Women and children did not cross the plains in those days, nor could
public welfare allow that so valuable a piece of property as Aunty Boone
would be in the slave-market should be lost to commerce, and the storm
of protest that followed would have overcome a less determined man. It
was not on account of sympathy for the weak and defenseless that called
out all this abuse, but the lawless spirit that stirs up a mob on the
slightest excuse.

I slid away to the door, where, with Mat and Beverly, I watched Esmond
Clarenden, who was listening with his good-natured smile to all of that
loud street talk.

"No man's life is insurable in these troublesome times, with our troops
right now down in Mexico," a suave Southern trader urged. "Better sell
your slave and put that nice little gal in a boardin'-school somewhere
in the South."

"I'll give you a mighty good bargain for that wench, Clarenden. She
might be worth a clare fortune in New Orleans. What d'ye say to a cool
thousand?" another man declared, with a slow. Southern drawl.

Aunty Boone took the pipe from her lips and looked at the stranger.

"Y'would!" she grunted, stretching her big right hand across her lap,
like a huge paw with claws ready underneath.

"Them plains Injuns never was more _hostile_ than they air right now. I
just got in from the mountains an' I know. An' they're bein' set on by
more _hostile_ Mexican devils, and political _intrigs_," a bearded