"'Tonio had to tell _some_thing, you know, to cover his mysterious movements. 'Tonio's story may be cock and bull for all we know. It is just such a yarn as I have heard told many a time and oft in the Columbia basin. Most Indians are born liars, and 'Tonio has everything to gain and nothing to lose in telling a believable whopper now. 'Tonio says his people are persecuted saints, and all others perjured sinners." And just then, through the silence of the night, there rose upon the air, distant yet distinct, the prolonged, anguished, heart-broken wail of a woman in dire distress--a Rachel mourning for her children, and refusing to be comforted. There was instant scraping of chairs on the hospital porch, and one or two shadows vanished within the dimly lighted doorway. "Oh, poor Mrs. Bennett!" cried Mrs. Archer. "I'm going over a little while. Come, Lilian." "Let me go with you," said Mrs. Stannard, ever sympathetic with young hearts and hopes. But Lilian had been well trained and--went, the two wives and mothers walking arm in arm in front, the other two, the girl of eighteen, the youth of twenty-five, gradually dropping behind. The elders entered the building, following the wife of the hospital steward; the juniors paced slowly onward to the edge of the low bluff overlooking the moonlit valley, with the shining stream murmuring over its shallows in the middle distance. Lilian's white hand still rested on the strong arm that drew it so closely to the soldier's side, and both were for the moment silent. He seemed strangely quiet and thoughtful, and she stood beside him now with downcast eyes and fluttering heart, for, as she would have followed her mother, he had bent his head and, almost in whisper, said: "Come--one minute. It may be my last chance." And the girl in her had yielded, as what girl would not? Presently he began to speak, and now his head was bowing low; his eyes, though she saw them not, were drinking in the lily-like beauty of the sweet, downcast face. One quick look she flashed at him as he began, then the long lashes swept her cheek. "I could not tell your mother the whole truth, just then," he began. "I've got to tell you something of it now. Until to-night I never knew what it was to--to shrink from news of action. Now--I know." She wanted to hear "why," even when her own heart was telling her. She wanted him to say, yet coquetted with her own desire. "Is--it serious news?" she faltered. "So serious that Stannard, or Turner, or both, may be in grave danger, and there's no one to go and warn them but--me!" "You?" and up came the troubled, beautiful eyes. "Yes. Ask yourself who else there is. The scouts are gone. Sanchez has not returned. There's but a baker's dozen of troopers and troop horses left at the post. The general needs to send a little party to explore the Mazatzal. 'Tonio can't be trusted. Harris has--practically--put himself out of it. Don't you know me well enough to know--I've got to go?"