“I do.  Yessir.”

“Go and get ready, and be here in ten minutes.”

Meantime, Captain Chester had followed Sloat to the adjutant’s office.  He was boiling over with indignation which he hardly knew how to control.  He found the gray-moustached subaltern tramping in great perplexity up and down the room, and the instant he entered was greeted with the inquiry,—­

“What’s gone wrong?  What’s Jerrold been doing?”

“Don’t ask me any questions, Sloat, but answer.  It is a matter of honor. What was your bet with Jerrold?”

“I oughtn’t to tell that, Chester.  Surely it cannot be a matter mixed up with this.”

“I can’t explain, Sloat.  What I ask is unavoidable.  Tell me about that bet.”

“Why, he was so superior and airy, you know, and was trying to make me feel that he was so much more intimate with them all at the colonel’s, and that he could have that picture for the mere asking; and I got mad, and bet him he never could.”

“Was that the day you shook hands on it?”

“Yes.”

“And that was her picture—­the picture, then—­he showed you this morning.”

“Chester, you heard the conversation:  you were there:  you know that I’m on honor not to tell.”

“Yes, I know.  That’s quite enough.”

V.

Before seven o’clock that same morning Captain Chester had come to the conclusion that only one course was left open for him.  After the brief talk with Sloat at the office he had increased the perplexity and distress of that easily-muddled soldier by requesting his company in a brief visit to the stables and corrals.  A “square” and reliable old veteran was the quartermaster sergeant who had charge of those establishments; Chester had known him for years, and his fidelity and honesty were matters the officers of his former regiment could not too highly commend.  When Sergeant Parks made an official statement there was no shaking its solidity.  He slept in a little box of a house close by the entrance to the main stable, in which were kept the private horses of several of the officers, and among them Mr. Jerrold’s; and it was his boast that, day or night, no horse left that stable without his knowledge.  The old man was superintending the morning labors of the stable-hands, and looked up in surprise at so early a visit from the officer of the day.

“Were you here all last night, sergeant?” was Chester’s abrupt question.

“Certainly, sir, and up until one o’clock or more.”

“Were any horses out during the night,—­any officers’ horses, I mean?”

“No, sir, not one.”

“I thought possibly some officers might have driven or ridden to town.”

“No, sir.  The only horses that crossed this threshold going out last night were Mr. Sutton’s team from town.  They were put up here until near one o’clock, and then the doctor sent over for them.  I locked up right after that, and can swear nothing else went out.”