r and subordinate, but the latter had
stilled the broken, clumsy, faltering words with which this strong,
masterful man was striving to make amend for bitter wrong. "I won't
listen to more, Captain Wren," he said. "You had reasons I never
dreamed of--then. Our eyes have been opened" (one of his was still
closed). "You have said more than enough. Let us start afresh
now--with better understanding."

"It--it is generous in you, Blakely. I misjudged
everything--everybody, and now,--well, you know there are still
Hotspurs in the service. I'm thinking some man may be ass enough to
say you got a blow without resenting--"

Blakely smiled, a contorted and disunited smile, perhaps, and one much
trammeled by adhesive plaster. Yet there was placid unconcern in the
visible lines of his pale face. "I think I shall know how to answer,"
said he. And so for the day, and without mention of the name uppermost
in the thoughts of each, the two had parted--for the first time as
friends.

But the night was yet to come.

CHAPTER X.

"WOMAN-WALK-IN-THE-NIGHT" AGAIN

So swift had been the succession of events since the first day of the
week, few of the social set at Sandy could quite realize, much less
fathom, all that had happened, and as they gathered on the verandas,
in the cool of the evening after Daly's funeral, the trend of talk was
all one way. A man who might have thrown light on certain matters at
issue had been spirited away, and there were women quite ready to vow
it was done simply to get him beyond range of their questioning.
Sergeant Shannon had been sent to the agency on some mission
prescribed by Colonel Byrne. It was almost the last order issued by
Major Plume before turning over the command.

Byrne himself still lingered at the post, "watching the situation," as
it was understood, and in constant telegraphic correspondence with the
general at Prescott and the commander of the little guard over the
agency buildings at the reservation--Lieutenant Bridger, of the
Infantry. With a sergeant and twenty men that young officer had been
dispatched to that point immediately after the alarming and
unlooked-for catastrophe of the reveille outbreak. Catastrophe was
what Byrne called it, and he meant what he said, not so much because
it had cost the life of Daly, the agent, whose mistaken zeal had
precipitated the whole misunderstanding, but rather because of the
death of two such prominent young warriors as "Shield" and