“He will have not one near to cheer his last moments, to breathe one kind word, to utter one word of forgiveness, and he will be thrown into a nameless grave. With all his sins weighing him down, he is yet my brother, and I will not be a coward and desert him in his last moments. No, I sent him word that I would come to him, and I will.” The earnest argument of the girl touched the miner deeply. He realized just how she felt and suffered, and said: “I appreciate fully, Ruth, your position and your sorrow, and your kind heart does you credit; but in going to see your brother, to be with him in his last hours, to place him in the grave of a dishonored man, will not your sufferings be increased?” “They may be, and yet what will be my sufferings to his despair? No, no, I shall go.” “I will not say a word against it. Shall we catch the next coach back?” “No, for you are not to go.” “Do you expect me to leave you?” “Yes, you must go to your family, and I will go back alone. I will go to Chicago, and then turn back from there and return to the fort. When I have done all in my power, Mr. Dean, for that stricken man, I will go to your home in the East. Need I say more?” “No, I will trust you; but I would gladly return with you and wait until all is over.” “That I cannot, will not allow. I must go alone,” was the determined reply of Bonnie Belle, and the miner urged no more. Several days later a carriage drove up to the army headquarters in Chicago, and a lady wearing a heavy veil got out. As she reached the reception-room she suddenly came face to face with the general’s orderly, and, throwing back her veil, she extended her hand, and said pleasantly and in a tone of surprise: “Why, Bainbridge, you here?” “As I live and move, it’s Bonnie Belle!” cried the orderly, grasping the extended hand in both his own. “Yes, Bainbridge, and I am glad to see you once more, though I did not know that you were a soldier.” “Yes; I came home, as you know, with a snug little fortune in gold, but I speculated and lost it, and some months ago, when in hard luck here in Chicago, I stopped the horses of the general’s carriage when they were running away, the driver having been thrown from the box, and the general and his wife were inside. “He asked me what he could do for me, and I said that, as I had a record as an old soldier, I would enter the army again, and he made me his orderly, and here I am, Bonnie Belle, and as glad a man as ever was to see your beautiful face again, for it takes me back to the mines, and the time you saved my life that night in Devil’s Den. I’ll never forget you for it, Bonnie Belle, for if you had not vouched for me, the boys would have hanged me sure.” “They certainly would have done so, Bainbridge, and have been sorry for it the next day, when they found out who the real criminal was. But is the general in?”