their blankets close around them.

It was an hour later when the Captain returned to the fort and started
across the enclosure toward the hut which had been assigned to him.
Save for a few Indians and a sentry who paced before the barracks, the
fort seemed deserted. It was nearly dark now, and the lanterns at the
sally-port and in front of barrack and hospital glimmered faintly.
Menard had reached his own door, when he heard a voice calling, and
turned. A dim figure was running across the square toward the sentry.
There was a moment of breathless talk,--Menard could not catch the
words,--then the sentry shouted. It occurred to Menard that he was now
the senior officer at the fort, and he waited. A corporal led up his
guard, halted, and again there was hurried talking. Menard started
back toward them, but before he reached the spot all were running
toward the hospital, and a dozen others of the home guard had gathered
before the barracks and were talking and asking excited questions.

Menard crossed to the hospital. Two privates barred the door, and he
was forced to wait until a young Lieutenant of the regulars appeared.
The lanterns over the door threw a dim light on the Captain as he
stood on the low step.

"What is it?" asked the Lieutenant. "You wished to see me?"

"I am Captain Menard. What is the trouble?"

The Lieutenant looked doubtfully at the dingy, bearded figure, then he
motioned the soldiers aside.

"It is Captain la Grange," he said, when Menard had entered; "he has
been killed."

The Lieutenant spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, but his eyes were
shining and he was breathing rapidly. Menard looked at him for a
moment without a word, then he stepped to the door of a back room and
looked in. Three flickering candles stood on a low table, and another
on a chair at the head of the narrow bed. The light wavered over the
log and plaster walls. A surgeon was bending over the bed, his
assistant waiting at his elbow with instruments; the two shut off the
upper part of the bed from Menard's view. The Lieutenant stood behind
the Captain, looking over his shoulder; both were motionless. There
was no sound save a low word at intervals between the two surgeons,
and the creak of a bore-worm that sounded distinctly from a log in the
wall.

Menard turned away and walked back to the outer door, the Lieutenant
with him. There they stood, silent, as men are who have been brought
suddenly face to face with death. At las