The doctor started at the heels of the corporal, but was distanced long before he reached the scene. The sergeant of the guard was hammering on the front door of Blake's quarters; but, before the summons was answered from within, Mrs. Ray, in long, loose wrapper, came hurrying forth from her own--the adjoining--hallway. Her face was white with dread. "It is I, Nannie. Let us in," she cried, and the door was opened by a terrified servant, as the doctor came panting up the steps. Together he and Mrs. Ray hurried in. "Robbers!" gasped the servant girl--"Gone--the back way!" and collapsed on the stairs. Sergeant and corporal both tore around to the west side and out of the rear gate. Not a sign of fugitives could they see, and, what was worse, not a sign of sentry. Number 5, of the third relief, should at that moment have been pacing the edge of the bluff in rear of the northernmost quarters, and yet might be around toward the flagstaff. "Find Number 5," were the sergeant's orders, and back he hurried to the house, not knowing what to expect. By that time others of the guard had got there and the officer-of-the-day was coming,--the clink of his sword could be heard down the road,--and more windows were uplifted and more voices were begging for information, and then came Mrs. Dade, breathless but calm. Within doors she found the doctor ministering to a stout female who seemed to have gone off in an improvised swoon--Mrs. Blake's imported cook. Up the stairs, to her own room again, Mrs. Blake was being led by Marion Ray's encircling arm. Three women were speedily closeted there, for Mrs. Dade was like an elder sister to these two sworn friends, and, not until Mrs. Dade and they were ready, did that lady descend the stairs and communicate the facts to the excited gathering in the parlor, and they in turn to those on the porch in front. By this time Flint himself, with the poet quartermaster, was on hand, and all Fort Frayne seemed to rouse, and Mrs. Gregg had come with Mrs. Wilkins, and these two had relieved the doctor of the care of the cook, now talking volubly; and, partly through her revelations, but mainly through the more coherent statements of Mrs. Dade, were the facts made public. Margaret, the cook, had a room to herself on the ground floor adjoining her kitchen. Belle, the maid, had been given the second floor back, in order to be near to her young mistress. Bitzer, the Blakes' man-of-all-work,--like McGann, a discharged soldier,--slept in the basement at the back of the house, and there was he found, blinking, bewildered and only with difficulty aroused from stupor by a wrathful sergeant. The cook's story, in brief, was that she was awakened by Mrs. Blake's voice at her door and, thinking Belle was sick, she jumped up and found Mrs. Blake in her wrapper, asking was she, Margaret, up stairs a moment before. Then Mrs. Blake, with her candle, went into the dining room, and out jumped a man in his stocking feet from the captain's den