The deeply interested lieutenant removed his watchful eyes from off his charge just long enough to glance inquiringly across his shoulder.  “Has the man any signs of a wound, sergeant?” he asked, loudly.

“A mighty ugly slug in the shoulder, sir; has bled scandalous, but I guess it ‘s the very luck that’s goin’ to save him; seems now to be comin’ out all right.”

The officer’s brows knitted savagely.  “It begins to look as if this might be some of our business.  What happened?  Indians?”

“Yes.”

“How far away?”

“I don’t know.  They caught us in a canyon somewhere out yonder, maybe three or four days ago; there was a lot killed, some of them soldiers.  My dad was shot, and then that night he—­he got me out up the rocks, and he—­he was carrying me in his arms when I—­I fainted, I saw there was blood on his shirt, and it was dripping down on the grass as he walked.  That’s about all I know.”

“Who is the man?  What’s his name?”

The girl looked squarely into the lieutenant’s eyes, and, for some reason which she could never clearly explain even to herself, lied calmly.  “I don’t know; I never asked.”

Sergeant Carson rose stiffly from his knees beside the extended figure and strode heavily across toward where they were sitting, lifting his hand in soldierly salute, his heels clicking as he brought them sharply together in military precision.

“The fellow is getting his eyes open, sir,” he reported, “and is breathing more regular.  Purty weak yit, but he’ll come round in time.”  He stared curiously down at the girl now sitting up unsupported, while a sudden look of surprised recognition swept across his face.

“Great guns!” he exclaimed, eagerly, “but I know you.  You’re old man Gillis’s gal from Bethune, ain’t ye?”

The quickly uplifted dark eyes seemed to lighten the ghastly pallor of her face, and her lips trembled.  “Yes,” she acknowledged simply, “but he’s dead.”

The lieutenant laid his ungloved hand softly on her shoulder, his blue eyes moist with aroused feeling.

“Never mind, little girl,” he said, with boyish sympathy.  “I knew Gillis, and, now the sergeant has spoken, I remember you quite well.  Thought all the time your face was familiar, but could n’t quite decide where I had seen you before.  So poor old Gillis has gone, and you are left all alone in the world!  Well, he was an old soldier, could not have hoped to live much longer anyway, and would rather go fighting at the end.  We ’ll take you back with us to Bethune, and the ladies of the garrison will look after you.”

The recumbent figure lying a few yards away half lifted itself upon one elbow, and Hampton’s face, white and haggard, stared uncertainly across the open space.  For an instant his gaze dwelt upon the crossed sabres shielding the gilded “7” on the front of the lieutenant’s scouting hat, then settled upon the face of the girl.  With one hand pressed against the grass he pushed himself slowly up until he sat fronting them, his teeth clinched tight, his gray eyes gleaming feverishly in their sunken sockets.