A fringed gauntlet reached in at the doorway and tapped. Sergeant Shannon, straight as a pine, stood expectant of summons to enter and his face spoke eloquently of important tidings, but the major waved him away, and, marveling, he slowly backed to the edge of the porch. "Surely you can answer that, Captain Wren," said Plume, his clear-cut, handsome face filled with mingled anxiety and annoy. "Surely you _should_ answer, or--" The ellipsis was suggestive, but impotent. After a painful moment came the response: "Or--take the consequences, major?" Then slowly--"Very well, sir--I must take them." CHAPTER VI A FIND IN THE SANDS The late afternoon of an eventful day had come to camp Sandy--just such another day, from a meteorological viewpoint, as that on which this story opened nearly twenty-four hours earlier by the shadows on the eastward cliffs. At Tuesday's sunset the garrison was yawning with the _ennui_ born of monotonous and uneventful existence. As Wednesday's sunset drew nigh and the mountain shadows overspread the valley, even to the opposite crests of the distant Mogollon, the garrison was athrill with suppressed excitement, for half a dozen things had happened since the flag went up at reveille. In the first place Captain Wren's arrest had been confirmed and Plume had wired department headquarters, in reply to somewhat urgent query, that there were several counts in his indictment of the captain, any one of which was sufficient to demand a trial by court-martial, but he wished, did Plume, for personal and official reasons that the general commanding should send his own inspector down to judge for himself.