He cut Dalton's horse a sharp blow. The beast bounded away with a start that almost unseated its dizzy rider; the two free animals galloped after it. Chance Dalton was on his way to Chadron with his burden of disgrace and disastrous news. It seemed a question to Macdonald, as he watched him weaving in the saddle as the gloom closed around him and shut him from sight, whether he ever would reach the ranchhouse to recount his story, whatever version of the tragedy he had planned. Tom Lassiter drew up before Macdonald's gate while the dust of Dalton's going was still hanging there. The gaunt old homesteader with the cloud of sorrows in his eyes said that he had been on his way over to see what had become of Macdonald in his lone hunt for Mark Thorn. He had heard the shooting, and the sound had hurried him forward. Macdonald told him what had happened, and took him in to see the wreckage left after that sudden storm. Tom shook his head as he stood in the yard looking down at the two dead men. "Hell's a-goin' to pop now!" he said. "I think you've said the word, Tom," Macdonald admitted. "They'll come back on me hard for this." "You'll never have to stand up to 'em alone another time, I'll give you a guarantee on that, Mac." "I'm glad to hear it," Macdonald replied, but wearily, and with no warmth or faith in his words. "And they let that old scorpeen loose to skulk and kill ag'in!" "Yes, he got away." "They sure did oncork a hornet's nest when they come here this time, though, they sure did!" Tom stood in the door, looking into the darkening room and at the figure sprawled across the bed. "He-ell's a-goin' to pop now!" he said again, in slow words scarcely above his breath. He turned his head searchingly, as if he expected to see the cloud of it already lowering out of the night. CHAPTER XI THE SEÑOR BOSS COMES RIDING Nola Chadron had been a guest overnight at the post. She had come the afternoon before, bright as a bubble, and Frances had met her with a welcome as warm as if there never had been a shadow between them. Women can do such things so much better than men. Balzac said they could murder under the cover of a kiss. Perhaps somebody else said it ahead of him; certainly a great many of us have thought it after. There is not one out of the whole world of them but is capable of covering the fire of lies in her heart with the rose leaves of her smiles. Nola had come into Frances' room to do her hair, and employ her busy tongue while she plied the brush. She was a pretty bit of a figure in her fancily-worked Japanese kimono and red Turkish slippers--harem slippers, she called them, and thought it deliciously wicked to wear them--as she sat shaking back her bright hair like a giver of sunbeams.