sing,
touch upon his arm; and heard something drop close beside him with a
rattle, could answer, and in less than a minute later smiling at Chris
Allonby gave him back his pistol.

"Do you know I was 'most afraid you were going to make trouble for me?" he
said.

"But if I had you wouldn't have told."

The lad coloured. "You have known me quite a long time, Hetty."

Hetty laughed, but there was a thrill in her voice as she turned to Miss
Schuyler. "Now," she said, "you know the kind of men we raise on the
prairie."

As they moved away together, Flora Schuyler cast a steady, scrutinizing
glance at her companion. "I could have told you, Hetty," she said.

"Yes," said Hetty, with a little nod. "He wouldn't go, and I feel so mean
that I'm not fit to talk to you or anybody. But wait. You'll hear
something before to-morrow."

It was not quite daylight when Miss Schuyler was awakened by a murmur of
voices and a tramp of feet on the frozen sod. Almost at the same moment
the door of her room opened, and a slim, white figure glided towards the
window. Flora Schuyler stood beside it in another second or two, and felt
that the girl whose arm she touched was trembling. The voices below grew
louder, and they could see two men come running from the stable, while one
or two others were flinging saddles upon the horses brought out in haste.

"He must have got away an hour ago," said somebody. "The best horse
Allonby had in the corral isn't there now."

Then Hetty sat down laughing excitedly, and let her head fall back on
Flora Schuyler's shoulder when she felt the warm girdling of her arm. In
another moment she was crying and gasping painfully.

"He has got away. The best horse in the corral! Ten times as many of them
couldn't bring him back," she said.

"Hetty," said Miss Schuyler decisively, "you are shivering all through. Go
back at once. He is all right now."

The girl gasped again, and clung closer to her companion. "Of course," she
said. "You don't know Larry. If they had all the Cedar boys, too, he would
ride straight through them."

X

ON THE TRAIL

Grant and Breckenridge sat together over their evening meal. Outside the
frost was almost arctic, but there was wood in plenty round Fremont ranch,
and the great stove diffused a stuffy heat. The two men had made the round
of the small homesteads that were springing up, with difficulty, for the
snow was too loose and powdery to bear a sleigh, and now they we