Produced by Suzanne Shell, Janet Blenkinship and the Online

FROM THE RANKS.

BY

CAPT. CHARLES KING, U.S.A.,

AUTHOR OF "THE COLONEL'S DAUGHTER," "MARION'S FAITH," "KITTY'S
CONQUEST," ETC., ETC.

Transcriber's note:
This e-book of From the Ranks is based upon the edition found in The
Deserter, and From the Ranks. Two Novels, by Capt. Charles King.
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1890. The Deserter is also
available as a Project Gutenberg e-book.

PHILADELPHIA:

J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.

1890.

Copyright, 1887, by J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.

FROM THE RANKS.

I.

A strange thing had happened at the old fort during the still watches of
the night. Even now, at nine in the morning, no one seemed to be in
possession of the exact circumstances. The officer of the day was
engaged in an investigation, and all that appeared to be generally known
was the bald statement that the sentry on "Number Five" had fired at
somebody or other about half after three; that he had fired by order of
the officer of the day, who was on his post at the time; and that now he
flatly refused to talk about the matter.

Garrison curiosity, it is perhaps needless to say, was rather stimulated
than lulled by this announcement. An unusual number of officers were
chatting about head-quarters when Colonel Maynard came over to his
office. Several ladies, too, who had hitherto shown but languid interest
in the morning music of the band, had taken the trouble to stroll down
to the old quadrangle, ostensibly to see guard-mounting. Mrs. Maynard
was almost always on her piazza at this time, and her lovely daughter
was almost sure to be at the gate with two or three young fellows
lounging about her. This morning, however, not a soul appeared in front
of the colonel's quarters.

Guard-mounting at the fort was not held until nine o'clock, contrary to
the somewhat general custom at other posts in our scattered army.
Colonel Maynard had ideas of his own upon the subject, and it was his
theory that everything worked more smoothly if he had finished a
leisurely breakfast before beginning office-work of any kind, and
neither the colonel nor his family cared to breakfast before eight
o'clock. In view of the fact that Mrs. Maynard had borne that name but a
very short time and that her knowledge of army life dated only from the
month of May, the garrison was disposed to consider her entitled to
much latitude of choice in such matters, even while it did say that she
was old enough to be above bride-like sentiment. The womenfolk at the
fort were of opinion that Mrs. Maynard was fifty. It must be conceded
that she was over forty, also that this was her second entry into the
bonds of matrimony.

That no one should now appear on the colonel's piazza was obviously a
disappointment to several people. In some way or other most of the
breakfast tables at the post had been enlivened by accounts of the
mysterious shooting. The soldiers going the rounds with the
"police-cart," the butcher and grocer and baker from town, the old
milkwoman with her glistening cans, had all served as newsmongers from
kitchen to kitchen, and the story that came in with the coffee to the
lady of the house had lost nothing in bulk or bravery. The groups of
officers chatting and smoking in front of head-quarters gained
accessions every moment, while the ladies seemed more absorbed in chat
and confidences than in the sweet music of the band.

What fairly exasperated some men was the fact that the old officer of
the day was not out on the parade where he belonged. Only the new
incumbent was standing there in statuesque pose as the band trooped
along the line, and the fact that the colonel had sent out word that the
ceremony would proceed without Captain Chester only served to add fuel
to the flame of popular conjecture. It was known that the colonel was
holding a consultation with closed doors with the old officer of the
day, and never before since he came to the regiment had the colonel been
known to look so pale and strange as when he glanced out for just one
moment and called his orderly. The soldier sprang up, saluted, received
his message, and, with every eye following him, sped off towards the old
stone guard-house. In three minutes he was on his way back, accompanied
by a corporal and private of the guard in full dress uniform.

"That's Leary,--the man who fired the shot," said Captain Wilton to his
senior lieutenant, who stood by his side.

"Belongs to B Company, doesn't he?" queried the subaltern. "Seems to me
I have heard Captain Armitage say he was one of his best men."

"Yes. He's been in the regiment as long as I can remember. What on earth
can the colonel want him for? Near as I can learn, he only fired by
Chester's order."

"And neither of them knows what he fired at."

It was perhaps ten minutes more before Private Leary came forth from
the door-way of the colonel's office, nodded to the corporal, and,
raising their white-gloved hands in salute to the group of officers, the
two men tossed their rifles to the right shoulder and strode back to the
guard.

Another moment, and the colonel himself opened his door and appeared in
the hall-way. He stopped abruptly, turned back and spoke a few words in
low tone, then hurried through the groups at the entrance, looking at no
man, avoiding their glances, and giving faint and impatient return to
the soldierly salutations that greeted him. The sweat was beaded on his
forehead; his lips were white, and his face full of a trouble and dismay
no man had ever seen there before. He spoke to no one, but walked
rapidly homeward, entered, and closed the gate and door behind him.

For a moment there was silence in the group. Few men in the service were
better loved and honored than the veteran soldier who commanded the
----th Infantry; and it was with genuine concern that his officers saw
him so deeply and painfully affected,--for affected he certainly was.
Never before had his cheery voice denied them a cordial "Good-morning,
gentlemen." Never before had his blue eyes flinched. He had been their
comrade and commander in years of frontier service, and his bachelor
home had been the rendezvous of all genial spirits when in garrison.
They had missed him sorely when he went abroad on long leave the
previous year, and were almost indignant when they received the news
that he had met his fate in Italy and would return married. "She" was
the widow of a wealthy New-Yorker who had been dead some three years
only, and, though over forty, did not look her years to masculine eyes
when she reached the fort in May. After knowing her a week, the garrison
had decided to a man that the colonel had done wisely. Mrs. Maynard was
charming, courteous, handsome, and accomplished. Only among the women
were there still a few who resented their colonel's capture; and some of
these, oblivious of the fact that they had tempted him with relations of
their own, were sententious and severe in their condemnation of second
marriage; for the colonel, too, was indulging in a second experiment. Of
his first, only one man in the regiment, besides the commander, could
tell anything; and he, to the just indignation of almost everybody,
would not discuss the subject. It was rumored that in the old days when
Maynard was senior captain and Chester junior subaltern in their former
regiment the two had very little in common. It was known that the first
Mrs. Maynard, while still young and beautiful, had died abroad. It was
hinted that the resignation of a dashing lieutenant of the regiment,
which was synchronous with her departure for foreign shores, was
demanded by his brother officers; but it was useless asking Captain
Chester. He could not tell; and--wasn't it odd?--here was Chester again,
the only man in the colonel's confidence in an hour of evident trouble.

"By Jove! what's gone wrong with the chief?" was the first exclamation
from one of the older officers. "I never saw him look so broken."

As no explanation suggested itself, they began edging in towards the
office. The door stood open; a hand-bell banged; a clerk darted in from
the sergeant-major's rooms, and Captain Chester was revealed seated at
the colonel's desk. This in itself was sufficient to induce several
officers to stroll in and look inquiringly around. Captain Chester,
merely nodding, went on with some writing at which he was engaged.

After a moment's awkward silence and uneasy glancing at one another, the
party seemed to arrive at the conclusion that it was time to speak. The
band had ceased, and the new guard had marched away behind its pealing
bugles. Lieutenant Hall winked at his comrades, strolled hesitatingly
over to the desk, balanced unsteadily on one leg, and, with his hands
sticking in his trousers-pockets and his forage-cap swinging from
protruding thumb and forefinger, cleared his throat, and, with marked
lack of confidence, accosted his absorbed superior:

"Colonel gone home?"

"Didn't you see him?" was the uncompromising reply; and the captain did
not deign to raise his head or eyes.

"Well--er--yes, I suppose I did," said Mr. Hall, shifting uncomfortably
to his other leg, and prodding the floor with the toe of his boot.

"Then that wasn't what you wanted to know, I presume," said Captain
Chester, signing his name with a vicious dab of the pen and bringing his
fist down with a thump on the blotting-pad, while he wheeled around in
his chair and looked squarely up into the perturbed features of the
junior.

"No, it wasn't," answered Mr. Hall, in an injured tone, while an
audible snicker at the door added to his sense of discomfort. "What I
mainly wanted was to know could I go to town."

"That matter is easily arranged, Mr. Hall. All you have to do is to get
out of that uncomfortable and unsoldierly position, stand in the
attitude in which you are certainly more at home and infinitely more
picturesque, proffer your request in respectful words, and there is no
question as to the result."

"Oh! you're in command, then?" said Mr. Hall, slowly wriggling into the
position of the soldier and flushing through his bronzed cheeks. "I
thought the colonel might be only gone for a minute."

"The colonel may not be back for a week; but you be here for
dress-parade all the same, and--Mr. Hall!" he called, as the young
officer was turning away. The latter faced about again.

"Was Mr. Jerrold going with you to town?"

"Yes, sir. He was to drive me in his dog-cart, and it's over here now."

"Mr. Jerrold cannot go,--at least not until I have seen him."

"Why, captain, he got the colonel's permission at breakfast this
morning."

"That is true, no doubt, Mr. Hall." And the captain dropped his sharp
and captious manner, and his voice fell, as though in sympathy with the
cloud that settled on his face. "I cannot explain matters just now.
There are reasons why the permission is withdrawn for the time being.
The adjutant will notify him." And Captain Chester turned to his desk
again as the new officer of the day, guard-book in hand, entered to make
his report.

"The usual orders, captain," said Chester, as he took the book from his
hand and looked over the list of prisoners. Then, in bold and rapid
strokes, he wrote across the page the customary certificate of the old
officer of the day, winding up with this remark:

"He also inspected guard and visited sentries between 3 and 3.35 a.m.
The firing at 3.30 a.m. was by his order."

Meantime, those officers who had entered and who had no immediate duty
to perform were standing or seated around the room, but all observing
profound silence. For a moment or two no sound was heard but the
scratching of the captain's pen. Then, with some embarrassment and
hesitancy, he laid it down and glanced around him.

"Has any one here anything to ask,--any business to transact?"

Two or three mentioned some routine matters that required the action of
the post-commander, but did so reluctantly, as though they preferred to
await the orders of the colonel himself. Captain Wilton, indeed, spoke
his sentiments:

"I wanted to see Colonel Maynard about getting two men of my company
relieved from extra duty; but, as he isn't here, I fancy I had better
wait."

"Not at all. Who are your men?--Have it done at once, Mr. Adjutant, and
supply their places from my company, if need be. Now is there anything
else?"

The group was apparently "nonplussed," as the adjutant afterwards put
it, by such unlooked-for complaisance on the part of the usually
crotchety senior captain. Still, no one offered to lead the others and
leave the room. After a moment's nervous rapping with his knuckles on
the desk, Captain Chester again abruptly spoke:

"Gentlemen, I am sorry to incommode you, but, if there be nothing more
that you desire to see me about, I shall go on with some other matters,
which--pardon me--do not require your presence."

At this very broad hint the party slowly found their legs, and with much
wonderment and not a few resentful glances at their temporary commander
the officers sauntered to the door-way. There, however, several stopped
again, still reluctant to leave in the face of so pervading a mystery,
for Wilton turned.

"Am I to understand that Colonel Maynard has left the post to be gone
any length of time?" he asked.

"He has not yet gone. I do not know how long he will be gone or how soon
he will start. For pressing personal reasons he has turned over the
command to me; and, if he decide to remain away, of course some
field-officer will be ordered to come to head-quarters. For a day or two
you will have to worry along with me; but I shan't worry you more than I
can help. I've got mystery and mischief enough here to keep me busy, God
knows. Just ask Sloat to come back here to me, will you? And--Wilton, I
did not mean to be abrupt with you. I'm all upset to-day. Mr. Adjutant,
notify Mr. Jerrold at once that he must not leave the post until I have
seen him. It is the colonel's last order. Tell him so."

II.

The night before had been unusually dark. A thick veil of clouds
overspread the heavens and hid the stars. Moon there was none, for the
faint silver crescent that gleamed for a moment through the
swift-sailing wisps of vapor had dropped beneath the horizon soon after
tattoo, and the mournful strains of "taps," borne on the rising wind,
seemed to signal "extinguish lights" to the entire firmament as well as
to Fort Sibley. There was a dance of some kind at the quarters of one of
the staff-officers living far up the row on the southern terrace.
Chester heard the laughter and chat as the young officers and their
convoy of matrons and maids came tripping homeward after midnight. He
was a crusty old bachelor, to use his own description, and rarely
ventured into these scenes of social gayety, and, besides, he was
officer of the day, and it was a theory he was fond of expounding to
juniors that when on guard no soldier should permit himself to be drawn
from the scene of his duties. With his books and his pipe Chester whiled
away the lonely hours of the early night, and wondered if the wind would
blow up a rain or disperse the clouds entirely. Towards one o'clock a
light, bounding footstep approached his door, and the portal flew open
as a trim-built young fellow with laughing eyes and an air of exuberant
health and spirits came briskly in. It was Rollins, the junior second
lieutenant of the regiment, and Chester's own and only pet,--so said the
envious others. He was barely a year out of leading-strings at the
Point, and as full of hope and pluck and mischief as a colt. Moreover,
he was frank and teachable, said Chester, and didn't come to him with
the idea that he had nothing to learn and less to do. The boy won upon
his gruff captain from the very start, and, to the incredulous delight
of the whole regiment, within six months the old cynic had taken him
into his heart and home, and Mr. Rollins occupied a pleasant room under
Chester's roof-tree, and was the sole accredited sharer of the captain's
mess. To a youngster just entering service, whose ambition it was to
stick to business and make a record for zeal and efficiency, these were
manifest advantages. There were men in the regiment to whom such close
communion with a watchful senior would have been most embarrassing, and
Mr. Rollins's predecessor as second lieutenant of Chester's company was
one of these. Mr. Jerrold was a happy man when promotion took him from
under the wing of "Crusty Jake" and landed him in Company B. More than
that, it came just at a time when, after four years of loneliness and
isolation at an up-river stockade, his new company and his old one,
together with four others from the regiment, were ordered to join
head-quarters and the band at the most delightful station in the
Northwest. Here Mr. Rollins had reported for duty during the previous
autumn, and here they were with troops of other arms of the service,
enjoying the close proximity of all the good things of civilization.

Chester looked up with a quizzical smile as his "plebe" came in:

"Well, sir, how many dances had you with 'Sweet Alice, Ben Bolt'? Not
many, I fancy, with Mr. Jerrold monopolizing everything, as usual. By
gad! some good fellow could make a colossal fortune in buying that young
man at my valuation and selling him at his own."

"Oh, come, now, captain," laughed Rollins, "Jerrold's no such slouch as
you make him out. He's lazy, and he likes to spoon, and he puts up with
a good deal of petting from the girls,--who wouldn't, if he could get
it?--but he is jolly and big-hearted, and don't put on any airs,--with
us, at least,--and the mess like him first-rate. 'Tain't his fault that
he's handsome and a regular lady-killer. You must admit that he had a
pretty tough four years of it up there at that cussed old Indian
graveyard, and it's only natural he should enjoy getting here, where
there are theatres and concerts and operas and dances and dinners--"

"Yes, dances and dinners and daughters,--all delightful, I know, but no
excuse for a man's neglecting his manifest duty, as he is doing and has
been ever since we got here. Any other time the colonel would have
straightened him out; but no use trying it now, when both women in his
household are as big fools about the man as anybody in town,--bigger,
unless I'm a born idiot." And Chester rose excitedly.

"I suppose he had Miss Renwick pretty much to himself to-night?" he
presently demanded, looking angrily and searchingly at his junior, as
though half expecting him to dodge the question.

"Oh, yes. Why not? It's pretty evident she would rather dance and be
with him than with any one else: so what can a fellow do? Of course we
ask her to dance, and all that, and I think he wants us to; but I cannot
help feeling rather a bore to her, even if she is only eighteen, and
there are plenty of pleasant girls in the garrison who don't get any too
much attention, now we're so near a big city, and I like to be with
them."

"Yes, and it's the _right_ thing for you to do, youngster. That's one
trait I despise in Jerrold. When we were up there at the stockade two
winters ago, and Captain Gray's little girl was there, he hung around
her from morning till night, and the poor little thing fairly beamed and
blossomed with delight. Look at her now, man! He don't go near her. He
hasn't had the decency to take her a walk, a drive, or anything, since
we got here. He began, from the moment we came, with that gang in town.
He was simply devoted to Miss Beaubien until Alice Renwick came; then he
dropped her like a hot brick. By the Eternal, Rollins, he hasn't gotten
off with _that_ old love yet, you mark my words. There's Indian blood in
her veins, and a look in her eye that makes me wriggle, sometimes. I
watched her last night at parade when she drove out here with that
copper-faced old squaw, her mother. For all her French and Italian
education and her years in New York and Paris, that girl's got a wild
streak in her somewhere. She sat there watching him as the officers
marched to the front, and then _her_, as he went up and joined Miss
Renwick; and there was a gleam of her white teeth and a flash in her
black eyes that made me think of the leap of a knife from the sheath.
Not but what 'twould serve him right if she did play him some devil's
trick. It's his own doing. Were any people out from town?" he suddenly
asked.

"Yes, half a dozen or so," answered Mr. Rollins, who was pulling off his
boots and inserting his feet into easy slippers, while old "Crusty"
tramped excitedly up and down the floor. "Most of them stayed out here,
I think. Only one team went back across the bridge."

"Whose was that?"

"The Suttons', I believe. Young Cub Sutton was out with his sister and
another girl."

"There's another damned fool!" growled Chester. "That boy has ten
thousand a year of his own, a beautiful home that will be his, a doting
mother and sister, and everything wealth can buy, and yet, by gad! he's
unhappy because he can't be a poor devil of a lieutenant, with nothing
but drills, debts, and rifle-practice to enliven him. That's what brings
him out here all the time. He'd swap places with you in a minute. Isn't
he very thick with Jerrold?"

"Oh, yes, rather. Jerrold entertains him a good deal."

"Which is returned with compound interest, I'll bet you. Mr. Jerrold
simply makes a convenience of him. He won't make love to his sister,
because the poor, rich, unsophisticated girl is as ugly as she is
ubiquitous. His majesty is fastidious, you see, and seeks only the
caress of beauty, and while he lives there at the Suttons' when he goes
to town, and dines and sleeps and smokes and wines there, and uses their
box at the opera-house, and is courted and flattered by the old lady
because dear Cubby worships the ground he walks on and poor Fanny Sutton
thinks him adorable, he turns his back on the girl at every dance
because she _can't_ dance, and leaves her to you fellows who have a
conscience and some idea of decency. He gives all _his_ devotions to
Nina Beaubien, who dances like a _coryphée_, and drops _her_ when Alice
Renwick comes with her glowing Spanish beauty. Oh, damn it, I'm an old
fool to get worked up over it as I do, but you young fellows don't see
what I see. You haven't seen what I've seen; and pray God you never may!
That's where the shoe pinches, Rollins. It is what he _reminds_ me
of--not so much what he _is_, I suppose--that I get rabid about. He is
for all the world like a man we had in the old regiment when you were in
swaddling-clothes; and I never look at Mamie Gray's sad, white face that
it doesn't bring back a girl I knew just then whose heart was broken by
just such a shallow, selfish, adorable scoun--No, I won't use _that_
word in speaking of Jerrold; but it's what I fear. Rollins, you call him
generous. Well, so he is,--_lavish_, if you like, with his money and his
hospitality here in the post. Money comes easily to him, and goes; but
you boys misuse the term. _I_ call him selfish to the core, because he
can deny himself no luxury, no pleasure, though it may wring a woman's
life--or, more than that, her honor--to give it him." The captain was
tramping up and down the room now, as was his wont when excited; his
face was flushed, and his hand clinched. He turned suddenly and faced
the younger officer, who sat gazing uncomfortably at the rug in front of
the fireplace.

"Rollins, some day I may tell you a story that I've kept to myself all
these years. You won't wonder at my feeling as I do about these
goings-on of your friend Jerrold when you hear it all, but it was just
such a man as he who ruined one woman, broke the heart of another, and
took the sunshine out of the life of two men from that day to this. One
of them was your colonel, the other your captain. Now go to bed. I'm
going out." And, throwing down his pipe, regardless of the scattering
sparks and ashes, Captain Chester strode into the hall-way, picked up
the first forage-cap he laid hands on, and banged himself out of the
front door.

Mr. Rollins remained for some moments in the same attitude, still gazing
abstractedly at the rug, and listening to the nervous tramp of his
senior officer on the piazza without. Then he slowly and thoughtfully
went to his room, where his perturbed spirit was soon soothed in sleep.
His conscience being clear and his health perfect, there were no deep
cares to keep him tossing on a restless pillow.

To Chester, however, sleep was impossible: he tramped the piazza a full
hour before he felt placid enough to go and inspect his guard. The
sentries were calling three o'clock, and the wind had died away, as he
started on his round. Dark as was the night, he carried no lantern. The
main garrison was well lighted by lamps, and the road circling the old
fort was broad, smooth, and bordered by a stone coping wall where it
skirted the precipitous descent into the river-bottom. As he passed down
the plank walk west of the quadrangle wherein lay the old barracks and
the stone quarters of the commanding officer and the low one-storied row
of bachelor dens, he could not help noting the silence and peace of the
night. Not a light was visible at any window as he strode down the line.
The challenge of the sentry at the old stone tower sounded unnecessarily
sharp and loud, and his response of "Officer of the day" was lower than
usual, as though rebuking the unseemly outcry. The guard came scrambling
out and formed hurriedly to receive him, but the captain's inspection
was of the briefest kind. Barely glancing along the prison corridor to
see that the bars were in place, he turned back into the night, and made
for the line of posts along the river-bank. The sentry at the high
bridge across the gorge, and the next one, well around to the southeast
flank, were successively visited and briefly questioned as to their
instructions, and then the captain plodded sturdily on until he came to
the sharp bend around the outermost angle of the fort and found himself
passing behind the quarters of the commanding officer, a substantial
two-storied stone house with mansard roof and dormer-windows. The road
in the rear was some ten feet below the level of the parade inside the
quadrangle, and consequently, as the house faced the parade, what was
the ground-floor from that front became the second story at the rear.
The kitchen, store-room, and servants' rooms were on this lower stage,
and opened upon the road; an outer stairway ran up to the centre door at
the back, but at the east and west flanks of the house the stone walls
stood without port or window except those above the eaves,--the dormers.
Light and air in abundance streamed through the broad Venetian windows
north and south when light and air were needed. This night, as usual,
all was tightly closed below, all darkness aloft as he glanced up at the
dormers high above his head. As he did so, his foot struck a sudden and
sturdy obstacle; he stumbled and pitched heavily forward, and found
himself sprawling at full length upon a ladder lying on the ground
almost in the middle of the roadway.

"Damn those painters!" he growled between his set teeth. "They leave
their infernal man-traps around in the very hope of catching me, I
believe. Now, who but a painter would have left a ladder in such a place
as this?"

Rising ruefully and rubbing a bruised knee with his hand, he limped
painfully ahead a few steps, until he came to the side-wall of the
colonel's house. Here a plank walk passed from the roadway along the
western wall until almost on a line with the front piazza, where by a
flight of steps it was carried up to the level of the parade. Here he
paused a moment to dust off his clothes and rearrange his belt and
sword. He stood leaning against the wall and facing the gray stone gable
end of the row of old-fashioned quarters that bounded the parade upon
the southwest. All was still darkness and silence.

"Confound this sword!" he muttered again: "the thing made rattle and
racket enough to wake the dead. Wonder if I disturbed anybody at the
colonel's."

As though in answer to his suggestion, there suddenly appeared, high on
the blank wall before him, the reflection of a faint light. Had a little
night-lamp been turned on in the front room of the upper story? The
gleam came from the north window on the side: he saw plainly the shadow
of the pretty lace curtains, looped loosely back. Then the shade was
gently raised, and there was for an instant the silhouette of a slender
hand and wrist, the shadow of a lace-bordered sleeve. Then the light
receded, as though carried back across the room, waned, as though slowly
extinguished, and the last shadows showed the curtains still looped
back, the rolling shade still raised.

"I thought so," he growled. "One tumble like that is enough to wake the
Seven Sleepers, let alone a love-sick girl who is probably dreaming over
Jerrold's parting words. She is spirited and blue-blooded enough to have
more sense, too, that same superb brunette. Ah, Miss Alice, I wonder if
you think that fellow's love worth having. It is two hours since he left
you,--more than that,--and here you are awake yet,--cannot sleep,--want
more air, and have to come and raise your shade. No such warm night,
either." These were his reflections as he picked up his offending sword
and, more slowly and cautiously now, groped his way along the western
terrace. He passed the row of bachelor quarters, and was well out beyond
the limits of the fort before he came upon the next sentry,--"Number
Five,"--and recognized, in the stern "Who comes there?" and the sharp
rattle of the bayonet as it dropped to the charge, the well-known
challenge of Private Leary, one of the oldest and most reliable soldiers
in the regiment.

"All right on your post, Leary?" he asked, after having given the
countersign.

"All right, I _think_, sor; though if the captain had asked me that half
an hour ago I'd not have said so. It was so dark I couldn't see me hand
afore me face, sor; but about half-past two I was walkin' very slow down
back of the quarters, whin just close by Loot'nant Jerrold's back gate I
seen somethin' movin', and as I come softly along it riz up, an' sure I
thought 'twas the loot'nant himself, whin he seemed to catch sight o' me
or hear me, and he backed inside the gate an' shut it. I was sure 'twas
he, he was so tall and slim like, an' so I niver said a word until I got
to thinkin' over it, and then I couldn't spake. Sure if it had been the
loot'nant he wouldn't have backed away from a sintry; he'd 'a' come out
bold and given the countersign; but I didn't think o' that. It looked
like him in the dark, an' 'twas his quarters, an' I thought it _was_
him, until I thought ag'in, and then, sor, I wint back and searched the
yard; but there was no one there."

"Hm! Odd thing that, Leary! Why didn't you challenge at first?"

"Sure, sor, he lept inside the fince quick as iver we set eyes on each
other. He was bendin' down, and I thought it was one of the hound pups
when I first sighted him."

"And he hasn't been around since?"

"No, sor, nor nobody, till the officer of the day came along."

Chester walked away puzzled. Sibley was a most quiet and orderly
garrison. Night prowlers had never been heard from, especially over here
at the south and southwest fronts. The enlisted men going to or from
town passed across the big, high bridge or went at once to their own
quarters on the east and north. This southwestern terrace behind the
bachelors' row was the most secluded spot on the whole post,--so much so
that when a fire broke out there among the fuel-heaps one sharp winter's
night a year agone it had wellnigh enveloped the whole line before its
existence was discovered. Indeed, not until after this occurrence was a
sentry posted on that front at all; and, once ordered there, he had so
little to do and was so comparatively sure to be undisturbed that the
old soldiers eagerly sought the post in preference to any other, and
were given it as a peace privilege. For months, relief after relief
tramped around the fort and found the terrace post as humdrum and silent
as an empty church; but this night "Number Five" leaped suddenly into
notoriety.

Instead of going home, Chester kept on across the plateau and took a
long walk on the northern side of the reservation, where the
quarter-master's stables and corrals were placed. He was affected by a
strange unrest. His talk with Rollins had roused the memories of years
long gone by,--of days when he, too, was young and full of hope and
faith, ay, full of love,--all lavished on one fair girl who knew it
well, but gently, almost entreatingly, repelled him. Her heart was
wrapped up in another, the Adonis of his day in the gay old seaboard
garrison. She was a soldier's child, barrack-born, simply taught,
knowing little of the vice and temptations, the follies and the frauds,
of the whirling life of civilization. A good and gentle mother had
reared her and been called hence. Her father, an officer whose sabre-arm
was left at Molino del Rey, and whose heart was crushed when the loving
wife was taken from him, turned to the child who so resembled her, and
centred there all his remaining love and life. He welcomed Chester to
his home, and tacitly favored his suit, but in his blindness never saw
how a few moonlit strolls on the old moss-grown parapet, a few evening
dances in the casemates with handsome, wooing, winning Will Forrester,
had done their work. She gave him all the wild, enthusiastic,
worshipping love of her girlish heart just about the time Captain and
Mrs. Maynard came back from leave, and then he grew cold and negligent
_there_, but lived at Maynard's fireside; and one day there came a
sensation,--a tragedy,--and Mrs. Maynard went away, and died abroad, and
a shocked and broken-hearted girl hid her face from all and pined at
home, and Mr. Forrester's resignation was sent from--no one knew just
where, and no one would have cared to know, except Maynard. He would
have followed him, pistol in hand, but Forrester gave him no chance.
Years afterwards Chester again sought her and offered her his love and
his name. It was useless, she told him, sadly. She lived only for her
father now, and would never leave him till he died, and then--she prayed
she might go too. Memories like this _will_ come up at such times in
these same "still watches of the night." Chester was in a moody frame of
mind when about half an hour later he came back past the guard-house.
The sergeant was standing near the lighted entrance, and the captain
called him:

"There's a ladder lying back of the colonel's quarters on the roadway.
Some of those painters left it, I suppose. It's a wonder some of the
reliefs have not broken their necks over it going around to-night. Let
the next one pick it up and move it out of the way. Hasn't it been
reported?"

"Not to me, sir. Corporal Schreiber has command of this relief, and he
has said nothing about it. Here he is, sir."

"Didn't you see it or stumble over it when posting your relief,
corporal?" asked Chester.

"No indeed, sir. I--I think the captain must have been mistaken in
thinking it a ladder. We would surely have struck it if it had been."

"No mistake at all, corporal. I lifted it. It is a long, heavy
ladder,--over twenty feet, I should say."

"There _is_ such a ladder back there, captain," said the sergeant, "but
it always hangs on the fence just behind the young officers'
quarters,--Bachelors' Row, sir, I mean."

"And that ladder was there an hour ago when I went my rounds," said the
corporal, earnestly. "I had my hurricane-lamp, sir, and saw it on the
fence plainly. And there was nothing behind the colonel's at that hour."

Chester turned away, thoughtful and silent. Without a word he walked
straight into the quadrangle, past the low line of stone buildings, the
offices of the adjutant and quartermaster, the home of the
sergeant-major, the club and billiard-room, past the long, piazza-shaded
row of bachelor quarters, and came upon the plank walk at the corner of
the colonel's fence. Ten more steps, and he stood stock-still at the
head of the flight of wooden stairs.

There, dimly visible against the southern sky, its base on the plank
walk below him, its top resting upon the eaves midway between the
dormer-window and the roof of the piazza, so that one could step easily
from it into the one or on to the other, was the very ladder that half
an hour before was lying on the ground behind the house.

His heart stood still. He seemed powerless to move,--even to think. Then
a slight noise roused him, and with every nerve tingling he crouched
ready for a spring. With quick, agile movements, noiseless as a cat,
sinuous and stealthy as a serpent, the dark figure of a man issued from
Alice Renwick's chamber window and came gliding down.

One second more, and, almost as noiselessly, he reached the ground, then
quickly raised and turned the ladder, stepped with it to the edge of
the roadway, and peered around the angle as though to see that no sentry
was in sight, then vanished with his burden around the corner. Another
second, and down the steps went Chester, three at a bound, tip-toeing it
in pursuit. Ten seconds brought him close to the culprit,--a tall,
slender shadow.

"You villain! Halt!"

Down went the ladder on the dusty road. The hand that Chester had
clinched upon the broad shoulder was hurled aside. There was a sudden
whirl, a lightning blow that took the captain full in the chest and
staggered him back upon the treacherous and entangling rungs, and, ere
he could recover himself, the noiseless stranger had fairly whizzed into
space and vanished in the darkness up the road. Chester sprang in
pursuit. He heard the startled challenge of the sentry, and then Leary's
excited "Halt, I say! Halt!" and then he shouted,--

"Fire on him, Leary! Bring him down!"

Bang went the ready rifle with sharp, sullen roar that woke the echoes
across the valley. Bang again, as Leary sent a second shot after the
first. Then, as the captain came panting to the spot, they followed up
the road. No sign of the runner. Attracted by the shots, the sergeant of
the guard and one or two men, lantern-bearing, came running to the
scene. Excitedly they searched up and down the road in mingled hope and
dread of finding the body of the marauder, or some clue or trace.
Nothing! Whoever he was, the fleet runner had vanished and made good his
escape.

"Who could it have been, sir?" asked the sergeant of the officer of the
day. "Surely none of the men ever come round this way."

"I don't know, sergeant; I don't know. Just take your lamp and see if
there is anything visible down there among the rocks. He may have been
hit and leaped the wall.--Do you think you hit him, Leary?"

"I can't say, sor. He came by me like a flash. I had just a second's
look at him, and--Sure I niver saw such runnin'."

"Could you see his face?" asked Chester, in a low tone, as the other men
moved away to search the rocks.

"Not his face, sor. 'Twas too dark."

"Was there--did he look like anybody you knew, or had seen?--anybody in
the command?"

"Well, sor, not among the men, that is. There's none so tall and slim
both, and so light. Sure he must 'a' worn gums, sor. You couldn't hear
the whisper of a footfall."

"But whom did he _seem_ to resemble?"

"Well, if the captain will forgive me, sor, it's unwillin' I am to say
the worrd, but there's no one that tall and light and slim here, sor,
but Loot'nant Jerrold. Sure it couldn't be him, sor."

"Leary, will you promise me something on your word as a man?"

"I will, sor."

"Say not one word of this matter to any one, except I tell you, or you
have to, before a court."

"I promise, sor."

"And I believe you. Tell the sergeant I will soon be back."

With that he turned and walked down the road until once more he came to
the plank crossing and the passage-way between the colonel's and
Bachelors' Row. Here again he stopped short, and waited with bated
breath and scarcely-beating heart. The faint light he had seen before
again illumined the room and cast its gleam upon the old gray wall. Even
as he gazed, there came silently to the window a tall, white-robed form,
and a slender white hand seized and lowered the shade, noiselessly.
Then, as before, the light faded away; but--she was awake.

Waiting one moment in silence, Captain Chester then sprang up the wooden
steps and passed under the piazza which ran the length of the bachelor
quarters. Half-way down the row he turned sharply to his left, opened
the green-painted door, and stood in a little dark hall-way. Taking his
match-box from his pocket, he struck a light, and by its glare quickly
read the card upon the first door-way to his right:

                         "MR. HOWARD F. JERROLD,

                                 "----_th Infantry, U.S.A._"

Opening this door, he bolted straight through the little parlor to the
bedroom in the rear. A dim light was burning on the mantel. The bed was
unruffled, untouched, and Mr. Jerrold was not there.

Five minutes afterwards, Captain Chester, all alone, had laboriously and
cautiously dragged the ladder from the side to the rear of the colonel's
house, stretched it in the roadway where he had first stumbled upon it,
then returned to the searching-party on "Number Five."

"Send two men to put that ladder back," he ordered. "It is where I told
you,--on the road behind the colonel's."

III.

When Mrs. Maynard came to Sibley in May and the officers with their
wives were making their welcoming call, she had with motherly pride and
pleasure yielded to their constant importunities and shown to one party
after another an album of photographs,--likenesses of her only daughter.
There were little _cartes de visite_ representing her in long dresses
and baby-caps; quaint little pictures of a chubby-faced, chubby-legged
infant a few months older; charming studies of a little girl with great
black eyes and delicate features; then of a tall, slender slip of a
maiden, decidedly foreign-looking; then of a sweet and pensive face,
with great dark eyes, long, beautiful curling lashes, and very heavy,
low-arched brows, exquisitely moulded mouth and chin, and most luxuriant
dark hair; then others, still older, in every variety of dress,--even in
fancy costume, such as the girl had worn at fair or masquerade. These
and others still had Mrs. Maynard shown them, with repressed pride and
pleasure and with sweet acknowledgment of their enthusiastic praises.
Alice still tarried in the East, visiting relatives whom she had not
seen since her father's death three years earlier, and, long before she
came to join her mother at Sibley and to enter upon the life she so
eagerly looked forward to, "'way out in the West, you know, with
officers and soldiers and the band, and buffalo and Indians all around
you," there was not an officer or an officer's wife who had not
delightedly examined that album. There was still another picture, but
that one had been shown to only a chosen few just one week after her
daughter's arrival, and rather an absurd scene had occurred, in which
that most estimable officer, Lieutenant Sloat, had figured as the hero.
A more simple-minded, well-intentioned fellow than Sloat there did not
live. He was so full of kindness and good nature and readiness to do
anything for anybody that it never seemed to occur to him that everybody
on earth was not just as ready to be equally accommodating. He was a
perpetual source of delight to the colonel, and one of the most loyal
and devoted of subalterns, despite the fact that his locks were long
silvered with the frosts of years and that he had fought through the war
of the rebellion and risen to the rank of a field-officer in Maynard's
old brigade. The most temperate of men, ordinarily, the colonel had one
anniversary he loved to celebrate, and Sloat was his stand-by when the
3d of July came round, just as he had been at his shoulder at that
supreme moment when, heedless of the fearful sweep of shell and canister
through their shattered ranks, Pickett's heroic Virginians breasted the
slope of Cemetery Hill and surged over the low stone wall into Cushing's
guns. Hard, stubborn fighting had Maynard's men to do that day, and for
serene courage and determination no man had beaten Sloat. Both officers
had bullet-hole mementos to carry from that field; both had won their
brevets for conspicuous gallantry, and Sloat was a happy and grateful
man when, years afterwards, his old commander secured him a lieutenancy
in the regular service. He was the colonel's henchman, although he never
had brains enough to win a place on the regimental staff, and when Mrs.
Maynard came he overwhelmed her with cumbrous compliments and incessant
calls. He was, to his confident belief, her chosen and accepted knight
for full two days after her arrival. Then Jerrold came back from a brief
absence, and, as in duty bound, went to pay his respects to his
colonel's wife; and that night there had been a singular scene. Mrs.
Maynard had stopped suddenly in her laughing chat with two ladies, had
started from her seat, wildly staring at the tall, slender subaltern who
entered the gateway, and then fell back in her chair, fairly swooning as
he made his bow.

Sloat had rushed into the house to call the colonel and get some water,
while Mr. Jerrold stood paralyzed at so strange a reception of his first
call. Mrs. Maynard revived presently, explained that it was her heart,
or the heat, or something, and the ladies on their way home decided that
it was possibly the heart, it was certainly not the heat, it was
unquestionably something, and that something was Mr. Jerrold, for she
never took her eyes off him during the entire evening, and seemed unable
to shake off the fascination. Next day Jerrold dined there, and from
that time on he was a daily visitor. Every one noted Mrs. Maynard's
strong interest in him, but no one could account for it. She was old
enough to be his mother, said the garrison; but not until Alice Renwick
came did another consideration appear: he was singularly like the
daughter. Both were tall, lithe, slender; both had dark, lustrous eyes,
dark, though almost perfect, skin, exquisitely-chiselled features, and
slender, shapely hands and feet. Alice was "the picture of her father,"
said Mrs. Maynard, and Mr. Renwick had lived all his life in New York;
while Mr. Jerrold was of an old Southern family, and his mother a Cuban
beauty who was the toast of the New Orleans clubs not many years before
the war.

Poor Sloat! He did not fancy Jerrold, and was as jealous as so
unselfish a mortal could be of the immediate ascendency the young fellow
established in the colonel's household. It was bad enough before Alice
joined them; after that it was wellnigh unbearable. Then came the
3d-of-July dinner and the colonel's one annual jollification. No man
ever heard of Sloat's being intoxicated; he rarely drank at all; but
this evening the reminiscences of the day, the generous wine, the
unaccustomed elegance of all his surroundings, due to Mrs. Maynard's
taste and supervision, and the influence of Alice Kenwick's exquisite
beauty, had fairly carried him away.

They were chatting in the parlor, while Miss Renwick was entertaining
some young-lady friends from town and listening to the band on the
parade. Sloat was expatiating on her grace and beauty and going over the
album for the twentieth time, when the colonel, with a twinkling eye,
remarked to Mrs. Maynard,--

"I think you ought to show Major[A] Sloat the 'Directoire' picture, my
dear."

"Alice would never forgive me," said madame, laughing; "though I
consider it the most beautiful we have of her."

"Oh, where is it?" "Oh, do let us see it, Mrs. Maynard!" was the chorus
of exclamations from the few ladies present. "Oh, I _insist_ on seeing
it, madame," was Sloat's characteristic contribution to the clamor.

"I want you to understand it," said Mrs. Maynard, pleased, but still
hesitating. "We are very daft about Alice at home, you know, and it's
quite a wonder she has not been utterly spoiled by her aunts and uncles;
but this picture was a specialty. An artist friend of ours fairly _made_
us have it taken in the wedding-dress worn by her grandmother. You know
the Josephine Beauharnais 'Directoire' style that was worn in seventeen
ninety-something. Her neck and shoulders are lovely, and that was why we
consented. I went, and so did the artist, and we posed her, and the
photograph is simply perfect of her face, and neck too, but when Alice
saw it she blushed furiously and forbade my having them finished.
Afterwards, though, she yielded when her aunt Kate and I begged so hard
and promised that none should be given away, and so just half a dozen
were finished. Indeed, the dress is by no means as _décolleté_ as many
girls wear theirs at dinner now in New York; but poor Alice was
scandalized when she saw it last month, and she never would let me put
one in the album."

"Oh, _do_ go and get it, Mrs. Maynard!" pleaded the ladies. "Oh,
_please_ let me see it, Mrs. Maynard!" added Sloat; and at last the
mother-pride prevailed. Mrs. Maynard rustled up-stairs, and presently
returned holding in her hands a delicate silver frame in filigree-work,
a quaint foreign affair, and enclosed therein was a cabinet photograph
_en vignette_,--the head, neck, and shoulders of a beautiful girl; and
the dainty, diminutive, what-there-was-of-it waist of the old-fashioned
gown, sashed almost immediately under the exquisite bust, revealed quite
materially the cause of Alice Renwick's blushes. But a more beautiful
portrait was never photographed. The women fairly gasped with delight
and envy. Sloat could not restrain his impatience to get it in his own
hands, and finally he grasped it and then eyed it in rapture. It was two
minutes before he spoke a word, while the colonel sat laughing at his
worshipping gaze. Mrs. Maynard somewhat uneasily stretched forth her
hand, and the other ladies impatiently strove to regain possession.

"Come, Major Sloat, you've surely had it long enough. _We_ want it
again."

"Never!" said Sloat, with melodramatic intensity. "Never! This is my
ideal of perfection,--of divinity in woman. I will bear it home with me,
set it above my fireside, and adore it day and night."

"Nonsense, Major Sloat!" said Mrs. Maynard, laughing, yet far from being
at her ease. "Come, I _must_ take it back. Alice may be in any minute
now, and if she knew I had betrayed her she would never forgive me.
Come, surrender!" And she strove to take it from him.

But Sloat was in one of his utterly asinine moods. He would have been
perfectly willing to give any sum he possessed for so perfect a picture
as this. He never dreamed that there were good and sufficient reasons
why _no_ man should have it. He so loved and honored his colonel that he
was ready to lay down his life for any of his household. In laying claim
to this picture he honestly believed that it was the highest proof he
could give of his admiration and devotion. A tame surrender now meant
that his protestations were empty words. "Therefore," argued Sloat, "I
must stand firm."

"Madame," said he, "I'd die first." And with that he began backing to
the door.

Alarmed now, Mrs. Maynard sprang after him, and the little major leaped
upon a chair, his face aglow, jolly, rubicund, beaming with bliss and
triumph. She looked up, almost wringing her hands, and turned half
appealingly to the colonel, who was laughing heartily on the sofa, never
dreaming Sloat could be in earnest.

"Here, I'll give you back the frame: I don't want that," said Sloat, and
began fumbling at the back of the photograph. This was too much for the
ladies. They, too, rushed to the rescue. One of them sprang to and shut
the door, the other seized and violently shook the back of his chair,
and Sloat leaped to the floor, still clinging to his prize, and laughing
as though he had never had so much entertainment in his life. The long
Venetian windows opened upon the piazza, and towards the nearest one he
retreated, holding aloft the precious gage and waving off the attacking
party with the other hand. He was within a yard of the blinds, when they
were suddenly thrown open, a tall, slender form stepped quickly in, one
hand seized the uplifted wrist, the other the picture, and in far less
time than it takes to tell it Mr. Jerrold had wrenched it away and, with
quiet bow, restored it to its rightful owner.

"Oh, I say, now, Jerrold, that's downright unhandsome of you!" gasped
Sloat. "I'd have been on my way home with it."

"Shut up, you fool!" was the sharp, hissing whisper. "Wait till I go
home, if you want to talk about it." And, as quickly as he came, Mr.
Jerrold slipped out again upon the piazza.

Of course the story was told with varied comment all over the post.
Several officers were injudicious enough to chaff the old subaltern
about it, and--he was a little sore-headed the next day, anyway--the
usually placid Sloat grew the more indignant at Jerrold. He decided to
go and upbraid him; and, as ill luck would have it, they met before noon
on the steps of the club-room.

"I want to say to you, Mr. Jerrold, that from an officer of your age to
one of mine I think your conduct last night a piece of impertinence."

"I had a perfect right to do what I did," replied Jerrold, coolly. "You
were taking a most unwarrantable liberty in trying to carry off that
picture."

"How did you know what it was? You had never seen it!"

"There's where you are mistaken, Mr. Sloat" (and Jerrold purposely and
exasperatingly refused to recognize the customary _brevet_): "I had seen
it,--frequently."

Two officers were standing by, and one of them turned sharply and faced
Jerrold as he spoke. It was his former company commander. Jerrold noted
the symptom, and flushed, but set his teeth doggedly.

"Why, Mr. Jerrold! Mrs. Maynard said she never showed that to any one,"
said Sloat, in much surprise. "You heard her, did you not, Captain
Chester?"

"I did, certainly," was the reply.

"All the same, I repeat what I've said," was Jerrold's sullen answer. "I
have seen it frequently, and, what's more--" He suddenly stopped.

"Well, what's more?" said Sloat, suggestively.

"Never mind. I don't care to talk of the matter," replied Jerrold, and
started to walk away.

But Sloat was angry, nettled, jealous. He had meant to show his intense
loyalty and admiration for everything that was his colonel's, and had
been snubbed and called a fool by an officer many years, though not so
many "files," his junior. He never had liked him, and now there was an
air of conscious superiority about Jerrold that fairly exasperated him.
He angrily followed and called to him to stop, but Jerrold walked on.
Captain Chester stood still and watched them. The little man had almost
to run before he overtook the tall one. They were out of earshot when he
finally did so. There were a few words on both sides. Then Jerrold
shifted his light cane into his left hand, and Chester started forward,
half expecting a fracas. To his astonishment, the two officers shook
hands and parted.

"Well," said he, as Sloat came back with an angry yet bewildered face,
"I'm glad you shook hands. I almost feared a row, and was just going to
stop it. So he apologized, did he?"

"No, nothing like it."

"Then what did you mean by shaking hands?"

"That's nothing--never you mind," said Sloat, confusedly. "I haven't
forgiven him, by a good deal. The man's conceit is enough to disgust
anything--but a woman, I suppose," he finished, ruefully.

"Well, it's none of my business, Sloat, but pardon my saying I don't see
what there was to bring about the apparent reconciliation. That
hand-shake meant something."

"Oh, well--damn it! we had some words, and he--or I--Well, there's a
bet, and we shook hands on it."

"Seems to me that's pretty serious business, Sloat,--a bet following
such a talk as you two have had. I hope--"

"Well, captain," interrupted Sloat, "I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't
been mad as blazes; but I made it, and must stick to it,--that's all."

"You wouldn't mind telling me what it was, I suppose?"

"I can't; and that ends it."

Captain Chester found food for much thought and speculation over this
incident. So far as he was concerned, the abrupt remark of Sloat by no
means ended it. In his distrust of Jerrold, he too had taken alarm at
the very substantial intimacy to which that young man was welcomed at
the colonel's quarters. Prior to his marriage old Maynard had not liked
him at all, but it was mainly because he had been so negligent of his
duties and so determined a beau in city society after his arrival at
Sibley. He had, indeed, threatened to have him transferred to a company
still on frontier service if he did not reform; but then the
rifle-practice season began, and Jerrold was a capital shot and sure to
be on the list of competitors for the Department team, so what was the
use? He would be ordered in for the rifle-camp anyway, and so the
colonel decided to keep him at head-quarters. This was in the summer of
the year gone by. Then came the colonel's long leave, his visit to
Europe, his meeting with his old friend, now the widow of the lamented
Renwick, their delightful winter together in Italy, his courtship, her
consent, their marriage and return to America. When Maynard came back to
Sibley and the old regiment, he was so jolly and content that every man
was welcomed at his house, and it was really a source of pride and
pleasure to him that his accomplished wife should find any of his young
officers so thoroughly agreeable as she pronounced Mr. Jerrold. Others
were soldierly, courteous, well bred, but he had the air of a foreign
court about him, she privately informed her lord; and it seems, indeed,
that in days gone by Mr. Jerrold's father had spent many years in France
and Spain, once as his country's representative near the throne. Though
the father died long before the boy was out of his knickerbockers, he
had left the impress of his grand manner, and Jerrold, to women of any
age, was at once a courtier and a knight. But the colonel never saw how
her eyes followed the tall young officer time and again. There were
women who soon noted it, and one of them said it was such a yearning,
longing look. _Was_ Mrs. Maynard really happy? they asked each other.
_Did_ she really want to see Alice mate with him, the handsome, the
dangerous, the selfish fellow they knew him to be? If not, could
anything be more imprudent than that they should be thrown together as
they were being, day after day? Had Alice wealth of her own? If not, did
the mother know that nothing would tempt Howard Jerrold into an alliance
with a dowerless daughter? These, and many more, were questions that
came up every day. The garrison could talk of little else; and Alice
Renwick had been there just three weeks, and was the acknowledged Queen
of Hearts at Sibley, when the rifle-competitions began again, and a
great array of officers and men from all over the Northwest came to the
post by every train, and their canvas tents dotted the broad prairie to
the north.

One lovely evening in August, just before the practice began, Colonel
Maynard took his wife to drive out and see the camp. Mr. Jerrold and
Alice Renwick followed on horseback. The carriage was surrounded as it
halted near the range, and half a score of officers, old and young, were
chatting with Mrs. Maynard, while others gathered about the lovely girl
who sat there in the saddle. There came marching up from the railway a
small squad of soldiers, competitors arriving from the far West. Among
them--apparently their senior non-commissioned officer--was a tall
cavalry sergeant, superbly built, and with a bronzed and bearded and
swarthy face that seemed to tell of years of campaigning over mountain
and prairie. They were all men of perfect physique, all in the neat,
soldierly fatigue-dress of the regular service, some wearing the
spotless white stripes of the infantry, others the less artistic and
equally destructible yellow of the cavalry. Their swinging stride, erect
carriage, and clear and handsome eyes all spoke of the perfection of
health and soldierly development. Curious glances were turned to them as
they advanced, and Miss Renwick, catching sight of the party,
exclaimed,--

"Oh, who are these? And what a tall soldier that sergeant is!"

"That sergeant, Miss Renwick," said a slow, deliberate voice, "is the
man I believe will knock Mr. Jerrold out of the first prize. That is
Sergeant McLeod."

As though he heard his name pronounced, the tall cavalryman glanced for
the first time at the group, brought his rifle to the carry as if about
to salute, and was just stepping upon the roadside, where he came in
full view of the occupants of the carriage, when a sudden pallor shot
across his face, and he plunged heavily forward and went down like a
shot. Sympathetic officers and comrades surrounded the prostrate form in
an instant. The colonel himself sprang from his carriage and joined the
group; a blanket was quickly brought from a neighboring tent, and the
sergeant was borne thither and laid upon a cot. A surgeon felt his pulse
and looked inquiringly around:

"Any of you cavalrymen know him well? Has he been affected this way
before?"

A young corporal who had been bending anxiously over the sergeant
straightened up and saluted:

"I know him well, sir, and have been with him five years. He's only had
one sick spell in all that time,--'twas just like this,--and then he
told me he'd been sunstruck once."

"This is no case of sunstroke," said the doctor. "It looks more like the
heart. How long ago was the attack you speak of?"

"Three years ago last April, sir. I remember it because we'd just got
into Fort Raines after a long scout. He'd been the solidest man in the
troop all through the cold and storm and snow we had in the mountains,
and we were in the reading-room, and he'd picked up a newspaper and was
reading while the rest of us were talking and laughing, and, first thing
we knew, he was down on the floor, just like he was to-night."

"Hm!" said the surgeon. "Yes. That's plenty, steward. Give him that.
Raise his head a little, corporal. Now he'll come round all right."

Driving homeward that night, Colonel Maynard musingly remarked,--

"Did you see that splendid fellow who fainted away?"

"No," answered his wife, "you all gathered about him so quickly and
carried him away. I could not even catch a glimpse of him. But he had
recovered, had he not?"

"Yes. Still, I was thinking what a singular fact it is that occasionally
a man slips through the surgeon's examinations with such a malady as
this. Now, here is one of the finest athletes and shots in the whole
army, a man who has been through some hard service and stirring fights,
has won a tip-top name for himself and was on the highroad to a
commission, and yet this will block him effectually."

"Why, what is the trouble?"

"Some affection of the heart. Why! Halloo! Stop, driver! Orderly, jump
down and run back there. Mrs. Maynard has dropped her fan.--What was it,
dear?" he asked, anxiously. "You started; and you are white, and
trembling."

"I--I don't know, colonel. Let us go home. It will be over in a minute.
Where are Alice and Mr. Jerrold? Call them, please. She must not be out
riding after dark."

But they were not in sight; and it was considerably after dark when they
reached the fort. Mr. Jerrold explained that his horse had picked up a
stone and he had had to walk him all the way.

IV.

There was no sleep for Captain Chester the rest of the night. He went
home, threw off his sword-belt, and seated himself in a big easy-chair
before his fireplace, deep in thought. Once or twice he arose and paced
restlessly up and down the room, as he had done in his excited talk with
Rollins some few hours before. Then he was simply angry and
argumentative,--or declamatory. Now he had settled down into a very
different frame of mind. He seemed awed,--stunned,--crushed. He had all
the bearing and mien of one who, having defiantly predicted a calamity,
was thunderstruck by the verification of his prophecy. In all his
determined arraignment of Mr. Jerrold, in all the harsh things he had
said and thought of him, he had never imagined any such depth of
scoundrelism as the revelations of the night foreshadowed. Chester
differed from many of his brotherhood: there was no room for rejoicing
in his heart that the worst he had ever said of Jerrold was unequal to
the apparent truth. He took no comfort to his soul that those who called
him cynical, crabbed, unjust, even malicious, would now be compelled to
admit he was right in his estimate. Like the best of us, Chester could
not ordinarily say "_Vade retro_" to the temptation to think, if not to
say, "Didn't I tell you so?" when in every-day affairs his oft-disputed
views were proved well founded. But in the face of such a catastrophe as
now appeared engulfing the fair fame of his regiment and the honor of
those whom his colonel held dear, Chester could feel only dismay and
grief. What was his duty in the light of the discoveries he had made? To
the best of his belief, he was the only man in the garrison who had
evidence of Jerrold's absence from his own quarters and of the presence
of _some one_ at _her_ window. He had taken prompt measures to prevent
its being suspected by others. He purposely sent his guards to search
along the cliff in the opposite direction while he went to Jerrold's
room and thence back to remove the tell-tale ladder. Should he tell
_any_ one until he had confronted Jerrold with the evidences of his
guilt, and, wringing from him his resignation, send him far from the
post before handing it in? Time and again he wished Frank Armitage were
here. The youngest captain in the regiment, Armitage had been for years
its adjutant and deep in the confidence of Colonel Maynard. He was a
thorough soldier, a strong, self-reliant, courageous man, and one for
whom Chester had ever felt a warm esteem. Armitage was on leave of
absence, however,--had been away some time on account of family matters,
and would not return, it was known, until he had effected the removal of
his mother and sister to the new home he had purchased for them in the
distant East. It was to his company that Jerrold had been promoted, and
there was friction from the very week that the handsome subaltern
joined.

Armitage had long before "taken his measure," and was in no wise pleased
that so lukewarm a soldier should have come to him as senior subaltern.
They had a very plain talk, for Armitage was straightforward as a dart,
and then, as Jerrold showed occasional lapses, the captain shut down on
some of his most cherished privileges, and, to the indignation of
society, the failure of Mr. Jerrold to appear at one or two gatherings
where he was confidently expected was speedily laid at his captain's
door. The recent death of his father kept Armitage from appearing in
public, and, as neither he nor the major (who commanded the regiment
while Maynard was abroad) vouchsafed the faintest explanation, society
was allowed to form its own conclusions, and _did_,--to the effect that
Mr. Jerrold was a wronged and persecuted man. It was just as the
Maynards arrived at Sibley that Armitage departed on his leave, and, to
his unspeakable bliss, Mr. Jerrold succeeded to the command of his
company. This fact, coupled with the charming relations which were
straightway established with the colonel's family, placed him in a
position of independence and gave him opportunities he had never known
before. It was speedily evident that he was neglecting his military
duties,--that Company B was running down much faster than Armitage had
built it up,--and yet no man felt like speaking of it to the colonel,
who saw it only occasionally on dress-parade. Chester had just about
determined to write to Armitage himself and suggest his speedy return,
when this eventful night arrived. Now he fully made up his mind that it
must be done at once, and had seated himself at his desk, when the roar
of the sunrise gun and the blare of the bugles warned him that reveille
had come and he must again go to his guard. Before he returned to his
quarters another complication, even more embarrassing, had arisen, and
the letter to Armitage was postponed.

He had received the "present" of his guard and verified the presence of
all his prisoners, when he saw Major Sloat still standing out in the
middle of the parade, where the adjutant usually received the reports of
the roll-calls. Several company officers, having made their reports,
were scurrying back to quarters for another snooze before breakfast-time
or to get their cup of coffee before going out to the range. Chester
strolled over towards him.

"What's the matter, Sloat?"

"Nothing much. The colonel told me to receive the reveille reports for
Hoyt this week. He's on general court-martial."

"Yes, I know all that. I mean, what are you waiting for?"

"Mr. Jerrold again. There's no report from his company."

"Have you sent to wake him?"

"No; I'll go myself, and do it thoroughly, too." And the little major
turned sharply away and walked direct to the low range of bachelor
quarters, dove under the piazza, and into the green door-way.

Hardly knowing how to explain his action, Chester quickly followed, and
in less than a minute was standing in the self-same parlor which, by the
light of a flickering match, he had searched two hours before. Here he
halted and listened, while Sloat pushed on into the bedroom and was
heard vehemently apostrophizing some sleeper:

"Does the government pay you for this sort of thing, I want to know? Get
up, Jerrold! This is the second time you've cut reveille in ten days.
Get up, I say!" And the major was vigorously shaking at something, for
the bed creaked and groaned.

"Wake up! I say, I'm blowed if I'm going to get up here day after day
and have you sleeping. Wake, Nicodemus! Wake, you snoozing, snoring,
open-mouthed masher. Come, now; I mean it."

A drowsy, disgusted yawn and stretch finally rewarded his efforts. Mr.
Jerrold at last opened his eyes, rolled over, yawned sulkily again, and
tried to evade his persecutor, but to no purpose. Like a little terrier,
Sloat hung on to him and worried and shook.

"Oh, don't! damn it, don't!" growled the victim. "What do you want,
anyway? Has that infernal reveille gone?"

"Yes, and you're absent again, and no report from B Company. By the holy
poker, if you don't turn out and get it and report to me on the parade
I'll spot the whole gang absent, and then no _matinée_ for you to-day,
my buck. Come, out with you! I mean it. Hall says you and he have an
engagement in town; and 'pon my soul I'll bust it if you don't come
out."

And so, growling and complaining, and yet half laughing, Adonis rolled
from his couch and began to get into his clothes. Chester's blood ran
cold, then boiled. Think of a man who could laugh like that,--and
remember! _When_, how, had he returned to the house? Listen!

"Confound you, Sloat, _I_ wouldn't rout _you_ out in this shabby way.
Why couldn't you let a man sleep? I'm tired half to death."

"What have you done to tire you? Slept all yesterday afternoon, and
danced perhaps a dozen times at the doctor's last night. You've had more
sleep than I've had, begad! You took Miss Renwick home before 'twas
over, and mean it was of you, too, with all the fellows that wanted to
dance with her."

"That wasn't my fault: Mrs. Maynard made her promise to be home at
twelve. You old cackler, that's what sticks in your crop yet. You are
persecuting me because they like me so much better than they do you," he
went on, laughingly now. "Come, now, Sloat, confess, it is all because
you're jealous. You couldn't have that picture, and I could."

Chester fairly started. He had urgent need to see this young
gallant,--he was staying for that purpose,--but should he listen to
further talk like this? Too late to move, for Sloat's answer came like a
shot:

"I bet you you _never_ could!"

"But didn't I tell you I had?--a week ago?"

"Ay, but I didn't believe it. You couldn't show it!"

"Pshaw, man! Look here. Stop, though! Remember, _on your honor_, you
never tell."

"On my honor, of course."

"Well, there!"

A drawer was opened. Chester heard a gulp of dismay, of genuine
astonishment and conviction mixed, as Sloat muttered some
half-articulate words and then came into the front room. Jerrold
followed, caught sight of Chester, and stopped short, with sudden and
angry change of color.

"I did not know _you_ were here," he said.

"It was to find where _you_ were that I came," was the quiet answer.

There was a moment's silence. Sloat turned and looked at the two men in
utter surprise. Up to this time he had considered Jerrold's absence from
reveille as a mere dereliction of duty which was ascribable to the
laziness and indifference of the young officer. So far as lay in his
power, he meant to make him attend more strictly to business, and had
therefore come to his quarters and stirred him up. But there was no
thought of any serious trouble in his mind. His talk had all been
roughly good-humored until--until that bet was mentioned, and then it
became earnest. Now, as he glanced from one man to the other, he saw in
an instant that something new--something of unusual gravity--was
impending. Chester, buttoned to the throat in his dark uniform,
accurately gloved and belted, with pale, set, almost haggard face, was
standing by the centre-table under the drop-light. Jerrold, only half
dressed, his feet thrust into slippers, his fingers nervously working at
the studs of his dainty white shirt, had stopped short at his bedroom
door, and, with features that grew paler every second and a dark scowl
on his brow, was glowering at Chester.

"Since when has it been the duty of the officer of the day to come
around and hunt up officers who don't happen to be out at reveille?" he
asked.

"It is not your absence from reveille I want explained, Mr. Jerrold,"
was the cold and deliberate answer. "I wanted you at 3.30 this morning,
and you were not and had not been here."

An unmistakable start and shock; a quick, nervous, hunted glance around
the room, so cold and pallid in the early light of the August morning; a
clutch of Jerrold's slim brown hand at the bared throat. But he rallied
gamely, strode a step forward, and looked his superior full in the face.
Sloat marked the effort with which he cleared away the huskiness that
seemed to clog his larynx, but admired the spunk with which the young
officer returned the senior's shot:

"What is your authority here, I would like to know? What business has
the officer of the day to want me or any other man not on guard?
Captain Chester, you seem to forget that I am no longer your second
lieutenant, and that I am a company commander like yourself. Do you come
by Colonel Maynard's order to search my quarters and question me? If so,
say so at once; if not, get out." And Jerrold's face was growing black
with wrath, and his big lustrous eyes were wide awake now and fairly
snapping.

Chester leaned upon the table and deliberated a moment. He stood there
coldly, distrustfully eying the excited lieutenant, then turned to
Sloat:

"I will be responsible for the roll-call of Company B this morning,
Sloat. I have a matter of grave importance to bring up to this--this
gentleman, and it is of a private nature. Will you let me see him
alone?"

"Sloat," said Jerrold, "don't go yet. I want you to stay. These are my
quarters, and I recognize your right to come here in search of me, since
I was not at reveille; but I want a witness here to bear me out. I'm too
amazed yet--too confounded by this intrusion of Captain Chester's to
grasp the situation. I never heard of such a thing as this. Explain it,
if you can."

"Mr. Jerrold, what I have to ask or say to you concerns you alone. It is
_not_ an official matter. It is as man to man I want to see you, alone
and at once. _Now_ will you let Major Sloat retire?"

Silence for a moment. The angry flush on Jerrold's face was dying away,
and in its place an ashen pallor was spreading from throat to brow; his
lips were twitching ominously. Sloat looked in consternation at the
sudden change.

"Shall I go?" he finally asked.

Jerrold looked long, fixedly, searchingly in the set face of the officer
of the day, breathing hard and heavily. What he saw there Sloat could
not imagine. At last his hand dropped by his side; he made a little
motion with it, a slight wave towards the door, and again dropped it
nervously. His lips seemed to frame the word "Go," but he never glanced
at the man whom a moment before he so masterfully bade to stay; and
Sloat, sorely puzzled, left the room.

Not until his footsteps had died out of hearing did Chester speak:

"How soon can you leave the post?"

"I don't understand you."

"How soon can you pack up what you need to take and--get away?"

"Get away where? What on earth do you mean?"

"You _must_ know what I mean! You _must_ know that after last night's
work you quit the service at once and forever."

"I don't know anything of the kind; and I defy you to prove the faintest
thing." But Jerrold's fingers were twitching, and his eyes had lost
their light.

"Do you suppose I did not recognize you?" asked Chester.

"When?--where?" gulped Jerrold.

"When I seized you and you struck me!"

"I never struck you. I don't know what you mean."

"My God, man, let us end this useless fencing. The evidence I have of
your last night's scoundrelism would break the strongest record. For the
regiment's sake,--for the colonel's sake,--let us have no public
scandal. It's awful enough as the thing stands. Write your resignation,
give it to me, and leave,--before breakfast if you can."

"I've done nothing to resign for. You know perfectly well I haven't."

"Do you mean that such a crime--that a woman's ruin and disgrace--isn't
enough to drive you from the service?" asked Chester, tingling in every
nerve and longing to clinch the shapely, swelling throat in his
clutching fingers. "God of heaven, Jerrold! are you dead to all sense of
decency?"

"Captain Chester, I won't be bullied this way. I may not be immaculate,
but no man on earth shall talk to me like this! I deny your
insinuations. I've done nothing to warrant your words, even if--if you
did come sneaking around here last night and find me absent. You can't
prove a thing. You----"

"What! When I saw you,--almost caught you! By heaven! I wish the sentry
had killed you then and there. I never dreamed of such hardihood."

"You've done nothing but dream. By Jove, I believe you're sleepwalking
yet. What on earth do you mean by catching and killing me? 'Pon my soul
I reckon you're crazy, Captain Chester." And color was gradually coming
back again to Jerrold's face, and confidence to his tone.

"Enough of this, Mr. Jerrold. Knowing what you and I both know, do you
refuse to hand me your resignation?"

"Of course I do."

"Do you mean to deny to me where I saw you last night?"

"I deny your right to question me. I deny anything,--everything. I
believe you simply thought you had a clue and could make me tell.
Suppose I _was_ out last night. I don't believe you know the faintest
thing about it."

"Do you want me to report the whole thing to the colonel?"

"Of course I don't. Naturally, I want him to know nothing about my being
out of quarters; and it's a thing that no officer would think of
reporting another for. You'll only win the contempt of every gentleman
in the regiment if you do it. What good will it do you?--Keep me from
going to town for a few days, I suppose. What earthly business is it of
yours, anyway?"

"Jerrold, I can stand this no longer. I ought to shoot you in your
tracks, I believe. You've brought ruin and misery to the home of my
warmest friend, and dishonor to the whole service, and you talk of two
or three days' stoppage from going to town. If I can't bring you to your
senses, by God! the colonel shall." And he wheeled and left the room.

For a moment Jerrold stood stunned and silent. It was useless to attempt
reply. The captain was far down the walk when he sprang to the door to
call him again. Then, hurrying back to the bedroom, he hastily dressed,
muttering angrily and anxiously to himself as he did so. He was thinking
deeply, too, and every movement betrayed nervousness and trouble.
Returning to the front door, he gazed out upon the parade, then took his
forage-cap and walked rapidly down towards the adjutant's office. The
orderly bugler was tilted up in a chair, leaning half asleep against the
whitewashed front, but his was a weasel nap, for he sprang up and
saluted as the young officer approached.

"Where did Major Sloat go, orderly?" was the hurried question.

"Over towards the stables, sir. Him and Captain Chester was here
together, and they're just gone."

"Run over to the quarters of B Company and tell Merrick I want him right
away. Tell him to come to my quarters." And thither Mr. Jerrold
returned, seated himself at his desk, wrote several lines of a note,
tore it into fragments, began again, wrote another which seemed not
entirely satisfactory, and was in the midst of a third when there came a
quick step and a knock at the door. Opening the shutters, he glanced out
of the window. A gust of wind sent some of the papers whirling and
flying, and the bedroom door banged shut, but not before some few
half-sheets of paper had fluttered out upon the parade, where other
little flurries of the morning breeze sent them sailing over towards
the colonel's quarters. Anxious only for the coming of Merrick and no
one else, Mr. Jerrold no sooner saw who was at the front door than he
closed the shutters, called, "Come in!" and a short, squat, wiry little
man, dressed in the fatigue-uniform of the infantry, stood at the
door-way to the hall.

"Come in here, Merrick," said the lieutenant, and Merrick came.

"How much is it you owe me now?--thirty-odd dollars, I think?"

"I believe it is, lieutenant," answered the man, with shifting eyes and
general uneasiness of mien.

"You are not ready to pay it, I suppose; and you got it from me when we
left Fort Raines, to help you out of that scrape there."

The soldier looked down and made no answer.

"Merrick, I want a note taken to town at once. I want _you_ to take it
and get it to its address before eight o'clock. I want you to say no
word to a soul. Here's ten dollars. Hire old Murphy's horse across the
river and _go_. If you are put in the guard-house when you get back,
don't say a word; if you are tried by garrison court for crossing the
bridge or absence without leave, plead guilty, make no defence, and I'll
pay you double your fine and let you off the thirty dollars. But if you
fail me, or tell a soul of your errand, I'll write to--you know who, at
Raines. Do you understand, and agree?"

"I do. Yessir."

"Go and get ready, and be here in ten minutes."

Meantime, Captain Chester had followed Sloat to the adjutant's office.
He was boiling over with indignation which he hardly knew how to
control. He found the gray-moustached subaltern tramping in great
perplexity up and down the room, and the instant he entered was greeted
with the inquiry,--

"What's gone wrong? What's Jerrold been doing?"

"Don't ask me any questions, Sloat, but answer. It is a matter of honor.
_What_ was your bet with Jerrold?"

"I oughtn't to tell that, Chester. Surely it cannot be a matter mixed up
with this."

"I can't explain, Sloat. What I ask is unavoidable. Tell me about that
bet."

"Why, he was so superior and airy, you know, and was trying to make me
feel that he was so much more intimate with them all at the colonel's,
and that he could have that picture for the mere asking; and I got mad,
and bet him he _never_ could."

"Was that the day you shook hands on it?"

"Yes."

"And that was her picture--_the_ picture, then--he showed you this
morning."

"Chester, you heard the conversation: you were there: you know that I'm
on honor not to tell."

"Yes, I know. That's quite enough."

V.

Before seven o'clock that same morning Captain Chester had come to the
conclusion that only one course was left open for him. After the brief
talk with Sloat at the office he had increased the perplexity and
distress of that easily-muddled soldier by requesting his company in a
brief visit to the stables and corrals. A "square" and reliable old
veteran was the quartermaster sergeant who had charge of those
establishments; Chester had known him for years, and his fidelity and
honesty were matters the officers of his former regiment could not too
highly commend. When Sergeant Parks made an official statement there was
no shaking its solidity. He slept in a little box of a house close by
the entrance to the main stable, in which were kept the private horses
of several of the officers, and among them Mr. Jerrold's; and it was his
boast that, day or night, no horse left that stable without his
knowledge. The old man was superintending the morning labors of the
stable-hands, and looked up in surprise at so early a visit from the
officer of the day.

"Were you here all last night, sergeant?" was Chester's abrupt question.

"Certainly, sir, and up until one o'clock or more."

"Were any horses out during the night,--any officers' horses, I mean?"

"No, sir, not one."

"I thought possibly some officers might have driven or ridden to town."

"No, sir. The only horses that crossed this threshold going out last
night were Mr. Sutton's team from town. They were put up here until near
one o'clock, and then the doctor sent over for them. I locked up right
after that, and can swear nothing else went out."

Chester entered the stable and looked curiously around. Presently his
eye lighted on a tall, rangy bay horse that was being groomed in a wide
stall near the door-way.

"That's Mr. Jerrold's Roderick, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir. He's fresh as a daisy, too,--hasn't been out for three
days,--and Mr. Jerrold's going to drive the dog-cart this morning."

Chester turned away.

"Sloat," said he, as they left the stable, "if Mr. Jerrold was away from
the post last night,--and you heard me say he was out of his
quarters,--could he have gone any way except afoot, after what you heard
Parks say?"

"Gone in the Suttons' outfit, I suppose," was Sloat's cautious answer.

"In which event he would have been seen by the sentry at the bridge,
would he not?"

"Ought to have been, certainly."

"Then we'll go back to the guard-house." And, wonderingly and
uncomfortably, Sloat followed. He had long since begun to wish he had
held his peace and said nothing about the confounded roll-call. He hated
rows of any kind. He didn't like Jerrold, but he would have crawled
_ventre à terre_ across the wide parade sooner than see a scandal in the
regiment he loved; and it was becoming apparent to his sluggish
faculties that it was no mere matter of absence from quarters that was
involving Jerrold. Chester was all aflame over that picture-business, he
remembered, and the whole drift of his present investigation was to
prove that Jerrold was _not_ absent from the post, but absent only from
his quarters. If so, where had he spent his time until nearly four?
Sloat's heart was heavy with vague apprehension. He knew that Jerrold
had borne Alice Renwick away from the party at an unusually early hour
for such things to break up. He knew that he and others had protested
against such desertion, but she declared it could not be helped. He
remembered another thing,--a matter that he thought of at the time, only
from another point of view. It now seemed to have significance bearing
on this very matter; for Chester suddenly asked,--

"Wasn't it rather odd that Miss Beaubien was not here at the dance? She
has never missed one, seems to me, since Jerrold began spooning with her
last year."

"Why, she _was_ here."

"She was? Are you sure? Rollins never spoke of it; and we had been
talking of her. I inferred from what he said that she was not there at
all. And I saw her drive homeward with her mother right after parade: so
it didn't occur to me that she could have come out again, all that
distance, in time for the dance. Singular! Why shouldn't Rollins have
told me?"

Sloat grinned: a dreary sort of smile it was, too. "You go into society
so seldom you don't see these things. I've more than half suspected
Rollins of being quite ready to admire Miss Beaubien himself; and since
Jerrold dropped her he has had plenty of opportunity."

"Great guns! I never thought of it! If I'd known she was to be there I'd
have gone myself last night. How did she behave to Miss Renwick?"

"Why, sweet and smiling, and chipper as you please. If anything, I think
Miss Renwick was cold and distant to her. I couldn't make it out at
all."

"And did Jerrold dance with her?"

"Once, I think, and they had a talk out on the piazza,--just a minute. I
happened to be at the door, and couldn't help seeing it; and what got me
was this: Mr. Hall came out with Miss Renwick on his arm; they were
chatting and laughing as they passed me, but the moment she caught sight
of Jerrold and Miss Beaubien she stopped, and said, 'I think I won't
stay out here; it's too chilly,' or something like it, and went right
in; and then Jerrold dropped Miss Beaubien and went after her. He just
handed the young lady over to me, saying he was engaged for next dance,
and skipped."

"How did she like that? Wasn't she furious?"

"No. That's another thing that got me. She smiled after him, all
sweetness, and--well, she _did_ say, 'I count upon you,--you'll be
there,' and he nodded. Oh, she was bright as a button after that."

"What did she mean?--be 'where,' do you suppose? Sloat, this all means
more to me, and to us all, than I can explain."

"I don't know. I can't imagine."

"Was it to see her again that night?"

"I don't know at all. If it was, he fooled her, for he never went near
her again. Rollins put her in the carriage."

"Whose? Did she come out with the Suttons?"

"Why, certainly. I thought you knew that."

"And neither old Madame Beaubien nor Mrs. Sutton with them? What was the
old squaw thinking of?"

By this time they had neared the guard-house, where several of the men
were seated awaiting the call for the next relief. All arose at the
shout of the sentry on Number One, turning out the guard for the officer
of the day. Chester made hurried and impatient acknowledgment of the
salute, and called to the sergeant to send him the sentry who was at the
bridge at one o'clock. It turned out to be a young soldier who had
enlisted at the post only six months before and was already known as one
of the most intelligent and promising candidates for a corporalship in
the garrison.

"Were you on duty at the bridge at one o'clock, Carey?" asked the
captain.

"I was, sir. My relief went on at 11.45 and came off at 1.45."

"What persons passed your post during that time?"

"There was a squad or two of men coming back from town on pass. I halted
them, sir, and Corporal Murray came down and passed them in."

"I don't mean coming from town. Who went the other way?"

"Only one carriage, sir,--Mr. Sutton's."

"Could you see who were in it?"

"Certainly, sir: it was right under the lamp-post this end of the bridge
that I stood when I challenged. Lieutenant Rollins answered for them and
passed them out. He was sitting beside Mr. Sutton as they drove up, then
jumped out and gave me the countersign and bade them good-night right
there."

"Rollins again," thought Chester. "Why did he keep this from me?"

"Who were in the carriage?" he asked.

"Mr. Sutton, sir, on the front seat, driving, and two young ladies on
the back seat."

"Nobody else?"

"Not a soul, sir. I could see in it plain as day. One lady was Miss
Sutton, and the other Miss Beaubien. I know I was surprised at seeing
the latter, because she drove home in her own carriage last evening
right after parade. I was on post there at that hour too, sir. The
second relief is on from 5.45 to 7.45."

"That will do, Carey. I see your relief is forming now."

As the officers walked away and Sloat silently plodded along beside his
dark-browed senior, the latter turned to him:

"I should say that there was no way in which Mr. Jerrold could have gone
townwards last night. Should not you?"

"He might have crossed the bridge while the third relief was on, and
got a horse at the other side."

"He didn't do that, Sloat. I had already questioned the sentry on that
relief. It was the third that I inspected and visited this morning."

"Well, how do you know he wanted to go to town? Why couldn't he have
gone up the river, or out to the range? Perhaps there was a little game
of 'draw' out at camp."

"There was no light in camp, much less a little game of draw, after
eleven o'clock. You know well enough that there is nothing of that kind
going on with Gaines in command. That isn't Jerrold's game, even if
those fellows _were_ bent on ruining their eyesight and nerve and
spoiling the chance of getting the men on the division and army teams. I
wish it _were_ his game, instead of what it is!"

"Still, Chester, he may have been out in the country somewhere. You seem
bent on the conviction he was up to mischief here, around this post. I
won't ask you what you mean; but there's more than one way of getting to
town if a man wants to very bad."

"How? Of course he can take a skiff and row down the river; but he'd
never be back in time for reveille. There goes six o'clock, and I must
get home and shave and think this over. Keep your own counsel, no matter
who asks you. If you hear any questions or talk about shooting last
night, you know nothing, heard nothing, and saw nothing."

"Shooting last night!" exclaimed Sloat, all agog with eagerness and
excitement now. "Where was it? Who was it?"

But Chester turned a deaf ear upon him, and walked away. He wanted to
see Rollins, and went straight home.

"Why didn't you tell me Miss Beaubien was out here last night?" was the
question he asked as soon as he had entered the room where, all aglow
from his cold bath, the youngster was dressing for breakfast. He colored
vividly, then laughed.

"Well, you never gave me much chance to say anything, did you? You
talked all the time, as I remember, and suddenly vanished and slammed
the door. I would have told you had you asked me." But all the same it
was evident for the first time that here was a subject Rollins was shy
of mentioning.

"Did you go down and see them across sentry post?"

"Certainly. Jerrold asked me to. He said he had to take Miss Renwick
home, and was too tired to come back,--was going to turn in. I was glad
to do anything to be civil to the Suttons."

"Why, I'd like to know? They have never invited you to the house or
shown you any attention whatever. You are not their style at all,
Rollins, and I'm glad of it. It wasn't for their sake you stayed there
until one o'clock instead of being here in bed. I wish--" and he looked
wistfully, earnestly, at his favorite now, "I wish I could think it
wasn't for the sake of Miss Beaubien's black eyes and aboriginal
beauty."

"Look here, captain," said Rollins, with another rush of color to his
face; "you don't seem to fancy Miss Beaubien, and--she's a friend of
mine, and one I don't like to hear slightingly spoken of. You said a
good deal last night that--well, wasn't pleasant to hear."

"I know it, Rollins. I beg your pardon. I didn't know then that you were
more than slightly acquainted with her. I'm an old bat, and go out very
little, but some things are pretty clear to my eyes, and--don't you be
falling in love with Nina Beaubien. That is no match for you."

"I'm sure you never had a word to say against her father. The old
colonel was a perfect type of the French gentleman, from all I hear."

"Yes, and her mother is as perfect a type of a Chippewa squaw, if she is
only a half-breed and claims to be only a sixteenth. Rollins, there's
Indian blood enough in Nina Beaubien's little finger to make me afraid
of her. She is strong as death in love or hate, and you must have seen
how she hung on Jerrold's every word all last winter. You must know she
is not the girl to be lightly dropped now."

"She told me only a day or two ago they were the best of friends and had
never been anything else," said Rollins, hotly.

"Has it gone that far, my boy? I had not thought it so bad, by any
means. It's no use talking with a man who has lost his heart: his reason
goes with it." And Chester turned away.

"You don't know anything about it," was all poor Rollins could think of
as a suitable thing to shout after him; and it made no more impression
than it deserved.

As has been said, Captain Chester had decided before seven o'clock that
but one course lay open to him in the matter as now developed. Had
Armitage been there he would have had an adviser, but there was no other
man whose counsel he eared to seek. Old Captain Gray was as bitter
against Jerrold as Chester himself, and with even better reason, for he
knew well the cause of his little daughter's listless manner and tearful
eyes. She had been all radiance and joy at the idea of coming to Sibley
and being near the great cities, but not one happy look had he seen in
her sweet and wistful face since the day of her arrival. Wilton, too,
was another captain who disliked Jerrold; and Chester's rugged sense of
fair play told him that it was not among the enemies of the young
officer that he should now seek advice, but that if he had a friend
among the older and wiser heads in the regiment it was due to him that
that older and wiser head be given a chance to think a little for
Jerrold's sake. And there was not one among the seniors whom he could
call upon. As he ran over their names, Chester for the first time
realized that his ex-subaltern had not a friend among the captains and
senior officers now on duty at the fort. His indifference to duties, his
airy foppishness, his conceit and self-sufficiency, had all served to
create a feeling against him; and this had been intensified by his
conduct since coming to Sibley. The youngsters still kept up jovial
relations with and professed to like him, but among the seniors there
were many men who had only a nod for him on meeting. Wilton had
epitomized the situation by saying he "had no use for a masher," and
poor old Gray had one day scowlingly referred to him as "the
professional beauty."

In view of all this feeling, Chester would gladly have found some man to
counsel further delay; but there was none. He felt that he must inform
the colonel at once of the fact that Mr. Jerrold was absent from his
quarters at the time of the firing, of his belief that it was Jerrold
who struck him and sped past the sentry in the dark, and of his
conviction that the sooner the young officer was called to account for
his strange conduct the better. As to the episodes of the ladder, the
lights, and the form at the dormer-window, he meant, for the present at
least, to lock them in his heart.

But he forgot that others too must have heard those shots, and that
others too would be making inquiries.

VI.

A lovely morning it was that beamed on Sibley and the broad and
beautiful valley of the Cloudwater when once the sun got fairly above
the moist horizon. Mist and vapor and heavy cloud all seemed swallowed
up in the gathering, glowing warmth, as though the King of Day had
risen athirst and drained the welcoming cup of nature. It must have
rained at least a little during the darkness of the night, for dew there
could have been none with skies so heavily overcast, and yet the short
smooth turf on the parade, the leaves upon the little shade-trees around
the quadrangle, and all the beautiful vines here on the trellis-work of
the colonel's veranda, shone and sparkled in the radiant light. The
roses in the little garden, and the old-fashioned morning-glory vines
over at the east side, were all a-glitter in the flooding sunshine when
the bugler came out from a glance at the clock in the adjutant's office
and sounded "sick-call" to the indifferent ear of the garrison. Once
each day, at 7.30 a.m., the doctor trudged across to the
hospital and looked over the half-dozen "hopelessly healthy" but
would-be invalids who wanted to get off guard duty or a morning at the
range. Thanks to the searching examination to which every soldier must
be subjected before he can enter the service of Uncle Sam, and to the
disciplined order of the lives of the men at Sibley, maladies of any
serious nature were almost unknown. It was a gloriously healthy post, as
everybody admitted, and, to judge from the specimen of young-womanhood
that came singing, "blithe and low," out among the roses this same
joyous morning, exuberant physical well-being was not restricted to the
men.

A fairer picture never did dark beauty present than Alice Renwick, as
she bent among the bushes or reached high among the vines in search of
her favorite flowers. Tall, slender, willowy, yet with
exquisitely-rounded form; slim, dainty little hands and feet; graceful
arms and wrists all revealed in the flowing sleeves of her snowy,
web-like gown, fitting her and displaying her sinuous grace of form as
gowns so seldom do to-day. And then her face!--a glorious picture of
rich, ripe, tropical beauty, with its great, soulful, sunlit eyes,
heavily shaded though they were with those wondrous lashes; beautiful,
too, in contour as was the lithe body, and beautiful in every feature,
even to the rare and dewy curve of her red lips, half opened as she
sang. She was smiling to herself, as she crooned her soft, murmuring
melody, and every little while the great dark eyes glanced over towards
the shaded doors of Bachelors' Row. There was no one up to watch and
tell: why should she not look thither, and even stand one moment peering
under the veranda at a darkened window half-way down the row, as though
impatient at the non-appearance of some familiar signal? How came the
laggard late? How slept the knight while here his lady stood impatient?
She twined the leaves and roses in a fragrant knot, ran lightly within
and laid them on the snowy cloth beside the colonel's seat at table,
came forth and plucked some more and fastened them, blushing, blissful,
in the lace-fringed opening of her gown, through which, soft and creamy,
shone the perfect neck.

  "Daisy, tell my fortune, pray:
  He loves me not,--he loves me,"

she blithely sang, then, hurrying to the gate, shaded her eyes with the
shapely hand and gazed intently. 'Twas nearing eight,--nearing
breakfast-time. But some one was coming. Horrid! Captain Chester, of all
men! Coming, of course, to see papa, and papa not yet down, and mamma
had a headache and had decided not to come down at all, she would
breakfast in her room. What girl on earth when looking and longing and
waiting for the coming of a graceful youth of twenty-six would be
anything but dismayed at the substitution therefor of a bulky,
heavy-hearted captain of forty-six, no matter if he were still
unmarried? And yet her smile was sweet and cordial.

"Why, good-morning, Captain Chester. I'm so glad to see you this bright
day. Do come in and let me give you a rose. Papa will soon be down." And
she opened the gate and held forth one long, slim hand. He took it
slowly, as though in a dream, raising his forage-cap at the same time,
yet making no reply. He was looking at her far more closely than he
imagined. How fresh, how radiant, how fair and gracious and winning!
Every item of her attire was so pure and white and spotless; every fold
and curve of her gown seemed charged with subtile, delicate fragrance,
as faint and sweet as the shy and modest wood-violet's. She noted his
silence and his haggard eyes. She noted the intent gaze, and the color
mounted straightway to her forehead.

"And have you no word of greeting for me?" she blithely laughed,
striving to break through the awkwardness of his reserve, "or are you
worn out with your night watch as officer of the day?"

He fairly started. Had she seen him, then? Did she know it was he who
stood beneath her window, he who leaped in chase of that scoundrel, he
who stole away with that heavy tell-tale ladder? and, knowing all this,
could she stand there smiling in his face, the incarnation of maiden
innocence and beauty? Impossible! Yet what could she mean?

"How did you know I had so long a vigil?" he asked, and the cold,
strained tone, the half-averted eyes, the pallor of his face, all struck
her at once. Instantly her manner changed:

"Oh, forgive me, captain. I see you are all worn out; and I'm keeping
you here at the gate. Come to the piazza and sit down. I'll tell papa
you are here, for I know you want to see him." And she tripped lightly
away before he could reply, and rustled up the stairs. He could hear her
light tap at the colonel's door, and her soft, clear, flute-like voice:
"Papa, Captain Chester is here to see you."

Papa indeed! She spoke to him and of him as though he were her own. He
treated her as though she were his flesh and blood,--as though he loved
her devotedly. Even before she came had not they been prepared for this?
Did not Mrs. Maynard tell them that Alice had become enthusiastically
devoted to her step-father and considered him the most knightly and
chivalric hero she had ever seen? He could hear the colonel's hearty and
loving tone in reply, and then she came fluttering down again:

"Papa will be with you in five minutes, captain. But won't you let me
give you some coffee? It's all ready, and you look so tired,--even ill."

"I have had a bad night," he answered, "but I'm growing old, and cannot
stand sleeplessness as you young people seem to."

Was she faltering? He watched her eagerly, narrowly, almost wonderingly.
Not a trace of confusion, not a sign of fear; and yet had he not _seen_
her, and that other figure?

"I wish you could sleep as I do," was the prompt reply. "I was in the
land of dreams ten minutes after my head touched the pillow, and mamma
made me come home early last night because of our journey to-day. You
know we are going down to visit Aunt Grace, Colonel Maynard's sister, at
Lake Sablon, and mamma wanted me to be looking my freshest and best,"
she said, "and I never heard a thing till reveille."

His eyes, sad, penetrating, doubting,--yet self-doubting, too,--searched
her very soul. Unflinchingly the dark orbs looked into his,--even
pityingly; for she quickly spoke again:

"Captain, _do_ come into the breakfast-room and have some coffee. You
have not breakfasted, I'm sure."

He raised his hand as though to repel her offer,--even to put her aside.
He _must_ understand her. He _could_ not be hoodwinked in this way.

"Pardon me, Miss Renwick, but did you hear nothing strange last night
or early this morning? Were you not disturbed at all?"

"I? No, indeed!" True, her face had changed now, but there was no fear
in her eyes. It was a look of apprehension, perhaps, of concern and
curiosity mingled, for his tone betrayed that something had happened
which caused him agitation.

"And you heard no shots fired?"

"Shots! No! Oh, Captain Chester! what does it mean? _Who_ was shot? Tell
me!"

And now, with paling face and wild apprehension in her eyes, she turned
and gazed beyond him, past the vines and the shady veranda, across the
sunshine of the parade and under the old piazza, searching that still
closed and darkened window.

"Who?" she implored, her hands clasping nervously, her eyes returning
eagerly to his face.

"It was not Mr. Jerrold," he answered, coldly. "He is unhurt, so far as
shot is concerned."

"Then how is he hurt? Is he hurt at all?" she persisted; and then as she
met his gaze her eyes fell, and the burning blush of maiden shame surged
up to her forehead. She sank upon a seat and covered her face with her
hands.

"I thought of Mr. Jerrold, naturally. He said he would be over early
this morning," was all she could find to say.

"I have seen him, and presume he will come. To all appearances, he is
the last man to suffer from last night's affair," he went on,
relentlessly,--almost brutally,--but she never winced. "It is odd you
did not hear the shots. I thought yours was the northwest room,--this
one?" he indicated, pointing overhead.

"So it is, and I slept there all last night and heard nothing,--not a
thing. _Do_ tell me what the trouble was."

Then what was there for him to say? The colonel's footsteps were heard
upon the stair, and the colonel, with extended hand and beaming face and
cheery welcome, came forth from the open door-way:

"Welcome, Chester! I'm glad you've come just in time for breakfast. Mrs.
Maynard won't be down. She slept badly last night, and is sleeping now.
What was the firing last night? I did not hear it at the time, but the
orderly and old Maria the cook were discussing it as I was shaving."

"It is that I came to see you about, colonel. I am the man to hold
responsible."

"No prisoners got away, I hope?"

"No, sir. Nothing, I fear, that would seem to justify my action. I
ordered Number Five to fire."

"Why, what on earth could have happened around there,--almost back of
us?" said the colonel, in surprise.

"I do not know what had happened, or what was going to happen." And
Chester paused a moment, and glanced towards the door through which Miss
Renwick had retired as soon as the colonel arrived. The old soldier
seemed to understand the glance. "_She_ would not listen," he said,
proudly.

"I know," explained Chester. "I think it best that no one but you should
hear anything of the matter for the present until I have investigated
further. It was nearly half-past three this morning as I got around here
on Five's post, inspecting sentinels, and came suddenly in the darkness
upon a man carrying a ladder on his shoulder. I ordered him to halt. The
reply was a violent blow, and the ladder and I were dropped at the same
instant, while the man sprang into space and darted off in the direction
of Number Five. I followed quick as I could, heard the challenge and the
cries of halt, and shouted to Leary to fire. He did, but missed his aim
in the haste and darkness, and the man got safely away. Of course there
is much talk and speculation about it around the post this morning, for
several people heard the shots besides the guard, and, although I told
Leary and others to say nothing, I know it is already generally known."

"Oh, well, come in to breakfast," said the colonel. "We'll talk it over
there."

"Pardon me, sir, I cannot. I must get back home before guard-mount, and
Rollins is probably waiting to see me now. I--I could not discuss it at
the table, for there are some singular features about the matter."

"Why, in God's name, what?" asked the colonel, with sudden and deep
anxiety.

"Well, sir, an officer of the garrison is placed in a compromising
position by this affair, and cannot or will not explain."

"Who?"

"Mr. Jerrold, sir."

"Jerrold! Why, I got a note from him not ten minutes ago saying he had
an engagement in town and asking permission to go before guard-mounting,
if Mr. Hall was ready. Hall wanted to go with him, Jerrold wrote, but
Hall has not applied for permission to leave the post."

"It is Jerrold who is compromised, colonel. I may be all wrong in my
suspicions, all wrong in reporting the matter to you at all, but in my
perplexity and distress I see no other way. Frankly, sir, the moment I
caught sight of the man he looked like Jerrold; and two minutes after
the shots were fired I inspected Jerrold's quarters. He was not there,
though the lamps were burning very low in the bedroom, and his bed had
not been occupied at all. When you see Leary, sir, he will tell you that
he also thought it must be Mr. Jerrold."

"The young scapegrace!--been off to town, I suppose."

"Colonel," said Chester, quickly, "you--not I--must decide that. I went
to his quarters after reveille, and he was then there, and resented my
visit and questions, admitted that he had been out during the night, but
refused to make any statement to me."

"Well, Chester, I will haul him up after breakfast. Possibly he had been
up to the rifle-camp, or had driven to town after the doctor's party. Of
course _that_ must be stopped; but I'm glad you missed him. It, of
course, staggers a man's judgment to be knocked down, but if you had
killed him it might have been as serious for you as this knock-down blow
will be for him. That is the worst phase of the matter. What could he
have been thinking of? He must have been either drunk or mad; and he
rarely drank. Oh, dear, dear, dear, but that's very bad,--very
bad,--striking the officer of the day! Why, Chester, that's the worst
thing that's happened in the regiment since I took command of it. It's
about the worst thing that _could_ have happened to us. Of course he
must go in arrest. I'll see the adjutant right after breakfast. I'll be
over early, Chester." And with grave and worried face the colonel bade
him adieu.

As he turned away, Chester heard him saying again to himself, "About the
worst thing he could have done!--the worst thing he could have done!"
And the captain's heart sank within him. What would the colonel say when
he knew how far, far worse was the foul wrong Mr. Jerrold had done to
him and his?

VII.

Before guard-mounting--almost half an hour before his usual time for
appearing at the office--Colonel Maynard hurried in to his desk, sent
the orderly for Captain Chester, and then the clerks in the
sergeant-major's room heard him close and lock the door. As the subject
of the shooting was already under discussion among the men there
assembled, this action on the part of the chief was considered highly
significant. It was hardly five minutes before Chester came, looked
surprised at finding the door locked, knocked, and was admitted.

The look on the haggard face at the desk, the dumb misery in the eyes,
the wrath and horror in it all, carried him back twenty years to that
gloomy morning in the casemates when the story was passed around that
Captain Maynard had lost a wife and an intimate friend during the
previous night. Chester saw at a glance that, despite his precautions,
the blow had come, the truth been revealed at one fell swoop.

"Lock the door again, Chester, and come here. I have some questions to
ask you."

The captain silently took the chair which was indicated by a wave of the
colonel's hand, and waited. For a moment no word more was spoken. The
old soldier, white and trembling strangely, reseated himself at the
desk, and covered his face with his hands. Twice he drew them with
feebly stroking movement over his eyes, as though to rally the stunned
faculties and face the trying ordeal. Then a shiver passed through his
frame, and with sudden lift of the head he fixed his gaze on Chester's
face and launched the question,--

"Chester, is there any kindness to a man who has been through what I
have in telling only half a tale, as you have done?"

The captain colored red. "I am at a loss to answer you, colonel," he
said, after brief reflection. "You know far more than you did half an
hour ago, and what I knew I could not bear to tell you as yet."

"My God! my God! Tell me _all_, and tell me at once. Here, man, if you
need stimulant to your indignation and cannot speak without it, read
this. I found it, open, among the rose-bushes in the garden, where she
must have dropped it when out there with you. Read it. Tell me what it
means; for, God knows, I can't believe such a thing of her."

He handed Chester a sheet of note-paper. It was moist and blurred on
the first page, but the inner pages, though damp, were in good
condition. The first, second, and third pages were closely covered in a
bold, nervous hand that Chester knew well. It was Jerrold's writing,
beyond a doubt, and Chester's face grew hot as he read, and his heart
turned cold as stone when he finished the last hurried line.

"MY DARLING,--

"I _must_ see you, if only for a moment, before you leave. Do not let
this alarm you, for the more I think the more I am convinced it is only
a bluff, but Captain Chester discovered my absence early this morning
when spying around as usual, and now he claims to have knowledge of our
secret. Even if he was on the terrace when I got back, it was too dark
for him to recognize me, and it seems impossible that he can have got
any real clue. He suspects, perhaps, and thinks to force me to
confession; but I would guard your name with my life. Be wary. Act as
though there were nothing on earth between us, and if we cannot meet
until then I will be at the dépôt with the others to see you off, and
will then have a letter ready with full particulars and instructions. It
will be in the first thing I hand to you. Hide it until you can safely
read it. Your mother must not be allowed a glimmer of suspicion, and
then you are safe. As for me, even Chester cannot make the colonel turn
against me now. My jealous one, my fiery sweetheart, do you not realize
now that I was wise in showing her so much attention? A thousand kisses.
Come what may, they cannot rob us of the past.                   HOWARD.

"I fear you heard and were alarmed by the shots just after I left you.
All was quiet when I got home."

It was some seconds before Chester could control himself sufficiently to
speak. "I wish to God the bullet had gone through his heart!" he said.

"It has gone through mine,--through mine! This will kill her mother.
Chester," cried the colonel, springing suddenly to his feet, "she must
not know it. She must not dream of it. I tell you it would stretch her
in the dust, _dead_, for she loves that child with all her strength,
with all her being, I believe, for it is two mother-loves in one. She
had a son, older than Alice by several years, her first-born,--her
glory, he was,--but the boy inherited the father's passionate and
impulsive nature. He loved a girl utterly beneath him, and would have
married her when he was only twenty. There is no question that he loved
her well, for he refused to give her up, no matter what his father
threatened. They tried to buy her off, and she scorned them. Then they
had a letter written, while he was sent abroad under pretence that he
should have his will if he came back in a year unchanged. By Jove, it
seems she was as much in love as he, and it broke her heart. She went
off and died somewhere, and he came back ahead of time because her
letters had ceased, and found it all out. There was an awful scene. He
cursed them both,--father and mother,--and left her senseless at his
feet; and from that day to this they never heard of him, never could get
the faintest report. It broke Renwick,--killed him, I guess, for he died
in two years; and as for the mother, you would not think that a woman so
apparently full of life and health was in desperate danger. She had some
organic trouble with the heart years ago, they tell her, and this
experience has developed it so that now any great emotion or sudden
shock is perilous. Do you not see how doubly fearful this comes to us?
Chester, I have weathered one awful storm, but I'm old and broken now.
This--this beats me. Tell me what to do."

The captain was silent a few moments. He was thinking intently.

"Does she know you have that letter?" he asked.

Maynard shook his head: "I looked back as I came away. She was in the
parlor, singing softly to herself, at the very moment I picked it up,
lying open as it was right there among the roses, the first words
staring me in the face. I meant not to read it,--never dreamed it was
for her,--and had turned over the page to look for the superscription.
There was none, but there I saw the signature and that postscript about
the shots. That startled me, and I read it here just before you came,
and then could account for your conduct,--something I could not do
before. God of heaven! would any man believe it of her? It is
incredible! Chester, tell me everything you know now,--even everything
you suspect. I must see my way clear."

And then the captain, with halting and reluctant tongue, told his story:
how he had stumbled on the ladder back of the colonel's quarters and
learned from Number Five that some one had been prowling back of
Bachelors' Row; how he returned there afterwards, found the ladder at
the side-wall, and saw the tall form issue from her window; how he had
given chase and been knocked breathless, and of his suspicions, and
Leary's, as to the identity of the stranger.

The colonel bowed his head still deeper, and groaned aloud. But he had
still other questions to ask.

"Did you see--any one else at the window?"

"Not while he was there."

"At any time, then,--before or after?" And the colonel's eyes would take
no denial.

"I saw," faltered Chester, "nobody. The shade was pulled up while I was
standing there, after I had tripped on the ladder. I supposed the noise
of my stumble had awakened her."

"And was that all? Did you see nothing more?"

"Colonel, I _did_ see, afterwards, a woman's hand and arm closing the
shade."

"My God! And she told me she slept the night through,--never waked or
heard a sound!"

"Did you hear nothing yourself, colonel?"

"Nothing. When she came home from the party she stopped a moment, saying
something to him at the door, then came into the library and kissed me
good-night. I shut up the house and went to bed about half-past twelve,
and her door was closed when I went to our room."

"So there were two closed doors, yours and hers, and the broad hall
between you?"

"Certainly. We have the doors open all night that lead into the rear
rooms, and their windows. This gives us abundant air. Alice always has
the hall door closed at night."

"And Mrs. Maynard,--was she asleep?"

"No. Mrs. Maynard was lying awake, and seemed a little restless and
disturbed. Some of the women had been giving her some hints about
Jerrold and fretting her. You know she took a strange fancy to him at
the start. It was simply because he reminded her so strongly of the boy
she had lost. She told me so. But after a little she began to discover
traits in him she did not like, and then his growing intimacy with Alice
worried her. She would have put a stop to the doctor's party,--to her
going with him, I mean,--but the engagement was made some days ago. Two
or three days since, she warned Alice not to trust him, she says; and it
is really as much on this as any other account that we decided to get
her away, off to see her aunt Grace. Oh, God! how blind we are! how
blind we are!" And poor old Maynard bowed his head and almost groaned
aloud.

Chester rose, and, in his characteristic way, began tramping nervously
up and down. There was a knock at the door. "The adjutant's compliments,
and 'twas time for guard-mount. Would the colonel wish to see him before
he went out?" asked the orderly.

"I ought to go, sir," said Chester. "I am old officer of the day, and
there will be just time for me to get into full uniform."

"Let them go on without you," said Maynard. "I cannot spare you now.
Send word to that effect. Now,--now about this man,--this Jerrold. What
is the best thing we can do?--of course I know what he most
deserves;--but what is the _best_ thing under all the circumstances? Of
course my wife and Alice will leave to-day. She was still sleeping when
I left, and, pray God, is not dreaming of this. It was nearly two before
she closed her eyes last night; and I, too, slept badly. You have seen
him. What does he say?"

"Denies everything,--anything,--challenges me to prove that he was
absent from his house more than five minutes,--indeed, I could not, for
he may have come in just after I left,--and pretended utter ignorance of
my meaning when I accused him of striking me before I ordered the sentry
to fire. Of course it is all useless now. When I confront him with this
letter he _must_ give in. Then let him resign and get away as quietly as
possible before the end of the week. No one need know the causes. Of
course shooting is what he deserves; but shooting demands explanation.
It is better for your name, hers, and all, that he should be allowed to
live than that the truth were suspected, as it would be if he were
killed. Indeed, sir, if I were you I would take them to Sablon, keep
them away for a fortnight, and leave him to me. It may be even judicious
to let him go on with all his duties as though nothing had happened, as
though he had simply been absent from reveille, and let the whole matter
drop like that until all remark and curiosity is lulled; then you can
send her back to Europe or the East,--time enough to decide on that; but
I will privately tell him he must quit the service in six months, and
show him why. It isn't the way it ought to be settled; it probably isn't
the way Armitage would do it; but it is the best thing that occurs to
me. One thing is certain: you and they ought to get away at once, and he
should not be permitted to see her again. I can run the post a few days
and explain matters after you go."

The colonel sat in wretched silence a few moments; then he arose:

"If it were not for _her_ danger,--her heart,--I would never drop the
matter here,--never! I would see it through to the bitter end. But you
are probably right as to the prudent course to take. I'll get them away
on the noon train: he thinks they do not start until later. Now I must
go and face it. My God, Chester! could you look at that child and
realize it? Even now, even now, sir, I believe--I believe,
someway--somehow--she is innocent."

"God grant it, sir!"

And then the colonel left the office, avoiding, as has been told, a word
with any man. Chester buttoned the tell-tale letter in an inner pocket,
after having first folded the sheet lengthwise and then enclosed it in a
long official envelope. The officers, wondering at the colonel's
distraught appearance, had come thronging in, hoping for information,
and then had gone, unsatisfied and disgusted, practically turned out by
their crabbed senior captain. The ladies, after chatting aimlessly about
the quadrangle for half an hour, had decided that Mrs. Maynard must be
ill, and, while most of them awaited the result, two of their number
went to the colonel's house and rang at the bell. A servant appeared:
"Mrs. Maynard wasn't very well this morning, and was breakfasting in her
room, and Miss Alice was with her, if the ladies would please excuse
them." And so the emissaries returned unsuccessful. Then, too, as we
have seen, despite his good intention of keeping matters hushed as much
as possible, Chester's nervous irritability had got the better of him,
and he had made damaging admissions to Wilton of the existence of a
cause of worriment and perplexity, and this Wilton told without
compunction. And then there was another excitement, that set all tongues
wagging. Every man had heard what Chester said, that Mr. Jerrold must
not quit the garrison until he had first come and seen the temporary
commanding officer, and Hall had speedily carried the news to his
friend.

"Are _you_ ready to go?" asked Mr. Jerrold, who was lacing his boots in
the rear room.

"No. I've got to go and get into 'cits' first."

"All right. Go, and be lively! I'll wait for you at Murphy's, beyond the
bridge, provided you say nothing about it."

"You don't mean you are going against orders?"

"Going? Of course I am. I've got old Maynard's permission, and if
Chester means to revoke it he's got to get his adjutant here inside of
ten seconds. What you tell me isn't official. I'm off _now_!"

And when the adjutant returned to Captain Chester it was with the
information that he was too late: Mr. Jerrold's dog-cart had crossed
the bridge five minutes earlier.

Perhaps an hour later the colonel sent for Chester, and the captain went