ed the sabre-hilt in the
service of our common country slowly fell until it rested on that
beautiful, golden head,--one little second or two, in which the lips
seemed to murmur a prayer and the fast glazing eyes were fixed in
infinite tenderness upon his only child. Then suddenly they sought the
face of his sobbing wife,--a quick, faint smile, a sigh, and the hand
dropped to the floor. The old trooper's life had gone out in
benediction.

* * * * *

Of course there was trouble all around before that wretched affair was
explained. Gleason came within an ace of court-martial, but escaped it
by saying that he knew of "Burnham's" threats against the life of
Lieutenant Baker, and that he went to the ranch in search of the latter
and to get him out of danger. They met the Chinaman outside drawing
water, and he ushered them in the back way because it was the nearest.
Potts asked to go with him that he might see if this was his long-lost
wife,--so said Gleason,--and the instant she caught sight of him she
shrieked and fainted, and the two men sprang at each other like tigers.
Knives were drawn in a minute. Then Burnham fled through the hall,
snatched a revolver from its rack, and fired the fatal shot. The surgeon
from Fort Phoenix reached them early the next morning, a messenger
having been despatched from Crocker's ranch before eleven at night, but
all his skill could not save "Burnham," now known to be Pierce, the
ex-sutler clerk of the early Fifties. He had prospered and made money
ever since the close of the war, and Zoe had been thoroughly well
educated in the East before the poor child was summoned to share her
mother's exile. His mania seemed to be to avoid all possibility of
contact with the troops, but the Crockers had given such glowing
accounts of the land near Fort Phoenix, and they were so positively
assured that there need be no intercourse whatever with that post, that
he determined to risk it. But, go where he would, his sin had found him
out.

The long hot summer followed, but it often happened that before many
weeks there were interchanges of visits between the fort and the ranch.
The ladies insisted that the widow should come thither for change and
cheer, and Zoe's appearance at Phoenix was the sensation of the year.
Baker was in the seventh heaven. "Burnham," it was found, had a certain
sense of justice, for his will had been made long before, and everything
he possessed was left un