Mainwaring must have had a love for the dramatic.

"Corporal Rice," said he, deliberately, "take Trooper Hunter to the guard-house and confine him by my order on the charge of conniving at the robbery and destruction of the magazine."

CHAPTER XIII.

IN the forty-eight hours that followed the arrest and incarceration of Trooper

I

Hunter one excitement chased another with such rapidity that it was hard to keep track of them, and Mainwaring, with almost a sigh of relief, welcomed the premature return of old Stannard, to whom somebody (believed to be Ray) had given the tip by telegraph that the sooner he got back the better.

"Take this infernal regiment and see what you can do with it," said Mainwaring, despairingly. "I thought I knew something about soldiering, but there's too d-d much individuality in the th for me."

And, beside Trooper Hunter's incarceration on the charge of aiding and abetting in the robbery and destruction of the magazine, the senior major had the following matters now to tackle: Captain Blake, in arrest for using insubordinate language to the commanding officer ("said that compared with my mental condition the magazine wasn't a circumstance in the way of a wreck, begad," explained Mainwaring to his senior, who strove to keep a straight face, but couldn't); Mrs. Merriweather, disappeared since the night of Hunter's trans

fer from hospital to guard-house; Sergeant Merriweather, transferred from guard-house to hospital with a bullet through one lung and a knife-wound in the other; Corporal Croxford and Trooper Elzey, deserted,-two hitherto shining lights of the garrison and admirers of Mrs. Merriweather (could Mrs. Merriweather have gone with either of them? asked some of the ladies, or with both? asked certain brutes among the officers); and, finally, Lieutenant Brady, back from a bacchanalian bout with his kindred spirit Rawson, and now laid by the heels in quarters with an Irish orderly in attendance, for doctors would have nothing to do with him.

The way Stannard sailed in was characteristic. Brady had not been drunk on duty. He had taken advantage of the absence of Atherton and Stannard to relax the reins of his self-control, but had only got a real good start when he sought and received a seven days' leave from Major Mainwaring, which enabled him to meet Rawson at Pawnee. This was about ten days after the explosion. He was to have stayed his week away, but in two days suddenly reappeared in Butte, full of whiskey and information. Mainwaring, who knew him but slightly, received a despatch saying that he had news of most important character resulting from discoveries he had made at Pawnee, and urging the commanding officer to meet him at the railway

station on his arrival, which Mainwaring did, and then the very next night ordered Hunter's arrest.

"I always said that when Brady drank he could be depended upon to make an ass of himself," said Blake, "and this proves it." But what Brady's revelations might have been Mainwaring refused to disclose. It was enough, he said, to hang Hunter high as the hayman, and the hay-contractor, in Mainwaring's opinion, was the double-dashedest scoundrel that ever lived. This statement so rejoiced Blake's heart that he repeated it broadcast, and was in the merriest of moods, until he heard that Mainwaring had forbidden Captain Ray's having an interview with his imprisoned recruit. Then Blake boiled over and made the odious comparison between Mainwaring's brain and the blown-up building which resulted in his own summary confinement to quarters. Brady's leave had still two days to run when Stannard got back, but Stannard had heard enough of his doings in Butte to warrant the immediate action taken. An officer was sent with the post ambulance and orders to fetch him forthwith. Then and there Dana waited on him with the major's message to the effect that he would give him twenty-four hours in which to sober up and face the music, and Brady had sense enough to know he had no time to lose.

Then another snarl had to be disentangled,

in which Stannard could not help, since it was purely domestic. The veteran post surgeon had had a flare-up with Mainwaring, all on account of Trooper Hunter. The doctor protested against his patient's being put in the guardhouse, declaring that, no matter what the charges were, he was entitled to humane as well as medical treatment. Mainwaring said the man of his own volition had removed himself from hospital, and therefore deserved no consideration. The doctor said if Hunter were kept in the prison room with the garrison malefactors over-night he would hold Mainwaring responsible for ill results that were certain to occur, which staggered Mainwaring for a minute. He finally compromised, ordered Hunter sent back to hospital, but put in a room by himself with a sentry at the door and another at the window, and orders prohibiting his being seen or spoken to by anybody except the doctors and the steward, unless it were himself or on his own written order.

Then Mainwaring had to go home and face the women-folk, and there for the first time (Miss Leroy, shocked and stunned, having gone to her room) did Mrs. Mainwaring have him to herself and tell him of the identification of Hunter as the polite and helpful stranger of the night on the train. Then furthermore did she add her plea to the doctor's, and finally admit that, much to her own distress and consternation, she