ngry. Flo, this horrible trouble
can't go on for ever!"

Hetty had commenced bravely, but she faltered as she proceeded, and Miss
Schuyler, who saw her distress, had risen and was standing with one hand
on her shoulder when the maid came in. She cast a hasty glance at her
mistress, and appeared, Flora Schuyler fancied, embarrassed, and desirous
of concealing it.

"Mr. Torrance will excuse you coming down again," she said. "He may have
some of the Sheriff's men and one or two of the cow-boys in, and would
sooner you kept your room. Are you likely to want me in the next
half-hour?"

"No," said Hetty. "No doubt you are anxious to find out what is going
on."

The maid went out, and Miss Schuyler fixed anxious eyes on her companion.
"What is the matter with the girl, Hetty?" she asked.

"I don't know. Did you notice anything?"

"Yes. I think she had something on her mind. Any way, she was
unexplainably anxious to get away from you."

Hetty smiled somewhat bitterly. "Then she is only like the rest. Everybody
at Cedar is anxious about something now."

Flora Schuyler rose, and, flinging the curtains behind her, looked out at
the night. The moon was just showing through a rift in the driving cloud,
and she could see the bluff roll blackly down to the white frothing of the
river. She also saw a shadowy object slipping through the gloom of the
trees, and fancied it was a woman; but when another figure appeared for a
moment in the moonlight the first one came flitting back again.

"I believe the girl has gone out to meet somebody in the bluff," she
said.

Hetty made a little impatient gesture. "It doesn't concern us, any way."

Miss Schuyler sat down again and made no answer, though she had
misgivings, and five or ten minutes passed silently, until there was a
tapping at the door, and the maid came in, very white in the face. She
clutched at the nearest chair-back, and stood still, apparently incapable
of speech, until, with a visible effort, she said: "Somebody must go and
send him away. He is waiting in the bluff."

Hetty rose with a little scream, but Flora Schuyler was before her, and
laid her hand upon the maid's arm.

"Now, try to be sensible," she said sternly. "Who is in the bluff?"

The girl shivered. "It is not my fault--I didn't know what they wanted
until the Sheriff came. I tried to tell him, but Joe saw me. Go right now,
and send him away."

Hetty was very white and trembling, but Flora Schuyler nip