“By Jove!” he said, “here you are again!  Am I your shadow, Mr. Cowles, or are you mine?  It is really singular how we meet.  I’m awfully glad to meet you, although I don’t in the least see how you’ve managed to get here ahead of us.”

Belknap by this time had turned away about his duties, and Orme and I spoke for a few minutes.  I explained to him the changes of my plans which had been brought about by the accident to the River Belle.  “Lieutenant Belknap tells me that you are going through to Laramie with him,” I added.  “As it chances, we have the same errand—­it is my purpose also to call on Colonel Meriwether there, in case we do not meet him coming down.”

“How extraordinary!  Then we’ll be fellow travelers for a time, and I hope have a little sport together.  Fine young fellow, Belknap.  And I must say that his men, although an uncommonly ragged looking lot and very far from smart as soldiers, have rather a workmanlike way about them, after all.”

“Yes, I think they would fight,” I remarked, coolly.  “And from the look of things, they may have need to.”  I told him then of what he had discovered at the station house near by, and added the caution not to mention it about the camp.  Orme’s eyes merely brightened with interest.  Anything like danger or adventure had appeal to him.  I said to him that he seemed to me more soldier than preacher, but he only laughed and evaded.

“You’ll eat at our mess to-night, of course” said he.  “That’s our fire just over there, and I’m thinking the cook is nearly ready.  There comes Belknap now.”

Thus, it may be seen, the confusion of these varied meetings had kept me from learning the name or identity of the late passenger of the ambulance.  I presume both Orme and Belknap supposed that the young lady and I had met before we took our places on the ground at the edge of the blanket which served as a table.  She was seated as I finally approached, and her face was turned aside as she spoke to the camp cook, with whom she seemed on the best of terms.  “Hurry, Daniels,” she called out.  “I’m absolutely starved to death!”

There was something in her voice which sounded familiar to me, and I sought a glance at her face, which the next instant was hid by the rim of her hat as she looked down, removing her long gloves.  At least I saw her hands—­small hands, sun-browned now.  On one finger was a plain gold ring, with a peculiar setting—­the figure of a rose, carved deep into the gold!

“After all,” thought I to myself, “there are some things which can not be duplicated.  Among these, hair like this, a profile like this, a figure like this.”  I gazed in wonder, then in certainty.

No there was no escaping the conclusion.  This was not another girl, but the same girl seen again.  A moment’s reflection showed how possible and indeed natural this might be.  My chance companion in the river accident had simply gone on up the river a little farther and then started west precisely as Mandy McGovern had explained.