. No man had ever known
Wren to swerve a hair's breadth from the truth. "At this moment time
is precious if the real criminal is to be caught at all. You were
first to reach the sentry. Had you seen no one else?"

In the dead silence that ensued within the room the sputter of hoofs
without broke harshly on the ear. Then came spurred boot heels on the
hollow, heat-dried boarding, but not a sound from the lips of Captain
Wren. The rugged face, twitching with pent-up indignation the moment
before, was now slowly turning gray. Plume stood facing him in growing
wonder and new suspicion.

"You heard me, did you not? I asked you did you see anyone else
during--along the sentry post when you went out?"

A fringed gauntlet reached in at the doorway and tapped. Sergeant
Shannon, straight as a pine, stood expectant of summons to enter and
his face spoke eloquently of important tidings, but the major waved
him away, and, marveling, he slowly backed to the edge of the porch.

"Surely you can answer that, Captain Wren," said Plume, his clear-cut,
handsome face filled with mingled anxiety and annoy. "Surely you
_should_ answer, or--"

The ellipsis was suggestive, but impotent. After a painful moment came
the response:

"Or--take the consequences, major?" Then slowly--"Very well, sir--I
must take them."

CHAPTER VI

A FIND IN THE SANDS

The late afternoon of an eventful day had come to camp Sandy--just
such another day, from a meteorological viewpoint, as that on which
this story opened nearly twenty-four hours earlier by the shadows on
the eastward cliffs. At Tuesday's sunset the garrison was yawning with
the _ennui_ born of monotonous and uneventful existence. As
Wednesday's sunset drew nigh and the mountain shadows overspread the
valley, even to the opposite crests of the distant Mogollon, the
garrison was athrill with suppressed excitement, for half a dozen
things had happened since the flag went up at reveille.

In the first place Captain Wren's arrest had been confirmed and Plume
had wired department headquarters, in reply to somewhat urgent query,
that there were several counts in his indictment of the captain, any
one of which was sufficient to demand a trial by court-martial, but he
wished, did Plume, for personal and official reasons that the general
commanding should send his own inspector down to judge for himself.

The post sergeant major and the three clerks had heard with sufficient
distinctness ev