der of Private Walter Foster while on his post as sentry at
Manila, and then came weeks of woe.

Despite Drayton's cable from Manila that the identification of the
remains was not conclusive to him, at least, Mrs. Foster was convinced
that the murdered lad was her only boy, and all because of that
heartless flirt, that designing--that demoniac army girl who had
bewitched him and then brought his blood upon her own head.

"If it isn't Walter who lies there slain by assassin rival, the innocent
victim of _that creature's_ hideous vanity, would I not have heard from
him? Do you suppose my blessed boy would not _instantly_ have cabled to
tell me he was alive if he wasn't dead?" And, indeed, that was a hard
question to answer.

And so the remains of Private Willard Benton, that had been viewed by
many a genuinely sorrowing comrade and stowed away with solemn military
honors in a vault at Paco Cemetery, were sealed up as best they could do
it at Manila, and, though unconvinced as to their identity despite the
convictions of others in authority, the commanding general yielded to
cables from the War Department and ordered their shipment to San
Francisco. They were out of sight of all signals from Corregidor when
Martindale's cable came suggesting search for Private Benton Willard.

Zenobia Perkins sniffed contemptuously and scoffed malignantly when told
that the doubting Thomases were gaining ground and numbers, that though
Mr. Stuyvesant might be brought to trial for killing a man, it would not
be for killing Foster until more was ascertained regarding the actual
victim. Private Connelly, recovered from his fever, was forever hunting
up Farnham, the brakeman, and devising schemes for the capture of that
blackguard Murray. Day and night, he maintained that Murray was the man
who had accosted Clarke and Hunter at the battery, that it was probably
he who, with his pals, had waylaid and robbed the lone recruit returning
from his quest in East Paco, that it was he who must have struggled with
him again before firing the fatal shot; but not a trace of Murray or his
sailor mates could the secret service agents find, and matters were in
this most unsatisfactory state when at the end of November came the
Queen of the Fleet, despatched several weeks before to fetch along the
troops "sidetracked" at Honolulu, just as the commanding general and his
chief surgeon were in consultation as to what on earth to do with
Zenobia Perkins--the w