old Wilkins, the post quartermaster. She had no dread on his
account, for rheumatism and routine duties, as the official in charge of
Uncle Sam's huge stack of stores and supplies, exempted her liege from
duty in the field; and, even while lending a helping hand where some
young wife and mother seemed dazed and broken by the sudden call to
arms, she kept eyes and ears alert as ever, and was speedily confiding
to first one household, then another, her conviction that there was a
big sensation bundled up in the bosom of the post commander and his
cronies, and she knew, she said, it was something about Field.
Everybody, of course, was aware by eight o'clock that Field had gone
with Ray, and while no officer presumed to ask if it was because Ray, or
Field, had applied for the detail, no woman would have been restrained
therefrom by any fear of Webb. Well he realized this fact and, dodging
the first that sought to waylay him on the walk, he had later intrenched
himself, as it were, in his office, where Dade, Blake and the old post
surgeon had sat with him in solemn conclave while Bill Hay brought his
clerk, bar-keeper, store-keeper, Pete, the general utility man, and even
"Crapaud," the halfbreed, to swear in succession they had no idea who
could have tampered with either the safe or the stables. Closely had
they been cross-examined; and, going away in turn, they told of the
nature of the cross-examination; yet to no one of their number had been
made known what had occurred to cause such close questioning. Hay had
been forbidden to speak of it, even to his household. The
officers-of-the-day were sworn to secrecy. Neither Wilkins nor the
acting adjutant was closeted with the council, and neither, therefore,
could do more than guess at the facts. Yet that somebody knew, in part
at least, the trend of suspicion, was at once apparent to Webb and his
councilors when, about nine o'clock, he took Blake and Dade to see those
significant "bar shoe" hoof prints. Every one of them had disappeared.

"By Jove!" said Webb, "I know _now_ I should have set a sentry with
orders to let no man walk or ride about here. See! He's used his foot to
smear this--and this--and here again!"

There in a dozen places were signs old Indian trailers read as they
would read an open book. Places where, pivoting on the heel, a heavy
foot had crushed right and left into the yielding soil of the roadway,
making concentric, circular grooves and ridges of sandy