"Over sixty dollars, sir; every cent I had."
"What answer did you give Captain Charlton at Red Cloud when he asked you if you had seen anything of it since that night?"
"With whose money were you playing cards then, below Red Cloud, on the Sunday the troop marched away, leaving you behind?"
Dawson's face was ghastly. He choked for a moment, then seemed to make a desperate effort to pull himself together. "It wasn't so, sir," he muttered; then more loudly, "It was just a few dollars I borrowed," he began, but looking furtively around he caught one glimpse of his captain's stern face, and just beyond him, through the open window, the sight of a tall, straight form in the uniform of the infantry. It was the provost sergeant from Fort Robinson.
"It wasn't mine," he weakly murmured.
Another slip, and in the same cool, relentless tone the judge advocate read:
"What reason had you for taking your horse to the post blacksmith, instead of the cavalry farrier, to be shod the evening you reached Fort Robinson?"
Again the pallor of his face was almost ghastly, a hunted and desperate look came into his flitting eyes. One could have heard a pin drop anywhere in the court room, so intense was the silence. For the first time Dawson began to realize that his every movement had been watched, traced, and reported—and still he strove to rally.