r Miss Sanford.

So Priscilla opened and read:

Miss Sanford will pardon, I pray, the liberty I probably take in
presuming to address her, but our plea to the captain was
fruitless. He insists on my going with the detachment to the wood
camp; so, long before this reaches Miss Sanford we shall have
started, and it may be days before relief will come. Meantime, with
my assurance that with Heaven's help I shall yet redeem myself in
her estimation, I remain Miss Sanford's grateful and humble
servant,

P. BLENKE.

Verily, the young man wrote with a pen of the courtier and scholar of
olden time rather than the rude trooper. Verily, Blenke was a man of
parts--and played them.

"Where is that wood camp?" asked Aunt Marion, with languid interest,
relieved, she knew not why, that Blenke should be gone.

"Far up the foothills--west. It seems that lately the Indians have been
threatening and abusive," said Priscilla. "That's why the guard was
sent. They march soon after reveille, and--he was so unwilling to go
just now, when he hoped to arrange matters about his--commission," and
Miss Sanford's clear gray eyes, much finer and softer they seemed
without the _pince nez_, were lifted again, half timidly, half
hopefully.

"How could he expect or hope for such a thing now?" answered Mrs. Ray,
with some asperity. "What officer would recommend him after that--that
exhibition?"

Priscilla colored. That episode was a sore point, but not a settler. "He
said it depended little on the officers, auntie," was the gently
forceful answer, "so long as he had the senator behind him." Whereupon
Aunt Marion arose and peered through the one window in the little
dining-room that opened to the west. She was forever peering up the
valley now, and Priscilla well knew why. The maid again appeared.
"Phelps, ma'am, Blenke's friend, came back with this," and she held
forth a letter. "He said it was found on sentry post up the bench."

Mrs. Ray turned quickly and held forth her hand. Silently Miss Sanford
passed the letter to her. It was an ordinary missive, in business
envelope, addressed to Lieutenant Sanford Ray, Fort Minneconjou, and it
had been opened. The torn flap revealed the fact that there were two or
three separate inclosures. For a moment Mrs. Ray turned it in her
slender fingers, thinking intently, then, suddenly recollecting, told
the maid to give her thanks to the soldier if he were still w