jail, and then
deserted. He disappeared afterward, and even Pinkerton's people
haven't been able to find him. Those papers are his property. You and
Colonel Byrne are the only men who have seen them, though they were
somewhat exposed just after the fire. She made three attempts to get
me to give them up to her. Then, I believe, she strove to get Downs to
steal them, and gave him the money with which to desert and bring them
to her. He couldn't get into the iron box; couldn't lug it out, and
somehow, probably, set fire to the place, scratching matches in there.
Perhaps she even persuaded him to do that as a last resort. He knew I
could get out safely. At all events, he was scared out of his wits and
deserted with what he had. It was in trying to make his way eastward
by the Wingate road that there came the last of poor Ups and Downs."

And so the story of this baleful influence over a weak, half-drugged
girl, her mistress, became known to Plume and gradually to others. It
was easy for Elise to make her believe that, in spite of the word of a
gentleman, her impulsive love letters were still held by Blakely
because he had never forgiven her. It was Elise, indeed, who had
roused her jealousy and had done her best to break that engagement
with Blakely and to lead to the match with the handsome and devoted
major. Intrigue and lying were as the breath of the woman's nostrils.
She lived in them. But Sandy was never to see her again.
"Woman-Walk-in-the-Night" was "Woman-Walk-no-More."

And now the friendless creature stood charged with more crimes than
would fill the meager space of a Territorial jail, and yet the one
originally laid at her door, though never publicly announced, was now
omitted entirely--that of assault with deadly weapon, possibly with
intent to kill. Even Mother Shaughnessy and Norah were silenced, and
Pat Mullins put to confusion. Even the latest punctured patient at the
hospital, Private Todd, had to serve as evidence in behalf of Elise,
for Graham, post surgeon, had calmly declared that the same weapon
that so nearly killed Pat Mullins had as nearly and neatly done the
deed for Todd--the keen Apache knife of Princess Natzie.

"The heathen child was making her usual night visit to her white
lover," said Wren grimly, having in mind the womanly shape he had seen
that starlit morning at Blakely's rear door.

"You're right in one guess, R-robert Wren," was the prompt answer of
his friend and fellow Scot, who