-talking too damned much! You're
sitting up much of the time day and night now. You need air and change,
yet cannot stand jarring, or I'd take you driving."

"Let me ride a mule."

"I would, if I were sure of the brute behaving, but you never can tell
what a mule will do, and now--there's no telling what Willett may say."

"What do you mean?" asked Harris, though he had some reason to know.

"Just this. He's muttering about matters none of us now want to hear,
and want none of the Archers to hear. I've got Mrs. Archer out for a
time, and going to get Mrs. Stannard in for a time, but there's that
poor child upstairs going all to pieces for fear that beautiful boy may
die, when--it's--it's--_damn_ it, it's my profound conviction it would
be the best thing that could happen!" and with that Bentley turned
about and strode heavily out of the house.

Just at sunset that winter's evening, when all the eastward heights
were a blaze of gold, and the far away fringe of the Mogollon was
tipped with fire, and the rounded poll of Squadron Peak shone dazzling
against the southward sky, the lookout on the scaffolding above the
office set up a shout that brought half the garrison to its feet.

"Horsemen coming! McDowell road!"

It so happened that, just at the moment, Mrs. Stannard was walking
slowly and thoughtfully from the direction of the hospital to her
lonely roof. She had been to see Mrs. Bennett, whose general condition
appeared a little more favorable, but who lay long hours moaning for
those she had lost. Turner, coming in from the corrals, had joined Mrs.
Stannard for a moment, but at sound of the alarm raised his cap and
hurried straightway to the southward bluff. It might even mean a mail.
The days were long to Mrs. Stannard and the nights were weary, for one
anxiety followed another, and now, when she had so hoped that all might
be gladness and sunshine for the sweet, unspoiled army girl, to whom
her heart had so fondly opened, here at the very outset of her dream of
love and delight, the grim Destroyer threatened, and even if Fate
should spare the life of Harold Willett was it at all certain that that
life would be what Lilian Archer deserved?

All in three minutes that afternoon, while bending over the unconscious
sufferer, replacing with cool, fresh linen the heated bandages on his
brow, she had heard words that she fain would have stifled--that caused
her to look up, startled, into Bentley's sombre face. She w