That evening, for the first time since his injury, Mr. Blakely took his horse and rode away southward in the soft moonlight, and had not returned when tattoo sounded. The post trader, coming up with the latest San Francisco papers, said he had stopped a moment to ask at the store whether Schandein, the ranchman justice of the peace before referred to, had recently visited the post. That evening, too, for the first time since his dangerous wound, Trooper Mullins awoke from his long delirium, weak as a little child; asked for Norah, and what in the world was the matter with him--in bed and bandages, and Dr. Graham, looking into the poor lad's dim, half-opening eyes, sent a messenger to Captain Cutler's quarters to ask would the captain come at once to hospital. This was at nine o'clock. Less than two hours later a mounted orderly set forth with dispatches from the temporary post commander to Colonel Byrne at Prescott. A wire from that point about sundown had announced the safe arrival of the party from Camp Sandy. The answer, sent at ten o'clock, broke up the game of whist at the quarters of the inspector general. Byrne, the recipient, gravely read it, backed from the table, and vainly strove not to see the anxious inquiry in the eyes of Major Plume, his guest. But Plume cornered him. "From Sandy?" he asked. "May I read it?" Byrne hesitated just one moment, then placed the paper in his junior's hand. Plume read, turned very white, and the paper fell from his trembling fingers. The message merely said: Mullins recovering and quite rational, though very weak. He says two women were his assailants. Courier with dispatches at once. (Signed) CUTLER, Commanding. CHAPTER XII FIRE! "It was not so much his wounds as his weakness," Dr. Graham was saying, later still that autumn night, "that led to my declaring Blakely unfit to take the field. He would have gone in spite of me, but for the general's order. He has gone now in spite of me, and no one knows where." It was then nearly twelve o'clock, and "the Bugologist" was still abroad. Dinner, as usual since his mishap, had been sent over to him from the officers' mess soon after sunset. His horse, or rather the troop horse designated for his use, had been fed and groomed in the late afternoon, and then saddled at seven o'clock and brought over to the rear of the quarters by a stable orderly.