"I start at dawn to arrest Cut Finger."
"Alone?"
"No. The captain of the police goes with me."
Her face paled a little. "Oh! I wish you wouldn't! Why don't you take the soldiers?"
"They are not necessary. I shall leave here about four o'clock and surprise the guilty man in his bed. He will not fight me." He rose. "Are you ready to go now?"
"In a moment," she said, and softly crossed the floor to peep into the bedroom. "Poor papa, he looks almost bloodless as he sleeps."
As they stepped out into the darkness Curtis realized that this was their last walk together, and the thought was both sweet and sad.
"Will you take my arm?" he asked. "It is very dark, though there should be a new moon."
"It has gone down; I saw it," she replied, as she slipped her hand through his elbow. "How peaceful it all is! It doesn't seem possible that to-morrow you will risk your life in the performance of duty, and that I will leave here, never to return. I have a curious feeling about this place now. It seems as though I were settled here, and that I am to go on living here forever."
"I wish it were true. Women like you—you know what I mean; there are no women like you, of course—come into my life too seldom. I dread the empty futility of to-morrow. As an Indian agent, I must expect to live without companionship with such as you. I have a premonition that Jennie is going to leave me—as she ought."