“He brought it on himself, miss.”
“Yes, I can believe that; but why is it that you do not believe that he will be hanged?”
“Well, miss, he has been in so many tight places, and always gives his foes the slip in some way, that I has begun to think he hain’t born ter be hanged.”
“One cannot live an evil life and never expect just punishment in the end, sir.”
“Just punishment for him, miss, would be, to my thinking, solitary confinement in a cell where he’d hev ther chance ter be alone with his conscience and feel all ther deeds he has been guilty of, for shootin’ would be too good fer him, and hangin’ would soon be over with. But there’s the fort, miss, and we’ll soon be there. Has you friends there, miss?”
“I have a letter to Colonel Dunwoody,” was the reply, and after a couple of hours’ rest the visitor to Pioneer Post presented herself at headquarters and asked to see Colonel Dunwoody.
The colonel received his fair visitor without any ceremony, wondering what had brought a lady by coach so far to see him.
He saw a form of exquisite grace, clad in black, and when she threw back her veil and her face was revealed in all its beauty he was fairly startled, for it brought to him at once the memory of an ideal portrait which he had seen in the long ago, and which he had in vain sought to find the counterpart of in life.
He bowed and led her to a seat, while he said in the courteous manner natural to him:
“Pray tell me how I can serve you—miss.”