said he.

Banjo Gibson, held to be harmless and insignificant by Major King, had
been set free. Now he came up, leading his horse, shocked to the
deepest fibers of his sensitive soul by the cowardly deed that Saul
Chadron had done.

"It went clean through him!" he said, rising from his inspection of
Macdonald's wound. And then, moved by the pain in Frances' tearless
eyes, he enlarged upon the advantages of that from a surgical view.
"The beauty of a hole in a man's chest like that is that it lets the
pizen dreen off," he told her. "It wouldn't surprise me none to see
Mac up and around inside of a couple of weeks, for he's as hard as old
hick'ry."

"Well, I'm not going to Alamito Ranch and leave him out here to die of
neglect, orders or no orders!" said she to the lieutenant.

The young officer's face colored; he plucked at his new mustache in
embarrassment. Perhaps the prospect of carrying a handsome and
dignified young lady in his arms for a matter of twenty-odd miles was
not as alluring to him as it might have been to another, for he was a
slight young man, only a little while out of West Point. But orders
were orders, and he gave Frances to understand that in diplomatic and
polite phrasing.

She scorned him and his veneration for orders, and turned from him
coldly.

"Is there no doctor with your detachment?" she asked.

"He has gone on with the main body, Miss Landcraft. They have several
wounded."

"Wounded murderers and burners of homes! Well, I'm not going to
Alamito Ranch with you, sir, unless you can contrive an ambulance of
some sort and take this gentleman too."

The officer brightened. He believed it could be arranged. Inside of an
hour he had Tom Lassiter around with a team and spring wagon, in which
the homesteaders laid Macdonald tenderly upon a bed of hay.

Banjo waited until they were ready to begin their slow march to the
ranch, when he led his little horse forward.

"I'll go on to the agency after the doctor and send him over to
Alamito as quick as he can go," he said. "And I'll see if Mother
Mathews can go over, too. She's worth four doctors when it comes to
keep the pizen from spreadin' in a wound."

Frances gave him her benediction with her eyes, and farewell with a
warm handclasp, and Banjo's beribboned horse frisked off on its long
trip, quite refreshed from the labors of the past night.

Frances was carrying Macdonald's cartridge belt and revolvers, the
confiscation of which had