was with him and helped.
The third clerk came in later; had been out all night, drinking. His
name is Dawson. Dawson goes out again and gets fuller, and when next
brought home is put in hospital under a sentry. Then he hears of the
murder, bolts, and isn't heard from since, except as the man who helped
Mrs. Doyle to get her husband home. _He_ is the fellow who brought that
note. He knew something of its contents, for the murder terrified him,
and he ran away. Find his trail, and you strike that of the woman who
wrote these."

"By the Lord, lieutenant, if you'll quit the army and take my place
you'll make a name and a fortune."

"And if you'll quit your place and take mine you'll get your _coup de
grace_ in some picayune Indian fight and be forgotten. So stay where you
are; but find Dawson, find her, find what they know, and you'll be
famous."

CHAPTER IX.

That night, or very early next morning, there was pandemonium at the
barracks. It was clear, still, beautiful. A soft April wind was drifting
up from the lower coast, laden with the perfume of sweet olive and
orange blossoms. Mrs. Cram, with one or two lady friends and a party of
officers, had been chatting in low tone upon their gallery until after
eleven, but elsewhere about the moonlit quadrangle all was silence when
the second relief was posted. Far at the rear of the walled enclosure,
where, in deference to the manners and customs of war as observed in the
good old days whereof our seniors tell, the sutler's establishment was
planted within easy hailing-distance of the guard-house, there was still
the sound of modified revelry by night, and poker and whiskey punch had
gathered their devotees in the grimy parlors of Mr. Finkbein, and here
the belated ones tarried until long after midnight, as most of them
were bachelors and had no better halves, as had Doyle, to fetch them
home "out of the wet." Cram and his lieutenants, with the exception of
Doyle, were never known to patronize this establishment, whatsoever they
might do outside. They had separated before midnight, and little Pierce,
after his customary peep into Waring's preserves, had closed the door,
gone to his own room, to bed and to sleep. Ferry, as battery officer of
the day, had made the rounds of the stables and gun-shed about one
o'clock, and had encountered Captain Kinsey, of the infantry, coming in
from his long tramp through the dew-wet field, returning from the
inspection of the sentry