lted down the stairs and out into the open
air, mopping his heated brow.

The adjutant was coming swiftly up the row. He had hastened forth from a
vine-covered piazza well toward the eastward end just as Ray, with heart
still hammering, came limping again into the glare of the sunlight. As
they neared each other--the staff officer with quick, springy step, the
subaltern somewhat halting and lame--the latter caught sight of a sabre
swinging at the senior's hip. What but one thing at that hour of the day
could this portend? One moment brought the answer:

"Mr. Ray, I reg----" with reddened cheek and blinking eyes, began the
adjutant, who liked him well. Then, with sudden effort, "I--you are
hereby placed in close arrest and confined to your quarters--by order of
Colonel Stone."

CHAPTER XIV

REACTION

That colonel was a very unhappy man. "All the devils in the calendar,"
said he, "have broken loose here at Minneconjou. My cavalry commander
has gone stark, staring mad, and it takes four men to hold him. His wife
cannot stay under the same roof and live, says the maid. Madame must
repose herself, or die. Mrs. Stone says she might take the mistress
under our roof, but she'll be damned if she'll take the maid--at least
she meant that. I said it. The maid says the mistress will die if they
are separated an instant, which suggests a happy end to one of our
troubles, and the cause of all the rest; and to cap the climax, Billy
Ray's boy has done the maddest thing ever dreamed of in Dakota. Why,
doctor, I tell you it _can't_ be doubted! Foster wires the
identification was complete. He dropped the handkerchief that hid his
face. Department Headquarters wired at once to slap him in arrest and
investigate, and the further we look the worse it looks for Ray--and
then, by gad, he denies the whole thing and demands a court-martial! Was
ever a man so mixed as I am!"

It was even as Stone said. Dwight was for the time being, at least, as
mad as a maniac. "Brain fever," said the wiseacres about the post,
"superinduced by sunstroke abroad and scandal at home." Since Tuesday
night he had recognized no one, had raved or muttered almost
incessantly, and at times had struggled fiercely with his attendants in
the effort to leave his bed. Mrs. Dwight's room adjoined that in which
he lay, and Felicie had incurred the wrath of the doctor by urging that
Madame's condition demanded that Monsieur be removed to hospital or to
some remot