"Major Dwight, I have the highest respect for you as a soldier and as a man, but I ask you to withdraw that request. Frankly, sir, it is my desire that you do not quit the post--to-night." A moment later when the door had closed upon the tall, spare, almost angular form, the colonel mopped his brow and said: "If I let that man go he'll follow Foster to the station and throttle him--he so hates a liar and a lie." "I thought Foster got away in time for the Flyer," said the doctor, after a pause. He had been intently watching Dwight's every move and gesture. "In plenty of time," answered the colonel, "though he planned it otherwise, and don't know it even now. He was scheming to miss to-day's Overland and so wait until to-morrow, but I sent the adjutant, with a man to help him pack, and the word that the ambulance would call for him at four. He _could_ decline the help, but he couldn't the ambulance. Now, as luck would have it, they wire me that the Flyer's five hours late." "If that's the case at Valentine," said the adjutant, "she'll be six behind by the time she strikes Minneconjou." "Then," said Dr. Waring, "we may not have seen the last of Stanley Foster. Is Ray, too, confined to the post?" "No," said the colonel, "I hadn't thought about that at all." CHAPTER XI DEEPER IN THE TOILS Dress parade went off that evening in somewhat perfunctory fashion. Even the alert and soldierly adjutant had a preoccupied air. Stone rejoiced in his three battalions, as they really were--the cavalry squadron consisting, like the infantry units, of four companies--and ordinarily loved to hold them quite a while at the manual, and later for the march past. This evening he ordered but a few casual shifts and dispensed entirely with the review. Almost every piazza had its little group of spectators. The walk was lined with visitors, the roadway with vehicles from town, and Stone had never seemed to notice them. What he did notice was that Dwight, standing stark and alone in front of the center of his squadron, began swaying before the sergeant's reports were rendered, and was obviously faint and ill. It was on his account entirely that Stone curtailed the stately ceremony, and thereby disappointed spectators. He took the major by the arm and walked with him to his door and left him there with promise to send the surgeon without delay. Dwight declared the doctor unnecessary, but thanked most earnestly his commanding officer. A pert young woman in cap and ribbons met them at the threshold with the information that Madame had partaken of a _tisane_ and begged that she might not be intruded upon, as it was Dr. Wallen's mandate that she should sleep, if a possible thing. Stone looked queerly, sharply, at her and turned away. The major made no reply to her remarks, but desired that Master James be sent to him as soon as he returned. It seems that Jimmy had accompanied Sergeant French, a keen angler, to a trout stream