no pocket-book. The discovery he made was
far less welcome. An amethyst pin with sleeve-buttons to match, a piece
of personal property that he highly valued, had disappeared from his
dressing-case. There were three pairs of sleepless eyes in the doctor's
quarters when the sentries were shouting the call of "Half-past twelve
o'clock." Nellie Bayard, in her dainty little white room, was
whispering over a tear-stained pillow her prayer for the safety of
Randall McLean, who was riding post-haste down the swollen Platte. Dr.
Bayard, too excited to go to bed, had thrown himself on a sofa and was
plotting for the future and planning an alliance for his fair daughter
that would mean power and position for himself. And Mr. Holmes was
sitting with darkened face at his bedside, gazing blankly at the
handkerchief he had picked up on the floor just in front of the bureau,
a handkerchief embroidered in one corner with the letters R. McL.

* * * * *

Over at the major's quarters were other sleepless eyes. It was late,
nearly midnight, when the commanding officer finished dictating his
telegraphic despatches to department head-quarters, and when he reached
his home Mrs. Miller was still sitting up for him. A faithful and
devoted spouse she was,--something of the Peggy O'Dowd order, and prone
at times to order him about with scant ceremony, but quickly resentful
of any slight from other sources. She could not bear that any man or
woman should suppose for an instant that her major was not the
embodiment of every attribute that became a soldier and a man. She
stood between him and the knowledge of many a little garrison squabble
or scandal rather than have him annoyed by tales that were of no
consequence; but now she had that to tell that concerned the honor and
welfare of the whole command, and she felt that he must know at once.

"Major," she said to him when once they had gained the seclusion of the
marital chamber, "has Captain Bruce ever said anything further to you
about that story from Robinson last winter?"

"N-nothing much," answered Miller, who dreaded that something more of
the same kind was coming, and would gladly have avoided the subject.

"I know that he bade Mrs. Bruce destroy the letter she got and say no
more about it," pursued Mrs. Miller, "but she and I are very old
friends, as you know, and she could not well avoid telling me that
after I told her of the letter I got. Now,