h this cast-off garment of
Sidney Vandyke's--alone with any secret I might force it to yield up.

The coat seemed to resist every effort and trick of mine, as if it still
served its old master and were stubbornly resolved to protect him
against a stranger's prying; but at last a sharp jerk made a stitch give
way. After that the rest was easy. I wrenched the pocket half out, and
that once done I was able with both hands to tear the lining down nearly
its whole length. Then I thrust my hand between it and the cloth, and
touched a crumpled piece of paper.

I dreaded while I longed to look at what I had discovered: for I
realized that in all human probability I was about to suffer a crushing
disappointment. This lost scrap of paper might prove to be part of some
torn, irrelevant letter of long ago; or it might be an American
greenback, or a forgotten memorandum. As I withdrew my hand--the paper
in it--involuntarily I shut my eyes, as if shrinking from a blow. But I
scolded myself for cowardly weakness, and opened my eyes again to see a
folded, refolded, and crumpled piece of khaki-coloured paper ruled with
blue lines. Then I knew that, from the first faint crackling which I had
felt rather than heard, I had been sure in my heart of finding this
thing: sure that I had always been meant by Fate to find it.

With cold and shaking fingers I cautiously unfolded the paper without
tearing it. Yes! It was a leaf torn from a notebook--the khaki notebook
I had given Eagle. One page was blank. The other was almost covered with
writing, scribbled with blue pencil, a pencil which must have been
rather blunt, because the marking was heavy, though it showed signs of
haste. No one familiar with Eagle March's hand could have failed to
recognize it as his, rough and hurried as was the scrawl.

At the top of the page was jotted down the date of that unforgettable
night at El Paso.

"Have just received by your orderly verbal command to fire nos. one
and two guns, aiming beyond Mexican end of bridge. I beg if this is
correct that you repeat order in writing.

"MARCH."

Here was the evidence which would have saved Eagle at his court-martial
and proved Major Vandyke a liar and blackguard. He had, no doubt,
crushed the incriminating paper into the deepest depths of his
breast-pocket, perhaps covering it up with other things lest it should
flutter away and betray him. There had been no time to destroy the paper
at that m