Poor Rollins!  He was in sore perplexity.  He wanted nothing better than to dance with Nina Beaubien.  He wondered if she would lead with him, or would even come at all when she learned that Jerrold would be unable to attend.  “Sickness” was to be the ostensible cause, and in the youth and innocence of his heart Rollins never supposed that Nina would hear of all the other assignable reasons.  He meant to ride in and call upon her Monday evening; but, as ill luck would have it, old Sloat, who was officer of the day, stepped on a round pebble as he was going down the long flight to the railway-station, and sprained his ankle.  Just at five o’clock Rollins got orders to relieve him, and was returning from the guard-house, when who should come driving in but Cub Sutton, and Cub reined up and asked where he would be apt to find Mr. Jerrold.

“He isn’t well, and has been denying himself to all callers to-day,” said Rollins, shortly.

“Well, I’ve got to see him, or at least get a note to him,” said Cub.  “It’s from Miss Beaubien, and requires an answer.”

“You know the way to his quarters, I presume,” said Rollins, coldly:  “you have been there frequently.  I will have a man hold your horse, or you can tie him there at the rail, just as you please.”

“Thanks.  I’ll go over, I believe.”  And go he did, and poor Rollins was unable to resist the temptation of watching whether the magic name of Nina would open the door.  It did not; but he saw Cub hand in the little note through the shutters, and ere long there came another from within.  This Cub stowed in his waistcoat-pocket and drove off with, and Rollins walked jealously homeward.  But that evening he went through a worse experience, and it was the last blow to his budding passion for sparkling-eyed Nina.

It was nearly tattoo, and a dark night, when Chester suddenly came in: 

“Rollins, you remember my telling you I was sure some of the men had been getting liquor in from the shore down below the station and ‘running it’ that way?  I believe we can nab the smuggler this evening.  There’s a boat down there now.  The corporal has just told me.”

Smuggling liquor was one of Chester’s horrors.  He surrounded the post with a cordon of sentries who had no higher duty, apparently, than that of preventing the entrance of alcohol in any form.  He had run a “red-cross” crusade against the post-trader’s store in the matter of light wines and small beer, claiming that only adulterated stuff was sold to the men, and forbidding the sale of anything stronger than “pop” over the trader’s counter.  Then, when it became apparent that liquor was being brought on the reservation, he made vigorous efforts to break up the practice.  Colonel Maynard rather poohpoohed the whole business.  It was his theory that a man who was determined to have a drink might better be allowed to take an honest one, coram publico, than a smuggled and deleterious article; but he succumbed