She held out her left hand with a sad little smile. “It is good of you to come so soon,” she said, simply.  
She had begged so earnestly to sit up that Mrs. White had improvised an invalid’s chair out of a huge old rocker and a cracker box. It did very well. Then she had partially clothed the girl in a skimpy wrapper of the sort Langford abominated, throwing a man’s silk handkerchief where the wrapper failed to meet, and around the injured arm. Mrs. White had then recalled her husband from the stables where he was on the point of mounting to join the relief party that was to set off in search of Williston at ten o’clock. The starting point unanimously agreed upon was to be the pitiful remnants of Williston’s home. Men shook their heads dubiously whenever the question of a possible leading trail was broached. The soil was hard and dry from an almost rainless July and August. The fugitives might strike across country anywhere with meagre chances of their trail being traced by any.
 
Mrs. White and her husband, kindly souls both, lifted the girl as gently as might be from the bed to the rudely constructed invalid’s chair by the sitting-room window. Then they had left her—the woman to putter around her kitchen, the man to make good his appointment. But the exertion had been too much for Mary. She had counted on strength that she did not possess. Where had she lost it all? she wondered, lacking comprehension of her exceeding weakness. To be sure, her arm alternately ached and smarted, but one’s arm was really such a small part of one, and she had been so strong—always. She tried to shake off the faintness creeping over her. It was effort thrown away. She lay back on her pillow, very white and worn, her pretty hair tangled and loosened from its coils.
 
Paul came. He was dusty and travel-stained. He had been almost continuously in his saddle since near midnight of the night before. He was here, big, strong, and worthy. Mary did not cry, but she remembered how she had wanted to a few hours ago and she wondered that she could not now. Strangely enough, it was Paul who wanted to cry now—but he didn’t. He only swallowed hard and held her poor hand with all gentleness, afraid to let go lest he also let go his mastery over the almost insurmountable lump in his throat.
 
“I tried to come sooner,” he said, huskily, at last, releasing her hand and standing before her. “But I’ve been riding all over—for men, you know,—and I had a talk with Gordon, too. It took time. He is coming out to see you this afternoon. He is coming with Doc. Don’t you think you had better go back to bed now? You are so—so white. Let me carry you back to bed before I go.”
 
“Are you going, too?” asked Mary, looking at him with wide eyes of gratitude.
 
“Surely,” he responded, quickly. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”
 
“I—I—didn’t know. I thought—there were a lot going—there would be enough without you. But—I am glad. If you go, it will be all right. You will find him if any one can.”
 
“Won’t you let me carry you back to bed till Doc comes?” said Langford, brokenly.
 
“I could not bear it in bed,” she said, clearly. Her brown eyes were beginning to shine with fever, and red spots had broken out in her pale cheeks. “If you make me go, I shall die. I hear it all the time when I am lying down—galloping, galloping, galloping. They never stop. They always begin all over again.”
 
“What galloping, little girl?” asked Langford, soothingly. He saw she was becoming delirious. If Doc and Dick would only come before he had to go. But they were not coming until after dinner. He gazed down the dusty road. They would wait for him, the others. He was their leader by the natural-born right of push and energy, as well as by his having been the sole participant, with his own cowboys, in the last night’s tragedy. But would he do well to keep them waiting? They had already delayed too long. And yet how could he leave Williston’s little girl like this—even to find Williston?
 
“They are carrying my father away,” she said, with startling distinctness. “Don’t you hear them? If you would listen, you could hear them. Do listen! They are getting faint now—you can hardly hear them. They are fainter—fainter—fainter—”
 
She had raised her head. There was an alert look on her face. She leaned slightly toward the window.
 
“Good God! A man can’t stand everything!” cried Langford, hoarsely. He tore the knotted handkerchief from his throat. It was as if he was choking. Then he put his cool, strong hand to her burning forehead and gently smoothed back the rough hair. Gradually, the fixed look of an indescribable horror passed away from her face. The strained, hard eyes softened, became dewy. She looked at him, a clinging helplessness in her eyes, but sweet and sane.
 
“Don’t you worry, child,” he said, comfortingly. “They can’t help finding him. Twenty men with the sheriff start on the trail. There’ll be fifty before night. They can’t help finding him. I’m going to stay right here with you till Doc comes. I’ll catch up with them before they’ve gone far. I’ll send word to the boys not to wait. Must be somebody around the house, I reckon, besides the old lady.”
 
He started cheerily for the door.
 
“Mr. Langford!”
 
“Yes?”
 
“Please come back.”
 
He came quickly to her.
 
“What is it?”
 
“Mr. Langford, will you grant me a favor?”
 
“Certainly, Miss Mary. Anything in this world that I can do for you, I will do. You know that, don’t you?”
 
“I am all right now. I don’t think I shall get crazy again if you will let me sit here by this window and look out. If I can watch for him, it will give me something to do. You see, I could be watching all the time for the party to come back over that little rise up the road. I want you to promise me,” she went on, steadily, “that I may sit here and wait for you—to come back.”
 
“God knows you may, little girl, anyway till Doc comes.”
 
“You are wiser than Doc,” pursued the girl. “He is a good fellow, but foolish, you know, sometimes. He might not understand. He might like to use authority over me because I am his patient—when he did not understand. Promise that I may sit up till you come back.”
 
“I do promise, little girl. Tell him I said so. Tell him—”
 
“I will tell him you are—the Boss,” she said, with a pitiful little attempt at a jest, and smiling wanly. “He will mind—the Boss.”
 
Langford was in agony. Perspiration was springing out on his forehead though August was wearing away peacefully in soft coolness with drifting depths of white cloud as a lounging-robe,—a blessed reprieve from the blazing sun of the long weeks which had gone before.
 
“And then I want you to promise me,” went on Mary, quietly, “that you will not think any more of staying behind. I could not bear that. I trust you to go. You will, won’t you?”
 
“Yes, I will go. I will do anything you say. And I want you to believe that everything will be all right. They would not dare to kill him now, knowing that we are after them. If we are not back to-night, you will not worry, will you? They had so much the start of us.”
 
“I will try not to worry.”
 
“Well, good-bye. Be a good girl, won’t you?”
 
“I will try,” she answered, wearily.
 
With a last look into the brave, sweet face, and smothering a mad, uncowman-like desire to stay and comfort this dear little woman while others rode away in stirring quest, Langford strode from the sick-room into the kitchen.
 
“Don’t let her be alone any more than you can help, Mother White,” he said, brusquely, “and don’t worry her about going to bed.”
 
“Have a bite afore you start, Mr. Langford, do,” urged the good woman, hospitably. “You’re that worn out you’re white around the gills. I’ll bet you haven’t had ary bite o’ breakfast.”
 
“I had forgotten—but you are right. No, thank you, I’ll not stop for anything now. I’ll have to ride like Kingdom come. I’m late. Be good to her, Mother White,” this last over his shoulder as he sprang to his mount from the kitchen stoop.
 
The long day wore along. Mother White was baking. The men would be ravenous when they came back. Many would stop there for something to eat before going on to their homes. It might be to-night, it might be to-morrow, it might not be until the day after, but whenever the time did come, knowing the men of the range country, she must have something “by her.” The pleasant fragrance of new bread just from the oven, mixed with the faint, spicy odor of cinnamon rolls, floated into the cheerless sitting-room. Mary, idly watching Mother White through the open door as she bustled about in a wholesome-looking blue-checked gingham apron, longed with a childish intensity to be out where there were human warmth and companionship. It was such a weary struggle to keep cobwebs out of her head in that lonely, carpetless sitting-room, and to keep the pipe that reared itself above the squat stove, from changing into a cottonwood tree. Some calamity seemed to hover over her all the time. She was about to grasp the terrible truth,—she knew she must look around. Now some one was creeping toward her from under the bed. Unless she stared it out of countenance, something awful would surely come to pass.
 
Mother White came to the door from time to time to ask her how she was, with floury hands, and stove smutch on her plump cheek. She never failed to break the evil spell. But Mary was weak, and Mrs. White on one of her periodical pauses at the door found her sobbing in pitiful self-abandonment. She went to her quickly, her face full of concern.
 
“My dear, my dear,” she cried, anxiously, “what is it? Tell me. Mr. Langford will never forgive me. I didn’t mean to neglect you, child. It’s only that I’m plumb a-foot............