at's happened to Nola?" she asked.

"The rustlers!" he said, his voice falling away in horror.

"The rustlers!" Mrs. Chadron groaned, her arms lifted above her head.
She ran in wild distraction into the dining-room, now back to the
chimney to take down a rifle that hung in its case on a deer prong
over the mantel.

"Nola, Nola!" she called, running out into the garden. Her wild voice
came back from there in a moment, crying her daughter's name in
agony.

Banjo had sunk to the floor, his battered face held in his hands.

"My God! they took her!" he groaned. "The rustlers, they took her, and
I couldn't lift a hand!"

Frances beckoned to Maggie, who had followed her mistress to the
kitchen door.

"Give him water; stop the blood," she ordered sharply.

In a moment she had dashed out after Mrs. Chadron, and was running
frantically along the garden path toward the river.

CHAPTER XIII

THE TRAIL AT DAWN

Frances stopped at the high wire fence along the river bank. It was
dark there between the shrubs of the garden on one hand and the tall
willows on the other, but nothing moved in them but her own leaping
heart. She called Mrs. Chadron, running along the fence as she cried
her name.

Mrs. Chadron answered from the barn. Frances found her saddling a
horse, while Maggie's husband, an old Mexican with a stiff leg,
muttered prayers in his native tongue as he tightened the girths on
another.

Mrs. Chadron was for riding in pursuit of Nola's abductors, although
she had not mounted a horse in fifteen years. There was no man about
the place except crippled old Alvino, and wounded Dalton lying in the
men's quarters near at hand. Neither of them was serviceable in such
an emergency, and Banjo, willing as he would be, seemed too badly hurt
to be of any use.

Frances pressed her to dismiss this intention. Even if they knew which
way to ride, it would be a hopeless pursuit.

"There's only one way to go--towards the rustlers' settlement," Mrs.
Chadron grimly returned.

She was over her hysterical passion now, and steadied down into a
state of desperate determination to set out after the thieves and
bring Nola back. She did not know how it was to be accomplished, but
she felt her strength equal to any demand in the pressure of her
despair. She was lifting her foot to the stirrup, thinly dressed as
she was, her head bare, the rifle in her hand, when Frances took her
by the arm.

"You can't go alone with Alvin