Frances beckoned to Maggie, who had followed her mistress to the kitchen door.
“Give him water; stop the blood,” she ordered sharply.
In a moment she had dashed out after Mrs. Chadron, and was running frantically along the garden path toward the river.
CHAPTER XIII
THE TRAIL AT DAWN
Frances stopped at the high wire fence along the river bank. It was dark there between the shrubs of the garden on one hand and the tall willows on the other, but nothing moved in them but her own leaping heart. She called Mrs. Chadron, running along the fence as she cried her name.
Mrs. Chadron answered from the barn. Frances found her saddling a horse, while Maggie’s husband, an old Mexican with a stiff leg, muttered prayers in his native tongue as he tightened the girths on another.
Mrs. Chadron was for riding in pursuit of Nola’s abductors, although she had not mounted a horse in fifteen years. There was no man about the place except crippled old Alvino, and wounded Dalton lying in the men’s quarters near at hand. Neither of them was serviceable in such an emergency, and Banjo, willing as he would be, seemed too badly hurt to be of any use.
Frances pressed her to dismiss this intention. Even if they knew which way to ride, it would be a hopeless pursuit.