uniform in torture.  Finally, we drove down into a dusty plain, and so presently came to the old frontier fort.  Here, then, was civilization—­the stage coach, the new telegraph wire, men and women, weekly or daily touch with the world, that prying curiosity regarding the affairs of others which we call news.  To me it seemed tawdry, sordid, worthless, after that which I had left.  The noise seemed insupportable, the food distasteful.  I could tolerate no roof, and in my own ragged robes slept on the ground within the old stockade.

I was still guarded as a prisoner; I was approached by none and had conversation with none until evening of the day after my arrival.  When I ate, it was at no gentleman’s table, but in the barracks.  I resented judgment, sentence and punishment, thus executed in one.

Evening gun had sounded, and the flag had been furled on my second day at Laramie, when finally Colonel Meriwether sent for me to come to his office quarters.  He got swiftly enough to the matters on his mind.

“Mr. Cowles,” said he, “it is time now that you and I had a talk.  Presently you will be leaving Laramie.  I can not try you by court martial, for you are a civilian.  In short, all I can say to you is to go, with the hope that you may never again cross our lives.”

I looked at him a time, silently, hating not him personally as much as I hated all the world.  But presently I asked him, “Have you no word for me from her?”

“Miss Meriwether has no word for you,” he answered, sternly, “nor ever will have.  You are no longer necessary in her plans.”

“Ah, then,” said I, “you have changed your own mind mightily.”

He set his lips together in his grim fashion.  “Yes,” said he, “I have changed my mind absolutely.  I have just come from a very trying interview.  It is not necessary for me to explain to you the full nature of it—­”

“Then she has sent for me?”

“She will never send for you, I have said.”

“But listen.  At least, I have brought her back to you safe and sound.  Setting aside all my own acts in other matters, why can you not remember at least so much as that?  Yet you treat me like a dog.  I tell you, I shall not leave without word from her, and when I leave I shall make no promises as to when I shall or shall not come back.  So long as one chance remains—­”

“I tell you that there is no longer any chance, no longer the ghost of a chance.  It is my duty to inform you, sir, that a proper suitor long ago applied for my daughter’s hand, that he has renewed his suit, and that now she has accepted him.”

For a time I sat staring stupidly at him.  “You need speak nothing but the truth with me,” I said at last.  “Colonel Meriwether, I have never given bonds to be gentle when abused.”

“I am telling you the truth,” he said.  “By God, sir!  Miss Meriwether is engaged to Lieutenant Lawrence Belknap of the Ninth Dragoons!  You feel your honor too deeply touched?  Perhaps at a later time Lieutenant Belknap will do himself the disgrace of accommodating you.”