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 this house," Mrs. Ellison said when Tom expressed his admiration for their bravery, "but I hope to heaven he'll be the last."

"When did it happen?" Tom inquired, not remembering whether he had asked the same question before.

"Along about midnight, maybe a little after."

"Has Eudora been gone long?"

"An hour or more."

"She went to Indian Rock, of course?" Tom turned to the door as he spoke, to look anxiously out into the dark.

"It's fifteen miles nearer than Drumwell," Mrs. Ellison said. "I wouldn't let her start till I saw there wasn't anything I could do to bring Waco to, and then I wouldn't let her leave till I was sure them thieves was cleared out and gone. I wanted her to wait till daylight, but she would go."

"Of course she'd go," Tom said gloomily.

"She'll bring Sheriff Treadwell back with her."

"It will be noon before she gets back," Tom speculated. He was standing in the door, more than half in the mind to mount his tired horse and strike out after Eudora, although she had been gone so long there was not the slightest chance of overtaking her.

"Yes, it will be about noon, the best she can do," Mrs. Ellison said.

They spoke in low, restrained tones, as people speak in a house where someone lies dead. And there was that feeling about the place to Tom Simpson of somebody gone, whose absence made him numb. It was a perilous thing Eudora had undertaken, that ride of twenty-five