t!"

"Oh, father, father--it was--it was what I _heard_--when she
screamed--and fell?"

"_What_ did you hear?"

"The other voice--_his_ voice. It said plainly, 'Miriam, hush! Don't you
know me?'"

XII

"Bob," said Mr. Ennis, sauntering in to his comrade's bedside the
following morning, "I'm instructed to pay you a kiss."

Lanier's bandaged head spun on the pillow. He had but one girl in his
mind.

"Wh--who?" he demanded.

Ennis threw his head back and laughed. "Nine times out of ten when a
fellow is asked, 'will you take it now or wait till you get it?' he's
wise to take it now. If _I'm_ any judge, I should say you'd better wait
till you can get it, which may be in less than a week."

"Ennis, if you can quit being an ass long enough to tell me what you
mean, and where you've been, I'll thank you. If you can't, I wish you'd
get out. _Ugashe!_" concluded Bob, with a lapse into Apache and the
pillow.

"Well, it probably isn't just the kiss you were thinking of--no more was
when I got it--but, Robert, my son and fellow soldier, it's my recorded
conviction that the most enviable member of the regiment this day of our
Lord is your twin trooper friend Rawdon. I saw him off on his wedding
tour, and he _didn't_ have on your clothes."

Lanier's head popped up in an instant--the one visible eye all eager
interest. "_Where_ were they married? _When_ did they get off? Was
Lowndes there?" were the questions that flew from his lips.

"Arena. On Number Six. Don't know," was the categorical answer. "Rawdon
brought the parson out from Omaha, and the Osborns gave her away. Of
Lowndes I've seen nothing since the night you staked him at Laramie, and
what I've heard of him you refused to listen to. Of that callow specimen
of the effete and ultra-refined Back Bay District you've long since had
my opinion. He's too good and gentle for this Western world of ours,
Bob, and he and his shuddering kinsfolk suffer too much by
contamination----"

"Oh, shut up, Dad! His people _did_ wire him that his mother was
desperately ill. They merely wanted to get him away from the campaign.
He'd been gambling, the pesky little fool, with some of the Rawhide
crowd, was all out of cash and dared not tell his guardian. That's all
there was to it. Soon's he gets his money he'll square up--thought
perhaps he _had_, since Rawdon had enough to marry on. Lowndes owed
_him_ ten times what he owed me, I reckon."

To them, thus engrossed in con