People of every walk in life were passing and repassing where our regimental wagons were being loaded, and I threaded my way with same difficulty amid a busy throng, noticing nobody, unless it were one of my own corps who saluted my cockade.

Halfway across, a young woman bearing a gunny-sack full of linen garments and blankets to be washed blocked my passage, and being a woman I naturally gave her right of way.  And the next instant saw it was Lois.

She had averted her head, and was now hurriedly passing on, and I turned sharply on my heel and came up beside her.

“Lois,” I managed to say with a voice that was fairly steady, “have you forgotten me?”

Her head remained resolutely averted; and as I continued beside her, she said, without looking at me: 

“Do you not understand that you are disgracing yourself by speaking to me on the parade?  Pass on, sir, for your own sake,”

“I desire to speak to you,” I said obstinately.

“No.  Pass on before any officers see you!”

My face, I know, was fiery red, and for an instant all the ridicule, the taunts, the shame which I might well be storing up for myself, burned there for anyone to see.  But stronger than fear of ridicule rose a desperate determination not to lose this maid again, and whether what I was doing was worthy, and for her sake, or unworthy, and for my own, I did not understand or even question.

“I wish to talk with you,” I said doggedly.  “I shall not let you go this time.”

“Are you mad to so conduct under the eyes of the whole fort?” she whispered.  “Go your way!”

“I’d be madder yet to let you get away again.  My way is yours.”

She halted, cheeks blazing, and looked at me for the first time.

“I ask you not to persist,” she said, “——­ for my sake if not for yours.  What an officer or a soldier says to a girl in this fort makes her a trull in the eyes of any man who sees.  Do you so desire to brand me, Mr. Loskiel?”

“No,” I said between my teeth, and turned to leave her.  And, I think, it was something in my face that made her whisper low and hurriedly: 

“Waiontha Spring!  If you needs must see me for a moment more, come there!”

I scarcely heard, so tight emotion had me by the throat, and walked on blindly, all a-quiver.  Yet, in my ears the strange wards sounded:  “Waiontha—­ Waiontha—­ come to the Spring Waiontha—­ if you needs must see me.”

On a settle before the green-log barrack, some of Schott’s riflemen were idling, and now stood, seeing an officer.

“Boys,” I said, “where is this latest foolery of Tim Murphy hung to dry?”

They seemed ashamed, but told me, As I moved on, I said carelessly, partly turning: 

“Where is the Spring Waiontha?”

“On the Lake Trail, sir—­ first branch of the Stoney-Kill.”

“Is there a house there?”