lenished flask ahead, Case made the
difficult essay to tramp the two sandy miles back to the store and the
still more difficult task of there accounting for himself and
explaining his enigmatical sayings. Strong, as directed, strove to keep
him to the point, but the one more drink Case declared indispensable on
his final arrival at dusk sent flitting the last filaments of reason,
and the poor fellow maundered off to sleep on his little cot in the
darkened room, where he was bolted in and left for the night.

"Only one pistol like it at the post, and that--isn't at the post,"
Strong found himself repeating again and again that night, as, after
Mrs. Archer and Mrs. Stannard had read their patient into a doze and
taken their departure, the adjutant stood for a moment by Willet's
bedside. "And now Willett has lost his, and presumably the Tontos, or
perhaps the Apache-Mohaves, have got it!"

They had wandered away in the darkness together, those two brave and
tender-hearted army women, each with a keen anxiety of her own, each
striving to be helpful to the other. Three invalids were there now at
Almy to whom they were giving many hours of care and nursing. Poor Mrs.
Bennett gained little in mental or bodily health. The fearful scenes of
that long night of horror and rapine still seemed vividly before her in
her few hours of fitful slumber, and were this state of things to
continue long, said the doctor, insanity would be a merciful refuge. An
hour or so each day these ministering angels gave to the young
officers. Harris, severely shot, was mending fast, his perfect physical
condition lending itself admirably to his restoration. Willett, but
slightly injured, should be sitting up, with his shoulder in a frame
and his arm in a sling, but he was mending only slowly, and had not a
little fever. Harris, accustomed to self-denial, seemed to require no
physical comforts. Willett, something of a Sybarite, craved iced drinks
and cooling applications that gave more trouble, said Strong, than
twenty Harrises. Willett had even gone so far as to suggest that the
ladies must be tired of reading aloud, possibly Miss Lilian might
relieve one or other, and possibly, hope whispered, both. Harris, who
would have welcomed that presence and possibility as he would no other,
had ventured nothing beyond the expression of a hope that Miss Archer
was quite well.

As for Miss Archer herself, what man can say just what thoughts,
emotions, hopes an