who stood on her knees and scowled over her offspring's dash
into the ways of civilized little girls.

It was a narrow strip of paper that she had rescued from the wind,
with the names of several men written on it in pencil, and at the head
of the list the name of Alan Macdonald. Opposite that name some crude
hand had entered, with pen that had flowed heavily under his pressure,
the figures "$500."

Frances turned it round her finger and sat waiting for the others to
leave off their persecution of the minister's wife and come back to
her, wondering in abstracted wandering of mind who Alan Macdonald
might be, and for what purpose he had subscribed the sum of five
hundred dollars.

"I think she's the most romantic little thing in the world!" Nola was
declaring, in her extravagant surface way as they returned to where
Frances sat her horse, her wandering eyes on the blue foothills, the
strip of paper prominent about her finger. "Oh, honey! what's the
matter? Did you cut your finger?"

"No," said Frances, her serious young face lighting with a smile,
"it's a little subscription list, or something, that somebody lost.
Alan Macdonald heads it for five hundred dollars. Do you know Alan
Macdonald, and what his charitable purpose may be?"

Nola tossed her head with a contemptuous sniff.

"They call him the 'king of the rustlers' up the river," said she.

"Oh, he _is_ a man of consequence, then?" said Frances, a quickening
of humor in her brown eyes, seeing that Nola was up on her high horse
about it.

"We'd better be going down to the slaughter-house if we want to see
the fun," bustled the colonel, wheeling his horse. "I see a movement
setting in that way."

"He's just a common thief!" declared Nola, with flushed cheek and
resentful eye, as Frances fell in beside her for the march against the
abattoir.

Frances still carried the paper twisted about her finger, reserving
her judgment upon Alan Macdonald, for she knew something of the feuds
of that hard-speaking land.

"Anyway, I suppose he'd like to have his paper back," she suggested.
"Will you hand it to him the next time you meet him?"

Frances was entirely grave about it, although it was only a piece of
banter which she felt that Nola would appreciate. But Nola was not in
an appreciative mood, for she was a full-blooded daughter of the
baronial rule. She jerked her head like a vicious bronco and reined
hurriedly away from Frances as she extended the paper.