ughtfully,
homeward. Aunt Marion was at her desk, writing pages to the
soldier-husband and father in the distant Philippines. The sweet face
was looking grave and careworn. There were traces of tears, there were
dark lines, about the soft blue eyes, as Priscilla bent and tenderly
kissed her. "Do come down and let me make you a cup of tea," she
pleaded. "You've been writing--and I reading--long. I'd like some, too.
Is--is Sandy home?"

"Riding," said Aunt Marion briefly, and Priscilla knew.

Ordinarily, half a dozen women would come drifting in to Mrs. Ray's
during the summer afternoon. To-day there were none. They heard voices
on the walk, voices that seemed to hush as the gate was neared, and only
to resume in low tone after it was passed. Priscilla could not account
for the unusual depression that had seemed to possess Aunt Marion even
when struggling against it herself. At breakfast time Aunt Marion had
been unusually silent, unusually watchful of Sandy, who, before he would
touch his fruit or sip his coffee, had gone forth to the bench in rear
of quarters, searching, he said, for some memoranda he might have
dropped out there at night. He had hunted all through the pockets of his
khaki rig, that he happened to be wearing at that time, and to no
purpose. He must have whipped it out with his handkerchief, he
said--"just that little flat memorandum book" they had often seen him
have, with a few loose pages--no earthly use to anybody but him, no
great consequence, and yet, after breakfast, he was searching again, and
had Hogan searching, and again he returned and hunted all through his
room, and investigated cook and housemaid, and again went forth.
Priscilla found herself unable to cast it from her mind or to cause her
aunt to forget it. Sandy had been gone an hour when she returned, and
had said not to wait dinner; he might ride late and long and far.

"But not toward the reservation," he assured his mother, seeing the
trouble in her face. "Though I'd more than like to ride over there with
the troop and round up those blackguard reds that turned me back."

"Those blackguard reds" were forbidden by their agent to set foot north
of the Minneconjou, where the ranchers and settlers and miners were
frequent. But still the mother was anxious, filled with dread she could
not speak, and even as she now sat, absently toying with her teaspoon,
the maid came in with a note. "A soldier friend of Blenke" had just
brought it fo