man" (even now
her eyes would not look into Loring's) and of all his trouble, she
forgot her father's peril, forgot everything but that Lieutenant Loring,
who had been so good and kind and brave, was wrongfully accused, and
she told all to the lady superior and went with her and repeated it to
the General, the General who had died. And when at last she finished her
trembling, tearful story, Loring rose before them all, went over and
took her hand and bowed low over it, as though he would have kissed it,
and said, "Thank you, senorita." And the judge advocate declined to
cross-examine. What was the use? But the defense insisted on other
witnesses--a local locksmith who had sold Nevins keys that would open
any trunk, a hotel porter who swore that the blinds to Loring's room had
been forcibly opened from without, a bell boy who had seen Nevins on the
gallery at that window three nights before the search of the luggage was
made. And the court waxed impatient and said it had had more than
enough. Every man of the array came up to and shook Loring by the hand
before they let him leave the courtroom, and Blake hunted high and low
through Omaha until he found poor Petty and relieved his mind of his
impressions, and finally the order announcing the honorable acquittal
of Lieutenant Loring, on every charge and specification, was read to
every command in the department fast as the mails could carry it.

Brought to by a bullet in the leg, George Nevins was recaptured down the
Missouri three days later, and sent for his wife that she might come and
nurse him. Though everybody said no, she went and did her best, and if
nursing could have saved a reprobate life he might still have remained
an ornament to society such as that in which he shone. But Naomi wore a
widow's veil when late in October she returned to Folsom's roof; the
good old trader had stood her friend through all.

There were some joyous weddings in the Department of the Platte the
summer that followed, Loring gravely figuring as best man when Dean, of
the cavalry, was married to Elinor Folsom, and smiling with equal
gravity when he read of the nuptials of Brevet Captain Petty and the
gifted and beautiful Miss Allyn. He had reverted to his original idea,
that of waiting in patience until he had accumulated a nest egg and had
acquired higher rank than a lieutenancy in the Engineers; and so he
might have done if it took him a dozen years had not orders carried him
once mor