around the last brush-screened turn of the road,
and was drawing near. Frances felt her heart leap like a hare, and a
delicious feeling of triumph mingle with the great pride that swept
through her in a warm flood. Tears were in her eyes, half-blinding
her; a sob of gladness rose in her breast and burst forth a little
happy cry.

For that was Alan Macdonald coming forward on his weary horse, bearing
something in his arms wrapped in a blanket, out of which a shower of
long hair fell in bright cascade over his arm.

Mrs. Chadron pressed her lips tight. Neither cry nor groan came out of
them as she stood steadying herself by a straining grip on the gate,
watching Macdonald's approach. None of them knew whether the burden
that he bore was living or dead; none of them in the group at the gate
but Frances knew the rider's face.

One of the cowboys opened the gate wide, without a word, to let him
enter. Mrs. Chadron lifted her arms appealingly, and hurried to his
side as he stopped. Stiffly he leaned over, his inert burden held
tenderly, and lowered what he bore into Mrs. Chadron's outstretched
arms.

With that change of position there was a sharp movement in the
muffling blanket, two arms reached up with the quick clutching of a
falling child, and clasped him about the neck. Then a sharp cry of
waking recognition, and Nola was sobbing on her mother's breast.

Alan Macdonald said no word. The light of the sunrise was strong on
his face, set in the suffering of great weariness; the stiffness of
his long and burdened ride was in his limbs. He turned his dusty
horse, with its head low-drooping, and rode out the way that he had
come. No hand was lifted to stop him, no voice raised in either
benediction or curse.

Mrs. Chadron was soothing her daughter, who was incoherent in the joy
of her delivery, holding her clasped in her arms. Beyond that bright
head there was no world for that mother then; save for the words which
she crooned in the child's ears there was no message in her soul.

Frances felt tears streaking her face in hot rivulets as she sat in
her saddle, struck inactive by the great admiration, the boundless
pride, that this unselfish deed woke in her. She never had, in her
life of joyousness, experienced such a high sense of human admiration
before.

The cowboy who had opened the gate still held it so, the spell of
Macdonald's dramatic arrival still over him. With his comrades he
stood speechless, gazing afte