gravity to warrant report to higher authority, and full ten minutes before the time for reveille to begin, his voice went echoing over the arid parade in a long-draw, yet imperative "Corporal of the Gua-a-rd, No. 5!" Whereat there were symptoms of panic among the dingy white-shirted, dingy white-turbaned watchers along the edge, and a man in snowy white fatigue coat, pacing restlessly up and down in rear, this time, of the major's quarters, whirled suddenly about and strode out on the _mesa_, gazing northward in the direction of the sound. It was Plume himself, and Plume had had a sleepless night. At tattoo, by his own act and direction, the major had still further strained the situation. The discovery of Blakely's watch, buried loosely in the sands barely ten feet from where the sentry fell, had seemed to him a matter of such significance that, as Graham maintained an expression of professional gravity and hazarded no explanation, the major sent for the three captains still on duty, Cutler, Sanders, and Westervelt, and sought their views. One after another each picked up and closely examined the watch, within and without, as though expectant of finding somewhere concealed about its mechanism full explanation of its mysterious goings and comings. Then in turn, with like gravity, each declared he had no theory to offer, unless, said Sanders, Mr. Blakely was utterly mistaken in supposing he had been robbed at the pool. Mr. Blakely had the watch somewhere about him when he dismounted, and then joggled it into the sands, where it soon was trampled under foot. Sanders admitted that Blakely was a man not often mistaken, and that the loss reported to the post trader of the flat notebook was probably correct. But no one could be got to see, much less to say, that Wren was in the slightest degree connected with the temporary disappearance of the watch. Yet by this time Plume had some such theory of his own.