were wide open--looking right up at me."

Harris knew well who Stella was. The name was appended to many a letter
and "wire" that came to him during First Class camp, and later, begging
him to tell her of Mr. Willett, and now here was this fair girl
virtually bidding him say he had known a Stella. He ground his teeth as
he turned aside to set a chair for her. There had been others since
Stella, unless all indications lied. What might she not say if she knew
them all?

"_I_ called my mother Topsy and Aunt Ophelia, both, when I was getting
over typhoid and Uncle Tom's Cabin," said he.

"Then Stella was only----" and the blue eyes were searching his.

"Only a--you know I was nearly 'found' in French. What would you call
the parallel to a _nom de plume_? _Nom de chien?_ _Nom de_--something
visionary, at all events. He'll be sitting up day after to-morrow and
telling you--all about it."

She stood before him, with those pretty, slender, white hands loosely
clasped, the clear, truthful, beautiful eyes looking straight into his
sun-tanned, yet pallid face. No man in his time at the Point had ever
known Harris to flinch at the truth or dodge an issue. "He is square as
they make 'em," was the verdict of his classmates, and square he had
been through his subaltern days, and now to be square meant the dealing
to this sweet and trusting girl a blow that, while it might down his
rival, would wreck her happiness. He now had dodged an issue at last,
and then came the further trial:

"Mr. Harris, dogs don't write. Harold's talking about Stella's
_letters_, and says _you_ get them."

He had dodged. He might as well flinch. The truth he would not tell
her. A lie he could not tell her. He did, perhaps, the best he could
for himself and the worst, perhaps, for her. He acted.

"Don't believe a word of it, Miss Lilian. He's mooning yet."

"Then--there wasn't any girl?--any letters?"

"There's only one girl in creation he cares for."

"But--Stella?" she persisted.

"Never saw his Stella in all my life. What he needs is ice, and I'm
going to see he gets it."

With that he was gone, deaf to the words of relief the poor child would
have spoken--trying to be deaf to the fierce upbraiding of conscience,
and failing as he deserved, miserably.

An hour later that evening, with a pack mule, blankets, old newspapers
and a brace of cracker boxes, two half-tamed Mohaves were heading for
the heights to the north-east, where water would f