d would place
her in charge of the conductor. Surely Mrs. Plodder had come from Omaha
alone. That was different, said Mrs. Plodder, in rueful recognition of
the fact that a plain woman is exempted from annoyances which a beauty
has to suffer, yet would suffer indefinitely rather than be plain. "But,
_dear_ Mrs. Davies, is it not very expensive?" said Mrs. Darling. "Not
when I have passes all the way to Chicago," said Mira. So they had to
return to the fort at dusk, though Mrs. Plodder did suggest staying all
night and seeing her off. They had not set eyes on Willett. They both
entertained, though neither expressed, a hope that he was not to be of
the party. They asked for Willett casually when they met Mr. Burtis.
Burtis said with perfect truth that he was out at the ranch, that he had
hoped to be here to meet the ladies, but was called out by urgent
business.

It was dark, and they were tired, hungry, and worried when they got back
to the post, and the lieutenant on escort found the ladies strangely
preoccupied and silent. The first thing on reaching home was to go in
search of the chaplain. As a devoted friend of Mr. Davies he should be
informed of this odd freak of Mira's, and, if there were any grounds for
their fears, there was still time to avert what would bring such awful
scandal about their social circle. They assumed that they were coming
back with sensational news, forgetful of the fact that garrison servants
helped pack Mira's trunk, and garrison eyes had seen it start with her
for town. The chaplain's wife knew all about it before two o'clock, and
the chaplain would have known it, too, had he not been long miles away
at the death-bed of an old soldier turned cow-boy. Not until after the
east-bound train was whistling far down the valley and the dawn was in
the sky did an inkling reach him. Somebody said he thought the least Mr.
Willett could have done was to come over and see how his best "puncher"
was getting on, and somebody else replied, in low tone, that any one
could see Willett had no thoughts for anything or anybody outside of
Fort Scott, whereupon somebody Number 1 replied that Willett had been at
his "shack" most of the afternoon, packing some things and burning
others, and had taken the midnight train at Duncan Switch, ten miles
west of Braska.

And even while the news of his going was bringing strange comfort to the
good old man, who rejoiced that this wolf in the sheepfold was even
temporarily