“Dad!  Mama!”

It was indeed a repentant Nell, but there was spirit yet in the tired blue eyes.  Then she caught sight of Gale and gave him a faint smile.

“Hello—­Dick.”

“Nell!” Gale reached for her hand, held it tightly, and found speech difficult.

“You needn’t worry—­about your old horse,” she said, as Belding carried her toward the door.  “Oh, Dick!  Blanco Sol is—­glorious!”

Gale turned to greet his friend.  Indeed, it was but a haggard ghost of the cavalryman.  Thorne looked ill or wounded.  Gale’s greeting was also a question full of fear.

Thorne’s answer was a faint smile.  He seemed ready to drop from the saddle.  Gale helped Ladd hold Thorne upon the horse until they reached the house.  Belding came out again.  His welcome was checked as he saw the condition of the cavalryman.  Thorne reeled into Dick’s arms.  But he was able to stand and walk.

“I’m not—­hurt.  Only weak—­starved,” he said.  “Is Mercedes—­ Take me to her.”

“She’ll be well the minute she sees him,” averred Belding, as he and Gale led the cavalryman to Mercedes’s room.  There they left him; and Gale, at least, felt his ears ringing with the girl’s broken cry of joy.

When Belding and Gale hurried forth again the rangers were tending the tired horses.  Upon returning to the house Jim Lash calmly lit his pipe, and Ladd declared that, hungry as he was, he had to tell his story.

“Shore, Beldin’,” began Ladd, “that was funny about Diablo catchin’ Blanco Sol.  Funny ain’t the word.  I nearly laughed myself to death.  Well, I rode in Sol’s tracks all the way to Casita.  Never seen a rebel or a raider till I got to town.  Figgered Nell made the trip in five hours.  I went straight to the camp of the cavalrymen, an’ found them just coolin’ off an’ dressin’ down their hosses after what looked to me like a big ride.  I got there too late for the fireworks.

“Some soldier took me to an officer’s tent.  Nell was there, some white an’ all in.  She just said, ‘Laddy!’ Thorne was there, too, an’ he was bein’ worked over by the camp doctor.  I didn’t ask no questions, because I seen quiet was needed round that tent.  After satisfying myself that Nell was all right, an’ Thorne in no danger, I went out.

“Shore there was so darn many fellers who wanted to an’ tried to tell me what’d come off, I thought I’d never find out.  But I got the story piece by piece.  An’ here’s what happened.

“Nell rode Blanco Sol a-tearin’ into camp, an’ had a crowd round her in a jiffy.  She told who she was, where she’d come from, an’ what she wanted.  Well, it seemed a day or so before Nell got there the cavalrymen had heard word of Thorne.  You see, Thorne had left camp on leave of absence some time before.  He was shore mysterious, they said, an’ told nobody where he was goin’.  A week or so after he left camp some Greaser give it away that Rojas had a prisoner in a dobe shack near his camp.  Nobody paid much attention to what the Greaser said.  He wanted money for mescal.  An’ it was usual for Rojas to have prisoners.  But in a few more days it turned out pretty sure that for some reason Rojas was holdin’ Thorne.