r came like a flash:

"Your informant, sir--and there was but one--would never appear in the
event of trial. That informant sailed three days ago on the Sonora, and
you know it." Then, as a sudden thought struck him, he tore open his
dispatch and read, then turned again to his faltering opponent: "So
long as that informant could be confronted you kept me ignorant of any
new allegations, if there were any. Now come out with your story, and by
the next steamer I'll run it down."

CHAPTER XVI.

The worst of having a man of Moreland's views present on such an
occasion is that the whole thing is sure to be noised abroad with scant
reference to military propriety. Moreland told the owners of the steamer
line, the Chamber of Commerce, the easily-gathered audience on Rush and
Montgomery streets, the usual customers at Barry & Patton's, the
loungers in the lobbies of the hotels, everybody who would listen--and
who would not?--how that brave fellow Loring, who ought to have been a
sailor, faced down that quartette of "blue-bellied lobsters" up at
headquarters. The General was not a popular character. His principal
claim to distinction during the great war seemed to be that of being
able to criticise every other general's battles and to win none of his
own. "He never went into a fight that he didn't get licked," declared
the exultant Moreland, "and now he's bowled over by his youngest
lieutenant." The story of that interview went over the bay like wildfire
and stirred up the fellows at the Presidio and Angel Island, while the
islanders of Alcatraz came bustling to town to learn the facts as
retailed at the Occidental, and to hear something more about that queer,
silent fellow Loring. Among the junior subalterns in the artillery were
one or two who knew him at the Point, and they scouted the story of his
having ever having stolen a cent's worth, or the idea of extracting
anything about the matter from his lips. The latest yarn in circulation
was that after the now famous interview Loring had "laid for" Captain
Petty, the aide-de-camp referred to, a young Gothamite of good family
who had got into the regulars early in the war and out of company duty
from that time to this, and, having met the aide-de-camp, Loring had
thereupon calmly pulled the gentleman's aquiline nose for him. Petty
could not be found, had gone to Fort Yuma on important business for the
department commander, was the explanation. The General properly refu