the mane of a wild mare, my eyes
bi-i-i-g--so. In the English way I will shout 'The rustlers, the
rustlers! He ees comin'--help, help!' When you hear this, fly to me,
quick, like a soul set free. The soldier at the door will go to see;
miss will come out; I will stand in the door, I will draw the key in
my hand. Then you will fly to him, and lock the door!"

"Why, Maggie! what a general you are!"

"Under the couch where he lies," Maggie hurried on, her dark eyes
glowing with the pleasure of this manufactured romance, "are the
revolvers which he wore, just where we placed them last night. I
pushed them back a little, quite out of sight, and nobody knows. Strap
the belt around your waist, and defy any power but death to move you
from the man you love!"

"Maggie, you are magnificent!"

"No," Maggie shook her head, sadly, "I am the daughter of a peon, a
servant to bear loads. But"--a flash of her subsiding grandeur--"I
would do that--ah, I would have done that in youth--for the man of my
heart. For even a servant in the back of a house has a heart, dear
miss."

Frances took her work-rough hands in her own; she pressed back the
heavy black hair--mark of a vassal race--from the brown forehead and
looked tenderly into her eyes.

"You are my sister," she said.

Poor Maggie, quite overcome by this act of tenderness, sank to her
knees, her head bowed as if the bell had sounded the elevation of the
host.

"What benediction!" she murmured.

"I will go now, and do as you have said."

"When it is a little more dark," said Maggie, softly, looking after
her tenderly as she went away.

Frances left her door ajar as Maggie had directed, and stood before
the glass to see if anything could be done to make herself more
attractive in his eyes. It did not seem so, considering the lack of
embellishments. She turned from the mirror sighing, doubtful of the
success of Maggie's scheme, but determined to do her part in it, let
the result be what it might. Her place was there at his side, indeed;
none had the right to bar her his presence.

The joy of seeing him when consciousness flashed back into his shocked
brain had been stolen from her by a trick. Nola had stood in her place
then. She wondered if that slow smile had kindled in his eyes at the
sight of her, or whether they had been shadowed with bewilderment and
disappointment. It was a thing that she should never know.

She heard Mrs. Chadron leave her room and pass heavily