from town, cantering out on his cow pony just before guard-mounting,
sold his three dozen _Stars_ inside of an hour and sent him back for
more. The colonel and surgeon were first to receive and read. Dwight
received, but never read, and other majors, captains and subalterns--not
to mention non-commissioned officers and privates--chased the newsboy in
eagerness to buy. It was a paragraph on an inside page, modest and
moderate enough in itself--for the frontier press has learned to know
the army and not to defame it--but it stirred a sensation at Minneconjou
its editor refused to start in town. In brief, it was as follows:

ASSAULT ALLEGED

Just as we go to press a dispatch is received from a representative
of the STAR, who left last night on the westbound Flyer. The train
was flagged at Fort Siding and boarded, with the assistance of a
ranchman, by Captain Stanley Foster, of the Cavalry, lately
visiting friends at Minneconjou. The officer was bruised, bleeding,
and well-nigh exhausted, but managed to tell that he had been held
up while driving, had been forcibly carried out on the open
prairie, and brutally beaten by ruffians whom he declares to be
soldiers, all strangers to him with one exception. The captain
names as ringleader a prominent and well-known young officer of the
post.

Dr. Fowler, of Sagamore Heights, was called by wire, met the train
at the Pass, and went on with the injured man. The story, of
course, sounds incredible, and cannot as yet be substantiated.

It was just after lunch time when a messenger came to the Rays. The
surgeon asked if the lieutenant could come to Major Dwight a moment, and
the doctor himself met Sandy at the door. The veteran's face was very
grave. He had known the young officer but a few months. He had known his
father long. "Are you feeling fit for a hard interview?" he asked.

"If need be. What's the matter?"

"Dwight is in a fearful frame of mind, and the Lord only knows how it is
to end. Dwight realizes now that Jimmy was entirely innocent of any
knowledge of that thing the Thorntons charged him with. Your mother sent
Hogan and a trumpeter up here. Both had seen the whole affair, and
Dwight _would_ see them. He never could have rested till he got the
facts. We have persuaded him that he must not question his wife, and
that French cat says she cannot leave her mistress an instant. He's
raging now t