a centre of intense and romantic interest.  Mrs. Waldron was an object of jealousy because of the priority of her claims to his regard.  Mrs. Hurley—­the sweet sister who so strongly resembled him—­was the recipient of universal attention from both sexes.  Hayne and the Hurleys, indeed, would have been invited to several places an evening could they have accepted.  And yet, with it all, Mr. Hayne seemed at times greatly preoccupied.  He had a great deal to think of.

To begin with, the widow Clancy had been captured in one of the mining towns, where she had sought refuge, and brought back by the civil authorities, nearly three thousand dollars in greenbacks having been found in her possession.  She had fought like a fury and proved too much for the sheriff’s posse when first arrested, and not until three days after her incarceration was the entire amount brought to light.  There was no question what ought to be done with it.  Clancy’s confession established the fact that almost the entire amount was stolen from Captain Hull nearly six years before, the night previous to his tragic death at Battle Butte.  Mrs. Clancy at first had furiously declared it all a lie; but Waldron’s and Billings’s precaution in having Clancy’s entire story taken down by a notary public and sworn to before him eventually broke her down.  She made her miserable, whining admissions to the sheriff’s officers in town,—­the colonel would not have her on the post even as a prisoner,—­and there she was still held, awaiting further disclosures, while little Kate was lovingly cared for at Mrs. Waldron’s.  Poor old Clancy was buried and on the way to be forgotten.

What proved the hardest problem for the garrison to solve was the fact that, while Mr. Hayne kept several of his old associates at a distance, he had openly offered his hand to Rayner.  This was something the Riflers could not account for.  The intensity of his feeling at the time of the court-martial none could forget:  the vehemence of his denunciation of the captain was still fresh in the memory of those who heard it.  Then there were all those years in which Rayner had continued to crowd him to the wall; and finally there was the almost tragic episode of Buxton’s midnight visitation, in which Rayner, willingly or not, had been in attendance.  Was it not odd that in the face of all these considerations the first man to whom Mr. Hayne should have offered his hand was Captain Rayner?  Odd indeed!  But then only one or two were made acquainted with the full particulars of Clancy’s confession, and none had heard Nellie Travers’s request.  Touched as he was by the sight of Rayner’s haggard and trouble-worn face, relieved as he was by Clancy’s revelation of the web that had been woven to cover the tracks of the thieves and ensnare the feet of the pursuers, Hayne could not have found it possible to offer his hand; but when he bent over the tiny glove and looked into her soft and brimming eyes at the moment of their parting he could not say no to the one thing she asked of him:  it was that if Rayner came to say, “Forgive me,” before they left, he would not repel him.