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Updated: May 8, 2025
"I shall never run away, surely, and I hope for the best " "Miss McDonald," broke in Gaskins impatiently, "the men are already moving." "Yes," her eyes still upon the Sergeant's uncovered face, "I am coming. Don't imagine I shall ever forget," she murmured hastily, "or that I will not be glad to meet you anywhere." "Some time I may put you to the test," he answered soberly.
"What puzzles me most is why you were present." "Present? Where?" "At this quarrel with Gaskins last evening. As I ran by toward the scene of the shooting I passed you hiding at the angle or the barrack wall. Of course, I have mentioned the fact to no one. That was why I made no attempt to defend myself when arrested." She gasped for breath, scarcely able to articulate. "You believe that?
There has been no trouble between Lieutenant Gaskins and myself, and I can conceive of no reason why he should desire to involve me in this affair unless," he paused doubtfully; "unless, sir, he really knows who shot him, and is anxious to shift the blame elsewhere to divert suspicion." "You mean he may be seeking to shield the real culprit?" "That is the only explanation that occurs to me, sir."
I am satisfied of your innocence; that you were not directly concerned in the shooting of Lieutenant Gaskins. Men of your troop state that you were in barracks when the shots were fired, and the wound was not made by a service revolver, but by a much smaller weapon. Yet there are circumstances which puzzle us, but which, no doubt, you can explain.
But, after he had mistaken you for Rene, the only possible way in which he could hope to gain you was by force. Jack Rale suggested that to him and how it could be done. The other man was a friend of Rale's, a renegade preacher named Gaskins; he is dead." "Dead! Killed?" "Yes; we brought you away after a fight with those fellows. We left Rale bound and Kirby unconscious."
"No, yer not; could n't no man be sorry to have a girl like that take an interest in him. 'T ain't in human nature. What did yer tell her about me?" "Tell her!" surprised. "Why, I only advised her to hang close to you if anything happened. I didn't exactly like the style of the Lieutenant." "Thet's wat I thought. Well, she's done it, though thet has n't pried her loose from Gaskins.
Well, let me tell you something she is engaged to Lieutenant Gaskins." His hand-grip tightened on the rail, but there was no change in the expression of his face. "So I had heard. I presume that hardly would have been permitted to happen but for the existence of a Mr. Dupont. By the way, which one of you ladies shot the Lieutenant?"
"And sticks to it like a mule. Must have it in for that fellow. Well, it helped our get-a-way." "Yes, we 're safe enough, unless Gaskins talks, and he 's so in love with the McDonald girl he 'll spiel out big rather than have any scandal now. Wish I could get a word with Vera to-night; she ought to see him to-morrow compassion, womanly sympathy, and all that rot, you know, helps the game.
I hope I am doing you a favor in saying this. Your rather open flirtation with Lieutenant Gaskins is common talk, even among enlisted men, and I have heard that your relations with Major McDonald are peculiar." "Indeed!" with a rising inflection of the voice. "How kind of you, and so delicately expressed." She laughed. "And poor Major McDonald! Really, that is ridiculous.
"Yer must'r give her one hell o' a dose," he growled, angrily. "Half o' thet wud a bin 'nough. Why, damn it, she kin hardly walk." "Well, what's the odds?" it was Kirby who replied sarcastically. "She got more because she wouldn't drink. We had to make her take it, and it wasn't no easy job. Gaskins will tell you that. Have you got your man here?" "O' course; he's waitin' thar with the hosses.
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