resumably estranged from her, Minneconjou said she ought not to be
abroad, especially if it involved her meeting a young officer once
thought to have been deeply smitten with her charms. True, no one had
seen them together except from a long distance, and then it appeared
that the horseman rode for a few moments only by the side of the pretty
equipage. But, for what else could she go thither, and why, if bent on
going thither, should she thrice start by way of the east gate and then
make long, wide circuit of the prairie roads?

Mrs. Stone had heard enough to convince her she ought to speak to Mrs.
Dwight, but first she must consult her husband. Stone had heard just
enough to convince him he ought to speak to Sandy, when they had their
conference, this admirable couple, and that day he spoke.

And that day, as it happened, Sandy Ray had ridden home, saying to
himself "this must be the last."

One morning, the first meeting since that of the runaway, she had
surprised him mooning at the cottonwoods, his horse tethered and
cropping the bunch grass, he himself stretched at length at the edge of
the stream lost in deep and somber reflection. Just where she expected,
there she found him, but not as she expected. In spite of her
effusiveness the day of the drive, he was grave, distant, unresponsive,
though she sat beaming on him from the phaeton, Felicie beside her, an
unhearing, unheeding, uncomprehending dummy. The next time Inez took the
air in that direction she saw him afar off, and he her, and rode away.
That evening she promenaded quite an hour on her veranda, and later he
got a little missive:

Will Mr. Ray, if not too busy, come to me one moment? There is a
matter on which I much desire his aid.

(Signed) INEZ DWIGHT.

Ray was slowly crossing the parade, after an hour at the sergeants'
school. He could not stay home, where mother might possibly ask the
questions she sometimes looked, but he need not have feared. Dwight's
one soldier groom came speeding with the note and the word, "Mrs.
Dwight's at the gate now, sor" And at the gate she was, in diaphanous
muslin or _pina_ or _justi_--how should a man know? Ray neither knew nor
cared. His head was set against her, though his heart was throbbing
hard. He had listened just one day to her soft speeches, quivered under
her melting glance, and thrilled under her touch. Then he saw his danger
and swore he would shun it, coward or no coward. On that follo