s, the old colonel seemed to grow
feebler and less inclined to move about with every day. One morning he
sent word to Captain Devers that he would not leave his bed, as he felt
too weak, and that night it was that Leonard got back from Chicago. When
told by Pollock, who met him at the railway station, that Devers was
again in command, Leonard stepped into the telegraph-office and wrote a
message which he showed to nobody. Within thirty-six hours Lieutenant
Archer of the department staff reached Fort Scott with orders from the
general commanding. Captain Pollock was placed in command of the post
and Devers in close arrest. The next day Mr. Langston came out from
Braska and was closeted an hour with Leonard at the adjutant's office,
and then, taking advantage of a returning escort and ambulance, the
civilian lawyer left for the agency. Even while the group of officers at
Cranston's was eagerly discussing the news, he had made his bow to a
deeply blushing Mira over at the hospital tent, and was seated by
Davies's side. "Business first, pleasure afterwards," hummed Cranston to
himself when he heard of the arrival, and noted how Meg's bright eyes
dilated.

"Business, indeed!" thought she. "I know the business that brings him
here, despite Agatha's assumption of sublime indifference."

But grave though some of the older faces grew as the news was read, and
eager and excited as were some of the younger, it was not because of the
long-prophesied trial of Captain Devers. The papers, letters, and
despatches were full of detail of the serious condition of affairs to
the northwest. Inspired by the success of the Sioux in their grand
uprising of the previous year, and reasoning that they had little to
lose and everything to gain by similar methods, a big tribe had cut
loose from its reservation and taken the field, one band of it prudently
massacring all the white men to be found in their neighborhood as
necessary preliminary to the move. This was bad to begin with, but
worse was to follow. The other agencies were overrun by a number of
young Indians of what might be termed the unreconstructed class, and
these, excited by reports brought in by runners from the openly hostile,
were slipping off in scores to join them. Already had the epidemic
struck McPhail's "angels." Already had Mac, with long face and longer
story, been up to see Major White and beg for cavalry to be sent in
pursuit. White said it was preposterous. The renegades