"In four weeks he will be able to kneel at the altar with you," said Maggie, making a clatter with the stove lids in her excitement, "and in youth that is only a day. And I have a drawn piece of fine linen, as white as your bosom, that you must wear over your heart on that day. It will bring you peace, far it was made by a holy sister and it has been blessed by the bishop at Guadalupe."

"Thank you, Maggie. If that day ever comes for me, I will wear it."

Maggie came nearer the window, concern in her homely face, and stood off a little respectful distance.

"You want to be with him, you should be there at his side, and I will open the door for you," she said.

"You will?" Frances started hopefully.

"Once inside, no man would lift a hand to put you out."

"But how am I going to get inside, Maggie, with that sentry at the door?"

"I have been thinking how it could be done, miss. Soon it will be dark, and with night comes fear. Miss is with him now; she is there alone."

Frances turned to her, such pain in her face as if she had been stabbed.

"Why should you go over that again? I know it!" she said, crossly.

"That has nothing to do with my going into the room."

"It has much," Maggie declared, whispering now, treasuring her plot.

"The old one is upstairs, sleeping, and she will not wake until I shake her. Outside the soldiers make their fires and cook, and Alvino in the barn sings 'La Golondrina'--you hear him?--for that is sad music, like his soul. Very well. You go to your room, but leave the door open to let a finger in. When it is just creeping dark, and the soldiers are eating, I will run in where the one sits beside the door.

My hair will be flying like the mane of a wild mare, my eyes bi-i-i-g--so. In the English way I will shout 'The rustlers, the rustlers! He ees comin'--help, help!' When you hear this, fly to me, quick, like a soul set free. The soldier at the door will go to see; miss will come out; I will stand in the door, I will draw the key in my hand. Then you will fly to him, and lock the door!"

"Why, Maggie! what a general you are!"

"Under the couch where he lies," Maggie hurried on, her dark eyes glowing with the pleasure of this manufactured romance, "are the revolvers which he wore, just where we placed them last night. I pushed them back a little, quite out of sight, and n.o.body knows. Strap the belt around your waist, and defy any power but death to move you from the man you love!"

"Maggie, you are magnificent!"

"No," Maggie shook her head, sadly, "I am the daughter of a peon, a servant to bear loads. But"--a flash of her subsiding grandeur--"I would do that--ah, I would have done that in youth--for the man of my heart. For even a servant in the back of a house has a heart, dear miss."

Frances took her work-rough hands in her own; she pressed back the heavy black hair--mark of a va.s.sal race--from the brown forehead and looked tenderly into her eyes.

"You are my sister," she said.

Poor Maggie, quite overcome by this act of tenderness, sank to her knees, her head bowed as if the bell had sounded the elevation of the host.

"What benediction!" she murmured.

"I will go now, and do as you have said."

"When it is a little more dark," said Maggie, softly, looking after her tenderly as she went away.

Frances left her door ajar as Maggie had directed, and stood before the gla.s.s to see if anything could be done to make herself more attractive in his eyes. It did not seem so, considering the lack of embellishments. She turned from the mirror sighing, doubtful of the success of Maggie's scheme, but determined to do her part in it, let the result be what it might. Her place was there at his side, indeed; none had the right to bar her his presence.

The joy of seeing him when consciousness flashed back into his shocked brain had been stolen from her by a trick. Nola had stood in her place then. She wondered if that slow smile had kindled in his eyes at the sight of her, or whether they had been shadowed with bewilderment and disappointment. It was a thing that she should never know.

She heard Mrs. Chadron leave her room and pa.s.s heavily downstairs.

Hope sank lower as she descended; it seemed that their simple plot must fail. Well, she sighed, at the worst it could only fail. As she sat there waiting while twilight blended into the darker waters of night, she reflected the many things which had overtaken her in the two days past. Two incidents stood out above all the haste, confusion, and pain which gave her sharp regret. One was that her father had parted from her to meet his life's heaviest disappointment with anger and unforgiving heart; the other that the shot which she had aimed at Saul Chadron had been cheated of its mark.

There came a trampling of hoofs from the direction of the post, unmistakably cavalry. She strained from the window to see, but it was at that period between dusk and dark when distant objects were tantalizingly indefinite. Nothing could be made of the number, or who came in command. But she believed that it must be Major King's troops returning from escorting the raiders to Meander.

Of course there would be no trying out of Maggie's scheme now. New developments must come of the arrival of Major King, perhaps her own removal to the post. Surely he could not sustain an excuse that she was dangerous to his military operations now.

Doors opened, and heavy feet pa.s.sed the hall. Presently all was a tangle of voices there, greetings and warm words of welcome, and the sound of Mrs. Chadron weeping on her husband's breast for joy at his return.

Nola's light chatter rose out of the sound of the home-coming like a bright thread in a garment, and the genteel voice of Major King blended into the bustle of welcome with its accustomed suave placidity. Frances felt downcast and lonely as she listened to them, and the joyous preparations for refreshing the travelers which Mrs.

Chadron was pushing forward. They had no regard, no thought it seemed, for the wounded man who lay with only the thickness of a door dividing him from them.

She was moved with concern, also, regarding Chadron's behavior when he should learn of Macdonald's presence in that house. Would Nola have the courage to own her attachment then, and stand between the wrath of her father and his wounded enemy?

She was not to be spared the test long. There was the noise of Chadron moving heavily about, bestowing his coat, his hat, in their accustomed places. He came now into the dining-room, where the sentinel kept watch at Macdonald's door. Frances crept softly, fearfully, into the hall and listened.

Chadron questioned the soldier, in surprise. Frances heard the man's explanation of his presence before the door given in low voice, and in it the mention of Macdonald's name. Chadron stalked away, anger in the sound of his step. His loud voice now sounded in the room where the others were still chattering in the relief of speech after long silence. Now he came back to the guarded door, Nola with him; Mrs.

Chadron following with pleading words and moanings.

"Dead or alive, I don't care a d.a.m.n! Out of this house he goes this minute!" Chadron said.

"Oh, father, surely you wouldn't throw a man at death's door out in the night!"

It was Nola, lifting a trembling voice, and Frances could imagine her clinging to his arm.

"Not after what he's done for us, Saul--not after what he's done!"

Mrs. Chadron sounded almost tearful in her pleading. "Why, he brought Nola home--didn't you know that, Saul? He brought her home all safe and sound!"

"Yes, he stole her to make that play!" Chadron said, either still deceived, or still stubborn, but in any case full of bitterness.

"I'll never believe that, father!" Nola spoke braver than Frances had expected of her. "But friend or enemy, common charity, common decency, would--"

"Common h.e.l.l! Git away from in front of that door! I'm goin' to throw his d.a.m.ned carca.s.s out of this house--I can't breathe with that man in it!"

"Oh, Saul, Saul! don't throw the poor boy out!" Mrs. Chadron begged.

"Will I have to jerk you away from that door by the hair of the head?

Let me by, I tell you!"

Frances ran down stairs blindly, feeling that the moment for her interference, weak as it might be, and ineffectual, had come. Now Major King was speaking, his voice sounding as if he had placed himself between Chadron and the door.

"I think you'd better listen to your wife and daughter, Chadron. The fellow can't harm anybody--let him alone."

"No matter for the past, he's our guest, father, he's--"

"h.e.l.l! Haven't they told you fool women the straight of it yet? I tell you I had to shoot him to save my own life--he was pullin' a gun on me, but I beat him to it!"

"Oh Saul, my Saul!" Mrs. Chadron moaned.

"Was it you that--oh, was it you!" There was accusation, disillusionment, sorrow--and more than words can define--in Nola's voice. Frances waited to hear no more. In a moment she was standing in the open door beside Nola, who blocked it against her father with outstretched arms.