Frances! You can't mean that! They're terrible--just think what
they've done--oh, the underhanded thieves! By the law of the range
it's my fight now, instead of my work to help them!"

"The law of the range isn't the law any longer here, Nola, and it
never will be again. Alan Macdonald has done the work that he put his
lone hand to. You have no quarrel with anybody, child, no feud to
carry on to a bloody end. Put it out of your mind. If you are sincere
in your heart, and truly penitent, you can prove it best by beginning
to do good in the place where your house has done a terrible, sad
wrong."

"They started it!" said Nola, vindictively, the lifelong hatred for
those who encroached upon the range so deep in her breast, it seemed,
that the soil of her life must come away on its roots.

"There's no use talking to you about it, then," said Frances, coldly.

Nola seemed hurt by her tone. She began to cry again, and plead her
cause in moaning, broken words. "It's our country, we were here
first--father always said that!"

"I know."

"But I don't blame Mr. Macdonald, they deceived him, the rustlers
deceived him and told him lies. He didn't belong to this country, he
couldn't know at first, or understand. Frances"--she put her hand on
her friend's shoulder, and lifted her head as if trying to pierce the
dark and look into her eyes--"don't you know how it was with him? He
was too much of a man to turn his back on them, even when he found he
was on the wrong side. A man like him _must_ have understood it our
way."

"What he has done in this country calls for no excuse," returned
Frances, loftily.

"In your eyes and mine he wouldn't need any excuse for anything he
might do," said Nola, with a sagacity unexpected. "We love him, and
we'd love him, right or wrong. Well"--a sigh--"you've got a right to
love him, and I haven't. I wouldn't try to make him care for me now if
I could, for I'm different; I'm all emptied out."

"It takes more than you've gone through to empty a human life, Nola.
But you have no right to love him; honor and honesty are in the way,
friendship not considered at all. You'll spring up in the sun again
after a little while, like fresh grass that's trodden on, just as
happy and light-hearted as before. Let me have this one without any
more interference--there are plenty in the world that you would stand
heart-high to with your bright little head, just as well as Alan
Macdonald."

"I can't give him