Fitzroy colored to the brows, but the answer was prompt:
"I understood the colonel to say 'find him,' referring to Trooper Rawdon, Friday night, and I went in Saturday morning thinking to help. Then we couldn't get back, sir."
"My order was to the sergeant-of-the-guard, not to you," interposed Button curtly. "Sergeant Stowell was sent and that was enough."
"Sergeant Stowell was looking for a man in uniform, sir, and had never seen Rawdon except in trooper dress, and would never perhaps have known him."
"Then how should you?" was the sharp query.
Fitzroy started. "I—had known him longer, sir, and much better. I—had occasion to reprimand him once or twice, and knew him and his—pals, if the colonel will pardon me—as none of the others knew him. There was that young civilian, Lowndes, that went along with us and got into trouble, and—there were others. In fact, if the colonel will pardon me again, sir, I do not hold a high opinion of Trooper Rawdon, and if the colonel were to investigate, it's my belief he could trace many a disloyal trick—and tale—to that man. What's more," and now the speaker's tone betrayed undue and most unprofessional excitement, and it seemed as though he had quite forgotten himself and his official surroundings, for he finished with voice querulous and upraised, "if Paymaster Scott came to grief he has nobody to blame but his pet and himself——"
"No more of that, sir," broke in the colonel angrily, "unless you are ready to prove your words."
"Give me two days and half a chance, Colonel Button," was the confident answer, "and I'll do it."