ed
attention to certain rough miles in the journey, just how swiftly
Coaley could cover ground and live. He knew horses. He knew Coaley,
and he knew that never yet had Coaley been pushed to the actual limit
of his endurance. But the girl Lance loved--ah, it was a Lorrigan who
loved!--was back there alone, and she would be counting the minutes.
It might be that he might return to find her weeping over her dead. So
Lance counted miles and a horse's strength, and bent to the storm and
rode.

Ten minutes past the hour, and he was snapping orders to the telegraph
operator. The storm, happily, had swept on down the canyon and had
given Jumpoff little more than a wetting and a few lightning flashes.

"And order out a special engine and coach,--what do I care what it
will cost? I'll pay. Wire your Lava chief that the money is here. Send
the doctor on ahead of the regular train--can't wait for that."

He had the Lorrigan habit of carrying a good deal of money on his
person, and he counted out banknotes until the operator lifted his
hand and said it was enough. He slammed out, then, mounted and rode to
a livery stable and gave orders there.

"--And I'll _buy_ the damn team, so kill 'em if you have to. Only get
the doctor out there." He was in the saddle and gone again before the
stableman had recovered from his sag-jawed astonishment.

"Guess there's something in that talk of him and the Douglas girl,"
the stableman gossiped to a friend while he harnessed his swiftest
team.

In ten minutes under the three hours Lance stopped at the house, went
in and saw that Mary Hope was still being game, and was very glad to
be in his arms, and that Mother Douglas was alive and staring up at
the ceiling, her face set in a deadly kind of calm.

"She moves her eyes to me, sometimes--she's been awake for almost an
hour. But she hasn't moved--" Her voice broke.

"It's all right--the doctor is on his way. And I'm here, sweetheart--you
won't be alone again. Where's that man of yours? I'll send him over
with a note to Belle. She'll come--she's a wonder with sick folks."

"Mother--I'm afraid mother wouldn't let her--she's that _set!_"

Lance looked at the corpse-like figure with the wide-open eyes and a
flicker of the lids now and then to show that she was alive, and
swallowed a lump in his throat. Mother Douglas would probably not know
who was with her, he thought.

Coaley, the proud-spirited, shambled slowly to the stable, his head
dro