.

"Link, drive Stillwell to El Cajon in time for him to catch the El Paso
train," she said. "Wait there for his return, and if any message comes
from him, telephone it at once to me."

Then she gave Stillwell the telegrams to send from El Cajon and drafts
to cash in El Paso. She instructed him to go before the rebel junta,
then stationed at Juarez, to explain the situation, to bid them expect
communications from Washington officials requesting and advising
Stewart's exchange as a prisoner of war, to offer to buy his release
from the rebel authorities.

When Stillwell had heard her through his huge, bowed form straightened,
a ghost of his old smile just moved his lips. He was no longer young,
and hope could not at once drive away stern and grim realities. As he
bent over her hand his manner appeared courtly and reverent. But either
he was speechless or felt the moment not one for him to break silence.

He climbed to a seat beside Link, who pocketed the watch he had been
studying and leaned over the wheel. There was a crack, a muffled sound
bursting into a roar, and the big car jerked forward to bound over the
edge of the slope, to leap down the long incline, to shoot out upon the
level valley floor and disappear in moving dust.

For the first time in days Madeline visited the gardens, the corrals,
the lakes, the quarters of the cowboys. Though imagining she was calm,
she feared she looked strange to Nels, to Nick, to Frankie Slade, to
those boys best known to her. The situation for them must have been one
of tormenting pain and bewilderment. They acted as if they wanted to
say something to her, but found themselves spellbound. She wondered--did
they know she was Stewart's wife? Stillwell had not had time to tell
them; besides, he would not have mentioned the fact. These cowboys only
knew that Stewart was sentenced to be shot; they knew if Madeline had
not been angry with him he would not have gone in desperate fighting
mood across the border. She spoke of the weather, of the horses and
cattle, asked Nels when he was to go on duty, and turned away from the
wide, sunlit, adobe-arched porch where the cowboys stood silent and
bareheaded. Then one of her subtle impulses checked her.

"Nels, you and Nick need not go on duty to-day," she said. "I may want
you. I--I--"

She hesitated, paused, and stood lingering there. Her glance had fallen
upon Stewart's big black horse prancing in a near-by corral.

"I have sent Stil