ion of submitting to Major
Flint's decision as final. He had written personally to the medical
director of the department, acquainting him with the facts, and,
meanwhile, had withdrawn himself as far as possible, officially and
socially, from the limited circle in which moved his perturbed
commanding officer.

He was at a distant point of the garrison, therefore, and listening to
the excited and vehement comments of the younger of the three women upon
this strange newspaper story, and its possible connection with matters
at Frayne, at the moment when a dramatic scene was being enacted over
beyond the guard-house.

Kennedy was still the center of a little group of eager listeners when
Pink Marble, factotum of the trader's store, came hurrying forth from
the adjutant's office, speedily followed by Major Flint. "You may tell
Mrs. Hay that while I cannot permit her to visit the prisoner," he
called after the clerk, "I will send the girl over--under suitable
guard."

To this Mr. Marble merely shrugged his shoulders and went on. He fancied
Flint no more than did the relics of the original garrison. A little
later Flint personally gave an order to the sergeant of the guard and
then came commotion.

First there were stifled sounds of scuffle from the interior of the
guard-house; then shrill, wrathful screams; then a woman's voice
unlifted in wild upbraidings in an unknown tongue, at sound of which
Trooper Kennedy dropped his rein and his jaw, stood staring one minute;
then, with the exclamation: "Mother of God, but I know that woman!"
burst his way through the crowd and ran toward the old log blockhouse at
the gate,--the temporary post of the guard. Just as he turned the corner
of the building, almost stumbling against the post commander, there came
bursting forth from the dark interior a young woman of the Sioux,
daring, furious, raging, and, breaking loose from the grasp of the two
luckless soldiers who had her by the arms, away she darted down the
road, still screaming like some infuriated child, and rushed straight
for the open gateway of the Hays. Of course the guard hastened in
pursuit, the major shouting "Stop her! Catch her!" and the men striving
to appear to obey, yet shirking the feat of seizing the fleeing woman.
Fancy, then, the amaze of the swiftly following spectators when the
trader's front door was thrown wide open and Mrs. Hay herself sprang
forth. Another instant and the two women had met at the gate. Ano