CHAPTER 10
The sleep of the night seemed to blot out the excitement of the preceding
evening. A bright sun, a cool stir of air, brought in the next morning,
and certainly calamity had never seemed farther from the Cornish ranch
than it did on this day. All through the morning people kept arriving in
ones and twos. Every buckboard on the place was commissioned to haul the
guests around the smooth roads and show them the estate; and those who
preferred were furnished with saddle horses from the stable to keep their
own mounts fresh for their return trip. Vance took charge of the wagon
parties; Terence himself guided the horsemen, and he rode El Sangre, a
flashing streak of blood red.
The exercise brought the color to his face; the wind raised his spirits;
and when the gathering at the house to wait for the big dinner began, he
was as gay as any.
"That's the way with young people," Elizabeth confided to her brother.
"Trouble slips off their minds."
And then the second blow fell, the blow on which Vance had counted for
his great results. No less a person than Sheriff Joe Minter galloped up
and threw his reins before the veranda.
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