Ten minutes later, as Jeannette Wallen was rejoicing over the returning consciousness of a sorely bumped but otherwise unharmed little maid, and hugging that precious niece to her heart, while the doctor administered a soothing draught, and Mrs. Wells was pulling off the pygmy shoes and stocking, the servant admitted an abashed citizen who faltered at the parlor door and mumbled, "Say, doctor, that gen'l'm'n that saved that little girl must 'a' got badly hurt. He's lyin' out here down the street--senseless----" That was all Jeannette heard. Who caught little Kate was a question the distracted aunt never asked until many a long day after. Nobody caught _her_ until, a dozen doors away, under the gas-light, in the midst of a little knot of neighbors, a battered, bleeding head was lifted from a rough coat-sleeve, and, folded in the slender, clasping arms of a kneeling girl, was pillowed on the pure heart where the baby curls were nestling but a moment before. Fractured ribs and collar-bones yield not unreadily to treatment; even fractured skulls have been known to mend; and in a week, though dazed and bewildered, Captain Forrest was convalescing. Cranston and other fellows from the fort were in frequent attendance. The army surgeon from head-quarters had been unflagging, and Colonel Kenyon himself was at the railway station when the "Limited" arrived from New York, bringing a much-alarmed mother and sister, who relieved, if they did not entirely replace, certain other nurses at the patient's bedside. Upon their arrival, after three days and nights of vigil, Miss Wallen disappeared. She betook herself to Miss Bonner's refuge far down town, and just what Mrs. Forrest could have heard from the Cranstons, from her son's commanding officer, and from the fluent lips of Mrs. Wells, the reader may best conjecture, for it is a recorded fact that no sooner was her son out of all danger and well on the road to recovery than two ladies drove to the south side to seek this modest abode of working-girls and to call in person on Jeannette. That afternoon came Cary Allison to visit his old friend the captain. Day after day had the boy been there to inquire, and it was good to see his rejoicing in the mending of the stalwart patient and refreshing to hear his comments on affairs domestic. Flo and her spoons just made him sick, he said, and the idea of having a Stoughton bottle like that for a brother-in-law was disgusting. "Why couldn't _he_ have jumped out and lent a helping hand, instead of sneaking inside the coach and crying at Parks? Hubbard's a muff! I tell Flo he belongs to the family the squash was named for, and I call him Squash, too, and so does pa, though he's glad enough to rope him in to buying more stocks, I notice." It was plain that in Cary's eyes sister Titania had found her Bottom and was enamoured of an ass. Brother-like, he had made her wince many and many a time, and now it was Forrest's turn.