d them at Butte and Pawnee.
There were five officers in all. One of them, who had not taken a berth,
went forward about ten o'clock and made a "roost" in the day car. The
conductor heard the others talking about it, and how the lieutenant
would never spend an unnecessary cent, and some of them thought he was
foolish, and others said he was right, and they respected him for it.
These gentlemen slept late, saying they would rather breakfast after
they got to Omaha. The lady who came aboard at Braska was the first one
up in the morning. She was astir with the sun, and came back from the
dressing-room as soon as the porter had made up her section, looking as
fresh and fair as the day. Presently a gentleman joined her,--a man he
had often seen on the road,--who travelled, as most cattlemen did in
those days, with a pass, and who boarded them at Duncan Switch, and went
at once to his berth. He seemed very much surprised to meet the lady,
but sat down and talked with her until we whistled for Grand Island, and
there, said the conductor, "as I bustled off the train, the operator
handed me a despatch just at same minute that the brakeman came to tell
me we had a cracked wheel on the smoker. One look at the wheel told me
that the car must be left behind, so I ordered out the passengers while
another car was being put on."

But the telegram took more than one look. It puzzled him, said the
conductor. It was sent by the chaplain, a man he knew well, and in brief
words it said, "The lady in Section 7 is the wife of Lieutenant Davies,
Eleventh Cavalry. She needs escort to Omaha, where Lieutenant Leonard
will meet her. If any army officer is aboard, show him this and
introduce him. She should not leave the train."

"Now, there were officers on the car, but they were not yet up,"
continued the official. "Of course I supposed at once that she must be
out of her mind, and that was the trouble. Just at that moment I caught
sight of the young lieutenant who had spent the night in the forward
car. He was a tall, slender fellow, with thick, close-cropped brown
beard and clear blue eyes, and he had got that poor devil of a prisoner
and his guard together, and was fetching them back along the track to
the coffee-stand that happened to be right opposite where the sleeper
stopped. 'Will you read this, and see if you know what to make of it?'
said I, handing him the despatch, and then, as he stopped to read, my
brakeman asked me some question, a