de.

"They'd probably skirt the wood; but yet there's no knowing but what
they might make their way down the gulch and round by the creek yonder."

"Whichever way you go," she said, in deep consideration, "you might run
right into the jaws of danger. And if they found you with another horse,
and that horse discovered not to be yours, it might be worse for you--if
they refused to believe it had been freely lent to you."

"They'd not be likely to waste much time on inquiries," he observed,
drily. "It's not their way to make allowance for priest or prayer.
Perhaps I had better lie low for a time until the heat of the chase is
over. Who is here with you, Barbara?"

"No one to-day. My brother and his wife are out until to-morrow."

"You are alone?" he said, with a softening of tender respect in his
tone. "Forgive my intrusion. You must not risk the least trouble for me.
I'll feel like a king after this rest and refreshment here, and be ready
to go on my way."

They were still discussing the best course to be adopted when a faint
sound in the distance struck on their ears--a sound so faint and far
that, had it not been for the wonderful clearness and stillness of the
dry, crisp, dewless air, it could not have reached them.

"Hark! What is that?" said Desmond, holding his breath.

"We can see the road better from the upstairs windows--come!" she
exclaimed, springing to her feet. She hastily closed the outer door into
the court-yard, which still stood open, and ran upstairs, followed by
Desmond. From the highest window of the house--a sort of landing or
look-out at the top of the stairs--they had a view of the windings of
the white road between wood and hillside.

The night had fallen like a dark mantle over the land; but the sky was
clear; the moon had risen; and in the dusk they could just distinguish
the pale, dim line of the road between the shadows of the trees--could
even discern upon it, though some distance off as yet, what looked at
first like a dark, blurred, swift moving spot, then resolved itself into
a group of mounted men riding straight for the Saucel Ranch.

"There they are," said Oliver Desmond in a low voice; but he was
suddenly and strangely calm now the danger was at his door. "They're
coming here. There's a handy tree I see over yonder, just outside your
gates," he added, with the frequent tendency of men who are used to
carry their lives in their hands to "jest upon the axe which kills
them." Ba