structure of self, must lift him, must give him what the world had so
far denied him--his chance. And she sat at the table and leaned her
head in her arms and prayed that Toban might overtake him before he
reached the Arrow. For she did not want him to come back to her with
the stain of their blood on his hands.

She was startled while sitting at the table, for she heard a sound from
the sitting-room, and she got up to investigate. But it was only Bob,
who, hearing the sounds made by Toban and herself, had come to
investigate. She urged him to return to his room and to bed, and
kissed him when he started up the stairs, so warmly that he looked at
her in surprise.

She returned to the kitchen, sitting at the table and watching the
clock. A half hour had elapsed since Toban's departure when she heard
the faint beat of hoofs in the distance, and with wildly beating heart
got up and went out on the porch.

For a moment she could not determine the direction from which the
sounds came, but presently she saw a rider approaching from the
direction of the river, and she stepped down from the porch and
advanced to meet him. She feared at first that it was Toban returning
alone, and she halted and stood with clenched hands, but as the rider
came closer she saw it was not Toban but an entire stranger. She
retreated to the porch and watched his approach.

He was a cowboy and he rode up to the edge of the porch confidently,
calling to her when he came close enough to make himself heard.

"My name's Miller," he said, taking his hat off and showing her the
face of a man of thirty--"Harvey Miller. Me an' my side-kicker was
drivin' a bunch of Three Bar beeves to Lazette an' we was fools enough
to run afoul of that quicksand at Double Fork, about five miles down
the crick. We've bogged down about forty head an' I've come for help.
You got any men around here?"

"Oh," she said; "how careless you were! Didn't you know the quicksand
was there?"

"I ain't been runnin' this range a whole lot," said the puncher
uneasily; "but I reckon even then I ought to be able to nose out a
quicksand. But I didn't, an' there's forty beeves that's goin' to
cow-heaven pretty soon if somethin' ain't done. If you've got any men
around here which could give us a lift, we'd be pleased to thank you."

"Of course," she said. "Wait!"

She went into the house and to the stairs where she called to Dade and
Malcolm, and presently, rubbing their