y man's chin was bristling
with a two-weeks'-old beard.

"I'm going to report Gleason for this thing," swore Blake; "you see if I
don't, the moment we get back."

The rest of us were "hopping mad," too, but held our tongues so long as
we were around Phoenix. We did not want them there to believe there
was dissension and almost mutiny impending. Some of us got permission
from Blake to go up to the post with its hospitable officers, and I was
one who strolled up to "the store" after dark. There we found the major,
and Captain Frazer, and Captain Jennings, and most of the youngsters,
but Baker was absent. Of course the talk soon drifted to and settled on
"Starlight Ranch," and by tattoo most of the garrison crowd were talking
like so many Prussians, all at top-voice and all at once. Every man
seemed to have some theory of his own with regard to the peculiar
conduct of Mr. Burnham, but no one dissented from the quiet remark of
Captain Frazer:

"As for Baker's relations with the daughter, he is simply desperately in
love and means to marry her. He tells my wife that she is educated and
far more refined than her surroundings would indicate, but that he is
refused audience by both Burnham and his wife, and it is only at extreme
risk that he is able to meet his lady-love at all. Some nights she is
entirely prevented from slipping out to see him."

Presently in came Gleason, beaming and triumphant from his round of
calls among the fair sex, and ready now for the game he loved above all
things on earth,--poker. For reasons which need not be elaborated here
no officer in our command would play with him, and an ugly rumor was
going the rounds at Sandy, just before we came away, that, in a game at
Olsen's ranch on the Aqua Fria about three weeks before, he had had his
face slapped by Lieutenant Ray of our own regiment. But Ray had gone to
his lonely post at Camp Cameron, and there was no one by whom we could
verify it except some ranchmen, who declared that Gleason had cheated at
cards, and Ray "had been a little too full," as they put it, to detect
the fraud until it seemed to flash upon him all of a sudden. A game
began, however, with three local officers as participants, so presently
Carroll and I withdrew and went back to bivouac.

"Have you seen anything of Corporal Potts?" was the first question asked
by Mr. Blake.

"Not a thing. Why? Is he missing?"

"Been missing for an hour. He was talking with some of these garriso