Anita, for once losing the quiet reserve that was hers by nature, was sitting by the Colonel, her arm around his neck, her cheek against his, and the tears were dropping on her cheeks.
"Oh, daddy," she was whispering, "I knew that something had happened to you and that I must come to you, and that was why I begged and prayed my mother to come with me, and now we have found you, we have found you!" Colonel Fortescue drew the girl close to his strong beating heart for a brief moment.
"It is a very neat splint," said Mrs.Fortescue, rising to her feet and bestowing one of her brilliant smiles on Broussard.

"Mr.Broussard is a capital surgeon." "And a capital soldier," said the Colonel, quite clearly.
A smile went around, of which Broussard's was the brightest and the broadest.

Everybody present knew that the stern Colonel was melting a little toward Broussard.
Then Colonel Fortescue insisted upon mounting Gamechick.
"You are so obstinate," murmured Mrs.Fortescue, in his ear.

"You are as bent on riding that horse as you say I am on riding Birdseye." The Colonel nodded and smiled; the little differences which arose between Mrs.Fortescue and himself were not settled in the presence of others.
Colonel Fortescue was helped on Gamechick's back and a trooper dismounted and gave his horse to Broussard, the trooper mounting behind a comrade; and without asking anybody's leave, Broussard rode beside Anita.

As the cavalcade took its way down the road, the darkness of a moonless night descended suddenly, and the difficult way out of the pass was lighted only by the large, bright stars, that seemed so strangely near and kind.