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Updated: May 4, 2025
Chadron's words came distinctly to them, for they were not more than a hundred yards from the gate, and there was a note of eagerness in them, almost a command. Both of them turned. There was a commotion among the men at the gate, a hurrying and loud words. Nola was beckoning to Frances to return; now she called her name, with fearful entreaty.
He snapped his dry old eyelids like flints over the steel of his eyes, and stood as straight as the human body could be drawn, one hand on his sword hilt, the other pointing a trembling finger at Chadron's face. "You cattlemen run this state, and one or two others here in the Northwest, I'm aware of that, Chadron. But there's one thing that you don't run, and that's the United States army!
They had no regard, no thought it seemed, for the wounded man who lay with only the thickness of a door dividing him from them. She was moved with concern, also, regarding Chadron's behavior when he should learn of Macdonald's presence in that house. Would Nola have the courage to own her attachment then, and stand between the wrath of her father and his wounded enemy?
He swore that he would roast Saul Chadron's heart on his sword, and snatched that implement from the chair where it hung as he spoke, and buckled it on with trembling hand. King interposed to tell him that Chadron was not at the ranch, and begged the colonel to delegate to him the office of avenger of this insult and hazard that Frances had suffered at the hands of his men.
Chadron had promised rewards for the successful outcome of the venture, and Chance Dalton rode with his three picked men in a sportsman's heat. He was going out on a hunt for game such as he had run down more than once before in his many years under Chadron's hand. It was better sport than running down wolves or mountain lions, for there was the superior intelligence of the game to be considered.
"Macdonald's had the gall to send me notice to keep out of that country up the river, and to run my cattle out of there, and it's my own land, by God! I've been grazin' it for eighteen years!" "It looks like a serious situation," the colonel admitted. "Serious!" There was scorn for the word and its weakness in Chadron's stress. "It's hell, I tell you, when a man can't set foot on his own land!"
Fifteen miles up the river from the grand white house Macdonald had strung his barbed wire and carried in the irrigation ditch to his alfalfa field. He had chosen the most fertile spot in the vast plain through which the river swept, and it was in the heart of Saul Chadron's domain.
He was unconscious still from the blow of Saul Chadron's big bullet. As she ministered to him she felt that he would open his eyes on this world's pains and cruel injustices nevermore. And why had Major King ordered her, virtually under arrest, to Alamito Ranch, instead of sending her in disgrace to the post?
But not to sleep; only to lie there with her hot cheeks burning like fever, her hot heart triumphing in the complete confidence and justification of Macdonald that Chadron's desperate act had established. She glowed with inner warmth as she told herself that there would be no more doubting, no more swaying before the wind of her inclination.
Frances asked, in girlish eagerness. Mrs. Chadron's smile was reflected in her face as she sat straight, and turned expectantly to her hostess. "The other evening when she and her father was comin' home from the postoffice over at the agency they run acrosst that sneak Macdonald, afoot in the road, guns so thick on him you couldn't count 'em.
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