"Say,--'Will, I think I love you just a little.'"

No answer. Only beating hearts, only quick-drawn breath, only the
distant call of the sentry, "Half-past eleven o'clock;" only the dying
strains of the "Immortellen" wafting out through the open casements.

"Try, Maidie," he whispered, eagerly. "Try before the call comes back to
the guard-house. Try before the last notes of that sweet waltz die away
for good and all. Try, sweet love,--'Will, I think I do.'"

A moment's pause, then--then--

"Will, I--I _know_ I do."

And the strong, straining arms clasped about her under that blessed
cavalry cape, and the bonny face was hidden on his breast, and Ray's
trembling lips were raining passionate kisses on that softly rippling
bang, just as the last thrill of the "Immortellen" dreamed away, and the
rich, ringing, soldierly voice of the sentry on number one echoed far
out over the moonlit prairie the soldier watch-cry, "All's well."

* * * * *

What a gem of a morning was the morrow when they rode away northward!
After the command had filed out of the garrison, led by the band on
their placid grays, and the ladies all along the row had waved their
good-byes and kissed their dainty white hands, and the children had
hurrahed and shouted and rushed out among the horses' hoofs in their
eagerness to have one more farewell shake of the hand from some favorite
officer or man, and two or three dames and damsels had stolen away to
the back rooms up-stairs, Marion Sanford stood with tear-dimmed eyes at
the window, gazing far out over the prairie at the long blue column
disappearing in the dust over the "divide." By her side stood Grace
Truscott, twining her arms around that slender waist and clinging to her
with a new and sweeter sympathy. Who, who was the cynic that wrote that
even as she stood at the altar plighting her troth to the husband she
had chosen, no woman yet forgave the man whom, having rejected, she knew
to have consoled himself with another? Grace never for a moment admitted
that Ray had been her lover in Arizona; he had been devoted to
her--always--for Jack's sake; but there were those who thought that
only a little encouragement would have tumbled Mr. Ray over head and
heels in love with her in those queer old days. But all that was past.
There was no doubt that Mr. Ray was desperately, deeply in love now, and
that two women in that garrison--Mrs. Stannard and Mrs. Truscott--knew
it