at the back door, others at the sides, with orders to arrest any one who attempted to escape; then softly he stepped to the front door, telling Rayner to follow him, and the corporal of the guard to follow both.  To his surprise, the door was unlocked, and a light was burning in the hall.  Never knocking, he stepped in, marched through the hall into the parlor, which was empty, and, signalling “Come on” to his followers, crossed the parlor and seized the knob of the bedroom door.  It was locked.  Rayner, looking white and worried, stood just behind him, and the corporal but a step farther back.  Before Buxton could knock and demand admission, which was his intention, quick footsteps came flying down the stairs from the second story, and the trio wheeled about in surprise, to find Mr. Hayne, dressed in his fatigue uniform, standing at the threshold and staring at them with mingled astonishment, incredulity, and indignation.  A sudden light seemed to dawn upon him as he glanced from one to the other.  With a leap like a cat he threw himself upon Buxton, hurled him back, and stood at the closed door confronting them with blazing eyes and clinching fists.

“Open that door, sir!” cried Buxton.  “You have a woman hidden there.  Open, or stand aside.”

“You hounds!  I’ll kill the first man who dares enter!” was the furious answer; and Hayne had snatched from the wall his long infantry sword and flashed the blade in the lamplight.  Rayner made a step forward, half irresolute.  Hayne leaped at him like a tiger.  “Fire!  Quick!” shouted Buxton, in wild excitement.  Bang! went the carbine, and the bullet crashed through the plaster overhead, and, seeing the gleaming steel at his superior’s throat, the corporal had sent the heavy butt crashing upon the lieutenant’s skull only just in time:  there would have been murder in another second.  The next instant he was standing on his own head in the corner, seeing a multitude of twinkling, whirling stars, from the midst of which Captain Rayner was reeling backward over a chair and a number of soldiers were rushing upon a powerful picture of furious manhood,—­a stranger in shirt-sleeves, who had leaped from the bedroom.

Told as it was—­as it had to be—­all over the department, there seemed but one thing to say, and that referred to Buxton:  “Well! isn’t he a phenomenal ass?”

XVI.

Mr. Hayne was up and around again.  The springtime was coming, and the prairie roads were good and dry, and the doctor had told him he must live in the open air awhile and ride and walk and drive.  He stood in no want of “mounts,” for three or four of his cavalry friends were ready to lend him a saddle-horse any day.  Mr. and Mrs. Hurley, after making many pleasant acquaintances, had gone on to Denver, and Captain Buxton was congratulating himself that he, at least, had not run foul of the engineer’s powerful fists.  Buxton was not in arrest, for