hat--most deplorable affair. I was drugged, sir. There can
be no other explanation, but my captain still holds it against me, and
at the very time I most needed to be here, he has picked me out for
detached duty--to go to the wood camp in the Sagamore to-morrow."

And at the instant Priscilla's crisp, even tones were heard at the rear
door. "Oh, Blenke? I _thought_ I knew the voice. One moment and I'll
strike a light!"

And in that moment Sandy made his escape.

His mother was sitting up waiting for him when, an hour later, he came
in. Tenderly, fondly, she kissed him, and for a moment he clung to her.
Then, looking in her face, he saw impending question.

"Not--not to-night, mother, darling," he hurriedly spoke. "I _do_ want
to talk with you--to tell you, but not to-night. Bear with me just a day
or two, and"--then again his arms enfolded her--"trust me."

Her silent kiss, her murmured blessing, was his good-night. Then she
went slowly to her room, leaving him to extinguish the lights and close
their little army home to await the coming of another day.

But, somewhere about twelve there was trouble down toward the fords, and
Sandy, in no mood for sleep, went forth to inquire. The sentry on No. 3
was standing listening to the distant jumble of excited voices. "I don't
know what it was, sir. They took some fellow up to the guard-house, and
they're hunting the willows for more." Then No. 4, behind them, set up a
shout for the corporal, which No. 3 echoed, and Sandy, not knowing what
to expect or why he should go, trudged westward up the sentry post and
found No. 4 fifty paces beyond the last quarters, the major's, and
wrathful because "some fellers," he said, had sneaked in across his
post. The corporal came panting on the run, and Ray scouted on along the
bluff, saw nothing, found nobody, turned to his right at the west gate,
glanced upward where the night light burned dimly in the patient's room,
at the closed blinds and shades of the room he knew to be hers, and all
was hushed and still within the sleeping garrison as a second time he
walked slowly homeward along the row, unseen of anybody, probably, from
the moment he left the corporal and No. 4, who had some words over the
sentry's report, and parted in ill humor. "Don't you yell for me again
until it's business, d'ye hear?" was the corporal's last injunction.

Less than fifteen minutes later No. 4 was startled by a sudden sound--a
woman's half-stifled scream,