These gentlemen were conversing as freely as if all were subalterns of equal rank—the subject of the discourse being the incidents of the day.
“Now tell us, major!” said Hancock: “you must know. Where did the girl gallop to?”
“How should I know?” answered the officer appealed to. “Ask her cousin, Mr Cassius Calhoun.”
“We have asked him, but without getting any satisfaction. It’s clear he knows no more than we. He only met them on the return—and not very far from the place where we had our bivouac. They were gone a precious long time; and judging by the sweat of their horses they must have had a hard ride of it. They might have been to the Rio Grande, for that matter, and beyond it.”
“Did you notice Calhoun as he came back?” inquired the captain of infantry. “There was a scowl upon his face that betokened some very unpleasant emotion within his mind, I should say.”
“He did look rather unhappy,” replied the major; “but surely, Captain Sloman, you don’t attribute it to—?”
“Jealousy. I do, and nothing else.”
“What! of Maurice the mustanger? Poh—poh! impossible—at least, very improbable.”
“And why, major?”
“My dear Sloman, Louise Poindexter is a lady, and Maurice Gerald—”