"I don't know, sir," answered Crabb. "But this I do know, they are after something and expect to get it. If I might make so bold, sir, I think the major ought to keep an eye on them blasted halfbreeds at Hay's." It set Flint to serious thinking. Pete and Crapaud, paid henchmen of the trader, had been taking advantage of their employer's absence and celebrating after the manner of their kind. One of his officers, new like himself to the neighborhood and to the Indians, had had encounter with the two that rubbed his commissioned fur the wrong way. A sentry, in discharge of his duty, had warned them one evening away from the rear gate of a bachelor den, along officers' row, and had been told to go to sheol, or words to that effect. They had more business there than he had, said they, and, under the potent sway of "inspiring bold John Barleycorn" had not even abated their position when the officer-of-the-day happened along. They virtually damned and defied him, too. The officer-of-the-day reported to the commanding officer, and that officer called on Mrs. Hay to tell her he should order the culprits off the reservation if they were not better behaved. Mrs. Hay, so said the servant, was feeling far from well and had to ask to be excused, when who should appear but that ministering angel Mrs. Dade herself, and Mrs. Dade undertook to tell Mrs. Hay of the misconduct of the men, even when assuring Major Flint she feared it was a matter in which Mrs. Hay was powerless. They were afraid of Hay, but not of her. Hearing of Mrs. Hay's illness, Mrs. Dade and other women had come to visit and console her, but there were very few whom she would now consent to see. Even though confident no bodily harm would befall her husband or her niece, Mrs. Hay was evidently sore disturbed about something. Failing to see her, Major Flint sent for the bartender and clerk, and bade them say where these truculent, semi-savage bacchanals got their whiskey, and both men promptly and confidently declared it wasn't at the store. Neither of them would give or sell to either halfbreed a drop, and old Wilkins stood sponsor for the integrity of the affiants, both of whom he had known for years and both of whom intimated that the two specimens had no need to be begging, buying or stealing whiskey, when Bill Hay's private cellar held more than enough to fill the whole Sioux nation. "Moreover," said Pink Marble, "they've got the run of the stables now the old man's away, and there isn't a night some of those horses ain't out." When Flint said that was something Mrs. Hay ought to know, Pink Marble replied that was something Mrs. Hay did know, unless she refused to believe the evidence of her own senses as well as his, and Pink thought it high time our fellows in the field had recaptured Hay and fetched him home. If it wasn't done mighty soon he, Pink, wouldn't be answerable for what might happen at the post.