"Then--you had it with you in the Indian fight?" cried Jess, in thrilling excitement. "Really? Oh, Nell! How I wish it were mine. But how'd it get so blackened there--and crushed? You haven't told us." "Tell you some other time, Jess. Don't crowd a fellow," he laughed. But when his eyes stole their one quick glance at Elinor, standing there in silence, he saw the color creeping up like sunset glow all over her beautiful face as she turned quickly away. Lannion had told them of the close shave the lieutenant had had and the havoc played by that bullet in the breast pocket of his hunting shirt. CHAPTER XII. Meantime "Old Peeksniff," as commentators of the day among the graceless subs were won't to call Colonel Stevens, was having his bad quarter of an hour. Leaving his team with the orderly, John Folsom had stamped into his presence unannounced, and after his own vigorous fashion opened the ball as follows: "Stevens, what in the devil has that young fellow done to deserve arrest?" "Oh, ah, shut the door, Mr. Adjutant," said the commanding officer, apprehensively, to his staff officer, "and--d I desire to confer with Mr. Folsom a moment," whereat the adjutant took the hint and then hied himself out of the room. "Now, ah, in the first place, Mr. Folsom this is rather a long and--d painful story. I'm--m--ah, ah--in a peculiar position." "For God's sake talk like a man and not like Burleigh," broke in the old trader impulsively. "I've known you off and on over twenty years, and you never used to talk in this asinine way until you got to running with him. Come right to the point--What crime is young Dean charged with? Those girls of mine will have to know it. They will know he's in arrest. What can I tell them?" "Crime--ah--is hardly the word, Folsom. There has been a misunderstanding of orders, in short, and he was placed under arrest before--ah--before I had been furnished with a mass of information that should have been sent to me before." "Well, what fault is that of his? See here, man, you don't mean to say it is because he didn't get here three days ago? That's no crime, and I haven't knocked around with the army the last forty years not to know the regulations in such matters. Do you mean without ever hearing what kept him and what splendid, spirited service he rendered there along the Laramie, that you've humiliated that fine young fellow and put him in arrest?"