d Mrs. Wells arose from their chairs and gazed across the
parade, in their very natural curiosity to see what was going on "over
at the doctor's." They saw the stranger raise his cap, and bow low over
the hand that Nellie extended to him, and then make a bobbing obeisance
to each of the Gordon girls as he was presented to them. Then he took a
chair by Miss Bayard's side, while the servant came out and relieved
him of his overcoat and bag, and the Gordon girls were seen saying
adieu. Nellie followed them to the gate, but they evidently felt that
the stranger had not come to see them, and that it was time to leave.
The ladies on the home piazza awaited their coming with no little
impatience, and Mrs. Gordon was prepared to administer a sharp maternal
reproof when they were seen to stop in answer to hails from the groups
they passed _en route_. Everybody wanted to know who the fur-coated
stranger was, and their progress homeward from the south-west angle
was, therefore, nothing short of "running the gauntlet" of interrogations.
Possibly in anticipation of the displeasure awaiting her, the elder
maiden of the two strove to "cut across lots" when she came near the
south-eastern corner, whereat, facing north, stood the big house of the
commanding officer; but Mrs. Miller was too experienced a hand, and
bore down upon the pair in sudden swoop from her piazza to the front
gate, and they had to stop and surrender their information.

As a consequence, every woman along that side of Laramie knew before
Mesdames Gordon and Wells that Roswell Holmes, of Chicago, the "wealthy
mine-owner and cattle-grower," had just arrived in his own conveyance
from Cheyenne, and had been invited to put up at the doctor's quarters
during his stay at the fort.

"Think of it!" exclaimed Mrs. Gordon, "a bachelor, only thirty-eight,
and worth a million. No wonder Dr. Bayard seized him!"

"The doctor knew him before, mother," put in her daughter. "Nellie
wasn't introduced at all. He came right up and told her how glad he was
to see her again,--he looked it, too."

"They knew him in Chicago,--met him there on the way out," said the
younger. "I heard the doctor say so. Now, look! Here come Fanny Forrest
and Mr. Mayhew, and she wants to know who the stranger is; if she
doesn't she's the first person I've met who didn't ask."

But Miss Forrest proved an exception to the rule, so far as questions
were concerned, at least. She stopped in front of the gate,