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heaped upon his head by the furious victim of his wiles. The girl had indeed obeyed his beck and will, and shielded him even in the days of suspense that followed his desertion; but no word can describe the

rage of her jealousy, the fury of her hate, the recklessness of her tongue when she found that he had used her only as a tool to enrich another woman,--his lawful wife. Parsons told his story to an

interested audience as though he had rather enjoyed the celebrity he had acquired, and Major Miller, Dr. Bayard, Captain Forrest, and Mr. Roswell Holmes were his most attentive listeners. He had been a

corporal in the Marine Corps at the Washington Navy-Yard, and had seen Dr. Bayard many a time. Reduced to the ranks for some offence, he had become an officer's servant, and was employed at the mess-room,

where Bayard must have seen him frequently, as the doctor rarely missed their festivities at the barracks. Here his peculations began and were discovered. He deserted and got to St. Louis, where he began to

"barber" on a boat; got married and into more trouble; fled to Denver and found people's wits too sharp for him; so, leaving his wife to support herself as best she could, he ran up to Cheyenne and enlisted

in the cavalry. Doors and windows, desks and trunks, were found lying open everywhere at Robinson; Celestine was speedily induced to learn the business, and proved an adept. He warned her she would be

suspected, but she laughed and said she knew how to hoodwink folks. They kept up their partnership at Laramie, he receiving and hiding the valuables she brought him; but he was sure the doctor had recognized

him; he knew there was danger, and he was determined to slip away the first chance that came, especially after securing the diamonds. The Fetterman despatch gave him the longed-for opportunity. Celestine was

quieted by the promise that, as soon as the thing had blown over and he was safe, he would get word to her where to join him, send her plenty of money, and then they would be married and live happily ever

after. On the way back from Fetterman he stopped at an abandoned hut near Bull Bend, where he had hidden his plunder on the way up, stowed the money and jewels in his saddle-bags, then pushed for Hunton's on

the Chug; got safely by in the night, rode his horse hard to Lodge Pole Creek, where he left him at a ranch and secured the loan of another. Then keeping well to the west of Fort Russell and never going near

Cheyenne, he crossed the Union Pacific and made his way to Denver. But there, to his dismay, the "Rocky Mountain" detective officials were on the watch for him, and every precaution had been vain. He was

captured; Miss Forrest's diamonds, Mr. Holmes's amethysts, and Mr. Hatton's pins were found secreted in his possession, though most of the money was gone,--gambling,--and that was all. He never knew that Mr.

Holmes had tracked him all the way and rolled up a volume of evidence against him.

Celestine, tiger-cat that she was, had at first filled the air with shrieks of rage and loud accusations, first against

Lachlan and then Miss Forrest, but the Irish laundresses only jeered at her; and, when the deserter was fairly back in the garrison and the circumstances of his capture were made known, taunted her with

having been victimized by a man who had a wife to share the profits of her plundering. Once made to realize that this was truth, she no longer sought to conceal anything. She seemed bent only on heaping up

vengeance upon him. 'Twas he who corrupted her; he who taught her to steal; he who showed her how to pick locks; he who told her to wear Miss Forrest's silk skirts and steal her handkerchiefs and leave them

where they would be found; he who let her in to the doctor's the night of the dinner and stole the porte-monnaie from the fur coat while she went up-stairs and took the amethysts from Mr. Holmes's room. She

wasn't afraid. If any one came all she had to do was to say she had returned for something she had lost when accompanying Miss Forrest. 'Twas he who told her to take some of McLean's handkerchiefs and drop

one in Mr. Holmes's room where he would be sure to get it, "'cause Dr. Bayard wanted to get rid of Mr. McLean and would believe nothing against Miss Forrest;" 'twas he who tried to pick that latch again and

get in and steal the doctor's silver, but was interrupted by Miss Forrest's coming, and had just time to slink away on tiptoe around the corner of the house; 'twas he who gave her keys to open Miss Forrest's

trunk and showed her how to pick the lock of the little box that held her diamonds, and he who bade her lose one of McLean's handkerchiefs behind the trunk. Oh, yes! She was ready to swear fire, murder, and

treason against him--her scoundrelly deceiver. In one short day this precious pair had succeeded in saddling each other with the iniquities of the garrison for a month back, and all other suspicions were at

an end.

But there was still another feather in Mr. Holmes's cap. He had known these Denver detectives for years and had placed much valuable business in their hands. He had munificently rewarded every man

who had been efficient in the present chase and capture; had had the pleasure of restoring to Miss Forrest in a new case and well-repaired setting the diamonds of which she had been despoiled, and then he

sought McLean.

"Did you ever get a little card I left in your drawer one night while I was here with Mr. Hatton?" he asked.

McLean looked up in eager interest. "A card?--yes, but never dreamed it was

from you. Indeed I thought--I was told--it came from an entirely different source, and it has puzzled me more than words can tell you."

"It was perhaps a piece of officiousness on my part, but we were in a

peculiar state just then with all these thefts going on. I stowed it in one of your handkerchiefs while Hatton was out. What did you do with it!"

"Burned it--long ago. I couldn't understand at all. It said

that one who had been as hard pressed as I was--pecuniarily, I supposed--wanted to be my friend, and----"

"Yes, that's about it! I suppose you couldn't see your way clear to accepting help from me----"

"I didn't know it was your card or your writing. No initials appeared. The card was otherwise blank, and Hatton and I--well--there's no sense in telling the absurdity of our beliefs at that time. We were all

at sea."

"Let all that pass," said Holmes, with a grave smile on his face. "The man that hasn't been a fool in one way or another in this garrison during the last month or so is not on my list of

acquaintances, and I think I know myself. What I want now is a description of Sergeant Marsland. One of my Denver friends thinks he has spotted him as a swell gambler down at El Paso."

And so, that night,

a full pen-picture of the lamented commissary-sergeant was wired to Denver. Two days later a special detective was speeding southward; and though Roswell Holmes had left Fort Laramie and gone about his other

affairs long before the result was known, and long before the slow-moving wheels of Wyoming and military justice had rolled the two later culprits before the courts, it was his name that came up for renewed

applause and enthusiastic praise when the telegraph brought to the commanding officer the news that a "rich haul!" had been made on the far-away Texan frontier. Marsland and over one thousand dollars had

been gathered in at "one fell swoop."

Then came July, its blazing sunshine tempered by the snow-cooled breezes from the mountain-peaks, and its starry nights made drowsy and soothing by the softer melody

of the swift-rushing Laramie. The roar and fury of the May torrents were gone and with them the clouds and storms of human jealousies and suspicions. The crowded garrison had undergone a valuable experience.

The social circle of the post had learned a lesson as to the fallibility of feminine and masculine--judgment. Bruce was slyly ridiculing Miller because of his surrender to the views and theories of his

better half, and, even while resenting verbally the fact that he had been excluded from all participation in the momentous affairs of the early summer, was known to be devoutly thankful in his innermost

heart that he had not been drawn into the snarl. Bruce was hand in glove with Captain Forrest now, who, having set his house in order and silenced the querulous complaints of his wife at the loss of

Celestine, was eager to get back to his troop. Between Forrest and McLean, too, there had sprung up a feeling of cordial friendship. Forrest had heard from his sister's lips the story of how he and Hatton

had burned her handkerchief and striven in every way to shield her in his absence, and the cavalryman's heart warmed to them more than he could express. To Miller and McLean he told the story of his sister's

differences with her uncle, pretty much in effect as Mrs. Forrest told the doctor. It was Courtlandt's son she would not marry because of his repeated lapses into inebriety, and Courtlandt's bounty she would

no longer accept since she could not take the son. The registered letters she had mailed contained the remittances the sorrowful old man persisted in sending her and she persisted in returning. Dr. Bayard,

too, had shown vast cordiality to the stalwart cavalry brother, but Forrest seemed to share his sister's views, and only moderately responded.

Poor Bayard! Again and again did he curse the cruel fates that

had exiled him to this outlying, barbarous, incomprehensible community. Again and again did he bemoan the blunders he had made. In the 閏laircissement that followed the arrest of Celestine and Parsons he had

striven to pose as the champion of Miss Forrest and to redouble his devotions. There was no doubt of his devotion: the grandiose old beau was completely fascinated by the brilliancy, daring, and self-control

of that indomitable Queen of Bedlam. After the first shock and a few hours of solitude, in which she refused to see or talk with anybody, Miss Forrest had emerged from her room in readiness to welcome her

brother on his arrival, and no one in all that garrison could detect the faintest sign of resentment or discomposure in her manner. If anything, she was rather more approachable to people she could not fancy

than at any time before, and, now that the Bruces and Gordons and Johnsons and everybody seemed in mad competition to see who could be most cordial and friendly with her, it speedily became apparent that it

was their offishness, not hers, that had kept them asunder earlier in her visit. Mrs. Post had found her out, she proudly asserted, just as soon as she came to live under the same roof with her, and it was

now her privilege to claim precedence over the others of the large sisterhood. But all this sudden popularity of the young lady in question was no great comfort to Bayard, who found it almost impossible to

see her alone. She would gladly have gone to spend hours with Elinor, who was still far from strong, for "her Majesty," as she was often playfully referred to, was disposed to be very fond of that sweet-

faced child; but Elinor seemed to shrink from her a little. She feared that her father had really fallen deeply in love again, and if so who could resist him? She admired Miss Forrest and could be very fond

of her, but not as a second mother. Another matter that stood in the way of going thither was the fact that Bayard seemed to track her everywhere, and the situation was becoming unendurable. One night, at

last, he dropped in at the Millers' when she was there, and promptly, when she retired, offered to escort her home. She thanked him, took his arm, walked slowly with him to the south hall of Bedlam, and

there bid him adieu. No one knows just what was talked of on that eventful walk, but it was the last he ever sought with her, and for weeks Bayard was a moody, miserable man. All Laramie swore he had

proposed and had been rejected, but no one could positively tell.

Elinor redoubled her loving ways from that time, and strove to cheer and gladden him, but he was almost repellant. There was only one

thing, he declared to her, that made him wretched, and that was her attachment to Mr. McLean. If she would only be sensible, and see how absurd that was, he could smile again, but that was a matter in which

his little girl had decided as her mother had decided before her. Poor Bayard! To revenge himself on his father- and mother-in-law he had wrested this sweet child from their arms and brought her hither, only

to see her won away in turn, and, by all that was horrible, by an army lieutenant. He had to admit that McLean was a gentleman, a splendid officer, without a vice or a meanness, and, now that the stolen

stores were replaced by their money value, without a debt in the world; but he was poor,--he was nothing, in fact, but what he himself had been when he won Elinor's mother. McLean had spoken to him manfully

and asked his consent, but he rebuffed him, saying she was a mere child. McLean declared he would wait any reasonable time, but claimed the privilege of visiting her as a suitor, and this he would have

refused, and for a few days did refuse, until her pallor and tearful eyes so upbraided him that he gave up in despair. Meantime she had poured out her heart to the loving grandparents at home, and they took

her part, and, almost to her surprise, actually welcomed the news that she had a lover. The judge wrote to Bayard (the first time he had so honored him since their difference the previous winter), saying he

knew "the stock" well and expressing his hearty approval of Nellie's choice. As to her future, he said, that was his business. It made no difference to him whether Mr. McLean was rich or poor. That matter

was one he could settle to suit himself. It was a comfort to know she "had given her heart to a steadfast, loyal, and honest man." And so, having stirred up his son-in-law and made him wince to his heart's

content, the old statesman bade him stand no longer in the way, but tell the young gentleman that he, too, would be glad to know him; and this letter, that evening, "old Chesterfield" placed in his

daughter's hand and then magnanimously gave her his blessing. It was not to be shown to McLean, said the doctor, but he did not tell her why. He was afraid the young fellow would read between the lines and