who, as further fascination, was
supplied from some unknown source with money which he spent with lavish
hand.

The moon was in the fourth quarter now, yet still bright enough to aid
them, and up and down the creek bank went the searchers, probing every
pool, searching every shallow. It was odd--or was it odd?--that for half
an hour no man, no matter what he thought, went down and banged at the
door of "C" Troop's stable--where in cozy quarters and solemn state,
guarded by the sentries on either flank, slept that surly magnate among
the non-commissioned officers--Fitzroy, the stable sergeant of Snaffle's
troop. Whatever had befallen poor Dora Mayhew, it was not to join
Cockney Fitzroy she had fled.

Had she fled to join anybody? was the question that racked so many a
heart, for, with the possible exception of gentle Mrs. Stannard, the
girl had made no confidant. It was stanch old Chloe who would have it
that her pet and pride from childhood, her solemn charge since the poor
mother's death eight years before, had never left her father's roof to
do harm to herself and break their hearts. If morning came without her,
she surely had been lured away, and, if "Marss Rawdon" had really gone,
who was there who, through love or fear or threat or artifice of any
kind, _could_ lure her?

It was this, full fifteen minutes after Lieutenant Field and two of his
men had trotted off to town, that started old Stannard and big Jim Ennis
down the valley from the veterinarian's, through "Suds-town," where
girls and women were huddling and whispering at the news; through the
hay and wood-yards, where the sentry challenged sharply, so often had he
halted searching parties in the last ten minutes; past the little shack
where dwelt the farriers and blacksmiths, many of them alight, for the
story had gone sweeping; and so at last they came to the long cavalry
stables, standing gable ends to the north, like so many companies in
close column, and at the sixth of these, farthest from the bluff whereon
stood the barracks and quarters, they stopped and banged at the door. No
answer--even when the sentry came to their aid and hammered with the
butt of his carbine. They went round and rattled at the window of the
sergeant's room. Still no response, and at their beck the sentry yelled
for the corporal-of-the-guard, who had followed down, expectant.

"I'll have him out," said he, and ran round to the south end, and
presently came back, panting but t