nutes' notice, if we have trouble, for their houses would be in range
of gunfire from both sides. But you'll be all right here at the hotel,
whatever happens. We're strong enough to protect you."

He laughed, and I saw that he enjoyed teasing timid little Mrs. Dalziel.
I thought that haughty "we," constantly coming in, was characteristic of
the man, and judging by the odd expression which just flickered lightly
across Eagle's face, he was thinking the same thing. Tony joined
boyishly in the conversation, to reassure his mother and Milly, and
Eagle promptly seized the moment for a word with me.

"Any message?" he asked in a low voice. I shook my head.

"Oh, well," he said, "I'm mighty glad to see you, anyhow, little girl.
Lucky Tony! I'm rather jealous of him, you know. I'd got sort of in the
habit of thinking I had the only claim."

I felt myself go scarlet. What a good thing one doesn't blush all
colours of the rainbow!--for I had the sensation of a prism. "Tony
Dalziel may be lucky," I stammered. "I hope he is. But his luck has
nothing to do with me. Neither has he--except as a friend. That's quite
understood between us."

"Oh, is it?" smiled Eagle. "I'm a selfish beast to be glad, but I am. I
was feeling quite low in my mind and 'out of it' at dinner."

So the wistful looks had been for me! It seemed too good to be true,
even to have so much place in Eagle's heart that he didn't want to lose
me.

When Milly turned to him, as she did almost instantly, for consolation
after Major Vandyke's teasing, Eagle told her, while I listened, how
very little, in his opinion, there was for any one to fear. It was true,
of course, that the troops had come to El Paso for a purpose. Every one
thought it had been served by frightening out of a certain faction of
Mexicans such vague, secret hopes as they might foolishly have
cherished. Now to be sure, the "scare act" was being read again, but the
big field guns pointing across the river were in any case powerful
enough to keep the peace. Captain March wanted to know if we would care
to visit the camps next day. If so, he would help Dalziel arrange the
visit. This suggestion saved Milly the trouble of hinting for it, and
she was happy; but her happiness was destined to be short-lived. It was
destroyed in the night by a band of vicious microbes with which she had
been fighting a silent battle during the long journey to El Paso. They
won, and kept her in bed with a pink nose and ey