emembering the injunction, regretfully put aside."

"Well, they're coming with the ambulance, I rode on ahead, and you'll
soon be beyond the peril of chili." She smiled as she looked up into
his face, and the smile broadened into an outright laugh when she saw
the little flitting cloud of vexation there.

"I could well enough ride," said he.

"The doctor says you could not."

"I'm as fit for the saddle this minute as I ever was in my life," he
declared.

She made no reply to that in words. But there was tender pity in her
caressing eyes as they measured the weakness of his thin arms, wasted
down to tendon and bone now, it seemed. He would ride to the post, she
knew very well, if permitted, and come through it without a murmur.
But the risk would be foolish, no matter what his pride must suffer by
going in a wagon.

"Have you heard the news from Meander?" she inquired.

"No, news comes slowly to Alamito Ranch, and will come slower now that
Banjo is gone, Mrs. Chadron says. What's been happening at Meander?"

"They held their conventions there last week to nominate county
officers, and what do you think? They've nominated you for something,
for--for _what_ do you suppose?"

"Nominated me? Who's nominated me?"

"Oh, one party or the other began it, and the other indorsed you,
for--oh, it's--"

"For what, Frances?" he asked, laughter in his eyes at her unaccountable
way of holding back on the secret.

"Why, for _sheriff!_" said she, with magnificent scorn.

Macdonald leaned back in his chair and laughed, the first audible
sound of merriment that she ever had heard come from those stern lips.
She looked at him with reproach.

"It should have been governor, the very least they could have done,
decently!" She was full of feeling on the subject of what she believed
to be his undervaluation.

Macdonald took her hand, the laughter dying out of his sober face.

"That's all in the different ways of looking at a man, _palomita_," he
said to her.

"But you look bigger than _sheriff_ to anybody!" she replied,
indignation large in her heart.

"In this country, Frances, a sheriff is a pretty sizable man," he
said, his thoughtful eyes on the fire, "about the biggest man they can
conceive, next only to the president himself. Up here in the cattle
country the greatness of men is dimmed, their magnitude being measured
by appreciable results. The offices of lawmaker, governor, and such as
the outside world invest with