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And Miller would not ask him what it was. Well knowing

how the doctor had been devoting himself to Miss Forrest, it was with nothing short of amaze that the old soldier now heard him speak. After all his wife had told him, whom could Bayard mean but the Queen of

Bedlam?

Abruptly the major changed the subject, even while thinking how in his own experience he had had recent opportunity to realize the truth of what the doctor said. Somebody had indeed "got fooled on

that latch" the night he sat there in the dim light of the doctor's library,--somebody who evidently expected to enter as readily as before, and had worked ineffectually for several minutes before abandoning

the attempt, and then only to be caught in the act and unblushingly to repudiate the same.

"Bayard," said the major, "I am the last man to interfere in the details of my subordinates' management of

affairs, but there's a matter I want to ask you about while we are out here. What is the reason Dr. Weeks refuses to let Mrs. Miller go in and see McLean? She has been always very fond of him, and naturally

wants to be of service now. Of course, if there be any good and sufficient reason, I've nothing to say, but I think I've a right to know."

Bayard hesitated a moment. "Come out here on the piazza, major,"

he presently said. "I don't want them to hear in the parlor." And together the two officers walked over to the wooden railing and stood there looking at each other. It was evident to the post commander in an

instant that what his surgeon had to tell was something of no little importance and something, furthermore, that he shrank from mentioning. Bayard's eyes fell before the major's earnest and troubled gaze; he

was plainly studying how to put his information fairly and without prejudice. Suddenly he looked up.

"First, while we are on the subject, let me finish about this latch business, major. It is not entirely

--entirely irrelevant to the other matter. You see I had to tell Robert why we made such particular inquiries about the door. Now the boy has been with me for years, and came to me with a most unblemished

character. Why, he was body-servant for the adjutant and quartermaster of the First Artillery in the lively old days at Fort Hamilton, and had unlimited opportunities for peculation; but those gentlemen said

he was simply above suspicion. But he is sensitive, and it worried him fearfully lest Mr. Holmes should think he or some of his assistants in the kitchen had been searching those pockets. Now it was simply

on his account--to convince him it was somebody from outside that surreptitiously entered the hall while we were all at dinner--that Holmes took the trouble to test the latch, and with a little bit of stiff

wire he showed us how Robert's device could be circumvented."

"And Holmes has no doubt it was so accomplished?" asked the major, tentatively.

Bayard looked embarrassed. "I cannot say just what he does

think, major, because he utterly refuses to speak of it. He said it was absurd to make such an ado about nothing, and declared he would be seriously annoyed if I pursued the subject."

"But you admit you

have a theory of your own?" and Miller keenly eyed his medical officer as though striving to read beneath that smooth and polished surface.

"I have what might be called an hypothesis, a vague theory, and a

suspicion that would be entirely intangible but for one or two little things that have recently come to my knowledge."

"And those little things point to an inmate of the garrison, do they not?" asked

Miller, with as much nonchalance as he could assume.

"I fear so," was the doctor's answer. "But you asked why Mrs. Miller was urged not to come to Mr. McLean's room just yet; that is the way Weeks put it

to me when I overhauled him, which I did at the moment the matter came to my ears. Rest assured I was quite as ready to take umbrage at his action,--more so, rather, than you could have been. But, major,

could you have heard his explanation, you yourself would have been the first to say no one but his physician should be allowed to stay there. Weeks even sent the hospital nurse away, and sat up with him all

night himself."

"Has he been delirious?"

"Yes, and in his delirium he has been talking of things that have completely stampeded poor Weeks. Of course he could not give me the faintest inkling of what

they were, and I would not ask; but they were of such a character that they should be treated as sacred confidences, and Weeks said to me that no court-martial could drag them from his lips. He would resign

first. It was for fear his patient might continue the subject in her presence that Weeks begged Mrs. Miller not to think of coming to nurse him yet awhile. He assures me that the moment the fever subsides he

will be glad to have her aid, for he looks worn-out now. Were not his reasons cogent?"

Miller bowed his head. "I had not thought of this," he said; "Mrs. Miller will be as sorry as I am to hear of it, and,

of course, she will appreciate the reasons. Did Weeks tell you when this delirium began?"

"The night after Hatton left, or, rather, very early in the morning of the next day. He had been alarmed at

McLean's symptoms during the evening, and ordered the nurse to wake him if he saw any indications of delirium. The man came to him at three in the morning and said the lieutenant was wild. Weeks went over at

once,--and ten minutes after he got there he sent the attendant away, and shut himself up with his patient."

The major pondered a moment. "Is the man close-mouthed? Do you think he could have heard much of

anything before he was sent away?"

"I know very little about him. He is a member of Captain Bruce's company and very much attached to the lieutenant; so I infer from what Weeks tells me. Even if he had

heard anything that ought not to leak out, it is not likely this particular man would betray it; he would say nothing that might ever harm McLean."

"Well, no! Not McLean, perhaps. Very possibly he might

not know how it would harm him to have his ravings repeated. I was thinking--I could not help thinking--that Mac had been talking about--these recent thefts in garrison."

"And there have been more than

this one at our house?" asked the doctor, with concern and surprise mingled in his handsome face.

"Yes, two or three more, I regret to say, but I have not full particulars yet and cannot speak of them."

Bayard clasped his hands with one of the melodramatic gestures so peculiar to him.

"My God!" he muttered. "It was bad enough as I supposed it, but I had no idea it had come to such a pass as this."

"Bayard," said the major, after a moment of earnest thought, "this is a matter that must be handled with the utmost care and circumspection. Not a vestige of suspicion must be permitted to circulate if we

can prevent it. I have strictly enjoined secrecy upon my--my informant, and I desire you to regard this talk as confidential. Tell Weeks I appreciate and sustain him in this caution and thank him for his

efforts to stifle any possible scandal. Poor Mac! The youngster would be horror-stricken if he knew what secrets he had been blabbing."

"His troubles must have been weighing on his mind a long time," said

the doctor, "and yet I never suspected it. I don't know that I ever saw a blither young fellow until about the time the finding of that board of survey was announced. He didn't seem to expect that at all."

"Well,--neither did I. Of course, technically it had to go against him, but we never dreamed it would result in stoppage of his pay."

"And yet his funds were all right, I'm told," said the doctor,

musingly. "One would suppose that if he had any tendencies that way they would have cropped out when he had so much public money passing through his hands."

"Tendencies what way, doctor? I don't follow

you."

"Why, in the way these--these little thefts and his delirious utterances would seem to indicate," said Bayard, hesitatingly.

Miller fairly sprang up from the rail on which he was leaning, his eyes

distended with wonderment and pain.

"In God's name, Bayard, what are you talking about?" he gasped.

"About this sad case of McLean's, major, as I supposed you were."

"You don't mean that your theory

involves him? You don't mean it--it is of himself, of his connection with these thefts, that he has been telling in his delirium?"

"Why, Major Miller, I supposed of course you understood--I--I, of course,

accuse nobody, but of whom could he have been talking about but himself? That was certainly my understanding of it."

For one moment the old major stood there looking into the staff-officer's eyes,--amaze,

consternation, distress, all mingled in his florid, weather-beaten face. Then without a word he turned and stumbled away down the steps and hurried from the gate. The trim, spruce orderly, standing on the

walk without, raised his gloved hand in salute and stood attention as the commanding officer passed him, then "fell in" ten paces behind and followed in his tracks. But for once in his life the major neither

saw nor returned a soldier's respectful salutation.

XIV.

The fever had left him, and Randall McLean, very white and "peaked" looking, was sitting propped up in bed and enjoying the wine-jelly Mrs.

Miller had brought with her own hands. She had hoped to find him in better spirits, and was distressed to see how downcast and listless he was. Just what evil spell had fallen upon the garrison Mrs. Miller

could not explain. The major for two or three days had been utterly unlike himself, and would give her no good reason. The cavalry battalion that had reached the post and gone into camp down on the flats to

the north was almost ready to push on toward the Black Hills, and though she had twice reminded him that he ought at least to invite the field and staff officers to dinner, her usually social spouse had

declined, saying he felt utterly unequal to it. The lethargy and gloom at post "head-quarters" seemed to pervade the entire garrison. Nobody felt like doing anything to dispel it. The band played blithely

enough at guard-mounting and again in the sunshiny afternoons, but nobody came out and danced on the broad piazzas as used to be the way at Laramie. Nellie Bayard was beginning to sit out on the veranda in a

big easy-chair with Janet Bruce as her constant companion, and the Gordon girls, those indomitably jolly creatures, as occasional visitors; but as Miss Kate, the elder, expressed herself, "Laramie is nothing

but one big hospital now. The women and children are the only able-bodied men in it." Nellie was kind and civil, and tried to be cordial to them, but they were "smart" enough to see she had no heart for

rattling small talk and crisp comments on matters and things at the post, and much preferred to be left alone to her undisturbed confidential chats with "Bonnie Jean." Blunt was slowly mending, and Dr. Weeks

was having a little rest after an anxious week, when his services were demanded for another patient in Bedlam,--no less a person than the queen herself.

In view of the fact that Dr. Bayard was the

recognized family physician and had been and was still assiduously attending Mrs. Forrest, it was considered nothing short of an intentional slight on the young lady's part that she should send for Weeks. It

was Mrs. Post who came over to Blunt's door when she knew the junior doctor was there, and asked him to come with her and see Miss Forrest. For two days the latter had been confined to her room refusing to

see any physician, and declaring that in Mrs. Post's ministrations she found all the physic she needed, but now the time seemed to have come when medical aid was really necessary. Dr. Bayard's face, when he

was told by Mrs. Post that Weeks was summoned and in attendance, was a study worth seeing. It was not a serious ailment at all, said Mrs. Post. Miss Forrest had caught cold and neglected it, and now the cold

had developed into fever, and she had been persuaded to keep in bed for a day or two.

But Mrs. Miller was puzzled over still another matter. The evening of the day Mr. Holmes so unexpectedly reappeared at

Laramie, he and Miss Forrest met on the board-walk near "Bedlam," had a few moments' conversation there just before gun-fire at retreat, and then, to the surprise of many lookers-on, she was observed to take

his proffered arm, and for over half an hour they strolled around the deserted parade talking earnestly together. It was the hour when most of the garrison families were in the dining-rooms, at dinner or tea

as might be the custom of the household; but more than one good lady found it necessary to pop up from the table and go to the front window to see if Mr. Holmes and Miss Forrest were still walking and

talking together. It was the morning after this mysterious consultation that the cold developed; and those kindly spirits who had promptly decided that the handsome but penniless New York girl was setting

her cap to cut out Nellie Bayard with the Chicago millionaire were balked in their hopes of seeing further developments by the circumstance of her keeping her room and not again meeting Mr. Holmes, who,

after two or three days' visit, departed as suddenly and unexpectedly as he came. The presence of a large battalion of cavalry had the effect of warning the Indians away from the neighborhood and made travel

again comparatively safe.

And now, having patted up his pillows and settled him carefully back upon them, Mrs. Miller had begun the attempt of cheering her "pet lieutenant," as the major had called him.

First she strove to rouse his interest by detailing the terms in which Captain Terry had officially commended his gallantry and zeal in the fight down at Royall's Ford; but he had heard it all before through

Dr. Weeks, and, though appreciative, he did not beam with the comfort she expected. Then she tried to tell him of Major Miller's warm-hearted and commendatory endorsement in forwarding Terry's report; but he