Karloff, who sat next to her, twisted his mustache and shrugged. He had seen handsome peasants before. They did not interest him. He glanced across the table at the girl, and was much annoyed that she, too, was gazing at the butler, who had successfully completed the distribution of the soup and who now stood with folded arms by the sideboard. (How I should have liked to see him!) When the butler took away the soup-plates, Colonel Raleigh turned to his host. "George, where the deuce did you pick up that butler?" Annesley looked vaguely across the table at his old comrade. He had been far away in thought. He had eaten nothing. "What?" he asked. "I asked you where the deuce you got that butler of yours." "Oh, Betty found him somewhere. Our own butler is away on a vacation. I had not noticed him. Why?" "Well, if he doesn't look like a cub lieutenant of mine, I was born without recollection of faces." "An orderly of yours, a lieutenant, did you say?" asked Betty, with smoldering fires in her eyes. "Yes." "That is strange," she mused. "Yes; very strange. He was a daredevil, if there ever was one." "Ah!" "Yes; best bump of location in the regiment, and the steadiest nerve,"--dropping his voice. The girl leaned on her lovely arms and observed him interestedly. "A whole company got lost in a snowstorm one winter. You know that on the prairie a snowstorm means that only a compass can tell you where you are; and there wasn't one in the troop,--a bad piece of carelessness on the captain's part. Well, this cub said _he'd_ find the way back, and the captain wisely let him take the boys in hand." "Go on," said the girl. "Interested, eh?" "I am a soldier's daughter, and I love the recital of brave deeds." "Well, he did it. Four hours later they were being thawed out in the barracks kitchens. Another hour and not one of them would have lived to tell the tale. The whisky they poured into my cub--" "Did he drink?" she interrupted. "Drink? Why, the next day he was going to lick the men who had poured the stuff down his throat. A toddy once in a while; that was all he ever took. And how he loved a fight! He had the tenacity of a bulldog; once he set his mind on getting something, he never let up till he got it." The girl trifled thoughtfully with a rose. "Was he ever in any Indian fights?" she asked, casually. "Only scraps and the like. He went into the reservation alone one day and arrested a chief who had murdered a sheep-herder. It was a volunteer job, and nine men out of ten would never have left the reservation alive. He was certainly a cool hand." "I dare say,"--smiling. She wanted to ask him if he had ever been hurt, this daredevil of a lieutenant, but she could not bring the question to her lips. "What did you say his name was?"--innocently. "Warburton, Robert Warburton." Here the butler came in with the birds. The girl's eyes followed him, hither and thither, her lips hidden behind the rose. XVIII CAUGHT!