a visit from the
officer of the day.

"Were you here all last night, sergeant?" was Chester's abrupt question.

"Certainly, sir, and up until one o'clock or more."

"Were any horses out during the night,--any officers' horses, I mean?"

"No, sir, not one."

"I thought possibly some officers might have driven or ridden to town."

"No, sir. The only horses that crossed this threshold going out last
night were Mr. Sutton's team from town. They were put up here until near
one o'clock, and then the doctor sent over for them. I locked up right
after that, and can swear nothing else went out."

Chester entered the stable and looked curiously around. Presently his
eye lighted on a tall, rangy bay horse that was being groomed in a wide
stall near the door-way.

"That's Mr. Jerrold's Roderick, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir. He's fresh as a daisy, too,--hasn't been out for three
days,--and Mr. Jerrold's going to drive the dog-cart this morning."

Chester turned away.

"Sloat," said he, as they left the stable, "if Mr. Jerrold was away from
the post last night,--and you heard me say he was out of his
quarters,--could he have gone any way except afoot, after what you heard
Parks say?"

"Gone in the Suttons' outfit, I suppose," was Sloat's cautious answer.

"In which event he would have been seen by the sentry at the bridge,
would he not?"

"Ought to have been, certainly."

"Then we'll go back to the guard-house." And, wonderingly and
uncomfortably, Sloat followed. He had long since begun to wish he had
held his peace and said nothing about the confounded roll-call. He hated
rows of any kind. He didn't like Jerrold, but he would have crawled
_ventre a terre_ across the wide parade sooner than see a scandal in the
regiment he loved; and it was becoming apparent to his sluggish
faculties that it was no mere matter of absence from quarters that was
involving Jerrold. Chester was all aflame over that picture-business, he
remembered, and the whole drift of his present investigation was to
prove that Jerrold was _not_ absent from the post, but absent only from
his quarters. If so, where had he spent his time until nearly four?
Sloat's heart was heavy with vague apprehension. He knew that Jerrold
had borne Alice Renwick away from the party at an unusually early hour
for such things to break up. He knew that he and others had protested
against such desertion, but she declared it could not be helped. He
remembered another thing,--a