go and come in it when I please."

"I'm a prisoner in it, not a guest. I'll force you out of the room if
I must. This disgraceful behavior must end, and end this minute. Are
you going?"

"If you were out of the way, he'd love me," said Nola from the door,
spiteful, resentful, speaking slowly, as if pressing each word into
Frances' brain and heart; "if you were out of the way."

CHAPTER XXI

THE MAN IN THE DOOR

When the doctor from the agency arrived at dawn, hours after Mrs.
Mathews, he found everything done for the wounded man that skill and
experience could suggest. Mrs. Mathews had carried instruments,
antiseptics, bandages, with her, and she had no need to wait for
anybody's directions in their use. So the doctor, who had been
reinforced by the same capable hands many a time before, took a cup of
hot coffee and rode home.

Mrs. Mathews moved about as quietly as a nun, and with that humility
and sense of self-effacement that comes of penances and pains, borne
mainly for others who have fallen with bleeding feet beside the way.

She was not an old woman, only as work and self-sacrifice had aged
her. Her abundant black hair--done up in two great braids which hung
in front of her shoulders, Indian-wise, and wrapped at their ends with
colored strings--was salted over with gray, but her beautiful small
hands were as light and swift as any girl's. Good deeds had blessed
them with eternal youth, it seemed.

She wore a gray dress, sprinkled over with twinkling little Indian
gauds and bits of finery such as the squaws love. This barbaric
adornment seemed unaccountable in the general sobriety of her dress,
for not a jewel, save her wedding-ring alone, adorned her. Frances did
not marvel that she felt so safe in this gentle being's presence, safe
for herself, safe for the man who was more to her than her own soul.

When the doctor had come and gone, Mrs. Mathews pressed Frances to
retire and sleep. She spoke with soft clearness, none of that
hesitation in her manner that Frances had marked on the day that they
rode up and surrounded her where the Indians were waiting their
rations of beef.

"You know how it happened--who did it?" Frances asked. She was willing
to leave him with her, indeed, but reluctant to go until she had given
expression to a fear that hung over her like a threat.

"Banjo told me," Mrs. Mathews said, nodding her graceful little head.

"I'm afraid that when Chadron comes home and find