of her long,
slender feet. They found that she had taken with her a roomy
hunting-pouch that hung usually in her father's den. She had filled
it, apparently, with food,--tea, sugar, even lemons, for half a dozen
of this precious and hoarded fruit had disappeared. Punch, too, had
been provided for. She had "packed" a half-bushel of barley from the
stables. There was no one to say Miss Angela nay. She might have
ridden off with the flag itself and no sentry would more than think of
stopping her. Just what fate had befallen her no one dare suggest. The
one thing, the only one, that roused a vestige of hope was that
Lieutenant Blakely had gone _alone_ on what was thought to be her
trail.

Now here was a curious condition of things. If anyone had been asked
to name the most popular officer at Sandy, there would have been no
end of discussion. Perhaps the choice would have lain between Sanders,
Cutler, and old Westervelt--good and genial men. Asked to name the
least popular officer, and, though men, and women, too, would have
shrunk from saying it, the name that would have occurred to almost all
was that of Blakely. And why? Simply because he stood alone,
self-poised, self-reliant, said his few friends, "self-centered and
self_ish_," said more than Mrs. Bridger, whereas a more generous man
had never served at Sandy. That, however, they had yet to learn. But
when a man goes his way in the world, meddling with no one else's
business, and never mentioning his own, courteous and civil, but never
intimate, studying a good deal but saying little, asking no favors and
granting few, perhaps because seldom asked, the chances are he will
win the name of being cold, indifferent, even repellent, "too high,
mighty, and superior." His very virtues become a fault, for men and
women love best those who are human like themselves, however they may
respect. Among the troopers Blakely was as yet something of an enigma.
His manner of speaking to them was unlike that of most of his
fellows--it was grave, courteous, dignified, never petulant or
irritable. In those old cavalry days most men better fancied something
more demonstrative. "I like to see an officer flare up and--say
things," said a veteran sergeant. "This here bug-catcher is too damned
cold-blooded." They respected him, yes; yet they little understood and
less loved him. They had known him too short a time.

But among the Indians Blakely was a demi-god. Grave, unruffled,
scrupulously