Maggie and Alvino had the ranch to themselves when the military party from the upper valley arrived, Mrs. Chadron and Nola having driven to Meander that morning. It had been their intention to return that evening, Maggie said. Mrs. Chadron had gone after chili peppers, and other things, but principally chili peppers. There was not one left in the house, and the mistress could not live without them, any more than fire could burn without wood.

Dusk had settled when they reached the ranch, and night thickened fast. The lieutenant dropped two men at the corral gate—her guard, Frances understood—and went back to his task of watching for armed men upon the highroads.

Under the direction of Frances, Maggie had placed a cot in Mrs. Chadron’s favored sitting-room with the fireplace. There Macdonald lay in clean sheets, a blaze on the hearth, and Maggie was washing his wound with hot water, groaning in the pity which is the sweetest part of the women of her homely race.

“I think that he will live, miss,” she said hopefully. “See, he has a strong breath on my damp hand—I can feel it like a little wind.”

“I am afraid his breath will fail soon, Maggie.”

“No, if they live the first hour after being shot, they get well,” Maggie persisted, with apparent sincerity. “Here, put your hand on his heart—do you feel it? What a strong heart he has to live so well! what a strong, strong heart!”

“Yes, a strong, strong heart!” Tears were falling for him now that there was none to see them, scalding their way down her pale cheeks.

“He must have carried something sacred with him to give him such strength, such life.”

“He carried honor,” said Frances, more to herself than to Maggie, doubting that she would understand.

“And love, maybe?” said Maggie, with soft word, soft upward-glancing of her feeling dark eyes.

“Who can tell?” Frances answered, turning her head away.

Maggie drew the sheet over him and stood looking down into his severe white face.

“If he could speak he would ask for his mother, and for water then, and after that the one he loves. That is the way a man’s mind carries those three precious things when death blows its breath in his face.”

“I do not know,” said Frances, slowly.

“I will bring you some food,” said Maggie. “To give him life out of your life you must be strong.”

Frances started out of her sleep in the rocking-chair before the fire. She had turned the lamp low, but there was a flare of light on her face. Her faculties were so deeply sunk in that insidious sleep which had crept upon her like a bindweed upon wheat that she struggled to rise from it. She sprang up, her mind groping, remembering that there was something for which she was under heavy responsibility, but unable for a moment to bring it back to its place.

Nola was in the door with a candle, shading the flame from her eyes with her hand. Her hair was about her shoulders, her feet were bare under the hem of her long dressing-robe. She was staring, her lips were open, her breath was quick, as if she had arrived after a run.

“Is he—alive?” she whispered.

“Why should you come to ask? What is his life to you?” asked Frances, sorrowfully bitter.

“Oh, Maggie just woke and came up to tell me, mother doesn’t know—she’s just gone to bed. Isn’t it terrible, Frances!”

Nola spoke distractedly, as if in great agony, or great fear.

“He can’t harm any of you now, you’re safe.” Frances was hard and scornful. She turned from Nola and laid her hand on Macdonald’s brow, drawing her breath with a relieved sigh when she felt the warmth of life still there.

“Oh, Frances, Frances!” Nola moaned, with expression of despair, “isn’t this terrible!”

“If you mean it’s terrible to have him here, I can’t help it. I’m a prisoner, here against my will. I couldn’t leave him out there alone to die.”

Nola lowered her candle and stared at Frances, her eyes big and blank of everything but a wild expression that Frances had read as fear.

“Will he die?” she whispered.

“Yes; you are to have your heartless way at last. He will die, and his blood will be on this house, never to be washed away!”

“Why didn’t you come back when we called you—both of you?” Nola drew near, reaching out an appealing hand. Frances shrank from her, to bend quickly over Macdonald when he groaned and moved his head.

“Put out that light—it’s in his eyes!” she said.

Nola blew out the candle and came glimmering into the room in her soft white gown.

“They paid for that!” said Frances, a little lift of triumph in her voice.

“Yes, but they—”

“Chance didn’t do it, I tell you! If he says he did it he lies! It was—somebody else.”

“The soldiers?”

“No, not the soldiers.”

“I thought maybe—I saw one of them on guard in front of the house as we came in.”

“He’s guarding me, I’m under arrest, I tell you. The soldiers have nothing to do with him.”

Nola stood looking down at Macdonald, who was deathly white in the weak light of the low, shaded lamp. With a little timid outreaching, a little starting and drawing back, she touched his forehead, where a thick lock of his shaggy hair fell over it, like a sheaf of ripe wheat burst from its band.

“Oh, it breaks my heart to see him dying—it—breaks—my—heart!” she sobbed.

“You struck him! You’re not—you’re not fit to touch him—take your hand away!”

Frances pushed her hand away roughly. Nola drew back, drenched with a sudden torrent of penitential tears.

“Oh, and you struck him, you struck him like a dog!”

“I’ve suffered more for that than I hurt him, Frances—it’s been like fire in my heart!”

“I pray to God it will burn up your wicked pride!”

“We believed him, mother and I believed him, in spite of what Chance said. Oh, if you’d only come back then, Frances, this thing wouldn’t have happened!”

“I can’t see what good that would have done,” said Frances, wearily; “there are others who don’t believe him. They’d have got him some time, just like they got him—in a coward’s underhanded way, never giving him a chance for his life.”

“We went to Meander this morning thinking we’d catch father there before he left. We wanted to tell him about Mr. Macdonald, and get him to drop this feud. If we could have seen him I know he’d have done what we asked, for he’s got the noblest heart in the world!”

Her heart was as unstable as mercury, it seemed. Frances despised her for her fickleness, scorned her for the mean face of friendship over the treachery of her soul. Not that she regretted Major King. Nola was free to take him and make the most of him. But she was not to come in as a wedge to rive her from this man.

Let her pay her debt of gratitude in something else than love. Living or dead, Alan Macdonald was not for Nola Chadron. Her penance and her tears, her meanings and sobs and her broken heart, even that, if it should come, could not pay for the humiliation and the pain which that house had brought upon him.

“When did it happen?” asked Nola, the gust of her weeping past.

“This morning, early.”

“Who did it—how did it happen? You got away from Chance—you said it wasn’t Chance.”

“We got away from that gang yesterday; this happened this morning, miles from that place.”

“Who was it? Why don’t you tell me, Frances?”

“The name of the man who shot him is a curse and a blight on this land, a mockery of every holy human thought. I’ll not speak it.”

Nola stared at her, horror speaking from her eyes. “He must be a monster!”

“He is the lowest of the accursed—a coward!” Frances said.

Nola shuddered, standing silently by the couch a little while. Then: “But I want to help you, Frances, if you’ll let me.”

“There’s nothing that you can do. I’m waiting for Mrs. Mathews and the doctor from the agency.”

“You can go up and rest until they come, Frances, you look so tired and pale. I’ll watch by him—you can tell me what to do, and I’ll call you when they come.”

“No; I’ll stay until—I’ll stay here.”

“Oh, please go, Frances; you’re nearly dead on your feet.”

“Why do you want me to leave him?” Frances asked, in a flash of jealous suspicion. She turned to Nola, as if to search out her hidden intention.

“You were asleep in your chair when I came in, Frances,” Nola chided her, gently.

“If he hadn’t been so proud, if he’d only stooped to explain things to us, to talk to us, even, this could have been avoided, Frances.”

“What could he have said?” Frances asked, wondering, indeed, what explanation could have lessened his offense in Saul Chadron’s eyes.

“If I had known him, I would have understood,” Nola replied, vaguely, in soft low voice, as if communing with herself.

“You! Well, perhaps—perhaps even you would have understood.”

“Look—he moved!”

“Sh-h-h! your talking disturbs him, Nola. Go to bed—you can’t help me any here.”

“And leave him all to you!”

The words flashed from Nola, as if they had sprung out of her mouth before her reason had given them permission to depart.

“Of course with me; he’s mine!”

“If he’s going to die, Frances, can’t I share him with you till the end—can’t I have just a little share in the care of him here with you?”

Nola laid her hand on Frances’ arm as she pleaded, turning her white face appealingly in the dim light.

“Don’t talk that way, girl!” said Frances, roughly; “you have no part in him at all—he is nothing to you.”

“He is all to me—everything to me! Oh, Frances! If you knew, if you knew!”

“What? If I knew what?” Frances caught her arm in fierce grip, and shook her savagely.

“Don’t—don’t—hurt me, Frances!” Nola cringed and shrank away, and lifted her arms as if to ward a blow.

“What did you mean by that? Tell me—tell me!”

“Oh, the way it came to me, the way it came to me as he carried me in his arms and sang to me so I wouldn’t be afraid!” moaned Nola, her face hidden in her hands. “I never knew before what it was to care for anybody that way—I never, never knew before!”

“You can’t have this man, nor any share in him, living or dead! I gave up Major King to you; be satisfied.”

“Oh, Major King!”

“Poor shadow that he is in comparison with a man, he’ll have to serve for you. Living or dead, I tell you, this man is mine. Now go!”

Nola was shaking again with sudden gust of weeping. She had sunk to the floor at the head of the couch, a white heap, her bare arms clasping her head.

“It breaks my heart to see him die!” she moaned, rocking herself in her grief like a child.

“Get up!” Frances spoke sternly—“and go to your room.”

“He must not be allowed to die—he must be saved!” Nola reached out her hands, standing now on her knees, as if to call back his struggling soul.

“Belated tears will not save him. Get up—it’s time for you to go.”

Nola bent forward suddenly, her hair sweeping the wounded man’s face, her lips near his brow. Frances caught her with a sound in her throat like a growl, and flung her back.

“You’ll not kiss him—you’ll never kiss him!” she said.

Nola sprang up, not crying now, but hot with sudden anger.

“If you were out of the way he’d love me!”

“Love you! you little cat!”

“Yes, he’d love me—I’d take him away from you like I’ve taken other men! He’d love me, I tell you—he’d love me!”

Frances looked at her steadily a moment, contempt in her eloquent face. “If you have no other virtue in you, at least have some respect for the dying,” she said.

“He’s not dying, he’ll not die!” Nola hotly denied. “He’ll live—live to love me!”

“Go! This room—”

“It’s my house; I’ll go and come in it when I please.”

“I’m a prisoner in it, not a guest. I’ll force you out of the room if I must. This disgraceful behavior must end, and end this minute. Are you going?”

“If you were out of the way, he’d love me,” said Nola from the door, spiteful, resentful, speaking slowly, as if pressing each word into Frances’ brain and heart; “if you were out of the way.”

When the doctor from the agency arrived at dawn, hours after Mrs. Mathews, he found everything done for the wounded man that skill and experience could suggest. Mrs. Mathews had carried instruments, antiseptics, bandages, with her, and she had no need to wait for anybody’s directions in their use. So the doctor, who had been reinforced by the same capable hands many a time before, took a cup of hot coffee and rode home.

Mrs. Mathews moved about as quietly as a nun, and with that humility and sense of self-effacement that comes of penances and pains, borne mainly for others who have fallen with bleeding feet beside the way.

She was not an old woman, only as work and self-sacrifice had aged her. Her abundant black hair—done up in two great braids which hung in front of her shoulders, Indian-wise, and wrapped at their ends with colored strings—was salted over with gray, but her beautiful small hands were as light and swift as any girl’s. Good deeds had blessed them with eternal youth, it seemed.

When the doctor had come and gone, Mrs. Mathews pressed Frances to retire and sleep. She spoke with soft clearness, none of that hesitation in her manner that Frances had marked on the day that they rode up and surrounded her where the Indians were waiting their rations of beef.

“You know how it happened—who did it?” Frances asked. She was willing to leave him with her, indeed, but reluctant to go until she had given expression to a fear that hung over her like a threat.

“Banjo told me,” Mrs. Mathews said, nodding her graceful little head.

“I’m afraid that when Chadron comes home and finds him here, he’ll throw him out to die,” Frances whispered. “I’ve been keeping Mr. Macdonald’s pistols ready to—to—make a fight of it, if necessary. Maybe you could manage it some other way.”

Frances was on her knees beside her new friend, her anxiety speaking from her tired eyes, full of their shadows of pain. Mrs. Mathews drew her close, and smoothed back Frances’ wilful, redundant hair with soothing touch. For a little while she said nothing, but there was much in her delicate silence that told she understood.

Frances went away assured, and stole softly up the stairs. The sun was just under the hill; Mrs. Chadron would be stirring soon. Nola was up already, Frances heard with surprise as she passed her door, moving about her room with quick step. She hesitated there a moment, thinking to turn back and ask Mrs. Mathews to deny her the hospital room. But such a request would seem strange, and it would be difficult to explain. She passed on into the room that she had lately occupied. Soothed by her great confidence in Mrs. Mathews, she fell asleep, her last waking hope being that when she stood before Alan Macdonald’s couch again it would be to see him smile.

Frances woke toward the decline of day, with upbraidings for having yielded to nature’s ministrations for so long. Still, everything must be progressing well with Alan Macdonald, or Mrs. Mathews would have called her. She regretted that she hadn’t something to put on besides her torn and soiled riding habit to cheer him with the sight of when he should open his eyes to smile.

But there was nothing ridiculous in the coil of serene brown hair drawn low against a white neck, nor in the ripples of it at the temples, nor in the stately seriousness of the face that it shadowed and adorned. Frances Landcraft was right, among thousands who were wrong in her generation, in her opinion of what made her fairer in the eyes of men.

Her hand was on the door when a soft little step, like a wind in grass, came quickly along the hall, and a light hand struck a signal on the panel. Frances knew that it was Mrs. Mathews before she flung the door open and disclosed her. She was dressed to take the road again, and Frances drew back when she saw that, her blood falling away from her heart. She believed that he stood in need of her gentle ministrations no longer, and that she had come to tell her that he was dead.

Mrs. Mathews read her thought in her face, and shook her head with an assuring smile. She entered the room, still silent, and closed the door.

“No, he is far from dead,” she said.

“Then why—why are you leaving?”

The color swept back over Frances’ face, and ran down to hide in her bosom, like a secret which the world was not to see. Her heart leaped to hear that Maggie had been wrong in her application of the rule that applies to men in general when death is blowing its breath in their faces.

“But that little Nola isn’t competent to take care of him—she’ll kill him if she’s left there with him alone!”

“With kindness, then,” said Mrs. Mathews, not smiling now, but shaking her head in deprecation. “A surgeon is here, sent back by Major King, he told me, and he has taken charge of Mr. Macdonald, along with Miss Chadron and her mother. I have been dismissed, and you have been barred from the room where he lies. There’s a soldier guarding the door to keep you away from his side.”

“That’s Nola’s work,” Frances nodded, her indignation hot in her cheek, “she thinks she can batter her way into his heart if she can make him believe that I am neglecting him, that I have gone away.”

“Rest easy, my dear, sweet child,” counseled Mrs. Mathews, her hand on Frances’ shoulder. “Mr. Macdonald will get well, and there is only one door to his heart, and somebody that I know is standing in that.”

“But he—he doesn’t understand; he’ll think I’ve deserted him!” Frances spoke with trembling lips, tears darkling in her eyes.

“He knows how things stand; I had time to tell him that before they ousted me. I’d have taken time to tell him, even if I’d had to—pinch somebody’s ear.”

The soft-voiced little creature laughed when she said that. Frances felt her breath go deeper into her lungs with the relief of this assurance, and the threatening tears came falling over her fresh young cheeks. But they were tears of thankfulness, not of suspense or pain.

Frances did not trouble the soldier at the door to exercise his unwelcome and distasteful authority over her. But she saw that he was there, indeed, as she went out to give Mrs. Mathews farewell at the door.

Nola came pattering to her as she turned back in the house again to find Maggie, for her young appetite was clamoring. Nola’s eyes were round, her face set in an expression of shocked protest.

“Isn’t this an outrage, this high-handed business of Major King’s?” She ran up all flushed and out of breath, as if she had been wrestling with her indignation and it had almost obtained the upper hand.

“What fresh tyranny is he guilty of?” Frances inquired, putting last night’s hot words and hotter feelings behind her.

“Mrs. Mathews told me. At least you could have allowed her to stay.”

“I?” Nola’s eyes seemed to grow. She gazed and stared, injury, disbelief, pain, in her mobile expression. “Why, Frances, I didn’t have a thing to do with it, not a thing! Mother and I protested against this military invasion of our house, but protests were useless. The country is under martial law, Doctor Shirley says.”

“How did Major King know that Mr. Macdonald had been brought here? He rode away without giving any instructions for his disposal or care. I believe he wanted him to die there where he fell.”

“I don’t know how he came to hear it, unless the lieutenant here sent a report to him. But I ask you to believe me, Frances”—Nola put her hand on Frances’ arm in her old wheedling, stroking way—“when I tell you I hadn’t anything to do with it. In spite of what I said last night, I hadn’t. I was wild and foolish last night, dear; I’m sorry for all of that.”

“Never mind,” Frances said.

“Don’t you worry, we’ll take care of him, mother and I. Major King’s orders are that you’re not to leave this house, but I tell you, Frances, if I wanted to go home I’d go!”

“So would I,” returned Frances, with more meaning in her manner of speaking than in her words. “Does Major King’s interdiction extend to the commissary? Am I going to be allowed to eat?”

“Maggie’s got it all ready; I ran up to call you.” Nola slipped her arm round Frances’ waist and led her toward the kitchen, where Maggie had the table spread. “You’ll not mind the kitchen? The house is so upset by those soldiers in it that we have no privacy left.”

“Prisoners and pensioners should eat in the kitchen,” Frances returned, trying to make a better appearance of friendliness for Nola than she carried in her heart.

Maggie was full of apologies for the poor service and humble surroundings. “It is the doings of miss,” she whispered, in her native sibilant Mexican, when Nola found an excuse to leave Frances alone at her meal.

“It doesn’t matter, Maggie; you eat in the kitchen, both of us are women.”

“Yes, and some saints’ images are made of lead, some of gold.”

“But they are all saints’ images, Maggie.”

“The kitchen will be brighter from this day,” Maggie declared, in the extravagant way of her race, only meaning more than usually carries in a Castilian compliment.

“Ah, miss!” sighed Maggie, her hands clasped as in adoration, “no wonder that he lives with a well in his body. He has much to live for, and that is the truth from a woman’s lips.”

“It is worth more because of its rarity, then, Maggie,” Frances said, warming over with blushes at this ingenuous praise. “Do they let you go into his room?”

“The door is open to the servant,” Maggie replied, with solemn nod.

“It is closed to me—did you know?”

“I know. Miss tells you it is orders from some captain, some general, some soldier I do not know what”—a sweeping gesture to include all soldiers, great and small and far away—“but that is a lie. It came out of her own heart. She is a traitor to friendship, as well as a thief.”

“Yes, I believed that from the beginning, Maggie.”

“This house of deceit is not a place for me, for even servant that I am, I am a true servant. But I will not lie for a liar, nor be traitor for one who deceives a friend. I shall go from here. Perhaps when you are married to Mr. Macdonald you will have room in your kitchen for me?”

“We must not build on shadows, Maggie.”

“If there is ever a home of my own—if it ever comes to that happiness—”

“God hasten the day!”

“Then there will be room for both of you, Maggie.”

Frances rose from the table, and stood looking though the window where the sun’s friendly hand had reached in to caress her a few minutes gone. There was no gleam of it now, only a dull redness on the horizon where it had fallen out of sight, the red of iron cooling upon the anvil.

“In four weeks he will be able to kneel at the altar with you,” said Maggie, making a clatter with the stove lids in her excitement, “and in youth that is only a day. And I have a drawn piece of fine linen, as white as your bosom, that you must wear over your heart on that day. It will bring you peace, far it was made by a holy sister and it has been blessed by the bishop at Guadalupe.”

“Thank you, Maggie. If that day ever comes for me, I will wear it.”

Maggie came nearer the window, concern in her homely face, and stood off a little respectful distance.

“You want to be with him, you should be there at his side, and I will open the door for you,” she said.

“You will?” Frances started hopefully.

“Once inside, no man would lift a hand to put you out.”

“But how am I going to get inside, Maggie, with that sentry at the door?”

“I have been thinking how it could be done, miss. Soon it will be dark, and with night comes fear. Miss is with him now; she is there alone.”

Frances turned to her, such pain in her face as if she had been stabbed.

“Why should you go over that again? I know it!” she said, crossly. “That has nothing to do with my going into the room.”

“It has much,” Maggie declared, whispering now, treasuring her plot. “The old one is upstairs, sleeping, and she will not wake until I shake her. Outside the soldiers make their fires and cook, and Alvino in the barn sings ‘La Golondrina’—you hear him?—for that is sad music, like his soul. Very well. You go to your room, but leave the door open to let a finger in. When it is just creeping dark, and the soldiers are eating, I will run in where the one sits beside the door. My hair will be flying like the mane of a wild mare, my eyes bi-i-i-g—so. In the English way I will shout ‘The rustlers, the rustlers! He ees comin’—help, help!’ When you hear this, fly to me, quick, like a soul set free. The soldier at the door will go to see; miss will come out; I will stand in the door, I will draw the key in my hand. Then you will fly to him, and lock the door!”

“Why, Maggie! what a general you are!”

“Under the couch where he lies,” Maggie hurried on, her dark eyes glowing with the pleasure of this manufactured romance, “are the revolvers which he wore, just where we placed them last night. I pushed them back a little, quite out of sight, and nobody knows. Strap the belt around your waist, and defy any power but death to move you from the man you love!”

“Maggie, you are magnificent!”

“No,” Maggie shook her head, sadly, “I am the daughter of a peon, a servant to bear loads. But”—a flash of her subsiding grandeur—“I would do that—ah, I would have done that in youth—for the man of my heart. For even a servant in the back of a house has a heart, dear miss.”

Frances took her work-rough hands in her own; she pressed back the heavy black hair—mark of a vassal race—from the brown forehead and looked tenderly into her eyes.

“You are my sister,” she said.

Poor Maggie, quite overcome by this act of tenderness, sank to her knees, her head bowed as if the bell had sounded the elevation of the host.

“What benediction!” she murmured.

“I will go now, and do as you have said.”

“When it is a little more dark,” said Maggie, softly, looking after her tenderly as she went away.

The joy of seeing him when consciousness flashed back into his shocked brain had been stolen from her by a trick. Nola had stood in her place then. She wondered if that slow smile had kindled in his eyes at the sight of her, or whether they had been shadowed with bewilderment and disappointment. It was a thing that she should never know.

She heard Mrs. Chadron leave her room and pass heavily downstairs. Hope sank lower as she descended; it seemed that their simple plot must fail. Well, she sighed, at the worst it could only fail. As she sat there waiting while twilight blended into the darker waters of night, she reflected the many things which had overtaken her in the two days past. Two incidents stood out above all the haste, confusion, and pain which gave her sharp regret. One was that her father had parted from her to meet his life’s heaviest disappointment with anger and unforgiving heart; the other that the shot which she had aimed at Saul Chadron had been cheated of its mark.

Of course there would be no trying out of Maggie’s scheme now. New developments must come of the arrival of Major King, perhaps her own removal to the post. Surely he could not sustain an excuse that she was dangerous to his military operations now.

Doors opened, and heavy feet passed the hall. Presently all was a tangle of voices there, greetings and warm words of welcome, and the sound of Mrs. Chadron weeping on her husband’s breast for joy at his return.

Nola’s light chatter rose out of the sound of the home-coming like a bright thread in a garment, and the genteel voice of Major King blended into the bustle of welcome with its accustomed suave placidity. Frances felt downcast and lonely as she listened to them, and the joyous preparations for refreshing the travelers which Mrs. Chadron was pushing forward. They had no regard, no thought it seemed, for the wounded man who lay with only the thickness of a door dividing him from them.

She was moved with concern, also, regarding Chadron’s behavior when he should learn of Macdonald’s presence in that house. Would Nola have the courage to own her attachment then, and stand between the wrath of her father and his wounded enemy?

She was not to be spared the test long. There was the noise of Chadron moving heavily about, bestowing his coat, his hat, in their accustomed places. He came now into the dining-room, where the sentinel kept watch at Macdonald’s door. Frances crept softly, fearfully, into the hall and listened.

Chadron questioned the soldier, in surprise. Frances heard the man’s explanation of his presence before the door given in low voice, and in it the mention of Macdonald’s name. Chadron stalked away, anger in the sound of his step. His loud voice now sounded in the room where the others were still chattering in the relief of speech after long silence. Now he came back to the guarded door, Nola with him; Mrs. Chadron following with pleading words and moanings.

“Dead or alive, I don’t care a damn! Out of this house he goes this minute!” Chadron said.

“Oh, father, surely you wouldn’t throw a man at death’s door out in the night!”

It was Nola, lifting a trembling voice, and Frances could imagine her clinging to his arm.

“Not after what he’s done for us, Saul—not after what he’s done!” Mrs. Chadron sounded almost tearful in her pleading. “Why, he brought Nola home—didn’t you know that, Saul? He brought her home all safe and sound!”

“Yes, he stole her to make that play!” Chadron said, either still deceived, or still stubborn, but in any case full of bitterness.

“I’ll never believe that, father!” Nola spoke braver than Frances had expected of her. “But friend or enemy, common charity, common decency, would—”

“Common hell! Git away from in front of that door! I’m goin’ to throw his damned carcass out of this house—I can’t breathe with that man in it!”

“Oh, Saul, Saul! don’t throw the poor boy out!” Mrs. Chadron begged.

“Will I have to jerk you away from that door by the hair of the head? Let me by, I tell you!”

Frances ran down stairs blindly, feeling that the moment for her interference, weak as it might be, and ineffectual, had come. Now Major King was speaking, his voice sounding as if he had placed himself between Chadron and the door.

“I think you’d better listen to your wife and daughter, Chadron. The fellow can’t harm anybody—let him alone.”

“No matter for the past, he’s our guest, father, he’s—”

“Hell! Haven’t they told you fool women the straight of it yet? I tell you I had to shoot him to save my own life—he was pullin’ a gun on me, but I beat him to it!”

“Oh Saul, my Saul!” Mrs. Chadron moaned.

Chadron was facing his wife, his back to Frances as she passed.

“Yes, it was me, and all I’m sorry for is that I didn’t finish him on the spot. Here, you fellers”—to some troopers who crowded about the open door leading to the veranda—“come in here and carry out this cot.”

But it wasn’t their day to take orders from Chadron; none of them moved. Frances touched Nola’s arm; she withdrew it and let her pass.

Macdonald, alone in the room, had lifted himself to his elbow, listening. Frances pressed him back to his pillow with one hand, reaching with the other under the cot for his revolvers. Her heart jumped with a great, glad bound, as if it had leaped from death to safety, when she touched the weapons. A cold steadiness settled over her. If Saul Chadron entered that room, she swore in her heart that she would kill him.

“Don’t interfere with me, King,” said Chadron, turning again to the door, “I tell you he goes, alive or dead. I can’t breathe—”

“Stop where you are!” Frances rose from her groping under the cot, a revolver in her hand.

Chadron, who had laid hold of Nola to tear her from the door, jumped like a man startled out of his sleep. In the heat of his passion he had not noticed one woman more or less.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” he said, catching himself as his hand reached for his gun.

“Frances will take him away as soon as he’s able to be moved,” said Nola, pleading, fearful, her eyes great with the terror of what she saw in Frances’ face.

“Yes, she’ll go with him, right now!” Chadron declared. “I’ll give you just ten seconds to put down that gun, or I’ll come in there and take it away from you! No damn woman—”

A loud and impatient summons sounded on the front door, drowning Chadron’s words. He turned, with an oath, demanding to know who it was. Frances, still covering him with her steady hand, heard hurrying feet, the door open, and Mrs. Chadron exclaiming and calling for Saul. The man at the door had entered, and was jangling his spurs through the hall in hasty stride. Chadron stood as if frozen in his boots, his face growing whiter than wounded, blood-drained Macdonald’s on his cot of pain.

Now the sound of the newcomer’s voice rose in the hall, loud and stern. But harsh as it was, and unfriendly to that house, the sound of it made Frances’ heart jump, and something big and warm rise in her and sweep over her; dimming her eyes with tears.

“Where’s my daughter, Chadron, you cutthroat! Where’s Miss Landcraft? If the lightest hair of her head has suffered, by God! I’ll burn this house to the sills!”

Colonel Landcraft stood before Chadron in his worn regimentals, his old campaign hat turned back from his forehead as if he had been riding in the face of a wind. Macdonald, looking up at Frances from his couch, spoke to her with his eyes. There was satisfaction in them, a triumphant glow. She moved a step toward the door, and the colonel, seeing her there, rushed to her and clasped her against his dusty breast.

“Standing armed against you in your own house, before your own wife and daughter!” said he, turning like the old tiger that he was upon Chadron again. “And in the presence of an officer of the United States Army—my daughter, armed to protect herself! By heaven, sir! you’ve disgraced the uniform you wear!”

Major King, scowling darkly, dropped his hand in suggestive gesture to his sword. Colonel Landcraft, his slight, bony old frame drawn up to its utmost inch, marched to him, fire in his eye.

“Unbuckle that sword! You’re not fit to wear it,” said he.

Now he stepped forward to interpose in behalf of his tool and co-conspirator, in one last big bluff. Major King fell back a stride before the charge of the infuriated old colonel, which seemed to have a threat of personal violence in it, the color sinking out of his face, his hand still on his sword.

“What authority have you got to come into my house givin’ orders?” Chadron wanted to know. “Maybe your bluffin’ goes with some people, but it don’t go with me. You git to hell out of here!”

“In your place and time I’ll talk to you, you sneaking hound!” Colonel Landcraft answered, throwing Chadron one blasting look. “Take off that sword, surrender those arms! You are under arrest.” This to Major King, who stood scowling, watching the colonel as if to ward an attack.

“By whose authority do you make this demand?” questioned Major King, insolently. “I am not aware that any command—”

The colonel acknowledged the greeting with a salute, his old head held prouder at that moment than he ever had carried it in his life.

“Sergeant Snow!” he called.

The sergeant hurried forward, stepped out into the light, came up at salute with the alacrity of a man who found pleasure in the service to be demanded of him.

“Bring a detail of six men into this room, disarm Major King, and place him under guard.”

The colonel wheeled again to face Chadron and King.

“I am not under the obligation of explaining my authority to enter this house to any man,” said he, “but for your satisfaction, madam, and in deference to you, Miss Chadron, I will tell you that I was recalled by the department on my way to Washington and sent back to resume command of Fort Shakie.”

Chadron was biting his mustache like an angry horse mouthing the bit. In the background a captain and two lieutenants, who had arrived with Chadron and King, stood doubtful, it seemed, of their part in that last act of the cattleman’s rough melodrama.

Frances had returned to Macdonald’s side, fearful that the excitement might bring on a hemorrhage in his wound. She stood soothing him with low, soft, and unnecessary words, unconscious of their tenderness, perhaps, in the stress of her anxiety. But that they were appreciated was evident in the slow-stealing smile that came over his worn, rugged face like a breaking sun.

Major King surrendered his arms to the sergeant with a petulant, lofty shrug of his shoulders.

“I’m not through with you yet, you old cuss!” said Chadron. “I never started out to git a man but what I got him, and I’ll git you. I’ll—”

Chadron’s voice caught in his throat. He stood there looking toward the outside door, drawing his breath like a man suffocating. Stealthily his hand moved toward his revolver, while his wife and daughter, even Frances, struck by a thrill of some undefined terror, leaned and looked as Chadron was looking, toward the open door.

A tall, gaunt, dark shaggy man was standing there, an old flapping hat drooping over his scowling eyes. He was a man with a great branching mustache, and the under lid of one eye was drawn down upon his cheek in a little point, as if caught by a surgical hook and held ready for the knife; a man who bent forward from the middle, as if from long habit of skulking under cover of low-growing shrubs; an evil man, whose foul soul cried of bloody deeds through every feature of his leering face.

“Oh, that man! that man!” cried Nola, in fearful, wild scream.

Mrs. Chadron clasped her in her arms and turned her defiant face toward the man in the door. He was standing just as he had stood when they first saw him, silent, still; as grim as the shadow of Saul Chadron’s sins.

The soldiers who stood around Major King looked on with puzzled eyes; Colonel Landcraft frowned. Macdonald from his cot could not see the door, but he felt the sharp striking of those charged seconds. Chadron moved to one side a little, his fixed eyes on the man in the door, his hand nearer his revolver now; so near that his fingers touched it, and now it was in his hand with a sudden bright flash into the light.

Two shots in that quiet room, one following the other so closely that they seemed but a divided one; two shots, delivered so quickly after Nola’s awful scream that no man could whip up his shocked nerves to obedience fast enough to interpose. Saul Chadron pitched forward, his hands clutching, his arms outspread, and fell dead, his face groveling upon the floor. Outside, the soldiers lifted Mark Thorn, a bullet through his heart.