as those who would have shown her sympathy--none so
malignantly as those who had suffered for her sake.

This was especially true of Field. In the mad hope of "getting justice,"
as she termed it, for the dead, she had demanded speech of the general,
and, in presence of "Black Bill" and the surgeon, he had given her a
hearing. It proved fatal to her cause, for in her fury at what she
termed "the triumph of his foes," she lost all sense of right or reason,
and declared that it was Field who had warned Stabber's band and sent
them fleeing to unite with Lame Wolf,--Field who took the trader's
horses and rode by night with Kennedy to warn them it was Webb's
intention to surround the village at dawn and make prisoners of the men.
It was Field, she said, who furnished the money Moreau needed to
establish his claim to a gold mine in the Black Hills, the ownership of
which would make them rich and repay Field a dozen times over. It was
Field who sought to protect her kindred among the Sioux in hopes, she
said it boldly, of winning her. But the general had heard enough. The
door was opened and Ray and Blake were ushered in. The former briefly
told of the finding of her note in Field's room the night the adjutant
was so mysteriously missing. The note itself was held forth by the
inspector general and she was asked if she cared to have it opened and
read aloud. Her answer was that Field was a coward, a dastard to betray
a woman who had trusted him.

"Oh, he didn't," said Blake, drily. "'Twas just the other way. He
couldn't be induced to open his head, so his friends took a hand. You
got word of the outbreak through your Indian followers. You wrote to
Field and sent the note by Pete, bidding him join you at that godless
hour, telling him that you would provide the horses and that you must
ride to Stabber's camp to see Moreau for the last time, as he was going
at once to the Black Hills. You made Field believe he was your half
brother, instead of what he was. You brought Moreau back to the post and
took something, I can't say what, down to him from Mr. Hay's,--he
waiting for you on the flats below the trader's corral. You should have
worn your moccasins, as well as a divided skirt, that night instead of
French-heeled _bottines_. The rest--others can tell."

The others were Kennedy and the recaptured, half recalcitrant Pete; the
latter turned state's evidence. Kennedy told how he had wandered down
into the flats after "the few dhrin