ign was over. Now for the disposition
of the prisoners. It was to tell Mrs. Hayand Nanette, especially
Nanette, why the sentries were re-established about their home and that,
though he would not place the trader's niece within a garrison cell, he
should hold her prisoner beneath the trader's roof to await the action
of superior authority on the grievous charges lodged at her door. She
was able to be up, said Miss McGrath,--not only up but down--down in the
breakfast room, looking blither and more like herself than she had been
since she was brought home.

"Say that Major Flint desires to see her and Mrs. Hay," said Flint, with
majesty of mien, as, followed by two of his officers, he was shown into
the trader's parlor.

And presently they came--Mrs. Hay pale and sorrowing; Miss Flower, pale,
perhaps, but triumphantly defiant. The one sat and covered her face with
her hands as she listened to the major's few words, cold, stern and
accusing. The other looked squarely at him, with fearless, glittering
eyes:--

"You may order what you like so far as I'm concerned," was the utterly
reckless answer of the girl. "I don't care what you do now that I know
he is safe--free--and that you will never lay hands on him again."

"That's where you are in error, Miss Flower," was the major's calm,
cold-blooded, yet rejoiceful reply. It was for this, indeed, that he had
come. "Ralph Moreau was run down by my men soon after midnight, and he's
now behind the bars."

CHAPTER XXIII

A SOLDIER ENTANGLED

December and bitter cold. The river frozen stiff. The prairie sheeted in
unbroken snow. Great log fires roaring in every open fireplace. Great
throngs of soldiery about the red hot barrack stoves, for all the
columns were again in winter columns, and Flint's two companies had "got
the route" for home. They were to march on the morrow, escorting as far
as Laramie the intractables of Stabber's band, some few of the Indians
to go in irons, among them Ralph Moreau, or Eagle Wing, now a notorious
character.

The general was there at Frayne, with old "Black Bill," erstwhile chief
inspector of the department, once a subaltern in days long gone by when
Laramie was "Ultima Thule" of the plains forts. The general had heard
Flint's halting explanation of his laxity in Moreau's case, saying
almost as little in reply as his old friend Grant when "interviewed" by
those of whom he disapproved. "Black Bill" it was who waxed explosive
when o