“Do you not believe he will change his evil career, Powell, as he has pledged himself to do?” asked the colonel.
“Pardon me, sir, if I say that I believe he is too steeped in sin ever to be other than a wicked man.”
“All that he is, or yet may be, Powell, does not, however, alter my regard for his sister one jot or tittle.”
“Nor mine, sir, and Buffalo Bill feels the same way, for he has said as much.”
“And where is the fellow?”
“He has gone to Mexico, sir, I take it, from what his sister said, and that is a very bad country for a man of his caliber to go to, to reform.”
“It is indeed, Surgeon Powell,” was the answer of the colonel, who then added:
“But I tell you in confidence that one of these days I shall seek out that young girl and offer her my hand and heart.”
And Colonel Dunwoody was as good as his word, and he did not ask in vain for the hand and heart of the real of his ideal love, though then she was no longer known as Bonnie Belle of Pocket City, but as Miss Ruth Leigh, a belle and beauty in society, and one known to possess a very large fortune, of which she was the sole mistress.
And there was in the fort another happy couple in Clarice Carr and Captain Dick Caruth, whose lives also had a secret romance in them.