Woman's intuition often far outstrips the slower mental process of the other sex. The mother who has to see a beloved daughter's silent suffering, well knowing another girl to be, however indirectly, the cause of it, sees all manner of other iniquities in that other girl. Kind, charitable and gentle was Mrs. Dade, a wise mother, too, as well as most loving, but she could look with neither kindness nor charity on Miss Flower. She had held her peace; allowed no word of censure or criticism to escape her when the women were discussing that young lady; but all the more vehement was her distrust, because thus pent up and repressed. With the swiftness of feminine thought, for no man had yet suspected, she fathomed the secret of the trader's sudden going; and, carried away by the excitement of the moment and the belief that none but her husband could hear, she had made that startling announcement. And her intuition was unerring. Nanette Flower was indeed gone. Yet for nearly an hour she stood alone in her conviction. Her husband quickly cautioned silence, and, going forth, gave instructions to the couriers that sent them speeding for the Rawlins road. But at seven o'clock Mrs. Hay herself appeared and asked to see the general, who was taking at the moment his accustomed bracer, tonic and stimulant,--the only kind he was ever known to use--a cold bath. So it was to Mrs. Dade, in all apparent frankness and sincerity, the trader's wife began her tale. Everyone at Frayne well knew that her anxiety as to the outcome of the battle on the Elk had well nigh equalled that of the wives and sweethearts within the garrison. While her niece, after the first day's excitement, kept to her room, the aunt went flitting from house to house, full of sympathy and suggestion, but obviously more deeply concerned than they had ever seen her. Now, she seemed worried beyond words at thought of her husband's having to go at just this time. It was mainly on Nanette's account, she said. Only last night, with the mail from Laramie, had come a letter posted in San Francisco the week before, telling Miss Flower that her dearest friend and roommate for four years at school, who had been on an extended bridal tour, would pass through Rawlins, eastward bound, on Friday's train, and begging Nanette to meet her and go as far at least as Cheyenne. Her husband, it seems, had been hurriedly recalled to New York, and there was no help for it. Nanette had expected to join her, and go all the way East in late October or early November; had given her promise, in fact, for she was vastly excited by the news, and despite headache and lassitude that had oppressed her for two days past, she declared she must go, and Uncle Will must take her. So, with only a small trunk, hastily packed, of her belongings, and an iron-bound chest of the trader's, the two had started before dawn in Uncle Bill's stout buckboard, behind his famous four mule