ances, who waited alone before the happy little fire
in the chimney. She sighed as she resumed her rocking-chair by the
window, and crossed her seldom idle hands over her comfortably
inelegant front.

"It'll be some little time before supper's ready to set down to," she
announced regretfully. "Maggie's makin' stuffed peppers, and they're
kind of slow to bake. We can talk."

"Of course," Frances agreed, her mind running on the hope that had
brought her to the ranch; the hope of seeing Macdonald, and appealing
to him in pity's name for peace.

"That thievin' Macdonald's to blame for Chance, our foreman, losin'
the use of his right hand," Mrs. Chadron said, with asperity. "Did
Nola tell you about the fight they had with him?"

"Yes, she told me about it as we came."

"It looks like the devil's harnessed up with that man, he does so much
damage without ever gittin' hurt himself. He had a crowd of rustlers
up there with him when Chance went up there to trace some stock, and
they up and killed three of our cowboys. Ain't it terrible?"

"It is terrible!" Frances shuddered, withholding her opinion on which
side the terror lay, together with the blame.

"Then Saul went up there with some more of the men to burn that
Macdonald's shack and drive him off of our land, and they run into a
bunch of them rustlers that Macdonald he'd fetched over there, and two
more of our men was killed. It looks like a body's got to fight night
and day for his rights now, since them nesters begun to come in here.
Well, we was here first, and Saul says we'll be here last. But I think
it's plumb scan'lous the way them rustlers bunches together and
fights. They never was known to do it before, and they wouldn't do it
now if it wasn't for that black-hearted thief, Macdonald!"

"Did you ever see him?" Frances asked.

"No, I never did, and don't never want to!"

"I just asked you because he doesn't look like a bad man."

"They say he sneaked in here the night of Nola's dance, but I didn't
see him. Oh, what 'm I tellin' you? Course you know _that_--you danced
with him!"

"Yes," said Frances, neither sorry nor ashamed.

"But you wasn't to blame, honey," Mrs. Chadron comforted, "you didn't
know him from Adamses off ox."

Frances sat leaning forward, looking into the fire. The light of the
blaze was on her face, appealingly soft and girlishly sweet. Mrs.
Chadron laid a hand on her hair in motherly caress, moved by a
tenderness quite foreign to