Frances was hurrying to him with the information that she had kept for his ear alone. She was flushed with excitement as she came among the rough horsemen like a bright bloom tossed among rusty weeds. They fell back generously, not so much to give her room as to see her to better advantage, passing winks and grimaces of approval between themselves in their free and easy way. Chadron gave his hand in greeting as she spoke some hasty words of comfort. "Thank you, Miss Frances, for your friendship in this bad business," he said, heartily, and with the best that there was in him. "You've been a great help and comfort to her mother, and if it wouldn't be askin' too much I'd like for you to stay here with her till we bring my little girl back home." "Yes, I intended to stay, Mr. Chadron; I didn't come out to tell you that." She looked round at the admiring faces, too plainly expressive of their approbation, some of them, and plucked Chadron's sleeve. "Bend down--I want to tell you something," she said, in low, quick voice. Chadron stooped, his hand lightly on her shoulder, in attitude of paternal benediction. "It wasn't Macdonald, it was Mark Thorn," she whispered. Chadron's face displayed no surprise, shadowed no deeper concern. Only there was a flitting look of perplexity in it as he sat upright in his saddle again. "Who is he?" he asked. "Don't you know?" She watched him closely, baffled by his unmoved countenance. "I never heard of anybody in this country by that name," he returned, shaking his head with a show of entire sincerity. "Who was tellin' you about him--who said he was the man?" A little confused, and more than a little disappointed over the apparent failure of her news to surprise from Chadron a betrayal of his guilty connection with Mark Thorn, she related the adventure of the morning, the finding of the cap, the meeting with Macdonald and his neighbors. She reserved nothing but what Lassiter had told her of Thorn's employers and his bloody work in that valley. Chadron shook his head with an air of serious concern. There was a look of commiseration in his eyes for her credulity, and shameful duping by the cunning word of Alan Macdonald. "That's one of Macdonald's lies," he said, something so hard and bitter in his voice when he pronounced that name that she shuddered. "I never heard of anybody named Thorn, here or anywheres else. That rustler captain he's a deep one, Miss Frances, and he was only throwin' dust in your eyes. But I'm glad you told me." "But they said--the man he called Lassiter said--that Macdonald would find Nola, and bring her home," she persisted, unwilling yet to accept Chadron's word against that old man's, remembering the paper with the list of names. "He's bald-faced enough to try even a trick like that!" he said.