"It depends largely on whether the fellow can be provoked into firing on us, Chadron. You think he can be; so do I. But in case he doesn't, the best we can do will be to arrest him." "What good would he be to me arrested, King? I tell you I want his scalp, and if you bring that feller out of there in a sack you'll come back a brigadier. I put you where you're at. Well, I can put you higher just as easy. But the purty I want for my trouble is that feller's scalp." There was the sound of somebody walking about, in quick, nervous strides. Frances knew that Major King had got up from his usurped place at the desk--place unworthily filled, this low intrigue with Chadron aside, she knew--and was strutting in the shadow of his promised glory. "Leave it to me, Chadron; I've got my own account to square with that wolf of the range!" A sharp little silence, in which Frances could picture Chadron looking at King in his covert, man-weighing way. Then Chadron went on: "King, I've noticed now and then that you seemed to have a soft spot in your gizzard for that little girl of mine. Well, I'll throw her in to boot if you put this thing through right. Is it a go?" "I'd hesitate to bargain for the young lady without her being a party to the business," King replied, whether from wisdom born of his recent experience, or through lack of interest in the proposal Frances could not read in his even, well-pitched voice. "Oh, she'd jump at you like a bullfrog at red flannel," Chadron assured him. "I could put your uniform on a wooden man and marry him off to the best girl in seven states. They never think of lookin' under a soldier's vest." "You flatter me, Mr. Chadron, and the uniform of the United States army," returned King, with barely covered contempt. "Suppose we allow events to shape themselves in regard to Miss Chadron. She'll hardly be entertaining marriage notions yet--after her recent experience." Chadron got up so quickly he overturned his chair. "By God, sir! do you mean to intimate you wouldn't have her after what she's gone through? Well, I'll put a bullet through any man that says--" "Oh, hold yourself in, Chadron; there's no call for this." King's cold contempt would have been like a lash to a man of finer sensibilities than Saul Chadron. As it was, Frances could hear the heavy cattleman breathing like a mad bull. "When you talk about my little girl, King, go as easy as if you was carryin' quicksilver in a dish. You told me she was all right a little while ago, and I tell you I don't like--" "Miss Chadron was as bright as a redbird when I saw her this afternoon," King assured him, calmly. "She has suffered no harm at the hands of Macdonald and his outlaws." "He'll dance in hell for that trick before the sun goes down on another day!" "His big play for sympathy fell flat," said King, with a contemptuous laugh. "There wasn't much of a crowd on hand when he arrived at the ranch."