Of Dwight's sudden insanity (so most of Minneconjou regarded it) and his furious treatment of little Jim the garrison spoke with bated breath and infinite compassion and distress. Nothing but mental derangement could account for it. Mrs. Thornton and Priscilla, it may be conjectured, did not confide to their neighbors any too much of their share in the matter, Mrs. Thornton assuring all who questioned her that _she_ had done her _best_ to assure the major that Jimmy could not possibly have purposely or knowingly struck her boy, which was partially true; and Priscilla had declined all conversation on the subject, save with her aunt, and Mrs. Ray, it may be surmised, was not the woman to tell broadcast of her niece's responsibility in the premises, whatever she might later say to Oswald Dwight. Moreover, Marion Ray was not then in mood to talk confidentially with anyone outside of her own doors, for the misfortune--the wrong--that had come to Sandy had well-nigh overwhelmed her. Like the man he was, Stone had called at the house the moment she intimated through his own messenger that she was in readiness to see him. The adjutant before returning to report his action to the post commander had so far departed from the strict letter of his duty as to confidentially inform the dazed young officer that the order had come by wire from St. Paul. It was not the colonel's doing. Sandy was in his room, "cooling off," as he said, when, with all his own troubles and others' deeds upon his head and clouding his honest old face, the post commander himself came in, took the mother's hand and led her to a seat. "It can't upset you more than it has me, my friend," said he. "I s'pose the explanation of it all is that they met somehow--accidentally, perhaps--renewed the quarrel; Sandy was possibly getting the worst of it and the men, whoever they were, couldn't stand that, for they worshiped him, and pitched in. There are few of our fellows, especially in the cavalry, that don't just love Sandy. There are some here that hate Foster," and then Stone stopped, astounded, confused, for Marion Ray, with rising color, interrupted: "Why, Colonel Stone, you speak as though you thought it possible that my son _could_ have been concerned in this affair!" For an instant the colonel struggled for words, his red face mottling in the violence of his emotion. "Why, how can I help it, Mrs. Ray, with all I have heard? But--but I'm more than glad you don't. What does he say?" "That he never dreamed of such a thing," was the brief answer, and Stone hitched half a dozen different ways in his chair.