rible."

Dane's eyes were very compassionate as he laid his hand gently on his
leader's shoulder.

"Sir," he said, "you have our sympathy, and I am sorry that to offer it
is all we can do. Now, I think we have stayed too long already."

They went out, and left Colonel Barrington sitting alone with a gray
face at the head of the table.

It was a minute or two later when Winston swung himself into the saddle
at the door of the Grange. All the vehicles had not left as yet, and
there was a little murmur of sympathy when the troopers closed in about
him. Still, before they rode away one of the men wheeled his horse
aside, and Winston saw Maud Barrington standing bareheaded by his
stirrup. The moonlight showed that her face was impassive but
curiously pale.

"We could not let you go without a word, and you will come back to us
with your innocence made clear," she said.

Her voice had a little ring in it that carried far, and her companions
heard her. What Winston said they could not hear, and he did not
remember it, but he swung his hat off, and those who saw the girl at
his stirrup recognized with confusion that she alone had proclaimed her
faith, while they had stood aside from him. Then the Sergeant raised
his hand and the troopers rode forward with their prisoner.

In the meanwhile, Courthorne was pressing south for the American
frontier, and daylight was just creeping across the prairie when the
pursuers, who had found his trail and the ranch he obtained a fresh
horse at, had sight of him. There were three of them, riding wearily,
grimed with dust, when a lonely mounted figure showed for a moment on
the crest of a rise. In another minute, it dipped into a hollow, and
Corporal Payne smiled grimly.

"I think we have him now. The creek can't be far away, and he's west
of the bridge," he said. "While we try to head him off you'll follow
behind him, Hilton."

One trooper sent the spurs in, and, while the others swung off, rode
straight on. Courthorne was at least a mile from them, but they were
nearer the bridge, and Payne surmised that his jaded horse would fail
him if he essayed to ford the creek and climb the farther side of the
deep ravine it flowed through. They saw nothing of him when they swept
across the rise, for here and there a grove of willows stretched out
across the prairie from the sinuous band of trees in front of them.
These marked the river hollow, and Payne, knowing that the chase mig