Frances turned to the messenger, who stood
swinging his big hat awkwardly by the brim. She untied the sling that
held his wounded arm and made him sit by the table while she examined
his injury, concerning which Mrs. Chadron, in her excitement, had not
even inquired.

The shot had gone through the forearm, grazing the bone. When Frances,
with the aid of Maggie, the Mexican woman with tender eyes, had
cleansed and bound up the wound, she turned to him with a decisive air
of demand.

"Now, tell me the truth," she said.

He was a bashful man, with a long, sheepish nose and the bluest of
harmless eyes. He started a little when she made that demand, and
blushed.

"That's what the boss told me to say," he demurred.

"I know he did; but what's happening?"

"Well, we ain't heard hide nor hair of her"--he looked round
cautiously, lest Mrs. Chadron surprise him in the truth--"and them
rustlers they're clean gone and took everything but their houses and
fences along--beds and teams and stock, and everything."

"Gone!" she repeated, staring at him blankly; "where have they gone?"

"Macdonald's doin' it; that man's got brainds," the cowboy yielded,
with what he knew to be unlawful admiration of the enemy's parts.
"He's herdin' 'em back in the hills where they've built a regular
fort, they say. Some of us fellers caught up to a few of the
stragglers last night, and that's when I got this arm put on me."

"Have any of the rustlers been killed?"

"No," he admitted, disgustedly, "they ain't! We've burnt all the
shacks we come to, and cut their fences, but they all got slick and
clean away, down to the littlest kid. But the boss's after 'em," he
added, with brisk hopefulness, "and you'll have better news by
mornin'."

Chadron himself was the next rider to arrive at that anxious house,
and he came as the messenger of disaster. He arrived between midnight
and morning, his horse spur-gashed, driven to the limit, himself
sunken-eyed from his anxiety and hard pursuit of his elusive enemy.

Mrs. Chadron was asleep when he entered the living-room where Frances
was keeping lonely watch before the chimney fire.

"What's happened?" she asked, hastening to meet him.

Chadron stood there gray and dusty, his big hat down hard on his head,
his black eyes shooting inquiry into the shadowed room.

"Where is she?" he whispered.

"Upstairs, asleep--I've only just been able to persuade her to lie
down and close her eyes."

"Well, the