“I had lost much of my money then, and Mrs. Clancy got the rest, and it made me crazy to think of that poor young gentleman accused of it all; but I was in for it, and knew it meant prison for years for me, and perhaps they couldn’t prove it on him.  I got to drinking then, and told Captain Rayner that the ——­th was down on me for swearing away the young officer’s character; and then he took me to Company B when the colonel wouldn’t have me any more in the ——­th; and one night when Mrs. Clancy had been raising my hair and I wanted money to drink and she’d give me none, little Kate told me her mother had lots of money in a box, and that Sergeant Gower had come and given it to her while they were getting settled in the new post after the Battle Butte campaign, and he had made her promise to give it to me the moment I got back,—­that somebody was in trouble, and that I must save him; and I believed Kate, and charged Mrs. Clancy with it, and she beat me and Kate, and swore it was all a lie; and I never could get the money.  And at last came the fire; and it was the lieutenant that saved my life and Kate’s, and brought back to her all that pile of money through the flames.  It broke my heart then, and I vowed I’d go and tell him the truth; but they wouldn’t let me.  She told me the captain said he would kill me if I blabbed, and she would kill Kate.  I didn’t dare, until they told me my discharge had come; and then I was glad when the lieutenant and the major caught me in town.  When they promised to take care of little Kate I didn’t care what happened to me.  The money Mrs. Clancy has—­except perhaps two hundred dollars—­all belongs to Lieutenant Hayne, since he paid off every cent that was stolen from Captain Hull.”

Supplemented by Mrs. Clancy’s rueful and incoherent admissions, Clancy’s story did its work.  Mrs. Clancy could not long persist in her various denials after her husband’s confession was brought to her ears, and she was totally unable to account satisfactorily for the possession of so much money.  Little Kate had been too young to grasp the full meaning of what Gower said to her mother in that hurried interview; but her reiterated statements that he came late at night, before the regiment got home, and knocked at the door until he waked them up, and her mother cried when he came in, he looked so different, and had spectacles, and a patch on his cheek, and ranch clothes, and he only stayed a little while, and told her mother he must go back to the mountains, the police were on his track,—­she knew now he spoke of having deserted,—­and he gave her mother lots of money, for she opened and counted it afterwards and told her it must all go to papa to get some one out of trouble,—­all were so clear and circumstantial that at last the hardened woman began to break down and make reluctant admissions.  When an astute sheriff’s officer finally told her that he knew where he could lay hands on Sergeant Gower, she surrendered utterly.  So long as he was out of the way,—­could