, and he looked over the
ragged fellow again.

"I'll take you to her."

The big man swayed back and forth from foot to foot, balancing in his
hesitation. "Wait a moment."

He strode to Nelly Lebrun and bent over her; Donnegan saw her eyes flash
up--oh, heart of the south, what eyes of shadow and fire! Jack Landis
trembled under the glance; yes, he was deeply in love with the girl. And
Donnegan watched her face shade with suspicion, stiffen with cold anger,
warm and soften again under the explanations of Jack Landis.

Donnegan, looking from the distance, could read everything; it is
nearness that bewitches a man when he talks to a woman. When Odysseus
talked to Circe, no doubt he stood on the farther side of the room!

When Landis came again, he was perspiring from the trial of fire
through which he had just passed.

"Come," he ordered, and set out at a sweeping stride.

Plainly he was anxious to get this matter done with as soon as possible.
As for Donnegan, he saw a man whom Landis had summoned to take his place
sit down at the table with Nelly Lebrun. She was laughing with the
newcomer as though nothing troubled her at all, but over his shoulder
her glance probed the distance and followed Jack Landis. She wanted to
see the messenger again, the man who had called her companion away; but
in this it was fox challenging fox. Donnegan took note and was careful
to place between him and the girl every pillar and every group of
people. As far as he was concerned, her first glance must do to read and
judge and remember him by.

Outside Landis shot several questions at him in swift succession; he
wanted to know how the girl had happened to make the trip. Above all,
what the colonel was thinking and doing and if the colonel himself had
come. But Donnegan replied with monosyllables, and Landis, apparently
reconciling himself to the fact that the messenger was a fool, ceased
his questions. They kept close to a run all the way out of the camp and
up the hillside to the two detached tents where Donnegan and the girl
slept that night. A lantern burned in both the tents.

"She has made things ready for me," thought Donnegan, his heart opening.
"She has kept house for me!"

He pointed out Lou's tent to his companion and the big man, with a
single low word of warning, threw open the flap of the tent and strode
in.

There was only the split part of a second between the rising and the
fall of the canvas, but in that swift in