of trouble and
ask Miss Sanford,--of whose charity and gentleness the garrison never
tired of telling by the hour,--for Miss Sanford must feel and know that
since the day he so raged against his own son, he--he had even seemed to
turn against her, his devoted and dutiful wife.

And now when the doctors said he was almost well enough to be approached
on matters of urgent business, she dared not. She had lost, perhaps, her
influence. "Then what could _I_ possibly do?" asked Priscilla bluntly,
and then came the explanation. The woman whom he most honored,
respected, believed in, the woman who had been the devoted friend of
her,--that was gone, with, alas, his heart buried by her side,--that
woman, Mrs. Ray, if she would but speak with him, plead with him for
her, his fond, but, ah, so cruelly misjudged wife, whose heart was
failing her now, and at a time when for his sake as well as hers she
needed all her strength. If Mrs. Ray could but see her way to do this,
ah, with what gratitude and devotion would she, Inez, ever think of
her--and all Minneconjou knew Mrs. Ray's love for her noble niece.
Everyone said that if Miss Sanford but willed a thing and urged it upon
her aunt it was a thing accomplished. Out of the goodness of her heart
would not Miss Sanford strive for her, a heart-crushed, well-nigh
hopeless wife, upon whom there had but recently dawned the knowledge
that, that--could not Miss Sanford imagine?

And in the midst of the gush of tears with which she closed came sudden
distraction. They had been trundling easily, aimlessly over the smooth,
hard prairie road, the well-trained, well-matched ponies ambling
steadily along. They had given the cavalry herds and herd guards a wide
berth, and the townward route, for Mrs. Dwight shunned, she said, the
sight of almost any face but the sweet and sympathetic one beside her.
They had turned southward, after rounding Castle Butte, a bold, jagged
upheaval among the nearest foothills, and were winding slowly down this
narrow and crooked ravine toward the broad Minneconjou bottom, when, as
the ponies reached a fairly level bit of road, and were swiftly turning
a point of bluff, they suddenly and violently shied to the right, almost
upsetting the dainty vehicle, and nearly pitching its helpless freight
headlong into the road. Then with the bits in their teeth, away they
tore, full gallop down the next incline, the phaeton bounding after
them, and so, mercifully as it happened,