laimed, and straightway bit
her lip.

"Philip?" hastily asked the Fort Benton doctor, on a horse near by.
"Then there has been an accident!"

The sergeant-major rode up to report, but the impulsive Eva did not wait
for details. She touched her mare and was after the doctor.

"I'm so sorry!" cried the girl, as she met Danvers and O'Dwyer
returning. "It's all my fault that you are wet--and hurt! Which one is
hurt?" She turned provocative eyes to the dripping lieutenant.

"O'Dwyer has a sprained elbow," answered Philip, his heart dancing at
her solicitude. "It was through my carelessness."

"Don't ye be belavin' a wor-rd he says, miss!" burst out O'Dwyer. "That
is (beggin' yer pardon fer spakin' to the loikes of yez, an' me a
private!), don't ye belave 'tis his fault. He kep' me from drownin',
that's what he did!"

O'Dwyer had noted his idol's preoccupation since Miss Thornhill's
advent, the self-imposed aloofness, and had drawn his own shrewd
conclusions. He determined, here and now, to do Danvers a good turn,
despite the frown on the doctor's face and Philip's frantic signaling.
"Lieutenant Danvers is the finest feller God ever made!" he blurted,
regardless.

"Oh, keep still! _Keep still!_" cried the exasperated Englishman. This
misplaced loquacity!

Eva reached out suddenly, frankly.

"I think it's time we knew each other," she said, sweetly, and their
hands met.

That touch! Never had the unsophisticated youth felt such a touch! A
thrill of exquisite life went from her hand to his; from his hand to his
feet and the vibrations went tingling back to the girl. For the first
time Philip looked full into the blue eyes of Eva Thornhill.

"You're a fool, O'Dwyer!" Danvers heard the doctor remark, as they
proceeded toward the fort. The humbled trooper, hitching his arm in the
improvised sling which Philip had made, groaned doleful assent. Too late
he remembered the barrack-room decision that Miss Thornhill was after
every scalp in the Whoop Up Country.

And Eva Thornhill? Her opportunity had come, and she had taken it as a
gift from the gods. Suddenly she knew that Philip was merged in her
personality, and she reveled in the bloom of quickly grown, fully
developed passion. By the time the lieutenant assisted her from her
mare at the colonel's headquarters she was ready to think that there was
nothing to keep them apart. So quickly, hotly, does young blood run!

Her answer to the question that was ready to slip