donald looked at her with new life in his weary eyes.

"We'll win now; you were the one recruit I lacked," he said.

"But they'll kill you--Mrs. Chadron can't hold them back--she doesn't
want to hold them back--for she's full of Chadron's lies about you.
Your horse is worn out--you can't outrun them."

"How many are there besides the five I saw?"

"Only Dalton, and he's supposed to be crippled."

"Oh, well," he said, easily, as if only five whole men and a cripple
didn't amount to so much, taken all in the day's work.

"Your men up there need your leadership and advice. Take my horse and
go; he can outrun them."

He looked at her admiringly, but with a little reproving shake of the
head.

"There's neither mercy nor manhood in any man that rides in Saul
Chadron's pay," he told her. "They'd overtake you on this old plug
before you'd gone a mile. The one condition on which I part company
with you is that you ride ahead, this instant, and that you put your
horse through for all that's in him."

"And leave you to fight six of them!"

"Staying here would only put you in unnecessary danger. I ask you to
go, and go at once."

"I'll not go!" She said it finally and emphatically.

Macdonald checked his horse; she held back her animal to the slow pace
of his. Now he offered his hand, as in farewell.

"You can assure them at the post that we'll not fire on the
soldiers--they can come in peace. Good-bye."

"I'm not going!" she persisted.

"They'll not consider you, Frances--they'll not hold their fire on
your account. You're a rustler now, you're one of us."

"You said--there--was--only--one--road," she told him, her face turned
away.

"It's that way, then, to the left--up that dry bed of Horsethief
Canyon." He spoke with a lift of exultation, of pride, and more than
pride. "Ride low--they're coming!"

CHAPTER XVI

DANGER AND DIGNITY

"Did you carry her that way all the way home?"

Frances asked the question abruptly, like one throwing down some
troublesome and heavy thing that he has labored gallantly to conceal.
It was the first word that she had spoken since they had taken refuge
from their close-pressing pursuers in the dugout that some old-time
homesteader had been driven away from by Chadron's cowboys.

Macdonald was keeping his horse back from the door with the barrel of
his rifle, while he peered out cautiously again, perplexed to
understand the reason why Dalton had not led his men again