"Major Dwight, I have the highest respect for you as a soldier and as a man, but I ask you to withdraw that request. Frankly, sir, it is my desire that you do not quit the post—to-night."
A moment later when the door had closed upon the tall, spare, almost angular form, the colonel mopped his brow and said: "If I let that man go he'll follow Foster to the station and throttle him—he so hates a liar and a lie."
"I thought Foster got away in time for the Flyer," said the doctor, after a pause. He had been intently watching Dwight's every move and gesture.
"In plenty of time," answered the colonel, "though he planned it otherwise, and don't know it even now. He was scheming to miss to-day's Overland and so wait until to-morrow, but I sent the adjutant, with a man to help him pack, and the word that the ambulance would call for him at four. He could decline the help, but he couldn't the ambulance. Now, as luck would have it, they wire me that the Flyer's five hours late."
"If that's the case at Valentine," said the adjutant, "she'll be six behind by the time she strikes Minneconjou."
"Then," said Dr. Waring, "we may not have seen the last of Stanley Foster. Is Ray, too, confined to the post?"
"No," said the colonel, "I hadn't thought about that at all."