That colonel was a very unhappy man. "All the devils in the calendar," said he, "have broken loose here at Minneconjou. My cavalry commander has gone stark, staring mad, and it takes four men to hold him. His wife cannot stay under the same roof and live, says the maid. Madame must repose herself, or die. Mrs. Stone says she might take the mistress under our roof, but she'll be damned if she'll take the maid--at least she meant that. I said it. The maid says the mistress will die if they are separated an instant, which suggests a happy end to one of our troubles, and the cause of all the rest; and to cap the climax, Billy Ray's boy has done the maddest thing ever dreamed of in Dakota. Why, doctor, I tell you it _can't_ be doubted! Foster wires the identification was complete. He dropped the handkerchief that hid his face. Department Headquarters wired at once to slap him in arrest and investigate, and the further we look the worse it looks for Ray--and then, by gad, he denies the whole thing and demands a court-martial! Was ever a man so mixed as I am!" It was even as Stone said. Dwight was for the time being, at least, as mad as a maniac. "Brain fever," said the wiseacres about the post, "superinduced by sunstroke abroad and scandal at home." Since Tuesday night he had recognized no one, had raved or muttered almost incessantly, and at times had struggled fiercely with his attendants in the effort to leave his bed. Mrs. Dwight's room adjoined that in which he lay, and Félicie had incurred the wrath of the doctor by urging that Madame's condition demanded that Monsieur be removed to hospital or to some remote apartment about the neighborhood. To take him to hospital meant that a score of sick or semi-convalescents should be disturbed. If Madame could not sleep where she was, let Madame move. There was nothing on earth the matter with, Madame but nerves--and a nuisance in shape of a maid, said the doctor, whereat Félicie had proclaimed him, too, a monster, and fled to Madame. Mrs. Stone had indeed come and offered Mrs. Dwight shelter under the colonel's roof, but she said at the same time the colonel drew the line at the maid, and told Wallen he would not tolerate that bunch of frippery and impudence. Mrs. Dwight was in dread and misery. What _could_ have happened to so prostrate her beloved husband? No, a thousand times no, she could not think of leaving him! What she needed was restoratives--something to give her strength that she might hie to his bedside and tenderly nurse and care for him. She had had too much restorative, swore Wallen, when he heard this tale. "We've shut off the champagne with which that hussy had been dosing her--not that she didn't demand it--and now it's Katzenjammer as much as anything else. If anybody is to move, let the maid move her to the spare room on the floor below--where Foster slept." But Inez could not think of moving so far from her husband's side.