When Blenke did appear on Wednesday afternoon his hands were bandaged, his face was disfigured a bit, but his eyes were as deep and mournful, his dignity and self-poise quite as unimpeachable, as before. He seemed grieved, indeed, that his captain and colonel both so sharply questioned him. He had intended going to Rapid City, but at the last moment in town received information rendering his visit unnecessary, indeed inadvisable. A man with whom he had had business associations in the past, and who owed him much money, had been there, but had headed him off by promising to meet him in Silver Hill. The train came, but not the man, yet the conductor said such a man had boarded the train at the Junction and must have dropped off as they slowed up for town after passing Bonner's Bluff. Blenke had spent most of Monday night and all of Tuesday in further search. Tuesday evening came a clue. The evasive "party" had been seen at Skid's drinking heavily, and Blenke hastened thither in partial disguise, he said, and was there when late Tuesday night the shrieks from Skidmore's private quarters told of peril. The drunken crowd in the bar at first took no heed. Shrieks were things of frequent occurrence, but Blenke had rushed, found the shack all ablaze within, and with difficulty and much personal risk had succeeded in pulling out Mrs. Skidmore and her terrified child.
Blenke by manner, not by words, continued to convey to his inquisitors that he took it much amiss that a soldier who had done such credit to his uniform and the service should on his return be subjected to such rigid cross-questioning, and be treated with such obvious suspicion. But both colonel and captain had more to ask. Had he seen aught of the trio from the fort who claimed to have spent Monday evening at Skidmore's? Blenke declared he had not. He had spent that evening searching about town; but he had heard of them, yes. There was no little talk among the cowboys, tramps, toughs, and ranchmen in and about Skidmore's concerning a party of soldiers that had been there hours Monday evening "raising the devil." There had been a rough-and-tumble fight, too, but Blenke virtuously disclaimed all personal knowledge of the men or their misdemeanors. Asked to name some of the places he had visited Monday evening and Tuesday in town, Blenke unhesitatingly mentioned as many as a dozen. The adjutant jotted them down, and when the colonel sent an officer in to investigate, it was found that Blenke's statement, like his manner, was irreproachable. Moreever, it was found by the testimony of certain hangers-on at Skidmore's that the story told by the incarcerated trio was equally true. They had been seen about the premises, drinking, card-playing, loafing, early in the evening, and "off and on" all of the evening, until toward 10:30 o'clock they became so ugly and quarrelsome and had so little money left that Skid refused them further admission, even to wash the blood from their battered faces. If the purpose of the examination was to connect these men, any of them, with the assault upon Foster, it had certainly failed.