y?" asked Plume, mystified.

"I'm not saying, until Blakely talks for himself. For one reason I
don't _know_. For another, _he's_ the man to tell, if anybody," and a
toss of the head toward the dark doorway told who was meant by "he."

"D'you mean you'd have this girl squatting there by Blakely's bedside
the rest of the night?" asked the commander, ruffled in spirit.
"What's to prevent her singing their confounded death song, or
invoking heathen spirits, or knifing us all, for that matter?"

"What was to prevent her from knifing the Bugologist and Angela both,
when she had 'em?" was the sturdy reply. "The girl's a theoretical
heathen, but a practical Christian. Come with us, Natzie," he
finished, one hand extended to aid her to rise, the other pointing to
the open doorway. She was on her feet in an instant, and, silently
signing her companions to stay, followed the doctor into the house.

And so it happened that when Blakely wakened, hours later, the sight
that met him, dimly comprehending, was that of a blue-coated soldier
snoozing in a reclining chair, a blue-blanketed Indian girl seated on
the floor near the foot of his bed, looking with all her soul in her
gaze straight into his wondering eyes. At his low whisper, "Natzie,"
she sprang to her feet without word or sound; seized the thin white
hand tremulously extended toward her, and, pillowing her cheek upon
it, knelt humbly by the bedside, her black hair streaming to the
floor. A pathetic picture it made in the dim light of the newborn day,
forcing itself through the shrouded windows, and Major Plume, restless
and astir the hour before reveille, stood unnoted a moment at the
doorway, then strode back through the hall and summoned from the
adjoining veranda another sleepless watcher, gratefully breathing the
fragrance of the cool, morning air; and presently two dim forms had
softly tiptoed to that open portal, and now stood gazing within until
their eyes should triumph over the uncertain light--the post commander
in his trim-fitting undress uniform, the tall and angular shape of
Wren's elderly sister--the "austere vestal" herself. It may have been
a mere twitch of the slim fingers under her tawny cheek that caused
Natzie to lift her eyes in search of those of her hero and her
protector. Instantly her own gaze, startled, was turned straight to
the door. Then in another second she had sprung to her feet, and with
fury in her face and attitude confronted the intruder