oon as the major's
orders to bring a gag had silenced the loud protestations and
accusations of the negress.

"It is as we supposed, major. That is the skirt of an old silk I gave
her last winter."

An hour later Celestine was locked in a room at the laundress's
quarters, where stout "Mrs. Sergeant Flynn" organized an Amazon guard
of heroines, who, like herself, had followed the drum for many a year;
who assured the major the prisoner would never escape from their
clutches, and whose motto appeared to be, "Put none but Irishwomen on
guard to-night."

XX.

Confessions, of various sorts, were the order of the day at Laramie
during the week that followed this important arrest, and then the
fortnight of accusation was at an end. Parsons, the deserter, led off
the day after his return to the post under escort of the little squad
sent down from Terry's troop to meet him at Cheyenne. He was stubborn
and silent at first, but when told by the corporal of the guard that
Celestine had "gone back on him the moment she heard he had a wife at
Denver, and had more than given him away," he concluded that it was
time to deny some of the accusations heaped upon his head by the
furious victim of his wiles. The girl had indeed obeyed his beck and
will, and shielded him even in the days of suspense that followed his
desertion; but no word can describe the rage of her jealousy, the fury
of her hate, the recklessness of her tongue when she found that he had
used her only as a tool to enrich another woman,--his lawful wife.
Parsons told his story to an interested audience as though he had
rather enjoyed the celebrity he had acquired, and Major Miller, Dr.
Bayard, Captain Forrest, and Mr. Roswell Holmes were his most attentive
listeners. He had been a corporal in the Marine Corps at the Washington
Navy-Yard, and had seen Dr. Bayard many a time. Reduced to the ranks
for some offence, he had become an officer's servant, and was employed
at the mess-room, where Bayard must have seen him frequently, as the
doctor rarely missed their festivities at the barracks. Here his
peculations began and were discovered. He deserted and got to St.
Louis, where he began to "barber" on a boat; got married and into more
trouble; fled to Denver and found people's wits too sharp for him; so,
leaving his wife to support herself as best she could, he ran up to
Cheyenne and enlisted in the cavalry. Doors and windows, desks and
trunks, were found lying ope