neeling over the body, and told me to hurry out on the prairie,--the
murderer had run that way."

"Mr. Ray is in his quarters, colonel. I took him there just before you
came," said Blake, entering at the moment, and Blake's face was white as
death.

"Who was here besides Mr. Ray?" asked the colonel of the sergeant.

"Not a soul, sir. The body lay there on its face where the blood is on
the floor, and Mr. Ray was kneeling beside it trying to turn it over, I
thought. I was standing in front of the company quarters just over here,
sir, when the shot was fired, and I heard the yell. I ran hard as I
could straight here, and it wasn't half a minute."

"And you saw no one else at all?"

"No one, sir. The lieutenant said the man as did it rushed out on the
prairie between the hospital and the surgeon's, and it was dark, sir,
and no use looking. Coming back, I picked up the pistol right by the
gate."

"Stay here all of you," said the colonel. "Mr. Blake, I want _you_."

And in another moment Blake went silently up the row. The colonel's
orders were that he should guard his comrade until relieved by the
officer of the day with his sentries.

But the coroner's jury had investigated still further. The web of
circumstantial evidence that had enveloped Ray by eight o'clock that
August morning was simply appalling. It summed up about as follows. The
sergeant of the guard had been making the rounds of the ordnance and
commissary storehouses, and heard voices out on the prairie as of men
coming from town; listening, he recognized those of Hogan and Shea, the
latter being Lieutenant Gleason's orderly. They were apparently coming
from the direction of the "house on the hill," as the resort out by the
little prairie lake, previously described, was termed, and as they were
not boisterous at all, though evidently "merry," he had not gone towards
them, but, entering the main gate, he turned to the left to go to the
guard-house, and was opposite the second set of company quarters when he
heard voices at Lieutenant Gleason's, excited but unintelligible, then
the shot, a scream, and he ran full tilt, not more than two hundred
yards, into the house and through the little hall to the back room,
where a light was burning. There lay Lieutenant Gleason on his face with
his head to the back door, which was open, while Lieutenant Ray was
kneeling between the body and the back door. All he said was, "Quick!
the man who did it ran out on the pra