isper, said:

"Come--one minute. It may be my last chance."

And the girl in her had yielded, as what girl would not?

Presently he began to speak, and now his head was bowing low; his eyes,
though she saw them not, were drinking in the lily-like beauty of the
sweet, downcast face. One quick look she flashed at him as he began,
then the long lashes swept her cheek.

"I could not tell your mother the whole truth, just then," he began.
"I've got to tell you something of it now. Until to-night I never knew
what it was to--to shrink from news of action. Now--I know."

She wanted to hear "why," even when her own heart was telling her. She
wanted him to say, yet coquetted with her own desire. "Is--it serious
news?" she faltered.

"So serious that Stannard, or Turner, or both, may be in grave danger,
and there's no one to go and warn them but--me!"

"You?" and up came the troubled, beautiful eyes.

"Yes. Ask yourself who else there is. The scouts are gone. Sanchez has
not returned. There's but a baker's dozen of troopers and troop horses
left at the post. The general needs to send a little party to explore
the Mazatzal. 'Tonio can't be trusted. Harris has--practically--put
himself out of it. Don't you know me well enough to know--I've got to
go?"

She was only just eighteen. She had lived her innocent life at that
fond mother's side. She had read of knightly deeds in many an hour, and
her heroes were such as Ivanhoe and William Wallace, Bayard and Philip
Sidney, the Black Prince and Henry of the snow-white plume. Four days
agone her heart had first stood still, then thrilled with girlish
admiration when they told her how Harris had met his serious wound,
and, for just that day, that soldierly young trooper was the centre of
her stage. Then Willett returned, with a different version, and other
things to murmur to her listening ears. Then Willett had been at
leisure two--three--long days, and, save that mournful tragedy at the
ranch, casting its spell over the entire post, sufficient in itself to
strike terror to a girlish soul, to inspire it to seek strength and
protection of the stronger arm, what else was there to occupy the heart
of a young maid here at sun-baked, mud-colored, monotonous old Almy?
The one thing that would transform a desert into paradise had blossomed
in her fair, innocent, girlish bosom, and he who had marked the
symptoms many a time knew that the pretty bird was fluttering to his
hand. The one p