CHAPTER XI

THE CATTLE BRAND

We were saved, but my heart swelled with grief and anger, as, creeping
out from our shelter, I stood up and looked down on what had so lately
been a field of waving grain, ripe for the harvest.

Torn, trampled, beaten into the earth, scarcely a stalk was left
standing, and the corn field was in no better shape. Poor little
Ralph, with a dim, childish comprehension of the calamity that had
befallen us, was crying bitterly. Lifting him to my shoulder I started
toward the house, the desolated fields were out of sight behind us,
when Jessie came hurrying up the trail.

"What has happened?" she inquired anxiously. "I thought I heard Ralph
scream, and I am sure I heard you giving the round-up call; I thought
I heard cattle, too." She took Ralph, who was still crying, from my
shoulder and carried him in her arms. "Don't cry, precious," she said.
"Tell sister what has frightened you?"

"'Essie frowed all 'e 'ackburries at 'e bad tow, an' 'e bad tows
walked all over our pitty torn 'talks, so 'ey don't 'tan' up no more,"
he sobbed incoherently. Jessie looked at me with dilating eyes. We
were by this time entering the house, where I was not surprised to
find Mrs. Horton again awaiting us, for I had already observed the
Horton equipage in the front yard.

"Leslie!" Jessie was exclaiming, as we crossed the threshold. "Don't
tell me that the cattle have been in our fields; it isn't possible!"

"I guess it is," I said recklessly, unreasonably resenting our
neighbor's placid face. "If you find it hard to believe, just go and
look for yourself. There isn't a stalk of grain left standing," and I
proceeded to give the details of my late adventure and experience.

Jessie seemed like one dazed. She sank into a chair, holding Ralph,
who was willing, for once, to be held tightly in her arms, and spoke
never a word.

"What I want to know," cried Mrs. Horton, her face fiery with
indignation, "is, whose cattle were they? It's a low shameful, mean,
trick; I don't care who did it! Oh, to think of all you've had to
suffer, and of all that those fields of grain stood for to you, and
then to think--I don't feel as if I could hear it!" she broke off,
abruptly, her voice choking. I, avoiding her eyes, looked out of the
window through which I saw, indeed, only the trampled fields,
invisible to any but the mind's eye from that window.

"I hope you can collect damages," Mrs. Horton broke out again; "and