be something poor Mac will hear with comfort."

"Yes," was the decided answer, after an instant of silence. "Yes. It
would comfort me if I were in his place. Nine o'clock then, Mr. Hatton,
and at your quarters."

Before dark the ambulances got away, Dr. Weeks and the lieutenant going
with them on horseback. Cutting short a post-prandial cigar, Mr. Holmes
left the surgeon to sip his coffee in solitude when a glance at his
watch showed him that the hour of nine was approaching. Quickly he
strode over toward "Bedlam," and sprang up the low flight of steps to
the veranda. To his surprise, the hall-door was closed; he turned the
knob, but there was no yielding. Looking in through the side-lights, he
could see that a lamp was burning on the second floor, but that the
hall-lantern below had either been forgotten or its light extinguished.
Retracing his steps, he decided to go to the quartermaster and ask if
he could have the key, but before he had taken thirty strides up the
parade he remembered that Hatton had told him that the hall-door was
never locked and rarely closed. This struck him as odd, and he stopped
to think it over in connection with what he had just observed. Standing
there just beyond the southern end of the big, faded white rookery,
invisible himself in the darkness, he looked up at the lights in the
rooms occupied by the Forrest family, and wondered how the
self-possessed and handsome young lady, now occasionally alluded to as
the "Queen of Bedlam," had borne the day. The garrison was unusually
still; not a sound of mirth, music, or laughter came from the barracks
of the men; not a whisper from the quarters of the officers around the
parade. Somewhere, perhaps a mile away, out beyond the rushing Laramie,
a dog or a coyote was yelping, but all within the old fort was still as
death. Suddenly, from the northern end of the veranda, there came the
sound of a latch or lock quickly turned, a light footfall on the
creaking wooden floor, the swish and swirl of silken skirts, coming
toward him rapidly. He gazed with all his eyes, but could not discern
the advancing figure; so, struck by a sudden impulse, he sprang to the
veranda, up the southern steps, and almost collided with a woman's
form, scurrying past him in the darkness.

"I beg pardon, Miss For----" he began to say; but without a word, with
sudden leap the slender shape whisked out of reach of voice or hand and
vanished into the southern hall-way.