idge," said Flora
Schuyler, with a hopefulness she did not feel.

Hetty leaned forward and held up her hand, as though to demand silence
that she might listen, before she answered her.

"There are some desperate men among the homestead-boys, and if they found
out they had been given away they would cut the track in another place,"
she said. "If they didn't and Cheyne surprised them, they would fire on
his troopers and Larry would be blamed for it. He would be chased
everywhere with a price on his head, and anyone he wouldn't surrender to
could shoot him. Flo, it is too hard to bear, and I'm afraid."

Her voice failed her, and Miss Schuyler, who could find no words to
reassure her, was thankful that her attention was demanded by her restive
horse. The strain was telling on her, too, and, with less at stake than
her companion, she was consumed by a longing to defeat the schemes of the
cattle-men, who had, it seemed to her with detestable cunning, decided not
to warn the station agent, and let the great train go, that they might
heap the more obloquy upon their enemies. The risk the engineer and
brakesmen ran was apparently nothing to them, and she felt, as Hetty did,
that Larry was the one man who could be depended on to avert bloodshed.
Yet there was still no sign of him.

"If he would only come!" she said.

There was no answer. Loose snow fell with a soft thud from the birch
branches, and there was a little sighing amidst the trees. It was rapidly
growing darker, but Hetty sat rigidly still in her saddle, with her hand
clenched on the bridle. Five long minutes passed. Then, she turned
suddenly, exultation in her voice.

"Flo," she said, "he's coming!"

Miss Schuyler could hear nothing for another minute or two, and then, when
a faint sound became audible through the whispering of the trees, she
wondered how her companion could be sure it was the fall of hoofs, or that
the horse was not ridden by a stranger. But there was no doubt in Hetty's
face, and Flora Schuyler sighed as she saw it relax and a softness creep
into the dark eyes. She had seen that look in the faces of other women and
knew its meaning.

The beat of hoofs became unmistakable, and she could doubt no longer that
a man was riding down the trail. He came into sight in another minute, a
shadowy figure swinging to the stride of a big horse, with the line of a
rifle-barrel across his saddle, and then, as he saw them, rode up at a
gallop, scattering th