blackmailing scoundrel was on his way to Emory
to expose him unless headed off by further huge payments. It was the
fellow who called himself Newhall."

"The fellow who gave the tip to Birdsall's people?" said old Folsom at
this juncture, raising a bandaged head from his daughter's lap. "Who was
he, really?"

"Burleigh knew all the time and I suspected the moment I heard Miss
Folsom's description, and was certain the instant I laid eyes on him. He
was a rascally captain cashiered at Yuma the year before, and I was
judge advocate of the court."

"And Mrs. Fletcher?" asked Pappoose, extending one hand to Jess, while
the other smoothed the gray curls on her fathers forehead.

"Mrs. Fletcher was his deserted wife, one of- those women who have known
better days."

The ranch is still there, or was twenty years ago, but even then the
Sioux were said to raise more hair in the neighborhood than Folsom did
cattle. The old trader had been gathered to his fathers, and Mrs. Hal to
hers, for she broke down utterly after the events of '68. Neither
Pappoose nor Jessie cared to revisit the spot for some time, yet, oddly
enough, both have done so more than once. The first time its chronicler
ever saw it was in company with a stalwart young captain of horse and
his dark-eyed, beautiful wife nine years after the siege. Hal met us, a
shy, silent fellow, despite his inches. "Among other things," said he,
"Lieutenant and Mrs. Loomis are coming next week. I wish you might all
be here to meet them."

"I know," said Mrs. Dean, "we are to meet at Cheyenne. But, Hal, where's
your wife?"

He looked shyer still. "She don't like to meet folks unless----"

"There's no unless about it," said the lady with all her old decision as
she sprang from the ambulance, and presently reappeared, leading by the
hand, reluctant, yet not all unhappy, Lizette. Some people said Hal
Folsom had no business to marry an Indian girl before his wife was dead
three years, but all who knew Lizette said he did perfectly right, at
least Pappoose did, and that settled it. As for Loring--But that's
enough for one story.

THE END.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Warrior Gap, by Charles King

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