Meantime, the colonel had patiently unravelled the threads and had brought to light the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  It made a singularly simple story, after all but that was so much the worse for Buxton.  The only near relation Mr. Hayne had in the world was this one younger sister, who six years before had married a manly, energetic fellow, a civil engineer in the employ of an Eastern railway.  During Hayne’s “mountain-station” exile Hurley had brought his wife to Denver, where far better prospects awaited him.  He won promotion in his profession, and was now one of the principal engineers employed by a road running new lines through the Colorado Rockies.  Journeying to Salt Lake, he came around by way of Warrener, so that his wife and he might have a look at the brother she had not seen in years.  Their train was due there early in the afternoon, but was blocked by drifts and did not reach the station until late at night.  There they found a note from him begging them to take a carriage they would find waiting for them and come right out and spend the night at his quarters:  he would send them back in abundant time to catch the westward train in the morning.  He could not come in, because that involved the necessity of asking his captain’s permission, and they knew his relations with that captain.  It was her shadow Buxton had seen on the window-screen; and as none of Buxton’s acquaintances had ever mentioned that Hayne had any relations, and as Hayne, in fact, had had no one for years to talk to about his personal affairs, nobody but himself and the telegraph-operator at the post really knew of their sudden visit.  Buxton, being an unmitigated cad, had put the worst interpretation on his discovery, and, in his eagerness to clinch the evidence of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman upon Mr. Hayne, had taken no wise head into his confidence.  Never dreaming that the shadow could be that of a blood-relation, never doubting that a fair, frail companion from the frontier town was the explanation of Mr. Hayne’s preference for that out-of-the way house and late hours, he stated his discovery to Rayner as a positive fact, going so far as to say that his sentries had recognized her as she drove away in the carriage.  If he had not been an ass as well as a cad, he would have interviewed the driver of the carriage; but he had jumped at his theory, and his sudden elevation to the command of the post gave him opportunity to carry out his virtuous determination that no such goings-on should disgrace his administration.  He gave instructions to certain soldier clerks and “daily-duty” men employed in the quartermaster, commissary, and ordnance offices along Prairie Avenue to keep their eyes open and let him know of any visitors coming out to Hayne’s by night, and if a lady came in a carriage he was to be called at once.  Mr. Hurley promised that on their return from Salt Lake they would come back by way of Warrener and spend two days with Hayne, since