desolation and slow destruction.

We sat down on some fallen timbers in the old court and looked about us.

"It was a pity that Colonel Bent should have blown up this splendid
fortress, and all because the Government wouldn't pay him his price for
it," I declared.

"Destroyed what he had built so carefully, and what was so useful,"
Eloise commented. "Sometimes we wreck our lives in the same way."

I have said the twilight seemed to fit her best, although at all times
she was fair. But to-night she was a picture in her traveling dress of
golden brown, with soft, white folds about her throat. I wondered if she
thought of Beverly as she spoke. It hurt me so to be harsh with his
memory.

"Yes, Charlie Bent blew up all that the Colonel built into him, of
education and the ways of cultured folks--a leader of a Dog Indian band,
he is a piece of manhood wrecked. And by the way," I went on, "Beverly
shot his beautiful white horse on the Prairie Dog Creek. You should have
seen that shot. It was the cleanest piece of long-range marksmanship I
ever saw. He hated Bev for that."

"Maybe he gloats over our lost Beverly to-day. He is only 'gone out' to
me," Eloise said softly.

"Let me tell you something, Little Lees. Beverly and I never spoke of
you--you can guess why--until that last night beside the Smoky Hill. He
wanted to tell me something that night."

"And did he?" Eloise asked, eagerly.

"No. He said honor was something with him still. I thought he meant to
tell me of himself and you. Forgive me. I do not want any confidences
not freely given. But now I know it was the struggle in which he went
down that night that he wanted to tell me about. He said first, 'I'm
homesick. I'd like to see Little Lees.' And his eyes were full of
sympathy as he looked at me."

"Did he say anything more?" Eloise's voice was almost a whisper.

"That was all. I thought that night I should hunt a lonely trail--when
he went home to claim--happiness. But now I feel that I could live
beside him always--to have him safe with us again."

As I turned to look at Eloise something was in her big, dark
eyes--something that disappeared at once. I caught only a fleeting
glimpse of it, and I could not understand why a thrill of something near
to happiness should sweep through me. It was but the shadow of what
might have been for me and was not.

"Do you recall our prophecies here that night when we were children?"
Eloise asked.

"Yes, every one.