r with outstretched arms.

Chadron was facing his wife, his back to Frances as she passed.

"Yes, it was me, and all I'm sorry for is that I didn't finish him on
the spot. Here, you fellers"--to some troopers who crowded about the
open door leading to the veranda--"come in here and carry out this
cot."

But it wasn't their day to take orders from Chadron; none of them
moved. Frances touched Nola's arm; she withdrew it and let her pass.

Macdonald, alone in the room, had lifted himself to his elbow,
listening. Frances pressed him back to his pillow with one hand,
reaching with the other under the cot for his revolvers. Her heart
jumped with a great, glad bound, as if it had leaped from death to
safety, when she touched the weapons. A cold steadiness settled over
her. If Saul Chadron entered that room, she swore in her heart that
she would kill him.

"Don't interfere with me, King," said Chadron, turning again to the
door, "I tell you he goes, alive or dead. I can't breathe--"

"Stop where you are!" Frances rose from her groping under the cot, a
revolver in her hand.

Chadron, who had laid hold of Nola to tear her from the door, jumped
like a man startled out of his sleep. In the heat of his passion he
had not noticed one woman more or less.

"Oh, it's you, is it?" he said, catching himself as his hand reached
for his gun.

"Frances will take him away as soon as he's able to be moved," said
Nola, pleading, fearful, her eyes great with the terror of what she
saw in Frances' face.

"Yes, she'll go with him, right now!" Chadron declared. "I'll give you
just ten seconds to put down that gun, or I'll come in there and take
it away from you! No damn woman--"

A loud and impatient summons sounded on the front door, drowning
Chadron's words. He turned, with an oath, demanding to know who it
was. Frances, still covering him with her steady hand, heard hurrying
feet, the door open, and Mrs. Chadron exclaiming and calling for Saul.
The man at the door had entered, and was jangling his spurs through
the hall in hasty stride. Chadron stood as if frozen in his boots, his
face growing whiter than wounded, blood-drained Macdonald's on his cot
of pain.

Now the sound of the newcomer's voice rose in the hall, loud and
stern. But harsh as it was, and unfriendly to that house, the sound of
it made Frances' heart jump, and something big and warm rise in her
and sweep over her; dimming her eyes with tears.

"Where's my daught