human
Where are they, do you say?
gpt
They're at --the old man coughed hard--
human
What are they doing there?
gpt
Waitin' till spring, when they'll fetch their cattle up an' settle there.
human
They want--Lydia--to keep house for them?
gpt
Yes, God's sake, that's it! An' they want Liddy to marry a devil called Borotte, with a thousand cattle or so--Pito the courier told me yesterday. Pito saw her, an' he said she was white like a sheet, an' called out to him as he went by. Only half a lung I got, an' her boneset and camomile 'd save it for a bit, mebbe--mebbe!
human
It's clear, said Halby,
gpt
Tonnerre, what a thinker!
human
She is of age?
gpt
She's twenty-one,
human
Old enough to set the world right,
gpt
She was forced away, she regarded you as her natural protector, she believed you her father: they broke the law,
human
There was Moses, and Solomon, and Caesar, and Socrates, and now....!
gpt
I'm expected elsewhere, he said at last.
human
I'm only one man, yet I wish I could go to-day--even alone. But--
gpt
But you have a heart, said Pierre.
human
How wonderful--a heart! And there's the half a lung, and the boneset and camomile tea, and the blister, and the girl with an eye like a spot of rainbow, and the sacred law in a Remington rifle! Well, well! And to do it in the early morning--to wait in the shelter of the trees till some go to look after the horses, then enter the house, arrest those inside, and lay low for the rest.
gpt
It isn't wise to go alone, for if there's trouble and I should go down, who's to tell the truth? Two could do it; but one--no, it isn't wise, though it would look smart enough.
human
Who said to go alone?
gpt
I have no men.
human
Throng has a good Snider there, he said.
gpt
Bosh! Throng can't go.
human
If it wasn't--only-half a lung, and I could carry the boneset 'long with us.
gpt
Sit down; don't be a fool, Throng, he said. Then he turned to Halby:
human
You're a magistrate-- make me a special constable; I'll go, monsieur le capitaine--of no company.
gpt
It is not for you. I am sick for adventure, and then there is mademoiselle--such a finger she has for a ven'son pudding.
human
That's your commission as a special constable, he said,
gpt
It has the Government mark. But you'd better bring Throng's rifle too.
human
Tell Liddy, he said,
gpt
She cut it too young; but she had the nerve! When do you start, captain? It's an eighty-mile ride.
human
At once, was the reply.
gpt
We can sleep to-night in the Jim-a-long-Jo (a hut which the Company had built between two distant posts),
human
I have my black Tophet. He'll travel with your roan as on one snaffle- bar. That roan--you know where he come from?
gpt
From the Dolright stud, over the Border.
human
That's wrong. He come from Greystop's paddock, where my Tophet was foaled; they are brothers. Yours was stole and sold to the Gover'ment; mine was bought by good hard money. The law the keeper of stolen goods, eh? But these two will go cinch to cinch all the way, like two brothers --like you and me.
gpt
Brothers-in-law for a day or two,