trembling, tearful story, Loring rose before them all, went over and took her hand and bowed low over it, as though he would have kissed it, and said, "Thank you, senorita." And the judge advocate declined to cross-examine. What was the use? But the defense insisted on other witnesses--a local locksmith who had sold Nevins keys that would open any trunk, a hotel porter who swore that the blinds to Loring's room had been forcibly opened from without, a bell boy who had seen Nevins on the gallery at that window three nights before the search of the luggage was made. And the court waxed impatient and said it had had more than enough. Every man of the array came up to and shook Loring by the hand before they let him leave the courtroom, and Blake hunted high and low through Omaha until he found poor Petty and relieved his mind of his impressions, and finally the order announcing the honorable acquittal of Lieutenant Loring, on every charge and specification, was read to every command in the department fast as the mails could carry it. Brought to by a bullet in the leg, George Nevins was recaptured down the Missouri three days later, and sent for his wife that she might come and nurse him. Though everybody said no, she went and did her best, and if nursing could have saved a reprobate life he might still have remained an ornament to society such as that in which he shone. But Naomi wore a widow's veil when late in October she returned to Folsom's roof; the good old trader had stood her friend through all. There were some joyous weddings in the Department of the Platte the summer that followed, Loring gravely figuring as best man when Dean, of the cavalry, was married to Elinor Folsom, and smiling with equal gravity when he read of the nuptials of Brevet Captain Petty and the gifted and beautiful Miss Allyn. He had reverted to his original idea, that of waiting in patience until he had accumulated a nest egg and had acquired higher rank than a lieutenancy in the Engineers; and so he might have done if it took him a dozen years had not orders carried him once more to the Pacific coast, after the completion of the Union Pacific railway. Regularly every month he had written to Pancha, noting with surprise and pleasure how rapidly she learned. Gladly he went to see her at the gray sisters the day after his arrival. He had meant to laughingly remind her of his good-by words: "You know we always come back to California," but he forgot them when she came into the room. He took her hands, drew her underneath the chandelier and looked at her, and only said: "Why, Pancha!"