ale, but his eyes flashed like lights. The girl
was again moaning in an utterly dreary fashion, as the youth came slowly
down toward the silent men in blue.

Six steps from the bottom of the flight he halted and said, "I reckon
it's me you're looking for."

The troopers had crowded forward a trifle and, posed in lithe, nervous
attitudes, were watching him like cats. The captain remained unmoved. At
the youth's question he merely nodded his head and said, "Yes."

The young man in gray looked down at the girl, and then, in the same
even tone which now, however, seemed to vibrate with suppressed fury, he
said, "And is that any reason why you should insult my sister?"

At this sentence, the girl intervened, desperately, between the young
man in gray and the officer in blue. "Oh, don't, Harry, don't! He was
good to me! He was good to me, Harry--indeed he was!"

The youth came on in his quiet, erect fashion until the girl could have
touched either of the men with her hand, for the captain still remained
with his foot upon the first step. She continually repeated: "O Harry! O
Harry!"

The youth in gray man[oe]uvred to glare into the captain's face, first
over one shoulder of the girl and then over the other. In a voice that
rang like metal, he said: "You are armed and unwounded, while I have no
weapons and am wounded; but----"

The captain had stepped back and sheathed his sabre. The eyes of these
two men were gleaming fire, but otherwise the captain's countenance was
imperturbable. He said: "You are mistaken. You have no reason to----"

"You lie!"

All save the captain and the youth in gray started in an electric
movement. These two words crackled in the air like shattered glass.
There was a breathless silence.

The captain cleared his throat. His look at the youth contained a
quality of singular and terrible ferocity, but he said in his stolid
tone, "I don't suppose you mean what you say now."

Upon his arm he had felt the pressure of some unconscious little
fingers. The girl was leaning against the wall as if she no longer knew
how to keep her balance, but those fingers--he held his arm very still.
She murmured: "O Harry, don't! He was good to me--indeed he was!"

The corporal had come forward until he in a measure confronted the youth
in gray, for he saw those fingers upon the captain's arm, and he knew
that sometimes very strong men were not able to move hand nor foot under
such conditions.

The youth had