ved purposely.

"Except an orderly of--one of the officers, and--oh, very slightly
indeed--March. He's hardly hurt at all, but--you mustn't be surprised if
you don't see him around for the next few days."

The blood rushed up to Milly's pale face, but she pressed her lips
together almost viciously, and forced herself not to speak. Her
green-gray eyes flashed out one distress signal, then seemed to shut it
off deliberately and coldly.

"Captain March!" exclaimed kind Mrs. Dalziel, with real distress. "Oh,
I'm so sorry that he should be hurt!"

"So are we all," Tony responded; and voice and face would have told me,
if I hadn't guessed before, that he was either keeping back something of
grave importance, or else carefully lying.

"Will he really be all right again in a few days?" the dear little lady
went on.

"Er--perhaps not all right, but--nothing to worry about," said Tony,
with lumbering cheerfulness. "He's in no danger of death, anyhow, that's
one good thing."

"What about Major Vandyke?" I heard myself say; and even as the question
came, I wondered why I should have thought of it in that connection. But
somehow it would out, and only my subconscious self, far down in
mysterious depths, knew the reason.

"Oh, Major Vandyke! Why, as it happens, he went over to the other side
of the river in his motor car--on business."

A flame of suspicion in me was lit by that match.

"To _Mexico_!" I exclaimed. "But I was told only this very day, by
Captain March, that no officer or soldier was allowed to cross the river
on any pretext whatever."

"That was--is--so, in an ordinary way," Tony admitted, swallowing
heavily again. "But you see that fearful row on the hill where the guns
are might--must have set a hornet's nest buzzing over there. The chaps
were likely to think we were potting at _them_--out of a clear sky,
and--er--they might have begun potting back at us in a minute or two, in
their excitement. So, to save the situation, Vandyke scooted across with
only his orderly--who's his chauffeur, too--in his own car with some
sort of white flag rigged up in a jiffy. I expect he'll get a lot of
credit for that dash when the story--I mean the facts, are out."

"It _was_ a brave thing to do!" cried Mrs. Dalziel, always delighted to
praise any one. "He must have risked his life."

"Yes," said Tony, "no doubt of that. The Mexican bridge sentries might
have fired on him in spite of the white flag. They--they did fire