"For such light duty as he may be able to perform," read the order that had brought Sandy Ray to Minneconjou. First it was the Canteen, and under the young officer's zealous management that fiercely assailed and finally abolished institution had been a credit to the post and a comfort to the men. It was not the duty Ray best loved, by any means, but, being debarred by his wound from active exercise, compelled as yet to ride slowly and with caution, he had thankfully accepted and thoroughly performed it. Then had come his serious trouble, and then, when, had he known the stories in circulation, he should have remained to face them, he was ordered away, leaving, like Sir Peter Teazle, his character behind him.

He was ordered to a difficult, probably dangerous and possibly perilous duty, and, knowing this, he could not for an instant delay or demur. It wasn't in the blood of the Rays to shirk. Far better might it have been for Sandy had someone, either friend or foe, suggested that his being selected, when he belonged to neither regiment represented in the garrison, was in itself intimation that the stories at his expense were believed, and if that were true he should be sent to Coventry—not to command. There were young fellows in both the cavalry and infantry at Minneconjou who would eagerly have welcomed the detail, with its chance of swelling an efficiency record. Under any other circumstances there might have been protest, there would have been growling. Now there were only silence and significant looks. Even at the Club (Minneconjou had set its seal against the time-honored, but misleading, appellation "Mess"), where her name could not be mentioned, even in a whisper, the order was accepted without comment. There was a woman in the case!

Ordinarily, under circumstances demanding the detail of a guard for such purposes, post commanders would send a company under a captain, or half a company under a subaltern; but Stone hated to lose a unit from his regimental line. He had sent to the wood camp a sergeant with a dozen picked men—one or two from each of his infantry companies. Now he sent a lieutenant and thirty of the rank and file, selected at random, to the aid of the agent. Of this thirty a sergeant, two corporals and twelve men were taken from the squadron, for it might be necessary to send out mounted men to make arrests, said the agent, and the agency police were sullen over recent happenings. Sandy was notified by a call from the post adjutant about 11:30, just as he was softly locking up for the night. He listened in silence, made no comment, asked no questions, completed his few preparations, bade Priscilla keep it all from his mother until after he was gone, for rest and sleep were most essential, and at dawn, with dark-rimmed eyes and solemn face, he stole to the half-open doorway, beyond which the night lamp dimly glowed; listened; entered one moment and softly kissed the dear hand that lay so wearily upon the coverlet; looked fondly at the gentle, careworn face, and then, with firm, set lips, turned stealthily away. Priscilla was up and had hot coffee ready for him below stairs, and possibly admonition, but this she spared him. Oh, if Priscilla had but known what Aunt Marion had seen at the rear gate two nights before, what might she not have said to both! for Priscilla, too, had had her vigil, had both seen and heard and knew more than Aunt Marion even thought she knew.

"It is barely ten miles," said Sandy. "Couriers will be riding to and fro. Then there's the telephone by way of town, unless the wires are cut. Let me hear of mother night and morning, Pris. Now, I've got to go."

She stood at the window of his room an hour later, watching the little command as it wound away among the dips and waves of the southward prairie, until finally lost to sight. This was a new phase to the situation. Priscilla had never pictured the modern redman save as she had heard him described at church sociables, peace society meetings and the occasional addresses of inspired "Friends of the Indian," who came soliciting the sympathies—and subscriptions—of the congregation. The few specimens that had met her gaze about town, the station and the fords were, she felt sure, and justly sure, but frowsy representatives of a magnificent race. It was only when the agent, himself a godly man, had come and told his recent troubles, after evening service, that Priscilla began to realize how, despite his innate nobility of character and exalted ideals and eloquence, the average ward of the nation was not built on the lofty plane of Logan, Osceola and Chief Joseph. He was quite capable of extravagant demands of his own and of raising the devil when he didn't get what he wanted.

There were other eyes, and anxious eyes, along the bluffs and the southward windows of officers' row. There were women and children, even at that early hour, clustered at the little mound beyond the west gate, whence the last peep could be had at the "byes" as they breasted and crossed Two-Mile Ridge. There were garrison lads on their ponies, little Jim among them, who rode forth with the detachment as far as the railway, and were now racing back. There were even watchers in the upper windows at Skid's, for the word had gone from lip to lip that the Indians were in a fury and meant business this time. But there was darkness, there was silence, there were only drawn blinds and lowered shades and apparent indifference at Major Dwight's. Possibly Jimmy was the only one who had heard. Possibly Inez did not know; mayhap she did not care.

The boy's face was hot and flushed that afternoon, and he lay down a while, an unusual thing with him, but he had been up very early and out very long and riding in the breeze. All this might tend to make him drowsy. He had come as usual to tell his father all about Mr. Ray's march and the boy escort. A prime favorite and something of a hero was Sandy Ray among the boys about the post, and Jimmy did not know just why daddy seemed so uninterested. Perhaps he, too, was tired. After breakfast Jim had gone to see Aunt Marion, and returned disappointed, and, after an inning or two of ball, which he played but languidly, had come home for a snooze, and found daddy talking gravely with gentlemen from town who had been to see him before, and had queer-looking papers for him to sign, not a bit like the innumerable rolls, returns and company things he had to attend to when captain of a troop. Jim awakened only with difficulty and only when called. He had promised to lunch with Harold Winn, and went, slowly and heavily, but came back soon with a hot headache, and was again sleeping when the phaeton drove round for mamma and FÉlicie, and he did not know that this time mamma came not to see daddy before starting. He did not know that Miss Sanford came not to read. He did not know just what to make of things when he found daddy bending over him at sunset, with anxiety in his face, and young Dr. Wallen was helping undress and get him regularly to bed.

Mamma and FÉlicie had come home before the usual time, and Jim never knew that, or what happened later, until very long after. But something, it seems, had occurred during the drive to greatly agitate mamma, and that evening her condition demanded the ministrations of both the physician and her maid. That night something further occurred that led to much more agitation and weeping and upbraiding and reproaches and accusations and all manner of things his father evidently wished him not to hear, for he firmly closed the door between their rooms. The doctor came a third time, and in the morning, burning with fever and caring little whither he went, Jimmy was only vaguely conscious that he was being gently borne down the stairway and into the open air, and thought he was flying until again stowed away between sheets that seemed so fresh and cool, and once he thought daddy was standing over him, dressed again in his uniform, and he was sure Aunt Marion had bent to kiss him, and then that every now and then Miss 'Cilla placed a slim, cool hand upon his forehead and removed some icy bandage that seemed almost to sizzle when it touched his skin. From time to time something was fed him from a tiny spoon, and all the time he was getting hotter and duller, and the lightest cover was insupportable, and he wished to toss it off—toss everything off—toss himself off the little white bed; and then, mercifully, Jim knew nothing at all but dreams for many a day until he and Minneconjou came once more slowly to their senses, for Minneconjou had been every bit as flighty, as far out of its head, as Jimmy Dwight, and it had not typhoid to excuse it, either.

The day following Jimmy's seizure, Major Dwight appeared in public again for the first time since his strange attack. He had ever been of spare habit, but now he was gaunt as a greyhound, and his uniform hung flabbily about his wasted form. He looked two shades grayer and ten years older. His eyes were dull and deep-set. His face was ashen. He was not fit to be up and about, said the doctors, but could not be kept at home. Mrs. Dwight was in semi-hysterical condition, requiring frequent sedatives and unlimited FÉlicie. There had been—yes, in answer to direct question, the physicians had to own—there had been a scene between the aging husband and the youthful wife and, though the details were fairly well known to these gentlemen, they were almost as fairly kept inviolate. But for the voluble, the invaluable FÉlicie, Minneconjou might have been kept guessing for ten days longer. Dwight spent his waking hours mostly at the Rays', wistfully watching the doctor and pleading to be admitted to the bedside of the burning little patient, a thing they could not permit, for Dwight was still too weak to exercise the needed self-control. It seemed as though he had forgotten the existence of Inez, his wife, the existence of Foster, the existence of Sandy Ray and everybody and anybody beyond Jimmy and those who were ministering to him. Mrs. Ray, once again moving, though languidly, about her household duties (for Priscilla was utterly engrossed with the boy) had made the major as comfortable as he would permit in the little library below stairs, where he had an easy chair in which he could recline, and books, desk, writing material, but no one to read to him; and, as it turned out, he would do nothing but move restlessly about, listen for every sound from the upper floor where Jim lay in Sandy's bed, and waylay the doctors or anybody who might have tidings. Once or twice, there or at home, he had to see the colonel, the adjutant or his own second in command, Captain Hurst, but the lawyers came no more. All proceedings were called off for the time being. Everything in his mind hinged on the fate of Jimmy, and, one thing worth the noting, Madame and the phaeton went no more abroad.

But if he had apparently forgotten, FÉlicie had not, the incidents of that stormy meeting, the episode that led to it and the consequences to be expected. FÉlicie felt that the public should be enlightened and public opinion properly aroused as to the major's domestic misrule. It was high time all Minneconjou was made to know this monster and "the hideous accusations he make against this angel, and this angel's the most devoted myself that to you speak." From the torrent of her tirade, occasionally, drops of information seemed to accord with the rumors dribbling about the garrison. Minneconjou knew that the well-named and impenetrable post commander was in possession of facts he could impart to nobody; that he had been questioning and cross-questioning corporal and men, the latter recent occupants of sentry posts Nos. 3 and 4; that these gentry had been ordered by him to hold no converse with anybody; that he had again called up two of the three men incarcerated at the time of the assault upon Captain Foster, and it was now definitely known that these two had both served under Foster in the —th Cavalry, although both now protested they always considered him a model officer and a perfect gentleman. To offset this was the statement of Sergeant Hess, of the Sixty-first, who said he had once served at the same post with them, though not in the cavalry, and knew they bore bad characters and would bear watching. Then he was sent for, and then it transpired that No. 3 of the suspected trio had gone with the guard to the agency, and he, said Hess, had been the worst of the lot. His name to-day was Skelton, but in those days they knew him as Scully. Had it not been that a dozen other men were out the night of that assault, this might have clinched the case against them. It was enough, at least, to keep them under surveillance.

But other stories, readily confirmed by FÉlicie, were to the effect that Dwight had accused his wife of deliberate falsehood in denying that she had met Mr. Ray at Naples; of deliberate intent to make him believe Jimmy a liar when adhering to his story that Mr. Ray had come and spoken to her (a dream! a vision! declared FÉlicie); of deliberately accusing him of rudeness, insolence, affront to Captain Foster and herself in refusing to deny he had seen them together in the parlor during church time ("a mere incident of the most innocent," said FÉlicie, "of which this infant terrible would have made a mountain"). Moreover, the monster had "accused Madame of all manner of misdoings with this most amiable the Captain Fawstair," and FÉlicie's humid eyes went heavenward at the retrospect; "and of lying to him, her husband, about, ah, ciel, that man!" And then to think that he should demand of Madame in her condition that she confess the truth about that midnight affair when her scream aroused the household! It was she, FÉlicie, who screamed. Madame could not sleep. She needed a composing draught. She, FÉlicie, had gone down to prepare it, had unbolted the back door, and was passing to and fro between the kitchen and the refrigerator in the addition without, and she could not find the cork-screw, and could not open the—Apollinaris, and Madame had become impatient, nervous, and had herself wandered down; and just as FÉlicie was returning they encountered at the doorway and, to her shame be it said, she screamed, so was she startled, "and Madame uttered too a cry, because I cry, but it was nothing, nothing!"

Nevertheless, Minneconjou was hearing of a slender form seen skulking along the back fence, hurrying away from Dwight's, and of items picked up at dawn near Dwight's back steps, and of a notebook sent to Lieutenant Ray, who had himself been out searching very early and very diligently. Then, something or other, picked up early that morning, had been sent to the colonel, for it came with his mail; and the adjutant and the orderly heard his exclamation, saw the consternation in his face, and the orderly told of it—told Kathleen at the doctor's; then had to tell other girls or take the consequences. Then there were these drives up the valley and the meetings at the cottonwoods. People who called to ask after the presumably lonely mistress of the house began asking after something FÉlicie had hoped no one had noticed.

For in upbraiding Inez, his wife, Major Dwight not once had mentioned her meetings near Minneconjou with Lieutenant Ray, who, as all this was going on at the post, stood facing a condition that called for the exercise of all his nerve and pluck and common sense. The Indian leaders, three days after his coming, had mustered their force and demanded the instant withdrawal of himself and his men, leaving all horses and arms and certain of their charges behind them.