t papers perhaps two days ago, and the guardhouse rid of a most
important prisoner last night. Canker has put the officer-of-the-guard in
arrest. Remember good old Billy Gray who commanded us at Apache? This is
Billy Junior, and I'm awful sorry." Here the soft gray eyes glanced
quickly at the anxious face of Miss Lawrence, who sat silently feigning
interest in the chat between the others. The anxious look in her eyes
increased at Armstrong's next words: "The prisoner must have had friends.
He is now said to be among your men, disguised, and those two fellows at
the stage are detectives. I thought all that space was to be kept clear."

"It was," answered Stewart, "yet the chief must have been overpersuaded.
Look here!" and the colonel held forth a scrap of paper. Amy Lawrence,
hearing something like the gasp of a sufferer in sudden pain, turned
quickly and saw that every vestige of color had left Mrs. Garrison's
face--that she was almost reeling on the step. Before she could call
attention to it, Armstrong, who had taken and glanced curiously at the
scrap, whirled suddenly, and his eyes, in stern menace, swept the spot
where the little lady clung but an instant before. As suddenly Mrs.
Garrison had sprung from the step and vanished.

CHAPTER VII.

Billy Gray was indeed in close arrest and the grim prophecy was
fulfilled--Colonel Canker was proving "anything but a guardian angel to
him." The whole regiment, officers and men, barring only the commander,
was practically in mourning with sorrow for him and chagrin over its own
discomfiture. Not only one important prisoner was gone, but two; not only
two, but four. No man in authority was able to say just when or how it
happened, for it was Canker's own order that the prisoners should not be
paraded when the guard fell in at night. They were there at tattoo and at
taps "all secure." The officer of the guard, said several soldiers, had
quite a long talk with one of the prisoners--young Morton--just after
tattoo, at which time the entire guard had been inspected by the
commanding officer himself. But at reveille four most important prisoners
were gone and, such was Canker's wrath, not only was Gray in arrest, but
the sergeant of the guard also, while the three luckless men who were
successively posted as sentries during the night at the back of the
wooden shell that served as a guardhouse--were now in close confinement
in the place of the escaped quartette.

Yet thos