I
was right by his side; and I swore--God forgive me!--that through the
crack and tear in the paper I could see the layers of greenbacks, when I
knew 'twas only some ones and twos Gower had slipped in to make it look
right; and Captain Rayner stood there and saw the packet, too, and
Sergeant Walshe and Bugler White; but them two were killed with him: so
that 'twas only Captain Rayner and I was left as witnesses, and never
till we got to Laramie after the campaign did the trouble come. I never
dreamed of anything ever coming of it but that every one would say Gower
stole the money and deserted; but when the captain turned the packages
over to Mr. Hayne, and then got killed, and Mr. Hayne carried the
packages, with the watch, seal, saddle-bags, and all, in to Cheyenne,
and never opened them till he got there,--two weeks after, when we were
all scattered,--then they turned on him, his own officers did, and said
he stole it and gambled or sent it away in Cheyenne.

"I had lost much of my money then, and Mrs. Clancy got the rest, and it
made me crazy to think of that poor young gentleman accused of it all;
but I was in for it, and knew it meant prison for years for me, and
perhaps they couldn't prove it on him. I got to drinking then, and told
Captain Rayner that the ----th was down on me for swearing away the
young officer's character; and then he took me to Company B when the
colonel wouldn't have me any more in the ----th; and one night when Mrs.
Clancy had been raising my hair and I wanted money to drink and she'd
give me none, little Kate told me her mother had lots of money in a box,
and that Sergeant Gower had come and given it to her while they were
getting settled in the new post after the Battle Butte campaign, and he
had made her promise to give it to me the moment I got back,--that
somebody was in trouble, and that I must save him; and I believed Kate,
and charged Mrs. Clancy with it, and she beat me and Kate, and swore it
was all a lie; and I never could get the money. And at last came the
fire; and it was the lieutenant that saved my life and Kate's, and
brought back to her all that pile of money through the flames. It broke
my heart then, and I vowed I'd go and tell him the truth; but they
wouldn't let me. She told me the captain said he would kill me if I
blabbed, and she would kill Kate. I didn't dare, until they told me my
discharge had come; and then I was glad when the lieutenant and the
major caught me i