Again she was lost in silent reverie for a long while, to at last have her face light up as she sprung to her feet with the words:
“Yes, I can do it, and I will.”
She paced up and down the room now in an excited manner, and then said:
“Yes, at the masquerade, when I put on top-boots, a military cloak and hat, and the false mustache and imperial every one took me for Lieutenant Dade, who is just my size, and my chance to aid his escape is to wait until the time when the lieutenant is to be officer of the day.
“He can prove an alibi, and I will see to it that I do also, for it can be done. I shall pray for rain on that night, and I can slip out and search the cabin, pass the sentinel, call him into the cabin, and cover him while the prisoner binds and gags him. Then, in a cowboy suit I take him, he can leave the fort for the scouts’ quarters and thus secure a horse and make his escape, for he will have a night’s start.
“If he is captured then I cannot help it, and I can do no more. Of course it will be thought that some one of the cowboys was the ally of the outlaw, for he is said to have had spies at the post, and no one will ever suspect me, for I shall so plan it that no suspicion shall fall upon me.
“I can have the prisoner speak of me before the soldier as an ally and one who has played the part of Lieutenant Dade to aid his escape, and this will free the officer from all trouble. Yes, this must be my plan, unless some better plot should come to me between now and that awful day of execution.
“I will ask the general, when the courier comes back, to allow me to see the prisoner and report that his letter was delivered, and then I can tell him of my plot, and may the saints aid me in carrying it out.”
The courier sent to Pocket City, with the letter from the condemned prisoner to Bonnie Belle, returned in good time to the fort and reported to the officer who had sent him there.
“I went to Pocket City, sir, and found that the lady had just started East that morning on the coach.”