would it not be more dishonorable to marry her than to leave her at once?
But at the idea of leaving her a sharp pain pierced his heart. He thrust
at it the thought that in the long run she would probably be happier if
she were never to see him again. Then he ground his teeth together,
whirled about and started for the town.

Presently he put his hand in his pocket and his fingers closed over
Barbara's yellow rose. He raised it to his lips and something very like
a sob trembled through his soldierly figure. And then suddenly, in a
great wave, came the remembrance of her graces of mind and heart and
body, and of how frank and simple and sincere she was, how sweet and
gentle and womanly and winning. At the same moment his own faults rose
up and upbraided him, and his heart cast away the arguments his brain had
been weaving, and cried out with all its strength, "Indian or not, she is
better than I!" All his white-man's pride and prejudice of race fell
from him as he pressed her rose to his lips and kissed it again and again.

On the morrow it happened that Lieutenant Wemple was officer of the day
at the post and his duties kept him so closely confined in and about the
fort that he had not time to see Barbara. But in the latter part of the
afternoon it became necessary for him to see the commanding officer. The
Colonel had gone, he knew, on a business errand to the farther end of the
town, and the Lieutenant started out to find him. His way back took him
past the Coolidge residence. He was walking hurriedly down the street,
in haste to return to his duties, his blonde head erect, his cap at
right-eyed angle, his uniform buttoned tightly across his broad shoulders
and around his trim waist, his sword on hip, and his eyes straight in
front of him. But his thoughts were inside the adobe walls of the
Governor's home and he was calculating how long it would be until,
released from duty, he could hasten back to pour into a little brown ear