by
Milly Dalziel, who was sitting on the bank of the fishpond with her hook
baited. Oh, it must have been an amusing little comedy for outsiders to
watch; and I was an outsider in a way; but it didn't amuse me. I was
sick at heart, and cross with Tony Dalziel, who wouldn't leave me alone
or give me time to think things over.

This sort of maneuvering lasted for three weeks; then a bombshell fell
in our midst. Two batteries of the --th Artillery were ordered
immediately to El Paso, on the Mexican border, where a raid was
apparently threatened. Major Vandyke and Captain March and Lieutenant
Dalziel were all to go.

CHAPTER VI

There was desolation at Alvarado Springs, in the hotel, and in the
super-cottages. People--when I say people, I mean women--didn't come to
Alvarado to drink the celebrated waters, or to admire the wonderful
scenery. They came to play with the officers, and now the bravest and
best (looking) were to be snatched from them. What had happened, or what
might happen, was a mystery to mere civilians; but it was whispered
about that possibly there might be real fighting at El Paso. There must
have been, everybody said, something serious under the rumours of a
threatened attack from across the Rio Grande, otherwise government would
not be sending troops to reinforce the large garrison at Fort Bliss, or
be offering to take women and children away from the river towns, in
armoured trains if desired. Cavalry and infantry were moving south from
other army posts, we heard, to guard the concentration camp of Mexican
refugee prisoners at El Paso, and to beat back a rabble of invaders if
need came.

The order reached Alvarado late in the afternoon, and the batteries were
to leave by train at four o'clock the next morning. As it happened,
Kitty Main, Father, Di, and I were all invited to a dance that evening
at the house of an officer and his wife, Captain and Mrs. Kilburn; but
when the news about the batteries going away began to flash from cottage
to cottage we expected the party to be given up. Di looked rather blank
when Mrs. Main flung the tidings at her, for Sidney Vandyke hadn't
proposed yet. If the dance were abandoned, he might be too busy getting
his men ready to see her before he left; and heaven alone knew when the
batteries would come back. There might be fighting; there might at worst
even be war with Mexico; and whatever happened, we couldn't stay on
indefinitely at Alvarado. Kitty Main ha