Chapter XIV. A Mystery is Unravelled

Lieutenant Burrell was considerably taken aback when, a quarter of an hour after the young lover's ecstatic return to his quarters, Gale knocked at his door, for the trader's visit, coupled with the late hour and his sombre countenance, forecast new complications.

"He's here to object, but it won't go," thought the Lieutenant, as he made his visitor welcome.

It was the trader's first glimpse of the officer's quarters, and he cast a roving eye over the room, as if measuring the owner's character by his surroundings.

"I've got to have a long talk with you, Burrell," he began, with an effort. "It's liable to take me an hour or two."

"Then take this chair and be comfortable."

Meade swung his big reading-chair out beneath the hanging-lamp, and, going to the sideboard, brought back a bottle, some glasses, and a pouch of tobacco. Noting the old man's sigh of fatigue as he sat himself down heavily, he remarked, sympathetically:

"Mr. Gale, you've made a long trip to-day, and you must be tired. If this talk is to be as lengthy as you say, why not have a drink with me now, and postpone it until to-morrow?"

"I've been tired for eighteen years," the other replied; "to- night I hope to get rested." He lapsed into silence, watching his host pour out two glasses of liquor, fill his pipe, and then stretch himself out contentedly, his feet resting on another chair--a picture of youthful strength, vitality, and determination. Beneath the Lieutenant's flannel shirt the long, slim muscles showed free and full, and the firm set of jaw and lip denoted a mind at rest and confident of itself. Gale found himself for a moment jealously regarding the youth and his enviable state of contentment and decision.

"Well, let's get at it," the younger man finally said.

"I suppose you'll want to interrupt and question me a heap, but I'll ask you to let me tell this story the way it comes to me, till I get it out, then we can go back and take up the queer stuff. It runs back eighteen or twenty years, and, being as it's part of a hidden life, it isn't easy to tell. You'll be the first one to hear it, and I reckon you're enough like other men to disbelieve--you're not old enough, and you haven't knocked around enough to learn that nothing is impossible, that nothing is strange enough to be unreasonable. Likewise, you'll want to know what, all this has to do with you and Necia--yes, she told me about you and her, and that's why I'm here." He paused. "You really think you love her, do you?"

Burrell removed his pipe and gazed at its coal impersonally.

"I love her so well, Mr. Gale, that nothing you can say will affect me. I--I hesitated at first about asking her to be my wife, because- -you'll appreciate the unusual--well, her unusual history. You see, I come from a