Webb that you were seen so often riding with Miss--Miss Flower up to
Stabber's village, and, in the light of what has since happened, you
will admit that he had reasons. Hear me through," he continued, as
Field, sitting bolt upright in the easy chair, essayed to speak.
"Neither Captain Blake nor I believe one word to your dishonor in the
matter, but it looks as though you had been made a tool of, and you are
by no means the first man. It was to see this fellow, Moreau--Eagle
Wing--whom you recognized at the Elk,--she was there so frequently--was
it not?"

Into Field's pale face there had come a look of infinite distress. For a
moment he hesitated, and little beads began to start out on his
forehead.

"Captain Ray," he finally said, "they tell me--I heard it from the
driver on the way up from Rock Springs--that Miss Flower is virtually a
prisoner, that she had been in league with the Sioux, and yet, until I
can see her--can secure my release from a promise, I have to answer you
as I answered you before--I cannot say."

Blake started impatiently and heaved up from his lounging chair, his
long legs taking him in three strides to the frost-covered window at the
front. Ray sadly shook his dark, curly head.

"You _are_ to see her, Field. The general--bless him for a
trump!--wouldn't listen to a word against you in your absence; but that
girl has involved everybody--you, her aunt, who has been devotion itself
to her, her uncle, who was almost her slave. She deliberately betrayed
him into the hands of the Sioux. In fact this red robber and villain,
Moreau, is the only creature she hasn't tried to 'work,' and he
abandoned her after she had lied, sneaked and stolen for him."

"Captain Ray!" The cry came from pallid lips, and the young soldier
started to his feet, appalled at such accusation.

"Every word of it is true," said Ray. "She joined him after his wounds.
She shared his escape from the village at our approach. She was with him
when Blake nabbed them at Bear Cliff. She was going with him from here.
What manner of girl was that, Field, for you to be mixed up with?"

"He is her half brother!" protested Field, with kindling eyes. "She told
me--everything--told me of their childhood together, and--"

"Told you a pack of infernal lies!" burst in Blake, no longer able to
contain himself. "Made you a cat's paw; led you even to taking her by
night to see him when she learned the band were to jump for the
mountains--used y