ask. You seem bent on returning to
duty here to-morrow, though you might stay on sick report ten days yet;
and I want to stand between you and the possibility of annoyance and
trouble if I can."

"You are kind, and I appreciate it, doctor; but do you think that the
colonel is a man who will be apt to let me suffer injustice at the hands
of any one here?"

"I don't, indeed. He is full of sympathy for you, and I know he means
you shall have fair play; but a company commander has as many and as
intangible ways of making a man suffer as has a woman. How do you stand
with Rayner?"

"Precisely where I stood five years ago. He is the most determined enemy
I have in the service, and will down me if he can; but I have learned a
good deal in my time. There is a grim sort of comfort now in knowing
that while he would gladly trip me I can make him miserable by being too
strong for him."

"You still hold the same theory as to his evidence you did at the time
of the court? of course I have heard what you said to and of him."

"I have never changed in that respect."

"But supposing that--mind you, _I_ believe he was utterly mistaken in
what he thought he heard and saw,--supposing that all that was testified
to by him actually occurred, have you any theory that would point out
the real criminal?"

"Only one. If that money was ever handed me that day at Battle Butte,
only one man could have made away with it; and it is useless to charge
it to him."

"You mean Rayner?"

"I _have_ to mean Rayner."

"But you claim it never reached you?"

"Certainly."

"Yet every other package--memoranda and all--was handed you?"

"Not only that, but Captain Hull handed me the money-packet with the
others,--took them all from his saddle-bags just before the charge. The
packet was sealed when he gave it to me, and when I broke the seal it
was stuffed with worthless blanks."

"And you have never suspected a soldier,--a single messenger or
servant?"

"Not one. Whom could I?"

"Hayne, had you any knowledge of this man Clancy before?"

"Clancy! The drunken fellow we pulled out of the fire?"

"The same."

"No; never to my knowledge saw or heard of him, except when he appeared
as witness at the court."

"Yet he was with the ----th Cavalry at that very fight at Battle Butte. He
was a sergeant then, though not in Hull's troop."

"Does he say he knew me? or does he talk of that affair?" asked the
lieutenant, with sudden interest.

"No