o, Mrs. Chadron."

"I've got to go, I tell you--let loose of me!"

She shook off Frances' restraining hand and turned to her horse again.
With her hand on the pommel of the saddle she stopped, and turned to
Alvino.

"Go and fetch me Chance's guns out of the bunkhouse," she ordered.

Alvino hitched away, swinging his stiff leg, with laborious, slow
gait.

"You couldn't do anything against a crowd of desperate men--they might
kill you!" Frances said.

"Let 'em kill me, then!" She lifted her hand, as if taking an oath.
"They'll pay for this trick--every man, woman, and child of them'll
bleed for what they've done to me tonight!"

"Let Alvino go to the camp up the river where Mr. Chadron left the
men, and tell them; they can do more than you."

"You couldn't drive him alone out of sight of the lights in the house
with fire. He'd come back with some kind of a lie before he'd went a
mile. I'll go to 'em myself, honey--I didn't think of them."

"I'll go with you."

"Wait till Alvino comes with them guns--I can use 'em better than I
can a rifle. Oh, why don't the man hurry!"

"I'll run down and see what--"

But Alvino came around the corral at that moment. He had stopped to
light a lantern, in his peculiar Mexican mode of estimating the
importance of time and occasion, and came flashing it in short,
violent arcs as he swayed to swing his jointless leg.

Frances led out the other horse and was waiting to mount when Alvino
came panting up, the belt with its two revolvers over his arm. Mrs.
Chadron jerked it from him with something hard and sharp on her tongue
like a curse. Banjo Gibson came into the circle of light, a bandage on
his head.

"I didn't even see 'em. They knocked me down, and when I come to she
was gone!"

Banjo's voice was full of self-censure, and his feet were weak upon
the ground. He began to talk the moment the light struck him, and when
he had finished his little explanation he was standing beside Mrs.
Chadron's saddle.

"Go to the house and lie down, Banjo," Mrs. Chadron said; "I ain't
time to fool with you!"

"Are you two aimin' to go to the post after help?" Banjo steadied
himself on his legs by clinging to the horse's mane as he spoke.

"We're goin' up the river after the men," Mrs. Chadron told him.

"No, I'll go after the men; that's a man's job," Banjo insisted. "I
know right where they're camped at, you couldn't find 'em between now
and morning."

There was no arguing Banjo o