lt confident that though never again detected
down stairs, Miss Flower had been out at night, as Miss McGrath believed
her to have been the night, when was it? "when little Kennedy had his
scrap wid the Sioux the boys do be all talkin' about"--the night, in
fact, that Stabber's band slipped away from the Platte, Ray's troop
following at dawn. Questioned as to how it was possible for Miss Flower
to get out without coming down stairs, Miss McGrath said she wasn't good
at monkeyshines herself, but "wimmen that could ride sthraddle-wise"
were capable of climbs more difficult than that which the vine trellis
afforded from the porch floor to the porch roof. Miss McGrath hadn't
been spying, of course, because her room was at the back of the house,
beyond the kitchen, but how did the little heel tracks get on the
veranda roof?--the road dust on the matting under the window? the vine
twigs in that "quare" made skirt never worn by day? That Miss Flower
could and did ride "asthraddle" and ride admirably when found with the
Sioux at Bear Cliff, everybody at Frayne well knew by this time. That
she had so ridden at Fort Frayne was known to no officer or lady of the
garrison then present, but believed by Miss McGrath because of certain
inexpressibles of the same material with the "quare" made skirt; both
found, dusty and somewhat bedraggled, the morning Captain Blake was
having his chase after the Indians, and Miss Flower was so "wild excited
like." All this and more did Miss McGrath reveal before being permitted
to return to the sanctity of her chamber, and Flint felt the ground
sinking beneath his feet. It might even be alleged of him now that he
had connived at the escape of this most dangerous and desperate
character, this Indian leader, of whom example, prompt and sharp, would
certainly have been made, unless the general and the ends of justice
were defeated. But what stung the major most of all was that he had been
fairly victimized, hoodwinked, cajoled, wheedled, flattered into this
wretched predicament, all through the wiles and graces of a woman. No
one knew it, whatever might be suspected, but Nanette had bewitched him
quite as much as missives from the East had persuaded and misled.

And so it was with hardened and resentful heart that the major sought
her on the morrow. The general and the commands afield would soon be
coming home. Such Indians as they had not "rounded up" and captured were
scattered far and wide. The campa