he led on to an inner room, where Ennis
sprang to his side. "Help me off with these," he said, "and bring a
lamp. Come up-stairs, Barker;" and, wondering, both the others followed.
There were but two sleeping rooms aloft in the little bachelor set.
Ennis had the one facing the parade. Lanier's looked out upon the
hospital and surgeon's quarters at the back. Into this room marched Bob
Lanier and threw open the door of the single closet wherein was hanging
uniform and civilian garb in some profusion. Ennis held the lamp on
high, and with his free hand Lanier began throwing out the contents--a
new uniform dress coat, an older one that had done duty for the three
previous years, two sack coats or "blouses," the police officers'
overcoat of the day, several pairs of blue trousers, with the broad
stripe of the cavalry, and these as they came were flung on the bed by
Barker and "Shoe." Then appeared a suit of evening clothes, carefully
handled. Then a brown business suit of tweeds, then a light drab
overcoat, and then the closet was well nigh empty, and Lanier faced them
with the simple words: "It's gone!"

"What's gone?" demanded Ennis.

"Why, that dark gray mixture sack suit I brought from leave last year.
It always hung 'way back in here."

"_Who_ wants it now, I'd like to know?" demanded Ennis.

"Our colonel, who accuses me of costuming Rawdon for his getaway." And
the three friends looked at each in something like consternation.

Then Barker spoke: "It's only fair to the colonel to tell the rest, Bob.
Rawdon's box, that he left for safe keeping with a friend in town, had
not only the suit you saw at the office, but a new fur cap with your
name in it. There were other things that looked queer. The day of the
storm Quinlan came over to the guard-house after his visit here, wearing
a new cap instead of his old one, and Cassidy swooped on it, thinking it
yours, for it was here he got it, and the name in that cap was Rawdon.
It leaked out somehow. Fitzroy hunted the story down."

"The name was burnt out when Cassidy brought it back to me," said Lanier
slowly. "He claimed that in lighting his pipe----"

"Poor Cassidy lied every way he could think of to save you," said Barker
ruefully. "It's the young cad you befriended and helped along that's
tricked you in the end, and you're not the only man, I'm afraid."

"Roped Rafferty in, I suppose," said Schuchardt, while a light of
superior wisdom stole slowly over the face of L