her to mount her horse agin. But before we comes to the fort, he sez to
me: 'Cassidy,' sez he, 'not a word o' this on account of the leddy.'
And I was mum, sorr, while he was shootin' off his mouth about him bein'
lost and all that, and him bein' bully-ragged by the kernel, and me
knowin' that but for him your sister wouldn't be between these walls
here, and Oi wouldn't be talkin' to ye. And shure, sorr, ye might be
tellin's the kernel as how the leddy was took by the hysterics, and was
that loony that she didn't know whatever she was sayin', and so get the
leftenant in favor again."

"I will speak with the colonel to-night," said Peter gloomily.

"Lord save yer honor," returned the trooper gratefully, "and if ye could
be sayin' that the LEDDY tould you,--it would only be the merest taste
of a loi ye'd be tellin',--and you'd save me from breakin' me word to
the leftenant."

"I shall of course speak to my sister first," returned Peter, with a
guilty consciousness that he had accepted the trooper's story mainly
from his previous knowledge of his sister's character. Nevertheless, in
spite of this foregone conclusion, he DID speak to her. To his
surprise she did not deny it. Lieutenant Forsyth,--a vain and conceited
fool,--whose silly attentions she had accepted solely that she might get
recreation beyond the fort,--had presumed to tell her what SHE must do!
As if SHE was one of those stupid officers' wives or sisters! And
it never would have happened if he--Peter--had let her remain at the
reservation with the Indian agent's wife, or if "Charley" (the gentle
Lascelles) were here! HE would have let her go, or taken her there.
Besides all the while she was among friends; HIS, Peter's own
friends,--the people whose cause he was championing! In vain did Peter