Then they turned to look for their leader, and did not find him until a lad came up to Dane.

“Courthorne’s back by the second furrows, and I fancy he’s badly hurt,” he said.  “He didn’t appear to know me, and his head seems all kicked in.”

It was not apparent how the news went round, but in a few more minutes Dane was kneeling beside a limp, blackened object stretched amid the grass, and while his comrades clustered behind her, Maud Barrington bent over him.  Her voice was breathless as she asked, “You don’t believe him dead?”

Somebody had brought a lantern, and Dane felt inclined to gasp when he saw the girl’s white face, but what she felt was not his business then.

“He’s of a kind that is very hard to kill.  Hold that lantern so I can see him,” he said.

The rest waited silent, glad that there was somebody to take a lead, and in a few moments Dane looked round again.

“Ride in to the settlement, Stapleton, and bring that Doctor fellow out if you bring him by the neck.  Stop just a moment.  You don’t know where you’re to bring him to.”

“Here, of course,” said the lad, breaking into a run.

“Wait,” and Dane’s voice stopped him.  “Now, I don’t fancy that would do.  It seems to me that this is a case in which a woman to look after him would be necessary.”

Then, before any of the married men or their wives who had followed them could make an offer, Maud Barrington touched his shoulder.

“He is coming to the Grange,” she said.

Dane nodded, signed to Stapleton, then spoke quickly to the men about him and turned to Maud Barrington.

“Ride on at a gallop and get everything ready.  I’ll see he comes to no harm,” he said.

The girl felt curiously grateful as she rode out with her companion, and Dane, who laid Winston carefully in a wagon, drew two of the other men aside when it rolled away towards the Grange.

“There is something to be looked into.  Did you notice anything unusual about the affair?” he said.

“Since you asked me, I did,” said one of the men.  “I, however, scarcely cared to mention it until I had time for reflection, but while I fancy the regulation guards would have checked the fire on the boundaries without our help, I don’t quite see how one started in the hollow inside them.”

“Exactly,” said Dane, very dryly.  “Well, we have got to discover it, and the more quickly we do it the better.  I fancy, however, that the question who started it is what we have to consider.”

The men looked at one another, and the third of them nodded.

“I fancy it comes to that—­though it is horribly unpleasant to admit it,” he said.

CHAPTER XVII

MAUD BARRINGTON IS MERCILESS

Dane overtook the wagon close by the birch bluff at Silverdale Grange.  It was late then, but there were lights in the windows that blinked beyond the trees, and, when the wagon stopped, Barrington stood in the entrance with one or two of his hired men.  Accidents are not infrequent on the prairie, where surgical assistance is not always available, and there was a shutter ready on the ground beside him, for the Colonel had seen the field hospital in operation.