atching. It was not good that
a newcomer, a young lieutenant, should be preferred to him, and it was
too evident that between the General and the Engineer was a bond of some
kind the aid could not explain.

"Do you understand this?" asked the General, as he pointed to the letter
in Loring's hand.

It was brief enough. It was written by a clerk in Burleigh's office to a
fellow-clerk in that of the chief quartermaster at Omaha, and the latter
had felt it his duty, he said, to inform his immediate superior, who in
turn had laid it before the chief-of-staff. It read as follows:

"The old man's rattled as I never saw him before, and God only knows
what's amiss. Two young lieutenants came in and thrashed him right
before the whole of us, called him a liar, and all that. His friend
Newhall, that pulled him through the yellow fever, he says, was there at
the time drunk, and actually congratulated them, and though Burleigh
raved and swore and wrote no end of dispatches to be sent to Omaha
demanding court-martial for Lieutenant Dean, devil a one of them was
ever really sent. Not only that, but Burleigh was threatened and abused
by Newhall, and had to buy him off with a roll of greenbacks--and I saw
it. Who's Newhall, anyhow, and what hold has he on Burleigh? Nursing him
through yellow fever don't go. Newhall's gone, however, either over to
Cheyenne or out on the Cache la Poudre. There's something rotten in
Denmark, and I want to get out of this."

Loring read it carefully through twice, the General keenly studying his
face the while.

"I have determined to go to Gate City myself, even though time can ill
be spared, Loring," said he. "There is urgent need of my presence at
Laramie. Possibly I may have to go to Frayne, and shall need you with
me, but meantime this thing must be explained. Everything seems to point
to Burleigh's being in some unusual trouble. Everything indicates that
this Captain Newhall, who was one of his chums in New Orleans, has some
heavy hold on him, a gambling debt, perhaps, or knowledge of cotton
transactions during the war. I cannot but feel that you know something
of the man. Tell me, did you meet that fellow when he was here?"

Loring stood looking gravely, straight into the face of his superior.
Swiftly his thoughts sped back to that soft, warm evening when he and
the rector slowly ascended the gentle grade toward Mrs. Burton's
homestead, and there was unfolded before his eyes that picture he was