shout, to come back to her sad vigil at the gate
by and by on Frances' arm, crushed by this one great and sudden sorrow
of her life.

Frances cheered her as much as might be with promises of the coming
day. At the first streak of dawn, she told Mrs. Chadron, she would
ride to the post and engage her father in the quest for the stolen
girl. Soldiers would be thrown out over the country for miles on every
side; the cowards would be hemmed in within a matter of hours, and
Nola would be at home, laughing over the experiences of her tragic
night.

Frances was in the saddle at daybreak. She had left Mrs. Chadron in an
uneasy sleep, watched over by Maggie. Banjo had not returned; no word
had reached them from any source. Alvino let Frances out through the
gate at the back of the garden, for it was her intention to follow the
abductor's trail as far as possible without being led into strange
country. Somebody, or some wandering herd of cattle, might pass that
way and obliterate the traces before pursuers could be brought there.

The tracks of the raider's horse were deep in the soft soil. She
followed them as they cut across the open toward the river road,
angling northward. At a place where the horse had stopped and made a
trampling in the lose earth--testimony of the fight that Nola had made
to get away--Frances started at the sight of something caught on a
clump of bull-berry bushes close at hand. She drew near the object
cautiously, leaning and looking in the half light of early morning.
Presently assured, she reached out and picked it up, and rode on with
it in her hand.

Presently the trail merged into the river road, where hoofprints were
so numerous that Frances was not skilful enough to follow it farther.
But it was something to have established that the scoundrel was
heading for the homesteaders' settlement, and that he had taken the
road openly, as if he had nothing to fear. Also, that bit of evidence
picked from the bushes might serve its purpose in the right time and
place.

She felt again that surge of indignation that had fired her heart
early in the sad night past. The man who had lurked in the garden
waiting his chance to snatch Nola away, was certain of the protection
to which he fled. It was the daring execution of one man, but the
planning of many, and at the head of them one with fire in his wild
soul, quick passion in his eyes, and mastery over his far-riding band.
It could be no other way.

When