At tattoo,
therefore, the previous evening "the wretch" had been returned to
duty, and at five in the morning was found hovering about the major's
quarters. When invited by the sergeant of the guard to explain, he
replied, quite civilly for him, that it was to say good-by to Elise.
"Me and her," said he, "has been good friends."

Presumably he had had his opportunity at the kitchen door before the
start, but still he lingered, feigning professional interest in the
condition of the sleek mules that were to haul the Concord over fifty
miles of rugged road, up hill and down dale before the setting of the
sun. Then, while the officers and ladies clustered thick on one side
of the black vehicle, Downs sidled to the other, and the big black
eyes of the Frenchwoman peered down at him a moment as she leaned
toward him, and, with a whispered word, slyly dropped a little folded
packet into his waiting palm. Then, as though impatient, Plume shouted
"All right. Go on!" The Concord whirled away, and something like a
sigh of relief went up from assembled Sandy, as the first kiss of the
rising sun lighted on the bald pate of Squaw Peak, huge sentinel of
the valley, looming from the darkness and shadows and the mists of the
shallow stream that slept in many a silent pool along its massive,
rocky base. With but a few hurried, embarrassed words, Clarice Plume
had said adieu to Sandy, thinking never to see it again. They stood
and watched her past the one unlighted house, the northernmost along
the row. They knew not that Mr. Blakely was at the moment bidding
adieu to others in far humbler station. They only noted that, even at
the last, he was not there to wave a good-by to the woman who had once
so influenced his life. Slowly then the little group dissolved and
drifted away. She had gone unchallenged of any authority, though the
fate of Mullins still hung in the balance. Obviously, then, it was not
she whom Byrne's report had implicated, if indeed that report had
named anybody. There had been no occasion for a coroner and jury.
There would have been neither coroner nor jury to serve, had they been
called for. Camp Sandy stood in a little world of its own, the only
civil functionary within forty miles being a ranchman, dwelling seven
miles down stream, who held some Territorial warrant as a justice of
the peace.

But Norah Shaughnessy, from the gable window of the Trumans' quarters,
shook a hard-clinching Irish fist and showered maled