the girls, riding at Nola’s side with his cavalry hands held precisely.
“If I’m not mistaken, the gentleman in question is there talking to Miller, the agent,” said he, nodding toward two horsemen a little distance ahead. “But I wouldn’t excite him, Miss Landcraft, if I were you. He’s said to be the quickest and deadliest man with a weapon on this range.”
Major King smiled over his own pleasantry. Frances looked at Nola with brows lifted inquiringly, as if waiting her verification. Then the grave young 23 lady settled back in her saddle and laughed merrily, reaching across and touching her friend’s arm in conciliating caress.
“Oh, you delightful little savage!” she said. “I believe you’d like to take a shot at poor Mr. Macdonald yourself.”
“We never start anything on the reservation,” Nola rejoined, quite seriously.
Miller, the Indian agent, rode away and left Macdonald sitting there on his horse as the military party approached. He spurred up to meet the colonel, and to present his respects to the ladies—a hard matter for a little round man with a tight paunch, sitting in a Mexican saddle. The party halted, and Frances looked across at Macdonald, who seemed to be waiting for Miller to rejoin him.
Macdonald was a supple, sinewy man, as he appeared across the few rods intervening. His coat was tied with his slicker at the cantle of his saddle, his blue flannel shirt was powdered with the white dust of the plain. Instead of the flaring neckerchief which the cowboys commonly favored, Macdonald wore a cravat, the ends of it tucked into the bosom of his shirt, and in place of the leather chaps of men who ride breakneck through brush and bramble, his legs were clad in tough brown corduroys, and fended by boots to his knees. There were revolvers in the holsters at his belt.
Not an unusual figure for that time and place, but something uncommon in the air of unbending 24 severity that sat on him, which Frances felt even at that distance. He looked like a man who had a purpose in his life, and who was living it in his own brave way. If he was a cattle thief, as charged, thought she, then she would put her faith against the world that he was indeed a master of his trade.
They were talking around Miller, who was going to give them places of vantage for the coming show. Only Frances and Major King were left behind, where she had stopped her horse to look curiously across at Alan Macdonald, king of the rustlers, as he was called.
“It may not be anything at all to him, and it may be something important,” said Frances, reaching out the slip to Major King. “Would you mind handing it to him, and explaining how it came into my hands?”
“I’ll not have anything to do with the fellow!” said the major, flushing hotly. “How can you ask such a thing of me? Throw it away, it’s no concern of yours—the memorandum of a cattle thief!”
Frances drew herself straight. Her imperious chin was as high as Major King ever had carried his own in the most self-conscious moment of his military career.
“Will you take it to him?” she demanded.
“Certainly not!” returned the major, haughtily emphatic. Then, softening a little, “Don’t be silly, Frances; what a row you make over a scrap of blowing paper!”
25
“Then I’ll take it myself!”
“Miss Landcraft!”
“Major King!”
It was the steel of conventionality against the flint of womanly defiance. Major King started in his saddle, as if to reach out and restrain her. It was one of those defiantly foolish little things which women and men—especially women—do in moments of pique, and Frances knew it at the time. But she rode away from the major with a hot flush of insubordination in her cheeks, and Alan Macdonald quickened from his pensive pose when he saw her coming.
His hand went to his hat when her intention became unmistakable to him. She held the little paper out toward him while still a rod away.
“A little Indian girl gave me this; she found it blowing along—they tell me you are Mr. Macdonald,” she said, her face as serious as his own. “I thought it might be a subscription list for a church, or something, and that you might want it.”
“Thank you, Miss Landcraft,” said he, his voice low-modulated, his manner easy.
Her face colored at the unexpected way of this man without a coat, who spoke her name with the accent of refinement, just as if he had known her, and had met her casually upon the way.
“I have seen you a hundred times at the post and the agency,” he explained, to smooth away her confusion. “I have seen you from afar.”
26
“Oh,” said she, as lame as the word was short.
He was scanning the written paper. Now he looked at her, a smile waking in his eyes. It moved in slow illumination over his face, but did not break his lips, pressed in their stern, strong line. She saw that his long hair was light, and that his eyes were gray, with sandy brows over them which stood on end at the points nearest his nose, from a habit of bending them in concentration, she supposed, as he had been doing but a moment before he smiled.
“No, it isn’t a church subscription, Miss Landcraft, it’s for a cemetery,” said he.
“Oh,” said she again, wondering why she did not go back to Major King, whose horse appeared restive, and in need of the spur, which the major gave him unfeelingly.
At the same time she noted that Alan Macdonald’s forehead was broad and deep, for his leather-weighted hat was pushed back from it where his fair, straight hair lay thick, and that his bony chin had a little croft in it, and that his face was long, and hollowed like a student’s, and that youth was in his eyes in spite of the experience which hardships of unknown kind had written across his face. Not a handsome man, but a strong one in his way, whatever that way might be.
“I am indebted to you for this,” said he, drawing forth his watch with a quick movement as he spoke, opening the back cover, folding the little paper carefully away in it, “and grateful beyond words.”
27
“Good-bye, Mr. Macdonald,” said she, wheeling her horse suddenly, smiling back at him as she rode away to Major King.
Alan Macdonald sat with his hat off until she was again at the major’s side, when he replaced it over his fair hair with slow hand, as if he had come from some holy presence. As for Frances, her turn of defiance had driven her clouds away. She met the major smiling and radiant, a twinkling of mischief in her lively eyes.
The major was a diplomat, as all good soldiers, and some very indifferent ones, are. Whatever his dignity and gentler feelings had suffered while she was away, he covered the hurt now with a smile.
“And how fares the bandit king this morning?” he inquired.
“He seems to be in spirits,” she replied.
The others were out of sight around the buildings where the carcasses of beef had been prepared. Nobody but the major knew of Frances’ little dash out of the conventional, and the knowledge that it was so was comfortable in his breast.
“And the pe-apers,” said he, in melodramatic whisper, “were they the thieves’ muster roll?”
“He isn’t a thief,” said she, with quiet dignity, “he’s a gentleman. Yes, the paper was important.”
“Ha! the plot deepens!” said Major King.
“It was a matter of life and death,” said she, with solemn rebuke for his levity, speaking a truer word than she was aware.
28
CHAPTER III
THE RANCHHOUSE BY THE RIVER