken from me, and I scraped the dollars together for her, that she should have what her heart could wish for, and the enjoyments her parents had never known; and while I did so I and the others built up the prosperity of the cattle country. We fed the railroads and built the towns, and when we would have rested, Larry and his friends took hold. You see what they have made of it--a great industry ruined, the country under martial law, its commerce crippled, and the proclamation that can only mean disaster to us hung out everywhere. My daughter turned against me--and nothing left me but to go out, a wanderer! Larry has done his work thoroughly, and you would have me make friends with him?" Miss Schuyler made a little sympathetic gesture, for he seemed very jaded and weary. "No," she said. "One could not expect too much, but Hetty is your daughter, the only one you have, and for her mother's sake you will at least do nothing that would embitter her life." Torrance looked at her with a curious smile. "There is nothing I could do. Larry and the rabble are our masters now; but I will see her once before I go away. Is there any other thing--that would be a little easier--I could do to please you?" "Yes. You could release Mr. Breckenridge." Torrance turned and struck a bell. "I had almost forgotten him. Will you wait and see me do what you have asked me?" In a few minutes more Breckenridge was ushered in. He smiled at Miss Schuyler, and made Torrance a slight, dignified salutation. Torrance acknowledged it courteously. "You have yourself to blame for any inconvenience you have been put to, Mr. Breckenridge," he said. "You conspired to assist your partner in an undertaking you could not expect me to forgive." "No," said Breckenridge. "I offered to ride with Larry, and he would not have me. I went without him knowing it and made my plans myself?" "This is the truth?" Breckenridge straightened himself and looked at Torrance with a little flash in his eye. "You must take my word--I shall not substantiate it. If you had had an army corps of cut-throats ready to do what you told them that night, Larry would have gone alone." Torrance nodded gravely. "It is taken. At least, you bluffed us into following you."