That evening while Mat and Beverly went to look after some fishing-lines they had set—­Mat and Bev were always going fishing—­and Jondo was down at the store, the officer in command of the fort came in.  He paid no attention to me lying there, all eyes and ears whenever shoulder-straps were present.

“What did you decide to do about the trip to Santa Fe?” he asked, as he tipped back in his chair and settled down to cigars and an evening chat.

“We shall be leaving on the boat in the morning,” my uncle replied.

The colonel’s chair came down with a crack.  “You don’t mean it!” he exclaimed.

“I told you a week ago that I would be starting as soon as possible,” Esmond Clarenden said, quietly.

“But, man, the war is raging, simply raging, down in Mexico right now.  Our division will be here to commence drill in a few weeks, and we start for the border in a few months.  You are mad to take such a risk.”  The commander’s voice rose.

“We must go, that’s all!” my uncle insisted.

“We?  We?  Who the devil are ‘we’?  None of my companies mutinied, I hope.”

The words did not sound like a joke, and there was little humor in the grim face.

“‘We’ means Jondo, Banney, a young fellow from Kentucky—­” Uncle Esmond began.

“Humph!  Banney’s father carried a gun at Fort Dearborn in 1812.  I thought that young fellow came here for military service,” the colonel commented, testily.

“Rather say he came for adventure,” Esmond Clarenden suggested.

“He’ll get a deuced lot of it in a hurry, if you persuade him off with you.”

A flush swept over Esmond Clarenden’s face, but his good-natured smile did not fail as he replied: 

“I don’t persuade anybody.  The rest of the company are my two nephews and the little girl, my ward, with our cook, Daniel Boone, as commander-in-chief of the pots and pans and any Indian meat foolish enough to fall in her way.”

Then came the explosion.  Powder would have cost less than the energy blown off there.  The colonel stamped and swore, and sprang to his feet in opposition, and flung himself down in disgust.

“Women and children!” he gasped.  “Why do you sacrifice helpless innocent ones?”

Just then Aunty Boone strode in carrying a log of wood as big as a man’s body, which she deftly threw on the fire.  As the flame blazed high she gave one look at the young officer sitting before it, and then walked out as silently and sturdily as she had entered.  It was such a look as a Great Dane dog full of superiority and indifference might have given to a terrier puppy, and from where I lay I thought the military man’s face took on a very strange expression.

“I ‘sacrifice my innocent ones,’” my uncle answered the query, “because they will be safer with me than anywhere else.  Young as they are, there are some forces against them already.”