“Miss Arlington, I want you to know how sorry I am about this whole thing,” he urged. “If I were in absolute command here I should not hold either Stevens or you a minute. But you must see that I am not master here. A soldier must learn to obey, before anything else. The regulations make it impossible for me to do anything differently until the colonel comes.” She turned again toward the window. “Miss Arlington--May,” he said, his voice lowered, “you remember what I said to you not long ago? Well, I want to repeat it. Why can’t you give a fellow a chance, or a bit of hope? I’m not such a bad lot, and I’m certainly as well situated as this fellow Stevens.” She turned upon him again with flashing eyes. “Don’t take advantage of the fact that I must listen,” she said. “You once claimed to be a gentleman!” “And I am one now.” “Then don’t bring up that subject again. I never gave you any encouragement, and----” “May Arlington,” he interrupted, his voice high and sharp now, “you still stick to that, do you? And you scorn me for that fool of a cowboy? Why, I’d have you know that I’m a gentleman, and the son of a gentleman!” She turned once more to the window and looked out, but her cheeks were red, and one foot tapped the carpet impatiently. “And----” he ripped out an oath, “I’ll see that Ben Stevens has a hard row to hoe before he gets in a position to marry you!” “What do you mean?” she demanded. “Just this! He was found with the nugget, stolen from the colonel, and which the colonel valued highly because it was given to him by Buffalo Bill, the famous border scout. Now, you may tell me what is generally done with a thief? You don’t need to answer. He is sent to prison, and often for a term of years. And that is the journey that Ben Stevens will be taking before another month rolls by.” The red went out of her cheeks and they became ghastly white. “You will try to send him to prison?” “No.” He laughed. “It won’t’ be necessary for me to trouble myself about it; the statements of the troopers who found him with that gold will do that. But if you had spoken to me kindly and fair I might have interested myself in his behalf, and I might have even got him off.” He looked at her with a strange smile. “And to tell you the truth, May,” he added, “I might still do that--interest myself and get him off without much punishment--if you’d treat me differently. Hadn’t you better think it over? You don’t want Ben Stevens sent to the penitentiary for ten or a dozen years, I know. And that’s just where he is headed for now.” He turned and stalked from the room, leaving her with cheeks as white as marble. CHAPTER XX. BRUTALITY. A man had passed under the window of the room where Joel Barlow made that brutal and threatening speech to the girl he claimed to love. That man was the young trooper, Wilkins.