run to
the adjutant's quarters, told that official of his discovery, and then
learned of the wholesale jail delivery that occurred at retreat.

He wrung his hands and wept as he listened to his young master's
wrathful rebuke and the recital of his losses. He hung meekly about the
house all night long, but, unable to bear the sight of poor Ray's
mingled anger and distress, he had fled with the coming of the day and
gone to tell his woes to his friend of the Harp.

Afternoon of Saturday came, and still Ray sat there nerveless.

He knew that any moment now would bring that loving mother and sister.
He had cleared up the litter left by the robbers, put his desk in order,
and Hogan had done his best with the sideboard in the other room.

Sympathetic souls among his brother officers had been in from time to
time consoling him with theories that the thief could not escape,--would
surely be recaptured and the money recovered. But on the other hand he
was visited by the returned troopers in quest of their money, and was
compelled to tell them of the robbery and to ask them to wait until
Monday, when he would be able to pay them.

Luckier than others who have been overtaken in the army by somewhat
similar misfortune, Ray knew that he had only to acquaint his parents
with the extent of his loss, and, even though the sum was great, it
would be instantly made good. Yet the thought of having to tell his
mother was a sore thing. He had disregarded his father's caution. He had
proved unworthy of trust before the gloss had begun to wear from his
first shoulder-straps, and he well knew that his mother's fortune was no
longer what it was at the time of her marriage.

In the years of their wanderings all over the West all her business
affairs had been in the hands of a trusted agent at home, and it so
often happens that in the prolonged absence of owners trusted agents
follow the lead of the unjust steward of Holy Writ and make friends of
the mammon of unrighteousness and ducks and drakes of their employers'
assets.

The ranch bought for him the year gone by was a heavy drain. His father,
in giving him a few hundred dollars for his outfit, had told him that
now he must live entirely on his pay, and that he should be able to "put
by" a little every month.

But, as was to be expected of his father's son and his Kentucky blood,
Sandy could not bid farewell to his associates at the ranch or the
citizens of the little cow and mining to