ld she--how could _she_ ask _him_?

"I will tell you, Mr. Blakely." The words came from the window of the
darkened parlor, close at hand. The voice was that of Janet Wren,
austere and uncompromising. "I got here in time to hear your
question--I will answer for my niece--"

"Aunt Janet--No!"

"Be quiet, Angela. Mr. Blakely, it is because this child's father saw,
and I heard of, that which makes you unworthy the faith of a young,
pure-hearted girl. Who was the--the creature to whom you opened your
door last Wednesday midnight?"

Kate Sanders, singing softly, blithely, came tripping along the
major's deserted veranda, her fresh young voice, glad, yet subdued,
caroling the words of a dear old song that Parepa had made loved and
famous full ten years before:

"And as he lingered by her side,
In spite of his comrade's warning
The old, old story was told again
At five o'clock in the morning."

Then came sudden silence, as springing to the sandy ground, the singer
reached the Wrens' veranda and saw the dim form of Mr. Blakely,
standing silently confronting a still dimmer form, faintly visible at
the side window against the soft, tempered light of the hanging lamp
in the hall.

"Who was the creature?" I repeat, were the strange words, in Miss
Wren's most telling tone, that brought Kate Sanders to a halt,
startled, silent.

Then Blakely answered: "Some day I shall tell Miss Angela, madam, but
never--you. Good-night."

CHAPTER XV

A CALL FOR HELP

That night the wire across the mountains to Prescott was long alive
with news, and there was little rest for operator, adjutant, or
commanding officer at Sandy. Colonel Byrne, it seems, had lost
telegraphic touch with his chief, who, quitting Camp McDowell, had
personally taken the field somewhere over in the Tonto Basin beyond
the Matitzal Range, and Byrne had the cares of a continent on his
hands. Three of the five commands out in the field had had sharp
encounters with the foe. Official business itself was sufficiently
engrossing, but there were other matters assuming grave proportions.
Mrs. Plume had developed a feverish anxiety to hie on to the Pacific
and out of Arizona just at a time when, as her husband had to tell
her, it was impossible for him, and impolitic for her, to go. Matters
at Sandy, he explained, were in tangled shape. Mullins partially
restored, but still, as Plume assured her, utterly out of his head,
had declared that his as