He caught it, and pressed it to his lips; then snatching off his bonnet, hid it there, and bent among the shrubbery and was gone, as swiftly and silently as a wolf. Frances flew to the house and up the stairs to her room. There she threw up the window and sat panting in it, straining, listening, for sounds from the river road. From below the voices of the revelers came, and the laughter over the secrets half-guessed before masks were snatched away around the banquet table. There was a dash of galloping hoofs from the corral, the clatter of the closing gate. The sound grew dimmer, was lost, in the sand of the hoof-cut trail. After a little, a shot! two! a silence; three! and one as if in reply. Frances slipped to her knees beside the open window, a sob as bitter as the pang of death rising from her breast. She prayed that Alan Macdonald might ride fast, and that the vindictive hands of his enemies might be unsteady that night by the gray riverside. CHAPTER V IF HE WAS A GENTLEMAN "Don't you think we'd better drop it now, Frances, and be good?" Major King reined his horse near hers as he spoke, and laid his hand on the pommel of her saddle as if he expected to meet other fingers there. "You puzzle me, Major King," she returned, not willing to understand. They were bringing up the rear of the tired procession which was returning to the post from the ball. Already the east was quickening. The stars near the horizon were growing pale; the morning wind was moving, with a warmth in it from the low places, like a tide toward the mountains. "Oh, I mean this play acting of estrangement," said he, impatiently. "Let's forget it--it doesn't carry naturally with either you or me." "Why, Major King!" Her voice was lively with mild surprise; she was looking at him as if for verification of his words. Then, slowly: "I hadn't thought of any estrangement, I hadn't intended to bring you to task for one flirtatious night. Be sure, sir, if it has given you pleasure, it has brought me no pain." "You began it," said he, petulantly. It is almost unbelievable how boyishly silly a full-grown man can be. "I began it, Major King? It's too early in the morning for a joke!" "You were wilful and contrary; you would speak to the fellow that day." "Oh!" deprecatingly. "Never mind it, though. Wilfulness doesn't become either of us, Frances. I've tried my turn at it tonight, and it has left me cold." "Poor man!" said she, in low voice, like a sigh. Perhaps it was not all for Major King; perhaps not all assumed. "Let's not quarrel, Frances." "Not now, I'm too tired for a real good one. Leave it for tomorrow." He rode on in silence, not sure, maybe, how much of it she meant. Covertly she looked at him now and then, thinking better of him for his ingenuous confession of failure to warm himself at little Nola Chadron's heart-flame. She extended her hand. "Forgive me, Major King," she said, very softly, not far removed, indeed, from tenderness.