her face very white and wan. Out in the dining-room could be heard
voluble voices, weeping, and Irish expletives of mingled wrath and
grief,--and then, with eyes dilating with horror, with streaming hair,
with pallid lips and a ghastly look in her white face, Grace Truscott,
clad in a morning wrapper, came rushing through the little parlor into
the hall, gave one glance at her girl friend, and then, stretching forth
her arms, she cried,--

"Oh, Maidie, Maidie! It's all my doing. They--they've ca-carried him off
to jail!"

And then prone upon the stairs she threw herself, burying her face from
sight of all.

CHAPTER XXV.

WHOSE GAUNTLET?

The duty of assorting the papers and caring for the property of the late
officer had devolved upon Lieutenant Warner. Telegrams from relatives in
the distant East had requested that the remains be sent thither by
express for burial, and only a few hours after the accused murderer was
taken into custody the body of the victim of the midnight assassination
had been turned over to the undertaker in town for necessary
preparations. The garrison seemed still paralyzed by the shock, and
except the sentries at the storehouses and stables, there was little
appearance of military duty going on. Guard-mounting was conducted
without music, and the customary drills of the recruits were out of
sight. It was an atmosphere of gloom that pervaded the garrison, and
only one of its ladies had been seen on the promenade for two days. Mrs.
Whaling, like some human fungus, seemed to thrive in the pall-like
depth of the social darkness and depression. She circled from house to
house, and swooped down upon the inmates, flapping and croaking the old
story of woe and foreboding; or, what was welcome in comparison, some
new tale of further entanglement for Ray. Judging from that righteous
lady's conversation, there seemed no doubt that she and the Omnipotent
Judge had settled it between them just when he was to be hanged. She was
one of the first to receive and to enlighten with her views a serious
young man who came from Denver with a letter to the commanding officer,
and brought with him a prominent and rising attorney from Cheyenne.
These gentlemen seemed a trifle disconcerted at the fact that the few
questions they addressed to the colonel were promptly answered by his
wife, and when one of them finally looked at the other and remarked that
it was time to go and examine the premises and the eff