he thought that perhaps he had
gone without the word of pacification between them. It was almost
terrifying to her to think of that. She ran down the stairs and stood
listening at his closed door.

That was not his voice, that heavy growl, that animal note. Saul
Chadron's; no other. Her mother came in through the front door,
weeping, and clasped Frances in her arms as she stood there, shadowy
in the light of the dim hall lamp.

"He is gone!" she said.

Frances did not speak. But for the first time in her life a feeling of
bitterness against her father for his hardness of heart and unbending
way of injustice lifted itself in her breast. She led her mother to
her own room, giving her such comfort as she could put into words.

"He said he never marched out to sure defeat before," Mrs. Landcraft
told her. "I've seen him go many a time, Frances, but never with such
a pain in my heart as tonight!"

And Saul Chadron was the man who had caused his going, Frances knew, a
new illumination having come over the situation since hearing his
voice in the colonel's office a few minutes past. Chadron had been at
Meander, telegraphing to the cattlemen's servants in Washington all
the time. He had demanded the colonel's recall, and the substitution
of Major King, because he wanted a man in authority at the post whom
he could use.

This favoritism of Chadron made her distrustful at once of Major King.
There must be some scheming and plotting afoot. She went down and
stood in the hall again, not even above bending to listen at the
keyhole. Chadron was talking again. She felt that he must have been
talking all the time that she had been away. It must be an unworthy
cause that needed so much pleading, she thought.

"Well, he'll not shoot, I tell you, King; he's too smart for that.
He'll have to be trapped into it. If you've got to have an excuse to
fire on them--and I can't see where it comes in, King, damn my neck if
I can--we've got to set a trap."

"Leave that to me," returned Major King, coldly.

"How much force are you authorized to use?"

"The order leaves that detail to me. 'Sufficient force to restore
order,' it says."

"I think you ort to take a troop, at the least, King, and a
cannon--maybe two."

"I don't think artillery will be necessary, sir."

"Well, I'll leave it to you, King, but I'd hate like hell to take you
up there and have that feller lick you. You don't know him like I do.
I tell you he'd lay on his bac