she came springing forth from the tent:

"Look, Nell, look! Your picture!" she cried, as with the bullet-marked
_carte de visite_ in her hand she flitted straight to her friend.

"Why, where did this come from?" asked Miss Folsom in surprise, "and
what's happened to it?--all creased and black there!" Then both the
girls and Loomis looked to him for explanation, while Folsom drove away,
and even through the bronze and tan the boy was blushing.

"I--borrowed it for a minute--at the ranch just as Jake came in wounded,
and there was no time to return it, you know. We had to gallop right
out."

"Then--you had it with you in the Indian fight?" cried Jess, in
thrilling excitement. "Really? Oh, Nell! How I wish it were mine. But
how'd it get so blackened there--and crushed? You haven't told us."

"Tell you some other time, Jess. Don't crowd a fellow," he laughed. But
when his eyes stole their one quick glance at Elinor, standing there in
silence, he saw the color creeping up like sunset glow all over her
beautiful face as she turned quickly away. Lannion had told them of the
close shave the lieutenant had had and the havoc played by that bullet
in the breast pocket of his hunting shirt.

CHAPTER XII.

Meantime "Old Peeksniff," as commentators of the day among the graceless
subs were won't to call Colonel Stevens, was having his bad quarter of
an hour. Leaving his team with the orderly, John Folsom had stamped into
his presence unannounced, and after his own vigorous fashion opened the
ball as follows:

"Stevens, what in the devil has that young fellow done to deserve
arrest?"

"Oh, ah, shut the door, Mr. Adjutant," said the commanding officer,
apprehensively, to his staff officer, "and--d I desire to confer with
Mr. Folsom a moment," whereat the adjutant took the hint and then hied
himself out of the room.

"Now, ah, in the first place, Mr. Folsom this is rather a long and--d
painful story. I'm--m--ah, ah--in a peculiar position."

"For God's sake talk like a man and not like Burleigh," broke in the old
trader impulsively. "I've known you off and on over twenty years, and
you never used to talk in this asinine way until you got to running with
him. Come right to the point--What crime is young Dean charged with?
Those girls of mine will have to know it. They will know he's in arrest.
What can I tell them?"

"Crime--ah--is hardly the word, Folsom. There has been a
misunderstanding of orders, in short, and