ghly nervous and excited state. He has had a fall--and
I'm trying to get him to bed and asleep. He doesn't know--whom--he has
seen since he got home in arrest, and you can say so for me."

"All right Shoe," was the philosophical answer. "It's none o' my
funeral, and personally I don't give a cuss if they _never_ find him,
but there are just s-teen reasons why the Old Man wants to see that
young man Rawdon forthwith, and as many for believing he's skipped."

"Then skip after him. You can track anything but a ghost in this
new-fallen snow."

Curbit lowered his voice. "That's exactly the trouble, doctor. Go to the
back of the quarters and see for yourself. His trail starts--and
ends--_here_."

In all its history Fort Cushing had never known such a day of
bewilderment as that which followed. Guard mounting was held as usual at
eight A.M., and Colonel Button, awaiting in his office the coming of the
old and the new officers-of-the-day, directed his adjutant to drop his
own work at their entrance and give attention to what took place. Half a
dozen other officers, with little or no business to transact at that
hour, made it their business to be present, drawn thither from sheer
sympathy, as some declared, and downright curiosity, as owned by others.
The office building was large and roomy; the colonel's desk was close to
the door; beyond it were tables spread with maps, magazines, and
papers; a big stove stood in the middle, and a dozen chairs were
scattered about, for it was here the officers met one evening each week
in the one "book-schooling" to which they were then subjected--a
recitation in regulations or "Tactics." Across the hall was a smaller
office--the adjutant's--and beyond that the room where sat the
sergeant-major and his clerks. The windows, snow-battered and
frost-bitten, gave abundant light from the skies, but none on the
surroundings--the view being limited to scratch-hole surveys. There was
nothing to distract attention from what might be going on within, and
all eyes were on the two burly captains who entered at 8.30, fur-capped,
fur-gloved, in huge overcoats and arctics. The wind had begun, even
earlier than usual, to whine and stir as it swept down from the bleak
northwest, and the mercury had dropped some ten degrees since the
previous evening.

"Blizzard coming," said Scott, as he glanced at the sullen skies, and
Scott knew the Rockies as he did the Paymaster's Manual.

"I report as old officer