He attacked the large plate of beef stew she placed before him and stayed with it until he had cleaned the plate. “I reckon that’s all I can hold,” he said to Sadie when she approached with the coffeepot again. He paid her, got to his feet, and headed for the door. “It’s still far and away the best cookin’ in all Montana Territory,” he said, bringing a smile to her face.

Before he reached the door, Conner called after him. “I’ll see you later tonight,” he said. “You are going back to the fort, aren’t you?”

“Yep, I’m headin’ there now. I’ve got some packs I need to pick up and get my packhorse from the stable.” It was Hawk’s guess that whether or not he saw Conner later that night would be determined by how much time the young lieutenant might spend with Miss Carpenter. At any rate, he was not going to wait around for Conner. There was a bright full moon illuminating the street outside the dining room, so there was no reason to wait around for morning. He could get in a half day’s ride that night and reach his camp early the next day. He liked Conner and appreciated the fact that he would go over Meade’s head in an attempt to save his job. But he was afraid his young friend was going to succeed only in getting himself in trouble. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” he called out as he went out the door.

* * *

As he had anticipated, there was no sign of Mathew Conner, even after Hawk had packed his possibles on the sorrel packhorse. He could sleep in the barracks and eat breakfast with the soldiers, if he chose to, but he could see no point in staying there overnight when he could just as well be on the Boulder River at sunup. The decision was easy to make, so he rode out of the fort, following a familiar trail in the moonlight that would take him to a point where that trail struck the Boulder before following the river up into the rugged mountains of the Absaroka Range.