It was just as Tony had said it would be: the newspapers next day repeated his story. Very few clear details were given. The articles with their spread-eagle headlines concerned themselves more--for a wonder--with effect than cause. They told at length and dramatically how El Paso had been aroused in the dead of night by bomblike explosions which, many had taken for granted, came from the guns on the hill, repelling or revenging a raid from the other side. They told how the public had behaved, and described the relief felt when it had been definitely learned on good authority that the alarm was due to an accident with some ammunition. But about the accident itself there was what struck me as a singular reticence, considering the wild conjectures newspapers did not hesitate to print on other subjects. Their _piece de resistance_ was the magnificent courage and presence of mind displayed by Major Sidney Vandyke of the --th Artillery, whose battery had been concerned in the incident. I sent for all the El Paso papers, which were brought to me before I was up, very early in the morning; and I sat in bed studying, in one after the other of them, the version of last night's strange affair. Somehow, the general praise of Sidney Vandyke's exploit annoyed me intensely, as one is annoyed when an undeserving person is ignorantly lauded to the skies. I know that on the face of things I had no right to say that he was "undeserving," in this case; but that instinctive rebellion in me against Tony's story last night cried out against it now. "There's something queer under it all," I kept telling myself. "I must find out what it is, and I _must_ know about Eagle."