That struck me as being a long speech for Vinton, a man of few words ordinarily. It occurred to me, too, that he was suspicious of his _own_ affair's being the one to which I referred, and wanted to head me off. Oh, the perversity of human nature! _That_ made me press the point and return to the subject. (Pauline afterwards said it was the meanest thing I ever did in my life. How little she knew me!) "Don't dash my expectations in that way, Vinton. If Amory and Miss Kit don't carry out my plan and fall in love, I'll have to fall back upon you and Miss Pauline, you know; and just imagine how the judge and Harrod would feel at having to give her up. Besides, old fellow, you and I are cut out for confirmed old bachelors. Can't expect a young and attractive girl like her, who could marry anybody, to settle down to an _un_settled and nomadic existence in the army; that's altogether too much for so little, don't you see?" "Job's comforters" would have proven a dead failure in comparison with that effort. It _was_ mean, but there was something exhilarating about it for all that. What man, raised in a large family of sisters, doesn't grow up as I was raised,--a tease? Vinton is too old a campaigner, however, and sees my game; grins expressively, and behaves with commendable nonchalance. "I'll put the matter in train when I get back, Brandon, and try and arrange it between the young people to your satisfaction, so that you won't have to fall back on anything so utterly problematical as the other suggestion." That was all he had to say on the subject. We reached Sandbrook; the train came; and in a moment more I was standing on the rear platform watching the tall, stalwart, soldierly form that waved me good-by, growing dim and dimmer in the distance. That night found me at Holly Springs and in consultation with the United States marshal and the commanding officer of the little garrison of infantrymen. To the care of the last named, our captured Ku-Klux had been turned over, together with a few more of their fraternity, recent acquisitions, one of whom, the marshal informed me, was badly wounded and in hospital. He had been arrested the day after the ambuscade at a farm-house within five miles of the spot, and duly forwarded to join his Klan at their new and much anathematized rendezvous. On my expressing a desire to see him, the captain obligingly conducted me into the neat little hospital-tent, only a few steps from his own; and there, stretched out at full length, with a bandaged shoulder and a woe-begone countenance, was my missionary friend--Stiggins.