"Well, I can tell what I'll say, an' pretty blame quick! Hansen, you're a bully, that's what. Next time tackle some one nearer your size; an' you get three days' confinement. Ryan (for heaven's sake get a handkerchief an' wipe your nose), I'll give you a day, too; for fightin' your sergeant an' for gettin' into a fight when you're left in charge of quarters." Thus it was that the Captain ended the fight, but the consequences stretched far beyond him and were in the hands of Cora.
"You oughter been ter J Troop yesterday," quoth Corporal Brown the next evening, while sitting on Miss Cora Sheean's front step. "Hansen an' Ryan had a fight. Hansen said somepin', an' Ryan went fer him, an' they had it hot. Nobody was by, an' Ryan won't tell, so we don't know what Hansen said."
Cora was staring at him with eyes wide with concern. "My Lord!" she gasped, "is he hurt?"
"Naw, Hansen ain't hurt none. He's a fighter, an' Ryan ain't big enough ter——"
"Stupid! I mean Teddy Ryan. Is he hurt?"
"Naw; only a black eye an' a nose-bleed. Cap'en stopped 'em before Hansen had a chance ter do much."
"Thank Gawd!" sighed Cora, sinking back in relief. "Look here, Mr. Brown, will you do me a favor? Will you tell Mr. Ryan that if he can run over here early to-morrow mornin', I got somethin' I want ter give him?"
When the bearer of tidings had departed, Cora sat up very straight, with tightly clasped hands, repeating vacantly, with an ambiguous mixture of pronouns, "He might er killed him—he might er killed him!" For to her the fight between these men had only one meaning; intuitively she knew herself to be the cause. "He fought for me," she said, "I know he did. An' I want Teddy Ryan. I want him!"
Next morning she peeped out of the window and watched the approach of the sturdy, honest-faced little corporal before she went to open the door for him herself.
"You wanted ter see me?" he said, fingering his hat shyly.