“He isn’t one of us,” said a homesteader, with grim shortness.
“Oh!” said she, tossing her lofty head.
There was a pallor in Macdonald’s weathered face, as if somebody near and dear to himself was in extreme peril.
“She may never see home again,” he said. Then quickly: “Which way did he go, do you know?”
She told him what she knew, not omitting the lost horseshoe. Tom Lassiter bent in his saddle with eagerness as she mentioned that particular, and ran his eyes over the road like one reading the pages of a book.
“There!” he said, pointing, “I’ve been seein’ it all the way down, Alan. He was headin’ for the hills.”
Frances could not see the print of the shoeless hoof, nor any peculiarity among the scores of tracks that would tell her of Nola’s abductor having ridden that far along the road. She flushed as the thought came to her that this was a trick to throw her attention from themselves and the blame upon some fictitious person, when they knew whose hands were guilty all the time. The men were leaning in their saddles, riding slowly back on their trail, talking in low voices and sharp exclamations among themselves. She spurred hotly after them.
“Mr. Chadron hasn’t come home yet,” she said, addressing Macdonald, who sat straight in his saddle to hear, “but they expect him any hour. If you’ll say how much you’re going to demand, and where you want it paid, I’ll carry the word to him. It might hurry matters, and save her mother’s life.”