Lounsbury pursued a feverish investigation that day, and found no one who cared to quibble with him. From the captain, never jealous of his dignity, to the roly-poly sutler, there was a very outrush of facts. As they came, he received them with pitchfork sharpness, examined them and tossed them aside, which led a wag to remark that the storekeeper was kin to Simon. Yet, when "retreat" sounded, he admitted himself hedged in by indisputable testimony. Lancaster's death was beyond easy solving. If Matthews were guilty, he was not the principal, only an accessory, to the crime. Nevertheless, could the storekeeper have come face to face with the interpreter that day, scores would have been settled. To Dallas, laying the blue-stem of the swale, the hours of the morning went slowly. Yet how warm and golden they seemed! how tuneful the birds! how cottony-white the clouds that flecked the sky! how pleasant the long, hushing sound of the scythe! And all the while, she thrilled with expectancy, and the minutes hung upon each other, as if loath to pass. The very keenness of her joy brought a swift revulsion. At dinner, with Marylyn sitting across from her, she began to see more clearly. She realised she had been dreaming; that for her there was only self-denial. She ate nothing, but drank her dipper thirstily, as if to wash away a parch in her throat. Back in the swale again, the scythe was swung less steadily, but with more strength, so that its sharp tip often hacked up the ground. She pulled her hat over her eyes, forbore glancing toward the fort--and fought. A thousand times she vowed she would not meet Lounsbury that night. To give herself a better whip-hand, she called up pictures of Marylyn--Marylyn, the baby, all dimples and lisping demands for "Dals!" Marylyn, the child, slender, yellow-haired, pale; Marylyn, entering womanhood, still dependent, and, in her frailty, her pensiveness, more dear than ever before. Then, with the sun beating upon her, with her temples streaming and throbbing under the heat and the strain, Dallas' spirit began to flag. Had she not always borne a hard load? suffered discomforts? There were the women of the post--they knew little toil or privation. The brunt of her mother's loss, her father's taking, had fallen upon her. Was she always to have only sorrow? Now, when happiness came her way--a happiness that another might not have--must she be denied it? Disheartened, dizzy, she left the swale for the shade of the nearest trees.