, glancing furtively at Mrs. Davies as
he did so. Burroughs nodded, but rode rapidly away, the corporal after
him. Mrs. McPhail became instantly lachrymose. Dr. Burroughs wanted at
the agency? That could mean only one thing,--Mr. McPhail must be
wounded, he was always so impetuous. In vain Mrs. Cranston strove to
soothe her. She ran out on the roadway in front and hailed the very next
party straggling in,--the wife and the cook of the agency clerk,
importuning them to say was Mac badly hurt.

"Mac ain't hurt at all," said the new arrivals, hot after a long and
needless tramp. "How was he to get hurt? It's Loot'nant Davies that's
shot. Red Dog tried to kill him."

And here Mira promptly and appropriately shrieked and fainted.

Nor was she of use when presently restored to a limp and dejected
consciousness. Other messengers had come by this time. Dr. Burroughs had
examined Mr. Davies's hurts. He was stabbed, not shot. It was serious,
not dangerous. He was being made comfortable at home, where Captain
Cranston said it was perfectly safe for Mrs. Davies to join him, and
the ambulance was speedily ready to take her to the bedside of her
wounded hero, but again poor Mira's nerves gave way. She could not go to
that dreadful place, so much nearer those frightful savages. Oh, why,
why hadn't they brought her Percy here? Even Mrs. McPhail was no such
coward as that. She drove back without her, and not for hours after was
Mira strong enough to go. By that time he was sleeping placidly when,
trembling still and pathetically pale, Mira was escorted to his bedside,
and that night Mrs. Cranston had her revenge.

"Agatha Loomis," said she, "you declared all along that he did perfectly
right in marrying that--that--in marrying _her_. What do you say now?"

And Miss Loomis said--nothing.

They had been talking of Davies again this very morning before the mails
and Langston came. No sooner had he been well enough to move than he
asked to be sent up to the garrison. He was no longer commander of the
guard, and no longer entitled to the house. What was more, he must
decline to serve McPhail in any such capacity again, and had had a
letter written to department head-quarters representing the facts, and
one was received from the general promising that another officer should
be detailed immediately. Furthermore, Mr. Davies announced that Mrs.
Davies simply could not stand the life at that point. Then Boynton
expressed a desire to return