. Rattler's head off without anybody being the wiser,
and Harris saw that the night-caps, taken on top of all that preceded,
had tangled Willett's ideas, despite which fact Willett now announced
that he had summoned the interpreter and desired Harris to send 'Tonio
to the office for investigation at once.

And Willett represented the commanding general, who knew nothing of
what was going on, and Harris could only obey.

It was a dramatic scene as it opened. Willett had not failed to hand a
copy of his instructions to the post commander and had left entirely to
his judgment the question as to whether the officers should be present.
Archer had decided against it. 'Tonio might be alarmed. It were better,
he said, that no one except the post adjutant, the interpreter, and
Lieutenants Willett and Harris appear, and then Harris, whose letter
from the field announcing the ill success of the scout was the original
cause of the investigation, said he preferred to be excused. Harris did
not wish to appear to 'Tonio in the light of an accuser, and Willett
was secretly better content that his classmate should stay away.

Down in the bottom of his heart Willett felt that four years of such
experiences as Harris had encountered made him a far better judge of
Apache methods and motives than he, Willett, could expect to be.
Moreover, he knew well that, were he in Harris's place, he should
resent it that an officer no higher in grade, and inferior in Arizona
craft, should be sent to inquire into the conduct of his scout. It was
just one of those things a tactless chief of staff would sometimes do;
but, even though Willett appreciated, none the less did he welcome the
order. It put him at once in position of ascendency over a classmate of
whose record and success he was both jealous and afraid. If he had felt
this earlier in the day the feeling was intensified now, for though he
had seemed to some of the officers, to Archer and his family, especially
to Lilian, far the more accomplished and attractive of the two, the
entrance of that disturbing rattler on the scene had destroyed the
equilibrium of affairs. Willett had had no experience with the venomous
little reptile, Harris had had much, and Harris's utter _sang froid_,
and cool, commanding words had averted what might have been a tragedy.
One start, one sudden move of the girl at that critical moment might
well have been fatal. The snake, alarmed and angered by previous stir
and by