here were in the party who deserted last night?"
continued the colonel.

"Seven, sir," replied the officer of the day, "and there is a list of
their names. They took no horses with them, but they each secured a
carbine and a box of cartridges."

"That makes thirty men who have deserted since I took command of this
post," said the colonel, angrily, "and not more than half of them have
been captured.--Orderly, tell Corporal Owens I want to see him. He is
one of the few non-commissioned officers in the command whom I am not
afraid to trust.--Captain, have six picked men, with two days' rations,
detailed to go with him in pursuit of these deserters. He can find and
arrest them if anybody can."

[Illustration: An Unexpected Guest.]

The officer of the day closed the door of the colonel's head-quarters
behind him, and in a few minutes the orderly opened it again to admit a
sturdy young soldier, about eighteen years old, who wore upon his arms
the yellow _chevrons_ of a corporal of cavalry. This was Bob Owens--the
boy who stole the _mail-carrier's_ hard-earned money and ran away from
home to enjoy it. He had not changed much in appearance. He had grown
taller and his shoulders were broader, but any one who had known him
before he entered the army would have recognized him now. The fact that
he had been selected to perform the hazardous duty of pursuing and
arresting the deserters who had left the fort the night before fully
armed, and who would not hesitate to make a desperate resistance rather
than allow themselves to be taken back to stand the punishment that
would be inflicted upon them by a court-martial, and the colonel's
declaration that he was one of the few non-commissioned officers in the
command whom he was not afraid to trust, seemed to indicate that our old
friend Bob had won a reputation since he enlisted in Galveston, nearly a
year ago, and done something to win the confidence of his superiors. Let
us go back and see what it was.

The last time we saw Bob Owens he was just coming out of a
recruiting-office, having enlisted in the regular cavalry and sworn away
his liberty for a long term of years. He did not take this step of his
own free will, but was driven to it by force of circumstances.

When Bob found Dan Evans in his camp in the woods and stole from him the
money that David, with Dan and Bert Gordon's assistance, had earned by
trapping quails, he ran away from home, and after escaping from the
const