hen the
other gulch, calling the little one's name and straining her eyes
through the dusk that had begun to gather for a glimpse of his flaxen
curls and red cap. Paul, meanwhile, was scurrying across the hills as
fast as his two fat, determined legs could carry him, straight toward
the deepening, darkening glory upon the mountains.

At last Marguerite decided that he must have turned about, after he
had run a few steps away from her, and gone home. Comforting herself
with this hope, she hurried back, looking about her as she ran, to be
sure that she did not pass him. Flushed and panting, she rushed
through the house and asked the servant if little Bye-Bye had come
home. The maid had not seen him, and the two women looked through the
house and searched the yard and garden, stopping every moment to call
the child. Then they ran out again upon the mesa, where Marguerite
had walked with him, calling and circling about through the gathering
dusk.

When it became quite dark Marguerite, thoroughly frightened, ran back
to the town and hurried down Main street looking for her father. She
met a clerk from his store on the way to tell her that he had just
started to his alfalfa ranch, ten miles down the river, to bring in
the men who were there at work, and would not return until early the
next morning. The clerk quickly got together a half dozen young men
and they set out for the mesa. The mother of one and the sister of
another stayed with Marguerite, and by dint of constant persuasion
kept her at home.

At daybreak the party returned, worn out by their long tramp. The moon
had risen about ten o'clock, and by its brilliant light they had
searched carefully the hills and arroyos within two or three miles of
the town, but had not found a trace of the lost child. Main street had
slept on its arms that night. Men of both parties, wrapped in their
blankets, with revolvers and shot-guns and rifles under their hands,
had dotted the court-house yard, had lain on the sidewalks near the
jail, and had slept on the floors of shops and offices along both
sides of Main street. Feeling had risen so high that a hasty word, or
the unguarded movement of a hand toward a pistol butt, was likely to
cause the beginning of the battle. The Democrats had telegraphed to
Santa Fe and learned that the order of the court making Joe Davis
sheriff, having left there by mail on Saturday, should have reached
Las Plumas on Sunday. So they announced that the