The next night I had a dreadful dream about Eagle March. Somehow or other, he had been condemned to death by Major Vandyke (who had unbecomingly turned into a judge) and Eagle was to be executed unless I could arrive in time to save him, armed with a reprieve or pardon—I didn't quite know which—that I had got from Washington. I waked up crying out, because a hand had been stretched forth through darkness to clutch my shoulder, and prevent me from getting to El Paso until too late. Even then, when I was wide awake, the dream had been so horribly vivid that I couldn't persuade myself it wasn't true. I had always laughed at superstitious people who believed in dreams, yet I couldn't clear my mind of this one, or keep from asking myself in a panic, "What if it's a warning?" It seemed that after all such things might mysteriously be.

Alvarado Springs was as dull as a convent after the officers we liked best had gone from the fort, and Kitty proposed subletting her cottage to an invalid who, for a wonder, had really come to the place for nothing but to take the cure. This rare creature was distressed by the noises of the hotel, and was willing to pay more than Kitty had paid, for the remaining few weeks of Mrs. Main's tenancy. Our hostess was enchanted with the idea, clapped her fat, dimpled hands like a little girl, and proposed to "blow" the money (this was slang she had delightedly picked up from Father) on a motor tour to California. She had no car of her own, but she could hire one, with a chauffeur we had often taken for short runs, and at Los Angeles, Riverside, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, and other places, she had friends who would shower invitations. The trip would take from two to six weeks, according to our own desire. Then, when we were tired of motoring and country-house visiting, the car would be sent home, and we could have the fun of going East together by the "Limited," which, Kitty said, was one of the most wonderful trains in the world.

This was the proposal, and it suited Father and Di very well. Each had a reason for wishing to prolong the tour in America, if it could be done "on the cheap." Di, of course, wanted to see Major Vandyke or Captain March—whichever she decided to take in the end—and settle her affairs definitely before going home to prepare for the wedding. As to Father, I began to ask myself about this time if he seriously thought of making our "Main Chance" a countess, and counting her dollars into his own pockets. In any case; travelling luxuriously in a land where poor Irish earls weighed as well in the balance as a rich English variety, was better than vegetating at Ballyconal or economizing in London; so he smiled upon the plan, and I was the one obstacle. The only comfortable car that Mrs. Main could get at short notice, was ideal for five, counting a chauffeur and a maid, but close quarters for six. I couldn't be put permanently with the chauffeur; and, besides, Kitty's looks were of the sort that depend upon a maid. "Dear little Peggy must just squeeze in somehow," was her verdict, although Di would temporarily have done without my services rather than be cramped, if I could have been disposed of elsewhere. She and Father put their heads together, and I had begun to feel in my bones that an invitation for me from Mrs. Kilburn was to be hinted at, when Mrs. Dalziel came to the rescue.

Her husband had gone back to New York long ago, and she and Milly had been wondering ever since Tony's orders came, whether it might be feasible to follow him to El Paso, and "see what was doing there." He had now wired that all the women of the neighbourhood had refused to leave the men; that the "scare" was dying down; that it looked as if the imported troops would have nothing more exciting to do than guard the concentration camp; and there was a gorgeous hotel in the town, full of rich Spanish refugees, men who were celebrities, and women who were beauties. Mrs. Dalziel had accordingly decided to venture; and Milly would enjoy the trip immensely, if Father would let me go with them as their guest. The eyes of my family lighted at this hope of liberation, and I suddenly understood what Tony's last words to me had meant. This was his plan; but I wanted so violently to go to El Paso and was so violently wanted to go by Father and Di, that I didn't stop to debate whether or no it was right to say yes. I simply said it, and—hang the consequences!

Di bade me an affectionate farewell, with a plaintive reminder that a girl not likely to be proposed to every day might do worse than Tony Dalziel. I, in turn, reminded her that any knavish juggling with Captain March's faith would be dealt with severely by me; and so we parted, she to go her way to California en automobile, I to go mine to Texas by Santa FÉ trains.

I was grateful to Mrs. Dalziel and Milly for taking me, though I couldn't help seeing that it was not for my beaux yeux they had asked me to be their guest. I was a handle, or cat's-paw; but I preferred the part of usefulness to my hostesses to being carted about by them as an expensive luxury. Mrs. Dalziel really wanted me for Tony, who had never been denied anything short of the moon that he cried for. Milly wanted people to think that she wanted me for Tony, in order to have an invincible, ironproof excuse for the rush to El Paso, which her friends of the cat tribe might attribute to a different motive. She had been rather depressed at Alvarado, but began to bubble over with wild spirits the moment we were off for El Paso. She said that this would be the great adventure of our lives, and she was only sorry all danger along the border was over, as we shouldn't get the chance to show how brave we were.

It was an interesting journey, every stage of it; and at Las Cruces and after, we began to realize how close we were to old Mexico. Only the river ran between us and that mysterious, ancient land, as far removed in thought from the United States as though it were an annex of Egypt. Here and there, too, the Rio Grande (which I'd thought of geographically as a vast stream, wide as a lake) was a mere water serpent, writhing in its shallow bed of mud. This, we heard our fellow passengers say, explained the late danger of a raid. It would be as "easy as falling off a log" for a party of ill-advised Mexicans to make a dash across the river, and already there had been small private expeditions of cattle stealers. Staring out of the windows at little adobe villages, their huddled houses turned from brown to cubes of gold by the afternoon sun, we listened to all sorts of disquieting gossip. According to the travellers, who talked loudly to each other across the car, the "scare" was suddenly on again. Some more Federals had escaped the Constitutionalist soldiers, and got into Del Rio, where they had been protected by American soldiers, and there had been some shooting from one side of the river to the other. Carranza was threatening reprisals; no one seemed to know what Villa's attitude would be. A few American women who had little children had decided after all to go north. At Las Cruces and El Paso you could no longer buy a Browning, or arms of any kind. All had been snapped up. Las Cruces men, remembering that the militia was composed of Mexicans, had begun giving their wives lessons in target practice. At El Paso there was the peril of the Mexican population to be faced in case of attack from across the river; to say nothing of the thousand Mexicans employed in the smelting works down on the flats, and the five thousand refugees in the concentration camp, if they should mutiny and get out of control.

Poor Mrs. Dalziel drooped more and more piteously as this ball of gossip was tossed from one side of the car to the other, and Milly's ever white face grew so pale that her freckles stood out conspicuously. She ceased to exclaim with excitement over the cowboys galloping along the road on the United States side of the river, or to count the automobiles and the great alfalfa barns near small stations where black-veiled Mexican women waved sad farewells to weedy, olive-faced youths, perhaps going to the "war."

"Of course, we're not afraid for ourselves," said Mrs. Dalziel. "We—we should want to be near Tony, whatever happened. It's of you we're thinking, Peggy. I don't know if we ought to have brought you to such a place. And I do wish Tony's father were with us, anyhow."

The nearer we came to El Paso, the more foreign and Mexican the country seemed, with its wild purple mountains billowing along the sunset sky of red and gold; its queer, Moorish-looking groups of brown huts, and its dark-skinned men in sombreros or huge straw hats with steeple crowns. It was quite a relief to draw into El Paso station where everything was suddenly modern and American, and comfortably normal again.

Tony had got off duty to come and meet us; and after the first "how-do-you-dos," his mother began bombarding him with questions. What had happened? What was likely to happen? Wouldn't it have been better to telegraph us not to come?

She and Milly both had the air of eagerly hoping that he might after all be able to sweep away their fears with a word or a laugh; but for once, Tony kept as solemn a face as the conformation of his benevolent Billiken features permitted.

"There's nothing at all to worry about, if you don't get silly and panicky," said he. "I did think of telegraphing, not because there's any real danger, but because I was afraid that when you got down here, if things hadn't cleared up, the newspaper 'extras' and the way they talk at the hotels might give you the jumps. I couldn't have wired till after you'd started, though, because there was nothing doing before that, worth a telegram. I thought it would scare you blue if you got a message delivered to you in the train saying better not come, or words to that effect; so it seemed best to let things rip. Now you're on the spot, you just keep your hair on, and don't believe anything you read or hear; then you'll be all right."

"My hair doesn't come off, dearest," objected Mrs. Dalziel mildly, which made us laugh; and that did everybody good.

"I bet Lady Peggy isn't afraid worth a cent," Tony remarked.

"Rather not!" said I. "I wouldn't go away—no, not if you set mice at me! Even if Mrs. Dalziel and Milly went, I'd stay on and volunteer as a nurse. I can do first aid, and I don't mind the sight of blood if there isn't too much; though, of course, it would be better if it were a peaceful green or blue instead of that terrifying red."

Tony took us in a taxi to the Paso del Norte, a big hotel good enough for New York or London; and even in that short spin through the streets, we saw the newspaper "extras" being hawked about by yelling boys who waved the papers to show off their huge scarlet headlines. The marble entrance hall of the hotel was crowded with people who had just bought these extras, and were reading aloud tit-bits of "scare" news to each other, or discussing the situation in groups. Some looked very Spanish, and Tony said they were refugees, from the heart of Mexico; but the women seemed to have had plenty of time to sort out and pack their prettiest clothes before they fled.

That night Eagle March was asked to dine with us at the hotel. He sat between Mrs. Dalziel and Milly, and more than once I caught his eyes resting on me thoughtfully, almost wistfully. I wondered if there were something that he was particularly anxious to say, but Milly kept him occupied even after dinner was over and we were having coffee in the hall. I was resigning myself to the idea that we shouldn't be given time for a word together, when out of the crowd appeared Major Vandyke. He was with friends, but escaped, and crossed the hall to shake hands with us. I noticed what stiff, grudging nods he and Eagle gave each other, just enough of a nod not to be a cut. Something disagreeable had evidently happened between them since they left us at Fort Alvarado; for in those days, no matter how they felt, they always kept up the pretence of being good enough friends.

When Major Vandyke had been civil to me and asked after my "people," he began telling Mrs. Dalziel and Milly things about the state of affairs in El Paso. "You may have come in for a small adventure, after all," said he. "We've had to warn the occupants of some of the tallest buildings in town that they may be called on to clear out at five minutes' notice, if we have trouble, for their houses would be in range of gunfire from both sides. But you'll be all right here at the hotel, whatever happens. We're strong enough to protect you."

He laughed, and I saw that he enjoyed teasing timid little Mrs. Dalziel. I thought that haughty "we," constantly coming in, was characteristic of the man, and judging by the odd expression which just flickered lightly across Eagle's face, he was thinking the same thing. Tony joined boyishly in the conversation, to reassure his mother and Milly, and Eagle promptly seized the moment for a word with me.

"Any message?" he asked in a low voice. I shook my head.

"Oh, well," he said, "I'm mighty glad to see you, anyhow, little girl. Lucky Tony! I'm rather jealous of him, you know. I'd got sort of in the habit of thinking I had the only claim."

I felt myself go scarlet. What a good thing one doesn't blush all colours of the rainbow!—for I had the sensation of a prism. "Tony Dalziel may be lucky," I stammered. "I hope he is. But his luck has nothing to do with me. Neither has he—except as a friend. That's quite understood between us."

"Oh, is it?" smiled Eagle. "I'm a selfish beast to be glad, but I am. I was feeling quite low in my mind and 'out of it' at dinner."

So the wistful looks had been for me! It seemed too good to be true, even to have so much place in Eagle's heart that he didn't want to lose me.

When Milly turned to him, as she did almost instantly, for consolation after Major Vandyke's teasing, Eagle told her, while I listened, how very little, in his opinion, there was for any one to fear. It was true, of course, that the troops had come to El Paso for a purpose. Every one thought it had been served by frightening out of a certain faction of Mexicans such vague, secret hopes as they might foolishly have cherished. Now to be sure, the "scare act" was being read again, but the big field guns pointing across the river were in any case powerful enough to keep the peace. Captain March wanted to know if we would care to visit the camps next day. If so, he would help Dalziel arrange the visit. This suggestion saved Milly the trouble of hinting for it, and she was happy; but her happiness was destined to be short-lived. It was destroyed in the night by a band of vicious microbes with which she had been fighting a silent battle during the long journey to El Paso. They won, and kept her in bed with a pink nose and eyes overflowing with grief and influenza.

I nobly offered to stay with her, but Mrs. Dalziel had a son as well as a daughter. She said we must go and take a look at Tony's tent, if we did nothing else; and perhaps it would have ended in our doing not much more if it hadn't been for Eagle.

El Paso was one of the most deliciously exciting places in America just then, and there were many things which I wanted far more to see than Tony Dalziel's tent. There was the town itself, with its broad streets and tall buildings (which made me shiver with the wildly absurd thought of their being smashed by silly rebel guns from across the river); its shady avenues of alluring bungalows, and its parks—all so gay and peaceful in the warm spring sunshine that the very suggestion of war within a thousand miles seemed fantastic melodrama, despite the shouting newspaper boys with a fearsome "extra" coming out every fifteen minutes. There was new Fort Bliss, the cavalry post, and old Fort Bliss, famous, they told me, as long ago as the days of Indian warfare. There was the concentration camp where five thousand Mexicans were guarded by soldiers, and there were the camps of the reinforcing troops, artillery, cavalry, and infantry. I wanted to miss nothing, but when we had motored to old Fort Bliss down by the river and the smelting works, and seen the faded houses in temporary occupation of visiting officers; when we had spun out to new Fort Bliss to admire the smart quarters and barracks, and when we had trailed about a little in "Tony's camp," Mrs. Dalziel was tired. The sun was very hot, and she thought she ought to go home to poor Milly. Captain March, however, was certain that what I ought to do was to see his tent before deserting camp. He had something there which he particularly wished to show me. Tony volunteered to take his mother back to our hired automobile, waiting near the Zoo, and to return for me. I hoped that he might be away a long time, and looked forward to my few minutes alone with Eagle as to a taste of paradise, having no idea that those moments would be long enough to decide the fate of two men.

The camp was a neat, khaki-coloured town of canvas houses, big and little, seemingly countless rows of them, set in rough grass, and sandy earth of the same yellow brown as the tents. How the officers and men knew their narrow lanes and low-browed dwellings apart, I could not imagine, for they all bore the most remarkable family resemblance to one another in shape and feature, except those which boasted mosquito-net draperies to keep out the flies.

Among these more luxurious soldier houses was Eagle's. His tent, prepared for the day, consisted of a canvas wall with a wide-open space all around, between it and the roof; and the whole internal economy was ingenuously open to public gaze. Not that it mattered, for everything was as neat as a model doll's house: the narrow bed, the pathetically meagre toilet arrangements, the one chair, the small trunk which was the sole wardrobe, and the ridiculous shaving mirror stuck up on a pole, above a miniature arsenal.

"I should think you'd cut yourself to pieces," said I, giggling impolitely as I stood on tiptoe, and peered into my own eyes in the tiny looking-glass. "There isn't room to see more than half a feature at a time. I've always been glad I wasn't a man, for two reasons: because I'd hate to have to shave, or to marry a woman. Both are horrid necessities."

"That depends on the razor—and the woman," laughed Eagle. "But as a matter of fact, I value that six-inch square of glass more than any of my other possessions. It's the thing I expressly wanted to show you. Stand back a minute, Lady Vanity, and you'll see why."

I stood back. Eagle did something to the plain dark frame of the mirror, which had a gold rim inside. Then he pulled out the glass from the bottom, and there instead, framed in black and gold, was a photograph of Diana—a lovely photograph: just a head, lips faintly smiling, eyes gazing straight at you and saying in plain eye language, "I love you dearly."

I had never seen the photograph before, and seeing it now gave me a strange frightened feeling, as if I had found out something about Diana which I wasn't supposed to know. It was such an intimate portrait, intended to be revealing, yet really concealing! I felt it was wicked of those beautiful eyes to say what they did not mean, or, perhaps, did not know how to mean; and for my critical stare, behind that "I love you," calculation hid, like the cold glint deep down in the jewel eyes of a Persian cat, when she doesn't want a mouse to guess that she knows it is there.

"Now you can understand why I'm glad to be a man," said Eagle, "in spite of—no, because of—well, anyway one of the two 'necessities' you think so 'horrid,' my child. What glory to be chosen out of all the rest who love her by such a woman! And I hope she is going to choose me. I don't believe she's the kind of girl to have a photograph like that taken expressly for a man, if she didn't feel a little of what the picture seems to say she feels, do you?"

I suppose men's ignorance of what she is at heart is a Providence-given suit of chain armour for every woman. But I wasn't myself sure enough yet of what Di might decide to do, to try and disturb Eagle's happy confidence in her. So, instead of answering his questions, I asked him one: "Did she have that photograph taken expressly for you?"

"Yes," Eagle answered triumphantly. "I don't think she'd mind my repeating to her own sister that she told me so, or that there's only this one copy, and she gave orders to have the negative destroyed."

He had hardly got these words out of his mouth when we heard footsteps, and Major Vandyke stopped suddenly in front of the doorway. In an instant, Eagle had unhooked the frame from the pole, and holding the face of the portrait toward his breast, quietly slipped the mirror into its place again, as, with sang-froid apparently unruffled, he called out: "Hullo, Vandyke! Have you come to see Lady Peggy or me?"

"I didn't know Lady Peggy was here. I was only passing by, on my way to the colonel's," explained Vandyke. "But seeing her, I thought I might be allowed to stop and say 'how do you do?'"

He spoke rather brusquely, but it was impossible to tell from his tone whether it covered anger or expressed only the coolness which had grown up between him and Captain March. As I shook hands with Major Vandyke, I was asking myself anxiously if he could have seen the photograph in passing? If not—and it did seem as if Eagle's head and mine ought to have hidden it from him—our tell-tale words would have meant nothing to his intelligence, even if he had overheard them as he came. If, however, he had snatched a glimpse of Diana's face, and at the same time caught what Eagle said, I was afraid there might be trouble. Provided it were only for Di, I didn't much care, because she thoroughly deserved to have trouble, and it would give her a lesson; but something warned my instinct that the consequences might spread and spread until others suffered, as a ring forever widens in smooth water when the tiniest pebble is thrown.