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“The bullet!” cried Ranson. He repeated, dully, “The bullet!”

There was a sudden, tense silence. Outside they could hear the crunch of the sentry’s heel in the gravel, and from the baseball field back of the barracks the soft spring air was rent with the jubilant crack of the bat as it drove the ball. Afterward Ranson remembered that while one half of his brain was terribly acute to the moment, the other was wondering whether the runner had made his base. It seemed an interminable time before Ranson raised his eyes from Miss Cahill’s palm to her father’s face. What he read in them caused Cahill to drop his hand swiftly to his hip.

Ranson saw the gesture and threw out both his hands. He gave a hysterical laugh, strangely boyish and immature, and ran to place himself between Cahill and the door. “Drop it!” he whispered. “My God, man!” he entreated, “don’t make a fool of yourself. Mr. Cahill,” he cried aloud, “you can’t go till you know. Can he, Mary? Yes, Mary.” The tone in which he repeated the name was proprietary and commanding. He took her hand. “Mr. Cahill,” he said, joyously, “we’ve got something to tell you. I want you to understand that in spite of all I’VE done–I say in spite of all I’VE done–I mean getting into this trouble and disgrace, and all that–I’ve dared to ask your daughter to marry me.” He turned and led Miss Cahill swiftly toward the veranda. “Oh, I knew he wouldn’t like it,” he cried. “You see. I told you so. You’ve got to let me talk to him alone. You go outside and wait. I can talk better when you are not here. I’ll soon bring him around.”

“Father,” pleaded Miss Cahill, timidly. From behind her back Ranson shook his head at the post-trader in violent pantomime. “She’d better go outside and wait, hadn’t she, Mr. Cahill?” he directed.

As he was bidden, the post-trader raised his head and nodded toward the door. The onslaught of sudden and new conditions overwhelmed and paralyzed him.

“Father!” said Miss Cahill, “it isn’t just as you think. Mr. Ranson did ask me to marry him–in a way–At least, I knew what he meant. But I did not say–in a way–that I would marry him. I mean it was not settled, or I would have told you. You mustn’t think I would have left you out of this–of my happiness, you who have done everything to make me happy.”

She reproached her father with her eyes fastened on his face. His own were stern, fixed, and miserable. “You will let it be, won’t you, father?” she begged. “It–it means so much. I–can’t tell you–” She threw out her hand toward Ranson as though designating a superior being. “Why, I can’t tell HIM. But if you are harsh with him or with me it will break my heart. For as I love you, father, I love him–and it has got to be. It must be. For I love him so. I have always loved him. Father,” she whispered, “I love him so.”

Ranson, humbly, gratefully, took the girl’s hand and led her gently to the veranda and closed the door upon her. Then he came down the room and regarded his prospective father-in-law with an expression of amused exasperation. He thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his riding-breeches and nodded his head. “Well,” he exclaimed, “you’ve made a damned pretty mess of it, haven’t you?”

Cahill had sunk heavily into a chair and was staring at Ranson with the stupid, wondering gaze of a dumb animal in pain. During the moments in which the two men eyed each other Ranson’s smile disappeared. Cahill raised himself slowly as though with a great effort.

“I done it,” said Cahill, “for her. I done it to make her happy.”

“That’s all right,” said Ranson, briskly. “She’s going to be happy. We’re all going to be happy.”