ng.

"Couldn't is the just word, major, and couldn't especially--to you,"
was the significant reply.

Plume rose from his chair and stood a moment, trembling not a little
and his fingers twitching. "You mean--" he huskily began.

"I mean this, my friend," said Byrne gently, as he, too, arose, "and I
have asked Graham, another friend, to be here--that Wren would not
defend himself to you by even mentioning--others, and might not have
revealed the truth even to me had he been the only one cognizant of
it. But, Plume, _others_ saw what he saw, and what is now known to
many people on the post. Others than Wren were abroad that night. One
other was being carefully, tenderly brought home--_led_ home--to your
roof. You did not know--Mrs. Plume was a somnambulist?"

In the dead silence that ensued the colonel put forth a pitying hand
as though to stay and support the younger soldier, the post commander.
Plume stood, swaying a bit, and staring. Presently he strove to speak,
but choked in the effort.

"It's the only proper explanation," said Graham, and between them they
led the major within doors.

And this is how it happened that he, instead of Wren, was pacing
miserably up and down in the gathering dawn, when the sentry startled
all waking Sandy with his cry for the corporal. This is how, far ahead
of the corporal, the post commander reached the alarmed soldier, with
demand to know the cause; and, even by the time he came, the cause had
vanished from sight.

"Apaches, sir, by the dozen,--all along the edge of the _mesa_,"
stammered No. 5. He could have convinced the corporal without fear or
thought of ridicule, but his voice lacked confidence when he stood
challenged by his commanding officer. Plume heard with instant
suspicion. He was in no shape for judicial action.

"Apaches!" This in high disdain. "Trash, man! Because one sentry has a
scuffle with some night prowler is the next to lose his nerve? You're
scared by shadows, Hunt. That's what's the matter with you!"

It "brought to" a veteran trooper with a round turn. Hunt had served
his fourth enlistment, had "worn out four blankets" in the regiment,
and was not to be accused of scare.

"Let the major see for himself, then," he answered sturdily. "Come in
here, you!" he called aloud. "Come, the whole gang of ye. The
concert's beginning!" Then, slowly along the eastward edge there began
to creep into view black polls bound with dirty white, black crops
untrammel