WRITINGS OF 
 
 CAPTAIN CHARLES KIN 
 
 J. L 
 
 ->- 
 
 Phjlndelphia: 
 J. H. Lippincott Company 
 
The Deserter. 
 
 BY 
 
 CAPTAIN CHARLES KING, 
 
 U. S. ARMY, 
 AUTHOR OF "THE COLONEL'S DAUGHTER," "MARION'S FAITH," ETC., ETC. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPAIST. 
 
Copyright, 1887, by J. B. Lippincott Company. 
 
LIPPINCOTT'S 
 JyjONTHLY ]y[AGAZINE. 
 
 MAY, 18 8 7. 
 
 THE DESERTER 
 
 PRELUDE. 
 
 FAR up in the Northwest, along the banks of the broad, winding 
 stream the Sioux call the Elk, a train of white-topped army- 
 wagons is slowly crawling eastward. The October sun is hot at noon- 
 day, and the dust from the loose soil rises like heavy smoke and 
 powders every face and form in the guarding battalion so that features 
 are wellnigh indistinguishable. Four companies of stalwart, sinewy 
 infantry, with their brown rifles slung over the shoulder, are striding 
 along in dispersed order, covering the exposed southern flank from sud- 
 den attack, while farther out along the ridge-line, and far to the front 
 and rear, cavalry skirmishers and scouts are riding to and fro, search- 
 ing every hollow and ravine, peering cautiously over every " divide," 
 and signalling " halt" or " forward" as the indications warrant. 
 
 And yet not a hostile Indian has been seen ; not one, even as distant 
 vedette, has appeared in range of the binoculars, since the scouts rode 
 in at daybreak to say that big bands were in the immediate neighbor- 
 hood. It has been a long, hard summer's work for the troops, and the 
 Indians have been, to all commands that boasted strength or swiftness, 
 elusive as the Irishman's flea of tradition. Only to those whose num- 
 bers were weak or whose movements were hampered have they appeared 
 in fighting-trim. But combinations have been too much for them, and 
 at last they have been " herded" down to the Elk, have crossed, and 
 are now shaking to make their way, with women, children, tepees, dogs, 
 " travois," and the great pony herds, to the fastnesses of the Big Horn ; 
 and now comes the opportunity for which an old Indian-fighter has 
 been anxiously waiting. In a big cantonment he has held the main 
 body under his command, while keeping out constant scouting-parties 
 to the east and north. He knows well that, true to their policy, the 
 
 699 
 
700 THE DESERTER. 
 
 Indians will have scattered into small bands capable of reassembling 
 anywhere that signal smokes may call them, and his orders are to 
 w^atch all the crossings of the Elk and nab them as they come into his 
 district. He watches, despite the fact that it is his profound conviction 
 that the Indians will be no such idiots as to come just where they are 
 wanted, and he is in no wise astonished when a courier comes in on 
 jaded horse to tell him that they have " doubled" on the other column 
 and are now two or three days' march away down stream, " making for 
 the big bend." His own scouting-parties are still out to the eastward : 
 he can pick them up as he goes. He sends the main body of his in- 
 fantry, a regiment jocularly known as " The Riflers," to push for a 
 landing some fifty miles down-stream, scouting the lower valley of the 
 Sweet Root on the way. He sends his wagon-train, guarded by four 
 companies of foot and two of horsemen, by the only practicable road 
 to the bend, while he, with ten seasoned " troops" of his pet regiment, 
 the — th Cavalry, starts forthwith on a long detour in which he 
 hopes to " round up" such bands as may have slipped away from the 
 general rush. Even as " boots and saddles" is sounding, other couriers 
 come riding in from Lieutenant Crane's party. He has struck the 
 trail of a big band. 
 
 When the morning sun dawns on the picturesque valley in which 
 the cantonment nestled but the day before, it illumines an almost de- 
 serted village, and brings no joy to the souls of some twoscore of em- 
 bittered civilians who had arrived only the day previous, and whose 
 unanimous verdict is that the army is a fraud and ought to be abolished. 
 For four months or more some three regiments had been camping, 
 scouting, roughing it thereabouts, with not a cent of pay. Then came 
 the wildly exciting tidings that a boat was on the way up the Missouri 
 with a satrap of the pay department, vast store of shekels, and a strong 
 guard, and as a consequence there w^ould be some two thousand men 
 around the cantonment with pockets full of money and no one to help 
 them spend it, and nothing suitable to spend it on. It was a duty all 
 citizens owed to the Territory to hasten to the scene and gather in for 
 local circulation all that was obtainable of that disbursement ; other- 
 wise the curse of the army might get ahead of them and the boys 
 would gamble it away among themselves or spend it for vile whiskey 
 manufactured for their sole benefit. Gallatin Valley was emptied of 
 its prominent practitioners in the game of poker. The stream w^as 
 black with " Mackinaw" boats and other craft. There was a rush for 
 the cantonment that rivalled the multitudes of the mining days, but all 
 too late. The command was already packing up when the first con- 
 tingent arrived, and the commanding officer, recognizing the fraternity 
 at a glance, warned them outside the limits of camp that night, declined 
 their services as volunteers on the impending campaign, and treated 
 them with such calmly courteous recognition of their true character 
 that the Eastern press was speedily filled with sneering comment on 
 the hopelessness of ever subduing the savage tribes of the Northwest 
 when the government intrusts the duty to upstart officers of the regular 
 service whoso sole conception of their functions is to treat with insult 
 and contempt the hardy frontiersman whose mere presence with the 
 
THE DESERTER. 701 
 
 command would be of incalculable benefit. " We have it from indis- 
 putable authority," says The Miner^s Light of Brandy Gap, " that when 
 our esteemed fellow-citizen Hank Mulligan and twenty gallant shots 
 and riders like himself went in a body to General at the canton- 
 ment and offered their services as volunteers against the Sioux now 
 devastating the homesteads and settlements of the Upper Missouri and 
 Yellowstone valleys, they were treated with haughty and contemptu- 
 ous refusal by that bandbox caricature of a soldier and threatened 
 with arrest if they did not quit the camp. When loill the United 
 States learn that its frontiers can never be purged of the Indian 
 scourges of our civilization until the conduct of affairs in the field is 
 intrusted to other hands than these martinets of the drill-ground ? It 
 is needless to remark in this connection that the expedition led by 
 
 General has proved a complete failure, and that the Indians easily 
 
 escaped his clumsily-led forces." 
 
 The gamblers, though baffled for the time being, of course "get 
 square," and more too, with the unfortunate general in this sort of war- 
 fare, but they are a disgusted lot as they hang about the wagon-train as 
 last of all it is being hitched-in to leave camp. Some victims, of course, 
 they have secured, and there are no devices of commanding officers which 
 can protect their men against those sharks of the prairies when the men 
 themselves are bound to tempt Providence and play. There are two 
 soowling faces in the cavalry escort that has been left back with the train, 
 and Captain Hull, the commanding officer, has reprimanded Sergeants 
 Clancy and Gower in stinging terms for their absence from the com- 
 mand during the night. There is little question where they spent it, 
 and both have been " cleaned out." What makes it worse, both have 
 lost money that belonged to other men in the command, and they are 
 in bad odor accordingly. 
 
 The long day's march has tempered the joviality of the entire 
 column. It is near sundown, and still they keep plodding onward, 
 making for a grassy level on the river-bank a good mile farther. 
 
 " Old Hull seems bound to leave the sports as far behind as possi- 
 ble, if he has to march us until midnight," growls the battalion adju- 
 tant to his immediate commander. " By thunder ! one would think 
 he was afraid they would get in a lick at his own pile." 
 
 *' How much did you say he was carrying ?" asks Captain Rayner, 
 checking his horse for a moment to look back over the valley at the 
 long, dust-enveloped column. 
 
 " Nearly three thousand dollars in one wad." 
 
 " How does he happen to have such a sum ?" 
 
 " Why, Crane left his pay-accounts with him. He drew all that 
 was due his men who are off with Crane, — twenty of them, — for they 
 had signed the rolls before going, and were expected back to-day. Then 
 he has some six hundred dollars company fund ; and the men of his 
 troop asked him to take care of a good deal besides. The old man has 
 been with them so many years they look upon him as a father and trust 
 him as implicitly as they would a savings-bank." 
 
 " That's all very well," answers Uayner ; " but I wouldn't want to 
 carry any such sum with me." 
 
702 ^^^ DESERTER. 
 
 " It's different with Hull's men, captain. They are ordered in 
 through the posts and settlements. They have a three weeks' march 
 ahead of them when they get through their scout, and they want their 
 money on the way. It was only after they had drawn it that the news 
 came of the Indians' crossing and of our having to jump for the war- 
 path. Everybody thought yesterday morning that the campaign was 
 about over so far as we are concerned. Halloo ! here comes young 
 Hayne. Now, what does he want ?" 
 
 Riding a quick, nervous little bay troop horse, a slim-built officer, 
 with boyish face, laughing blue eyes, and sunny hair, comes loping up 
 the long prairie wave ; he shouts cheery greeting to one or two brother 
 subalterns who are plodding along beside their men, and exchanges some 
 merry chaff with Lieutenant Ross, who is prone to growl at the luck 
 which has kept him afoot and given to this favored youngster a " mount" 
 and a temporary staff position. The boy's spirits and fun seem to jar on 
 Rayner's nerves. He regards him blackly as he rides gracefully towards 
 the battalion commander, and with decidedly nonchalant ease of manner 
 and an " off-hand" salute that has an air about it of saying, " I do this 
 sort of thing because one has to, but it doesn't really mean anytliing, 
 you know," Mr. Hayne accosts his superior : 
 
 " Ah, good-evening, captain. I have just come back from the 
 front, and Captain Hull directed me to give you his compliments and 
 say that we would camp in the bend yonder, and he would like you to 
 post strong pickets and have a double guard to-night." 
 
 " Have me post double guards ! How the devil does he expect me 
 to do that after marching all day ?" 
 
 "I did not inquire, sir : he might have told me 'twas none of my 
 business, don't you know?" And Mr. Hayne has the insufferable 
 hardihood to wink at the battalion adjutant, — a youth of two years' 
 longer service than his own. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Hayne, this is no matter for levity," says Rayner, 
 angrily. " What does Captain Hull mean to do with his own men, if 
 I'm to do the guard ?" 
 
 " That is another point, Captain Rayner, which I had not the requi- 
 site effrontery to inquire into. Now, you might ask him, but I couldn't, 
 don't you know ?" responds Hayne, smiling amiably the while into the 
 wrathful face of his superior. It serves only to make the indignant 
 captain more wrathful ; and no wonder. There has been no love lost 
 between the two since Hayiie joined the Riflers early the previous year. 
 He came in from civil life, a city-bred boy, fresh from college, full 
 of spirits, pranks, fun of every kind ; a wonderfully keen hand with 
 the billiard-cue ; a knowing one at cards and such games of chance 
 as college boys excel at ; a musician of no mean pretensions, and an 
 irrepressible leader in all the frolics and frivolities of his comrades. 
 He had leaped to popularity from the start. He was full of cour- 
 tesy and gentleness to women, and became a pet in social circles. He 
 was frank, free, off-handed with his associates, spending lavishly, 
 " treating" with boyish ostentation on all occasions, living quite en 
 grand seigneur, for he seemed to have a little money outside his pay, 
 — " a windfall from a good old duffer of an uncle," as he had explained 
 
THE DESERTER. 703 
 
 it. His father, a scholarly man who had been summoned to an im- 
 portant under-office in the State Department during the War of the 
 Rebellion, had lived out his honored life in Washington and died poor, 
 as such men must ever die. It was his wish that his handsome, spirited, 
 brave-hearted boy should enter the army, and long after the sod had 
 hardened over the father's peaceful grave the young fellow donned his 
 first uniform and went out to join "■ The Riflers." High-spirited, joy- 
 ous, full of laughing fun, he was " Pet" Hayne before he had been 
 among them six months. But within the year he had made one or two 
 enemies. It could not be said of him that he showed that deference 
 to rank and station which was expected of a junior officer ; and among 
 the seniors were several whom he speedily designated " unconscionable 
 old duffers" and treated with as little semblance of respect as a second 
 lieutenant could exhibit and be permitted to live. Rayner prophesied of 
 him that, as he had no balance and was burning his candle at both ends, 
 he would come to grief in short order. Hayne retorted that the only 
 balance that Rayner had any respect for was one at the banker's, and 
 that it was notorious in Washington that the captain's father had made 
 most of his money in government contracts, and that the captain's 
 original commission in the regulars was secured through well-paid Con- 
 gressional influence. The fact that Rayner had developed into a good 
 officer did not wipe out the recollection of these facts ; and he could 
 have throttled Hayne for reviving them. It was " a game of give and 
 take," said the youngster; and he "behaved himself" to those who 
 were at all decent in their manner to him. 
 
 It was a thorn in Rayner's flesh, therefore, when Hayne joined from 
 leave of absence, after experiences not every officer would care to en- 
 counter in getting back to his regiment, that Captain Hull should have 
 induced the general to detail him in place of the invalided field quarter- 
 master when the command was divided. Hayne would have been a 
 junior subaltern in Rayner's little battalion but for that detail, and it 
 annoyed the captain more seriously than he would confess. 
 
 " It is all an outrage and a blunder to pick out a boy like that," he 
 growls between his set teeth as Hayne canters blithely away. " Here 
 he's been away from the regiment all summer long, having a big time 
 and getting head over ears in debt, I hear, and the moment he rejoins 
 they put him in charge of the wagon-train as field quartermaster. It's 
 putting a premium on being young and cheeky, — besides absenteeism," 
 he continues, growing blacker every minute. 
 
 " Well, captain," answers his adjutant, injudiciously, "I think 
 you don't give Hayne credit for coming baciv on the jump the moment 
 we were ordered out. It was no fault of his he could not reach us. 
 He took chances I wouldn't take." 
 
 " Oh, yes ! you kids all swear by Hayne because he's a good 
 fellow and sings a jolly song and plays the piano — and poker. One of 
 these days he'll swamp you all, sure as shooting. He's in debt noio, 
 and it'll fetch him before you know it. What he needs is to be under 
 a captain who could discipline him a little. By Jove, I'd do it !" And 
 Rayner's teetli emphasize the assertion. 
 
 The young adjutant thinks it advisable to say nothing that may 
 
704 ^^^ DESERTER. 
 
 provoke further vehemence. All the same, he remembers Rayner's 
 bitterness of manner, and has abundant cause to. 
 
 When the next morning breaks, chill and pallid, a change has come 
 in the aspect of aifairs. During the earliest hour of the dawn the red 
 light of a light-draught river-boat startled the outlying pickets down- 
 stream, and the Far West, answering the muffled hail from shore, 
 responded, through the medium of a mate's stentorian tones, " News 
 that'll rout you fellows out." The sun is hardly peeping over the 
 jagged outline of the eastern hills when, with Rayner's entire battalion 
 aboard, she is steaming again down-stream, with orders to land at the 
 mouth of the Sweet Root. There the four companies will disembark in 
 readiness to join the rest of the regiment. 
 
 All day long again the wagon-train twists and wriggles through an 
 ashen section of Les Mauvaises Terres. It is a tedious, trying march 
 for Hull's little command of troopers, — all that is now left to guard the 
 train. The captain is constantly out on the exposed flank, eagerly 
 scanning the rough country to the south, and expectant any moment of 
 an attack from that direction. He and his men, as well as the horses, 
 mules, and teamsters, are fairly tired out when at nightfall they park the 
 wagons in a big semicircle, with the broad river forming a shining 
 chord to the arc of white canvas. All the live-stock are safely herded 
 within the enclosure ; a few reliable soldiers are posted well out to the 
 south and east, to guard against surprise, and the veteran Sergeant 
 Clancy is put in command of the sentries. The captain gives strict 
 injunctions as to the importance of these duties ; for he is far from easy 
 in his mind over the situation. The Riflers, he knows, are over in the 
 valley of the Sweet Root. The steamer with Rayner's men is tied up 
 at the bank some five miles below, around the bend. The — th are 
 far off to the northward across the Elk, as ordered, and must be 
 expecting on the morrow to make for the old Indian " ferry" opposite 
 Battle Butte. The main body of the Sioux are reported farther down 
 stream, but he feels it in his bones that there are numbers of them 
 within signal, and he wishes with all his heart the — th were here. 
 Still, the general was sure he would stir up war-parties on the other 
 shore. Individually, he has had very little luck in scouting during the 
 summer, and he cannot help wishing he were with the rest of the crowd 
 instead of here, train-guarding. 
 
 Presently Mr. Hayne appears, elastic and debonair as though he 
 had not been working like a horse all day. His voice sounds so full of 
 cheer and life that Hull looks up smilingly : 
 
 " Well, youngster, you seem to love this frontier life." 
 
 " Every bit of it, captain. I was cut out for the army, as father 
 thought." 
 
 " We used to talk it over a good deal in the old days when I was 
 stationed around Washington," answers Hull. " Your father was the 
 warmest friend I had in civil circles, and he made it very pleasant for 
 me. How little we thought it would be my luck to have you for 
 quartermaster !" 
 
 " The fellows seemed struck all of a heap in the Riflers at the idea 
 of your applying for me, captain. I was ready to swear it was all on 
 
THE DESERTER. 705 
 
 father's account, and would have told them so, only Rayner happened 
 to be the first man to tackle me on the subject, and he was so crusty 
 about it I kept the whole thing to myself rather than give him any 
 satisfaction." 
 
 " Larry, my boy, I'm no preacher, but I want to be the friend to 
 you your father was to me. You are full of enthusiasm and life and 
 spirits, and you love the army ways and have made yourself very poj> 
 ular with the youngsters, but I'm afraid you are too careless and inde- 
 pendent where the seniors are concerned. Rayner is a good soldier ; 
 and you show him very scant respect, I'm told." 
 
 " Well, he's such an interfering fellow. They will all tell you I'm 
 respectful enough to — to the captains I like " 
 
 " That's just it, Lawrence. So long as you like a man your manner 
 is what it should be. What a young soldier ought to learn is to be 
 courteous and respectful to senior officers whether he likes them or not. 
 It costs an effort sometimes, but it tells. You never know what trouble 
 you are laying up for yourself in the army by bucking against men you 
 don't like. They may not be in position to resent it at the time, but 
 the time is mighty apt to come when they loill be, and then you are 
 helpless." 
 
 " Why, Captain Hull, I don't see it that way at all. It seems to 
 me that so long as an officer attends to his duty, minds his own busi- 
 ness, and behaves like a gentleman, no one can harm him ; especially 
 when all the good fellows of the regiment are his friends, as they are 
 mine, I think, in the Riflers." 
 
 "Ah, Hayne, it is a hard thing to teach a youngster that — that 
 there are men who find it very easy to make their juniors' lives a burden 
 to them, and without overstepping a regulation. It is harder yet to say 
 that friends in the army are a good deal like friends out of it : one only 
 has to get into serious trouble to find how few they are. God grant 
 you may never have to learn it, my boy, as many another has had to, 
 by sharp experience ! Now we must get a good night's rest. You 
 sleep like a log, I see, and I can only take cat-naps. Confound this 
 money ! How I wish I could get rid of it !" 
 
 " Where do you keep it to-night ?" 
 
 " Right here in my saddle-bags under my head. Nobody can 
 touch them that I do not wake ; and my revolver is here under the 
 blanket. Hold on ! Let's take a look and see if everything is all 
 right." He holds a little camp-lantern over the bags, opens the flap, 
 and peers in. " Yes, — all serene. I got a big hunk of green sealing- 
 wax from the paymaster and sealed it all up in one package Math the 
 memorandum-list inside. It's all safe so far, — even to the hunk of 
 sealing-wax. — What is it, sergeant ?" 
 
 A tall, soldierly, dark-eyed trooper appears at the door- way of 
 the little tent, and raises his gauntleted hand in salute. His language, 
 though couched in the phraseology of the soldier, tells both in choice 
 of words and in the intonation of every phrase that he is a man M'hose 
 antecedents have been far different from those of the majority of the 
 rank and file : 
 
 " Will the captain permit me to take my horse and those of three 
 
706 THE DESERTER. 
 
 or four more men outside the corral ? Sergeant Clancy says he has no 
 authority to allow it. We have found a patch of excellent grass, sir, 
 and there is hardly any left inside. I will sleep by my picket-pin, and 
 one of us will keep awake all the time, if the captain will permit." 
 
 " How far away is it, sergeant ?" 
 
 " Not seventy-five yards, sir, — close to the river-bank east of us." 
 
 " Very well. Send Sergeant Clancy here, and I'll give the necessary 
 orders." 
 
 The soldier quietly salutes, and disappears in the gathering dark- 
 ness. 
 
 " That's what I like about that man Gower," says the captain, after 
 a moment's silence. " He is always looking out for his horse. If he 
 were not such a gambler and rake he would make a splendid first- 
 sergeant. Fine-looking fellow, isn't he ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. That is a face that one couldn't well forget. Who 
 was the other sergeant you overhauled for getting fleeced by those sharps 
 at the cantonment ?" 
 
 " Clancy ? He's on guard to-night. A very different character." 
 
 " I don't know him by sight as yet. Well, good-night, sir. I'll 
 take myself off and go to my own tent." 
 
 Daybreak again, and far to the east the sky is all ablaze. The mist 
 is creeping from the silent shallows under the banks, but all is life and 
 vim along the shore. With cracking whip, tugging trace, sonorous 
 blasphemy, and ringing shout, the long train is whirling 6head almost 
 at the run. All is athrill with excitement, and bearded faces have a 
 strange, set look about the jaws, and eyes gleam with eager light and 
 peer searchingly from every rise far over to the southeast, where stands 
 a tumbling heap of hills against the lightening sky. " Off there, are 
 they?" says a burly trooper, dismounting hastily to tighten up the 
 " cinch" of his weather-beaten saddle. " We can make it quick enough, 
 's soon as we get rid of these blasted wagons." And, swinging into 
 saddle again, he goes cantering down the slope, his charger snorting 
 with exhilaration in the keen morning air. 
 
 Before dawn a courier has galloped into camp, bearing a despatch 
 from the commanding officer of the Riflers. It says but few words, 
 but they are full of meaning : " We have found a big party of hostiles. 
 They are in strong position, and have us at disadvantage. Rayner 
 with his four companies is hurrying to us. Leave all wagons with 
 the boat under guard, and come with every horse and man you can 
 bring.'^ 
 
 Before seven o'clock the wagons are parked close along the bank 
 beside the Far West, and Hull, with all the men he can muster, — 
 some fifty, — is trotting ahead on the trail of Rayner's battalion. With 
 him rides Mr. Hayne, eager and enthusiastic. Before ten o'clock, far 
 up along the slopes they see the blue line of skirmishers, and the knots 
 of reserves farther down, all at a stand. In ten minutes they ride with 
 foaming reins in behind a low ridge on which, flat on their faces and 
 cautiously peering over the crest, some hundred infantrymen are dis- 
 posed. Others, officers and file-closers, are moving to and fro in rear. 
 
THE DESERTER. 707 
 
 They are of Rayner's battalion. Farther back, down in a ravine a 
 dozen forms are outstretched upon the turf, and others are bending over 
 them, ministering to the needs of those who are not past lielp ah-eady. 
 Several officers crowd around the leading horsemen, and Hull orders, 
 " Halt, dismount, and loosen girths." The grave faces show that the 
 infantry has had poor luck, and the situation is summarized in few 
 words. The Indians are in force occupying the ravines and ridges 
 opposite them and confronting the six companies farther over to the 
 west. Two attacks have been made, but the Indian fire swept every 
 approach, and both were unsucccessful. Several soldiers were shot dead, 
 others severely wounded. Lieutenant Warren's leg is shattered below 
 the knee ; Captain Blount is killed. 
 
 " Where's Rayner ?" asks Hull, with grave face. 
 
 " Just gone off with the chief to look at things over on the other 
 front. The colonel is hopping. He is bound to have those Indians 
 out of there or drop a-trying. They'll be back in a minute. The 
 general had a rousing figlit with Dull Knife's people down the river 
 last evening. You missed it again, Hull : all the — th were there 
 but F and K, — and of course old Firewater wants to make as big a 
 hit here." 
 
 " The — th fighting down the river last night ?" asks Hull, in 
 amaze. 
 
 " Yes, — swept clean round them and ran 'era into the stream, they 
 say. I wish we had them where we could see 'em at all. You don't 
 get the glimpse of a head, even ; but all those rocks are lined with the 
 beggars. Damn them !" says the adjutant, feelingly. 
 
 " We'll get our chance here, then," replies Hull, reflectively. " I'll 
 creep up and take a look at it. Take my horse, orderly," 
 
 He is back in two minutes, graver than before, but his bearing is 
 spirited and firm. Hayne watches him with kindling eye. 
 
 "You'll take me in with you when you charge?" he asks. 
 
 " It is no place to charge there. The ground is all cut up with 
 ravines and gullies, and they've got a cross-fire that sweeps it clean. 
 We'll probably go in on the other flank ; it's more open there. Here 
 comes the chief now." 
 
 Two officers come riding hastily around a projecting point of the 
 slope and spur at rapid gait towards the spot where the cavalry have 
 dismounted and are breathing their horses. There is hardly time for 
 salutations. A gray-headed, keen-eyed, florid-faced old soldier is the 
 colonel, and he is snapping with electricity, apparently. 
 
 " This way, Hull. Come right here, and I'll show you what you 
 are to do." And, followed by Rayner, Hull, and Hayne, the chief 
 rides sharply over to the extreme left of the position and points to the 
 frowning ridge across the intervening swale : 
 
 " Tliere, Hull : there are twenty or thirty of the rascals in there 
 who get a flank fire on us when we attack on our side. What I want 
 you to do is to mount your men, let them draw pistol and be all ready. 
 Rayner, here, will line the ridge to keep them down in front. I'll go 
 back to the right and order the attack at once. The moment we begin 
 and you hear our shots, you give a yell, and charge full tilt across there, 
 
708 THE DESERTER. 
 
 SO as to drive out those fellows in that ravine. We can do the rest. 
 Do you understand ?" 
 
 " I understand, colonel ; but is it your order that I attempt 
 
 to char2;e mounted across that ground ?" 
 
 " Why, certainly ! It isn't the best in the world, but you can make 
 it. They can't do very much damage to your men before you reach 
 them. It's got to be done ; it's the only way." 
 
 " Very good, sir : that ends it !" is the calm, soldierly reply ; and 
 the colonel goes bounding aM^ay. 
 
 A moment later the troop is in saddle, eager, wnry, bronzed fellows 
 every one, and the revolvers are in hand and being carefully exam- 
 ined. Then Captain Hull signals to Hayne, while Rayner and three 
 or four soldiers sit in silence, watching the man who is to lead the 
 charge. He dismounts at a little knoll a few feet away, tosses his reins 
 to the trumpeter, and steps to his saddle-bags. Hayne, too, dismounts. 
 
 Taking his watch and chain from the pocket of his hunting-shirt, 
 he opens the saddle-bag on the near side and takes therefrom two 
 packets, — one heavily sealed, — which he hands to Hayne. 
 
 " In case I — don't come back, you know what to do with these, — as 
 I told you last night." 
 
 Hayne only looks imploringly at him : " You are not going to leave 
 me here, captain ?" 
 
 " Yes, Hayne. You can't go with us. Hark ! There they go at 
 the right. Are the packages all right ?" 
 
 Hayne, with stunned faculties, thinking only of the charge he longs 
 to make, — not of the one he has to keep, — replies he knows not what. 
 There is a ringing bugle-call far off among the rocks to the westward ; 
 a rousing cheer; a rattling volley. Rayner springs off to his men on 
 the hill-side. Hull spurs in front of his eager troop, holding high his 
 pistol-hand : 
 
 " Now, men, follow till I drop ; and then keep ahead ! Come on !" 
 
 There is a furious sputter of hoofs, a rush of excited steeds up the 
 gentle slope, a glad outburst of cheers as they sweep across the ridge and 
 out of sight, then the clamor and yell of frantic battle ; and when at 
 last it dies away, the Riflers are panting over the hard-Avon position and 
 shaking hands with some few silent cavalrymen. They have carried 
 the ridge, captured the migrating village, squaws, ponies, travois, and 
 pappooses ; their " long Toms" have sent many a stalwart warrior to 
 the mythical hunting-grounds, and the peppery colonel's triumph is 
 complete. • 
 
 But Lawrence Hayne, with all the light gone from his brave young 
 face, stands mutely looking down upon the stiffening frame of his father's 
 old friend, and his, who lies shot through the heart. 
 
 In the Pullman car of the westward -bound express, half-way across 
 the continent, two passengers were gazing listlessly out over the wintry 
 
THE DESERTER. 709 
 
 landscape. It was a bitter morning in February. North and south 
 the treeless prairie rolled away in successive ridge and depression. The 
 snow lay deep in the dry ravines and streaked the sea-like surface with 
 jagged lines of foam between which lay broad spaces clean-swept by 
 the gale. Heavy masses of cloud, dark and forbidding, draped the 
 sky from zenith to horizon, and the air was thick with spiteful gusts 
 and spits of snow, crackling against the window-panes, making herce 
 dashes every time a car door was hurriedly opened, and driving about 
 the platforms like a myriad swarm of fleecy and aggressive gnats raging 
 for battle. Every now and then, responsive to some wilder blast, a 
 blinding white cloud came whirling from the depths of the nearest 
 gully and breaking like spray over the snow fence along the line. Not 
 a sign of life was visible. The tiny mounds in the villages of the 
 prairie-dogs seemed blocked and frozen ; even the trusty sentinel had 
 " deserted post" and huddled with his fellows for warmth and shelter in 
 the bowels of the earth. Fluttering owl and skulking coyote, too, had 
 vanished from the face of nature. Timid antelope — fleetest coursers 
 of the prairie — and stolid horned cattle had gone, none knew whither, 
 nor cared to know until the " blizzard" had subsided. Two heavy en- 
 gines fought their way, panting, into the very teeth of the gale and 
 slowly wound the long train after them up-grade among the foot-hills 
 of the great plateau of the Rockies. Once in a while, when stopping 
 for a moment at some group of brown-painted sheds and earth-battened 
 shanties, the wind moaned and howled among the iron braces and 
 brake-chains beneath the car and made such mournful noise that it was 
 a relief to start once more and lose sound of its wailino; in the general 
 rumble. As for the scenery, only as a picture of shiver-provoking 
 monotony and desolation would one care to take a second look. 
 
 And yet, some miles ahead, striving hard to reach the railway in 
 time to intercept this very train, a small battalion of cavalry was 
 strufffflino; throuQ-h the blasts, officers and men afoot and dragsing; their 
 own benumbed limbs and half-benumbed chargers through the drifts 
 that lay deep at the bottom of every " coulee." Some few soldiers- re- 
 mained in saddle : they were too frozen to walk at all. Some few fell 
 behind, and would have thrown themselves flat upon the j^rairie in the 
 lethargy that is but premonition of death by freezing. Like men half 
 deadened by morphine, their rescue depended on heroic measures, hu- 
 mane in their seeming brutality. Officers who at other times were all 
 gentleness now fell upon the hapless stragglers with kicks and blows. 
 As the train drew up at the platform of a station in mid-prairie, a 
 horseman enveloped in fur and frost and steam from his panting steed 
 reined up beside the leading engine and shouted to the occupants of the 
 cab, — 
 
 " For God's sake hold on a few minutes. We've got a dozen frozen 
 men with us we must send on to Fort Warrener." And the train was 
 held. 
 
 Meantime, those far to the rear in the sleeper knew nothing of 
 what was going on ahead. The car was warm and comfortable, and 
 most of its occupants were apparently appreciative of its shelter and 
 coseyness in contrast with the cheerless scene without. A motherly- 
 
710 THE DESERTER. 
 
 looking woman had produced her knitting, and was blithely clicking 
 away at her needles, while her enterprising son, a youth of four sum- 
 mers and undaunted confidence in human nature, tacked up and down 
 the aisle and made impetuous incursions on the various sections by 
 turns, receiving such modified welcome as could be accorded features 
 streaked with mingled candy and cinders, and fingers whose propensity 
 to cling to whatsoever they touched was due no more to instincts of a 
 predatory nature than to the adhesive properties of the glucose which 
 formed so large a constituent of the confections he had been industri- 
 ously consuming since early morning. Four men playing whist in the 
 rearmost section, two or three commercial travellers, whose intimacy 
 with the porter and airs of easy proprietorship told of an apparent 
 controlling interest in the road, a young man of reserved manners, 
 reading in a section all by himself, a baby sleeping quietly upon the seat 
 opposite the two passengers first mentioned, and a Maltese kitten curled 
 up in the lap of one of them, completed the list of occupants. 
 
 The proximity of the baby and the kitten furnishes strong pre- 
 sumptive evidence of the sex and general condition of the two passengers 
 referred to, and renders detail superfl.uous. A baby rarely travels 
 without a woman, or a kitten with a woman already encumbered with 
 a baby. The baby belonged to the elder passenger, the kitten to the 
 younger. The one was a buxom matron, the other a slender maid. 
 In their ages there must have been a difference of fifteen years ; in 
 feature there was still wider disparity. The elder was a fine-looking 
 woman, and one who prided herself upon the Junoesque proportions 
 which she occasionally exhibited in a stroll for exercise up and down 
 the aisle. Yet no one would call her a beauty. Her eyes were of a 
 somewhat fishy and uncertain blue ; the lids were tinged with an un- 
 ornamental pink that told of irritation of the adjacent interior surface 
 and of possible irritability of temper. Her complexion was of that 
 mottled type which is so sore a trial to its possessor and yet so inesti- 
 mable a comfort to social rivals ; but her features were handsome, her 
 teeth fine, her dress, bearing, and demeanor those of a woman of birth 
 and breeding, and yet one who might have resented the intimation that 
 she was not strikingly handsome. She looked like a woman with a 
 will of her own ; her head was high, her step was firm ; it was of just 
 such a walk as hers that Virgil wrote his " vera incessu patuit dea" 
 and she made the young man in the section by himself think of that 
 very passage as he glanced at her from under his heavy, bushy eye- 
 brows. She looked, moreover, like a woman with a capacity for in- 
 fluencing people contrary to their will and judgment, and with a decided 
 fondness for the exercise of that unpopular function. There was the 
 air of grande dame about her, despite the simplicity of her dress, which, 
 though of rich material, was severely plain. She wore no jewelry. Her 
 hands were snugly gloved, and undisfigured by the distortions of any 
 ring except the marriage circlet. Her manner attested her a person of 
 consequence in her social circle and one who realized the fact. She had 
 repelled, though without rudeness or discourtesy, the garrulous efforts 
 of the motherly knitter to be sociable. She had promptly inspired the 
 small, candy-crusted explorer with such awe that he had refrained from 
 
THE DESERTER. 711 
 
 further visits after his first confiding attempt to poke a sticky finger 
 through the baby's velvety cheek. She had spared little scorn in her 
 rejection of the bourgeois advances of the commercial traveller with the 
 languishing eyes of Israel : he confided to his comrades, in relating the 
 incident, that she was smart enough to see that it wasn't her he was 
 hankering to know, but the pretty sister by her side ; and when chal- 
 lenged to prove that they we^'e sisters, — a statement which aroused the 
 scepticism of his shrewd associates, — he had replied, substantially, — 
 
 " How do I know ? 'Cause I saw their pass before you was up this 
 morning, cully. It's for Mrs. Captain Rayner and sister, and they're 
 going out here to Fort Warrener. That's how I know." And the 
 porter of the car had confirmed the statement in the sanctity of the 
 smoking-room. 
 
 And yet — such is the uncertainty of feminine temperament — Mrs. 
 Rayner was no more incensed at the commercial " gent" because he had 
 obtruded his attentions than she was at the young man reading in his 
 own section because he had refrained. Nearly twenty-four hours had 
 elapsed since they crossed the Missouri, and in all that time not once 
 had she detected in him a glance that betrayed the faintest interest in 
 her, or — still more remarkable — in the unquestionably lovely girl at her 
 side. Intrusiveness she might resent, but indifference she would and 
 did. Who w^as this youth, she wondered, w^ho not once had so much as 
 stolen a look at the sweet, bonny face of her maiden sister? Surely 
 'twas a face any man would love to gaze upon, — so fair, so exquisite 
 in contour and feature, so pearly in complexion, so* lovely in the deep, 
 dark brown of its shaded eyes. 
 
 The bold glances of the four card-players she had defiantly returned, 
 and vanquished. Those men, like the travelling gents, were creatures 
 of coarser mould ; but her experienced eye told her the solitary occupant 
 of the opposite section was a gentleman. The clear cut of his pale 
 features, the white, slender hand and shapely foot, the style and finish 
 of his quiet travelling-dress, the soft modulation and refined tone of his 
 voice on the one occasion when she heard him reply to some importunity 
 of the train-boy with his endless round of equally questionable figs and 
 fiction, the book he was reading, — a volume of Emerson, — all combined 
 to speak of a culture and position equal to her own. She had been 
 over the trans-continental railways oflen enough to know that it was 
 permissible for gentlemen to render their fellow-passengers some slight 
 attention which would lead to mutual introductions if desirable ; and 
 this man refused to see that the opportunity was open to him. 
 
 True, when first she took her survey of those who were to be her 
 fellow-travellers at the " transfer" on the Missouri, she decided that 
 here was one against whom it would be necessary to guard the ap- 
 proaches. She had good and sufficient reasons for wanting no young 
 man as attractive in appearance as this one making himself interest-* 
 ing to pretty Nellie on their journey. She had already decided what 
 Nellie's future was to be. Never, indeed, would she have taken her to 
 the gay frontier station whither she was now en route, had not that 
 future been already settled to her satisfaction. Nellie Travers, barely 
 out of school, was betrothed, and willingly so, to the man she, her 
 
712 THE DESERTER. 
 
 devoted elder sister, liad especially chosen. Rare and most unlikely 
 of conditions ! she had apparently fallen in love with the man picked 
 out for her by somebody else. She was engaged to Mrs. Rayner's fas- 
 cinating friend Mr. Steven Van Antwerp, a scion of an old and es- 
 teemed and wealthy family ; and Mr. Van Antwerp, wlio had been 
 educated abroad, and had a Heidelberg scar on his left cheek, and dark, 
 luscrous eyes, and wavy hair, — almost raven, — was a devoted lover, 
 though fully fifteen years Miss Nellie's senior. 
 
 Full of bliss and comfort was Mrs. Rayner's soul as she journeyed 
 westward to rejoin her husband at the distant frontier post she had 
 not seen since the early spring. Army woman as she was, born and 
 bred under the shadow of the flag, a soldier's daughter, a soldier's wife, 
 she had other ambitions for her beautiful Nell. Worldly to the core, 
 she herself would never have married in the army but for the unusual 
 circumstance of a wealthy subaltern among the officers of her father's 
 regiment. Tradition had it that Mr. Rayner was not among the number 
 of those who sighed for Kate Travers's guarded smiles. Her earlier 
 victims were kept a-dangling until Rayner, too, succumbed, and then 
 were sent adrift. She meant that no penniless subaltern should carry off 
 her " baby sister," — they had long been motherless, — and a season at the 
 sea-shore had done her work well. Steven Van Antwerp, with genuine 
 distress and loneliness, went back to his duties in Wall Street after see- 
 ing them safely on their way to the West. " Guard her well for me," 
 he whispered to Mrs. Rayner. " I dread those fellows in buttons." 
 And he shivered unaccountably as he spoke. 
 
 Nellie was pledged, therefore, and this youth in the Pullman was 
 not one of " those fellows in buttons," so far as Mrs. Rayner knew, but 
 she was ready to warn him off, and meant to do so, until, to her surprise, 
 she saw that he gave no symptom of a desire to approach. By noon 
 of the second day she was as determined to extract from him some sign 
 of interest as she had been determined to resent it. I can in no wise 
 explain or account for this. The fact is stated without remark. 
 
 " What on earth can we be stopping so long here for ?" was Mrs. 
 Rayner's somewhat petulant inquiry, addressed to no one in particular. 
 There was no reply. Miss Travers was busily twitching the ears of the 
 kitten at the moment and sparring with upraised finger at the threaten- 
 ing paw. 
 
 " Do look out of the window, Nell, and see." 
 
 " There is nothing to see, Kate, — nothing but whirling drifls and a 
 big water-tank all covered with ice. Br-r-r-r ! how cold it looks !" 
 she answered, after vainly flattening her face against the inner pane. 
 
 "There must be something the matter, though," persisted Mrs. 
 Rayner. " We have been here full five minutes, and we are behind 
 time now. At this rate we'll never get to Warrener to-night. I do 
 "wish the porter would stay here where he belongs." 
 
 The young man quietly laid down his book and arose. " I will 
 inquire, madame," he said, with grave courtesy. " You shall know in a 
 moment." 
 
 " How very kind of you !" said the lady. " Indeed I must not 
 trouble you. I'm sure the porter will be here after a while." 
 
THE DESERTER. 713 
 
 And even as she spoke, and as he was pulling on an overcoat, the 
 train rumbled off again. Then came an exclamation, this time from 
 the younger : 
 
 " Why, Kate ! Look ! see all these men, — and horses ! Why, they 
 are soldiers, — cavalry ! Oh, how I love to see them again ! But, oh, 
 how cold they look ! — frozen !" 
 
 " Who can they be ?" said Mrs. Rayner, all vehement interest now, 
 and gazing eagerly from the window at the lowered heads of the horses 
 and the muffled figures in blue and fur. " What can they be doing in 
 the field in such awful weather? I cannot recognize one of them, 
 or tell officers from men. Surely that must be Captain Wayne, — and 
 Major Stannard. Oh, what can it mean?" 
 
 The young man had suddenly leaped to the window behind them, 
 and was gazing out with an eagerness and interest little less apparent 
 than her own, but in a moment the train had whisked them out of sight 
 of the storm-beaten troopers. Then he hurried to the rear window of 
 the car, and Mrs. Rayner as hastily followed. 
 
 " Do you know them ?" she asked. 
 
 " Yes. That was Major Stannard. It is his battalion of the — th 
 Cavalry, and they have been out scouting after renegade Cheyennes. 
 Pardon me, madame, I must go forward and see who have boarded the 
 train." 
 
 He stopped at his section, and again she followed him, her eyes 
 full of anxiety. He was busy tugging at a flask in his travelling- 
 bag. 
 
 " You know them ! Do you know — have you heard of any infantry 
 being out? Pardon me for detaining you, but I am very anxious. 
 My husband is Captain Rayner, of Fort Warrener." 
 
 " No infantry have been sent, madame, I have reason to know ; 
 
 at least, none from Warrener." 
 
 And with that he hurriedly bowed and left her. The next moment, 
 flask in hand, he was crossing the storm-swept platform and making 
 his way to the head of the train. 
 
 " I believe he is an officer," said Mrs. Rayner to her sister. 
 " Who else would be apt to know about the movement of the troops ? 
 Did you notice how gentle his manner was ? — and he never smiled : 
 he has such a sad face. Yet he can't be an officer, or he would have 
 made himself known to us long ago." 
 
 " Is there no name on the satchel ?" asked Miss Travers, with par- 
 donable curiosity. " He has an interesting face, — not handsome." And 
 a dreamy look came into her deep eyes. She was thinking, no doubt, 
 of a dark, oval, distingu6 face with raven hair and moustache. The 
 youth in the travelling-suit was not tall, like Steven, — not singularly, 
 romantically handsome, like Steven. Indeed, he was of less interest to 
 her than to her married sister. 
 
 Mrs. Rayner could see no name on the satchel, — only two initials ; 
 and they revealed very little. 
 
 " I have half a mind to peep at the fly-leaf of that book," she said. 
 "He walked just like a soldier; but there isn't anything there to indi- 
 cate what he is," she continued, with a doubtful glance at the items 
 Vol. XXXIX.— 47 
 
714 THE DESERTER. 
 
 scattered about the now vacant section. " Why Isn't that porter here ? 
 He ought to know who people are." 
 
 As though to answer her request, in came the porter, dishevelled and 
 breathless. He made straight for the satchel they had been scrutinizing, 
 and opened it without ceremony. Both ladies regarded this proceeding 
 with natural astonishment, and Mrs. Rayner was about to interfere and 
 question his right to search the luggage of passengers, when the man 
 turned hurriedly towards them, exhibiting a little bundle of handker- 
 chiefs, his broad Ethiopian face clouded with anxiety and concern : 
 
 " The gentleman told me to take all his handkerchiefs. We'se got 
 a dozen frozen soldiers in the baggage-car, — some of 'em mighty bad, — 
 and they'se tryin' to make 'em comfortable until they get to the fort." 
 
 " Soldiers frozen ! Why do you take them in the baggage-car ? — 
 such a barn of a place ! Why weren't they brought here, where we 
 could make them warm and care for them ?" exclaimed Mrs. Rayner, 
 in impulsive indignation. 
 
 " Laws, ma'am ! never do in the world to bring frozen people 
 into a hot car ! Sure to make their ears an' noses drop off, that would ! 
 Got to keep 'em in the cold and pile snow around 'em. That gentle- 
 man sittin' here, — he knows," he continued : " he's an officer, and him 
 and the doctor's workin' with 'em now." 
 
 And Mrs. Rayner, vanquished by a statement of facts well known 
 to her yet forgotten in the first impetuosity of her criticism, relapsed 
 into the silence of temporary defeat. 
 
 " He is an officer, then," said Miss Travers, presently. " I wonder 
 what he belongs to." 
 
 " Not to our regiment, I'm sure. Probably to the cavalry. He 
 knew Major Stannard and other officers whom we passed there." 
 
 " Did he speak to them ?" 
 
 " No : there was no time. We were beyond hearing-distance when 
 he ran to the back door of the car ; and there was no time before that. 
 But it's very odd !" 
 
 "What's very odd?" 
 
 " Why, his conduct. It is so strange that he has not made himself 
 known to us, if he's an officer." 
 
 " Probably he doesn't know you — or we — are connected with the 
 army, Kate." 
 
 " Oh, yes, he does. The porter knows perfectly well, and I told 
 him just before he left." 
 
 " Yes, but he didn't know before that time, did he?" 
 
 " He ought to have known," said Mrs. Rayner, uncompromisingly. 
 " At least, he should if he had taken the fiiintest interest. I mentioned 
 Captain Rayner so that he could not help hearing." 
 
 This statement being one that Miss Travers could in no wise con- 
 tradict, — as it was one, indeed, that Mrs. Rayner could have dispensed 
 with as unnecessary, — the younger lady again betook herself to silence 
 and pulling the kitten's ears. 
 
 '' Even if he didn't know before," continued her sister, after a pause 
 in which she had apjiarently been brooding over the indifference of the 
 young man in question, " he ought to have made himself known after 
 
THE DESERTER. 7X5 
 
 I told him who I was." Another pause. " That's what I did it for," 
 she wound up, conckisively. 
 
 "And that's what I thought," said Miss Travers, with a quiet 
 smile. " However, he had no time then : he was hurrying off to see 
 whether any of the soldiers had come on board. He took his flask 
 with him, and apparently was in haste to offer some one a drink. I'm 
 sure that is what papa used to do," she added, as she saw a frown 
 gathering on her sister's face. 
 
 " What papa did just after the war — a time when everybody drank 
 — is not at all the proper thing now. Captain Rayner never touches 
 it ; and I don't allow it in the house." 
 
 " Still, I should think it a very useful article when a lot of frozen 
 and exhausted men are on one's hands," said Miss Travers. " That 
 was but a small flask he had, and I'm sure they will need more." 
 
 There came a rush of cold air from the front, and the swinging 
 door blew open ahead of the porter, who was heard banging shut the 
 outer portal. Then he hurried in. 
 
 "Can some of you gentlemen oblige me with some whiskey or 
 brandy ?" he asked. " We've got some frozen soldiers aboard. Two 
 of 'em are pretty nearly gone." 
 
 Two of the card-players dropped their hands and started for their 
 section at once. Before thev could rumraao-e in their bag-s for the re- 
 quired article, Mrs. Rayner's voice was heard : " Take this, porter." 
 And she held forth a little silver flask. " I have more in my trunk 
 if it is needed," she added, while a blush mounted to her forehead 
 as she saw the quizzical smile on* her sister's face. " You know I 
 always carry it in travelling, Nellie, — in case of accident or illness ; 
 and I'm most thankful I have it now." 
 
 " Ever so much obliged, ma'am," said the porter, " but this would 
 be only a thimbleful, and I can get a quart bottle of tliis gentleman." 
 
 "Where are they?" said the person thus referred to, as he came 
 down the aisle with a big brown bottle in his hand. " Come, Jim, 
 let's go and see what we can do. One of you gentlemen take my place 
 in the game," he continued, indicating the commercial gents, two of 
 whom, nothing loath, dropped into the vacated seats, while the others 
 pushed on to the front of the train. The porter hesitated "one moment. 
 
 " Yes, take my flask : I shouldn't feel satisfied without doing some- 
 thing. And please say to the officer that I'm INIrs. Rayner, — Mrs. 
 Captain Rayner, of the infantry, — and ask if there isn't something I 
 can do to help." 
 
 " Yes, ma'am ; I will, ma'am. Oh, he knows who you are : I 
 done told him last night. He's goin' to Fort Warrener, too." And, 
 touching his cap, away went the porter. 
 
 " There ! He did know all along," said Mi's. Rayner, trium- 
 phantly. " It is most extraordinary !" 
 
 " Well, is it the proper thing for people in the army to introduce 
 themselves when travelling ? How are they to know it wdll be agree- 
 able?" 
 
 " Agreeable ! Why, Nellie, it's always done, — especially when 
 ladies are travelling without escort, as we are. Tlie commonest civility 
 
716 THE DESERTER. 
 
 should prompt it ; and officers always send their cards by the porter the 
 moment they find army ladies are on the train. I don't understand 
 this one at all, — especially " But here she broke off abruptly. 
 
 " Especially what ?" asked Miss Nell, with an inspiration of maid- 
 enly curiosity. 
 
 " Especially nothing. Never mind now." And here the baby began 
 to fidget, and stir about, and stretch forth his chubby hands, and thrust 
 his knuckles in his eyes, and pucker up his face in alarming contortions 
 jjreparatory to a wail, and, after one or two soothing and tentative 
 sounds of " sh — sli — sh — sh" from the maternal lips, the matron 
 abandoned the attempt to induce a second nap, and picked him up in 
 her arms, where he presently began to take gracious notice of his pretty 
 aunt and the kitten. 
 
 Two hours later, just as the porter had notified them that Warrener 
 Station would be in sight in five minutes, the young man of the oppo- 
 site section returned to the car. He looked tired, very anxious, and his 
 face was paler and the sad expression more pronounced than before. 
 The train-conductor stopped him to speak of some telegrams that had 
 been sent, and both ladies noted the respect which the railway official 
 threw into the tone in which he spoke. The card-players stopped their 
 game and went up to ask after the frozen men. It was not until the 
 whistle was sounding for the station that he stood before them and with 
 a grave and courteous bow held forth Mrs. Rayner's silver flask. 
 
 " It was a blessing to one poor fellow at least, and I thank you for 
 him, madame," he said. 
 
 " I have been so anxious. I wanted to do something. Did you 
 
 not get my message, Mr. ?" she asked, with intentional pause that 
 
 he might supply the missing name. 
 
 " Indeed there was nothing we could ask of you," he answered, 
 totally ignoring the evident invitation. " I am greatly obliged to you 
 for your kindness, but we had abundant help, and you really could not 
 have reached the car in the face of this gale. Good-morning, madame." 
 And with that he raised his fur travelling-cap and quickly turned to his 
 section and busied himself strapping up his various belongings. 
 
 " The man must be a woman-hater," she whispered to Miss Travers. 
 "He's going- to get out here, too. Who can he be?" 
 
 There was still a moment before the train would stop at the plat- 
 form, and she was not to be beaten so easily. Bending partly across 
 the aisle, she spoke again : 
 
 " You have been so kind to those poor fellows that I feel sure you 
 must be of the army. I think I told you I am Mrs. Rayner, of Fort 
 Warrener. May we not hope to see you there ?" 
 
 A deep flush rose to his forehead, suffusing his cheeks, and passed 
 as quickly away. His mouth twitched and trembled. Gazing at him 
 in surprise and trouble, Nellie Travers saw that his face was full of 
 pain and was turning white again. He half choked before he could 
 reply : he spoke low, and yet distinctly, and the words were full of 
 sadness : 
 
 " It — it is not probable that we shall meet at all." 
 
 And with that he turned away. 
 
THE DESERTER. fjyj 
 
 II. 
 
 Even in the excitement attendant upon their reception at the sta- 
 tion neither Mrs, Rayner nor her sister could entirely recover from the 
 surprise and pain which the stranger's singular words had caused. So far 
 from feeling in the least rebuffed, Mrs. Kayner well understood from 
 his manner that not the faintest discourtesy was intended. There was 
 not a symptom of rudeness, not a vestige of irritation or haste, in his 
 tone. Deep embarrassment, inexpressible sadness even, she read in the 
 brief glimpse she had of his paling face. It was all a mystery to her 
 and to the girl seated in silence by her side. Both followed him with 
 their eyes as he hurried away to the rear of the car, and then, with 
 joyous shouts, three or four burly, fur-enveloped men came bursting 
 in the front door, and the two ladies, the baby, and the kitten were 
 pounced upon and surrounded by a group that grew larger every min- 
 ute. Released finally from the welcoming embrace of her stalwart 
 husband, Mrs. Rayner found time to present the other and younger 
 officers to her sister. As many as half a dozen had followed the cap- 
 tain in his wild rush upon the car, and, while he and his baby boy 
 were resuming acquaintanceship after a separation of many lono- 
 months, Miss Travers found herself the centre of a circle of youno- 
 officers who had braved the wintry blizzard in their eagerness to do 
 her proper homage. Her cheeks were aflame with excitement and 
 pleasure, her eyes dancing, and despite the fatigue of her long journey 
 she was looking dangerously pretty, as Captain Rayner glanced for a 
 moment from the baby's wondering eyes, took in the picture like an 
 instantaneous photograph, and then looked again into Mrs. Rayner's 
 smiling face. 
 
 " You were wise in providing against possibilities as you did, Kate," 
 he said, with a significant nod of the head. " There are as many as a 
 dozen of them, — or at least there will be when the — th g^ts back from 
 the field. Stannard is out yet with his battalion." 
 
 "■ Oh, yes : we saw them at a station east of here. They looked 
 frozen to death ; and there are ever so many of the soldiers frozen. 
 The baggage-car is full of them. Didn't you know it?" 
 
 " Not a word of it. We have been here for three mortal hours 
 waiting at the station, and any telegrams must have been sent right out 
 to the fort. The colonel is there, and he would have all arrangements 
 made. Here, Graham ! Foster ! Mrs. Rayner says there are a lot 
 of frozen cavalrymen forward in the baggage-car. Run ahead and see 
 what is necessary, will you ? I'll be there in a minute, as soon as we've 
 got these ladies off the train." 
 
 Two of the young gentlemen who had been hovering around Miss 
 Travers took themselves off without a moment's delay. The others 
 remained to help their senior officer. Out into the whirling eddies 
 of snow, bundling them up in the big, warm capes of their regulation 
 overcoats, the officers half led, half carried their precious charges. 
 The captain bore his son and heir; Lieutenant Ross escorted IVtrs. 
 Rayner ; two others devoted themselves exclusively to Miss Travers ; a 
 
718 THE DESERTER. 
 
 fourth picked up the Maltese kitten. Two or three smart, trim-looking 
 infantry soldiers cleared the section of bags and bundles of shawls, and 
 the entire party was soon within the door-way of the waiting-room, 
 where a red-hot coal-stove glowed fierce welcome. Here the ladies 
 were left for a moment, while all the officers again bustled out into the 
 storm and fought their way against the northwest gale until they 
 reached the little crowd gathered about the door-way of the freight- 
 sheds. A stout, short, burly man in beaver overcoat and cap pushed 
 through the knot of half-numbed spectators and approached their 
 leader : 
 
 " We have onlv two ambulances, captain, — that is all there was at 
 the post when the despatch came, — and there are a dozen of these men, 
 besides Dr. Grimes, all more or less crippled, and Grimes has both 
 hands frozen. We must get them out at once. Can we take your 
 wagon ?" 
 
 " Certainly, doctor. Take anything we have. If the storm holds, 
 tell the driver not to try to come back for us. AVe can make the ladies 
 comfortable here at the hotel for the night. Some of tlie officers have 
 to get back for duties this evening. The rest will have to stay. How 
 did they happen to get caught in sucli a freeze ?" 
 
 " They couldn't help it. Stannard had chased the Cheyennes across 
 the range, and was ordered to get back to the railway. It was twenty 
 below when they started, and they made three days' cliase in that 
 weather ; but no one seemed to care so long as they were on the trail. 
 Then came the change of wind, and a driving snow-storm, in which 
 they lost the trail as a matter of course ; and then this blizzard struck 
 them on the back-track. Grimes is so exhausted that he could barely 
 hold out until he got here. He says he never could have brouglit 
 them through from Bluff Siding but for Mr. Hayne : he did every- 
 thing." 
 
 " Mr. Hayne ! Was he with them ?" 
 
 " He was, on the train, and came in at once to offer his services. 
 Grimes says he was invaluable." 
 
 " But Mr. Hayne was East on leave : I hnow he was. He was 
 promoted to my company last month, — confound the luck ! — and was 
 to have six months' leave before joining. I wish it was six years. 
 Where is he now ?" And the captain peered excitedly around from 
 under his shaggy cap. Oddly, too, his face was paling. 
 
 " He left as soon as I took charge. I don't know where he's 
 gone; but it's God's mercy he w^as with these poor fellows. His 
 skill and care have done everything for them. Whei-e did he get 
 his knowledge?" 
 
 " I've no idea," said Captain Eayner, gruffly, and in evident ill 
 humor. " He is the last man I expected to see this day or for days to 
 come. Is there anything else I can do, doctor?" 
 
 " Nothing, thank you, captain." And the little surgeon hastened 
 back to his charges, followed by some of the younger officers, eager to 
 be of assistance in caring for their disabled comrades. Rayner himself 
 hesitated a moment, then turned about and trudged heavily back along 
 the wind-swept platform. The train had pulled away, and was out of 
 
THE DESERTER. 719 
 
 sight in the whirl of snow over the Western prairies. He went to his 
 own substantial wagon, and shouted to the driver, who sat muffled in 
 buffiilo fur on the box, — 
 
 " Get around there to the freight-house and report to the doctor. 
 There are a lot of frozen cavalrymen to be taken out to the hospital. 
 Don't try to come back for us to night : we'll stay here in town. Send 
 the quartermaster's team in for the trunks as soon as the storm is over 
 and the road clear. That's all." 
 
 Then he rejoined the party at the waiting-room of the station, and 
 Mrs. Ilayner noted instantly that all the clieeriness had gone and that 
 a cloud had settled on his face. She was a shrewd observer, and she 
 knew him well. Something more serious than a mishap to a squad 
 of soldiers had brought about the sudden change. He was all gkid- 
 ness, all rejoicing and delight, when lie clasped her and his baby boy 
 in his arms but ten minutes before, and now — something had occurral 
 to bring him serious discomfort. She rested her hand on his arm 
 and looked questioningly in his face. He avoided her glance, and 
 quickly began to talk. She saw that he desired to answer no questions 
 just then, and wisely refrained. 
 
 Meantime, Miss Travers was chatting blithely with two young gal- 
 lants who had returned to her side, and who had thrown off their heavy 
 furs and now stood revealed in their becoming undress uniforms. Mr. 
 Ross had gone to look over the rooms which the host of the railway 
 hotel had offered for the use of the party ; the baby was yielding to the 
 inevitable and gradually condescending to notice the efforts of Mr. 
 Foster to scrape acquaintance ; the kitten, with dainty step, and ears 
 and tail erect, was making a leisurely inspection of the premises, sniff- 
 ing about the few benches and chairs with which the bare room was 
 burdened, and reconnoitring the door leading to the hall- way with evi- 
 dent desire to extend her researches in that direction. Presently that 
 very door opened, and in came two or three bundles of fur in masculine 
 shape, and with them two shaggy deer-hounds, who darted straight at 
 the kitten. There was a sudden flurry and scatter, a fury of spits and 
 scratching, a yelp of pain from one brute with lacerated nose, a sudden 
 recoil of both hounds, and then a fiery rush through the open door-way 
 in pursuit of puss. After the first gallant instinct of battle her nerve 
 had given out, and she had sought safety in flight. 
 
 " Oh, don't let them hurt her !' cried Miss Travers, as she darted 
 into the hall and gazed despairingly up the stairway to the second story, 
 whither the dogs had vanished like a flash. Two of the young officers 
 sped to the rescue and turned the wrong way. Mrs. Rayner and the 
 captain followed her into the hall. A rush of canine feet and an ex- 
 cited chorus of barks and yelps were heard aloft ; then a stern voice 
 ordering, " Down, you brutes !" a sudden howl as though in response 
 to a vigorous kick, and an instant later, bearing the kitten, ruffled, ter- 
 rified, and wildly excited, yet unharmed, there came springing lightly 
 down the steps the young man in civilian dress who was their fellow- 
 traveller on the Pullman. Without a word he gave his prize into the 
 dainty hands outstretched to receive it, and, never stopping an instant, 
 never listening to the eager words of tliauks from her pretty lips, he 
 
720 ^^^ DESERTER. 
 
 darted back as quickly as he came, leaving Miss Travers suddenly- 
 stricken dumb. 
 
 Captain Rayner turned sharply on his heel and stepped back into 
 the waiting-room. Mr. Ross nudged a brother lieutenant and whis- 
 pered, " By gad ! that's awkward for Midas !" The two subalterns 
 who had taken the wrong turn at the top of the stairs reappeared there 
 just as the rescuer shot past them on his way back, and stood staring, 
 first after his disappearing form, and then at each other. Miss Travers, 
 with wonder and relief curiously mingled in her sweet face, clung to 
 her restored kitten and gazed vacantly up the stairs. 
 
 Mrs. Rayner looked confusedly from one to the other, quickly 
 noting the constraint in the manner of every officer present and the 
 sudden disappearance of her husband. There was an odd silence for 
 a moment : then she spoke : 
 
 " Mr. Ross, do you know that gentleman ?" 
 
 " I know who he is. Yes." 
 
 " Who is he, then ?" 
 
 " He is your husband's new first lieutenant, Mrs. Rayner. That is 
 Mr. Hayne." 
 
 " That ! — Mr. Hayne ?" she exclaimed, growing suddenly pale. 
 
 " Certainly, madame. Had you never seen him before ?" 
 
 " Never ; and I expected — I didn't expect to see such a " And 
 
 she broke short off, confused and plainly distressed, turned abruptly, and 
 left the hall as had her husband. 
 
 III. 
 
 The officers of Fort Warrener were assembled, as was the daily 
 morning custom, in the presence of the colonel commanding. It had 
 long been the practice of that veteran soldier to require all his com- 
 missioned subordinates to put in an appearance at his office immediately 
 after the ceremony of guard-mounting. He might have nothing to say 
 to them, or he might have a good deal ; and he was a man capable 
 of saying a good deal in very few words, and meaning exactly what he 
 said. It was his custom to look up from his writing as each officer 
 entered and respond to the respectful salutation tendered him with an 
 equally punctilious " Good-morning, Captain Gregg," or " Good-morn- 
 ing, Mr. Blake," — never omitting the mention of the name, unless, as 
 was sometimes tried, a squad of them came in together and made their 
 obeisance as a body. In this event the colonel simply looked each man 
 in the face, as though taking mental note of the individual constituents 
 of the group, and contented himself with a " Good-morning, gentle- 
 men." 
 
 When in addition to six troops of his own regiment of cavalry 
 there were sent to the post a major and four companies of infantry, 
 some of the junior officers of the latter organization had suggested to 
 their comrades of the yellow stripes that as the colonel had no roll-call 
 it might be a matter of no great risk to " cut the matinee^' on some of 
 the fiendishly cold mornings that soon set in ; but the experiment was 
 never designedly tried, thanks, possibly, to the frank exposition of his 
 
THE DESERTER. 721 
 
 personal views as expressed by Lieutenant Blake, of the cavalry, who 
 said, " Try it if you are stagnating for want of a sensation, my genial 
 plodder, but not if you value the advice of one who has been there, so 
 to speak. The chief will spot you quicker than lie can a missing shoe, 
 —a missing horseshoe, Johnny, let me elaborate for your comprehen- 
 sion, — and the next question will be, ' Mr. Bluestrap, did you inten- 
 tionally absent yourself?' and then how will you get out of it ?" 
 
 The matinees, so called, were by no means unpopular features of 
 the daily routine. The officers were permitted to bring their pipes or 
 cigars and take their after-breakfast smoke in the big, roomy office of 
 the commander, just as they were permitted to enjoy the post-prandial 
 whiff when at evening recitation in the same office they sat around the 
 room, chatting in low tones, for half an hour, while the colonel re- 
 ceived the reports of his adjutant, the surgeon, and the old and the new 
 officer of the day. Then any matters affecting the discipline or in- 
 struction or general interests of the command were brought up ; both 
 sides of the question were presented, if question arose ; the decision 
 was rendered then and there, and the officers were dismissed for the 
 day with the customary " That's all, gentlemen." They left the office 
 well knowing that only in the event of some sudden emergency would 
 they be called thither again or* disturbed in their daily vocations until 
 the same hour on the following morning. Meantime, they must be 
 about their work : drills, if weather permitted ; stable-duty, no matter 
 what the weather ; garrison courts, boards of survey, the big general 
 court that was perennially dispensing justice at the post, and the long 
 list of minor but none the less exacting demands on the time and 
 attention of the subalterns and company commanders. The colonel 
 was a strict, even severe, disciplinarian, but he was cool, deliberate, and 
 just. He " worked" his officers, and thereby incurred the criticism of 
 a few, but held the respect of all. He had been a splendid cavalry- 
 commander in the field of all others where his sterling qualities were 
 sure to find responsive appreciation in his officers and men, — on active 
 and stirring campaigns against the Indians, — and among his own regi- 
 ment he knew that deep in their hearts the — th respected and 
 believed in him, even when they growled at garrison exactions which 
 seemed uncalled for. The infantry officers knew less of him as a ster- 
 ling campaigner, and were not so well pleased with his discipline. It 
 was all right for him to " rout out" every mother's son in the cavalry 
 at reveille, because all the cavalry officers had to go to stables soon 
 afterwards, — that was all they were fit for, — but what on earth was the 
 use of getting them — the infantry — out of their warm beds before 
 sunrise on a wintry morning and having no end of roll-calls and such 
 things through the day, "just to keep them busy"? The real objection 
 — the main objection — to the colonel's system was that it kept a large 
 number of officers, most of whom were educated gentlemen, hammer- 
 ing all day long at an endless routine of trivial duties, allowing actually 
 no time in which they could read, study, or improve their minds ; but, 
 as ill luck would have it, the three young gentlemen who decided to 
 present to the colonel this view of the case had been devoting what 
 spare time they could find to a lively game of poker down at " the 
 
722 THE DESERTER. 
 
 store," and their petition for " more time to themselves" brought down 
 a reply from the oracular lips of the commander that became immortal 
 on the frontier and made the petitioners nearly frantic. For a week 
 the trio was the butt of all the wits at Fort Warrener. And yet the en- 
 tire commissioned force felt that they were being kept at the grindstone 
 because of the frivolity of these few youngsters, and they did not like 
 it. All the same the cavalrymen stuck up for their colonel, and the in- 
 fantrymen respected him, and the matinees were business-like and profit- 
 able. They were rarely unpleasant in any feature ; but this particular 
 morning — two days after the arrival of Mrs. Rayner and her sister — 
 there had been a scene of somewhat dramatic interest, and the groups 
 of officers in breaking up and going away could discuss nothing else. 
 The colonel had requested one of their number to remain, as he wished 
 to speak to him further ; and that man was Lieutenant Hayne. 
 
 Seven years had that young gentleman been a second lieutenant 
 of the regiment of infantry a detachment of Avhich was now stationed 
 at Warrener. Only this very winter had promotion come to him ; 
 and, of all companies in the regiment, he was gazetted to the first- 
 lieutenancy of Captain Rayner's. For a while the regiment when by 
 itself could talk of little else. Mr. Hayne had spent three or four 
 years in the exile of a little " two-company post" far up in the moun- 
 tains. Except the officers there stationed, none of his comrades had 
 seen him during that time. No one of them would like to admit that 
 he would care to see him. And yet, when once in a while they got to 
 talking among themselves about him, and the question was sometimes 
 confidentially asked of comrades who came down on leave from that 
 isolated station, " How is Hayne doing ?" or, " What is Hayne doing ?" 
 the language in which he was referred to grew by degrees far less 
 truculent and confident than it had been when he first went thither. 
 Officers of other regiments rarely spoke to the " Riflers" of Mr. Hayne. 
 Unlike one or two others of their arm of the service, this particular 
 regiment of foot held the affiiirs of its officers as regimental property 
 in which outsiders had no concern. If they had disagreements, they 
 were kept to themselves ; and even in a case which in its day had at- 
 tracted wide-spread attention the Riflers had long since learned to shun 
 all talk outside. It was evident to other commands that the Hayne 
 affair was a sore point and one on which they preferred silence. And 
 yet it was getting to be whispered around that the Riflers were by no 
 means so unanimous as they had been in their opinion of this very 
 officer. They were becoming divided among themselves ; and what com- 
 plicated matters was the fact that those who felt their views under- 
 going a reconstruction were compelled to admit that just in proportion 
 as the case of Mr. Hayne rose in their estimation the reputation of an- 
 other officer was bound to suffer ; and that officer was Captain Rayner. 
 
 Between these two men not a word had been exchanged for five 
 years, — not a single word since the day when, with ashen face and 
 broken accents, but with stern purpose in every syllable. Lieutenant 
 Hayne, standing in the presence of nearly all the officers of his regi- 
 ment, had hurled this prophecy in his adversary's teeth : " Though 
 it take me years, I will live it down desj)ite you ; and you will wish 
 
THE DESERTER. 723 
 
 to God you had bitten out your perjured tongue before ever you told the 
 lie that wrecked me." 
 
 No wonder there was talk, and lots of it, in the " Riflers" and all 
 through the garrison when llayner's first lieutenant suddenly threw up 
 his commission and retired to the mines he had located in Montana, 
 and Hayne, the " senior second," was promoted to the vacancy. Specu- 
 lation as to what would be the result was given a temporary rest by 
 the news that War Department orders had granted the subaltern six 
 months' leave, — the first he had sought in as many years. It was 
 known that he had gone East ; but hardly had he been away a fort- 
 night when there came the trouble with the Cheyennes at the reserva- 
 tion, — a leap for liberty by some fifty of the band, and an immediate 
 rush of the cavalry in pursuit. There were some bloody atrocities, as 
 there always are. All the troops in the department were ordered to be 
 in readiness for instant service, while the officials eagerly watched the 
 reports to see which way the desperate band would turn ; and the next 
 heard of Mr. Hayne was the news that he had thrown up his leave 
 and had hurried out to join his company the moment the Eastern 
 papers told of the trouble. It was all practically settled by the time 
 he reached the department ; but the spirit and intent of his action 
 could not be doubted. And now here he was at Warrener. That very 
 morning during the matinee he had entered the office unannounced, 
 "walked up to the desk of the commander, and, while every voice but 
 his in the room was stilled, he quietly spoke : 
 
 " Permit me to introduce myself, colonel, — Mr. Hayne. I desire 
 to relinquish my leave of absence and report for duty." 
 
 The colonel quickly arose and extended his hand : 
 
 " Mr. Hayne, I am especially glad to see you and to thank you here 
 for all your care and kindness to our men. The doctor tells me that 
 many of them would have had to suffer the loss of noses and ears, even 
 of hands and feet in some cases, but for your attention. Major Stannard 
 will add his thanks to mine when he returns. Take a seat, sir, for the 
 present. You are acquainted with the officers of your own regiment, 
 doubtless. Mr. Billings, introduce Mr. Hayne to ours." 
 
 Whereat the adjutant courteously greeted the new-comer, presented a 
 small party of yellow-strapped shoulders, and then drew him into earnest 
 talk about the adventure of the train. It was noticed that Mr. Hayne 
 neither by word nor glance gave the slightest recognition of the presence 
 of the officers of his own regiment, and that they as studiously avoided 
 him. One or two of their number had, indeed, risen and stepped for- 
 ward, as though to offer him the civil greeting due to one of their own 
 cloth ; but it was with evident doubt of the result. They reddened 
 when he met their tentative — which was that of a gentleman — with a 
 cold look of utter repudiation. He did not choose to see them, and, of 
 course, that ended it. 
 
 Nor was his greeting hearty among the cavalrymen. There were 
 only a few present, as most of the — th were still out in the field and 
 marching slowly homeward. The introductions were courteous and 
 formal, there was even constraint among some two or three, but there 
 was civility and an evident desire to refer to his services in behalf of 
 
724 THE DESERTER. 
 
 their men. All sucli attempts, however, Mr. Hayne waved aside by 
 an immediate change of the subject. It was plain that to them, too, 
 he had the manner of a man who was at odds with the world and 
 desired to make no friends. 
 
 The colonel quickly noted the general silence and constraint, and 
 resolved to shorten it as much as possible. Dropping his pen, he 
 wheeled around in his chair with determined cheerfulness : 
 
 " Mr. Hayne, you will need a day or two to look about before you 
 select quarters and get ready for work, I presume." 
 
 " Thank you, colonel. No, sir. I shall move in this afternoon and 
 be on duty to-morrow morning," was the calm reply. 
 
 There was an awkward pause for a moment. The officers looked 
 blankly from one to another, and then began craning their necks to 
 search for the post quartermaster, who sat an absorbed listener. Then 
 the colonel spoke again : 
 
 " I appreciate your promptness, Mr. Hayne ; but have you considered 
 that in choosing quarters according to your rank you will necessarily 
 move somebody out? We are crowded now, and many of your juniors 
 are married, and the ladies will want time to pack." 
 
 An anxious silence again. Captain Rayner was gazing at his boot- 
 toes and trying to appear utterly indifferent ; others leaned forward, as 
 though eager to hear the answer. A faint smile crossed Mr. Hayne's 
 features : he seemed rather to enjoy the situation : 
 
 " I have considered, colonel. I shall turn nobody out, and nobody 
 need be incommoded in the least." 
 
 " Oh ! then you will share quarters with some of the bachelors ?" 
 asked the colonel, with evident relief. 
 
 "No, sir;" and the answer was stern in tone, tliough perfectly 
 respectful : " I shall live as I have lived for years, — utterly alone." 
 
 One could have heard a pin drop in the office, — even on the matted 
 floor. The colonel half rose : 
 
 " Why, Mr. Hayne, there is not a vacant set of quarters in the 
 garrison. You will liave to move some one out if you decide to live 
 alone." 
 
 " There may be no quarters in the post, sir, but, if you will permit 
 me, I can live near my company and yet in officers' quarters." 
 
 " How so, sir ?" 
 
 " In the house out there on the edge of the garrison, facing tlie 
 prairie. It is within stone's-throw of the barracks of Company B, and 
 is exactly like those built for the officers in here along the parade." 
 
 " Why, Mr. Hayne, no officers ever lived there. It is utterly out 
 of the way and isolated. I believe it was built for the sutler years ago, 
 but was bought in by the government afterwards. — Who lives there 
 now, Mr. Quartermaster ?" 
 
 " No one, sir. It is being used as a tailors' shop ; half a dozen of 
 the company tailors work there ; but I can send them back to their own 
 barracks. The house is in good repair, and, as Mr. Hayne says, exactly 
 like those built for officers' use." 
 
 " And you mean you want to live there, alone, Mr. Hayne ?" 
 
 " I do, sir, — exactly." 
 
THE DESERTER. 725 
 
 The colonel turned sharply to his desk once more. The strained 
 silence continued a moment. Then he faced his officers : 
 
 " Mr. Hayne, will you remain a few moments ? I wish to speak 
 with you. — Gentlemen, that is all this morning." And so the meeting 
 adjourned. 
 
 While many of the cavalry officers strolled into the neighboring 
 club- and reading-room, it was noticed that their comrades of the in- 
 fantry lost no time at intermediate points, but took the shortest road to 
 the row of brown cottages known as the officers' quarters. The feeling 
 of constraint that had settled upon all was still apparent in the group 
 that entered the club-room, and for a moment no one spoke. There 
 was a general settling into easy-chairs and picking up of newspapers 
 without reference to age or date. No one seemed to want to say any- 
 thing, and yet every one felt it necessary to have some apparent excuse 
 for becoming absorbed in other matters. This was so evident to Lieu- 
 tenant Blake that he speedily burst into a laugh, — the first that had been 
 heard, — and when two or three heads popped out from behind their 
 printed screens to inquire into the cause of his mirth, that light-hearted 
 gentleman was seen sprawling his long legs apart and gazing out of the 
 window after the groups of infantrymen. 
 
 " What do you see that's so intensely funny ?" growled one of the 
 elders among the dragoons. 
 
 " Nothing, old mole, — nothing," said Blake, turning suddenly about. 
 " It looks too much like a funeral procession for fun. What I'm 
 chuckling at is the absurdity of our coming in here like so many mutes 
 in weepers. It's none of our funeral." 
 
 "Strikes me the situation is damned awkward," growled "the 
 mole" again. " Here's a fellow comes in who's cut by his regiment 
 and has placed ours under lasting obligation before he gets inside the 
 post." 
 
 " Well, does any man here know the rights and wrongs of the case, 
 anyhow ?" said a tall, bearded captain as he threw aside the paper which 
 he had not been reading, and rose impatiently to his feet. " It seems to 
 me, from the little I've heard of Mr. Hayne and the little I've seen, 
 that there is a broad variation between facts and appearances. He looks 
 like a gentleman." 
 
 " No one does know anything more of the matter than was known 
 at the time of the court-martial five years ago," answered " the mole." 
 " Of course you have heard all about that ; and my experience is that 
 when a body of officers and gentlemen find, after due deliberation on 
 the evidence, that another has been guilty of conduct unbecoming an 
 officer and a gentleman, the chances are a hundred to one he has been 
 doing something disreputable, to say the least." 
 
 " Then why wasn't he dismissed ?" queried a young lieutenant. 
 " The law says he must be." 
 
 " That's right, Dolly : pull your Ives and Benet on 'em, and show 
 you know all about military law and courts-martial," said the captain, 
 crushingly. " It's one thing for a court to sentence, and another for 
 the President to approve. Hayne icas dismissed, so far as a court 
 could do it, but the President remitted the whole thing." 
 
726 ^^^ DESERTER. 
 
 " There was more to it than that, thoUgh, and you know it, Bux- 
 ton," said Blake. " Neither the department commander nor General 
 Sherman thought the evidence conchisive, and they said so, — especially 
 old Gray Fox. And you ask any of these fellows here now Avhether 
 they believe Hayne was really guilty, and I'll bet you that eight out of 
 ten will flunk at the question." 
 
 " And yet they all cut him dead. That's prima fade evidence of 
 what they think." 
 
 " Cut be blowed ! By gad, if any man asked me to testify on oath 
 as to where the cut lay, I should say he had cut them. Did you see 
 how he ignored Foster and Graham this morning ?" 
 
 " I did ; and I thought it damned ungentlemanly in him. Those 
 fellows did the proper thing, and he ought to have acknowledged it," 
 broke in a third officer. 
 
 " I'm not defending that point ; the Lord knows he has done 
 nothing to encourage civility with his own people ; but there are two 
 sides to every story, and I asked their adjutant last fall, when there was 
 some talk of his company's being sent here, what Hayne's status was, 
 and he told me. There isn't a squarer man or sounder soldier in the 
 army than the adjutant of the Riflers ; and he said that it was Hayne's 
 stubborn pride that more than anything else stood in the way of his 
 restoration to social standing. He had made it a rule that every one 
 who was not for him was against him, and refused to admit any man to 
 his society who would not first come to him of his own volition and say 
 he believed him utterly innocent. As that involved the necessity of their 
 looking upon Rayner as either perjured or grossly and persistently 
 mistaken, no one felt called upon to do it. Guilty or innocent, he has 
 lived the life of a Pariah ever since." 
 
 " / wanted to open out to him, to-day," said Captain Gregg, " but 
 the moment I began to speak of his great kindness to our men he froze 
 as stiff as Mulligan's ear. What was the use? I simply couldn't 
 thaw an icicle. What made him so effective in getting the frost out of 
 them was his capacity for absorbing it into his own system." 
 
 " Well, here, gentlemen," said Buxton, impatiently, " we've got to 
 face this thing sooner or later, and may as well do it now. I know 
 Rayner, and like him, and don't believe he's the kind of man to wilfully 
 wrong another. I don't know Mr. Hayne, and Mr. Hayne apparently 
 don't want to know me. /think that where a man has been convicted 
 of dishonorable — disgraceful conduct and is cut by his whole regiment 
 it is our business to back the regiment, not the man. Now the question 
 is, where shall we draw the line in this case? It's none of our funeral, 
 as Blake says, but ordinarily it would be our duty to call upon this 
 officer. Shall we do it, now that he is in Coventry, or shall we leave 
 him to his own devices ?" 
 
 " I'll answer for myself, Buxton," said Blake, " and you can do as 
 you please. Except that one thing, and the not unusual frivolities of a 
 youngster that occurred previous to his trial, I understand that his 
 character has been above reproach. So far as I can learn, he is a far 
 more rej)utable character than I am, and a better officer than most of us. 
 Growl all you want to, comrades mine : ' it's a way we have in the 
 
THE DESERTER. 727 
 
 army,' and I like it. So long as I include myself in these malodorous 
 comparisons, you needn't SM-ear. It is my conviction that the Riflers 
 wouldn't say he was guilty to-day if they hadn't said so five years ago. 
 It is my information that he has paid every cent of the damages, 
 whether he caused them or not, and it is my intention to go and call 
 upon Mr. Hayne as soon as he's settled. I don't propose to influence 
 any man in his action ; and excuse me, Buxton, I think you did.'' 
 
 The captain looked wrathful. Blake was an oddity, of whom he 
 rather stood in awe, for there was no mistaking the popularity and 
 respect in which he was held in his own regiment. The — th was 
 somewhat remarkable for being emphatically an " outspoken crowd," 
 and for some years, thanks to a leaven of strong and truthful men in 
 whom this trait was pronounced and sustained, it had grown to be the 
 custom of all but a few of the officers to discuss openly and fully all 
 matters of regimental policy and utterly to discountenance covert action 
 of any kind. Blake was thoroughly popular, and generally respected, 
 despite a tendency to rant and rattle on most occasions. Nevertheless, 
 there were signs of dissent as to the line of action he proposed, though 
 it were only for his own guidance. 
 
 "And how do you suppose Rayner and the Riflers generally will 
 regard your calling on their black sheep?" asked Buxton, after a 
 pause. 
 
 " I don't know," said Blake, more seriously, and with a tone 
 of concern. " I like Rayner, and have found most of those fellows 
 thorough gentlemen and good friends. This will test the question 
 thoroughly. I believe most of them, except of course Rayner, would 
 do the same were they in my place. At all events, I mean to see." 
 
 " AVhat are you going to do, Gregg?" asked "the mole," wheeling 
 suddenly on his brother troop-commander. 
 
 " I don't know," said Gregg, doubtfully. " I think I'll ask the 
 colonel." 
 
 " What do you suppose lie means to do ?" 
 
 " I don't know again ; but I'll l)et we all know as soon as he makes 
 np his mind ; and he is making up his mind now, — or he's made it up, 
 for there goes Mr. Hayne, and here comes the orderly. Something's up 
 already." 
 
 Every head was turned to the door- way as the orderly's step was 
 heard in the outer hall, and every voice stilled to hear the message, it 
 was so unusual for the commanding officer to send for one of his sub- 
 ordinates after the morning meeting. The soldier tapped at the panel, 
 and at the prompt " Come in" pushed it partly open and stood with one 
 white-gloved hand resting on the knob, the other raised to his caji-visor 
 in salute. 
 
 " Lieutenant Blake ?" he asked, as he glanced around. 
 
 " What is it ?" asked Blake, stepping quickly from the window. 
 
 " The commanding officer's compliments, sir, and could he see the 
 lieutenant one minute before the court meets ?" 
 
 " Coming at once," said Blake, as he pushed his way through the 
 chairs, and the orderly faced about and disappeared. 
 
 " I'll bet it's about Hayne," was the apparently unanimous senti- 
 
728 THE DESERTER. 
 
 ment as the cavalry party broke up and scattered for the morning's 
 duties. Some waited purposely to hear. 
 
 The adjutant alone stood in the colonel's presence as Blake knocked 
 and entered. All others had gone. There was a moment's hesita- 
 tion, and the colonel paused and looked his man over before he spoke : 
 
 " You will excuse my sending for you, Mr. Blake, when I tell you 
 that it is a matter that has to be decided at once. In this case you 
 will consider, too, that I want you to say yes or no exactly as you 
 would to a comrade of your own grade. If you were asked to meet 
 Mr. Hayne at any other house in the garrison than mine, would you 
 desire to accept? You are aware of all the circumstances, the adjutant 
 tells me." 
 
 " I am, sir, and have just announced my intention of calling upon 
 him." 
 
 " Then will you dine with us this evening to meet Mr. Hayne ?" 
 
 " I will do so with pleasure, sir." 
 
 It could hardly have been an hour afterwards when Mrs. Rayner 
 entered the library in her cosey home and found Miss Travers enter- 
 taining herself with a book. 
 
 " Have you written to Mr. Van Antwerp this morning ?" she 
 asked. " I thought that was what you came here for." 
 
 '' I did mean to, but Mrs. "VValdron has been here, and I was in- 
 terrupted." 
 
 " It is fully fifteen minutes since she left, Nellie. You might have 
 written two or three pages already ; and you know that all manner of 
 visitors will be coming in by noon." 
 
 " I was just thinking over something she told me. I'll write 
 presently." 
 
 " Mrs. Waldron is a woman who talks about everything and every- 
 body. I advise you to listen to her no more than you can help. What 
 was it she told you ?" 
 
 Miss Travers smiled roguishly : " Why should you want to know, 
 Kate, if you disapprove of her revelations ?" 
 
 " Oh," with visible annoyance, " it is to — I wanted to know so as 
 to let you see that it was something unfounded, as usual." 
 
 " She said she had just been told that the colonel was going to give 
 a dinner-party this evening to Mr. Hayne." 
 
 "What?'' 
 
 "She — said — she — had — just — been — told — that — the colonel — was 
 going — to give — a dinner-party — this evening — to Mr. Hayne." 
 
 "Who told her?" 
 
 " Kate, I didn't ask." 
 
 " Who are invited ? None of ours f 
 
 " Kate, I don't know." 
 
 " Where did she say she had heard it ?" 
 
 " She didn't say." 
 
 Mrs. Rayner paused one moment, irresolute : " Didn't she tell you 
 anything more about it ?" 
 
 " Notliing, sister mine. Why should you feel such an interest in 
 
THE DESERTER. 729 
 
 what Mrs. Waldron says, if she's such a gossip ?" And Miss Travera 
 was evidently having hard work to keep from laughing outright. 
 
 " You had better write your letter," said her big sister, and flounced 
 suddenly out of the room and up the stairs. 
 
 A moment later she was at the parlor door with a wrap thrown over 
 her shoulders : " If Captain Rayner comes in, tell him I want particu- 
 larly to see him before he goes out again." 
 
 " Where are you going, Kate ?" 
 
 '' Oh, just over to Mrs. Waldron's a moment." 
 
 IV. 
 
 Facing the broad, bleak prairie, separated from it only by a rough, 
 unpainted picket fence, and flanked by uncouth structures of pine, one 
 of which was used as a storehouse for quartermaster's property, the 
 other as the post-trader's depository for skins and furs, there stood the 
 frame cottage which Mr. Hayne had chosen as his home. As has been 
 said, it M^as precisely like those built for the subaltern officers, so far as 
 material, plan, and dimensions were concerned. The locality made the 
 vast difference which really existed. Theirs stood all in a row, fronting 
 the grassy level of the parade, surrounded by verandas, bordering on a 
 well-kept gravel path and an equally well graded drive. Clear, spark- 
 ling water rippled in tiny aceqidas through the front yards of each, and 
 so furnished the moisture needed for the life of various little shrubs 
 and flowering plants. The surroundings were at least " sociable," and 
 there was companionship and jollity, with an occasional tifl* to keep 
 things lively. The married officers, as a rule, had chosen their quarters 
 farthest from the entrance-gate and nearest those of the colonel com- 
 manding. The bachelors, except the two or three who were old in the 
 service and had " rank" in lieu of encumbrances, were all herded to- 
 gether along the eastern end, a situation that had disadvantages as con- 
 nected with duties which required the frequent presence of the occupants 
 at the court-martial rooms or at head-quarters, and that was correspond- 
 ingly far distant from the barracks of the soldiers. It had its recom- 
 mendations in being convenient to the card-room and billiard-tables at 
 " the store," and in embracing within its limits one house Avhich pos- 
 sessed mysterious interest in the eyes of every woman and most of the 
 men in the garrison : it was said to be haunted. 
 
 A sorely-perplexed man was the post quartermaster when the rumor 
 came out from the railway-station that Mr. Hayne had arrived and was 
 coming to report for duty. As a first lieutenant he would have choice 
 of quarters over every second lieutenant in the garrison : there were ten 
 of these young gentlemen, and four of the ten were married. Every 
 set of quarters had its occupants, and Hayne could move in nowhere, 
 unless as occupant of a room or two in the house of some cornrade, 
 without first compelling others to move out. This proceeding would 
 lead to vast discomfort, occurring as it would in the dead of winter, 
 and the youngsters were naturally perturbed in spirit, — their wives 
 especially so. What made the prospects infinitely worse was the fact 
 that the cavalry bachelors were already living tliree in a house : the 
 Vol. XXXIX.— 48 
 
730 ^-^^ DESERTER. 
 
 only spare rooms were in the quarters of the second lieutenants of 
 the infantry, and they were not on speaking-terras with Mr. Hayne, 
 Everything, therefore, pointed to the probability of his "displacing" 
 a junior, who would in turn displace somebody else, and so they 
 would go tumbling like a row of bricks until the lowest and last was 
 reached. All this would involve no end of worry for the quarter- 
 master, who even under the most favorable circumstances is sure to 
 be the least appreciated and most abused officer under the comman- 
 dant himself, and that worthy was simply agasp with relief and joy 
 when he heard Mr. Hayne's astonishing announcement that he would 
 take the quarters out on " Prairie Avenue." 
 
 It was the talk of the garrison all that day. The ladies, especially, 
 had a good deal to say, because many of the men seemed averse to ex- 
 pressing their views. " Quite the proper thing for Mr. Hayne to do," 
 was the apparent opinion of the majority of the young wives and 
 mothers. As a particularly kind and considerate thing it was not re- 
 marked by one of them, though that view of the case went not entirely 
 unrepresented. In choosing to live there Mr, Hayne separated himself 
 from companionship. That, said some of the commentators, — men 
 as well as women, — he simply accepted as the virtue of necessity, and 
 so there was nothing to commend in his action. But Mr. Hayne was 
 said to possess an eye for the picturesque and beautiful. If so, he 
 deliberately condemned himself to the daily contemplation of a treeless 
 barren, streaked in occasional shallows with dingy patches of snow, 
 ornamented only in spots by abandoned old hats, boots, or tin cans 
 blown beyond the jurisdiction of the garrison police-parties. A line 
 of telegraph-poles was all that intervened between his fence and the 
 low-lying hills of the eastern horizon. SoutheastM^ard lay the distant 
 roofs and the low, squat buildings of the frontier town ; southward the 
 shallow valley of the winding creek in which lay the long line of 
 stables for the cavalry and the great stacks of hay ; while the row on 
 which he chose to live — " Prairie Avenue," as it was termed — was far 
 worse at his end of it than at the other. It covered the whole eastern 
 front. The big, brown hospital building stood at the northern end. 
 Then came the quarters of the surgeon and his assistants, then the 
 snug home of the post trader, then the "store" and its scattering 
 appendages, then the entrance-gateway, then a broad vacant space, 
 through which the wind swept like a hurricane, then the little shanty 
 of the trader's fur house and one or two hovel-like structures used by 
 the tailors and cobbler of the adjacent infantry companies. Then came 
 the cottage itself: south of it stood the quartermaster's store-room, 
 back of which lay an extension filled with ordnance stores, then other 
 and similar sheds devoted to commissary supplies, the post butcher- 
 shop, the saddler's shop, then big coal-sheds, and then the brow of the 
 bluif, down which at a steep grade plunged the road to the stables. It 
 was as unprepossessing a place for a home as ever was chosen by a man 
 of education or position ; and Mr. Hayne was possessed of both. 
 
 In garrison, despite the flat parade, there was a grand expanse of 
 country to be seen stretching away towards the snow-covered Rockies. 
 There was life and the sense of neiffhborliness to one's kind. Out on 
 
THE DESERTER. 731 
 
 Prairie Avenue all was wintry desolation, except when twice each day 
 the cavalry officers went plodding by on their way to and from the 
 stables, muffled up in their fur caps and coats, and hardly distinguish- 
 able from so many bears, much less from one another. 
 
 And yet Mr. Hayne smiled not unhappily as he glanced from his 
 eastern window at this group of burly warriors the afternoon succeed- 
 ing his dinner at the colonel's. He had been busy all day long un- 
 packing books, book-shelves, some few pictures which he loved, and his 
 simple, soldierly outfit of household goods, and getting them into shape. 
 His sole assistant was a Chinese servant, who worked rapidly and well, 
 and who seemed in no wise dismayed by the bleakness of their sur- 
 roundings. If anything, he was disposed to grin and indulge in high- 
 pitched commentaries in " j^idgin English" upon the unaccustomed 
 amount of room. His master had been restricted to two rooms and a 
 kitchen during the two years he had served him. Now they had a 
 house to themselves, and more rooms than they knew what to do with. 
 The quartermaster had sent a detail of men to put up the stoves and 
 move out the rubbish left by the tailors ; " Sam" had workal vigor- 
 ously with soft soap, hot water, and a big mop in sprucing up the 
 rooms ; the adjutant had sent a little note during the morning, saying 
 that the colonel would be glad to order him any men he needed to put 
 the quarters in proper shape, and that Captain Rayner had expressed 
 his readiness to send a detail from the company to unload and unpack 
 his boxes, etc., to which Mr. Playne replied in person that he thanked 
 the commanding officer for his thoughtfulness, but that he had very 
 little to unpack, and needed no assistance beyond that already affiDrded 
 by the quartermaster's men. Mr. Billings could not help noting that 
 he made no allusion to that part of the letter which spoke of Captain 
 Rayner's offer. It increased his respect for Mr. Hayne's perceptive 
 powers. 
 
 While every officer of the infantry battalion was ready to admit 
 that Mr. Hayne had rendered invaluable service to the men of the cav- 
 alry regiment, they were not so unanimous in their opinion as to how 
 it should be acknowledged and requited by its officers. No one was 
 prepared for the announcement that the colonel had asked him to dinner 
 and that Blake and Billings were to meet him. Some few of tlieir 
 number thought it going too far, but no one quite coincided with the 
 vehement declaration of Mrs. Rayner that it was an outrage and an 
 affront aimed at the regiment in general and at Captain Rayner in par- 
 ticular. She was an energetic woman when aroused, and there was no 
 doubt of her being very much aroused as she sped from house to house 
 to see what the other ladies thought of it. Rayner's wealth and Mrs. 
 Rayner's qualities had made her an undoubted though not always popu- 
 lar leader in all social matters in the Riflers. She was an authority, so 
 to spealv, and one who knew it. Already there had been some points 
 on which she had differed with the colonel's wife, and it was plain to all 
 that it was a difficult thing for her to come down from being the author- 
 ity — the leader of the social element of a garrison — and from the po- 
 sition of second or third importance which she had been accorded when 
 first assigned to the station. There were many, indeed, who asserted 
 
732 ^^^ DESERTER. 
 
 that it was because she found her new position unbearable that she 
 decided on her long visit to the East and departed thither before the 
 Riflers had been at Warrener a month. The colonel's wife had greeted 
 her and her lovely sister with charming grace on their arrival two days 
 previous to the stirring event of the dinner, and every one was looking 
 forward to a probable series of pleasant entertainments by the two 
 households, even Avhile wondering how long the entente cordiale would 
 last, — when the colonel's invitation to Mr. Hayne brought on an im- 
 mediate crisis. It is safe to say that Mrs. Rayner was madder than the 
 captain her husband, who hardly knew how to take it. He was by no 
 means the best liked officer in his regiment, nor the " deepest" and best 
 informed, but he had a native shrewdness which helped him. He noted 
 even before his wife would speak of it to him the gradual dying out of 
 the bitter feeling that had once existed at Hayne's expense. He felt, 
 though it hurt him seriously to make inquiries, that the man whom 
 he had practically crushed and ruined in the long ago was slowly but 
 surely gaining strength even where he would not make friends. Worse 
 than all, he was beginning to doubt the evidence of his own senses as 
 the years receded, and unknown to any soul on earth, even his wife, 
 there was growing up deep down in his heart a gnawing, insidious, ever- 
 festering fear that after all, after all, he might have been mistaken. 
 And yet on the sacred oath of a soldier and a gentleman, against the most 
 searching cross-examination, again and again had he most confidently and 
 positively declared that he had both seen and heard the fatal interview on 
 which the whole case hinged. And as to the exact language employed, 
 he alone of those within earshot had lived to testify for or against the ac- 
 cused : of the five soldiers who stood in that now celebrated group, three 
 were shot to death within the hour. He was growing nervous, irritable, 
 haggard ; he was getting to hate the mere mention of the case. The pro- 
 motion of Hayne to his own company thrilled him with an almost super- 
 stitious dismay. Were his words coming true ? Was it the judgment of 
 an offended God that his hideous pride, obstinacy, and old-time hatred 
 of this officer were now to be revenged by daily, hourly contact with the 
 victim of his criminal persecution ? He had grown morbidly sensitive 
 to any remarks as to Hayne's having " lived down" the toils in which 
 he had been encircled. Might he not " live down" the ensnarer ? He 
 dreaded to see him, — though Rayner was no coward, — and he feared 
 day by day to hear of his restoration to fellowship in the regiment, and 
 yet would have given half his wealth to bring it about, could it but have 
 been accomplished without the dreadful admission, " I was wrong. I 
 was utterly wrong." He had grown lavish in hospitality ; he had -become 
 almost aggressively open-handed to his comrades, and had sought to 
 press money upon men who in no wise needed it. He was as eager to 
 lend as some are to borrow, and his brother officers dubbed him " Mi- 
 das" not because everything he touched would turn to gold, but because 
 he would intrude his gold upon them at every turn. There were some 
 who borrowed ; and these he struggled not to let repay. He seemed to 
 have an insane idea that if he could but get his regimental friends 
 bound to him pecuniarily he could control their opinions and ac- 
 tions. It was making him sick at heart, and it made him in secret 
 
THE DESERTER. 733 
 
 doubly vindictive and bitter against the man he had doomed to years 
 of suffering. This showed out that very morning. Mrs. Rayner had 
 begun to talk, and he turned fiercely upon her : 
 
 " Not a word on that subject, Kate, if you love me ! — not even the 
 mention of his name ! I must have peace in my own house. It is 
 enough to have to talk of it elsewhere." 
 
 Talk of it he had to. The major early that morning asked him, 
 as they were going to the matinee, — 
 
 " Have you seen Hayne yet V 
 
 "Not since he reported on the parade yesterday," was the curt 
 reply. 
 
 " Well, I suppose you will send men to help him get those quarters 
 in habitable shape ?" 
 
 " I will, of course, major, if he ask it. I don't propose sending 
 men to do such work for an officer unless the request come," 
 
 " He is entitled to that consideration, Rayner, and I think the men 
 should be sent to him. He is hardly likely to ask." 
 
 " Then he is less likely to get them," said the captain, shortly, for, 
 except the post commander, he well knew that no officer could order it 
 to be done. He was angry at the major for interfering. They were old 
 associates, and had entered service almost at the same time, but his friend 
 had the better luck in promotion and was now his battalion commander. 
 Rayner made an excuse of stopping to speak with the officer of the 
 day, and the major went on without him. He was a quiet old soldier : 
 he ^vanted no disturbance with his troubled friend, and, like a sensible 
 man, he turned the matter over to their common superior, in a very 
 few words, before the arrival of the general audience. It was this that 
 had caused the colonel to turn quietly to Rayner and say, in the most 
 matter-of-fact way, — 
 
 ** Oh, Captain Rayner, I presume Mr. Hayne will need three or 
 four men to help him get his quarters in shape. I suppose you have 
 already tliought to send them ?" 
 
 And Rayner flushed, and stammered, "They have not gone yet, 
 sir ; but I had — tliought of it." 
 
 Later, when the sergeant sent the required detail he reported to 
 the captain in the company office in five minutes : " The lieutenant's 
 compliments and thanks, but he does not need the men." 
 
 The dinner at the colonel's, quiet as it was and with only eight at 
 table, was an affair of almost momentous importance to Mr. Hayne. 
 It was the first thing of the kind he had attended in five years; and 
 though he well know that it was intended by the cavalry commander 
 more especially as a recognition of the services rendered their suffering 
 men, he could not but rejoice in the courtesy and tact with which he 
 was received and entertained. The colonel's wife, the adjutant's, and 
 those of two captains away with the field battalion, were the four ladies 
 who were there to greet him when, escorted by Mr. Blake, he made 
 his appearance. How long — how very long — it seemed to him since 
 he had sat in the presence of refined and attractive women and listened 
 to their gay and animated chat ! They seemed all such good friends, 
 they made him so thoroughly at home, and they showed so much tact 
 
734 THE DESERTER. 
 
 and ease, that never once did it seem apparent that they knew of his 
 trouble in his own regiment ; and yet there was no actual avoidance of 
 matters in which the Riflers were generally interested. It was mainly 
 of his brief visit to the East, however, that they made him talk, — of the 
 operas and theatres he had attended, the pictures he had seen, the music 
 that was most popular ; and when dinner was over their hostess led 
 him to her piano, and he played and sang for them again and again. 
 His voice was soft and sweet, and, though it was uncultivated, he sang 
 with expression and grace, playing with more skill but less feeling and 
 effect than he sang. Music and books had been the solace of lonely 
 years, and he could easily see that he had pleased them with his songs. 
 He went home to the dreary rookery out on Prairie Avenue and 
 laughed at the howling wind. The bare grimy walls and the dim 
 kerosene lamp, even Sam's unmelodious snore in the back room, sent 
 no gloom to his soul. It had been a happy evening. It had cost him 
 a hard struggle to restrain the emotion which he had felt at times ; 
 and when he withdrew, soon after the trumpets sounded tattoo, and the 
 ladies fell to discussing him, as women will, there was but one verdict, 
 — his manners were perfect. 
 
 But the colonel said more than that. He had found him far better 
 read than any other officer of his age he had ever met ; and one and all 
 they expressed the hope that they might see him frequently. No wonder 
 it was of momentous importance to him. It was the opening to a new 
 life. It meant that here at least he had met soldiers and gentlemen 
 and their fair and gracious wives who had welcomed him to their 
 homes, and, though they must have known that a pall of suspicion and 
 crime had overshadowed his past, they believed either that he was 
 innocent of the grievous charge or that his years of exile and suffering 
 had amply atoned. It was a happy evening indeed to him ; but there 
 was gloom at Captain Rayner's. 
 
 The captain himself had gone out soon after tattoo. He found that 
 the parlor was filled with young visitors of both sexes, and he was in 
 no mood for merriment. Miss Travers was being welcomed to the 
 post in genuine army style, and was evidently enjoying it. Mrs. 
 Rayner was flitting nervously in and out of the parlor with a cloud 
 upon her brow, and for once in her life compelled to preserve temporary 
 silence upon the subject uppermost in her thoughts. She had been 
 forbidden to speak of it to her husband ; yet she knew he had gone out 
 again with every probability of needing some one to talk to about the 
 matter. She could not well broach the topic in the parlor, because she 
 was not at all sure how Captain and Mrs. Gregg of the cavalry would 
 take it ; and they were still there. She was a loyal wife ; her husband's 
 quarrel was hers, and more too ; and she was a woman of intuition 
 even keener than that which we so readily accord the sex. She knew, 
 and knew well, that a hideous doubt had been preying for a long time 
 in her husband's heart of heai-ts, and she knew still better that it would 
 crush him to believe it wa."^ even suspected by any one else. Right or 
 wrong, the one thing for her to do, she doubted not, was to maintain 
 the original guilt against all comers, and to lose no opportunity of feed- 
 ing the flame that consumed Mr. Hayne's record and reputation. He 
 
THE DESERTER. 735 
 
 was guilty, — he must be guilty ; and though she was a Christian accord- 
 ing to her view of the case, — a pillar of the Church in matters of public 
 charity and picturesque conformity to all the rubric called for in the 
 services, and much that it did not, — she was unrelenting in her condem- 
 nation of Mr. Hayne. To those who pointed out that he had made every 
 atonement man could make, she responded with the severity of conscious 
 virtue that there could be no atonement without repentance, and no 
 repentance without humility. Mr. Hayne's whole attitude was that of 
 stubborn pride and resentment ; his atonement was that enforced by the 
 unanimous verdict of his comrades ; and even if it were so that he had 
 more than made amends for his crime, the rules that held good for 
 ordinary sinners were not applicable to an officer of the army. He 
 must be a man above suspicion, incapable of wrong or fraud, and once 
 stained he was forever ineligible as a gentleman. It was a subject on 
 which she waxed declamatory rather too often, and the youngsters of 
 her own regiment wearied of it. As Mr. Foster once expressed it in 
 speaking of this very case, " Mrs. Kayner can talk more charity and 
 show less than any woman I know." So long as her talk was aimed 
 against any lurking tendency of their own to look upon Hayne as a 
 possible martyr, it fell at times on unappreciative ears, and she was 
 quick to see it and to choose her hearers ; but here was a new phase, — 
 one that might rouse the latent esprit de corps of the Riflers, — and she 
 was bent on striking while the iron was hot. If anything would 
 provoke unanimity of action and sentiment in the regiment, this public 
 recognition by the cavalry, in their very presence, of the man they cut 
 as a criminal, was the thing of all others to do it; and she meant to 
 head the revolt. 
 
 Possibly Gregg and his modest helpmeet discovered that there was 
 something she desired to " spring" upon the meeting. The others present 
 were all of the infantry ; and when Captain Rayner simply glanced in, 
 spoke hurried good-evenings, and went as hurriedly out again, Gregg 
 was sure of it, and marched his wife away. Then came Mrs. Hayner's 
 opportunity : 
 
 " If it were not Captain Rayner's house, I could not have been 
 even civil to Captain Gregg. You heard what he said at the club this 
 morning, I suppose?" 
 
 In one form or another, indeed, almost everybody had lieard. The 
 officers present maintained an embarrassed silence. Miss Travers 
 looked reproachfully at her flushed sister, but to no purpose. At last 
 one of the ladies remarked, — 
 
 " Well, of course I heard of it, but — I've heard so many different 
 versions. It seems to have grown somewhat since morning." 
 
 "It sounds just like him, however," said Mrs. Rayner, "and I 
 made inquiry before speaking of it. He said he meant to invite Mr. 
 Hayne to his house to-morrow evening, and if the infantry didn't like 
 it they could stay away." 
 
 "Well, now, Mrs. Rayner," protested Mr. Foster, "of course 
 none of us heard what he said exactly, but it is my experience that 
 no conversation was ever repeated without being exaggerated, and I've 
 known old Gregg for ever so long, and never heard him say a sharp 
 
736 ^^-S DESERTER. 
 
 thing yet. Why, he's the mildest-mannered fellow in the whole — th 
 Cavalry. He would never get into such a snarl as that would bring 
 about him in five minutes." 
 
 "Well, he said he would do just as the colonel did, anyway, — we 
 have that straight from cavalry authority, — and we all know what the 
 colonel has done. He has chosen to honor Mr. Hayne in the presence 
 of the officers who denounce him, and practically defies the opinion of 
 the Riflers." 
 
 " But, Mrs. Rayner, I did not understand Gregg's remarks to be 
 what you say, exactly. Blake told me that when asked by somebody 
 whether he was going to call on Mr. Hayne, Gregg simply replied he 
 didn't know, — he would ask the colonel." 
 
 " Very well. That means, he proposes to be guided by the colonel, 
 or nothing at all ; and Captain Gregg is simply doing what the others 
 will do. They say to us, in so many words, ' We prefer the society of 
 your bUe noire to your own.' That's the way I look at it," said Mrs. 
 Rayner, in deep excitement. 
 
 It was evident that, though none were prepared to endorse so ex- 
 treme a view, there was a strong feeling that the colonel had put an 
 affront upon the Riflers by his open welcome to Mr. Hayne. He had 
 been exacting before, and had caused a good deal of growling among the 
 officers and comment among the women. They were ready to find 
 fault, and here was strong provocation. Mr. Foster was a youth of 
 unfortunate and unpopular propensities. He should have held his 
 tongue, instead of striving to stem the tide. 
 
 " I don't uphold Hayne any more than you do, Mrs. Rayner, but 
 it seems to me this is a case where the colonel has to make some ac- 
 knowledgment of Mr. Hayne's conduct " 
 
 " Very good. Let him write him a letter, then, thanking him in 
 the name of the regiment, but don't pick him up like this in the face 
 of ours," interrupted one of the juniors, who was seated near Miss 
 Travers (a wise stroke of policy : Mrs. Rayner invited him to break- 
 fast) ; and there was a chorus of approbation. 
 
 " Well, hold on a moment," said Foster. " Hasn't the colonel had 
 every one of us to dinner more or less frequently ?" 
 
 " Admitted. But what's that to do with it ?" 
 
 " Hasn't he invariably invited each officer to dine with him in every 
 case where an officer has arrived ?" 
 
 " Granted. But what then ?" 
 
 "If he broke the rule or precedent in Mr. Hayne's case would 
 he not practically be saying that he endorsed the views of the court- 
 martial as opposed to those of the department commander. General 
 Sherman, the Secretary of War, the President of the United " 
 
 " Oh, make out your transfer papers, Foster. You ought to be in 
 the cavalry or some other disputatious branch of the service," burst in 
 Mr. Graham. 
 
 " I declare, Mr. Foster, I never thought you would abandon your 
 colors," said Mrs. Rayner. 
 
 " I haven't, madarae, and you've no right to say so," said Foster, in- 
 dignantly. " I simply hold that any attempt to work up a regimental 
 
THE DESERTER. 737 
 
 row out of this thing will make bad infinitely worse, and I deprecate 
 the whole business." 
 
 " I suppose you mean to intimate that Captain Rayner's position 
 and that of the regiment Is bad, — all wrong, — that Mr. Hayne has 
 been persecuted/' said Mrs. Rayner, with trembling lips and cheeks 
 aflame. 
 
 " Mrs. Rayner, you are unjust," said poor Foster. " I ought not 
 to have undertaken to explain or defend the colonel's act, perhaps, but 
 I am not disloyal to my regiment or my colors. What I want Is to 
 prevent further trouble; and I know that anything like a concerted 
 resentment of the colonel's Invitation will lead to Infinite harm." 
 
 " You may cringe and bow and bear It If you choose ; you may 
 humble yourself to such a piece of Insolence ; but rest assured there are 
 plenty of men and women in the Riflers who won't bear It, Mr. Foster ; 
 and for one I won't." She had risen to her full heio-ht now, and her 
 eyes were blazing. " For his own sake I trust the colonel will omit 
 our names from the next entertainment he gives. Nellie shan't " 
 
 " Oh, think, Mrs. Rayner !" Interrupted one of the ladies ; " they 
 miLst give her a dinner or a reception." 
 
 " Indeed they shall not ! I refuse to enter the door of people who 
 have insulted my husband as they have." 
 
 " Hush ! Listen !" said Mr. Graham, springing towards the door. 
 
 There was wondering silence an Instant. 
 
 " It is nothing but the trumpet sounding taps," said Mrs. Rayner, 
 hurriedly. 
 
 But even as she spoke they rose to their feet. INIuffled cries were 
 heard, borne In on the night wind, — a shot, then another, down In the 
 valley, — the quick peal of the cavalry trumpet. 
 
 " It Isn't taps. It's fire !" shouted Graham from the door-way. 
 " Come on !" 
 
 V. 
 
 Down in the valley south of the post a broad glare was already 
 shooting upward and Illumining the sky. One among a dozen little 
 shanties and log houses, the homes of the laundresses of the garrison 
 and collectively known as Sudsvllle, was a mass of flames. There was 
 a rush of officers across the parade, and the men, answering the alarum 
 of the trumpet and the shots and shouts of the sentries, came tearing 
 from their quarters and plunging down the hill. Among the first on 
 the spot came the young men who were of the party at Captain Ray- 
 ner's, and Mr. Graham was ahead of them all. It was plain to the 
 most inexperienced eye that there was hardly anything left to save In 
 or about the burning shanty. All efforts must be directed towards pre- 
 venting the spread of the flames to those adjoining. Half-clad women 
 and children were rushing about, shrieking with fright and excitement, 
 and a few men were engaged In dragging household goods and furniture 
 from those tenements not yet reached by the flames. Fire-apparatus 
 there seemed to be none, though squads of men speedily appeared with 
 ladders, axes, and buckets, brought from the different company quarters, 
 and the arriving officers quickly formed the bucket-lines and water 
 
738 TEE DESERTER. 
 
 dipped up from the icy creek began to fly from hand to hand. Before 
 anything like this was fairly under way, a scene of semi-tragic, semi- 
 comic intensity had been enacted in the presence of a rapidly gathering 
 audience. " It was worth more than the price of admission to hear 
 Blake tell it afterwards," said the officers, later. 
 
 A tall, angular woman, frantic with excitement and terror, was 
 dancing about in the broad glare of the burning hut, tearing her hair, 
 making wild rushes at the flames from time to time as though intent on 
 dragging out some prized object that was being consumed before her 
 eyes, and all the time keeping up a volley of maledictions and abuse in 
 lavish Hibernian, apparently directed at a cowering object who sat in 
 limp helplessness upon a little heap of fire-wood, swaying from side to 
 side and moaning stupidly through the scorched and grimy hands in 
 which his face was hidden. His clothing was still smoking in places ; 
 his hair and beard were singed to the roots ; he was evidently seriously 
 injured, and the sympathizing soldiers who had gathered around him 
 after deluging him with snow and water were striving to get him to 
 arise and go with them to the hospital. A little girl, not ten years 
 old, knelt sobbing and terrified by his side. She, too, was scorched and 
 singed, and the soldiers had thrown rough blankets about her ; but it 
 was for her father, not herself, she seemed worried to distraction. Some 
 of the women were striving to reassure and comfort her in their homely 
 fashion, bidding her cheer up, — the father was only stupid from drink, 
 and would be all right as soon as " the liquor was off of him." But 
 the little one was beyond consolation so long as he could not or would 
 not speak in answer to her entreaties. 
 
 All this time, never pausing for breiith, shrieking anathemas on her 
 drunken spouse, reproaches on her frightened child, and invocations to 
 all the blessed saints in heaven to reward the gintleman who had saved 
 her hoarded money, — a smoking packet that she hugged to her breast, 
 — Mrs. Clancy, "the saynior laundress of Company B," as she had 
 long styled herself, was prancing up and down through the gathering 
 crowd, her shrill voice overmastering all other clamor. The vigorous 
 efforts of the men, directed by cool-headed officers, soon beat back the 
 flames that were threatening the neighboring shanties, and levelled to 
 the ground what remained of Private Clancy's home. The fire was 
 extinguished almost as rapidly as it began, but the torrent of Mrs. 
 Clancy's eloquence was still unstemmed. The adjurations of sympa- 
 thetic sisters to " Howld yer whist," the authoritative admonition of 
 some old sergeant to " Stop your infernal noise," and the half-maudlin 
 yet appealing glances of her suffering lord were all insufficient to check 
 her. It was not until the quiet tones of the colonel were heard that she 
 began to cool down : " We've had enough of this, Mrs. Clancy : be still, 
 now, or we'll have to send you to the hospital in the coal-cart." Mrs, 
 Clancy knew that the colonel was a man of few words, and believed him 
 to be one of less sentiment. She was afraid of him, and concluded it 
 time to cease threats and abuse and come down to the more effective rdle 
 of wronged and suffering womanhood, — a feat M'hicli she accomplished 
 with the consummate ease of long practice, for the rows in the Clancy 
 household were matters of garrison notoriety. The surgeon, too, had 
 
THE DESERTER. 739 
 
 come, and, after quick examination of Clancy's condition, had directed 
 him to be taken at once to the hospital ; and thither his little daughter 
 insisted on following him, despite the efforts of some of the women to 
 detain her and dress her properly. 
 
 Before returning to his quarters the colonel desired to know some- 
 thing of the origin of the fire. There was testimony enough and to 
 spare. Every woman in Sudsville had a theory to express, and was 
 eager to be heard at once and to the exclusion of all others. It was 
 not until he had summarily ordered them to go to their homes and not 
 come near him that the colonel managed to get a clear statement from 
 some of the men. 
 
 Clancy had been away all the evening, drinking as usual, and Mrs. 
 Clancy was searching about Sudsville as much for sympathy and 
 listeners as for him. Little Kate, who knew her father's haunts, had 
 guided him home, and was striving to get him to his little sleeping- 
 corner before her mother's return, when in his drunken helplessness he 
 fell against the table, overturning the kerosene lamp, and the curtains 
 were all aflame in an instant. It was just after taps — or ten o'clock — 
 when Kate's shrieks aroused the inmates of Sudsville and started the 
 cry of " Fire." The flimsy structure of pine boards burned like so 
 much tinder, and the child and her stupefied father had been dragged 
 forth only in time to save their lives. The little one, after giving the 
 alarm, had rushed again into the house and was tugging at his senseless 
 form when rescue came for both, — none too soon. As for Mrs. Clancy, 
 at the first note of danger she had rushed screaming to the spot, but 
 only in time to see the whole interior ablaze and to howl frantically 
 for some man to save her money, — it was all in the green box under 
 the bed. For husband and child she had for the moment no thought. 
 They were safely out of the fire by the time she got there, and she 
 screamed and fought like a fury against the men who held her back 
 when she would have plunged into the midst of it. It took but a 
 minute for one or two men to burst through the flimsy wall with axes, 
 to rescue the burning box and knock off the lid. It M'as a sight to see 
 when the contents were handed to her. She knelt, wept, prayed, counted 
 over bill after bill of smoking, steaming gi-eenbacks, until suddenly 
 recalled to her senses by the eager curiosity and the remarks of some 
 of her fellow-women. That she kept money and a good deal of it in 
 her quarters had long been suspected and as fiercely denied ; but no 
 one had dreamed of such a sum as was revealed. In her frenzy she 
 had shrieked that the savings of her lifetime were burning, — that 
 there was over three thousand dollars in the box ; but she hid her 
 treasure and gasped and stammered and SAvore she was talking " wild- 
 like." " They was nothing but twos and wans," she vowed ; yet there 
 were women there who declared that they had seen tens and twenties as 
 she hurried them through her trembling fingers, and Sudsville gossiped 
 and talked for two hours after she was led away, still moaning and 
 shivering, to the bedside of poor Clancy, who was the miserable cause 
 of it all. The colonel listened to the stories with such patience as could 
 be accorded to witnesses who desired to give prominence to their per- 
 sonal exploits in subduing the flames and rescuing life and property. 
 
740 THE DESERTER. 
 
 It was not until he and the group of officers with him had been en- 
 gaged some moments in taking testimony that something was elicited 
 which caused a new sensation. 
 
 It was not by the united efforts of Sudsville that Clancy and Kate 
 had been dragged from the flames, but by the individual dash and de- 
 termination of a single man : there was no discrepancy here, for the 
 ten or a dozen who were wildly rushing about the house made no effort 
 to burst into it until a young soldier leaped through their midst into 
 the blazing door-way, was seen to throw a blanket over some object 
 within, and the next minute appeared again, dragging a body through 
 the flames. Then they had sprung to his aid, and between them Kate 
 and " the ould man" were lifted into the open air. A moment later he 
 had handed Mrs. Clancy her packet of money, and — they hadn't seen 
 him since. He was an officer, said they, — a new one. They thought 
 it must be the new lieutenant of Company B ; and the colonel looked 
 quickly around and said a few words to his adjutant, who started up 
 the hill forthwith. A group of officers and ladies were standing at the 
 brow of the plateau east of the guard-house, gazing down upon the 
 scene below, and other ladies, with their escorts, had gathered on a little 
 knoll close by the road that led to Prairie Avenue. It was past these 
 that the adjutant walked rapidly away, swinging his hurricane-lamp in 
 his hand. 
 
 " Which way now, Billings ?" called one of the cavalry officers in 
 the group. 
 
 " Over to Mr. Hayne's quarters," he shouted back, never stopping 
 at all. 
 
 A silence fell upon the group at mention of the name. They were 
 the ladies from Captain Rayner's and a few of their immediate friends. 
 All eyes followed the twinkling light as it danced away eastward towards 
 the gloomy coal-sheds. Then there was sudden and intense interest. 
 The lamp had come to a stand-still, was deposited on the ground, and 
 by its dim ray the adjutant could be seen bending over a dark object 
 that was half sitting, half reclining at the platform of the shed. Then 
 came a shout, " Come here, some of you." And most of the men ran 
 to the spot. 
 
 For a moment not one word was spoken in the watching group : 
 then Miss Travers's voice was heard : 
 
 " What can it be ? Why do they stop there ?" 
 
 She felt a sudden hand upon her wrist, and her sister's lips at her 
 ear: 
 
 " Come away, Nellie. I want to go home. Come !" 
 
 " But, Kate, I must see what it means." 
 
 " No : come ! It's — it's only some other drunken man, probably. 
 Come !" And she strove to lead her. 
 
 But the other ladies were curious too, and all, insensibl)'', were edging 
 over to the east as though eager to get in sight of the group. The re- 
 cumbent object had been raised, and was seen to be the dark figure of a 
 man whom the others began slowly to lead away. One of the group 
 came running back to them : it was Mr. Foster. 
 
 " Come, ladies : I will escort you home, as the others are busy." 
 
THE DESERTER. 741 
 
 " What is the matter, Mr. Foster ?" was asked by half a dozen 
 voices. 
 
 " It was Mr. Hayne, — badly burned, I fear. He was trying to get 
 home after having saved poor Clancy." 
 
 " You don't say so ! Oh, isn't there something we can do ? Can't 
 we go that way and be of some help ?" was the eager petition of more 
 than one of the ladies. 
 
 " Not now. They will have the doctor in a minute. He has not 
 inhaled flame ; it is all external ; but he was partly blinded and could 
 not find his way. He called to Billings when he heard him coming. 
 I will get you all home and then go back to him. Come!" And, 
 offering his arm to Mrs. Rayner, who was foremost in the direction he 
 wanted to go, — the pathway across the parade, — Mr. Foster led them 
 on. Of course there was eager talk and voluble sympathy ; but Mrs. 
 Rayner spoke not a word. The others crowded around him with 
 questions, and her silence passed unnoted except by one. 
 
 The moment they ^vere inside the door and alone, Miss Travers 
 turned to her sister : " Kate, what was this man's crime ? 
 
 VI. 
 
 An unusual state of affairs existed at the big hospital for several 
 days : Mrs. Clancy had refused to leave the bedside of her beloved 
 Mike, and was permitted to remain. For a woman who was notorious 
 as a virago and bully, who had beaten little Kate from her babyhood 
 and abused and hammered her Michael until, between her and drink, 
 he was but the wreck of a stalwart manhood, Mrs. Clancy had de- 
 veloped a degree of devotion that was utterly unexpected. In all the 
 dozen years of their marital relations no such trait could be recalled ; 
 and yet there had been many an occasion within the past few years when 
 Clancy's condition demanded gentle nursing and close attention, — and 
 never would have got it but for faithful little Kate. The child idolized 
 the broken-down man, and loved him with a tenderness that his weak- 
 ness seemed but to augment a thousandfold, while it but served to in- 
 furiate her mother. In former years, when he was Sergeant Clancy 
 and a fine soldier, many was the time he had intervened to save her 
 from an undeserved thrashing ; many a time had he seized her in his 
 strong arms and confronted the furious woman with stern reproof. 
 Between him and the child there had been the tenderest love, for she 
 was all that was left to him of four. In the old days Mrs. Clancy had 
 been the belle of the soldiers' balls, a fine-looking woman, with indom- 
 itable powers as a dancer and conversationalist and an envied repu- 
 tation for outshining all her rivals in dress and adornment. " She 
 would ruin Clancy, that she would," was the unanimous opinion of the 
 soldiers' wives ; but he seemed to minister to her extravagance with 
 unfailing good nature for two or three years. He had been prudent, 
 careful of his money, was a war-soldier with big arrears of bounty and, 
 tradition had it, a consummate skill in poker. He was the moneyed 
 man among the sergeants when the dashing relict of a brother non- 
 commissioned officer set her widow's cap for him and won. It did 
 
742 THE DESERTER. 
 
 not take many years for her to wheedle most of his money away ; but 
 there was no cessation to the demand, no apparent limit to the supply. 
 Both were growing older, and now it became evident that Mrs. Clancy 
 was the elder of the two, and that the artificiality of her charms could 
 not stand the test of frontier life. No longer sought as the belle of the 
 soldiers' ball-rooms, she aspired to leadership among their wives and 
 families, and was accorded that pre-eminence rather than the fierce 
 battle which was sure to follow any revolt. She became avaricious, — 
 some said miserly,— and Clancy miserable. Then began the down- 
 "U'ard course. He took to drink soon after his return from a long, hard 
 summer's campaign with the Indians. He lost his sergeant's stripes 
 and went into the ranks. There came a time when the new colonel 
 forbade his re-enlistment in the cavalry regiment in which he had 
 served so many a long year. He had been a brave and devoted soldier. 
 He had a good friend in the infantry, he said, who wouldn't go back 
 on a poor fellow who took a drop too much at times, and, to the sur- 
 prise of many soldiers, — officers and men, — he was brought to the re- 
 cruiting officer one day, sober, soldierly, and trimly dressed, and Cap- 
 tain Rayner expressed his desire to have him enlisted for his company ; 
 and it was done. Mrs. Clancy was accorded the quarters and rations 
 of a laundress, as was then the custom, and for a time — a very short 
 time — Clancy seemed on the road to promotion to his old grade. The 
 enemy tripped him, aided by the scoldings and abuse of his wife, and 
 he never rallied. Some work was found for him around the quarter- 
 master's shops which saved him from guard-duty or the guard-house. 
 The infantry — officers and men — seemed to feel for the poor, broken- 
 down old fellow and to lay much of his woe to the door of his wife. 
 There was charity for his faults and sympathy for his sorrows, but at 
 last it had come to this. He was lying, sorely injured, in the hospital, 
 and there were times when he was apparently delirious. At such 
 times, said Mrs. Clancy, she alone could manage him ; and she urged 
 that no other nurse could do more than excite or irritate him. To the 
 unspeakable grief of little Kate, she, too, was driven from the sufferer's 
 bedside and forbidden to come into the room except when her mother 
 gave permission. Clancy had originally been carried into the general 
 ward with the other patients, but the hospital steward two days after- 
 wards told the surgeon that the patient moaned and cried so at night 
 that the other sick men could not sleep, and offered to give up a little 
 room in his own part of the building. The burly doctor looked sur- 
 prised at this concession on the part of the steward, who was a man 
 tenacious of every perquisite and one who had made much complaint 
 about the crowded condition of the hospital wards and small rooms 
 ever since the frozen soldiers had come in. All the same the doctor 
 asked for no explanation, but gladly availed himself of the steward's 
 offer. Clancy was moved to this little room adjoining the steward's 
 quarters forthwith, and Mrs. Clancy was satisfied. 
 
 Another thing had happened to excite remark and a good deal of it. 
 Nothing short of eternal damnation was Mrs. Clancy's frantic sentence 
 on the head of her unlucky spouse the night of the fire, when she was 
 the central figure of the picture and when hundreds of witnesses to her 
 
THE DESERTER. 743 
 
 words were grouped around. Correspondingly had she called down the 
 blessings of the Holy Virgin and all the saints upon the man who res- 
 cued and returned to her that precious packet of money. Everybody 
 heard her, and it was out of the question for her to retract. Neverthe- 
 less, from within an hour after Clancy's admission to the hospital not 
 another word of the kind escaped her lips. She was all patience and 
 pity with the injured man, and she shunned all allusion to his pre- 
 server and her benefactor. The surgeon had been called away, after 
 doing all in his power to make Clancy comfortable, — he was needed 
 elsewhere, — and only two or three soldiers and a hospital nurse still 
 remained by his bedside, where Mrs. Clancy and little Kate were dry- 
 ing their tears and receiving consolation from the steward's wife. The 
 doctor had mentioned a name as he went away, and it was seen that 
 Clancy was striving to ask a question. Sergeant Nolan bent down : 
 
 " Lie quiet, Clancy, me boy : you must be quiet, or you'll move the 
 bandages." 
 
 " Who did he say was burned? who was he going to see?" gasped 
 the sufferer. 
 
 " The new lieutenant, Clancy, — hira that pulled ye out. He's a 
 good one, and it's Mrs. Clancy that'll tell ye the same." 
 
 "Tell hira what?" said she, turning about in sudden interest. 
 
 "About the lieutenant's pulling him out of the fire and saving your 
 money." 
 
 " Indeed yes ! The blessings of all the saints be upon his beautiful 
 head, and " 
 
 "But who was it? What was his name, I say?" vehemently inter- 
 rupted Clancy, half raising himself upon his elbow, and groaning with 
 the effort. " AVhat was his name ? I didn't see him." 
 
 " Lieutenant Hayne, man." 
 
 " Oh, my God !" gasped Clancy, and fell back as though struck a 
 sudden blow. 
 
 She sprang to his side : " It's faint he is. Don't answer his ques- 
 tions, sergeant! He's beside himself ! Oh, will ye never stop talking 
 to him and lave him in pace ? Go away, all of ye's, — go away, I say, 
 
 or ye'U dhrive him crazy wid yer Be quiet, Mike ! don't ye spake 
 
 agin." And she laid a broad red hand upon his face. He only groaned 
 again, and threw his one unbandaged arm across his darkened eyes, as 
 though to hide from sight of all. 
 
 From that time on she made no mention of the name that so 
 strangely excited her stricken husband ; but the watchers in the hos- 
 pital the next night declared that in his ravings Clancy kept calling for 
 Lieutenant Hayne. 
 
 Stannard's battalion of the cavalry came marching into the post two 
 days after the fire, and created a diversion in the garrison talk, which 
 for one long day had been all of that dramatic incident and its attend- 
 ant circumstances. In social circles, among the officers and ladies, the 
 main topic was the conduct of Mr. Hayne and the injuries he had sus- 
 tained as a consequence of his gallant rescue. Among the enlisted men 
 and 4:he denizens of Sudsville the talk was principally of the revelation 
 of Mrs. Clancy's hoard of greenbacks. But in both circles a singular 
 
744 THE DESERTER. 
 
 story was just beginning to creep around, and it was to the eifect that 
 Clancy had cried aloud and fainted dead away and that Mrs. Clancy 
 had gone into hysterics when they were told that Lieutenant Hayne 
 was the man to whom the one owed his life and the other her money. 
 Some one met Captain Rayner on the sidewalk the morning Stannard 
 came marching home, and asked him if he had heard the queer story 
 about Clancy. He had not, and it was told him then and there. Ray- 
 ner did not even attempt to laugh at it or turn it off in any way. He 
 looked dazed, stunned, for a moment, turned very white and old-looking, 
 and, hardly saying good-day to his informant, faced about and went 
 straight to his quarters. He was not among the crowd that gathered to 
 welcome the incoming cavalrymen that bright, crisp, winter day; and 
 that evening Mrs, Rayner went to the hospital to ask what she could do 
 for Clancy and his wife. Captain Rayner always expected her to see 
 that every care and attention was paid to the sick and needy of his 
 company, she explained to the doctor, who could not recall having 
 seen her on a similar errand before, altliough sick and needy of Com- 
 pany B were not unknown in garrisons where he had served with them. 
 She spent a good while with Mrs. Clancy, whom she had never noticed 
 hitherto, much to the laundress's indignation, and concerning whose 
 conduct she had been known to express herself in terms of extreme dis- 
 approbation. But in times of suffering such things are forgotten : Mrs. 
 Rayner was full of sympathy and interest ; there was nothing she was 
 not eager to send them, and no thanks were necessary. She could never 
 do too much for the men of her husband's company. 
 
 Yet there was a member of her husband's company on whom in 
 his suffering neither she nor the captain saw fit to call. Mr. Hayne's 
 eyes were seriously injured by the flames and heat, and he was now 
 living in darkness. It might be a month, said the doctor, before he 
 could use his eyes again. 
 
 " Only think of that poor fellow, all alone out there on that ghastly 
 prairie and unable to read !" was the exclamation of one of the cavalry 
 ladies in Mrs. Rayner's presence ; and, as there was an awkward silence 
 and somebody had to break it, Mrs. Rayner responded, — 
 
 "■ If I lived on Prairie Avenue I should consider blindness a 
 blessing." 
 
 It was an unfortunate remark. Tliere was strong sympathy develop- 
 ing for Hayne all through the garrison. Mrs. Rayner never meant that 
 it should have any such significance, but inside of twenty-four hours, 
 in course of which her language had been repeated some dozens of times 
 and distorted quite as many, the generally accepted version of the story 
 was that Mrs. Rayner, so far from expressing the faintest sympathy or 
 sorrow for Mr. Hayne's misfortune, so far from expressing the natural 
 gratification which a lady should feel that it was an officer of her regi- 
 ment who had reached the scene of danger ahead of the cavalry officer 
 of the guard, had said in so many words that Mr. Hayne ought to be 
 thankful that blindness was the worst thing that had come to him. 
 
 There was little chance for harmony after that. Many men and 
 some women, of course, refused to believe it, and said they felt confident 
 that she had been misrepresented. Still, all knew by this time that Mrs. 
 
THE DESERTER. 745 
 
 E.ayner was bitter against Hayne, and had heard of her denunciation of 
 
 the colonel's action. So, too, had the colonel heard that she openly de- 
 clared that she would refuse any invitation extended to her or to her 
 sister which might involve her accepting hospitality at his house. These 
 things do get around in most astonishing ways. 
 
 Then another complication arose : Hayne, too, was mixing matters. 
 The major commanding the battalion, a man in no wise connected with 
 his misfortunes, had gone to him and urged, with the doctor's full con- 
 sent, that he should be moved over into and become an inmate of his 
 household in garrison. He had a big, roomy house. His wife earnestly 
 added her entreaties to the major's, but all to no purpose : ^Ir. Hayne 
 firmly declined. He thanked the major; he rose and bent over the 
 lady's hand and thanked her with a voice that was full of gentleness 
 and gratitude ; but he said that he had learned to live in solitude. 
 Sam was accustomed to all his ways, and he had every comfort he needed. 
 His wants were few and simple. She would not be content, and urged 
 him further. He loved reading : surely he would miss his books and 
 would need some one to read aloud to him, and there were so many 
 ladies in the garrison who would be glad to meet at her house and 
 read to him by turns. He loved music, she heard, and there was her 
 piano, and she knew several who would be delighted to come and play 
 for him by the hour. He shook his head, and the bandages hid the 
 tears that came to his smarting eyes. He had made arrangements to 
 be read aloud to, he said ; and as for music, that must wait awhile. 
 The kind woman retired dismayed, — she could not understand such 
 obduracy, — and her husband felt rebuffed. Stannard of the cavalrv, 
 too, came in with his gentle wife. She was loved througliout the regi- 
 ment for her kindliness and grace of mind, as well as for her devo- 
 tion to the sick and suffering in the old days of the Indian wars, and 
 Stannard had made a similar proffer and been similarly refused, and 
 he had gone away indignant. He thought ^Ir. Hayne too bumptious 
 to live ; but he bore no malice, and his wrath was soon over. Many 
 of the cavalry officers called in person and tendered their services, and 
 were very civilly received, but all offers were positively declined. Just 
 what the infantry officers should do was a momentous question. That 
 they could no longer hold aloof was a matter that was quickly settled, 
 and three of their number went through the chill gloaming of the 
 wintry eve and sent in their cards by Sam, who ushered them into the 
 cheerless front room, while one of their number followed to the door- 
 way which led to the room in rear, in which, still confined to his bed by 
 the doctor's advice, the injured officer was lying. It was Mr. Ross who 
 went to the door and cleared his throat and stood in the presence of the 
 man to whom, more than five years before, he had refused his hand. 
 The others listened anxiously : 
 
 " Mr. Hayne, this is Ross. I come with Foster and Graham to say 
 how deeply we regret your injuries, and to tender our sympathy and our 
 services." 
 
 There was a dead silence for a moment. Foster and Graham stood 
 with hearts that beat unaccountably hard, looking at each other in 
 perplexity. Would he never reply ? 
 Vol. XXXIX.— 49 
 
746 THE DESERTER. 
 
 The answer came at last, — a question : 
 
 "To what injuries do you allude, Mr. Ross?" 
 
 Even in the twilight they could see the sudden flush of the Scotch- 
 man's cheek. He was a blunt fellow, but, as the senior, had been 
 chosen spokesman for the three. The abrupt question staggered him. 
 It was a second or two before he could collect himself. 
 
 " I mean the injuries at the fire," he replied. 
 
 This time, no answer whatever.' It was growing too painful. 
 Koss looked in bewilderment at the bandaged face, and again broke the 
 silence : 
 
 " We hope you won't deny us the right to be of service, Mr. Hayne. 
 If there is anything we can do that you need, or would like " hesi- 
 tatingly. 
 
 " You have nothing further to say ?" asked the calm voice from 
 the pillow. 
 
 " I — don't know what else we can say," faltered Ross, after an in- 
 stant's pause. 
 
 The answer came, firm and prompt, but icily cool : 
 
 " Then there is nothing that you can do." 
 
 And the three took their departure, sore at heart. 
 
 There were others of the infantry who had purposed going to see 
 Hayne that evening, but the story of Ross's experience put an end to it 
 all.' It was plain that even now Mr. Hayne made the condition of the 
 faintest advance from his regimental comrades a full confession of error. 
 He would have no less. 
 
 That evening the colonel sat by his bedside and had an earnest talk. 
 He ventured to expostulate with the invalid on his refusal to go to the 
 major's or to Stannard's. He could have so many comforts and deli- 
 cacies there that would be impossible here. He did not refer to edibles 
 and drinkables alone, he said, with a smile ; but Hayne's patient face 
 gave no sign of relenting. He heard the colonel through, and then 
 said, slowly and firmly, — 
 
 " I have not acted hastily, sir : I appreciate their kindness, and am 
 not ungrateful. Five years ago my whole life was changed. From 
 that time to this I have done without a host of things that used to be 
 indispensable, and have abjured them one and all for a single luxury 
 that I cannot live without, — the luxury of utter independence, — the 
 joy of knowing that I owe no man anything, — the blessing of being 
 beholden to no one on earth for a single service I cannot pay for. It 
 is the one luxury left me." 
 
 VII. 
 
 It was a clear winter's evening, sharply cold, about a week after the 
 fire, when, as Mrs. Rayner came down the stairway equipped for a 
 walk, and was passing the parlor door without stopping. Miss Travers 
 caught sight of and called to her, — 
 
 " Are you going walking, Kate? Do wait a moment, and I'll go 
 with you." 
 
 Any one in the hall could have shared the author's privilege and 
 
THE DESERTER. 747 
 
 seen the expression of annoyance and confusion that appeared on Mrs. 
 Rayner's face : 
 
 " I thought you were out. Did not Mr. Graham take you walking ?" 
 
 " He did ; but we wandered into Mrs. Waldron's, and she and 
 
 the major begged us to stay, and we had some music, and then the first 
 
 call sounded for retreat, and Mr. Graham had to go, so he brought me 
 
 home. I've had no walk, and need exercise." 
 
 " But I don't like you to be out after sunset. That cough of 
 
 yours " 
 
 " Disappeared the day after I got here, Kate, and there hasn't been 
 a vestige of it since. This high, dry climate put an end to it. No, 
 I'll be ready in one minute more. Do wait." 
 
 Mrs, Rayner's hand was turning the knob while her sister was 
 hurrying to the front door and drawing on her heavy jacket as she did 
 so. The former faced her impatiently : 
 
 "I don't think you are at all courteous to your visitors. You 
 know just as well as I do that Mr. Foster or Mr. Royce or some other 
 of those young officers are sure to be in just at this hour. You really 
 are very thoughtless, Nellie." 
 
 Miss Travers stopped short in her preparations. 
 " Kate Rayner," she began, impressively, " it was only night before 
 last that you rebuked me for sitting here with Mr. Blake at this very 
 hour, and asked me how I supposed Mr. Van Antwerp would like it. 
 
 Now you " 
 
 " Fudge ! I cannot stay and listen to such talk. If you must go, 
 wait a few minutes until I get back. I — I want to make a short aill. 
 Then I'll take you." 
 
 " So do I want to make a short call, — over at the doctor's ; and 
 you are going right to the hospital, are you not ?" 
 
 " How do you know I am ?" asked Mrs. Rayner, reddening. 
 " You do go there every evening, it seems to me." 
 " I don't. Who told you I did>' 
 
 " Several people mentioned your kindness and attention to the 
 Clancys, Kate. I have heard it from many sources." 
 
 " I wish people would mind their own affairs," wailed Mrs. Ray- 
 ner, peevishly. 
 
 ** So do I, Kate ; but they never have, and never will, especially 
 with an engaged girl. I have more to complain of than you, but it 
 doesn't make me forlorn, whereas you look fearfully worried about 
 nothing." 
 
 " Who says I'm worried ?" asked Mrs. Rayner, with sudden vehe- 
 mence. 
 
 " You look worried, Kate, and haven't been at all like yourself for 
 several days. Now, xvhy shouldn't I go to the hospital with you? 
 Why do you try to hide your going from me ? Don't you know that 
 I must have heard the strange stories that are flitting about the garrison? 
 Haven't I asked you to set me right if I have been told a wrong one ? 
 Kate, you are fretting yourself to death about something, and the cap- 
 tain looks worried and ill. I cannot but think it has some connection 
 with the case of Mr. Hayne. Why should the Clancys " 
 
748 THE DESERTER. 
 
 " You have no right to think any such thing," answered her sister, 
 angrily. " We have suffered too much at his hands or on his account 
 already, and I never want to hear such words from your lips. It 
 would outrage Captain Rayner to hear that my sister, to whom he has 
 given a home and a welcome, was linking herself with those who side 
 with that— that thief." 
 
 " Kate ! Oh, how can you use such words ? How dare you speak 
 so of an officer ? You would not tell me what he was accused of ; but 
 I tell you that if it be theft I don't believe it, — and no one else " 
 
 There was a sudden footfall on the porch without, and a quick, 
 sharp, imperative knock at the door. Mrs. Rayner fled back along the 
 hall towards the dining-room. Miss Travers, hesitating but a second, 
 opened the door. 
 
 It was the soldier telegraph-operator, with a despatch-envelope in his 
 hand : 
 
 " It is for Mrs. Rayner, miss, and an answer is expected. Shall I 
 wait?" 
 
 Mrs. Rayner came hastily forward from her place of refuge within 
 the dining-room, took the envelope without a word, and passed into 
 the parlor, where, standing beneath the lamp, she tore it open, glanced 
 anxiously at its contents, then threw it with an exclamation of peevish 
 indignation upon the table : 
 
 " You'll have to answer for yourself, Nellie. I cannot straighten 
 your affairs and mine too." And with that she was going ; but Miss 
 Travers called her back. 
 
 The message simply read, " No letter in four days. Is anything 
 wrong ? Answer paid," and was addressed to Mrs. Rayner and signed 
 
 " I think you have been extremely neglectful," said Mrs. Rayner, 
 who had turned and now stood watching the rising color and impa- 
 tiently tapping foot of her younger sister. Miss Travers bit her lips 
 and compressed them hard. There was an evident struggle in her 
 mind between a desire to make an impulsive and sweeping reply and 
 an effort to control herself. 
 
 " Will you answer a quiet question or two?" she finally asked. 
 
 " You know perfectly well I will," was the sisterly rejoinder. 
 
 " How long does it take a letter to go from here to New York ?" 
 
 " Five or six days, I suppose." 
 
 Miss Travers stepped to the door, briefly told the soldier there was 
 no answer, thanked him for waiting, and returned. 
 
 " You are not going to reply ?" asked Mrs. Rayner, in amaze. 
 
 " I am not ; and I inferred you did not intend to. Now another 
 question. How many days have we been here ?" 
 
 " Eight or nine, — nine, it is." 
 
 " You saw me post a letter to Mr. Van Antwerp as we left the 
 Missouri, did you not ?" 
 
 " Yes. At least I suppose so." 
 
 " I wrote again as soon as we got settled here, three days after that, 
 did I not?" 
 
 " You said you did," replied Mrs. Rayner, ungraciously. 
 
THE DESERTER. 749 
 
 " And you, Kate, when you are yourself have been prompt to declare 
 that I say what I mean. Very probably it may have been four days 
 from the time that letter from the transfer reached Wall Street to the 
 time the next one could get to him from here, even had I written the 
 night we arrived. Possibly you forget that you forbade my doing so, 
 and sent me to bed early. Mr, Van Antwerp has simply failed to re- 
 member that I had gone several hundred miles farther west ; and even 
 had I written on the train twice a day, the letters would not have 
 reached him uninterruptedly. By this time he is beginning to get 
 them fast enough. And as for you, Kate, you are quite as unjust as 
 he. It augurs badly for my future peace ; and — I am learning two 
 lessons here, Kate." 
 
 " What two, pray ?" 
 
 " That he can be foolishly unreliable in estimating a woman." 
 
 "And the other?" 
 
 " That you may be persistently unreliable in your judgment of a 
 man." 
 
 Verily, for a young woman with a sweet, girlish face, whom we 
 saw but a week agone twitching a kitten's ears and saying little or 
 nothing, Miss Travers was displaying unexpected fighting qualities. 
 For a moment, Mrs. Rayner glared at her in tremulous indignation 
 and dismay. 
 
 " You — you ought to be ashamed of yourself !" was her eventual 
 outbreak. 
 
 But to this there was no reply. Miss Travers moved quietly 
 to the door- way, turned and looked her angry sister in the eye, and 
 said, — 
 
 " I shall give up the walk, and will go to my room. Excuse me to 
 any visitors this evening." 
 
 " You are not going to write to him now, when you are angry, I 
 hope?" 
 
 " I shall not write to him until to-morrow, but when I do I shall 
 tell him this, Kate : that if he desire my confidence he will address his 
 complaints and inquiries to me. If I am old enough to be engaged to 
 him, in your opinion, I am equally old enough to attend to such details 
 as these, in my own." 
 
 Mrs. Rayner stood one moment as though astounded ; then she flew 
 to the door and relieved her surcharged bosom as follows, " Well, I 
 pity the man you marry, whether you are lucky enough to keep this 
 one or not !" and flounced indignantly out of the house. 
 
 When Captain Rayner came in, half an hour afterwards, the 
 parlor was deserted. He was looking worn and dispirited. Find- 
 ing no one on the ground-floor, he went to the foot of the stairs, and 
 called, — 
 
 " Kate." 
 
 A door opened above : " Kate has gone out, captain." 
 
 " Do you know where, Nellie ?" 
 
 " Over to the hospital, I think ; though I cannot say." 
 
 She heard him sigh deeply, move irresolutely about the hall for a 
 moment, then turn and go out. 
 
750 ^^^ DESERTER. 
 
 At his gate he found two figures dimly visible in the gathering 
 darkness : they had stopped on hearing his footstep. One was an 
 officer in uniform, wrapped in heavy overcoat, with a fur cap, and a 
 bandage over his eyes. The other was a Chinese servant, and it was 
 the latter who asked, — 
 
 "ThisMaje Waldlon's?" 
 
 " No," said he, hastily. " Major Waldron's is the third door 
 beyond." 
 
 At the sound of his voice the officer quickly started, but spoke in 
 low, measured tone : " Straight ahead, Sam." And the Chinaman led 
 him on. 
 
 Rayner stood a moment watching them, bitter thoughts coursing 
 through his mind. Mr. Hayne was evidently sufficiently recovered to 
 be up and out for air, and now he was being invited again. This time 
 it was his old comrade Waldron who honored him. Probably it was 
 another dinner. Little by little, at this rate, the time would soon come 
 when Mr. Hayne would be asked everywhere and he and his corre- 
 spondingly dropped. He turned miserably away, and went back to 
 the billiard-rooms at the store. When Mrs. Rayner rang her bell for 
 tea that evening he had not reappeared, and she sent a messenger for 
 him. 
 
 It was a brilliant moonlit evening. A strong prairie gale had 
 begun to blow from the northwest, and was banging shutters and 
 whirling pebbles at a furious rate. At the sound of the trumpets wail- 
 ing tattoo a brace of young officers calling on the ladies took their 
 leave. The captain had retired to his den, or study, where he shut him- 
 self up a good deal of late, and thither Mrs. Rayner followed him and 
 closed the door after her. Throwing a cloak over her shoulders. Miss 
 Travers stepped out on the piazza and gazed in delight upon the moon- 
 lit panorama, — the snow-covered summits to the south and west, the 
 rolling expanse of upland prairie between, the rough outlines of the 
 foot-hills softened in the silvery light, the dark shadows of the barracks 
 across the parade, the twinkling lights of the sergeants as they took 
 their stations, the soldierly forms of the officers hastening to their com- 
 panies far across the frozen level. Suddenly she became aware of two 
 forms coming down the walk. They issued from Major Waldron's 
 quarters, and the door closed behind them. One was a young officer ; 
 the other, she speedily made out, a Chinese servant, who was guiding 
 his master. She knew the pair in an instant, and her first impulse was 
 to retire. Then she reflected that he could not see, and she wanted to 
 look : so she stayed. They had almost reached her gate, when a wild 
 blast whirled the officer's cape about his ears and sent some sheets of 
 music flying across the road. Leaving his master at the fence, the 
 Chinaman sped in pursuit ; and the next thing she noted was that Mr. 
 Hayne's fur cap was blown from his head and that he was groping for 
 it helplessly. 
 
 There was no one to call, no one to assist. She hesitated one 
 minute, looked anxiously around, then sprang to the gate, picked up 
 the cap, pulled it well down over the bandaged eyes, seized the young 
 officer firmly by the arm, drew him within the gate, and led him to the 
 
THE DESERTER. 751 
 
 shelter of the piazza. Once out of the fury of the gale, she could hear 
 his question, " Did you get it all, Sam ?" 
 
 " Not yet," she answered. Oh, how she longed for a deep contralto ! 
 " He is coming. He wall be here in a moment." 
 
 "I am so sorry to have been a trouble to you," he began again, 
 vaguely. 
 
 '* You are no trouble to me. I'm glad I was where I happened to 
 see you and could help." 
 
 He spoke no more for a minute. She stood gazing at all that was 
 visible of the pale face below the darkened eyes. It was so clear-cut, 
 so refined in feature, and the lips under the sweeping blonde moustache, 
 though set and compressed, were delicate and pink. He turned his 
 head eagerly towards the parade ; but Sam was still far away. The 
 music had scattered, and was leading him a lively dance. 
 
 " Isn't my servant coming ?" he asked, constrainedly. " I fear I'm 
 keeping you. Please do not Avait. He will find me here. You were 
 going somewhere." 
 
 '' No, — unless it was here." She was trembling now. " Please be 
 patient, Mr. — Mr. Hayne, Sam may be a minute or two yet, and here 
 you are out of the wind." 
 
 Again she looked in his face. He was listening eagerly to her 
 words, as though striving to " place" her voice. Could she be mis- 
 taken ? Was he, too, not trembhng ? Beyond all doubt his lips were 
 quivering now. 
 
 " May I not know who it is that led me here ?" he asked, gently. 
 
 She hesitated, hardly knowing how to tell him. 
 
 " Try and guess," she laughed, nervously. " But you couldn't. 
 You do not know my name. It is my good fortune, Mr. Hayne. You 
 — you saved my kitten ; I — your cap." 
 
 There was no mistaking his start. Beyond doubt he had winced 
 as though stung, and was now striving to grope his way to the railing. 
 She divined his purpose in an instant, and her slender hand was laid 
 pleadingly yet firmly on his arm. 
 
 "Mr. Hayne, don't go. Don't think of going. Stay here until 
 Sam comes. He's coming now," she faltered. 
 
 " Is this Captain Rayner's house ?" he asked, hoarse and low. 
 
 " No matter whose it is ! I welcome you here. You shall not go," 
 she cried, impulsively, and both little hands were tugging at his arm. 
 He had found the railing, and was pulling himself towards the gate, 
 but her words, her clinging hands, were too persuasive. 
 
 " T cannot realize this," he said. " I do not understand " 
 
 " Do not try to understand it, Mr. Hayne. If I am only a girl, I 
 have a right to think for myself. My father was a soldier, — I am 
 Nellie Travers, — and if he were alive I know W'cll he would have had 
 me do just what I have done this night. Now won't you stay ?" 
 
 And light was beaming in through his darkened eyes and glad- 
 dening his soul with a rapture he had not known for years. One in- 
 stant he seized and clasped her hand. " May God bless you !" was all 
 he whispered, but so softly that even she did not hear him. He bowed 
 low over the slender white hand, and stayed. 
 
752 ^^-^ DESERTER. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 March had come, — the month of gale and bhister, sleet and storm, 
 in almost every section of our broad domain, — and March at Warrener 
 was to the full as blustering and conscienceless as in New England. 
 There were a few days of sunshine during the first week ; then came 
 a fortniglit of raging snow-storms. The cavalry troops, officers and 
 men, went about their stable-duties as usual, but, except for roll-call on 
 the porch of the barracks and for guard-mounting over at the guard- 
 house, all military exercise seemed suspended. This meant livelier 
 times for the ladies, however, as the officers were enabled to devote just 
 so many more hours a day to their entertainment. There were two or 
 three hops a week over in the big assembly-room, and there was some 
 talk of getting up a german in honor of Miss Travers, but the strained 
 relations existing between Mrs. Rayner and the ladies of other families 
 at the post made the matter difficult of accomplishment. There were 
 bright little luncheon-, dinner-, and tea-parties, where the young officers 
 and the younger ladies met every day ; and, besides all this, despite the 
 fact that Mrs. Rayner had at first shown a fixed determination to dis- 
 cuss the rights and wrongs of " the Hayne affair," as it was now be- 
 ginning to be termed, with all comers who belonged to the Kiflers, it had 
 grown to be a very general thing for the youngsters to drop in at her 
 house at all hours of the day ; but that was because there were attrac- 
 tions there which outAveighed her combativeness. Then Eayner him- 
 self overheard some comments on the mistake she was making, and for- 
 bade her discussing the subject with the officers even of her own regiment. 
 She Avas indignant, and demanded a reason. He would name no names, 
 but told her that he had heard enough to convince him she was doing 
 him more harm than good, and, if anything, contributing to the turn 
 of the tide in Hayne's favor. Then she felt outraged and utterly mis- 
 judged. It was a critical time for her, and if deprived of the use 
 of her main weapon of offence and defence the battle was sure to go 
 amiss. Sorely against her inclination, she obeyed her lord, for, as has 
 been said, she was a loyal wife, and for the time being the baby became 
 the recipient of her undivided attention. 
 
 True to her declaration, she behaved so coldly and with such marked 
 distance of manner to the colonel and his wife when they met in society 
 immediately after the dinner that the colonel quietly told his wife she 
 need not give either dinner or reception in honor of Mrs. Rayner's re- 
 turn. He would like to have her do something to welcome Miss 
 Travers, for he thought the girl had much of her father in her. He 
 knew him well in the old days before and during the war, and liked 
 him. He liked her looks and her sweet, unaffected, cheery manner. 
 He liked the contrast between her and her sister ; for Miss Travers had 
 listened in silence to her sister's exposition of what her manner should 
 be to the colonel and his wife, and when they met she was bright and 
 winsome. The colonel stood and talked with her about her father, 
 whom she could remember only vaguely, but of whom she never tired 
 
THE DESERTER. 753 
 
 of hearing ; and that night Mrs. Rayner rebuked her severely for her 
 disloyalty to the captain, who had given her a home. 
 
 But when Mrs. Rayner heard that Major and Mrs. Waldron had 
 invited Mr. Hayne to dine with them, and had invited to meet him two 
 of the cavalry officers and their wives, she was incensed beyond meas- 
 ure. She and Mrs. Waldron had a brief talk, as a result of which 
 Mrs. Rayner refused to speak to Mrs. Waldron at the evening party 
 given by Mrs. Stannard in honor of her and her sister. It was this 
 that brought on the crisis. Whatever was said between the men was 
 not told. Major Waldron and Captain Rayner had a long consulta- 
 tion, and they took no one into their confidence ; but Mrs. Rayner 
 obeyed her husband, went to Mrs. Waldron and apologized for her 
 rudeness, and then went with her sister and returned the call of the 
 colonel's wife ; but she chose a bright afternoon, when she knew well 
 the lady was not at home. 
 
 She retired from the contest, apparently, as has been said, and took 
 much Christian consolation to herself from the fact that at so great a 
 sacrifice she was obeying her husband and doing tlie duty she owed to 
 him. In very truth, however, the contest was withdrawn from her by 
 the fact that for a week or more after his evening at the Waldrons' Mr. 
 Hayne did not reappear in garrison, and she had no cause to talk about 
 him. Officers visiting the house avoided mention of his name. Ladies 
 of the cavalry regiment calling upon Mrs. Rayner and ^liss Travers 
 occasionally spoke of him and his devotion to the men and his bravery 
 at the fire, but rather as though they meant in a general way to com- 
 pliment the Riflers, not Mr. Hayne ; and so she heard little of the man 
 whose existence was so sore a trial to her. What she would have said, 
 what she would have thought, had she known of the meeting between 
 him and her guarded Nellie, is beyond us to describe ; but she never 
 dreamed of such a thing, and Miss Travers never dreamed of telling 
 her, — for the present, at least. Fortunately — or unfortunately — for the 
 latter, it was not so much of her relations with Mr. Hayne as of her 
 relations with half a dozen young bachelors that Mrs. Rayner speedily 
 felt herself compelled to complain. It was a blessed relief to the elder 
 sister. Her surcharged spirit was in sore need of an escape-valve. She 
 was ready to boil over in the mental ebullition consequent upon Mr. 
 Hayne's reception at the post, and with all the pent-up irritability which 
 that episode had generated she could not have contained herself and 
 slept. But here Miss Travers came to her relief. Her beauty, her 
 winsome ways, her unqualified delight in everything that was soldierly, 
 speedily rendered her vastly attractive to all the young officers in garri- 
 son. Graham and Foster of the infantry, Merton, Webster, and Royce 
 of the cavalry, haunted the house at all manner of hours, and the 
 captain bade them welcome and urged them to come oftener and stay 
 later, and told Mrs. Rayner he wanted some kind of a supper or colla- 
 tion every night. He set before his guests a good deal of wine, and 
 drank a good deal more himself than he had ever been known to do 
 before, and they were keeping very late hours at Rayner's, for, said the 
 captain, " I don't care if Nellie is engaged : she shall have a good time 
 while she's here ; and if the boys know all about it, — goodness knows 
 
754 THE DESERTER. 
 
 you've told them often enough, Kate, — and they don't mind it, why, 
 it's nobody's business, — here, at least." 
 
 What Mr. Van Antwerp might think or care was another matter. 
 Rayner never saw him, and did not know him. He rather resented it 
 that Van Antwerp had never written to him and asked his consent. As 
 Mrs. Rayner's husband and Nellie's brother-in-law, it seemed to him he 
 stood' in loco 'parentis ; but Mrs. Rayner managed the whole thing her- 
 self, and he was not even consulted. If anything, he rather enjoyed the 
 contemplation of Van Antwerp's fidgety frame of mind as described to 
 him by Mrs. Rayner about the time it became ajjparent to her that Nellie 
 was enjoying the attentions of which she was so general an object, and 
 that the captain was sitting up later and drinking more wine than was 
 good for him. She was aware that the very number of Nell's admirers 
 would probably prevent her becoming entangled with any one of them, 
 but she needed something to scold about, and eagerly pitched upon this. 
 She knew well that she could not comfort her husband in the anxiety 
 that was gnawing at his heart-strings, but she was jealous of comfort 
 that might come to him from any other source, and the Lethe of wine 
 and jolly companionship she dreaded most of all. Long, long before, 
 she had induced him to promise that he would never offer the young 
 officers spirits in his house. She would not prohibit wine at table, she 
 said ; but she never thouglit of there coming a time when he himself 
 M^ould seek consolation in the glass and make up in quantity what it 
 lacked in alcoholic strength. He was impatient of all reproof now, and 
 would listen to no talk ; but Nellie was years her junior, — more years 
 than she would admit except at such times as these, when she meant to 
 admonish ; and Nellie had to take it. 
 
 Two weeks after their arrival at Warrener the burden of Mrs. 
 Rayner's song — morn, noon, and night — was, '' What would Mr. Van 
 Antwerp say if he could but see this or hear that ?" 
 
 Can any reader recall an instance where the cause of an absent lover 
 was benefited by the ceaseless warning in a woman's ear, " Remember, 
 you're engaged" ? The hero of antiquity who caused himself to be 
 attended by a shadowing slave whispering ever and only, " Remember, 
 thou art mortal," is a fine figure to contemplate — at this remote date. 
 He, we are told, admitted the need, submitted to the infliction. But 
 lives there a woman who will admit that she needs any instruction as 
 to what her conduct should be when the lord of her heart is away? 
 Lives there a woman who, submitting, because she cannot escape, to 
 the constant reminder, " Thou art engaged," will not resent it in her heart 
 of hearts and possibly revenge herself on the one alone whom she holds 
 at her mercy ? Left to herself, — to her generosity, her conscience, her 
 innate tenderness, — the cause of the absent one will plead for itself, 
 and, if it have even faint foundation, hold its own. " With the best 
 intentions in the world," many an excellent cause has been ruined by 
 the injudicious urgings of a mother ; but to talk an engaged girl into 
 mutiny, rely on the infallibility of two women, — a married sister or a 
 maiden aunt. 
 
 Just what Mr. Van Antwerp would have said could he have seen 
 the situation at Warrener is perhaps impossible to predict. Just what 
 
THE DESERTER. 755 
 
 he did say without seeing was, perhaps, the most unwise thing he could, 
 have thought of: he urged Mrs. Kayner to keep reminding Nellie of 
 her promise. His had not been a life of unmixed joy. He was now 
 nearly thirty-five, and desperately in love with a pretty girl who had 
 simply bewitched him during the previous summer. It was not easy 
 to approach her then, he found, for her sister kept vigilant guard ; but, 
 once satisfied of his high connections, his wealth, and his social stand- 
 ing, the door was opened, and he was something more than welcomed, 
 said the gossips at the Surf House. What his past history had been, 
 where and how his life had been spent, were matters of less consequence, 
 apparently, than what he was now. He had been wild at college, as 
 other boys had been, she learned ; he had tried the cattle-business in 
 the West, she was told ; but there had been a quarrel with his father, 
 a reconciliation, a devoted mother, a long sojourn abroad, — Heidelberg, 
 — a sudden summons to return, the death of the father, and then the 
 management of a valuable estate fell to the son. There were other 
 children, brother and sisters, three in all, but Steven was the first-born 
 and the mother's glory. She was with him at the sea-side, and the 
 first thing that moved Nellie Travers to like him was his devotion to 
 that white-haired woman who seemed so happy in his care. Between 
 that mother aiid Mrs. Rayner there had speedily sprung up an acquaint- 
 ance. She had vastly admired Nellie, and during the first fortnight of 
 their visit to the Surf House had shown her many attentions. The ill- 
 ness of a daughter called her away, and Mrs. Rayner announced that 
 she, too, was going elsewhere, when Mr. Van Antwerp himself re- 
 turned, and Mrs, Rayner decided it was so late in the season that they 
 had better remain until it was time to go to town. In October they 
 spent a fortnight in the city, staying at the Westminster, and he was 
 assiduous in his attentions, taking them everywhere, and lavishing 
 flowers and bonbons upon Nell. Then Mrs. Van Antwerp invited 
 them to visit her at her own comfortable, old-fashioned house down- 
 town, and Mrs. Rayner was eager to accept, but Nellie said no; she 
 would not do it : she could not accept Mr. Van Antwerp ; she liked, 
 admired, and was attracted by him, but she felt that love him she did 
 not. He was devoted, but had tact and ])atience, and Mrs. Rayner at 
 last yielded to her demand and took her off in October to spend some 
 time in the interior of the State with relations of their mother, and 
 there, frequently, came Mr. Van Antwerp to see her and to urge his 
 suit. They were to have gone to Warrener immediately after the 
 holidays, but January came and Nellie had not surrendered. An- 
 other week in the city, a long talk with the devoted old mother whose 
 heart was so wrapped up in her son's happiness and whose arms 
 seemed yearning to enfold the lovely girl, and Nellie "vyas conquered. 
 If not fully convinced of her love for Mr. Van Antwerp, she was 
 mere than half in love with his mother. Her promise was given, 
 and then she seemed eager to get back to the frontier which she had 
 known and loved as a child. " I want to see the mountains, the 
 snow-peaks, the great rolling prairies, once more," she said ; and he 
 had to consent. Man never urged more importunately than he that 
 the wedding should come off that very winter ; but Nellie once more 
 
756 THE DESERTER. 
 
 said no ; she could not and would not listen to an earlier date than the 
 summer to come. 
 
 No one on earth knew with what sore foreboding and misery he let 
 her go. It was something that Mrs. Rayner could not help remarking, 
 — his unconquerable aversion to every mention of the army and of his 
 own slight experience on the frontier. He would not talk of it even 
 with Nellie, who was an enthusiast and had spent two years of her 
 girlhood ahnost under the shadow of Laramie Peak and loved the mere 
 mention of the Wyoming streams and valleys. In her husband's name 
 Mrs. Rayner had urged him to drop his business early in the spring 
 and come to them for a visit. He declared it was utterly impossible. 
 Every moment of his time must be given to the settling of estate affairs, 
 so that he could be a free man in tlie summer. He meant to take his 
 bride abroad immediately and spend a year or more in Europe. These 
 were details which were industriously circulated by Mrs. Rayner and 
 speedily became garrison property. It seemed to the men that in bring- 
 ing her sister there engaged she had violated all precedent to begin 
 with, and in this instance, at least, there was general complaint. Mr. 
 Blake said it reminded him of his early boyhood, when they used to 
 take him to the great toy-stores at Christmas : " Look all you like, 
 long for it as much as you please, but don't touch." Merton and Royce, 
 of the cavalry, said it was simply a challenge to any better fellow to 
 cut in and cut out the Knickerbocker ; and, to do them justice, they did 
 their best to carry out their theory. Both they and their comrades of 
 the Riflers were assiduous in their attentions to Miss Travers, and other 
 ladies, less favored, made acrimonious comment in consequence. A 
 maiden sister of one of the veteran captains in the — th, a damsel 
 whose stern asceticism of character was reflected in her features and 
 grimly illustrated in her dress, was moved to censure of her more at- 
 tractive neighbor. " If I had given my heart to a gentleman," said she, 
 and her manner was indicative of the long struggle which such a be- 
 stowal would cost both him and her, " nothing on earth would induce 
 me to accept attentions from any one else, not if he were millions of 
 miles away." 
 
 But Nellie Travers was "accepting attentions" with laughing grace 
 and enjoying the society of these young fellows immensely. The house 
 would have been gloomy without her and " the boys," Rayner was 
 prompt to admit, for he was ill at ease and sorely worried, while his 
 inflammable Kate was fuming over the situation of her husband's affairs. 
 Under ordinary circumstances she would have seen very little to object 
 to so long as Nellie showed no preference for any one of her admirers 
 at Warrener, and unless peevish or perturbed in spirit would have made 
 little allusion, to it. As matters stood, however, she was in a most 
 querulous and excitable mood : she could not rail at the real cause of 
 her misery, and so, woman-like, she was thankful for a pretext for un- 
 corking the vials of her wrath on somebody or something else. If the 
 young matrons in garrison who, with the two or three visiting maidens, 
 were disposed to rebel at Miss Nell's apparent absorption of all the avail- 
 able cavaliers at the post, and call her a too lucky girl, could but have 
 heard Mrs. Rayner's nightly tirades and hourly rebukes, they might have 
 
THE DESERTER. 757 
 
 realized that here, as elsewhere, the rose had its stinging thorns. As 
 for Miss Travers, she confounded her sister by taking it all very sub- 
 missively and attempting no defence. Possibly conscience was telling 
 her that she deserved more than she was getting, or than she would be 
 likely to get until her sister heard of the adventure with Mr. Hayne. 
 
 " By the way," said Mr. Royce one evening as they were stamping 
 off the snow and removing their heavy wraps in Rayner's hall-way 
 after a series of garrison calls, " Mrs. Waldron says she expects you to 
 play for her to-morrow afternoon. Miss Travers. Of course it will be 
 my luck to be at stables." 
 
 " You hear better music every afternoon than I can give you, Mr. 
 Royce." 
 
 " Where, pray ?" asked Mrs. Rayner, turning quickly upon them. 
 
 Mr. Royce hesitated, and — with shame be it said — allowed Miss 
 Travers to meet the question : 
 
 " At Mr. Hayne's, Kate." 
 
 There was the same awkward silence that always followed the men- 
 tion of Hayne's name. Mrs. Rayner looked annoyed. It was evident 
 that she wanted more information, — wanted to ask, but was restrained. 
 Royce determined to be outspoken. 
 
 " Several of us have got quite in the way of stopping there on our 
 way from afternoon stables," he said, very quietly. " Mr. Hayne ha-s 
 his piano now, and has nearly recovered the full use of his eyes. He 
 plays well." 
 
 Mrs. Rayner turned about once more, and, without saying so much 
 as good-night, went heavily up-stairs, leaving her escort to share with 
 Mr. Royce such welcome as the captain was ready to accord them. If 
 forbidden to talk on the subject nearest her heart, she would not speak 
 at all. She would have banged her door, but that would have waked 
 baby. It stung her to the quick to know that the cavalry officers 
 were daily visitors at Mr. Hayne's quarters. It was little comfort to 
 know that the infantry officers did not go, for she and they both knew 
 that, except Major Waldron, no one of their number was welcome 
 under that roof unless he would voluntarily come forward and say, " I 
 believe you innocent." She felt that but for the stand made by Hayne 
 himself most of their number would have received him into comrade- 
 ship again by this time, and she could hardly sleep that night from 
 thinking over what she had heard. 
 
 But could she have seen the fio;ure that was slinkino- in the snow at 
 the rear door of Hayne's quarters that very evening, peering into the 
 lighted rooms, and at last, after many an irresolute turn, knocking 
 timidly for admission and then hiding behind the corner of the shed 
 until Sam came and poked his pig-tailed head out into the wintry 
 darkness in wondering effort to find the visitor, she would not have 
 slept at all. 
 
 It was poor Clancy, once more mooning about the garrison and up 
 to his old tricks. Clancy had been drinking ; but he wanted to know, 
 " could he spake with the lieutenant ?" 
 
758 ^^^ DESERTER. 
 
 IX. 
 
 " I have been reading over your letter of Thursday last, dear 
 Steven," wrote Miss Ti'avers, " and there is much that I feel I ought 
 to answer. You and Kate are very much of a mind about the ' tempta- 
 tions' with which I am surrounded ; but you are far more imaginative 
 than she is, and far more courteous. There is so much about your 
 letter that touches me deeply that I want to be frank and fair in ray 
 reply. I have been dancing all this evening, was out at dinner before 
 that, and have made many calls this afternoon ; but, tired as I am, my 
 letter must be written, for to-morrow will be but the repetition of to- 
 day. Is it that I am cold and utterly heartless that I can sit and write 
 so calmly in reply to your fervent and appealing letter ? Ah, Steven, 
 it is what may be said of me ; but, if cold and heartless to you, I have 
 certainly given no man at this garrison the faintest reason to think that 
 he has inspired any greater interest in him. They are all kind, all very 
 attentive. I have told you how well Mr. Royce dances and Mr. Mer- 
 ton rides and Mr. Foster reads and talks. They entertain me vastly, 
 and I c?o Jike it. More than this, Steven, I am pleased with their evi- 
 dent admiration, — not alone pleased and proud that they should admire 
 me who am pledged to you, — not that alone, I frankly confess, but 
 because it in itself is pleasant. It pleases me. Very possibly it is 
 because I am vain. 
 
 " And yet, though my hours are constantly occupied, though they 
 are here from morning till night, no one of them is more attentive than 
 another. There are five or six who come daily. There are some who 
 do not come at all. Am I a wretch, Steven ? There are two or three 
 that do not call who I wish toould call. I would like to know them. 
 
 " Yet they know — they could not help it, with Kate here, and I 
 never forget — that I am your promised wife. Steven, do you not 
 sometimes forget the conditions of that promise? Even now, again 
 and again do I not repeat to you that you ought to release me and free 
 yourself? Of course your impulse will be to say my heart is changing, 
 — that I have seen others whom I like better. No, I have seen no one 
 I like as well. But is ' like' what you deserve, — what you ask ? and 
 is it not all I have ever been able to promise you ? Steven, bear me 
 witness, for Kate is bitterly unjust to me at times, I told you again and 
 again last summer and fall that I did not love you and ought not to 
 think of being your wife. Yet, poor, homeless, dependent as I am, 
 how strong M'as the temptation to say yes to your plea ! You know 
 that I did not and would not until time and again your sweet mother, 
 whom I do love, and Kate, who had been a mother to me, both declared 
 that that should make no difference : the love would come : the happiest 
 marriages the world over were those in which the girl respected the man 
 of her choice: love would come, and come speedily, when once she 
 was his wife. You yourself declared you could wait in patience, — you 
 would woo and win by and by. Only promise to be your wife before 
 returning to the frontier, and you would be content. Steven, are you 
 content ? You know you are not ; you know you are unhappy ; and 
 
THE DESERTER. 759 
 
 it is all, not because I am growing to love some one else, but because I 
 am not growing to love you. Heaven knows I want to love you ; for 
 so long as you hold me to it my promise is sacred and shall be kept. 
 More than that, if you say that it is your will that I seclude myself 
 from these attentions, give up dancing, give up rides, drives, walks, and 
 even receiving visits, here, so be it. I will obey. But write this to 
 me, Steven, — not to Kate. I am too proud to ask her to show me the 
 letters I know she has received from you, — and there are some she has 
 not shown me, — but I cannot understand a man's complaining to other 
 persons of the conduct of the woman who is, or is to be, his wife. 
 Forgive me if I pain you : sometimes even to myself I seem old and 
 strange. I have lived so much alone, have had to think and do for 
 myself so many years while Kate has been away, that perhaps I'm not 
 ' like other girls ;' but the respect I feel for you would be injured if I 
 thought you strove to guide or govern me through others ; and of one 
 thing be sure, Steven, I must honor and resj)ect and look up to the man 
 I marry, love or no love. 
 
 " Once you said it would kill you if you believed I could be false 
 to you. If by that you meant that, having given my promise to you 
 to be your wife at some future time, I must school myself to love you, 
 and will be considered false if love do not come at my bidding or yours, 
 I say to you solemnly, release me now. I may not love, but I cannot 
 and will not deceive you, even by simulating love that does not exist. 
 Suppose that love were to be kindled in my heart. Suppose I were to 
 learn to care for some one here.' You would be the first one to know it; 
 for I would tell you as soon as I knew it myself. Then what could I 
 hope for, — or you ? Surely you would not want to marry a girl who 
 loved another man. But is it much better to marry one who feels that 
 she does not love you ? Think of it, Steven : I am veiy lonely, very 
 far from happy, very wretched over Kate's evident trouble and all the 
 sorrow I am bringing you and yours ; but have I misled or deceived 
 you in any one thing? Once only has a word been spoken or a scene 
 occurred that you could perhaps have objected to. I told you the 
 whole thing in my letter of Sunday last, and why I had not told Kate. 
 We have not met since that night, Mr. Hayne and I, and may not ; 
 but he is a man whose story excites my profound pity and sorrow, and 
 he is one of the two or three I feel that I would like to see more of. 
 Is this being false to you or to my promise ? If so, Steven, you cannot 
 say that I have not given you the whole truth. 
 
 " It is very late at night, — one o'clock, — and Kate is not yet asleep, 
 and the captain is still down-stairs, reading. He is not looking well at 
 all, and Kate is sorely anxious about him. It was his evidence that 
 brought years of ostracism and misery upon Lieutenant Hayne, and 
 there are vague indications that in his own regiment the officers are 
 beginning to believe that possibly he was not the guilty man. The 
 cavalry officers, of course, say nothing to us on the subject, and I have 
 never heard the full story. If he has been, as is suggested, the victim 
 of a scoundrel, and Captain Rayner was at fault in his evidence, no 
 punishment on earth could be too great for the villain who planned 
 his ruin, and no remorse could atone for Captain Eayner's share. I 
 
760 THE DESERTER. 
 
 never saw so sad a face on mortal man as Mr. Hayne's. Steven Van 
 Antwerp, I wish I were a man ! I would trace that mystery to the 
 bitter end. 
 
 " This is a strange letter to send to — to you ; but I am a strange 
 girl. Already I am more than expecting you to write and release me 
 unconditionally ; and you ought to do it. I do not say I want it. 
 " Faithfully, at least, yours, 
 
 " Nellie. 
 
 " P,S. — Should you write to Kate, you are not to tell her, remember, 
 of my meeting with Mr. Hayne. Of course I am anxious to have your 
 reply to that letter ; but it will be five days yet." 
 
 An odd letter, indeed, for a girl not yet twenty, and not of a hope- 
 inspiring character ; but when it reached Mr. Van Antwerp he did not 
 pale in reading it : his face was ghastly before he began. If anything, 
 he seemed relieved by some passages, though rejoiced by none. Then 
 he took from an inner pocket the letter that had reached him a few days 
 previous, and all alone in his room, late at night, he read it over again, 
 threw it upon the table at which he was sitting, then, with passionate 
 abandonment, buried his face in his arms and groaned aloud in anguish. 
 
 Two days after writing this letter Miss Travers was so unfortunate 
 as to hear a conversation in the dining-room which was not intended 
 for her ears. She had gone to her room immediately after breakfast, 
 and, glancing from her window, saw that the officers were just going 
 to head-quarters for the daily matinee. * For half or three-quarters of 
 an hour, therefore, there could be no probable interruption ; and she 
 decided to write an answer to the letter which came from Mr. Van 
 Antwerp the previous afternoon. A bright fire was burning in the 
 old-fashioned stove with which frontier quarters are warmed if not orna- 
 mented, and she perched her little, slippered feet upon the hearth, took 
 her portfolio in her lap, and began. Mrs. Rayner was in the nursery, 
 absorbed with the baby and the nurse, when a servant came and an- 
 nounced that " a lady was in the kitchen" and wanted to speak with 
 the lady of the house. Mrs. Rayner promptly responded that she was 
 busy and couldn't be disturbed, and wondered who it could be that 
 came to her kitchen to see her. 
 
 " Can I be of service, Kate ?" called Miss Travers. " I will run 
 down, if you say so." 
 
 " I wish you would," was the reply ; and Miss Travers put aside 
 her writing. " Didn't she give any name ?" asked Mrs. Rayner of 
 the Abigail, who was standing with her head just visible at the stair- 
 way, it being one of the unconquerable tenets of frontier domestics to 
 go no farther than is absolutely necessary in conveying messages of any 
 kind ; and this damsel, though new to the neighborhood, was native and 
 to the manner born in all the tricks of the trade. 
 
 " She said you knew her name, ma'am. She's the lady from the 
 hospital." 
 
 " Here, Jane, take the baby ! Never mind, Nellie : I must go !" 
 And Mrs. Rayner started with surprising alacrity ; but as she passed her 
 door Miss Travers saw the look of deep anxiety on her face. 
 
THE DESERTER. 761 
 
 A moment later she heard voices at the front door, — a party of ladies 
 who were going to spend the morning witli the colonel's wife at some 
 " Dorcas society" work which many of them had embraced with enthu- 
 siasm. " I want to see Miss Travers, just a minute," she heard a voice 
 say, and recognized the pleasant tones of Mrs. Curtis, the young wife 
 of one of the infantry officers : so a second time she put aside her 
 writing, and then ran down to the front door. Mrs. Curtis merely 
 wanted to remind her that she must be sure to come and spend the 
 afternoon with her and bring her music, and was dismayed to find that 
 Miss Travers could not come before stable-call : she had an engage- 
 ment. " Of course : I might have known it : you are besieged every 
 hour. Well, can you come to-morrow ? Do." And, to-morrow being 
 settled upon, and despite tlie fact that several of the party waiting on 
 the sidewalk looked cold and impatient, Mrs. Curtis found it impossible 
 to tear herself away until certain utterly irrelevant matters had been 
 lightly touched upon and lingeringly abandoned. The officers were just 
 beginning to pour forth from head-quarters when the group of ladies 
 finally got under way again and Miss Travers closed the door. It 
 was now useless to return to her letter : so she strolled into the parlor 
 just as she heard her sister's voice at the kitchen door : 
 
 " Come right in here, Mrs. Clancy. Now, quick, what is it ?" 
 And from the dining-room came the answer, hurried, half whispered, 
 and mysterious, — 
 
 " He's been drinkin' ever since he got out of hospital, ma'am, an' 
 he's worse than ever about Loot'nant Hayne. It's mischief he'll be 
 
 doin', ma'am : he's crazy-like " 
 
 " Mrs. Clancy, you must watch him. You Hush !" 
 
 And here she stopped short, for, in astonishment at Avhat she had 
 already heard, and in her instant effi^rt to hear no more of what was so 
 evidently not intended for her. Miss Travers hurried from the parlor, 
 the swish of her skirts telling loudly of her presence there. She went 
 again to her room. What could it mean ? Why was her proud, im- 
 perious Kate holding secret interviews with this coarse and vulgar 
 woman ? What concern was it of hers that Clancy should be " worse" 
 about Mr. Hayne ? It could not mean that the mischief he would do 
 was mischief to the man who had saved his life and his property. That 
 was out of the question. It could not mean that the poor, broken- 
 down, drunken fellow had the means in his power of further harming a 
 man who had already been made to suffer so much. Indeed, Kate's 
 very exclamation, the very tone in which she spoke, showed a distress 
 of mind that arose from no fear for one whom she hated as she hated 
 Hayne. Her anxiety was personal. It was for her husband and for 
 herself she feared, or woman's tone and tongue never yet revealed a 
 secret. Nellie Travers stood in her room stunned and bewildered, yet 
 trying hard to recall and put together all the scattered stories and 
 rumors that had reached her about the strange conduct of Clancy 
 after he was taken to the hospital, — especially about his heart-broken 
 wail when told that it was Lieutenant Hayne who had rescued him and 
 little Kate from hideous death. Somewhere, somehow, this man was 
 connected with the mystery which encircled the long-hidden truth in 
 Vol. XXXIX.— ub 
 
762 THE DESERTER. 
 
 Hayne's trouble. Could it be possible that he did not realize it, and 
 
 that her sister had discovered it ? Could it be oh, heaven ! no I — 
 
 could it be that Kate was standing between that lonely and friendless 
 man and the revelation that would set him right ? She could not be- 
 lieve it of her ! She would not believe it of her sister ! And yet what 
 did Kate mean by charging Mrs. Clancy to watch him, — that drunken 
 husband ? What could it mean but that she was striving to prevent 
 Mr. Hayne's ever hearing the truth ? She longed to learn more and 
 solve the riddle once and for all. They were still earnestly talking to- 
 gether down in the dining-room ; but she could not listen. Kate knew 
 her so well that she had not closed the door leading into the hall, though 
 both she and the laundress of Company B had lowered their voices. It 
 was disgraceful at best, thought Miss Travers, it was beneath her sister, 
 that she should hold any private conversation with a woman of that class. 
 Confidences with such were contamination. She half determined to 
 rush down-stairs and put an end to it, but was saved the scene : fresh 
 young voices, hearty ringing tones, and the stamp of heavy boot-heels 
 were heard at the door ; and as Rayner entered, ushering in Royce and 
 Graham, Mrs. Rayner and the laundress fled once more to the kitchen. 
 
 When the sisters found themselves alone again, it was late in the 
 evening. Mrs. Rayner came to Nellie's room and talked on various 
 topics for some little time, watching narrowly her sister's face. The 
 young girl hardly spoke at all. It was evident to the elder what her 
 thoughts must be. 
 
 " I suppose you think I should explain Mrs. Clancy's agitation and 
 mysterious conduct, Nellie," she finally and suddenly said. 
 
 " I do not want you to tell me anything, Kate, that you yourself 
 do not wish to tell me. You understand, of course, how I happened 
 to be there ?" 
 
 " Oh, certainly. I wasn't thinking of that. You couldn't help 
 hearing ; but you must have thought it queer, — her being so agitated, I 
 mean." 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " Didn't you ?" 
 
 " I wasn't thinking of her at all." 
 
 "What did you think, then?" half defiantly, yet trembling and 
 growing white. 
 
 " I thought it strange that ycni should be talking with her in such a 
 way." 
 
 " She was worried about her husband, — his drinking so much, — and 
 came to consult me." 
 
 " Why should she — and you — show such consternation at his con- 
 nection with the name of Mr. Hayne?" 
 
 " Nellie, that matter is one you know I cannot bear to talk of." 
 (" Very recently only," thought the younger.) " You once asked me 
 to tell you what Mr. Hayne's crime had been, and I answered that 
 until you could hear the whole story you could not understand the 
 matter at all. We are both worried about Clancy. He is not himself; 
 he is wild and imaginative when he's drinkinc;. He has some strano;e 
 fencies since the fire, and he thinks he ought to do something to help 
 
THE DESERTER, 763 
 
 the officer because he helped him, and his head is full of Police Gazette 
 stories, utterly without foundation, and he thinks he can tell who the 
 real culprits were, — or something of that kind. It is utter nonsense. 
 I have investigated the whole thing, — heard the whole story. It is 
 the trashiest, most impossible thing you ever dreamed of, and would 
 only make fearful trouble if Mr. Hayne got hold of it." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Why f Because he is naturally vengeful and embittered, and he 
 would seize on any pretext to make it unpleasant for the officers who 
 brought about his trial." 
 
 " Do you mean that what Clancy says in any way affects them ?" 
 asked Nell, with quickening pulse and color. 
 
 " It might, if there were a word of truth in it ; but it is the maudlin 
 dream of a liquor-maddened brain. Mrs. Clancy and I both know 
 that what he says is utterly impossible. Indeed, he tells no two stories 
 alike." 
 
 " Has he told you anything ?" 
 
 " No ; but she tells me everything." 
 
 " How do you know she tells the truth ?" 
 
 "Nellie ! Why should she deceive me? I have done everything 
 for them." 
 
 " I distrust her all the same ; and you had better be warned in 
 time. If he has any theory, no matter how crack-brained, or if he 
 knows anything about the case and wants to tell it to Mr. Hayne, you 
 are the last woman on earth who should stand in the way." 
 
 " Upon my word, Nellie Travers, this is going too far ! One 
 would think you believed I wisii to stand in the way of that young 
 man's restoration." 
 
 " Kate, if you lift a hand or speak one word to prevent Clancy's 
 seeing Mr. Hayne and telling him everything he knows, you will make 
 me believe — precisely that." 
 
 Captain Rayner heard sobbing and lamentation on the bedroom 
 floor when he came in a few moments after. Going aloft, he found 
 Miss Travers's door closed as usual, and his wife in voluble distress 
 of mind. He could only learn that she and Nellie had had a falling 
 out, and that Nell had behaved in a most unjust, disrespectful, and out- 
 rageous way. She declined to give further particulars. 
 
 Miss Travers had other reasons for wanting to be alone. That 
 very afternoon, just after stable-call, she found herself unoccupied for 
 the time being, and decided to go over and see Mrs. Waldron a few 
 moments. The servant admitted her to the little army parlor, and 
 informed her that Mrs. Waldron had stepped out, but would be home 
 directly. A bright wood fire was blazing on the hearth and throwing 
 flickering lights and shadows about the cosey room. The piano stood 
 invitingly open, and on the rack were some waltzes of Strauss she re- 
 membered having heard the cavalry band play a night or two previous. 
 Seating herself, she began to try them, and speedily became interested. 
 
764 ^-^^ DESERTER. 
 
 Her back being to the door, she did not notice that another visitor was 
 soon ushered in, — a man. She continued slowly " picking out" the 
 melody, for the light was growing dim and it was with difficulty that 
 she could distinguish the notes. Twice she essayed a somewhat com- 
 plicated passage, became entangled, bent down and closely scanned the 
 music, began again, once more became involved, exclaimed impatiently, 
 " How absurd !" and whirled about on the piano-stool, to find herself 
 facing Mr. Hayne. 
 
 Now that the bandage was removed from his eyes it was no such 
 easy matter to meet him. Her sweet face flushed instantly as he bent 
 low and spoke her name. 
 
 '' I had no idea any one was here. It quite startled me," she 
 said, as she withdrew from his the hand she had mechanically ex- 
 tended to him. 
 
 " It was my hope not to interrupt you," he answered, in the low, 
 gentle voice she had marked before. " You helped me when my 
 music was all adrift the other night : may I not help you find some 
 of this ?" 
 
 " I wish you would play, Mr. Hayne." 
 
 " I will play for you gladly. Miss Travers, but waltz-music is not 
 my forte. Let me see what else there is here." And he began turning 
 over the sheets on the stand. 
 
 " Are your eyes well enough to read music, — especially in such a 
 dim light?" she asked, with evident sympathy. 
 
 " My eyes are doing very well, — better than my fingers, in fact, — 
 and, as I rarely play by note after I once learn a piece, the eyes make 
 no diiference. What music do you like? I merely looked at this col- 
 lection thinking you might see something that pleased you." 
 
 " Mrs. Ray told me you played Rubinstein so well, — that melody 
 in F, for one." 
 
 " Did Mrs. Ray speak of that ?" — his face brightening. " I'm glad 
 they found anything to enjoy in my music." 
 
 "'They' found a great deal, Mr. Hayne, and there are a number 
 who are envious of their good fortune, — I, for one," she answered, 
 blithely. " Now play for me. Mrs. Waldron will be here in a 
 minute." 
 
 And when Mrs. Waldron came in, a little later, Miss Travers, seated 
 in an easy-chair and looking intently into the blaze, was listening as 
 intently to the soft, rich melodies that Mr. Hayne was playing. Tiie 
 firelight was flickering on her shining hair; one slender white hand 
 was toying with the locket that hung at her throat, the other gently 
 tapping on the arm of the chair in unison with the music. And Mr. 
 Hayne, seated in the shadow, bent slightly over the key-board, absorbed 
 in his pleasant task, and playing as though all his soul were thrilling in 
 his finger-tips. Mrs. Waldron stood in silence at the door-way, watch- 
 ing the unconscious pair with an odd yet comforted expression in her 
 eyes. At last, in one long, sweet, sighing chord, the melody softly 
 died away, and Mr. Hayne slowly turned and looked upon the girl. 
 She seemed to have wandered off" into dream-land. For a moment there 
 was no sound ; then, with a little shivering sigh, she roused herself. 
 
THE DESERTER. 7g5 
 
 " It is simply exquisite," she said. " You have given me such a 
 treat !" 
 
 " I'm glad. I owe you a great deal more pleasure, Miss Travers." 
 
 Mrs. Waldron hereat elevated her eyebrows. She would have 
 slipped away if she could, but she was a woman of substance, and as 
 solid in flesh as she was warm of heart. She did the only thing left 
 to her, — came cordially forward to welcome her two visitors and ex- 
 press her delight that Miss Travers could have an opportunity of hear- 
 ing Mr. Hayne play. She soon succeeded in starting him again, and 
 shortly thereafter managed to slip out unnoticed. When he turned 
 around a few minutes afterwards, she had vanished. 
 
 " Why, I had no idea she was gone !" exclaimed Miss Travers ; and 
 then the color mounted to her brow. He must think her extremely 
 absorbed in his playing ; and so indeed she was. 
 
 " You are very fond of music, I see," he said, at a venture. 
 
 " Yes, very ; but I play very little and very badly. Pardon me, 
 Mr. Hayne, but you have played many years, have you not ?" 
 
 " Not so very many ; but there have been many in which I had 
 
 little else to do but practise." 
 
 She reddened again. It was so unlike him, she thought, to refer to 
 .that matter in speaking to her. He seemed to read her : 
 
 " I speak of it only that I may say to you again what I began just 
 before Mrs. Waldron came. You gave me no opportunity to thank 
 you the other night, and I may not have another. You do not know 
 what an event in my life that meeting with you was ; and you cannot 
 know how I have gone over your words again and again. Forgive me 
 the embarrassment I see I cause you, Miss Travers. We are so un- 
 likely to meet at all that you can afford to indulge me this once." He 
 was smiling so gravely, sadly, now, and had risen and was standing by 
 her as she sat there in the big easy-chair, still gazing into the fire, but 
 listening for his ev^ery word. " In five long yeai's I have heard no 
 words from a woman's lips that gave me such joy and comfort as those 
 you spoke so hurriedly and without premeditation. Only those who 
 know anything of what my past has been could form any idea of the 
 emotion with which I heard you. If I could not have seen you to say 
 how — how I thanked you, I would have had to write. This explains 
 what I said awhile ago : I owe you more pleasure than I can ever give. 
 But one thing was certain : I could not bear the idea that you should 
 not be told, and by me, how grateful your words were to me, — how 
 grateful I was to you. Again, may God bless you !" 
 
 And now he turned abruptly away, awaiting no answer, reseated 
 himself at the piano and retouched the keys. But, though she sat 
 motionless and speechless, she knew that he had been trembling so 
 violently and that his hands were still so tremulous he could play no 
 more. It was some minutes that they sat thus, neither speaking ; and 
 as he regained his self-control and began to attempt some simple little 
 melodies, Mrs. Waldron returned : 
 
 " How very domestic you look, young people ! Shall we light the 
 lamps ?" 
 
 " I've stayed too long already," said Miss Travers, springing to her 
 
766 THE DESERTER. 
 
 feet. " Kate does not know I'm out, and will be wondering what has 
 become of her sister." She laughed nervously. " Thank you so much 
 for the music, Mr. Hayne ! — Forgive my running oif so suddenly, won't 
 you, Mrs. Waldron ?" she asked, pleadingly, as she put her hand in 
 hers ; and as her hostess reassured her she bent and kissed the girl's 
 flushed cheek. Mr. Hayne was still standing patiently by the centre- 
 table. Once more she turned, and caught his eye, flushed, half hesitated, 
 then held out her hand with quick impulse : 
 
 " Good-evening, Mr. Hayne. I shall hope to hear you play again." 
 
 And, with pulses throbbing, and cheeks that still burned, she ran 
 quickly down the line to Captain Rayner's quarters, and was up-stairs 
 and in her room in another minute. 
 
 This was an interview she would find it hard to tell to Kate. But 
 told it was, partially, and she was sitting now, late at night, hearing 
 through her closed door her sister's unmusical lamentations, — hearing 
 still ringing in her ears the reproaches heaped upon her when that 
 sister was quietly told that she and Mr. Hayne had met twice. And 
 now she was sitting there, true to herself and her resolution, telling Mr. 
 Van Antwerp all about it. Can one conjecture the sensations with 
 which he received and read that letter ? 
 
 Mr. Hayne, too, was having a wakeful night. He had gone to 
 Mrs. Waldron's to pay a dinner-call, with the result just told. He 
 had one or two other visits to make among the cavalry households in 
 garrison, but, after a few moments' chat with Mrs. Waldron, he decided 
 that he preferred going home. Sam had to call three times before Mr. 
 Hayne obeyed the summons to dinner that evening. The sun was going 
 down behind the great range to the southwest, and the trumpets were 
 pealing " retreat" on the frosty air, but Hayne's curtains were drawn, 
 and he was sitting before his fire, deep in thought, hearing nothing. 
 The doctor came in soon after he finished his solitary dinner, chatted 
 with him awhile, and smoked away at his pipe. He wanted to talk 
 with Hayne about some especial matter, and he found it hard work to 
 begin. The more he saw of his patient the better he liked him : he 
 was interested in him, and had been making inquiries. Without his 
 pipe he found himself uninspired. 
 
 '.' Mr. Hayne, if you will permit, I'll fill up and blow another 
 cloud. Didn't you ever smoke ?" 
 
 " Yes. I was very fond of my cigar six or seven years ago." 
 
 " And you gave it up ?" asked the doctor, tugging away at the 
 strings of his little tobacco-pouch. 
 
 " I gave up everything that was not an absolute necessity," said 
 Hayne, calmly. " Until I could get free of a big load there was no 
 comfort in anything. After that was gone I had no more use for such 
 old friends than certain other old friends seemed to have for me. It 
 was a mutual cut." 
 
 " To the best of my belief, you were the gainer in both cases," said 
 the doctor, gruffly. " The longer I live the more I agree with Carlyle : 
 the men we live and move with are mostly fools," 
 
 Hayne's face was as grave and quiet as ever : 
 
 " These are hard lessons to learn, doctor. I presume few young 
 
» THE DESERTER. 767 
 
 fellows thought more of human friendship than I did the first two years 
 I was in service." 
 
 " Hayne," said the doctor, " sometimes I have thought you did not 
 want to talk about this matter to- any soul on earth ; but I am speaking 
 from no empty curiosity now. If you forbid it, I shall not intrude ; 
 but there are some questions that, since knowing you, and believing in 
 you as I unquestionably do, I would like to ask. You seem bent on 
 returning to duty here t«-morrow, though you might stay on sick report 
 ten days yet ; and I want to stand between you and the possibility of 
 annoyance and trouble if I can." 
 
 " You are kind, and I appreciate it, doctor ; but do you think that 
 the colonel is a man who will be apt to let me suiFer injustice at the 
 hands of any one here?" 
 
 " I don't, indeed. He is full of sympathy for you, and I know he 
 means you shall have fair play ; but a company commander has as 
 many and as intangible ways of making a man suffer as has a woman. 
 How do you stand with Rayner ?" 
 
 " Precisely where I stood five years ago. He is the most determined 
 enemy I have in the service, and will down me if he can ; but I have 
 learned a good deal in my time. There is a grim sort of comfort now 
 in knowing that while he would gladly trip me I can make him miser- 
 able by being too strong for him." 
 
 " You still hold the same theory as to his evidence you did at the 
 time of the court ? of course I have heard what you said to and of 
 him." 
 
 " I have never changed in that respect." 
 
 " But supposing that — mind you, I believe he was utterly mistaken 
 in what he thought he heard and saw, — supposing that all that was 
 testified to by him actually occurred, have you any theory that would 
 point out the real criminal ?" 
 
 " Only one. If that money was ever handed me that day at Battle 
 Butte, only one man could have made away with it ; and it is useless 
 to charge it to him." 
 
 " You mean Rayner?" 
 
 " I have to mean Rayner." 
 
 " But you claim it never reached you ?" 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " Yet every other package — memoranda and all — was handed you?" 
 
 " Not only that, but Captain Hull handed me the money-packet 
 with the others, — took them all from his saddle-bags just before the 
 charge. The packet was sealed when he gave it to me, and when I 
 broke the seal it was stuffed Avith worthless blanks." 
 
 " And you have never suspected a soldier, — a single messenger or 
 servant ?" 
 
 " Not one. Whom could I ?" 
 
 " Hayne, had you any knowledge of this man Clancy before ?" 
 
 " Clancy ! The drunken fellow we pulled out of the fire ?" 
 
 " The same." 
 
 " No ; never to my knowledge saw or heard of him, except when 
 he appeared as witness at the court." 
 
7g8 ^^^ DESERTER. 
 
 " Yet he was with the — th Cavahy at that very fight at Battle 
 Butte. He was a sergeant then, though not in Hull's troop." 
 
 " Does he say he knew me ? or does he talk of that affair ?" asked 
 the lieutenant, with sudden interest. 
 
 " Not that. He cannot be said to say anything ; but he was won- 
 derfully affected over your rescuing him, — strangely so, one of the 
 nurses persists in telling me, though the steward and Mrs. Clancy de- 
 clare it was just drink and excitement. Still, I have drawn from him 
 that he knew you well by sight during that campaign ; but he says he 
 was not by when Hull was killed." 
 
 " Does he act as though he knew anything that could throw any 
 light on the matter ?" 
 
 " I cannot say. His wife declares he has been queer all winter, — 
 hard drinking, — and of course that is possible." 
 
 " Sam told me there was a soldier here two nights ago who M'anted 
 to talk with me, but the man was drunk, and he would not let him in 
 or tell me. He thought he wanted to borrow money." 
 
 " I declare, I believe it was Clancy !" said the doctor. " If he 
 wants to see you and talk, let him. There's no telling but what even 
 a drink-racked brain may bring the matter to light." 
 
 And long that night Mr. Hayne sat there thinking, partly of what 
 the doctor had said, but more of what had occurred during the late 
 afternoon. Midnight was called by the sentries. He went to his door 
 and looked out on the broad, bleak prairie, the moonlight glinting on 
 the tin roofing of the patch of buildings over at the station far across 
 the dreary level and glistening on the patches of snow that here and 
 there streaked the surface. It was all so cold and calm and still. His 
 blood was hot and fevered. Something invited him into the peace and 
 purity of the night. He threw on his overcoat and furs, and strolled 
 up to the gateway, past the silent and deserted store, whose lighted bar 
 and billiard-room was generally the last thing to close along Prairie 
 Avenue. There was not a glimmer of light about the quarters of the 
 trader or the surgeon's beyond. One or two faint gleams stole through 
 the blinds at the big hospital, and told of the n'ight-watch by some 
 fevered bedside. He passed on around the fence and took a path that 
 led to the target-range^ north of the post and back of officers' row, 
 thinking deeply all the while ; and finally, re-entering the garrison by 
 the west gate, he came down along the hard gravelled walk that passed 
 in circular sweeps the offices and the big house of the colonel com- 
 manding and then bore straight away in front of the entire line. All 
 was darkness and quiet. He passed in succession the houses of the 
 field-officers of the cavalry, looked longingly at the darkened front of 
 Major Waldron's cottage, where he had lived so sweet an hour before 
 the setting of the last sun, then w^ent on again and paused surprised in 
 front of Captain Rayner's. A bright light was still burning in the 
 front room on the second floor. Was she, too, awake and thinking of 
 that interview? He looked wistfully at the lace curtains that shrouded 
 the interior, and then the clank of a cavalry sabre sounded in his ears, 
 and a tall officer came springily across the road. 
 
 " Who the devil's that ?" was the blunt military greeting. 
 
THE DESERTER. 709 
 
 " Mr. Hayne," was the quiet reply. 
 
 "What? Mr. Hayue? Oh! Beg your pardon, man, — couldn't 
 imagine who it was mooning around out here after midnight." 
 
 " I don't wonder," answered Hayne. " I am rather given to late 
 hours, and after reading a long time I often take a stroll before turn- 
 ing in." 
 
 "Ah, yes : I see. Well, won't you drop in and chat awhile ? I'm 
 officer of the day, and have to owl to-night." 
 
 " Thanks, no, not this time ; I must go to bed. Good-night, Mr. 
 Blake." 
 
 " Good-night to you, Mr. Hayne," said Blake, then stood gazing 
 perplexedly after him. " Now, my fine fellow," was his dissatisfied 
 query, " what on earth do you mean by prowling around Rayuer's 
 at this hour of the night ?" 
 
 XI. 
 
 It was very generally known throughout Fort Warrener by ten 
 o'clock on the following morning that Mr. Hayne had returned to duty 
 and was one of the first officers to appear at the matinee. Once more 
 the colonel had risen from his chair, taken him by the hand, and wel- 
 comed him. This time he expressed the hope that nothing would now 
 occur to prevent their seeing him daily. 
 
 " Won't you come in to the club-room ?" asked Captain Gregg, 
 afterwards. " We will be pleased to have you." 
 
 " Excuse me, captain, I shall be engaged all morning," answered 
 Mr. Hayne, and walked on down the row. Nearly all tlie officers were 
 strolling away in groups of three or four. Hayne walked past them 
 all with quick, soldierly step and almost aggressive manner, and was 
 soon far ahead, all by himself. Finding it an unprofitable subject, 
 there had been little talk between the two regiments as to what Mr. 
 Hayne's status should be on his reappearance. Everybody heard that 
 he had somewhat rudely spurned the advances of Ross and his com- 
 panions. Indeed, Ross had told the story with strong coloring to more 
 than half the denizens of officers' row. Evidently he desired no further 
 friendship or intercourse with his brother blue-straps ; and only a few 
 of the cavalry officers found his society attractive. He played de- 
 lightfully ; he was well read ; but in general talk he was not entertain- 
 ing. " Altogether too sepulchral, — or at least funereal," explained the 
 cavalry. " He never laughs, and rarely smiles, and he's as glum as a 
 Quaker meeting," was another complaint. So a social success was 
 hardly to be predicted for Mr. Hayne. 
 
 While he could not be invited where just a few infantry people 
 were the other guests, from a big general gathering or party he, of 
 course, could not be omitted ; but there he would have his cavalry and 
 medical friends to talk to, and then there was Major Waldron. It was 
 a grievous pity that there should be such an element of embarrassment, 
 but it couldn't be helped. As the regimental adjutant had said, Hayne 
 himself was the main obstacle to his restoration to regimental friend- 
 ship. No man who j)iques himself on the belief that he is about to do 
 
770 ^^^ DESERTER. 
 
 a virtuous and praiseworthy act will be apt to persevere when the ob- 
 ject of his benevolence treats him with cold contempt. If Mr. Hayue 
 saw fit to repudiate the civilities a few oiBcers essayed to extend to him, 
 no others would subject themselves to similar rebuffs ; and if he could 
 stand the status quo, why, the regiment could ; and that, said the Riflers, 
 was the end of the matter. 
 
 But it was not the end, by a good deal. Some few of the ladies of 
 the infantry, actuated by Mrs. Rayner's vehement exposition of the 
 case, had aligned themselves on her side as against the post commander, 
 and by their general conduct sought to convey to the colonel and to the 
 ladies who were present at the first dinner given Mr. Hayne thorough 
 disapproval of their course. This put the cavalry people on their mettle 
 and led to a division in the garrison ; and as Major Waldron was, in 
 Mrs. Rayner's eyes, equally culpable with the colonel, it so resulted that 
 two or three infantry households, together with some unmarried subal- 
 terns, were arrayed socially against their own battalion commander 
 as well as against the grand panjandrum at post head-quarters. If it 
 had not been for the determined attitude of Mr. Hayne himself, the 
 garrison might speedily have been resolved into two parties, — Hayne 
 and anti-Hayne sympathizers ; but the whole bearing of that young 
 man was fiercely repellent of sympathy : he would have none of it. 
 " Hayne's position," said Major Waldron, " is practically this : he 
 holds that no man who has borne himself as he has during these five 
 years — denied himself everything that he might make up every cent 
 that was lost, though he was in no wise responsible for the loss — could 
 by any possibility have been guilty of the charges on which he was 
 tried. From this he will not abate one jot or tittle ; and he refuses 
 now to restore to his friendship the men who repudiated him in his 
 years of trouble, except on their profession of faith in his entire inno- 
 cence." Now, this was something the cavalry could not do without 
 some impeachment of the evidence W'hich was heaped up against the 
 poor fellow at the time of the trial ; and it was something the infantry 
 would not do, because thereby they would virtually pronounce one at 
 least of their own officers to have repeatedly anil persistently given 
 false testimony. In the case of Waldron and the cavalry, however, it 
 was possible for Hayne to return their calls of courtesy, because they, 
 having never " sent him to Coventry," received him precisely as they 
 would receive any other officer. AVith the Riflers it was different : 
 having once " cut" him as though by unanimous accord, and having 
 taught the young officers joining year after year to regard him as a 
 criminal, they could be restored to Mr. Hayne's friendship, as has been 
 said before, only " on confession of error." Buxton and two or three 
 of his stamp called or lefl their cards on Mr. Hayne because their 
 colonel had so done ; but precisely as the ceremony was performed, just 
 so was it returned. Buxton was red with wrath over what he termed 
 Hayne's conceited and supercilious manner when returning his call : 
 '*I called upon him like a gentleman, by thunder, just to let him 
 understand I wanted to help him out of the mire, and told him if there 
 was anything I could do for him that a gentleman could do, not to 
 hesitate about letting me know ; and when he came to my house to-day, 
 
THE DESERTER. 77I 
 
 damned if he didn't patronize me! — talked to me about the Plevna siege, 
 and wanted to discuss Gourko and the Balkans or some other fool thing : 
 what in thunder have I to do with campaigns in Turkey ? — and I thought 
 he meant those nigger soldiers the British have in India, — Goorkhas, 
 I know now, — and I did tell him it was an awful blunder, that only a 
 Russian would make, to take those Sepoy fellows and put 'era into a 
 winter campaign. Of course I hadn't been booking up the subject, and 
 he had, and sprung it on me ; and then, by gad, as he was going, he said 
 he had books and maps he would lend me, and if there was anything he 
 could do for me that a gentleman could do, not to hesitate about asking. 
 Damn his impudence !" 
 
 Poor Buxton ! One of his idiosyncrasies was to talk wisely to the 
 juniors on the subject of European campaigns and to criticise the moves 
 of generals whose very names and centuries were entangling snares. 
 His own subalterns were, unfortunately for him, at the house when 
 Hayne called, and when he, as was his wont, began to expound on 
 current military topics. "A little learning," even, he had not, and the 
 dangerous thing that that would have been was supplanted by some- 
 thing quite as bad, if not worse. He was trapped and thrown by the 
 quiet-mannered infantry subaltern, and it was all Messrs. Freeman and 
 Royce could do to restrain their impulse to rush after Hayne and 
 embrace him. Buxton was cordially detested by his " subs," and well 
 knew they would tell the story of his defeat, so he made a virtue of 
 necessity and came out with his own version. Theirs was far more 
 ludicrous, and, Mobile it made Mr. Hayne famous, he gained another 
 enemy. The — th could not fail to notice how soon after that all 
 social recognition ceased between their bulky captain and the pale, 
 slender subaltern ; and Mrs. Buxton and Mrs. Rayner became suddenly 
 infatuated with each other, while their lords were seldom seen except 
 together. 
 
 All this time, however, Miss Travers was making friends through- 
 out iho. garrison. No one ever presumed to discuss the Hayne aifair in 
 her presence, because of her relationship to the Rayners ; and yet Mrs. 
 Waldron had told several people how delightfully she and Mr. Hayne 
 had spent an afternoon together. Did not Mrs. Rayner declare that Mrs. 
 Waldron was a woman who told everything she knew, or words to that 
 effect ? It is safe to say that the garrison was greatly interested in the 
 story. How strange it was that he should have had a Ute-d.-tete with 
 the sister of his bitterest foe! When did they meet? Had they met 
 since ? Would they meet again ? All these were questions eagerly 
 discussed, yet never asked of the parties themselves, Mr. Hayne's repu- 
 tation for snubbing people standing him in excellent stead, and Miss 
 Travers's quiet dignity and reserve of manner being too much for those 
 who would have given a good deal to gain her confidence. But there 
 was Mrs. Rayner. She, at least, with all her high and mighty ways, 
 was no unapproachable creature when it came to finding out what she 
 thought of other people's conduct. So half a dozen, at least, had more 
 or less confidentially asked if she knew of Mr. Hayne and Miss 
 Travers's meeting. Indeed she did ! and she had given Nellie her 
 opinion of her conduct very decidedly. It was Captain Rayner him- 
 
772 THE DESERTER. 
 
 self who interposed, she said, and forbade her upbraiding Nellie any 
 further. Nellie being either in an adjoining room or up in her own 
 on several occasions when these queries were propounded to her sister, 
 it goes without saying that that estimable woman, after the manner 
 of her sex, had elevated her voice in responding, so that there was 
 no possibility of the wicked girl's failing to get the full benefit of 
 the scourging she deserved. Rayner had, indeed, positively forbidden 
 her further rebuking Nellie ; but the man does not live who can prevent 
 one woman's punishing another so long as she can get within earshot, 
 and Miss Travers was paying dearly for her independence. 
 
 It cannot be estimated just how great a disappointment her visit to 
 the frontier was proving to that young lady, -simply because she kept 
 her own counsel. There were women in the garrison who longed to 
 take her to their hearts and homes, she was so fresh and pure and sweet 
 and winning, they said ; but how could they, when her sister would 
 recognize them only by the coldest possible nod? Nellie was not 
 happy, that was certain, though she made no complaint, and though 
 the young officers who were daily her devotees declared she was bright 
 and attractive as she could be. There were still frequent dances and 
 parties in the garrison, but March was nearly spent, and the weather 
 had been so vile and blustering that they could not move beyond the 
 limits of the post. April might bring a change for the better in the 
 weather, but Miss Travers wondered how it could better her position. 
 
 It is hard for a woman of spirit to be materially dependent on any 
 one, and Miss Travers was virtually dependent on her brother-in-law. 
 The little share of her father's hard savings was spent on her education. 
 Once free from school, she was bound to another apprenticeship, and 
 sister Kate, though indulgent, fond, and proud, lost no opportunity of 
 telling her how much she owed to Captain Rayner. It got to be a 
 fearful weight before the first summer was well over. It was the main 
 secret of her acceptance of Mr. Van Antwerp. And now, until she 
 would consent to name the day that should bind her for life to him, 
 she had no home but such as Kate Rayner could offer her ; and Kate 
 was bitterly offended at her. There was jus^ one chajice to end it now 
 and forever, and to relieve her sister and the captain of the burden of 
 her support. Could she make up her mind to do it? And Mr. Van 
 Antwerp offered the opportunity. 
 
 So far from breaking with her, as she half expected, — so far from 
 being even angry and reproachful on receiving the letter she had written 
 telling him all about her meetings with Mr. Hayne, — he had written 
 again and again, reproaching himself for his doubts and fears, begging 
 her forgiveness for having written and telegraphed to Kate, humbling 
 himself before her in the most abject way, and imploring her to recon- 
 sider her determination and to let him write to Captain and Mrs. Ray- 
 ner to return to their Eastern home at once, that the marriage might 
 take place forthwith and he could bear her away to Europe in May. 
 Letter after letter came, eager, imploring, full of tenderest love and 
 devotion, full of the saddest apprehension, never reproaching, never 
 doubting, never commanding or restraining. The man had found the 
 way to touch a woman of her generous nature : he had left all to her ; 
 
THE DESERTER. 773 
 
 he was at her mercy ; and she knew well that he loved her fervently 
 and that to lose her would wellnigh break his heart. Could she say 
 the word and be free ? Surely, as this man's wife there would be no 
 serfdom ; and, yet, could she wed a man for whom she felt no spark of 
 love? 
 
 They went down to the creek one fine morning early in April. 
 There had been a sudden thaw of the snows up the gorges of the 
 Rockies, and the stream had overleaped its banks, spread over the low- 
 lands, and flooded some broad depressions in the prairie. Then, capri- 
 cious as a woman's moods, the wind whistled around from the north 
 one night and bound the lakelets in a band of ice. The skating was 
 gorgeous, and all the pretty ankles on the post were rejoicing in the 
 opportunity before the setting of another sun. Coming homeward at 
 luncheon-time, Mrs. Rayner, Mrs. Buxton, IVIiss Travers, and one or 
 two others, escorted by a squad of bachelors, strolled somewhat slowly 
 along Prairie Avenue towards the gate. It so happened that the 
 married ladies were foremost in the little party, when who should 
 meet them but Mr. Hayne, coming from the east gate ! Mrs. Rayner 
 and Mrs. Buxton, though passing him almost elbow to elbow, looked 
 straight ahead or otherwise avoided his eye. He raised his forage-cap 
 in general acknowledgment of the presence of ladies with the officers, 
 but glanced coldly from one to the other until his blue eyes lighted on 
 Miss Travers. No woman in that group could fail to note the leap 
 of sunshine and gladness to his face, the instant flush that rose to 
 his cheek. Miss Travers, herself, saw it quickly, as did the maideti 
 walking just behind her, and her heart bounded at the sight. She bowed 
 as their eyes met, spoke his name in low tone, and strove to hide her 
 face from Mr. Blake, who turned completely around and stole a sudden 
 glance at her. She could no more account for than she could control 
 it, but her face was burning. Mrs. Rayner, too, looked around and 
 stared at her, but this she met firmly, her dark eyes never quailing 
 before the angry glare in her sister's. Blake was beginning to like 
 Hayne and to dislike Mrs. Rayner, and he always did like mischief. 
 
 " You owe me a grudge. Miss Travers, if you did but know it," 
 he said, so that all could "hear. 
 
 " You, Mr. Blake ! How can that be possible ?" 
 
 " I spoiled a serenade for you a few nights ago. I was officer of 
 the day, and caught sight of a man gazing up at your window after 
 midnight. I felt sure he was going to sing : so, like a good fellow, I 
 ran over to play an accompaniment, and then — would you believe it ? 
 — he wouldn't sing, after all.'^ 
 
 She was white now. Her eyes were gazing almost imploringly at 
 him. Something warned him to hold his peace, and he broke off 
 short. 
 
 ^'Who was it? Oh, do tell us, Mr. Blake !" were the exclamations, 
 Mrs. Rayner being most impetuous in her demands. Again Blake 
 caught the apj^eal in Miss Travers's eyes. 
 
 " That's what I want to know," he responded, mendaciously. 
 " When I woke up next morning, the whole thing was a dream, and 
 I couldn't fix the fellow at all." 
 
774 THE DESERTER. 
 
 There "v^'as a chorus of disappointment and indignation. The idea 
 of spoiling such a gem of a sensation ! But Blake took it all com- 
 placently, until he got home. Then it began to worry him. 
 
 Was it possible that she knew he was there ? 
 
 That night there was a disturbance in the garrison. Just after ten 
 o'clock, and while the sentries were calling off the hour, a woman's 
 shrieks and cries were heard over behind the quarters of Company B 
 and close to the cottage occupied by Lieutenant Hayne. The officers 
 of the guard ran to the spot with several men, and found Private Clancy 
 struggling and swearing in the grasp of two or three soldiers, while Mrs. 
 Clancy was imploring them not to let him go, he was wild-like again; it 
 was drink ; he had the horrors, and was batin'.her while she was tryin' 
 to get him home. And Clancy's appearance bore out her words. He 
 was wild and drunken ; but he swore he meant no harm ; he struggled 
 hard for freedom ; he vowed he only wanted to see the lieutenant at his 
 quarters ; and Mr. Hayne, lamp in hand, had come upon the scene, and 
 was striving to quiet the woman, who only screamed and protested the 
 louder. At his quiet order the soldiers released Clancy, and the man 
 stood patient and subordinate. 
 
 " Did you want to see me, Clancy ?" asked Mr. Hayne. 
 
 " Askin' yer pardon, sir, I did," began the man, unsteadily, and 
 evidently struggling with the fumes of the liquor he had been drinking ; 
 but before he could speak again, Mrs. Clancy's shrieks rang out on the 
 still air : 
 
 " Oh, for the love of God, howld him, some o' ye's ! He'll kill 
 him ! He's mad, I say ! Shure 'tis I that know him best. Oh, 
 blessed Vargin, save us ! DonH let him loose, Misther Foster !" she 
 screamed to the officer of the guard, who at that moment appeared on 
 the full run. 
 
 "What's the trouble?" he asked, breathlessly. 
 
 " Clancy seems to have been drinking, and wants to talk with me 
 about something, Mr. Foster," said Hayne, quietly. " He belongs to 
 my company, and I will be responsible that he goes home.. It is really 
 Mrs. Clancy that is making all the trouble." 
 
 " Oh, for the love of God, hear him, now, whin the man was tearin' 
 the hair o' me this minute ! Oh, howld him, men ! Shure 'tis Captain 
 Rayner wud niver let him go." 
 
 " What's the matter, Mrs. Clancy ?" spoke a quick, stern voice, and 
 Rayner, with face white as a sheet, suddenly stood in their midst. 
 
 " Oh, God be praised, it's here ye are, captin ! Shure it's Clancy, 
 sir, dhrunk, sir, and runnin' round the garrison, and batin' me, sir." 
 
 "' Take him to the guard-house, Mr. Foster," was the stern, sudden 
 order. " Not a word, Clancy," as the man strove to speak. " Off 
 with him ; and if he gives you any trouble, send for me." 
 
 And as the poor fellow was led away, silence fell upon the group. 
 Mrs. Clancy began a wail of mingled relief and misery, which the cap- 
 tain ordered her to cease and go home. More men came hurrying to 
 the sjiot, and presently the officer of the day. " It is all right now," 
 said Rayner to the latter. " One of my men — Clancy — was out here 
 drunk and raising a row. I have sent him to the guard-house. Go 
 
THE DESERTER. 775 
 
 back to your quarters, men. Come, captain, will you walk over home 
 with me ?" 
 
 " Was Mr. Hayne here when the row occurred ?" asked the cavalry- 
 man, looking as though he wanted to hear something from the young 
 officer who stood a silent witness. 
 
 " I don't know," replied Rayner. " It makes no difference, captain. 
 It is not a case of witnesses. I shan't prefer charges against the man. 
 Come !" And he drew him hastily away. 
 
 Hayne stood watching them as they disappeared beyond the glimmer 
 of his lamp. Then a hand was placed on his arm : 
 
 " Did you notice Captain Rayner's face, — his lips ? He was ashen 
 as death." 
 
 " Come in here with me," was the reply ; and, turning, Hayne led 
 the post surgeon into the house. 
 
 XII. 
 
 There was an unusual scene at the matinee the following morning. 
 When Captain Ray relieved Captain Gregg as officer of the day, and 
 the two were visiting the guard-house and turning over prisoners, they 
 came upon the last name on the list, — Clancy, — and Gregg turned to 
 his regimental comrade and said, — 
 
 " No charges are preferred against Clancy, at least none as yet. 
 Captain Ray ; but his company commander requests that he be held 
 here until he can talk over his case with the colonel." 
 
 "What's he in for?" demanded Captain Ray. 
 
 " Getting drunk and raising a row and beating his wife," answered 
 Gregg ; whereat there was a titter among the soldiers. 
 
 " I never shtruck a woman in me life, sir," said poor Clancy. 
 
 " Silence, Clancy !" ordered the sergeant of the guard. 
 
 " No, I'm blessed if I believe that part of it, Clancy, drunk or no 
 drunk," said the new officer of the day. — " Take charge of him for the 
 present, sergeant." And away they went to the office. 
 
 Captain Rayner was in conversation with the commanding officer 
 as they entered, and the colonel was saying, — 
 
 " It is not the proper way to handle the case, captain. If he has 
 been guilty of drunkenness and disorderly conduct he should be brought 
 to trial at once," 
 
 " I admit that, sir ; but the case is peculiar. It was Mrs. Clancy that 
 made all the noise. I feel sure that after he is perfectly sober I can 
 give him such a talking-to as will put a stop to this trouble." 
 
 " Very well, sir. I am willing to let company commanders experi- 
 ment at least once or twice on their theories, so you can try the scheme ; 
 but we of the — th have had some years of experience with the Clancys, 
 and were not a little amused when they turned up again in our midst as 
 accredited members of your company." 
 
 " Then, as I understand you, colonel, Clancy is not to be brought to 
 trial for this affair," suddenly spoke the post surgeon. 
 
 Everybody looked up in surprise. " Pills" was the last man, 
 ordinarily, to take a hand in the " shop talk" at the morning meetings. 
 
776 ^^^ DESERTER. 
 
 " No, doctor. His captain thinks it unnecessary to prefer charges." 
 
 '' So do I, sir ; and, as I saw the man both before and after his 
 confinement last night, I do not think it was necessary to confine 
 him." 
 
 " The officer of the day says there was great disorder," said the 
 colonel, in surprise. 
 
 " Ay, sir, so there was ; and the thing reminds me of the stories 
 they used to tell on the New York police. It looked to me as though all 
 the row was raised by Mrs. Clancy, as Captain Rayner says ; but the 
 man was arrested. That being the case, I would ask the captain for 
 what specific offence he ordered Clancy to the guard-house." 
 
 Rayner again was pale as death. He glared at the doctor in amaze 
 and incredulity, while all the officers noted his agitation and were silent 
 in surprise. It was the colonel that came to the rescue : 
 
 " Captain Rayner had abundant reason, doctor. It was after taps, 
 though only just after, and, whether causing the trouble or not, the man 
 is the responsible party, not the woman. The captain was right in causing 
 his arrest." 
 
 Rayner looked up gratefully. 
 
 " I submit to your decision, sir," said the surgeon, " and I apologize 
 for anything I may have asked that was beyond my province. Now I 
 wish to ask a question for my own guidance." 
 
 " Go on, doctor." 
 
 " In case an enlisted man of this command desire to see an officer of 
 his company, — or any other officer, for that matter, — is it a violation of 
 any military regulation for him to go to his quarters for that purpose ?" 
 
 Again was Rayner fearfully white and aged-looking. His lips 
 moved as though he would interrupt ; but discipline prevailed. 
 
 '' No, doctor ; and yet we have certain customs of service to prevent 
 the men going at all manner of hours and on frivolous errands : a soldier 
 asks his first sergeant's permission first, and if denied by him, and he 
 have what he considers good reason, he can report the whole case." 
 
 " But suppose a man is not on company duty : must he hunt up his 
 first sergeant and ask permission to go and see some officer with whom 
 he has business ?" 
 
 " Well, hardly, in that case." 
 
 " That's all, sir." And the doctor subsided. 
 
 Among all the officers, as the meeting adjourned, the question was, 
 " What do you suppose ' Pills' was driving at?" 
 
 There were two or three who knew. Captain Rayner went first to 
 his quarters, where he had a few moments' hurried consultation with 
 his wife ; then they left the house together, — he to have a low-toned 
 and very stern talk to rather than with the abashed Clancy, who listened 
 cap in hand and with hanging head ; she to visit the sick child of INIrs. 
 Flanigan, of Company K, whose quarters adjoined those to which the 
 Clancys had recently been assigned. AV^hen that Hibernian culprit 
 returned to his roof-tree, released from durance vile, he was surprised 
 to receive a kindly and sympathetic welcome from his captain's wife, 
 who with her own hand had mixed him some comforting drink and 
 was planning with Mrs. Clancy for their greater comfort. '' If Clancy 
 
THE DESERTER. 
 
 777 
 
 will only promise to quit entirely !" interjected the partner of his jovs 
 and sorrows. 
 
 Later that day, when the doctor had a little talk with Clancy, the 
 ex-dragoon declared he was going to reform for all he was worth. He 
 was only a distress to everybody when he drank. 
 
 " All right, Clancy. And when you are perfectly yourself you can 
 come and see Lieutenant Hayne as soon as you like." 
 
 " Loot'nant Hayne is it, sir ? Shure I'd be beggin' his pardon for 
 the vexation I gave him last night." 
 
 " But you have something you wanted to speak with him about. 
 You said so last night, Clancy," said the doctor, looking him squarely 
 in the eye. 
 
 " Shure I was dhrunk, sir. I didn't mane it," he answered ; but 
 he shrank and cowered, 
 
 The doctor turned and left him. 
 
 " If it's only when he's drunk that conscience pricks him and the 
 truth will out, then we must have him drunk again/' quoth this un- 
 principled practitioner. 
 
 That same afternoon Miss Travers found that a headache was the 
 result of confinement to an atmosphere somewhat heavily charged with 
 electricity. Mrs. Rayner seemed to bristle every time she approached 
 her sister. Possibly it was the heart, more than the head, that ached, 
 but in either case she needed relief from the exposed position she had 
 occupied ever since Kate's return from the Clancys' in the mornino-. 
 She had been too long under fire, and was wearied. Even the cheery 
 visits of the garrison gallants had proved of little avail, for Mrs. 
 Rayner was in very ill temper, and made snappish remarks to them 
 which two of them resented and speedily took themselves off. Later 
 Miss Travers went to her room and wrote a letter, and then the sunset 
 gun shook the window, and twilight settled down upon the still frozen 
 earth. She bathed her heated forehead and flushed cheeks, threw a 
 warm cloak over her shoulders, and came slowly down the stairs. Mrs. 
 Rayner met her at the parlor door. 
 
 " Kate, I am going for a walk, and shall stop and see Mrs. Waldron." 
 
 " Quite an unnecessary piece of information. I saw him as well as 
 you. He has just gone there." 
 
 Miss Travers flushed hot with indignation : 
 
 " I have seen no one ; and if you mean that Mr. Hayne has gone 
 to Major Waldron's, I shall not." 
 
 " No : I'd meet him on the walk : it would only be a trifle more 
 public." 
 
 " You have no right to accuse me of the faintest expectation of 
 meeting him anywhere. I repeat, I had not thought of such a thing." 
 
 " You might just as well do it. You cannot make your antagonism 
 to my husband much more pointed than you have already. And as 
 for meeting Mr. Hayne, the only advice I presume to give now is that 
 for your own sake you keep your blushes under better control than 
 you did the last time you met — that I know of" And, with this 
 triumphant insult as a parting shot, INIrs. Rayner wheeled and marched 
 oif through the parlor. 
 Vol. XXXIX.— 51 
 
778 T^^ DESERTER. 
 
 What was a girl to do? Nellie Travers was not of the crying 
 kind, and was denied a vast amount of comfort in consequence. She 
 stood a few moments quivering under the lash of injustice and insult 
 to which she had been subjected. She longed for a breath of pure, 
 fresh air ; but there would be no enjoyment even in that now. She 
 needed sympathy and help, if ever girl did, but where was she to find 
 it ? The women who most attracted her and who would have warmly 
 welcomed her at any time — the women whom slie would eagerly have 
 gone to in her trouble — were practically denied to her. Mrs. Rayner 
 in her quarrel had declared war against the cavalry, and Mrs. Stannard 
 and Mrs. Ray, who had shown a disposition to welcome Nellie warmly, 
 were no longer callers at the house. Mrs. Waldron, who was kind 
 and motherly to the girl and loved to have her with her, was so embar- 
 rassed by Mrs. Rayner's determined snubs that she hardly knew how 
 to treat the matter. She would no longer visit Mrs. Rayner informally, 
 as had been her custom, yet she wanted the girl to come to her. If 
 she went, Miss Travers well knew that on her return to the house she 
 would be received by a volley of sarcasms about her preference for the 
 society of people who were the avowed enemies of her benefactors. If 
 she remained in the house, it was to become in person the target for her 
 sister's undeserved sneers and censure. The situation was becoming 
 simply unbearable. Twice she began and twice she tore to fragments 
 the letter for which Mr. Van Antwerp was daily imploring, and this 
 evening she once more turned and slowly sought her room, threw off 
 her wraps, and took up her writing-desk. It was not yet dark. There 
 was still light enough for her purpose, if she went close to the window. 
 Every nerve was tingling with the sense of wrong and ignominy ; 
 every throb of her heart but intensified the longing for relief from the 
 thraldom of her position. She saw only one path to lead her from 
 such crushing dependence. There was his last letter, received only 
 that day, urging, imploring her to leave Warrener forthwith. Mrs. 
 Rayner had declared to him her readiness to bring her East provided 
 she would fix an early date for the wedding. Was it not a future 
 many a girl might envy? Was he not tender, faithful, patient, de- 
 voted as man could be ? Had he not social position and competence ? 
 Was he not high-bred, courteous, refined, — a gentleman in all his acts 
 and words ? Why could she not love him, and be content ? There 
 on the desk lay a little scrap of note-paper ; there lay her pen ; a dozen 
 words only were necessary. One moment she gazed longingly, wist- 
 fully, at the far-away, darkening heights of the Rockies, watching the 
 last rose-tinted gleams on the snowy peaks ; then with sudden impulse 
 she seized her pen and drew the portfolio to the window-seat. As she 
 did so, a soldierly figure came briskly down the walk ; a pale, clear- 
 cut face glanced up at her casement ; a quick light of recognition and 
 pleasure flashed in his eyes ; the little forage-cap was raised with cour- 
 teous grace, though the step never slackened, and Miss Travers felt 
 that her cheek, too, was flushing again, as Mr. Hayne strode rapidly 
 
 by. She stood there another moment, and then it had grown too 
 
 dark to write. 
 
 When Mrs. Rayner, after calling twice from the bottom of the 
 
THE DESERTER. 'J'JQ 
 
 stairs, finally went up into her room and impatiently pushed open the 
 door, all was darkness except the glimmer from the hearth : 
 
 " Nellie, where are you ?" 
 
 " Here," answered Miss Travers, starting up from the sofa. " I 
 think I must have been asleep." 
 
 " Your head is hot as fire," said her sister, laying her firm white 
 hand upon the burning forehead. " I suppose you are going to be 
 downright ill, by way of diversion. Just understand one thing, Nellie : 
 that doctor does not come into my house." 
 
 " What doctor ? — not that I want one," asked Miss Travers, 
 wearily. 
 
 " Dr. Pease, the post surgeon, I mean. Of course you have heard 
 how he is mixing himself in my husband's affairs and making trouble 
 with various people." 
 
 " I have heard nothing, Kate." 
 
 " I don't wonder your friends are ashamed to tell you. Things have 
 come to a pretty pass, when officers are going around holding private 
 meetings with enlisted men !" 
 
 " I hardly know the doctor at all, Kate, and cannot imagine what 
 affairs of your husband's he can interfere with." 
 
 " It was he that put up Clancy to making the disturbance at Mr. 
 Hayne's last night and getting into the guard-house, and tried to prove 
 that he had a right to go there and that the captain had no right to 
 arrest him." 
 
 " Was Clancy trying to see Mr. Hayne ?" asked Miss Travers, 
 quickly. 
 
 " How should I know ?" said her sister, pettishly. " He was drunk, 
 and probably didn't know what he was doing." 
 
 *' And Captain Rayner arrested him for — for trying to see Mr. 
 Hayne?" 
 
 " Captain Rayner arrested him for Being drunk and creating a dis- 
 turbance, as it was his duty to arrest any soldier under such circum- 
 stances," replied her sister, with majestic wrath, " and I will not tolerate 
 it that you should criticise his conduct." 
 
 " I have made no criticism, Kate. I have simply made inquiry ; 
 but I have learned what no one else could have made me believe." 
 
 " Nellie Travers, be careful what you say, or what you insinuate. 
 What do you mean ?" 
 
 " I mean, Kate, that it is my belief that there is something at the 
 bottom of those stories of Clancy's strange talk when in the hospital. 
 I believe he thinks he knows something which would turn all suspicion 
 from Mr. Hayne to a totally different man. I believe that, for reasons 
 which I cannot fathom, you are determined Mr. Hayne shall not see 
 him or hear of it. It was you that sent Captain Rayner over there 
 last night. Mrs. Clancy came here at tattoo, and, from the time she 
 left, you were at the front door or window. You were the first to hear 
 her cries, and came running in to tell the captain to go at once. Kate, 
 why did you stand there listening from the time she left the kitchen, 
 unless you expected to hear just what happened over there behind the 
 company barracks?" 
 
780 TEE DESERTER. 
 
 Mrs. Rayner would give no answer. Anger, rage, retaliation, all 
 in turn were pictured on her furious face, but died away before the 
 calm and unconquerable gaze in her sister's eyes. For the first time in 
 her life Kate Rayner realized that her " baby Nell" had the stronger 
 will of the two. For one instant she contemplated vengeance. A 
 torrent of invective leaped readily to her lips. '* Outrage," " ingrate," 
 " insult," were the first three distinguishable epithets applied to her 
 sister or her sister's words ; then, "See if Mr. Van Antwerp will tolerate 
 such conduct. I'll write this very ^lay," was the impotent threat that 
 followed ; and finally, utterly defeated, thoroughly convinced that she 
 was powerless against her sister's reckless love of " fair play at any 
 price," she felt that her wrath was giving \^ay to dismay, and turned 
 and fled, lest Nellie should see the flag of surrender on her paling cheeks. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Two nights after this, as Captain Buxton was sulkily going the 
 rounds of the sentries he made a discovery which greatly enlivened an 
 otherwise uneventful tour as officer of the day. It had been his general 
 custom on such occasions to take the shortest way across the parade to 
 the guard-house, make brief and perfunctory inspection there, then go 
 on down the hill to the creek valley and successively visit the sentries 
 around the stables. If the night were wet or cold, he went back the 
 same way, ignoring the sentries at the coal- and store-sheds along 
 Prairie Avenue. This was a sharply cold night, and very dark, but 
 equally still. It was between twelve and one o'clock — nearer one than 
 twelve — as he climbed the hill on his homeward way, and, instead of 
 taking the short cut, turned northward and struck for the gloomy mass 
 of sheds dimly discernible some forty yards from the crest. He had 
 heard other officers speak of the fact that Mr. Hayne's lights were 
 burning until long after midnight, and that, dropping in there, they had 
 found him seated at his desk with a green shade over his eyes, studying 
 by the aid of two student-lamps ; " boning to be a general, probably," 
 was the comment of captains of Buxton's calibre, who, having grown 
 old in the service and in their own ignorance, were fiercely intolerant of 
 lieutenants who strove to improve in professional reading instead of 
 spending their time making out the company muster-rolls and clothing- 
 accounts, as they should do. Buxton wanted to see for himself what 
 the night-lights meant, and was plunging heavily ahead through the 
 darkness, when suddenly brought to a stand by the sharp challenge of 
 the sentry at the coal-shed. He whispered the mystic countersign over 
 the levelled bayonet of the infantryman, swearing to himself at the 
 regulation which puts an officer in such a "stand-and-deliver" attitude 
 for the time being, and then, by way of getting square with the soldier 
 for the sharply military way in which his duty as sentry had been per- 
 formed, the captain proceeded to catechise him as to his orders. The 
 soldier had been well taught, and knew all his " responses" by rote, — 
 far better than Buxton, for that matter, as the latter was anything but 
 an exemplar of perfection in tactics or sentry duty ; but this did not 
 prevent Buxton's snappishly telling him he was wrong in several points 
 
THE DESERTER. 781 
 
 and contemptuously inquiring where he had learned such trash. The 
 soldier promptly but respectfully responded that those were the exact 
 instructions he had received at the adjutant's school, and Buxton 
 knew from experience that he was getting on dangerous ground. He 
 would have stuck to his point, however, in default of something else 
 to find fault with, but that the crack of a whip, the crunching of hoofs, 
 and a rattle of wheels out in the darkness quickly diverted his atten- 
 tion. 
 
 " What's that, sentry ?" he sharply inquired. 
 • " A carriage, sir; Leastwise, I think it must be." 
 
 " Why don't you know, sir? It must have been on your post." 
 
 " No, sir ; it was 'way off my post. It drove up to Lieutenant 
 Hayne's about half an hour ago." 
 
 " Where'd it come from ?" asked the captain, eagerly. 
 
 " From town, sir, I suppose." And, leaving the sentry to his own 
 reflections, which, on the whole, were not complimentary to his superior 
 officer, Captain Buxton strode rapidly through the darkness to Lieuten- 
 ant Hayne's quarters. Bright lights were still burning within, both 
 on the ground -floor and in a room above. The sentries were just 
 beginning the call of one o'clock when he reached the gate and"' halted, 
 gazing inquisitively at the house front. Then he turned and listened 
 to the rattle of wheels growing faint in the distance as the team drove 
 away towards the prairie town. If Hayne had gone to town at that 
 hour of the night it was a most unusual proceeding, and he had not 
 the colonel's permission to absent himself from the post : of that the 
 officer of the day was certain. Then, again, he would not have gone 
 and left all his lights burning. No : that vehicle, whatever it was, 
 had brought somebody out to see him, — somebody who proposed to 
 remain several hours ; otherwise the carriage would not have driven 
 away. In confirmation of this theory, he heard voices, cheery voices, 
 in laughing talk, and one of them made him prick up his ears. He 
 heard the piano crisply trilling a response to light, skilful fingers. He 
 longed for a peep within, and regretted that he had dropped Mr. Hayne 
 from the list of his acquaintance. He recognized Hayne's shadow, 
 presently, thrown by the lamp upon the curtained window, and wished 
 that his visitor would come similarly into view. He heard the clink 
 of glasses, and saw the shadow raise a wineglass to the lips, and Sam's 
 Mongolian shape flitted across the screen, bearing a tray with similar 
 suggestive objects. What meant this unheard-of conviviality on the 
 part of the ascetic, the hermit, the midnight-oil-burner, the scholarly 
 recluse of the garrison ? Buxton stared with all his eyes and listened 
 with all his ears, starting guiltily when he heard a martial footstep 
 coming quickly up the path, and faced the intruder rather unsteadily. 
 It was only the corporal of the guard, and he glanced at his superior, 
 brought his fur-gauntleted hand in salute to the rifle on his shoulder, 
 and passed on. The next moment Buxton fairly gasped with amaze : 
 he stared an instant at the window as though transfixed, then ran after 
 the corporal, called to him in low, stealthy tone to come back noise- 
 lessly, drew him by the sleeve to the front of Hayne's quarters, and 
 pointed to the parlor window. Two shadows were there now, — one 
 
782 THE DESERTER. 
 
 easily recognizable as that of the young officer in his snugly-fitting 
 undress uniform, the other slender, graceful, feminine. 
 
 " What do you make that other shadow to be, corporal ?" he 
 whispered, hoarsely and hurriedly. " Look .'" And with that excla- 
 mation a shadowed arm seemed to encircle the slender form, the mous- 
 tached image to bend low and mingle with the outlined luxuriance of 
 tress that decked the other's head, and then, together, with clasping 
 arms, the shadows moved from view. 
 
 " What was the other, corporal ?" he repeated. 
 
 " Well, sir, I should say it was a young woman." 
 
 Buxton could hardly wait until morning to see Rayner. When he 
 passed the latter's quarters half an hour later, all was darkness ; though, 
 had he but known it, Rayner was not asleep. He was at the house 
 before guard-mounting, and had a confidential and evidently exciting 
 talk with the captain ; and when he went, just as the trumpets were 
 sounding, these words were heard at the front door : 
 
 " She never left until after daylight, when the same rig drove her 
 back to town. There was a stranger with her then." 
 
 That morning both Rayner and Buxton looked hard at Mr. Hayne 
 when he came in to the matinee; but he was just as calm and quiet 
 as ever, and, having saluted the commanding officer, took a seat by 
 Captain Gregg and was soon occupied in conversation with him. Not 
 a word was said by the officer of the day about the mysterious visitor 
 U) the garrison the previous night. With Captain Rayner, however, 
 he was again in conversation much of the day, and to him, not to his 
 successor as officer of the day, did. he communicate all the details of the 
 previous night's adventure and his theories thereanent. 
 
 Late that night, having occasion to step to his front door, convinced 
 that he heard stealthy footsteps on his piazza, Mr. Hayne could see no- 
 body in the darkness, but found his front gate open. He walked around 
 his little house ; but not a man was visible. His heart was full of a 
 new and strange excitement that night, and, as before, he threw on his 
 overcoat and furs and took a rapid walk around the garrison, gazing up 
 into the starry heavens and drinking in great drauglits of the pure, 
 bracing air. Returning, he came down along the front of officers' row, 
 and as he approached Rayner's quarters his eyes rested longingly upon 
 the window he knew to be hers now ; but all was darkness. As he 
 rapidly neared the house, however, he became aware of two bulky 
 figures at the gate, and, as he walked briskly past, recognized the over- 
 coats as those of officers. One man was doubtless Rayner, the other 
 he could not tell ; for both, the instant they recognized his step, seemed 
 to avert their heads. Once home again, he soon sought his room and 
 pillow ; but, long before he could sleep, again and again a sweet vision 
 seemed to come to him : he could not shut out the thought of Nellie 
 Travers, — of how she looked and what she said that very afternoon. 
 
 He had gone to call at Mrs. Waldron's soon after dark. He was 
 at the piano, playing for her, when he became conscious that another 
 lady had entered the room, and, turning, saw Nellie Travers. He rose 
 and bowed to her, extending his hand as he did so, and knowing that 
 his heart was thumping and his color rising as he felt the soft, warm 
 
THE DESERTER. 783 
 
 touch of her slender fingers in his grasp. She, too, had flushed, — any 
 one could see it, though the lamps were not tui-ned high, nor was the 
 firelight strong. 
 
 " Miss Travers has come to take tea very quietly with me, Mr. 
 Hayne, — she is so soon to return to the East, — and now I want you to 
 stay and join us. No one will be here but the major ; and we will have 
 a lovely time with our music. You will, won't you ?" 
 
 " So soon to return to the East !" How harsh, how strange and un- 
 welcome, the words sounded ! How they seemed to oppress him and 
 prevent his reply ! He stood a moment dazed and vaguely worried : 
 he could not explain it. He looked from Mrs. Waldron's kind face to 
 the sweet, flushed, lovely features there so near him, and something told 
 liim that he could never let them go and find even hope or content in 
 life again. How, why had she so strangely come iuto his lonely life, 
 radiant, beautiful, bewildering as some suddenly blazing star in the 
 darkest corner of the heavens ? Whence had come this strange power 
 that enthralled him ? He gazed into her sweet face, with its downcast, 
 troubled eyes, and then, in bewilderment, turned to Mrs. Waldron : 
 
 "I — I had no idea Miss Travers was going East again just now. 
 It seems only a few days since she came." 
 
 " It is over a month ; but all the same this is a sudden decision. I 
 knew nothing of it until yesterday. — You said ISIrs. Rayuer was better 
 to-day, Nellie ?" 
 
 " Yes, a little ; but she is far from well. I think the captain will 
 go, too, just as soon as he can arrange for leave of absence," was the 
 low-toned answer. He had released, or rather she had withdrawn, her 
 hand, and he still stood there, fascinated. His eyes could not quit their 
 gaze. She going away ? — She ? Oh, it could not be ! What — what 
 would life become without the sight of that radiaut face, that slender, 
 graceful, girlish form? 
 
 " Is not this very unexpected ?" he struggled to say. " I thought — . 
 I heard you were to spend several months here." 
 
 " It was so intended, Mr. Hayne ; but my sister's health requires 
 speedy change. She has been growing worse ever since we came, and 
 she will not get well here." 
 
 " And when do you go ?" he asked, blankly. 
 
 " Just as soon as we can pack ; though we may wait two or three 
 days for a — for a telegram." 
 
 There was a complete break in the conversation for a full quarter 
 of a minute, — not such a long time in itself, but unconventionally long 
 under such circumstances. Then Mrs. Waldron suddenly and remark- 
 ably arose : 
 
 " I'll leave you to entertain Mr. Hayne a few moments, Nellie. 
 I am the slave of my cook, and she knows nothing of Mr. Hayne's 
 being here to tea with us : so I must tell her and avert disaster." 
 And with this barefaced — statement on her lips and conscience, where it 
 rested with equal lightness, that exemplary lady quitted the room. In 
 the sanctity of the connubial chamber that evening, some hours later, 
 she thus explained her action to her silent spouse : 
 
 " Right or wrong, I meant that those two young people should have 
 
784 ^^^ DESERTER. 
 
 a cliance to know each other. I liave been convinced for three weeks 
 that she is being forced into this New York match, and for the last 
 week that she is wretchedly unhappy. You say you believe him a 
 wronged and injured man, only you can't prove it, and you have said 
 that nothing could be too good for him in this life as a reward for all 
 his bravery and fortitude under fearful trials. Then Nellie Travers isn't 
 too good for him, sweet as she is, and I don't care who calls me a match- 
 maker." 
 
 But with Mrs. "Waldron away the two appeared to have made but 
 halting progress towards friendship. With all her outspoken pluck at 
 school and at home, Miss Travers was strangely ill at ease and em- 
 barrassed now. Mr. Hayne was the first to gain self-control and to 
 endeavor to bring the conversation back to a natural channel. It was 
 a struggle ; but he had grown accustomed to struggles. He could not 
 imagine that a girl whom he had met only once or twice should have 
 for him anything more than the vaguest and most casual interest. He 
 well knew by this time how deep and vehement was the interest she 
 had aroused in his heart ; but it would never do to betray himself so 
 soon. He strove to interest her in reference to the music she would 
 hear, and to learn from her where they were going. This she answered. 
 They would go no farther East than St. Louis or Chicago. They might 
 go South as far as Nashville until mid-May. As for the summer, 
 it would depend on the captain and his leave of absence. It was all 
 vague and unsettled. Mrs. Rayner was so wretched that her husband 
 was convinced that she ought to leave for the States as soon as possible, 
 and of course " she" must go with her. All the gladness, brightness, 
 vivacity he had seen and heard of as her marked characteristics seemed 
 gone ; and, yet, she wanted to speak with him, — wanted to be with 
 him. What could be wrong ? he asked himself. It was not until Mrs. 
 Waldron's step was heard returning that she nerved herself to sudden, 
 almost desperate, effort. She startled him with her vehemence : 
 
 " Mr. Hayne, there is something I must tell you before I go. If 
 no opportunity occur, I'll write it." 
 
 And those were the words that had been haunting him all the 
 evening, for they were not again alone, and he had no chance to ask a 
 question. What could she mean ? For years he had been living a life 
 of stern self-denial ; but long before his promotion the last penny of 
 the obligation that, justly or otherwise, had been laid upon his shoulders 
 was paid with interest. He was a man free and self-respecting, strong, 
 resolute, and possessed of an independence that never would have been 
 his had his life run on in the same easy, trusting, happy-go-lucky style 
 in which he had spent the first two years of his army career. But in 
 his isolation he had allowed himself no thought of anything that could 
 for a moment distract hira from the stern purpose to which he had de- 
 voted every energy. He would win back, command, compel, the respect 
 of his comrades, — would bring to confusion those who had sought to 
 pull him down ; and until that stood accomplished he would know no 
 other claim. In the exile of the mountain-station he saw no women 
 but the wives of his senior officers ; and they merely bowed when they 
 h^ippened to meet him : some did not even do that. Now at last he 
 
THE DESERTER. 785 
 
 had met and yielded to the first of two conquerors before whom even 
 the bravest and the strongest go down infallibly, — Love and Death. 
 Suddenly, but irresistibly, the sweet face and thrilling tones of that 
 young girl had seized and filled his heart, to the utter exclusion of every 
 other passion ; and just in proportion to the emptiness and yearning of 
 his life before their meeting was the intensity of the love and longing 
 that possessed him now. It was useless to try and analyze the sudden- 
 ness and subtilty of its approach : the power of love had overmastered 
 him. He could only realize that it was here and he must obey. Late 
 into the morning hours he lay there, his brain whirling with its varied 
 and bewildering emotions. Win her he must, or the blackness and 
 desolation of the past five years would be as nothing compared with 
 the misery of the years to come. Woo her he would, and not without 
 hope, if ever woman's eyes gave proof of sympathy and trust. But 
 now at last he realized that the time had come when for her sake — not 
 for his — he must adopt a new course. Hitherto he had scorned and 
 repelled all overtures that wei'e not prefaced by an expression of belief 
 in his utter innocence in the past. Hitherto he had chosen to live the 
 life of an anchorite, and had abjured the society of women. Hitherto 
 he had refused the half-extended proffers of comrades who had sought 
 to continue the investigation of a cliain of circumstances that, complete, 
 might have proved him a wronged and defrauded man. The missing 
 links were not beyond recovery in skilful hands ; but in the shock and 
 horror which he felt on realizing that it was not only possible but cer- 
 tain that a jury of his comrade officers could deem him guilty of a low 
 crime, he hid his face and turned from all. Noto the time had come 
 to reopen the case. He well knew that a revulsion of feeling had set 
 in which nothing but his own stubbornness held in check. He knew 
 that he had friends and sympathizers among officers high in rank. He 
 had only a few days before heard from Major Waldron's lips a strong 
 intimation that it was his duty to " come out of his shell" and reassert 
 himself. " You must remember this, Hayne," said he : " you had been 
 only two years in service when tried by court-martial. You were an 
 utter stranger to every member of that court. There was nothing but 
 the evidence to go upon, and that was all against you. The court was 
 made up of officers from other regiments, and w^as at least impartial. 
 The evidence was almost all from your own, and was presumably well 
 founded. You would call no witnesses for defence. You made your 
 almost defiant statement ; refused counsel ; refused advice ; and what 
 could the court do but convict and sentence ? Had I been a member 
 of the court I would have voted just as was done by the court ; and 
 yet I believe you now an utterly innocent man." 
 
 So, apparently, did the colonel regard him. So, too, did several of 
 the officers of the cavalry. So, too, would most of the youngsters of 
 his own regiment if he would only give them half a chance. In any 
 event, the score was wiped out now ; he could afford to take a wife if a 
 woman learned to love him, and what wealth of tenderness and devo- 
 tion was he not ready to lavish on one who would ! But he would offer 
 no one a tarnished name. First and foremost he must now stand up and 
 fight that calumny, — " come out of his shell," as Waldron had said, and 
 
786 ^^-E DESERTER. 
 
 give people a chance to see what manner of man he was. God helping 
 him, he would, and that without delay. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 " The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley." Mrs. 
 Rayner, ill in mind and body, had yielded to her lord's entreaties and 
 determined to start eastward with her sister without delay. Pack- 
 ing was already begun. Miss Travers had promised herself that she 
 would within thirty-six hours put Mr. Hayne in possession of certain 
 facts or theories which in her opinion bore strongly upon the " clear- 
 ing up" of the case against him ; Mr. Hayne had determined that he 
 would see Major Waldron on the coming day and begin active efforts 
 towards the restoration of his social rights ; the doctor had about decided 
 on a new project for inducing Clancy to unbosom himself of what he 
 knew ; Captain Rayner — tired of the long struggle — was almost ready 
 to welcome anything which should establish his subaltern's innocence, 
 and was on the point of asking for six months' leave just as soon as he 
 had arranged for Clancy's final discharge from service : he had reasons 
 for staying at the post until that Hibernian household was fairly and 
 squarely removed ; and Mrs. Clancy's plan was to take Mike to the 
 distant East, " where she had frinds." There were other schemes and 
 projects, no doubt, but these mainly concerned our leading characters, 
 and one and all they were put to the right-about by the events of the 
 following day. 
 
 The colonel, with his gruff second in command, Major Stannard, 
 had been under orders for several days to proceed on this particular 
 date to a large town a day's journey eastward by rail. A court-martial 
 composed mainly of field-officers was ordered there to assemble for 
 the trial of an old captain of cavalry whose propensity it was not so 
 much to get drunk as never to get drunk without concomitant publicity 
 and discovery. It was a rare thing for the old war-dog to take so much 
 as a glass of wine ; he went for months without it ; but the instant 
 he began to drink he was moved to do or say something disreputable, 
 and that was the trouble now. He was an unlucky old trooper, who 
 had risen from the lowest grades, fought with credit, and even, at 
 times, commanded his regiment, during the war ; but war records could 
 not save him when he wouldn't save himself, and he had to go. The 
 court was ordered, and the result was a foregone conclusion. The colonel, 
 his adjutant, and Major Stannard were to drive to town during the after- 
 noon and take the east-bound train, leaving Major Waldron in command 
 of the post ; but before guard-mounting a telegram was received which 
 was sent from department head-quarters the evening before, announcing 
 that one of the officers detailed for the court was seriously ill, and direct^ 
 ing Major Waldron to take his place. So it resulted in the post being 
 left to the command of the senior captain present for duty ; and that 
 man was Captain Buxton. He had never had so big a command before 
 in all his life. 
 
 Major Waldron of course had to go home and make his preparations. 
 Mr. Hayne, therefore, had brief opportunity to speak with him. It was 
 
THE DESERTER. 787 
 
 seen, however, that they had a short talk together on the major's piazza, 
 and that when they parted the major shook him warmly and cordially 
 by the hand. Rayner, Buxton, Ross, and some juniors happened to be 
 coming down along the walk at the moment, and, seeing them, as though 
 with pointed meaning the major called out, so that all could hear, — 
 
 " By the way, Hayne, I wish you would drop in occasionally while 
 I'm gone and take Mrs. Waldron out for a walk or drive : my horses 
 are always at your service. And — a — I'll write to you about that matter 
 the moment I've had a chance to talk with the colonel, — to-morrow, 
 probably." And Hayne touched his cap in parting salute, and went 
 blithely off with brightened eye and rising color. 
 
 Buxton glowered after him a moment, and conversation suddenly 
 ceased in their party. Finally he blurted out, — 
 
 " Strikes me your major might do a good deal better by himself and 
 his regiment by standing up for its morale and discipline than by openly 
 flaunting his favoritism for convicts in our faces. If I were in your 
 regiment I'd cut kimj' 
 
 " You wouldn't have to,'' muttered one of the group to his neigh- 
 bor : " the cut would have been on the other side long ago." And the 
 speaker was Buxton's own subaltern. 
 
 Rayner said nothing. His eyes were troubled and anxious, and he 
 looked after Hayne with an expression far more wearied than vindictive. 
 
 " The major is fond of music, captain," said Mr. Ross, with mis- 
 chievous intent. " He hasn't been to the club since the night you sang 
 ' Eileen Alanna.' That was about the time Hayne's piano came." 
 
 " Yes," put in Foster, " Mrs. Waldron says he goes and owls Hayne 
 now night after night just to hear him play." 
 
 " It would be well for him, then, if he kept a better guard on Mr. 
 Hayne's other visitors," said Buxton, with a black scowl. " I don't 
 know how you gentlemen in the Riflers look upon such matters, but in 
 the — th the man who dared to introduce a woman of the town into his 
 quarters would be kicked out in short order." 
 
 " You don't mean to say that anybody accuses Hayne of that, do 
 you?" asked Ross, in amaze. 
 
 " I do, — -just that. Only, I say this to you, it has but just come to 
 light, and only one or two know it. To prove it positively he's got 
 to be allowed more rope ; for he got her out of the way last time before 
 we could clinch the matter. If he suspects it is known he won't re- 
 peat it ; if kept to ourselves he will probably try it again, — and be 
 caught. Now I charge you all to regard this as confidential." 
 
 " But, Captain Buxton," said Ross, " this is so serious a matter 
 that I don't like to believe it. Who can prove such a story ?" 
 
 " Of coursfe not, Mr. Ross. You are quite ready to treat a man as 
 a thief, but can't believe he'll do another thing that is disreputable. 
 That is characteristic of your style of reasoning," said Buxton, with 
 biting sarcasm. 
 
 " You can't wither me with contempt. Captain Buxton. I have a 
 right to my opinion, and I have known Mr. Hayne for years, and if I 
 did believe him guilty of one crime five years ago I'm not so ready to 
 believe him guilty of anothei* now. This isn't — isn't like Hayne." 
 
788 TEE DESERTER. 
 
 " No, of course not, as I said before. Now, will you tell me, Mr. 
 Ross, just why Mr. Hayne chose that ramshackle old shanty out there 
 on the prairie, all by himself, unless it was to be where he could have 
 his chosen companions with him at night and no one be the wiser?" 
 
 " I don't pretend to fathom his motives, sir ; but I don't believe it 
 was for any such purpose as you seem to think." 
 
 "In other words, you think I'm circulating baseless scandal, do 
 you ?" 
 
 " I have said nothing of the kind ; and I protest against your put- 
 ting words into my mouth I never used." 
 
 " You intimated as much, anyhow, and you plainly don't believe it." 
 
 " Well, I don't believe — that is, I don't see how it could happen." 
 
 " Couldn't the woman drive out from town after dark, send the 
 carriage back, and have it call for her again in the morning ?" asked 
 Buxton. 
 
 " Possibly. Still, it isn't a proved fact that a woman spent the 
 night at Hayne's, even if a carriage was seen coming out. You've got 
 hold of some Sudsville gossip, probably," replied Ross. 
 
 " I have, have I ? By God, sir, • I'll teach you better manners 
 before we get through with this question. Do you know who saw 
 the carriage, and who saw the woman, both at Hayne's quarters?" 
 
 " Certainly I don't ! What I don't understand is how you should 
 have been made the recipient of the story." 
 
 " Mr. Ross, just govern your tongue, sir, and remember you are 
 speaking to your superior officer, and don't venture to treat my state^ 
 ments with disrespect hereafter. I saw it myself!" 
 
 " You !" gulped Ross, while amaze and incredulity shot across his 
 startled face. 
 
 " You !" exclaimed others of the group, in evident astonishment 
 and dismay. Rayner alone looked unchanged. It was no news to him, 
 while to every other man in the party it was a shock. Up to that 
 instant the prevailing belief had been, with Ross, that Buxton had 
 found some garrison gossip and was building an edifice thereon. His 
 positive statement, however, was too much for the most incredulous. 
 
 " Now what have you to say ?" he asked, in rude triumph. 
 
 There was no answer for a moment ; then Ross spoke : 
 
 " Of course, Captain Buxton, I withdraw any expression of doubt. 
 It never occurred to me that you could have seen it. May I ask when 
 and how?" 
 
 " The last time I was officer of the day, sir ; and Captain Rayner 
 is my witness as to the time. Others, whom I need not mention, saw 
 it with me. There is no mistake, sir. The woman was there." And 
 Buxton stood enjoying the effect. 
 
 Ross looked white and dazed. He turned slowly away, hesitated, 
 looked back, then exclaimed, — 
 
 " You are sure it was — it was not some one that had a right to be 
 there?" 
 
 " How could it be ?" said Buxton, gruffly. " You know he has 
 not an acquaintance in town, or here, who could be with him there at 
 night." 
 
THE DESERTER. 789 
 
 " Does the commanding officer know of it ?" asked Mr. Royce, after 
 a moment's silence. 
 
 " I am tiie commanding officer, Mr. Royce," said Buxton, with 
 majestic dignity, — " at least I will be after twelve o'clock ; and you 
 may depend upon it, gentlemen, this thing will not occur while I am 
 in command without its receiving the exact ti'eatment it deserves. Re- 
 member, now, not a word of this to anybody. You are as much in- 
 terested as I am in bringing to justice a man who will disgrace his uni- 
 form and his regiment and insult every lady in the garrison by such an 
 act. This sort of thing of course will run him out of the service for 
 good and all. We simply have to be sure of our ground and make the 
 evidence conclusive. Leave that to me the next time it happens. I 
 repeat, say nothing of this to any one." 
 
 But Rayner had already told his wife. 
 
 Just as Major Waldron was driving off to the station that bright 
 April afternoon and his carriage was whirling through the east gate, the 
 driver caught sight of Lieutenant Hayne running up Prairie Avenue, 
 waving his hand and shouting to him. He reined in his spirited bays 
 with some difficulty, and Hayne finally caught up with them. 
 
 " What is it, Hayne ?" asked Waldron, with kindly interest, leaning 
 out of his carriage. 
 
 " They will be back to-night, sir. Here is a telegram that has just 
 reached me." 
 
 " I can't tell you how sorry I am not to be here to welcome them ; 
 but Mrs. Waldron will be delighted, and she will come to call the 
 moment you let her know. Keep them till I get back, if you possibly 
 can." 
 
 " Ay, ay, sir. Good-by." 
 
 " Good-by, Hayne. God bless you, and — good luck !" 
 
 A little later that afternoon Mrs. Rayner had occasion to go into 
 her sister's room. It was almost sunset, and Nellie had been summoned 
 down-stairs to see visitors. Both the ladies were busy with their pack- 
 ing, — Mrs. Rayner, as became an invalid, superintending, and Miss 
 Travers, as became the junior, doing all the work. It was rather trying 
 to pack all the trunks and receive visitors of both sexes at odd hours. 
 Some of her garrison acquaintances would have been glad to come and 
 help, but those whom she would have welcomed were not agreeable to 
 the lady of the house, and those the lady of the house would have 
 chosen were not agreeable to her. The relations between the sisters 
 were somewhat strained and unnatural, and had been growing more and 
 more so for several days past. Mrs. Rayner's desk was already packed 
 away. She wanted to send a note, and bethought her of her sister's 
 portfolio. Opening it, she drew out some paper and envelopes, and 
 with the latter came an envelope sealed and directed. One glance at 
 its superscription sent the blood to her cheek and fire to her eye. Was 
 it possible ? Was it credible ? Her pet, her baby sister, her pride and 
 delight, — until she found her stronger in will, — her proud-spirited, 
 truthful Nell, was beyond question corresponding with Lieutenant 
 Hayne ! Here was a note addressed to him. How many more might 
 not have been exchanged ? Ruthlessly now she explored the desk, 
 
790 ^^^ DESERTER. 
 
 searching for something from him, but her scrutiny was vain. Oh, 
 what could she say, what could she do, to convey to her erring sister 
 an adequate sense of the extent of her displeasure ? How could she 
 bring her to realize the shame, the guilt, the scandal, of her course ? 
 She, Nellie Travers, the betrothed wife of Steven Van Antwerp, corre- 
 sponding secretly with this — this scoundrel, whose past, crime-laden as 
 it had been, was as nothing compared to the present wath its degrada- 
 tion of vice ? Ah ! she had it ! What would ever move her as that 
 could and must ? 
 
 When the trumpets rang out their sunset call and the boom of the 
 evening gun shook the windows in Fort Warrener and Nellie Travers 
 came running up-stairs again to her room, she started at the sight that 
 met her eyes. There stood Mrs. Rayner, like Juno in Avrath inflexible, 
 glaring at her from the commanding height of which she was so proud, 
 and pointing in speechless indignation at the little note that lay upon 
 the open portfolio. 
 
 For a moment neither spoke. Then Miss Travers, who had turned 
 very white, but whose blue eyes never flinched and whose lips were set 
 and whose little foot was tapping the carpet ominously, thus began : 
 
 " Kate, I do not recognize your right to overhaul my desk or super- 
 vise my correspondence." 
 
 " Understand this first, Cornelia," said Mrs. Rayner, who hated the 
 baptismal name as much as did her sister, and used it only when she 
 desired to be especially and desperately impressive : " I found it by 
 accident. I never dreamed of such a possibility as this. I never, 
 even after what I have seen and heard, could have believed you guilty 
 of this ; but, now that I have found it, I have the right to ask, what 
 are its contents ?" 
 
 " I decline to tell you." 
 
 " Do you deny my right to inquire ?" 
 
 " I will not discuss that question now. The other is far graver. 
 I will not tell you, Kate, except this : there is no word there that an 
 engaged girl should not write." 
 
 " Of that I mean to satisfy myself, or rather " 
 
 " You will not open it, Kate. No ! Put that letter down ! You 
 have never known me to prevaricate in the faintest degree, and you 
 have no excuse for doubting. I will furnish a copy of that for Mr. 
 Van Antwerp at any time ; but you cannot see it." 
 
 " You still persist in your wicked and unnatural intimacy with that 
 man, even after all that I have told you. Now for the last time hear 
 me : I have striven not to tell you this ; I have striven not to sully 
 your thoughts by such a revelation ; but, since nothing else will check 
 you, tell it I must, and what I tell you my husband told me in sacred 
 confidence, though soon enough it will be a scandal to the whole gar- 
 rison." 
 
 And when darkness settled down on Fort Warrener that starlit 
 April evening and the first warm breeze from the south came sighing 
 about the casements and one by one the lights appeared along officers' 
 row, there was no light in Nellie Travers's window. The little note lay 
 in ashes on the hearth, and she, with burning, shame-stricken cheeks, 
 
THE DESERTER. 791 
 
 with a black, scorching, gnawing pain at her lieart, was hiding her face 
 in her pillow. 
 
 And yet it was a jolly evening, after all, — that is, for some hours 
 and for some people. As Mrs. Rayner and her sister were so soon to 
 go, probably by the morrow's train if their section could be secured, 
 the garrison had decided to have an informal dance as a suitable fare- 
 well. Their announcement of impending departure had come so sud- 
 denly and unexpectedly that there was no time to prepare anything 
 elaborate, such as a german with favors, etc. ; but good music and an 
 extemporized supper could be had without trouble. The colonel's wife 
 and most of the cavalry ladies, on consultation, had decided that it was 
 the very thing to do, and the young officers took hold with a will : 
 they were always ready for a dance. Now that Mrs. Rayner was 
 really going, the quarrel should be ignored, and the ladies would all be 
 as pleasant to her as though nothing had happened, — provided, of course, 
 she dropped her absurd airs of injured womanhood and behaved with 
 courtesy. The colonel had had a brief talk with his better half before 
 starting for the train, and suggested that it was very probable that Mrs. 
 Rayner had seen the folly of her ways by that time, — the captain cer- 
 tainly had been behaving as though he regretted the estrangement, — 
 and if encouraged by a " let's-drop-the- whole- thing" sort of manner 
 she would be glad to reciprocate. He felt far less anxiety herein than 
 he did in leaving the post to the command of Captain Buxton. So 
 scrupulously had he been courteous to that intractable veteran that 
 Buxton had no doubt in his own mind that the colonel looked upon him 
 as the model officer of the regiment. It was singularly unfortunate 
 that he should have to be left in command, but his one or two seniors 
 among the captains were away on long leave, and there was no help for 
 it. The colonel, seriously disquieted, had a few words of earnest talk 
 with him before leaving the post, cautioning him so particularly not to 
 interfere with any of the established details and customs that Buxton 
 got very much annoyed, and showed it. 
 
 " If your evidence were not imperatively necessary before this court, 
 I declare I believe I'd leave you behind," said the colonel to his adju- 
 tant. " There is no telling what mischief Captain Buxton won't do if 
 left to himself" 
 
 It must have been near midnight, and the hop was going along 
 beautifully, and Captain Rayner, who was officer of the day, was just 
 escorting his wife in to supper, and Nellie, although looking a trifle 
 tired and pale, was chatting brightly with a knot of young officers, 
 when a corporal of the guard came to the door : " The commanding 
 officer's compliments, and he desires to see the officer of the day at 
 once." 
 
 There was a general laugh. " Isn't that Buxton all over ? The 
 colonel would never think of sending for an officer in the dead of night, 
 except for a fire or alarm ; but old Bux. begins putting on frills the 
 moment he gets a chance. Thank God, I'm not on guard to-night !'' 
 said Mr. Royce. 
 
 "What can he want with you?" asked Mrs. Rayner, pettishly. 
 " The idea of one captain ordering another around like this !" 
 
792 THE DESERTER. 
 
 " I'll be back in five minutes," said Rayner, as lie picked up his 
 sword and disappeared. 
 
 But ten minutes — fifteen — passed, and he came not. Mrs. Ray- 
 ner grew worried, and Mr. Blake led her out on the rude piazza to see 
 what they could see, and several others strolled out at the same time. 
 The music had ceased, and the night air was not too cold. Not a soul 
 was in sight out on the starlit parade. Not an unusual sound was 
 heard. There was nothing to indicate the faintest trouble ; and yet 
 Captain Buxton, the commanding officer, had been called out by his 
 "striker" or soldier-servant befi^re eleven o'clock, had not returned at 
 all, and in little over half an hour had sent for the officer of the day. 
 What did it mean ? Questioning and talking thus among themselves, 
 somebody said, " Hark !" and held up a warning hand. 
 
 Faint, far, muffled, there sounded on the night air a shot, then a 
 woman's scream ; then all was still. 
 
 " Mrs. Clancy again !" said one. 
 
 " That was not Mrs. Clancy : 'twas a far different voice," answered 
 Blake, and tore away across the parade as fast as his long legs would 
 carry him. 
 
 "Look ! The guard are running too !" cried Mrs. Waldron. " What 
 can it be?" And, sure enough, the gleam of the rifles could be seen 
 as the men ran rapidly away in the direction of the east gate. Mrs. 
 Rayner had grown ghastly, and was looking at Miss Travers, who with 
 white lips and clinched hands stood leaning on one of the wooden 
 posts and gazing with all her eyes across the dim level. Others came 
 hurrying out from the hall. Other young officers ran in pursuit of the 
 first starters. " What's the matter ? What's happened ?" were the 
 questions that flew from lip to lip. 
 
 " I — I must go home," faltered Mrs. Rayner. " Come, Nellie !" 
 
 " Oh, don't go, Mrs. Rayner. It can't be anything serious." 
 
 But, even as they urged, a man came running towards them. 
 
 " Is the doctor here ?" he panted. 
 
 " Yes. What's the trouble ?" asked Dr. Pease, as he squeezed his 
 burly form through the crowded door-way. 
 
 "You're wanted, sir. Loot'nant Hayne's shot; an' Captain Ray- 
 ner he's hurt too, sir." 
 
 XV. 
 
 Straight as an arrow Mr. Blake had sped across the parade, darted 
 through the east gate, and, turning, had arrived breathless at the wooden 
 porch of Hayne's quarters. Two bewildered-looking members of the 
 guard were at the door. Blake pushed his way through the little hall- 
 way and into the dimly-lighted parlor, where a strange scene met his 
 eyes : Lieutenant Hayne lay senseless and white upon the lounge across 
 the room ; a young and pretty woman, singularly like him in feature 
 and in the color of her abundant tresses, was kneeling beside him, chafing 
 his hands, imploring him to speak, — to look at her, — unmindful of the 
 fact that her feet were bare and that only a loose wrapper was thrown 
 over herVhite night-dress ; Captain Rayner was seated in a chair, deathly 
 white^ and striving to stanch the blood that flowed from a deep gash 
 
THE DESERTER. 793 
 
 in his temple and forehead ; he seemed still stunned as by the force of 
 the blow that had felled hira ; and Buxton, speechless with amaze and 
 heaven only knows what other emotions, was glaring at a tall, athletic 
 stranger who, in stocking-feet, undershirt, and trousers, held by three 
 frightened-looking soldiers and covered by the carbine of a fourth, was 
 hurling defiance and denunciation at the commanding officer. A re- 
 volver lay upon the floor at the feet of a corporal of the guard, who 
 w^as groaning in pain. A thin veil of powder-smoke floated through 
 the room. As Blake leaped in, — his cavalry shoulder-knots and helmet- 
 cords gleaming in the light, — a flash of recognition shot into the stranger's 
 eyes, and he curbed his fearful excitement and stopped short in his wrath. 
 
 " What devil's work is this ?" demanded Blake, glaring intuitively 
 at Buxton. 
 
 " Ttiese people resisted my guards, and had to take the consequences," 
 said Buxton, with surly — yet shaken — dignity. 
 
 " What were the guards doing here ? What, In God's name, are you 
 doing here?" demanded Blake, forgetful of all consideration of rank 
 and command in the face of such evident catastrophe. 
 
 " I ordered them here, — to enter and search." 
 
 A pause. 
 
 "Search what?— what for?" 
 
 " For — a woman I had reason to believe he had brought out here 
 from town." 
 
 " Wliat f You infernal idiot ! Why, she's his own sister, and this 
 gentleman's w^ife !" 
 
 The silence, broken only by the hard breathing of some of the 
 excited men and the moaning cry of the woman, was for a moment 
 intense. 
 
 " Isn't this Mr. Hurley ?" asked Blake, suddenly, as though to make 
 sure, and turning one instant from his furious glare at his superior 
 officer. The stranger, still held, though no longer struggling, replied 
 between his set teeth, — 
 
 " Certainly. I've told him so." 
 
 " By heaven, Buxton, is there no limit to your asininity ? What 
 fearful work will you do next ?" 
 
 " I'll arrest you, sir, if you speak another disrespectful word !" 
 thundered Buxton, recovering consciousness that as commanding officer 
 he could defend himself against Blake's assault. 
 
 " Do it and be you know what I would, say if a lady were not 
 
 present ! Do it, if you think you can stand having this thing ventilated 
 by a court. Pah ! I can't waste words on you. Who's gone for the 
 doctor? Here, you men, let go of Mr. Hurley now. Help me, Mr. 
 Hurley, please. Get your wife back to lier room. Bring me some 
 water, one of you." And with that he was bending over Hayne and 
 unbuttoning the fatigue-uniform in which he was still dressed. Another 
 moment, and the doctor had come in, and with him half the young 
 officers of the garrison. Rayner was led away to his own quarters. 
 Buxton, dazed and frightened now, ordered the guards back to their 
 post, and stood pondering over the enormity of his blunder. No one 
 spoke to him or paid the faintest attention other than to elbow him out 
 
 Vol. XXXIX.— 52 
 
794 ^^-^ DESERTER. 
 
 of the way occasionally. The doctor never so much as noticed hira. 
 Blake had briefly recounted tlie catastrophe to those who first arrived, 
 and as the story went from mouth to mouth it grew no better for Buxton. 
 Once he turned short on Mr. Foster and in aggrieved and sullen tone 
 remarked, — 
 
 " I thought you fellows in the Riflers said he had no relations." 
 
 " We weren't apt to be invited to meet them if he had ; but I don't 
 know that anybody was in position to know anything about it. What's 
 that got to do with this aifair, I'd like to hear?" 
 
 At last somebody took hira home. Mrs. Waldron, meantime, had 
 arrived and been admitted to Mrs. Hurley's room. The doctor refused 
 to go to Captain Rayner's, even when a messenger came from Mrs. 
 Rayner herself. He referred her to his assistant. Dr. Grimes. Hayne 
 had regained consciousness, but was sorely shaken. He had been floored 
 by a blow from the butt of a musket ; but the report that he was shot 
 proved happily untrue. His right hand still lay near the hilt of his 
 light sword : there was little question that he had raised his weapon 
 against a superior officer and would have used it with telling effect. 
 
 Few people slept that night along officers' row. Never had Warrener 
 heard of such excitement. Buxton knew not what to do. He paced the 
 floor in agony of mind, for he well understood that there was no shirk- 
 ing the responsibility. From beginning to end he was the cause of the 
 whole catastrophe. He had gone so far as to order his corporal to fire, 
 and he knew it could be proved against him. Thank God, the per- 
 plexed corporal had shot high, and the other men, barring the one who 
 had saved Rayner from a furious lunge of the lieutenant's sword, had 
 used their weapons as gingerly and reluctantly as possible. At the very 
 least, he knew, an investigation and fearful scandal must come of it. 
 Night though it was, he sent for the acting adjutant and several of his 
 brother captains, and, setting refreshments before them, besought their 
 advice. He was still commanding officer de jure, but he had lost all 
 stomach for its functions. He would have been glad to send for Blake 
 and beg his pardon for submitting to his insubordinate and abusive lan- 
 guage, if that course could have stopped inquiry ; but he well knew that 
 the whole thing would be noised abroad in less than no time. At first 
 he thought to give orders against the telegraph-operator's sending any 
 messages concernina: the matter ; but that would hav^e been onlv a tem- 
 porary hinderance : he could not control the instruments and operators 
 in town, only three miles away. He almost wished he had been 
 knocked down, shot, or stabbed in the mUee; but he had kept in the 
 rear when the skirmish began, and Rayner and the corporal were the 
 sufferers. They had been knocked " endwise" by Mr. Hurley's prac- 
 tised fists aft€r Hayne was struck down by the corporal's musket. It 
 was the universal sentiment among the officers of the — th as they 
 scattered to their homes that Buxton had " Avound himself up this time, 
 anyhow ;" and no one had any sympathy for him, — not one. The very 
 best light in which he could tell the story only showed the affair as a 
 flagrant and inexcusable outrage. 
 
 Captain Rayner, too, was in fearful plight. He had simply obeyed 
 orders ; but all the old story of his persecution of Hayne would now be 
 
THE DESERTER. 795 
 
 revived ; all men would see in his participation in the affair only addi- 
 tional reason to adjudge him cruelly persistent in his hatred of the young 
 officer, and, in view of the utter ruthlessness and wrong of this assault, 
 would be more than ever confident of the falsity of his position in the 
 original case. As he was slowly led up-stairs to his room and his tear- 
 ful wife and silent sister-in-law bathed and cleansed his wound, he saw 
 with frightful clearness how the crush of circumstances was now upon 
 him and his good name. Great heaven ! how those words of Hayne's 
 five years before rang, throbbed, burned, beat like trip-hammers through 
 his whirling brain ! It seemed as though they followed him and his 
 fortunes like a curse. He sat silent, stunned, awe-stricken at the force 
 of the calamity that had befallen him. How could lie ever induce an 
 officer and a gentleman to believe that he was no instigator in this 
 matter? — that it was all Buxton's doing, Buxton's low imagination 
 that had conceived the possibility of such a crime on the part of Mr. 
 Hayne, and Buxton's blundering, bull-headed abuse of authority that 
 had capped the fatal climax? It was some time before his wife could 
 get him to speak at all. She was hysterically bemoaning the fate that 
 had brought them into contact with such people, and from time to time 
 giving vent to the comforting assertion that never had there been a 
 cloud on their domestic or regimental sky until that wretch had been 
 assigned to the Riflers. She knew from the hurried and guarded ex- 
 planations of Dr. Grimes and one or two young officers who helped 
 Rayner home that the fracas had occurred at Mr. Hayne's, — that there 
 had been a mistake for which her husband was not responsible, but that 
 Captain Buxton was entirely to blame. But her husband's ashen face 
 told her a story of something far deeper : she knew that now he was 
 involved in fearful trouble, and, whatever may have been her inner- 
 most thoughts, it was the first and irresistible impulse to throw all the 
 blame upon her scapegoat. Miss Travers, almost as pale and quite as 
 silent as the captain, was busying herself in helping her sister ; but she 
 could with difficulty restrain her longing to bid her be silent. She, too, 
 had endeavored to learn from her escort on their hurried homeward 
 rush across the parade what the nature of the disturbance had been. 
 She, too, had suggested Clancy, but the officer by her side set his teeth 
 as he replied that he wished it had been Clancy. She had heard, too, 
 the message brought by a cavalry trumpeter from Mr. Blake : he 
 wanted Captain Ray to come to Mr. Hayne's as soon as he had seen 
 Mrs. Ray safely home, and would he please ask Mrs. Stannard to come 
 with him at the same time ? Why should Mr. Blake want Mrs. Stan- 
 nard at Mr. Hayne's ? She saw Mr. Foster run up and speak a few 
 words to Mrs. Waldron, and heard that lady reply, " Certainly. I will 
 go with you now." Whf\t could it mean ? At last, as she was return- 
 ing to her sister's room after a moment's absence, she heard a question 
 at which her heart stood still. It was Mrs. Rayner who asked, — 
 " But the creature was there, was she not ?" 
 The answer sounded more like a moan of anguish : 
 
 " The creature was his sister. It was her husband who " 
 
 But, as Captain Rayner buried his battered face in his hands at this 
 juncture, the rest of the sentence was inaudible. Miss Travers had 
 
796 ^'^^ DESERTER. 
 
 heard quite enough, however. She stood there one moment, appalled, 
 dropped uj)on the floor the bandage she had been making, turned and 
 sought her room, and was seen no more that night. 
 
 Over the day or two that followed this affair the veil of silence 
 may best be drawn, in order to give time for the sediment of truth 
 to settle through the w'hirlpool of stories in violent circulation. The 
 colonel came back on the first train after the adjournment of the court, 
 and could hardly wait for that formality. Contrary to his custom of 
 " sleeping on" a question, he was in his office within half an hour 
 after his return to the post, and from that time until near tattoo was 
 busily occupied taking the statements of the active participants in the 
 affair. This was three days afler its occurrence ; and Captain Rayner, 
 though up and able to be about, had not left his quarters. Mrs. Ray- 
 ner had abandoned her trip to the East, for the present at least. Mr. 
 Hayne still lay weak and prostrate in his darkened room, attended 
 hourly by Dr. Pease, who feared brain-fever, and nursed assiduously 
 by Mrs. Hurley, for whom Mrs. Waldron, Mrs. Stannard, and many 
 other ladies in the garrison could not do enough to content themselves. 
 Mr. Hurley's wrist was badly sprained and in a sling ; but the colonel 
 went purposely to call upon him and to shake his other hand, and he 
 begged to be permitted to see Mrs. Hurley, who came in pale and sofl- 
 eyed and with a gentle demeanor that touched the colonel more thian 
 he could tell. Her cheek flushed for a moment as he bent low over 
 her hand and told her how bitterly he regretted that his absence from 
 the post had resulted in so grievous an experience : it was not the 
 welcome he and his regiment would have given her had they known of 
 her intended visit. To Mr. Hurley he briefly said that he need not 
 fear but that full justice would be meted out to the instigator or in- 
 stigators of the assault ; but, as a something to make partial amends 
 for their suffering, he said that nothing now could check the turn of 
 the tide in their brother's favor. All the cavalry officers except Bux- 
 ton, all the infantry officers except Rayner, had already been to call 
 upon him since the night of the occurrence, and had striven to show 
 how distressed they were over the outrageous blunders of their tem- 
 porary commander. Buxton had written a note expressive of a desire 
 to see him and " explain," but w^as informed that explanations from 
 him simply aggravated the injury ; and Rayner, crushed and humili- 
 ated, was fairly in hiding in his room, too sick at heart to want to 
 see anybody, and waiting for the action of the authorities in the con- 
 fident expectation that nothing less than court-martial and disgrace 
 would be his share of the outcome. He would gladly have resigned 
 and gone at once, but that would have been resigning under virtual 
 charges : he had to stay, and his wife had to stay with him, and Nellie 
 with her. By this time Nellie Travers did not want to go. She had 
 but one thought now, — to make amends to Mr. Hayne for the wrong her 
 thoughts had done him. It was time for Mr. Van Antwerp to come 
 to the wide West and look after his interests ; but Mrs. Rayner had 
 ceased to urge, while he continued to implore her to bring Nellie East 
 at once. Almost any man as rich and independent as Steven Van 
 Antwerp would have gone to the scene and settled matters for himself. 
 
THE DESERTER. 797 
 
 Singularly enough, this one solution of the problem seemed never to 
 occur to him as feasible. 
 
 Meantime, the colonel had patiently unravelled the threads and had 
 brought to light the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It made 
 a singularly simple story, after all ; but that was so much the worse for 
 Buxton. The only near relation Mr. Hayne had in the world was this 
 one younger sister, who six years before had married a manly, ener- 
 getic fellow, a civil engineer in the employ of an Eastern railway. 
 Daring Hayne's " mountain-station" exile Hurley had brought his wife 
 to Denver, where far better prospects awaited him. He won promotion 
 in his profession, and was now one of the principal engineers employed 
 by a road running new lines through the Colorado Rockies. Journey- 
 ing to Salt Lake, he came around by way of Warrener, so that his 
 wife and he might have a look at the brother she had not seen in years. 
 Their train was due there early in the afternoon, but was blocked by 
 drifts and did not reach the station until late at night. There they 
 found a note from him becro-ino; them to take a carriao;e thev would find 
 waiting for them and come right out and spend the night at his quarters : 
 he would send them back in abundant time to catch the westward train 
 in the morning. He could not come in, because that involved the 
 necessity of asking his captain's permission, and they knew his relations 
 with that captain. It was her shadow Buxton had seen on the window- 
 screen ; and as none of Buxton's acquaintances had ever mentioned that 
 Hayne had any relations, and as Hayne, in fact, had had no one for 
 years to talk to about his personal affairs, nobody but himself and the 
 telegraph-operator at the post really knew of their sudden visit. Bux- 
 ton, being an unmitigated cad, had put the worst interpretation on his 
 discovery, and, in his eagerness to clinch the evidence of conduct unbe- 
 coming an officer and a gentleman upon Mr. Hayne, had taken no wise 
 head into his confidence. Never dreaming that the shadow could be that 
 of a blood-relation, never doubting that a fair, frail companion from the 
 frontier town was the explanation of Mr. Hayne's preference for that 
 out-of-the way house and late hours, he stated his discovery to Rayner 
 as a positive fact, going so far as to say that his sentries had recognized 
 her as she drove away in the carriage. If he had not been an ass as 
 well as a cad, he would have interviewed the driver of the carriage ; 
 but he had jumped at his theory, and his sudden elevation to the com- 
 mand of the post gave him opportunity to carry out his virtuous de- 
 termination that no such goings-on should disgrace his administration. 
 He gave instructions to certain soldier clerks and " daily-duty" men 
 employed in the quartermaster, commissary, and ordnance offices along 
 Prairie Avenue to keep their eyes open and let him know of any visi- 
 tors coming out to Hayne's by night, and ira lady came in a carriage he 
 was to be called at once. Mr. Hurley promised that on their return 
 from Salt Lake they would come back by way of Warrener and spend 
 two days with Hayne, since only an hour or two had they enjoyed of his 
 company on their way West ; and the very day that the officers went off 
 to the court came the telegram saying the Hurleys would arrive that 
 evening. Hayne had already talked over their prospective visit with 
 Major Waldron, and the latter had told his wife ; but all intercourse 
 
798 THE DESERTER. 
 
 of a friendly character was at an end between them and the Eayners 
 and Buxtons ; there were no more gossipy chats among the ladies. In- 
 deed, it so happened that only to one or two people had Mrs. Waldron 
 had time to mention that Mr. Hayne's sister was coming, and neither 
 the Rayners nor Buxtons had heard of it ; neither had Nellie Travers, 
 for it was after the evening of her last visit that Mrs. Waldron was told. 
 Hayne ran with his telegram to the major, and the latter had in- 
 troduced himself and Major Stannard to Mrs. Hurley when, after a 
 weary wait of some hours, the train arrived. Blake, too, was there, on 
 the lookout for some friends, and he was presented to Mrs. Hurley while 
 her husband was attending to some matters about the baggage. The 
 train went on eastward, carrying the field-officers with it. Blake had 
 to go with his friends back to the post, and Mr. and Mrs. Hurley, after 
 the former had attended to some business and seen some railway asso- 
 ciates of his at the hotel, took the carriage they had had before and 
 drove out to the garrison, where'Private Schweinkoi)f saw the lady rap- 
 turously welcomed by Lieutenant Hayne and escorted into the house, 
 while Mr. Hurley remained settling with the driver out in the darkness. 
 It was not long before the commanding officer pro tern, was called from 
 the hop-room, where the dance was going on delightfully, and notified 
 that the mysterious visitor had again appeared, with evident intention 
 of spending the night, as the carriage had returned to town. " Why, 
 certainly," reasoned Buxton. " It's the very night he would choose, 
 since everybody will be at the hop : no one will be apt to interfere, and 
 everybody will be unusually drowsy and less inclined to take notice in 
 the morning." Here was ample opportunity for a brilliant stroke of 
 work. He would first satisfy himself she was there, then surround 
 the house with sentries so that she could not escape, while he, with 
 the officer of the day and the corporal of the guard, entered the house 
 and confronted him and her. That would wind uj) Mr. Hayne's 
 career beyond question : nothing short of dismissal could result. 
 Over he went, full of his project, listened at Hayne's like the eaves- 
 dropping sneak he was, saw again the shadow of the graceful form 
 and heai'd the silvery, happy laugh, and then it was he sent for Ray- 
 ner. It was near midnight when he led his forces to the attack. A 
 light was now burning in the second story, which he thought must be 
 Sam's ; but the lights had been turned low in the parlor, and the 
 occupants had disappeared from sight and hearing. By inquiry he 
 had ascertained that Hayne's bedroom was just back of the parlor. 
 A man was stationed at the back door, others at the sides, with orders 
 to arrest any one who attempted to escape ; then softly he stepped to the 
 front door, telling Rayner to follow him, and the corporal of the guard 
 to follow both. To his surprise, the door was unlocked, and a light 
 was burning in the hall. Never knocking, he stepped in, marched 
 through the hall into the parlor, which was empty, and, signalling 
 " Come on" to his followers, crossed the parlor and seized the knob 
 of the bedroom door. It was locked. Rayner, looking white and wor- 
 ried, stood just behind him, and the corporal but a step farther back. 
 Before Buxton could knock and demand admission, which was his 
 intention, quick footsteps came flying down the stairs from the second 
 
THE DESERTER. 799 
 
 story, and the trio wheeled about in surprise, to find ISIr. Hayne, dressed 
 in his fatigue uniform, standing at the threshold and staring at them 
 with mingled astonishment, incredulity, and indignation. A sudden 
 light seemed to dawn upon him as he glanced from one to the other. 
 AYith a leap like a cat he threw himself upon Buxton, hurled him 
 back, and stood at the closed door confronting them with blazing eyes 
 and clinching fists. 
 
 " Open that door, sir !" cried Buxton. " You have a woman hid- 
 den there. Open, or stand aside." 
 
 " You hounds ! I'll kill the first man who dares enter !" was the 
 furious answer ; and Hayne had snatched from the wall his long in- 
 fantry sword and flashed the blade in the lamplight. Rayner made 
 a step forward, half irresolute. Hayne leaped at him like a tiger. 
 " Fire ! Quick !" shouted Buxton, in wild excitement. Bang ! went 
 the carbine, and the bullet crashed through the plaster overhead, and, 
 seeing the gleaming steel at his superior's throat, the corporal had sent 
 the heavy butt crashing upon the lieutenant's skull only just in time : 
 there would have been murder in another second. The next instant he 
 was standing on his own head in the corner, seeing a multitude of 
 twinkling, whirling stars, from the midst of which Captain Rayner 
 was reeling backward over a chair and a number of soldiers were rush- 
 ing upon a powerful picture of furious manhood, — a stranger in shirt- 
 sleeves, who had leaped from the bedroom. 
 
 Told as it was — as it had to be — all over the department, there 
 seemed but one thing to say, and that referred to Buxton : " Well ! 
 isnH he a phenomenal ass ?" 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Mr. Hayne was up and around again. The springtime was coming, 
 and the praii'ie roads were good and dry, and the doctor had told him 
 he must live in the open air awhile and ride and walk and drive. He 
 stood in no want of " mounts," for three or four of his cavalry friends 
 were ready to lend him a saddle-horse any day. Mr. and Mrs. Hurley, 
 after making many pleasant acquaintances, had gone on to Denver, and 
 Captain Buxton was congratulating himself that he, at least, had not 
 run foul of the engineer's powerful fists. Buxton Avas not in arrest, 
 for the case had proved a singular " poser." It occurred during the 
 temporary absence of the colonel : he could not well place the captain 
 under arrest for things he had done when acting as post commander. 
 In obedience to his orders from department head-quarters, he made his 
 report of the aifair, and indicated that Captain Buxton's conduct had 
 been inexcusable. Rayner had done nothing but, as was proved, re- 
 luctantly obey the captain's orders, so he could not be tried. Hayne, 
 who had committed one of the most serious crimes in the military cata- 
 logue, — that of drawing and raising a weapon against an officer who 
 was in discharge of his duty (Rayner), — had the sympathy of the whole 
 command, and nobody would prefer charges against him. The general 
 decided to have the report go up to division head-quarters, and thence 
 it went with its varied comments and endorsements to Washington ; 
 
800 "^HE DESERTER. 
 
 and now a court of inquiry was talked of. Meantime, poor bewildered 
 Buxton was let severely alone. What made him utterly miserable was 
 the fact that in his own regiment, the — th, nobody spoke of it except 
 as something that everybody knew was sure to happen the moment he 
 got in command. If it hadn't been that 'twould have been something 
 else. The only certainty was that Buxton would never lose a chance 
 of making an ass of himself. Instead of being furious with him, the 
 whole regiment — officers and men — simply ridiculed and laughed at 
 him. He had talked of preferring charges against Blake for insubordi- 
 nation, and asked the adjutant what he thought of it. It was the first 
 time he had spoken to the adjutant for weeks, and the adjutant rushed 
 out of the office to tell the crowd to come in and " hear Buxton's latest." 
 It began to look as though nothing serious would ever come of the 
 affair, until Rayner reappeared and people saw how very ill he was. Dr. 
 Pease had been consulted ; and it was settled that he as well as his wife 
 must go away for several months and have complete rest and change. 
 It was decided that they would leave by the 1st of May. All this Mr. 
 Hayne heard through his kind friend Mrs. Waldron. 
 
 One day when he first began to sit up, and before he had been out 
 at all, she came and sat with him in his sunshiny parlor. There had 
 been a silence for a moment as she looked around upon the few pictures 
 and upon that bareness and coldness which, do what he will, no man 
 can eradicate from his abiding-place until he calls in the deft and dainty 
 hand of woman. 
 
 " I shall be so glad when you have a wife, Mr. Hayne !" was her 
 quiet comment. 
 
 " So shall I, Mrs. Waldron," was the response. 
 
 "And isn't it high time we were beginning to hear of a choice? 
 Forgive my intrusiveness, but that was the very matter of which the 
 major and I were talking as he brought me over." 
 
 " There is something to be done first, Mrs. Waldron," he answered. 
 " I cannot offer any woman a clouded name. It is not enough that 
 people should begin to believe that I was innocent and my persecutors 
 utterly in error, if not perjured. I must be able to show who was the 
 real culprit, and that is not easy. The doctor and I thought we saw a 
 way not long ago ; but it proved delusive." And he sighed deeply. " I 
 had expected to see the major about it the very day he got back from 
 the court ; but we have had no chance to talk." 
 
 " Mr. Hayne," she said, impulsively, " a woman's intuition is not 
 always at fault. Tell me if you believe that any one on the post has 
 any inkling of the truth. I have a reason for asking," 
 
 " I did think it possible, Mrs. Waldron. I cannot be certain now; 
 and it's too late, anyway." 
 
 " How, too late ? What's too late ?" 
 
 He paused a moment, a deeper shadow than usual on his face ; then 
 he lifted his head and looked fairly at her : 
 
 " I should not have said that, Mrs. Waldron. It can never be too 
 late. But what I mean is that — just now I spoke of offering no woman 
 a clouded name. Even if it were unclouded, I could not offer it where 
 I would." 
 
THE DESERTER. gOl 
 
 " Because you have heard of the engagement ?" was the quick, eager 
 question. There was no instant of doubt in the woman as to where the 
 offering would be made, if it only could. 
 
 " I knew of the engagement only a day ago," he answered, with 
 stern effort at self-control. " Blake was speaking of her, and it came 
 out all of a sudden." 
 
 He turned his head away again. It was more than Mrs. "Waldron 
 could stand. She leaned impetuously towards him, and put her hand 
 on his : 
 
 " Mr. Hayne, that is no engagement of heart to heart. It is entirely 
 a thing of Mrs. Rayner's doing ; and I hiow it. She is poor, — depend- 
 ent, — and has been simply sold into bondage." 
 
 " And you think she cares nothing for the position, the wealtli and 
 social advantages, this would give her? Ah, Mrs. Waldron, consider." 
 
 " I have considered. ]\Ir. Hayne, if I were a man, like you, that 
 child should never go back to him. And they are going next week. 
 You must get well." 
 
 It was remarked that Mr. Hayne was out surprisingly quick for 
 a fellow who had been so recently threatened with brain-fever. The 
 Rayners were to go East at once, so it was said, thougli the captain's 
 leave of absence had not yet been ordered. The colonel could grant 
 him seven days at any time, and he liad telegraphic notification that 
 there would be no objection when the formal application reached the 
 War Department. Rayner called at the colonel's office and asked that 
 he might be permitted to start witli his wife and sister. His second 
 lieutenant would move in and occupy his quarters and take care of all 
 his personal effects during their absence ; and Lieutenant Hayne was a 
 most thorough officer, and he felt that in turning over his company to 
 him he left it in excellent hands. The colonel saw the misery in the 
 captain's face, and he was touched by both looks and words : 
 
 " You must not take this last affair too much to heart, Captain 
 Rayner, We in the — th have known Captain Buxton so many years 
 that with us there is no question as to where all the blame lies. It 
 seems, too, to be clearly understood by Mr. Hayne. As for your 
 previous ideas of that officer, I consider it too delicate a matter to 
 speak of. You must see, however, how entirely beyond reproach his 
 general character appears to have been. But here's another matter : 
 Clancy's discharge has arrived. Does the old fellow know you had 
 requested it ?" 
 
 "No, sir," answered Rayner, with hesitation and embarrassment. 
 " We wanted to keep him stz'aight, as I told you we would, and he 
 would probably get on a big tear if he knew his service-days were 
 numbered. I didn't look for its being granted for forty-eight hours 
 yet." 
 
 " Well, he will know it before night ; and no doubt he will be 
 badly cut up. Clancy was a fine soldier before he married that har- 
 ridan of a woman." 
 
 " She has made him a good wife since they came into the Riflers, 
 colonel, and has taken mighty good care of the old fellow." 
 
 " It is more than she did in the — th, sir. She was a handsome, 
 
gQ2 THE DESERTER. 
 
 showy woman when I first saw her, — before my promotion to the regi- 
 ment, — and Clancy was one of the finest soldiers in the brigade the last 
 year of the war. She ran through all his money, though, and in the 
 — th we looked upon her as the real cause of his break-down, — especially 
 after her affair with that sergeant who deserted. You've heard of him, 
 probably. He disappeared afler the Battle Butte campaign, and we 
 hoped he'd run off with Mrs. Clancy ; but he hadn't. She was there 
 when we got back, big as ever, and growing ugly." 
 
 " Do you mean that Mrs. Clancy had a lover when she was in the 
 — th?" 
 
 " Certainly, Captain Rayner. We supposed it was commonly known. 
 He was a fine-looking, black-eyed, dark-haired, dashing fellow, of good 
 education, a great swell among the men the short time he was with us, 
 and INIrs. Clancy made a dead set at him from the start. He never 
 seemed to care for her very much." 
 
 " This is something I never heard of," said Rayner, with grave face, 
 " and it will be a good deal of a shock to my wife, for she had arranged 
 to take her East with Clancy and Kate, and they were to invest their 
 money in some little business at her old home." 
 
 " Yes : it was mainly on the woman's account we wouldn't re-enlist 
 Clancy in the — th. We could stand him, but she was too much for us, 
 — and for the other sergeant, too. He avoided her before we started on 
 the campaign, I fancy. Odd ! I can't think of his name. — Billings, 
 what was the name of that howling swell of a sergeant who was in 
 Hull's troop at Battle Butte, — time Hull was killed? I mean the man 
 that Mrs. Clancy was said to have eloped with." 
 
 "Sergeant Gower, sir," said the adjutant, without looking up from 
 his work. He did look up, however, Mdien a moment after the captain 
 hurriedly left the office, and he saw that Rayner's face was deathly 
 white : it was ghastly. 
 
 " What took Rayner off so suddenly ?" said the colonel, wheeling 
 around in his chair. 
 
 " I don't know, sir, unless there was something to startle him in 
 the name." 
 
 "Why should there be?" 
 
 " There are those who think that Gower got away with more than 
 his horse and arms, colonel : he was not at Battle Butte, though, and 
 that is what made it a mvstery." 
 
 " Where was he then ?" 
 
 " Back with the wagon- train, sir ; and he never got in sight of the 
 Buttes or Rayner's battalion. You know Rayner had four companies 
 there." 
 
 " I don't see how Gower could have taken the money, if that's 
 what you mean, if he never came up to the Buttes : Rayner swore it 
 was there in Hull's original package. Then, too, how could Gower's 
 name affect him if he had never seen him ?" 
 
 " Possibly he has heard something. Clancy has been talking." 
 
 " I have looked into that," said the colonel. " Clancy denies know- 
 ing anything, — says he was drunk and didn't know what he was talk- 
 ing about." 
 
THE DESERTER. 393 
 
 All the same it was queer, thought the adjutant, and he greatly- 
 wanted to see the doctor and talk with him ; but by the time his office- 
 work was done the doctor had gone to town, and when he came back 
 he was sent for to the laundress's quarters, where Mrs. Clancy was in 
 hysterics and Michael had again been very bad. 
 
 Soon after the captain's return to his quarters, it seems, a messenger 
 was sent from jNIrs. Rayner requesting Mrs. Clancy to come and see 
 her at once. She was ushered up-stairs to madame's own apartment, 
 mucli to Miss Travers's surprise, and that young lady was further as- 
 tonished, when Mrs. Clancy reappeared, nearly an hour later, to see 
 that she had been weeping violently. The house was in some disorder, 
 most of the trunks being packed and in readiness for the start, and 
 Miss Travers was entertaining two or three young officers and waiting 
 for her sister to come down to luncheon. " The boys" were lachrymose 
 over her prospective departure, — at least they affected to be, — and were 
 variously sprawled about the parlor when Mrs. Clancy descended, and 
 the inflamed condition of her eyes and nose became apparent to all. 
 There was much chaff and fun, therefore, when Mrs. Rayner finally 
 appeared, over the supposed affliction of the big Irishwoman at the 
 prospect of parting with her patroness. Miss Travers saw with sin- 
 gular sensations that both the captain and her usually self-reliant sister 
 were annoyed and embarrassed by the topic and strove to change it ; 
 but Foster's propensity for mimicry and his ability to imitate Mrs. 
 Clancy's combined brogue and sniffle proved too much for their efforts. 
 Kate was in a royally bad temper by the time the youngsters left the 
 house, and when Nellie would have made some laughing allusion to 
 the fun the young fellows had been having over her morning caller, she 
 was suddenly and tartly checked with — 
 
 " We've had too much of that already. Just understand now that 
 you have no time to waste, if your packing is unfinished. We start 
 to-morrow afternoon." 
 
 " Why, Kate ! I had no idea we were to go for two days yet ! Of 
 course I can be ready ; but why did you not tell me before ?" 
 
 " I did not know it — at least it was not decided — until this morn- 
 ing, after the captain came back from the office. There is nothing to 
 prevent our going, now that he has seen the colonel." 
 
 " There was not before, Kate ; for Mr. Billings told me yesterday 
 morning, and I told you, that the colonel had said you could start at 
 once, and you replied that the captain could not be ready for several 
 days, — three at least." 
 
 "Well, now he is; and that ends it. Never mind what changed 
 his mind." 
 
 It was unsafe to trifle with Nellie Travers, as Mrs. Rayner might 
 have known. She saw that something had occurred to make the ca}> 
 tain eager to start at once ; and then there was that immediate sending 
 for Mrs. Clancy, the long, secret talk up in Kate's room, the evident 
 mental disturbance of both feminines on their respective reappearances, 
 and the sudden announcement to her. While there could be no time 
 to make formal parting calls, there were still some two or three ladies 
 in the garrison whom she longed to see before saying adieu ; and then 
 
gQ4 THE DESERTER. 
 
 there was Mr. Hayne, whom she had wronged quite as bitterly as any- 
 one else had wronged him. He was out that day for the first time, and 
 she longed to see him and longed to fulfil the neglected promise. Tfiat 
 she must do at the very least. If she could not see him, she must write, 
 that he might have the note before they went away. All these thoughts 
 were l-ushing through her brain as she busied herself about her little 
 room, stowing away dresses and dropping everything from time to time 
 to dart into her sister's room in answer to some querulous call. Yet 
 never did she leave without a quick glance from her window up and 
 down the row. For whom was she looking ? 
 
 It was just about dusk when she heard crying down-stairs, — a child, 
 and apparently in the kitchen. Mrs. Rayner was with the baby, and 
 Miss Travers started for the stairs, calling that she would go and see 
 what it meant. She was down in the hall before Mrs. Rayner's imper- 
 ative and repeated calls brought her to a full stop. 
 
 " What is it ?" she inquired. 
 
 " You come back here and hold baby. I know perfectly what it is. 
 It is Kate Clancy ; and she wants me. You can do nothing." 
 
 Too late, madame ! The intervening doors were opened, and in 
 marched cook, leading the poor little Irish girl, who was sobbing 
 piteously. Mrs. Rayner came down the stairs with all speed, bringing 
 her burly son and heir in her arras. She would have ordered Nell aloft, 
 but what excuse could she give ? and Miss Travers was already bending 
 over the child and striving to still her heart-breaking cries. 
 
 " What is it ? Where's your father ?" demanded Mrs. Rayner. 
 
 "Oh, ma'am, I don't know. I came here to tell the captain. 
 Shure he's discharged, ma'am, an' his heart's broke entirely, an' 
 mother says we're all to go with the captain to-morrow, an' he swears 
 he'll kill himself before he'll go, an' I can't find him, ma'am. It's 
 almost dark now." 
 
 " Go back and tell your mother I want her instantly. We'll find 
 your father. Go!" she repeated, as the child shrank and hesitated. 
 " Here, — the front way !" And little Kate sped away into the shadows 
 across the dim level of the parade. 
 
 Then the sisters faced each other. There was a fire in the younger's 
 eye that Mrs. Rayner would have escaped if she could. 
 
 " Kate, it is to get Clancy away from the possibility of revealing 
 what he knows that you have planned this sudden move, and I know 
 it," said Miss Travers. " You need not answer." 
 
 She seized a wrap from the hat-rack and stepped to the door-way. 
 Mrs. Rayner threw herself after her. 
 
 " Nellie, where are vou going ? What will you do ?" 
 
 " To Mrs. Waldron's, Kate ; if need be, to Mr. Hayne's." 
 *********** 
 
 A bright fire was burning in Major Waldron's cosey parlor, where 
 he and his good wife were seated in earnest talk. It was just after 
 sunset when Mr. Hayne dropped in to ]iay his first visit after the few 
 days in which he had been confined to his quarters. He was looking 
 thin, paler than usual, and far more restless and eager in manner than 
 of old. The Waldrons welcomed him with more than usual warmth, 
 
THE DESERTER. 805 
 
 and the major speedily led the conversation up to the topic which was 
 so near to his heart. 
 
 " You and I must see the doctor and have a triangular council over 
 this thing, Hayne. Three heads are better than none ; and if, as he 
 suspects, old Clancy really knows anything when he's drunk that he 
 cannot tell when he's sober, I shall depart from Mrs. Waldron's .prin- 
 ciples and join the doctor in his pet scheme of getting him drunk again. 
 'In vino Veritas,^ you know. And we ought to be about it, too, for it 
 won't be long before his discharge comes, and, once away, we should be 
 in the lurch." 
 
 " There seems so little hope there, major. Even the colonel has 
 called him up and questioned him." 
 
 " Ay, very true, but always when the old sergeant was sober. It 
 is when drunk that Clancy's conscience pricks him to tell what he 
 either knows or suspects," 
 
 A light, quick footstep was heard on the piazza, the hall door 
 opened, and without knock or ring, bursting impetuously in upon them, 
 there suddenly appeared Miss Travers, her eyes dilated with excite- 
 ment. At sight of the group she stopped short, and colored to the 
 very roots of her shining hair. 
 
 " How glad I am to see yon, Nellie !" exclaimed Mrs. Waldron, as 
 all rose to greet her. An embarrassed, half-distraught reply was her 
 only answer. She had extended both hands to the elder lady ; bnt 
 now, startled, almost stunned, at finding herself in the presence of the 
 very man she most wanted to see, »he stood with downcast eyes, irreso- 
 lute. He, too, had not stepped forward, — had not oiFered his hand. 
 She raised her blue eyes for one quick glance, and saw his pale, pain- 
 thinned face, read anew the story of his patience, his suffering, his 
 heroism, and realized how she too had wronged him and that her very 
 awkwardness and silence might tell him that shameful fact. It was 
 more than she could stand. 
 
 " I came — purposely. I hoped to find you, Mr. Hayne. You — 
 you remember that I had something to tell you. It was about Clancy. 
 You ought to see him, I'm sure you ought, for he must know — he or 
 Mrs. Clancy — something about your — your trouble; and I've just this 
 minute heard that they — that he's going away to-morrow ; and you 
 must find him to-night, Mr. Hayne : indeed you must." 
 
 Who can paint her as she stood there, blushing, pleading, eager, 
 frightened, yet determined ? Who can picture the wild emotion in his 
 heart, reflected in his face ? He stepped quickly to her side with the 
 light leaping to his eyes, his hands extended as though to grasp hers ; 
 but it was AV^aldron that spoke first : 
 
 "Where is he going? — how?" 
 
 " Oh, with us, major. We go to-morrow, and they go with us. 
 My sister has some reason — I cannot fathom it. She wants them 
 away from here, and Clancy's discharge came to-day. He must see 
 him first," she said, indicating Mr. Hayne by the nod of her pretty 
 head, " They say Clancy has run off and got away from his wife. 
 He doesn't want to be discharged. They cannot find him now ; but 
 perhaps Mr. Hayne can. — Mr. Hayne, try to. You — you must." 
 
806 THE DESERTER. 
 
 "Indeed we raust, Hayne, and quick about it," said the major. 
 " Now is our chance, I verily believe. Let us get the doctor first ; 
 then little Kate will best know where to look for Clancy. Come, man, 
 get your overcoat." And he hastened to the hall. 
 
 Hayne followed as though in a dream, reached the threshold, 
 turned, looked back, made one quick step toward Miss Travers with 
 outstretched hand, then checked himself as suddenly. His yearning 
 eyes seemed fastened on her burning face, his lips quivered with the 
 intensity of his emotion. She raised her eyes and gave him one quick 
 look, half entreaty, half command ; he seemed ineffectually struggling 
 to speak, — to thank her. One moment of irresolution, then, without 
 a word of any kind, he sprang to the door. She carried his parting 
 glance in her heart of hearts all night long. There was no mistaking 
 what it told. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 The morning report of the following day showed some items under 
 the head of " Alterations" that involved several of the soldier characters 
 of this story. Ex-Sergeant Clancy had been dropped from the column 
 of present " on daily duty" and taken up on that of absent without leave. 
 Lieutenant Hayne was also reported absent. Dr. Pease and Lieutenant 
 Billings drove into the garrison from town just before the cavalry 
 trumpets were sounding first call for guard-mounting, and the adjutant 
 sent one of the musicians to give his compliments to Mr. Royce and ask 
 him to mount the guard for him, as he had just returned and had im- 
 portant business with the colonel. The doctor and the adjutant 
 together went into the colonel's quarters, and for the first time on 
 record the commanding officer was not at the desk in his office when 
 the shoulder-straps began to gather for the matinee. 
 
 Ten minutes after the usual time the adjutant darted in and plunged 
 with his characteristic impetuosity into the pile of passes and other papers 
 stacked up by the sergeant-major at his table. To all questions as to 
 where he had been and what was the matter with the colonel he replied, 
 with more than usual asperity of manner, — the asperity engendered of 
 some years of having to answer the host of questions propounded by 
 vacant minds at his own busiest hour of the day, — that the colonel 
 would tell them all about it himself; he had no time for a word. The 
 evident manner of suppressed excitement, however, was something few 
 failed to note ; and every man in the room felt certain that when the 
 colonel came there would be a revelation. It was Avith something bor- 
 dering on indignation, therefore, that the assemblage heard the words 
 that intimated to them that all might retire. The colonel had come in 
 very quietly, received the report of the officer of the day, relieved him, 
 and dismissed the new officer of the day with the brief formula, " Usual 
 orders, sir," then glanced quickly around the silent circle of grave, 
 bearded or boyish faces. His eyes rested for an instant with something 
 like shock and trouble upon one face, pale, haggard, with almost blood- 
 less lips, and yet full of fierce determination, — a face that haunted him 
 long afterwards, it was so full of agony, of suspense, almost of pleading, 
 — the face of Captain Rayner. 
 
THE DESERTER. 3O7 
 
 Then, dispensing with the customaiy talk, he quietly spoke the 
 disappointing words, — 
 
 " I am somewhat late this morning, gentlemen, and several matters 
 will occupy my attention : so I will not detain you further." 
 
 The crowd seemed to find their feet very slowly. There was visible 
 disinclination to go. Every man in some inexplicable way appeared 
 to know that there was a new mystery hanging over the garrison, and 
 that the colonel held the key. Every man felt that Billings had 
 given him the right to expect to be told all about it when the colonel 
 came. Some looked reproachfully at Billings, as though to remind him 
 of their expectations : Stannard, his old stand-by, passed him with a 
 gruff "■ Thought you said the colonel had something to tell us," and 
 went out with an air of injured and defrauded dignity. Rayner arose, 
 and seemed to be making preparations to depart wuth the others, and 
 some of the number, connecting him unerringly with the prevailing 
 sensation, appeared to hol<l back and wait for him to precede them and 
 so secure to themselves the satisfaction of knowing that, if it was a 
 matter connected with Rayner, they " had him along" and nothing 
 could take place without their hearing it. These men were very few, 
 however ; but Buxton was one of them. Rayner's eyes were fixed 
 upon the colonel and searching for a sign, and it came, — a little motion 
 of the hand and a nod of the head that signified " Stay." Then, as 
 Buxton and one or two of his stamp still dallied irresolute, the colonel 
 turned somewhat sharply to them : " Was there any matter on w'hich 
 you wished to see me, gentlemen ?" and, as there was none, they had to 
 go. Then Rayner was alone with the colonel ; for Mr. Billings quickly 
 arose, and, with a significant glance at his commander, left the room 
 and closed the door. 
 
 Mrs. Rayner, gazing from her parlor windows, saw that all the 
 officers had come out except one, — her husband, — and with a moan of 
 misery she covered her face with her hands and sank upon the sofa. 
 With cheeks as white as her sister's, with eyes full of trouble and per- 
 plexity, but tearless, Nellie Travers stepped quickly into the room and 
 put a trembling white hand upon the other's shoulder : 
 
 "Kate, it is no time for so bitter an estrangement as this. I have 
 done simply what our soldier father would have done had he been here. 
 I am fully aware of what it must cost me. I knew when I did it that 
 you would never again welcome me to your home. Once East again, 
 you and I can go our ways ; I won't burden you longer ; but is it not 
 better that you should tell me in what way your husband or you can 
 have been injured by what I have done?" 
 
 Mrs. Rayner impatiently shook away the hand. 
 
 " I don't want to talk to you," was the blunt answer. " You have 
 carried out your threat and — ruined us : that's all." 
 
 " Wliat can you mean ? Do you want me to think that because 
 Mr. Hayne's innocence may be established your husband was the guilty 
 man ? Certainly your manner leads to that inference ; though his does 
 not, by any means." 
 
 " I don't want to talk, I tell you. You've had your way, — done 
 your work. You'll see soon enough the hideous web of trouble you've 
 
8Q8 THE DESERTER. 
 
 entangled about my husband. Don't you dare say — don't you dare 
 think" — and now she rose with sudden fury — " that he was the — that 
 he lost the money ! But that's what all others will think." 
 
 " If that were true, Kate, there would be this diiference between 
 his trouble and Mr. Hayne's : Captain Rayner would have wife, wealth, 
 and friends to help him bear the cross ; Mr. Hayne has borne it five 
 long years unaided. I pray God the truth has been brought to light." 
 
 What fierce reply Mrs. Rayner might have given, who knows ? 
 but at that instant a quick step was heard on the piazza, the door opened 
 suddenly, and Captain Rayner entered with a rush. The pallor had 
 gone ; a light of eager, half-incredulous joy beamed from his eyes, he 
 threw his cap upon the floor, and his wife had risen and thrown her 
 arms about his neck. 
 
 " Have they found him ?" was her breathless question. " What has 
 happened ? You look so different." 
 
 " Found him ? Yes ; and.he has told everytliing ?" 
 
 "Told— what?" 
 
 " Told that he and Gower were the men. Tliey took it all." 
 
 " Clancy ! — and Gower! The thieves, do you mean? Is that — 
 is that what he confessed ?" she asked, in wild wonderment, in almost 
 stupefied amaze, releasing him from her arms and stepping back, her 
 eyes searching his face. 
 
 " Nothing else in the world, Kate. I don't understand it at all. 
 I'm all a-tremble yet. It clears Hayne utterly. It at least explains 
 how I was mistaken. But what — what could she have meant ?" 
 
 Mrs. Rayner stood like one in a dream, her eyes staring, her lips 
 quivering ; and Nellie, with throbbing pulses and clasping hands, looked 
 eagerly from husband to wife, as though beseeching some explanation. 
 
 " What did she mean ? What did she mean ? I say again," asked 
 Rayner, pressing his hand to his forehead and gazing fixedly at his wife. 
 
 A moment longer she stood there, as though a light — a long-hidden 
 truth — were slowly forcing itself upon her mind. Then, with impulsive 
 movement, she hurried through the dining-room, threw open the kitchen 
 door, and startled the domestics at their late breakfast. 
 
 "Ryan," she called to the soldier-servant who rose hastily from the 
 table, " go and tell Mrs. Clancy I want her instantly. Do you under- 
 stand? Instantly !" And Ryan seized his forage-cap and vanished. 
 
 It was perhaps ten minutes before he returned. When he did so it 
 was apparent that Mrs. Rayner had been crying copiously, and that 
 Miss Travers, too, was much affected. The captain was pacing the, 
 room with nervous strides in mingled relief and agitation. All looked 
 up expectant as the soldier re-entered. He had the air of a man who 
 knew he bore tidings of vivid and mysterious interest, but he curbed 
 the excitement of his manner until it shone only through his snapping 
 eyes, saluted, and reported with professional gravity : 
 
 " Mrs. Clancy's clean gone, sir." 
 
 "Gone where?" 
 
 "Nobody knows, sir. She's just lit out with her trunk and best 
 clothes some time last night." 
 
 " Gone to her husband in town, maybe ?" 
 
THE DESERTER. 809 
 
 " No, sir. Clancy's all right : he was caught last evening, and 
 hadn't time to get more'u half drunk before they lodged him. Loo- 
 tenant Hayne got him, sir. They had him afore a justice of the peace 
 early this morning " 
 
 " Yes, I know all that. What I want is Mrs. Clancy. What has 
 become of her ?" 
 
 " Faith, I don't know, sir, but the women in Sudsville they all say 
 she's run away, sir, — taken her money and gone. She's afraid of 
 Clancy's peaching on her." 
 
 "By heavens! the thing is clearing itself!" exclaimed Rayner to 
 his gasping and wild-eyed wife. " I must go to the colonel at once 
 with his news." And away he went. 
 
 And then again, as the (jrderly retired, and the sisters were left 
 alone, Nellie Travers with trembling iips asked the question, — 
 
 " Have I done so much harm, after all, Kate ?" 
 
 " Oh, Nellie ! Nellie ! forgive me, for I have been nearly mad with 
 misery !" was Mrs. Rayner's answer, as she burst into a fresh paroxysm 
 of tears. " That — that woman has — has told me fearful lies." 
 
 There was a strange scene that day at Warrener when, towards noon, 
 two carriages drove out from town and, entering the east gate, rolled 
 over towards the guard-house. The soldiers clustered about the barrack 
 porches and stared at the occupants. In the first — a livery hack from 
 town — were two sheriiFs officers, while cowering on the back seat, his hat 
 pulled down over his eyes, was poor old Clancy, to whom clung faithful 
 little Kate. In the rear carriage — Major Waldron's — were Mr. Hayne, 
 the major, and a civilian whom some of the men had no difficulty in 
 recognizing as the official charged with the administration of justice 
 towards offenders against the peace. Many of the soldiers strolled 
 slowly up the road, in hopes of hearing all about the arrest, and what 
 it meant, from straggling members of the guard. All knew it meant 
 something more than a mere " break" on the part of Clancy ; all felt 
 that it had some connection with the long-continued mystery that hung 
 about the name of Lieutenant Hayne. Then, too, it was being noised 
 abroad that Mrs. Clancy had " skipped" and between two suns had fled 
 for parts unknown. 8he could be overhauled by telegraph if she had 
 left on either of the night freights or gone down towards Denver by 
 the early morning passenger-train ; it would be easy enough to capture 
 her if she were " wanted," said the garrison ; but what did it mean 
 that Clancy was pursued by officers of the post and brought back 
 under charge of officers of the law ? He had had trouble enough, poor 
 fellow 1 
 
 The officer of the guard looked wonderingly at the carriages and 
 their occupants. He saluted Major Waldron as the latter stepped 
 briskly down. 
 
 " You will take charge of Clancy, Mr. Graham," said the major. 
 " His discharge will be recalled : at least it will not take effect to-day. 
 You will be interested in knowing that his voluntary confession fully 
 establishes Mr. Hayne's innocence of the charges on which he was 
 tried." 
 
 Mr. Graham's face turned all manner of colors. He glanced at 
 YoL. XXXIX.— 53 
 
810 ^^-^' DESERTER. 
 
 Hayne, who, still seated in the carriage, was as calmly indifferent to 
 him as ever : he was gazing across the wide parade at the windows in 
 officers' row. Little Kate's sobs as the soldiers were helping her 
 father from the carriage suddenly recalled his wandering thoughts. He 
 sprang to the ground, stepped quickly to the child, and put his arms 
 about her. 
 
 " Clancy, tell her to come with us. Mrs. Waldron will take loving 
 care of her, and she shall come to see you every day. The guard-house 
 is no place for her to follow you. Tell her so, man, and she will go 
 with us. — Come, Katie, child !" And he bent tenderly over the sob- 
 bing little waif. 
 
 " Thank ye, sir. I know ye'U be good to her. Go with the 
 lootenant, Kate darlin' ; go. Shure I'll be happier then." 
 
 And, trembling, he bent and kissed her Avet cheeks. She threw, her 
 arms around his neck and clung to him in an agony of grief. Gently 
 they strove to disengage her clasping arms, but she shrieked and strug- 
 gled, and poor old Clancy broke down. There were sturdy soldiers 
 standing by who turned their heads away to hide the unbidden tears, 
 and with a quiver in his kind voice the major interposed : 
 
 " Let her stay awhile : it will be better for both. Don't put him in 
 the prison-room, Graham. Keep them by themselves for a while. We 
 will come for her by and by." And then, before them all, he held 
 forth his hand and gave Clancy's a cordial grasp : 
 
 " Cheer up, man. You've taken the right step at last. You are a 
 free man to-day, even if you are a prisoner for the time being. Better 
 this a thousand times than what you were." 
 
 Hayne, too, spoke a few kind words in a low tone, and gave the old 
 soldier his hand at parting. Then the guard closed the door, and father 
 and daughter were left alone. As the groups around the guard-house 
 began to break up and move away, and the officers, re-entering the 
 carriages, drove over to head-quarters, a rollicking Irishman called to 
 the sergeant of the guard, — 
 
 " Does he know the ould woman's skipped, sargent ? Shure you'd 
 better tell him. 'Twill cheer him, like." 
 
 But when, a few moments after, the news was imparted to Clancy, 
 the eifect was electric and startling. With one bound and a savage cry 
 he sprang to the door. The sergeant threw himself upon him and 
 strove to hold him back, but was no match for the frenzied man. Deaf 
 to Kate's entreaties and the sergeant's commands, he hurled him aside, 
 leaped through the door-way, shot like a deer past the lolling guards- 
 men on the porch, and, turning sharply, went at the top of his speed 
 down the hill towards Sudsville before man could lay hand on him. 
 The sentry on Number One cocked his rifle and looked inquiringly at 
 the officer of the guard, who came running out. With a wild shriek 
 little Kate threw herself upon the sentry, clasping his knees and im- 
 ploring him not to shoot. The lieutenant and the sergeant both shouted, 
 " Never mind ! Don't fire !" and with others of the guard rushed in 
 pursuit. But, old and feeble as he was, poor Clancy kept the lead, 
 never swerving, never flagging, until he reached the door-way of his 
 abandoned cot ; this he burst in, threw himself upon his knees by the 
 
THE DESERTER. 811 
 
 bedside, and dragged to light a little wooden chest that stood by an 
 open trap in the floor. One look sufficed : the mere fact that the trap 
 was open and the box exposed was enough. With a wild cry of rage, 
 despair, and baffled hatred, he clinched his hands above his head, rose to 
 his full height, and with a curse upon his white lips, with glaring eyes 
 and gasping breath, tiu-ned upon his pursuers as they came running 
 in, and hurled his fists at the foremost. " Let me follow her, I say ! 
 She's gone with it all, — his money ! Let me go !" he shrieked ; and 
 then his eyes turned stony, a gasp, a clutch at his throat, and, plunging 
 headlong, he fell upon his face at their feet. 
 
 Poor little Kate ! The old man was, indeed, free at last. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 There had been a scene of somewhat dramatic nature at the colonel's 
 office but a short time before, and one that had fewer witnesses. Agi- 
 tated, nervous, and eventually astonished as Captain Rayner had been 
 when the colonel had revealed to him the nature of Clancy's confession, 
 he was far more excited and tremulous when he returned a second time. 
 The commanding officer had been sitting deep in thought. It was but 
 natural that a man should show great emotion on learning that the evi- 
 dence he had given, which had condemned a brother officer to years of 
 solitary punishment, was now disproved. It was to be expected that 
 Rayner should be tremulous and excited. He had been looking worse 
 and worse for a long time past ; and now that it was established that 
 he must have been mistaken in what he thought he saw and heard at 
 Battle Butte, it was to be expected that he should show the utmost con- 
 sternation and an immediate desire to make amends. He hxid shown 
 great emotion ; he was white aud rigid as the colonel told him Clancy 
 had made a full confession ; but the expression on his face when in- 
 formed that the man had admitted that he and Sergeant Gower were 
 the only ones guilty of the crime — that Clancy and Gower divided the 
 guilt as they had the money — was a puzzle to the colonel. Captain 
 Rayner seemed daft : it was a look of wild relief, half unbelief, half 
 delight, that shot across his haggard features. It was evident that he 
 had not heard at all what he expected. This was what puzzled the 
 colonel. He had been pondering over it ever since the captain's hurried 
 departure " to tell his wife." 
 
 " We — we had expected — made all preparations to take this after- 
 noon's train for the East," he stammered. " We are all toru up, all 
 ready to start, and the ladies ought to go ; but I cannot feel like going 
 in the face of this." 
 
 "There is no reason why you should not go, captain. I am told 
 Mrs. Rayner should leave at once. If need be, you can return from 
 Chicago. Everything will be attended to properly. Of course you 
 will know what to do towards Mr. Hayne. Indeed, I think it might 
 be best for you to go." 
 
 But Rayner seemed hardly listening ; and the colonel was not a 
 man to throw his words away. 
 
 " You might see Mrs. Rayner at once, and return by and by," he 
 
812 THE DESERTER. 
 
 said ; and Rayner gladly escaped, and went home with the wonderful 
 news he had to tell his wife. 
 
 And now a second time he was back, and was urging upon the 
 commanding officer the necessity of telegraphing and capturing Mrs. 
 Clancy. In plain words he told the colonel he believed that she had 
 escaped with the greater part of the money. The colonel smiled : 
 
 " That was attended to early this morning, captain. Hayne and 
 the major asked that she be secured, and the moment we found her 
 fled it confirmed their suspicions, and Billings sent despatches in every 
 direction. She can't get away ! She was his temptress, and I mean to 
 make her share all the punishment." 
 
 " Colonel," exclaimed Kayner, while beads of sweat stood out on 
 his forehead, " she is worse, — a thousand times worse ! The woman 
 is a fiend. She is the devil in petticoats — and ingenuity. My God ! 
 sir, I have been in torment for weeks past, — my poor wife and I. I 
 have been criminally, cowardly weak ; but I did not know what to do, 
 — where to turn, — how to take it, — how to meet it. Let me tell you." 
 And now great tears were standing in his eyes and beginning to trickle 
 down his cheeks. He dashed them away. His lips were quivering, 
 and he strode nervously up and down the matted floor. " When you 
 refused to let Clancy re-enlist in the — th, two years after Battle Butte, 
 he came to me and told me a story. He, too, had declared, as I did, 
 that he had seen the money-packages in Hayne's hands ; and he said 
 the real reason he was kicked out of the — th was because the officers 
 and men took sides with Hayne and thought he had sworn his reputa- 
 tion away. He begged me not to ^ go back on him' as his own regi- 
 ment had, and I thought he was being persecuted because he told the 
 truth. God knows I fully believed Hayne guilty for more than three 
 years, — it is only within the last year or so I began to have doubts ; 
 and so I took Clancy into B Company and soon made Mrs. Clancy a 
 laundress. But she made trouble for us all, and there was something 
 uncanny about them. She kept throwing out mysterious hints I could 
 not understand when rumors of them reached me ; and at last came 
 the fire that burned them out, and then the stories of what Clancy 
 had said in his delirium ; and then she came to my wife and told her a 
 yarn that — she swore to its truth, and nearly drove Mrs. Rayner wild 
 with anxiety. She swore that when Clancy got to drinking he 
 imagined he had seen me take that money from Captain Hull's saddle- 
 bags and replace the sealed package : she said he was ready to swear 
 that he and Gower — the deserter — and two of our men, honorably 
 discharged now and living on ranches down in Nebraska, could all 
 swear — would all swear — to the same thing, — that I was the thief. 
 ' Sure you know it couldn't be so, ma'am ; and yet he wants to go 
 and tell Mr. Hayne,' she would say : ' there's the four of 'em would 
 swear to it, though Grower's evidence would be no good ; but the two 
 men could hurt the captain.' Her ingenuity was devilish ; for one of 
 the men I had severely punished once in the Black Hills, and both 
 hated me and had sworn they would get even with me yet. God help 
 me, colonel ! seeing every day the growing conviction that Hayne was 
 innocent, that somebody else must be guilty, I thought, what if this 
 
THE DESERTER. 813 
 
 man should, in drunken gratitude to Hayne for saving- his life, go to 
 him and tell him this story, then back it up before the officials and 
 call in these two others ? I was weak, but it appalled me. I deter- 
 mined to get him out of the way of such a possibility. I got his dis- 
 charge, and meantime strove to prevent his drinking or going near 
 Hayne. Slie knew the real story he would tell. This was her devilish 
 j3lan to keep me on watch against him. I never dreamed the real 
 truth. She swore to me that three hundred dollars was all the money 
 they had. I believed that when he confessed it would be what she 
 declared. I never dreamed that Clancy and his confederate were the 
 thieves : I never believed the money was taken until after Hayne 
 received it. I saw how Hayne's guilt was believed in even in the face 
 of contradictory evidence before the court. What would be the ten- 
 dency if three men together were to swear against me, now that every- 
 body thought him wronged ? I know very well what you will think 
 of my cowardice. I know you and your officers will say I should have 
 given him every chance, — should have courted investigation ; and I 
 meant to do so, but first I wanted to hear from those discharged men in 
 Nebraska. The whole scheme would have been exploded two months 
 ago had I not been a coward ; but night after night something kept 
 whispering to me, ' You have wrecked and ruined a friendless young 
 soldier's life. You shall be brought as low.' " 
 
 The colonel was, as he afterwards remarked, hardly equal to the 
 occasion. He had as much contempt for moral weakness in a soldier 
 as he had for physical cowardice ; but Rayner's almost abject recital of 
 his months of misery really left him nothing to say. Had the captain 
 sought to defend or justify any detail of his conduct, he would have 
 pounced on him like a panther. Twice the adjutant, sitting an absorbed 
 and silent listener, thought the chief on the verge of an outbreak ; but 
 it never came. For some minutes after Rayner ceased the colonel sat 
 steadily regarding him. At last he spoke : 
 
 " You have been so frank in your statement, captain, that I feel you 
 fully appreciate how such deplorable weakness must be regarded in an 
 officer. It is unnecessary for me to speak of that. The full partic- 
 ulars of Clancy's confession are not yet with me. Major Waldron has 
 it all in writing, and Mr. Billings has merely told me the general 
 features. Of course you shall have a copy of it in good time. As you 
 go East to-day and have your wife and household to think for, it may 
 be as well that you do not attempt to see Mr. Hayne before starting. 
 And this matter will not be discussed." 
 
 And so it happened that when the Rayners drove to the station that 
 bright afternoon, and a throng of ladies and officers gathered to see 
 them off, some of the youngsters going with them into town to await 
 the coming of the train, Nellie Travers had been surrounded by chat- 
 tering friends of both sexes, constantly occupied, and yet constantly 
 looking for the face of one who came not. For an hour before their 
 departure every tongue in garrison that wagged at all — and few there 
 were that wagged not — was discoursing on the exciting events of the 
 morning, — Hayne's emancipation from the last vestige of suspicion, 
 Clancy's capture, confession, and tragic death, Mrs. Clancy's flight 
 
814 I'^E DESERTER. 
 
 and probable future. At Rayner's, people spoke of these things very 
 guardedly, because every one saw that the captain was moved to the 
 depths of his nature. He was solemnity itself, and Mrs. Rayner 
 watched him with deep anxiety, fearful that he might be exposed to 
 some thoughtless or malicious questioning. Her surveillance was need- 
 less, however : even Ross made no allusion to the events of the morn- 
 ing, though he communicated to his fellows in the subsequent confi- 
 dences of the club-room that Midas looked as though he'd been pulled 
 through a series of knot-holes. " Looks more's though he were going 
 to his own funeral than on leave," he added. 
 
 As for Hayne, he had been closeted with the colonel and Major 
 Waldron for some time after his return, — a conference that was broken 
 in upon by the startling news of Clancy's death. Then he had joined 
 his friend the doctor at the hospital, and was still there, striving to 
 comfort little Kate, who could not be induced to leave her father's 
 rapidly stiffening form, when Mrs. Waldron re-entered the room. 
 Drawing the child to her side and folding her motherly arms about her, 
 she looked up in Hayue's pale face : 
 
 " They are going in five minutes. Don't you mean to see her ?" 
 
 " Not there, — not under his roof or in that crowd. I will go to 
 the station." 
 
 " I must run over and say good-by in a moment, — when the car- 
 riage goes around. Shall — shall I say you will come ?" 
 
 There was a light in his blue eyes she was just beginning to notice 
 now as she studied his face. A smile, flickered one instant about the 
 corners of his mouth, and then he held out his hand : 
 
 " She knows by this time, Mrs. Waldron." 
 
 An hour later Mrs. Rayner was standing on the platform at the 
 station, Ross and others of her satellites hanging about her ; Captain 
 Rayner was talking in subdued tones with one or two of the senior 
 officers ; Miss Travers, looking feverishly pretty, was chatting busily 
 with Royce and Foster, though a close observer could have noted that 
 her dark eyes often sought the westward prairie over which wound the 
 road to the distant post. It was nearly train-time, and three or four 
 horsemen could be seen at various distances, while, far out towards the 
 fort, long skirmish-lines and fluttering guidons were sweeping over the 
 slopes in mimic war-array. 
 
 " I have missed all this," she said, pointing to the scene ; " and I 
 do love it so that it seems hard to go just as all the real soldier life is 
 beginning." 
 
 "Goodness knows you've had offers enough to keep you here," 
 said Foster, with not the blithest laugh in the world. " Any girl who 
 will go East and marry a ' cit' and leave six or seven penniless subs 
 sighing behind her, I have my opinion of: she's eminently level- 
 headed," he added, with rueful and uuexpected candor. 
 
 " I have hopes of Miss Travers yet," boomed Royce, in his pon- 
 derous basso, — " not personal hopes, Foster ; you needn't feel for your 
 pistol, — but I believe that her heart is with the army, like the soldier's 
 daughter she is." And, audacious as was the speech and deserving of 
 instant rebuke, Mr. Royce was startled to see her reddening vividly. 
 
THE DESERTER. 815 
 
 He would have plunged into hasty apology, but Foster plucked his 
 sleeve : 
 
 " Look who's coming, you galoot ! She hasn't heard a word either 
 of us has said." 
 
 And though Nellie Travers, noting the sudden silence, burst into 
 an immediate and utterly irrelevant lament over the loss of the Maltese 
 kitten, — which had not been seen all that day and was not to be found 
 when they came away, — it was useless. The effort was gallant, but the 
 flame in her cheeks betrayed her as, throwing his reins to the orderly 
 who followed him, Mr. Hayne dismounted at the platform and came 
 directly towards her. To Mrs. Rayner's unspeakable dismay, he walked 
 up to the trio, bowed low over the little gloved hand that was extended 
 in answer to the proffer of his own, and next she saw that Royce and 
 Foster had, as though by tacit consent, fallen back, and, coram publico, 
 Mr. Hayne was sole claimant of the regards of her baby sister. There 
 was but one comfort in the situation : the train was in sight. Forget- 
 fiil, reckless for the moment, of what was going on around her, she 
 stood gazing at the pair. No woman could fail to read the story ; no 
 woman could see his face, his eyes, his whole attitude and expression, 
 and not read therein that old, old story that grows sweeter with every 
 century of its life. That he should be inspired with sudden, vehement 
 love for her exquisite Nell was something she could readily understand ; 
 but what — what meant her downcast eyes, the flutter of color on her 
 soft and rounded cheek, the shy uplifting of the fringed lids from time 
 to time as though in response to eager question or appeal ? Heavens ! 
 would that train never come ? The whistle was sounding in the distance, 
 but it would take ages to drag those heavy Pullmans up the grade from 
 the bridge where they had yet to stop. She could almost have darted 
 forward, seized her sister by the wrist, and whispered again the baleful 
 reminder that of late had had no mention between them, — " Thou art 
 another's ;" but in her distress her weak blue eyes sought her husband's 
 face. He saw it all, and shook his head. Then there was nothing to 
 be done. 
 
 As the train came rumbling finally into the station, she saw him 
 once more clasp her sister's hand ; then, with one long look into the 
 sweet face that was hidden from her jealous eyes, he raised his forage- 
 cap and stepped quickly back to where his horse was lield. Her 
 husband hastened to her side : 
 
 " Kate, I must speak to him. I don't care how he may take it ; I 
 cannot go without it." 
 
 They all watched the tall captain as he strode across the platform. 
 Every man in uniform seemed to know instinctively that Rayner at last 
 was seeking to make open reparation for the bitter wrong he had done. 
 One or two strove to begin a general chat and affect an interest in some- 
 thing else, for Mrs. Rayner's benefit, but she, with trembling lips, stood 
 gazing after her husband and seemed to beg for silence. Then all 
 abandoned other occupation, and every man stood still and watched 
 them. Hayne had quickly swung into saddle, and had turned for one 
 more look, when he saw his captain with ashen face striding towards 
 him, and heard him call his name. 
 
816 777^ DESERTER. 
 
 " By Jove !" muttered Ross, " what command that fellow has over 
 himself !" for, scrupulously observant of military etiquette, Mr. Hayne 
 on being addressed by his superior officer had instantly dismounted, and 
 now stood silently facing him. Even at the distance, there were some 
 who thought they could see his features twitching ; but his blue eyes 
 were calm and steady, — far clearer than they had been but a moment 
 agone when gazing good-by into the sweet face they worshipped. None 
 could hear what passed between them. The talk was very brief; but 
 Ross almost gasped with amaze, other officers looked at one another in 
 utter astonishment, and Mrs. Rayner fairly sobbed with excitement and 
 emotion, when Mr. Hayne was seen to hold forth his hand, and Rayner, 
 grasping it eagerly in both his own, shook it once, then strode hastily 
 away towards the rear of the train. His eyes were filled with tears he 
 could not repress and could not bear to show. 
 
 That evening, as the train wound steadily eastward into the shadows 
 of the night, and they looked out in farewell upon the slopes they had 
 last seen when a wintry gale swept fiercely over the frozen surface and 
 the shallow ravines were streaked with snow, Kate Rayner, after a long 
 talk with her husband, and abandoning her boy to the sole guardian- 
 ship of his nurse, settled herself by Nellie's side, and Nellie knew that 
 she either sought confidences or had them to impart. Something of 
 the old, quizzical look was playing about the corner of her pretty mouth 
 as her elder sister, with feminine indirectness, began her verbal skir- 
 mishing with the subject. It was some time before the question was 
 reached which led to her real objective : 
 
 " Did he — did Mr. Hayne tell you much about Clancy ?" 
 
 " Not much. There was no time." 
 
 " You had fully ten minutes, I'm sure. It seemed even longer." 
 
 " Four by the clock, Kate." 
 
 " Well, four, then. He must have had something of greater in- 
 terest." 
 
 No answer. Cheeks reddening, though. 
 
 " Didn't he ?"— persistently. 
 
 " I will tell you what he told me of Clancy, Kate. Mrs. Clancy 
 had utterly deceived you as to what he had to tell, had she not ?" 
 
 " Utterly." And now it was Mrs. Rayner's turn to color painfully. 
 
 " Mr. Hayne tells me that Clancy's confession really explained how 
 Captain Rayner was mistaken. It was not so much the captain's fault, 
 after all." 
 
 " So Mr. Hayne told him. You knew they — you saw Mr. Hayne 
 offer him his hand, didn't you ?" 
 
 " I did not see : I knew he would." More vivid color, and much 
 hesitation now. 
 
 " Knew he would ! Why, Nellie, what do you mean ? He didn't 
 tell you that he was to see Captain Rayner. He couldn't have known." 
 
 " But I knew, Kate ; and I told him how the captain had suffered." 
 
 " But ho^v could you know that he would shake hands with him ?" 
 
 " He promised me." 
 
 The silence was unbroken for a moment. Nellie Travers could 
 hear the beatino; of her own heart as she nestled closer to her sister and 
 
THE DESERTER. 817 
 
 stole a hand into hers. Mrs. Rayner was trying hard to be dutiful, 
 stern, unbending, to keep her faith with the distant lover in the East, 
 whether Nell was true or no ; but she had been so humbled, so changed, 
 so shaken, by the events of the past few weeks, that she felt all her old 
 spirit of guardianship ebbing away. " Must I give you up, Nell ? and 
 must he, too ? — Mr. Van Antwerp ?" 
 
 " He has not answered my last letter, Kate. It is nearly a week 
 since I have heard from him." 
 
 "What did you write, Nellie?" 
 
 " Wliat I had done twice before, — that he ought to release me." 
 
 " And — is Clancy's the only confession you have heard to-day ?" 
 
 " The only one." A pause : then, " I know what you mean, 
 Kate ; but he is not the man to — to oifer his love to a girl he knows is 
 pledged to another." 
 
 "But if you were free, Nellie? Tell me." 
 
 " I have no right to say, Kate ; but" — and two big tears were well- 
 ing up into her brave eyes, as she clasped her hands and stretched them 
 yearningly before her — " shall I tell you what I think a girl would 
 say if she were free and had won his love ?" 
 
 "What, Nellie?" 
 
 " She would say, ' Ay.' No woman with a heart could leave a man 
 who has borne so much and come through it all so bravely." 
 
 Poor Mrs. Rayner ! Humbled and chastened as she was, what refuge 
 had she but tears, and then — prayer ? 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Within the week succeeding the departure of the Rayners and Miss 
 Travers, Lieutenant Hayne's brother-in-law and his remarkably at- 
 tractive sister were with him in garrison and helping him fit up the 
 new quarters which the colonel had rather insisted on his moving into 
 and occupying, even though two unmarried subalterns had to move 
 out and make way for him. This they seemed rather delighted to do. 
 There was a pi-evailing sentiment at Warrener that nothing was too 
 good for Hayne nowadays ; and he took all this adulation so quietly 
 and modestly that there was difficulty in telling just how it affected 
 him. Towards those who had known him well in the days of his early 
 service he still maintained a dignity and reserve of manner that kept 
 them at some distance. To others, especially to the youngsters in the 
 — th as well as to those in the Riflers, he unbent entirely, and was 
 frank, unaffected, and warm-hearted. He seemed to bask in the sun- 
 shine of the respect and consideration accorded him on every side. 
 Yet no one could say he seemed happy. Courteous, grave far beyond 
 his years, silent and thoughtful, he impressed them all as a man who 
 had suffered too much ever again to be light-hearted. Then it was 
 more than believed he had fallen deeply in love with Nellie Travers ; 
 and that explained the rarity and sadness of his smile. To the women 
 he was a centre of intense and romantic interest. Mrs. Waldron was 
 an object of jealousy because of the priority of her claims to his re- 
 gard. Mrs. Hurley — the sweet sister who so strongly resembled him 
 
813 'I'HE DESERTER. 
 
 — was the recipient of universal attention from both sexes. Hayne 
 and the Hurleys, indeed, would have been invited to several places an 
 evening could they have accepted. And yet, with it all, Mr. Hayne 
 seemed at times greatly preoccupied. He had a great deal to think of. 
 
 To begin with, the widow Clancy had been captured in one of the 
 mining towns, where she had souglit refuge, and brought back by the 
 civil authorities, nearly three thousand dollars in greenbacks having 
 been found in her possession. She had fought like a fury and proved 
 too much for the sheriff's posse when first arrested, and not until three 
 days after her incarceration was the entire amount brought to light. 
 There was no question what ought to be done with it. Clancy's con- 
 fession established the fact that almost the entire amount was stolen 
 from Captain Hull nearly six years before, the night previous to his 
 tragic death at Battle Butte. Mrs. Clancy at first had furiously de- 
 clared it all a lie ; but Waldron's and Billings's precaution in having 
 Clancy's entire story taken down by a notary public and sworn to 
 before him eventually broke her down. She made her miserable, 
 whining admissions to the sheriflp's officers in town, — the colonel would 
 not have her on the post even as a prisoner, — and there she was still 
 held, awaiting further disclosures, while little Kate was lovingly cared 
 for at Mrs. Waldron's. Poor old Clancy was buried and on the way 
 to be forgotten. 
 
 What proved the hardest problem for the garrison to solve was the 
 fact that, while Mr. Hayne kept several of his old associates at a dis- 
 tance, he had openly offered his hand to Kayner. This M'as something 
 the Riflers could not account for. The intensity of his feeling at the time 
 of the court-martial none could forget : the vehemence of his denuncia- 
 tion of the captain was still fresh in the memory of those who heard it. 
 Then there were all those years in which Rayner had continued to crowd 
 him to the wall -, and finally there was the almost tragic episode of 
 Buxton's midnight visitation, in which Rayner, willingly or not, had 
 been in attendance. Was it not odd that in the face of all these con- 
 siderations the first man to whom Mr. Hayne should have offered his 
 hand was Captain Rayner ? Odd indeed ! But then only one or two 
 were made acquainted with the full particulars of Clancy's con- 
 fession, and none had heard Nellie Travers's request. Touched as he 
 was by the sight of Rayner's haggard and trouble-worn face, relieved 
 as he was by Clancy's revelation of the web that had been woven to 
 cover the tracks of the thieves and ensnare the feet of the pursuers, 
 Hayne could not have found it possible to offer his hand ; but when 
 he bent over the tiny glove and looked into her soft and brimming 
 eyes at the moment of their parting he could not say no to the one 
 thing she asked of him : it was that if Rayner came to say, " Forgive 
 me," before they left, he would not repel him. 
 
 There was one man in garrison whom Hayne cut entirely, and for 
 whom no one felt the faintest sympathy ; and that, of course, was 
 Buxton. With Rayner gone, he hardly had an associate, though the 
 esfprit de corps of the — th prompted the cavalry officers to be civil to 
 him when he appeared at the billiard-room. As Mr. Hurley was fond 
 of the game, an element of awkwardness was manifest the first time 
 
THE DESERTER. 819 
 
 the young officers appeared with their engineer friend. Hayne had not 
 set foot in such a place for five years, and quietly declined all invita- 
 tions to take a cue again. It was remembered of him that he played 
 the prettiest game of French caroms of all the officers at the station 
 when he joined the Riflers as a boy. Hurley could only stay a very 
 short time, and the subalterns were doing their best to make it lively 
 for him. Some, indeed, showed strong inclination to devote themselves 
 to Mrs. Hurley ; but she was too busy with her brother's household 
 affiiirs to detect their projects. Hurley had turned very red and 
 glared at Buxton the first time the two njet at the club-room, but the 
 bulky captain speedily found cov^er under which to retire, and never 
 again showed himself in general society until the engineer with the 
 scientific attainments as a boxer as well as road-builder was safely out 
 of the post. 
 
 And yet there came a day very soon when Mr. Hayne wished that 
 he could go to Buxton's quarters. He had in no wise changed his 
 opinion of the man himself, but the Rayners had not been gone a fort- 
 night before Mrs. Buxton began to tell the ladies of the charming letters 
 she was receiving from Mrs. Rayner, — all about their travels. There 
 were many things he longed to know, yet could not ask. 
 
 There came to him a long and sorrowful letter from the captain 
 himself, but, beyond a few matters relating to the company and the 
 transfer of its property, it was all given up to a recapitulation of the 
 troubles of the past few years and to renewed expressions of his deep 
 regret. Of the ladies he made but casual mention. They were jour- 
 neying down the Mississippi on one of its big steamers when he wrote, 
 and Mrs. Rayner was able to enjoy the novelties of the trip, and was 
 getting better, but still required careful nursing. Miss Travers was 
 devoted to her. They would go to New Orleans, then possibly by sea 
 around to New York, arriving there about the 5th of June : that, how- 
 ever, was undecided. He closed by asking Hayne to remind Major 
 Waldron that his copy of Clancy's confession had not yet reached him, 
 and he was anxious to see it in full. 
 
 " The one thing lacking to complete the chain is Gower," said the 
 major, as he looked up over his spectacles. " It would be difficult to 
 tell what became of him. We get tidings of most of the deserters who 
 were as prominent among the men as he appears to have been ; but I 
 have made inquiry, and so has the colonel, and not a word has ever been 
 heard of him since the night he appeared before Mrs. Clancy and handed 
 over the money to her. He was a strange character, from all accounts, 
 and must have had some conscience, after all. Do you remember him 
 at all, Hayne?" 
 
 " I remember him well. We made the march from the Big Horn 
 over to Battle Butte together, and he was a soldier one could not help 
 remarking. Of course I never had anything to say to him ; but we 
 heard he was an expert gambler when the troop was over there at 
 Miners' Delight." 
 
 "Of course his testimony isn't necessary. Clancy and his wife be- 
 tween them have cleared you, after burying you alive five years. But 
 nothing but his story could explain his singular conduct, — planning the 
 
g20 ^^^ DESERTER. 
 
 whole robbery, executing it with all the skill of a professional jail-bird, 
 deserting and covering several hundred miles with his plunder, then 
 daring to go to the old fort, find Mrs. Clancy, and surrender every 
 cent, the moment he heard of your trial. What a fiend that woman 
 was ! No wonder she drove Clancy to drink !" 
 
 " Will you send copies of her admission with Clancy's affidavits ?" 
 asked Hayne. 
 
 '' Here they are in full," answered the major. " The colonel talks 
 of having them printed and strewn broadcast as warnings against ^ snap 
 judgment' and too confident testimony in future." 
 
 Divested of the legal encumbrances with which such documents are 
 usually weighted, Clancy's story ran substantially as follows : 
 
 " I was sergeant in K troop, and Gower was in F. We had been 
 stationed together six months or so when ordered out on the Indian 
 campaign that summer. I was dead-broke. All my money was gone, 
 and my wife kept bothering me for more. I owed a lot of money 
 around head-quarters, too, and Gower knew it, and sometimes asked 
 me what I was going to do when we got back from the campaign. We 
 were not good friends, him and I. There was money dealings between us, 
 and then there was talk about Mrs. Clancy fancying him too much. The 
 paymaster came up with a strong escort and paid off the boys late in 
 October, just as the expedition was breaking up and going for home, 
 and all the officers and men got four months' pay. There was Lieu- 
 tenant Crane and twenty men of F troop out on a scout, but the lieu- 
 tenant had left his pay-rolls with Captain Hull, and the men had all 
 signed before they started, and so the captain he drew it all for them 
 and put each man's money in an envelope marked with his name, and 
 the lieutenant's too, and then crowded it all into some bigger envelopes. 
 I was there where I could see it all, and Gower was watching him close. 
 * It's a big pile the captain's got,' says he. ' I'd like to be a road-agent 
 and nab him.' When I told him it couldn't be over eleven hundred 
 dollars, he says, ' That's only part. He has his own pay, and six hun- 
 dred dollars company fund, and a wad of greenbacks he's been carryin' 
 around all summer. It's nigh on to four thousand dollars he's got in his 
 saddle-bags this day.' 
 
 " And that night, instead of Lieutenant Crane's coming back, he 
 sent word he had found the trail of a big band of Indians, and the 
 whole crowd went in pursuit. There was four companies of infantry, 
 under Captain Eayner, and F and K troops, — what was left of them, — 
 that were ordered to stay by the wagons and bring them safely down ; 
 and we started with them over towards Battle Butte, keeping south of 
 the way the regiment had gone to follow Mr. Crane. And the very 
 next day Captain Rayner got orders to bring his battalion to the river 
 and get on the boat, while the wagons kept on down the bank with us 
 to guard them. And Mr. Hayne was acting quartermaster, and he 
 stayed with us ; and him and Captain Hull was together a good deal. 
 There was some trouble, we heard, because Captain Rayner thought 
 another officer should have been made quartermaster and Mr. Hayne 
 should have stayed with his company, and they had some words ; but 
 Captain Hull gave Mr. Hayne a horse and seemed to keep him with 
 
THE DESERTER. 821 
 
 him ; and that night, in sight of Battle Butte, the steamboat was out of 
 sight ahead when we went into camp, and I was sergeant of the guard 
 and had my fire near the captain's tent, and twice in the evening 
 Gower came to me and said now was the time to lay hands on the 
 money and skip. At last he says to me, ' You are flat-broke, and 
 they'll all be down on you when you get back to the post. No man in 
 America wants five hundred dollars more than you do. I'll give you 
 five hundred in one hour from now if you'll get the captain out of 
 his tent for half an hour.' Almost everybody was asleep then ; the 
 captain was, and so was Mr. Hayne, and he went on to tell me how he 
 could do it. He'd been watching the captain. It made such a big 
 bundle, did the money, in all the separate envelopes that he had done it 
 all up different, — made a memorandum of the amount due each man, 
 and packed the greenbacks all together in one solid pile, — his own 
 money, the lieutenant's, and the men's, — done it up in paper and tied it 
 firmly and put big blotches of green sealing-wax on it and sealed them 
 with the seal on his watch-chain. Says Gower, ' You get the captain 
 out, as I tell you, and I'll slip right in, get the money, stuff some other 
 paper with a few ones and twos in the package ; his seal, his watch, and 
 everything is there in the saddle-bags under his head, and I can reseal 
 and replace it in five minutes, and he'll never suspect the loss until the 
 command all gets together again next week. By that time I'll be three 
 hundred miles away. Everybody will say 'twas Gower that robbed 
 him, and you with your five hundred will never be suspected.' I asked 
 him how could he expect the captain to go and leave so much money 
 in his bags with no one to guard it ; and he said he'd bet on it if I did 
 it right. The captain had had no luck tracking Indians that summer, 
 and the regiment was laughing at him. He knew they were scatter- 
 ing every which way now, and was eager to strike them. All I had to 
 do was to creep in excited-like, wake him up sudden, and tell him I was 
 sure I had heard an Indian drum and their scalp-dance song out beyond 
 the pickets, — that they were over towards Battle Butte, and he could 
 hear them if he would come out on the river-bank. ' He'd go quick,' 
 says Gower, ' and think of nothing.' 
 
 "And — [ wouldn't believe it, but he did. He sprang up and went 
 right out with me, just flinging his overcoat round him ; and he never 
 seemed to want to come in. The wind was blowing soft-like from the 
 southeast, and he stood there straining his ears trying to hear the sounds 
 I told him of; but at last he gave it up, and we went back to camp, and 
 he took his lantern and looked in his saddle-bags, and I shook for fear ; 
 but he seemed to find everything all right, and in the next ten minutes 
 he was asleep, and Gower came and whispered to me, and I went with 
 him, and he gave me five hundred dollars, in twenties. ' Now you're 
 bound,' says he ; ' keep the sentries off while I get my horse.' And 
 that's the last I ever saw of him. Then a strange thing happened. 
 'Twas hardly daylight when a courier came galloping up, and I called 
 the captain, and he read the despatch, and says he, ' By heaven, Clancy, 
 you were right after all. There are Indians over there. Why didn't I 
 trust your ears? Call up the whole command. The Riflers have treed 
 them at Battle Butte, and Captain Rayner has gone with his battalion. 
 
822 'J'ii^ DESERTER. 
 
 We are to escort the wagons to where the boat lies beyond the bend, and 
 then push over with all the horsemen we can take.' It was after day- 
 light when we got started, but we almost ran the wagons 'cross country 
 to the boat, and there Captain Hull took F troop and what there was 
 of his own, leaving only ten men back with the wagons ; and not till 
 then was Gower missed ; but all were in such a hurry to get to the 
 Indians that no one paid attention. Mr. Hayne he begged the captain 
 to let him go too : so the train was left with the wagon-master and the 
 captain of the boat, and away we went. You know all about the fight, 
 and how 'twas Mr. Hayne the captain called to and gave his watch and 
 the two packages of money when he was ordered to charge. I was right 
 by his side ; and I swore — God forgive me ! — that through the crack 
 and tear in the paper I could see the layers of greenbacks, when I knew 
 'twas only some ones and twos Gower had slipped in to make it look 
 right ; and Captain Rayner stood there and saw the packet, too, and 
 Sergeant Walshe and Bugler White ; but them two were killed with 
 him : so that 'twas only Captain Rayner and I was left as witnesses, 
 and never till we got to Laramie after the campaign did the trouble 
 come. I never dreamed of anything ever coming of it but that every 
 one would say Gower stole the money and deserted ; but when the 
 captain turned the packages over to Mr. Hayne, and then got killed, 
 and Mr. Hayne carried the packages, with the watch, seal, saddle-bags, 
 and all, in to Cheyenne, and never opened them till he got there, — two 
 weeks after, when we were all scattered, — then they turned on him, his 
 own officers did, and said he stole it and gambled or sent it away in 
 Cheyenne. 
 
 " I had lost much of my money then, and Mrs. Clancy got the 
 rest, and it made me crazy to think of that poor young gentleman 
 accused of it all ; but I was in for it, and kncM^ it meant prison for 
 years for me, and perhaps they couldn't prove it on him. I got to 
 drinking then, and told Captain Rayner that the — th was down on me 
 for swearing away the young officer's character ; and then he took me to 
 Company B when the colonel wouldn't have me any more in the — th ; 
 and one night when Mrs. Clancy had been raising my hair and I wanted 
 money to drink and she'd give me none, little Kate told me her mother 
 had lots of money in a box, and that Sergeant Gower had come and 
 given it to her while they were getting settled in the new post after the 
 Battle Butte campaign, and he had made her promise to give it to me 
 the moment I got back, — that somebody was in trouble, and that I must 
 save him ; and I believed Kate, and charged Mrs. Clancy with it, and 
 she beat me and Kate, and swore it was all a lie ; and I never could 
 get the money. And at last came the fire ; and it was the lieutenant 
 that saved my life and Kate's, and brought back to her all that pile of 
 money through the flames. It broke my heart then, and I vowed I'd go 
 and tell him the truth ; but they wouldn't let me. She told me the 
 captain said he would kill me if I blabbed, and she would kill Kate. 
 I didn't dare, until they told me my discharge had come ; and then I 
 M^as glad when the lieutenant and the major caught me in town. When 
 they promised to take care of little Kate I didn't care what happened 
 to me. The money Mrs. Clancy has — except perhaps two hundred 
 
THE DESERTER. 823 
 
 dollars — all belongs to Lieutenant Hayne, since he paid off every cent 
 that was stolen from Captain Hull." 
 
 Supplemented by Mrs. Clancy's rueful and incoherent admissions, 
 Clancy's story did its work. Mrs. Clancy could not long persist in her 
 vai'ious denials after her husband's confession was brought to her ears, 
 and she was totally unable to account satisfactorily for the possession 
 of so much money. Little Kate had been too young to grasp the full 
 meaning of what Gower said to her mother in that hurried interview ; 
 but her reiterated statements that he came late at night, before the regi- 
 ment got home, and knocked at the door until he waked them up, and 
 her mother cried when he came in, he looked so different, and had 
 spectacles, and a patch on his cheek, and ranch clothes, and he only 
 stayed a little while, and told her mother he must go back to the moun- 
 tains, the police were on his track, — she knew now he spoke of having 
 deserted, — and he gave her mother lots of money, for she opened and 
 counted it afterwards and told her it must all go to papa to get some 
 one out of trouble, — all were so clear and circumstantial that at last 
 the hardened woman began to break down and make reluctant ad- 
 missions. When an astute sheriff's officer finally told her that he knew 
 where he could lay hands on Sergeant Gower, she surrendered utterly. 
 So long as he was out of the way, — could not be found, — she held out ; 
 but the prospect of dragging into prison with her the man who had 
 spurned her in years gone by and was proof against her fascinations 
 was too alluring. She told all she could at his expense. He had 
 ridden eastward after his desertion, and, making his way down the Mis- 
 souri, had stopped at Yankton and gone thence to Kansas City, spend- 
 ing much of his money. He had reached Denver with the rest, and 
 there — she knew not how — had made or received more, when he heard 
 of the fact that Captain Hull had turned over his property to Lieu- 
 tenant Hayne just before he was killed, and that the lieutenant was now 
 to be tried for failing to account for it. He brought her enough to 
 cover all he had taken, but — here she lied — strove to persuade her to go 
 to San Francisco with him. She promised to think of it if he would 
 leave the money, — which he did, swearing he would come for her and 
 it. That was why she dared not tell Mike when he got home. He 
 was so jealous of her. 
 
 To this part of her statement Mrs. Clancy stoutly adhered ; but 
 the officers believed Kate. 
 
 One other thing she told. Kate had declared he wore a heavy 
 patch on his right cheek and temple. Yes, Mrs. Clancy remembered 
 it. Some scoundrels had sought to rob him in Denver. He had to 
 fight for life and money both, and his share of the honors of the fray 
 was a deep and clean cut extending across the cheek-bone and up above 
 the right ear. 
 
 As these family revelations were told throughout the garrison and 
 comment of every kind was made thereon, there is reason for the be- 
 lief that Mrs. Buxton found no difficulty in filling her letters with 
 particulars of deep interest to her readers, who by this time had carried 
 out the programme indicated by Captain Rayner. Mid-June had come ; 
 the ladies, apparently benefited by the sea-voyage, had landed in New 
 
824 'I'HE DESERTER. 
 
 York and were speedily driven to their old quarters at the Westminster ; 
 and while the captain went to head-quarters of the department to re- 
 port his arrival on leave and get his letters, a card was sent up to Miss 
 Travers which she read with cheeks that slightly paled : 
 
 " He is here, Kate." 
 
 " Nellie, you — you won't throw him over, after all he has done and 
 borne for you ?" 
 
 " I shall keep my promise," was the answer. 
 
 XX. 
 
 "And so she's really going to marry Mr. Van Antwerp/' said 
 Mrs. Buxton to Mrs. Waldron a few days later in the month of sun- 
 shine and roses. 
 
 " I did not think it possible when she left," was the reply. " Why 
 do you say so now ?" 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Rayner writes that the captain had to go to Washing- 
 ton on some important family matters, and that she and Nellie were at 
 the sea-shore again, and Mr. Van Antwerp was with them from morn- 
 ing till night. He looked so worn and haggard, she said, that Nellie 
 could not but take pity on him. Heavens ! think of having five 
 hundred thousand dollars sighing its life away for you ! — especially 
 when he's handsome. Mrs. Rayner made me promise to send it right 
 back, because he would never give her one before, but she sent his 
 picture. It's splendid. Wait, and I'll show you." And Mrs. Bux- 
 ton darted into the house. 
 
 When she reappeared, three or four young cavalrymen were at the 
 gate, chatting with Mrs. Waldron, and the picture was passed from 
 hand to hand, exciting varied comment. It was a simple carte de visiter 
 of the style once spoken of as vignette, — only the head and shoulders 
 being visible, — but it was the picture of a strong, clear-cut face, with 
 thick, wavy black hair just tingeing with gray, a drooping moustache, 
 and long English whiskers. The eyes were heavy-browed, and, though 
 partially shaded by the gold-rimmed pince-nez, were piercing and fine. 
 Mr. Van Antwerp was unquestionably a fine-looking man. 
 
 " Here comes Hayne," said Royce. " Show it to him. He likes 
 pictures ; though I wouldn't like this one if I were in his place." 
 
 Mr. Hayne stopped in some surprise when hailed, greeted Mrs. 
 Waldron warmly, and bowed courteously to Mrs. Buxton, who was 
 watching him narrowly. 
 
 " Want to see a picture of the man you ought to go and perforate ?" 
 asked Webster, with that lofty indifference which youngsters have to 
 the ravages of the tender passion on subjects other than themselves. 
 
 " To whom do you refer ?" asked Hayne, smiling gravely, and 
 little imagining what was in store for him. 
 
 " This," said Webster, holding out the card. Hayne took it, gave 
 one glance, started, seized it with both hands, studied it eagerly, while 
 his own face rapidly paled, then looked up with quick, searching eyes. 
 
 "Who is this?" he asked. 
 
 "The man who's engaged to Miss Travers, — Mr. Van Antwerp." 
 
THE DESERTER. 825 
 
 " This — this — Mr. Van Antwerp !" exclaimed Hayue, his face 
 white as a sheet. *' Here, take it, Royce !" And in an instant he 
 had turned and gone. 
 
 " Well, I'll be hanged if I knew he was that hard hit," drawled 
 Webster. " Did you, Royce ?" 
 
 But Royce did not answer. 
 
 A gorgeous moonlight is bathing the Jersey coast in sparkling 
 silver. The tumbling billows come thundering in to the shining 
 strand, and sending their hissing, seething, whirling waters, all shim- 
 mer and radiance, to the very feet of the grou]« of spectators. There 
 are hundreds of people scattered here and there along the shingle, and 
 among the groups a pale-faced young man in tweed travelling-suit has 
 made his way to a point where he can command a view of all the 
 passers-by. It is nearly eleven o'clock before they begin to break up 
 and seek the broad corridors of the brilliantly -lighted hotel. A great 
 military band of nearly forty pieces is playing superbly at intervals, 
 and every now and then, as some stirring martial strains come thrilling 
 through the air, a young girl in a group near at hand beats time with 
 her pretty foot and seems to quiver with the influence of the soldier 
 melodies. A tall, dark-eyed, dark-haired man bends devotedly over 
 her, but he, too, seems to rise to his full height at times, and there is 
 something in the carriage and mien that tells that soldier songs have 
 thrilled his veins ere now. And this man the young traveller in gray 
 watches as though his eyes were fascinated. Standing in the shade of 
 a little summer-house, he never ceases his scrutiny of the group. 
 
 At last the musicians go, and the people follow. The sands are 
 soon deserted ; the great piazzas are emptied of their promenaders ; the 
 halls and corridors are still patronized by the few belated chaperons 
 and their giddy charges. The music-loving girl has gone aloft to her 
 room, and her aunt, the third member of the group that so chained the 
 attention of the young man in gray, lingers for a moment to exchange 
 a few words with their cavalier. He seems in need of consolation. 
 
 " Don't be so down-hearted, Mr. Van Antwerp. It is very early in 
 the summer, and you have the whole season before you." 
 
 " No, Mrs. Rayner : it is very diiferent from last year. I cannot 
 explain it, but I know there has been a change. I feel as — as I used 
 to in my old, wild days when a change of luck was coming. It's like 
 the gambler's superstition ; but I cannot shake it oif. Something told 
 me she was lost to me when you boarded that Pacific Express last Feb- 
 ruary. I was a fool ever to have let her go." 
 
 '' Is she still so determined ?" 
 
 " I cannot shake her resolution. She says that at the end of the 
 year's time originally agreed upon she will keep her promise ; but she 
 will listen to no earlier marriage. I have about given up all hope. 
 Something again — that fearful something I cannot shake off — tells me 
 that my only chance lay in getting her to go with me this month. Once 
 abroad with her, I could make her happy ; but " 
 
 He breaks off irresolutely, looking about him in the strange, hunted 
 manner she has noted once or twice already. 
 Vol. XXXIX.— 54 
 
826 THE DESERTER. 
 
 "Yon are all unstrung, Mr. Van Antwerp. WI17 not go to bed 
 and try and sleep? You will be so much brighter to-morrow." 
 
 " I cannot sleep. But don't let me keep you. I'll go out and smoke 
 a cigar. Good-night, Mrs. Rayner. Whatever comes of it all, I shall 
 not forget your kindness." 
 
 So he turns away, and she still stands at the foot of the staircase, 
 "watching him uneasily. He lias aged greatly in the past few months. 
 She is shocked to see how gray, how fitful, nervous, irritable, he has 
 become. As he moves towards the door-way, she notes how thin his 
 cheek has grown, and wonders at the irresolution in his movements 
 when he reaches the broad piazza. He stands there an instant, the 
 massive door- way forming a frame for a picture en silhouette, his tall 
 spare figure thrown black upon the silver sea beyond. He looks up and 
 down the now-deserted galleries, fumbles in his pockets for his cigar-case, 
 bites oif with nervous clip the end of a huge " Regalia," strikes a light, 
 and before the flame is half applied to his weed throws it away, then 
 turns sharply and strides out of sight towards the office. 
 
 ■ Another instant, and, as though in pursuit, a second figure, erect, 
 soldierly, with quick and bounding step strides across the glittering 
 moon-streak, and Mrs. Rayner's heart stands still. 
 
 Only for an instant, though. She has seen and recognized Lawrence 
 Hayne. Concealed from them he is following Mr. Van Antwerp, and 
 there can be but one purpose in his coming here, — Nellie. But what 
 can he want wath her — her rightful lover ? She springs from the loM'er 
 step on which she has been standing, runs across the tessellated floor, 
 and stops short in the door-way, gazing after the two figures. She is 
 startled to find them close at hand, — one, Van Antwerp, close to the 
 railing, facing towards her, his features ghastly in the moonlight, his 
 left hand resting, and supporting him, on one of the tall wooden pil- 
 lars ; the other, Hayne, with wdiite clinching fists, advancing upon 
 him. Above the low boom and roar of the surf she distinctly hears the 
 clear tenor ring of his voice in the tone of command she last heard 
 under the shadow of the Rockies, two thousand miles away : 
 
 " Halt !" 
 
 No wonder a gentleman in civil life looks amazed at so peremptory 
 a summons from a total stranger. In his high indignation will he not 
 strike the impertinent subaltern to earth ? As a w-ell-bred woman, it 
 occurs to her that she ought to rush out and avert hostilities by in- 
 trodncing them, or something ; but she has no time to act. The next 
 words simply take her ])reatli away : 
 
 "Sergeant Gower, I arrest you as a deserter and thief! You de- 
 serted from F troop, — th Cavalry, at Battle Butte !" 
 
 Slie sees the fearful gleam on the dark man's face ; there is a sudden 
 spring, a clinch, a straining to and fro of two forms, — one tall, black, 
 snaky, the other light, lithe, agile, and trained ; muttered curse, panting 
 breath, and then, sure as fate, the taller man is being borne backward 
 against the rail. She sees the dark arm suddenly relax its grasp of the 
 gray form and disappear an instant. Then, there it comes again, and 
 with it a gleam of steel. With one shriek of warning and terror she 
 springs towards them, — -just in time. Hayne glances up, catches the 
 
THE DESERTER. 827 
 
 lifted wrist, hurls his whole weight upon the tottering figure, and over 
 goes the Knickerbocker prone upon the floor. Hayne turns one in- 
 stant : " Go in-doors, Mrs. Rayner. This is no place for you. Leave 
 him to nie." 
 
 And in that instant, before either can prevent, Steven Van Antwerp, 
 alicLS Gower, springs to his feet, leaps over the balcony rail, and disap- 
 pears in the depths below. It is a descent of not more than ten feet to 
 the sands beyond the dark passage that underlies the piazza, but he has 
 gone down into the passage itself. When Mr. Hayne, running down 
 the steps, gains his way to the space beneath the piazza, no trace of the 
 fugitive can he find. 
 
 Nor does Mr. Van Antwerp appear at breakfast on the following 
 morning, nor again to any person known to this story. An officer of 
 the — th Cavalry, spending a portion of the following winter in Paris, 
 writes that he met him face to face one day in the galleries of the Louvre. 
 Being in civilian costume, of course, and much changed in appearance 
 since he was a youth in the straps of a second lieutenant, it was possible 
 for him to take a good long look at the man he had not seen since he 
 wore the chevrons of a dashing sergeant in the Battle Butte campaign. 
 "He has grown almost white," wrote the lieutenant, "and I'm told he 
 has abandoned his business in New York and never will return to the 
 United States." 
 
 Kayner, too, has grown gray. A telegram from his wife sum- 
 moned him to the sea-side from Washington the day after this strange 
 adventure of hers. He found her somewhat prostrate, his sister-in- 
 law very pale and quiet, and the clerks of the hotel unable to account 
 for the disappearance of Mr. Van Antwerp. Lieutenant Hayne, they 
 said, had told them he received news which compelled him to go back 
 to New York at once ; but the gentleman's traps were all in his room. 
 Mr. Hayne, too, had gone to New York ; and thither the captain 
 followed. A letter came to him at the Westminster which he read and 
 handed in silence to Hayne. It was as follows : 
 
 " By the time this reaches you I shall be beyond reach of the law 
 and on my way to Europe to spend what may be left of my days. I 
 hope they may be few ; for the punishment that has fallen upon me is 
 more than I can bear, though no more than I deserve. You have heard 
 that my college days were wild, and that after repeated warnings my 
 father drove me from home, sending me to Wyoming to embark in the 
 cattle-business. I preferred gambling, and lost what he gave me. There 
 was nothing then left but to enlist ; and I joined the — th. Mother 
 still believed me in or near Denver, and wrote regularly there. The 
 life was horrible to me after the luxury and lack of restraint I had 
 enjoyed, and I meant to desert. Chance threw in my way that tempta- 
 tion. I robbed poor Hull the night before he was killed, repacked the 
 paper so that even the torn edges would show the greenbacks, resealed 
 it, — all just as I have had to hear through her pure and sacred lips it 
 was finally told and her lover saved. 
 
 " God knows I was shocked when I heard in Denver he was to be 
 tried for the crime. I hasteiiied to Cheyenne, not daring to show my- 
 
328 ^^^ DESERTER. 
 
 self to him or any one, and restored every cent of the money, placing 
 it in Mrs. Clancy's hands, as I dared not stay ; but I had hoped to 
 give it to Clancy, who had not arrived. The police knew me, and I 
 Tiad to go. I gave every cent I had, and walked back to Denver, then 
 got word to mother of ray fearful danger ; and, though she never knew 
 I was a deserter, she sent me money, and I came East and went 
 abroad. Then my whole life changed. I was appalled to think how 
 low I had fallen. I shunned corajmnionship, studied, did well at 
 Heidelberg ; father forgave me, and died ; but God has not forgiven, 
 and at the moment when I thought my life redeemed this retribution 
 overtakes me. 
 
 " If I may ask anything, it is that mother may never know the 
 truth. I will tell her that Nellie could not love me, and I could not 
 bear to stay." 
 
 Some few weeks later that summer Miss Travers stood by the same 
 balcony rail, with an open letter in her hand. There was a soft flush 
 on her pretty, peachy cheek, and a far-away look in her sweet blue 
 eyes. 
 
 " "What news from Warrener, Nellie ?" asked Mrs. Rayner. 
 
 " Fluify has reappeared." 
 
 "Indeed! Where?" 
 
 " At Mr. Hayne's. He writes that as he returned, the moment he 
 entered the hall she came running up to him, arching her back and 
 purring her delight and welcoming him just as though she belonged 
 there now ; and " 
 
 "And what, Nellie?" 
 
 "He says he means to keep her until I come to claim her." 
 
 THE END. 
 
CADET LIFE at WEST POINT, 
 
 By Captain Charles King. 
 U. S. A. 
 
 New York: 
 Harper Brothers. 
 
PHILLADA. 
 
 195 
 
 I SHALL BE DEAD, I FEAR. 
 
 One throws milk on my clothes; 
 T'other plays with my nose: 
 What wanting signs are those ! 
 Phillada flouts me. 
 
 I cannot work nor sleep 
 
 At all in season, 
 Love wounds my heart so deep, 
 
 Without all reason. 
 I 'gin to pine away 
 
 In my love's shadow, 
 Like as a fat beast may 
 
 Penned in a meadow. 
 I shall be dead, I fear, 
 Within tliis thousand year: 
 And all for that my dear 
 
 Phillada flouts me. 
 
CADET LIFE AT WEST POINT. 
 
 BY CHARLES KING, U.S.A. 
 
 TIME of peace 
 prepai'e for war,' '* 
 saidWasliington, 
 though in some- 
 what different 
 words, and he 
 whom we delight 
 to honor as Fa- 
 ther of his Coun- 
 try was alike the 
 
 father, if not the founder, of the nation's 
 Military Academy at West Point. Possi- 
 bly in those very days when he rested 
 under Arnold's roof- tree in the rock- 
 bound fortress of the Hudson Highlands 
 he noted the strange topograpliy that 
 seemed to fit the spot for the great pur- 
 pose to which it has been devoted. Cer- 
 tain it is tliat our traditions tell us George 
 Washington declared it the very ijlace for 
 the soldier school of the United States, and 
 here, eai'ly in the century, the Corps of 
 Engineers laid its corner-stone, and be- 
 came the foster - parents of the infant 
 academy. 
 
 Its history and its purpose are known 
 
 * "To be prepared for w.ar is one of the most 
 effectual ways of preserving peace." — Wasliwgtori's 
 Address to Congress, January 8, 1790. 
 
 to nearly all. Yale and Harvard, its sen- 
 ioi's by another century and more, are 
 barely mentioned in some States and Tei*- 
 ritories where West Point is as a house- 
 hold word. It is emphatically the peo- 
 ple's school, for its pupils are summoned 
 from every Congressional district in the 
 Union. It is democratic to an extent 
 that no other school can hope to attain, 
 for here, as nowhere else, the rank, riches, 
 and prominence of parents avail as 
 nothing, and every man stands on 
 his own merits. Two-thirds of those 
 appointed find no place on the final 
 class list, and the son of a President 
 ;>> has been distanced in the race the 
 
 son of a bricklayer won. It is the 
 people's school because it is open to 
 all, rich or poor, black or white, Ro- 
 manist, Protestant, or Mormon . The 
 nation demands of its aspirant only 
 ? that he shall be perfect in plij'sique, 
 
 of good moral character, and well 
 grounded in the studies of the public 
 schools, that he may be fitted for a 
 training which in rigor and exaction 
 has no parallel in America. Fifty 
 years ago — befox'e we had such pub- 
 lic schools — the standard of admis- 
 sion was necessarily low, and three- 
 fourths of those who easily passed 
 the entrance examination proved 
 subsequently unable to grapple with 
 the problems of the four years' course. 
 Thousands of dollars were wasted in 
 feeding, clothing, and turning away 
 scores of incompetents. Wisely the au- 
 thorities decreed a higher standard of 
 admission as the facilities for meeting it 
 were spread througiiout the land. Dis- 
 appointed parents and offended Congress- 
 men made loud denunciation of tlie 
 change, and declared the new standai'd 
 one that Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, and 
 soldiers like them could never have pass- 
 ed, forgetful of the fact that times too 
 had utterly changed, and that men of the 
 mettle of those very three, were they boys 
 again and had the opportunities of the 
 boys of to-day, would need no lowering 
 of the bars. The public schools give 
 all the standard calls for, and it was to 
 keep step with the progi-ess of the age 
 that a far-sighted Academic Board decided 
 on the changre. West Point would have 
 
CADET LIFE AT WEST POINT. 
 
 197 
 
 ifi"iaf^^^^^^^~-~ 
 
 .jSf- 
 
 FIRST CLASS MAGNATES. 
 
 fallen hopelessly behind had it maintain- 
 ■ed the gauge of '46. 
 
 Well known as are its name and pur- 
 poses, West Point to nine-tenths of our 
 people is in its inner life as a sealed book. 
 At other institutions the young man pays 
 some five hundred dollars yearly to be a 
 student; at West Point the institution 
 pays the scholar. Herein lies one secret 
 of its discipline. Not only does the gov- 
 ■ernment lay befoi'e the fortunate holder 
 -of a cadetship an excellent education and 
 a life position in a high and honorable 
 profession, but it pays him for his efforts 
 to win the final prize. The student knows 
 tione of the cares or privations, and few of 
 Vol. LXXV.— No. 446.— 13 
 
 the temptations, of a large proportion of 
 his fellow-toilei'S at the hundred colleges 
 that adorn our land. He is abundantly 
 clothed, warmed, housed, fed — provided 
 for in every way. He has no expenses 
 that his income does not amply meet; he 
 has little or nothing to distract his mind 
 from his studies; he cannot envy the dress 
 or style of his wealtby classmates, for the 
 son of a Vanderbilt must wear, and has 
 worn, the same garb that warms the back 
 of the hod carrier's boy. Freely supplied 
 with provision against every healthful 
 need, fully taught every manly and grace- 
 ful accomplishment, finely schooled in 
 science and in soldier lore, carefully 
 
198 
 
 HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 nursed and cared for in the event of ill- 
 ness or injury, the nation's pupil is indeed 
 a favored boy. 
 
 But lavish as is the nation in all the 
 appointments of "its famous school, there 
 is no cent thrown away. For every dol- 
 lar spent on the education of his future 
 officers "Uncle Sam" demands — and has 
 good right to demand — full recompense. 
 In return for all these benefits the young 
 cadet must bind himself to four years 
 of submission to the avuncular will; to 
 four years of hard study, of prescribed 
 exercise, of close seclusion, of prompt and 
 cheerful subordination to rigid discipline ; 
 to four yeai'S of a life every day and hour 
 of which is planned for him beforehand ; 
 and he must willingly yield himself to the 
 preconcerted moulding, or give jjlace to 
 one who can and will. 
 
 The casual visitor to the academy sees 
 in cadet life only a vision of military ex- 
 ercises, of gallant, graceful forms, of fault- 
 less uniforms and glittering arms, of bewil- 
 dering "hops" and "germans," of moon- 
 light camps amid the grandest scenery on 
 the continent, of romance and chivalry all 
 athrob with the stirring strains of martial 
 music ; but he who knows it well knows it 
 to be four years of rigorous preparation for 
 a profession that is full of demands upon 
 every energy of manhood. In years of 
 association with the dear old Point — as 
 boy visitor, as student youth, as graduate 
 and instructor — the writer can recall hun- 
 dreds of cases where the cadet bemoaned 
 the fates that sent him into a life so full 
 of monotonous routine and rigid disci- 
 pline, and yet not one instance of a dis- 
 charged cadet who did not sincerely re- 
 gret his failure and banishment. 
 
 To succeed at West Point a young man 
 must have good natural ability, and more 
 than the average capacity for application. 
 To be happy there, he must be heart, soul, 
 and enthusiastically a soldier. Without 
 a fervent love for the i^rofession he adopts, 
 thei'e must come days and weeks when he 
 will groan in weariness of spirit — so de- 
 pressing does the wintry monotony be- 
 come. 
 
 A glimpse at the brighter side is best to 
 be had during the annual encampment, 
 ■when from mid-June until the end of Au- 
 gust the Corps of Cadets deserts the gray 
 stone barracks, and pitches its white tents 
 among the trees along the eastern edge of 
 the broad plateau. 
 
 Three classes — Seniors, Sophomores, 
 
 and Freshmen they would be termed in 
 college — First, Third, and Fourth they are 
 called at the Point — are here assembled 
 for ten weeks of practical instruction in all 
 manner of matters military. The Junior, 
 or Second Class, after two years of unre- 
 mitting duty, is away on the one almost 
 delirious break in the four years' course 
 — that one brief visit to home and fireside 
 that is vouchsafed during the third sum- 
 mer of cadet life — the only visit so long as. 
 the cadet shall wear the gray. 
 
 In camp, as in barracks, the corps is or- 
 ganized as a battalion of four companies, 
 with the full complement of officers and 
 non-commissioned officers selected from 
 their own ranks. It is a proud thing tO' 
 be head of the class, and prospective pos- 
 sessor of a commission in the engineers, 
 but even this dignity pales in cadet eyes 
 in presence of those luminaries of the First 
 Class— the adjutant and "first captain." 
 Having served one year as a private in the 
 Fourth Class, the cadet becomes eligible for 
 appointment to the grade of corpoi'al, and 
 some twenty out of a hundred young sol- 
 diers are decorated with the coveted chev- 
 rons of gold-lace. Another year, and the 
 same number become sergeants, the most 
 soldierly and reliable among them being 
 chosen by the Commandant of Cadets to 
 be the first sergeants of the four companies 
 and sergeant-major of the battalion — po- 
 sitions which require " grit" and determi- 
 nation quite as much as they do ability, 
 for the "orderly sergeant," as he was 
 called for a century, and still is called by 
 veterans of the wai's of Mexico and th& 
 rebellion, is the very soul of the com- 
 pany. One year moi^e, and the Second 
 Class men become First Class, and the 
 most "military" and meritorious of their 
 number step into the proudest offices of the 
 whole course : the young soldiers who wear 
 the plumes and chevrons of the adjutant 
 and captains are probably envied as they 
 will not again be for years. He may not 
 realize it at the time, but a " First Class. 
 officer" raiiks far higher in the little world 
 at West Point than the same youth grad- 
 uated and promoted (?) to the grade of" 
 junior subaltern at a frontier post. 
 
 A day in camp is best observed late in 
 Auw'ust. By this time all the corps are- 
 well shaken down into their j)Ositions. 
 Tlie new cadets, or " plebes," are all thor- 
 oughly uniformed, drilled, and in theiz* 
 places in the battalion, and everything is. 
 moving with the clock-like regularity that 
 
CADET LIFE AT WEST POINT. 
 
 199 
 
 IS so characteristic of the academy. With 
 the "fui'lough class" away, there are per- 
 haps two hvxndred and twenty young sol- 
 diers tenting there close under the grass- 
 grown parapets of old Fort Clinton, and 
 their surroundings would inspire a heart 
 of stone. The broad glistening Hudson, 
 bursting its way through the gorge of 
 the Appalachians from the north, comes 
 sweeping down that magnificent "reach" 
 from Newburgh, and under the rocky 
 flanks of Breakneck, Bull Hill, and old 
 Cro' Nest, swirls around the jagged point 
 of Constitution Island, and tlien is shoul- 
 dered completely out of its coui'se by 
 the bold, jutting promontory that springs 
 out from the mountain and stems the 
 sweeping tide. The river beats in vain 
 upon its adamant, and, flung aside, turns 
 abruptly eastward, feels its way around 
 the stubborn blufi', and thence flows once 
 more southward, " unvexed to the sea." 
 
 North and east the Point is hemmed in 
 by the mighty river, west and south by 
 the rock-ribbed Highlands. The plateau, 
 little by little, has been levelled and 
 graded, until to-day it is a broad, beauti- 
 ful, grass-grown plain, bounded on the 
 west by the cozy homes of the officers and 
 professors, on the south by the stately 
 barracks, the grim, old-fashioned "Aca- 
 demic," the Grecian chapel, and the 
 domed turrets of the Library. Skirting the 
 precipitous river-banks, a broad, graded 
 road encloses the plateau on the north and 
 east, and others, as level and carefully 
 kept, border it on west and south, and 
 nearly bisect it along the meridian. Cov- 
 ered with well-cropped tui-f, the western 
 half of " the plain" is devoted to infantry 
 drills; the batteries and the crunching 
 hoofs of the horses are limited to the 
 gravel of the eastern half. All around 
 are the rocky heights, trimmed with pine 
 and fir and cedar, with here and there a 
 peep at the stony parapet of some old re- 
 doubt or battery thrown up in the days of 
 the Revolution. The square-built hostel- 
 ry, once and for years known as Roe's, 
 stands perched at the northeast limit of 
 the plain. Statues in bronze or marble 
 gleam here and there amid the foliage, 
 and tell of deeds of heroism and devotion 
 on the part of the sons of the old academy. 
 The tall white staff glistens against the 
 dark background of the Highlands, and 
 throws to the breeze, high over all, the 
 brilliant colors of the Stars and Stripes; 
 and on the easternmost verg of the broad 
 
 plateau lies the camp ground, the sum- 
 mer home of the Corps of Cadets. 
 
 Laid out in mathematical regularity, 
 with well-gravelled pathways, sentry posts, 
 and ' ' color line," and shaded by beautiful 
 trees, the encampment, like everything 
 else at West Point, is so exquisitely trim 
 and neat as to have little resemblance to 
 the "tented field" as seen in actual service 
 on the frontier. The white tents gleam 
 in accurate ranks that look as though they 
 were pitched by aid of the "straight-edge" 
 rule. Farthest to the west ax'e the guard 
 and visitors' tents ; then comes an open 
 space between them and the color line, 
 along which the arms are stacked every 
 bright day. It is in this space that the 
 camp ceremonies — guard mounting, dress 
 parade, and the weekly inspections — take 
 place. Immediately behind the color line 
 are the tents of the four companies, two 
 inward-faciiig rows to each, with a broad 
 alley, known as the "general parade," sep- 
 arating the right and left wings. The 
 company sti'eets run east and west perpen- 
 dicularly to the color line, and the tents 
 of the cadet officers are pitched looking 
 west along the streets of their respective 
 companies. Behind the rows of company 
 officers' tents, and opposite the right and 
 left of camp, are the larger domiciles of 
 those cadet magnates the adjutant and 
 quartermaster. Back still fartlier are the 
 double tents of the four ai*my officers who 
 are the immediate commanders and in- 
 structors of the four companies; and be- 
 hind them all, at the rear of camp, is the 
 big "marquee" of the Commandant of 
 Cadets. Dotted about the rear of camp 
 are the little tents occupied by the drum 
 boy " orderlies," the boot-blacks, varnish- 
 ers, etc. ; and ai'ound them all, day and 
 night, paces the chain of senti'ies, which, 
 posted in mid-June, is never removed un- 
 til the simultaneous fall of every tent on 
 the 28th of August. 
 
 One day is the counterpart of another 
 as the end of camp draws nigh, and the 
 visitor who would take a peep at the in- 
 ner phases of cadet life must have a 
 "friend at court," and be an early riser. 
 Let us suppose that in your desire to have 
 a nearer view of those slender striplings 
 you have invoked the aid of some one of 
 the ofiicei'S on duty at the Point. He tells 
 you to be prepared to "make a day of it," 
 warns you to be called at 5 A.M., and is 
 waiting for you on the hotel piazza when 
 you appear. Muffled in your overcoats, 
 
200 
 
 HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 for these late August mornings are sharp- 
 ly cold, you walk briskly down the graded 
 path leading to camp. A faint, drowsy 
 gleam as of a lantern is visible at the 
 guard tents, and the gas jets along the 
 sentry posts have the sickly glare that 
 early morning gives to all. Camp lies 
 still as a grave, dim and ghostly, but all 
 the eastern sky is lighting up with the 
 radiance of coming morn, and the hoary 
 battlements of "Old Fort Put," and the 
 crags of Cro' Nest overhanging the sleep- 
 ing Point, are alternately wi*eathed with 
 wisps of cloud and roseate in reflection 
 from the orient. Not a sound is heard 
 as you near the sentry lines, but you 
 may never hope to slip in unobserved. 
 Keeping beyond hail of the guard tents, 
 your conductor purposely leads you down 
 by Fort Clinton's dark parapet, and you 
 are close to the ghostly white village, 
 when there is sudden gleam and rattle 
 among the trees, a flash of steel, as a ca- 
 det rifle comes down to "charge bayonet," 
 a stern young voice challenges, "Who 
 comes there ?" and before you stands a 
 vigilant sentry, the dew dripping from 
 the visor of his forage cap, the collar of 
 his overcoat well muffled about his ears. 
 "Friends with the countersign," is your 
 conductor s prompt reply. ' ' Halt, friends ! 
 advance one with the countersign," orders 
 the sentinel, and at the uncompromising 
 mandate, while you "stand fast," your 
 friend steps up to that levelled bayonet, 
 and over its threatening point whispers 
 some cabalistic word that in the twink- 
 ling of an eye changes the whole atti- 
 tude of the guard from one of fiei'ce suspi- 
 cion to respectful attention. "Advance, 
 friends," he says, as his heels come togeth- 
 er and his rifle to the "carry" with si- 
 multaneous click ; and there he stands like 
 a gray and white statue as you cross his 
 guarded land, and penetrate without fur- 
 ther hinderance the forbidden limits. 
 
 Sound sleepers are the boys, thanks to 
 all their vigorous exercise, undoubted ex- 
 cellence of digestion, and presumable 
 clearness of conscience. In ten minutes, 
 by the inexoi*able rules of West Point, 
 every mothex"'s son in that camp must be 
 up and doing, but among the tents not a 
 soul as yet is stirring. In the gathering 
 light you can see the sentries at the south 
 and east slowly pacing their posts, and 
 mark that the main guard is astir. A 
 squad of little drummer boys is hastening 
 across the plain toward camp; a corporal 
 
 marches two silent youths in gray to the 
 dew-dripping field-piece that stands at the 
 northeast angle; the tips of the tents are 
 gaining a rosy tint; the skies across the 
 HudsoTi are gorgeous in their coloring; 
 the mist is creeping from the stream that 
 goes swirling down tlie silent reach; you 
 hear a dull thud or two as the gunners 
 ram home their cartridge, and the low- 
 toned chatter of the drum boys as they 
 brace their batter heads and look ex- 
 pectantly at the gilded hands of the big 
 clock in the " Academic" tower across the 
 plain. Suddenly there comes the mel- 
 low stroke of the bell, and with it a belch- 
 ing cloud of smoke and flame from the 
 black muzzle of the gun, a thundering 
 roar, and at the same instant the shrill 
 music of the fifes and resonant rattle of 
 the drums as they break into the stirring 
 rolls of the reveille. It is enough to rouse 
 the Seven Sleepers. 
 
 One after another tent flaps are raised, 
 and still drowsy heads peer forth, and 
 then by dozens, erect, slender, buttoned to 
 the throat in their snug-fitting "coatees," 
 and looking all legs in their trim white 
 trousers, the young fellows swarm upon 
 the company streets; but as yet all are 
 " plebes" — the oldsters are in no such hur- 
 ry to leave their warm blankets, and have 
 learned the value of every military min- 
 ute. The drums are playing their thun- 
 dering march around camp; dozens of 
 time-saving plebes, bucket-laden, ai"e scur- 
 rying off in the direction of the water 
 tanks, and come back ready for their 
 al fresco ablutions. If there be any who, 
 like Fitz-James and Roderick, 
 
 " mutter their soldier matins by," 
 
 we see nothing of it. Once more the 
 drums have resumed the roll of the re- 
 veille, then suddenly cease. There comes 
 a brief interval of silence, during which 
 the company streets fill up with forms in 
 gray and white. Then, sharp, quick, im- 
 perative, the " assembly, "or " second call," 
 is rattled on the drums. ' ' Fall in !" order 
 the sergeants, and like a flash eacli com- 
 pany springs into two long columns of 
 files; for there is not an instant to lose. 
 Every man must be in his place at the last 
 tap of the inexorable drum — not twenty 
 seconds from tlie first — and there it is. 
 "Left face," ordei^s each first sergeant at 
 the instant, while his classmate and sen- 
 ior file-closer, the second sergeant, even 
 as he answers to his own name, makes 
 
CADET LIFE AT WEST POINT. 
 
 201 
 
 ^^ /r%^.^^^: st^A^ 
 
 
 '^!<^^^^^^^^'^'^!^b^'^^^^^ 0516 ' 'differential of a second" too late to get 
 
 Jil M 1^ ' iVli-'^'''' "i^" ^f^- '^ ' "il there before the final tap, 
 
 ii^^fw''fci^a'^'Qf^\'CPCfPri'/^o'^,?^ and though they may be 
 
 mental note of the two or three luckless 
 ■wights who come tearing into ranks just 
 
 his own classmates and in- 
 
 timate friends, those >: 
 fellows will figure in 
 the day's delinquency 
 books as "late at re- 
 veilley Roll-call at 
 West Point is a rev- 
 elation to the unini- 
 tiated. Tlie first ser- 
 geant rattles off his 
 
 list of sergeants, corporals, and then, in alpha- 
 betical order, the privates, never hesitating a 
 second. He uses no list, no book, no card. 
 Those seventy or eighty names are graven in 
 his memory, and even as he calls each name he 
 knows the voice that should answer "Hei*e," 
 and his vigilant eye notes the sponsor. It is 
 all over in half a minute. While the ranks at 
 his single word scatter like sheep, he makes his 
 brief soldierly report to the grave young captain, 
 who stands near the flank, and the first duty of 
 the day is over. The captains report to the 
 
 adjutant or the officer of the day, as may be the custom at the time. Absentees, if 
 any, are promptly hunted up. Off come the gray coats as bedding is piled, tent 
 floors are swept, and tent walls raised for ventilation, and in another half-hour the 
 drums are merrily rattling away on the old army tune "Pease upon a Trencher" — 
 
 *-ifIlh^ 
 
 MARCHING TO THK MESS-HALL. 
 
202 
 
 HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 the soldier signal for breakfast. Again 
 the ranks are formed, rolls are called, the 
 sergeants march their companies to the 
 color line, the officers take their stations, 
 the ringing voice of the "first captain" 
 — the senior cadet officer — ordei'S atten- 
 tion, swings the battalion into column 
 of platoons to the left, then " Forward — 
 guide right — march !" and to the stirring, 
 old-fashioned music of the fifes and drums 
 awaj^they go across the broad level of the 
 cavalry plain until they reach the main 
 road; down the shaded lane between the 
 chapel and the massive fagade of the ugly 
 old "Academic"; down past the beautiful 
 pile of the new " Head-quarters" and the 
 grassy terrace beyond, and then each pla- 
 toon wheels in succession to the right, 
 springily mounts the broad stone steps, 
 and is swallowed up in the massive jiortals 
 of the Mess-hall. 
 
 Just so for years, with the same buoyant, 
 elastic tread, in the same solid ranks, have 
 the nation's pupils marched to their daily 
 bread. Faces that grew bronzed and 
 bearded and lined with thought and care 
 were bright and smooth-shaven and full of 
 pluck and hope under the little blue forage 
 caps, and forms that grew massive and 
 stalwart, or feeble and shattered with hon- 
 orable wounds, were all once clad in the 
 tight-fitting uniform "coatee." Grant, 
 silent, patient, and invincible; Sherman, 
 brilliant, nervous, and quick; Sheridan, 
 fiery, meteoric, burning with fight and en- 
 ergy; Lee, skilful and chivalric ; Jackson, 
 daring to the verge of recklessness, prayer- 
 ful to the verge of fanaticism ; Hancock, 
 knightly and superb on eveiy field; 
 Thomas, leonine, steadfast, and indomita- 
 ble; Meade, loyal, dutiful, and resolute; 
 McPherson, Sedgwick, and Reynolds,mag- 
 nificent even in death; Stuart, cavalier 
 trooper and bold rider; Longstreet, grim 
 war-dog of the Confederacy ; Sidney John- 
 ston and Charles F. Smith, twin types of 
 soldierly grace and grandeur; dark-eyed, 
 dapper Beauregard ; saturnine Halleck ; 
 priestly Polk ; scienti fie and staff -schooled 
 McClellan; "Joe" Johnston, Sherman's 
 last armed antagonist; Hood and Hardee, 
 Hill, Ewell, Ramseur, Rosser, Armistead, 
 Garnett, Kemper, Pickett, Sumner, Frank- 
 lin, Porter, Heintzelman, Burnside, Hook- 
 er, Buford, Bayard, Howard, Rosecrans, 
 Schofield, Stanley, Warren, Gibbon, Ord, 
 Hunt, Getty, Humphreys — aliost of names 
 famous in the annals of the great war and 
 distinguished in the history of the na- 
 
 tion — all in their time, to the same old 
 tunes of the fife and drum, marched at 
 the command of the cadet first captain, 
 thrice each day, to take their soldier ra- 
 tions at the Mess-hall. 
 
 True, the Mess-hall itself is a far hand- 
 somer building, as to exterior and inte- 
 rior, than the original affair to which 
 our greatest soldiei'S were marched, and 
 even in the last ten years great changes 
 have been made in the domestic econo- 
 mies of the cadet. Time was when both 
 table fare and service were far inferior to 
 what they ai'e to-day, and far shabbier 
 than they should have been at the time; 
 but now the Mess-hall challenges inspec- 
 tion. Vigilant officers have taken it in 
 hand and made it a model. Few institu- 
 tions can show a better refectory; none 
 can exhibit better appetites. 
 
 Cheerful conversation promotes good 
 digestion, say the doctors, and the clatter 
 of tongues as the boys settle to their work 
 exceeds the racket of knife and fork on 
 the responsive crockery. There is a Babel 
 of voices, an odd intermingling of dia- 
 lects ; for every section of our broad Union 
 is there repi-esented, and no cliques are 
 encouraged. South Carolina hobnobs 
 with her old enemy Massachusetts; Creole 
 blood from Louisiana is warmed by cof- 
 fee from the same urn that starts the 
 sluggish veins of the Pennsylvania Dutch- 
 man ; soft- voiced sons of Georgia and Ken- 
 tucky elide their "r's" and swap merry 
 badinage with a fellow whose backwoods 
 whang proclaims the "Pike" from Mis- 
 souri; a swarthy Calif ornian rips out 
 some half-Spanish, half-savage expletive 
 in excited controversy with his New Eng- 
 land vis-a-vis, whose wildest flight in the 
 possibilities of blasphemy is "Gosh all 
 hemlock !" and a youth whose clear blue 
 eyes and the blondest hair and skin im- 
 aginable 131'oclaim him a Norseman who 
 hails from a Scandinavian district in 
 Minnesota happens along at the instant, 
 with the red sash of the "officer of the 
 day" over his shoulder, and the gentle- 
 man from the Golden Gate puts a bridle 
 on his tongue forthwith. The officer of 
 the day is "on honor" to note in his re- 
 port every violation of academic regula- 
 tions, and profanity is one of them. 
 Wei'e the Californian his bosom friend, 
 and dismissal the penalty of his ofi'ence, 
 there could be no middle course. The 
 word of honor of the cadet is the 7ie phis 
 ultra of West Point ethics; there is no 
 
CADET LIFE AT WEST POINT. 
 
 203 
 
 
 
 r-» 
 
 piii — 
 
 
 datory incursion upon the orchards or 
 vineyards below the Point ; but even to 
 save himself or his best friend from jDun- 
 ishment he draws the line at one thing — 
 he won't lie. When a cadet says he has 
 or has not done this or that, you can en- 
 dorse the statement. 
 
 And so, when the cadet lieutenant from 
 Minnesota reports his classmate from Cal- 
 ifornia for " using profane language," the 
 latter never thinks of questioning the re- 
 port or of reproaching the reporter. 
 It is a matter of duty and honor, and 
 that is the end of it. California not 
 only gets a formidable figure on the 
 demerit books, but for many a weary 
 Saturday afternoon he will have to 
 confine himself to his room, or else 
 "walk extra," equipped 
 as a sentinel, up and 
 down the area of bar- 
 racks. 
 
 But breakfast is over, 
 
 ;?.7'. Zf?^, 
 
 WALKING AN EXTRA 
 
 going behind or beyond it. It is the 
 first lesson taught the youngster on '' 
 joining. It is preached in wordless 
 sermons every day and hour of his 
 four years' course. It is the last thing 
 of his education he is apt to forget. 
 Like other boys, he has his fun, his 
 faults, his vices, and his "scrapes." 
 He may violate every one of the few 
 hundred regulations that have been 
 evolved from year to year; he may "cut" 
 church, "run it" to the Falls or other un- 
 hallowed resort ; he may even make a pre- 
 
 - time is up; the first 
 captain makes quick 
 but searching in- 
 spection of each ta- 
 ble to see that there 
 has been no wast- 
 age ; the army ' ' offi- 
 cer in charge," who 
 is required to break- 
 fast, dine, and sup 
 on the identical fare 
 which is laid before the cadets, comes forth 
 from the steward's room and goes on to in- 
 spect the kitchen. Each company in suc- 
 cession receives the order to rise, and out 
 
204 
 
 HARPEE'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 
 ^ ' (i| , 
 
 — s 
 
 f 
 
 OFFICER OF THE DAY, 
 
 into the air and sunshine, leaping down 
 the steps, go the youngsters; quickly they 
 spring into ranks, and suddenly every 
 voice but one is stilled— the omnipotent 
 first captain again — and by liis command 
 the platoons wheel northward, and once 
 more to lively music the battalion march- 
 es briskly away. The sentry on No. 6 sa- 
 lutes as they cross his post; one instant 
 they stand motionless after wheeling into 
 line, and then, at the command, "Bi'eak 
 ranks — march !" scatter like a great covey 
 of quail all over camp. 
 
 Next comes morning drill, the most un- 
 
 popular, because the most 
 monotonous. For nearly 
 an hour the battalion is 
 exercised in the manual of 
 arms, and though this drill 
 is one which is taken up 
 "by battalion" only a fort- 
 night or so each year, it is 
 of trifling interest to spec- 
 tators, and a purely per- 
 functory matter with the 
 corps. Years ago, when 
 the veteran Scott was chief 
 of our little army, and its 
 manoeuvres were of the 
 ponderous Prussian school, 
 the "manual," under such 
 commandants as Major 
 Worth and Charles F. 
 Smith, was a miracle of 
 precision and beauty, and 
 the old-fashioned smooth- 
 bore cadet muskets, with 
 shining bands and barrels, 
 were brought to the "pre- 
 sent," "charge," or "or- 
 der" with a simultaneous 
 crash that could be heard 
 across the Hudson, and ev- 
 ery motion of hand or fin- 
 ger was clock-work. But 
 with the adoption of the 
 light-infantry tactics here 
 came a change that few 
 failed to see. Possibly 
 more of the spirit of the 
 tactics of Hardee and Up- 
 ton has been adopted by 
 the corps than those emi- 
 nent authors ever intend- 
 \: ed ; certain it is that when 
 
 unhindered the battalion 
 of cadets will slap through 
 the manual of ai'ms with 
 an easy grace that is pe- 
 culiar to itself, and with small attention, 
 after the initiatory "squad drills," to the 
 finer points of tlie tactics. The genei'al 
 effect is attractive and business-like, it 
 is all so deft and quick, but the old pre- 
 cision of movement can no longer be 
 claimed for it. The "manual" is a mat- 
 ter to which our crack regiments in the 
 National Guard give great prominence 
 and careful teaching; with the Corps of 
 Cadets it is of minor importance, and only 
 when some new Commandant happens in, 
 or a " tactical officer" who is a stickler for 
 points, is there any attempt to hammer 
 
206 
 
 HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 the battalion into mechanical accuracy 
 again. There is a brief reaction, some 
 sharp di'illing "by the numbers" for a 
 week or two ; then the matter is gradually 
 forgotten in the press of something more 
 important, and the corps easily slips back 
 into its own jaunty, nonchalant style, 
 and keen-eyed citizen-soldiers who have 
 run up from the armories of the Seventh 
 or Twenty -second, in New York, note 
 how this motion or the other is slighted, 
 and wonder what it means. It simply 
 means that at the Point and in the regular 
 service the old Prussian precision is a 
 thing of the past; officers, cadets, and sol- 
 diers have a dozen things of far greater 
 importance to think of and attend to; ce- 
 lerity is the word; and yet — were it hint- 
 ed to the battalion that the "manual" was 
 to be overhauled this particular day on 
 parade, the whole command would "brace 
 up" and execute the entire programme 
 in a way that would confound the critics. 
 
 Morning drill over, there is another 
 scattering to tents. Busy " police" details 
 from the lower classes put the company 
 streets in perfect oi'der; not a feather, a 
 match, a wisp of straw, or scrap of paper 
 is to be seen. All around and between 
 the tents the details work, supervised by 
 the vigilant eyes of some corporal, who 
 well knows that should anything be amiss 
 at inspection, no one but himself will be 
 held responsible. Nominally the Third 
 and Fourth classes are both represented on 
 each "police detail," but if the bulk of 
 the work be not done to this day by the 
 "plebes," the system is radically changed 
 from that of twenty-five years ago, when 
 they did all of it. 
 
 Busy preparation is going on in each of 
 the tents. Three, sometimes four, cadets 
 are the occupants of each, and one of the 
 inmates is "orderly." His business it is 
 to see that the wooden tent floor is care- 
 fully swept, the blankets, pillows, and 
 "comforters" accurately and squarely 
 piled in the easternmost corner of the 
 floor and farthest from the company 
 street; spare shoes neatly polished and 
 aligned at the bade of the floor; all can- 
 dles, candlesticks, cleaning materials, and 
 miscellaneous items stowed away in the 
 tin candle box which stands at the foot of 
 the rear tent pole just behind the butts of 
 the polished rifles; all belts, sabres, bay- 
 onet scabbards, and otlier equipments 
 dusted, and hanging from their pegs on 
 the rear tent pole ; the jaunty dress hats 
 
 perched on their appropriate shelf; all 
 woollen clothing, overcoats, coatees, rid- 
 ing jackets, etc., neatly swung on a rack 
 beneath the ridge-pole; all other clothing, 
 including white trousers, belts, gloves, col- 
 lars, and the like, stowed in the "locker" — 
 a West Point expression for a long wood- 
 en box, about the size and shape of a cof- 
 fin case, painted a dull green, and utterly 
 innocent of lock or key. It is divided 
 into four compartments, each a hollow 
 cube of about eighteen inches cross sec- 
 tion, each with separate lid, inside which 
 are tacked some straps for brushes, shav- 
 ing implements, etc. ; and this locker is 
 the sole stowaway the cadet can have for 
 his summer belongings. Such books as 
 ai'e needed or permitted in camp must be 
 neatly piled at the rear end of the locker, 
 and behind it is stowed the broom. The 
 white stone-ware washbowl rests, bottom 
 outward, against the floor near the front 
 end of the locker ; the water bucket stands 
 close beside it; a little wooden-framed 
 miri'or is perched on the front tent pole; 
 and every item must be of the prescribed 
 pattern, and purchased at the cadet com- 
 missary store, even to the soap that is 
 placed behind the washbowl. Hypercrit- 
 ical visitors have been known to inquire 
 if each piece of soap must be worn to uni- 
 form thickness,but the sarcasm has fallen 
 harmless upon the armor of West Point 
 authority. Every article has its prescribed 
 I)lace, and must be nowhere else, or the 
 young gentleman whose name stands toj)- 
 most on the little "orderly board" that 
 decks the front tent pole will hear of it 
 through the delinquency book within the 
 next twenty-four hours. It would take 
 the uninitiated visitor half a day to put 
 one of these tents in proper order for in- 
 spection, but the expert "yearling" will 
 do it in three minutes, and as the first 
 drum taps for morning parade he issues 
 from his domicile, buttoned to the throat 
 in faultlessly fitting uniform, his collar, 
 belts, gloves, cuffs, and trousei's of glis- 
 tening white, his shoes, belt plates, and 
 brasses gleaming with polish, and his rifle 
 in perfect order: a cambric handkerchief 
 could not flick a particle of dust from his 
 attire. 
 
 The company grounds are picturesque 
 sights at this hour. Up by the guard 
 tents numbers of gayly dressed spectators 
 are sauntering in to take their accustom- 
 ed seats in the grove at the west end. The 
 band, headed by its stately drum-major, 
 
CADET LIFE AT WEST POINT. 
 
 207 
 
 comes marching across the plain from its barracks below the hill. A group of offi- 
 cers approaches from the distant "mess," and the sentry on No. 1 rattles his piece to 
 "arms port," and the heights re-echo to his stentorian shout, "Turn out the guard — 
 Commandant of Cadets !" or his similar announcement of the approach of some equally 
 exalted functionary; the members of the guard scramble for the arm racks, seize their 
 rifles, form ranks, and pi'esent ai'ms with a unanimity and precision that would de- 
 light any man not accustomed to such displays of adulation. Down in camp, the 
 company streets are alive with cadets in full dress awaiting the "fall in" signal of the 
 second drum, and along the row of company officers' tents a dozen young satraps are 
 winding themselves into their sashes as none but cadets ever think of doing, and only 
 cadets succeed in obtaining so excellent a final effect. As 
 an item of uniform, the sash, which used to be worn by all 
 officers, is now restricted to the two 
 grades which are best worth havmg — 
 
 general and cadet; 
 the intermediate 
 are hardly worth 
 mention in com- 
 parison with either — and no 
 general in the army or out of 
 it can beat a cadet lieutenant 
 in the art of putting on a sash. The latter 
 ties one end around the tent pole, steps off 
 to us full length of seven or eight feet, then 
 slowly winds liimself into it until twice or 
 thrice it has encircled his slender waist in a 
 fiat crimson girdle; then knots it in graceful loop behind 
 the left hip, and the effect is complete. 
 
 Suddenly the drum again taps sharply. The gray and 
 white flocks in each company street resolve themselves 
 into two long parallel files, elbow to elbow, that face sud- 
 denly outward from tlie centre of the camp at the last tap; 
 the glistening rifles spring up to "support arms," and each 
 first sergeant calls off his roll as though the last thing he 
 were thinking of was the answering "here"; one after 
 another the white-gloved hands snap the pieces down to the "carry" and "order" as 
 each man answers to his name ; the sergeant faces his captain with soldierly salute 
 and takes his post; the captain whips out his shining sword; the lieutenants step to 
 their posts— and then begins the sliarp inspection. Man after man is passed under 
 the scrutinizing eye of the young officer. A speck of rust about the rifle, a dingy 
 belt plate, a soiled or rumpled collar, a tear in the glove, a spot on the trousers, 
 dust on the shoes, a single button missing or unfastened, any one of these or 
 similar solecisms, be it on part of First Class man or plebe, tent-mate or stranger, 
 friend or foe, will probably be noted on the company delinquency book that day^ 
 and published by the adjutant to the whole battalion the next evening. The captain. 
 
 PLEBE DRILL. 
 
208 
 
 HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 is a man of few words; to the upper-class 
 man a mere look tells what is amiss; to 
 the plebe he frequently adds a brief ad- 
 monition or re^jroof . Poor young- bears ! 
 they have a host of troubles to encoun- 
 ter, and a thousand things to learn in less 
 than a month. To see them, even when 
 not in ranks or on duty, walking about 
 camp, during their first summer at the 
 Point, with their little fingers pressed to 
 the seams of their trousers, and the palms 
 of their hands flat to the front, so that the 
 shoulders have to be square, and their 
 backs flat as an ironing-board, one only 
 wonders that even old age can ever bend 
 or bow them. 
 
 Inspection over, there is a moment's 
 breathing spell. Then the adjutant, with 
 his sergeant-major and markers, appears 
 at the head of the general parade, raises 
 his hand in signal to the band, the drum- 
 major whirls his baton, drums and fifes 
 strike up the lively notes of "adjutant's 
 call," the full band crashes into the mar- 
 tial melody of a spirited quickstep, and 
 the four companies come striding forth. 
 There is no moment's delay, but with the 
 ease and grace of long j)i'actice the adju- 
 tant forms the line, the captains march 
 their perfectly drilled commands to their 
 appointed places, guides spring out to the 
 front, ranks are dressed to the centre, the 
 band abruptly ceases, and the ringing 
 voice of the adjutant orders, "Guides 
 posts !" Each in turn, the four companies 
 are brought to the "carry," "order," and 
 " parade rest," the drum-major whirls his 
 baton again, there is a flourish of trumpets 
 and drums, and then band and field music 
 come "trooping" down in front of that 
 statuesque line of gray and white. It is 
 a sight well worth seeing any bright sum- 
 mer moi'ning, and there are hosts of look- 
 ers on — mothers, sisters, and sweethearts 
 by the dozen, each one of whom has in 
 those motionless ranks some especial ca- 
 det who is the central object of her 
 thoughts, however general may be the 
 flow of conversation. Back to its post 
 goes the band, after a bewildering counter- 
 march, near the sentry on No. 6; there 
 is another flourish, another abrupt stop 
 to the music, and in its i)lace there rings 
 upon the morning air the clear young 
 voice of the adjutant as he calls the 
 line to attention, opens the ranks, then 
 comes gleaming down to the centre, turns 
 sharply to the right in front of the colors, 
 and with quick, springy steps the most 
 
 envied youth at the Point stalks out to 
 the front, halts midway to the command- 
 ing officer, faces about, and at his next 
 word arms clash to the " i^resent." Once 
 more he faces the dark blue figure stand- 
 ing solitaiy at the front, lowers his sword 
 in graceful salute, and reports: "Sir, the 
 parade is forixied." The ofiicer in com- 
 mand may be a hero of a dozen battles and 
 "brevets," but to lookers on, cadet and 
 civilian, 'tis safe to say he is an object of 
 small consequence as compared with the 
 graceful stripling who takes his place at 
 his side. Possibly it is the consciousness 
 of this fact that makes his own share in 
 the ceremony so brief and perfunctory. 
 He puts the battalion through a very short 
 exercise in the manual, and then, with an 
 air of evident relief, turns over the control 
 of affairs to the adjutant once more. The 
 first sergeants and the plume-crested co- 
 lossus of a drum-major make their precise 
 reports ; then with simultaneous clash the 
 officers return swords, and face toward 
 the centre; the adjutant and his fellow- 
 magnates close in front of the colors, face 
 the commanding officer in a long line of 
 black plumes and red sashes. ' ' Forward, 
 guide centre!" is the adjutant's next com- 
 mand, and at the word "march" the band 
 again strikes up, and with perfect align- 
 ment a full score of young captains and 
 subalterns march jauntily to the front, 
 halt short at six yards from the lonely- 
 looking party in sombre blue, together the 
 white-gloved hands are raised in soldierly 
 salute, together they drop, and the stat- 
 uesque line becomes a scattering flock as 
 the plumes and sashes scurry back to the 
 tents, whither the companies march at the 
 same instant. It often happens in camp 
 that morning inspection follows instead 
 of precedes dress pai'ade as time is short. 
 In this case the captains jiut their men 
 through the ordeal while a detail from 
 each company, conducted by the first ser- 
 geant, is proceeding to another, guard- 
 mounting, the prettiest ceremony of the 
 day. 
 
 To all but those "marching on" with 
 the new guard this half-hour is the bright- 
 est between the rising and setting of the 
 sun, for the moment inspection is over all 
 cadets not on duty and who have friends 
 among the lady spectators are mingling 
 with them back of the guard tents, and 
 fun and flirtation begin forthwith. It is 
 a short half-hour, for all too soon the 
 warning drum is thundering again, and 
 
210 
 
 HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 leave-takings are of the briefest descrip- 
 tion. Shai'p at the stroke of nine the 
 classes are again in ranks, and the hour 
 of battery drill has come. The "plebes" 
 march stiffly out to the field guns south 
 of camp; the yearlings, wheeling into 
 column of sections, swing jauntily off un- 
 der their detail of First Class officers to 
 where the battery horses have already 
 been hitched to the limbers and caissons 
 out on the cavalry plain, and that poi'tion 
 of the senior class not required as chiefs of 
 platoon or section at the field batteries is 
 already springing down the winding path 
 to the "sea-coast" battery at the water's 
 edge, and presently you will hear a thun- 
 der of great guns that will stun all Orange 
 County — or would, but for the barriers of 
 the massive liills that shut us in on every 
 side. 
 
 The liveliest spectacle, however, is here 
 on the plain, for of all the drills and ex- 
 ercises in which the cadet excels he is at 
 his best in those of the mounted service. 
 Daring horsemen are the youngstei's after 
 two years' j)ractice in the riding hall, and 
 light battery drill is a famous place for 
 exhibition. Watch the boys as they go 
 to their stations. The seniors, in their 
 riding dress, gauntlets, and cavalry sa- 
 bres, swing easily into the saddles of the 
 somewhat vicious-looking steeds that are 
 held in readiness for them, adjust their 
 stirrups, take a preliminary and suri-ep- 
 titious dig with their spurred heels to test 
 the mettle of their nags, then clatter off 
 to their posts to look over the horses and 
 drivers of their detachments. The year- 
 lings in their natty shell jackets stand 
 ready at the guns; the bugle blares the 
 signal "cannoneer's mount," and, like so 
 many agile monkeys, they spring to their 
 seats on the ammunition chests, and with 
 another bugle blast, and rumble of hoof 
 and wheel and clink of trunnion, away 
 goes the battery down the gravelly plain. 
 There are a few preliminary moves to 
 warm them up to their work; the battery 
 commander, a young artillery officer who 
 knows his trade, swings them to and fro, 
 faster and faster, from one formation to 
 other — column, line, and battery — and 
 then, as though ordered to check the ad- 
 vance of an enemy swarming up the 
 heights and give him canister at short 
 range, with cracking whips and plunging 
 steeds and rattle and roar of hoof and 
 wheel, and hoarse - throated commands 
 and stirring bugle peals, up the plain they 
 
 come at tearing gallop until opposite the 
 crowd of spectators at the guard tents, 
 when there is a short, sudden blast, a 
 simultaneous shout from the "chiefs," a 
 vision of rearing horses as the lieutenants 
 and sergeants halt short on line with the 
 brilliant guidon — generally the most pic- 
 turesque horseman of the warlike throng, 
 and always posted on the flank neai-est 
 the ladies — a flash of sabres in the air, a 
 sudden "rein in" of the line of caissons, 
 and gradual settle down to a stand, long- 
 before which, nimble as cats, the cannon- 
 eers have sprung from their seats, and are 
 streaking it across the gap to where the 
 chiefs are seated on their excited chargers. 
 Around sweep the guns with sudden swii'l 
 that wellnigh capsizes them — the three 
 youngsters on each limber seemingly 
 hanging on as though seated on sticking 
 plasters — there is a rattle and bang of 
 pintle-hooks, hoarse shouts of "Drive on" 
 to the gun teams; gray and white forms- 
 leap and sway in and out among the 
 wheels; sponges and rammers whirl in 
 air; there is a belch of flame, smoke, and 
 thunder-cloud, a bellowing roar; another, 
 another — half a dozen in quick succession ;: 
 a thick sulphurous haze settles down on. 
 the plain and envelops guns and gun- 
 nel's; and suddenly comes another blare^ 
 of bugle. " Cease firing" is the shout, and 
 the mimic scene of Buena Vista is over. 
 Even before the smoke has cleared away 
 another order is given, with prompt, ex- 
 citing response; j)lunging horses, crack- 
 ing whips, a rush of teams, limbers, and 
 caissons between the black muzzles of the- 
 guns ; a sudden whii'l about of wheels and 
 handspikes, and the next instant smoke- 
 and flame are belching in thunder-claps, 
 over the very ground whei*e stood the- 
 waiting teams only a moment before. 
 Then comes still another signal, a stowing 
 away of handspikes and rammers, a rapid 
 rein-about of the limber teams, another 
 blare, and away they go, the white legs, 
 of the cannoneers flashing in a race be- 
 side their bounding guns; a rush across- 
 the road to the edge of the grassy level 
 beyond, another sudden whirl into bat- 
 tery, a thundering salute to the rocky 
 heights to the west, an echoing roar from 
 the great columbiads and Parrotts at the 
 "sea-coast" down by the Hudson, and 
 the Point fairly trembles with the shock 
 and concussion. There is no hour of the 
 day to match the excitement and elan of 
 that of battery drill. 
 
CADET LIFE AT WEST POINT. 
 
 211 
 
 Ten o'clock puts an end to it. Back 
 come all the classes to their tents, the 
 yearlings glowing with exhilaration and 
 life, the plebes big with prospective 
 achievements in the same line, the First 
 Class men dignified and deliberate, as 
 becomes their station. Tliere is but short 
 respite. By 10.30 the drum again sum- 
 mons all to ranks, and away they go, 
 in long, white-legged columns, the seniors 
 to pontoon drill down at the bay, 
 the yearlings to the laboratory, where 
 they learn all manner of pyrotechny, 
 the plebes to recitation in tactics, 
 and thence to an hour's drill 
 of a far different kind. West 
 
 ners of a gentleman association with re- 
 fined and cultui'ed women is simply in- 
 dispensable. Hence the now inflexible 
 rule that every cadet must learn to dance, 
 as he does to ride, fence, shoot, spar, and 
 swim, and before he begins his long tus- 
 sle with mathematics and science the em- 
 hrjo soldier is turned over to the daily 
 ministration of a Turveydi-op. 
 
 At one o'clock the whole battalion 
 
 Point aims to make its graduates gen- 
 tlemen as well as soldiers, and gentlemen 
 must mingle in society to gain there the 
 polish and ease which should mark the 
 well-bred man. Good dancers have always 
 been found among the cadets, but for 
 years this was an elective accomplish- 
 ment. Observant officers noted that as a 
 rule only those cadets who danced were 
 apt to seek the society of ladies, and eveiy 
 one knows that in "forming" the man- 
 
 AT DRESS PARADE. 
 
 marches to dinner as to break- 
 fast, except that on days of unu- 
 sual warmth they are clad from 
 head to foot in glistening white 
 — helmets, shell jackets, and 
 trousers all spotless as the driv- 
 en snow. The First and Third 
 classes take their turns with the 
 dancing teacher during the early 
 afternoon. At four o'clock ' ' po- 
 lice call" sounds, and the entire space 
 within the line of sentries is scrupulously 
 "spruced up" by details from the lower 
 classes. The whole battalion forms under 
 arms as the sua goes westering down, and 
 with the long skirmish lines firing in ad- 
 vance or retreat, rallying on the reserves 
 and around the colors, or deploying at the 
 run, volleying at imaginary charges of 
 cavalry, or picking off the distailt leaders 
 of a smoke-shrouded adversary, all to the 
 
CADET LIFE AT WEST POINT. 
 
 213 
 
 ringing accompaniment of skirmish calls 
 ou the key-bugles, the scene is beautiful 
 and inspiring. 
 
 The Point begins toward sundown to 
 fill up with carriages and omnibuses (Gen- 
 eral Scott always insisted on omnibi) 
 from the many summer resorts along the 
 river-bank below, and when the drum taps 
 for evening parade 
 the throng of spec- 
 tators is far greater 
 than at ' ' troop, "and 
 the ceremony is still 
 more stately. The 
 bang of the sunset 
 gun and the flutter 
 to earth of the great 
 garrison flag add 
 vivid interest to 
 nervous souls, and 
 sometimes lead to 
 sudden capsizing of 
 camp - stools with 
 their startled occu- 
 pants, and to a con- 
 sequently percepti- 
 ble seismic effect on 
 the usually stolid 
 line. "Laughing in 
 ranks" is one among 
 the million military 
 misdemeanors for 
 which a cadet can 
 acquire demerit, and 
 a broad grin, be it 
 noiseless as a kit- 
 ten's footfall, is 
 "laughter" in the 
 inexorable military 
 sense. 
 
 And so from sun- 
 rise to sunset, after 
 which comes the 
 march to supper, the 
 day has been one of 
 ceaseless duty and 
 instruction, but so 
 full of life, variety, 
 and spirited move- 
 ment that it is not 
 in camp that the 
 
 cadet finds cause to chafe at the monoto- 
 ny. There have even been blissful morn- 
 ing hours for the two dozen young fel- 
 lows relieved at half past eight from 
 guard duty, and given until dinner roll- 
 call to recuperate. These may roam at 
 will over the heights and ravines to the 
 west, look down from the battlements of 
 
 Vol. LXXV.— No. 446.— 14 
 
 Fort Putnam upon that superb panorama 
 of earth and water, the rock-bound prom- 
 ontory with its tented field, the glistening 
 ribbon of I'iver stretching away northward 
 through the great gorge of the Highlands, 
 the distant spires of Newburgh, the faint, 
 mist-wreathed outlines of the Catskills 
 — oh, what a view to look back upon in af- 
 ter years of isola- 
 tion on the frontier, 
 in lonely scout amid 
 w^astes of desert 
 sage-brush and al- 
 kali ! If the day be 
 warm, the cadet may 
 visit the bath-houses 
 over near Target 
 Hill, and tempt the 
 swift tides of the 
 Hudson under the 
 wary eye of the Ger- 
 man SchiL'imtn-viei- 
 stei\ who is so proud 
 of the experts he 
 makes in general 
 athletics and with 
 fist and foil and 
 broadsword. 
 
 But there ai'e at- 
 tractions which out- 
 rival these, and still 
 more likely, wnth 
 some sweet-faced en- 
 slaver, the cadet may 
 wander through the 
 shades of that ever- 
 beautiful " Chain 
 Battery" walk, that 
 long since resigned 
 its official title in 
 favor of one so infi- 
 nitely more descrip- 
 tive — Flirtation — 
 and there barter his 
 buttons for smiles 
 that may serve to 
 sweeten only the 
 idle chat of a sum- 
 mer's hour, or in- 
 thrall him in a web 
 of silken memories 
 that will bind him close and closer, a will- 
 ing victim in her maiden toils. Every 
 decade our statisticians labor over the 
 question of the shifting centre of popula- 
 tion of tbese United States, but no contro- 
 versy arises as to the actual centre of flirta- 
 tion : all authorities unite on West Point. 
 Evening is our young soldier's gala 
 
 FLIRTATION. 
 
214 
 
 HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 THK GRADUATING HOP. 
 
 time. Three nights a week the grim cor- 
 ridors of the old "Academic" are alive 
 with music, laughter, the swish of silken 
 skirts, and animated movement to and fro 
 of dozens of fair girls in dainty evening 
 dress, and of slender cavaliers in gray and 
 white, often brightened with crimson sash 
 andglitteringchevrons. Even the "hops" 
 are run on military time. Precisely at the 
 appointed hour the fioor-manager signals 
 to his musicians, and the first dance begins. 
 Pi'ecisely at the designated moment, be it 
 in the very midst of dreamy waltz or spir- 
 ited Lancers, the inevitable and inexorable 
 drum crashes through the resounding cor- 
 ridors its imperious summons; the dancers 
 scurry away to the dressing-rooms ; the la- 
 dies ai-e bundled into the waiting 'buses 
 or led away by faithful chaperons; the 
 gray and white cavaliers exchange hur- 
 
 ried yet often most effec 
 
 tive good nights with 
 
 their fair partners; the 
 drums and fifes strike up 
 their shrill tattoo far over in camp ; 
 and away go the future hopes of 
 the nation, scudding to their com- 
 panies to avoid a " late." For the eighth 
 and last time that day the sergeants call 
 their rolls and report to their captains, 
 the captains to the adjutant or officer of 
 the day, while the " officer in charge," an 
 army lieutenant, stands close at hand to 
 see that all is in regular form. Then fol- 
 low ten minutes' chat, subdued scuffle and 
 laughter in the company streets while tlie 
 youngsters are making down their beds 
 for the night (nothing but blankets on the 
 hard tent floors) ; then comes a sudden 
 single tap on the snare-drum at tlie guard 
 tents, sliarp orders of "Put out those 
 lights!" two more similar taps, and before 
 the last has died away the darkness of 
 Erebus has settled down on camp, and all 
 is silent as the grave. 
 
 For a few minutes the cadet officers pa- 
 trol their company streets to insure order, 
 and then the officers of the guard are left 
 in charge. The sentries pace their silent 
 posts, watchful, wary, for tliey know not 
 when, nor how, nor how many disturbers 
 may appear, and the faintest lack of effi- 
 ciency is visited by prompt punishment. 
 " I did not see," or " I did not hear," is an 
 excuse that is never accepted, for sen- 
 tries must be all eyes, ears, wits, and pluck. 
 Even First Class men when on post are 
 
CADET LIFE AT WEST POINT. 
 
 215 
 
 subjected to manifold tests of tbeir know- 
 ledge of sentry duty, but to the plebe the 
 first few nights on guard are of vivid in- 
 terest. Time was when, as a means of 
 making these youthful guardsmen experts 
 in their art, the authorities "winked" at 
 what was known as " deviling plebes on 
 post" — a species of horse-play that had in- 
 finite zest for all the participants except the 
 plebe. Spectres, spooks, goblins damned, 
 ghosts of Andre and Arnold, " great hi- 
 yankidanks," cavalry on broomsticks, 
 
 its tents at the tap of the drum, and march- 
 es with flying colors to the great gray bar- 
 racks. Here the young soldiers are housed 
 for the long academic year, and for ten 
 months of unremitting study. So long as 
 the weather will permit, there is one drill 
 each afternoon but Saturday and Sunday, 
 the weekly inspection of the battalion un- 
 der arms, and the daily guard mount and 
 parade, but now everything is subordinated 
 to the mental training, and a dozen articles 
 the size of this could give but faint de- 
 
 
 M'' / '^ / ■f/^T.fz^^'i-:^ 
 
 SUNDAY MORNING INSPECTION. 
 
 light batteries of wheelbarrows, cow-boys 
 with lassos — each and all must be seen, 
 challenged, halted, until examined by a 
 corporal of the guard, and as all were apt 
 to come at the same instant, and from ev- 
 ery possible dii'ection, the unlucky sen- 
 try was often at his wits' end; often, too, 
 whirled off his post and roped into Fort 
 Clinton ditch. But " deviling plebes," as 
 conducted in the I'ough old days, is one of 
 the lost arts at the Point. 
 
 Barrack life is a far different thing. 
 On the 28th of August the "furlough 
 class" returns to duty, the corps strikes 
 
 scription of the course of study. Let us 
 look rather to the mode of life as now pre- 
 scribed. 
 
 Four stories high are the barracks, with 
 spacious cellars underneath ; dry, well ven- 
 tilated, heated by steam, and lighted by 
 gas. Ten hallways with iron stairs pierce 
 the massive building from front to rear, 
 each hallway being termed a "division" 
 of barracks. Each division has four rooms 
 on a floor, two on each side of the hall, 
 and all rooms except those in the great 
 towers are of the same size, shape, and 
 finish. The end farthest from the win- 
 
210 
 
 HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 dow is partitioned off into two alcoves, with a cross-piece 
 for curtains. Each alcove contains an iron bedstead 
 ag-ainst the wall, and a row of iron hooks against the par 
 tition. Each room is furnished with a stout table, an iron 
 mantel, a double set of open shelves called a "clothes 
 press," a little shelf for helmets and dress hats, a 
 wooden arm rack, and wooden pegs for caps and ac 
 coutrements. Two cadets, as a rule, occupy each 
 room, each having an alcove to himself and the above 
 named sumptuous list of furniture to begin house 
 
 bowls (we used to 
 get along with 
 one), a broom, a 
 candle box (for 
 anything but can- 
 dles, which are "contraband" in bar- 
 racks), and a little wooden-framed 
 mirror. Each stows his white trou- 
 sers, under-clothing, shirts, belts, col- 
 lars, cuffs, gloves, sliaving tools, 
 brushes, and combs on their appropri- 
 ate shelves in his half of the clothes- 
 press; each item in a separate pile of 
 its own kind, neatly folded, folded 
 edge to the front, square and vertical 
 and on line with front edge of shelf. 
 All books except those in actual use 
 are squarely stood up, backs to front, 
 
 EN RECONKAISSANCE. 
 
CADET LIFE AT WEST POINT. 
 
 217 
 
 against the wall on top of clothes-press, is incomplete as to interior detail), dust 
 Each cadet neatly prints his name and his furniture, and prepare for the inspec- 
 
 puts it over his shelves, his accoutrements, 
 his alcove, and in the slips of the " ordei'ly 
 hoard"; each folds his bedding, mattress 
 and all, on the head of his bedstead, and 
 not until tattoo can it he taken down; 
 each hangs his clothing in prescribed or- 
 der on the iron hooks, overcoat on first, 
 uniform coat on second, trousers on third, 
 shell jackets and riding rig further back, 
 and the clothes-bag for soiled linen, etc , 
 last of all ; each ranges his shoes (no boots 
 allowed) in accurate line, toes to front, at 
 foot of bed; each takes week about as 
 "orderly," and must sweep and dust and 
 do up everything in the room outside of 
 his comrade's alcove during: his "orderlv 
 
 tion which must come at the next roll of 
 the drum. Then he has his early break- 
 fast, and time for some study before reci- 
 tations begin at eight. Guard is mount- 
 ed with all formality on tlie infantry 
 plain, in front 
 of the Super- 
 intendent s, in 
 fine A\eather, 
 and on the 
 broad piazzas 
 of the bar- 
 racks \\hen it 
 storms Roll 
 
 " CANDIDATES TURN OUT PROMPTLY !" 
 
 week," and from the first of September un- 
 til the middle of June he can count on 
 that room's being inspected at least twice 
 each day and sometimes oftener, and on 
 being himself "spotted" on the demerit 
 books if the least thing be found out of 
 place or in disorder. 
 
 At daybreak the roar of the reveille 
 gun and the thunder of the drums sum- 
 mon him to roll-call, and he goes down 
 those iron stairs four and five at a jump. 
 After that he has half an hour in which 
 to sweep, settle things, make up his bed, 
 wash and dress for the day {reveille garb 
 
 calls are as regular, though not as frequent, 
 as in camp, but from 8 A.M. to 1 P.M. no cadet 
 can enter any room in barracks except his 
 own, or leave his own except to go to reci- 
 tation. From 2 until 4 P.M. the same rule 
 obtains. At 4.15 in spring and fall are the 
 artillery or infantry drills, and at some 
 seasons the riding lessons of the Third 
 Class. At sunset is the inevitable "re- 
 treat" parade; then an hour, perhaps, for 
 exercise and relaxation. Supper in due 
 course, and half an hour afterward the bu- 
 gle wails the dismal "call to quarters," 
 which summons every cadet to his room. 
 
218 
 
 HAEPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 In ten minutes the sentries inspect. "All 
 right ?" they ask, as they make their hur- 
 ried visit to the different rooms, and the 
 answer covers a multitude of things, but 
 is conclusive; and so the evening study 
 houi'S begin. You may pass the bright- 
 ly lighted front of barracks any wintry 
 evening and hear not a sound but the 
 tramp of the sentries on the lower floor. 
 A cadet who quits his room to visit that 
 of a comrade does it at no little risk. If 
 seen or heard by the sentry, or caught at 
 it by the "tactical officer" or officer of the 
 day, he is booked for certain demerits, 
 and the punishment of "extras," or con- 
 finement during the one hebdomadal half- 
 holiday. 
 
 One hundi'ed demerits in six months 
 will sever the connection of any cadet 
 with the academy and the military ser- 
 vice; and with veiy small exercise of in- 
 genuity a cadet can pick up the entire 
 number in a single day, and do it with- 
 out leaving his room either. It was a 
 cadet tradition that the gifted Edgar Allan 
 Poe showed a phenomenal ability in that 
 line. 
 
 Rigid as is the discipline and unbend- 
 ing the routine, time fairly flies through 
 those months of barrack life. Tlie cadet 
 marches to his recitations with the same 
 precision and silence that he marches to 
 parade, and is no sooner out of one recita- 
 tion-room than he must begin preparation 
 for another. As a rule, there are but 
 thi'ee recitations a day — two in the morn- 
 ing and one in the afternoon. Mathe- 
 matics, mechanics, and engineering are 
 disposed of between eight and eleven, each 
 half of each class reciting nijie.ty minutes, 
 and each class being divided into sections 
 of ten to twelve cadets to facilitate instruc- 
 tion. Each section has its own recitation - 
 room, and its own instructor in the person 
 of a young officer who is especially skilled 
 in the science or study being pursued. 
 From eleven until one, chemistry, geol- 
 ogy, French, and Spanish are the main 
 topics; and in the drowsy afternoons his- 
 tory, law, and drawing keep the youngsters 
 busy. All this sounds as though the woi'k 
 were sedentary, and that no exercise crept 
 in, but such is far from the case. Tlie 
 plebes have their daily gymnastics under a 
 skilful teacher, and tlie three upper class- 
 es have the liveliest kind of exercise in 
 their lessons in horsemanship. West Point 
 riding deserves a chapter by itself, for it 
 would be a revelation to the city schools. 
 
 Bareback, with crossed stirrups, with ev- 
 ery kind of a horse except an easy one, 
 the boys have to rough it for a year or 
 more before they get a foot-rest. The big, 
 gloomy riding-hall has its agile tenants 
 day after day during the fall and winter 
 months, and few indeed are the boys 
 who are not time and again rolled in the 
 tan -bark or pitched headlong over the 
 hurdles. A cat with its reputed plural- 
 ity of lives would be dead a dozen times 
 over in taking half the chances those 
 laughing youngsters will eagerly seek in 
 their three years at cavalry and light- 
 artillery drill, but it seems impossible to 
 kill a cadet, and just as hard to scare one. 
 More reckless, daring, graceful riding one 
 need never look to see than among the 
 Seniors when they come before the Board 
 of Visitors in June; and all through the 
 spring, varied by occasional scouts and 
 reconnoissances over the rough mountain 
 roads, the drills of the cavalry battalion 
 on the plain are sights that one can nev- 
 er tire of watching; while after an hour's 
 "running at the heads," or leaping hur- 
 dles bareback, picking up handkerchiefs 
 from the ground, or mounting and dis- 
 mounting at a gallop, the boys come back 
 from the hall covered with glory, and 
 tan - bark, but with famous appetites and 
 few bruises. No, there is no especial 
 lack of exercise even in the weeks of hard- 
 est study. Only during those dread ex- 
 aminations in January do some of the 
 youngsters seem to lose their color; but 
 the questions they then have to answer, 
 the two weeks' ordeal they then have to 
 undergo, are enough to scare an encyclo- 
 paedia. 
 
 The winter soon wears away, the spring- 
 time comes, and then June, the month of 
 roses — and graduation. Even as the stal- 
 wart Seniors are passing their final exam- 
 inations the Point begins to fill up with 
 several score of young strangers — shy, 
 suspicious youths, in civilian garb of a 
 dozen different fashions, but in singularly 
 unanimous frame of mind. One and all 
 they have heard rumor of the rough 
 usages that formerly surrounded the ini- 
 tiation of the new cadet, and ai'e on the 
 watch for similar demonstrations. No 
 graduate will attempt to deny that there 
 Avas a time in the history of the academy 
 when there was a vast deal of "hazing," 
 and that it was continued for the entire 
 period of camp; but the "plebes" them- 
 selves would seldom make complaint or 
 
CADET LIFE AT WEST POINT. 
 
 219 
 
 give information of their tormentors ; nine 
 out of ten took it all grimly or good-liu- 
 moredly, and those who whined or pro- 
 tested at all were sure to be the head devils 
 of the next yeai^'s work. ' ' Deviling" was 
 ordinarily conducted with rare discrimina- 
 tion ; those young men who were ' ' solid, " 
 self-respecting, putting on no airs, and 
 minding their own business, managed to 
 get along with very little trouble ; whereas 
 the yearlings went wild with ecstasy 
 over a bumptious new-comer with a high 
 opinion of himself. His life was made a 
 burden to him, and no mistake. Still, no 
 bodily harm was ever inflicted except 
 through some unforeseen accident. Haz- 
 ing as conducted at one time or other in 
 every college in the United States has had 
 far more that was really hai*mful about 
 it thaia the system as it prevailed at the 
 Point; but the latter was public property, 
 and far more notice was taken according- 
 ly. At most colleges, too, it was the meek 
 and most friendless of the Freshmen who 
 came in for the liveliest hazing; the rich 
 and influential had means of escape. At 
 West Point the very opposite was the 
 case: the higher in rank or riches was the 
 father, the more presumably had the son 
 to be "taken down," to reach the rabidly 
 democratic standard of the corps. 
 
 In course of time, however, public sen- 
 timent set in very strongly against the 
 pi'actice. It took hard work to uproot it, 
 for the ingenuity and activity of the corps 
 are something plienomenal ; but the thing 
 has been done, and to-day the ancient and 
 objectionable custom is but the shadow 
 of a formerly vigorous substance. The 
 plebes are drilled as sharply and disci- 
 plined as thoroughly as ever before, the 
 line of demai'cation between theii-s and 
 the senior classes is still mr.intained, but 
 the tricks and pranks, the fagging that 
 rendered life a burden, and the "yanking" 
 that made night hideous, and with them 
 all that had a tendency to the harmful, 
 have been practically abolished. 
 
 In three-quarters of a century of useful- 
 ness and success the Point has known no 
 era of higher scholarship, of sounder dis- 
 cipline, and of more brilliant promise than 
 that which culminates with the adminis- 
 tration of the last five years; and the re- 
 port of the Board of Visitors of 1886, sev- 
 eral of whose number were animated by 
 an unusually searching spirit of investi- 
 gation, and stimulated possibly by com- 
 plaints of undue severitj^ and needless re- 
 strictions, has stamped its every military 
 feature, drill, discipline, and instruction, 
 with the seal of its unqualified approval. 
 
A CENTRAL SOUDAN TOWN. 
 
 BY JOSEPH THOMSON. 
 
 THE general public, gathering its im- 
 pressions from contemporary litera- 
 tux*e, has come to look upon the whole of 
 central Africa — or, in other words, that 
 part undiluted by contact or intermixture 
 with fox'eign or Asiatic races — as a region 
 wholly inhabited by bai'barians, chiefly 
 characterized by extraordinary customs, 
 the most degraded forms of fetichism and 
 cannibalism, with, it may be, a decided 
 taste for gin. 
 
 That this popular notion is erroneous 
 in a marked degree it will be the object 
 of this article to point out. With this 
 view I propose to describe a town inhab- 
 ited by purely African races, and situated 
 in the central part of that continental 
 zone called the Soudan — a term now too 
 often populai'ly restricted to the eastern 
 division, or Egyptian Soudan. 
 
 Let us imagine that it is the month of 
 June, near the close of the dry season ; 
 that, personally conducted b}" me, a party, 
 consisting of the readers of this article, 
 have voyaged along the west coast of Af- 
 rica to the mouth of the river Niger, safe- 
 ly passed the malarious region of the delta 
 and lower reaches of that famous river, 
 and then, by excessively weary overland 
 marches, come from the south to the 
 neighborhood of the central Soudan town 
 which has been the goal of our pilgrim- 
 age. As we struggle up a low rocky hill 
 of lava aspect we are reminded by the 
 terrific heat that Herodotus describes the 
 people we are now among as being in his 
 time strangely characterized by the daily 
 custom of cursing and shaking their fists 
 at the sun at mid-day. We have long 
 ceased to wonder at this, for we have en- 
 joyed experiences unknown to the illus- 
 trious geographer, and exposed as we are 
 to the sweltering heat of his solar majes- 
 ty unmitigated by the shadow of a cloud, 
 we ai'e painfully aware of a tendency to 
 revert to the primitive habit. 
 
 The worst, however, is over, and the 
 crest of the hill is reached, and as we 
 pause to regain breath and mop our 
 streaming faces, we may, as is the habit 
 of personally conducted parties, improve 
 our mind by a few judicious remarks 
 tending to make clear our whereabouts. 
 We ai-e now at a distance of 1500 miles 
 south of the Mediterranean, about the 
 
 same west from the Atlantic, though only 
 about 800 miles north from the Gulf of 
 Guinea, so that there is no mistake about 
 our being in the heart of Africa. Imme- 
 diately to the north of us lie the wild and 
 inhospitable plateau lands of Asben, pass- 
 ing into the barren wastes of the Sahara; 
 to the west rolls the Niger, and beyond 
 lie i^egions yet unxjenetrated by the restless 
 energy of the white man, for its savage 
 tribes and pestiferous forests are more 
 formidable barriers than even waterless 
 and burning deserts; to the south lie the 
 countries which we have just traversed, 
 equally deadly and dangerous, and which, 
 like the district to the west, would have 
 been impenetrable but for the fact that 
 the Niger winds in glistening reaches, 
 cleaving a way through the primeval for- 
 ests and malarious delta to the ocean, as 
 if for the special advantage of the ubiqui- 
 tous traveller; eastward extend wilder- 
 nesses as barren and hazardous as those 
 to the north. It will thus be seen that if 
 our town is tinged with the bright flusli 
 of dawning civilization, it owes little to its 
 environment. 
 
 The landscape which lies below and in 
 front of us, owing to the unseasonable pe- 
 riod of the year, is not by any means au 
 attractive one, though in its apparent des- 
 ert-like barrenness not without a certain 
 element of impressiveness. The scorch- 
 ing dry season, now drawing near a close, 
 has transformed the whole country into a 
 series of bare I'ocks, glaring sands, and red 
 fields, which seem incapable of raising 
 anything for either man or beast. The 
 air heated on these furnace -like plains 
 rises in hazy undulations, and comes waft- 
 ed to us laden with dust in an almost un- 
 breathable condition. The only feature 
 which relieves the unutterable monotony 
 of the scene is the occurrence here and 
 there of grim, rugged, solitary trees, which 
 bid defiance to the scorching sun and arid 
 soil, and the appearance of a serpentine 
 line of green stretching snake-like along 
 the plain, indicating the verdure- clad 
 banks of a dried-up stream winding west- 
 wai'd toward the Niger. 
 
 If we now turn our attention to the 
 northern aspect of the hill on which we 
 stand, we shall observe extending for- 
 ward a low broken platform some three 
 
THE LEAVENWORTH SCHOOL 
 
 By Captain" Charles King, 
 U. S. A. 
 
 New York: 
 Harper Brothers. 
 
THE LEAVENWORTH SCHOOL. 
 
 BY CHARLES 
 
 WHILE West Point is the 
 cadet school of the army, 
 and each year sees its 
 graduating- class commis- 
 sioned into service, it 
 must not be supposed that the theoi*etical 
 work ends here. Referring- to this very 
 subject in liis address to a class of young 
 officez's just completing their four years' 
 course at the academy, a distinguished 
 soldier warned them that while they might 
 be considered to have finished their pre- 
 liminai'y instruction, their education was 
 now just about to begin. 
 
 Of course it was true, said the young- 
 gentlemen, as they stowed away their 
 long-coveted diplomas; that is, so far as 
 the scientific branches of the fighting 
 force — the engineers, ordnance, and artil- 
 lery — are concerned. Certainly their of- 
 ficers have much to study and much to 
 learn, or they fall behind in the profes- 
 sional race. They have schools of in- 
 struction and application, the engineers 
 
 KING, U.S.A. 
 
 at Willet's Point, the artil- 
 lei*y at Old Point Com- 
 fort, but just how that re- 
 mark was to apply to the 
 bulk of the graduates, to 
 the young soldiers join- 
 ing the cavalry and in- 
 fantry regiments out on 
 "the plains," was some- 
 thing- they did not so 
 clearly see. 
 
 The time was, in the 
 very recent past, when 
 the officers of the line of 
 the army had little leisure 
 and less opportunity for 
 book study. It is a pet 
 theoi'y of civilian censors 
 that army life is one of in- 
 dolence and lack of occu- 
 pation ; but it is safe to 
 say that such critics know 
 nothing of the service 
 west of the Missouri as it 
 is to-day, and still less of 
 what it was in the ten or 
 fifteen years that imme- 
 diately followed our civil 
 war. Here and thei*e over 
 the broad frontier wei-e 
 scattered little detach- 
 ments of foot or horse, 
 often a mere company at a given point, 
 guarding some party of engineers or sur- 
 veyors, or watching the movements of a 
 horde of savages who seemed thirsting 
 for a pretext on which to break their 
 pledges to the government and to lash 
 out upon the war-path. Those were days 
 of isolation and hardship, whose monot- 
 ony was mended only by a remedy that, 
 in view of its fatal results, was often 
 worse than tlie malady; but Indian fight- 
 ing was all the diversion that circum- 
 stances permitted, and every officer and 
 man was studying his trade practically 
 and in face of the foe. There is no place 
 here for dissertation on the subject, but 
 the fact remains that west of the Missouri 
 no rod of road was surveyed, no rood of 
 land was tilled, until swept by the rifles 
 of "the regulai'S." And as for the great 
 railways that now span the continent, 
 and have brought the very wilderness 
 under tribute, the mile-po.'?ts of their long- 
 est are not enough in number to score the 
 
778 
 
 HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 lives of our officers and men laid down in 
 Indian battle durifig the years it took to 
 build them. For the nation they were 
 yeai'S of slumberous peace, and very little 
 was known or cared about what was go- 
 ing on "out West." And the nation 
 would doubtless be greatly surprised to 
 hear how many hundred gallant lives 
 were sacrificed in the ten years that suc- 
 ceeded the war of the rebellion, and how 
 many hundred officers and men bear upon 
 their bodies this day the scars of Indian 
 arrow or deadlier bullet. 
 
 As road after road was built, however, 
 and the various tribes were subjected or 
 placated, as happened to be the policy of 
 the Interior Department at the time, the 
 troops were called in from outlying camp 
 and scattered bivouac. Here and there 
 over the wide West thei'e sprang up big 
 clusters of barn-like structures, arranged 
 about a square or diamond-shaped " pa- 
 rade," and magnificently tei'med a fort, 
 in defiance of its structural weakness and 
 the fact that the pluck of the gai'rison 
 was its only parapet. Neither were they 
 ornamental, these military caravansaries; 
 but all the same under their ugly wing 
 all manner of little settlements nestled for 
 shelter, waxed strong and poi^ulous, and 
 then, when they had become self-reliant 
 in their populace and covetous of adjoin- 
 ing lands, did we not hear their repi'e- 
 sentatives in Congress assembled, for 
 whom our chaplain hebdomadally prayed, 
 and we, as in duty bound, responded 
 "Amen!" — did we not hear these oi-ators 
 and statesmen denouncing us as a " men- 
 ace to the liberties of the people," and de- 
 manding that we be ordered elsewhere, 
 and our reservation be thrown open for 
 settlement? Many a frontier fortress, 
 built at fabulous expense to Uncle Sam, 
 and correspondent profit to the conti'act- 
 ors, has in this way outlived its useful- 
 ness, and seen its blades beaten into prun- 
 ing -hooks and its sheltering barracks 
 into kindling-wood for its quondam pro- 
 teges. Many a name that recalls the 
 stirring days along the old "Smoky Hill 
 Route," and fierce battle with Sioux, Chey- 
 enne, and Arrapahoe, has faded from the 
 records; and bustling towns have sprung 
 up around the site where Harker, Lar- 
 ned, Zarah, Wallace, and McPherson 
 once were only frontier forts, but ' ' mon- 
 arch of all they surveyed." 
 
 But besides these ramshackle tene- 
 ments, that must have cost at the rate of 
 
 a dollar a shingle, the government own- 
 ed some fine reservations, with solid and 
 unpicturesque " quarters" of brick or 
 stone, and two of these were in the thriv- 
 ing State of Kansas. One after another 
 the nation gave up its claim on the va- 
 rious military posts in favor of this young 
 sister, as she strode from hindermost to 
 head of the wheat-producing common- 
 wealths, but held on to two or three 
 which were of strategic importance, and 
 during the administration of General 
 Sherman at the head of the army the 
 largest and finest of these became the 
 seat of a new army school. 
 
 It was rather a problem, the establish- 
 ment of that school. We had maintain- 
 ed, as has been said, something of the 
 kind for the benefit of the engineers, and 
 an artillery school at Fortress Monroe for 
 the finishing touches to be given our 
 gunners; but here came a proposition to 
 found a school for the instruction of the 
 officers of the cavalry and infantry arms. 
 Its origin seems as vague as the instruc- 
 tions to its first commanders. General 
 Pojje, who had long been at the head of 
 the " Department of the Missouri," is said 
 to have conceived the idea of having an 
 entire regiment of infantry or cavalry 
 garrisoned at one big post and taught 
 practically all manner of military know- 
 ledge that would be useful in the field, 
 each regiment in the department to come 
 in turn; but at the head-quarters of the 
 army it was decided to found a school 
 both practical and theoretical for the ben- 
 efit of the officers of " the line," and rath- 
 er to the disgust of the first batch of 
 presumable beneficiaries, the experiment 
 came to a head in 1881. 
 
 Pupils there were in plenty, since the 
 whole army list lay open, but professors 
 were lacking; so were text-books, maps, 
 models, apparatus, desks, chalk, black- 
 boards, stoves and fuel, and the dozens 
 of things a school must have before it is 
 equipped for work. The General of the 
 Army was a man whom obstacles, as we 
 all know, only inspired, and he brushed 
 this aside, as he had greater ones, with 
 the simple mandate, "Go and do it— any- 
 how." 
 
 Of the early history of the school, per- 
 haps the least said, the soonest mended. 
 The organizers chose a curriculum which 
 was interesting as an experiment, but had 
 faint attractions for the bulk of the pu- 
 pils. Many of the students of the origi- 
 
THE LEAVENWORTH SCHOOL. 
 
 779 
 
 nal detail were men wlio had enjoyed no 
 advantages of early education, and had 
 long since become resigned to the pros- 
 pect of worrying along without one. 
 
 service without the faintest conception of 
 Sturm's Theorem, or caring a Continen- 
 tal wlio signed the Magna Charta. It is 
 to the credit of the service that while both 
 
 'f^:-- 
 
 FROM " Sheridan's ride" on 
 
 THE BLUFFS. 
 
 Appointees from the ranks or from 
 civil life being largely predominant 
 among them, it was decided by the 
 authorities tliat arithmetic, gram- 
 mar, geography, history, etc., were indis- 
 pensable to their higher comprehension 
 of tlie military art, and were concerned 
 to discover that there were not a few 
 veterans among their stalwart pupils 
 who had managed to survive through a 
 devastating war and years of frontier 
 
 teachei'S and pupils had many doubts as 
 to whether the curriculum were really of 
 lasting benefit, most of their number went 
 to woi'k with a will and did their best; 
 and as for the backsliders, it was not the 
 fact that they had to study and recite that 
 troubled them, so much as the conviction 
 
780 
 
 HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 that they were burning the midnight oil 
 in cramming solid pages of wisdom that 
 might have been digested earlier in life, 
 but wei'e provocative of a mental dyspep- 
 sia now. 
 
 There Avas something very alluring 
 about this proposed school down there 
 in that beautiful wooded bluff country 
 around Fort Leavenworth. Visions of 
 manoeuvres of large bodies of horse and 
 foot ; of brigade drills ; campaign march- 
 es; field reconnoissances; and surveying; 
 planning of earthworks, siege approach- 
 es, and mines; pontoon and trestle build- 
 ing; experiments with modern arms and 
 systems of tactics ; comparisons of the va- 
 rious European formations; study of the 
 European manege and its possible ap- 
 plication to our x^lains and mountains; 
 lectures on the great campaigns of his- 
 tory; interesting problems in minor tac- 
 tics; grand guards, outposts; jiartisan 
 and picket service — these and others of 
 like calibre were conjured up as among 
 the possibilities ; but the dream was soon 
 shattered. The student officer came down 
 from the heights of a visionary Parnassus 
 to grai^ple with Hagar's Arithmetic. Those 
 "who had acquired a certain education in 
 earlier life were spared this reversion to 
 the days of their "teens," and given a 
 course in Military and International Law, 
 the "Operations of War," Field Fortifi- 
 cations and Outposts; but one-half their 
 number went back to the pursuits of ear- 
 ly youth. The authorities had magnil- 
 oquently styled the new establishment 
 the "School of Application for Infantry 
 and Cavalry," the War Department 
 stripped off a shade or two, and called it 
 the "United States Infantry and Cavalry 
 School," but the irreverent and unwilling 
 pupil derisively dubbed it the "Kinder- 
 garten." 
 
 "Give a dog a bad name," and you 
 know the result. The school had one at 
 the outset, and there followed a period of 
 hard pulling — ^both ways. But the pow- 
 ers were unmoved from their stern pur- 
 pose: the school went on; so did the pu- 
 pils; and by-and-by it became a fixture; 
 and now it is a fact, but a very different 
 thing from what it was six years agone. 
 Through much tribulation and vexation 
 of spirit it has passed the experimental 
 stage, and come forward a claimant for 
 honors. 
 
 On the right bank of the big Missouri, 
 only a few miles above the sudden and 
 
 final eastward bend, is the old town of 
 Leavenworth, once prodigally hopeful, 
 but now left in the lurch by luckier towns 
 along the trunk lines "'cross continent"; 
 and just a long rifle-shot away from its 
 northern skirts there rises from the riv- 
 er a range of beautifully wooded bluffs. 
 There, several years before the war, was 
 built the old frontier station of Fort 
 Leavenworth, and now it is the most 
 populous military township in the coun- 
 try, the seat of the once anathematized 
 "School of Application." It is well 
 worth a visit at any season of the year, 
 despite the heat of midsummer, but is 
 never so attractive as in May and early 
 June. 
 
 The massive buildings of the old pei'ma- 
 nent post are nearly hidden by the foliage. 
 As we enter the main gate the slopes to 
 the right are crowned by the walls of the 
 once formidable arsenal and its out-build- 
 ings, now used as the head-quarters of the 
 Department of the Missouri. North of 
 these, on the ridge between us and the 
 river bluffs, are the commodious and 
 broad -verandaed homes of the general 
 commanding the department and the of- 
 ficers of his staff ; and then straight ahead 
 there opens out before us a broad quad- 
 rangle, carpeted with a rich, soft, vivid 
 green, bordered by stately elms, and 
 shaded here and there by beautiful clus- 
 ters of grand old trees, bounded by broad 
 graded roads, and hemmed in b.y the main 
 buildings of the school itself. This is the 
 enclosure of old Fort Leavenworth. 
 
 We have Qome without stop, for the 
 strains of martial music and the distant 
 glint of arms tell that some one of the 
 ceremonies of the day is taking place, and 
 thanks to our early start from town, we 
 are just in time for guard mount. The 
 dew is not yet off the grass, the birds are 
 flitting and chii'ping from bougli to bough, 
 sunshine and shadow alternate on the 
 beautiful carpet of the parade, and the 
 band, in cool summer dress and white hel- 
 mets, pours forth rich, ringing melody as 
 the " details" come marching out from the 
 barrack behind the western trees. 
 
 Except for these barracks and one long, 
 austere, prison-like structure on the east- 
 ern front — the abode of most of the bach- 
 elor officers — the parade is surrounded by 
 roomy, cozy, bower-like cottages, all cov- 
 ered with climbing vines and hidden by 
 flowering plants, and these are the quar- 
 ters of the colonel commanding the school. 
 
o ^^ 
 
 Vol. LXXVI.— No. 455.-65 
 
782 
 
 HARPER^S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 and of the senior officers of tlie corps of 
 instructors. Early as is the hour, there 
 are glimpses here and there of graceful 
 feminine foi'ms upon the verandas, and 
 where these are seen there are sure to 
 be attendant groups of martial figures, 
 generally slender, erect, and distinguished 
 by snugly fitting " blouses"' and by bright 
 blue trousers whose sides are decked with 
 broad stripes of cool white or glowing yel- 
 low. It is breakfast-time all over the gar- 
 rison, and women whose lives have been 
 spent within sound of the drum are not 
 apt to leave their coli'ee to gaze at a little 
 display they can see any day in the year. 
 Those whom Ave see among the vines and 
 flowers of the porches, or strolling along 
 the shaded walks with their attendant es- 
 corts, are young belles from elsewhere, 
 visiting relations at Leavenworth, and 
 taking a peep at army life that may result 
 in a lasting acquaintance with it, unless 
 all signs fail in such di-y weather as that 
 of a Kansas June. Tlie escorts are, of 
 coux'se, the young ''student officers," mak- 
 ing hay while the sun shines, and forget- 
 ful, during the brief half-hour of guard 
 mounting, of the sterner work that must 
 fill up the day. 
 
 Meantime, however, the soldierly cere- 
 mony goes on, regardless of tlie coquetry 
 along the neighboring vei-andas or the 
 swarms of merrily laughing children who 
 are chasing along the borders of the pa- 
 rade. The band plays a spirited Hunga- 
 rian mazurka, while the acting adjutant 
 and the officer of the guard, both students, 
 are making their inspection of the statu- 
 esque line of soldiei-y. The rifles of the 
 infantry and the carbines of the dis- 
 mounted troopers are carefully overhaul- 
 ed, and every item of attire scrutinized. 
 Then follows a sparkling waltz, which 
 sets some enthusiastic couples to dancing 
 behind the screening vines of the ijiazzas, 
 but is powerless to move a muscle of the 
 guard, standing solidly at "parade rest," 
 with their eyes apparently fixed on va- 
 cancy. The waltz ceases, and then, after 
 the "present" to the officer of the day, 
 who stands in solemn grandeur at the 
 northern limit of the grassy lawn, the lit- 
 tle detachment wlieels into column, and 
 to the liveliest marching music makes the 
 circuit of the parade, and i)asses in review 
 before the official to whose guardianship 
 the destinies of the garrison are confided 
 for the next twenty -four hours. The 
 swords of the officers are lowered in grace- 
 
 ful salute, the drum-major whirls his ba- 
 ton and wheels his bandsmen out of col- 
 umn, and then, duly installed, the guai-d 
 tramps away over the green to "take 
 over" the property and prisoners from its 
 predecessor. 
 
 This, however, is a daily feature of al- 
 most every post, from Preble in Maine to 
 the Presidio of San Francisco. The next 
 scene of the day is one that is distinctive 
 and characteristic of the school. We are 
 in the midst of examination week, and 
 the subject that happens to come foremost 
 this morning is Infantry Tactics. 
 
 On the second floor of one of the red 
 brick buildings west of the parade is a 
 long, well-lighted room whose A^enetian 
 windows open out ixpon a broad gallery. 
 Arouml three sides of the room, opposite 
 the light, is a raised dais and a continuous 
 line of black-board. On the window side, 
 with their backs to the lig'ht, are the ex- 
 aminers and sevei-al members of the Board 
 of Visitors. All — the board, the examin- 
 ers, and the pupils — are officers of the 
 army of the United States, and sharp at 
 nine o'clock the friendly, laughing chat 
 suddenly ceases, and the first name is 
 called. The secretarj^ of the school, a 
 tall, distinguished-looking cavalry officer, 
 hands a slip of paper to the man who steps 
 forward from the doorway, and so one 
 after another a dozen subalterns of infan- 
 try and cavalrj% some youthful and alert, 
 some mature in years and grave in de- 
 meanor, receive their problems, and go to 
 the board to illustrate by drawings and 
 then fully describe their methods of solu- 
 tion. 
 
 While they are at work it is well to look 
 around the room, for there are men here 
 who have a history. The senior in rank 
 wears upon his shoulder the silver star 
 of a brigadier-general. He is a man of 
 marked soldierly bearing, with clear, pene- 
 trating eyes and clean-cut features. His 
 face is closely shaved ])ut for the bristling 
 reddish mustache, and as lie stands by the 
 window chatting in low tones with the 
 commandant of the school he looks what 
 he is, the very type of the American of- 
 ficei*. One of the "star five" of his class 
 at West Point, commander of one of the 
 best and bravest of volunteer regiments 
 at the outbreak of the war, winning the 
 double stars of a major-genei-al in that 
 stubborn conflict, and the eagles of a col- 
 onel in the regular service, he is one of 
 the younger brigadiers of the army to-day ; 
 
THE LEAVENWORTH SCHOOL. 
 
 783 
 
 aLEXANDEU McJ) .McC'I>OK, C'OMMANDAM. 
 
 and his next important duty after the re- 
 vision of the course of instruction at the 
 school is something of far different and 
 more stii^ring kind — tlie suppression of a 
 dangerous Indian revolt in the far North- 
 west, and it is handled as well and as 
 summarily. When Sword-Bearer, the chief 
 of the malcontents, falls pierced with the 
 bullets of the cavalry cai-bines, his follow- 
 ers lose heai't, and the outbreak is stifled 
 in a day. 
 
 The commandant is another man with 
 a history. Pei'haps he is the more widely 
 known of the two, for he comes of a stock 
 that is famous for its soldiers, and he 
 bears a name that all Americans honor. 
 Stoutly built, with keen blue eyes and 
 florid complexion, sturdy and stocky as a 
 Jersey bull, and with not a little of that 
 taurine's pugnacity and determination. 
 
 the commandant is a man whose whole 
 being is wrapped up in his profession, 
 and who is emphatically a soldier. Fa- 
 mous as a division and corps commander 
 in those early days of the war when ill- 
 luck seemed to cling to every man who 
 I'ose so suddenly, he has spent his lifetime 
 in the service, and knows "from a to iz- 
 zard" every detail of a soldier's needs. It 
 is to him that the great changes that have 
 come over the school are mainly due, and 
 to his persistence that the course has be- 
 come what it is — a practical scheme for 
 the instruction of the line officers of the 
 army. To this object, as to the disci- 
 pline of the school, he has given untiring 
 energy and his best efforts, and as a man 
 fitted to carry out his views, his looks do 
 not belie him. 
 
 Alonjr the tables in front of the Board 
 
784 
 
 HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 of Examiners are a number of sheets of 
 drawing-paper, on each side of which is 
 delineated — on some in colors, on others 
 in ink — a map of Fort Leavenworth with 
 the counti'y to the north and northwest. 
 Every road, every bridge, ford, stream, 
 and bridle-path, every building, every 
 height, wood, thicket, field, melon patch, 
 or orcliard, is fully indicated, though with 
 more or less artistic skill ; and each mem- 
 ber of the class is required to show what 
 disposition he would make of a force of 
 thirty thousand men— infantry, cavalry, 
 and artillery, in proper proportion— to 
 defend that position of Fort Leavenworth 
 from the attack of superior forces known 
 to be advancing from the north. It is 
 a good test, and one that calls for a 
 knowledge of the powers of the three 
 arms of the service and many of the 
 principles of modern warfare. It calls 
 forth much individuality too, for an exam- 
 ination of the plans shows that in many 
 details there is wide ditference of opinion 
 as to the proper placing of portions of 
 the force. They are unanimous in one 
 thing, however. Tliere is a broad open 
 valley on the north, " covered" by the 
 wooded heights in rear of the post, and 
 commanded by all the ground to the 
 south. Tliere is not a man apparently 
 wlio does not so dispose his main line as 
 to compel the enemy to attempt the cross- 
 ing of tliat valley under the continuous 
 fire of the defence, and in almost every 
 case the embankment of the narrow-gauge 
 railway is used to excellent advantage. 
 All this is to test their knowledge of high- 
 er tactical combinations. Tlie subjects on 
 the board are problems in minor tactics. 
 In its general character the task of one 
 officer is similar to those of all the others, 
 and any one will answer as a specimen. 
 The young lieutenant now explaining his 
 woi'k has been required to throw a bat- 
 talion of eight companies of infantry into 
 double column; then form line of battle 
 on the riglit flank by two movements; 
 then to "ploy" into close column by divi- 
 sion, on first division, left in front; then 
 to change direction by the right flank; 
 and finally, after deploying once more 
 into line of battle, to place tlie battalion 
 in its original position. His chalk sketch 
 illustrates the various combinations; he 
 gives in full every command of the col- 
 onel and those of the captains, and explains 
 in detail just how each movement must 
 be executed. It is not enough that he 
 
 tell w^hat the duties of one officer may be : 
 he must be able to instantly take the place 
 of any of them, from colonel down, and 
 to show any man in the command just 
 where he should go, how he should get 
 there, and what he must do on reaching 
 the spot. He must know to an inch the 
 position of every officer, every guide, file- 
 closer, or private soldier, and be able to 
 stand a cross-fii*e of questioning; for, one 
 after another, the whole board may " take 
 a shy" at him. It is the same with every 
 study theoretically pui'sued at the school, 
 and there was similar thoroughness in the 
 days of its greatest unpopularity. Wheth- 
 er the old course was well chosen or not 
 was a matter the instructors wei'e not 
 expected to publicly discuss. Their duty 
 was to teach as thoroughly as they could, 
 and by rigid examination assure them- 
 selves that their pupils either did or did 
 not study. There were some few men 
 whom they could not teach, perhaps ; but 
 there were more whose kiiowledge they 
 could not and did not accurately gauge. 
 
 But it is not in the examination halls 
 that the casual visitor will be most inter- 
 ested. What he or she may prefer most 
 naturally to see are the military exercises 
 in the open air, and no post in the army 
 can present so attractive a variety as 
 Leavenworth. 
 
 Projecting westward from the old quad- 
 rangle, or east parade, is a roadway lined 
 on the north side by brick barracks and 
 offices for a few hundred yards, and then 
 by a long I'ow of cottages occupied by the 
 officei's of the garrison and their families. 
 All this section of the post is termed the 
 "West End," and is quite a little com- 
 munity in itself. Directly in front of the 
 officers' quarters, and across the road, is a 
 bi'oad, open field stretching away south- 
 ward, and here, for the present, at least, 
 are held all the mounted drills and exer- 
 cises, and those ceremonies of parade in 
 which the cavalry and the light battei*y 
 act in conjunction with the infantry. 
 The drill of a battery, with its plunging 
 horses and booming guns and quick, 
 dashing evolutions, is alwa3'S a stirring 
 sight, while the hoarse shouted com- 
 mands and pealing bugle calls make the 
 welkin ring even wlien the guns are si- 
 lent. But one may see at Leavenworth 
 something new to even veteran light ar- 
 tillerists — a perfect battery drill without 
 bugle note or whisper of command. True, 
 it was one of the finest batteries in all 
 
>1 
 
 i> 
 
786 
 
 HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 America that accomplished the feat dur- 
 ing tlie late examination Aveek, but it 
 went through it all with an ease and fin- 
 ish as though the very horses had put 
 their heads together beforehand and de- 
 cided just what should be done. Fancy 
 eight matched teams of glossy bays — four 
 horses to the team — each "near" horse 
 mounted by a rider who controlled the 
 movements of his mate, the "off" horse; 
 each team hitched to its battery carriage, 
 whether gun or caisson ; each carriage 
 bearing its quota of cannoneers sitting 
 erect with folded arms, and the long red 
 plumes of their helmets streaming in the 
 wind as the guns bounded over the 
 springy turf; and fancy the whole com- 
 plicated machine moving in perfect unison 
 this way, that way, every way, wheeling, 
 reversing, or countermarching, at walk, 
 trot, or mad gallop, and not a word spo- 
 ken or sound heard beyond the rumble 
 of twoscore wheels or muffled thunder of 
 tenscoi'e hoofs. It was all simple enough : 
 every eye in the battery was on the sin- 
 ewy figure of the tall captain, who rode 
 well out to the front, sabre in hand, and 
 every signal, point, cut, or thrust of that 
 shining blade had a significance never 
 dreamed of by the authors of the tactics. 
 
 And by long odds the finest sight at 
 Leavenworth is the review of the entire 
 command out at the West End. Tlie 
 vallej' of the Missouri lies open to the 
 southward for miles beyond the shining 
 roofs and spires of the town. The build- 
 ings of the post gleam on the grassy slopes 
 to the eastward beyond the nitervening 
 tenements, and the horizon to the west- 
 ward is hidden by the long line of pic- 
 turesque and wooded heights, while the 
 broad area of the drill-ground lies in the 
 foreground, sloping gently away toward 
 the town. Here, early in the summer 
 morning, while the leaves are still drip- 
 ping witli dew and the grass is all a-spar- 
 kle, Avhile the sun is still low in the east- 
 ern .sky, and throwing long shadows over 
 the valley, the whole command is ordered 
 to assemble, and before tlieir standards 
 come in sight the shaded walks are throng- 
 ed with ladies, and the i)iazzas of the West 
 End are thrown lio.siiitabh' open to all 
 visitors, for, despite the early hour, all 
 Leaven wortli .seems awake. Here and 
 there in front of the quarters are mount- 
 ed orderlies witli the officers' lior.ses, and 
 man after man these dignitaries come 
 forth from their domain plumed, gaunt- 
 
 leted, booted, and spurred, swing into 
 saddle, and trot away to join their com- 
 mands in knightly fashion, while their 
 comrades of the infantry elbow their way 
 to their posts of duty through the groups 
 upon the sidewalk. 
 
 The baud, in its white plumes and fa- 
 ciiigs, strides out through the dew to its 
 place on the right of the coming line; 
 then, far down the road toward the main 
 garrison, the notes of a bugle are heard, 
 and the eye roams over a long, moving 
 lane of light and contrasting color. First 
 comes the compact column of infantry, 
 tramping sturdily toward us, and looking 
 very soldierh^ in the spiked helmets and 
 tasteful dark blue tunics. Tlie silken ban- 
 ners wave over a small battalion, to be sure, 
 but it is one that looks full of mettle, and 
 is made up of chosen companies from dif- 
 ferent regiments. Behind them come the 
 crimson guidon and waving plumes of 
 the battery — horses, guns, wheels, linch- 
 pins and washers, buckles, straps, hames, 
 bits, bossings, belts, and buttons, all glis- 
 tening with the polish of skilful hands; 
 and behind them all, the swallow-tailed 
 pennons of scarlet and white, the stand- 
 ard of 3'ellow silk, and the long column 
 of yellow plumes reveal the battalion of 
 cavalry. You cannot fail to note the 
 erect, yet easy, confident pose of every offi- 
 cer and man as the riders go filing b}-. 
 Tlie dress and horse equipments of our 
 mounted troops have little of the glitter 
 and coquetry of the hussar or lancer of 
 Europe; they are even sombre by com- 
 parison; but ours is eminently practical, 
 and stands the test of the rough service of 
 the frontier, wliich theirs would not; and 
 as to the relative merits of the schools of 
 liorseinanship, there is little doubt that 
 for "all-round" military work the Amer- 
 ican will outlast aiu' of the foreign sys- 
 tems, and is far more soldierh' and grace- 
 ful in effect besides. 
 
 Troop after troop the cavalry jingle 
 along, turning down to the left in rear of 
 the forming line of footmen; and one 
 troop — the standard troop — is made up en- 
 tirely of colored men. The darkies ride 
 quite as jauntily as their white comrades, 
 and probably to the full as firmly and 
 well; while in precision of movement 
 and accuracy of alignment, "touch," and 
 gait, there is more than one military spec- 
 tator who seems to think their work su- 
 perior to that of the rest of the battalion. 
 An officer of the school explains this by 
 
ON TEIE CAVALRY DRII.L-GKOUND. 
 
788 
 
 HAEPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 saying: "The darky is always on dress 
 parade. The moment he gets into uni- 
 form he thinks tlie eyes of all men are 
 upon him, and he ' braces up,' and makes 
 the most of his opportunity. Those other 
 fellows, in 'I' and ' M' troops, for instance, 
 are riding at ease. They will stitfen when 
 they come into line." 
 
 One after another they move out upon 
 the field, facing west, the infantry on the 
 right and nearest us ; then the battery, in 
 two lines, its guu-carriages to the front; 
 tlien the long single rank of the cavalry 
 battalion, stretching to the far southern 
 edge of the field. Well out to the west, in 
 front of the centre, is the commanding of- 
 ficer with his staff, and presently, as the 
 white-plumed adjutant gallops down the 
 line, turns toward liis chief on reaching 
 the centre, then halts and reins about, 
 there is a simultaneous crash as arms are 
 presented, and a long line of steel — the 
 sabres of the cavalry — springs into air. 
 Then review order is taken, ranks are 
 opened, the battery unlimbers and whirls 
 its black-muzzled guns to the front; an- 
 other present of the line to the exalted 
 personage who i-eceives the review, and is 
 hailed with a flourish of trumpets and the 
 simultaneous droop of all the standards; 
 another movement, and the line becomes 
 an open column; another command, and 
 with a triumphant burst of music from 
 the band the whole array moves as one 
 man: the passage in review has begun. 
 In quick time, the band leading, they 
 come jauntily towai'd us, changing direc- 
 tion at the upper corner, and swinging 
 past the animated groups of spectators. 
 Front after front the stui-dy infantry 
 trudges by, the student officers hidden as 
 file-closers behind their companies, and 
 wishing, for this occasion only, that they 
 belonged to the cavalry, and could com- 
 mand and be in front of their men instead 
 of trailing meekly after them, as required 
 of the infantry "sub." Well they know 
 that they cannot by any human possibil- 
 ity look half so picturesque in this posi- 
 tion as their rivals and contemporaries 
 of the cavalry on their "prancing char- 
 gers" and in front of their platoons. All 
 the same, they have their sympathetic ad- 
 mirers in the throng, and so they pass us by. 
 And then, with cham})ing bits and tossing 
 manes, come the platoons of horse. The 
 battery quickens its gait on the marching 
 flanks, and the girls wonder how those 
 gunners sit so straight with folded arms. 
 
 and never make hysterical grabs at the 
 bars or at each other, as they would do 
 under like circumstances. The cavalry 
 too come around at a trot, the young 
 platoon commanders fully alive to and 
 making the most of their golden oi)portu- 
 nity, looking vastly martial, and striving 
 not to look as though they very Avell 
 knew just where "she" happened to stand 
 among the gi'oups of fair ones under the 
 shade trees. Down the long field goes 
 the glistening column, officer after officer 
 saluting as he passes the reviewing point, 
 and then the infantry reappears, tramp- 
 ing up the eastern edge. Like some per- 
 fected machine, the long ai-ray wheels 
 into line to the left, the ranks are dressed, 
 then brought once more to review order. 
 Again the trumpets flourish, tlie stand- 
 ards droop, and arms clash to the present. 
 Then conies brief rest before some one of 
 the three commands is summoned to the 
 front to show what it can do in the ma- 
 noeuvres of its particular arm. It may 
 be a stirring skirmish drill, covering the 
 entire valley, by the bright-plumed caval- 
 ry. It may be a dashing series of battery 
 manoeuvres, with much smoke, noise, and 
 odor unlimited of "the villanous salt- 
 petre." It may be rapid evolutions of the 
 foot battalion ; but in each and all the stu- 
 dent officer must take his part. 
 
 Thus far it has been the jjolicy of the 
 school to educate its eleves to exercise 
 command in any one of the three fighting 
 ai'ms of the service, and for some time 
 officers of infantiy drilled with the bat- 
 tery or the cavalry, and vice versa; but 
 on pai-ade the student officer appears with 
 the company to which in his own arm he 
 is assigned for duty during his two years' 
 probation at Leavenworth. Just as at 
 West Point some private of the gradu- 
 ating class has been called out of ranks 
 and ordered to assume command of the 
 battalion in pre.sence of tlie Board of Vis- 
 itors, so at Leavenworth the permanent 
 officers are often withdrawn and their 
 places taken by the students, one of whom 
 serves as commander, another as adju- 
 tant, and half a dozen as captains. The 
 cavalry battalion is put through its paces 
 by a mixed assortment of subalterns of 
 either wliite or yellow facings, and the 
 infantry command is handled by a lot of 
 young troopers. The theory is, of course, 
 that the graduate of tlie School of Appli- 
 cation should be as competent to instruct 
 troops of any arm as is the graduate of 
 

 tm^ 
 
 "§^ 
 
roo 
 
 HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 West Point, and certainly the former has 
 far better opportunities for practice. 
 
 Just here it may as well be explained 
 that while no reward, beyond the con- 
 sciousness of duty well done, has thus far 
 attached to conspicuous ability at the 
 school,' neither is there any serious con- 
 sequence attendant upon failure. "All 
 sails and no anchor."' said Macaulay of 
 our Constitution, and with better reason 
 it may be said of tlie designers of the 
 School of Application that they could pre- 
 scribe anything- and enforce nothing-. A 
 ■commission once gained in the line of the 
 army is its possessor's for life or good be- 
 havior, and he may turn out to be a num- 
 skull without the faintest detriment to his 
 prospects of promotion. At West Point 
 the cadet who fails to j)ass a creditable ex- 
 amination every six months is discharged, 
 and relegated to civil life. At Leaven- 
 worth, as at Fortress Monroe, the student 
 could pitch his books into the fire, and face 
 his examiners with the serene conscious- 
 ness that, do their worst, they could only 
 send him back to his regiment, Avhei'e he 
 perchance preferred to be. That in nine 
 cases out of ten the detailed officers studied 
 hard and did their best, whether they liked 
 tlie course or not, was simply due to the 
 high sense of professional pride and sol- 
 dierly duty which is a characteristic of 
 the army. It was more in grateful recog- 
 nition of this spirit than with any idea of 
 stimulating the few laggards to greater 
 exertion tliat the staff of the school once 
 hit upon a brilliant expedient for i-ewai-d- 
 ing merit. Presumably it had the sanc- 
 tion of the War Department, although 
 the astute officials of that establishment, 
 versed as they are in the ways of Wash- 
 ington, must have smiled grimly when 
 they gave it. In July, 1883, the staff pub- 
 lished in orders its list of graduates, giv- 
 ing the relative merit and standing of each 
 -officer in the various studies of the two 
 years' course, and concluded with the an- 
 nouncement of a selected class, who, hav- 
 ing ".shown aptitude for comnumd and 
 position in the stafi' departments, arc rec- 
 ommended for professional emplo^nnent."" 
 Ten were named as suitable aspirants for 
 the Adjutant-General's Dejiartment, and 
 when vacancies occurred in that plum 
 orchard of the service, as vacancies did 
 occur, it is possible that some of those des- 
 ignated youths found themselves wonder- 
 ing how much good that recommendation 
 would do them. It is safe to say that. 
 
 being young men of " level heads," no one 
 of their number based much hope of pre- 
 ferment upon that imposing publication, 
 and it goes without saying that the vacan- 
 cies in the Adjutant-General's Department 
 have continued to be filled without refer- 
 ence to the opinions of the School of Ap- 
 plication. 
 
 All the same, the staff was right, and 
 though the War Department itself has 
 not been re-enforced from the school, cer- 
 tain regiments of the line and the Mili- 
 tary Academy at West Point have drawn 
 their adjutants from that list, to their 
 very marked advantage. 
 
 With a view to possible contingencies, 
 twelve of the same class were named as 
 suitable field officers of volunteers. More 
 than one of the twelve had served with 
 State troops during the war. and twenty 
 years eai'lier that recommendation would 
 have carried weight. What man can say 
 how soon it may not be of value in the 
 future ? 
 
 And as the rewards of n\erit under a 
 well-ordered republic are never such as 
 to make a man the mark of envj^, nei- 
 ther are its punishments of the awe-in- 
 spiring nature of those of the "effete 
 monarchies." Allusion has been made 
 to the fact that the worst that could be 
 done to a student who would not study 
 was to send him back to his regiment. 
 Now it was the theory of the incorpora- 
 tors of the school that tlie officers ordered 
 thither should be young men with pliant 
 minds and a desire to learn. But, said the 
 War Department, in formulating its order 
 in the case, "The subjects for the school 
 are the lieutenants belonging to the com- 
 panies which compose the garrison and 
 those specially detailed from the regi- 
 ments." The garrison was announced to 
 "habitually consist of three field officers 
 of cavalry or infantry, with not less than 
 four companies of infantry, four troops 
 of cavalry, one light battery of artillery, 
 and the officers attached for instruction." 
 
 This is practically the organization in 
 effect to-day, although it is presumable 
 that a separate school for the mounted 
 service will soon be established at Fort 
 Riley, where thei*e is broader space for 
 the evolutions of cavalry and light artil- 
 lery. With this organization the start 
 was made, and the system has not yet 
 been altered in any important feature. 
 So far as the lieutenants belonging to the 
 garrison companies are concerned, there- 
 
THE LEAVENWORTH SCHOOL. 
 
 791 
 
 fore, there was no choice at all. They ]y to the older men, and coupled with 
 had to be students, no matter what their their sense of indignity was the convic- 
 age, acquirements, or previous condition, tion that there was no law which could 
 Where the latitude came in was iu the either compel them to study or punish 
 selection of those ''special- 
 ly detailed from the regi- 
 ments." There are ten 
 regiments of cavalry and 
 twenty-five of infantry in 
 the army, and each regi- 
 ment was to send one sub- 
 altern, who should be se- 
 lected by the commanding 
 officer thereof. 
 
 This left the matter of 
 
 filik 
 
 •?*. 
 
 -.■■j^j&:wm^^¥ 
 
 I'M 
 
 KIKI.E PRACTICE. 
 
 ''subjects" pretty largely to the inner 
 consciousness of thirty-five difPerent regi- 
 mental commanders. "Many men have 
 many minds," and very many different 
 kinds of men were sent there as a result 
 of placing in so many hands the deter- 
 mination of the kind of man that ought 
 to be sent. Where one colonel would 
 nominate a lieutenant because he want- 
 ed to go, anotlier would be just as apt 
 to pitch upon a fellow who had de- 
 cided objections, thinking it might be 
 wholesome discipline. Another would 
 choose some young bookworm because 
 school was his proper element; another 
 some grizzled veteran — and we have many 
 such — because it was presumably ' " the last 
 chance he'd ever have of learning any- 
 thing." There were not a few cases where 
 the detail was most unwelcome, especial- 
 
 
 failure; and if this were true of the vet- 
 eran, it was applicable to the youngest 
 "sub." 
 
 Then, again, it sometimes happened that 
 married officers were the men on Avhom 
 the detail fell, and there were hardly 
 "quarters" enough for the bachelors, let 
 alone those blessed with wife and olive- 
 branches, and all manner of makeshifts 
 were the result. 
 
 But life at Leavenworth is blither, 
 brighter, and gifted with greater zest than 
 at many and many a post in our scattered 
 army. To many of the students the 
 course is attractive, and now that it has 
 undergone sweeping revision, there is no 
 man in the junior grades of the service 
 whom it will not profit. The new pro- 
 gramme is the evolution of much thought 
 and experience, and the Board of Revision 
 found little to add to or take away from 
 the scheme as laid before them. In two 
 years of stud}', with daily lectures, recita- 
 tions, and practical experiments, the stu- 
 dent is expected to complete a course of 
 Military Art, including strategy, tactics, 
 and study of campaigns and battles ; law 
 — militarv, constitutional, and interna- 
 
792 
 
 HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 tional; topography and surveying; field 
 fortifications ; signalling ; cavalry — includ- 
 ing field service, equitation, and liippolo- 
 gy; infantry — camp and field service; ai'- 
 tillery — with limited course in ordnance; 
 and finally, military hygiene and "early 
 aid to the wounded." It is a broad ad- 
 vance from the curriculum of the early 
 days, and the "Kindergarten" is no more. 
 It is said that future classes will be 
 made up of bachelors, and had this rule 
 been in vogue before, even the abnormal 
 precipitancy of the army lieutenant in 
 matters matrimonial would have been 
 stimulated. Now, however, it has become 
 a post where our army ladies love to go, 
 and nowhere does social life seem more 
 pleasant. Famous were the Leavenworth 
 theatricals for many a year, and beauti- 
 ful ai'e the evening "hojis" and parties 
 now. The "cares that infest the day" 
 seem banished with tlie setting sun, and 
 all the garrison, male and female, appears 
 in force and finest feathers when the bu- 
 gle sounds the signal for evening pai-ade. 
 This, the closing cei'emony of the day, al- 
 
 ways takes place dismounted, and on the 
 beautiful curving surface of the green in 
 front of the commanding officer's. The 
 long line stretches across from east to 
 west, the yellow plumes of the cavalry 
 looking like a hedge of golden -rod, and 
 every young soldier at the school is there, 
 while the paths and porches that sur- 
 round are alive with dainty dresses and 
 brightest color. The band plays its best, 
 and when parade is finally dismissed, and 
 the erect figures go stalking away through 
 the trees, there is a brief quarter-hour of 
 chat and interchange of gi'eeting, and then 
 the twilight deepens, and lights begin to 
 twinkle here and there amid the vines, and 
 the voices soften, and the clink of scabbard 
 and beat of hoof of the cavalry x^atrol are 
 heai'd across the broad parade, and little 
 wisps of vapor begin to curl in the distant 
 hollows, and blacker shadows to gather 
 under the trees. The busy day is done, 
 silence falls on the wide expanse of 
 "guarded land," and then, far out on the 
 slopes beyond, is heard the \veird, wild 
 plaint of the whippoorwill. 
 
 }J»^f:. ,. 
 
 Mil''"'' ■' 
 
 SWEET NELLY, MY HEART'S DELIGHT. 
 
 He. Q WEET Nelly, my heart's delight, 
 O Be loving, and do not slight 
 
 The proffer I make 
 
 For modesty's sake. 
 I honor your beauty bright; 
 
 For love I profess, 
 
 I can do no less. 
 Thou hast my favor won; 
 
 And since I see 
 
 Your modesty, 
 
 I pray you agree, 
 
 And fancy me, 
 Though I'm but a farmer's son. 
 
 She. No; I am a lady gay; 
 
 It is very well known I may 
 Have men of renown 
 In country or town. 
 
 So, Roger, without delay 
 Court Bridget, or Sue, 
 Kate, Nancy, or Prue; 
 
 Their loves will soon be w^on ;. 
 But don't you dare 
 To speak me fair. 
 As if I were 
 At my last pray'r 
 
 To marry a farmer's son. 
 
pROM THE Ranks, 
 
 A NOVEL. 
 
 BY 
 
 CAPTAIN CHARLES KING, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 "THE colonel's DAUGHTER," "THE DESERTER," "MARION'S FAITH," 
 
 "kitty's conquest," etc. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, 
 
Copyright, 1887, by J. B. Lippincott Company. 
 
 I ISrfcl^^lOTYPERSAMDI-^l■".^;TERSI IIl^ 
 
 >ai>^---_ — /iV •> 
 
LIPPINCOTT'S 
 \/JONTHLY ]y[AGAZINE. 
 
 DECEMBER, 188 7. 
 
 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 I. 
 
 A STRANGE thing had happened at the old fort during the still 
 watches of the night. Even now, at nine in the morning, no 
 one seemed to be in possession of the exact circumstances. Tlie officer 
 of the day was engaged in an investigation, and all that appeared to be 
 generally known was the bald statement that the sentry on " Number 
 Five" had fired at somebody or other about half after three ; that he 
 had fired by order of the officer of the day, who was on his post at 
 the time ; and that now he flatly refused to talk about the matter. 
 
 Garrison curiosity, it is perhaps needless to say, was ratlier stimu- 
 lated than lulled by this announcement. An unusual number of officers 
 were chatting about head-quarters when Colonel Maynard came over to 
 his office. Several ladies, too, who had hitherto shown but languid 
 interest in the morning music of the band, had taken the trouble to 
 stroll down to the old quadrangle, ostensibly to see guard-mounting. 
 Mrs. Maynard was almost always on her piazza at this time, and her 
 lovely daughter was almost sure to be at the gate with two or three 
 young fellows lounging about her. This morning, however, not a soul 
 appeared in front of the colonel's quarters. 
 
 Guard-mounting at the fort was not held until nine o'clock, con- 
 trary to the somewhat general custom at other posts in our scattered 
 army. Colonel Maynard had ideas of his own upon the subject, and 
 it was his theory that everything worked more smoothly if he had 
 finished a leisurely breakfast before beginning office-work of any kind, 
 and neither the colonel nor his family cared to breakfast before eiglit 
 o'clock. In view of the fact that Mrs. Maynard had borne that name 
 but a very short time and that her knowledge of army life dated only 
 from the month of May, the garrison was disposed to consider her en- 
 
 763 
 
764 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 titled to much latitude of choice in such matters, even while it did say 
 that she was old enough to be above bride-like sentiment. The women- 
 folk at the fort were of opinion that Mrs. Maynard was fifty. It must 
 be conceded that she was over forty, also that this was her second entiy 
 into the bonds of matrimony. 
 
 That no one should now appear on the colonel's piazza was obvi- 
 ously a disappointment to several people. In some way or other most 
 of the breakfast-tables at the post had been enlivened by accounts of 
 the mysterious shooting. The soldiers going the rounds with the 
 " police-cart," the butcher and grocer and baker from town, the old 
 milkwoman with her glistening cans, had all served as newsmongers 
 from kitchen to kitchen, and the story that came in with the coifee to 
 the lady of the house had lost nothing in bulk or bravery. The groups 
 of officers chatting and smoking in front of head-quarters gained acces- 
 sions every moment, while the ladies seemed more absorbed in chat and 
 confidences than in the sweet music of the band. 
 
 What fairly exasperated some men was the fact that the old officer 
 of the day was not out on the parade where he belonged. Only the 
 new incumbent was standing there in statuesque pose as the band 
 trooped along the line, and the fact that the colonel had sent out word 
 that the ceremony would proceed without Captain Chester only served 
 to add fuel to the flame of popular conjecture. It was known that the 
 colonel was holding a consultation with closed doors with the old 
 officer of the day, and never before since he came to the regiment had 
 the colonel been known to look so pale and strange as when he glanced 
 out for just one moment and called his orderly. The soldier sprang up, 
 saluted, received his message, and, with every eye following him, sped 
 oiF towards the old stone guard-house. In three minutes he was on 
 his way back, accompanied by a corporal and private of the guard in 
 full dress uniform. 
 
 " That's Leary, — the man who fired the shot," said Captain Wilton 
 to his senior lieutenant, who stood by his side. 
 
 "Belongs to B Company, doesn't he?" queried the subaltern. 
 " Seems to me I have heard Captain Armitage say he was one of his 
 best men." 
 
 "Yes. He's been in the regiment as long as I can remember. 
 What on earth can tlie colonel want him for? Near as I can learn, he 
 only fired by Chester's order." 
 
 " And neither of them knows what he fired at." 
 
 It was perhaps ten minutes more before Private Leary came forth 
 from the door-way of the colonel's office, nodded to the corporal, and, 
 raising their white-gloved hands in salute to the group of officers, the 
 two men tossed their rifles to the right slioulder and strode back to the 
 guard. 
 
 Another moment, and the colonel himself opened his door and ap- 
 peared in the hall-way. He stopped abruptly, turned back and spoke 
 a few words in low tone, then hurried through the groups at the en- 
 trance, looking at no man, avoiding tlieir glances, and giving faint and 
 impatient return to the soldierly salutations that greeted him. The 
 sweat was beaded on his forehead ; his lips were white, and his face full 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 765 
 
 of a trouble and dismay no man had ever seen there before. He spoke 
 to no one, but walked rapidly homeward, entered, and closed the gate 
 and door behind him. 
 
 For a moment there was silence in the group. Few men in the 
 service were better loved and honored than the veteran soldier who 
 
 commanded the tli Infantry ; and it was with genuine concern 
 
 that his officers saw him so deeply and painfully aifected, — for affected 
 he cei'tainly was. Never l^efore had his cheery voice denied them a 
 cordial " Good-morning, gentlemen." Never before had his blue eyes 
 flinched. He had been their comrade and commander in years of 
 frontier service, and his bachelor home had been the rendezvous of all 
 genial spirits when in garrison. They had missed him sorely when he 
 went abroad on long leave the previous year, and were almost indig- 
 nant when they received the news that he had met his fate in Italy and 
 would return married. "She" was the widow of a wealthy New- 
 Yorker who had been dead some three years only, and, though over 
 forty, did not look her years to masculine eyes when she reached the 
 fort in May. After knowing her a week, the garrison had decided to 
 a man that the colonel had done wisely. Mrs. Maynard was charming, 
 courteous, handsome, and accomplished. Only among the women were 
 there still a few who resented their colonel's capture ; and some of 
 these, oblivious of the fact that they had tempted him with rela- 
 tions of their own, were sententious and severe in their condemnation 
 of second marriage ; for the colonel, too, was indulging in a second ex- 
 periment. Of his first, only one man in the regiment, besides the com- 
 mander, could tell anything ; and he, to the just indignation of almost 
 everybody, would not discuss the subject. It was rumored that in the 
 old days when Maynard was senior captain and Chester junior sub- 
 altern in their former regiment the two had very little in common. It 
 was known that the first Mrs. Maynard, while still young and beautiful, 
 had died abroad. It was hinted that the resignation of a dashing 
 lieutenant of the regiment, which was synchronous with her departure 
 for foreign shores, was demanded by his brother officers ; but it was 
 useless asking Captain Chester. He could not tell ; and — wasn't it 
 odd? — here was Chester again, the only man in the colonel's confi- 
 dence in an hour of evident trouble. 
 
 " By Jove ! what's gone wrong with the chief?" was the first 
 exclamation from one of the older officers. " I never saw him look so 
 broken." 
 
 As no explanation suggested itself, they began edging in towards 
 the office. The door stood open ; a hand-bell banged ; a clerk darted 
 in from the sergeant-major's rooms, and Captain Chester was revealed 
 seated at the colonel's desk. This in itself was sufficient to induce 
 several officers to stroll in and look inquiringly around. Captain 
 Chester, merely nodding, went on with some writing at which he was 
 engaged. 
 
 After a moment's awkward silence and uneasy glancing at one an- 
 other, the party seemed to arrive at the conclusion that it was time to 
 speak. The band had ceased, and the new guard had marched away 
 behind its pealing bugles. Lieutenant Hall winked at his comrades, 
 
766 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 strolled hesitatingly over to the desk, balanced unsteadily on one leg, 
 and, with his hands sticking in his trousers-pockets and his forage-cap 
 swinging from protruding thumb and forefinger, cleared his throat, and, 
 with marked lack of confidence, accosted his absorbed superior : 
 
 " Colonel gone home ?" 
 
 " Didn't you see him ?" was the uncompromising reply ; and the 
 captain did not deign to raise his head or eyes. 
 
 " Well — er — yes, I suppose I did," said Mr. Hall, shifting uncom- 
 fortably to his other leg, and prodding the floor with the toe of his 
 boot. 
 
 " Then that wasn't what you wanted to know, I presume," said 
 Captain Chester, signing his name with a vicious dab of the pen and 
 bringing his fist down with a thump on the blotting-pad, while he 
 M'heeled around in his chair and looked squarely up into the perturbed 
 features of the junior. 
 
 "No, it wasn't," answered Mr. Hall, in an injured tone, while an 
 audible snicker at the door added to his sense of discomfort. " What 
 I mainly wanted was to knoM^ could I go to town." 
 
 " That jnatter is easily arranged, Mr. Hall. All you have to do is 
 to get out of that uncomfortable and unsoldierly position, stand in the 
 attitude in which you are certainly more at home and infinitely more 
 picturesque, proffer your request in respectful words, and there is no 
 question as to the result." 
 
 "Oh ! you're in command, then?" said Mr. Hall, slowly wriggling 
 into the position of the soldier and flushing through his bronzed 
 cheeks. " I thought the colonel might be only gone for a minute." 
 
 " The colonel may not be back for a week ; but you be here for 
 
 dress-parade all the same, and Mr. Hall !" he called, as the young 
 
 officer was turning away. The latter faced about again. 
 
 " Was Mr. Jerrold going with you to town ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir. He was to drive me in his dog-cart, and it's over here 
 now." 
 
 " Mr. Jerrold cannot go, — at least not until I have seen him." 
 
 "Why, captain, he got the colonel's permission at breakfast this 
 morning." 
 
 " That is true, no doubt, Mr. Hall." And the captain dropped his 
 sharp and captious manner, and his voice fell, as though in sympathy 
 with the cloud that settled on his face. " I cannot explain matters just 
 now. There are reasons why the permission is withdrawn for the time 
 being. The adjutant M'ill notify him." And Captain Chester turned 
 to his desk again as the new officer of the day, guard-book in hand, 
 entered to make his report. 
 
 " The usual orders, captain," said Chester, as he took the book from 
 his hand and looked over the list of prisoners. Then, in bold and 
 rapid strokes, he wrote across the page the customary certificate of the 
 old officer of the day, winding up with this remark : 
 
 " He also inspected guard and visited sentries between 3 and 3.35 
 A.M. The firing at 3.30 a.m. was by his order." 
 
 Meantime, those officers who had entered and who had no immediate 
 duty to perform were standing or seated around the room, but all ob- 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 767 
 
 serving profound silence. For a moment or two no sound was heard 
 but the scratching of the captain's pen. Then, with some embarrass- 
 ment and hesitancy, he laid it down and glanced around him. 
 
 " Has any one here anything to ask, — any business to transact ?" 
 
 Two or three mentioned some routine matters that required the 
 action of the post-commander, but did so reluctantly, as though they 
 preferred to await the orders of the colonel himself. Captain Wilton, 
 indeed, spoke his sentiments : 
 
 " I wanted to see Colonel Maynard about getting two men of my 
 company relieved from extra duty ; but, as he isn't here, I fancy I had 
 better wait." 
 
 " Not at all. Who are your men ? — Have it done at once, Mr. 
 Adjutant, and supply their places from my company, if need be. Now 
 is there anything else ?" 
 
 The group was apparently "nonplussed," as the adjutant afterwards 
 put it, by such unlooked-for complaisance on the part of the usually 
 crotchety senior captain. Still, no one offered to lead the others and 
 leave the room. After a moment's nervous rapping with his knuckles 
 on the desk. Captain Chester again abruptly spoke : 
 
 "Gentlemen, I am sorry to incommode you, but, if there be nothing 
 more that you desire to see me about, I shall go on with some other 
 matters, which — pardon me — do not require your presence." 
 
 At this very broad hint the party slowly found their legs, and with 
 much wonderment and not a few resentful glances at their temporary 
 commander the officers sauntered to the door-way. There, however, 
 several stopped again, still reluctant to leave in the face of so pervading 
 a mystery, for Wilton turned. 
 
 " Am I to understand that Colonel Maynard has left the post to be 
 gone any length of time ?" he asked. 
 
 " He has not yet gone. I do not know how long he will be gone 
 or how soon he will start. For pressing personal reasons he has turned 
 over the command to me ; and, if he decide to remain away, of course 
 some field-officer will be ordered to come to head-quarters. For a day 
 or two you will have to worry along with me ; but I shan't worry you 
 more than I can help. I've got mystery and mischief enough here to 
 keep me busy, God knows. Just ask Sloat to come back here to me, 
 will you? And — Wilton, I did not mean to be abrupt with you. 
 I'm all upset to-day. Mr. Adjutant, notify Mr. Jerrold at once that 
 he must not leave the post until I have seen him. It is the colonel's 
 last order. Tell him so." 
 
 11. 
 
 The night before had been unusually dark. A thick veil of clouds 
 overspread the heavens and hid the stars. Moon there was none, for 
 the faint silver crescent that gleamed for a moment through the swift- 
 sailing wisps of vapor had dropped beneath the horizon soon after 
 tattoo, and the mournful strains of " taps," borne on the rising wind, 
 seemed to signal " extinguish lights" to the entire firmament as well as 
 to Fort Sibley. There was a dance of some kind at the quarters of 
 one of the staff-officers living far up the row on the southern terrace. 
 
768 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 Chester heard the laughter and chat as. the young officers and their 
 convoy of matrons and maids came tripping homeward after midnight. 
 He was a crusty old bachelor, to use his own description, and rarely 
 ventured into these scenes of social gayety, and, besides, he was officer 
 of the day, and it was a theory he was fond of expounding to juniors 
 that when on guard no soldier should permit himself to be drawn from 
 the scene of his duties. AVith his books and his pipe Chester whiled 
 away the lonely hours of the early night, and wondered if the wind 
 would blow up a rain or disperse the clouds entirely. Towards one 
 o'clock a light, bounding footstep approached his door, and the portal 
 flew open as a trim-built young fellow with laughing eyes and an air 
 of exuberant health and spirits came briskly in. It was Rollins, the 
 junior second lieutenant of the regiment, and Chester's own and only 
 pet, — so said the envious others. He was barely a year out of leading- 
 strings at the Point, and as full of hope and pluck and mischief as a 
 colt. Moreover, he was frank and teachable, said Chester, and didn't 
 come to him with the idea that he had nothing to learn and less to do. 
 The boy won upon his gruff captain from the very start, and, to the 
 incredulous delight of the whole regiment, within six montlis the old 
 cynic had taken him into his heart and home, and Mr. Rollins occupied 
 a pleasant room under Chester's roof-tree, and was the sole accredited 
 sharer of the captain's mess. To a youngster just entering service, 
 whose ambition it was to stick to business and make a record for zeal 
 and efficiency, these were manifest advantages. There were men in the 
 regiment to whom such close communion with a watchful senior would 
 have been most embarrassing, and Mr. Rollins's predecessor as second 
 lieutenant of Chester's company was one of these. Mr. Jerrold was a 
 happy man when promotion took him from under the wing of " Crusty 
 Jake" and landed him in Company B. More than that, it came just at 
 a time when, after four years of loneliness and isolation at an up-river 
 stockade, his new company and his old one, together with four others 
 from the regiment, were ordered to join head-quarters and the band at 
 the most delightful station in the Northwest. Here Mr. Rollins had 
 reported for duty during the previous autumn, and here they were with 
 troops of other arms of the service, enjoying the close proximity of all 
 the good things of civilization. 
 
 Chester looked up with a quizzical smile as his " plebe" came in : 
 " Well, sir, how many dances had you with ' Sweet Alice, Ben 
 Bolt' ? Not many, I fancy, with Mr. Jerrold monopolizing everything, 
 as usual. By gad ! some good fellow could make a colossal fortune 
 in buying that young man at my valuation and selling him at his 
 own." 
 
 " Oh, come, now, captain," laughed Rollins, " Jerrold's no such 
 slouch as you make him out. He's lazy, and he likes to spoon, and 
 he puts up with a good deal of petting from the girls, — who wouldn't, 
 if he could get it ? — but he is jolly and big-hearted, and don't put on 
 any airs, — with us, at least, — and the mess like him first-rate. 'Tain't 
 his fault that he's handsome and a regular lady-killer. You must 
 admit that he had a pretty tough four years of it up there at that cussed 
 old Indian graveyard, and it's only natural he should enjoy getting 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 769 
 
 here, where there are theatres and concerts and operas and dances and 
 dinners " 
 
 " Yes, dances and dinners and daughters, — all delightful, I know, 
 but no excuse for a man's neglecting his manifest duty, as he is doing 
 and has been ever since we got here. Any other time the colonei would 
 have straightened him out ; but no use trying it now, when both women 
 in his household are as big fools about the man as anybody in town, — 
 bigger, unless I'm a born idiot." And Chester rose excitedly. 
 
 " I suppose he had Miss Renwick pretty much to himself to-night ?" 
 he presently demanded, looking angrily and searchingly at his junior, 
 as though half expecting him to dodge the question. 
 
 " Oh, yes. Why not ? It's pretty evident she would rather dance 
 and be with hini than with any one else : so what can a fellow do? Of 
 course we ask her to dance, and all that, and I think he wants us to ; 
 but I cannot help feeling rather a bore to her, even if she is only 
 eighteen, and there are plenty of pleasant girls in the garrison who 
 don't get any too much attention, now we're so near a big city, and I 
 like to be with them." 
 
 " Yes, and it's the right thing for you to do, youngster. That's one 
 trait I despise in Jerrold. When we were up there at the stockade two 
 winters ago, and Captain Gray's little girl was there, he hung around 
 her from morning till night, and the poor little thing fairly beamed and 
 blossomed with delight. Look at her now, man ! He don't go near 
 her. He hasn't had the decency to take her a walk, a drive, or any- 
 thing, since we got here. He began, from the moment w^e came, with 
 that gang in town. He was simply devoted to Miss Beaubien until 
 Alice Renwick came ; then he dropped her like a hot brick. By the 
 Eternal, Eollins, he hasn't gotten off with that old love yet, you mark 
 my words. There's Indian blood in her veins, and a look in her eye 
 that makes me wriggle, sometimes. I watched her last night at parade 
 when she drove out here with that copper-faced old squaw, her mother. 
 For all her French and Italian education and her years in New York 
 and Paris, that girl's got a wild streak in her somewhere. She sat there 
 watching him as the officers marched to the front, and then her, as he 
 went up and joined Miss Renwick ; and there was a gleam of her white 
 teeth and a flash in her black eyes that made me think of the leap of a 
 knife from the sheath. Not but wliat 'twould serve him right if she 
 did play him some devil's trick. It's his own doing. Were any people 
 out from town ?" he suddenly asked. 
 
 " Yes, half a dozen or so," answered Mr. Rollins, who was pulling 
 off his boots and inserting his feet into easy slippers, while old 
 " Crusty" tramped excitedly up and down the floor. " Most of them 
 stayed out here, I think. Only one team went back across the bridge." 
 
 "Whose was that?" 
 
 " The Suttons', I believe. Young Cub Sutton was out with his 
 sister and another girl." 
 
 " There's another damned fool !" growled Chester. " That boy has 
 ten thousand a year of his own, a beautiful home that will be his, a 
 doting mother and sister, and everything wealth can buy, and yet, by 
 gad ! he's unhappy because he can't be a poor devil of a lieutenant, 
 
770 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 with nothing but drills, debts, and rifle-practice to enliven him. That's 
 what brings him out here all the time. He'd swap places with you in 
 a minute. Isn't he very thick with Jerrold ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, rather. Jerrold entertains him a good deal." 
 
 "Which is returned with compound interest, I'll bet you. Mr. 
 Jerrold simply makes a convenience of him. He won't make love to 
 his sister, because the poor, rich, unsophisticated girl is as ugly as she 
 is ubiquitous. His majesty is fastidious, you see, and seeks only the 
 caress of beauty, and while he lives there at the Buttons' when he goes 
 to town, and dines and sleeps and smokes and wines there, and uses 
 their box at the opera-house, and is courted and flattered by the old 
 lady because dear Cubby worships the ground he walks on and poor 
 Fanny Sutton thinks him adorable, he turns his back on the girl at 
 every dance because she can't dance, and leaves her to you fellows who 
 have a conscience and some idea of decency. He gives all his devotions 
 to Nina Beaubien, who dances like a cori/pMe, and drops her when Alice 
 Reuwick comes with her glowing Spanish beauty. Oh, damn it, I'm 
 ati okl fool to get worked up over it as I do, but you young fellows 
 don't see what I see. You haven't seen what I've seen; and pray 
 God you never may ! That's where the shoe pinches, Rollins. It is 
 what he reminds me of — not so much v/hat he is, I suppose — that I get 
 rabid about. He is for all the world like a man we had in the old 
 regiment when you were in swaddling-clothes ; and I never look at 
 Mamie Gray's sad, white face that it doesn't bring back a girl I knew 
 just then whose heart was broken by just such a shallow, selfish, adora- 
 ble scoun No, I won't use that word in speaking of Jerrold ; but 
 
 it's what I fear. Rollins, you call him generous. Well, so he is, — 
 lavish, if you like, with his money and his hospitality here in the post. 
 Money comes easily to him, and goes ; but you boys misuse the term. 
 I calf him selfish to the core, because he can deny himself no luxury, 
 no pleasure, though it may wring a woman's life — or, more than that, 
 her honor — to give it him." The captain was tramping up and down 
 the room now, as was his wont when excited ; his face was flushed, 
 and his hand clinched. He turned suddenly and faced the younger 
 oflicei', who sat gazing uncomfortably at the rug in front of the fire- 
 place : 
 
 " Rollins, some day I may tell you a story that I've kept to myself 
 all these years. You won't wonder at my feeling as I do about these 
 goings-on of your friend Jerrold when you hear it all, but it was just 
 such a man as he who ruined one woman, broke the heart of another, 
 and took the sunshine out of the life of two men from that day to this. 
 One of them was your colonel, the other your captain. Now go to bed. 
 I'm going out." And, throwing down his pipe, regardless of the 
 scattering sparks and ashes, Captain Chester strode into the hall-way, 
 picked up the first forage-cap he laid hands on, and banged himself out 
 of the front door. 
 
 Mr. Rollins remained for some moments in the same attitude, still 
 gazing abstractedly at the rug, and listening to the nervous tramp of 
 iiis senior officer on the piazza without. Then he slowly and thought- 
 fully went to his room, where his perturbed spirit was soon soothed in 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 771 
 
 sleep. His conscience being clear and his health perfect, there were no 
 deep cares to keep him tossing on a restless pillow. 
 
 To Chester, however, sleep was impossible : he tramped the piazza 
 a full hour before he felt placid enough to go and inspect his guard. 
 The sentries were calling three o'clock, and the wind had died away, 
 as he started on' his round. Dark as was the night, he carried no 
 lantern. The main garrison was well lighted by lamps, and the road 
 circling the old fort was broad, smooth, and bordered by a stone coping 
 wall where it skirted the precipitous descent into the river-bottom. As 
 he passed down the plank walk west of the quadrangle wherein lay the 
 old barracks and the stone quarters of tlie commanding officer and the 
 low one-storied row of bachelor dens, he could not help noting the 
 silence and peace of the night. Not a light was visible at any window 
 as he strode down the line. The challenge of the sentry at the old 
 stone tower sounded unnecessarily sharp and loud, and his response of 
 "Officer of the day" was lower than usual, as though rebuking the 
 unseemly outcry. The guard came scrambling out and formed liur- 
 riedly to receive him, but the captain's inspection was of the briefest 
 kind. Barely glancing along the prison corridor to see that the bars 
 were in place, he turned back into the night, and made for the line of 
 posts along the river-bank. The sentry at the high bridge across the 
 gorge, and the next one, well around to the southeast flank, were suc- 
 cessively visited and briefly questioned as to their instructions, and then 
 the captain plodded sturdily on until he came to the sharp bend around 
 the outermost angle of the fort and found himself passing behind the 
 quarters of the commanding officer, a substantial two-storied stone house 
 with mansard roof and dormer-windows. The road in the rear was 
 some teii feet below the level of the parade inside the quadrangle, and 
 consequently, as the house faced the parade, what was the ground-floor 
 from that front became the second story at the rear. The kitchen, store- 
 room, and servants' rooms were on this lower stage, and opened upon 
 the road ; an outer stairway ran up to the centre door at the back, but 
 at the east and west flanks of the house the stone walls stood without 
 port or window except those above the eaves, — the dormers. Light and 
 air in abundance streamed through the broad Venetian windows north 
 and south when light and air were needed. This night, as usual, all 
 was tightly closed below, all darkness aloft as he glanced up at the 
 dormers high above his head. As he did so, his foot struck a sudden 
 and sturdy obstacle; he stumbled and pitched heavily forward, and 
 found himself sprawling at full length upon a ladder lying on the 
 ground almost in the middle of the roadway. 
 
 " Damn those painters !" he gi'owled between his set teeth. " They 
 leave their infernal man-traps around in the very hope of catching me, 
 I believe. Now, who but a painter would have left a ladder in such a 
 place as this ?" 
 
 Rising ruefully and rubbing a bruised knee with his hand, he 
 limped painfully ahead a few steps, until he came to the side-wall of 
 the colonel's house. Here a plank walk passed from the roadway along 
 the western wall until almost on a line with the front piazza, where by 
 a flight of steps it was carried up to the level of the parade. Here he 
 
772 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 paused a moment to dust off his clothes and rearrange his belt and 
 sword. He stood leaning against the M'all and facing the gray stone 
 gable end of the row of old-fashioned quarters that bounded the parade 
 upon the southwest. All was still darkness and silence. 
 
 " Confound this sword !'^ he muttered again : " the thing made rat- 
 tle and racket enough to wake the dead. AYonder if I disturbed any- 
 body at the colonel's." 
 
 As though in answer to his suggestion, there suddenly appeared, 
 high on the blank wall before him, the reflection of a faint light. Had 
 a little night-lamp been turned on in the front room of the upper story? 
 The gleam came from the north window on the side : he saw plainly 
 the shadow of the pretty lace curtains, looped loosely back. Then the 
 shade was gently raised, and there was for an instant the silhouette of 
 a slender hand and wrist, the shadow of a lace-bordered sleeve. Then 
 the light receded, as though carried back across the room, waned, as 
 though slowly extinguished, and the last shadows showed the curtains 
 still looped back, the rolling shade still raised. 
 
 " I thought so," he growled. " One tumble like that is enough 
 to wake the Seven Sleepers, let alone a love-sick girl who is prob- 
 ably dreaming over Jerrold's parting v/ords. She is spirited and blue- 
 blooded enough to have more sense, too, that same superb brunette. 
 Ah, Miss Alice, I wonder if you think that fellow's love worth having. 
 It is two hours since he left you, — more than that, — and here you are 
 awake yet, — cannot sleep, — want more air, and have to come and raise 
 your shade. No such warm night, either." These were his reflections 
 as he picked up his offending sword and, more slowly and cautiously 
 now, groped his way along the western terrace. He passed the row 
 of bachelor quarters, and was well out beyond the limits of the fort 
 before he came upon the next sentry, — "Number Five," — and recog- 
 nized, in the stern "Who comes there?" and the sharp rattle of the 
 bayonet as it dropped to the charge, the well-known challenge of 
 Private Leary, one of the oldest and most reliable soldiers in the regi- 
 ment. 
 
 " All right on your post, Leary ?" he asked, after having given the 
 countersign. 
 
 " All right, I thinh, sor ; though if the captain had asked me that 
 half an hour ago I'd not have said so. It was so dark I couldn't see 
 me hand afore me face, sor ; but about half-past two I was walkin' 
 very slow down back of the quarters, whin just close by Loot'nant 
 Jerrold's back gate I seen somcthin' movin', and as I come softly along 
 it riz up, an' sure I thought 'twas the loot'nant himself, whin he 
 seemed to catch sight o' me or hear me, and he backed inside the gate 
 an' shut it. I was sure 'twas he, he was so tall and slim like, an' so I 
 niver said a word until I got to thinkin' over it, and then I couldn't 
 spake. Sure if it had been the loot'nant he wouldn't have backed 
 away from a sintry ; he'd 'a' come out bold arid given the countersign ; 
 but I didn't think o' that. It looked like him in the dark, an' 'twas 
 his quarters, an' I thought it was him, until I thought ag'in, and then, 
 sor, I wint back and searched the yard ; but there was no one there." 
 
 " Hm ! Odd thing that, Leary ! Why didn't you challenge at first ?" 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 773 
 
 "Sure, sor, he lept inside the fince quick as iver we set eyes on 
 each other. He was bendin' down, and I thought it was one of the 
 hound pups when I first sighted him." 
 
 "And he hasn't been around since?" 
 
 " No, sor, nor nobody, till the officer of the day came along." 
 
 Chester walked away puzzled. Sibley was a most quiet and orderly 
 garrison. Night prowlers had never been heard from, especially over 
 here at the south and southwest fronts. The enlisted men going to or 
 from town passed across the big, high bridge or went at once to their 
 own quarters on the east and north. This southwestern terrace behind 
 the bachelors' row was the most secluded spot on the whole post, — so 
 much so that when a fire broke out there among the fuel-heaps one sharp 
 winter's night a year agone it had wellnigh enveloped the whole line- 
 before its existence was discovered. Indeed, not until after this occur- 
 rence was a sentry posted on that front at all ; and, once ordered there, 
 he had so little to do and was so comparatively sure to be undisturbed 
 that the old soldiers eagerly sought the post in preference to any other, 
 and were given it as a peace privilege. For months, relief after relief 
 tramped around the fort and found the terrace post as humdrum and 
 silent as an empty church ; but this night " Number Five" leaped sud- 
 denly into notoriety. 
 
 Instead of going home, Chester kept on across the plateau and took 
 a long walk on the northern side of the reservation, where the quarter- 
 master's stables and corrals were placed. He was affected by a strange 
 unrest. His talk with Rollins had roused the memories of years long 
 gone by, — of days when he, too, was young and full of hope and faith, 
 ay, full of love, — all lavished on one fair girl who knew it well, but 
 gently, almost entreatingly, repelled him. Her heart was wrapped 
 up in another, the Adonis of his day in the gay old seaboard garrison. 
 She was a soldier's child, barrack-born, simply taught, knowing little 
 of the vice and temptations, the follies and the frauds, of the whirling 
 life of civilization. A good and gentle mother had reared her and been 
 called hence. Her father, an officer whose sabre-arm was left at Molino 
 del Rey, and whose heart was crushed Avhen the loving wife was taken 
 from him, turned to the child who so resembled her, and centred there 
 all his remaining love and life. He welcomed Chester to his home, and 
 tacitly favored his suit, but in his blindness never saw how a few 
 moonlit strolls on the old moss-grown parapet, a few evening dances in 
 the casemates with handsome, wooing, winning Will Forrester, had 
 done their work. She gave him all the wild, enthusiastic, worshipping 
 love of her girlish heart just about the time Captain and Mrs. Maynard 
 came back from leave, and then he grew cold and negligent there, but 
 lived at Maynard's fireside ; and one day there came a sensation, — a 
 tragedy, — and Mrs. Maynard went away, and died abroad, and a 
 shocked and broken-hearted girl hid her face from all and pined at 
 home, and Mr. Forrester's resignation was sent from — no one knew 
 just where, and no one would have cared to know, except Maynard. He 
 would have followed him, pistol in hand, but Forrester gave him no 
 chance. Years afterwards Chester again sought her and offered her his 
 love and his name. It was useless, she told him, sadly. She lived 
 
774 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 only for her father now, and would never leave him till he died, and 
 then — she prayed she might go too. Memories like this will come up 
 at such times in these same " still watches of the night." Chester was 
 in a moody frame of mind when about half an hour later he came back 
 past the guard-house. The sergeant was standing near the lighted en- 
 trance, and the captain called him : 
 
 " There's a ladder lying back of the colonel's quarters on the road- 
 way. Some of those painters left it, I suppose. It's a wonder some 
 of the reliefs have not broken their necks over it going around to-night. 
 Let the next one pick it up and move it out of the way. Hasn't it- 
 been reported ?" 
 
 " Not to me, sir. Corporal Schreiber has command of this relief, 
 and he has said nothing about it. Here he is, sir." 
 
 "Didn't you see it or stumble over it when posting your relief, 
 corporal ?" asked Chester. 
 
 " No indeed, sir. I — I think the captain must have been mistaken 
 in thinking it a ladder. We would surely have struck it if it had been." 
 
 "No mistake at all, corporal. I lifted it. It is a long, heavy 
 ladder, — over twenty feet, I should say." 
 
 " There is such a ladder back there, captain," said the sergeant, 
 "but it always hangs on the fence just behind the young officers' 
 quarters, — Bachelors' Row, sir, I mean." 
 
 " And that ladder was there an hour ago when I went my rounds," 
 said the corporal, earnestly. " I had ray hurricane-lamp, sir, and saw 
 it on the fence plainly. And there was nothing behind the colonel's at 
 that hour." 
 
 Chester turned away, thoughtful and silent. Without a word he 
 walked straight into the quadrangle, past the Ioav line of stone build- 
 ings, the offices of the adjutant and quartermaster, the home of the 
 sergeant-major, the club- and billiard-room, past the long, piazza-shaded 
 row of bachelor quarters, and came upon the plank walk at the corner 
 of the colonel's fence. Ten more steps, and he stood stock-still at the 
 head of the flight of wooden stairs. 
 
 There, dimly visible against the southern sky, its base on the plank 
 walk below him, its top resting upon the eaves midway between the 
 dormer-window and the roof of the piazza, so that one could steji easily 
 from it into the one or on to the other, was the very ladder that half an 
 hour before Avas lying on the ground behind the house. 
 
 His heart stood still. He seemed powerless to move, — even to 
 think. Then a slight noise roused him, and with every nerve tingling 
 he crouched ready for a spring. With quick, agile movements, noise- 
 less as a cat, sinuous and stealthy as a serpent, the dark figure of a man 
 issued from Alice Renwick's chamber window and came gliding down. 
 
 One second more, and, almost as noiselessly, he reached the ground, 
 then quickly raised and turned the ladder, stepped with it to the edge 
 of the roadway, and peered around the angle as though to see that no 
 sentry was in sight, then vanished with his burden around the corner. 
 Another second, and down the steps went Chester, three at a Iwund, tip- 
 toeing it in pursuit. Ten seconds brought him close to the culjjrit, — a 
 tall, slender shadow. 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 775 
 
 " You villain ! Halt !" 
 
 Down went the ladder on the dusty road. The hand that Chester 
 had clinched upon the broad shoulder was hurled aside. There was a 
 sadden whirl, a lightning blow that took the captain full in the chest 
 and staggered him back upon the treacherous and entangling rungs, 
 and, ere he could recover himself, the noiseless stranger had fairly- 
 whizzed into space and vanished in the darkness up the road. Chester 
 sprang in pursuit. He heard the startled challenge of the sentry, and 
 then Leary's excited " Halt, I say ! Halt !" and then he shouted, — 
 
 " Fire on him, Leary ! Bring him down !" 
 
 Bang went the ready rifle with sharp, sullen roar that woke the 
 echoes across the valley. Bang again, as Leary sent a second shot after 
 the first. Then, as the captain came panting to the spot, they followed 
 up the road. No sign of the runner. Attracted by the shots, the 
 sergeant of the guard and one or two men, lantern-bearing, came run- 
 ning to the scene. Excitedly they searched up and down the road in 
 mingled hope and dread of finding the body of the marauder, or some 
 clue or trace. Nothing ! Whoever he was, the fleet runner had van- 
 ished and made good his escape. 
 
 " Who could it have been, sir ?" asked the sergeant of the officer of 
 the day. " Surely none of the men ever come round this way." 
 
 " I don't know, sergeant ; I don't know. Just take your lamp and 
 see if there is anything visible down there among the rocks. He may 
 have been hit and leaped the wall. — Do you think you hit him, 
 Leary ?" 
 
 " I can't say, sor. He came by me like a flash. I had just a 
 second's look at hira, and Sure I niver saw such runnin'." 
 
 " Could you see his face ?" asked Chester, in a low tone, as the other 
 men moved a-way to search the rocks. 
 
 " Not his face, sor. 'Twas too dark." 
 
 " Was there — did he look like anybody you knew, or had seen ? — 
 anybody in the command ?" 
 
 " Well, sor, not among the men, that is. There's none so tall and 
 slim both, and so light. Sure he must 'a' worn gums, sor. You 
 couldn't hear the whisper of a footfall." 
 
 " But whom did he seem to resemble ?" 
 
 " Well, if the captain will forgive me, sor, it's unwillin' I am to 
 say the worrd, but there's no one that tall and light and slim here, sor, 
 but Loot'nant Jerrold. Sure it couldn't be him, sor." 
 
 " Leary, will you promise me something on your word as a man ?" 
 
 " I will, sor." 
 
 " Say not one word of this matter to any one, except I tell you, or 
 you have to, before a court." 
 
 " I promise, sor." 
 
 " And I believe you. Tell the sergeant I will soon be back." 
 
 With that he turned and walked down the road until once more 
 he came to the planlc crossing and the passage-way between the colonel's 
 and Bachelors' Row. Here again he stopped short, and waited with 
 bated breath and scarcely-beating lieart. The faint light he had seen 
 before again illumined the room and cast its gleam upon the old gray 
 
776 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 wall. Even as he gazed, there came silently to the window a tall, 
 white-robed form, and a slender white hand seized and lowered the 
 shade, noiselessly. Then, as before, the light faded away; but — she 
 was awake. 
 
 Waiting one moment in silence, Captain Chester then sprang up the 
 wooden steps and passed under the piazza which ran the length of the 
 bachelor quarters. Half-way down the row he turned sharply to his 
 left, opened the green-painted door, and stood in a little dark hall-way. 
 Taking his match-box from his pocket, he struck a light, and by its 
 glare quickly read the card upon the first door-way to his right : 
 
 "Mr. Howard F. Jerrold, 
 
 " th Infantry, U.S.A." 
 
 Opening this door, he bolted straight through the little parlor to 
 the bedroom in the rear. A dim light was burning on the mantel. 
 The bed was unruffled, untouched, and Mr. Jerrold was not there. 
 
 Five minutes afterwards. Captain Chester, all alone, had laboriously 
 and cautiously dragged the ladder from the side to the rear of the 
 colonePs house, stretched it in the roadway where he had first stumbled 
 upon it, then returned to the searching-party on " Number Five." 
 
 " Send two men to put that ladder back," he ordered. " It is where 
 I told you, — on the road behind the colonel's." 
 
 III. 
 
 "When Mrs. Maynard came to Sibley in May and the officers with 
 their wives were making their welcoming call, she had with motherly 
 pride and pleasure yielded to their constant importunities and shown to 
 one party after another an album of photograplis, — likenesses of her 
 only daughter. There were little cartes de visite representing her in 
 long dresses and baby-caps ; quaint little pictures of a chubby-faced, 
 chubby-legged infant a few months older ; charming studies of a little 
 girl with great black eyes and delicate features ; then of a tall, slender 
 slip of a maiden, decidedly foreign-looking ; then of a sweet and pensive 
 face, with great dark eyes, long, beautiful curling lashes, and very heavy, 
 low-arclied brows, exquisitely moulded mouth and chin, and most luxu- 
 riant dark hair ; then others, still older, in every variety of dress, — even 
 in fancy costume, such as the girl had worn at fair or masquerade. 
 These and others still had Mrs. Maynard shown them, with repressed 
 pride and pleasure and with sweet acknowledgment of their enthusiastic 
 praises. Alice still tarried in the East, visiting relatives whom she had 
 not seen since her father's death three years earlier, and, long before she 
 came to join her mother at Sibley- and to enter upon the life she so 
 eagerly looked forward to, " 'way out in the West, you know, with 
 officers and soldiers and the band, and buifalo and Indians all around 
 you," there was not an officer or an officer's wife wlio had not delight- 
 edly examined that album. There was still another picture, but that 
 one had been shown to only a chosen few just one week after her daugh- 
 ter's arrival, and rather an absurd scene had occurred, in which that 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 777 
 
 most estimable officer, Lieutenant Sloat, had figured as the hero. A 
 more simple-minded, well-intentioned fellow than Sloat there did not 
 live. He was so full of kindness and good nature and readiness to do 
 anything for anybody that it never seemed to occur to him that every- 
 body on earth was not just as ready to be equally accommodating. He 
 was a perpetual source of delight to the colonel, and one of the most loyal 
 and devoted of subalterns, despite the fact that his locks were long sil- 
 vered with the frosts of years and that he had fought through the war 
 of the rebellion and risen to the rank of a field-officer in Maynard's old 
 brigade. The most temperate of men, ordinarily, the colonel had one 
 anniversary he loved to celebrate, and Sloat was his stand-by when the 
 3d of July came round, just as he had been at his shoulder at that 
 supreme moment when, heedless of the fearful sweep of shell and canis- 
 ter through their shattered ranks, Pickett's heroic Virginians breasted 
 the slope of Cemetery Hill and surged over the low stone wall into 
 Cushing's guns. Hard, stubborn fighting had Maynard's men to do 
 that day, and for serene courage and determination no man had beaten 
 Sloat. Both officers had bullet-hole mementos to carry from that 
 field ; both had won their brevets for conspicuous gallantry, and Sloat 
 was a happy and grateful man when, years afterwards, his old com- 
 mander secured liim a lieutenancy in the regular service. He was the 
 colonel's henchman, although he never had brains enough to win a place 
 on the regimental staff, and when Mrs. Maynard came he overwhelmed 
 her with cumbrous compliments and incessant calls. He was, to his 
 confident belief, her chosen and accepted knight for full two days after 
 her arrival. Then Jerrold came back from a brief absence, and, as in 
 duty bound, went to pay his respects to his colonel's wife ; and that 
 night there had been a singular scene. Mrs. Maynard liad stopped 
 suddenly in her laughing chat with two ladies, had started from her 
 seat, wildly staring at the tall, slender subaltern who entered the gate- 
 way, and then fell back in her chair, fairly swooning as he made his bow. 
 Sloat had rushed into the house to call the colonel and get some 
 water, while Mr. Jerrold stood paralyzed at so strange a reception of 
 his first call. Mrs. Maynard revived presently, explained that it was 
 her heart, or the heat, or something, and the ladies on their way home 
 decided that it was possibly the heart, it was certainly not the heat, it 
 was unquestionably something, and that something was Mr. Jerrold, 
 for she never took her eyes off him during the entire evening, and 
 seemed unable to shake off the fascination. Next day Jerrold dined 
 there, and from that time on he was a daily visitor. Every one noted 
 Mrs. Maynard's strong interest in hira, but no one could account for it. 
 She was old enough to be his mother, said the garrison ; but not until 
 Alice Renwick came did another consideration appear : he was singu- 
 larly like the daughter. Both were tall, lithe, slender ; both had dark, 
 lustrous eyes, dark, though almost perfect, skin, exquisitely-chiselled 
 features, and slender, shapely hands and feet. Alice was " the picture 
 of her father," said Mrs. Maynard, and Mr. Renwick had lived all his 
 life in New York ; while Mr. Jerrold was of an old Southern family, 
 and his mother a Cuban beauty who was the toast of the New Orleans 
 clubs not many years before the war. 
 Vol. XL.— 51 
 
778 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 Poor Sloat ! He did not fancy Jerrold, and was as jealous as so 
 unselfish a mortal could be of the immediate ascendency the young 
 fellow established in the colonel's household. It was bad enough be- 
 fore Alice joined them ; after that it was wellnigh unbearable. Then 
 came the 3d-of-July dinner and the colonel's one annual jollification. 
 No man ever heard of Sloat's being intoxicated ; he rarely drank at 
 all ; but this evening the reminiscences of the day, the generous wine, 
 the unaccustomed elegance of all his surroundings, due to Mrs. May- 
 nard's taste and supervision, and the influence of Alice Renwick's 
 exquisite beauty, had fairly carried him away. 
 
 They were chatting in the parlor, while Miss Renwick was enter- 
 taining some young-lady friends from town and listening to the band 
 on the parade. Sloat was expatiating on her grace and beauty and 
 going over the album for the twentieth time, when the colonel, with a 
 twinkling eye, remarked to Mrs. Maynard, — 
 
 "I think you ought to show Major* Sloat the ' Directoire' picture,- 
 my dear." 
 
 " Alice would never forgive me," said madame, laughing ; " though 
 I consider it the most beautiful we have of her." 
 
 " Oh, where is it ?" " Oh, do let us see it, Mrs. Maynard !" was 
 the chorus of exclamations from the few ladies present. " Oh, I insist 
 on seeing it, madame," was Sloat's characteristic contribution to the 
 clamor. 
 
 " I want you to understand it," said Mrs. Maynard, pleased, but 
 still hesitating. " We are very daft about Alice at home, you know, 
 and it's quite a wonder she has not been utterly spoiled by her aunts 
 and uncles ; but this picture was a specialty. An artist friend of ours 
 fairly made us have it taken in the wedding-dress worn by her grand- 
 mother. You know the Josephine Beauharnais 'Directoire' style 
 that was worn in seventeen ninety-something. Her neck and shoul- 
 ders are lovely, and that was why we consented. I went, and so did 
 the artist, and we posed her, and the photograph is simply perfect of 
 her face, and neck too, but when Alice saw it she blushed furiously 
 and forbade my having them finished. Afterwards, though, she 
 yielded when her aunt Kate and I begged so hard and promised that 
 none should be given away, and so just half a dozen were finished. 
 Indeal, the dress is by no means as d^coIleU as many girls wear theirs 
 at dinner now in New York ; but poor Alice was scandalized when she 
 saw it last month, and she never would let me put one in the album." 
 
 " Oh, do go and get it, Mrs. Maynard !" pleaded the ladies. " Oh, 
 please let me see it, Mrs. Maynard !" added Sloat ; and at last the 
 mother-pride prevailed. Mrs. Maynard rustled up-stairs, and presently 
 returned holding in her hands a delicate silver frame in filigree-work, 
 a quaint foreign affair, and enclosed therein was a cabinet photograph 
 en vignette, — the head, neck, and shoulders of a beautiful girl ; and the 
 dainty, diminutive, what-there-was-of-it waist of the old-fashioned gown, 
 
 * By act of Congress, officers may be addressed by the title of the highest 
 rank held by thera in the volunteer service during the war. The colonel always 
 punctiliously so addressed his friend and subordinate, although in the army his 
 grade was simply that of first lieutenant. 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 779 
 
 gashed almost immediately under the exquisite bust, revealed quite 
 materially the cause of Alice Renwick's blushes. But a more beauti- 
 ful portrait was uever photographed. The women fairly gasped with 
 delight and envy. Sloat could not restrain his impatience to get it in 
 his own hands, and finally he grasped it and then eyed it in rapture. 
 It was two minutes before he spoke a word, while the colonel sat laugh- 
 ing at his worshipping gaze. Mrs. Maynard somewhat uneasily stretched 
 forth her hand, and the other ladies impatiently strove to regain posses- 
 sion. 
 
 " Come, Major Sloat, you've surely had it long enough. We want 
 it again." 
 
 " Never !" said Sloat, with melodramatic intensity. " Never ! This 
 is my ideal of perfection, — of divinity in woman. I will bear it home 
 with me, set it above my fireside, and adore it day and night." 
 
 " Nonsense, Major Sloat !" said Mrs. Maynard, laughing, yet far 
 from being at her ease. " Come, I must take it back. Alice may be in 
 any minute now, and if she knew I had betrayed her she would never 
 forgive me. Come, surrender !" And she strove to take it from him. 
 
 But Sloat was in one of his utterly asinine moods. He would have 
 been perfectly willing to give any sum he possessed for so perfect a 
 picture as this. He never dreamed that there were good and sufficient 
 reasons why no man should have it. He so loved and honored his 
 colonel that he was ready to lay down his life for any of his household. 
 In laying claim to this picture he honestly believed that it was the 
 highest proof he could give of his admiration and devotion. A tame 
 surrender now meant that his protestations were empty words. "There- 
 fore," argued Sloat, " I must stand firm." 
 
 " Madame," said he, " I'd die first." And with that he began back- 
 ing to the door. 
 
 Alarmed now, Mrs. Maynard sprang after him, and the little major 
 leaped upon a chair, his face aglow, jolly, rubicund, beaming with bliss 
 and triumph. She looked up, almost wringing her hands, and turned 
 half appealingly to the colonel, who was laughing heartily on the sofa, 
 never dreaming Sloat could be in earnest. 
 
 " Here, I'll give you back the frame : I don't want that," said 
 Sloat, and began fumbling at the back of the photograph. This was 
 too much for the ladies. They, too, rushed to the rescue. One of 
 them sprang to and shut the door, the other seized and violently shook 
 the back of his chair, and Sloat leaped to the floor, still clinging to his 
 prize, and laughing as though he had never had so much entertainment 
 in his life. The long Venetian windows opened upon the piazza, and 
 towards the nearest one he retreated, holding aloft the precious gage and 
 waving off the attacking party with the other hand. He was within 
 a yard of the blinds, when they were suddenly thrown open, a tall, 
 slender form stepped quickly in, one hand seized the uplifted wrist, the 
 other the picture, and in far less time than it takes to tell it Mr. Jerrold 
 had wrenched it away and, with quiet bow, restored it to its rightful 
 owner. 
 
 " Oh, I say, now, Jerrold, that's downright unhandsome of you !'\ 
 gasped Sloat. " I'd have been on my way home with it." 
 
780 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 " Shut up, you fool !" was the sharp, hissing whisper. " Wait till 
 I go home, if you want to talk about it." And, as quickly as he came, 
 Mr. Jerrold slipped out again upon the piazza. 
 
 Of course the story was told with varied comment all over the post. 
 Several officers were injudicious enough to chaiFthe old subaltern about 
 it, and — he was a little sore-headed the next day, anyway — the usually 
 placid Sloat grew the more indignant at Jerrold. He decided to go 
 and upbraid him ; and, as ill luck would have it, they met before noon 
 on the steps of the club-room. 
 
 " I want to say to you, Mr. Jerrold, that from an officer of your 
 age to one of mine I think your conduct last night a piece of imperti- 
 nence." 
 
 " I had a perfect right to do what I did," replied Jerrold, coolly. 
 " You were taking a most unwarrantable liberty in trying to carry off 
 that picture." 
 
 " How did you know what it was ? You had never seen it !" 
 
 " There's where you are mistaken, Mr. Sloat" (and Jerrold purposely 
 and exasperatingly refused to recognize the customary bi'evet) : " I had 
 seen it, — frequently." 
 
 Two officers were standing by, and one of them turned sharply and 
 faced Jerrold as he spoke. It was his former company commander. 
 Jerrold noted the symptom, and flushed, but set his teeth doggedly. 
 
 " Why, Mr. Jerrold ! Mrs. Maynard said she never showed that to 
 any one," said Sloat, in much surprise. " You heard her, did you not, 
 Captain Chester?" 
 
 ^' I did, certainly," was the reply. 
 
 " All the same, I repeat what I've said," was Jerrold's sullen 
 
 answer. "I have seen it frequently, and, what's more " He 
 
 suddenly stopped. 
 
 " Well, what's more ?" said Sloat, suggestively. 
 
 " Never mind. I don't care to talk of the matter," replied Jerrold, 
 and started to walk away. 
 
 But Sloat was angry, nettled, jealous. He had meant to show his 
 intense loyalty and admiration for everything that was his colonel's, 
 and had been snubbed and called a fool by an officer many years, 
 though not so many " files," his junior. He never had liked him, and 
 now there was an air of conscious superiority about Jerrold that fairly 
 exasperated him. He angrily followed and called to him to stop, but 
 Jerrold walked on. Captain Chester stood still and watched them. 
 The little man had almost to run before he overtook the tall one. 
 They were out of earshot when he finally did so. There were a few 
 words on both sides. Then Jerrold shifted his light cane into his left 
 hand, and Chester started forward, half expecting a fracas. To his 
 astonishment, the two officers shook hands and parted. 
 
 " Well," said he, as Sloat came back with an angry yet bewildered 
 face, "I'm glad you shook hands. I almost feared a row, and was 
 just going to stop it. So he apologized, did he ?" 
 
 " No, nothing like it." 
 
 "Then what did you mean by shaking hands?" 
 
 " That's nothing — never you mind," said Sloat, confusedly. " I 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 781 
 
 haven't forgiven him, by a good deal. The man's conceit is enough to 
 disgust anything — but a woman, I suppose," he finished, ruefully. 
 
 " Well, it's none of my business, Sloat, but pardon my saying I 
 don't see what there was to bring about the apparent reconciliation. 
 That hand-shake meant something." 
 
 " Oh, well — damn it ! we had some words, and he — or I Well, 
 
 there's a bet, and we shook hands on it." 
 
 " Seems to me that's pretty serious business, Sloat, — a bet follow- 
 ing such a talk as you two have had. I hope " 
 
 " Well, captain," interrupted Sloat, " I wouldn't have done it if I 
 hadn't been mad as blazes ; but I made it, and must stick to it, — that's 
 all." 
 
 " You wouldn't mind telling me what it was, I suppose ?" 
 
 " I can't ; and that ends it." 
 
 Captain Chester found food for much thought and speculation over 
 this incident. So far as he was concerned, the abrupt remark of Sloat 
 by no means ended it. In his distrust of Jerrold, he too had taken 
 alarm at the very substantial intimacy to which that young man was 
 welcomed at the colonel's quarters. Prior to his marriage old Maynard 
 had not liked him at all, but it was mainly because he had been so 
 negligent of his duties and so determined a beau in city society after 
 his arrival at Sibley. He had, indeed, threatened to have him trans- 
 ferred to a company still on frontier service if he did not reform ; but 
 then the rifle-practice season began, and Jerrold was a capital shot and 
 sure to be on the list of competitors for the Department team, so what 
 was the use ? He would be ordered in for the rifle-camp anyway, and 
 so the colonel decided to keep him at head-quarters. This was in the 
 summer of the year gone by. Then came the colonel's long leave, 
 his visit to Europe, his meeting with his old friend, now the widow of 
 the lamented Renwick, their delightful winter together in Italy, his 
 courtship, her consent, their marriage and return to America. When 
 Maynard came back to Sibley and the old regiment, he was so jolly and 
 content that every man was welcomed at his house, and it was really a 
 source of pride and pleasure to him that his accomplished wife should 
 find any of his young officers so thoroughly agreeable as she pronounced 
 Mr. Jerrold. Others were soldierly, courteous, well bred, but he had 
 the air of a foreign court about him, she privately informed her lord ; 
 and it seems, indeed, that in days gone by Mr. Jerrold's father had 
 spent many years in France and Spain, once as his country's represen- 
 tative near the throne. Though the father died long before the boy 
 was out of his knickerbockers, he had left the impress of his grand 
 manner, and Jerrold, to women of any age, was at once a courtier and 
 a knight. But the colonel never saw how her eyes followed the tall 
 young officer time and again. There were women who soon noted it, 
 and one of them said it was such a yearning, longing look. Was Mrs. 
 Maynard really happy ? they asked each other. Bid she really want 
 to see Alice mate with him, the handsome, the dangerous, the selfish 
 fellow they knew him to be? If not, could anything be more impru- 
 dent than that they should be thrown together as they were being, day 
 after day ? Had Alice wealth of her own ? If not, did the mother 
 
782 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 know that nothing would tempt Howard Jerrold into an alliance with 
 a dowerless daughter? These, and many more, were questions that 
 came up every day. The garrison could talk of little else ; and Alice 
 Renwick had been there just three weeks, and was the acknowledged 
 Queen of Hearts at Sibley, when the rifle-competitions began again, 
 and a great array of officers and men from all over the Northwest came 
 to the post by every train, and their canvas tents dotted the broad 
 prairie to the north. 
 
 One lovely evening in August, just before the practice began, Col- 
 onel Maynard took his wife to drive out and see the camp. Mr. Jer- 
 rold and Alice Renwick followed on horseback. The carriage was 
 surrounded as it halted near the range, and half a score of officers, old 
 and young, were chatting with Mrs. Maynard, while others gathered 
 .about the lovely girl who sat there in the saddle. There came march- 
 ing up from the railway a small squad of soldiers, competitors arriving 
 from the far West. Among them — apparently their senior non-com- 
 missioned officer — was a tall cavalry sergeant, superbly built, and with 
 a bronzed and bearded and swarthy face that seemed to tell of years of 
 campaigning over mountain and prairie. They were all men of perfect 
 physique, all in the neat, soldierly fatigue-dress of the regular service, 
 some wearing the spotless white stripes of the infantry, others the less 
 artistic and equally destructible yellow of the cavalry. Their swinging 
 stride, erect carriage, and clear and handsome eyes all spoke of the per- 
 fection of health and soldierly development. Curious glances were 
 turned to them as they advanced, and Miss Renwick, catching sight of 
 the party, exclaimed, — 
 
 " Oh, who are these ? And what a tall soldier that sergeant is !" 
 
 " That sergeant. Miss Renwick," said a slow, deliberate voice, " is 
 the man I believe will knock Mr. Jerrold out of the first prize. That 
 is Sergeant McLeod." 
 
 As though he heard his name pronounced, the tall cavalryman 
 glanced for the first time at the group, brought his rifle to the carry 
 as if about to salute, and was just stepping upon the roadside, where 
 he came in full view of the occupants of the carriage, when a sudden 
 pallor shot across his face, and he plunged heavily forward and went 
 down like a shot. Sympathetic officers and comrades surrounded the 
 prostrate form in an instant. The colonel himself sprang from his 
 carriage and joined the group ; a blanket was quickly brought from a 
 neighboring tent, and the sergeant was borne thither and laid upon a 
 cot. A surgeon felt his pulse and looked inquiringly around : 
 
 " Any of you cavalrymen know him well ? Has he been affected 
 this way before ?" 
 
 A young corporal who had been bending anxiously over the sergeant 
 straightened up and saluted : 
 
 " I know him well, sir, and have been with him five years. He's 
 only had one sick spell in all that time, — 'twas just like this, — and then 
 he told me he'd been sunstruck once." 
 
 " This is no case of sunstroke," said the doctor. " It looks more 
 like the heart. How long ago was the attack you speak of?" 
 
 " Three years ago last April, sir. I remember it because we'd just 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 783 
 
 got into Fort Raines after a long scout. He'd been the solidest man in 
 the troop all through the cold and storm and snow we had in the 
 mountains, and we were in the reading-room, and he'd picked up a 
 newspaper and was reading while the rest of us were talking and 
 laughing, and, first thing we knew, he was down on the floor, just like 
 he was to-night." 
 
 " Hm !" said the surgeon. " Yes. That's plenty, steward. Give 
 him that. Raise his head a little, corporal. Now he'll come round 
 all right." 
 
 Driving homeward that night. Colonel Maynard musingly re- 
 marked, — 
 
 " Did you see that splendid fellow who fainted away ?" 
 
 " No," answered his wife, " you all gathered about him so quickly 
 and carried him away. I could not even catch a glimpse of him. 
 But he had recovered, had he not?" 
 
 " Yes. Still, I was thinking what a singular fact it is that occa- 
 sionally a man slips through the surgeon's examinations with such a 
 malady as this. Now, here is one of the finest athletes and shots in 
 the whole army, a man who has been through some hard service and 
 stirring fights, has won a tip-top name for himself and was on the 
 highroad to a commission, and yet this will block him eifectually." 
 
 " Why, what is the trouble?" 
 
 " Some affection of the heart. Why ! Halloo ! Stop, driver ! 
 Orderly, jump down and run back there. Mrs. Maynard has dropped 
 her fan. — What was it, dear ?" he asked, anxiously. " You started ; 
 and you are white, and trembling." 
 
 " I — I don't know, colonel. Let us go home. It will be over in 
 a minute. Where are Alice and Mr. Jerrold? Call them, please. 
 She must not be out riding after dark." 
 
 But they were not in sight ; and it was considerably after dark 
 when they reached the fort. Mr. Jerrold explained that his horse had 
 picked up a stone and he had had to walk him all the way. 
 
 IV. 
 
 There was no sleep for Captain Chester the rest of the night. He 
 went home, threw off his sword-belt, and seated himself in a big easy- 
 chair before his fireplace, deep in thought. Once or twice he arose and 
 paced restlessly up and down the room, as he had done in his excited 
 talk with Rollins some few hours before. Then he was simply angry 
 and argumentative, — or declamatory. Now he had settled down into 
 a very different frame of mind. He seemed awed, — stunned, — crushed. 
 He had all the bearing and mien of one who, having defiantly pre- 
 dicted a calamity, was thunderstruck by the verification of his prophecy. 
 In all his determined arraignment of Mr. Jerrold, in all the harsh 
 things he had said and thought of him, he had never imagined any 
 such depth of scoundrelism as the revelations of the night foreshadowed. 
 Chester differed from many of his brotherhood : there was no room for 
 rejoicing in his heart that the worst he had ever said of Jerrold was 
 unequal to the apparent truth. He took no comfort to his soul that 
 those who called him cynical, crabbed, unjust, even malicious, would 
 
784 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 now be compelled to admit he was right in his estimate. Like the best 
 of us, Chester could not ordinarily say " Vade retroi'^ to the temptation 
 to think, if not to say, "Didn't I tell you so?" when in every-day 
 aifairs his oft-disputed views were proved well founded. But in the 
 face of such a catastrophe as now appeared engulfing the fair fame of 
 his regiment and the honor of those whom his colonel held dear, 
 Chester could feel only dismay and grief. What was his duty in the 
 light of the discoveries he had made ? To the best of his belief, he 
 was the only man in the garrison who had evidence of Jerrold's 
 absence from his own quarters and of the presence of some one at her 
 window. He had taken prompt measures to prevent its being sus- 
 pected by others. He purposely sent his guards to search along the 
 cliff in the opposite direction while he went to Jerrold's room and 
 thence back to remove the tell-tale ladder. Should he tell any one 
 until he had confronted Jerrold with the evidences of his guilt, and, 
 wringing from him his resignation, send him far from the post before 
 handing it in ? Time and again he wished Frank Armitage were here. 
 The youngest captain in the regiment, Armitage had been for years its 
 adjutant and deep in the confidence of Colonel Maynard. He was a 
 thorough soldier, a strong, self-reliant, courageous man, and one for 
 whom Chester had ever felt a warm esteem. Armitage was on leave 
 of absence, however, — had been away some time on account of family 
 matters, and would not return, it was known, until he had effected the 
 removal of his mother and sister to the new home he had purchased 
 for them in the distant East. It was to his company that Jerrold had 
 been promoted, and there was friction from the very week that the 
 handsome subaltern joined. 
 
 Armitage had long before " taken his measure," and was in no wise 
 pleased that so lukewarm a soldier should have come to him as senior 
 subaltern. They had a very plain talk, for Armitage was straight- 
 forward as a dart, and then, as Jerrold showed occasional lapses, the 
 captain shut down on some of his most cherished privileges, and, 
 to the indignation of society, the failure of Mr. Jerrold to appear at 
 one or two gatherings where he was confidently expected was speedily 
 laid at his captain's door. The recent death of his father kept Armi- 
 tage from appearing in public, and, as neither he nor the major (who 
 commanded the regiment while Maynard was abroad) vouchsafed the 
 faintest explanation, society was allowed to form its own conclusions, 
 and did, — to the effect that Mr. Jerrold was a wronged and persecuted 
 man. It was just as the Maynards arrived at Sibley that Armitage 
 departed on his leave, and, to his unspeakable bliss, Mr. Jerrold suc- 
 ceeded to the command of his company. This fact, coupled with the 
 charming relations which were straightway established with the colonel's 
 family, placed him in a position of independence and gave him oppor- 
 tunities he had never known before. It was speedily evident that he 
 was neglecting his military duties, — that Company B was running 
 down much faster than Armitage had built it up, — and yet no man felt 
 like speaking of it to the colonel, who saw it only occasionally on dress- 
 parade. Chester had just about determined to write to Armitage him- 
 self and suggest his speedy return, when this eventful night arrived. 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 785 
 
 Now he fully made up his mind that it must be done at once, and had 
 seated himself at his desk, when the roar of the sunrise gun and the 
 blare of the bugles warned him that reveille had come and he must again 
 go to his guard. Before he returned to his quarters another complica- 
 tion, even more embarrassing, had arisen, and the letter to Armitage 
 was postponed. 
 
 He had received the " present" of his guard and verified the pres- 
 ence of all his prisoners, when he saw Major Sloat still standing out in 
 the middle of the parade, where the adjutant usually received the re- 
 ports of the roll-calls. Several company officers, having made their 
 reports, were scurrying back to quarters for another snooze before break- 
 fast-time or to get their cup of coffee before going out to the range. 
 Chester strolled over towards him. 
 
 " What's the matter, Sloat?" 
 
 "Nothing much. The colonel told me to receive the reveille re- 
 ports for Hoyt this week. He's on general court-martial." 
 
 "Yes, I know all that. I mean, what are you waiting for?" 
 
 " Mr. Jerrold again. There's no report from his company." 
 
 " Have you sent to wake him ?" 
 
 " No ; I'll go myself, and do it thoroughly, too." And the little 
 major turned sharply away and walked direct to the low range of 
 bachelor quarters, dove under the piazza, and into the green door- 
 way. 
 
 Hardly knowing how to explain his action, Chester quickly fol- 
 lowed, and in less than a minute was standing in the self-same parlor 
 which, by the light of a flickering match, he had searched two hours 
 before. Here he halted and listened, while Sloat pushed on into the 
 bedroom and was heard vehemently apostrophizing some sleeper : 
 
 " Does the government pay you for this sort of thing, I want to 
 know? Get up, Jerrold! This is the second time you've cut reveille 
 in ten days. Get up, I say !" And the major was vigorously shaking 
 at something, for the bed creaked and groaned. 
 
 " Wake up ! I say, I'm blowed if I'm going to get up here day 
 after day and have you sleeping. Wake, Nicodemus ! Wake, you 
 snoozing, snoring, open-mouthed masher. Come, now ; I mean it." 
 
 A drowsy, disgusted yawn and stretch finally rewarded his efforts. 
 Mr. Jerrold at last opened his eyes, rolled over, yawned sulkily again, 
 and tried to evade his persecutor, but to no purpose. Like a little 
 terrier, Sloat hung on to him and worried and shook. 
 
 " Oh, don't ! damn it, don't !" growled the victim. " What do you 
 want, anyway ? Has that infernal reveille gone ?" 
 
 " Yes, and you're absent again, and no report from B Company. 
 By the holy poker, if you don't turn out and get it and report to me 
 on the parade I'll spot the whole gang absent, and then no matinee for 
 you to-day, my buck. Come, out with you ! I mean it. Hall says 
 you and he have an engagement in town ; and 'pon my soul I'll bust 
 it if you don't come out." 
 
 And so, growling and complaining, and yet half laughing, Adonis 
 rolled from his couch and began to get into his clothes. Chester's 
 blood ran cold, then boiled. Think of a man who could laugh like 
 
786 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 that, — and remember ! When, how, had he returned to the house ? 
 Listen ! 
 
 " Confound you, Sloat, I wouldn't rout you out in this shabby way. 
 Why couldn't you let a man sleep ? I'm tired half to death." 
 
 " What have you done to tire you ? Slept all yesterday afternoon, 
 and danced perhaps a dozen times at the doctor's last night. You've 
 had more sleep than I've had, begad ! You took Miss Renwick home 
 before 'twas over, and mean it was of you, too, with all the fellows 
 that wanted to dance with her." 
 
 " That wasn't my fault : Mrs. Maynard made her promise to be 
 home at twelve. You old cackler, that's what sticks in your crop 
 yet. You are persecuting me because they like me so much better than 
 they do you," he went on, laughingly now. " Come, now, Sloat, con- 
 fess, it is all because you're jealous. You couldn't have that picture, 
 and I could," 
 
 Chester fairly started. He had urgent need to see this young 
 gallant, — he was staying for that purpose, — but should he listen to 
 further talk like this ? Too late to move, for Sloat's answer came like 
 a shot : 
 
 " I bet you you never could !" 
 
 " But didn't I tell you I had ?— a week ago ?" 
 
 " Ay, but I didn't believe it. You couldn't show it !" 
 
 " Pshaw, man ! Look here. Stop, though ! Remember, on your 
 honor, you never tell." 
 
 " On my honor, of course." 
 
 " Well, there !" 
 
 A drawer was opened. Chester heard a gulp of dismay, of genuine 
 astonishment and conviction mixed, as Sloat muttered some half-articu- 
 late words and then came into the front room. Jerrold followed, caught 
 sight of Chester, and stopped short, with sudden and angry change of 
 color. 
 
 " I did not know you were here," he said. 
 
 " It was to find where you were that I came," was the quiet answer. 
 
 There was a moment's silence. Sloat turned and looked at the 
 two men in utter surprise. Up to this time he had considered Jerrold's 
 absence from reveille as a mere dereliction of duty which was ascriba- 
 ble to the laziness and indiiference of the young officer. So far as 
 lay in his power, he meant to make him attend more strictly to busi- 
 ness, and had therefore come to his quarters and stirred him up. But 
 there was no thought of any serious trouble in his mind. His talk 
 had all been roughly good-humored until — until that bet was men- 
 tioned, and then it became earnest. Now, as he glanced from one man 
 to the other, he saw in an instant that something new — something of 
 unusual gravity — was impending. Chester, buttoned to the throat in 
 his dark uniform, accurately gloved and belted, with pale, set, almost 
 haggard face, was standing by the centre-table under the drop-light. 
 Jerrold, only half dressed, his feet thrust into slippers, his fingers 
 nervously working at the studs of his dainty white shirt, had stopped 
 short at his bedroom door, and, with features that grew paler every 
 second and a dark scowl on his brow, was glowering at Chester. 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 787 
 
 " Since when lias it been the duty of the officer of the day to come 
 around and hunt up officers who don't happen to be out at reveille ?" 
 he asked. 
 
 " It is not your absence from reveille I want explained, Mr. Jerrold," 
 was the cold and deliberate answer. " I wanted you at 3.30 this morn- 
 ing, and you were not and had not been here." 
 
 An unmistakable start and shock ; a quick, nervous, hunted glance 
 around the room, so cold and pallid in the early light of the August 
 morning ; a clutch of Jerrold's slim brown hand at the bared throat. 
 But he rallied gamely, strode a step forward, and looked his superior 
 full in the face. Sloat marked the effi)rt with which he cleared away 
 the huskiness that seemed to clog his larynx, but admired the spunk 
 with which the young officer returned the senior's shot : 
 
 " What is your authority here, I would like to know ? What 
 business has the officer of the day to want me or any other man not on 
 guard ? Captain Chester, you seem to forget that I am no longer your 
 second lieutenant, and that I am a company commander like yourself. 
 Do you come by Colonel Maynard's order to search my quarters and 
 question me ? If so, say so at once ; if not, get out." And Jerrold's 
 face was growing black with wrath, and his big lustrous eyes were wide 
 awake now and fairly snapping. 
 
 Chester leaned upon the table and deliberated a moment. He stood 
 there coldly, distrustfully eying the excited lieutenant, then turned to 
 Sloat : 
 
 " I will be responsible for the roll-call of Company B this morning, 
 Sloat. I have a matter of grave importance to bring up to this — this 
 gentleman, and it is of a private nature. Will you let me see him 
 alone?" 
 
 " Sloat," said Jerrold, " don't go yet. I want you to stay. These 
 are my quarters, and I recognize your right to come here in search of 
 me, since I was not at reveille ; but I want a witness here to bear me 
 out. I'm too amazed yet — too confounded by this intrusion of Captain 
 Chester's to grasp the situation. I never heard of such a thing as this. 
 Explain it, if you can." 
 
 " Mr. Jerrold, what I have to ask or say to you concerns you alone. 
 It is not an official matter. It is as man to man I waut to see you, 
 alone and at once. Now will you let Major Sloat retire ?" 
 
 Silence for a moment. The angry flush on Jerrold's face was dying 
 away, and in its place an ashen pallor was spreading from throat to 
 brow ; his lips were twitching ominously. Sloat looked in consterna- 
 tion at the sudden change. 
 
 " Shall I go?" he finally asked. 
 
 Jerrold looked long, fixedly, searchingly in the set face of the officer 
 of the day, breathing hard and heavily. What he saw there Sloat could 
 not imagine. At last his hand dropped by his side ; he made a little 
 motion with it, a slight wave towards the door, and again dropped it 
 nervously. His lips seemed to frame the word " Go," but he never 
 glanced at the man whom a moment before he so masterfully bade to 
 stay ; and Sloat, sorely puzzled, left the room. 
 
 Not until his footsteps had died out of hearing did Chester speak : 
 
788 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 " How soon can you leave the post ?" 
 
 " I don't understand you." 
 
 "How soon can you pack up what you need to take and — get 
 
 away 
 
 9" 
 
 " Get away where? What on earth do you mean?" 
 
 " You must know what I mean ! You must know that after last 
 night's work you quit the service at once and forever." 
 
 " I don't know anything of the kind ; and I defy you to prove the 
 faintest thing." But Jerrold's fingers were twitching, and his eyes had 
 lost their light. 
 
 " Do you suppose I did not recognize you ?" asked Chester. 
 
 " When ? — where ?" gulped Jerrold. 
 
 " When I seized you and you struck me !" 
 
 " I never struck you. I don't know what you mean." 
 
 " My God, man, let us end this useless fencing. The evidence I 
 have of your last night's scoundrelism would break the strongest record. 
 For the regiment's sake, — for the colonel's sake, — let us have no public 
 scandal. It's awful enough as the thing stands. Write your resignation, 
 give it to me, and leave, — before breakfast if you can." 
 
 " I've done nothing to resign for. You know perfectly well I 
 haven't." 
 
 " Do you mean that such a crime — that a woman's ruin and disgrace 
 — isn't enough to drive you from the service ?" asked Chester, tingling 
 in every nerve and longing to clinch the shapely, swelling throat in his 
 clutching fingers. " God of heaven, Jerrold ! are you dead to all sense 
 of decency?" 
 
 " Captain Chester, I won't be bullied this way. I may not be im- 
 maculate, but no man on earth shall talk to me like this ! I deny your 
 insinuations. I've done nothing to warrant your words, even if — if you 
 did come sneaking around here last night and find me absent. You 
 can't prove a thing. You " 
 
 " AVhat ! When I saw you, — almost caught you ! By heaven ! 
 I wish the sentry had killed you then and there. I never dreamed of 
 such hardihood." 
 
 " You've done nothing but dream. By Jove, I believe you're sleep- 
 walking yet. What on earth do you mean by catching and killing me ? 
 'Pon my soul I reckon you're crazy. Captain Chester." And color was 
 gradually coming back again to Jerrold's face, and confidence to his 
 tone. 
 
 " Enough of this, Mr. Jerrold. Knowing what you and I both 
 know, do you refuse to hand me your resignation ?" 
 
 " Of course I do." 
 
 " Do you mean to deny to me where I saw you last night ?" 
 
 " I deny your right to question me. I deny anything, — ever^iliing. 
 I believe you simply thought you had a clue and could make me tell. 
 Suppose I was out last night. I don't believe you know the faintest 
 thing about it." 
 
 " Do you want me to report the whole thing to the colonel ?" 
 
 " Of course I don't. Naturally, I want him to know nothing 
 about my being out of quarters ; and it's a thing that no officer would 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 789 
 
 think of reporting another for. You'll only win the contempt of every 
 gentleman in the regiment if you do it. What good will it do you ? — 
 Keep me from going to town for a few days, I suppose. What earthly 
 business is it of yours, anyway ?" 
 
 " Jerrold, I can stand this no longer. I ought to shoot you in your 
 tracks, I believe. You've brought ruin and misery to the home of my 
 warmest friend, and dishonor to the whole service, and you talk of two 
 or three days' stoppage from going to town. If I can't bring you to 
 your senses, by God ! the colonel shall." And he wheeled and left the 
 room. 
 
 For a moment Jerrold stood stunned and silent. It was useless to 
 attempt reply. The captain was far down the walk when he sprang to 
 the door to call him again. Then, hurrying back to the bedroom, he 
 hastily dressed, muttering angrily and anxiously to himself as he did 
 so. He was thinking deeply, too, and every movement betrayed ner- 
 vousness and trouble. Returning to the front door, he gazed out upon 
 the parade, then took his forage-cap and walked rapidly down towards 
 the adjutant's office. The orderly bugler was tilted up in a chair, lean- 
 ing half asleep against the whitewaslied front, but his was a weasel nap, 
 for he sprang up and saluted as the young officer approached. 
 
 "Where did Major Sloat go, orderly?" was the hurried question. 
 
 " Over towards the stables, sir. Him and Captain Chester was 
 here together, and they're just gone." 
 
 " Run over to the quarters of B Company and tell Merrick I want 
 him right away. Tell him to come to my quarters." And thither Mr. 
 Jerrold returned, seated himself at his desk, wrote several lines of a note, 
 tore it into fragments, began again, wrote another which seemed not en- 
 tirely satisfactory, and was in the midst of a third when there came a 
 quick step and a knock at the door. Opening the shutters, he glanced 
 out of the window. A gust of wind sent some of the papers whirling 
 and flying, and the bedroom door banged shut, but not before some few 
 half-sheets of paper had fluttered out upon the parade, where other little 
 flurries of the morning breeze sent them sailing over towards the colonel's 
 quarters. Anxious only for the coming of Merrick and no one else, Mr. 
 Jerrold no sooner saw who was at the front door than he closed the 
 shutters, called, " Come in !" and a short, squat, wiry little man, dressed 
 in the fatigue-uniform of the infantry, stood at the door-way to the hall. 
 
 " Come in here, Merrick," said the lieutenant, and Merrick came. 
 
 " How much is it you owe me now ? — thirty-odd dollars, I think ?" 
 
 " I believe it is, lieutenant," answered the man, with shifting eyes 
 and general uneasiness of mien. 
 
 " You are not ready to pay it, I suppose ; and you got it from me 
 when we left Fort Raines, to help you out of that scrape there." 
 
 The soldier looked down and made no answer. 
 
 " Merrick, I want a note taken to town at once. I want you to 
 take it and get it to its address before eight o'clock. I want you to say 
 no word to a soul. Here's ten dollars. Hire old Murphy's horse 
 across the river and go. If you are put in the guard-house when you 
 get back, don't say a word ; if you are tried by garrison court for 
 crossing the bridge or absence without leave, plead guilty, make no 
 
790 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 defence, and I'll pay you double your fine and let you off the thirty 
 dollars. But if you fail me, or tell a soul of your errand, I'll write to 
 — you know who, at Raines. Do you understand, and agree ?" 
 
 " I do. Yessir." 
 
 " Go and get ready, and be here in ten minutes." 
 
 Meantime, Captain Chester had followed Sloat to the adjutant's 
 office. He was boiling over with indignation which he hardly knew 
 how to control. He found the gray-moustached subaltern tramping in 
 great perplexity up and down the room, and the instant he entered was 
 greeted with the inquiry, — 
 
 " What's gone wrong ? What's Jerrold been doing ?" 
 
 " Don't ask me any questions, Sloat, but answer. It is a matter 
 of honor. What was your bet with Jerrold ?" 
 
 " I oughtn't to tell that, Chester. Surely it cannot be a matter 
 mixed up with this." 
 
 " I can't explain, Sloat. What I ask is unavoidable. Tell me 
 about that bet." 
 
 " Why, he was so superior and airy, you know, and was trying to 
 make me feel that he was so much more intimate with them all at the 
 colonel's, and that he could have that picture for the mere asking ; and 
 I got mad, and bet him he never could." 
 
 " Was that the day you shook hands on it ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " And that was her picture — the picture, then — he showed you this 
 morning." 
 
 " Chester, you heard the conversation : you were there : you know 
 that I'm on honor not to tell." 
 
 " Yes, I know. That's quite enough." 
 
 V. 
 
 Before seven o'clock that same morning Captain Chester had come 
 to the conclusion that only one course was left open for him. After the 
 brief talk with Sloat at the office he had increased the perplexity and 
 distress of that easily-muddled soldier by requesting his company in a 
 brief visit to the stables and corrals. A " square" and reliable old 
 veteran was the quartermaster sergeant who had charge of those es- 
 tablishments ; Chester had known him for years, and his fidelity and 
 honesty were matters the officers of his former regiment could not too 
 highly commend. When Sergeant Parks made an official statement 
 there was no shaking its solidity. He slept in a little box of a house 
 close by the entrance to the main stable, in which were kept the private 
 horses of several of the officers, and among them Mr. Jerrold's ; and 
 it was his boast that, day or night, no horse left that stable without his 
 knowledge. The old man was superintending the morning labors of 
 the stable-hands, and looked up in surprise at so early a visit from the 
 officer of the day. 
 
 "Were you here all last night, sergeant?" was Chester's abrupt 
 question. 
 
 " Certainly, sir, and up until one o'clock or more." 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 791 
 
 " Were any horses out during the night, — any officers' horses, I 
 mean ?" 
 
 " No, sir, not one." 
 
 " I thought possibly some officers might have driven or ridden to 
 town." 
 
 " No, sir. The only horses that crossed this threshold going out 
 last night were Mr. Sutton's team from town. They were put up here 
 until near one o'clock, and then the doctor sent over for them. I 
 locked up right after that, and can swear nothing else went out." 
 
 Chester entered the stable and looked curiously around. Presently 
 his eye lighted on a tall, rangy bay horse that was being groomed in a 
 wide stall near the door-way. 
 
 " That's Mr. Jerrold's Koderick, isn't it ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir. He's fresh as a daisy, too, — hasn't been out for three 
 days, — and Mr. Jerrold's going to drive the dog-cart this morning." 
 
 Chester turned away. 
 
 " Sloat," said he, as they left the stable, " if Mr. Jerrold was away 
 from the post last night, — and you heard me say he was out of his 
 quarters, — could he have gone any way except afoot, after what you 
 heard Parks say ?" 
 
 "Gone in the Suttons' outfit, I suppose," was Sloat's cautious 
 answer. 
 
 "In which event he would have been seen by the sentry at the 
 bridge, would he not?" 
 
 " Ought to have been, certainly." 
 
 " Then we'll go back to the guard-house." And, wonderingly and 
 uncomfortably, Sloat followed. He had long since begun to wish he 
 had held his peace and said nothing about the confounded roll-call. 
 He hated rows of any kind. He didn't like Jerrold, but he would 
 have crawled ventre cl terre across the wide parade sooner than see a 
 scandal in the regiment he loved ; and it was becoming apparent to his 
 sluggish faculties that it was no mere matter of absence from quarters 
 that w^as involving Jerrold. Chester was all aflame over that picture- 
 business, he remembered, and the whole drift of his present inves- 
 tigation was to prove that Jerrold w^as not absent from the post, but 
 absent only from his quarters. If so, where had he spent his time 
 until nearly four ? Sloat's heart was heavy with vague apprehension. 
 He knew that Jerrold had borne Alice Renwick away from the party 
 at an unusually early hour for such things to break up. He knew 
 that he and others had protested against such desertion, but she de- 
 clared it could not be helped. He remembered another thing, — a 
 matter that he thought of at the time, only from another point of view. 
 It now seemed to have significance bearing on this very matter; for 
 Chester suddenly asked, — 
 
 " Wasn't it rather odd that Miss Beaubien was not here at the 
 dance ? She has never missed one, seems to me, since Jerrold began 
 spooning with her last year." 
 
 " Why, she was here." 
 
 " She was ? Are you sure ? Rollins never spoke of it ; and we 
 had been talking of her. I inferred from what he said that she was 
 
792 ' FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 not there at all. And I saw her drive homeward with her mother 
 riglit after parade : so it didn't occur to rae that she could have come 
 out again, all that distance, in time for the dance. Singular ! Why 
 shouldn't Rollins have told me ?" 
 
 Sloat grinned : a dreary sort of smile it was, too. " You go into 
 society so seldom you don't see these things. I've more than half sus- 
 pected Rollins of being quite ready to admire Miss Beaubien himself; 
 and since Jerrold dropped her he has had plenty of opportunity." 
 
 " Great guns ! I never thought of it ! If I'd known she was to 
 be there I'd have gone myself last night. How did she behave to 
 Miss Renwick ?" 
 
 " Why, sweet and smiling, and chipper as you please. If anything, 
 I think Miss Renwick was cold and distant to her. I couldn't make 
 it out at all." 
 
 " And did Jerrold dance with her ?" 
 
 " Once, I think, and they had a talk out on the piazza, — just a 
 minute. I happened to be at the door, and couldn't help seeing it ; 
 and what got me was this : Mr. Hall came out with Miss Renwick on 
 his arm ; they were chatting and laughing as they passed me, but the 
 moment she caught sight of Jerrold and Miss Beaubien she stopped, 
 and said, ' I think I won't stay out here ; it's too chilly,' or something 
 like it, and went right in ; and then Jerrold dropped Miss Beaubien 
 and went after her. He just handed the young lady over to me, saying 
 he was engaged for next dance, and skipped." 
 
 " How did she like that? Wasn't she furious?" 
 
 " No. That's another thing that got me. She smiled after him, all 
 sweetness, and — well, she did say, ' I count upon you, — you'll be there,' 
 and he nodded. Oh, she was bright as a button after that." 
 
 " What did she mean ? — be ' where,' do you suppose ? Sloat, this all 
 means more to me, and to us all, than I can explain." 
 
 " I don't know. I can't imagine." 
 
 " Was it to see her again that night ?" 
 
 " I don't know at all. If it was, he fooled her, for he never went 
 near her again. Rollins put her in the carriage." 
 
 " Whose ? Did she come out with the Suttons ?" 
 
 " AVhy, certainly. I thought you knew that." 
 
 " And neither old Madame Beaubien nor Mrs. Sutton with them ? 
 What was the old squaw thinking of?" 
 
 By this time they had neared the guard-house, where several of the 
 men were seated awaiting the call for the next relief. All arose at 
 the shout of the sentry on Number One, turning out the guard for the 
 officer of the day. Chester made hurried and impatient acknowledg- 
 ment of the salute, and called to the sergeant to send him the sentry 
 who was at the bridge at one o'clock. It turned out to be a young 
 soldier who had enlisted at the post only six months before and was 
 already known as one of the most intelligent and promising candidates- 
 for a corjioralship in the garrison. 
 
 " Were you on duty at the bridge at one o'clock, Carey ?" asked the 
 captain. 
 
 " I was^ sir. My relief went on at 11.45 and came off at 1.45." 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 793 
 
 " What persons passed your post during that time ?" 
 
 " There was a squad or two of men coming back from town on pass. 
 I halted them, sir, and Corporal Murray came down and passed them in." 
 
 " I don't mean coming from town. Who went the other way ?" 
 
 " Only one carriage, sir, — Mr. Sutton's." 
 
 " Could you see who were in it ?" 
 
 " Certainly, sir : it was right under the lamp-post this end of the 
 bridge that I stood when I challenged. Lieutenant Rollins answered 
 for them and passed them out. He was sitting beside Mr. Sutton as 
 they drove up, then jumped out and gave me the countersign and bade 
 them good-night right there." 
 
 " Rollins again," thought Chester. " Why did he keep this from 
 me?" 
 
 " Who were in the carriage ?" he asked. 
 
 " Mr. Sutton, sir, on the front seat, driving, and two young ladies 
 on the back seat." 
 
 "Nobody else?" 
 
 " Not a soul, sir. I could see in it plain as day. One lady was 
 Miss Sutton, and the other Miss Beaubien. I know I was surprised at 
 seeing the latter, because she drove home in her own carriage last even- 
 ing right after parade. I was on post there at that hour too, sir. The 
 second relief is on from 5.45 to 7.45." 
 
 " That will do, Carey. I see your relief is forming now." 
 
 As the officers walked away and Sloat silently plodded along beside 
 his dark-browed senior, the latter turned to hira : 
 
 " I should say that there was no way in which Mr. Jerrold could 
 have gone townwards last night. Should not you 2" 
 
 " He might have crossed the bridge while the third relief was on, 
 and got a horse at the other side." 
 
 " He didn't do that, Sloat. I had already questioned the sentry on 
 that relief. It was the third that I inspected and visited this morning." 
 
 " Well, how do you know he wanted to go to town ? Why couldn't 
 he have gone up the river, or out to the range ? Perhaps there was a 
 little game of ' draw' out at camp." 
 
 " There was no light in camp, much less a little game of draw, 
 after eleven o'clock. You know well enough that there is nothing of 
 that kind going on with Gaines in command. That isn't Jerrold's 
 game, even if those fellows were bent on ruining their eyesight and 
 nerve and spoiling the chance of getting the men on the division and 
 army teams. I wish it were his game, instead of what it is !" 
 
 " Still, Chester, he may have been out in the country somewhere. 
 You seem bent on the conviction he was up to mischief here, around 
 this post. I won't ask you what you mean ; but there's more than one 
 way of getting to town if a man wants to very bad." 
 
 " How ? Of course he can take a skiff and row down the river ; 
 but he'd never be back in time for reveille. There goes six o'clock, 
 and I must get home and shave and think this over. Keep your own 
 counsel, no matter who asks you. If you hear any questions or talk 
 about shooting last night, you know nothing, heard nothing, and saw 
 nothing." 
 
 Vol. XL.— 52 
 
794 - FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 " Shooting last night !" exclaimed Sloat, all agog with eagerness 
 and excitement now. " Where was it? Who was it?" 
 
 But Chester turned a deaf ear upon him, and walked away. He 
 wanted to see Rollins, and went straight home. 
 
 " Why didn't you tell me Miss Beaubien was out here last night ?" 
 was the question he asked as soon as he had entered the room where, 
 all aglow from his cold bath, the youngster was dressing for breakfast. 
 He colored vividly, then laughed. 
 
 " Well, you never gave me much chance to say anything, did you ? 
 You talked all the time, as I remember, and suddenly vanished and 
 slammed the door. I would have told you had you asked me." But 
 all the same it was evident for the first time that here was a subject 
 Rollins was shy of mentioning. 
 
 " Did you go down and see them across sentry post ?" 
 
 " Certainly. Jerrold asked me to. He said he had to take Miss 
 Renwick home, and was too tired to come back, — was going to turn in. 
 I was glad to do anything to be civil to the Buttons." 
 
 " Why, I'd like to know ? They have never invited you to the 
 house or shown you any attention whatever. You are not their style 
 at all, Rollins, and I'm glad of it. It wasn't for their sake you stayed 
 there until one o'clock instead of being here in bed. I wish — " and he 
 looked wistfully, earnestly, at his favorite now, " I wish I could think 
 it wasn't for the sake of Miss Beaubien's black eyes and aboriginal 
 beauty." 
 
 " Look here, captain," said Rollins, with another rush of color to 
 his face ; " you don't seem to fancy Miss Beaubien, and — she's a friend 
 of mine, and one I don't like to hear slightingly spoken of. You said a 
 good deal last night that — well, wasn't pleasant to hear." 
 
 " I know it, Rollins. I beg your pardon. I didn't know then that 
 you were more than slightly acquainted with her. I'm an old bat, and 
 go out very little, but some things are pretty clear to my eyes, and — 
 don't you be falling in love with Nina Beaubien. That is no match for 
 you." 
 
 " I'm sure you never had a word to say against her father. The 
 old colonel was a perfect type of the French gentleman, from all I 
 hear." 
 
 " Yes, and her mother is as perfect a type of a Chippewa squaw, if 
 she is only a half-breed and claims to be only a sixteenth. Rollins, 
 there's Indian blood enough in Nina Beaubien's little finger to make 
 me afraid of her. She is strong as death in love or hate, and you must 
 have seen how she hung on Jerrold's every word all last winter. You 
 must know she is not the girl to be lightly dropped now." 
 
 " She told me only a day or two ago they were the best of friends 
 and had never been anything else," said Rollins, hotly. 
 
 " Has it gone that far, my boy ? I had not thought it so bad, by 
 any means. It's no use talking with a man who has lost his heart : 
 his reason goes with it." And Chester turned away. 
 
 " You don't know anything about it," was all poor Rollins could 
 think of as a suitable thing to shout after him ; and it made no more 
 impression than it deserved. 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 795 
 
 As has been said, Captain Chester had decided before seven o'clock 
 that but one course lay open to him in the matter as now developed. 
 Had Armitage been there he would have had an adviser, but there was no 
 other man whose counsel he cai'ed to seek. Old Captain Gray was as 
 bitter against Jerrold as Chester himself, and with even better reason, 
 for he knew well the cause of his little daughter's listless manner and 
 tearful eyes. She had been all radiance and joy at the idea of coming 
 to Sibley and being near the great cities, but not one happy look had 
 he seen in her sweet and wistful face since the day of her arrival. 
 Wilton, too, was another captain who disliked Jerrold ; and Chester's 
 rugged sense of fair play told him that it was not among the enemies 
 of the young officer that he should now seek advice, but that if he had 
 a friend among the older and wiser heads in the regiment it was due to 
 him that that older and wiser head be given a chance to think a little 
 for Jerrold's sake. And there was not one among the seniors whom he 
 could call upon. As he ran over their names, Chester for the first time 
 realized that his ex-subaltern had not a friend among the captains and 
 senior officers now on duty at the fort. His indifference to duties, his 
 airy foppishness, his conceit and self-sufficiency, had all served to create 
 a feeling against him ; and this had been intensified by his conduct 
 since coming to Sibley. The youngsters still kept up jovial relations 
 with and professed to like him, but among the seniors there were many 
 men who had only a nod for him on meeting. Wilton had epitomized 
 the situation by saying he " had no use for a masher," and poor old 
 Gray had one day scowlingly referred to him as "the professional 
 beauty." 
 
 In view of all this feeling, Chester would gladly have found some 
 man to counsel further delay ; but there was none. He felt that he 
 must inform the colonel at once of the fact that Mr. Jerrold was absent 
 from his quarters at the time of the firing, of his belief that it was 
 Jerrold who struck him and sped past the sentry in the dark, and of 
 his conviction that the sooner the young officer was called to account 
 for his strange conduct the better. As to the episodes of the ladder, 
 the lights, and the form at the dormer-window, he meant, for the present 
 at least, to lock them in his heart. 
 
 But he forgot that others too must have heard those shots, and that 
 others too would be making inquiries. 
 
 VI. 
 
 A lovely morning it was that beamed on Sibley and the broad and 
 beautiful valley of the Cloudwater when once the sun got fairly above 
 the moist horizon. Mist and vapor and heavy cloud all seemed swal- 
 lowed up in the gathering, glowing warmth, as though the King of 
 Day had risen athirst and drained the welcoming cup of nature. It 
 must have rained at least a little during the darkness of the night, for 
 dew there could have been none with skies so heavily overcast, and yet the 
 short smooth turf on the parade, the leaves upon the little shade-trees 
 around the quadrangle, and all the beautiful vines here on the trellis- 
 work of the colonel's veranda, shone and sparkled in the radiant light. 
 The roses in the little garden, and the old-fashioned morning-glory 
 
796 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 vines over at the east side, were all a-glitter in the flooding sunshine 
 when the bugler came out from a glance at the clock in the adjutant's 
 office and sounded " sick-call" to the indifferent ear of the garrison. 
 Once each day, at 7.30 a.m., the doctor trudged across to the hospital 
 and looked over the half-dozen " hopelessly healthy" but would-be in- 
 valids who wanted to get oif guard duty or a morning at the range. 
 Thanks to the searching examination to which every soldier must be 
 subjected before he can enter the service of Uncle Sam, and to the dis- 
 ciplined order of the lives of the men at Sibley, maladies of any serious 
 nature were almost unknown. It was a gloriously healthy post, as 
 everybody admitted, and, to judge from the specimen of young- woman- 
 hood that came singing, " blithe and low," out among the roses this 
 same joyous morning, exuberant physical well-being was not restricted 
 to the men. 
 
 A fairer picture never did dark beauty present than Alice Ren wick, 
 as she bent among the bushes or reached high among the vines in search 
 of her favorite flowers. Tall, slender, willowy, yet with exquisitely- 
 rounded form ; slim, dainty little hands and feet ; graceful arms and 
 wrists all revealed in the flowing sleeves of her snowy, web-like gown, 
 fitting her and displaying her sinuous grace of form as gowns so seldom 
 do to-day. And then her face ! — a glorious picture of rich, ripe, tropi- 
 cal beauty, with its great, soulful, sunlit eyes, heavily shaded though 
 they were with those wondrous lashes ; beautiful, too, in contour as 
 was the lithe body, and beautiful in every feature, even to the rare and 
 dewy curve of her red lips, half opened as she sang. She was smiling 
 to herself, as she crooned her soft, murmuring melody, and every 
 little while the great dark eyes glanced over towards the shaded doors 
 of Bachelors' Row. There was no one up to watch and tell : why 
 should she not look thither, and even stand one moment peering under 
 the veranda at a darkened window half-way down the row, as though 
 impatient at the non-appearance of some familiar signal ? How came 
 the laggard late? How slept the knight while here his lady stood im- 
 patient? She twined the leaves and roses in a fragrant knot, ran 
 lightly within and laid them on the snowy clotli beside the colonel's 
 seat at table, came forth and plucked some more and fastened them, 
 blushing, blissful, in the lace-fringed opening of her gown, through 
 which, soft and creamy, shone the perfect neck. 
 
 " Daisy, tell my fortune, pray : 
 He loves me not, — he loves me," 
 
 she blithely sang, then, hurrying to the gate, shaded her eyes with the 
 shapely hand and gazed intently. "Twas nearing eight, — nearing 
 breakfast-time. But some one was coming. Horrid ! Captain Chester, 
 of all men ! Coming, of course, to see papa, and papa not yet down, 
 and mamma had a headache and had decided not to come down at all, 
 she would breakfast in her room. What girl on earth when looking 
 and longing and waiting for the coming of a graceful youth of twenty- 
 six would be anythingbut dismayed at the substitution therefor of a 
 bulky, heavy-hearted captain of forty-six, no matter if he were still 
 unmarried ? And yet her smile was sweet and cordial. 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 797 
 
 "Why, good-morniug, Captain Chester. I'm so glad to see you 
 this bright day. Do come in and let me give you a rose. Papa will 
 soon be down." And she opened the gate and held forth one long, 
 slim hand. He took it slowly, as though in a dream, raising his forage- 
 cap at the same time, yet making no reply. He was looking at her far 
 more closely than he imagined. How fresh, how radiant, how fair and 
 gracious and winning ! Eveiy item of her attire was so pure and white 
 and spotless ; every fold and curve of her gown seemed charged with 
 subtile, delicate fragrance, as faint and sweet as the shy and modest wood- 
 violet's. She noted his silence and his haggard eyes. She noted the 
 intent gaze, and the color mounted straightway to her forehead. 
 
 " And have you no word of greeting for me ?" she blithely laughed, 
 striving to break through the awkwardness of his reserve, " or are you 
 worn out with your night watch as officer of the day ?" 
 
 He fairly started. Had she seen him, then ? Did she know it was 
 he who stood beneath her window, he who leaped in chase of that 
 scoundrel, he who stole away, with that heavy tell-tale ladder? and, 
 knowing all this, could she stand there smiling in his face, the incarna- 
 tion of maiden innocence and beauty? Impossible! Yet what could 
 she mean ? 
 
 " How did you know I had so long a vigil ?" he asked, and the 
 cold, strained tone, the half-averted eyes, the pallor of his face, all 
 struck her at once. Instantly her manner changed : 
 
 " Oh, forgive me, captain. I see you are all worn out ; and I'm 
 keeping you here at the gate. Come to the piazza and sit down. I'll 
 tell papa you are here, for I know you want to see him." And she 
 tripped lightly away before he could reply, and rustled up the stairs. 
 He could hear her light tap at the colonel's door, and her soft, clear, 
 flute-like voice : " Papa, Captain Chester is here to see you." 
 
 Papa indeed ! She spoke to him and of him as though he were 
 her own. He treated her as though she were his flesh and blood, 
 — as though he loved her devotedly. Even before she came had not 
 they been prepared for this? Did not Mrs. Maynard tell them that 
 Alice had become enthusiastically devoted to her step-father and con- 
 sidered him the most knightly and chivalric hero she had ever seen ? 
 He could hear the colonel's hearty and loving tone in reply, and then 
 she came fluttering down again : 
 
 " Papa will be with you in five minutes, captain. But won't you let 
 me give you some coflee ? It's all ready, and you look so tired, — even 
 ill." 
 
 " I have had a bad night," he answered, " but I'm growing old, and 
 cannot stand sleeplessness as you young people seem to." 
 
 Was she faltering? He watched her eagerly, narrowly, almost 
 wonderingly. Not a trace of confusion, not a sign of fear ; and yet 
 had he not seen her, and that other figure? 
 
 " I wish you could sleep as I do," was the prompt reply. " I was 
 in the land of dreams ten minutes after my head touched the pillow, 
 and mamma made me come home early last night because of our 
 journey to-day. You know we are going down to visit Aunt Grace, 
 Colonel Maynard's sister, at Lake Sablon, and mamma wanted me to 
 
798 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 be looking my freshest and best/' she said, " and I never heard a thing 
 
 till reveille." 
 
 His eyes, sad, penetrating, doubting, — yet self-doubting, too, — 
 searched her very soul. Unflinchingly the dark orbs looked into his, — 
 even pityingly ; for she quickly spoke again : 
 
 " Captain, do come into the breakfast-room and have some coffee. 
 You have not breakfasted, I'm sure." 
 
 He raised his hand as though to repel her offer, — even to put her 
 aside. He must understand her. He could not be hoodwinked in this 
 way. 
 
 " Pardon me. Miss Renwick, but did you hear nothing strange last 
 night or early this morning ? Were you not disturbed at all ?" 
 
 " I ? No, indeed !" True, her face had changed now, but there 
 was no fear in her eyes. It was a look of apprehension, perhaps, of 
 concern and curiosity mingled, for his tone betrayed that something 
 had happened which caused him agitation. 
 
 " And you heard no shots fired ?" 
 
 " Shots ! No ! Oh, Captain Chester ! what does it mean ? Who 
 was shot ? Tell me !" 
 
 And now, with paling face and wild apprehension in her eyes, she 
 turned and gazed beyond him, past the vines and the shady veranda, 
 across the sunshine of the parade and under the old piazza, searching 
 that still closed and darkened window. 
 
 " Who ?" she implored, her hands clasping nervously, her eyes 
 returning eagerly to his face. 
 
 " It was not Mr. Jerrold," he answered, coldly. " He is unhurt, 
 so far as shot is concerned." 
 
 "Then how is he hurt? Is he hurt at all?" she persisted; and 
 then as she met his gaze her eyes fell, and the burning blush of maiden 
 shame surged up to her forehead. She sank upon a seat and covered 
 her face with her hands. 
 
 " I thought of Mr. Jerrold, naturally. He said he would be over 
 early this morning," was all she could find to say. 
 
 " I have seen him, and presume he will come. To all appearances, 
 he is the last man to suffer from last night's affair," he went on, relent- 
 lessly, — almost brutally, — but she never winced. " It is odd you did 
 not hear the shots. I thought yours was the northwest room, — this 
 one?" he indicated, pointing overhead. 
 
 " So it is, and I slept there all last night and heard nothing, — not 
 a thing. Do tell me what the trouble was." 
 
 Then what was there for him to say? The colonel's footsteps were 
 heard upon the stair, and the colonel, with extended hand and beaming 
 face and cheery welcome, came forth from the open door-way : 
 
 " Welcome, Chester ! I'm glad you've come just in time for break- 
 fast. Mrs. Maynard won't be down. She slept badly last night, and 
 is sleeping now. What was the firing last night ? I did not hear it at 
 the time, but the orderly and old Maria the cook were discussing it as 
 I was shaving." 
 
 " It is that I came to see you about, colonel. I am the man to hold 
 responsible." 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 799 
 
 " No prisoners got away, I hope?" 
 
 " No, sir. Nothing, I fear, that would seem to justify my action. 
 I ordered Number Five to fire." 
 
 " Why, what on earth could have happened around there, — almost 
 back of us ?" said the colonel, in surprise. 
 
 " I do not know what had happened, or what was going to happen." 
 And Chester paused a moment, and glanced towards the door through 
 which Miss Renwick had retired as soon as the colonel arrived. The 
 old soldier seemed to understand the glance. " Slie would not listen," 
 he said, proudly. 
 
 " I know," explained Chester. " I think it best that no one but you 
 should hear anything of the matter for the present until I have investi- 
 gated further. It was nearly half-past three this morning as I got 
 around here on Five's post, inspecting sentinels, and came suddenly in 
 the darkness upon a man carrying a ladder on his shoulder. I ordered 
 him to halt. The reply was a violent blow, and the ladder and I were 
 dropped at the same instant, while the man sprang into space and 
 darted off in the direction of Number Five. I followed quick as I 
 could, heard the challenge and the cries of halt, and shouted to Leary 
 to fire. He did, but missed his aim in the haste and darkness, and the 
 man got safely away. Of course there is much talk and speculation 
 about it around the post this morning, for several people heard the 
 shots besides the guard, and, although I told Leary and others to say 
 nothing, I know it is already generally known." 
 
 " Oh, well, come in to breakfast," said the colonel. " "We'll talk it 
 over there." 
 
 " Pardon me, sir, I cannot. I must get back home before guard- 
 mount, and Rollins is probably waiting to see me now. I — I could 
 not discuss it at the table, for there are some singular features about 
 the matter." 
 
 " Why, in God's name, what ?" asked the colonel, with sudden and 
 deep anxiety. 
 
 " Well, sir, an officer of the garrison is placed in a compromising 
 position by this affair, and cannot or will not explain." 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " Mr. Jerrold, sir." 
 
 " Jerrold ! Why, I got a note from him not ten minutes ago saying 
 he had an engagement in town and asking permission to go before 
 guard-mounting, if Mr. Hall was ready. Hall wanted to go with him, 
 Jerrold wrote, but Hall has not applied for permission to leave the 
 post." 
 
 " It is Jerrold who is compromised, colonel. I may be all wrong 
 in my suspicions, all wrong in reporting the matter to you at all, but in 
 my perplexity and distress I see no other way. Frankly, sir, the mo- 
 ment I caught sight of the man he looked like Jerrold ; and two minutes 
 after the shots were fired I inspected Jerrold's quarters. He was not 
 there, though the lamps were burning very low in the bedroom, and his 
 bed had not been occupied at all. When you see Leary, sir, he will 
 tell you that he also thought it must be Mr. Jerrold." 
 
 " The young scapegrace ! — been off to town, I suppose." 
 
800 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 " Colonel/' said Chester, quickly, " you — not I — must decide that. 
 I went to his quarters after reveille, and he was then there, and resented 
 my visit and questions, admitted that he had been out during the night, 
 but refused to make any statement to me." 
 
 " Well, Chester, I will haul him up after breakfast. Possibly he 
 had been up to the rifle-camp, or had driven to town after the doctor's 
 party. Of course that must be stopped; but I'm glad you missed him. 
 It, of course, staggers a man's judgment to be knocked down, but if you 
 had killed him it might have been as serious for you as this knock-down 
 blow will be for him. That is the worst phase of the matter. "What 
 could he have been thinking of? He must have been either drunk or 
 mad ; and he rarely drank. Oh, dear, dear, dear, but that's very bad, 
 — very bad, — striking the officer of the day ! Why, Chester, that's the 
 worst thing that's happened in the regiment since I took command of 
 it. It's about the worst thing that could have happened to us. Of 
 course he must go in arrest. I'll see the adjutant right after breakfast. 
 I'll be over early, Chester." And with grave and worried face the 
 colonel bade him adieu. 
 
 As he turned away, Chester heard him saying again to himself, 
 " About the worst thing he could have done ! — the worst thing he could 
 have done !" And the captain's heart sank within him. What would 
 the colonel say when he knew how far, far worse was the foul wrong 
 Mr. Jerrold had done to him and his ? 
 
 VII. 
 
 Before guard-mounting — almost half an hour before his usual time 
 for appearing at the office — Colonel Maynard hurried in to his desk, 
 sent the orderly for Captain Chester, and then the clerks in the ser- 
 geant-major's room heard him close and lock the door. As the subject 
 of the shooting was already under discussion among the men there 
 assembled, this action on the part of the chief was considered highly 
 significant. It was hardly five minutes before Chester came, looked 
 surprised at finding the door locked, knocked, and was admitted. 
 
 The look on the haggard face at the desk, the dumb misery in the 
 eyes, the wrath and horror in it all, carried him back twenty years to 
 that gloomy morning in the casemates when the story was passed 
 around that Captain Maynard had lost a wife and an intimate friend 
 during the previous night. Chester saw at a glance that, despite his 
 precautions, the blow had come, the truth been revealed at one fell 
 swoop. 
 
 " Lock the door again, Chester, and come here. I have some 
 questions to ask you." 
 
 The captain silently took the chair which was indicated by a wave 
 of the colonel's hand, and waited. For a moment no word more was 
 spoken. The old soldier, white and trembling strangely, reseated him- 
 self at the desk, and covered his face with his hands. Twice he drew 
 them with feebly stroking movement over his eyes, as though to rally 
 the stunned faculties and face the trying ordeal. Then a shiver passed 
 through his frame, and with sudden lift of the head he fixed his gaze 
 on Chester's face and launched the question, — 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 801 
 
 " Chester, is there any kindness to a man who has been through 
 what I have in telling only half a tale, as you have done?" 
 
 The captain colored red. " I am at a loss to answer you, colonel," 
 he said, after brief reflection. " You know far more than you did half 
 an hour ago, and what I knew I could not bear to tell you as yet." 
 
 " My God ! my God ! Tell me all, and tell me at once. Here, 
 man, if you need stimulant to your indignation and cannot speak with- 
 out it, read this. I found it, open, among the rose-bushes in the gar- 
 den, where she must have dropped it when out there with you. Read 
 it. Tell me what it means ; for, God knows, I can't believe such a 
 thing of her." 
 
 He handed Chester a sheet of note-paper. It was moist and blurred 
 on the first page, but the inner pages, though damp, were in good con- 
 dition. The first, second, and third pages were closely covered in a 
 bold, nervous hand that Chester knew well. It was Jerrold's writing, 
 beyond a doubt, and Chester's face grew hot as he read, and his heart 
 turned cold as stone when he finished the last hurried line. 
 
 " My Darling, — 
 
 " I must see you, if only for a moment, before you leave. Do not 
 let this alarm you, for the more I think the more I am convinced it is 
 only a bluff, but Captain Chester discovered my absence eai'ly this 
 morning when spying around as usual, and now he claims to have 
 knowledge of our secret. Even if he was on the terrace when I got 
 back, it was too dark for him to recognize me, and it seems impossible 
 that he can have got any real clue. He suspects, perhaps, and tliuiks 
 to force me to confession; but I would guard your name with my life. 
 Be wary. Act as though there were nothing on eartli between us, and 
 if we cannot meet until then I will be at the d6p6t with the others to 
 see you off, and will then have a letter ready with full particulars 
 and instructions. It will be in the first thing I hand to you. Hide it 
 until you can safely read it. Your mother must not be allowed a 
 glimmer of suspicion, and then you are safe. As for me, even Chester 
 cannot make the colonel turn against me now. My jealous one, my 
 fiery sweetheart, do you not realize now that I was ^\^se m sho^ving her 
 so much attention ? A thousand kisses. Come what may, they camiot 
 rob us of the past. Howard. 
 
 " I fear you heard and were alarmed by the shots just after I left 
 you. All was quiet when I got home." 
 
 It was some seconds before Chester could control himself suf- 
 ficiently to speak. " I wish to God the bullet had gone through his 
 heart !" he said. 
 
 " It has gone through mine, — through mine ! This will kill her 
 mother. Chester," cried the colonel, springing suddenly to his feet, 
 ''-she must not know it. She must not dream of it. I tell you it 
 would stretch her in the dust, dead, for she loves that child with all her 
 strength, with all her being, I believe, for it is two mother-loves in one. 
 She had a son, older than Alice by several years, her first-born, — her 
 
802 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 glory, he was, — ^but the boy inherited the father's passionate and im- 
 pulsive nature. He loved a girl utterly beneath him, and would have 
 married her when he was only twenty. There is no question that he 
 loved her well, for he refused to give her up, no matter what his father 
 threatened. They tried to buy her off, and she scorned them. Then 
 they had a letter written, while he was sent abroad under pretence that 
 he should have his will if he came back in a year unchanged. By Jove, 
 it seems she was as much in love as he, and it broke her heart. She 
 went off and died somewhere, and he came back ahead of time because 
 her letters had ceased, and found it all out. There was an awful scene. 
 He cursed them both, — father and mother, — and left her senseless at 
 his feet; and from that day to this they never heard of him, never 
 could get the faintest report. It broke Renwick, — killed liim, I guess, 
 for he died in two years ; and as for the mother, you would not tliink 
 that a woman so apparently full of life and health was in desperate 
 danger. She had some organic trouble with the heart years ago, they 
 tell her, and this experience has developed it so that now any great emo- 
 tion or sudden shock is perilous. Do you not see how doubly fearful 
 this comes to us ? Chester, I have weathered one awful storm, but I'm 
 old and broken now. This — this beats me. Tell me what to do." 
 
 The cajjtain was silent a few moments. He was thinking intently. 
 
 " Does she know you have that letter ?" he asked. 
 
 Maynard shook his head : " I looked back as I came away. She 
 was in the parlor, singing softly to herself, at tlie very moment I 
 picked it up, lying open as it was right there among the roses, the first 
 words staring me in the face. I meant not to read it, — never dreamed 
 it was for her, — and had turned over the page to look for the super- 
 scription. There was none, but there I saw the signature and tliat 
 postscript about the shots. That startled me, and I read it here just 
 before you came, and then could account for your conduct, — something 
 I could not do before. God of heaven ! would any man believe it of 
 her ? It is incredible ! Chester, tell me everything you Icnow now, — 
 even everything you suspect. I must see my way clear." 
 
 And then the captain, with halting and reluctant tongue, told his 
 story : how he had stumbled on the ladder back of the colonel's 
 quarters and learned from Number Five that some one had been prowl- 
 ing back of Bachelors' Row ; how he returned there afterwards, found 
 the ladder at the side-wall, and saw the tall form issue from her win- 
 dow ; how he had given chase and been knocked breathless, and of his 
 suspicions, and Leary's, as to the identity of the stranger. 
 
 The colonel bowed his head still deeper, and groaned aloud. But 
 he had still other questions to ask. 
 
 " Did you see — any one else at the window ?" 
 
 " Not while he was there." 
 
 "At any time, then, — before or after?" And the colonel's eyes 
 would take no denial. 
 
 " I saw," faltered Chester, " nobody. The shade was pulled up 
 while I was standing there, after I had tripped on the ladder. I sup- 
 posed the noise of my stumble had awakened her." 
 
 " And was that all ? Did you see notliing more ?" 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 803 
 
 " Colonel, I did see, afterwards, a woman's hand and arm closing 
 the shade." 
 
 " My God ! And she told me she slept the night through, — never 
 waked or heard a sound !" 
 
 " Did you hear nothing yourself, colonel ?" 
 
 " Nothing. When she came home from the party she stopped a 
 moment, saying something to him at the door, then came into the 
 library and kissed me good-night. I shut up the house and went 
 to bed about half-past twelve, and her door was closed when I went to 
 our room." 
 
 " So there were two closed doors, yours and hers, and the broad hall 
 between you ?" 
 
 " Certainly. We have the doors open all night that lead into the 
 rear rooms, and their windows. This gives us abundant air. Alice 
 always has the hall door closed at night." 
 
 " And Mrs. Maynard, — was she asleep ?" 
 
 " No. Mrs. Maynard was lying awake, and seemed a little restless 
 and disturbed. Some of the women had been giving her some hints 
 about Jerrold and fretting her. You know she took a strange fancy to 
 him at the start. It was simply because he reminded her so strongly 
 of the boy she had lost. She told me so. But after a little she began 
 to discover traits in him she did not like, and then his growing in- 
 timacy with Alice worried her. She would have put a stop to the doc- 
 tor's party, — to her going with him, I mean, — but the engagement was 
 made some days ago. Two or three days since, she warned Alice not 
 to trust him, she says ; and it is really as much on this as any other 
 account that we decided to get her away, oif to see her aunt Grace. 
 Oh, God ! how blind we are ! how blind we are !" And poor old 
 Maynard bowed his head and almost groaned aloud. 
 
 Chester rose, and, in his characteristic way, began tramping ner- 
 vously up and down. There was a knock at the door. " The adjutant's 
 compliments, and 'twas time for guard-mount. Would the colonel 
 wish to see him before he went out?" asked the orderly. 
 
 " I ought to go, sir," said Chester. " I am old officer of the day, 
 and there will be just time for me to get into full uniform." 
 
 " Let them go on without you," said Maynard. " I cannot spare 
 you now. Send word to that effect. Now, — now about this man, — 
 this Jerrold. What is the best thing we can do? — of course I know 
 what he most deserves ; — but what is the best thing under all the circum- 
 stances ? Of course my wife and Alice will leave to-day. She was still 
 sleeping when I left, and, pray God, is not dreaming of this. It was 
 nearly two before she closed her eyes last night ; and I, too, slept 
 badly. You have seen him. What does he say ?" 
 
 "Denies everything, — anything, — challenges me to prove that he 
 was absent from his house more than five minutes, — indeed, I could 
 not, for he may have come in just after I left, — and pretended utter 
 ignorance of my meaning when I accused him of strikiiig me before I 
 ordered the sentry to fire. Of course it is all useless now. When I 
 confront him with this letter he must give in. Then let him resign and 
 get away as quietly as possible before the end of the week. No one 
 
804 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 need know the causes. Of course shooting is what he deserves ; but 
 shooting demands explanation. It is better for your name, hers, and 
 all, that he should be allowed to live than that the truth were sus- 
 pected, as it would be if he were killed. Indeed, sir, if I were you I 
 would take them to Sablon, keep them away for a fortnight, and leave 
 him to me. It may be even judicious to let him go on with all his 
 duties as though nothing had happened, as though he had simply been 
 absent from reveille, and let the whole matter drop like that until all 
 remark and curiosity is lulled ; then you can send her back to Europe 
 or the East, — time enough to decide on that ; but I will privately tell 
 him he must quit the service in six months, and show him why. It 
 isn't the way it ought to be settled ; it probably isn't the way Armitage 
 would do it ; but it is the best thing that occurs to me. One thing is 
 certain : you and they ought to get away at once, and he should not be 
 permitted to see her again. I can run the post a few days and explain 
 matters after you go." 
 
 The colonel sat in wretched silence a few moments ; then he arose : 
 
 " If it were not for her danger, — her heart, — I would never drop 
 the matter here, — never ! I would see it through to the bitter end. 
 But you are probably right as to the prudent course to take. I'll get 
 them away on the noon train : he thinks they do not start until later. 
 Now I must go and face it. My God, Chester ! could you look at that 
 child and realize it? Even now, even now, sir, I believe — I believe, 
 someway — somehow — she is innocent." 
 
 " God grant it, sir !" 
 
 And then the colonel left the office, avoiding, as has been told, a 
 word with any man. Chester buttoned the tell-tale letter in an inner 
 pocket, after having first folded the sheet lengthwise and then enclosed 
 it in a long official envelope. The officers, -wondering at the colonel's 
 distraught appearance, had come thronging in, hoping for information, 
 and then had gone, unsatisfied and disgusted, practically turned out by 
 their crabbed senior captain. The ladies, after chatting aimlessly about 
 the quadrangle for half an hour, had decided that Mrs. Maynard must 
 be ill, and, while most of them awaited the result, two of their number 
 went to the colonel's house and rang at the bell. A servant appeared : 
 " Mrs. Maynard wasn't very well this morning, and w^as breakfasting 
 in her room, and Miss Alice was with her, if the ladies would please 
 excuse them." And so the emissaries returned unsuccessful. Then, 
 too, as we have seen, despite his good intention of keeping matters 
 hushed as much as possible, Chester's nervous irritability had got the 
 better of him, and he had made damaging admissions to Wilton of 
 the existence of a cause of worriment and perplexity, and this Wilton 
 told without compunction. And then there was another excitement, 
 that set all tongues wagging. ICvery man had heard what Chester said, 
 that Mr. Jerrold must not quit the garrison until he had first come and 
 seen the temporary commanding officer, and Hall had speedily carried 
 the news to his friend. 
 
 "Are you ready to go?" asked Mr. Jerrold, who was lacing his 
 boots in the rear room. 
 
 " No. I've got to go and get into ' cits' first." 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 805 
 
 " All right. Go, and be lively ! I'll wait for you at Murphy's, 
 beyond the bridge, provided you say nothing about it." 
 
 " You don't mean you are going against orders ?" 
 
 " Going ? Of course I am. I've got old Maynard's permission, 
 and if Chester means to revoke it he's got to get his adjutant here inside 
 of ten seconds. What you tell me isn't official. I'm off now .'" 
 
 And when the adjutant returned to Captain Chester it was with the 
 information that he was too late : Mr. Jerrold's dog-cart had crossed 
 the bridge five minutes earlier. 
 
 Perhaps an hour later the colonel sent for Chester, and the captain 
 went to his house. The old soldier was pacing slowly up and down the 
 parlor floor. 
 
 " I wanted you a moment. A singular thing has happened. You 
 know that ' Directoire' cabinet photo of Alice ? My wife always kept 
 it on her dressing-table, and this morning it's gone. That frame — the 
 silver filigree thing — was found behind a sofa-pillow in Alice's room, 
 and she declares she has no idea how it got there. Chester, is there 
 any new significance in this?" 
 
 The captain bowed assent. 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " That photograph was seen by Major Sloat in Jerrold's bureau- 
 drawer at reveille this morning." 
 
 And such was the situation at Sibley the August day the colonel 
 took his wife and her lovely daughter to visit Aunt Grace at Lake 
 Sablon. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 In the big red omnibus that was slowly toiling over the dusty road 
 several passengers were making their way from the railway-station to 
 the hotel at Lake Sablon. Two of them were women of mature years, 
 whose dress and bearing betokened lives of ease and comfort ; another 
 was a lovely brunette of less than twenty, the daughter, evidently, of 
 one of these ladies, and an object of loving pride to both. These three 
 seemed at home in their surroundings, and were absorbed in the packet 
 of letters and papers they had just received at the station. It was evi- 
 dent that they were not new arrivals, as were the other passengers, who 
 studied them with the half-envious feelings with which new-comers at 
 a summer resort are apt to regard those who seem to have been long 
 established there, and who gathered from the scraps of conversation 
 that they had merely been over to say good-by to friends leaving on the 
 very train which brought in the rest of what we good Americans term 
 "the 'bus-load." There were women among the newly-arrived who 
 inspected the dark girl with that calm, unflinching, impertinent scrutiny 
 and half-audibly whispered comment which, had they been of the oppo- 
 site sex, would have warranted their being kicked out of the conveyance, 
 but which was ignored by the fair object and her friends as completely 
 as were the commentators themselves. There were one or two men in 
 the omnibus who might readily have been forgiven an admiring glance 
 or two at so bright a vision of girlish beauty as was Miss Renwick this 
 August afternoon, and they had looked ; but the one who most attracted 
 
806 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 the notice of Mrs. Maynard and Aunt Grace — a tall, stalwart, dis- 
 tinguished-looking party in gray travelling-dress — had taken his seat 
 close to the door and was deep in the morning's paper before they were 
 fairly away from the station. 
 
 Laying down the letter she had just finished reading, Mrs. Maynard 
 glanced at her daughter, who was still engaged in one of her own, and 
 evidently with deep interest. 
 
 " From Fort Sibley, Alice?" 
 
 "Yes, mamma, all three, — Miss Craven, Mrs. Hoyt, and — Mr. 
 Jerrold. Would you like to see it ?" And, with rising color, she held 
 forth the one in her hand. 
 
 " Not now," was the answer, with a smile that told of confidence 
 and gratification both. " It is about the german, I suppose ?" 
 
 " Yes. He thinks it outrageous that we should not be there, — says 
 it is to be the prettiest ever given at the fort, and that Mrs. Hoyt and 
 Mrs. Craven, who are the managers for the ladies, had asked him to 
 lead. He wants to know if we cannot possibly come." 
 
 " Are you not very eager to go, Alice ? I should be," said Aunt 
 Grace, with sympathetic interest. 
 
 " Yes, I am," answered Miss Renwick, reflectively. " It had been 
 arranged that it should come off next week, when, as was supposed, we 
 would be home after this visit. It cannot be postponed, of course, 
 because it is given in honor of all the officers who are gathered there 
 for the rifle-competition, and that will be all over and done with to-day, 
 and they cannot stay beyond Tuesday next. We must give it up, 
 auntie," and she looked up smilingly, "and you have made it so 
 lovely for me here that I can do it without a sigh. Think of that ! — 
 an army german ! — and Fanny Craven says the favors are to be simply 
 lovely. Yes, I did want to go, but papa said he felt unequal to it the 
 moment he got back from Chicago, day before yesterday, and he cer- 
 tainly does not look at all well : so that ended it, and I wrote at once 
 to Mrs. Hoyt. This is her answer now." 
 
 " What does she say ?" 
 
 " Oh, it is very kind of her : she wants me to come and be her 
 guest if the colonel is too ill to come and mamma will not leave him. 
 She says Mr. Hoyt will come down and escort me. But I would not 
 lilce to go without mamma," and the big dark eyes looked up wistfully, 
 " and I know she does not care to urge papa when he seems so indis- 
 posed to going." 
 
 Mrs. Maynard's eyes were anxious and troubled now. She turned 
 to her sister-in-law : 
 
 " Do you think he seems any better, Grace ? I do not." 
 
 " It is hard to say. He was so nervously anxious to get away to 
 see the general the very day you arrived here that there was not a 
 moment in which I could ask him about himself; and since his return 
 he has avoided all mention of it beyond saying it is nothing but indi- 
 gestion and he would be all right in a few days. I never knew him to 
 suffer in that way in my life. Is there any regimental matter that can 
 be troubling him ?" she asked, in lower tone. 
 
 "Nothing of any consequence whatever. Of course the officers 
 
. FROM THE RANKS. 807 
 
 feel chagrined over their defeat in the rifle-match. They had expected 
 to stand very high, but Mr. Jerrold's shooting was unexpectedly below 
 the average, and it threw their team behind. But the colonel didn't 
 make the faintest allusion to it. That hasn't worried him anywhere 
 near as much as it has the others, I should judge." 
 
 "I do not think it was all Mr. Jerrold's fault, mamma," said 
 Miss Renwick, with gentle reproach and a very becoming flush. " I'm 
 going to stand up for him, beeliuse I think they all blame him for 
 other men's poor work. He was not the only one on our team whose 
 shooting was below former scores." 
 
 " They claim that none fell so far below their expectations as he, 
 Alice. You know I am no judge of such matters, but Mr. Hoyt and 
 Captain Gray both write the colonel that Mr. Jerrold had been taking 
 no care" of himself whatever and was entirely out of form." 
 
 " In any event I'm glad the cavalry did no better," was Miss Ren- 
 wick's loyal response. " You remember the evening we rode out to 
 the range and Captain Gray said that there was the man who would 
 win the first prize from Mr. Jerrold, — that tall cavalry sergeant who 
 fainted away, — Sergeant McLeod; don't you remember, mother? 
 Well, he did not even get a place, and Mr. Jerrold beat him easily." 
 
 Something in her mother's eyes warned her to be guarded, and, in 
 that indefinable but unerring system of feminine telegraphy, called her 
 attention to the man sitting by the door. Looking quickly to her 
 right. Miss Renwick saw that he was intently regarding her. At the 
 mention of Fort Sibley the stranger had lowered his paper, revealing 
 a bronzed face clean-shaven except for the thick blonde moustache, 
 and a pair of clear, steady, searching blue eyes under heavy brows 
 and lashes, and these eyes were very deliberately yet respectfully fixed 
 upon her own ; nor were they withdrawn in proper confusion when 
 detected. It was Miss Renwick whose eyes gave up the contest and 
 returned in some sense of defeat to her mother's face. 
 
 " What letters have you for the colonel?" asked Mrs. Maynard, 
 coming au secours. 
 
 " Three, — two of them from his devoted henchman Captain Chester, 
 who writes by every mail, I should imagine ; and these he will go off 
 into some secluded nook with and come back looldng blue and worried. 
 Then here's another, forwarded from Sibley, too. I do not know this 
 hand. Perhaps it is from Captain Armitage, who, they say, is to come 
 back next month. Poor Mr. Jerrold !" 
 
 " Why poor Mr. Jerrold ?" asked Aunt Grace, with laughing in- 
 terest, as she noted the expression on her niece's pretty face. 
 
 " Because he can't bear Captain Armitage, and " 
 
 " Now, Alice !" said her mother, reprovingly. " You must not take 
 his view of the captain at all. Remember what the colonel said of 
 him " 
 
 " Mother dear," protested Alice, laughing, " I have no doubt Cap- 
 tain Armitage is the paragon of a soldier, but he is unquestionably a 
 most unpleasant and ungentlemanly person in his conduct to the young 
 ofiicers. Mr. Hall has told me the same thing. I declare, I don't see 
 how they can speak to him at all, he has been so harsh and discourteous 
 
808 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 and unjust." The color was rising in earnest now, but a warning glance 
 in her mother's eye seemed to check further words. There was an in- 
 stant's silence. Then Aunt Grace remarked, — 
 
 " Alice, your next-door neighbor has vanished. I think your vehe- 
 mence has frightened him." 
 
 Surely enough, the big, blue-eyed man in tweeds had disappeared. 
 During this brief controversy he had quickly and noiselessly let him- 
 self out of the open door, swung lightly to the ground, and was out of 
 sight among the trees. 
 
 " Why, what a strange proceeding !" said Aunt Grace again. 
 " We are fully a mile and a half from the hotel, and he means to walk 
 it in this glaring sun.'^ 
 
 Evidently he did. The driver reined up at the moment in response 
 to a suggestion from some one in a forward seat, and there suddenly ap- 
 peared by the wayside, striding out from the shelter of the sumachs, the 
 athletic figure of the stranger. 
 
 " Go ahead !" he called, in a deep chest-voice that had an unmis- 
 takable ring to it, — the tone that one so readily recognizes in men 
 accustomed to prompt action and command. " I'm going across lots." 
 And, swinging his heavy stick, with quick, elastic steps and erect car- 
 riage the man in gray plunged into a wood-path and was gone. 
 
 " Alice," said Aunt Grace, again, " that man is an officer, I'm sure, 
 and you have driven him into exile and lonely wandering. I've seen 
 so much of them when visiting my brother in the old days before my 
 marriage that even in civilian dress it is easy to tell some of them. 
 Just look at that back, and those shoulders ! He has been a soldier all 
 his life. Horrors ! suppose it should be Captain Armitage himself!" 
 
 Miss Renwick looked genuinely distressed, as well as vexed. Cer- 
 tainly no officer but Captain Armitage would have had reason to leave 
 the stage. Certainly officers and their families occasionally visited 
 Sablon in the summer-time, but Captain Armitage could hardly be 
 here. There was comforting assurance in the very note she held in 
 her hand. 
 
 " It cannot be," she said, " because Mr. Jerrold writes that they 
 have just heard from him at Sibley. He is still at the sea-shore, and 
 will not return for a month. Mr. Jerrold says he implored Captain 
 Chester to let him have three days' leave to come down here and have 
 a sail and a picnic with us, and was told that it would be out of the 
 question." 
 
 "■ Did he tell you any other news ?" asked Mrs. Maynard, looking 
 up from her letter again, — " anything about the german ?" 
 
 " He says he thinks it a shame we are to be away and — well, read 
 it yourself." And she placed it in her mother's hands, the dark eyes 
 seriously, anxiously studying her face as she read. Presently Mrs. 
 Maynard laid it down and looked again into her own, then, pointing to 
 a certain passage with her finger, handed it to her daughter. 
 
 "Men were deceivers ever," she said, laughing, yet oracularly 
 significant. 
 
 And Alice Renwick could not quite control the start with which 
 she read, — 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 809 
 
 " Mr. Jerrold is to lead with his old love, Nina Beaubien. They 
 make a capital pair, and she, of course, will be radiant — with Alice out 
 of the way." 
 
 " That is something Mr. Jerrold failed to mention, is it not ?" 
 
 Miss Renwick's cheeks were flushed, and the dark eyes were fiUed 
 with sudden pain, as she answered, — 
 
 "I did not know she was there. She was to have gone to the 
 Lakes the same day we left." 
 
 " She did go, Alice," said her mother, quietly, " but it was only for 
 a brief visit, it seems." 
 
 The colonel was not at their cottage when the omnibus reached the 
 lake. Over at the hotel were the usual number of loungers gathered to 
 see the new arrivals, and Alice presently caught sight of the colonel 
 coming through the park. If anything, he looked more listless and 
 dispirited than he had before they left. She ran down the steps to 
 meet him, smiling brightly up into his worn and haggard face. 
 
 "Are you feeling a little brighter, papa? Here are letters for 
 you." 
 
 He took them wearily, barely glancing at the superscriptions. 
 
 " I had hoped for something more," he said, and passed on into the 
 little frame house which was his sister's summer home. " Is your 
 mother here?" he asked, looking back as he entered the door. 
 
 " In the north room, with Aunt Grace, papa," she answered ; and 
 then once more and with graver face she began to read Mr. Jerrold's 
 letter. It was a careful study she was making of it this time, and not 
 altogether a pleasant one. Aunt Grace came out and made some laugh- 
 ing remark at seeing her still so occupied. She looked up, pluckily 
 smiling despite a sense of wounded pride, and answered, — 
 
 " I am only convincing myself that it was purely on general prin- 
 ciples that Mr. Jerrold seemed so anxious I should be there. He never 
 wanted me to lead with him at all." All the same it stung, and Aunt 
 Grace saw and knew it, and longed to take her to her heart and com- 
 fort her ; but it was better so. She was finding him out unaided. 
 
 She was still studying over portions of that ingenious letter, when 
 the rustle of her aunt's gown indicated that she was rising. She saw 
 her move towards the steps, heard a quick, firm tread upon the narrow 
 planking, and glanced up in surprise. There, uncovering his close- 
 cropped head, stood the tall stranger, looking placidly up as he addressed 
 Aunt Grace : 
 
 " Pardon me, can I see Colonel Maynard ?" 
 
 " He is at home. Pray come up and take a chair. I will let him 
 know. I — I felt sure you mast be some friend of his when I saw you 
 in the stage," said the good lady, with manifest and apologetic uneasiness. 
 
 " Yes," responded the stranger, as he quickly ascended the steps 
 and bowed before her, smiling quietly the while. " Let me intro- 
 duce myself. I am Captain Armitage, of the colonel's regiment," 
 
 " There ! I knew it !" was Aunt Grace's response, as with both 
 hands uplifted in tragic despair she gave one horror-stricken glance at 
 Alice and rushed into the house. 
 
 There was a moment's silence ; then, with burning cheeks, but 
 Vol. XL.— 53 
 
810 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 with brave eyes that looked frankly into his, Alice Renwick arose, 
 came straight up to him, and held out her pretty hand. 
 
 " Captain Arraitage, I beg your pardon." 
 
 He took the extended hand and gazed earnestly into her face, while 
 a kind — almost merry — smile lighted up his own. 
 
 " Have the boys given me such an uncanny reputation as all that ?" 
 he asked ; and then, as though tickled with the comicality of the situ- 
 ation, he began to laugh. " What ogres some of us old soldiers do 
 become in the course of years ! Do you know, young lady, I might 
 never have suspected what a brute I was if it had not been for you ? 
 What a blessed thing it was the colonel did not tell you I was coming ! 
 You would never have given me this true insight into my character." 
 
 But she saw nothing to laugh at, and would not laugh. Her lovely 
 face was still burning with blushes and dismay and full of trouble. 
 
 " I do not look upon it lightly at all," she said. " It was unpardon- 
 able in me to — to " 
 
 " To take so effective and convincing a method of telling a man of 
 his grievous sins ! Not a bit of it. I like a girl who has the courage 
 to stand up for her friends. I shall congratulate Jerrold and Hall both 
 when I get back, lucky fellows that they are !" And evidently Captain 
 Armitage was deriving altogether too much jolly entertainment from her 
 awkwardness. She rallied and strove to put an end to it. 
 
 " Indeed, Captain Armitage, I do think the young officers sorely 
 need friends and advocates at times. I never would have knowingly 
 spoken to you of your personal responsibilities in the woes of Mr. Jer- 
 rold and Mr. Hall, but since I have done so unwittingly I may as well 
 define my position, especially as you are so good-natured with it all." 
 And here, it must be admitted. Miss Renwick's beautiful eyes were 
 shyly lifted to his in a most telling way. Once there, they looked 
 squarely into the clear blue depths of his, and never flinched. " It 
 seemed to me several times at Sibley that the young officers deserved 
 more consideration and courtesy than their captains accorded them. It 
 was not you alone that I heard of." 
 
 " I am profoundly gratified to learn that somebody else is a brute," 
 he answered, trying to look grave, but with that irrepressible merriment 
 twitching at the corners of his mouth and giving sudden gleams of his 
 firm white teeth through the thick moustache. " You are come to us 
 just in time, Miss Renwick, and if you will let me come and tell you 
 all my sorrows the next time the colonel pitches into me for something 
 wrong in B Company, I'll give you full permission to overhaul me for 
 everything or anything I say and do to the youngsters. Is it a 
 bargain ?" And he held out his big, firm hand. 
 
 " I think you are — very different from what I heard," was all her 
 answer, as she looked up in his eyes, twinkling as they were with fun. 
 " Oh, we are to shake hands on it as a bargain ? Is that it ? Very 
 well, then." 
 
 IX. 
 
 When Captain Armitage left the cottage that night he did not go 
 at once to his own room. Brief as was the conversation he had enjoyed 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 811 
 
 with Miss Ren wick, it was all that Fate vouchsafed him for that date 
 at least. The entire party went to tea together at the hotel, but im- 
 mediately thereafter the colonel carried Armitage away, and for two 
 long hours they were closeted over some lettei-s that had come from 
 Sibley, and when the conference broke up and the wondering ladies saw 
 the two men come forth it was late, — almost ten o'clock, — and the 
 captain did not venture beyond the threshold of the sitting-room. He 
 bowed and bade them a somewhat ceremonious good-night. His eyes 
 rested — lingered — on Miss Renwick's uplifted face, and it was the 
 picture he took with him into the stillness of the summer night. 
 
 The colonel accompanied him to the steps, and rested his hand upon 
 the broad gray shoulder. 
 
 " God only knows how I have needed you, Armitage. This trouble 
 has nearly crushed me, and it seemed as though I were utterly alone. 
 I had the haunting fear that it was only weakness on my part and my 
 love for my wife that made me stand out against Chester's propositions. 
 He can only see guilt and conviction in every new phase of the case, 
 and, though you see how he tries to spare me, his letters give no hope 
 of any other conclusion." 
 
 Armitage pondered a moment before he answered. Then he slowly 
 spoke ; 
 
 " Chester has lived a lonely and an unhappy life. His first experi- 
 ence after graduation was that wretched affair of which you have told 
 me. Of course I knew much of the particulars before, but not all. I 
 respect Chester as a soldier and a gentleman, and I like him and trust 
 him as a friend ; but. Colonel Maynard, in a matter of such vital im- 
 portance as this, and one of such delicacy, I distrust, not his motives, 
 but his judgment. All his life, practically, he has been brooding over 
 the sorrow that came to him when your trouble came to you, and his 
 mind is grooved : he believes he sees mystery and intrigue in matters 
 that others might explain in an instant." 
 
 " But think of all the array of evidence he has." 
 
 " Enough, and more than enough, I admit, to warrant everything 
 he has thought or said of the man ; but " 
 
 " He simply puts it this way. If he be guilty, can she be less ? 
 Is it possible, Armitage, that you are unconvinced ?" 
 
 " Certainly I am unconvinced. The matter has not yet been sifted. 
 As I understand it, you have forbidden his confronting Jerrold with the 
 proofs of his rascality until I get there. Admitting the evidence of the 
 ladder, the picture, and the form at the window, — ay, the letter, too, — 
 I am yet to be convinced of one thing. You must remember that his 
 judgment is biassed by his early experiences. He fancies that no 
 woman is proof against such fascinations as Jerrold's." 
 
 " And your belief?" 
 
 " Is that some women — many women — are utterly above such a 
 possibility." 
 
 Old Maynard wrung his comrade's hand. " You make me hope 
 in spite of myself, — my past experiences, — my very senses, Armitage. 
 I have leaned on you so many years that I missed you sorely when 
 this trial came. If you had been there, things might not have taken 
 
812 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 this shape. He looks upon Chester — and it's one thing Chester 
 hasn't forgiven in him — as a meddling old granny ; you remember the 
 time he so spoke of him last year ; but he holds you in respect, or is 
 afraid of you, — which in a man of his calibre is about the same thing. 
 It may not be too late for you to act. Then when he is disposed of once 
 and for all, I can know what must be done — where she is concerned." 
 
 " And under no circumstances can you question Mrs. Maynard ?" 
 
 " No ! no ! If she suspected anything of this it would kill her. 
 In any event, she must have no suspicion of it now." 
 
 "But does she not ask? Has she no theory about the missing 
 photograph ? Surely she must marvel over its disappearance." 
 
 "She does; at least, she did; but — I'm ashamed to own it, Armi- 
 tage — we had to quiet her natural suspicions in some way, and I told her 
 that it was my doing, — that I took it to tease Alice, put the photograph 
 in the drawer of my desk, and hid the frame behind her sofa-pillow. 
 Chester knows of the arrangement, and we had settled that when the 
 picture was recovered from Mr. Jerrold he would send it to me." 
 
 Armitage was silent. A frown settled on his forehead, and it was 
 evident that the statement was far from welcome to him. Presently he 
 held forth his hand. 
 
 " Well, good-night, sir. I must go and have a quiet think over 
 this. I hope you will rest well. You need it, colonel." 
 
 But Maynard only shook his head. His lieart was too troubled 
 for rest of any kind. He stood gazing out towards the park, where 
 the tall figure of his ex-adjutant had disappeared among the trees. He 
 heard the low-toned, pleasant chat of the ladies in the sitting-room, but 
 he was in no mood to join them. He wished that Armitage had not 
 gone, he felt such strength and comparative hope in his presence ; 
 but it was plain that even Armitage was confounded by the array of 
 facts and circumstances that he had so painfully and slowly communi- 
 cated to him. The colonel went drearily back to the room in which 
 they had had their long conference. His wife and sister both hailed 
 him as he passed the sitting-room door, and urged him to come and 
 join them, — they wanted to ask about Captain Armitage, with whom 
 it was evident they were much impressed ; but he answered that he 
 had some letters to put away, and he must attend first to that. 
 
 Among those that had been shown to the captain, mainly letters 
 from Chester telling of the daily events at the fort and of liis surveil- 
 lance in the case of Jerrold, was one which Alice had brought him two 
 days before. This had seemed to him of unusual importance, as the 
 others contained nothing that tended to throw new light on the case. 
 It said, — 
 
 " I am glad you have telegraphed for Armitage, and heartily ap- 
 prove your decision to lay the whole case before him. I presume he 
 can reach you by Sunday, and that by Tuesday he will be here at the 
 fort and ready to act. This will be a great relief to me, for, do what 
 I could to allay it, there is no concealing the fact that much speculation 
 and gossip is afloat concerning the events of that unliappy night. 
 Leary declares he has been close-mouthed ; the other men on guard 
 know absolutely nothing, and Captain Wilton is the only officer to 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 813 
 
 whom in my distress of miud I betrayed that there was a mystery, and 
 he has pledged himself to me to say nothing. Sloat, too, has an ink- 
 ling, and a big one, that Jerrold is the suspected party ; but I never 
 dreamed that anything had been seen or heard which in the faintest 
 way connected your household with the matter, until yesterday. Then 
 Leary admitted to me that two women, Mrs. Clifford's cook and the 
 doctor's nursery-maid, had asked him whether it wasn't Lieutenant 
 Jerrold he fired at, and if it was true that he was trying to get in at 
 the colonel's back door. Twice Mrs. Clifford has asked me very sig- 
 nificant questions, and three times to-day have officers made remarks to 
 me that indicated their knowledge of the existence of some grave 
 trouble. What makes matters worse is that Jerrold, when twitted 
 about his absence from reveille, loses his temper and gets confused. 
 There came near being a quarrel between him and Rollins at the mess 
 a day or two since. He was saying that the reason he slept through 
 roll-call was the fact that he had been kept up very late at the doctor's 
 party, and Rollins happened to come in at the moment and blurted out 
 that if he was up at all it must have been after he left the party, and 
 reminded him that he had left before midnight with ISliss Ren wick. 
 This completely staggered Jerrold, who grew confused and tried to 
 cover it with a display of anger. Now, two weeks ago Rollins was 
 most friendly to Jerrold and stood up for him when I assailed him, 
 but ever since that night he has had no word to say for him. When 
 Jerrold played wrathful and accused Rollins of mixing in other men's 
 business, Rollins bounced up to him like a young bull-terrier, and I 
 believe there would have been a row had not Sloat and Hoyt promptly 
 interfered. Jerrold apologized, and Rollins accepted the apology, but 
 has avoided him ever since, — won't speak of him to me, now that I 
 have reason to want to draw him out. As soon as Armitage gets here 
 he can do what I cannot, — find out just what and who is suspected and 
 talked about. 
 
 " Mr. Jerrold, of course, avoids me. He has been attending strictly 
 to his duty, and is evidently confounded that I did not press the matter 
 of his going to town as he did the day I forbade it. Mr. Hoyt's being 
 too late to see him personally gave me sufficient grounds on which to ex- 
 cuse it ; but he seems to understand that something is impending, and 
 is looking nervous and harassed. He has not renewed his request for 
 leave of absence to run down to Sablon. I told him curtly it was out 
 of the question." 
 
 The colonel took a few strides up and down the room. It had 
 come, then. The good name of those he loved was already besmirched 
 by garrison gossip, and he knew that nothing but heroic measures could 
 ever silence scandal. Impulse and the innate sense of " fight" urged 
 him to go at once to the scene, leaving his wife and her fair daughter 
 here under his sister's roof; but Armitage and common sense said no. 
 He had placed his burden on those broad gray shoulders, and, though 
 ill content to wait, he felt that he was bound. Stowing away the 
 letters, too nervous to sleep, too worried to talk, he stole from the 
 cottage, and, with hands clasped behind his back, with low-bowed head 
 he strolled forth into the broad vista of moonlit road. 
 
814 FROM TEE RANKS. 
 
 There were bright h'ghts still burning at the hotel, and gay voices 
 came floating through the summer air. The piano, too, was thrumming 
 a waltz in the parlor, and two or three couples were throwing em- 
 bracing, slowly-twirling shadows on the windows. Over in the bar- and 
 billiard-rooms the click of the balls and the refreshing rattle of cracked 
 ice told suggestively of the occupation of the inmates. Keeping on be- 
 yond these distracting sounds, he slowly climbed a long, gradual ascent 
 to the " bench," or plateau above the wooded point on which were 
 grouped the glistening white buildings of the pretty summer resort, and, 
 having reached the crest, turned silently to gaze at the beauty of the 
 scene, — at the broad, flawless bosom of a summer lake all sheen and 
 silver from the unclouded moon. Far to the southeast it wound among 
 the bold and rock-ribbed blufi^s rising from the forest growth at their 
 base to shorn and rounded summits. Miles away to the southward 
 twinkled the lights of one busy little town ; others gleamed and 
 sparkled over towards the northern shore, close under the pole-star; 
 while directly opposite frowned a massive wall of palisaded rock, 
 that threw, deep and heavy and far from shore, its long reflection in 
 the mirror of water. There was not a breath of air stirring in the 
 heavens, not a ripple on the face of the waters beneath, save where, close 
 under the bold headland down on the other side, the signal-lights, 
 white and crimson and green, creeping slowly along in the shadows, re- 
 vealed one of the packets ploughing her steady way to the great marts 
 below. Nearer at hand, just shaving the long strip of sandy, wooded 
 point that jutted far out into the lake, a broad raft of timber, pushed 
 by a hard-working, black-funnelled stern-wheeler, was slowly forging 
 its way to the outlet of the lake, its shadowy edge sprinkled here and 
 there with little sparks of lurid red, — the pilot-lights that gave warning 
 of its slow and silent coming. Far down along the southern shore, 
 under that black bluff-line, close to the silver water-edge, a glowing 
 meteor seemed whirling through the night, and the low, distant rumble 
 told of the "Atlantic Express" thundering on its journey. Here, 
 along with him on the level plateau, were other roomy cottages, some 
 dark, some still sending forth a guiding ray ; while long lines of white- 
 washed fence gleamed ghostly in the moonlight and were finally lost in 
 the shadow of the great bluff that abruptly shut in the entire point 
 and plateau and shut out all further sight of lake or land in that direc- 
 tion. Far beneath he could hear the soft plash upon the sandy shore 
 of the little wavelets that came sweeping in the wake of the raftrboat 
 and spending their tiny strength upon the strand ; far down on the 
 hotel point he could still hear the soft melody of the waltz ; he re- 
 membered how the band used to play that same air, and wondered why 
 it was he used to like it; it jarred him now. Presently the distant 
 crack of a whip and the low rumble of wheels were heard : the omni- 
 bus coming back from the station with passengers from the night train. 
 He was in no mood to see any one. He turned away and walked 
 northward along the edge of the bench, towards the deep shadow of 
 the great shoulder of the bluff, and presently he came to a long flight 
 of wooden stairs, leading from the plateau down to the hotel, and here 
 he stopped and seated himself awhile. He did not want to go home 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 815 
 
 yet. He wanted to be by himself, — to think and brood over his 
 trouble. He saw the omnibus go round the bend and roll up to the 
 hotel door-way with its load of pleasure-seekers, and heard the joyous 
 welcome with which some of their number were received by waiting 
 friends, but life had little of joy to him this night. He longed to go 
 away, — anywhere, anywhere, could he only leave this haunting misery 
 behind. He was so proud of his regiment ; he had been so happy in 
 bringing home to it his accomplished and gracious wife ; he had been 
 so joyous in planning for the lovely times Alice was to have, — the 
 social successes, the girlish triumphs, the garrison gayeties of which 
 she was to be the queen, — and now, so very, very soon, all had turned 
 to ashes and desolation ! She was so beautiful, so sweet, winning, 
 graceful. Oh, God ! could it be that one so gifted could possibly be 
 so base? He rose in nervous misery and clinched his hands high in 
 air, then sat down again with hiding, hopeless flice, rocking to and fro 
 as sways a man in mortal pain. It was long before he rallied and 
 again wearily arose. Most of the lights were gone ; silence had settled 
 down upon the sleeping point ; he was chilled with the night air and 
 the dew, and stiff and heavy as he tried to walk. Down at the foot of 
 the stairs he could see the night-watchman making his rounds. He did 
 not want to explain matters and talk with him : he would go around. 
 There was a steep pathway down into the ravine that gave into the 
 lake just beyond his sister's cottage, and this he sought and followed, 
 moving slowly and painfully, but finally reaching the grassy level of 
 the pathway that connected the cottages with the wood-road up the 
 bluff. Trees and shrubbery were thick on both sides, and the path 
 was shaded. He turned to his right, and came down until once more 
 he was in sight of the white walls of the hotel standing out there on 
 the point, until close at hand he could see the light of his own cottage 
 glimmering like faithful beacon through the trees ; and then he stopped 
 short. 
 
 A tall, slender figure — a man in dark, snug-fitting clothing — was 
 creeping stealthily up to the cottage window. 
 
 The colonel held his breath : his heart thumped violently : he 
 waited, — watched. He saw the dark figure reach the blinds ; he saw 
 them slowly, softly turned, and the faint light gleaming from within ; 
 he saw the figure peering in between the slats, and then — God ! was it 
 possible? — a low voice, a man's voice, whispering or hoarsely mur- 
 muring a name : he heard a sudden movement within the room, as 
 though the occupant had heard and were replying, " Coming." Hjs 
 blood froze : it was not Alice's room : it was his, — his and hers — his 
 wife's, — and that was surely her step approaching the window. Yes, 
 the blind was quickly opened. A white-robed figure stood at the 
 casement. He could see, hear, bear no more : with one mad rush he 
 sprang from his lair and hurled himself upon the shadowy stranger. 
 
 " You hound ! who are you ?" 
 
 But 'twas no shadow that he grasped. A muscular arm was round 
 him in a trice, a brawny hand at his throat, a twisting, sinewy leg was 
 curled in his, and he went reeling back upon the springy turf, stunned 
 and wellnigh breathless. 
 
816 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 When he could regain his feet and reach the casement the stranger 
 had vanished ; but Mrs. Maynard lay there on the floor within, a white 
 and senseless heap. 
 
 Perhaps it was as well for all parties that Frank Armitage con- 
 cluded that he must have another whiff of tobacco that night as an 
 incentive to the " think" he had promised himself He had strolled 
 through the park to the grove of trees out on the point and seated 
 himself in the shadows. Here his reflections were speedily interrupted 
 by the animated flirtations of a few couples who, tiring of the dance, 
 came out into the coolness of the night and the seclusion of the grove, 
 where their murmured words and soft laughter soon gave the captain's 
 nerves a strain they could not bear. He broke cover and betook him- 
 self to the very edge of the stone retaining wall out on the point. 
 
 He wanted to think calmly and dispassionately ; he meant to weigh 
 all he had read and heard and form his estimate of the gravity of the 
 case before going to bed. He meant to be impartial, — to judge her as 
 he would judge any other woman so compromised ; but for the life of 
 liim he could not. He bore with him the mute image of her lovely 
 face, with its clear, truthful, trustful dark eyes. He saw her as she 
 stood before him on the little porch when they shook hands on their 
 laughing — or his laughing — compact, for she would not laugh. How 
 perfect she was ! — her radiant beauty, her uplifted eyes, so full of their 
 self-reproach and regret at the speech she had made at his expense ! 
 How exquisite was the grace of her slender, rounded form as she stood 
 there before him, one slim hand half sliyly extended to meet the cordial 
 clasp of his own ! He wanted to judge and be just ; but that image 
 dismayed him. How could he look on this picture and then — on that, 
 — the one portrayed in the chain of circumstantial evidence which the 
 colonel had laid before him ? It M^as monstrous ! it was treason to 
 womanhood ! One look in her eyes, superb in their innocence, was too 
 much for his determined impartiality. Armitage gave himself a mental 
 kick for what he termed his imbecility, and went back to the hotel. 
 
 " It's no use," he muttered. " I'm a slave of the weed, and can't 
 be philosophic without my pipe." 
 
 Up to his little box of a room he climbed, found his pipe-case and 
 tobacco-pouch, and in five minutes was strolling out to the point once 
 more, when he came suddenly upon the night-watchman, — a personage 
 of whose functions and authority he was entirely ignorant. The man 
 eyed him narrowly, and essayed to speak. Not knowing him, and 
 desiring to be alone, Armitage pushed past, and was surprised to find 
 that a hand was on his shoulder and the man at his side before he had 
 gone a rod. 
 
 *' Beg pardon, sir," said the watchman, gruffly, " but I don't know 
 you. Are you stopping at the hotel ?" 
 
 " I am," said Armitage, coolly, taking his pipe from his lips and 
 blowing a cloud over his otlier shoulder. " And who may you be ?" 
 
 " I am the watchman ; and I do not remember seeing you come 
 to-day." 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 817 
 
 " Nevertheless I did." 
 
 " On what train, sir ?" 
 
 " This aflernoon's up-train." 
 
 " You certainly were not on the omnibus when it got here." 
 
 " Very true. I walked over from beyond the school-house." 
 
 " You must excuse me, sir. I did not think of that ; and the 
 manager requires me to know everybody. Is this Major Armitage ?" 
 
 " Armitage is my name, but I'm not a major." 
 
 " Yes, sir ; I'm glad to be set right. And the other gentleman, — 
 him as was inquiring for Colonel Maynard to-night? He's in the 
 army, too, but his name don't seem to be on the book. He only came 
 in on the late train." 
 
 " Another man to see Colonel Maynard ?" asked the captain, with 
 sudden interest. "Just come in, you say. I'm sure I've no idea. 
 What was he like ?" 
 
 " I don't know, sir. At first I thought you was him. The driver 
 told me he brought a gentleman over who asked some questions about 
 Colonel Maynard, but he didn't get aboard at the d^pot, and he didn't 
 come down to the hotel, — got off somewhere up there on the bench, and 
 Jim didn't see him." 
 
 " Where's Jim ?" said Armitage. " Come with me, watchman. I 
 want to interview him." 
 
 Together they walked over to the barn, wliich the driver was just 
 locking up after making everything secure for the night. 
 
 " Who was it inquiring for Colonel Maynard?" asked Armitage. 
 
 " I don't know, sir," was the slow answer. " There was a man got 
 aboard as I was coming across the common there in the village at the 
 station. There were several passengers from the train, and some bag- 
 gage : so he may have started ahead on foot but afterwards concluded 
 to ride. As soon as I saw him get in I reined up and asked where he 
 was going ; he had no baggage nor nuthin', and my orders are not to 
 haul anybody except people of the hotel : so he came right forward 
 through the 'bus and took the seat behind me and said 'twas all right, 
 he was going to the hotel ; and he passed up a half-dollar. I told him 
 that I couldn't take the money, — that 'bus-fares were paid at the office, 
 — and drove ahead. Then he handed me a cigar, and pretty soon he 
 asked me if there were many people, and who had the cottages ; and 
 when I told him, he asked which was Colonel Maynard's, but he didn't 
 say he knew him, and the next thing I knew was when we got here to 
 the hotel he wasn't in the 'bus. He must have stepped back through 
 all those passengers and slipped oif up there on the bench. He was in 
 it when we passed the little brown church up on the hill." 
 
 "What was he hke?" 
 
 " I couldn't see him plain. He stepped out from behind a tree as 
 we drove through tlie common, and came right into the 'bus. It was 
 dark in there, and all I know is he was tall and had on dark clothes. 
 Some of the people inside must have seen him better ; but they are all 
 gone to bed, I suppose." 
 
 " I will go over to the hotel and inquire, anyway," said Armitage, 
 and did so. The lights were turned down, and no one was there, but ho 
 
818 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 could hear voices chatting in quiet tones on the broad, sheltered veranda 
 without, and, going thither, found three or four men enjoying a quiet 
 smoke. Armitage was a man of action. He stepped at once to the 
 group : 
 
 " Pardon me, gentlemen, but did any of you come over in the 
 omnibus from the station to-night ?" 
 
 " I did, sir," replied one of the party, removing his cigar and 
 twitching off the ashes with his little finger, then looking up with the 
 air of a man expectant of question. 
 
 " The watchman tells me a man came over who was making in- 
 quiries for Colonel Maynard. May I ask if you saw or heard of such 
 a person ?" 
 
 " A gentleman got in soon after we left the station, and when the 
 driver hailed him he went forward and took a seat near him. They 
 had some conversation, but I did not hear it. I only know that he got 
 out again a little while before we reached the hotel." 
 
 "Could you see him, and describe him? I am a friend of Colo- 
 nel Maynard's, an officer of his regiment, — which will account for my 
 inquiry." 
 
 " Well, yes, sir. I noticed he was very tall and slim, was dressed 
 in dark clothes, and wore a dark slouched hat well down over his fore- 
 head. He was what I would call a military-looking man, for I noticed 
 his walk as he got off; but he wore big s]3ectacles, — blue or brown 
 glass, I should say, — and had a heavy beard." 
 
 " Which way did he go when he left the 'bus ?" 
 
 " He walked northward along the road at the edge of the bluff, 
 right up towards the cottages on the upper level," was the answer. 
 
 Armitage thanked him for his courtesy, explained that he had left 
 the colonel only a short time before and that he was then expecting no 
 visitor, and if one had come it was perhaps necessary that he should 
 be hunted up and brought to the hotel. Then he left the porch and 
 walked hurriedly through the park towards its northernmost limit. 
 There to his left stood the broad roadway along which, nestling under 
 shelter of the bluff, was ranged the line of cottages, some two-storied, 
 with balconies and verandas, others low, single-storied affairs with a 
 broad hall-way in the middle of each and rooms on both north and 
 south sides. Farthermost north on the row, almost hidden in the trees, 
 and nearest the ravine, stood Aunt Grace's cottage, where were domi- 
 ciled the colonel's household. It was in the big bay-windowed north 
 room that he and the colonel had had their long conference earlier in 
 the evening. The soutli room, nearly opposite, was used as their parlor 
 and sitting-room. Aunt Grace and Miss Renwick slept in the little 
 front rooms north and south of the hall-way, and the lights in their 
 rooms were extinguished ; so, too, was that in the parlor. All was 
 darkness on the south and east. All was silence and peace as Armi- 
 tage approached ; but just as he reached the shadow of the stunted oak- 
 tree growing in front of the house his ears were startled by an agonized 
 cry, a woman's half-stifled shriek. He bounded up the steps, seized 
 the knob of the door and threw his weight against it. It was firmly 
 bolted within. Loud he thundered on the panels. " 'Tis I, — Armi- 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 819 
 
 tage !" he called. He heard the quick patter of little feet ; the bolt 
 was slid, and he rushed in, almost stumbling against a trembling, terror- 
 stricken, yet welcoming white-robed form, — Alice Renwick, barefooted, 
 with her glorious wealth of hair tumbling in dark luxuriance all down 
 over the dainty night-dress, — Alice Renwick, with pallid face and wild 
 imploring eyes. 
 
 " What is wrong ?" he asked, in haste. 
 
 " It's mother, — her room, — and it's locked, and she won't answer," 
 was the gasping reply. 
 
 Armitage sprang to the rear of the hall, leaned one second against 
 the opposite wall, sent his foot with mighty impulse and muscled im- 
 pact against the opposing lock, and the door flew open with a crash. 
 The next instant Alice was bending over her senseless mother, and the 
 captain was giving a hand in much bewilderment to the panting colonel, 
 who was striving to clamber in at the window. The ministrations of 
 Aunt Grace and Alice were speedily sufficient to restore Mrs. Maynard. 
 A teaspoonful of brandy administered by the colonel's trembling hand 
 helped matters materially. Then he turned to Armitage. 
 
 " Come outside," he said. 
 
 Once again in the moonlight the two men faced each other. 
 
 " Armitage, can you get a horse ?" 
 
 " Certainly. What then ?" 
 
 " Go to the station, get men, if possible, and head this fellow off. 
 He was here again to-night, and it was not Alice he called, but my — 
 but Mrs. Maynard. I saw him ; I grappled with him right here at 
 the bay-window where she met him, and he hurled me to grass as 
 though I'd been a child. I want a horse ! I want that man to-night. 
 How did he get away from Sibley ?" 
 
 " Do you mean — do you think it was Jerrold ?" 
 
 " Good God, yes ! Who else could it be ? Disguised, of course, 
 and bearded ; but the figure, the carriage, were just the same, and he 
 came to this window, — to her window, — and called, and she answered. 
 My God, Armitage, think of it !" 
 
 " Come with me, colonel. You are all unstrung," was the captain's 
 answer as he led his broken friend away. At the front door he stopped 
 one moment, then ran up the steps and into the hall, where he tapped 
 lightly at the casement. 
 
 " What is it ?" was the low response from an invisible source. 
 
 "Miss Alice?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " The watchman is here now. I will send him around to the win- 
 dow to keep guard until our return. The colonel is a little upset by 
 the shock, and I want to attend to him. We are going to the hotel a 
 moment before I bring him home. You are not afraid to have him 
 leave you ?" 
 
 " Not now, captain." 
 
 " Is Mrs. Maynard better ?" 
 
 " Yes. She hardly seems to know what has happened. Indeed, 
 none of us do. Wliat was it?" 
 
 " A tramp, looking for something to eat, tried to open the blinds, 
 
820 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 and the colonel was out here and made a jump at him. They had a 
 scuffle in the shrubbery, and the tramp got away. It frightened your 
 mother : that's the sum of it, I think." 
 
 " Is papa hurt ?" 
 
 "No: a little bruised and shaken, and mad as a hornet. I think 
 perhaps I'll get him quieted down and sleepy in a few minutes, if you 
 and Mrs. Maynard will be content to let him stay with me. I can 
 talk almost any man drowsy." 
 
 " Mamma seems to worry for fear he is hurt." 
 
 "Assure her solemnly that he hasn't a scratch. He is simply 
 fighting mad, and I'm going to try and find the tramp. Does Mrs. 
 Maynard remember how he looked ?" 
 
 " She could not see the face at all. She heard some one at the 
 shutters, and a voice, and supposed of course it was papa, and threw 
 open the blind." 
 
 " Oh, I see. That's all, Miss Alice. I'll go back to the colonel. 
 Good-night !" And Armitage went forth with a lighter step. 
 
 " One sensation knocked endwise, colonel. I have it on the best 
 of authority that Mrs. Maynard so fearlessly went to the window in 
 answer to the voice and noise at the shutters simply because she knew 
 you were out there somewhere and she supposed it was you. How 
 simple these mysteries become when a little daylight is let in on them, 
 after all ! Come, I'm going to take you over to my room for a stiff 
 glass of grog, and then after his trampship while you go back to 
 bed." 
 
 "Armitage, you seem to make very light of this night's doings. 
 What is easier than to connect it all with the trouble at Sibley ?" 
 
 " Nothing was ever more easily explained than this thing, colonel, 
 and all I want now is a chance to get that tramp. Then I'll go to 
 Sibley ; and 'pon my word I believe that mystery can be made as com- 
 monplace a piece of petty larceny as this was of vagrancy. Come." 
 
 But when Armitage left the colonel at a later hour and sought his 
 own room for a brief rest he was in no such buoyant mood. A night- 
 search for a tramp in the dense thickets among the bluffs and woods of 
 Sablon could hardly be successful. It was useless to make the attempt. 
 He slept but little during the cool August night, and early in the morn- 
 ing mounted a horse and trotted over to the railway-station. 
 
 " Has any train gone northward since last night ?" he inquired at 
 the office. 
 
 " None that stop here," was the answer. " The first train up comes 
 along at 11.56." 
 
 " I want to send a despatch to Fort Sibley and get an answer with- 
 out delay. Can you work it for me ?" 
 
 The agent nodded, and pushed over a package of blanks. Armi- 
 tage wrote rapidly as follows : 
 
 " Captain Chestee, 
 
 " Commanding Fort Sibley. 
 "Is Jerrold there? Tell him I will arrive Tuesday. Answer. 
 
 " F. Armitaqe." 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 821 
 
 It was along towards nine o'clock when the return message came 
 clicking in on the wires, was written out, and handed to the tall soldier 
 with the tired blue eyes. 
 
 He read, started, crushed the paper in his hand, and turned from 
 the office. The answer was significant : 
 
 " Lieutenant Jerrold left Sibley yesterday afternoon. Not yet re- 
 turned. Absent without leave this morning;. 
 
 " Chester." 
 
 XI. 
 
 Nature never vouchsafed to wearied man a lovelier day of rest than 
 the still Sunday on which Frank Armitage rode slowly back from the 
 station. The soft, mellow tone of the church-bell, tolling the summons 
 for morning service, floated out from the brown tower, and was echoed 
 back from the rocky cliff glistening in the August sunshine on the 
 nortliern bluff. Groups of villagers hung about the steps of the little 
 sanctuary and gazed with mild curiosity at the arriving parties from the 
 cottages and the hotel. The big red omnibus came up with a load of 
 worshippers, and farther away, down the vista of the road, Armitage 
 could see others on foot and in carriages, all wending their way to church. 
 He was in no mood to meet them. The story tliat he had been out 
 pursuing a tramp during the night was pretty thoroughly circulated by 
 this time, he felt assured, and every one would connect his early ride to 
 the station, in some way, with the adventure that the grooms, iiostlers, 
 cooks, and kitchen-maids had all been dilating upon ever since daybreak. 
 He dreaded to meet the curious glances of the women, and the questions 
 of the few men whom he had taken so far into his confidence as to ask 
 about the mysterious person who came over in the stage with them. He 
 reined up his horse, and then, seeing a little pathway leading into the 
 thick wood to his right, he turned in thither and followed it some fifty 
 yards among bordering treasures of coreopsis and golden-rod and wild 
 luxuriance of vine and foliage. Dismounting in the shade, he threw 
 the reins over his arm and let his horse crop the juicy grasses, while he 
 seated himself on a little stump and fell to thinking again. He could 
 hear the reverent voices of one or two visitors strolling about among the 
 peacefiil, flower-decked graves behind the little church and only a sliort 
 stone's-throw away through the shrubbery. He could hear the low, 
 solemn voluntary of the organ, and presently the glad outburst of 
 young voices in the opening hymn, but he knew that belated ones would 
 still be coming to church, and he would not come forth from his covert 
 until all were out of the way. Then, too, he was glad of a little longer 
 time to think : he did not want to tell the colonel the result of his 
 morning investigations. 
 
 To begin with : the watchman, the driver, and the two men whom 
 he had questioned were all of an opinion as to the character of the 
 stranger : " he was a military man." The passengers described his 
 voice as that of a man of education and social position ; the driver 
 and passengers declared his walk and carriage to be that of a soldier : 
 he was taller, they said, than the tall, stalwart Saxon captain, but by 
 
822 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 no means so heavily built. As to age, they could not tell : his beard 
 was black and curly, — no gray hairs ; his movements were quick and 
 elastic ; but his eyes were hidden by those colored glasses, and his fore- 
 head by the slouch of that broad-brimmed felt hat. 
 
 At the station, while awaiting the answer to his despatch, Armitage 
 had questioned the agent as to whether any man of that description had 
 arrived by the night train from the north. He had seen none, he said, 
 but there was Larsen over at the post-of&ce store, who came down on 
 that train ; perhaps he could tell. Oddly enough, Mr. Larsen recalled 
 just such a party, — tall, slim, dark, dark-bearded, with blue glasses 
 and dark hat and clothes, — but he was bound for Lakeville, the station 
 beyond, and he remained in the car when he, Larsen, got oif. Larsen 
 remembered the man well, because he sat in the rear corner of the 
 smoker and had nothing to say to anybody, but kept reading a news- 
 paper ; and the way he came to take note of him was that while stand- 
 ing with two friends at that end of the car they happened to be right 
 around the man. The Saturday evening train from the city is always 
 crowded with people from the river towns who have been up to market 
 or the matinees, and even the smoker was filled with standing men 
 until they got some thirty miles down. Larsen wanted to light a fresh 
 cigar, and offered one to each of his friends : then it was found they 
 had no matches, and one of them, who had been drinking a little and 
 felt jovial, turned to the dark stranger and asked him for a light, and 
 the man, without speaking, handed out a little silver match-box. It 
 was just then that the conductor came along, and Larsen saw his ticket. 
 It was a " round trip" to Lakeville : he was evidently going there for 
 a visit, and therefore, said Larsen, he didn't get off at Sablon Station, 
 which was six miles above. 
 
 But Armitage knew better. It was evident that he had quietly 
 slipped out on the platform of the car afler the regular passengers had 
 got out of the way, and let himself off into the darkness on the side 
 opposite the station. Thence he had an open and unimpeded walk of 
 a few hundred yards until he reached the common, and then, when 
 overtaken by the hotel omnibus, he could jump aboard and ride. 
 There was only one road, only one way over to the hotel, and he could 
 not miss it. There was no doubt now that, whoever he was, the night 
 visitor had come down on the evening train from the city ; and his 
 return ticket would indicate that he meant to go back the way he came. 
 It was half-past ten when that train arrived. It was nearly midnight 
 when the man appeared at the cottage window. It was after two when 
 Armitage gave up the search and went to bed. It was possible for the 
 man to have walked to Lakeville, six miles south, and reached the 
 station there in abundant time to take the up-train which passed Sablon, 
 without stopping, a little before daybreak. If he took that train, and 
 if he was Jerrold, he would have been in the city before seven, and 
 could have been at Fort Sibley before or by eight o'clock. But Chester's 
 despatch showed clearly that at 8.30 — the hour for signing the company 
 morning reports — Mr. Jerrold was not at his post. Was he still in the 
 neighborhood and waiting for the noon train ? If so, could he be con- 
 fronted on the cars and accused of his crime ? He looked at his watch : 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 823 
 
 it was nearly eleven, and he must push on to the hotel before that hour, 
 report to the colonel, then hasten back to the station. He sprang to his 
 feet, and was just about to mount, when a vision of white and scarlet 
 came suddenly into view. There, within twenty feet of him, making 
 her dainty way through the shrubbery from the direction of the church, 
 sunshine and shadow alternately flitting across her lovely face and form, 
 Alice Renwick stepped forth into the pathway, and, shading her eyes 
 with her hand, gazed along the leafy lane towards the road, as though 
 expectant of another's coming. Then, attracted by the beauty of the 
 golden-rod, she bent and busied herself with gathering in the yellow 
 sprays. Armitage, with one foot in the stirrup, stood stock-still, half 
 in surprise, half stunned by a sudden and painful thought. Could it 
 be that she was there in hopes of meeting — any one ? 
 
 He retook his foot from the stirrup, and, relaxing the rein, still 
 stood gazing at her over his horse's back. That placid quadruped, 
 whose years had been spent in these pleasant by-ways and were too 
 many to warrant an exhibition of coltish surprise, promptly lowered 
 his head and resumed his occupation of grass-nibbling, making a little 
 crunching noise which Miss Renwick might have heard, but apparently 
 did not. She was singing very softly to herself, — 
 
 " Daisy, tell my fortune, pray : 
 He loves me uot, — he loves me." 
 
 And still Armitage stood and gazed, while she, absorbed in her 
 pleasant task, still pulled and plucked at the golden-rod. In all his 
 life no " vision of fair women" had been to him fair and sacred and 
 exquisite as this. Down to the tip of her arched and slender foot, 
 peeping from beneath the broidered hem of her snowy skirt, she stood 
 the lady born and bred, and his eyes looked on and worshipped her, — 
 worshipped, yet questioned. Why came she here ? Absorbed, he re- 
 leased his hold on the rein, and Dobbin, nothing loath, reached with 
 his long, lean neck for further herbage, and stepped in among the 
 trees. Still stood his negligent master, fascinated in his study of the 
 lovely, graceful girl. Again she raised her head and looked north- 
 ward along the winding, shaded wood-path. A few yards away were 
 other great clusters of the wild flowers she loved, more sun-kissed 
 golden-rod, and, with a little murmur of delight, gathering her dainty 
 skirts in one hand, she flitted up the pathway like an unconscious 
 humming-bird garnering the sweets from every blossom. A little 
 farther on the pathway bent among the trees, and she would be hidden 
 from his sight; but still he stood and studied her every movement, 
 drank in the soft, cooing melody of her voice as she sang, and then 
 there came a sweet, solemn strain from the brown, sunlit walls just 
 visible through the trees, and reverent voices and the resonant chords of 
 the organ thrilled through the listening woods the glorious anthem of 
 the church militant. 
 
 At the first notes she lifted up her queenly head and stood, listen- 
 ing and appreciative. Then he saw her rounded throat swelling like a 
 bird's, and the rich, full tones of her voice rang out through the 
 
324 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 welcoming sunshine, and the fluttering wrens, and proud red-breasted 
 robins, and rival song-queens, the brown-winged thrushes, — even the 
 impudent shrieking jays, — seemed to hush and listen. Dobbin, fairly 
 astonished, lifted up his hollow-eyed head and looked amazedly at the 
 white songstress whose scarlet sash and neck-ribbons gleamed in such 
 vivid contrast to the foliage about her. A wondering little " cotton- 
 tail" rabbit, shy and wild as a hawk, came darting through the bushes 
 into the sunshiny patchwork on the path, and then, uptilted and with 
 quivering ears and nostrils and wide-staring eyes, stood paralyzed with 
 helpless amaze, ignoring the tall man in gz-ay as did the singer herself. 
 Richer, rounder, fuller grew the melody, as, abandoning herself to the 
 impulse of the sacred hour, she joined with all her girlish heart in the 
 words of praise and thanksgiving, — in the glad and triumphant chorus 
 of the Te Deum. From beginning to end she sang, now ringing and 
 exultant, now soft and plaintive, following the solemn words of the 
 ritual, — sweet and low and suppliant in the petition, " We therefore 
 pray Thee help Thy servants whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy 
 precious blood," confident and exulting in the declaration, " Thou 
 art the King of Glory, O Christ," and then rich with fearless trust 
 and faith in the thrilling climax, "Let me never be confounded." 
 Armitage listened as one in a trance. From the depth of her heart 
 the girl had joined her glorious voice to the chorus of praise and ado- 
 ration, and now that all was stilled once more her head had fallen 
 forward on her bosom, her hands, laden with golden-rod, were joined 
 together : it seemed as though she were lost in prayer. 
 
 And this was the girl, this the pure, God-worshipping, God-fearing 
 woman, who for one black instant he had dared to fancy had come here 
 expectant of a meeting with the man whose aim had been frustrated 
 but the night before ! He could have thrown himself at her feet and 
 implored her pardon. He did step forth, and then, hat in hand, baring 
 his proud Saxon head as his forefathers would have uncovered to their 
 monarch, he waited until she lifted up her eyes and saw him, and 
 knew by the look in his frank face that he had stood by, a mute listener 
 to her unstudied devotions. A lovely flush rose to her very temples, 
 and her eyes drooped their pallid lids until the long lashes swept the 
 crimson of her cheeks. 
 
 " Have you been here, captain ? I never saw you," was her flutter- 
 ing question. 
 
 " I rode in here on my way back from the station, not caring to 
 meet all the good people going to church. I felt like an outcast." 
 
 " I, too, am a recreant to-day. It is the first time I have missed 
 service in a long while. Mamma felt too unstrung to come, and I 
 had given up the idea, but both she and Aunt Grace urged me. I was 
 too late for the omnibus, and walked up, and then I would not go in 
 because service was begun, and I wanted to be home again before noon. 
 I cannot bear to be late at church, or to leave it until everything is over, 
 but I can't be away from mother so long to-day. Shall we walk that 
 way now ?" 
 
 " In a minute. I must find my horse. He is in here somewhere. 
 Tell me how the colonel is feeling, and Mrs. Maynard." 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 825 
 
 " Both very nervous and worried, though I see nothing extraordi- 
 nary in the adventure. We read of poor hungry tramps everywhere, 
 and they rarely do harm." 
 
 " I wonder a little at your venturing here in the wood-paths, after 
 what occurred last night." 
 
 " Why, Captain Armitage, no one would harm me here, so close to 
 the church. Indeed, I never thought of such a thing until you men- 
 tioned it. Did you discover anything about the man ?" 
 
 " Nothing definite ; but I must be at the station again to meet the 
 up-train, and have to see the colonel meantime. Let me find Dobbin, 
 or whatever they call this venerable relic I'm riding, and then I'll 
 escort you home." 
 
 But Dobbin had strayed deeper into the wood. It was some 
 minutes before the captain could find and catch him. The rich melody 
 of sacred music was again thrilling through the perfumed woods, the 
 glad sunshine was pouring its warmth and blessing over all the earth, 
 glinting on bluff and brake and palisaded cliff, the birds were all sing- 
 ing their rivalling psaltery, and Nature seemed pouring forth its homage 
 to the Creator and Preserver of all on this His holy day, when Frank 
 Armitage once more reached the bowered lane where, fairest, sweetest 
 sight of all, his lady stood waiting him. She turned to him as she 
 heard the hoof-beat on the turf, and smiled. 
 
 " Can we wait and hear that hymn through ?" 
 
 " Ay. Sing it." 
 
 She looked suddenly in his face. Something in the very tone in 
 which he spoke startled her, — something deeper, more fervent, than she 
 had ever heard before, — and the expression in the steady, deep-blue eyes 
 was another revelation. Alice Reuwick had a woman's intuition, and 
 yet she had not known this man a day. The color again mounted to 
 her temples, and her eyes fell after one quick glance. 
 
 " I heard you joining in the Te Deum," he urged. " Sing once 
 more : I love it. There, they are just beginning again. Do you 
 know the words ?" 
 
 She nodded, then raised her head, and her glad young voice carolled 
 through the listening woods : 
 
 " Holy, holy, holy I All 
 
 Heaven's triumphant choir shall sing, 
 When the ransomed nations fall 
 At the footstool of their King : 
 Then shall saints and seraphim, 
 Hearts and voices, swell one hymn 
 Round the throne with full accord, 
 Holy, holy, holy Lord I" 
 
 There was silence when the music ceased. She had turned her face 
 towards the church, and, as the melody died away in one prolonged, 
 triumphant chord, she still stood in reverent attitude, as though listen- 
 ing for the words of benediction. He, too, was silent, but his eyes were 
 fixed on her. He was thirty-five, she not twenty. He had lived his 
 soldier life wifeless, but, like other soldiers, his heart had had its rubs 
 Vol. XL.— 54 
 
326 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 and aches in the days gone by. Years before he had thought life a 
 black void when the girl he fancied while yet he wore the Academic 
 gray calmly told him she preferred another. Nor had the intervening 
 years been devoid of their occasional yeai-nings for a mate of his own in 
 the isolation of the frontier or the monotony of garrison life ; but flitting 
 fancies had left no trace upon his strong heart. The love of his lite 
 only dawned upon him at this late day when he looked into her glo- 
 rious eyes and his whole soul went out in passionate worship of the fair 
 girl whose presence made that sunlit lane a heaven. Were he to live a 
 thousand years, no scene on earth could rival in his eyes the love- 
 haunted woodland pathway wherein like forest queen she stood, the 
 sunshine and leafy shadows dancing over her graceful form, the golden- 
 rod enhancing her dark and glowing beauty, the sacred influences of the 
 day throwing their mystic charm about her as though angels guarded 
 and shielded her from harm. His life had reached its climax ; his fate 
 was sealed ; his lieart and soul were centred in one sweet girl, — and all 
 in one brief hour in the woodland lane at Sablon. 
 
 ' She could not fail to see the deep emotion in his eyes as at last she 
 turned to break the silence. 
 
 " Shall we go ?" she said, simply. 
 " It is time ; but I wish we could remain." 
 " You do not go to church very often at Sibley, do you ?" 
 " I have not, heretofore ; but you would teach me to worship." 
 " You have taught me," he muttered below his breath, as he extended 
 a hand to assist her down the sloping bank towards the avenue. She 
 looked up quickly once more, pleased, yet shy, and shifted her great 
 bunch of golden-rod so that she could lay her hand in his and lean upon 
 its steady strength down the incline ; and so, hand in hand, with old 
 Dobbin ambling placidly behind, they passed out from the shaded path- 
 way to the glow and radiance of the sunlit road. 
 
 XII. 
 
 " Colonel Maynard, I admit everything you say as to the weight of 
 the evidence," said Frank Armitage, twenty minutes later, " but it is 
 my faith — understand me: vaj faith, I say — that she is utterly inno- 
 cent. As for that damnable letter, I do not believe it was ever written 
 to her. It is some other woman." 
 
 " What other is there, or was there ?" was the colonel's simple 
 reply. ^ 
 
 " That is what I mean to find out. Will you have my baggage 
 sent after me to-night? I am going at once to the station, and thence 
 to Sibley. I will write you from there. If the midnight visitor should 
 prove to have been Jerrold, he can be made to explain. I have always 
 held him to be a conceited fop, but never either crack-brained or devoid 
 of principle. There is no time for explanation now. Good-by ; and 
 keep a good lookout. That fellow may be here again." 
 
 And in an hour more Armitage was skimming along the winding 
 river-side en route to Sibley. He had searched the train from pilot to 
 rear platform, and no man who in the faintest degree resembled Mr. 
 Jerrold was on board. He had wired to Chester that he would reach 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 827 
 
 the fort that evening, but would not resume duty for a few days. He 
 made another search through the train as they neared the city, and still 
 there was no one who in stature or appearance corresponded with the 
 descriptions given him of the sinewy visitor. 
 
 Late in the afternoon Chester received him as he alighted from the 
 train at the little station under the cliff. It was a beautiful day, and 
 numbers of people were driving or riding out to the fort, and the high 
 bridge over the gorge was constantly resounding to the thunder of 
 hoofs. Many others, too, had come out on the train ; for the evening 
 dress-parade always attracted a swarm of visitors. A corporal of tlie 
 guard, with a couple of men, was on hand to keep vigilant eye on the 
 arrivals and to persuade certain proscribed parties to re-enter the cars 
 and go on, should they attempt to revisit the post, and the faces of 
 these were lighted up as they saw their old adjutant ; but none others 
 of the garrison appeared. 
 
 " Let us wait a moment and get these people out of the way," said 
 Armitage. " I want to talk with you. Is Jerrold back ?" 
 
 "Yes. He came in just ten minutes after I telegraphed to you, 
 was present at inspection, and if it had not been for your despatch this 
 morning I should not have known he had remained out of quarters 
 He appeared to resent my having been to his quarters, — calls it spying, 
 I presume." 
 
 " What permission had he to be away ?" 
 
 " I gave him leave to visit town on personal business yesterday 
 afternoon. He merely asked to be away a few hours to meet friends in 
 town, and Mr. Hall took tattoo roll-call for him. As I do not require 
 any other officer to report the time of his return, I did not exact it of 
 him ; but of course no man can be away after midnight without special 
 permission, and he was gone all night. What is it, Armitage ? Has 
 he followed her down there?" 
 
 " Somebody was there last night and capsized the colonel pretty much 
 as he did you the night of the ladder episode," said Armitage, coolly. 
 
 " By heaven ! and I let him go !" 
 
 " How do you know 'twas he ?" 
 
 " Who else could it be, Armitage ?" 
 
 " That's what the colonel asks ; but it isn't clear to me yet awhile." 
 
 " I wish it were less clear to me," said Chester, gloomily. " The 
 worst is that the story is spreading like a pestilence all over the post. 
 The women have got hold of it, and there is all manner of talk. I 
 shouldn't be surprised if Mrs. Hoyt had to be taken violently ill. She 
 has written to invite Miss Renwick to visit her, as it is certain that 
 Colonel and Mrs. Maynard cannot come, and Hoyt came to me in a 
 horror of amaze yesterday to know if there were any truth in the rumor 
 that I had caught a man coming out of Mrs. Maynard's wixidow tlie 
 other night. I would tell him nothing, and he says the ladies declai'e 
 they won't go to the german if she does. Heavens ! I'm thankful you 
 are come. The thing has been driving me wild these last twelve hours. 
 I wanted to go away myself. Is she coming up ?" 
 
 " No, she isn't ; but let me say this, Chester : that whenever she is 
 ready to return I shall be ready to escort her." 
 
828 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 Chester looked at his friend in amazement, and without speaking. 
 
 " Yes, I see you are astonished, but you may as well understand the 
 situation. I have heard all the colonel could tell, and have even seen 
 the letter, and since she left here a mysterious stranger has appeared by 
 night at Sablon, at the cottage window, though it happened to be her 
 mother's this time, and I don't believe Alice Renwick knows the first 
 thing about it." 
 
 " Armitage, are you in love ?" 
 
 " Chester, I am in my sound senses. Now come and show me the 
 ladder, and where you found it, and tell me the whole story over again. 
 I think it grows interesting. One moment : has he that picture yet ?" 
 
 " I suppose so. I don't know. In these last few days everybody 
 is fighting shy of him. He thinks it is my doing, and looks black 
 and sulky at me, but is too proud or too much afraid of consequences to 
 ask the reason of the cold shoulders and averted looks. Gray has taken 
 seven days' leave and gone off with that little girl of his to place her 
 with relatives in the East. He has heard the stories, and it is pre- 
 sumed that some of the women have told her. She was down sick 
 here a day or two." 
 
 "Well, now for the window and the ladder. I want to see the 
 outside through your eyes, and then I will view the interior with my 
 own. The colonel bids me do so." 
 
 Together they slowly climbed the long stairway leadmg up the face 
 of the cliff. Chester stopped for a breathing-spell more than once. 
 
 " You're all out of condition, man," said the younger captain, 
 pausing impatiently. " What has undone you ?" 
 
 " This trouble, and nothing else. By gad ! it has unstrung the 
 whole garrison, I believe. You never saw our people fall off so in 
 their shooting. Of course we expected Jerrold to go to pieces, but 
 nobody else." 
 
 "There were others that seemed to fall away, too. Where was 
 that cavalry-team that was expected to take the skirmish medal away 
 from us?" 
 
 " Sound as a dollar, every man, with the single exception of their 
 big sergeant. I don't like to make ugly comparisons to a man whom 
 I believe to be more than half interested in a woman, but it makes 
 me think of the old story about Medusa. One look at her fa.ce is too 
 much for a man. That Sergeant McLeod went to grass the instant he 
 caught sight of her, and never has picked up since." 
 
 " Consider me considerably more than half interested in the M^oman 
 in this case, Chester : make all the comparisons that you like, jirovided 
 they illumine matters as you are doing now, and tell me more of this 
 Sergeant McLeod. What do you mean by his catching sight of her and 
 going to grass ?" 
 
 " I mean he fell flat on his face the moment he saw her, and hasn't 
 been in good form from that moment to this. The doctor says it's 
 heart-disease." 
 
 " That's wliat the colonel says troubles Mrs. Maynard. She was 
 senseless and almost pulseless some minutes last night. What manner 
 of man is McLeod ?" 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 829 
 
 "A tall, slim, dark-eyed, swarthy fellow, — a man with a history 
 and a mystery, I judge." 
 
 " A man with a history, — a mystery, — who is tall, slim, has dark 
 eyes and swarthy complexion, and faints away at sight of Miss Ren- 
 wick, might be said to possess peculiar characteristics, — family traits, 
 some of them. Of course you've kept an eye on McLeod. Where is 
 he?" 
 
 Chester stood leaning on the rail, breathing slowly and heavily. 
 His eyes dilated as he gazed at Armitage, who was surveying him 
 coolly, though the tone in which he spoke betrayed a new interest and 
 a vivid one. 
 
 " I confess I never thought of him in connection with this affair," 
 said Chester. 
 
 " There's the one essential point of difference between us," was the 
 reply. " You go in on the supposition that there is only one solution 
 to this thing, and that a woman must be dishonored to begin with. I 
 believe there can be several solutions, and that there is only one thing 
 in the lot that is at all impossible." 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 "Miss Renwick's knowledge of that night's visitor, or of any 
 other secret or sin. I mean to work other theories first ; and the 
 McLeod trail is a good one to start on. Where can I get a look at 
 him?" 
 
 " Somewhere out in the Rockies by this time. He was ordered back 
 to his troop five days ago, and they are out scouting at this moment, 
 unless I'm vastly mistaken. You have seen the morning despatches?" 
 
 "About the Indians? Yes. Looks squally at the Spirit Rock 
 reservation. Do you mean that McLeod is there ?" 
 
 " That's where his troop ought to be by this time. There is too 
 small a force on the trail now, and more will have to go if a big out- 
 break is to be prevented." 
 
 " Then he has gone, and I cannot see him. Let me look at the 
 window, then." 
 
 A few steps brought them to the terrace, and there, standing by the 
 west wall and looking up at the closed slats of the dormer-window. 
 Captain Chester retold the story of his night-adventure. Armitage 
 listened attentively, asking few questions. When it was finished, the 
 latter turned and walked to the rear door, which opened on the terrace. 
 It was locked. 
 
 " The servants are having a holiday, I presume," he said. " So 
 much the better. Ask the quartermaster for the key of the front door, 
 and I'll go in while everybody is out looking at dress-parade. There 
 goes first call now. Let your orderly bring it to me here, will you ?" 
 
 Ten minutes later, with beating heart, he stood and uncovered his 
 handsome head and gazed silently, reverently around him. He was in 
 her room. 
 
 It was dainty as her own dainty self. The dressing-table, the 
 windows, the pretty little white bed, the broad, inviting lounge, the 
 work-table and basket, the very wash-stand, were all trimmed and 
 decked alike, — white and yellow prevailing. White lace curtains 
 
830 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 draped the window on the west — that fateful window — and the two 
 that opened out on the roof of the piazza. White lace curtains draped 
 the bed, the dressing-table, and the wash-stand ; white lace, or some 
 equally flimsy and feminine material, hung about her book-shelves and 
 work-table and over the lounge ; and bows of bright yellow ribbon 
 were everywhere, yellow f)in-cushions and wall-pockets hung about the 
 toilet-table, soft yellow rugs lay at the bed- and lounge-side, and a sun- 
 shiny tone was given to the whole apartment by the shades of yellow 
 silk that hung close to the windows. 
 
 On the wall were some choice etchings and a few foreign photographs. 
 On the book-shelves were a iew volumes of poetry, and the prose of 
 George Eliot and our own Hawthorne. Hanging on pegs in the corner 
 of the simple army room, covered by a curtain, were some heavy outer- 
 garments, — an ulster, a travelling coat and cape of English make, and 
 "One or two dresses that were apparently too thick to be used at this 
 season of the year. He drew aside the curtain one moment, took a 
 brief glance at the garments, raised the hem of a skirt to his lips, and 
 turned quickly away. A door led from the room to the one behind it, 
 — a spare bedroom, evidently, that was lighted only from the back of 
 the house and had no side-window at all. Another door led to the hall, 
 a broad, old-fashioned aifair, and crossing this he stood in the big front 
 room occupied by the colonel and his wife. This was furnished almost 
 as luxuriously (from an army point of view) as that of Miss Renwick, 
 but not in white and yellow. Armitage smiled to see the evidences of 
 Mrs. Maynard's taste and handiwork on every side. In the years he 
 had been the old soldier's adjutant nothing could have exceeded the 
 simplicity with which the colonel surrounded liimself. Now it was 
 something akin to Sybaritish elegance, thought the captain ; but all the 
 same he made his deliberate survey. There was the big dressing-table 
 and bureau on which had stood that ravished picture, — that photograph 
 of the girl he loved which others were able to speak of, and one man to 
 a])propriate feloniously, while yet he had never seen it. His impulse 
 was to go to Jerrold's quarters and take him by the throat and demand 
 it of him ; but what right had he ? How knew he, even, that it was 
 now there ? In view of the words that Chester had used towards him, 
 Jerrold must know of the grievous danger in which he stood. That 
 photograph would prove most damaging evidence if discovered. Very 
 probably, after yielding to his vanity and showing it to Sloat he meant 
 to get it back. Very certainly, after hearing Chester's words he must 
 have determined to lose no time in getting rid of it. He was no fool, 
 if he was a coxcomb. 
 
 Looking around the half-darkened room, Armitage lingered long 
 over the photographs which hung about the dressing-table and over the 
 mantel, — several prettily- framed duplicates of those already described 
 as appearing in the album. One after another he took them in his 
 hands, bore them to the window, and studied them attentively : some 
 were not replaced without a long, lingering kiss. He had not ventured 
 to disturb an item in her room. He would not touch the knob of a 
 drawer or attempt to open anything she had closed, but here in quarters 
 where his colonel could claim joint partnership he felt less sentiment or 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 33I 
 
 delicacy. He closed the hall door and tried the lock, turning the knob 
 to and fro. Then he reopened the door and swung it upon its hinges. 
 For a wonder, neither lock nor hinges creaked. The door worked 
 smoothly and with little noise. Then he similarly tried the door of 
 her room. It was in equally good working order, — quite free from the 
 squeak and complaint with which quartermasters' locks and hinges 
 are apt to do their reluctant duty. The discovery pleased him. It 
 was possible for one to open and close these portals noiselessly, if need 
 be, and without disturbing sleepers in either room. Returning to the 
 east chamber, he opened the shades, so as to get more light, and his eye 
 fell upon an old album lying on a little table that stood by the bedside. 
 There was a night-lamp upon the table, too, — a little affair that could 
 hold only a thimbleful of oil and was intended, evidently, to keep 
 merely a faint glow during the night hours. Other volumes — a Bible, 
 some devotional books, like " The Changed Cross," and a Hymnal or 
 two — were also there ; but the album stood most prominent, and Armi- 
 tage curiously took it up and opened it. 
 
 There were only half a dozen photographs in the affair. It was 
 rather a case than an album, and was intended apparently for only a 
 few family pictures. There was but one that interested him, and this 
 he examined intently, almost excitedly. It represented a little girl of 
 nine or ten years, — Alice, undoubtedly, — with her arms clasped about 
 the neck of a magnificent St. Bernard dog and looking up into the 
 handsome features of a tall, slender, dark-eyed, black-haired boy of 
 sixteen or thereabouts ; and the two were enough alike to be brother 
 and sister. Who, then, was this boy? 
 
 Armitage took the photograph to the window and studied it care- 
 fully. Parade was over, and the troops were marching back to their 
 quarters. The band was playing gloriously as it came tramping into 
 the quadrangle, and the captain could not but glance out at his own old 
 company as in compact cohnim of fours it entered the grassy diamond 
 and swung off towards the barracks. He saw a knot of officers, too, 
 turning the corner by the adjutant's office, and for a moment he lowered 
 the album to look. Mr. Jerrold was not of the number that came 
 sauntering up the walk, dropping away by ones or twos as they 
 reached their doors and unbuckled their belts or removed their helmets 
 in eager haste to get out of the constraint of full dress. But in an- 
 other moment Jerrold, too, appeared, all alone, walking rapidly and 
 nervously. Armitage watched him, and could not but see how other 
 men turned away or gave him the coolest possible nod as he passed. 
 The tall, slender lieutenant was handsomer even than when he last saw 
 him ; and yet there was gloom and worry on the dark beauty of his 
 face. Nearer and nearer he came, and had passed the quarters of the 
 other officers and was almost at the door of his own, when Armitage 
 saw a little, wiry soldier in full dress uniform running across the parade 
 as though in pursuit. He recognized Merrick, one of the scapegraces 
 of his company, and wondered why he should be chasing after his tem- 
 porary commander. Just as Jerrold was turning under the piazza the 
 soldier seemed to make himself heard, and the lieutenant, with an angry 
 frown on his face, stopped and confronted him. 
 
832 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 " I told you not to come to me again," he said, so -loud that every 
 word was audible^to the captain standing by the open window above. 
 " What do you mean, sir, by following me in this way ?" 
 
 The reply was inaudible. Armitage could see the little soldier 
 standing in the respectful position of "attention," looking up and evi- 
 dently pleading. 
 
 " I won't do it until I'm ready," was again heard in Jerrold's angry 
 tones, though this time the lieutenant glanced about, as though to see if 
 others were within earshot. There was no one, apparently, and he grew 
 more confident. " You've been drinking again to-day, Merrick ; you're 
 not sober now ; and I won't give you money to get maudlin and go to 
 blabbing secrets on. No, sir ! Go back to your quarters, and stay there." 
 
 The little soldier must indeed have been drinking, as the lieutenant 
 declared. Armitage saw that he hesitated, instead of obeying at once, 
 and that his flushed face was angrily working, then that he was argu- 
 ing with his superior and talking louder. This was contrary to all the 
 Captain's ideas of proper discipline, even though he was indignant at the 
 officer for permitting himself to be placed in so false and undignified a 
 position. Jerrold's words, too, had acquired a wide significance ; but 
 they were feeble as comj^ared with the sudden outburst that came from 
 the soldier's lips : 
 
 " By God, lieutenant, you bribed me to silence to cover your tracks, 
 and then you refuse to pay. If you don't want me to tell what I know, 
 the sooner you pay that money the better." 
 
 This was more than Armitage could stand. He went down-stairs 
 three at a jump and out through the colonel's garden with quick, im- 
 petuous steps. Jerrold's furious face turned ashen at the sight, and 
 Merrick, with one amazed and frightened look at his captain, faced 
 about and slunk silently away. To him Armitage paid no further 
 attention. It was to the officer he addressed himself: 
 
 " Mr. Jerrold, I have heard pretty much all this conversation. It 
 simply adds to the evil report with which you have managed to sur- 
 round yourself. Step into your quarters. I must see you alone." 
 
 Jerrold hesitated. He was thunderstruck by the sudden appearance 
 of the captain whom he had believed to be hundreds of miles away. He 
 connected his return unerringly with the web of trouble which had been 
 weaving about him of late. He conceived himself to have been most 
 unjustly spied upon and suspected, and was full of resentment at the 
 conduct of Captain Chester. But Chester was an old granny, who 
 sometimes made blunders and had to back down. It was a different 
 thing when Armitage took hold. Jerrold looked sulkily into the clear, 
 stern, blue eyes a moment, and the first impulse of rebellion wilted. 
 He gave one irresolute glance around the quadrangle, then motioned 
 with his hand to the open door. Something of the old, jaunty, Creole 
 lightness of manner reasserted itself. 
 
 " After you, captain," he said. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Once within-doors, it was too dark for Armitage to see the features 
 of his lieutenant; and he had his own reasons for desiring to read 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 833 
 
 them. Mr. Jerrold, on the other hand, seemed disposed to keep in 
 the shadows as much as possible. He made no movement to open the 
 shutters of the one window which admitted light from the front, and 
 walked back to his bedroom door, glanced in there as though to see 
 that there were no occupants, then carefully closed it as he returned to 
 face his captain. He took off his helmet and placed it on the centre- 
 table, then, thrusting his thumbs inside the handsome, gold-broidered 
 sword-belt, stood in a jaunty attitude but with a very uneasy look in 
 his eyes to hear what his senior might have to say. Between the two 
 men an invitation to sit would have been a supei-fluity. Neither had 
 ever remained long enough in the other's quarters, since the exchange 
 of the first calls when Jerrold came to the garrison, to render a chair 
 at all necessary. 
 
 " Be good enough to strike a Jight, Mr. Jerrold," said Armitage, 
 presently, seeing that his unwilling host made no effort on his own 
 account. 
 
 " I proposed going out at once, captain, and presume you cannot 
 have any very extended remarks to make," 
 
 " You cannot see the writing I have to call your attention to witli- 
 out a light. I shall detain you no longer than is necessary. Had you 
 an engagement?" 
 
 " Nothing of great consequence. I presume it will keep." 
 " It will have to. The matter I have come upon will admit no 
 further delay. Light your lamp, if you please." 
 
 And Jerrold did so, slowly and with much reluctance. He wiped 
 his forehead vigorously the instant the flame began to splutter, but as 
 the clear, steady light of the argand gradually spread over the little 
 room Armitage could see the sweat again beading his forehead, and the 
 dark eyes were glancing nervously about, and the hands that were so 
 firm and steady and fine the year before and held the Springfield in so 
 light yet immovable an aim were twitching now. It was no wonder 
 Jerrold's score had dropped some thirty per cent. His nerve had gone 
 to pieces. 
 
 Armitage stood and watched him a moment. Then he slowly 
 spoke : 
 
 " I have no desire to allude to the subject of your conversation 
 with Merrick. It was to put an end to such a thing — not to avail 
 myself of any information it might give — that I hurried in. We will 
 put that aside and go at once to the matter that brings me back. You 
 are aware, of course, that your conduct has compromised a woman's 
 name, and that the garrison is talking of nothing else." 
 
 Jerrold grasped the back of a chair with one slender jrown hand, 
 and looked furtively about as though for some hope of escape. Some- 
 thing like a startled gulp seemed to work his throat-muscles an instant ; 
 then he stammered his reply : 
 
 " I don't know what you mean." 
 
 " You do know what I mean. Captain Chester has already told you." 
 " Captain Chester came in here and made an unauthorized inspec- 
 tion of my quarters because he heard a shot fired by a sentry. I was 
 out : I don't deny that. But he proceeded to say all manner of insult- 
 
834 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 ing and unwarrantable things, and tried to force me to hand in a resig- 
 nation, simply because I was out of quarters after taps. I could ac- 
 count for his doing something so idiotic, but Vvn at a loss to compre- 
 hend your taking it up." 
 
 " The most serious allegation ever made against an officer of the 
 regiment is made against you, the senior lieutenant of my company, 
 and the evidence furnished me by the colonel and by Captain Chester 
 is of such a character that, unless you can refute it and clear her' name, 
 you will have a settlement with me to start with, and your dismissal 
 from the regiment " 
 
 " Settlement with you ? What concern have you in the matter ?" 
 interrupted Jerrold. 
 
 " Waste no words on that, Mr. Jerrold. Understand that where 
 her name is concerned no man on earth is more interested than I. Now 
 answer me. You were absent from your quarters for some hours after 
 the doctor's party. Somebody believed to have been you was seen and 
 fired at for refusing to halt at the order of Captain Chester at 3.30 in 
 the morning. The ladder that usually hung at your fence was found at 
 the colonel's while you were out, and that night a woman's name was 
 compromised beyond repair unless you can repair it. Unless you prove 
 beyond peradventure where you were both that night and last night, — 
 prove beyond question that you were not where you are believed to 
 have been, — her name is stained and yours blackened forever. There 
 are other things you must fully explain ; but these first." 
 
 Jerrold's face was growing gray and sickly. He stared at the stern 
 eyes before him, and could make no answer. His lips moved dryly, 
 but made no sound. 
 
 " Come, I want to hear from you. Where were you, if not with, or 
 seeking, her ? Name your place and witnesses." 
 
 "By God, Captain Armitage, the army is no longer a place for a 
 gentleman, if his every movement is to be spied upon like this !" 
 
 " The world is no place for a man of your stamp, is perhaps a better 
 way of putting it," said Armitage, whose fingers were twitching con- 
 vulsively, and whose whole frame quivei^d with the effort he was 
 making to restrain the rage and indignation that consumed him. He 
 could not — he would not — believe in her guilt. He must have this 
 man's proof, no matter how it might damn Aim for good and all, no 
 matter whom else it might involve, so long as it cleared her precious 
 name. He must be patient, he must be calm and resolute ; but the 
 man's cold-blooded, selfish, criminal concealment nearly maddened 
 him. With infinite effort he controlled himself, and went on : 
 
 " But it is of her I'm thinking, not of you. It is the name you 
 have compromised and can clear, and should clear, even at the expense 
 of your own, — in fact, Mr. Jerrold, must clear. Now will you tell 
 me where you were and how you can prove it ?" 
 
 " I decline to say. I won't be cross-questioned by men who have 
 no authority. Captain Chester said he would refer it to the colonel ; 
 and when he asks I will answer, — not until then." 
 
 " I ask in his name. I am authorized by him, for he is not well 
 enough to meet the ordeal." 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 835 
 
 *'You say so, and I don't mean to dispute your word, Captain 
 Armitage, but I have a right to demand some proof. How am I to 
 know he authorized you ?" 
 
 " He himself gave me this letter, in your handwriting," said Armi- 
 tage ; and, opening the long envelope, he held forth the missive over 
 which the poor old colonel had gone nearly wild. " He found it the 
 morning they left, — in her garden." 
 
 If Jerrold's face had been gray before, it was simply ghastly now. 
 He recoiled from the sight after one fruitless effort to grasp the letter, 
 then rallied with unlooked-for spirit : 
 
 " By heaven, Armitage, suppose I did write that letter ? What 
 does it prove but what I say, — that somebody has been prying and 
 spying into my affairs ? How came the colonel by it, if not by fraud 
 or treachery ?" 
 
 " He picked it up in the garden, I tell you, — among the rose-bushes, 
 where she — where Miss Ren wick had been but a few moments before, 
 and where it might appear that she had dropped it." 
 
 "She! That letter! What had she to do with it? What right 
 had she to read it ?" 
 
 Armitage stepped impulsively forward. A glad, glorious light was 
 bursting upon his soul. He could almost have seized Jerrold's hand and 
 thanked him ; but proofs — proofs were what he needed. It was not his 
 mind that was to be convinced, it was " society" that must be satisfied 
 of her utter innocence, that it might be enabled to say, " Well, I never 
 for a moment believed a word of it." Link by link the chain of cir- 
 cumstantial evidence must be destroyed, and this was only one. 
 
 " You mean that that letter was not intended for Miss Reuwick ?" 
 he asked, with eagerness he strove hard to repress. 
 
 " It was never meant for anybody," said Jerrold, the color coming 
 back to his face and courage to his eyes. "' That letter was never 
 sent by me to any woman. It's my writing, of course, I can't deny 
 that ; but I never even meant it to go. If it left that desk it must 
 have been stolen. I've been hunting high and low for it. I knew 
 that such a thing lying around loose would be the cause of mischief. 
 God ! is that what all this fuss is about ?" And he looked warily, 
 yet with infinite anxiety, into his captain's eyes. 
 
 " There is far more to it, as you well know, sir," was the stern 
 answer. " For whom was this written, if not for her ? It won't do to 
 half clear her name." 
 
 " Answer me this, Captain Armitage. Do you mean that that letter 
 has compromised Miss Renwick ? — that it is she whose name has been 
 involved, and that it was of her that Chester meant to speak ?" 
 
 " Certainly it was, — and I too." 
 
 There was an instant's silence ; then Jeriold began to laugh ner- 
 vously : 
 
 " Oh, well, I fancy it isn't the first time the revered and respected 
 captain has got away off the track. All the same I do not mean to 
 overlook his language to me ; and I may say right now, Captain Armi- 
 tage, that yours, too, calls for explanation." 
 
 " You shall have it in short order, Mr. Jerrold, and the sooner you 
 
836 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 understand the situation the better. So far as I am concerned, Miss 
 Ken wick needed no defender ; but, thanks to your mysterious and un- 
 warranted absence from quarters two very unlucky nights, and to other 
 circumstances I have no need to name, and to your pencha7it for letter- 
 writing of a most suggestive character, it is Miss Renwick whose name 
 has been brought into question here at this post, and most prominently 
 so. In plain words, Mr. Jerrold, you who brought this trouble upon 
 her by your own misconduct must clear her, no matter at whose ex- 
 pense, or- 
 
 " Or what?" 
 
 " I make no threats. I prefer that you should make the proper 
 explanations from a proper sense of what is due." 
 
 " And suppose I say that no man is called upon to explain a situa- 
 tion which has been distorted and misrepresented by the evil imagination 
 of his fellows?" 
 
 "Then I may have to wring the truth out of you, — and wiU; but, 
 for her sake, I want as little publicity as possible. After this display 
 on your part, I am not bound to show you any consideration whatever. 
 Understand this, however : the array of evidence that you were felo- 
 niously inside Colonel Maynard's quarters that night and at his cottage 
 window last night is of such a character that a court would convict you 
 unless your alibi was conclusive. Leave the service you certainly shall, 
 unless this whole thing is cleared up." 
 
 " I never was anywhere near Colonel Maynard's either last night 
 or the other night I was absent." 
 
 " You will have to prove it. Mere denials won't help you in the 
 face of such evidence as we have that you were there the first time." 
 
 "What evidence?" 
 
 " The photograph that was stolen from Mrs. Maynard between two 
 and four o'clock that morning was seen in your drawer by Major Sloat 
 at reveille. You were fool enough to show it to him." 
 
 " Captain Armitage, I shall be quite able to show, when the proper 
 time comes, that the photograph I showed Major Sloat was not stolen : 
 it was given me." 
 
 " That is beyond belief, Mr. Jerrold. Once and for all, understand 
 this case. You have compromised her good name by the very mystery 
 of your actions. You have it in your power to clear her by proving 
 where you were, since you were not near her, — by showing how you got 
 that photograph, — by explaining how you came to write so strange a 
 letter. Now I say to you, will you do it, instantly, or must we wring 
 it from you ?" 
 
 A sneering smile was the only answer for a moment ; then, — 
 
 " I shall take great pleasure in confounding my enemies should the 
 matter be brought before a court, — I'm sure if the colonel can stand 
 that sort of thing I can, — but as for defending myself or anybody else 
 from utterly unjust and proofless suspicions, it's quite another thing." 
 
 " Good God, Jerrold ! do you realize what a position you are taking ? 
 Do you " 
 
 " Oh, not at all, captain," was the airy reply, " not at all. It is 
 not a position I have taken : it is one into which you misguided con- 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 837 
 
 spirators have forced me. I certainly am not required to compromise 
 anybody else in order to relieve a suspicion which you, not I, have 
 created. How do you know that there may not be some other woman 
 whose name I propose to guard ? You have been really very flattering 
 in your theories so far." 
 
 Armitage could bear no more. The airy conceit and insolence of 
 the man overcame all self-restraint and resolution. With one bound 
 he was at his throat, his strong white hands grasping him in a sudden, 
 vice-like grip, then hurling him with stunning, thundering force to 
 the floor. Down, headlong, went the tall lieutenant, his sword clat- 
 tering by his side, his slim brown hands clutching wildly at anything 
 that might bear him up, and dragging with him in his catastrophe a 
 rack of hunting-pouches, antlers, and one heavy double-barrelled shot- 
 gun. All came tumbling down about the struggling form, aud Armi- 
 tage, glaring down at him with clinching fists and rasping teeth, had 
 only time to utter one deep-drawn malediction when he noted that 
 the struggles ceased and Jerrold lay quite still. Then the blood began 
 to ooze from a jagged cut near the temple, and it was evident that the 
 hammer of the gun had struck him. 
 
 Another moment, and the door opened, and with anxious face Ches- 
 ter strode into the I'oom. " You haven't killed him, Armitage ? Is it 
 as bad as that ?" 
 
 " Pick him up, and we'll get him on the bed. He's only stunned. 
 I didn't even hit him. Those things tumbled afterwards," said Armi- 
 tage, as between them they raised the dead weight of the slender Adonis 
 in their arms and bore him to tlie bedroom. Here they bathed the 
 wound with cold water and removed the uniform coat, and presently 
 the lieutenant began to revive and look about him. 
 
 " Who struck me ?" he faintly asked. 
 
 " Your shot-gun fell on your head, but I threw you down, Jerrold. 
 I'm sorry I touched you, but you're lucky it was no worse. This 
 thing is going to raise a big bump here. Shall I send the doctor?" 
 
 " No. I'll come round presently. We'll see about this thing after- 
 wards." 
 
 " Is there any friend you want to see ? Shall I send word to any- 
 body?" asked Chester. 
 
 " No. Don't let anybody come. Tell my striker to bring my 
 breakfast ; but I want nothing to-night but to be let alone." 
 
 " At least you will let me help you undress and get to bed ?" said 
 Chester. 
 
 " No. I wish you'd go, — both of you. I want quiet, — peace, — 
 and there's none of it with either of you." 
 
 And so they left him. Later Captain Chester had gone to the 
 quarters, and, after much parleying from without, had gained admission. 
 Jerrold's head was bound in a bandage wet with arnica and water. He 
 had been solacing himself with a pipe and a whiskey toddy, and was in 
 a not unnaturally ugly mood. 
 
 " You may consider yourself excused from duty until your face is 
 well again, by which time this matter will be decided. I admonish 
 you to remain "K^ere and not leave the post until it is." 
 
838 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 " You can prefer charges and see what you'll make of it," was the 
 vehement reply. " Devil a bit will I help you out of the thing, after 
 this night's work." 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Tuesday, and the day of the long- projected german had come ; and 
 if ever a lot of garrison-people were wishing themselves well out of a 
 flurry it was the social circle at Sibley. Invitations had been sent to 
 all the prominent people in town who had shown any interest in the 
 garrison since the regiment's arrival ; beautiful favors had been pro- 
 cured ; an elaborate supper had been prepared, — the ladies contributing 
 their efforts to the salads and other solids, the officers wisely confining 
 their donations to the wines. It was rumored that new and original 
 figures were to be danced, and much had been said about this feature 
 in town, and much speculation had been indulged in ; but the Beau- 
 bien residence had been closed until the previous day, Nina was away 
 with her mother and beyond reach of question, and Mr. Jerrold had 
 not shown his face in town since her departure. Nor was he accessible 
 when visitors inquired at the fort. They had never known such mys- 
 terious army people in their lives. What on earth could induce them 
 to be so close-mouthed about a mere german ? one might suppose they 
 had something worth concealing ; and presently it became noised abroad 
 that there was genuine cause for perplexity, and possibly worse. 
 
 To begin with, every one at Sibley now knew something of the 
 night adventure at the colonel's, and, as no one could give the true 
 statement of the case, the stories in circulation were gorgeous embellish- 
 ments of the actual facts. It would be useless, even if advisable, to 
 attempt to reproduce these wild theories, but never was army garrison 
 so tumultuously stirred by the whirlwind of rumor. It Avas no longer 
 denied for an instant that the absence of the colonel and his household 
 M^as the direct result of that night's discoveries ; and when, to Mrs. 
 Iloyt's inexpressible relief, there came a prettily-worded note from 
 Alice on Monday evening informing her that neither the colonel nor 
 her mother felt well enough to return to Sibley for the german, and that 
 she herself preferred not to leave her mother at a time when she needed 
 her care, Mrs. Hoyt and her intimates, with whom she instantly con- 
 ferred, decided that there could be no doubt whatever that the colonel 
 knew of the affair, had forbidden their return, and was only waiting 
 for further evidence to decide what was to be done with his erring step- 
 daughter. Women talked with bated breath of the latest stories in 
 circulation, of Chester's moody silence and preoccupation, of Jerrold's 
 ostracism, and of Frank Armitage's sudden return. 
 
 On Monday morning the captain had quietly appeared in uniform 
 at the office, and it was known that he had relinquished the remainder 
 of lijs leave of absence and resumed command of his company. There 
 were men in the garrison who well knew that it was because of the 
 mystery overhanging the colonel's household that Armitage had so 
 suddenly returned. They asked no questions and sought no explana- 
 tion. All men marked, however, that Jerrold was not at the office 
 on Monday, and many curiously looked at the morning report in tlie 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 339 
 
 adjutant's office. No, he was not in arrest ; neither was he on sick- 
 report. He was marked present for duty, and yet he was not at the 
 customary assembly of all the commissioned officers at head-quarters. 
 More mystery, and most exasperating, too, it was known that Armitage 
 and Jerrold had held a brief talk in the latter's quarters soon after 
 Sunday's evening parade, and that the former had been reinforced for a 
 time by Captain Chester, with whom he was afterwards closeted. Offi- 
 cers who heard that he had suddenly returned and was at Chester's 
 went speedily to the latter's quarters, — at least two or three did, — and 
 were met by a servant at the door, who said that the gentlemen had 
 just gone out the back way. And, sure enough, neither Chester nor 
 Armitage came home until long after taps ; and then the colonel's 
 cook told several people that the two gentlemen had spent over an hour 
 up-stairs in the colonel's and Miss Alice's room and " was fooliu' 
 around the house till near ten o'clock," 
 
 Another thing that added to the flame of speculation and curiosity 
 was this. Two of the ladies, returning from a moonlit stroll on the ter- 
 race just after tattoo, came through the narrow passage-way on the west 
 side of the colonel's quarters, and there, at the foot of the little flight 
 of steps leading up to the parade, they came suddenly upon Captain 
 Chester, who was evidently only moderately pleased to see them and 
 nervously anxious to expedite their onward movement. With the per- 
 versity of both sexes, however, they stopped to chat and inquire what 
 he was doing there, and in the midst of it all a faint light gleamed on 
 the opposite wall and the reflection of the curtains in Alice Ren wick's 
 window was distinctly visible. Then a sturdy masculine sliadow ap- 
 peared, and there was a rustling above, and then, with exasperating, 
 mysterious, and epigrammatic terseness, a deep voice propounded the 
 utterly senseless question, — 
 
 "How's that?" 
 
 To which, in great embarrassment, Chester replied, — 
 
 " Hold on a minute. I'm talking with some interested spectators." 
 
 Whereat the shadow of the big man shot out of sight, and the 
 ladies found that it was useless to remain, — there would be no further 
 developments so long as they did ; and so they came away, with many 
 a lingering backward look. " But the idea of asking such a fool ques- 
 tion as ' How's that ?' Why couldn't the man say what he meant ?" It 
 was gathered, however, that Armitage and Chester had been making 
 some experiments that bore in some measure on the mystery. And all 
 this time Mr. Jerrold was in his quarters, only a stone's-throw away. 
 How interested he must have been ! 
 
 But, while the garrison was relieved at knowing that Alice Renwick 
 would not be on hand for the german and it was being fondly hoped 
 she might never return to the post, there was still another grievous 
 embarrassment. How about Mr. Jerrold ? 
 
 He had been asked to lead when the german was first projected, 
 and had accepted. That was fully two weeks before; and now — no 
 one knew just what ought to be done. It was known that Nina 
 Beaubien had returned on the previous day from a brief visit to the 
 upper lakes, and that she had a costume of ravishing beauty in which 
 
840 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 to carry desolation to the hearts of the garrison belles in leading that 
 german with Mr. Jerrold. Old Madame Beaubien had been reluctant, 
 said her city friends, to return at all. She heartily disapproved of Mr. 
 Jerrold, and was bitterly set against Nina's growing infatuation for hira. 
 But Nina was headstrong and determined : moreover, she was far more 
 than a match for her mother's vigilance, and it was known at Sibley 
 that two or three times the girl had been out at the fort with the Suttons 
 and other friends when the old lady believed her in quarters totally 
 different. Cub Sutton had confided to Captain Wilton that Madame 
 Beaubien was in total ignorance of the fact that there was to be a party 
 at the doctor's the night he had driven out with Nina and his sister, 
 and that Nina had " pulled the wool over her mother's eyes" and made 
 her believe she was going to spend the evening with friends in town, 
 naming a family with whom the Beaubiens were intimate. A long 
 drive always made the old lady sleepy, and, as she had accompanied 
 Nina to the fort that afternoon, she went early to bed, having secured her 
 wild birdling, as she supposed, from possibility of further meetings with 
 Jerrold. For nearly a week, said Cub, Madame Beaubien had dogged 
 Nina so that she could not get a moment with the man with whom 
 she was evidently so smitten, and the girl was almost at her wits' end 
 with seeing tlie depth of his flirtation with Alice Renwick and the 
 knowledge that on the morrow her mother would spirit her off to the 
 cool breezes and blue waves of the great lake. Cub said she so worked 
 on Fanny's feelings that they put up the scheme together and made 
 him bring them out. Gad ! if old Maman only found it out there'd 
 be no more germans for Nina. She'd ship her off to the good Sisters 
 at Creve-Cceur and slap her into a convent and leave all her money to 
 the Church. 
 
 And yet, said city society, old Maman idolized her beautiful daugh- 
 ter and could deny her no luxury or indulgence. She dressed her 
 superbly, though with a somewhat barbaric taste where Nina's own 
 good sense and Eastern teaching did not interfere. What she feared 
 was that the girl would fall in love with some adventurer, or — what 
 was quite as bad — some army man who would carry her darling away 
 to Arizona or other inaccessible spot. Her plan was that Nina should 
 marry here — at home — some one of the staid young merchant princes 
 rising into prominence in the Western metropolis, and from the very 
 outset Nina had shown a singular infatuation for the buttons and straps 
 and music and heaven-knows-what-all out at the fort. She gloried in 
 seeing her daughter prominent in all scenes of social life. She rejoiced 
 in her triumphs, and took infinite pains with all preparations. She 
 would have set her foot against Nina's simply dancing the german at 
 the fort with Jerrold as a partner, but she could not resist it that the 
 papers should announce on Sunday morning that " the event of the 
 season at Fort Sibley was the german given last Tuesday night by 
 the ladies of the garrison and led by the lovely Miss Beaubien" with 
 Lieutenant or Captain Anybody. There were a dozen bright, graceful, 
 winning women among the dames and damsels at the fort, and Alice 
 Ren wick was a famous beauty by this time. It was raoi'e than Maman 
 Beaubien could withstand, that her Nina should " lead" all these, and 
 
FROM THE RANKS. g41 
 
 SO her consent was won. Back they came from Chequamegon, and the 
 stately home on Summit Avenue reopened to receive them. It was 
 Monday noon when they returned, and by three o'clock Fanny Sutton 
 had told Nina Beaubien what she knew of the wonderful rumors 
 that were floating in from Sibley. She was more than half disposed 
 to be in love with Jerrold herself. She expected a proper amount 
 of womanly horror, incredulity, and indignation ; but she was totally 
 unprepared for the outburst that followed. Nina was transformed into 
 a tragedy queen on the instant, and poor, simple-hearted, foolish Fanny 
 Sutton was almost scared out of her small wits by the fire of denuncia- 
 tion and fury with which her story was greeted. She came home with 
 white, frightened face and hunted up Cub and told him that she had 
 been telling Nina some of the queer things the ladies had been saying 
 about Mr. Jerrold, and Nina almost tore her to piecqs, and could he 
 go right out to the fort to see Mr. Jerrold ? Nina wanted to send a 
 note at once ; and if he couldn't go she had made her promise that she 
 would get somebody to go instantly and to come back and let her know 
 before four o'clock. Cub was always glad of an excuse to go out to 
 the fort, but a coldness had sprung up between Iiim and Jerrold. He 
 had heard the ugly rumors in that mysterious way in which all such 
 things are heard, and, while his shallow pate could not quite conceive 
 of such a monstrous scandal and he did not believe half he heard, he 
 sagely felt that in the presence of so much smoke there was surely 
 some fire, and avoided the man from whom he had been inseparable. 
 Of course he had not spoken to him on the subject, and, singularly 
 enough, this was the case with all the officers at the post except Armi- 
 tage and the commander. It was understood that the matter was in 
 Chester's hands, to do with as was deemed best. It was believed that 
 his resignation had been tendered ; and all these forty-eight hours since 
 the story might be said to be fairly before the public, Jerrold had been 
 left much to himself, and was presumably in the depths of dismay. 
 
 One or two men, urged by their wives, who thought it was really 
 time something were done to let him understand he ought not to lead 
 the german, had gone to see him and been refused admission. Asked 
 from within what they wanted, the reply was somewhat difficult to 
 frame, and in both cases resolved itself into " Oh, about the german ;" 
 to which Jerrold's voice was heard to say, " The german's all right. 
 I'll lead if I'm well enough and am not bothered to death meantime ; 
 but I've got some private matters to attend to, and am not seeing any- 
 body to-day." And with this answer they were fain to be content. 
 It had been settled, however, that the officers were to tell Captain 
 Chester at ten o'clock that in their opinion Mr. Jerrold ought not to be 
 permitted to attend so long as this mysterious charge hung over him ; 
 and Mr. Rollins had been notified that he must be ready to lead. 
 
 Poor Rollins ! He was in sore perplexity. He wanted nothing 
 better than to dance with Nina Beaubien. He wondered if she would 
 lead with him, or would even come at all when she learned that Jerrold 
 would be unable to attend. " Sickness" was to be the ostensible cause, 
 and in the youth and innocence of his heart Rollins never supposed 
 that Nina would hear of all the other assignable reasons. He meant 
 Vol. XL.— 55 
 
842 FROM TEE RANKS. 
 
 to ride in and call upon her Monday evening ; but, as ill luck would 
 have it, old SI oat, who was officer of the day, stepped on a round 
 pebble as he was going down the long flight to the railway-station, and 
 sprained his ankle. Just at five o'clock Rollins got orders to relieve 
 him, and was returning from the guard-house, when who should come 
 driving in but Cub Sutton, and Cub reined up and asked where he 
 would be apt to find Mr. Jerrold. 
 
 " He isn't well, and has been denying himself to all callers to-day," 
 said Rollins, shortly. 
 
 " Well, I've got to see him, or at least get a note to him," said 
 Cub. " It's from Miss Beaubien, and requires an answer." 
 
 " You know the way to his quarters, I presume," said Rollins, 
 coldly : " you have been there frequently. I will have a man hold 
 your horse, or you can tie him there at the rail, just as you please." 
 
 "Thanks. I'll go over, I believe." And go he did, and poor 
 Rollins was unable to resist the temptation of watching whether the 
 magic name of Nina would open the door. It did not ; but he saw 
 Cub hand in the little note through the shutters, and ere long there 
 came another from within. This Cub stowed in his waistcoat-pocket 
 and drove ofi^ with, and Rollins walked jealously homeward. But 
 that evening he went through a worse experience, and it was the last 
 blow to his budding passion for sparkling-eyed Nina. 
 
 It was nearly tattoo, and a dark night, when Chester suddenly 
 came in : 
 
 " Rollins, you remember my telling you I was sure some of the men 
 had been getting liquor in from the shore down below the station and 
 ' running it' that way ? I believe we can nab the smuggler this even- 
 ing. There's a boat down there now. The corporal has just told 
 me." 
 
 Smuggling liquor was one of Chester's horrors. He surrounded the 
 post with a cordon of sentries who had no higher duty, apparently, than 
 that of preventing the entrance of alcohol in any form. He had run a 
 " red-cross" crusade against the post-trader's store in the matter of light 
 wines and small beer, claiming that only adulterated stuff was sold to 
 the men, and forbidding the sale of anything stronger than " pop" over 
 the trader's counter. Then, when it became apparent that liquor was 
 being brought on the reservation, he made vigorous efforts to break up 
 the practice. Colonel Maynard rather poohpoohed the whole business. 
 It was his theory that a man who was determined to have a drink might 
 better be allowed to take an honest one, coram publico, than a smug- 
 gled and deleterious article ; but he succumbed to the rule that only 
 " light wines and beer" should be sold at the store, and was lenient to 
 the poor devils who overloaded and deranged their stomachs in conse- 
 quence. But Chester no sooner found himself in command than he 
 launched into the crusade with redoubled energy, and spent hours of 
 the day and night trying to capture invaders of the reservation with a 
 bottle in their pockets. The bridge was guarded, so was the crossing 
 of the Cloudwater to the south, and so were the two roads entering from 
 the north and west; and yet there Avas liquor coming in, and, as though 
 " to give Chester a benefit," some of the men in barracks had a royal 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 843 
 
 old spree on Saturday night, and the captain was sorer-headed than any 
 of the participants in consequence. In some way lie heard tliat a row- 
 boat came up at night and landed supplies of contraband down by the 
 river-side out of sight and hearing of the sentry at the railway-station, 
 and it was thither he hurriedly led Rollins this Monday evening. 
 
 They turned across the railway on reaching the bottom of the long 
 stairs, and scrambled down the rocky embankment on the other side, 
 Rollins following in reluctant silence and holding his sword so that it 
 would not rattle, but he had no faith iu the theory of smugglers. He 
 felt in some vague and unsatisfactory way a sense of discomfort and 
 anxiety over his captain's late proceedings, and this stealthy descent 
 seemed fraught with ill omen. 
 
 Once down in the flats, their footsteps made no noise in the yielding 
 sand, and all was silence save for the plash of the waters along the shores. 
 Far down the river were the reflections of one or two twinkling lights, 
 and close under the bank in the slack-water a few stars were peeping 
 at their own images, but no boat was there, and the captain led still far- 
 ther to a little copse of willow, and there, in the shadows, sure enough, 
 was a row-boat, with a little lantern dimly burning, half hidden in the 
 stern. 
 
 Not only that, but as they halted at the edge of the willows the 
 captain put forth a warning hand and cautioned silence. No need. 
 Rollins's straining eyes were already fixed on two figures that were 
 standing in the shadows not ten feet away, — one that of a tall, slender 
 man, the other a young girl. It was a moment before Rollins could 
 recognize either ; but in that moment the girl had turned suddenly, 
 had thrown her arms about the neck of the tall young man, and, with 
 her head pillowed on his breast, was gazing up in his face. 
 
 " Kiss me once more, Howard. Then I must go," they heard her 
 whisper. 
 
 Rollins seized his captain's sleeve, and strove, sick at heart, to pull 
 him back; but Chester stoutly stood his ground. In the few seconds 
 more that they remained they saw his arras more closely enfold her. 
 They saw her turn at the brink, and, in an utter abandonment of rap- 
 turous, passionate love, throw her arms again about his neck and stand 
 on tiptoe to reach his face with her warm lips. They could not fail 
 to hear the caressing tone of her every word, or to mark his receptive 
 but gloomy silence. They could not mistake the voice, — the form, 
 shadowy though it was. The girl was Nina Beaubien, and the man, 
 beyond question, Howard Jerrold. They saw him hand her into the 
 light skiff and hurriedly kiss her good-night. Once again, as though 
 she could not leave him, her arms were thrown about his neck and she 
 clung to him with all her strength ; then the little boat swung slowly 
 out into the stream, the sculls were shipped, and with practised hand 
 Nina Beaubien pulled forth into the swirling waters of the river, and 
 the faint light, like slowly-setting star, floated downward with the 
 sweeping tide and finally disappeared beyond the point. 
 
 Then Jerrold turned to leave, and Chester stepped forth and con- 
 fronted him : 
 
 " Mr. Jerrold, did I not instruct you to confine yourself to your 
 
844 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 quarters until satisfactory explanation was made of the absences with 
 which you are charged ?" 
 
 Jerrold started at the abrupt and unlooked-for greeting, but his 
 answer was prompt : 
 
 " Not at all, sir. You gave me to understand that I was to remairt 
 here — not to leave the post — until you had decided on certain points ; 
 and, though I do not admit the justice of your course, and though you 
 have put me to grave inconvenience, I obeyed the order. I needed to 
 go to town to-day on urgent business, but, between you and Captain 
 Armitage, am in no condition to go. For all this, sir, there will come 
 proper retribution when my colonel returns. And now, sir, you are 
 spying upon me, — spying, I say, — and it only confirms what I said of 
 you before." 
 
 " Silence, Mr. Jerrold ! This is insubordination." 
 
 " I don't care a damn what it is, sir ! There is nothing contemptuous 
 enough for me to say of you or your conduct to me " 
 
 " JSTot another word, Mr. Jerrold ! Go to your quarters in arrest. 
 — Mr. Rollins, you are witness to this language." 
 
 But Rollins was not. Turning from the spot in blankness of heart 
 before a word was uttered between them, he followed the waning light 
 with eyes full of yearning and trouble ; lie trudged his way down along 
 the sandy shore until he came to the silent waters of the slough and 
 could go no farther ; and then he sat him down and covered his face 
 with his hands. It was pretty hard to bear. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Tuesday still, and all manner of things had happened and were still 
 to happen in the hurrying hours that followed Sunday night. The 
 garrison woke at Tuesday's reveille in much perturbation of spirit, 
 as has been said, but by eight o'clock and breakfast-time one cause of 
 perplexity was at an end. Relief had come with Monday afternoon 
 and Alice Renwick's letter saying she would not attend the german, 
 and now still greater relief in the news that sped from mouth to mouth : 
 Lieutenant Jerrold was in close arrest. Armitage and Chester had been 
 again in consultation Monday night, said the gossips, and something 
 new had been discovered, — no one knew just what, — and the toils had 
 settled upon Jerrold's handsome head, and now he was to be tried. As 
 usual in such cases, the news came in through the kitchen, and most 
 officers heard it at the break fxst-table from the lips of their better 
 halves, who could hardly find words to express their sentiments as to 
 the inability of their lords to explain the new phase of the situation. 
 When the first sergeant of Company B came around to Captain Armi- 
 tage with the sick-book, soon after six in the morning, the captain 
 briefly directed him to transfer Lieutenant Jerrold on the morning 
 report from present for duty to " in arrest," and no sooner was it 
 known at the quarters of Company B than it began to work back to 
 Officers' Row through the medium of the servants and strikers. 
 
 It was the sole topic of talk for a full hour. Many ladies who had 
 intended going to town by the early train almost perilled their chances 
 of catching the same in their eagerness to hear further details. 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 845 
 
 But the shriek of the whistle far up the valley broke up the group 
 that was so busily chatting and speculating over in the quadrangle, and, 
 with shy yet curious eyes, the party of at least a dozen — matrons and 
 maids, wives or sisters of the officers — scurried past the darkened win- 
 dows of Mr. Jerrold's quarters, and through the mysterious passage 
 west of the colonel's silent house, and down the long stairs, just in 
 time to catch the train that whirled them away city-ward almost as soon 
 as it had disgorged the morning's mail. Chatting and laughing, and full 
 of blithe anticipation of the glories of the coming german, in prepara- 
 tion for which most of their number had found it necessary to run in 
 for just an hour's shopping, they went jubilantly on their way. Shop- 
 ping done, they would all meet, take luncheon togetlier at the " Woman's 
 Exchange," return to the post by the afternoon train, and have plenty 
 of time for a little nap before dressing for the german. Perhaps the 
 most interesting question now up for discussion was, who woukl lead 
 with Mr. Rollins? The train went puffing into the crowded depot: 
 the ladies hastened forth, and in a moment were on the street ; cabs and 
 carriages were passed in disdain ; a brisk walk of a block carried them 
 to the main thoroughfare and into the heart of the shopping district ; a 
 rush of hoofs and wheels and pedestrians there encountered them, and 
 the roar assailed their sensitive and unaccustomed ears, yet high above 
 it all pierced and pealed the shrill voices of the newsboys darting here 
 and there with theii* eagerly-bought journals. But women bent on 
 gerraans and shopping have time and ears for no such news as that 
 which demands the publication of extras. Some of them never hear 
 or heed the cry, " Indian Massacree !" " Here y'are ! All about the 
 killin' of Major Thornton an' his sojers !" " Extry ! — extry !" It 
 is not until they reach the broad portals of the great Stewart of the 
 West that one of their number, half incredulously, buys a copy and 
 
 reads aloud : " Major Thornton, th Infantry, Captain Langham and 
 
 Lieutenant Bliss, th Cavalry, and thirty men, are killed. Captains 
 
 Wright and Lane and Lieutenants Willard and Brooks, th Cavalry, 
 
 and some forty more men, are seriously wounded. The rest of the 
 command is corralled by an overwhelming force of Indians, and their 
 only hope is to hold out until help can reach them. All troops along 
 the line of the Union Pacific are already under orders." 
 
 "Oh, isn't it dreadful?" 
 
 " Yes ; but aren't you glad it wasn't Ours ? Oh, look ! there's Nina 
 Beaubien over there in her carriage. Do let's find out if she's going to 
 lead with Rollins !" 
 
 VcB victis ! Far out in the glorious Park country in the heart of 
 the Centennial State a little band of blue-coats, sent to succor a perilled 
 agent, is making desperate stand against fearful odds. Less than two 
 hundred men has the wisdom of the Department sent forth through the 
 wilderness to find and, if need be, fight its way through five times its 
 weight in well-armed foes. The officers and men have no special 
 quarrel with those Indians, nor the Indians with them. Only two 
 winters before, when those same Indians were sick and starving, and 
 their lying go-betweens, the Bureau-employees, would give them neither 
 food nor justice, a small band made their way to the railway and were 
 
846 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 fed on soldier food and their wrongs righted by soldier justice. But 
 another snarl has come now, and this time the Bureau-people are in a 
 pickle, and the army — ever between two fires at least, and thankful 
 when it isn't six — is ordered to send a little force and go out there 
 and help the agent maintain his authority. The very night before the 
 colmnn reaches the borders of the reservation the leading chiefs come 
 in camp to interview the officers, shake hands, beg tobacco, and try on 
 their clothes, then go back to their braves and laugh as they tell there 
 are only a handful, and plan the morrow's ambuscade and massacre. 
 Vce victis ! There are women and children among the garrisons along 
 the Union Pacific whose hearts have little room for thoughts of germans 
 in the horror of this morning's tidings. But Sibley is miles and miles 
 away, and, as Mrs. Wheeler says, aren't you glad it wasn't Ours? 
 
 Out at the fort there is a different scene. The morning journals and 
 the clicking telegraph send a thrill thronghout the whole command. 
 The train has barely whistled out of sight when the ringing notes of 
 officers' call resound through the quadrangle and out over the broader 
 drill-ground beyond. Wondering, but prompt, the staid captains and 
 eager subalterns come hurrying to head-quarters, and the band, that 
 had come forth and taken its station on the parade, all ready for 
 guard-mount, goes quickly back, while the men gather in big squads 
 along the shaded row of their quarters and watch the rapid assembly 
 at the office. And there old Chester, with kindling eyes, reads to the 
 silent company the brief official order. Ay, though it be miles and 
 miles away, fast as steam and wheel can take it, the good old regiment 
 in all its sturdy strength goes forth to join the rescue of the imprisoned 
 comrades far in the Colorado Rockies. " Have your entire command in 
 readiness for immediate field-service in the Department of the Platte. 
 Special train will be there to take you by noon at latest." And though 
 many a man has lost friend and comrade in the tragfidy that calls them 
 forth, and though many a brow clouds for the moment with the bitter 
 news of such useless sacrifice, every eye brightens, every muscle seems 
 to brace, every nerve and pulse to throb and thrill with the glorious 
 excitement of quick assembly and coming action. Ay, we are miles 
 and miles away ; we leave the dear old post, with homes and firesides, 
 wives, children, and sweethearts, all to the care of the few whom sick- 
 ness or old wounds or advancing years render unfit for hard, sharp 
 marching ; and, thank God ! we'll be there to take a hand and help 
 those gallant fellows out of their " corral" or to have one good blow at 
 the cowardly liounds who lured and lied to them. 
 
 How the " assembly" rings on the morning air ! How quick they 
 spring to ranks, those eager bearded faces and trim blue.-clad forms ! 
 How buoyant and brisk even the elders seem as the captains speed over 
 to their company quarters and the quick, stirring orders are given ! 
 " Field kits ; all the cooked rations you have on hand ; overcoat, 
 blanlvct, extra socks and underclothes ; every cartridge you've got ; 
 haversack and canteen, and nothing else. Now get ready, — lively !" 
 How irrepressible is the cheer tliat goes up ! How we pity the swells 
 of the light battery who have to stay ! How wistful those fellows 
 look, and how eagerly they throng about the barracks, yearning to go, 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 847 
 
 and, since that is denied, praying to be of use in some way ! Small 
 wonder is it that all the bustle and excitement penetrates the portals of 
 Mr. Jerrold's darkened quartei*s, and the shutters are thrown open and 
 his bandaged head comes forth. 
 
 " What is it, Harris ?" he demands of a light-batteryman who is 
 hurrying past. 
 
 " Orders for Colorado, sir. The regiment goes by special train. 
 Major Thornton's command's been massacred, and there's a big fight 
 ahead." 
 
 ^' My God ! Here ! — stop one moment. Run over to Company 
 B and see if you can find my servant, or Merrick, or somebody. 
 If not, you come back quick. I want to send a note to Captain 
 Armitage." 
 
 " I can take it, sir. We're not going. The band and the battery 
 have to stay." 
 
 And Jerrold, with trembling hand and feverish haste, seats himself 
 at the same desk whence on that fatal morning; he sent the note that 
 wrought such disaster ; and as he rises and hands his missive forth, 
 throwing wide open the shutters as he does so, his bedroom doors fly 
 open, and a whirling gust of the morning wind sweeps through from 
 rear to front, and half a score of bills and billets, letters and scraps of 
 paper, go ballooning out upon the parade. 
 
 "By heaven !" he mutters, "that's how it happened, is it? Look 
 at them go !" for going they were, in spiral eddies or fluttering skips, 
 up the grassy " quad," and over among the rose-bushes of Alice Ren- 
 wick's garden. Over on the other side of the narrow, old-fashioned 
 frontier fort the men were bustling about, and their exultant, eager 
 voices rang out on the morning air. All was life and animation, and 
 even in Jerrold's selfish soul there rose responsive echo to the soldierly 
 spirit that seemed to pervade the whole command. It was their first 
 summons to active field-duty with prospective battle since he had joined, 
 and, with all his shortcomings as a " duty" officer in garrison and his 
 many frailties of character, Jerrold was not the man to lurk in the rear 
 when there was danger ahead. It dawned on him with sudden and 
 crushing force that now it lay in the power of his enemies to do him 
 vital injury, — that he could be held here at the post like a suspected 
 felon, a mark for every finger, a target for every tongue, while every 
 other officer of his regiment was hurrying with his men to take his 
 knightly share in the coming onset. It was intolerable, shameful. 
 He paced the floor of his little parlor in nervous misery, ever and anon 
 gazing from the window for sight of his captain. It was to him he 
 had written, urging that he be permitted a few moments' talk. " This 
 is no time for a personal misunderstanding," he wrote. " I must see 
 you at once. I can clear away the doubts, can explain my action ; but, 
 for heaven's sake, intercede for me with Captain Chester that I may 
 go with the command." 
 
 As luck would have it, Armitage was with Chester at the office 
 when the letter was handed in. He opened it, gave a whistle of sur- 
 prise, and simply held it forth to the temporary commander. 
 
 " Read that," he said. 
 
848 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 Chester frowned, but took the note and looked it curiously over. 
 
 " I have no patience with the man now," he said. " Of course 
 after what I saw last night I begin to understand the nature of his 
 defence ; but we don't want any such man in the regiment, after this. 
 What's the use of taking him with us ?" 
 
 " That isn't the point," said Armitage. " Now or never, possibly, 
 is the time to clear up this mystery. Of course Maynard will be up 
 to join us by the first train ; and what won't it be worth to him to have 
 positive proof that all his fears were unfounded ?" 
 
 " Even if it wasn't Jerrold, there is still the fact that I saw a man 
 clambering out of her window. How is that to be cleared up ?" said 
 Chester, gloomily. 
 
 " That may come later, and won't be such a bugbear as you think. 
 If you were not worried into a morbid condition over all this trouble, 
 you would not look so seriously upon a thing which I regard as a piece 
 of mere night prowling, with a possible spice of romance." 
 
 " What romance, I'd like to know ?" 
 
 " Never mind that now : I'm playing detective for the time 
 being. Let me see Jerrold for you and find out what he has to offer. 
 Then you can decide. Are you willing ? All right ! But remember 
 this while I think of it. You admit that the light you saw on the 
 wall Sunday night was exactly like that which you saw the night of 
 your adventure, and that the shadows were thrown in the same way. 
 You thought that night that the light was turned up and afterwards 
 turned out in her room, and that it was her figure you saw at the 
 window. Didn't you?" 
 
 " Yes. What then ?" 
 
 " Well, I believe her statement that she saw and heard nothing 
 until reveille. I believe it was Mrs. Maynard who did the whole thing, 
 without Miss Renwick's knowing anything about it." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because I accomplished the feat with the aid of the little night- 
 lamp that I found by the colonel's bedside. It is my theory that Mrs. 
 Maynard was restless after the colonel finally fell asleep, that she heard 
 your tumble, and took her little lamp, crossed over into Miss Renwick's 
 room, opened the door without creaking, as I can do to your satisfaction, 
 found her sleeping quietly, but the room a trifle close and warm, set 
 hei* night-lamp down on the table, as I did, threw her shadow on the 
 wall, as I did, and opened the shade, as you thought her daughter did. 
 Then she withdrew, and left those doors open, — both hers and her 
 daughter's, — and the light, instead of being turned down, as you 
 th(riight, was simply carried back into her own room." 
 
 " That is all possible. But how about the man in her room ? 
 Nothing was stolen, though money and jewelry were lying around 
 loose. If theft was not the object, what was ?" 
 
 " Theft certainly was not, and I'm not prepared to say what was, 
 but I have reason to believe it wasn't Miss Ren wick." 
 
 " Anything to prove it ?" 
 
 " Yes ; and, though time is precious and I cannot show you, you 
 may take my word for it. We must be off at noon, and both of us 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 849 
 
 have much to do, but there may be no other chance to talk, and before 
 you leave this post I want you to realize her utter innocence." 
 
 " I want to, Armitage.'* 
 
 " I know you do : so look here. We assume that the same man 
 paid the night visit both here and at Sablon, and that he wanted to see 
 the same person, — if he did not come to steal : do we not ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " We know that at Sablon it was Mrs. Maynard he sought and 
 called. The colonel says so." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Presumably, then, it was she — not her daughter — he had some 
 reasons for wanting to see here at Sibley. What is more, if he wanted 
 to see Miss Renwick there was nothing to prevent his going right into 
 her window ?" 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 "Well, I believe I can prove he didn't; on the contrary, that he 
 went around by the roof of the porch to tlie colonel's room and tried 
 there, but found it risky on account of the blinds, and that finally he 
 entered the hall window, — what might be called neutral ground. The 
 painters had been at work there, as you said, two days before, and the 
 paint on the slats was not quite dry. The blinds and sills were the 
 only things they had touched up on that front, it seems, and nothing 
 on the sides. Now, on the fresh paint of the colonel's slats are the 
 new imprints of masculine thumb and fingers, and on the sill of the 
 hall window is a footprint that I know to be other than Jerrold's." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because he doesn't own such a thing as this track was made 
 with, and I don't know a man in this command who does. It was the 
 handiwork of the Tonto Apaches, and came from the other side of the 
 continent." 
 
 " You mean it was ?" 
 
 " Exactly. An Indian moccasin." 
 
 Meantime, Mr. Jerrold had been making hurried preparations, as 
 he had fully determined that at any cost he would go with the regi- 
 ment. He had been burning a number of letters, when Captain 
 Armitage knocked and hurriedly entered. Jerrold pushed forward a 
 chair and plunged at once into the matter at issue : 
 
 " There is no time to waste, captain. I have sent to you to ask 
 what I can do to be released from arrest and permitted to go with the 
 command." 
 
 " Answer the questions I put to you the other night, and certify to 
 your answers ; and of course you'll have to apologize to Captain Chester 
 for your last night's language." 
 
 "Tliat of course; though you will admit it looked like spying. 
 Now let me ask you, did he tell you who the lady was ?" 
 
 " No. I told him." 
 
 " How did you know?" 
 
 " By intuition, and my knowledge of previous circumstances." 
 
 " We have no time to discuss it. I make no attempt to conceal it 
 now ; but I ask that, on your honor, neither you nor he reveal it." 
 
850 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 " And continue to let the garrison believe that you were in Miss 
 Renwick's room that ghastly night?" asked Armitage, dryly. 
 
 Jerrold flushed : '' I have denied that, and I would have proved my 
 alibi could I have done so without betraying a woman's secret. Must 
 I tell ?" 
 
 " So far as I am concerned, Mr. Jerrold," said Armitage, ^dth cold 
 and relentless meaning, " you not only must tell — you must prove — 
 both that night's doings and Saturday night's, — both that and how you 
 obtained that photograph." 
 
 " My God ! In one case it is a woman's name ; in the other I have 
 promised on honor not to reveal it." 
 
 " That ends it, then. You remain here in close arrest, and tlie 
 charges against you will be pushed to the bitter end. I will write them 
 this very hour." 
 
 XVI. 
 
 At ten o'clock that morning, shortly after a smiling interview with 
 the ladies of Fort Sibley, in which, with infinite spirit and the most 
 perfect self-control. Miss Beaubien had informed them that she had 
 promised to lead with Mr. Jerrold, and, since he was in duress, she 
 would lead with no one, and sent them off wondering and greatly ex- 
 cited, there came running up to the carriage a telegraph messenger boy, 
 who handed her a despatch. 
 
 " I was going up to the avenue, mum," he explained, " but I seen 
 you here." 
 
 Nina's face paled as she tore it open and read the curt lines : 
 " Come to me, here. Your help needed instantly." 
 She sprang from the carriage. " Tell mother I have gone over to 
 see some Fort friends, — not to wait," she called to the coachman, well 
 knowing he would understand that she meant the ladies with whom she 
 had been so recently talking. Like a frightened deer she sped around 
 the corner, hailed the driver of a cab, lounging v/ith his fellows along 
 the walk, ordered him to drive with all speed to Summit Avenue, and 
 with beating heart decided on her plan. Her glorious eyes were flash- 
 ing : the native courage and fierce determination of her race were 
 working in her woman's heart. She well knew that imminent danger 
 threatened him. She had dared everything for love of his mere pres- 
 ence, his sweet caress. What would she not dare to save him, if save 
 she could ? He had not been true to her. She knew, and knew well, 
 that, whether sought or not, Alice Renwick had been winning him from 
 her, that he was wavering, that he had been cold and negligent ; but with 
 all her soul and strength she loved him, and believed him grand and 
 brave and fine as he was beautiful. Now — now was her opportunity. 
 He needed her. His commission, his honor, depended on her. He 
 had intimated as much the night before, — had told her of the accusa- 
 tions and suspicions that attached to him, — but made no mention of 
 the pliotograph. He had said that though nothing could drag from 
 him a word that would compromise her, she might be called upon to 
 stand 'twixt him and ruin ; and now perhaps the hour had come. She 
 could free, exonerate, glorify him, and in doing so claim him for her 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 851 
 
 own. Who, after this, could stand 'twixt her and him ? He loved her, 
 
 though he had been cold ; and she ? Had he bidden her bow her 
 
 dusky head to earth and kiss the print of his heel, she would have 
 obeyed could she but feel sure that her reward would be a simple touch 
 of his hand, an assurance that no other woman could find a moment's 
 place in his love. Yerily, he had been doing desperate wooing in the 
 long winter, for tlie very depths of her nature were all athrob with 
 love for him. And now he could no longer plead that poverty with- 
 held his offer of his hand. She would soon be mistress of her own 
 little fortune, and, at her mother's death, of an independence. Go to 
 him she would, and on wings of the wind, and go she did. The cab 
 released her at the gate to her home, and went back with a double fare 
 that set the driver to thinking. She sped through the house, and out 
 the rear doors, much to the amaze of cook and others who were in con- 
 sultation in the kitchen. She flew down a winding flight of stairs to 
 the level below, and her fairy feet went tripping over the pavement of 
 a plebeian street. A quick turn, and she was at a little second-rate 
 stable, whose proprietor knew her and started from his chair. 
 " What's wrong to-day. Miss Nina ?" 
 
 " I want the roan mare and light buggy again, — quick as you can. 
 Your own price at the old terms, Mr. Graves, — silence." 
 
 He nodded, called to a subordinate, and in five minutes handed her 
 into the frail vehicle. An impatient chirrup and flap of the reins, and 
 the roan shot forth into the dusty road, leaving old Graves shaking his 
 head at the door. 
 
 " I've known her ever since she was weaned," he muttered, " and 
 she's a wild bird, if ever there was one, but she's never been the like o' 
 this till last month." 
 
 And the roan mare was covered with foam and sweat when Nina 
 Beaubien drove into the bustling fort, barely an hour after her receipt 
 of Jerrold's telegram. A few officers were gathered in front of head- 
 quarters, and there were curious looks from face to face as she was 
 recognized. Mr. Rollins was on the walk, giving some instructions to 
 a sergeant of his company, and never saw her until the buggy reined 
 up close behind him and, turning suddenly, he met her face to face as 
 she sprang lightly to the ground. The young fellow reddened to his 
 eyes, and would have recoiled, but she was mistress of the situation. 
 She well knew she had but to command and he would obey, or, at the 
 most, if she could no longer command she had only to implore, and he 
 would be powerless to withstand her entreaty. 
 
 " I am glad you are here, Mr. Rollins. You can help me. — Ser- 
 geant, will you kindly hitch my horse at that post ? — Now," she added, 
 in low, hurried tone, "come with me to Mr. Jerrold's." 
 
 Rollins was too stupefied to answer. Silently he placed himself by 
 her side, and together they passed the group at the office. Miss Beau- 
 bien nodded with something of her old archness and coquetry to the 
 cap-raising party, but never hesitated. Together they passed along the 
 narrow board walk, followed by curious eyes, and as they reached the 
 angle and stepped beneath the shelter of the piazza in front of the long, 
 low, green-blinded Bachelors' Row, there was sudden sensation in the 
 
852 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 group. Mr. Jerrold appeared at the door of his quarters ; Rollins 
 halted some fifty feet away, raised his cap, and left her ; and, all alone, 
 with the eyes of Fort Sibley upon her, Nina Beaubien stepped bravely 
 forward to meet her lover. 
 
 They saw him greet her at the door. Some of them turned away, 
 unwilling to look, and yet unwilling to go and not understand this new 
 phase of the mystery. Rollins, looking neither to right nor left, re- 
 passed them and walked off with a set, savage look on his young 
 face, and then, as one or two still gazed, fascinated by this strange and 
 daring proceeding, others, too, turned back and, half ashamed of them- 
 selves for such a yielding to curiosity, glanced furtively over at Jerrold's 
 door. 
 
 There they stood, — he, restrained by his arrest, unable to come 
 forth ; she, restrained more by his barring form than by any considera- 
 tion of maidenly reserve, for, had he bidden, she would have gone 
 within. She had fully made up her mind that wherever he was, even 
 were it behind the sentinels and bars of the guard-house, she would 
 demand that she be taken to his side. He had handed out a chair, but 
 she would not sit. They saw her looking up into his face as he talked, 
 and noted the eager gesticulation, so characteristic of his Creole blood, 
 that seemed to accompany his rapid words. They saw her bending 
 towards him, looking eagerly up in his eyes, and occasionally casting 
 indignant glances over towards the group at the office, as though she 
 would annihilate with her wrath the persecutors of her hero. Then 
 they saw her stretch forth both her hands with a quick impulsive 
 movement, and grasp his one instant, looking so faithfully, steadfastly, 
 loyally, into his clouded and anxious face. Then she turned, and with 
 quick, eager steps came tripping towards them. They stood irresolute. 
 Every man felt that it was somebody's duty to step forward, meet her, 
 and be her escort though the party, but no one advanced. There was, 
 if anything, a tendency to sidle towards the office door, as though to 
 leave the sidewalk unimpeded. But she never sought to pass them by. 
 With flashing eyes and crimson cheeks, she bore straight upon them, 
 and, with indignant emphasis upon every word, accosted them : 
 
 " Captain Wilton, Major Sloat, I wish to see Captain Chester at 
 once. Is he in the office ?" 
 
 " Certainly, Miss Beaubien. Shall I call him ? or will you walk 
 in ?" And both men were at her side in a moment. 
 
 " Thanks. I will go right in, — if you will kindly show me to 
 him." 
 
 Another moment, and Armitage and Chester, deep in the midst 
 of their duties and surrounded by clerks and orderlies and assailed by 
 half a dozen questions in one and the same instant, looked up aston- 
 ished as Wilton stepped in and announced Miss Beaubien desiring to 
 see Captain Chester on immediate business. There was no time for 
 conference. There she stood in the door-way, and all tongues were 
 hushed on the instant. Chester rose and stei)ped forward with anxious 
 courtesy. She did not choose to see the extended hand. 
 
 " It is you, alone, I wisli to see, captain. Is it impossible here?" 
 
 " I fear it is, Miss Beaubien ; but we can walk out in the open air. 
 
FROM THE RANKS. g53 
 
 I feel that I know what it is you wish to say to me," he added, in a low 
 tone, took his cap from the peg on which it hung, and led the way. 
 Again she passed through the curious but respectiiil group, and Jer- 
 rold, Avatching furtively from his window, saw them come forth. 
 
 The captain turned to her as soon as they were out of earshot : 
 
 " I have no daughter of my own, my dear young lady, but if I 
 had I could not more thoroughly feel for you than I do. How can I 
 help you ?" 
 
 The reply was unexpectedly spirited. He had thought to encour- 
 age and sustain her, be sympathetic and paternal, but, as he afterwards 
 ruefully admitted, he " never did seem to get the hang of a woman's 
 temperament." Apparently sympathy was not the thing she needed. 
 
 " It is late in the day to ask such a question. Captain Chester. 
 You have done great wrong and injustice. The question is now, 
 will you undo it?" 
 
 He was too surprised to speak for a moment. When his tongue 
 was unloosed he said, — 
 
 " I shall be glad to be convinced I was wrong." 
 
 "I know little of army justice or army laws. Captain Chester, but 
 when a girl is compelled to take this step to rescue a friend there is 
 sometliing brutal about them, — or the men who enforc;e them. Mr. 
 Jerrold tells me that he is arrested. I knew that last night, but not 
 until this morning did he consent to let me know that he would be 
 court-martial led unless he could prove where he was the night you were 
 officer of the day two weeks ago, and last Saturday night. He is too 
 noble and good to defend himself when by doing so he might harm me. 
 But I am here to free him from the cruel suspicion you have formed." 
 She had quickened her step, and in her impulsiveness and agitation 
 they were almost at the end of the walk. He hesitated, as though re- 
 luctant to go along under the piazza, but she was imperious, and he 
 yielded. " No, come !" she said. " I mean that you shall hear the 
 whole truth, and that at once. I do not expect you to understand or 
 condone my conduct, but you must acquit him. We are engaged ; and 
 — I love him. He has enemies here, as I see all too plainly, and they 
 have prejudiced mother against him, and she has forbidden my seeing 
 him. I came out to the fort without her knowledge one day, and it 
 angered her. From that time she would not let me see him alone. 
 She watched every movement, and came with me wherever I drove. 
 She gave orders that I should never have any of our horses to drive or 
 ride alone, — I, whom father had indulged to the utmost and who had 
 ridden and driven at will from my babyhood. She came out to the 
 fort with me that evening for parade, and never even agreed to let me 
 go out to see some neighbors until she learned he was to escort Miss 
 Renwick. She had ordered me to be ready to go with her to Che- 
 quamagon the next day, and I would not go until I had seen him. 
 There had been a misunderstanding. I got the Suttons to drive me 
 out while mother supposed me at the Laurents', and Mr. Jerrold prom- 
 ised to meet me east of the bridge and drive in town with us, and I was 
 to send him back in Graves's buggy. He had been refused permission 
 to leave the post, he said, and could not cross the bridge, where the sen- 
 
854 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 tries would be sure to recognize him, but, as it -was our last chance of 
 meeting, he risked the discovery of his absence, never dreaming of such 
 a thing as his private rooms being inspected. He had a little skiff 
 down in the willows that he had used before, and by leaving the party 
 at midnight he could get home, change his dress, run down the bank 
 and row down-stream to the Point, there leave his skiff and climb up 
 to the road. He met us there at one o'clock, and the Suttons would 
 never betray either of us, though they did not know we were engaged. 
 We sat in their parlor a quarter of an hour after we got to town, and 
 then 'twas time to go, and there was only a little ten minutes' walk 
 down to the stable. I had seen him such a very short time, and I had 
 so much to tell him." (Chester could have burst into rapturous ap- 
 plause had she been an actress. Her cheeks were aflame, her eyes full 
 of fire and spirit, her bosom heaving, her little foot tapping the ground, 
 as she stood there leaning on the colonel's fence and looking straight 
 up in the perturbed veteran's face. She was magnificent, he said to 
 himself; and, in her bravery, self-sacrifice, and indignation, she ivas.) 
 " It was then after two, and I could just as well go with him, — some- 
 body had to bring the buggy back, — and Graves himself hitched in his 
 roan mare for me, and I drove out, picked up Mr. Jerrold at the cor- 
 ner, and we came out here again through the darkness together. Even 
 when we got to the Point I did not let him go at once. It was over an 
 hour's drive. It was fully half-past three before we parted. He sprang 
 down the path to reach the river-side ; and before he was fairly in his 
 boat and pulling up against the stream, I heard, far over here some- 
 where, those two faint shots. That was the shooting he spoke of in 
 his letter to me, — not to her ; and what business Colonel Maynard had 
 to read and exhibit to his officers a letter never intended for him I can- 
 not understand. Mr. Jerrold says it was not what he wanted it to be 
 at all, as he wrote hastily, so he wrote another, and sent that to me by 
 Merrick that morning after his absence was discovered. It probably 
 blew out of the window, as these other things did this morning. See 
 for yourself, captain." And she pointed to the two or three bills and 
 scraps that had evidently only recently fluttered in among the now 
 neglected roses. "Then when he was aroused at reveille and you 
 threatened him with punishment and held over his head the startling 
 accusation that you knew of our meeting and our secret, he was natu- 
 rally infinitely distressed, and could only write to Avarn me, and he 
 managed to get in and say good-by to me at the station. As for me, I 
 was back home by five o'clock, let myself noiselessly up to my room, 
 and no one knew it but the Suttons and old Graves, neither of whom 
 would betray me. I had no fear of the long dark road : I had ridden 
 and driven as a child all over these bluffs and prairies before there was 
 any town worth mentioning, and in days when my father and I found 
 only friends — not enemies — here at Sibley." 
 
 " Miss Beaubien, let me protest againt your accusation. It is not 
 for me to reprove your grave imprudence or recklessness ; nor have I 
 the right to disapprove your choice of Mr. Jerrold. Let me say at 
 once that you have none but friends here ; and if it ever should be 
 known to what lengths you went to save him, it will only make him 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 355 
 
 more envied and you more genuinely admired. I question your 
 wisdom, but, upon my soul, I admire your bravery and sj)irit. You 
 have cleared him of a terrible charge." 
 
 A most disdainful and impatient shrug of her shapely shoulders 
 was Miss Beaubien's only answer to that allusion. _ The possibility of 
 Mr. Jerrold's being suspected of another entanglement was something 
 she would not tolerate : 
 
 " I know nothing of other people's affairs. I simply speak of my 
 own. Let us end this as quickly as possible, captain. Now about 
 Saturday night. Mother had consented to our coming back for the 
 german, — she enjoys seeing me lead, it seems, — and she decided to pav 
 a short visit to relations at St. Croix, staying there Saturday night and 
 over Sunday. This would give us a chance to meet again, as he could 
 spend the evening in St. Croix and return by late train, and I wrote 
 and asked him. He came ; we had a long talk in the summer-hoase 
 in the garden, for mother never dreamed of his being there, and un- 
 luckily he just missed the night train and did not get back until in- 
 spection. It was impossible for him to have been at Sablon ; and he 
 can furnish other proof, but would do nothing until he had seen me." 
 
 "Miss Beaubien, you have cleared him. I only wish that you 
 could clear — every one." 
 
 " I am in no wise concerned in that other matter to which you have 
 alluded ; neither is Mr. Jerrold. May I say to him at once that this 
 ends his persecution ?" 
 
 The captain smiled : " You certainly deserve to be the bearer of 
 good tidings. I wish he may appreciate it." 
 
 Another moment, and she had left him and sjied back to Jerrold's 
 door-way. He was there to meet her, and Chester looked with grim 
 and uncertain emotion at the radiance in her face. He had to get 
 back to the office and to pass them : so, as civilly as he could, consider- 
 ing the weight of wrath and contempt he felt for the man, he stopped 
 and spoke : 
 
 "Your fair advocate has been all-powerfid, Mr. Jerrold. I con- 
 gratulate you ; and your arrest is at an end. Captain Armitage will 
 require no duty of you until we are aboard ; but we've only half an 
 hour. The train is coming sharp at noon." 
 
 " Train ! What train ! AVhere are you going?" she asked, a wild 
 anxiety in her eyes, a sudden pallor on her face. 
 
 " We are ordered post-haste to Colorado, Nina, to rescue what is 
 left of Thornton's men. But for you I should have been left behind." 
 
 " But for me ! — left behind !" she cried. " Oh, Howard, Howard ! 
 have I only — only won you to send you into danger ? Oh, my darling ! 
 Oh, God ! Don't— don't go ! They will kill you ! It will kill me ! 
 Oh, what have I done ? what have I done ?" 
 
 " Nina, hush ! My honor is with the regiment. I must go, child. 
 We'll be back in a few weeks. Indeed, I fear 'twill all be over before 
 we get there. Nina, don't look so ! Don't act so ! Think where vou 
 are !" 
 
 But she had borne too much, and the blow came all too soon, — too 
 heavy. She was wellnigh senseless when the Beaubien carriage came 
 
356 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 whirling into the fort and old Maman rushed forth in voluble and 
 rabid charge upon her daughter. All too late ! it was useless now. 
 Her darling's heart was weaned away, and her love lavished on that 
 tall, objectionable young soldier so soon to go forth to battle. Re- 
 proaches, tears, wrath, were all in order, but were abandoned at 
 sight of })oor Nina's agony of grief. Noon came, and the train, and 
 with buoyant tread the gallant command marched down the winding 
 road and filed aboard the cars, and Howard Jerrold, shame-stricken, 
 humbled at the contemplation of his own unworthiness, slowly un- 
 clasped her arms from about his neck, laid one long kiss upon her 
 white and quivering lips, took one brief look in the great, dark, haunt- 
 ing, despairing eyes, and carried her wail of anguish ringing in his 
 ears as he sprang aboard and was whirled away. 
 
 But there were women who deemed themselves worse off than Nina 
 Beaubien, — the wives and daughters and SM^eethearts whom she met 
 that morn in town ; for when they got back to Sibley the regiment was 
 miles away. For them there was not even a kiss from the lips of 
 those they loved. Time and train waited for no woman. There were 
 comrades battling for life in the Colorado Rockies, and aid could not 
 come too soon. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Under the cloudless heavens, under the starlit skies, blessing the 
 grateful dew that cools the upland air and moistens the bunch-grass 
 that has been bleaching all day in the fierce rays of the summer sun, a 
 little column of infantry is swinging steadily southward. Long and 
 toilsome has been the march ; hot, dusty, and parching the day. Halts 
 have been few and fav between, and every man, from the colonel down, 
 is coated with a gray mask of powdered alkali, the contribution of a 
 two hours' tramp through Deadman's Canon just before the sun went 
 down. Now, however, they are climbing the range. The morrow will 
 bring them to the broad and beautiful valley of the Spirit Wolf, and 
 there they must have news. Officers and men are footsore and weary, 
 but no one begs for rest. Colonel Maynard, riding ahead on a sorry 
 hack he picked up at the station two days' long march behind them, is 
 eager to reach the springs at Forest Glade before ordering bivouac for 
 the night. A week agone no one who saw him at Sablon would have 
 thought the colonel fit for a march like this; but he seems rejuvenate. 
 His head is high, his eye as bright, his bearing as full of spirit, as 
 man's could possibly be at sixty, and the whole regiment cheered him 
 when he caught the column at Omaha. A talk with Chester and 
 Armitage seemed to have made a new man of him, and to-night he is 
 full of an energy that inspires the entire command. Though they were 
 farther away than many other troops ordered to the scene, the fact that 
 their station was on the railway and that they could be sent by special 
 trains to Omaha and thence to the West enabled them to begin their 
 rescue-march ahead of all the other foot-troops and behind only the 
 powerful command of cavalry that was whirled to the scene the 
 moment the authorities woke up to the fact that it should have been 
 sent in the first place. Old Maynard would give his very ears to get 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 857 
 
 to Thornton's corral ahead of them, but the cavalry has thirty-six 
 hours' start and four legs to two. Every moment he looks ahead ex- 
 pectant of tidings from the front that shall tell him the th were there 
 
 and the remnant rescued. Even then, he knows, he and his long Spring- 
 fields will be needed. The cavalry can fight their way in to the succor 
 of the besieged, but once there will be themselves surrounded and too 
 few in numbers to begin aggressive movements. He and his will in- 
 deed be welcome reinforcements ; and so they trudge ahead. 
 
 The moon is up and it is nearly ten o'clock when high up on the 
 rolling divide the springs are reached, and, barely w^aiting to quench 
 their thirst in the cooling waters, the wearied men roll themselves in 
 their blankets under the giant trees, and, guarded by a few outlying 
 pickets, are soon asleep. Most of the officers have sprawled around a 
 little fire and are burning their boot-leather thereat. The colonel, his 
 adjutant, and the doctor are curled up under a tent-fly that serves by 
 day as a wrap for the rations and cooking-kit they carry on pack-mule. 
 Two company commanders, — the Alpha and Omega of the ten, as 
 Major Sloat dubbed them, — the senior and junior in rank, Chester and 
 Armitage by name, have rolled themselves in their blankets under an- 
 other tent-fly and are chatting in low tones before dropping off to sleep. 
 They have been inseparable on the journey thus far, and the colonel 
 has had two or three long talks with them ; but who knows what the 
 morrow may bring forth ? There is still much to settle. 
 
 One officer, he of the guard, is still afoot, and trudging about among 
 the trees, looking after his sentries. Another officer, also alone, is 
 sitting in silence smoking a pipe : it is Mr. Jerrold. 
 
 Cleared though he is of the charges originally brought against him 
 in the minds of his colonel and Captain Chester, he has lost caste with 
 his fellows and with them. Only two or three men have been made 
 aware of the statement which acquitted him, but every one knows in- 
 stinctively that he was saved by Nina Beaubien, and that in accepting 
 his release at her hands he had put her to a cruel expense. Every man 
 among his brother officers knows in some way that he has been ac- 
 quitted of having compromised Alice Renwick's fair fame only by an 
 alibi that correspondingly harmed another. The fact now generally 
 known, that they were betrothed, and that the engagement was openly 
 announced, made no difference. Without being able to analyze his 
 conduct, the regiment was satisfied that it had been selfish and con- 
 temptible ; and that was enough to warrant giving him the cold shoulder. 
 He was quick to see and take the hint, and, in bitter distress of mind, 
 to withdraw himself from their companionship. He had hoped and 
 expected that his eagerness to go with them on the wild and sudden 
 campaign would reinstate him in their good graces, but it failed utterly. 
 " Any man would seek that/' was the verdict of the informal council 
 held by the officers. " He would have been a poltroon if he hadn't 
 sought to go; but, while he isn't a poltroon, he has done a contemptible 
 thing." And so it stood. Rollins had cut him dead, refused his hand, 
 and denied him a chance to explain. *' Tell him he can't explain," was 
 the savage reply he sent by the adjutant, who consented to carry Jer- 
 rold's message in order that he might have fair play. " He knows, 
 Vol. XL.— 56 
 
858 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 without explanation, the wrong he has done to more than one. I won't 
 have anything to do with him." 
 
 Others avoided him, and only coldly spoke to him when speech was 
 necessary. Chester treated him with marked aversion ; the colonel 
 would not look at him ; only Armitage — his captain — liad a decent 
 word for him at any time, and even he was stern and cold. The most 
 envied and careless of the entire command, the Adonis, the beau, the 
 crack shot, the graceful leader in all garrison gayeties, the beautiful 
 dancer, rider, tennis-player, the adored of so many sentimental women 
 at Sibley, poor Jerrold had found his level, and his proud and sensitive 
 though selfish heart was breaking. 
 
 Sitting alone under the trees, he had taken a sheet of paper from 
 his p' jket-case and was writing by the light of the rising moon. One 
 letter was short and easily written, for with a few M^ords he had brought 
 it to a close, then folded and in a bold and vigorous hand addressed it. 
 The other was far longer ; and over this one, thinking deeply, erasing 
 some words and pondering much over others, he spent a long hour. It 
 was nearly midnight, and he was chilled to the heart, when he stiffly 
 rose and took his way among the blanketed groups to the camp-fire 
 around which so many of his wearied comrades were sleeping the sleep 
 of the tired soldier. Here he tore to fragments and scattered in the 
 embers some notes and letters that were in his pockets. They blazed 
 up brightly, and by the glare he stood one moment studying young 
 Rollins's smooth and placid features ; then he looked around on the 
 unconscious circle of bronzed and bearded faces. There were many 
 types of soldier there, — men who had led brigades through the great 
 war and gone back to the humble bars of the liue-oificer at its close; 
 men who had led fierce charges against the swarming Indians in the 
 rough old days of the first prairie railways ; men who had won dis- 
 tinction and honorable mention in hard and trying frontier service ; 
 men who had their faults and foibles and weaknesses like other men, 
 and were aggressive or compliant, strong-willed or yielding, overbearing 
 or meek, as are their brethren in other walks of life ; men who were 
 simple of heart, single in purpose and ambition, diverse in character- 
 istics, but unanimous in one trait, — no meanness could live among 
 them ; and Jerrold's heart sank within him, colder, lower, stonier than 
 before, as he looked from face to face and cast up mentally the sum of 
 each man's character. His hospitality had been boundless, his bounty 
 lavish ; one and all they had eaten of his loaf and drunk of his cup ; 
 but was there among them one who could say of him, " He is generous 
 and I stand his friend" ? Was there one of them, one of theirs, for 
 whom he had ever denied himself a pleasure, great or small ? He 
 looked at poor old Gray, with his wrinkled, anxious face, and thought 
 of his distress of mind. Only a few thousands — not three years' pay — 
 had the veteran scraped and saved and stored away for his little girl, 
 whose heart \vas aching with its first cruel sorrow, — kis work, his un- 
 doing, his cursed, selfish greed for adulation, his reckless love of love. 
 The morrow's battle, if it came, might leave her or])haned and alone, 
 and, poor as it was, a father's pitying sympathy could not be her help 
 Avith the coming year. Would Gray mourn him if the fortune of war 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 859 
 
 made him the victim ? Would any one of those averted faces look with 
 pity and regret upon his stifiening form ? Would there be any one on 
 earth to whom his death would be a sorrow, but Nina ? Would it even 
 be a blow to her ? She loved him wildly, he knew that ; but would she 
 did she but dream the truth ? He knew her nature well. He knew 
 how quickly such burning love could turn to fiercest hate when con- 
 vinced that the object was utterly untrue. He had said nothing to her 
 of the photograph, nothing at all of Alice except to protest time and 
 again tliat his attentions to her were solely to win the good will of the 
 colonel's family and of the colonel himself, so that he might be proof 
 against the machinations of his foes. And yet had he not, that very 
 night on which he crossed the stream and let her peril her name and 
 honor for one stolen interview — had he not gone to her exultant wel- 
 come with a traitorous knowledge gnawing at his heart? That very 
 night, before they parted at the colonel's door had he not lied to Alice 
 Kenwick ? — had he not denied the story of his devotion to Miss Beau- 
 bien, and was not his practised eye watching eagerly the beautiful dark 
 face for one sign that the news was welcome, and so precipitate the 
 avowal trembling on his lips that it was her he madly loved, — not 
 Nina? Though she hurriedly bade him good-night, though she was 
 unprepared for any such announcement, he well knew that Alice Ren- 
 wick's heart fluttered at the earnestness of his manner, and that he had 
 indicated far more than he had said. Fear — not love — had drawn him 
 to Nina Beaubien that night, and hope had centred on her more beau- 
 tiful rival, when the discoveries of the night involved liim in the first 
 trembling symptoms of the downfall to come. And he was to have 
 spent the morning with her, the woman to whom he had lied in word, 
 while she to whom he had lied in word and deed was going from him, 
 not to return until the german, and even then he planned treachery. 
 He meant to lead with Alice Ren wick and claim that it must be "^vith 
 the colonel's daughter because the ladies of the garrison were the givers. 
 Then, he knew, Nina would not come at all, and, possibly, might quarrel 
 with him on that ground. What could have been an easier solution of 
 his troublous predicament ? She would break their secret engagement ; 
 he would refuse all reconciliation, and be free to devote himself to Alice. 
 But all these grave complications had arisen. Alice would not come. 
 Nina wrote demanding that he should lead with her, and that he should 
 meet her at St. Croix; and then came the crash. He owed his safety 
 to her self-sacrifice, and now must give up all hope of Alice Renwick. 
 He had accepted the announcement of their engagement. He could 
 not do less, after all that had happened and the painful scene at their 
 parting. And yet would it not be a blessing to her if he were killed ? 
 Even now in his self-abnegation and misery he did not fully realize 
 how mean he was, — how mean he seemed to others. He resented in 
 his heart what Sloat had said of him but the day before, little caring 
 whether he heard it or not : " It would be a mercy to that poor girl if 
 Jerrold were killed. He will break her heart with neglect, or drive 
 her mad with jealousy, inside of a year." But the regiment seemed to 
 agree with Sloat. 
 
 And so in all that little band of comrades he could call no man 
 
860 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 friend. One after another he looked upon the unconscious faces, cold 
 and averted in the oblivion of sleep, but not more cold, not more dis- 
 trustful, than when he had vainly sought among them one relenting 
 glance in the early moonlight that battle eve in bivouac. He threw 
 his arms upward, shook his head with hopeless gesture, then buried his 
 face in the sleeves of his rough campaign overcoat and strode blindly 
 from their midst. 
 
 Early in the morning, an hour before daybreak, the shivering out- 
 post crouching in a hollow to the southward catch sight of two dim 
 figures shooting suddenly up over a distant ridge, — horsemen, they 
 know at a glance, — and these two come loping down the moonlit ti'ail 
 over which two nights before had marched the cavalry speeding to the 
 rescue, over which in an hour the regiment itself must be on the move. 
 Old campaigners are two of the picket, and they have been especially 
 cautioned to be on the lookout for couriers coming back along the trail. 
 They spring to their feet, in readiness to welcome or repel, as the sentry 
 rings out his sharp and sudden challenge. 
 
 " Couriers from the corral," is the jubilant answer. " This Colonel 
 Maynard's outfit ?" 
 
 " Ay, ay, sonny," is the unmilitary but characteristic answer. 
 " What's your news ?" 
 
 " Got tliere in time, and saved what's left of 'em ; but it's a hell- 
 hole, and you fellows are wanted quick as you can come, — thirty mile?. 
 ahead. Where's the colonel ?" 
 
 The corporal of the guard goes back to the bivouac, leading the 
 two arrivals. One is a scout, a plainsman born and bred, the other a 
 sergeant of cavalry. They dismount in the timber and picket their 
 horses, then follow on foot the lead of their companion of the guard. 
 While the corporal and the scout proceed to the wagon-fly and fumble 
 at the opening, the tall sergeant stands silently a little distance in their 
 rear, and the occupants of a neighboring shelter — the counterpart of 
 the colonel's — begin to stir, as though their light slumber had been 
 broken by the smothered sound of footsteps. One of them sits up and 
 peers out at the front, gazing earnestly at the tall figure standing easily 
 there in the flickering light. Tlien he hails in low tones : 
 
 " That you, Mr. Jerrold ? What is the matter ?" 
 
 And the tall figure faces promptly towards the hailing voice. The 
 spurred heels come together with a click, the gauntleted hand rises in 
 soldierly salute to the broad brim of the scouting-hat, and a deep voice 
 answers, respectfully, — 
 
 " It is not Mr. Jerrold, sir. It is Sergeant McLeod, th Cavalry, 
 
 just in with despatches." 
 
 Armitage springs to his feet, sheds his shell of blankets, and steps 
 forth into the glade with his eyes fixed eagerly on the shadowy form in 
 front. He peers under the broad brim, as though striving to see the 
 eyes and features of tl\e tall dragoon. 
 
 "Did you get there in time?" he asks, half wondering whether 
 that was really the question uppermost in his mind. 
 
 "In time to save the survivors, sir; but no attack will be made 
 until the infantry get there." 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 861 
 
 " Were you not at Sibley last month ?" asks the captain, quickly. 
 
 " Yes, sir, — with the competitors." 
 
 "You went back before your regimental team, did you not?" 
 
 " I No, sir : I went back with them." 
 
 " You were relieved from duty at Sibley and ordered back before 
 them, were you not?" 
 
 Even in the pallid light Armitage could see the hesitation, the flurry 
 of surprise and distress, in the sergeant's face. 
 
 " Don't fear to tell me, man : I would rather hear it than any 
 news you could give me. I would rather know you were not Sergeant 
 McLeod than any fact you could tell. Speiik low, man, but tell me 
 here and now. Whatever motive you may have had for this disguise, 
 whatever anger or sorrows in the past, you must sink them now to save 
 the honor of the woman your madness has perilled. Answer me, for 
 your sister's sake : are you not Fred Renwick?" 
 
 " Do you swear to me she is in danger ?" 
 
 " By all that's sacred ; and you ouglit to know it." 
 
 " I am Fred Renwick. Now what can I do ?" 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 The sun is not an hour high, but the bivouac at the springs is far 
 behind. With advance-guard and flankers well out, the regiment is 
 tramping its way, full of eagerness and spirit. The men ciui hardly 
 refrain from bursting into song, but, although at " route step," the fact 
 that Indian scouts have already been sighted scurrying from bluif to blufi* 
 is sufficient to warn all hands to be silent and alert. Wilton with his 
 company is on the dangerous flank, and guards it well. Armitage with 
 Company B covers the advance, and his men are strung out in long 
 skirmish-line across the trail wherever the ground is sufficiently open 
 to admit of deployment. Where it is not, they spring ahead and ex- 
 plore every point where Indian may lurk, and render ambuscade of 
 the main column impossible. With Armitage is McLeod, the cavalry 
 sergeant who made the night ride with the scout who boi'e the de- 
 spatches. The scout has galloped on towards the railway with news of 
 the rescue, the sergeant guides the infantry reinforcement. Observant 
 men have noted that Armitage and the sergeant have had a vast deal 
 to say to each other during the chill hours of the early morn. Others 
 have noted that at the first brief halt the captain rode back, called 
 Colonel Maynard to one side, and spoke to him in low tones. The 
 colonel was seen to start with astonishment. Then he said a few words 
 to his second in command, and rode forward with Armitage to join the 
 advance. When the regiment moved on again and the head of column 
 hove in sight of the skirmishers, they saw that the colonel, Armitage, 
 and the sergeant of cavalry were riding side by side, and that the officers 
 were paying close attention to all the dragoon was saying. All were 
 eager to hear the particulars of the condition of affiiirs at the corral, 
 and all were disposed to be envious of the mounted captain who could 
 ride alongside the one participant in the rescuing charge and get it all 
 at first hand. The field-officers, of course, were mounted, but every 
 
862 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 line-officer marched afoot with his men, except that three horses had 
 been picked up at the railway and impressed by the quartermaster in 
 case of need, and these were assigned to the captains who happened to 
 command the skirmishers and flankers. 
 
 But no man had the faintest idea what manner of story that tall 
 sergeant was telling. It would have been of interest to every soldier 
 in the command, but to no one so much so as to the two who were his 
 absorbed listeners. Armitage, before their early march, had frankly 
 and briefly set before him his suspicions as to the case, and the trouble 
 in which Miss Renwick was involved. No time was to be lost. Any 
 moment might find them plunged in fierce battle; and who could fore- 
 tell the results? — who could say what might happen to prevent this 
 her vindication ever reaching the ears of her accusers ? Some men 
 wondered why it was that Colonel Maynard sent his compliments to 
 Captain Chester and begged that at the next halt he would join him. 
 The halt did not come for a long hour, and when it did come it was 
 very brief, but Chester received another message, and went forward to 
 find his colonel sitting in a little grove with the cavalryman, while 
 the orderly held their horses a short space away. Armitage had gone 
 forward to his advance, and Chester showed no surprise at the sight 
 of the sergeant seated side by side -with the colonel and in confidential 
 converse with him. There was a quaint, sly twinkle in Maynard's 
 eyes as he greeted his old friend. 
 
 " Chester," said he, " I want you to be better acquainted with my 
 step-son, Mr, Renwick. He has an apology to make to you." 
 
 The tall soldier had risen the instant he caught sight of the new- 
 comer, and even at the half-playful tone of the colonel would relax in 
 no degree his soldierly sense of the proprieties. He stood erect and held 
 4is hand at the salute, only very slowly lowering it to take the one 
 so frankly extended him by the captain, who, however, was grave and 
 quiet. 
 
 " I have suspected as much since daybreak," he said ; " and no 
 man is gladder to know it is you than I am." 
 
 "You would have known it before, sir, had I had the faintest' idea 
 of the danger in Avhich my foolhardiness had involved my sister. The 
 colonel has told you of my story. I have told him and Captain 
 Armitage what led to my mad freak at Sibley ; and, while I have 
 much to make amends for, I want to apologize for the blow I gave 
 you that night on the terrace. I was far more scared than you were, 
 sir." 
 
 " I think we can afford to forgive him, Chester. He knocked us 
 both out," said the colonel. 
 
 Chester bowed gravely. " That was the easiest part of the affair 
 to forgive," he said, "and it is hardly for me, I presume, to be the 
 only one to blame the sergeant for the trouble that has involved us 
 all, especially your household, colonel." 
 
 " It was expensive masquerading, to say the least," re])licd the colo- 
 nel ; " but he never realized the consequences until Armitage told him 
 to-day. You must hear his story in brief, Chester. It is needful that 
 three or four of us know it, so that some may be left to set things right 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 863 
 
 at Sibley. God grant us all safe return !" he added, piously, and with 
 deep emotion. " I can far better appreciate our home and happiness 
 than I could a month ago. Now, Renwick, tell the captain what you 
 have told us." 
 
 And briefly it was told : how in his youthful fury he had sworn 
 never again to set foot within the door of the father and mother who had 
 so wronged the poor girl he loved with boyish fervor ; how he called 
 down the vengeance of heaven upon them in his frenzy and distress ; 
 how he had sworn never again to set eyes on their faces. " May God 
 strike me dead if ever I return to this roof until she is avenged ! 
 May He deal with you as you have dealt with her !" was the curse that 
 flew from his wild lips, and with that he left them, stunned. He went 
 West, was soon penniless, and, caring not what he did, seeking change, 
 adventure, anything to take him out of his past, he enlisted in the 
 
 cavalry, and was speedily drafted to the th, which was just starting 
 
 forth on a stirring summer campaign. He was a fine horseman, a fine 
 shot, a man who instantly attracted the notice of his officers : the cam- 
 paign was full of danger, adventure, rapid and constant marching, and 
 before he knew it or dreamed it possible he had become deeply in- 
 terested in his new life. Only in the monotony of a month or two in 
 garrison that winter did the service seem intolerable. His comrades 
 were rough, in the main, but tlioroughly good-hearted, and he soon 
 won their esteem. The spring sent them again into the field ; another 
 stirring campaign, and here he won his stripes, and words of praise 
 from the lips of a veteran general officer, as well as the promise of 
 future reward ; and then the love of soldierly deeds and the thirst for 
 soldierly renown took firm hold in his breast. He began to turn towards 
 the mother and father who had been wrapped up in his future, — who 
 loved him so devotedly. He was forgetting his early and passionate 
 love, and the bitter sorrow of her death was losing fast its poignant 
 power to steel him against his kindred. He knew they could not but 
 
 be proud of the record he had made in the ranks of the gallant th, 
 
 and then he shrank and shivered when he recalled the dreadful words 
 of his curse. He had made up his mind to write, implore pardon for 
 his hideous and unfilial language, and invoke their interest in his 
 career, when, returning to Fort Kaiues for supplies, he picked up a 
 New York paper in the reading-room and read the announcement of 
 his father's death, " whose health had been broken ever since the dis- 
 appearance of his only son, two years before." The memory of his 
 malediction had, indeed, come home to him, and he fell, stricken by a 
 sudden and unaccountable blow. It seemed as though his heart had 
 given one wild leap, then stopped forever. Things did not go so well 
 afler this. He brooded over his words, and believed that an avenging 
 God had launched the bolt that killed the father as punishment to the 
 stubborn and recreant son. He then bethought him of his mother, of 
 pretty Alice, who had loved him so as a little girl. He could not 
 bring himself to write, but through inquiries he learned that the house 
 was closed and that they had gone abroad. He plodded on in his duties 
 a trying year : then came more lively field-work and reviving interest. 
 He was forgetting entirely the sting of his first great sorrow, and 
 
864 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 mourning gravely the gulf he had placed 'twixt him and his. He 
 thought time and again of his cruel words, and something began to 
 whisper to him he must see that mother again at once, kiss her hand, 
 and implore her forgiveness, or she, too, would be stricken suddenly. 
 He saved up his money, hoping that after the summer's rifle-work at 
 Sibley he might get a furlough and go East ; and the night he arrived 
 at the fort, tired with his long railway-journey and panting after a long 
 and difficult climb up-hill, his mother's face swam suddenly before his 
 eyes, and he felt himself going down. When they brought him to, 
 he heard that the ladies were Mrs. Maynard and her daughter Miss 
 Renwick, — his own mother, remarried, his own Alice, a grown young 
 woman. This was, indeed, news to put him in a flutter and spoil his 
 shooting. He realized at once that the gulf was wider than ever. 
 How could he go to her now, the wife of a colonel, and he an enlisted 
 man? Like other soldiers, he forgot that the line of demarcation was 
 one of discipline, not of sympatliy. He did not realize what any 
 soldier among his officers would gladly have told him, that he was 
 most worthy to reveal himself now, — a non-commissioned officer whose 
 record was an honor to himself and to his regiment, a soldier of whom 
 officers and comrades alike were proud. He never dreamed — indeed, 
 how few there are who do ! — that a man of his character, standing, 
 and ability is honored and respected by the very men whom the cus- 
 toms of the service require him to speak with only when spoken to. 
 He supposed that x)nly as Fred Ren wick could he extend his hand to 
 one of their number, whereas it was under his soldier name he won 
 their trust and admiration, and it was as Sergeant McLeod the officers 
 
 of the th were backing him for a commission that would make him 
 
 what they deemed him fit to be, — their equal. Unable to penetrate the 
 armor of reserve and discipline which separates the officer from the 
 rank and file, he never imagined that the colonel would have been the 
 first to welcome him had he known the truth. He believed that now 
 his last chance of seeing his mother was gone until that coveted com- 
 mission was won. Then came another blow : the doctor told him that 
 with his heart-trouble he could never pass the physical examination : 
 he could not hope for preferment, then, and must see her as he was, and 
 see her secretly and alone. Then came blow after blow. His shooting 
 had failed, so had that of others of his regiment, and he was ordered 
 to return in charge of the party early on the morrow. The order 
 reached him late in the evening, and before breakfast-time on the fol- 
 lowing day he was directed to start with his party for town, thence by 
 rail to his distant post. That night, in desperation, he made his plan. 
 Twice before he had strolled down to the post and with yearning eyes 
 had studied every feature of the colonel's house. He dared ask no 
 questions of servants or of the men in garrison, but he learned enough 
 to know which rooms were theirs, and he had noted that the windows 
 were always open. If he could only see their loved faces, kneel and 
 kiss his mother's hand, pray God to forgive him, he could go away 
 believing that he had undijne the spell and revoked the malediction 
 of his early youth. It was hazardous, but worth the danger. He 
 could go in peace and sin no more towards mother, at least ; and then 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 865 
 
 if she mourned and missed him, could he not find it out some day and 
 make himself known to her after his discharge ? He slipped out of 
 camp, leaving his boots behind, and wearing his light Apache moccasins 
 and flannel shirt and trousers. Danger to himself he had no great 
 fear of. If by any chance mother or sister should wake, he had but 
 to stretch forth his hand and say, " It is only I, — Fred." Danger to 
 thefni he never dreamed of. 
 
 Strong and athletic, despite his slender frame, he easily lifted the 
 ladder from Jerrold's fence, and, dodging the sentry when he spied him 
 at the gate, finally took it down back of the colonel's and raised it to a 
 rear window. By the strangest chance the window was closed, and he 
 could not budge it. Then he heard the challenge of a sentry around 
 on the east front, and had just time to slip down and lower the ladder 
 when he heard the rattle of a sword and knew it must be the officer 
 of the day. There was no time to carry oif the ladder. He left it 
 lying where it was, and sprang down the steps towards the station. 
 Soon he heard Number Five challenge, and knew the officer had passed 
 on : he waited some time, but nothing occurred to indicate that the 
 ladder was discovered, and then, plucking up courage and with a mut- 
 tered prayer for guidance and protection, he stole up-hill again, raised 
 the ladder to the Avest wall, noiselessly ascended, peered in Alice's win- 
 dow and could see a faint night-light burning in the hall beyond, but 
 that all was darkness there, stole around on the roof of the piazza to 
 the hall window, stepped noiselessly upon the sill, climbed over the 
 lowered sash, and found himself midway between the rooms. He 
 could hear the colonel's placid snoring and the regular breathing of the 
 other sleepers. No time was to be lost. Shading the little niglit-lamp 
 with one hand, he entered the open door, stole to the bedside, took one 
 long look at his mother's face, knelt, breathed upon, but barely brushed 
 with his trembling lips, the queenly white hand that lay upon the cov- 
 erlet, poured forth one brief prayer to God for protection and blessing 
 for her and forgiveness for him, retraced his steps, and caught sight of 
 the lovely picture of Alice in the Directoire costume. He longed for it 
 and could not resist. She had grown so beautiful, so exquisite. He 
 took it, frame and all, carried it into her room, slipped the card from 
 its place and hid it inside the breast of his shirt, stowed the frame away 
 behind her sofa-pillo\\', theit looked long at the lovely picture she her- 
 self made, lying there sleeping sweetly and peacefully amid the white 
 drapings of her dainty bed. Then 'twas time to go. He put the lamp 
 back in the hall, passed through her room, out at her window, and 
 down the ladder, and had it well on the way back to the hooks on 
 Jerrold's fence when seized and challenged by the officer of the day. 
 Mad terror possessed him then. He struck blindly, dashed off" in 
 panicky flight, paid no heed to sentry's cry or whistling missile, but 
 tore like a racer up the path and never slackened speed till Sibley was 
 far behind. 
 
 When morning came, the order that they should go was temporarily 
 suspended : some prisoners were sent to a neighboring military prison, 
 and he was placed in charge, and on his return from this duty learned 
 that the colonel's family had gone to Sablon. The next thing there 
 
866 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 was some strange talk that worried him, — a story that one of the men 
 who had a sweetheart who was second girl at Mrs. Hoyt's brought out 
 to camp, — a story that there was an officer who was too much in love 
 with Alice to keep away from the house even after the colonel so 
 ordered, and that he was prowling around the other night and the 
 colonel ordered Leary to shoot him, — Leary, who was on post on 
 Number Five. He felt sure that something was wrong, — felt sure that 
 it was due to his night visit, — and his first impulse was to find his 
 mother and confide the truth to her. He longed to see her again, and, 
 if harm had been done, to make himself known and explain everything. 
 Having no duties to detain him, he got a pass to visit town and permis- 
 sion to be gone a day or more. On Saturday evening he ran down to 
 Sablon, drove over, as Captain Armitage had already told them, and, 
 peering in his mother's room, saw her, still up, though in her night- 
 dress. He never dreamed of the colonel's being out and watching. 
 He had " scouted" all those trees, and no one was nigh. Then he 
 softly called ; she heard, and was coming to him, when again came fierce 
 attack : he had all a soldier's reverence for the person of the colonel, 
 and would never have harmed him had he known 'twas he : it was the 
 night watchman that had grappled wdth him, he supposed, and he had 
 no compunctions in sending him to grass. Then he fied again, knowjng 
 that he had only made bad worse, walked all that night to the station 
 next north of Sablon, — a big town where the early morning train 
 always stopped, — and by ten on Sunday morning he was in uniform 
 again and off with his regimental comrades under orders to haste 
 to their station, — there was trouble with the Indians at Spirit Rock 
 
 and the th were held in readiness. From beneath his scouting- 
 
 shirt he drew a flat packet, an Indian case, which he carefully un- 
 rolled, and there in its folds of wrappings was the lovely Directoire 
 photograph. 
 
 Whose, then, w^as the one tliat Sloat had seen in Jerrold's room ? 
 It was this that Armitage had gone forward to determine, and he found 
 his sad-eyed lieutenant with the skirmishers. 
 
 " Jerrold," said he, with softened manner, " a strange thing is 
 brought to light this morning, and I lose no time in telling you. The 
 man who was seen at Maynard's quarters, coming from Miss Renwick's 
 room, was her own brother and the colonel's step-son. He was the 
 man who took the photograph from Mrs. Maynard's room, and has 
 proved it this very day, — this very hour." Jerrold glanced up in 
 sudden surprise. " He is with us now, and only one thing remains, 
 which you can clear up. We are going into action, and I may not get 
 through, nor you, nor — who knows wlio ? Will you tell us now how 
 you came by your copy of that photograph ?" 
 
 For answer Jerrold fumbled in his pocket a moment and drew forth 
 two letters: 
 
 " I wrote these last night, and it was my intention to see that you 
 had them before it grew very hot. One is addressed to you, ih^ other 
 to Miss Beaubien. You had l)etter take them now," he said, wearily. 
 " There may be no time to talk after this. Send hers after it's over, 
 and don't read yours until then." 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 867 
 
 " Why, I don't understand this, exactly," said Armitage, puzzled. 
 " Can't you tell me about the j)icture ?" 
 
 " No. I promised not to while I lived ; but it's the simplest matter 
 in the world, and no one at the colonel's had any hand in it. They 
 never saw this one that I got to show Sloat. It is burned now. I 
 said 'twas given me. That was hardly the truth. I have paid for it 
 dearly enough." 
 • " And this note explains it ?" 
 
 " Yes. You can read it to-morrow." ' 
 
 XIX. 
 
 And the morrow has come. Down in a deep and bluff-shadowed 
 valley, hung all around with picturesque crags and pine-crested heights, 
 under a cloudless September sun whose warmth is tempered by the 
 mountain-breeze, a thousand rough-looking, bronzed and bearded and 
 powder-blackened men are resting after battle. 
 
 Here and there on distant ridge and point the cavalry vedettes keep 
 vigilant watch against surprise or renewed attack. Down along the 
 banks of a clear, purling stream a sentry paces slowly by the brown 
 line of rifles, swivel-stacked in the sunshine. Men by the dozen are 
 washing their blistered feet and grimy hands and faces in the cool, re- 
 freshing water ; men by the dozen lie soundly sleeping, some in the 
 broad glare, some in the shade of the little clump of willows, all heed- 
 lass of the pestering swarms of flies. Out on the broad, grassy slopes, 
 side-lined and watched by keen-eyed guards, the herds of cavalry horses 
 are quietly grazing, forgetful of the wild excitement of yester-even. 
 Every now and then some one of them lifts his head, pricks up his 
 ears, and snorts and stamps suspiciously as he sniffs at the puffs of 
 smoke that come drifting up the valley from the fires a mile away. 
 The waking men, too, bestow an occasional comment on the odor which 
 greets their nostrils. Down-stream where the fires are burning are 
 the blackened remnants of a wagon-train : tires, bolts, and axles are 
 lying about, but all wood- work is in smouldering ashes ; so, too, is all 
 that remains of several hundred-weight of stores and supplies destined 
 originally to nourish the Indians, but, by them, diverted to feed the 
 fire. 
 
 There is a big circle of seething flame and rolling smoke here, too, 
 — a malodorous neighborhood, around which fatigue-parties are work- 
 ing with averted heads ; and among them some surly and unwilling 
 Indians, driven to labor at the muzzle of threatening revolver or car- 
 bine, aid in dragging to the flames carcass after carcass of horse and 
 mule, and in gathering together and throwing on the pyre an array of 
 miscellaneous soldier garments, blouses, shirts, and trousers, all more 
 or less hacked and blood-stained, — all of no more use to mortal wearer. 
 
 Out on the southern slopes, just where a ravine crowded with wild- 
 rose bushes opens into the valley, more than half the command is gath- 
 ered, formed in rectangular lines about a number of shallow, elongated 
 pits, in each of which there lies the stiffening form of a comrade who 
 but yesterday joined in the battle- cheer that bui'st upon the valley with 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 the setting sun. Silent and reverent they stand in their rough cam- 
 paign garb. The escort of infantry " rests on arms ;" the others bow 
 their uncovered heads, and it is the voice of the veteran colonel that, 
 in accents trembling with sympathy and emotion, renders the last 
 tribute to fallen comrades and lifts to heaven the prayers for the dead. 
 Then see ! The mourning groups break away from the southern side ; 
 the brown rifles of the escort are lifted in air ; the listening rocks 
 resound to the sudden ring of the flashing volley ; the soft, low, 
 wailing good-by of the trumpets goes floating up the vale, and soon 
 the burial-parties are left alone to cover the once familiar faces with 
 the earth to which the soldier must return, and the comrades who are 
 left, foot and dragoon, come marching, silent, back to camp. 
 
 And when the old regiment begins its homeward journey, leaving 
 the well-won field to the fast-arriving commands and bidding hearty 
 soldier farewell to the cavalry comrades whose friendship they gained 
 in the front of a savage foe, the company that was the first to land its 
 fire in the fight goes back with diminished numbers and under com- 
 mand of its second lieutenant. Alas, poor Jerrold ! 
 
 There is a solemn little group around the camp-fire the night before 
 they go. Frank Armitage, flat on his back, with a rifle-bullet through 
 his thigh, but taking things very coolly for all that, is having a quiet 
 conference with his colonel. Such of the wounded of the entire com- 
 mand as are w^ell enough to travel by easy stages to the railway go with 
 Maynard and the regiment in the morning, and Sergeant McLcod, with 
 his sabre-arm in a sling, is one of these. But the captain of Company 
 B must wait until the surgeons can lift him along in an ambulance and 
 all fear of fever has subsided. To the colonel and Chester he hands 
 the note M'hich is all that is left to comfort poor Nina Beaubien. To 
 them he reads aloud the note addressed to himself: 
 
 " You are right in saying that the matter of my possession of that 
 photograph should be explained. I seek no longer to palliate my 
 action. In making that puppyish bet with Sloat I did believe that I 
 could induce Miss Renwick or her mother to let me have a copy ; but 
 I was refused so positively that I knew it was useless. This simply 
 added to my desire to have one. The photographer was the same that 
 took the pictures and furnished the albums for our class at graduation, 
 and I, more than any one, had been instrumental in getting the order 
 for him against very active opposition. He had always professed the 
 greatest gratitude to me and a willingness to do anything for me. I 
 wrote to him in strict confidence, told him of iho. intimate and close 
 relations existing between the colonel's family and me, told him I 
 wanted it to enlarge and present to her mother on her approaching 
 birthday, and promised him that I would never reveal how I came by 
 the picture so long as I lived ; and he sent me one, — just in time. 
 Have I not paid heavily for my sin ?" 
 
 No one spoke for a moment. Chester was the first to break the 
 silence : 
 
 " Poor fellow ! He kept liis word to the photographer ; but what 
 was it worth to a woman ?" 
 
 There had been a week of wild anxiety and excitement at Sibley. 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 869 
 
 It was known through tlie cohinins of the press that the regiment had 
 hurried forward from the railway the instant it reached the Colorado 
 trail, that it could not hope to get through to the valley of the Spirit 
 Wolf without a fight, and that the moment it succeeded in joining 
 hands with the cavalry already there a vigorous attack would be made 
 on the Indians. The news of the rescue of the survivors of Thornton's 
 command came first, and with it the tidings that Maynard and his regi- 
 ment were met only thirty miles from the scene and were pushing for- 
 ward. The next news came two days later, and a wail went up even 
 while men were shaking hands and rejoicing over the gallant fight that 
 had been made, and women were weeping for joy and thanking God 
 that those whom they held dearest were safe. It was down among the 
 wives of the sergeants and other veterans that the blow struck hardest 
 at Sibley; for the stricken officers were unmarried men, while among 
 the rank and file there were several who never came back to the little 
 ones who bore their name. Company B had suffered most, for the 
 Indians had charged fiercely on its deployed but steadfast line. Armi- 
 tage almost choked and broke down when telling the colonel about it 
 that night as he lay under the willows : " It was the first smile I had 
 seen on his face since I got back, — that with which he looked up in 
 my eyes and whispered good-by, — and died, — just after we drove them 
 back. My turn came later." Old Sloat, too, " had his customary 
 crack," as he expressed it, — a shot through the wrist that made him 
 hop and swear savagely until some of the men got to laughing at the 
 comical figure he cut, and then he turned and damned them with hearty 
 good will, and seemed all oblivious of the bullets that went zipping 
 past his frosting head. Young Rollins, to his inexj)ressible pride and 
 comfort, had a bullet-hole through his scouting-hat and another through 
 his shoulder-strap that raised a big welt on the white skin beneatli, but, 
 to the detriment of promotion, no captain was killed, and Jerrold gave 
 the only file. 
 
 The one question at Sibley was, "What will Nina Beaubien do?" 
 She did nothing. She would see nobody from the instant the news 
 came. She had hardly slept at night, — was always awake at dawn and 
 out at the gate to get the earliest copy of the morning papers; but the 
 news reached them at nio-htfall, and when some of the ladies from the 
 fort drove in to offer their sympathy and condolence in the morning, 
 and to make tender inquiry, the answer at the door was that Miss 
 Nina saw nobody, that her mother alone was with her, and that "she 
 was very still." And so it went for some days. Then there came the 
 return of the command to Sibley ; and hundreds of people went up 
 from town to see the six companies of the fort garrison march up 
 the winding road amid the thunder of M-elcome from the guns of the 
 light battery and the exultant strains of the band. Mrs. Maynard and 
 Alice were the only ladies of the circle who were not there : a son and 
 brother had joined them, after long absence, at Aunt Grace's cottage 
 at Sablon, was the explanation, and the colonel would bring them home 
 in a few days, after he had attended to some important matters at the 
 fort. In the first place, Chester had to see to it that the tongue of 
 scandal was slit, so far as the colonel's household was concerned, and 
 
870 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 all good people notified that no such thing had happened as was popu- 
 larly supposed (and " everybody" received the announcement with the 
 remark that she knew all along it couldn't be so), and that a grievous 
 and absurd but most mortifying blunder had been made. It was a 
 most unpleasant ghost to " down," the shadow of that scandal, for it 
 would come up to the surface of garrison chat at all manner of con- 
 fidential moments ; but no man or woman could safely speak of it to 
 Chester. It was gradually assumed that he was the man who had done 
 all the blundering and that he was supersensitive on the subject. 
 
 There was another thing never satisfactorily explained to some of 
 the garrison people, and that was Nina Beaubien's strange conduct. In 
 less than a week she was seen on the street in colors, — brilliant colors, 
 — when it was known she had ordered deep mourning, and then she 
 suddenly disappeared and went with her silent old mother abroad. 
 To this day no woman in society understands it, for when she came 
 back, long, long afterwards, it was a subject on which she would never 
 speak. There were one or two who ventured to ask, and the answer 
 was, " For reasons that concern me alone." But it took no great power 
 of mental vision to see that her heart wore black for him forever. 
 
 His letter explained it all. She had received it with a paroxysm 
 of passionate grief and joy, kissed it, covered it with wildest caresses 
 before she began to read, and then, little by little, as the words un- 
 folded before her staring eyes, turned cold as stone : 
 
 " It is my last night of life, Nina, and I am glad 'tis so. Proud 
 and sensitive as I am, the knowledge that every man in my regiment 
 has turned from me, — that I have not a friend among them, — that 
 there is no longer a place for me in their midst, — more than all, that I 
 des&^ve their contempt, — has broken my heart. We will be in battle 
 before the setting of another sun. Any man who seeks death in In- 
 dian fight can find it easily enough, and I can compel their respect in 
 spite of themselves. They will not recognize me, living, as one of them ; 
 but dying on the field, they have to place me on their roll of honor. 
 
 " But now I turn to you. What have I been, — what am I, — to 
 have won such love as yours? May God in heaven forgive me for my 
 past ! All too late I hate and despise the man I have been, — the man 
 whom you loved. One last act of justice remains. If I died without 
 it you would mourn me faithfully, tenderly, lovingly, for years, but if I 
 tell the truth you will see the utter unworthiness of the man, and your 
 love will turn to contempt. It is hard to do this, knowing that in 
 doing it I kill the only genuine regret and dry the only tear that 
 would bless my memory ; but it is the one sacrifice I can make to com- 
 plete my self-humiliation, and it is the one thing that is left me that 
 will free you. It will sting at first, but, like the surgeon's knife, its 
 cut is mercy. Nina, the very night I came to you on the bluifs, the 
 very night you perilled your honor to have that parting interview, I 
 went to you with a lie on ray lips. I had told her we were nothing to 
 each other, — you and I. More than that, I was seeking her love ; I 
 hoped I could win her ; and had she loved me I would have turned 
 from you to make her my wife. Nina, I loved Alice Renwick. Good- 
 by. Don't mourn for me after this." 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 871 
 
 XX. 
 
 They were having a family conclave at Sablon. The furlough 
 granted Sergeant McLeod on account of wound received in action with 
 hostile Indians would soon expire, and the question was, should he ask 
 an extension, apply for a discharge, or go back and rejoin his troop? 
 It was a matter on which there was much diversity of opinion. Mrs. 
 Maynard should naturally be permitted first choice, and to her wish 
 there was every reason for according deep and tender consideration. 
 No words can tell of the raptiu-e of that reunion with her long-lost son. 
 It was a scene over which the colonel could never ponder without deep 
 emotion. The telegrams and letters by vfhich he carefully prepared her 
 for Frederick's . coming were all insufficient. She knew well that her 
 boy must have greatly changed and matured, but when tliis tall, 
 bronzed, bearded, stalwart man sprang from the old red omnibus and 
 threw his one serviceable arm around her trembling form, the mother 
 was utterly overcome. Alice left them alone together a full hour before 
 even she intruded, and little by little, as the days went by and Mrs. 
 Maynard realized that it was really her Fred who was whistling about 
 the cottage or booming trooper songs in his great basso profundo, and 
 glorying in his regiment and the cavalry life he had led, a wonderful 
 content and joy shone in her handsome face. It was not until the 
 colonel announced that it was about time for them to think of going 
 back to Sibley that the cloud came. Fred said he couldn't go. 
 
 In fact, the colonel himself had been worrying a little over it. As 
 Fred Renwick, the tall distinguished young man in civilian costume, 
 he would be welcome anywhere ; but, though his garb was that of the 
 sovereign citizen so long as his furlough lasted, there were but two 
 weeks more of it left, and officially he was nothing more nor less than 
 Sergeant McLeod, Troop B, th Cavalry, and there was no prece- 
 dent for a colonel's entertaining as an honored guest and social equal 
 one of the enlisted men of the army. He rather hoped that Fred 
 would yield to his mother's entreaties and apply for a discharge. His 
 wound and the latent trouble with his heart would probably render it 
 an easy matter to obtain ; and yet he was ashamed of himself for the 
 feeling. 
 
 Then there was Alice. It was hardly to be supposed that so very high 
 bred a young woman would relish the idea of being seen around Fort 
 Sibley on the arm of her brother the sergeant ; but, wonderful to relate. 
 Miss Alice took a radically different view of the whole situation. So 
 far from wishing Fred out of the army, she importuned him day after 
 day until he got out his best uniform, with its resplendent chevrons and 
 stripes of vivid yellow, and the yellow helmet-cords, though they were 
 but humble worsted, and when he came forth in that dress, with the 
 bronze medal on his left breast and the sharpshooter's silver cross, 
 his tall athletic jSgure showing to sucli advantage, his dark, Southern, 
 manly features so enhanced by contrast with his yellow facings, she 
 clapped her hands with a cry of delight and sprang into his one avail- 
 able arm and threw her own about his neck and kissed him again and 
 again. Even mamma had to admit he looked astonishingly well ; but 
 Alice declared she would never thereafter be reconciled to seeing him in 
 
872 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 anything but a cavalry uniform. The colonel found her not at all of 
 her mother's way of thinking. She saw no reason why Fred should 
 leave the service. Other sergeants had won their commissions every 
 year : why not he ? Even if it were some time in coming, was there 
 shame or degradation in being a cavalry sergeant ? Not a bit of it ! 
 Fred himself was loath to quit. He was getting a little homesick, too, 
 — homesick for the boundless life and space and air of the broad 
 frontier, — homesick for the rapid movement and vigorous hours in the 
 saddle and on the scout. His arm was healing, and such a delight of a 
 letter had come from his captain, telling him that the adjutant had just 
 been to see him about the new staff of the regiment. The gallant 
 sergeant-major, a young Prussian of marked ability, had been killed 
 early in the campaign ; the vacancy must soon be filled, and the colonel 
 and the adjutant both thought at once of Sergeant McLeod. " I won't 
 stand in your way, sergeant," wrote his troop commander, " but you 
 know that old Ryan is to be discharged at the end of his sixth enlist- 
 ment the lOtli of next month ; there is no man I would sooner see in 
 his place as first sergeant of my troop than yourself, and I hate to lose 
 you ; but, as it will be for the gain and the good of the whole regiment, 
 you ought to accept the adjutant's offer. All the men rejoice to hear 
 you are recovering so fast, and all will be glad to see Sergeant McLeod 
 back again." 
 
 Even Mrs. Maynard could not but see the pride and comfort this 
 letter gave her son. Her own longing Avas to have him established in 
 some business in the East ; but he said frankly he had no taste for it, 
 and would only pine for the old life in the saddle. There were other 
 reasons, too, said he, why he felt that he could not go back to New 
 York, and his voice trembled, and Mrs. Maynard said no more. It 
 was the sole allusion he had made to the old, old sorrow, but it was 
 plain that the recovery was incomplete. The colonel and the doctor at 
 Sibley believed that Fred could be carried past the medical board by a 
 little management, and everything began to look as though he would 
 have his way. All they were waiting for, said the colonel, was to hear 
 from Armitage. He was still at Fort Russell with the head-quarters 
 
 and several troops of the th Cavalry : his wound was too severe 
 
 for him to travel farther for weeks to come, but he could write, and he 
 had been consulted. They were sitting under the broad piazza at 
 Sablon, looking out at the lovely, placid lake, and talking it over 
 among themselves. 
 
 " I have always leaned on Armitage ever since I first came to the 
 regiment and f )und him adjutant," said the colonel. " I always found 
 his judgment clear ; but since our last experience I have begun to look 
 upon him as infallible." 
 
 Alice Renwick's face took on a flood of crimson as slie sat there by 
 her brother's side, silent and attehtive. Only within the week that fol- 
 lowed their return — the colonel's and her brother's— had the story of 
 the strange complication been revealed to them. Twice had she heard 
 from Fred's lips the story of Frank Armitage's greeting that frosty 
 morning at the sjirings. Time and again had she made her mother go 
 over the colonel's account of the confidence and faith he had expressed 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 873 
 
 in there being a simple explanation of the whole mystery, and of his 
 indignant refusal to attach one moment's suspicion to her. Shocked, 
 stunned, outraged as she felt at the mere fact that such a story had 
 gained an instant's credence in garrison circles, she was overwhelmed 
 by the weight of circumstantial evidence that had been arrayed against 
 her. Only little by little did her mother reveal it to her. Only after 
 several days did Fred repeat the story of his night adventure and his 
 theft of her picture, of his narrow escape, and of his subsequent visit to 
 the cottage. Only gradually had her mother revealed to her the cir- 
 cumstances of Jerrold's wager with Sloat, and the direful consequences ; 
 of his double absences the very nights on which Fred had made his 
 visits ; of the suspicions that resulted, the accusations, and his refusal 
 to explain and clear her name. Mrs. Maynard felt vaguely relieved to 
 see how slight an impression the young man had made on her daughter's 
 heart. Alice seemed but little surprised to hear of the engagement to 
 Nina Beaubien, of her rush to his rescue, and their romantic parting. 
 The tragedy of his death hushed all further talk on that subject. There 
 was one on which she could not hear enough, and that was about the 
 man who had been most instrumental in the rescue of her name and 
 honor. Alice had only tender sorrow and no reproach for her step-father- 
 when, after her mother told her the story of his sad experience twenty 
 years before, she related his distress of mind and suspicion when he read 
 Jerrold's letter. It was then that Alice said, " And against that piece 
 of evidence no man, I suppose, would hold me guiltless." 
 
 " You are wrong, dear," was her mother's answer. " It was power- 
 less to move Captain Armitage. -He scouted the idea of your guilt from 
 the moment he set eyes on you, and never rested until he had overturned 
 the last atom of evidence. Even I had to explain," said her mother, 
 " simply to confirm his theory of the light Captain Chester had seen, 
 and the shadows and the form at the window. It was just exactly as 
 Armitage reasoned it out. I was wretched and wakeful, sleeping but 
 fitfully, that night. I arose and took some bromide about three o'clock, 
 and soon afterwards heard a fall, or a noise like one. I thought of you, 
 and got up and went in your room, and all was quiet there, but it seemed 
 close and warm : so I raised your shade, and then left both your door 
 and mine open and went back to bed. I dozed away presently, and 
 then woke feeling all startled again, — don't you know ? — the sensation 
 one experiences when aroused from sleep, certain that there has been a 
 strange and startling noise, and yet unable to tell what it was? I lay 
 still a moment, but the colonel slept through it all, and I wondered at 
 it. I knew there had been a shot, or something, but could not bear to 
 disturb him. At last I got up again and went to your room to be sure 
 you were all right, and you were sleeping soundly still ; but a breeze 
 was beginning to blow and flap your shade to and fro, so I drew it and 
 went out, taking my lamp with me this time and softly closing your 
 door behind me. See how it all seemed to fit in with everything else 
 that had happened. It took a man with a will of his own and an un- 
 shaken faith in woman to stand firm against such evidence." 
 
 And, though Alice Renwick was silent, she appreciated the fact 
 none the less. Day after day she clung to her stalwart brother's side. 
 Vol. XL.- 57 
 
874 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 She had ceased to ask questions about Captain Armitage and that 
 strange greeting after the first day or two, but, oddly enough, she could 
 never let him talk long of any subject but that campaign, of his ride 
 with the captain to the front, of the long talk they had had, and then 
 the stirring fight and the magnificent way in which Armitage had 
 handled his long skirmish-line. He was enthusiastic in his praise of 
 the tall Saxon captain. He soon noted how silent and absorbed she 
 sat when he was the theme of discourse; he incidentally mentioned 
 little things " he" had said about " her" that morning, and marked 
 how her color rose and her eyes flashed quick, joyful, questioning 
 glance at his face, then fell in maiden shyness. He had speedily 
 gauged the cause of that strange excitement displayed by Armitage 
 at seeing him the morning he rode in with the scout. Now he was 
 gauging, with infinite delight, the other side of the question. Then, 
 brother-like, he began to twit and tease her ; and that was the last of 
 the confidences. 
 
 All the same it was an eager group that surrounded the colonel the 
 evening he came down with the captain's letter. " It settles the thing 
 in my mind. We'll go back to Sibley to-morrow; and as for you, 
 Sergeant-Major Fred, your name has gone in for a commission, and 
 I've no doubt a very deserving sergeant will be spoiled in making a 
 very good-for-nothing second lieutenant. Get you back to your regi- 
 ment, sir, and call on Captain Armitage as soon as you reach Fort 
 Russell, and tell him you are much obliged. He has been blowing 
 your trumpet for you there ; and, as some of those cavalrymen have 
 sense enough to appreciate the opinion of such a soldier as my ex- 
 adjutant, — some of them, mind you : I don't admit that all cavalry- 
 men have sense enough to keep them out of perpetual trouble, — you 
 came in for a hearty endorsement, and you'll probably be up before the 
 next board for examination. Go and bone your Constitution, and the 
 Rule of Three, and who was the father of Zebedee's children, and the 
 order of the Ptolemies and the Seleucidse, and other such things that 
 they'll be sure to ask you as indispensable to the mental outfit of an 
 Indian-fighter." It was evident that the colonel was in joyous mood. 
 But Alice was silent. She wanted to hear the letter. He would have 
 handed it to Frederick, but both Mrs. Maynard and Aunt Grace 
 clamored to hear it read aloud : so he cleared his throat and began : 
 
 "My deak Colonel, — 
 
 " Fred's chances for a commission are good, as the enclosed papers 
 will show you ; but even were this not the case I would have but one 
 thing to say in answer to your letter : he should go back to his troop. 
 
 " Whatever our friends and fellow-citizens may think on the subject, 
 I hold that the profession of the soldier is to the full as honorable as 
 any in civil life ; and it is liable at any moment to be more useful. I 
 do not mean the officer alone. I say, and mean, the soldier. As for 
 me, I would rather be first sergeant of my troop or company, or ser- 
 geant-major of my regiment, than any lieutenant in it except the adju- 
 tant. Hope of promotion is all that can make a subaltern's life en- 
 durable, but the staif-sergeant or the first sergeant, honored and 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 875 
 
 respected by his officers, decorated for bravery by Congress, and looked 
 up to by his comrades, is a king among men. The pay has nothing 
 to do with it. I say to Renwick, ' Come back as soon as your wound 
 will let you,' and I envy him the welcome that will be his. 
 
 " As for me, I am even more eager to get back to you all ; but 
 things look very dubious. The doctors shake their heads at anything 
 under a month, and say I'll be lucky if I eat my Thanksgiving dinner 
 with you. If trying to get well is going to help, October shall not be 
 done with before B Company will report me present again. 
 
 " I need not tell you, my dear old friend, how I rejoice with you in 
 your — hum and haw and this is all about something else," goes on the 
 colonel, in malignant disregard of the longing looks in the eyes of three 
 women, all of whom are eager to hear the rest of it, and one of whom 
 wouldn't say so for worlds. " Write to me often. Remember me 
 warmly to the ladies of your household. I fear Miss Alice would de- 
 spise this wild, open prairie-country ; there is no golden-rod here, and I 
 so often see her as — hum and hum and all that sort of talk of no interest 
 to anybody," says he, with a quizzical look over his " bows" at the 
 lovely face and form bending forward with forgetful eagerness to hear 
 how " he so often sees her." And there is a great bunch of golden-rod 
 in her lap now, and a vivid blush on her cheek. The colonel is waxing 
 as frivolous as Fred, and quite as great a tease. 
 
 And then October comes, and Fred has gone, and the colonel and 
 his household are back at Sibley, where the garrison is enraptured at 
 seeing them, and where the women precipitate themselves upon them 
 in tumultuous welcome. If Alice cannot quite make up her mind to 
 return the kisses, and shrinks slightly from the rapturous embrace of 
 some of the younger and more impulsive of the sisterhood, — if Mrs. 
 Maynard is a trifle more distant and stately than was the case before 
 they went away, — the garrison does not resent it. The ladies don't 
 wonder they feel indignant at the way people behaved and talked ; and 
 each lady is sure that the behavior and the talk were all somebody 
 else's ; not by any possible chance could it be laid at the door of the 
 speaker. And Alice is the reigning belle beyond dispute, though there 
 is only subdued gayety at the fort, for the memory of their losses at 
 the Spirit Wolf is still fresh in the minds of the regiment. But no 
 man alludes to the events of the black August night, no woman is 
 permitted to address either Mrs. Maynard or her daughter on the sub- 
 ject. There are some who seek to be confidential and who cautiously 
 feel their way for an opening, but the mental sparring is vain : there is 
 an indefinable, something that tells the intruder, "Thus far, and no 
 farther." Mrs. Maynard is courteous, cordial, and hospitable, Alice 
 sweet and gracious and sympathetic, even, but confidential never. 
 
 And then Captain Armitage, late in the month, comes home on 
 crutches, and his men give him a welcome that makes the rafters ring, 
 and .he rejoices in it and thanks them from his heart ; but there is a 
 welcome his eyes plead for that would mean to him far more than any 
 other. How wistfully he studies her face ! How unmistakable is the 
 love and worship in every tone ! How quickly the garrison sees it all, 
 and how mad the garrison is to see whether or not 'tis welcome to her ! 
 
876 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 But Alice Renwick is no maiden to be lightly won. The very thought 
 that the garrison had so easily given her over to JerroJd is enough to 
 mantle her cheek with indignant protest. She accepts his attentions, 
 as she does those of the younger officers, with consummate grace. She 
 shows no preference, will grant no favors. She makes fair distribution 
 of her dances at the hops at the fort and the parties in town. There 
 are yonng civilians who begin to be devoted in society and to come ont 
 to the fort on every possible opportunity, and these, too, she welcomes 
 with laughing grace and cordiality. She is a glowing, radiant, gor- 
 geous beauty this cool autumn, and she rides and drives and dances, 
 and, the women say, flirts, and looks handsomer every day, and poor 
 Armitage is beginning to look very grave and depressed. " He wooes 
 and wins not," is the cry. His wound has almost healed, so far as the 
 thigh is concerned, and his crutches are discarded, but his heart is 
 bleeding, and it tells on his general condition. The doctors say he 
 ought to be getting well faster, and so they tell Miss Renwick, — at 
 least somebody does; but still she relents not, and it is something 
 beyond the garrison's power of conjecture to decide what the result 
 will be. Into her pretty white-and-yellow" room no one penetrates 
 except at her invitation, even when the garrison ladies are spending the 
 day at the colonel's ; and even if they did there would be no visible 
 sign by which they could judge whether his flowers were treasured or 
 his picture honored above others. Into her brave and beautiful nature 
 none can gaze and say with any confidence either " she loves" or " she 
 loves not." Winter comes, with biting cold and blinding snow, and 
 still there is no sign. The joyous holidays, the glad New Year, are 
 almost at hand, and still there is no symptom of surrender. No one 
 dreams of the depth and reverence and gratitude and loyalty and 
 strength of the love that is burning in her heart until, all of a sudden, 
 in the most unexpected and astonishing way, it bursts forth in sight 
 of all. 
 
 They had been down skating on the slough, a number of the 
 youngsters and the daughters of the garrison. Rollins was there, 
 doing the devoted to Mamie Gray, and already there were gossips 
 whispering that she would soon forget she ever knew such a beau as 
 Jerrold in the new-found happiness of another one; Hall was there 
 with the doctor's pretty daughter, and Mrs. Hoyt was matronizing the 
 party, which would, of coui-se, have been incomplete without Alice. She 
 had been skating hand in hand with a /ievoted young subaltern in the 
 artillery, and poor Armitage, whose leg was unequal to skating, had been 
 ruefully admiring the scene. He had persuaded Sloat to go out and 
 walk with him, and Sloat went ; but the hollow mockery of the whole 
 thing became apparent to him after they had been watching the skaters 
 awhile, and he got chilled and wanted Armitage to push ahead. The 
 captain said he believed his leg was too stiff for further tramping and 
 would be the better for a rest ; and Sloat left him. 
 
 Heavens ! how beautiful she was, with her sparkling eyes and 
 radiant color, glowing with the graceful exercise ! He sat there on 
 an old log, watching the skaters as they flew by him, and striving to 
 keep up an impartial interest, or an appearance of it, for the other girls. 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 877 
 
 But the red sun was going down, and twilight was on them all of a 
 sudden, and he could see nothing but that face and form. He closed 
 his eyes a moment to shut out the too eager glare of the glowing disk 
 taking its last fierce peep at them over the western bluffs, and as he 
 closed them the same vision came back, — the picture that had haunted 
 his every living, dreaming moment since the beautiful August Sunday 
 in the woodland lane at Sablon. With undying love, with changeless 
 passion, his life was given over to the fair, slender maiden he had seen 
 in all the glory of the sunshine and the golden-rod, standing with up- 
 lifted head, with all her soul shiniyg in her beautiful eyes and thrilling 
 in her voice. Both worshipping find worshipped was Alice ReuNvick 
 as she sang her hymn of praise in unison with the swelling chorus that 
 floated through the trees from tlie little brown church upon the hill. 
 From that day she was Queen Alice in every thought, and he her loyal, 
 faithful knight for weal or woe. 
 
 Boom went the sunset gun far up on the parade above them. 
 'Twas dinner-time, and the skatei's were compelled to give up their pas- 
 time. Armitage set his teeth at the entirely too devotional attitude of 
 the artilleryman as he slowly and lingeringly removed her skates, and 
 turned away in that utterly helpless frame of mind which will overtake 
 the strongest men on similar occasions. He had been sitting too long in 
 the cold, and was chilled through and stiff, and his wounded leg seemed 
 numb. Leaning heavily on his stout stick, he began slowly and j)ain- 
 fuUy the ascent to the railway, and chose for the purpose a winding 
 path that was far less steep, though considerably longer, than the sharp 
 climb the girls and their escorts made so light of. One after another 
 the glowing faces of the fair skaters appeared above the embankment, 
 and their gallants carefully convoyed tliem across the icy and slippery 
 track to the wooden platform beyond. Arjnitage, toiling slowly up his 
 pathway, heard their blithe laughter, and thought with no little bitter- 
 ness that it was a case of " out of sigiit out of mind" with him, as with 
 better men. What sense was there in his long devotion to her ? Why 
 stand between her and the far more natural choice of a lover nearer 
 her years ? " Like unto like" was Nature's law. It was flying in the 
 face of Providence to expect to win the love of one so young and fair, 
 when others so young and comely craved it. The sweat was beaded 
 on his forehead as he neared the top and came in sight of the platform. 
 Yes, they had no thought for him. Already Mrs. Hoyt was half-way 
 up the wooden stairs, and the others were scattered more or less between 
 that point and the platform at the station. Far down at the south end 
 paced the fur-clad sentry. There it was an easy step from the track to 
 the boards, and there, with much laughter but no difficulty, the young 
 officers had lifted their fair charges to the walk. All were chatting 
 gayly as they turned away to take the wooden causeway from the station 
 to the stairs, and Miss Renwick was among the foremost at the point 
 where it left the platform. Here, how^ever, she glanced back and then 
 about her, and then, bending down, began fumbling at the buttons of 
 her boot. 
 
 " Oh, permit me. Miss Renwick," said her eager escort. " I will 
 button it." 
 
878 FROM THE RANKS. 
 
 " Thanks, no. Please don't wait, good people. I'll be with you in 
 an instant." 
 
 And so the other girls, absorbed in talk with their respective gal- 
 lants, passed her by, and then Alice Renwick again stood erect and 
 looked anxiously but quickly back. 
 
 " Captain Arraitage is not in sight, and we ought not to leave him. 
 He may not find it easy to climb to that platform," she said. 
 
 " Armitage ? Oh, he'll come on all right," answered the battery- 
 man, with easy assurance. " Maybe he has gone round by the road. 
 Even if he hasn't, I've seen him make that in one jump many a time. 
 He's an active old buffer for his years." 
 
 " But his wound may prove too much for that jump now. Ah ! 
 there he comes," she answered, with evident relief; and just at the 
 moment, too, the forage-cap of the tall soldier rose slowly into view 
 some distance up the track, and he came walking slowly down on the 
 sharp curve towards the platform, the same sharp curve continuing on 
 out of sight behind him, — behind the high and rocky bluff. 
 
 " He's taken the long way up," said the gunner. " Well, shall we 
 go on?" 
 
 " Not yet," she said, with eyes that were glowing strangely and a 
 voice that trembled. Her cheeks, too, were paling. " Mr. Stuart, 
 I'm sure I heard the roar of a train echoed back from the other side." 
 
 " Nonsense, Miss Ren wick ! There's no train either way for two 
 hours yet." 
 
 But she had begun to edge her way back toward the platform, and 
 he could not but follow. Looking across the intervening space, — a 
 rocky hollow twenty feet in depth, — he covild see that the captain had 
 reached the platform and was seeking for a good place to step up ; then 
 that he lifted his right foot and placed it on the planking and with his 
 cane and the stiff and wounded left leg strove to push himself on. 
 Had there been a hand to help him, all would have been easy enough ; 
 but there was none, and the plan would not work. Absorbed in his 
 efforts, he could not see Stuart ; he did not see that Miss Ren wick had 
 left her companions and was retracing her steps to get back to the 
 platform. He heard a sudden dull roar from the rocks across the 
 stream ; then a sharp, shrill whistle just around the bluff. My God ! 
 a train, and that man there, alone, helpless, deserted ! Stuart gave a 
 shout of agony : " Back ! Roll back over the bank !" Armitage 
 glanced around ; determined ; gave one mighty effort ; the iron-ferruled 
 stick slipped on the icy track, and down he went, prone between the 
 glistening rails, even as the black vomiting monster came thundering 
 round the bend. He had struck his head upon the iron, and was 
 stunned, not senseless, but scrambled to his hands and knees and strove 
 to crawl away. Even as he did so he heard a shriek of anguish in his 
 ears, and with one wild leap Alice Renwick came flying from the plat- 
 form in the very face of advancing death, and the next instant, her arm 
 clasped about his neck, his strong arms tightly clasping her, they were 
 lying side by side, bruised, stunned, but safe, in a welcoming snow-drift 
 half-way down the hither bank. 
 
 When Stuart reached the scene, as soon as tlie engine and some 
 
FROM THE RANKS. 879 
 
 wrecking-cars had thundered by, he looked down upon a picture that 
 dispelled any lingering doubt in his mind. Arraitage, clasping Queen 
 Alice to his heart, was half rising from the blessed mantlet of the snow, 
 and she, her head upon his broad shoulder, was smiling faintly up into 
 his face : then the glorious eyes closed in a death-like swoon. 
 
 Fort Sibley had its share of sensations that eventful year. Its 
 crowning triumph in the one that followed was the wedding in the 
 early spring. Of all the lovely women there assembled, the bride by 
 common consent stood unrivalled, — Queen Alice indeed. There was 
 some diiference of opinion among authorities as to who was really the 
 finest-looking and most soldierly among the throng of officers in the 
 conventional full-dress uniform : many there were who gave the palm 
 to the ta,ll, dark, slender lieutenant of cavalry who wore his shoulder- 
 knots for the first time on this occasion, and who, for a man from the 
 ranks, seemed consummately at home in the manifold and trying duties 
 of a groomsman. Mrs. Maynard, leaning on his arm at a later hour 
 and looking up rapturously in his bronzed features, had no divided 
 opinion. While others had by no means so readily forgotten or for- 
 given the mad freak that so nearly involved them all in wretched mis- 
 understanding, she had nothing but rejoicing in his whole career. 
 Proud of the gallant officer who had won the daughter whom she 
 loved so tenderly, she still believes, in the depths of the boundless 
 mother-love, that no man can quite surpass her soldier sou. 
 
 THE END. 
 
380 MF FIRST APPEARANCE. 
 
 MY FIRST APPEARANCE. 
 
 ONE bright October morning, between five and six years ago, I 
 started in search of the stage door of the Grand Opera-House 
 in New York. The necessity of earning my own daily bread had 
 arisen. As ray voice was the most available resource at my command, 
 I determined to turn it at once into money. 
 
 I went alone, for two reasons. In the first place, if I failed in my 
 attempt no one would be the wiser. If, on the other hand, my mission 
 met with success, I felt a pride in standing upon my own merits and 
 ability to perform the work I had chosen in preference to taking ad- 
 vantage of the glamour of social influence that might have been thrown 
 around the debut of one who stepped, as it were, directly from the 
 drawing-room to the stage. My own knowledge of theatrical life had 
 been gained entirely audience-side of the footlights ; and of its require- 
 ments in detail I was absolutely ignorant. 
 
 A lucky chance had obtained for me a letter of introduction to the 
 manager. Armed with this sesame to that delightfully mysterious place 
 " behind the scenes," and filled with my orchestra-stall views, I pre- 
 sented myself at the stage entrance. The old man in charge of the 
 door, having taken my letter and bidden me " wait here," disappeared 
 into the gloom, whence he emerged a few minutes later with the mes- 
 sage that I was to come and wait on the stage ; they were rehearsing, 
 and the manager could not see me until they had finished. 
 
 I followed him dowai the long dark passage with a mingled feeling 
 of suppressed excitement, awe, and a strong desire to turn and run 
 away. But before I could put the latter into action the old man had 
 placed a chair for me in a remote corner of the stage and left me to my 
 fate. 
 
 When my eyes became accustomed to the dim light, my first im- 
 pressions were of the vastness of the stage, only half occupied by the 
 people rehearsing, the chill gloom of its bare high brick walls, and the 
 unattractiveness of the scenery and stage " seats" piled up against them. 
 The only familiar thing in the whole scene was the musty, gassy odor 
 which is sometimes wafted to the audience at the raising of the curtain. 
 
 The company were having a final rehearsal of the opera to be pro- 
 duced that evening. As I watched its progress from my distant seat, 
 I got some insight into "stage business" and the management of a 
 real rehearsal, a bewildering revelation to one of my merely amateur 
 experience. 
 
 Occasionally some member of the chorus when off the scene 
 glanced at me askance. Others came up and inquired for whom I was 
 waiting. Their curiosity gratified, they returned to their work and 
 left me unnoticed ; but I was seized with such an overwhelming loneli- 
 ness that even the novelty of my surroundings hardly overcame my 
 sense of being a sort of forbidden guest among people whose lives and 
 interests were entirely apart from mine. 
 
DuNRAVEN Ranch 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES KING, 
 
 U.S. AKMY, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE COLOKEL'S DAUGHTER," "FROM THE RANKS," 
 "THE DESERTER," ETC. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 
 
Copyriglit, 1888, by J. B. Lippincott Company. 
 
 ^ll| [s^Xf■H'^■,T■^R5A^^.PPINTERSl| l^ 
 
LIPPINCOTT'S 
 ]y[ONTHLY J^AGAZINE. 
 
 DECEMBER, 188 8. 
 
 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 IT was nearly midnight, and still the gay jmrty lingered on the ve- 
 randa. There had been a fortnight of "getting settled" at the 
 new post, preceded by a month of marching that had brought the 
 battalion from distant service to this strange, Texan station. The new- 
 comers had been hospitably welcomed by the officers of the little gar- 
 rison of infantry, and now, in recognition of their many courtesies, the 
 field-officer commanding the arriving troops had been entertaining the 
 resident officers and ladies at dinner. The colonel was a host in him- 
 self, but preferred not to draw too heavily on his reserves of anecdote 
 and small-talk, so he had called in two of his subalterns to assist in the 
 pleasant duty of being attentive to the infantry ladies, and just now, 
 at 11.45 P.M., he was wondering if Lieutenant Perry had not too liter- 
 ally construed his instructions, for that young gentleman was devoting 
 himself to Mrs. Belknap in a manner so marked as to make the cap- 
 tain, her lawful lord and master, manifestly uneasy. 
 
 Mrs. Belknap, however, seemed to enjoy the situation immensely. 
 She was a pretty woman at most times, as even her rivals admitted. 
 She was a beautiful woman at all times, was the verdict of the officers 
 of the regiment when they happened to speak of the matter among 
 themselves. She was dark, with lustrous eyes and sweeping lashes, 
 with coral lips and much luxuriance of tress, and a way of glancing 
 sideways from under her heavily-fringed eyelids that the younger and 
 more impressionable men found quite irresistible when accorded the 
 rare luxury of a Ute-a-tHe. Belknap was a big and boisterous man ; 
 Mrs. Belknap was small in stature, and soft — very soft — of voice. Bel- 
 knap was either brusquely repellent or oppressively cordial in manner ; 
 Mrs. Belknap was either gently and exasperatingly indifferent to those 
 whom she did not care to attract, or caressingly sweet to those whose 
 
 761 
 
752 DVNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 attentions she desired. In their own regiment the young officers soon 
 found that unless they wished to be involved in an unpleasantness with 
 Belknap it was best to be only very moderately devoted to his pretty wife, 
 and those to whom an unpleasantness with the big captain might have 
 had no terrors of consequence were deterred by the fact that Mrs. Bel- 
 knap's devotee among the "youngsters" had invariably become an 
 object of coldness and aversion to the other dames and damsels of the 
 garrison. Very short-lived, therefore, had been the little flirtations 
 that sprang up from time to time in those frontier posts wherein Cap- 
 tain and Mrs. Belknap were among the chief ornaments of society ; 
 but now matters seemed to be taking other shape. From the very day 
 that handsome Ned Perry dismounted in front of Belknap's quarters 
 and with his soldierly salute reported to the then commanding officer 
 that Colonel Brainard and his battalion of cavalry would arrive in 
 the course of two or three hours, Mrs. Belknap had evinced a con- 
 tentment in his society and assumed an air of quasi-proprietorship that 
 served to annoy her garrison sisters more than a little. For the time 
 being all the cavalrymen were bachelors, either by actual rank or " by 
 brevet," as none of the ladies of the — th accompanied the battalion on 
 its march, and none were expected until the stations of the regiment in 
 its new department had been definitely settled. The post surgeon, too, 
 was living a life of single blessedness as the early spring wore on, for 
 his good wife had betaken herself, with the children, to the distant East 
 as soon as the disappearance of the winter's snows rendered staging 
 over the hard prairie roads a matter of no great danger or discom- 
 fort. 
 
 It was the doctor himself who, seated in an easy-chair at the end 
 of the veranda, first called the colonel's attention to Perry's devotional 
 attitude at Mrs. Belknap's side. She was reclining in a hammock, one 
 little, slippered foot occasionally touching the floor and imparting a 
 gentle, swinging motion to the affiu'r, and making a soothing swish- 
 swish of skirts along the matting underneath. Her jewelled hands 
 looked very slender and fragile and white as they gleamed in the soft 
 light that shone from the open windows of the parlor. They were 
 busied in straightening out the kinks in the gold cord of his forage-cap 
 and in rearranging a little silken braid and tassel that was fastened in 
 clumsy, man-like fashion to one of the buttons at the side ; he, seated 
 in a camp-chair, was bending forward so that his handsome, shapely 
 head was only a trifle higher than hers, and the two — hers so dark 
 and rich in coloring, his so fair and massive and strong — came rather 
 too close together for the equanimity of Captain Belknap, who had 
 essayed to take a hand at whist in the parlor. One or two of the 
 ladies, also, were silent observers of the scene, — silent as to the scene 
 because, being in conversation at the time with brother officers of Lieu- 
 tenant Perry, they were uncertain as yet how comments on his grow- 
 ing flirtation might be received. That their eyes should occasionally 
 wander towards the hammock and then glance with sympathetic signifi- 
 cance at those of some fair ally and intimate was natural enough. But 
 when it became presently aj)})arent that Mrs. Belknap was actually unfast- 
 ening the little silken braid that had hung on Ned Perry's cap ever since 
 
DUN RAVEN RANCH. 753 
 
 the day of his arrival, — all the while, too, lookiug shyly up in his eyes 
 as her fingers worked ; when it was seen that she presently detached it 
 from the button and then, half hesitatingly, but evidently in compli- 
 ance with his wishes, handed it to him ; when he was seen to toss it 
 carelessly — even contemptuously — away and then bend down lower, as 
 though gazing into her shaded eyes, — Mrs. Lawrence could stand it no 
 longer. 
 
 " Mr. Graham," said she, " isn't your friend Mr. Perry something 
 of a flirt?" 
 
 " Who ? — Ned ?" asked Mr. Graham, in well-feigned amaze and 
 with sudden glance towards the object of the inquiry. " How on earth 
 should I know anything about it ? Of course you do not seek expert 
 testimony in asking me. He tries, I suppose, to adapt himself to cir- 
 cumstances. But why do you ask ?" 
 
 " Because I see that he has been inducing Mrs. Belknap to take off 
 that little tassel on the button of his cap. He has worn it when off 
 duty ever since he came ; and we supposed it was something he cher- 
 ished ; I know she did." 
 
 Graham broke forth in a peal of merry laughter, but gave no further 
 reply, for just then the colonel and the doctor left their chairs, and, 
 sauntering over to the hammock, brought mighty relief to Belknap at 
 the whist-table and vexation of spirit to his pretty wife. The flirta- 
 tion was broken up at a most interesting point, and Perry, rising sud- 
 denly, came over and joined Mrs. Lawrence. 
 
 If she expected to see him piqued or annoyed at the interruption 
 and somewhat perturbed in manner, she was greatly mistaken. Nothing 
 could have been more sunshiny and jovial than the greeting he gave 
 her. A laughing apology to Graham for spoiling his Ute-d,-tMe was 
 accomplished in a moment, and then down by her side he sat and 
 plunged into a merry description of his experiences at dinner, where 
 he had been placed next to the chaplain's wife on the one hand, and 
 she had been properly aggrieved at his attentions to Mrs. Belknap on 
 the other. 
 
 " You must remember that Mrs. Wells is a very strict Presbyterian, 
 Mr. Perry ; and, for that matter, none of us have seen a dinner such 
 as the colonel gave us this evening for ever and ever so long. We are 
 quite unused to the ways of civilization ; whereas you have just come 
 from the East — and long leave. Perhaps it is the fashion to be all 
 devotion to one's next-door neighbor at dinner." 
 
 " Not if she be as repellent and venerable as Mrs. Wells, I assure 
 you. Why, I thought she would have been glad to leave the table 
 when, after having refused sherry and Pontet-Canet for upwards of an 
 hour, her glass was filled with champagne when she happened to be 
 looking the other way." 
 
 " It is the first dinner of the kind she has ever seen here, Mr. 
 Perry, and I don't suppose either Mr. or Mrs. Wells has been up so 
 late before in years. He would have enjoyed staying and watching 
 whist, but she carried him off almost as soon as we left the table. 
 Our society has been very dull, you know, — only ourselves at the post 
 all this last year, and nobody outside of it." 
 
754 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 " Oue would suppose that with all this magnificent cattle-range 
 there would be some congenial people ranching near you. Are there 
 none at all ?" 
 
 " Absolutely none ! There are some ranches down in the "Washita 
 country, but only one fine one near us ; and that might as well be on 
 the other side of the Atlantic. No one from there ever comes here ; 
 and Dr. Quin is the only living soul in the garrison who ever got 
 within the walls of that ranch. What he saw there he positively 
 refuses to tell, despite all ourentreaty." 
 
 "You don't tell me there's a ranch with a mystery here near 
 Rossiter !" exclaimed Mr. Perry, with sudden interest. 
 
 " Why, I do, indeed ! Is it possible you have been here two whole 
 weeks and haven't heard of Dunraven Ranch ?" 
 
 " I've heard there was such a thing ; I saw it from a distance when 
 out hunting the other day. But what's the mystery? — what's the 
 matter with it ?" 
 
 " That's what we all want to know, — and cannot find out. Now, 
 there is an exploit worthy your energy and best efforts, Mr. Perry. 
 There is a big, wealthy, well-stocked ranch, the finest homestead build- 
 ings, we are told, in all this part of Texas. They say it is beautifully 
 furnished, — that it has a fine library, a grand piano, all manner of 
 things indicative of culture and refinement among its occupants, — but 
 the owner only comes around once or twice a year, and is an iceberg 
 of an Englishman. All the people about the ranch are English, too, 
 and the most repellent, boorish, discourteous lot of men you ever sax<^. 
 When the Eleventh were here they did everything they could to be 
 civil to them, but not an invitation would they accept, not one would 
 they extend ; and so from that day to this none of the officers have 
 had any intercourse with the people at the ranch, and the soldiers 
 know very little more. Once or twice a year some very ordinary look- 
 ing men arrive who are said to be very distinguished people — in 
 England ; but they remain only a little while, and go away as suddenly 
 as they came." 
 
 " And you have never seen any of them ?" 
 
 " Never, except at a distance. Nor has any one of the officers, 
 except Dr. Quin." 
 
 " And you have never heard anything about the inmates and why 
 they keep up this policy of exclusiveness ?" 
 
 " We have heard all manner of things, — some of them wildly 
 romantic, some mysteriously tragic, and all of them, probably, absurd 
 At all events, Captain Lawrence has told me he did not wish me to 
 repeat what I had heard, or to be concerned in any way with the 
 stories afloat : so you must ask somebody else. Try the doctor. To 
 change the subject, Mr, Perry, I see you have lost that mysterious 
 little silken braid and tassel you wore on your cap-button. I fancied 
 there was some romance attached to it, and now it is gone." 
 
 Perry laughed, his blue eyes twinkling with fun : " If I will tell 
 you how and where I got that tassel, will you tell me what you have 
 heard about Dunraven Ranch ?" 
 
 "I cannot, unless Captain Lawrence withdraws his prohibition. 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 755 
 
 Perhaps he will, though ; for I think it was only because he was tired 
 of hearing all our conjectures and theories." 
 
 " Well, will you tell me if I can induce the captain to say he has 
 no objection ?" persisted Perry. 
 
 " I will to-morrow, — if you will tell me about the tassel to- 
 night." 
 
 " Is it a positive promise ? — You will tell me to-morrow all you 
 have heard about Dunraven Ranch if I will tell you to-night all I 
 know about the tassel ?" 
 " Yes, — a promise." 
 
 "Very well, then. You are a witness to the compact, Graham. 
 Now for my confession. I have worn that tassel ever since our 
 parting ball at Fort Riley. That is to say, it has been fastened to 
 that button ever since the ball until to-night; but Fve been mighty 
 careful not to wear that cap on any kind of duty." 
 
 "And yet you let Mrs. Belknap take it oif to-night?" 
 " Why shouldn't I ? There was no sentiment whatever attached 
 to it. I haven't the faintest idea whose it was, and only tied it there 
 for the fun of the thing and to make Graham, here, ask questions." 
 
 " Mr. Perry !" gasped Mrs. Lawrence. " And do you mean that 
 Mrs. Belkuap knows? — that you told her what you have just told 
 me?" 
 
 • " Well, no," laughed Perry. " I fancy Mrs. Belknap thinks as 
 you thought, — that it was a gage d'amour. Halloo ! look at that 
 light away out there across the prairie. What can that be ?" 
 
 Mrs. Lawrence rose suddenly to her feet and gazed southeastward 
 in the direction in which the young officer pointed. It was a lovely, 
 starlit night. A soft wind was blowing gently from the south and 
 bearing with it the fragrance of spring blossoms and far-away flowerets. 
 Others, too, had arisen, attracted by Perry's sudden exclamation. Mrs. 
 Belknap turned languidly in her hammock and glanced over her 
 pretty white shoulder. The colonel followed her eyes with his and 
 gave a start of surprise. The doctor turned slowly and composedly 
 and looked silently towards the glistening object, and then upon the 
 officers of the cavalry there fell sudden astonishment. 
 
 " What on earth could that have been ?" asked the colonel. " It 
 gleamed like the head-light of a locomotive, away down there in the 
 valley of the Monee, then suddenly went out." 
 
 " Be silent a moment, and watch," whispered Mrs. Lawrence to 
 Perry. " You will see it again ; and — watch the doctor." 
 
 Surely enough, even as they were all looking about and comment- 
 ing on the strange apparition, it suddenly glared forth a second time, 
 shining full and lustrous as an unclouded planet, yet miles away 
 beyond and above the fringe of cottonwoods that wound southeast- 
 ward with the little stream. Full half a minute it shone, and then, 
 abruptly as before, was hidden from sight. 
 
 Perry was about starting forward to join the colonel, when a little 
 hand was laid upon his arm. 
 
 " Wait : once more you'll see it," she whispered. " Then take me 
 in to Captain Lawrence. Do you see that the doctor is leaving ?" 
 
756 DUN RAVEN RANCH. 
 
 Without saying a word to any one, the post surgeon had very 
 quietly withdrawn from the group on the veranda. He coukl not well 
 leave by the front gate without attracting attention ; but he strolled 
 leisurely into the hall, took up a book that lay on the table, and passed 
 through the group of officers seated smoking and chatting there, entered 
 the sitting-room on the south side of the hall, — the side opposite the 
 parlor where the whist-game was in progress, — and there he was lost 
 to sight. 
 
 A third time the bright light burst upon the view of the gazers. A 
 third time, sharply and suddenly it disappeared. Then for a moment 
 all was silence and watchfulness ; but it came no more. 
 
 Perry looked questioningly in his companion's face. She had turned 
 a little white, and he felt sure that she was shivering. 
 
 " Are you cold ?" he asked her, gently. 
 
 " No, — not that ; but I hate mysteries, after what I've heard, and 
 we haven't seen that light in ever so long. Come here to the corner 
 one moment." And she led him around to the other flank of the big 
 wooden, barrack-like residence of the commanding officer. 
 
 " Look up there," she said, pointing to a dark window under the 
 peaked dormer roof of the large cottage to the south. " That is the 
 doctor's house." 
 
 In a few seconds a faint gleam seemed to creep through the slats. 
 Then the slats themselves were thrown wide open, a white shade \\%s 
 lowered, and, with the rays behind it growing brighter every instant, a 
 broad white light shone forth over the roof of the veranda. Another 
 moment, and footsteps were heard along the doctor's porch, — footsteps 
 that presently approached them along the grass. 
 
 " Come," she said, plucking at his sleeve, — " come away : it is the 
 doctor." 
 
 " For what reason ?" he answered. " That would seem like hiding. 
 No, Mrs. Lawrence, let us stay until he comes." 
 
 But the doctor passed them with brief and courteous salutation, — 
 spoke of the beauty of the night and the balm of the summery air, — 
 and went in again by the main door to the colonel's quarters. 
 
 Then Perry turned to his partner : " Well, Mrs. Lawrence, what 
 does it all mean? Is this part of what you had to tell me?" 
 
 "Don't ask me now. I — I did not want to see what we have seen, 
 but I had heard queer stories and could not believe them. Take me 
 in to Captain Lawrence, please. And, Mr. Perry, you won't speak of 
 this to any one, will you ? Indeed, if I had known, I would not have 
 come out here for the world ; but I didn't believe it, even when she 
 went away and took the children." 
 
 " Who went away ?" 
 
 " Mrs. Quin, — the doctor's wife. And she was such a sweet woman, 
 and so devoted to him." 
 
 " Well, pardon me, Mrs. Lawrence, I don't see through this thing 
 at all. Do you mean that the doctor has anything to do with the 
 mystery ?" 
 
 She bowed her head as they turned back to the house : " I must not 
 tell you any more to-night. You will be sure to hear something of it 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 757 
 
 all, here. Everybody on the piazza saw the lights, and all who were 
 here before you came knew what they meant." 
 
 " What were they ?" 
 
 " Signals, of some kind, from Dunraven Ranch." 
 
 II. 
 
 Ned Perry hated reveille and morning stables about as vehemently 
 as was possible to a young fellow who was in other respects thoroughly 
 in love with his profession. A fairer type of the American cavalry 
 officer, when once he got in saddle and settled down to business, one 
 would hardly ask to find. Tall, athletic, slender of build, with frank, 
 laughing blue eyes, curly, close-cropped, light-brown hair, and a twirl- 
 ing moustache that was a source of inexpressible delight to its owner 
 and of some envy to his brother subalterns, Mr. Perry was probably 
 the best-looking of the young officers who marched wdth the battalion 
 to this far-away station on the borders of the Llano Estacado. He 
 had been ten years in service, counting the four he spent as a cadet, 
 had just won his silver bar as the junior first-lieutenant of the regi- 
 ment, was full to the brim of health, energy, animal spirits, and fun, 
 and, barring a few duns and debts in his earlier experiences, had never 
 known a heavier care in the world than the transient and ephemeral 
 anxiety as to whether he would be called up for recitation on a subject 
 he had not so much as looked at, or " hived" absent from a roll-call he 
 had lazily slept through. Any other man, his comrades said, would 
 have been spoiled a dozen times over by the petting he had received 
 from both men and women; but there was something essentially sweet 
 and genial about his nature, — something " lacking in guile about his 
 perceptions," said a cynical old captain of the regiment, — and a jovial, 
 sunshiny way of looking upon the world as an Eden, all men and all 
 women as friends, and the Army as the profession above all others, and 
 these various attributes combined to make him popular with his kind 
 and unusually attractive to the opposite sex. As a cadet he had been 
 perpetually on the verge of dismissal because of the appalling array of 
 demerits he could roll up against his name ; and yet the very officers 
 who jotted down the memoranda of his sins — omission and commis- 
 sion — against the regulations were men who openly said he " had the 
 making of one of the finest soldiers in the class." As junior second- 
 lieutenant — " plebe" — of the regiment, he had been welcomed by every 
 man from the colonel down, and it was considered particularly rough 
 that he should have to go to such a company as Captain Canker's, 
 because Canker was a man who never got along with any of his 
 juniors ; but there was something so irrepressibly frank and contrite 
 in Perry's boyish face when he would appear at his captain's door in 
 the early morning and burst out with, '' By Jove, captain ! I slept 
 through reveille again this morning, and never got down till stables 
 were nearly over," that even that cross-grained but honest troop-com- 
 mander was disarmed, and, though he threatened and reprimanded, he 
 would never punish, — would never deny his subaltern the faintest privi- 
 lege ; and when promotion took the captain to another regiment he bade 
 
758 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 good-by to Perry with eyes that were suspiciously wet. " Why, blow it 
 all, what do you fellows hate Canker so for ?" the youngster often said. 
 " He ought to put me in arrest time and again, but he won't. Blamed 
 if I don't put myself in arrest, or confine myself to the limits of the 
 post, or do something, to cut all this going to town and hops and such 
 things. Then I can stick to the troop like wax and get up at reveille ; 
 but if I'm out dancing till two or three in tlie morning it's no use, I 
 tell you : I just canH wake up." Indeed, it was part of the unwritten 
 records of the — th that while at Riley and having very sociable times, 
 Ned Perry actually declined invitations, cooped himself up in gar- 
 rison, and wore metaphorical sackcloth and ashes, for a whole week, in 
 penance for certain neglects of duty brought about by the presence 
 of a bevy of pretty girls. It was not until Canker went to him in 
 person and virtually ordered him out that Perry could be induced to 
 appear at the party given in farewell to two of the prettiest, who were 
 to leave for the Eiist on the following day. 
 
 And yet he was a disappointment in a certain way. It was always 
 predicted of Ned Perry that he would be " married and done for" within 
 a year of his graduation. Every new face in the five years that followed 
 revived the garrison prophecy, " Now he's gone, sure !" but, however 
 devoted he might seem to the damsel in question, however restless and 
 impatient he might be when compelled by his duties to absent himself 
 from her side, however promising to casual observers — perchance to the 
 damsel herself — might be all the surface-indications, the absolute frank- 
 ness with which he proclaimed his admiration to every listener, and the 
 fact that he " had been just so with half a dozen other girls," enabled 
 the cooler heads of the regiment to decide that the time had not yet 
 come, — or at least the woman. 
 
 " I do wish," said Mrs. Turner, " that Mr. Perry would settle on 
 somebody, because, just so long as he doesn't, it is rather hard to tell 
 whom he belongs to." And, as Mrs. Turner had long been a reigning 
 belle among the married women of the — th, and one to whom the 
 young officers were always expected to show much attention, her whim- 
 sical way of describing the situation was readily understood. 
 
 But here at the new station — at far-away Rossiter — matters were 
 taking on a new look. To begin with, the wives of the officers of the 
 cavalry battalion had not joined, none of the ladies of the — th were 
 here, and none would be apt to come until the summer's scouting-work 
 was over and done with. The ladies of the little battalion of infantry 
 were here, and, though there were no maiden sisters or cousins yet at the 
 post (rest assured that more than one was already summoned), they 
 were sufficient in number to enliven the monotony of garrison life and 
 sufficiently attractive to warrant all the attention they cared to receive. 
 It was beginning to be garrison chat that if Ned Perry had not " settled 
 on somebody" as the ultimate object of his entire devotion, somebody 
 had settled on him, and that was pretty Mrs. Belknap. 
 
 And though Ned Perry hated reveille and morning stables, as has 
 been said, and could rarely " take his week" without making one or 
 more lapses, here he was this beautiful May morning out at daybreak 
 when it was his junior's tour of duty, and wending his way with that 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 759 
 
 youngster out to the line of cavalry stables, booted and spurred and 
 equipped for a ride. 
 
 The colonel had listened with some surprise to his request, proffered 
 just as the party was breaking up the night before, to be absent from 
 garrison a few hours the following morning. 
 
 "But we have battalion drill at nine o'clock, Mr. Perry, and I 
 need you there," he said. 
 
 " Oh, I'll be back in time for that, sir. I wanted to be off three 
 hours or so before breakfast." 
 
 The colonel could not help laughing. " Of course you can go, — go 
 wherever you like at those hours, when you are not on guard ; but I 
 never imagined you would want to get up so early." 
 
 " Neither I would, colonel, but I've been interested in something I 
 heard about this ranch down the Monee, and thought I'd like to ride 
 down and look at it." 
 
 " Go ahead, by all means, and see whether those lights came from 
 there. It made me think of a play I once saw, — the * Colleen Bawn,' — 
 where a fellow's sweetheart signalled across the lake by showing a light 
 in her cottage window just that way, three times, and he answered by 
 turning out the lights in his room. Of course the distance wasn't any- 
 thing like this ; and there was no one here to turn down any light 
 
 Eh ! what did you say ?" 
 
 "I beg pardon, colonel. I didn't mean to interrupt," put in a 
 gentle voice at his elbow, while a little hand on Perry's arm gave it a 
 sudden and vigorous squeeze, " but Captain Lawrence has called me 
 twice, — he will not re-enter after lighting his cigar, — and I must say 
 good-night." 
 
 "Oh! good-night, Mrs. Lawrence. I'm sorry you go so early. 
 We are going to reform you all in that respect as soon as we get fairly 
 settled. Here's Perry, now, would sit up and play whist with me an 
 hour yet." 
 
 " Not this night, colonel. He has promised to walk home with us" 
 (another squeeze), " and go he must, or be a faithless escort. Good- 
 night. We've had such a lovely, lovely time." 
 
 And Ned Perry, dazed, went with her to the gate, where Captain 
 Lawrence was awaiting them. She had barely time to murmur, — 
 
 " You were just on the point of telling him about the doctor's 
 lights. I cannot forgive myself for being the means of your seeing 
 it ; but keep my confidence, and keep — this, until everybody is talking 
 about it : it will come soon enough." 
 
 Naturally, Mr. Perry went home somewhat perturbed in spirit and 
 all alive with conjecture as to what these things could mean. The first 
 notes of " assembly of the trumpeters" — generally known as " first call" 
 — roused him from his sleep, and by the time the men marched out to 
 stables he had had his plunge-bath, a vigorous rub, and a chance to 
 think over his plans before following in their tracks, dressed for his 
 ride. The astonishment of Lieutenant Parke, the junior of the troop, 
 was something almost too deep for words when Perry came bounding 
 to his side. 
 
 " What on earth brings you out, Ned ?" was his only effort. 
 
760 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 " Going for a gallop, — down the Monce : that's all. I haven't had 
 a freshener for a week." 
 
 " Gad ! we get exercise enough at morniug drill, one would think, 
 
 and our horses too. Oh ! " And Mr. Parke stopped suddenly. It 
 
 flashed across him that perhaps Perry was going riding with a lady 
 friend and the hour was her selection. If so, 'twas no business of his, 
 and remarks were uncalled for. Accejjting this as the one possible 
 explanation of Perry's abnormal early rising, he curbed his tongue, 
 and Perry, absorbed in his own projects and thinking of anything but 
 what was passing through his comrade's brain, strode blithely over the 
 springy turf, saying nothing further of his plan. 
 
 When he mounted and rode away from the stable Mr. Parke was 
 Outside at the picket-rope, and busily occupied in his duties, supervising 
 the fastening of the fresh, spirited horses at the line, for the troop- 
 commander was a man intolerant of disorder of any kind, and nothing 
 more offended his eye than the sight of two or three of his chargers 
 loose and plunging and kicking up and down the stable-yard. On the 
 other hand, there was no one exploit that seemed to give the younger 
 animals keener delight, — nothing that made the perpetrator a bigger 
 hero in his own eyes or the object of greater envy among his fellows, — 
 and as a consequence every device of which equine ingenuity was 
 master was called into play, regularly as the morning came around, to 
 break loose either from the controlling hand of the trooper or from the 
 taut and straining picket-rope. The first care of the officer in charge 
 and the troop-sergeants was, therefore, to see that all the horses were se- 
 curely lashed and knotted. Not until he had examined every " halter- 
 shank" was Mr. Parke at leisure to look around ; but when he did, his 
 comrade had disappeared from view. 
 
 The valley of the Monee, shallow, and bare of trees except in 
 scattered clumps along the stream, stretched away southeastward for 
 many a mile until lost to sight in the general level at the horizon. 
 Off to the north and east the prairie rose and fell in long, low undu- 
 lations, so devoid of abrupt slope of any kind as to seem absolutely 
 flat to the unpractised eye. Southward and to the west of the lonely 
 post the surface was relieved of this monotony by occasional gentle 
 rise and swell. Nowhere, however, over the broad expanse was there 
 sign of other vegetation than the gray-green carpet of buffalo-grass, 
 and this carpet itself was mapped in fantastic pattern, the effect of 
 prairie-fires more or less recent in occurrence. Where within a fort- 
 night the flames had swept over the surface, all the bosom of the earth 
 was one black barren, a land shunned for the time being by every living 
 thing. Where by sudden freak of wind or fall of rain the scourging 
 fires had been checked in their course, there lay broad wastes of virgin 
 turf, already bleaching under the fierce Texan sun to the conventional 
 gray of the buffalo-grass. But contrasted with these wide mantles of 
 black and gray — contrasting sharply, too, because never blending — 
 every mile or so were sudden patches of bright and lively green ; and 
 this was the hue of the sturdy young grass peeping up through the 
 wastes that the flames had desolated late in March. 
 
 And over this broad level, horizon-bounded, not a moving object 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 7g| 
 
 could be seen. Far away, in little groups of three or four, black dots 
 of grazing cattle marked the plain ; and over in the " breaks" of the 
 Monee, just beyond the fringing cottonwoods, two or three herds of 
 Indian ponies were sleepily cropping their morning meal, watched by 
 the little black imp of a boy whose dirty red blanket made the only 
 patch of color against the southern landscape. Later in the day, when 
 the sun mounted high in the heavens and the brisk westerly winds sent 
 the clouds sailing swift across the skies, all the broad prairie seemed 
 in motion, for then huge shadows swept its face with measured speed, 
 and distant cattle and neighboring pony-herd appeared as though calmly 
 and contentedly riding on a broad platform, Nature's own " observa- 
 tion-car," taking a leisurely journey towards the far-away Pacific. 
 
 But the sun was only just up as Mr. Parke came back from his 
 inspection of the halter-fastenings and paused to look across the low 
 valley. Far down to the southeast the rays seemed glinting on some 
 bright objects clustered together within short range of the shadowy 
 fringe, and the lieutenant shaded his eyes with his gauntlet and looked 
 fixedly thitherward as he stood at the stable door. 
 
 " Some new tinning down at that English ranch they talk of, I 
 suppose," was his explanation of the phenomenon, and then, " Wonder 
 why Perry hasn't ridden to cultiv^ate the acquaintance of those people 
 before this. He was always the first man in the — th to find out who 
 our neighbors were." 
 
 Pondering over this question, it occurred to Mr. Parke that Perry 
 had said he was going down the Monee that morning ; but nowhere 
 was there a speck in sight that looked like loping horseman. To be 
 sure, the trail bore close to the low bluffs that bounded the valley on 
 the north by the time one had ridden a mile or so out from the post. 
 He was probably hidden by this slioulder of the prairie, and would 
 continue to be until he reached the bend, five miles below. No use 
 watching for him then. Besides, he might not yet have started. Mr. 
 Parke recalled the fact that he half suspected a while ago that Ned was 
 going to ride — an early ante-breakfast ride — with a lady friend. Mrs. 
 Belknap had her own horse, and was an accomplished equestrienne; 
 Mrs. Lawrence rode fairly well, and was always glad to go, when 
 somebody could give her a saddle and a reliable mount. There were 
 others, too, among the ladies of the infantry garrison who were no 
 novices ci cheval. Mr. Parke had no intention whatever of prying into 
 the matter. It was simply as something the officer in charge of stable- 
 duty was entitled to know that he turned suddenly and called, — 
 
 " Sergeant Gwynne !" 
 
 He heard the name passed down the dark interior of the stable by 
 the men sweeping out the stalls, and the prompt and cheery reply. 
 The next instant a tall young trooper stepped forth into the blaze of 
 early sunlight, his right hand raised in salute, and stood erect and 
 motionless by the lieutenant's side. 
 
 " Did Mr. Perry take an extra horse, sergeant ?" 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 " I thought possibly he meant to take Roland. He's the be^t 
 lady's-horse in the troop, is he not ?" 
 
762 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; but Roland is at the line now." 
 
 " Very well, then. That's all. I presume he has just ridden down 
 to Dunraven." And Mr. Parke turned to look once more at the glint- 
 ing objects down the distant valley. It was a moment or two before he 
 was aware of the fact that the sergeant still stood there, instead of 
 returning to his duties. 
 
 " I said that was all, sergeant : you can go back to your feeding." 
 And then Mr. Parke turned in some surprise, for Sergeant Gwynne, by 
 long odds the " smartest" and most soldierly of the non-commissioned 
 officers of the cavalry battalion, for the first time in his history seemed 
 to have forgotten himself. Though his attitude had not changed, his 
 face had, and a strange look was in his bright blue eyes, — a look of 
 incredulity and wonderment and trouble all combined. The lieutenant 
 was fairly startled when, as though suddenly gathering himself to- 
 gether, the sergeant falteringly asked, — 
 
 "I beg pardon, sir, but — he had ridden — where f" 
 
 " Down to the ranch, sergeant, — that one you can just see, away 
 down the valley." 
 
 " I know, sir ; but — the name ?" 
 
 " Dunraven Ranch." 
 
 For an instant the sergeant stood as though dazed, then, with sudden 
 effort, saluted, faced about, and plunged into the dark recesses of the 
 stable. 
 
 III. 
 
 Meantime, Lieutenant Perry was riding blithely down the winding 
 trail, totally unconscious that his movements were of the faintest con- 
 sequence to anybody but himself, and equally heedless of their being a 
 source of speculation. His horse was one he rejoiced in, full of spirit 
 and spring and intelligence; the morning was beautiful, — -just cool 
 enough to be exhilarating ; his favorite hound, Bruce, went bounding 
 over the turf under the slopes, or ranging off through the cottonwoods 
 along the stream, or the shallow, sandy arroyos, where the grass and 
 weeds grew rank and luxuriant. Every now and then with sudden 
 rush and whir a drove of prairie-chickens would leap from their 
 covert, and, after vigorous flapping of wings for a few rods, would 
 go skimming restfully in long easy curve, and settle to earth again a 
 hundred yards away, as though suddenly reminded of the fact that this 
 was mating-time and no gentleman would be mean enough to shoot at 
 such a season. Every little while, too, with prodigious kicking of dust 
 and show of heels, with eyes fairly bulging out of his feather-brained 
 head, and tall lop-ears laid flat on his back, a big jack-rabbit would 
 bound off into space, and go tearing across the prairie in mad race for 
 his threatened life, putting a mile between him and the Monee before 
 he began to realize that the two quadrupeds ambling along the distant 
 trail were obedient to the will of that single rider, who had no thought 
 to spare for game so small. Some Indian ponies, grazing across his 
 pathway, set back their stunted ears, and, cow-like, refused to budge at 
 sight and hearing of the big American horse; whereat a little vagabond 
 of a Cheyenne, not ten years old nor four feet high, set up a shrill 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 763 
 
 chatter and screech and let drive a few well-directed clods of turf, and 
 then showed his white teeth in a grin as Perry sung out a cheery " How ! 
 sonny," and spurred on through the opening thoroughfare, heedless of 
 spiteful pony looks or threatening heels. 
 
 Perry's spirits rose with every rod. Youth, health, contentment, 
 all were his, and his heart was warm towards his fellow-men. To the 
 best of his reckoning, he had not an enemy or detractor in the world. 
 He was all gladness of nature, all friendliness, frankness, and cordiality. 
 The toughest cow-boy whom they had met on the long march down, 
 the most crabbed of the frontiersmen they had ever encountered, was 
 never proof against such sunsliine as seemed to irradiate his face. He 
 would go out of his way at any time to meet and hail a fellow-man upon 
 the prairies, and rarely came back without knowing all about him, — 
 where he was from, whither he was bound, and what were his hopes and 
 prospects. And as for himself, no man was readier to answer question 
 or to meet in friendliest and most jovial spirit the rough but well-meant 
 greetings of " the Plains." 
 
 Being in this frame of mind to an extent even greater than his 
 normal wont, Mr. Perry's eyes glistened, and he struck spur to hasten 
 Nolan's stride, when, far ahead, and coming towards him on the trail, 
 he saw a horseman like himself. Being in this mood of sociability, 
 he was something more than surprised to see that all of a sudden that 
 horseman had reined in — a mere black dot a mile away — and was 
 presumably examining him as he advanced. Hostile Indians there 
 had been none for many a long month, "road-agents" would have 
 starved in a region where there practically were no roads, cow-boys 
 might — and did — get on frolics and have wild "tears" at times, but 
 who ever heard of their being hostile, man to man ? Yet Perry was 
 plainsman enough to tell, even at the mile of distance, that the stranger 
 had halted solely to scrutinize /i/m, and, next, to his vast astonish- 
 ment, that something in his appearance had proved either alarming 
 or suspicious, for the horseman had turned abruptly, plunged through 
 the timber and across the stream, and in another moment, veering 
 that way himself to see, Perry marked him fairly racing into the mouth 
 of a shallow ravine, or " break," that entered the valley from the south, 
 and there he was lost to sight. 
 
 " What an ill-mannered galoot !" was his muttered comment, as he 
 gave Nolan brief chance to crop the juicy grass, while his perturbed 
 rider sat gazing across the stream in the direction taken by the shy 
 horseman. " Pve half a mind to drop the ranch and put out after 
 that fellow. That ravine can't go in so very far but what he must 
 soon show up on the level prairie ; and I'll bet Nolan could run him 
 down," After a moment's reflection, however, Mr. Perry concluded 
 that, as he had come so far and was now nearly within rifle-shot of the 
 mysterious goal of his morning ride, he might as well let the stranger 
 go, and pushed ahead, himself, for Dunraven. 
 
 The stream bent southward just at tiie point where he had first 
 caught sight of the horseman, and around that point he knew the 
 ranch to be. Very probably that was one of the ranchmen of whom 
 Mrs. Lawrence had spoken, — churlish fellows, with a civil word for 
 
764 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 nobody, grim and repellent. Why, certainly ! That accounted for his 
 evident desire to avoid the cavalryman ; but he need not have been in 
 such desperate haste, — need not have kept at such unapproachable 
 bounds, as though he shunned even being seen. That was the queer 
 thing, thought Perry. He acted just as though he did not want to be 
 recognized. Perhaps he'd been up to some devilment at the ranch. 
 
 This thought gave spur to his speed, and Nolan, responsive to his 
 master's mood, leaped forward along the winding trail once more. The 
 point was soon reached and turned, and the first object that caught 
 Perry's eye was a long row of stakes stretching from the cottonwoods 
 straight to the south up the gentle slope to the prairie, and indicating 
 beyond all question the presence there of a stout and high and impassa- 
 ble wire fence. There are few things the cavalryman holds in meaner 
 estimate. 
 
 " That marks the western limit," thought Perry to himself,^" and 
 doubtless reaches miles away to the south, from what I hear. Now, 
 where does one enter?" 
 
 A little farther on he came upon a trail leading from the low bluifs 
 to his left hand. It crossed the winding bridle-path on which he rode, 
 though some of the hoof-tracks seemed to join, and wheel-tracks too. 
 He had marked that between the fort and the point no sign of wheel 
 appeared : it was a hoof-trail and nothing more. Now a light and 
 little-travelled wagon-track came in from the north, and while one 
 branch seemed to cross the Monee and to ascend the opposite slopes 
 close along the wire fence, the other joined him and went on down the 
 stream. This he decided to follow. 
 
 A ride of a few hundred yards brought him to a point where a 
 shoulder of bluif twisted the trail well in towards the stream, and he, 
 thinking to cross and reconnoitre on the other shore, turned Nolan in 
 that way, and was suddenly brought up standing by the heaviest and 
 most forbidding wire fence he had ever seen. Yes, there it stretched 
 away through the cottonwoods, straight as a die, back to the angle 
 whence started the southward course he first had noted, and, looking 
 down stream, far as the eye could reach, he marked it, staked as though 
 by the theodolite itself, straiglit as surveyor could make it, a rigid line 
 to the southeast. Sometimes the stream lay on one side, sometimes on 
 the other ; so, too, the cottonwoods ; but there, grim and bristling and 
 impassable, over five feet high, and fairly snarling with its sharp and 
 jagged teeth, this inhuman barrier lay betwixt him and the lands of 
 Dunraven Ranch. 
 
 " Well," thought Perry, " I've often heard an Englishman's house 
 was his castle, but who would have thought of staking and wiring in 
 half a county — half a Texas county — in this hoggish way? How far 
 down is the entrance, anyhow?" 
 
 Following the trail, he rode down-stream a full half-mile, and still 
 there seemed no break. Nowhere on the other shore was there sign 
 of bridle-path leading up the slopes. Turning to his left in some im- 
 patience, he sent Nolan at rapid lope across the intervening " bottom," 
 and soon reached the bluffs, whidi rose perlia})s forty or fifty feet above 
 the stream. Once on the crest, the prairie stretched before him, north- 
 
DVNRAVEN RANCH. 765 
 
 ward, level as a floor, until it met the sky ; but it was southward he 
 longed to look, and thither quickly turned. Yes, there it lay, — Dun- 
 raven Ranch, in all its lonely majesty. From where he gazed the 
 nearest building stood a good long mile away. That it was the home- 
 stead he divined at once, for a broad veranda ran around the lower 
 story, and white curtains were visible at the dormer-windows of the 
 upper floor. Back of it and on the eastern flank were other buildings, 
 massive-looking, single-storied affairs, — evidently stables, storehouses, 
 and corrals. There was a tall windmill there, — an odd sight in so 
 remote a region, — and a big water-tank. Perry wondered how it ever 
 got there. Then at the southwest angle was a building that looked like 
 an oflice of some kind. He could see horses tethered there, and what 
 seemed to be human figures moving about. Beyond it all, to the east 
 and south, were herds of grazing cattle, and here and there in the dim 
 distance a horseman moved over the prairie. This reminded him of 
 the stranger who had given him the slip; and he gazed westward in 
 search of him. 
 
 Far up the valley, between him and the distant post, he could 
 plainly see a black object just descending the slopes from the southern 
 prairie to the stream. Not another was in sight that his practised eye 
 did not know to be cattle. That, then, was his horseman, once more 
 going fort-wards in the valley, after having made a three- or four-mile 
 detour to avoid him. "Now, what sort of a Christian is that fellow?" 
 thought Perry, as he gazed at the distant speck. " Going to the fort, 
 too. By thunder ! I'll find out who he is, anyhow. Now I'm going 
 to the ranch." 
 
 Down the slopes he rode. Down the winding trail once more he 
 trotted, peering through every gap among the cottonwoods, slaking 
 Nolan's thirst at a little pool in the stream, and then, after another long 
 half-mile, he came to a sudden turn to the right. The road dipped and 
 twisted through the stream-bed, rose to the other side, wound through 
 the cottonwoods and then out on the open turf. Huzza ! There it 
 stretched uj) the slopes straight away for the south, straight through a 
 broad gap between two heavy gate-posts standing on the stake-line of 
 that rigid fence. Nolan broke into a brisk canter and gave a neigh of 
 salutation ; Perry's eyes glistened with anticipation as he bent over his 
 charger's neck, keenly searching the odd-looking structure growing on 
 his vision as they neared the fence. Then, little by little, Nolan's eager 
 stride shortened and grew choppy. Another moment, and horse and 
 rider reined up short in disappointment. Between the gate-])osts swung 
 a barrier of cobweb lightness, slender and airy as ever spider wove, but 
 bristling with barbs, stifle as "bullfinch" and unyielding as steel. One 
 glance showed Perry that this inhospitable gate was firmly locked. 
 
 For a moment he sat in saddle, studying the situation, while Nolan 
 poked his head over the topmost strand of wire and, keeping at respect- 
 ful distance from the glittering barbs, gazed wistfully over the enclosed 
 prairie in search of comrade quadruped who could tell him what man- 
 ner of place this was. Meantime, his rider was intently eying the 
 heavy padlock that was secured on the inner side of the gate. It was 
 square in shape, massive and bulky, — something utterly unlike any- 
 VoL. XLII.— 50 
 
766 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 thing he had ever seen among the quartermaster's stores. Dismount- 
 ing, and holding Nolan well back from the aggressive fence with one 
 hand, he gingerly passed the other through the spike-fringed aperture 
 and turned the padlock so as to get a better view. It was of English 
 make, as he surmised, and of strength sufficient to resist anything short 
 of a trip-hammer. Evidently no admission was to be gained here, he 
 reasoned ; and yet it was through here that that horseman had come 
 but an hour before. Here were the fresh hoof-prints in the trail, and 
 it was evident that the rider had dismounted, opened the gate, led his 
 horse through, closed and fastened it, then remounted and ridden away. 
 Perry was plainsman enough to read this from the hoof-prints. Study- 
 ing them carefully, a look of surprise came into his face : he bent down 
 and closely examined the two or three that were most clearly defined 
 upon the trail, then gave a long whistle as a means of expressing his 
 feelings and giving play to his astonishment : 
 
 " Johnny Bull holds himself too high and mighty to have any- 
 thing to do with us blarsted Yankees, it seems, except when he wants 
 his horses shod. These shoes were set at the post blacksmith-shop, or 
 I'm a duffer," was the lieutenant's verbal comment. " Now, how was 
 it done without the quartermaster's knowing it ? That's the cavalry 
 shoe !" 
 
 Pondering over this unlooked-for revelation, Mr. Perry once more 
 mounted, and turned his disappointed steed again down-stream. He 
 had determined to follow the fence in search of another opening. A 
 mile he rode among the cottonwoods and across low grassy points, and 
 still that inflexible barrier stretched grimly between him and the open 
 prairie to the south. Once, up a long shallow " break," he caught 
 sight of the roofs of some of the ranch-buildings full a thousand yards 
 away, and realized that he had passed to the east of them and was 
 farther from the goal of his ambition than when he stood at that 
 bristling gate. At last, full half a mile farther on, he saw that a wire 
 fence ran southward again across the prairie, as though marking 
 the eastern boundary of the homestead-enclosure, and, conjecturing 
 that there was probably a trail along that fence and an opening 
 through, even if the southeastward line should be found fenced still 
 farther, he sent Nolan through the Monee to the open bank on the 
 northern side, cantered along until the trail turned abruptly southward, 
 and, following it, found himself once more at the fence just where the 
 heavy corner-post stood deeply embedded in the soil. Sure enough, 
 here ran another fence straight up the gentle slope to the south, a trail 
 along its eastern side, and a broad cattle-gap, dusty and tramped with 
 the hoofs of a thousand steers, was left in the fence that, prolonged 
 down-stream, spanned the northern boundary. Inside the homestead- 
 lot all was virgin turf. 
 
 Following the southward trail, Perry rode briskly up the long 
 incline. It was east of this fence he had seen the cattle-herds and 
 their mounted watchers. He was far beyond the ranch-buildings, but 
 felt sure that, once well up on the prairie, he could have an uninter- 
 rupted view of them and doubtless meet some of the ranch people and 
 satisfy himself what there was in the stories of their churlish and 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 767 
 
 repellent demeanor. The sun was climbing higher all this time, and 
 he, eager in pursuit of his reconnoissance, gave little heed to fleeting 
 minutes. If fair means could accomplish it, he and Nolan were 
 bound to have acquaintance with Dunraven Ranch. 
 
 Ten minutes' easy lope brought him well up on the prairie. There 
 — westward now — was the mysterious clump of brown buildings, just 
 as far away as when he stood, baffled and disappointed, by the gate-way 
 on the Monee. Here, leading away towards the distant buildings, was 
 a bridle-path. Here in the fence was a gap just such as he had en- 
 countered on the stream, and that gap was barred and guarded by the 
 counterpart of the first gate and firmly secured by a padlock that was 
 the other's twin. Mr. Perry's comment at this point of his explorations 
 was brief and characteristic, if not objectionable. He gave vent to the 
 same low whistle, half surprise, half vexation, that had comforted his 
 soul before, but supplemented the whistle wath the unnecessary remark, 
 « Well, I'll be damned !" 
 
 Even Nolan entered his protest against such incredible exclusive- 
 ness. Thrusting his lean head far over the topmost wire as before, he 
 signalled long and shrill, — a neigh that would have caught the ear of 
 any horse within a mile, — and then, all alert, he waited for an answer. 
 It came floating on the rising wind, a responsive call, a signal as eager 
 and confident as his own, and Nolan and Nolan's rider whirled quickly 
 around to see the source from whence it rose. Four hundred yards 
 away, just appearing over a little knoll in the prairie, and moving 
 towards them from the direction of a distant clump of grazing cattle, 
 another horse and rider came trotting into hailing-distance ; and Perry, 
 his bright blue eyes dilating, and Nolan, his dainty, sensitive ears 
 pricked forward, turned promptly to meet and greet the new arrivals. 
 
 For fifty yards or so the stranger rode confidently and at rapid trot. 
 Perry smilingly watched the out-turned toes, the bobbing, " bent-over" 
 seat, and angular elbows that seemed so strange and out of place on the 
 broad Texan plain. He could almost see the " crop" in the free hand, 
 and was smiling to himself at the idea of a "crop" to open wire gates, 
 when he became aware of the fact that the stranger's mien had changed ; 
 confidence was giving place to hesitancy, and he was evidently checking 
 the rapid trot of his horse and throwing his weight back on the cantle, 
 while his feet, thrust through to the very heels in the gleaming steel 
 stirrups, were braced in front of the powerful shoulders of the bay. 
 The horse wanted to come, the rider plainly wanted to stop. Another 
 moment, and Perry could see that the stranger wore eyeglasses and had 
 just succeeded in bridging them on his nose and was glaring at him 
 with his chin high in air. They were within two hundred yards 
 of each other by this time, and, to Perry's astonishment, the next thing 
 the stranger did was to touch sharply his horse with barbed heel, 
 whirl him spitefully about, and go bobbing off across the prairie at 
 lively canter, standing up in his stirrups, and bestriding his steed as 
 though his object were not so much a ride as a game of leap-frog. 
 
 It was evident that he had caught sight of Perry when Nolan 
 neighed, had ridden at once to meet him, expecting to find some one 
 connected with the ranch, and had veered off in disgust the moment he 
 
768 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 was able to recognize the uniform and horse-equipments of the United 
 States Cavalry. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Sweet-tempered a fellow as Mr. Perry confessedly was, there was 
 something in the stranger's conduct that galled him inexpressibly. The 
 tenets of " society," the formalities of metropolitan life, have no rec- 
 ognition whatsoever on the wide frontier when once the confines of 
 the garrison are passed. Out on the broad expanse of the Plains the 
 man who shuns the greeting of his fellow is set down at once as a 
 party whose antecedents are shadowy and whose character is suspicious ; 
 and never before in his experience of several years and his wanderings 
 from the Yellowstone to the Washita had Ned Perry met a frontiers- 
 man who fled at sight of him, except one horse-thief. From his 
 handsome mount, his garb, and his general appearance. Perry set this 
 stranger down as one of the Englishmen residing at the ranch. It was 
 not fear of arrest and capture that sent him scowling away across the 
 prairie ; it was deliberate intent to avoid, and this was, to Perry's 
 thinking, tantamount to insult. One moment he gazed after the re- 
 treating form of the horseman, then clapped his forage-cap firmly 
 down upon his head, shook free the rein, and gave Nolan the longed- 
 for word. Another instant, and with set teeth and blazing, angry eyes 
 he was thundering at headlong speed, swooping down upon the un- 
 conscious stranger in pursuit. Before that sunburned, curly-haired, 
 bulkily-framed young man had the faintest idea of what was im- 
 pending, Mr. Perry was reining in his snorting steed alongside and 
 cuttingly accosting him : 
 
 " I beg your pardon, my good sir, but may I ask what you mean 
 by trotting away when it must have been evident that I wanted to 
 speak with you ?" 
 
 The stranger turned slightly and coolly eyed the flushed and in- 
 dignant cavalryman. They were trotting side by side now, Nolan 
 plunging excitedly, but the English horse maintaining his even stride ; 
 and stronger contrast of type and style one could scarcely hope to find. 
 In rough tweed shooting-jacket and cap, brown Bedford cords fitting 
 snugly at the knee but flapping like shapeless bags from there aloft to 
 the waist, in heavy loatlier gaiters and equally heavy leather gloves, the 
 stocky figure of the Englishman had nothing of grace or elegance, but 
 was sturdy, strong, and full of that bui-ly self-reliance which is so 
 characteristic of the race. Above his broad, stooping shoulders were a 
 bull neck, reddened by the sun, a crop of close-curling, light-brown 
 hair, a tanned and honest face lighted up by fearless gray eyes and 
 shaded by a thick and curling beard of lighter hue than the hair of his 
 massive head. He rode with the careless ease and supreme confidence 
 of the skilled horseman, but with that angularity of foot and elbow, 
 that roundness of back and bunching of shoulders, that incessant rise 
 and fall with every beat of his horse's powerful haunch, that the effect 
 was that of neither security nor repose. His saddle, too, was the 
 long, flat-seated, Australian model, pig-skin, with huge rounded leathern 
 cushions circling in front and over the knees, adding to the cumbrous- 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 769 
 
 ness of his equipment and in no wise to the comfort ; but his bit and 
 curb-chain were of burnished steel, gleaming as though fresh from the 
 hands of some incomparable English groom, and the russet reins were 
 soft and pliable, telling of excellent stable management and discipline. 
 Perry couldn't help admiring that bridle, even in his temporary fit of 
 indignation. 
 
 As for him, — tall, slender, elegantly made, clothed in the accurately- 
 fitting undress " blouse" of the army and in riding-breeches that dis- 
 played to best advantage the superb moulding of his powerful thighs, 
 sitting like centaur well down in the saddle, his feet and lower legs, 
 cased in natty riding-boots, swinging close in behind the gleaming 
 shoulders of his steed, erect as on parade, yet swaying with every mo- 
 tion of his horse, graceful, gallant, and to the full as powerful as his 
 burly companion, the advantage in appearance was all on Perry's side, 
 and was heightened by Nolan's spirited action and martial trappings. 
 Perry was an exquisite in his soldier taste, and never, except on actual 
 campaign, rode his troop-horse without his broidered saddle-cloth and 
 gleaming bosses. All this, and more, the Englishman seemed quietly 
 noting as, finally, without the faintest trace of irritability, with even a sus- 
 picion of humor twinkling about the corners of his mouth, he replied, — 
 
 " A fellow may do as he likes when he's on his own bailiwick, I 
 suppose." 
 
 "All the same, wherever I've been, from here to Assiniboia, men 
 meet like Christians, unless they happen to be road-agents or cattle- 
 thieves. What's more, I am an officer of a regiment just arrived here, 
 and, from the Missouri down, there isn't a ranch along our trail where 
 we were not welcome and whose occupants were not ' hail-fellow-well- 
 met' in our camps. You are the first people to shun us ; and, as that 
 fort yonder was built for your protection in days when it was badly 
 needed, I want to know what there is about its garrison that is so ob- 
 noxious to Dunraven Ranch, — that's what you call it, I believe ?" 
 
 " That's what— it is called." 
 
 " Well, here ! I've no intention of intruding where we're not 
 wanted. I simply didn't suppose that on the broad prairies of the 
 West there was such a place as a ranch where one of my cloth was 
 unwelcome. I am Mr. Perry, of the — th Cavalry, and I'm bound to 
 say I'd like to know what you people have against us. Are you the 
 proprietor ?" 
 
 " I'm not. I'm only an employee." 
 
 " Who is the owner?" 
 
 " He's not here now." 
 
 " Who is here who can explain the situation ?" 
 
 " Oh, as to that, I fancy I can do it as well as anybody. It is 
 simply because we have to do pretty much as you fellows, — obey orders. 
 The owner's orders are not aimed at you any more than anybody else. 
 He simply wants to be let alone. He bought this tract and settled 
 here because he wanted a place where he could have things his own 
 way, — see people whom he sent for and nobody else. Every man in 
 his employ is expected to stick to the ranch so long as he is on the pay- 
 roll, and to carry out his instructions. If he can't, he may go." 
 
770 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 "And your instructions are to prevent people getting into the 
 ranch ?" 
 
 "Oh, hardly that, you know. We don't interfere. There's never 
 any one to come, as a rule, and, when they do, the fence seems to be 
 sufficient." 
 
 " Amply, I should say ; and yet were I to tell you that I had busi- 
 ness with the proprietor and needed to ride up to the ranch, you would 
 open the gate yonder, I suppose ?" 
 
 " No : I would tell you that the owner was away, and that in his 
 absence I transacted all business for him." 
 
 " Well, thank you for the information given me, at all events. 
 May I ask the name of your misanthropical boss ? You might tell 
 him I called." 
 
 " Several officers called three years ago, but he begged to be ex- 
 cused." 
 
 " And what is the name ?" 
 
 " Mr. Maitland — is what he is called." 
 
 " All right. Possibly the time may come when Mr. Maitland will 
 be as anxious to have the cavalry around him as he is now to keep it 
 away. But if you ever feel like coming uj) to the fort, just ride in and 
 ask for me." 
 
 " I feel like it a dozen times a week, you know ; but a man mustn't 
 quarrel with his bread-and-butter. I met one of your fellows once on 
 a hunt after strayed mules, and he asked me in, but I couldn't go. 
 Sorry, you know, and all that, but the owner won't have it," 
 
 " Well, then there's nothing to do for it but say good-day to you. 
 I'm going back. Possibly I'll see some of your people up at Rossiter 
 when they come to get a horse shod." 
 
 " A horse shod ! Why, man alive, we shoe all our horses here !" 
 
 " Well, that fellow who rode out of your north gate and went up 
 towards the fort about an hour or so ago had his horse shod at a 
 cavalry forge, or I'm a duffer." 
 
 A quick change came over the Englishman's face : a flush of sur- 
 prise and anger shot up to his forehead : he wheeled about and gazed 
 eagerly, loweringly, back towards the far-away buildings. 
 
 " How do you know there was What fellow did you see ?" 
 
 he sharply asked. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know who he was," answered Perry, coolly. " He 
 avoided me just as pointedly as you did, — galloped across the Monee 
 and out on the prairie to dodge me ; but he came out of that gate on 
 the stream, locked it after him, and went on up to the fort ; and his 
 horse had cavalry shoes. Good-day to you, my Britannic friend. 
 Come and see us when you get tired of prison-life." And, witii a 
 grin, Mr. Perry turned and rode rapidly away, leaving the other 
 horseman in a brown study. 
 
 Once fairly across the Monee, he ambled placidly along, thinking of 
 the odd situation of affairs at this great prairie-reservation, and almost 
 regretting that he had paid the ranch the honor of a call. Reacliing 
 the point where the wagon-tracks crossed the stream to the gate-way 
 in the boundary fence, he reined in Nolan and looked through a vista in 
 
DUN RAVEN RANCH. 771 
 
 the cotton woods. There was the English man, dismounted, stooping 
 over the ground, and evidently examining the hoof-prints at the gate. 
 Perry chuckled at the sight, then, whistling for Bruce, who had strayed 
 off through the timber, he resumed his jaunty way to the post. 
 
 In the events of the morning there were several things to give him 
 abundant cause for thought, if not for lively curiosity, but he had not 
 yet reached the sum total of surprises in store for him. He was still 
 two miles out from the fort, and riding slowly along the bottom, when 
 he became aware of a trooper coming towards him on the trail. The 
 sunbeams were glinting on the polished ornaments of his forage-cap 
 and on the bright yellow chevrons of his snugly-fitting blouse. Tall 
 and slender and erect was the coming horseman, a model of soldierly 
 grace and carriage, and as he drew nearer and his hand went up to the 
 cap-visor in salute a gesture from his young superior brought an instant 
 pressure on the rein, and horse and man became an animated statue. 
 It was a wonderfully sudden yet easy check of a steed in rapid motion, 
 and Mr. Perry, a capital rider himself, could not withhold his admi- 
 ration. 
 
 " Where did you learn that sudden halt, sergeant ?" he asked. " I 
 never saw anything so quick except the Mexican training ; but that 
 strains a horse and throws him on his haunches." 
 
 " It is not uncommon abroad, sir," was the quiet answer. " I saw 
 it first in the English cavalry ; and it is easy to teach the horse." 
 
 " I must get you to show me the knack some day. I've noticed it 
 two or three times, and would like to learn it. What I stopped you 
 for was this : you've been stable-sergeant ever since we got here, have 
 you not ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " Then if anybody besides members of the troop had horses shod at 
 our forge you would be pretty apt to know it ?" 
 
 " I know that no one has, sir." And a flush was rising to the 
 young sergeant's face and a pained look hovering about his bright blue 
 eyes. Yet his manner was self- restrained and full of respect. 
 
 " Don't think I'm intimating anything to the contrary. Sergeant 
 Gwynne. No soldier in the regiment more entirely holds the confidence 
 of his captain — of all the officers — than you. I was not thinking of 
 that. But somebody down there at that big ranch below us has had 
 his horse shod by a cavalry farrier, — it may have been done while the 
 Eleventh were here, — and, while I knew you would not allow it at our 
 forge, I thought it possible that it might be done in your absence." 
 
 " It's the first time I've been out of sight of the stables since we 
 came to the post, sir, and the captain gave me permission to ride down 
 the valley this morning. May I ask the lieutenant why he thinks 
 some ranchman is getting his shoeing done here at the post?" 
 
 " I've been down there this morning, and met a man coming up. 
 He avoided me, and rode over to the south side, and so excited ray 
 curiosity ; and as they keep that whole place enclosed in a wire fence, 
 and he had evidently come out of the north gate, I was struck by the 
 sight of the hoof-prints : they were perfectly fresh there on the trail, 
 and plain as day. There's no mistaking the shoe, you know. By the 
 
772 DUN RAVEN RANCH. 
 
 way, he rode up to the fort, and probably entered at your side of the 
 garrison : did you see him ?" 
 
 " No, sir, and, except for breakfast, — just after reveille, — I have 
 been at stables all the morning. I was there when the lieutenant got 
 his horse." 
 
 " Yes, I remember. Then no one rode in from the valley ?" 
 
 "No civilian, — no ranchman, sir. The only horsemen I've seen 
 were some Cheyenne scouts during the last two hours, and Dr. Quin, 
 — just before sick-call." 
 
 " Dr. Quin ! — the post surgeon ! Are you sure, sergeant?" 
 
 " Certainly, sir. The doctor rode into the post just about an hour 
 after the lieutenant left, — coming up the valley too. He went right 
 around to his own stable, over towards the hospital." 
 
 A look of amaze and stupefaction was settling on Perry's face. 
 Now for the first time he recalled Mrs. Lawrence's intimations with 
 regard to the doctor, and his connection with the signal-lights. Now 
 for the first time it occurred to him that the secret of those cavalry 
 hoof-prints at the gate was that no ranchman, but an officer of the 
 garrison had been the means of leaving them there. Now for the first 
 time it flashed upon him that the Englishman's astonishment and con- 
 cern on hearing of those hoof-tracks indicated that the story of a 
 mystery at Dunraven in which the doctor was connected amounted to 
 something more than garrison rumor. Now for the first time an ex- 
 planation occurred to him of the singular conduct of the horseman 
 who had dodged him by crossing the Monee. Never in his young life 
 had he known the hour when he was ashamed or afraid to look any 
 man in the eye. It stung him to think that here at Rossiter, wearing 
 the uniform of an honorable profession, enjoying the trust and confi- 
 dence of all his fellows, was a man who had some secret enterprise of 
 which he dared not speak and of whose discovery he stood in dread. 
 There could be little doubt that the elusive stranger was Dr. Quin, and 
 that there was grave reason for the rumors of which Mrs. Lawrence 
 had vaguely told him. 
 
 For a moment he sat, dazed and irresolute, Nolan impatiently 
 pawing the turf the while; then, far across the prairie and down the 
 valley there came floating, quick and spirited, though faint with distance, 
 the notes of the cavalry trumpet sounding " right, front into line." He 
 looked up, startled. 
 
 " They're out at battalion drill, sir," said the sergeant. " They 
 marched out just as I left stables." 
 
 "Just my infernal luck again !" gasped Perry, as he struck spur to 
 Nolan and sent him tearing up the slope : " I might have known I'd 
 miss it !" 
 
 V. 
 
 That evening a group of cavalry officers came sauntering back from 
 stables, and as they reached the walk in front of officers' row a dark- 
 featured, black-bearded, soldierly-looking captain separated himself 
 from the rest and entered the colonel's yard. The commanding officer 
 happened to be seated on his veranda at the moment, and in close 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 773 
 
 confabulation with Dr. Quin. Botli gentlemen ceased their talk as 
 the captain entered, and then rose from their seats as lie stepped upon 
 the veranda floor. 
 
 " Good-evening, Stryker," said the colonel, cheerily. " Come in 
 and have a seat. The doctor and I were just wondering if we could 
 not get you to take a hand at whist to-night." 
 
 " I shall be glad to join you, sir, after parade. I have come in to 
 ask permission to send a sergeant and a couple of men, mounted, down 
 the Monee. One of my best men is missing." 
 
 " Indeed ! Who is that ? Send the men, of course." 
 
 " Sergeant Gwynne, sir. The first time I ever knew him to miss a 
 duty." 
 
 "Your stable-sergeant, too? That is unusual. How long has he 
 been gone ?" 
 
 "Since battalion drill this morning. He was on hand when the 
 men were saddling, and asked permission to take his horse out for 
 exercise and ride down the valley a few miles. I said yes, never sup- 
 posing he would be gone after noon roll-call; and we were astonished 
 when he failed to appear at stables. Perry says he met him two miles 
 out." 
 
 " The two culprits !" said the colonel, laughing. " Poor Perry is 
 down in the depths again. He rode up to me with such a woebegone 
 look on his face at drill this morning that I could hardly keep from 
 laughing in front of the whole line. Even the men were trying hard 
 not to grin : they knew he had turned up just in the nick of time to 
 save himself an ' absent.' What do you suppose can have happened to 
 Gwynne?" 
 
 " I cannot imagine, sir, and am inclined to be worried. He would 
 never willingly overstay a pass ; and I fear some accident has happened." 
 
 " Is he a good rider ?" asked the doctor. 
 
 "None better in the regiment. He is a model horseman, in fact, 
 and, though he never alludes to nor admits it, there is a general feeling 
 among the men that he has been in the English cavalry service. Of 
 course there is no doubt of his nationality : he is English to the back- 
 bone, and, I fancy, has seen better days." 
 
 " What made them think he had been in the cavalry service 
 abroad?" 
 
 " Oh, his perfect knowledge of troojjer duties and management of 
 horses. It took him no time to learn the drill, and he was a sergeant 
 before he had been with me two years. Then, if you ever noticed, 
 colonel," said Captain Stryker, appealing to his chief, "whenever 
 Gwynne stands attention he always has the fingers of both hands 
 extended and pointing down along the thigh, close against it, — so." 
 And Stryker illustrated. " Now, you never see an American soldier 
 do that; and I never saw it in any but English-trained soldiers. He 
 has quit it somewhat of late, because the men told him it showed where 
 he was drilled, — we have other English * non-coms.,' you know, — but 
 for a long time I noticed that in him. Then he was enlisted in New 
 York City, some four years ago, and all his things were of English 
 make, — what he had." 
 
774 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 "What manner of lookino; fellow is he?" asked the doctor. "I 
 think I would have noted him had I seen him." 
 
 "Yes, you Englishmen are apt to look to one another," said the 
 colonel, in reply, " and Gwynne is a particularly fine specimen. He 
 has your eyes and hair, doctor, but hasn't had time to grow grizzled 
 and bulky yet, as you and I have. One might say that you and the 
 sergeant were fi-om the same shire." 
 
 " That would help me very little, since I was only three years old 
 when the governor emigrated," answered the doctor, with a quiet smile. 
 " We keep some traces of the old sod, I suppose, but I've been a Yankee 
 for forty years, and have never once set eyes on Merrie England in all 
 that time. — Did the sergeant say where he wanted to go ?" And the 
 questioner looked up sharply. 
 
 " Nowhere in particular, — down the valley was all. I remember, 
 though, that Mr. Parke said he seemed much exercised over the name 
 of that ranch down the Monee, — I've forgotten what they call it. — Have 
 you heard it, colonel ?" 
 
 " Seems to me I have, but I've forgotten. You have, doctor, have 
 you not?" 
 
 " Heard what, colonel ?" 
 
 " The name of that ranch down the Monee, — an English ranch, 
 they tell me, about seven miles away." 
 
 " Oh, yes ! — that one ! They call it Dunraven Ranch. — Did the 
 sergeant take any of the hounds with him, captain ? It occurs to me 
 he might have been running a coyote or a rabbit, and his horse have 
 stumbled and fallen with him. There is no end of prairie-dog holes 
 down that way." 
 
 " No, the dogs are all in. I wouldn't be surprised if he had gone 
 to the ranch. That's an English name, and they are all Englishmen 
 down there, I hear. Very possibly that is the solution. They may 
 have tempted hira to stay with English hospitality ; though it would 
 astonish me if he yielded. I'll tell the men to inquire there first, col- 
 onel, and will go and send them now." And, bowing to his com- 
 mander. Captain Stryker turned and left the porch. 
 
 The doctor rose, thrust his hands deep in his pockets, paced slowly 
 to the southern end of the veranda, and gazed down the distant, peace- 
 ful valley, an anxious cloud settling on his brow. The colonel re- 
 sumed once more the newspaper he had dropped upon the floor. After 
 a moment Dr. Quin came slowly back, stood in front of the entrance a 
 few seconds looking irresolutely at the soldier sprawled at full length 
 in his reclining-chair, stepped towards him with a preparatory clearing 
 of his throat as though about to speak, and then, suddenly and help- 
 lessly abandoning the idea, he plunged down the short flight of steps, 
 huri-ied out of the gate, and disappeared around the fence-corner in the 
 direction of the hospital. Immersed in his paper, the colonel never 
 seemed to note that he had gone ; neither did he note the fact that two 
 ladies were coming down the walk. Possibly the vines clustering 
 thickly all over the front of his veranda were responsible for this 
 latter failure on his part, since it took more than a newspaper, ordi- 
 narily, to render the gallant dragoon insensible to the approach of the 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 775 
 
 opposite sex. They saw him, of course, despite the shrouding vines, 
 and, with perfectly justifiable appreciation of the homage due them, 
 were mutually resolved that he should come out of that reclining pose 
 and make his bow in due form. No words were necessary between 
 them. The understanding was tacit, but complete. 
 
 The soft swish of trailing skirt being insufficient to attract his at- 
 tention as they arrived nearly opposite the shaded veranda, a silvery 
 peal of laughter broke the stillness of the early evening. Mrs. Bel- 
 knap's laugh was delicious, — soft, melodious, rippling as a canary's 
 song, and just as spontaneous. Neither lady had said anything at the 
 moment that was incentive of merriment ; but if Mrs. Lawrence had 
 given utterance to the quaintest, oddest, most whimsical conceit imagi- 
 nable, Mrs. Belknap's laugh could not have been more ready, and her 
 great, dark eyes shot a sidelong glance to note the effect. Down went 
 the paper, and up, with considerable propping from his muscular arms, 
 came the burly form of the post commander. Two sweet, smiling faces 
 beamed upon him through an aperture in the leafy screen, and Mrs. 
 Belknap's silvery voice hailed him in laughing salutation : 
 
 " Did we spoil your siesta, colonel ? How ccm I make amends ? 
 You see, you were so hidden by the vines that no one would dream of 
 your being there in ambush." 
 
 " Oh, indeed, I assure you I wasn't asleep," answered the colonel, 
 hastily. " Won't you come in, ladies, and sit here in the shade awhile? 
 You've been calling, I suppose?" 
 
 " Yes,— calling, on the entire social circle of Fort Rossiter. Con- 
 gratulate us, colonel : we have actually accomplished the feat of visiting 
 every woman in society. We have made the rounds of the garrison. 
 We owe no woman anything, — beyond a grudge or two, — and it has 
 only taken forty-five minutes, despite the fact that everybody was at 
 home." 
 
 " Well, come in, Mrs. Belknap ; do come in, Mrs. Lawrence. I 
 assure you that, though everybody must have been enchanted to see 
 you, nobody is half as glad as I am. You must be tired after such a 
 round of visits.'^ And the colonel plunged heavily down the steps and 
 hospitably opened the gate. 
 
 *' We thought we would stroll around until parade," said Mrs. 
 Lawrence, hesitatingly, " and then sit down and watch it somewhere." 
 
 " No place better than this," promptly answered the colonel. " You 
 can sit behind the vines on that side and see, or, what we would infi- 
 nitely prefer, sit here at the entrance and be seen. Meantime, I've been 
 unpacking some photograph-albums this afternoon, and you can amuse 
 yourselves with those while I put on my harness. Come !" 
 
 The colonel's collection of photographs was something the ladies 
 had already heard a great deal of. One of the most genial and popular 
 officers in the army, he had gathered together several large albums full 
 of pictures of prominent men and attractive and distinguished women, 
 — not only those with whom he had been associated in his long years 
 of service, but men eminent in national and state affairs, and women 
 leaders in society in many a gay metropolis. Both the ladies had 
 hoped to see this famous collection the evening before, but the colonel 
 
776 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 had not then unpacked the albums, and they were disappointed. Now, 
 however, the prospect was indeed alhu'iug, and neither could resist. 
 When the first call sounded for parade a few moments after, and the 
 commanding officer was getting himself into his full-dress uniform, the 
 two pretty heads were close together, and two pairs of very lovely eyes 
 — one dark and deep and dangerous, the other a clear and honest gray 
 — were dilating over page after page of photographed beauty. There 
 was no need to puzzle over the identity of the originals : under each 
 picture the thoughtful colonel had carefully written the name and ad- 
 dress. Absorbed in this treat, they could barely afford time to look 
 up and smile their thanks as the colonel passed, clanking forth at the 
 sounding of adjutant's call, and were too completely engrossed in their 
 delightful occupation to notice what took place at parade. 
 
 The long, slender line had formed, — the infantry companies on the 
 right and left flanks, their neat and tasteful dress of blue and white 
 contrasting favorably with the gaudy yellow plumage of the four dis- 
 mounted troops of the cavalry. Company after company had taken 
 the statuesque pose of " parade rest" and its captain faced to the front 
 again, the adjutant was just about moving to his post on the prolonga- 
 tion of the front rank, and the colonel settling back into the con- 
 ventional attitude of the commanding officer, when from outside the 
 rectangular enclosure of the parade-ground — from somewhere beyond 
 the men's barracks — there came sudden outcry and commotion. There 
 were shouts, indistinguishable at first, but excited and startling. Some 
 of the men in ranks twitched nervously and partially turned their 
 heads, as though eager to look behind them and see what was wrong ; 
 whereat stern voices could be heard in subdued but potent censure : 
 " Keep your eyes to the front, there, Sullivan !" " Stand fast, there, 
 centre of Third Company !" The guard, too, paraded in front of its 
 quarters some distance behind the line, was manifestly disturbed, and 
 the voice of the sergeant could be heard giving hurried orders. Every 
 man in the battalion seemed at the same instant to arrive at one of two 
 conclusions, — prisoners escaping, or fire over at the stables, — and all 
 eyes were fixed on the imperturbable form of the commanding officer, 
 as though waiting the signal from him to break and go to the rescue. 
 But there the colonel stood, placid, calm, and apparently utterly un- 
 conscious of the distant yet nearing clamor. The adjutant hesitated a 
 moment before proceeding further, and glanced appealingly at his chief; 
 whereupon there came from the blue and gold and yellow statue out 
 on the parade, in half- reproachful tones, tlie quiet order, " Go on !" and 
 the adjutant, recalled to his senses and with evident expression of his 
 sentiments to the efiect that if others coukl stand it he could, brusquely 
 turned his head towards the band and growled, " Sound off !" The 
 boom and crash of drum and cymbal and the blare of brazen throats 
 drowned for a moment the sound of the turmoil without. The next 
 thing the battalion heard, or saw, was a riderless horse tearing full tilt 
 out on the parade and sweeping in a big circle from the right of the 
 line down towards the point where the colonel stood. Following him 
 came a pair of Cheyenne scouts, their ponies scampering in pursuit, 
 but veering off the green as their riders realized that they were intruding 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 777 
 
 on the ceremony of the day. Relieved of his pursuers, the fugitive 
 speedily settled down into a lunging trot, and with streaming mane and 
 tail, with head and ears erect, with falling bridle-rein and flapping 
 stirrups, he circled rapidly the open space between the colonel and the 
 line of battle, then came trotting back along the front, as though search- 
 ing in the stolid rank of bearded faces for the friends he knew. Officer 
 after officer he passed in review until lie came to Stryker's troop, posted 
 on the right of the cavalry, and there, with a neigh of recognition, 
 he fearlessly trotted up to the captain's outstretched hand. Another 
 minute, and two men fell out and made a temporary gap in the rank ; 
 through this a sergeant file-closer extended his white glove, relieved 
 the captain of his charge, and led the panting steed away. The men 
 retook their places; the captain again resumed his position in front of 
 the centre of his company, dropped the point of his sabre to the ground, 
 and settled })ack into *' parade rest ;" tlie band went on thundering down 
 the line, countermarched, and came back to its post on the right, making 
 the welkin ring with the triumphant strains of "Northern Route," 
 the trumpets pealed the "retreat," the adjutant stalked his three yards 
 to the front, faced fiercely to the left and shouted his resonant orders 
 down the line, three hundred martial forms sprang to attention, and the 
 burnished arms came to the " carry" with simultaneous crash, ranks 
 were opened with old-time precision, the parade " presented" to the 
 colonel with all due formality, the manual was executed just as punc- 
 tiliously as though nothing unusual had ha])pened ; first-sergeants 
 reported, orders were published, parade formally dismissed; the line 
 of officers marched solidly to the front, halted, and made its simul- 
 taneous salute to the colonel, who slowly raised and lowered his white- 
 gloved hand in recognition ; and then, and not till then, was any one 
 allowed to speak of what was uppermost in every mind, — tliat Sergeant 
 Gwynne's horse had come in without him, and that the animal's right 
 flank was streaming with blood. 
 
 Ten minutes later. Lieutenant Perry, in riding-dress, came hurrying 
 down to the colonel's quarters, where two or three officers were now 
 gathered at the gate. The ladies had put aside the albums, and -with 
 anxious faces were scanning the little group, as though striving to 
 gauge from their gestures and expression the extent of the calamity or 
 the possible degree of danger. But Mrs. Lawrence looked fairly 
 startled when her husband's voice was heard for the first time above 
 the general hum of consultation : 
 
 "Colonel Brainard, Mr. Perry is coming, I see, and I presume 
 there is no time to be lost. You have asked if none of us who were 
 stationed here ever visited the ranch, and the answer was no. May I 
 suggest that Dr. Quin could perhaps tell something of its inhabitants?" 
 
 "Where is the doctor?" asked the colonel, turning suddenly. 
 " Orderly, go and give my compliments to the post surgeon and say I 
 wish to see him here a moment. — All ready, Perry ? You have made 
 quick work of it." 
 
 "All ready, sir. At least, I will be the moment my horse gets 
 here. There go the men running to the stables now." 
 
 " Captain Stryker will send a sergeant and four men to report to 
 
778 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 you, and you are to go direct to Dunraven Ranch. The rest of the 
 troop, with the Cheyennes, will scout the prairie to the east and south. 
 'Twill soon be too dark to trail, but three of the Indians are going 
 back on the horse's track as far as they can. The adjutant is writing a 
 note to the proprietor of the ranch, — I don't know his name " 
 
 " His name is Maitland, sir." 
 
 '' Is it ? Have you been there ?" 
 
 " I've been around one end of it, outside, but nowhere near the 
 buildings. It's all fenced in, sir, and the gates kept locked," 
 
 " What an incomprehensible proceeding for Texas ! Wait a mo- 
 ment while I speak to INIr. Farnham : he's writing here at my desk. 
 — Gentlemen, come in on the porch and sit down, will you not ?" 
 
 But they excused themselves, and hastened away to remove their 
 full dress. Captain Lawrence had no need to call his wife. She bade 
 her companion good-evening, thanked the colonel with a smiling glance 
 for the pleasure the photographs had given her, and added a word of 
 earnest hope that they might find the sergeant uninjured. Then she 
 joined her husband, and together they walked quickly away. Mrs. 
 Belknap and Mr. Perry were left for the moment alone. 
 
 " Can you walk home with me ?" she asked, in her low, modulated 
 tones, the great, heavily-lashed, swimming dark eyes searching his face. 
 " I have not seen you since they broke in upon our talk last evening, 
 and there is something I want to ask you." 
 
 " I'm sorry, Mrs. Belknap, but I'm on duty, you see," was the young 
 fellow's answer as he gave a tug to the strap of his cartridge-belt. 
 " Can't you ask me here ?" 
 
 " How can I ?" — and the eyes were full of pathetic disappointment, — 
 "when they may come out any moment? You did not finish telling 
 me about — about the tassel last night. I believe you were glad when 
 they interrupted us. Were you not?" 
 
 " Nonsense, Mrs. Belknap ! I was having too good a time, — lots 
 of fun." 
 
 " Yes," was the reproachful answer, " that is what it was — to you, 
 — mere fun. And now you are going away again, after promising to 
 come in this evening," 
 
 " I have to go, Mrs. Belknap. Why, I want to go. Haven't you 
 heard what has happened, — about Sergeant Gwynne ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, it is your duty, of course ; but how unlucky !" And 
 the pretty face was drooping with its weight of disappointment and 
 sadness. She leaned against the railing near his gauntlet-covered hand, 
 the dark eyes pensively downcast, the dark lashes sweeping her soft, 
 flushing cheek. " And to-morrow you are on guard," she presently 
 continued. 
 
 " Yes, unless some one has to go on for me, — in case we are not 
 back in the morning in time." 
 
 "Then it's good-by, I suppose," she said, lifting her eyes once more 
 to his. "After to-morrow there will be little chance of seeing you. 
 Mrs. Page will be here by that time." 
 
 Mr. Perry looked at his fair companion with a glance that told 
 of much perturbation of spirit. Mrs. Page was an old and cherished 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 779 
 
 friend of Mrs. Belknap's, — so the latter had always said, — and now 
 she was coming to visit her from a station in the Indian Territory. 
 Just why her coming should prevent his seeing Mrs. Belknap or her 
 seeing him was more than the tall subaltern could understand. On 
 the brink of an unpardonable solecism, on the very ragged edge of a 
 blundering inquiry, he was saved — in her estimation — by the sudden 
 return of the orderly and the reappeai'ance of the colonel. 
 
 " I've been to the hospital, sir, and to the doctor's quarters : he's 
 not there. They say that's him, sir, riding off yonder." And the 
 orderly pointed to a faint speck just visible in the waning twilight, far 
 away southeastward beyond the Monee. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Twilight still hovered over the broad expanse of prairie w^hen 
 Lieutenant Perry and his little party, after a brisk canter down the 
 valley, reached the barbed enclosure of Dunraven, and the young com- 
 mander led unhesitatingly to the gate-way on the northern line. A 
 sergeant of his troop and two private soldiers were his escort at the 
 moment ; a third man, by direction of Colonel Brainard, had been sent 
 at the gallop in pursuit of the distant speck which the orderly had 
 pronounced to be Dr. Quin, and the instructions which this messenger 
 bore were to the effect that the post surgeon should ride by the most 
 direct route and join Lieutenant Perry at the north gate of the ranch. 
 In the few minutes which elapsed between the announcement of the 
 doctor's departure on his solitary and unexpected ride and the arrival 
 of the little mounted escort. Perry had time to tell the colonel some- 
 thing of the situation down the ISIonee and to make a rous^h sketcli of 
 the enclosure and the distant buildings. The direction taken by the 
 doctor, up to the moment when the black speck disappeared from view 
 in the waning light, would be very apt to lead him, if he rode far 
 enough, to some point on the wire fence which spanned the western 
 limit of Dunraven ; biit that point would be at least five or six miles 
 south of the valley. Possibly there was no gate-way north of that, — 
 certainly no trail was visible on the prairie, — but the more Mr. Perry 
 thought of the matter as he rode away the more was he satisfied that 
 somewhere far down that western line there was an entrance where 
 Dr. Quin, at least, had the "open sesame." All the grazing thus far 
 had been done north of the Monee ; all the hunting and coursing, toOj 
 had been found best in every way far out to the north and east of the 
 post ; and so it happened that no one of the — th seemed to have ac- 
 quired any knowledge of the English ranch. What the local infantry 
 command was able to tell of it was purely hearsay. None of the 
 ofiScers had ever penetrated the charmed enclosure, and no one of the 
 soldiers was known to have done so. Perry remembered hearing that 
 the Eleventh while stationed there had made some scouts and expedi- 
 tions out to the south, and that some of these had completely circled 
 the broad lands of the estate, finding well-travelled roads leading from 
 its southern boundaries to the settlements two days' journey farther 
 towards the Gulf; but nowhere was there open or unguarded gap. 
 
780 DUN RAVEN RANCH. 
 
 Cattle with the Dunraven brand roamed tlie breaks and prairies far 
 away towards the eastern streams, and crossed even the broad trail over 
 which the great Texas " drive" of " long-horns," year after year, passed 
 up across the valley of the Washita. Other cattle, of choicer breed, 
 were carefully herded within the wire enclosure ; but, thanks to the 
 vigilance of the manager and the exertions of his few skilled assistants, 
 none of their wandering chattels seemed ever to venture up-stream to- 
 wards the fort-, and all excuse for a visit there was apparently guarded 
 against. These meagre points he had gathered frotn the remarks of 
 one or two officers who had come to see him oif, and, ignorant of his 
 morning expedition, to offer suggestions as to his best course. 
 
 His orders were, in case nothing was seen or heard of Sergeant 
 Gwynne while on the way thither, to enter the enclosure and make in- 
 quiries at the ranch itself Meantime, the Cheyenne scouts had been 
 hastily summoned from their lodges along the Monee just above the 
 post and sent scurrying forth upon the prairie to trail the horse's foot- 
 prints and so work back as far as possible before darkness interposed. 
 Captain Stryker, too, and a dozen of his best men, had mounted and 
 ridden forth in long, scattered line across the eastern plain ; and these 
 parties were all five miles out from the post before nightfall fairly hid 
 them from view. 
 
 One thing the sergeant had to tell Mr. Perry which confirmed him 
 in the belief that the sooner they got to Dunraven the quicker they 
 would be at the scene of their comrade's mishap, whatever that might 
 prove to be. He had had no time himself to visit the stables and ex- 
 amine the wounds on the horse's flank, but as they rode away from 
 Rossiter he turned in the saddle and called the non-commissioned officer 
 to his side. 
 
 " What sort of wound is it, sergeant, that made that horse bleed so, 
 —bullet or knife ?" 
 
 " It doesn't look like either, sir. There are several of them, — jagged 
 scratches in the shoulder and along the flank, like thorns or nails " 
 
 "Or barbed wire?" suggested the lieutenant, suddenly. 
 
 "Yes, sir, like as not; though we hadn't thought of that, not 
 knowing of any fences hereabouts." 
 
 "You'll see fence enough presently. That's where we'll find Ser- 
 geant Gwynne, too. Let your horses out a little. I want to get there 
 before dark, if possible." 
 
 It was dark in the timl)er, however, as they rode through and 
 reined u]i at the gate-way. It would be half an hour at the very least, 
 thought Perry, before the doctor could join them, if he came at all. It 
 was by no means certain that the messenger had overtaken him, and, 
 even if he had, was it probable that the doctor would be in great haste 
 to come? His mysterious movements of the morning, his undoubted 
 connection with the night-signals from the ranch, the fact that he had 
 given his commanding officer no inkling whatever of these outside inter- 
 ests of his, all tended to make Perry distrustful of their post surgeon. 
 He would not speak of it to a soul, or liint at the possibility of such 
 a thing, until he had evidence that was indisputable, but the young 
 olfi.cer was sorely perplexed by these indications of some secret and 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 781 
 
 unlawful enterprise on the part of their new comrade, and he doubted 
 his sympathy in the mission on which they had been hurried forth. 
 
 Dismounting to examine the gate while still pondering this matter 
 over in his mind, Perry found it locked as securely as he had left it 
 in the morning. The sergeant and his men dismounted, too, at a low- 
 spoken word from their officer, and stood at the heads of their panting 
 horses, looking in silent surprise at the strong and impervious barrier 
 that crossed their track. 
 
 " The gate is locked and the fence impassable, sergeant," said Mr. 
 Perry. " We cannot get our horses through or over unless we hack 
 down a post or two. You can't cut such wire as this with any tool 
 we've got. I'll leave Nolan here with you and go on to the ranch on 
 foot : it lies about half a mile to the south. If the doctor comes, he 
 can follow me. If I do not come or send back in half an hour from 
 this, you three come after me, for I'll need you." 
 
 With that, slowly and carefully, and not without a muttered mal- 
 ediction on the stinging barbs, Mr. Perry wriggled through between 
 the middle wires, and finally stood within the enclosure, readjusting his 
 waist-belt and holster. Then he took his revolver from its leathern 
 case, carefully tried the hammer and cylinder, saw that each chamber 
 was loaded, and turned once more to the sergeant. 
 
 " Your pistols all right ?" 
 
 " All right, sir, — fresh loaded when we started." 
 
 " I don't know that they'll be necessary at all, sergeant, but this is 
 a queer place, from what I've heard and the little I've seen. Keep 
 your eyes and ears open. Captain Stryker and some of the men may 
 come down into the valley if they find no trace of Gwynne up on the 
 prairie. Watch for the doctor, too." 
 
 Then, through the deepening twilight he strode, following the trail 
 that led southward up the slopes. Five minutes' brisk walk along 
 the springy turf brought him to the crest and in view of the lights at 
 the ranch-buildings, still some six or seven hundred yards away. All 
 through the eastern sky the stars were peeping forth, and even through 
 the gleam of the twilight in the west two brilliant planets shone like 
 molten gold. All was silence and peace on every hand, and, but for 
 those guiding, glimmering lights at the south, all M^ould have told of 
 desolation. Behind him in the valley waited his faithful men. Far 
 beyond the Monee, out on the northern prairie, he knew that comrades 
 were scouring the face of the earth in search of their missing brother. 
 Up the stream, somewhere behind them, the Cheyennes were patiently 
 trailing the hoof-tracks as long as the light should last ; he knew that 
 search must be at an end by this time, and that some of their number, 
 at least, would be riding down to join his men. Whoever found the 
 sergeant was to fire three shots in air : the signal could be heard a long 
 way in that intense stillness, and that signal was to recall the searching- 
 parties. Every step brought him deeper into the darkness of the night, 
 yet nearer and nearer those twinkling lights ahead. Already he could 
 distinguish those in the main building, the homestead, from those more 
 distant still, in the store-rooms and office. Far over among the stables 
 and corrals he heard the deep baying of hounds, and he wondered if 
 Vol. XLII.— 51 
 
782 DVNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 it was to be his luck to encounter any enterprising watch-dogs. An 
 English bull-terrier would be a lively entertainer, thought he, with 
 instinctive motion towards the flap of his holster ; and it would be a 
 wonder if a ranch that surrounded itself with fifty miles of barbed 
 wire fencing were not further environed by a pack of watch-dogs of the 
 most approved and belligerent breed. Once having passed the distant 
 barrier of that gate on the Monee, however, his way was unimpeded, 
 and, to all appearance, utterly unmarked ; he had arrived within fifty 
 yards of the foremost building, the homestead, before he was brought 
 to a halt. Then he stopped short, surprised, half credulous, and all 
 attention, listening to the " concord of sweet sounds" that came floating 
 from the open casement somewhere along the east front of the big, 
 gloomy house. 
 
 " One part of the story verified, by Jove ! It's a piano, — and well 
 played, too." 
 
 Full a minute he stood there listening. Perry was a dancer whose 
 nimble feet moved blithely to any measured, rhythmical strains, and 
 a soldier whose soul was stirred by martial music, but with Chopin and 
 Mendelssohn, Bach and Rubinstein, he had but slight acquaintance. 
 That any one should be playing a piano here on the borders of the 
 Llano Estacado was in itself sufficient cause for wonderment; that the 
 invisible performer was playing — and playing with exquisite taste and 
 feeling — one of the loveliest of the " Lieder ohne Worte," the Spring 
 Song, was a fact that conveyed no added astonishment to his soul : he 
 never knew it until one sw^eet night long after. 
 
 However, matters more pressing than music demanded Mr. Perry's 
 attention just here. He had reached Dunraven, after all. Neither 
 dog nor man had challenged. Once within those barbed and frowning 
 barriers, all the encircling objects spoke of security and rest. Far 
 away towards the corrals he heard the sound of voices in jolly conver- 
 sation ; a rich, melodious laugh rang out on the cool evening air ; he 
 heard some one shouting genial good-night to somebody else, and then 
 the slam of a distant door. Presently a light popped out from a win- 
 dow in what he believed to be a storehouse, and all was still again. 
 Even the piano had ceased. Now was his time, thought Perry ; and 
 so, boldly mounting the steps, he stood upon a dark portico and strode 
 to the black shadow in the wall before him where he knew the main 
 door-way must be. It was his intention to knock or ring. Up-stairs 
 dim lights were shining through the open windows, but on this front 
 of the ground-floor all was darkness. His gauntleted hand felt all 
 the face of the door in search of knob or knocker, but nothing of the 
 kind w^as there ; neither was there such a thing on either door-post. 
 Just as he decided to hammer with his clinched fist, the piano began 
 again. He waited for a pause, but none came. This time the music 
 was vehement and spirited, and no banging of his on oaken door-way 
 would be audible against such rivalry. Uncertain what to do, he con- 
 cluded to reconnoitre the eastern front.' A few- steps brought him to 
 the corner, and there lay the veranda before him, bathed at its farther 
 end in a flood of light tiiat streamed from one opened Venetian window, 
 and through this curtained aperture poured the grand tones of the 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 7g3 
 
 melody. " That fellow can rattle more music out of a piano than any 
 man I ever heard," muttered Mr. Perry to himself, as he strode down 
 the wooden gallery. " Wonder if it's that boss cow-puncher I met this 
 morning." Another moment, and he stood at the open window, rooted 
 to the spot, and with his frank blue eyes fairly starting from their 
 sockets in amazement at the sight that met them, all unprepared. 
 
 Across a spacious room, hung with rich curtains, carpeted with 
 costly rugs of Oriental make, furnished with many a cosey chair and 
 couch, and tables covered with dainty bric-ci-brac, and shelves with 
 tempting books, lighted by several large and beautiful astral lamps, 
 some with colored shades of crimson and gold and delicate tint of blue, 
 there stood close to the opposite wall a large piano of the class known 
 as the "grand," rare enough among the railway towns west of the 
 Mississippi States, but utterly unlocked for here, a week's long march 
 from the nearest of the Texan railways. That in itself were sufficient 
 cause for much surprise, notwitlistanding the measure of preparation 
 he had had in Mrs. Lawrence's remarks. 
 
 The sight that wellnigh took his breath away was something far 
 more than the interior of a luxurious and beautifully-appointed room. 
 Nothing that had been said or hinted prepared him in the faintest degree 
 for the apparition, facing him, seated at the piano, of a performer utterly 
 unlike the "cow-puncher" whom he had met in the morning. The 
 " fellow" now bending over the key-board was a young, exquisitely fair, 
 and graceful woman. Even as he stood there in the full glare of the 
 parlor lights, she lifted up a pair of soft, shaded, lustrous eyes and saw 
 him. 
 
 The music stopped with sudden shock. Tannhauser was undone. 
 The firm, white, shapely hands fell nerveless in her lap ; a pallor as of 
 faintness shot over the wild-eyed face, only to be instantly succeeded by 
 a flush that surged up to the very brows. Startled she might have 
 been for an instant ; scared, — not a bit of it ! One instant only of 
 hesitation, then she rose and swept gallantly forward to meet him. 
 
 Instinctively Perry's hand went up to the visor of his forage-cap 
 and bared the bright, curling crop of hair. Speechless with amaze, he 
 could only bow before her and wait her question ; but it was a moment 
 before she could speak. Brave as she was, the sudden apparition of a 
 stranger staring in upon her solitude from an open casement was a shock 
 that served to paralyze the vocal cords. He could see that she was 
 making gallant effort to control the tremor that had seized upon her 
 and to inquire the purpose of his coming. He could see, too, that the 
 sight of the uniform had reassured her, and that there was neither 
 indignation nor displeasure in her beautiful eyes. Reserve, of course, 
 he expected. 
 
 " Did you wish to see any one ?" was finally the form her question 
 took ; and Perry had time to comment to himself, " English, by Jove !" 
 before he answered, — 
 
 " I did ; but let me first ask your pardon for this intrusion. I had 
 no idea there was a woman at Dunraven. My knocking at the front 
 brought no answer, and, hearing the piano, I followed the veranda. 
 Believe me, I am as surprised as you could possibly have been." 
 
784 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 Perry's voice was something greatly in his favor. It was modu- 
 lated and gentle when in conversation, and with even a caressing tone 
 about it when he spoke to women. Evidently the sound was not un- 
 welcome to this one. She stood erect, her fingers interlacing as she 
 clasped her hands in front of her and looked him well over with her 
 brave eyes. The color ebbed and flowed through the creamy whiteness 
 of her face, but the roses were winning every moment, — the red roses 
 of the house of Lancaster. 
 
 " And — ^you wished to see — whom ?" she presently asked, with cour- 
 tesy in every word. 
 
 " Why, I hardly know," answered Perry, with a smile that showed 
 his white teeth gleaming through the curling blond moustache. "A 
 sergeant of my troop has been missing since morning. His horse came 
 back to the fort just as we were on parade at sunset, bleeding and 
 without his rider. We have searching-parties out all over the prairie, 
 and I was ordered to come here to the ranch to make inquiries." 
 
 She hesitated a moment, — thinking. 
 
 " My father is at home, but I fear he is not well enough to see you. 
 Mr. Ewen is with him, and he might know. Will you — would you 
 step in one moment, and I will go and ask ?" 
 
 " Thank you very much. I wish you would not trouble yourself. 
 I presume I can go over to those stable-buildings, or wherever it is the 
 men sleep : they would be most apt to know if our sergeant has been 
 seen." 
 
 " Oh, no ! it is no trouble ; besides, they are all asleep over thei'e by 
 this time, I fancy. They have to be out so very early, don't you know ?" 
 
 But Perry had stepped inside even as he offered to go elsewhere, — 
 a fact that the girl had not been slow to notice, for a quizzical little 
 shadow of a smile hovered for an instant at the corners of her pretty 
 mouth. " Pray sit down," she said, as she vanished into an adjoining 
 room, leaving Ned Perry standing gazing after her, spell-bound. 
 
 He listened to the swish of her trailing skirts through the dimly- 
 lighted room beyond, through an invisible hall-way, and then to the 
 quick pit-a-pat of her feet up some uncarpeted stairway. He heard 
 her moving quickly, lightly, along the corridor of the upper story until 
 the foot-falls were lost at the rear of the house, then a distant tap upon 
 a door-way, and a soft voice, barely audible, calling, " Papa." He heard 
 her speak again, as though in response to inquiry "from within ; he 
 heard her raise her voice, as though to repeat an answer to a previous 
 question, and this time her words were distinct. " An oflBcer from the 
 fort," she announced ; and then followed sensation. 
 
 He heard a door quickly opened ; he heard men's voices in low, 
 eager, excited talk ; he heard her sweet tones once more, as though in 
 expostulation, saying something about the sergeant, lost or wounded, 
 and they were merely inquiring for him ; he heard a stern, harsh in- 
 junction of "Silence! that will do!" some quick, hurrying footsteps, 
 a man's spurred boots descending some staircase at the back of the 
 house, a colloquy aloft in fainter tones, and then — closing doors and 
 silence. He waited five — ten minutes, and still no one came ; but the 
 murmur of voices in subdued but earnest controversy was again audible 
 
DUN RAVEN RANCH. 735 
 
 on the second floor, and at last a door was opened and he heard the 
 same stern tones that had commanded her silence before, and this time 
 they said, — 
 
 " That is entirely my afikir ! I will see the gentleman myself, and 
 let him know my opinion of this impudent and — and — burglarious 
 intrusion." 
 
 " Whew !" whistled Mr. Perry to himself at sound of these men- 
 acing words. " This is bearding the lion in his den with a vengeance ! 
 Now trot out your ' Douglas in his hall,' and let's see what it all means. 
 I've seen the girl, anyhow, and he can't take thM back, even if he turns 
 me out." 
 
 He heard a heavy step, accented by the sharp, energetic prodding 
 of a cane ; it came slowly along the hall, slowly and majestically down 
 the stairs, slowly into the lower front room, and presently there loomed 
 forth from the darkness into the broad glare of the astrals at the hang- 
 ing portih-es the figure of a tall, gray-haired, spectacled, slimly-built, 
 and fragile-looking Englishman, erect as pride and high spirit could 
 hold a man against the ravages of age and rheumatism ; sharp, stern, 
 and imperious of mood, as every glance and every feature plainly 
 told ; vehement and passionate, unless twitching lips and frowning 
 brows and angry, snapping eyes belied him ; a man who had suffered 
 much, unless the deep lines and sliadows under eyes and mouth meant 
 nothing but advancing years ; a man who entered full of wrath and 
 resentment at this invasion of his privacy, — this forcing of his guarded 
 lines ; and yet — a gentleman, unless Ned Perry's instincts were all of 
 little worth. 
 
 The young soldier had been standing by a centre-table, coolly 
 scanning the pictures on the walls, and determining to present a rather 
 exaggerated picture of nonchalance as reward for the hostile language of 
 the proprietor of Dunraven. He expected to hear an outburst of in- 
 vective when that gentleman reached the room ; but no sooner had he 
 passed the portihe than he halted short, and Mr. Perry, turning sud- 
 denly, was amazed at the pale, startled, yet yearning look in his quiv- 
 ering face. The moment the young man confronted him there came as 
 sudden a change. It was with evident eifort that he controlled himself, 
 and then, after brief searching study of Perry's face, accosted him, — 
 coldly and with sarcastic emphasis : 
 
 " To what circumstance do I owe the honor of this intrusion ?" 
 
 " I regret you so consider it, Mr. Maitland, — as I believe you to 
 
 be " The old gentleman bowed with stately dignity. " One of our 
 
 men, a sergeant, rode down this way quite early this morning and failed 
 to return. His horse came back, bleeding, at sunset, and we feared 
 some accident or trouble. Searching-parties are out all over the 
 prairies, and the colonel ordered me to inquire here." 
 
 " Does your colonel take us for banditti here, and ascribe your de- 
 sertions and accidents to our machinations ?" 
 
 " Far from it, sir, but rather as a hospitable refuge to which the 
 injured man had been conveyed," answered Perry, with a quiet smile, 
 determined to thaw the hauteur of Dunraven's lord if courtesy of 
 manner could effect it. 
 
786 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 " He is utterly mistaken, then," answered the Englishman, " and I 
 resent — I resent, sir, this forcing of my gates after the explicit un- 
 derstanding we had last year. As a soldier I presume you had to obey 
 your orders ; but I beg you to tell your colonel that his order was an 
 affront to me personally, iu view of what has passed between us." 
 
 " Nothing has passed between you, Mr. Maitland," answered Perry, 
 a little tartly now. " We have reached Fort Rossiter only within the 
 last fortnight, and know nothing whatever of your understandings 
 with previous commanders. Permit me to ask you one question, and 
 I will retire. Have you heard anything of our sergeant f 
 
 " Nothing, sir. I would hardly be apt to hear, for my people here 
 are enjoined to keep strictly to our limits, and all we ask of our neigh- 
 bors is that they keep to theirs. I presume you have destroyed my 
 fences, sir, in order to effect an entrance." 
 
 " Upon my word, Mr. Maitland, you make me rather regret that I 
 did not ; but I had the decency to respect what I had happened to hear 
 of your wishes, and so left my horse and my men outside, and footed 
 it a good half-mile in the dark " 
 
 " Ah ! that sounds very like it !" replied Mr. Maitland, with 
 writhing lips, for at this moment there came the dull thunder of 
 rapidly-advancing hoof-beats, and before either man could speak again 
 three troopers with a led horse — all four steeds panting from their 
 half-mile race — reined up in front of the eastern portico in the full 
 glare of the lights, and the sergeant's voice was heard eagerly hailing 
 his lieutenant. 
 
 " My luck again !" groaned Perry. " I told them to come in half 
 an hour if they didn't hear from me, and of course they came." 
 
 VII. 
 
 For a moment there was silence in the brightly-illuminated room. 
 With flushed face and swollen veins and twitching, clutching hands, old 
 Maitland stood there glaring at the young officer. Before Perry could 
 speak again, however, and more fully explain the untoward circum- 
 stance, there came a rush of hurrying footsteps without, and the sound 
 of excited voices. The next minute they heard an eager, angry chal- 
 lenge, and Perry recognized the voice of the overseer or manager whom 
 he had met in the morning. 
 
 " What do you fellows want here ?" was his brusque and loud in- 
 quiry as he sprang from the piazza and stood confronting the sergeant, 
 who was quietly seated in the saddle, and the question was promptly 
 echoed by three or four burly men who, in shirt-sleeves and various 
 styles of undress, came tumbling in the wake of their leader and stood 
 now a menacing group looking up at the silent troopers. 
 
 If there be one thing on earth that will stir an Irishman's soul to 
 its inmost depths and kindle to instant flame the latent heat of his pug- 
 nacity, it is just such an inquiry in the readily recognized accent of the 
 hated " Sassenach." Perry recognized the danger in a flash, and, 
 springing through the open casement, interposed between the hostile 
 parties. 
 
DVNRAVEN RANCH. 787 
 
 " Not a word, Sergeant Leary. Here, Mr. Manager, these men 
 simply obeyed orders, and I am responsible for any mistake. No harm 
 was intended " 
 
 " Harm !" broke in one of the ranchmen, with a demonstratively 
 loud laugh. " Harm be blowed ! What harm could you do, I'd like 
 to know? If the master'll only say the word, we'd Break your heads 
 in a minute." 
 
 " Quiet, now, Dick !" interposed the overseer ; but the other hands 
 growled approval, and Perry's eyes flashed with anger at the insult. 
 What reply he might have made was checked by the sight of Sergeant 
 Leary throwing himself from the saddle and tossing his reins to one 
 of the men. He knew well enough what that meant, and sprang in- 
 stantly in front of him. 
 
 " Back to your horse, sir ! Back, instantly !" for the sergeant's 
 face was fierce with rage. " Mount, I say !" added the lieutenant, as 
 the sergeant still hesitated, and even the sense of discipline could not 
 keep the mounted troopers from a muttered word of encouragement. 
 Slowly, wrathfully, reluctantly, the soldier obeyed, once turning furi- 
 ously back as jeering taunts were hurled at him from among the 
 ranchers, unrebuked by their manager. " Now move off with your 
 men to the gate. Leave my horse, and wait for me there. Go !" added 
 the young officer, sternly ; and, with bitter mortification at heart and a 
 curse stifled on his quivering lips, the Irishman turned his horse's head 
 away and slowly waived him in the indicated direction. 
 
 " Now, Mr. Manager," said Perry, turning fiercely upon the younger 
 Englishman, " I have done my best to restrain my men : do you look 
 out for yours. You have allowed them to insult me and mine, and 
 you may thank your stars that discipline prevailed with my people, 
 though you have nothing of the kind here." 
 
 " Your men have cut down our fences, by your order, I presume," 
 said the manager, coolly, " and it's lucky for them they got out of the 
 way when they did. We have a right to protect our property and eject 
 intruders, and " 
 
 " I came here to inquire for a missing man, — a right even an Eng- 
 lishman cannot deny us on these prairies. We had excellent reason to 
 believe him injured, and thought, not knowing you for the inhospitable 
 gang you are, that he might have been carried in here for treatment : 
 there was no other place. Your proprietor tells me he is not here. 
 After what I've seen of your people, I have reason to be still more 
 anxious about him. Scant mercy a single trooper would have had at 
 their hands. Now I ask you, Do you know or have you heard of a 
 cavalry soldier being seen around here during the day?" 
 
 Perry was standing holding his horse by the curb as he spoke, facing 
 the parlor windows and confronting the angry group of ranchmen. 
 Within, though nearer the window than he had left him, was the bent 
 form of the owner of Dunraven, leaning on his cane and apparently 
 impatiently striving to make himself heard as he came forward. Be- 
 fore the manager could answer, he was compelled to turn about and 
 rebuke his men, two of whom were especially truculent and menacing. 
 Finally he spoke : 
 
788 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 " I have heard nothing, but I tell you frankly that if any of your 
 men have been prowling around here it's more than probable some one 
 has got hurt. Has there been any trouble to-day, men ?" he asked. 
 
 " By God, there will be if this ranch isn't cleared in five minutes," 
 was the only answer. 
 
 " Don't make an ass of yourself, Hoke," growled the manager. 
 " They are going quick enough." 
 
 " I am going," said Perry, swinging lightly into saddle ; " aud mind 
 you this, sir : I go with well-warranted suspicion that some of these 
 bullies of yours have been responsible for the non-appearance of my 
 stable-sergeant. If he is not found this night, you may confidently 
 look for another visit. I say that to you also, Mr. Maitland ; and you 
 owe it to our forbearance that there has been no bloodshed here to-night." 
 
 Old Maitland's tremulous tones were heard but a second in rejjly 
 when he M'as interrupted by a coarse voice from the crowd of ranch- 
 men, by this time increased to nearly a dozen men. Some of them 
 were gathering about Perry as he sat in the saddle, and an applauding 
 echo followed the loud interruption, — 
 
 " Give the swell a lift. Tummy : 'twill teach him better manners." 
 
 Almost instantly Perry felt his right foot grasped and a powerful 
 form was bending at the stirrup. He had heard of the trick before. 
 Many a time has the Loudon cad unhorsed the English trooper, taken 
 unawares, by hurling him with sudden lift from below. But Perry 
 was quick and active as a cat. Seat and saddle, too, were in his favor. 
 He simply threw his weight on the left foot and his bridle-hand upon 
 the pommel, let the right leg swing over the horse's back until re- 
 leased from the brawny hand, then back it came as he settled again in 
 the saddle, his powerful thighs gripping like a vise ; at the same 
 instant, and before his assailant could duck to earth and slip out of the 
 way, he had whipped out the heavy Colt's revolver and brought its 
 butt with stunning crash down on the ranchman's defenceless head. 
 
 There was instant rush and commotion. In vain old Maitland 
 feebly piped his protests from the veranda ; in vain the overseer seized 
 and held back one or two of the men and furiously called oiF the rest. 
 Aided by the darkness which veiled them, the others made a simulta- 
 neous rush upon the young officer and sought to drag him from his 
 plunging horse. Perry held his pistol high in air, threatening with the 
 butt the nearest assailant, yet loath to use further force. He was still 
 in the broad glare of the parlor lights, — a conspicuous mark ; eager 
 hands had 'grasped his bridle-rein at the very bit, and he could not 
 break away ; and then missiles began to fly about his devoted head, and 
 unless he opened fire he was helpless. While two men firmly held 
 Nolan by the curb, half a dozen others were hurling from the ambush 
 of darkness a scattering volley of wooden billets and chunks of coal. 
 He could easily have shot down the men who held him. It was sore 
 temptation, for already he had been struck and stung by unseen projec- 
 tiles ; but just as the manager sprang forward and with vigorous cuffs 
 induced the men to loose their hold on his rein, there came three horse- 
 men charging full tilt back into the crowd, scattering the assailants 
 right and left ; and, this time unrebuked, Sergeant Leary leaped from 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 789 
 
 the saddle aud with a rage of fierce delight pitched headlong into battle 
 with the biggest ranchman in his way. And this was not all ; for 
 behind them at rapid trot came other troopers, aud in a moment the 
 open space was thronged with eager, wondering comrades, — full half of 
 Stryker's company, — in whose overwhelming presence all thought of 
 promiscuous combat seemed to leave the ranchmen. They slipped away 
 in the darkness, leaving to their employers the embarrassment of ac- 
 counting for their attack. Leary was still fuming with wrath and 
 raging for furtlier battle and shouting into the darkness fierce invective 
 at the vanished head of his opponent. He turned on the overseer him- 
 self, and but for Perry's steru and sudden prohibition would have had 
 a round with him, but was forced to content himself with the informa- 
 tion conveyed to all within hearing that he'd " fight any tin min" the 
 ranch contained if they'd only come out where the lieutenant couldn't 
 stop him. The troopers were making eager inquiry as to the cause of 
 all the trouble, and, fearing further difficulty, Perry promptly ordered 
 the entire party to " fall in." Silence and discipline were restored in a 
 moment, aud as the platoon formed rank he inquired of a sergeant how 
 they came to be there. The reply was that it had grown so dark on 
 the prairie that further search seemed useless. Captain Stryker and most 
 of the men had been drawn off by signals from the Cheyennes up the 
 valley towards the post, and these men, who had been beyond Dunraven 
 on the northern prairie, were coming back along the Monee trail when 
 they saw the lights and heard voices over at the lower shore. There 
 they found Leary, who was excited about something, and before they 
 had time to ask he suddenly shouted, " They're killin' the lieutenant. 
 Come on, boys !" and galloped off with his own party : so they fol- 
 lowed. Perry quietly ordered them to leave a corporal and four men 
 with him, and told the senior sergeant to march the others back to 
 the post : he would follow in five minutes. Then he turned to the 
 manager : 
 
 " You will have to put up with my keeping some of my men with 
 me, in view of all the circumstances," he said, coldly. " But after this 
 exhibition of lawlessness on the part of your people I do not propose 
 to take any chances. I want to say to you that it is my belief that 
 some of those ruffians you employ can tell what has become of our 
 missing man, and that you will do well to investigate to-night. As to 
 you, Mr. Maitland," he said, turning to the old gentleman, who had 
 sunk into a low easy-chair, " much as I regret having disturbed your 
 privacy and — that of the — ladies of your household, you will admit 
 now that justice to my men and to the service demands that I should 
 report my suspicions and my reception here to the commanding officer 
 at Fort Rossiter." 
 
 There was no reply. . 
 
 " I wish you good-night, sir," said Perry ; but his eyes wandered 
 in to the lighted parlor in search of a very different face and form, — 
 and still there was no answer. 
 
 The manager came back upon the piazza and stepped rapidly 
 towards them. Perry quickly dismounted and bent down over the 
 crouching figure. 
 
790 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 " Why, here !" he suddenly exclaimed, " your employer is faint, or 
 — something's gone wrong." 
 
 " Hush !" was the low-spoken, hurried answer of the Englishman. 
 " Just bear a hand, will you, and help me lift him to yonder sofa ?" 
 
 Easily, between them, they bore the slight, attenuated form of the 
 old man into the lighted parlor. A deathly pallor had settled on his 
 face. His eyes were closed, and he seemed fallen into a deep swoon. 
 Perry would have set a cushion under his head as they laid him down 
 on a broad, easy couch, but the manager jerked it away, lowering the 
 gray hairs to the very level of the back, so that the mouth gaped wide 
 and looked like death itself. 
 
 "Just steady his head in that position one minute, like a good 
 fellow. I'll be back in a twinkling," said the manager, as he darted 
 from the room and leaped hurriedly up the hall stairway. 
 
 Perry heard him rap at a distant door apparently at the southwest 
 angle of the big house. Then his voice was calling, " Mi-s. Cowan ! 
 Mrs. Cowan ! would you have the goodness to come down quick ? the 
 master's ill." 
 
 Then, before any answer could be given, another door opened aloft, 
 and trailing skirts and light foot-falls came flashing down the stairway. 
 Almost before he could turn to greet her, she was in the room again, 
 and with quick, impulsive movement had thrown herself on her knees 
 by his side. 
 
 " Oh, papa ! dear father ! I was afraid of this ! Let me take his 
 head on my arm, so," she hurriedly murmured ; "and would you step in 
 the other room and fetch me a little brandy ? 'Tis there on the side- 
 board." 
 
 Perry sprang to do her bidding, found a heavy decanter on the 
 great oaken buffet, half filled a glass, and brought it with some water 
 back to the lounge. She stretched forth her hand, and, thanking him 
 with a grateful look from her sweet, anxious eyes, took the liquor and 
 carried it carefully to her father's ashen lips. 
 
 " Can I not help you in some way ? Is there no one I can call ?*' 
 asked the young soldier, as he bent over her. 
 
 " Mr. Ewen has gone for her, — our old nurse, I mean. She does 
 not seem to be in her room, and I fear she has gone over to her son's, — 
 a young fellow at the storehouse. Mr. Ewen has followed by this 
 time." 
 
 She dipped her slender white fingers in the water and sprinkled the 
 forehead and eyelids of the prostrate man. A feeble moan, followed 
 by a deep-drawn sigh, was the only response. More brandy poured 
 into the gaping mouth seemed only to strangle and distress him. No 
 sign of returning consciousness rewarded her effort. 
 
 " If Mrs. Cowan would only come ! She has never failed us be- 
 fore ; and we so lean upon her at such a time." 
 
 " Pray tell me which way to go. Surely I can find her," urged 
 Perry. 
 
 " Mr. Ewen must be searching for her now, or he would have 
 returned by this time ; and I dread being alone. I have never been 
 alone with father when he has had such a seizure." 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 791 
 
 Perry threw himself on his knees beside her, marvelling at the 
 odd fate that had so suddenly altered all the conditions of his unlooked- 
 for visit. He seized one of the long, tremulous hands that lay so 
 nerveless on the couch, and began rapid and vigorous chafing and 
 slapping. Somewhere he had read or heard of women being restored 
 from fainting-spells by just such means. Why should it not pre- 
 vail with the old man ? He vaguely bethought him of burnt 
 feathers, and looked about for the discarded pillow, wondering if it 
 might not be a brilliant idea to cut it open and extract a handful and 
 set it ablaze under those broad and eminently aristocratic nostrils. 
 Happily, he was spared excuse for further experiment. He felt that 
 life was returning to the hand he was so energetically grooming, and 
 that feeble but emphatic protest against such heroic treatment was 
 manifest. 
 
 " I think he's coming to," he said. " He's trying to pull away. 
 Shall I keep on?" 
 
 " Yes, do ! Anything rather than have him lie in this death-like 
 swoon." 
 
 Obediently he clung to his prize, rubbing and chafing hard, despite 
 increasing tug and effort. Then came another feeble, petulant moan, 
 and the hollow eyes opened just as rapid foot-falls were heard on the 
 veranda without and Mr. Ewen rushed breathless and ruddy-faced into 
 the room. 
 
 "Where on earth can that woman have gone?" he panted. "I 
 cannot find her anywhere. Is he better, Miss Gladys ?" 
 
 " Reviving, I think, thanks to Mr. thanks to you," she said, 
 
 turning her eyes full upon the kneeling figure at her side and sending 
 Perry's heart up into his throat with delight at the gratitude and kind- 
 ness in her glance. She was striving with one hand to unfasten the 
 scarf and collar at the old man's neck, but making little progress. 
 
 " Let me help you," eagerly said Perry. " That, at least, is more 
 in my line." And somehow their fingers touched as he twisted at the 
 stubborn knot. She drew her hand away then, but it was gently, not 
 abruptly done, and he found time to note that too, and bless her for it. 
 
 " I hate to seem ungracious, you know, after all that's happened," 
 said Mr. Ewen, " but I fear 'twill vex him awfully if he should find 
 you in here when he comes to. He has had these attacks for some time 
 past, and I think he's coming through all right. See !" 
 
 Old Maitland was certainly beginning to open his eyes again and 
 look vacantly around him. 
 
 " Better leave him to Miss Gladys," said the overseer, touching the 
 young fellow on the shoulder. Perry looked into her face to read her 
 wishes before he would obey. A flush was rising to her cheek, a cloud 
 settling about her young eyes, but she turned, after a quick glance at 
 her father. 
 
 " I cannot thank you enough — now," she said, hesitatingly. " Per- 
 haps Mr. Ewen is right. You — you deserve to be told the story of his 
 trouble, you have been so kind. Some day you shall understand, — 
 soon, — and not think unkindly of us." 
 
 " Indeed I do not now," he protested. 
 
792 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 "And — whom are we to thank? — your name, I mean?" she 
 timidly asked. 
 
 " I am Mr. Perry, of the — th Cavahy. We have only come to 
 Fort Rossiter this month." 
 
 " And I am Miss Maitlaud. Some day I can thank you." And 
 she held forth her long, slim hand. He took it very reverently and 
 bowed over it, courtier-like, longing to say something that might fit the 
 occasion ; but before his scattered senses could come to him there was 
 another quick step at the veranda, and a voice that sounded strangely 
 familiar startled his ears : 
 
 " Gladys ! What has happened ?" And there, striding to the sofa 
 with the steps of one assured of welcome and thoroughly at home in 
 those strange precincts, came Dr. Quin. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 It was very late that night — nearly midnight — when the colonel, 
 seated on his veranda and smoking a cigar, caught sight of a cavalry 
 sergeant hurriedly passing his front gate. The main searching-parties 
 had long since come home, unsuccessful ; Lieutenant Perry had re- 
 turned and made report that the people at Dunraven denied having 
 seen or heard anything of Gwynne, that both proprietor and manager 
 had treated his visit as an affront, and that he had had much difficulty 
 in preventing a fracas between his men and a gang of rough fellows 
 employed at the ranch, that finally Mr. Maitlaud had fallen back in a 
 swoon, and that he had left him to the care of Dr. Quin, who arrived 
 soon after the occurrence. The colonel had been greatly interested and 
 somewhat excited over the details of Perry's adventure as that young 
 gentleman finally gave them, for at first he was apparently averse to 
 saying much about it. Little by little, however, all his conversation 
 with Maitlaud and Ewen was drawn out, and the particulars of his 
 hostile reception. The colonel agreed with him that there was grave 
 reason to suspect some of the ranch-people of knowing far more of 
 Sergeant Gwynne's disappearance than they would tell ; and finally, 
 seeing Perry's indisposition to talk further, and noting his preoccupa- 
 tion and apparent depression of spirits, he concluded that between 
 fatigue and rasped nerves the young fellow would be glad to go to bed: 
 so he said, kindly, — 
 
 " Well, I won't keep you, Perry : you're tired out. I'll sit up and 
 see the doctor when he gets back and have a talk with him, then decide 
 what steps we will take in the morning. I'll send a party down the 
 valley at daybreak, anyway. May I offer you some whiskey, or a 
 bottle of beer ?" 
 
 " Thank you, colonel, I believe not to-night. A bath and a nap 
 will set me all right, and I'll be ready to start out first thing in the 
 morning. Good-night, sir." 
 
 But Colonel Brainard could not go to sleep. The garrison had 
 " turned in," all except the guard and Captain Stryker. That officer 
 had returned an hour after dark, and, getting a fresh horse, had started 
 out again, going down the south side of the Monee to search the timber 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 793 
 
 with lanterns, the Cheyenne scouts having reported that Gwynne's horse 
 had come up that way. He had been missed by Mr. Perry, who gal- 
 loped up the trail to catch the platoon before it reached the post, and 
 the colonel, now that he had heard the lieutenant's story, was im- 
 patiently awaiting his return. Up to within a few minutes of mid- 
 night, however, neither Stryker nor the doctor had come; dim lights 
 were burning in both their quarters and at the guard-house. Every- 
 where else the garrison seemed shrouded in darkness. Catching sight 
 of the yellow chevrons as they flitted through the flood of light that 
 poured from his open door-way, the colonel instantly divined that this 
 must be a sergeant of Stryker's troop going in search of his captain, 
 and promptly hailed him : 
 
 " What is it, sergeant ? Any news ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir," answered the soldier, halting short. " Sergeant Gwynne's 
 come back. I was going to the captain's to report." 
 
 " How did he get back. Isn't he injured ?" 
 
 " He says he's had a fall, sir, and has been badly shaken up, but 
 he walked in." 
 
 " Why, that's singular ! Did he meet none of the searching-par- 
 ties ? — see none of their lights ?" 
 
 " I can't make out, sir. He's a little queer, — doesn't want to talk, 
 sir. He asked if his horse got in all right, and went and examined 
 the scratches, and seemed troubled about them ; but he doesn't say 
 anything." 
 
 " Has he gone to the hospital ?" 
 
 " No, sir : he'll sleep in his usual bunk at the stables to-night. He 
 is only bruised and sore, he says. His' face is cut and scratched and 
 bound up in his handkerchief." 
 
 " Very well," said the colonel, after a moment's thought. " The 
 captain will look into the matter when he gets back. You take your 
 horse and ride down the south side of the valley and find the Chey- 
 enne scouts. Captain Stryker is with them. Tell him the sergeant is 
 home, safe." 
 
 " Very well, sir." And the trooper saluted, faced about, and dis- 
 appeared in the darkness ; while the colonel arose, and, puffing thought- 
 fully at his cigar, began pacing slowly up and down the piazza. He 
 wished Stryker were home ; he wished Captain Lawrence were officer 
 of the day, and, so, liable to come out of his quarters again : he had 
 heard just enough about that odd English ranch to make him feel dis- 
 turbed and ill at ease. There had evidently been hostility between his 
 predecessor and the proprietor of Dunraven, and very probably there 
 had been bad blood between the men of the Eleventh Cavalry and the 
 employees of the ranch : else why should there have been so unprovoked 
 an assault upon the lieutenant this night? Tiien there were other 
 things that gave him disquiet. Several officers had gathered upon the 
 piazza during the early evening ; they were mainly of his own regi- 
 ment, but Captain Belknap and two of the infantry subalterns were 
 there ; Lawrence did not come. Of course the talk was about the 
 incident of the evening, and, later, the rumors about Dunraven. All 
 this was new to the cavalrymen : they had heard, as yet, nothing at all, 
 
794 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 and were not a little taken aback by the evident embarrassment and 
 ominous silence of the three infantrymen, when the colonel turned 
 suddenly on Belknap with the question, — 
 
 " By the way, captain, I had no time to ask Lawrence, and it really 
 did not occur to me until after he had gone, but — what did he mean 
 by saying that Dr. Quin could tell us something about the people at 
 Dunraven ?" 
 
 Belknap turned red and looked uncomfortably at his two comrades, 
 as though appealing to them for aid. The younger officers, however, 
 would say nothing at all, and the colonel promptly saw that he had 
 stumbled on some piece of garrison gossip. 
 
 " Never mind," he said, with a kindly laugh. " I don't want to 
 drag any stories out by the roots. The doctor can doubtless explain 
 it all in good season." 
 
 " Well, Colonel Braiuard," answered Belknap, bulkily, " to tell the 
 truth, I really don't know anything about it, and I don't know any 
 one who does, though I have heard some woman-talk about the post. 
 The relations between Dr. Quin and some of the officers of the Eleventh 
 were rather strained, and he is a somewhat reserved and secretive man. 
 The stories were set afloat here last fall, and we had to hear more or 
 less of them until the Eleventh went away this spring. We know 
 only that Dr. Quin has been to Dunraven and the rest of us haven't. 
 Possibly some of the Eleventh were piqued because they had no such 
 luck, or perhaps their ladies did not like it because Quin wouldn't 
 tell them anything about what he saw. At all events, he refused to 
 talk on the subject at all, and allowed people to draw their own conclu- 
 sions." 
 
 " He probably told his post commander," suggested Lieutenant 
 Farnham, who, as acting adjutant of the post and an aspirant for the 
 adjutancy of the regiment, thought it a good opportunity of putting in 
 a word as indicative of what he considered the bounden duty of an 
 officer under like circumstances. 
 
 " Well, no, I fancy not," replied Belknap. " About the only thing 
 we really do know is that, in a somewhat angry interview last fall, 
 Colonel Stratton forbade Dr. Quin's leaving the post or going to Dun- 
 raven without his express permission. I happened to be in the office 
 at the time." 
 
 " Was it before or after that that he was said to go there so often ?" 
 asked Farnham. 
 
 " Well, both," answered Belknap, reluctantly. " But understand 
 me, Mr. Farnham, I know nothing whatever of the matter." 
 
 " I should not suppose that Colonel Stratton would care to restrict 
 his post surgeon from going thither if they needed his professional 
 services," said Colonel Brainard, pleasantly. 
 
 " That was the point at issue, apparently," answered Belknap. 
 " Colonel Stratton said that it was not on professional grounds that 
 he went, and thereby seemed to widen the breach between them. Dr. 
 Quin would not speak to the colonel after that, except when duty re- 
 quired it." 
 
 The conversation changed here, and little more was said ; but Colonel 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 795 
 
 Brainard could not help thinking of a matter that he carefully kept to 
 himself. It was not his custom to require his officers to ask permission 
 to leave the garrison for a ride or hunt when they were to be absent 
 from no duty, and only by day. Here it was midnight, as he 
 thought it over, and the doctor had not returned, neither had he men- 
 tioned his desire to ride away, although he had been with the colonel 
 wellnigh an hour before parade. True, he had sent the doctor word to 
 go and join Lieutenant Perry at the gate of Dunraven, and thai would 
 account for his detention ; but he knew that the surgeon was several 
 miles away from his post and his patients at the moment that message 
 was sent. 
 
 Meantime, Perry, too, was having a communion with himself and 
 finding it all vexation of spirit. All the way home the memory of 
 that sweet English face was uppermost in his thoughts. He had been 
 startled at the sight of a young and fair woman at Dunraven ; he had 
 felt a sense of inexplicable rejoicing when she said to him, " I am Miss 
 Maitland ;" it would have jarred him to know that she was wife ; he 
 was happy, kneeling by the side of the beautiful girl he had never seen 
 before that very evening, and delighted that he could be of service to her. 
 All this was retrospect worth indulging ; but then arose tlie black shadow 
 on his vision. How came Dr. Quin striding in there as though " native 
 and to the manner born" ? — how came he to call her " Gladys" ? Perry 
 had been pondering over this matter for full half an hour on the 
 homeward ride before he bethought him of Mrs. Lawrence's remarks 
 about the signal-lights. One thing led to another in his recollection 
 of her talk. The doctor answered the signals, — no one else ; the doctor 
 and no one else was received at Dunraven ; the doctor had declined to 
 answer any questions about the people at the ranch, — had been silent 
 and mysterious, yet frequent in his visits. And then, more than all, 
 what was that Mrs. Lawrence had said or intimated, that Mrs. Quin, 
 " such a lovely woman, too," had taken her children and left him early 
 that spring, and all on account of somebody or something connected 
 with Dunraven Eanch ? Good heavens ! It could not be " Gladys." 
 And yet 
 
 Instead of taking a bath and going to bed, Mr. Perry poked his 
 head into Parke's bachelor chamber as he reached the little cottage they 
 shared in common. No Gladys disturbed the junior's dreams, ap- 
 parently, for he was breathing regularly, sleeping the sleep of the just ; 
 and so, finding no one to talk to and being in no mood to go to bed at 
 an hour so comparatively early when he had so much to think about, 
 Perry filled a pipe and perched himself in a big chair by the window- 
 seat, intending to think it all over again. He was beginning to hate 
 that doctor : he would have chafed at the idea of any bachelor's being 
 before him in an acquaintance with Gladys Maitland, but a married 
 man, knowing her so well as to make his wife jealous and himself in- 
 different to that fact, — knowing her so well as to drive " such a lovely 
 woman, too," into taking her children and quitting the marital roof, — 
 that was too much of a bad thing, and Perry was sore discomfited. 
 He got up, impatient and restless, passed out to the little piazza in front 
 of his quarters, and began pacing up and down, the glow from his corn- 
 
796 DVNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 cob pipe making a fiery trail in the darkness. He would have been 
 glad to go back to the colonel and keep watch with him ; but there was 
 one thing connected with his visit to Dunraven that he could not bear 
 to speak of, especially as those words of Mrs. Lawrence recurred again 
 and again to his memory. He had not said one word — he did not 
 want to tell — of Gladys Maitland. 
 
 And so it happened that Perry, too, was awake and astir when the 
 footsteps of the cavalry sergeant Avere heard on their way to Captain 
 Stryker's quarters. Listening, he noted that the soldier had halted at 
 the colonel's, held a brief conversation with that officer, and then turned 
 back across the parade. Instantly divining that news had come of 
 Sergeant Gwynne, Perry seized his forage-cap and hurried in pursuit. 
 He overtook the trooper just beyond the guard-house, and went with 
 him eagerly to the stables. A moment more, and he was bending over 
 a soldier's bedside in a little room adjoining the forage-shed and by the 
 light of a dim stable-lantern looking down into the bruised and battered 
 features of the non-commissioned officer whom he had pronounced of 
 all others at Rossiter the most respected and highly thought of by the 
 cavalry garrison. 
 
 " Sergeant, I'm very sorry to see you so badly mauled," said Perry. 
 " How on earth did it happen ?" 
 
 Gwynne turned his head painfully until the one unbandaged eye 
 could look about and see that none of the stable-guard were within 
 hearing, then back again and up into the symphathetic face of his 
 young superior. 
 
 " Lieutenant, I must tell you and the captain; and yet it is a matter 
 I profoundly wish to keep as secret as possible, — the story of my day's 
 adventure, I mean." 
 
 " You need not tell me at all if you do not wish to," said Perry ; 
 "though I think it is due to yourself that the captain should know 
 how it was you were gone all day and that your horse and you both 
 came back in such condition." 
 
 " I understand, sir, fully," answered Gwynne, respectfully. " I 
 shall tell the captain the whole story, if he so desire. Meantime, I 
 can only ask that no one else be told. If the men in the troop had an 
 inkling of the true story there would be endless trouble; and so I have 
 tried to account for it by saying my horse and I had an ugly fall while 
 running a coyote through the timber. We did see a coyote, down near 
 the ranch on the Monee, and I did have an ugly fall : I was set upon 
 by three of those ranchmen and badly handled." 
 
 "Yes, damn them !" said Perry, excitedly and wrathfully. "I've 
 had an experience with them myself to-night, while we were searching 
 for you." 
 
 " So much the more reason, sir, why my mishap should not be told 
 among the men. The two affairs combined would be more than they 
 would stand. There are enough Irishmen here in our troop alone 
 to go down and wipe that ranch out of existence ; and I fear trouble 
 as it stands," 
 
 " Whether there will be trouble or not will depend very much on 
 the future conduct of the proprietor and manager down there. Of 
 
DUN RAVEN RANCH. 797 
 
 course we cannot tolerate for an instant the idea of their maintaining a 
 gang of ruflSans there who are allowed to assault officers or men who 
 happen to ride around that neighborhood. You were not inside their 
 limits, were you ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir," said the sergeant, painfully, " I was : I had tied my 
 horse outside and ventured in to get a nearer look at the buildings." 
 " What time did it happen ?" 
 
 "This morning, sir; not more than an hour and a half after you 
 spoke to me in the valley." 
 
 " Indeed ! Then you must have lain there all day ! Why, Gwynne, 
 this will never do. I'll go and get the surgeon and have him look you 
 over. You must have been brutally mauled, and must be utterly ex- 
 hausted." 
 
 " Don't go, sir," said the sergeant, eagerly stretching forth a hand. 
 " It — it isn't as you think, sir. I have been kindly cared for. They're 
 not all ruffians down there, and the men who assaulted me will be fully 
 punished. I've been quite as well nursed and fed and brandied and 
 bandaged as though I'd been carried right to hospital. Indeed, I 
 don't need anything but rest. I'll be all right in a day." 
 
 " But I think Dr. Quin ought to see you and satisfy us you are not 
 injured." 
 
 " Be satisfied, sir. The doctor has seen me." 
 
 " Why, but how ? — where ? He was here all day, and only went 
 away at sunset. He joined me at Dunraven about nine o'clock, and 
 hadn't returned when I came in. Did he find you and brine: vou 
 back?" ^ ^ 
 
 Gwynne hesitated painfully again : 
 
 " The doctor saw me this evening, — down near where I was hurt ; 
 but I got back here without his help, sir. Lieutenant," said the 
 soldier, suddenly, " there are one or two things connected with this 
 day's work that I cannot tell. Come what may, I must not speak of 
 them, even to the captain." 
 
 Perry was silent a moment. Then he kindly answered, — 
 " I do not think any one here will press you to tell what you con- 
 sider it might be ungrateful or dishonorable in you to reveal. I will 
 do what I can to see that your wishes are respected. And now, if you 
 are sure I can do nothing for you, good-night, sergeant." And the 
 young officer held out his hand. 
 
 " Good-night, sir," answered Gwynne. He hesitated one moment. 
 It was the first time since he entered service, nearly five years before, 
 that an officer had offered him his hand. It was a new and strange 
 sensation. It might not be " good discipline" to take advantage of it, 
 but there were other reasons. Gwynne looked up in the frank blue 
 eyes of his lieutenant and read something there that told a new story. 
 Out came a hand as slender and shapely as that of the young officer, 
 and the two were silently and firmly clasped. 
 
 " How can I question him ?" said Perry to himself as he walked 
 slowly homeward. " Is there not something I am holding back ? — 
 something I cannot speak of? By Jupiter ! can his be the same 
 reason ?" 
 
 Vol. XLII.— 52 
 
798 DUN RAVEN RANCH. 
 
 IX. 
 
 At just what hour the post surgeon returned to Fort Rossiter that 
 night no one seemed to know. He was present at sick-call, and im- 
 perturbable as ever, on the following morning, and the few officers who 
 were at head-quarters after guard-mounting were able to affirm that the 
 colonel had been courteous as usual in his greeting to the medical officer, 
 and that nothing whatever had been said about his being away so late 
 the previous evening. Captain Stryker came home soon after midnight, 
 had a brief talk with his colonel, and went over to the stables to 
 inquire into Gwynne's condition before he went to bed. Parke came 
 into Perry's room after morning stables, and told him, as he was 
 yawning and stretching in bed, that the captain had had quite a long 
 talk with Gwynne that morning, and that " something was up," — he 
 didn't know what. Later in the day Perry was sent for by Colonel 
 Brainard, and found the commanding officer in consultation with 
 Captain Stryker and two other troop-commanders. At their request 
 he repeated the story of his adventure at Dunraven, beginning with 
 his instructions to the men he left at the gate, and ending with old 
 Maitland's swooning ; and about an hour after he had finished he saw 
 the adjutant with a small escort ride away down the valley, and rightly 
 conjectured that the colonel had sent a letter to Dunraven inquiring 
 into the cause of the assaults on two members of his command. Bat- 
 talion drill kept him occupied all the morning ; a garrison court con- 
 vened at noon and sat until skirmish drill began at three p.m. ; and so 
 it happened that not until near parade did he find a moment's time to 
 himself He longed to see Mrs. Lawrence and question her as to the 
 nature of the " Dunraven stories" she had mentioned ; for what had 
 been a matter of indifference to him then had suddenly become of vivid 
 interest. There were ladies sitting on the Lawrences' gallery, he could 
 plainly see, as the cavalry officers came tramping in from afternoon 
 stables, but he could not hope to ask or hear anything about a matter so 
 near his heart in the presence of so many sympathetic and interested 
 listeners. He kept away towards his own gate, therefore, until he saw 
 that there, leaning on the gate-post, and apparently awaiting him, stood 
 Dr. Quin. 
 
 Perry would gladly have avoided the doctor : the antagonism he 
 was beginning to feel for him was of a character that would hardly 
 brook concealment. Cordial and joyous in manner as he was to almost 
 every man, woman, and child he met, it was all the more noticeable 
 that to the very few whom he held in dislike or distrust his bearing 
 was cold and repellent in the last degree. Something told him the 
 doctor was there to speak to him about their chance meeting at Dun- 
 raven. He did not want to speak to him at all, just now. Yet how 
 could he hope to have these matters explained without a meeting and a 
 talk ? While the other officers strolled over and stopped, most of them, 
 in front of the group of ladies at Lawrence's, Perry stalked straight 
 across the parade and the boundary road, with his blue eyes fixed on 
 the doctor's face. 
 
 The latter was studying him as he came, and doubtless read that 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 799 
 
 expression of coldness and distrust : possibly lie resented it. At all 
 events, something prompted him to speak in a tone less cordial than he 
 had ever employed towards Perry, — " a youngster whom I thoroughly 
 approve of," as he said before he had known him a week. Still leaning 
 on the gate-post, and resting his head on his hand, the doctor began : 
 
 " Mr. Perry, I have been to see you twice to-day, but could not find 
 you, and I wanted to speak with you on a matter of some importance." 
 
 " You could have found me on drill or the court, if anything im- 
 mediate was needed. I have been nowhere else, except to stables," said 
 Perry, shortly. 
 
 " It was a personal matter, — a somewhat embarrassing one, — and I 
 thought best to see you alone." 
 
 " Well, here I am. Dr. Quin : drive ahead and let us have it." 
 
 " I wanted to ask you if, while you were at the ranch last night, 
 you saw anything of a large signet-ring, with a crest and motto en- 
 graved on the stone." 
 
 " I did not, — unless you mean the one Mr. Maitland wore." 
 
 " The very one ! You noticed that, did you ?" 
 
 " I noticed he had something of the kind on his left hand when he 
 came down." 
 
 " And it was nowhere to be found after you went away. You may 
 remember you were chafing and slapping that hand ; and I thought 
 you might have accidentally removed it at that time." 
 
 " The reflection is not a pleasant one. Dr. Quin," said Perry, with 
 an angry light in the bhie eyes. 
 
 " Pardon me, Mr. Perry : I put it awkwardly, but I mean no re- 
 flection whatever. Miss Maitland mentioned your efforts to restore the 
 old gentleman to consciousness, and together we searched the sofa and 
 the floor after we had put him safely to bed and discovered the loss of 
 the ring. It is one to which he attaches peculiar value, and its loss has 
 preyed upon him. While I know very well you could not have the 
 ring, I was asked to ascertain if you remembered seeing it, and so es- 
 tablish the truth of Mr. Maitland's belief that it was on his finger when 
 he went to that room." 
 
 " It was ; but I do not recollect its being on his hand after he was 
 carried to the sofa. It would surely have attracted my attention while 
 chafing it." 
 
 " The parlor, hall, and piazza have been swept and searched, I am 
 told by this note," and the doctor indicated a little missive he held in 
 his hand, whereat Perry's face did not brighten, " and with no success. 
 I was ashed to inquire of you, and if it has annoyed you, as I infer by 
 your manner, pray let that be my apology. Then I am to say you saw 
 it when Mr. Maitland entered the room, but not again ?" 
 
 " Precisely ; unless you choose to add to your correspondent that 
 the next time I am associated with missing property at Dunraven I 
 would prefer to be questioned direct, and not through a third party." 
 
 A quiet smile shone for an instant on the doctor's grave face : 
 
 " I fear that I have not accomplished my mission very diplomati- 
 cally, Mr. Perry, and am sorry to have vexed you. The colonel tells 
 me, by the way, that I ought to say to you that the reason I was so long 
 
300 DVNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 in reaching your party last night was that I was detained attending to 
 another case, — one of our own men. Good-evening, sir." And, raising 
 his forage-cap, the doctor walked slowly and with dignity away, leaving 
 Perry too surprised to speak. 
 
 " The colonel told him to tell me !" was Perry's wondering solilo- 
 quy at last. " Then I suppose he must have told the chief some story 
 to account for his being away." It was pretty evident from the young 
 fellow's manner as he entered the house that the story was not one 
 which struck him as being entitled to confidence or consideration. 
 
 On the table in his little sitting-room lay a dainty note. It was 
 not the first he had received under that superscription, and he had not 
 been slow to open and read them. If anything, the cloud upon his 
 forehead seemed to deepen at sight of it. He picked it up, looked 
 impatiently at the address, hesitated a moment, tossed it back on his 
 desk, and went into the inner room. He would not read it now ; it 
 was almost parade-time ; he had to bathe and change his dress, for after 
 parade he was to dine at the quarters of an infantry friend, and Cap- 
 tain and Mrs. Lawrence were to be of the party. Already it was noted 
 that when any of the few infantry people at the post gave a little tea 
 or dinner at which only eight or ten were gathered together, the Bel- 
 knaps were not invited on the same evening with Mr. Perry, and vice 
 versd. When Parke came in, whistling and singing and banging doors 
 and making all manner of uncouth noise in the exuberance of his boyish 
 spirits, he bolted into Perry's domain, as was his wont, and began a 
 rattling comment on the events of the day. 
 
 " By the way," he broke in, suddenly, " we can't both go to-morrow ; 
 and I suppose you want to." 
 
 "Go where?" 
 
 " Why, out with the hounds : to-morrow's the day, you know." 
 
 Perry gave a whistle of perplexity. The colonel had promised the 
 ladies that there should be a big run this very week. All the fleet 
 hounds of the cavalry battalion were to be out, and all the officers who 
 could be spared from the day's duties : a detachment was to go over 
 into the valley of a stream some ten miles away, pitch tents in the 
 shade, and there set luncheon for the entire party ; horses were to be 
 provided for all the ladies who cared to go mounted, buggies and " buck- 
 boards" were to convey the others, and it was to be a gala occasion. 
 Antelope, coyote, or jack-rabbit, — any four-footed game the prairie 
 afforded was to be " coursed" in due state and ceremony ; the ladies 
 " in at the death" were to be crowned and subsequently presented with 
 trophies of the chase more sightly than the mask or brush au naturel. 
 The affair had been gayly talked over that very evening of the colonel's 
 dinner, but the events of the previous day and the perplexities of the 
 one just closing had completely driven it all out of his head. 
 
 And yet he was engaged to ride with Mrs. Belknap, — the Amazon 
 of Fort Rossiter ! and for the first time in his life Ned Perry would 
 have been glad of an excuse to get aM'ay from a gallop with an accom- 
 plished equestrienne. 
 
 " You don't mean to say you had forgotten it ?" asked Parke, in 
 amaze. 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 801 
 
 " Don't blow on me, there's a good fellow ; but, after all my 
 ' breaks' of yesterday, — getting an absent from drill and into a row at 
 the ranch, — I declare it had slipped my memory. No, you go, Parke : 
 I don't deserve to be let oif anything, after yesterday. You've been 
 sticking to duty like a brick ever since you joined, and Stryker ought 
 to give you the preference." 
 
 " But you're engaged to ride with Mrs. Belknap," said Parke. 
 
 " Who told you so ?" 
 
 " I heard her say so. Dana asked if he might have the pleasure, 
 just a while ago, and she smilingly replied that it would have been de- 
 lightful, but that you had asked her four days ago, when it was first 
 planned." 
 
 " So I had ; but I've been getting into scrapes ever since, and I 
 oughtn't to go. By Jove ! I'll write her a note now and say I can't 
 get off. It's true enough. I wouldn't let such a fellow go if I com- 
 manded the troop. I'd make him stay in and attend roll-call a week." 
 
 " Well, Mrs. Belknap expects you," said Parke, dubiously. " Not 
 but what Dana would be glad to take your place. Belknap can't go : 
 he's too bulky to ride, and she'd leave him miles astern first run we 
 had, sure." 
 
 Suddenly Perry bethought him of the note, and made a dive into 
 the sittins-room, towel in hand and shirt-sleevas rolled to the elbows. 
 It read, — 
 
 "MoN Ami, — 
 
 " You go to the Spragues' to dine this evening, and there will be 
 cards, and you will not be able to get away until very late. Will you 
 not come in a little while before parade, — without fail? There is 
 something I greatly want to see you about. 
 
 " Sincerely, 
 
 " F. E. B. 
 " Come early as possible after stables." 
 
 " Thunder and turf !" exclaimed Perry ; " and there goes first call 
 now ! Here, Parke, you're dressed ; run over and tell Mrs. Belknap 
 I just this instant read her note and I can't come : I'll get a late as it is." 
 
 "How can I, man?" shouted Parke, as he fled. "I've got to get 
 into war-paint too. — Lucky thing for me," he added, in lower tone. 
 " I don't want to be the one to tell the prettiest woman at Eossiter 
 that her note that she sent here at noon wasn't opened until first call 
 for parade." 
 
 Perry's dressing was completed at racing speed, but even then he 
 was buckling his sabre-belt as the assembly sounded, and he had to go 
 straight across to where his troop was forming, — a glittering rank of 
 yellow plumes, — and so could only give a hurried sidelong glance 
 towards Belknap's quarters. There was her bonnie ladyship pacing 
 up and down the veranda ; and he knew well he would have to account 
 for his sins. All through parade his thoughts were divided between 
 the fair face he had seen at Dunraven the night before and the dark 
 one with the long, curving lashes sweeping those soft, peachy cheeks 
 
802 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 and half veiling those wonderful, liquid, speaking, side-glancing eyes. 
 He saw Mrs. Belknap stroll forth a moment as though to join the 
 group of ladies on the walk, then return to her slow, graceful, languid 
 promenade up and down her piazza. He knew that he must hasten 
 to her the instant the rank of officers dispersed and make his peace if 
 possible, but as they marched to the front and saluted the commanding 
 officer he signalled that he had something to say to them all, and, 
 moving away to the edge of the parade-ground, so that the troops 
 might not be detained on the line, he gathered his officers about him, 
 a silent group under the little shade-trees that bounded the road-way, 
 and took a letter from the breast of his uniform coat. 
 
 "Gentlemen," said he, "this will be of importance to some of you, 
 and of interest to all. It explains something none of us understood, 
 and contains matter that I deem it best you all should hear. It is a 
 letter from the manager of Dunraven Ranch. — Mr. Adjutant, you 
 read it." 
 
 And, clearing his throat, Mr. Farnham began : 
 
 "Dunraven Ranch, 
 " Friday. 
 " Colonel Brainaed, — th Cavalry, Fort Rossiter : 
 
 " Dear Sir, — Mr. Maitland is confined to his bed, and too ill to 
 personally reply to your letter of this morning, which was duly received 
 at the hands of your adjutant. He directs me to write as follows : that, 
 while he regrets the boisterous conduct of some of his employees last 
 evening and their assault on Mr. Perry, he considers that in view of 
 the results — a broken head on the part of one of our people and no 
 apparent damage to Mr. Perry — the matter should not be pressed. As 
 to the other assault alluded to, he has no knowledge of it whatever, 
 and can find no man who has. 
 
 " The distinct understanding between Mr. Maitland and the former 
 commanding officer at Fort Rossiter was that none of the garrison 
 should ever pass within our lines ; and we agreed on the other hand 
 that none of our people should ever trespass on the reservation. Mr. 
 Maitland holds that it was the duty of Colonel Brainard's predecessor 
 to acquaint him with the terms of this agreement, and the residents at 
 Dunraven had no means of knowing that the invaders of last evening 
 were not the very men whom the proper authorities had pledged them- 
 selves to restrain from such aggression. 
 
 " Mr. Maitland begs that Colonel Brainard will in future ratify and 
 conform with the agreement formally entered into by his predecessor. 
 
 " Respectfully, 
 
 " P. EwEN, Manager." 
 
 There was a moment of puzzled silence. The colonel looked quiz- 
 zically around upon the circle of bronzed and soldierly faces under the 
 black helmets. Captain Stryker's lips were twitching with amusement 
 behind their black fringe of beard. No one spoke at first ; but pres- 
 ently a deep-voiced troop-commander gave vent to his emotions : 
 
 " What a bombastic old crank ! Who is he ?" 
 
DUN RAVEN RANCH. 803 
 
 " An Englishman, — the owner of the biggest ranch in this part of 
 Texas," answered the colonel. " Captain Belknap, Captain Lawrence, 
 have you any knowledge of the agreement of which he speaks ?" 
 
 " Nothing beyond the vague talk we heard. Dr. Quin would be 
 more apt to know what Colonel Stratton agreed to than we would," 
 answered Belknap. 
 
 " I will ask the doctor this evening. Meantime, knowing no reason 
 why such a policy of non-intercourse should be observ^ed, I shall not 
 recognize it. What is more, while you will caution your men to respect 
 Dunraven bounds as they would other private property, let them show 
 no hostility to the ranch- people who may have occasion to visit us. The 
 man who brought this note tells me he was threatened and abused by 
 some cavalrymen near the stables. Mr. Maitland professes to have no 
 knowledge of another assault; but we have evidence that Sergeant 
 Gwynne was beaten by three fellows on the Dunraven grounds yester- 
 day. That matter is yet to be settled. Now one thing more : troop 
 and company commanders will closely watch their men the next few 
 nights, — keep a sharp lookout on the quarters until midnight, to see 
 that no men slip away ; after midnight the guard must attend to it. 
 There is an element in the ranks that would be only too glad to go 
 down to Dunraven some night and have satisfaction on their own ac- 
 count for yesterday's affairs. This must not be permitted. See to it, 
 gentlemen. That is all for the present. — Mr. Perry, will you come 
 with me a moment ?" 
 
 Perry went. Mrs. Belknap saw him go, and believed herself 
 slighted. 
 
 X. 
 
 The hounds were out, and all Fort Rossiter " society" was with 
 them. The day was faultless, — neither too warm nor too cloudy ; a 
 brisk westerly breeze sent the cloud-shadows sailing steadily across the 
 broad prairie sea and keeping the veils and skirts of the Amazons of 
 the party a-flutter. Three there were of these, the rest of the sister- 
 hood preferring to follow the hunt by buggy or buck-board, though 
 frankly expressing their envy of the fortunate riders. Mounted on 
 her own spirited little bay, admirably fitted as to habit, and sitting 
 squarely and well, Mrs. Belknap would have been the centre of obser- 
 vation of all the cavalry officers even had she not been, as she incdn- 
 testably was, the beauty of the garrison. The colonel had offered Mrs. 
 Lawrence one of his own horses, and therefore was accorded the right 
 of being her escort. Mrs. Sprague was similarly indebted for her 
 " mount" to Captain Stryker ; and a very bright and beaming little 
 body she was as she rode over the springy turf at the side of the dark- 
 haired troop-leader. She dearly loved fresh air, sunshine, space, health- 
 ful exercise of every kind, was the champion at tennis and an indomi- 
 table walker, but a ride was something better than all, and of course 
 the rarest pleasure. The wife of a faithful and honest old subaltern 
 who had reaped his four " fogies" for twenty years' service and was 
 still looking forward to his captaincy, her opportunities for riding had 
 been limited to those occasions when some thoughtful cavalryman would 
 
304 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 seud his horse around with his compliments and an invitation to take 
 a canter. The Eleventh were very busy during their stay at Rossiter, 
 or very chary of their horseflesh. They never rode, said the infantry 
 people, in speaking of them to their successors, while the — th were 
 not only themselves in saddle hours each day, but they were constantly 
 sending horses to the ladies ; and — wonder of wonders ! — all the in- 
 fantry officers were invited to join in the hunt, and such as could go 
 were provided with excellent mounts. And so it happened that a large 
 and merry party had taken the field : the colonel with a dozen of his 
 oflBcers, — cavalry and infantry, — the ladies, the sergeant in charge of 
 the hounds, with his two or three assistants, and the brace of orderlies, 
 made a " field" that covered a goodly front as in dispersed order, chat- 
 ting and laughing, they swept out eastward from the post, following in 
 the wake of the master of the hounds and his long, lithe, fleet-limbed 
 coursers themselves. Beautiful creatures were these hounds of the 
 — th, — many of them black as jet, others a slaty blue, others a 
 quakerish drab, but all with huge rounded chests, powerful shoulders 
 and haunches, and wonderful limbs for speed. There were nearly two 
 dozen of them, springily trotting along behind their huntsman, with 
 lolling tongues and drooping head and tail. Yet eyes and ears were 
 eager and alert, watching, waiting for the signal from anywhere along 
 the extended front that should start them in a race that would leave the 
 very gale behind. They are the coursers, the runners, the aristocrats 
 of the chase, disdainful of the work being done by their humbler 
 kindred, — the canine skirmishers who are bounding, bustling, scurry- 
 ing, sniffing, scampering everywhere over the prairie to their front, — 
 yet keenly observant of the results. All manner of dog — even volun- 
 teer whelp from the Cheyenne camp — is to be seen along that outer 
 line, — spaniels, a lordly Newfoundland, all varieties of terrier and 
 "curs of low degree," all, even an occasional bird-dog, scouting the 
 prairie in desperate eagerness to snap and seize a rabbit or throttle a 
 coyote, for down in their jealous hearts they well know that, once 
 started, the quarry leaps for the far horizon, vanishes from their view 
 like the " Spiit-the-Wind" of tradition, and leaves them, despite heroic 
 eifort, far, far behind, while the lithe-limbed greyhounds and the racers 
 of the garrison horses alone can keep in sight of the chase. 
 
 " Hard lines on Perry, isn't it ?" said Mr. Graham, as he trotted up 
 beside Mrs. Belknap and took his place for the moment with her bevy 
 of cavaliers. " First time he ever missed a hunt, I reckon." 
 
 " He needn't have missed this one," said Parke. " It was my week, 
 and I told him to go ; and Captain Stryker said so, too ; but " 
 
 Here Mr. Parke broke off suddenly and looked in mild wonder- 
 ment in Dana's face, for that young gentleman had managed, unseen by 
 Mrs. Belknap, to swing free his right foot and give the speaker's left a 
 vehement kick. Too late, however. Mrs. Belknap had heard it. 
 
 " Are you cavalrymen all so little to be trusted ?" she asked, with 
 a brilliant smile upon her flushing face. Exercise and excitement had 
 lent unusual sparkle to her eyes and color to her cheeks — " she is posi- 
 tively beautiful to-day," as Mrs. Lawrence confessed to the colonel at 
 the moment. 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 805 
 
 " I had a note from Mr. Perry this morning saying he was griev- 
 ously disappointed, but that some troop-duty had been assigned to him 
 which could not be transferred and he must stay and finish it." 
 
 " "What he said is true, Mrs. Belknap," promptly asseverated Mr. 
 Dana. " The papers have all to be in readiness for muster on Monday, 
 and the saddle-kits put in shape for inspection." 
 
 " Only in Captain Stryker's troop ?" softly inquired the lady, with 
 eyelids rising incredulously. 
 
 " No, of course not. One officer is back at the post from each 
 troop. It happened to fall on Perry in his." 
 
 " I fancy I should prefer serving in some older captain's troop if I 
 were Mr. Perry. It seems that while your other captains stay home 
 and look after their companies. Captain Stryker has a subaltern attend 
 to his while he comes a-hunting." 
 
 " On the other hand, we fellows have a dozen things to do in our 
 troops that Captain Stryker does himself in his. It's as broad as it's 
 long, Mrs. Belknap," said Dana. He did not fancy her criticising the 
 methods of his cavalry associates, and was possibly a little piqued at 
 the decided annoyance she showed at Perry's failure to attend. Mean- 
 time, Stryker, all unconscious of lier censure, was chatting laughingly 
 with Mrs. Sprague and exchanging shots with the colonel and Mrs. 
 Lawrence. The four were getting on admirably together, and seemed 
 too much absorbed in their own fun to note the fact that Mrs. Belknap 
 and her knot of four or five satellites had been gradually edging away 
 towards the right, and that the rest of the hunt was becoming widely 
 scattered. 
 
 " It is time we stirred up a jack-rabbit at least," said the colonel. 
 " Suppose we veer over towards the northeast a little. Whatever we 
 do, we want no chase down there towards Dunraven : those wire fences 
 would spoil it all." 
 
 " I wonder if those people never hunt ?" said Mr. Farnham, who 
 had joined the quartette : he always kept close to his colonel, as be- 
 fitted an aspirant for the adjutancy. " Englishmen are generally game 
 for all manner of sport." 
 
 " I can see horsemen out there on the prairie to the east of the 
 ranch," said Stryker, whose eyes were keen, "and I could have sworn 
 a moment ago that I saw a horsewoman." 
 
 " Nonsense, Captain Stryker !" exclaimed Mrs. Lawrence, yet with 
 quick glance at Mrs. Sprague. " What could you have taken for a 
 ' lady on a horseback'? Do you suppose there could be ladies at Dun- 
 raven and we not know it ?" 
 
 " Hardly possible," answered the captain ; " and therefore I doubted 
 the evidence of my senses. Yet something very like a lady followed 
 by a groom rode down the slope into the valley about ten minutes ago. 
 She is out of sight in the timber now. If Perry were only with us 
 I'd send him off there to see." 
 
 " Yes, we miss Perry on our hunts," said the colonel to his lady 
 friends. " He is one of our best riders and most enthusiastic sports- 
 men. He wiU be out, will he not, Stryker?" 
 
 " Yes, sir. There is really no necessity for his staying in, and I so 
 
806 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 told him ; but he felt that he ought to, at least until certain work was 
 finished. Then he said he could ride eastward and join us. Hurrah ! 
 there they go !" 
 
 Far out to the front, straight to the east, " a gray streak with a 
 white tip to it" went shooting into space as though launched from some 
 invisible bow drawn by giant power. A big jack-rabbit, all legs and 
 ears, had listened quivering and trembling to the sounds of the ap- 
 proaching hunt, until an enterprising terrier, foremost skirmisher of 
 the line, fairly tumbled over him as he crouched behind a little bunch 
 of weeds : then with one mighty leap and the accompaniment of a wild 
 yelp from his discoverer he sprang forth into a race for his precious 
 life. " Hoy ! hoy !" yells the sergeant as he sights the quarry. 
 " Hurrah !" shout the nearest huntsmen, and, with one simultaneous 
 impulse, skirmishing curs, stealthy, springing hounds, eager steeds, and 
 jubilant riderg, — men and women, — away goes the entire field sweep- 
 ing in pursuit. At first all is one mad rush until it is certain that the 
 rabbit is a veteran who understands well the maxim that " a stern-chase 
 is a long chase" all the world over. Let him keep it well in mind, fix 
 his eyes on that one distant, shadowy butte on the eastern horizon, and 
 bear away for that, straight as the flight of laden honey-bee, and his 
 chance for life is fair : he has fifty yards the start of the nearest hound. 
 Let him swerve or hesitate, and, like the original of the famous com- 
 parison, he is lost. The prairie is level as a floor, the turf firm and 
 springy : not a prairie-dog has mined the sod or digged a pit for the 
 unwary. " Magnificent ground ! — couldn't have better !" shouts the 
 colonel to Mrs. Lawrence, who is somewhat nervously tugging at her 
 reins and leaning back in the saddle. " Let him go. There isn't a 
 possibility of a stumble. Look at Mrs. Belknap !" he adds. He would 
 not do so ordinarily, but he and his fair partner are being left hopelessly 
 behind in the race, and, though his big charger rarely lands him among 
 the foremost and the colonel does not attempt to vie with the light 
 riders among the youngsters, he cannot bear " dragging." Mrs. Law- 
 rence gives one glance in the indicated direction, sees Mrs. Belknap 
 skimming like a bird across the grassy level, riding from the right 
 front diagonally towards the frantic chase. Gentle as she is and un- 
 envious of her rival's superiority in some respects, she wonH be thought 
 a coward. The color deepens on her cheek, her soft eyes flash, she 
 bites her pretty red lips, and, to Lawrence's amaze, her riding-whip 
 comes viciously down upon her courser's flank and her little hands give 
 rein. Away she flies, out to the front, leaving her lord and master and 
 his friend, her escort the colonel, thundering bulkily in her track, but 
 losing ground with every stride. Delighted to have so light a rider, 
 the colonel's second horse makes play for the very leadei-s. Here, close 
 behind the master of the hounds, all eyes fixed on that bounding tuft 
 of gray and white a few score yards ahead, bending over their horses' 
 necks and keeping just enough pressure on the bit to prevent over- 
 riding the huntsman, ride Parke and Graham, two " light weights," 
 who have coursed many a mile of prairie. Just behind them, a little 
 to their right, rides Mrs. Belknap, her veil fluttering straight out 
 behind, her glorious eyes flashing, her dark skin flushed with triumph 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 807 
 
 and the exhilaration of the dashing pace, her little hands wound about 
 in the reins she holds so firmly. Splendidly she sits her fleet racer, 
 and Dana has to urge and spur his clumsier troop-horse to keep in close 
 attendance. These four are well in advance of all the others. Back 
 of them, gallantly urging on her sturdy sorrel, comes Mrs. Sprague, 
 with Stryker riding warily alongside and watching her " going" before 
 he will satisfy himself that it is safe to trust her to her own guiding. 
 Level as the prairie is here, he knows that a mile or so ahead there 
 are " breaks" leading down into the valley of one of the innumerable 
 tributaries of the Washita. Then the story may be different. He 
 looks up in surprise at the thunder of hoofs close alongside, and Mrs. 
 Lawrence, with excitement in her eyes, overtakes, then passes them on 
 her way to the front. " See !" he points to his partner, — " see that 
 dark shadow across the prairie out there. We cannot ride at this pace 
 when we pass that hollow : the breaks set in still farther." He glances 
 over his shoulder and signals to the nearest officer to follow Mrs. 
 Lawrence and look out for her, and the gallant does his best, but all 
 are at top speed ; the colonel and the heavy weights — infantry and 
 cavalry — are beginning to lose ground, and still that gray " puff-ball" 
 far to the front seems inch by inch to be slipping away from his pur- 
 suers ; still the long, lean greyhounds, looking almost flat against the 
 sward in their wonderful strides, speed on in relentless chase, eager 
 muzzles outstretched, eager eyes glaring on the bounding quarry, gleam- 
 ing muscles working in the sunshine like the steel rods of the drivers 
 of the " lightning express." A dozen of them are bunched in the 
 track of the chase ; others are farther out to right and left. Not an 
 inch do the pursuers seem to have gained : straight as an arrow has 
 been the flight so far, but now the " breaks" are just ahead, little ravines 
 cut in here and there across the level. Will he keep his determined 
 course, up hill and down, straight away to the east, or will he lose heart, 
 tack, veer, double and twist ? If he swerve he is a lost rabbit ! 
 
 Far to the rear, yelping, panting, distracted by this time, the terriers 
 and mongrels, the original leaders, have fallen. The field, too, is strung 
 out nearly a mile deep at the end of the first six minutes' run, for some 
 of the laggards have given up and are disposed to wait for the coming 
 of the buggies and buck-boards. Here at the front all is tense excite- 
 ment. All eyes are on the rabbit, for now or never will the crisis come. 
 The horses are breathing heavily, but with no thought of slackening 
 speed. " Watch him now as he sights that arroyo .'" shouts Graham 
 to Parke, for far out to the right front a ravine bursts off to the south- 
 east, and one of its shallow contributors stretches obliquely across the 
 rabbit's frenzied vision. " Veer that way ; he'll take it, sure !" shouts 
 the huntsman ; and, sure enough, no sooner does he reach it than the 
 gray victim darts down the winding shelter, as though hopeful that his 
 sudden twist would throw his pursuers off the sight ; scent the grey- 
 hound has none. The move is disastrous ; " Hi !" shout the leading 
 riders, waving the pursuit to the right front, and, obedient to signal, 
 the foremost hounds sweep in long curve into the coulee, striking it 
 many a yard farther down than where the harried chase first dived into 
 its treacherous shadows. And now those hounds who were out on the 
 
308 DUN RAVEN RANCH. 
 
 right flank are up in line with the very leaders, and bounding along the 
 level at the side of the ravine, yet keeping wary eye upon the chase. 
 So, too, the horsemen. Making a deep curve in the ravine five hun- 
 dred yards ahead, and confident that Bunny will blindly rush along his 
 winding track, they strike out across the prairie, gaining twenty horse- 
 lengths by the move ; and now, with two or three of the oldest hounds, 
 Parke, Dana, and Mrs. Belknap are darting on abreast of the chase. 
 '' Keep out there to the left, some of you !" shouts Dana. " He'll spring 
 up the other side quick as he sees us. Drive him back." And, obedient 
 to the signal of his waving hand, two of the leading troopers breast 
 the slopes to the east, calling half a dozen hounds with them. Darting 
 around a bend. Bunny's agonized eyes catch sight of the hounds and 
 horses on the right bank, and like a flash he whirls, scampers up the 
 opposite slope, and shoots out on the prairie again just in time to meet 
 the hounds and troopers who have anticipated the move. Now he is 
 wild and demoralized. Once more he dives into the ravine and sends 
 the dust flying into the very faces of his pursuers, for now the leading 
 hounds are so close that the foremost jaws are snapping the air at his 
 every bound. A quick turn to the right and up the slope throws these 
 leaders far — too far — beyond ; they sweep around in long curve ; but, 
 though he has thrown them off, the hunted, senseless, helpless wretch 
 has forgotten the trailers to the rear ; they spring across the angle he 
 has made, and are close as the original pursuers, and much the fresher. 
 Wildly, madly now he twists and turns, first up one bank, then the 
 other. Far to the rear the coming riders see the signs of his breaking 
 down, mark the scurrying to and fro of horse and hound. " Come 
 on 1" they shout. " He's gone now, and we can be in at the death !" 
 Mrs. Lawrence on one side of the ravine is as far to the front as Mrs. 
 Belknap on the other. One of them must lose the brush : he cannot 
 die on both sides at once. The dark beauty has had more than one 
 rasping disappointment in the last two days : it would be intolerable 
 now that, after all, Mrs. Lawrence, and not she, should prove the 
 victor. Bunny makes one frantic rush up the slope to the right, and, 
 with half a dozen hounds at his very heels, spins in front of her eyes, 
 catches sight of two fresh antagonists confronting him, whirls suddenly 
 about to the right, and almost dives under her horse's heaving barrel as 
 he once more plunges into the ravine, down the rugged slope, up the 
 gentle ascent to the other side. There half a dozen long, lean muzzles 
 gleam close behind him ; he falters, wavers ; a sharp nose is thrust 
 underneath him as he runs, a quick toss sends him kicking, struggling 
 into air, and in another instant, with piteous but ineffectual squeak and 
 pleading, he is the centre of a tumbling, snapping, fang-gnashing 
 group of hounds, and his little life is torn out almost before Graham 
 can leap from his saddle, beat them back with the visor of his cap, then, 
 seizing the still quivering body by the legs that would have saved could 
 that empty head only have directed, holds poor Bunny aloft in front of 
 Mrs. Lawrence's snorting steed and proclaims her " Queen of the Chase." 
 And this, too, has Mrs. Belknap to see and strive to smile ; while 
 down in her heart she knows that it could not so have happened had 
 Perry come. 
 
DUN RAVEN RANCH. 809 
 
 XI. 
 
 Riding eastward just before noon, somewhat comforted in conscience 
 because of his self-denial of the morning, Ned Perry scanned the 
 distant prairie in search of the hunt. It was nearly luncheon-time, 
 and he expected to find the party making its way to the little stream 
 whither the baskets, boxes, and hampers had been despatched by 
 wagon some hours before ; but when he sighted the quartermaster 
 driving homeward in his buggy he learned from that bulky veteran 
 that rabbit after rabbit had been run, and that the whole party had 
 finally decided to give dogs and horses a cool drink down in the Monee 
 valley before starting northward across the prairie. " They must be 
 getting down into the valley two or three miles east of the ranch just 
 about now, and will go due north from there, unless they stir up more 
 game along the Monee. If I were you," said the quartermaster, " I'd 
 ride over to the lunch -stand. You won't get there much before the 
 crowd." 
 
 Perry thanked him for the information, but, so far from accepting 
 his advice, the younger officer turned his horse's head in the direction 
 of Dunraven, and was speedily riding thither with an alacrity that he 
 himself could hardly explain. 
 
 In his brief talk with the colonel after parade on the previous 
 evening Perry had told him what he could of the characteristics of 
 Messrs. Maitland and Ewen. The odd letter wliich had been sent by 
 them had given the commanding officer cause for much thought, and 
 he was desirous, evidently, of gathering from Perry's observations as 
 complete an idea as was possible of their life and surroundings. And 
 still Perry had found it impossible to volunteer any description of 
 Miss Maitland; he could not bear to speak of her until — until he 
 knew more of the doctor's purpose in his visits to the ranch. He had 
 been detained by his commander just long enough to make it necessary 
 for him to go direct to the Spragues' without leaving his helmet and 
 sabre at home. They were waiting dinner for him as it was, but Mrs. 
 Belknap took no note of that circumstance : what she saw was that he 
 had avoided even passing within hail of her piazza both before and 
 after parade. 
 
 Now, though conscious of no intention of avoidance, Perry rode 
 forth to the meeting of this day with some little misgiving. In the 
 first place, he knew that he must strive to make his peace with this 
 slighted lady ; and yet, in view of all he had seen and heard in tlie 
 past forty-eight hours, how utterly dwarfed liad that affair — his laugh- 
 ing flirtation with Mrs. Belknap — become ! Had any one told him 
 his attentions to her and her marked preference for his society were 
 matters that people were beginning to talk of, — some with sly enjoy- 
 ment, others with genuine regret, — he would have been grateful for 
 the information, instead of resentful, as, with most men, would be the 
 case ninety-nine times out of a hundred. But he knew nothing of this, 
 and had too little experience to suspect the comments in circulation. 
 She was most interesting — up to the day before yesterday ; he loved 
 to ride or dance with her ) he enjoyed a chat with her more than he 
 
810 DUN RAVEN RANCH. 
 
 could tell. A most sympathetic and attentive listener was Mrs. Bel- 
 knap, and her voice was low and sweet and full of subtly caressing tones. 
 She had made him talk to her by the hour of his home, his hopes and 
 ambitions, his profession and his prospects, and had held him in a 
 silken bondage that he had no desire to escape. 
 
 And yet, as he rode out on the breezy plain this brilliant day, he 
 found all thought of her distasteful, and his eyes, far from searching 
 for the flutter of her trim habit in the distant riding-party, would go 
 a-roaming over the intervening shades and shallows down in the Monee 
 valley and seek the bare, brown walls of Dunraven far across the 
 stream. It was odd indeed that he should have sought this, the longest 
 way round, on his ride in quest of his companions from the fort' 
 
 Once again he looked at the isolated clump of buildings from his 
 post of observation on the bluff; once again he saw across the stream 
 and through the trees the barbed barrier that had caused both him and 
 his men such laceration of flesh and temper ; once again he saw the 
 shallow valley winding away to the southeast, decked with its scrubby 
 fringe- work of cottonwood and willow ; but this time, three miles away 
 its accustomed solitude was broken by groups of riders and darting 
 black specks of dogs, all moving northward once more and already 
 breasting the slopes. He should have turned away eastward and 
 ridden across country to join them, but down here in the valley, only 
 a short distance away, absorbed in watching the hunting-party, sat 
 Mr. Ewen on a pawing and excited bay. Whatever coolness his rider 
 might feel at this discovery, it was not shared by Nolan : he pricked 
 up his ears and hailed his fellow-quadruped with cordial and unaffected 
 pleasure, a neigh that the English-bred horse was so utterly uninsular 
 as to whirl about and answer with corresponding warmth. Ewen 
 caught at his heavy Derby and jerked it off his bullet head with an 
 air of mingled embarrassment and civility, replacing it with similarly 
 spasmodic haste. Perry coolly, but with a certain easy grace, raised his 
 forage-cap in response to the salutation, and then, seeing the manager 
 still looking at him as though he wanted to say something and did not 
 know how to begin, gave Nolan his head and rode down to short hail- 
 ing-distance. 
 
 "We meet on neutral ground out here, Mr. Ewen. I suppose your 
 exclusive employer over yonder can hardly prohibit your answering 
 civil inquiries after his health ?" And, though he meant to be distant, 
 Perry found himself smiling at the oddity of the situation. 
 
 " Do you know, I was just thinking about you," answered Ewen, 
 "and wondering whether you were with that party down yonder? 
 The old gentleman is better, thanks. He had two pretty bad nights, 
 but is coming around slowly." 
 
 " And Miss Maltland, — how is she ?" 
 
 " Rather seedy. She has had a good deal of care and vexation of 
 late, I fancy, and this is no place for a young girl, anyhow." 
 
 " Well, you have some appreciation of the true character of Dun- 
 raven as a residence, after all !" answered Perry. " Now, if you can 
 give me any good reason why she should live in this utterly out-of-the- 
 way place, you will lift a weight from my mind." 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. gH 
 
 "Oh, they don't live here, you know," spoke Ewen, hurriedly. 
 "She comes here only when her father does. It is her own doing. 
 She goes with him everywhere, and will not leave him. She's all he 
 has, don't you know ?" 
 
 " I don't know anything about it. You Dunraven people seem 
 averse to any expression of interest or courtesy from your fellow-men, 
 but I'm free to say I should like to know what on earth there is in 
 American cavalrymen to make them such objects of aversion to your 
 master ; and I would be glad to know how it is such a girl as that is 
 dragged into such a hole as yonder." 
 
 Ewen sat in silence a moment, studying the young fellow's face. 
 
 " You deserve a better welcome there," he presently answered, " and 
 I don't know that I can do better than to tell you the truth, — what I 
 know of it. And let me tell you that if the old man knew of my 
 speaking of it to any one, I'd lose the most lucrative but least attractive 
 place I ever had. Do you see ?" 
 
 " Then perhaps you had better not tell me. I do not care to pry 
 into secrets." 
 
 " Oh, this is no secret. It was thxd that drove hira here : everybody 
 knew it in England. You were mighty shabbily treated at the ranch, 
 and you requited it by preventing what would have been a bloody row 
 and by lending us a helping hand. Even the old man recognizes that ; 
 and I think he'd be glad to say so to you, and see you, if you were not 
 just what you are, — a cavalry officer." 
 
 " Why, what on earth can we have done ? If any of our cloth have 
 wronged Mr. Maitland in any way, it is our right to know it and take 
 it up." 
 
 "It wasn't your cloth, old fellow," said Ewen, thawing visibly, 
 " but it was the cavalry all the same that broke his heart and his pride, 
 and made his life the wreck it is, and drove him from his home, shun- 
 ning the sight of his fellow-men, all these years, — exiling her, too, in 
 the prime of her young life. Mr. Perry, there are only three or four 
 of us at Dunraven who know the story, but we have only sympathy 
 and pity — no blame — for him, though he is the harshest master I ever 
 served." 
 
 " How did it happen ?" asked Perry. 
 
 " All through his son. There had been more of them, but there 
 was only the one — Archie — when the Lancers were ordered to South 
 Africa. He was a youngster, only seventeen, they tell me, and he had 
 just been gazetted to his cornetcy. The old man was all wrapped up 
 in him, for of the three boys the eldest had died only the month before 
 the regiment was ordered on foreign service and the second had been 
 killed in India. Both these two who were gone had made themselves 
 famous among their comrades by their fearlessness and high character, 
 and the old man, of course, could not ask Archie to quit the service 
 just when orders for dangerous duty came. The boy went to the Cape 
 with his corps, and got into the thick of the Zulu war just at the time 
 of the massacre of the 24th at Isandlwhana and the fight at Rorke's 
 Drift. I was at home then, and all England was quivering with grief 
 over such needless sacrifice as was made of that regiment, and all ready 
 
812 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 to fall down and worship such fellows as Chard and Bromhead, who 
 made the superb fight almost at the same time. They say old Maitland 
 wanted to go himself, as volunteer or something, with Lord Chelms- 
 ford, but it couldn't be done. His father had fought at Alma and 
 Inkerman, and his grandfather had led the Guards at Waterloo. The 
 whole tribe were soldiers, you know ; and now Archie was with the 
 Lancers in Zululand, and the Lancers were going to wipe out the dis- 
 asters of the first fights of the campaign, and Archie was to uphold 
 the grand old fighting name and come home covered with glory. He 
 was the heir now, and Miss Gladys was but a little girl. I have heard 
 it all from Mrs. Cowan : she was their housekeeper in those days, and 
 a sort of companion, too, to Mrs. Maitland, who was very delicate. 
 The old man was very fiery and proud, and full of fierce denunciation 
 of everything that had gone wrong in the campaign ; and he offended 
 some people by the way he condemned some officer who was a friend 
 of theirs, and there were others who thought he talked too much ; but 
 he fairly boiled over when the news came of how the Prince Imperial 
 had been abandoned by his escort, and that a British officer and a dozen 
 men had run two miles at top speed from a beggarly little squad of 
 niggers before they dared look round to see what had become of their 
 prince, whom they had left to fight the gang alone. That was old 
 Maitland's text for a month. If any sou of his had ever been of that 
 party he would disown, disgrace, deny him, forbid him his sight, cut 
 him off forever. And right in the midst of it all — a judgment, some 
 people said — there came the awful news that Cornet Maitland of the 
 Lancers was to be court-martialled for misbehavior in face of the 
 enemy. Of course the old man only raged at first, — said it couldn't 
 be true, — 'twas all some foul invention or ridiculous blunder ; but he 
 ran up to London and saw somebody at the Horse-Guards, — that's our 
 War Office, you know, — and came back looking a century older and 
 simply crushed to earth. Mrs. Cowau says they showed him the offi- 
 cial report of a general officer who was called upon to explain why he 
 had not sent certain troops to the relief of an advanced and threatened 
 post, and he replied that he had sent the order by Cornet Maitland of 
 the Lancers, had given him an escort of a dozen men and strict injunc- 
 tions to push through by night, at all hazards, though the way was 
 beset with Zulus, and that he neither went through nor returned, but 
 was found hiding at a kraal two days after, only twenty miles away. 
 The escort returned, and after much cross-examination had told the 
 story, separately and collectively, that the young officer had become 
 utterly unnerved towards midnight by the reports from scouting-parties 
 and others, had declared to them that it was simply madness to attempt 
 to push through, — they would be massacred to a man, — and, though 
 they announced that they were stanch and ready, he refused, and 
 ordered them to bivouac where they Avere for the night ; and in the 
 morning he had disappeared. They declared they supposed he had 
 gone back to camp, and, after waiting a day, they returned, reporting 
 him lost. When found at the kraal he was delirious with fever, 
 or pretended to be, said the general, and he was brought in under 
 arrest, and the trial was to proceed. I don't know how it turned 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 813 
 
 out. He was not court-martialled, but permitted to return to England. 
 It was said he told a very different story, — that he had begged the 
 brigade major who detailed the escort to let him have half a dozen of 
 his own Lancers instead of the pack of irregulars they gave him ; he 
 did not trust them, and feared they would abandon him as they had the 
 Prince ; but the staff-officer said the order couldn't be changed, — these 
 men knew the country, and all that sort of thing, you know ; and there 
 was one fellow in the Lancers who stuck to it that he believed Mait- 
 land had tried his best to get through alone. But 'twas all useless : 
 somebody had to be held responsible, and the failure was all heaped 
 on him. Meantime, there had been fury at home ; old Maitland had 
 written casting him off, repudiating, — cursing him, for all I know, — 
 and the next thing there came a messenger from the captain of his ship 
 at Southampton. They brought his watch, his ring, his sword and 
 portmanteaus, and a letter which was written on receipt of that his 
 father sent him, — a long letter, that the old man never read to any 
 living soul, but broods over to this day. The young fellow bade them 
 all good-by ; he would not live to disgrace them further, if that was 
 what was thought of him at home, and leaped overboard from the 
 steamer the night after she weighed anchor, — no one aboard could tell 
 just when, but he was writing in his state-room as she cleared the 
 harbor, and the steward saw him undressing at nine o'clock. In the 
 morning everything about his belongings was found in perfect order, — 
 his letter to the captain of the ship, the portmanteaus, watch, ring, 
 clothing, etc., just as he described in that letter, — and he was no more 
 seen. It was the conviction of all that he must have leaped overboard 
 in the darkness when far out at sea. 
 
 " Then Mrs. Maitland bowed her head and never lifted it again. 
 Then, all alone, and fiercely rejecting anything like sympathy, old 
 Maitland took to travel, — came here to America, wandered around the 
 world, shunning men as he would these prairie- wolves ; and when he 
 had to go to England he would see no one but the attorneys and solici- 
 tors with whom he had business. Here at Dunraven he is more content 
 than anywhere, because he is farther from the world. Here Gladys is 
 queen : 'twas she who named it, two years ago, for her mother was a 
 connection of the earl's. But Maitland even here hates to have his 
 name mentioned ; and that is why I say he refers all business to me 
 and keeps himself out of everything. Do you see what a weight he 
 carries ?" 
 
 Mr. Ewen had grown red with the intensity and rapidity of his 
 talk. He removed his hat and mopped his face and brow with a big 
 silk handkerchief, and then glanced again at Perry, who had listened 
 with absorbed interest and who was now silently thinking it over, 
 looking curiously at Ewen the while. 
 
 " Have I bored you half to death ?" asked the Englishman, some- 
 what ruefully. " I never told that story before, but it has been smoul- 
 dering for years." 
 
 " Bored ? No ! I never was more interested in my life. I was 
 thinking what a different sort of fellow you were from the man I met 
 out yonder the other day. Did they never do anything to clear the 
 Vol. XLII.— 53 
 
814 DVNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 matter up ? In our country it never would have been allowed to rest 
 there." 
 
 " It was too far gone ; and when the boy killed himself the thing 
 was used by all the government papers — you'd call them ' administration 
 organs' — as a confession of judgment. When the Lancers came home 
 there was some talk, but it was soon hushed. Maitland had shut up 
 the old place by that time and gone no one knew where, but I read it 
 in one of the London papers, — Truth, I think, — a story that two of the 
 irregulars had quarrelled with their fellows and after the war was over 
 told a tale that made a sensation in Cape Colony. They said that the 
 young officer was a maligned man ; that up to midnight he had pushed 
 on, but every scout and patrol they met warned them that thousands of 
 Zulus were ahead, and that it was madness to try. The men began 
 whispering among themselves, and begged the sergeant to attempt to 
 dissuade the Lancer officer ; and he did, and they all began to talk, but 
 he refused to listen. At last they halted at a little stream and flatly 
 refused to go a step farther. He ordered, begged, and implored. He 
 promised heavy reward to any one of their number who would come 
 and show him the way. Then they heard the night cries or signals of 
 some war-parties across the fields, and the sergeant and most of the men 
 put spurs to their liorses ; the others followed, and they rode back five 
 miles until they were within our patrolled lines ; then they bivouacked, 
 supposing of course the Lancer had followed them. But he hadn't : he 
 never joined them all next day, and likely as not he had done his best 
 to get through that strange country by night, alone, and had tried to 
 carry his despatches to the detachment. They knew they must tell a 
 straight story or be severely punished. They were twelve against one 
 when it came to evidence, as the sergeant pointed out, and so they 
 agreed on the one that sent him to Coventry. 
 
 " Some of the Lancer officers got hold of this and swore they believed 
 it true ; but meantime the government had had the devil's own time in 
 tiding his lordship the general over the numerous blunders he had made 
 in the campaign, and the Lancers were summarily ordered off elsewhere. 
 There was no one left to take up poor Archie's cause at home, and the 
 thing died out." 
 
 " By the Lord Harry, Mr. Ewen, it wouldn't die out here ! We 
 Yankees would resurrect such a thing if it were old as a mummy." 
 
 " Sometimes I think old Maitland would be glad of the chance to 
 do it, even broken as he is ; sometimes, Mrs. Cowan says, he walks 
 the floor all night and holds Archie's last letter in his hands. She 
 thinks he charges himself with having driven the boy to suicide." 
 
 " Does Miss Maitland never revisit the old home ?" asked Perry, 
 after a moment's thought. 
 
 " She goes with her father — everywhere. He is never here more 
 than twice a year, and seldom for more than six weeks at a time. 
 Were it not for her, though, he would settle down here, I believe. 
 He went to Cape Colony and tried to find the men who gave out that 
 story, but one of them was dead and the other had utterly disappeared. 
 There were still six survivors of that escort, the sergeant among them, 
 and he was a man of some position and property. They stuck to the 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 815 
 
 original story, and said the two men who started the sensation were 
 mere blackmailing vagrants. Maitland advertised everywhere for the 
 missing man, but to no purpose. I think he and Miss Gladys have 
 finally abandoned all hope of ever righting Archie's name. She was 
 only a child when it all happened, but she worshipped him, and never 
 for an instant has believed the story of his having funked. She's out 
 here riding somewhere this morning, by the way." 
 
 " Who ! Miss Maitland ?" exclaimed Perry, with sudden start, and 
 a flash of eager light in his blue eyes. 
 
 Ewen smiled quietly as he answered, " Yes. She needed exercise, 
 and wanted to come down to the gate and meet Dr. Quin. She went 
 on up the valley ; and I wonder she is not back." 
 
 The bright light faded quickly as it came ; the glad blue eyes 
 clouded heavily. Ewen looked at the young soldier, surprise in his 
 florid face, — surprise that quickly deepened into concern, for Perry 
 turned suddenly away, as though looking for his comrades of the hunt. 
 
 " I think they're coming now," said the manager, peering up the 
 valley under the shading willows. " Yes ! Won't you stop a bit?" 
 
 " Not now," was the hurried reply. " Thank you for that story : 
 it has given me a lot to think about. I'll see you again." The last 
 words were almost shouted back ; for, urged by sudden dig of the spur, 
 Nolan indignantly lashed his heels, then rushed in wrathful gallop 
 towards the eastern bluffs. It was no wilful pang his rider had in- 
 flicted on his pet and comrade ; it was only the involuntary transmis- 
 sion of the shock to his own young heart, — a cruel, jealous stab, tliat 
 came with those thoughtless words, " She wanted to come down to the 
 gate and meet Dr. Quin, and went on up the valley." He would not 
 even look back and see her riding by that man's side. 
 
 XII. 
 
 To use the expression of Mr. Dana, " Ned Perry seemed off* his 
 feed" for a day or two. The hunt had been pronounced a big success, 
 despite the fact of Perry's defection, — he had not even joined them at 
 luncheon, — and it was agreed that it should be repeated the first bright 
 day after muster. That ceremony came off" on Monday with due pomp 
 and formality and much rigidity of inspection on the part of the post 
 commander. It was watched wdth interest by the ladies, and Mrs. Bel- 
 knap even proposed that w^hen the barracks and kitchens were being 
 visited they should go along. Dana had been her devotee ever since 
 the day of the hunt, and announced his willingness to carry her sug- 
 gestion to the colonel, but Belknap declined. She wanted a few 
 words with Perry, and did not know how to effect her purpose. When 
 he stopped and spoke to her after parade on Saturday evening and 
 would have made peace, she thought to complete her apparent conquest 
 by a show of womanly displeasure at his conduct, and an assurance 
 that, thanks to Mr. Dana, the day had been delightful and his failure 
 to accompany her had been of no consequence at all. The utterly 
 unexpected way in which he took it was simply a " stunner" to the 
 little lady. So far from being piqued and jealous and huffy, as she 
 
816 DVNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 expected, Mr. Perry justified the oft-expressed opinion of her sisterhood 
 to the effect that " men were simply past all comprehension" by bright- 
 ening up instantly and expressing such relief at her information that 
 for a moment she was too dazed to speak. By that time he had pleas- 
 antly said good-night and vanished ; nor had he been near her since, 
 except to bow and look pleased when she walked by with Dana. She 
 never thought of him as an actor before, but this, said Mrs. Belknap 
 to herself, looks like consummate acting. Had she known of, or even 
 suspected, the existence of a woman who had interposed and cast her 
 into the shade, the explanation would have occurred to her at once; 
 but that there was a goddess in the shape of Gladys Maitland within 
 a day's ride of Rossiter she never dreamed for an instant. Believing 
 that no other woman could have unseated her, Mrs. Belknap simply 
 could not account for such utter — such unutterable — complacency on 
 the part of her lately favored admirer in his virtual dismissal. All 
 Sunday and Monday she looked for signs of sulking or surrender, but 
 looked in vain. Perry seemed unusually grave and silent, was Parke's 
 report of the situation ; but whatever comfort she might have derived 
 from that knowledge was utterly destroyed by the way he brightened 
 up and looked pleased whenever they chanced to meet. Monday even- 
 ing he stopped to speak with her on the walk, holding out his hand 
 and fairly beaming upon her : she icily received these demonstrations, 
 but failed to chill them or him. Then she essayed to make him suffer 
 the pangs of the jilted by clinging to Dana's arm and smiling up in 
 Dana's face, and then she suddenly started : " Oh, Mr. Dana ! How 
 could I have been so thoughtless? — and tliis is your wounded side !" 
 Dana protested that her slight weight was soothing balm, not additional 
 pain, and Perry promptly asseverated that if he were Dana he would 
 beg her not to quit his arm, and her eyes looked scorn at him as she 
 said, " How can you know anything about it, Mr. Perry ? You've 
 never been in action or got a scratch, while Mr. Dana" — and now the 
 dark eyes spoke volumes as they looked up into those of her escort — 
 " Mr. Dana is one of the heroes of the fighting days of the regiment." 
 Even that failed to crush him ; while it had the effect of making Dana 
 feel mawkish and absurd. Perry frankly responded that he only 
 wondered the women ever could find time to show any civility whatever 
 to fellows like him, when there were so many who " had records." She 
 was completely at a loss to fathom him, and when tattoo came on Monday 
 night, and they were all discussing the project of a run with the hounds 
 for the coming morrow, — a May-day celebration on new principles, — 
 Mrs. Belknap resolved upon a change of tactics. 
 
 Dana was officer of the guard and over at the guard-house, but nearly 
 all the other officers were chatting about the veranda and the gate of 
 the colonel's quarters. Thither had Captain Belknap escorted his pretty 
 wife, and she was, as usual, the centre of an interested group. Perry 
 came strolling along after reporting the result of tattoo roll-call to the 
 adjutant, and Captain Stryker called to him and asked some question 
 about the men on stable-guard. The orders of the colonel with regard 
 to watching the movements of the men after the night roll-call were 
 being closely observed, and when the trumpets sounded " taps," a few 
 
DUN RAVEN RANCH. 817 
 
 moments later, several of the troop-coramanders walked away together, 
 and this left a smaller party. It was just at this juncture that Mrs. 
 Belknap's sweet voice was heard addressing the commanding officer : 
 
 " Oh, colonel ! Ever since Thursday I have been telling Captain 
 Belknap about those lovely albums of yours; and he is so anxious to 
 see them. Could he have a look at them to-night?" 
 
 " Why, certainly !" exclaimed the colonel, all heartiness and pleasure. 
 " Come right in, Belknap, come in, — any of you, — all of you, — where 
 it's good and light." And he hospitably held open the screen door. 
 Perry had seen the albums a dozen times, but he was for going in with 
 the others, when he felt a little hand-pressure on his arm, and Mrs. 
 Belknap's great dark eyes were gazing up into his with mournful, in- 
 credulous appeal. 
 
 " Don't you know I want to see you ?" she murmured so that only 
 he could hear. " Wait !" 
 
 And, much bewildered, Mr. Perry waited. 
 
 She stood where she could look through the screen door into the 
 parlor beyond, watching furtively until the party were grouped under 
 the hanging lamps and absorbed in looking over one another's shoulders 
 at the famous albums ; then, beckoning to him to follow, she flitted, 
 like some eerie sprite, on tiptoe to the southern end of the veranda, 
 where clustering vines hid her from view from the walk along the 
 parade. Perry began to feel queer, as he afterwards expressed it, but 
 he stalked along after her, declining to modulate the thunder of his 
 heavy heels upon the resounding gallery. She put her finger to her 
 lips, and, after a nervous glance around, looked at him warningly, 
 beseechingly. 
 
 " What on earth's the matter ?" was all the perplexed and callow 
 youth could find to say, and in a tone so utterly devoid of romance, 
 sentiment, tenderness, — anything she wanted to hear, — that in all her 
 experience — and she had had not a little — pretty, bewitching little 
 Mrs. Belknap could recall nothing so humiliating. 
 
 " How Gan you be so unkind to me?" at last she whispered, in the 
 tragic tremolo she well knew to be effective : it had done execution 
 over and again. But big, handsome Ned Perry looked only like one 
 in a maze ; then he bent over her in genuine concern : 
 
 " Why, Mrs. Belknap ! What has happened ? What has gone 
 wrong? What do you mean by unkindness?" 
 
 She faced him, indignantly now : " Is it possible you profess not to 
 know?" 
 
 " By all that's holy, Mrs. Belknap, I haven't an idea of what you 
 mean to charge me with. Tell me, and I'll make every amend I know 
 how." 
 
 He was bending over her in genuine distress and trouble : he had 
 no thought but to assure her of his innocence of any conscious wrong. 
 She was leaning upon the balcony rail, and he rested one strong hand 
 upon the post at the shaded corner, above her head, as he bowed his 
 own to catch her reply. 
 
 For a moment she turned her face away, her bosom heaving, her 
 little hands clasping nervously, the picture of wronged and sorrowing 
 
818 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 womanhood. His blunt, rugged honesty was something she had never 
 yet had to deal with. This indeed was " game worth the candle," but 
 something of a higher order than the threadbare flirtations she had 
 found so palatable heretofore. She had expected him to be revealed 
 by this time as the admirer who had only been playing a part in his 
 apparent acceptance of the situation of the last two days ; she expected 
 to be accused of coquetting with Dana, of neglect, coldness, insult 
 towards himself; and this she would have welcomed : it would have 
 shown him still a victim in her toils, a mouse she might toy and play 
 with indefinitely before bestowing the final coup de grace. But instead 
 of it, or anything like it, here stood the tall, handsome young fellow, 
 utterly ignoring the possibility of her having wronged him, and only 
 begging to be told how he had affronted her, that he might make im- 
 mediate amends. It was simply exasperating. She turned suddenly 
 upon him, hiding her face in her hands, almost sobbing : 
 
 " And I thought we were such — such friends !" 
 
 Even that suggestive tentative did not lay him prostrate. Fancy 
 the utter inadequacy of his response : 
 
 " Why, so did I !" This was too much. Down came the hands, 
 and were laid in frantic appeal upon his breast. He did not bar the 
 way ; she could have slipped from the corner without difficulty ; but 
 the other method was more dramatic. 
 
 "Let me go, Mr. Perry," she pleaded. "I — I might have known; 
 I might have known." The accents were stifled, heart-rending. 
 
 " Don't go yet, Mrs. Belknap ; don't go without telling me what — 
 what I've done." And poor Ned imploringly seized the little hands 
 in both his and held them tight. " Please tell me," he pleaded. 
 
 " No, no ! You would not understand ; you do not see what 
 I have to bear. Let me go, I beg, — please. I cannot stay." And 
 her great dark eyes, swimming in tears, were raised to his face, while 
 with faint — very faint — struggles she strove to pull her hands away, 
 relenting in her purpose to go the moment she felt that he was relaxing 
 the hold in which they were clasped, but suddenly wrenching them 
 from his breast and darting from his side, leaving Perry in much 
 bewilderment to face about and confront the doctor. 
 
 A little opening had been left in the railing at the south end of the 
 veranda, — the same through which the post surgeon had passed the 
 night Mrs. Lawrence had shown to Perry the answering signal-light : 
 it was the doctor's " short cut" between the colonel's quarters and his 
 own side-door, and soft, unbetraying turf lay there between. Absorbed 
 in her melodrama, Mrs. Belknap had failed to note the coming of the 
 intruder ; absorbed in his own stupefaction and his fair partner's 
 apparent depth of woe, Ned Perry heard nothing but her soft words 
 and softer sighs, until a deep voice at his shoulder — a voice whose accent 
 betrayed no apology for the discovery and less sympathy for the dis- 
 covered — gave utterance to this uncompromising sentiment : 
 
 " Mrs. Belknap, this is the thirtieth — not the first — of April." 
 
 " And what has that to do with your sudden appearance. Dr. Quin ?" 
 answered the lady, with smiling lips but flashing eyes. She rallied 
 from the shock of sudden volley like the veteran she was, and took the 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 819 
 
 brunt of the fight on her own white, gleaming shoulders, needing no 
 aid from the young fellow who stood there, flushing, annoyed, yet too 
 perturbed to say a word even had there been a chance to get one in 
 edgewise. Blunt as he was, he could not but realize the awkwardness 
 of the situation. And to be so misjudged by such a man as Dr. Quin ! 
 All this was flashing through his mind as the doctor answered, — 
 
 " Nothing with my appearance, Mrs. Belknap : it was yours I re- 
 marked upon. You seemed to think it All Fools' Day." 
 
 " Far from it, doctor, when I thought you miles away." 
 
 " Well, well, Mrs. Belknap," said Quin, shrugging his broad 
 shoulders and laughing at her undaunted pluck, " I've known you 
 fifteen years, and never have found you at a loss for a sharp retort." 
 
 " In all the years you have known me, doctor, as child, as maid, as 
 woman, you are the only man in the army who ever put me on the 
 defensive. I see clearly that you would taunt me because of this inter- 
 view with Mr. Perry. Honi soil qui mal y pense, Dr. Quin ! You are 
 the last man in this garrison — cavalry and all — who can afford to throw 
 stones." 
 
 " Whew-w-w !" whistled the doctor. " What a little spitfire you 
 always were, to be sure ! — Mr. Perry," said he, turning suddenly on the 
 young officer, " let me at once apologize for a very misleading observa- 
 tion. When I spoke of having known Mrs. Belknap fifteen years she 
 instantly thought I meant to make her out very much older than she 
 is ; and hence these recriminations. She always objected to me because 
 I used to tease her when she was in her first long dresses, — the prettiest 
 girl at Fort Leavenworth, — and she's never gotten over it. But her 
 father and I were good friends, and I should like to be an honest one 
 to his daughter. Good-night to you both." 
 
 " One moment. Dr. Quin," said Perry, springing forward. " You 
 have seen fit to make comments and insinuations that have annoyed 
 Mrs. Belknap at a time when she was under my escort " 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Perry, no ! no !" exclaimed Mrs. Belknap, laying her 
 hand on his arm. " Not a word of that kind, I implore ! Hush I 
 here comes my husband." 
 
 " Ah, Belknap," said the doctor, blandly, as the big captain came 
 hurriedly forth with searching glance along the dark gallery, " here you 
 find me, as usual, trying to be devoted to Mrs. B. whenever I can get 
 you out of the way. Why the jeuce can't you stay ?" 
 
 "Oh, it's you, is it, doctor?" answered the captain, in tones of 
 evident relief. " It is far too chilly for this young woman to be sitting 
 here without a wrap, is it not ? Come inside, Dolly. Come, doctor. — 
 Halloo ! what's that ?" 
 
 A cavalry trumpeter came springing through the gate and up on 
 the veranda. 
 
 " Is Captain Stryker here ?" he panted. 
 
 " No. What's the matter ?" demanded Perry. 
 
 " Trouble at the stables, sir. Sergeant Gwynne's assaulted again." 
 
 Perry sprang from the veranda and went tearing across the dark 
 level of the parade as fast as active legs could carry him, leaving the 
 doctor far behind. As he passed the company quarters he noted that 
 
820 DVNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 several men were leaping from their broad galleries, some just pulling 
 on a blouse, others in their shirt-sleeves, but all hastening towards the 
 stables, where dim lights could be seen flitting about like will-o'-the- 
 wisps. One of these troopers came bounding to his side, and would 
 have passed him in the race. He recognized the athletic form even in 
 the darkness, and hailed him : 
 
 " That you. Sergeant Leary ? What's gone wrong ?" 
 
 " It's thim blackguards from below, sir. Who else could it be ?" 
 
 " Those people at the ranch ?" 
 
 " The very ones, sir. No one else would harm Sergeant Gwynne. 
 Sure we ought to have wound 'em up the one night we had a chance, 
 sir." 
 
 Breathless, almost, they reached the stables. The horses were all 
 snorting, stamping, and plunging about in their stalls, showing every 
 indication of excitement and alarm. From the stables of the adjoining 
 companies other men had come with lanterns, and a group of perhaps 
 half a dozen troopers was gathered about the form of a cavalry sergeant 
 who was seated, limp and exhausted, at the western door- way. One 
 soldier was bathing his face with a sponge ; the first sergeant of the 
 troop was bending over and trying to feel the pulse. 
 
 " Stand back, you men !" he said, authoritatively, as he caught 
 sight of the lieutenant's shoulder-straps. " Leave a lantern here. — Now, 
 Gwynne, here's Lieutenant Perry. Can you tell him who it was?'^ 
 
 Gwynne feebly strove to rise, but Perry checked him. 
 
 " Sit down ! The doctor is coming ; don't attempt to move," panted 
 the young officer. " Tell me what you know about it. Sergeant Hos- 
 mer." 
 
 " Nothing but this, sir. I was in the office, when Trumpeter Peter- 
 sen ran in and said they were killing Sergeant Gwynne. I sent him 
 for the captain and grabbed my revolver and ran here as hard as I could. 
 He was lying just outside the door when I got here, and not another 
 soul in sight. Sergeant Ross, of F Troop, and Sergeant Fagan, of B, 
 came with their lanterns from the stables next door ; but they had not 
 even heard the trouble." 
 
 " Where was the stable-guard ?" 
 
 " Inside, sir, and he's there now. He heard the scuffle, he says, 
 and ran to give the alarm and to protect the sergeant, but the men 
 scattered when he came, and he saw none of them." 
 
 " Tell him to come here. Let some of these men go in and quiet 
 the horses. The captain will be iiere in a minute, and he will want to 
 see that stable-man. Who is it ?" 
 
 " Kelly, sir." 
 
 By this time Dr. Quin came lumbering heavily up the slope to the 
 stable door. His manner was very quiet and very grave as he bent 
 over the injured man and carefully studied his face by the light of the 
 sergeant's lamp. Gwynne partially opened his eyes and turned his 
 head as though the glare were too painful. The doctor spoke gently : 
 
 "You know me, sergeant? — Dr. Quin. Can you tell me what 
 struck you ? Are you hurt elsewhere than in the head ?" 
 
 Gwynne made no reply for a moment, then faintly answered, — 
 
DVNRAVEN RANCH. 821 
 
 " Stunned, mainly, and one or two kicks after I was knocked down." 
 
 Then came a deeper voice, quiet but authoritative, and the group 
 that had begun to close in again about the doctor and his patient fell 
 back as Captain Stryker strode into their midst. 
 
 '' Sergeant Hosmer, send all these men of the troop back to their 
 quarters at once, and permit no more to come out. — Is he much hurt, 
 doctor?" 
 
 " Somewhat stunned, he says. I've made no examination yet." 
 
 The captain looked about him. Except one sergeant holding a 
 lantern, the other troopers, obedient to his order, were slowly fading 
 back into the darkness on their way to the barracks. Only the doctor, 
 Mr. Perry, and the sergeant remained by the side of the injured man. 
 Then came the question, — 
 
 " Who did this, Gwynne?" 
 
 No answer. A deeper shade of pain and trouble seemed to pass 
 over the young sergeant's face. He made an effort to speak, hesitated, 
 and at last replied, — 
 
 " I cannot say, sir." 
 
 " You know, do you not ?" 
 
 Again pained silence and embarrassment. At last the sergeant 
 leaned slowly forward and spoke : 
 
 "Captain, the men were masked, the voices disguised. I could not 
 see the dress in the darkness. I was struck on the head almost the 
 instant I got outside the door, and it would be impossible for me to 
 identify one of them." 
 
 " Do you think it was the same gang you had the trouble with at 
 Dunraven ?" 
 
 " I — could not say, sir." 
 
 " Do you suspect any of our own men ?" 
 ^ " I — would not say that, sir." 
 
 " Where is the stable-guard ?" asked Stryker. " Send him 
 here." 
 
 And presently Trooper Kelly — a wiry little Irishman, with a 
 twinkling eye and an expression of mingled devilment and imperturba- 
 bility in his face — came forth from the stable door and stood attention, 
 awaiting his examination. 
 
 " Where were you when this assault took place, Kelly ?" 
 
 " At the far end of the stables, sir," replied Kelly, with prompt 
 and confident tone. 
 
 " Then of course you saw and know nothing of it." 
 
 " Not a wor-rad, sir." 
 
 " Why did you let a gang from that English ranch come here and 
 beat your sergeant before your very eyes ?" * 
 
 Kelly reddened at the very idea : 
 
 " I'd ha' died first, sir ! Sure they'd niver dared " And then 
 
 Kelly stopped short. His Celtic pride had been touched to the quick, 
 and had it not proved too much for even Irish wit? 
 
 " How did they get the sergeant out of the stable at this hour of 
 the night ?" 
 
 " Sure they called him out, sir." 
 
822 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 " And the sergeant happened to be down there by the door at the 
 time ?" 
 
 " No, sir : he was in his room, beyaut, — up there by the forage." 
 
 " That's a long distance from this door, Kelly ; and if he could 
 hear it in his room you could hear it farther away." 
 
 " I wasn't farther away thin, sir : I was down here when they 
 axed for him." 
 
 " Then why didn't you open the door and see who was making such 
 a racket, shouting for Sergeant Gwynne after taps ?" 
 
 " Sure they didn't shout at all at all, sir ; they axed for him quiet 
 and respectable like, an' I wint and told him." 
 
 " Ah, yes, I see. And then, having told him, you went away to 
 the far end of the stable." 
 
 " Yis, sir, — just so, sir ; an' the moment I heard the scrimmidge, 
 sir, I ran as hard as I could." 
 
 " Of course you considered it was none of your business what 
 people might want with the stable-sergeant at night." 
 
 " No, sir. If he wanted me he had a right to tell me to come.'' 
 
 " We differ on that point, Kelly," said the captain, quietly. " For 
 a guard, you displayed a lack of curiosity that is simply fatal. — Relieve 
 him. Sergeant Hosmer," he continued, placidly, and then, taking Perry 
 by the arm, led him to one side. There was a few minutes' low-toned 
 talk between the officers while Gwynne was being led away by the 
 doctor, and when on the following morning Colonel Brainard looked 
 over the report of Captain Stryker's troop he was surprised to note in 
 the column of remarks explanatory of the alterations from the status 
 of the previous day, — 
 
 "Sergeant Gwynne from daily duty as stable-sergeant to sick in 
 hospital, Sergeant Leary from duty to arrest, and Private Kelly from 
 duty to confinement." 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Notwithstanding the fact that there was an atmosphere of suppressed 
 excitement over the garrison this May-day morning, Mrs. Belknap's 
 hunt came off according to plan, and the three heroines of the previous 
 run rode forth with but slight change of escort. Captain Stryker felt 
 constrained to remain in garrison : he had a quiet investigation to make, 
 and was observed to be in close conversation with Dr. Quin as the gay 
 party assembled in front of Colonel Brainard's quarters. Mr. Perry 
 appeared in his captain's stead, and very politely requested the honor 
 of being escort to Mrs. Lawrence, who accepted, yet looked a trifle em- 
 barrassed as she did so. Indeed, not until she had stolen an appealing 
 glance at her husband and heard his cordial " By all means, dear : 
 Perry can guide you far better than I, and perhaps you'll win another 
 mask," did she thankfully say " Yes." Dana rode with Mrs. Belknap, 
 as before, and it was the colonel himself who suggested to Stryker that 
 Mr. Perry should accompany Mrs. Lawrence this day, and that he, the 
 colonel, should ride with Mrs. Sprague. 
 
 Perry had eagerly lent himself to the proposition : he figured that 
 now he could have an uninterrupted chat with Mrs. Lawrence and hear 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 323 
 
 what she had to tell about Diinraven. Just before starting he sought 
 Captain Lawrence, laughingly told him the terms of their agreement, 
 and begged that he would relax his marital injunction and permit her 
 to give him such details as she happened to be in possession of. " In- 
 deed, Captain Lawrence," he said, " I ask from no idle curiosity. I 
 have been to the ranch, as you now know, and have good reason for 
 asking." To his surprise, the captain replied substantially that, while 
 he had regretted Mrs. Lawrence's impulsive revelations, he had thought 
 it all over and decided that the best way out was that Perry should be 
 told the whole story and be able to see how very little there was to it. 
 He had decided, therefore, to tell him himself; " and this evening, 
 Perry, if you will dine with us informally, we'll talk it over afterwards. 
 Meantime, I prefer Mrs. Lawrence's name should not be mentioned in 
 connection with any story there may be afloat : so oblige me by saying 
 nothing to her on the subject." 
 
 This was one matter for reflection, and something of a surprise ; 
 but there was still another, and even greater one. That very morning, 
 just before guard-mount, and while he was dressing, Perry shouted, 
 " Come in," responsive to a knock at his sitting-room door, and in came 
 Captain Stryker. The object of his early call was explained in very 
 few words. 
 
 " Perry," said he, " I have been over to see Sergeant Gwynne this 
 morning, and the doctor walked back from hospital with me and told 
 me of your threatened disagreement of last night. If it had not been 
 for that sudden call to the stables I fancy there might have been a 
 quarrel. Now, I think you know I'm one of the last men to let an 
 officer of my regiment — especially my troop — be placed in a false posi- 
 tion, and — you can afford to leave this matter in my hands, can you 
 not?" 
 
 " Certainly, Captain Stryker." 
 
 "Then I want you to say nothing to Quin on the subject, and to 
 treat him, as far as possible, as though nothing had happened. His 
 relations with the lady's father and family were, and are, such that she 
 ought to treat him with respect and deference, and to accept his advice 
 even though it be given in a style that Carlyle, his favorite author, is 
 mainly responsible for." 
 
 " There was absolutely nothing in — in that Well, captain," 
 
 stammered poor Ned, " I don't know how to say what I want to say." 
 He wanted to say there was nothing in that interview which could 
 possibly be criticised, but it suddenly occurred to him that, on the con- 
 trary, there was a good deal. Then he desired to assure his captain 
 that, so far as he was concerned, there wasn't a suspicion of wrong- 
 doing ; but — heavens and earth ! — that was equivalent to saying the 
 lady was doing all that was open to remark, and nothing would ever 
 induce him to " give away a woman," as he would have expressed it. 
 Perry stammered and reddened all the more, and at last gave it up in 
 despair, Stryker sitting there the while with a quiet grin on his bronzed 
 face, and mechanically slashing his boot-legs with a riding-switch. 
 
 " I think I understand the situation, Perry, and there's no great 
 barm done. Only, let the matter drop, — so far as the doctor is con- 
 
824 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 cerned, I mean : I do not presume to obtrude advice upon you as to 
 anything else." 
 
 And, though he had meditated a different course, and had fully in- 
 tended hunting up Dana and sending him with a note to call upon the 
 doctor for an " explanation," he was glad to have a man of Stryker's 
 standing cry halt. All the same he was sore incensed against Dr. 
 Quin, — mainly because of the jealous pain he suffered at the knowledge 
 of his being so welcomed by Gladys Maitland when he saw fit to visit 
 the ranch ; and this pain gnawed all the more angrily now at thought 
 of the embarrassing — even suspicious — situation in which that very 
 man had found him on the previous evening. Pressing duties and 
 hurried preparations kept him from brooding too much upon these sore 
 points, but the youngsters all rallied him upon his preoccupation while 
 at their merry breakfast- table. He had resolved that there was one 
 thing he could and would bring to an issue with Dr. Quin, and was all 
 impatience for the coming of evening, that he might hear from the lips 
 of Captain Lawrence the actual stories that had been in circulation con- 
 cerning Duuraven Ranch. He never went out to a hunt so utterly 
 indifferent to the fortunes of the day, so eager to have it all over and 
 done with. And yet — and yet — never had there opened to him a day 
 so radiant with glorious possibility ; never before in all his young life 
 had nightfall proved so unwelcome when it finally came. 
 
 The first rabbit was started before they were a mile from Rossiter, 
 and the hounds tumbled over him nearly a league away down the 
 valley of the Monee. It was while they were watering their horses in 
 the stream that Mrs. Belknap rode up beside them and laughingly 
 addressed Mrs. Lawrence : 
 
 " That was too much of a straight-away for either of us, Mrs. 
 Lawrence ; but what wager shall we have on the first mask after this ?" 
 
 " Why, Mrs. Belknap ! I can never hope to rival you. It was 
 mere accident, and good guiding on the part of some of the officers who 
 were kind enough to stay by me, that enabled me to be ' in at the death' 
 the other day." 
 
 " You have Mr. Perry to lead you to-day. Surely with such a 
 guide you ought to be inspired. — Am I to see anything of you to-day?" 
 she almost whispered to him, as her stirrup brushed his riding-boot. 
 
 " Certainly," he answered, quietly, and looking her over with frank 
 blue eyes that were rather too clear and calm for her mood. " If Mrs. 
 Lawrence will excuse me a few moments by and by, it will be a pleasure 
 to come and ride with you. I'll ask her." 
 
 " Indeed you shall not," was the low-toned reply, while the dark 
 eyes fairly snapped with indignation. " I do not borrow other women's 
 escort. If you know no other way, that ends it." 
 
 And then Mrs. Sprague's cheery voice had hailed them as her 
 eager horse came splashing into the stream ; no opportunity occurred 
 for further impressive remarks, but as the " field" rode out upon the 
 prairie again and the dogs spread their yelping skirmish-line along the 
 front, Mrs. Belknap felt confident that before they returned to Rossiter 
 she would have her big, simple-hearted admirer in some shape for dis- 
 cipline. Two capital runs added to her self-satisfaction, for in one of 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 825 
 
 them she was side by side with the foremost rider at the finish, and in 
 both she had left the other women far in rear. Then came a third, and 
 with it a revelation to one and all. 
 
 It was almost noon, and from a point well out on the prairie to the 
 northeast of Dunraven the " field" was hunting slowly homeward, horses 
 and hounds pretty well tired out, and the riders quite content with their 
 morning's sport. Up to this time Perry had been in constant attend- 
 ance on Mrs. Lawrence, and had made no effort to join Mrs. Belknap. 
 Now, however, he could not but see that every little while her eyes 
 sought his with significant glance and that she was riding well out to 
 the left of the party, Dana faithfully hovering about her. The colonel 
 with Mrs. Sprague ranged alongside just then, and a general conversa- 
 tion ensued, in the course of which Perry found himself a trifle in the 
 way. If there was. one thing fastidious Nolan did not like, it was to 
 be crowded by horses for whom he had no particular respect ; and, as a 
 number of riders were grouped about Mrs. Lawrence at the moment, 
 it resulted that Nolan's teeth and heels began to make play, and Perry 
 laughingly resigned his position at her side, in order, as he expressed it, 
 " to give you other fellows a chance." Even then, as he fell to the rear, 
 it was with no thought or intention of joining Mrs. Belknap. But, once 
 clear of the merry group, his eyes sought the distant outlines of Dun- 
 raven Ranch, glaring in the noonday sun beyond the Monee, and be- 
 tween him and that mysterious enclosure whither his thoughts were so 
 constantly wandering there rode the dainty lady, the Queen of the Chase, 
 so far as that day was concerned at least, and she Avas signalling to him 
 with her riding-whip. Oddly enough, when Perry rode up to obey her 
 summons, Mr. Dana presently found means to excuse himself and join 
 the main body. 
 
 " Mr. Perry," she said, as soon as Dana was out of hearing, " Mrs. 
 Page will be with us to-night, or to-morrow morning at latest," 
 
 " Will she ?" answered he, unconscious, forgetful, and with an air 
 of pleased anticipation. " How pleasant for you ! I'll come and pay 
 my respects the very first thing." 
 
 " You do not understand," was the reproachful response. " You 
 do not care, I preeume ; but this means that you and I will have no 
 more long talks and happy times together." 
 
 " I'm awfully sorry, Mrs. Belknap, but I'm blessed if I can see 
 why we shouldn't." 
 
 " No," despairingly, " it is plain enough that you see nothing. Ah, 
 well !" — and the sigh was pathetic-profound, and the look from the 
 dark eyes was unutterable in its sadness, " I suppose it is better so, — 
 better so." She was silent a moment, and Perry's puzzled faculties took 
 refuge in a long look over towards Dunraven again : he fancied he saw 
 figures moving down the slope on the southern side. 
 
 " One thing I want you to promise me," she presently said, sad and 
 soft and low. There was no reply. Looking up, she saw his head 
 Avas averted. Was he feeling the sting, then, after all ? Was he 
 actually suffering a little pang after this affectation of nonchalance ? 
 
 " One thing you must promise, for my sake," she repeated. 
 
 And still no answer came. How odd ! He was bending over in 
 
826 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 the saddle as though turning from her, — perhaps to hide his face from 
 her and from them all. He had shifted the reins into his right hand, 
 and was apparently fumbling at the breast of his riding-coat with the 
 left. Was it the handkerchief he needed ? Were there starting tears 
 in those blue eyes that he dared not let her see ? She could not lose 
 that luxury ! Out went the little hand and touched his arm. Her 
 tone was sweet, thrilling, appealing, yet commanding : she would see his 
 face. 
 
 " Mr. Perry, — Ned ! Look at me." 
 
 " Eh ! oh ! What ! I beg your pardon, Mrs. Belknap, but I was 
 trying to make out who that was in the timber yonder. Looks — looks 
 almost like a woman on horseback, doesn't it ?" 
 
 But when he appealed to her for confirmation of his timid, half- 
 credulous vision he was aghast at the look in her face. 
 
 " You were not listening ! You were not even thinking of what I 
 was saying !" she began, her white teeth set, her soft lips livid with 
 wrath ; but she suddenly controlled herself, — none too soon, for Dana 
 came trotting up. 
 
 " Say, Perry, what do you make that out to be down there in the 
 valley ? Colonel Brainard and I feel sure it's a lady on horseback." 
 
 And, looking at Perry, Mrs. Belknap saw that he had flushed to 
 the very temples, — that an eager, joyous light had sprung to his eyes ; 
 but before she could say a word there came a shout from the huntsman, 
 a yell from the leading line, a simultaneous yelp from the curs and 
 mongrels among the " irregulars," and her horse leaped at the bit and 
 went tearing oflF towards the Monee, foremost in mad pursuit of a 
 wildly careering "jack." 
 
 " Come !" she called, as she glanced over her shoulder ; but the 
 sight was one that only added to her wrath. Nolan, plunging and 
 snorting, was held to the spot, while his rider, sitting like a centaur, 
 was still eagerly gazing over into the distant cotton woods. The next 
 instant she realized that all the field were thundering at her heels, and 
 the instinct of the sportsman came to her aid. She could not be beaten 
 in the chase. 
 
 For half a mile Bunny shot like a streak of light straight away 
 southwestward, the hounds bunched in a slaty, sweeping cloud not 
 thirty yards behind the bobbing tuft of his tail. Then he began a 
 long circle towards the stream, as though to head for a " break" that 
 extended some rods back from the line of bluffs. Another minute, and 
 he had reached its partial shelter and darted in. For the next minute 
 he was lost to sight of his human pursuers, but presently flashed into 
 view again down in the creek-bottom and "streaking it" up along the 
 northern bank, with the whole pack at his heels. The bluffs were steep 
 just here, some of the riders a trifle timid, and all the "field" reined 
 in a little as they made the descent ; Dana, Mrs. Belknap, Parke, Mrs. 
 Lawrence, Graham, the colonel, and Mrs. Sprague straightened out for 
 their pursuit in the order named the instant they reached the level of 
 the valley. The hounds were far ahead by this time, and the two light 
 troopers in charge of them close at their heels ; but who — what was 
 the figure that flashed into view between those huntsmen and the field. 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 827 
 
 darting like arrow from the fringe of willows and dashing straight in 
 wake of the quarry? Thirty yards ahead of the foremost riders of 
 the Rossiter party a superb English hunter, the bit in his teeth, his 
 eyes afire and his head high in air, fresh, vigorous, raging with long- 
 imprisoned passion for the sport of the old island home, gaining on 
 the hounds at every stride, and defying the utmost efforts of his rider, 
 leaped from the covert of the timber into sight of one and all, bearing 
 a lovely but most reluctant victim on his back. 
 
 In vain with might and main she leaned back and tugged at the 
 reins : though checked in his speed, the horse still tore ahead, keeping 
 straight for the hounds, leaping in his easy stride every little gully or 
 " branch" that crossed his path. Bunny took a sudden dive into the 
 timber, fairly flew across a narrow, gravelly rapid, and darted up on 
 the opposite bank ; the hounds veered in pursuit, the huntsmen wavered 
 and sought along the bank for a better place to cross, but the mettlesome 
 English bay lunged through in the very wake of the hounds, crumbling 
 the sandy banks and crashing through the pebbly stream-bed. Out on 
 the southern slopes went Bunny, close followed by the hounds ; out on 
 their trail went the big hunter, but his rider's hat has been brushed 
 away in the wild dash though the timber, and now a flame of beautiful 
 golden hair — a great wave of light — flies on the wind over his glossy 
 back, and, though she still leans over the cantle tugging hard at the 
 reins, she is plainly losing strength. Some of the Rossiter party burst 
 through the timber in pursuit ; some still ride hopefully up the north 
 bank, and these are rewarded, for once again poor, badgered, bewildered 
 Bunny makes a sudden swerve, and, throwing half the hounds far be- 
 hind, darts a second time to the shelter of the banks, with the other 
 half closer at his heels than before. Those who are watching see the 
 big hunter make a long, circular sweep, then once again bring up in 
 the wake of the leaders, once more go leaping, plunging, crashing 
 through the stream, and, in another minute, rabbit, hounds, huntsmen, 
 the " field," and the fair incognita are all strung out in chase along the 
 northern shore, and all eyes can see that she is an English girl and 
 wellnigh exhausted. Still, no man can catch that hunter and lay 
 hands on the rein. She is riding with the very foremost now, leading 
 the troopers, even, and still Bunny spins along in front, the hounds gnash- 
 ing not six feet behind him. A little point of bluff juts out just 
 ahead ; the stream winds around its base and takes a turn northward 
 for a dozen rods. Bunny shoots the turn like the pilot of the lightning 
 express, the hounds strain to make it without loss of vantage gained, 
 the big hunter sways outward to the very verge of the steep and 
 crumbling bank, and a groan goes up from the breathless pursuers ; 
 but he rallies and straightens once more in the track, and the golden 
 hair, streaming in the advance, is the oriflamme of the chase. Then as 
 they round the point Dana gives a shout of joy. Straight down the 
 slopes, straight and swift as rode the daring hussar from whom he got 
 his name, when he bore the fatal message like arrow-flight from the 
 Sapoun6 crest at Balaklava, down the bluffs to the right front comes 
 Nolan, with Ned Perry on his back, — Perry with set, resolute, yet 
 almost frenzied face, — Perry with eyes that flash blue fire in the in- 
 
828 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 tensity of their gaze, — and Nolan's vigorous strides have brought 
 him in circling sweep, in just ten seconds more, close to the hunter's 
 quarter, close behind the fluttering skirt. Just ahead there is another 
 sudden turn to the left : the stream goes one way, the bluffs another, 
 and between them lies a five-acre patch of level prairie thickly studded, 
 here, there, everywhere, with tiny earthen mounds and tiny, gaping, 
 treacherous holes, — a prairie-dog village, by all that's awful ! and that 
 runaway hunter, mad in the chase of the sweeping hounds, is in the 
 midst of it before mortal hand can check or swerve him. Another 
 second, and they who pursue have veered to right or left or reined up 
 on the verge, — all save one. Never faltering, Ned Perry is at her 
 hunter's quarter, — almost at her side. They see him spurring, they see 
 him bending eagerly towards her, they see that he is shouting something 
 to her, — Heaven knows what ! Then there is a groan of misery and 
 dread from a dozen breasts, — a groan that as suddenly bursts into the 
 gladdest of cheers : the hunter's forefoot has caught in one of the thou- 
 sand little death-traps ; down he goes, plunging, heaving, quivering, 
 rolling over and over; but Nolan leaps gallantly ahead, and Ned Perry's 
 strong arm has lifted the girl from the saddle as her steed goes crashing 
 to earth, and bears her, drooping, faint, frightened, wellnigh senseless, 
 but safe and clasped tight to his thankful and exultant heart. 
 
 Another instant, and Nolan is reined in in the very midst of the 
 tumbling hounds, and Gladys Maitland is the only woman " in at the 
 death." 
 
 XIV. 
 
 The group that gathers there a moment later is as interested a 
 party as the central figures are interesting. Unable to set her left foot 
 to the ground, and still encircled by Perry's arm, Miss Maitland stands 
 leaning heavily on his breast. She is very pale for a moment, partly 
 from exhaustion, partly from pain, for there was no time to free her 
 foot from the stirrup, and the ankle is severely wrenched. Nolan, 
 riderless now and cast loose, stands with lowered head and heaving 
 flanks a sympathetic but proudly heroic looker-on : he knows he has 
 played his part in that rescue. The huge English hunter is plunging 
 in misery among the mounds a few yards back, his fore-leg broken. 
 One of the troopers has seized his bridle, and another is unstrapping 
 the heavy English saddle. '^ Splendidly done !" says the colonel, as 
 he trots carefully up, casting a glance at the fallen cause of all the mis- 
 chief, " but if that saddle had been one of those three-pronged abomi- 
 nations he couldn't have swept her off as he did." Graham has 
 galloped to the stream for water, and the colonel lifts Mrs. Sprague 
 from her saddle, and together they advance to offer sympathy and aid. 
 Mrs. Lawrence follows as quickly as she can pick her way among the 
 prairie-dog holes. Dana has deserted Mrs. Belknap, and she alone 
 remains mounted while all these others throng about the two who stand 
 there for the moment, clinging to each other. And now Gladys Mait- 
 land has raised her head ; blushes of shame and confusion triumph 
 over pallor and pain ; she strives to stand alone, but Perry bids her 
 desist. The moment she sees Mrs. Sprague's sweet, womanly, sympa- 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. g29 
 
 thetic face her eyes are filled with comfort and her heart goes out to 
 her. Most reluctantly Perry resigns his prize to the arms that open to 
 receive her, and then come the wondering exclamations of some, and 
 the brief, breathless explanations. 
 
 " Don't try to talk yet," pleads Mrs. Sprague. " We are only too 
 glad it was no worse." 
 
 " Indeed, I'm not hurt," answers Gladys, bravely, — " only a little 
 wrench, but," and she laughs nervously, trying to carry it oif with all 
 the pluck and spirit of her race, " it would have been what we call a 
 ' nasty cropper' at home if" — and her eyes turn shyly yet with a world 
 of gratitude to his — " it had not been for Mr. Perry." 
 
 " Oh, then you know Mr. Perry !" exclaims Mrs. Sprague, with 
 frank delight, and Mrs. Lawrence turns in rejoicing to look first in his 
 glowing face, then at the dark beauty of Mrs. Belknap silently listen- 
 ing. " Why, we had no idea " And she concludes irresolutely. 
 
 " Oh, yes : we met at the ranch, — at home. I am Miss Maitland, 
 you know ; and that is my father's place. But we've only just come," 
 she adds, with the woman's natural desire to explain to new-found 
 friends why and how it was that they had not met before. And then 
 the group is joined by a bulky young Briton in the garb of a groom, 
 though modified to suit the requirements of frontier life : he comes 
 cantering to the scene all elbows and consternation ; he gives a groan of 
 dismay at sight of the prostrate hunter, but rides directly to his mis- 
 tress. She is paling again now, and in evident pain, and Perry's face 
 is a study as he stands, his eyes riveted upon her; but she strives to 
 smile and reassure him. 
 
 " You'll have to ride to Dunr — to the ranch, Griggs," she said ; 
 "and — there's no help for it — papa will have to be told. Let them 
 send for me." 
 
 " Pardon me. Miss Maitland," interrupted Colonel Brainard. 
 " You are almost under the walls of Fort Rossiter, and Dunraven is 
 miles away. I have sent a swift horse for Dr. Quin and a spring am- 
 bulance. We cannot let you go home, now that you are so near us, 
 until you have had rest and proper care." 
 
 " Indeed we cannot, Miss Maitland," chimed in both ladies at a 
 breath. " You are to come right to ray house until you are fit to 
 travel." 
 
 " I'm not very fit just now, certainly," she answers, with a faint 
 smile ; " but I can surely wait here until they send : 'twill not be 
 more than an hour at most." 
 
 " It will be two hours, — perhaps three, — Miss Maitland," pleaded 
 Perry, bending eagerly forward. ^'Do listen to our ladies I" 
 
 And " our ladies" prevailed. While Griggs went sputtering off to 
 Dunraven with the sorrowful news, the strong arms of Perry and 
 Graham lifted and bore their English captive to the shade of a clump 
 of cotton woods. Mrs. Sprague and Mrs. Lawrence managed to make 
 a little couch for her as a temporary resort. Mrs. Belknap rode up and 
 was formally introduced, then galloped away to Rossiter to send blankets 
 for the picnic-couch and see to the pillows of the ambulance. The 
 colonel and Perry remained with the ladies and engrossed their atten- 
 YoL. XLII.— 54 
 
830 DVNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 tion while Graham went back and sent two pistol-bullets into the strug- 
 gling hunter's brain, stilling his pain forever. Then came Dr. Quin 
 galloping like the wind down the familiar trail, chiding " Gladys" as 
 though his right to do so were a long-established thing, and thereby 
 setting Perry's teeth on edge, and, long before the call for afternoon 
 stables was sounding, the fair daughter of Dunraven Ranch was housed 
 within the walls of Rossiter and the " ice was broken." Perry had 
 had the joy of helping carry her into Mrs. Sprague's coolest and cosiest 
 room. She had held forth her hand — such a long, white, beautiful 
 hand — and let it rest in his while she said, " You know how impossible 
 it is for me to tell you how I thank you, Mr. Perry," and he had simply 
 bowed over it, longing to say what he thought, but powerless to think 
 of anything else ; and then he had gone to his own quarters and shut 
 himself in. Mrs. Sprague — bless her ! — had invited him to call after 
 retreat, and he had totally forgotten the Lawrences' dinner when he 
 said he would be only too glad to come. 
 
 At the sounding of stable -call his darky servant banged at the 
 door and roused him from his revery. He rose mechanically and went 
 out into the broad sunshine, glancing first along the row to see how 
 things were looking at the Spi'agues', and wishing with all his heart 
 that they were somewhere within reach of a conservatory, that he might 
 send a heaping box of fresh and dewy roses to that sacred room where 
 she lay. How many a time, he thought, had he strolled into some 
 odorous shop in the cities where his " leaves" were spent, and carelessly 
 ordered cut flowers by the cubic foot sent with his card to some one 
 with whom he had danced the german the night before and never ex- 
 pected to see again ! What wouldn't he give now for just a few of 
 those wasted, faded, forgotten flowers ! He could see that the window 
 was raised in the room to which they had carried her, and a soft breeze 
 was playing in the folds of the white curtain ; but no one was visible. 
 Dreamily, and with no thought or look for other beings in the little 
 garrison, he strode across the parade. An ambulance, dusty and travel- 
 stained, was in front of Belknap's, and a couple of trunks — unmis- 
 takably feminine property — were being unloaded. He could have seen 
 it, had he glanced over his left shoulder, and drawn the inference that 
 " Mrs. Page" had arrived ; but his thoughts were engrossed in the other 
 direction. Then Graham came bounding along to join him, and near 
 the quarters stood Captain Stryker, waiting for him, and both of them 
 were unwilling to talk of anything but his exploit of a few hours 
 l)efore : it was all over the garrison by this time, and so was the news 
 that Dunraven's fair and hitherto unknown mistress was now the guest 
 of Fort Rossiter. All his jollity and gladness seemed to have ebbed 
 away. Perry almost wished she were back at Dunraven and that no 
 one knew of her existence but himself and that he were kneeling beside 
 her once again, aiding her in restoring her stricken father to conscious- 
 ness. But then he thought of the sudden arrival that had so discon- 
 certed him that night, and to-day again. What did it mean that Quin 
 assumed such airs of authority ? How dare he call her Gladys ? 
 
 Stables that afternoon proved a sore trial to him. Graham had to 
 leave and go to his own troop ; Parke took his place, and was all 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 831 
 
 lively enthusiasm and congratulation, yet wondering at the mood in 
 which he found his friend. Stryker, after shaking his hand and say- 
 ing a few words of quiet commendation, noted the constraint upon his 
 usually lively subaltern, and wisely drew his own conclusions. The 
 captain had been engaged much of the morning on an investigation of 
 the mysterious assault on Sergeant Gwynne, and the developments had 
 been such as to surround the case with additional interest, even though 
 nothing tangible in the way of evidence was educed. He had purposed 
 having a talk with Perry while at stables, but, after one or two search- 
 ing glances at his face, Stryker concluded it best to postpone his proposed 
 conference, and so allowed Perry to go on about his usual duties ; but 
 he smiled in his quiet way when he noted the evident relief with which 
 his subaltern heard the order " Lead in !" that announced that grooming 
 was over. It was fifteen minutes more, however, before the evening 
 duties were complete ; and when at last the men went swinging home- 
 ward in their white canvas frocks and Perry could return to his quarters 
 to dress for his eagerly-anticipated call, the first thing that met his eyes 
 as he came in sight of officers' row was a huge, bulky, covered travel- 
 ling-carriage in front of Sprague's. Two or three ladies were there at 
 the gate. Mr. Ewen, the English manager, was just mounting his 
 horse ; Dr. Quin, too, was there and already in saddle ; and before 
 poor Perry could get half-way across the parade, and just as the 
 trumpets were sounding mess-call for supper, the bulky vehicle started ; 
 the ladies waved their handkerchiefs and kissed their hands, and, es- 
 corted by Ewen and the doctor, saluted by Colonel Brainard and the 
 adjutant with raised forage-caps, Gladys Maitland was driven slowly 
 away, — and Mrs. Belknap stood there in the little group of ladies 
 smiling sweetly upon him as he hastened towards them. For many 
 a long day afterwards mess-call always made him think of Mrs. Bel- 
 knap's smile, and Mrs. Belknap's smile of mess-call. He shuddered 
 at sound of one or sight of the other. 
 
 It was Mrs. Sprague who stepped forward to greet him, her womanly 
 heart filled with sympathy for the sentiment she suspected. She had 
 to push by Mrs. Belknap to reach him; but, this time, no consideration 
 of etiquette stood in the way. 
 
 " It couldn't be helped," she said, in low, hurried tone, her kind 
 eyes searching his, so clouded in the bitterness of his disappointment. 
 " It couldn't be helped. The news of her accident — or something — 
 brought on a seizure of some kind. Mr. Maitland was taken very ill, 
 and they sent for her. The manager came, and with him her old 
 nurse, Mrs. Cowan, and Dr. Quin said she could be moved without 
 trouble : so she had to go. I hated to have her, too, for I've hardly 
 had a word with her : Mrs. Belknap has been there most of the after- 
 noon, even when she had a guest of her own just arrived, too." And 
 Mrs. Sprague could not but show her vexation at this retrospect. 
 
 Perry stood in silence, looking yearningly after the retreating vehicle. 
 It would take him but a few minutes to hasten to stables and saddle 
 Nolan ; he could easily catch them before they had gone two miles ; 
 but there was parade, and he could not ask to be excused. Not until 
 he suddenly looked around and saw that Mrs. Belknap's dark eyes 
 
832 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 were fixed in close scrutiny upon his face did he realize how he was 
 betraying himself. Then he rallied, but with evident effort. 
 
 The colonel was standing but a few paces away, chatting with Mrs. 
 Lawrence and his faithful adjutant. Mrs. Sprague stepped quickly 
 towards him and spoke a few words in a low tone, while Mrs. Belknap 
 remained looking straight into Perry's eyes. Before the young fellow 
 could gather himself, Colonel Brainard, as though in reply to a sug- 
 gestion of Mrs. Sprague's, suddenly started, exclaiming, " Why, by all 
 means !" and then called aloud, — 
 
 " Oh ! Perry, why not gallop down and overtake the Dunraven 
 carriage and say good-by? Here's my horse all saddled now right in 
 the yard. Take him and go : / would." 
 
 There was something so hearty and genial and sympathetic in the 
 colonel's manner that Perry's fiice flushed despite his effort at noncha- 
 lance. The thought of seeing her again and hearing her sweet voice 
 was a powerful incentive. He longed to go. The colonel's invitation 
 was equivalent to an excuse from parade. There was no reason why 
 he should not go. He was on the very point of thankfully accepting 
 the tempting offer, when Mrs. Belknap's words arrested him. Clear 
 and cutting, but still so low that none but he could hear, she 
 spoke : 
 
 " Take ray word for it, you are not wanted, — nor any other man, — 
 when Dr. Quin is with her." 
 
 Perry's hesitation vanished. " Thank you, colonel. I believe I 
 don't care to go," he answered, and, raising his cap to the ladies, turned 
 on his heel and hurried to his quarters. Mrs. Belknap stood watching 
 him one moment, then calmly rejoined the party at the gate,^ 
 
 '' Well," said she, with the languid drawl that her regimental asso- 
 ciates had learned to know so well, " this has been a day of surprises, 
 has it not? Only fancy our having a beautiful English heiress here 
 within reach and never knowing it until to-day !" 
 
 "But you had a surprise of your own, had you not?" interposed 
 Mrs. Sprague, who was still chafing over the fact that her lovely and 
 dangerous neighbor should have so monopolized the guest she con- 
 sidered hers by prior right, and who meant to remind her thus publicly 
 of the neglect of which she had been guilty. 
 
 " Mrs. Page, you mean ?" responded Mrs. Belknap, with the same 
 languid, imperturbable manner. " Yes, — poor Jennie ! She is always 
 utterly used up after one of those long ambulance-journeys, and can 
 only take a cup of tea and go to bed in a darkened room. All she 
 wants is to be let alone, she says, until she gets over it. I suppose she 
 will sleep till tattoo and then be up for half the night. You'll all 
 come in and see her, wonH yon ? Au revoir." 
 
 And so, calmly and gracefully and victoriously, the dark-eyed dame 
 withdrew, leaving her honest-hearted antagonist only the sense of ex- 
 asperation and defeat. 
 
 It was full quarter of an hour after parade, and darkness was set- 
 tling down on the garrison, when Captain T^awrence's orderly tapped 
 at the door of Mr. Perry's quarters, and, being bidden '' Come in," 
 pushed on to the sitting-room, where lie found that young ofiicer 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 833 
 
 plunged deep iu an easy-chair in front of the fireplace, his attitude one 
 of profound dejection. 
 
 " Beg pardon, lieutenant," said the man, " but Mrs. Lawrence and 
 the captain's waitin' dinner for you." 
 
 XV. 
 
 Two days passed without event of any kind. Socially speaking, 
 the garrison was enlivened by the advent of Mrs. Page, and everybody 
 flocked to the Belknaps' quarters in order to do her proper homage. 
 When Perry called he asked Parke to go with him, and, when the 
 latter seemed ready to leave, the former, disregarding a very palpable 
 hint from the lady of the house, picked up his forage-cap and went 
 likewise. For two days the one subject under constant discussion at 
 the post was the event of Miss Maitlaud's sudden appearance, her 
 perilous run, and her daring and skilful rescue. Everybody maintained 
 that Perry ought to be a very proud and happy fellow to have been the 
 hero of such an occasion ; but it was very plain that Perry was neither 
 proud nor anything like happy. No one had ever known him so silent 
 and cast down. The talk with Lawrence had helped matters very 
 little. 
 
 In brief, this was about all the captain could tell him, and it was 
 all hearsay evidence at best. The officers of the Eleveutli and their 
 ladies had, with a few exceptions, taken a dislike to Dr. Quin before 
 Belknap and Lawrence with their companies of infantry had been 
 ordered to Fort Rossiter. The feeling was in full blast wlien they ar- 
 rived, and during the six or eight months they served there together 
 the infantry people heard only one side of the story, — that of the 
 Eleventh, — for the doctor never condescended to discuss the matter. 
 After he was forbidden to leave the post by his commanding officer, 
 and after the announcement of the " blockade" of Dunraveu, it was 
 observed that signals were sometimes made from the ranch at night : 
 a strong light thrown from a reflector was flashed three times and then 
 withdrawn. Next it was noted, by an enterprising member of the 
 guard, that these signals were answered by a light in the doctor's 
 windows, then that he mounted his horse and rode away down the valley 
 of the Monee. He was always back at sick-call ; and, if any one told 
 the commanding officer of his disobedience of orders, it was not done 
 until so near the departure of the Eleventh that the doctor was, not 
 afterwards actually caught in the act. Things would undoubtedly have 
 been brought to a crisis had tiie Eleventh been allowed to remain. 
 
 Now as to the story about Mrs. Quin and her going. It was 
 observed during the winter that she was looking very badly, and the 
 story went the rounds in the Eleventh that she was stung and suflering 
 because of her husband's conduct. Unquestionably there was some 
 fair enchantress at Dunraven who lured him from his own fireside. 
 She had no intimates among the ladies. She was proud and silent. It 
 did not seem to occur to them that she was resentful of their dislike of 
 her husband. They were sure she was " pining" because of his neglect 
 — or worse. When, therefore, without word of warning, she suddenly 
 
834 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 took her departure iu the spriug, there was a gasp of gossip-loving 
 cronies in the garrison : all doubts were at an end : she had left him 
 and taken her children with her. 
 
 " The more I think of it," said Lawrence, " the more I believe the 
 whole thing capable of explanation. The only thing that puzzles me 
 now is that Quin hides anything from your colonel, who is one of the 
 most courteous and considerate men I ever served with. Perhaps he 
 has told him, by this time : we don't know. Perhaps he thought he 
 might be of the same stamp as his predecessor, and was waiting to find 
 out before he made his confidences. As to Mrs. Quin's going away 
 when she did, it may have been simply that her health was suffering, 
 she needed change, and went with his full advice and by his wish, and 
 he simply feels too much contempt for garrison gossip to explain. Very 
 probably he knows nothing of the stories and theories in circulation : 
 I'm sure I did not until a very few weeks ago. You know. Perry, 
 there are some men in garrison who hear and know everything, and 
 others who never hear a word of scandal." 
 
 But Perry was low in his mind. He could not forget Quin's sudden 
 appearance, — his calling her Gladys ; and then he hated the thought 
 that it was Quin who saw him having that confounded tender inter- 
 view with Mrs. Belknap. Was there ever such a streak of ill luck as 
 that ? No doubt the fellow had told her all about it ! Perry left Law- 
 rence's that night very little comforted, and only one gleam of hope 
 did he receive in the two days that followed. Mrs. Sprague joyfully 
 beckoned to him on Wednesday afternoon to read him a little note that 
 had just come from Miss Maitland. Her father had been very ill, she 
 wrote ; his condition was still critical ; but she sent a world of thanks 
 to her kind entertainers at Rossiter, and these words : " I was sorry 
 not to be able to see Mr. Perry again. Do not let him think I have 
 forgotten, or will be likely to forget, the service he — and Nolan — did 
 me." 
 
 Of Dr. Quin he saw very little. With the full consent and 
 knowledge of Colonel Brainard, the doctor was spending a good deal 
 of time at Dunraven now, attending to Mr. Maitland. Indeed, there 
 seemed to be an excellent understanding between the commandant and 
 his medical ofiicer, and it was known that they had had a long talk 
 together. Upper circles in the garrison were still agitated with chat 
 and conjecture about Gladys Maitland and her strange father; Perry 
 was still tortured with questions about his one visit to Dunraven when- 
 ever he was so incautious as to appear in public ; but all through " the 
 quarters," everywhere among the rank and file, there was a subject that 
 engrossed all thoughts and tongues, and that was discussed with feeling 
 that seemed to deepen with every day, — the approaching court-martial 
 of Sergeant Leary and of Trooper Kelly. 
 
 As a result of his investigation, Captain Stryker had preferred 
 charges against these two men, — the one for leading and the other for 
 being accessory to the assault on his stable-sergeant. Gwynne was still 
 at the hospital, though rapidly recovering from his injuries. Not a 
 word had he said that would im])licate or accuse any man ; but Stryker's 
 knowledge of his soldiers, and his clear insight into human motive and 
 
DUN RAVEN RANCH. 8e35 
 
 xjharacter, were such that he had readily made up his mind as to the 
 facts in the case. He felt sure that Leary and some of the Celtic 
 members of his company had determined to go down to Dunraven and 
 " have it out" with the hated Britons who had so affronted and abused 
 them the night of Perry's visit. They knew they could not get their 
 horses by fair means, for Gwynne was above suspicion. He was 
 English, too, and striving to shield his countrymen from the threatened 
 vengeance. They therefore determined, in collusion with Kelly, to 
 lure him outside the stables, bind and gag him, get their horses, having 
 once rifled Gwynne of the keys, ride down to the ranch, and, after 
 having a Donnybrook Fair on the premises, get back to Rossiter in 
 plenty of time for reveille and stables. No sentries were posted in 
 such a way as to interfere with them, and the plan was feasible enough 
 but for one thing. Gwynne had made most gallant and spirited resist- 
 ance, had fought the whole gang like a tiger, and they had been unable 
 to overpower him before the noise had attracted the attention of the 
 sergeant of the guard and some of the men in quarters. An effort, 
 of course, was made to show that the assaulting party were from with- 
 out, but it was futile, and Stryker's keen cross-questioning among the 
 men had convinced them that he knew all about the matter. There 
 was only one conclusion, therefore, — that Gwynne must have " given 
 them away," as the troopers expressed it. Despite the fact that he had 
 been assaulted and badly beaten, this was something that few could over- 
 look, and the latent jealousy against the '^ cockney sergeant" blazed 
 into a feeling of deep resentment. Garrison sympathy was with Leary 
 and his fellows : they had simply done their best to wipe out a brutal 
 insult to their officer and their regiment, and they would have succeeded, 
 too, but for the interference and stubborn resistance of this bumptious 
 Englishman. It arrayed all the rank and file of the — th for the de- 
 fence, and there was every prospect that when the court convened — and 
 they well knew it would be ordered — there would be some " tall swear- 
 ing." 
 
 Thursday came, and Sergeant Gwynne returned to light duty, 
 though his face was still bruised and discolored and he wore a patch 
 over one eye. He resumed charge of the stables in the afternoon, after 
 a brief conversation with his captain, and was superintending the issue 
 of forage, when Perry entered to inspect the stalls of his platoon. 
 Nolan was being led out by his groom at the moment, and pricked up 
 his tapering ears at sight of his master and thrust his lean muzzle to 
 receive the caress of the hand he knew so well. Perry stopped him 
 and carefully and critically examined his knees, feeling down to the 
 fetlocks with searching fingers for the faintest symptom of knot or 
 swelling in the tendons that had played their part so thoroughly in the 
 drama of Monday. Satisfied, apparently, he rose and bestowed a few 
 hearty pats on the glossy neck and shoulder, and then was surprised to 
 find the stable-sergeant standing close beside him and regarding both 
 him and the horse with an expression that arrested Perry's attention 
 at once. 
 
 "Feeling all right again, sergeant?" he asked, thinking to recall 
 the non-commissioned officer to his senses. 
 
836 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 " Almost, sir. I'm a trifle stiff yet. Anything wrong with Nolan, 
 sir?" 
 
 " Nothing. I gave him rather a tough run the other day, — had to 
 risk the prairie-dog holes, — and, though I felt no jar then, I've watched 
 carefully ever since to see that he was not wrenched. I wish you would 
 keep an eye on him too, will you?" 
 
 There was no answer. Perry had been looking over Nolan's 
 haunches as he spoke, and once more turned to the sergeant. To his 
 astonishment, Gwyune's lips were twitching and quivering, his hands, 
 ordinarily held in the rigid pose of the English service, — extended 
 along the thigh, — were clinching and working nervously, and some- 
 thing suspiciously like a tear was creeping out from under the patch. 
 Before Perry could recover from his surprise, the sergeant suddenly 
 regained his self-control, hastily raised his hand in salute, saying some- 
 thing half articulate in reply, and turned sharply away, leaving his 
 lieutenant gazing after him in much perplexity. 
 
 That night, just after tattoo roll-call, when a little group of officers 
 was gathered at the colonel's gate, they were suddenly joined by Dr. 
 Quin, who came from the direction of the stable where he kept his 
 horse in rear of his own quarters. Colonel Brainard greeted him 
 warmly and inquired after his patient at Dunraven. Every one noted 
 how grave and subdued was the tone in which the doctor answered, — 
 
 " He is a very sick man, colonel, and it is hard to say what will be 
 the result of this seizure." 
 
 " You may want to go down again, doctor, if that be the case, — 
 before sick-call to-morrow, I mean ; and you had better take one of 
 my horses. I'll tell my man to have one in readiness." 
 
 " You are very kind, sir. I think old Brian will do all the work 
 needed. But I would like to go down at reveille, as we have no men 
 in hospital at all now. And, by the way, is Mr. Perry here?" 
 
 "I am here," answered Perry, coldly. He was leaning against the 
 railing, rather away from the group, listening intently, yet unwilling 
 to meet or hold conversation with the man he conceived to be so inim- 
 ical to his every hope and interest. 
 
 " Mr. Perry," said the doctor, pleasantly, and utterly ignoring the 
 coldness of the young fellow's manner, " Mr. Maitland has asked to see 
 you ; and it would gratify him if you would ride down in the morning." 
 
 Even in the darkness Perry feared that all would see the flush that 
 leaped to his face. Summoned to Dunraven Ranch, by her father, with 
 a possibility of seeing her! It was almost too sweet! too thrilling! 
 He could give no reply for a moment, and an awkward silence fell on 
 the group until he chokingly answered, " I shall be glad to go. AVhat 
 time ?" 
 
 " Better ride down early. Never mind breakfast. Miss Maitland 
 will be glad to give you a cup of coffee, I fancy." 
 
 And Perry felt as though the fence had taken to waltzing. He 
 made no answer, striving to regain his composure, and then the talk 
 went on. It was Stryker who was speaking now : 
 
 " Has the ring been found, doctor ?" 
 
 " No ! That is a most singular thing, and one that worries the old 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 837 
 
 gentleman a great deal. It had a history : it belonged to Mrs. Mait- 
 land's father, who was from Ireland, — indeed, Ireland was her country, 
 as it was my father's, — and that ring she had reset for her son Archie 
 and gave it to him when he entered service with the Lancers. It was 
 sent home with his watch and other property from South Africa, — for 
 he died there, — and old Maitland always wore it afterwards. Archie 
 was the last of three sous ; and it broke his heart." 
 
 "And the ring was lost the night of Perry's adventure there?" 
 asked the colonel. 
 
 " Yes. Mr. Perry remembers having seen it on his hand when the 
 old gentleman first came down to receive him. It was missed after- 
 wards, and could easily have slipped off at any time, for his fingers 
 were withered with age and ill health. They have searched everywhere, 
 and could find nothing of it. It could easily have rolled off the 
 veranda on to the grass during his excitement at the time of the row, 
 and somebody may have picked it up, — either among the ranchmen or 
 among the troopers." 
 
 " I hate to tliink that any of our men would take it," said the 
 colonel, after a pause. 
 
 " I do not think any of them would, with the idea of selling it," 
 said Stryker ; " but here is a case where it was picked up, possibly, as 
 one of the spoils of war. I have had inquiry made throughout the 
 troop, but with no result so far. Do vou go down again to-night, 
 doctor?" 
 
 " Not if -I can avoid it. I am going now to try and sleep, and will 
 not ride down till daybreak unless signalled for. Good-night, colonel ; 
 good-night, all." 
 
 Unless signalled for ! Instinctively Perry edged closer to Lawrence, 
 who had stood a silent listener to the conversation, and Lawrence turned 
 and saw him and knew the thought that must be uppermost in his 
 mind. Others, too, were doubtless struck by the doctor's closing words, 
 and were pondering over their full significance. There was a moment 
 of perfect silence, and then Lawrence spoke : 
 
 " Does anybody know what the signal is ?" 
 
 "Certainly," said Colonel Brainard, promptly. "He has explained 
 the whole thing to me. Those were signals for him that we saw the 
 night you were all on my gallery. It was an arrangement devised by 
 their old nurse, — she who came up with the carriage for Miss Maitland 
 the other day. She had a regular old-fashioned head-light and reflector, 
 and, when Mr. Maitland was so ill as to need a doctor, used to notify 
 Quin in that way. He sometimes failed to see it, and I have given 
 orders to-day that the guard should wake him when it is seen here- 
 after." 
 
 " Then that was what those mysterious night lights meant that 
 we have heard so much about during the last three weeks?" asked 
 Mr. Dana. 
 
 " Certainly," answered Brainard. " What on earth did anybody 
 suppose they meant ?" 
 
 To this there was no response for a moment. Then Lawrence burst 
 out laughing. 
 
838 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Late that night Mr. Perry left his quarters and strolled out on the 
 walk that bounded the parade. He could not sleep ; he was feverishly- 
 impatient for the coming of another day, that he might start forth on 
 his ride to Dunraven. Few as were the words in which Dr. Quin had 
 conveyed the message of invitation, they were sujfficient to set his heart 
 athrob and his pulses bounding with eagerness and delight. Then, too, 
 the annihilation of one portion, at least, of the " mystery" that sur- 
 rounded the doctor's night visits to Dunraven, the utterly matter-of- 
 fact way in which the colonel had shattered that story by his announce- 
 ment, and the kind and friendly tone in which the doctor had spoken 
 to him, all had served to bring about a revulsion of feeling and to 
 remove a great portion of the weight of suspicion and dread with which 
 he had been burdened. He and Lawrence had walked home together, 
 the captain ever and anon bursting into renewed peals of laughter over 
 the utterly absurd denouement so recently presented to their view. The 
 colonel and the officers with him had, of course, asked the cause of his 
 sudden and apparently unaccountable merriment, and, when he could 
 sufficiently control himself, Lawrence had begged the indulgence of his 
 post commander, saying it involved a long story, — a garrison yarn, in 
 fact, — and one he could hardly retail just then ; but, said he, " it re- 
 minds me of something we studied in our school-boy days, — ' parturiunt 
 monies/ and ^ Tiascitur ridiculus musJ Of course I'll feel bound to tell 
 you the facts, colonel, but I want to ask a question or two first. The 
 story is a relic of your predecessor's, sir, and, if I haven't got a big 
 joke on the Eleventh, may I be transferred to them forthwith." And 
 the captain's laughter broke forth again. 
 
 But he was in more serious mood when he reached his gate and 
 turned to say good-night to Perry : 
 
 " It all goes to show what infernal gossip can spring up out of next 
 to nothing. Perry, and I hope you'll try and forget that Mrs. Lawrence's 
 curiosity or womanly weakness got the better of her that night at the 
 colonel's. It will be a lesson to her, — if people ever do profit by lessons 
 in such matters," he added, with rather a rueful smile. 
 
 And then, though he had gone home with lighter heart and ashamed 
 of his jealous suspicions. Perry could not sleep. There were still some 
 things in Quin's relations with the Maitlands that required explanation 
 and that gave him cause for painful reflection. The morrow might un- 
 ravel it all and give him glad relief from every dread ; but would the 
 morrow never come ? 
 
 He heard the sentries at the storehouses calling half-past eleven, 
 and, throwing aside his pipe, he impulsively hurried out into the open 
 air. A " spin" around the parade or out on the starlit prairie might 
 soothe his nerves and enable him to sleep. 
 
 All lights were out in the quadrangle, save those at the guard-house. 
 Even at Belknap's quarters, where the veranda had been thronged with 
 officers and ladies only an hour before, all was now silence and dark- 
 ness. Unwilling to attract attention by tramping up and down on the 
 board walk, he crossed the road and went out on the broad level of the 
 
DVNRAVEN RANCH. 839 
 
 parade, but took care so to direct his steps as not to come within hailing- 
 distance of the guard-house. It would be awkward work explaining the 
 situation to the sergeant of the guard in case the sentry were to see or 
 hear and challenge him. Then, too, Graham was officer of the guard, 
 and Graham would be sure to chaff him mercilessly at the mess-table 
 about this entirely new trait of night-prowling. Giving heed to all 
 this, he edged well over to his left as he walked, and so it happened 
 that he found himself, after a while, opposite the northeast entrance to 
 the post, and close to the road on which stood the commissary and 
 quartermaster storehouses. There was a sentry posted here, too, and it 
 would not do to be challenged by him, any more than by " Number 
 One." 
 
 Stopping a moment to listen for the sentry's foot-fall. Perry's ear 
 was attracted by the sound of a door slowly and cautiously opened. It 
 was some little time before he could tell from which one of the neighbor- 
 ing buildings, looming there in the darkness, the sound proceeded. Then 
 he heard muffled footsteps and a whispered consultation not far away, 
 and, hurrying on tiptoe in the direction of the sound, he presently 
 caught sight of two or three dim, shadowy forms moving noiselessly 
 along the porch of the company quarters nearest him. Stryker's troop 
 — that to which he belonged — was quartered down beyond the guard- 
 house on the lower side of the parade ; these forms were issuing from 
 the barracks of Captain Wayne's troop, and before Perry could realize 
 the fact that they were out, either in moccasins or their stocking-feet, 
 and presumably, therefore, on some unlawful enterprise, they had dis- 
 appeared around the corner of the building. He walked rapidly thither, 
 turned the corner, and they wei'e nowhere in sight or hearing. Stop- 
 ping to listen did not help matters at all. He could not hear a sound ; 
 and as for the shadows of which he was in pursuit, it was simply im- 
 possible to tell which direction they had taken. They had vanished 
 from the face of the earth, and were lost in the deeper gloom that hung 
 about the scattered array of wooden buildings — storehouses, fuel-sheds, 
 and cook-sheds — at the rear of the post. 
 
 Had it been his own troop he could have roused the first sergeant 
 and ordered a " check" roll-call as jfmeans of determining at once who 
 the night-prowlers might be ; but Captain Wayne had his peculiarities, 
 and one of them was an unalterable and deeply-rooted objection to any 
 interference on the part of other officers in the management of his men. 
 Perry's first thought, too, was of the stables and Sergeant Gwyune. 
 Were they meditating another foray, and had the feeling spread outside 
 their own company ? No time was to be lost. He turned his face east- 
 ward to where the dark outlines of the stables could be dimly traced 
 against the sky, and hastened, stumbling at times over stray tin cans 
 and other discarded rubbish, until he crossed the intervening swale and 
 reached the low bluft' along which the crude, unpainted structures were 
 ranged. All was darkness here towards the northern end, and the one 
 sentry who had external charge of the entire line was slowly pacing his 
 post : Perry could see his form, dimly outlined, as he breasted the slope, 
 and it determined him to keep on in the hollow until he got to a point 
 opposite the stables of his own troop. If there was to be any devil- 
 
840 DUNRAVEN RANCH. . 
 
 ment it might be well to see whether this soldier, too, would turn out 
 to be in league with the conspirators. Listening intently as he hurried 
 along, but hearing nothing. Perry soon found himself at the pathway 
 leading to his own domain, and the next minute was gazing in surprise 
 at a light burning dimly in the window of the little room occupied by 
 Sergeant Gwynne : there was not a glimmer elsewhere along the line. 
 
 Striding up to the window, he tapped lightly, and Gwynne's voice 
 sternly challenged from within, " Who's there?" 
 
 " Lieutenant Perry, sergeant. Come around and open the stable 
 door for me." 
 
 " One moment, sir," was the answer, and he heard the sergeant 
 bounding, apparently, off his bed. Then a hand drew aside the shade, 
 and Gwynne's face appeared at the window, while a small lantern was 
 held so as to throw its rays on the face without, " All right, sir," he 
 continued. " I thought I could not be deceived in the voice." 
 
 Perry walked around to the front again, taking another survey of 
 the sleeping garrison as he did so, and listening once more for footsteps ; 
 but all was still. Presently the little panel in the big door was un- 
 locked from within, and the lieutenant bent low and entered, finding 
 Gwynne, lantern in hand, standing in his uncompromising attitude of 
 " attention" at the entrance. 
 
 " Everything been quiet here to-night ?" he asked, as he straightened 
 up. 
 
 " Perfectly so, sir." 
 
 " Come into your room a moment ; I want to speak to you," said 
 Perry, after a moment's refllection. 
 
 They passed along the broad gangway between the rows of sleepy 
 horses, some lying down in their stalls, others still afoot and munching 
 at their hay. The stable-guard stood at his post and faced them as 
 they turned into the dark and narrow passage leading into Gwynne's 
 little sanctuary. The lamps along the line of stalls burned low and 
 dim, and, the ports being lowered, gave no gleam without the walls. 
 Once more, however, a bright light shone from the window of the 
 stable-sergeant's room, — brighter than before, could they only know it, 
 for this time there was no intervening shade. After his brief inspection 
 of the lieutenant's face, Gwynne had left it drawn. 
 
 The sergeant set his lantern on a wooden desk, and respectfully 
 waited for his superior to speak. Perry looked him well over a moment, 
 and then began : 
 
 " Did you tell Captain Stryker the particulars of your rough treat- 
 ment down there at the ranch ?" 
 
 " The rough treatment, — yes, sir." 
 
 " Would you mind telling me where you were taken ? — where you 
 saw Dr. Quin ?" 
 
 The sergeant hesitated one moment, a troubled look on his face. 
 His one available eye studied his lieutenant's features attentively. 
 Something in the frank, kind blue eyes — possibly some sudden recol- 
 lection, too — seemed to reassure him. 
 
 " It was to Mr. Cowan's little house, sir. He interposed to save 
 me from a worse beating at the hands of three brutes who were em- 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 841 
 
 ployed there and had some grudge against this garrison of which I was 
 ignorant. They attacked me without a word of warning. It was he, 
 too, who called in Dr. Quin." 
 
 '* Have you — did you see any of the people at Dunraven besides 
 this young man?" 
 
 *' I saw his mother, sir. She is a nurse there, and has been in the 
 family for years, I am told." 
 
 Perry was silent a moment. Then he spoke again : 
 
 " Have you heard any further tlireats among the men here since the 
 arrest of Sergeant Leary ?" 
 
 Gwynne hesitated, coloring painfully : 
 
 " It is something I hate to speak of, sir. The talk has not alarmed 
 me in the least." 
 
 '' I know that, sergeant. All the same we want to prevent a recur- 
 rence of that performance ; and it was that, mainly, that brought me 
 over here. I saw some men stealing out of M Troop's quarters awhile 
 ago, and lost them in the darkness. I thought they might be coming 
 over here, and — got here first." 
 
 Gwynne's face lighted up. It touched him to know his officers 
 were on the lookout for his safety. 
 
 " I have heard nothing, sir. The men would hardly be apt to 
 speak to me on the subject, since the affair of the other night. What 
 I fear is simply this, — that there is an element here in the regiment 
 that is determined to get down there to the ranch and have satisfaction 
 for the assault that was made on you and your party. They need 
 horses in order to get there and back between midnight and reveille, 
 and are doubtless hatching some plan. They failed here ; now they 
 may try the stables of some other troop, or the quartermaster's. Shall 
 I warn the sentry that there are prowlers out to-night ?" 
 
 " Not yet. They will hardly make the attempt while your light is 
 burning here. What I'm concerned about just now is this : we all 
 know that there is deep sympathy for Leary in the command, and it is 
 not improbable that among the Irishmen there is corresponding feeling 
 against you. I don't like your being here alone just now ; for they 
 know you are almost the only wntness against him." 
 
 " I have thought of that, sir," answered Gwynne, gravely, " but I 
 want nothing that looks like protection. The captain has spoken of 
 the matter to me, and he agreed, sir, that it would do more harm than 
 good. There is one thing I would ask, — if I may trouble the lieu- 
 tenant." 
 
 " What is it, sergeant ?" 
 
 " I have a little packet, containing some papers and a trinket or 
 two, that I would like very much to have kept safely, and, if anything 
 should happen to me, to have you, sir, and Captain Stryker open it, 
 and — the letters there will explain everything that is to be done." 
 
 " Certainly. I will take care of it for you, — if not too valuable." 
 
 " I would rather know it was with you, sir, than stow it in the 
 quartermaster's safe," was Gwynne's answer, as he opened a little wooden 
 chest at the foot of his bunk, and, after rummaging a moment, drew 
 forth a parcel tied and sealed. This he handed to the lieutenant. 
 
842 DVNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 " Now I will go back and notify the officer of the guard of what I 
 have seen," said Perry; "and I want Nolan, saddled, over at my 
 quarters right after morning stables. Will you see to it ?" 
 
 " I will, sir, and thank you for your kindness." 
 
 All was darkness, all silence and peace, as Perry retraced his steps 
 and went back to the garrison, carrying the little packet in his hand. 
 He went direct to the guard-house, and found Mr. Graham sulky over 
 being disturbed in his snooze by the sentry's challenge. 
 
 " What the devil are you owling around this time of night for ?" 
 was the not unnatural question. " I thought it was the officer of the 
 day, and nearly broke my neck in hurrying out here." 
 
 But Perry's brief recital of the fact that he had seen some men 
 stealing out of the quarters of M Troop in their stocking-feet or moc- 
 casins put an end to Graham's complaints. Hastily summoning the 
 sergeant of the guard, he started out to make the rounds of his sentries, 
 while Perry carried his packet home, locked it in his desk, and then 
 returned to the veranda to await developments. 
 
 Sergeant Gwynne, meantime, having lighted his young officer to 
 the stable door, stood there a few moments, looking over the silent 
 garrison and listening to the retreating footsteps. ' The sentry came 
 pacing along the front of the stables, and brought his carbine down 
 from the shoulder as he dimly sighted the tall figure, but, recognizing 
 the stable-sergeant as he came nearer, the ready challenge died on his 
 lips. 
 
 " I thought I heard somebody moving around down here, sergeant. 
 It was you, then, was it?" 
 
 " I have been moving around, — inside, — but made no noise. Have 
 you heard footsteps or voices ?" 
 
 " Both, I thought ; but it's as black as your hat on this beat to-night. 
 I can't see my hand afore my face." 
 
 " Keep your ears open, then : there are men out from one of the 
 quarters, at least, and no telling what they are up to. Who's in charge 
 at the quartermaster's stables ?" 
 
 " Sergeant Riley, of the infantry ; some of the fellers were over 
 having a little game with him before tattoo, and I heard him tell 'era 
 to come again when they had more money to lose. He and his helper 
 there were laughing at the way they cleaned out the cavalry when they 
 were locking up at taps. The boys fetched over a bottle of whiskey 
 with 'em." 
 
 "Who were they?" 
 
 " Oh, there was Flanagan and Murphy, of M Troop, and Corporal 
 Donovan, and one or two others. They hadn't been drinkin'." 
 
 " But Riley had, — do you mean ?" 
 
 " He was a little full ; not much." 
 
 " Well, look alive now. Wicks. It's my advice to you that you 
 watch that end of your post with all your eyes." And with this Ser- 
 geant Gwynne turned back into the stable, picked up his lantern, and 
 returned to the little room in which he slept. A current of cool night- 
 air, blowing in through the open casement, attracted his attention. 
 Odd ! He knew he had pulled aside the shade to scan the features of 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 843 
 
 the lieutenant when he tapped at the pane, but he could not recall 
 having opened the sash. It swung on a hinge, and was fastened by a 
 loosely-fitting bolt. Perhaps the rising wind had blown it in. He 
 set his lamp down as before, closed the sash, and then closed and locked 
 the lid of his chest. That, too, was open. Wicks, the sentry, well up 
 to the north end of his post and close to the entrance of the quarter- 
 master's corral, was bawling, " Half-past twelve o'clock, and a-all's 
 well," when the light went out in Gwynue's little room, and all the 
 line of stables was wrapped in darkness. 
 
 Perry fretted around the veranda until one o'clock, then sought his 
 room. He was still too excited to sleep, and it seemed an interminable 
 time before he dozed off. Then it seemed as though he could not have 
 been in dream-land five minutes before a hand was laid upon his shoulder, 
 shaking him vigorously, and a voice he well knew was exclaiming, in 
 low but forcible tones, — 
 
 " Wake, lieutenant, wake ! Every horse is gone from the quarter- 
 master's corral. There must be twenty men gone down the valley. 
 I've Nolan here for you at the gate." 
 
 In ten minutes Lieutenant Perry and Sergeant Gwynne were riding 
 neck and neck out over the eastern prairie, — out towards the paling 
 orient stars and the faintly-gleaming sky, — before them, several miles 
 away, the dark and threatened walls of Dunraven, behind them the stir 
 and excitement and bustle consequent upon a night alarm. The colonel, 
 roused by Perry with the news, had ordered the instant sounding of 
 the assembly, and the garrison was tumbling out for roll-call. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 At the head of a score of his own men. Captain Stryker rode forth 
 some fifteen minutes later. His orders from Colonel Brainard were to 
 go to Dunraven, and, if he found the marauders there, to arrest the 
 entire party and bring them back to the post. From all that could be 
 learned from hurried questioning of the sentries and the dazed, half- 
 drunken sergeant at the corral, the troopers engaged in the raid must 
 have selected a time when the sentry was walking towards the south end 
 of his post to lift one of their number over the wall of the enclosure 
 in which were kept the wagons and ambulances. This man had un- 
 barred from within the gate leading eastward to the trail down which 
 the " stock" was driven daily to water in the Monee. Riley admitted 
 that " the boys" had left a bottle with him which he and his assistant 
 had emptied before turning in, and so it happened that, unheard and 
 unseen, the raiders had managed to slip out with the dozen horses that 
 were kept there and had also taken six mules as " mounts" for those 
 who could not find anything better. Eighteen men, apparently, were 
 in the party, and the sentry on Number Three heard hoof-beats down 
 towards the valley about half-past two o'clock, but thought it was only 
 some of the ponies belonging to the Cheyenne scouts. There was one 
 comfort, — the men had taken no fire-arms with them ; for a hurried in- 
 spection of the company quarters showed that the carbines were all in 
 their racks and the revolvers in their cases. Some of the men might 
 
344 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 have small-calibre pistols of their own, but the government arms had 
 not been disturbed. Half the party, at least, must have ridden bare- 
 back and with only watering-bridles for their steeds. They were in- 
 deed " spoiling for a fight," and the result of the roll-call showed that 
 the missing troopers were all Irishmen and some of the best and most 
 popular men in the command. Whatever their plan, thought Stryker, 
 as he trotted down to the Monee, it was probably carried out by this 
 time : it was now within a minute of four o'clock. 
 
 Only a mile out he was overtaken»by Dr. Quin, who reined up an 
 instant to ask if any one had been sent ahead. " Thank God for that !" 
 he exclaimed, when told that Perry and Sergeant Gwynne had gone at 
 the first alarm ; then, striking spurs to his horse, pushed on at rapid 
 gallop, while the troopers maintained their steady trot. A mile from 
 Dunraven, in the dim light of early morning the captain's keen eyes 
 caught sight of shadowy forms of mounted men on the opposite shore, 
 and, despite their efforts to escape on their wearied steeds, three of them 
 were speedily run down and captured. One of them was Corporal 
 Donovan, and Donovan's face was white and his manner agitated. 
 Bidding him ride alongside as they pushed ahead towards the ranch, 
 Stryker questioned him as to what had taken place, and the corporal 
 never sought to equivocate : 
 
 "We've been trying for several nights, sir, to get horses and go 
 down and have it out with those blackguards at the ranch. We took 
 no arms, sir, even those of us who had pistols of our own. All we 
 asked was a fair fight, man against man. They wouldn't come out 
 of their hole, — they dasn't do it, sir, — and then they fired on us. We'd 
 have burned the roof over their heads, but that Lieutenant Perry gal- 
 loped in and stopped us. I came away then, sir, and so did most of us. 
 We knew 'twas all up when we saw the lieutenant ; but there was more 
 firing after I left. This way, captain. Out across the prairie here. We 
 cut down the fence on this side." And, so saying, Donovan led the 
 little troop to a broad gap in the wire barrier, and thence straight across 
 the fields to where lights were seen flitting about in the dark shadows 
 of the buildings of the ranch. Another moment, and Stryker had dis- 
 mounted and was kneeling beside the prostrate and unconscious form 
 of his lieutenant. Some misguided ranchman, mistaking for a new 
 assailant the tall young soldier who galloped into the midst of the 
 swarm of taunting Irishmen, had fired the cruel shot. There lay 
 Nolan dead upon the sward, and here, close at hand, his grief-stricken 
 master had finally swooned from loss of blood, the bullet having 
 pierced his leg below the knee. Beside him knelt the doctor : he had 
 cut away the natty riding-boot, and was rapidly binding up the wound. 
 Close at hand stood Gwynne, a world of anxiety and trouble in his 
 bruised and still discolored face. Grouped around were some of the 
 assailing party, crestfallen and dismayed at the unlooked-for result of 
 their foray, but ashamed to attempt to ride away, now that their 
 favorite young officer was sore stricken as a result of their mad folly. 
 Mr. Ewen, too, had come out, and was bustling about, giving directions 
 to the one or two of his hands who had ventured forth from the office 
 building. The big frame house under whose walls the group was 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 845 
 
 gathered was evidently used as a dormitory for a number of men, and 
 this had been the objective point of the attack, but not a soul had 
 issued from its portals : the occupants were the men who made the 
 assault on Perry the night of his first visit, and now they deemed it 
 best to keep within. Everything indicated that Perry had got to the 
 scene just in time to prevent a bloody and desperate fracas, for the few 
 ranch-people who appeared were still quivering with excitement and 
 dread. Ewen was almost too much agitated to speak : 
 
 " Go to Mr. Maitland as soon as you can, doctor : this has given 
 him a fearful shaking up. Mrs. Cowan is having a room made ready 
 for Mr. Perry. Ah ! here's young Cowan now. — Ready ?" he asked. 
 
 " All ready. Mother says carry the gentleman right in. — She wants 
 you to come too," he added, in lower tone, to Sergeant Gwynne, but 
 the latter made no reply. 
 
 And so, borne in the arms of several of his men. Lieutenant Perry 
 was carried across the intervening space and into the main building. 
 When he recovered consciousness, as the morning light came through 
 the eastern windows, he found himself lying in a white-curtained bed 
 in a strange room, with a strange yet kind and motherly face bending 
 over him, and his captain smiling down into his wondering eyes. 
 
 " You are coming round all right, old fellow," he heard Stryker 
 say. "I'll call the doctor now : he wanted to see you as soon as you 
 waked." 
 
 And then Quin came in and said a few cheery words and bade him 
 lie still and worry about nothing. The row was over, thanks to him, 
 and he and poor Nolan were the only victims ; but it had been a great 
 shock to Mr. Maitland and rendered his condition critical. 
 
 Perry listened in silence, asking no questions. For the time being 
 he could think of nothing but Nolan's loss. It was such a cruel fate to 
 be killed by those he came to save. 
 
 All that day he lay there, dozing and thinking alternately. He 
 wondered at the tenderness and devotion with which the kind old 
 Englishwoman nursed him and seemed to anticipate his every want. 
 Quin came in towards evening and dressed his wound, which now began 
 to be feverish and painful. He heard his colonel's voice in the hall- 
 way, too, and heard him say to the doctor that somebody at Rossiter 
 was eager to come down and take care of him. " Bosh !" said the 
 blunt surgeon ; " I've a far better nurse here, — and a reserve to fall 
 back upon that will be worth a new life to him." And, weak and 
 feverish though he was. Perry's heart thrilled within him : he wondered 
 if it could mean Gladys. Two days more he lay there, the fever skil- 
 fully controlled by the doctor's ministrations, and the pain of his wound 
 subdued by Mrs. Cowan's cooling bandages and applications. But 
 there was a burning fever in his heart that utterly refused to down. 
 He strained his ears listening for the sound of her voice or the pit-a-pat 
 of her foot-fall in the corridor. At last he mustered courage and asked 
 for her, and Mrs. Cowan smiled : 
 
 " Miss Maitland has been here three times to inquire how you 
 were ; but it was while you were sleeping, Mr. Perry, and she rarely 
 leaves her father's bedside. He is very ill, and seems to be growing 
 Vol. XLII— 65 
 
846 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 weaker every day. I don't know what we would have done if we had 
 not found Dr. Quin here : he has pulled him through two or three 
 bad seizures during the past year." 
 
 " Where had you known the doctor before ?" asked Perry, with an 
 eager light in his eyes. 
 
 " Nowhere ; but it was as though one of his own kith and kin had 
 suddenly appeared here to welcome Mr. Maitland. The doctor is a first- 
 cousin of Mrs. Maitland's : she was from Ireland, and it was from her 
 family that the ranch was named. Lord Dunraven is of the peerage of 
 Ireland, you know," added Mrs. Cowan, with the cheerful confidence 
 of the Englishwoman that every person of any education or standing 
 must be familiar with the pages of Debrett. 
 
 " How should I know anything about it ?" laughed Perry. He 
 felt in merry mood ; another page in his volume of suspicion and dread 
 was being torn away, and Quin's relations with the household were 
 turning out to be such as made him an object of lively interest, not 
 of jealous doubt. 
 
 Then came callers from the garrison. It seemed as though all 
 of a sudden the blockade had been raised and that no people were 
 so warmly welcomed at Dunraven as the very ones who had been 
 especially proscribed. Mr. Maitland, weak and ill as he was, had 
 asked to be allowed to see Colonel Brainard on the occasion of that 
 officer's second visit ; Stryker, Dana, Graham, and Parke had all been 
 allowed to come up and see Perry a few moments, but Mrs. Cowan 
 was vigilant and remorseless, would allow them only a brief inter- 
 view, and, with smiling determination, checked her patient when he 
 attempted to talk. The third day of his imprisonment Dr. Quin came 
 scowling in along in the afternoon, manifestly annoyed about something, 
 and said a few words in a low tone to Mrs. Cowan, and that usually 
 equable matron fluttered away down-stairs in evident excitement. 
 
 " It's Mrs. Belknap," explained the doctor, in answer to Perry's 
 inquiring look. " She has ridden down here with Dana and sent her 
 card up to Gladys, — who can't bear the sight of her ; I don't know 
 why ; intuition, I suppose." 
 
 Presently Mrs. Cowan reappeared : " Miss Gladys has asked to be 
 excused, as she does not wish to leave her father at this moment ; and 
 the lady would like to come up and see Mr. Perry." 
 
 " Tell her no !" said Quin, savagely. " No, — here : I'll go my- 
 self." And down went the doughty medical officer, and straightway 
 the rumbling tones of his harsh voice were heard below : the words 
 were indistinguishable, but Mrs. Cowan's face indicated that there was 
 something in the sound that gave her comfort. She stood at the 
 window watching the pair as they rode away. 
 
 " Miss Gladys shuddered M'hen she had to shake hands with her 
 that day when we came away from Mrs. Sprague's," said she. " I hope 
 that lady is not a particular friend of yours, Mr. Perry ?" 
 
 " We have been very good friends indeed," said he, loyally. "To 
 be sure, I have hardly known Mrs. Belknap a month, but both she 
 and the captain have been very kind to me." All the same, down in 
 the bottom of his heart he did not wonder at Miss Maitland's sensa- 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 847 
 
 tions. He was beginning to despair of ever seeing her, and yet could 
 get no explanation that satisfied him. 
 
 " You know she can walk only with great pain and difficulty even 
 now," said Mrs. Cowan. " Her ankle was veiy badly wrenched, and she 
 hardly goes farther than from her own to her father's room. You ought 
 to feel complimented that she has been here to your door three times." 
 
 " I feel more like butting my brains out for being asleep," muttered 
 Perry in reply. " I wish you would wake me next time, Mrs. Cowan. 
 I shan't believe it until I see it, or hear her voice at the door." 
 
 She had excused herself to Mrs. Belknap, and the doctor had denied 
 that lovely woman her request to be allowed to come up and see Mr. 
 Perry ; and yet, the very next day, when the big four-mule ambulance 
 from Rossiter came driving up to the front door, and Mrs. Sprague and 
 Mrs. Lawrence, escorted by the colonel and Captain Stryker, appeared 
 on the veranda, how did it happen that the ladies were speedily ushered 
 up-stairs to Miss Maitland's own room, and that, after an animated 
 though low-toned chat of half an hour with her, they were marshalled 
 down the long corridor by Mrs. Cowan in person, and, to Perry's huge 
 delight, were shown in to his bedside? It looked as though Quin were 
 showing unwarrantable discrimination. Stryker and the colonel, too, 
 came in to see him, and the latter told him that both Mr. Maitland and 
 Mr. Ewen had begged that the arrested soldiers might not be punished. 
 Including Sergeant Leary and Kelly, there were now twenty men under 
 charges more or less grave in their character, and he had asked that a 
 general court-martial be convened for their trial. The colonel deeply 
 appreciated the feeling displayed by the stricken proprietor and his 
 overseer ; he was touched that even in his extreme illness and prostra- 
 tion Mr. Maitland should intercede for the men who had made so hos- 
 tile an invasion of his premises and brought upon the inmates of Dun- 
 raven a night of dread and anxiety ; but discipline had to be maintained, 
 he replied, and the ringleaders in the move had been guilty of a flagrant 
 breach which could not be overlooked. 
 
 But on the following day — the fourth of Perry's stay — the doctor 
 came down with a face full of gloom and distress. Both nurse and 
 patient noted it, and inquired the cause. For a time Quin avoided any 
 direct reply : " something had ruffled him up at the post," he answered : 
 " can't tell you about it now. I'll do it by and by. I want to think." 
 He examined Perry's leg, dressed and rebandaged the wound, and then 
 went back to Mr. Maitland's room. They could hear his voice in the 
 hall after a while, and Perry's heart began to throb heavily : he was 
 sure the low, sweet tones, almost inaudible, that came floating along 
 the corridor, were those of Gladys. When Mrs. Cowan spoke to him 
 on some ordinary topic, he impatiently bade her hush, — he could not 
 bear to be disturbed, — and, far from being hurt at his petulance, Mrs. 
 Cowan smiled softly as she turned away. 
 
 Then Quin came back, and, after fidgeting around a moment, ab- 
 ruptly addressed his patient: 
 
 " Perry, do you remember that morning you rode down here right 
 after reveille and met me on the trail, — or at least would have met me 
 if I hadn't dodged and gone over to the other side of the valley?" 
 
848 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 " Certainly I do, doctor." 
 
 " I may as well explain that singular performance first. You may 
 have heard that I didn't get along amicably with your predecessors of 
 the Eleventh. Their colonel was ass enough to totally misconstrue the 
 purpose of my visits here, and I was ass enougii to make no explana- 
 tion. The Maitlands went away ; I was not called for again while 
 the Eleventh remained ; and therefore I said no more about it. Mr. 
 Maitland returned unexpectedly soon after you came, and the first I 
 knew of it was the signal-lights telling me he was there, ill, and that 
 I was wanted. It was the night of the colonel's dinner-party. I 
 couldn't explain then, and decided to go at once and explain afterwards. 
 When I met you all of a sudden the next morning, the first impulse was 
 to get away out of your sight, and I obeyed it simply because of the 
 unpleasant experiences I had been having with your fellow-cavalrymen. 
 I did not want to have to answer questions. See ? I was ashamed of 
 it, but too late to turn back." 
 
 Perry nodded. '' I understand it — now," he said. 
 
 " Well, what I want to ask is about Sergeant Gwynne. Did you 
 meet him before you got back?" 
 
 " Yes, — a mile or so out from the post." 
 
 "You stopped and talked with him, didn't you?" 
 
 " Yes, — for several minutes." 
 
 Mrs. Cowan's needle-work had fallen in her lap. She was seated 
 near the window, and had been busily sewing. Now she was looking 
 up, eager and intent. 
 
 " You've known him a long time, haven't you ?" 
 
 "Yes, — ever since he joined. He's one of the best sergeants I 
 ever knew." 
 
 "You would hardly think him guilty of any dishonesty, would 
 you ?" 
 
 Mrs. Cowan was rising from her chair ; the needle-work had fallen 
 to the floor. 
 
 " Dishonesty ! Not by a — good deal !" was the reply that bade 
 fair to be even more impulsive, and was checked only in deference to 
 the presence of a woman. 
 
 " Well, neither would I, from what I've seen of him ; and yet Mr. 
 Maitland's seal ring was found on him last night." 
 
 " My God ! Of course he could explain it in some way ?" 
 
 " He couldn't, — or wouldn't. He simply stood there, white as a 
 sheet except where those bruises made him green and blue. He had 
 denied the charge flatly when accused; and yet there it was in his chest. 
 I never saw any man so taken aback as Captain Stryker : he said he 
 would have sworn to his innocence." 
 
 " So would I ! — so I do, by Jupiter ! It's some foul plot ! — 
 it's " 
 
 But he got no further. To his own amaze, to the utter bewilder- 
 ment of Dr. Quin, Mrs. Cowan precipitated herself upon her patient, 
 seized the hand that lay nearest hei- on the coverlet, and burst forth 
 into half- articulate, sobbing, indignant words, mingled with kisses 
 f-howered passionately on that astonished hand. 
 
DUN RAVEN RANCH. 849 
 
 " Oh, bless him for the words ! Oh, God bless you, Mr. Perry ! 
 . . . Oh, the fools ! the lunatics ! . . . A thief, indeed ! . . . The idea 
 of his being accused ! . . . Oh, God ! what would his mother in heaven 
 say to this ? ... As though he had not borne far too much already ! 
 . . . It's his own — his own ring, I tell you ! Who else should wear it? 
 . . . Who dare take it from him now ? . . . Oh, the infamy of it all !" 
 
 In her wild excitement, in her incoherent praise and lamentation 
 and wrath and indignation, her voice, her sobs, rang through the room 
 and out along the broad corridor. Even in their amaze the two men 
 heard a hurried step approaching, a limping, halting, painful step, yet 
 rapid and impulsive. Quin, absorbed in his contemplation of the ex- 
 cited woman, paid no attention ; Perry's eager eyes were strained upon 
 the door- way, where, the very next instant, with pallid features and 
 startled mien, Gladys Maitland suddenly appeared and stood staring in 
 upon the spectacle of Mrs. Cowan kissing and sobbing over Perry's 
 hand. Already he had divined the truth, and strove to warn the tear- 
 blinded woman of her presence ; but Mrs. Cowan's excitement had 
 increased to the verge of hysteria : she was laughing and crying now by 
 turns, blessing her soldier patient for his faith in the accused sergeant, 
 and then breaking forth anew in indignant expletive, " Who are his 
 accusers? Who dare say thief to him? . . . Not one is fit to look 
 him in the face ! 'Twas the very ring his mother gave him, . . . his 
 own ! his own !" 
 
 And then the doctor seized her and turned her so that she must see 
 Gladys, — Gladys, wild-eyed, panting, staring, tottering forward from 
 the door-way. One sharp cry from the woman's lips, one spring towards 
 the reeling form, and she had caught the girl in her arms : 
 
 " Gladys, Gladys, my little pet ! my own baby girl ! Look up and 
 thank God ! I've tried to keep my promise and his secret until he 
 released me. I've tried hard, but it's all useless : I can't, I can't. Oh, 
 Gladys, sweetheart, your mother's smiling down on us this day. Who 
 do you think has come back to us, safe and strong and well and brave ? 
 Who but your own brother, your own Archie, Gladys ?" 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 " Yes, certainly very pretty, — now. It's such a pity that English- 
 women grow coarse and stout and red-faced so very soon after they 
 are married." The speaker was Mrs. Belknap, and her soft voice was 
 tuned to a pitch of almost pathetic regret. They were talking of Miss 
 Maitland, who had just been assisted to her saddle by the colonel, and 
 now, followed by the faithful Griggs and escorted by Captain Stryker, 
 was riding away homeward after a brief call at the post. Fort Rossiter, 
 once so humdrum and placid and " stupid," as the ladies termed it, had 
 been the vortex of sensations for a whole fortnight, and one excitement 
 had trodden on the heels of another with such rapidity that people were 
 growing weary. 
 
 Perhaps the happiest man in garrison was Captain Stryker : he had 
 refused to believe in the guilt of Sergeant Gwynue when Captain Wayne 
 came to him to say that there were men in his troop who openly accused 
 
850 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 the sergeant of having that cherished seal-ring secreted in his chest. 
 So confident was he that he had gone with the captain and Mr. Farn- 
 ham to the stables and there told Gwynne of the charge against him. 
 Gvvynne flushed hotly, denied the truth of the story, but hesitated when 
 asked if he would allow his chest to be searched. This was quickly noted 
 by Wayne and Farnham, and the search was insisted upon. Gwynne 
 then said there were a few items in that chest which he allowed no one 
 to see ; he pledged his soldier word that they were nothing but a paper 
 or two, some little photographs, and a book. These he asked permission 
 to remove first ; then they might search. But Wayne sternly refused. 
 The sergeant turned very white, set his lips, and hesitated still, until 
 his own captain spoke ; then he surrendered his key. Wayne and Farn- 
 ham bent over the chest while the troop first sergeant rapidly turned 
 over the clothing, books, etc., with trembling hands. There was a 
 little compartment at one side, in which were lying some small items, — 
 a pocket-compass, a pencil-case, some keys, a locket and a neck-chain, 
 and, among these, something wrapped in tissue-paper. This was handed 
 to Captain Wayne, who unrolled the paper, and — there was a massive 
 seal-ring. A crest was cut in the stone, and, taking it to the light, 
 Wayne was able to make out the motto, — " Quod swsum volo videre." 
 It was the ring Maitlaud had lost. 
 
 Stryker looked wonderingly at his sergeant, who stood there as 
 though petrified with amaze and consternation, pale as death, and un- 
 able to say a word. Asked to explain the matter, he could only shake 
 his head, and, after a while, hoarsely mutter, " I know nothing about 
 it. I never placed it there." 
 
 " Do you mean to tell me you never saw it before ?" asked Wayne, 
 sternly. And Gwynne was silent. 
 
 " Is this the first time you ever saw it, I say ?" repeated the captain, 
 angrily. 
 
 " No, sir : I have seen it before," was the answer. 
 
 " Then you must have known 'twas stolen, and you have connived 
 at its concealment," was Wayne's triumphant conclusion ; and on the 
 report of his officers Colonel Brainard had no alternative but to order 
 Gwynne's close arrest. Only Stryker's appeal and guarantee saved the 
 sergeant from confinement in the guard-house. 
 
 The next sensation was the sight of Dr. Quin galloping back to 
 the post like mad and bolting unceremoniously into the colonel's gate. 
 Then Stryker was sent for, and the three officers held an excited con- 
 versation. Then the orderly went at a run over to the quarters, and 
 in five minutes Sergeant Gwynne, erect as ever and dressed with scru- 
 pulous care, looking anything but like a guilty man, was seen crossing 
 the parade towards his colonel's house. The men swarmed out on the 
 porches as the tidings went from lip to lip, and some of the Irish 
 troopers in Wayne's company were remarked as being oddly excited. 
 Just what took place during that interview none could tell, but in ten 
 minutes the news was flying around the garrison that Sergeant Gwynne 
 was released from arrest, and in less than half an hour, to the wonder- 
 ment of everybody, he was seen riding away towards Dunraven with 
 Dr. Quin, and for two days more did not reappear at Rossiter. 
 
 *i 
 
DUNRAVEN RANCH. 851 
 
 But when the story flashed from house to house about the garrison 
 that Sergeant Gwynne was not Sergeant Gwynne at all, but Mr. Archi- 
 bald Wyndham Quin Maitland, late of Her Majesty's — th Lancers, 
 and only surviving sou of the invalid owner of Dunraven Ranch and 
 otlier valuable properties, the amaze amounted to almost stupefaction. 
 It was known that old Mr. Maitland was lying desperately weak and 
 ill the day that Quin the doctor came riding back. All manner of 
 stories were told regarding the affecting nature of the interview in 
 which the long-lost son was restored to his overjoyed father, but, like 
 most stories, they were purely the oifspring of imagination, for at that 
 interview only three were present : Gladys led her brother to the room 
 and closed the door, while good Mrs. Cowan stood weeping for joy 
 down the long corridor, and Dr. Quin blinked his eyes and fussed and 
 fidgeted and strode around Perry's room with his hands in his pockets, 
 exploding every now and then into sudden comment on the romantic 
 nature of the situation and the idiocy of some people there at Rossiter. 
 " Joy does not kill," he said : " Maitland would have been a dead man 
 by the end of the week, but for this : it will give him a new lease of 
 life." 
 
 And it did. Though the flame was feeble and flickering, it was 
 fanned by a joy unutterable. The boy whom the stricken father be- 
 lieved his stubborn pride and condemnation had driven to despair and 
 suicide was restored to him in the prime of manly strength, all tender- 
 ness, all forgiveness, and Maitland's whole heart went up in thanks- 
 giving. He begged that Brainard and Stryker would come to him, 
 that he might thank them for their faith in his sou ; he bade the doctor 
 say to Perry that the moment he could be lifted from his bed he would 
 come to clasp his hand and bless him for being a far better friend to 
 his son than he had been a father. 
 
 The sergeant's return to the post was the signal for a general turn- 
 out on the part of the men, all of whom were curious to see how he 
 would appear now that his identity was established. Of course his 
 late assailants could not join in the crowd that thronged about him, 
 but they listened with eagerness to everything that was told. " He 
 was just the same as ever," said all accounts. He had never been 
 intimate with any of them, but always friendly and kind. One thing 
 went the rounds like lightning. 
 
 " You'll be getting your discharge now, sergeant," said Mrs. Reed, 
 the voluble wife of the leader of the band, " and taking up your resi- 
 dence at the ranch, I suppose. Of course the British minister can get 
 it for you in a minute." 
 
 " Not a bit of it, Mrs. Reed," was the laughing answer. " I en- 
 listed to serve Uncle Sam five years, and he's been too good a friend to 
 me to turn from. I shall serve out my time with the — th." 
 
 And the sergeant was true to his word. If old Maitland could 
 have prevailed, an application for his son's discharge would have gone 
 to Washington ; but this the soldier positively forbade. He had eight 
 months still to serve, and he meant to carry out his contract to the 
 letter. Stryker offered him a furlough, and Gwynne thankfully took 
 a week, that he might be by his father's side and help nurse him to 
 
852 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 better health. " By that time, too, the garrison will have grown a little 
 more accustomed to it, sir, and I will have less embarrassment in going 
 on with my work." 
 
 Two days before his return to duty there came a modified sensation 
 in the shape of the report that a trooper of Wayne's company had 
 deserted. He was a man who had borne a bad reputation as a turbu- 
 lent, mischief-making fellow, and when Sergeant Leary heard of his 
 going he was in a state of wild excitement. He begged to be allowed 
 to see his captain, and to him he confessed that one of his little party 
 of three had seen the ring drop from Mr. Maitland's finger the night 
 of the first visit to Dunraven, had managed to pick it up and carry it 
 away in the confusion, and had shown it to his friend in Wayne's troop 
 when they got back. The latter persuaded him to let him take it, as 
 the lockers of the men who were at Dunraven were sure, he said, to be 
 searched. It was known that he had a grudge against Gwynne ; he 
 was one of the men who was to have gone to the ranch the night they 
 purposed riding down and challenging the Englishmen to come out and 
 fight, but had unaccountably failed at the last moment. They believed 
 that he liad chosen that night to hide the ring in the sergeant's chest : 
 he could easily have entered through the window. And this explana- 
 tion — the only one ever made — became at once accepted as the true one 
 throughout the garrison. 
 
 During the week of his furlough the sergeant found time to spend 
 many hours by the bedside of Lieutenant Perry, who was rapidly re- 
 covering, and who by the end of the week had been lifted into an easy 
 invalid-chair and wheeled in to see Mr. Maitland. When not with 
 Mr. Perry, the young trooper's tongue was ever wagging in his praise. 
 He knew many a fine officer and gallant gentleman in the service of 
 the old country, he said, and he admired many a captain and subaltern 
 in that of his adopted land, but the first one to whom he " warmed" — 
 the first one to win his affection — was the young cavalryman w^ho had 
 met his painful wound in their defence. Old Maitland listened to it 
 all eagerly, — he had already given orders that the finest thoroughbred at 
 Dunraven should be Perry's the moment he was able to mount again, 
 — and he was constantly revolving in mind how he could show his ap- 
 preciation of the officers who had befriended his son. Mrs. Cowan, too, 
 never tired of hearing Perry's praises, and eagerly questioned when the 
 narrator flagged. There was another absorbed auditor, who never ques- 
 tioned, and who listened with downcast eyes. It was she who seldom 
 came near Perry during his convalescence, she who startled and aston- 
 ished the young fellow beyond measure, the day the ambulance came 
 down to drive him back to the fort, by withdrawing the hand he had 
 impulsively seized when at last she a|)peared to bid him adieu, and 
 cutting short his eager words with " Mrs. Belknap will console you, I 
 dare say," and abruptly leaving the room. 
 
 Poor Ned ! In dire distress and perplexity he was driven back to 
 Rossiter, and that very evening he did a most sensible and fortunate 
 thing : he told Mrs. Sprague all about it ; and, instead of condoling 
 with him and bidding him strive to be patient and saying that all 
 would come right in time, the little woman's kind eyes shone with de- 
 
DUN RAVEN RANCH. 853 
 
 light, her cheeks flushed with genuine pleasure ; she fairly sprang from 
 her chair, and danced up and down and clapped her hands and laughed 
 with glee, and then, when Perry ruefully asked her if that was the 
 sympathy he had a right to expect from her, she only lauglied the more, 
 and at last broke forth witli, — 
 
 " Oh, you great, stupid, silly boy ! You ought to be wild with 
 happiness. CcinH you see she's jealous ?" 
 
 And the very next day she had a long talk witli Dr. Quin, whose 
 visits to Dunraven still continued; and one bright afternoon when 
 Gladys Maitland rode up to the fort to return calls, she managed to 
 have quite a chat with her, despite the fact that Mrs. Belknap showed a 
 strong desire to accompany that fair English girl in all three of her 
 visits. In this effort, too, the diplomatic services of Captain Stryker 
 proved rather too much for the beauty of the garrison. Was it possible 
 that Mrs. Sprague had enlisted him also in the good cause? Certain 
 it is that the dark-featured captain was Miss Maitland's escort as she 
 left the garrison, and that it was with the consciousness of impending 
 defeat that Mrs. Belknap gave utterance to the opening sentence of this 
 chapter : Mr. Perry had distinctly avoided her ever since his return. 
 
 One lovely evening late in May Mr. Perry was taking his first ride 
 on the new horse, a splendid bay, and a perfect match for Gladys Mait- 
 land's favorite mount. Already had this circumstance excited smiling 
 comment in the garrison ; but if the young man himself had noted the 
 close resemblance it conveyed no blissful augury. Everybody remarked 
 that he had lost much of his old buoyancy and life; and it must be 
 confessed he was not looking either blithe or well. Parke had sug- 
 gested riding with him, — an invitation which Perry treated so coldly 
 that the junior stopped to tiiink a moment, and began to see through 
 the situation ; and so Mr. Perry was suffered to set forth alone that 
 evening, and no one was surprised when, after going out of the west 
 gate as though bent on riding up the Monee, he was presently seen to 
 have made the circuit of the post and was slowly cantering down to- 
 wards the lower valley. Out on the eastern prairie another horseman 
 could be seen ; and presently the two came together. Colonel Brainard 
 took down his binocular and gazetl out after them. 
 
 " I declare," said he, " those two figures are so much alike I cannot 
 tell which of them is Perry." 
 
 " Then the other is Sergeant Gwynne, colonel," said Stryker, quietly. 
 " Put him in our uniform, and it would indeed be hard to tell the two 
 figures apart. Mr. Maitland told me last week that that was what so 
 startled and struck him the first time he saw Perry." 
 
 " How is Mr. Maitland now, do you know ?" 
 
 " He gets no better. After the first week of joy and thanksgiving 
 over his boy's restoration to him, the malady seemed to reassert itself. 
 Dunraven will have a new master by winter, I fancy." 
 
 The colonel was silent a moment. Then he suddenly asked, — 
 
 " By the way, how was it that Gwynne wasn't drowned ? I never 
 understood^ that." 
 
 " He never meant to be," said Stryker. " He told Perry all about 
 it. He was ruined, he thought, in his profession and his own country, 
 
854 DUNRAVEN RANCH. 
 
 and he knew his father's inexorable pride : so he simply decided to put 
 an end to Archie Maitland and start a new life for himself. He wrote 
 his letters and arranged his property with that view, and called the 
 steward to enable him to swear he was in his state-room after the 
 steamer weighed anchor. Then in a jiffy he was over the side in the 
 darkness ; it was flood-tide, and he was an expert swimmer ; he reached 
 a coasting-vessel lying near ; he had money, bought his passage to 
 France, after a few days at Cape Town, and then came to America and 
 enlisted. He got a confession out of one of the irregulars who was 
 with him, Perry says, and that was one of the papers he was guarding 
 so jealously. He had given others to Perry that very night." 
 
 " They seemed to take to each other like brothers from the start," 
 said the colonel, with a quiet smile. 
 
 " Just about," answered Captain Stryker. 
 
 Meantime, Perry and Sergeant Gwynne have been riding slowly 
 down the valley. Night has come upon Dunraven by the hour they 
 reach the northern gate, — no longer closed against them, — and as they 
 near the house Perry slowly dismounts. " I'll take the horses to the 
 stable myself : I want to," says his trooper friend, and for the second 
 time the young officer stands upon the veranda at the door- way, then 
 holds his hand as he hears again the soft melody of the piano floating 
 out upon the still night-air. Slowly and not without pain he walks 
 around to the east front, striving to move with noiseless steps. At last 
 he stands by the open casement, just where he had paused in surprise 
 that night a month agone, and, slowly drawing aside one heavy fold 
 of curtain, gazes longingly in at Gladys Maitland, seated there at the 
 piano, just where he first saw her lovely face and form. Her fingers 
 are wandering idly over the keys, playing little fragmentary snatches, 
 — first one melody, then another; her sweet blue eyes are fixed on 
 vacancy, — she sees nothing in that room, or near it ; she is paler than 
 when he first looked upon her, and there are traces of deep anxiety and 
 of some hidden sorrow in the fair, fresh face. Presently, under the 
 soft touch of her fingers, a sweet, familiar melody comes rippling forth. 
 He remembers it instantly ; it is the same he heard the night of his 
 first visit, — that exquisite "Spring Song" of Mendelssohn's, — and he 
 listens, spell-bound. All of a sudden the sweet strains are broken oflP, 
 the music ceases ; she has thrown herself forward, bowed her queenly 
 head upon her arms, and, leaning over the key-board, her form is 
 shaken by a storm of passionate tears. Perry hurls aside the shelter- 
 ing curtain and limps rapidly across the soft and noiseless rug. She 
 never dreams of his presence until, close at her side, a voice she has 
 learned to know and know well — a voice tremulous with love, sympa- 
 thy," and yearning — murmurs only her name, "Gladys," and, starting 
 up, she looks one instant into his longing eyes. 
 
 Sergeant " Gwynne" Maitland, Hfting the heavy portiere a moment 
 later, stops short at the entrance, gazes one second at the picturesque 
 scene at the piano, drops the portiere, and vanishes, unnoticed. 
 
 Things seem changed at Dunraven of late years. The — th are 
 still at Rossiter ; so is Lieutenant Perry. It may be the climate, or 
 
DUN RAVEN RANCH. 355 
 
 association with an American sisterhood, or — who knows? — perhaps 
 somebody has told her of Mrs. Belknap's prediction, but Mrs. Perry 
 has not yet begun to grow coarse, red-faced, or stout. She is wonder- 
 fully popular with the ladies of the — th, and has found warm friends 
 among them, but Mrs. Sprague of the infantry is the woman she 
 particularly fancies, and her gruif old kinsman Dr. Quin is ever a 
 welcome guest at their fireside. It was he, she told her husband long 
 after, who undid the mischief Mrs. Belknap had been able to sow in 
 one brief conversation. " IVe known that young woman ever since 
 she wore pinafores, Gladys. She has some good points, too, but her 
 one idiosyncrasy is that every man she meets should bow down to and 
 worship her. She is an Alexander in petticoats, sighing for new worlds 
 to conquer, has been a coquette from the cradle, and — what she can't 
 forgive in Ned Perry is that he simply did not fall in love with her 
 as she thought he had." 
 
 Down at Dunraven the gates are gone, the doors are ever hospitably 
 open. Ewen is still manager de jure, but young Mr. Maitland, the 
 proprietor, is manager de facto, and, though there is constant going 
 and coming between the fort and the ranch, and the officers of the — th 
 ride in there at all hours, what makes the ranchman so popular among 
 the rank and file is the fact that Sergeant " Gwynue," as they still call 
 him, has a warm place in his heart for one and all, and every year 
 when the date of his enlistment in the — th comes round he gives a 
 barbecue dinner to the men, whereat there are feasting and drinking of 
 healths and song and speech-making, and Leary and Donovan and even 
 the recreant Kelly are apt to be boisterously prominent on such occasions, 
 but blissfully so, — for there hasn't been a shindy of any kind since 
 their old comrade stepped into his possessions at Dunraven Ranch. 
 
 THE END. 
 
356 CAPTAIN CHARLES KING. 
 
 CAPTAIN CHARLES KING. 
 
 CAPTAIN CHARLES KING was born October 12, 1844, at 
 Albany, New York. He comes of a family that is distinguished 
 in literature and politics. His father, Rufus King, was for some years 
 minister resident for the Pontifical States at Rome, and during the 
 civil war became brigadier-general of volunteers. His grandfather, 
 Charles King, LL.D., was president of Columbia College. His great- 
 grandfather, Rufus King, was one of the signers of the Constitution, was 
 long United States Senator from the State of New York, and was twice 
 minister at the Court of St. James. On his mother's side Captain 
 King is descended from the Indian apostle, John Eliot. 
 
 One year after the birth of his son, Mr. Rufus King resigned from 
 the engineer corps of the army and removed to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 
 to become editor and proprietor of the Milwaukee Sentinel. Thus it 
 came about that Charles's boyhood was spent in the growing West and 
 on the shores of Lake Michigan, where he still makes his home. In 
 1858 he was sent to New York City to be educated at the grammar- 
 school of Columbia College by Dr. Charles Anthon, and in June, 1861, 
 he passed his examination for the Freshman class in the college. But 
 the Southern States had seceded ; Fort Sumter had been fired upon ; 
 the civil war had begun. Within twenty-four hours after he had passed 
 his examination, Charles King turned up in the camp of the Wisconsin 
 volunteers at Washington, D.C., drum-sticks in hand. 
 
 He had been "marker'^ of the First Regiment of Wisconsin militia 
 before going to New York, and a drummer in the Light Guard. For 
 a few weeks he was busy teaching his fellow Badger boys the use 
 of their drum-sticks, and then, at the organization of the Wisconsin 
 brigade, — the command of which was tendered to his father, — the six- 
 teen-year-old boy was made mounted orderly at brigade head-quarters. 
 
 In this capacity he saw his first real soldiering in Virginia. It 
 was his great good fortune to be the guide of General Winfield S. 
 Hancock the first time that gallant soldier crossed the Potomac at the 
 head of his brigade. In October, 1861, with the promise of a cadet- 
 ship at West Point from President Lincoln himself, Charles King 
 began to take even a livelier interest in military affairs; and in June, 
 1862, he entered on his academic career. He is remembered by those 
 who knew him at the United States Military Academy, West Point, 
 New York, as one who hated mathematics and devoted only so much 
 of his active brain to the mastering of the exact sciences as was necessary 
 to fulfil the absolute requirements of the institution. Nevertheless 
 Charley King was a marked man from the day of his entrance as a 
 "plebe," June, 1862, until his appointment to the coveted rank of cadet 
 corporal the following year. In 1864 he was cadet first-sergeant of 
 Company B, and he was appointed cadet adjutant in 1865. To those 
 who did not know the commandants of the United States corps of cadets 
 ■ — Colonel Henry Clitz and Colonel Henry M. Black, the latter now 
 
CAPTAIN CHARLES KING. 857 
 
 commanding the Twenty-Third Infantry, but then major of the Seventh 
 Infantry — this succession of cadet military honors does not mean much. 
 The appointments of cadet officers are made mainly by the commandant. 
 King was made cadet corporal in 1863, because he gave promise of 
 being a good soldier; his promotion in 1864 to the most coveted cadet 
 military rank possible was proof that he was a good soldier; and this 
 standard of military proficiency and personal bearing was further con- 
 firmed when he became a first-class man in 1865. Adjutant King had 
 a way of carrying himself that attracted the attention of the ladies and 
 excited the envy of his fellows and the approbation of the tactical offi- 
 cers. He gloried in the functions of his office. He was not spoiled 
 by the blazing chevi'ons of his rank, and was popular with all the 
 lower-classmen. His voice was clear as a bell. His clothes always 
 fitted him. He was one of those fellows who, after a skirmish drill, 
 in exercises in the ridiftg-hall, on the plain, or in the laboratory, or 
 building pontoon-bridges, or on mounted artillery drill, always looked as 
 neat as a pin. He was a manly fellow, withal. To the fullest extent, he 
 was a ringleader in any exploit not inconsistent with military duty : 
 there he always stopped short. His instincts were military in the best 
 sense of the term. The writer of these lines first knew him in 1864. 
 I was a plebe then, and earth had few more miserable mortals than I 
 during July and August of that year. The army officers on duty at 
 the Military Academy had all gone through plebe camp, with its atten- 
 dant bedevilraents, and the tacit sentiment of the institution in those 
 days was that it was all right for the yearlings and other upper-class- 
 men to vex the plebes with bodily and mental labor, and harass and 
 " yank" them by night, and, in general, to make them feel that there 
 was nothing on earth, or in the sea, or in the air, that was not better 
 than they. To such unfortunate ones a cheery word of kindly en- 
 couragement from a cadet officer was an oasis in a desert. King had 
 a sunny temper and a wonderfully exhilarating way about him. He 
 was liked personally and respected in his official capacity by the classes 
 of 1868-69. 
 
 General Cullora's Biographical Register of the Officers and Gradu- 
 ates of the United States Military Academy shows graduate No. 2136 
 to have been Charles King. He was graduated number twenty-two in 
 a class of forty-one members, number twenty-one being the lamentecl 
 William Preston Dixon, who died on the 6th of October, 1866, from 
 exhaustion consequent upon his efforts to save a woman in the wreck 
 of the steamer Evening Star. Lieutenant King was kept back at the 
 Military Academy, June to August, 1866, as artillery instructor, — a 
 compliment extended only to those subaltern officers who, as cadets, 
 have especially distinguished themselves by the practical demonstration 
 of abilities as instructors in some tactical branch of the science of war. 
 
 From the fall of 1866 until January, 1869, Lieutenant King was 
 attached to Light Battery K, First Artillery, serving at New Orleans, 
 Louisiana. On the latter date he was transferred to Light Battery C, 
 at Fort Hamilton, New York. He served a few weeks on recruiting- 
 service at Cincinnati, Ohio, in the spring of 1869, but was ordered to 
 West Point as Instructor in Cavalry Tactics, Artillery Tactics, and 
 
358 CAPTAIN CHARLES KING. 
 
 Horsemanship. This was a rare compliment. Of the nine hundred 
 and odd other subaltern officers of the army, eligible for such detail, — 
 and a large majority desirous of it, — the assignment of Lieutenant 
 King for a second tour of duty as a military instructor for the corps of 
 cadets is a fact which speaks for itself. At the Military Academy he 
 served as commandant of Company C. He was relieved from duty in 
 October, 1871, in order to enable him to accept a staif position. He 
 was transferred from First Artillery to Fifth Cavalry on December 31, 
 1871, and was assigned to K Troop. The troop had then left Fort D. 
 A. Russell, Wyoming Territory, and was en route to Camp Hualpai, 
 Arizona Territory, which station it reached February 15, 1872. The 
 subject of this sketch did not accompany K Troop on this march, he 
 having been selected by brevet Major-General William H. Emory as a 
 personal aide-de-camp, and was also appointed acting judge advocate of 
 the Department of the Gulf, with station at New Orleans, Louisiana. 
 He retained the position of confidential aide from November, 1871, to 
 February, 1874. 
 
 On April 7, 1872, the International race, gentlemen riders, was 
 ridden on the old Metairie track under the auspices of the Metairie 
 Jockey Club. England, Ireland, Austria, and France were represented. 
 The challengers were Count Victor Crenneville, of the Austrian 
 Hussars, and Captain George Rosenlecher, of France. At first no 
 champion seemed available for the United States. But Lieutenant 
 Charles King, returning to the city from a tour of inspection through 
 Mississippi, heard of the unaccepted challenge open to the United 
 States, and at once obtaineji General Emory's permission to take up 
 the gauntlet. A great crowd was present on the day of the race, and 
 the judges' stand was a beautiful sight. It M'as too soon after the war 
 for a Yankee to have many friends among the fair ones of New Orleans, 
 and, while the blue and gold bars of Captain Rosenlecher, the scarlet 
 and white of the Austrian, the cherry-red and dark blue of Mr. Stuart, 
 who rode for England, and the green of Ireland, were to be seen every- 
 where among the parasols or ribbons and colors of the ladies, not more 
 than one or two had the courage to wear King's colors. He was attired 
 in the colors of his old college, — Columbia, — sky-blue and white, and 
 looked the gentleman rider to perfection. I have seen his photograph : 
 a white silk jockey-cap, blue shirt, immaculate-fitting riding-breeches 
 and boots, the latter weighing six ounces. King's weight was one 
 hundred and forty- three pounds. It was a beautiful race. The 
 "Yank" won it by just two horse-lengths. After the gold-mounted 
 whip was presented to him from the judges' stand, and the other gen- 
 tlemen had cordially congratulated the victor, he took his prize across 
 the track and laid it in the lap of the young lady who had accompanied 
 General and Mrs. Emory to the scene, and who wore the aide-de-camp's 
 colors. She has that whip yet, and shakes it at him sometimes, but has 
 never used it on their children. They were married the fall following. 
 
 Their honeymoon was spent in no little excitement, for the riots 
 were in full blast in New Orleans that winter of 1872 and '73, and 
 the aide-de-camp had full share in all the service. He was complimented 
 by General Emory for coolness and gallantry. During the year 1872, 
 
CAPTAIN CHARLES KINO. 359 
 
 King's troop, K, Fifth Cavalry, was employed in alternate months of 
 field-service, from its station, Camp Hualpai, Arizona Territory. In 
 July, 1873, the troop left Camp Hualpai for Caoap Verde, in Northern 
 Arizona, a region so infested with hostile Apaches that incessant service 
 in the field was necessary for all our troops. After facing unrecon- 
 structed rebels in turbulent New Orleans until the spring of 1874, 
 King asked to be relieved from staiF duty and to be ordered to join 
 his troop. Reluctantly his application was acceded to. During his 
 service in New Orleans King had every opportunity, without in any par- 
 ticular neglecting his military duties, of mingling with the most exclu- 
 sive society in the city. He was eminently a society man, yet he seldom 
 availed himself of this privilege. This subordination of his tendencies 
 was due to the fact that he was proud of a uniform and a profession 
 not especially honored in the Crescent City at that period. King was 
 one of those army officers who would not in citizen's attire accept any 
 hospitalities where he would not be equally welcome if clad in his 
 uniform. Adherence to this principle debarred him from a good deal 
 of social enjoyment in those days. 
 
 In the campaign against the Apaches in Arizona Territory (1874- 
 76) the Fifth Cavalry, with King in command of his troop, was con- 
 spicuous above all the others. General Sherman publicly stated that 
 he considered their services " unequalled by those of any cavalry 
 regiment during our late Civil War." General Crook, the division 
 commander, also singled out the Fifth Cavalry for especial praise in 
 distributing commendations on the uniform bravery of the men and 
 oflBcers under his command. 
 
 In an engagement at Diamond Butte on May 25, 1874, King's 
 gallantry won from President Grant a recommendation to the Senate 
 for the brevet commission of captain. The Senate referred the matter 
 to the Military Commission, and there it was lost. On November 1, 
 1874, King was dangerously wounded at Sunset Pass. He was then 
 only saved from falling into the hands of the savages by the devotion 
 of Sergeant Bernard Taylor, a devotion carried to the point of insub- 
 ordination, for the latter refused to save himself, although ordered to 
 do so, and held the howling Apaches in check until reinforcements 
 arrived. 
 
 It was characteristic of King that he should have exposed himself 
 to the certainty of torture and a horrible death by ordering Sergeant 
 Taylor to leave him. It is characteristic also that, in his wounded 
 and exhausted condition, the first thing he did on his arrival at Camp 
 Verde was to dictate an official report, in which he praised the " superb 
 courage" of Sergeant Taylor and made honorable mention of other 
 brave soldiers. And it is gratifying to note that Congress awarded a 
 medal of honor to Taylor. King himself gained no recognition. His 
 only brevets were his wounds, received in action. 
 
 For months King was laid up with a shattered sabre arm. Before 
 the ugly wound had healed he was in the saddle again, sharing in every 
 fight, and suffering all the terrible privations of the Fifth Cavalry in 
 the Big Horn and Yellowstone expedition of 1876. At the close of 
 the campaign the regimental commander, Wesley Merritt, rewarded 
 
860 CAPTAIN CHARLES KINO. 
 
 him with the adjutancy of the regiment. This was in October, 1876, 
 and Charles King did honor to the position, to the officer who appointed 
 him, and to the regiment, in that capacity, for the next fifteen months. 
 
 The regiment had but little time in garrison, for early in the spring 
 of 1877 the Fifth Cavalry and its adjutant were up along the Big Horn 
 range again. The great railway-riots of that year brought by rail to 
 Chicago and Council Bluffs some of King's regiment, many of the rep- 
 resentatives bronzed, bearded, with ragged shirts and buckskin breeches, 
 but all ablaze with cartridges. The regiment was only three weeks on 
 this kind of home-guard duty when the command was sent scurrying 
 back across the continent to meet and head off Chief Joseph and the 
 Nez Perces in their famous raid from Idaho to the edge of the States, 
 via the Yellowstone Park. 
 
 That was a glorious summer and autumn for Adjutant King. He 
 loved the mountain and the saddle. His idea of happiness in the dis- 
 charge of what, alas ! was his profession was activity and scenery and 
 the spice of occasional sharp fighting. 
 
 1878 was for his regiment another year of mountain-scouting, but 
 it was also a year of suffering for King. The Arizona wound, so far 
 from healing, had grown worse. There was incessant exfoliation of the 
 bone, and a drain upon the system that proved too much for him. He 
 had never spared himself; he loved his calling; his future was bright 
 with promise ; he was not half the threescore and ten years allotted to 
 man; but he was forced to ask that he be sent before a retiring board. 
 In June, 1879, having meanwhile been promoted captain of A Troop, 
 King joined the little array of shelved warriors on the retired list, and, 
 except for an occasional and deeply-relished visit, saw his old regiment 
 no more. 
 
 After his retirement he went speedily to his old State, — was for two 
 years one of the faculty of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, 
 and began at once his connection with the National Guard which has 
 continued to this day. Governor Jeremiah Rusk made him colonel 
 and aide-de-camp in March, 1882, and he holds that position now. 
 
 King has a bright and happy home on Farwell Avenue, Milwaukee, 
 up on the bluffs overlooking the dancing waters of Lake Michigan. 
 They — he and the lady who owns the Metairie whip — have three chil- 
 dren, two daughters and a little fellow who is a chip of his cavalry 
 father and never so happy as when perched up on the saddle in front 
 of him. Riding is still the captain's favorite exercise, and he had a 
 gorgeous time of it with the old Fifth Cavalry down in the Indian 
 Territory and Texas, last April, — hunting and scouting with his com- 
 rades. It was there he picked up the scenes of " Dunraven Ranch." 
 It may be supposed that officers of the Fifth Cavalry suggested some 
 of the characters ; but, contrary to general impression, that regiment 
 has furnished very few of them in all his stories combined. There 
 were only two or three in "The Colonel's Daughter" and "Marion's 
 Faith." " Billy Ray," who won so many friends, was never in the 
 Fifth Cavalry in his life. This is a fact, despite the confident assertions 
 of a good many army readers and one or two knowing critics. " I 
 don't know why it is supposed I never knew anybody outside the Fifth 
 
CAPTAIN CHARLES KING. ggj 
 
 Cavalry," said Captain King on receiving a letter which located the 
 entire dramatis personse of his novels in that regiment. " One thing 
 seems certain, no one concedes that it is possible for me to create a 
 character, — even such humdrum creatures as these people of my stories 
 happen to be. In point of fact, most of them are as purely imaginary 
 as are all the incidents, — except the Indian-fighting." 
 
 The Fifth Cavalry were right in one estimate, however, — viz., that 
 " Jack Truscott" had his original in their midst ; and to this day the 
 intimacy and friendship between the author and his hero exist as in the 
 old days when they lived and campaigned together. In his sketch, 
 " The Worst Man in the Troop," published in LippincoWs Magazine 
 in September, 1883, he has told of the daring and devotion of the 
 brave Irish sergeant who rescued his wounded commander from the 
 howling Apaches. 
 
 Poor Taylor has been dead many a year, but the lieutenant who 
 came dashing up the rocky mountain-side at the head of the reinforce- 
 ments that saved the day was " Jack Truscott." Jack's voice was gone 
 by the time he reached his young commander and comrade that event- 
 ful Sunday. He could only lean over and whisper his anxious and 
 breathless inquiry, "Much hurt, old man?" and received, in reply, the 
 combined assurance and order in the same instant, " Arm busted, — that's 
 all. Pitch in and clean 'em out." One Spartan lieutenant obeyed the 
 other, and in five minutes more the Indians were scattering for their 
 lives and " Jack" could come back and wash the blood from his com- 
 rade's face and bind up the gaping hole in his shoulder. 
 
 In the study where Captain King writes his soldier stories is the 
 veritable Navajo blanket in which the soldiers bundled their crippled 
 leader and bore him down the mountain-side when the fight was over. 
 There, too, is " Jack's" picture in the old uniform among those of more 
 than twenty other officers of the "Dandy Fifth," — General Merritt 
 being in the foreground and Adjutant King to his rear ; but " Jack 
 Truscott" has long since laid down the sabre and discarded the regi- 
 mentals. He has extensive and lucrative mining and cattle interests 
 now in Montana. Time has thinned the hair on his massive head and 
 added weight to the stalwart form ; but the voice rings out with all the 
 old vim when occasion requires. Only last June, King sat in the gallery 
 of the great auditorium at Chicago when the Republican Convention 
 was in session. Chairman after chairman of State delegations was 
 greeted with impatient shouts of " Louder !" but when " Jack" came 
 to announce the vote of his colleagues, King looked radiant and remi- 
 niscent when " Montana !" was called and " Jack Truscott" rose to his 
 six feet four and his voice went sailing like a trumpet note through the 
 immense vaulted building. The hero of " The Colonel's Daughter" is 
 a leader of men now, despite the fact that he long since quit soldering. 
 
 King in everything save that crippled arm of his is a soldier. 
 With him it is the soldier and the soldier life that predorainata The 
 interior of his up-stairs study is in keeping with the profession and the 
 tastes of the occupant. Suspended from the walls are the shoulder- 
 knots, sword-belt, sabre, and forage-cap that did service, years ago, in 
 Arizona. The fifth numeral is in the cap front, and in the centre of the 
 ^ Vol. XLII.— 56 
 
862 ~ ^0 ALL WOMEN. 
 
 insignia of rank. Buckskin leggings, — given him by Buffalo Bill, — em- 
 broidered by Indian hands with parti-colored beads, are there. The 
 portrait in oil of his father, General Rufus King, looks down upon 
 maps and faded blue prints of the region about Tonto Basin, Arizona, 
 — a spot destined to become as much of a place of resort for tourists 
 and artists as the Falls of the Yosemite or Niagara. In one of the 
 drawers of Captain King's writing-desk are the note-books, itineraries, 
 and travel-routes kept by him with fidelity and neatness during his 
 active military career. The magnificent presentation-sword owned by 
 General King is displayed by his soldier-author son in the reception- 
 room down-stairs ; there too, on the mantel, is the Metairie whip, relic 
 of the New Orleans race ; but the photographs of King's soldier-friends 
 are all kept in his study, and lending a charm to it all is the refined, 
 kindly, handsome face of the host, whose voice, like the touch of his 
 bridle-hand, is soft and sincere as a woman's, but can be stern and cold 
 as steel. 
 
 Philip Reade, First Lieutenant Third Infantry, U.S.A. 
 
 TO ALL WOMEN. 
 
 I. 
 
 0SOR.ro WING women, ye who \Yeep in vain, 
 Who uncaressed sob on through the dark night, 
 With broken wings that ache to feel the light. 
 Strained out above joy's corpse untimely slain, — 
 All ye who, pure or fallen, live in pain. 
 
 Who suffer woman-pangs, — or wrong or right, — 
 Yearning through blistering tears for some lost sight, 
 Wooing through alien sounds some hushed refrain, — 
 All ye who pine to cease rather than die, 
 AVho dread a second consciousness, and long 
 Only for peace as peace is known to graves, 
 Not to the buried, — unto you I cry, 
 
 My heart yearns over you, to you belong 
 These words of love, as to the sea its waves. 
 
 n. 
 
 Dear God, that I could gather to my heart 
 In one supreme pang all the awful throes 
 That wrench the heart of women ! — take their woes, 
 
 As from tired children's hands that slide apart 
 
 We lift the burden that has made them smart. 
 Or fi'om some stem whereon a sweet flower grows 
 Strip all the thorns, and give them back the rose! 
 
 I could bear bravely all my life this part. 
 
The Worst Man In The Troop, 
 
 By Captain Charles King, 
 U. S. A. 
 
 Philadelphia: 
 J. B. Lippincott Company 
 
1883.] 
 
 THE WORST MAN IN THE TROOP. 
 
 287 
 
 duty under the law by declaring the 
 officer entitled to the custody of Cook. 
 The noon train bore the strangely ill- 
 fated prisoner on his way to Virginia 
 and to death. No man in like peril 
 ever seemed to have had so many en- 
 tirely practicable opportunities for es- 
 cape ; but all failed, even with the exer- 
 cise of what would be judged as the 
 soundest discretion for his safety. His 
 return to the Charlestown jail, his memo- 
 rable trial, his inevitable conviction, his 
 only cowardly act of submitting to re- 
 capture when he had broken out of his 
 cell a few hours before his execution, 
 and his final execution with his captive 
 comrades, are familiar to all. His trial at- 
 tracted more attention than that of any of 
 the others, because of the prominent men 
 enlisted in his cause, and of the special 
 interest felt in him by the community 
 in and about Harper's Ferry. He had 
 taught school there some years before, 
 had married there, and his return as one 
 of John Brown's raiders to kindle the 
 flames of slave insurrection intensified 
 the bitterness of the people against him. 
 From the 28th day of October, 1859, 
 when he was lodged in the Charlestown 
 jail, until the last act of the tragedy, 
 when he was executed. Cook attracted 
 the larger share of public interest in 
 Harper's Ferry, much as Brown out- 
 stripped him in national or world-wide 
 fame. Governor Willard. the Demo- 
 cratic executive of Indiana, appeared in 
 person on the scene, and made exhaus- 
 tive efforts to save his wayward but 
 beloved brother-in-law. Daniel W. Voor- 
 hees, now United States Senator from 
 Indiana, was then attorney-general of 
 his State ; and his devotion to his party 
 
 chief made him excel every previous or 
 later eff'ort of his life in pleading the 
 utterly hopeless cause of the brilliant 
 little Virginia insurgent. It was a grand 
 legal and forensic battle ; but there was 
 not an atom of law to aid the defence, 
 and public sentiment was vehement for 
 the atonement. Viewed in the clearer 
 light and calmer judgment of the ex- 
 perience of a quarter of a century, it 
 would have been wiser and better had 
 Virginia treated John Brown and his 
 corporal's guard of madmen as hopeless 
 lunatics by imprisonment for life, as was 
 strongly advised by confidential counsels 
 from some prominent men of the land 
 whose judgment was entitled to respect; 
 but Governor Wise, always a lover of 
 the tempest, made a dress-parade bur- 
 lesque of justice, and on the 16th day 
 of December, 1859, amidst the pomp 
 and parade of the concentrated power of 
 the " Mother of Presidents," John E. 
 Cook paid the penalty of his crime on 
 the gallows. No demand was ever made 
 for the rendition of Cook's companions 
 who had escaped from Harper's Ferry 
 into the South Mountain with him. 
 Some of them lived in Northern Penn- 
 sylvania without concealment, but none 
 thought of arresting them. A few 
 months thereafter the long-threatening 
 clouds of fraternal war broke in fury 
 upon the country ; the song of John 
 Brown inspired great armies as they 
 swept through the terrible flame of bat- 
 tle from the Father of Waters to the 
 Southern sea, and the cause that made 
 lawless madmen of Brown and Cook 
 at Harper's Ferry crowned the republic 
 with universal freedom at Appomattox. 
 A. K. McClure. 
 
 THE WORST MAN IN THE TROOP. 
 
 JUST why that young Irishman should 
 have been so balefuUy branded was 
 more than the first lieutenant of the 
 troop could understand. To be sure, the 
 lieutenant's opportunities for observa- 
 
 tion had been limited. He had spent 
 some years on detached service in the 
 East, and had joirfed his comrades in 
 Arizona but a fortnight ago, and here 
 he was already becoming rapidly initi- 
 
288 
 
 THE WORST MAN IN THE TROOP. 
 
 [Sept. 
 
 ated in the science of scouting through 
 mountain-wilds against the wariest and 
 most treacherous of foemen, — the Apa- 
 ches of our Southwestern territory. 
 
 Coming, as he had done, direct from a 
 station and duties where full-dress uni- 
 form, lavish expenditure for kid gloves, 
 bouquets, and Lubin's extracts were mat- 
 ters of daily fact, it must be admitted that 
 the sensations he experienced on seeing 
 his detachment equipped for the scout 
 were those of mild consternation. That 
 much latitude as to individual dress and 
 equipment was permitted he had previous- 
 ly been informed ; that " full dress," and 
 white shirts, collars, and the like, would 
 be left at home, he had sense enough to 
 know ; but that every officer and man in 
 the command would be allowed to dis- 
 card any and all portions of the regula- 
 tion uniform and appear rigged out in 
 just such motley guise as his poetic or 
 practical fancy might suggest, had never 
 been pointed out to him ; and that he, 
 commanding his troop while his captain 
 commanded the little battalion, could by 
 any military possibility take his place in 
 front of his men without his sabre, had 
 never for an instant occurred to him. 
 As a consequence, when he bolted into 
 the mess-room shortly after daybreak on 
 a bright June morning with that im- 
 posing but at most times useless item of 
 cavalry equipment clanking at his heels, 
 the lieutenant gazed with some astonish- 
 ment upon the attire of his brother-offi- 
 cers there assembled, but found himself 
 the butt of much good-natured and not 
 over-witty " chaff," directed partially at 
 the extreme newness and neatness of his 
 dark-blue flannel scouting-shirt and high- 
 top boots, but more especially at the glit- 
 tering sabre swinging from his waist- 
 belt. 
 
 " Billings," said Captain Buxton with 
 much solemnity, " while you have prob- 
 ably learned through the columns of a 
 horror-stricken Eastern press that we 
 scalp, alive or dead, all unfortunates who 
 fall into our clutches, I assure you that 
 even for that purpose the cavalry-sabre 
 has, in Arizona at least, outlived its 
 usefulness. It is too long and clumsy, 
 you see. What you really want for the 
 
 purpose is something like this," — and 
 he whipped out of its sheath a rusty 
 but keen-bladed Mexican ciichillo, — 
 " something you can wield with a deft 
 turn of the wrist, you know. The sabre 
 is apt to tear and mutilate the flesh, 
 especially when you use both hands." 
 And Captain Buxton winked at his 
 other subaltern and felt that he had said 
 a good thing. 
 
 But Mr. Billings was a man of infinite 
 good nature and ready adaptability to 
 the society or circumstances with which 
 he might be surrounded. " Chaff" was 
 a very cheap order of wit, and the 
 serenity of his disposition enabled him 
 to shake off its effect as readily as water 
 is scattered from the plumage of the 
 duck. 
 
 " So you don't wear the sabre on a 
 scout ? So much the better. I have my 
 _ revolvers and a Sharp's carbine, but am 
 destitute of anything in the knife line." 
 And with that Mr. Billings betook him- 
 self to the duty of despatching the break- 
 fast that was already spread before him 
 in an array tempting enough to a fron- 
 tier appetite, but little designed to attract 
 a bon vivant of civilization. Bacon, 
 frijoles^ and creamless coffee speedily 
 become ambrosia and nectar under the 
 influence of mountain-air and mountain- 
 exercise ; but Mr. Billings had as yet 
 done no climbing. A " buck - board" 
 ride had been his means of transporta- 
 tion to the garrison, — a lonely four- 
 company post in a far-away valley in 
 Northeastern Arizona, — and in the three 
 or four days of intense heat that had 
 succeeded his arrival exercise of any 
 kind had been out of the question. It 
 was with no especial regret, therefore, 
 that he heard the summons of his cap- 
 tain, " Hurry up, man ; we must be off 
 in ten minutes." And in less than ten 
 minutes the lieutenant was on his horse 
 and superintending the formation of his 
 troop. 
 
 If Mr. Billings was astonished at the 
 garb of his brother-officers at breakfast, 
 he was simply aghast when he glanced 
 along the line of Company " A" (as his 
 command was at that time officially des- 
 ignated) and the first sergeant rode out 
 
1883.] 
 
 THE WORST MAN IN THE TROOP. 
 
 289 
 
 to report his men present or accounted 
 for. The first sergeant himself was got 
 up in an old gray-flannel shirt, open 
 at and disclosing a broad, brown throat 
 and neck ; his head was crowned with 
 what had once been a white felt som- 
 brero, now tanned by desert sun, wind, 
 and dirt into a dingy mud-color ; his 
 powerful legs were encased in worn 
 deer -skin breeches tucked into low- 
 topped, broad-soled, well-greased boots ; 
 his waist was girt with a rude "thimble- 
 belt," in the loops of which were thrust 
 scores of copper cartridges for carbine 
 and pistol ; his carbine, and those of all 
 the command, swung in a leather loop 
 athwart the pommel of the saddle ; re- 
 volvers in all manner of cases hung at 
 the hip, the regulation holster, in most 
 instances, being conspicuous by its ab- 
 sence. Indeed, throughout the entire 
 command the remarkable fact was to be 
 noted that a company of regular cavalry, 
 taking the field against hostile Indians, 
 had discarded pretty much every item 
 of dress or equipment prescribed or fur- 
 nished by the authorities of the United 
 States, and had supplied themselves with 
 an outfit utterly ununiform, unpictu- 
 resque, undeniably slouchy. but not less 
 undeniably appropriate and serviceable. 
 Not a forage-cap was to be seen, not a 
 " campaign-hat" of the style then pre- 
 scribed by a board of officers that might 
 have known something of hats, but never 
 could have had an idea on the subject of 
 campaigns. Fancy that black enormity 
 of weighty felt, with flapping brim well- 
 nigh a foot in width, absorbing the fiery 
 heat of an Arizona sun, and concen- 
 trating the burning rays upon the cra- 
 nium of its unhappy wearer ! No such 
 head-gear would our troopers suff"er in 
 the days when General Crook led them 
 through the caiions and deserts of that 
 inhospitable Territory. Regardless of 
 appearances or style himself, seeking 
 only comfort in his dress, the chief 
 speedily found means to indicate that, 
 in Apache-campaigning at least, it was 
 to be a case of '■'■inter arma silent leges'^ 
 in dead earnest ; for, freely translated, 
 the old saw read, " No red-tape when 
 Indian-fightincf." 
 
 Of much of this Lieutenant Billings 
 was only partially informed, and so, as 
 has been said, he was aghast when he 
 marked the utter absence of uniform 
 and the decidedly variegated appearance 
 of his troop. Deer-skin, buckskin, can- 
 vas, and flannels, leggings, moccasins, 
 and the like, constituted the bill of 
 dress, and old soft felt hats, originally 
 white, the head-gear. If spurs were 
 worn at all, they were of the Mexican 
 variety, easy to kick oiF, but sure to stay 
 on when wanted. Only two men wore 
 carbine sUng-belts, and Mr. Billings 
 was almost ready to hunt up his captain 
 and inquire if by any possibility the 
 men could be attempting to " put up a 
 joke on him," when the captain himself 
 appeared, looking little if any more like 
 the ideal soldier than his men, and the 
 perfectly satisfied expression on his 
 face as he rode easily around, examining 
 closely the horses of the command, pay- 
 ing especial attention to their feet and 
 the shoes thereof, convinced the lieu- 
 tenant that all was as it was expected to 
 be, if not as it should be, and he swal- 
 lowed his surprise and held his peace. 
 Another moment, and Captain Wayne's 
 troop came filing past in column of twos, 
 looking, if anything, rougher than his 
 own. 
 
 " You follow right after Wayne," 
 said Captain Buxton ; and with no fur- 
 ther formality Mr. Billings, in a per- 
 functory sort of way, wheeled his men 
 to the right by fours, broke into column 
 of twos, and closed up on the leading 
 troop. 
 
 Buxton was in high glee on this par- 
 ticular morning in June. He had done 
 very little Indian scouting, had been 
 but moderately successful in what he 
 had undertaken, and now, as luck would 
 have it, the necessity arose for sending 
 something more formidable than a mere 
 detachment down into the Tonto Basin, 
 in search of a powerful band of Apaches 
 who had broken loose from the reserva- 
 tion and were taking refuge in the foot- 
 hills of the Black Mesa or among the 
 wilds of the Sierra Ancha. As senior 
 captain of the two, Buxton became 
 commander of the entire force, — two 
 
290 
 
 THE WORST MAN IN THE TROOP. 
 
 [Sept. 
 
 well-filled troops of regular cavalry, 
 some thirty Indian allies as scouts, and a 
 goodly-sized train of pack-mules, with 
 its full complement of packers, carga- 
 dors, and blacksmiths. He fully anti- 
 cipated a lively fight, possibly a series 
 of them, and a triumphant return to 
 his post, w'here hereafter he would be 
 looked up to and quoted as an expert 
 and authority on Apache-fighting. He 
 knew just where the hostiles lay, and 
 was going straight to the point to flatten 
 them out forthwith; and so the little 
 command moved ofi" under admirable 
 auspices and in the best of spirits. 
 
 It was a four-days' hard march to the 
 locality where Captain Buxton counted on 
 finding his victims ; and when on the 
 fourth day, rather tired and not particular- 
 ly enthusiastic, the command bivouacked 
 along the banks of a mountain-torrent, 
 a safe distance from the supposed loca- 
 tion of the Indian stronghold, he sent 
 forward his Apache Mojave allies to 
 make a stealthy reconnoissance, feeling 
 confident that soon after nightfall they 
 would return with the intelligence that 
 the enemy were lazily resting in their 
 rancheria, all unsuspicious of his ap- 
 proach, and that at daybreak he would 
 pounce upon and annihilate them. 
 
 Soon after nightfall the scouts did re- 
 turn, but their intelligence was not so 
 gratifying : a small — a ve7y small — band 
 of renegades had been encamped in that 
 vicinity some weeks before, but not a 
 "hostile" or sign of a hostile was to be 
 found. Captain Buxton hardly slept 
 that night, from disappointment and 
 mortification, and when he went the fol- 
 lowing day to investigate for himself he 
 found that he had been on a false scent 
 from the start, and this made him crab- 
 bed. A week's hunt through the moun- 
 tains resulted in no better luck, and now, 
 having had only fifteen days' rations at 
 the outset, he was most reluctantly and 
 savagely marching homeward to report 
 his failure. 
 
 But Mr. Billings had enjoyed the 
 entire trip. Sleeping in the open air 
 without other shelter than their blankets 
 aff"orded, scouting by day in single file 
 over miles of mere game-trails, up hill 
 
 and down dale through the wildest and 
 most dolefully-picturesque scenery he at 
 least had ever beheld, under frowning 
 clifis and beetling crags, through dense 
 forests of pine and juniper, through 
 mountain-torrents swollen with the melt- 
 ing snows of the crests so far above 
 them, through caiions, deep, dark, and 
 gloomy, searching ever for traces of the 
 foe they were ordered to find and fight 
 forthwith, Mr. Billings and his men, 
 having no responsibility upon their 
 shoulders, were happy and healthy as 
 possible, and consequently in small sym- 
 pathy with their irate leader. 
 
 Every afternoon when they halted 
 beside some one of the hundreds of 
 mountain-brooks that came tumbling 
 down from the gorges of the Black 
 Mesa, the men were required to look 
 carefully at the horses' backs and feet, 
 for mountain Arizona is terrible on 
 shoes, equine or human. This had to 
 be done before the herds were turned 
 out to graze with their guard around 
 them ; and often some of the men would 
 get a wisp of straw or a suitable wipe of 
 some kind, and thoroughly rub down 
 their steeds. Strolling about among 
 them, as he always did at this time, our 
 lieutenant had noticed a slim but trimly- 
 built young Irishman whose care of 
 and devotion to his horse it did him 
 good to see. No matter how long the 
 march, how severe the fatigue, that 
 horse was always looked after, his gra- 
 zing-ground pre-empted by a deftly- 
 thrown picket-pin and lariat which se- 
 cured to him all the real estate that could 
 be surveyed within the circle of which 
 the pin was the centre and the lariat the 
 radius-vector. 
 
 Between horse and master the closest 
 comradeship seemed to exist ; the 
 trooper had a way of softly singing or 
 talking to his friend as he rubbed him 
 down, and Mr. Billings was struck with 
 the expression and taste with which the 
 little soldier — for he was only five feet 
 five — would render " Molly Bawn" and 
 " Kitty Tyrrell." Except when thus 
 singing or exchanging confidences with 
 his steed, he was strangely silent and 
 reserved ; he ate his rations among the 
 
1883.] 
 
 THE WORST MAN IN THE TROOP. 
 
 291 
 
 other men, yet rarely spoke with them, 
 and he would ride all day through coun- 
 try marvellous for wild beauty and be 
 the only man in the command who did 
 not allow himself to give vent to some 
 expression of astonishment or delight. 
 
 "What is that man's name?" asked 
 Mr. Billings of the first sergeant one 
 evening. 
 
 " O'Grady, sir," replied the sergeant, 
 with his soldierly salute ; and a little 
 later, as Captain Buxton was fretfully 
 complaining to his subaltern of the ill 
 fortune that seemed to overshadow his 
 best efforts, the latter, thinking to cheer 
 him and to divert his attention from his 
 trouble, referred to the troop : 
 
 "Why, captain, I don't think I ever 
 saw a finer set of men than you have — 
 anywhere. Now, there's a little fellow 
 who strikes me as being a perfect light- 
 cavalry soldier." And the lieutenant in- 
 dicated his young Irishman. 
 
 " You don't mean O'Grady ?" asked 
 the captain in surprise. 
 
 " Yes, sir, — the very one." 
 
 " Why, he's the worst man in the 
 troop." 
 
 For a moment Mr. Billings knew not 
 what to say. His captain had spoken 
 with absolute harshness and dislike in 
 his tone of the one soldier of all others 
 who seemed to be the most quiet, atten- 
 tive, and alert of the troop. He had 
 noticed, too, that the sergeants and the 
 men generally, in speaking to O'Grady, 
 were wont to fall into a kindlier tone 
 than usual, and, though they some- 
 times squabbled among themselves over 
 the choice of patches of grass for their 
 horses, O'Grady's claim was never 
 questioned, much less " jumped." Re- 
 spect for his superior's rank would not 
 permit the lieutenant to argue the mat- 
 ter ; but, desiring to know more about 
 the case, he spoke again : 
 
 " I am very sorry to hear it. His 
 care of his horse and his quiet ways 
 impressed me so favorably." 
 
 " Oh, yes, d — n him !" broke in Cap- 
 tain Buxton. " Horses and whiskey 
 are the only things on earth he cares 
 for. As to quiet ways, there isn't a 
 worse devil at large than O'Grady with 
 
 a few drinks in him. When I came 
 back from two years' recruiting detail he 
 was a sergeant in the troop. I never 
 knew him before, but I soon found he 
 was addicted to drink, and after a while 
 had to ' break' him ; and one night when 
 he was raising hell in the quarters, and 
 I ordered him into the dark cell, he 
 turned on me like a tiger. By Jove ! 
 if it hadn't been for some of the men 
 he would have killed me, — or I him. 
 He was tried by court-martial, but most 
 of the detail was made up of infantry- 
 men and staff-officers from Crook's 
 
 head-quarters, and, by ! they didn't 
 
 seem to think it any sin for a soldier to 
 threaten to cut his captain's heart out, 
 and Crook himself gave me a sort of a 
 rap in his remarks on the case, and — 
 well, they just let O'Grady off scot-free 
 between them, gave him some little fine, 
 and did more harm than good. He's 
 just as surly and insolent now when I 
 speak to him as he was that night when 
 drunk. Here, I'll show you." And with 
 that Captain Buxton started ofi" toward 
 the herd, Mr. Billings obediently foUow- 
 ins, but feeling vaguely ill at ease. He 
 had never met Captain Buxton before ; 
 but letters from his comrades had pre- 
 pared him for experiences not altogether 
 pleasant. A good soldier in some re- 
 spects, Captain Buxton bore the reputa- 
 tion of having an almost ungovernable 
 temper, of being at times brutally vio- 
 lent in his language and conduct toward 
 his men, and, worse yet, of bearing ill- 
 concealed malice, and " nursing his 
 wrath to keep it warm" against such of 
 his enlisted men as had ever ventured to 
 appeal for justice. The captain stopped 
 on reaching the outskirts of the quietly- 
 grazing herd. 
 
 " Corporal," said he to the non-com- 
 missioned officer in charge, " isn't that 
 O'Grady's horse off there to the left?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Go and tell O'Grady to come here." 
 
 The corporal saluted and went off on 
 his errand. 
 
 " Now, Mr. Billings," said the cap- 
 tain, " I have repeatedly given orders 
 that my horses must be side-lined when 
 we are in the hostiles' country. Just 
 
292 
 
 THE WORST MAN IN THE TROOP. 
 
 [Sept. 
 
 come here to the left." And he walked 
 over toward a handsome, sturdy little 
 California horse of a bright bay color. 
 " Here, you see, is O'Grady's horse, and 
 not a side-line : that's his way of obey- 
 ing orders. More than that, he is never 
 content to have his horse in among the 
 others, but must always get away outside, 
 just where he is most apt to be run oiF 
 by any Indian sharp and quick enough 
 to dare it. Now, here comes 0' Grady. 
 Watch him, if you want to see him in 
 his true light." 
 
 Standing beside his superior, Mr. 
 Billings looked toward the approaching 
 trooper, who, with a quick, springy step, 
 advanced to within a few yards of them, 
 there stopped short, and, erect and in 
 silence, raised his hand in salute, and 
 with perfectly respectful demeanor 
 looked straight at his captain. 
 
 In a voice at once harsh and distinctly 
 audible over the entire bivouac, with 
 frowning brow and angry eyes, Buxton 
 demanded, — 
 
 " O'Grady, where are your side- 
 lines?" 
 
 " Over with my blankets, sir." 
 
 " Over with your blankets, are they? 
 
 Why in , sir, are they not here on 
 
 your horse, where they ought to be?" 
 And the captain's voice waxed harsher 
 and louder, and his manner more 
 threatening. 
 
 " I understood the captain's orders to 
 be that they need not go on till sunset," 
 replied the soldier calmly and respect- 
 fully, " and I don't like to put them on 
 that sore place, sir, until the last mo- 
 ment." 
 
 "Don't like to? No sir, I know 
 d — d well you don't like to obey this or 
 any other order I ever gave, and wher- 
 ever you find a loop-hole through which 
 to crawl, and you think you can sneak 
 oiF unpunished, by ! sir, I sup- 
 pose you will go on disobeying orders. 
 Shut up, sir! not a d — d word!" for 
 tears of mortification were starting to 
 O'Grady's eyes, and with flushing face 
 and trembling lip the soldier stood help- 
 lessly before his troop-commander, and 
 was striving to say a word in further 
 explanation. 
 
 " Go and get your side-lines at once 
 and bring them here ; go at once, sir," 
 shouted the captain ; and with a lump 
 in his throat the trooper saluted, faced 
 about, and walked away. 
 
 " He's milder-mannered than usual, 
 d — n him !" said the captain, turning 
 toward his subaltern, who had stood a 
 silent and pained witness of the scene. 
 " He knows he is in the wrong and has 
 no excuse ; but he'll break out yet. 
 Come ! step out, you O'Grady !" he 
 yelled after the rapidly-walking soldier. 
 " Double time, sir. I can't wait here 
 all night." And Mr. Billings noted 
 that silence had fallen on the bivouac so 
 full of soldier-chaff and laughter but a 
 moment before, and that the men of 
 both troops were intently watching the 
 scene already so painful to him. 
 
 Obediently O'Grady took up the 
 "dog-trot" required of him, got his 
 side-lines, and, running back, knelt be- 
 side his horse, and with trembling 
 hands adjusted them, during which per- 
 formance Captain Buxton stood over 
 him, and, in a tone that grew more and 
 more that of a bully as he lashed him- 
 self up into a rage, continued his lec- 
 ture to the man. 
 
 The latter finally rose, and, with huge 
 beads of perspiration starting out on his 
 forehead, faced his captain. 
 
 " May I say a word, sir?" he asked. 
 
 " You may now ; but be d — d careful 
 how you say it," was the reply, with a 
 sneer that would have stung an abject 
 slave into a longing for revenge, and 
 that grated on Mr. Billings's nerves in a 
 way that made him clinch his fists and 
 involuntarily grit his teeth. Could it be 
 that O'Grady detected it ? Already the 
 men had " taken the measure" of this 
 even - tempered, kindly - voiced young 
 West-Pointer, and begun to like him. 
 One quick, wistful, half - appealing 
 glance flashed from the Irishman's eyes 
 toward the subaltern, and then, with 
 evident eff"ort at composure, but with 
 a voice that trembled with the pent-up 
 sense of wrong and injustice, O'Grady 
 spoke : 
 
 " Indeed, sir, I had no thought of 
 neglecting orders. I always care for my 
 
1883.] 
 
 THE WORST MAN IN THE TROOP. 
 
 293 
 
 horse ; but it wasn't sunset when the 
 captain came out — " 
 
 " Not sunset !" broke in Buxton, with 
 an outburst of profanity. " Not sunset ! 
 why, it's wellnigh dark now, sir, and 
 every man in the troop had side-lined 
 his horse half an hour ago. D — n 
 your insolence, sir ! your excuse is worse 
 than your conduct. Mr. Billings, see to 
 it, sir, that this man walks and leads his 
 horse in rear of the troop all the way 
 
 back to the post. I'll see, by ! 
 
 whether he can be taught to obey orders." 
 And with that the captain turned and 
 strode away. 
 
 The lieutenant stood for an instant 
 stunned, — simply stunned. Involuntarily 
 he made a step toward O'Grady ; their 
 eyes met ; but the restraint of discipline 
 was upon both. In that brief meeting 
 of their glances, however, the trooper 
 read a message that was unmistakable. 
 
 " Lieutenant, — " he said, but stopped 
 abruptly, pointed aloft over the trees 
 to the eastward with his right hand, 
 dashed it across his eyes, and then, with 
 hurried salute and a choking sort of 
 gurgle in his throat, he turned and went 
 back to his comrades. 
 
 Mr. Billings gazed after the retreating 
 form until it disappeared among the 
 trees by the brook-side ; then he turned 
 to see what was the meaning of the 
 soldier's pointing over toward the mesa 
 to the east. 
 
 Down in the deep valley in which the 
 little command had halted for the night 
 the pall of darkness had indeed begun 
 to. settle ; the bivouac-fires in the timber 
 threw a lurid glare upon the groups 
 gathering around them for supper, and 
 toward the west the rugged upheavals of 
 the Mazatzal range stood like a black 
 barrier against the glorious hues of a 
 bank of summer cloud. All in the 
 valley spoke of twilight and darkness : 
 the birds were still, the voices of the 
 men subdued. So far as local indica- 
 tions were concerned, it tvas — as Cap- 
 tain Buxton had insisted — almost dark. 
 But square over the gilded tree-tops 
 to the east, stretching for miles and 
 miles to their right and left, blazed a 
 vertical wall of rock crested with scrub- 
 
 oak and pine, every boulder, every tree, 
 glittering in the radiant light of the 
 invisibly setting sun. O'Grady had not 
 disobeyed his orders. 
 
 Noting this, Mr. Billings proceeded to 
 take a leisurely stroll through the peace- 
 ful herd, carefully inspecting each horse 
 as he passed. As a result of his scru- 
 tiny, he found that, while most of the 
 horses were already encumbered with 
 their annoying hobble, in " A" troop 
 alone there were at least a dozen still 
 unfettered, notably the mounts of the 
 non-commissioned officers and the older 
 soldiers. Like O'Grady, they did not 
 wish to inflict the side-line upon their 
 steeds until the last moment. Unlike 
 O'Grady, they had not been called to 
 account for it. 
 
 When Mr. Billings was summoned to 
 supper, and he rejoined his brother-ofti- 
 cers, it was remarked that he was 
 more taciturn than usual. After that 
 repast had been appreciatively disposed 
 of, and the little group with lighted 
 pipes prepared to spend an hour in chat 
 and contentment, it was observed that 
 Mr. Billings did not take part in the 
 general talk, but that he soon rose, and, 
 out of ear-shot of the oificers' camp-fire, 
 paced restlessly up and down, with his 
 head bent forward, evidently plunged in 
 thought. 
 
 By and by the half-dozen broke up 
 and sought their blankets. Captain 
 Buxton, somewhat mollified by a good 
 supper, was about rolling into his navajo, 
 when Mr. Billings stepped up : 
 
 " Captain, may I ask for information 
 as to the side-line order? After you 
 left this evening, I found that there 
 must be some misunderstanding about it." 
 
 " How so?" said Buxton shortly. 
 
 " In this, captain ;" and Mr. Billings 
 spoke very calmly and distinctly. " The 
 first sergeant, several other non-commis- 
 sioned oflQcers and men, — more than a 
 dozen, I should say, — did not side-line 
 their horses until half an hour after you 
 spoke to Grady, and the first sergeant 
 assured me, when I called him to account 
 for it, that your orders were that it 
 should be done at sunset." 
 
 " Well, by ! it was after sunset 
 
294 
 
 THE WORST MAN IN THE TROOP. 
 
 [Sept. 
 
 — at least it was getting mighty dark — 
 when I sent for that blackguard O'Grady," 
 said Buxton impetuously, " and there is 
 no excuse for the rest of them." 
 
 " It was beginning to grow dark 
 down in this deep valley, I know, sir ; 
 but the tree-tops were in a broad glare 
 of sunlight while we were at the herd, 
 and those cliffs for half an hour longer." 
 
 " Well, Mr. Billings, I don't propose 
 to have any hair-splitting in the manage- 
 ment of my troop," said the captain, 
 manifestly nettled. " It was practically 
 sunset to us when the light began 
 to grow dim, and my men know it well 
 enough." And with that he rolled over 
 and turned his back to his subaltern. 
 
 Disregarding the broad hint to leave, 
 Mr. Billings again spoke : 
 
 "Is it your wish, sir, that any pun- 
 ishment should be imposed on the men 
 who were equally in fault with O'Grady?" 
 
 Buxton muttered something unintel- 
 ligible from under his blankets. 
 
 " I did not understand you, sir," said 
 the lieutenant very civilly. 
 
 Buxton savagely propped himself up 
 on one elbow, and blurted out, — 
 
 "No, Mr. Billings! no! When I 
 want a man punished I'll give the order 
 myself, sir." 
 
 " And is it still your wish, sir, that' 
 I make O'Grady walk the rest of the 
 way?" 
 
 For a moment Buxton hesitated ; his 
 better nature struggled to assert itself 
 and induce him to undo the injustice of 
 his order ; but the " cad" in his disposi- 
 tion, the weakness of his character, pre- 
 vailed. It would never do to let his 
 lieutenant get the upper hand of him, 
 he argued, and so the reply came, and 
 came angrily : 
 
 " Yes, of course ; he deserves it any- 
 how, by ! and it'll do him good." 
 
 Without another word Mr. Billings 
 turned on his heel and left him. 
 
 The command returned to garrison, 
 shaved its stubbly beard of two weeks' 
 growth, and resumed its uniform and the 
 routine duties of the post. Three days 
 only had it been back when Mr. Bill- 
 ings, marching on as officer of the day, 
 and receiving the prisoners from his 
 
 predecessor, was startled to hear the list 
 of names wound up with " O'Grady," 
 and when that name was called there 
 was no response. 
 
 The old officer of the day looked up 
 inquiringly : " Where is O'Grady, ser- 
 geant?" 
 
 " In the cell, sir, unable to come out." 
 
 " O'Grady was confined by Captain 
 Buxton's order late last night," said 
 Captain Wayne, " and I fancy the poor 
 fellow has been drinking heavily this 
 time." 
 
 A few minutes after, the reliefs being 
 told off, the prisoners sent out to work, 
 and the officers of the day, new and old, 
 having made their reports to the com- 
 manding officer, Mr. Billings returned 
 to the guard-house, and, directing his 
 sergeant to accompany him, proceeded 
 to make a deliberate inspection of the 
 premises. The guard-room itself was 
 neat, clean, and dry; the garrison prison- 
 room was well ventilated, and tidy as such 
 rooms ever can be made ; the Indian 
 prison-room, despite the fact that it was 
 empty and every shutter was thrown 
 wide open to the breeze, had that indefi- 
 nable, suffocating odor which continued 
 aboriginal occupancy will impart to any 
 apartment ; but it was the cells Mr. 
 Billings desired to see, and the sergeant 
 led him to a row of heavily-barred 
 doors of rough unplaned timber, with a 
 little grating in each, and from one of 
 these gratings there peered forth a pair 
 of feverishly-glittering eyes, and a face, 
 not bloated and flushed, as with recent 
 and heavy potations, but white, haggard, 
 twitching, and a husky voice in piteous 
 appeal addressed the sergeant : 
 
 " Oh, for God's sake, Billy, get me 
 something, or it'll kill me!" 
 
 " Hush, O'Grady," said the sergeant : 
 " here's the officer of the day." 
 
 Mr. Billings took one look at the wan 
 face only dimly visible in that prison- 
 light, for the poor little man shrank 
 back as he recognized the form of his 
 lieutenant : 
 
 " Open that door, sergeant." 
 
 With alacrity the order was obeyed, 
 and the heavy door swung back upon its 
 hinties. 
 
1883.] 
 
 THE WORST MAN IN THE TROOP. 
 
 295 
 
 " O'Grady," said the officer of the day 
 in a tone gentle as that he would have 
 employed in speaking to a woman, 
 " come out here to me. I'm afraid you 
 are sick." 
 
 Shaking, trembling, twitching in every 
 limb, with wild, dilated eyes and almost 
 palsied step, O'Grady came out. 
 
 " Look to him a moment, sergeant," 
 said Mr. Billings, and, bending low, he 
 stepped into the cell. The atmosphere 
 was. stifling, and in another instant he 
 backed out into the hall-way. " Ser- 
 geant, was it by the commanding offi- 
 cer's order that O'Grady was put in 
 there?" 
 
 " No, sir ; Captain Buxton's." 
 
 " See that he is not returned there 
 during my tour, unless the orders come 
 from the colonel. Bring O'Grady into 
 the prison-room." 
 
 Here in the purer air and brighter 
 light he looked carefully over the poor 
 fellow, as the latter stood before him 
 quivering from head to foot and hiding 
 his face in his .shaking hands. Then the 
 lieutenant took him gently by the arm 
 and led him to a bunk : 
 
 " O'Grady, man, lie down here. I'm 
 going to get something that will help 
 you. Tell me one thing : how long had 
 you been drinking before you were 
 confined ?" 
 
 " About forty-eight hours, sir, oif and 
 on." 
 
 " How long since you ate anything ?" 
 
 " I don't know, sir ; not for two days, 
 I think." 
 
 " Well, try and lie still. I'm coming 
 back to you in a very few minutes." 
 
 And with that Mr. Billings strode 
 from the room, leaving O'Grady, dazed, 
 wonder-stricken, gazing stupidly after 
 him. 
 
 The lieutenant went straight to his 
 quarters, took a goodly-sized goblet from 
 the painted pine side-board, and with 
 practised hand proceeded to mix therein 
 a beverage in which granulated sugar, 
 Angostura bitters, and a few drops of 
 lime juice entered as minor ingredients, 
 and the coldest of spring -water and a 
 brimming measure of whiskey as con- 
 stitutents of greater quality and quan- 
 
 tity. Filling with this mixture a small 
 leather - covered flask, and stowing it 
 away within the breast-pocket of his 
 blouse, he returned to the guard-house, 
 musing as he went, " ' If this be trea- 
 son,' said Patrick Henry, ' make the 
 most of it.' If this be conduct preju- 
 dicial, etc., say I, do your d — dest. 
 That man would be in the horrors of 
 jim-jams in half an hour more if it were 
 not for this." And, so saying to him- 
 self, he entered the prison-room, called 
 to the sergeant to bring him some cold 
 water, and then approached O'Grady, 
 who rose unsteadily and strove to stand 
 attention, but the effort was too much, 
 and again he covered his face with his 
 arms, and threw himself in utter misery 
 at the foot of the bunk. 
 
 Mr. Billings drew the flask from his 
 pocket, and, touching O'Grady's shoul- 
 der, caused him to raise his head : 
 
 " Drink this, my lad. I would not 
 give it to you at another time, but you 
 need it now." 
 
 Eagerly it was seized, eagerly drained, 
 and then, after he had swallowed a long 
 draught of the water, Grady slowly rose 
 to his feet, looking, with eyes rapidly 
 softening and losing their wild glare, 
 upon the young officer who stood before 
 him. Once or twice he passed his hands 
 across his forehead, as though to sweep 
 away the cobwebs that pressed upon his 
 brain, but for a moment he did not essay 
 a word. Little by little the color crept 
 back to his cheek ; and, noting this, Mr. 
 Billings smiled very quietly, and said, 
 " Now, O'Grady, lie down ; you will be 
 able to sleep now until the men come in 
 at noon ; then you shall have another 
 drink, and you'll be able to eat what I 
 send you. If you cannot sleep, call the 
 sergeant of the guard ; or if you want 
 anything, I'll come to you." 
 
 Then, with tears starting to his eyes, 
 the soldier found words : " I thank the 
 lieutenant. If I live a thousand years, 
 sir, this will never be forgotten, — never, 
 sir ! I'd have gone crazy without your 
 help, sir." 
 
 Mr, Billings held out his hand, 
 and, taking that of his prisoner, gave 
 it a cordial grip : " That's all right. 
 
296 
 
 THE WORST MAN IN THE TROOP. 
 
 [Sept. 
 
 O'Grady. Try to sleep now, and we'll 
 pull you through. Good-by, for the 
 present." And, with a heart lighter, 
 somehow, than it had been of late, the 
 lieutenant left. 
 
 At noon that day, when the prisoners 
 came in from labor and the officer of the 
 day inspected their general condition 
 before permitting them to go to their 
 dinner, the sergeant of the guard in- 
 formed him that O'Grady had slept 
 quietly almost all the morning, but was 
 then awake and feeling very much better, 
 though still weak and nervous. 
 
 " Do you think he can walk over to 
 my quarters?" asked Mr. Billings. 
 
 " He will try it, sir, or anything the 
 lieutenant wants him to try.'' 
 
 " Then send him over in about ten 
 minutes." 
 
 Home once more, Mr. Billings started 
 a tiny blaze in his oil-stove, and soon had 
 a kettle of water boiling merrily. Sharp 
 to time a member of the guard tapped at 
 the door, and, on being bidden " Come 
 in," entered, ushering in O'Grady ; but 
 meantime, by the aid of a little pot of 
 meat-juice and some cayenne pepper, 
 a glass of hot soup or beef- tea had been 
 prepared, and, with some dainty slices of 
 potted chicken and the accompaniments 
 of a cup of fragrant tea and some ship- 
 biscuit, was in readiness on a little table 
 in the back room. Mr. Billings, it has 
 been hinted, was something of an epi- 
 cure in his quiet way, and his side- 
 board was never destitute of some deli- 
 cacy or luxury " the mess" could not 
 supply. 
 
 Telling the sentinel to remain in the 
 shade on the piazza, the lieutenant pro- 
 ceeded -first to make O'Grady sit down 
 in a big wicker arm-chair, for the man 
 in his broken condition was wellnigh 
 exhausted by his walk across the glaring 
 parade in the heat of an Arizona noon- 
 day sun. Then he mixed and adminis- 
 tered the counterpart of the beverage he 
 had given his prisoner - patient in the 
 morning, only in point of potency it 
 was an evident falling off, but sufficient 
 for the purpose, and in a few minutes 
 O'Grady was able to swallow his break- 
 fast with evident relish, meekly and un- 
 
 hesitatingly obeying every suggestion of 
 his superior. 
 
 His breakfast finished, O'Grady was 
 then conducted into a cool, darkened 
 apartment, a back room in the lieuten- 
 ant's quarters. 
 
 " Now, pull off your boots and outer 
 clothing, man, spread yourself on that 
 bed, and go to sleep, if you can. If you 
 can't, and you want to read, there are 
 books and papers on that shelf; pin up 
 the blanket on the window, and you'll 
 have light enough. You shall not be 
 disturbed, and I know you won't attempt 
 to leave." 
 
 " Indeed, sir, I won't," began O'- 
 Grady eagerly ; but the lieutenant had 
 vanished, closing the door after him, and 
 a minute later the soldier had thrown 
 himself upon the cool, white bed, and 
 was crying like a tired child. 
 
 Three or four weeks after this inci- 
 dent, to the small regret of his troop and 
 the politely-veiled indifference of the 
 commissioned element of the garrison, 
 Captain Buxton concluded to avail him- 
 self of a long-deferred " leave," and 
 turned over his company property to 
 Mr. Billings in a condition that rendered 
 it necessary for him to do a thing that 
 "ground" him, so to speak: he had to 
 ask several favors of his lieutenant, be- 
 tween whom and himself there had been 
 no cordiality since the episode of the 
 bivouac, and an open rupture since Mr. 
 Billings's somewhat eventful tour as 
 officer of the day, which has just been 
 described. 
 
 It appeared that O'Grady had been 
 absent from no duty (there were no drills 
 in that scorching June weather), but 
 that, yielding to the advice of his com- 
 rades, who knew that he had eaten noth- 
 ing for two days and was drinking steadily 
 into a condition that would speedily bring 
 punishment upon him, he had asked per- 
 mission to be sent to the hospital, where, 
 while he could get no liquor, there would 
 be no danger attendant upon his sudden 
 stop of all stimulant. The first sergeant 
 carried his request with the sick-book 
 to Captain Buxton, O'Grady meantime 
 managing to take two or three more 
 pulls at the bottle, and Buxton, instead 
 
1883.] 
 
 THE WORST MAN IN THE TROOP. 
 
 297 
 
 of sending him to the hospital, sent for 
 him, inspected him, and did what he had 
 no earthly authority to do, directed the 
 sergeant of the guard to confine him at 
 once in the dark cell. 
 
 " It will be no punishment as he is 
 now," said Buxton to himself, " but it 
 will be hell when he wakes." 
 
 And so it had been ; and far worse it 
 probably would have been but for Mr. 
 Billings's merciful interference. 
 
 Expecting to find his victim in a con- 
 dition bordering upon the abject and 
 ready to beg for mercy at any sacrifice 
 of pluck or pride, Buxton had gone to 
 the guard-house soon after retreat and 
 told the sergeant that he desired to see 
 O'Grady, if the man was fit to come out. 
 
 What was his surprise when the soldier 
 stepped forth in his trimmest undress 
 uniform, erect and steady, and stood un- 
 flinchingly before him ! — a day's rest 
 and quiet, a warm bath, wholesome and 
 palatable food, carefu4 nursing, and the 
 kind treatment he had received having 
 brought him round with a sudden tifrn 
 that he himself could hardly under- 
 stand. 
 
 "How is this?" thundered Buxton. 
 " I ordered you kept in the dark cell." 
 
 " The ofiicer of the day ordered him 
 released, sir," said the sergeant of the 
 guard. 
 
 And Buxton, choking with rage, 
 stormed into the mess-room, where the 
 younger ofiicers were at dinner, and, re- 
 gardless of the time, place, or surround- 
 ings, opened at once upon his subaltern : 
 
 " Mr. Billings, by whose authority did 
 you release O'Grady from the dark 
 cell ?" 
 
 Mr. Billings calmly applied his napkin 
 to his moustache, and then as calmly re- 
 plied, " By my own. Captain Buxton." 
 
 " By ! sir, you exceeded your 
 
 authority." 
 
 " Not at all, captain ; on the contrary, 
 you exceeded yours." 
 
 At this Buxton flew into a rage that 
 seemed to deprive him of all control over 
 his language. Oaths and imprecations 
 poured from his lips ; he raved at Bil- 
 lings, despite the efforts of the officers to 
 quiet him, despite the adjutant's threat 
 
 Vol, VT. N. S.— 20 
 
 to report his language at once to the 
 commanding officer. 
 
 Mr. Billings paid no attention what- 
 ever to his accusations, but went on eat- 
 ing his dinner with an appearance of 
 serenity that only added fuel to his cap- 
 tain's fire. Two or three officers rose and 
 left the table in disgust, and just how 
 far the thing might have gone cannot be 
 accurately told, for in less than three 
 minutes there came a quick, bounding 
 step on the piazza, the clank and rattle 
 of a sabre, and the adjutant fairly sprang 
 back ilito the room : 
 
 " Captain Buxton, you will go at once 
 to your quarters in close arrest, by order 
 of Colonel Treadwell." 
 
 Buxton knew his colonel and that 
 little fire-eater of an adjutant too well 
 to hesitate an instant. Muttering im- 
 precations on everybody, he went. 
 
 The next morning, O'Grady was re- 
 leased and returned to duty. Two days 
 later, after a lengthy and private inter- 
 view with his commanding officer. Cap- 
 tain Buxton appeared with him at the 
 officers' mess at dinner-time, made a for- 
 mal and complete apology to Lieutenant 
 Billings for his off"ensive language, and 
 to the mess generally for his misconduct ; 
 and so the affair blew over ; and, soon 
 after. Buxton left, and Mr. Billings be- 
 came commander of Company " A." 
 
 And now, whatever might have been 
 his reputation as to sobriety before. Pri- 
 vate O'Grady became a marked man for 
 every soldierly virtue. Week after week 
 he was to be seen every fourth or fifth 
 day, when his guard tour came, report- 
 ing to the commanding officer for duty 
 as orderly, the nattiest, trimmest soldier 
 on the detail. 
 
 " I always said," remarked Captain 
 Wayne, " that Buxton alone was respon- 
 sible for that man's downfall ; and this 
 proves it. O'Grady has all the instincts 
 of a gentleman about him, and now that 
 he has a gentleman over him he is him- 
 self again." 
 
 One night, after retreat-parade, there 
 was cheering and jubilee in the quarters 
 of Company " A." Corporal Quinn had 
 been discharged by expiration of term of 
 service, and Private O'Grady was deco- 
 
298 
 
 THE WORST MAN IN THE TROOP. 
 
 [Sept. 
 
 rated with his chevrons. When October 
 came, the company muster-roll showed 
 that he had won back his old grade ; and 
 the garrison knew no better soldier, no 
 more intelligent, temperate, trustworthy 
 non-commissioned officer, than Sergeant 
 O'Grady. In some way or other the story 
 of the treatment resorted to byhisamateur 
 medical officer had leaked out. Whether 
 faulty in theory or not, it was crowned 
 with the verdict of success in practice ; 
 and, with the strong sense of humor 
 which pervades all organizations wherein 
 the Celt is represented as a component 
 part, Mr. Billings had been lovingly 
 dubbed " Doctor" by his men, and there 
 was not one of their number who would 
 not have gone through lire and water 
 for him. 
 
 One night some herdsmen from up 
 the valley galloped wildly into the post. 
 The Apaches had swooped down, run 
 off their cattle, killed one of the cow- 
 boys, and scared off the rest. At day- 
 break the next morning Lieutenant Bil- 
 lings, with Company "A" and about a 
 dozen Indian scouts, was on the trail, 
 with orders to pursue, recapture the cat- 
 tle, and punish the marauders. 
 
 To his disgust, Mr. Billings found 
 that his allies were not of the tribes 
 who had served with him in previous 
 expeditions. All the trusty Apache 
 Mohaves and Hualpais were off with 
 other commands in distant parts of the 
 Territory. He had to take just what the 
 agent could give him at the reservation, 
 — some Apache Yumas, who were total 
 strangers to him. Within forty-eight 
 hours four had deserted and gone back ; 
 the others proved worthless as trailers, 
 doubtless intentionally, and had it not 
 been for the keen eye of Sergeant 
 O'Grady it would have been impossible 
 to keep up the pursuit by night ; but 
 keep it up they did, and just at sunset, 
 one sharp autumn evening, away up in 
 the mountains, the advance caught sight 
 of the cattle grazing along the shores of 
 a placid little lake, and, in less time than 
 it takes to write it, Mr. Billings and his 
 command tore down upon the quarry, 
 and, leaving a few men to "round up" 
 the herd, were soon engaged in a lively 
 
 running fight with the fleeing Apaches, 
 which lasted until dark, when the trum- 
 pet sounded the recall, and, with horses 
 somewhat blown, but no casualties of 
 importance, the command reassembled 
 and marched back to the grazing-ground 
 by the lake. Here a hearty supper was 
 served out, the horses were rested, then 
 given a good "feed" of barley, and at 
 ten o'clock Mr. Billings with his second 
 lieutenant and some twenty men pushed 
 ahead in the direction taken by the In- 
 dians, leaving the rest of the men under 
 experienced non-commissioned officers to 
 drive the cattle back to the valley. 
 
 That night the conduct of the Apache 
 Yuma scouts was incomprehensible. 
 Nothing would induce them to go ahead 
 or out on the flanks ; they cowered 
 about the rear of column, yet declared 
 that the enemy could not be hereabouts. 
 At two in the morning Mr. Billings 
 found himself well through a pass in the 
 mountains, high peaks rising to his right 
 and left, and a broad valley in front. 
 Here he gave the order to unsaddle and 
 camp for the night. 
 
 At daybreak all were again on the 
 alert : the search for the trail was re- 
 sumed. Again the Indians refused to 
 go out without the troops ; but the 
 men themselves found the tracks of 
 Tonto moccasins along the bed of a 
 little stream purling through the caiion, 
 and presently indications that they had 
 commenced the ascent of the mountain 
 to the south. Leaving a guard with his 
 horses and pack-mules, the lieutenant 
 ordered up his men, and soon the little 
 command was silently picking its way 
 through rock and boulder, scrub-oak 
 and tangled juniper and pine. Rougher 
 and steeper grew the ascent ; more and 
 more the Indians cowered, huddling to- 
 gether in rear of the soldiers. Twice 
 Mr. Billings signalled a halt, and, with his 
 sergeants, fairly drove the scouts up to 
 the front and ordered them to hunt for 
 signs. In vain they protested, " No sign, 
 — no Tonto here ;" their very looks be- 
 lied them, and the young commander 
 ordered the search to be continued. In 
 their eagerness the men soon leaped 
 ahead of the wretched allies, and the 
 
1883.] 
 
 THE WORST MAN IN THE TROOP. 
 
 299 
 
 latter fell back in the same huddled 
 group as before. 
 
 After half an hour of this sort of 
 work, the party came suddenly upon a 
 point whence it was possible to see much 
 of the face of the mountain they were 
 scaling. Cautioning his men to keep 
 within the concealment afforded by the 
 thick timber, Mr. Billings and his com- 
 rade-lieutenant crept forward and made 
 a brief reconnoissance. It was evident 
 at a glance that the farther they went 
 the steeper grew the ascent and the 
 more tangled the low shrubbery, for it 
 was little better, until, near the summit, 
 trees and underbrush, and herbage of 
 every description , seemed to cease entirely, 
 and a vertical cliff of jagged rocks stood 
 sentinel at the crest, and stretched east 
 and west the entire length of the face of 
 the mountain. 
 
 " By Jove, Billings ! if they are on 
 top of that it will be a nasty place to 
 rout them out of," observed the junior. 
 
 " I'm going to find out where they 
 are, anyhow," replied the other. "Now 
 those infernal Yumas have got to scout, 
 whether they want to or not. You stay 
 here with the men, ready to come the 
 instant I send or signal." 
 
 In vain the junior officer protested 
 against being left behind ; he was di- 
 rected to send a small party to see if 
 there were an easier way up the hill- 
 side farther to the west, but to keep 
 the main body there in readiness to 
 move whichever way they might be re- 
 quired. Then, with Sergeant O'Grady 
 and the reluctant Indians, Mr. Billings 
 pushed up to the left front, and was soon 
 out of sight of his command. For 
 fifteen minutes he drove his scouts, dis- 
 persed in skirmish order, ahead of him, 
 but incessantly they sneaked behind 
 rocks and trees out of his sight ; twice 
 he caught them trying to drop back, and 
 at last, losing all patience, he sprang 
 forward, saying, " Then come on, you 
 whelps, if you cannot lead," and he 
 and the sergeant hurried ahead. Then 
 the Yumas huddled together again and 
 slowly followed. 
 
 Fifteen minutes more, and Mr. Bil- 
 lings found himself standinsr on the 
 
 edge of a broad shelf of the mountain, 
 — a shelf covered with huge boulders of 
 rock tumbled there by storm and tem- 
 pest, riven by lightning-stroke or the 
 slow disintegration of nature from the 
 bare, glaring, precipitous ledge he had 
 marked from below. East and west it 
 seemed to stretch, forbidding and inac- 
 cessible. Turning to the sergeant, Mr. 
 Billings directed him to make his way 
 off to the right and see if there were 
 any possibility of finding a path to the 
 summit ; then looking back down the side, 
 and marking his Indians cowering under 
 the trees some fifty yards away, he sig- 
 nalled "come up," and was about moving 
 farther to his left to explore the shelf, 
 when something went whizzing past his 
 head, and, embedding itself in a stunted 
 oak behind him, shook and quivered 
 with the shock, — a Tonto arrow. Only 
 an instant did he see it, photographed 
 as by electricity upon the retina, when 
 with a sharp stinging pang and whirring 
 " whist" and thud a second arrow, better 
 aimed, tore through the flesh and 
 muscles just at the outer corner of his 
 left eye, and glanced away down the 
 hill. With one spring he gained the 
 edge of the shelf, and shouted to the 
 scouts to come on. Even as he did so, 
 bang ! bang ! went the reports of two 
 rifles among the rocks, and, as with one 
 accord, the Apache Y^umas turned tail 
 and rushed back down the hill, leaving 
 him alone in the midst of hidden foes. 
 Stung by the arrow, bleeding, but not 
 seriously hurt, he crouched behind a 
 rock, with carbine at ready, eagerly look- 
 ing for the first sign of an enemy. The 
 whiz of another arrow from the left 
 drew his eyes thither, and quick as a 
 flash his weapon leaped to his shoulder, 
 the rocks rang with its report, and one 
 of the two swarthy forms he saw among 
 the boulders tumbled over out of sight; 
 but even as he threw back his piece to 
 reload, a rattling volley greeted him, the 
 carbine dropped to the ground, a strange, 
 numbed sensation had seized his shoulder, 
 and his right arm, shattered by a rifle- 
 bullet, hung dangling by the flesh, while 
 the blood gushed forth in a torrent. 
 Defenceless, he sprang back to the 
 
300 
 
 THE WORST MAN IN THE TROOP. 
 
 [Sept. 
 
 edge ; there was nothing for it now but to 
 run until he could meet his men. Well 
 he knew they would be tearing up the 
 mountain to the rescue. Could he hold 
 out till then ? Behind him with shout 
 and yells came the Apaches, arrow 
 and bullet whistling over his head ; be- 
 fore him lay the steep descent, — ^jagged 
 rocks, thick, tangled bushes : it was a 
 desperate chance ; but he tried it, leaping 
 from rock to rock, holding his helpless 
 arm in his left hand ; then his foot 
 slipped : he plunged heavily forward ; 
 quickly the nerves threw out their sig- 
 nal for support to the muscles of the 
 shattered member, but its work was 
 done, its usefulness destroyed ; missing 
 its support, he plunged heavily forward, 
 and went crashing down among the 
 rocks eight or ten feet below, cutting a 
 jagged gash in his forehead, while the 
 blood rained down into his eyes and 
 blinded him ; but he struggled up and 
 on a few yards more ; then another fall, 
 and, wellnigh senseless, utterly exhausted, 
 he lay groping for his revolver, — it had 
 fallen from its case. Then — all was over. 
 Not yet ; not yet. His ear catches 
 the sound of a voice he knows well, — 
 a rich, ringing, Hibernian voice it is: 
 " Lieutenant, lieutenant. Where are 
 
 ye 
 
 ?" and he has strength enough to 
 
 call, " This way, sergeant, this way," and 
 in another moment O'Grady, with blend- 
 ed anguish and gratitude in his face, is 
 bending over him. " Oh, thank God 
 you're not kilt, sir !" (for when excited 
 O'Grady would relapse into the brogue) ; 
 " but are ye much hurt?" 
 
 " Badly, sergeant, since I can't fight 
 another round." 
 
 " Then put your arms round my neck, 
 sir," and in a second the little Patlander 
 has him on his brawny back. But 
 with only one arm by which to steady 
 himself, the other hanging loose, the 
 torture is inexpressible, for O'Grady 
 is now bounding down the hill, leaping 
 
 like a goat from rock to rock, while the 
 Apaches with savage yells come tear- 
 ing after them. Twice, pausing, O'Grady 
 lays his lieutenant down in the shelter 
 of some large boulder, and, facing about, 
 sends shot after shot up the hill, check- 
 ing the pursuit and driving the cowardly 
 footpads to cover. Once he gives vent 
 to a genuine Kilkenny " hurroo" as a 
 tall Apache drops his rifle and plunges 
 headforemost among the rocks with his 
 hands convulsively clasped to his breast. 
 Then the sergeant once more picks up 
 his wounded comrade, despite pleas, 
 orders, or imprecations, and rushes on. 
 
 " I cannot stand it, O'Grady. Go 
 and save yourself. You must do it. I 
 order you to do it." Every instant tlie 
 shots and arrows whiz closer, but the 
 sergeant never winces, and at last, pant- 
 ing, breathless, having carried his chief 
 full five hundred yards down the rugged 
 slope, he gives out entirely, but with a 
 gasp of delight points down among the 
 trees : 
 
 "Here come the boys, sir." 
 
 Another moment, and the soldiers are 
 rushing up the rocks beside them, their 
 carbines ringing like merry music 
 through the frosty air, and the Apaches 
 are scattering in every direction. 
 
 "Old man, are you much hurt?" is 
 the whispered inquiry his brother-ofiicer 
 can barely gasp for want of breath, and, 
 reassured by the faint grin on ]Mr. 
 Billings's face, and a barely audible 
 " Arm busted, — that's all ; pitch in and 
 use them up," he pushes on with his 
 men. 
 
 In ten minutes the affair is ended. 
 The Indians have been swept away like 
 chaff ; the field and the wounded tliey 
 have abandoned are in the hands of the 
 troopers ; the young commander's life is 
 saved ; and then, and for long after, the 
 hero of the day is Buxton's hete noire, 
 " the worst man in the troop." 
 
 Charles King, U.S.A. 
 
CAPTAIN SANTA GLAUS 
 
 By Captain Charles King, 
 U. S. A. 
 
 New York: 
 Harper Brothers. 
 
CAPTAIN SANTA CLAUS. 
 
 BY CAPTAIN CHARLES KING, U.S.A. 
 
 
 THERE was unusual com- 
 motion in the frontier 
 mining town when the red 
 stage, snow - covered and 
 storm-beaten, lurched up in 
 front of the Bella Union and 
 began to disgoi'ge passengers 
 and mail. The crowd on 
 the wooden side^valk was of 
 that cosmopolitan type whicli 
 rich and recently discovered 
 "leads" so surely attract: 
 tough-looking miners ; devil- 
 may-care cow-boys with roll- 
 ing hat-brims and barbaric 
 display of deadly weapons; 
 a choice coterie of gamblers 
 with exaggerated suavity of 
 manners; several impassive 
 Chinamen (very clean) ; sev- 
 eral loafing Indians (very 
 dirty); a brace of spruce, 
 clean-shaven, trim-built sol- 
 diers from the garrison down 
 the valley; and the inevita- 
 ble .squad of "beats" with 
 bleary eyes and wolfish faces 
 infesting the doorways of the 
 saloons, sublimely trustful of 
 a community that had long 
 ceased to trust them, and 
 scenting eleemosynary possi- 
 bilities in each new-comer. 
 
 But while the arrival of 
 the stage was a source of 
 perennial excitement in the 
 business centre of Argentopo- 
 lis, the commotion on this 
 occasion was due to the tu- 
 multuous welcome given by 
 a mob of scliool-children to 
 a tall, bronzed, fiercely mus- 
 tached party the instant he stepped, fur- 
 clad, from the dark interior. Such an 
 array of eager, joyous little faces one sel- 
 dom sees. Big boys and wee maidens, 
 they threw themselves upon him with 
 shrill clamor and enthusiastic embraces, 
 swarming about his legs as, with twink- 
 ling eyes and genial greeting, he lifted 
 the little ones high in air and kissed their 
 dimpled cheeks, and shook the struggling 
 boys heartily by tlie hand, and was pulled 
 this way and that way until eventually 
 borne off in triumph toward the spick- 
 
 span new shop, with its glittering white 
 front and alluring display of fruit, pastry, 
 and confectionery, all heralded forth un- 
 der the grandiloquent but delusive sign, 
 "Bald Eagle Bakery." 
 
 Upon this tumultuous reception Ai'gen- 
 topolis gazed for some moments in won- 
 dering silence. When the transfer of the 
 children and their willing captive to a 
 point some dozen yards away rendered 
 conversation a possibility, the spokesman 
 of the sidewalk committee shifted his 
 quid, and formulated in frontier phrase 
 
%3 -p- -jTo Q -a U Hi — 
 
 " ' COMK BACK,' SAID THE CAPTAIN, REASSURINGLY. 
 
CAPTAIN SANTA CLAUS. 
 
 109 
 
 the question which seemed uppermost in 
 the public mind: 
 
 " Who 'n thunder's that ?"' 
 
 "That?" said the soldier addressed. 
 "That's Captain Ransom. It's good times 
 the kids '11 be having now." 
 
 " B'long to your rigiment ?" 
 
 ' ' Yes ; Captain of ' B' troop. Been away 
 on leav^e ever since Ave got here." 
 
 "Seems fond o' children," said the Ar- 
 gentopolitan, reflectively. "Got any of 
 his own ?" 
 
 " Naiy. He b'longs to the whole crowd. 
 Tlie 'B' company fellers '11 be glad he's 
 back. They think as much of him as the 
 kids do." 
 
 " Good officer, eh ?" 
 
 "You bet; ain't no better in the cav- 
 alry." 
 
 At this unequivocal endorsement from 
 expert authority the eyes of Argentopolis 
 again followed the big man in the fur 
 overcoat. With three or four youngsters 
 tugging' at each hand, and a dozen revolv- 
 ing irregularly about him, he was striding 
 across the street, keeping up a running 
 fire of chatter with his thronging satel- 
 lites. Soldier he was unquestionably. 
 Tall, erect of carriage, broad of shoulder, 
 deep of chest, with a keen, quick glance 
 from under his heavy brows. Eyes full 
 of light and fire, nose straight and prom- 
 inent, a great mustache that hid the curves 
 of his handsome mouth and swept out 
 across the square and resolute jaws — a 
 mustache that, like the wavy brown hair 
 about the temples, was tingeing with gray. 
 Strong white teeth glistened through the 
 drooping thatch, and one or two merry 
 dimples dotted his bronzed and weather- 
 beaten cheeks. 
 
 Over on the neighboring side street, 
 from the steps of the school-house, other 
 children surveyed the group, and with 
 envious eyes and watering mouths be- 
 held the demolition of tarts and turn- 
 overs. Despite the keen and searching 
 cold of the mountain air, rare and still 
 and brimming with ozone as November 
 days can ever find it, the school shoved 
 its hands deep in trousers pockets and 
 stared with all its youtliful might. 
 
 Even so blessed a half-hour must have 
 its end, and as the warning bell began to 
 ring, and the Townies to shout that "ree- 
 cess" was over, the merry throng, spoil- 
 laden, came pouring down the bakery 
 steps, with many admonitions to their big 
 benefactor not to think of starting for the 
 
 Vol. LXXVI.— Ko. 451.-8 
 
 fort until school was out and they could 
 escort him liome. Two or three of the 
 smallest still clung to him, explaining 
 that only the big ones had afternoon 
 school; they were all through; they had 
 nothing to do until the ambulance came 
 to take them all at four o'clock; and the 
 Captain became suddenly aware of two 
 little people standing on the sidewalk 
 and regarding him wistfully. One was 
 a sturdy boy of seven, Avith frank blue 
 eyes and chubby rounded cheeks — a pic- 
 ture of solid young America despite the 
 fact that his little fists Avere red and bare; 
 his knickerbockers, though Avell fitting, 
 Avere worn and patched; and the copper 
 toes of his cheap, heavy boots Avere Avear- 
 ing suspiciously thin. He stood protect- 
 ingly by a little maiden, Avliose face was 
 like those of Sir Joshua Reynolds' ser- 
 aphs — a face as pure an oval as ever 
 sculptor modelled or painter limned, Avith 
 great, lustrous, long-lashed eyes and deli- 
 cate and dainty features, and all about it 
 tumbled a Avealth of glistening golden 
 hair, and all over it shone the look of 
 childish longing and almost piteous en- 
 treaty. One little mittened liand Avas 
 clasped in her brother's; the other, un- 
 covered, hung by a linger in her rosy 
 mouth. She was Avarml}' clad; her little 
 cloak and hood Avere soft and Avbite and 
 fleecy; her pigmy legs Avere cased in stout 
 Avorsted, and her feet in Avarm "arctics," 
 and "mother's darling" Avas Avritten in 
 every ornament of her dress. 
 
 Ransom, stowing away a Ijandful of 
 silver, came suddenly upon this silent 
 pair, and stopped short. Another instant 
 and he had stooped, raised the younger 
 child in his strong hands, and with caress- 
 ing tone accosted her: 
 
 "Why, little Snow-drop, who are you ? 
 What a little isary you are!" 
 
 "She ain't one of us," piped up a youth- 
 ful patrician, disdainfully. "She's in- 
 fantry. He's her brother, and they don't 
 belong to the fort." 
 
 The boy's face flushed, and he looked 
 repi'oach fully at the speaker, but said no 
 Avord. Ransom Avas gazing Avith singular 
 intentness into the doAvncast face of his 
 little captive. 
 
 "Won't you tell me your name, little 
 one?" he pleaded. "Why didn't you 
 come in and haA^e some tarts and turn- 
 overs Avith the others ? I've got to run 
 now and meet some other old fellows at 
 the stage office. Here, little man," he 
 
110 
 
 HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 said, as he set her clown, "take Snow- 
 drop in for me, and you two just eat all 
 you can, and you pay for it for me." He 
 held out a bright half - dollar. Snow- 
 drop's eyes glistened, and she looked ea- 
 gerly at her brother. 
 
 But the boy hung back. For an in- 
 stant he hesitated, screwing his boot toe 
 into a convenient knot-hole as means of 
 covering his embarrassment. "Come, 
 Jack," said the Captain, reassuringly, 
 touching him on the shouldei*. The little 
 fellow shook his head. 
 
 "Why not, my boy ?" pleaded Ransom. 
 "Papa -won't mind, Avhen you tell him it 
 was old Uncle Hal. That's what they 
 call me." 
 
 A lump rose in the youngster's throat. 
 His head went lower. 
 
 "It — it's mamma wouldn't like it," he 
 finally said; and just then, with rush and 
 sputter of hoofs, two officers came trotting 
 around the corner, threw themselves from 
 their saddles, pounced upon their com- 
 rade, and overwhelmed him with joyous 
 greeting. Another minute and others 
 arrived, and between them all he was led 
 away up the sti'eet. While some of the 
 children confidentl}' followed, two re- 
 mained behind: little Snow-drop, refusing 
 to be comforted, was applying tlie back 
 of her mittened hand to her weeping eyes, 
 and turning a deaf ear to her manful 
 brother, who was vainly striving to ex- 
 plain matters. 
 
 " Maudie Carleton's crying because Phil 
 wouldn't take the money and get lier some 
 goodies," said little Jack Wilkius, in an 
 opi^ortune pause. 
 
 " Whom did you say ?" asked Ransom, 
 turning suddenly, and looking inquiring- 
 ly at his friends. There was an instant 
 of embarrassment. Then one of the offi- 
 cers replied: 
 
 "Maud Carleton, Ransom. Those are 
 poor Phil Carleton's little ones." 
 
 "Wait for me at the office, fellows; 
 I'll be along in a minute," was the re- 
 sponse; and the Captain went striding 
 back to the Bald Eagle. 
 
 It was an old story in the cavalry. 
 Very few there were who knew not that 
 Captain Ransom was a hard -hit man 
 when Kate Perry — the beauty of her fa- 
 ther's regiment — came back from school, 
 and with all the wealth of her grace and 
 loveliness and winning ways, refusing to 
 see how she had impressed one or two 
 "solid"' men of the garrison, fell raptur- 
 
 ously in love with Philip Carleton, the 
 handsome, dashing scapegrace of the sub- 
 alterns. It was " hard lines" for old Col- 
 onel Perry; it would have been misery 
 to her devoted mother ; but she was spared 
 it all — the grass had been growing for 
 years over her distant grave. 
 
 The wedding was a glitter of gold-lace, 
 champagne glasses, and tears. Every 
 one wished her — and him — all happiness, 
 but dreaded the future. There was a year 
 of bliss, and little Phil was born ; another 
 year when she was much taken up with 
 her baby hoy, and the father much abroad— 
 a year of clouds and silence. Then came 
 sudden call to the field, and one night 
 with reeling senses she read the despatch 
 that told her he was shot dead in battle 
 with the Sioux. When little Maudie 
 came there was no father to receive her 
 in his arms. The gray-haired Colonel 
 took the widow and her children a few 
 short years to his own roof; then he, too, 
 was called to his account, and with a 
 widow's pension and the relic of her fa- 
 ther's savings the sorrowing woman 
 moved from the garrison that had so long 
 been her home, and took up arms against 
 her sea of troubles. She need not have 
 gone. All Fort Rains kncAV that there 
 were officers who would gladly have taken 
 her and her beautiful children to their fire- 
 side. But she was loyal, proud, high-spir- 
 ited, and she could not stay. All the roof 
 her father had to leave her was the frame 
 cottage at the ranch he had bought and 
 stocked, a mile below the fort. She was a 
 soldier's daughter, brave and resolute, she 
 had her father's old soldier-servant and 
 his wife to help her, and she moved to the 
 ranch, and declared she would be depend- 
 ent on no one. When first she had come 
 into that glorious valley, a girl of eigh- 
 teen, a large force of cavalry was en- 
 camped around the garrison in which her 
 father's regiment of foot was stationed, 
 and Captain Harold Ransom became one 
 of her most devoted admirers, though 
 nearly twice her age. Few men had 
 much chance against such a lover as Pliil 
 Carleton, buoyant, brilliant, gallant, the 
 pride of all the juniors in the infantry, 
 the despair of many a prudent mother, and 
 when that engagement was announced, 
 the cavalry were rather glad to be or- 
 dered away, and to comfort themselves 
 with the perilous distractions of Indian 
 fighting for three or four stirring years. 
 But, before they left, Ransom and others 
 
CAPTAIN SANTA GLAUS. 
 
 Ill 
 
 had bought much of the land on which 
 Argentopolis gleamed to-day. Perhaps 
 it was the silver that came into his hair 
 as well as his pockets, but silver did not 
 cause the lines that crept under his kind- 
 ly eyes and around the corners of the firm 
 mouth. He was rich, as army men go, 
 but his heart was soi'ely wrenched. He 
 went abroad when the Indian campaigns 
 were over, and rejoined while his com- 
 rades were on the Pacific coast, and be- 
 came the delight of the children and the 
 children's mothers. Captain Santa Claus 
 they called him at Walla Walla and Van- 
 couver, where he was the life of those 
 garrisons; and while men honored and 
 women waxed sentimental toward him, it 
 was the cliildren who took possession of 
 the tall soldier and made his house their 
 home, who trooped unbidden all over it 
 at any hour of the day, and made it the 
 garrison play-ground when the rainy sea- 
 son set in and di'ove them to cover. 
 
 And then, after their four years in the 
 Columbia country, the regiment crossed 
 the big I'ange, and, wonder of wonders, 
 head-quarters and six troops, one of them 
 Ransom's, were ordei'ed to Fort Rains! 
 He was again on long leave when the 
 cliange of station occurred, and the widow 
 drew a long breath. She found life very 
 different, with her father s old friends and 
 liers removed. As the children grew in 
 years their needs increased. She sold the 
 stock and much of the land of the ranch, 
 keeping only the homestead and the patch 
 ai'ound it, but she was glad to find em- 
 ployment at the fort as teacher of tlie pi- 
 ano and singing. She played well, but 
 her voice was glorious, and had been cai'e- 
 fully trained. The news that he was 
 coming had given her a shock. It was 
 more than eight years since she had seen 
 him. It was more than five since she had 
 briefly answered the letter he wrote her 
 on hearing of her husband's death. It 
 was so manl3'', sym]3athetic, and so full of 
 something he knew not how to expi'ess — 
 a longing to shield her from want or care. 
 She had gently but firmly ended it all. 
 
 And yet — She was bitterly poor now. 
 Handsomer than ever, said tlie olficers who 
 knew her in the old days; still wearing 
 her mourning, and looking so tall and ma- 
 jestic in her rusting weeds. She was a 
 woman whose form and carriage would 
 be noticeable anywhere — tall, slender, 
 graceful, with a certain slow, languorous 
 ease of motion that charmed the senses. 
 
 Her face was exquisite in contour and 
 feature— a pure type of blond, blue-eyed, 
 Saxon beauty, with great masses of shim- 
 mering golden brown hair. No wonder 
 Ransom felt a thrill when he looked into 
 Maudie's eyes: the child was her mother 
 in miniature. At twenty-seven, with all 
 her trials, Mrs. Carleton was a lovelier 
 woman than in her maiden radiance at 
 eighteen. What she had gained in strength 
 and character, through her years of pov- 
 erty and self-abnegation, God alone knew, 
 and He had been her comfoi'ter. 
 
 For nearly a year the gari'ison children 
 had been going in to town for school, an 
 excellent teacher having been secured in 
 the East, and Mrs. Carleton eagerly em- 
 braced the chance of sending hers. She 
 could no longer afford a nurse to look 
 after the wee one. She could not take 
 her on her daily round of lessons, and 
 her infantry friends had gladly seen to it 
 that the little Cai'letons were carried to 
 and fro with their own. So, too, when 
 the cavalry came had Colonel Cross as- 
 sui*ed her that the ambulance should al- 
 ways come for them and bring them back 
 to the post. Everybody wanted to be 
 kind to her, or said so at least; but the 
 ladies were all new and strange. She 
 had never been the pet among them she 
 was in her own regiment. They had not 
 known and loved her father, as had the 
 Colonel. They had heard of handsome 
 Phil Carleton, as who had not? but they 
 had heard of Hal Ransom's old-time de- 
 votion to her, and now he would soon be 
 back. Rich, growing gray, everybody's 
 friend, the children's idol — oh! what if 
 she should set that widow's cap for him 
 now ! Tlie possibility was appalling. 
 
 And Christmas was coming, and the 
 cliildren had been weaving glowing pic- 
 tures of the bliss to be theirs because Cap- 
 tain Santa Claus was homeward bound, 
 and little Maud was listening with eager 
 ears, and her blue-eyed brother in silent 
 longing. The boy was his mother's knight 
 and champion. She took him into her 
 confidence and told him many of her 
 troubles, and time and again after Maudie 
 was asleep the two were rocking in the 
 big ai'm-chair in front of the hearth, the 
 little fellow curled up in her lap, his 
 arms around her neck, his ruddy cheek 
 nestled against hers, that looked so fragile 
 and white by contrast. He knew how 
 hard a struggle mamma was having in 
 keeping the wolf from the door, and he 
 
112 
 
 HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 was lielping her — little hero that he was 
 -—wearing uncomplainingly the patched 
 knickerbockers and cowhide boots, bearing 
 in soldier silence the thoughtless jeers of 
 his school-mates, and taking comfort in 
 the fact that sensitive little Maud was 
 always prettily dressed. She had been 
 petted from babyhood, for scarlet-fever 
 had left her weak and nervous. 
 
 And so the coming of glad Christ- 
 mas-tide was not to them the source of 
 boundless joy it seemed to others. For 
 days Maud had been coming home from 
 school full of childish prattle about the 
 lovely things the other girls were going to 
 have. Couldn't she have a real wax doll, 
 with "truly" eyes and hair, that could 
 sing and say mamma; and a doll house, 
 with kitchen, and a real pump and stove 
 in it, and dining-room and parlor, and lots 
 of lovely bedrooms upstairs; and a doll 
 carriage like Mabel Vane's, with blue 
 cushions, and white Avheels and body, and 
 umbrella toj) ? She was tired of her old 
 dollies and her broken wagon. Why 
 didn't people ever give her such beautiful 
 things ? If she was very good, and wrote 
 to Santa Claus, wouldn't he bring her 
 what she wanted so very, very much ? 
 Poor Mrs. Carleton ! Do our hearts ever 
 ache over our own troubles as they do 
 over the longings of our little ones ? She 
 promised Maud that Santa Claus should 
 bring the very things she craved, and now 
 she knew not how to fulfil her pledge. 
 Commissary and butcher bills were still 
 unpaid, and she so hated to ask even for 
 what was due her! It is such an old, 
 homely, heart-worn story — that of Christ- 
 mas yearnings that must be unfulfilled! 
 We lay down our cherished plans with 
 a sigh of resignation, but when baby eyes 
 and baby lips are pleading, God forgive 
 us if we are not so humbly patient, if we 
 accejit our burden not without a murmur, 
 or yield not without a struggle! 
 
 She had other sore perplexities. She 
 well knew she must meet Hal Ransom. 
 Two days had elapsed since Phil had told 
 her of the reception accorded him, and 
 Maud had preferred her complaint against 
 her brother for being so mean to her in not 
 taking the money and giving her a treat. 
 
 Heaven! how the widowed soul hugged 
 her boy to her bosom that night, and kiss- 
 ed and blessed and cried over him ! Come 
 what might, he should liave a Christmas 
 worth remembering, for his remembrance 
 of her! She had long planned to send to 
 
 Chicago for a handsome suit to replace the 
 worn and outgrown knickerbockers. It 
 would have crushed her to think of her 
 boy's taking money from him, of all peo- 
 ple, no matter what the Forties did. Then 
 came the question as to how she would 
 meet him. Go to the fort she had to ev- 
 ery day, and meet they must. It was not 
 that he would be obtrusive; he was too 
 thorough a gentleman for that, and her 
 last letter to him was such that he could 
 not be. It was written in the ecstasy of 
 her bereavement, when she was liiding 
 even from herself the faults and neglects 
 of the buried Philip to Avhom she had 
 given her girlish love. With lofty spirit 
 she had told him she lived only to teach 
 her children to revere their father's mem- 
 ory, and that she could never think of ac- 
 cepting aid from any one, though she 
 thanked liim for the delicacy and thought- 
 fulness of his well-meant offer. She had 
 asked herself many a time in the last year 
 whether, if it were to be done again, she 
 could find it in her heart to be quite so 
 cold and repellent. She wondered if he 
 had ever heard that the last year of her 
 handsome Philip's life had been devoted 
 more to other women than to her. She 
 could not tolerate the idea that he, above 
 all, should suppose that between Philip 
 and herself all had not been blissful, and 
 that she had been neglected not a little. 
 And yet — and yet was she unlike other 
 women that just now her toilet received 
 rather more thought than usual, and that 
 she wondered would he find her faded — 
 changed ? 
 
 They met, as men and women whose 
 hearts hold weightier secrets must meet, 
 with the ease and cordiality Avhich their 
 breeding demands. Scene there Avas none ; 
 but she saw, and saw instanth^ what she 
 had vainly striven to teach herself she was 
 utterly indifferent to, that in his eyes she 
 was no more faded than his love in hers. 
 She could have scourged herself for the 
 thrill of life and youth it gave her. 
 
 That night little Philip was hugged 
 closer than ever. He had been telling 
 her how the Captain was moving into his 
 new quarters, and the children trooped 
 over there the moment they got back from 
 school, and would not ask them, because 
 they were infantry, and Maud cried, and 
 the Captain himself came out and took 
 her in his arms and carried her, and made 
 him come too, and they all had nuts and 
 raisins and apples, and the Captain was 
 
CAPTAIN SANTA GLAUS. 
 
 113 
 
 just as kind to them as though they were 
 cavalry — "more too, for he kept Maudie 
 on his knee most of the time, and wanted 
 us to stay, but we had to go and meet 
 mamma. And he said that was what made 
 him proud of me from the first, because I 
 was so true to you, mamma," said Phil. 
 "I suppose because 1 wouldn't take his 
 half-dollar." 
 
 She was silent a moment, pressing her 
 lips to his cheek, and striving hard to sub- 
 due the tears that rose to her eyes. She 
 had something to ask of her boy that was 
 hard, very hard. Yet it had to be done. 
 
 "You were right, Philip. It would have 
 hurt mamma more than words can tell 
 had you taken money from — from any 
 one. We are very poor, but we can be 
 rich in one thing — independence. Mamma 
 has not had much luck this year. It seem- 
 ed all to go with papa's old regiment. But 
 we'll be brave and patient, you and mam- 
 ma, and say nothing to anybody about 
 our troubles. We'll pay what we owe as 
 we go along. Won't we, Phil ?" 
 
 "I wish I could help some way, mam- 
 ma." 
 
 "You can, my soldier boy." 
 
 He looked up quickly and patted her 
 cheek; then threw his arm around her 
 neck again. Something told him what it 
 would have to be. 
 
 " Maudie is a baby who cannot realize 
 our position. Philip is my brave little 
 knight and helper. It — it is so hard for 
 mamma to say it, my boy, but if we buy 
 what she so longs for at Christmas, there 
 will be nothing left for the skates, and I 
 know how you want them, and how many 
 other things you ought to have. You 
 have helped mother so often, Phil. Can 
 you help her once more ?" 
 
 For all answer he only clung to her 
 the closer. 
 
 And now holiday week was near at 
 hand. It was Friday, and school would 
 close that afternoon, and for two blessed, 
 blissful w^eks there would be no session 
 at all. Cln'istmas Day would come on 
 Tuesday, and the Forties were running 
 riot in the realms of anticipation. Tliey 
 hugged each other and danced about the 
 street when the express agent told them 
 of the packages that were coming almost 
 every day for Captain Eansom, and the 
 little Townies, who were wont to protest 
 they were glad their papas weren't in the 
 army, were beginning to show traitorous 
 .signs of weakening. It was a sore test, 
 
 if every regiment had its own Santa Claus, 
 as the Forties said. 
 
 And older heads were noting that for 
 some time Captain Ran.som drove not so 
 much townw^ard, up the valley as down ; 
 and that there was a well-defined sleigh 
 track from the lower gate over to "the 
 ranch." OlRcers coming up from the 
 stables were quick to note the new fea- 
 ture in the wintry landscape, and to make 
 quizzical comment thereon. Then, on 
 Sunday, the third in Advent, a heavy 
 snow-storm came up during the morning 
 service, and the wind blew a "blizzard." 
 It was only a few weeks after the Cap- 
 tain's arrival, but his handsome roans 
 were well known in the valley already, 
 and the ladies looked at each other and 
 nodded significantly as they saw the team 
 drawn up near the chapel door when the 
 congregation came shuddei'ing out into 
 the cold. Mrs. Colonel Cross, who had 
 a charming young sister visiting her for 
 the holidays, and Mrs. Yane, whose cous- 
 in Pansy had come over from her bro- 
 ther's station at Fort Whittlesey, had both 
 offered Ransom seats in their pews until 
 he chose his own; but he had chosen his 
 own very promptly, and it was well down 
 the aisle opposite that to which Mrs.Cai-le- 
 ton had humbly retired after her fathers 
 death. As a consequence the higher fam- 
 ilies reached the door only in time to see 
 the Captain bundling the widow and her 
 little ones in his costly robes, and driving 
 away through the whirling storm. 
 
 That night the wind died away; the 
 snow fell heavily, and all the next day 
 it lay in silent, unruffled, unfurro^■C'ed 
 beauty over the broad level below the 
 fort, and though the Captain's sleigh went 
 townward toward evening, and the butch- 
 er's " bob" tore an ugly groove along the 
 lower edge, there was now no trail other 
 than the foot-path alongthe willow-fringed 
 river-bank joining the garrison with the 
 widow's gate. When Friday came, and 
 the plain was still unfurrowed, Foi*t Rains 
 was unanimous in its conclusion: Cap- 
 tain Ransom had offered himself again, 
 and been rejected. 
 
 The households of Vane and Potts, and 
 the ladies at least at the Colonel's, breathed 
 freer. Captain Ransom was invited to 
 Christmas dinner at all three places, and 
 begged to be excused. He explained 
 that he purposed having all the children 
 at his house from eight to ten for gen- 
 eral frolic that evening: and would not 
 
114 
 
 HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 the ladies come over and see the fun ? 
 Mrs. Vane and "Pansy" were for chan- 
 ging- their dinner hour to five o'clock, if 
 thereby the Captain could be secured, and 
 "Vane "sounded" him, but without the 
 hoped-for result. He would have to be 
 at home, he said. Mrs. Carleton was nar- 
 rowly watched. Women who had been 
 disposed to treat her coldly could have 
 hugged her now, if they could be sure she 
 had really refused the best catch in the 
 cavalry, and left a chance for some one 
 else. But Mrs. Carleton gave no sign, 
 and she was a woman they dared not 
 question. What staggered the theory 
 of renewed offer and rejection was the 
 warmth and cordiality of manner with 
 which they met in public — and they met 
 almost daily. There was something that 
 seemed to shatter the idea of rejection in 
 the very smile she gave him, and in the 
 reverence of his manner towai'd her. Es- 
 trangement there certainly was none, and 
 yet he had been going over to the ranch 
 every day, and his visits had suddenly 
 ceased. Why? They scanned his face 
 for indications; but, as Mrs. Vane put it, 
 "he always was an cxasjierating crea- 
 ture; you could no more read him than 
 you could a mummy." 
 
 Monday before Christmas had come, 
 and Colonel Cross, trudging home from 
 his office about noon, caught sight of the 
 tall and graceful figure of Mrs. Carleton 
 coming toward him along the Avalk. He 
 was about to hail her in his cheery style, 
 when he saw that her head was bowed, 
 and that she was in evident distress. Even 
 while he was wondering how to accost 
 her, she put him out of doubt. Her lips 
 were twitching and her cheeks were flusli- 
 ed; tears were starting in her eyes, but 
 she strove hard to command herself and 
 speak calmly. 
 
 "You were so kind as to order the 
 ' special' for me this morning. Colonel, but 
 I shall not need it: I cannot go to town." 
 
 He knew well that something had gone 
 wrong. Blunt, rugged old trooper that 
 he was, he had been her father's intimate 
 in their cadet days, and he wanted to be- 
 friend her. More than a little he sus- 
 pected that hers was not a jiath of roses 
 among the ladies at Rains. In his pre- 
 sence they were on guard over their 
 tongues, but he had not been command- 
 ing officer of several garrisons for no- 
 thing. 
 
 " Mrs. Carleton," he impetuously spoke, 
 
 "something's amiss. Can't you tell an 
 old fellow like me, and let me — ah — settle 
 things ? Surely it is something I can do." 
 
 She thanked him warmly. It was no- 
 thing in which he could be of service, she 
 declared, trying hard to smile: she was a 
 little upset and could not go to town. But 
 he saw she had just come from Mrs. Vane's, 
 and he knew that estimable and virtuous 
 woman thoroughly, and drew his conclu- 
 sions. Whatever was wrong, it was not 
 unconnected with her monitions or min- 
 istrations — of that he was confident. As 
 for Mrs. Carleton, she turned quickly from 
 the fort and took her lonely, winding way 
 among the willows to her valley home, a 
 heart-sick woman. 
 
 Counting her ways and means, she had 
 found that to pay for the items she had 
 promised Maud and had ordered for her 
 boy — the latter being the suit sent " C. 0. 
 D." from Chicago — she would have to ask 
 a favor of her patrons at the fort. She 
 had arranged with the propi'ietor of the 
 big variety store in town that he should 
 set aside for her a certain beautiful doll 
 and one of the prettiest of the doll car- 
 riages, and that she would come and get 
 them on this very afternoon. To meet 
 her bills and these expenses, and that 
 there might be no disappointment, she 
 had addressed to the jiarents of her few 
 pupils a modest little note, enclosing her 
 bill, and asking as a kindness to her that 
 it might be paid by Saturday, the 22d. 
 Courteous and prompt response had 
 come from all but two, and with the 
 money thus obtained she had settled her 
 little household accounts. Mrs. Vane and 
 Mrs. Potts, however, had vouchsafed no 
 reply, and it was to the mothers, not the 
 fathers, her notes had been addressed. 
 On Monday morning, therefore, when she 
 went to give Miss Adele her lesson, slie 
 ventured to ask for Mrs. Potts, and Mrs. 
 Potts was out — spending the day at Mrs. 
 Vane's. So thither she went, and with 
 flushing cheeks and deep embarrassment 
 inquired if the ladies had received her 
 notes. Mrs. Potts had, and was over- 
 come, she said, with dismay. She had to- 
 tally forgotten, and thouglit it w^as next 
 Saturday she meant; and now the Cap- 
 tain had gone to town, and there was no 
 way she could get at him. Then came 
 Mrs. Vane's turn. Mrs. Vane, too, had re- 
 ceived her note, but she was not overcome. 
 With much majesty of mien she told the 
 widow that she always paid her bills on 
 
CAPTAIN SANTA CLAUS. 
 
 lit 
 
 the last day of the quarter, and that her 
 husband was so punctilious about it and 
 so methodical that she never asked him 
 to depart from the rule. Mrs. Carleton 
 strove hard to keep down her pride and 
 the surg'ing impulse to cry out against 
 such heartless superiority of manner and 
 management. There "was a tinge of re- 
 proach in the plea she forced herself to 
 make for her babies' sake. "You know 
 there are no more lessons this term, Mrs. 
 Vane; my work is done; and I — so needed 
 it for Christmas, or I would not have ask- 
 ed." And she smiled x^iteously through 
 the starting tears. Mrs. Vane was sorry 
 — very sorry. She could hardly ask her 
 husband to depart from his life-long prac- 
 tice, even if he were here — and he, too, 
 had gone to town. 
 
 Yes, everybody seemed to have gone 
 or sent to town for Christmas shopping. 
 Her little ones were alone in having no 
 one to buy for them. Harold Ransom 
 too was going, for she saw the handsome 
 roans come dashing up the drive, as she 
 rose, with a burning sense of indignity, to 
 take her leave. She came upon Miss 
 Pansy in the hallway, all hooded and 
 furred, and beaming with bliss at the pros- 
 pect of a sleigh-ride to town — behind the 
 roans, no doubt. Never mind that now. 
 Her heart was full of only one thought— 
 her babies. Where were now her long- 
 cherished schemes? All Fort Rains was 
 blitheand jubilant over the coming festivi- 
 ties ; Maud was wild with anticipation ; and 
 she alone — she alone, who had worked so 
 hard and faithfully that her children 
 might find joy in their Christmas awak- 
 ing — she alone had seen her hopes turn to 
 ashes. In her pride and her vehement de- 
 termination to be "beholden" to no one, 
 she would seek no help in her trouble. 
 She went home, asking only to be alone, 
 thankful that the children were spending 
 the day with friends in the garrison, and 
 could not be there to see the misery in her 
 eyes. 
 
 Full an hour she gave to her uncon- 
 trollable grief, locked in her room, sob- 
 bing in utter i^rostration. Her eyes were 
 still red and swollen ; she was weak, trem- 
 bling, exhausted, when the sudden sound 
 of hoof-beats roused her. The blood flew 
 to her cheeks. Despite her prohibition, 
 then, he was here. He had come again, 
 and something told her he had fathomed 
 her trouble, and would not be denied. 
 She heard the quick, firm tread upon the 
 
 steps, the imperative rat -tat -tat of the 
 whip-handle on the door. She could have 
 called to her faitliful slave Mrs. Malloy, 
 the "striker's" wife, who had known her 
 from babyhood, and bidden her tell the 
 Captain she must be excused, but it was 
 too late. Bridget Malloy had seen her 
 face when she came home; had vainly 
 striven to enter her room and share her 
 sorrow ; had slu'ewdh^ suspected the cause 
 of the trouble, and through the key-hole 
 had poured forth voluble Hibernian fealty 
 and proffers of every blessed cent of her 
 savings, but only to be implored to go 
 away and let her have her cry in peace. 
 Even had Mrs. Carleton ordered her to 
 deny her to the visitor, it is probable that 
 Mrs. Malloy would have obeyed — her own 
 instinct^. 
 
 "Sure it's glad I am to see the Cap- 
 tain!" was her prompt greeting; "and it 
 was a black day that ever let ye go from 
 her. Come right in, an' I'll call her to ye. 
 It's all broke up she is." 
 
 And so she had to come. Tbere he 
 stood in the little sanctuary where Philip 
 in photographed beauty beamed down 
 upon her from over the mantel, and Phil- 
 ip's I'usting sword hung like that of Dam- 
 ocles by the fragile thread of sentiment 
 that bound her to the past. There he stood 
 with such a world of tenderness, yearning, 
 sympathj^ and suppressed and passionate 
 love in his dark eyes! She came in, al- 
 most backward, striving to hide her swol- 
 len and disfigured face. He never strove 
 to approach her. With one hand on the 
 mantel, he stood gazing sorrowfully at 
 her. With one hand on the door-knob, 
 with averted face, she silently awaited his 
 words. 
 
 " I have disobeyed you, Kate, though I 
 left my sleigh and caiTie on Roscoe. I 
 have tried to accept what you said eight 
 days ago, but no man on earth who has 
 heard what I have heard to-day could 
 obey you longer. No. Listen !" he urged, 
 as she half turned, with silencing gesture. 
 "I'm not here to plead for myself, but — 
 my heart is breaking to see you suffering, 
 and to think of your being subjected to 
 such an outrage as that of this morning. 
 Of course I heard of it. I made them tell 
 me. The Colonel had seen your distress, 
 and told me you had abandoned the trip 
 to town. I found out the rest. Yes, Mrs. 
 Carleton, if you so choose to term it" (for 
 she had tui-ned with indignant query in 
 her eyes), " I pried into your affairs. Do 
 
116 
 
 HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 you tliink I can beai' this, to know you 
 are in want — for want it must be, or you'd 
 never have stooped to ask that vulgar, 
 purse-proud, patronizing woman for mon- 
 ey ? Do you think I can live here and see 
 you subjected to this? By Heaven! If 
 nothing else will move you, in Philip's 
 name, in your children's name, let me lift 
 this burden from you. Send me across 
 the continent if you like. I'll promise to 
 worry you no more, if that will buy your 
 trust. I've lived and borne my lot these 
 eight or nine long years, and can bear it 
 longer if need be. What I can't bear, 
 and won't bear, is your suffering from act- 
 ual poverty. Kate Carleton, won't you 
 trust me ?" 
 
 "How can I be your debtor. Captain 
 Ransom ? Ask yourself — ask any one — 
 what would be said of me if I took one 
 cent from you! I do thank you. I am 
 grateful for all you have done and would 
 do. Oh, it is not that I do not bless you 
 every day and night for being so thought- 
 ful for me, so good to my little ones ! It 
 wasn't for myself I was so broken to-day ; 
 it was for my — my babies. Oh, I — I can- 
 not tell you !" 
 
 And now she broke down utterly, weep- 
 iiig hysterically, uncontrollably. In the 
 abandonment of her grief she threw her 
 arms upon the wooden casing of the door- 
 way, and bowed her head upon them. 
 One instant he stood there, his hands 
 fiercely clinching, his broad chest heav- 
 ing, his bronzed, honest, earnest face 
 working with his weight of emotion, and 
 then, with uncontrollable impulse, with 
 one bound he leaped to her side, seized 
 her slender form in his arms, and clasped 
 her to his breast. In vain she struggled; 
 in vain her startled eyes, filled with reso- 
 lute loyalty to the old faith, blazed at him 
 through their mist of tears: he held her 
 close, as once again, despite her struggles 
 and her forbidding words, he poured forth 
 his plea. 
 
 "You can take it, you must take it. 
 For your own sake, for your children's 
 sake — even for his! — give me the right to 
 protect and cherish you. I — I don't ask 
 your love. Ah, Kate, be merciful!" and 
 then — fatal inspiration! — but the face he 
 loved was so — so near ; he never would 
 have done it had he thought: it was only 
 as utterly unconquerable an impulse as 
 his wild embrace ; his lips were so tremu- 
 lous with entreaty, with love, sympathy, 
 pleading, pity, passion, everything that 
 
 impelled and nothing that restrained, that 
 with sudden sweep they fell upon her 
 flushed and tear- wet cheek, and ere he 
 knew it lie had kissed her. 
 
 There w^as no mistaking the wrath in 
 her eyes now. She was free in an in- 
 stant, and bidding him begone. He begged 
 hard for pardon, but to no purpose. She 
 would listen to nothing. Go he must — 
 his presence was insult. And he left her 
 panting with indignation, a vengeance- 
 hurling goddess, a wild-eyed Juno, while 
 he at full gallop went tearing thi'ough 
 the snow-drifts, recklessly, dolefully, yet 
 determinedly, back to the post. In half 
 an hour he was whipping to town. 
 
 When sunset came, and the evening 
 gun awakened the echoes of the snow- 
 shrouded valley, and the red disk went 
 down behind the crested bluffs far up the 
 stream, a sleigh came out from the fort, 
 and Captain Vane, with curious mixture 
 of cordiality and embai'rassment, restored 
 Phil and Maud to the maternal roof, and 
 begged to hand her the amount due from 
 him and from Captain Potts for family 
 tuition. He had only heard a — accident- 
 ally — a few minutes before, of her re- 
 quest. And wasn't there something else 
 he could do ? Would she not go to town 
 with him to - morrow moi*ning ? She 
 thanked him. She hardly knew what to 
 do. Here was the money at last, but it 
 was Christmas Eve now, and there was 
 no time to be lost, and town lay full six 
 miles away. Perhaps she wished a mes- 
 senger now, suggested the Captain — he 
 would send in a mounted man gladly. 
 Knowing no other way to secure her trea- 
 sures for her little ones, she breathlessly 
 accepted his offer, briefly explained the 
 situation, and told him how she longed to 
 have the presents there, with the trifles 
 she had made for them, to greet their eyes 
 with the coming day. The messenger 
 could go to the store and get the coveted 
 doll and carriage ; there would surely be 
 sleighs from the fort that would, bring 
 them out for him, and he would find the 
 box from Chicago at the express office, 
 and could pay the charges and sign the 
 receipt on her written order to the agent. 
 It was arranged in a moment, and with 
 I'eviving hope she gave the children their 
 tea and sti-ove to get them early to bed. 
 
 Ten o'clock came. The little ones were 
 at last asleep. She had filled the stock- 
 ings with such inexpensive but loving re- 
 membrances as she could afford, and had 
 
CAPTAIN SANTA CLAUS. 
 
 117 
 
 ONE MOMENT MORE AND HER BIGGEST LANTERN SWUNG GLOWING IN THE WINDOW. 
 
 tottered dangerously near the brink of an- 
 other flood of tears, when Malloy and his 
 wife came in, the one with a box of tools 
 for Phil, the other with a set of china for 
 tlie doll house. She had finally bidden 
 those faithful friends good-night, and hav- 
 ing arranged the few gifts she had for the 
 children, she threw over her shoulders a 
 lieavy shawl, and went to the gate to lis- 
 ten for the messenger's return. 
 
 It was a perfect night — clear, still, and 
 sparkling. The moon shone brightly upon 
 the glistening mantle of snow, and tinged 
 with silver the pine crests across the 
 
 Vol. LXXVI.— No. 451.— 9 
 
 stream. Westward, on a little rise, were 
 the twinkling lights of the fort. Far be- 
 yond, far up the narrowing valley, other 
 lights, dim and distant, marked the posi- 
 tion of the town. She could hear the 
 faint, muffled sound of shots with which 
 the benighted but jubilant frontiersmen 
 were hailing the coming of the sacred an- 
 niversary, like some midwinter Fourth of 
 July, with exuberant and explosive hilar- 
 ity. Then, nearer at hand, soft, sweet, 
 and solemn, there floated out over the 
 valley the prolonged notes of the cavalry 
 trumpet sounding the signal "Lights 
 
118 
 
 HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 out," the " good-niglif' of the garrison. 
 Then all the broad windows of the bar- 
 racks -were shrouded in sudden gloom; 
 only in the quarters of the officers, on the 
 opposite side of the parade, were the lights 
 still twinkling. In one of them, nearest 
 the gate, high up aloft, and close under 
 the gables, there gleamed a brighter light 
 than all the others. Even in the chilly 
 air she felt the flush of blood to her cheeks. 
 That was Ransom's house. She well knew 
 he had chosen it, farthest from the quar- 
 ters and stables of his troop, sim^^ly be- 
 cause it was at the end of the row, over- 
 looking the valley, and nearest her. Two 
 weeks since he had said to her that he 
 could not rid himself of the thought of 
 her isolation. Though off the beaten 
 ti-ack a full three-quarter mile, and with- 
 in long carbine range of the sentries, she 
 was still far away, almost unprotected. 
 Though Indians were no longer to be 
 feared, there were such things as tramps 
 and blackguards in the settlements. She 
 laughed at his fears. She had lived thei'e 
 three years, and never heard a sound at 
 night other than the occasional howl of 
 a coyote and the distant watch-cry of the 
 sentries. She had brave old Malloy with 
 his gun, and Bridget with her tongue and 
 nails ; she had Philip's sword, her own 
 brave spirit, and her boy: what had she 
 to fear ? 
 
 All the same, struggle against it though 
 she would, it was sweet to hear his anx- 
 ious questioning. Even if unmolested by 
 marauders, something might go wrong — 
 Maudie have croup, a kerosene lamp 
 burst. She might need help. Who 
 knew? "I shall put a bright lamp and 
 reflector in the little round gari'et window 
 every night as soon as I get home," he 
 said, "and should you ever be in danger 
 or need, throw a red handkerchief over 
 your biggest lantern, and show it at the 
 top window. If the sentries don't see it 
 at once, fire Malloy's gun." She prom- 
 ised, laughingly, though repudiating the 
 possibility. She had told hex'self that 
 Philip's spirit was all the protection she 
 needed; but the night landscape of the 
 valley, the night lights at the fort, had 
 acquired of late an interest they never 
 knew before. She would have scourged 
 herself had she believed, she would have 
 stormed at any one who suggested, that 
 she went to look for his light; but if ever 
 it failed to be thei^e, at ten or eleven or 
 later, she knew it. Whatever might be 
 
 his evening occupation at the fort — a din- 
 ner, a card party, officers' school, "non- 
 coms.'" recitation — it was his habit on 
 reaching home to go at once to the garret 
 and post his sentinel light. What would 
 he not have given I'or an answering 
 signal ? 
 
 And there was the light now. He was 
 home, then, and despite her anger and 
 his banisliment, he was faithful. Clu-ist- 
 mas Eve, and only ten, and he was home 
 and watching over her. She was still 
 quivering with wrath at him for that rav- 
 ished kiss — at least she told herself she 
 was, and had told him a great deal more. 
 Was it quite fair to drive him from her 
 home, as slie had, when Phil was so fond 
 of him and Maudie loved him so, and he 
 was so devoted to them ? What could 
 he be doing at home so early ? There 
 was a party at the Adjutant's, she knew. 
 She had been obliged to decline. She 
 had three invitations for Christmas din- 
 ners, and had said no to all, grateftilly. 
 There wei'e many who wanted to be kind 
 to her, but she had only one dress she 
 considered fit to wear, so too had little 
 Maud, and as for her brave boy Phil, he 
 had nothing — unless the suit from Chi- 
 cago came in time. Without that he could 
 not go to the Captain's Christmas tree. 
 Why did not the messenger return ? She 
 was becoming feverishly anxious. 
 
 It Avas too cold to remain out-of-doors. 
 She re-entered, and paced fitfully up and 
 down her little parlor. She went in and 
 bent over her sleeping children, and re- 
 ari-anged the coverlets with the noiseless 
 touch of the mother's hand; she leaned 
 over and kissed them softly, and now that 
 her surcharged nature had had free vent, 
 and the skies were cleared by the morn- 
 ing's storm, she felt far gentler, happier. 
 Her cry had done her good. Her hope- 
 fulness was returning — but not the mes- 
 senger. What coitZd detain him ? Where 
 could he be ? It was eleven, and long af- 
 ter, when at last she sighted a shadowy 
 hoi'seman loping across the moonlit plain, 
 and slowly he dismounted at her gate and 
 came to her — empty-handed. He was a 
 soldier of Vane's troop, and his tale was 
 doleful. He had been set upon in a sa- 
 loon, robbed, and beaten. The money 
 Avas gone, he had brought back nothing 
 but bruises. As consolation he imparted 
 the fact that 'twas too late to get the doll 
 and carriage. The last ones had been 
 sold that evening, as she had not come to 
 
CAPTAIN SANTA GLAUS. 
 
 119 
 
 claim them. Then he had stepped iu to 
 take a drink, because he was cold, and 
 then the catastrophe had occurred. True 
 or false as might be the stoi-y, there was no 
 doubt of the veracity of that portion which 
 referred to the driuk. Conscious that it 
 was too late to do anything- at this hour, 
 she simply dismissed him, bidding him go 
 at once to the post, barred and locked her 
 door, and sat down, stunned and heai't- 
 sick. This, then, was the joyous Christ- 
 mas for which she had worked so long 
 and hard I She raised her arms in one 
 last appeal to Heaven ; then threw herself 
 upon her knees beside her little ones, and 
 buried her face in her quivering hands. 
 What Avould their early waking bring to 
 them now but disappointment ? For half 
 an hour she knelt there helpless, stunned. 
 Then lifted her head — startled. 
 
 Somebody was fumbling at the storm- 
 door. With her heart in her throat, she 
 listened, incredulous, fearful, then con- 
 vinced. The boards creaked and snapped 
 beneath a heavy, stealthy tread. She 
 heard beyond doubt a muttered question, 
 a reply. There were two of them, then I 
 All was darlvness in her pai-lor now, only 
 the light burned in the children's room. 
 Her heart bounded, but she stole, despite 
 trembling knees, noiselessly, into the par- 
 lor, stooped, and peered through the slats, 
 and, sure as fate, two men, burly, muffled 
 so that they were unrecognizable, were 
 bending down at the storm-house in front 
 of her parlor door. Quickly .she rose, scur- 
 ried through the parlor, up the stairs to 
 the room above the kitchen, where she 
 rapped heavily at the door. "MalloyI 
 Malloy!" she cried. No answer but a 
 snore and heavy breathing. She rattled 
 the knob and called again. This time 
 with success. 
 
 "Who is't ?" was the startled chal- 
 lenge. 
 
 "It is I— Mrs. Carleton! Quick, Mal- 
 loy ! Two men are trying to break in at 
 the front door." 
 
 She heai'd the bound with which the 
 old soldier leaped to the floor. She ran 
 into the front room. One quick glaiice 
 showed her Ransom's signal-light blazing 
 across the mile of snow. One moment 
 more, and muffled in red silk, her biggest 
 lantern swung glowing in the window. 
 Then down the stairs she hurried to her 
 children, just as Malloy, with his carbine, 
 and Bridget, with a six-shooter, swept gal- 
 lantly into action. She heard his fierce 
 
 summons, " Who shtands there V and lis- 
 tened breathlessly. No i-esponse. ' ' Who's 
 dhere, I say V Dead silence. Not even 
 scurrying footsteps. She crept to the win- 
 dow and peered out. No one near. She 
 raised the sash, threw open a shutter, and 
 gazed abroad. The little piazza was de- 
 serted, unless both were hiding inside the 
 storm-house. No! See! Over among the 
 willows by the stream there are shadowy 
 figures and a sleigh. 
 
 "They've gone, Malloy! They are up 
 the river-bank with a sleigh !"' she called. 
 And then she heard him furiously un- 
 barring the parlor door preparatory to 
 a rush. She heard it swing open, an 
 impetuous sally, a collision, a crash, the 
 clatter of a dropped cax'bine against the 
 resounding wood-work, a complication of 
 anathemas and objurgations from the dark 
 interior, and then a dialogue in choice 
 Hibernian. 
 
 "Are ye hurted, Terence ?" 
 
 "I am. Bad scran to the blagyai'ds 
 that left their thrunk behind 'em !" 
 
 Trunk ! what trunk ? She bore a light 
 into the pai'lor, and revealed Malloy, with 
 rueful visage, doubled up over a big wood- 
 en box planted squarely in the doorway. 
 Robbers, indeed! Mrs. Bridget whisked 
 him out of the way, ran and closed the 
 children's door, and in another moment 
 had lugged the big box into the parlor, 
 and wrenched away the top. The two 
 women were on their knees befoi'e it in 
 an instant. 
 
 First they dragged forth a great flat pa- 
 per box, damp and cool and moist, and 
 this the widow opened tremblingly. A 
 flat layer of white cotton, dry; then pa- 
 per; a flat layer of white cotton, moist; 
 and then, peep! Upon the fresh, green 
 coils of smilax, rich with fragrance, 
 sweet, moist, dewy, exquisite, lay store 
 upon store of the choicest flowers— rose 
 buds and rose blossoms in cream and yel- 
 low and pink and crimson, carnations in 
 white and red, heliotrope and hyacinth, 
 and fairest pansies, and modest little vio- 
 lets, and gorgeous tulips, even great callas 
 — the first flowers she had seen in years. 
 Oh, Captain Santa Claus! who taught 
 you Christmas wooing ! Where learned 
 you such art as this ? Beneath the box 
 was yet another, bearing the stamp of the 
 great Chicago firm, sealed, corded, just as 
 he had got it from the agent that evening 
 —Phil's longed-for suit. She hugged it 
 Avith delight, while tears started to her 
 
120 
 
 HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 dancing eyes. How good he was ! How 
 thoughtful for her and for lier little ones ! 
 There, beneath, was the very wliite doll car- 
 riage, blue lining, umbrella top, and all, 
 wherein reposed a wondrous wax doll, the 
 like of which Maud had never dreamed. 
 There was a tin kitchen with innumerable 
 appendages. There was a glistening pair 
 of club skates of finest steel and latest 
 patent, the very thing tliat Phil so longed 
 for, and had so lovingly resigned. There 
 were fur cap and gloves and boots for him, 
 and such an elegant shawl for Mrs. Mal- 
 loy! He could send them all he chose, 
 and no offence. But to her— on her he 
 could lavish only flowers. 
 
 And then her Irish allies returned to 
 their slumbers, and left her to the rapture 
 of arranging the new presents and tlie 
 contemplation of her flowers ; and she 
 was hugging the big pasteboard box and 
 gloating over her treasures wlien there 
 was sudden noise without, a rush up the 
 steps, and before she could droj) her pos- 
 sessions the door flew open, and in came 
 a wild-eyed, breathless captain of caval- 
 ry, gasping the apparently unwarranta- 
 ble queiy, " What's the matter?'' 
 
 For an instant she stared at him in as- 
 tonishment. Holding tight her flowers, 
 she gazed at his agitated face. "Nothing," 
 she answered. "How could anything be 
 wrong when you have been so — so — " 
 But words failed her. 
 
 "Why! your red light's burning!" he 
 explained. 
 
 " I declare ! I forgot all about it!" 
 
 Then another silence. He threw him- 
 self back in an arm-chair, breathing hard, 
 and striving to recover his composure. 
 
 "Do you mean — didn't you mean to 
 signal for help ?" he finally asked. 
 
 " Yes, I did" — an arch and mischievous 
 smile now brightening her face. "When 
 I swung it I wanted you to come quick 
 and drive — yourself away." 
 
 Tben she put down her box, and stepped 
 impulsively toward him, two white hands 
 outstretched, tears starting from her eyes, 
 tlie color surging to her lovely face — 
 "Where can I find words to thank you, 
 Ca])tain Santa Claus ?" 
 
 He rose quickly, his face flushed and 
 eager, his strong hands trembling. 
 
 "Shall I tell you ?" he asked. 
 
 Her head was drooping now; her eyes 
 could not meet the fervent love and long- 
 ing in his; her bosom heaved with every 
 breath. She could only stand and trem- 
 ble when he seized her hands. 
 
 "Kate, will you take back what you 
 said to-day V 
 
 She stole one glance into his passionate, 
 pleading eyes, and her head drooped lower. 
 
 " Can't you take it back, Kate ?" 
 
 A moment's pause. At last the an- 
 swer. "How can I, unless — unless you 
 take back what you — what caused it ?" 
 
 Never before had the little Carletons 
 waked to such a radiant Christmas morn- 
 ing. Never had the Forties known so 
 royal a Christmas tree. Never before 
 was "Uncle Hal's" so thronged with 
 beaming faces and happy hearts. But 
 among all the little ones whom his love 
 and thoughtful ness had blessed there was 
 no face that shone Avith bliss more radi- 
 ant, with joy more deep and perfect, than 
 that of Captain Santa Claus. 
 
 ANTHONY OF PADUA. 
 
 BY HARRIET LEWIS BRADLEY. 
 
 THIS story with its simple rhyme, 
 This picture by a hand sublime. 
 Spring from a legend, in the time 
 Of Anthony of Padua. 
 
 Some doubt had cast its shadows strong 
 Upon the Saint, who well and long 
 Fought manfully to right this wrong — 
 Fought day and night in Padua. 
 
 Till in his arms, so it is told, 
 Tlie Saint did his dear Lord enfold, 
 And there appeared a light ]\ke gold 
 From out the skies of Padua. 
 
 "O Chi-ist Child, art thou come to me! 
 With wonder sweet I welcome Tlue. 
 O Christ Cliild, can this wonder be!" 
 Cried Anthony of Padua. 
 
 "I thank Thee, Blessed One, for this. 
 Forgive what I have done amiss! 
 And let me greet Thee with a kiss. 
 Thou Dear One, come to Padua!" 
 
 "To him who struggles with his might 
 Our Lord has promised to bring light 
 And glory, as of lilies wbite," 
 The angels sang in Padua. 
 
BILLY RAY'S WEDDING, 
 
 A Buffalo correspondent says: "A well-know Buffalo boy some \ears since 
 witnessed the military wedding in Milwaukee which was the prototype of tlie 
 cavalry wedding in "Marion's Faith," one of the most popular of the delightful 
 Army stories of Captain King. This was the marriage of Margaret Sanderson 
 to Captain Otho W. iludd. Troop C, 4th Cavalry, which was held in a Milwau- 
 kee church in June, 1884. Captain and Mrs. King were both at this wedding. 
 The Buffalo boy says that every item in King's account was given just as it oc- 
 curred in Milwaukee. The amusing incident of IJlake and the i)ridegronm. 
 "Billy" Ray, finding the vestry door locked against them, the suggestion of 
 Blake's that he heave a brick through the window, and crawl in at the risk of 
 spoiling their uniforms, and the final act of tlie twain in going to tlie front ol 
 the church and clanking up a side aisle not a moment too soon for the Crremo- 
 ny are vouched for as having actually occurred. It might be interesting to add 
 that the Buffalo boy who witnessed this wedding was Chauncv .M. Depew. 
 nephew and namesake of the President of the New York Central Railroad." 
 
 Ar/fiv mil/ Xai'v Jfljinial. 
 
THE COLONEL'S ORDERLY, 
 
 Flyxx was a character, despite the fact that liis discharge-papers couldn't 
 vouch for it. He was a shock-headed Portlander, with an affiliation for whiskey 
 and tlie guard-house, emerging thence l:)etween sprees with brilliant resolutions 
 for reform and a determination to achieve greatness that lasted till next pay-day 
 provided he couldn't get trusted meantime. Flynn had but one enemy in the 
 garrison, — himself. — but outside the walls their name was legion. Two roads 
 led to town; both roads were lined with groggeries, and "Red Rory," as the sol- 
 diers dubbed him. never succeeded in getting beyond the second corner. After 
 the first drink all roads were as one to .Mr. Flynn. All roads led to the guard- 
 house, and, as Lieutenait Wa'.erman villainously paraphrased it, — 
 
 '"The path of Rory leads but to tlie gaol." 
 
 .\nd yet, when Flynn wanted to, he "took orderly" four times out of five 
 and nobodv accused the adjutant of the faintest partiality, for as orderly for the 
 commanding officer l^rivate Flynn was the bane of the adjutant's existence. 
 The colonel, on the contrarv. was prouder of him than old .Mr. Wardle of the 
 fat Ijov of Dingley Dell. It was shrewdly suspected that the men used to turn 
 to and contribute their efforts in dressing and equiping Flynn for the contest at 
 guardmounting, with the view of making his appearance absolutely beyond crit- 
 icism; for Rorv was a genuine "Handy Andy." His l)lunders were the glory 
 of the garison, and it was believed that the old colonel used to manufacture per- 
 j Icxing messages lor the express purpose of seeing how Flynn could distort 
 them. 
 
 .\s orderly for the colonel, and when bearer of his messages, Private Flynn 
 comported himself with a solemnity of demeanor and a machine-like precision 
 that would have made him a '-jewel of an undertaker." Between the post-sur- 
 geon and the colonel there existed a long-tried friendship. They sometimes sat 
 up late together, and, as the result of such protracted sessions, the colonel had 
 an occasional morning headache. The doctor disbelieved in cocktails, but had 
 a specific in the shaj^e of French cordial-bitters, labeled "Stomaquique," and 
 generally alluded to by that questionable title. One balmy spring morning, as 
 the bugles were ringing out the first call for guard-mounting, "full dress," and a 
 bevy of young ladies, with their attendant beaus, had gathered on the parade to 
 see the sights and do a limited amount of flirting before the officers should be 
 summoned to the customary //latiiice, the doctor stopped in their midst, ex- 
 changing gay salutations with the party, when the noisy chatter was interrupted 
 by the apparition of Flynn, erect, motionless, standing at right-hand salute. 
 
 "What is it, orderly.'^" asked a subaltern. 
 
 "Message from the colonel for the docther, sorr;" and silence fell upon the 
 group, that he might deliver his message as the doctor faced him, — siLnce that 
 gave place to a shout of irrepressible merriment before the doctor could escape. 
 
 "The currnTs compliments to the docther, sorr, and wad he plaze sind him a 
 dose of the sthummick ache?"' 
 
 '•'•Matinee"' was unu.^ually lively that day. C. K. 
 
RIDINQ FOR GLORY 
 
 On the Back of the Lithe, Springy Thoroughbred, 
 
 Hdw Captain King RdcIb for the Pride of AiiiErica's Cavalry, 
 
 Written for tlie Boston Sunday Globe, by 
 Captain Charles King, U. S. A. 
 
 You say that an instance wherein the West Point preparation was shown to 
 fit a man to ride successfully against experts of the turf would be of interest. 
 That would imply an atom of doubt on the part of some of your readers as to 
 the justice of the claim made by Mr. Roosevelt, and tacitly indorsed bv myself 
 in previous articles. 'I'his is no surprise. 1 expected it now, and encountered 
 it 15 years ago. A man whom I had known in New York, and whom I next 
 met at the beautiful old Metairie racecourse in New Orleans, came briskly for- 
 ward one April morning in '72 and laugliinglv said, ''You won't mind, I hope J 
 I've bet my money against you. You may be a good cavalry rider, but these — 
 whv, thev're all experis." 
 
 Now I shall have to tell the whole story, despite its being a persona! affair, 
 but if it serve to illustrate the principle referred to — well and good. 
 
 It was just i^efore the spiiig meeting of the Metairie Jockey Club of New Or- 
 leans — somewhere towards the end of .March. 1S72 — and a great concourse of 
 prominent horsemen from all over the country was rapibly assembling. It was 
 destined to Ije the final meeting on the finest course in the South, and the di- 
 rectors were eager to go out in a blaze of glorv. The stables of Buford and 
 Swigert of Kentucky, and of Sanford of New Jersey, were among the most 
 notable on the ground, but every .Southern stable of any consequence was rep- 
 resented. Ex-Ciovernor Paul O. Herbert was then president of the Metairie, 
 Generals Beauregard and Westmore were among its leading spirits; Lawrence 
 Barrett sported its colors as an honored guest, so did Manton Marble of the 
 New York World, then spending a month at the old Hotel St. Louis; LeGrand 
 B. Cannon of New York was a daily visitor to look at the 'preliminary canters'; 
 Cuthbert Slocomb of New Orleans was an enthusiastic member, and the inval- 
 uable Billy Connor was then one of the prominent track officers. It is the sea- 
 son of the year, too, when tiie quaint old city is crowded with tourists from the 
 North and this spring of '72 was the gayest that had opened since the war. 
 
RIDING FOR GLORY. 2 
 
 Among the daily visitors at the club were two young foreigners, Monsieur 
 George Rosenlecher of Frawce and Count Victor Crenneville of Austria, both 
 light cavalry oflficers in their own countries ; both practiced riders in many a 
 race at Longchamps, Baden Baden and Vienna ; both had brought with them 
 their gorgeous silken ''casques" (jockey shirts ) and complete race rig; both 
 frequently exhibited photographs taken in their beautiful jockey dress, aud 
 both were eager at the coming meeting to ride a race against any American 
 gentleman who could be induced to ''pick up the gauntlet." P'or some time 
 there were no takers. Then they offered to 'allow seven pounds' to any gen- 
 tlemen who would ride against them, i. e., carry seven pounds dead weight on 
 their saddles — a heavy penalty. Still no takers, and then there began to be 
 some talk. 
 
 Just then I got back from duty on wliich 1 had been sent \x\ northern Missis- 
 sippi, and, reporting to (General Emor\ , on whose staff I was serving as aide- 
 de-camp spent the evening with Iiim at the St. Louis Hotel, wlierc all these 
 prominent Metairie men happened to be gathered. Almost the first thing said 
 to me was by Governor Herbert : "Wiiy won't you ride against these foreign 
 cavalrymen?" And in this way I first heard of the challenge. Little by little 
 the whole story came out, and, turning to my chief — himself an enthusiastic old 
 cavalry officer and horseman — I asked him if he thought I'd do. His answer 
 was of such a character that the matter was settled then and there. An Amer. 
 ican was found to ride against the challengers from France and Austria, and 
 though New Orleans society at that day would doubtless have preferred some- 
 body other than a Yankee officer, still — that was better than nobody. Then, as 
 the papers began to take the matter U|) and interest increased, some English- 
 men came forward and said a young countryman of theirs was in town, and had 
 with him the jockey dress in which he had ridden many a gentleman's race 
 abroad. He would gladly ride for the Koyals. Then in another day Ireland 
 added her champion in a tall, slender young trooper, a capital fellow he proved 
 to be, and all of a sudden it had become an international affair. 
 
 By the terms of the race it was to be known as the international race for 
 gentlemen riders. A dash of a mile and So yards ( so that the ladies' stand might 
 have full benefit of both the start and finish.) Prize, the Metairie whip — gold 
 mounted. The club to furnish the horses from the racers of the stables pres- 
 ent, and these were to be assigned to riders according to weight. The first 
 meeting of the five contestants, theref(;re, was the day we scaled at the club 
 office with old Generals Westmore (the Admiral Rous of the .Metairie)and Abe 
 Buford of Kentucky, to supervise the ceremony. It was then found that I was 
 the Heaviest of the five by seven pounds, (weighing 143.) while Count \''ictorwas 
 a diminutive shadow, barely touching 1 12. I had to train clown at once. It 
 was arranged that we were to have horses ready for us at the judges' stand 
 every morning at sunrise for track practice, etc. My associates rode in and 
 out, but I arose every morning at 3, and in flannels and overcoat tramped, hard 
 as I could, the seven miles from my quarters up on Prytania street out to the 
 Metairie course at the end of Canal. Then, after an hour of brisk work in the 
 saddle, tramped again back to town ; took a couple of chops and a pot of tea at 
 Moreau's ; then went to the office for a rub down and the duties of the day. In 
 one week I had trained down just seven pounds, and was in tip-top trim. In 
 that week, too, I had learned a good deal about riding thoroughbreds, and that 
 
RIDING FOR GLORY. 3 
 
 it was infinitely easier, handier, prettier work than what I had been doing for a 
 couple of years previous — teaching two to five hours a day all the practices at 
 the West Point school of liorsemanship, and doing it on any and every kind of 
 a horse but a thoroughbred. After that experience I found riding these lithe, 
 beautiful, springy creatures, no matter how they plunged or tried to "bolt," 
 simply a delight. 
 
 Of course I had watched many a year the jockey seat and jockey hand, and 
 knew that there was reason for it all. For an instant — tiie first day I mounted 
 ( under the eyes of a crowd of club men eager to watch the performance of the 
 great horses gathered there for tiie races, and wildly curious to see how the 
 •'amateurs" would get along ). I remember tliat the first thing I did was to 
 slip the reins with my left hand^cavalry fashion — but while mv "trainer" (the 
 owner of the horse, but in no sense an instructor), was setting the stirrups 
 under the instep — any tiling but cavalry fashion — and giving numerous orders 
 to the stable boys hanging on to the head of my pawing, impatient steed. I slip- 
 ped both hands forward down along the horse's neck gave the reins a couple of 
 "flips" around both wrists so as to give plenty of friction against his hardest 
 pull, and told the grooms to let go. In another minute we were off — a jockey 
 from the same stable racing alongside on a big chestnut gelding. Three and 
 four years previous, on my own beautiful "Tennessee" when with the old light 
 battery with which I served in New Orleans just after the war, I had been 
 allowed to speed over that elastic track, but deligiitful as that was it was tame 
 work to this. I seemed simply skimming over the g-ound and whistling through 
 the air at a rate I had never known before. It almost took my breath away — 
 but it was delicious. Twice — thrice on different horses we were sent around 
 that morning, and I had a mere bagatelle of a time in getting alonjj with a big 
 rangy specimen, against whom the trainers warned me, saving he was vicious 
 and a "bolter" — but he ran like a streak. 
 
 Of course I wanted ;o know how my riding had impressed the experts. There 
 was still time to get out of the thing if my cavalry seat was goin^ to make a guy 
 of me — so, after dismounting, I asked (General Westmore for his advice. His 
 answer was that lie was ready to make his bets. Next tiie old trainer whose 
 horses I had been trying said, quietly, "I didn't want to allow the use of my 
 horses for this race, but if you'll ride one of mine Til get first money." 
 
 Still I doubted. I found among my Nortliern acquaintancts and among com- 
 rades on the staff (none of whom had been at West Point for many a long \ ear) 
 perfect willingness to bet anything I wouldn't win that race. On the other 
 hand, the turfmen who were regularly out at the track at the sunrise gallops, 
 and the officers of the club to whom I laughingly spoke of the matter, all ex- 
 pressed a wish to meet these doubting friends. It would not do to be the cause 
 of putting them up to losing their money, so I deprecated betting in any way. 
 
 But even while tending strictly to his own practice, it is easy for a man to 
 watch the style and work of fellows who come alongside. Stuart, the little 
 Englishman, was the first of the five whom I had a good chance of seeing, and 
 he was a very trim, business-like, thorough going rider. "A vast improvement 
 on Lord Wxxdhxxs," said Westmore and others on the judges' stand, who 
 were watching him as he came flying down the home stretch straight as horse 
 could run. The young lord referred to had been over a year or two before, 
 and had, so they said, "ridden all over his horse." Roschlecher also was a 
 
RIDING FOR GLORY. 4 
 
 pretty rider, though too high in the stirrups to suit me, and more than once I 
 thought that the coach whom he had employed — a jockey with a beautiful seat 
 and hand, but a shady record — was laughing in his sleeve at him. Crenneville 
 I only saw in saddle twice before the race, and both times it struck me he was 
 "too much in the air." Hearing a Mobile horseman commending the count's 
 style and anxious to learn its special points as viewed by him. I asked his 
 reasons. 
 
 "Why — he's so light? Never touches his horse's back. You would think he 
 wasn't on him at all." 
 
 ''Well — if that horse should suddenly shv or swerve he wouldn't be on him,'" 
 was the answer that occurred to me but I said nothing at the moment. The 
 next morning his horse did shy and the Austrian was thrown headlong. These 
 three gentlem -n had their coaclies or trainers with them a s^reat deal, but after 
 the first day I preferred to allow no one to touch mv horse. 
 
 Then came the announcement of the "mounts"- the horses we were to ride 
 — and then I made my bets. Botli of them against myself. 
 
 Of course, if riding could do it. I meant to win that race. There was every 
 reason why I should. Pride in the fact that I was riding for America ; pride 
 in the fact that I was riding for the cavalry of my country; pride in being a 
 winner, even. But when I looked on the horses and their records, mv hopes 
 went down. All other things being even. Ross would land Ireland's green silk 
 an easy winner, with the emblazoned arms of the house of Crenneville a good 
 second. I was willing to believe that if the rest of us were not "bunched" 1 
 could come in a fair third. The horses assigned us were as follows: 
 
 To Ireland — Tt-e lirown colt Nathan Oaks. 
 
 To Austria — The chestnut colt Tom Aiken. 
 
 To the United States — The chestnut gelding Templar. 
 
 To England — The brown filly Rapidita. 
 
 To France — The bay filly Oleander. 
 
 I knew every one of them. Nathan Oaks was a glorious colt — capable of 
 anything. I had watched him in his practice, and iiad seen him win two races, 
 making time that old Templar with my weiijht couldn't touch, and the very day 
 before our race came off he justified mv faith in him, and sent my heart farther 
 down in my boots by winning the two mile heat under the eyes of the people 
 who were to watch his struggle for the 'Tnternationa!" on the morrow. 
 
 The chestnut colt Tom Aiken was another flyer. He had a record, under 90 
 pounds, of making his mile on the Metairie in 1.43 — about as fast as it could be 
 done — and while he certainly could not repeat that performance under Crenne- 
 ville, who was to scale 125 pounds when he came to the post, he ought, even 
 with that weight to brush close on Nathan Oaks. 
 
 Rapidita and Oleander were both fleet and pretty racers, and under normal 
 weights would have run right away from Templar : lut we amateur jockeys 
 could not be made to ride the weights of the professionals, who are mere skin, 
 sinew, stunt and bone; and. all things considered, it was as fair an assignment 
 as could be made with the means at hand. 
 
 But I had aiireed to ride Templar at the request of old Mr. Harrison, who 
 owned him, and the Natchez stable. He was more of a "hurdler" than any- 
 thing else — had never won a flat race such as we were to ride, was a notorious 
 bolter, and only a day or two before our race he pitched his powerful negro 
 
RIDING FOR GLORY. J 
 
 jockey over his head and dragged him all over the field. I saw him. 
 
 But the stablemen and experts said Templar and I "get along together first 
 rate." I had taken a fancy to him, and he was accorded to me. 
 
 Then came the announcement of the weights. That meant that with his sad- 
 dle, and in full jockey dress, each rider must scale at mounting as follows : 
 
 King, 143; Rosenlecher, 135; Stuart, 133; Ross, 130, and de Crenneville. 
 128. To reach his weiglit the latter had to carry a three pound weight. 
 
 And thus were the long preliminaries settled. 
 
 As I warned your readers it is impossible to give this experience without its 
 being decidedly personal, and, in reading over the ])reliminaries to "The Inter- 
 national Race," it occurrs to me that had egotistical been used for personal it 
 would have more accuratelv described tlie prol)aI)!e effect. It cannot be helped. 
 Having been called on to furnish illustration of a theory advanced in an earlv 
 paper of this series, I could think of none better than a West Pointer's experi- 
 ence with accomplished riders of oilier schools in the Metairie race meeting of 
 1872 — and I happened to be the man. 
 
 We come now to the race itself. I had determined to win it if a possible 
 thing, but had bet that I could not because there were two better horses than 
 mine. When the race was first definitely arranged, and it was announced that 
 I was to ride for the United States, no one, to my knowledge, said I would win, 
 and a great many, as was told in last chapter, said I could not. However good 
 as a cavalry rider a inan might be, he had no chance on a race course against 
 "these experts," was the verdict of a number of Northern acquaintances and 
 army officers — none of whom, however, were young West Pointers. After the 
 week or ten days, during which the practice riding of tlie five contestants had 
 been closely watched, there seemed to be a change. And when "IJoc" Under- 
 wood, the noted pool-seller, opened the ball the night of April 8, it was noted 
 that Templar — iny horse — sold first favorite, a thing he had never done before 
 in a flat race — good a hurdler as he confessedly was. 
 
 Even to the minutest details of costume everything was in readiness three or 
 four days ahead. The representatives of England, France and Austria had 
 brought with them, of course, the beautiful silken jackets and caps, the immac- 
 ulate breeches and natty boots in which they had ridden their races abroad- 
 Ireland's gallant champion accepted the green silk of Hugh Gaffnev, one of 
 the most accomplished jockeys of the day. New Orleans boasted both tailor 
 and bootmaker who were from "the old country," and knew just how things 
 should be cut and made. I could not hope to rival the gorgeousness of the 
 foreign colors, and so chose for mine the light blue and white of my old college 
 — Columbia. At last came "ladies day," on which the International was to be 
 run, and it was the loveliest of the meeting. 
 
RIDING FOR GLORY. 
 
 Here let me borrow somebody else's pen to tell of the scene and the race. 
 Manton Marble of the New York World was interested spectator, and on the 
 following day, April lo, tlie World gave this account : 
 [From our own correspondent.] 
 
 New Orleans, La., April 9. 
 
 Under the influences of improved weather and the additional interest mani- 
 fested in the international race between amateur riders, the atttndance at the 
 Metairie track was fully as large todav as on any previous day of the meetings. 
 The increased attendance was iiiore noticealile in the ladies' stand, many of 
 whom were no doubt the personal friends of the contestants, who, to show 
 their preferance, sported the colors of those they were most interested in, some 
 even going so far as to lay innumerable wagers of kid gloves and other trifles 
 on those whom thev most admired. Ever since the race was first agitated it 
 has created consideral)le interest in the clubs as to the abilities of those who 
 had entered as the champions of their respective nationalities, l-'rance was 
 represented bv a young Parisian named (jeorge Rosenlechef. a member of the 
 French Jockey Club, svho was the first to su^jgest the race. As soon as it was 
 agitated a young Austrian count expressed his wilhngness to ajjpear and repre- 
 sent his country. For England, a voung and popular meinber of society well 
 known on Carondelet street, named Fdwatd Stewart, was the next entry. For 
 the United States, Lieutenant Charles King of (ienerai lOmorv's staff entered, 
 and for a few days it was thought the list was complete, wlien Ireland lound a 
 champion in James Ross. The matter was laid before the Metairie Jockey 
 Club, who, with their accustomed lilierality, at once appointed a committee to 
 take charge of the whole matter. An elegant prize in the shape of a gold- 
 mounted whip was purchased of(jriswoid. The stakeownt-rs were also con- 
 sulted, and several excellent iiorses were placed at the service of the five gen- 
 tlemen contestants. 
 
 THE ENTRIES. 
 
 The horses selected and the colors worn bv their riders were as follows : 
 
 Count V. de Crennevill ( Austria ) on the chestnut colt lom Aiken; jacket 
 white, red sleeves, red cap. 
 
 M. George Rosenlecher (France ) on the bav filly Oleander: jacket blue with 
 gold stripes, blue cap. 
 
 Lieutenant Charles King ( United States) on the chestnut gelding Templar ; 
 jacket blue, white cap. 
 
 Edward Stuart (England) on the broun filly Rapidita; jacket cerise, blue 
 sleeves, blue cap. 
 
 Tames Ross (Ireland) on the brown colt Nathan Oaks: jacket green, white rap. 
 
 The race was second on the cards and Lieutenant King on Templar was tiie 
 favorite against the field at lar<ie odds. As the distance was a mile and 80 
 yards, the start was effected a trifle above the upper end of the stand, which 
 gave its occupants a good chance to see the respective stvles of riding exhibited 
 by each of the contestants. As they swept past the stand they were received 
 with loud applause, which was again renewed when Lieutenant King was seen 
 to have a clear lead on the old chestnut gelding Templar. Going up the back 
 stretch all took a pull on their respective horses, and as they swung into the 
 home stretch the race re::illv became an exciting one, especiallv when Ross sent 
 Ireland's green jacket up almost alongside of King, who was riding in splendid 
 style. As they passed the end of the stand Count de Crenneville tduched Tom 
 Aiken lightly with the spur, and the chestnut responded gamely ; the distance 
 was too short, however. Lieutenant King winning the race in fine style by a 
 length and a half. James Ross being second — a short neck in front of the 
 count ; Edward Stuart, England's rejiresentative, was fourth ; and the origi- 
 nator of the race, the representative of France, last. Time, 1.56. 
 
 On Lieutenant King returning to weigh, he was loudly applauded by nearly 
 all present. There was, however, a shade of disappointment visible among 
 some of the ladies, who had evidently gone it heavy on the count and Mr. Ross, 
 
RIDING FOR GLORY. 7 
 
 both of whom are deservedly popular with the jeunnesse doree of New Orleans 
 society. 
 
 Barring inaccuracies as to preliminaries that is a good account of the affair, 
 but before explaining how it was won despite my belief it could not be won, 
 some points may interest your readers. 
 
 The ladies' stand was crowded that day as I had never seen it before, and 
 the colors of Rosenlecher and De Crenneville especially, and Stuart and Ross 
 largely, were to be seen everywhere. Just two young ladies had the courage 
 to wear the white and light blue of the Yankee. 
 
 Lieutenant King may have been the favorite against the field where the 
 World's representative stood among a knot of club men and turf patrons — but 
 he was not everywhere. A brother aide-de-camp who had only once before 
 seen him in saddle came out on the track just as we "amateurs" issued from 
 the weighing room with our racing saddles, and went with us mto the paddock 
 where the impatient horses were being led about. 
 
 I believe I was the first to mount and move out on the track, when he looked 
 up as he was hurrying back to his place on the grand stand. "Bet you $50 
 you can't win it," and he noded his head toward Nathan Oaks, Ross' beautiful 
 mount, whom we had seen winning the two-mile dashes on the previous day, 
 and as that was the horse 1 most feared the bet would have been badly placed 
 could I have taken it. 
 
 All the same, having watched the men and tlie horses for a week previous, I 
 believed there was a point in which West Point practice and training would 
 give me the advantage. There the cadet had to learn, on any kind of a horse, 
 to control and guide him — to make him obey the will of the rider. 
 
 Now in most races on American soil when the horses come to the post it is 
 no uncommon sight to see trainers and hostlers hinging on to their heads, the 
 jockey meantime sitting like a circus monkey with no volition in the matter. 
 And I knew that in their desire to have a fair start and an effective one the 
 stewards and trainers would all be there su]>erintending, and I had heard that 
 each of my four rivals was to be led to the starting point and let loose at tap of 
 the drum. I had seen it tried time and again on the old Metairie and never 
 without several false starts, in which one or more of the racers would tear away 
 several hundred yards before he could be brought back, involving vast fretting, 
 sweating and nervousness for the horse and fatigue and exasperation to the 
 rider. There was a great deal of excitement at the starting point — crowds on 
 both sides of the track — and I could see that the grand stand had risen en 
 masse to watch the scene. Presently we were marshaled in line some 20 yards 
 beyond the starter's fla? — the 80-yard point. There stood Billy Connor, drum 
 in hand, with the flagman back of him. He was shouting injunctions and 
 orders to the different trainers and they in reply were striving to hold in check 
 these eager and mettlesome racers. Crenneville, on Tom Aiken, had the right, 
 and that enterprising colt was tugging and pulling and dragging the trainers 
 all over the track. Ross, on Nathan Oaks, was enjoying a similar experience 
 over at the left. Rapidita and Oleander were revolving about their trainers 
 and pointing their tails to every quarter of the globe with astonishing rapidity- 
 Templar and I had the centre, and though he was pawing and plunging and 
 standing on his hind legs, he was held facing the front and held firm, but of 
 all the five he had no stablesmen at his head. 
 
RIDING FOR GLORY. 8 
 
 Twice had his owner come forward and essayed to seize him, and twice had 
 he been ordered away. "I'm riding this horse today, Mr. Harrison, and no 
 man must touch him." 
 
 "But, my Gawd, suh ! Can you hold him?" he answered with infinite concern 
 on his wet face — then scurried back out of the way. 
 
 Twice, thrice, came the words "Let 'em go!" and the jockey instincts of 
 each stableman would prompt him to send his horse away ahead of the others. 
 There would be a wild scramble of hoofs. Some one colt or filly would flash 
 across the line a dozen yards ahead. Clang ! clang ! clang would go Connor's 
 bell, calling them back. There would be a vision of three or four brilliant 
 jackets shooting far away down the track. Ten minutes impatient waiting — 
 two. three — sometimes more horses cominji cantering; back — puffing and dis- 
 gusted. Five — six similar false starts were made. Five, six times they were 
 slowly and with difficulty gathered back. Four horses and four riders were 
 getting "blown" but Templar and I had never once crossed the line. 
 
 Of course he had plunged, reared, tu<iged at the bit ; launched out with his 
 heels and tried Everything he could think of to get awav, but it was all useless. 
 When at last the drum tapped anrl we five shot awav in a bunch under the 
 roar that arose from the crowded stands, I was never cooler in my life — nor 
 more hopeful. 
 
 Thus far all had worked as I believed it would. Now I had a plan for the 
 rest of it. Templar hadn't great speed but he was fresh, ea'^er and all iiis 
 powers were in reserve. As we began to round the first turn, Stuart was a tri- 
 fle to my left front urging his sweating fillv : his eyes blazing and his face wet 
 from every pore. I could hear Oleander a little behind my risrht shoulder and 
 knew I had them both beaten. As we swept around to the back stretch, they 
 had fallen behind and I had a clean lead of a lengtli. Then, directly across 
 the field from the grand stand where it would make a most effective coup, I 
 could hear tlie Austrian urt^^ini; Tom Aiken. Presently up he came alongside, 
 and I could feel Templar thrilling and be.<;innin<j to tug. but I ke])t the same 
 pressure on tlie rein, never allowinti him an ounce, and he could not stride 
 away in a useless race. Then, uri;in<i: and spurring, I)e Crennevill'^ passed us, 
 and at the third turn was two good lengths ahead, Iiut Ross — the man I dread- 
 ed — was still to mv rig;ht quarter, and we could wait. Templar and I. Now we 
 were shooting around tiie turn towards the three-quarter mile post. "Aiken" 
 was beginning to flaijf, and we were overlKuilin<^ him. Desperately the Austri- 
 an began to spur and, in his eagerness to save space, steered too close to the 
 rail. Another instant and it caught his boot, hurled his left leg back before he 
 could recover, and awav went his penaltv paid. Even could he keep his lead 
 now he had lost the prize, but he had over-ridden his horse , and now, as we 
 came into the stretch and full in siijht of home, now for the first time I gave 
 Templar one touch of the spur and an inch of rein. In 20 seconds the Austri- 
 an was behind us and the goal i>efore, and aiming straight for the white jwst 
 far down the track we slid under that string easy winners, despite whipping and 
 spurring of all the others, and Templar was fresh as a daisy and wild to go 
 round again. 
 
 Then the task was to stop him. He ran almost to the quarter post before 
 we turned, and, overtaking Ross, trolled back with him to weigh. 
 
 "I did not know they taught jockey riding at West Point," said an Austrian 
 
RIDING FOR GLORY. 
 
 consulate officer to me that night. 
 
 "They do not" was the answer ; "but with what they do teach, a man ought 
 to be a fair all-round rider." 
 
 And that, practically, is what Theodore Roosevelt said 15 years after. 
 
Two soldiers.' 
 
 [Page3f)9.] 
 
Two Soldiers. 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES KING, 
 
 U. S. ARMY, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " DUNRAVEN" RANCH," "THE COLONEL'S DAUGHTER," "FROM 
 THE RANKS," "THE DESERTER," ETC. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 
 
Copyright, 1890, by J. B. Lippincott Company. 
 
 Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, U.S.A. 
 
LIPPINCOTT'S 
 Ji^ONTHLY ]y[AGAZINE, 
 
 MARCH, 1890. 
 
 TWO SOLDIERS. 
 
 THE rain was plashing dismally on the grimy window-sill and over 
 the awning of the shops below. The street-ears went jingling by 
 with a dripping load of outside passengers on both platforms. Wagons 
 and drays, cabs and closed carriages, tiiat rattled or rumbled along 
 the ordinarily busy thoroughfare, looked as though they had been 
 dipped in the river before being turned loose on the street, and their 
 Jehus, a bedraggled lot, must needs have had something amphibious 
 in their composition, else they could not have borne up against the 
 deluge that had been soaking the city for two days past. The police- 
 man, waddling aimlessly about at the opposite corner, enveloped in 
 rubber cap and ovei'coat, cast occasional wistful glances into the bar-room 
 across the way, wherein the gas was burning in deference to the general 
 gloom that overhung the neighborhood, and such pedestrians as had to 
 be abroad hurried along under their umbrellas as though they half 
 expected to have to swim before they could reach their destination. 
 The dense cloud of sooty smoke that had overhung the metropolis for 
 weeks past, and that wind from any direction could never entirely dis- 
 sipate, for the simple reason that smoke-stacks by the score shot up in 
 the outskirts on every side, now seemed to be hurled upon the roofs 
 and walls, the windows and the pavement, in a black, pasty, carbo- 
 niferous deposit, and every object out of doors that one could touch 
 would leave its inky response upon the hand. A more depressing 
 " spell of weather" had not been known for a year, and every living 
 being in sight seemed saturated with the general gloom, — every living 
 being except one : Captain Fred Lane, of the Eleventh Cavalry, was 
 sitting at the dingy window of his office in the recruiting rendezvous 
 on Sycamore Street and actually whistling softly to himself in supreme 
 contentment. 
 
 295 
 
296 "^WO SOLDIERS. 
 
 Two missives had reached him that ghastly morning that had served 
 to make him impervious to wind or weather. One — large, formal, im- 
 pressive, and bearing the stamp of the War Department in heavy type 
 across its upper corner — had borne to him the notification of his pro- 
 motion to the rank of Captain (Troop D) Eleventh Cavalry, nice 
 Curran, retired. The other — a tiny billet — had given him even greater 
 happiness. It might be hard to say how many times he had read and 
 re-read it since he found it on the snowy cloth of his particular break- 
 fast-table in his particular corner of the snug refectory of " The Queen 
 City," on the books of which most respectable if somewhat venerable 
 club his name had been borne among the list of Army or Navy Mem- 
 bers ever since his " graduation-leave," fifteen years before. 
 
 All his boyhood, up to the time of his winning his cadetship at 
 West Point, had been spent in the city where for the past sixteen 
 months he had considered himself fortunate in being stationed on re- 
 cruiting-service. During the second year of his term at the Academy 
 he was startled by the receipt of a sad letter from his mother, telling 
 him briefly that his father, long one of the best-known among the 
 business-men of the city, had been compelled to make an assignment. 
 What was worse, he had utterly broken down under the strain, and would 
 probably never be himself again. Proud, sensitive, and honorable, Mr. 
 Lane had insisted on paying to the uttermost farthing of his means. 
 Even the old homestead went, and the broken-hearted man retired with 
 his faithful wife to a humble roof in the suburbs. There, a few months 
 afterwards, he breathed his last, and there, during Fred's graduating 
 year, she followed him. When the bay entered on his career in the 
 army he was practically alone in the world. Out of the wreck of his 
 father's fortune there came to him a little sum that started him in the 
 service free from debt and that served as a nest-egg to attract future 
 accumulations. This he had promptly banked until some good and 
 safe investment should present itself, and, once with his regiment on 
 the frontier, Mr. Lane had found his pay ample for all his needs. 
 
 It is unnecessary to recount the history of his fifteen years' service 
 as a subaltern. Suffice it to say that, steering clear of most of the 
 temptations to which young officers were subjected, he had won a repu- 
 tation as a capital " duty-officer," that was accented here and there by 
 some brilliant and dashing exploits in the numerous Indian cam- 
 paigns through which the Eleventh had passed with no small credit. 
 Lane was never one of the jovial souls of the regiment. His mood 
 was rather taciturn and contemplative. He read a good deal, and spent 
 many days in the saddle exploring the country in the neighborhood of 
 his post and in hunting and fishing. 
 
 But, from the colonel down, there was not a man in the Eleventh 
 who did not thoroughly respect and like him. Among the ladies, how- 
 ever, there were one or two who never lost an opportunity of giving the 
 lieutenant a feline and not ineffective clawing when his name came up 
 for discussion in the feminine conclaves occasionally held in the regi- 
 ment. Sometimes, too, when opportunity served, he was made the victim 
 of some sharp or sarcastic speech that was not always easy to bear in 
 silence. Mrs. Judson, wife of the captain of B Troop, was reputed to 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 297 
 
 be "down on Lane," and the men had no difficulty whatever in locating 
 the time when her change of heart took place. 
 
 The truth of the matter was that, thanks to simple habits and 
 to his sense of economy, Lane had quite a snug little balance in the 
 bunk, and the ladies of the regiment believed it to be bigger than it 
 really was ; and, having approved the furnishing and fitting up of his 
 quarters, the next thing, of course, that they essayed to do was to 
 provide him with a wife. There the trouble began. Simultaneously 
 with the arrival of his first bar as a first lieutenant there came 
 from the distant East Mrs. Judson's younger sister " Emmy" and 
 Mrs. Loring's pretty niece Pansy Fletcher. Lane was prompt to 
 call on both, to take the young ladies driving or riding, to be attentive 
 and courteous in every way ; but, while he did thus " perceive a divided 
 duty," what was Mrs. Loriug's horror on discovering that pretty 
 Pansy had fallen rajiturously in love with " Jerry" Lattimore, as 
 handsome, reckless, and impecunious a young dragoon as ever lived, 
 and nothing but prompt measures prevented their marriage ! Miss 
 Fletcher was suddenly re-transported to the East, whither Jerry was 
 too hard up to follow ; and then, in bitterness of iieart, INIrs. Loring 
 blamed poor Fred for the whole transaction. " Why had he held 
 aloof and allowed that — tliat scamp — that ne'er-do-weel — to cut in and 
 win that innocent child's heart, as he certainly did do?" Against 
 Lattimore the vials of her wrath were emptied coram publico, but 
 against Lane she could not talk so openly. 
 
 Mrs. Judson had beheld the sudden de])arture of Miss Pansy with 
 an equanimity she could barely disguise. Indeed, there were not lack- 
 ing good Christians in the garrison who pointed significantly to the 
 fact that she had almost too hospitably opened her doors to Miss 
 Fletcher and her lover during that brief but volcanic romance. Certain 
 it is, however, that it was in her house and in a certain little nook off 
 the sitting-room that their long, delicious meetings occurred almost 
 daily, the lady of the house being busy about the dining-room, the 
 kitchen, or the chambers overhead, and Emmy, who was a good girl, 
 but densely uninteresting, strumming on the piano or yawning over a 
 book at the front window. 
 
 " What Mr. Lane needs is a gentle, modest, domestic little woman 
 who will make his home a restful, peaceful refuge always," said Mrs. 
 Judson ; and, infereutially, Emmy was the gentle and modest creature 
 who was destined so to bless him. The invitations to tea, the lures by 
 which he was induced to become Emmy's escort to all the hops and 
 dances, redoubled themselves after Miss Fletcher's departure ; but it 
 was all in vain. Without feeling any particular affinity for Mr. 
 Lane, Emmy stood ready to say " Yes" whensoever he should ask ; 
 but weeks went on, he never seemed to draw nearer the subject, 
 and just as Mrs. Judson had determined to resort to heroic measures 
 and point out that his attentions to Emmy had excited the remark 
 of the entire garrison, and that the poor child herself was looking wan 
 and strange, there was a stage-robbery not twenty miles from the 
 post. Lane, with fifteen troopers, was sent in pursuit of the des- 
 peradoes, and captured them, after a sharp fight, ninety miles up the 
 
298 ^WO SOLDIERS. 
 
 river and near the little infantry cantonment at the Indian reserva- 
 tion ; and thither the lieutenant was carried with a bullet through 
 his thigh. By the time he was well enough to ride, the regiment was 
 again in the field on Indian campaign, and for six months he never saw 
 Fort Curtis again. When he did, Emmy had gone home, and Mrs. 
 Judson's politeness was something awful. 
 
 Lane was out with the Eleventh again in three more sharp and 
 severe campaigns, received an ugly bullet-wound through the left shoul- 
 der in the memorable chase after Chief Joseph, was quartermaster 
 of his regiment a year after that episode, then adjutant, and finally was 
 given the recruiting-detail as he neared the top of the list of first lieu- 
 tenants, and, for the first time in fifteen years, found himself once 
 more among the friends of his youth, — and still a bachelor. 
 
 Securing pleasant quarters in the adjoining street, Mr. Lane speedily 
 made himself known at the club to which he ha(* been paying his mod- 
 erate annual dues without having seen anything of it but its bills for 
 years past, yet never knowing just when he might want to drop in. 
 Then he proceeded, after office hours, to hunt up old chums, and 
 in the course of the first week after his arrival he had found almost 
 all of them. Bailey, who sat next him in school, was now a promi- 
 nent and prosperous lawyer. Terry, who sat just behind him and 
 occasionally inserted crooked pins in a convenient crack in his chair, 
 was thriving in the iron business. Warden had made a fortune "on 
 'Change," and was one of the leading brokers and commission-mer- 
 chants of the metropolis. He had always liked Warden : they lived 
 close together, and used to walk to and from school with each other 
 almost every day. Mr. Lane had started on his quest with a feeling 
 akin to enthusiasm. Calm and reticent and retiring as he generally 
 was, he felt a glow of delight at the prospect of once more meeting 
 " the old crowd ;" but that evening he returned to his rooms with a 
 distinct sense of disappointment. Bailey had jumped up and shaken 
 hands with much effusion of manner, and had " my-dear-fellovv"-ed him 
 for a minute or two, and then, " Now, where are you stopping ? I'll 
 be round to look you up the very first evening I can get away, and 
 — of course we'll have you at the house ;" but Lane clearly saw he 
 was eager to get back to his desk, and so took his leave. Terry did 
 not know him at all until he began to laugh, and then he blandly in- 
 quired what he'd been doing with himself all these years. But the 
 man who rasped him from top to toe was Warden. Business hours 
 were over, and their meeting occurred at the club. Two minutes after 
 they had shaken hands. Warden was standing with his back to the 
 log fire, his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, tilting on his 
 toes, his head well back, and most affably and distinctly patronizing 
 him.' 
 
 " Well, Fred, you're still in the army, are you ?" he asked. 
 
 " Still in the army, Warden." 
 
 " Well, what on earth do you find to do with yourself out there ? 
 How do you manage to kill time ?" 
 
 " Time never hung heavily on my hands. It often happened that 
 there wasn't half enough for all we had to do." 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 299 
 
 "You don't tell me! Why, I supposed that about all you did was 
 to drink and play poker." 
 
 " Not an unusual, idea, I find, Warden, but a very unjust one." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I know, of course, you have some Indian-fighting to do 
 once in a while ; but that probably amounts to very little. I mean 
 when you're in permanent camp or garrison. I should think a man of 
 your temperament would just stagnate in such a life. I wonder you 
 hadn't resigned years ago and come here and made a name for your- 
 self." 
 
 " The life has been rather more brisk than you imagine," he an- 
 swered, with a quiet smile, " and I have grown very fond of my pro- 
 fession. But you speak of making a name for myself. Now, in what 
 would that have consistetl ?" 
 
 "Oh, well, of course, if you really like the army and living in a 
 desert and that sort of thing, I've nothing to say," said Warden ; " but 
 it always struck me as such a — such a — well, Fred, such a wasted life, 
 all very well for fcHows who hadn't brains or energy enough to achieve 
 success in the real battle of life" (and here Warden was " swelling visi- 
 bly"), " but not at all the thing for a man of your ability. We all 
 conceded at school that you were head and shoulders above the rest of 
 us. We were talking of it some years ago here in this very room : 
 there'd been something about you in the papers, — some general or other 
 had mentioned you in a report. Let's see : didn't you get wounded, 
 or something, chasing some Indians?" Lane replied that he believed 
 that " something like tiiat had happened," but begged his friend to go 
 on; and Warden j)roceeded to further expound his views: 
 
 " Now, you might have resigned years ago, taken hold of your 
 father's old business, and made a fortune. There's been a perfect boom 
 in railroad iron and every other kind of iron since that panic of '73. 
 Look at Terry : he is rolling in money, — one of our most substantial 
 men ; and you know he was a mere drone at school. Why, Fred, 
 if your father could have held on six months longer he'd have been 
 the richest man in town to-day. It always seemed to me that he made 
 such a mistake in not getting his friends to help hitn tide things over." 
 
 " You probably are not aware," was the reply, " that he went to 
 friend after friend, — so called, — and that it was their failure or refusal 
 to help that broke him down. The most active man in pushing him 
 to the wall, I am told, was Terry's father, who had formerly been his 
 chief clerk." 
 
 " Well," answered Warden, in some little confusion, for this and 
 other matters in connection with the failure of Samuel Lane & Co., 
 years before, were now suddenly recalled to mind, " that's probably true. 
 Business is business, you know, and those were tough times in the 
 money market. Still, you could have come back here when you left 
 West Point, and built up that concern again, and been a big man 
 to-day, — had your own establishment here, married some rich girl — 
 you're not married, are you ?" 
 
 Lane shook his head. 
 
 " On the other hand, then, you've been fooling away all this time in 
 the army, and what have you got to show for it ?" 
 
300 TWO SOLDIERS. 
 
 "Nothing — to speak of," was the half-whimsical, half-serious 
 answer. 
 
 " Well, there ! Now don't you see? That's just what I'm driving 
 at. You've thrown away your opportunities. — All right, Strong : I'll 
 be with you in a minute," he called to a man who was signalling to him 
 from the stairway. " Come in and see us, Fred. Come and dine with 
 us, — any day. We're always ready for friends who drop in. I want 
 you to meet Mrs. Warden and see my house. Now excuse me, will you ? 
 I have to take a hand at whist," And so away went Warden, leaving 
 Lane to walk homeward and think over the experiences of the day. 
 
 He had " made a name for himself" that was well known from the 
 Yellowstone to the Colorado. Thrice had that name been sent to the 
 President with the recommendation of his department commander for 
 brevets for conspicuous and gallant conduct in action against hostile 
 Indians. The Pacific coast had made him welcome. Busy San Fran- 
 cisco had found time to read the Altars and the Chroniclers correspond- 
 ence from the scene of hostilities, and cordially shook hands with the 
 young officer who had been so prominent in more than one campaign. 
 Santa F^ and San Antonio, Denver, Cheyenne, and Miles City, were 
 ])oints where he could not go without meeting " troops of friends." It 
 was only when he got back to his old home in the East that the lieu- 
 tenant found his name associated only with his father's failure, and that 
 his years of honorable service conveyed no interest to the friends of his 
 youth. " Money makes the mare go," said Mr. Warden, in a subsequent 
 conversation ; and money, it seems, was what he meant in telling Lane 
 he should have come home and " made a name for himself." 
 
 Lane had been on duty a year in the city when a rumor began 
 to circulate, to the effect that investments of his in mining stocks 
 had brought him large returns, and men at the club and matronly 
 women at the few parties he attended began asking significant questions 
 which now it pleased him to parry rather than answer directly. His 
 twelve months' experiences in society had developed in him a somewhat 
 sardonic vein of humor and made him, if anything, more reticent than 
 before. And then — then all of a sudden there came over the spirit of 
 his dream a marked and wondrous change. He no longer declined in- 
 vitations to balls, parties, or dinners when he knew that certain persons 
 were to be jiresent. Mabel Vincent had just returned from a year's tour 
 abroad, and Lieutenant Fred Lane had fallen in love at first sight. 
 
 It was a note from her that made even that dingy old office, on 
 this most dismal of days, fairly glow and shine with a radiance of 
 hope, with a halo of joy and gladness such as his lonely life had never 
 known before. The very first time he ever saw himself addressed as 
 Captain Fred Lane, Eleventh Cavalry, was in her dainty hand. He 
 turned his chair to the window to read once again the precious words; 
 but there entered, dripping, a Western Union messenger with a telegram. 
 
 Tearing it open. Lane read these words : " All join in congratula- 
 tions on your promotion and in wonderment at the colonel's selection 
 of your successor. Noel is named." 
 
 Lane gave a long whistle of amazement. "Of all men in the regi- 
 ment !" he exclaimed. " Who would have thought of Gordon Noel ?" 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 301 
 
 II. 
 
 The colonel of the Eleventh Cavalry was a gentleman who had 
 some peculiarities of temperament and disposition. This fact is not 
 cited as a thing at all unusual, for the unbiassed testimony of the 
 subalterns and even the troop commanders of every cavalry regiment 
 in service would go far towards establishing the fact that all colonels 
 of cavalry are similarly afflicted. One of the salient peculiarities of 
 the commanding officer of the Eleventh was a conviction that nothing 
 went smoothly in the regiment unless the captains were all on duty 
 with their companies ; for, while at any time Colonel Riggs would ap- 
 prove an application for a lieutenant's leave of absence, it was worse 
 than pulling teeth to get him to do likewise for a gentleman with the 
 double bars on his shoulder. "Confound the man !" growled Captain 
 Greene, " here I've been seven years with my troop, saving up for a 
 six months' leave, and the old rip disapproves it ! What on earth can 
 a fellow say ?" 
 
 "You didn't go about it right, Greeney," was the calm rejoinder 
 of a comrade who had been similarly "cut" the year previous. "You 
 should have laid siege to him through Madame a month or so. What 
 she says as to who goes on leave and who doesn't is law at head-quar- 
 ters, and I know it. Now, you watch Noel. That fellow is wiser in 
 his generation than all the rest of us put together. It isn't six months 
 since he got back from his staif detail, and you see how constant he is 
 in his attentions to the old lady. Now, I'll bet you anything you like 
 the next plum that tumbles into the regiment will go to his maw and 
 nobody else's." 
 
 " Riggs wouldn't have the face to give anything to Noel, — in the 
 way of detached duty, I mean. I heard him say when * Gordy' was 
 coming back to the regiment that he wished he had the power to trans- 
 fer subs from troop to troop : he'd put Noel with the most exacting 
 captain he knew and see if he couldn't get a little square service out 
 of the fellow." 
 
 " That's all right, Greene. That's what he said six months ago, 
 before Noel was really back, and before he had begun doing the de- 
 voted to her ladyshi}) at head-quarters. Riggs wouldn't say so now, 
 — much less do it. She wouldn't let him, comrade mine; and you 
 know it." 
 
 " Noel has been doing first-rate since he got back, Jim," said Cap- 
 tain Greene, after a pause. 
 
 " Oh, Noel's no bad soldier in garrison, — at drill or parade. It's 
 field-work and scouting that knocks him endwise : and if there's an 
 
 Indian within a hundred miles Well, you know as much as I do 
 
 on that subject." 
 
 Greene somewhat gloomily nodded assent, and his companion, being 
 wound up for the day, plunged ahead with his remarks : 
 
 " Now, I'm just putting this and that together, Greene, and I'll 
 make you a bet. Riggs has managed things ever since he has been 
 colonel so that a lieutenant is ordered detached for recruiting-service 
 and never a captain. It won't be long before Lane gets his promotion ; 
 
302 TWO SOLDIERS. 
 
 and I'll bet you that even before he gets it Riggs will have his letter 
 skimming to Washington begging his immediate recall and nominating 
 a sub to take his place. I'll give you odds on that ; and I'll bet you 
 even that the sub he names will be Gordy Noel." 
 
 But, though he scouted the idea, Greene would not bet, for at that 
 instant the club-room was invaded by a rush of young officers just 
 returning from target-practice, and the jolliest laugh, the most all- 
 pervading voice, the cheeriest personality, of the lot were those of the 
 gentleman whose name Captain Jim Rawlins had just spoken. 
 
 " What you going to have, fellows?" he called. *' Here, Billy, old 
 man, put up that spelter: I steered the gang in here, and it's my treat. 
 Don't go, Forbes ; come back, old fellow, and join us. Captain, what 
 shall it be? Say, you all know Dick Cassidy of the Seventh? 
 I heard such a good rig on him this morning, I got a letter from 
 Tommy Craig, who's on duty at the War Department, and he told me 
 that Dick was there trying to get one of these blasted college details. 
 What d'ye suppose a cavalryman wants to leave his regiment for, to 
 take a thing like that?" 
 
 " Perhaps his health is impaired, Noel," said Wharton, with a 
 humorous twinkle in his handsome eyes. " Even cavalrymen have 
 been known to have to quit their beloved profession on that account 
 and get something soft in the East for a year or so." 
 
 The color mounted to Noel's cheeks, but he gave no other sign 
 of understanding the shaft as aimed at him. Promptly and loudly as 
 ever he spoke out : 
 
 " Oh, of course, if he's used up in service and has to go in to re- 
 cuperate, all well and good ; but I always sujiposed Cassidy was a 
 stalwart in point of health and constitution. Who's going to the doctor's 
 to-night?— you. Jack ?" 
 
 Jack — otherwise Lieutenant John Tracy — shook his head as he 
 whiffed at the cigarette he had just lighted and then stretched forth his 
 hand for the foaming glass of beer which the attendant brought him, 
 but vouchsafed no verbal reply. Lee and Martin edged over to where 
 the two captains were playing their inevitable game of seveu-up. Two 
 of the juniors, — young second lieutenants, — despite the extreme cor- 
 diality of Noel's invitation, begged to be excused, as they did not care 
 to drink anything, — even a lemonade; and no sooner had the party tin- 
 ished their motlest potation than there was a general move. Wallace 
 and Hearn went in to the billiard-room ; Wharton and Lee started 
 in the direction of their quarters; and presently Mr. Noel was the only 
 man in the club-room without an occupation of some kind or a comrade 
 to talk to. 
 
 Now, why should this have been the case? Noel's whole manner 
 was overflowing with jollity and kindliness; his eyes beamed and 
 sparkled as he looked from one man to the other ; he hailed each in 
 turn by his Christian name and in tones of most cordial friendship; 
 he chatted and laughed and had comical anecdotes to tell the party; 
 he was a tall, stylish, fine-looking fellow, with expressive dark eyes 
 and wavy dark-brown hair ; his moustache was the secret envy of 
 more than half his associates ; his figure was really elegant in its grace 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 303 
 
 and suppleness ; his uniforms fitted him like a glove, and were invariably 
 of Hatfield's choicest liandiwork. Appearances were with him in every 
 sense of the word ; and yet there was some reason why his society was 
 politely but positively shunned by several of his brother officers and 
 "cultivated" by none. 
 
 It was only a few years after the great war when Gordon Noel 
 joined the Eleventh from civil life. He came of an old and influen- 
 tial family, and was welcomed in the regiment as an acquisition. He 
 made friends rapidly, and was for two or three years as popular a 
 youngster as there was iu the service. Then the troop to which he was 
 attached was ordered to the Plains, via Leavenworth. It was a long 
 journey by boat, and by the time they reached the old frontier city 
 orders and telegrams were awaiting them, one of which, apparently to 
 Mr. Noel's great surprise, detached him from his company and directed 
 him to report for temporary duty at the War Department in the city 
 of Washington. He was there eighteen months, during which time 
 his regiment had some sharp battles with the Cheyennes and Kiowas 
 in Kansas and the Indian Territory. Then a new Secretary of War 
 gave ear to the oft-repeated appeals of the colonel of the Eleventh to 
 have Mr, Noel and one or two other detached gentlemen returned to 
 duty with their respective companies, and just as they were moving to 
 the Pacific coast the absentees reported for duty and went along. At 
 Vancouver and Walla W^alla Noel seemed to regain by his joviality 
 and good-fellowship what he had lost in the year and a half of his 
 absence, though there were out-and-out soldiers in the Eleventh who 
 said that the man who would stay on " fancy duty" in Washington or 
 anywhere else while his comrades were in the midst of a stirring cam- 
 paign against hostile Indians couldn't be of the right sort. 
 
 Up in Oregon the Modoc troubles soon began, and several troops 
 were sent southward from their stations, scouting. There were several 
 little skirmishes between the various detachments and the agile In- 
 dians, wnth no great loss on either side; but when "Captain Jack" 
 retired to the natural fastness of the lava-beds, serious work began, and 
 here Mr. Noel was found to he too ill to take part in the campaign, 
 and was sent in to San Francisco to recuperate. The short but bloody 
 war was brought to a close without his having taken part in any of its 
 actions, but he rejoined after a delightful convalescence in San Fran- 
 cisco (where it was understood that he had broken down only after 
 riding night and day and all alone some three hundred miles through 
 the wilderness with orders to a battalion of his regiment that was 
 urgently needed at the front), and was able to talk very glibly of what 
 had occurred down in the Klamath Lake country. Then came his 
 promotion to a first-lieutenancy, and, as luck would have it, to a troop 
 stationed at the Presidio. For three months he was the gayest of the 
 gay, the life of parties of every kind both iu town and in garrison ; 
 he was in exuberant health and spirits ; he danced night after night, 
 and was the most popular partner ever welcomed in the parlors of 
 hospitable San Francisco. And then all of a sudden there came tidings 
 of an outbreak among the Arizona Apaches of so formidable a character 
 that the division commander decided to send his Presidio troopers to 
 
304 '^WO SOLDIERS. 
 
 reinforce the one regiment that was trying to cover a whole Territory. 
 There was pathetic parting, with no end of lamentation, when Mr. Noel 
 was spirited away with his lynx-eyed captain ; but they need not have 
 worried, — those fair dames and damsels ; not a hair of his handsome 
 head was in danger, for the — th had grappled with and throttled their 
 foes before the detachment from the Eleventh were fairly in the Terri- 
 tory, and the latter were soon ordered to return and to bring with them, 
 as prisoners to be confined at Alcatraz, the leaders of the outbreak, 
 who would be turned over to them by the — th. To hear Noel tell 
 of these fierce captives afterwards was somewhat confusing, as, from 
 his account, it would appear that they had l)een taken in hand-to-hand 
 conflict by himself and a small detachment of his own troop ; but these 
 were stories told only to over-credulous friends. 
 
 The Eleventh came eastward across the Kockies in time to par- 
 ticipate in the great campaign against the Sioux in '76, and was on the 
 Yellowstone when Custer and his favorite companies were being wiped 
 out of existence on the Little Horn. The news of that tragedy made 
 many a heart sick, and Mr. Noel was so much affected that when his 
 comrades started to make a night ride to tlie front to join what was 
 left of the Seventh, he was left behind, ostensibly to sleep off a violent 
 headache. He pro.mised to ride after and catch them the next day, but, 
 through some error, got aboard General Terry's steamer, the Far West, 
 and made himself so useful looking after the wounded that the surgeon 
 in charge was grateful, and, knowing nothing of his antecedents, gave 
 him a certificate on which he based an application for leave on account 
 of sickness, and went to Bismarck with the wounded, and thence to 
 the distant East, where he thrilled clubs and dinner-tables with graphic 
 accounts of the Custer battle and of how we got up just in time to 
 save the remnant of the Seventh. The Eleventh fought all through 
 the campaign of '76 and the chase after Chief Joseph in '77 ; but Noel 
 was again on temporary duty at the AVar Department, and there he 
 stayed until '78, by which time various officials had become acquainted 
 with some of the facts in the case. The Eleventh " cold-shouldered" 
 him for a while after he got back ; but they happened to be now in a 
 region where there were no " hostiles," and where hops, germans, theat- 
 ricals, tableaux, and entertainments of all kinds were the rage. No 
 other man could be half so useful to the ladies as Gordon Noel. He had 
 just come from Washington, and knew ever^ytking ; and when they took 
 him up and made much of him 'twas no use for the men to stand aloof; 
 they had to take him up too. Lane was adjutant of the regiment at 
 this time ; and he, having seen every report and letter with reference to 
 Mr. Noel that had been filed in the office, would hardly speak to him 
 at all except when on duty, and this feeling was intensified when, a year 
 or so later, they were suddenly hurried to Arizona on account of a wild 
 dash of the Chiricahuas, and as the different companies took the field 
 and hastened in the pursuit Mr. Noel was afflicted with a rheumatic 
 fever of such alarming character that the youthful "contract" surgeon 
 who had accompanied his troop held him back at the railway and 
 speedily sent him East on a three months' sick-leave, which family influ- 
 ence soon made six. And this was about the record and reputation that 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 305 
 
 Mr. Noel had succeeded in making when Captain Rawlins was ready to 
 bet Captain Greene that, despite it all, the regimental Adonis would get 
 the recruiting-detail, vice Lane, for everybody knew Fred Lane so well 
 as to prophesy tliat he would apply to be relieved and ordered to rejoin 
 his regiment, and everybody was eager to see him take hold of poor 
 old Curran's troop, for if anybody could " straighten it out" Lane 
 could. 
 
 The news that Noel was named by the colonel caused a sensation 
 at regimental head-quarters which the Eleventh will probably not soon 
 forget. " Old Riggs" had become the commander of the regiment after 
 it seemed that the Indian wars were over and done with, and, thanks to 
 our peculiar system of promotion, was now at the head of an organiza- 
 tion with which he had never served as subaltern, captain, or junior 
 field-officer. Discipline forbade saying anything to his ftice, — for which 
 the colonel was devoutly thankful, — but everybody said to everybody 
 else that it was all Mrs. Riggs's doing, a fact which the colonel very 
 well knew. 
 
 So did Noel, though he rushed into the club-room apparently over- 
 whelmed with amazement and delight : 
 
 " I supposed of course it would be Follansbee. I never dreamed 
 he would give it to me. Come up, crowd ! come up everybody ! It's 
 champagne to-day," he jovially shouted ; and there were men who 
 could not bear to snub him openly. Nothing had really ever been 
 proved against him: why should they judge him? But there were 
 several who declined, alleging one excuse or another, and even those 
 who drank with him did so while applauding Wharton's toast : 
 
 " Well, Noel, here's to you ! It ought to have been Follansbee ; 
 but I wish you the joy of it." 
 
 III. 
 
 Never before had Fred Lane known the sensation of being reluc- 
 tant to rejoin his regiment. When the colonel wrote a personal letter 
 to him some eight or ten weeks previous, telling him that Curran 
 would almost surely get the next vacancy on the retired list and that 
 he would expect his old adjutant to come back to them at once and 
 restore efficiency and discipline to Troop D, Mr. Lane replied with 
 the utmost readiness ; but this was before Mabel Vincent came into his 
 life and changed its whole current. How much and how devotedly he 
 loved her, Lane himself never realized until the day his promotion 
 reached him, and with it the news that his successor was already desig- 
 nated. He knew that within the week he might expect orders from the 
 War Department to join his troop at Fort Graham as soon as he had 
 turned over his funds and property to the officer designated to relieve 
 him ; he knew Noel so well as to feel assured that he would not wait 
 for the arrival of formal orders, but, if the colonel would permit, would 
 start the instant he received telegraphic notification from Washing- 
 ton that " Old Riggs's" nomination had been approved. " This is 
 Wednesday," he mused; "and by a week from to-day I can count on 
 his being here ; and in ten days I must go." 
 
306 ^J^O SOLDIERS. 
 
 There was a large party that night, and, fully a week before, he had 
 asked that he might have the honor of being Miss Vincent's escort. 
 It was with great disappointment that he received her answer, which 
 was spoken, however, in a tone of such sorrow that poor Lane felt 
 that tlie barbs, at least, of the arrow had been removed. 
 
 " I don't know how to tell you how I regret having to say ' No,' 
 Mr. Lane," she said, and there was a tremor in her voice and a little 
 quiver at the corners of her pretty mouth. " I have almost felt con- 
 fident that you were going to ask me, — is that a very bold thing to 
 say ? — for you have been so — so kind to me since our first meeting, and 
 indeed I wanted in some way to let you know that there were other 
 arrangements already made. But how could I say anything? Mr. 
 Rossiter, the eldest son of father's former partner, comes to pay us a 
 visit of four or five days before he goes abroad again. And he is 
 a great friend of the Chiltons, and, being our guest, he goes with me. 
 Indeed, I'm very sorry, Mr. Lane, if you are disappointed." 
 
 Fred, of course, begged that she should give herself no uneasiness. 
 There was no other girl whom he had thought of taking. Mr. Ros- 
 siter was very much to be envied, and he would like to call and pay 
 his respects to that gentleman when he arrived. " By all means do," 
 said Miss Vincent; and, if not asking too much, would Mr. Lane get 
 him a card at the club ? Brother Rex was away, or she wouldn't 
 trouble him. But Lane was delighted to be troubled. Anything she 
 asked — any service he could render her — he flew with untold eager- 
 ness to accomplish ; and, though properly jealous of the coming man, 
 — this Mr. Rossiter, of whom he had never before heard mention, — he 
 was eager to meet and entertain him. The gentleman was to arrive on 
 Monday, and Lane spent a delightful evening at the Vincents', won- 
 dering why he hadn't come. Tuesday would surely bring him, or an 
 explanation, said Miss Mabel ; and on Tuesday Lane was prompt to 
 call, and glad to spend another long evening at the hospitable old 
 homestead, and stoutly did he hold his ground through three succes- 
 sive relays of visitors, encouraged to do so by a certain look in his 
 lady's bright eyes that spoke volumes to his throbbing heart, and that 
 very next morning at the club he found her dainty missive on his 
 breakfast-table. How early she must have risen to write it ! — and to 
 have seen the announcement of his promotion in the Washington de- 
 spatches ! True, he remembered that it was frequently her pleasure to 
 be up betimes to give her father his coffee ; for Vincent p^-re was a 
 business-man of the old school, who liked to begin early in the day. 
 Of course he had seen the name in the Washington news and had 
 read the paragraph to her: that was the way to account for it. But 
 her note was a joy to him in its sweet, half-shy, half-confidential 
 wording. She merely wrote to say that Mr. Rossiter had wired that 
 he would be detained in New York until the end of the week ; and 
 now, if Captain Lane had really made no engagement, she would be 
 glad indeed if he cared to renew the invitation which with such regret 
 she was compelled a week ago to decline. Lane totally forgot his break- 
 fast in his haste to rush to the writing- room and send her a reply. 
 
 All " The Queen City" had been quick to see or hear of his " sudden 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 307 
 
 smite" and consequent devotion to Mabel Vincent, and great was the 
 speculation as to the probable result. 
 
 " How can she encourage him as she does ? What can she see in 
 that solemn prig?" indignantly demanded Miss Fanny Holton, who 
 had shown a marked interest in Mr. Lane during his first six months 
 in society and had danced with him all through the season. " He is 
 one of the forlornest, stupidest men I ever knew, — utterly unlike what 
 I supposed a cavalry officer to be." 
 
 " And yet, Fanny dear, you were very much taken up with him 
 the first winter, — last year, I mean," was the reply of her most devoted 
 and intimate friend. 
 
 " What an outrageous fib ! I wasn't ; and if I was, it was because 
 I wanted to draw him out, — do something to enliven him. Of coui-se 
 I danced with him a great deal. There isn't a better dancer in town, 
 and you know it, Maud : you've said so yourself time and again." 
 
 " Well, you didn't draw him out, — nor on. But the moment he 
 sees Mabel Vincent he falls heels over head in love with her. Why, I 
 never saw a man whose every look and word so utterly 'gave him 
 away,' " was Miss Maud's characteristic and slangy reply. " And it's 
 my belief she'll take him, too. She likes him well, and she says he 
 knows more than any other man she has ever met. 
 
 " He has money, too, and can resign and live here if she wants 
 him to," went on Miss Maud, after a pause which, oddly enough, her 
 friend had not taken advantage of. 
 
 "You don't know anything about what Mabel Vincent will or 
 won't do, Maud. I've known her years longer than you have, and, 
 though I'm awfully fond of her, and wouldn't have this repeated for 
 the world, — and you must swear never to repeat it to anybody, — I 
 know her so well that I can say she doesn't know her own mind now 
 and would change it in less than six months if she did. She is as 
 fickle in love as in her friendships ; and you can't have forgotten how 
 inseparable you and she were for three months at Madame Hoifman's, 
 and then how she fastened on Katherine Ward. I don't care a snap 
 of my finger whom Mr. Lane chooses to fall in love with, but if it's 
 Mabel Vincent he'd better insist on a short engagement and stand 
 guard over her with his sword in the mean time. It's ' out of sight out 
 of mind' with her, and has been ever since she was four years old." 
 
 And so in the smoking-room at the club and in the feminine cliques 
 and coteries in society the probability of Mabel Vincent's accepting 
 Lieutenant Lane was a matter of frequent discussion. But of all this 
 chit-chat and speculation Captain Lane stood in profound ignorance 
 as he entered his dark office that drenching Wednesday morning 
 with her precious note in his waistcoat-pocket. He neither knew nor 
 cared what old Vincent was worth : all he wanted was Mabel's own 
 sweet self, for he loved her with his whole heart and soul, with all 
 the strength and devotion of his deep and loyal nature. He could 
 hardly control his voice so as to speak in the conventional official tone 
 to the sergeant in charge as the latter saluted him at the door-way 
 and made the customary report of the presence of the detachment. 
 Lane stepped into his little dressing-room and quickly appeared in his 
 
308 '^WO SOLDIERS. 
 
 neat fatigue uniform. There wasn't a ghost of a chance of would-be 
 recruits wandering in that day ; but he was a stickler for discipline. He 
 required his men to be always in their appropriate uniform, and never 
 neglected wearing his own while in the office ; yet in all the Queen 
 City no one but his little party, the applicants for enlistment, and the 
 few citizens who came in on business had ever seen him except in civil- 
 ian dress. 
 
 " These reports and returns all go in to-morrow, I believe ?" said 
 Lane to his sergeant. 
 
 " They do, sir." 
 
 " Well, will you take them in to the clerk again," said Lane, blush- 
 ing vividly, "and tell him to alter that ' First Lieutenant' to 'Captain' 
 wherever it occurs? The — official notification is just here," he added, 
 almost apologetically. 
 
 "Sure I'm glad to hear it, sir. All the men will be glad, sir; and 
 I'm proud to think that I was the first man to salute the captain to- 
 day," was the sergeant's delighted answer. " I'll call Taintor in at once." 
 
 But Lane was blissfully thinking of the little note, now transferred 
 to the breast-pocket of his uniform blouse, and of how not his honest 
 old sergeant but sweet Mabel Vincent was the first to hail him by his 
 new title ; and in thinking of the note and of her he failed to notice 
 that, so far from coming at once, it was fully ten or fifteen minutes 
 before Taintor, the clerk, put in an appearance, and when he did that 
 his face was ashen-gray and his hand shook as though with palsy. 
 
 " The sergeant will tell you what is to be done with the papers, 
 Taintor," said Lane, conscious that he was blushing again, and conse- 
 quently striving to appear engrossed in the morning paper. The man 
 picked them up one after another and without a word ; he dropped one 
 to the floor in his nervousness, but made a quick dive for it, and then 
 for the door, as though fearful of detention. He hurried through the 
 room in which the sergeant and one or two men were seated, and, reach- 
 ing his big desk at a rear window, where he was out of sight, dropped 
 the papers on the floor and buried his face in his shaking hands. 
 
 A few minutes later the sergeant, coming into the little cubby-hole 
 of a room in which Taintor had preferred to do his work, found him 
 with his arms on the desk and his face hidden in them, and the soldier 
 clerk was quivering and twitching from head to foot. 
 
 " What's the matter with you, Taintor ?" growled the old soldier. 
 "Didn't you promise me you'd quit drinking?" 
 
 The face that looked up into his was ghastly. 
 
 " It isn't drink, sergeant," moaned the man. " At least, I haven't 
 exceeded for a month. I've got a chill, — an ague of some kind. 
 Just let me run down to the drug-store and get some quinine, — with 
 perhaps a little brandy. Then I can do this work. Do, sergeant. I 
 won't abuse your kindness." 
 
 " Well, go, then," was the reluctant answer ; " but get back quick. 
 And only one drink, mind you." 
 
 Taintor seized his cap and fairly tottered through the adjoining room 
 to the stairway, down which he plunged madly, and, heedless of the 
 pelting rain, darted across the street to the gas -lighted bar-room. 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 309 
 
 "By G — d," muttered the veteran sergeant, "there's something 
 worse than either whiskey or ague back of this ; and I could swear 
 to it." 
 
 IV. 
 
 Captain Lane, as has been said, allowed until the following 
 Wednesday for the arrival of his regimental comrade Mr. Noel. He 
 was not a little surprised, however, on the following Tuesday morning, 
 as he sat at breakfast at the club, glancing over the morning paper, to 
 come upon the following announcement : ' ' 
 
 " Distinguished Aeeival. 
 
 "Our readers will be interested in knowing that Captain Gordon Noel, 
 of the Eleventh U.S. Cavalry, has been ordered on duty in the city, 
 in charge of the cavalry rendezvous on Sycamore Street. Captain Noel 
 comes to us with a reputation that should win instant recognition and 
 the heartiest welcome from the Queen City. For nearly fifteen years he 
 has served with his gallant regiment, and has been prominent in every 
 one of the stirring campaigns against the hostile Indians of our Western 
 frontier. He has fought almost every savage tribe on the continent; 
 was disabled in the Modoc campaign in '73, commanded the advance- 
 guard of his regiment that reached the scene of the Custer massacre 
 only just in time to rescue the remnant of the regiment from a similar 
 fate, and for his services on that campaign was awarded the compli- 
 ment of staff duty in the city of Washington. At his own request, 
 however, he was relieved from this, and rejoined his regiment when 
 hostilities were threatened in Arizona two years ago. And now, as a 
 rewaaxl for gallant and distinguished conduct in the field, he is given 
 the prized recruiting-detail. Captain Noel is tiie guest of his cousin, 
 the Hon. Amos Withers, at his palatial home on the Heights ; and our 
 fair readers will be interested in knosving that he is a bachelor, and, 
 despite his years of hardship, danger, and privation, is a remarkably 
 fine-looking man. 
 
 " It is underetood that Lieutenant Lane, the present recruiting 
 officer, has been ordered to return to his regiment at once, although 
 the time has not yet expired." 
 
 In the expression on Captain Lane's face as he finished this item 
 there was something half vexed, half comical. 
 
 A few hours afterwards, while he was seated in his office, the 
 orderly entered, and announced two gentlemen to see the captain. 
 Lane turned to receive his visitors, but before he could advance 
 across the dark room the taller of the two entering the door made a 
 spring towards him, clapped him cordially on the back, and, with the 
 utmost delight, shouted, " How are you, old fellow? How well you're 
 looking! Why, I haven't set eyes on you since we were out on the 
 field hunting up old Geronimo's trail ! By Jove ! but I'm glad to 
 see you !" And Lane had no difficulty in recognizing at once his 
 regimental comrade Gordon Noel. 
 
 " Let me present you to my cousin, Mr. Withers," said Noel. 
 Vol. XL v.— 21 
 
310 TWO SOLDIERS. 
 
 And a stout, florid man, whom Lane had often seen at the club, 
 but to whom he had never hitherto been made known, bowed with 
 much cordiality and extended his hand. 
 
 " I didn't know," said he, " that you were a friend of Noel's, or 
 I'd have come to see you before, and invited you to my house." 
 
 "Friend !" exclaimed Noel. "Friend I Why, we've been partners 
 and chums ! Why, we've been all over this continent together. Withers ! 
 Fred, do you remember the time we were up on the Sioux campaign? — 
 the night I went over with those fellows to hunt up the trail to the 
 Custer ground ? Let's see, you were acting adjutant then, if I recollect 
 right. Oh, yes ; you were back with the colonel." 
 
 Lane received his guests with perfect courtesy, but without that 
 overweening cordiality which distinguished the other's manner, and 
 then Mr. Withers entered into the conversation. Turning to Captain 
 Lane, he said, — 
 
 " I didn't know that you had been on the Sioux campaign. Were 
 you there too ?" 
 
 Lane replied quietly that he had been with his regiment through 
 that year, — in fact, had never been away from it for any length of 
 time, except on this detail which had brought him to his old home. 
 
 " Oh, yes ; I remember having heard that this was your home. I 
 am very sorry indeed that you did not make yourself known to me 
 before," said Mr. Withers. " You know that I am a very busy man 
 and don't get around much. Now you can come and dine with us 
 this evening, can you not? Mrs. Withers will certainly expect you, 
 now that Noel is here." 
 
 " I am very sorry indeed, Mr. Withers, but I am already engaged." 
 
 " You must make early bids if you want to get this young man, 
 Amos," put in Mr. Noel, affectionately patting Lane on the shoulder. 
 " It was just so in the regiment. He was always in demand. — Well, 
 when can you come, Fred? What evening shall we say?" 
 
 " It will depend, perhaps, on the day I turn over the property to 
 you. How soon do you wish to take hold ?" 
 
 " Oh, any time. Any day. Whenever you're ready." 
 
 " I'm ready now, to-day, if you choose," was Lane's prompt 
 response. " I fancied you might be here by to-morrow." 
 
 "Yes, you bet I didn't let the grass grow under ray feet. The 
 moment we got the telegraphic notification that the colonel's nomina- 
 tion was approved, I lit out for the railroad," said Noel, laughing 
 gleefully. 
 
 "And when will you come in and take over the property ? There's 
 a good deal of clothing to be counted. As for the funds, they, of 
 course, are all in the bank." 
 
 " Suit yourself about that, Freddy, old boy. I'm going down 
 street with Amos now. How'U to-morrow morning do?" 
 
 " Very well indeed. You will find me here any time you come in." 
 
 " All right. Now get out of your yellow stripes and come along 
 down town with us. The carriage is right here at the door. We're 
 going over to see the works, — Mr. Withers's foundries, you know. 
 Come." 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 311 
 
 "Yes, come with us. I think I have heard it was your father 
 who — ah — who was in the same line of business at one time, Mr. 
 Lane," said Mr. Withers. 
 
 " Captain Lane, Amos ! — Captain Lane ! Great Scott ! you mustn't 
 ' mister' a man who has been through the years of service he has." 
 
 " I beg pai'don. I did not so understand you, Gordon, when we 
 were talking last night with the — when we were having our smoke 
 and chat after dinner. — You will come with us, won't you, captain ?" 
 
 " I wish I could, Mr. Withers, but my office-hours have to be 
 observed, and I cannot leave in the morning. Thank you heartily 
 none the less. — Then you will be here to-morrow, Noel ?" 
 
 " To-morrow be it, Fred : so au revoir, if you can't join us. I 
 mustn't keep Withers waiting, — business-man, you kuow. God bless 
 you, old fellow, you don't begin to realize how delighted I am to see 
 you ! So long." 
 
 " But about dining with us. Captain " 
 
 "Oh, Lord, yes!" burst in Noel. "What evening, now? I'd 
 almost forgotten. Getting in among bricks and mortar addles my 
 head. 'Tisn't like being out in the saddle with the mountain breezes 
 all around you : hey, Fred ? Gad ! I don't know whether I can 
 stand this sort of tiling, after our years of campaigning." And the 
 lieutenant looked dubiously around upon the dark and dingy walls 
 and windows. 
 
 "Suppose we say Thursday evening, captain," suggested Mr. 
 Withers 5 " and I'll have just a few friends to meet you two army 
 gentlemen." 
 
 " I shall be very happy, Mr. Withers." 
 
 " Good ! That's the taJk, Fred !" heartily shouted the lieutenant, 
 bringing his hand down with a resounding whack between Lane's 
 shoulder-blades. "Now we are off! Come along, Amos." And 
 the cousins disappeared down the dark stairway and popped into the 
 carriage. 
 
 " Not a very demonstrative man, your friend the captain, but 
 seems to be solid," was Mr. Withers's remark. 
 
 " Oh, yes. He is about as solid as they make them," answered Noel, 
 airily. " Lane has his faults, like most men. It is only those who really 
 know him, who have been associated with him for years, and whom 
 he trusts and likes, that are his friends. Now, JTd go through fire 
 and water for him, and he would for me, — but of course you wouldn't 
 think it, to see his perfectly conventional society manner this morning. 
 If I had left you down at the foot of the stairs ^nd had stolen up on 
 tiptoe and gone over and put my arms round his neck, you would 
 probably have found us hugging each other and dancing about that 
 room like a couple of grizzly bears when you came up, and the mo- 
 ment he caught sight of you he would have blushed crimson and got 
 behind his ice screen in a second. You just ought to have seen him the 
 night we met each other with our detachments down near Guadalupe 
 Caflon when we were hunting Geronimo. Some d — d fool of a ranch- 
 man had met him and said I was killed in the little affair we had with 
 the Apache rear-guard. Why, I was perfectly amazed at the emotion 
 
312 I'WO SOLDIERS. 
 
 he showed. Ever since then I've sworn by Fred Lane ; though, of 
 course, he has traits that I wish he conld get rid of." 
 
 "Good officer, isn't he?" 
 
 " Ye — es, Lane isn't lialf a bad soldier. Of course it remains to be 
 seen what sort of captain he will make. He has only just got his troo}5." 
 
 "But I mean he — M'ell — is a brave man, — has shown up well in 
 these Indian fights you were telling us about?" 
 
 " H'm !" answered Noel, wnth a quiet little chuckle : " if he wasn't, 
 you bet he wouldn't have been all these years in the Eleventh. A 
 shirk of any kind is just the one thing we wonH stand. Why, Amos, 
 when old Jim Blazer was our colonel during those years of the Sioux 
 and Cheyenne and Nez Perce wars he ran two men out of the regi- 
 ment simply because they managed to get out of field duty two suc- 
 cessive years. Oh, no ! Lane's all right as a soldier, or he wouldn't be 
 wearing the crossed sabres of the Eleventh." 
 
 Mr. Withers listened to these tales of the doings and sayings of the 
 regiment with great interest. " Lane might have been here a dozen 
 years," said he to himself, "and no one in our community would have 
 known anything at all about the dangers and hardships his comrades 
 and he had encountered in their frontier service. It's only when some 
 fellow like Noel comes to us that we learn anything whatever of our 
 army and its doings." 
 
 He took his cousin to the great moulding-works of which he was 
 the sole head and proprietor, and presented his foremen and his clerks 
 to the captain, and told them of his career in the Indian wars on the 
 frontier, and then up on 'Change and proudly introduced " my cousin 
 Captain Noel" to the magnates of the Queen City ; and, though not one 
 out of a dozen was in the least degree interested in " the captain" or 
 cared a grain of wheat what the army had done or w^as doing on the 
 frontier, almost every man had time to stop and shake hands cordially 
 with the handsome officer, for Amos Withers was said to be a man 
 whose check for a round million would be paid at sight, and anybody 
 who was first-cousin to that amount of " sj)ot cash" was worth stopping 
 to chat with, even in the midst of the liveliest tussle 'twixt bull and 
 bear on the floor of the Chamber of Commerce. A tall, gray-haired 
 gentleman, with a slight stoop to his shoulders and rather tired, anxious 
 eyes, who listened nervously to the shouts from " the pit" and scanned 
 eagerly the little telegraphic slips thrust into his hand by scurrying 
 messenger-boys, was introduced as Mr. Vincent, and Mr. Vincent 
 inquired if Noel knew Lieutenant — or rather Captain — I^ane. 
 
 " Know Fred Lane ? He is the best friend I have in the world," 
 was the enthusiastic answer, "and one of the best men that ever lived." 
 
 " Ah ! I'm glad to know you, — glad to know what you say. The 
 captain is a constant visitor at our house, a great friend of ours, in fact. 
 Ah ! excuse me a moment." And Mr. Vincent seized a certain well- 
 known broker by the arm and murmured some" eager inquiries in his 
 ear, to which the other listened with ill-disguised impatience. 
 
 Withers and, of course, " the captain" were the centre of a cordial 
 — not to say obsequious — group so long as they remained upon the, 
 floor, and the secretary presently came to them with the compliments 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 313 
 
 of the president and a card admitting Captain Gordon Noel to the 
 floor of the Ciiamber at any time during business hours, which that 
 officer most gracefully acknowledged and then went on replying to the 
 questions of his new friends about the strange regions through which he 
 had scouted and fought, and the characteristics of the Indian tribes 
 with whom he had been brought in contact. And by the time Cousin 
 Amos declared they must go up to the club for luncheon, everybody 
 was much impressed by the hearty, jovial manner of the dashing 
 cavalryman, and there were repeated hand-shakes, promises to call, and 
 prophecies of a delightful sojourn in their midst as he took his leave. 
 
 "Has Captain Lane come in yet to lunch?" inquired Mr. Withers 
 of the liveried attendant at "The Queen City/' as his cousin inscribed 
 his name and regiment in the visitors' book, as introduced by "A. W.," 
 in ponderous strokes of the pen. 
 
 "No, sir. It's considerably past the time the gentleman generally 
 comes. I don't think he'll be in to-day, sir." 
 
 " Then we won't wait, Gordon. We'll order for two. What wine 
 do you like ?" 
 
 Over at the dingy recruiting-office Captain Lane had forgotten 
 about luncheon. There were evidences of carelessness on the part of 
 the clerk who had made out his great batch of papers, and the further 
 he looked the more he found. The orderly had been sent for Taintor, 
 and had returned with the information that he was not at his desk. 
 Sergeant Burns, when called upon to explain how it happened that he 
 allowed him to slip away, promptly replied that it was half-past eleven 
 when he came out of the captain's office and said that the captain 
 would want him all the afternoon, so he had best go and get his dinner 
 new. Half-past twelve came, and he ditl not return. The sergeant 
 wei ^ after him, and came back in fifteen minutes with a worried look 
 abou. his face to say that Taintor had not been to dinner at all, and 
 that th door of the little room he occupied was locked. He had not 
 been in , 'e house since eio;ht that mornincr. 
 
 "I'm , fraid, sir, he's drinkin' again," said-Burns; "but he's so 
 sly about it I never can tell until he is far gone." 
 
 " You go out yourself, and send two of the men, and make in- 
 quiries at all his customary haunts," ordered Lane. " I will stay here 
 and go through all these papers. None are right, so far. He never 
 failed me before ; and I do not understand it at all." 
 
 But when night came Taintor was still missing, — had not been 
 seen nor heard of, — and Captain Lane had written a hurried note to 
 the lady of his love to say that a strange and most untoward case of 
 desertion had just occurred which necessitated his spending some time 
 with the Chief of Police at once. He begged her to make his excuses 
 to her good mother for his inability to come to dinner. Later in the 
 evening he hoped to see her. 
 
 " P.S. — Gordon Noel, who is to relieve me, has arrived. I have 
 only three or four days more." 
 
 " Gordon Noel !" said Miss Vincent, pensively. " Where have I 
 heard of Gordon Noel ?" 
 
314 TWO SOLDIERS. 
 
 And now a matter has to be recorded which will go far to convince 
 many of our readers that Captain Lane was even more of an old- 
 fashioned prig than he has hitherto appeared to be. After leaving the 
 Vincents' late on the previous day, he had come to his rooms, and sat 
 there for fully two hours in the endeavor to compose a brief, manly 
 letter addressed to Vincent p^re. It was nothing more nor less than 
 the old style of addressing a gentleman of family and requesting per- 
 mission to pay his addresses to his daughter Mabel. A very difficult 
 task was the composition of this letter for our fi'ontier soldier. He 
 was desperately in earnest, however ; time was short, and after several 
 attempts the missive was completed. His first duty in the morning 
 was to send that letter by an orderly to Mr. Vincent's office. Then 
 he turned to his sergeant and asked for news of the deserter. Not 
 a word had been heard, — not a single word. 
 
 " I have been everywhere I could think of, sir," said the sergeant, 
 " and both the men have been around his customary haunts last night 
 and this morning making inquiries, but all to no purpose. The detec- 
 tives came and burst into his trunk, and there was nothing in it worth 
 having. He had been taking away his clothing, etc., from time to time 
 in small packages and secreting them we don't where. One thing I 
 heard, sir, that I never knew before, and that was that after he had 
 gone to bed at night he would frequently steal out of his room and go 
 away and never reappear until breakfast-time in the morning. And 
 now will the lieutenant — the captain pardon me for asking the question, 
 Are the check-books all right, sir ?" 
 
 " "What put that idea into your head?" asked Lane. 
 
 " Well, sir, some of the men tell rae that he was always writing at 
 his desk, and once Strauss said that he had picked up a scrap of paper 
 that he hadn't completely destroyed, and the handwriting on it didn't 
 look like Taintor's at all ; he said it more resembled that of the cap- 
 tain ; and it made me suspicious. I never heard this until late last 
 night." 
 
 A sudden thought occurred to Lane. Taking out his check-book, 
 he carefully counted the checks remaining and compared them with 
 the number of stubs, and found, to his surprise and much to his dis- 
 may, that at least five or six checks were missing. 
 
 " Send for a cab at once. I must go down to the bank. You 
 stay here, and when Lieutenant Noel comes, give him my compliments, 
 and ask him to sit down and wait awhile and read the morning paper. 
 I'll be back in a very short time." 
 
 Following the custom established by his predecessor, Captain Lane 
 had always kept the recruiting-funds in the First National Bank. His 
 own private funds he preferretl to keep in an entirely difierent estab- 
 lishment, — the Merchants' Exchange. 
 
 The cab whirled him rapidly to the building indicated, and, 
 although it lacked half an hour of the time of opening, he made his 
 way into the office and asked to see the paying teller. 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 315 
 
 " Will you kindly tell me if any checks on the recruiting-fund have 
 lately been presented for payment?" he eagerly asked. 
 
 The captain was referred to the book-keeper, and that official called 
 him within the railing. 
 
 " No less than four checks were brought here yesterday for pay- 
 ment, and they came between half-past two and three o'clock in the 
 afternoon," was the book-keeper's report. " There seemed to us some- 
 thing wrong in the simultaneous presentation of the four, and I was 
 on the point of addressing a note to you this morning to ask you to 
 come down to the bank. Everything about it appears in proper 
 shape and form, except that three of the checks have been endorsed 
 payable to your clerk, William Tain tor, who came in person and drew 
 the money." 
 
 " Let me see the checks, if you please," said the captain. 
 
 They were speedily produced. Lane took them to the window and 
 closely examined them. 
 
 " I could not tell them," he said, " from my own handwriting ; 
 and yet those three checks are forgeries. I believe that the endorse- 
 ments on the back are equally forgeries. Now, can I take these with 
 me to the office of the Chief of Police? or do you desire that the 
 detectives should be sent here? Taintor deserted last night, and all 
 traces have been lost. What is the amount that he has drawn ?" 
 
 " One cheek, ])ayable to the order of William Hayden for board 
 furnished to the recruiting-party, is to the amount of forty-five dollars 
 and fifty cents. The second, payable to James Freeman, and endorsed 
 by hira to William Taintor, as was the first, is for rent of the building 
 occupied by the recruiting rendezvous, precisely similar in form and 
 amount to the previous checks, for the sum of sixty dollars. The 
 third check is payable to William Taintor himself, marked * for extra- 
 duty pay as clerk at the recruiting office for the past six months.' The 
 fourth is made payable to the order of Sergeant James Burns, ' extra- 
 duty pay as non-commissioned officer in charge of the party for the six 
 months beginning January 1 and ending June 30.'" 
 
 This check, too, had been endorsed payable to the order of William 
 Taintor. All four checks, amounting in all to the sum of about one 
 hundred and sixty dollars, had been paid to the deserting clerk during 
 the afternoon of the previous day. 
 
 " Had you no suspicion of anything wrong ?" said Lane. 
 
 " I knew nothing about it," said the book-keeper. " They were 
 presented to the paying teller at the desk, and it was not until after 
 bank was closed, when we came to balance up cash, that the matter 
 excited comment and then suspicion. Taintor has frequently come here 
 before with drafts and checks ; and if you remember, sir, on one or two 
 occasions he has been sent for new check-books when the old ones had 
 run out." 
 
 " That's very true," said Lane. " He has been employed here in 
 this rendezvous for the last ten years, and has borne, up to within my 
 knowledge of him, an unimpeachable character. If any more checks 
 come in, stop payment on them until you see me, and, if possible, 
 detain the person who presents them." 
 
316 I'WO SOLDIERS. 
 
 Half an hour afterwards the captain was back in his office, and there, 
 true to his appointment, was Lieutenant Noel. 
 
 " I have had a strange and unpleasant experience, Noel," said Lane. 
 " Most of my papers have been faultily made out. My clerk deserted 
 last night and has turned out to be a most expert forger. He has 
 stolen half a dozen checks from my book, made them out to the order 
 of various parties, forged the endorsements himself, got the money 
 yesterday afternoon, and cleared out, no one knows where." 
 
 " Great Scott, old man ! that is hard luck ! How much has he let 
 you in for?" asked Noel, in the slang of the period. 
 
 " Only a hundred and sixty dollars, fortunately ; and I have made 
 that good this morning, — placed my own check to the credit of the 
 recruiting-fund in the First National Bank, so that in turning over the 
 funds to you there will be no loss. We have to make new papers for 
 the clothing account ; but as quickly as possible I will have them ready 
 for your signature and mine." 
 
 " There is no hurry whatever, old fellow," answered Noel, cheerily. 
 " I've come back from the regiment a little short of money, and I want 
 to have a nest-egg in tlie bank to begin with. It's a good thing to have 
 a fat cousin, isn't it? He has always been very liberal and kind to 
 me, and, luckily, I've only drawn on him twice. So I'll hurry along." 
 
 Five minutes after Noel left, a district messenger entered with a 
 note for Captain Lane. It was addressed to him in the handwriting 
 of Mr. Vincent. He opened it with a trembling hand. It contained 
 merely these words : 
 
 " I am obliged to leave for New York this afternoon. Can you 
 come to my office at one o'clock? We can then talk without interrup- 
 tion ; and I much desire to see you. 
 
 " T. L. y." 
 
 As the big bell on the city hall had struck one, Captain Lane ap- 
 peared at the office of Vincent, Clark & Co., and was shown without 
 delay into the private room of the senior partner. Mr. Vincent, look- 
 ing even older and grayer in the wan light at the rear of the massive 
 building, was seated at his desk and busily occupied with a book of 
 memoranda and figures. Pie ])ushed back his chair and came for- 
 ward at once at sight of Lane, and motioned to the clerk to retire. The 
 cavalryman's heart was beating harder then he had any recollection of 
 its ever doing before, except in her presence, and he felt that his knees 
 were trembling. But the old gentleman's greeting gave him instant 
 hope : 
 
 " I am glad you have come, my dear sir : I am glad to know a 
 man who has been taught as I was taught. Young people nowadays 
 seem to rush into matrimony without the faintest reference to their 
 parents, and your letter was a surprise to me, — a surprise, that is, in 
 the fact that you should have sought my permission at all. 
 
 " Take this chair, captain," he continued, as he returned to his desk. 
 " I have much to say to you," he added, with a sigh. " Let me say 
 at once tliat from what I know and have heard of you there is no man 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 317 
 
 of my acquaintance to whom I could intrust my daughter's future with 
 more implicit confidence. It is true that both her mother and I had at 
 one time other hopes and views for her, and that we wish your profes- 
 sion was not that of arms. And now I beg you to be patient with me, 
 and to pardon my alluding to matters which you yourself broach in this 
 — this most manful letter. You tell me that you are not dependent on 
 your pay alone, but that from investments in real estate in growing 
 cities in the West and in mines in New Mexico your present income 
 is some five thousand dollars. As I understand you, the property is 
 steadily increasing in value ?" 
 
 "It has steadily increased thus far, sir, and I think it will continue 
 to do so for several years to come, — in the real estate investments at 
 least." 
 
 "I am glad of this, on your account as well as hers, for Mabel has 
 been reared in comparative luxury. She has never known what it was 
 to want anything very much or very long. She has been educated 
 on the supposition that her whole life would be one equally free from 
 care or stint; and if I were to die to-morrow, sir, she would be a 
 beggar." 
 
 And here, in great agitation, the old gentleman rose from his chair 
 and began nervously pacing up and down the little room, wringing Jiis 
 white, tremulous hands, and turning his face away from the silent 
 soldier, that he might not see the tears that hung to the lashes, or the 
 piteous quivering of the sensitive lips. For a moment or two nothing 
 more was said. Then, as though in surprise, Mr. Vincent stopped short. 
 "Did you understand me, Captain Lane? I do not exaggerate 
 the situation in the least. I do not know how soon the axe will fall. 
 We are safe for to-day, but know not what the morrow may bring forth. 
 I may be met en route by telegrams saying that the journey is useless, — 
 that we are ruined, — and the money I hope to get in New York to tide 
 us over would come only too late. Next month at this time the house 
 in which Mabel was born and reared may be sold over her head, with 
 every scrap and atom of its furniture, and we bo driven into exile. 
 Do you realize this, sir? Do you understand that if you win her atfec- 
 tion and she become your wife I have not a penny with which to bless 
 her?" 
 
 " Mr. Vincent," answered Lane, " I would hold myself richer than 
 any man in this world if I could know that your daughter cared for me 
 and would be my wife. Do not think that I fail to sympathize and 
 feel for you and all who are dear to you in your distress and anxiety, 
 but I am almost glad to hear that she is not the heiress people said 
 she was. It is Mabel I want,"^ — and here his voice trembled almost as 
 much as the old man's, and his honest gray eyes filled up with tears 
 he could not down, — "and with her for my own I could ask nothing 
 of any man. I have your consent to see her, then, at once if need be? 
 You know I am reliev^ed from duty here and must rejoin my regiment 
 within ten days." 
 
 " My full consent, and my best wishes, captain," said Mr. Vincent, 
 grasping the outstretched hand in both his own." " You have not 
 spoken to her at all ?" 
 
81g TWO SOLDIERS. 
 
 " Not a word, Mr. Vincent ; and I can form no idea what her 
 answer will be. Pardon me, sir, but has she or has Mrs. Vincent any 
 knowledge of your business troubles f 
 
 " My wife knows, of course, that everything is going wrong and 
 that I am desperately harassed ; Mabel, too, knows that I have lost 
 much money — very much — in the last two years ; but neither of them 
 knows the real truth, — that even my life-insurance is gone. A year 
 ago I strove to obtain additional amounts in the three companies in 
 which I had taken out policies years ago. Of course a rigid examina- 
 tion had to be made by the medical advisers, and the result was the 
 total rejection of my applications, and in two cases an offer to return 
 with interest all the premiums hitherto paid. The physicians had all 
 discovered serious trouble with my heart. Last winter our business 
 was at its lowest ebb. I had been fortunate in some speculations on 
 'Change in the past, and I strove to restore our failing fortunes in that 
 way. My margins were swept away like chaff, and I have been vainly 
 striving to regain them for the last three months, until now the last 
 cent that I could raise is waiting the result of this week's deal. Every 
 man in all the great markets East and West knew three weeks ago that 
 a powerful and wealthy syndicate had ' cornered,' as we say, all the 
 wheat to be had, and was forcing the price up day by day; and I 
 had started in on the wrong side. Even if the corner were to break 
 to-morrow I could not recover half my losses. The offer the insurance 
 companies made was eagerly accepted, sir : I took their money, and it 
 dribbled away through my broker's fingers. If wheat goes up one 
 cent, we cannot meet our obligations, — we are gone. We have been 
 compelled to borrow at ruinous rates in order to meet our calls : I say 
 we, for poor Clark is with me in the deal, and it means ruin for him 
 too, though he, luckily, has neither wife nor child. Are you ready, 
 sir, to ally your name with that of a ruined and broken man, — to 
 wed a beggar's daughter?" And here poor old Vincent fairly broke 
 down and sobbed aloud. Long watching, sleepless nights, suspense, 
 wretched anxiety, the averted looks and whispered comments of the 
 men he daily met on 'Change, the increasing brusqueness and insolence 
 of his broker. Warden, — all had combined to humiliate and crush him. 
 He threw himself upon the sofa, his worn old frame shaking and 
 quivering with grief. The sight was too much for Lane. This was 
 /ler father : it was her home that was threatened, her name that was 
 in jeopardy. 
 
 " Mr. Vincent," he cried, almost imploringly, " I cannot tell you 
 how utterly my sympathy is with you in your anxiety and distress. I 
 beg you not to give way, — not to abandon hope. I — I think it may 
 be in my power to help a little ; only — it must be a secret between us. 
 She — Mabel must never know." 
 
 VL 
 
 In the three days that followed, the transfer of funds and property 
 at the recruiting rendezvous took place, and Mr. Noel stepped in, vice 
 Lane, relieved and ordered to join his regiment. The former was 
 having a delightful time. A guest of the wealthy Witherses could not 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 310 
 
 long be a stranger within their gates to the Queen citizens, and every 
 afternoon and evening found him enjoying hospitalities of the most cor- 
 dial character. At the club he had already become hail-fellow with all 
 the younger element and had made himself decidedly popular among 
 the elders, and every man who had not met that jolly Captain Noel was 
 eager to be presented to him. He was ready for pool, billiards, bowl- 
 ing, or a drink the moment he got within the stately door-way ; and, 
 as he sang, whistled, laughed, chatted, and cracked innumerable jokes 
 during the various games, was a capital mimic, and could personate Pat, 
 Hans, or Crapaud with telling effect, his presence was pronounced by 
 every one as better than a solid week of sunshine, — something the 
 Queen City rarely, if ever, experienced. 
 
 Poor Lane, on the contrary, was nearly worrying his heart out. 
 He had gone to the Vincents' the very evening on which he had seen 
 the father of the family off for New York, and had nerved himself to 
 put his fortune to the test, — to tell her of his deep and devoted love 
 and to ask her to be his wife. That she well knew he loved her, with- 
 out being told, he felt sure must be the case ; but, beyond a belief that 
 she ^ked and trusted him, the captain had not the faintest idea as to 
 the nature of her feelings towards him. He was a modest fellow, as 
 has been said. His glass told him that, despite a pair of clear gray 
 eyes and a decidedly soldierly cut to his features, he was not what 
 women called a handsome man ; and, what was more, tiiere were little 
 strands of gray just beginning to show about his broad forehead and 
 in the heavy moustache that shaded his mouth. Lane sighed as he 
 remembered that he was in his thirty-sixth year. How could she care 
 for him, — fifteen years her senior? Lane rang the door-bell that night 
 and felt once more that his heart w'as beating even as it did at one 
 o'clock when he was ushered into the awful presence of her father. 
 
 " Miss Vincent has not left her room to-day, and is not well enough 
 to come down to-night, sir," said the servant who came to the door, 
 "and Mrs. Vincent begged to be excused because of Miss Mabel's 
 needing her." 
 
 " I — I am very, very sorry," stammered the captain. " Please say 
 that Mr. Lane called" (they had known him so well for two months 
 as Mr. Lane that he could not yet refer to himself by his new title), 
 "and — and would call again to-morrow, hoping to hear Miss Vincent 
 was much better." 
 
 And then, dejected and miserable, and yet with something akin to 
 the feeling one experiences when going to a dentist's to have a tooth 
 drawn and the dreaded wielder of the forceps proves to be away. Lane 
 retreated down the broad stone steps until he reached the walk, gazed 
 up at the dim light in the window which he thought might be hers, 
 anathematized himself for his lack of self-possession in not having asked 
 whether there wasn't something he could bring lier, — something she 
 would like, — for the simple-hearted fellow would have tramped all 
 night all over town to find and fetch it, — and theu a happy thought 
 occurred to him : " Women always love flowers." He ran to the next 
 street, boarded a west-bound car, and was soon far down town at his 
 favorite florist's. 
 
320 TWO SOLDIERS. 
 
 " Give me a big box of cut flowers, — the handsomest you have," 
 he said ; aud while they were being prepared he wrote a few lines on 
 a card, tore it up, tried again on another, and similarly reduced that 
 to fragments, and finally, though far from content, Ihnited the expression 
 of his emotions to the simple words, — 
 
 " Do get well by Saturday at latest. I cannot go without seeing 
 you. F. L." 
 
 " Where shall we send them, sir ?" asked the florist, as he came 
 forward with the box in his hand. 
 
 " Never mind : I'll take it myself," was the answer, as the captain 
 popped in the little missive. 
 
 And when he got back to the house the light was still burning in 
 the window in tlie second story, and the doctor had just left, said the 
 sympathetic Abigail, and had said that it was nothing serious or alarm- 
 ing : Miss Mabel would have to keep quiet a day or two ; that was all. 
 
 But what hard luck for poor Lane, when the days of his stay were 
 so very few ! All Thursday morning was spent at the rendezvous, 
 counting over property and comparing papers with Noel. Then, while 
 tliat gentleman went to the club for luncheon the captain hastened to 
 the Vincents' door to renew inquiries, and was mcasu)ably comforted 
 by the news that Miss Mabel was much better, though still confined to 
 her room. Would he not come in ? Mrs. Vincent was out, but she 
 thought — did that most intelh'gent young woman, Mary Ann — that 
 perhaps there was a ipessage for him. Like Mr. Toots, poor Lane, in 
 his anxiety to put no one to any trouble, came within an ace of stam- 
 mering, "It's of no consequence," but checked himself in time, and 
 stepped into the bright parlor in which he had spent so many delicious 
 hours listening to her soft rich voice as she sang, or as she chatted 
 blithely with him and her frequent guests. It was some time before 
 Mary Ann returned. Evidently, there was a message, for the girl's 
 face was dimpled with smiles as she handed him a little note. "Miss 
 Mabel says please excuse pencil, sir ; she had to write lying down. 
 Miss Holton has just gone away, after spending most of the morning." 
 
 Excuse pencil ! Lane could hardly wait to read the precious lines. 
 How he longed to give the girl a five-dollar bill ! but this wasn't 
 England, and he did not know how Mary Ann would regard such a 
 proifer. She promptly and discreetly retired, leaving the front door 
 open for his exit, and the sweet June sunshine and the soft warm 
 breath of early summer flowing in through the broad vestibule. 
 
 " How good you are to me !" she wrote. " The flowers were — and 
 are still — exquisite. I shall be down-stairs a little while to-morrow 
 afternoon, if the doctor is good to me as you are. Then I can thank 
 you, can I not ? ^ M. L. V." 
 
 The hours dragged until Friday afternoon came. He had to go to 
 the Witherses' to dinner on Thursday evening, and a dreary, ostenta- 
 tious, ponderous feast it was. Noel, in his full-dress uniform, was the 
 hero of the hour. He greeted Lane a trifle nervously. 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 321 
 
 " I meant to have teleplioned and begged you to bear me out, old 
 man," said he, " but this thing was sprung on me after I got home. 
 Cousin Mattie simply ordered me to appear in my war-paint, and I had 
 to do it. You are to go in to dinner with her, by the way ; and I wish 
 you were en grande tenue instead of civilian spike-tail. Here's Amos." 
 
 And Amos marched him around to one guest after another, — "self- 
 made men, sir," — heavy manufacturers and money-makers, with their 
 overdressed wives. Lane strove hard to be entertaining to his hostess, 
 but that lady's mind was totally engrossed in the progress of the 
 feast and dread of possible catastrophe to style or service. Her eyes 
 glanced nervously from her husband to the butler and his assistants, 
 and her lips perpetually framed inaudible instructions or warnings, 
 and so it happened that the captain was enabled to chat a good deal 
 with a slight, dark-eyed, and decidedly intelligent girl who sat to his 
 right and who was totally ignored by the young cub who took her in, 
 — the eldest son of the house of Withers, a callow youth of twenty. 
 
 " You did not hear my name, I know," she had said to him. " I am 
 Miss Marshall, a very distant connection of Mrs. Withers's, the teacher 
 of her younger children, and the merest kind of an accident at this 
 table. Miss Faulkner was c(»rapelled to send her excuses at the last 
 moment, and so I was detailed — isn't that your soldier expression ? — 
 to fill the gap." 
 
 " And where did you learn our army expressions, may I ask ?" 
 said Lane, smilingly. 
 
 " I had a cousin in the artillery some years ago, and visited his 
 wife when they were stationed at the old barracks across the river. 
 There's no one tiiere now, I believe. Listen to Captain Noel : he is 
 telling about Indian campaigns." 
 
 Indeed, pretty much everybody was listening already, for Noel, with 
 much animation, was recounting the experiences of the chase after the 
 Chiricahua chieftain Geronimo. He was an excellent talker, and most 
 diplomatic and skiJful in the avoidance of any direct reference to him- 
 self as the hero of the series of dramatic incidents which he so graphically 
 told, and yet the impression conveyed — and intended to be conveyed — 
 was that no man had seen more, endured more, or ridden harder, faster, 
 and farther, than the narrator. Flattered by the evident interest shown 
 by those about him, and noting that conversation was brisk at Lane's 
 end of the table, the lieutenant soon lost himself in the enthusiasm of 
 his own descriptions, and was only suddenly recalled to earth by noting 
 that now the whole table had ceased its diiuier-chat, and that, with the 
 possible exception of the hostess, who was telegraphing signals to the 
 butler, every man and woman present was looking at him and ILstening. 
 The color leaped to his face, and he turned towards Lane with a 
 nervous laugh. 
 
 " I'd no idea I was monopolizing the talk," he said. " Fred, old 
 man, wasn't it G Troop that tried to get across the range from your 
 command to ours when we neared the Guadalupe ? Amos and Mr. 
 Hawks had been asking me about the chase after Geronimo." 
 
 " Yes ; it was G Troop, — Captain Greene's," answered Lane. 
 
 " You know that Captain Lane and I are of the same regiment, 
 
322 '^WO SOLDIERS. 
 
 and, though not actually together in the chase, we were in the same 
 campaign/' said Noel, apologetically, and then, quickly changing the 
 subject, " By the way, Mr. Hawks, is Harry Hawks of the artillery 
 a relative of yours ?" 
 
 " A nephew, captain, — my brother Henry's son. Did you know 
 him ?" 
 
 " Know him ? Why, he is one of the warmest friends I have in 
 the whole array, — outside of my own regiment, that is. We were con- 
 stantly together one winter when I was on staff duty in Washington, 
 and whenever he could get leave to run up from the barracks he made 
 my quarters his home. If you ever write to him just ask him if he 
 knows Gordon Noel." 
 
 " Do you know. Captain Lane, that I have found your comrade 
 captain a very interesting man ?" observed Miss Marshall ; and her 
 eyes turned upon her next-door neighbor in calm but keen scrutiny. 
 
 " Noel is very entertaining," was the reply ; and the dark-gray eyes 
 looked unflinchingly into the challenge of the dark-brown. 
 
 "Yes, I have listened to his tales of the frontier, at breakfast, 
 dinner, and during the evening hours, since Sunday last. They are 
 full of vivacity and variety." 
 
 " One sees a good deal of strange country and many strange people 
 in the course of ten or a dozen years' service in the cavalry." 
 
 "And must needs have a good memory to be able to tell of it all, — 
 especially when one recounts the same incident more than once." And 
 Miss Marshall's lips were twitching at the corners in a manner. sug- 
 gestive of mischief and merriment combined. * 
 
 Lane " paused for a reply." Here was evidently a most observant 
 young woman. 
 
 " There ! I did not mean to tax your loyalty to a regimental com- 
 rade, captain : so you need not answer. Captain Noel interests and 
 entertains me principally because of his intense individuality and his 
 entire conviction that he carries his listeners with him. ' Age cannot 
 wither nor custom stale his infinite variety ;' but there should not be 
 quite so much variety in his descriptions of a single event. This is 
 the fourth time I have heard him tell of the night-ride from Carrlzo's 
 Ranch to Canon Diablo." 
 
 " You have the advantage of me. Miss Marshall," answered I^ane, 
 his eyes twinkling with appreciation of her demure but droll exposure 
 of Noel's weak point. " It is the first time I ever heard his version 
 of it." 
 
 "It is the last time he will mention it in your presence, if he saw 
 the expression in your face, Captain Lane." 
 
 " Do those introspective eyes of yours look clear through and see 
 out of the back of your head, Miss Marshall ? Your face was turned 
 towards him. You stopped short in telling me of your cousin in the 
 artillery and your visit to the barracks, and bade me listen to some- 
 thing I did not care half as much to hear as your own impressions of 
 garrison-life. Never mind the quadruplex account of the night-ride. 
 Tell me what you thought of the army." 
 
 " Well, of course the first thing a girl wants to know is what the 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 323 
 
 shoulder-straps mean ; and I learned the very first day that the blank 
 strap meant a second lieutenant, a single silver bar a first lieutenant, 
 and two bars a captain, — that is, in the artillery. Now, why this pro- 
 voking distinction in the cavalry? Here's a captain with only one bar, 
 a captain whose letters from the War Department come addressed to 
 Lieutenant Gordon Noel !" 
 
 " Noel never speaks of himself as captain, I'm sure," said Lane. 
 
 " Neither do you ; and for a year past, ever since I have known 
 you by sight," — and here a quick blush mounted to her temples, — " you 
 occasionally came to our church, you know," she hastened to explain, — 
 " you have been referred to as Lieutenant Lane or Mr. Lane ; but we 
 know you are a captain now, for we saw the promotion recorded in the 
 Washington despatches a fortnight ago. What was the date of Captain 
 Noel's elevation to that grade? I confess I took him for your junior 
 in the service and in years too." 
 
 "Yes, Noel holds well on to his youth," answered Lane, smilingly. 
 
 " And about the captaincy ?" 
 
 "Well, he is so very near it, and it is so apt to come any day, that 
 perhaps he thinks it just as well to let people get accustomed to calling 
 him that. Then he won't have to break them all in when the com- 
 mission does come." 
 
 "Then he is your junior, of course?" 
 
 " Only by a file or so. He entered service very soon after me." 
 
 " But was not in your class at West Point?" 
 
 " No : he was not in my class." 
 
 "In the next one, then, I presume?" 
 
 "Miss Marshall, is your first name Portia? I should hate to be a 
 witness whom you had the privilege of cross-examining. Tlicre are 
 ladies 'learned in the law,' and I expect to read of you as called to the 
 bar within a year or two." 
 
 " Never mind. Captain Lane. I will ask you nothing more about 
 him." 
 
 "No, Miss Marshall, I presume that my clumsiness has rendere<I 
 it totally unnecessary." 
 
 That night, as the guests were dispersing. Lane did what most 
 of them entirely omitted : he went over to the piano and bade Miss 
 Marshall good-night. 
 
 "Captain Lane," she said, "I beg your pardon if I have been too 
 inquisitive and too critical, as I know I have been ; but you have 
 taught me, that you know how to guard a comrade's failings from the 
 world. Will you not forgive a woman's weakness ?" 
 
 " There is nothing to forgive, Miss Marshall. I hope sincerely 
 that we may meet again before I go back to the regiment." 
 
 And later, as Lane was walking homeward from a final peep at the 
 dim light in a certain window, he had time to think how intolerable 
 that dinner would have seemed had it not been for the accident which 
 placed that dark -eyed governess by his side. 
 
324 ^^O SOLDIERS. 
 
 VTI. 
 
 Lane was awake with the sun on Friday morning, and lay for a 
 few moments listening to the twittering of the sparrows about his 
 window-sills, and watching the slanting, rosy-red shafts of light that 
 streamed through the intervals in the Venetian blinds. "Does it augur 
 bright fortune? Does it mean victory? Is it like the 'sun of Aus- 
 terlitz' ?" were the questions that crowded through his brain. To-day — 
 to-day she was to " be down for a little while in the afternoon," and 
 then she "hoped to be able to thank him. Could she?" Ten thou- 
 sand times over and over again she could, if she would but whisper one 
 little word — Yes — in answer to his eager question. It lacked hours 
 yet until that longed-for afternoon could come. It was not five o'clock ; 
 but more sleep was out of the question, and lying there in bed intoler- 
 able. Much to the surprise of his darky valet. Lane had had his bath, 
 dressed, and disappeared by the time the former came to rouse him. 
 
 Noel was late in reaching the rendezvous. It was after ten when 
 he appeared, explaining that Mrs. Withers was far from well, and 
 therefore Cousin Amos would not leave the house until the doctor had 
 seen her and made his report. Lane received his explanation some- 
 what coldly, and suggested that they go right to work with their 
 papers, as he had important engagements. It was high noon when 
 they finished the matters in hand, and then the captain hastened to the 
 club, and was handed a telegram with the information that it had only 
 just come. It was evidently expected. Lane quickly read it and care- 
 fully stowed it away in an inside pocket. In another moment he was 
 speeding down town, and by half-past twelve was closeted with the 
 junior partner of the tottering house of Vincent, Clark & Co. Mr. 
 Clark was pale and nervous ; every click of the " ticker" seemed to 
 make him start. A clerk stood at the instrument, watching the rapidly- 
 dotted quotations. 
 
 " Have you heard from Mr. Vincent ?" was the first question ; and, 
 without a word, a telegram was handed him. It was in cipher, as he 
 saw at once, and Clark supplied the transcription : 
 
 " Rossiter refuses. Watch market closely. See Warden instant 
 touches half. Break predicted here." 
 
 " Twenty minutes more !" groaned Clark, as he buried his face in 
 his hands. " Twenty minutxss more of this awful suspense !" 
 
 " What was the last report?" asked Lane, in a low voice. 
 
 " Ninety-eight and a quarter. My God ! Think of it ! Three- 
 quarters of a cent between us and beggary ! I could bear it, but not 
 Vincent : 'twould kill him. Even his home is mortgaged." 
 
 There came a quick, sharp tap at the glazed door : the clerk's head 
 was thrust in : 
 
 " Three-eighths, sir." 
 
 " It's time to move, then," said Lane. " I cannot follow you to 
 the floor, — I have no ticket ; but I will be awaiting your call at the 
 
 Merchants' Exchange. Mr. Vincent has told you Better have it 
 
 in Treasury notes, — one hundred each, — had you not ?" 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 325 
 
 " Fll see Warden at once. D — n him ! he would sell us out with 
 no more compunctions than he would shoot a liawk." 
 
 " You infer that Mr. Vincent has had no success in raising money 
 in New York ?" asked Lane, as they hurried from the office. 
 
 " Not an atom 1 He made old Rossiter what he is, — hauled him 
 out of the depths, set him on his feet, took him in here with him for 
 ten years, sent him East with a fortune that he has trebled since in 
 Wall Street, and row, by heaven ! the cold-blooded brute will not lend 
 him a pitiful twenty thousand." 
 
 At the bank Lane found an unusual number of men, and there 
 was an air of suppressed excitement. Telegraph-boys would rush in 
 every now and then with despatches for various parties, and these were 
 eagerly opened and read. Scraps of low, earnest conversation reached 
 him as he stood, a silent watcher. " They cannot stand it another day." 
 " They've been raining wheat on them from every corner of the North 
 and West. No gang can stand up under it." '* It's bound to break," 
 etc. To an official of the bank who knew him well he showed the 
 telegram he had received at the club, and the gentleman looked up in 
 surprise : 
 
 " Do you want this now, captain ? Surely you are not " 
 
 "No, I'm not, most emphatically," replied Lane, with a quiet 
 laugh. " Yet I may have sudden use for that sum. I telegraphed to 
 my agents at Cheyenne yesterday. You, perhaps, ought to wire at 
 once and verify it." 
 
 " Those are our bank rules, and I presume it will be done ; though 
 of course we know " 
 
 " Never mind. I much prefer you should, and at once." And, 
 leaving the man of business to attend to the necessary formality. Lane 
 strolled to a window and looked down the crowded street towards the 
 massive building in which the desperate grapple 'twixt bull and bear 
 was at its height. The day was hot; men rushed by, mopping their 
 fevered brows ; a throng of people had gathered near the broad en- 
 trance to the Chamber, and all its windows were lowered to secure free 
 and fresh currents of air. Lane fancied lie could hear the shouts of 
 the combatants in the pit even above the ceaseless roar and rattle of 
 wheels upon the stone pavement. Little by little the minute-hand was 
 stealing to the vertical, and still no sign from Clark. " Has she touchal 
 a half yet ?" he heard one man eagerly ask another as they dived into 
 the broker's office underneath. 
 
 "Not yet; but I'm betting she does inside of five minutes and 
 reaches ninety-nine first thing to-morrow." 
 
 At last, boom went the great bell, — a single, solemn stroke. 
 There was a rush of men for the street, a general scurry towards the 
 great Board of Trade building, a rapidly-increasing crowd along the 
 curb-stones as the members came pouring out, and brokers and their 
 customers hurried away towards numberless little offices all over the 
 neighborhood. Dozens of them passed along under his post of obser- 
 vation, some flushed, some deathly pale, and finally Clark himself ap- 
 peared, and Lane hastened forth to meet him. 
 
 "Saved by a mere squeak so far," was the almost breathless whisper 
 Vol. XLV.— 22 
 
326 ^^0 SOLDIERS. 
 
 as Clark removed his hat and wiped his clammy forehead. " But we 
 know not what a day may bring forth. It's a mere respite." 
 
 "Can the syndicate carry any more weight, think you? Prices 
 jumped up two and three weeks ago. Now they only climb a hair's- 
 breadth at a time, I hear they are loaded down, — that it miist break ; 
 but I'm no expert in these matters." 
 
 "If you were, you'd be wise to keep out of it. Who can say 
 whether they will break or not? It is what everybody confidently 
 predicted when eighty-nine was touched twelve days ago; and look 
 at it !" 
 
 " Do you go back to the office from here ? Good ! 1^11 join you 
 there in ten minutes," said Lane, " for I shall not come down town this 
 afternoon, and may not be able to in the morning." 
 
 And when Captain Lane appeared at the office of Vincent, Clark 
 & Co. he brought with him a stout little packet, which, after the ex- 
 change of a few words and a scrap or two of paper, Mr, Clark care- 
 fully stowed in the innermost compartment of the big safe. Then he 
 grasped Lane's hand in both of his, as the captain said good-by. 
 
 That afternoon, quite late, the captain rang at the Vincents' door, 
 and it was almost instantly opened by the smiling Abigail whom he so 
 longed to reward for her evident sympathy the day before, yet lacked 
 tiie courage to proffer a greenback. Lane was indeed little versed in 
 the ways of the world, howsoever well he might be informed in his 
 profession. 
 
 "Miss Vincent is in the library, sir, if you will please to walk that 
 way," was her brief communication ; and the captain, trembling de- 
 spite his best efforts to control himself, stepped past her into the broad 
 hall, and there, hurrying down the stairway, came Mrs. Vincent, evi- 
 dently to meet him. Silently she held forth her hand and led him into 
 the parlor, and then he saw that her face was very sad and pale and 
 that her eyes were red with weeping. 
 
 "I will only detain you a moment, captain," she murmured, "but 
 I felt that I must see you. Mr. Vincent wrote to me on the train as 
 he left here, and he tells me you know — the worst." 
 
 "Mr. Vincent has honored me with his confidence, dear lady; and 
 I — saw Mr. Clark to-day." 
 
 She looked up eagerly: "What news had he from New York? 
 Did he tell you? — about Mr. Rossiter, that is? I knew perfectly well 
 what Mr. Vincent's hopes and expectations were in going." 
 
 " There was a telegram. I fear that he was disappointed in Mr. 
 Rossiter ; but the money was not needed up to the closing of the board 
 at one o'clock." 
 
 " I am not disappointed. I thank God that the Rossiters refused 
 him money. It will open his eyes to their real characters, — father and 
 son. I M^ould rather go and live in a hovel than be under obligations 
 to either of them." And now the tears were raining down her 
 cheeks. 
 
 " Do not grieve so, Mrs. Vincent," said Lane. " I cannot believe 
 the danger is so great. I have listened to the opinions of the strongest 
 meu on 'Change this afternoon. A ' break' in this corner was pre- 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 327 
 
 dieted in New York at eleven this morning, and that is the universal 
 opinion among the best men now." 
 
 " Yes, but it may be days away yet, and Mr. Vincent has con- 
 fessed to me that his whole fortune hangs by a single hair, — that this 
 wretched speculation has swallowed everything, — that a rise of a single 
 penny means beggary to us, for he can no longer answer his broker's 
 calls." 
 
 " That may have been so when he wrote ; but Mr. Clark seems to 
 have had a little better luck locally. I infer from what he told me 
 that they were safe for to-day and could meet the raise of that critical 
 cent or two : so that, despite the great loss they have sustained, there 
 is not the certainty of ruin that so overwhelmed Mr. Vincent on 
 Wednesday." 
 
 " You give me hope and courage," cried the poor, anxious-hearted 
 woman, as she seized and pressed his hand. " And — and you come 
 to us in tlie midst of our troubles ! Mr. Vincent was so touched by 
 your writing first to him : it brought back old days, old times, old 
 fashions, that he loved to recall, — days when he, too, was young and 
 brave and full of hope and cheer." 
 
 " And I have your good wishes, too, Mrs. Vincent? — even though I 
 
 am only a soldier and have so little to oiFer her beyond — beyond " 
 
 But he could not finish. He had looked into her face with such 
 eager hope and delight when he began, yet broke down helplessly when 
 he tried to speak of his great love for her sweet daughter. 
 
 " I know what you would say," she answered, with quick and 
 ready sympathy. " I have seen how dear ray child has been to you 
 almost from the very first. Indeed I do wish you happiness, Mr. 
 Lane ; but Mr. Vincent told you that — we once had otlier views for 
 Mabel. It is only fair and right that you should know." 
 
 "How could it have been otherwise, Mrs. Vincent? Is there any 
 man quite worthy of her? Is there any station in life too high for 
 one like her? I never dared hope that your consent could have been 
 so freely given. I do not dare hope that she can possibly care for me 
 
 -yet." 
 
 " I will not keep you longer, then," said she, smiling through her 
 tears. " I shall see you after a while, perhaps. Mabel is in the 
 library. Now I'll leave you." 
 
 With tumultuously-throbbing heart, he softly entered and quickly 
 glanced around. The tiers of almost priceless volumes, the antique 
 furniture, the costly Persian rugs and portieres, the pictures, bronzes, 
 bric-a-brac, — all were valueless in his eager eyes. They sought one 
 object alone, and found it in a deep bay-window across the room. 
 There, leaning back in a great easy reading-chair, with a magazine in 
 her lap, her fair head pillowed on a silken cushion, reclined the lady 
 of his heart, smiling a sweet M'elcome to him, while the rosy color 
 mounted to her brows as he came quickly forward and took her soft, 
 white hand. How he was trembling ! How his kind gray eyes were 
 glowing ! She could not meet them : she had to look away. She had 
 begun some pleasant little welcoming speecii, some half-laughing allu- 
 sion to the flowers, but she stopped short in the midst of it. A knot 
 
328 ^^0 SOLDIERS. 
 
 of half-faded roses — his roses — nestled in her bosom, contrasting with 
 the pure white of her dainty gown ; and now those treasured, envied 
 flowers began to rise and fall, as though rocked on the billows of some 
 clear lake stirred by sudden breeze. What he said, he did not know : 
 she hardly heard, though her ears drank in every word. She only 
 realized that both his hands were tightly clasping hers, and that, scorn- 
 ing to seek a chair and draw it to her side, — perhaps, too, because he 
 could not bear to release even for an instant that slender little hand, 
 — perhaps still more because of the old-time chivalry in his nature that 
 had prompted him to ask parental sanction before telling her of his 
 deep and tender love, — Captain Lane had dropped on one knee close 
 beside, and, bending over her, was pouring forth in broken, incoherent 
 words the old, old story of a lover's hopes and fears and longings, — 
 the sweet old song that, day after day, year after year, ay, though sung 
 since God's creation of the beautiful world we live in, never, never can 
 be heard or sung except in rapture. Even though she be cold to him 
 as stone, no true woman ever listened to the tale of a man's true love 
 without a thrill at heart. Once, once only, in the lifetime of men like 
 Lane — yes, and of men not half his peers in depth of character, in 
 intensity of feeling — there comes a moment like this, and, whether it 
 be in the glow and fervor and enthusiasm of youth or the intensity 
 and strength of maturer years, it is the climax of a lifetime; it is the 
 date from which all others, all scenes, trials, triumphs, take their due 
 apportionment; it is the memory of all others that lingers to the very 
 last, when all, all but this are banished from the dying braiu. Rome, 
 in her pride of place, made the building of her Capitol the climax of 
 mundaue history : everything in her calendar was " ante urbem conditam" 
 or the reverse. The old world measured from the Flood ; the new world 
 — our world — measures from the birth of Him who died upon the 
 cross ; and the lifetime of the man who has once deeply and devotedly 
 loved has found its climax in the thrilling moment of the avowal. 
 
 " Have you no word to say to me, Mabel ? — not one word of hope ? 
 — not one?" he pleaded. 
 
 Then she turned her lovely face, looking into his deep eyes through 
 a mist of tears. 
 
 " I do like you," she murmured ; "I do honor you so. Captain 
 Lane ; but that is not what you deserve. There is no one, believe me, 
 
 whom I so regard and esteem ; but — I do not know 1 am not certain 
 
 of myself." 
 
 " Let me try to win your love, Mabel. Give me just that right. 
 Indeed, indeed I have not dared to hope that so soon I could win even 
 your trust and esteem. You make me so happy when you admit even 
 that." 
 
 " It is so little to give, in return for what you have given me," 
 she answered, softly, while her hand still lay firmly held in the clasp 
 of his. 
 
 " Yet it is so much to me. Think, Mabel, in four days at most I 
 must go back to my regiment. I ask no pledge or promise. Only let 
 me write to you. Only write to me and let me strive to arouse at least 
 a little love in your true heart. Then by and by — six months, perhaps, 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 329 
 
 — I'll come again and try my fate. I know that an old dragoon like 
 me, with gray hairs sprouting in his moustache " 
 
 But here she laid her fingers on his lips, and then, seizing both her 
 hands, he bowed his head over them and kissed them passionately. 
 
 The day of parting came, all too soon. Duty — the mistress to 
 whom he had never hitlierto given undivided allegiance — called him to 
 the distant West, and the last night of his stay found him bending 
 over her in the same old window. He was to take a late train for 
 St. Louis, and had said farewell to all but her. And now the mo- 
 ment had arrived. A glance at his watch had told him that he had 
 but twenty minutes in which to reach the station. 
 
 She had risen, and was standing, a lovely picture of graceful woman- 
 hood, her eyes brimming with tears. Both her hands were now clasped 
 in his ; she could not deny him that at such a time ; but — but was 
 there not something throbbing in her heart that she longed to tell ? 
 
 "It is good-by now," he murmured, his whole soul in his glowing 
 eyes, his infinite love betrayed in those lips quivering under the heavy 
 moustache. 
 
 She glanced up into his face. 
 
 " Fred," — and then, as though abashed at her own boldness, the 
 lovely head was bowed again almost on his breast. 
 
 "What is it, darling? Tell me," he whispered, eagerly, a wild, 
 wild hope thrilling through his heart. 
 
 " Would it make you happier if — if I — told you that I knew my- 
 self a little better?" 
 
 " Mabel ! Do you mean — do you care for me ?" 
 
 And then she was suddenly clasped in his strong, yearning arms 
 and strained to his breast. Long, long afterwards he used to lift that 
 travelling-coat of gray tweeds from the trunk in which it was carefully 
 stowed away, and wonder if — if it were indeed true that her throbbing 
 heart had thrilled through that senseless fabric, stirring wild joy and 
 rapture to the very depths of his own. 
 
 " Would I be sobbing my heart out," at last she murmured, " if I 
 did not love you and could not bear to have you go ?" 
 
 VIII. 
 
 " What an awfully pretty girl that Miss Vincent is, Amos !" said 
 Mr. Noel one morning, as the cousins were quietly breakfasting together 
 before going down town. 
 
 " Pretty ? yes," said Amos, doubtfully. " But look here, my boy : 
 recollect that you want to think of something more than ' pretty' in 
 selecting a wife while you are in here on this detail. Now, Mrs. 
 Withers and I have been keeping our eyes open, and our ears too, for 
 that matter : the fact is, I always have both- eyes and ears open, — 
 travel with them that way, sleep with them that way. I would not 
 be the man I am in the business world, Noel, if that weren't the case. 
 And, pretty though Miss Vincent may be, she's not the girl for you to 
 waste your time on." 
 
 "But why not?" asked Noel. "They have a magnificent home, 
 
330 ^J^O SOLDIERS. 
 
 and everything about it indicates wealth and refinement and culture; 
 and there is no denying that she is one of the most attractive girls in 
 society in this city : certainly I have seen none whom I have admired 
 more." 
 
 "That is all very true, perhaps/' was the reply; "but her father 
 was very badly bitten during that wheat corner last month, and in fact 
 he has been losing heavily for the last two years. Warden, who is 
 his broker on 'Change, let it leak out in more ways than one; and 
 that wife of Warden's is a regular scandal-monger, — she can't help 
 talking, and everything she manages to extract from him in the way of 
 information goes broadcast over the entire city. Of course, when the 
 corner broke, as it did, old Vincent managed to pull out of it without 
 absolute loss of his homestead and his entire business. But the rally 
 came oidy in the nick of time. I am told that Warden has said that 
 if wheat had gone up one cent higher it would have knocked Vincent 
 out of time ; he never could have come to again. Gordon Noel, we 
 have another plan for you. Wait until Ned Terry's sister gets back 
 from the East ; between her and her brother they have just about as 
 much money invested in the best-paying business in this town as any 
 people that I can possibly name. She's a belle; she's just as pretty as 
 Miss Vincent. She isn't as smart, perhaps, but she is a woman worth 
 cultivating. Now, hold your horses. Where did you meet her, by the 
 way?" 
 
 " I first met her at the Thorntons' dinner-party. She was there 
 with Captain Lane, and some other young people whom I had not 
 previously met." 
 
 " Oh, yes ; that reminds me. It seems to me I have heard once or 
 twice that your friend Lane was very much smitten in that quarter. 
 Now, you'd much better let him carry off Miss Vincent, if he can. 
 She would suit his modest views of life very well. But I don't believe 
 the girl has a penny to her fortune ; at least she certainly won't if 
 Vincent has no more luck in the future than he has had in the last 
 year." 
 
 "I took her down to dinner," said Noel, thoughtfully, "and I re- 
 member that she talked a good deal about the army, and asked a great 
 many questions about the cavalry. Now that you speak of it, I 
 noticed that Lane, who sat on the opposite side of the table, didn't 
 seem to be particularly interested in the lady whom he was escorting, 
 although of course he had to be civil and tried to keep up a conversa- 
 tion, but every now and then I would catch him looking at us, and par- 
 ticularly at her. But she looked so pretty that I didn't wonder at it." 
 
 " When did you next see her?" said Withers. 
 
 " Only last night. You know, I was called away almost imme- 
 diately after the Thornton affair, and had to go on to New York on 
 the court-martial, where I was summoned as a witness, then only got 
 back in time for the party last night. That was my second meeting 
 with her, and by this time Lane had gone out to join the regiment. 
 I didn't even have a chance to say good -by to him. Do you think, 
 really, that he was smitten in that quarter?" 
 
 " That's what I certainly heard," said Withers ; " and as soon as 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 33I 
 
 you get to know young people in society, I venture to say that you 
 can readily find out all about it. These girls all know one another's 
 secrets, and are generally pretty ready to tell them. That's the result 
 of my experience." 
 
 It was evident that Amos Withers's cousin was not to be neglected 
 in the Queen City. Two parties at })rivate houses, a reception at the 
 club, and three dinners were the invitations which he found awaiting 
 him at his office. Half an hour was occupied in acknowledging and 
 accepting or declining, as happened to be the case, these evidences of 
 hospitality; then, having no especial interest in the morning paper, his 
 thougl)ts again reverted to what Mr. Withers had been telling him about 
 Miss Vincent, and the possible relation between her and his regimental 
 comrade. He had been very much impressed with her the night be- 
 fore. Her beauty was of such a rare and radiant character, she was 
 so genial and unaffected in her manner, so bright and winning, with 
 such an evident liking for his society, that Mr. Noel had come away 
 flattering himself that he had made in this quarter a most favorable 
 impression. He had thought of iier very much as he went home from 
 the party, — of her interested ftice, as he talked or danced with her; 
 and she danced delightfully, and was so good as to say that his step 
 perfectly suited hers. He remembered now, too, her remark that it 
 was so delightful to dance with army officers, and graduates of the 
 Point, they all seemed to feel so thoroughly at home on the floor. 
 
 Noel was not a graduate of the Point by any means; but he saw 
 no reason for disenchanting her on that score. He was quite as good 
 as any of the West-Pointers, in his own opinion, and in society was 
 very much more at home than many of their number. As a dancer he 
 was looked upon in his regiment and throughout the cavalry as one of 
 the most accomplished in the whole service. And all this interest and 
 all this cordiality he had accepted without hesitation as a tribute to his 
 own superior qualifications and attractiveness. It was therefore with a 
 feeling akin to pique that he heard of this possible engagement exist- 
 ing between her and Captain Lane. 
 
 In all the Eleventh Cavalry there was no man whom Gordon Noel 
 feared and possibly hated more than he did Captain Lane. This arose 
 from the fact that Lane as adjutant of the regiment had seen all the 
 communications that passed from time to time relative to Noel's absence 
 from his command when his services were most needed and when any 
 man of spirit would have taken every possible precaution to be with 
 it. He knew how silent Lane had always been, and how thorough a 
 custodian of regimental secrets he was considered. But all the same 
 the mere fact that Lane knew all these circumstances so much to his 
 disadvantage, and had seen all his lame and impotent excuses, had made 
 him fear him as a possible enemy and hate him simply because he 
 stood in awe of him. 
 
 No one, to M^atch Noel in society or in the presence of his brother 
 officers, would suppose for a moment that he looked upon Lane with 
 other than feelings of the warmest regard and comradeship. It was 
 only in his secret thoughts, which he admitted to no soul on eartli, that 
 Noel realized what his real feelings were towards a man who had never 
 
332 . '^WO SOLDIERS. 
 
 done him a wrong, but who bad treated bim on all occasions, public and 
 private, with courtesy and consideration. 
 
 For some reason or other the lieutenant felt restless and dissatisfied 
 this morning. The atmosphere of the office was decidedly uncongenial. 
 He was a man who rarely read anything, and to whom letter-writing 
 was a bore. To be sure, he had little of it to do, for no man in the 
 regiment had expressed a desire to hear from him. It was a hot, sultry 
 day ; the stylish white flannel suit in which he had arrayed his hand- 
 some self was wasting its elegance on the desert air of a bare and empty 
 room, instead of being seen in tbe boudoirs of beauty or the billiard- 
 rooms at the club. Business was slack : no recruits were coming in, 
 and Mr. Noel could stand it no longer. A ring from his bell summoned 
 the sergeant to the room. 
 
 *' There doesn't seem to be any likelihood of recruits coming in such 
 a day as this, sergeant," said Mr. Noel. " I'm going up to the club for 
 a while; if anybody should come in, send one of the men up there for 
 me ; I'll return at once." And with that he took his straw hat and light 
 cane and strolled leisurely up the street. His was a figure that many a 
 man — and more women — would turn to look at more than once. Tall, 
 slim, elegant in build, always dressed in excellent taste, Gordon Noel 
 in any community would have been pronounced a remarkably present- 
 able man. His face, as has been said, was very fine ; his eyes dark and 
 handsome, shaded by deep, thick lashes; his hair dark and waving; 
 his moustache, dark and drooping, served only to enhance the brilliancy 
 of the even white teeth that flashed underneath it in his frequent smiles 
 and joyous laughter. One would say, in looking at Noel, that he was 
 a man of singularly sunny disposition ; aud so he was, and so they found 
 him at the club ; and so the loungers there hailed him with jovial shouts 
 as he entered ; tor, though only a fortnight had elapsed since his arrival, 
 and four days of that time he had been absent, giving his testimony 
 before the court-martial in New York harbor, he had nevertheless won 
 his way into the hearts of all the young fellows around the club, and 
 no more popular man than Gordon Noel had ever come within the 
 doors of " The Queen City." 
 
 " What are you going to have, old man ?" was the first question 
 asked, and Noel laughingly ordered a sherry-cobbler, saying the day 
 was far too hot for anything stronger. 
 
 " Who's that I just saw going into the billiard-room?" he asked. 
 
 "That? that's Regy Vincent. Haven't you met him yet?" 
 
 " Regy Vincent," said Noel. " Is he the brother of the Miss Vin- 
 cent whom I met at the party last night ?" 
 
 " The very same," was the reply. " Mighty bright fellow, too, and 
 a very jolly one ; though he has been in hard luck of late." 
 
 " How in hard luck ?" asked a quiet-looking man seated in a big 
 arm-chair, lowering for a moment the qewspaper which he had been 
 reading. 
 
 " Well, through his father's ill luck on 'Change. You all know, of 
 course, that Vincent was nearly busted before that corner went under 
 last week." 
 
 " I know this," was the calm reply, " that while he did stand for a 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 333 
 
 few days on tlie ' ragged edge/ and while it may be that had that corner 
 not broken when it did he would have been in sore straits, in some way 
 he or his partner, Clark, came to taw with additional funds, and had 
 the consummate pluck to put up more at the very moment when it was 
 believed that that syndicate was going to have everything their own 
 way. So far from being badly bitten by that deal, it's my belief that 
 Vincent, Clark & Co. came out of it with a very pretty penny to the 
 good." 
 
 " Well, of course, Harris, you must know more about it than I 
 do. But you cannot be gladder than I am to hear that Vincent's 
 status is so much better than we supposed. I'm glad on his account, 
 I'm glad on Regy's account, and I'm particularly glad on Miss Mabel's 
 account. And now I'm particularly chuckling over Billy Rossiter's 
 frame of mind when he hears the real truth of this matter. AVhen he 
 went after her to Rome last year, and everybody supposed that Vincent 
 was worth a million, there's no doubt in the world that he did his best 
 to win her, and that was what he was sent abroad by his father to do. 
 But he didn't win her then, for she strenuously denied any engagement 
 when she came back here ; yet it was supposed tliat if he persevered his 
 chances would be good. Why, he's not half a bad fellow, only he 
 can't marry so long as he is in his father's employ and dependent on 
 him, unless he marries according to his father's wishes ; and the old 
 man called him off just as soon as he found out that Vincent was on 
 the verge of failure. Billy Rossiter has lost any chance that he might 
 have had in that quarter ; for she'll never look at him again." 
 
 " Served him right, if that be the case. Any man who hasn't 
 sense enough to stick to a girl who is bright and pretty as Mabel Vin- 
 cent, rich or poor, deserves no luck at all in this world. But that 
 reminds me. Captain Noel, according to rumor and what the girls say 
 in society, — and you know they generally know pretty much every- 
 thing that is going on, — there is something more than a mere un- 
 derstanding between her and your predecessor here, the recruiting 
 officer. Lieutenant Lane. Did he say anything about it to you ?" 
 
 " No, not a word. I think, though, that had there been anything 
 in the story Lane would have let me know something about it, for we 
 are very old and intimate friends. Did you say that that was Mr. 
 Reginald Vincent who has just gone into the billiard-room ?" 
 
 " Yes," answered Mr. Morris, " that's he. Would you like to 
 know him?" 
 
 " Very much indeed ; and if you've nothing better to do, come in 
 and present me. Perhaps he will want to play a game of billiards, 
 and if so I'm his man." 
 
 And so it happened that, that very morning, Gordon Noel was 
 presented to Reginald Vincent, and when Regy went home to luncheon 
 he spoke enthusiastically of his new-found acquaintance, whom he 
 pi'onounced to be one of the most delightful fellows he had ever met 
 anywhere, and who was such a warm and devoted friend of Captain 
 Lane. "I want, if I meet him this afternoon, as I probably shall, to 
 bring him back to dinner with me. What say you, mother? — just 
 informally." 
 
334 '^IVO SOLDIERS. 
 
 " Don't you think it would be better to wait a day or two, and 
 have a little dinner, and invite a few friends to meet him ?" asked Mrs. 
 Vincent. " Your father, perhaps, would like to be consulted in the 
 matter. I've no doubt that he would like to do something to show 
 attention to any friend of Captain Lane's. What do you think, 
 Mabel ?" 
 
 " I vote for both," replied that young woman, with much alacrity. 
 " I have met Mr. Noel twice." 
 
 " Captain Noel, dear," said Regy ; " Captain Noel." 
 
 " He is not a captain yet, Heginald : I happen to know from the 
 regimental roster: I have a copy up-stairs, that Captain Lane very 
 kindly left me." And here a decided blush stole up the fair cheeks of 
 the young lady. " I learned a good deal about the officers of the 
 regiment from Mr. Lane — Captain Lane — while he was here. Mr. 
 Noel ranks second among the lieutenants of the regiment. As Cap- 
 tain Lane said, he is so very near his captaincy that perhaps he ac- 
 cepts the title that you all give liim at the club as only a trifle prema- 
 ture." 
 
 " Well, captain or lieutenant, it doesn't make any difference," said 
 Regy, impulsively : " he's a mighty good fellow, and a mighty good 
 friend of your friend Captain Lane, and if you have no objection, 
 mother, I'll bring him around to dinner to-night, and then perhaps 
 we might go to tiie theatre afterwards. I'm very sure that Captain 
 Noel will enjoy it. Fact is, he enjoys everything. Everybody in the 
 club is perfectly delighted with him. You ought to hear him sing an 
 Irish song or tell a French story ! I'll try and get him started when 
 he comes here. He's a wonderful mimic; and he's so full of informa- 
 tion about their service on the frontier. Now, Lane so seldom spoke 
 of anything of the kind ; but Noel will talk for hours at a time about 
 the wonderful country through which they have scouted and fought, 
 and all that they have been through in their campaigns. By Jove ! 
 but that fellow has seen a lot of hard service, and has been through 
 some hair-breadth escapes !" 
 
 " Who ?" inquired Mrs. Vincent ; " Captain Lane or Mr. Noel ?" 
 
 " Noel, of course, — Noel I'm speaking of. Lane, no doubt, saw a 
 great deal of service with the regiment ; but Noel says that he was 
 adjutant so much of the time, and on other staff-duty, while he (Noel) 
 was almost incessantly scouting, hunting after various Indian parties, 
 and being on the war-path, as he laughingly expresses it." 
 
 " Does he mean that Captain Lane didn't see much actual service 
 there ?" asked Miss Mabel, with heightened color. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know that he means that. Don't understand me as 
 saying for a moment that Noel disparages Lane's services ; on the con- 
 trary, he never speaks of him except with the most enthusiastic regard. 
 Neither does he boast at all of his own service ; only you can't help 
 seeing, in the modest, off-hand way in which he speaks of his cam- 
 paigning, what a deal of hardship and danger he has encountered for 
 the simple reason that he was with the command that had to go through 
 it all." ^ ^ 
 
 " Your father tells me," said Mrs. Vincent, " that he met him one 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 335 
 
 day on 'Change when Mr. Withers brought him in ; that was before 
 the crash, and when he had no time to pay him any attention. Of 
 course the cousin of Mr. A mos Withers was receiv^ed with a great deal 
 of bowing and scraping by Mr. Withers's friends in that honorable 
 body. But all the same I know your father will be glad to meet Mr. 
 Noel now ; and by all means bring him, if you feel disposed, to-night. 
 What manner of looking man is he?" 
 
 " A remarkably handsome man, mother," said Mabel, at once, — 
 " one of the handsomest I ever saw ; and he certainly made himself 
 very entertaining and very jolly the night we sat together at dinner at 
 the Thorntons'." 
 
 " There's a great contrast physically between him and Lane," put 
 in Regy. " Noel is such an elegantly built fellow, — so tall and fine- 
 looking. Lane would be almost undersized when standings beside 
 him, and is very much at a disadvantage when they appear together, I 
 should judge." 
 
 A very bright and joyous party it was, seated around the home- 
 like table of the Vincents that evening, and, as Regy had predicted, 
 Noel proved very entertaining and a most agreeable guest. While 
 showing much deference to Mr. Vincent and attention to his good 
 wife, he nevertheless managed to have a great deal to say about 
 the regiment and its daring and perilous service on the frontier, and 
 to throw in here and there many a pleasant word about Captain 
 Lane and their long and intimate acquaintance, and before dinner was 
 over had won a warm place in Mabel Vincent's heart by the way in 
 which he so frequently spoke of the man to whom she liad plighted 
 her troth. 
 
 And that very evening, as Frederick Lane, — far out under the 
 star-lit sky of Arizona, — with his heart full of longing and love for 
 her, and thinking only of her as he rode over the desolate plain with 
 the lights of old Fort Graham already in view, Mabel Vincent, seated 
 by Gordon Noel's side, was looking up into his handsome face and 
 listenino; to his animated voice between the acts of " Twelfth Night." 
 
 IX. 
 
 Only a short distance from the Arizona border, with the blue range 
 of the Santa Catarina shutting out the sunset skies, M'ith sand and 
 cactus and Spanish bayonet on every side, the old post of Fort Graham 
 stood in the desert like a mud-colored oasis. All the quarters, all the 
 store-houses, stables, corrals, and barracks, were built of the native 
 adobe; and though whitewash had been liberally applied, especially 
 about the homes of the officers, and the long Venetian blinds at their 
 front windows had been painted the coolest of deep greens, and clear 
 running water sparkled through the acequias that bordered the parade, 
 it could not be denied that at its best Graham was an arid and forbid- 
 ding station, so far as one could judge by appearances. Trees, verdure, 
 turf, were items almost unknown within a day's march of the flag-staff; 
 but in the old times when the Navajoes were the terror of the wide 
 Southwest and even the Comanches sometimes carried their raids across 
 
336 ^^0 SOLDIERS. 
 
 the Rio Bravo del Norte — the Rio Grande of to-day — the post had 
 beeu " located" where it might afford protection to the " Forty-Niners" 
 and to the pioneers of the prairies ; the traus-continental trail led past 
 its very gates, and many a time and oft the miner and the emigrant 
 thanked God and tlie general government that the old fort was placed 
 just where it was, for Indian pursuers drew rein when once in sight 
 of its dingy walls ; and so from year to year for more than thrice a 
 decade the flag was raised at sunrise, the post was always garrisoned ; 
 and now, with the Southern Pacific piercing the range but a short dis- 
 tance below, and landing stores and forage at the quartermaster's d6p0t 
 within four miles of the corrals, it became easier to maintain a force 
 of cavalry at Graham ; and one of the troops there stationed was Lane's 
 new command, the relict of the late lamented Curran, " the Devil's 
 own D." 
 
 An easy-going old dragoon was Curran, and for years before his 
 retirement it was an open secret that his first sergeant " ran the troop" 
 to suit himself and that the captain never permitted his subalterns 
 to interfere. A more independent, devil-may-care, and occasionally 
 drunken lot of troopers were rarely gathered in one such organization, 
 and, while steady and reliable men on getting their discharges at the 
 end of their term of enlistment would refuse to " take on" again in D 
 Troop, but would go over to Captain Breese or perhaps to a company 
 at another station, all the scamps and rollicking characters in the regi- 
 ment would drift over into '' D" and be welcomed by the choice spirits 
 therein assembled. And this was the gang that Captain Lane was now 
 expected to bring up with a round turn and transform into dutiful 
 soldiers. Obedient to the colonel's behest, he had stopped over a 
 couple of days at head,-quarters, had had a most cordial greeting from 
 every officer at the post, had called on all the ladies, — not omitting his 
 fair defamers, — and then had hastened on to Graham and his new and 
 trying duties. Every day, as he was whirled farther away from the 
 home of her whom he so devotedly loved, he wrote long letters to her, 
 filled with — only lovers know what all. And liis heart leaped with 
 joy that topmost in the little packet of letters awaiting him at the 
 adjutant's office when he reached his post was a dainty billet addressed 
 to him in her beloved hand. Until he could get his quarters in habi- 
 table condition the new troop-commander was the guest of Captain and 
 Mrs. Nash ; and he could hardly wait for the close of that amiable 
 woman's welcoming address to reach his room and devour every word 
 of that most precious missive. She had written — bless her ! — the very 
 day after he left, and a sweet, womanly letter it was, — so shy and half 
 timid, yet so full of faith and pride in him. Every one at Graham 
 remarked on the wonderful change for the better that had come over 
 Lane since he went East. Never had they seen him so joyous, so 
 blithe in manner. He seemed to walk on air ; his eyes beamed on 
 every one ; his face seemed " almost to have a halo round it," said Mrs. 
 Nash, and neither she nor any woman in garrison had the faintest doubt 
 as to the explanation of it all. Love had wrought the change, and 
 being loved had intensified and prolonged it. Every man — every 
 woman in garrison was his friend, and the happy fellow would gladly 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 337 
 
 have taken dozens of them into his confidence and told them all about 
 it, and talked by the hour of her. 
 
 But there were reasons, Mrs. Vincent had said, why it was most 
 desirable that there should be no announcement of the engagement as 
 yet. What these were she did not explain to Mabel herself, but assured 
 her that it was her father's wish as well. Lane had rushed to the great 
 jewelry-house of Van Loo & Laing, and the diamond solitaire that 
 flashed among the leaves of the exquisite rose-bud he smilingly handed 
 her that night was one to make any woman gasp with delight. Could 
 anything on earth be rich enough, pure enough, fair enough, to lavish 
 on her, his peerless queen ? 
 
 She had held forth her soft white hand and let him slip it on the 
 engagement finger and then bend the knee like knight of old and kiss 
 it fervently. She revelled in it, rejoiced in it, but, heeding her mother's 
 advice, stowed it away where none could see it, in the secret drawer of 
 her desk, and Lane was perfectly satisfied. " I will tell you the reason 
 some day," Mrs. Vincent liad said to him, " but not just now, for I 
 might be doing wrong ;" and he had protested that she need never tell 
 him. What cared he, so long as Mabel's love was his, and they under- 
 stood each other as they did? 
 
 And so, while people at Graham plied him with questions and 
 insinuations and side-remarks about the " girl he left behind him" in 
 the East, he kept faithfully to the agreement, and though all the gar- 
 rison knew he wrote to her every day and took long rides alone that 
 he might think of her, doubtless, and though every one knew that 
 those dainty missives that came so often for Captain Lane were written 
 by Miss Mabel Vincent, never once did he admit the existence of an 
 engagement, — never once until long afterwards. 
 
 The first real tidings that the Graham people had of her came in a 
 letter from head-quarters. Mrs. Riggs had had such a long, charming 
 letter from Mr. Noel that she called in several of her cronies and read 
 it all to them ; and that very evening one of the number, unable to 
 bear the burden of so much information, shifted it from her mental 
 shoulders by writing it all to Mrs. Nash. Perhaps the best plan will 
 be to read the extract which referred to Lane exactly as Mr. Noel 
 wrote it : 
 
 " By this time I presume Fred Lane is busily engaged with his new 
 troop. I served with them in the Sioux campaign, and they never gave 
 me any trouble at all. So, too, in the Geronimo chase a while ago, 
 when Major Brace picked me out to go ahead by night from Carrizo's 
 I asked for a detachment from D Troop, and the men seemed to appre- 
 ciate it. I knew they would follow wherever I would lead, and would 
 stand by me through thick and thin. If Lane starts in right I've no 
 doubt they will do just as well for him ; but I expect he is feeling 
 mighty blue at having to rejoin just now. You know I've always 
 been a warm friend of his, and it hurt me to see him so unwilling to 
 go back. No one seemed to know him very well in society ; and it's 
 very queer, for this was his old home, — and I was never more delight- 
 fully welcomed anywhere ; the people are charming. But Lane had 
 
338 I'^O SOLDIERS. 
 
 held himself aloof a good deal, and fellows at the club say he didn't 
 ^ run with the right set.' Then, if all accounts be true, he had had 
 hard luck in several ways. I'm told that he lost money in a big wheat 
 s[)eculation, and everybody says lie totally lost his heart. I tell you 
 this in confidence because I know you are a devoted friend of his, — as 
 indeed you are of all in the dear old regiment, — but he was much 
 embarrassed when it came to turning over the funds. There was quite 
 a heavy shortage, which he had to make up at a time when it was 
 probably most inconvenient. As to the other loss, it isn't to be won- 
 dered at. She is a beautiful and most charming girl, and many a man, 
 I fancy, has laid his heart at her feet. It is said, however, that Lane's 
 loss is the heavier in this case because — well, I fear it will come to 
 nothing. A young lady told me yesterday that there was something 
 back of it all, — that she, Miss Vincent, was deeply in love with a Mr. 
 Rossiter, of New York, and had been for over a year, and they were 
 to have been married this coming September, but that the gentleman (?) 
 learned that her father had been nearly swamped in speculation and 
 had not a penny to give her. My informant went to school with Miss 
 Vincent, and knows her intimately, and she says that Mr. Rossiter 
 simply threw her over a short time ago, and that it was pique and 
 exasperation and to hide her heart-break from the world that Mabel 
 Vincent began to show such pleasure in Lane's devotions. She led him 
 on, so her lady friends say ; and now Mr. Rossiter has found out that 
 old Vincent was sharper and shrewder than any one supposed and 
 made instead of losing a pile, and now he is suing to be taken back, 
 and they say that she is so much in love with the fellow that the 
 chances are all in his favor. This is why I feel such sorrow and 
 anxiety for Lane. 
 
 " Well, I led the german at a lovely party at the Prendergasts' last 
 night. Miss Vincent was there, looking like a peach -blossom, and we 
 danced together a great deal. When it- came time to break up I believe 
 half the people in the rooms came to say good-night to me and to tell 
 me they had never seen so delightful a german, — ' everything so 
 depends on the leader.' I have invitations for something or other for 
 every night for the next fortnight ; and yet I so often long for tlie old 
 regiment and the true friends I had to leave. It did rae a workl of 
 good last night to meet old Colonel Gray, of the retired list, whose 
 home is here, but he commanded the — th Infantry in the Sioux cam- 
 paign, and when he saw me he threw his arms around my neck and 
 hugged me before the whole throng of people. Give my love to our 
 chief, always, and believe me, dear, true friend of mine, 
 
 " Yours most affectionately, 
 
 " Gordon Noel." 
 
 Condensed, edited by feminine hands, and accented here and there 
 as suited the writer's mood, this was the letter which formed the basis 
 of the one received by Mrs. Nash. Lane by this time was cosily en- 
 sconced in his quarters, and was giving all his time to the improvement 
 of affairs about his troop's barracks, kitchens, and stables, to drill- and 
 target- j)ract ice, and to company duties generally. His days knew no 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 339 
 
 relaxation from labor from reveille until " retreat" at sunset, and then 
 came the delicious evenings in which he could write to her and read a 
 chapter or two of some favorite work before going early to bed. After 
 the first week he seldom left his house after eight o'clock, and the gar- 
 rison had therefore ample opportunity to discuss his aifairs. Some 
 color was lent to the story of his having lost money in speculation 
 by a letter received from Cheyenne written to the new major of the 
 
 th Infantry, who had recently joined by promotion from Fort 
 
 Russell, near that thriving town. The writer said that Lane of the 
 Eleventh Cavalry had sold his property there for fifteen thousand 
 dollars about the end of June, and he had bought it for twenty-five 
 hundred only nine years before. He could have got eighteen thousand 
 just as well by waiting a few days; but lie wanted the money at once. 
 
 No one, of course, could ask the captain any direct questions about 
 his affairs of either heart or pocket, but Lane was puzzled to account 
 for some of the remarks that were made to him, — the interrogato- 
 ries about the methods of speculation, the tentatives as to chances of 
 " making a good thing" in that way, and the sharp and scrutinizing 
 glances that accompanied the queries. The sweet, sympathetic, semi-con- 
 fidential manner, the inviting way in which the ladies spoke to him of 
 his present loneliness and their hopes that soon he would bring to them 
 a charming wife to share their exile and bless his army home, — all tiiis, 
 too, seemed otld to him ; but, as he had never been in love nor engaged 
 before, he did not know but that it was "always the way with them," 
 and so let it pass. 
 
 And then he was very happy in her letters. They were neither as fre- 
 quent nor as long as his, but tlien she had such a round of social duties ; 
 she was in such constant demand ; there were visitors or parties every 
 night, and endless calls and shopping-tours with mother every day, and 
 she was really getting a little run down. The weather was oppressively 
 warm, and they longed to get away from the city and go to the moun- 
 tains. It was only a day's ride to the lovely resorts in the Alleghanies, 
 but papa was looking a little thin and worn again, and the doctors had 
 said his heart was affected, — not alarmingly or seriously, but mamma 
 could not bear to leave him, and he declared it utterly impossible to be 
 away from his business a single day. He and Mr. Clark were very 
 hopeful over a new venture they had made, the nature of which she did 
 not thoroughly understand. 
 
 But let us take a peep at some of those early letters, — not at the 
 answers to his eager questions, not at the shy words of maiden love 
 that crept in here and there, but at those pages any one might read. 
 
 " Tuesday night. 
 "... Such a delightful german as we had last night at the Pren- 
 dergasts' ! Captain Noel led — I have to call him captain, for every one 
 does here, and if I say ' Mr.' they want to know why, and it is embar- 
 rassing to explain how I know. He leads remarkably well, and I was 
 very proud of 'our regiment,' sir, when listening to all the nice things 
 said about him. How I wished for a certain other cavalry captain, 
 now so many cruel miles away ! Mr. Noel took me out often, — and 
 
340 ^^O SOLDIERS. 
 
 indeed I was a decided belle, — and he told me that he had to lead with 
 Miss Prendergast, but would so much rather dance with me. 
 
 "It is almost settled that we go away in August for the entire 
 month. Dr. Post says mother must go, and that father ought to go. 
 Of course I go with mamma. Deer Park will doubtless be the favored 
 spot. I wish August were here ; I wish you were here ; I wish — oh, 
 so many things ! Your letters are such a delight to me. I wonder if 
 other girls have anything like them. Yes, you shall have the picture 
 on my birthday ; but mind, sir, you are to take the utmost care of it, 
 or the original will feel neglected." 
 
 " Friday night. 
 
 "... So many interruptions to-day, dear Fred ! You see what an 
 incoherent thing this is thus far, and now I'm tired out. We had a 
 charming time at the Woodrows' dinner last evening. The day had 
 been hot, but their table was set on the lawn under a canopy, and, the 
 walls being raised, we had a delightful breeze from the river. Their 
 place is one of the finest on the heights. I did so wish you could have 
 seen it. Captain Noel took me in, and was so bright and jolly and 
 full of anecdote. Everybody likes him, and I like him mainly be- 
 cause he is such a loyal friend of yours. He talks so much of you 
 and of all the dangers you have shared in common ; and you know 
 how interesting all this must be to me. Sometimes I wonder that you 
 had so little to say about him, — though you never did talk much about 
 the regiment and never would talk much about yourself. Wednesday 
 evening we had a little theatre-party. Regy got it up, and we just 
 filled two adjoining loges. Captain Noel was Fanny Helton's escort, 
 but he talked most of the time with me, — a thing that my escort, Mr. 
 Forbes, did not seem to like ; but, as he couldn't talk, and Mr. Noel 
 would, what could I do?" 
 
 " Sunday evening. 
 
 " It is late, and I ought to be asleep, but the last caller has just 
 gone, and to-morrow there may be no time to write at all, and you are 
 
 such an exacting, tyrannical, dear old boy that Well, there, now, let 
 
 me tell you of the day. You say anything and everything that I say 
 or do is of interest. So, to begin with, yesterday I had a headache, due, 
 I fear, to the late supper Regy gave us at the club after the theatre. 
 Fanny Holton came to take me for a drive, but I did not feel like 
 going, and begged off. Then she told me that Captain Noel was in 
 the carriage waiting, and that he would be so disappointed. Mother 
 came in and said the air would do me good ; and so we went, and I 
 came back feeling so much brighter. Mr. Noel was very amusing, and 
 kept us laughing all the time. Coming home, Fanny got out at her 
 house, as she had to dress for dinner, but told the coachman to drive 
 me home and Mr. Noel to the club. He began talking of you the 
 moment she disappeared, and said he so hoped you were going to write 
 regularly to him. Are you? He seems so fond of you; but I do 
 not wonder at that. 
 
 " This morning we went to church, and afterwards Mr, Noel joined 
 and walked home with us, and papa begged him to come in to luncheon, 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 341 
 
 which he did. You dear fellow ! what have you done to my beloved 
 old daddy, that he is so ardent an admirer of yours? He shook Mr. 
 Noel's hand three times before he would let him go, and begged him 
 to come often : he liked to know men, he said, who could so thoroughly 
 appreciate — whom do you think, sir? — Captain Fred Lane. After he 
 had gone, papa spoke of him delightedly on two or three occasions. 
 Will they take him away too as soon as he is really a captain ?" 
 
 "Wednesday. 
 
 " You dear, dear, extravagant fellow ! Never have I had such ex- 
 quisite flowers, or such profusion of them. You must have given your 
 florist carte blanche. Nothing that came to me compared with them. 
 My birthday was the cause of quite a little /Me in the family, and I 
 had some lovely presents. Mr. Noel, too, sent a beautiful basket of 
 roses, and it pleased me very much. I want your comrades to like me, 
 and yet I know he did this on your account. Though he is so thought- 
 ful and delicate and never refers to our engagement, I feel that he 
 knows it ; and it seems better that way, somehow. 
 
 " You did not answer my questions about him, Fred. Didn't you 
 read my letter ?" 
 
 Among the letters that came from the Queen City was one 
 which bore the tremulous superscription of the head of the firm of 
 Vincent, Clark & Co. It was brief, but it gave Captain Lane a thrill 
 of gladness : 
 
 " It was your timely and thoughtful aid that enabled us to recover 
 so much of our losses. You alone came to our rescue, and I fully 
 appreciate the risk you ran. It will never be forgotten. 
 
 " Clark will send draft for the entire am't, or deposit to your 
 credit, as you may direct. I go to New York and Chicago in two or 
 three days. Our prospects are flattering." 
 
 August was close at hand. Queen City " society" had scattered in 
 every direction. The mountains and the sea-shore were levying tribute 
 on the plethoric pockets of the " big men" on 'Change and in business 
 of every conceivable kind. Blinds and shutters were closed at scores 
 of hospitable mansions in the narrow streets of the old city and even 
 in the elegant villas that crowned the surrounding heights. The sun- 
 glare at mid-day was so intense that no man was safe in venturing forth 
 without a huge sunshade of some kind, and even within the sacred 
 precincts of the club, where broad awnings hung on every side and 
 palm-leaf fans were in constant motion, the men strolled in to luncheon 
 in shirts of lightest flannel or pongee, with rolling collars and infini- 
 tesimal neckties. Every one who could leave town had long since 
 gone; and yet the Vincents lingered. Each day seemed to add to 
 the anxiety in the mother's eyes as she watched her husband's aging 
 face. He had returned from a business-trip of ten days or so looking 
 hopeful and buoyant, and had gone to the office the following morning 
 Vol. XLV.— 23 
 
342 ^^0 SOLDIERS. 
 
 with light step and cheery demeanor, but came home long after the 
 dinner-hour listless and dispirited, — a severe headache, he said, but the 
 wife knew that it was far more than head- or heartache. The family- 
 physician took occasion to warn Mr. Vincent that he was doing him- 
 self grievous wrong, — that his health imperatively demanded rest and 
 change of scene. Vincent looked in the good old doctor's face with a 
 world of dumb misery in his eyes, and only answered, " I will, — I 
 will,^in a week or so. I cannot quit my post just now. Clark is 
 taking his vacation. When he returns I'll go." And until he could 
 accompany them Mrs. Vincent refused to budge ; and yet she began to 
 urge that Mabel should start now. What was to prevent her going at 
 once and joining the Woodrows at Deer Park? Clarissa and Eleanor 
 Woodrow were always such friends of hers. But Mabel begged that 
 she might stay until both papa and mamma could go too; she could 
 not be content there without them, or at least without mother ; and 
 Mrs. Vincent could not find the words in which to frame the cause of 
 her greatest apprehension. 
 
 The one man whom the heat was powerless to subdue was Gordon 
 Noel. In the most immaculate and becoming costumes of white or 
 straw color, that genial officer would saunter into the club at noontide, 
 looking provokingly cool and comfortable, and, as he expressed it, 
 " without having turned a hair." 
 
 " Hot !" he would say. " Call this hot ? Why, bless your hearts, 
 fellows, you ought to live in Arizona awhile ! Gad ! I've come in 
 sometimes from a scout through the Gila desert and rushed for cold 
 cream to plaster on my nose and cheeks : it would be all melted, of 
 course ; but when I clapped it on it would sizzle just like so much' 
 lard in a frying-pan. And down at Fort Yuma our hens laid hard- 
 boiled eggs from June to October." And then his eyes would twinkle 
 with fun, and he would bury his dark moustache in the cracked ice of 
 his julep with infinite relish. 
 
 "I say," queried Mr. Morris of his chum, Terry junior, one lan- 
 guid afternoon after Noel had jauntily strolled away, " don't you envy 
 a feller who can enjoy life like that ?" 
 
 " Never saw anything like it !" quoth the younger. " One w-ould 
 suppose that after being a slave all mawning in those beastly works 
 I ought to enjoy a little recreation ; but I can't, you know." 
 
 " Queer ducks, those army fellers. Gad ! this love-making by 
 proxy is what gets me, — this sort of Miles Standish courtship business. 
 She's prettier, though, than the original Priscilla." 
 
 " How do you mean ?" queried young Terry, vaguely. He had 
 been brought up under the thumb of his elder brother, and, from the 
 outset, had been given to understand that if he expected to share in the 
 profits he must learn the business. There had been no college for him, 
 and New' England legends were sealed books. 
 
 " Why, I mean that 'twouldn't surprise me a bit if we had a mod- 
 ern version of the old ' Why don't you speak for yourself, John ?' 
 He's with her incessantly." 
 
 " Oh ! Miss Vincent you're speaking of. Her name's Mabel, I 
 thought, not — what'd you call her?" 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 343 
 
 " Never mind, Jimmy," said Morris, rising. " Come and have a 
 cigarette." 
 
 And it was not only in the club, over their cigars, that men 
 spoke significantly of Noel's attentions to the lovely daughter of the 
 house of Vincent. It was not the men, indeed, who did the greater 
 part of the talk. If they noticed and spoke of it, what must not the 
 women have been saying ! Noel, quitting the hospitable roof of Cousin 
 Amos, had taken rooms down in town, midway between the club and 
 the Vincent homestead, and those two points became the limits of 
 his field of action. The Withers household had gone to the Mary- 
 land mountains, and the massive master of the establishment was 
 treating himself to a month's vacation. Almost all the pretty girls 
 were gone. What more natural than that Mr. Noel should so fre- 
 quently seek the society of the prettiest of all, even if she were 
 engaged to Frederick Lane, as people said she was before he went 
 away? There was no monitorial Amos to call him off, no one to 
 bid him turn his devotions elsewhere ; and she herself could see no 
 harm, for was not almost all his talk of Captain Lane? was he not 
 his loyal and devoted friend ? The captain's letters came every day, 
 and he seemed pleased to know that Noel had such pleasant things to 
 say of him, and was so attentive, — or rather kind, because it wasn't 
 really on her account that he came so frequently. To be sure. Cap- 
 tain Lane did not say much about the matter one way or the other; 
 and if he saw no harm, if he expressed no dissatisfaction, who else had 
 any right to find fault? 
 
 Her mother, was the answer that conscience pricked into her heart 
 quicker even than she could think. For days past the good lady's 
 manner to Noel had been gaining in distance and coolness. " She is 
 ill at ease, — worried about papa," was Mabel's attempt at a self-satis- 
 fying plea ; but conscience again warned her that she knew better, — far 
 better. Her father, engrossed in business cares that seemed only to 
 increase with every day, had no eyes or ears for affairs domestic; and 
 so it resulted that when Noel came sauntering in at evening with his 
 jaunty, debonair, joyous manner, there was no one to receive him but 
 Mabel, and he wanted no one more. 
 
 "Does Captain Lane know of thisand approve it?" was the grave 
 question her mother had at last propounded. 
 
 " I have written to him with the utmost frankness, mother," was 
 Miss Vincent's reply, while a wave of color swept over her face and a 
 rebellious light gleamed in her eyes, " and he has never hinted at such 
 a thing as disapproval. He has more confidence in me than you have. 
 If he had not " 
 
 But the rest was left unsaid. 
 
 Poor Mrs. Vincent ! She turned away, well knowing that argu- 
 ment or opposition in such matters was mistaken policy. The words 
 that sprung to her lips were, "Alas ! he does not know you as I do !" 
 but she shut those lips firmly, rigorously denying herself the feminine 
 luxury of the last word and the launching of a Parthian arrow that 
 would have made, indeed, a telling shot. If heaven is what it is 
 painted, there can be no more joy over the sinner that repenteth than 
 
344 '^WO SOLDIERS. 
 
 over the woman who tramples down her fiercest temptation and 
 " bridleth her tongue." Mrs. Vincent deserved to be canonized. 
 
 And meantime how went the world with Lane? Faithful, honest, 
 simple-hearted man that he was, holding himself in such modest esti- 
 mate, marvelling as he often did over the fact that he could have really 
 won the love of a being so radiant, so exquisite, as Mabel, he lived in 
 a dream that was all bliss and beauty, except for the incessant and all- 
 pervading longing to see her, — to be near her. He loved her with an 
 intensity that he had no means of expressing. Not a waking instant 
 was she absent from his thoughts, and in his dreams she appeared to 
 him, crowned with a halo such as never angel knew. He used 
 to lie awake at times in the dead hours of the night, wondering 
 if the very newsboys and workmen of the city realized their blessed 
 privilege, that they could step upon the flagstones her little foot 
 had pressed, that they could see her face, perhaps hear her voice, 
 as she strolled in the cool of evening along the gravelled path- 
 way of the little park that adjoined her home. Loving her as he 
 did, his heart went out to any one who knew her or was even familiar 
 with the city where she dwelt. He had felt for years a contempt for 
 Gordon Noel that, at times, he had difficulty in disguising. Now he 
 was tempted to write to him, to shut out the past, to open confi- 
 dential relations and have him write long letters that should tell of 
 her. There were three men in his troop in whom he felt a vague, 
 mysterious interest simply because they had been enlisted at the old 
 rendezvous on Sycamore Street, only three squares from her home. 
 He was so full of hope and faith and love and gratitude that the whole 
 garrison seemed to hold naught but cheer and friendliness. He never 
 dreamed of the stories the men were telling or the confidences women 
 'were whispering about the post. Noel had written again to Mrs. Riggs, 
 and Mrs. Riggs had not spared her information. It was now said in 
 Queen City society that the engagement was of Mr. Vincent's making. 
 He had been associated with I^ane in some speculations that proved 
 disastrous, but the captain had shown such command of money and had 
 " put up" at such an opportune moment that they came out in good 
 shape after all, and as soon as the old man found that Lane loved his 
 daughter he insisted on her accepting him. The information about 
 Lane's coming to the rescue with money he had heard from Mr. 
 Vincent himself, — as indeed he had. One evening when they were for 
 the moment alone, in a burst of confidence to the man whom he believed 
 to be a devoted friend of his prospective son-in-law, Vincent had told 
 the silent officer the story of that perilous crisis and of Lane's prompt 
 and generous loan, — but not as Noel told it to Mrs. Riggs. 
 
 " Do not distress yourself, my darling one," wrote Lane to his 
 fiancee, " because your letters are a little less frequent just now. I know 
 how occupied you must be with preparation, and how anxious you are 
 about the dear old father. Next week you will be in the mountains ; 
 and then, as you say, people will give you time to write, and then, too, 
 I shall be happy in your regaining health and spirits. The papers tell 
 me how intense has been the heat : it almost equals ours here in one 
 way, and is much worse in being moist and muggy. There is a pros- 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 345 
 
 pect of my going on a two weeks' scout with my whole troop early in 
 the month ; but your letters will reach me safely." 
 
 Why was it that she should experience a feeling almost of relief 
 in reading that he was going to be absent from the garrison awhile, — 
 going out on a two weeks' scout ? 
 
 She had sent him, as she promised, a lovely cabinet photograph of 
 herself that had been taken expressly for him. It came to the old 
 frontier fort just as the men were marching up from evening stables, 
 and the messenger, distributing the mail about the post, handed the 
 packet to the captain as he stood with a little knot of comrades on the 
 walk. There was instant demand that he should open it and show the 
 picture to them, but, blushing like a girl, he broke away and hid him- 
 self in his room ; and then, when sure of being uninterrupted, he took 
 it to the window and feasted his eyes upon the exquisite face and form 
 there portrayed. He kept it from that time in a silken case, which he 
 locked in a bui'eau drawer whenever he left the house, but in the even- 
 ings, or when writing at his desk, he brought it forth to light again 
 and set it where every moment he could look upon and almost wor- 
 ship it. 
 
 And then came her letters announcing their safe arrival at Deer 
 Park : 
 
 " Our journey was most trying, for the heat was intolerable until 
 we got well up among the mountains. Papa came ; but I know he 
 is simply fretting his heart out with anxiety to get back to the office. 
 Mr. Clark only returned from his vacation the day we started. Gordon 
 Noel came down to the train to see us off, and brought mother a basket 
 of such luscious fruit. He says that he has no home to go to, now that 
 we are gone. Indeed, he has been very thoughtful and kind, and I 
 don't think he is quite happy, despite his efforts to be always gay and 
 cheerful. . . . 
 
 " Do you really mean that you will be gone a fortnight ? How I 
 shall miss your dear letters, Fred ! And now indeed I will try to 
 write regularly. There's no one here I care anything about, though 
 the hotel seems very full, and there is much dancing and gayety. You 
 say my letters will reach you ; but I wonder how." 
 
 Lane read this with a sigh of relief. He had persuaded himself 
 that it was because he dreaded the effect of the long-continued hot 
 weather upon her that he so desired her to get to the mountains. Any 
 other thought would have been disloyalty to his queen. He wished — 
 just a little bit — that she had not written of him as Gordon Noel : 
 he much preferred that she should call him Captain, She would not 
 write so fully and frankly of him if he were anything but friendly, he 
 argued, and she would not tolerate his visits on any other grounds. 
 Yet she did not tell him that they had walked up and down the plat- 
 form together for ten minutes before the train started, and that when 
 it was time to part he had bent down and said, almost in a whisper, — 
 
 " Do you want to send a message for me to Fred Lane in your next 
 letter?" 
 
 " I will do so, if you wish," she murmured ; but her eyes fell be- 
 fore the gaze in his, and the hot blood rushed to her face. 
 
346 'PWO SOLDIERS. 
 
 " Tell him there's no man in all the regiment I so loug to see, and 
 no man in all the world — I so envy." 
 
 Probably conscience smote her, for during the week that followed 
 five letters came, — five letters in seven days ! His heart went wild 
 with delight over their tenderness. The last was written Saturday, 
 and then none came for three days ; and when the fourth day came 
 and brought the louged-for missive it was a disappointment, somehow. 
 
 " Papa left us to go back to the office last night," she wrote. " He 
 could stand it no longer. I fear it did him little good here. The 
 Witherses came on Saturday, and that strange girl. Miss Marshall, 
 is with them. She always impresses me with the idea that she is 
 striving to read my thoughts. She speaks so admiringly of you, 
 and says you were ' so courteous' to her the night you dined at the 
 Witherses' ; and I do not remember your ever saying anything about 
 her to me. You see, sir, I am much more communicative about my 
 friends. 
 
 " We had such a delightful surprise Saturday night. Who should 
 appear in the hop-room but Gordon Noel? He stayed until the mid- 
 night train Sunday; and I really was very glad to see him." 
 
 And here Lane stopped reading for a while. 
 
 XI. 
 
 For some reason or other, the scout which Lane's company had been 
 ordered to hold itself in readiness to make was postponed, no further 
 orders coming from Department head-quarters which required sending 
 any troops into the mountains west of Fort Graham. The captain, far 
 from being disappointed, seemed strangely relieved that he was not re- 
 quired to take his troop into the field at that particular moment. " Some- 
 thing had happened," said Mrs. Breese, who was a keen observer, 
 " to change the spirit of his dream within the last few days." His face 
 lacked the radiant and joyous look that it had had ever since he came 
 back from the East. " Is he getting an inkling of the stories that are 
 in circulation?" was the natural inquiry. "Is he beginning to learn 
 tliat others were before him in that fair charmer's regard?" Still, no 
 one could question him. There was something about him, with all his 
 frankness and kindliness, that held people aloof from anything like 
 confidence. He never had a confidant of either sex; and this was 
 something that rendered hira at one time somewhat unpopular among 
 the women. Younger officers almost always, as a rule, had chosen 
 some one of the married ladies of the regiment as a repositary of their 
 cares and anxieties, their hopes and fears; but Lane had never in- 
 dulged in any such luxury, and all the better for hira was it. Now it 
 was noticed with what eagerness and anxiety he watched for the coming 
 of the mail. It was also observed that during the two weeks that fol- 
 lowed only four letters were received in her, by this time, well-known 
 superscription. Lane, of course, reading the contents, could readily 
 account for the scarcity. Her letters were full of descriptions of dances 
 and picnics and riding-parties to the neighboring mountains. They 
 had met scores of pleasant people, and had become acquainted with a 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 347 
 
 large circle from all parts of the country. They danced every evening 
 regularly in the hop-room, and were so thoroughly acquainted, and so 
 accustomed to one another's moods and fancies, that hardly an hour 
 passed in which they were not occupied in some pleasant recreation. 
 Lawn-tennis had always been a favorite game of hers, and her mother 
 was glad, she said, to see her picking it up again with such alacrity. 
 The open air was doing her good: her color was returning; the lan- 
 guor and weakness which had oppressed her when she first arrived 
 after the long hot spell at home had disappeared entirely. But with 
 returning health came all the longing for out-door active occupation, 
 and, instead of having, as she had planned, hours in which to write to 
 him, almost all her time now was taken up in joyous sports, in horse- 
 back-rides, in long drives over the mountain-roads and through the 
 beautiful scenery by which they were surrounded. "And so," she 
 said, " Fred, dear, in regaining health and color, I fear, your Mabel 
 has very sadly neglected you." 
 
 His reply to her letter telling him of Mr. Noel's unexpected ap- 
 pearance at the Park was rather a difficult one for him to write. It 
 was dawning upon him that the attentions of his regimental comrade 
 to his Jiancie were not as entirely platonic as they might be. Desire 
 to show all courtesy and kindliness to the lady-love of another officer 
 was all very well in its way, but it did not necessitate daily calls when 
 at home, and far less did it warrant his leaving his station without per- 
 mission — running the risk of a reprimand, or even possible court-mar- 
 tial — and taking a long journey, being absent from his post all Satur- 
 day and certainly not returning there before the afternoon of Monday. 
 If this were known at the head-quarters of the recruiting service, 
 Lieutenant Noel in all probability would be rapped severely over the 
 knuckles, if nothing worse. Lane could not, and would not, for 
 an instant blame his fiancee, but he gently pointed out to her that 
 Mr. Noel ran great risks in making such a journey, and that it 
 would be well on that account to discourage similar expeditions in 
 the future. To this she made no direct reply ; but that she observed 
 his caution is quite possible. At all events, no further mention of 
 visits on the part of Mr. Noel appeared in any of the letters which 
 reached him before the orders for the scout actually did arrive ; but 
 that was not until near the very end of the mouth. It was just about 
 the 28th of August when rumors came of turbulence and threatened 
 outbreak among the Indians at the Chiricahua Reservation. Troops 
 were already marching thither from the stations in Arizona, and 
 Captain Lane was ordered to cross the range and scout on the 
 east side of the reservation, in order to drive back any renegades 
 who might be tempted to " make a break." Just one day before the 
 start he was surprised at receiving a letter from Mrs. Vincent. She 
 spoke gladly of Mabel's improved health and appearance ; she spoke 
 hopefully of Mr. Vincent, whose letters, she said, were more cheerful 
 than they had been, and who had been able to come up and spend two 
 Sundays with them. Mabel had doubtless told him of Mr. Noel's visit, 
 and how glad they were just then to see any face so pleasant and 
 familiar. And now she wished to remind him of their contract before 
 
348 'PW'O SOLDIERS. 
 
 his leaving for the frontier. He doubtless remembered that she had 
 promised that in the near future she would give him the reasons why- 
 it seemed best to her that the engagement should not be announced. 
 It would take a pretty long letter to tell all the reasons why, so she 
 would not venture upon that at the moment ; but the necessity no 
 longer existed, and if he so desired she would gladly have it now made 
 known to his relatives, as she would now proceed to announce it to 
 Mabel's. 
 
 Lane was greatly rejoiced at this. He had been a trifle uneasy 
 and despondent of late, yet scarcely knew why. Her letters were not 
 all he had hoped they would be by this time ; but then he did not 
 know but that it was all natural and right ; he had never had love- 
 letters before, — had never seen them, — and his ideas of what a woman's 
 letters to her betrothed should be were somewhat vague and undefined. 
 However, there was no one in the garrison to whom he specially cared 
 to formally announce his engagement. People had ceased of late 
 making remarks or inquiries, as nothing had been successful in extract- 
 ing information from him in the past. Giving directions that his mail 
 should be forwarded once a week, or twice a week if possible, to the 
 railway-station nearest the Chiricahua Mountains, where he could get 
 it by sending couriers once in a while, provided there was no danger in 
 doing so, Lane marched away one evening on what proved to be an 
 absence of an entire month. He never again saw Fort Graham until 
 the end of September, and then only long enough to enable him to 
 change from his scouting-rig into travelling costume, to throw a few 
 clothes into a trunk, and to drive to the railway-station as fast as 
 the ambulance could carry him, in order to catch the first express-train 
 going East. 
 
 Nothing of very great importance had occurred on the scout. A 
 few renegades managed to escape eastward from the reservation and 
 to take to the mountains, through which Lane's command was then 
 scouting; and to him and to his troop was intrusted the duty of cap- 
 turing and bringing them back to the reservation. This took him 
 many a long mile south of the railway. It was three weeks and 
 more before he made his way to the reservation with his prisoners. 
 There he found a small package of letters which had been forwarded 
 direct from Graham, where they evidently knew that he would go into 
 the Agency before reaching the railway, where his other letters were 
 probably awaiting him. Among those which he received was one 
 from Mr. Vincent. Briefly, it said to him, " If a possible thing, come 
 to us as soon as you can obtain leave of absence. There are matters 
 which excite ray greatest apprehension, and I feel that I must see you. 
 My health, I regret to say, is failing me rapidly. Come, if you can." 
 Another was from Mrs. Vincent : she spoke with great anxiety of Mr. 
 Vincent's waning health ; said very little of Mabel, nothing whatever 
 of Mr. Noel. She told him that the engagement had been formally 
 announced to all their relatives, and that letters of congratulation had 
 been showered on Mabel from all sides, — although there was some 
 little surprise expressed that she should marry an army officer. " She, 
 herself, has not been well at all, and I really believe that a visit from 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 349 
 
 you would do much to restore her heahh and spirits. She has been 
 unlike herself ever since we came back from the mountains." 
 
 In this same package of letters were two from Mabel, These he 
 read with infinite yearning in his heart, and they only served to increase 
 the wordless anxiety and the intolerable sense of something lacking 
 which he had first felt after the letter that announced Gordon Noel's 
 visit to Deer Park. One more letter there was : this he opened, saw 
 that it was type-written and had no signature, indignantly tore it into 
 fragments, and tossed them to the wind. 
 
 The commanding general of the Department — an old and kind 
 friend of Lane's — was then looking over affairs for himself, at the 
 reservation. Lane obtained a few moments' conversation with him, 
 briefly stated his needs, and showed him Mr. Vincent's letter. The 
 instant the general saw the signature he looked up, startled, and then 
 arose from his seat, put his hand on the captain's shoulder, and drew 
 him to one side. 
 
 ^' My dear boy," he said, " there is later news than this. It is 
 dated September 14, you see. Have you heard nothing more ?" 
 
 " Nothing, general. What has happened ?" answered Lane, his 
 voice trembling and his bronzed face rapidly paling. " Am I — am I 
 too late?" 
 
 " I fear so. Lane. Had Mr. Vincent a partner named Clark ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir, — his junior partner." 
 
 " Clark defaulted, embezzled, hypothecated securities and heaven 
 knows what all, blew out his brains in his private office, and Mr. Vin- 
 cent stumbled over the body an hour afterwards, was prostrated by the 
 shock, and died of heart-failure three days later. The papers were full 
 of the tragedy for nearly a week ; but there are none to be had here, 
 I'm afraid. Now you will want to start at once. Never mind your 
 troop. Just tell your lieutenant to report here to Captain Bright 
 for orders, and I'll have them sent back to Graham by easy marches." 
 
 Late at night Lane reached the railway, only to find his train five 
 hours behind. He telegraphed to Mabel that he would come to her as 
 fast as train could bring him, — that the sad news had onlyjust reached 
 him. He strode for hours up and down the little platform under the 
 glittering stars, yearning to reach her, to comfort and console her in 
 this bitter sorrow. Time and again he turned over in mind the few 
 particulars which he had obtained from tlie Department commander. 
 They were all too brief, but pointed conclusively to one fact, — that 
 Clark had been encouraged by the success of June to plunge still more 
 deeply, in the hope of retrieving the losses of the past two years. 
 Luckily for Vincent, he had used his June winnings in lifting 
 the mortgage from his homestead and in taking up any of his out- 
 standing paper, and so had little wherewith to supply his confident 
 partner; but Lane wondered if the kindly old man had any idea that 
 up to the end of August, at least, Clark had not sent to him, as 
 directed, " the draft for the entire amount" to which referred the first 
 letter Mr. Vincent had ever written him. 
 
 It was daybreak when the train came. It was noon when he sprang 
 from the cars at Graham Station and into the ambulance sent to meet 
 
350 ^^0 SOLDIERS. 
 
 him in response to his telegraphic request. Were there any letters ? he 
 eagerly asked. None now. A small package had been forwarded to 
 the reservation last night, and must have passed him on the way. 
 Others had been waiting for him at the mountain-station until he was 
 reported by wire as arriving with his prisoners at the Agency. Every- 
 thing then had been sent tliither, and there would be no getting them 
 before starting. At Graham the telegraph operator showed him the 
 duplicates of the telegrams that had come for him in his absence, — 
 only two. One announced Mr. Clark's suicide and Vincent's prostra- 
 tion and danger ; the other, two days later, briefly read, '•' Mr. Vincent 
 died this morning. Mrs. Vincent and Mabel fairly well." 
 
 Both were signed " Gordon Noel," and a jealous pang shot through 
 the })oor fellow's heart as he realized that in all their bereavement and 
 grief it was Noel's privilege to be with them and to be of use to them, 
 while he, her affianced husband, was far beyond hail. He was ashamed 
 of his own thoughts an instant after, and bitterly upbraided himself 
 that he was not thankful that they could have had so attentive and 
 thoughtful an aid as Noel well knew how to be. Yet — why was not 
 Reginald sufficient? 
 
 He had torn into fragments the anonymous sheet that had met him 
 at the reservation, and yet its words were gnawing at his heartstrings 
 now, and he could not crush them down : 
 
 " Why was your engagement denied ? Because she still cared for 
 Will Rossiter and hoped he might come back to her after all. 
 
 " Why did Gordon Noel stay at the other hotel the second and 
 third times he spent Sunday at Deer Park ? Because she wished to 
 hide from her mother, as she did from you, that he came at all. 
 
 " Why does she meet him on the street instead of at home ? 
 Because her father interposed in your behalf; but all the same you are 
 being betrayed." 
 
 These words — or others exactly of their import, were what met his 
 startled eyes at Chiricahua, but the instant he noted that these carefully 
 type-written sentences were followed by no signature at all, — not even 
 the oft-abused " A Friend," — indignation and wrath followed close on 
 the heels of his amaze, and in utter contempt he had destroyed the 
 cowardly sheet ; but he could not so easily conquer the poison thus 
 injected in his veins. All the long, long journey to the East they 
 haunted him, dancing before his eyes, sleeping or waking, and it was 
 'with haggard face and wearied frame that he reached the Queen City, 
 and, taking a cab, drove at once to her home. 
 
 It was a lovely evening in early October. The sun had been 
 shining brilliantly all day long, and almost everywhere doors and 
 windows were open to woo the cool air now gently stirring. The cab 
 stopped before the well-remembered steps, and Lane hastened to the 
 broad door-way. No need to ring : the portals stood invitingly open. 
 The gas burned brightly in the hall and in the sitting-room to the left. 
 He entered unhesitatingly, and stood all alone in the room where he 
 had spent so many happy hours listening to the music of her voice, 
 watching the play and animation in her lovely face. He cauglit a 
 glimpse of his own, gaunt, haggard, hollow-eyed, in the mirror over 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 351 
 
 the old-fashioned mantel. What was he, that he should have won a 
 creature so radiant, so exquisite, as the girl who had made these silent 
 rooms a heaven to him? There was the heavy portiere that shut off 
 the little passage to the library. His foot-fall made no sound in the 
 deep, rich carpeting. It was there she welcomed him that wonderful 
 Friday afternoon, — that day that was the turning-point, the climax, 
 of his life. Hark ! was that her voice, low, sweet, tremulous, in there 
 now? Hush! Was that a sob? — a woman's suppressed weeping? 
 Quickly he stepped forward, and in an instant had thrust aside the 
 second portiere; but he halted short at the threshold, petrified by the 
 scene before him. 
 
 Mabel Vincent, clasped in Gordon Noel's embrace, her arms about 
 his neck, gazing up into his face with almost worship in her weeping 
 eyes, raised her lips to meet the passionate kiss of his. " My darling," 
 he murmured, " what can you fear? Have you not given me the 
 right to protect you ?" And the handsome head was tossed proudly 
 back and for one little minute was indeed heroic. Then, with instan- 
 taneous change, every drop of blood fled from his face, leaving it ashen, 
 death -like. 
 
 " Gordon .'" she cried, " what is it ? Are you ill ?" 
 Then, following the glance of his staring eyes, she turned, and saw, 
 and swooned away. 
 
 XII. 
 
 A dreary winter was that of 188- at old Fort Graham. Captain 
 Breese became major of the — th, and his troop was ordered to exchange 
 with K, which had been so long at head-quarters, and this brought 
 old Jim Rawlins up to take command of the little cavalry battalion at 
 " the oasis." There were many of the officers — Rawlins among them — 
 who thought that after his success with " the Devil's Own," as D Troop 
 had been called, Lane was entitled to enjoy the position of battalion 
 commander ; but Mrs. Riggs had promptly asserted her belief that he 
 was not in position to enjoy anything. He had come back to the post 
 late in the fall, looking some years older and graver; he had been very 
 ill at Jefferson Barracks, said letters from that point, while waiting to 
 take out a party of recruits to the regiment; he had resumed duty 
 without a word to anybody of the matters that had so suddenly called 
 him East, but there was no need of telling: they knew all about it; 
 at least they said and thought they did. Mrs. Riggs had had such 
 complete accounts from Noel, and had received such a sweet letter from 
 Miss Vincent in reply to the one she had written congratulating her 
 upon her engagement to her (Mrs. Riggs's) ^'favorite among all the 
 officers, — and the colonel's, too." " She was so sorry — so painfully dis- 
 tressed — about Captain Lane," said Mrs. Riggs. " She never really 
 cared for him. It was gratitude and propinquity, and pleasure in his 
 attentions, that she mistook for love ; but she never knew what love 
 was until she met Gordon. They were to be married early in the 
 spring, and would take only a brief tour, for he had to be at his station. 
 She dreaded coming to the regiment, though she would follow Gordon 
 to the end of the world if he said so, for she knew there were people 
 
352 TWO SOLDIERS. 
 
 who would blame her for breaking with Captain Lane as she had to ; 
 but she knew long before she did so that they could never be happy 
 together. She had written to him, telling him all, long before he came 
 East and they had that dreadful scene in which Mr. Noel had behaved 
 with such perfect self-command and such excessive consideration for 
 Captain Lane's feelings. Of course, as Gordon said, all possibility of 
 reconciliation or future friendship between them was at an end unless 
 Captain Lane humbly apologized. She had been mercifully spared 
 hearing it ; for the fearful expression of his face when they discovered 
 him listening at the portiere had caused her to faint away, and she only 
 came to, Gordon said, in time to prevent his pitching him out of the 
 window, so utterly was he tried. She was so thankful to have in Mrs. 
 Riggs a friend who would not see Gordon wronged, and who could be 
 counted on to deny any stories that poor Captain Lane in his dis- 
 appointment might put in circulation." 
 
 But Lane never mentioned the subject. As for the letters to which 
 she referred, they all followed him East in one bundle and were sent 
 to her unopened ; and she knew when she wrote to Mrs. Eiggs that, 
 though she might have " told him all," as she said, he never knew a 
 word of it until his eyes and ears revealed the truth that wretched 
 night in the library where his brief, sweet love-dream began and ended. 
 
 There were other matters wherein Mr. Noel himself was consulting 
 Mrs. Riggs. He was now senior first lieutenant. Any accident of 
 service might make him a captain, and then, if precedent were followed, 
 " he might be ordered to join at once. Ordinarily, as she well knew, 
 nothing would give him greater joy ; but now — solely on MabePs 
 account — he hesitated. A friend at the War Department had said 
 that, if Colonel Riggs would approve, a six months' leave to visit 
 Europe, for the purpose of prosecuting his professional studies, might 
 be obtained. Would she kindly, etc., etc." 
 
 There was no one to write or speak for Lane : only one side of the 
 story was being told, and, though the men had had little else than 
 contempt for Noel, they were of small account in moulding garrison 
 opinions as compared with two or three determined women. 
 
 But no one saw the sorrowful, almost heart-broken, letter written 
 by Mrs. Vincent to Lane. She had no words in which to speak of 
 Mabel's conduct. They had both been deceived ; and yet she implored 
 him for forgiveness for her child. The world was all changed now. 
 Their home remained to them, and her own little fortune, together with 
 the wreck of Mr. Vincent's, but Regy had to go out into the world 
 and seek to earn what he coukl. He had no idea of business. There 
 was no one to step in and build up the old firm, and the executors had 
 advised that everything be closed out. Mr. Clark's affairs had been 
 left in lamentable confusion, but luckily he had nothing else to leave, — 
 nothing, that is, but confusion and creditors. People were constantly 
 importuning her for payment of his liabilities, claiming that they were 
 contracted by the firm. Her lawyers absolutely forbade her listening 
 to such demands. If she paid one-fourth of them she would have 
 nothing left. Lane thought of his sacrificed Ciieyenne property and 
 the little fortune he had so freely <jlfered up to save to the girl he loved 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 353 
 
 the home in which she had been reared. The very roof under which 
 the girl had plighted her troth to him and then dishonored it for 
 Noel — under which, day after day, she was now receiving, welcoming, 
 caressing him — was practically rescued for her and her mother by the 
 money of the man she had cast aside. 
 
 The wedding-cards came in April. It was to be a quiet affair, 
 because of the death of Mr. Vincent within the year. Lane read the 
 announcement in the Army and Navy Journal, and sat for a while, the 
 paper dropping to the floor and his head upon his hands. Elsewhere 
 in its columns he found a full account, written evidently by some one 
 thoroughly well acquainted with all the parties, except perhaps the 
 gallant groom. 
 
 When Lane's servant tiptoed in at reveille the next morning 
 to prepare the bath and black the boots, he was surprised to find 
 that officer sitting at his desk with his head pillowed in his arms. He 
 had not been to bed, and did not know that reveille had sounded. Was 
 he ill ? Did he need the doctor ? No. He had to sit up late over 
 some letters and papers, and had finally fallen asleep there. All the 
 same Dr. Gowen, happening into the hospital while Lane was visiting 
 one of his men after sick-call, stopped, and keenly examined his face. 
 
 " I want you to go right to your quarters and stay there, Lane, for 
 you've got a fever, and, I believe, mountain fever," were his immediate 
 orders. " I'll be with you in a moment." It was only the beginning 
 of what proved to be a trying illness of several weeks' duration. 
 When Lane was able to sit up again, it was the recommendation of 
 the post-surgeon and of his regimental commander that he be sent East 
 on sick-leave for at least three months. And the first week of June 
 found him at West Point : he had many old and warm friends there, and 
 their companionship and cordiality cheered him greatly. One night, 
 strolling back from parade to the broad piazza of the hotel, he saw the 
 stage drive up from the landing and a number of visitors scurry up the 
 steps in haste to escape the prying eyes of the older arrivals, who in- 
 variably thronged the south piazza at such times and curiously inspected 
 the travel-stained and cinder-spotted faces of those whose ill luck it was 
 to have to run that social gauntlet. There was something familiar in 
 the face of a young lady following a portly matron into the hall, and 
 when a moment later he came upon the massive frame of Mr. Amos 
 Withers, registering himself, his wife, daughters, and Miss Marshall, of 
 the Queen City, Lane knew at once that it was his friend of the dismal 
 dinner of nearly a year ago. Later that evening he met her in the 
 hall, and was surprised at the prompt and pleasant recognition which 
 she gave him. It was not long before they were on the north piazza, 
 watching that peerless view up the Hudson, and, finding that she had 
 never been there before and was enthusiastic in her admiration of the 
 scenery. Lane took pleasure in pointing out to her the various objects 
 of interest that could be seen through the brilliant sheen of moonlight. 
 And so, having made himself at once useful and entertaining, he finally 
 went to his bed with a sensation of having passed rather a brighter 
 evening than he had known in a long, long time. 
 
 On the following day Miss Marshall was in the hall, reading, 
 
354 ^^0 SOLDIERS. 
 
 when he came out from breakfast. She was waiting, she said, for Mi*s. 
 Withers to come down. Tlie nurse was dressing the children. 
 
 " I want to ask you something, Captain Lane. I saw Mrs. Vin- 
 cent just before I left home, and had a little talk with her. She has 
 always been very kind to me. Did you ever receive a letter she wrote 
 to you three or four weeks ago ?" 
 
 " I never did," said Lane. " Do you think that she did write to 
 me?" 
 
 " I know she did. She told me so, and expressed great surprise 
 that you had accorded her no answer. She felt very sure of your 
 friendship, and she was at a loss to understand your silence. Although 
 I had only met you once or twice before, I felt that I knew you so well 
 that you could not refuse to answer a letter from so lovable a woman as 
 she, and I deemed it my duty to let you know what she had told me. 
 I am very glad now that I did so." 
 
 "Is she at home?" asked Lane, eagerly. 
 
 " She was when I left, but they were expecting to go to the moun- 
 tains. Mrs. Noel seems to be drooping a little. The weather is very 
 warm there already, as you know, and the doctor has advised that 
 both ladies go up to Deer Park. Mrs. Noel doesn't wish to go, as it 
 takes her so far from her husband ; but, as he was able to get there 
 quite frequently when they were there before, I see no reason why he 
 should not be able to join tiiem every week now." 
 
 " Was he there frequently when they w^ere there before ?" asked 
 Lane, an old, dull pain gnawing at his heart. 
 
 " He was there three or four times to ray knowledge during our 
 stay, but of course his visits were very brief: he came generally Satur- 
 day and Avent away at midnight Sunday." 
 
 " I wall go and telegraph to Mrs. Vincent. If need be, I will go 
 and see her; and I thank you very much. Miss Marshall." 
 
 That evening he received a despatch from Mrs. Vincent in response 
 to the one sent almost immediately after this conversation. " If pos- 
 sible, come here. I greatly desire to see you. Wire answer." What 
 could it mean ? 
 
 By the first train on the following morning he left for New York, 
 and was far on his way to the Queen City when sunset came. Ar- 
 riving there, he went first to the old hotel, and, after changing his dress 
 and removing the stains of travel, for the first time since his memora- 
 ble visit of October he mounted the broad stone steps and asked to see 
 Mrs. Vincent. She came down almost instantly, and Lane was shocked 
 to see how she had failed since their last meeting. Years seemed to 
 have been added to her age; her hair was gray; the lines in her 
 gentle, patient face had deepened. She entered, holding forth both 
 hands, but when she looked into his eyes her lips quivered and she 
 burst into tears. Lane half led, half supported her to a chair, and, 
 drawing one to her side, spoke soothingly to her. For a few moments 
 she could not speak, and when she did he checked her. 
 
 "Oh, you too have aged and suffered ! and it is all our doing, — all 
 our doing !" she moaned, as her tears burst forth anew. 
 
 " Never mind my crow's-feet and gray hairs, dear lady," he said. 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 355 
 
 " It is high time I began to show signs of advancing age. Then, 
 too, I am just up from a siege of mountain fever." 
 
 " Was that the reason you did not answer ?" she presently asked. 
 
 " I never got your letter, Mrs. Vincent. When was it mailed ?" 
 
 " About the 10th of May. I remember it well, because — it was just 
 after Mabel and Captain Noel got back from their tour." 
 
 " Pardon me, but did you post it yourself?" 
 
 " No. The postman always takes my letters. I leave them on the 
 little table in the vestibule." 
 
 " Where any one can see them ?" 
 
 " Yes ; but who would touch my letters?" 
 
 Lane did not know, of course. He was only certain that nothing 
 from Mrs. Vincent had reached him during the past six months. 
 
 " Captain Lane," she said, at last, " I want you to tell me the truth. 
 Just after Mabel's marriage I heard that a story was in circulation to 
 the effect that it was your money that enabled Mr. Vincent to tide over 
 the crisis in his affairs a year ago. It was even said that you had sold 
 property at a loss to supply him with means ; and some people in society 
 are so cruel as to say that Mabel's trousseau was actually purchased 
 with your money, because it had never been repaid. I know that Mr. 
 Vincent often spoke of his obligation and gratitude to you. Tell me 
 truly and frankly. Captain Lane: did you give my husband money? 
 Is this story true ?" 
 
 " I never gave Mr. Vincent a cent," 
 
 " Oh, I am so thankful ! We have been the means of bringing 
 such sorrow to you " 
 
 " I beg you, make no reference to that, Mrs. Vincent. Neither your 
 honored husband nor you have I ever thought in the least responsible. 
 And as for this other matter, you have been misinformed." 
 
 " What cruel, reckless stories people tell ! It hurt me terribly ; 
 and then when no answer came to my letter I felt that probably there 
 was something in it, and that you were hiding the truth from me. 
 Mabel heard it too ; but she said that Captain Noel investigated it at 
 once and found that it was utterly false. I could not be satisfied until 
 I had your own assurance." 
 
 "And now you have it," he said, with a smile that shone on his 
 worn face and beamed about his deep-set eyes like sunshine after April 
 showers. " You are going to be advised now, are you not, and seek 
 change and rest in the mountains?" 
 
 " We meant to go this week ; but Mrs. Paterson, of Philadelphia, 
 is urging us to spend the summer with her at the sea-shore, where she 
 has a roomy cottage. She is a cousin of Captain Noel's, and was an 
 intimate friend of Mabel's at school. That was where my daughter 
 first heard of him. Oh, I wish — I wish " 
 
 And here once more Mrs. Vincent's tears poured forth, and it was 
 some time before she could control herself. 
 
 At last the captain felt that he must go. It was now his purpose to 
 leave town as soon as he could attend to one or two matters of business. 
 
 " Shall I not see you again ?" she asked, as he rose to take his leave. 
 
 " I fear not," he answered. " There is nothing to require more 
 
356 '^^O SOLDIERS. 
 
 than an hour or two of attention here, and then I shall seek a cooler 
 spot for a few weeks' rest, then back to the regiment." 
 
 " But we — that is, I heard you had three months' sick-leave." 
 
 " Very true ; but I only need one, and I am best with my troop." 
 
 " Tell me," she asked : " is it true that tliere is trouble brewing again 
 among the Indians, — at San Carlos, isn't it ?" 
 
 " There seems to be bad blood among them, and no doubt disaffec- 
 tion ; but if sufficient troops are sent to the Agency and to scout around 
 the reservation they can be held in check." 
 
 " But I have been tokl that you have too small a force to watch 
 them. I wish vou were not going back ; but it is like you. Captain 
 Lane." 
 
 And so they parted. He saw and heard and asked nothing of his 
 whilom fiancee. He did not wish to see her husband. He meant to 
 have left town that very evening, after brief consultation with a real- 
 estate agent whom he had had occasion to employ in his service ; but 
 even as he was stowing his travelling-" kit" in a roomy leather bag 
 there came a knock at his door and there entered a man in plain civilian 
 dress, who motioned the bell-boy to clear out, and then held forth a 
 photograph : 
 
 "Captain Lane, is that your man Taiutor?" 
 
 " That is certainly like the man," was Lane's answer, after careful 
 inspection. " Have you got him ?" 
 
 " No, sir. We had him, and took Captain Noel to see him, and the 
 captain said there was some mistake. He wears his hair and beard 
 different now ; but we know where he is, — at least, where he was up to 
 yesterday. He left his lodgings at noon, and took a bag with him, as 
 though he meant to be away a few days. He does copying and type- 
 writing, and manages to get along and support a good-looking young 
 woman who passes as his wife. Thafs what we think brought him 
 back here last winter." 
 
 "Why didn't you take some of the recruiting-party to see him? 
 They could identify him." 
 
 " All the old men that were with you are gone, sir. It's a new lot 
 entirely. They said the sergeant couldn't get along with the captain 
 at all, and they were all sent away." 
 
 " Where's the woman who kept the lodging-house for tlie party ?" 
 
 " She's gone too, sir. They moved away last winter because Cap- 
 tain Noel gave the contract to another party in a different part of the 
 town. We let the thing slide for quite a while ; but when the Chief 
 heard that you had arrived in town he thought he'd shadow the fellow 
 until you could see him, but he had skipped. Was there any way he 
 could have heard you were coming ?" 
 
 " No. I telegraphed from West Point to Mrs. Vincent. She was 
 the only one who knew." 
 
 "Beg pardon, sir, but isn't that Captain Noel's mother-in-law? 
 The captain lives there, I think." 
 
 Lane turned sharply and studied the man's face. A question was 
 at his very tongue's end, — " You do not suppose he could have given 
 warning ?" — but he stifled it, his lips compressing tight. 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 357 
 
 " If you think he has gone because of my coming, I will leave on 
 the late train, as I purposed, and you can wire to me when he returns. 
 Then keep him shadowed until I get here." 
 
 And with this understanding they parted, Lane going at once to a 
 cool resort on one of the great lakes. Four days later came the de- 
 spatch he looked for, aud, accompanied by two detectives, Lane knocked 
 at the indicated door-way one bright, sunshiny afternoon witliin forty- 
 eight hours thereafter. 
 
 A comely young woman opened the door just a few inches and in- 
 quired what was wanted. " Mr. Graves was not at home." He cer- 
 tainly would not have been in a minute more, for a man swung out of 
 the third-story window, and, going hand by hand down the convenient 
 lightning-rod, dropped into the arms of a waiting officer, and that night 
 the forger and deserter spent behind the bars in the Central Station. 
 The identification was complete. 
 
 Lane was to appear and make formal cliarge against him the follow- 
 ing morning. Going down to an early breakfast, he picked up one of 
 the great dailits at the news-stand, and, after taking his seat at table 
 aud ordering a light repast, he opened the still moist sheet. The first 
 glance at the head-lines was enough to start him to his feet. " Indian 
 Outbreak." " The Apaches on tlie War-Path." " Murder of Agent 
 Curtis at San Carlos." " Massacre of a Stage-Load of Passengers." 
 " Captain Rawlins, Eleventh Cavalry, a victim." " Horrible Atroci- 
 ties." " Troops in Pursuit." 
 
 It was the old, old story briefly told. Warnings disregarded ; 
 official reports of the neighboring troop-commanders pooh-poohed and 
 pigeon-holed by functionaries of the Indian Bureau ; a sudden, startling 
 rush of one body upon the agent aud his helpless family ; a simuUa- 
 neous dash from the other end of the reservation upon the scattered 
 ranches in the valley ; a stage-coach ambushed ; a valued old soldier 
 butchered in cold blood. There was no more thought of breakfast for 
 Lane. He hurried to the telegraph-office, thence to the police-station, 
 thence to an attorney whom he was advised to employ, and by noon 
 he was whirling westward. " No laggard he" wlien the war-cry rang 
 along the blazing border. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The Morning Chronicle, a most valuable sheet in its way, in its 
 Sunday edition contained the following interesting item : 
 
 " No event in social circles has eclipsed of late the banquet given at 
 the club last night in honor of Captain Gordon Noel, of the Eleventh 
 Cavalry, on the eve of his departure to take command of his troop, now 
 hastening to the scene of Indian hostilities in Arizona. As is well 
 known to our citizens, the news of the murderous outbreak at the 
 reservation was no sooner received than this gallant officer applied 
 instantly to be relieved from his present duties in our midst and ordered 
 to join his comrades in the field, that he might share with them the 
 perils of this savage warfare. 
 
 " Covers were laid for forty. The table was decorated with flowers 
 and glistened with plate and crystal. The most conspicuous device was 
 Vol. XLV.— 24 
 
358 ^^0 SOLDIERS. 
 
 the crossed sabres of the cavalry, with the number 11 and the letter 
 K, that being the designation of the captain's company. His honor 
 Mayor Jenness presided, and the Hon. Amos Withers faced him at the 
 other end of the banquet-board. The speech of the evening was made 
 by Mayor Jenness in toasting ' our gallant guest/ which was drunk 
 standing and with all honors. We have room only for a brief sum- 
 mary of his remarks. Alluding to the previous distinguished services 
 of the captain, he said that ' In every Territory of our broad West his 
 sabre has flashed in the defence of the weak against the strong, the 
 poor settler against the powerful and numerous savage tribes too often 
 backed by official influence at Washington. And now, while cheeks 
 were blanching and hearts were still stricken by the dread news of the 
 butcheries and rapine which marked the Indians' flight, when others 
 shrank from such perilous work, where was the man who could sup- 
 press the fervent admiration with which he heard that there was one 
 soldier who lost no time in demanding relief from duty here, that he 
 might speed to the head of the gallant fellows already in the field, who 
 had followed him in many a stirring charge and through all " the cur- 
 rent of many a heady fight ;" whose hearts would leap for joy at sight of 
 their beloved leader's face, — the man who never yet had failed them, 
 the man who never yet had faltered in his duty, the man whose sword 
 was never drawn without reason, never sheathed without honor, — our 
 soldier guest. Captain Gordon Noel ?' 
 
 " Much affected, it was some minutes before the captain could respond. 
 The modesty of the true soldier restrained his eloquence. * He knew 
 not how to thank them for this most flattering testimony of their con- 
 fidence and regard ; he far from deserved the lavish praise of their 
 honored chairman. If in the past he had succeeded in winning their 
 esteem, all the more would he try to merit it now. No soldier could 
 remain in security when such desperate deeds called his comrades to 
 the fray ; and as he had ever shared their dangers in the old days, so 
 must he share them now. His heart, his home, his bride, to part from 
 whom was bitter trial, he left with them to guard and cherish. Duty 
 called him to the front, and with to-morrow's sun he would be on his 
 way. But, if it pleased God to bear him safely through, he would 
 return to them, to greet and grasp each friendly hand again, and mean- 
 time to prove himself worthy the high honor they had done him.' 
 
 " There was hardly a dry eye at the table when the gallant soldier 
 finished his few remarks and then took his seat. 
 
 " Besides winning the heart and hand of one of the loveliest of the 
 Queen City's daughters, the captain has made hosts of friends in our 
 midst, and we predict that when the records of the campaign are written 
 no name will shine with brighter lustre than that of Gordon Noel." 
 
 This doubtless was delightful reading to Noel and to Noel's rela- 
 tives. Doubtless, too, it was some comfort to poor Mabel as she lay 
 pale, anxious, sore at heart on the following day, while her husband 
 and lover — as he undoubtedly was — sped westward with the fast 
 express. But there was a great deal about the Chroniclers account 
 that would have elicited something more than a broad grin from 
 officers who knew Noel well. 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 359 
 
 An entire week had elapsed from the time that the first tidings 
 were received to the moment when he finally and most reluctantly left 
 the Queen City. The first intimation was enough to start Captain 
 Lane, despite the fact that his health was far from restored and that he 
 was yet by no means strong. He felt confident that the Indians would 
 be joined by some of the Chiricahuas, and that the campaign would 
 be fierce and stubborn. Telegraphing to the regimental adjutant and 
 the general commanding the department that he intended to start at 
 once, and asking to be notified en route where he could most speedily 
 join the troop, he was on his way within six hours. 
 
 That very night, although no mention was made of this in the 
 Chronicle account, Captain Noel received a despatch from the Adju- 
 tant-General's Office at Washington briefly to this effect : " You become 
 Captain of K Company, vice Rawlins, murdered by Apaches. Hold 
 yourself in readiness to turn over the rendezvous and join your regi- 
 ment without delay." No news could have been more unwelcome. 
 Despite his many faults, there was no question that Gordon Noel was 
 very much in love with his wife ; but he never had been in love with 
 the active part of his profession. That night he telegraphed to relatives 
 who had stood by him in the past, and wrote urgent and })leading 
 letters informing them that his wife's health was in so delicate a state 
 that if he were compelled at this moment to leave her and to go upon 
 perilous duty in the Apache country there was no telling what might 
 be the eifect upon her. If a possible tiling, he urged that there should 
 be a delay of a fortnight. He calculated that by that time the Indians 
 would either be safe across the Mexican border or whipped back to the 
 reservation ; then he could go out and join with a flourish of trumpets 
 and no possible danger. But a new king reigned in the War Depart- 
 ment, who knew Joseph rather than knew him not. In some way the 
 honorable Secretary had become acquainted with the previous history 
 of Captain Noel's campaign services, and, though the influential gen- 
 tlemen referred to made prompt and eloquent appeal, they were met by 
 courteous but positive denial. " Every man who was worth his salt," 
 said the Secretary, " should be with his regiment now." An officer 
 was designated to proceed at once to the Queen City and take over 
 Noel's rendezvous and property, and peremptory orders were sent to 
 him to start without delay and to notify tiie department by telegraph 
 of the date of his departure, — a most unusual and stringent proceed- 
 ing. This correspondence Noel never mentioned to anybody at the 
 time, and it was known only to the official records for some time after- 
 wards. As soon as he found that go he must, he dictated to his clerk 
 a letter in which, gallant soldier that he was, he informed the Adjutant- 
 General that the new^s from Arizona had now convinced him that an 
 outbreak of alarming dimensions had taken plpce, and he begged that 
 he might he relieved as at his own request and permitted to join his 
 comrades in the field. To this no reply was sent, as the order directing 
 him to proceed had already been issued. Perhaps a grim smile played 
 about the moustached lips of that functionary when he read this spirited 
 epistle. 
 
 Noel left the Queen City a hero in the eyes of the populace. He 
 
360 ^^O SOLDIERS. 
 
 was just six days behind Lane, of whose movements the Queen City 
 had no information whatever. 
 
 And now came an odd piece of luck, — a slip in the fortunes of war. 
 The cavalry stationed in Arizona were so far from the reservation at the 
 time that they had long and difficult marches to make. Only two or 
 three troops that ha{)pened to be along the line of the railway reached 
 the mountains neighboring San Carlos in time to quickly take the trail 
 of the hostiles. Except the one little troop of cavalry on duty at the 
 reservation, none of the horsemen in Arizona had as yet come in actual 
 conflict with the renegades, and, oddly enough, it was the Eleventh 
 that first met and struck them. Old Riggs himself had not taken the 
 field, but the battalion from head-quarters had been whirled westward 
 along the railway and actually reached the pass through theChiricahua 
 Range before the Indians. Expecting just such a possibility, these 
 wary campaigners had their scouts far in advance of the main body, 
 and prompt warning was given, so that only the rear-guard of the 
 Indians was reached by the eager cavalrymen ; the bulk of the Apaches 
 turned eastward and swept down like ravening wolves upon the 
 defenceless settlers in the San Simon Valley, burning, murdering, pil- 
 laging as they went, full fifty miles a day, while their pursuers trailed 
 helplessly behind. When they had succeeded in crossing the railway 
 most of their number were mounted on fresh horses, and the section- 
 hands, who saw them from afar off, telegraphed from the nearest station 
 that they had with them six or eight women and children whose hus- 
 bands and fathers doubtless lay weltering in their blood along the route. 
 Full seven days now had they been dodging through the mountains 
 and swooping down upon the ranchmen, and so skilfully had they 
 eluded their pursuers and defeated their combinations that now they 
 had a commanding lead and actually nothing between them and 
 the Mexican frontier, — nothing in Arizona, that is to say. But look just 
 across the border. There, spurring steadily southwestward until halted 
 for the night in San Simon Pass, comes a little troop of cavalry, not 
 more than thirty-five in number. All day long since earliest dawn had 
 they ridden across the burning sands of a desert region ; lips, nostrils, 
 eyelids smarting with alkali-dust, throats parclied with thirst, temples 
 throbbing with the intense heat; several men and horses used upjind 
 left behind were now slowly plodding back towards the railway. Look 
 at the letter one of those leaders wears upon his worn old scouting-hat, 
 — D. Yes, it is the " Devil's own D's," and Lane is at their head. 
 
 At the moment of the outbreak, both companies from Graham, 
 K and D, or strong detachments from both, were scouting through the 
 country, — one through the northern Peloncillo Range, the other far up 
 among the head-waters of the Gila. Not a word did they hear of the 
 trouble until it was several days old ; then D Troop was amazed by 
 the sudden appearance of their captain in their midst, — Lane, whom 
 they supposed to be on sick-leave far in the distant East. It was then 
 for the first time they learned how their comrades of K Troop had lost 
 their popular old commander, and that the great outbreak had occurred 
 at San Carlos. Stopping only long enough to cram their pouches with 
 ammunition and to draw more rations, the troop hastened away towards 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 361 
 
 the railroad by way of Graham, and at the station, just at dawn, Lane 
 sent a brief despatch to the commanding general saying that he was 
 pushing with all speed to head the Indians oif via San Simon Pass. 
 He had then forty-five men and horses, in fair condition. K Troop 
 would reach Graham that evening, and he urged that they be sent at 
 once to reinforce him. Tliis despatch " the Chief" received with an 
 emphatic slap of his thigh and an expression of delight : "Bless that 
 fellow Lane! he is always in the nick of time. I had not hoped for 
 an instant that either D or K would be available, and now look," he 
 said to his aide-de-camp, "he has started for San Simon Pass, and will 
 probably throw himself across their front. Only I wish he had more 
 men." 
 
 "Shall I wire to Gx'aham to have K rush after him, sir?" 
 
 " Yes. Order tliem to start the instant they can refit, and not to 
 take more than an hour in doing that. They have been having easy 
 work on tiieir scout, — probably taking it leisurely all the time ; they 
 ought to be in first-rate trim. D, on the contrary, has been making 
 long and rapid marches to get down from the Upper Gila. Where 
 was K at last accounts ?" 
 
 " Couriers had gone to the Upper Peloncillo for them several days 
 ago, and, as Lane says, they are expected at Graham this evening. 
 Lane, himself, rode after his own men two hours after he got to the 
 post from the East, and Noel, who is K's new captain, is due at Graham 
 Station to-night." 
 
 " Then send him orders to lead his troop instantly, follow and sup- 
 port Lane. Tell him not to lose a moment on the way. Everything 
 may depend upon his promptness and zeal." 
 
 And so it happened that when Captain Noel stepped from the train 
 that afternoon at the old station the telegraph messenger came forward 
 to meet him, touching his cap and saying, " This despatch has been 
 awaiting you, sir, since eleven o'clock this morning. I have just had 
 a despatch from the post, and K Troop got in two hours ago and is 
 already starting. Lieutenant Mason says an orderly is coming ahead 
 with a horse and the captain's field-kit. Shall I wire for anythinor 
 else?" _ ^ 
 
 Noel opened the despatch which had been handed him, and read it 
 with an expression that plainly indicated perturbation, if not dismay. 
 He had not been in saddle for an entire year. 
 
 " Why, I must go out to the post !" he said to the operator. " I am 
 not at all ready to take the field. Let them know that I have arrived, 
 and will come out there without delay. Better have the troop unsaddled 
 and wait for my coming." 
 
 " Will the captain pardon me ?" said the operator ; " the orders 
 from the Department commander that went through this morning were 
 that the troop should not take more than an hour in refitting at the 
 post and should start at once. I thought I could see them coming 
 over the divide just as the whistle blew." 
 
 The captain's face gave no sign of enthusiasm as he received this 
 news. He was still pondering over the contents of his despatch from 
 the commanding general, — its tone was so like that of his order from 
 
362 "^WO SOLDIERS. 
 
 the War Department, — so utterly unlike what his admiring circle of 
 relatives and friends would have expected. Stepping into the telegraph- 
 office, he took some blanks and strove to compose a despatch that would 
 convince the general that he was wild with eagerness to ride all night 
 to the support of Lane, and yet that would explain how absolutely 
 necessary it was that he should first go out to the post. But the Fates 
 were against him. Even as he was gnawing the pencil aud cudgelling 
 his brains, the operator called out, — 
 
 " Here come some of 'em now, sir." 
 
 And, looking nervously from the window, Noel saw three horsemen 
 galloping in to the station. Foremost came a lieutenant of infantry, 
 who sprang to the ground and tossed the reins to his orderly the instant 
 he neared the platform. One of the men had ajed horse, completely 
 equipped for the field, with blankets, saddle-bags, carbine, canteen, and 
 haversack ; and Noel's quick intuition left him no room to believe that 
 the steed was intended for any one but him. 
 
 The infantryman came bounding in : " Is this Captain Noel ? I 
 am Mr. Renshaw, post-adjutant, sir, and I had hoped to get here in 
 time to meet you on your arrival, but we were all busy getting the troop 
 i-eady. You've got your orders, sir, haven't you ? My God ! captain, 
 canH you wire to the fort and beg the major to let me go with you ? 
 I'll be your slave for a lifetime. I've never had a chance to do a "bit 
 of real campaigning yet, and no man could ask a bullier chance than 
 this. Excuse me, sir, I know you want to get right into scouting rig, 
 — Mr. Mason said his ' extras' would fit you exactly, — but if you could 
 take me along — you're bound to get there just in time for the thick of 
 it." And the gallant little fellow looked, all eagerness, into Noel's un- 
 responsive face. What wouldn't the hero of the Queen City Club have 
 given to turn the whole thing over to this ambitious young soldier and 
 let him take his chances of " glory or the grave" ! 
 
 " Very thoughtful of you all, I'm sure, to think of sending horse 
 and kit here for me, but I really ought to go out to the post. There 
 are things I must attend to. You see, I left the instant I could induce 
 them to relieve me, and there was no time to make preparations." 
 
 " But — you can't have heard, captain : your troop will be here in 
 ten minutes. Captain Lane by this time is past Pyramid Mountain, 
 and will strike them early in the morning. There won't be any time 
 to go out to the post : you've got to ride at trot or gallop most of the 
 night as it is " 
 
 " Captain Noel, pardon me, sir," interposed the operator. " The 
 general is in the office at Wilcox Station. He wants to know if you 
 have started from here." 
 
 " Tell him the troop isn't here yet. I — I'm waiting for it." 
 
 "Yonder comes the troop, sir," called out Mr. Renshaw, who had 
 run to the door. " Now let me help you off with your * cits.' Bring 
 that canvas bag in here, orderly." 
 
 Three minutes brought a message from "the Chief:" "Lose not a 
 moment on the way. Report here by wire the arrival of your troop 
 and the moment you start. Behind time now." 
 
 Poor Noel ! There was no surgeon to certify that his pallid cheeks 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 363 
 
 were due to impaired heart-action, no senatorial cousin to beg for staff 
 duty, no Mrs. liiggs to interpose. He had just time to send a despatch 
 to Mabel announcing that he took the field at the head of his troop at 
 once, another (collect) to Amos Withers, Esq., of similar import, and 
 one to the general, saying that at 4.45 they were just on the point of 
 starting, when the troop, fifty strong and in splendid trim, came trot- 
 ting in, and Mr. Mason grimly saluted his new captain and fell back 
 to the command of the first platoon. 
 
 " Noel to the Front !" was the Chroniclers head-line on the follow- 
 ing morning far away in the Queen City. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Not an instant too soon, although he has ridden hard since earliest 
 dawn, has Lane reached the rocky pass. North and south the Pelon- 
 cillos are shrouded in the gloom of coming night, and all over the arid 
 plain to the eastward darkness has settled down. In previous scouts 
 he has learned the country well, and he knows just where to turn for 
 " tanks" of cool water for horses, mules, and men, — the cavalry order 
 of precedence when creature comforts are to be doled out. He knows 
 just where to conceal his little force in the recesses of the rocks and 
 let them build tiny fires and make their coffee and then get such rest 
 as is possible before the coming day ; but there is no rest for him. 
 Taking two veteran soldiers with him, and leaving the troop to the 
 command of his lieutenant, an enthusiastic young soldier only a year 
 out of the cadet gray, the captain rides westward through the gloam- 
 ing. He must determine at once whether the Indians are coming to- 
 wards the pass by which the San Simon makes its burst through the 
 range, or whether, having made wide detour around the little post at 
 Bowie among the Chiricahua Mountains, they are now heading south- 
 ward again and taking the shortest line to the border before seeking to 
 regain once more their old trail along the San Bernardino. How often 
 have their war-parties gone to and fro along those rocky banks, un- 
 molested, unpursued ! 
 
 And now, secure in the belief that they have thrown all the 
 cavalry far to the rear in the " stern-chase" which no Apache dreads, 
 well knowing how easily he can distance his hampered pursuers, the 
 renegades, joined by a gang of the utterly " unreconstructed" Chiri- 
 cahuas, are taking things easily and making raids on the helpless 
 ranches that lie to the right or left of their line of march. For- 
 tunately for the records, these are few in number ; had there been 
 dozens more they would only have served to swell the list of butchered 
 men, of plundered ranches, of burning stacks and corrals, of women 
 and children borne off to be the sport of their leisure hours when 
 once secure in the fastnesses of the Sierra Madres far south of the 
 line. Death could not too soon conit to the relief of these poor creat- 
 ures, and Lane and all his men had been spurred to the utmost effort 
 by the story of the railway-hands that they had plainly seen several 
 women and children bound to the spare animals the renegades drove 
 along across the iron track. 
 
364 I'WO SOLDIERS. 
 
 Among the passengers in the pillaged stage-coach were the wife and 
 danghter of an Indian agent, who had only recently come to this 
 arid Territory and knew little of the ways of its indigenous people. 
 Nothing had since been seen or heard of them. Captain Rawlins 
 and two soldiers going up as witnesses before a court-martial at Grant 
 were found hacked almost beyond recognition, and the driver too, who 
 seemed to have crawled out among the rocks to die. Verily the 
 Apaches had good reason to revel in their success ! They had 
 hoodwinked the Bureau, dodged the cavalry, plundered right and left 
 until they were rich with spoil, and now, well to the south of the rail- 
 way, witii a choice of either east or west side of the range, their main 
 body and prisoners are halted to rest the animals, while miles to the 
 rear their faithful vedettes keep watch against pursuers, and miles out 
 to the west the most active young warriors are crying havoc at the 
 ranch of Tres Hermanos. It is the red glare of the flame towards 
 the sunset horizon that tells Lane the Apaches cannot be far away. 
 The instant he and his comrades issue from the gorge and peer cau- 
 tiously to the right and left, not only do they see the blaze across the 
 wide valley, but northward, not more than half a mile away, there rises 
 upon the night-wind a sound that they cannot' mistake, — the war-chant 
 of the Chiricahuas. 
 
 " Thank God," cries Lane, " we are here ahead of them !" 
 
 Half an hour's reconnoissance reveals to him their position. Far 
 up among the boulders of the range, where pursuing horsemen cannot 
 rush upon them in the night, they have made their bivouac, and are 
 having a revel and feast while awaiting the return of the raiders or news 
 from the rear that they must be moving. The range is rugged and pre- 
 cipitous north of the gorge ; cavalry cannot penetrate it ; but Lane's 
 plan is quickly laid. He will let his men sleep until two o'clock, keep- 
 ing only three sentries on the lookout, one of them mounted and west 
 of the gorge to give warning should the Indians move during the night. 
 Then, leaving the horses concealed among the rocks south of the stream, 
 with two men to guard them, he will lead his company up the heights 
 and as close as possible to the Apache camp, lie in hiding until it 
 is light enough to distinguish objects, then dash down into their midst, 
 rescue the prisoners in the panic and confusion that he knows will result 
 from the sudden attack, send them back as rapidly as })ossible, guided 
 by three or four .men, to where his horses are corralled, while he and 
 his little band interpose between them and any rally the Apaches may 
 make. 
 
 Knowing well that they are armed with magazine rifles and supplied 
 by a paternal Bureau with abundant ammunition, knowing that they 
 outnumber him three to one, knowing that by sunrise the whole tribe 
 will have reassembled and must infallibly detect the pitiful weakness 
 of his own force, it is a desperate chance to take ; but it is the only one 
 — absolutely the only one — to save those tortured, agonized \vomen, those 
 terror-stricken little ones, from a fate more awful than words can portray. 
 
 By eight or nine in the morning, he argues, K Troop must certainly 
 reach him ; he knows them to be fresii and strong, he knows that they 
 have had only short and easy marches and therefore can easily come 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 365 
 
 ahead all night long and be rounding the Pyramid Spur by daybreak. 
 He knows Mason well, and can count on that young officer's doing his 
 " level best" to support him. Alas ! he does not know that Mason is 
 compelled by this time to fall back to second place, and that the last 
 man on whom he can possibly count " in a pinch" is now in command 
 of the looked-for troop. 
 
 The night wears on without alarm. Well-nigh exhausted, Lane 
 has thrown himself at the foot of a tree to catch what sleep he may, 
 and he feels as though he had not closed his eyes when Corporal Shea 
 bends over him to say it is two o'clock. Noiselessly the men are 
 aroused ; silently they roll out of their blankets, and, obedient to the 
 low-toned " fall in" of the first sergeant, seize their arms and take 
 tlieir place in line. There Lane briefly explains the situation ; tells 
 them of the position of the Apache bivouac; details Corporal Riley 
 and four men to search for, secure, and hie away with the prisoners, 
 and orders all the rest to fight like the devil to drive the Apaches hel- 
 ter-skelter into the rocks. " Let not one word be said nor a trigger 
 pulled until we are right among them. Wait for my command, unless 
 we are detected and fired on. If we are, blaze away at once ; but never 
 stop your rush : get right in among them. Let Riley and his men make 
 instant search, be sure they leave neither woman nor child behind, and 
 start them back here. The rest of us will fall back slowly, keeping be- 
 tween them and the Apaches all the time. Never let them get near those 
 prisoners. That is the main object of our attack. Once back here with 
 the horses, we can pick out places in the rocks from whicii we can stand 
 the Apaches off until K Troop comes. Rest assured Lieutenant Mason 
 and his men will be along by eight or nine ; and it cannot be that the 
 cavalry now pursuing the Apaches from the north will be more than a 
 few hours behind. Now, do you understand ? for there will be no chance 
 of orders up there. Leave your canteens; leave anything that will hinder 
 or rattle. Those of you who have on spurs, take them off. Those of 
 you who have Tonto or Apache moccasins, take off your top boots and 
 put them on ; they are all the better for going up these hill-sides. Now 
 get your coffee, men ; make no noise, light no additional fires, and be 
 ready to move in twenty minutes." 
 
 Then he pencils this brief note : 
 
 "Commanding Officer Troop K, Eleventh Cavalry : 
 
 " We have headed the Apaches, and will attack theii' camp the 
 instant it is light enough to see, rescue their captives, then fall back 
 here to the gorge of the San Simon. They far outnumber us, and you 
 cannot reach us too soon. I count upon your being here by eight in 
 the morning, and hope with your aid to hold the enemy until Greene's 
 Gomroand arrives. Then we ought to capture tlie whole band. Do 
 not fail me. 
 
 "Feederick Lane, 
 
 " Captain Eleventh Cavalry" 
 
 This he gives to Sergeant Luce with orders to ride back on the trail 
 until he meets K Troop and deliver it to Lieutenant Mason or whoever 
 is in command ; and in half an hour Luce is away. 
 
366 "^WO SOLDIERS. 
 
 And now, just as the dawn is breaking and a faint pallid light is 
 stealing through the tree-tops along the rocky range, there come creep- 
 ing slowly, noiselessly along the slope a score of shadowy forms, crouch- 
 ing from boulder to boulder, from tree to tree. Not a word is spoken, 
 save now and then a whispered caution. Foremost, carbine in hand, is 
 the captain, now halting a moment to give some signal to those nearest 
 him, now peering ahead over the rocks that bar the way. At last he 
 reaches a point where, looking down the dark and rugged hill-side 
 before him, he sees something which causes him to unsling the case 
 in which his field-glasses are carried, to gaze thither long and fixedly. 
 With all eyes upon their leader, the men wait and listen : some 
 cautiously try the hammers of their carbines and loosen a few car- 
 tridges in the loops of their prairie-belts. A signal from Lane brings 
 Mr. Royce, the young second lieutenant, to his side. It is the boy's 
 first experience of the kind, and his heart. is thumping, but he means 
 to be one of the foremost in the charge when the time comes. Watching 
 closely, the nearest men can see that the captain is pointing out some 
 object nearer at hand than they supposed, and the first sergeant, crouch- 
 ing to a neighboring rock, looks cautiously over, and then eagerly 
 motions to others to join him. 
 
 The Apache hiding-place is not three hundred yards away. 
 
 Down the motintain-side to the west and up the range to the north 
 their sentries keep vigilant guard against surprise ; but what man of 
 their number dreams for an instant that on the south, between them 
 and the Mexican line, there is now closing in to the attack a little troop 
 of veteran campaigners, led by a man whom they have learned to dread 
 before now ? Invisible from the valley below or the heights up the 
 range, their smouldering fires can be plainly seen from where Lane 
 and his men are now concealed. But nothing else can be distinguished. 
 
 Far over to the western side of the valley the faint red glow tells 
 where lie the ruins of the ranch their young warriors have destroyed, 
 and any moment now their exultant yells may be heard as they come 
 scampering back to camp after a night of deviltry, and then everybody 
 will be up and moving off and well on the way southward before the 
 sun gets over the crest. Lane knows he must make his dash before 
 they can return. There would be little hope of rescue for the poor 
 souls lying there bound and helpless, with all those fierce young fighters 
 close at hand. 
 
 The word is passed among the men : " Follow closely, but look 
 well to your footing. Dislodge no stones." Then, slowly and stealth- 
 ily as before, on they go, — this time down the hill towards the faint 
 lights of the Indian bivouac. A hundred yards more, and Lane holds 
 up his hand, a signal to halt ; and here he gives Mr. Royce a few 
 instructions in a low tone. The youngster nods his head and mutters 
 to several of the men as he passes, " Follow me." They disappear 
 among the rocks and trees to the right, and it is evident that they mean 
 to work around to the east of the bivouac, so as to partially encircle 
 them. Little by little the wan light grows brighter, and, close at hand, 
 objects far more distinct. An Indian is just passing in front of the 
 nearest blaze, and is lost in the gloom among the stuuted ti"ees. One 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 3g7 
 
 or two forms are moving about, but they can only dimly be distin- 
 guished. Lane argues, however, that they are getting ready to move, 
 and no time is to be lost. 
 
 " Spread out now," is the order, " well to the right and left, and 
 move forward. Be very careful." And once more they resume their 
 cat-like advance. Nearer and nearer they creep upon the unsuspecting 
 foe, and soon many a form of sleeping Apache can be made out, lying 
 around in the grassy basin in which they are hiding for the night. 
 Lane motions to Corporal Riley to come close to his side : " I can 
 see nothing that looks like prisoners : they must be among the trees 
 there, where that farthest lire is burning. Keep close to me with 
 your men. Pass the word to the right, there. All ready." 
 
 And now they are so near the Indians that the voices of one or two 
 squaws can be heard cliatting in low tones ; then the feeble wail of an 
 infant is for a moment brought to their straining ears; then far out 
 over the level valley to the west there is a sound tliat causes Lane's 
 blood to tingle, — faint, distant, but unmistakable, — a chorus of Apache 
 yells. The raiders are coming back : it is time to strike the blow. 
 Now or never, seems to be the word as the men glance at their leader 
 and then into each other's faces. 
 
 ^' Forward ! no shot, no sound, till they see us ; then cheer like mad 
 as you charge ! Come on, men !" 
 
 Quickly now following his lead, they go leaping down the hill-side. 
 Thirty — fifty yards without mishap or discovery. Sixty, and still no 
 sound from the defence; then a sudden stumble, the rattle of a carbine 
 sliding down the rocks, a muttered execration ; then a shrill, piercing 
 scream from the midst of the bivouac ; then 
 
 " Charge !" 
 
 In they go ! — the " Devil's own D's." The still air rings with 
 their wild hurrahs and the crash of their carbines. The flame-jets 
 light up the savage scene and show squaws and screaming children 
 rushing for shelter among the rocks ; Apache warriors springing from 
 the ground, some manfully facing the rush of the foe, others fleeing 
 like women down the hill-side. Never halting an instant, the soldiers 
 dash through the camp, driving the dusky occupants helter-skelter. 
 Lane finds himself confronted one instant by a savage warrior whose 
 eyes gleam like tiger's under the thatch of coarse black hair, and whose 
 teeth gnash in fury as he tries to force a fresh cartridge into his breech- 
 loader. No time for Lane to reload. He clubs his carbine, and the 
 hammer comes crashing down on the Indian's skull just as Corporal 
 Riley drives a bullet through his heart. 
 
 " Look to the captives, man !" shouts Lane. " Don't follow me ! 
 Drive them ! drive them, Royce !" are his ringing orders, as he him- 
 self dashes on past the fires and into the feeble morning light 
 beyond. 
 
 Bang ! bang ! the carbines are ringing through the rocks and trees ; 
 cheer upon cheer goes up from the little command, mingled with Indian 
 yells and the screams of the terrified children. 
 
 " Riley's got 'em, sir," he hears his boy-trumpeter call. " Some of 
 'em, anyhow. There's two white women." 
 
368 ^'♦^O SOLDIERS. 
 
 " Never mind, lad," he answers. " Don't sound the recall till I 
 tell you." 
 
 And again his ringing voice is heard among the tumult : " For- 
 ward ! forward ! drive them ! keep them on the run, men !" 
 
 And so for five minutes longer, firing whenever a savage head 
 appears, inflicting and receiving many a savage blow, but still victo- 
 riously forcing their way onward, the little band follow their leader 
 down the rocks until apparently not an Apache is left in the immediate 
 neighborhood of the old camp. Then at last the trumpet peals out its 
 signal-recall. 
 
 And slowly and steadily, watchfully guarding against the possi- 
 bility of leaving some wounded comrade among the rocks, the little 
 command finally gathers once more around the fires in the camp. 
 
 Riley and his men have disappeared. A shout from up the rocks 
 in the well-known Irish voice gives the glad intelligence that he has 
 brought with him all the prisoners he could find in camp. 
 
 "There are three women, sir, and two little children, — two girls; 
 they're so frightened that I can hardly find out much from them, but 
 they say there was no more left." 
 
 "Very well, then. Now, men, open out right and left, and fall 
 back very slowly. Sergeant, take six of the men and move up so as 
 to be close to Riley in case they attack from the flank. Are we all here ? 
 Are any wounded or hurt?" He asks the question with a little stream 
 of blood trickling down from his left temple, but of which he seems 
 perfectly unaware : either an arrow or a bullet has torn the skin and 
 made quite a furrow through the hair. 
 
 " Murphy, sir," says one of the men, " is shot through the arm, and 
 Lathrop has got a bullet in the leg; but they're only flesh-wounds: 
 they're lying here just back of us." 
 
 Lane turns about, and finds two of his men looking a little pale, 
 but perfectly plucky and self-possessed. " We'll get you along all right, 
 men," he says ; " don't worry. — Now, lads, turn about every ten or 
 fifteen steps, and see that they don't get close upon you. Look well to 
 the left." 
 
 Then slowly they fall back towards the pass. Every now and then 
 a shot comes whizzing by, as the Apaches regain courage and creep up 
 to their abandoned camp. But not until they are well back over the 
 ridge, and Riley and his little party, fairly carrying their rescued cap- 
 tives, are nearly out of harm's way, do the scattered warriors begin to 
 realize how few in number their assailants must be. Rallying shouts 
 can be heard among the rocks, and then there come the thunder of 
 hoofs out on the plain below and the answering yells of the returning 
 raiders. 
 
 " Run to Corporal Riley and tell him to make all the haste he can," 
 Lane orders his trumpeter. "Tell him to get back to the horses, and 
 then, as soon as he has left his women in a safe place there, to throw 
 up stone shelters wherever it is .possible. — Royce, you look out for 
 this front. I will go to the left. If any of your men are hit, have 
 them picked up and moved rapidly to the rear; of course we can't 
 leave any wounded to fall into their hands ; but, where possible, keep 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 369 
 
 your men under cover ; and keep under yourself, six : don't let me 
 see you exposing yourself unnecessarily, as I did a while ago." 
 
 And once again the retreat is resumed. Lane looks anxiously 
 among the rocks down the hill to his left, every instant expecting to see 
 the young braves hurrying to the assault. But now, as though in 
 obedience to the signals of some leader, the Apaches cease their pursuit. 
 Lane well knows that the matter is not yet concluded, but is thankful 
 for the respite. Still warily his little force continues the withdrawal, 
 and, without further molestiition, reaches the gorge of the San Simon, 
 and soon comes in sight of the dip among the rocks where the horses 
 are still hidden. Here, too, Corporal Riley and his men are busily at 
 work heaping up little breastworks of rock, and Lane directs that while 
 the wounded — there are three now — are carried down to where the 
 rescued women and children are lying, the other men fall to and help. 
 In five minutes there are over a score of them at work, and not one 
 instant too soon. Corporal Donnelly, who has been posted, mounted, 
 at the western entrance to the defile, comes clattering in to say that at 
 least a hundred Indians are swarming down the ridge. 
 
 And now the fight that opens is one in which the odds are greatly 
 against the defenders. Lane has just time to climb to the height on 
 the east and take one long look with his glasses over the flats beyond 
 the pass, praying for a sight of a dust-cloud towards the Pyramid Spur, 
 when with simultaneous crash of musketry and chorus of yells the 
 Apaches come sweeping down to the attack. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Meantime, where are the looked-for supports? Lane, with wearied 
 horses, had made the march from the railway-station to the pass in a 
 little over fourteen hours. It was 5.30 when he started and 8.15 when 
 he unsaddled among the rocks. He had come through the blazing sun- 
 shine of the long June day; sometimes at the trot, sometimes at the 
 lope, ofttimes dismounting and leading when crossing ridges or ravines. 
 He was still pale and weak from his long illness, and suffering from a 
 sorrow that had robbed him of all the buoyancy he had ever possessed. 
 But the sense of duty was as strong as ever, and the soldier-spirit 
 triumphed over the ills of the flesh. 
 
 Noel, starting at 4.45 p.m., with horses and men fresh and eager, 
 with a guide who knew every inch of the way, and the bright starlight 
 to cheer his comrades, could reasonably be expected to cover the same 
 ground in the same time ; every old cavalryman knows that horses travel 
 better by night than by day. By good rights he and his men should 
 be at the pass at least an hour before the time set by Lane. It was only 
 a week before that the cajitain had declared at the '' Queen City" that 
 he had never felt so " fit" in his life and a campaign would just suit 
 him. Things seemed to have a different color, however, as he watched 
 the going down of the sun behind the distant Peloncillos. The words 
 of the young infantry adjutant kept recurring to him, and he knew of 
 old that when Lane started after Indians he was " dead sure to get 
 'em" as Mr. Mason was good enough to remind him. 
 
370 ^^^0 SOLDIERS. 
 
 Twice before sunset the guide had ventured to suggest a quicker 
 gait, but Noel refused, saying that he did not mean to get his horses 
 to the scene worn out and unfit for pursuit. Mr. Mason, who heard 
 this, begged to remind the captain that pursuit was not the object : 
 they were expected to get there in time to help Lane head off the 
 attempt at further flight, and to hold the Apaches, wherever met, until 
 the pursuing force could reach them from the north and hem them in. 
 Noel ranked Mason only a few files and knew well that all the regi- 
 ment would side with his subaltern : so he was forced to a show of cor- 
 diality and consideration. He rode by the lieutenant's side, assuring 
 him of the sense of strength it gave him to have with him a man of 
 such experience. " For your sake. Mason, I wish I had been twelve 
 hours later, so that you could have had the glory of this thing to your- 
 self; but you know I couldn't stand it. I had to pull wires like sin to 
 get relieved, as it was. Old Hudson, the head of the recruiting-service, 
 just swore he wouldn't let me go, because I had had good luck in the 
 class and number of the recruits I sent him. Personally, too, I'm in 
 no shape to ride. See how fat I've grown ?" 
 
 Mason saw, but said a fifty-mile ride ought not to stagger any cavalry- 
 man, hard or soft, and made no reply whatever to the captain's account 
 of how he succeeded in getting relieved. He didn't believe a word of it. 
 
 Night came on and found them still marching at steady walk. 
 Halts for rest, too, had been frequently ordered, and at last Mason 
 could stand it no longer. After repeated looks at his watcli, he had 
 burst out with an earnest appeal : 
 
 " Captain Noel, we'll never get there in time at this rate. Surely, 
 sir, the orders you got from the general must be different from those 
 that came to the post. They said, make all speed, lose not a moment. 
 Did not yours say so too ?" 
 
 " The general knew very well that I had marched cavalry too often 
 not to understand just how to get there in time," was Noel's stately 
 reply ; and, though chafing inwardly. Mason was compelled to silence. 
 Ten o'clock came, and still it was no better. Then both the lieutenant 
 and the guide, after a moment's consultation during a rest, approached 
 the captain and begged him to increase the gait; and when they 
 mounted, the command did, for a while, move on at a jog, which 
 Mason would fain have increased to the lope, but Noel interposed. 
 Midnight, and more rests, found them fully ten miles behind the point 
 wdiere the guide and the lieutenant had planned to be. Even the men 
 had begun to murmur among themselves, and to contrast the captain's - 
 spiritless advance with Mr. Mason's lively methods. Two o'clock, 
 and the Pyramid Range was still far away. Daybreak came, and Mason 
 was nearly mad with misery, the guide sullen and disgusted. Broad 
 daylight, — six o'clock, — and here at last were the Pyramid Buttes at 
 their right front, and, coming towards them on the trail, a single horse- 
 man. " It is Sergeant Luce," said some of the foremost troopers. 
 
 And Luce had a note, which he handed to Lieutenant Mason ; but 
 that gentlernan shook his head and indicated Noel. The captain took 
 it in silence, opened it, glanced over the contents, changed color, as all 
 could see, and then inquired, — 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 371 
 
 " How far is it, sergeant ?" 
 
 " It must be fifteen miles from here, sir. I came slowly, because 
 my horse was worn out, and because Captain Lane thought that I 
 would meet the troop very much nearer the pass. It's more than 
 fifteen miles, I reckon." 
 
 " Had the attack begun before you left ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir ; and I could hear the shots as I came out of the pass, — 
 hear them distinctly." 
 
 " May I inquire what the news is, captain ?" said Mr. Mason, riding 
 up to his side. 
 
 " Well," was the reply, " Lane writes that he has headed the Apaches, 
 and that he is just moving in to the attack. 
 
 " Will you permit me to see the note, sir?" said Mason, trembling 
 with exasperation at the indifferent manner in which it was received. 
 
 Noel hesitated : " Presently, — presently, Mr. Mason. We'll move 
 forward at a trot, now." 
 
 Sergeant Luce reined about, and, riding beside the first sergeant of 
 K Troop, told him in low tones of the adventures of the previous day 
 and night, and the fact that the Apaches were there just north of the 
 pass and in complete force. The result seemed to be, as the word was 
 passed among the men, to increase the gait to such an extent that they 
 crowded upon the leaders, and Noel, time and again, threw up his hand 
 and warned the men not to ride over the heels of his horse. 
 
 Seven o'clock came, and still they had not got beyond the Pyramids. 
 Eight o'clock, and they were not in sight of the pass. Nine o'clock, 
 and still the gorge was not in view. It was not until nearly ten that 
 the massive gate- way seemed to open before them, and then, far to the 
 front, their eager ears could catch the sound of sharp and rapid firing. 
 
 " My God !" said Mason, with irrepressible excitement, " there's no 
 question about it, captain, Lane's surrounded tliere ! For heaven's sake, 
 sir, let's get ahead to his support." 
 
 " Ride forward, sergeant," said Noel to Luce, " and show us the 
 shortest way you know to where Captain Lane has corralled his horses. 
 — I don't like the idea of entering that pass in column, Mr. Mason. The 
 only safe way to do it will be to dismount and throw a line of skir- 
 mishers ahead. If Lane is surrounded, the Apaches undoubtedly will 
 open fire on us as we pass through." 
 
 " Suppose they do, sir : we've got men enough to drive them back. 
 What we want is to get through there as quickly as possible." 
 
 But Noel shook his head, and, forming line to the front at a trot, 
 moved forward a few hundred yards, and then, to the intense disgust 
 of Mr. Mason, ordered the first platoon dismounted and pushed ahead 
 as skirmishers. Compelled to leave their horses with number four of 
 each set, the other troopers, sullenly, but in disciplined silence, advanced 
 afoot up the gentle slope which led to the heights on the right of the 
 gorge. 
 
 Not a shot impeded their advance ; not a sound told them that they 
 were even watched. But far up through the pass itself the sound of 
 sharp firing continued, and every now and then a shrill yell indicated 
 that the Apaches were evidently having the best of it. 
 
372 ^'^0 SOLDIERS. 
 
 Again Mason rode to his captain. " I beg you, sir," he said, 
 " to let me take my platoon, or the other one, and charge through 
 there. It isn't possible that they can knock more than one or two of 
 us out of the saddle ; and if you follow with the rest of the men they 
 can easily be taken care of." But Noel this time rebuked him. 
 
 " Mr. Mason, I have had too much of your interference," he said, 
 " and I will tolerate no more. I am in command of this troop, sir, 
 and I am responsible for its proper conduct." 
 
 And Mason, rebuffed, fell back without further word. 
 
 The pass was reached, and still not a shot had been fired. Over 
 the low ridge the dismounted troopers went, and not an Apache was in 
 sight. Then at la.st it became evident that to cross the stream they 
 would have to ford ; and then the " recall" was sounded, the horses 
 were run rapidly forward to the skirmish-line, the men swung into 
 saddle, the rear platoon closed on the one in front, and cautiously, with 
 Mason leading and Noel hanging back a little as though to direct the 
 march of his column, the troop passed through the river and came out 
 on the other side. The moment they reached the bank. Mason struck a 
 trot without any orders, and the men followed him. 
 
 Noel hastened forward, shouting out, " Walk, walk." But, finding 
 that they either did not or would not hear him, he galloped in front of 
 the troop, and sternly ordered the leaders to decrease their gait and not 
 again to take the trot unless he gave the command. 
 
 Just at this minute, from the heights to the right and left, half a 
 dozen shots were fired in quick succession ; a trooper riding beside the 
 first sergeant threw up his arms, with the sudden cry, " My God ! I've 
 got it !" and fell back from the saddle. Noel at the same instant felt a 
 twinge along his left arm, and, wheeling his horse about, shouted, " To 
 the rear ! to the rear ! We're ambushed !" And, despite the rallying 
 cry of Mason and the entreaties of tiie guide, the men, taking the cue 
 from their leader, reined to the right and left about and went clattering 
 out of the pass. 
 
 More shots came from the Apaches, some aimed at the fleeing troop 
 and others at the little group of men that remained behind ; for the 
 poor fellow who had been shot through the breast lay insensible by 
 the side of the stream, and would have been abandoned to his fate but 
 for the courage and devotion of Mason and two of the leading men. 
 Promptly jumping from their horses, tiiey raised him between them, 
 and, laying him across the pommel of one of the saddles, supported by 
 the troopers, the wounded man was carried back to the ibrd, and from 
 there out of harm's way. 
 
 By this time Noel, at full gallop, had gone four or five hundred 
 yards to the rear, and tliere the first sergeant — not he — rallied the troop, 
 reformed it, counted fours, and faced it to the front. 
 
 When Mason returned to them, leading the two troopers and the 
 dying man, his face was as black as a thunder-cloud. He rode up to 
 his captain, who was stanching with a handkerchief a little stream of 
 blood that seemed to be coming down his left arm, and addressed to 
 him these words : 
 
 "Captain Noel, there were not more than six or eight Apaches 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 373 
 
 guarding those heights. There was no excuse in God's world, sir, for 
 a retreat. I can take my platoon and go through there now without 
 difficulty, and once again, sir, I implore you to let me do it." 
 
 Noel's reply was, " I have already heard too much from you to-day, 
 Mr. Mason. If I hear one more word, you go to the rear in arrest. I 
 am wounded, sir, but I will not turn over this command to you." 
 
 " Wounded be hanged ! Captain Noel, you've got a scratch of 
 which a child ought to be ashamed," was the furious reply, upon which 
 Noel, considering that he must at all hazards preserve the dignity of 
 his position, ordered Lieutenant Mason to consider himself in arrest. 
 And, dismounting, and calling to one or two of the men to assist him, 
 the captain got out of his blouse and had the sleeve of his under-shirt 
 cut oft", and then, in full hearing of the combat up the pass, proceeded 
 to have a scratch, as Mason had truly designated it, stanched and 
 dressed. 
 
 Meantime, the troop, shamefaced and disgusted, dismounted and 
 awaited further developments. For fifteen minutes they remained 
 there, listening to the battle a mile away, and then there came a sound 
 that thrilled every man with excitement, — with mad longing to dash to 
 the front : there came crashes of musketry that told of the arrival of 
 strong reinforcements for one party or another, — which party was soon 
 developed by the glorious, ringing cheers that they well recognized to 
 be those of their comrades of Greene's battalion. 
 
 " By heavens !" said Mason, with a groan, " after all, we have lost 
 our chance ! It's Greene, not old K Troop, that got there in time to 
 save them." 
 
 The looks that were cast towards their new captain by the men, 
 standing in sullen silence at their horses' heads, were not those that auy 
 soldier would have envied. 
 
 Directing the first sergeant to take half a dozen troopers and feel 
 their way cautiously to the front and ascertain what that new sound 
 meant, the rest of the men meanwhile to remain at ease, Noel still sat 
 there on the ground, as though faint from loss of blood. The bleed- 
 ing, however, had been too trifling to admit of any such supposition 
 on the part of those who had been looking on. The cheering up the 
 pass increased. The firing rapidly died away. Soon it was seen that 
 the first sergeant was signalling, and presently a man came riding back. 
 The sergeant and the others disappeared, going fearlessly into the pass, 
 and evidently indicating by their movements that they anticipated no 
 further resistance. The arriving horseman dismounted, saluted the 
 captain, and reported substantially that the pass was now in posses- 
 sion of Major Greene's men, and that the Apaches were in full flight 
 towards the south, some of the troops pursuing. 
 
 Then at last it was that the " mount" was sounded by the trumpeter, 
 and half an hour afterwards — full three hours after they should have 
 been there — Captain Noel with K Troop arrived at the scene. Lane, 
 faint from loss of blood, was lying under a tree ; four of his men were 
 killed ; one of the helpless recaptured women had been shot by an In- 
 dian bullet ; five more of the " Devil's own D's" were lying wounded 
 around among the rocks. Desperate had been the defence ; sore had 
 Vol. XLV.— 25 
 
374 ^^O SOLDIERS. 
 
 been their need ; safe, thoroughly safe, they would have been had Noel 
 got there in time ; but it was Greene's battalion that finally reached 
 them only at the last moment. And yet this was the thrilling announce- 
 ment that appeared in the Queen City Chronicle in its morning edition, 
 two days afterwards : 
 
 " Gallant Noel ! Rescue of the Indian Captives ! Stirring Pursuit 
 and Fierce Battle with the Apaches ! 
 
 " A despatch received last night by the Hon. Amos Withers an- 
 nounces the return from the front of Captain Noel, who so recently left 
 our midst, with a portion of his troop, bringing with him the women 
 and children who had been run off by the Apaches on their raid among 
 the ranches south of their reservation. The captain reports a severe 
 fight, in which many of the regiment were killed and wounded, he 
 himself, though making light of the matter, receiving a bullet through 
 the left arm. 
 
 " While the rest of the command had gone on in pursuit of the 
 Apaches, the captain was sent by the battalion commander to escort 
 the captives back to the railway. 
 
 " This despatch, though of a private character, is fully substantiated 
 by the official report of the general commanding the department to the 
 Adjutant-General of the army. It reads as follows : 
 
 " ' Captain Noel, of the Eleventh Cavalry, has just reached the 
 railway, bringing with him all but one of the women and children 
 whom the Apaches had carried off into captivity. The other was shot 
 by a bullet in the desperate fight which occurred in San Simon Pass 
 between the commands of Captains Lane and Noel and the Apaches, 
 whose retreat they were endeavoring to head off. Greene's battalion 
 of the Eleventh arrived in time to take part ; but on their appear- 
 ance the Apaches fled through the mountains in the wildest confusion, 
 leaving much of their plunder behind them. 
 
 " * It is impossible as yet to give accurate accounts of the killed 
 and wounded, but our losses are reported to have been heavy.' 
 
 " How thoroughly have the predictions of the Chronicle with regard 
 to this gallant officer been fulfilled ! To his relatives and his many 
 friends in our midst the Chronicle extends its most hearty congratula- 
 tions. We predict that the welcome which Captain Noel will receive 
 will be all that his fondest dreams could possibly have cherished." 
 
 XVI. 
 
 For a week the story of Gordon Noel's heroism was the talk of 
 Queen City society. He 1 ad led the charge upon the Indians after a 
 pursuit of over a hundred miles through the desert. He had fought 
 his way to the cave in which those poor captive women were guarded, 
 and had himself cut the thongs that bound them. He was painfully 
 wounded, but never quit the fight till the last savage was driven from 
 the field. For daring and brilliant conduct he was to be promoted 
 over the heads of all the captains in his regiment. His name was 
 already before the President for a vacancy in the Adjutant-General's 
 Department, and the appointment would be announced at once. He 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 375 
 
 was coming East just as soon as the surgeon said he was well enough 
 to travel. Mrs. Noel wanted to join him, but he had telegraphed 
 saying no, that he would soon be with her. 
 
 So rang the chorus for several days. At the club the men shook 
 hands over the news, and sent telegrams of praise and congratulation 
 to Noel, and drank his health in bumpers ; and two or three " old sore- 
 heads," who ventured to point out that the official reports were not yet 
 in, were pooh-poohed and put down. 
 
 Amos Withers had left for Washington on a midnight train im- 
 mediately after furnishing the Chronicle with the contents of his de- 
 spatch, making no allusion to that part of it which said, "Now push 
 for that vacancy. Not an instant must be lost." Nobody could say 
 nay to the man who had subscribed the heaviest sum to the campaign 
 fund in his own State, and therefore both its Senators and half its 
 representatives in the House went witii him to the President to urge 
 the immediate nomination of Captain Noel to the majority in the Ad- 
 jutant-General's Department made vacant by the promotion consequent 
 upon the retirement of one of its oldest members. Already the War 
 Department had furnished the Executive with the names and records 
 of the four men whom it considered most deserving, and Gordon Noel's 
 name was not one of the four. But what was that in comparison with 
 the eminent pecuniary and political services of Mr. Withers, when the 
 nephew had just behaved so superbly in action ? 
 
 Meantime, the Apaches had scattered through the mountains and 
 escaped across the border, the remnant of Lane's troop taking part in 
 the pursuit, and they, with their commander, only slowly returning to 
 the railway. For three or four days Noel had the wires and the corre- 
 spondents pretty much to himself; but then some of those enterprising 
 news-gatherers had been getting particulars from the men, and there 
 were two or three of K Troop in the detachment who could not conceal 
 their derision and contempt when the newspaper-men spoke of the 
 bravery of their captain. This set the correspondents to ferreting, and 
 then the despatches began to take a different color. The very day that 
 Mabel received her first letter from her husband, and was reading ex- 
 tracts from it to envious friends who had come in to swell the chorus 
 of jubilee and congratulation, an evening paper intimated that recent 
 despatches received from the seat of war revealed a different state of 
 affairs than was popularly supposed. 
 
 But by this time interest was waning. It is the first impression 
 that is always the strongest, the first story that is longest remembered, 
 and no man who has believed one version will accept the truth without 
 vigorous resistance. In his letter to his wife, Noel had spoken modestly 
 of himself and slightingly of his wounds. This only made her wor- 
 ship him — her hero, her gallant Gordon — the more insanely. He inti- 
 mated that he had been compelled to place in arrest one of the promi- 
 nent officers of the regiment for misconduct in the face of the enemy ; 
 and this and previous matters, he said, would surely make of this officer 
 an unrelenting foe. She need not be surprised, therefore, if this gen- 
 tleman should strive to do him grievous harm. Mabel blushed be- 
 comingly as she read these lines to some of her friends, and that night 
 
376 ^'TTO SOLDIERS. 
 
 at the club it was hinted that Lane had been placed in close arrest for 
 failing to support Noel in his desperate assault. Just at this time, too, 
 Mr. Withers came back from Washington, looking mysterious. 
 
 The next published despatches were from the general himself. He 
 was incensed over the escape of the Apaches. Measures for the capture 
 were complete, and it was broadly hinted that a certain officer would be 
 brought to trial for his failure to carry out positive orders. 
 
 " It is believed," said the Chronicle, " that the officer referred to is 
 well known in our community, as he had, oddly enough, been a prede- 
 cessor in the recruiting-service of the actual hero of the campaign." 
 
 Two weeks went by. There was no announcement of Noel's name 
 as promoted. Other matters occupied the attention of the club and the 
 coteries, and no one knew just what it all meant when it was announced 
 that Mrs. Noel had suddenly left for the frontier to join her husband. 
 Perhaps his wounds were more severe than at first reported. Then it 
 was noticed that Mr. Withers was in a very nervous and irritable frame 
 of mind, that constant despatches were passing between him and Cap- 
 tain Noel in the West, and that suddenly he departed again on some 
 mysterious errand for Washington. And then it was announced that 
 Captain Noel would not be able to visit the East as had been expected. 
 
 All the same it came as a shock which completely devastated the 
 social circles of the Queen City when it was announced in the New 
 York and Chicago papers that a general court-martial had been ordered 
 to assemble at Fort Gregg, New Mexico, for the trial of Captain Gor- 
 don Noel, Eleventh Cavalry, on charges of misbehavior in the face of 
 the enemy, and conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. 
 
 The Chronicle made no allusion to the matter until after it was 
 heralded over the city by the other journals. Then it announced that 
 it was in possession of information showing conclusively that Captain 
 Noel was the victim of the envy of certain officers in his regiment, and 
 that the charges had been trumped up from the false and prejudiced 
 statement of the man whom he had been compelled to place in arrest 
 for misconduct in action. " Captain Noel had demanded a court- 
 martial," said the Chronicle, " that he might be triumphantly vindi- 
 cated, as he undoubtedly would be." 
 
 At the club several men surrounded Lieutenant Bowen with eager 
 inquiry as to the facts in the case. Bowen, who was now in charge of 
 the rendezvous as Noel's successor, was very reticent when interrogated. 
 He said that while an officer might demand a court of inquiry, he could 
 not demand a court-martial ; they were entirely different things ; and it 
 was certainly the latter that had been ordered. 
 
 " Was there not some likelihood of malice and envy being at the 
 bottom of the charges?" he was asked. *' And was it not unfair to let 
 him be tried by officers prejudiced against him?" 
 
 Bowen said he did not belong to the Eleventh, but he knew it well 
 enough to say no to the first part of the question. As to the other, 
 there were only two officers from that regiment on the court, and one 
 was Noel's old friend and colonel, — Riggs. 
 
 It was in the midst of this talk that Mr. Amos Withers had sud- 
 denly appeared and begged a few words in private with Mr. Bowen. 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 377 
 
 Withers was in a state of nervous excitement, as any one could 
 see. He talked eagerly, even pleadingly, with the silent lieutenant, and 
 at last suddenly arose and, with the look of a defeated and discomfited 
 man, left the club-house, entered his carriage, and was driven rapidly 
 away. 
 
 That night an oflficer from the War Department arrived in the 
 Queen City, and was closeted for a while with Lieutenant Bowen, after 
 which the two went to the Chief of Police, and, in company with him, 
 visited the cell where Taintor, deserter and forger, was confined, took 
 his statement and that of the Chief, and with these documents the 
 officer went on to division head-quarters. 
 
 Meantime, the campaign had come to an end. Captain Noel had 
 reported, in arrest, to the commanding officer at Fort Gregg, and Mrs. 
 Riggs had tearfully greeted him : " She would so love to have him 
 under her roof, that she might show her sympathy and friendsliip ; but 
 so many officers of high rank were coming on the court that the colonel 
 was compelled to give every bit of room he had to them." Noel 
 thanked her nervously, and said he could be comfortable anywhere, but 
 his wife was coming : she had telegraphed that she could not be sepa- 
 rated from him when he was suifering wrong and outrage. Captain 
 and Mrs. Lowndes, moved to instant sympathy, begged that he would 
 make their quarters his home, and j)laced their best room at his dis- 
 posal. 
 
 Two evenings afterwards he was permitted to go himself to the rail- 
 way to meet poor Mabel, who threw herself into his arms and almost 
 sobbed her heart out at sight of his now haggard and care-worn face. 
 Mrs. Lowndes then came forward and strove to comfort her, while 
 Noel rushed off to send some telegrams. Then they drove out to the 
 post, and Mabel's spirits partially revived when she found that it was 
 not a prison she had come to share with her husband. Everybody was 
 so gentle and kind to her, she began to believe there was nothing very 
 serious in the matter, after all. 
 
 It lacked yet five days to the meeting of the court, and in the inter- 
 vening time there arrived at the post a prominent and distinguished 
 lawyer from the East, sent to conduct the defence by Mr. Withers's 
 orders; and many a long talk did he hold with his client and the 
 officers who were gathering at Gregg. 
 
 The charges of misconduct in face of the enemy had been preferred 
 by the Depai'tment commander, who cited as his witnesses Captain 
 Lane, Lieutenant Mason, Lieutenant Royce, the guide, and two or 
 three non-commissioned officers. To the charge of " conduct unbecom- 
 ing an officer and a gentleman" there were specifications setting forth 
 that he had caused to be circulated and published reports to the effect 
 that it was his command that had been severely engaged, and his com- 
 mand that had rescued the captives and defeated the Indians, which 
 statements he well knew to be false. Two or three correspondents and 
 railway employees and the telegraph operator were witnesses. This 
 would be a hard one to prove affirmatively, as the judge-advocate found 
 when he examined his witnesses as they arrived, and the great lawyer 
 assured the accused officer that he could secure him an acquittal on that 
 
378 'PWO SOLDIERS. 
 
 charge. The real danger lay in the testimony of Captain Lane and 
 Lieutenant Mason, who had not yet come. 
 
 And now, hour after hour, for two days, Mabel was reading in her 
 husband's face the utter hopelessness that possessed him ; nay, more, 
 the truth was being revealed to her in all its damning details. It 
 might be impossible for the prosecution to prove that he had actually 
 caused the false and boastful stories to be given to the press and the 
 public ; but how about the telegrams and letters Mr. Withers had so 
 proudly come to show her? How about the telegrams and letters she 
 herself had received? What impression could she derive from them 
 but that he was the hero of the whole affair, and that he was lying 
 painfully wounded when he wrote? The gash through the beautiful 
 white arm turned out to be a mere scratch upon the skin, that a pin 
 might have made. It was Greene's command from Fort Graham that 
 had rescued Lane, and Lane with his men who had rescued the cap- 
 tives, and then fought so hard, so desperately, against such fearful odds, 
 and sustained their greatest losses, while her hero, — her Gordon, — with 
 nearly fifty men, was held only a mile away by half a dozen ragamuf- 
 fins in the rocks. She had almost adored him, believing him godlike 
 in courage and magnanimity ; but now on every side the real facts were 
 coming to light, and she even wrung them from his reluctant lips. And 
 yet — and yet — he was her husband, and she loved him. 
 
 Again and again did she question Mr, Falconer, the eminent counsel, 
 as to the possibilities. This gentleman had fought all through the war 
 of the rebellion, and had won high commendation for bravery. He 
 had taken the case because he believed, on Withers's statement, that 
 Noel was a wronged and injured man, and because, possibly, a fee of 
 phenomenal proportion could be looked for. He met among the old 
 captains of the Eleventh men whom he had known in Virginia in the 
 war-days, and learned from them what Noel's real reputation was, and, 
 beyond peradveuture, how he had shirked and played the coward in 
 the last campaign : so that he, who had known Mabel Vincent from 
 her babyhood and loved her old father, now shrank from the sorrow of 
 having to tell her the truth. Yet she demanded it, and he had to say 
 that her husband's fate hinged on the evidence that might be given by 
 Captain Lane and Mr. Mason. 
 
 That very night these two officers arrived, together with three mem- 
 bers of the court. The following day at ten o'clock the court was to 
 begin its session, and four of its members were still to come. That 
 niglit Mr. Falconer and her husband were closeted with several men in 
 succession, seeking evidence for the defence. That night there came a 
 despatch from Withers saying he had done his best in Washington, but 
 that it seemed improbable that the President would interfere and accept 
 Noel's resignation from the service. 
 
 Noel showed this to Mabel and sank upon the sofa with a groan 
 of despair. 
 
 " Oh, my darling !" she whispered, kneeling by his side and throwing 
 her arms about his neck, " don't give way ! There must be hope yet ! 
 They cannot prove such cruel charges ! There must be a way of 
 averting this trouble." 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 379 
 
 " There is one," said he, starting up. " There is one, if you will 
 only do it to save me." 
 
 " What would I not do to save you, Gordon ?" she asked, though 
 her face was paling now with awful dread of what the demand 
 might be. 
 
 " Mabel, my wife, it is to see — him at once. There is nothing that 
 he will not do for you. I know it — for I know what he has done. 
 See him. You know what to say. I cannot prompt you. But get 
 him to tell as little as he possibly can in regard to this case." 
 
 " Gordon !" she cried, " you ask me to do this, after the great 
 wrong I did him ?" 
 
 " There is no other way," was the sullen answer. And he turned 
 moodily from her side, leaving her stunned, speechless. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Somewhere about ten o'clock that night the judge-advocate of the 
 court dropped in at the " bachelor quarters," where both Lane and 
 Mason had been made welcome, and asked to see those gentlemen. He 
 was conversing with them over the affair at the San Simon, when Cap- 
 tain Lowndes was ushered into the room. 
 
 " Am I intruding ?" asked the latter. " I merely wished to speak 
 to Lane a moment." 
 
 " By no means, Lowndes. Come right in. We'll be through in 
 one minute. — Then, as I understand you, Lane, you could distinctly 
 see K Troop as it forded the stream, and could see the Apaches who 
 fired upon them ?" 
 
 " Yes, — distinctly. I was praying for their coming, as our ammuni- 
 tion was running low. The Indians seemed so encouraged by the ease 
 with which they drove them back that the whole band swarmed out 
 from cover and crowded on us at once. It was in the next fifteen 
 minutes that my men were killed, — and that poor woman." 
 
 " And there were only six Indians who opened fire on Noel ?" 
 
 " Only six, sir." 
 
 The judge-advocate was silent a moment. "There is, of course, a 
 chance that our absentees may get here to-morrow morning in time. 
 If they do, you will be the first witness called ; if they do not, we ad- 
 journ to await their arrival. It promises to be a long case. A tele- 
 gram has just reached me, saying that additional and grave charges are 
 being sent by mail from division head-quarters." 
 
 Captain Lowndes listened to this brief conversation with an expres- 
 sion of deep perplexity on his kindly face, and as soon as the judge- 
 advocate had gone and Mason had left the room he turned to Lane : 
 
 " You know they are staying with us. That poor girl has come 
 all this weary journey to be with him, and there was absolutely no 
 place where she could lay her head unless we opened our doors and 
 took him in too." 
 
 Lane bowed assent : " I had heard, Lowndes. It was like you and 
 that dear wife of yours." 
 
 " Lane," spoke the older man, impetuously, after a moment of em- 
 
380 ^^^''O SOLDIERS. 
 
 barrassed silence, " I want you to do something for my wife, and for 
 me. Come home with me for a few minutes. You won't see him ; 
 but — it is that heart-broken girl. She begs that you will see her, — 
 to-night. Here is a little note." 
 
 Lane's sad face had grown deathly pale. He looked wonderiugly 
 in his companion's eyes a moment, then slowly took the note and left 
 the room, leaving Lowndes to pace the floor in much disquiet. 
 
 In five minutes the former reappeared in the door-way. " Come," 
 he said, and himself led the way out into the starlit night. Not a 
 word was spoken by either man as they slowly walked down the row. 
 Arriving at his quarters, Captain Lowndes ushered his friend into the 
 little army parlor, and Mrs. Lowndes came forward, extending both her 
 hands. '' It is good of you to come," she said. " I will let her know, 
 at once." 
 
 Two shaded lamps cast a soft, subdued light over the simply-fur- 
 nished little room. What a contrast to the sumptuous surroundings 
 of the home in which he had last met her ! Lane stood by the little 
 work-table a moment, striving to subdue the violent beating of his 
 heart and the tremors that shook his frame. Not once had he seen her 
 since that wretched night in the library, — in that man Noel's arms. 
 Not once had he permitted the thought of seeing her to find a lodge- 
 ment. But all was different now : she was well-nigh crushed, heart- 
 broken ; she had been deceived and tricked ; she was here practically 
 friendless. *' I well know that at your hands I deserve no such mercy," 
 she had written, " but a hopeless woman begs that you will come to 
 her for a few moments, — for a very few words." 
 
 . And now he heard her foot-fall on the stairs. She entered, slowly, 
 and then stopped short almost at the threshold. Heavens ! how he 
 had aged and changed ! How deep were the lines about the kind gray 
 eyes ! how sad and worn was the stern, soldierly face ! Her eyes filled 
 with tears on the very instant, and she hovered there, irresolute, not 
 knowing what to do, how to address him. It was Lane that came to 
 the rescue. For a moment he stood there appalled as his eyes fell upon 
 the woman whom he had so utterly — so faithfully loved. Where was 
 all the playful light that so thrilled and bewitched him as it flickered 
 about the corners of her pretty mouth ? Whither had fled the bright 
 coloring, the radiance, the gladness, that lived in that exquisite face? 
 Was this heavy-eyed, pallid, nerveless being, standing with hanging 
 head before him, the peerless queen he had so loyally and devotedly 
 served, — whose faintest wish was to him a royal mandate, — to kiss 
 whose soft white hand was a joy unutterable? All this flashed through 
 his mind in the instant of her irresolute pause. Then the great pity 
 of a strong and manful heart, the tenderness that lives ever in the 
 bravest, sent him forward to her side. All thought of self and suffer- 
 ing, of treachery and concealment and deception, vanished at once at 
 the sight of her bitter woe. His own brave eyes filled up with tears 
 he would gladly have hidden, but that she saw, and was comforted. 
 He took her limp, nerveless hand and led her to a chair, saying only 
 her name, — " Mrs. Noel." 
 
 For several minutes she could not speak, but wept unrestrainedly, 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 381 
 
 he, poor fellow, walking the floor the while, longing to comfort her, 
 yet powerless. What could he say? What could he do? At last she 
 seemed to regain her self-control. 
 
 " Captain Lane," she said, " it is useless for me to tell you how 
 much I have learned, since coming here, of which I was ignorant before. 
 Every effort has been made to spare me ; people have been so considerate 
 and kind, that the truth, as I am beginning to see, has been kept from 
 me. Mr. Falconer, Captain Noel's — our lawyer, has at last admitted that 
 almost everything depends upon your evidence. Forgive me, if you 
 can, that I believed for a while that you inspired the charges against 
 him. I know now that you refused to press the matter, and that — that 
 I am not to blame any one. In his deep misfortune my duty is with 
 my husband, and he — consented that I should see you. Captain Lane," 
 she said, rising as she spoke, " do not try to spare my feelings now. I 
 am prepared for anything, — ready to share his downfall. If you are 
 asked as to the contents of the note you sent him just before the fight, 
 must you tell what they were? Do you recall them?" 
 
 " I must, Mrs. Noel. I remember almost the exact words," he 
 replied, gently, sorrowfully. 
 
 " But that is all, is it not ? You know nothing more about the 
 delay in reaching you?" And her eyes, piteous in entreaty, iu shame, 
 in suffering, sought one instant his sad face, then fell before the sorrow 
 and sympathy in his. 
 
 For a moment there was no answer ; and at last she looked up, 
 alarmed. 
 
 " Mrs. Noel," he said, " I could not help it. I was eagerly await- 
 ing their coming. I saw them approach the ford and the pass. I saw 
 that there were only six Apaches to resist them ; and the next thing I 
 saw was the retreat." 
 
 " Oh, Captain Lane !" she cried, " must you testify as to this ?" 
 And her trembling hands were clasped in misery. " Is there no way, 
 — no way?" 
 
 " Even if there were," he answered, slowly and mournfully, " Mr. 
 Mason's testimony and that of the men would be still more conclusive." 
 
 Throwing herself upon the sofa, the poor girl gave way to a fit 
 of uncontrollable weeping; and Lane stood helplessly, miserably by. 
 Once he strove to speak, but she could not listen. He brought her a 
 glass of water presently and begged her to drink it : there was still 
 something he had to suggest. She took the goblet from his hand and 
 looked up eagerly through her tears. He was thinking only of her — 
 for her — now. The man who had robbed him of happiness, of love, 
 of wife and home and hope, and who had done the utmost that he 
 dared to rob him of honor and his soldier reputation, — the man now 
 wretchedly listening overhead to the murmur of voices below, — he 
 forgot entirely except as the man she loved. 
 
 " Mrs. Noel, your friends — his friends — are most influential. Can 
 they not be telegraphed to that his resignation will be tendered ? Can 
 they not stop the trial in that way?" 
 
 " It is hopeless. It has been tried, and refused. If he is found 
 guilty there is nothing left, — nothing left," she moaned, " but to take 
 
382 '^WO SOLDIERS. 
 
 him back to the East with me, and, with the little we have now, to buy 
 some quiet home in the country, where our wretched past need not be 
 known, — where we can be forgotten, — where my poor Ijusband need not 
 have to hang his head in shame. Oh, God ! oh, God ! what a ruined 
 life !" 
 
 " Is there nothing I can do for you, Mrs. Noel ? Listen : that court 
 cannot begin the — the case to-morrow. Four members are still to 
 come. It may be two days yet, — perhaps three. Perhaps Mr. Withers 
 and his friends do not appreciate the danger and have not brought 
 pressure to bear on the President, but — forgive me for the pain this 
 must give you — there are other, new charges coming from division 
 head-quarters, that I fear will harm him still more. I grieve to have 
 to tell you this. Try and make Mr. Withers understand. Try and get 
 the resignation through. If you will see Mr. Falconer and — and the 
 captain now, I can get the telegraph operator." 
 
 " What charges — what new accusations do you mean?" she asked, 
 her eyes dilating with dread. " Are we not crushed enough already? 
 Oh, forgive me. Captain Lane! I ought not to speak bitterly, you — 
 you have been so good, so gentle. You, the last man on earth from 
 whom I should seek mercy," she broke forth impetuously, — " you are 
 yet the one to whom I first appeal. Oli, if after this night I never see 
 you again, believe that I suffer, that I realize the wrong I have done. 
 I was never worthy the faintest atom of your regard ; but there's one 
 thing — one thing you must hear. I wrote you fully, frankly, im- 
 ploringly, before — before you came — and saw. Indeed, indeed, I had 
 waited days for your rej)ly, refusing to see him until after papa died ; 
 and then I was weak and ill. You never read the letter. You sent 
 them all back unopened. I cannot look in your face. It may have 
 been hard, for a while, but the time will soon come when you will 
 thank God — thank God — I proved faithless." 
 
 And then, leaving him to make his own way from the house, she 
 rushed sobbing to her room. When next he saw her, Reginald, her 
 brother, with Lowndes and his tearful wife, was lifting her into the 
 ambulance that was to take them to the railway, and the doctor rode 
 away beside them. But this was ten days after. 
 
 True to Lane's prediction, the court met and adjourned on the 
 following day. Colonel Stannard and Major Turner telegraphed that 
 they were delayed en route to the railway, and nothing was heard from 
 the other missing members. Two days more found the court in readi- 
 ness, but the trial did not begin. There arrived on the express from 
 the East, the night before all seemed ready for the opening session, 
 Lieutenant Bowen, of the cavalry recruiting-service, with two guards 
 who escorted the ex-clerk Taintor. 
 
 Telegrams for Captain Noel had been coming in quick succession, 
 but he himself was not seen. It was Lowndes who took the replies 
 to the office. The first meeting of the court was to have occurred on 
 Monday. Tuesday evening the judge-advocate sent to the accused 
 officer a copy of the additional specifications to the charge of conduct 
 unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, and notified him that the wit- 
 nesses had just arrived by train. 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 383 
 
 At four o'clock Wednesday morning Mre. Lowndes was aroused by 
 a tapping at her door, and recognized the voice of Mrs. Noel calling 
 her name. Hastily she arose and went to her, finding her trembling 
 and terrified. Gordon, she said, had been in such misery that he would 
 not undress and try to sleep, but had been restlessly pacing the floor until 
 after midnight. Then he had gone down to make some memoranda, 
 he said, at the desk in which he and Mr. Falconer had their papers, 
 and, as she could not sleep, she soon followed ; but he was not there. 
 Occasionally he had gone out late at night and walked about the parade 
 after every one but the guard had gone to bed, and she thought he 
 must have done so this time, and so waited, and waited, and peered 
 out on the parade and could see nothing of him. At last she could 
 bear it no longer. 
 
 Lowndes had heard the sobbing voice and one or two words. He 
 was up and dressed in no time, and speedily found the officer of the 
 day. " Do you think he could have made away with himself? — 
 suicide ?" 
 
 " Suicide ! no !" answered Lieutenant Tracy. " He's too big a 
 coward even for that !" 
 
 No sentry had seen or heard anything of him. The whole post 
 was searched at daybreak, and without success. A neighboring settle- 
 ment, infested by miners, stock-men, gamblers, and fugitives from jus- 
 tice, was visited, but nothing was learned that would tend to dispel the 
 mystery. One or two hard citizens — saloon-proprietors — poked their 
 tongues in their cheeks and intimated that " if properly approached" 
 they could give valuable information ; but no one believed them. That 
 night, deserted and well-nigh distracted, Mabel Noel lay moaning in 
 her little room, suffering heaven only knows what tortures ; far from 
 the yearning mother arms, far from home and kindred, far even from 
 the recreant husband for whose poor sake she had abandoned all to fol- 
 low him, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness or in 
 health, — only to be left to the pity and care of strangers. 
 
 But she was in an army home and among loving, loyal, simple 
 hearts. The women, one and all, thronged to the little cottage, im- 
 ploring that they might " help in some way." The men, when they 
 were not damning the runaway, were full of suggestion as to the course 
 to be pursued. Mabel would accept only one explanation of his dis- 
 appearance : crazed by misfortunes, he had taken his own life ; he liad 
 said he would. But the regiment could not believe it, and in forty- 
 eight hours had traced him, on the saloon-keeper's horse, over to the 
 Southern Pacific, and thence down to El Paso. More than one man 
 gave a sigh of relief that the whole thing could be so easily settled with- 
 out the scandal of all that evidence being published to the world. The 
 court met and adjourned pending the receipt of orders from the con- 
 vening authority. The telegraph speedily directed the return to their 
 stations of the several members. Lieutenant Bowen went back to the 
 East, leaving Taintor in the guard-house, and in a week Reginald Vin- 
 cent came to take his sister home and to whisper that Gordon was safe 
 in the city of Mexico, — Mr. Withers was sending him money there ; 
 and so from her bed of illness, suffering, and humiliation the poor girl 
 
384 y^O SOLDIERS. 
 
 was almost carried to her train, and all Fort Gregg could have wept at 
 sight of her wan and hopeless face. 
 
 She shrank from seeing or meeting any of her old associates, yet 
 was eager to reach her mother's roof, fondly believing that there she 
 would find letters from her husband. It hurt her inexpressibly that 
 he should have fled without one word to her of his intentions ; but she 
 could forgive it because of the suffering and misery that bore him down 
 and unsettled his mind. It stung her that Mr. Withers, not she, 
 should be the first to learn of his place of refuge ; but perhaps he 
 thought she had gone East at once, and so had written there. She 
 attributed his desertion to the strain to which he had been subjected ; 
 but she had been spared the sight of those last " specifications." Her 
 first inquiry, after one long, blessed clasping in her mother's arms, after 
 the burst of tears that could not be restrained, was for letters from 
 him; and she was amazed, incredulous, when told there were none. 
 Mr. Withers was sent for at once : that eminent citizen would gladly 
 have dodged the ordeal, but could not. He could only say that two 
 telegrams and two drafts had reached him from Noel, and that he had 
 honored the latter at sight and would see that he lacked for nothing. 
 
 She would have insisted on going to join him in his exile, but he 
 had sent no word or line ; he had ignored her entirely. He might be 
 ill, was the first thought; but Mr. Withers assured her he was phys- 
 ically perfectly well. " Everything is being done now to quietly end 
 the trouble," said Mr. Withers. " We will see to it at Washington that 
 his resignation is now accepted ; for they will never get him before a 
 court, and might as well make up their minds to it. They cannot drop 
 or dismiss him for a year, with all their red-tape methods and their 
 prate about the * honor of the service.' I've seen enough of the army 
 in the last three months to convince me it's no place for a gentleman. 
 No, my dear, you stay here, — or go up to the mountains. We'll have 
 him there to join you in a month." 
 
 But the authorities proved obdurate. Even the millionaire failed 
 to move the War Secretary. Unless Captain Noel came back and stood 
 trial, he would be " dropped for desertion" (" and, if he came back 
 and stood trial, would probably be kicked out as a coward and liar," 
 thought to himself the official who sat a silent listener). This Noel 
 would not do. Withers sent him to Vera Cruz on a pseud o business- 
 visit, and Mabel, silent, sad-faced, but weeping no more, went to a 
 little resort in the West Virginia mountains. 
 
 Meantime, another court had been convened, another deserter tried, 
 convicted, and sentenced, and before being taken to prison he made full 
 statement to Captain Lane and two officers called in as witnesses. This 
 was Taintor. He had known Captain Noel ever since his entry into 
 service. Taintor was an expert penman, a gambler, and at times a hard 
 drinker. He had enlisted in the troop of which Noel was second lieu- 
 tenant while they were in Tennessee, and had deserted, after forging 
 the post-quartermaster's name to two checks and getting the money. 
 The regiment went to the Plains : he was never apprehended, and long 
 years afterwards drifted from a position in the quartermaster's d6p6t at 
 Jeffersonville to a re-enlistment and a billet as clerk in the recruiting 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 385 
 
 rendezvous at the Queen City. Knowing that Noel would recognize 
 him, he deserted there, as has been told, taking all the money he could 
 secure by forged checks for small amounts which he trusted would not 
 excite suspicion. But he had fallen in love with a young woman, and 
 she was dependent on him. He came back to the neighborhood after 
 he thought the hue and cry was over, was shadowed and arrested by 
 the police, and had given himself up for lost when Captain Noel was 
 brought to his cell to identify him. He could hardly believe his senses 
 when the captain said it was all a mistake. Then he was released, and 
 went to work again across the river, and one night Noel came, — told 
 him he knew him perfectly and would keep his secret provided he 
 would " make himself useful." It soon turned out that what was 
 wanted was the imitation of Captain Lane's signature on one or two 
 papers whose contents he did not see, and the type-writing of some 
 letters, one of which, without signature of any kind, and referring to 
 some young lady, her secret meetings with Cai)tain Noel, and saying, 
 " You are being betrayed," was sent to Captain Lane at Fort Graham. 
 Very soon after this Captain Lane came back. Taintor again fled until 
 he knew his old commander had gone away, and then, venturing home, 
 was rearrested, as has also been told. 
 
 Lane knew the anonymous letter well enough, but now for the first 
 time saw its object. It was to make him accuse Mabel Vincent of 
 deceit and faithlessness and so bring about a rupture of the engagement 
 which, at that time, Noel saw no other means of removing as the one 
 obstacle that stood in the way of his hopes. 
 
 But what were the other papers ? 
 
 August came, and with it the rumors of the appearance of the 
 dreaded vomito at Vera Cruz ; but in the remote and peaceful nook 
 where mother and daughter — two silent and sorrowing women — were 
 living in retirement, no tidings came. Vainly Mabel watched the 
 mails for letters — if only one — from him. She had written under 
 cover to Mr. Withers, but even that evoked no reply. 
 
 One sunshiny afternoon they were startled by the sudden arrival 
 of Regy. He sought to avoid question and to draw his mother to one 
 side, but Mabel was upon him. 
 
 " You have news !" she said, her white face set, her hands firmly 
 seizing his arm. " What is it? • Have they dismissed him?" 
 
 " They can never dismiss — never harm him more, Mabel," was the 
 solemn answer. 
 
 Some months afterwards Mrs. Vincent received a packet of papers 
 that belonged to the late Captain Noel. Mabel had been sent to 
 Florida for the winter, and was spending her early widowhood with 
 kind and loving friends. The consul at Vera Cruz had written to 
 Mr. Withers full particulars of his cousin's death, — one of the first 
 victims of the vomito, — and had sent these papers with the formal cer- 
 tificates of the Mexican officials. Mr. Woodrow, one of the executors 
 of Mr. Vincent's estate, showed singular desire to examine these papers, 
 but the widow thought they should be opened only by her daughter. 
 It was not until then that, with much hesitancy, the gentleman explained 
 
386 TWO SOLDIERS. 
 
 that Mr. Vincent had given him to understand that he had intrusted 
 some papers to Captain Noel which that officer had promised to send at 
 once to his old friend Captain Lane. Mrs. Vincent could learn no 
 more from him, but she lost no time in searching the packet. 
 
 Within twenty-four hours Mabel was summoned home by tele- 
 graph, and there for the first time learned that to her father's partner, 
 for the use of the firm in their sore straits of nearly two years before. 
 Captain Lane had given the sum of fifteen thousand dollars, and that 
 among Captain Noel's papers was what purported to be a receipt in full 
 for the return of the sum from Mr. Vincent, which receipt was signed 
 apparently by Frederick Lane and dated July 2, 188-. But this, 
 said Mr. Woodrow, must be a mistake: Mr. Vincent had assured him 
 late in July that he had not repaid it, but that Clark had his instruc- 
 tions to repay it at once, and all Clark's books, papers, and receipts had 
 been examined, and showed that no such payment had been made. 
 
 " It simply means that the very roof under which we are sheltered 
 is not ours, but that noble fellow's," said Mrs. Vincent ; and that night 
 she wrote, and poured forth her heart to him, while Mabel locked her- 
 self in her room. 
 
 No answer came. Then Mr. Woodrow made inquiries of the 
 officer at the rendezvous, and learned that Captain Lane had gone to 
 Europe with leave of absence for a year ; and tiiere her letter followed 
 him. She demanded, as a right, to know the truth. She had given the 
 executors to understand that the debt must be paid, if they had to sell 
 the old homestead to do it. She would be glad to go and live in 
 retirement anywhere. 
 
 Not only did she, but so did Mr. Woodrow, receive at last a letter 
 from distant Athens. The widow sobbed and laughed and pressed 
 her letter to her heart, while Woodrow read his with moistened eyes, 
 a suspicious resort to his cambric handkerchief, and an impatient con- 
 signment of all such confounded quixotic, unbusinesslike cavalrymen 
 to — to the deuce, by Jupiter ; and then he went off to show it to his 
 fellow-executors. 
 
 The long summer wore away. Autumn again found mother and 
 daughter and E,egy at the dear old home, but light and laughter had 
 not been known within the massive walls since the father's death. The 
 tragedy in Mabel's life, coming so quickly after that event, seemed to 
 have left room for naught but mourning. "She has so aged, so 
 changed," wrote Mrs. Vincent on one of the few occasions when she 
 wrote of her at all to him, and she wrote every month. " I could even 
 say that it has improved her. The old gayety and joyousness are gone, 
 and with them the wilfulness. She thinks more — lives more — for 
 others now." 
 
 Winter came again, — the second winter of Mabel's widowhood, — 
 and she was urged to visit the Noels at their distant home ; but she 
 seemed reluctant until her mother bade her go. She was still wearing 
 her widow's weeds, and her lovely face was never sweeter in her girl- 
 hood days than now in that frame of crape. Of the brief months of 
 her married life they never spoke, but the Noels loved her because of 
 her devotion to him when not a friend was left. In early March the 
 
TWO SOLDIERS. 387 
 
 news from home began to give her uneasiness : " mamma did not seem 
 well," was the explanation, and it was decided that they would go on 
 as far as Washington with her, and spend a day or two there, when 
 Reginald would meet and escort her home. 
 
 And so, one bright morning in that most uncertain of months, 
 Mabel Noel with her sister-in-law and that lady's husband stood at the 
 elevator landing, waiting to be taken down to the hall- way of their hotel. 
 Presently the lighted cage came sliding from aloft. Mrs. Lanier entered, 
 followed by the others. Two gentlemen seated on one side removed 
 their hats, and the next instant, before she could take her seat, the lady 
 saw one of them rise, bow, and extend his hand to Mabel, saying, 
 with no little embarrassment and much access of color, something to 
 the effect that this was a great surprise, — a statement which her fair 
 sister-in-law evidently could find no words to contradict, even had she 
 desired so to do. Neither of the two seemed to think of any others 
 who were present. Indeed, there was hardly time to ask or answer 
 questions before they had to step out and give place to people desiring 
 to ascend ; and then the gentleman nearly tumbled over a chair in 
 the awkwardness of his adieu. Mrs. Noel's face was averted as they 
 left the hall, but all the more was Mrs. Lanier desirous of questioning : 
 
 " Who was your friend, Mabel ?" 
 
 And Mabel had to turn or be ungracious. Her face was glowing 
 as she answered, simply, — 
 
 " Captain Lane." 
 
 An hour later Mrs. Lanier said to her husband, — 
 
 " That was the man to whom she was said to be engaged before 
 Gordon ; and did you see her face?" 
 
 Once again they met, — this time at the entrance to the dining-room ; 
 and there Captain Lane bowed gravely to " my sister, Mrs. Lanier, — 
 Mr. Lanier," when he was presented. The lady seemed distant and 
 chilling. The man held out his hand and said, " I'm glad to know 
 you, captain. I wish you could dine with us." But Lane had dined, 
 and was going out. 
 
 The third day came, and no Reginald. Expecting him every mo- 
 ment, Mabel declined to go with her friends on a shopping-tour, and 
 was seated in her room, thinking, when there came a tap at the door : 
 a card for Mrs. Noel, and the gentleman begged to see her in the parlor. 
 Her color heightened as she read the name. Her heart beat flutteringly 
 as she descended the stairs. He was standing close by the door, but 
 he took her hand and led her to the window at their right. 
 
 " You have news — from mamma !" she cried. " Tell me — instantly !" 
 
 " Mr. Woodrow thinks it best that you should come, Mrs. Noel ; 
 and she has sent for me. Reginald went directly West last night. 
 Will you trust yourself to my care? and can you be ready for the next 
 train? — in two hours?" 
 
 Ready ! She could go instantly. Was there no train sooner? She 
 implored him to tell if her mother's illness was fatal. He could only 
 say that Mrs. Vincent had been quite suddenly seized ; and yet they 
 hoped she would rally. Mabel wept unrestrainedly, upbraiding herself 
 bitterly for her dilatory journey ; but she was ready, and had gained 
 
388 ^"^0 SOLDIERS. 
 
 composure when it was time to start. Mrs. Lanier's farewell was 
 somewhat strained, but the captain seemed to notice nothing. 
 
 Unobtrusively, yet carefully, he watched over her on the home- 
 ward way. Tenderly he lifted her to the pavement of the familiar 
 old d6p6t, where Regy met them. Mamma was better, but very feeble. 
 She wanted to see them both. 
 
 Three days the gentle spirit lingered. Thrice did the loving woman 
 send for Lane, and, holding his hand in hers, whisper blessing and 
 prayerful charge as to the future. Regy wondered what it could all 
 mean. Mabel, on her knees in her own little room, pleading for her 
 devoted mother's life, knew well how to the very last that mother 
 clung to him, but only vaguely did she reason why. 
 
 At last the solemn moment came, and the hush of twilight, the 
 placid, painless close of a pure and gracious life, were broken only by 
 the sobbing of her kneeling children and of the little knot of friends 
 who, dearly loving, were with her at the gate into the new and radiant 
 world beyond. 
 
 One soft spring evening a few weeks later Mabel stood by the 
 window in the old library, an open letter in her hand. Twice had she 
 looked at the clock upon the mantel, and it was late when Frederick 
 Lane appeared. Mr. Woodrow had unexpectedly detained him, he ex- 
 plained, but now nothing remained but to say good-by to her. His 
 leave was up. The old troop was waiting for him. 
 
 " Will you try to do as I asked you, and write to me once in a 
 while ?" he said. 
 
 " I will. It was mother's wish." But her head sank lower as she 
 spoke. 
 
 " I know," he replied. " For almost a year past she had written 
 regularly to me, and I shall miss it — more than I can say. And now 
 — it is good-by. God bless you, Mabel !" 
 
 And still she stood, inert, passive, her eyes downcast, her bosom 
 rapidly rising and falling under its mourning garb. He took her 
 hand and held it lingeringly one minute, then turned slowly away. 
 
 At the portiere he stopped for one last look. She was still standing 
 there, drooping. The fair head seemed bowing lower and lower, the 
 white hands were clasping nervously, 
 
 " Do you know you have not said good-by, Mabel ?" 
 
 She is bending like the lily now, turning away to hide the rush of 
 tears. Only faintly does he catch the whispered words, — 
 
 "Oh! 1 cannot r 
 
 THE END, 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES KING, 
 
 U. S. ARMY, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE COLONEL'S DAUGHTER," "THE DESERTER," "FROM THE 
 RANKS," "DUNRAYEN RANCH," "TWO SOLDIERS," ETC. 
 
 " It is, however, proper for me to remark that the rest of the world is entitled to at least 
 one day in the year upon the newspaper men. For three hundred and sixty-five they oracu- 
 larly direct us in our opinions, walk, and conversation ; they give us our politics, our esti- 
 mates of public men, and our views upon all current questions. The American people are 
 eminently practical, their wits are sharpened in their own afiairs, and their thoughts concen- 
 trated and intent upon that which immediately interests them. As a result, the larger part 
 of every community have no opinions until they have read their party and religious papers. 
 For a man like myself, who reads them all, the most curious of studies is to gather the reflex 
 of the editor's views in the confident expressions of my friends. AVhatever responsibility — 
 and it is great — may rest upon the lawyer with the liberal latitude allowed him under his 
 retainer, upon the preacher with his unrestrained opportunity to speak, upon the teacher in 
 moulding the minds of his students, the largest responsibility of all rests upon the journalist." 
 
 — Chauncey M. Depew. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 
 
Copyright, 1890, by J. B. Lippincott Company. 
 
 Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, U.S.A. 
 
LIPPINCOTT'S 
 JyJONTHLY JyJAGAZINE, 
 
 DECEMBER, 189 O. 
 
 AN ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 IT must have been nearly midnight. The lights in the barracks and 
 at the old hospital beyond had long since been extingnished, and 
 only here and there along the row of officers' quarters and at the 
 guard-house, suggestively planted half-way down the slope towards 
 the post trader's store, was there sign of wakeful life. One or two 
 upper windows gave forth a feeble gleam, and there was quite a jovial 
 glow pouring from the open door-way of the colonel's big house across 
 the dark rectangle. It fell upon the tall white flag-staff and displayed 
 it from base to cross-trees, a solitary, ghost-like shaft, and then, with 
 gradually diminishing power, illumined the gravelled pathway that 
 bisected the parade and led from the broad flight of steps in front of 
 the commanding officer's to the major's quarters on the southern side. 
 Overhead the stars were glittering in an absolutely cloudless sky. Not 
 a breath of air was stirring the forest down in the black depths of the 
 valley to the south. Softened by distance, the rush of the river over 
 its rocky bed fell upon the ear like soothing lullaby. Ten minutes 
 earlier the sound of silvery laughter and cheery voices had come float- 
 ing across the garrison, and half a dozen little groups had strolled away 
 from the colonel's gate, some turning to right and left, others crossing 
 in the broad stream of light from his open portals. One by one the 
 doors of the various quarters had opened to admit their occupants, a 
 few lingering good-nights had been exchanged between gallant young 
 bachelors and some dainty form enwrapped in fleecy burnous, and then 
 even those night-owls " the youngsters" had betaken themselves to their 
 domiciles; one after another doors were closed, lights popped up in the 
 second-floor windows, curtains were drawn, the lights enshrouded, and 
 finally a silence as of solitude spread its mantle over the parade, and 
 the corjjoral of the guard, leaning against the gate-post at the south- 
 
 723 
 
724 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 western entrance, bethought him how expressive was the sign the 
 Indians made for night. 
 
 He was of medium height, but an athletic, well-built young fellow, 
 as any one might have seen as the corporal stood under the big lamp 
 at the guard-house but a few moments before. He had a handsome, 
 clear-cut face, with a good deal of soldier bronze about the cheeks and 
 jaws ; he wore his natty undress uniform with an easy grace, and 
 carried the long Springfield as though it were a toy. The crossed 
 rifles on his forage-cap, the buckle of his cartridge-belt, even the copper 
 cartridges themselves, gleamed in the lamplight. The chevrons on his 
 sleeve, the narrow stripe along the seam of his trousers, the Berlin 
 gloves he wore, were all spotlessly white; and Corporal Brent was 
 what the men were wont to call " a dandy Jack," though there was 
 not a man in the troop-barracks at the western end of the parade who 
 cared more than once to put on the gloves with the " dandy." Brent 
 had speedily demonstrated the fact that he could outspar any man in 
 the cavalry portion of the garrison, and that only Sergeant Connors, 
 of C company, was able to beat him in a bout. In the little battalion 
 of infantry Brent was a popular man ; so, too, had he been in the 
 cavalry command that recently occupied the post ; but these fellows of 
 the Eleventh, who had but lately marched in, seemed rather slow to 
 discover his many good traits. Very possibly they did not like the 
 apparent ease with which he had defeated the champions they had so 
 confidently sent against him. Still, it was a good-natured, not vindic- 
 tive, sort of jealousy, — that soldierly rivalry between the two corps 
 that seems irrepressiUe and that really does no great harm, — and Brent 
 had begun to win friends among the troopers, who liked the frank, 
 laughing way he had, when an order was suddenly issued by the new 
 post coiiunander the enforcement of which stirred up a row. 
 
 As the last visitor left the colonel's gate and he closed his door, 
 thereby shutting out the broad gleam that, almost like that of the 
 headlight of a locomotive, had shot athwart the parade, Corporal 
 Brent was pondering over this very matter. 
 
 Colonel Morris was a man who hated irregularity of any kind, and 
 as the grass began to sprout in the spring he noted that it failed to 
 grow along what was evidently a short cut between the southwest gate, 
 the way to town, and the infantry barracks at the eastern end. The 
 former post commander, a cavalryman like himself, had not paid much 
 attention to this sort of thing, and the infantry had grown to look 
 upon the short cut as a sort of thoroughfare sacred to their uses : no 
 officer ever had occasion to go that way. When, therefore, the beaten 
 pathway was ploughed up and re-sodded, and an order was issued that 
 the men must confine themselves to the gravel path or the road-way, 
 there were just a few old foot-soldiers who saw fit to grumble, and 
 some of them, returning late at night from a visit on pass to the neigh- 
 boring town, made sarcastic allusions to the new order as they trudged 
 homeward under the windows of the officers' quarters on the south side. 
 Others still, trusting to darkness and a theory that all officers should 
 be abed at that hour, proceeded to wear a parallel path, and these two 
 transgressions being occasionally repeated, and the officer of the day 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 725 
 
 having twice come upon the transgressors without having captured one 
 of their number, — for the " dough-boys" were fleet of foot, — a second 
 order was issued requiring all enlisted men returning to the post be- 
 tween tattoo and reveille to enter their barracks from the rear and not 
 to cross the quadrangle bounded by the fence. There was a road all 
 around in rear of the barracks and quarters, but in the wet spring 
 weather it was often deep with mud and generally dark as Erebus. 
 What wonder, therefore, that many parties still managed to slip in, not 
 exactly in defiance of the order, but because the enlisted men had a 
 fine appreciation of that principle of international law which provid&s 
 that a mere paper blockade is not entitled to respect ? Then it was that 
 the " old man," as the soldiers called the colonel, ordered out his block- 
 aders. An extra sentinel's post was established, a sentry was ordered 
 stationed at the southwest gate from tattoo until reveille, and, as all 
 the cavalry were barracked on the west side near their stables, and as 
 the infantry were manifestly the offenders (so argued the colonel), the 
 three additional sentries required were ordered taken from among their 
 number. This order made guard-duty a trifle harder and the infantry- 
 men a trifle madder. Out of sheer mischief, some of them took to 
 passing up the road between the guard-house and the trader's, entering 
 the northwest gate and stalking acroas the parade in stealthy column 
 of files from that direction, facetiously decorating their trail with empty 
 beer-bottles, whiskey-flasks, or sardine-boxes, over which the police 
 sergeant spent some time and blasphemy after reveille next morning. 
 Then the colonel ordered the northwest gate locked at tattoo, and the 
 laughing rascals climbed the fence. He would not order out more 
 sentries, but he gave the officer of the day directions to have a patrol 
 in readiness at the flag-staff between eleven and one that night, and 
 then some fine foot-racing resulted, in which the patrol came out second 
 best. The colonel ordered the five infantrymen who happened to be 
 on pass arrested and brought to trial before a garrison court, and the 
 court promptly acquitted every man : it was established that they had 
 all obediently gone around the garrison ; they had even taken the 
 trouble to call the attention of the sentry on No. 4 to that fact ; and 
 then it dawned upon the commanding officer that some of those in- 
 fantry scamps were, as they would have expressed it, "putting up 
 a job" at his expense, and that half a dozen of the fleetest-footed 
 among them were, just for a lark, slipping out of quarters after eleven 
 o'clock and around to the northwest gate, vaulting the fence with the 
 agility of monkeys, and then playing the old game of " Tom, Tom, 
 pull away" with his patrol. They had not had so much fun in a 
 year. 
 
 Colonel Morris had sense enough to know that if he lost his temper 
 and got to blustering the men would regard it as a victory. He issued 
 no new orders. Suspicion had fallen on a squad of rollicking young 
 Irishmen in Company F, all of whom were members of the battalion 
 base-ball nine. A match game was to come off* two days later with 
 the club from Fort Lawrence, and local interest — and bets — were run- 
 ning high. Alas ! when the morning of the eventful day came around, 
 four of the fleetest base-runners in the Rifle Nine languished in the 
 
726 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 guard-house, arrested at reveille by order of their own captain for ab- 
 sence from quarters at midnight. The colonel had simply let them get 
 out, then ordered check roll-call, with doors barred, and they stood 
 self-exiled. Fancy the consternation among the lovers of the national 
 game I Even the cavalry had backed the local nine against that from 
 Lawrence, and well knew that if substitutes had to be put in there was 
 no earthly chance of their winning. Manifestly, said the battalion, 
 there's no man but Corporal Brent to get us out of the scrape. He 
 was captain and short-stop of the Nine, and on him they rallied forth- 
 with. " Give me your word, men, that there's to be no more of this 
 monkey business, and I'll go to the colonel myself. Refuse, and the 
 game goes to Fort Lawrence, nine to nothing, for we can't play with- 
 out Lynch and Cooney on the bases." It was a case of unconditional 
 surrender. 
 
 The colonel had kindly received the young corporal, had listened 
 to the tale of woe, and sat silently pondering a moment. Then he 
 looked up. " You say the game must go against you without these 
 four men ?" he asked. 
 
 " Yes, sir. Indeed, I would not play without them. We would 
 far better let the game go by default than have the record published, 
 as it assuredly would be, in the army as well as the local papers, with 
 all the errors scored against us. This nine of ours has not been beaten 
 by any team in the department as yet, and it would be an unearned 
 victory for Fort Lawrence." 
 
 Colonel Morris sat keenly studying the young soldier's face. He 
 made no answer for a moment, and when he spoke it was of an utterly 
 irrelevant matter : 
 
 " Have you not served somewhere under my command before this, 
 corporal ?" 
 
 The color sprang to Brent's face. There was an instant of hesita- 
 tion, then a firm but respectful answer : 
 
 "Nowhere, sir. I have been in the army only two years, and this 
 is my first station since leaving the depot at David's Island." Then, 
 as though eager to get back to a more pressing matter, " If the colonel 
 will not consider me as proposing a compromise, and will take it as 
 it is meant, I can promise, I think, that there will be no more of this 
 night prowling across the parade, on the part of our men at least." 
 
 Morris looked sharply up from under his shaggy brows : 
 
 ** What do you mean ? What men would have any occasion to 
 cross the parade but the infantry ?" 
 
 " I mean, in all respect, sir, that there may be men or, at least, a 
 man who, having no occasion to cross the parade, will do so simply for 
 the sake of making trouble. In plain words, a cavalryman, sir." 
 
 The adjutant, sitting at his desk, dropped his pen and looked 
 quickly up, and the sergeant-major, going out with a bundle of papers, 
 found means to halt at the office door, as though to hear what might 
 follow. Mr. Mason, the adjutant, turned quietly, caught the sergeant- 
 major's eye, and gave a quick but expressive jerk of the head in the 
 direction of the outer room. The sergeant-major took the hint and 
 vanished. 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 727 
 
 But the clerks had heard the corporal's intimation that some trooper 
 was connected with the transgression for which the ball-playing quar- 
 tette were confined. The door was immediately closed, leaving them 
 to draw their own inferences and make their own comments. They 
 did not hear the colonel's next remark : 
 
 " If any man in the cavalry is guilty in this matter, there is only 
 one whom I can suspect. Can you name him ?" 
 
 Corporal Brent flushed again, but finally replied, " I beg the colonel 
 not to ask me to answer, when, as I said before, I have no proof what- 
 ever." 
 
 Colonel Morris turned and pondered a moment. Finally he whirled 
 about in his revolving chair: 
 
 " Corporal Brent, if these four men were of my own regiment I 
 would certainly refuse your request. As matters stand, I will not spoil 
 the chances of the Rifle Nine. They will, therefore, be turned over to 
 you to take their part in the game, and to-morrow must stand their trial 
 before the garrison court." 
 
 And when Corporal Brent left tlie office, infinitely rejoiced, the 
 colonel turned to his staff-officer : 
 
 " Where do you suppose the recruiting officers picked up a fellow 
 like that? He has the language of an educated man." 
 
 " He was enlisted in New York," was the reply, " and I have fre- 
 quently noted him on guard. They tell me he has more influence over 
 the men in his battalion than any other non-commissioned officer; and I 
 am glad he has promised that there will be no more of this night business." 
 
 And yet, two days afterwards, the colonel sent for Corporal Brent 
 to say that the agreement was being violated. Three soldiers had been 
 seen running from the southwest gate across the parade the night be- 
 fore. The sentry had been taken off on the strength of the arrange- 
 ment; the Rifle Nine had won the game amidst great enthusiasm, and 
 there was a liberal transfer of Treasury notes in consequence. The 
 infantry and many of the cavalrymen were rejoicing in unaccustomed 
 wealth between pay-days, and applications for passes to visit town had 
 been of unusual number. The four culprits had pleaded guilty to their 
 offence and been awarded some light fine. The " dough-boys," fully 
 appreciating the colonel's consideration in the matter, as fully meant to 
 stand by their promise to Brent : it was with not a little feeling, there- 
 fore, that they received the news that the compact was violated. 
 
 That Saturday evening, in some mysterious way. Corporal Mullen 
 of the guard sprained his wrist just after tattoo; and though Brent 
 was not the next man on the roster, with the adjutant's full consent he 
 appeared armed and equipped at the guard-house and reported for duty 
 as Mullen's successor in charge of the second relief. Examining the 
 list of men absent on pass, he made mental note of two in his own 
 battalion and looked visibly disappointed when he scanned the cavalry 
 names. It had been ordered that all men returning from pass should 
 report at the guard-house, leave their papers with the officer of the 
 guard, and then return to their quarters, those of the infantry battalion 
 passing around outside the officers' houses, those of the cavalry enter- 
 ing their barracks by the rear steps at once. 
 
728 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 Three days of sunshine and breeze had dried the ground so that 
 the paths around the post were in perfect order, and, except that it made 
 their walk longer by some two hundred paces, there was no discomfort 
 in obeying the order. The first batch of returning soldiers appeared 
 about half-past eleven, surrendered their passes, and went quietly away 
 to their barracks. Another squad appeared about ten minutes later ; 
 but there was still no sign of the two whose names Brent had noted 
 and whose pass expired at midnight. It was then that the young 
 soldier, with the permission of the officer of the guard, strode quickly 
 over to the southwest gate, a hundred yards away. 
 
 From here he noted the dispersal of the little party that had been 
 spending the evening at the colonel's ; here he had straightened up and, 
 standing under the lamp-post, tendered his soldierly salute to Captain 
 and Mrs. Lane as they passed in front of him, repeating it an instant 
 after when a young lady, with dark, sparkling eyes, looked him quickly 
 over as she tripped by on the arm of her escort ; and while the latter 
 held open the gate of the brick quarters at the corner, almost within 
 earshot, she inquired, — 
 
 " Who is that infantry corporal, Mr. Hearn ?" 
 
 "That? Oh, you didn't get here in time for the ball-game. Miss 
 Marshall, or you wouldn't have asked. That's Corporal Brent, captain 
 of the Rifle Nine." 
 
 " Can't we persuade you to come in a few minutes, Mr. Hearn ?" 
 called Mrs. Lane, in her sweet, cordial voice. 
 
 " Yes, do come, Hearn," chimed in the captain, ever ready to second 
 his wife's motion. 
 
 The lieutenant hesitated an instant and glanced at the girl who had 
 just stepped within the gate ; but, as she said nothing that seemed in 
 any way pressing, he raised his, forage-cap, and, pleasantly declining, 
 bade them good-night and went briskly away. Opening her window 
 five minutes later to close the outer blinds, Miss Marshall glanced down 
 from above the piazza roof and saw the corporal of the guard still 
 standing there under the lamp, apparently waiting. He looked quickly 
 up at sound of the creaking shutter, then turned aside. The next 
 moment, before she could fasten the blind, the sentry at the guard-house 
 sung out, " Number One, twelve o'clock." The corporal leaned his 
 rifle against the fence, quickly extinguished the lamp, and all in front 
 of the quarters was darkness. 
 
 Down at the guard-house she could see the bleary light of the oil 
 lamp and the dim form of the sentry pacing to and fro ; she stood there 
 by the window straining her ears for the watch-call of the distant sen- 
 tries far over by the haystacks and wood-yard, then nodded her head 
 approvingly at the soldierly ring in the voice of No. 1, as he sung 
 out the final '' All's well." Peering through the shutters, she was 
 wondering what had become of the corporal, when the latch of their 
 gate clicked ; the rusty hinges gave a sudden squeak ; there was a rattle 
 as of a falling rifle, a muttered ejaculation ; she could just dimly make 
 out a shadowy form stooping to pick up the gun, and then cautiously 
 reclosing the gate. Then, instead of moving away, there it stood, lean- 
 ing against the fence. Evidently Corporal Brent had business there 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 729 
 
 and had come to stay. Instantly she bethought her of the talk she 
 had heard among the officers about the colonel's order prohibiting the 
 men from crossing the parade, of the implied promise that no more 
 violations should occur in recognition of the colonel's having released 
 the quartette of roysterers in time for the great match game, and of the 
 alleged violation of this contract. She was a young woman of quick 
 perception : Brent had evidently posted himself there to capture the 
 malefactors should they appear. 
 
 Quarter of an hour passed without the faintest sound from without. 
 She heard Captain Lane extinguishing the lamps in the parlor below, 
 and Mrs. Lane had come tripping up to her door to say good-night, 
 but, seeing that her guest was writing, refrained from coming farther, 
 though Miss Marshall promptly laid aside her pen and diary and cor- 
 dially bade her enter. All was quiet within and without, and she was 
 just about pulling down the shade, when, peeping through the blinds, 
 she saw the dark shadowy form at the fence move quickly, stealthily 
 into the road. The next moment there came stern, low-toned chal- 
 lenge : 
 
 " Halt, you men !" 
 
 There was instant scurry and rush ; a muttered oath ; two shadowy 
 forms darted out by the gate, and, at top speed, their flying footsteps 
 could be dimly heard rushing tiptoe around to the back of the garrison. 
 But there was no pursuit. One man evidently had stood his ground. 
 
 " Where are you going ?" was Brent's question, in the same low, 
 stern tone. 
 
 " To my quarters," was the answer, in accents that were plainly 
 defiant. " Who are you? and what business is it of yours?" 
 
 " I am the corporal of the guard, and you are disobeying orders in 
 entering the garrison. Face about and go with me to the guard- 
 house." 
 
 " You can't arrest me, by God ! I'm going right to my quarters. 
 I'm not going to cross the parade." 
 
 " That will do. Face about !" Brent's voice was heard. " You 
 know perfectly well that you disobeyed orders in entering that gate. 
 What's your name? — and your troop?" 
 
 " None of your damned business. I'm 'tending to my affairs ; you 
 'tend to yours." 
 
 " I am ; and I arrest you, whoever you are. Not another word, 
 now, unless you want me to use force." 
 
 " Don't you dare lay a hand on me, damn you ! I don't recognize 
 your authority. You're not corporal of the guard ; I saw who marched 
 on guard this morning, and you were not one of them. Get out of 
 
 my way, or I'll " Then came sudden scuffle ; an oath ; a gasping 
 
 cry. One man could be heard running with lightning speed to the 
 gloomy outlines of the cavalry barracks, close at hand ; another seemed 
 to dash in pursuit. Then came the sound of a stunning blow, the 
 crash of a rifle upon the gravelly road, a heavy fall, a moan. Then — 
 silence. 
 
730 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 II. 
 
 There was a frown on Colonel Morris's face on Sunday morning that 
 boded ill for officer or man who could not come up to the standard of 
 the post commander on the forthcoming inspection. The old order of 
 things was still in existence, and a beneficent administration had not yet 
 issued its ban against martial exercises of any kind upon the Lord's 
 day. First call for inspection in full dress had " gone/' as the soldiers 
 say, as the colonel appeared in the panoply of his profession upon the 
 front piazza, glancing modified approval at the glistening surface of his 
 top-boots and the brilliant polish of his spurs. Down at the front gate 
 his orderly stood, every item of his dress and equipment a model of 
 soldierly trimness. Out in the centre of the parade a little party of the 
 guard had just lowered the storm-flag that had been hoisted at dawn, 
 and were running up in its stead the great garrison standard, whose 
 folds of scarlet and white lapped out lazily in response to the soft breeze 
 now rising from the westward bluffs. Over at the barracks the men 
 had come pouring forth, the neat dark blue and white of the infantry 
 at the east side contrasting favorably with the glaring yellow trimmings 
 of the cavalry battalion, swarming along the walk and streaming from 
 the stairways and galleries of their crowded quarters, like so many full- 
 plumaged hornets. On the verandas across the parade, hel meted officers 
 and ladies in dainty muslins began to appear, and along tiie row to his 
 right and left the sheltered porches were similarly occupied. But the 
 post commander stood alone. Madame his better half had visitors. 
 Breakfast was not quite finished, and she was devoting herself to their 
 entertainment, knowing well that her liege lord was feeling in no mood 
 for such light duty. 
 
 Almost the first thing that the colonel heard on going down-stairs 
 this bright Sunday morning was an animated colloquy in the kitchen 
 between cook and his man-of-all-work, an old darky who had followed 
 the family fortunes for years. Jake had learned from the police-sergeant, 
 while he was at work on the colonel's boots and spurs, that Corporal 
 Brent had been " slugged" by somebody the night before and was now 
 lying unconscious in the hospital. There was time only for very brief 
 investigation before his guests came down. Mr. Wallace was officer 
 of the guard, and, in response to the message brought by the colonel's 
 orderly, had gone at once to his quarters and made his report. 
 
 Somewhere about twenty minutes after midnight, the sentry on No. 
 1 had called Corporal Werner out, saying there appeared to be some- 
 thing wrong up by the gate. Mr. Wallace, knowing Brent to have 
 gone thither, sprang up and went outside, and saw a light being carried 
 rapidly from Captain Lane's quarters, at the corner, over towards the 
 cavalry barracks. Hurrying around in front, he got there just in time 
 to see the captain and the young lady who had recently arrived. Miss 
 Marshall, raising Corporal Brent from the ground. He was bleeding 
 from a jagged gash over the left eye, and was limp and senseless. 
 After having him carried to the hospital and arousing the steward, it 
 was found that his face and eyes were covered with red pepper. Not 
 a word as to his assailants could be learned. The last men to reach 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 731 
 
 the garrison were Murphy and Scanlan, two scapegraces of Company 
 F. But the sentry on No. 4 declared they had come around by his 
 post on the south side, whereas Brent was lying almost in front of the 
 quarters of C troop, inside the post. Then, again, Scanlan and Murphy 
 were both sober, and neither of them men who would be likely to 
 assault so popular and respected a fellow as Brent. Indeed, both of 
 them stoutly denied having had anything to do with the case. What 
 was more, Miss Marshall had said that she heard the altercation, heard 
 a scuffle, and heard, though she could not see, that the man ran toward 
 the cavalry barracks with the corporal in pursuit; then came the sound 
 of a shock or blow ; then the fall, and, hurrying down-stairs, she had 
 called Captain Lane, and, lighting his little hurricane lamp, she had 
 hastened out along the road, the captain rapidly following ;- and there 
 at the foot of C troop stairway lay Brent, bleeding profusely. 
 
 " It was some of our men that did it, sir," said Wallace, regret- 
 fully, " and I'd give a mouth's pay to prove it on them. I'd give 
 more than that if I thought I could prove that no cavalryman had 
 anything to do with it. 
 
 Then the colonel had sent his orderly to ask the doctor how Brent 
 was coming on, and the doctor replied that he was still unconscious 
 and he really could not tell how the case would end. It was from this 
 message the orderly had just returned. Old Morris was greatly dis- 
 turbed. He had purposed having a review of the entire command, 
 cavalry dismounted, and treating his guests to a stirring and martial 
 sight ; but when the assembly sounded he had completely changed his 
 mind, and so informed his wife. " I'm all upset about this aifair," he 
 said, " and impatient to begin an investigation." 
 
 The band was ordered back to quarters ; the captains were notified 
 to inspect their companies on their own parades ; and, merely ex- 
 changing his helmet for forage-cap and laying aside his sabre, the 
 colonel strode over to the office, passing by the three cavalry troops 
 that were nearest him, even cutting across the parade as though to 
 avoid salute, and appeared directly in front of C troop, that was drawn 
 up, in double rank and at open order, farthest to the south side. 
 Lieutenant Hearn, temporarily in command, was engaged in inspecting 
 carbines, but at sight of the regimental commander discontinued his 
 work and raised his hand to the visor of his helmet. 
 
 "Go on, go on, Mr. Hearn," said the colonel, gruffly. "I did not 
 mean to interrupt you." Nevertheless, he who had paid no attention 
 to the other companies plainly halted in front of C, and was scanning 
 the men's faces with eyes that were full of gloom. Next he strode 
 around the right of the line, and passed down in front of the rear rank 
 until he reached the centre, where the tallest men were standing, and 
 where he fixed his gaze upon one soldier, a tall, slender, but muscular 
 fellow ; he looked him from head to foot, but passed him slowly with- 
 out one word. A sergeant file-closer noted that the fingers of the 
 soldier's left hand twitched and closed as the colonel approached, and 
 that a lump seemed to rise in the brawny throat, but was quickly 
 gulped down. There was no other symptom, though, and Lieutenant 
 Mason, the adjutant, who had joined his colonel, saw that the man's 
 
732 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 eyes never wavered from their look straight to the front, although he 
 might have paled a trifle under that stern, searching gaze. 
 
 Half an hour later, inspection being over, the colonel sat in his 
 office, holding an investigation. The captain of C troop was absent 
 on sick-leave at the time, and the command had devolved upon a 
 young officer who had won a fine record in their Arizona days, and 
 who was regarded throughout the regiment as perhaps the most prom- 
 ising of all the subalterns. He was an excellent horseman, a fine 
 tactician, and a drill-master of whom his men had become vastly proud. 
 Under the mild-mannered sway of their captain, a war veteran of un- 
 certain years, C had fallen about to the foot in proficiency in drill and 
 horsemanship. But the moment young Hearn got command they 
 began the turning over of a very new leaf. Little instruction of any 
 kind except mountain-scouting had been imparted in Arizona, but when 
 they came eastward, and old Riggs, their former colonel, made way for 
 a much better soldier, discipline and drill began on the instant. For 
 a few weeks C troop had to take all the raspings, and the men were 
 disheartened as much by the jeers of their comrades as by the sharp 
 raps of their colonel. Hearn, too, was fretting himself half to death ; 
 but when his captain was taken ill and was compelled to turn over the 
 troop to his subaltern, the youngster " took hold" in a way that filled 
 Mason's soul with delight, and that speedily enchanted the men. From 
 being the worst, C troop soon challenged all comers for the right to be 
 called the best-drilled troop at the post, and Captain Lane, of D, 
 had cordially congratulated Hearn on the result of his excellent effort. 
 The young fellow had that faculty, in which so many are lacking, of 
 inspiring the men with enthusiasm and interest ; and by the time 
 April was ushered in there was nothing the troopers of C would not do 
 for their young commander. 
 
 Black sheep, they say, exist in every flock, and while fifty or more 
 of their men swore by their lieutenant, and were proud to serve under 
 him, there were perhaps two soldiers in the troop who seemed to lose 
 no opportunity of defaming him. One of these was a man named 
 Goss, who had long been on extra or daily duty as clerk for the quarter- 
 master, and whose errors at inspection were of such an exasperating 
 character that Mr. Hearn got authority to make him attend drill until 
 he was reported proficient. This, of course, made Goss, who prided 
 himself on his scholarship and sujjeriority to the general run of the 
 men, anything but happy ; and in his wrath and discontent he vented 
 his spleen whenever possible to do so at the expense of his young lieu- 
 tenant. The other man was a tall, dark-eyed, gypsy-looking fellow, 
 whose name was Welsh, and who for several months, off and on, had 
 preferred to be the captain's "striker," or soldier servant, — take care of 
 his horses, black his boots, polish his spurs and sabre, hew wood, draw 
 water, make the fires, sweep the kitchen, run errands, and do all manner 
 of small chores about the house, — than to do soldier duty with his com- 
 rades. When the captain closed up his quarters and left the post, 
 taking his family eastward with him. Lieutenant Hearn moved in to 
 look after them for him. This was by the captain's own request; and, 
 having no use for the services of Welsh, he notified that worthy to re- 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 733 
 
 turn to duty with the troop forthwith. This Welsh bitterly resented. 
 He insisted that the captain had told him before going that he was to 
 stay in charge of his quarters and be excused from all military duty. 
 Hearn replied that there was probably some mistake, but telegraphed to 
 the captain and obtained immediate reply to the eifect that he had never 
 given the soldier any such promise, and that he desired that he be now 
 returned to duty with the troop and taught something of the practical 
 duties of a soldier, which he had too long neglected. 
 
 Hearn smiled to himself as he read this, thinking whose fault it 
 was that Welsh had been allowed to live in ignorance of much of the 
 drill, and wondering not a little at the change of heart that seemed to 
 have come over the captain, now that he was fairly away. A smart 
 young corporal was detailed to give the two men thorough instruction 
 in the sabre-exercise and the manual of the carbine and pistol, in addi- 
 tion to which Welsh was now required to attend all roll-calls, stable- 
 duty, and drills with the troop, and take his guard tour every fifth day, 
 and a disgusted man he was in consequence. 
 
 As the captain's " striker" he had led a life of comparative ease, for 
 that veteran officer had long since outlived any ambition to shine in the 
 service, and looked upon it only as a means of livelihood. At the out- 
 break of the war old Blauvelt was keeping a country store in Ohio, but 
 dropped his yard-stick and sugar-scoop at the first call for volunteers, 
 fought like a man all through the four yeare' contest, w^as wounded, 
 and, having risen to be a major of volunteer infantry, he decided in 
 '66 to stick to soldiering, for at that time it was easy to obtain a com- 
 mission in the regular service if a man had any Congressional influence 
 or connections at all. When the army was remodelled by the drastic 
 process in 1871, and, as a first lieutenant, he was dropped to the super- 
 numerary list from the regiment of infantry with which he had been 
 serving, Blauvelt decided that he was now too old to begin storekeeping 
 over again, and so he made vigorous effort to be retained in the army, 
 and, together with a few other men who did not know a horse from 
 a hand-saw, was transferred to a vacancy in the cavalry, and there the 
 placid old fellow had been ever since. 
 
 Rejoining from the East with a batch of recruits, immediately after 
 the arrival of the regiment from Arizona, Blauvelt had resumed com- 
 mand of C troop, and had given directions that the tall, gypsy-looking 
 fellow, Welsh, who was one of the new-comers, should be put in charge 
 of his horses. Next he moved those veteran quadrupeds from the 
 troop-stables to a little barn in the back yard of his own quarters. 
 Then Welsh himself moved his " kit" from barracks to a little room in 
 the barn, and gradually became an inmate of the captain's household, 
 taking his meals under the captain's roof, performing no duty with the 
 troop, exempted from the authority of the first sergeant, yet spending 
 all his leisure moments in loafing among the company quarters, where 
 he speedily gained the reputation of being surly and insolent to the non- 
 commissioned officers and a mischief-maker among the men. For a 
 recruit who had only recently enlisted, it was surprising how much he 
 knew about the ins and outs of soldier life. Sergeant Wren openly 
 accused him of having been in service somewhere before, and, as he 
 
734 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 had no papers to show, he must be either a deserter or a " bobtail."* 
 Welsh angrily denied this, and his ignorance of sabre-drill and certain 
 trooper details seemed to bear him out. " But then," said Wren, " he 
 might have been in the ' dough-boys.' " Welsh avoided the troop 
 quarters for a while after this episode, and was more civil to the ser- 
 geants, but right after pay-day he again appeared, eager to try his luck 
 in any game going on. Then it transpired that, if not an expert with 
 saddle and sabre, he was with the cards, and the troopers lost their 
 money to him without exactly understanding how. The first sergeant 
 reported these occurrences to Captain Blauvelt, and the old man seemed 
 greatly vexed. It was established that Welsh had been neglecting the 
 horses while playing his game, but he was not relieved and ordered 
 back to duty with the troop, as had been expected. If anything, he be- 
 came more insolent in manner to the sergeants than before. The whole 
 affair seemed unaccountable to the other men. 
 
 One morning about a month after Welsh's arrival at the post, 
 Lieutenant Hearn came leaping lightly up the steps to make an inspec- 
 tion of the barracks. Corporal Quinn, seeing him approach the quar- 
 ters, had given word to the men, and those of them who were in shirt- 
 sleeves jumped into their flannel blouses, while others knocked the 
 ashes out of their pipes and put them away. Three or four were 
 seated around a little table playing cards, and among these was the 
 gypsy fellow Welsh, who had been there ever since guard-mount. 
 These men, too, sprang to their bunks and straightened up some items 
 of their " kits," but Welsh still sat at the table, grumbling at the inter- 
 ruption to the game. " Put up those cards, Welsh," said a sergeant, 
 bluntly. " Here comes the lieutenant." 
 
 " What do I care ?" was the surly answer. " I'm not under his 
 ordei'S. He's got no authority over me." 
 
 " Do as I tell you, and be quick about it," was the reply. 
 
 " Do it yourself ; they ain't my cards. I didn't put them there," 
 answered the man, with an ugly gleam in his black eyes, while he drew 
 from one pocket a piece of chamois-skin and from the other one of the 
 captain's big brass spurs. There was no time for further remark. 
 
 " Attention !" came the order from the sergeant who happened to 
 be nearest the door, and the lieutenant entered. Every man on the 
 instant whipped off his cap, and, facing the middle of the long room, 
 stood erect at the foot of his bunk, — every man except one. With his 
 cap on the back of his head, his matted hair hanging down over 
 his eyes, Welsh sat there at the table, coolly polishing the spur. 
 
 " Get up there, Welsh !" growled in low, stern tones the first ser- 
 geant. "Off with that cap, sir." 
 
 For all answer, Welsh cocked his head on one side, and, apparently 
 unmindful of tiie presence of an officer, became critically and approv- 
 ingly absorbed in studying the polish which he was imjjartiug to the 
 smooth surface of the spur. 
 
 " Did you hear that order ? Come to attention, sir !" repeated the 
 sergeant. And the men, astonished at the breach of discipline, looked 
 
 * A soldier whose discharge-paper has had the " Character" cut oflf. 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 735 
 
 curiously at the recruit, now slowly and scowlingly finding his feet. 
 He had not removed his cap when the lieutenant stood before him. 
 
 " Why did you not rise with the other men, Welsh ?" asked Mr. 
 Hearn, in a quiet and deliberate tone oddly at variance with his 
 usually quick and snappy manner, and the young officer looked straight 
 into the soldier's eyes as he spoke. 
 
 " Didn't suppose I had to," was the sullen reply. 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Well, Tactics say soldiers actually at work don't have to rise and 
 salute officers." 
 
 " And what work were you doing?" 
 
 " Work for the captain, — cleaning his spurs." 
 
 There was a strange silence in the room. This was a new interpre- 
 tation, and for a recruit decidedly an original one. 
 
 " Where did you learn that idea, Welsh ?" asked the lieutenant, 
 still calmly, though his blue eyes began to dilate in a way that indi- 
 cated how thoroughly he appreciated the man's defiant manner. 
 
 " Well, no matter ; I learned it." 
 
 " You have had a very bad teacher, sir. Take your hand out of 
 that pocket !" 
 
 An ugly scowl had settled on Welsh's downcast face. He had 
 stuffed the chamois-skin in his blouse pocket, and still stood there in a 
 slouching attitude, with his cap on the back of his head. Slowly, in 
 obedience to the order, lie lowered his hand to the side. 
 
 " Now take your cap off !" 
 
 One could have heard a pin drop all over the big room. 
 
 Forty men stood there in silence, listening breathlessly to this 
 strange and unusual colloquy. Reluctantly, yet overawed by the 
 steady gaze in the blue eyes of the young officer, Welsh's hand went 
 up to the cap, then tossed it angrily some distance away. If he ex- 
 pected rebuke on that score it was not forthcoming. 
 
 "Now get your heels together and stand attention." 
 
 "You've got no right to order me around like this. Lieutenant 
 Hearn. I'm on duty for the captain, I am, — not for any second lieu- 
 tenant." 
 
 For an instant every nerve and muscle in the officer's athletic frame 
 seemed to quiver. His blue eyes blazed with wrath, and his lips set 
 firmly under the blonde moustache. 
 
 There was a moment of death-like silence ; a gasp or two among 
 the men. Sergeant Wren's bronzed, weather-beaten face was a picture 
 of amaze and indignation. Welsh himself, as though realizing the 
 insolence of his language and dreading the consequences, had finally 
 assumed the position of a soldier, — so far at least as his heels and legs 
 were concerned ; but his head hung forward and his eyes glanced fur- 
 tively about the room as if in search of sympathy ; but there was not 
 a soldier to side with him, 
 
 " Take that man under guard," were at last the words that fell 
 from the lieutenant's lips. 
 
 A corporal stepped quickly forward. " Come on, Welsh," he mut- 
 tered, in no gentle tone, and led the scowling trooper from the room. 
 
736 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 The lieutenant calmly finished his inspection of the quarters, a red 
 spot burning in each cheek, as he walked around from bunk to bunk. 
 Then, as he turned away and lightly descended the stairs, Sergeant 
 Ross's voice was heard to say, '' Rest !" The men looked quickly 
 about at one another. Some of them stretched their arms to full 
 length and gave a long sigh, as though to find relief from the strain. 
 And then little Duffy announced his opinion : 
 
 " By gad, fellers, if I'd been the lieutenant, I'd have knocked the 
 top of his d d head off." 
 
 The garrison court which tried Trooper Welsh for insubordinate 
 conduct had found him guilty, despite his statement that according to 
 the Tactics he wasn't required to get up and salute, he being at work. 
 The evidence of the sergeants established the fact that he was playing 
 cards when the lieutenant approached, and that the spur-cleaning was 
 a transparent sham, introduced for the occasion and for evident pur- 
 pose. But in view of the fact that he claimed to believe that, as the 
 captain's orderly, he was not under the lieutenant's orders, in view of 
 the fact that he had apparently been only ten months in service, and 
 of the further fact that his captain gave him an excellent character and 
 pleaded for clemency for the recruit, the court saw fit to let him off 
 easily with a fine. Mr. Mason, the adjutant, and Mr. Hearn were 
 strongly of the opinion that he ought to be returned to the troop at 
 once and taught his duties as a soldier. But the colonel was away just 
 then ; Major Kenyon, of the infantry, was temporarily in command, 
 and he would not disturb old Blauvelt's " striker." Indeed, it seemed 
 as though the troop commander was disposed to resent Hearn's having 
 ordered the man to be confined, though the young officer was actually 
 in command that day, the captain being on sick-report. It is certain, 
 too, that Mrs. Blauvelt made some very acrimonious criticisms of the 
 lieutenant's action, and that the first story in circulation in the garrison 
 was by no means creditable to either his tact or temper. Welsh spent 
 only two days in the guard-house this time, but his language during 
 that brief incarceration was such as to intensify the feeling among the 
 men that he was no novice in garrison affairs. He was loud in his 
 threats against the lieutenant, and full of argument as to the propriety 
 of his conduct. 
 
 " I was at work, by God ! and had ' particular occupation,' to use 
 the language of the Tactics, and you'll find it in paragraph 797, and I 
 wasn't required to rise and uncover. Look at it and you will see for 
 yourselves," he complained. 
 
 And it was Sergeant McKenna, of the infantry, who retorted, — 
 
 " And where did you — a cavalryman — learn the numbers of the 
 paragraphs in infantry tactics, Welsh ? And while you were about it, 
 why didn't you learn paragraph 803 as well? that's the one that covers 
 your case, me buck, and, begad ! if I'd been there you'd 'a' dropped 
 
 that s]Hir-r and got on your feet d d quick, or I'd 'a' jerked the 
 
 backbone out of yees. Where did you learn your infantry tactics, 
 I say ?" 
 
 And here Welsh could only redden with mingled wrath and con- 
 fusion. From this time on the impression gained ground that he was 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 737 
 
 a deserter from some foot regiment, and one who had again enlisted in 
 the army, but under an assumed name. 
 
 Within the week after Captain Blauvelt's departure Trooper Welsh 
 was twice again confined and brought before a garrison court. He had 
 accompanied the captain's family to the train, and, carrying Mrs. Blau- 
 velt's numerous bags and baskets into the sleeper, was borne away, ap- 
 parently unavoidably. The conductor wired back that he had safely 
 landed him at Barclay, a thriving little town ten miles to the east, and 
 that he had abundant means to buy his ticket back ; but he was gone 
 forty-eight hours, and at the expiration of that time was dumped in a 
 dishevelled condition at the post by the town marshal, with the infor- 
 mation that if it had not been for the crossed sabres on his cap he would 
 have had him in the county jail for drunken and disorderly conduct 
 and resistance to the officers of the law. " Where does he get his 
 money?" asked that official. "He smashed about twenty dollars' 
 worth of glass windows, and paid all fines, costs, and damages, and 
 yet had some ten dollars to spare." The men in C troop could have 
 told where he got his money, but, as that was won in gambling, nothing 
 was said, by them, about it. Welsh was tried for absence without leave, 
 and coolly pleaded that he had been carried away while serving his cap- 
 tain and was then detained by the civil authorities. Lieutenant Hearn, 
 however, testified that he, who carried one of the children aboard, had 
 ample time to get off, and that Welsh preceded him in getting on the 
 train. The town marshal testified that Welsh was drunk around the 
 village for thirty-six hours,' but that nobody interfered with him until 
 his conduct became so outrageous that he was compelled to arrest him. 
 Welsh, therefore, was sentenced to a fine of five dollars and to ten da^s 
 in the guard-house, simply for absence without leave, attending all 
 drills and stable-duty. Three days later, while he was grooming one 
 of Captain Blauvelt's horses at the picket-line, Lieutenant Hearn's 
 spirited little bay, which happened to be next him playing with the 
 trumpeter's steed across the line, suddenly switched around with his 
 powerful haunches and knocked Welsh's curry-comb out of his hand. 
 The gypsy fellow straightened up, glanced quickly about him, saw that 
 the lieutenant's back was turned, and then, with a vicious gleam in his 
 piercing eyes, drew back his heavily-booted right foot and with all his 
 force kicked the young bay in the stomach. Keogli plunged madly 
 with the sudden pain, and in an instant little Dooley, who was groom- 
 ing the lieutenant's horse, had thrown down curry-comb and brush and 
 smote the gypsy under the eye, knocking him up against the captain's 
 bulky and placid charger. In another instant, too. Sergeant Wren 
 leaped in and separated the men, Welsh wild with fury, Dooley dancing 
 about in a glow of righteous wrath. 
 
 Hearing the noise, the lieutenant sprang to the scene. "Silence, 
 both of you !" he ordered. " What does this mean, sergeant?" 
 
 " He struck me, the infernal little cur, and I'll kill " 
 
 " Not a word more from you, Welsh. What made you strike him, 
 Dooley ?" 
 
 " Look at Keogh's belly, sir," almost sobbed the little Irishman in 
 his rage and grief. " See where he kicked him." 
 
 Vol. XL VI.— 48 
 
738 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 Sure enough, there on the glistening coat an ugly lump was rising 
 and a jagged groove plainly showed where the cruel boot had struck, 
 while Keogh still quivered and trembled. For a moment young Hearn 
 was too angry to trust himself to speak. He stood there with his eyes 
 fairly blazing. At last he turned to the sergeant : 
 
 "This man has been frequently cautioned never to strike or kick a 
 horse, I suppose ?" 
 
 " Every man in the troop has, sir, time and again." 
 
 Hearn slowly turned upon the scowling soldier : " It would serve 
 you but right if I kicked you as you have kicked that horse. Brutality 
 of that kind cannot be tolerated here, sir, and you will stand your trial 
 for it. Take him back to the guard-house, sergeant." 
 
 " I kicked him because he kicked me," growled Welsh. 
 
 " It's a lie, sir," cried Dooley, bursting in. " Sure the horse was 
 just playing, like, and never touched him at all." 
 
 " Never mind, Dooley : your evidence will be called for when it is 
 wanted." 
 
 " By God ! if I'm to be punished for hitting a horse, what's to be 
 done with him for striking a man, I want to know ?" exclaimed Welsh, 
 as with a curse he hurled his curry-comb to the ground. 
 
 " Come on, you blackguard," muttered Sergeant Wren, as he col- 
 lared the man. " You can thank God I didn't see you do it. I'd 
 I'arn you never to kick a horse." 
 
 It was this affair which led to Welsh's third court-martial in less 
 than a month. And it was Welsh now whom Colonel Morris believed 
 to have been the assailant of Corporal Brent the night before, and the 
 instigator, as well, of more or less of the mischief that had been going 
 on. It was Welsh whom Mr. Hearn more than half suspected. It 
 was Welsh whom Sergeant Wren himself had openly accused when the 
 troop came back from stables Sunday morning. But when Wren was 
 called into the colonel's presence at the office, and asked what he knew, 
 he was compelled to say it could not have been Welsh at all. 
 
 " What are your reasons, sergeant ?" asked the colonel. And the 
 eyes of the group of officers were fixed on the veteran trooper who 
 stood so sturdily and respectfully before them. 
 
 " Because I went through the quarters just after tattoo last night to 
 see how the men had been cleaning up for to-day. Their boots had all 
 been carefully blacked, except the stable-boots, and set at the foot of the 
 bunks, and their blouses and trousers, except the ones they had on, were 
 brushed and folded on their boxes. I took particular note of Welsh's, 
 for he was stubborn about cleaning his things ; and about Goss's, too, 
 for Goss has been surly ever since he was made to drill and attend in- 
 spection. Sergeant Ross says no man passed through the door before 
 he went to sleep ; but any man who wanted to could slip out of a win- 
 dow in his stocking-feet and go down the rear stairway, and then run 
 down to Mulligan's place just outside the reservation and get what liquor 
 he wanted, and come back the same way. I was one of the first, sir, 
 to get dressed to go out after Corporal Brent was hurt. The other cor- 
 poral of the guard came into my room to get my lantern, and just as 
 soon as they liad carried Brent to the hospital I ran up-stairs and made 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 739 
 
 an inspection. Welsh was there in his bunk, undressed, and apparently 
 asleep. His boots and clotiies hadn't been touched. Goss was in his 
 underclothing, half awake. There were his boots covered with dust, 
 and in places still damp with dew. There were the trousers that had 
 been folded, lying loosely across the box. Goss swore that he hadn't 
 been out at all, but I pointed to his boots and trousers, and when the 
 man started up, as though in surprise, to look at them, a pint-flask half 
 filled with whiskey slid from under his pillow." But this was not 
 all, said Wren, Scanlan and Murphy had admitted being joined by a 
 trooper as they came up past the stables. He joined them again after 
 they had reported at the guard-house, a trifle late, had given them a 
 drink of whiskey from his flask, told them the coast was clear and they 
 might just as well slip through the gate and run across the parade : 
 what was the odds, so long as no one knew it? But the instant they 
 heard Corporal Brent's voice, they started and ran until behind the 
 officers' quarters, and then they noted that their cavalry acquaintance 
 had stayed behind. They did not know his name at all, — could not 
 describe him, for it was too dark : all they knew was that he was tall 
 and had a thick, bushy beard. Welsh's face, except the black mous- 
 tache, was always clean shaved : not so, however, with Goss. He wore 
 a full beard. 
 
 At noon on Sunday, therefore, Trooper Goss was behind the bars, 
 awaiting the result of Corporal Brent's injuries. When searched at the 
 guard-hsuse, and his pockets were turned inside out, the corporal of the 
 guard began to sneeze; and then it was discovered that some tiny, 
 tawny-colored particles sticking about the seam were grains of Cayenne 
 pepper, a small packet of which, half empty, was found lying in the 
 road-way, midway between the quarters and the southwest gate. 
 
 III. 
 
 It was a lovely May morning, and a warm south wind was blow- 
 ing through the open windows of Captain Lane's cosey quarters and 
 billowing the dainty curtains of the breakfast-room. Down in the 
 westward valley, close under the bluffs, a white mist was creeping up- 
 ward from the shallows of the stream, and here and there among the 
 furrows of the company gardens, and along the railway-embankment, 
 little wisps of fog hovered over the soaking earth. It had rained in 
 torrents during the night, but Nature emerged from her bath glowing 
 in the rays of a sunrise that the officer of the day pronounced simply 
 gorgeous, as he turned out for reveille. A man less joyous-hearted than 
 Captain Lane might have found much to delight him in such a radiant 
 morning. But those sunrises were old stories to this particular trooper, 
 and though there was hardly a State or Territory west of the Missouri 
 in which he had not turned out with the lark and welcomed in the 
 new-born day, he seemed just as keen a worshipper of the sun-god as in 
 the buoyancy of his boyish days, when, nearly a score of years before, 
 he had first joined the Eleventh Cavalry. He was a man honored and 
 esteemed in his profession. He was well-to-do in the world, thanks to 
 the prudence and frugality of his subaltern days. He had hardly a 
 
740 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 care in the world. He had charming quarters, had a charming station, 
 and he was wedded only during the year before to a woman whom he 
 devotedly loved, and who believed that the world had never contained 
 a man so true and tender and noble as he. A very lovely woman was 
 Mrs. Lane, and a very sweet and winning hostess she made when doing 
 the honors of her army home. There were those, to be sure, who could 
 detect a species of nervousness and a vague anxiety in her manner at 
 times, and there were people — there always are, worse luck ! — who 
 could not quite forgive her her present happiness, or excuse it in her 
 that, after having been wooed and won by, and wedded to, the Adonis 
 of the regiment some few years before, she had again wedded, and this 
 time the most eligible bachelor in the command, not much more than 
 two years after the not untimely taking off of her first husband. " No 
 woman ought to be allowed more than one choice out of a regiment," 
 was the half-laughing, half-rueful remark of some of the army wives 
 who had sisters yet unchosen. They thought Mrs. Lane had rather 
 too much good luck, despite the fact, now well and generally known, 
 that her first marriage was a brief story of sudden disenchantment, of 
 woe and wretchedness, of shame and sorrow unspeakable. Except 
 among the women, the name of her first husband was rarely spoken in 
 the Eleventh ; but, unworthy though he was, there were not lacking 
 censors of her own sex to point out time and again how impossible it 
 would have been for them, had they lost a husband in the army, ever 
 to think of taking another in the same regiment, especially when it was 
 known that No. 2 had been in love with her before she met the original 
 conqueror of her maiden heart. That these remarks should in various 
 forms come eventually to her ears one can hardly doubt ; and that a 
 cloud should at times overspread the tranquil sky of her sweet home 
 life, no one who knew Mabel Vincent in her school-days could fail to 
 understand. No one at the post, except her own loyal husband, dreamed 
 of the tears she shed over remarks that, wilfully or witlessly, were 
 repeated to her. He strove earnestly to soothe and comfort her. He 
 redoubled his devoted and thoughtful attentions. Women at the fort 
 simply raved over the lover-like ways of Captain Lane to his own wife, 
 and never tired of pointing out to their respective lords and masters 
 how tender and watchful he was. What charming little presents he 
 was always bringing her! "Where did he get such exquisite violets, 
 — such lovely carnations?" "Did you ever see anything sweeter than 
 that locket he gave her last week? It was an anniversary of some 
 kind. She blushed when I asked her, but wouldn't tell what. He's 
 always finding excuses for giving her something," etc. And finally 
 some of his brother Benedicks had come to him with gloomy faces to 
 say that if he didn't " let up on this sort of thing" they would have to 
 quit the regiment and the service : life was getting to be all one in- 
 vidious comparison between his loveliness as a husband and their own 
 individual shortcomings in that capacity. 
 
 Several months had been spent abroad by Captain and Mrs. Lane 
 after the quiet wedding which united them, and then, joining the regi- 
 ment at the fort on its return from the Arizona tour, they speedily 
 settled in their army home. For a while the delights of fitting up the 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 741 
 
 quarters with all the beautiful rugs, curtains, pictures, books, and bric- 
 a-brac they had brought from the East kept Mrs. Lane so busily occu- 
 pied that she had no time to think of possible criticisms. But it was 
 not long before the captain saw that the cloud he dreaded was settling 
 on her sweet and winsome face. He did not need to ask what had 
 been said to her : he could conjecture M^hat that was full well. 
 
 Taking her to his strong heart, he had kissed away the brimming 
 tears, saying, "Something has been said to worry and annoy you, dear 
 one. I do not ask you to tell me ; but remember what I have always 
 said : in nine cases out of ten, remarks about people sound very differ- 
 ently when repeated by women — and by a good many men, too — than 
 when originally spoken." 
 
 Long years of garrison life had taught him that in the almost end- 
 less little tiffs and jealousies among the women, and the occasional 
 misunderstandings among the men, people rushed to confide their side 
 of the story and pour forth their grievances into the ears of next-door 
 neighbors, with whom, as likely as not, they became in turn embroiled 
 within the year, while the quarrel with the original object of their 
 wrath had been long since forgotten. His own policy had been to give 
 every man his ear, but none his voice, when personal matters were 
 under discussion. But he knew well that it would be expecting too 
 much of most women that they should simply listen and not tell. 
 There were admirable and truthful wives and mothers in the little 
 coterie, whose friendshij) he could have coveted for his wife ; but one 
 of the odd features of frontier life is that the impulsive rush for the 
 intimate friendship of the newly-arrived army bride is generally made 
 by those who are most apt to betray her confidence when won, and to 
 give her unfavorable impressions, " absolutely without having said one 
 word against them," of the very ones whose stability of character 
 makes them most desirable as friends and neighbors. Lane noted that 
 the women he most liked and respected were the ones whom she was 
 making visible efforts to regard as he did. Perhaps had he painted 
 them in less glowing colors before she had seen for herself, a very 
 different result might have been reached ; for if a man really wants 
 his wife to like another woman whom she has not yet met, tiie less he 
 says of her perfections the better. Wisely Lane made no attempt to 
 control her opinions, but, as his duties kept him away from the house 
 much of the day, and as there was every prospect of the entire battalion 
 being sent on a long practice-march during the summer, he was a trifle 
 at a loss what companionship to provide for her during the inevitable 
 separation. It was with genuine rejoicing, therefore, that he read one 
 day soon after their arrival a letter from her brother which she silently 
 handed him, and then sat watching his face as he conned its three 
 pages. 
 
 The captain finally laid it down and looked across the table, a kind 
 light in his gray eyes. " You want to do something for her, don't 
 you, Mabel ?" he smilingly asked. 
 
 " Indeed, Fred, I wish I could. She has had such hard fortune, 
 and she is such a true girl. It is cruel to think of her now without a 
 home^ and, as Regy says, without a chance of employment. I know 
 
742 ^N ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 the AVoodrows would have been so glad to take her abroad with them 
 as companion, but it's too late for that." 
 
 " Regy doesn't say why she left Mrs. Withers, but I fancy I can 
 conjecture," said Lane. " It was there I first met her, at a dinner- 
 party one evening, — when I wanted to be with you." 
 
 " And yet were abundantly consoled, as I have heard you say more 
 than once, sir. Oh, she has told rae all about it, too. Indeed, if I 
 weren't disposed to be mortally jealous of her wit and wisdom, do you 
 know what I'd do ?" 
 
 "How can I divine, your ladyship?" asks Lane, his eyes twin- 
 kling. 
 
 " I'd write and bid her come here to us, and I'd marry her to the 
 nicest fellow in the Eleventh forthwith. Oh, you shouldn't see any- 
 thing of her, sir. I'd take good care of that. But," with sudden 
 change of tone and manner, " wouldn't it be lovely, Fred ?" 
 
 " Wouldn't what be lovely ?" this profound dissembler asks, though 
 he knows exactly what she is thinkiug. 
 
 "Why, to have her come and live with us and marry in the 
 regiment." 
 
 " She isn't very pretty," said the captain, doubtfully, but with the 
 tact of a Talleyrand. " The boys might not admire her when Mrs. 
 Lane was alongside." 
 
 " Now, Fred !" exclaims Mistress Mabel, provoked and pleased at 
 once. " You know her eyes are glorious." 
 
 " Hum ! Passably — when animated." 
 
 " When isnH she animated ? She always enters into everything so 
 heartily. She's so full of fun and life. Why, she would make the 
 ideal army wife, Fred. That girl can do anything." 
 
 " Then why condemn her to marrying in the army, Mabel ?" 
 
 But this question Madame declines to answer. She comes quickly 
 around the table, and, with her arms about his neck, nestles her soft 
 cheek against his bronzed and weather-beaten jowl, burrows under the 
 heavy moustache with her rosy lips, and kisses him lovingly. 
 
 " Say I may, Fred," she whispers, coaxingly. 
 
 "You may, a dozen times over. I think I rather like it," he 
 laughs, his eyes beaming with delight. 
 
 " You stupid boy !" She is shaking him now. " Say I may write 
 and tell her to come right away. Reginald can bring her as far as 
 Kansas City as well as not." 
 
 " She'll spoil our tete'CL-UteJ' 
 
 "She won't. She'll be having her own before she is here a week. 
 Besides, you're getting tired of them already." She says this, of 
 course, to be contradicted, and is promptly gratified. 
 
 The trumpet is sounding "first call," and the captain is compelled 
 to go. "Do as you like, my darling," he gladly answers. "Any 
 friend of yours is welcome; and — I think you might tell her that 
 passes from St. Louis will be forthcoming." 
 
 And now, barely two weeks later, Georgia Marshall, for the second 
 time in her life, finds herself an inmate of an army garrison and living 
 a blithe and restful life after years of thankless toil. She was not 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 743 
 
 originally one of Mrs. Lane's intimates in the home of their girlhood. 
 They had known each other as children, had gone to dancing-school 
 together, but Mabel Vincent's " set" was made up mainly from the 
 young people whose parents were wealthy, and Miss Marshall's father 
 had had to struggle hard for the wherewithal to " keep the wolf from 
 the door." She was only seventeen when compelled to shift for her- 
 self. Her mother had been taken from her years before. She had 
 been a loving and devoted daughter to her sad-faced father, and had 
 comforted and blessed the humble home to which he had been forced 
 to retire after some disaster which involved all his savings. And here 
 she worked and studied ; and here she gave herself up to the task of 
 cheering his declining years until the feeble thread of his weary life 
 snapped suddenly asunder and she was alone. For a few months she 
 found a houie in the army in the household of a relative stationed at 
 the barracks near at hand. But, being determined to lauuch out for 
 herself, she had sought the position of teacher to the younger children 
 of a wealthy manufacturer and of companion to his wife. This she 
 had held for a few years, sorely tried at times, yet never complaining. 
 She had ample opportunity, at least, to read, to study, and to estimate 
 character. Indeed, it was her keen perceptions that brought about the 
 final rupture between herself and the wife of her employer, herself a 
 distant connection. It was in the days of an early widowhood that 
 Mrs. Lane found herself so frequently in Miss Marshall's company. 
 During the winter the young widow had spent in the South her 
 mother's health was failing, and between the invalid and Miss Mar- 
 shall there had sprung up a friendship and intimacy for which the 
 daughter at the time could hardly account. But when letter after 
 letter came, telling how the girl managed to run over almost every day 
 and spend an hour or two reading aloud, and then when Mrs. Vincent 
 began to intrust much of her correspondence to these willing hands, 
 Mabel had learned to understand how unselfish was her devotion ; and 
 after her mother's death there arose between these two young women — 
 the one widowed, yet cherishing a new-born love, the other a wage- 
 worker and fancy free — a firm friendship which gained strength with 
 every month. It was to Georgia Marshall that Mabel, sobbing with 
 emotion, had first confided the news of her engagement to Captain 
 Lane, and was amazed, yet rejoiced, at the fervor with which her friend 
 had received the tidings. " At last !" she cried. " Oh, I am so thank- 
 ful ! He has loved you so truly, — so long !" 
 
 And so, when from brother Reginald's letter Mrs. Lane read the 
 story of Georgia Marshall's final difference with her employers, no 
 time was lost in demanding that she should come to their army home 
 for what Mabel termed a good long rest. She was determined that 
 Georgia should have just as good a time, just as much attention, just 
 as many devotees, as any girl that ever turned the heads of the bache- 
 lors of the Eleventh. For the week preceding the young lady's arrival 
 she had been impulsively preparing the young fellows for Georgia's 
 coming and sounding her praises to many a listening ear. Who would 
 not listen to those pretty lips? And therefore there was distinct sense 
 of disappointment among the subalterns when that much-lauded damsel 
 
744 ^^ ARMV PORTIA. 
 
 stepped from the train at the little station and was rapturously enfolded 
 to Mabel's heart. Jim Wallace, who was Hearn's especial chum, and 
 " Lazy" Lee, declared that the new arrival was plain as a pipe-stem, 
 except that her hands and feet were particularly slender and shapely. 
 And Mr. Martin, something of a connoisseur, declared that her eyes 
 were the only redeeming feature of her face. But these gentlemen had 
 seen her only at the station the afternoon of her arrival after a dusty 
 ride ; and Hearn himself, being officer of the guard, was not presented 
 until the following day. That evening, however, he was her escort to 
 the little gathering at the colonel's, and was far from content that she 
 did not second the cordial invitation extended by Captain and Mrs. 
 Lane to come in and chat awhile. 
 
 But now, three days after her advent, as she comes down to the 
 pretty breakfast-room, drinking in the soft balmy air that floats through 
 the open window, Georgia Marshall's face is by no means plain. Her 
 eyes are deep, dark, full of intelligence and life. Her mouth is large, 
 but the teeth are pearly white and beautifully regular. The instant 
 she speaks or smiles there is transfiguration in her looks, and her man- 
 ner is all unaffected grace and gladness. Mabel raises her sweet face 
 to meet the warm good-morning kiss. The captain lays down the 
 letter he is conning over, and the perplexed expression vanishes, as he 
 cordially greets her : 
 
 " Well, and how did the heroine of Fort Ryan rest last night?" 
 For every one, it seems, is talking of her pluck and promptitude, — 
 of the oddity of the thing that she, a new arrival, should have been the 
 only one to hear the brief colloquy between that unknown ruffian and 
 the corporal of the guard, that she should have been the first to reach 
 and succor the still senseless soldier, Brent. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Out along the grassy slopes the liveliest of trumpet-calls were ring- 
 ing. Long lines of mounted skirmishers were advancing in mimic 
 attack against the bluffs to the north of the wide valley. Assembly 
 and deploy, rally and charge, followed each other in quick succession, 
 and the piff-paff of carbines far out on the eastern flank was answered 
 by sweeping dash of M'hirling sabres and thunder of galloping hoofs. 
 Here and there the bright hues of the guidons lent color to the sombre 
 effect of service dress and treeless prairie. And along the bold crests 
 that spanned the northern sky-line groups of gayly-attired spectators, 
 where parasol and fan, scarf and handkerchief, seemed fluttering in 
 constant motion, watched the busy scene on the flats below. Several 
 buggies and carry-alls had driven out from the neighboring town ; 
 three or four ambulances and Concord wagons were present from the 
 post itself; and one light open barouche, drawn by two stylish bays and 
 driven by a dignified negro, was evidently a centre of attraction for 
 many eyes. Herein were seated Mrs. Lane and her guest. Miss Mar- 
 shall, with their near neighbors, the wife and sister of Mr. Wharton, 
 first lieutenant of Lane's troop. Several ladies from the fort had 
 alighted from their various vehicles and were gathered in lively con- 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 745 
 
 versation about the barouche. Others, seated along the crest, were 
 watching the evolutions, and commenting, as is their wont, on the 
 horsemanship or voice of this officer or that. Every now and then 
 some town buggy would drive close beside the one stylish-looking 
 carriage, and its occupants would gaze with much curiosity upon the 
 party therein. As a rule, these gazers were women, possibly friends 
 of some of the post people, and this was not a matter to be much ob- 
 jected to. But one buggy, drawn by a gray horse, contained two men 
 whose appearance Miss Marshall's keen eyes had noted as they passed 
 the first time and closely scrutinized as they came down the next. One 
 was flashy in dress ; both were loud in their talk and swaggering in 
 manner; both were smoking cigars of questionable origin, and one of 
 them had the unmistakable cut of the German Jew. Any one could 
 " place" him, even had he maintained silence, while, on the other hand, 
 his coarse tones would in the blackest darkness have proclaimed his 
 class. Both times they passed they stared boldly at the occupants of 
 the carriage and critically inspected the team and appointments, — the 
 second time driving close alongside and perceptibly slackening up to 
 have a better look. Mrs. Lane flushed under such bold scrutiny, and 
 the other ladies looked embarrassed and annoyed. 
 
 " Ugh ! those horrid men !" spoke Mrs. Morris, the coloners wife, 
 who drove up just in time to catch a whiff of malodorous smoke. 
 " Who are they? and what are they doing here?" 
 
 "One is a Mr. Schonberg," answered Mrs. Brodie, of the infantry. 
 " He used to be a clerk here at the post trader's several years ago, I am 
 told ; but he has his own store in town now, and they say he's an awful 
 cheat ; no one will deal with him, — from the post at least. I don't 
 know the other man at all. He is a stranger." 
 
 "They are particularly rude in manner, it seems to me," said Mrs. 
 Morris. " I wish the colonel would keep such people away from the 
 reservation." 
 
 " That man likes to be impudent, Captain Brodie says. He was 
 put ofip the reservation some years ago and ordered never to come on 
 again. He was caught smuggling liquor to the men, and had been for 
 months lending them money at scandalous interest, and every one knew, 
 and knows now, that he has the worst kind of influence on them. In- 
 deed, Mrs. Morris, I wish the colonel would keep him out, although I 
 suppose some of the men — the most vicious among them — would go to 
 his place in town whenever they wanted money or liquor. He prob- 
 ably ventures out here because the Eleventh has just come to the gar- 
 rison and he supposes Colonel Morris to be in ignorance of his character 
 and of the orders that had been given by his predecessor. Major Kenyon 
 knows him well enough ; and the colonel of the — th Cavalry gave 
 strict orders that he should not be allowed even to cross the bridge. 
 But then none of your regiment know him, I suppose." 
 
 " Mr. Hearn knows him, Mrs. Brodie," promptly spoke a young 
 lady who wore not inconspicuously the gold crossed rifles of the in- 
 fantry. 
 
 " Why, how can that be, wlien he has been here no longer than the 
 other officers of the Eleventh ?" was the immediate reply. 
 
746 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 " He was stationed here the winter following his graduation. He 
 was still an additional second lieutenant then. You remember he did 
 not get his promotion to the Eleventh until nearly a year after he left 
 the Point. At least that is what Mr. McDonough says." And, Mr. 
 McDonough being the owner of the crossed rifles, the damsel blushes 
 becomingly. 
 
 " Oh, I remember," answered Mrs. Morris. " Mr. Hearn told us 
 he had been stationed here for one winter ; but he didn't seem to like 
 it much then." 
 
 " Wasn't Mr. Hearn a little wild in those days ?" inquired Mrs. 
 Brodie. " It seems to me I have heard as much from some of the 
 towns-people. You've no idea what gossips they are. Why, I've 
 learned ever so much about your predecessors, the — th, that I never 
 dreamed of before they left. A good deal about Mr. Hearn, too." 
 And the lady looks tentatively at Mrs. Lane, as though inviting further 
 question. But, glancing an instant from that young matron's flushing 
 face, she finds Miss Marshall's big dark eyes fixed upon her with a 
 scrutinizing, penetrating expression that in some way disheartens her. 
 " I beg pardon, though," she hastens to say : " I think I have heard 
 Mr. Hearn and Captain Lane were particular friends. Of course all 
 this happened long ago, and he has probably outlived his youthful 
 propensities." 
 
 " I never heard of Mr. Hearn as anything but a most dutiful and 
 excellent officer," said Mrs. Lane, quietly. "Captain Lane is very 
 fond of him." 
 
 " Certainly, if he had been a dissipated man, or a gambler, or — any- 
 thing else," says Mrs. Morris, with proper spirit, " my husband would 
 have been apt to know it ; but " 
 
 "Oh, it wasn't that," interposed Mrs. Brodie. And just at this 
 instant three or four officers came cantering up the slope, taking ad- 
 vantage of a brief rest to pay their devoirs to the fair spectators. 
 
 Miss Marshall noted that, as this group approached, the buggy with 
 its objectionable occupants drove slowly away in the direction of the 
 fort. Half an hour later, as they were bowling rapidly homeward 
 over the hard prairie road, they came upon the infantry battalion, also 
 skirmishing. Everybody but the guard seemed out at drill, and the 
 post was practically deserted. Entering the garrison limits, Cassius, 
 the colored coachman, guided his bays down the slope between the 
 guard-house and the post trader's store and then up the incline to the 
 southwest gate, preferring this road to going along the garrison in front 
 of the barracks of the men. The ladies were chatting blithely, but 
 both Miss Marshall and Miss Wharton noted that the buggy with the 
 gray horse was halted at the store railing, and at the door stood the 
 two men in civilian dress and a third in the undress uniform of the 
 cavalry. All three stared intently at the occupants of the barouche 
 with that singular expression of mingled impudence and familiarity 
 which is so marked a characteristic of the street loafers always hanging 
 about the corners of certain thoroughfares of our Western cities where 
 the police are not yet instructed in those rules of civilization which re- 
 quire such parties to be moving on. As the ladies were whirled by, 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 747 
 
 Mr. Schonberg was seen to wink expressively, and the soldier, a dark- 
 faced, beetle-browed fellow, with his hands in his pockets, looked after 
 them and grinned. 
 
 " How annoyed Mr. Hearn would be," said Miss Wharton, " if he 
 could have seen that performance !" 
 
 " What do you mean, Lucy ? Those horrid men again ?" asked 
 her sister, who, being on the back seat with Mrs. Lane, had not seen 
 the soldier's face after they passed him by. 
 
 "The men are impertinent, certainly ; one expects nothing better 
 of that class of people ; but all the soldiers are so respectful and cour- 
 teous to our ladies, generally, it is a pleasure to meet them. Haven't 
 you noticed how different they are from — well, from that one. Miss 
 , Marshall ?" 
 
 " Yes, indeed, not only here, but in the old artillery barracks where 
 I once visited. I am sure Mrs. Curtis, my cousin, knew the name of 
 every man in the two batteries, and always had a pleasant word for 
 them when we met. They always took off their caps, though some of 
 the old sergeants, to be sure, saluted just as they would to an officer. 
 This man was a contrast to the general rule." 
 
 " Perhaps he is not of our regiment," suggested Mrs. Lane, " and 
 does not know the ladies." 
 
 " Unluckily he is of * ours,' " said Mrs. Wharton. " That is Welsh, 
 of C troop, and he was Captain Blauvelt's * striker.' Mr. Wharton 
 says he is a bad character, and that there was something very strange 
 about the way the captain kept him by him all the time he was here. 
 Why isn't he at drill, I wonder?" 
 
 " Possibly he's on guard," said Mrs. Lane. " The guard-house is 
 only a stone's-throw away." 
 
 " He's never far from the guard-house," laughed Mrs. Wharton, as 
 she sprang from the carriage at the Lanes' gate. " But he's not on 
 guard to-day, unless he has taken off his belts. There ! they have 
 gone in to the bar. How I wish the colonel would close that place !" 
 
 Half an hour later, all in a glow after their rapid drill, four or five 
 young officers strode, laughing and chatting, into the club-room at the 
 store, and, throwing off belts, caps, and gauntlets, proceeded to bury 
 their moustaches in the foaming glasses of cool beer which the attendant 
 promptly supplied. Over on the other side of the establishment loud 
 voices could be heard in animated talk, and presently Lieutenant Lee 
 called out to the attendant to close the door leading over into the bar. 
 Mr. Stone, the trader, entered at the moment, looking a trifle vexed. 
 
 " Those men are making quite a racket in there. Stone. Who are 
 they ?" asked the lieutenant. 
 
 "A couple of fellows from town, and Welsh, of C troop." 
 
 " Welsh !" exclaimed Mr. Hearn, who was glancing over the pages 
 of a late paper. " Why, he has no business here ! That man is on 
 sick-report, under the doctor's care. Has he been drinking?" 
 
 " They've all been drinking, more or less. If I had known Welsh 
 was on sick-report I would have told Billy not to sell him anything." 
 
 " Why, that man was told that he must stay in quarters all the 
 time the command was at drill. It's a rule in the troop when a man 
 
748 ^-^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 is excused from any duty he must remain in quarters during the per- 
 formance of it. Just tell him to step outside/' said the lieutenant. 
 "Say I wish to see him." And, picking up his cap and gauntlets, Mr. 
 Hearn strolled from the room and went around to the east front. There, 
 through the open door-way, the conversation within became distinctly 
 audible, and Captain Brodie, of the infantry, who was officer of the 
 day, returning from his morning inspection of the sentries down about 
 the wood-yards, hearing the loud talk, turned and came rapidly over 
 towards the store. 
 
 " AVho do you say wants me ?" Welsh's voice was heard to ask, as 
 he stood unsteadily at the bar. 
 
 " The lieutenant, — Lieutenant Hearn, man : he's waiting for you 
 outside," said the bar-tender, in tones that plainly told his anxiety. 
 
 " He be d d ! I ain't under his orders. I'm on sick-report. 
 
 The post surgeon is the only man who can give me orders to-day, and 
 don't you forget it." 
 
 " Go instantly, Welsh, or I'll call for the guard," said Mr. Stone. 
 "You're more than half drunk now. — Don't give that man another 
 drop, Kirby. — Go at once, Welsh." And now Lieutenant Hearn's 
 erect figure appeared at the door-way. 
 
 " Welsh, come here," was all he said. 
 
 Slowly and with surly mien the soldier turned, glowering at his 
 superior, set down the glass, and then slouched across the floor toward 
 the young officer, but halted short of the door-way. 
 
 " Come out here, sir," said the lieutenant, sternly, stepping a little 
 to one side. 
 
 " What for ? I ain't on duty to-day," was the sullen answer. 
 
 " No arguments, Welsh. We've had too much of that from you. 
 Go instantly to your quarters, and stay there. You got excused from 
 drill on account of illness, and you know perfectly well the troop rule. 
 You have no business to leave the barracks, much less to be drinking 
 here." 
 
 " The doctor didn't give me any such orders," muttered Welsh, 
 still hanging back, "and he's my commanding officer to-day." 
 
 For all answer Mr. Hearn sprang quickly forward, grasped the 
 coat-collar of the soldier in a muscular hand, and, without violence, but 
 with quick determination, marched him forth into the sunshine. 
 
 " By G — d, lieutenant, you'll pay for this !" screamed Welsh. " I 
 don't allow any man to lay hands on me." And then, the instant he 
 was released, he turned and shook his clinched fist at his young supe- 
 rior. Before another word could be said, the corporal of the guard 
 with a couple of men, answering the signal of the officer of the day, 
 came bounding to the spot. 
 
 " Take that man to the guard-house," said Captain Brodie, boiling 
 over with indignation. — '' I'll attend to this case, Mr. Hearn. I wit- 
 nessed the whole thing." 
 
 And, swearing and struggling in the grasp of the guard, Welsh 
 was led away. Brodie saw him safely landed in the guard-room, then 
 turned back to the store. The two civilians, who had silently witnessed 
 this scene, were exchanging significant glances from time to time, and 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 749 
 
 some low-whispered words. " His name's Brodie," Schonberg was 
 heard to say. " You've got Hearn." But when the officer of the day- 
 reappeared at the door-way they turned their backs and were apparently 
 absorbed in the discussion of the cocktails which the barkeeper some- 
 what grudgingly set before them. Brodie took a good look at the 
 pair, but, as they carefully refrained from showing their faces, he re- 
 mained but a moment at the door-way, and then, with a dissatisfied 
 shake of the head, turned and walked over toward the garrison. 
 
 The trumpet was loudly pealing orderly call a few minutes later as 
 the men came marching up from stables, their sabres clanking and 
 their spurred heels ringing along the road. The instant the ranks 
 were broken in front of the barracks a rush was made by dozens of 
 their number for the cool refreshment of the trader's beer, and the bar 
 was speedily crowded with their stalwart, dust-covered forms and ring- 
 ing with their jovial voices. Some of them looked askance at the 
 strangers, but Schonberg assumed an air of joyous good-fellowship. 
 
 " Just in time, boys," he called aloud. " Come right up and have 
 it with me. Here, Billy, ask all these gentlemen to take a glass of 
 beer. I always swore by the cavalry, anyhow : didn't I, Billy ? That's 
 right, boys : fill 'em all up ; and when you get into town come around 
 and see ray place." And with that he began distributing printed 
 business-cards among them. 
 
 Some of the men accepted the cards and the proifered hospitality ; 
 others seemed to hang back. One or two non-commissioned officers 
 drew away to one side by themselves and 'signalled to the barkeeper 
 that they wished to be served privately and not included in the Israel- 
 ite's treat. 
 
 Meantime, Captain Brodie had gone in search of the commanding 
 officer. The roll of the drum and the peal of the trumpet sounding 
 mess-call speedily emptied the bar of the blue-bloused throng. But 
 Mr. Schonberg and his companion had been drinking just enough to 
 be aggressively hospitable. The next thing that Kirby knew, the 
 former was lurching around the building with his friend in tow, and, 
 to his consternation, made as straight as his legs would permit for the 
 door of the officers' club-room. Three or four of the young gentle- 
 men were still there, sipping " shandygaff" and glancing through the 
 papers. These looked up in evident surprise at the flushed features 
 and flashy attire of the stranger who so confidently and jovially en- 
 tered, his companion following closely in his wake. 
 
 "G'mornin', gen'lem'n," exclaimed Mr. Schonberg, holding forth 
 a pudgy hand and beaming effusively upon Lieutenant Lee. " Wel- 
 come to Fort Ryan, gen'lem'n. Permit me to 'ntr'duce m'self : Mr. 
 Levi Schonberg ; 'n thiz's my partic-ic-1'r frien', Mr. Abrams, — Mr. 
 Abrams, of Chicago, gen'lem'n. Miss'r Abrams, thiz's my frien' — 
 Lieuten'nt — I — I didn't catch y'r name, sir." 
 
 " My name is Lee," said that young gentleman, shortly, and with- 
 drawing the hand of which Mr. Schonberg had possessed himself. 
 
 " Lee, — Lieutenant Lee, of the Eleventh Cavalry, Mr. Abrams. 
 Gen'lem'n, I knew all your old frien's of the — th that was here. We 
 were very intimate, all of us, and — excuse me, I didn't catch y-your 
 
750 AN ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 name, sir," turning now on Lieutenant Martin. "Gen'lem'n, we're 
 just going to open a quart bottle — my 'xpense. Here, Billy, you son 
 of a gun, bring in the champagne-glasses, — the best you've got. Pora- 
 mery Sec — Pommery See's my wine, gen'lem'n ; but if you prefer any 
 other s-say so. W-w-what will you have, Mr. — Mr. ?" 
 
 " I don't drink at all, thank you," said Mr. Wallace, briefly. 
 " Come, Martin, going up to luncheon ?" he said, turning shortly from 
 the pair of invaders. 
 
 *' Don't go yet, gen'lem'n. Just one glash champagne, — good- 
 fellowship, you know. Hope I don't 'feud ?" 
 
 " Not a particle, sir ; not a particle," said Martin, " Only you will 
 have to excuse us. We can't drink and shoot too, you know. We've 
 got to be on the rifle-range in half an hour. — Coming, Lee ?" Mr. Lee 
 had risen, and was about to move, when Mr. Schonberg threw his arm 
 over the young gentleman's shoulders, striving to detain him. 
 
 " Kindly remove your arm, Mr, — Mr. whatever your name 
 
 may be," said Lee, his brows knitting and his mouth setting angrily. 
 "I object to drinking champagne in the morning, and to being em- 
 braced by strangers at any time." 
 
 But at this moment Mr. Stone, the post trader, came hurrying in. 
 He looked aghast when he caught sight of what was going on. Spring- 
 ing forward, he seized the Israelite roughly by the arm. 
 
 " Come out of this, Schonberg," he ordered. " You know per- 
 fectly well you've got no right whatever to come on this reservation, 
 much less in this room." 
 
 " Pray do not disturb the gentlemen, Mr. Stone," said Martin. 
 " We will gladly vacate in their favor." 
 
 "Don't you attempt to put me out of here. Stone," shouted the 
 Jew. " I know you. I know what I'm about. You just touch me 
 
 or let anybody else here in this d d cowardly hole, and you'll see 
 
 what'U happen." 
 
 The three officers had silently left the room, and were now quietly 
 walking away from the building; but at the sound of a scuffle Lee 
 stopped short. 
 
 " Here," he said, " those men are drunk and may do harm. We 
 mustn't leave Stone in the lurch." 
 
 "What's the trouble?" queried Mr. Hearn, who had been inspect- 
 ing the dinner of his troop and now came hurrying down the slope 
 from the barracks. At this very instant, too, Schonberg came backing 
 out of the club-room door, shaking his fist at Stone, who silently and 
 yet threateningly followed ; and Schonberg's voice was shrill with 
 rage. Behind them both, his hands in the pockets of his spring over- 
 coat, saying not one word, but glancing quickly about from man to 
 man, followed Mr. Abrams, of Chicago. 
 
 " Mr. Hearn," said Stone, " you were here before I came, and you 
 know this man : were not the orders given tliat he should never again 
 show his face on the reservation, and that he should be put off if he 
 came ?" 
 
 " Exactly," answered Hearn. " And the sooner you leave it now, 
 Mr. Schonberg, the better it will be for you." 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 751 
 
 "I'm minding my own business." (He called it "peeznez.") 
 " You mind yours. Maybe you think I've forgot you ; but I'll show 
 you. I've had it in for you ever since four years ago, young feller, 
 and just you keep away now, and don't you interfere, or you'll catch it 
 where you don't expect it." 
 
 " I'll give you thirty seconds to get in that buggy and drive off, 
 Mr. Schonberg," was Hearn's reply. " Unless you want to be hauled 
 out by the guard, you will start at once. It isn't the first time I've 
 found you stirring up insubordination here." 
 
 Schonberg reached his buggy, but kept up his furious language. 
 His companion, still silent, scrambled in, his restless eyes wandering 
 from face to face. The thirty seconds were well-nigh gone when the 
 Jew, aided by Stone's supporting arm, lurched into his seat and picked 
 up the reins. Shaking the whip over Stone's head, he shrieked so that 
 all could hear, — 
 
 " By G — d ! you may dink you've heard the last of dis — dis out- 
 rage ; but you'll' see ! you'll see ! If you don't get roasted for dis, 
 dare ain't any newspapers in dis country. I got your name down four 
 years ago, Mr. Second Lieutenant Hearn, and now, by G — d ! you'll 
 see " 
 
 And then, Avith an angry lash of his whip upon the flanks of his 
 startled gray, Schonberg with his companion drove rapidly down the 
 road past the stables. As they turned the corner, Mr. Abrams drew 
 from his overcoat pocket a fat note-book and glanced back over his 
 shoulder with a significant smile. 
 
 An anxious group had gathered that afternoon over near the hos- 
 pital. Corporal Brent's symptoms were all indicative of concussion of 
 the brain, and, though the surgeon said there had been no fracture of 
 the skull, he was fearful that fatal consequences might ensue. Among 
 his comrades of the infantry battalion the young soldier was by long 
 odds the most popular and beloved man in the ranks, and that he 
 should have been " slugged," as they expressed it, in the discharge of 
 his duty by some scoundrel of a cavalryman, was developing a very 
 ugly feeling at the post. Murphy and Scanlan had been sent to 
 Coventry among their own comrades for having lent a willing ear to 
 the wiles of the tempter and so led on to the tragedy that followed. 
 Colonel Morris had ordered that Goss should be confined in a cell apart 
 from the ordinary prisoners ; but when confronted with the array of a 
 dozen garrison malefactors, neither Murphy nor Scanlan was able to fix 
 on any one of them as the man who accosted them the night of the 
 tragedy and gave them drink at the southwest gate. Goss was like 
 him in size and beard, they said, but that was all that they could 
 assert. It was enough, however, to prompt some of the infantrymen 
 on guard to scaring the prisoner's life almost out of him. He pite- 
 ously implored the officer of the day at his next visit not to keep him 
 there, — the " dough-boys," he said, had sworn they would lynch him if 
 Brent died, — and again and again he declared himself innocent and the 
 
752 ^-^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 victim of some conspiracy. When Colonel Morris was informed of 
 the threat, he decided to send the man to the neighboring town and 
 the custody of the civil authorities, that he might be tried by their 
 courts in the event of a fatal termination to the corporal's injuries, 
 but waited until afternoon before issuing the orders in the case. 
 
 Major Kenyon, who had taken a deep interest in Brent for some 
 months past, and who had recommended him to study for a commis- 
 sion, was just coming from the hospital ward when Mr. Hearn, passing 
 by the sad-faced group of soldiers who were chatting at the steps, came 
 quickly forward to meet the field-officer : 
 
 " How does he seem now, major ? I had intended coming earlier, 
 but was detained." 
 
 " Just holding his own. I wouldn't go in, if I were you, Hearn. 
 I think footsteps only worry the doctor now. — There is no great 
 change, men," he kindly spoke, as the little knot of soldiers respect- 
 fully saluted and looked inquiringly at him. " He has a good fighting 
 chance yet, with his splendid constitution. We can only hope for the 
 best. — Come on, Hearn ; I want to ask you something. What's this 
 I hear about your having trouble with that fellow Schonberg?" 
 
 " Oh, I had no especial trouble, major : he was out here drunk, I 
 should say, and had got that man Welsh of my troop drinking, so that 
 the fellow was insubordinate again, and the officer of the day ordered 
 him confined. Then Schonberg, it seems, went into the club-room, 
 and, after he had been treating the men to beer in the bar, insisted 
 on treating to champagne and introducing himself to several of the 
 officers who were there. Stone came in and ordered him out, and 
 when I haj3pened along, hearing the noise, he appealed to me as to 
 what the orders in his case had been, and, as I knew that he had been 
 forbidden even to come on the reservation, I told him that if he didn't 
 go, and go at once, I w^ould send some of my men to escort him. Of 
 course he was very violent and abusive, but I paid no further attention 
 to it." 
 
 " D — n that villain !" said the major. " He has done more to 
 demoralize the men in this post than all the toughs and gamblers in 
 the community combined. Our fellows have got to know him so 
 thoroughly that the best class of them, at least, steer clear of him 
 entirely ; but there was a time when a great many of them never went 
 to town without getting drink or money at his place and having to pay 
 very heavily for it afterwards." 
 
 "Oh, I knew him well the first winter I ever spent here," said 
 Hearn. " He was clerk in the sutler's store then ; and it was just 
 before I left that he was discharged by his employer, who is dead now. 
 Then he came prying around the barracks at night, bringing liquor to 
 the men, and gamblers out with him from town, playing in the non- 
 commissioned officers' room, fleecing them so badly that they finally 
 complained, and then the order was issued that he shouldn't be per- 
 mitted on the reservation at all. He had a friend with him to-day 
 whom he was showing around and whom he insisted on introducing : 
 Martin says he called him Abrams, from Chicago." 
 
 " Abrams ! I don't know anything about him, but the mere fact 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 753 
 
 of his being here with Schonberg is enough to make me look upon him 
 with suspicion. They were having a confidential talk with your man 
 Welsh, I'm told. Now, what do they know of him ? where have they 
 met him before?" 
 
 " I can't say, major : he was in the captain's * household brigade/ 
 and it is only recently that I have had anything to do with him. Of 
 course he has been in and out of town a dozen times the past month, 
 so he never lacked opportunity." 
 
 " The doctor tells me you had to haul him out of the bar-room by 
 the coat-collar, and that he threatened and abused you. Take my 
 advice, Hearn ; don't ever touch a soldier, no matter how wrong he 
 may be. You should have called for a file of the guard if he would 
 not obey." 
 
 " I had no authority over the guard, major, and I had over Welsh. 
 I simply stepped inside, collared him, and marched him out into the 
 sunshine; then Captain Brodie came Ah ! here's the colonel." 
 
 They had turned into the quadrangle at the moment, and came face 
 to face with the post commander, who, followed by his orderly, was 
 crossing the green parade, swinging his cane in the nervous and ener- 
 getic way peculiar to him. 
 
 "Mr. Hearn," he said, in his quick, almost gruflf manner, "the 
 officer of the day tells me he has confined Welsh, of your troop, for 
 insubordination and for threatening you, and that he had been at the 
 store with some men from town who were forbidden the reservation : 
 you know the men, I'm told." 
 
 " Only one of them, sir. I knew that Jew, Schonberg, the first 
 winter I was stationed here." 
 
 " Well, Captain Brodie says he also used threatening language to- 
 wards you. What does it mean? What could he have to threaten 
 you with?" 
 
 " Nothing, sir," answered Hearn, promptly. " At least," and now 
 the hot blood seemed bounding to his temples, — " at least nothing that I 
 have any fear of. He is a blackguard, and I was utterly inexperienced 
 when I came here, so that he got me into some embarrassment in money- 
 matters at the time. It was settled long ago, and I have no idea what 
 he thinks he can trump up now. He used to be clerk and attendant at 
 the store here when old Braine " 
 
 " Yes, yes, I know," said the colonel, impatiently. " It is odd that 
 you young gentlemen will put yourselves in the hands of such people. 
 Now, that fellow has been kept off the reservation all these years, yet 
 here he conies again because he seems to think he has a hold on you, 
 and dares to disobey orders as a consequence." 
 
 " I protest, colonel," said Hearn, flushing hotly, " I am in no wise 
 responsible for his actions. You can have the details of the trouble he 
 gave me at any time, and I can show you the papers that long since 
 ended the matter. He has no hold on me, sir, whatever." And the 
 young officer stood before his commander looking both grieved and 
 indignant at the imputation conveyed in the latter's words. 
 
 " Well, well, Mr. Hearn, I do not mean to say that he has any 
 ground, only you young gentlemen cannot be too careful about your 
 
 Vol. XLVI.— 49 
 
754 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 associates. Contact with such canaille as this must defile you just as 
 much as pitch. — Now, Major Kenyon, how is Corporal Brent?" 
 
 Thus having the last word, and having conveyed to the young sub- 
 altern a distinct sense of rebuke, Colonel Morris abruptly intimated his 
 desire that nothing further should be said upon the subject. So long 
 as he chose to transfer his attention to Major Kenyon the commander 
 could, of course, prevent further remonstrance ; but as Mr. Hearn stood 
 there in evident readiness to resume his own defence, and as the colonel 
 knew very well that he had hardly been fair to hira, since Hearu's 
 character had been most exemplary ever since his joining the regiment, 
 his better nature told him that he ought in further words to let the 
 young fellow down easily, as the army expression goes. For reasons 
 of his ovvn, Colonel Morris did not wish to unbend, however, in pres- 
 ence of the infantry major, his second in command. No sooner had 
 he finished his inquiries than he turned to Mr. Hearn again : 
 
 "I do not mean to say, sir, that any reason exists for that man's 
 threats, only that I consider it most unfortunate that you or any young 
 officer should ever have put himself in the power of that class of 
 people." 
 
 Hearn would have retorted, but for a moment he could not find 
 words at once respectful and convincing. The colonel, having delivered 
 this final volley from his entire line, now promptly retired before the 
 other side could rally, and, as though covered by the smoke of his own 
 fire, tramped away across the parade, leaving the two officers gazing 
 silently after him. The orderly, with hand to cap-visor, sprang briskly 
 past the pair and stalked away in the wake of his cane-twirling com- 
 mander. 
 
 At last Kenyon spoke : " Come, Hearn, when you're as old as I am 
 you'll not fret yourself over glittering generalities like that. Every 
 colonel, I suppose, is full of wise saws and modern instances and must 
 shoot 'em off occasionally. I'll be just as full, no doubt, if I live to 
 be a colonel. It has taken me thirty years' soldiering to get out of 
 company duty, and the Lord only knows how long it will be before I 
 can swap this gold leaf for the silver. Come along, man ; I'm going 
 to Lane's a moment to ask the ladies to drive to town this evening, and 
 there's nothing like the women-folk to help one out of the grumps. 
 There they are on the piazza now, — the women, not the grumps. And, 
 by the powers ! yonder comes young Lee in his riding-boots to ask 
 Miss Marshall to try a canter." 
 
 But Hearn shook his head : " I can't go now ; I'm all upset by this 
 thing, major. By heaven I isn't it enough to make a man swear, that a 
 low cad like that can come into his daily life and poison the ears of his 
 friends and associates with slander and innuendo, and that I have to 
 listen in silence to such rebuke as that the colonel gave me?" 
 
 "Well, that's what you get for being in the army, my boy. Three 
 days ago you were taking issue with me at Lane's because I said if I 
 had my life to live over again the army was the very last profession 
 I'd seek in this country, and you thought you loved it. Here's Lane, 
 now," he continued, as the gray-eyed captain strolled up and laid his 
 hand kindly on the young officer's shoulder. 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 755 
 
 " I'm trying to pull Hearn out of the grunips, Lane. Haul him 
 along with us, or he'll be doing something desperate. You remember 
 how enthusiastic he was three days ago, — loved his profession, would 
 rather be a soldier than a railway magnate, wouldn't swap his com- 
 mission for a million in the four-per-cents. Fetch him along." 
 
 And between them, half laughing, half sympathetic, the two officers 
 convoyed their junior towards the shaded veranda where were seated 
 Mrs. Lane, Miss Marshall, and other ladies busy with their needlework 
 and probable gossip. Miss Wharton was of the party, and there were 
 two or three callers. They had noted the colonel's soldierly figure as 
 he tramped across the parade, and were quick to see the two officers 
 coming along the gravel walk. Mrs. Lane half rose, and, smiling 
 brightly, bade them enter. Forage-caps were raised in acknowledg- 
 ment and salutations exchanged, but the trio hung outside. The major 
 by this time was talking veliemently. Lane was looking grave and 
 anxious. The same perplexed expression was on his face that had been 
 noted at the breakfast-table when reading that letter just before Miss 
 Marshall's entrance the day before. Hearn's face was clouded. 
 
 " How can they encourage Major Kenyon to be dilating on his pet 
 hobby !" petulantly exclaimed Mrs. Graves. " He is the most pessi- 
 mistic, cynical, prosy old crank in the whole service, and will bore them 
 to death. There, now he's backed them up against the fence, and there 
 is no hope for them. — Do come in here out of the hot sunshine, Major 
 Kenyon : you can harangue all you like here just as well." But Ken- 
 yon paid no attention to his fair comrade of the infantry. For years 
 the women of the — th Foot had made common cause against him, 
 despite the fact that he was one of their most devoted admirers. When 
 Mrs. Lane again called to them to come in and sit on the veranda, 
 however, the captain calmly took his two friends by the elbows and 
 steered them through the gate. Another moment, and the ladies were 
 settling back into their seats, and the major had the floor. 
 
 " Yes, Mrs. Lane, I am a crank, as my good friend Mrs. Graves 
 has doubtless told you : I have reason to be, and the crank's wound up 
 to-day. Your husband and Hearn here have been combating my views 
 
 about the desirability of the army as a vocation, and I crave your 
 
 pardon. Miss Marshall, for 'talking shop.' " 
 
 " I'm deeply interested. Major Kenyon," responded that young lady. 
 " Go on, I beg of you." 
 
 " Well, my views are founded on long experience, and not the very 
 pleasantest. I say — and I say it after years of reflection — that the 
 more a man may love his profession, the better a soldier he is, the more 
 jealous of the honor and reputation of his cloth, the less can he afford 
 to take a position in the army of the United States. Why ? Why, be- 
 cause the great mass of the people have no conception whatever of the 
 duties that devolve upon us, of the life we lead, of the trials we en- 
 counter. In time of peace they think they have no use whatever for an 
 army, and declare that we do nothing but loaf and drink and gamble. 
 They are taught to think so by the press of our great cities, and, never 
 having a chance to see the truth for themselves, they accept the views 
 of their journalists, who really know no more about it than they do, 
 
756 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 but do not hesitate to announce as fact what exists only in their im- 
 agination. Ever since the war these attacks in the papers have gradu- 
 ally increased from year to year. Now, my home is in Chicago, and, 
 naturally, I read the Chicago papers. I was five years tramping, scout- 
 ing, skirmishing all through Arizona and Wyoming without ever seeing 
 the inside of a city or even of a railway-car. We lived on hard tack 
 and bacon and what we could pick up when we couldn't get them. We 
 lost many a good soldier in Indian battle during that time, and at last 
 I got a wound that laid me up and sent me home. I hadn't seen the 
 place in seven years. My boyhood had been spent there. Dozens of 
 my relatives and old school-mates lived there, and I looked forward 
 with pleasure to the rest and joy I should have at the old firesides. I 
 didn't suppose that people really believed all the outrageous flings the 
 Times and the News and the Sun and the Herald, let alone the Trades- 
 Union Gazette and the Arbeiter Zeitung, had indulged in at the expense 
 of the army. But I had to wear my uniform for three or four days 
 about the old home, and not only street-boys but grown men respectably 
 dressed jeered and hooted at the dress that for years in the rebel South 
 and all over the frontier had never been treated with insult. Old 
 school-mates patronizingly asked me over their card-tables at the clubs, 
 what on earth I could find to do with myself in the army, and why I 
 didn't quit it and come in here and try to be something. You know 
 perfectly well. Lane, that when you were recruiting in Cincinnati you 
 had just such questions put to you, and you had been through one cam- 
 paign after another for years. The general manager of the Midland 
 Pacific, every mile of whose road through the Sioux country I and my 
 men had helped to build by standing off the Indians day after day and 
 having many a sharp fight doing it, — this general manager, I say, met 
 me at the Union League and asked me how I had ' managed to kill time 
 on the frontier,' and remarked that it must be a very demoralizing life. 
 He was out next day in a circular cutting down the wages of some twenty 
 thousand employees ten per cent., but thought the rank and file of the 
 army were treated rather like dogs by their superiors. A man, he said, 
 must be at the lowest ebb of self-respect to enlist in the array ; as though 
 every one of his army of twenty thousand hard-working, hard-slaving 
 men was not infinitely more at the mercy of a single official than could 
 ever happen in the army of the United States. My own people, by Jove ! 
 were so impressed by what they had been reading for years in the papers 
 of army life and array officers that they were perpetually urging me to 
 quit the service and come in and begin life over again at forty-five, — 
 clerking or something. Why, only ten years before, their homes had 
 been rescued from the mob, after police and militia had been whipped 
 to the winds, only by the prompt rush of the regulars from the frontier. 
 Oh, they lionized the 'shoulder-strapped autocracy' then, and for just 
 about one week it wasn't fashionable for a decent paper to lampoon 
 thera ; but the moment the danger was over their gratitude fled with 
 their anxiety. 1 tell you, the papers that are sold for two and three 
 cents in our big cities have to pander to the prejudices of the masses to 
 keep alive, and there is no surer way of tickling the palates of the 
 populace than by ridiculing or abusing the army officers, and in lending 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 757 
 
 themselves to this the editors, of course, influence the judgment of 
 people of a much better class, — the great middle class, so to speak, of 
 the whole nation." 
 
 " It isn't at all so where I come from," interposed Hearn, promptly. 
 " At home all my kinsfolk are proud of ray being in the army." 
 
 " Ah ! you're a Southerner, Mr. Hearn, and your people are all 
 Americans. All through the North, however, we have an immense 
 foreign population that has fled from the Old World to escape military 
 duty. They hate the very sight of a soldier. Three-fourths of the 
 people of some of our big cities are of foreign birth or parentage. The 
 papers seek their patronage, and in truckling to them they prejudice 
 northern Americans against their own friends and relatives who have 
 been idiots enough to become their defenders. It was bad enough be- 
 fore the war, God knows, but it's worse now. People wonder how it 
 was that it took the North with three million soldiers so long to subdue 
 the South with less than a fourth that number. Now I see nothing to 
 wonder at whatever. The Soutli has always respected the profession 
 of arras ; the North has always derided it. Lee with sixty thousand 
 Americans at his back, and only sixty thousand, knocked sixty thousand 
 out of Grant's overwhelming force between the Rapidan and the James. 
 Lee's sixty thousand had tiie love of every Southern heart to sustain 
 them. How many of the North, think you, had no personal interest 
 in that struggle? Hovv raany thousands of the North to-day care 
 nothing whatever for that flag," — and the major pointed to the standard 
 floating over the garrison, — " and only ask to be let alone to make 
 money their own way ? God knows, I'm as loyal a Union man as ever 
 lived, but I don't like to think of the new generation that has sprung 
 up in this country: all soldiers in the South; all — what? in the 
 North." 
 
 And old Kenyon, flushed, almost breathless, paused and mopped 
 his brow with a silk handkerchief as red as his face. 
 
 There was silence a moment. Captain Lane's kindly features wore 
 an expression half grave, half quizzical. Hearn had edged around 
 nearer where Miss Marshall was sitting, and that young lady had 
 dropped her dainty embroidery in her lap and was listening atten- 
 tively. Something in the gravity of her demeanor gave Kenyon en- 
 couragement. 
 
 " Now, you. Miss Marshall, are accustomed to social circles in the 
 North. Tell me frankly, now, did you ever hear men prominent in 
 civil life express any other opinion of the profession of an army officer 
 than that it was rather a useless, dawdling, and unworthy occupation ?" 
 
 "In peace times, I presume you mean, major?" 
 
 " In peace times, certainly ; though the necessity for its existence 
 then is as great. You recollect what Washington said : ' In time of 
 peace prepare for war.' " 
 
 " I confess that men who lead narrow lives in business or professions 
 and never get beyond the groove are apt to say something of what you 
 suggest, major. But men who think and travel, especially those who 
 have visited our frontier, corae back with feelings of much admiration 
 for the army, officers and men." 
 
758 ^-^ ARMF PORTIA. 
 
 " Then I'll rest my case with the men who think and travel/' said 
 Hearn, laughing brightly. " Come, you old cynic, don't make me 
 believe I have no friends outside my profession, when it sometimes 
 seems as though I hardly had one in it." 
 
 "Now, there you go, Hearn," interrupted Kenyon. "That's just 
 exactly where you're wrong. You would trust to the few travelled 
 and educated men ; but what are they among the mass of voters, who 
 know nothing of the array but what they read in the papers? Do 
 you ever see anything good of an army officer in any paper until he's 
 dead ? Never, unless it's something put in by a ' newspaper soldier ;' 
 and God save me from more of them. What could your thinkers and 
 travellers do, even if they would condescend to bestir themselves in 
 our behalf, — which they don't, — as against the masses and the press? 
 No paper in the land is so low but what it can hurt and sting you." 
 
 " How? I should like to know." 
 
 "How? Simply by printing any low scandal at your expense; 
 and no matter what your record or your character may have been, no 
 matter how damnable a lie may be asserted of you, the mass of the 
 people will read and believe, and your natural j)rotectors — the generals 
 and the War Department — will call upon you to defend yourself against 
 even anonymous assault." 
 
 " You do not mean that, major, do you ?" asked Miss Marshall. 
 
 " I do, emphatically. I have seen officers time and again com- 
 pelled to report to division or department head-quarters that they were 
 innocent of allegations made by nameless scribblers in the daily press. 
 I have seen the most abstemious men in the army heralded as drunk 
 on duty by a sheet that withheld the name of its informant. But all 
 the same the officers were called to account. When we were sent to 
 aid the marshals in breaking up the whiskey-distilleries in Brooklyn ; 
 when the first colored cadets were sent to W est Point ; when Chicago 
 was burned and we had to shoot some prowling robbers to rid the 
 ruined city of the gang that flocked there ; when we were hurried in 
 again in '77, and all the great cities of the North were practically at 
 the mercy of the mob ; — at every one of those times, and heaven only 
 knows how many times between, the press made scandalous asser- 
 tions by name about one officer or another. In most cases there was 
 no truth whatever in what was said ; in every case, however, the officer 
 was compelled by his superiors to establish his innocence. By heaven ! 
 I'll never forget our experience in '77. W^e were ordered to lose not 
 an instant in reaching Chicago. The strikers had side-tracked the 
 Ninth on one road and blocked the cavalry on another line, and when 
 we stopped for water the railway-men attempted to leave us there. I 
 put Lieutenant Nairn with a small guard at the engine and kept the 
 strikers off, using no force, saying not a word, making no reply to jeers 
 and insult; but the leading paper came out next day and denounced 
 Nairn and me as being armed ruffians, declared we were both reeling 
 drunk, and gave most outrageous details of things that never hap- 
 pened. Of course, as army officers were the targets of this abuse, the 
 article was copied in Eastern papers. Nairn was a man who never 
 drank a drop ; had a magnificent war record ; was a general officer of 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 759 
 
 volunteers, and a gentleman honored throughout the whole service. 
 All the same he and I were compelled to submit written denials to de- 
 partment head-quarters, and all the satisfaction we ever got was that 
 the editor said his reporter had perhaps been unduly influenced by the 
 prejudiced statements of the strikers. Why hadn't this occurred to 
 him in the first place? Why didn't he hnow that these men, furious 
 at being thwarted, would say anything to revenge themselves after we 
 had gone on our way? He did; but because just such sensational 
 articles would make his paper sell among the masses, .and because he 
 knew that where the army officer had one friend he had a score of 
 enemies, that was enough for him. Now, that, and a host of similar 
 experiences, is why I say that no son of mine shall ever take up so 
 thankless a profession. Of course if the country were in danger, the 
 flag assailed, he would fight as I would. As for me, I'm too old a 
 dog to learn new tricks, and having lived my life in the service I must 
 die in it." And again the major paused for breath. " You think I'm 
 an extremist, don't you. Lane ?" he finally asked. 
 
 "Perhaps so, major, although I admit that the press has been most 
 unjust ; but I think we have more friends among the people than you 
 give us credit for." 
 
 " Not one bit of it ! You think the press knows better now and 
 wouldn't do it all over again. That's what Hearn here would say. 
 Now, you mark my words, gentlemen, so few are our friends in this 
 country, — that is, in the North at least, — either in the press or the 
 public, that any story at the expense of an army officer would be 
 eagerly published by almost any paper in the land, and used as a text 
 by hundreds of editors all over the nation to warrant a vicious stab at 
 our whole array, and the people far and wide would eagerly read, and 
 even those who declared they didn't believe it would be influenced.". 
 
 " I can't think our people are such fools as to believe yarns that 
 are evidently manufactured to malign," said Hearn, stoutly. " Every- 
 body ought to know that it is from deserters, or dishonorably discharged 
 men, or low camp-followers, that the reporters get their scandals." 
 
 " Ought to know ! yes, I admit it. I have no doubt that the man- 
 aging editors who })ublisli the things do know ; but the people don't. 
 And now what has been your own exj^erience, Hearn? How can you 
 blame the people for believing what they read in the papers, when not 
 an hour ago your own colonel, who knows you well, virtually rebuked 
 you because of the vicious ravings of as unprincipled a cad as there is 
 in all Kansas ?" 
 
 And Georgia Marshall, looking up in surprise, saw the quick flush 
 that leaped to the young soldier's face. 
 
 VI. 
 
 "Fred, what did Major Kenyon mean by his reference to Mr. 
 Hearn and some story about him ?" asked Mrs. Lane that evening, as 
 the captain was locking up after their guests had departed. Miss 
 Marshall, who was glancing over a photograph-album, closed it and 
 rose as though to leave the parlor. 
 
760 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 " No, dou't go," said Captain Lane, promptly. " I was sorry that 
 Kenyon made any reference to the matter, but, since lie did, I want you 
 both — indeed, I think Hearn told me because he wanted you both — to 
 know all about the affair. He had never mentioned it to me, nor to 
 any one, I fancy, before, because there was no need. It was all settled 
 some time ago, but of course he felt sensitive about it. He was a 
 green young lieutenant when he joined here six years ago. This Jew, 
 Schonberg, was clerk at the sutler's. The officers dealt very largely 
 with him then, .for town was not as accessible as it is now. The former 
 post trader was a jovial, kindly sort of fellow, who was much liked by 
 everybody, but he left his books and his business in the hands of Schon- 
 berg. I have often heard how open-handed he was with his money, 
 and how officers, and men too, never had to go to any banker or scalper 
 if they needed money for an emergency. Anything a friend of his 
 wanted was at his service. Hearn began as a good many boys of his 
 genial temperament are apt to do at a big and expensive post, — got in 
 debt, for everybody wants to give credit to young officers just starting, 
 and then the bills come in all at one swoop afterwards. * Old Cheery,' 
 as they used to call Braine, saw Hearn's trouble, and insisted on lend- 
 ing him money out of his own pocket. It wasn't a store matter at all ; 
 it wasn't entered on Hearn's account. He paid it back in instalments 
 to the old man himself, or was doing it when he received his promotion 
 and had to make the long and expensive journey to Arizona. Except 
 cadets when first joining, officers are not paid advance mileage ; they 
 must raise the money as best they can, and it is mighty hard on a 
 young lieutenant. * Old Cheery,' of course, advanced Hearn another 
 two hundred dollars. The first was paid, all but fifty of it, and he 
 told the boy when he left that he had taken a big liking to him, and 
 that he could just return that at his convenience ; but Hearn never lost 
 a day after getting to his new post and obtaining his mileage, but 
 bought a draft for two hundred dollars and sent it to the old man at 
 once, and said in his letter that he would remit the balance of the 
 account and his store bill just as soon as possible. ' Old Cheery' was a 
 man who never wrote letters, but Hearn got a line from his wife, say- 
 ing that Mr. Braine had received his pleasant letter with its enclosure 
 and sent his best wishes. A few months afterwards the old man sud- 
 denly died ; the widow moved to town ; a new trader came and took 
 the store ; and when Hearn sent his next remittance of fifty dollars to 
 the widow he was surprised in the course of a few months afterwards 
 to receive what purported to be a statement of his account with the 
 estate of Thomas Braine, deceased, — a store-bill amounting to over a 
 hundred dollars, and no less than five hundred dollars in borrowed 
 money. He wrote instantly to a friend at Fort Ryan to see the widow 
 and have things straightened out. He protested that his store-bill 
 could not be more than forty or fifty dollars ; that old Braine had lent 
 him two hundred dollars at one time, which he had paid back to him 
 all but fifty, and two hundred more when he went to Arizona, which 
 he had instantly repaid, so that the total amount of his indebtedness 
 could not exceed one hundred dollars. But the widow said she didn't 
 know anything about it. Mr. Schonberg had kindly taken charge of 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 761 
 
 all her affairs, and he had the books and everything and all the corre- 
 spondence and knew all about it. Hearn, of course, refused to pay any- 
 thing but the hundred dollars. Then they threatened him with legal 
 proceedings, and next they importuned him through the War Depart- 
 ment, which, just as old Kenyon says, believed the blackguard and 
 called on Hearn for an explanation. It nearly drove the young fellow 
 mad. He was proud and sensitive. He couldn't bear to think of the 
 publicity and scandal. He had never given Braine any receipt for the 
 money obtained from him ; never had asked any for the money repaid. 
 He was too honorable to deny the fact of liaving borrowed the money, 
 yet had nothing to show, the old man being dead, for the money that 
 he had returned. I had heard something of his trouble, but was 
 ordered East on recruiting service just then, and began to get into 
 troubles of my own, for it was there I met this young woman." And 
 the captain, with eyes that belied his words, turned fondly to his wife. 
 " The next thing I heard of Hearn, the matter had all been most for- 
 tunately settled, — thanks to one of our old captains, who, it seems, had 
 known both Schonberg and the widow Braine. He took the matter up, 
 and the Jew was glad to drop it. Even Hearn does not know what 
 hold he had on them, but it was settled then and there. Hearn paid 
 a hundred dollars, and Sch5nberg, I am told, had to pay the lawyer 
 whom he had employed. I often think, though, how hard would 
 have been the young fellow's fate if there had been no one to come to 
 the rescue. There isn't a better soldier or braver officer in the Eleventh 
 to-day than Hearn, and he is just as steady as a ro(!k ; but soldiers as 
 good as he have been driven out of the army for lack of some such 
 friend as came to him in his extremity." 
 
 " You would have helped him, Fred dear," said Mrs. Lane, fondly, 
 crossing over to the captain and stroking the grizzled stubble about his 
 brows as though it were the loveliest hair in the world. Lane possessed 
 himself of the soft white hand and threw his arm about her shapely 
 waist. 
 
 " I would certainly, had I known, but nine out of ten do not happen 
 to be able to help, even when our inclinations would lead. And, then, 
 however much we believed in Hearn's story and Schonberg's rascality, 
 who could prove it ?" 
 
 " Who did prove it?" asked Miss Marshall, after a pause. 
 
 "Well, no one, that I know of. All we know is. that Schonberg 
 was glad to drop the matter three years ago when Captain Rawlins first 
 tackled the case, Hearn says he has never alluded to it from that time 
 to this until the fellow's language to-day ; but that was only some vague 
 drunken threat." 
 
 " But if, on the contrary, it should prove that he meant to make 
 more trouble for Mr. Hearn," asked Miss Marshall, " is Captain 
 Rawlins here?" 
 
 "By Jove!" exclaimed the captain, starting suddenly to his feet, 
 his face growing as suddenly grave and sad, " that possibly explains 
 the letter that came to me yesterday morning. I was reading it as you 
 came down to breakfast, — a low, anonymous thing, and I burnt it. 
 Now I wish I had kept that." 
 
762 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 " About Mr. Hearn, was it ?" asked Mrs. Lane, anxiously. 
 
 " Yes ; and now I can begin to understand it, too. — Miss Marshall," 
 said he, turning impressively towards her, " your question goes to the 
 very bottom of this case. The friend who blocked their game three 
 years ago is gone : Rawlins was killed in the last campaign in Arizona." 
 
 " Oh, Fred !" cried Mrs. Lane. " And was there no one else who 
 had helped Mr. Hearn ?" 
 
 " No one but our old Rawlins, Mabel ; and of all men to help him 
 now, he would have been the most valuable here with our new colonel, 
 for he and Morris had been devoted and intimate friends in war days, 
 and I am told the colonel was deeply cut up by the news of Rawlins's 
 death. There was something romantic about their early friendship. 
 Captain Rawlins was a widower whose wife had died within a few 
 years of her marriage, and I have heard that both he and Morris, when 
 young officers, were in love with her, but that she had chosen Rawlins." 
 
 " But, Captain Lane," said Miss Marshall, whose thoughts seemed 
 less fixed upon the romantic than upon the practical side of the case, • 
 "surely Mr. Hearn has receipts in full for this amount?" 
 
 " I so understood him. Miss Marshall ; and yet I do not know the 
 nature of the papers to which he refers. I think he said that he had 
 her letter ; but that is of less value now." 
 
 "And why?" asked Miss Marshall. 
 
 " Because the widow married Schonberg." 
 
 " ' Then must the Jew be merciful,' " quoted Miss Marshall. 
 
 And for a few moments not another word was spoken. It was 
 that young lady herself who broke the silence : 
 
 "Perhaps you think me unduly apprehensive. Captain Lane. 
 That man's face made a powerful impression upon me when I saw him 
 to-day, and perhaps Mabel has told you something of my own experi- 
 ence in trying to retrieve my father's fallen fortunes when he was too 
 old and broken to do anything for himself, I learned then the worth- 
 lessness of spoken woi'ds, and that nothing but written contracts and 
 receipts were binding." 
 
 She had hardly ceased speaking when the gate was heard to swing 
 on its rusty hinges, a resolute step creaked across the piazza, and some- 
 body was fumbling at the bell-knob. 
 
 " Who can that be at this hour of the night?" asked Mrs. Lane, as 
 the captain went to the door. The bolts were drawn back, and a rush 
 of cold night-wind swept in, causing the lamps to suddenly flare and 
 smoke. 
 
 " Please, sir, is the doctor here ?" a voice was heard to ask. 
 
 " No," answered Lane. " What's wanted ? He left here about 
 twenty minutes ago. Have you been to his quarters?" 
 
 " Yes, sir ; and they told me he was here, at Captain Lane's. 
 Corporal Brent is took worse, sir, and the steward thinks the doctor 
 ought to see him. He's wild like, and raving." 
 
 " Mabel, dear, I'll be back in a moment," said Lane, reappear- 
 ing at the parlor door. " Don't wait for me : I'm going to see if the 
 doctor is at Hearu's. They went away together. Corporal Brent is 
 reported worse." 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 763 
 
 Throwing his cavalry " circular" over his shoulders, Lane stepped 
 forth into the night. It was moonless and pitchy dark. The lamps 
 around the quadrangle were burning brightly, but hardly sufficed to 
 illumine more than a small sphere in the surrounding gloom. Across 
 tiie wide valley a distant ruddy spark showed where some farm home- 
 stead was still alive; and far away to the westward the electric lights, 
 swinging high over the thoroughfares of the thriving town, shone with 
 keen, cold lustre, and were mirrored in some deep, unruffled pool of the 
 stream. Turning his back on these, the captain trudged briskly down 
 the walk, the hospital attendant following, and opened the little gate 
 some fifty yards away from his own. As he surmised, the doctor was 
 here, for his voice, and Kenyon's too, could be heard before Lane 
 tapped at the door. 
 
 " Come in," shouted Hearn, in answer to the signal, and the cap- 
 tain entered. 
 
 " You are asked for at the hospital, doctor. They say Brent is 
 delirious." 
 
 At this the medical man dropped the cigar he had but half 
 smoked and left the room. Lane was for going with him, but Hearn 
 begged him to stay : 
 
 "No time like the present, captain, and I want you to see the 
 papers in the celebrated case of Braine vs. Hearn while Major Kenyon 
 is here. I'll beg Mrs. Lane's pardon in the morning, and not detain 
 you more than a minute." 
 
 Standing against the wall in the midst of what had been old Blau- 
 velt's sitting-room was a plain wooden table with a pigeon-holed desk 
 upon it, the lid of which, turned down, made the writing-shelf. In 
 the pigeon-holes were numerous folded papers, Avell-filled envelopes, 
 packages of tobacco, a brier-root pipe, a pair of old shoulder-straps, 
 several pairs of gloves, some fishing-tackle, some carte-de-visite-i>,\zed 
 photographs, a damaged sabre-knot, and the inevitable accumulation 
 of odds and ends with which a subaltern's field-desk is apt to be lit- 
 tered. But the pigeon-holes had been quite systematically* labelled. 
 There were compartments bearing the legends " letters unanswered," 
 "letters answered," "personals," "bills paid," "bills unpaid" (both 
 impartially occupied), " pay-accounts," " maps," " field-notes," etc. 
 
 " I never knew the necessity of having some sort of system about 
 these matters until after the experience I iiave been telling you of, cap- 
 tain ; and I am indebted to dear old Rawlins for it. You never met 
 him, did you, Major Kenyon ?" 
 
 " No ; except just for a moment in the Shenandoah Valley during 
 the war. He was commanding his regiment then." 
 
 " Yes, and lived to be shot down in cold blood by a lot of am- 
 buscading Apaches nearly a quarter of a century after, and — nothing 
 but a captain of cavalry." 
 
 " He had some little property here in town at one time," said 
 Kenyon. " That was nearly ten years ago, though, and it went at a 
 sacrifice, I'm told. Perhaps it was while he was a local tax-payer that 
 he got to know your Hebrew friend of to-day." 
 
 " He never told me what he knew of him, beyond the mere fact 
 
764 ^-^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 that he was dishonest and a born mischief-maker. But the moment 
 he took that case up for me Schonberg dropped it. For some reason 
 the Jew was afraid of the old man, as every one called Rawlins." 
 
 Hearn was turning ov^r in his hand, as he spoke, a package of 
 folded papers held together by elastic snaps. Removing the upper 
 band, he began looking over the docketing at the top of each paper, 
 
 " Rawlins, himself, endorsed this particular packet for me, and 
 showed me how it should be done," he said. *' I've often thought that 
 if we could drop out a little slice of the mathematical course at the 
 Point, and have some coaching in this sort of thing, how much better 
 
 fitted we should be for the every-day duties of life. Now, I 
 
 Why, this is odd. I certainly had those papers in this very packet 
 not three weeks ago. I saw them the day I moved in here. I re- 
 member overhauling this very desk at the time." 
 
 Nervously he ran through the package again, his fingers rapidly 
 turning the folded pages, his face paling with sudden apprehension. 
 
 " There was a letter here from Captain Rawlins, two receipts of 
 Schonberg's, and the letter from Mrs. Braine, all bundled up together, 
 and the endorsement of each in Rawlins's handwriting." 
 
 Then he threw down the packet and began pulling out the papers 
 in other pigeon-holes, Kenyon and Lane standing silently by. In vain 
 he searched. Not a vestige of the desired proofs could be found. It 
 was with a white face and eyes that were full of trouble that he turned 
 upon his seniors : 
 
 " My God ! those papers are gone !" 
 
 " Look in your trunk, man," said Lane, kindly : " don't give up 
 yet;" while Kenyon, himself, began a search on his own account in 
 the now disordered desk. 
 
 " Was this always kept locked when you went out, Hearn ?" asked 
 the major. " Surely such important papers ought not to be left lying 
 around loose." 
 
 " Locked ? Yes. At least I never was away for any time without 
 locking it. Sometimes, just going out to receive reports at roll-call, I 
 would not lock up ; for who would want to rob a fellow of papers of 
 no value to any one but the owner?" 
 
 The major looked grave. Lane's face was full of anxiety which he 
 hardly knew how to conceal. Both well knew the almost universally 
 careless habits of the bachelor officers in garrison. Their doors are 
 never locked ; their rooms are empty half the time, and their pocket- 
 books empty ordinarily as their rooms ; their books, papers, desks, even 
 trunks, almost always lying unguarded about the premises. Servants 
 and orderlies move from house to house unquestioned, and the rear 
 doors are unfastened day and night. " We have nothing worth steal- 
 ing," is the general theory, " so why bother about locking an empty 
 stable?" 
 
 " Who is your servant ?" asked Kenyon, brusquely. 
 
 " Our black boy, Jake. He has taken care of my rooms and traps 
 for three years, and works for Wallace and Martin, too. He's as 
 honest a nigger as ever lived ; has been with the regiment longer than 
 I have." 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 765 
 
 " Yes ; Jake isn't half a bad boy. But was there no one else who 
 had the run of the premises?" 
 
 " Not a soul. Jake, himself, is rarely here except when at work." 
 
 There was a moment's silence. The major presently sauntered 
 over and tried the door leading to the dining-room. 
 
 " Here is the key, if you want to go in there," said Hearn. " I 
 have kept all the rooms locked since Blauvelt left, except this one and 
 my bedroom up-stairs. The back door is locked too. Jake always 
 comes in the front way. I don't suppose any one has come through 
 the kitchen since the day the captain's family left." 
 
 " Didn't Welsh have to come here for his traps ?" asked Lane. 
 
 " Yes ; but he was under guard at the time, — had a sentinel over 
 him, — and both Jake and I were here. He took nothing out of this 
 house but his own personal belongings, and never entered this room at 
 all that day. I couldn't help it, but after seeing him with Schouberg 
 to-day the first explanation of my loss that occurred to me a moment 
 ago was — Welsh. Yet how could he have been the man ?" 
 
 There was another moment of silence. Lane stood thoughtfully 
 examining the lock of the desk, then strolled into the hall and tried 
 the key of the front door. As he stood t^iere under the swinging 
 lamp, the clink of an infantry sword was heard at the gate, and the 
 voice of Captain Brodie : 
 
 " What are you youngsters doing at this hour of the peaceful 
 night ? Come out here and worship nature and visit sentries for me. 
 Oh ! beg your pardon, Lane : I thought it must be some of the boys." 
 
 " Major Kenyon and I have been keeping Hearn awake," was the 
 answer. " We were just going." 
 
 " Hello, Brodie," quoth the major, as he, too, came forth. " Have 
 you been to see how Brent is ?" 
 
 "Delirious, I'm told. Only the doctor and the steward are with 
 him. I was just waiting for twelve o'clock to go down and stir up the 
 sentries. There ought to be none but cavalry officers of the day at this 
 post, by Jove, so that they could ride around among these outside sen- 
 tries. It's too far for a Christian to walk twice in twenty-four hours. 
 Thank God, there's the call now." 
 
 At the first words from the lips of the sentry at the guard-house 
 the lamps at the two western gates were promptly extinguished, and 
 then the forms of two men could be discerned flitting from post to post, 
 extinguishing each lamp in turn. Soon the entire quadrangle was 
 wrapped in total darkness, and the silent stars gleamed all the more 
 brilliantly in the unclouded sky. Far over to the westward the reflec- 
 tion of the electric lights, a pallid, sickly glare upon the heavens, 
 suddenly faded into nothingness. 
 
 "That's the first time the town clock and ours have been so close 
 together since my coming to the garrison. Where did we get this 
 custom of dousing the glim at midnight?" asked Lane. 
 
 " The — th started that when they were here. Got it from town, 
 perhaps. Listen a moment," answered Brodie. " I want to hear the 
 sentries down towards the bridge." 
 
 Faint and far, though borne on the wings of the soft night-wind, 
 
766 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 the call of No. 7 had just sounded. It was now the turn of the 
 farthest sentry, No. 8, whose post was down the winding road at the 
 haystacks and wood-yard. A rich, musical Irish voice, softened by 
 distance, began its soldier troll : 
 
 " N-umber Eight. — Tvv-el-ve o'clock, — anda-a-all's Who goes 
 
 there f Halt ! Halt ! Corp'l the gu-a-ard— Number Eight !" Bang ! 
 
 Hearn was the first of the four oflScers to reach the southwest gate. 
 He could hear the footfalls of the officer of the guard running rapidly 
 down the road past the stables, and without hesitation followed full 
 tilt. The guard was hurriedly turning out and forming. It was the 
 sei'geant who faced it to the front and made the customary report to 
 Captain Brodie, as the officer of the day came panting to the spot : 
 
 " Sir, the guard is present and the prisoners secure." 
 
 An audible snicker in the prison-room followed these words. A 
 corporal file-closer stepped back into the guard-room and gruffly ordered 
 silence among the prisoners, which only evoked more tittering and 
 Avhispering. A sudden thought occurred to the officer of the day. 
 
 " Bring your lantern here," he said, as he strode through the guard- 
 room into the narrow passage beyond. On one side was the prison- 
 room whence the sound proceeded ; on the other were the cells. 
 
 " Open these doors," he ordered. -• 
 
 " There's only one cell occupied, sir ; the third." 
 
 " Open that, then." 
 
 The heavy door creaked on its hinges. A gust of cool night-air 
 blew through the cell. The window was wide open. The iron slats 
 were sawed away. The bird had flown. Private Goss, the assailant 
 of Corporal Brent, was gone. 
 
 VII. 
 
 In the soft, June-like weather of that memorable week at Ryan the 
 ladies spent but little of their waking moments in-doors, and even the 
 broad verandas of the colonel's quarters on the north side were no more 
 popular or populous than those of Captain Lane at the southwest 
 corner. Mrs. Lane and Miss Marshall attributed this to the fact that 
 the sun on its westward way passed behind their cosey home and left 
 the front piazza cool and shaded, whereas even the canvas hangings in 
 front of the Morrises' could not quite shut out the glare. But Mrs. 
 Morris laughingly declared that since their coming into the society of 
 Fort Ryan she had become " a decided back number." Whether the 
 theory of the colonel's wife were true or not, it must be said to her 
 credit that she accepted the situation with charming grace, and was 
 quite as frequent a visitor at the Lanes' as many of the younger women. 
 Her own guests had departed, leaving her somewhat lonely, she said ; 
 and, while she thought it by no means a proper or conventional thing 
 that she should be so constantly visiting people who so seldom honored 
 her, she could not but have ocular proof at all hours of the day that 
 Mrs. Lane and her fair friend Miss Marshall could not sally forth to 
 make calls except at the price of leaving a number of callers in the 
 hirch. There were other young ladies in garrison, just then, — Miss 
 Wharton, visiting her brother, and Miss McCrea, staying at the Burn- 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 767 
 
 hams'. There were several pretty girls in the neighboring town, who 
 frequently came out and spent a few clays with the families at the post ; 
 and all these, of course, as M^ell as the young married ladies, were the 
 recipients of much attention on the part of the officers, young and old. 
 It is a fact well understood in army circles that few officers are too old 
 to tender such attentions, and no woman too old to receive them. 
 
 And Mrs. Lane was rejoicing in the success of her projects for the 
 benefit of Georgia Marshall. Her friend was a pronounced success 
 from the day of her arrival ; and yet it was somewhat difficult to say 
 why. She was not a beauty, despite her lovely eyes ; she had none of 
 those flattering, soothing, half-caressing ways some women use with 
 such telling effect on almost every man they seek to impress. She was 
 not chatty. She was anything but confidential. She was rather silent, 
 and decidedly reserved, yet a most attentive listener withal ; and then 
 she had the courage of her opinions. Her prompt and prominent part 
 in the little drama enacted the night of her arrival had made her 
 famous in the garrison ; her frank, unaffected, but gracious ways had done 
 much to make her popular. The statement that she was an orphan 
 and poor, combined with the fact, which the other women so speedily 
 determined, that she was not pretty, had removed her, presumably, from 
 the range of jealousy. The other girls found* her very entertaining, 
 since she let them do much of the talking, and were willing to accord 
 to her a certain quiet style of her own. The men were glad to be civil 
 to any friend of Mrs. Lane's. And yet Georgia Marshall had not been 
 there a week before, as Mabel confidently predicted, she was having 
 in abundance tete-d-fMes of her own. 
 
 It was the third morning after the escape of the prisoner Goss, 
 and for forty-eight hours nothing else had been talked of among the 
 soldiers, and nothing had excited so much comment among the fam- 
 ilies at the post. Up to this moment not a trace had been found. The 
 two iron slats in front of his window had been cut through swiftly 
 and noiselessly from within with watch-spring saws, and the tallow and 
 iron-filings lay about the stony window-sill. He had been thoroughly 
 searched before being put in that cell, and it was absolutely certain 
 that neither files nor tallow were then in his possession. The guard 
 swore that no man had had access to him afterwards. A wire netting 
 prevented anything from being thrown to him from the outside, and 
 this had been forced u})ward and outward after the bars were cut. 
 The sergeant of the guard was sure that no man had touched or even 
 spoken to him, except when he, himself, had seen his dinner and supper 
 handed in. There could have been no collusion on the part of the sen- 
 tries, for the men on No. 1 all through the day and night were of the 
 infantry, and warm friends of Brent, who would have lost no chance 
 of putting a bullet through the supposed assailant in the event of his 
 attempting to escape. The blacksmith said it would take several hours 
 — at least five — to file through those two bars, and the man must have 
 worked with the patience of a beaver. It was a drop of only seven feet 
 to the ground without, for the window overlooked the up-hill slope 
 back of the guard- house ; and yet, as he probably had to come through 
 head first, that was quite a fall. The prints of his outspread hands 
 
768 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 were fouud in the dust-heap, and it looked as though he must have 
 lain there some moments before stealing away. 
 
 The sentry far down by the wood-yards, No. 8, stated that just 
 as he was calling off and standing faced to the east so that his voice 
 might carry to the guard-house, he heard a sudden stumble behind, him ; 
 a man tripped over a log between him and the road, then ran like mad 
 down toward the old station. It was too dark to recognize who it could 
 be. The officer of the guard had stopped to interrogate the sentry on 
 reaching his post, but Mr. Hearn had pushed ahead, and down at the 
 foot of the hill had plainly heard a horse's hoofs and the light rumble 
 of wheels crossing the bridge and going at a spanking trot ; yet soldiers 
 returning from pass, reliable men, had neither seen nor heard horse or 
 wagon anywhere on the flats along which lay the road to town. An 
 eifort had been made to trail the wheel-tracks from the bridge, but, 
 though a place was found among the trees near the old station where a 
 horse and buggy had evidently stood for two or three hours, it was im- 
 possible to determine which way they had gone after crossing the stream, 
 for the farm-wagons coming from every by-road in the morning had 
 totally obliterated the tracks. 
 
 Goss's escape while under charges of such grave character was 
 regarded as tantamounf to admission of his guilt. 
 
 Meantime, Corporal Brent's case seemed to have taken a turn for 
 the better, and, though there was still danger, there was hope. What 
 struck many inquirers was the fact that the doctor seemed ill at ease, 
 and invariably evaded the question, when pressed as to the nature of 
 Brent's delirium. This, of course, simply served to whet public curi- 
 osity; and the young soldier became, all unconsciously, an object of 
 greater interest than ever. The ladies of the infantry, who had known 
 him by sight some time, were certain that from the very first he had 
 borne all the outward appearance of a gentleman, and in every word 
 and gesture had " given the world assurance of a man" of birth and 
 breeding. Their sisters of the cavalry, who had but recently reached 
 Fort Ryan, were not slow in accepting their theories. Such things 
 were by no means uncommon in the service; and wouldn't it be deli- 
 cious, now, to have a romance in the ranks at Ryan ? Only fancy ! 
 Mrs. Burnham, Mrs. Brodie, and, above all, Mrs. Graves, were quite 
 ready to go to the hospital at any time the doctor would permit and 
 become the nurse of the young corporal ; but the medical man almost 
 bluntly declined the services of two of these ladies, and with positive 
 insolence, said the third, had told her she could much better devote her 
 ministrations to her own children. " Just as if I didn't know best what 
 my children needed !" said the oflTended matron. 
 
 And it was about Dr. IngersoU that Mrs. Graves was discoursing 
 this very morning on Mrs. Lane's piazza, while her own olive-branches 
 were clambering the fences and having a battle royal with the progeny 
 of Mi's. Sergeant Flynn at the other end of the garrison. And, as luck 
 would have it, who should come along the gravel walk but the major 
 and the doctor, arm in arm ! at which sight Miss Marshall's expressive 
 eyes, brimming with merriment, sought the half-vexed features of" 
 Captain Lane, who had been fidgeting uneasily in his chair during her 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 769 
 
 ladyship's exordium. Like many another excellent soldier, this prac- 
 tised trooper had no weapon with which to silence a woman's tongue. 
 
 " You'll find I'm right, Mrs. Lane. See if you don't," proceeded 
 Mrs. Graves, all unconscious of the coming pair. " You found I 
 wasn't mistaken about Major Kenyon ; and they are just as like as two 
 peas in a pod, — both of them." 
 
 Then, recalled to the possibilities of the situation by the mirthful 
 gleam in Miss Marshall's eye and the audible chuckles of Mr. Lee, she 
 whirled about and caught sight of the object of her dissertation. 
 
 "Oh, it's you they're laughing at, is it?" she hailed. "I was just 
 talking about you." 
 
 "Then how could you find the heart to laugh, Mrs. Lane?" said 
 the major, raising his cap with simulated reproach of mien. " Does it 
 amuse you to see fellow-mortals flayed alive? Is it not bad enough 
 that, like Sir Peter Teazle, I am never out of Mrs. Graves's sight but 
 that I know I've left my character behind mo? The doctor and I 
 were wondering whether there was a vestige left of the good impression 
 we strove to make upon Miss Marshall." 
 
 " I'm sure you ruined all possibility of that three days ago, major, 
 when you showed her what a cynical old party you were. No wonder 
 the young officers in our regiment lose all love for their profession after 
 hearing you talk. If I were Colonel Morris, I wouldn't have you 
 contaminating the lieutenants of the Eleventh the way you were trying 
 it on Mr. Hearn the other day." 
 
 "Where is Mr. Hearn, by the way?" asked Mrs. Lane, eager to 
 put an end to such unprofitable controversy. "lie hasn't been in here 
 for nearly two days. Come, major, — come, doctor, walk in and sit 
 awhile. We want to hear how Corporal Brent is, too." 
 
 " Brent seems easier, Mrs. Lane, thank you," answered the surgeon. 
 " I cannot stop just now ; we came over to meet the mail, for the 
 orderly seems to have an unusually big load this morning. Here 
 come the youngsters up from the post-office now." 
 
 And, as he spoke, perhaps half a dozen young cavalrymen, still in 
 their riding-boots and spurs, as though they had but just returned 
 from drill, came slowly up the slope. Wharton had an open news- 
 paper which he was reading aloud ; the others were hanging about 
 him, evidently listening with absorbed attention, to the neglect of their 
 own letters. 
 
 "What's the matter with the boys ?" asked Kenyon, whimsically, 
 as they approached. " They look as solemn as owls." 
 
 Naturally, all eyes were drawn toward the coming party. Lane, 
 bending forward, saw that Hearn's face was pale, even under the coat 
 of tan and sunburn. He would have passed them by, simply lifting 
 his cap, as Wharton half folded the paper when the group filed in 
 through the main gate, but again Kenyon spoke : 
 
 "What makes you look so like a pack of mutes, lads? What's 
 gone wrong? Is Congress sailing into us again?" 
 
 " Major Kenyon," said Martin, deliberately, halting in front of the 
 gate, " I said some disparaging things about your remarks here the 
 other day. I beg your pardon, sir. You were right ; I was wrong. 
 Vol. XLVI.— 50 
 
770 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 — Hold on, Hearn : don't go now and brood over this thing. Stay 
 here with the crowd, and we'll take it all together." 
 
 Lane had half risen, anxiety deepening in his dark-gray eyes : 
 
 " What is it, Hearn ? Come in here, — come in, all of you." 
 
 And Georgia Marshall, glancing from one face to another, noted the 
 silence and gravity that had fallen on each. Some looked full of sup- 
 pressed wrath, others simply perplexed and annoyed. Without a word 
 to any one, Hearn stepped in and stood beside her chair. 
 
 " You best know your own papers, major : you read this aloud," 
 said Martin. 
 
 And Kenyon, looking about in momentary surprise, unfolded the 
 great pages of the Chicago daily. His eyes gleamed as they caught the 
 heavy head-lines at the top of the sheet. 
 
 "Hello! hello! what's this?" he said. "Army Brutality. Out- 
 rageous Treatment of Private Soldiers. Civilians Insulted and Abused. 
 A Thug in Shoulder-Straps. Lieutenant Hearn a Cowardly Bully. 
 Special Despatch to the Palladium. Centeal City, May 3. — For 
 years past the citizens of this thriving frontier town have had frequent 
 cause for complaint as to the swaggering and insolent bearing of the 
 officers of the army stationed at the neighboring post of Fort Ryan; 
 but of late the feeling has reached fever-heat, due to recent occurrences 
 which attracted wide-spread attention. Acting under instructions, your 
 correspondent reached this city five days ago, and has made a thorough, 
 impartial, and exhaustive investigation into the matter; has talked with 
 many, if not ail, of the prominent citizens ; has personally visited the 
 post and conversed with a number of intelligent enlisted men ; and, as 
 a result of his painstaking observations, he is enabled to send you the 
 following account, for the absolute accuracy of every detail of which 
 he vouches unreservedly. 
 
 " So far as the enlisted men are concerned, the people have no com- 
 plaint to make. It is, indeed, the contemplation of their wrongs and 
 sufferings that has roused the popular clamor against their aristocratic 
 and overbearing taskmasters. Just why it is that the instant a young 
 man escapes from that hot-bed of flunkeyism and snobbery, West Point, 
 and dons the straps of a second lieutenant, he should imagine that he 
 owns the earth and that the nations should bow down to him, is some- 
 thing no intelligent mind can understand. But to become convinced 
 that it is so beyond peradventure, one has only to visit this representa- 
 tive army post, garrisoned as it is by large detachments of so-called 
 distinguished regiments; though, from all accounts, the distinction they 
 have earned seems chiefly to be connected with drinking-bouts and 
 gambling-tables. 
 
 " On every side it was declared to your correspondent that civilians 
 who ventured out to the fort were treated with contumely and insult ; 
 that the officers rudely ordered them off the reservation and forbade 
 them to enter the sacred precincts of the barracks, and even caused 
 their ejection from the public store and saloon, kept at the post by one 
 Stone, who truckles, of course, to his official neighbors and obtains in 
 return the mandate that the soldiers must spend their money with him 
 at swindling prices, and the proliibition against their having any deal- 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 771 
 
 ings with the reputable merchants in the city. On the other hand, the 
 merchants who have been so unfortunate as to trust the officers are not 
 able to collect their bills at all, and are absolutely forbidden to enter 
 the garrison when they seek to press their claims. 
 
 " Here is the brief history of one day's experience. In company 
 with one of the oldest, wealthiest, and most respected business-men of 
 this section, your correspondent drove to Fort Ryan this morning to 
 see for himself how far the facts would justify the allegations, and if 
 a lingering doubt remained it was at once and forever rudely dispelled. 
 A case of particular hardship had been brought to our attention, and 
 we desired to see Trooper Welsh in person. He was on sick-report, 
 excused from drill by reason of the treatment that had been accorded 
 him by the commanding officer of his troop, or we probably could not 
 have seen him at all. Seizing a moment when the officers were away 
 at drill, Mr. S. sent a message asking the young soldier to come out. 
 A fine-looking, intelligent man of about twenty-five years was pre- 
 sented to your correspondent, and briefly and simply told his story. 
 It was enough to make an American's blood boil in his veins to note 
 the emotion and humiliation it seemed to cause him. He came of an 
 excellent family in the East, but, having long desired from patriotic 
 motives to become a soldier of the flag, he had against their wishes 
 enlisted under an assumed name. From the very start his captain 
 had compelled him to work about his liouse like a common drudge. 
 He had to black boots, build fires, sweep the kitchen, actually do 
 chores for the captain's cook. In vain he begged to be allowed to join 
 his troop and learn his duty as a soldier : he was sternly refused. It 
 made his own comrades among the soldiers look down upon him, and 
 when he could find time to visit them at the barracks the sergeants 
 abused him like a thief. But the man who particularly hounded him 
 was Second Lieutenant Hearn, a young martinet fresh from West 
 Point, who never lost a chance of cursing him for errors on drill or 
 mistakes made afterward. The captain had taught him that when at 
 work for him he must not quit it to jump up and salute every lieuten- 
 ant who happened along; and just because he remained seated and at 
 work when Lieutenant Hearn passed by, the latter cursed him like a 
 dog, had him thrown into a filthy dungeon, and there he lay until he 
 was tried by court-martial and sentenced by a gang of Hearn's com- 
 rades to fine and imprisonment for obeying his captain's orders. An- 
 other time, when he was cleaning the captain's horse, the lieutenant's 
 horse, which was next him on the line, kept backing over him, tread- 
 ing on him, and knocking his brushes out of his hand ; and because 
 he simply pushed him back and spoke sharply. Lieutenant Hearn 
 rushed in and swore he had a mind to kick him black and blue. 'If 
 he had,' said Welsh, — and the young soldier's eyes blazed with pent-up 
 feeling, — ' I could no longer have controlled myself. I would have 
 knocked him down and appealed to the people of America to uphold 
 me.' For this he was again thrust into the vermin-haunted dungeon, 
 and this made him so ill that the surgeon himself had been compelled 
 to interpose in his behalf. ' I would desert and end it all,' said the 
 poor fellow, with tears in his eyes, * but I have sworn to serve my 
 
772 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 country, and I shall keep ray oath.' When told that the Palladium 
 would see him righted, though the heavens fell, his emotion was some- 
 thing that would have melted the stoutest heart. 
 
 " But now comes the crowning peak of blackguardism. Warned 
 by some spy, doubtless, of the fact that his victim was telling his story 
 to citizens, Lieutenant Hearn suddenly appeared on the scene, and be- 
 fore our eyes, with vulgar abuse and tyrannical bearing, ordered Pri- 
 vate V/elsh instantly to leave. In vain the young soldier respectfully 
 pleaded that he had a riglit to speak with friends who came to see him. 
 In vain he pointed out that he was on no duty at the time. In vain 
 Mr. S. interposed in behalf of justice and decency. The brutal bully 
 seized the weakened invalid in an iron grasp, dragged him like a dog 
 to the gutter in front, and then, with cuffs and curses, drove him before 
 him into the guard-house. Meantime, Mr. S., who had formerly many 
 friends at the post, hastened into the officers' club-room, hoping to 
 explain the matter and secure justice for the unfortunate fellow. But 
 it was a hapless move. What business had he, a civilian, to intrude 
 uninvited into the mighty presence of half a dozen beardless young 
 satraps in shoulder-straps ? He was rudely ordered to leave the prem- 
 ises ; and when, in his indignation, he ])rotested against such treatment, 
 Lieutenant Hearn himself came back boiling with rage, calling for his 
 troopers to come and eject these intruders from the garrison. We were 
 actually driven by force off the reservation. 
 
 " Your correspondent has, of course, made immediate and respectful 
 representation of these facts to the general commanding the depart- 
 ment, and when next he visits the fort will do so with a safeguard that 
 no bully in the uniform of a second lieutenant will dare gainsay. This 
 is but the prelude of further details still more disgraceful to the pam- 
 pered minions of a too long-suffering public." 
 
 For a few moments there was silence. Then the major glanced 
 around his circle of listeners. 
 
 " Well, Hearn," said he, as he folded the paper, " somewhere I 
 have heard the expression, 'Didn't I tell you so?' Dulce et deeorum 
 est pro jpatria mori. I don't wonder you love your profession." 
 
 " Surely they cannot believe such an outrageous tissue of lies," 
 burst out Mrs. Wharton, vehemently. " Surely the moment our side 
 of the story is heard the public will see the difference." 
 
 " Our side, my dear madam, is never heard. The newspaper has 
 the public ear. Scandal spreads world-wide ; truth never reaches half 
 as far. Hearn has only one recourse, — grin and bear it, and pray God 
 nothing worse may follow." 
 
 "What worse can follow, I should like to know?" asked Lee, 
 indignantly. 
 
 " What worse ? Why, man, you don't suppose a Chicago paper 
 sends an emissary a thousand miles to work up only one scene in a 
 sensation ? Look for the next day's issue, and the next. Wait till 
 the letters demanding explanation begin coming in from department, 
 division, and army head-quarters. Fiat justitia, mat coelam, will be the 
 Palladium's cry ; Parturiunt monies^ nascitur 7'idiculus mus, the out- 
 come. But all the same, my friends and fellow-citizens, we don't get 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 773 
 
 through this row without the biggest kind of a court-martial. — Ah, 
 the orderly of the commanding officer ! Whom does he want?" 
 
 Not a word was spoken, and every eye was fixed upon the trim 
 figure of the approaching soldier, who entered the gate and, halting 
 respectfully a few yards away from the foot of the steps, saluted : 
 
 " The colonel's compliments to the officer of the day, and desires 
 that Private Welsii, now in the guard-house, be sent to the office imme- 
 diately." 
 
 "Aha !" said Kenyon, as the soldier turned away. "Already some- 
 body's been tickling the colonel with a telegram. He's hardly had 
 time to read the papers. Now he will hear Welsh's story ; and when 
 Welsh has sufficiently blackened the character of his commanding 
 officer, Hearn will be afforded his chance. — Hearn, my boy, my hearty 
 sympathies are with you. By all means go on and prosper in your pro- 
 fession, and learn to love it as I do. — Martin, you and he have a mo- 
 ment to spare, come over to my quarters with me : I want to talk this 
 thing over with you. — Good-afternoon, Mrs. Lane. Good-afternoon, 
 Mrs. Graves. A sudden thought occurs to me. What was it Cam- 
 bronne is reported to have said at Waterloo? — 'The Guard dies, but 
 never surrenders.' Here's a more modern epigram for you : The Press 
 lies, but never retracts." 
 
 VIII. 
 
 With all his soldierly qualifications. Colonel Morris, like most of . 
 his sex, had certain defects of character. He was a tireless worker as 
 a regimental commander, and had done a great deal to bring up the 
 " tone" of the Eleventh, which had suffered vastly during the reign of 
 old Riggs, his predecessor. He had won a good name as a young 
 officer in the war days, and had borne himself well in the more trying 
 and hazardous campaigns of the far frontier. But Morris, both during 
 the war and since, had seen staff duty that had brought him into social 
 and political circles in Washington ; had learned there the lesson that 
 an ounce of influence is worth a pound of pure record ; that in most 
 matters affecting army legislation it was the men who were the farthest 
 away from the army whose opinions Congress sought; that in all ap- 
 pointments to the staff departments personal and professional excellence 
 might plead in vain unless backed by Senators by the score; and that 
 while judicious use of the gifts that God had put in his way in the 
 shape of the public press might result in the gradual rearing of a 
 monument of popular esteem, a single unguarded word or petulant ex- 
 pression would tumble the whole fabric about his ears. He had seen 
 the highest names in legislative, financial, and social circles dragged in 
 the dust ; the head of the House of Representatives dethroned ; a W^all 
 Street monarch execrated ; a gallant soldier, maimed in battle, ridiculed. 
 In combined and resistless .assault the press had overwhelmed the 
 record of years. Morris had faced death in a dozen fields without 
 a flinch, but he trembled in the presence of a reporter. 
 
 Nervous, irritable, and unstrung, he called his officers about him 
 on the following day. Guard-mounting was still in progress ; the 
 band was playing sweetly on the grassy parade; the ringing voice of 
 
774 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 the soldierly young adjutant swung the column around in its jaunty 
 march in review. One after another the troop and company officers 
 came quietly in, bade their flushed commander a courteous good-morn- 
 ing, and took their seats. He was pacing the floor, tugging at his 
 moustache, another telegram in his hand. 
 
 " Where's Dr. lugersoll ?" he asked, suddenly stopping in his 
 walk. 
 
 "Here, colonel," said the post surgeon, stepping within the office 
 from the brick pavement outside. "I was waiting a moment to see 
 the steward, to give some directions as to Brent's case." 
 
 " Ah, yes. He's better, I believe. Now, I see you have marked 
 Welsh for duty, and the man tells me he couldn't sleep all night be- 
 cause of pains and chills." 
 
 " Welsh is as well as I am. Colonel Morris, or if ill has only 
 himself to blame. He knows as well as I do that he has no business 
 to go to the store and drink when under treatment and taking medi- 
 cine. It is my firm conviction, sir, that that man is simply trying to 
 shirk." 
 
 " Well, well. Dr. Ingersoll, it is a matter in which we cannot be 
 too careful. You haven't the faintest conception, sir, to what this most 
 unfortunate affair may lead. It is infinitely better that we should be 
 imposed upon by a shirk than that the public should get to look upon 
 us as this man's persecutors. The Palladium that came yesterday was 
 bad enough, in all conscience, but here's another telegram from depart- 
 ment head-quarters demanding immediate investigation and report upon 
 the allegations contained in the second day's issue of the series. How 
 many are there to be, in heaven's name? — Mr. Hearn, have you sub- 
 mitted your explanation ?" said the colonel, turning abruptly upon the 
 young lieutenant, who was sitting in pained silence by Captain Lane. 
 
 " It is in tiie hands of the adjutant, sir," answered Hearn, rising. 
 
 " I have not seen it, — I have not seen it. I hope you have been 
 full and explicit, Mr. Hearn." 
 
 The lieutenant's pale face flushed with sudden sense of indignation : 
 
 " I have never yet been accused of any attempt at concealment of 
 my actions. Colonel Morris. Gentlemen present who have known me 
 nearly six years will tell you that.'^ 
 
 " I'm not accusing you of anything, Mr. Hearn. Pray keep your 
 temper, sir. But you do not seem to appreciate in the least the very 
 trying and unpleasant position in which you have, however unwittingly, 
 placed every officer at this post, especially me, on whom the burden of 
 responsibility must fall. If I had known four days ago that you had 
 used, violence — or at least force — in ejecting that soldier from tlie bar- 
 room, I should certainly have discountenanced his further punishment. 
 This sort of thing cannot be tolerated, Mr. Hearn. — And, gentlemen, 
 I say it to you one and all, this sort of thing cannot be allowed. It 
 creates a wrong impression among the people. It gives the press an 
 opportunity to criticise our methods of discipline. It makes a martyr 
 of the man in the eyes of the public, and we can't stand it. I have 
 felt compelled to release him from confinement and to direct the quash- 
 ing of the charges against him." 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 775 
 
 There was a moment of dead silence. Hearn was struggling to 
 control himself and to protest that he had used neither violence nor 
 any force worth speaking of. But Captain Brodie took the floor : 
 
 " I must ask your pardon, Colonel Morris, but I was witness to 
 that transaction from beginning to end, and I myself ordered Welsh 
 taken to the guard-house. It was after that, not before, that force was 
 used. Welsh cursed and resisted the corporal of the guard " 
 
 "Never mind, Captain Brodie: what seems to have infuriated the 
 man, and what has given rise to all this uproar of the press, is the fact 
 that Mr. Hearn, as they say, dragged him out. Of course that may 
 be exaggerated." 
 
 " It's a d d lie," muttered old Kenyon, under his breath. "But 
 
 all the more it goes." , 
 
 " I do not wish to be unjust to Mr. Hearn in this matter," con- 
 tinued the colonel. " But I cannot too strongly deplore the conse- 
 quences of his — of his action. And then in threatening to expel 
 civilians from the garrison ! What earthly right had you, Mr. Heai'n, 
 to arrogate to yourself the faculties of commanding officer? /am the 
 only man to say who shall and who shall not be kept on or off the 
 reservation. And now, of all men on earth that you young gentlemen 
 should have been particularly careful not to antagonize, it turns out 
 that one of them is a representative of the press." 
 
 And, in the full realization of a circumstance so calamitous, the 
 colonel sank into his chair. Hearn would have explained that he had 
 made no personal threats, but Lane's restraining hand was laid on his 
 knee. 
 
 " Patience, lad !" he whispered. " Say nothing now. It will all 
 come right in the end." 
 
 " I'm sure I took the utmost pains to be civil to the a — gentlemen," 
 drawled Martin, with his innocent eyes on the vacancy of the opposite 
 walls. " I implored Stone not to eject them. I had to beg oiF drink- 
 ing with the — a-Israelitish party because I had to shoot. Of course, 
 colonel, if I had known that the other gentleman was so highly con- 
 nected, there's no saying to what length I wouldn't have gone to attain 
 the elevation they had already reached, — one of them at least. A 
 dozen drinks, I think, might have done it." 
 
 " This is no occasion for the exercise of your sarcastic powers, Mr. 
 Martin," said the colonel, severely. " It is to be hoped your civility 
 was less transparent a sham than your present remarks." 
 
 " Pardon me, colonel," interposed Lieutenant Lee, whose seat was 
 near the window. " Here comes the gentleman himself." 
 
 Surely enough, a buggy drew up in front of the office, a bulky 
 form slowly descended, and, with much deliberation of manner, Mr. 
 Abrams, of Chicago, looked about him, then proceeded to tie his horse 
 to a young maple at the edge of the walk. The orderly sprang for- 
 ward : 
 
 " Beg pardon, sir, but it's against orders to tie horses to the trees. 
 The horse-posts are across the road." 
 
 "Against whose orders?" said the gentleman from Chicago, with 
 slow and impressive movement, turning upon the trim soldier. 
 
776 ^N ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 " The colonel's orders, sir. Even the officers can't leave their 
 horses in front of head-quarters, sir." 
 
 " My God ! Here ! this will never do !" fidgeted the colonel, 
 springing to his feet. " Mr. Adjutant, send a man out here." 
 
 "Shall I take care of the gentleman's horse?" said Martin, with 
 grave humility of mien, rising slowly to his feet, as the colonel strode 
 to the door. But Morris was too hurried to hear him, or even to re- 
 buke the titter with which the words were greeted. By this time, 
 paying no attention to the orderly, the representative of the Palladium 
 had reached the door-way and was brought face to face with the post 
 commander : 
 
 " Colonel Morris, I presume. I am the bearer of an order to you 
 from department head-quarters." 
 
 " Colonel Morris, sir, at your service," replied the post commander, 
 
 with much suavity. "A letter, I presume. Walk in, Mr. — Mr. 
 
 Take a chair, sir." 
 
 Several of the officers nearest the door had risen promptly, as 
 though in readiness to receive with due honors the colonel's guest. 
 Others slowly followed their example. Some remained seated and 
 continued a low-toned chat. All gradually resumed their seats, and, 
 while some with evident curiosity studied the appearance of the 
 stranger, Brodie and Lee looked at him with eyes that plainly spoke 
 their resentment, while Hearn's hands were clinched and his lips com- 
 pressed. No word was spoken to the new arrival, however. He, with 
 entire indifference of manner as to all the rest, fixed his gaze upon 
 the commanding officer, who rapidly read. The note was short and 
 to the point. Morris had reason to be thankful for his diplomatic 
 training. 
 
 " I am greatly pleased to give you welcome, Mr. Abrams," he said, 
 extending his hand with much apparent cordiality of manner. " This, 
 while by no means necessary, of course adds to the readiness with which 
 we open our doors to you. Had I known you were here and desirous 
 of visiting the post for any purpose in the interests of your paper, I 
 should have found means to welcome you before, and am only sorry your 
 did not make your presence known to me." 
 
 Major Kenyon had risen as the colonel was speaking, and now in 
 low tone and with much respect of manner accosted him : 
 
 " By your leave, colonel, if there be nothing further in the way of 
 business, may I request your permission to retire?" 
 
 " Certainly, Major Kenyon. — And, gentlemen, there were some 
 matters to which I desired to call your attention, but it is so near time 
 for ' boots and saddles,' we will defer the matter until to-morrow. I 
 will not detain you further." 
 
 There were one or two among the score of officers present who de- 
 sired to see the colonel on some routine matters ; these contented them- 
 selves with going over to the adjutant's desk, as he entered, and whis- 
 pering their requests to him ; the others promptly took their leave and 
 sauntered out into the sunshine. Mr. Abrams noted the occurrence 
 with a quiet but suggestive smile. 
 
 For a moment no one among the little group seemed to find any- 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 'J'J'J 
 
 thing to say. It was Mr. Lee who gave the first expression to personal 
 opinion. He burst out into a fit of laughter. 
 
 " I'm blessed if I can see anything to laugh about in this affair, 
 Mr. Lee," said the major, whose face was a shade moodier than ever. 
 " If anything was needed to confirm what I have hitherto said on the 
 subject, here you have it. Perhaps it pleases you to see a comrade 
 vilified by the press and then bulldozed by his commanding officer, who 
 well knows the paper lied, but daren't stand up for one of his subal- 
 terns. And then to think of the fellow's impudence, announcing him- 
 self as the bearer of an order from head-quarters ! If I had been in 
 command I should have told him orders were never sent by the hand 
 of civilians." 
 
 " Sail into the paper, if you like, Major Kenyon, but leave the 
 colonel alone ; that's purely our business," was the prompt reply. — 
 " Captain Lane, may I ask if the colonel has requested an invitation to 
 dinner to-night for his friend Mr. Abrams, of Chicago? I understand 
 that Mrs. Morris and the chief are among your guests." 
 
 " He hasn't yet, Lee, and, if he should, the quartermaster will have 
 to knock down a partition, for my dining-room can only hold twelve or 
 fourteen by severe squeezing." 
 
 " Captain," said Hearn, as they walked away, " I'm going to ask 
 you to excuse me to-night. I would only be a cloud at your feast, and 
 after what has passed I don't feel as though I could sit at dinner with 
 the colonel." 
 
 "Hearn, my boy, you must come. We are not going to let you 
 crawl into a corner now and brood over this. It is the very time when 
 we want to stand by you and siiow how much we hold you in esteem." 
 
 " Yes," was the bitter reply, " yes, my colonel has given a glorious 
 exhibition of what constitutes esprit de corps in the Eleventh. No, 
 captain, I would do anything for you or Mrs. Lane, but I can think, 
 speak, dream, of nothing now but the wrong that has been done me, 
 and I would only be a drag. You will excuse me, won't you ?" 
 
 " Come in, come into the house, Hearn," answered Lane, as they 
 reached the gate. " Come in and talk it over with Mrs. Lane and Miss 
 Marshall ; they will do you good. They are both full of sympathy. 
 Come; it's quarter of an hour before drill." 
 
 But Hearn shook his head and drew away. 
 
 " I cannot," he said ; " I must go ; there's my home letter yet 
 unwritten." 
 
 And so, with Lane's anxious eyes following him, he strode rapidly 
 away to his quarters. There Jim Wallace joined him at the gate. 
 
 Three hours later, however, with drill over and the mail in, the 
 question of dinner became of minor importance. Marked copies of the 
 Palladium had been received by several officers, and the faces of the 
 group on Captain Lane's piazza were studies. 
 
 "Did the orderly take one to him, do you know?" asked Mr. Lee, 
 with a world of pent-up indignation in his tone. 
 
 " One !" answered the major; "one! the insult wouldn't be com- 
 plete without it. I think there were a dozen papers, marked copies, in 
 his name." 
 
778 -4-^ ARMF PORTIA. 
 
 " Has no oue gone to see him ?" asked Mrs. Lane, her sweet face 
 full of sorrow. 
 
 " The captain was there when the mail came ; so was Mr. Wallace," 
 answered Miss Marshall, in low tones. " He seemed to anticipate 
 something of the kind." 
 
 " This will have a tendency to make Hearn rather homesick, I 
 fancy," drawled Martin, after a solemn pause. " I never quite appre- 
 ciated the benefit of Southern institutions before." 
 
 " Sick, I admit, — sick at heart, sick of his cherished profession, 
 perhaps ; but why homesick, Martin ?" queried the major. 
 
 " Oh, only because down South they shoot a man who publishes an 
 outrageous slander like that, and the jury brings in a verdict of justifi- 
 able homicide." 
 
 IX. 
 
 The afternoon was lovely and full of sunshine. Thanks to the 
 startling and sensational disclosures in the Palladium, the post had be- 
 come an object of unusual interest to the surrounding populace, and, 
 as the hour for dress-parade approached, vehicles of every description 
 came streaming across the bridge, and before the trumpet sounded 
 " first call" the road in front of the officers' quarters was well filled 
 with carriages, buggies, carry-alls, and light wagons, while some enter- 
 prising livery-stable-keeper had fitted up a few open stages and pla- 
 carded them with inscriptions setting forth that '' To the Fort and back 
 oidy a quarter" was a luxury now within the reach of everybody. 
 
 The populace was beginning to gather as the cavalry officers came 
 sauntering back from the stables, and Mr. Abrams, of Chicago, again 
 alighted from his buggy with an air that fully conveyed his apprecia- 
 tion of the fact that he was the popular hero of the moment, — the 
 daring journalist who had bearded the lion in his den, had publicly 
 denounced the brutality of these arrogant wearers of straps and swords, 
 and had even brought to the bar of justice one of their number. There 
 was the utmost curiosity to see the representative of the Palladium, and 
 that eminent journalist, true to his principles of conforming with the 
 views and wishes of the public, graciously accorded every opportunity. 
 It was in passing this gentleman, surrounded by a gaping party of 
 Central citizens, that the colonel somewhat ostentatiously called out, 
 "Orderly, give my compliments to the adjutant, and say that, in 
 view of the presence of so many gentlemen and ladies from town, I 
 desire him to have the band ordered out at once," and went on his way 
 amidst such audible evidences of popular approval as, " Ah ! that's 
 business !" " Ain't he a Jim Dandy ?" " That's my candidate for 
 Brigadier !" " He ain't no stuck-up second lieutenant !" And the poor 
 devils of bandsmen, just seating themselves at their su})per of hot 
 potato-stew and coffee, were compelled to drop the savory bowls, and 
 hastily button their full uniforms over their anything-but-full stomachs 
 and march forth upon the parade to entertain the populace until the 
 rest of the show was ready. If but now an apoplectic stroke were to 
 create a vacancy among the brigadiers, Morris's star might indeed be 
 in the ascendant. 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 779 
 
 It had been the custom of the ladies at Captain Lane's to appear 
 on the piazza about the time that the officers came up from evening 
 stables, and, reinforced by the W bartons, next door, and sometimes by 
 other fair ones, to serve a fragrant cup of tea to such of their regi- 
 mental friends as had time to drop in. To-day, too, the cosey little 
 tables had been set upon the veranda, but the close proximity of the 
 southwest gate, through which all the teams came driving in, and the 
 rude stares of the occupants of the various vehicles, speedily drove the 
 ladies away ; and Sam Ling, the Chinaman, an old retainer of Lane's, 
 was busily carrying the pretty china within-doors again and lamenting in 
 voluble "pidgin" the coating of dust which had been received, when 
 the captain walked by, with Hearn at his side. In vain Mrs. Lane 
 called to him from the door-way to bring in any one who would come. 
 He shook his head and walked on, talking gravely and earnestly with 
 his younger friend. Miss Marshall, standing at the window, noted 
 the inexpressible sadness and distress in Hearn's once buoyant, hand- 
 some face. He had grown years older in one day, she thought ; all 
 the color had fled from his sun-tanned cheeks, and the light from his 
 brave blue eyes ; yet there was a gleam in them, as he bent his head to 
 talk with his friend the captain, that spoke of the smouldering fire 
 within. She had thought him grossly wronged in the occurrences of 
 the previous day, but it was the coming of the Palladium on the noon 
 train that capped the climax. Omitting all the ingenious and alluring 
 head-lines, condensing the sensational details in which the correspond- 
 ent had worked up the case. Lieutenant Hearn stood accused before the 
 whole United States of having forcibly ejected from the reservation a 
 higlily-respectable business-man who had vainly importuned him to 
 pay the sum he for years had owed the estate of the former post trader, 
 " most of it borrowed money to help him out of gambling scrapes," 
 and had at last ventured to press his claim in person, only to be met 
 with outrage and insult. There could be no doubt of the truth, said 
 the correspondent : the books were open to the whole world, if need be, 
 and the sum involved exceeded five hundred dollars. 
 
 Georgia Marshall, gazing at the pair from the lace-draped window, 
 clasped her shapely white hands in deep perplexity. The slander, the 
 scandal, the wrong, was spread world-wide ; a refutation could never 
 overtake it, even with the proofs of utter innocence at hand, and where 
 were they ? 
 
 It was some comfort at least that he should look up, and, as though 
 in search of one friendly face, search the window with his sad blue 
 eyes. He should feel that, no matter what the press might say and 
 the Jews might swear to, more than one among his friends believed in 
 him through thick and thin. Her dark eyes were full of sorrow and 
 sympathy, and yet flashing with scorn of his defamer. And it was 
 this picture of her face, framed by those shimmering curtains and by 
 the trailing, twining tendrils of smilax that hung thickly about the 
 window, that suddenly met his troubled gaze, and that he carried in 
 his memory day and night long, long after. 
 
 Half an hour later the orderly came hurrying to Captain Lane's 
 quarters with a note, and then ran on down to the stables. 
 
780 ^N ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 " This will settle the question for you, Mabel," said Lane, who was 
 getting into parade uniform. "Colonel Lawler comes on the sunset 
 train, and Colonel Morris writes to know whether we cannot excuse 
 him, or whether, perchance, there should be room for one more." 
 
 " Oh, Fred, and we've got to say yes, for Mr. Hearn won't come," 
 answered Mrs. Mabel, with grief in her eyes. "We've got to say, 
 ' Bring him by all means ;' and yet how I hate to have our pretty 
 dinner spoilt ! If the train could only be late !" 
 
 " That would spoil it still more, Mabel, for then your Oh !" 
 
 said the captain, suddenly recollecting himself, and turning back to 
 his particular little shaving-mirror, before which he began busily 
 arranging the loop of his gold helmet cord. 
 
 " For then ?" exclaimed pretty Mrs. Lane, speeding across the 
 space between her toilet-table and her liege-lord's shaving- corner, and 
 laying her white hands upon his shoulder-knots and gazing up into his 
 
 half-averted face with sparkling eyes, — " For then, you dear old 
 
 You haven't sent East for flowers ?" 
 
 " Perhaps it was some other fellow, then," said the captain, du- 
 biously. 
 
 "Oh, Fred, you darling! I hadn't hoped for anything half so 
 lovely. Will they be here on this train, really? That's M'hy you 
 didn't want dinner served until so late, was it? Georgia and I were 
 saying, just now, if we only had a few flowers the table would be 
 perfect. I must run and tell her." And impulsively she raised her 
 soft lips to his face and kissed him enthusiastically. " You are so 
 thoughtful, Fred !" 
 
 " Very," he responded, with much gravity of mien. "And that's 
 what prompted me to suggest to your ladyship the propriety of throwing 
 a wrapper over those snowy shoulders. The orderly has left the hall 
 door open, and all Central City seems out here to-night. There goes the 
 ' assembly,' and your train should be here in fifteen minutes. I suppose 
 I can tell the colonel as he drives past on the way down to meet him ?" 
 
 Ordinarily the announcement of the advent of some such high func- 
 tionary as the judge-advocate of the division would have been quite 
 sufficient to induce the colonel to turn over the command at parade to 
 Major Kenyon and to go forthwith to meet the coming man. But 
 here was the elite of Central City, as well as a strong delegation of the 
 masses, gathered to see the garrison, and Morris particularly prided 
 himself upon the soldierly grace and style with which he presided at 
 the most stately ceremony of the military day. If he were to fail to 
 appear at the head of his troops, if all that line of officers were to 
 march to the front and salute Major Kenyon instead of him, people 
 might really get the idea that it was the infantry field-officer who was 
 the post commander, not himself. No. In all the yellow radiance of 
 his cavalry plumage Morris strode forth from his veranda and stood 
 revealed in the rays of the westering sini. His orderly ha. tened 
 through the groups on the gravelled road in front, and, halting, raised 
 his hand in picturesque salute, the eyes of Central City looking on : 
 
 " The colonel's messages are delivered, and the carriage will be at 
 the station." 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 781 
 
 " Very well, Brooks. Now you yourself go clown and be on the 
 lookout for Colonel Lawler, a tall, sandy-haired, sandy-bearded man, 
 rather slender, nearly sixty years of age ; report to him, and get his 
 baggage into the wagonette and bring him here to ray quarters, and 
 say that I would have met him, but was detained at parade." 
 
 Again the orderly saluted, then faced about and strode away through 
 the swarm of curious eyes which followed him a moment, then turned 
 once more upon the gorgeous and gleaming proportions of the warrior 
 putting on his wiiite leather gloves and buttoning them at the wrist 
 with much deliberation. Mrs. Morris being in her own room arraying 
 herself for the Lane dinner-party, and the veranda being vacant, he 
 then called to his adjutant, who came along the pathway at the moment, 
 a vision of floating yellow plume and brilliant aiguillette, and after a 
 moment's conversation with his chief that young gentleman made his 
 way to where a couple of town carriages were drawn up along the 
 edge of the parade and presented the colonel's compliments to the occu- 
 pants, the ladies of the postmaster's and leading banker's households, 
 inviting them to bring their friends and come and sit on his piazza. 
 Mr. Abrams, of Chicago, who was at the moment the centre of a knot 
 of men, young and old, quitted their society, and, with his customary 
 deliberation, sauntered over, opened the colonel's gate, and with careless 
 ease of manner accosted that official, " Fine evening, colonel," and 
 then lowered himself into the nearest chair just as the officer, with a 
 face that flushed unmistakably, excused himself, passed him by, and 
 hastened down the steps to greet the entering ladies, while the adjutant, 
 hurrying on to where his sergeant-major was awaiting him at the 
 edge of the greensward, signalled the band, and the stirring notes of 
 "adjutant's call," followed by the burst of martial strains in swing- 
 ing six-eight time^ heralded the coming of the troops of the whole 
 command. 
 
 Company after company, the cavalry from the west, the infantry 
 from the east end of the quadrangle came marching forth upon the 
 level green carpet, seemingly intermingling in confusion as they neared 
 the centre, yet unerringly and unhesitatingly marching onward, until 
 presently, with the solid blue-and-white battalion in the centre, and 
 with the yellow-plumed helmets of the cavalry jiarading afoot on both 
 flanks, the long statuesque line stretched nearly half-way across the 
 longest axis of the quadrangle. Company after company the white- 
 gloved hands clasped in front of each man as its commander ordered, 
 " Parade rest/' and Colonel Morris himself, who had with much delib- 
 erate dignity of manner marched out in front of the centre, now stood 
 in solitary state with folded arms and glanced quickly along the mo- 
 tionless line, while back of him some thirty yards, all along the edge 
 of the parade, in buggies, carry-alls, 'busses, in long sombre rank afoot, 
 Central City looked admiringly on. For a moment the main interest 
 seemed to centre on Lieutenant Hearn, and fingers could be seen 
 pointed, and voices heard announcing, " That's him," as he stood, tall 
 and erect, in front of the troop he was commanding in old Blauvelt's 
 absence. 
 
 With flourish of trumpets and three resounding ruffles the band 
 
782 ^^" ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 swept out from the right front, and then all eyes were suddenly greeted 
 by an unaccustomed sight. On the troops, long schooled in military 
 etiquette, the effect was not at the time apparent, — neither by word nor 
 sign was there indication that anything unusual had occurred ; but in 
 the populace, long accustomed to individual visits to the fort and to 
 observation of its military requirements, " Keep oif the grass" and by 
 no means intrude upon the space reserved for military exercises, the 
 sensation was immediate. Elbowing his way through the crowd stand- 
 ing at the edge of the parade-ground, with cigar tip-tilted in his 
 mouth, his light spring overcoat thrown back, with the same cool delib- 
 eration that characterized all his movements the representative of the 
 Palladium sauntered forth upon the sacred precincts, and, never hesi- 
 tating until he had almost reached the commanding officer, presently 
 came to a species of " parade rest" of his own, half sitting on the 
 backs of his hands, which were supported on the knob of his massive 
 cane, and there coolly surveyed the proceedings from the very spot 
 reserved for the adjutant, one yard to the rear and three to the left 
 of the commanding officer. 
 
 Some of the soldiers in ranks, unable to repress their merriment at 
 the sight of so unusual a breach of etiquette, could not refrain from 
 tittering. The voices of the file-closers could almost be heard in stern, 
 low-toned reproach : " Stop that laughing. Murphy !" " Quiet, there, 
 Duffy !" Morris himself could see that something unusual was going 
 on, but, totally unconscious that his own official precincts were the 
 scene of the solecism, never changed his position, but stood there 
 statuesque, soldierly, and precise, all unconscious of his self-appointed 
 staff-officer slouching behind him. As for Mr. Abrams, happy in the 
 conviction that the people could not but look on and envy the proud 
 prominence of the representative of the press, he appeared to have no 
 other care than that of the criticism due the public of the martial 
 exercises now taking place. That it was probably the colonel's inten- 
 tion to make a speech of some kind to his men, Mr. Abrams did not 
 doubt, and that the Palladium should have every word of it he fully 
 intended. 
 
 The band by this time was hammering half-way down the line, and 
 the officer of the day, coming suddenly in the northwest gate from a 
 visit to the guard, became aware that something was exciting the mer- 
 riment of the few men on the verandas of the cavalry quarters, and 
 then caught sight of this strange figure out on the parade. He looked 
 hurriedly about in search of the colonel's orderly, but Brooks, as we 
 have seen, had already gone on his mission to the station. Not a soul 
 was there to whom he could intrust the duty, yet he knew he could not 
 allow such a breach of military propriety to occur right under his eyes. 
 There seemed no help for it; he had to go himself; and, by no means 
 liking his duty. Captain Cross, of the infantry, hastened out on the 
 parade, and with the eyes of both lines upon him, though the heads 
 of the troops remained scrupulously fixed to the front, lie stepped up 
 to Mr. Abrams, tapped him on the shoulder, and civilly said, — 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir, but no one is allowed on the parade- 
 ground. I shall have to trouble you to fall back to the road-way." 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 783 
 
 Mr. Abrams looked angrily around. What ! Be compelled to 
 quit his position ? — to fall back in humiliation before all those people 
 and meekly take his station among them, and actually to have to con- 
 fess that, after all, a newspaper mau wasn't the monarch of all he 
 surveyed ? Never ! 
 
 " I'm here in the interests of the journal I represent, and I have 
 full authority from the commanding general to inspect anything at this 
 post," was his instant answer, accompanied by a shrug of his shoulders 
 and an ugly scowl. 
 
 " I cannot help that," was Cross's cool yet civil reply. "You can 
 see just as well from the edge of the parade, and here you will be in 
 the way." 
 
 " I can't see it clear back there, and I mean to stay where I can see 
 and hear. If there's anything I don't understand, I wish to be where 
 Colonel Morris can explain." 
 
 Thanks to the banging of the band, all this was inaudible to the 
 colonel, who remained in blissful ignorance of the colloquy taking 
 place so near him. 
 
 " You cannot stay here, sir," was the firm, low-toned answer. " I 
 will take pains to explain everything to you after you retire some twenty 
 yards, but I trust you will not make it necessary for me to be more 
 imperative. Come, sir." 
 
 And so, with the worst possible grace, Mr. Abrams had to give 
 ground, and, accompanied by the officer of the day, fall back to tiie 
 general throng. To cover his mortification as much as possible, Cross, 
 in a smiling and courteous manner, went on to explain the purpose 
 and details of the parade. But Abrams only turned angrily away. 
 Twice he essayed to stop and face about, but Cross was getting his 
 blood up by this time, and determinedly marched along to the very 
 edge of the tittering line of towns-people, and there, raising his cap, 
 said, with the utmost civility, — 
 
 "And now, sir, if I can be of the faintest assistance in making 
 this ceremony clear to you, command me. You will observe that the 
 adjutant is coming out to occupy the very position you were in." 
 
 But Mr, Abrams was in the sulks, as was to be expected, and still 
 more wrathfully turned his back, refusing to listen, so that Cross 
 promptly left him to his own devices. The representative of the 
 Palladium had sense enough not to attempt to resume his place, but 
 he had lost interest in the performance simultaneously with his own 
 loss of prestige among the crowd, and so, after a moment's wavering, 
 he turned about, and shouldered his sullen way toward his buggy, 
 only stopping long enough to inquire of a civilian the name of the 
 officer. 
 
 " Cross, eh ? Captain Cross. Sure of that, are you ? All right ; 
 I'll fix him," he growled between his set teeth as he strode away. 
 
 When a few moments later the long line of officers halted in front 
 of the colonel and raised their hands in simultaneous salute, he re- 
 sponded with something less than his customary graceful deliberation, 
 and inquired, — 
 
 " What on earth was going on there, that there was so much gig- 
 
784 ^-^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 gliug in ranks? It was mainly in front of you, Mr. Martin. Have 
 you been attempting any witticisms, sir?" 
 
 "Not that I can now recall, colonel," responded Martin, with his 
 usual drawl. " Possibly the appearance of our Chicago friend in the 
 role of adjutant was what prompted their merriment. If you invited 
 him to accompany you, I trust you will excuse it." 
 
 " Whom do you mean, and what do you mean ?" 
 
 " Why, Mr. Abrams took post on your left and rear, sir, until 
 Cross invited him elsewhere. I'm sorry for Cross : he has a wife and 
 family, and yonder goes the gentleman, bound for the telegraph-office, 
 no doubt. What won't the Palladium say now ?" 
 
 "You don't mean he was right here by me during parade?" said 
 Morris, growing very red. 
 
 " Certainly, sir," spoke Captain Brodie. " You could have smelt 
 his cioar if the wind hadn't been blowing from the stables." 
 
 But the appearance of the wagonette whirling into garrison with 
 the tall form of Colonel Lawler, a dust-colored figure from the crown 
 of his felt hat down to his very boots, put an end to further remarks. 
 Morris hastened to meet his guest, merely nodding response to Lane's 
 courteous invitation to bring him to dinner. 
 
 X. 
 
 Captain Lane's quarters, as has been said, were charmingly furnished, 
 and adorned with attractive pictures and bric-a-brac. The dining-room 
 was small, as dining-rooms generally are in army garrisons, but by dint 
 of moving out the stove which until now had cumbered one corner, and 
 then crowding the sideboard into its place, sufficient room had been 
 gained to admit of extending the table diagonally and seating fourteen 
 people thereat. And now, with the curtains drawn, but the soft even- 
 ing breeze playing through the open casement and the broad hall- 
 way, in the soft yet brilliant light of dozens of wax candles set in 
 sconces on the walls or in heavy candelabra on the damask-covered 
 board, a merry party had gathered for one of the "lovely dinners" for 
 which Mrs. Lane was already famous. Three of the infantry captains 
 were present, wdth their wives. Pretty Jeatmette McCrea, who was visit- 
 ing the Burnhams, was escorted in by Dr. IngersoU, popularly reputed 
 to be an intractable bachelor, yet privately believed to be melting be- 
 neath the tenderness of that young lady's sweet blue eyes; and Georgia 
 Marshall found herself sitting vis-d-vls with Mrs. Brodie, a somewhat 
 portly matron, who seemed capable of imbibing information through 
 every pore and storing it for further use, and yet at the same time 
 imparting new and startling opinions on all current topics with intensi- 
 fied volubility. Her eyes took in every detail of the tasteful appoint- 
 ments of the table. Her nostrils inhaled the fragrance of the roses and 
 carnations lavished on every hand. Her lips parted to receive the 
 succulent little clam — rare and unaccustomed luxury west of the Mis- 
 souri, yet easily expressed from St. Louis — and to give utterance at the 
 same instant to liveliest comments upon the unusual feature of that 
 evening's parade. It was not until after soup and the tiny thimbleful 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 785 
 
 of sherry that audible conversation seemed to extend beyond her, and 
 then Miss Marshall, who had been endeavoring to entertain Captain 
 Brodie and distract his mind from contemplation of his better half's 
 undaunted conversational powers, found herself addressed by the gentle- 
 man on her right : 
 
 "And so you are from Cincinnati, Miss Marshall, and paying your 
 first visit to the West? Now, what do you think of the army?" 
 
 " Pardon me. Colonel Lawler, but isn't that a trifle like the query 
 we are said to propound to Englishmen who have just landed? — How 
 do you like America ?" 
 
 "But I inferred that you had been here long enough to form an 
 opinion." 
 
 " To form one vaguely, perhaps, but probably not long enough to 
 subject it to the test of experience." 
 
 " And do you never express opinions until assured of their justice? 
 Really, Miss Marshall, I must compliment you on such wisdom and 
 discretion. You should have been a lawyer." 
 
 . " Yes, colonel ? — and that, I understand, is your profession. Now 
 I am indeed complimented." 
 
 Colonel Lawler's eyes had been wandering about the table as he 
 spoke, but now he turned suddenly and suspiciously upon the girl at 
 his side. He was a man of singular mental mould. He had l)een a 
 clerk in the office of his uncle, a prominent lawyer in the distant East ; 
 had had merely a common-school education, and was laboriously read- 
 ing law, when his patron found himself suddenly called upon to assume 
 responsible duties at the national capital, and hastened thither, taking 
 his clerk with him. Lawler at that time was nearly thirty-five, and 
 had not yet been called to the bar. It was the third year of the great 
 war. His patron soon found that the requirements of his office were 
 such that a man of far higher attainments would be needed as secretary, 
 and, being thrifty and unwilling to pay the salary of a clerk out of his 
 own pocket, he decided on the not unusual expedient of shunting him 
 off on a paternal government. Lawler had no idea whatever of enter- 
 ing the army as one of the fighting force, but the proposition of his 
 uncle was almost dazzling. He wasn't much of a lawyer, to be sure, 
 but quite good enough for the purpose, said the old gentleman to him- 
 self. And so it resulted that the green New-Englander was transferred 
 to a clerkship in the bureau of military justice, and speedily blossomed 
 out as a major and judge-advocate of volunteers, with station in the city 
 of Washington. The first thing the excellent fellow did, after getting 
 his uniform and sword, was to post off to the Granite State and marry 
 the middle-aged maiden who for ten years had been patiently waiting 
 the day when he could accumulate enough money to buy a little home, 
 and, with his bride, he returned to honest toil at the department. No 
 man ever worked harder to master the details of unaccustomed duties, 
 and no man, probably, ever encountered greater difficulties. But such 
 was his perseverance that he became a walking glossary of information 
 on army legal affairs. It was not that he ever mastered the niceties of 
 martial jurisprudence, but he knew the inside history of every case that 
 came up for trial in the bulky records of the bureau. He could quote 
 Vol. XLVI— 51 
 
786 ^N ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 the charges and specifications preferred against any and every officer, 
 the findings of the court, the names of the principal witnesses, of the 
 judge-advocate and the members, and little by little the seniors in the 
 office had grown so to lean upon his memory and his opinion that he 
 became an almost indispensable feature. And so when Peace once more 
 spread iier wings over the troubled walls of the Capitol, and the army 
 was sent home, and a chosen few were retained from the million of 
 volunteers to close up the records and accounts of that vast establish- 
 ment, the bureau announced that it couldn't get along without Major 
 Lavvler, and Lawler was shrewd enough to see his way to a life-position. 
 With the brevet of lieutenant-colonel for faithful and meritorious ser- 
 vices during a war in which he had not once heard the whistle of a 
 bullet, he was presently announced as transferred to the permanent 
 establishment and duly commissioned one of the array of officers of the 
 regular army. 
 
 At this time his sole acquaintance with the gentlemen with whom 
 his future lot was to be cast was what he had derived from the court- 
 martial proceedings which for three years he had spent ten to twelve 
 hours a day in reviewing ; and, knowing them through that medium 
 alone, it became somewhat difficult for him to estimate them through 
 any other when at last he was ordered to duty at a far- Western city as 
 judge-advocate of a division. He had been so many years within the 
 shadow of the War Department that army life in any other shape looked 
 to him as might a strange garret to an exiled cat. When he met an 
 officer for the first time his mind reverted to the records which he had 
 reviewed : this was not the man who led the assault on Bloody Angle 
 at Spottsylvania, who planted the first colors on the heights of Mission 
 Ridge, who made the perilous night ride to Crook after the disaster 
 of the Little Horn, but the officer who preferred the charges against 
 Colonel Blank, or who was tried for duplicating pay-accounts at Nash- 
 ville, or who was the unwilling witness in the case of old Barry at Fort 
 Fetterman. To his pragmatical mind every soldier was a past or jiros- 
 pective figurant before a court-martial, and long contemplation of in- 
 numerable counts in the shape of specifications had so charged his mind 
 with distrust of his fellow-men that, whatsoever might be his rank or 
 record, no officer stood so high as to be above sus])icion, none so im- 
 pregnable that, judiciously handled, a court could not down him. "I 
 consider it my bounden duty," he had once said, " to convict an officer 
 if I possibly can." And while in his regard an acquittal might tem- 
 porarily and partially vindicate the party accused, it must forever 
 blight the fair fame of the judge-advocate who tried the case. 
 
 Some years of rubbing had so far modified his original views as to 
 teach him that until charges were actually preferred it was not well to 
 look upon any of iiis new associates as actually and absolutely attainted. 
 But, once that formality had been accomplished, jvimd facie evidence 
 of guilt was firmly established, and only with reluctance and inward, 
 if not active, rebellion couhl he bring himself to accept a verdict other- 
 wise. Proceedings of courts which convicted he skimmed through 
 with lenient eye; there could be no error there. But when, as was 
 his invariable custom, he glanced at the findings before beginning the 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 787 
 
 review, and there discovered the unwelcome words " not guilty," no 
 vigilance could exceed that with which he scrutinized every line of the 
 record, hoping anywhere to light upon a flaw. Friends in the service 
 at large he neither sought nor made. Secure in his position, abste- 
 mious, frugal, and even niggardly, he had no small vices on which to 
 trip. Life to him was one long contemplation of the failings of his 
 fellow-men. 
 
 And this was the gentleman who, being on some temporary inves- 
 tigation within the lines of the department, had received telegraphic 
 orders to proceed at once to Ryan and look into the matters thus loudly 
 heralded by the press. Standing not upon the order of his going, he 
 had taken the first train, and reached the post at nightfall, eager to 
 begin. It M^as a source of positive discomfort to him to find that he 
 was expected by the post commander to dine at Captain Lane's; but 
 his uneasiness was in no wise due to the lack of proper apparel. The 
 colonel and the other officers were in full uniform, as was army custom 
 then, before a merciful and level-headed general authorized the wearing 
 of civilian evening dress on such occasions. But Colonel Lawler was 
 quite at ease in a travelling-suit of rusty tweeds. Morris had offered 
 the colonel the use of his own dress-suit, and in fact had rather urged 
 it, as due to Mrs. Lane, but Lawler promptly replied that Mrs, Lane 
 must have known when she asked him that he did not travel around 
 on military duty with a spike-tailed coat, and declared that he thought 
 it all unnecessary. "Spike-tailed coats are too high-toned for me, any- 
 how. I never see a man in one but what he reminds me of some 
 butler I've seen in 'Washington." Morris said no more, but Mrs, 
 Morris had looked volumes, and it was very ruefully indeed that the 
 colonel presented his visitor to their gracious hostess. Dinner was 
 announced almost immediately, and, ignoring for the time-being the 
 young lady whom he had taken in on his arm, Lawler sat for some 
 minutes looking in no little surprise about him. The sight of so much 
 elegance at a frontier table could only convey to his mind the vague 
 impression of peculation in the past. He was surprised to find that 
 Lane could have had no connection whatever with "cotton cases" 
 during the war. 
 
 And now was this young girl with the big dark eyes, looking so 
 frankly yet scrutinizingly up into his face, quizzing him ? The fact 
 that for nearly a quarter of a century he had been a commissioned 
 officer and was now high in rank, if not in public esteem, had given 
 him a certain self-confidence of manner, and the consciousness of being 
 the custodian of a host of official secrets added to his sense of self-im- 
 portance. Yet, small and suspicious by nature, he was forever looking 
 for some covert ridicule. He had come to the board a total stranger 
 to Captain and Mrs. Lane, yet he felt a certain sense of superiority to 
 them because he could, were he so disposed, tell that young matron a 
 host of ugly things about her first husband. Of Lane himself he 
 knew little or nothing beyond the fact that the proceedings of courts- 
 martial of which he had served as judge-advocate were always correct. 
 That he was known in the fighting force of the army as a brilliant and 
 gallant soldier, who had been through many a hard campaign and had 
 
7g8 AN ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 twice or thrice been wounded, was of no avail in Lawler's eyes. That 
 might be a very proper thing in its way, but did not interest hira. 
 Just now he was casting up in his mind the probable cost of the dainty 
 feast and wondering what means Lane had outside his pay. Miss 
 Marshall, being from Cincinnati, would doubtless know something, and 
 he proposed to put her on the witness-stand forthwith, but, lawyer-like, 
 to lead up to the matter by adroit circumlocution. Yet at the first 
 clumsily-essayed compliment she had looked up into his face, a merry 
 light in her big, dark, scrutinizing eyes, and he became instantly sus- 
 picious that she was quizzing him. Lawler reddened at the very 
 thought. 
 
 " You seem to have a very correct appreciation of the legal profes- 
 sion," he said, however, with an effort at a gallant bow. " Most young 
 women, I fancy, are far more partial to that of a soldier, for instance." 
 
 " Most women, you know, admire courage and truth and straight- 
 forwardness, colonel." 
 
 " And you mean that these are more frequent in the army — that is, 
 among the — the officers of the line — than in the legal profession, I 
 suppose. Now, Miss Marshall, a celebrated chief justice, from whom 
 you may be descended, as you bear the same name, was the embodiment 
 of all these traits." 
 
 " And his mantle fell on the shoulders of many, I doubt not, col- 
 onel ; but — was it big enough to go round ?" 
 
 " I'm afraid you're satirical. Miss Marshall," said Lawler, with a 
 superior smile. "You young ladies not infrequently see only the 
 glamour and froth of army characteristics. We who have spent many 
 years in the endeavor to keep the army straight cannot look upon the 
 officers quite as partially as you do. We see both sides of the double 
 lives led by so many of the ' youngsters' in the line." 
 
 " Only by the line, colonel, and by the young officers ? Then who 
 looks after the staff, and the elders ?" And Miss Marshall's face was 
 bubbling over with fun. 
 
 " They have stood the test of years. Miss Marshall, and need no 
 guardian, as do these young fellows who so captivate school-girls," an- 
 swered Lawler, shifting uneasily in his chair. " Now, Mrs. Brodie has 
 a mature conception of their merits and defects. She was speaking of 
 this very case of Mr. Hearn's a moment ago. — You seem to have 
 known him quite a while, Mrs. Brodie. Were you ever stationed to- 
 gether?" 
 
 " My ! no, Colonel Lawler : only one cannot help hearing things," 
 answered Mrs. Brodie, totally unaware of the facial contortions of her 
 better half, who was helplessly, hopelessly striving to catch her eye and 
 restrain her tongue. " Everybody in town seems to think he was such 
 a popular young fellow ; only, don't you know, so careless." 
 
 Colonel Morris and everybody at Mrs. Lane's end of the table 
 happened to be deep in general chat at the moment, and neither saw 
 nor heard anything of this sudden introduction of personal affairs at 
 a social occasion. But Mrs. Morris lost no time. She saw Brodie's 
 glowering eyes across the board ; she noted Lawler's keen, shrewd gaze, 
 and the troubled look that flashed over Lane's kindly face, and had 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 789 
 
 just time to whisper to him, " How can you ever forgive us for bring- 
 ing the man ? The colonel was in misery at the idea. He said he knew 
 he would be talking ' shop' before dinner was half over. I can check 
 Mrs, Brodie, at any rate." Then, aloud, " Pardon me, Colonel Lawler," 
 and now her face was wreathed in sweetest smiles, " I'm not going to 
 let Mrs. Brodie prejudice you against one of my prime favorites." 
 
 "Oh, indeed, Mrs. Morris," protested Mrs. Brodie, "I wouldn't 
 think of such a thing. I was just going to point out to the colonel the 
 very great diiFerence between what he might have been then and what 
 he has been ever since he joined the Eleventh." 
 
 " But the point at issue seems to be what he was then, as Mrs. 
 Brodie puts it," said Lawler. 
 
 " But I wouldn't for the world have you suppose I thought Mr. 
 Hearn had done anything that was ungentlemanly. I'm only saying 
 what rumor was," burst in Mrs. Brodie again, who had at last caught 
 the signals on her husband's face, and now only sought to excuse her 
 own impetuosity, even though in so doing she more deeply involved 
 the young gentleman himself. " I can't bear to hear such things said 
 of him without any one to defend him ; but what can one do ?" 
 
 This was getting simply unbearable. While all at the other end 
 of the table were having a merry, laughing chat, here was this profes- 
 sional investigator — an accidental and by no means welcome guest — 
 taking advantage of the circumstances and of the well-known volu- 
 bility of Mrs. Brodie to start her on the subject which called him to 
 the post, and striving at a social party to " pick up points." 
 
 " By Jove !" muttered Captain Cross, " lie's as bad as Mr. Abrams 
 himself. What can we do to stop him? Nothing short of Divine 
 Providence will ever stop Mrs. Brodie." 
 
 But the desired interposition came. Footsteps were heard on the 
 piazza beyond the hall. The Chinaman, answering the summons to 
 the door, came back, raising the portiere that hung heavily over the 
 entrance, and handed his master a card. Lane took it, and glanced 
 quickly at Colonel Lawler. 
 
 " If you will excuse me," said the latter, rising at once, " these are 
 gentlemen whom I telegraphed to meet me, and I will save time by 
 seeing them here. I will just ask them into your parlor, Captain 
 Lane." And, quitting the room, he passed through the hall-way and 
 met his untimely callers at the door. Sam came shuffling back an 
 instant after, having gone to turn up the parlor lights, and Miss Mar- 
 shall, glancing over her left shoulder as the portiere was again raised, 
 saw that one of the men thus introduced beneath the captain's roof was 
 the German Jew, Schonberg. Lane, busy in striving to restore the 
 tone of general chat, did not see them at all. 
 
 It was an hour later. The ladies had risen and betaken themselves 
 to the front piazza ; the men remained to smoke a cigar with their 
 host. The absence of the legal luminary, oddly enough, had dispelled 
 the atmosphere of gloom that hung for a few minutes about the lower 
 end of the table. He and his strange visitors were still closeted, so to 
 speak, in the parlor, but now they came forth. In some mysterious 
 
790 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 way every woman had by this time learned that Mr. Schonberg was 
 there, and at the sound of the opening parlor door and of the mel- 
 lifluous accents of that gentleman's voice they instinctively huddled to 
 the other end of the piazza. Lawler walked with the two men as far 
 as the gate, and, when they finally disappeared in the direction of the 
 store, came sauntering back to join the ladies. 
 
 " As I don't smoke," he said, " I will take my enjoyment here. 
 Where shall I sit?" 
 
 " Take this chair. Colonel Lawler," said Miss Marshall, noting the 
 aversion with which all the others of the party had become inspired. 
 " May I send for coffee for you ?" 
 
 " Miss Marshall, I have no small vices. I never drink anything 
 stronger than milk ; never smoke ; never chew ; never swear." 
 
 " Never even swear, colonel ?" 
 
 " Never. What is it you are smiling at?" 
 
 " Have you ever read the works of Josh Billings, Colonel Lawler ?" 
 
 " I have no time to waste on nonsense. Miss Marshall. And I 
 never could see anything funny or witty in such men as Billings and 
 Artemus Ward." 
 
 " Well, it wasn't his fun I was thinking of quite so much just now 
 as his insight into character," said the young lady, musingly, as she 
 still gravely looked him over with her big eyes. 
 
 Two young officers came strolling along the walk at the moment, 
 and, passing beneath the lamp, raised their caps in salutation to the 
 ladies. Miss Marshall nodded and smiled with marked cordiality. 
 
 " All wasted, Miss Marshall : they could not see it." 
 
 " No, colonel, and I particularly wanted one of them at least to do 
 so. Now, that's a part of the army that I decidedly like." 
 
 " Who are they, may I ask ?" 
 
 "Mr. Wallace and his especial friend, Mr. Hearn." 
 
 " And is it possible that you find such young men to your taste? I 
 gave you credit for having rather a higher standard." 
 
 " But it is their standard that I so much admire. Colonel Lawler. 
 I don't suppose anything would tempt either of those young men to 
 say or do a mean or cowardly thing." 
 
 "No?" said the colonel, with a superior smile; "and yet, do you 
 know, I'm ready to stake my professional reputation that one of them 
 at least is quite unworthy your trust or confidence." 
 
 " Now, are you not a trifle prejudiced, colonel ? I thought the law 
 presumed a man innocent until proved guilty." 
 
 " Theoretically, yes ; practically, men who have studied human 
 nature through the courts, as I have had to, get to see through the 
 veneering of high tone that these ' youngsters' are so apt to assume." 
 
 " And so you are probably quite ready to agree with the cor- 
 respondent of the Palladium, colonel, that most officers are frauds, 
 especially the second lieutenants?" 
 
 " My experience has certainly not given me a high opinion of the 
 young men. Miss Marshall." 
 
 " And, now, do you know,^ colonel, my intuition is very much in 
 their favor." 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 791 
 
 " But is your intuitiou as well founded, do you think, as long legal 
 experience ?" 
 
 " Well, your experience has been confined to the limited few that 
 have come before courts-martial, has it not? My intuition covers the 
 great array of their number, — the ninety-and-nine. Now, I haven't 
 any especial knowledge of the matter you seem to be investigating. 
 Colonel Lawler, but I fancy that evidence such as Mr. Schouberg 
 might give would have little weight before a court of intelligent men." 
 
 " You will change your mind when you come to see the books, 
 young lady." 
 
 " Have you changed yours ?" 
 
 "No: they simply confirmed my judgment." 
 
 " Then my intuition was right, colonel." 
 
 '' How so, may I ask ?" 
 
 "It told me that you had prejudged the case." 
 
 At this moment the officei's came sauntering out into the open air, 
 joining the group of ladies, who had fied back to the western end of 
 the piazza as soon as they saw their obnoxious visitor safely anchored 
 by Miss Marshall's side. 
 
 " Where's Lawler ?" queried Morris, in no pleasant tone. " Has 
 he gone off with those fellows ?" 
 
 "No; I'm here, colonel, getting a lesson in law which this young 
 lady is so good as to give me." Miss Marshall flusiied at the dis- 
 courtesy in his tone, but gave no other sign. " I shall expect to see 
 you appearing in the role of counsellor yet. Miss Marshall." 
 
 "Very well, colonel; if it ever comes to that I shall fall back on 
 my intuition." 
 
 Miss Marshall's cheeks were still flushed and her eyes had a dan- 
 gerous gleam under tiieir dark and fringing lashes when she stepped a 
 moment after into the lately-desecrated parlor. 
 
 *' You appear to have had quite a tilt with our friend the jndge- 
 advocate," said Lane, who had come in for more cigars for his guests. 
 " I think I once told you I would not care to be cross-examined by 
 you, Mis^ Marshall ; and it looks as though he were not a little nettled." 
 
 " I hope I haven't been rude to a guest of yours, Captain Lane ; 
 but that gentleman makes me wish over and over again that I were a 
 man. Did you know who his callers were '?" 
 
 "I have just heard," said Lane. 
 
 There was sudden lull in the conversation on the piazza without, 
 then the colonel spoke quickly : 
 
 " I wonder what that can be. That fellow yells in earnest, doesn't 
 he?" 
 
 " What is it?" asked Lane, stepping to the door. 
 
 "Number Eight yelling for the corporal of the guard. Yonder 
 they go." 
 
 Captain Cross, who was officer of the day, had quietly picked up 
 his sword and hurried out of the southwest gate, while down the road- 
 way could be heard the sound of rapid foot-falls. The call, however, 
 was not repeated. Conversation soon became brisk and general, and iu 
 five minutes Cross came back. 
 
792 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 " What was the matter ?" asked Colonel Morris. 
 
 " Some civilians, sir, and one of our men, in a buggy, who said 
 they came out by order of the general commanding the division, and 
 had been detained here until after taps." 
 
 " Certainly ; that's all right. Those were doubtless the witnesses 
 Colonel Lawler sent for. Why wasn't the corporal of the guard sent 
 down with them toj)ass them out?" 
 
 '' Their buggy was tied the other side of the store, sir, and no one 
 at the guard-house could see them start." 
 
 " Well, the sentry ought to have let them go anyhow, as soon as he 
 saw who they were. We have no authority to hold civilians here." 
 
 " It wasn't the civilians the sentry was after, sir ; he was perfectly 
 willing they should go ; but they had an enlisted man with them." 
 
 " Who ?" asked Morris, with uncomfortable premonition of the 
 answer. 
 
 " Private Welsh, sir, of C troop." 
 
 XI. 
 
 The week that followed the advent at Fort Ryan of the staff-officer 
 from division head-quarters was one that the good people at the post 
 have not yet ceased talking about. Lawler had remained in the gar- 
 rison only twenty-four hours, and went back eastward without a word 
 as to his intentions, and, to the surprise of even Colonel Morris, with- 
 out having sent for or spoken to the man most interested in his coming, 
 — Lieutenant Hearn. This in itself was something that excited most 
 unfavorable comment, for it was known that he had had long interviews 
 with Mr. Abrams, the busy representative of the press, and that he had 
 driven in town to spend some hours in questioning certain dubious- 
 looking citizens presented to him one by one at the establishment of 
 Mr. Schonberg. He had furthermore sent to the guard-house for 
 Trooper Welsh, — once again there incarcerated by order of Captain 
 Cross, who as officer of the day had arrested him for attempting to 
 slip across sentry's post the previous night. And once again, to the 
 dismay of the cavalry officers and the unconcealed ridicule of the 
 infantry battalion. Colonel Morris had directed Welsh's immediate 
 release. 
 
 " It was a misunderstanding, probably, Captain Cross," said the 
 colonel, in conciliatory mood, to the old officer of the day, as he relieved 
 him after guard -mount. " Welsh was given to understand that these 
 gentlemen, who had just come from an interview with Colonel Lawler, 
 had the authority of the department commander to take him to town 
 with them, so as to be ready to make certain depositions early in the 
 morning." 
 
 But Cross eyed his commander unflinchingly and said no word. 
 
 Among the infantry officers the opinion was openly expressed that 
 between Abrams and Lawler and Trooper Welsh the colonel was 
 simply demoralized. The crowd at dress-parade for several evenings 
 was almost as big as that before spoken of, and, though the Palladium 
 man did not again take position on the colonel's left during the cere- 
 
AN ARMV PORTIA. 793 
 
 mony itself, he was frequently at that officer's side when he made his 
 way through the curious throngs, both in going to and returning from 
 his post. And afterwards, with the eyes of the towns-people upon them, 
 Private Welsh and the unterrified correspondent paced up and down 
 the road in front of the cavalry barracks for half an hour ; and the 
 group sitting on Lane's piazza one evening especially could not help 
 noting how ostentatiously the two conversed as they ueared the white 
 wicket-gate. 
 
 " Wharton," quoth Martin, as for the sixth or seventh time the 
 swarthy trooper and his champion approached the captain's quarters, 
 " I'm consumed with envy. The time was when good-looking cavalry- 
 men, like you and me, could command some small attention from the 
 eyes of our friends and fellow-citizens in town ; but our day is done. 
 There are the popular heroes of the hour. Now, here comes Hearn's 
 first sergeant. Surely he's not going to have the unbearable effrontery 
 to remind Trooper Welsh that he ought to be cleaning up for guard 
 to-morrow, when a gentleman of the press wants to talk with him ?" 
 
 " Is Welsh for guard to-morrow ?" asked Captain Lane, in some 
 surprise. 
 
 " He is. The colonel relieved him from durance vile before 
 guard-mount this morning, and I heard the first sergeant tell Heara 
 an hour ago that it was Welsh's turn for guard, and wanted to know 
 whether he was to order him or not. Hearn said certainly." 
 
 "And the man cut parade to-night on plea that Mr. Abrams 
 wanted to talk with him. He was the ' one private absent' reported 
 from C troop," said Wharton. " That's the reason the sergeant is after 
 him now, I fancy, either to arrest him, or else warn him for guard." 
 
 " If I were Hearn I'd quit attempting to discipline that young 
 man," said Major Kenyon, pessimistic and glowering as ever. " He 
 ought to have sense enough to know that the worst blackguard in the 
 service, with the press behind him, is more than a match for any officer 
 who seeks to do his duty." 
 
 " And if I were Hearn," drawled Martin, " I'd make that particu- 
 lar proteg^ of the Palladium do his duty, if I died for it, especially after 
 the marked copies that came to-day. Now watch." 
 
 The first sergeant, a trim, soldierly fellow with determined face and 
 manner and quick energetic step, had by this time overtaken the pair 
 who, strolling together, had almost reached the picket fence and were 
 within ear-shot of the Lanes' piazza. Mrs. Lane glanced eagerly up 
 the road, for Miss Marshall and Lieutenant Hearn at that very mo- 
 ment came from the Whartons' quarters next door and appeared upon 
 the gravel walk, Wallace following with Jeannette McCrea. 
 
 Sergeant Wren had stopped short on overtaking the trooper, and, 
 with scant ceremony, addressed him in tones that all could hear : 
 
 " Welsh, you're for guard to-morrow, and you've got mighty little 
 time in which to get ready. Did the lieutenant excuse you from 
 parade ?" 
 
 " I didn't ask him. Colonel Lawler was good enough for me." 
 
 " Colonel Lawler left the post at five o'clock, and couldn't have 
 wanted vou." 
 
794 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 " All the same I was acting under his orders and nobody else's. 
 If you want any other authority you can go to Colonel Morris : I'm 
 busy now." And with his hands in his pockets, and a jerk of the 
 head to his companion, Welsh whirled about and led the way down the 
 road toward the store, Abrams slowly following in his wake, but look- 
 ing back as though curious to see the sequel. The first sergeant stood 
 an instant flushing and with wrathful eyes, but raised his hand in 
 respectful salute as the young troop-commander came quietly along. 
 Miss Marshall leaning on his arm. 
 
 "You warned him for guard, sergeant?" said Hearn, answering 
 Wren's salute. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; and he says Colonel Lawler excused him from parade." 
 
 " I reported the absence to Colonel Morris, and he tells me that 
 there may have been some such understanding, sergeant. At all events, 
 as Colonel Lawler has gone, he would give Welsh the benefit of the 
 doubt : so we have nothing further to do with that matter." 
 
 Wren ground his teeth as he briskly strode back to his quarters. 
 
 " What does the loot'nant say ?" demanded Duffy, as he with half 
 a dozen of his comrades clustered about the office, eagerly watching the 
 sergeant's face and his clinching hands, as he returned. 
 
 " Nothing. Don't ask questions now, you men. The lieutenant 
 can't do anything to him ; the colonel won't let him." 
 
 " The colonel won't, is it ?" said Duffy, with a wrathful grin. " Be 
 jabers, if I were colonel I'd command my rigiment, and no damned 
 newspaper man would scare me out of it. It's the Palladium that 
 commands Fort Ryan to-nigiit, and that blackguard Welsh is post 
 adjutant, — more shame to us all !" 
 
 " Silence, there, Duffy ! No more of that talk !" ordered Wren, as 
 he banged to the door of his own little den, and the knot of troopers 
 scattered away. " AH the same," muttered he to his faithful second. 
 Sergeant Ross, " Duffy only tells the truth, and damn me if I ever 
 thought the day would come when my old chief would knuckle down 
 like that." 
 
 And if in garrison circles that night it was predicted that something 
 would be the outcome of the detail of Welsh for guard-duty, no one 
 was destined to disappointment. He appeared at the appointed time, 
 and was curiously scanned by the other members of the troop, as, car- 
 bine in hand, he came slowly and indifferently down the stairway just 
 as the trumpets began to sound the assembly of the details. Unluckily 
 for everybody who hoped to see Welsh brought up with a round turn 
 by the snappy young adjutant, a drizzling rain had set in, and undress 
 guard-mounting in overcoats was the result. Welsh's forage-cap and 
 accoutrements might pass muster in a shower, but his full-dress rig 
 every man knew to be wofully ont of shape, and such was the fellow's 
 unpopularity among his comrades by this time that audible regrets were 
 expressed by the men that the weather had " gone back on them." 
 
 " Step out, there !" shouted Wren sharply to the dawdling soldier, 
 as he gave the command to fall in. 
 
 " Get a move on you, Misther Welsh," laughed Duffy from the 
 upper gallery. " Or don't they ever shtep out in the excellent family 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 795 
 
 down East? Sure, isn't he a fine-looking, intelligent young man of 
 twenty-five ?" 
 
 " Twenty-five ? 'Faith, it's thirty-six in months he'd get, if I was 
 commanding," mattered Kerrigan. " How are your patriotic motives 
 this morning. Mister American-Blood-with-the-Asshumed-Name?" 
 
 " Sure his name is Dennis," laughed Duffy again. " Quit your 
 sneering, Kerrigan. The young soldier's eyes are blazing with pent- 
 up feelings again, don't you see?" And indeed a most malignant 
 scowl was that which Welsh launched aloft at his persecutors, whose 
 fun was cut short by the stern voice of Sergeant Ross, ordering silence. 
 And in another moment the detail of C troop was dancing away in- 
 double time, with a parting adjuration from Duffy not to go too fast: 
 "it's too aisy to set the blood boiling in Welsh's veins, anyhow." 
 
 It was in the ugliest possible mood that Welsh tossed up his carbine 
 for the inspection of the officer of the guard. He had expected to pose 
 as a hero and martyr. But, whatever might be the mistaken sentiments 
 aroused in the East by the efforts of a paper that had exhausted local 
 well-springs of scandal and sensation, here among those who knew the 
 facts, and, above all, knew him, he had gained only ridicule and con- 
 tempt. In all the garrison, now that Goss was gone, there was not a 
 soldier who had ever stood his friend. In his own troop especially, 
 where the rank and file were devoted to their young lieutenant, there 
 was wrath and indignation at his expense, and well he knew that noth- 
 ing but discipline saved him from a ducking in the river or a hearty 
 kicking down the barrack stairs. Still, with Abrams to stand by him 
 and the Palladium to champion his cause, he felt secure against fate; 
 only he had thought to be looked upon as liberator and leader among 
 the men, and they were all laughing at him. This was bitter indeed. 
 He almost hoped that the adjutant would order him back, replaced by 
 the supernumerary, for the rust he knew to be about the breech-block 
 of his carbine, and which the officer of the guard would be sure to dis- 
 cover. But the young lieutenant contented himself with pointing to it 
 with white-gloved finger and passing on, probably thinking it best to get 
 him on duty at any price. 
 
 All day long on guard the men had taken frequent occasion to 
 declaim quotations from the Palladium, until by evening stables they 
 had rung the changes on Welsh's excellent family connections, his 
 American blood, his patriotic motives in enlisting, his ardor for the 
 flag, and his fidelity to his oath, until he was ready to wish to heaven 
 the Palladium had singled out anybody else to be the martyr for its 
 preconcerted exposition of official tyi'anny in the army, and heartily 
 sick of the part he had been induced to play. 
 
 But where, meantime, was Abrams? The day wore by, and not 
 once had he come to the garrison, and Welsh, sulkily plodding up and 
 down his muddy post near the stables, and knowing well that every 
 time the men looked at him or nudged each other in the ribs they were 
 guying him, had earnest desire to see his champion, and to prevent the 
 publication of other letters they had projected, since the only effect, 
 locally, of the assault upon the good name of his young officer was to 
 bring down the indignation of the enlisted men upon himself. It only 
 
796 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 made him rage the more spitefully against Hearn, and he longed for 
 an opportunity to vent his spleen. 
 
 When the devil is working in the human breast, opportunity is 
 seldom lacking. The evening gun had thundered, the last notes of 
 "retreat" had died away, and the sun, that had been obscured all 
 morning, went down in a golden radiance, leaving a sheen of beautiful 
 color lingering along the crest of the opposite bluffs and reflected in 
 myriad millions of rain-drops still clinging to the clumps of buffalo- 
 grass. Tempted by the loveliness of the evening, Mrs. Lane had 
 ordered out her carriage, and the moment the report had been made 
 after retreat roll-call and Mr. Hearn was returning sadly to his own 
 quarters. Lane headed him off: 
 
 " No. I'm going to take you away from Wallace and Martin to- 
 night, and I don't mean to let old Kenyon get his hands on you again. 
 Mrs. Lane and Miss Marshall want you to drive with us an hour or so ; 
 then we'll come back and have a quiet little bite just among ourselves." 
 And Hearn pressed the captain's hand and silently thanked him. 
 
 Half a dozen of the guard were seated about the rough stone porch 
 of the gloomy old guard-house as the carriage came rolling by, and at 
 sight of the occupants they quickly laid aside their pipes and respect- 
 fully arose and raised their hands in salute. The sentry on No. 1, 
 facing sharply to the front, brought his rifle to the carry with a snap 
 that made the bayonet ring. The one man who remained seated and 
 staring sulkily at the carriage wore the cavalry uniform : it was 
 Welsh. 
 
 Both officers noticed the fact as they touched their caps in acknowl- 
 edgment of the courtesy of the infantrymen, and exchanged significant 
 glances. The ladies, too, were quick to note what had happened, and 
 they, too, looked at each, other and then somewhat anxiously at Hearn. 
 But the carriage whirled along. The instant it had passed, Corporal 
 Stein turned on Welsh. So did others of the guard. 
 
 " What do you mean by sitting there like that?" was the demand. 
 
 " I know my business," was the surly reply. " Just you 'tend to 
 yonrs. You'd better study Tactics and Regulations before you try to 
 learn me anything." 
 
 "Oh, do let the high-spirited scion of our finest families alone, cor- 
 poral. Can't you see it's turning his stomach to be civil to anybody ?" 
 protested a tall infantryman. 
 
 "Ah, let up, now, on Mr, Welsh, n6 Mulligan — that's what they 
 called ye in the Twenty-Third, — wasn't it Mulligan ? Or was it Sulli- 
 van ? Sure I know the family, and it's a foine one," protested Private 
 Kelly, his blue eyes twinkling with fun. 
 
 Welsh sprang furiously to his feet, clinching his fist and making 
 straight for the laughing little " dough-boy." That young Celt, 
 though a head shorter than his dark antagonist, in no wise discon- 
 certed, stood squarely facing him, and awaited the attack with a grin 
 of genuine delight on his freckled face. Stein sprang forward, however, 
 and interposed. 
 
 " No fighting here," he ordered. " Wait till you're off" guard in 
 the morning, and settle it then." 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 797 
 
 " Don't thwart the gentleman, corporal. Here comes his friend 
 the police reporter/' laughed the group of guardsmen. But the un- 
 usual chaff had summoned the officer of the guard to the spot, and at 
 sight of the lieutenant every Irishman in the party assumed an instan- 
 taneous expression of preternatural innocence. Mr. Abrams, too, had 
 reined up in front of the trader's store, a few yards away, and, noting 
 the little loiot of soldiers peering across the road, divined at once that 
 something was going on, and so, with the instinct of his profession, 
 hastened to the scene in time to catch a part of the colloquy that ensued. 
 
 " The corporal tells me the trouble grew out of your refusing to 
 rise and salute when Captain Lane passed," said the officer of the 
 guard, addressing the stalwart trooper. 
 
 Welsh glanced furtively over his shoulder until sure the Palladium 
 man was in range of his voice, and then loudly replied, — 
 
 " I'm a member of the guard, sir, and the Regulations forbid guards 
 paying compliments of any kind after ' retreat,' and I can show you 
 the paragraph." 
 
 " You know perfectly well, Welsh, that that applies to the guard 
 collectively when under arms, and not to individual members. I want 
 no hair-splitting here. See to it that you pay proper courtesy to every 
 officer while you're under my command." And the lieutenant, a young 
 infantryman, with decidedly resolute face, looked squarely into the 
 glowering black eyes of the trooper, and then, turning quietly toward 
 his little office, his eye lighted on the Palladium man. For an in- 
 stant it looked as though he had something to say to him too; but, 
 struck by a sudden thought, he passed in without another word, and 
 presently the sergeant of the guard appeared in the door-way. There 
 was evident purpose in his coming. 
 
 Half an hour later Welsh was standing some twenty yards away, 
 engaged in low-toned eager chat with his civilian friend. The faces of 
 both men were clouded, and every little while the gypsy-looking sol- 
 dier shot an angry glance toward the guard-house door. Presently 
 they moved across the road and headed for the open bar at the trader's, 
 wherein the lamps were just beginning to gleam. Before they reached 
 its open portals. Corporal Stein was at their heels and his stern voice 
 ordered Welsh to halt : 
 
 " Go back to the guard-house, Welsh : it's against orders for a 
 member of the guard to leave it, and you know it as well as I do." 
 
 " My relief don't go on post for two hours yet, and this gentleman 
 has business with me : you'd better not interfere with him." 
 
 "The gentleman can see you over there. You can't see him here." 
 
 Already the sergeant was striding across the road ; the lieutenant 
 appeared at the door ; a dozen members of the guard were eagerly 
 watching the scene. Welsh half turned. Mr. Abrams bent and mut- 
 tered a few words in his ear, but the soldier, after one glance around 
 him, shook his head. Slowly and reluctantly he turned. 
 
 " I'll get even with you for this, Stein," he hissed. And then, with 
 shrugging shoulders, the two objects of general interest — the civilian 
 and the enlisted man — slouched back across the road, the eyes of all 
 upon them. 
 
798 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 It was at this instant that the rapid wliirr of wheels and the click 
 of iron-shod hoofs were heard upon the drive, and briskly the Lane 
 carriage came around the turn. Lieutenant Lewis stepped out from 
 the door-way. Again the sentry faced the road and carried arms ; 
 again the soldiers of the guard arose, and those about the trader's door, 
 also, faced the road-way ; again the white-gloved hands were raised in 
 soldierly salute, and one man only turned his back and slouched away. 
 Every soldier within range saw that Welsh was determined to disobey 
 the orders he had just received. In six giant leaps the tall sergeant 
 had reached his side. 
 
 " Halt, Welsh, and face about," he thundered, and then, as the man 
 still strove to edge away under the wing of his civilian associate, laid 
 a brawny hand upon the hulking shoulder and spun him about as he 
 would a top. 
 
 "Heels together, now. Look square at Captain Lane. Now, 
 then, damn you, left hand, salute." 
 
 " Not badly done, sergeant," said Lieutenant Lewis, a moment 
 after, as with kindling eyes he reached the spot just as the carriage had 
 flashed by. — " Finish what you have to say to your friend in fifteen 
 minutes, Welsh, and then report to me at the guard-room." — " Not 
 badly done," he repeated, as he turned away with the tall infantryman 
 by his side; "only you shouldn't have said 'damn' in the presence 
 of ladies, or," with a grim smile under his moustache, "or — of the 
 press." 
 
 " The ladies couldn't hear, sir, and I meant that the press should. 
 I know that according to * Pinafore' and the Palladium 1 should have 
 said, ' if you please.' But mules and blackguards pay no attention to 
 politeness. I've been thirty years a soldier, sir, and I know what 
 fetches them." 
 
 XII. 
 
 There were sore hearts at Ryan in the week that followed. As had 
 long been anticipated, orders came for the summer practice march to 
 the Indian Territory, and the Eleventh — band and all — had jogged 
 away, leaving Major Kenyon to command the post, with his little bat- 
 talion of infantry to guard it. The orders were received two days after 
 Welsh's enlivening tour of guard-duty. The command was to march 
 in forty-eight hours, equipped for field-service, and Lieutenant Hearn, 
 with the other troop-commanders, was occupied every instant in getting 
 his horses and men in thorough shape. Kenyon and Lane, after con- 
 sultation among some of his friends, had induced the young fellow to 
 promise not to open one of the marked copies of the newspapers which 
 now began to crowd in with every mail, but to leave them all to be 
 considered by the little council of three in whose hands he had been 
 persuaded to rest his case. He had written a full denial of the Palla- 
 dium's scandalous statements with regard to his financial entanglements, 
 and a full description, as has already been told, of the original trouble 
 at the trader's store with Private Welsh. These had both been duly 
 handed to Colonel Morris in his office. No one had heard from 
 Lawler. No one knew just exactly what disposition the colonel had 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 799 
 
 made of these papers. Mr. Abrams, too, had disappeared the day after 
 Welsh's tour of guard-duty. ; but the whole garrison now was flooded 
 with newspapers by the hundred. It would seem as if the guild of 
 the Western press had resolved on a sudden and simultaneous assault 
 on the army in general and as if Fort Ryan was the vortex of the 
 storm. Sensational despatches were published from various quarters. 
 Other journals, envious of the Palladium's exploit, unearthed other 
 victims, long since out of the army for general worthlessness, and with 
 flaming head-lines displayed to a sympathizing public the tale of official 
 abuse and tyranny wi)ich had compelled these several gallant and 
 patriotic sons of America to quit the service they were so well fitted to 
 adorn. Dozens of tramps and tatterdemalions reaped sudden and un- 
 expected harvest of eleemosynary quarters and lunches from gaping 
 audiences in the beer-saloons by detailing individual experiences of 
 their own when serving under Lieutenant this or that in the Eleventh 
 Horse or the Thirty-Third Foot. Dozens of Munchausens wore the 
 reporters' pencils down to the wood with details of their harrowing 
 sufferings. Then the editorials began, and gravely lectured the people 
 on the wrongs of the whole system, — the nnrepublican character of an 
 army anyhow, the repugnance in the American mind to all idea of dis- 
 cipline. Meantime, of course, the Palladium was firiug hot shot by the 
 ton, and new so-called scandals at Ryan, fresh outrages on the helpless 
 and down-trodden soldiery, were the subjects of Mr. Abrams's lurid 
 delineations, until it was to be wondered at that in their wrath the 
 offended public did not wipe the foul blot on their civilization from 
 the face of the earth. 
 
 It was on Friday evening that, in answer to certain despatches he 
 had been firing at department head-quarters. Colonel Morris received a 
 message that at least put him out of uncertainty. That day the Pal- 
 ladium had outdone itself, and no one not conversant with the illimit- 
 able faculties of the paid correspondent can begin to imagine the heroic 
 size attained in its columns by the incident briefly sketched in the last 
 chapter : " Continued Persecution of Trooper Welsh ! Heaped-up 
 Humiliations on his Head ! Forced to Show Slavish Homage to his 
 Insulter ! Helpless Wrath of Comrades !" etc. The details of the in- 
 cident as told by the special correspondent lost nothing of sensational- 
 ism ; and Lieutenant Lewis came in now for his share of obloquy. 
 Poor Welsh was represented as having been marched out and with 
 brutal curses compelled to salute Lieutenant Hearn, despite the fact 
 that he as member of the guard was by law and Regulations exempted 
 from the requirement. " In vain did the young soldier plead that 
 paragraph 391 of the Regulations fully excused him. His relentless 
 persecutors defied the laws of Congress and compelled him to ' stand 
 and deliver' for the purpose of adding to the indignities already heaped 
 upon him. Could the readers of the Palladium have heard the low, 
 deep mutterings of the men in the garrison this night, no mutiny on 
 their part need have surprised them." The editor, too, backed up 
 his correspondent in a three-quarter-column assault on the ridiculous 
 etiquette of the army. " It may be," he said, " all well enough in the 
 conscripted camps of Europe, where whole nations are forced to service 
 
800 AN ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 under arms, to exact of the rank and file this slavish exhibition to 
 superiors ; but it is an insult to the high intelligence of the soldiers of 
 free America, that because a beardless boy happens to have a strap 
 upon his shoulder, thousands of scarred veterans should be compelled 
 to do him homage. The whole idea of the salute is repugnant to the 
 republican mind, and should be abolished ; and for that matter, as we 
 have no further use for an army, why stop at the salute?" 
 
 No doubt the ninety-and-nine of the Palladium's readers thought 
 their editor was sound, and were as opposed to the idea of that courtesy 
 which is officially declared to be " indispensable among military men," 
 as to any exhibition thereof in the streets of their own peaceful and 
 remarkably well regulated metropolis. 
 
 But Colonel Morris was himself wofully perturbed about this time. 
 After immolating Cross and other officers by name, as Avas to be ex- 
 pected, the Palladium man had taken to poking ugly little insinuations 
 at the post commander ; and this, thought Morris, was the height of 
 ingratitude. He was in no pleasant mood when the men came march- 
 ing up from stables, and it stung him to see how cordial everybody was 
 to Hearn, who, confound it, was the cause of the whole row. The tele- 
 gram he had just received settled that matter once and for all ; yet he 
 was glad he had an adjutant on whom to devolve the coming duty. 
 
 Ever since Hearn's trouble began, Captain and Mrs. Lane had lost 
 no opportunity to make him understand that they were devotedly his 
 friends, and that if he would but come to them in his sense of utter 
 wrong the shelter of their home, the welcome of their fireside, would 
 be some compensation at least for the harsh treatment accorded to him 
 by the world at large. Thanks to the efforts of the Western news- 
 paper, a million or more of free people had learned to look upon his 
 name as the synonyme for all that was swaggering, brutal, drunken, 
 and bullying ; and it was easy to see that the young soldier was cut to 
 the heart. 
 
 But an unexpected ally had been discovered. Hearn, who had at 
 first held aloof in solitude, brooding over his troubles, began to show 
 decided readiness to come. And though at all times grateful and most 
 attentive to Mrs. Lane, that clear-sighted young matron speedily noted 
 how his handsome blue eyes would wander about in search of her 
 quietly-observant friend, and that ever since the night of her tilt with 
 Lawler Miss Marshall's interest in the case had been quadrupled. 
 Now, this was not exactly what Mrs. Lane had planned. She wanted 
 Georgia to marry in the army, l)ut she also wanted, and saw nothing 
 in the least unreasonable in so wanting, to select that spirited young 
 woman's husband for her. She did not for a moment think that there 
 was any danger of Georgia's falling in love with Hearn. He was sev- 
 eral years her senior, to be sure; he was handsome, distinguished as a 
 soldier, a man of unimpeachable character, as modern men go ; but, 
 she argued, " he is so much younger for his years than Georgia for 
 hers." She had had to think so much for herself, and now the man 
 she should marry was — well, not crabbed old Major Kenyon, of course ; 
 he was a widower, — sour and yet susceptible. It was only too plain 
 that lie loved to come to the house and talk with Miss Marshall by the 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. gQl 
 
 hour, especially when the cavalrymen were all down at stables. Neither 
 did she want the doctor, whom Jeannette McCrea could have if she 
 would only make up her mind to drop Jim Wallace, who was now so 
 devoted that the yearning medical man had no chance whatever. No ; 
 she didn't see, after all, just the right man for Georgia : still, she had 
 always thought of some one so much older, utterly ignoring the fact 
 that when left to themselves most women have very different views of 
 their own. Not a word had she uttered to Georgia, of course, but to 
 her loving and indulgent spouse she had gone so far as to say, — 
 
 " It is lovely to see how he is beginning to find comfort in her 
 
 society ; but, Fred " And Madame breaks off, irresolute yet 
 
 suggestive. 
 
 " But, Mabel " responds her gray-eyed lord, with indefiniteness 
 
 equal to her own. 
 
 " Just suppose " And then another pause on her part. 
 
 "Just suppose what, Mrs. Lane? — that it should snow before 
 September ?" 
 
 " Now, Fred, you know ; or else you haven't any eyes for " 
 
 " I haven't — except for one," says Lane, parrying the situation with 
 the very words he knows will most delight her. 
 
 " You absurd boy !" But she comes fluttering across the room to 
 reward him as he deserves. " What I mean is, Georgia might get to 
 think of him." 
 
 " Well, everybody is thinking of him just now, and in the light of 
 such a catastrophe I suppose I'd have to make him think of her." 
 
 "He does now; and if he doesn't — you can't make people fall in 
 love, can you ?" 
 
 " Agreed, Mrs. Wisehead. Neither can you prevent it, can you ? 
 I know I couldn't stop a fellow from falling in love with you some 
 few years ago, hard as I tried. The more I tried to put you away, the 
 more you kept coming into that fellow's empty head." (Here Captain 
 Lane is rewarded again, and as soon as able to speak resumes.) "So 
 why worry now ?" 
 
 " Well, I'm not worrying, exactly, only " 
 
 " Only what ? Every man can't have a wife like mine. Still, 
 wouldn't she make rather a good one ?" 
 
 "Good? Goodness! But the question is to find the right man. 
 However, I know what you mean, Fred, — Don't interfere; so I won't. 
 And there they are chatting in the parlor yet, and it's time for him to 
 
 get ready for parade Why, here's Mr. Mason !" And Mrs. Lane, 
 
 who had slipped into the dining-room, caught sight of the adjutant at 
 the front door. 
 
 " What is it, Mason ?" asked Lane, a sudden trouble in his eyes, as 
 he hurried through the hall. 
 
 "The colonel wishes Mr. Wharton to assume command of C 
 troop temporarily. I'm ordered to place Hearn in arrest," was the 
 answer, in tones that trembled a little despite Mason's efforts at impas- 
 sibility. 
 
 Lane's hand was extended, as though to close the parlor door, which 
 stood ajar, but he was too late. The clink of the scabbard without had 
 YoL. XLVI.— 52 
 
802 A^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 already been heard, and almost at the instant Hearn stepped forth into 
 the hall. 
 
 " You won't have far to look, old fellow. Here I am." 
 
 " My heaven, Hearn ! I thouglit to find you over home, or I would 
 never have come here on such an errand." 
 
 " Never mind ; I am with you. Good-by, captain ; say good- 
 afternoon to — to the ladies for me." 
 
 " By Jove ! I'm going over with you," said Lane, snatching a 
 forage-cap and springing down the steps. He did not want to en- 
 counter the questioning eyes within. 
 
 But Mabel and Georgia Marshall met at the parlor door. 
 
 "Have you heard — do you know?" was the faltering question of 
 the former. 
 
 "Hear! Know! Who could help hearing ? Is it not an outrage?" 
 
 XIII. 
 
 If Frank Hearn were a wronged and unhappy man before the 
 regiment marched away, his troubles seemed only intensified now. 
 Deprived of the command of his troop and confined to his quarters in 
 close arrest, he was confronted by a new sorrow, one least expected, yet 
 hardest of all to bear. 
 
 The sharp assaults of the Palladium to a certain extent had been 
 discontinued. One great and influential journal of the Northwest had 
 taken the pains to investigate the situation independently, and was now 
 giving its readers the benefit of the facts in the case of the much-heralded 
 martyr Welsh. And when that eminent patriot was thus shown up in 
 his true colors the other papers had to moderate their ecstasies on his 
 account. Very few managing editors, indeed, had not already been 
 shrewd enough to see what he must inevitably turn out to be. But the 
 originators had hoped to eifect their onslaught on the army before 
 the actual character of their witnesses was exposed. The moment the 
 Pioneer came to the rescue it M'as time for them to change the line of 
 attack, for no one of their number dared lock horns on a question of 
 fact with a journal so fearless and respected. Still, as a lie can never 
 overtake the truth, and as in this case the lie had a week's start, these 
 exponents of the ethics of American journalism had reason to feel mod- 
 erately well satisfied. It would be prudent, however, to let the matter 
 " simmer" now ; and there were other reasons, too : so Mr. Abrams 
 was recalled from his mission to Central City, and set to work at the 
 foundations of the character of a gentleman just spoken of in connec- 
 tion with the coming municipal elections. He had hitherto borne an 
 unimpeachable name in the community, but his friends had committed 
 the grievous offence of speaking of him for mayor before the Palladium 
 had been consulted, and it therefore became the Palladium's duty to 
 pull his props from under him. 
 
 Contenting himself tor the time-being with the announcement that 
 the military authorities at division and army head-quarters had ex- 
 pressed their deep sense of obligation to the Palladium for having 
 brought to light the scandalous condition of affairs at Fort Ryan, and 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 803 
 
 that it had received their assurances that as the result of its efforts 
 Lieutenant Hearn would be brought to trial by court-martial, this 
 public-spirited journal wisely turned its attention elsewhere. Other 
 papers, of course, kept up the hue and cry, but, the Pioneer's columns 
 having warned them that their martyr was, after all, only a scamp, and 
 their victim a young officer with a capital military record whom the 
 court might, after all, acquit, it became necessary to prepare the public 
 mind for such a bouleversement by pitching into military courts in gen- 
 eral as "Star Chamber" affairs, organized only to convict privates and 
 whitewash officers ; one journal going so far as to announce that a 
 " court-martial for Lieutenant Hearn meant simply that a body of men, 
 each and every one of whom was in the daily habit of violating every 
 rule of decency and humanity, was to sit in judgment on his case and 
 declare him innocent." 
 
 All this, of course, came duly marked and with pencil comment to 
 Mr. Hearn from scores of anonymous senders, as he sat dazed and dis- 
 heartened in his cheerless room ; but this was not all. Nearly two 
 weeks had elapsed now since the first assault, and the home letters, for 
 which he had looked with mingled fear and longing, had begun to 
 come. The first he opened was from his mother. She had received 
 the marked copies of the Palladium of the first three or four days, sent 
 no one knew by whom, and they were quickly followed by others. 
 
 What was it Thackeray wrote ? — " There are stories to a man's dis- 
 advantage that the women who are fondest of him are always the most 
 eager to believe." 
 
 A devoted woman and mother was Mrs. Hearn, but her sole knowl- 
 edge of army life was derived from what she had seen around their 
 nearly ruined home in a Southern city about the close of the war. 
 Frank's boyhood was spent in straitened circumstances, but little by 
 little his father's toil and pluck had restored their fallen fortunes, and, 
 a stanch soldier himself, he could not wonder that the young fellow's 
 heart should be wrapped up in the hope of a commission. Poor Mrs. 
 Hearn ! she had looked for something far different, and even her pride 
 at Frank's winning a cadetship at West Point by competitive exami- 
 nation did not reconcile her to his entering upon a profession which 
 would associate him with such characters as she had seen about the time 
 the great army was being disbanded and hundreds of officers seemed 
 to have nothing to do but carouse. By the time he was graduated, his 
 father's practice had become so well established as to warrant the 
 squire-colonel's yielding to his wife's pleadings. Secretly he rather 
 wanted the boy to go on in his career, and was prouder of the chevrons 
 the handsome young cadet captain had worn than of the old tarnished 
 sleeve-knots that he had put away so reverently the day after Appo- 
 mattox, where Lee's kindly hand had rested for a moment on his arm 
 when he went to bid his beloved chief adieu. Yielding to her en- 
 treaties, he offered Frank good inducements to drop the army and come 
 home and study law, but the youngster said his heart was bound up in 
 the cavalry. The mother had let him go with prayers and tears. The 
 letters from Ryan were buoyant, and made no mention of care or 
 trouble of any kind. How could he ask his father's help when he had 
 
804 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 refused his offer? The colonel rejoiced at the youngster's indepen- 
 dence and decision, although he said nothing to his wife. Then came 
 Frank's orders for Arizona, and Mrs. Hearn sobbed herself to sleep. 
 Again the father said, " Resign if you like, and I'll start you here," 
 but in the solitude of his library he kissed the boy's letter and blessed 
 him in his heart of hearts for replying, " I wouldn't be my father's son 
 were I to resign now, with the prospect of sharp fighting ahead." 
 Heaven ! with what trembling hands and tear-dimmed eyes he read 
 the glowing words of old Captain Rawlins's despatch telling how 
 brilliant and daring the boy had been in the first fierce battle with the 
 Apaches ! He draped the stars and stripes over Frank's picture in 
 the parlor, and bade the neighbors in to drink to the New South and 
 the old flag, and even Mrs. Hearn, ever pessimistic and filled with 
 secret dread of vague temptations that she knew not of, fearing them 
 more than peril or ambuscade, took heart and strove to rejoice that 
 Frank was such a soldier. How shocked and sorrow-stricken they were 
 when but a short time after came the tidings of the old captain's 
 lamented death ! How they studied all Frank's letters, and learned to 
 know the regimental officers through his eyes, and longed to meet that 
 capital adjutant. Lane, when he came to Cincinnati recruiting! Col- 
 onel Hearn even took a few days off and the north-bound " flyer" on 
 the Queen & Crescent to go thither and make the acquaintance of his 
 boy's friend, and sat for hours with Lane at the club, listening to his 
 praise of Frank. Then came the eastward move again, and a brief 
 leave, and the mother's heart yearned over her stalwart son, wondering 
 at the bronze and tan of his once fair skin and rejoicing in the strength 
 of his handsome face. Mother-like, she sought long talks with him 
 and strove to catechise him as to what they did when not actually in 
 the field. Was there not a great deal of dissipation ? Did they not 
 play cards ? Were there not too many temptations to drink wine ? 
 What opportunity had they for attending divine service? etc. So far 
 as he himself was concerned, he answered frankly, but as to his com- 
 rades, all these questions he had laughingly parried. He had now been 
 six years an officer, and had never once asked his father for money, 
 yet she nursed her theory that under it all there was something hidden. 
 From childhood she had been taught that army life meant frivolity 
 and dissipation, if not vice ; and now at last, when her husband was 
 miles away from home, looking after investments he had made in 
 Florida, came this startling and terrible confirmation of her fears. In 
 glaring head-lines, in crushing, damning terms, in half a score of 
 prominent Northern papers she read of her son as a drunken bully, a 
 gambler, an abusive tyrant to the helpless men committed to his charge, 
 and, utterly overwhelmed, the poor soul had thrown herself upon her 
 knees to implore of Heaven the strength to bear the dreaded blow, and 
 wisdom to guide her aright in the effort to reclaim her wayward boy. 
 The gray-haired pastor, for whom she had sent, came and mingled his 
 tears and prayers with hers, and then they had between them written 
 the letter that was now before him : 
 
 " It is but the confirmation of a long-haunting fear. I have all along 
 felt that you were holding back something from me, my son ; and God 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 805 
 
 only knows how I have prayed that this cup might be spared me and 
 this sin averted from you. I dreaded the temptation of army life for one 
 of your impulsive temperament. I strove, I rebelled, against the idea 
 of your being subjected to such companionship. I hoped against hope 
 that it might not be as I feared ; but, alas ! my intuition was right, 
 after all. Do not think I am angry, my boy. Do not let this drive 
 you from us. As soon as it is over, come home, and all that a mother's 
 love can do shall be done to spare you further bitterness. My first im- 
 pulse was to wire your uncle James at Washington to ask if something 
 could not be done to avert the court-martial ; but good old Dr. Wayne, 
 whose son was in the army before the war, tells me that it is hopeless, 
 and that the best that can be done is to get your resignation accepted, 
 so that, though you have to quit the service, as he says, it may not be 
 by the disgrace of a sentence. I have, therefore, wired James to go at 
 once to the Secretary, and Dr. Wayne has also invoked the aid of some 
 influential friends. Wire me instantly on receipt of this, that I may 
 know that you are bearing up manfully. It will soon be over. May 
 God sustain you, my son, is the prayer of your devoted and distracted 
 
 " Mother. 
 
 " P.S. — Frank, my worst anxiety is on your poor father's account. 
 I dread to think of the effect this news will have upon him. He never 
 appreciated the danger as I did." 
 
 And this was the letter poor Hearn was almost raging over when 
 the door opened, after a single prefatory bang, and in came the major : 
 
 " Hello, lad ! how are you to-day ? The regulations M'hich forbid 
 your visiting the commanding officer don't prevent his coming in to see 
 you, I suppose. Any more newspaper attacks? You couldn't have 
 got much worse if you had been running for President of these United 
 States. I see that three papers of my beloved home are now calling 
 me ugly names because my brother published a letter in which I had 
 the temerity to say to him that Welsh was a sneak and Abrams a slouch 
 and you a soldier ; but I never expect anything better. Why, Hearn, 
 my boy, forgive me. Something's wrong, and here I'm rattling away 
 and never seeing it." 
 
 " Read that," said Hearn ; and the major read, with wonderment 
 and concern deepening in his grizzled face, then turned away to the 
 window with a long whistle. 
 
 " Well, lad, that is something even I hadn't thought of. By gad, 
 I'm going to write a few lines to your good mother on my own hook : 
 she reminds me of mine. No ; no shutting yourself up in your bed- 
 room now. Come out here on the piazza, where there's sunshine, and 
 where there will be roses presently. Mrs. Lane and Miss Marshall have 
 gone over to the hospital with some jellies for Brent, and it's time for 
 them to return. Come out, I say, or, as commanding officer of the post, 
 I'll send a file of the guard to haul you out. You've lost three shades 
 of tan in four days, and I'm not going to let you mope in here, if I 
 have to annul your colonel's order of close arrest and give you extended 
 limits. Come out." 
 
 There was no resisting the major; there was no resisting the deeper 
 
806 AN ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 longing in his heart. Every day since his incarceration Mrs. Lane had 
 found means to send him some friendly little note, together with dainties 
 of domestic manufacture ; every day she and Miss Marshall had ap- 
 peared at least once or twice upon the walk in front, although he could 
 not join them ; and now they were interesting themselves in Corporal 
 Brent, said the major, and the corporal was getting well enough to be 
 read to a little while and to see some of his chums for a few minutes 
 and to inquire how he had been hurt. Kenyon fairly towed his prisoner 
 out through the hall and landed him on the veranda just as the noon- 
 day drum was sounding orderly call, then rattling out " Roast Beef of 
 Old England" in hoarse accompaniment to the piping of the fife. 
 
 Half an hour later, two parasols could be distinguished above the 
 low shrubbery farther east along the row, and the ladies on Burnham's 
 veranda, where the doctor was seated in clover, now that Wallace iiad 
 ridden away, stepped forward to the hedge and accosted the bearers and 
 strove to persuade them to stay. Hearn's heart seemed to halt in pro- 
 test, then pounded gladly away again, for the delay was but momentary, 
 — phenomenally short for feminine chats ; but the mail was coming, and 
 Mrs. Lane was impatient to get her letters. Once more the parasols 
 came floating along above the hedge. One, held some six inches higher 
 than the other, was on the outside, farthest from the fence. That was 
 hers, and she it must be who would first come in sight from behind the 
 big lilac-bush in Brodie's yard. If Mrs. Brodie should happen to see 
 them and stop them ! But no ; Mrs. Brodie went across the parade to 
 the Crosses' half an hour ago, thank heaven. Hearn's eager eyes were 
 fixed upon the outer edge of that lovely lilac screen, longing for the first 
 glance of the face he had seen in his dreams night and day now for 
 nearly a week. If she were thinking of him, if he were anything to 
 her, would not she be apt to look toward this veranda the instant she 
 hove in sight around that sheltering bush ? " Yonder they come now," 
 said Kenyon, slowly lowering his boot-heels from the balcony rail. 
 " I'm going to stop them at the gate to see how Brent is." 
 
 Another instant, and once more the floating fringes of the outer 
 parasol came sailing slowly into sight beyond the lilacs, then the white 
 ferrule, a daintily-gloved hand, a white-draped shoulder, then a proudly- 
 poised, dark-haired head, thick, low-arched eyebrows and long curling 
 lashes through a flimsy web of veil that hung almost to the rosy lips, 
 close compressed ; then sudden upward sweep of lash, a quick, straight 
 glance from two deep, dark eyes, a gleam of joy, of glad recognition, 
 an instant parting of the curving lips and a flash of white, even teeth, 
 and Hearn's heart throbbed and bounded. She had seen him instantly, 
 and was glad. 
 
 Yet it was Mrs. Lane who had to do most of the talking, for 
 Georgia Marshall was strangely silent. Every now and then her eyes 
 seemed to take quick note of the pallor of his face and the lines of care 
 and trouble. Kenyon had held open the gate and quietly steered the 
 two ladies to the veranda, where Hearn was hastily placing chairs ; and 
 though the mail-orderly was approaching and Mrs. Lane knew there 
 must be letters from her captain, she could not take Georgia instantly 
 away, and so for a few moments they sat there, in their dainty summer 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. g07 
 
 gowns and with deep sympathy in their eyes, — eyes so diflferent in color, 
 yet so like in expression, they would have cheered a sorer heart than 
 Hearu's. 
 
 The orderly carrying the mail came briskly in at the gate. 
 
 " I left Mrs. Lane's letters at the house, ma'am," he said, as he 
 handed a package to Kenyon and proceeded to unload half a dozen 
 bulky newspapers on Hearn. Kenyon had opened his official letter 
 with brief " excuse me,'' and then began to chuckle : 
 
 " Hearn, my boy, they mean to do you all proper honor. Just 
 look at this detail, will you ? Four or five colonels and majors and 
 
 half a dozen captains to sit in judgment, and well, if this don't 
 
 beat all ! old Lawler himself for judge-advocate." 
 
 Hearu's face was flushing and paling by turns. 
 
 " You don't mean that Colonel Lawler himself is detailed ?" 
 
 " Certainly I do ; and what do you want to bet the Palladium 
 doesn't say that this was done in deference to its suggestion that no 
 biassed associates of the accused officer should be allowed to officiate, 
 as the people will tolerate no whitewashing of character in this most 
 flagrant case, or words to that effect ? Oh, I know those fellows ! 
 There's more conceit in one newspaper office in my beloved home than 
 in all the armies in Christendom." 
 
 The ladies had risen, Mrs. Lane's eyes saying plainly to her friend, 
 " We ought to go." 
 
 " Does the court meet here ?" asked Hearn, quietly. " Please don't 
 go, Mrs. Lane, — not j ust yet." 
 
 " Indeed we must, Mr. Hearn. I know yon need to confer with 
 the major now, and we will only be in the way." 
 
 Hearu's eyes had sought Miss Marshall's. She was standing by 
 the balcony with half-averted face, yet listening intently. 
 
 "The court meets here, and on Monday of next week. Verily, 
 Hearn, public wrath demands a prompt trial of your villany. Now, 
 with Lawler to prosecute, you'll need a friend to defend. Who is it 
 to be ?" 
 
 " I have not asked any one," said Hearn, slowly. " The charges 
 have not yet reached me. I do not know of what I am to be accused, 
 who are the witnesses, or anything about it. Whom could I ask to 
 oppose Lawler?" 
 
 Miss Marshall had slowly turned, and now looked full at Kenyon's 
 troubled face. Her slender hands were clasping ; her breath seemed 
 to come and go almost too quickly. 
 
 " There's no man here fit to advise you, Hearn, and I know of no 
 one quite a match in subterfuge for that ' Tombs Lawler,' " was the re- 
 luctant answer. 
 
 " Then I'll fight it out alone as best I can," said Hearn, at last. 
 
 The ladies were going ; Mrs, Lane was down the steps already, and 
 the major gallantly striving to raise her parasol. Hearn had clasped 
 Miss Marshall's slender hand as she turned to say adieu, and the frank 
 cordial pressure emboldened him. He would have held it firmly, but 
 as firmly, yet gently, it was withdrawn. 
 
 " Only a week yet, Mr. Hearn," she spoke, her bosom rising and 
 
808 AN ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 falling quickly. " Is there no officer you know to take up this case 
 for you ?" 
 
 " I fear not, Miss Marshall. You know I'm not even a first lieu- 
 tenant yet ; and he is a lieutenant-colonel." 
 
 She looked up one instant in his eyes, then with sudden impulsive 
 movement held forth the hand she had just withdrawn. 
 
 " Good-by/' she said, turned quickly, and was gone. 
 
 For a moment the two friends walked on in silence. 
 
 " A penny for your thoughts, Georgia." 
 
 " I wish I were a man." 
 
 " On his account, is it? Don't you know — he would far, far rather 
 have you just as you are?" 
 
 XIV. 
 
 A general court-martial was in session at Ryan, and for three days 
 had been sitting in judgment on Lieutenant Hearn. It was the first 
 occasion in many a long year on which Colonel Lawler had appeared 
 in the 7'6k of judge-advocate, that complex and contradictory position 
 wherein the so-called legal adviser of the court, having prosecuted in 
 the name of the government to the extent of his ability, proceeds to 
 demolish his own elaborately-planned attack. It is the not infrequent 
 result of such a system that the exertions of the prosecution so exhaust 
 its representatives that the defence is left to its own devices, and in the 
 case of Colonel Lawler, as has been said, he had always held that when 
 an officer was under trial the moral obligation of the government was 
 to find him guilty, if a possible thing. 
 
 No one on the court could quite understand why Lawler had been 
 detailed for this duty. It was a most unusual thing to call upon the 
 officers of the department of military justice itself to furnish the pros- 
 ecutor ; rather was it their province to remain at the office of the 
 division or department commander, and, in reviewing the records, to 
 sit in judgment on the judges. But the Palladium, true to Kenyon's 
 prophecy, was not slow in explaining the situation. It was a case in 
 which the whole people, with itself as their representative, had de- 
 manded the trial of the officer who dared maltreat the man. No ordi- 
 nary occasion was this, but one to attract wide attention throughout the 
 entire nation and be daily reported by the press. Colonel Lawler saw 
 opportunity for distinction hitherto unequalled ; he asked of his general 
 the detail as judge-advocate of the court, and the general, though 
 surprised, saw no way to refuse. 
 
 So carefully had the court been chosen that of its entire array of 
 thirteen members every man was personally a stranger to the young 
 soldier whose fate lay in their hands. Of all his regiment not another 
 officer was at the post when the court began to arrive, and the only 
 soldier — heaven save the mark ! — was Welsh, now assigned, much to 
 their disgust, to Captain Brodie's company of the infantry for rations 
 and quarters until his evidence should be given ; and Welsh was the 
 constant centre of a group of newspaper men now billeted at Central 
 City and resenting it not a little that they were not invited to put up 
 at tlie fort. 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 809 
 
 But, as matters stood, the fort was already taxed to its utmost 
 capacity : the only quarters in which there was room for the arriving 
 gentlemen were those of the absent cavalry officers. Mrs. Morris had 
 two spare rooms, and promptly invited Colonels Grace and Maitland, 
 old friends of her husband, to be her guests. Kenyon took in three of 
 the seniors. Mrs. Wharton happened to know Captain Chase, who was 
 one of the detail, and scandalized Mrs. Brodie by borrowing the Lane 
 barouche, meeting him at the depot, and driving him straight to her roof. 
 
 " Mind you," said that young matron, " every man on this court 
 shan't go to its first session without knowing something of Frank 
 Hearn's real character. I only wish I had room for more." 
 
 Mrs. Lane had no spare bedroom, but bade her regimental friends 
 who had, to fill them up with members of the court. " Georgia and I 
 will board the whole array, if you will only let us," she declared. 
 " I'll set a lunch for the court at noon, and dine the entire party 
 at seven every day they are here, if some one will only agree to take 
 Colonel Lawler." 
 
 Nobody wanted Lawler, and so he was one of the three relegated to 
 the gloomy precincts of old Kenyon's quarters and compelled to rough 
 it at bachelor mess. It was arranged that eight members of the court 
 should be quartered among the cavalry homesteads and otherwise be 
 entertained at the Lanes'. Of such are the expedients to which gar- 
 risons are subject. 
 
 It was not until Monday afternoon that the court began its session. 
 Two officers had telegraphed that they could not reach the post until 
 the arrival of the noon train ; but all that morning and most of Sunday 
 the judge-advocate had been bustling about the garrison, full of im- 
 portance and enthusiasm. Recognizing the interest felt in the case by 
 an entire neighborhood, and sedulously active in providing for the 
 needs of the press, Lawler had caused the quarters of C troop to be 
 cleared of all the iron bunks. Arm-racks and lockers were shifted 
 away ; a long table had been brought up from the mess-room under- 
 neath and set in the middle of the big room, the president's chair at 
 the head, his own at the foot, those of the members at the sides. 
 Another long table was provided for the swarm of newspaper corre- 
 spondents, and then, for the general public, the mess-rooms of the 
 cavalry had been ransacked, and benches and chairs to accommodate 
 several hundred people ranged about the room. It was Saturday night 
 when Lawler arrived and was met by Major Kenyon and escorted to 
 his quarters. 
 
 " You might tell Mr. Hearn that whatever he may desire to say to 
 me about the case I can hear to-night. You have no objection to his 
 coming to your quarters, I suppose?" 
 
 " Lord, no ! I like it. So does he, generally ; but if you want to 
 see Hearn you'll have to go yourself." 
 
 " Why ?" said Lawler, reddening. " He ought to know that it is 
 to his interest to seek the advice and assistance of the judge-advocate. 
 Of course he knows that I must do my full duty in prosecuting the 
 case ; but, outside of that, any service I can render him he has a right 
 to call for." 
 
310 AN ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 " Oh, he understands ; but, as he was given no opportunity to speak 
 for himself when you were investigating the case, I fancy he will ask 
 none now, until he comes before the court. Then you probably will 
 hear from him." 
 
 " It might be very much better if he were to frankly consult the 
 judge-advocate," said Lawler, gazing keenly at Kenyon from under his 
 shaggy brows. 
 
 "Very much better for the prosecution. But — how better for 
 him?" 
 
 " Well, those young men never gain anything by fighting a case. 
 He had much better throw himself on the clemency of the court. But 
 I suppose some one has undertaken to defend him ?" Another shrewd 
 glance. 
 
 " Some one ! yes, I've heard that several some-ones offered their 
 services by first mail the moment it was known you were to be prose- 
 cutor. What the devil did you take it for, anyway ?" 
 
 " You seem to forget, Major Kenyon, that it was a matter of very 
 grave importance to the army as well as to the public," said the colonel, 
 with much dignity. " Officers who are rash enough to seek to defend 
 him can have little conception of the feeling aroused throughout the 
 entire North." 
 
 " True," said Kenyon, with sarcastic emphasis. " It's one of the 
 singular traits of some fellows in the army that, instead of meekly 
 knuckling under to what they know to be an outrageous misrepresenta- 
 tion of themselves and their profession, they should have the consum- 
 mate effrontery to resent even newspaper attacks. Now, you can hardly 
 conceive it possible, Colonel Lawler, but, do you know, there are actu- 
 ally officers who think Hearn a thousand times more sinned against 
 than sinning? And, that being their conviction, they are so blind to 
 their own interest as to be willing to fight for it. It is incomprehensible 
 — to some people ; but it's a fact." 
 
 And — will it be believed ? — when Colonel Lawler sent his orderly 
 to say that he would receive Hearn at Major Kenyon's quarters in case 
 he desired to see him, the orderly came back with the lieutenant's 
 compliments and the singular response that the lieutenant knew of no 
 reason whatever why he should want to see the colonel at any time. 
 
 Lawler had conceived it his duty then to accost Mr. Hearn on the 
 piazza of his quarters, and blandly to inform him that he was entitled, 
 if he saw fit, to call in the services of some suitable friend as amicus 
 curice. Brodie and Cross were both sitting there at the moment, and 
 glanced at each other with a grin, as Hearn coolly looked the judge- 
 advocate straight in the eye and remarked that he was aware of the 
 fact. 
 
 " I thought you might not know it, and I desired to say that I 
 should interpose no objection," said Lawler. 
 
 " I am not aware, Colonel Lawler, that it is the judge-advocate 
 who either denies or consents. It is the court, as I understand it, that 
 settles the question." And Lawler went away with tingling ears. 
 Hearn's temper was being sorely tried. No less than four times that 
 Sunday morning had he been called upon by gentlemen representing 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 811 
 
 themselves as correspondents for some paper or other, each one of wliora 
 desired to interview him as to the line of defence he proposed adopting, 
 and really seemed astonished that he should decline to give any infor- 
 mation on the subject. And Hearn's replies to Lawler had been buzzed 
 around the garrison with added emphasis at every repetition. 
 
 And yet, when Monday afternoon came, and, in the presence of a 
 crowded array of civilians from all over the neighborhood, Colonel 
 Lawler impressively inquired the name of the gentleman whom the 
 accused desired to introduce as counsel, and even the fans ceased to 
 flutter, and all ears were intent upon the reply, and a dozen pencils 
 were poised over the pads on the reporters' table, Mr. Hearn astonished 
 almost all hearers by placidly, even smilingly, responding, — 
 
 " Nobody." 
 
 " Why, I understood from gentlemen here at the post that you 
 intended to introduce counsel," said Lawler, mugh nettled. 
 
 " With all deference to the court," said Hearn, " the understanding 
 of the judge-advocate is at fault." 
 
 There was instant titter, and a ripple of applause. The corre- 
 spondents glanced quickly at one another and then in surprise at Hearn. 
 For a man who refused to talk at their bidding, he was displaying 
 unlooked-for ability now. Lawler reddened to the roots of his hair 
 and glanced angrily around. 
 
 " The audience must keep order," he said. " You are at liberty 
 to witness these proceedings, but audible comment or any levity at 
 attempted witticisms on the part of the accused will not be tolerated." 
 
 But Hearn's face wore a provokingly placid smile. And the 
 president, rapping on the table with the hilt of his sword, called for 
 silence and curtly demanded of the judge-advocate that he proceed 
 with the case. 
 
 Not ten feet from where Mr. Hearn sat by his little table, whereon 
 were his memoranda and a few books, Georgia Marshall, with sparkling 
 eyes and flushed cheeks, bent and whispered to Mrs. Lane, — 
 
 " One for our side." 
 
 And Mrs. Wharton, catching the eye of some friends across the 
 room, very improperly tapped the back of her kid-covered thumb-nails 
 together in mute applause. The press and the populace might be with 
 the prosecution, but it was easy to see that there were loyal and lavish 
 hearts there stanch for the defence. 
 
 The court had not been authorized to sit without regard to hours. 
 Lawler argued that in a case of such wide-spread interest the sessions 
 should be held when it would be most convenient for the world at large 
 to attend, and by adjourning at three p.m., the conventional hour, all 
 good citizens would be able to get home in abundance of time, secure 
 in the belief that nothing would transpire before they could return to 
 their post of observation on the morrow. Nothing of great consequence 
 was accomplished on the first day, beyond the ceremony of swearing the 
 court, which Lawler rendered as impressive as possible, the administer- 
 ing of the judge-advocate's oath, which Colonel Grace rattled through 
 in a perfunctory style that robbed the legal gentleman of the dramatic 
 effect he had contemplated, and the reading of the charges and specific- 
 
812 AN ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 cations, which were breathlessly listened to by the throng and most 
 oratorically delivered by the judge-advocate. There was something 
 especially fine in the air with which he turned and faced the soldierly 
 young officer who, in his trim fatigue uniform, stood opposite to him 
 at the table. 
 
 "To the first specification of the first charge, how say you, sir? — 
 guilty or not guilty ?" 
 
 And, in the simplest way in the world, the answer came in tones 
 sufficiently clear to be audible beyond the open window : 
 
 " Not guilty." 
 
 And so to each and every specification and to the charges of conduct 
 unbecoming an officer and a gentleman and of conduct prejudicial to 
 good order and military discipline. Lieutenant Hearn calmly protested 
 his entire innocence, and the pleas were duly recorded. 
 
 Then Colonel Lawler announced that in view of the importance 
 and probable length of the case he desired the services of a stenog- 
 rapher and requested the authority of the court to call one in. The 
 president looked perturbed ; stenographers were expensive, and the 
 last court he was on had been rapped over the knuckles for employ- 
 ing one, although the record exceeded a hundred and fifty pages in 
 length. 
 
 " How long will you need one, and how soon can you get him 
 here ?" asked Colonel Grace. 
 
 " Well, we can get through with the case in very short time with a 
 stenographer, but it will take a week at least without one." He did 
 not say, however, that he had one already in the room, in the shape of 
 a newspaper man from Chicago. Some of the court began to consult 
 among themselves. 
 
 " Make him write his own proceedings," whispered Colonel Mait- 
 land to the president. " By gad, he was probably the man that rapped 
 your court for employing one there at Omaha last month." Then he 
 scribbled a line and tossed the scrap of paper over to Major Putnam 
 on the other side, and passed word down to Captain Thorp, who had 
 been judge-advocate of the court in question. It was evident that the 
 members thought that here was an admirable chance to " work" the 
 judge-advocate, a thing seldom enjoyed ; and at last old Grace, hum- 
 ming and hawing a little, said that the court could not see the neces- 
 sity, in view of the remarks made by division head-quarters on a 
 recent case, and must for the present decline the request. Whereat 
 Colonel Lawler, in manifest ill humor, remarked that he could be safely 
 expected to say what would and what would not be approved by the 
 division commander, and that, if the court would not order it, he would 
 get the order by telegraph. 
 
 "All right," said the president; "and meantime we'll proceed 
 without one. I suppose you are ready with your first witness, Mr. 
 Judge- Advocate ?" 
 
 " If the court insists, yes ; but I prefer to wait until I hear from 
 the telegram which I am now writing." 
 
 " We had better go right ahead," said Colonel Grace. 
 
 And so, amidst profound silence, the name of the first witness 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 813 
 
 was called ; and with the eyes of the entire room upon him, neatly 
 dressed, cleanly shaved, and looking his very best. Trooper Welsh was 
 ushered in from the outer gallery, was sworn impressively by Lawler, 
 and was asked for his name, rank, and regiment, and whether he knew 
 the accused. The new correspondent of the Palladium described the 
 hasty glance which Welsh cast at the lieutenant as one in which " his 
 glowing, dark eyes kindled with the pent-up sense of the wrongs 
 and humiliations heaped upon him by the officer in question." Major 
 Kenyon, sitting close by Mrs. Lane, looked at Brodie with swift 
 whispered comment on that furtive glance. Miss Marshall never took 
 her eyes from the witness's face. 
 
 " State how long you have been in service, and with what company 
 you have served." 
 
 " I've been " then there was a sudden flutter of the eyelids and 
 
 a moment's hesitation, but only a moment's, — " I've been in Troop C, 
 Eleventh Cavalry, about eight months, stationed here at Fort Ryan. 
 I enlisted in St. Louis a year ago." 
 
 The judge-advocate was just writing out the answer, when Miss 
 Marshall leaned over and whispered a word to Kenyon. The major 
 nodded appreciatively and looked eagerly along the faces of the 
 members of the court across the table. Captain Thorp's eyes met his, 
 and it was Thorp who suddenly spoke : 
 
 " Tiie witness has not answered the question, as I understand it." 
 
 "He has answered as the court understands it," said Lawler, 
 sharply, " and entirely to my satisfaction." 
 
 " He may have answered to the satisfaction of the judge-advocate, 
 but I suggest that the court can speak for itself," was Thorp's cool 
 reply. " The question should have elicited an answer as to the entire 
 service, possibly in other commands, on the part of the witness ; and 
 he replies only as to C troop." 
 
 " He has given the exact information I desired," said Lawler, 
 hastily, " and all my question was intended to cover. I protest against 
 interference with my witnesses." 
 
 Bang ! came old Grace's sword-hilt on the table. 
 
 "It is three o'clock, Mr. Judge- Advocate, and the court will 
 adjourn." 
 
 Lawler drew a long breath, and glanced triumphantly at Thorp. 
 
 But, however little the first day brought forth, the second in no 
 wise lacked sensation. Welsh and Mr. Levi Schonberg, in terms most 
 emphatic, had described the assault upon the principal witness ; both 
 declared that with brutal violence Welsh had been dragged forth from 
 the bar-room and then kicked and cuifed all the way to the guard- 
 house ; both denied the faintest provocation or excuse ; and then, amid 
 oppressive stillness, Mr. Schonberg had described his connection with 
 the trader's establishment six years before, and his knowledge of the 
 pecuniary dealings of the accused. In positive terms he asserted that 
 old Mr. Braine had lent the accused sums aggregating six hundred 
 dollars at different times, and that he had frequently and vainly im- 
 portuned him, in letters written by Schonberg, for payment, had been 
 ignored, and that finally, when he, after the accused returned to the 
 
814 A^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 post, strove to collect the amount, he, the witness, was met with curt 
 refusal, denials of all indebtedness, and finally with threats and assault. 
 Nothing much more connected could well be imagined. Both men 
 were positive and precise as to facts and dates, and both when cross- 
 examined by the accused stuck stoutly and positively to their versions. 
 Another witness was Mrs. Schonberg that was and Mrs. Braine that 
 had been, and her testimony, though by no means truculent or positive, 
 was largely in support of that of her Jewish spouse. She was sure of 
 the loans to Hearn ; sure he had never repaid them ; sure that Braine 
 had directed them placed upon the books, and had frequently spoken 
 to her of them, because she thought that he was too open-handed and 
 credulous, and had told him so. 
 
 When court adjourned at three p.m. on the second day the case had 
 gone dead against Hearn, and Colonel Grace gravely inquired if he 
 could not procure counsel even now ; it might still be allowed. But 
 Hearn quietly shook his head. Wednesday morning was to have 
 brought the redoubtable Mr. Abrams to the scene to aid the case for 
 the prosecution, but Colonel Lawler was compelled to say that the wit- 
 ness was not forthcoming, and had not even answered telegrams sent 
 him. There was some quiet grinning at the reporters' table, and old 
 Kenyon breathed a sigh as he bent over and whispered to Brodie, — 
 
 " D — n that fellow ! He never meant to come, and Lawler 
 knows it. Cross-examination would have broken him all up." 
 
 But two other civilians were produced, who claimed to be old 
 friends of the late trader, and one of these testified that the week be- 
 fore his death Mr. Braine had declared that Hearn had refused to repay 
 the money and he regarded it as good as lost. Hearn protested against 
 this as " hearsay" and not testimony under oath. Lawler vowed it 
 was material and confirmatory, and the court was cleared, to the utter 
 indignation of the correspondents thus compelled to quit the room with 
 the common herd. Thrice again this happened during the day, and 
 people grew disgusted, many of them leaving ; but those who remained, 
 including the officers, could see no earthly hope for Hearn. Every- 
 thing had been as conclusively proved as such witnesses could establish 
 matters, and the only chance, lay in the impeachment of their testi- 
 mony. 
 
 It was nearly three o'clock on Wednesday when Lawler said that 
 if the other witness, Mr. Abrams, did not put in an appearance he 
 would rest the case for the prosecution. Colonel Maitland inquired 
 why the books of the late post trader had not been produced in court 
 in support of Sch5nberg's testimony, and Lawler promptly responded 
 that they were too bulky to be appended to the record, were property 
 of the estate, and he had not considered them necessary. However, if 
 
 the court insisted And the court did. Schonberg was directed to 
 
 bring his books at ten o'clock the next day. 
 
 That evening the party gathered on Lane's piazza was very silent 
 and sad. Kenyon had been there awhile, and gone away with bowed 
 head and thoughtful eyes. The defence, of course, had not begun. 
 There would be no difficulty in utterly defeating the charge of assault 
 upon the soldier Welsh ; but what worried one and all was the testi- 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 815 
 
 mony of Schdnberg and Braine's relict. If that held good with the 
 court, then Hearn had been guilty of disgraceful conduct in stating 
 orally and in writing that he had long since paid those debts. There 
 could be no sentence but dismissal. Hearn had shut himself up in 
 his room. That day had brought a long letter from his father, and it 
 was this he was studying, sore at heart, when Kenyon entered. 
 
 " You haven't slept a wink for two nights, lad, and I know it," 
 said the major, anxiously, as he studied the worn face of his friend. 
 " I'm going to call IngersoU in to prescribe for you." And, despite 
 Hearn's protest, the orderly was sent for the post surgeon. 
 
 Meantime, with many emphatic nods and " humphs," Kenyon read 
 the long, long letter which, without a word, Hearn had placed in his 
 hand, finishing it at last, going over several pages, and finally sighing 
 deeply as he refolded it : 
 
 " It is just what I feared, my boy ; it is just what I feared. Still, 
 I'm glad he didn't look upon it as your mother thought he would. 
 
 Wonder what she thought of my letter Hello, here's IngersoU 
 
 now." 
 
 " I was at the hospital with Brent," said the medical man, in some 
 haste, " and had to go to Lane's first." 
 
 " No one ill at Lane's, I hope ?" spoke Kenyon, as Hearn's face 
 was suddenly uplifted. " I've just come from there." 
 
 "Oh, no, no; but Miss Marshall and Mrs. Lane have been going 
 to see Brent every afternoon, and this evening he asked me to take a 
 message over there. He wanted to see them to-night, but I had to say 
 no; he's too feverish. They were much concerned to hear I had been 
 called in to see you, Hearn, and I promised to come back at once and 
 let them know how you were." 
 
 A brief examination showed the skilled practitioner the extent of 
 Hearn's malady, and he insisted on his coming out. He would have 
 added, " over to Lane's piazza," but members of the court were calling 
 there, and it would hardly be the proper thing. Returning thither, 
 however, he found the gentlemen gone and Colonel Lawler just seating 
 himself for a social call. 
 
 " Nothing serious," he murmured to the ladies, as he took a chair, 
 and in low tone began chatting with the Whartons. It was Lawler's 
 voice that broke the stillness; and Lawler, full of his profession, could 
 talk nothing but " shop." 
 
 " I could not but observe your presence in the court-room, ladies, 
 even among the host of curious spectators. And how does a military 
 court impress you. Miss Marshall, now that you have seen it?" 
 
 " I can tell you better when I have seen it all, colonel. Thus far 
 we've had nothing but the prosecution. It will seem less one-sided 
 after the defence." 
 
 " Ah, that, I fear, will hardly amount to anything. The young 
 man has been very ill advised, — very. Possibly you heard that I had 
 offered him my services, — that is, any in my power to render, — and 
 that he had refused ?" 
 
 Miss Marshall simply looked at the colonel a moment, making no 
 reply. Finally, — 
 
gig AN ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 " May I ask what services you could render him ? I thought 
 the prosecution was your specialty." 
 
 " Oh, it is, certainly ; that is my bounden duty. Still, if I knew 
 what evidence he had to oflfer, — what witnesses he meant to call, — any 
 experienced lawyer could tell him how best to conduct the case." 
 
 Miss Marshall fairly laughed : 
 
 " That strikes me as one of the most unique ideas I ever heard, 
 colonel. If you belonged, we will say, to the combatant force of the 
 army, and had a position to defend, would you detail your plan of de- 
 fence to the adversary ?" 
 
 " My dear young lady, you totally misapprehend the peculiar 
 mechanism of our system. After having finished the government's 
 side, then I am free to assist the accused." 
 
 " And the accused, as I understand it, is free to ' play it alone,' as 
 we do in euchre. Now, do you know, I think I would prefer that 
 course to having an advocate who was more than half an opposer?" 
 
 " Well, certainly. Miss Marshall, you cannot congratulate the ac- 
 cused on his conduct of the case thus far. He would have stood better 
 with the court at this minute if he had taken my advice, as he wouldn't. 
 Then I had only one course to pursue." 
 
 "Doesn't that look just a wee bit as though he were being prose- 
 cuted for declining eminent legal assistance rather than for alleged 
 misconduct ?" 
 
 Lawler flushed, and again glanced sharply from under his sandy 
 brows and out of the corners of his twinkling eyes. 
 
 " You have a sharp tongue, young lady," he said, " but I presume 
 your wit is made to match it. It is a pity they could not be brought 
 into requisition in defence of your friend before the court itself. You 
 cannot influence me." And he laughed loudly, and glanced around as 
 though in triumph. 
 
 " 'Faith, Lawler, it's just as lucky for you that Miss Marshall isn't 
 counsel for the accused. You'll get knocked endwise when it comes to 
 the defence, anyhow," said the doctor. 
 
 "You think so, do you? Well, well, we'll see; we'll see." 
 
 The gate had opened, and an orderly entered. 
 
 " A telegram for the commanding officer," he said. 
 
 Kenyon took the brown envelope, tore it open, and stepped to the 
 hall door-way, where the light would fall upon the page. A gleam 
 of sudden satisfaction shot across his face, and he turned eagerly to- 
 ward Miss Marshall, whose dark eyes had followed him. " Come," 
 he signalled ; and she rose and went to him. 
 
 " Read this," he said, in low tones, as he thrust the paper into her 
 hand and sauntered back to his chair. " I can trust you to keep a 
 secret." 
 
 Lawler gazed after her with unmistakable curiosity, studying her 
 face as she read, then turned and looked at Kenyon, who was osten- 
 tatiously humming the air Miss Wharton had just begun playing on 
 the piano. What did it mean? Was his entertainer in league with 
 this girl who so dared him ? Mrs. Lane strove to cover her friend's 
 somewhat abrupt quitting of the group by a timely word or two, but 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 817 
 
 her question failed to catch the lawyer's ears. In a minute Georgia 
 was back, had dropped the despatch over Kenyon's burly shoulder with 
 the brief whispered word, "Splendid," and then almost laughingly 
 turned on the judge-advocate. 
 
 " And now tell me, colonel, isn't there such a thing as impeaching 
 the credibility of witnesses?" 
 
 "Oh, I suppose so in certain cases; but what has that to do with 
 mine ?" 
 
 " Yours ? Well, one would hardly think your witnesses assailable, 
 of course; but even truthful men, you know, are sometimes mistaken." 
 
 " Books and figures don't lie, Miss Marshall. You forget the 
 books." 
 
 " Oh, true ! I forgot the books. And Mr. Schonberg was book- 
 keeper, too." 
 
 XV. 
 
 Ten o'clock had come; so had the court; so had the public, in 
 numbers largely increased. In Central City it was generally under- 
 stood that on this day the proceedings would be brought to a close. 
 The case for the government would be concluded by the evidence of 
 Mr. Abrams, — when he arrived, — and by the exhibition of the books 
 of the late concern of Braine & Co, The defence really had not a leg 
 to stand on. Everybody in the enterprising community had been 
 assured of this fact by the repeated assertions of Mr. Schonberg and 
 the oracular announcements of the press ; and it was the popular belief 
 that all the unfortunate officer could do would be to assail the integrity 
 of the witnesses, which attempt would be utterly overthrown by the 
 vigilant prosecutor, who would then conclude by a scathing review of 
 the evidence, after which the court would promptly adjudge him guilty 
 and sentence him to be stripped of his. uniform and drummed out 
 forthwith. Probably half the populace that thronged the court-room 
 that bright June morning fully expected before returning to their 
 homes to see an army lieutenant degraded of his rank and thrust forth 
 from the reservation at the points of the bayonets of the garrison. 
 Dozens there were who knew better ; but a community reared on the 
 pap of sensationalism as supplied by the modern press could not accept 
 the mild and moderate views of the minority as a possibility. 
 
 "Ten-fifteen," said old Grace, thrusting his watch back into the 
 breast of his hot uniform coat, and looking about in some impatience. 
 "What keeps Lawler?" 
 
 " Waiting for that Jew with his books. I believe he's somewhere 
 in that crowd on the piazza. They say his newspaper man hasn't 
 turned up yet ; but I wish you would call the court to order and give 
 him a rap for delaying matters." 
 
 " Ah ! another 'bus-load from town," said the president, as there 
 entered at the moment a party of ladies, escorted by the sandy-haired 
 judge-advocate himself. All around the room the benches were occu- 
 pied, but behind this party came three or four soldiers carrying chairs, 
 and, much to the disgust of Mrs. Brodie and Mrs. Graves, who had 
 obtained, with a party of their friends, the front row nearest the table 
 ^ Vol. XLVI.— 53 
 
818 AN ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 of the accused, these chairs were planted before them, and their view 
 was cut off by the households of some of the prominent business-men 
 of Central City. So closely did they surround Mr. Hearn that he drew 
 his seat a trifle nearer to that of the judge-advocate. 
 
 There was a little more space on the other side of the table, where 
 the correspondents were, but they seemed to prefer not to crowd these 
 gentlemen, and nobody, of course, would think of intruding between 
 them and the court. It was almost half-after ten when a soldier made 
 his way through the throng, and, saluting Lawler, said something in a 
 low tone, at which the judge-advocate went over and whispered to 
 Grace. A moment later the burly form of Major Kenyon was seen 
 shouldering a way through the court-room, while Dr. Ingersoll's 
 spectacled face appeared just behind him. Escorted by these gentle- 
 men came Mrs. Lane, fresh, smiling, nodding cheerily to acquaintances 
 in the court and around the room, looking cool and radiant in a spring 
 costume which attracted the instant attention of the ladies and diverted 
 their eyes from Miss Marshall, whose simple but inexpensive toilet was 
 hardly worthy their glance, while to the grosser masculine understand- 
 ing it was every whit as lovely as that of her friend and hostess. Be- 
 hind them all came Sam, with four folding chairs, and, there being no 
 other place available, the major promptly plumped them down in front 
 of Lawler's friends and motioned his party to seats. Georgia Mar- 
 shall's color deepened, as any one who looked might see, for the chair 
 to which she was assigned was so close to that of Hearn that by simply 
 putting forth her hand she could have touched his sleeve. 
 
 His back was to the door, and he had not seen them enter, yet at 
 the perceptible hush that fell upon the chatter of the feminine specta- 
 tors he knew who must be coming, and his pale face brightened with 
 a sudden smile as, turning, he saw her almost at his elbow. Mrs. Lane 
 nodded thrice, looking brightly and affectionately in his eyes, before 
 she took her seat, just as though her efforts were to show all the throng 
 that the women of the army held him guiltless. But Georgia Mar- 
 shall's eyes were hidden for a moment behind their drooping lids. It 
 was not until after she was seated, and a glance around had told her 
 that the gaze of all women was still on the lovely toilet that Mabel 
 wore, that she stole a sudden look at him and met the brave light in 
 his wan face. 
 
 " Good-morning," he whispered. " I had not looked for anything 
 half as good as this, — to have you here so near me." 
 
 " It was my fault we were late ; they were waiting for me. I — I 
 
 had been to the hospital with Dr. IngersoU There's so much to 
 
 tell you." 
 
 " Has any further news come ?" 
 
 "Not that. Something else, — something better. Don't you see 
 how excited the major is ?" 
 
 And indeed old Kenyon seemed fairly aglow. His eyes were snap- 
 ping ; his face was twitching and redder than ever. He was standing 
 at that moment, searching all the windows with keen glance and look- 
 ing along the faces of the soldiers who had gathered on all sides of the 
 piazza without. Suddenly he seemed to see the features for which he 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 819 
 
 was so eagerly looking, and with a quick gesture he called au orderly 
 to his side and hastily scribbled these words on a piece of paper : 
 "That third window on the west. Get around there, and don't let 
 him out of your sight this day." 
 
 "Give that to the provost-sergeant," he said. And the orderly 
 disappeared. 
 
 Then came the voice of Colonel Grace impatiently demanding of 
 the judge-advocate that he proceed, and Lawler, who had been fidget- 
 ing uneasily, arose : 
 
 " May it please the court, the witness Abrams has still failed to 
 respond ; but the evidence of the other witnesses has been so conclu- 
 sive that I feel that I need not detain the court. All that now re- 
 mains is to examine the books of the late post trader, which, as you 
 have demanded, are here in my possession." 
 
 " The court will come to order," said Grace, loudly. 
 
 A hush fell on the assembled throng, and all eyes were on the 
 judge-advocate, who was busily unwrapping the package which he 
 produced from the folds of the linen duster he had, with apparent 
 carelessness, thrown upon his chair. Two ordinary-looking, leather- 
 bound volumes presently appeared, which he proceeded to lay before 
 Colonel Grace : 
 
 " I now have the honor to submit for the examination of the court 
 such books of the former post trader as bear upon this case. In them 
 will appear the entries of the various amounts advanced by him to 
 the accused, with their dates, etc., and, just as stated by the witness 
 Schonberg, it will be seen that no payments, beyond a few trifling sums, 
 have been recorded. The amount of the indebtedness as claimed in 
 the specifications will be found to agree with the figures." 
 
 As he spoke, Lawler had opened the volumes at points indicated 
 by slips of paper and spread them upon the table. Gi'ace adjusted his 
 eye-glasses and conned over one of the books, while Maitland took the 
 second. The other members of the court silently awaited their turn. 
 
 " r do not profess to be an expert at book-keeping," said Maitland, 
 presently ; " but do I understand the judge-advocate to say that the 
 witness Schonberg swears that these entries are correct ?" 
 
 Lawler briskly turned over the leaves of the record before him. 
 
 " Here are his very words," he said. " ' I myself made entries for 
 the years '83 and '84, both in the day-book and in the ledger. I kept 
 all Mr. Braine's books. He gave me the items just as they occurred, 
 and these entries were made by me at the different dates in those years 
 just as they were directed by him.'" 
 
 " Oh, yes, yes : I remember," said the colonel. " I suppose it is all 
 correct. Possibly other members of the court can tell more about this 
 business than I can." And he passed the book down the table. 
 
 "Nothing could be more confirmatory of Schonberg's statements," 
 said the judge-advocate, loudly. " One has only to look at these pages. 
 You can see that different ink, different pens, have been used here, — 
 primd facie evidence of their having been entered at totally different 
 times, instead of being jotted down at once, as might be claimed by the 
 defence but for this significant fact." And Lawler looked triumphantly 
 
820 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 about the room, ending with a glance at the little group that was near 
 Hearn's table. 
 
 Miss Marshall was leaning forward, her dark eyes eagerly scanning 
 the faces of the members of the court, and watching the books as they 
 passed from hand to hand. Hearn, pale and patient, seemed waiting 
 for the court to finish before asking that he, too, be permitted to exam- 
 ine the books. 
 
 "Do you suppose you could get them one moment?" whispered 
 Miss Marshall to the major, who was sitting at her left. " I had to 
 study books and book-keeping once." 
 
 " I'll try," whispered Kenyon. " Hearn will, anyhow." 
 
 It was some time before they reached the foot of the table. Cap- 
 tain Thorp and his next neighbor spent several minutes in studying the 
 dates and figures, and at last handed them successively to the junior 
 member. As soon as this gentleman had finished his scrutiny of the 
 first. Lieutenant Hearn held forth his hand : 
 
 " I presume I may be permitted to examine these exhibits?" 
 
 " I submit to the court that the accused has had frequent oppor- 
 tunity any time these last three months to examine these books, that he 
 has been importuned, even, to do so, time and again, and has contemp- 
 tuously refused. In view of these facts, his anxiety to see them now 
 strikes me as an assumption." Lawler's manner was loud and trucu- 
 lent. He knew he was making a point. 
 
 " Assumption or not," said the president, coolly, as Hearn's face 
 flushed hotly under the sting, " it is the undoubted right of the accused 
 to see any exhibit produced in court." 
 
 " I feel bound, then, to prevent their being improperly dealt with 
 while in his hands," said Lawler, hanging on to his volumes and bent 
 on making the scene as effective as possible. 
 
 " I will take all responsibility, sir. You may be sure the accused 
 will not injure them," was Grace's prompt and indignant rejoinder. 
 
 And so, having interfered as long as possible, the lawyer grudgingly 
 handed the book to Mr. Hearn, ostentatiously holding it open so that 
 all near at hand could see the array of items and figures charged against 
 him. In doing so he even raised the volume to the level of his own 
 shoulder, and the leaf flapped lazily open until it stood in bold relief. 
 
 Never moving from her seat, Miss Marshall, with glowing eyes and 
 compressed lips, had silently noted every word and motion. She was 
 bending forward eagerly, as though striving at a distance of six or 
 seven feet to decipher the writing on the page thus glaringly exhibited. 
 When finally Lawler laid it on the table and Mr. Hearn began slowly 
 studying the page, she still retained her position. Forgetful, appar- 
 ently, of everything around her, the young girl was now so near that 
 she could have touched the table at which sat the accused soldier. 
 
 Studying with pained, troubled face, Mr. Hearn at last began slowly 
 turning over the pages and looking at the headings of the other accounts. 
 There was something which he evidently desired to satisfy himself 
 about, yet everything looked straight and plausible. Again bent on 
 taking every opportunity to score a point against the accused, Lawler 
 suddenly arose : 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 821 
 
 " I submit again, if the court will but hear me, that, while the 
 accused has been accorded the privilege of examining his long-neglected 
 account, lie has no right whatever to pry into the aifairs of other 
 officers. I maintain that he should be compelled to confine his atten- 
 tion to his own page : there is quite enough there." 
 
 Kenyon suddenly felt a slim white hand gripping his wrist like a 
 vice. Hearn was just turning down a page after briefly scanning the 
 dates, but a rustle at his side attracted his attention. To his amaze- 
 ment, Miss Marshall had bent forward out of her chair and was eagerly 
 motioning and whispering to him : 
 
 " Again ! Let me see through that page again." 
 
 The court was discussing at the instant the question raised by 
 Lawler. Maitland and Thorp protested that Hearn had a right to 
 compare other accounts with his own if he suspected fraud of any kind. 
 Hearn himself, with throbbing heart, could only see and hear her. 
 Obedient to her signal, he again raised the leaf, and would have turned 
 the book, so that she could read it right side up, but with imperious 
 gesture she forbade. 
 
 " Hold it as it is," she signalled, as, still bending low, she seemed 
 studying every line of the paper thus vertically placed between her 
 and the sunshine flooding in at the open barrack w'indow. 
 
 " Quick, now ! More ! more !" she motioned. And, wondering, 
 he turned several pages, holding each a moment or two. But she 
 shook her head impatiently and signalled, " Go on !" until in succession 
 half a dozen leaves were turned ; then, with eager light in her eyes, 
 again she held up a warning hand, and the page was stopped. 
 
 " Very well, then," Lawler was saying at this moment, with sar- 
 castic emphasis. " On the principle that misery loves company, I 
 suppose we must accord him the privilege of viewing the accounts of 
 his fellow-debtors." And, with this fresh piece of civil legal practice 
 on his lips, the judge-advocate turned to the group on his left and 
 stopped short in amaze. 
 
 Hearn, utterly lost to what was going on, was gazing with all his 
 eyes at Miss Marshall, who, flushed, eager, almost radiant, once more 
 was leaning back in her chair, but signalling to close the book. It 
 was Kenyon now who was half rising and whispering sudden impetu- 
 ous words to Hearn. 
 
 For a moment Lawler knew not what to think or say. Something 
 told him that the cause he represented was in peril. A sense of disaster 
 flashed upon him. 
 
 " At least the accused will have the decency to refrain from exhibit- 
 ing officei"s' private accounts to the public," he said, with sudden return 
 to his old manner, " and, if he be through with the examination, return 
 these exhibits to me, that I may close the case, — unless, perhaps, he 
 desires to offer something further upon this subject." 
 
 Miss Marshall's fingers were twisting a tiny slip on which she had 
 hurriedly pencilled a word or two. One instant more, and it was with 
 Hearn. She had bent forward to pick up a fluttering scrap of paper ; 
 her deft fingers had but for the instant touched his drooping hand. 
 Opening it, he read, "Recall Schouberg instantly." Surprised, he 
 
822 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 glanced at her, but purposely she had averted her eyes. Keuyon was 
 vehemently nodding. 
 
 " I must ask that Mr. Schonberg be recalled," said Hearn. " There 
 is new matter here, upon which I need to question him." 
 
 "The accused has already had opportunity to cross-examine the 
 witness, and has no further right," said Lawler. 
 
 " I repeat that there is new matter before the court in the introduc- 
 tion of these exhibits, on which I have a perfect right to question," 
 replied Hearn. 
 
 "It is simply delaying matters," persisted Lawler. "When the 
 accused said he had no further questions to ask, yesterday, I excused 
 the witness, and he is now miles away, and cannot be had until morning, 
 if he can then." 
 
 " The man is not fifty feet away at this moment," said Kenyon, with 
 sharp emphasis and a voice that rang through the room. 
 
 " When did the gentleman become counsel in this case, I beg to 
 know ?" sneered the judge-advocate. " I protest against this disorder 
 and interference with the court." 
 
 " Major Kenyon gives us important information. Colonel Lawler," 
 said Grace, " and if the man is here the court desires that he be recalled 
 at once." 
 
 Lawler reddened with wrath. " If you know where he is, call 
 him in," said he to Kenyon. And all eyes were turned to the door, 
 where presently, escorted by the orderly of the court, Mr. Schonberg 
 appeared, hat in hand, bowing profusely and politely to the court, yet 
 looking, as Mr. Martin expressed it, " rather pasty about the gills." 
 He was scuttling down the back stairs when headed off by the provost- 
 sergeant. He had doubtless heard the summons for his recall, and had 
 hoped to get out of the way. All eyes but Hearn's and Kenyon's, 
 Mabel Lane's and Georgia's, were upon him. With lightning speed the 
 latter was writing a little note, and this, too, a moment later, was in the 
 young lieutenant's hand. He read it. A wild light of wonderment 
 and incredulity leaped into his face. He hastily raised the volume 
 between him and the opposite window, held a leaf between him and 
 the sunshine, gazed quickly and earnestly, and then, laying the book 
 once more on the table, turned with swimming eyes and looked full 
 upon her, his lips quivering, his face aglow with joy, hope, gratitude, 
 and a fervor of admiration and worship no woman on earth could fail 
 to see ; but Georgia's downcast face was hidden ; she had drawn her 
 fan like Spartan shield . between her glowing cheek and the kindling 
 eyes she dared not meet. 
 
 It was Lawler's rasping voice that recalled the young soldier to his 
 senses : 
 
 " Well, sir, the witness is here." 
 
 There was a silence as of solitude in the great heated room. Obe- 
 dient to the clumsy formality of a military court, Mr. Hearn slowly 
 wrote his question on a slip of paper and handed it to the judge-advo- 
 cate : the latter read it, threw it down, and pettishly exclaimed, — 
 
 "This is mere waste of valuable time, I say. The witness has 
 practically answered this all before." 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 823 
 
 " What is the question ?" asked the president. 
 
 " The accused asks the witness to state to the court what reason he 
 has for being so positive about the time these entries were made. So 
 long as my witness is positive, I conceive it to be no affair of the defence 
 why or how he is." 
 
 " Oh, I see no especial object in the question," said Grace, " yet there 
 is no impropriety in asking it. At all events, I am entirely willing to 
 bear the responsibility. The witness will answer." 
 
 Could he but have seen the flash of gratitude in Miss Marshall's 
 eyes ! It was only a flash. Almost instantly again they were fixed on 
 the pudgy features of the witness. 
 
 " Why, certainly, gentlemen, I can answer. Mr. Braine died in the 
 spring of '85, and couldn't have told me to make those entries afler he 
 was dead, could he? No. They were made, just as I said, in the 
 winter of '83 and during the year of '84, just when he told me to make 
 them." 
 
 " Are you satisfied ?" asked the judge-advocate, turning sharply to 
 Hearn. 
 
 " One moment," answered that young gentleman, placidly, as his 
 pencil rapidly copied another question on the slip before him. Finish- 
 ing this, he arose. " I beg to ask the especial attention of the court to 
 this question," he said. 
 
 There fell a hush as of death upon the throng. With parted lips 
 Georgia Marshall again bent eagerly forward until she could see the 
 Jew's twitching face. Schonberg turned a shade paler and glanced 
 half appealingly up at the lawyer, who, with a sneer of assumed con- 
 tempt, held forth his hand for the slip. But Hearn looked straight into 
 Lawler's eyes. The judge-advocate took the paper, turned it carelessly 
 over, elevated his nose with apparent indifference, leaned back in his 
 chair, glanced at it, — started. 
 
 " Let me see that book," he exclaimed, as he sprang to his feet, 
 holding forth an eager hand. 
 
 " Presently, sir," answered Hearn, holding the volume behind him. 
 " Kindly put the question first." 
 
 " Don't let that book go !" whispered Miss Marshall, hastily, her 
 words addressed to Kenyon, yet meant for and heard by Hearn. Mabel 
 Lane's face was flushing with excitement. Every eye in the room was 
 intent on the scene. 
 
 "What is the question, Mr. Judge- Advocate?" sharply inquired 
 Colonel Grace. " Why do you seek to suppress it ?" 
 
 " I protest against the insinuation, sir. I simply seek to protect an 
 honest man from insult. I ask the accused for a book that I may 
 satisfy myself he has reason for a question otherwise unjustifiable." 
 
 " Mr. President, I demand the question as a right !" exclaimed 
 Hearn, in tones thrilling with excitement and ringing through the court. 
 " The witness has sworn he made these entries in '83 and 84. Look, 
 gentlemen, look at this page, one and all, and compel the answer." 
 
 He sprang forward and laid the book in Grace s hand : 
 
 " Hold it to the light, sir. Look at the water-mark. I demand 
 an answer to my question." 
 
824 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 Trembling with emotion, his blue eyes ablaze, his fingers working 
 nervously, the young soldier towered above the heads of the court. 
 Every breath in all the great room seemed hushed, though hearts beat 
 and hammered like mad. All eyes were on Grace now, as he adjusted 
 his glasses, held the page aloft, and scrutinized the paper. Then, with 
 a quick gleam in his sharp old eyes, he beckoned excitedly to Maitland, 
 pointed with his forefinger to the waving lines of the water-marks, 
 and dropped the book upon the table, his finger between the leaves, a 
 threatening frown on his brow. 
 
 " Put the question, Mr. Judge-Advocate," his stern voice was heard 
 through the room. — " And you, sir, answer." 
 
 Lawler hesitated one minute, glancing dubiously around. Then, 
 as though seeing the hopelessness of resistance, he read, in accents that 
 trembled despite his efforts, these words : 
 
 " How was it possible for you to write in '83 and '84 on paper that 
 was not manufactured until two years afterward ?" 
 
 XVI. 
 
 When, half an hour later. Colonel Lawler announced that, in view 
 of circumstances to which the court appeared to attach so much signifi- 
 cance, he would rest the case for the prosecution, he had, despite every 
 effort, and the professional bravado assumed for such occasions, all the 
 air of a whipped man. For half a minute after hearing that stunning 
 question Mr. Schonberg had sat glaring at the judge-advocate, his eyes 
 protruding, his mouth wide open, his face ghastly white. Then he 
 mopped his forehead, recalled to himself by Grace's sharp tones, as the 
 president again demanded answer, and faltered out, — 
 
 " I ton't understand the question." 
 
 " You are called upon to explain to this court how it was possible 
 for you to have made those entries in '83 and '84, as you have solemnly 
 sworn you did, when the paper itself was not made until 1886," 
 thundered Grace ; " and the court is waiting for your answer." 
 
 " The paper vasn't made until 1886 ?" faltered Schonberg. 
 
 " No, sir !" fairly shouted the wrathful old soldier in the president's 
 chair. " No, sir ! You failed to study the water-marks. Here it is 
 repeated on a score of these leaves: 'Sconset Valley Mills, 1886.' I 
 say, explain this if you can." 
 
 " I ton't know anything about that," muttered the Jew at last, 
 gulping down the big lump that arose in his throat. "I know when I 
 made those entries, anyhow." 
 
 But the whole roomful could see that the wretch was only lying, — 
 desperately lying. The pencils of the correspondents were flying over 
 their blocks with furious speed. One excited ambassador of the press 
 had already made a lunge through the crowd for the door-way. 
 
 " Mr. Judge- Advocate," said the president, at last, " I fancy you 
 can now excuse your witness from further attendance. Stop, though. — 
 Have you anything else you would wish to ask, Mr. Hearn ?" And 
 now his manner was all courtesy. 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 825 
 
 "Not a word, sir," was the smiling answer. "I shall beg to 
 submit the list of my witnesses in a few moments." 
 
 People seemed to draw aside and make a wide lane for the wretched 
 Hebrew and his crest-fallen counsellor, as the latter led his unscrupu- 
 lous witness to the outer gallery, whither Lawler said he desired to 
 retire for a moment's consultation. So entire had been the confidence 
 of the mass of the people in the guilt of the officer that Schonberg's 
 shady reputation had not sufficed to warn them of the possibilities in 
 the case. But among educated and better-informed people present there 
 broke forth suddenly, after a moment's breathless silence, a ripple of 
 applause that speedily swelled into a joyous burst of hand-clapping 
 which was taken up all over the room, and for a moment, mingled with 
 angry hisses on the part of a few pronounced socialists in the throng, 
 who were furious at the sudden turn in favor of the hated official class, 
 the clamor was unchecked. Stern as he was, old Grace could not deny 
 the audience the right of such a reaction. Then he rapped for order. 
 
 "You are not ready, I presume, to proceed with your defence?" 
 said Lawler, a moment after, as he re-entered the room and glanced 
 nervously around. All his airy, confident manner was gone. He 
 looked almost dazed. 
 
 " Certainly," was the prompt reply. " Have the goodness to call 
 in Private Welsh." 
 
 " May it please the court," said Lawler, " I submit that the accused 
 should furnish the list of witnesses he desires to summon, in order that 
 it may be determined for what purpose they are called, and whether 
 the expense will be justified," said Lawler, in response. "And as for 
 Welsh, I maintain that that unfortunate trooper has already suffered 
 too much at the hands of the accused to warrant his being subjected to 
 further ignominy, as he would be if the court allowed such treatment 
 as was accorded my last witness." 
 
 " If he is at all like your last witness. Colonel Lawler, ignominy 
 will not inaptly express the idea," was Grace's sarcastic response; 
 whereat " an audible grin" spread over the room. 
 
 " Do you wish to summon witnesses from abroad, Mr. Hearn ?" 
 
 " Not one, sir. Every man I need will be at the post by one 
 o'clock this afternoon ; and, except Welsh, who is understood to be 
 under the especial charge of the judge-advocate and amenable to orders 
 from nobody else, I will not trouble the court to call on anybody : the 
 others will be glad to come." 
 
 Lawler shook his head and looked dissatisfied. If he could only 
 know the men whom the defence was introducing and could find out 
 what they meant to testify, it might be still in his power to avert at least 
 public catastrophe. Shrewd enough to see the evident antagonism he 
 had created, and knowing that matters were going topsy-turvy at the 
 moment, he bethought him of a ruse by which he could get rid of the 
 crowd : 
 
 " I beg the indulgence of the court. I have allowed the case for 
 the prosecution to rest rather than infringe longer on time that is so 
 valuable, but I find myself unable to proceed at this moment, and I 
 beg that you take a recess until two p.m." 
 
826 AN ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 The court demurred. It was utterly adverse to a recess. Hearn's 
 witnesses were all ready to proceed, — four or five, at least. 
 
 " What is the need ?" asked Thorp and Maitland, neither of whom 
 felt like giving Lawler an inch of leeway. But courtesy to the staff- 
 officer of the division commander prevailed. 
 
 It was barely eleven o'clock when the throng came pouring forth 
 from the court-room, and Lawler hoped that, rather than wait three 
 hours, the mass of the people would depart. But his hopes were vain. 
 If anything, tlie number seemed augmented. The noon train brought 
 a couple of car-loads from the eastward towns. It also brought a 
 sergeant and private of infantry escorting a dilapidated-looking party 
 in shabby civilian dress whom old Kenyon, the adjutant, and a file of 
 the post-guard were at the station to meet. The stranger was bundled 
 into an ambulance and trotted up to the guard-house, into which he 
 slouched with hanging head and an air of general dejection ; and while 
 the men were at their soldier dinner Kenyon was busily interviewing 
 his tough-looking prisoner, a squad of excited newspaper men, mean- 
 time, kicking their heels outside and raging at the military assumption 
 which gave the post commander precedence over the press. The word 
 had gone out all over the crowded garrison that the escaped prisoner 
 Goss was recaptured, and the commanding officer's orderly had been 
 rushed with a note to the provost-sergeant. 
 
 " You bet he'll not get away," muttered this veteran of Brodie's 
 company, as he glanced along the lively mess-room, where the big 
 bowls of bean soup were being emptied by rare soldier appetites. 
 "You bet he don't, unless he can carry a cart-load of lead in him." 
 
 Twenty minutes after. Corporal Greene of the guard came to the 
 door- way and sung out, — 
 
 "Say, fellers, who do you think's captured and brought back? 
 Trooper Goss, begad, the bosom friend of the patriotic Welsh." 
 
 And Welsh dropped his spoon and his eyes and turned a dirty 
 yellow. He essayed presently to quit the table, but the old sergeant 
 bent over him : 
 
 " Finish yer dinner, me buck. Don't let eagerness to see yer 
 friend spoil yer appetite. You can't see him, anyway, till he has 
 given his testimony before the court ; and they'll want you, too, Welsh, 
 me jewel, and I'm charged not to lose you, — d'ye mind that, Welsh ? — 
 and I never lose anything but an occasional slice of me temper. Ate 
 yer dinner, like the high-spirited American ye are, now." But Welsh's 
 appetite was gone. 
 
 The court-room was crowded to suffocation that afternoon when, 
 sharp at two o'clock. Colonel Grace rapped for order : 
 
 " I suppose you are ready now. Colonel Lawler ? Call in the first 
 witness." 
 
 Lawler looked resigned, even martyred. The court had come back 
 from luncheon at the Lanes' in high spirits. The ladies again sat close 
 to Hearn's table. Private Goss, with untrimmed beard and an air of 
 general dilapidation, was sworn by the judge-advocate, gave his name, 
 rank, regiment, etc., and responded, in answer to Lawler's question, that 
 he did know the accused very well. 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 827 
 
 " What do you want to ask the witness ?" said Lawler, in a tone 
 as much as to say, What could you ask that would be of any earthly 
 account ? 
 
 " State where and how long you have known Private Welsh, C 
 troop, Eleventh Cavalry," were the words on the pencilled slip, and 
 Lawler read them grudgingly. 
 
 " I've known him six or eight years. Knew him when he enlisted 
 in the Twenty-Third, where he went by the name of Webster. Served 
 with him at Fort Wayne until he got a ' bobtail' discharge, and when 
 I got mine I went to his home in Ohio and hunted him up. He owed 
 me money, but he was no good, — couldn't pay it. His people wouldn't 
 do anything more for him. He was Mrs. Blauvelt's nephew, but she 
 had about got tired of trying to support him, so we came away and 
 enlisted again, in the cavalry service this time, and then he got things 
 fixed to go into Blauvelt's troop for both of us." 
 
 " What was your reason for deserting here while awaiting trial ?" 
 was the next question. 
 
 " Well, both Welsh and Schonberg told me I was bound to be con- 
 victed. Everything pointed to my being Corporal Brent's slugger, 
 though I swear to God I never left the barracks that night. They 
 said if I didn't get away before the court tried me I might get several 
 years in State's prison at hard labor, and worse still if he didn't recover. 
 Welsh and Schonberg both said that there was no show for me, the 
 evidence was so clear, even to the red pepper in the pockets. Some 
 scoundrel put it there, and wore my things, too. Welsh got put into 
 the guard-room, purposely, opposite my cell, and threw a stone with a 
 string through the grating, and I hauled on it and got a letter from 
 him and Schdnberg telling me how to escape. There were saws and 
 tallow in the package I drew in, and Schonberg was down in the 
 bottom with a buggy after I got out, and he drove me nearly all night 
 around by way of Barclay to the other road, and sent me by rail to 
 Omaha, where he promised that plenty of money would come to me; but 
 no money came at all, and I was recognized and arrested by the police." 
 
 " Had you any idea that there were other reasons for getting you to 
 desert than the one given ?" 
 
 Lawler bounced up and objected to both question and answer ; but 
 both were ordered recorded. 
 
 "I hadn't — then," was the sullen reply: "I'm not so sure now. 
 That Jew got me to go because I accused him of being a receiver of 
 stolen property. It was him Welsh gave the papers he took from the 
 lieutenant's desk in Captain Blauvelt's quarters. I went there with 
 him one night after taps when the lieutenant was officer of the guard, 
 and Schonberg gave Welsh ten dollars and me five to keep mum. After 
 that Welsh began to run with Schonberg entirely and turn against me, 
 and it was through him that I was always getting into trouble." 
 
 In vain Lawler propounded questions tending to show his witness, 
 thus assailed, in a better light; but the more he examined the more 
 damaging was Goss's testimony. At last the witness slouched out 
 under escort of a sentinel. 
 
 But a greater sensation still was awaiting the patient listeners in 
 
828 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 the court-room. The next man to enter, leaning heavily on the arm 
 of the hospital steward, and accompanied by Dr. Ingersoll, was Corporal 
 Brent, looking white and feeble, but very calm and self-possessed. 
 
 " Give your full name, rank, and regiment," said the judge-advocate, 
 without looking up. 
 
 " The name under which I enlisted is Malcolm Brent, corporal 
 Company C, — th Infantry." 
 
 " The court will note, I trust, the singular character of the witnesses 
 introduced by the accused," said Lawler, promptly. " The last, by his 
 own admission, is a thief and a deserter whom Welsh very properly 
 essayed to cut loose from on discovering his real character ; and now 
 we have a second who plainly intimates that the name he gives is not 
 his own." 
 
 " It is the one by which he is known to military law all the same, 
 Colonel Lawler. Please to proceed," said Colonel Grace, testily. 
 
 " You know the accused, I presume, or he would not have called 
 upon you ?" was Lawler's snapping query of the witness. 
 
 " Only as a soldier knows an officer whom he has every reason to 
 respect. I have never exchanged a word with the gentleman, but I 
 recognize him as Lieutenant Hearn, of the Eleventh Caivalry." 
 
 Again there was a ripple of applause in the crowded court, which 
 brought Lawler, angry and protesting, to his feet. Silence restored, 
 he presently read aloud the next question from a slip handed him by 
 Mr. Hearn, which he slowly pasted on the sheet before him : 
 
 " What do you know with regard to the amounts charged against 
 the accused on the books presented before this court and alleged to be 
 unpaid ?" 
 
 " I know that they were paid long ago. I heard the story of the 
 whole transaction from the lips of Captain Rawlins himself." 
 
 " Hearsay evidence," promptly interrupted the judge-advocate, 
 rapping on the table. 
 
 " But Schonberg's written acknowledgment and this letter of Captain 
 Rawlins will not be so considered," answered the witness, respectfully, 
 and, bending forward, he placed on the judge-advocate's table a little 
 package of papers. The court- room was hushed. Even the pencils of 
 the correspondents were arrested. Every eye in all the throng was on 
 the pale face of the young corporal. Members of the court had whirled 
 around in their chairs, so as to look full upon the new witness. Old 
 Kenyon, with lifted spectacles, brimming over with eagerness and ex- 
 citement, was fidgeting on his chair. Pretty Mrs. Lane, all smiles, was 
 keeping her fan in lively yet noiseless play. Georgia Marshall's heavily- 
 fringed lids were drooping over her downcast eyes ; but the soft, summer 
 fabric of her dress rose and fell upon her bosom like the billows of an 
 unquiet sea. She was seated where every word of the witness could 
 reach her ears, but no longer so near the little table where sat the calm 
 young soldier whose trial had nearly reached an end. There was no 
 longer need of counsel for the accused ; yet his eyes, time and again, 
 glanced yearningly at her. 
 
 Lawler was the first to speak. He dandled the papers contemptu- 
 ously as he glanced them over : 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. g29 
 
 " These are of no earthly account, — mere forgeries, possibly. One 
 only purports to be a duplicate, anyhow." 
 
 " Duplicate of what, sir ? The court will be glad to look at those 
 papers when you are through with them," said Colonel Grace. 
 
 "I object to their introduction as evidence, in any event, and pro- 
 test against their admission here. What possible business can a corporal 
 of infantry be having with the private papers of a deceased officer, any- 
 way ? — Where did you know the late Captain Rawlins, — even supposing 
 that he did write that letter ?" 
 
 " Any question on that score the court may choose to ask I will 
 answer," was the reply, with quiet self-possession. " But I can swear 
 to the genuineness of both papers." 
 
 Captain Thorp had already possessed himself of the duplicate 
 receipt, and, after a brief glance, tossed it over to the opposite member. 
 
 " Schonberg, without a doubt," he whispered. 
 
 Meantime, old Grace had received and was conning over the other, 
 which he suddenly lowered and looked in amaze at the calm face of the 
 witness, then handed it to Maitland, who read, started, and gazed too. 
 
 " I know this hand, sir. I know it as that of an old and valued 
 friend," said Maitland, with lips that quivered perceptibly. " I could 
 almost swear to its genuineness myself. It is probably one of the last 
 letters the dear old fellow ever wrote, and it is to his boy at college. 
 Here, Thorp, you read it aloud." And, though Lawler would have 
 protested, protest was useless. Thorp arose, clicking his heels together 
 as though on drill, and, in a voice that was audible all over the big 
 room, read : 
 
 " Fort Graham, New Mexico, June 14, 188-. 
 
 " My dear Malcolm, — 
 
 "It seems hardly possible that three weeks ago I was with you 
 under the elms of the old campus, listening to college glees and seeing 
 the glad faces of your class-mates, — as manly a set of young fellows as 
 it was ever my lot to meet, — and now here I am again in harness under 
 a blazing sun, with arid, sandy wastes on every side, and not a leaf 
 that is not shrivelled by the fierce rays. I find the old post much as I 
 left it ; but I go over to San Carlos in a day or two on court-martial 
 duty, and so am writing my letters to-night. 
 
 " In the first place, you will be glad to know that the gold leaves 
 are in sight. If all goes well, I shall become major of the Seventh 
 and be ordered eastward within the next six months. Then I shall fit 
 out my quarters in cosey style, and as soon as Mamie has finished her 
 next year at Madame's she shall come and keep house for me and turn 
 the heads of the youngsters. Yet I do not want her to marry in the 
 army, any more than I want you to enter it. Think of it, Malcolm, 
 for twenty-five years now have I followed the standard, and if any- 
 thing were to take me away what have I to leave you and May? 
 Little or nothing. Even if you were to turn over your modest share 
 to her, as you so gayly spoke of doing, and enlisting in hopes of winning 
 a commission, she would not have more than enough to keep her from 
 want ; though so long as your aunt Eleanor lives she will never be in 
 
830 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 need of a home. Ah, well, God spare me a little longer ! I so pray 
 to live to see you both happily settled before I am called hence. 
 
 " After our talk I cannot but hope that you will see how little there 
 is to look forward to in the career of a soldier in our service, — in peace 
 times, of course. But if the longing prove too great I will not stand 
 in your way. The life has its attractions. You will never have 
 stancher or truer friends than those who wear the blue. But it has its 
 trials and perils outside of those encountered in the field. I told you 
 of the case of young Mr. Hearn, as fine a soldier as there is in the 
 regiment to-day, yet he was well-nigh ruined through having fallen 
 into the hands of the Jews when young and inexperienced. Wasn't it 
 luck that I should have known of the previous rascality of that clerk, 
 and so was able to make him come to terms? Here is his duplicate 
 receipt in full, filed carefully away among my papers. It was the 
 means of saving a capital officer, too. 
 
 " Your letters bring constant joy to me, my son. If it had but 
 pleased God to spare your dear mother, I know well how proud and 
 happy a woman she would have been in her great boy and bonny 
 daughter ; but His will be done. I may not write again before leaving 
 for San Carlos, but my blessing goes with every line of this. There is 
 such comfort in the frankness with which you told me of those college 
 debts. Trust me fully ; confide in me in any trouble, my son ; no man 
 can ever be more devotedly your friend than I, — your father. The 
 draft I sent will doubtless have removed all care and anxiety and left 
 you a little sum to the fore. Spend it as you please, yet Mo not dull 
 thy palm with entertainment of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade.' 
 What words of wisdom spoke that fond old fool ! but he loved his boy 
 as I love mine. 
 
 " Good-night, my lad. 
 
 " This above all, to thine own self be true ; 
 And it must follow, as the night the day, 
 Thou canst not then be false to any man. 
 
 "Your father, 
 
 " R. F. Rawlins." 
 
 For a moment after Thorp's deep voice had ceased its task, the 
 silence in the heated room was broken only by some half-stifled sigh. 
 Corporal Brent had covered his pale face with his hands. Mrs. Lane 
 was weeping silently. Hearn's eyes, swimming, were turned towards 
 Georgia Marshall, Avho was bending over her friend, quietly fanning 
 her. The effect of this letter was not unexpected : she had heard every 
 word before. 
 
 It was Grace who spoke at last, after no little preparatory clearing 
 of his throat : 
 
 "And have you other letters from Captain Rawlins?" 
 
 "Many, sir, but this was the last," was the almost tremulous 
 answer : " he was killed within the week that followed." 
 
 " And you are ?" 
 
 " Malcolm Brent Rawlins, his son." 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. %^\ 
 
 XVII. 
 
 The court had finished its labors and gone. The correspondents 
 had gone, but presumably only to renewed labors. The various journals 
 throughout the Northwest that had so confidently predicted the sum- 
 mary dismissal of the offending lieutenant were now in a somewhat 
 difficult position. They had started in to prove the officer a black- 
 guard and the private a martyr ; the result was exactly the opposite, 
 and the problem was now how to get out of the pickle. To the aver- 
 age man, soldier or civilian, the consciousness of having publicly 
 wronged a fellow-being would have proved a source of distress so deep 
 that nothing short of retraction as public and apology as far-reaching 
 as the affront would satisfy the offender. But, in its Jove-like attitude 
 as censor of the morals and manners of the people, the press has no 
 such qualms of conscience. As one eminent journalist expressed it, 
 " Of course we are sorry we were misled, somewhat, but we can't take 
 back what has been said : that injures the paper." And of course as 
 between injuring the paper and injuring the man it is the man who 
 must suffer. Another gifted editor, in whose eyes no benefit was quite 
 to be compared with free advertising, expressed himself as considering 
 that " That young fellow really ought to feel very mucli obliged to us ; 
 nine-tenths of the people might never have heard of him at all if it 
 hadn't been for this." And he spoke in all seriousness. 
 
 Of course the correspondents themselves had long since seen the 
 inevitable results, and had duly prepared their respective papers for the 
 crash. Some of these journals promptly dropped the matter at once 
 and for all, as no longer worthy of attention ; others transferred their 
 assaults from the array of lieutenants to the array of courts-martial. 
 Others still, too deeply committed to extricate themselves, threw open 
 their columns to any damaging story affecting the army which their 
 correspondents could fabricate ; and those papers which made any 
 reference to the facts elicited before the court did so in the smallest 
 type, but head-lined the item in sarcastic or explosive big capitals. 
 The Palladium, or rather its editorial head, when explaining matters 
 to a knot of men at the club, quietly justified the course of his paper 
 by saying, " We did not send Mr. Abrams there at all ; he had gone 
 to Central City on some personal business of his own, to look into 
 some property, and while there this Mr. Schonberg, a wealthy, promi- 
 nent, and, as we supposed, reputable business-man, told him about the 
 offensive manners of the officers to the people, and offered to prove 
 that they would be insulted and ostracized if they ventured to visit the 
 garrison ; and Abrams got warmed up and telegraphed to the man- 
 aging editor that he was 'on to a good thing,' and so we wired him to go 
 ahead." But a junior member of the editorial staff frankly admitted 
 that he, in common with other journalists, had for sixteen years been 
 " laying" for a chance, as he expressed it, to get in a good whack at the 
 young West-Pointer, and here they thought they had it. 
 
 Meantime, the record had gone to department head-quarters for the 
 actio\i of the general commanding, and Lawler went with it to fight 
 the case to the last. There was not a soul at Ryan that did not know 
 
832 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 that, though the lips of the court were sealed, the finding had been 
 " not guilty" on every possible specification. All Lawler could hope 
 to do now was to persuade the general to pick the proceedings to pieces 
 and rasp the court in his review of the case; but even this proved 
 futile. The general, it seemed, would do nothing of the kind ; it was 
 even hinted that he rasped Lawler for the very one-sided investigation 
 that he made at the outset. 
 
 For two days following the adjournment of the court Fort Ryan 
 was fairly in a ferment. Schouberg, terrified by the jeers of his towns- 
 people to the belief that he was to be prosecuted for perjury, had slid 
 away on a night train, — " gone to purchase goods in St. Louis," said 
 his unhappy spouse. Welsh, the martyr, had essayed to desert the 
 same night, and, as a cat plays with a mouse, old Kenyon had let him 
 go until the intent was made plain by his boarding the eastward-bound 
 train in civilian dress, and then had had him hauled off by two stalwart 
 infantrymen and, incidentally, by the nape of his neck, and once more 
 Welsh was remanded to his familiar haunt, — the guard-house at Ryan. 
 This time a still more serious charge was hanging over his head, — that 
 of assaulting a non-commissioned officer in discharge of his duty; for 
 Corporal Brent had recognized him as his assailant the instant he heard 
 his voice. So had another witness. It was Georgia Marshall who 
 turned to Kenyon the moment Welsh had finished his testimony, and 
 said, " I have heard that man speak before," and who unhesitatingly 
 declared after Goss appeared that, though by sight she could identify 
 neither man, by voice she knew that the one who had assaulted the 
 corporal of the guard that night was not Goss, but Welsh. Then 
 Welsh himself broke down. Such was the feeling against him among 
 the men, such were the threats which he could not but hear as he lay 
 in his barred cell, that he begged to be allowed to see the commanding 
 officer. He was in fear for his life, — poor devil ! and indeed nothing 
 but the discipline so derided of the newspapers saved him from the 
 tarring and feathering and riding on a rail that the soldiers were wild 
 to give him. In piteous accents he implored Kenyon to have him sent 
 away, even to prison at Leavenworth. He would plead guilty to de- 
 sertion, guilty to theft, guilty to assault, guilty to anything, if the major 
 would only get him away from the terrible scowls and curses of his erst- 
 while companions. Only, if the major would but believe him, he really 
 had never struck the corporal at all; he had hurled the pepper in his 
 eyes and run. Brent, blinded and raging, had rushed in pursuit, and 
 had struck his head against the sharp edge of the brick pillar at the 
 south end of the troop-barracks. Very possibly this was true ; for the 
 gash was deep and jagged. 
 
 And Brent was convalescing rapidly, but, between the ladies of the 
 Lane, Brodie, Cross, and Graves households, stood in danger of being 
 killed with kindness. There was just the least little spark of jealousy 
 among the women of the infantry because it was to a comparative 
 stranger that he should have revealed his identity and by her be brought 
 to the front at so supreme a moment. But it was Miss Marshall who 
 had been greatly interested in his case from the very night of his mis- 
 hap, and she and Mrs. Lane had been most kind and assiduous in their 
 
AN ARMT PORTIA. 833 
 
 attentions to him during his days of suffering. When he learned of the 
 charges against Lieutenant Hearn and of the outrageous falsification 
 of the Jew, Schonberg, his determination to conceal his name was at 
 last overcome, and to Miss Marshall and to Dr. Ingersoll he told his 
 story. His father's sudden and lamentable death at the hands of the 
 Apaches had left him no alternative but to make over to his sister every 
 cent that had been hoarded up and set aside for his education, — every 
 cent that was his by the old soldier's will, — and then, leaving with her 
 the little box that contained the captain's papers and letters, and quit- 
 ting college, he went to New York and enlisted, choosing the infantry 
 service rather than the cavalry because his father's old friends and asso- 
 ciates were mainly in the latter, and, though he had seen none of them 
 since his boyhood days, he thought recognition not impossible, and he 
 determined to make his own way and owe nothing to any man. 
 
 " I'm glad he came to us," said old Kenyon. " I'd do pretty much 
 anything to see him in any other profession ; but, as he is bound to be 
 a soldier, I'll do all I can to pkce ' Candidate' alongside his name on 
 our muster-roll, and then it would be just my luck to find him com- 
 missioned in the cavalry." 
 
 But if there was excitement at Ryan, just fancy the feelings of the 
 officers and men in the Eleventh, now two hundred miles away in the 
 Indian Territory, when the letters came detailing the events of the last 
 day of that court-martial, — Schonberg's exposure. Brent's unveiling, 
 Welsh's disgrace, Hearn's undoubted acquittal, Lawler put to confusiou 
 and flight, and Georgia Marshall the heroine of the whole thing ! 
 
 " A Daniel come to judgment, ay, a Daniel," quoth Martin, as Lane 
 read aloud Mabel's enthusiastic description of what she termed the 
 " trial scene." " The whole regiment sends heart-felt congratulations to 
 Hearn and love to Portia," was the telegram that came flashing back to 
 Mrs. Lane. Morris lost no time in dictating a diplomatic message to his 
 absent subaltern, expressive of his desire to welcome him back to duty 
 after so complete a vindication. Bat Morris felt very ill at ease, and 
 was not surprised that no answer was vouchsafed. He retired to his 
 tent, and was not seen for some hours after learning of Brent's identity. 
 
 Meantime, just when one would suppose that all was plain sailing, 
 balmy breezes, sun-kissed wavelets, etc., just when nothing should have 
 stood in the way of Mr. Hearn's rejoicing with all his heart, and just 
 when the course of his true love ought to have been smooth and sweet, the 
 very imp of perversity seemed to have suddenly developed in Georgia 
 Marshall's breast, and she who had done so much to clear his name of 
 "the clouds that lowered o'er" it, and had for two weeks been the young 
 soldier's most valued friend and ally, now most unaccountably held 
 aloof and fairly shunned his society. She met him only in a crowd. 
 She simply would not meet him alone. On one pretext or another she 
 avoided him, and poor Hearn, wounded, utterly unable to account for 
 this sudden change, utterly incapable of fathoming a woman's whim, 
 was now plunged in the depths of a distress exceeding that from which 
 he had just emerged. She had rescued him from the toils only to plunge 
 him into worse entanglement. 
 
 It was the fourth day after the adjournment of the court when Major 
 
 Vol. XLVI.— 54 
 
334 ^-^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 Kenyon came to Mr. Hearn's rooms with a telegram just received from 
 division head-quarters, and found that young gentleman dejectedly read- 
 ing a long letter in the handwriting of Judge Hearn, his father. Ken- 
 yon had grown to know it well. " Released from arrest, lad ! That 
 means you can go and join the regiment as soon as you like. What 
 does the judge say now?" 
 
 " Read that page," was the answer, as Hearn placed the letter in the 
 major's hand. And with knitted brows Kenyon read as follows : 
 
 " And now again I urge upon you, my son, the step I so earnestly 
 counselled in my last. Major Kenyon's telegram just received says that 
 your acquittal is assured and that your vindication is triumphant. This 
 I felt would be the case. But what reparation have you for the wrongs 
 and insults heaped upon you by the Northern press? What proportion 
 of the people who have had you portrayed to them as a low bully, a 
 drunken brute, and a swindler will ever know the contrary? What 
 paper that has vilified you will have the decency or the courage, now 
 that it knows the truth, to make the faintest amends? Not one. 
 
 " The time has come for you now to quit at once and for all a pro- 
 fession which the })eople of the North so little appreciate and so per- 
 sistently decry. I am aging fast, and shall be glad to have your strong 
 arm to lean upon. A year or two in my office will fit you for the bar. 
 Meantime, you can have nearly double the income that the government 
 pays you, and when I am gone all I have, practically, will be yours. 
 Come back to us, my boy ; come to the mother, the father, and the 
 people who love you ; come home to us who know and need you : you 
 are not wanted where you are." 
 
 For some time Major Kenyon stood in silence. At last, seeing 
 that he was expected to express his opinion, he slowly spoke : 
 
 " I feared that that first letter would come, and I might have known 
 that this would follow. When will you answer?" 
 
 " Not just yet. I must think it over. Not — not until after to- 
 night, anyway." 
 
 That evening Mrs. Morris insisted upon everybody's coming to her 
 house " to celebrate." The news that Hearn had been released by 
 telegraphic orders was all over the post in half an hour, and that he 
 would start to rejoin the regiment in the field was of course a foregone 
 conclusion. Only, said that all-important personage referred to gener- 
 ally as " everybody," — only he will probably want to delay a little 
 while on Miss Marshall's account, for if they are not already engaged 
 it is solely her fault ; any one can see he is utterly in love with her. 
 
 Once in a while " everybody" makes a mistake. This time " every- 
 body" was practically right. No one more thoroughly than Hearn 
 himself knew how utterly he was in love with Georgia Marshall, and 
 nobody but Kenyon knew that, yielding to the plea in his father's 
 letter, Hearn might not return to the regiment at all. 
 
 It was a joyous gathering at the Morrises' ; and yet there had been 
 a singular conversation at the Lanes' before Mabel could induce her 
 friend to go at all. 
 
 " Mr. Hearn will certainly come and ask to be your escort," said 
 Mabel, the moment Mrs. Morris was gone. " How can you say no ?" 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 835 
 
 " He will ask you, Mabel, as I shall not be visible, and you must 
 accept. If you will walk over there and back with Mr. Hearn, I will 
 go ; otherwise I shall have a splitting headache and be confined to my 
 room." 
 
 " How utterly absurd, Portia ! Everybody expects him to escort 
 you. No other man in this post will ask you so long as he is here : it 
 is a foregone conclusion that Mr. Hearn will." 
 
 " That is why I want you to go with him. If I go it will be with 
 Major Kenyon." And then Miss Marshall took the flushed, perplexed, 
 but lovely face of her hostess between her slender hands and kissed it. 
 " Mabel, I must not go with Mr. Hearn. Some day I'll tell you why." 
 And then she ran to her room. 
 
 " Tell me, indeed ! I know too well," was the almost tearful 
 answer. " You are prouder, far prouder, than I ever was." 
 
 And so, though she gained her point for the time-being, though 
 Hearn had to oifer his services to Mrs. Lane when he called and could 
 not see Miss Marshall, though Mabel went on that moody young gen- 
 tleman's arm and Miss Marshall followed with her stanch friend the 
 major, — Hearn raging with jealous pain the while, — the time came 
 when she found her precaution all of no avail. Mr. Hearn was too 
 much in earnest, too deeply in love, to be longer held at bay. 
 
 "Mrs. Lane," he stammered at last, as they were walking home- 
 ward late at night, " I must speak to Miss Marshall. Surely you know 
 why. Have I not your good wishes? Will you not help me?" 
 
 How could Mabel Lane refuse ? Once tlie gate was reached she 
 bade both men come in, though Miss Marshall would have dismissed 
 the major ; and then, slipping from the parlor along the hall-way to 
 the dining-room, she left Miss Marshall to entertain her guests, while 
 with nervous hands she set forth wine, and then presently called 
 Kenyon, as though to her aid. He came instantly, and Miss Marshall 
 would have followed. But Hearn was too quick, and sprang before her 
 to the door-way. For three — four minutes, nervously, incoherently, 
 Mrs. Lane strove to keep up a laughing chat with the bulky major; 
 but he, too, saw the ruse as he sipped his wine, and neither was prac- 
 tised in the art of dissembling. Suddenly Hearn's footsteps, quick 
 and firm, were heard in the hall-way ; the front door closed with 
 sudden bang, and, without a word to his hostess, he was gone. Mrs. 
 Lane's heart sank within her. Conversation was at an end. Kenyon 
 stood for an instant in awkward silence. Then Miss Marshall's skirts 
 were heard as she fairly rushed up the stairs, and the major took him- 
 self oif as quickly as a clumsy man could effect an escape. An instant 
 after, Mabel Lane stood at Georgia's door. It was closed. 
 
 " Portia," she called, in low, pleading tones, — " Portia, mayn't I 
 come in ?" 
 
 For a moment, no answer at all. 
 
 " Georgia, dear, do speak to me." 
 
 At last a quick, impetuous step ; the door was thrown open. All 
 was darkness ; but as Mrs. Lane entered with outstretched arms, there 
 came a low, almost wailing voice from the bedside : 
 
 " Oh, Mabel, Mabel, how could you ?" 
 
836 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 When it was generally understood around Fort Ryan the following 
 afternoon that Mr. Hearn had taken the first train and gone after the 
 regiment early that morning, people were somewhat surprised. Along 
 toward sunset the ladies began to thiuk it time somebody went to call 
 at the Lanes' and see why it was that neither Mrs. Lane nor Miss 
 Marshall had been abroad during the day. Incidentally, too, it might 
 be possible to find out whether congratulations were in order. Nobody 
 could account ft)r the sudden departure of the lieutenant. Kenyon 
 knew of it, of course, but to all questions would only reply, as though 
 in surprise, — 
 
 " Go ? Why, of course he went ! What else would you expect 
 of a man like Hearn ? He was all ready to join his regiment : why 
 shouldn't he go ?" 
 
 Still, as Mr. Hearn had not said a word about going even when 
 questioned the night before, every woman at Ryan felt sure there was 
 some sudden reason, and equally sure that Miss Marshall, if she only 
 would, could tell it. Very probably the first callers fully expected to 
 be told that Miss Marshall was not well and begged to be excused. 
 That would have settled the matter to their entire satisfaction. But, 
 on the contrary, Miss Marshall, looking every bit as fresh and cool and 
 animated as ever, came tripping lightly down the stairs the moment 
 they were announced. She perfectly well knew that they would be 
 coming, and was fully prepared to meet them. She had heard, too, of 
 Mr. Hearn's sudden departure : a brief note had come to Mrs. Lane 
 early in the morning, over which that bonny matron had had a good 
 cry. The visitors only succeeded in finding Miss Marshall as brilliant 
 and entertaining as ever, but more provokingly inscrutable. It was 
 impossible to determine from her manner in speaking of Mr. Hearn 
 and his departure whether there was an engagement or not. 
 
 Nor was any one a whit wiser at the end of the week. " If she is 
 engaged to him," said the dames and damsels, " she is receiving rather 
 too much attention from the major, who lets no day go by without its 
 call, and the calls are growing longer." 
 
 Mabel Lane, who had looked pale for a day or two, was blithe 
 and sunshiny as ever, so far as Ryan society could judge ; and in the 
 absence of any local sensation some people were disposed to regard 
 the situation as decidedly disheartening. No woman rests content who 
 suspects an engagement and cannot prove it. 
 
 Letters from the regiment gave no clue. Lane wrote to Mabel 
 every day, — another thing that made him culpable in the eyes of lords 
 less uxorious, — and she was besieged by the other wives with questions 
 as to what was going on in the field. But what he wrote her of Hearn 
 she would tell no one, not even Georgia, — who never asked. 
 
 " It has been a hard ordeal for Hearn, as any one can see," wrote 
 the captain. " He has aged and changed greatly. The youngsters had 
 planned a sort of love-feast for him, but he begged them that nothing 
 of the kind be held, and he has really shunned society since rejoining. 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 837 
 
 He claims that all his time is taken up with his troop, and of course 
 we are very busy ; but there is something behind it, and I think you 
 know." 
 
 She did know, and yet could not tell. It was her penance for 
 breaking faith with Georgia. The latter had forbidden that she should 
 tell to any one the fact that Mr. Hearn had indeed oifered himself and 
 had been refused. 
 
 But Lane learned it soon enough. From the moment of his return 
 to the regiment the young soldier spent most of his time, when off duty, 
 in the society of the captain, and one night in the fulness of his sorrow- 
 ing heart he told his friend of the bitter disappointment that had come 
 to him. He loved her deeply, had asked her to be his wife, and she 
 had gently, even tearfully, but positively, said no, it simply could not 
 be. He had begged her to give her reasons, and she refused. She 
 assured him of her faith, respect, and esteem, but pointed out to him 
 that in every way possible since the trial she had striven to avert the 
 declaration which she frankly confessed she could not but foresee. He 
 was forced to admit this, and could no longer press her for reasons, 
 since she had plainly discouraged his suit. Yet it was hard, — very 
 hard. 
 
 Lane simply could not understand. "Is there any one else?" he 
 wrote to Mabel, and Mabel said she was sure there was not ; but she 
 was equally sure Georgia meant no. Mabel, herself, was even more 
 perplexed than the captain, since Georgia had gently but resolutely for- 
 bidden any further mention of the subject between them. And now, 
 with the utter inconsistency of her sex, pretty Mrs. Lane was all eager- 
 ness to discover and demolish the barrier to a match which a month ago 
 she would have opposed because it seemed inevitable. 
 
 Then came a joy in which Mrs. Lane for the time-being forgot her 
 perplexities. Captain Fred obtained a seven days' leave from the regi- 
 ment and flew as straight to her arms as a circuitous railroad-route could 
 carry him. He greeted Miss Marshall as cordially as ever, but he did 
 not call her Portia as he had intended, because Mabel warned him in a 
 letter that it served to revive associations which were not all joyous. 
 " I called her Portia long before she met Mr. Hearn," was Lane's stout 
 reply ; " but if she doesn't like it, that's enough." Major Kenyon was 
 bidden to dinner the evening of his home-coming, and of course many 
 of the garrison people ha})pened in, and so there was nothing but general 
 chat. But two evenings later, when the major was sitting in the big 
 arm-chair and discoursing on some of his favorite hobbies, he broached 
 anew the matter of Judge Hearn's letter urging his son to quit the 
 service. 
 
 " Have you never heard Hearn's answer, major ?" said Lane. " He 
 read it to me before sending it, and I thought it so good that I kept a 
 copy. Here it is." 
 
 Miss Marshall was sitting at the table under the bright lamp as 
 Lane began to read. Mabel noticed that she leaned forward, shading 
 her eyes with her hand. 
 
 " I have thought it all over, my dear father. The offer you make 
 me is one for which I thank you with all my heart. Few men could 
 
838 ^^ ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 quit the service under better auspices, or return to a home more loved 
 or friends more loving; and yet — I cannot. Ten years of my life, 
 perhaps the best ten, have been spent in a profession which with every 
 year presents new fields, new studies, and new requirements. I have 
 worked honestly, have won friends, and, in all modesty may say, a 
 good name. Admitting all you write of this recent attempt of the 
 papers to blacken it, my friends here tell me that it but proves the 
 strength of my record that even concerted newspaper assaults could not 
 harm me in the eyes of right-thinking people. 
 
 " I love the duties. I am deeply attached to many of my comrades. 
 I can be a very fair soldier, and might only make a very poor lawyer. 
 For these reasons I think I ought to stand where I am. But there is 
 still another reason. 
 
 " Father, when I bound myself to the United States as a cadet I 
 received at the hands of the nation a schooling such as I could get at 
 no other institution in the world, and was moulded by the nation for 
 its service. If in after-years I found myself better fitted to serve in 
 some other way, then there might be excuse for tendering a resignation. 
 But when I feel and know that I am far more soldier than I can ever 
 be anything else, it all the more convinces me that my efforts belong 
 now and for a lifetime to the nation that trained me and that I have 
 sworn to serve. 
 
 " The dear ones at home know me best, it is true. The class in 
 whose supposed interests I have been so unjustly assailed, it is also true, 
 is very different from that in which we move. But, in the broad light 
 of a soldier's duty, neither the love of the one nor the unreasoning 
 hate of the other should swerve me. The hardest knocks a soldier has 
 to bear come sometimes from the very'men whom he ,is sworn to defend. 
 You would not have me yield because of a stinging wound or two, nor 
 would I be worthy of your name if I faltered now. It is my belief 
 that, despite apparent apathy, there is still, North or South, a place in 
 the hearts of the people for every soldier who seeks faithfully to serve 
 them, and in that faith — God helping me — I shall folloio the old jiag 
 to the end." 
 
 " By Jupiter !" said Kenyon, as he sprang to his feet and strode 
 excitedly up and down the room, " isn't that enough to make one 
 damn the liberty of the press, to think that a month ago it was holding 
 up that fine fellow for everything that was low and contemptible ! — 
 Miss Marshall, if I were Why, she's gone !" 
 
 "Just stepped into the dining-room a moment," said Mrs. Lane, 
 promptly, though her eyes were brimming. *' Now, isn't that Mr. 
 Hearn all over !" 
 
 But Georgia Marshall had not gone into the dining-room. Mabel 
 found her over at the end of the veranda, gazing at the distant night- 
 lights across the dark and silent valley. 
 
 September came, and the Eleventh would" soon be on its home- 
 ward march. Letters to the regiment made frequent mention of old 
 Kenyon's devotion to Miss Marshall, and even Hearn had to hear occa- 
 sional bits of conversation that told him that in quitting Ryan he had 
 abandoned the field to a rival. But when orders reached them there 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 839 
 
 was other news : Miss Marshall was to return to the East at once. 
 " Despite every plea," wrote Mabel, " she persists in it, and adamant 
 is no more yielding than is her determination. I am utterly heart- 
 broken, but cannot prevent it. She has been making arrangements for 
 a new position of some kind for the last six weeks, and she will leave 
 before the regiment gets back." 
 
 And when the Eleventh came marching into Ryan late in the 
 month, and a host of tanned and bearded troopers rode in behind the 
 band on its dancing grays, Georgia Marshall had vanished from the 
 scene. 
 
 Presently Kenyon took a long leave and disappeared. " Having it 
 out with his newspaper friends in Chicago," was Martin's suggestion. 
 But the next thing heard of him he had turned up in Cincinnati, and 
 Mabel knew well what that meant, and waited with bated breath. 
 For a month there came no further news, and then he was reported at 
 St. Augustine, more crabbed than ever. 
 
 " Then he, too, has been rejected," said Mabel. And she was right. 
 Kenyon did not rejoin until long after the Christmas holidays. 
 
 Old Blauvelt, by this time, had been sent before a retiring board, 
 which recommended him for permanent shelving, and he was still on 
 leave until the needed vacancy should occur. Hearn, meantime, 
 remained in command of his troop, no longer encumbered by the pres- 
 ence of Trooper Welsh, who had been formally " sent to Leavenworth." 
 Corporal Brent had won his sergeant's chevrons, and was looking for- 
 ward to examination for promotion. Everything was going blithely 
 at the post, but for the sadness that seemed to have clouded one young 
 soldier's life, and for the anxious look on Mabel Lane's face when 
 Portia was asked for, as Portia often was. "Teaching children all the 
 fall and winter was telling on her," wrote an old school-friend. And 
 when April came she was reported ill, though her own letters made no 
 mention of it. The family would move to their country-seat in a 
 week, and she would be so glad, she said, to see the trees and birds 
 again. 
 
 The first of May had come. The lovely suburbs of a bustling 
 city were shrouded in the richest, freshest green. The sweet breath of 
 the early summer, laden with the perfume of lilac and honeysuckle 
 and of myriad blossoms, was sighing through the foliage of a park of 
 grand old trees and rippling the surface of a grassy lawn. Robin and 
 bluebird, oriole and crested woodpecker, flashed and flitted through the 
 sunshine, now splashing in the basin of the fountain, now chasing each 
 other in chattering glee through the slanting light and shadow. The 
 drone of beetle and hum of dragon-fly fell soothingly on the drowsy 
 ear. The little knot of Jerseys browsing in the paddock down the 
 eastward slope huddled together sleepily in a shaded corner. The 
 tennis-court was deserted, the mallets lay sprawled about the croquet- 
 ground, and a pair of Maltese kittens that had been scampering about, 
 playing hide-and-seek among the currant-bushes, seemed at last over- 
 come by the languorous spell in which all nature was hushed, and with 
 
840 AN ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 the confidence of kittenhood proceeded to clamber into the slowly- 
 swinging hammock, hung well back in the shade, wherein was reclining 
 the one human being visible in the entire picture, — a tall girl with 
 big dark eyes and a wealth of sombre braids of hair, — a girl whose 
 soft cheeks were almost as thin and pale as the slender white hands 
 loosely clasping an open letter that lay in her lap. And it was this 
 that the foremost pussy, after clambering by swift springs up the path- 
 way afforded by the trailing white skirts, now impatiently pawed to 
 one side and curled herself up in its place ; there she was promptly 
 joined by her playmate. Slowly the thin white hand was lifted and 
 gently stroked the fur of the pretty, graceful creature. 
 
 " It is a holiday for us, isn't it. Fluffy kin ?" murmured the girl. 
 " The children and doggy both gone, and it's almost time for us to be 
 thinking of tea, — tea all alone. There's the whistle of the sunset 
 train now." 
 
 For a moment the wooded slopes on both sides of the valley echoed 
 to the rattle of the incoming cars, the sharp hiss of steam, the distant 
 sound of voices at the little station down the winding village street, 
 arched over with rustling foliage. Then the clang of the bell, and the 
 hurrying engine again pushed northward, impatient of delay. A few 
 light carriages and pony-phaetons came driving swiftly by ; a few of 
 the occupants waved hand or handkerchief to the reclining figure in 
 the hammock, but far more passed by on the other side without a sign 
 or token, and presently silence and solitude again settled down upon 
 the shaded lawn, and the last rays of the westering sun kissed the tree- 
 tops good-night and slowly died away. 
 
 " Surely there should be another letter from Mabel to-night : this 
 one is a week old now/' said Portia. But, old as it was, there seemed 
 one page which deserved re-reading, and the white hands sought and 
 found the letter and lifted it before her eyes : 
 
 " Mr. Hearn has been gone a week now, and we miss him sadly. 
 He had almost made his home here with us during the winter, and 
 rarely spent an evening anywhere else. His father's death seems to 
 have been very sudden, and it was a great shock. He has a month's 
 leave, with permission to apply for an extension. Georgia, — Portia, — 
 I could say so much, so very much, if you would only listen. If you 
 would only release me from that promise ! I was thinking but yester- 
 day how I blessed the day that my pride broke down and gave me 
 Fred and happiness. Sometimes I cannot but think that only pride — 
 foolish, unwarrantable pride — stands between you and a life as blessed 
 as my own." 
 
 Impatiently the letter was hurled upon the grass, and, half turning, 
 Georgia buried her wan face on her arm. Of what was she thinking? 
 Surely those were hot tears trickling through the long white fingers ; 
 surely there was little evidence of stubborn pride in the abandonment 
 of that silent, lonely sorrow. All day she had been at leisure, the 
 family and children away in town, and, though neither her duties had 
 been very onerous nor the trials of her new position very great, she 
 had drooped all winter long. This was the first real day of rest ; yet, 
 with all its sweetness and sunshine, had it not been full of tears? — full 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 841 
 
 of vague unrest and longing? and now even the sunshine was going, 
 and the gloaming was slowly settling down upon the valley. Far over 
 the eastern heights the silvery shield of the soft May moon was peeping 
 into view ; but the fairy shafts of her gentle light could not yet pene- 
 trate the gathering gloom here in the grove where swung the hammock. 
 Still the hot tears came trickling between the white fingers, and, yield- 
 ing at last to the mournful influence of the dying day, Georgia Mar- 
 shall wept unrestrainedly, — wept while great sobs shook her frame; 
 and while one fluffy kitten, disturbed in her intended nap, stretched 
 forth a furry paw and lifted up a querulous note of remonstrance, her 
 companion, suddenly dislodged from her cosey nest in Georgia's lap, 
 clawed vigorously back upon the heaving folds of the summer fabric, 
 glared around in excited search for the possible cause of such seismatic 
 disturbance, and instantly set back a pair of tiny ears, arched a furry 
 back, bristled her stiffening tail, and gave vent to spiteful challenge at 
 the fell disturber of her peace. There stood a man. 
 
 A tall young fellow, erect and powerful in build, clad in civilian 
 garb, but striding across the lawn with the swing of a trooper, halted 
 suddenly not ten feet away and lifted from his shapely head a hat 
 banded heavily with crape. The next instant he had hurled this aside, 
 stepped quickly forward, utterly ignoring pussy's hostile guise, had 
 thrown himself on one knee beside the hammock, and the drooping 
 moustache almost swept the soft, white hands as he impetuously seized 
 them. 
 
 " Georgia," he whispered. 
 
 Heavens ! what a start ! In her wild consternation she recoiled from 
 his touch, striving at the same instant to sit erect. Hammocks are not 
 made for combinations so eccentric. The next instant the flimsy thing 
 had slipped from under her, and she felt herself going. Drowning 
 men catch at straws ; drowning women seize the hand they would have 
 shunned. But for his sudden spring, but for prompt clasping arms, 
 she would have gone headlong to the ground on the opposite side. For 
 a minute she was held in close embrace, a confused mingling of dusky 
 braids, of throbbing femininity, of hotly-blushing, tear-wet face, of 
 cool linen lawn and clinging hammock-netting. Then her hands 
 regained their cunning, and found his broad shoulders, and she pushed 
 herself free, and then hysterical laughter came to her aid, and the 
 shaded grove rang to a peal that, if not merry, was at least irresistible, 
 and at last, as she sat there, restored to equilibrium and striving to 
 regain her whirling senses, as he stood patiently bending over her, half 
 praying that the inspired hammock might yet attempt some new freak, 
 she glanced up at him through smiles and tears and disordered bangs, 
 only to say, — 
 
 " How utterly absurd !" 
 
 To which philosophical remark he vouchsafed no reply whatever. 
 
 It is a full minute before she recovers, even partially, either breath 
 or self-possession. Then she holds forth her hand, and he assists her 
 to rise. 
 
 " This is not the welcome I should give you. Shall we go to the 
 house?" 
 
842 ^N ARMY PORTIA. 
 
 But even as she asks and her eyes glance nervously, shyly, up into 
 his face, she knows he will accept no invitation that will peril this Ute- 
 db-tMe. She sees how the lines have deepened in his frank, soldierly 
 face, and that a sadness not all of his recent bereavement has left its 
 traces there. She would lead hira from the shaded grove to the parlor, 
 where the lamps are already beginning to twinkle, but he will not budge 
 one step. He stands confronting her. 
 
 " No ! I have come solely to see you. Is there any reason why we 
 cannot stay here a moment?'^ And she can think of none. Oh, 
 what infamous fate that he should have found her weeping, — bathed in 
 tears ! 
 
 "I hardly thought to see you at all, especially after — the great 
 — sorrow of your father's death," she falters, her heart leaping and 
 bounding, despite her effort to be calm. 
 
 "I am taking mother North," he answers, simply. "It was a 
 cruel blow to her and a hard one to me. It was all over before I could 
 get home. Mother will spend the summer with her sister on the St. 
 Lawrence, but she has to rest in Cincinnati until to-morrow night. I 
 left her with old friends this afternoon and came out here to find you. 
 I must go back this evening. And, now, have you no word of wel- 
 come for me ? Did you not know that I would come, loving you as I 
 do?" 
 
 What answer can she make? Her head is drooping low; her 
 hands are clasped together, her bosom heaving, her breath fluttering 
 away ; and yet how wild a joy, how exquisite a hope, is throbbing in 
 her heart of hearts ! 
 
 " Georgia," he speaks impulsively, his deep voice trembling, " you 
 made me accept your answer then and bear my bitter disappointment 
 without a word ; but I have borne it too long now. Had you been at 
 the other end of the world I must have followed you, for the longing 
 to see your dear face, to hear your voice, to look into your glorious 
 eyes, has overmastered me time and again. I had to come, and now I 
 will hear what it is that stands between us. God knows my love and 
 honor have been yours a long, long year. God knows there can be no 
 content or joy for me if your answer be final. You have bound my 
 life in yours. You won my whole heart, my deepest gratitude. No, 
 you cannot check me by impatient gesture now : you must hear. You 
 told me there was no other man. Is that true ?" 
 
 " Perfectly," she answers, proudly. 
 
 "And yet you would not listen to me. You would not be ray 
 wife." 
 
 " You forget, it was just after the trial. You seemed to think you 
 owed me such a world of gratitude ; and — do not men sometimes mis- 
 take gratitude for love ?" 
 
 " Oh, heaven !" he interrupts her impetuously, his hands out- 
 stretched. " You do not mean you doubted me, Georgia ? If that 
 were your reason, is it not banished now? Look — look up into my 
 eyes, my darling, and tell me, if you dare, that it is gratitude, not 
 deep and fervent love, I offer you. Nay, you shall see." And, before 
 she can retreat, his strong, trembling hands have seized her drooping 
 
AN ARMY PORTIA. 843 
 
 head, and between them her face, with its dark, kistrous, swimming 
 eyes, with cheeks still tear-wet, yet burning with blushes chasing each 
 other to her very brows, her soft red lips quivering and trembling at 
 the dimpled corners, — all — all now lifted to his worshipping gaze ; and 
 she can repel no longer. One swift glance, and, if ever vestige of 
 doubt remained, it vanished then and there. No woman on earth could 
 have looked into his eyes and denied the love that burned within them, 
 — all her own, all her own. 
 
 " Speak to me, Georgia. Do you believe me now ?" 
 
 " Yes," she whispers, and her face would have hidden itself but for 
 those strong hands again. 
 
 " And you have no love to give in return ?" 
 
 A little silvery beam is peeping through the foliage now. The 
 kittens, forgotten, are rolling over each other in mad frolic at their 
 very feet. The last chirp of drowsing bird has died away. The 
 silence of the sweet summer night has fallen on all surrounding nature, 
 yet he can hardly hear her whisper, — 
 
 " You never asked it — until now." 
 
 " But it is mine, really ? Georgia, tell me," he implores. 
 
 " It has been — all yours ever since the night I heard your letter, — 
 ever since you wrote that you would follow the old flag to the end." 
 
 THE END. 
 
844 UNCROWNED. 
 
 UNCROWNED. 
 
 INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF FITZJAMES O'BRIEN. 
 January 23, 1887. 
 
 [FitzJames O'Brien was the leader of the Bohemian circle in New York in the years im- 
 mediately preceding the war. He was hurt to death in a skirmish fighting for his adopted 
 country. In his volume "The Diamond Lens and other Tales" (Harpers) is given his story 
 of " The Lost Room." In that story O'Brien claims descent from a chief to whom St. Kieran 
 had prophesied, according to the " Annals of the Four Masters," that he and his descendants 
 should rule over the Ithian race forever.] 
 
 WHILE the round sun forgets its noonday glare, 
 And following after clouds the evening comes, 
 And sounds of city feet more fleetly fare 
 
 To some kind haven, in the town of homes, 
 I stop to look along these shabby walls. 
 
 And almost naked floor, I claim as mine. 
 No priceless hanging to the wainscot falls, 
 
 No marvels painted out of oil divine 
 Look at this sad, worn, weary face with love. 
 
 Only a rug or twain lies here or there. 
 And from its case peeps out a boxing-glove. 
 
 I see the long black easel's horns still wear 
 My colors, — black and gold. Above the bed 
 
 Dusk Cleopatra foils the folded snake 
 That drives across her golden thigh its head. 
 
 And the strange love-dreams in her eyes awake ; 
 And on the other wall Lucretia, slim, 
 
 Beautiful, bare except of gauzy veil, 
 That cannot hide the shapely breast and limb 
 
 And those wild eyes that time should not assail. 
 
 A ruined castle by an Irish sea. 
 
 I hear sad Cleena * calling for her king : 
 A beggar holds a pen afar from thee ; 
 
 Never for him your white-capped waves shall sing. 
 Under the pent rock Loki turns his face. 
 
 Avoiding as he may the serpent's slime; 
 Naked and chained upon a wave-washed place. 
 
 He sufiers doom for his immortal crime. 
 The serpent's fangs perpetual venom drop ; 
 
 Cold on the rugged rock he clanks his chain. 
 But Sigyn holds before his face the cup. 
 
 To save his temples from the dropping pain. 
 Forever does the serpent's venom fail. 
 
 And ever the white waves sweep over them, 
 
 * The south Irish coast. 
 
i ddxiddd dsidddxidsiii^ ^ dsLiddlR H.H d Hi^H H.dji i^.d dxJjdZEEES-EBF 
 
 BOO KS 
 
 P 
 
 OPULAR 
 MILITARY 
 NOVELS 
 
 BY CAPTAIN 
 CHARLES KING, U.S.A. 
 
 The Army and Navy Register says: "As descriptions of life at an army 
 post and the vicissitudes, trials, and heroisms of army life on the plains in what 
 are called 'times of peace,' the novels of Captain King are worthy of a high 
 and permanent place in American literature. They will hereafter take rank with 
 Cooper's novels as distinctively American works of fiction." 
 
 STORIES BY CAPTAIN KING. 
 
 CAPTAIN BLAKE. Illustrated. i2mo. Cloth $1.25 
 
 Illustrated 
 
 THE COLONEL'S DAUGHTER. 
 MARION'S FAITH. Illustrated 
 
 STARLIGHT RANCH 
 
 KITTY'S CONQUEST 
 
 LARAMIE 
 
 THE DESERTER, and FROM THE RANKS 100 
 
 TWO SOLDIERS, and DUNRAVEN RANCH xoo 
 
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 For sale by all Booksellers, Sent, post-paid, on receipt 
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 ^<5^-»^;<^>^5*f- B O O KZ S -^•?a^-^*i^-^*t^^ 
 
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 dard Authority on all Questions of 
 Orthography, Pronunciation or 
 Definition, 
 
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 " It follows from this with unerring accuracy," says the 
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 Contains a full vocabulary of 48,000 words. The de- 
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 20 
 
A 
 
 SOLDIER'S Secret, 
 
 A STORY OF 
 
 THE SIOUX WAR OF 1890. 
 
 BY 
 
 OAPT. CHARLES KING, 
 
 U. S. AEMY, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE COLONEL'S DAUGHTER," "THE DESERTER," " DUNRAVEN 
 
 RANCH," ETC. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT CX)MPANY. 
 
Copyright, 1892, by J. B. Lippincott Company. 
 
 Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, U.S.A. 
 
LIPPINCOTT'S 
 
 ]y[ONTHLY JyJAGAZINE. 
 
 MARCH, 189 2. 
 
 A. SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 WHEN the Indian summer haze is hovering over the bluffs along the 
 Pawnee in these dreamy, sunshiny afternoons of late November there 
 is a languorous spell even in soldier life, and the troopers love to loll about 
 the wide porches of the barracks during their brief leisure moments, or 
 while waiting the trumpet call for stables. There is scarcely a breath of air 
 astir. The broad, fertile valley under the bluffs, forest-fringed along the 
 stream, gives forth a faint, pungent, smoky odor, and the eye wanders across 
 its soft undulations, its vistas of alternate glade, grove, and shadowy pool, 
 and sees it all as through some filmy, intangible veil. The sharp outlines 
 so characteristic of the frontier at other seasons, giving to the ridge to the 
 northwest that razor-back guise that inspired the original explorers, Ken- 
 tuckians and Missourians, to refer to the range as " Hawg Buttes," are mel- 
 lowed into softer curves. There is an echo sprite abroad in the autumn 
 skies, for the distant whistle of the trains, the puff and pant of engines 
 miles away, the rumble of the express as it flies across the wooden truss at 
 Big Bend far down the valley, the lowing of cattle and the tinkle of their 
 bells at the farms beyond the reservation lines, the shout and laughter of 
 village children scouring the stream banks for the last of the year's crop of 
 beech- or butternut, the soft laughter of the ladies gathered in the veranda of 
 the major's quarters, all come floating through the pulseless air to the listen- 
 ing ears of the senti'y dawdling here along the post at the western gate, and 
 distracting his attention from the purely military functions which he is 
 called upon to perform. Over at the guard-house many of the men are 
 drowsing in the afternoon sunshine. Among the stables the horses are 
 standing at the picket-line, with drooped heads and lazily-swishing tails. 
 The officer of the guard, knowing the colonel to be away on a late shooting- 
 excursion and the major held at home by the demands of hospitality, has 
 dropped into a doze while sitting bolt upright at his wooden desk. Scores 
 of the garrison proper seem inclined to follow his example, and the tall, 
 dark-faced, black-bearded soldier — a handsome fellow — leaning on the breast- 
 high wall over at the east end midway between the hospital at the edge of 
 the bluff and the junior surgeon's quarters, his chin on his arms, his cap 
 pulled well down over his eyes, seems to have been stricken by the general 
 somnolence. It is only the ladies who are wide awake and alert, for this is 
 Nita Guthrie's last appearance, so to speak. She has been paying a brief 
 visit to Dr. and Mrs. Holden, kinsfolk of hers, but is to take the East-bound 
 train this very night. Mrs. Holden goes too, leaving her lord, the junior 
 medical officer of the station, to the mercy of the other women, and of all 
 the families of some thirty married officers stationed in this big garrison not 
 one is unrepresented at Major Berrien's to-day, for Nita Guthrie has won 
 
 259 
 
260 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 all hearts. But this, say those who have known her long, is an old, old 
 story with Nita ; she has been doing the same thing for j'ears. 
 
 There is tang of suggestiveness about this statement ; moreover, it is 
 true : Miss Guthrie is not in the first bloom of youth. " Wliy, she must be 
 nearly thirty," say some of the younger girls and younger matrons, who 
 envy her none the less the freshness, the grace, the winsomeness, that hover 
 about her mobile face ; but those who are in position to know and have no 
 reason to feel the faintest jealousy assert very positively that Nita is not more 
 than twenty-five. 
 
 " Well, why hasn't she married?" is the instant query of Mrs. Vance, 
 to whose benighted mind it ever appears that because a woman hasn't she 
 cannot. 
 
 " Simply because the right man is yet to come," is Mrs. Harper's equally 
 prompt reply. "Nita Guthrie has had more offers in six years than any 
 woman I ever heard of." 
 
 " Then there must be something back of it all," responds Mrs. Vance, 
 whose theories are not to be lightly shaken. "Was there some early affair?" 
 
 "My dear Mrs. Vance, I have no doubt I could tell you a dozen stories, 
 all plausible, all in active circulation when last I visited St. Louis and saw 
 her in society there, and all as near the truth, probably, as any we could 
 invent here. Nobody knows but Nita, and she won't tell." 
 
 Now as the autumn sun, all red burnished gold, is sinking to the hori- 
 zon on this final day of a charming and memorable visit, Nita Guthrie is 
 bidding adieu with laughing, kindly cordiality to the little coterie gathered 
 in her honor. To one and all she has the same frank, gracious manner. 
 Over all she throws the same odd magnetic spell, seeming to impress each 
 and every one in turn with the same idea: "Now, you are just the most 
 thoroughly delightful creature I have ever met, and I cannot bear to say 
 good-by to you." There is the lingering hand-clasp, and yet not the faint- 
 est sentimentality. Nita's blue eyes — very blue — gaze straight into those 
 of her friends. She seems to advance a step or two, as though eager to 
 meet and take by the hand each new-comer. Even the elders among the 
 women find it hard to go ; and as for the girls, they linger spell-bound ; 
 they cluster about her, watching the sunshine in her face, the play of her 
 features, the sparkle of her eyes, drinking in her winsome words, her rip- 
 pling laughter. 
 
 " It's just the only chance we've had to ourselves. Miss Nita," protests 
 Winifred Berrien. " You've been surrounded by men all the rest of the 
 time, and we couldn't see you now if it weren't that they had to be in 
 stables. Oh, if you only didn't have to go to-night !" 
 
 " Indeed, Winnie, t don't want to go. It seems to me nothing can be 
 more delightful than life in an army post like this. Certainly no girl ever 
 had a better time anywhere than you have given me here, and it is so unlike 
 what I fancied it might be." 
 
 "It is entirely unlike what life on the frontier used to be. Miss Guthrie," 
 answers her hostess, the major's wife, in her calm, placid way. " Any one 
 contrasting our beatitude of to-day with our life here, there, and every- 
 where over the West during the Indian campaigns in which the regiment 
 was incessantly engaged, can only wonder how we found it possible to exist 
 in those days. Social conditions have changed, too, and in the gathering 
 of our troops in larger garrisons a great many of the unpleasant features of 
 the old life have been eliminated entirely. Indeed, I w^sh you might stay 
 and see more of us. But you are coming again, are you not?" 
 
 " If wishing will bring it about, I shall be with you again with the 
 coming summer or early in the spring. I have promised Mrs. Holden 
 that I will return to her, if onl.y for a fortnight." 
 
 The enthusiasm excited among the girls, and apparently shared by all 
 the women present, when this announcement is made, ought certainly to 
 convince Miss Guthrie that they most reluctantly part with her now and 
 most pleasantly anticipate her future coming. The clamor of voices is such 
 that for a time no one is conscious of the fact that out on the jiarade the 
 regimental line has formed, and that the band is already trooping down the 
 front. Berrien had taken his position as commanding officer. Several 
 subalterns, whose heads were kept rigidly straight to the front, found 
 their eyes wandering furtively over towards the major's quarters. In 
 couples and groups, a number of the ladies come sauntering forth, gather- 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 261 
 
 ing opposite the centre nearer the colonel's house, from which point they 
 generally watched the closing ceremony of the day. But, still oblivious to 
 any music but that of her voice, a dozen of their number hover about Miss 
 Guthrie. Even gun-fire fails to distract their attention. It is not until the 
 major himself returns, tossing off his helmet and tugging at his waist-belt, 
 that they realize that parade is over and dinner waiting. 
 
 "Now, you will come back next spring?" — " You wi^^ write ?" — "You 
 won't forget to send me the photograph, — mind, cabinet size, — Miss Nita?" 
 — "Indeed, if ever I get anywhere near St. Louis you'll be the first soul I 
 shall come in search of." 
 
 It is a little flock of enthusiastic army girls surrounding her, maidens 
 whose early lives had been spent wandering from river to mountain, from 
 the Gulf to the Columbia, to whom city life was almost a revelation, and 
 city belles, beings from another world. Winifred Berrien is the leader of the 
 coterie, a girl whose eyes are as dark as Nita's are blue, and they are ready 
 to brim over at this very instant. 
 
 " Here comes Captain Rolfe for you now, and we've got to let you go ; 
 but we'll all be down to see you off at train-time." 
 
 The man who enters at the moment and stands just within the heavy 
 Navajo portifere, smilingly looking upon the group and quite unconscious 
 of the almost vengeful glances in the eyes of the young girls, is a cavalry 
 officer about thirty-five years of age. He is a tall fellow, somewhat heavily 
 built, yet well proportioned and athletic. His face is tanned by long ex- 
 posui'e to the sun and wind of the wide frontier. His brown hair, close- 
 cropped, has a suspicion of gray just silvering the temples. His eyebrows 
 are thick and strongly marked. The eyes beneath are deep-set and fringed 
 with heavy lashes. The moustache, sweeping from his upper lip, is of a 
 lighter brown than his hair, but equally thick, heavy, and curling. Other- 
 wise his face is smoothly shaved, and is one which impresses those who 
 look upon it, even carelessly, as strong and resolute. He still wears the 
 double-breasted coat, with shoulder-knots and fourragdre, ^uat as he had 
 come off parade, though he has exchanged helmet for forage-cap, which 
 latter head-gear at this moment is being dandled in one hand, while the 
 fingers of the other beat rapid tattoo upon the visor. Comrades of Rolfe 
 would tell you this is a sign that he is nervous ; yet to look at him there, 
 smiling upon the group, quite as though remarking what a pretty picture 
 they make, no one else would be apt to think of such a thing. 
 
 "Ready in a moment, Rolfe," shouts the major from an inner room. 
 "You ready, Berengaria?" 
 
 "I am always ready, Richard, as you well know," is Mrs. Berrien's 
 placid response. " I think I never kept you waiting so much as a monaent." 
 
 "Promptest woman in the army or out of it," booms the major from 
 his sanctum, his jovial voice resounding through the rooms of the bright 
 garrison home. "Never knew anything like it, Miss Guthrie. Why, do 
 you know, even when I wasn't half proposing she never let me finish the 
 sentence ! 'Twasn't at all what I was going to ask her, — that day, at least. 
 Meant to eventually, of course, if I ever could muster up courage, but this 
 time I had only found grit enough to ask for her picture, and I was en- 
 gaged in less than ten seconds." 
 
 Winnie Berrien rushes from the parlor into the paternal den, voluble 
 with protestation against such scandalous stories at mamma's expense ; 
 but Mrs. Berrien, slowly fanning herself, remains calmly seated, as though 
 impervious to these damaging shots, at which everybody else is laughing 
 merrily. 
 
 "Possibly you don't believe me," again booms the major, his jolly red 
 face aglow, as he is dragged forth from the den, still struggling with the 
 sleeve-links of his cuff". "Winifred, my child, unhand me. Foj^'ll never 
 bring your old father's gray hairs in sorrow to the grave by such un- 
 womanly precipitancy, unless it's a civilian with ten thousand a year : 
 will you, dearest ? — Miss Guthrie, I never expect to be a rich man. I hadn't 
 as many dollars when I fell in love with Miss De Lancy as I had buttons, 
 and we only wore single-breasted coats in those days, and I was the junior 
 captain. I pledge you my word I never would have had the cheek to offer 
 myself. 'Twas the woman did it. I was going away for a week, and I said, 
 * You can give me one thing, if you will.' I only meant to beg for that pic- 
 ture, and, ±>y Jove ! she slipped" her hand into mine. I was shaking all 
 
262 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 over. ' I — b-beg pardon,' I stammered, ' I was only going to — beg for your 
 
 p-p-p ' * My promise?' said Berengaria, sweetly, looking up into my 
 
 eyes. 'You have it, Richard.' Prompt? Why, she just jumped at me. 
 Splendid arrangement, though, Miss Guthrie, ohe furnished the quarters 
 and all the money, and I the vivacity and beauty of the household, until 
 Winnie came : she contributes a little towards it now. But we're a model 
 couple, aren't we, Berengaria?" And the major bends with playful ten- 
 derness, the fun spariiling in his eyes meanwhile, and liisses his handsome 
 helpmeet's rosy cheek. 
 
 " We have few crosses, certainly," replies Mrs. Berrien, whose own 
 name is anything but Berengaria, that being, as she is frequently _called 
 upon to explain, some of the major's historical nonsense. " We have few 
 crosses, and those, of course, i"bear. But now," she continues, with much 
 decision of manner, "if you are partially restored to sanity we will go, or 
 keep dinner longer waiting. — Miss Guthrie, do they allow lunatics at large 
 in the streets of St. Louis? Major Berrien spoke of getting a month's leave 
 this winter and going thither." 
 
 "Oh, send him by all means, and he shall be treated at our own asylum. 
 Father would rejoice in him, — as I do, Mrs. Berrien." 
 
 " And shall I get the colonel to detail Rolfe here to conduct me thither 
 and turn me over to the asylum authorities?" queries the major, with a 
 knowing cock of the head. " Rolfe hates city life as a general thing, but he 
 would accept that duty, I fancy." 
 
 " Captain Rolfe will be very welcome. Indeed, I only wish you might 
 bring the whole regiment, major. Just thinlc what a good time the girls 
 could have tliis winter if that were only possible." 
 
 " Berengaria says," bursts in the major again, " that if I only show you 
 proper attention on this visit you'll be sure to send us invitations to bring 
 the whole family and spend six weeks at least." 
 
 "Father ! you outrageous flbber !" gasps Winifred, rushing at him and 
 placing one slim hand upon his mouth, while twining the other, with its 
 soft white arm, about his neck. — " Indeed, Miss Guthrie, you must be told 
 that father is perpetually poking fun at mother, making her say all manner 
 of things she never thought of. It is all well enough in the regiment, where 
 people understand it and are prepared for his nonsense, but many strangers 
 are completely deceived at times, and mamma never so much' as remon- 
 strates." 
 
 Evidently mamma does not consider it worth while. 
 
 " It would be wasted time, Miss Guthrie, and we are wasting time as it 
 is.— Captain Hazlett will never forgive you, Major Berrien, if you keep din- 
 ner waiting another minute. — Captain Rolfe, will you escort Miss Guthrie? 
 — Come, Richard, march !" 
 
 "After you, Rolfe," says the major, with a bow of extra ceremony. 
 " After you." 
 
 " Before them, if you please, you blind goose !" whispers his better half, 
 " Haven't you sense enough to see he wants to speak with her and that this 
 may be the only opportunity ?" 
 
 "What! Rolfe wants to talk with her? Why, Miss Guthrie," he 
 
 booms aloud, "I hadn't the faintest idea " But here the wife of his 
 
 bosom lays firm hand upon his sunburnt ear and fairly marches him forth 
 upon the veranda. Miss Guthrie would indeed have been glad to lead, but 
 Rolfe's hand, trembling slightly, as she cannot but note, is laid upon her 
 wrist, restraining her. 
 
 "Why didn't you tell me you wanted to talk with Rolfe, Miss Guthrie ?" 
 queries the major, over his shoulder, with every appearance of cencern. 
 " I could have fixed it all for you." 
 
 "Silence, Dick !" sternly murmurs Mrs. Berrien. " There is no fun in 
 this affair, and I warn you— not another word." 
 
 Twilight has fallen upon the garrison as they stroll across the parade. 
 The men have vanished from the scene, but the tinkle of guitar and banjo 
 tells where they have gathered. Most of the officers are at dinner. One or 
 two couples are just entering the gateway of Hazlett's quarters, — guests in- 
 vited to meet the fair visitor on this the last evening of her stay. Dr. and 
 Mrs. Holden can be seen among them, Mrs. Holden gazing somewhat anx- 
 iously at Nita and her escort, for it is plain that Rolfe seeks to detain the 
 woman to whom he has paid such unusual and devoted attention ever 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 263 
 
 since the hour of her arrival. Silence and peace have spread their wings 
 abroad, hovering with the twilight over the broad reservation, and the Ber- 
 riens, walking rapidly now as the energetic lady can lead her expostulating 
 spouse, come suddenly upon the sight of the great golden moon rising above 
 the distant bluffs and peering in upon the garrison tiirough the wide space 
 that interposes between the surgeon's quarters and the barracks at the east 
 end. 
 
 " Now, there is something Miss Guthrie really must see !" says Berrien, 
 halting short. "As one of her admirers and entertainers, I feel bound to 
 call her attention to it." 
 
 " Dick ! — stupid ! — move on at once. You must not speak to her now. 
 Can't you see?" 
 
 "See? Of course I see ; and I want her to see : that's why I stop." 
 Again half teasingly he attempts to turn, as thougli bent on looking back. 
 She promptly whirls him about and faces him in the proper direction. 
 " Oh," lie persists, " if it is something about her you wanted me to see, can't 
 you understand that I have no eyes in the back of my head, and that there- 
 fore I should be allowed to look about?" 
 
 " You see, sir, and understand the situation perfectly well as it is. You're 
 simply bent on mischief. You know that Rolfe has been her shadow all 
 day long, hanging about her to say his say. He knows this to be his last 
 chance. Everybody will be there the moment dinner is over. Everybody 
 will surround her, and unless he speaks now he must let her go without a 
 word." 
 
 " Berengaria, you amaze me ! Are you conniving at his capture ? Didn't 
 you tell me you knew she wouldn't have him?" 
 
 " I did ; I know it now ; but he is a man who wants to hear his fate 
 from her own lips and plead his cause, too, like a man, unless I am very 
 much mistaken in him. No, sir, don't you dare look back." 
 
 " Poor devil ! Why couldn't he wait till after dinner? she might be in 
 softer mood then. I alwaj's am. That's why you always wait till after 
 dinner, I presume, when you have anything special to ask. Now, this will 
 take his appetite away entirely." 
 
 " As if he had any in the first place ! Positively, Richard, you have no 
 soul above a dinner. When a man is as desperately in love as Rolfe, do you 
 suppose he cares much what he eats?" 
 
 "Well, seems to nae I was never off my feed," is Berrien's reply, with 
 
 Ereternatural gravity, looking straight to the front now and refusing to meet 
 is wife's dark eyes. 
 
 " You !" with fine scorn. " You ! Why, Richard Berrien, with all your 
 amiable qualities of heart and weaknesses of head, no one on earth would 
 ever associate you and sentiment in the same breath. Of course you and 
 your appetite are inseparable ; but Rolfe is different : he is a lover." 
 
 "Well, what am I ?" 
 
 " You are simply a goose to-night. Come, don't stop at the gate now ; 
 push right on into the house after the Holdens. I'll run up to Mrs. Hazlett's 
 room with Nita." 
 
 A dozen of the fort people, only, have been bidden to dinner, for hardly 
 a dining-room at the post is big enough for more, and on the porch, anx- 
 iously awaiting the coming of his guests, is Hazlett. 
 
 " Where are Rolfe and Miss Guthrie ?" asks he, as men will ask. " All 
 here now but them." 
 
 " Coming at once ; only a few steps behind us," promptly answers Mrs. 
 Berrien. " Run in, major : I'll wait for Nita." Berrien looks as though he 
 meditated a mischievous remark, but something in her voice and manner 
 tells him that instant obedience is expected. He gives one quick glance and 
 steps into the hall. 
 
 Presently, while chatting with others of the arriving party, he is con- 
 scious of the swish of skirts passing up the stairway. The door to the 
 veranda is still open, and, glancing out, Berrien can see Rolfe alone, leaning 
 against one of the wooden pillars, his head drooping as though plunged in 
 deep thought. 
 
 " Poor old chap ! he's got his cong6 to-night, and that's the end of his 
 two years' romance. Odd about thatgirl. She fancies nobody." 
 
 Three hours later, the moon being well up in the heavens now, and the 
 whole parade shining revealed almost as bright as day, both the verandas 
 
264 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 and the parlor of Hazlett's cosey home are thronged with officers and ladies, 
 chatting merrily together. The lights are still blazing in the barracks. 
 The trumpeters in full force are grouped about the flag-staff, sounding tiie 
 last notes of tattoo. The Holdens have borne Miss Guthrie away with them 
 that the ladies might stow their evening gowns in tlie waiting Saratogas 
 and then don their travelling garb Avhile the quartermaster's big wagon 
 trundles the luggage down to the railway-station. Presently this lumber- 
 ing vehicle can be seen slowly rolling away from the Holdens' gate, and 
 everybody at Hazlett's waits impatiently for the return of the party. Mrs. 
 Holden is deservedly a favorite in the garrison, and Nita Guthrie, as has 
 been said, has won golden opinions. The evening air is growing chill, 
 however, and of the dozen ladies present only the younger, the girls, remain 
 longer upon the veranda. About this pretty group, laughing and chatting, 
 are four or five of the younger officers, Brewster, " tlie swell of the subs," 
 keeping close to Winifred Berrien, and claiming more and more of the 
 glances of her big dark eyes. Down at the gate, the moonlight glinting on 
 his poUshed sabre, the officer of the day is exchanging a few low-toned 
 words with Majdr Berrien. Rolfe, who, with silent and dogged resolution, 
 had taken his place at Miss Gutlirie's side as she came down the stairs and 
 escorted her to the doctor's, has turned from there and gone slowly across 
 the parade to his own quarters on the other side. Everybody seems to 
 see and know what has happened, and many half- whispered comments are 
 being made, not all in sympathy with the willowed lover. Everybody re- 
 spects Rolfe, yet among the younger officers are several who feel no warmth 
 of friendsliip for him, and, as between man and man, garrison girls can 
 only side with the youngsters. Their story of their slight differences is 
 sometimes told again and again ; the elders' seldom, for theirs would hardly 
 be beUeved. 
 
 Little by little the chat and laughter subside. 
 
 ''Oh, why doesn't she come back?" pouts Miss Berrien. "The ambu- 
 lances will be here in less than half an hour, and we won't see anything of 
 her." A chorus of girlish voices echoes Winifred's views. Mrs. Berrien 
 and Mrs. Parker at this moment come forth from the house and look ex- 
 pectantly up the road. 
 
 "How long they are!" says Winnie again. "What can keep them, 
 mamma?" 
 
 " Packing, I doubt not, my child." 
 
 " But the wagon's gone, trunks and all. It can't be that." 
 
 " Still, I would not fret about it, Winnie. Has she not promised to 
 come next spring and pay us a long visit ?" 
 
 "Yes, but who knows where we may all be next spring, or what may 
 happen meantime ? Every paper we get is full of stories of the ghost-dances 
 among the Sioux ; and if there should be another Indian war " 
 
 " Nonsense,* Winifred ! Don't think of such a thing ! After all this 
 regiment has had to suffer in Indian battle, you don't suppose we, of all 
 others, would be sent from here to a winter campaign in the Northern De- 
 partment? We've seen the last of such troubles, God be thanked !" 
 
 Major Berrien, his interview with the officer of the day ended, has just 
 started to rejoin the group on the veranda, when he hears his wife's pious 
 words. He whirls around sharply. 
 
 " Oh, captain, there's one thing I forgot to tell you." And the sabre 
 of the officer of the day clanks against his leg as Captain Porter faces about. 
 The younger officers go on with their blithe chat ; but Mrs. Berrien has 
 known her lord twenty long years, and no sooner has the officer of the day 
 departed than she hastens to join him. 
 
 " Dick," she falters, "surely you do not believe that there is any chance 
 of the Twelfth going, even if tliere should be trouble? Dick, tell me." 
 
 "Berengaria, beloved inquisitor," he begins, "I didn't even know there 
 was a row anywhere." 
 
 But she rebukes him by a single glance. 
 
 "Tell me, Dick," she persists, and clings to his arm. "You don't think, 
 after all we've been through, that, now tliat we are so happily settled here, 
 there is a possibility of such a thing? It isn't only for myself now. It's — 
 it would mean more to Winifred than either of us dreams of." 
 
 He looks at her in silence and amaze. Then — then comes sudden dis- 
 traction. On the stillness of the night there rises a scream of terror, — a 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 265 
 
 woman's voice uplifted in the expi'ession of an awful shock and agony. 
 Then a dash towards Holden's quarters, every man joining. 
 
 " My God !" sliouts Berrien, " it's Nita Guthrie." 
 
 Following the rush of soldiers' feet, half a dozen ladies, too, have hast- 
 ened, Winifred Berrien foremost of tlie lot. At the head of the stairs on 
 the landing of the second floor, dressed for her journey, lies the fair guest 
 of the regiment, a senseless heap, with the blood flowing from underneath 
 her pallid face. 
 
 II. 
 
 Indian summer was over and done with. The soft haze had gone. For 
 three days the wind had been blowing hard from the northwest, and the 
 air was as clear as an Arizona sky, the distant outlines sharp as tlie tooth of 
 the prairie blast. Colonel Farquhar had suddenly broken off his sliooting- 
 trip, and, without saying wliy, returned to the post. Captain Rolfe had 
 "cut" the club, once a favorite resort, and was much in Dr. Holden's com- 
 pany, — Holdeu, who was lonely enough, now that his wife and little ones 
 were gone. Throughout the garrison there was one leading topic for con- 
 versation and conjecture, — Miss Guthrie's strange adventure the night of 
 her intended departure, and her equallj"^ strange conduct thereafter. She 
 had remained senseless but a few moments. Gentle hands had raised and 
 borne her to the bed in the room she was evidently just about entering when 
 suddenly halted by some mysterious cause. Here, when restored to con- 
 sciousness, an almost hysterical attack of laughing and weeping had followed 
 upon her prostration. She insisted on attempting to rise and go to the train 
 as originally planned, but this Holden positively forbade. He had succeeded 
 in stanching tlie flow of the blood from a jagged cut near the temple, and 
 could suggest ready theory as to the cause thereof, — in falling she had prob- 
 ably struck the edge of the little wooden post at the top of the balusters, — 
 but beyond this explanation there was absolutely nothing. Nita Guthrie 
 would only account for her sudden terror by the half-nervous, half-laughing 
 statement that she thought she saw a ghost, had played the coward, and 
 turned to run. 
 
 But to the trained physician it was evident she had received a severe 
 shock. Despite her pleadings. Dr. Holden had refused to allow her to at- 
 tempt the journey until three days had elapsed, during which time, though 
 she laughed at him and laughed at herself, lier condition continued so ner- 
 vous and excitable that he would not permit visitors to see her. This was 
 pretty hard treatment, thought her many ladj^ friends at the post, but he 
 was wise and they could only obey. When the evening came for the de- 
 parture, a large contingent, ladies and officers both, assembled to say fare- 
 well, and Nita, Mrs. Holden, each of the children, and even the nurse, 
 could have had two or three escorts to the train. But no one had opportu- 
 nity to say mucli to the central figure of all this sympatlaetic interest. Only 
 at the last moment did she appear, and was ushered almost instantly to the 
 waiting carriage by Holden, who had only summoned her when vigilant 
 eyes had reported the head-light of the express visible far up the valley. 
 But then down at the dark platform of the station faithful, sad-faced Rolfe 
 was waiting, and in the minute or two that intervened before the huge train 
 came glaring, hissing, and thundering alongside he managed to have a 
 word or two with her. Mrs. Vance, had she been present, might have 
 vowed that Nita shrank and clung to Holden's arm, but others who were 
 there saw her extend her gloved hand cordially, saw that Rolfe clung to it 
 an instant, — charitable others who could only wave adieu, for the party was 
 hurried aboard, and away went the express, the tail-lights of the rear sleeper 
 disappearing in the di'ipping gloom around the bend, for, as though in sym- 
 pathy with the mourning of the post, a drizzling rain had begun to fall just 
 after retreat. Rolfe, gazing after them to the last, wore that look seen on 
 the face of many another man many another time. There can be few sensa- 
 tions more dismal than that of watching the disappearing lights of the train 
 that bears away one's best beloved, especially in the eyes of him who stands 
 rejected. 
 
 "Let me drive you home, Rolfe," said Holden, kindly. "Two of a 
 
266 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 kind," was his mental addition. And Rolfe turned slowly away, neither 
 man saying another word until once more they stood at the gate of the now 
 deserted home. 
 
 " Come in and have a pipe." 
 
 "Thanks, not — now, doctor." A long, wistful pause, then — "Well, 
 good-night." 
 
 "Good-night, old man. Come when you will; I'll be lonely now." 
 And the doctor stood and gazed after him long and earnestly as the captain 
 strode into the darkness out over the parade. 
 
 Within the days that followed, when he had leisure to think it all over, 
 Holden felt his perplexities increase. Up to the very last Nita had persisted 
 in her statement that nothing had happened to warrant the absurd exhibi- 
 tion she had made of herself. "I was overwrought, nervous, unstrung," 
 she said. " I had not been feeling quite well. I had run up to the room for 
 my gloves, which I had left upon the table. I had not reached the door, 
 and it was just the waving of those white curtains in the draught from the 
 side window. I must have thought I saw a ghost, and, like a fool, I 
 screamed and tripped, and — voila tout.^^ 
 
 But Holden had known her for six years, and felt well assured she was 
 not of the stuff that is easily stricken with terror. With every confidence 
 in her veracity in general, he did not in the least believe her now. The 
 more he studied tlie matter the more he felt that she was hiding some- 
 thing from them one and all, even from Jennie, whom she dearly loved 
 and whom ordinarily she frankly trusted. It was evident that Jennie, 
 too, believed, as did her husband, the doctor, that there was something be- 
 hind it all. But Jennie was gone, and, except possibly Rolfe, there was 
 no one to aid him in his search after the truth. Rolfe's heart was now so 
 shrouded in its own gloom that any phase of tragedy seemed credible. 
 Rolfe evidently wanted to know Holden's suspicions or surmises, and again 
 and again led up to the subject ; but of all men in the garrison, much as he 
 esteemed him, Rolfe seemed hardly the man to make a confidant of now. 
 Was he not Nita's avowed though rejected lover? 
 
 Of course no time had been lost in making investigation on the night 
 of the occurrence. Even while the doctor and others were raising the un- 
 conscious girl from the floor, half a dozen officers were scouring the prem- 
 ises for signs of intruder, and had found absolutely nothing. The room oc- 
 cupied bj^Miss Guthrie in the doctor's house was immediately to the left at 
 the head' of the stairs. The hall was broad, tbe landing roomy. It was one 
 of the oldest sets of quarters at the post, and an oddity in its way. Enter- 
 ing the door of the rear room on the east, three windows appeared, two 
 opening at the back and one at the side. The two at the back looked out 
 over the roof of the rear porch. It was perfectly practicable for any one 
 with a ladder to have clambered to this roof, and, had the blinds been open, 
 peered in the windows at the occupant. But there was no ladder. What 
 was more, the blinds were tight shut and bolted on the inside. The shades 
 within were drawn down, and the lace curtains looped over each. Be- 
 tween them stood a long old-fashioned mirror above the toilet-table, draped 
 with lace curtains very much as were the windows themselves. No one from 
 without could have been visible to any one within. No one within could 
 have been seen by any one without. Moreover, the Holdens' cook— an in- 
 domitable Irishwoman— was on the back porch at the moment of Miss 
 Guthrie's fright, saying good-night to Corporal Murphy, who had long been 
 Kathleen's devoted admirer, and both stood ready to swear that nobody 
 was on that roof. The rear windows thus disposed of, the doctor had 
 turned his attention to the window at the side, and here there was possi- 
 bility of explanation. 
 
 As has been said, the Holdens' house was one of the oldest at the old 
 frontier fort, but so solidly and substantially had it been built that, when 
 others were condemned and ordered replaced along the row, the authorities 
 had decided to retain " Bayard Hall." It was originally a double set, with 
 hall-way in common, intended for the use of four bachelor officers, each to 
 have his two rooms, there being four rooms on the first and four on the sec- 
 ond floor, while the kitchen and servants' rooms were placed in a wooden 
 addition at the rear. The ground fell away rapidly from the front piazza, so 
 that while the first-floor front was but a few steps higher than the walk, 
 the rear porch was a full story above the ground, giving abundant space for 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 267 
 
 store-rooms, etc., under that part of the house, and necessitating a flight of 
 a dozen steps to reach the porch or the kitchen door-way. Around the front 
 and sides of the second story there ran originally a broad gallery, but this 
 was before the days of the war of the rebellion, during which the post was 
 little used, and when, after certain repairs and alterations, the house was 
 declared assignable as family quarters, the old wooden gallery had been 
 condemned and torn down. Nevertheless, the beams which were its sup- 
 port on the east were found solid and firm. They projected through the 
 wall of rough-hewn stone, and an old-time quartermaster, selecting the 
 house for his own use, had thrown a light gallery out upon them. It 
 made such a convenient place for flower-pots, shrubs, bath-tubs, and 
 things of that description, said he. Furthermore, it was a place where he 
 could go in the warm evenings and smoke and sip his toddy with his chosen 
 associates, and not have every garrison gabbler crowding in to disturb their 
 chat and absorb his precious Monongahela. The gallery had no roof, was only 
 five feet wide, and was inaccessible except through this one window, which 
 the unsociable major had had cut down level with the floor. " Robbers' 
 Roost" the disdainful subalterns used to call it in the days when bluff old 
 Blitz had occupied the quarters and barred out all but his chums, and by 
 the same name was it known when Holden moved in with his wife and 
 olive-branches and took up his abode there a few years before the opening 
 of this story. When the Eleventh marched out and the Twelfth came in, 
 Colonel Farquhar, finding the doctor in possession, decided that the 
 Holdens should not be disturbed,— that there was abundant room for others 
 in the new quarters. The Holdens entertained a great deal. Pleasant peo- 
 ple were visiting them month after month, and everybody in the Twelfth 
 blessed them for the brightness and gayety their presence lent to the garri- 
 son. A sterling fellow was Holden , one of the best men in one of the very best 
 corps, personally and professionally, in our little army ; and as for his wife, 
 an accomplished society woman, a St. Louis belle, still in the heyday of 
 youthful womanhood, everybody in the garrison delighted in her friendship 
 and kindliness. There was no more popular parlor than Holdens', and 
 night after night the young officers gathered there. But " Robbers' Roost" 
 had fallen into disuse. The glass door was generally shut, and the Vene- 
 tian blinds with which old Blitz had decorated it were ordinarily closed 
 except when this, one of their two guest-chambers, was occupied. Shades 
 and lace curtains similar to those at the rear windows draped it within, so 
 that from the interior this side door presented almost the same appearance 
 as the windows themselves, and it stood directly opposite the hall door. 
 But Miss Guthrie had become enthusiastic over the lovely view down the 
 Pawnee Valley from that side gallery. Sbe was frequently to be seen there. 
 She had gone out for one fai-ewell look as the valley lay flooded in the light 
 of the full moon, and this was immediately after changing her dress. She 
 was exclaiming over its beauty as, arrayed for her journey, she came dancing 
 down the stairs to join her hostess and the excited children in the parlor. 
 She suddenly missed her gloves, remembered that she had left them in 
 her room, had scurried up the stairs, had reached the landing at the top, 
 but never entei'ed her room at all, when there was heard that awful shriek 
 of terror and a heavy fall. Holden at the instant was in his own room, the 
 rear room on the opposite side of the house, and was changing his best uni- 
 form into something more suitable for a run down to the railway. This 
 had delayed him a second or two, so that Brewster and Randolph, two of 
 the most active of the junior officers, were foremost at his heels as he flew 
 up the stairs. His first care was for Nita, but the youngsters had bounded 
 into the room and out on the gallery, as though expecting to overtake some 
 intruder there. The side door was wide open, the shade up, the lace cur- 
 tains drawn apart. If any one had been in the room, escape to the gallery 
 was easy enough, but from there there was practically none except by a 
 leap of fifteen or twenty feet to the hard ground below. No one had run 
 out, either front or back, for Murphy and the Irish cook were at the rear on 
 the east side, the rushing swarm of officers at the front. If any one had hid- 
 den there, escape unobserved was well-nigh impossible. No one was found, 
 — no trace of any one. Indeed, when Nita was permitted to talk she vowed 
 that no one had been there. She herself had left the blinds, door, and cur- 
 tains open as she came in from the moonlit gallery, had turned out her 
 lamp and descended the stairs. The gallery door-way could not be seen 
 
268 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 from where she fell, and, as all was darkness in the room itself, how could 
 she have seen any one ? 
 
 Out on the gallery, of course, any one would have been revealed, thanks 
 to the brilliancy of the full moon, almost as in the broad glare of day ; but 
 one had to be at the hall door or in the square room itself in order to see the 
 gallery at all, and Nita declared, as before, that she had not reached the 
 door. What she fancied was a ghost, bathed in a pale, cold light, was prob- 
 ably the white curtains of the rear windows. But the light, — whence came 
 that? 
 
 The possibility of any one having been in the room was not entertained. 
 Prompt and-thorough search had been made in every nook and corner of 
 the upper story. The rooms of the nurse and children were on the west- 
 ward side of the hall, and the nurse was in one of them, putting on her 
 hat, at the very moment. The front room on the east was unoccupied. 
 Nita had chosen the other because of that gallery and its lovely view. Then 
 there was the rear slope of the main roof above the gallery. That, thought 
 Holden, might have offered a way of escape, because it was out of sight from 
 the parade. But Brewster and Randolph had both essayed to reach the 
 eaves, and, even when standing on the railing, could barely touch them 
 with the tips of their fingers. Then, again, a sentry walked along the edge 
 of the slope leading to the river-bottom south of the long row of officers' 
 quarters and close behind the rear fence, but he was at the eventful moment 
 well down the row beyond Hazlett's house, whereas Dr. Holden's was at the 
 eastern end of the line. The moon shone full against the back fence, said 
 the sentry, and he was sure he would have seen anybody who ran out of the 
 gate of the doctor's yard, and the first who appeared were tlie searching 
 officers. Corporal Murphy with them. Several men had then come running 
 from the direction of the laundresses' quarters to the west, and after them 
 Sergeant Ellis. Indeed, it was Ellis who first suggested a search of the roof 
 by means of a ladder. He was sergeant in charge of the fire-apparatus kept 
 in that long, low building at the east end, and had the keys of the door. It 
 was by his aid that some of the junior officers made a thorough examination 
 of the roof and the front porch. No more signs there than had hitherto 
 been found. No, the sentry on the south post was confident that no man 
 came out of Holden's yard until he got to the gate, whither he had run the 
 instant he heard the cry. He thought it might be a lamp-explosion or a 
 fire, and he was watching with eager eyes. He had been on post nearly two 
 hours when the alarm came, and, except Corporal Murphy and the quarter- 
 master's men who took the trunks, he had not seen or heard a man about 
 the premises. Kathleen, the nurse-maid, and the children had been home 
 all the evening, and they had neither seen nor heard anybody. 
 
 Captain Rolfe, unable to sleep, and making the rounds on his own 
 account about one o'clock, found the sentry of the third relief gazing curi- 
 ously in at the open back gate, and questioned him as to what excited his 
 attention. 
 
 "Nothing, sir," was the prompt reply of the trooper, as he threw his 
 carbine to the position of " arms port." " I was simply wondering how any 
 man could have ventured in there this bright night and expected to get out 
 unseen, especially early in the evening, when men are passing to and fro all 
 the time." 
 
 "What made you think any one had been there?" asked the captain, 
 quietly. 
 
 " Everybody has heard by this time that there was a search made, and 
 that the young lady had seen something to frighten her. Besides, Sergeant 
 Ellis spoke of it to me an hour ago." 
 
 " What was the sergeant doing on your post at midnight?" 
 
 " Why, sir, the captain remembers Sergeant Ellis is in charge of the fire- 
 house and sleeps there. He came out a little before twelve and said he'd 
 lost his pet pipe while he was hunting around with Lieutenant Brewster 
 after he brought the ladder, and I let him pass in, sir. He said he'd been 
 working there long after taps, and it would be all right. He found the pipe, 
 sir, right at the edge of the wood-pile yonder. He showed it to me as he 
 came out." 
 
 Captain Rolfe was silent a moment. Ordinarily none of the enlisted, 
 men had any right to be away from quarters after the "lights out" signal, 
 but this case* was unusual. Furthermore, Ellis was a man superior in intelli- 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 269 
 
 gence, a sergeant of more than a year's standing, and one who had been 
 selected for this especial duty for the very reason that, holding himself much 
 aloof from the average run of the rank and file, he would be apt to attend 
 strictly to his duties as custodian of the fire-house, and no one had ever 
 heard of his abusing his trust. His own little room was a model of neatness 
 when the commanding officer made his monthly inspection of the garrison, 
 and the hose-carriage, the liook-and-ladder truck, the fire-buckets, and other 
 apparatus were always in perfect order and readiness for service. No one 
 ever inspected Ellis's quarters at an.y other time. The guard often noticed 
 his light after midnight, and he had the reputation of being a good deal of 
 a reader and student, taking books from the post library very often, besides 
 owning quite a number of his own. Observant officers who had glanced 
 about when making the inspection with Colonel Farquhar noted that many 
 of these were texts on mining, mining engineering, mineralogy, and geology, 
 and some had gone so far as to question the sergeant as to whether he had 
 ever practically essayed mining. With perfectly respectful manner Ellis 
 replied to these occasional queries, merely saying, " Yes, sir, but without 
 success." Asked where he had made his essay, his reply was rather vague : 
 "In several Western States and Territories, sir, — mainly Arizona and Colo- 
 rado." Only once had he displayed anything like annoyance or impatience 
 under such Are. He had served his three years' enlistment, was entitled to 
 his discharge, yet quietly notified his troop commander that he proposed to 
 re-enlist. In a somewhat sharp manner that official had whirled about. 
 
 "Sergeant Ellis," said he, "if I had had your experience in miuing 
 it seems to me I'd find something different from staying in the regular 
 army." 
 
 "Captain Gorham," was the unexpected reply, " if you had had anything 
 like my experience you would be very glad of a berth in the army or out 
 of it,— preferably in." 
 
 It was conceded after this episode that Ellis had a history and the faculty 
 of keeping it to himself. The colonel was glad to have him re-enlist, even 
 while wondering that he should do so. Many remembered how he had come 
 to them haggard and travel-worn three years before and offered himself as 
 a recruit. This was far out in the mountains. His language and manners 
 were such that every one knew it to be a case of a man whom fortune had 
 betrayed, and who "took the shilling," as many another has done, some- 
 what as a last resort. But before he had won his first chevrons the men 
 knew well that from some source or other Ellis was beginning to receive a 
 good deal of money. When Sergeaht Currie was killed by that tough in the 
 public streets of Sheridan City, — a cold-blooded and unprovoked murder, — 
 and Currie's wife and children had not where to lay their heads now that 
 their support was gone, officers and men " chipped in" and bought them a 
 little cottage on the banks of Rapid Run, just at the edge of town. Ellis 
 had planked down a five-dollar bill as his share on the subscription-list, but 
 did not Kate Currie, the eldest child, tell how he had come all by himself 
 afterwards and given her an envelope which he bade her hand to mother 
 from a friend, — an envelope which was found to hold a fifty-dollar Treasury 
 note? Sporting characters in the regiment who sought to borrow from 
 Ellis met with cold, even curt, refusal. Neither would he ever gamble or 
 bet with them. Neither did he seem to care to go to town at all when first 
 the regiment moved into this its most delightful station after years of ser- 
 vice on the distant frontier,— not until the order was issued permitting meri- 
 torious soldiers to wear civilian dress when on pass. Then he was almost 
 the first to appear on tbe streets of the bustling county seat, in a neat, un- 
 obtrusive, but remarkably well cut and well "fitting suit, and, far better 
 dressed than most of the townspeople, Sergeant Ellis became an occasional 
 visitor ; but no one ever heard of his patronizing any other establishments 
 than the bank, the post- and express-offices, and the book-stores. Captain 
 Hazlett, calling at the post-office one day, was surprised to find Ellis at a 
 lock-box, the key of which he calmly placed in his waistcoat-pocket and 
 then as calmly raised his hat in salutation to his superior officer. Both were 
 in civilian dress, both on temporary leave of a few hours only, both, from 
 the point of view of the correspondent of a very enterprising paper, occu- 
 pied at the moment the same social plane, andliis allusions to " the slavish 
 deference demanded by the aristocratic commissioned force of their enlisted 
 but far worthier men" grave rise to some discussion at the fort. One or two 
 
270 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 oflQcers held that Ellis should have given the military salute and no other, 
 but the mass of opinion was in favor of Ellis's action : being entirely in 
 civilian dress himself, the civilian custom should prevail. 
 
 " Well, damn it," said Mr. Randolph, " that consists out here in shoving 
 one's hands deeper into pockets, tilting tbe cigar higher in the mouth, and 
 giving just half a nod." It was finally conceded, however, that in courte- 
 ously raising his hat Sergeant Ellis had done about the right thing, and tbat 
 in as punctiliously raising his own in recognition the captain had fittingly 
 and scrupulously acknowledged the courtesy, the sneers and lashings of 
 The Spasm City Chimes to the contrary notwithstanding. 
 
 Still, no one supposed that Ellis was going to re-enlist when his time 
 expired. They had already begun casting about for somebody else to place 
 in charge of the fire-house. But Ellis signed the pai^ers with ready hand, 
 asked for and got a month's furlough with permission to leave the depart- 
 ment, and was back in two weeks ready to resume duty, his dark face a trifle 
 paler, his heavy beard becomingly trimmed, just three days after Nita 
 Guthrie's arrival, just three days before she was to have gone home. 
 
 Rolfe turned from the sentry and gazed away eastward. How many a 
 long mile down that beautiful valley were the lights of the rushing train by 
 this time, and what meant this light so close at hand, shining faintly but 
 clearly through the slowly-plashing rain ? After one, and the sergeant still 
 up and reading? No, it burned too dimly for a student-lamp ; neither was 
 it in the sergeant's room. Following his thoughts, Rolfe, wrapped in his 
 mackintosh, moved slowly out to the eastern edge of the bold bluff, passing 
 the fire-house on his way. A breast-high wall of rough stone ran diagonally 
 over towards what was left of the old block-house, once perched on the brow 
 of the cliff, and, as the captain reached the point of the bluff, he became 
 aware of a dim figure standing silent and motionless between him and the 
 southern face of the antiquated work. Another man whose thoughts were 
 following the eastward windings of that misty valley, was it not ? Another 
 keeping sleepless vigil? 
 
 " Who's that?" in low tone, he suddenly hailed. A start, a quick turn, 
 then prompt advance and answer : 
 
 " Sergeant Ellis, sir." 
 
 The deep collar of his overcoat was turned up about his ears, so that the 
 face was well-nigh hidden, but the voice was calm and firm. 
 
 "You keep late hours, sergeant." 
 
 " Not without warrant, captain." 
 
 "Your warrant might suffer, sir, ifthe colonel knew you had lights at 
 two o'clock." 
 
 " It is by his authority, sir, that one lantern burns all night ; that is the 
 one the captain sees." 
 
 Rolfe paused, baflled. 
 
 " Then I believe I will light a cigar at your lantern," he finally said, 
 and, turning, he moved away towards the low wooden building behind him. 
 Ellis promptly followed, then sprang ahead and opened the door for his 
 superior's entrance. 
 
 "Let me offer the captain a match: that is an oil lantern." And, 
 striking a lucifer on the strip of sandpaper, he held it forth. Rolfe missed 
 the fiame with the end of his weed. Light came to him, but not to his 
 cigar. Muffled though his face remained in the depths of that cavalry 
 collar. Sergeant Ellis's lips and chin were visible through the opening in 
 the front and in the glare of the little match. 
 
 "When did you shave off your beard, sergeant ? I should hardly have 
 known you." 
 
 The lips trembled, but the dark eyes, the deep voice, were steady as 
 ever: 
 
 "Last evening, sir." _ 
 
 III. 
 
 The northwest winds that had finally banked up the southern clouds and 
 squeezed down a dismal drizzle the night of Miss Guthrie's departure now 
 veered and whisked away the rnolst and plashing veil, and the afternoon 
 sunshine of the day that followed streamed across the broad meBa in a flood 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 271 
 
 of grateful warmth and radiance. The colonel ordered out the entire com- 
 mand, to the utter consteruation of Miss Winifred Beri'ienand the supreme 
 disgust of some half a dozen junior olflcers, who, counting on the weather 
 indications at nine a.m., had eagerly accepted Mrs. Berrien's suggestion 
 that they spend their rainy afternoon at the major's hospitable quarters, by 
 way of making it pleasant for two young damsels from town and three or 
 four from the fort itself, all of whom were supposed to be deeply interested 
 and engaged in the embroidery of certain altar-cloths, lecturn and pulpit 
 adornments, with which to rejoice the eyes of their amiable chaplain at 
 Christmas-tide. Here it was well along in November, and, beyond a vast 
 amount of chatter and conjecture over the prospective pleasure of the rev- 
 erend dominie, nothing had been done. 
 
 True, the colonel had astonished everybody by ordering out the entire 
 regiment, at least the eight companies thereof present at the post, to parade 
 for inspection and review, equipped for field-service, at nine-thirty that 
 morning, and only reluctantly recalled the order when the persistent plash- 
 ing of the rain warned him that it would take a day or two of sunshine to 
 dry out the clothing and equipments subjected to such a downpour. And 
 then if anything should happen and they should be suddenly called upon 
 
 to bundle everything right into the waiting train But, pshaw ! the 
 
 thing wasn't possible : the idea could not be entertained. Of course mat- 
 ters were looking squally, very squall}', up there in the Dakotas, and every- 
 body from the Missouri to the mountains and north of the Platte was al- 
 ready out in the field, and, in little detachments from the scattered posts 
 even far away in Montana, even far in southern W^'oming, the soldiery 
 were converging towards those swarming agencies where thousands of 
 truculent warriors of the great Dakota nation were drawing rations for 
 every man, woman, child, and pappoose they possessed. Be it known to 
 the reader that paternalism is rampant in the land, — that while peace so- 
 cieties and Indian rights associations and prayerful congregations away at 
 the Atlantic seaboard are deluging the press with diatribes upon the wrongs 
 of the red man and the criminal neglect of the nation, and declaring that 
 
 Man's inhumanity to Lo 
 Malies countless Indians mourn, 
 
 in this last ** century of dishonor" Uncle Sam has disbursed millions upon 
 millions in the desperately hopeless task of flfling the aboriginal stomach, 
 and in striving by means of honest census to reduce the number of the 
 " countless" so pathetically referred to. Indians would make splendid ward 
 politicians, and how it is that the sachems of Tammany have not long 
 since possessed themselves of so available a means of swelling their ranks 
 passeth all understanding. After the Indian had had himself, several wives, 
 and his blooming olive-branches, "oksheelah, wicincha," boys and girls, 
 and such pappooses as his better halves had at the back (either of home pro- 
 duction or borrowed for the moment from the tepee of Two-Bricks-in-his- 
 Hat), duly enumerated, would he not swell the census of his tribe by judi- 
 cious distribution of all his wives' relations among those tepees not already 
 checked off? Oh, if the truth could ever reach the ears of the general pub- 
 lic, what tales of Indian sagacity might not yet be in store for them ! What 
 annals might not be unfolded ! Dealing with his own, his white children, 
 who are non-voters, Uncle Sam serves out one ration a day to each enlisted 
 soldier. The wife, and the lads and lasses that tumbled about the married 
 men's quarters in the queer old days, were all to be fed from that one ration, 
 unless, perchance, mamma was a laundress. But when dealing with the 
 wronged and injured red man he could not be too magnanimous. Every 
 head counted. The mumbling old beldam, great-grandmother of "count- 
 less thousands," braced up from the edge of the grave for the occasion. 
 The big-bellied little four-year-olds, revelling in the dirt about the reek- 
 ing shambles, the tiny, hour-old pappoose, even many a puppy, blanket- 
 swathed and slung squaw-back, passing for a wee baby,— anything he could 
 show as possessing a spark of Indian life was duly credited to the warrior 
 lord of the lodge for another ration, — a full one. Cattle might and did 
 shrink, but to the Indian there is more meat in a lean cow than in the stall- 
 fed ox to the white, for the reason that "everything goes." Horns and 
 hoofs are the only things the Indian doesn't eat. Agents might and did 
 
272 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 cheat and steal, but so did the Indian, and many a rejoicing old sinner has 
 been credited with a family of twelve when his sole available domestic as- 
 sets consisted of two squaws and three children, the pappooses having been 
 borrowed, or personated by bundled-up doggies, the grandmother being public 
 property, passed around for the occasion ; the others, pickaninnies painted 
 so as to look entirely unlike the grinning urchins counted in the flock of 
 brother Stab-in-the-Dark whose people had just been enumerated. There 
 were agents who lent themselves to that sort of thing because the more In- 
 dians they could show as their especial wards, the more barrels and boxes 
 and bales were invoiced to that agenjjy and deftly "raked off" en route. 
 There was a time when the man who wouldn't make hay when such a sun 
 shone was looked upon as an unprofitable servant who couldn't contribute 
 to campaign funds. "What the devil do you suppose we had you made 
 agent 'way up at Gallatin for?" asked an irate political " boss" of a deposed 
 and crestfallen late-incumbent who came home superseded. 
 
 "Why, it was you and our Congressman who exposed the stealings of 
 my predecessor and had him tired. I supposed you wouldn't stand that sort 
 of thing. I supposed you wanted me to be perfectly honest." 
 
 "Of course we did; but, damn it, you don't seem to understand: he 
 was paying to the other party." 
 
 But railways and telegraphs have brought all this, or much of it, 
 within range, so to speak. Things are changed, except perhaps human 
 nature, white or Indian. There has been failure to provide for carrying out 
 the earnest recommendations of the best friend the Indian has known for 
 years, — the man whose word was bis bond, whom they feared in war and 
 loved and trusted in peace. There has been shrinkage both in the cattle 
 and the count. No matter how much beef might shrivel on the hoof in 
 the old days, the Sioux, if he were at all sharp, got more tban was his 
 share ; and most of the Sioux were sharp as their knives. Other tribes 
 raight have starved and suffered, but not they. With the new order of 
 things came full stomachs for hosts of other aborigines, but fault-finding 
 for these Dakotas. No more "tepee counts;" on the contrary, heads of 
 families paraded their entire force, and, while enumerators with book and 
 pencil went along the front of the line, Uncle Sam's blue-coats on the 
 border keenly watched the rear, and put sudden stop to all sham or swap- 
 ping. Now the shrinkage came to be privation, and, turning in appeal to 
 tlie general who headed the great commission and won their faith, appeal- 
 ing to Crook for the remedies Congress had utterly failed to provide, their 
 hearts were bowed with the tidings that the Great Spirit had summoned 
 the " Gray Fox" to happier hunting-grounds. 
 
 Then was there no other appeal? One, — one which had never failed to 
 wring from the government the concession desired. Old chiefs might 
 plead in vain, but the blood of the young warriors is hot and strong, the 
 lust for reputation as vehement as of yore. Every brave stood ripe for 
 action, and no Indian leader ever equalled in craft, in cunning, in adroit- 
 ness, the scowling old sinner Sitting Bull, and no man need doubt that it 
 was he who gave the cue. Every medicine-man in the Dakota nation began 
 to preach the coming of the Messiah, but the Messiah craze was only the 
 means to an end. Un-koi-to, the Indian Redeemer, — he who ordained that 
 his children should prepare themselves by the savage rites of the ghost- 
 dance to meet him and all their dead ancestry and with them wipe the 
 pale-face fi'om the land, — Un-koi-to was a fraud of the first water, a masque- 
 rading scamp of a white man at odds with his own kind, and progressive 
 Indians knew it. But even to such a saviour, when urged by the charla- 
 tans in every village, the superstitious nature of the red man turned in 
 eager adulation, and the ghastly, maddening dance went on. Night after 
 night all over the broad Northwest the skies were aglow with the Indian 
 fires. The vault of the heavens echoed to the sound of frenzied shriek and 
 yell and the furious beat of the Indian drum. It is but a step from the 
 ghost-dance to the scalp-dance, — from Indian worship to Indian war. A 
 year ago, in every valley of beautiful South Dakota cattle were browsing 
 on the bunch-grass, settlers ploughing on the plains, women sewing and 
 singing under the new-raised roof-trees, and gleeful children playing in 
 the golden heaps of corn. Now the plough stands idle in the abandoned 
 furrow ; the cattle have gone, to make up, presumably, for the reservation 
 shrinkage; women's songs have changed to sobs, cLlldreijofl laughter 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 273 
 
 hushed to terrified silence, as the settlers seek the refuge of the towns. 
 New red glare in the sky at night, and the new ranch-house lights the way 
 of many a savage warrior, bound with arms and ponies to swell the hostile 
 ranks in the mazes of the Bad Lands. 
 
 "God only knows how soon it may come," read Farquhar but a week 
 before, " but I think you would better be with your command." Farquhar 
 relinquished his shooting-trip and at once got him home. He could not 
 bear to tell his people, in the happiest garrison the regiment had ever 
 known, that perhaps it might be as well to drop the plans for the cavalry 
 ball and the Christmas theatricals, the cherished projects for the coming 
 holidays. He hated to have any one ask him if he thought there were not 
 just a chance— just a chance— of their being ordered up there. But even 
 before he left he and Berrien had been talking the matter over. The idea 
 was to always have the regiment ready for anything, and it did seem as though 
 with all the summer and fall marching and scouting and manoeuvring in 
 the field they were, as the Englishmen would say, "pretty tit." Fit, cer- 
 tainly, for any amount of scouting or fighting on the southern plains, and 
 yet utterly unprepared for the rigors of a Dakota winter. Any colonel who, 
 serving in Arizona or in the Indian Territory, were to apply for canvas 
 overcoats, blanket-lined, for fur caps, gloves, boots, leggings, etc., intended 
 only for service in the high latitudes, would have been laughed at, if not 
 snubbed. Farquhar decided it best not to let any of the women worry over 
 a possibility. No use borrowing trouble, he said. Long years had the regi- 
 ment served in that wintry land. Fierce and incessant had been its cam- 
 paigns against the Indians. Dire had been its sufferings and losses. Only 
 recently— only within the year — had they reached this paradise, with its hazy 
 landscape, its lovely peaceful homes, its kindliness and greeting yet warm 
 in remembrance, the edge of its cheer still new and unworn. 
 
 And then Kenyon came back from leave, a burly major of foot who had 
 been visiting at his old home in Chicago, and was reported to be wearing 
 the willow for a girl who had but just married a mere junior first lieutenant 
 in the Eleventh, their predecessors along this line. It might be that Ken- 
 yon was cross and craboed. The youngsters called him "grumbly" at first 
 acquaintance. It might be that lie was so hipped and unhappy himself he 
 could not bear to see the bliss and content on every face about him. He 
 and Rolfe were congenial spirits, said the boys, for " both of them got left." 
 But Kenyon, close-mouthed as he was at times, had watched things a day 
 or two, and then had given Farquhar a "pointer." He had heard some- 
 thing, he said, at division head-quarters. Hence the order for " turn out 
 everybody, field-kits and fifty rounds." 
 
 The maddest man at mess at one-thirty was Mr. Carroll Brewster, — 
 "Curly B" his comrades called him in the years gone by, when he had 
 much kink to the blond hair of his handsome head and not a vestige thereof 
 to the down on his lip. Now, as first lieutenant of the " Black Troop," with 
 a moustache all bristle and curl, and with a pate whereon the curls were 
 cropped to regulation lines, he was a very different sort of fellow. All the 
 morning long he had sat on a garrison court, where as " swing member" he 
 had not enough to do to keep him from brooding over his woes. He had 
 counted on spending the hours from two until stables basking in the light 
 of those wonderful, deep, dark eyes of Miss Winifred Berrien. Somewhat 
 petted and spoiled in his earlier years of service, Brewster had had much of 
 the nonsense knocked out of him in the harsh experiences of seven years 
 in the saddle with a regiment renowned for its touch-and-go sort of work. 
 He had steadied greatly in those years, part of the process being due to his 
 own latent good sense, and not a little thereof to incessant striving on the 
 range to win high honors as a sharp-shooter, and to-day there was not a 
 finer looking soldier wearing the broad yellow stripes in the Twelfth than 
 this same ex-dandy "Curly Brewster." There still lingered about him a 
 certain repute for self-consciousness, if not for actual conceit, but he had 
 grown to be thoroughly respected in the regiment, and was vastly popular 
 with the men. He was ever ready to umpire their matches at base-ball, 
 coach their shooting, lend his own fishing-tackle or shot-guns to longing 
 sportsmen in the ranks who had none of their own, and he had won the 
 lasting gratitude of C troop, two of whose men were being mobbed by a 
 gang of toughs one windy night in Sheridan City just as Curly came trot- 
 ting back en r ute to^the post. " He was off" his horse and into that crowd 
 Vol. XLIX.— 18 
 
274r ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 quicker than winking," said Murphy, " and the way he laid over that gang 
 with them white lists of his just made my sides crack with deliglit." He 
 had more sense tlian they gave liim credit for, said the seniors of the regi- 
 ment, after a while, and, barring an early experience, a cadet love-affair 
 that he was long ago well over, had never let himself go again, — never until 
 the Twelfth came to settle in this happy valley and Winifred Berrien re- 
 turned from her Eastern school. Then he went all of a sudden. Only one 
 man did not see it : that was Berrien. Only one woman couldn't forgive 
 him his devotion ; and she had no business interfering, being herself other- 
 wise disposed of. To his credit be it said, Brewster and the lady's husband 
 were about the only men who appeared unaware of this autumnal infatua- 
 tion. Nevertheless, in those numberless ways in which women can claim 
 and secure the appearance, at least, of attention from men, the dame had 
 managed to monopolize considerable of his spare time up to the week ofj 
 Miss Berrien's coming, after which it was not he who rode to town, but she 
 who drove out to the post and sent for him to come and talk to her as she 
 leaned back in her stylish victoria and looked up at him from under her 
 tinted lashes. She could have found it in her heart to strangle the lovely 
 girl so darkly, richly beautiful, but her call upon " the ladies" had been re- 
 turned when she was conspicuously absent from home, and opportunities 
 for meeting were not afforded by the damsel's parents. There were girls at 
 the post who were quick to see how "Antinoiis" had lost his heart; but 
 these, those at least who were near enough to Winifred to dare allude 
 to the matter at all, were content to archly quote the warning, — 
 
 Change the name and not the letter, 
 Marry for worse and not for better. 
 
 There was one man with whom Brewster was at odds, a sentiment due to an 
 old difference when both were younger, and that was Rolfe. There was one 
 man the gallant major especially liked and swore by, and that was Rolfe. 
 These facts, added to the coincidence that the captain had never forgotten 
 the hot words used by his second lieutenant long years before, made a com- 
 bination most unfortunate for a fellow so much in love as was Carroll 
 Brewster. 
 
 On this particular morning he had striven to hurry matters through on 
 the court, — to try three or four cases where the accused were only too ready 
 to plead guilty and "throw themselves on the mercy," etc., and then ad- 
 journ on the specious plea of giving the judge-advocate time to write up 
 the proceedings. But the president of the tribunal had other views, and 
 held him. Brewster knew that Randolph and Hunt and Ridgeway, perhaps 
 others, had taken advantage of the weather and no drill to slip over to 
 Berrien's for a blithe morning hour with the girls. He could imagine that 
 pretty parlor, with its pictures and piano, its attractive curtains and por- 
 tieres, the group of bright, sweet faces, the animated chat, Winifred herself, 
 in her dark, rich beauty, seated at the piano, with Ridgewaj^ hanging over 
 her, eager to turn the leaves, eager to do anything tliat might keep him at 
 her side. Confound the fellow ! he had money and a handsome old family 
 homestead. What business had he roughing it in the cavalrj', with no end 
 of chances of getting his head knocked off, when his doting mother was so 
 eager to have him come home, marry, settle down, and take up the man- 
 agement of the property his father had left him two years before? Poor 
 " Curly" ! he could only gaze wistfully out across the dripping parade from 
 his seat in the dark court-room and watch the glinting of the firelight on 
 the Berriens' parlor window. The maior loved a broad fireplace and a 
 hickory blaze, and here he had them to his heart's content for the first time 
 in full" twenty years of army wanderings. How must that firelight en- 
 hance the cosiness and comfort of the scene within ! How must it be 
 flickering about the dark masses of her lustrous hair at this very moment ! 
 How 
 
 " How do you vote, Brewster? Are your wits wool-gathering?" 
 
 He pulled' himself together as best he could ; but that was a morning 
 of torment. 
 
 And now to think that, after all, he could have no moment at her side 
 this day ! To think that Farquhar should have ordered them out for hours 
 of pottering around at saddle-bags, nose-bags, side-lines, lariats, picket- 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 275 
 
 pins, and all that sort of truck ! It was simply barbarous. He curbed his 
 tongue as well as he knew how, for plainly he saw that his chums were 
 mischievously exulting over him, but any one who knew Brewster could 
 see his wrath and discomfiture. The announcement was made just before 
 luncheon was over. The adjutant came bolting in with the order, and 
 shutting his ears to the chorus of expletives. 
 
 " What time did you say boots and saddles would sound ?" fiercely de- 
 manded Randolph. 
 
 " In a quarter of an hour : so you've no time to lose saying swear- words 
 or asking damfool questions. — And as for you, Curly, you're for guard to- 
 morrow." 
 
 Brewster finished his cup of tea in an undignified gulp, quitting the 
 table and the room in three strides. There was just time to scurry over to 
 Berrien's and see her for five minutes before he had to jump back to his 
 quarters and into riding-boots, etc. Any pretext would answer, — the dance 
 to-night, for instance. 
 
 "Get my field-rig ready at once, and bring my horse up here in ten 
 minutes," he called to his servant, slashed at his natty uniform with a 
 whisk broom, and bounded out of the door, only to encounter the man of 
 all others he least cared to see coming in. 
 
 " Were you just going, Brewster ? There is a matter I want very much 
 to ask you about, and I thought this the time to catch you without fail." 
 The voice was that of Captain Rolfe. 
 
 " I a??z just going out, captain, and I'm hurried ; but If you will step in 
 I'll be back in ten minutes." 
 
 " Well-1, ordinarily I would not detain you, and-d, pardon me, if you 
 were going to Major Berrien's they are all at luncheon. I have just left 
 there." 
 
 Brewster flushed in spite of his effort at control. His first impulse was 
 to say he was going over anyhow, if only to leave word, but, since he could 
 not hope to see her, what was the use ? It chafed him, however, to note 
 that Rolfe, in that calmly superior way of his, was pressing on into the hall, 
 as much as to say, " It is my will that you give up what you have in view 
 and attend at once to my behest," just as though Brewster were still his 
 second lieutenant, instead of First Lieutenant Brewster commanding the 
 " Black Horse" troop. It must be confessed that there was about Rolfe an 
 intangible something that ever seemed to give that impression to the juniors. 
 It was one of the things that set their teeth on edge, as they expressed it, 
 and set them against him. Feeling as he did towards the captain, and 
 exasperated at the way in which events seemed conspiring against him, 
 Brewster threw open his door. 
 
 "Walk in, as I said, captain. Make yourself at home. I wish to go 
 into Haddock's a moment, and will be right back." It wasn't that he had 
 anything to say to Haddock, but Haddock had succeeded him as second 
 lieutenant of Rolfe's troop, and was no fonder of his stern, self-willed com- 
 mander than Curly himself had been. It was simply that he would not 
 yield a moral victory to Rolfe, and that in naming Haddock he knew he 
 gave at least a slight return for the annoyance afforded him by the captain's 
 untimely call. 
 
 Giving no sign whatever as Brewster sprang away down the steps, the 
 captain passed on into the plainly-furnished sitting-room. Already McCann 
 was busy hauling out the lieutenant's field-boots, breeches, and overcoat, 
 whisking off" the dust and indulging in Milesian comment as he did so. At 
 sight of Rolfe he abruptly ceased, bustled forward and offfered the captain 
 a chair, and a moment later bolted across the hall to perform similar ser- 
 vice in overhauling and dusting Mr. Randolph's possessions. 
 
 Left to himself, Rolfe wearily turned to the mantel, and, without show 
 of interest, glanced over the various photographs there displayed. Tliey 
 were mainly of army friends, young fellows in whom he felt slight interest 
 at any time and none at all now. So were those in the basket on the round 
 table. Brewster was popular, if one were to judge by the array of pictures 
 that had been sent to him by their prototypes. Then there was a large, 
 handsome album lying open "on the desk near the window. Turning list- 
 lessly thither, Rolfe gave a shrug of the shoulders, something almost like a 
 shudder, at sight of the photograph which lay uppermost, a cabinet por- 
 trait, highly burnished and finished, of an exuberant woman in evening 
 
276 -^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 dress. In that neighborhood everybody knew her by sight. He himself 
 had received invitations in her hand to lunch or to dinner. He knew the 
 writing of the note that lay beside the album, first page uppermost. He 
 would have had no eyes at all had he not seen the "Carroll, mon ami,^' 
 with which it began. With a shiver of disgust he whirled over a page 
 of the album, as though to cover and hide the beguiling face, the betraying 
 words, and then Brewster came bounding back and in. Rolfe's hand was 
 still on the album as he turned to face him. The eyes of the two men met, 
 and again Brewster flushed hotly. He remembered that only in the morn- 
 ing's mail had the large packet arrived containing this unasked-for and un- 
 expected addition to his portrait-gallery. He had not opened it until after 
 court, — had not more than glanced at the photograph even then, beautiful 
 as it was from an artistic point of view. Then that note, and that idiotic 
 semi-sentimental beginning ! She had never called him Carroll, but in 
 certain evasive, insinuating, in— well, we have no word for it in all the vo- 
 cabulary of the United States— in a way he could not but see and could not 
 find a way to object to, she had been lately verging in that direction. It 
 was "Now, Mr. Carroll Brewster," or "my good friend Carroll," or "Sir 
 Carroll," or in-some-way Carroll ; but here was an out-and-out Carroll, the 
 first of the kind. A month before he might not have flinched, now he 
 shrank from the mere idea of familiarity of the faintest kind. He had been 
 striving to cut loose from her in every possible way, but hers was a friend- 
 ship that " clung closer than a brother," and just as sure as shooting Rolfe 
 must have seen that infernal picture, those misleading words. Brewster 
 read it in Rolfe's calm brown eyes, but he would not discuss matters with 
 him, much less stoop to explain. 
 
 " You wish to see me, captain. Will you take a seat?" 
 
 " No. What I have to ask need occupy but little time, and the call will 
 sound in a moment or two. I am going to ask you a question, and as man 
 to man I want you to answer it." He paused, as though awaiting submis- 
 sive reply. 
 
 "And the question?" asked Brewster, finally and unyielding. 
 
 " I was in hopes you would assure me of a readiness to answer. What- 
 soever have been the differences between us in the past, you can never ac- 
 cuse me of having pried into your affairs, and the question I wish to ask is 
 one of deep importance to myself, and its answer cannot, I believe, un- 
 pleasantly involve you." And still Brewster stood silent, the blue eyes 
 looking straight into the brown. " I will not prolong matters unneces- 
 sarily. What I desire to know, Mr. Brewster, is this : Have you, or have 
 you not, some knowledge of the past history of Sergeant Ellis?" 
 
 " Pardon me, CajDtain Rolfe, but I do not see how that can concern you 
 in the least." 
 
 "I have stated substantially that it did," was the quiet reply, after a 
 moment's thought. "It concerns me very deeply. I need to know some- 
 thing of his antecedents. I have reason to ask, and I repeat my question." 
 
 There was a painful pause. Then Brewster spoke firmly : 
 
 " Captain Rolfe, it is a question I refuse to answer." 
 
 IV. 
 
 That night, despite the long hours in the saddle, the young officers 
 had bidden their lady friends to an informal dance in the hop-room. It 
 was just a week afterNita Guthrie's adventure, and already, except in the 
 thoughts of two or three men, that strange affair Avas a thing of the past. 
 People had settled down to an acceptance of her own explanation of the 
 cause, not that it was entirely satisfactory, but because no other seemed 
 plausible. Just why a girl should have been rendered nervous and upset 
 because she had had a proposal, Mrs. Vance, of course, could not understand, 
 — "especially," said she, "a girl who was reputed to have had so many 
 offers." It "was laughingly remarked by various military Benedicts that 
 since the moment when Miss Guthrie's scream of terror had appalled the 
 garrison the dames and damsels of their several households had shown an 
 unwonted degree of timidity visiting about the post after night-fall, and 
 that much more than the traditional amount of hunting behind curtains 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 277 
 
 and under bedsteads was now going on. Berrien Vas especially jocular, 
 and more than ever disposed to tell his cronies in her presence tiiat Beren- 
 garia had said this or Berengaria had done that, the this or tliat being 
 something more than usually absurd or improbable. But in the conversa- 
 tions held of late in the sanctity of Berengaria's boudoir the major had 
 been anything but jocular. There was one incident of that evening that 
 had caused him deej) perplexity. He had never for a moment forgotten 
 his wife's allusion to Winifred, — Winifred, the apple of his eye. The pos- 
 sibility of her having lost her young heart to, or even having come to 
 feel more than passing interest in, Carroll Brewster, was something that 
 troubled him far more than he cared to admit. Like many another father, 
 he had gone on fancying his daughter only a child, — one to whom the idea 
 of falling in love would not present itself for years to come, and then only 
 on parental intimation that it was expected of her. Personally and offi- 
 cially he had nothing against Brewster. He liked him quite as well as he 
 did any of the junior officers, and he liked most of them very much indeed. 
 It was as soldierly, manly a lot of young fellows as one could ask to see, but 
 in the close comradeship and intimacy of frontier life men get to know one 
 another so thoroughly and so well that the foibles, weaknesses, and way- 
 wardness of the animal are apt to be far more i^roniiuently mentioned iu 
 garrison-chat than his sterling or lovable traits. Some men, it may be said, 
 have to die before their virtues can be in the least appreciated. 
 
 More than once had the major closely interrogated his wife as to the 
 reason of her statement. Had the young fellow dared to speak to Winifred 
 without first asking his permission? Had Winifred dared to fall in love 
 before — but no, that was impossible. " What makes you think she cares 
 for him?" — " How do you know?" — " Why should she care for him, any- 
 how?" were the impatient questions that rose to his lips. To one and all 
 she had simply replied that she knew because she knew, — woman's unan- 
 swerable reason. No, Winifred had not told her. They had never ex- 
 changed a word upon the subject. No, Mr. Brewster had not sjjoken, if by 
 that was meant of love or marriage, for Winifred would have told her on 
 the instant. But half a dozen other people had spoken. The whole garri- 
 son could see he was deeply in love with her. Every glance, word, gesture, 
 act, told the story with unerring certainty. "Is there a day, is there an 
 hour, when it is possible for him to see her, speak with her, that he is not 
 by her side?" asked Mrs. Berrien. "You must realize it, major, and j'ou 
 must decide what should be done. She likes him well, that I know, for 
 she is ever ready to dance with him or ride with him, and I can see how 
 her eyes brighten and her color rises when his step or his voice is heard on 
 the veranda." 
 
 "But, confound it, Bess!" — which was much nearer Madam's proper 
 name, — " he hasn't anything but his pay." 
 
 Mrs. Berrien laughed softly. 
 
 "But, Richard, dear, even that detriment has occasionally been over- 
 looked." 
 
 " Oh, of course. Exactly. I know. Neither had I. That is what you 
 mean, I suppose. But things were very different then." 
 
 " Granted again, Dick, — very different ; so much so that were things as 
 they used to be I would be utterly opposed to her marrying in the army." 
 
 This being just exactly the view the major had not taken, he could only 
 stare at her in astonishment. 
 
 " Bess, what on earth do you mean ?" 
 
 "Just what I say, Richard. I like what I've seen of Mr. Brewster 
 very much, and I don't wonder Winnie fancies him. He is a gentleman ; 
 he is a fine soldier ; he has a good record ; he is well connected ; his family 
 is one of the best that you or I know ; he has everything in point of fact 
 to recommend him that you had, my liege, and he has none of your bad 
 habits. You used to drink and smoke and play poker, and, Richard, some- 
 times you used to swear." 
 
 "Well, everybody did in those days." 
 
 " Exactly, and hardly anybody does to-day, except, perhaps, one hears 
 a little odd language when the wind is blowing from the drill-ground. But 
 in other respects things are, indeed, different. You and your cronies some- 
 times talk about how slow and how indifferent young officers are now as 
 compared with what they wei*e twenty years ago. Dick, if the army were 
 
278 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 to-day what it was when I married you I would wliisk Winnie out of this 
 garrison and never let her venture inside another. But it isn't. In every 
 possible way that a woman and a mother can see, it is vastly better, and 
 you know it. I can conceive of worse fates for our daughter than that she 
 should marry such a man as Mr. Brewster and into such a society as we 
 have here to-day. You are eagerly looking forward to your promotion. Do 
 you think being lieutenant-colonel will compensate you for leaving such 
 comrades and friends as you have in the Twelfth?" 
 
 " I'm hoping to exchange." 
 
 "You can't, Dick. Nobody will transfer with you who once gets into 
 the Twelfth. And now as to Winifred. You always liked Mr. Brewster. 
 You rather preferred him until lately. What has changed your view ?" 
 
 "Nothing, except — why — why, Bess, you must have seen or heard, for 
 one, thing, this affair with Mrs. you know." 
 
 " As utterly one-sided an affair as ever was known," said Mrs. Berrien, 
 stoutly. " I believe I can see clear through it. I despise the woman. She 
 has always made a dead set at some one of the officers stationed here, I am 
 told. She was just as absurd about Mr. Martin of the Eleventh,— every- 
 body says so in town ; and she picked out Brewster because he was the 
 handsomest of the new lot when our regiment came in. Ask any one you 
 choose, and I think my view will hold good. Ask Captain Rolfe what he 
 thinks ; and he and Mr. Brewster are not on friendly terms." 
 
 "I have asked Eolfe ; I asked him only this evening," replied Ber- 
 rien, turning redder; "and he begged to be excused from expressing an 
 opinion." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Well, he wouldn't say, but he had seen something or other that we 
 hadn't, and he doesn't like Brewster. I can't have a man making love to 
 Winnie one minute and that calcimined creature the next. I wish there 
 were no dance to-night. I want to see Rolfe again. Who takes her?" 
 
 " Mr. Brewster, of course. He asked her two days ago, when the affair 
 was first projected. He is in the parlor now ; but so are all the others." 
 
 The major stepped over to the window and began thrumming with his 
 pudgy fingers upon the pane. All the joviality and gladness seemed gone 
 from his face. The lights were already beginning to twinkle in the quarters 
 across the parade, and darkness, "wafted downward like a feather," was 
 shutting out the long line of shadowy bluffs beyond the stream. Down- 
 stairs he could hear the sound of joyous chatter, the deep voices of the men 
 mingling with tlie rippling, silvery laughter he knew and loved so well. 
 How happy the child seemed ! How she loved the regiment and gloried in 
 his profession ! How proud she was at school of the photographs he had 
 from time to time sent of his brother officers, and how the other girls, her 
 letters declared, envied her because she was a soldier's daughter and had 
 lived on the wild frontier ! He could hear the sound of other girlish voices, 
 too, Winifred's friends from town, but he found that his ear listened only 
 for hers. How blithe and musical and full of hope and gladness it seemed ! 
 How lovely she looked as she came down dressed for dinner just as he 
 returned from that odd, constrained talk with Rolfe ! Poor Rolfe ! he was 
 given over to the blue devils now, sure enough. He and Kenyon and 
 " Pills," the doctor, formed a triumvirate of sympathetic souls, for since 
 Jennie and " the kids" had gone Holden's life seemed to have fallen into 
 the sear and yellow leaf. Kenyon, as in duty bound, was making the cir- 
 cuit of the garrison returning calls just now, but Rolfe went nowhere ex- 
 cept the doctor's. There he could be found almost every evening, for ever 
 since Nita Guthrie's visit the walls of the old house seemed charmed to 
 him. "Begad," said the major, " I'll slip over there to-night myself while 
 the rest of the folks are dancing. I want to see what it is he is holding 
 back." 
 
 For the life of him he could not be repellent in manner to Brewster 
 when he went down-stairs. The three young fellows honored with invita- 
 tions on this particular evening were Brewster, Randolph, and Ridgeway, — 
 Brewster because he was to be Winifred's escort to the hop, the others be- 
 cause they had made the best of matters and invited the other girls, Ridge- 
 way, be it known, not without inward exasperation. He fancied Miss 
 Kitty Pennoyer as a substitute for Winifred Berrien about as much or as 
 little as one is content with a back seat when he cannot have a box. But 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 279 
 
 it kept him "in touch with the house," so to speak, and gave him oppor- 
 tunities at least of occasional word with the beautiful girl whom he so 
 admired. He knew he was no match for Brewster so far as physique or 
 reputation was concerned, but then girls had been known to prefer patri- 
 monial estate to personal charms, and he meant at least to try the effect of 
 his solid qualifications as against those which made Brewster so attractive 
 to the sex. He knew the major liked him well enough, and he thought he 
 could count on the good offices of Mrs. Berrien, but he was not so sure 
 about Winifred. When the jovial major appeared he was in readiness to 
 pay his respects at once, and was cordially welcomed by that red-faced 
 veteran ; so was Randolph ; and then there stood Brewster at Winnie's 
 side, both, as it so happened, looking straight at him. 
 
 " Well, by Jove, they do make an almost ideal couple !" he said to him- 
 self. Brewster fair, stalwart, straight, and soldierly, a picture of manliness 
 and vigor. "Winifred dark, yet with so rich a glow mantling the soft 
 creamy skin, with such glorious deep brown-black eyes, so lovely and 
 slender and graceful a form. Her shapely head seemed just on a level 
 with his broad shoulder, and something he had been saying to her in low 
 tone just as the others were greeting her father had sent the blood surging 
 to her cheek. Berrien thought she had never seemed so beautiful, even in 
 his fond eyes. For the first time he began to realize it was a woman, not a 
 child, who stood before him. No wonder Brewster loved her with his 
 whole soul. Why, if he didn't ! pshaw ! what was he thinking of? 
 
 " How are you, Brewster, lad? Glad you're here so early. Your troop 
 made my eyes dance this afternoon." Oh, surrender ignominious ! So 
 ended his eflbrt to be repellent. How could he be, with Winifred's soft eyes 
 looking at him so wistfully, so fondly? 
 
 And it was good to see Brewster's appreciation of the veteran's allusion 
 to his troop. Gorham, the captain, had been away on leave for some weeks, 
 during which time the lieutenant had had command, and, soldier that he 
 was, had done his utmost to improve the drill and efficiency of his men. 
 It was about the only troop that did not come in for a rasping of some kind 
 at the hands of the colonel that afternoon, and, being in Berrien's battalion, 
 reflected credit, of course, upon the major. Brewster's eyes had kindled 
 and he had lowered his sabre in glad acknowledgment of the brief words 
 of commendation that fell from Farquhar's lips as he completed his rigid 
 inspection of the equipment of the glossy blacks, and the major had sup- 
 plemented the words by a nod and a glance that spoke volumes. But, 
 while all this was as joy to his soul, it was as nothing as compared with 
 being praised by her father in her hearing. At that precise moment 
 Carroll Brewster stood the happiest man within the limits of a crowded 
 county. 
 
 And now at ten o'clock the hop-room was well filled. A number of 
 pleasant people had driven out from town. All the garrison girls were 
 there, most of the elders among the mammas, all the juniors among the 
 matrons, and the dance went merrily on. Delightful music the orchestra 
 of the Twelfth was ever ready to play, and this night their leader seemed 
 Inspired. The affair was entirely informal. No written invitations had 
 been sent out. Officers were all in undress uniform, but, with few excep- 
 tions, all were there, and the bi'oad stripes of scarlet or yellow or white 
 were to be seen everywhere throughout the room. Mrs. Berrien, a smile of 
 motherly pride in her handsome dark eyes, was chatting pleasantly with 
 the wife of a local magnate who could not say enough about Winifred's 
 grace and beauty, and the gaze of both women seemed to follow the child 
 as she appeared literally to float over the smoothly-polished floor, just 
 lightly borne on Brewster's stalwart arm. It was one of the oldest and 
 sweetest of the Strauss waltzes that was being played at the moment, 
 "Geschichten aus dem Wienerwald," and, slowly reversing and turning, 
 with the eyes of more than half the spectatoi's and wall-flowers upon them, 
 Brewster and Winifred were now gliding across the upper end of the hall 
 within a few feet of the smiling row of lookers-on, almost within touch of 
 the mother's hand. His face wore a look no woman could for an instant 
 mistake. His eyes, full of passionate tenderness, were fixed at the instant 
 upon her lovely face. His lips were moving. Something was being said. 
 
 " There is one couple at least that is utterly lost to the rest of the world," 
 said Mrs. Vance, for of a sudden the lovely upturned face was bowed al- 
 
280 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 most upon his arm, and the deep, dark eyes were veiled, and the soft flush 
 seemed to leap through the creamy skin to her very temples. 
 
 "Oh, has that fellow Bidgeway no sense whatever?" she continued, 
 with all a woman's horror of an interrupted love-scene, for at the instant 
 Ridgeway had darted forth, watch in hand, with a triumphant shout, 
 "Time ! My half!" And without a word, with one swift upward glance 
 into Brewster's longing eyes, — a glance fairly brimming over with mean- 
 ing, — Winifred released herself from the half-encircling arm and placed her 
 hand on Bidgeway's sleeve. Another moment, and she was being whirled 
 away under the guidance of a very different partner. 
 
 "Miss Berrien's fan," said Brewster, bowing a moment later before her 
 mother. " I was charged to place it in your hands." His heart was beating 
 high. The music seemed thrilling, throbbing, through his veins. He 
 longed to hold forth both hands and say, " Read my secret. Know my 
 heart! I love her! oh, I love her!" But there satMrs. Van Ness, the 
 banker's wife, with broad sympathy and approval glowing in her good- 
 uatured face. 
 
 " Ah, Mr. Brewster, it wasn't easy to give up half that dance, — was it, 
 now? Why do you do such things in the army?" 
 
 "There were only four waltzes, Mrs. Van Ness," smiled Mrs. Berrien. 
 " Mr. Brewster had liad one, and had claimed this, and Mr. Ridgeway had 
 had none at all, and Winifred and I both thought he ought not to be denied 
 entirely. It is the only round dance he knows." 
 
 Saying no word, Brewster had dropped behind Mrs. Berrien's chair. 
 
 "He doesn't know that any too well," said Mrs. Van Ness to herself. 
 "Where could he have learned to dance?" The floor was crowded at the 
 moment, and unusually slippery, so that reversing or avoidance of collision 
 was rendered the more difficult even for experts. Twice had Ridgeway 
 bumped into somebody or other, without grievous disaster, but now, as luck 
 would have it, came catastrophe. In the efl^brt to check himself suddenly 
 just as he seemed shooting into contact with a slender light-battery man 
 whom he could not have touched had he tried, the young fellow's feet flew 
 from under him. Left to herself, Winifred would no more have fallen than 
 a bird. Drowning men clutch at straws, and poor, rich Ridgeway 's instant 
 impulse on feeling himself going was to clasp her the tighter, dragging her 
 with him in his ignominious crash. His tumble was bad enough, though 
 he was unhurt, but hers was worse. With violent shock her head struck 
 the polished floor, and the room swam around. A dozen men flew to aid 
 her, but Brewster seemed to have seen it coming. He leaped through the 
 air, and, bending over the prostrate Ridgeway, had her up in his strong 
 arms and over at the window before another hand could touch her. 
 
 "Quick, Hunt, some Avater !" he ordered, his teeth flrmly set. Then 
 how his eyes softened as he looked down into her pallid face! "Oh, my 
 darling, my darling !" he murmured in that little, shell-like ear ; and then, 
 with wild anxiety in her eyes, Mrs. Berrien burst through the sympathetic 
 circle. 
 
 It was all over in a moment. The music never ceased. She was 
 stunned only for an instant, and then, though Mrs. Berrien would have 
 interposed, like the little heroine she was, Winifred was on her feet and 
 holding out her hand to poor, bewildered, miserable Ridgeway. 
 
 "But come, we must finish the dance," she said, and in so saying 
 riveted the chains of his serfdom. 
 
 "i" wouldn't dance with him again," said Mrs. Vance, who had an 
 opinion to express on every subject. " Why, he almost broke her head." 
 
 " If she didn't, she'd break his heart, Mrs. Vance," was old Kenyon's 
 reply, as he watched the scene. " That girl's a lady." 
 
 " Am I not to be honored to-night, Mr. Brewster?" said- a low voice in 
 his ear as he stood silent, anxious, preoccupied, by Mrs. Berrien's side, his 
 eyes following Winifred about the room. The very intonation made him 
 turn cold. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knowles, I only saw a moment ago that you 
 were here." 
 
 She was leaning on her husband's arm. " Not half a bad fellow, if he 
 is a blind fool," said those of his own sex who knew him. Years her senior, 
 he was yet her slave. Witness his coming out from town this late Novem- 
 ber night solely at her behest to attend a dance to which neither was bidden. 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 281 
 
 " Ah, I wonder you saw at all, my friend, with that vision before your 
 eyes ; and I presume that was why you had no time to come in person with 
 your invitation." 
 
 " No invitations are sent out for these little dances, Mrs. Knowles." 
 
 " There, there, I'm not going to upbraid you here. — Mr. Knowles, 
 would you get me a glass of water ? — Mr. Brewster, will you not present me 
 to Mrs. Berrien ? We have exchanged calls, but I have not yet had the 
 pleasure." 
 
 What could he do? The request was as audible to Mrs. Berrien as to 
 him, and, even as she spoke, Mrs. Knowles passed around in front of him 
 so as almost to face the major's wife, taking the introduction as a matter of 
 course. He glanced appealingly at Mrs. Berrien as he murmured the name. 
 He blessed her in his heart of hearts for the calm courtesy with which she 
 greeted the local celebrity. He bit his Ups with vexation at Mrs. Knowles's 
 very first words : 
 
 " I could not resist the longing to know you, Mrs. Berrien, for I am 
 utterly lost in admiration of your lovely daughter." She, daring to speak 
 of one so pure, so innocent, so utterly beyond her! Turning impatiently 
 away, he encountered Major Berrien's eyes fixed upon him with a look that 
 Avas not good to see. He stepped forward, hoping to explain, but Berrien, 
 who had just entered the room after an absence of over half an hour, 
 whirled shai'ply about, plainly indicating that he did not wish to speak. 
 This was bad enough. He had been near the seventh heaven of bliss. He 
 had almost touched the gates of pearl. Now they were receding through 
 clouds and darkness, fading in tlie distance. But worse was to come. Mrs. 
 Knowles had seated herself by Mrs. Berrien's side, pouring forth rapid 
 compliment and confidence. The music had ceased. Ridgeway, with Wini- 
 fred on his arm, was approaching, slowly, checked every moment by man 
 or woman who begged to hear that sbe was not shocked or seriously hurt. 
 It was not until she was within a few yards that Winifred caught sight of 
 her mother's companion, —caught sight of the faint gesture and the warning 
 in her mother's eyes. Then she pressed her escort's arm and turned him 
 away. 
 
 " Oh, do call Miss Winifred here. I so long to meet her, Mrs. Berrien," 
 cried Mrs. Knowles ; and what could Mrs. Berrien do? The flush died out 
 of Winifred's cheeks, the soft lustre from her eyes. Obedient to her mother's 
 unwilling summons, she stood before the lady from town, but she stood 
 erect, and there was not the faintest cordiality in her manner. The long- 
 lashed lids drooped over her eyes as she bowed to the elder woman, but her 
 hand, to Ridgeway's delight, refused to withdraw from his arm. No one 
 saw more plainly than did Mrs. Knowles that nothing could be more un- 
 welcome than that introduction ; and it stung her to the quick. Checking 
 the fulsome flatteries that were ready on her tongue, she said, — 
 
 " I could not go, Miss Berrien, without saj'ing how frightened I was 
 for you and how glad to see you were not hurt." Then, turning languidly, 
 "And now, Carroll, will you take me to the carriage? Somebody can call 
 Mr. Knowles. — Good-night, Mrs. Berrien. Do come and see me." And, 
 taking Mr. Brewster's unoffered arm, she led him down the brightly -lighted 
 and observant room. 
 
 It is Mr. Thomas Hughes who asks in "Tom Brown at Oxford," 
 "Which is the true — ay, and the brave — man, he who trembles before a 
 woman or he before whom a woman trembles?" There are men who could 
 have found it no difficult matter to flatly decline to serve even as temporary 
 escort to a woinan so evidently bent on mischief, — who could have rebuked 
 then and there the assumption of intimacy and proprietorship which if un- 
 challenged might mean disaster. Brewster did neither. She read him well 
 enough to see that, though he was too indignant to permit himself to speak, he 
 was also too much of a gentleman to snub her. Bravely, therefore, she bore 
 her part, keeping up an animated flow of meaningless words until fairly out 
 of the hop-room, then promptly shifting to that feminine coigne of vantage 
 wherein lies woman's greatest strength, — a gush of silent tears. She knew 
 too much to add reproaches, accusations, angry words : that would have 
 
282 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 given him something to answer, something to overthrow. It is only when 
 a woman weeps, silently, desolately, showing no anger, making no charge, 
 that she has man at her mercy. Utterly false as was the position in which 
 she had placed Brewster before the garrison world at this nvoinent, he actu- 
 ally did not know but that he might be blamable for all, — that he might be 
 much less sinned against than sinning. He was no fool, only so much of 
 one as the strongest of his kind sometimes become in the hands of the softer 
 sex. Samson had his Delilah ; Hercules, Omphale ; Belisarius, poor devil, 
 had both Antonia and Theodora. 
 
 It was bad enough to have her shrink to the opposite side of the carriage 
 the instant he had assisted her in and there give way to apparently uncon- 
 trollable weeping ; it was bad enough to have to stand there for a moment 
 or two until the lady's long-suffering spouse should be hunted up (he had 
 been having a cigar with one or two of the elders in the sanctity of the little 
 smoking-i'oom) ; but what made matters simply intolerable was that just at 
 the foot of tbe stairs, under the broad gallery, just where the lantern on the 
 big pillar would shine full upon himself and his lachrymose partner, stood 
 Major Berrien in earnest conversation with Captain Rolfe, and both looked 
 up, glanced quickly but searchingly at him and at her, raised their forage- 
 caps in silent salutation, and turned away. Poor Curly ! As in duty bound, 
 he leaned into the carriage, not too ardently begging the weeping dame to 
 say what had so distressed her, but she would not reply. Possibly she 
 thought he might yet be induced to clamber in after her and there in the 
 dark interior tenderly beseech her to speak ; but he was all eagerness to 
 hasten back to the hop-room. If he could but have speech with Mi'S. Ber- 
 rien a moment, he might make her understand the situation : she had 
 always been cordial and sympathetic. But it was three or four minutes, 
 perhaps, before Knowles came, thanked him for his attention to his wife, 
 stepped in, and— how her tears were explained to her liege lord nobody 
 knows. Somebody who knew her, however, was mean enough to suggest 
 that they were of the theatrical and controllable order, and, as Randolph ex- 
 pressed it, "she braced up and grinned as soon as Curly was left behind." 
 
 The instant the carriage rolled away, Brewster turned and sped up the 
 stairs. At the very top he met the colonel coming hastily down, a brown 
 telegraph envelope in his hand, the soldier operator, with a look of repressed 
 excitement on his face, close at his heels. 
 
 " Come with me, Brewster," said Farquhar, in preoccupied but positive 
 manner.— " Morgan, find the adjutant and quartermaster, and say that I 
 wish to see them at the office." 
 
 " I'll get my cap and follow you at once, sir," answered Brewster, and 
 hastened into the dressing-room. There he met Hazlett and Thorpe just 
 coming out, throwing their cavalry capes over their shoulders, silent and 
 preoccupied like their chief. Seizing his cap, Brewster paused one longing 
 instant for a glance into the hop-room. Again the floor was thronged. To 
 the merriest of music — " Toujours Galant"— the younger dancers were fairly 
 romping in the half-galop, half-polka step the joyous tune inspires, and in 
 their midst, not romping, but dancing with a slower, almost languid grace, 
 Winifred Berrien appeared to his troubled gaze, her slender waist half en- 
 circled by Randolph's arm, her dark eyes downcast, her color and animation 
 gone. 
 
 " Come, Brewster," called Hazlett from the door- way, " Farquhar wants 
 us at ojice, and does not want anybody else to know." 
 
 "What's up?" 
 
 "You'll know in a moment. The colonel doesn't want it mentioned 
 here." 
 
 At the foot of the stairs under the glare of the same big lamp, Farquhar, 
 with Berrien and Rolfe, stood waiting. Glancing impatiently up as though 
 to make sure of his men, Farquhar took Berrien by the arm and silently led 
 the way, Rolfe and Hazlett, Thorpe and Brewster, "falling in behind. It was 
 but a few steps to the office. 
 
 "Pull down the shades, orderly ; and one lamp will be enough. That'll 
 do. Close the door, and remain outside," said Farquhar, as he threw off 
 his cape, then silently waited until the sleepy trumpeter had carried out his 
 orders and vanished. By this time, too, Warren and Drake, the adjutant 
 and the quartermaster, had come bustling in, and, noting the silence of those 
 already on the ground, simply removed their caps and waited the colonel's 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 283 
 
 pleasure. For an instant Farquhar stood tapping the lid of the desk with 
 the butt of his pencil and studying the long despatch which he held in his 
 hand. Then he looked up. 
 
 "Gentlemen, we are ordered to the field ; one battalion to go at once, 
 the other to follow in ten hours,— just as soon as ears can be provided. 
 — Berrien, you will lead off." 
 
 For a moment not a word from anybody ; then the naajor spoke : 
 
 "How much tiuie have we, sir?" 
 
 " I cannot tell. You load up the moment the railway-company can get 
 a train here. Tliey have plenty of engines and cars at the junction, and 
 ought to be able to furnish what we need by daybreak. Meantime, you 
 will have to rouse your men, pack up everything that is not to be taken, 
 cook three days' rations, and be ready to get the horses aboard. Go at it as 
 quietly as possible. I want nobody at the hop to know of the orders. Let 
 the dance go on. Your men must take all their blankets and the heaviest 
 clothing they have. No one knows what may be in store for us either in. 
 furs or fighting." 
 
 Again dead silence, broken only by the rapid clicking of the telegraph 
 instrument in the adjoining room and the soft, melodious strains borne on 
 the wings of the whispering night wind. Another waltz, and one which 
 she had promised him he should have the latter half of, thought Brewster. 
 Even now he listened yearningly to recognize the strain. Ay, he might 
 have known it ! her favorite of all, — " Love's Dreamland." 
 
 But the colonel was speaking again : "Of course you will do well to 
 weed out any sick or ineffectives you may have. It is going to be a bitter 
 campaign, and after our summer and fall under Southern suns will be all 
 the tougher. Holden will go with your command, Berrien, and I have sent 
 for him. Here are your four troop commanders : so you may as well give 
 your instructions at once and let them get to work." 
 
 "You have heard the colonel's orders, gentlemen: I do not know of 
 anything I have to add. Start out your first sergeants and the cooks at 
 once, and let the men pack without unnecessary noise. I will give all 
 further details as soon as Colonel Farquhar and I have had a few moments' 
 conference." 
 
 Again the telegraph operator, with a despatch. 
 
 "I thought so," said Farquhar. " Murray, the division supermtendent, 
 was with us in the Shenandoah and at Five ^orks. He wires that the train 
 will be here at five o'clock at the latest, — two engines, twenty freight- or 
 cattle-cars, two baggage-cars, four passenger day-cars, and a Pullman. It 
 is eleven now. If anything is wanted you'll find me here." 
 
 Back again into the chill night air, under the shining, starry vault, 
 Berrien and his four troop leaders paused for a moment on the gravel 
 walk. 
 
 "Hazlett, I suppose you will need to see Mrs. Hazlett home, and you, 
 Thorpe. Better go and rouse your sergeants first, then come back to the 
 hop-room ; but, mind you, not a word there. Rolfe, you and Brewster are 
 among the blessed to-night : you have no wives to break the news to. I 
 will give your subalterns the tip to report to you just as soon as we break 
 up." 
 
 Three hands went to the cap-visor in salute, three oflBcers turned away. 
 Warren, the adjutant, came hurrying out : 
 
 " Oh, major. Colonel Farquhar begs that you will step in a moment." 
 
 "You had something to say, Brewster?" asked the major, coldly. 
 
 "Yes, sir: I — I hope to hurry back in time to escort Miss Berrien 
 home." 
 
 " No, don't trouble yourself. I'll attend to that. You have other 
 matters to occupy you."" And if ever a father's tone signified that dis- 
 missal was intended, and that further attentions were forbidden, Berrien's 
 did as he abruptly turned, leaving Brewster stunned and silent at the edge 
 of the parade. 
 
 In ten minutes lights were dancing like will-o'-the-wLsps about the gal- 
 lery of the men's quarters. Quick, bounding footsteps could be heard, and 
 the low, brief orders of the sergeants as they went flitting from door to 
 door. Then half-suppressed exclamations, an occasional smothered yell of 
 excitement or delight from some enthusiastic Paddy, ever ready for a frolic 
 or a fight. Then a gradually swelling murmur of voices, the rapid scurry 
 
284 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 of booted feet, a clattering up and down the stairways, the slamming and 
 banging of barrack doors, the dragging forth of heavy chests and boxes, 
 the clank of a dropped sabre, and then people at the hop-room, strolling 
 out on the broad veranda for fresh air or flirtation, became aware of the 
 unusual illumination over across the parade, and listening heard the sounds 
 of bustle and preparation. And then lights began to pop up among the 
 windows of the second battalion, where the news had rapidly spread, and 
 where dozens of troopers tumbled out of their blankets and into their boots 
 forthwith and went charging en masse upon their own sergeants to know 
 what it meant that " them fellers in the first battalion had had orders to 
 be up and getting and none had come for us." In less time than it takes 
 to tell it, the tidings spread from porch to hall that "something was up," 
 and other people, men and women, old officers and young, matrons and 
 maids, quit tlieir places in the Lancers and came streaming forth upon the 
 gallery. "What's the matter?"— " Is it fire? I heard no alarm."— "The 
 trumpets haven't sounded." — " See ! there's the orderly trumpeter going 
 across the parade now, running to the office." — "Why, the office is lighted, 
 too." — " Where's Warren ?" — " What does it mean ?" These and dozens of 
 other verbal conjectures and suggestions flew from lip to lip. Men excused 
 themselves to their fair partners, seized their caps, scurried away down the 
 steps, and sped over towards the lights at head-quarters. A dozen or more 
 suddenly disappeared in this way, and then it was found that the colonel 
 and Berrien and Hazlett and Thorpe and Brewster, too, were all missing. 
 And then Mrs. Thorpe's voice was heard wailing out upon the night air : 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. Berrien! Mrs. Berrien ! I know what it means. I saw the 
 telegraph operator coming up the steps. It's orders, — orders for the field." 
 
 And then indeed 
 
 There was hurrying to and fro, 
 And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, 
 And cheelis all pale which but an hour ago 
 Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness. 
 
 And the dance was forgotten, and the musicians, astonished, found the 
 lighted hall rapidly emptying of the revellers, and women pressed, pallid 
 and tearful, into the dressing-room, gathering up their wraps with hasty 
 hand and hurrying forth to take the arm of husband or lover, as though 
 claiming that right to the very last. And then in some way the word went 
 round, "Only one battalion goes, — only Berrien's ;" and those whose lords 
 were attached to the other plucked up heart and spirit for a moment, and 
 in the midst of it all, pale but tearless, Mrs. Berrien stood waiting patiently 
 for Dick's return, and by her side, even paler, but as brave and tearless and 
 patient, Winifred clung to her mother's arm and would take no other. 
 Ridgeway, who had scampered over to the office among the dozen departed, 
 came panting back up the stairway. 
 
 " Is it true?" asked Mrs. Berrien. 
 
 " Yes ; the first battalion goes at daybreak. The major says he will be 
 over in a few moments." 
 
 "Mrs. Berrien, permit me to escort you home," said Major Kenyon, 
 hastening after Ridgeway up the stair. " I have just seen Berrien : he has 
 to go to the barracks a few minutes." 
 
 " Miss Winifred, may I have the pleasure? Mr. Brewster is, of course, 
 needed with his troop, aiid mine does not go," said Ridgeway, proffering his 
 arm. The girl hesitated one moment, half clinging to her mother's side, 
 and casting one swift, appealing glance into her face. 
 
 "Yes, daughter, we'll go home at once," was the low-toned answer as 
 Mrs. Berrien took old Kenyon's arm, and with bowed head moved towards 
 the stairs, her escort eagerly, volubly explaining to her that he felt sure the 
 object of the sudden move was merely to overawe the Indians by a display 
 of force. "It is exactly what was done here with such success a few 
 years ago, Mrs. Berrien. The Cheyennes were wild for an outbreak, and 
 Sheridan simply called in troops from everywhere, and when the Indians 
 saw the great array of cavalry and infantry they caved at once. Never had 
 to fire a shot, madam. And' that's the proper way to handle this matter. 
 That's what this means. The Sioux will be so disheartened they won't dare 
 resist even if orders are given to disarm them.— God forgive me the lie!" he 
 muttered under his breath. — " Of course it's exasperating to think of the 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 285 
 
 Twelfth being sent so far away at such a time, but better now, believe me, 
 than later after those misguided wretches had had a chance to jump." 
 
 But Mrs. Berrien liad lived, heaven only knows how, through many a 
 similar experience. Slie had seen time and again her husband's command 
 hurried forth on the trail or across the path of savage foe. JSIever yet had 
 they returned unscathed, never yet without serious loss of oflflcers and men. 
 She could only bow her head the lower while her lips moved in silent 
 prayer. Just as they reached the gate a tall form came springing after them 
 through the darkness, and Brewster's voice was heard : 
 
 " I hurried back to the hop-room, Miss Winifred, only to find you gone. 
 I had expected to escort you home. You have heard the news ? You know 
 our orders have come ?" He glared at Ridgeway, as much as to say, " Leave, 
 man ; you are one too many, as you ought to see." But the junior lieu- 
 tenant stoutly held his ground, nor did Winifred withdraw her hand from 
 his arm. 
 
 " I have heard ; yes, it seems very sudden," was all she could or would 
 say, and the dark eyes were shrouded from his longing gaze. 
 
 " We'll be off by daybreak, I fear. I cannot hope to see you again 
 before we have to go," he went on, desperately. 
 
 "Won't you come in, Mr. Brewster?" called Mrs. Berrien from the 
 steps. "You and Mr. Ridgeway can spare a moment, can you not?— Oh, 
 Dick, here you are !" she cried, as with quick, energetic step the major 
 sprang across the road and appeared under the dim light of the garrison 
 lamp, and back to the gate she sped to meet him and to twine her arm in 
 his. 
 
 " I'll say good-night, ladies," said Kenyon. " I'll call in in the morn- 
 ing to see if I can be of any service. Now I'must trot over and help Holden 
 to pack." And, unrestrained, he went. 
 
 "Brewster, Ridgeway, I won't ask you in now. You have much to 
 attend to, and but little time.— Run in, Winifred," said the major. — "I'll 
 be witli you at the barracks in a few moments, gentlemen." 
 
 8lowly but obediently Winifred stepped forward. 
 
 "Good-night, Mr. Ridgeway," she murmured, holding out ner little 
 hand. " Thaulc you very mucli." 
 
 Berrien stood impatiently at the gate, as though to see her safely through. 
 With trembling lips Brewster spoke as he sprang to her side. 
 
 '' Good-by. Don't forget," was all he could murmur, as he seized her 
 hand, clinging to it one miserable moment witli both his own. 
 
 "Good-by," she said, in low, tremulous tone, but withdrawing her 
 hand, withholding her glance. The major threw his arm about her and 
 almost thrust her through the gate. 
 
 " It is good-night only, not good-by, Mr. B:*ewster," said Mrs. Berrien, 
 kindly, forgetting her own misery for the moment in the contemplation 
 of the woe in his face. Then they hurried within-doors, Winifred droop- 
 ing before them, and then the door closed, and Brewster and Ridgeway 
 stood there confronting each other under the light. For a moment neither 
 spoke. 
 
 "Have you lost your crossed sabres?" said Brewster, finally, noting 
 that the handsome cap-badge of solid gold which Ridgeway ordinarily wore 
 upon the front of his forage-cap was now missing. 
 
 " No ; I took it oflE" to pin Miss Berrien's wrap about her throat." 
 
 A moment more Brewster stood, as though he would ask another ques- 
 tion, then abruptly turned and plunged into the darkness. 
 
 Meantime, Major Kenyon had trudged up the row towards Holden's 
 quarters. Already the lights were beginning to gleam from the various 
 houses around the big quadrangle of the parade, where a dozen of the cav- 
 alry officers were now busily engaged in preparation for the sudden move. 
 Over at the hospital, too, the lamps were being lighted in the steward's 
 room and the dispensary. Holden's hall door stood wide open. The hall 
 itself was dark, but a lamp was alight in the sitting-room, and that door, 
 too, was wide open. A tall form passed across the illumined space as 
 Kenyon drew near. He stopped for a moment at the gate, listening to the 
 sound of bustle, the whistling and singing of the men at the barracks. 
 "Hardship, hunger, privation, suffering ahead of them, even if they don't 
 have hard fighting," he muttered to himself. " In thirty-six hours they'll 
 be freezing, poor devils, for not a man in the battalion has a winter kit ; 
 
286 -^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 and just hear them laugh and sing as though the world had no joy like 
 soldiering ! God guard tliem, — and tliese poor wives and sweethearts here. 
 Why isn't it my lot to go instead of Berrien's ? Who the devil would shed 
 a tear for me?" He shook himself together and tramped heavily into the 
 gate and up the steps. 
 
 " Doc !" he called at the door-way. " Oh, Doo !" 
 
 No answer. The house was silent. 
 
 "OhjHolden! Where are you ?" Stillnoreply. " Odd," said Kenyon : 
 " I thought I saw him in here. Who could that have been?" With the 
 confidence of army intimacj' he tramped through the sitting-room on the 
 left of the hall, then into the dining-room beyond. No one there. Then 
 across the hall again and into Holdeu's own sleeping-room at the rear of 
 the house. The kerosene lamp was burning on the dressing-table. The bed 
 had been occupied. Evidently Holden had turned in early, only to be 
 routed out by the orders of the colonel. The floor creaked somev^here over- 
 head. Then he was sure he heard a quick, light foot-fall on the stair. " Oh, 
 Doc ! Here I am. It's Kenyon," he cried. But no answer came. Onoe 
 more returning to the hall, and thence to the sitting-room, he found them 
 empty as before. The parlor door on the west side was closed. Slowly he 
 strolled out on the front piazza, just in time to catch sight of a tall form in 
 the dark circular cape striding up to the gate. Surely that was Holden. 
 Then he heard a hail : 
 
 " Hello, Rolfe. That you ?" 
 
 " Yes. You go with us, do you?" 
 
 " I do. Won't you come in ?" 
 
 " Not just now : I've got to go to my quarters a moment. I'll be in by 
 and by. We'll have to make a night of it." 
 
 " All right. Kathleen will get us some coffee after a while. Bring in 
 some of the others with you." Then the doctor came bounding up the 
 steps. " Hello, Kenyon. You here? Well, you were right after all, weren't 
 you? I've just been over to the hospital to see to the field-chests." 
 
 "Weren't you in here just now?" asked Kenyon. 
 
 " I ? No ! Not for ten minutes." 
 
 "Well, some one was here, — up-stairs and down both. I called twice 
 and got no answer, but I saw a man and heard the steps. Thought it was 
 you." 
 
 " Rolfe, perhaps. He was in the road just beyond our gate as I came 
 back ; but I thought he had just come from his company quarters." 
 
 "If it had been Rolfe he would have answered, I should think," said 
 Kenyon. " Besides, the figure and the footsteps were those of a much 
 lighter man." 
 
 "Queer!" said Holden, his thoughts instantly reverting to the event 
 of the week before. " Did you see him?" 
 
 " I saw a figure pass across the light streaming from the sitting-room 
 door. Then I heard the step up-stairs while I stood in your room, and then 
 very quick, light steps on the stairs,— some one coming down like a streak, 
 now that I think of it." 
 
 " How long ago?" 
 
 " Not more than a minute before you got here." 
 
 " By Jove, I'm going to look into this !" said Holden, quickly. " Of 
 course you've heard of the excitement we had here. Bring that candle, 
 will you? I'll take the lamp." Up the stairs they went,— up to the land- 
 ing where Nita Guthrie had her mysterious fright and fall. The door of 
 the room she occupied was open. All was darkness within. Holden, fol- 
 lowed by Kenyon, entered, and they set their lights upon a table. The side 
 window was shut and barred, the south windows as firmly closed. Every- 
 thing looked neat and undisturbed, but cold and deserted. No sign of an 
 intruder, for a moment, to the eyes of either man. Then of a sudden Hol- 
 den made a spring for the toilet table, seized a small silver frame, and stood 
 glaring at it. 
 
 " Bv Jove ! look here !" 
 
 "What's the matter?" asked Kenyon. 
 
 "Don't you see?" was the answer, as the doctor held the face of the 
 frame towards him, empty and gaping. " Nita Guthrie's photograph was 
 in this frame and on that table just before the hop began when I was up 
 here ; and where is it now?" 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 287 
 
 VI. 
 
 Pallid and wan the first faint gleam of the coming day was stealing 
 slowly into the eastern skies. Far away down the broad valley the mist 
 was creeping from the slow-moving, silent stream. Peace and slumber and 
 solitude hovered over the wide acres where the tasselled corn had waved in 
 the summer breeze and the bearded rye and bristling wheat had ripened 
 and bleached under the fervid touch of the sumn^er sun. In the barn-yards 
 and sheds the cattle still crouched, drowsing and huddling for warmth. In 
 the orchards and among the maples and beeches the bluebirds and jays and 
 belated robins still perched among the autumn leaves, their heads tucked 
 away under sheltering wings. Under dew-laden hedge-rows the mother 
 bird nestled her little brown brood, and Bob White still dozed away the 
 dark hour that precedes the dawn. All over the placid, populous valley 
 without the reservation lines, the wings of night were spread. All through 
 the streets of the thriving county town only the tread of the watchman 
 waked the echoes, only the glimmer of his lamp was seen. The waning 
 moon, a dim, mist-bedraggled crescent, had peeped up over the shadowy 
 forest down the eastward valley and climbed slowly' towards a sheltering 
 bank of cloud and there had seemed to halt and hide. Puffing and panting, 
 a long, long train had wound under the wooded bluffs and was hissing at 
 the station platform at the foot of the curving road that led to the broad 
 plateau of the fort. And now lights Avere dancing and gleaming every- 
 where along the train ; men in cavalry overcoats and top-boots were busily, 
 rapidly, silently leading horse after horse up the wooden ramps or chutes 
 and into the dark depths of the cattle-cars. Many a trooper stopped a mo- 
 ment after lashing his halter-strap to the rail and murmured a few caressing, 
 reassuring words to his wondering charger, patting him on neck or shoulder 
 and striving to explain to him how it happened that he was stirred out 
 from his warm stable at this unseemly hour and marched into a prison-pen 
 on wheels behind those black, hissing monsters up ahead. Silence and 
 order and discipline prevailed. Only when some excitable, nervous steed 
 balked and refused to climb the chute, was there unusual sound. Tlien the 
 sharp crack of the stable sergeant's whip and a stern " Hup there !" brought 
 the brute to his senses, and he plunged along up the wooden ramp, his iron- 
 shod hoofs tliundering on the boards, his trooper's arms nearly wrenched 
 from their sockets. The division superintendent had been better than his 
 word, for it was only four o'clock when the train came hissing in, and in 
 ten minutes, in long ghostly jjrocession, Rolfe's men were leading their 
 chargers, curveting and pi'ancing in the keen air, down the winding road 
 to the valley, the quartermaster's wagons following with chest and box and 
 bale and bundles of tentage and camp equipage. In fifteen minutes more 
 the word went up to send down the next troop, and the train pulled for- 
 ward four car-lengths, so as to bring the next lot of horse-cars opposite the 
 platform and chutes, while Thorpe's handsome sorrels were led wondering 
 from the dimly-lighted gangway ; and so, by a few minutes after five, even 
 the officers' chargers and the spare horses of the first battalion were all 
 aboard, and somewhere across the stream, just as the major acknowledged 
 the report "All aboard and secure, sir," in Hazlett's soldierly tones, a 
 sprightly chanticleer, whose ears had at last caught those muffied sounds 
 of hoof and voice over under the garrison bluffs, concluded it time to chal- 
 lenge, and woke the echoes with shrill cock-a-doodle-doo, whereat there 
 came a low chuckle of delight from Hazlett's men. 
 
 " Very good, sir. Now get aboard all your baggage as quick as you can." 
 
 "All aboard now, sir." 
 
 " Then march up to quarters for coffee and breakfast, — the others are at 
 theirs now, — and form under arms right afterwards." 
 
 Precious little sleep has there been this night, — no time among the men, 
 no inclination among the women. Wives and daughters who had devoutly 
 thanked heaven that only the first battalion was to go were soon undeceived, 
 and found that but ten hours' respite was to be theirs. All the night long 
 the note of preparation could be heard in barracks and in quarters. The 
 colonel, with his adjutant and quartermaster, hardly left the office at all. 
 Berrien bustled from barracks to his home, from there to stables. At two 
 o'clock, finding all his own campaigning-kit in perfect readiness, and Wini- 
 fred and her mother still huddling over the parlor fire, he noted the pallor 
 
288 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 in his daughter's face, the deep trouble in her pathetic eyes, and, taking her 
 in his arms, he kissed her fondly again and again. 
 
 "Go to your room now, little daughter," he said, huskily: "go, dear, 
 and try to sleep. I will not leave without coming to say bye-bye, just 
 as I always did." She shivered and hid her face and clung to his neck, 
 saying no word, shedding no tear. Gently he unclasped her hands. "Yes, 
 my child, do as T bid you now : I want to speak with mother awhile." And 
 then reluctantly she turned, but the one brief look into his eyes was so full of 
 wordless sorrow that he was for an instant unmanned. " My little girl ! my 
 little Winnie ! don't look at your old daddy that way !" he almost sobbed, 
 as again he threw his arm around her, leading her to the stairs. " We 
 won't be gone long. We're all coming back, dear ; and Ave'll have a lovely 
 Christmas, and you shall have the jolliest kind of a party, pet. But be a 
 brave little woman now. It — it'll all come right." Siie turned with quick 
 convulsive sob and threw herself upon his bi'east, again twining her soft 
 arms about his neck, her beautiful dark hair streaming in rippling, shim- 
 mering masses down over the creamy white wrapper. The burst of tears 
 would have been a blessed relief, but it never came. A quick, soldierly 
 tread was heard on the plank walk without, and then springing up the 
 steps. Even before the rat-tat-tat at the door she had torn herself from his 
 arms, and sped like startled fawn up the carpeted stair. 
 
 " It is Mr. Brewster," said Mrs. Berrien, in low tone, quickly. Berrien 
 threw open the door. "Anything for a pretext to come here again," he 
 muttered angrily to himself, as he confronted the unwelcome intruder. It 
 was Brewster. 
 
 " Major Berrien, the colonel's compliments, and he desires you to know 
 that the train will be here at four instead of five." And Brewster's eyes 
 glanced but an instant into those of his superior, and then went wandering 
 longingly over his shoulder. 
 
 " I had already heard it, sir. You have everything ready?" 
 
 "I beg pardon, then, for disturbing you, major. I have just left the 
 colonel, and he thought you might not have heard. Yes, sir, everything 
 will be ready, though the rations are not yet cooked." 
 
 " Then be ready to get your horses aboard the moment F has finished 
 loading. Anything else, Mr. Brewster?" Poor fellow, there was something 
 else, — something that filled heart and soul and dominated every thought. 
 Gazing wistfully up the stairs, his sad ej'es had caught one glimpse of that 
 white, fleeting form, one glimpse of the lovely pallid face all framed in dark, 
 falling tresses, as, clinging to the balustrade, Winifred turned, unable to 
 resist the longing to hear what he might have to say. 
 
 "Nothing — nothing more, I believe, sir." And, mechanically raising 
 his hand in salute, poor Curly turned away, the door promptly closing be- 
 hind him. 
 
 Berrien came back into the parlor clinching his fists, speechless indig- 
 nation in his face. Mrs. Berrien saw the unmistakable signs, and, though 
 in her heart she felt full of sympathy for Brewster, she knew it best to say 
 nothing now. 
 
 " If I thought it as you said," he hoarsely spoke at last, — "if I thought 
 that fellow had been trifling with Winnie while all the time carrying on 
 
 this Faugh ! it makes me feel as though I could throttle him !" And 
 
 Berrien strode up and down the cosey room, beating one brawn3' fist into 
 the palm of the other hand. 
 
 " But, Richard dear, why do you think there has been anything serious 
 between him and this — this woman ? I think she deliberately assumed that 
 manner at the hop to-night. I think she called him ' Carroll' solely for 
 Winifred's benefit and mine. I saw how astonished and annoyed he was." 
 
 But Berrien held up a warning hand. "She came down the stairs 
 weeping and he striving to soothe her. She was sobbing aloud when he put 
 her in the carriage. Rolfe and I both saw and heard. Don't tell me there 
 wasn't anything between them. Very possibl.y he does want to make up to 
 Winifred now, but, damn him ! he shan't. I won't have her degraded by 
 any such otfer, if I have to send her and you to Europe to get her away from 
 him. It is no imagination, Bess : I tell you I know. Why, only this morn- 
 ing she sent him a new picture of herself; and as for calling him Carroll 
 for our benefit, that's what she calls him in her letters, and I can prove it." 
 
 "How, Dick?" 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 289 
 
 " Eolfe saw it, — saw it this very morning." 
 
 " Captain Rolfe ! Wliy, liow came he to see her letter to him?" 
 
 " Well, it was lying open on his desk : he could not help seeing." 
 
 "Why, Dick, I cannot understand Captain Rolfe's looking at or read- 
 ing other people's letters, and " 
 
 " It was an accident, I tell you." 
 
 "Ah, but it was no accident his telling of it, Dick. Nothing on earth 
 should have induced him to refer to it, if, as he claims, he saw it by acci- 
 dent. I did not suppose Rolfe would do such a thing." 
 
 "Well, he couldn't help himself. I dragged it out of him, I suppose." 
 
 Another step, another rap at the door, and, casting one glance aloft, 
 Berrien, to his dismay, again caught sight of Winifred's pale face peering 
 over the balustrade. The child could not, would not rest. 
 
 "What's wanted?" he curtly asked, as he threw open the door. 
 
 " It is Sergeant Ellis, sir," said a deep voice. " I have come to beg the 
 major to intercede for me. My troop goes with* the major's battalion, and 
 I begged to be relieved and allowed to go ; but the quartermaster says I 
 must stay until some sergeant can be found who is competent to take charge, 
 — some one in the infantry battalion. That may require two or three days, 
 sir, and I am fearful that once the command gets away there will be no ob- 
 taining orders to follow it. Besides, sir, there is my horse." 
 
 " You belong to the black troop ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir, and I think that if the major would but speak to Major 
 Kenyon at once he could name a sergeant who would take my place here at 
 the lire-house. Almost any man can do it, sir ; only there is no time to be 
 lost. Major Kenyon is at the doctor's now." 
 
 "Dr. Holden's?" 
 
 "Yes, sir, and Captain Rolfe has just joined him there." 
 
 " Have you spoken to Lieutenant Brewster ? He commands your troop, 
 as you know, now that the captain's away." 
 
 " I have, sir, but it was at the office, and the quartermaster spoke up at 
 once, so that Lieutenant Brewster could do nothing." 
 
 Berrien turned back into the parlor. " Bess, dear, I must run over to 
 Holden's a moment. Will you not go up to Winifred? She is not lying 
 down at all." 
 
 Followed by the sergeant, Berrien entered Holden's gate and gave a 
 whack at the open hall door as he passed in. "Rolfe's voice was the first 
 thing he heard. It was tremulous with excitement. 
 
 "If Colonel Farquhar will but give me authority to search one room 
 in this post, I will guarantee that I can find that picture and name the 
 thief " He broke off short at sight of Berrien. Holden rose, hos- 
 pitably urging the major to join them in a cup of coffee, but Berrien pro- 
 ceeded at once to business. 
 
 " Major Kenyon, a sergeant of my battalion is in charge of the fire- 
 apparatus here, but is most anxious to go with us. He says it will be al- 
 lowed if you can name one of your men — a non-commissioned officer — to 
 take his place at once. You will do me a very great favor if you will." 
 
 "Certainly I can, ' answered Kenyon, stoutly. "Is your man there? 
 Call him in. Sergeant Griggs, of B company, will be just the man, and I 
 know his company commander will make no objection." 
 
 "Come in here, sergeant," called Berrien, and, cap in hand, the dark- 
 eyed, dark-haired trooper, on whose lip the moustache was again beginning 
 to bristle, stood silently before them. 
 
 " Ai'e you well enough to go, my man?" spoke up Holden on the in- 
 stant. "You look very pale, if not ill." 
 
 "I am perfectly well, doctor, and I am eager to go. I suppose I'm a 
 little cold and excited." 
 
 " Then give my compliments to the quartermaster at once and say Ser- 
 geant Griggs, of the infantry, will take your duty," said Kenyon, quietly. 
 
 Ellis muttered, "Thank you, sir," faced about, and hurried from the room. 
 
 "Was that man in the hall when I was talking and you came in?" 
 asked Rolfe, in his quick, decided way. 
 
 "I don't know," answered Berrien, surprised. " I think he followed 
 me up the steps and was standing at the door." 
 
 " Why do you ask, Rolfe?" queried Holden, closely studying his face. 
 
 " Because, if he was, the search I spoke of would now be useless." 
 Vol, XLIX.— 19 
 
290 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Daylight at last, but the sun is hidden in banks of dripping mist. Day- 
 light, wan and chill and comfortless, and the bleary lamps still smoke and 
 flicker about the parade. Daylight, yet without one spark of gladness. 
 Even the birds huddle in the shelter of the autumn foliage, now so crisp 
 an.d brown, and not so much as a chirp is heard. All around the big quad- 
 rangle night-lamps are still aglow within the shaded windows, telling of 
 sleepless vigil, of pallid cheeks and tear-dimmed eyes. Only in the barracks 
 of the men or the lively dens of the bachelor subaltei'ns do the windows 
 blaze, uncurtained, undismayed. There no silently-weeping wives, no 
 clinging, sobbing little ones, crying "because mamma cries," yet little 
 dreaming for wliat cause, no thought of "What will come to these should 
 I never return?" daunt the spirit of the soldier. There all voices are ring- 
 ing with eagerness, even exultation, as the men brace on their Avoven car- 
 tridge-belts and toss over their brawny shoulders carbine-slings and the 
 straps of canteen and haversack, and then come streaming forth upon the 
 galleries, muffled to the chin in the blue cavalry overcoats. Out on the 
 parade the trumpeters are gathered under the moist folds of the flag, await- 
 ing the signal to sound " assembly ;" and now the band comes marching in 
 through the morning mist, and the adjutant strides forth from the office 
 door. Merrily, briskly the stirring peal bursts from the bells of the brazen 
 trumpets. Promptly the blue overcoats leap into ranks. Sharply they face 
 to the left, and the stern voices of the sergeants can be heard calling the 
 rolls, — the " here," " here," of the men responding in animation and hilarity 
 sometimes so marked as to call forth a frown of rebuke. The troop com- 
 manders and their sulpalterns have hastened to their company grounds. The 
 major has just come forth from his dimly-lighted hall and is joined by the 
 colonel at the gate, and now, iilowly, these two are pacing out to the parade. 
 On many of the verandas dim feminine forms, mantled in heavy shawl or 
 cloak, have gathered in the gloom. Some can be seen flitting ghost-like 
 through the mist, seeking comfort and sympathy in the society of a near 
 neighbor equally bereaved. Brewster turnS one longing glance at the porch 
 of the major's quarters, but no one is there. Again, quick and spirited as 
 though defying the elements, the trumpets peal the adjutant's call ; the 
 band bursts into the martial rhythm of lively quickstep, and then the drip- 
 ping, moisture-laden morning air rings with the words of command, as, in 
 full ranks, the four troops come swinging out upon the turf and all the 
 roadway around the parade tills up with other light blue overcoats, those 
 of troopers and footmen who wish with all their hearts it was their turn to 
 go, that they, too, belonged to the first battalion. In a moment the line is 
 formed ; the carbines snap into the bared left hands as arms are presented ; 
 Berrien leaves the colonel's side and takes post in front of the centre, 
 touches his cap in acknowledgment of the salute, and whips out his own 
 battle-worn blade, t^o speech-making here. " Right forward, fours right !" 
 rings the order, and then, arms at right shoulder, band and trumpeters 
 leading, Berrien's men, with quick, elastic step, with swing and life and 
 jauntiness in every stride, march square away across the parade, heading 
 for the road in front of Farquhar's quarters. The trumpets strike up their 
 merry, lively peal. With one simultaneous crash the carbines are brought to 
 the carry, and Berrien lowers his sabre in salute to the gray-haired colonel, 
 whose eyes fill and who bares for the moment his handsome head as he notes 
 the spirited bearing of the men. And now the head of column has reached 
 the road and turns to the left ; and now the trumpets cease and the full 
 band bursts into martial song, and all along the row women are waving 
 handkerchiefs w^et with tears, even though many are sobbing as though 
 their hearts would break, and little children are perched on the gallery 
 railings, shouting in shrill treble their good-by to papa, who turns one brief 
 glance, perhaps the very last on earth, and a big lump rises in many a husky 
 throat, and stern eyes are dimmed with unwonted tears, and God alone 
 knows the secret thoughts that go surging throueh the soldier brain, the 
 never-ceasing whisper of that still, small voice, " What — what will be their 
 fate if I am taken?" God alone can hear, God alone can know the humil- 
 ity, the piteous pleading, in the muttered prayer that floats to Him on high, 
 "Oh, guard and protect them, and, if it be thy will, in thy good time re- 
 store the father to his helpless little ones." Ah, it is one thing to go forth 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 291 
 
 to fight for an imperilled country, for an insulted flag, to stake life and for- 
 tune and hope to guard the beloved ones at the fireside, and to feel that one 
 is battling for them, for their honor, peace, and future prosi^erity. But it 
 is a thing far different to be torn from loving arms and the smiles and sun- 
 shine in the little faces, the prattling and kisses of baby lips, to face year 
 after year a savage foe, knowing full well that, defeated, only death can be 
 the soldier's fortune, that, victorious, the only reward will be permission to 
 slink back to the station whence one came. It is the conquered Indian who 
 rides in triumph to the nation's capital and learns how great and good a 
 thing it is to take the war-path every other year. It is all well enough for 
 the young oflBcers, the young troopers, to laugh and cheer. It is the husband 
 and father among the seniors, the old campaigner in the rank and tile, — men 
 who have been through many and many a bloody fight witliin some twenty 
 years of national peace and prosperity, — men who have seen dozens, hun- 
 dreds, of their cherished cojiirades slaughtered in battle with the Sioux, — 
 it is tbey who see the other side of the picture, and ask, " To what purpose? 
 To what end?" Outbreak has followed outbreak, campaign has succeeded 
 campaign, each marked by bitter losses in many a regiment, each swelling 
 the list of the widowed and the fatherless, each terminated by the final 
 surrender of hostile bands satiated with tlie summer's slaughter and shrewd 
 enough to know that they have only to wave the white rag of submission 
 to be restored to public confidence and double rations. Step aside now, 
 gentlemen of the army, bury your dead, patch up your wounds, go back to 
 your stations, and get ready for another shindy in the spring. You have 
 had your annual outing, the Indian only his first innings. Now comes his 
 second. Now the Bureau takes hold, and away go the prominent leaders 
 of the red revolt in the annual pilgrimage, the annual starring tour tlirough 
 the East, and the sentimentalists swarm to meet them, and wlieresoever 
 they stop hosts of our fellow-citizens throng to smile upon them, eager to 
 clasp and shake the hands that, less than a month ago, were reeking with 
 the blood of mutilated soldiery for whom desolate women and bereaved 
 little ones are wailing hopelessly to-day. Vcc victw ! Go on in your tri- 
 umphal circuit, red brothers Rain-in-the-Face, Thunder-Bear, Blizzard 
 Hawk. Rejoice in the sunshine of your prosperity ; go bade to your new 
 lodges and unload your chests of plunder, the free-will offerings of your 
 pale-faced kindred. The war has made you rich. Your squaws and chil- 
 dren revel in food and finery galore ; and should supplies begin to slacken 
 up a little with the coming of another spring, shoot your agent, carry off 
 his wife and daughters, and start in for another summer of fun. As for 
 you, weeping widow and children- of Captain Something, — I've forgotten 
 his name, — shot from ambush by the Sioux last fall, get back to the East as 
 best you can, dry your tears, and be happy on twenty dollars a month. It's 
 what one must expect in marrying into the army. 
 
 And now the last of the blue column has passed through the western 
 gate, and a throng of comrades surges after, every man in the garrison, not 
 otherwise on duty, trudging down through the mist and mud to see Ber- 
 rien's battalion to the waiting train. The guard springs to arms and falls 
 in line,— the guard whom Brewster was to have relieved at eight a.m., — 
 and again the major lowers his sabre in acknowledgment of their salute, 
 and so, down the winding road, tramp, tramp, steadily, cheerily, even joy- 
 ously, they go, and the broad parade above is silent and deserted. Women 
 are sobbing in one another's arms, and Mrs. Berrien, seated at an upper 
 window looking out to the west, is stroking Winifred's glossy, rippling 
 tresses, — Winifred, who, kneeling, has buried her tear-stained face in her 
 mother's lap. Fainter and fainter the martial strains come fioating up from 
 the wooded valley. The band is playing another quickstep now, its prelude 
 
 full of vim and life and spirit, and then What strange inspiration has 
 
 possessed the leader ? Listen ! listen ! Winifred raises her head and looks 
 one instant with dilated eyes into her mother's pallid, quivering face ; then, 
 covering her ears with her slender hands, burrowing again into her mother's 
 lap, she bursts into a passion of tears. Listen ! Sweet, soft, sad, the beau- 
 tiful notes of the thrice beautiful old song are wafted up on the gentle 
 breeze. God ! to how many a breaking heart, how many a world-worn, 
 weary, yearning soul, has it not spoken ! — 
 
 Love not, love not, ye hapless sons of clay. 
 
292 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 It is too much for Mrs. Berrien. Brave, self-controlled, uncomplaining as 
 she has been through it all, this is test beyond her strength. Down 
 comes the window with sudden clash, and then, drawing her daughter to 
 her breast, clasping her in her loving, sheltering arms, the mother heart 
 gives way, the sorrowing wife bows her head, and, rocking to and fro in 
 wordless grief, mingles her tears with those of her beloved child. 
 
 Cheer upon cheer comes swelling on the morning air. Cheer follows 
 cheer as Berrien's men return the soul-stirring, soldierly good-by. Guidons 
 wave from the thronging platforms. Bronzed faces peer from every win- 
 dow. Hats and forage-caps are tossing on high. Men rush alongside the 
 slowly-starting train for one last hand-clasp of the departing comrades. 
 The echoes ring to the rollicking notes of their old charging, lighting tune. 
 The trumpets answer from the crowded cars. The sun bursts through the 
 eddying mist and streams in glorious radiance upon the scene. All here at 
 the station throbs with soldier song and spirit and enthusiasm ; but above — 
 above, where in mournful premonition one poor army wife is weeping over 
 three little curly heads pillowed in her straining arms, there comes no 
 sound of soldier triumph, no echo of soldier song. Sunshine and stirring 
 music follow the swiftly-speeding train, but all is dark and desolate now 
 where gladness reigned but a day gone by. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Letters from the front ! "What joy and comfort they bring ! — for every 
 writer seems bent on convincing the anxious ones at home that there is no 
 danger and little discomfort, after all. Telegrams and brief notes have been 
 raining in ever since the departure of the regiment, but now the two bat- 
 talions are reunited under Farquhar's command ; they have got shaken down 
 into a species of winter cantonment with a goodly number of comrade troops 
 and troopers from the threatened department. The weather has not been 
 .unusually severe thus far. Men and horses stood the trip admirably, and 
 nobody growled at stiffened fingers and red noses and benumbed feet as they 
 rode in long column from the railway to the agency, and, now that fuel has 
 been lugged up in abundance and fur caps and " blizzard coats" are coming 
 and the Indians hovering about the camps seem deeply impressed with the 
 numbers and readiness of the white soldiers and all promises well, the letters 
 grow longer and more frequent. 
 
 " We are doing first-rate, Bess dear," wrote Berrien, " and all are hope- 
 ful that with the surrounding of the big band of hostiles in the Bad River 
 Valley the most uncertain feature of the business is at an end. If they can 
 be quietly herded in to the reservation and induced to give up all their arms 
 and ponies, there will be no further trouble. The health and spirit of the 
 regiment is excellent, and, while I hope no emergency will arise, I can bet 
 that if there should be a shindy the Twelfth will give good account of itself. 
 Farquhar keeps us on the alert, and there is no rusting. Gorham has joined 
 from leave : so that Brewster, to his infinite disgust I doubt not, has had to 
 fall back to second place. He and Rolfe are about the only gloomy spirits 
 in the command, and of Brewster I see very little. Ever since the episode 
 of which I told you and her most significant appearance at the d6p6t in 
 town while we were being switched to the north-bound track I have not 
 felt like having anything to do with him. How do you suppose she heard 
 of our move, since she left the hop before any one knew of it? There were 
 a few other ladies there, I admit, for they were still with us when the orders 
 came, and it had cleared by the time we reached the d6p6t. She, however, 
 seemed to hang on to him, and nobody else, to the very last. I am distressed 
 at wliat you tell me about Winifred, and the more I think of it the more I 
 am disposed to urge your instant acceptance of Miss Gutlirie's invitation. 
 It will be the very best antidote I know of,— a few weeks in St. Louis society, 
 — if she has indeed, as you fear, become interested in him. Go by all means ; 
 it will do you good, — do Winifred a world of good (get her some'new gowns, 
 and lake in all the parties and all the gayety you possibly can) ; and it will 
 be a good thing for Miss Guthrie, too. 
 
 "Now, this is strictly entre nous. Holden is worried about her, and in 
 course of a long talk we had last night he showed me a letter just received 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 293 
 
 from Mrs. Holden. Of course she is all upset by his having to take the field, 
 and wants to leave the children with her naother and come up here to him, 
 but she couldn't be in camp, and there isn't a room to be had at the railway- 
 station. The place is just crammed with newspaper men and quarter- 
 master's people. Mrs. Holden writes that ever since the night of that 
 queer adventure of hers at the fort, Nita has been unlike herself, — strange, 
 nervoug, almost hysterical at times. She will permit no allusion to it, and 
 seems striving to forget it all. She goes ever3^where, morning, noon, and 
 night, but looks haggard and ill. I gather from what Holden said that, as 
 you once surmised, there was an old affair which may have had something 
 to do with her persistent refusal of every offer ; but what that could have 
 had to do with her fright at Pawnee I cannot imagine. Holden agrees with 
 me, however, that it would be a capital thing if you and Winnie would pay 
 her the visit she urges : so again I say, go by all means. 
 
 " By the way, I wish you would run over and see Mrs. Thorpe as often 
 as you can. Her letters have a depressing elFect on the captain. He tells 
 me the only insurance he has in all the world is in the Army Mutual ; but 
 three thousand dollars would hardly pay their debts and take care of them 
 for a year, if anything were to happen to him. Don't be alarmed by news- 
 paper stories of the lighted skies and howling ghost-dancers. Indians will 
 dance all night on any provocation, and our fires light the skies quite as 
 much as theirs. Sergeant Ellis, who volunteered to push through with de- 
 spatches to Bailer's command somewhere on the other side of the Bad Lands, 
 got back all right this morning, and says he had hardly any difficulty in 
 working a way through the hostiles. That fellow, I think, is going to make 
 a name for himself in this campaign. He is always ready for anything that 
 turns up. 
 
 ** I near that Brewster and Ridgeway have had a row and do not speak. 
 Some of the boys know what it's all about, but won't tell me. Do you 
 know? Now, unless you wire to the contrary, I shall address my next care 
 of Hon. Warren L. Guthrie, St. Louis." 
 
 Then Kenyon got a letter. He was now commanding officer of the post, 
 and was unremitting in his thoughtfuluess and attention to the households 
 of the absent officers. It was Rolfe who wrote to him, and Kenyon was 
 well-nigh at his wits' end in tlie endeavor to conjecture what it all'meant : 
 
 "You remember my saying I could find that stolen picture if I could 
 but have authority to search one room at the post. It is my conviction still 
 that the man who goes by the name of Ellis was the thief. He had a lock- 
 box at the post-office in town, No. 23, and letters liave been forwarded to 
 him here by the postmaster two of which were not addressed to Sers:eant 
 Ellis or to G. B. Ellis, Twelfth Cavalry, but to Ralph Erroll, Box 23. When 
 he returned from detached service this morning the sergeant-major handed 
 him his mail and asked him if those additional letters were his. He turned 
 red, then pale, but said yes. Both these were from Louisville, as I liappen 
 to know ; both were addressed in the same hand, — that of an educated 
 woman ; and there is no doubt in my mind tliat this Ellis, or Erroll, has a 
 screw loose in his record. Brewster knows something of his past, but refuses 
 to tell. It is of vital importance to me to find out who and what he is, for 
 I believe him to have been guilty of a crime beside which the theft of that 
 picture is as nothing. 
 
 "Now, I want you to do something for me. A man will call on you 
 within a few days,' presenting a letter of introduction from me. He is a 
 detective from Chicago. He has certain inquiries to make at the post and 
 in town before going to Louisville, and it should not be known tliat he is a 
 detective at all. Give him every facility in your power. Introduce him to 
 the postmaster as a friend of mine, if you prefer it, and let him occupy my 
 quarters while at the garrison. He will want to see the fire-house and ap- 
 paratus and all about Holden's quarters. Kathleen is there in charge, and 
 Holden has no objection, though he pooh-poohs the efforts I am making to 
 get at the bottom of this strange business. I hope I am not asking too much 
 of you. 
 
 " I saw Hearn last evening, just in from a ten days' scout with Lane's 
 squadron over towards the Wakpa Shicha. He asked after you and sent 
 cordial regards. There are two other fellows here who were on their honey- 
 moon tour when their regiments were ordered to the field. It reconciles 
 one to being a bachelor, almost." 
 
294 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 The major put the letter down and pondered long, perplexed and ati" 
 noyed. He had known Rolfe but a short time, and had learned to know 
 him mainly tlirough Holden. He knew him to be resolute, positive, even 
 aggressive at times. He admired his soldierly qualities and respected his 
 ability. But when finally he rose from his desk after stowing that letter 
 away, old Kenyon expressed liimself about as follows : " That fellow needs 
 a wife ; he is too much accustomed to having his own way. I'll be hanged 
 if I'll do any detective work for him or anybody else. If Holden wants 
 his house searched, Holden can say so." 
 
 Two days later the major had the mournful pleasure of escorting Mrs. 
 and Miss Berrien to the train, and as it steamed away eastward a man who 
 had stepped from the day car as Kenyon placed his fair charges on the 
 sleeper came forward and handed him a note addressed in Rolfe's charac- 
 teristic hand. 
 
 " I know who you are," said Kenyon. " You will find me at my oflBce 
 in the garrison when you get up there." And, stepping into the waiting 
 wagon, he bade the driver go ahead, leaving the detective to come up in the 
 post stage. 
 
 That evening he wrote a short letter to Rolfe, and the gentleman from 
 Chicago indited a long one, — both of which would have served to surprise 
 that calmly superior soldier not a little had they reached him in due course 
 of mail, which, however, they did not. It was sometime before he saw 
 them at all, for when they were unloaded from the mail-bags at the wintry 
 cantonment, Rolfe, with Berrien's battalion, was miles away. 
 
 Getting no reply to his missives and 'little encouragement at the post, 
 the strange civilian suddenly departed, after three days' apparently aimless 
 stay, and the next heard of him was in the shape of a letter from Louis- 
 ville. Could Major Kenyon procure for him, anyhow, anywhere, a photo- 
 graph of Sergeant Ellis? No, Major Kenyon couldn't, and was very short 
 in saying so. 
 
 And now December was come, and the air was crisp and keen in the 
 valley of the Pawnee, the sunshine radiant and sparkling ; but far to the 
 nortli the wintry winds were howling about the flimsy cantonment and 
 whirling the snow through every cranny and crack, and the long nights on 
 outpost and picket were bitter cold. But, through it all, the various bat- 
 talions of horse were sent scouting in turn around the reservation, and 
 more and more the young warriors dribbled away from the agencies and 
 were next heard of welcomed with acclamations by the savage hosts in the 
 fastnesses of the Bad Lands, and every hour increased the prospect of sharp 
 fighting in the near future. But all the letters to the anxious hearts at 
 home were full of hope and cheer, full of prophecy that everything would 
 soon be settled. The renegade bands were all "located" and being slowly 
 hemmed in. The Twelfth would eat its Christmas dinner at Pawnee after 
 all, they hoped. And in St. Louis Miss Guthrie was exerting herself to see 
 that her charming guests were having the loveliest kind of a time. Din- 
 ners, luncheons, card-, theatre-, and dancing-parties followed in quick suc- 
 cession. The new gowns were being made as fast as famous modistes could 
 evolve and construct them, and Winifred was rushed from one scene of 
 gayety to another. 
 
 "Nothing could have been more charming than our welcome," wrote 
 Mrs. Berrien to her beloved Dick, "nothing more delightful than the round 
 of entertainments to which we are bidden. One has hardly time to think. 
 As for writing, this is the first opportunity I have enjoyed in three days, 
 and we are home from the theatre but half an hour. Mrs. Holden comes 
 over every day, and we exchange such news as we have of the dear old 
 regiment'and the dearer ones who are our especial property. She is what I 
 call a genuine woman, and I like her more and more. I must tell you 
 something I learned through her. The day after our arrival we were in 
 the library, and my attention was attracted by a large portrait, apparently 
 a crayon copy of a photograph, that hung over the mantel. It was of a 
 singularly handsome young man, and I knew at once he must be a Guthrie. 
 'It is my brother,' said Nita, in such a sad, constrained tone, 'taken just 
 a few weeks before his death six years ago.' Of course I could ask no 
 more, but Winifred and I both noted how utterly her face changed, how 
 unspeakably distressed a look came into her eyes. We could see then why 
 Mrs. Holden should have said she was haggard and ill ; and yesterday Mrs. 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECREf. 205 
 
 Holden told me something of his story. He was barely twenty-two, the 
 idol of the family, and immensely popular in society. He was assistant 
 cashier in one of the big banks here, and one day the sudden discovery was 
 made that in some mysterious way quite a large sum was missing, money 
 for which he was responsible, but he could not account for it, neither could 
 anybody else. The matter was investigated thoroughly. Tliey liad detec- 
 tives everywhere, and absolutely nothing could be brought up against young 
 Guthrie. He never gambled, never dissipated in any way, was a model son 
 and brotlier. Nita was wild with indignation at his having been even sus- 
 pected. Mr. Guthrie offered to make good the sum twice over if need be and 
 to bond himself for all his wealth to establish his boy's honor, and for three 
 or four days ail was excitement, and then, in the midst of it, poor Jack was 
 found dead in his room, a half-empty bottle of chloral by his bedside. The 
 world said suicide, guilty conscience, etc., but Nita and others knew that 
 he had not slept a wink since the discovery of the loss and was crazed with 
 misery. They have always maintained it was an accidental overdose. 
 But it nearly broke Mr. Guthrie's heart, and it was three years before Nita 
 would go into society in St. Louis again. They went to Europe, and stayed 
 there ever so long. 
 
 " What makes it seem probable that he was unjustly suspected was 
 that the bank dismissed its cashier, Jack's most intimate friend, a man two 
 years older than himself, and a devoted admirer of Nita's. It was even 
 supposed that she was engaged to him. He had no wealthy friends to stand 
 up for him, and Jack's death made it appear as though there had been 
 guilt ; and yet such a sum could not well have been made away with except 
 by the knowledge or collusion of the cashier himself, and, though proofs 
 were lacking, he was discharged the very day poor Jack was buried. No one 
 knows what ever became of him afterwards, and people settled down into 
 the belief that this Mr. Worden was the real thief. But now comes the 
 strangest part of it all. The president of the bank was a widower who for 
 two years had been a suitor of Nita's, a persistent suitor despite her marked 
 coldness and aversion. Four months ago rumors began to float as to the 
 stability of the bank ; then came a run, a panic ; the bank had to close its 
 doors ; immediate investigation into its affairs was made, and then came 
 the discovery that the president had been a heavy speculator and had un- 
 questionably used the funds of the bank to cover his losses. They found 
 his body in the river four days afterwards, floating down by the old bar- 
 racks where you and I had such a happy winter twenty years ago. People 
 say now that it was President Percival himself all the'time, and that he 
 threw suspicion on young Guthrie because he knew the father would eagerly 
 pay any sum to cover the loss and hide the shame, but Jack's death balked 
 the scheme. 
 
 " Do you wonder now that Nita is sometimes overwrought and ner- 
 vous? Poor girl ! who knows what she has suffered? Who, to see her in 
 society, would dream that she had ever suffered at all ? Do you suppose 
 Captain Rolfe did not hear all about this when he was here on recruiting 
 service ? 
 
 "Now you ask me to tell you everything about Winifred. Is she happy ? 
 Is she getting over her disappointment? I do not know just what to say. 
 She is always bright and apparently joyous in society ; always grateful for 
 every kindness and attention shown her ; but she is rarely alone one min- 
 ute from morning until late at night, and I cannot be sure. She never 
 speaks of him ; and in all the whirl of social gayety here, and the attention 
 she i-eceives on every side, I think, I hope, she may forget her girlish senti- 
 ment. Time will sliow." 
 
 Time might have shown, but time was not accorded. Coming home 
 late one night from a delightful dance, their carriage stopped outside the 
 massive joorte-cocA^/'e of the Guthrie homestead instead of driving right in. 
 
 " What is it, James?" asked Miss Guthrie. 
 
 "Another carriage here, miss. I think' it's Mrs. Holden just getting 
 out." 
 
 "Jennie here ! Why, how odd ! She went home half an hour before 
 we started." 
 
 It was Jennie, with a grave, anxious face, at sight of which Mrs. Berrien 
 fairly sprang from the carriage. 
 
 " You have ill news, Mrs. Holden. What is it ? Tell me at once." 
 
296 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 "This has just come from my husband," was the trembling answer asJ 
 she held forth a telegram: "Major Berrien's wound serious, but not fatal. 
 Mrs. Berrien must not be alarmed. Do not believe sensational newspaper 
 reports of disaster. Wounded doing welL" 
 
 IX. 
 
 Pursuant to his orders, Major Berrien with his battalion of the Twelfth 
 had been scouting the open country that lay to the northeastward of the 
 cantonment. So alarming had the situation become, so significant if not 
 actually defiant was the manner of the Indians whose lodges were pitched 
 all over the prairie around tlie agency, tliat the commanding general had 
 caused intreuchments to be thrown up on every ridge overlooking that 
 threatened settlement. Additional troops, including a strong force of in- 
 fantry and detachments of light artillery, had been sent to the scene. 
 Hotchkiss and field guns wex'e placed in position commanding the Indian 
 camp, and night and day the earth-works were heavily manned and sen- 
 tries and outposts guarded every approach. Meantime, the main body of 
 the hostiles was still ghost-dancing and howling through the wintry night 
 far over to the north among the breaks and chasms of the Bad Lands, so 
 strong in numbers and so secure from assault within the lines of their nat- 
 ural fortress as to laugh to scorn all premonition of disaster. Runners had 
 gone to every tribe urging concerted action and united revolt. Every day 
 brought new accessions, and all that was needed to enable them to bid de- 
 fiance to the encircling force was the arrival of the great bands that had 
 broken away from the reservations along the Missouri, followers and would- 
 be avengers of the old chieftain Sitting Bull, who had died in harness, a 
 rebel to the last. Brul6 and Ogallalla, Uncpapa and Minneconjou, here 
 were the warriors, reinforced by many a new-grown son, who had fought 
 the white soldiers summer after summer, time and again, in the bloody 
 days of the decade past, — the Bruits especially, once restrained by the wis- 
 dom of old Sintogaliska, now ripe for any deviltry and well-nigh unanimous 
 for war to the knife. 
 
 Without noteworthy incident, Berrien's command had circled around 
 to the east of the sacred lines of the reservation, had spent a day or two 
 exploring the breaks and ravines of a dozen little streams flowing into the 
 Wakpa Washtay, had located trail after trail of travois-, pony-, and lodge- 
 pole-tracks, had scoured the wide valley of the main stream, but without 
 sight of a single warrior, much less a war-party. The still smoking ruins of 
 two ranches told, however, of recent visitation, and the hoof-marks of cattle 
 mingling with the pony-tracks pointed unerringly whither the spoil had 
 been driven. Meantime, while nothing could be seen of the wily red man, 
 every hour gave new proof that their own movements were closely observed. 
 Signal-smokes went puffing skyward on almost every side, and the nighty 
 sentries declared that twice just before dawn of two successive mornings: 
 they had dimly seen shadowy horsemen darting over the neighboring 
 ridges and had heard the thud of nimble hoofs. Even in the faded gray of 
 the bunch-grass, even on the hard, frozen ground, experienced eyes eould^ 
 find corroboration of the story. Daring Indian scouts were ever on their- 
 flanks and front and rear, making no overt move against them, but keep-, 
 ing the liostile camp fully informed of everything that was being done< 
 and watching restlessly for" opportunity to cut off every straying charger, to. 
 cut down every straggling man. Knowing all this full well, Berrien hadl 
 given strict orders, — neither officer nor trooper was permitted to leave the 
 column by day nor tlie bivouac by night; and now, its mission accom- 
 plished, the column had started on return march, and \\]i to this time no 
 casualty liad occurred. So long as the isolated battalion was moving to- 
 wards tlie hostile camp, nearing every hour the overwhelming array of the 
 eneiny and separating itself farther and farther from friendly supports, no 
 bar had been put to its progress. But now the Indian scouts could see that 
 it was turning back, probably in the hope of regaining the cantonment 
 unmolested. 
 
 It was a sunshiny December afternoon ; the air was as clear as a bell, 
 the clouds that obscured the eastern sky at dawn had long since drifted out 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 297 
 
 of sight, and in all its broad expanse the pale-blue vault of the heavens 
 wore not so much as a feather of vapor. Who that rode in the laughing, 
 chatting, jaunty column that sparkling day could realize the change a few- 
 hours might eftect on the silent, breezeless solitudes around them ? At noon 
 the sun was so warm that many a trooper had stripped off his heavy over- 
 coat and turned up the flaps of the rough fur cap. Except in deep ravines 
 or coulSes, hardly any snow was to be seen. The dull gray surface of the 
 rolling prairie, wave after wave, lay basking, and the leafless branches of 
 the cottonwoods overhanging the frozen pools were ghstening, sparkling, in 
 the life-giving rays. The advance-guard, after breaking the ice and treating 
 their horses to a mouthful of water at the stream, had moved on at brisk 
 trot, and now the stalwart riders were spreading out in extended order as 
 they breasted the slope. Out to the west, full five hundred yards, the wary 
 flankers could be seen, some crossing the stream farther down the valley, 
 while other comrades peered over the barren ridge behind, that no sneaking 
 foe might crawl up unobserved and send a long-range bullet from its shelter 
 down into tlie swarm of troopers at the ford. So, too, the flankers to the 
 east and the sturdy httle knot of rear-guardsmen just popping up over the 
 divide so recently crossed, all told of ceaseless vigilance on every side. Ber- 
 rien has not ridden the Sioux trail a score of years for nothing. He takes 
 no chances where the security of his command is concerned, and has small 
 opinion of the leader who subjects them to needless risk. 
 
 And now one after another the four troops ride into close column on the 
 north wai'd bank ; the men dismount, unsaddle, and presently, with side-lines 
 in hand, each trooper leading his faithful steed, the four herds are guided to 
 the separate grazing-grounds already chosen and "pre-empted" by wide- 
 awake subalterns or sergeants. There the side-lines are carefully adjusted, 
 the bridles slipped off, three or four men remain in saddle as herd-guard, 
 and the horses are left to graze. Rich with nutriment is that crisp, dry 
 bunch-grass, — rich and plentiful. Tlie mules of the pack-train bray with 
 impatience to shed their loads and join their envied four-footed comrades ; 
 but presently they too, following the bell, are streaming out upon the guarded 
 prairie, rolling in luxury upon the frosty earth and kicking their legs in air 
 in genuine delight. From a dozen little fires among the bare-limbed cotton- 
 woods tlie thin smoke is curling aloft, and the rattle of tin cup and plate 
 and the jovial voices of the men seem to clamor for their soldier rations. 
 In long rows the saddles and equipments are aligned upon tbe turf, each 
 man's carbine and belt at his saddle. Huge rolls of robes and blankets are 
 unstrapped and spread to air, and all this time, while the troop-officers are 
 looking to tlie comfort and security of tlieir horses, Major Berrien, followed 
 by a single orderly, is riding about from point to point to satisfy himself that 
 the guards are stationed where best they can secure the bivouac against 
 surprise. 
 
 The ridge to the southwest is higher than those which limit the view 
 at other points, and thither Ber^-ien is now riding at easy lope. Rolfe and 
 Hazlett, watching him for a moment, exchange an appreciative nod as they 
 hear from the group of soldiers at the nearest camp-fire some brawny son 
 of the old sod remark, "Just luck at the ould man now ; sure it's a smart red- 
 skin that will ever get through the pickets he posts." Not since the days 
 of old "Major Slowtrot," old "Pap" Thomas, has there been a battalion 
 commander better loved by the rank and file. They know nothing will 
 ever induce him to forget one precaution for their safety, and reward his 
 care with a loyalty of devotion good to see. Watching him still further, 
 Hazlett notes that a distant vedette has signalled, and that Berrien, slowly 
 now, is riding up the slope to join him. A sergeant^has some question to 
 ask at the moment, and when Hazlett again looks out to the southwest, 
 major, orderly, and vedette have disappeared from view around a little 
 shoulder of bluff. Other vedettes can be seen at their posts on all sides, and 
 a few dismounted sentries lying prone where, unseen themselves, they can 
 scan the country to their front. But Hazlett's curiosity is excited by the 
 fact that two men, mere specks in the distance, are huddling together at the 
 crest half a mile away to the southwest and evidently watching something 
 out at their front and motioning to the sergeant back with the supports. 
 Presently this trooper, too, trots out to join them. Berrien and his party 
 are still out of sight from camp. 
 
 " Captain, may I borrow your field-glasses?" asks Mr. Brewster, swing- 
 
298 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 ing up to the fire where Hazlett stands. " I have lent mine to the sergeant 
 of the guard." 
 
 " Did you see where the major went?" asl^s Hazlett by way of reply, as 
 he hands the desired instrument. 
 
 " I last saw him at tlie point yonder. He rode around it with Sergeant 
 Ellis and a couple of men, and that vedette must have been calling to him. 
 It seems to me they've been gone some time : so Gorham says I can ride out 
 and find out what it means." 
 
 "I'd go with you, Brewster, but my horse is out at herd. Take the 
 glasses with you, anyhow." Brewster's big black is led up at the moment, 
 and the lieutenant quickly mounts and canters easily away. 
 
 Meantime, old Berrien, wl>o has noted the signals of the vedette referred 
 to, has joined him, with the brief inquiry, "What is it, Scott?" 
 
 "Why, sir, I was posted here by the sergeant, and he had no sooner 
 gone than I saw what I took to be horsemen in the valley several miles out 
 yonder to the soutliwest. The major can see the whole country from a butte 
 that lies perhaps three hundred yards farther out beyond this ridge. But 
 here comes tlie sergeant back, sir." 
 
 It is Ellis, cantering briskly from the advanced position Scott has 
 designated, and coming to them now around the shoulder of the bluff a 
 little to the right. That Ellis has seen something is evident : his face 
 shows it in an instant. 
 
 " An Indian war-party, major, perhaps a dozen, rode from behind a long 
 ridge over to the west and down into the valley of what I take to be a branch 
 of the Porcupine. That butte hides a good deal of the valley ; but we can 
 see it from there, though." 
 
 " You three men come with me," says Berrien, quietly. "We must look 
 into this." 
 
 Two minutes' lope brings them to the butte Ellis has pointed out. 
 Leaving their horses with the orderly, Berrien, the sergeant, and the sen- 
 tinel go crouching up the hither slope, throw themselves on the ground, 
 and crawl to the summit. As the vedette has said, the whole country for 
 miles in every direction can be seen, — a country of bold contours, of bare, 
 rounded bluffs and buttes, of deep, shadowy ravines and gulches, — a country 
 bare of trees save the ghostly, leafless cotton woods perched by the banks of 
 many a frozen stream. Miles and miles to the north and northwest the 
 wild Indian land spreads before their eyes. Close at hand, tumbling, billowy, 
 and abrupt, the ridges follow or intercept one another in rapid succession. 
 The face of the land is cut up into tortuous "breaks," the deep, narrow 
 beds of countless little streams, all winding tributary to the river tliat flows 
 placidly away to the northeast in the broad valley from which the column 
 marched at dawn. Beyond that, west of north, clearly, sharplj^ defined in 
 the distance, already alternating glaring surface and ghostly shade under 
 the slanting rays of the westering sun, a tumbling mass of jagged, fantastic 
 shapes, a tangle of vertical cliffs and seamed and furrowed walls, a Labyrinth 
 of gorges, gullies, washed-out channels, deep black crevices, and broad, 
 yawning, impassable gulfs, the storied Bad Lauds of Dakota, shunned by 
 all except the renegade and outlaw in the past, now habitable only by the 
 Indian. Beyond these, faint and dim in the distance, the snow-covered, 
 pine-crested summits in the Black Hills. All the rest of the surface, east, 
 west, and south, a frozen sea of gray, glinting here and there in the declining 
 rays ; and there off to the southwest, perhaps five miles away, lies the valley 
 into which the party of dusky warriors has galloped so short a time before, 
 — the valley beyond w'hich, a long, long day's march away, stands the 
 guarded camp of comrade soldiery awaiting their return. Berrien studies 
 the scene long and carefully through his glasses. Intermediate ridges are 
 not many, but they are sharp and clearly defined. 
 
 "Who was it reported that the advance saw signal-smokes south of us 
 at noon ?" he asks. 
 
 "Corporal Waite, sir; he and two of the men saw them plainly, and 
 they seemed to be answered off here." And Ellis points miles away to the 
 west. 
 
 Berrien ponders a moment. 
 
 " Where away would you locate the agency, sergeant, if you were going 
 to take a bee-line for it?" 
 
 " Out off here, sir." 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 299 
 
 "And they crossed that line going into the valley?" 
 
 "They certainly did, sir, and Look, major ! look yonder ! Another 
 
 band, and from exactly the same place." 
 
 A little bevy of dark objects darts suddenly into view from behind a 
 curtain-like divide and goes skimming over a level stretch towards the low 
 lands of the valley. Berrien's glasses seeri glued to his eyes. 
 
 "Twenty of them in that party! What do they see? What's their 
 hurry ? They would not expose themselves to our view unless there were 
 urgent need for haste." 
 
 " The old road comes in from that direction, sir," answers Ellis. "We 
 left it a few hours out from the cantonment, as you remember. Can 
 anything have been seen along that road to give rise to signal-sm kes?" 
 
 Berrien turns half over and looks keenly into the sergeant's inteUigent 
 face. 
 
 " That road has been abandoned for weeks past. Everybody to the east 
 of us has taken refuge at the railway long since. Nobody would be coming 
 from that direction." 
 
 "I know that, sir ; but would not any detachment coming from the 
 agency to meet us, for instance, be apt to keep the road ? I understood we 
 were to strike for it in the morning and follow it in." 
 
 Again Berrien gazes long and earnestly through the binocular. "They 
 are certainly heading for that road and riding at full speed. How many 
 men have you at this front?" he quickly asks. 
 
 "Just eight, sir, all told, but -"ight more are almost'within over on 
 
 our left flank. Yonder is the ridge where ray men are posted." And Ellis 
 points to their left rear where lies the low crest. 
 
 "Just keep a good lookout here, sergeant, I will move them over this 
 way, and then ride to the left flank. — My horse, orderly." And, thinking 
 deeply over the matter as he rides, Berrien spurs into a lively canter across 
 an intervening dip in the prairie. "Some mischief ahead," he mutters, 
 "They are not speeding up that valley for nothing. We may have to 
 saddle and get over there." 
 
 Not two hundred yards has he ridden when from the point which he 
 has just quitted there comes a sudden yell of warning, followed almost in- 
 stantly by two shots in quick succession. Then bang ! bang ! another two, 
 and, as he whirls about, the first object that meets his startled gaze is Ellis's 
 handsome black horse plunging to eartli almost at the edge of a shallow 
 ravine some distance out in front of the butte. 
 
 "My God, sir," cries the orderly, ' Sergeant Ellis is killed !" 
 
 Berrien's heart bounds. There, face downward upon the sward, mo- 
 tionless, just a few feet away from the plunging, death-stricken horse, lies 
 tlie sergeant, his carbine dropped from his nerveless hand. At the same 
 instant, red, glittering, bedaubed with paint, bespangled with cheap finery, 
 two young Indian braves lash their ponies into furious gallop as they shoot 
 up out of the shallow ravine, and, rifles in hand, coup-sticks advanced, race 
 madly towards the stricken trooper in eager effort to secure the trophy of 
 their prowess, the coveted scalp of the fallen foe. 
 
 "Your carbine, man!" yells Berrien to his orderly. "Quick! shoot 
 that leader !" And putting spurs to his snorting horse, reckless of the fact 
 that he is armed only with revolver and that the ravine may be full of In- 
 dians, the veteran soldier drives full tilt at the charging braves. He thinks 
 only of the fact that one of his men lies prostrate and helpless before them. 
 They are almost upon Ellis before Berrien has ,;;:alloped a rod. They are 
 within twenty paces of him when, with a shout of delight, the major sees 
 him whirl suddenly over, grasp his carbine, and, all in a second, the flame 
 leaps from the bronzed muzzle, the foremost warrior drops his rifle, whirls 
 up a clinching, convulsive hand, and topples headforemost out of the saddle. 
 Scott, the vedette, echoes with another shot that kicks up the dust close 
 under the second pony's flashing heels. Its red rider veers in broad circle to 
 the right, and in the twinkling of an eye the feathered war-bonnet bows 
 low over the pony's stretching neck ; Berrien's bullet whizzes harmlessly 
 above, and the major himself, borne by the rush of his half-maddened steed, 
 dashes on past Ellis, now kneeling for another shot, and so goes crash into 
 the midst of a little knot of yelling warriors just bounding up out of the 
 gully to the rescue of their stricken comrade. "Bess, my wife ; Winnie," 
 are the only words he has time or thought to mutter, for instant death seems 
 
300 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 inevitable. But all the old fighting instinct is uppermost, and almost in 
 the face of the foremost Sioux his revolver blazes its challenge, and horse 
 and pony meet in tremendous shock, and the lighter steed goes tumbling 
 and rolling over the turf. There is chorus of yells, shots, soldier cheers, 
 thundering hoofs. Tliere is a vision of glittering steel in front of his eyes, 
 of hideous, painted face, a sudden sense of stumble and stunning fall, a 
 shrill whoop of triumph, changing instantly into the death-cry, and while 
 his BruL antagonist goes crashing down, pony and all, Berrien is conscious 
 of the superb leap of a big black charger over his own prostrate form, of 
 a stentorian cheer from half a dozen trooper throats, and the next minute 
 Brewster is kneeling by his side, raising the honored gray head in his strong 
 young arms, and the voice that thundered ia battle-cry but an instant 
 agone is trembling now as he calls for a canteen of water and bids his 
 half-stunned commander not to strive to move. 
 
 "We've got two of them, sir, all right," he whispers, breathless, but 
 well knowing that to be the best news he can give. " The rest got away 
 and left a buUet-hole in your shoulder." 
 
 X. 
 
 "Since you ask me, sir, I most distinctly oppose its being referred to 
 Major Berrien. He is doing well, but the excitement might bring on fever 
 — and disaster." 
 
 It was Dr. Holden who spoke — and very firmly spoke— to Colonel Far- 
 quhar four days after the little fight beyond the PorcuiDine. The colonel 
 sat with bowed head, grave and thoughtful. Before him stood his surgeon, 
 respectful but most earnest in manner. Beside him on the narrow field-bed 
 sat Rolfe, with face of gloom, — three or four letters and a telegram in his 
 gauntleted hand. Already the wintry twilight was settling down ; the 
 wind, that had been moaning through the flimsy shelter for the last hour, 
 was now whistling in gathering wrath and flapping every loose rag of canvas 
 about the crowded cantonment. Mules and horses at the picket-lines with 
 one accord were turning tail to the black northwest and pawing the hard 
 and frozen ground in nervous disquiet. The orderly who suddenly stepped 
 within the tent was followed by a few whirling flakes of snow, and the first 
 match he struck in the efibrt to light the colonel's field-lamp was puflFed out 
 in a twinkling. 
 
 " Give my compliments to Mr. Brewster and ask him to step here," said 
 the colonel, after a moment's silence ; and the orderly vanished. 
 
 In the camp of the Twelfth, where Berrien was universally beloved, 
 three names had been on every lip since the battalion's return, — those of 
 the gallant major himself, of Lieutenant Brewster, and of Sergeant Ellis. 
 Painfully shot and stunned and bruised though he was, Berrien's wits had 
 never left him. He was positive that tlie rush of war-parties towards the 
 old road portended mischief, and, despite the lateness of the hour, he or- 
 dered the battalion to saddle at once and march to the Porcupine. From 
 the abandoned lodge-poles found along the banks experienced hands had 
 quickly lashed together a comfortable litter. Between these improvised 
 shafts two of the most sedate of the elderly pack-mules were harnessed fore 
 and aft. A bed of robes and blankets was hung midway, and, while Rolfe 
 and Hazlett pushed ahead, scouting every ridge and ravine with their keen- 
 eyed skirmishers, Gorhani and Thorpe followed, escorting their beloved 
 chief. Just as was anticipated, at nightfall the distant flash and report 
 of rifles proved that the hostiles were busily at work in some deviltry or 
 other, and, launching forward at the gallop, Rolfe's long line swooped down 
 into the valley in time to send the yelling circle of mounted warriors whirl- 
 ing away into the ravines beyond the stream, and to rescue a little squad of 
 scouts and troopers, a mere handful, who had ventured forth with despatches^ 
 for Berrien's command and were fighting for life behind their slaughtered 
 horses. Two were already sorely wounded, and all would doubtless have 
 lost their scalps, but for the veteran major's clear judgment and the sense 
 of duty that triumphed over physical pain. 
 
 "The ould man's clear grit all through," said his invariable eulogists, 
 the troopers. But there would have been no dear old man left to them, as 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 301 
 
 Ellis and Scott had borne testimony, had it not been for Brewster's daring 
 charge into the midst of the red warriors. It was Iiis bullet that laid low 
 the savage brandisher of the knife just as he would have gashed the brave 
 old major's throat; but "White Wolf" had counted his last coup, and, 
 stripped of his finery, lay stiffening on the prairie, a painted corpse, await- 
 ing funeral honors at the hands of his howling comrades. Every soldier's 
 heart rejoiced that it was Brewster who saved the major's life, for Bi'ewster, 
 of all the subalterns, was first favorite among the rank and file. And as 
 for Ellis, though he was too exclusive — " too much like as though he wanted 
 to be an officer" — to be generally popular among the men, he had always 
 commanded their respect, and his unexpected prowess on this occasion won 
 their genuine admiration. Wliat nerve the fellow had, to be sure, to lie 
 there "playing possum" just as though he were stone-dead and ripe for 
 scalping, and so tempt his assailants out from the cover of the ravine, and 
 then never stir until they were so close he simply couldn't miss, and so 
 " got in his deadly work." Brewster and Ellis were the major's avengers, 
 the two troopers who had dealt out death to the foe, and who were there- 
 fore, from the soldier point of view, the men most entitled to the honors of 
 the day. 
 
 And yet, at the very moment when every other man in the regiment 
 was lauding their names and congratulating them upon their deserved 
 laurels, one captain, Rolfe, was practically demanding at the hands of his 
 colonel tiiat they should be stripj)ed of their high estate and sent to the rear 
 in arrest. 
 
 As Dr. Holden stood there listening to the accusations and arguments 
 brought forward by Captain Rolfe, he could not but recall the remarks that, 
 in one form or other, had occasionally been brought to his ears at Rolfe's 
 expense. Even so conservative and loyal a fellow as Warren, the adjutant, 
 had once summarized his character in forcible terms : "I respect his 
 ability," said he, "but damn his egotism. Rolfe in this regiment is just 
 like the one juror who said that tbey could long ago have agreed on convic- 
 tion but for the eleven blooming idiots who held out for acquittal." Rolfe 
 was a man of such intensity of opinion and purpose that, once having 
 made up his own mind as to what somebody else ought to do, he deemed it 
 not only a right but a duty to instruct the other party, no matter what that 
 
 Earty's rank or station might be ; and this was practically what Rolfe had 
 een doing to his colonel ever since Holden appeared upon the scene. Per- 
 sonally Holden had never met Rolfe before the arrival of the regiment at 
 Pawnee, but, except a certain dogmatism of manner in discussions over 
 points in tactics, politics, law, or whist, he had decidedly liked everything 
 about him, and told the youngsters as much when he found that they did 
 not. 
 
 "Any man with half an eye can see that Rolfe wants to make the very 
 best kind of an impression on Dr. and Mrs. Holden," said Randolph. 
 " They are Miss Guthrie's nearest friends and relatives, — at least the nearest 
 whom he knows." But Holden also liked Brewster, liked him well, and 
 could not believe all that Rolfe was so strenuously urging upon the colonel : 
 first, that Ellis was a thief and an outcast, and, second, that Brewster had 
 known it all along and concealed it. The more positively and unflinchingly 
 Rolfe asserted himself, the more did Holden resent it. 
 
 Finally Rolfe had burst out witli, — 
 
 " Well, Colonel Farquhar, I'm acting in this manner for the honor of 
 the regiment to which I've been attaclied through thiclv and thin for nearly 
 a quarter of a century. I heard you were just sending forward a report 
 highly commending these two men, and I believed it my duty to inform 
 you of their character. As you seem reluctant to accept my statements, I 
 request as a matter of justice to me that you refer my report to Major Ber- 
 rien at once, and he will corroborate my opinion." 
 
 Then and not till then did Farquhar firmly and almost sternly call his 
 subordinate to order, and when Rolfe had been reduced to enforced silence 
 the colonel turned to Holden, and Holden had given prompt voice to his 
 utter objection to their disturbing the wounded major with any such mat- 
 ter. "But I will send for Mr. Brewster, Captain Rolfe, and question him 
 in your presence," said Farquhar. And Brewster, who had just been en- 
 joying a hearty hand-shake and pleasant words with several officers of the 
 Eleventh who, despite the rising gale, had ridden over to congratulate him, 
 
302 A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 went blithely and briskly to answer the colonel's summons. Warren had 
 given him "the tip" as to the letter being prepared for Farquhar's signa- 
 ture. It was a joy to know that his name was to be sent forward with the 
 praise of his soldierly and honored chief. It was almost rapture to con- 
 jecture what Winifred Berrien would think of him when she heard that 
 his vigilance and dash had saved her father's life. 
 
 He looked, therefore, the very picture of stalwart, soldierly, brave-eyed 
 manhood as he stepped quickly into the colonel's tent and stood erect be- 
 fore the silent trio there assembled. He came with a heart beating high 
 with anticipation ; but one glance at Rolfe's sombre and half- averted face, 
 the first words in Farquhar's grave though courteous tones, banished all 
 pleasurable thought and put him on his guard. 
 
 "Mr. Brewster, if I remember aright, it was you who presented Ser- 
 geant Ellis for enlistment when we were in the Hills. Am I right?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " You knew him before his joining us, did you not?" 
 
 " A short time, sir ; yes." 
 
 " Where had you known him, and how long?" 
 
 " At Dead wood, sir ; I met him there on two occasions before he decided 
 to enlist." 
 
 " Two occasions? And how long before he came to us?" 
 
 " Perhaps a week, sir." 
 
 "And you had never known him or of him before?" 
 
 " I had seen him, but I cannot say that I had ever known him." 
 
 "Mr. Brewster," burst in Captain Rolfe at this juncture before he 
 could be checked, "do you mean to tell me you were not well acquainted 
 with this so-called Ellis long before you met him in the Hills?" 
 
 "Captain Rolfe," was the instant answer, and the flush leaped to 
 Brewster's cheeks, an angry light to his eyes, "I mean to tell you nothing 
 whatever. I am answering Colonel Farquhar." 
 
 "Permit me to conduct this matter, Captain Rolfe," said Farquhar, 
 stretching forth a restraining hand and checking the captain as he rose 
 with another question on his lips. Rolfe, with almost any other man, 
 might possibly have persisted. He knew Farquhar, however, and knew 
 that however gentle and courteous might be his manner he could come 
 down hard upon those who crossed him. So, with evident effort, he held 
 his tongue, but remained standing. " Be good enough to resume your seat, 
 captain," continued the colonel, all grave politeness ; and Rolfe slowly and 
 reluctantly subsided. 
 
 "You went to Helena once some five years ago as witness before a 
 court, and the train was held up by road-agents, Mr. Brewster. Did you 
 not meet this man about that time?" 
 
 " Yes, colonel, I saw him, but I did not know him from Adam." 
 
 "You' conversed with him, did you not, and were at the same hotel at 
 Helena with him?" 
 
 " I did ; yes, sir ; and I was at the same hotel for thirty-six hours. But 
 he was a total stranger to me. His dress was that of a gentleman, so was 
 his manner, and almost everybody in our car got to talking with him. He 
 was the only one who really saw the train-robbers, — it was all done so 
 quickly, while we were in our berths ; but he had got aboard at some station 
 just before the thing occurred." 
 
 " Did you not know when he enlisted that he gave an assumed name?" 
 
 "No, colonel, I did not. For all I know, Ellis is his own name." 
 
 " Yet you knew him as Ralph ErroU at Helena," burst in Rolfe again. 
 
 "Captain Rolfe," said the colonel, with marked emphasis, "I will ask 
 you to withdraw ; but, except by Dr. Holden's permission, you will not 
 speak of this matter to Major Berrien. I desire to see Mr. Brewster for 
 myself.— No, Holden ; you remain." 
 
 There was no help for it now, Rolfe had to go ; and go he did, without 
 a word. Then Farquhar, in his courteous tones, repeated his question, and 
 received prompt reply : 
 
 " He certainly gave his name as Erroll in Helena and as Ellis when he 
 enlisted, colonel, but which is right or that either is right I have no means 
 of knowing." 
 
 " Well, I am told that he gave you much of his history and that you 
 lent birr) money in Dead wood." 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 303 
 
 "I did lend him, though at the time I thought I was giving him, 
 twenty dollars to pay pressing debts whicli he had to settle before he could 
 leave there and come to us. He was destitute and starving. He did tell 
 me something of his past, but whether it was true or not I cannot say. 
 The more I see of him the more I believe it ; believe he was a gentleman 
 born and bred, and that he had had hard luck, lost home and friends and 
 fortune ; that he took to the West and mining ; that he made and lost 
 alternately ; that now he is reaping some reward for his labor. What I 
 know is that he is a tip-top soldier, of whom tlie whole regiment has reason 
 to be proud, even tliough I don't know what may be his own name." 
 
 Holden was listening eagerly to every word. 
 
 "May I ask a question, colonel?" 
 
 "Certainly, doctor." 
 
 "Brewster, did he ever tell you where his home was, — where his rela- 
 tives now live?" 
 
 "Yes, — Louisville; and I have a packet which, should he be killed or 
 mortally wounded, I have promised to unwrap and express to the address 
 written within. I do not now ev'en know what it is." 
 
 "Well, did he never speak of having lived in St. Louis,— having had 
 friends there?" 
 
 ,. ii Never so much as mentioned the place, doctor." 
 
 For a moment there was silence, broken only by the dismal moan of the 
 rising gale, the flap of canvas, and the creali of straining guy-ropes. Far- 
 quhar was still thinking deeply. At last he looked up. 
 
 "Captain Rolfe has lodged with me very serious charges against Ellis, 
 and bases them on the report of professional detectives. As you know, I 
 gave Ellis permission to ride over to the railway on Gorham's report that 
 he had some important personal matters to look after. Has he returned 
 yet?" 
 
 "He had not up to stables, sir, but his pass does not expire until tattoo, 
 and I almost hope he has not started in face of tliis wind. It looks like a 
 blizzard coming." 
 
 "When did Rolfe get these reports, if I may ask?" queried Holden. 
 "I sent a telegram day before yesterdaj-- to Mrs. Holden that ought to have 
 reached her that very evening, — it was to forestall any sensational news- 
 paper story about the major's wound, — and I certainly looked for a reply of 
 some kind yesterday." 
 
 "The wires are down both east and west, I'm told,— cut by 'friendlies' 
 at the reservation, very probably. No despatcli has passed either way since 
 yesterday," answered the colonel. " Rolfe's must have come before that. 
 Possibly we will have later news when the sergeant rides back to-night. I 
 gave him an order to get any telegrams that might have arrived for the 
 regiment. What time does the train get in from the East, do you know, 
 doctor?" 
 
 " Somewhere about three, sir ; but I fear there will be no mail for us for 
 a day or two. Old hands here say it is madness to face a Dakota blizzard on 
 the open prairie, and some of the officers think we are in for a gale, to say 
 the least." 
 
 "Well, Brewster," said the colonel, kindly, "your statement is all that 
 was needed to put an end to any idea that you knew all about Ellis before 
 his enlistment. Of course I shall have to look into Captain Rolfe's charges 
 against him ; but say nothing about the matter for the present." 
 
 The cavalry trumpet, weird and fitful on the wings of the gale, was 
 sounding first call for retreat as Brewster left the colonel's tent and started 
 down the gentle slope to join his troop. Already the snow-flakes were driving 
 almost horizontally with the biting wind, and, in the rapidly-gathering 
 gloom, the men came huddling from their rude shelters, and,"bundled to 
 the ears in their great-coats, stood stamping and swinging their arms, im- 
 patient to have roll-call over and done with. The colonel came forth a mo- 
 ment later, and together he and Holden tramped over to the turf-walled 
 structure in which their wounded comrade lay. The air was now so thick 
 with snow that objects a hundred yards distant were blurred, and those be- 
 yond entirely obscured. Holden softly unstrapped and raised the canvas 
 flap and poked his fur-capped head within the aperture. 
 
 "Sleeping?" he queried of the hospital attendant. 
 
 " Sleeping like a baby, sir," whispered the soldier, as he tiptoed to the 
 
304 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 entrance. " Captain Hazlett was reading to him over an hour, and then he 
 just dropped away, and the captain left at first call." 
 
 •'That's capital," said Holden, turning to the chief. " He has worried 
 so over the effect the news might have on his wife that I couldn't get him 
 to sleep. Now, if we can only tide him over until morning, and if this 
 beastly gale will only subside, we'll have good news for him." 
 
 " Well, don't let Rolfe get near him," said Farquhar, with a quiet smile. 
 "There isn't a better duty officer in all the Twelfth, but somebody has to 
 suppress him once in a while." 
 
 " He ought to be married," laughed Holden in reply. 
 
 That night when the trumpets pealed tattoo the musicians braced their 
 backs against the blustering northwest and blew as best they could, though 
 Boreas strove to silence their lustiest efTort, and no trooper on the windward 
 side could hear a note. Over the whistle and howl of the gale, far out on the 
 desolate prairie, far to the southeast, however, the stirring, welcoming, hope- 
 reviving sti'ain was borne to the frozen ears of a solitary and well-nigh ex- 
 hausted trooper, bidding him pluck up courage, rouse himself to renewed 
 effort, and once more plunge forward into the blackness of the night. So 
 long as he kept the gale in his battered face, so long would he be struggling 
 towards comrades and shelter. Staggering, stumbling, sometimes crawling 
 a few paces on hands and knees, sometimes turning his back to the icy 
 blast and gasping for breath, sometimes burying his face in his arms, 
 sometimes stretching those arms aloft to heaven and lifting up a silent 
 prayer for help, for strength, he had struggled on afoot long after abandon- 
 ing his fallen and crippled horse. No beckoning light, no glimmering star 
 to guide, only the rude buffets of the cruel, pitiless blast, the stinging, 
 biting thrashing of the snow, pelting him like small shot, to point the way, 
 yet savagely to beat him back, — to bid him face and force them, yet furious 
 to overwhelm and down. Weak and exhausted, he had well-nigh aban- 
 doned the last vestige of hope, and a wailing cry went moaning aloft from 
 his cracked and frozen lips : " God in heaven guide me ; bear me up ; give 
 me strength. It is not for myself, but those poor women. God in mercy 
 hear me. God in pity answer." 
 
 And over the wrath and fury of the mad hurricane, triumphing above 
 the shriek and howl of the tempest, ringing like the voice of archangel 
 through the vault of the storm-lashed skies, God's answer came. The 
 Divine Pity, riding, indeed, upon the storm, spoke to him in the glad, 
 thrilling, familiar strains of the far-away trumpets of the Twelfth. 
 
 XI. 
 
 "Who's there?" demanded Brewster from beneath his robes and 
 blankets, as late that night his name was called. 
 
 " It is I,— Holden. Tumble up, man ; I want you, quick !" 
 
 "My God, doctor, is Berrien worse?" 
 
 "No, thank heaven, he's sound asleep. Sergeant Ellis was brought in 
 by the guard half an hour ago. He fell exhausted at the lines. We've just 
 brought him to at the hospital tent, and from what I can make out — he's 
 so weak yet — there's something back there out on the prairie, an ambulance 
 and women. I ran over for you as soon as I could ; for you probably know 
 him best." 
 
 " Be with you in a minute," shouted Brewster, kicking off his moc- 
 casins and struggling into his heavy boots. "Lie still. Haddock: you're 
 not wanted," he added. " What time is it, Doc?" 
 
 "Long after eleven,— near midnight, I judge. Come as quick as you 
 can. I'll go right back." 
 
 In five minutes, in the dim light of the hospital tent, Brewster was 
 bending over Ellis's prostrate form. Others had pulled off his heavy boots 
 and were chafing his half-frozen feet. Holden had just administered an- 
 other dose of brandy ; but at sight of Brewster the languid, half-open eyes 
 began to gleam and the muscles of the lips to twitch. 
 
 " Stoop lower, Brewster : he wants to speak to you," said Holden. And 
 Brewster inclined his ear almost to the black moustache. 
 
 Then with sudden bound he was on his feet again. 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 305 
 
 "What!" he cried. "God of heaven, man! do you mean it?" His 
 face was ashen in an instant, but his eyes never quit their questioning gaze. 
 Ellis nodded vehemently, striving again to speak. 
 
 "Doctor, do you hear?" cried Brewster, in mad dismay. "He says 
 Mrs. Berrien and Winifred are in the ambulance broken down at Wolf 
 Creek !" And without another word he darted from the tent. 
 
 Ten minutes more, a dozen men of the " black troop" were bracing 
 cinch-straps, buckling throut-latclies, and loading blankets on their aston- 
 islied steeds. Despite the liowling of the gale, half the camp was up and 
 astir, Farquhar among the first. Brewster had his own horse saddled and 
 was astride before any one else was fairly dressed, and by this time Ellis had 
 recovered sufficiently to speak and tell his story. The train from the East 
 came in on time at three, and he was amazed to see Mrs. Berrien's face. 
 No one dreamed of her coming, for the wires were down. The quarter- 
 master ran to meet her, and the sergeant himself liastened to give her good 
 news of her husband. Nothing would answer, though, but that she must 
 go to him at once. In vain did Major Sterrett plead witli her, saying it 
 took five hours to drive over to tlie cantonment by day, and he feared the 
 evening would be dark and stormy. Go she would ; and the (quartermaster 
 ordered out his own ambulance and best four-mule team, with his own 
 driver and a couple of armed outriders. He gave the ladies hot tea, loaded 
 in lots of blankets and robes, and they started about three-thirty, were in 
 the teeth of the gale at five o'clock, in pitch darkness and off the road at 
 six, and somewhere about seven the mules became unmanageable in the 
 blizzard, whirled short around, and snapped off the pole. By this time, 
 too, one outrider was lost, the other was frozen half to death and had been 
 drinking whiskey. The driver was so stiff he could hardly move hand or 
 foot, and he and Ellis had the utmost difficulty in cutting loose the mules. 
 There was every prospectt of their capsizing the wagon ; and they had to 
 get the ladies out until the beasts were free. Then he found they were close 
 to Wolf Creek, more than half-way, and Ellis determined to push on 
 through to the cantonment for help, first replacing the ladies in the covered 
 wagon, wrapping them in furs and blankets and fastening the curtains. 
 The hurricane increased. He and his horse were both blinded, and at last 
 the poor brute stumbled, fell into a ravine, and could barely struggle to his 
 feet. Abandoning his horse, Ellis pushed on afoot, and reached camp he 
 knew not how. He only remembered hearing that distant tattoo. 
 
 Farquhar never hesitated. Brewster never asked. Holden made him 
 and each of his men swallow a cup of steaming coffee, and the colonel took 
 it as a matter of course that Curly Avas the very man to go. 
 
 "You have brandy and blankets in plenty?" he asked. "Holden is 
 loading more into the ambulance, and it follows at once. Off with you 
 now." 
 
 Impatient even of this brief detention, Brewster led his little band of 
 troopers off into the night. There was not a man in the Twelfth that 
 wouldn't have faced worse things than a blizzard for old Berrien's sake, and 
 as for this it was but a bagatelle. "All we've got to do is scud before the 
 gale, fellers," sung out Murphj', joyously, as they went cantering out of 
 camp and in a second more were lost to sight and hearing. Then came the 
 clatter and rattle of the hospital team, the ambulance, weighed down with 
 robes and blankets and a brace of heavy troopers, despite which ballast the 
 light vehicle was well-nigh whirled over by the force of the gale. And then 
 Farquhar and the doctor had time to turn to Ellis and to think. 
 
 " They must have got my despatch Tuesday night and left by the earliest 
 train," said Holden. " How utterly outrageous a proceeding ! And yet I 
 might have known it of Mrs. Berrien." 
 
 Meantime, there had been dismay at the quartermaster's dgj^ot. Ster- 
 rett, noting the increasing severity of the gale at nightfall, had begun up- 
 braiding himself for having allowed the ladies to persist in the rash attempt. 
 He had done his best to persuade Mrs. Berrien and to assure her that the 
 major was doing well ; he pointed out to her that they had nothing but 
 rough shelter of log and turf and canvas at the camp ; that there was abso- 
 lutely no place where delicately nurtured women could be cared for. He 
 offered her and Miss Winifred his own warm, snug, though rudely-furnished 
 room at the station, and ordered his chief clerk to clear out and sleep in the 
 oifi.ee. He told her how impossible it was for him to leave his DOst and his 
 Vol. XLIX.— 20 
 
306 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 duties of forwarding supplies, and explained that there was no officer to 
 properly escort theiu. But one by one she had promptly overthrown his 
 objections. Escort? Here was Sergeant Ellis. "Wliat better could she 
 ask? As for lacli of accommodation at the camp, had she not lived all one 
 winter with her beloved Dick in a Kansas dug-out just the year after their 
 marriage? Had she not camped with him on the Yellowstone ? — nursed 
 him in a deserted log hut tlirough the mountain fever in the Big Horn? 
 Were there not women, school-teachers and the agent's and trader's fami- 
 lies, there at the agency ? What had she to fear for herself or Winifred in 
 the midst of the Twelfth? 
 
 " But the regiment is ordered to march to-morrow," said Sterrett. " It 
 is an open secret that the Indians have slipped away from the troops along 
 the Cheyenne, and there's the mischief to pay." 
 
 "All the more reason for my being at my husband's side," promptly 
 answered this army heroine. " Dr. Holden will have to go, and Dick will 
 be left practically alone. Winifred and I start at once, even if we have to 
 walk." 
 
 Of course that had ended the matter. Against such determination he 
 was powerless. Having first done his best to detain them, he had then bent 
 all his efforts to the duty of transportation, and now at a late hour in the 
 evening and in the energetic and familiar language of the corral was blas- 
 pheming the fate that had led him to yield his better judgment to her imjDortu- 
 nity. Somewhere about nine o'clock one of the outriders had been dragged 
 off his horse, more dead than alive, and told a pitiful tale of having been 
 driven before the storm, and he didn't even know how far they had got 
 before he lost sight of the ambulance entirely, but was sure that one and all 
 they had lost the road and now were adrift on the prairie. This was bad 
 enough ; but at ten o'clock or thereabouts the corral-master came in to say 
 that the riderless horse of the other man had just arrived at the gate, and, 
 barely able to stagger, was led inside. 
 
 " Pete had a flask along," said the corral-master, sententiously. " That's 
 what's the matter with him." 
 
 Then Sterrett could stand it no longer. Soldiers there were none to 
 send, they were all over the range at the cantonment or beyond ; civilians 
 were there in plenty, dozens of refugees from the ranches, dozens of rail- 
 road-men and train-hands, one or two disgusted correspondents who had 
 got the "tip" as to impending movements all too late to catch the luckier 
 members of that all-pervading fi'aternity, but who were quick to realize the 
 "scoop" they would have in transmitting to their respective journals full 
 and picturesque details of the Dakota bUzzard. It is indeed an ill wind 
 that blows nobody good. 
 
 Even though every one told him he could accomplish nothing whatever 
 before daylight, Sterrett had a little party of stalwart frontiersmen duly 
 equipped by midnight and ready to start the instant the gale should show 
 signs of moderating. Hour after hour it shrieked and howled, driving the 
 sheets of snow before it, sweeping the frozen prairie clean as a floor, but 
 whirling dense white clouds into every slieltered gulch and ravine, settling 
 the drifts in the lee of every stack and shed and building at the railway- 
 station, where, "dead" and abandoned, lay the engine of the East-bound 
 train, the passengers huddling for warmth into a single car and cheerfully 
 discussing the propriety of using the other for fire-wood. 
 
 And then, before the first faint glimmer of dawn, as though spent with 
 its own violence, the gale began to die. The clouds scudding southeastward 
 drew aside, uncurtaining the placid heavens, wliere the stars were faintly 
 gleaming and then twinkling out of sight. Soon in a blaze of glory and 
 triumph the sun rose slowly over the far-distant bluffs and looked down 
 upon the scene of wrath and desolation wrought by rude Boreas in the con- 
 queror's absence ; and just then, too, there hove in sight a battered little 
 squad of troopers on spent and jaded steeds, and the sergeant in command 
 rode breast-deep into the drift at the south entrance of Sterrett's office and 
 yelled over the intervening shield of snow the stunning question, — 
 
 "Did the ladies get back all right? We can't find the ambulance 
 anywhere along the Wolf." 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 307 
 
 XII. 
 
 Before quitting the ambulance and its precious freight, Ellis had made 
 such examination of the neighborhood as was possible in the thick dark- 
 ness, and discovered that they were close to the edge of a narrow, winding 
 ravine with abruptly-sloping banks, and it was in here that tliose sagacious 
 mules had sought shelter from the force of the blast. The ambulauce was 
 standing on a veritable ridge, exposed to the full furj^ of the gale, the slope 
 to the rapid-running Wolf just in front, the ravine to the right rear. 
 Shouting to the ladies to fear nothing, he had no difficulty, when aided by 
 the driver, in starting the wheels, and the instant the velilcle was partially 
 turned into the track of the storm it was blown backwards down into the 
 soft bed of snow already thick and deep. Here, under the lee of the banks, 
 the stout wagon was comparatively sheltered, for the top of the canvas 
 cover was just a trifle below the general level of the prairie. The mules, 
 startled from their fancied security by the rattle of wheels and canvas as 
 the ambulance was run down the slope into their midst, seized with one of 
 their unaccountable panics tore blindly away up the farther bank and out 
 upon the storm-swept level beyond. Then in the whirling cloud of snow 
 Ellis had remounted, shouted again a few encouraging words to the ladies 
 within, assuring them he and his sturdy troop-horse would have no diffi- 
 culty in reacliing camp and bringing aid, urging them meantime to keep 
 snugly bundled in their robes, and witli Mrs. Berrien's brave voice and 
 cheery "God speed you, sergeant!" ringing in his ears he rode gallantly 
 away, forded the shallow stream at the mouth of the coulee, and then, 
 facing the gale, spui'red fortli upon his perilous mission. The driver and 
 the already somnolent Pete, with what was left of the contents of the de- 
 pleted flask, crawled into the snow bed beneath the wagon-body, rolled 
 themselves into their joint stock of robes and blankets, and prepared to 
 spend a comfortable night. It was an old story to both. 
 
 But, despite all the driver's efforts on the way, the gale had forced them 
 far to the right of the main road and those which paralleled it, the only 
 ones at all familiar to the Twelfth, and when Brewster and his little squad 
 reached the ford, along towards two o'clock in the morning, they sought in 
 vain in every ravine and break, — shouted, flred their carbines, and sounded 
 their trumpet, all to no purpose. Not an answering cry rewarded their 
 efforts. From Ellis's description, Brewster knew that the ladies were so 
 muffied in furs that within their canvas shelter they could hardly suffer 
 greatly from the cold. He was assured that the driver and Pete were with 
 them, also well provided with robes and blankets, and that tliey were in no 
 immediate danger of freezing ; but he could not bear the thought of the 
 long, weary waiting, the dread anxiety, the darkness, isolation in all that 
 howling wilderness. He could picture Winifred nestled in her mother's 
 arms, wondering, wondering, as the hours dragged by, when, if ever, 
 human aid would come to their relief. At four o'clock he and his party 
 had searched and scouted for half a dozen miles up and down the valley. 
 Some of his best and stanchest men were giving out, and these, with Ser- 
 geant Brooks, lie ordered to push along with the gale and seek news and 
 shelter at the station. Three others he posted near the main crossing of the 
 Wolf, under the lee of a little bluff, where they and their horses speedily 
 stamped- a hole in the snow-drifts around the hospital ambulance and 
 huddled for warmth,— fires they could not light, even had there been a 
 vestige of fuel, — and then, with three undaunted campaigners at his back, 
 he had once again turned down-stream, following its wanderings in the 
 darkness and feeling for ravines he could not see along the southern bank. 
 Time and again they dismounted and ran beside their horses to restore cir- 
 culation to the numbed and stiffened feet and fingers. Time and again 
 they plunged waist-deep into drifts, and the horses floundered to their 
 girths in the powdery snow. At last Brewster noted that here and there 
 far in the nortlnvestern skies the stars were beginning to peep ; the clouds 
 were driving away, the dawn was nigh, the hurricane abating. Broader 
 and brighter the daylight stole over the storm-swept prairie, streaked here 
 and there with fleecy, winding veins, and when at last the sun arose in its 
 unclouded splendor the gale had died away to a mere ghost of its furious 
 self, and they rubbed the icy fringe from their battered eyelids and gazed 
 
308 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 long and wistfully up and down that shallow, winding valley, all heaped 
 and tumbled with the driven snow, and saw not a sign of tliose whom they 
 had rushed to save. 
 
 Never for an instant did Brewster relax his efforts. Giving each of his 
 men a pull at the flasl?, he selected little Murphy as about tlie most compact 
 and certainly tlie liglitest of tiie trio, and bade him make liis way to camp 
 and tell the colonel that up to sunrise no vestige of the lost ones had been 
 found, and suggest that additional parties be sent out at once. 
 
 "Tell somebody to bring my tield-glass," he added, as Murphy was 
 about to ride away. " If I had dreamed we would have found nothing of 
 tlie ambulance until this time, I never should have left it. Good luck to 
 you now, corporal. Ride as lively as you can." 
 
 Murphy turned promptly away, spurred his unwilling horse tlirough 
 the ice into the black and racing waters of the Wolf, and was presently fol- 
 lowing a little break in the north side which led by a more gradual ascent 
 to the prairie beyond. 
 
 *' Now, men, one of you ride back towards the party at the ford ; poke 
 into every ravine to your left, — they're all full of snow : it may be the am- 
 bulance is so deep in the drift they could hear no sound. If you find any- 
 thing, the faintest trace, ride up on the prairie and circle your horse to the 
 left. — Morse, you come with me." 
 
 "Beg pardon, lieutenant, I think Murphy sees something now," said' 
 Morse, indicating the farther shore with a nod of his fur-covered head. 
 Whirling eagerly about, Brewster was surprised to see his little Irishman, a 
 hundred yards or so away, crouching low on his horse's back, still in the 
 ravine and up to his girth in snow, and peering cautiously eastward, his 
 eyes just level with the bank. Then he was plainly seen to signal. In an 
 instant Brewster and his men were plunging into the rapid stream, crushing 
 the ice that skirted the shores and bounding out upon the frozen ground be- 
 yond. Again Murphy held forth a hand, — a warning gesture, not a beckon- 
 ing one. "Keep down, keep down," he signalled; and, wondering, the 
 little party of troopers cautiously followed into the ravine. 
 
 "What do you see?" queried Brewster, eager and agitated. 
 
 " Upon my soul, sir, I wish I knew ; but it's more like Indians than 
 an,ything I can think of." 
 
 "Indians? where away?" And, with a wild fear at heart, Brewster 
 gazed over the bank in the direction indicated. 
 
 "Indians, and coming this way, sir, or I'm a tenderfoot," muttered 
 Morse, a man who had served in the Twelfth for many a year. 
 
 " What on earth can they be doing so far south of the agency? You 
 don't think any oF the hostiles have got down this way?" 
 
 "They're all hostiles, sir, when there's only three or four ag'in' them. 
 It don't matter whether these are from the agency or the Bad Lands now, 
 if they can catch a white man a-napping, and something has brought them 
 out here." 
 
 " My God, man ! you don't suppose they've heard of the ambulance?" 
 
 " They hear things quicker than we do, lieutenant. Day or night, calm 
 or storm, those fellows can all around beat us in getting news." 
 
 "And they are coming from the northeast, lieutenant," chimed in 
 Murphy. " Tliat means if they are from the villages near the agency 
 they've circled around our people." 
 
 Breathless the little party watched the coming dots. The stream bore 
 to the northeast after a deej) bend about half a mile away, and on the 
 farther bank, moving nearly parallel with the valley, about a dozen dark 
 objects could be seen moving at rapid lope, the springing, tireless gait 
 of the Indian pony. Ponies they were unquestionably, and each with his 
 rider. Every moment brought them nearer and nearer, until, as they 
 spread out in'extended order across the level surface, it was possible to count 
 their number,— eleven ; possible to note that every now and then some one 
 of the number in front or on the flanks would rein in suddenly and circle 
 round and stoop, as though examining tracks upon the prairie. 
 
 " It is not i)ossible the ambulance can have got so far over as that," 
 muttered Brewster. " It is not possible that they can have heard of it in 
 all that fearful storm. Why, Morse, it's madness to think of it !" 
 
 " I don't know how far the team may have been driven out that way, 
 sir, but the blizzard came from the northwest,— from their left front ; it beat 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 309 
 
 across their path all the way, and mules won't face it ; and if it isn't the 
 ambulance they're after, what can it be?" 
 
 " My God, if we only knew where it was !" groaned Brewster. " Come 
 what may, men, we've got to stand 'twixt it and those scoundrels. Here, 
 Murphy, lively now, slip back down into the valley and ride for all you're 
 worth to the ford and bring tliose fellows back with you, every man of 
 them. Tell them to keep under the bank and ride like hell. OIF with you 
 now." And this time there was no recall : Murphy was out of sight in a 
 flash. 
 
 Nearer and nearer rode the savage horsemen, now about a mile away. 
 Already Morse and his silent comrade had swung their carbines out of their 
 leathern buckets, thrust a cartridge in tlie cliamber and loosened others in 
 the woven thimbles. Brewster never for an instant quit his gaze, but his 
 hand had stolen back and loosed the flap of the holster at his hip. The 
 movements of the Indians had puzzled him : they were riding not as 
 though moving on some point already determined, but rather as if search- 
 ing, feeling their way. Every now and then, too, some of their immber. 
 cantered to the edge of the bank and seemed to scrutinize the valley. 
 
 " Snow-drifts are too deep and plentiful in there, around that bend, sir. 
 That's why they're up on the i)rairie." 
 
 Brewster's heart seemed almost to stand still. All on a sudden the 
 leaders swerved ; the blanketed riders could be seen bending low and over 
 as they swung their nimble steeds in circle to tlie riglit. And then, then, 
 an instant more, and, tossing the powdery snow all in a fleecy white cloud, 
 there came tearing up out of tlie depths of some unseen coulee a lively herd 
 of Indian ponies rejoicing in tlieir unwonted freedom and determined not 
 to be herded back to slavery without a struggle. 
 
 It was hard to repress the shout of joy tliat sprang to the soldiers' lips. 
 Then it wasn't the ambulance, after all ; notiiing but this frolicsome band 
 of rascals that, after breaking away from the Indian boys the evening be- 
 fore, had doubtless been driven before the gale, denumding the sending 
 forth of quite a party of the young men in search, even before the storm 
 had fully abated. For a moment the troopers forgot their mission as they 
 watched the chase. Fresh and unhampered by weiglit of any kind, the 
 scurrying band came sweeping along the edge of the distant bluff, following 
 an active, mischievous leader and leaving their jaded pursuers far behind. 
 Tlie Indian knows too much to chase a running horse ; he leaves him to 
 his own devices, well knowing lie will more (piickly stop when unpursued 
 and can then more readily be headed off and turned l)ack to the ways he 
 should go. On came the nimble herd, full tilt, towards the eH)ow in the 
 shallow valley where a broad white streak told of deep drifted snow, and 
 there the leader veered to the left and south and would doubtless have 
 stretched away at racing speed on that course, but for one young warrior 
 on a dun-colored pony, who, with the speed of the wind, came darting out 
 across the level surface beyond, gamely, skilfully heading him. Around 
 went the leader once more in wide circle westward, around the southern- 
 most edge of the fleecy drift, and then, with thunder of hoofs, the whole 
 troop went bounding away to the west without a living soul to interpose 
 between them and the bald, rolling heights at the far horizon, miles and 
 miles away. 
 
 " Go it, pony ! I'm glad to see a redskin done for once !" was Morse's 
 jubilant shout. And then, sudden and sharp, " Good God ! What's that? 
 Lieutenant, look !" 
 
 Not six hundred yards away now, the little band of ponies, following 
 their spirited leader, had suddenly halted at the very edge of some dip or 
 sink in the prairie that lay to the southeast of the snowy rift in which the 
 troopers were crouching, still hidden, they and their horses, from the sharp 
 eyes of the chasing Indians. Then as suddenly, tossing high their scraggy 
 manes, as though with one accord, the nimble brutes whirled to the south, 
 their leader indulging in a fine flourish of heels as he sped away. And 
 now Morse lay against the bank pointing eagerh^ to a couple of black 
 objects startlingly outlined on the glistening \vhite of the snow, two objects 
 that came plunging up from the invisible depths of the hollow, struggling 
 breast-deep in the drifts, and at last reached the edge of the prairie, and, 
 followed instantly by another couple, with their long ears erect, with out- 
 stretched neck and eager brayings clattered away in pursuit of the herd. 
 
3i0 ^ SOLblER'S SECRt:'^. 
 
 Brewster knew them at a glance, — Sterrett's ambulance mules. Indeed, 
 the broken pole was still dangling between the two in rear and bounding 
 with them over the frozen turf. 
 
 And that swerve, that sudden halt and turn to the south end, had cost 
 the band their liberty. Darting along abreast of them, but nearly half a 
 mile away to the south, the warrior on the dun-colored pony had shot far 
 out beyond them, and now, sweeping around in wide circle to his right, 
 rode between them and tlie broad wastes to the west. Two other Indians 
 were circling in their front, barring the way to the low hills to the south. 
 Others still, straggling far out eastward, reined up so as not to interfere with 
 the " rounding" of the herd, and in a moment or two more these three ex- 
 perts had turned their runaway property in wide sweep back into the 
 shining track of the sun, and in very few minutes the matter was settled ; 
 the ponies were sulkily trotting along the bank beyond the bend, headed 
 for home and hard work again, with tlie ambulance mules braying at their 
 heels. Here the younger Indians, the boys, took charge, and from the 
 distant slopes, from south and east and from the prairie to the west, the 
 others came cantering towards that sharp angle half a mile away and 
 gathered in eager consultation about one who seemed to be their leader. 
 
 All this, and much more, Brewster and his men were watching with 
 bounding pulses, in breathless excitement, Brewster with feelings of min- 
 gled hope and despair. Now he knew that the ambulance must be some- 
 where near at hand, possibly up that long ravine on tlie south side that 
 slanted in from the prairie not a liundred yards away below them. Surely 
 the banks looked as though there were a good ford at that point. Might 
 not that be the very one of which Ellis spoke ? Now, if it were but pos- 
 sible to drop back out of the drifts in which they were liiding and recross 
 the stream, they might yet creep unobserved into the mouth of that gully 
 and feel their way afoot until, somewhere in the snow, they came upon, as 
 he now felt sure they must, tlie storm-bound wagon with its precious con- 
 tents. From their crouching-place it was impossible to see across the ridge 
 that separated them from the ravine referi'ed to ; but to the southeast the 
 prairie lay before them, and the keenest eye could detect no sign of hollow 
 between that which lay so near them and that from which those vagabond 
 mules had emerged far out upon the plain. Somehow, Brewster felt certain 
 that now at last he was actually within pistol-shot of the ambulance, within 
 speaking-distance, almost, of the girl he so fondly loved, whose very life at 
 this instant depended not only on his courage, but also on his judgment. 
 One false move would ruin all. 
 
 So long as the Indians kept up their powwow at the bend, so long was 
 Winifred safe. Tlie longer they delayed the nearer would it bring Murphy 
 and the men from the main crossing three miles away vip-stream. Then, 
 six to six, he could laugh at the Sioux. But any one who knew Indians 
 at all knew that the discovery of the mules would only set them to work to 
 find the snow camp from which the animals had broken away. Ay, even 
 as these things flashed tlirough his mind, Brewster could see that they were 
 signalling "halt" to the herd-guard, and that two of the youngsters were 
 lashing their ponies out in front of the band and gradually bringing it to a 
 stand-still. Almost at the same moment, too, those in consultation sepa- 
 rated, three riding swiftly after the herd, while the other three, slowly and 
 cautiously, began to advance towards tlie hollow whence the mules had 
 emerged. Evidently they expected to find the white man's wagon there. 
 
 "Now is our time, men," muttered Brewster. " Quick ! off with your 
 side-lines and double them about your horses' forefeet, so that they can't 
 even hobble out of the drift. Keep them here. Take your lariat and 
 hopple my horse, one of you. Throw him if need be. I'll watch those 
 beggars down-stream. Ah, I thought so," he muttered : "they've grabbed 
 the mules and are examining the harness ; that will tell them easily enough 
 they were cut loose after breaking the pole. Quick, men ! throw snow by 
 the bushel all over your horses. Roll in it yourselves. Get all the white 
 on you can ; then run down the gully as soon as you have your horses 
 hidden, and watch for my signal. The moment I say go, bend double 
 and scamper to the ice yonder, then make for the bluffs. I'll follow 
 instantly." 
 
 Meekly the two troop-horses, after having been led to a deeper point 
 down the coulee, bent their heads and submitted to the lashing together of 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 311 
 
 their fore-feet, but Brewster's "Black Jack" was of different mould. He 
 would not yield. 
 
 " Over with him, Morse. No time to lose now. Lash him tight, or 
 he'll break away," called Brewster. And poor Jack's plunging availed 
 him nothiug. A moment more, with a dismal groan, he was on his side in 
 the soft, cold bed, the lariat was being lashed and knotted so that even 
 furious struggles could not free him, and then, to add to the indignity, his 
 erstwhile friends and comrades were heaping new insult and a storm of 
 snow upon him. Jack couldn't understand it. 
 
 "Ready, men ! They're just peeping over into the hollow now. The 
 moment they're fairly in it, I give the word." 
 
 Twenty — thirty seconds of breathless silence. Then a quick gesture ; a 
 quick, low-toned, but imperative "Go !" 
 
 Go they did, skimming over the pool above the rapids, leaping the 
 narrow chasm where the black waters, dancing and frothing, had defied 
 the ice king ; ducking under the opposite bank ; carbines in hand, revolvers 
 at the hip, cartridges gleaming in every belt ; and after them, leaping, yet 
 bending low, went Brewster. Another moment, and they reached the 
 mouth of the ravine, burst through the powdery drift, and then, Brewster 
 leading, eyes everywhere, almost on all fours they scurried along half-way 
 up the opposite slope, keeping well under the crest and just at the edge of 
 the deep drifts to their right. Fifty— sixty yards they made their rapid 
 way, and then around a little bend and among great heaps and mounds of 
 glistening, shimmering white there rose an odd-shaped heap, only a trifle 
 higher than its fellows, and from the midst of it there projected a dingy, 
 whity-brown canvas, slanting to the north, and, with a cry of delight half 
 stifled on his lips, Carroll Brewster leaped into the snow, floundered to his 
 armpits in the powdery drift, and in a moment more had forced his way 
 through the fragile wliite wall before him, had seized the liandle of the 
 door, and Winifred Berrien, starting from her mother's clasping arms, 
 blinded for an instant by the glare of radiant sunshine, barely able as yet 
 to rally from the stupor-iike slumber into which she had fallen, heard her 
 name called in the joyous tones she knew so well, and saw her lover, a 
 stalwart, glowing, rejoicing young snow-god, all sparkling with the white 
 crystals, all glistening in the glorious Ijeanis, gazing upon her with a love- 
 light in his brave blue eyes that brought instant glow to her own wan and 
 pallid cheek. And then, before she could even speak, before her mother 
 could emerge fi'om the enfolding robes, a shout was heard, then the sudden 
 ring of a rifle-shot, followed instantly by another, the spat as of a whip- 
 lash on the canvas top. Something tore its way through roof and front 
 with spiteful " zip." 
 
 " Down ! down upon the floor ! both of you, quick !" shouted Brewster, 
 as he slammed the door, and the next instant they heard the order in his 
 ringing tones, half stifled in the snow, " Fire, men ! Keep 'em off! Fire !" 
 They heard the quick bang ! bang ! of carbines close at hand, the prompt 
 response of rifles distant as were the first, the whistle of lead through the 
 icy air, the shrill yells of battling Indians, the furious gallop of bounding 
 hoofs. Everywhere to their front the rapid fire increased. More yells, 
 partly of triumph, partly summoning additional warriors to the spot, then 
 the muffled beat of coming hoofs, and, in the midst of it all, Brewster's 
 stern voice, calm and steady : " Aim well, men, but fire lively. Don't let 
 them get again so close as to have a shot at the wagon. Watch that above 
 all." .Two — three minutes the sound of battle raged about them, increasing 
 at the front. A soldier voice was heard to say, "There's more of them 
 coming, sir. You can see them down there to the east." And Mrs. Berrien's 
 heart grew faint with fear. Winifred had buried her face upon her breast 
 and closed her ears to the horrid sounds. And then, all on a sudden, the 
 yells of the charging Indians seemed to grow fainter, then sounds of dismay 
 arose among them, then the cries were drowned in the clatter of iron-shod 
 hoofs and the chorus of soldier cheers. Murphy and his little squad came 
 whirling up the bank, and Mrs. Berrien's heart poured forth in praise and 
 thanksgiving at the joyous, Milesian hail : 
 
 " To hell wid 'em, fellers ! Sure all B throop's eomin', — not two miles 
 behind I" 
 
312 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 There was silence and anxiety in the long range of winter camps about 
 the agency. The Twelfth were gone, nobody knew just where ; but over 
 to the north, over towards those frowning " Bad Lands,"— all the more wild 
 and treacherous now that the snow had tilled every rift and crevice, for the 
 jagged surface was one mass of pitfalls, — other battalions of horse were 
 also gone, and the vigilant watch over those Indians still clustering about 
 their old haunts in the valley was redoubled. The heavier guns of the 
 fleld-battery commanded the smoky lodges, the lighter pieces were away 
 with the cavalry. The infantry, muffled to their eyebrows, manned the 
 rifle-pits and guard-line and threw their sheltering wings over the deserted 
 camps. For good or for ill, the crisis was at hand. Whatsoever doubt had 
 existed as to the almost universal hostility of the Sioux was banished by 
 the events of the preceding week. The attempted ambush of Sergeant 
 Ellis of Berrien's advance-guard, the attack upon the scouts and couriers 
 at the Porcupine, and, lastly, the affair at the Wolf, in which Brewster a 
 second time had gained distinction, all pointed unerringly to one conclu- 
 sion : whatsoever might be their assurances to officialshigh in rank, to 
 agents whose power would be at an end were war to ensue, to self-consti- 
 tuted framers of public oj^inion, every soldier on the spot knew, and well 
 knew, that the Indians would be peaceable only in presence of a formi- 
 dable force of blue-coats, but that nothing but ambush and massacre awaited 
 the whites who ventured forth unguarded. Up to this moment, however, 
 of all those gathered at the scene the only troops which had had actual 
 collision with the Sioux were of Berrien's battalion. 
 
 Far away south at the Pawnee, old Kenyon had been doing his utmost 
 to still the anxious fears among tlie famiUes of the absent soldiers. There 
 had been lively excitement when the papers arrived giving sensational 
 details of Berrien's wound and of the affair at the Porcupine, but it was as 
 nothing to that whicli prevailed over the tidings of the imminent peril in 
 which Mrs. Berrien and Winifred had been placed. That it was just like 
 Mrs. Berrien to insist on joining her wounded husband at once was con- 
 ceded by all, but ojDinions differed as to the propriety of her course in taking 
 Winifred with her. This the major decided by prompt assertion that Miss 
 Berrien doubtless refused to be left behind. '"And, being a very lovely 
 blending of the characteristics of both her parents," said he, "it would 
 have been decidedly unlike Miss Berrien to have stayed at home." 
 
 And then came the dread news that a great band from the northeast, 
 reinforced by a reckless gang of fanatical young ghost-dancers from the 
 Bad Lands, had broken away, and that all the regiments had gone to head 
 them off. Far, without a fight, they could not go. The question was 
 which regiment would be the first to meet them. Then the next night's 
 mail brought the next day's papers, and the Twelfth, having swung loose 
 and being absent from the neighborhood whence were derived the items 
 on which correspondents based their reports and editors their comments, 
 shared the usual fate of the absentee, and, having sustained the only casual- 
 ties and inflicted the only punishments yet heard of about the agency, was 
 now coming in for its share of the " foujours torV^ to which it was, of course, 
 justly entitled. Kenyon first glared at and then exploded over a despatch 
 which read somewhat as follows : 
 
 "All hope of bloodless solution of the difficulty is now at an end. 
 Even the most peaceably disposed among the reservation Indians are 
 furious over what they do not hesitate to term the slaughter of their clans- 
 men in the three alfairs that have recently occurred ; and it is an open 
 secret that, at general head-quarters, the gravest anno,yance is felt over the 
 total overthrow of carefully-laid plans, all caused by the injudicious con- 
 duct of certain hot-headed "officers of cavalry. The friends of White Wolf, 
 the principal ' brave' shot by Major Berrien's troopers, declare that he and 
 those with him were friendly and only striving to reach the major with the 
 news that couriers were coming, hoping thereby to earn something to eat, 
 for they were cold and hungry, when they were fired on without warning, 
 and, even while making signals of peace and friendship, White Wolf was 
 slain. Then the Brul6s who were with them could not be restrained, and 
 attacked the couriers in revenge. As for the affair at Wolf Creek after the 
 blizzard, there is unspoken denunciation among the Indians, and the 
 
A SOLDIER'S SEQRET. 313 
 
 ' damnation of faint praise' in other quarters, of the conduct of a cavalry 
 officer present. The Indians declare they had gone out only to gather up 
 their ponies. The sight of tlie mules told them there must be an ambu- 
 lance stalled somewhere in tlie drifts, and they were eagerly searching for 
 it to render succor and aid, when they were fired upon from ambusli by the 
 lieutenant and liis men, and two of their ponies were killed and one young 
 Indian sliot through the leg. The Indians declare they could easily have 
 killed Major Berrien, but merely strove to defend themselves and explain, 
 and that had they been hostile they could have finished the lieutenant and 
 his little squad at the Wolf Creek crossing long before reinforcements came. 
 Altogether, there is something so plausible in their statements that it is 
 understood that the conduct both of the major and at least one of his 
 subalterns will be made the subject of official investigation." 
 
 "Well, well, wellP^ said Kenyon. "Thank God 7'm not serving a 
 grateful nation in the heart of the Indian country. It's bad enough to be 
 shot, and worse to be lied about, and that is all the comfort there is in being 
 a cavalryman, if I do say it who am nothing but a cross-grained old crank 
 of a doughboy. If this is what the Twelfth is to get for ' a mere afTair of 
 outposts,' what the devil will be said of them if thej^ should get into a 
 regular pitched battle? Here, Mr. Adjutant, dump that paper in the fire, 
 and don't let a woman at the post know anything about it. — Know it 
 already? How the mischief could they?" 
 
 "There were half a dozen of them, sir, at Mrs. Hazlett's reading an- 
 other copy of that paper as I came down. And poor Mrs. Thorpe is crying 
 her eyes out. She's been utterly upset since the news came that the 
 Twelfth had been sent out. Good God, sir, she's coming in now !" 
 
 It was indeed poor Mrs. Thorpe who entered, pallid, her eyelids swollen 
 with weeping. Old Kenyon was on his feet in an instant and leading her 
 to a chair. 
 
 " My dear madam, my dear madam," he began, " indeed you must not 
 give way so. I assure you there is no cause for such dread and anxiety. 
 Do strive to control yourself." 
 
 "I cannot! oh,"Maj()r Kenyon, I cannot! I have been through so 
 much, such fearful scenes I" she sobbed, wringing her nervous hands, rock- 
 ing to and fro in an agony of grief. " Oh, it is easy for those who have not 
 lived the life we had to live in the old days to counsel patience, calmness. I 
 was only a child then, kneeling at my mother's side when the news came 
 in that widowed half the women in the post. I spent my girlhood in the 
 regiment. How many are left of the officers who were so good to me then ? 
 Mother was only one of a dozen whose hearts were broken, — broken as, oh, 
 God ! I feel mine is to be. They took my father long years ago, now they 
 demand my husband, my babies' father, my all, their all ! Oh, God ! oh, 
 God !" 
 
 Sobbing, rocking to and fro in her uncontrollable grief, the poor girl 
 clung to Kenyon's hand, and the old fellow's eyes blinked and smarted 
 with the tears he could not quite force back. He laid the other hand upon 
 her bowed and swaying head. 
 
 "My child," he said, brokenly, " for your babies' sake, try to bear up. 
 Be your father's daughter. I knew and loved him well, — knew you Avhen 
 you rode your first pony at the old fort up the Missouri. You know well I 
 wouldn't try to deceive you. I can't think the Twelfth is to bear the brunt 
 of this business. They don't belong in that department at all. They are 
 only borrowed from here ; and surely there are troops enough ihere, more 
 than enough, to overawe that pestilent gang. All that is necessary will be 
 to surround the Indians, let them see what a force we have, and they'll 
 knuckle down. Don't cry so, Mrs. Thorpe ; don't cry, my child. Let me 
 take you over home now. Just get the little ones around you to-night, and 
 
 I'll bring over some famous oranges that came to-day, and Wliy, I don't 
 
 believe the Twelfth will have to pull another trigger. Think how many 
 other regiments and commands there are there." 
 
 " I do, I do, and I pray and pray, but no comfort comes. Did you ever 
 know a time when they were not in the thick of the fight? Did you ever 
 hear of any time when the loss did not fall heaviest on us?" 
 
 "Don't think of that now," he pleaded. "Don't borrow trouble from 
 either past or future. Come, let me take you home, there's a good girl. I tell 
 you if that band hasn't surrendered they've scattered all over creation, and 
 
314 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 you can no more catch them than you can — than you can— a newspaper lie. 
 That's the strongest simile I can thinlj of. Did you hear what tliey were 
 saying about Berrien and Brewster ?" he queried, eager to divert her tlioughts 
 from her own misery. 
 
 "I did. Isn't it cruel? But Major Berrien has his wife and Winnie 
 with him, and they're bringing him home ; but if poor George is shot, 
 what can I do?" 
 
 "Do? Why, you shall go right to him, if I have to give mj^self a seven 
 days' leave and take you." And so, soothing, comforting as best he knew 
 how, the veteran major led her home to her wondering brood, to the laugh- 
 ing, crowing baby leaping in the nurse's arms, delighted to see the little 
 mother again, to the joyous children romping in the firelight, innocent of 
 care or fear, and then, striving for their sake to still her sobs, to dry her 
 tears, he left her to put the little ones to bed, to clasp their folded hands in 
 hers as the wee, white-gowned girlies knelt at her side, echoing— God only 
 knew with what piteous entreaty— the lisping prayer for His divine protec- 
 tion for the loved father, the devoted husband, the gallant soldier who that 
 very day had fought his last fight and lay lifeless on the frozen sod. 
 
 Over the eastward bluffs, cold and hard and gray, the morning light 
 had slowly crept to the zenith. Over the sky was spread one limitless pall 
 of cloud, cheerless and repellent, — a pall so dense that not one friendly star 
 had peeped, not one rift of sunshine now could force its Wiiy. All below, 
 bleak, frowning, and sullen, a bare and blasted landscape; low hills and 
 ridges east and west, low-lying shallow and swale between, cheerless, tree- 
 less, shrubless, not even a veil of snow to hide its nakedness, to lend one 
 pitying touch to break the dull, dead monotony of its wintry desolation ; 
 sweeps and slopes rolling away unbroken to the frowning horizon at the 
 west, sterner, harsher lines among the bluffs across the tortuous stream-bed, 
 between whose ragged banks an icy, lonely, and dismal rivulet is curdling 
 now, spreading out into frozen shallows at the flats, moaning and com- 
 plaining around its warped and sudden bends, desolate as the surrounding 
 desolation, deserted as the Dead Sea, its banks repellent even to such sharers 
 of Dakota solitudes as the coyote and the cottonwood, shunned of man or 
 beast or tree, — a stream of silence and gloom at the dawn of this December 
 day, and so cheerless is its every surrounding, so appalling the unnatural 
 hush, that one would never dream of life upon its blasted banks. 
 
 Yet, listen ! Unseen, but dominant, the sun has risen above the eastern 
 hills, and, as the light broadens even where it cannot warm, there floats 
 upon the air from far away at the southwest, faint and clear, a cavalry 
 trumpet call ; soft at first, then crescendo, it ceases suddenly in shrill high 
 note. It thrills through and through a rare atmosphere unrufiled by the 
 fleeting wing of hardiest bird. Like the wistful call of scattered quail, it 
 seems to say, "Where are you?" And prompt, expectant of the coming 
 of faithful mate, listen again ! From the dim recesses to the north, some- 
 where among those bare and desolate slopes, the answer rises, quick, ring- 
 ing, even imperative, and the signal reads, "This way." 
 
 Groping through the bitter darkness of the December night, a cavalry 
 column has sought and, just at the opening of this cheerless December day, 
 has found its mate. The comrade battalions of the Twelfth are within 
 hail. 
 
 " Forward !" rings the signal from the southwest. Forward with them, 
 then, around that point at the low bluff to our front, and in the ghostly, 
 gathering light the scene is before us, the tale is almost told. 
 
 There, thickly dotting the prairie and covering the low ground, its 
 wigwams smoke-begrimed and dingy, lies an Indian encampment ; but 
 even in such shelter as this the hostile horde has fared far better than 
 they who through the long, freezing night have kept watch and ward lest 
 again the wary chief should slip through the meshes. It has come at last. 
 The big warrior's fanatical braves have made their rush, Berrien's men the 
 tackle. Back flew the signal with the setting sun. Up through the night 
 came Farquhar with "the guards." 
 
 Here in front the four old troops we know so well have shivered for 
 hours about the village. Here, alert and determined, Rolfe and Hazlett, 
 Thorpe and Gorham, have clung to front, flank, and rear, well knowing 
 that so soon as the colonel got the news he would not only speed the second 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 31 5 
 
 battalion on its way, but, gathering any other forces he could find, would 
 ride the long night through, if need were, to join his men. 
 
 Stern and silent, Rolfe is standing at the bank of the stream, wearied 
 enough, yet certain that there is no rest before them. On him, as senior, 
 the command has devolved in the absence of the beloved major now being 
 tenderly nursed and comfortably trundled homeward in the warm interior 
 of a Pullman. No excitement, no cheer, attends the coming of the column 
 now at steady, soldierly gait winding into the shallow depression. Rolfe 
 knows that without Farquhar and his reinforcements attack upon or inter- 
 ference with so formidable a band would be worse than desperation. He 
 knows that with Farquhar his own position will be only that of subordi- 
 nate, and that he must obey. He knows how, were he supreme, a thousand 
 troopers at his back, he would conduct matters now. But Farquhar is a 
 soldier long accustomed both to obedience and to command ; Rolfe is one to 
 whom obedience comes with laggard grace, to whom command is oppor- 
 tunity for lavish vent of his imperious will. Orders or no orders, if he had 
 the power he would deal death to the rabid renegades before him. Orders 
 to "bring on the Indians, but not bring on a fight," to his thinking are 
 orders like those which should forbid a man's going to water until he had 
 learned to swina. Orders to disarm but not molest are simply something 
 to be laughed to scorn. When were the Sioux ever known to surrender 
 those precious arms? Such things when reported in years gone bj^ turned 
 out to be as rusty shams as the arms turned in. Rolfe was in mood as 
 sullen as the morn, and the signs about the now bustling village were not 
 to his liking. Over among the tepees blanketed squaws were scurrying 
 about, their shrill voices suppressed, but their black eyes flashing hatred at 
 the silent squads of troopers, carbines ready in hand, watching every move 
 within the guarded lines. Young women and boys were belaboring the 
 gaunt and dejected ponies. Eager gestures and low exclamations called 
 attention to the coming force, and in groups the warriors, shrouded to the 
 very lips in their heavy robes, stood or sat in council ; but all the while, 
 darting from point to point, with fierce declamatory gesture went Mephisto 
 himself in the Indian "medicine-man." Mark! wheresoever he goes 
 eager ears are bent to hear his exhortation. 
 
 " My God ! why can't I arrest him at least? With that old scoundrel 
 done for, the rest might not be so hard," is Rolfe's impatient exclamation. 
 
 " Simply because the attempt would lead to instant fight," is Hazlett's 
 cool reply. 
 
 " But, man, he's putting them up to organized resistance. He's giving 
 them some instructions now ; you can see it just as well as I do." 
 
 "Who doesn't? but " A suggestive shrug of the shoulders indi- 
 cates the brother captain's opinion. "You know the old saying, Rolfe, 
 ' Ours not to make reply.' " 
 
 " Who's in command of those advanced men fronting that part of the 
 village?" asks Rolfe, after a moment's gloomy pause. 
 
 "Brewster. Don't you see? He's talking with Sergeant Ellis there 
 now." 
 
 Rolfe grinds his heavy boot-heel into the frosted bunch-grass, not more 
 harshly than he grinds his teeth. " By heaven ! Hazlett, bear me witness 
 to this,— for there's no telling how things will turn out to-day,— if I had 
 my way those two men would have been brought to book and made to ex- 
 plain, instead of having posts of honor here, Farquhar refused to listen to 
 another word on the subject until we got home again ; then it may be too 
 late." > 
 
 "Well-1, I can't understand what you have against them both, — or 
 either," is Hazlett's reply. 
 
 "And I can't explain here or now ; but wait till we're home again, 
 Hazlett, if we ever get there." 
 
 Farther down to the left two other troop commanders have been watch- 
 ing the symptoms among the swarming lodges. 
 
 " There'll be the devil's work this day, Thorpe," says Gorham at last, 
 with gloomy brow. 
 
 And Thorpe only bows his head. 
 
 Three hours later look upon the scene. The open prairie on the hither 
 side of the village is no longer tenantless, as it was at dawn. Two parallel 
 
310 A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 lines confront each other there. In dogged submission to the orders of 
 their captors and tlie mandate of tlie big white chief which lias been laid 
 before them, silent, sullen, muffled to the eyes in dingy robe or blanket, 
 the braves have slowly moved out from their lurking-places among the. 
 tepees and shuffled down the gentle slope until well away from the out- 
 skirts of their town, and just in front of a long, silent rank of dismounted 
 troopers they squat upon the ground. No word is spoken by either side. 
 Here crouch the savage leadei'S of the hostile tribe, and, in long-extended 
 line, scores of their fiercest and bravest. Others still lurk among the 
 squaws and lodges. Others peer with glittering, malignant eyes from 
 under heaps of foul-smelling robes or parfleches. Those in the outing 
 glance but furtively at the blue line before them. They are silent as the 
 dead, yet the war-cry trembles on their lips. They wait, but wait expec- 
 tant. They crouch, "but it is the tiger's crouch, ready for a spring. The 
 word has been passed that all arms must be surrendered, and every arm is 
 there, ready, hidden, but "with the lightning sleeping in it." 
 
 Back among those brown, dingy tepees, breatliless with excitement, 
 squaws are scurrying to and fro ; children are being huddled away to the 
 farther side. ("Look at that. Curly," mutters Warren, under his frozen 
 moustache, as he passes rapidly along in rear. " Isn't that enough to show 
 they mean mischief?") Some of the Indian police and interpreters are 
 still searching for warriors in hiding. Yet has not the old chief bowed his 
 assent to the orders and given his directions that his people should comply? 
 Nothing must be — can be — done so long as the Indian makes no overt 
 move. The dismounted men of two troops are in long single rank. Some 
 of the men shiver a little, for cold and excitement are telling now, as in many 
 eases overcoats have been thrown aside, but brave men tremble ofttiraes 
 until the first shot comes, and then the nervous strain is gone, for the hot 
 blood leaps and tingles through the veins. Back some distance the horse- 
 herders are aligned. Off" to the flanks and rear comrade troops gaze silently 
 on the scene. From the crest of a low bluff the black muzzle of the Hotch- 
 kiss gun peers from its knot of watchful batterymen. Farquhar, vigilant 
 and grave, has just sent Warren with other orders. A half-breed Indian 
 steps forth, as though to carry its import to the chief. At him the eyes of 
 the old maniac of a medicine-man glare with tigerish fury. He lowers 
 his feathered head. He crouches. 
 
 Then, suddenly, a cat-like leap, a wild yell. Off goes every blanket, 
 as though hurled by the explosion from within. In simultaneous crash 
 the flame and lead have leaped upon the trooper line, and now through the 
 veiling smoke every Indian is fighting like a demon. Down goes many a 
 sturdy soldier, veteran sergeant, brave-faced boy. The line reels with the 
 sudden shock, but in an instant men like Thorpe and Brewster and Ran- 
 dolph leap forward among the men and their voices ring with the clamor 
 of battle. Back up the slope, scurrying, stooping low, firing, dropping in 
 their tracks, the Indians are making for the shelter of their tepees, — for the 
 skirts of the squaws. What Sioux woman fears to die in defence of her 
 brave? What Sioux warrior disdains to shield himself from foeman's blow 
 and to shoot from the covert of the sheltering form of his devoted wife? 
 
 "For God's sake, men, head 'em off! Don't let them back among the 
 women," is the yell. But Indian tactics, stooping to anything, stopping at 
 nothing, are too much for men trained to fight only as soldiers and gentle- 
 men. Already squaws are rushing forward, knife and revolver in hand. 
 Already the hidden savages are firing from under tent or travois. Already 
 a score of the best and bravest of the Twelfth have bit the dust. Curly 
 Brewster's arm is smashed by rifle-bullet ; Thorpe, cheering on his men, 
 heading them in their rapid return fire, plunges suddenly to earth with one 
 gasping cry, "Oh, God ! My little ones !" Rolfe, riding like mad a dozen 
 yards ahead of his men in wild effort to cutoff the backward move, tumbles 
 in senseless heap at the very feet of a knife-wielding fury of a woman who 
 is only laid low just as her clutch is on his hair, her gleaming blade at his 
 throat. Ay, on this bleak and barren and cheerless field, under these 
 leaden skies, beside the black waters, streaked now with curdling red, the 
 battle-fiend is loose : there is, indeed, "the devil's work this day," but 
 where the blame lies as between the soldier who must fight or die, and 
 those who, far and near. East and West, so promptly lashed him as squaw- 
 shooter, babe-slayer, let the God of battles decide. 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 317 
 
 XIV. 
 
 A month later, and Holden has his wounded safely housed under the 
 roof of the hospital at old Pawnee, many severely' shattered or suffering 
 great pain. Many will bear to their dying day mementoes of that savage 
 December battle. Some of the twoseore are doing very well ; others, per- 
 haps, have done better, and are sleeping under the flag. A busy man is 
 Holden, and a very proud one, as he has the right to be, for, one and all, 
 the troopers love to speak of him as their "fighting sawbones." He was 
 in the thick of it all when the rush of the rearward mounted troops swept 
 into and through those fire-spitting lodges, and the Indians, warriors, 
 squaws, and children, were scattering, fighting fiercely all the way, to the 
 shelter of the ravines among the bluffs. Tireless as ever, he and his assist- 
 ants are constantly at the bedsides of the wounded. So is the chaplain, 
 one of the church inilitant, whose " soul's in arms and eager for the fray," 
 for his friends of the Twelfth are under two fires. Gallantly and well have 
 they withstood that which, with sudden treachery at the hands of their 
 savage foes, flashed in their very faces. But they have no redress as against 
 this — this civilized lashing at their verj^ backs. The parson's sermon Sun- 
 day morning in answer to the drivelling sentimentality of certain mis- 
 guided ecclesiastics far from the scene of conflict almost lifted old Kenyon 
 and his comrades out of their seats. The major hugged his chaplain after 
 service and stopped to shake hands with him every time he met him during 
 the afternoon. In many a pulpit east of the Missouri, with tearful fervor 
 was the picture drawn of those helpless, pleading Indian mothers, those 
 shrieking, terrified little Indian babes, ruthlessly slaughtered by a brutal 
 and infuriated soldiery. Nor were the clergy without warrant for their 
 " bottom facts," since in some mysterious way the representatives of the 
 press, hovering about that imj^ersonal section of military anatomy known 
 as head-quarters, were flooding the columns of their journals with para- 
 graphs about the wanton killing of women and children in the fight in 
 front of the Twelfth. "Holy Joe," as the parson had been termed, knew 
 well the day when, in the seclusion and simplicity of his seminary life, he 
 would have swallowed whole just such statements and turned up the 
 whites of his eyes in sympathetic horror at the recital. But the man of 
 God on the banks of the Merrimac and his brother in the cross on the 
 Upper Missouri see very different sides of the vexing Indian question. 
 "Holy Joe" at Pawnee this sparkling month of January was mad clear 
 through at the indigniti'es and aspersions cast upon his blue-coated com- 
 rades. He wrestled with the brethren of his cloth and downed them. He 
 even dared to establish a censorship of the press and to keep from the hands 
 of his precious wounded those journals which had assailed the Twelfth. 
 
 He had had his hands full, poor fellow, long before the wounded came, 
 for those were dire days and nights after the news was flashed to the post 
 and the widowed and fatherless in their affliction were thrown upon his 
 hands. Poor Mrs. Thorpe ! Ah, she was only one of several. There was 
 wailing among the wives and little ones down where once the soldiers' 
 families were so thickly clustered. There were other households in dread 
 anxiety. There were women broken down with grief and sleepless watch- 
 ing. There was one so ill she could not even now be told she would never 
 look upon the face of her gallant soldier again. But draw the veil. It was 
 on such bleeding hearts and on the men who bore the brunt of the fiercest 
 fighting of the campaign that the lash of press and pulpit fell. 
 
 But old Kenyon was in his element. To the best and kindliest of men 
 there is in being able to say " Didn't I tell you so?" a joy that surpasses the 
 sweets of religious consolation. It was something to hear him declaiming 
 among the artillery and infantry officers during the days that followed the 
 announcement of official investigation at the exi^ense of the Pawnee battal- 
 ions. "Why, gentlemen," said he, "I have never ceased to thank God I 
 didn't take the chance for promotion that came in the reorganization twenty 
 years ago. I was one of the senior captains of infantry then. I could have 
 got one of those cavalry vacancies just as well as not,— been a yellow major 
 ten years before the leaves dropped on my shoulders in the blue ; but if by 
 any chance I were ordered into the dragoons to-day I'd swap out or quit for 
 good. From the time those Bloods and Piegans got their deserved thrash- 
 ing at the haijds of Tim Baker's battalion I've knowc enough to steer clea? 
 
318 A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 of it. You know those facts as well as I do. You know those Indians had 
 been murdering, robbing, burning, pillaging, for two years. You know how 
 all Montana begged and implored General Slieridan to put a stop to it. 
 There was no catching them until winter, and then when he sent those 
 Second Cavalry fellows up there with orders to thrash Siieol out of them, 
 what was the result? Didn't the papers East and West turn to and damn 
 him and them? Didn't they dub him ' Piegan Phil' from that time forth? 
 No, sir, no cavalry service for me. There's only one thing harder than the 
 knocks that they have been getting for the last twenty years on the frontier, 
 and that's tlie linocks they've had to bear at Lome." 
 
 But towards the end of January the old post was beginning to pluck up 
 heart again, and, to tlae keen delight of Mrs. Berrien and Winifred, their 
 particular major was able to drive with them, bundled up in his furs, and 
 lolling back in the cushions of Berengaria's barouche, as he termed his 
 wife's comfortable carriage, with that rejoicing matron by his side, distrib- 
 uting smiles and sunshine and joyous nods of recognition wherever she 
 went ; everybody waving hand or hat or handkerchief as they bowled 
 along, and Winifred — bonny Winifred — beaming upon her father from the 
 front seat. Very, very sweet Miss Berrien was looking just now, said all 
 who saw her ; yet there was a shade of wistful ness in her face, a constant 
 expression about those deep, dark eyes that seemed to tell they were ever 
 on watch for one who never came. Shattered as was his sabre arm. Curly 
 Brewster had scoffed at the idea of being sent back to Pawnee. 
 
 "What's the use?" he said. "I would be utterly alone there, while 
 here I have all the fellows about me. What better care do I need?" 
 
 In the midst of all their trials and annoyances, in the thick of the 
 whirl of events that followed their sharp and sudden fight, the officers and 
 men of the Twelfth found themselves more closely drawn together even 
 than before. Very little was said when outsiders were by as to the depth 
 of feeling aroused in their ranks by the unaccountable criticism of the 
 press. Very little had to be said in the official investigation of the affair to 
 clear them, one and all, of the array of allegations lodged at their doors. 
 But that every man, from the colonel down, bore away from the field of 
 their winter's travail a sense of injury beyond the scar of savage missile, 
 who could doubt? — who could blame? It did not prevent their having 
 some quiet fun of their own, however. Gray-haired Farquhar was whim- 
 sical in his sympathy with Rolfe, whose scalp had been saved by the man 
 of all others he had most reviled, — Sergeant Ellis. Randolph, from the 
 recesses of the hospital tent, poked no end of gibes at Ridgeway, who had 
 lost his eye-glasses in the morning fight and had been nearly run off with 
 by the Sioux. As for Rolfe's plight, " he lost all the skin from the side 
 instead of the top of his head," laughed Gorham. It was pitiable enough 
 to make the boys forget the austerity of his past, for to his dying day Rolfe 
 would carry the marks of his involuntary "scrap with a squaw," as Ran- 
 dolph terrned it. "Rolfe's scars have come to the surface," chimed in 
 Warren, who never could get along with him. They all hoped he would 
 go back to Pawnee with the wounded train ; and he did. So, too, did Ellis, 
 wearing on the arm in a sling the new chevrons of a first sergeant, won, as 
 said his colonel in presenting them, " together with the heartiest recom- 
 mendation for a medal of honor I could write, for bravery on the field of 
 battle." Rolfe turned his bandaged head away when Holden gave him all 
 the story. He knew not what to think, much less what to say. Ellis had 
 leaped through the swarm of fighting braves and with the butt of his car- 
 bine dashed aside the unsexed fiend whose clutching claws were in the 
 captain's hair, and then had fought like a tiger over the prostrate body and 
 saved the life of the man who had maligned him. 
 
 " One half-second more, and you were gone, Rolfe," said Holden, gravely, 
 
 " I never said he wasn't a fine soldier/' answered Rolfe, faintly. " Per- 
 haps I didn't know him aright." 
 
 "That isn't all there is to it, Rolfe," was the doctor's reply. " He is 
 more than a soldier. He is a gentleman ; and I know it." 
 
 Yet when Rolfe expressed a desire to see and speak with Ellis later he 
 calmly begged the doctor to excuse him. 
 
 But just why Brewster would not go home with the wounded the boys 
 couldn't quite understand. He would be off duty for months. He might 
 not swing sabre again for a year. Miss Berrien was there, all readiness, no 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 319 
 
 doubt, to thank him warmly for all he had done to save her and her mother 
 from the blizzard, from the Indians, and heaven knows what all,— to bless 
 him for his rescue of papa,— to beam upon him with those wondrous dark 
 eyes, thought poor Ridgeway, who felt somehow that, after all, his cake 
 was all dough. And yet Curly wouldn't go. What was more, he had 
 never so much as exchanged one word with Winifred Berrien from the 
 moment of the discovery of the ambulance. It was " B throop," as Murphy 
 said, tliat had the honor of conveying the ladies on to camp and the bed- 
 side of the astonished major. It was a blow to Winifred to learn that 
 within twelve hours after their arrival the old battalion had ridden away, 
 Brewster with it. 
 
 " I know why Curly doesn't dare go back," said one of the sages of the 
 bachelor mess. " He's afraid Knowles will come out and insist on lugging 
 him off to town to be nursed under his roof, or else of her going out to nurse 
 him. Begad ! it may be tough, but it's a heap safer here." And so " Anti- 
 noiis" remained with his fellows in the wintry field, and old Beri'ien, who 
 never could be got to write a letter to anybody, found he could stand it no 
 longer. He bade Berengaria write and say— well, something ; something 
 really must be said about how they appreciated his conduct ; " by-gones be 
 by-gones ;" something, anything"; he didn't know; she did: she always 
 knew just what to say. " So write, Bess." 
 
 "But I have, Dick." 
 
 " Berengaria ! And without my consent ?" 
 
 "Richard Plantagenet, Coeur-de-Lion, T6te-de-Veau, of course,— ten 
 days ago." 
 
 "What did you say?" 
 
 "Everything that was proper, I trust." 
 
 "What did he say?" 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 " Didn't he answer ?" 
 
 " How could he, Dick ? You can't with two hands ; he has but one, the 
 left at that." 
 
 " He might have got somebody to write for him. I did."" 
 
 " So did lie." 
 
 "Thought you said he didn't say anything." 
 
 " Well, he didn't. He said everything that was gentlemanly, courteous, 
 appreciative, and yet — nothing. A model letter, Dick." 
 
 " What does Winnie say ?" 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 "Didn't she see it?" 
 
 "Why should she, Dick? Two months ago you practically forbade 
 their meeting." 
 
 "Oh, I know ; but — I didn't know him then." 
 
 "Not even after seven years' service with him, Dick?" 
 
 " Oh, well, that — that party in petticoats there in town, I didn't know 
 her as well as — well, as after I heard all about her from those fellows in the 
 Eleventh." 
 
 " But I knew her, Dick, from the start." 
 
 " I know you did, Bess. You said so ; and I suppose I've been an ass," 
 said Berrien, ruefully. 
 
 "You sometimes do cross the danger-line, Dick dear. That is, when I 
 let 3'ou." 
 
 The major had nothing to say in response to this accusation. He pon- 
 dered in silence a moment. "Well, a fellow can change his mind, can't he, 
 as well as a woman ?" 
 
 " Not as well as a woman, Dick. Still, he can change. And suppose a 
 certain fellow were to change his mind now and take six months' leave and 
 go away to be cured?" 
 
 "What! Brewster change his mind?— about Winnie, do you mean? 
 
 Why, confound him ! I'd round him up so quick The idea of his going 
 
 back on Winnie ! Why, if I thought such a thing possible I'd have him 
 here on his knees at her feet inside of a week." 
 
 "Oh, no, you wouldn't, Dick," said she, laughing softly. 
 
 "Wouldn't? Why not?" 
 
 "Just because two women wouldn't let you, — I for one, Winnie for two." 
 
 " You still think she cares for him?" 
 
320 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 " I won't answer that, Dick. But this," with sudden change from her 
 laughing manner, " I will say : no matter what she cared or how she suffered, 
 neither you nor I, Dick, nor any one on this wide earth, would ever wring 
 one word from her lips." 
 
 And over at Holdeu's things were going on in an odd groove. It was 
 Kenyon who was a frequent visitor there now, not Rolfe. Mrs. Holden was 
 still in St. Louis with her olive-branches, for the doctor had frankly told her 
 that just so long as he had all these wounded on his hands the children 
 would be in his way. 
 
 " He means me," said Jennie to Miss Guthrie, with prompt resentment. 
 "But he says next month he'll come on here, — business will require it as 
 well as pleasure, — pay us a ten days' visit, and take us home. Then you'll 
 come too, won't you, Nita?" But Miss Guthrie shook her head. 
 
 "You promised us," said Mrs. Holden, reproachfully; "and Rolfe 
 won't be there to worry you this time," she faltered. "He's going to take 
 a long leave and go abroad." 
 
 "But even that," wrote Jennie to her liege, "did not seem to comfort 
 her. She says she will never, probably, visit Pawnee again ; and I know 
 well as can be it is all on account of that terrible fright. What can there 
 have been behind it all? Now that the Twelfth are coming home and you 
 have everything running snioothly, don't you think it possible to find out 
 something about that strange affair? You have never written a word, and 
 I can see Nita's eyes questioning me every time she knows I have a letter. 
 The other day I was in her room, and, looking over some old albums that I 
 drew from the bottom of a desk, I came across a picture of hers just like 
 the one that is in the little silver frame on the toilet-table in her room at 
 Pawnee, except that this was blurred and worn. ' Why, Nita !' I cried, un- 
 thinkingly, as she entered, 'I thought you told me mine was the only one 
 left of tiiis kind, and here's one that looks as if it might have been worn 
 
 next some fellow's heart and kissed a million ' and then I stopjied 
 
 short and dropped it, for she had turned white as death and was stretching 
 out her hands. 'Where did you find that?' she whispered at last. ' Be- 
 tween the leaves of this old album,' I said. ' It was lying there loosely.' 
 
 ' I had not seen it for six years. I thought I had burned it with ' 
 
 And then she broke off suddenly, and shuddered, but seized it and took 
 it away. If she would only talk to me of Jack ; but she will not, even 
 though I know that ever since the suicide of Mr. Percival last August Mr. 
 Guthrie has been working day and night reopening the old matter. All the 
 friends of the Guthries are now more than ever confident that Jack was 
 absolutely innocent, — that Mr. Percival as president of the bank had made 
 away wuth those missing funds and securities and charged it to Jack and to 
 his friend Harold Worden. An effort has been made to get at Mr. Perci- 
 val's papers, all of them, but his widow is still so broken that she cannot be 
 seen by any one, say her physicians. It is believed she knows something 
 of the inner history of the whole case, and that she is striving to hide what 
 she knows for her children's sake. Of course people say she has behaved 
 very ill, — that she ought to sell and restore to the bank real estate and prop- 
 erty that from time to time Mr. Percival had settled upon her. But she 
 only goes into hysterics when lawyers are mentioned. Mr. Guthrie is now 
 in a highly nervous and excitable' state, which naturally reacts upon Nita. 
 I wish we could get her away from here. He went West, you remember, 
 when he left her with us at Pawnee. . He went in the hopes of finding some 
 trace of Mr. Worden, so I learn now, and to urge the immediate return to 
 St. Louis of Jack's old and intimate friend to demand justice at the hands 
 of the Percivals, for he was ruined irretrievably by Percival's accusation 
 when dismissed from the bank. But he has vanished utterly, and I know 
 that they have about given him up for dead. A detective agency has been 
 at work for months, and twice of late men have come to the house asking 
 if it were not possible to find somewhere a picture of Mr. Worden ; but Nita 
 says none exist that she knows of. I believe that she burned all that she had. 
 
 "Why will she not trust me and tell rae about it, — she who used to 
 have no secret from me? We know that he was deeply in love with her, 
 and that she was believed to care for him ; but there was a fearful scene 
 between him and Mr. Guthrie over poor Jack's body. The old gentleman 
 was wild with grief, and in his misery he upbraided Worden as the cause 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 321 
 
 of it all,— accused him of being the thief, and cursed him for concealing 
 his crime at the expense of Jack's life and honor. Possibly he did believe 
 it then ; but since Percival's death everything is changed. I believe he 
 would give all he owns to make amends to Worden now, and sometimes I 
 think that that is what is killing Nita." 
 
 " 'That that is what is killing Nita,' " read Holden again, this time 
 half aloud, as he pondered over the words. Then a sound at the door 
 attracted him. He glanced up quickly. 
 
 " Oh, come in, sergeant. I did not hear you knock." 
 
 '• I beg your pardon, sir," was the answer in Ellis's deep voice, a faint 
 flush rising to his pale, black-bearded face. " I knocked twice at the outer 
 door, and then, knowing the doctor to be here, ventured into the hall. Am 
 I too early, sir?" 
 
 " You are just in time. Come in. Shut that door and sit down. How's 
 the arm to-day, Ellis?" 
 
 Obediently the tall trooper had stepped within and closed the door, but 
 he still remained erect, a shade of hesitation in his manner. "The arm 
 seems doing well, sir." 
 
 "And yet you yourself do not pick up as I could wish. Take that 
 chair, Ellis ; we shall not be interrupted, and I want to talk with you 
 about your case. You have won honor and troops of friends in this cam- 
 paign, and when^the regiment gets back and they And you pale and languid, 
 so utterly unlike yourself and unfit to take your duties as first sergeant, 
 they will say I was at fault. Can't stand that, you know : so I have spoken 
 to Major Kenyon about the matter, and he has directed that you move out 
 of hospital forthwith and under my roof. No, keep your seat. You are to 
 report to me for special duty in making up the field papers and reports, and 
 I shall need you right hei'e where I can supervise it all and look after 
 you." 
 
 For a moment the two men sat gazing straight into each other's eyes. 
 Then again, trembling slightly, Ellis strove to rise. 
 
 " Dr. Holden, I — I ought not to take advantage of this. Indeed, I 
 cannot." 
 
 " That will do, sir," was the quietly smiling reply. " Orders are orders, 
 sergeant, and, being a patient, you are doubly under mine. What's more, 
 you can ask no question until that chevron is replaced by the shoulder- 
 strap. Miis, under ivhat name shall the officers of the Twelfth ask that you 
 be made one of their number f 
 
 Making no reply, the sergeant bowed his head and covered his face with 
 his hands. 
 
 Late that evening old Kenyon, dropping in to see the doctor, found the 
 tall cavalryman seated at a desk in Holden's library, and, as he promptly 
 arose and stood erect in acknowledgment of the presence ot the post com- 
 mander, the major strode straight up to him and held out his hand : 
 
 "Sergeant, I am as proud and pleased as your own father could be. 
 When a whole regiment recommends a man for a commission, as this day's 
 mail tells us, it's worth more than all the senatorial backing in Columbia. 
 It may not fetch it, but I'd rather have it. Now, have you any friends to 
 aid you?" 
 
 " None in the world, sir." 
 
 " No relatives? no kin ? Not even a Congressman ?" 
 
 " Not even a Congressman. A sister, perhaps ; but that is all." 
 
 " Well, well, well ! Never mind, though, my lad ; we'll see you through. 
 What you must do is get strong and well. You're but the ghost of your- 
 self, and the doctor and I have moved you over here as a matter we owe the 
 regiment. I thought you were told to go to bed an hour ago. Which is 
 your room?" 
 
 "The doctor has given me the run of the top floor, sir, but mine is the 
 front room on this side," answered Ellis, gravely. 
 
 "Well, it's time for you to turn in : so I order it. Let me see. This is 
 the 25th of January. A month from now, or two at most, I hope to see 
 you with a strap on your shoulder, and long before that with the flush of 
 health in your cheek. Now good-night to you, and pleasant dreams." 
 And the major strode away. 
 
 Only an hour after sunset the silver disk of the moon had risen cloud- 
 less and unveiled, and now, as the bugle was calling the belated ones back 
 Vol. XLIX.--21 
 
322 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 to the post for night inspection of quarters, the burnished shield was high 
 aloft, flooding tlie broad valley with its radiant sheen, throwing black 
 shadows upon the broad road-way, the white picket-fence, the glistening 
 verandas at the post. Holden, returning from a late visit to some of his 
 patients at the hospital, stojjped and looked quickly and intently up at the 
 little gallery overhanging the eastward Avail. In the front room, that 
 which he had assigned to Ellis, a light burned dimly. The Venetian window 
 of the rear room leading to the gallery was dark, yet open, and on the 
 little ledge, leaning against the casement, the moonlight gleaming on his 
 face and form, a tall soldier was gazing intently eastward. Quietly Holden 
 strode along, entered the gate, went noiselessly into the hall and up the 
 stairs. The door from Nita's room to the landing stood wide open. At 
 this juncture a person standing outside would have seen the silent occupant 
 of "Robbers' Roost" turn with sudden start and peer into the room, for 
 Holden, his eyes fixed upon the gleaming, glistening space between the 
 two rear windows and just over the toilet table, had purposely dropped 
 his heavy stick with resounding clatter upon the landing floor. " I thought 
 so," he muttered, in serene satisfaction. Then, picking up his stick, he 
 calmly strolled across the threshold and into the dark room. 
 
 " Beautiful view of a moonlight night, Ellis. That was Miss Guthrie's 
 favorite perch when she was here." 
 
 XV. 
 
 A great city is draped in mourning. On every side, at half-staff, the 
 national flag hangs limp and lifeless in the moist and misty air, as though 
 of its own volition drooping in honor of the soldier dead. Under the 
 sodden skies, through thronged yet silent streets, in long, long column 
 chosen detachments of soldiery are leading to its final resting-place the 
 shrouded clay of him who to such glorious purpose had led the Union blue 
 in every field from the Mississippi to the sea, and who through long years 
 of honored service ranked foremost on the rolls of the army, — foremost, 
 perhaps, in the great heart of the people. For days, as though in sympathy 
 with the wide-spread grief, the heavens have poured their floods upon the 
 brown and leafless slopes. All nature seems plunged in wintry gloom. 
 The black smoke from a host of stacks and chimneys has settled down upon 
 the silent city, covering it like a pall. From North and South, from East 
 and West, battalions and batteries, national and State, have been concen- 
 trating to take part in the last honors to the illustrious chief, and, dripping, 
 yet disciplined, without the stir of martial music, the men have marched 
 from the trains to the rendezvous assigned them about the town. 
 
 At last the hour has come. The weeping skies have checked their 
 tears. The streets and sidewalks along the line of march swarm with 
 ci*^izens whose hushed voices and reverent mien speak eloquently of their 
 sense of the national loss. From many a stately mansion and modest 
 homestead out beyond the business section festoons of black are fluttering 
 in the rising breeze, the flag is twined witli crape, the windows, balconies, 
 and steps are alive with spectators. And, far out on the westward avenue, 
 on a sheltered portico that projects from a solid, old-fashioned residence of 
 cut stone and almost overhangs the street, there is gathered a little bevy 
 of fair forms and faces which we saw together for the first time that Indian- 
 summery afternoon of the reception at Pawnee. The rapid trot of order- 
 lies and mounted police, sent ahead to warn the populace off the street and 
 back to the sidewalk, and the distant wailing of cavalry trumpets far down 
 the avenue, have told that now the funeral column is approaching; and 
 from the warmth of the cosey parlor, well wrapped in mantles and furs, 
 the ladies have come forth into the chilly February day, — Mrs. Berrien, 
 Mrs. Holden and her children, Winifred, whose soft cheeks are aglow and 
 whose dark eyes turn instantly, eagerly towards the head of the advancing 
 escort, Nita Guthrie, pallid, languid when unobserved by her guests, yet 
 brightening instantly, bravely, when addressed, and striving to be her old 
 gracious, radiant self for the sake of these and other visitors from Pawnee ; 
 for the Twelfth has been detailed especially to lead the escort of the great 
 commander, and all the way from the frontier and only a few days home 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 323 
 
 from the stirring scenes of its fierce campaign the regiment has been 
 brought hither by the orders of a general who knows their worth as well he 
 knows their wrongs, and whose soldier heart has felt for them in all their 
 trials. It was in his power to give this honor to others, but, though his 
 own old regiment is within easy call, he means that the people shall see for 
 then^elves what manner of men are these whom press and pulpit have 
 assailed and against whose fair fame the shafts of slander have been hurled, 
 only to fall blunted and broken, or, like boomerangs, come hurtling back 
 about the ears of the thrower. Vindicated by the verdict of his peers, 
 doubly vindicated by the highest powers of the land, gray -haired Farquhar 
 is chosen to command the escort, and, though the flower of the nation's 
 soldiery marches in the funeral train this day, the eyes of all the gathered 
 throng are strained to see and hail and honor the standard and the guidons 
 of the men who bore the brunt of battle only two short months gone by. 
 
 And with the squadrons and the guns from Pawnee came such of the 
 wounded officers as were well enough to be transported hither, and with 
 them half a dozen of the ladies of the garrison. To the huge delight of the 
 old battalion, two of whose troops are cruelly thinned in numbers now, the 
 jovial major is permitted by Dr. Holden to mount " Old Glory" and take 
 his position in front of the line. To the tremulous joy of Winifred Ber- 
 rien, Mr. Brewster has telegraphed from Washington, whither he was sum- 
 moned immediately after the close of the investigation at the agency, bid- 
 ding them bring his horse and equipments, for even though he cannot draw 
 sabre he means to ride with "the black troop" on this day of days. She 
 has not seen him since that wonderful morning when, like a young snow- 
 king, he burst through the fleecy barriers about them and stood before her 
 rejoicing eyes their rescuer, her father's preserver, her lover, her hero ; and 
 ever since'in his pride he has held aloof from her and all she holds dear. 
 She can hardly hush the fluttering of her heart as now, near at hand, she 
 hears the familiar strains of the trumpets of the Twelfth, still sounding the 
 mournful dead-march. Other ladies of the Twelfth are here,— Mrs. Haz- 
 lett, Mrs. Gorham, and Mrs. Warren ; and small wonder can there be that 
 their soft eyes fill with tears. Ever since the brief and bloody campaign 
 the sad, solemn tones have been their daily music. The crape is not yet 
 rusting on the sword-hilts of their lords, worn in honor of poor Thorpe and 
 Rand and Burrows, when it is renewed for the general-in-chief. 
 
 And now the crowds have drifted back from the asphalt. The platoon 
 of mounted police has slowly clattered by. Then in long rank, boot to 
 boot, muffled in their blue overcoats, the yellow-lined capes turned back, 
 led by their veteran chief and guiding their spirited grays with hardly a 
 touch of rein, the trumpeters of the Twelfth cover the street from curb to 
 curb, the brazen bells uplifted and pouring forth their mournful strains. A 
 little space, and then, mounted on mettlesome bay in the rich housings of 
 a general officer, there rides the marshal of the parade, followed by rank 
 after rank of staff-officers, all in the sombre dark blue of the service. The 
 autumn frosts of a vigorous life have silvered the strands at his temple and 
 • tinged with ruddy glow the cheeks of that firm and soldierly face, but the 
 eyes gleam clear and keen as ever they shone a quarter-century ago, when 
 he and Farquhar spurred through the misty forest-aisles about Dinwiddle 
 and led the cheering troopers to the charge on Pickett's crouching line at 
 the Forks. He knows the fair party on the Guthrie balcony at a single 
 glance, and touches the visor of his forage-cap as he moves slowly by, then 
 summons an aide, gives him a low-toned order, and the officer reins aside 
 to let his comrades pass, then jogs back down the avenue to meet the 
 column. And now necks are craning on every side, and a murmur runs 
 along the crowded banquette, — 
 
 A murmur that fain would break forth in a cheer, 
 
 but for the solemn occasion of their coming. Eyes gleam and brighten ; 
 lips stir with inarticulate greeting ; hands, kerchiefs, and hats are waved in 
 voiceless acclaim. Any other time, and all the great city would burst into 
 tumultuous cheer, for "here rides gray-haired Farquhar at the head of his 
 staflF, and just behind them, commanding the Twelfth, still pallid from his 
 wounds, but erect and soldierly as ever, the senior major, dear old Berrien, 
 lowers his sabre in acknowledgment of the salute of the aide, bends his ear 
 
324 A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 to listen to the message, glances quickly at the balcony into the smiling 
 face of his wife, meeting Winifred's dark and glowing eyes, but shakes his 
 head, motions to Dr. Holden, who is at liis left rear, and ambles on. Hol- 
 den nods appreciatively on receipt of what seems to be a similar message, 
 reins out of column, followed by his orderly, dismounts at the side street, 
 and presently is standing by his wife's side, welcomed most cordially by 
 Miss Guthrie to the now crowded balcony. In column of platoons stretch- 
 ing from walk to walk, clear across the street, ranks carefully aligned, every 
 man's head and eyes straight to the front, the leading troops of the Twelfth 
 are now clinking steadily by. Hazlett has glanced out of the corners of his 
 eyes at the lovely picture on the gallery, but, riding at attention as they are, 
 and on duty, he makes no sign. Randolph and Ridgeway, heading' their 
 platoons, strive to do two things at once, — look as though they saw and 
 aj^preciated the fluttering greetings of hand and handkerchief and smiling 
 eyes to their right, and still look as though they did not see it at all. The 
 sorrels, the grays, have gone by, the bay troop is passing, and now yonder 
 comes Gorham over on the other side of the street, the nearest he can get to 
 his regulation position of four yards to the left of his leading platoon, and 
 out from the sheltering screen of tree-branches and in front of the centre 
 of the first subdivision of the blacks, his sabre arm still in its sling, his face 
 pale with confinement and suffering, but tall and stalwart, rides Curly. 
 
 "Oh, there's Mr. Brewster! Mr. Brewster! Oh, why doesn't he look?" 
 cries Miss Guthrie, as the handkerchiefs begin waving furiously, and fair, 
 eager faces press forward in the effort to attract his attention, — all but 
 Winifred, who, though bravely smiling like the rest, is clutching with 
 trembling hands the back of her mother's chair and shrinking behind her 
 mother's form. It is impossible for him not to see the fluttering signals. 
 He lialf glances towards that thronging gallery, and in a second the light 
 leaps to his eyes, a flush to his pallid cheeli. Instinctively his arm twitches 
 in the efibrt of the hand to reach the cap-visor, and the instant twinge of 
 shooting pain brings him to his senses. He has one brief, fleeting look, 
 however, at the beaming face he loves, and he has just time for a half- 
 gesture with the bridle-hand, a little nod, and then, as on he rides, he feels 
 rather than sees that one sweet face that beamed upon him has suddenly 
 paled, that one graceful form is now staggering back into Holden's waiting 
 and expectant arms. Only two platoons in the black troop to-day, for the 
 others sleep beneath the wintry sod or still languish in the hospital ward. 
 Only two platoons. Brewster heads the first ; a tall, dark-eyed, dark-mous- 
 tached sergeant the second. . 
 
 " There's Sergeant Ellis !" cries Mrs. Berrien, in her pride and pleasure. 
 " And he's shaved off his beard ! Did you ever see him look so young and 
 well?" 
 
 But Mrs. Holden, too, has turned, and does not heed. Her watchful 
 eyes, her attentive ears, have other work to do. Obedient to her hus- 
 band's touch, she has drawn close to his side. It is into her arms and his 
 that, with one quick, gasping, stifled cry, Nita Guthrie has fallen as though 
 stricken by a bolt from heaven. It is by these loving arms the limp and 
 prostrate form is quickly borne within and laid upon the sofa, and Holden 
 whispers to his devoted 'wife, " It is all clear now." 
 
 That night, the long ceremonies of the day concluded, a throng of fair 
 women and brave men are gathered in the parlors and corridor of the great 
 hotel. Down in the marbled court below, some Italian musicians are play- 
 ing soft, sweet music. Out in the street, under the glare of the electric 
 light, a fine regiment of State troops has drawn up in long-extended line 
 and is standing at ease while its officers are bidding farewell to a host of 
 friends upon the walks below. Here and above are soldiers of all branches 
 of the service, who with the morning's sun will be scattering to their 
 stations again. Some are clustered in the broad vestibules and on the office 
 floor. Others, the juniors mainly, are paying their respects to the wife of 
 the commanding general and to the ladies of the Twelfth, for on the mor- 
 row they too, with the regiment, take flight for their prairie home. The 
 liour is iate, and several of those present have just come in from a some- 
 what subdued and quiet entertainment given in their honor at one of the 
 beautiful homes of the city. The solemn nature of the duty that has called 
 them hither precludes the possibility of any general gathering, but the 
 dinner to which the Berriens and others were bidden has lasted so long 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 325 
 
 that Winifred began to believe it would never end, and Mrs. Berrien has 
 seen all too plainly that, though she strove to appear joyous and apprecia- 
 tive, her daughter longed to leave the scene and return to the hotel, where, 
 as was well known, many of the officers were to spend the evening. Not 
 until nightfall had the Twelfth passed by on its return from the march to 
 the distant cemetery, and as they jogged along at ease one or two of the 
 troop or platoon commanders, in answer to joyous hail from the sidewalk, 
 had reined out of column by old Berrien's permission and dismounted 
 under the portico, but Brewster, smiling, had shaken his head and gone on 
 with his blacks to the muddy cantonment far down at the southern verge. 
 Winifred was already dressed for dinner. She had liastened to her room as 
 soon as they returned from the Guthries', andMrs. Berrien made no comment. 
 She well understood that the girl's one thought was to be ready to welcome 
 if he should come : there was no telling at what minute he might be an- 
 nounced. And, though they were not to leave the hotel until nearly seven, 
 Winifred was ready at four. The mother heart yearned over her child as 
 she saw how the shadows deepened in her dark eyes when the column 
 went on out of sight in the wintry gloaming, Bi'ewster Avith it. At that 
 moment she could almost share her husband's idea of bringing the young 
 man to his knees then and there. What business had he playing the in- 
 different in this utterly unsoldierly fashion ? How dare he treat Winifred 
 with coldness? Slie had done him no wrong. Not since that night of the 
 last hop at Pawnee, the night the marching orders came, had there been 
 opportunity for the girl to speak to him at all. Of course the major had 
 been brusque and repellent, and had virtually forbidden his further atten- 
 tions ; but, heavens, that was not Winifred's doing, and botli the major 
 and herself had endeavored to show him, without unnecessary allusion to 
 the matter, that, whatsoever might have been the suspicions or impressions 
 aroused by the singular conduct of that middle-aged married flirt at Paw- 
 nee, they no longer entertained the faintest ill opinion of him. Indeed, 
 Mrs. Berrien never had. Blue-blooded herself, her faith in bon sang was 
 deep-rooted. She had always liked Brewster, but she was a loyal wife and 
 would in no wise act counter to her husband's wishes. It was now, when 
 Mr. Brewster seemed allowing his pride and resentment to prompt him to 
 this undeserved and cruel wounding of her daughter's heart, that Mrs. 
 Berrien first felt any unkindliuess. She could have made him suffer for it, 
 but that she knew it would hurt Winifred as well. Without a word, but 
 just so soon as the last of the yellow cape-linings disappeared from view, 
 Winifred had turned from the parlor and again sought her room. Mrs. 
 Berrien sent a bell-boy for Mr. Randolph, who, having dismounted at the 
 entrance, was standing, the centre of a group of friends, in the marl^le- 
 floored office below, and Randolph came up witli the next trip of the ele- 
 vator. 
 
 "Do you go with us to the dinner at the A s' to-night, Mr. Ran- 
 dolph ?" 
 
 " No, Mrs. Berrien ; I believe only those who are so fortunate as to be 
 the husbands of certain ladies of the Twelfth are bidden. We are going to 
 have a little gathering here to see Curly off." 
 
 "And where does Curly go? — and when ?" 
 
 "Back to Washington by the first train, Mrs, Berrien. He's been 
 offered a detail at the War Department." 
 
 " How delightful that is for Mr. Brewster ! Why, the Twelfth is getting 
 some little recognition, after all. Up to this moment the general's welcome 
 home is the only word we've had from a soul. Then you'll all be here to- 
 night, will you?" 
 
 " Most of us. Rolfe's here, too," laughed Randolph, " but he sat in a 
 deep window during the procession and doesn't mean to show in public 
 yet, I'm told he wants to make up with Curly before he goes to-night, but 
 Curly won't let him." And Randolph knit his brows. " I wouldn't if I 
 were Brewster. Wouldn't it be odd if they took the same train, though? 
 I suppose he won't care to exhibit that new cheek of his to Miss Guthrie, 
 Will she be here after the dinner ?" 
 
 " I doubt it, Mr. Randolph. Miss Guthrie is not at all well. She had 
 a sinking-spell of some kind this afternoon during the parade, and has not 
 left her room since. Say to Mr. Brewster for me that we shall hope to see 
 him before he leaves, will you? We'll be back about ten o'clock." 
 
326 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 But it is after ten, long after, that now they are gathered in the parlors, 
 and music, laughter, and the sound of merry voices ring through the wide 
 corridors. Winifred, the wistful look gone from her dark eyes, a soft flush 
 on her cheek, is standing near one of the high windows, the centre of a 
 group of ladies and officers among whom at this moment is Brewster, his 
 right arm still in its sling. Though she strives, after her first fluttering 
 welcome, not to glance at him again, just now at least, she cannot quite 
 control her eyes. She cannot but mark with shy delight how her father's 
 broad palm is laid upon her hero's shoulder, as the veteran trooper looks 
 into the younger soldier's face with an expression she is thankful to see. 
 All around the big, stiffly-furnished, formal room, with laughter and with 
 gladness old friends are meeting again for the first time in years,— one at 
 least of the joys of our nomad army life. The buzz of conversation, the 
 remarks of Mr. Ridgeway, who clings to her side, and the sweet, thrilling 
 strains of " Rigoletto," floating up from the rotunda, fall upon listless ears. 
 Winifred is striving to catch his words, for now her mother has joined 
 them, and her cordial, kindly voice mingles with those about her. She 
 cannot hear what is said, except in mere snatches, a word here and there, 
 but she can and does see that, though thoroughly courteous, Brewster is 
 dignified, almost unresponsive. When her father makes some jovial allu- 
 sion to his narrow escape at the Porcupine and would apparently refer to 
 Brewster's rush to the rescue, the latter seems to wave it aside and turn at 
 once to another subject. Why will he be so — so unlike his old self? 
 
 Hark ! From the street below the ringing call of the bugle ! Randolph 
 pokes his head in through the other window : 
 
 " Come out, all of you. Come and see them march away." It is that 
 handsome regiment from the Queen City. And in a trice, men and women, 
 they are pouring out upon the roof of the portico. 
 
 '* Come along !" shouts old Berrien. " Come along ! Let's give 'em a 
 cavalry seud-ofF." And away he goes at the heels of the throng. "Come, 
 Berengaria, you want to see this regiment, I tell you. It's a beauty. And 
 such a band !" But Berengaria holds back an instant. 
 
 " Winifred, dear, your wraps are not here, and I fear it is too chilly for 
 you." 
 
 "Oh, I'll throw my cape over her," bursts in Ridgeway. "Just the 
 thing ! — Come, Miss Berrien. — Where's your cape. Curly? You bring Mrs. 
 Berrien, will you?" And, rejoicing in his finesse, Mr. Ridgeway offers his 
 arm. 
 
 "My cape's down-stairs in the office," answers Brewster, shortly. 
 
 "Yes, and whatever you do, Brewster, don't you go out in the night 
 air without it," quietly remarks Dr. Holden at this juncture, as he follows 
 the party. 
 
 " Orders are orders," laughs Mrs. Berrien. " Sorry for you, Mr. Brewster, 
 but you'll have to see them through our eyes. — Yes, thank you, Mr. Ridge- 
 way," as she possesses herself of that young trooper's arm, " I shall be very 
 glad of your cape." And Ridgeway, with one stupefied backward glance, 
 recovers himself and goes. 
 
 Winifred is still standing by the curtained window, half hidden by 
 the projection of the chimney and its marble mantel. Very, very lovely 
 she is in her dinner toilet, a simple gown, clinging in its soft, creamy folds 
 about her slender form, a necklace of rare pearls, a beautiful quaint old 
 heirloom, looped below her fair, rounded throat, its pendant rising and fall- 
 ing rapidly, unevenly now, for her heart is throbbing hard. One moment 
 Brewster hesitates, casts a quick glance around, then steps forward to her 
 side. 
 
 "Possibly we can see from this window, Miss Berrien," he says, as he 
 raises the shade. And together they disappear into the curtained alcove. 
 
 But they cannot see. This window, like the other, looks upon the 
 roof of the portico, and the backs of their numerous friends are visible, but 
 not the street,— not the departing soldiery in whom such interest is felt. 
 It is chilly here by the cold, glassy barrier. A bright coal fire is blazing in 
 the grate. Both have been warned not to take cold, yet neither seems to 
 think of that fire. 
 
 " No, I'm afraid we can't see them here," says Winifred, inanely. " But 
 won't you go and get your cape?" 
 
 " I saw them to-day, and I can see them again to-morrow." 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 327 
 
 " To-morrow ? Where ?" Aud now the dark eyes, full of trouble, glance 
 quickly up. 
 
 Hear those sounds from below ! The shrill voice of the colonel : " Column 
 of fours. Break from the right to march to the left." The inevitable boom, 
 boom, br-r-oom, boom, boom, of the drums. Loud plaudits aud cheers from 
 the crowd. Lively applause from the portico. Low voices are indistin- 
 guishable here at the window. Brewster pulls down the shade ; it may 
 shut out the noise, thin as it is, and, so long as one can't see anything, why 
 have it up ? 
 
 " Wliere ?" she repeats. " I thought they went East, and that we " 
 
 But she gets no further. The pearl pendant is rising aud failing hke a 
 storm-tossed shallop. Her slender lingers are nervously twisting and un- 
 twisting her filmy handkerchief. Tramp, tramp, tramp, echoing the drum- 
 beats, the columu of fours is striding away down the applauding thorough- 
 fare. Then, as the band clears the left flank of the line and opens out 
 across the street, joyous, spirited, ringing, it bursts into martial song. 
 Where had she heard that introduction before ? Surely there's something 
 familiar. But she has no time to think of tliat now. 
 
 " I supposed -you never cared for— detached service," she falters. " But 
 — is it your wound?" 
 
 He shakes his head : 
 
 "Three months ago I would not have left the regiment. Now I am 
 better anywhere away from it." 
 
 Oh, Curly, Curly ! " What fools these mortals be !" You should have 
 sense enough to see how uttei'ly the situation has changed. You ouglit to 
 know that something more tlian gratitude has prompted all old Berrien's 
 clumsy efforts at cordiality. You ought to see i)y Mrs. Berrien's unaffected 
 kindliness that the cloud has been dispelled. Wliy stand in your own light, 
 a victim to this bumptious pride, striving to persuade yourself that had it 
 not been for the fortunes of war her father would have interposed to-day ds 
 sternly and positively as he did before, and she— she would probably have 
 as meekly, tamely submitted as she did that bitter night of parting at the 
 gate? Can you never forgive that unresponsive hand, that half-shrinking, 
 constrained good-by? 
 
 He is silent, waiting for her reply. He will not look at her, for her 
 beauty dazzles, almost drives him wild with passionate love and longing. 
 He has worsliipped her, adored her as loyal kniglit might worship his queen 
 of love and beauty. Down in his heart of hearts her image has lived 
 tlirough every instant of the fierce campaign, and reigns there now, rebel 
 ajjainst it thougli he may. Her silence daunts him. If he had thought to 
 pique or trap her into questioning, it was unworthy of his love and her. 
 Her little hands are clasping now. She has started, raised her head, is 
 listening intently. Absorbed only in her, in his love, in his wrongs, Brews- 
 ter has lost all ear for tlie thrilling, martial music growing fainter and fainter 
 down tlie street, but the look in her sweet face startles iiira. The color has 
 fled. The dark eyes are dilating. One little hand is uplifted, as if to ward 
 off any other sound. Borne on the uight wind the strains come full and 
 rich upon the ear. No wonder tlie girl is silenced, stunned. Oil for the 
 clasping mother's arms now ! Oh for the love, the wordless sympathy, that 
 was hers that cold, gray wintry morning wlien the battalion with its loved 
 ones strode buoyantly away down the winding road at Pawnee ! All the 
 heart-breaking sorrow, all the vague, throbbing, quivering pain, come back 
 to her again as now she leans breathless against the casement, listening to 
 the same sad, sweet, tearful old song, — 
 
 Love not, love not, ye hapless sons of clay ! 
 
 One instant only she stands trembling there, then a great sob surges up in 
 her throat, and, burying her face in her hands, she bursts away, she runs 
 she knows not whither. Out into the deserted corridor, along the carpeted 
 aisle, she speeds. Then to her left, wide open, brightly lighted, she spies 
 the elevator, and, with the leap of hunted hare to its form, she springs 
 within. No one there. She tries to shut the sliding door, but now some 
 one is there, — Brewster, — and his one arm is too strong for her two. An 
 instant more and he is with her, blessing the fates that had carried off the 
 attendant for a surreptitious look at the departing regiment. With quick 
 
328 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 decision Curly pulls the starting-rope, and, when the car has glided softly 
 upward just half-way to the next floor, checks its motion, then springs 
 to her side. Never till that instant had he known the full misery of a 
 crippled and useless arm. 
 
 "Winifred, sweet one, listen !" he cries, seizing a slender wrist and 
 striving to draw her hand away, as, sobbing, she crouches in tlie corner of 
 the cage, while his brave young heart is thumping with a joy and exulta- 
 tion it never knew before. His blue eyes are aflame with love and gladness. 
 
 " Listen ! Don't cry so ! I must tell you." 
 
 R-r-r-r-ring ! goes the confounded elevator-bell. She springs to her feet, 
 stifling her sobs, conquering her womanly weakness. 
 
 " Oh, do let me out !" she cries, dashing away the tears. 
 
 "I won't," he answers, with such joyous, teasing triumph in his deep 
 tones. " Though a million men a minute ring that bell, I'll never let you 
 go now, — never. You cruel, wicked, heartless girl, you sent me away " 
 
 " Oh, do let me out, Mr. Brewster !" she pleads. " Indeed you must." 
 (R-r-r-r-r-riug.) " Tiiere's that awful bell again." 
 
 "You sent me away," he calmly continues, while his eyes dance and 
 gleam, " utterly miserable because of your coldness and constraint. You 
 knew I worshipped the very ground you stood upon. You knew I loved 
 
 you better than anything in the wide world " (R-r-r-r-r-r- B-r-r-r-r-r- 
 
 ring !) 
 
 " I must go," she pleads, struggling hard to free the hand he has clasped. 
 "Oh, do, Mr. Brewster!" 
 
 " You shall,— you shall, the very instant you have paid toll, Miss Ber- 
 rien," he laughs, low. (R-r-r-r-r-r- B-r-r-r-r-ring !) "I'll put you out on 
 any floor you wish when you have said just two words." 
 
 "Oh, quick ! Do let me go !" And she makes a frantic lunge at the 
 starting-rope, but too late. His daring arm is round her now. He can use 
 but one, and that has enfolded and drawn her close to his breast. The 
 clatter of the bell is deafening. "Oh, please," she murmurs, struggling in 
 vain, and glancing up in his glorified face. 
 
 " Not until you say, ' Yes, Carroll.' Now, quick ! Winifred, do you love 
 me, just a little?" No answer. Head bowed again, and now on tlie only 
 available resting-place. (B-r-r-r- B-r-r-r-r-r- B-r-r-r-r-EiNG !) "I can't 
 hear," he laughs low and joyously, and the blond head bows until the curl- 
 ing moustache is sweeping her flushed and tear-wet cheek. " Did you speak, 
 Miss Berrien?" 
 
 "Yes, Carroll." A mere whisper. 
 
 " Louder, please. Miss Berrien." Oh, what eloquence there is in that 
 one clasping arm ! 
 
 "Oh, please let me go! Yes, yes.' yes !— if I must." And then the 
 bell rattles madly, but unavailingly, and for the instant neither hears. For 
 the instant she can speak no more, for the soft, red lips are sealed. 
 
 Two minutes later, as that brightly-lighted car glides down and comes 
 to a stop at the parlor floor, a flushed and wrathful youth confronts the tall 
 cavalryman who calmly steps forth as though on air and holds out a warn- 
 ing hand. 
 
 " Young man, if ever I hear of you quitting your post again and allowing 
 a novice to get caught between floors you'll get into trouble. It's lucky for 
 you I'm the only one who can tell anything about it this time." But the 
 wrath is gone, and with bulging eyes the boy glares at the round gold piece 
 in his palm, then at the vanishing lieutenant, and then into the empty car. 
 
 Homeward bound ! The horses are all aboard. The second battalion 
 has steamed away. Berrien's men from the car windows are answering the 
 cheers of the crowds of citizens assembled to see them off, The ladies, 
 safely ensconced in the cosey interior of the Pullman, are saying adieu to 
 the number of friends, army and civilian, who have accompanied them to 
 the train. The conductor has just reported " All ready, sir," to Major Ber- 
 rien, who goes back in command, and Winifred, clinging to her mother's 
 side, peers eagerly over the heads of the surrounding throng. Holden sig- 
 nals to his better half to come off, unless she j)refers going back to Pawnee 
 without him, and with much laughter and playful effort to keep her aboard, 
 in which the jovial major is most prominent, that popular young matron is 
 finally lifted from the rear platform. Mr. Ridgeway, who has attached him- 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 329 
 
 self to Miss Berrien's side, becomes suddenly aware that she has disap- 
 peared and returned to the interior, also that Curly Brewster, waving a 
 brown telegraph envelope over his head, has shouldered his way into the 
 cTowd and is making for the car. "Wants another good-by word, I sup- 
 pose," growls Kidgeway to himself, in deep disgust, yet comforted with 
 the thought that the train will be oft" in a moment, leaving Brewster be- 
 hind. Far forward a bell begins to ring, the steam to hiss ; the couplings 
 of the box-cars jerk and strain ; the horses snort and stamp in their wooden 
 cages ; the motion reaches the rear of the train, and the Pullman leaps for- 
 ward with sudden start, then settles into slow, gentle ghde along the 
 polished rails. 
 
 " Tumble off, Brewster !" shouts Ridgeway, in feverish anxiety. " You'll 
 be carried away if you don't." 
 
 "Shut up. Ridge," whispers Randolph, unsympathetically. "He's 
 carried away for good. It's you that's left." 
 
 "Why, hello! here's Brewster!" booms the major, as he enters the 
 sunshiny car, when at last the crowded station has faded from view. 
 "Thought you were ordered to Washington, lad? Changed your mind, 
 eh? — What, Berengaria?" 
 
 " Be quiet, Dick," whispers his smiling wife. " He hasn't changed his 
 mind. Neither has Winifred." 
 
 But Holden is not the only one of the Pawnee party who remains. 
 Sergeant Ellis has a furlough to visit Louisville, and is to take the train 
 thither. In his cavalry uniform he was at the station to see his comrades 
 safely started, and the last cheers of the troopers were for him, as he stood 
 with kindling eye and flushing cheek, the centre of a crowd of curious 
 citizens. As the train disappears around the distant curve, Holden touches 
 his shoulder. 
 
 "At noon, Ellis?" 
 
 " At noon, sir," is the prompt response ; and the sergeant recovers him- 
 self, and, springing to attention, raises his hand in salute. Holden smiles. 
 
 " I fancy that's about the last time you'll be doing that sort of thing," 
 he says, significantly. 
 
 " You may rest assured that the impulse will remain, doctor. It is 
 the outward sign of an inward respect that every day has only served to 
 strengthen." 
 
 At noon Holden is at the hotel with a carriage, anct Ellis, transmogri- 
 fied, a decidedly distinguished-looking civilian, steps forth from the vesti- 
 bule and joins the doctor. 
 
 "To Warren L. Guthrie's oflBce," is the brief order, and the carriage 
 tKjlls rapidly away. 
 
 "Mrs. Holden is with Miss Guthrie now," says Holden, after a mo- 
 ment's silence. " As yet she is to be told nothing, — as you desire ; but 
 should we hear favorably as to the commission befoi-e our return to Paw- 
 nee ?" he asks, tentatively. 
 
 "No, doctor. If we meet again it must be as I was, not what this 
 campaign has made me." 
 
 " What you have made yourself, man ! Don't talk of it in that way. 
 The Lord made you a gentleman. You made yourself a soldier." 
 
 Ellis smiles. 
 
 "A gentleman despite night prowling and petty larceny?" 
 
 " Well," says Holden, " that's something I leave you to settle with her. 
 It seems you only carried out a fair warning, though of course you had no 
 idea of the ghastly effect it would have. But you never told me how you 
 reached that balcony." 
 
 " Easily enough, doctor. I simply took a light rope and grappling- 
 hook from the flre-house, climbed up the rear porch at the end away from 
 where Kathleen and Murphy were, went along the south slope of the main 
 roof to the chimney, slung the rope about it and lowered myself gently to 
 the balcony, then threw off my overcoat and stood at the open window. 
 She had gone, and I thought I was too late, but, catching sight of the very 
 picture whose return she had demanded and which I had sworn to have 
 again as well as to see her, I was just entering, when I heard her step upon 
 the stairs. I did not see her. I do not see how it was possible for her to 
 see me ; yet there came that scream of terror and the fall and then the 
 rush. It all flashed over me in an instant that I had been guilty of a mad- 
 
330 ^ SOLDIER'S SECRET. 
 
 brained prank,— that it would never do to be caught there ; it could never 
 be explained, I was up on the roof in a second, snatched away the hook 
 and rope, crouched down to the back porch, waited a moment for Murphy 
 and Kathleen to run inside, then slid to the ground, hid the rope under the 
 wood-pile in the dark cellar, squeezed through a gap in the fence into 
 the captain's yard next door, — they were all over at the Hazletts', — then 
 donned my overcoat and joined the men running up from the laundresses' 
 quarters. Late at night, as the sentry told Captain Rolfe, I went back, 
 ostensibly to get my pipe, and recovered the rope and hook. That was 
 all." 
 
 Holden ponders a moment : 
 
 "My wife has told me what she knew of your interview with Mr. 
 Guthrie after poor Jack's death ; but Miss Guthrie would never speak of 
 what passed between herself and you." 
 
 On the pale, clear-cut face the lines of care and sorrow and privation 
 seem to deepen. The shadows darken about the mournful eyes. " I sup- 
 pose I should never have blame^ her as I did," he answers, " but I was 
 mad with grief over Jack, with helpless, hopeless indignation over Per- 
 cival's accusation ; and then, of all others, to have her turn against me as 
 she did, — that was the bitterest cup ! Her father's influence in her ovei'- 
 wrought condition was what did it, I suppose ; but she drove me from her 
 sight as though I were indeed a felon, demanded the return of every line 
 and trinket she had ever given me, — even that prized little carte de visite I 
 had carried about me for a year. It w^as then, when she declared she would 
 never look upon my face again, that I went wild with misery, or despair, I 
 suppose. I swore that sooner or later she should see me, and that before I 
 died her picture would be back here in its old place, and then I left her. 
 God knows, the experiences of the years that followed might have knocked 
 the romantic nonsense out of any man. My poor sister seemed to be the 
 only one who had any faith left in me. I wandered all over the West as 
 Ralph Erroll, mining, 'grub-staking,' working like a dog. I was starving 
 in the Hills when Brewster came to my aid. I couldn't take his money 
 without telling him something of my story, but I gave no names. He 
 doesn't know to-day anything about the old trouble, — doesn't dream that 
 he well knows the people who were once my most cherished friends. It 
 was through him I enlisted, and within three months a mine I had located 
 and yet couldn't sell for a dollar began to pay. By the time we reached 
 Pawnee my half-interest in it proved worth all my years of toil. Then I 
 thought to see her again, — tool? my furlough at the very time her father 
 was West trying to find me and undo the wrong he had done, and— you 
 know the rest. She was here, and I returned only to learn that she was 
 about to leave and that Captain Rolfe was her accepted lover. Bearded, 
 aged, uniformed as I was, I believed she would not know me even if we 
 wei-e to meet face to face ; and believing, more, that no vestige of the regard 
 she once felt for me remained, believing, too, that she was to marry Captain 
 Rolfe, I was bitter, brutal, mad enough to strive to carry out my vow. 
 Twice I had seen her on that balcony on the moonlit evenings, and I de- 
 termined that the night of her departure she should see me for the last 
 time. You know the rest. I shaved clean, so as to look as much as pos- 
 sible as I did in the old days, wore my civilian dress, and— nearly killed 
 her." 
 
 "It was a fearful experiment," says Holden, gravely. "About the 
 maddest thing you could liave done." 
 
 " I was mad, doctor, when I heard she was to marry him. God knows 
 I have realized it daily, hourly, ever since. And, yet, how could she have 
 seen me? She never reached the door." 
 
 " Simplest thing in the world. Nothing but the old principle in optics, 
 —the angle of incidence and the angle of reflection. That mirror over the 
 toilet table did the job. I saw you in the moonlight at the balcony window 
 when you couldn't see me in the dark hall, and neither of us could liave 
 seen the other had the mirror been away. Now here's Mr. Guthrie's. Mind 
 you, you've got to make amends for that hair-brained performance at "Paw- 
 nee : so no word of reproach to him. He's old ana broken." 
 
 Three minutes later the clerk has retired, after ushering Holden and 
 his friend into the private office. The instant the latch has clicked, a 
 gray-haired, sorrow-stricken man, tears standing in his fading eyes, hands 
 
A SOLDIER'S SECRET. 331 
 
 quivering and trembling, totters forward, and might have fallen but for 
 the strong arms that catch and clasp him. 
 
 " My boy's friend ! my boy's friend, — whom I so wronged !" he falters, 
 and then for a while there is solemn silence. 
 
 "Is Mr. Percival's confession complete, and have you seen it?" asks 
 Ellis, gently. 
 
 " I have, my boy, at last." 
 
 " And it clears me, Mr. Guthrie ?" 
 
 "Utterly and entirely," the old man cries. "I thank my God I was 
 wrong ! — I was wrong !" 
 
 One scene more. Pawnee again. The night train has come from the 
 East. Holden's carriage is at the station, and so is Brewster. 
 
 "All right?— all arranged?" whispers the doctor, as he springs from 
 the car and grasps the lieutenant's hand. 
 
 "All right ! Kenyon's just left him," answers Curly, and then busies 
 himself lifting the merry children from the step, welcoming Mrs. Holden, 
 and carefully assisting Nita Guthrie to tlie platform. 
 
 "You happy fellow !" she murmurs. "How can I congratulate you? 
 It's announced, is it not?" And for a moment she seems, despite pallor 
 and fatigue, the old buoyant, radiant Nita. 
 
 "Announced?" answers Curly. " My mother-in-law elect— God bless 
 her ! — says my face announced it before that elevator could reach the lower 
 floor." 
 
 They drive rapidly up the winding road, and, though plainly nervous 
 and excited, the fair guest never loses her presence of mind. She has some- 
 thing appreciative to say as they pass each familiar object, — the lower gate, 
 where the spruce sentry stands at a carry in salute ; the guard-house, where 
 the relief is just forming; the broad west gate; the brightly-lighted bar- 
 racks across the parade ; the group of trumpeters in the moonlight out 
 under the tall, glistening flag-staff. Then come the rush of Murphy and 
 Kathleen to open the door and assist them to aliglit ; the rapturous greet- 
 ing between the children and their Hibernian friends ; the fragrance of 
 coffee floating in from tlie kitchen ; the hickory logs snapping and spai'k- 
 ling in the fireplace ; the old familiar rooms ; the swinging lamp in the 
 hall. 
 
 "Welcome to Pawnee once more, Nita," says Holden, clasping both 
 her hands. "We've had enough of pale cheeks and drooping spirits. 
 We've brought you here to recall the roses, — to win you l)ack to joy and 
 health, and to your own old room, Nita. Now, will you promise not to 
 faint this time, no matter what spooks you see?" 
 
 She is trembling violently. She looks into his beaming face with eager, 
 questioning, imploring eyes. 
 
 " Come, dear," whispers Mrs. Holden. " I'm going up with you." 
 
 The doctor summons the children into the dining-room to see the lovely 
 flowers on the table. Mrs. Holden twines her arm about her cousin's waist, 
 and up the stair they slowly go. Nita trembles more and more. They are 
 within a few steps of the landing, and as they come in sight of the open 
 door Nita shrinks closer to her cousin's side. Three steps more, and in the 
 dark chamber there gleams that silvery shield of mirror between the dim 
 white curtains, reflecting the dazzling moonlight from without. They 
 reach the landing, and Miss Guthrie pauses, breathless, unnerved. She can 
 go no farther. 
 
 " Nita, it was no ghost you saw," whispers Mrs. Holden. " Shall I call 
 him?" 
 
 One instant the blue eyes dilate, wild with hope, incredulity, joy, and 
 fear, all intermingled. Then there is the sound of quick, springing step 
 along the hall. A tall, dark-haired, dark-eyed soldier fairly leaps towards 
 them. Nita turns quickly at the sound, and then with outstretched arms 
 throws herself forward to meet him. No terror, no anguish now, but, as 
 she is clasped to his heart, joy unutterable in her stifled cry, in the one 
 word,— 
 
 "Harold!" 
 
 THE END. 
 
332 ^^^ NEWSPAPER-MAN AS A CONFIDANT. 
 
 THE NEWSPAPER-MAN AS A CONFIDANT. 
 
 [JOUBNALIST SERIE&] 
 
 THAT newspapers print all they know, is a popular belief held by 
 nearly every one. 
 
 That newspapers print more than they know, is a vulgar belief 
 held by that large and ignorant portion of every community which 
 does not read newspapers to be informed, but to be interested and, if 
 possible, shocked. 
 
 That newspapers print all that they hear, is a supposition entertained 
 by the people who bring what they think is news to newspaper-offices. 
 
 That newspapers print nothing that they hear from irresponsible 
 sources, without investigation, is the truth, known to all trained news- 
 paper-men. That they do not print all they know, is known also to 
 all trained newspaper-men. That they do not print more than from 
 one-tenth to one-half of what they know, is the truth; and it is 
 known only to one or two men in every newspaper-office, whose busi- 
 ness it is to decide whether a " §tory" is worth " following out," and 
 whether, after " following out," it is proper for publication. Even 
 these men, unless they are of an introspective and retrospective turn of 
 mind, do not realize the enormous quantity of chaff they winnow for 
 the public's daily loaf. 
 
 Fierce as competition is, there could to-day be started in every large 
 city of the East a newspaper which would outstrip every other news- 
 paper in the vital interest of its news by simply printing what the 
 other newspapers refused to print. This news would all of it, too, be 
 within legal and conventional bounds of decency. 
 
 Then why not start such a newspaper? will be asked. Such 
 newspapers have been started in plenty, but none were sustained. 
 
 The reason, simple though seemingly paradoxical, is that the stock 
 in trade of every solidly-established newspaper is the news it does not 
 print. In other words, confidence is the source of every piece of really 
 valuable news; and to maintain that confidence and obtain that news 
 the newspaper-man must daily sacrifice a vast amount of readily 
 printable and vastly readable matter the publication of which would 
 cut him off from his sources of supply. 
 
 This is the reason why the newspaper-man is the best confidant in 
 the world. He cannot betray confidences in type, for fear of cutting 
 off future supplies of news. He cannot betray them in speech, for 
 fear that some one else will betray them in type and thereby expose 
 him to the reproaches both of the source of his news and the source 
 of his income. 
 
 If the theory be not conclusive, let me call a witness to the fact. 
 I may not do so by name, — too many thousands know it, — but I may 
 describe the witness as a man who for a dozen years has been con- 
 nected with the administration of justice in one of the great Eastern 
 cities. His language was, " I have always taken newspaper-men into 
 my confidence, and I have been betrayed but once." 
 
LIPPINCOTTS MAGAZINE ADVERTISER. 
 
 CAPTAIN CHARLES KING'S 
 POPULAR MILITARY NOVELS 
 
 " As descriptions of life at an army post, and the vicissitudes, trials, and heroisms of army life on the 
 plains in what are called ' times of peace,' the novels of Captain King are worthy of a high and perma- 
 nent place in American literature. They will hereafter take rank with Cooper's novels as distinctively 
 American works of fiction." — Army and Navy Register, Washington, D.C. 
 
 The Colonel's Daughter. Under Fire. 
 
 Captain Blake. Marion's Faith. 
 
 Foes in Ambush (Paper, 50 centsj. 
 l3mo. Cloth, illustrated, $1.25. 
 
 Waringf's Peril. 
 
 i2mo. Cloth, $1.00. 
 
 Trials of a Staff Officer. 
 
 Trooper Ross and Signal Butte. 
 
 8vo. Cloth, illustrated, $1.50. 
 
 Kitty's Conquest. 
 
 Laramie ; or, The Queen of Bedlam. 
 
 Two Soldiers, and Dunraven Ranch. 
 
 Starlight Ranch, and Other Stories. 
 
 The Deserter, and From the Ranks. 
 
 A Soldier's Secret, and An Army Portia. 
 
 Captain Close, and Sergeant Croesus. 
 
 izmo. Cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cents. 
 
 A Tame Surrender. A Story of the Chicago Strilce. 
 l6mo. Polished buckram, illustrated, 75 cents. Issued in the Lotos Library. 
 
 EDITOR OF 
 
 The Colonel's Christmas Dinner, and Other Stories. 
 
 l2mo. Cloth, $1.25 ; paper, 50 cents. 
 
 An Initial Experience, and Other Stories. 
 Captain Dreams, and Other Stories. 
 
 i2mo. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cents. 
 
 " From the lowest soldier to the highest officer, from the servant to the master, there is not a 
 character in any of Captain King's novels that is not wholly in keeping with expressed sentiments. 
 There is not a movement made on the field, not a break from the ranks, not an offence against the 
 military code of discipline, and hardly a heart-beat that escapes his watchfulness." — Boston Herald. 
 
 Sold by Booksellers everywhere, or mailed, upon receipt of price, by the Publishers, 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, 
 
 7J5 and 7J7 Market Street, Philadelphia. 
 
 m 
 m 
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L1PPINC0TT8 MAGAZINE ADVERTISER. 
 
 ' ' To the Public - - 
 
 CHAMBERS'S ENCYCLOP/EDIA 
 
 -•--! 1897 EDITION i-«- 
 
 is a notable improvement on all other encyclopaedias. It is as near perfect as human 
 skill and modern progress can make it. The order and method of treatment make 
 its information more readil}' accessible than any other work of reference. It is the 
 standard of excellence the wide world over, being thoroughl}^ international in charac- 
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 subjects pertaining to this country than other encyclopaedias originating and edited 
 here. It is not the highest in price, but the highest in scholarly treatment. 
 
 All its subjects are so arranged that the uneducated, as well as the learned, can, 
 without difficult}-, find the information required, and the subject of each article is 
 treated in such a lucid, simple, and popular style that the meaning is easily appre- 
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 wise of a practical character, adapted to prepare young people for the battle of life. 
 These qualifications alone make this new edition an absolute necessity in every home. 
 
 No one, however busy, can afford to be a day without a first-class, up-to-date ency- 
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 always satisfactorily answer. If the encyclopaedia is at hand it will be consulted, and 
 not only is the curiosity gratified, but also the stock of knowledge increased, and 
 perhaps ideas are suggested that may directly contribute to the business success of the 
 party concerned. 
 
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 We invite a careful examination of the volumes, and critical comparison with other 
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 ¥¥¥¥¥¥ 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, Publishers, 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, PA. 
 
RAYS RECRUIT. 
 
 BY 
 
 CAPTAIN CHARLES KING, U.S.A., 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE COLONEL'S DAUGHTER," "THE DE.SERTER," "FROM THE 
 
 RANKS," "A SOLDIER'S SECRET," "SERGEANT CRCESUS," "CAPTAIN 
 
 CLOSE," "A TAME SURRENDER," ETC. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 
 
Copyright, 1897, by J. B. Lippincott Company. 
 
 Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, U.S.A. 
 
LIPPINCOTT'S 
 JyJONTHLY J^AGAZINE. 
 
 APRIL, 189 7. 
 
 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 M^' 
 
 PRELIMINARY. 
 
 To Mr. Darey Hunter Gray. 
 
 DEAR BOY, — As foreshadowed in my last, the concern has 
 gone to smash, and your prospects with it. When its affairs 
 are settled, the firm of Hunter, Bloom & Co. will have enough to pay 
 its funeral expenses, and that's about all. What I have left is my 
 wife's, who will, I trust, be able to support me until certain life- 
 insurance policies become due, out of which she can reimburse herself, 
 through my dying, for the cost of my living. I'm too old to try 
 again, — too sad to care much, except for you. 
 
 " Your father was my dear friend, your mother my beloved sister. 
 When he died I promised him I would be a father to you. When she 
 died her last words were a plea that I should be good to her boy. I 
 accepted both trusts, Darcy, and — betrayed both. 
 
 "They died poor : I was rich. They would have had you learn 
 to carve your own career, and I loved you so that from your bright, 
 brave boyhood you were spoiled and indulged as my own son. I gave 
 you the best I had. I balked you in only one desire, that of going to 
 West Point. Harvard, London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Rome, and the 
 Riviera were your educators. I planned to make you a railway mag- 
 nate, when you hadn't learned the first principles of the business. I've 
 accustomed you to every luxury, — to a life of careless ease, to be a 
 dawdler and a dilettante — isn't that what you call it? I counted on 
 leaving you rich, and I leave you ruined. The self-reproach — the 
 misery which overcomes me as I write these words, no words can tell 
 you. 
 
 "I know what you would write and say, — you were always gener- 
 ous; but, Darcy, don't write, don't come, — just yet. Wait until you 
 get — the next news. Wait until 
 
 "However, let us get down to business. Of course you and 
 
 485 
 
436 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 Mrs. Hunter will not be apt to see much of each other. She will 
 mourn me less than you ; and you more than I deserve. The very 
 little nest-egg your mother set aside for you is intact. With accrued 
 interest it amounts to some eleven thousand seven hundred and twenty 
 dollars. You have no debts to speak of, have you? I've paid all 
 you ever told me about, twice, I think, and you were always frank 
 and truthful. That little sum, with what you have to your credit in 
 the Chemical and over there with you, represents the sum total of your 
 fortune. You never needed it before, and so I never happened to 
 mention it to you. 
 
 " But despite your defects in bringing up, for which I am responsible, 
 you're not much worse off than if you'd gone into the army (I hope 
 you've outlived that lunacy, as you did the other one for — you know), 
 and can now make a strike for yourself. You have the best of health, 
 the best of looks (for you strongly resemble your uncle as he was at 
 your age), the best of education for any purpose that isn't absolutely 
 useful, and there is nothing that I know of to prevent your marrying a 
 fortune as I did, and living happy ever after — as I didn't. 
 
 " Don't underrate the extent of ray collapse — Bloom got away with 
 what Wall Street left — or of my love. Thank God I have no son of 
 my own. Thank God I've only you to kneel to and say. Forgive the 
 blind, miscalculating, but utterly humbled old fellow that " 
 
 But here the eyes of the man seated there by the dancing waters 
 in the glad April sunshine grew so blind with tears that he could read 
 no more. 
 
 Out on the blue, translucent waves the white swans were paddling 
 to and fro, dipping for bread tossed by the lavish hands of laughing 
 children and their white-capped bonnes. The flashing oars of many a 
 skiff drove through the sparkling waters, sending snowy little surges 
 breaking from the sharp, white prows. Fairy yachts and swift paddle- 
 wheel steamers clove the mirror surface farther from the shore, and 
 tossed the creamy foam along their billowing wake. Half-way over to 
 the Savoy shore, deep in the shadow of the mountains, two white- 
 winged barques seemed wooing the faltering breeze, for not a leaf was 
 stirring in the deep green foliage that shaded the path along the sea 
 wall. Towering high aloft, dazzling in the sunshine, the snow-seamed, 
 snow-capped crags blinded the eye with their radiance as they peered 
 down into their own reflections in the sombre depths at their shadowy 
 base. Away to the eastward, lovely little towns and villages lay at 
 the foot of the vine-clad slopes of the northern shore, while here and 
 there a venerable ruin — castle, convent, or fortress — stood sentinelled in 
 bold relief on some projecting height, or nestled under the shoulder 
 of some rocky cliff, close to the water's edge. Near at hand, in the 
 public Place, the carrousels, thronged with children, old and young, 
 were spinning madly to the reedy melodies of some donkey-driven 
 organ. Waltz, galop, and military march rioted in loud rivalry, and 
 a group of Italian singers, smiling indomitably, carolled " Funiculi 
 Funicula" in nimble opposition to a Tyrolean band quacking like noisy 
 ducks in the pavilion at the water's edge. The bell buttoned page 
 of the Beau Rivage was still darting about, distributing letters just 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 437 
 
 brought in by the grinniDg facteu7\ ever a-scent for tips, and, having 
 still three or four undelivered missives, halted in front of the Amer- 
 ican. 
 
 " Pardon, m'sieu', but — ees Mees Langdon " 
 
 " Up at the billiard-rooms, probably," was the brusque answer, as 
 Mr, Gray turned hastily away to hide the suspicious moisture in his 
 eyes. 
 
 " But no. I 'ave been there. I 'ave letters for her, and for 
 M'sieu' Sm— eet." 
 
 The gloom in the tall American's face deepened perceptibly. 
 
 " Over yonder, possibly," he answered, with a sidewise nod of the 
 head towards a little arbor " far from the madding crowd" at the east- 
 ward edge of the pretty grounds; then turned away, impatient of 
 further inquiry. Some men were chatting eagerly at the fountain as 
 he passed. One of them, English unmistakably, hailed him jovially. 
 
 " Time you were ready. Gray. You're going to Chillon, of course." 
 And, with a true Briton's deep disdain of foreign names, he spoke it 
 as it was spelled. 
 
 " No," was the answer ; " I'm going to cool off." 
 
 " Been getting a red-hot letter, as you Yankees say, I suppose," 
 the Islander went on, impervious to satire. 
 
 "That's about the size of it," answered Gray, without halting. 
 Two of the men looked after him with no little concern in their 
 eyes. Others hailed him as he passed them by. Gray was evidently 
 popular. A woman, in billowing laces and a parasol chair, smiled 
 largely upon him as he raised his straw hat, and bade him pause, but 
 prevailed not. Two younger women, in trim walking attire, nodded 
 coquettishly and said it was the very day for the trip ; them, too, he 
 answered only vaguely, and, with a far-away look in his deep blue eyes, 
 he passed on to the telegraph office, and the group of smoking men 
 broke up. 
 
 " Something's amiss with Gray," said one of the party, a New- 
 Yorker. " I'll go see." 
 
 " I don't see what there was in the size of the letter to upset him," 
 said the Euglishman, unconscious of slang that was not Britannia 
 ware. " Gray's a good sort, though. Could a fellow do anything, 
 d' you suppose ?" 
 
 But the pursuer was slow. Seeing him coming, and divining his 
 object, Mr. Gray slipped out of the side door, dived through the 
 shrubbery that bordered a winding drive-way to the west, and took 
 himself off through the crowded Place. He had need to be alone, — 
 to face his changed fortunes fair and square. 
 
 Twenty-five years old, and up to the midweek mail from America 
 he had never known a care since boyish days, unless it was some 
 momentary heart-pang when Amy Langdon proved unkind. In a 
 dawdling, amateurish way he had read the daily papers and signed 
 some letters and reports laid before him by an attentive clerk in the 
 office of the Eastern traffic manager of a great road of which his uncle 
 was a heavy stockholder and prominent director. The most serious 
 thing he had ever undertaken was his membership in a crack city 
 
438 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 regiment, wherein he had served through the ranks and really earned 
 a commission. But both these avocations he had quitted during the 
 previous winter, and all because Amy Langdon was reported flirting 
 dangerously at Nice and Mentone, and if she were not actually engaged 
 to Darcy Gray he at least felt so far engaged to her that flirtation was 
 denied him. 
 
 As pretty a girl as ever rode in Central Park was Amy, and as 
 dashing a horsewoman, and it was Gray's admirable riding and uni- 
 versally acknowledged prospects that made him for the time so accept- 
 able a parii. He could manage a horse far better than he could a 
 woman, however, and Miss Langdon kept him at her side when in 
 saddle and subject to call at all other times. But she had, not un- 
 kindly, laughed off" his protestations and dissected his offers. " It's 
 absurd, Darcy. You haven't a cent in the world that doesn't come 
 from your uncle, and who knows what his wife will do with his for- 
 tune, — or he himself, for that matter? As for me, I'm a beggar with 
 social aspirations. Come, be sensible, and I'll like you better. Be a 
 soldier, Darcy, and face the facts. That's the one thing you're cut out 
 for." 
 
 " You're hard-hearted. Amy," he had answered. 
 
 "No; only hard-headed. I'm soft-hearted enough to like you 
 too well to spoil both our lives." 
 
 Gray believed himself much in love when she went abroad in 
 November, and took it much to heart that she should be so constantly 
 attended by Fred Smythe, who had no atom of sense in his head, but 
 no end of dollars in his pocket. But when a lordling — a younger son 
 of an older house than ever dwelt in Gotham — an Honorable, between 
 whom and the title and estates was a lord with only one lung and that 
 fast going — had opposed his sighs to those of Smythe, and there came 
 rumors that Locksley Hall was to be enacted over again with an 
 American Amy in the foreground, Darcy Gray believed it time to rush 
 for the Riviera, and a worried old uncle most unwillingly let him go. 
 Hunter loved that boy, his sister's son, as the apple of his eye. There 
 wasn't anything he wouldn't have given him but the means of earning 
 his own living. All that he proposed to settle magnificently. But 
 the bottom began to drop out of the market in mid- January, and left 
 him stranded high and dry by the middle of May. Two million 
 dollars, said Wall Street, had "gone where the woodbine twineth." 
 
 Over beyond the hurly-burly of the public Place, crowded with 
 townfolk and children, the road-way wound along the water's edge. 
 Gray strode rapidly westward, his head bowed, his hands thrust deep 
 in his trousers- pockets. He missed his usual companions, a heavy 
 stick and a nimble fox-terrier, but both had been left with the portier 
 as inappropriate to a voyage to Chillon. They were to have started, a 
 merry party it proinised to be, by the early boat from Geneva, and he 
 could see her now cleaving the limpid waters around the headland of 
 Morges. It was time to warn his companions that he could not go. 
 One girl, at least, might miss him, and she should be accorded oppor- 
 tunity to name some other escort. Amy, — "Amy, shallow-hearted." 
 She had disappeared with that brainless ass half an hour ago, possibly 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 439 
 
 to console him for the fact that he was not one of the dozen bidden by 
 Madame la Comtesse to be of the party to voyage with her to the 
 famous castle, breakfast with her aboard La France, and dine en fHe 
 at Montreux. Vane, the Briton, was one, and small comfort did he 
 afford Smythe by bidding him jolly up, and perhaps Madame would 
 let him in for post- prandial coffee at Montroo. 
 
 Gray had never been able to stomach Smythe ; he called him an 
 insupportable cad ; but when, at a turn in the path, he came suddenly 
 upon the combination of brainless ass and insupportable cad squatted 
 on a stone, elbows on knees, his fuzzy jowls deep sunken in his hands, 
 his eyes on the far-away line of the Savoy shore, the intruder relented. 
 Here was woe perhaps as deep as his own. 
 
 But in this case misery loved not company, and Smythe was surly. 
 No ; there wasn't anything Gray could do for him, thanks. He was 
 feeling seedy, that was all. It was plain to see that the interview with 
 Miss Langdon had left him sore at heart. Gray stood another moment, 
 irresolute. There was absolutely no reason why he should do the fel- 
 low a good turn. Smythe hated him and plainly showed it. But 
 Gray had ignored his spleen, and ever good-humoredly tolerated him. 
 It is easy for a man to forgive another's jealousy. But Gray had 
 suffered too much from Miss Langdon's caprice not to know the 
 symptoms when so patent as they were in Smythe. Ill fortune makes 
 some natures magnanimous, — rare natures, — and Gray turned again. 
 
 " Look here, old man" (" old chap" had not then come into vogue), 
 " if I can't do anything for you, you can for me. I was to have gone 
 with that party, you know, to Chillon this morning. Yonder comes 
 the boat now. Go to Madame for me, like a good fellow, and tell her 
 I've just received ill tidings from home. I've got to go to Geneva by 
 the ten o'clock train. I was paired off with Miss Langdon. Tell 
 Madame I'm awfully sorry, but I can't go. She'll ask you in my 
 place — see if she doesn't. So long." 
 
 And in another minute he was breasting the heights to Lausanne, 
 while Smythe was speeding to Beau Rivage. 
 
 It was late that evening when he returned from a solemn day with 
 the bankers, the consul, and certain tradesfolk whose prospects, tem- 
 poral and eternal, he was given to understand were shattered by his 
 cancellation of certain orders for furs and bijouterie. Heavy levy was 
 made on his check-book to solace their suffering, but there is a certain 
 recklessness of cost when one's financial tether is nearly at an end. 
 Dinner was over at Beau Rivage. The band was playing delightfully 
 in the south portico. Men in evening dress were sauntering and 
 smoking and sipping coffee about the corridor. A few American and 
 English girls with their escorts were dancing in the salon. Gray was 
 still in " knickers," and had dined solus at the Hotel Terminus. He 
 paused at the portico and gazed in at the scene of mirth, luxury, and 
 enjoyment wherein he had been so thoroughly at home, and contrasted 
 unflinchingly the scene with that which he had planned for his future. 
 Now it was necessary for him to get to his room to write, and he hoped 
 to reach it unobserved, but the Honorable Rokeby had received his 
 instructions and nabbed him. 
 
440 RAY S RECRUIT. 
 
 " Eoh, / say, Gray — Miss Langdon, y' know, wished to speak with 
 you directly you came iu." 
 
 " Yes," vvas the languid answer; "and where is she now?" 
 
 " In their salon, I fancy. She said she was too tired to dress for 
 dinner. Had a beastly day, y' know." 
 
 Gray nodded, slowly ascended the winding stairway, and tapped at 
 the door in the west corridor. 
 
 " 'Trez," answered a boyish voice, and Darcy was exuberantly 
 welcomed by a ten-year-old Langdon. " The mater and sis are having 
 a row in the gallery," said he, radiantly. " Old Smythe's been pester- 
 ing her. Go out there : they don't mind you, you know, and I can't 
 get away from here until they've finished." 
 
 But further confidences were ended by the sudden entrance of Miss 
 Langdon herself. She had evidently been watching for Gray's return. 
 Outstretched to him in eager greeting were Amy's long, slender white 
 hands; uplifted to his in anxious inquiry were a pair of the softest, 
 loveliest eyes. The voice in which she spoke was soft, almost tremu- 
 lous. '• What is it, Darcy ?" 
 
 And the hand sidled into his, and Miss Langdon to a sofa whither 
 she would have drawn him ; but, despite the hand, which, despite 
 itself, he released, he remained on his feet and concisely answered, — 
 
 " What you expected." 
 
 " From Mr. Hunter ? — Gerald, go down and play with Ralph 
 until mother sends for you." 
 
 " Ralph isn't there," was the petulant answer. 
 
 " Then go and play ; go anyhow." Then she turned for answer. 
 "From Mr. Hunter?" 
 
 <'Yes." 
 
 "And it's true?" 
 
 " Yes, every cent." 
 
 Then the hands would be no longer denied. Both went impul- 
 sively out, seized his with no timid grasp, and drew him impetuously 
 down beside her. Then to his amaze he saw the fair face quivering 
 piteously, the lovely eyes brimming with tears, the soft red lips twitch- 
 ing with uncontrollable emotion. " Oh, you poor, dear boy — oh, 
 Darcy, Darcy, I never — I never knew how much I cared for you till 
 now," she almost sobbed. " Gerald, if you don't leave this room 
 instantly I'll " 
 
 But the boy bolted, and then Darcy saw that she was gazing up at 
 him through a briny depth of tears. Even in his surprise, even in the 
 thrill of joy with which he heard this fond confession, he recaptured 
 himself, as it were, in the nick of time. 
 
 "Under the circumstances, that's something I didn't expect to 
 hear," said Darcy. 
 
 " Under other circumstances you wouldn't have heard it," said 
 Amy. 
 
 " It's a bit rough on Smy the, isn't it ?" 
 
 " It in no wise concerns him. As for Rokeby, he must take me 
 just as I am." 
 
 "Oh," said Gray, looking fairly at her at last, and beginning to 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 441 
 
 tug at the hand she still held in her two, " it's to be an inter- 
 national affair, is it ? And I am addressing the future Countess of 
 Lancaster ?" 
 
 " Listen to reason, Darcy," said Miss Langdon, regaining dignity 
 and self-possession at sight of the hunger in his eyes. " I have no 
 money. I have every ambition, every longing, every desire that only 
 position and money can gratify. I like you better than any man I 
 ever knew, yet I wouldn't marry you, because you hadn't enough to 
 offer, and I never so fully felt that I could and would marry you as 
 now — when I can't. Even Mr. Smythe, with half a million, could 
 not buy. I am going to a higher bidder, — the highest I could find. 
 So far as I'm concerned, that settles my fate, but it's yours I care 
 about, Darcy. You've been a dawdler and a do-nothing all your life. 
 What will you do now?" 
 
 '' Be true to my friends — and their estimate of me, probably. You 
 wouldn't have me to disappoint them, would you?" 
 
 "What on earth do you mean? Speak sensibly, Darcy. I've 
 never been worth your trust when you gave it. Now I'm honest with 
 you. What will you do ?" 
 
 " What they all prophesied, — nothing," 
 
 " Darcy, you have brains and energy. You have — persistence 
 enough to win anything — that's worth having," she concluded, lamely. 
 
 There was a subdued sound of sniffling on the balcony without. 
 Over the moonlit Alpine sea the mater was gazing towards the shores 
 of France and wondering if many mothers had such trials as daughters 
 at whose farthingales dangled half the eligibles in society. Smythe's 
 mother, it seems, had taken up the pen to second the plaintive baa of 
 her golden calf, and was dealing trenchant blows at her old crony, the 
 mother of the belle of the season. 
 
 " Mother will be in here in a moment, Darcy. You must be frank 
 with me, and Rokeby may be up — any moment. You will stay here 
 until — you've had time to look about you?" 
 
 "I've had plenty of time to-day. Everything's settled. Tell 
 Rokeby I'm sorry I shan't be able to take him bear- and elk-hunting, 
 as I promised." 
 
 " Do you mean you're going soon, — to-morrow?" 
 
 "No," said Gray, rising, "I'm going to-night." 
 
 One instant the beautiful face beside him wore an expression of 
 utter woe, of genuine sympathy and sorrow, then decked itself with 
 winning and conventional smiles, for the salon door, opening at the 
 moment, revealed young hopeful, the brother, tugging at the hand of 
 the other hopeful, monocled. Knickers and evening dress confronted 
 each other at the threshold. Rejected Yank, accepted Briton, met as 
 do modern mortal rivals without sign of rancor. 
 
 " Er— ah— what's up. Gray ?" 
 
 " Nothing. I'm — down." 
 
 By the midnight express he left via Berne for Basel. He could 
 not face the throng of inquisitive sympathizers on the morrow. He 
 meant to skip away unnoticed, but he had been too genuinely popular, 
 and there are men, and many of them, Briton or Boston, who will go 
 
442 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 out of their way to say good words to a fellow in distress. Three of 
 them trailed Gray to the station and ran him to earth on the train, 
 and said impetuous things about being his banker, and made other 
 offers impossible to take seriously. The only thing he could take was 
 a drink with all three, until they tumbled off at the conductor's shrill 
 summons, and through the night, under the glitter of the lamps, some- 
 thing came gleaming and spinning, and he caught Rokeby's handsome 
 flask and Rokeby's parting words : 
 
 " Take a drink for me once in a while, will you, old boy ? Au 
 revoir." 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The major was sprawled on the broad of his back under the shade 
 of a spreading cottonwood, a slouch hat, battered and weather-stained, 
 pulled well down over his fine, dark-brown eyes, their heavy brows 
 concealed by its jagged brim, their long, thick, curling lashes down- 
 ward sweeping towards the bronzed, sun-tanned cheeks. The bristling 
 beard and curling black moustache concealed the lines of the mouth 
 and jaws, rendering speculation as to the major's characteristics mere 
 guess-work, which wouldn't be the case, said Captain Trotter, a physi- 
 ognomist of the first order in his own estimation, if the major's face 
 were, as usual with him in garrison, freshly and cleanly shaved except 
 as to the upper lip. Open at the throat, the major's dark-blue flannel 
 shirt rolled easily back, revealing a black waste of hairy stubble down 
 to the protuberant " Adam's apple," below which the fair skin showed 
 almost as white as a child's and well-nigh as soft. A devotee to cold 
 water was the major, even in his cups, and that, too, in days when the 
 traditions of the great war still held sway in the cavalry, and the cock- 
 tail was the rule, not the exception, at morning stable-call. Not that 
 he preached the doctrine of total abstinence or looked upon himself as 
 a model of virtue in any way. " Whiskey never did me any good," 
 was his modest explanation. " I never seemed to need it or to care 
 for it. I never saw any fun in getting full, and the only time I ever 
 did, it made me sick for a week, — a thing that never happened to me 
 before or since. If you like it, Ray, or if it agrees with you, Blake, 
 why, go ahead. So long as you don't get full and neglect your busi- 
 ness, it's none of mine." Time was in the regimental past, as the 
 major very well knew and the minors sometimes said, when Ray 
 occasionally "got full" and when Blake seemed to think it agreed with 
 him, — until tlie day afterwards, at least. But Blake and Ray had 
 found reason to part company with their old familiar friend, that 
 intimacy having led, as often do others, to later estrangement; that 
 familiarity having bred contempt; that warmth, as Tona Hood would 
 have said, having ])roduced a coldness. "Singed cats" was what the 
 unreconciled of the subalterns called these erstwhile jovial blades, but 
 never where either " cat" could hear, as each was known to be un- 
 pleasantly ready to back his views. Both officers had so far mended 
 their ways in this respect that neither would sip from the seductive 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 443 
 
 bowl, yet each was entirely willing that the rest of the commissioned 
 list should be free agents in the matter, with the possible exceptions of 
 Brady, who never drank that he didn't make an ass of himself, and 
 Rawson, who never drank that he didn't make trouble for somebody 
 else. 
 
 And about these five men, — the major, whose name is spelled 
 M-a-i-n-w-a-r-i-n-g and always pronounced " Mannering," and Ray 
 and Blake, who have often appeared in these chronicles of by-gone 
 frontier days, and Brady and Rawson, who have never yet so appeared 
 and who never will again, so far as this chronicler is concerned, — about 
 these five men and one other yet to appear, hangs most of this story, — 
 these six men and just two women. 
 
 Place aux dames, though this bivouac on the Boxelder was no place 
 for them whatever, and neither woman was there at the time, and only 
 one of them was known to any one of the men referred to. One of the 
 women was Mrs. Main waring, and the other, a spinster, was Kate Leroy. 
 
 It was a hot day, a dusty day, and the command could prove it 
 without the use of a word as it unsaddled in the grove and men and 
 horses made for the nearest water. They had marched since early 
 morn and covered twenty miles when the trumpets rang the signal for 
 the final halt. They had been winding for hours in long column of 
 twos down the sandy bottom of a vanished creek, and the sight of this 
 oasis in the desert, the clump of cottonwoods with its outlying strag- 
 glers fartiier down stream, was indeed a grateful one. It told of the 
 presence of living water, and the regiment, said Trooper Kelly, " was 
 as dhry as the chaplain's temperance sermon the night before Patrick's 
 Day in the morning." Mainwaring's four troops, being first on the 
 ground, pre-empted what grass there was before breaking for the spring. 
 Trooper law reserved to the horses of the owner all space within lariat 
 length of the firmly driven picket-jiin, and woe to the man that "jumped 
 the claim." In like manner had the major's "striker" pre-empted the 
 biggest Cottonwood for his master's roof-tree, and there, dusted, shaken, 
 and smoothly spread, were the major's blankets when, fresh from his 
 dip in the stream, that sturdy, keen-eyed, compactly built soldier came 
 back for his rest. 
 
 And there he lay, the picture of trooper content, beguiling the 
 moments until dinner should be ready, and trying hard not to go to 
 sleep meantime, with a copy of " Les Miserables," hauled from the 
 depth of his capacious saddle-bags. Having had little schooling to 
 speak of, Mainwaring was an assiduous reader of fiction, and prided 
 himself on the fact. 
 
 Presently, without lifting his eye from the page, or glancing to- 
 wards the party interrogated, who was sprawled in similar fashion 
 under an adjacent tree, the major popped the following question : 
 
 " Blake, what's savvy ke pew ?" 
 
 And Blake, without lifting his eyes from the written pages of the 
 missive in his lean brown hand, responded, after the manner of soldier 
 folk, " Damfino." 
 
 The major's brows contracted in a scowl. Suspiciously he glanced 
 at his long-legged comrade. " Thought you spoke French," said he. 
 
444 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 To which Blake blandly responded, with modest and not inex- 
 cusable hesitancy, — 
 
 " We-11 — er — not always. Isn't it — possibly, sauve qui peutf" 
 
 " Well, sove ke pw/i, then," responded Mainvvaring, with disdainful 
 emphasis on the convenient monosyllable. " What's that ?" 
 
 " That," said Blake, " is what the girls say when Brady tries to 
 dance, — Jump for your lives and — Brady take the hindmost. It's 
 polite French for 'the jig is up.'" 
 
 Ca})tain Ray, stretched at ease upon a costly Navajo blanket of 
 which he was inordinately proud, reached out with his moccasiued foot 
 and indented the canvas re-enforcement of his comrade's field riding- 
 breeches, " Quit it, Blake," he muttered. 
 
 But the major needed no man to protect his interests. He might 
 not know French, but he knew Blake, and liked him, — ordinarily. 
 
 " I more than half thought you didn't know. Legs," he said, with 
 a yawn. "Legs" was a regimental pet name for the longest and 
 lankiest of the commissioned list. " You West Pointers have nearly 
 all had two years' schooling in that tongue, and another year in Spanish, 
 and I'm blessed if ever a one of you could speak either. I'd have a 
 heap more respect for you if you'd come out like a man and say you 
 didn't know, like Ray, for instance. There's no nonsense about liim." 
 
 Here Blake kicked backward, in delighted return of his comrade's 
 broad hint. " Well, major," he hastened to say, " my translation was 
 a trifle free, perhaps, but the phrase is a clumsy one to turn into English. 
 Ray will agree with me as to the translation. The main trouble with 
 his French is the accent. It's a combination of blue grass and 
 Apache." 
 
 " Well, he has the good sense to keep it to himself, then," answered 
 Mainwaring, still a trifle sulky, " I'd pattern after him, if I were 
 you." 
 
 " Faith and so I would, major mine, did not my innocent associates 
 so often take me for a lexicon. But, now, you ought to speak French 
 like a native. Mrs. Mainwaring does. You couldn't have a better 
 teacher, and Stannard says all a man needs to learn anything in this 
 world is brains and time. You've got lots of — time." 
 
 " What's that about Stannard ?" interrupted the major, sharply, and 
 Blake's diversion had told, as he meant that it should. If there was 
 one man in the army of whom Mainwaring was jealous, it was Stan- 
 nard. He, like Stannard, had been a capital troop commander for 
 years. He had attained, at last, the rank of major, vice Barry pro- 
 moted, only a year or so after Stannard; had served just as well as 
 had Stannard ; had as fine a war record, and an honored and honor- 
 able name; had a charming wife, health, and competence, yet mourned 
 in secret — even at times made audible moan — over the fact that among 
 the officers and men of the regiment what Stannard said, thought, did, 
 was never to be questioned. Stannard was authority on all points 
 of soldiering ; Stannard was the expert engineer, builder, draughtsman, 
 topographer, and all-round military "sharp;" while he, Mainwaring, 
 whose troop had been a model, whose battalion was now really in finer 
 shape than Stannard's, and who had abundant means and spent where 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 445 
 
 Stanuard saved, was looked upon iu tlie cavalry as a good soldier, a 
 fine officer, despite his surly mannerisms, and yet because he hadn't 
 enjoyed Stannard's advantages and a college, or even high school, 
 training, he must submit to perennial playing of second fiddle. It set 
 him against Stannard, and it led eventually to trouble. 
 
 " If you'd only be wise, Leonard," his brighter better half had 
 said to him, "you wouldn't ask questions of Blake, Look it up in the 
 encyclopaedia, or even ask me." 
 
 '" Why, hang it, Laura !" interrupted the major, " half my years 
 are spent in saddle out in the field. You and the encyclopaedia are 
 a month's march away. I can't help wanting to know what things 
 mean." 
 
 " Then ask Captain Truscott or Captain Freeman." She knew 
 too much to wound him by suggesting Stannard. " Blake's propensity 
 to burlesque everything is irresistible unless you happen to be alone 
 with him." And Mainwaring would promise, and despite his promise 
 would fall, for, as he frankly admitted, he couldn't help wanting to 
 know, you know, and, as it never occurred to him that he could mis- 
 pronounce any word, foreign or domestic, poor Mainwaring was eter- 
 nally putting his foot in it. He and Tommy Hollis were Blake's 
 entire delight, and neither man could resent his witticisms, even when 
 they verged on the personal, for Blake, like Ray, was a regimental 
 idol because of deeds that won a tribute outvying the Victoria Cross or 
 Congressional Medal of Honor. Mainwaring swore by both as soldiers, 
 and Hollis fairly worshipped Blake. But Tommy was away on other 
 duty just now, and the shafts of the long-legged captain's ridicule fell 
 most improperly on his sluggish-witted chief. 
 
 Blake did not thoroughly like him. He thought Mainwaring 
 selfish, opinionated, and conceited. He admitted him to be a first-rate 
 soldier, a fine drill-master and tactician, a truthful, honest, and pure- 
 minded man, a devoted husband and father, — in fact, one of the repre- 
 sentative men of the cavalry. It wasn't that he was narrow (his 
 tolerance on the whiskey question was an evidence that he was not), yet 
 he was " butt-headed," said Blake. " He's perpetually referring to Ray 
 and to me as the exponents of the liquor habit, when both of us quit 
 long ago. We all like Stannard, and he doesn't; at least he is always 
 ready to disparage anything Stannard says or does, and if he were 
 Stannard's senior instead of junior he'd overrule any decision or order 
 of Stannard's just because it was Stannard's. So when he comes out 
 with his bulls I can't help goading him a bit. Somebody's got to keep 
 him in check, or we'll be getting the laugh from those fellows of the 
 Eleventh and Twelfth." 
 
 " They wouldn't see the blunders, Blake, only you show 'em up," 
 said Ray, in remonstrance, and with not a little reason, for Blake 
 was incorrigible. " Some day you'll cut Mainwaring to the quick, 
 and he comes of a stock that hits hard and doesn't forgive easy or 
 forget at all. Better hold off. Legs." 
 
 And " hold off" Legs had to for several days of a dreary home- 
 ward march, dreary because the colonel meant to rest the horses thor- 
 oughly after a fierce and furious chase and campaign, and so made 
 
446 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 short marches where the officers and men would gladly have made two 
 a day. The road was dusty, the October sunshine was hot and dry, 
 the nights were snapping cold, but here at last they were only one day 
 out from their new station, Fort Ransom, and Blake had broken bonds 
 again. Raising himself on elbow and peering across the blue-shirted 
 shoulder of his friend, Ray could see that Mainwaring was still 
 glowering at him, and evidently pondering over that reference to 
 his having time enough to learn anything. As yet its full signifi- 
 cance was not apparent, but it was the policy of wisdom to distract his 
 attention and set his wits to work on something else. Like the horse, 
 which noble animal Mainwaring almost worshipped, he could consider 
 only one point at a time. So up rose Ray and strolled over to him. 
 '• If you've no objections, major, I'd like to ask the colonel to let my 
 quartermaster sergeant ride into Ransom to-night. He tells me his 
 wife is quite ill. The ambulance is going, and will give him a lift. 
 We'll lead his horse with the troop to-morrow." 
 
 "Why not ride him in to-night?" asked Mainwaring, who had served 
 but little under Atherton since the war, and knew not how strict were 
 his rules regarding horses. 
 
 " Because the colonel wishes every horse to share and share alike. 
 The sergeant's horse would have an extra twenty miles if ridden in 
 to-night. Yonder comes Stannard's battalion now," he said, pointing 
 to the dust-cloud sailing slowly towards them from the north. " He'll 
 bivouac above us, I reckon." 
 
 "Yes, and spoil our water, like as not," growled Mainwaring. 
 " But we've got the grass and shade," 
 
 " Devil doubt you," muttered Blake, " and you've got the best of 
 both." Then, aloud, " Ask the old man, with my compliments, if I 
 may do him the honor of dining with him to-morrow, Billy. Mrs. 
 Atherton has everything ready for his coming, I'll be bound, while 
 your better half and mine and the major's here can't come till we get 
 there and choose quarters." 
 
 " Mrs. Mainwaring will be there quicker than I will," said the 
 major, promptly. 
 
 " That's all easily explained, Mrs. Mainwaring knows the major's 
 quarters can go to nobody but the major, and she can move in at once. 
 We poor devils of troop-leaders must wait till our seniors have chosen. 
 What's more, Mrs. Mainwaring has no nurse and babies to look after." 
 
 "No, but she's bringing a companion with her, in the shape of her 
 niece that she's often talked to me about. I think I told you about 
 her, — Miss Leroy. She's been abroad for a year, and wants to come 
 and see something of her own country. They ought to reach Butte 
 to-night, or early in the morning." 
 
 " Will she?" exclaimed Blake. "Then like as not she'll have an 
 escort : Rawson's coming out with a batch of recruits." 
 
 " Bah !" growled Mainwaring, who had little use for Rawson or 
 any other officer who was away on leave when his regiment was in the 
 field. " Mrs. Mainwaring's never met him, and, if she had, would 
 feel mighty small security in his escort, — a fellow that'll be held up 
 with a whole car-load of passengers by only two robbers." 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 447 
 
 Mainwaring alluded to a matter that was a sore spot in the — th 
 and that never yet had been fully explained. But Mr. Rawson, three 
 months earlier that summer, had unquestionably been relieved of his 
 few valuables at the point of the pistol on the K. P. Road. The regi- 
 ment meant to worry the life out of him when he rejoined, but didn't 
 like it that Mainwaring, a new-comer, should be the first to crack the 
 whip. Blake almost wanted to blaze up, but thought it best perhaps 
 to wait for Ray, and so subsided. 
 
 Ray, however, had sauntered out to the edge of the scanty patch 
 of timber, and, shading his eyes with his brown hand, was scanning 
 with professional interest the long column of dusty troopers, two abreast, 
 that came filing into view around a little point five hundred yards 
 away. Well out in their front, short, square, and stocky, rode their 
 major, his adjutant, trumpeter, and orderly jogging along behind. To 
 him rode the colonel's messenger, the regimental adjutant, and pointed 
 out a line some distance up-stream. Thither the head of column 
 veered, moving at steady walk. The guidon-bearer, at a signal from 
 the battalion adjutant, spurred out to the front, and, with the old 
 silken swallow-tail streaming in the wind, loped across the level to a 
 point ten yards or so from the bank, was halted there by the young 
 officer in person, and then, lance at rest, he and his horse stood motion- 
 less. Never quickening the pace, the captain at the head of Stannard's 
 foremost troop directed his march on this living guide-post. The guidon 
 of the second troop, followed speedily by those of the third and fourth 
 in like manner, darted out across the prairie, each in succession being 
 halted and established at half-distance in rear of his predecessor on 
 the line of guides. Each troop directed itself upon its own color; 
 each in succession formed line to the left as its leading two came oppo- 
 site the guidon ; each was aligned to the right ; then, without loss of 
 time, the trumpets sounded, " Prepare to dismount ;" the brown carbines 
 were jerked from their sockets and tossed over the right shoulder as 
 the odd-numbered troopers rode clear of the rank. '' Dismount," 
 clamored the trumpet, and down out of sight sank some fifty-odd blue 
 flannel shirts and rusty old hats in each line. " Form rank." And 
 out from among the chargers popped the vanished riders, each laying 
 hold of the reins close to the bit as the line reformed and the captain 
 said his brief speech : *' Water as soon as you like, men, and graze 
 well out to the north until nightfall. No side lines necessary to-day. 
 Dismiss the troop, sergeant." And the next thing a dozen men were 
 scampering like mad, lariats and picket-pins swinging, heading for the 
 most promising patches of grass. Each picket-pin was stamped home, 
 the lariats uncurled to their full length, and then back ran the troopers 
 to unsaddle and lead to water. Ten minutes more, and the chargers 
 of Stannard's battalion, perhaps two hundred and fifty in all, were 
 being slowly driven in four distinct herds well out upon the north- 
 ward slopes, where, after a preliminary roll, each horse set contentedly 
 to grazing. Those pre-empted patches close at hand were reserved for 
 their further use at night. 
 
 And then the little cook-fires began to blaze along the bank, and 
 the pack-trains shambled in, and were unloaded in the twinkling of an 
 
448 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 eye. The mules went blinking off to water, and the major, never 
 quitting his saddle until his last trooper dismounted, slowly lowered 
 himself to earth and went off in search of the colonel. 
 
 " If you've no objections, sir, I'd like to send a sergeant in ahead 
 to-night." 
 
 " Why, Stannard," said the colonel, looking up from under his hat- 
 brim in some surprise, " that's just what Ray's been asking. Any- 
 thing amiss ?" 
 
 " Well, his time expires to-morrow, sir. It's old Bannon, of ' B' 
 Troop, and he'd like to catch the East-bound train, so's to have all the 
 time possible to go and visit his children in Illinois. He'll re-enlist at 
 once." 
 
 "And your man, Ray ?" 
 
 " Is Sergeant Merriweather, sir. He says his wife's at Ransom 
 quite sick, and he's anxious and troubled about her." 
 
 " Isn't he the man that we had to reprimand for letting certain 
 horses stray up on the Belle Fourche ?" 
 
 " The very man, sir. He is careless at times, and not altogether 
 reliable, but he's one of the smartest, nattiest men I've got, and " 
 
 " Didn't he marry that pretty maid-servant of the Freemans' after 
 we got back from the Ute campaign ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir, and Freeman hasn't forgiven me yet," answered Captain 
 Ray, his white teeth gleaming. " I'm very sure I should be glad to 
 have him take her back. She's turned the heads of some of my best 
 men, and is running Merriweather heels over head in debt." 
 
 The colonel pondered a moment. " I greatly dislike to refuse you 
 anything," he said ; "but every time we come in from scout or cam- 
 paign, since I joined the regiment, no sooner are we within a day's 
 march or so of the home station — or any station, for that matter — than 
 several men ask to ride in ahead. At first even the officers did, and 
 there were as many as a dozen men. Now we've reduced it to two. 
 When did Merriweather hear from his wife?" 
 
 " The mail rider, sir, going up to the Sioux Agency, met us this 
 morning early and gave him a letter. He brought it to me to read. 
 It was written by the post-trader's wife. She says Mrs. Merriweather 
 is really seriously ill." 
 
 "Very good. Then he can go by the ambulance. So can your 
 man, major. Tell them both to report here at three o'clock. Isn't 
 Merriweather's time nearly out, Ray ?" 
 
 "Only two months to serve, sir, and he says he's going into busi- 
 ness with a brother in Chicago. I lose three non-commissioned officers 
 this fall in that way, and one of them I couldn't take on again : he's 
 all broken down with wounds and rheumatism. You'll have to favor 
 me a bit in the matter of recruits, colonel. I need six, or shall before 
 we're a month older." 
 
 " You shall have the first good man that enlists at Ransom, Ray. 
 I'm told we may pick up some first-rate material there, the mines have 
 broken so many." 
 
 " All right, colonel ; and I'll remind you if I see any likely civilian 
 hanging around head-quarters. Good-day, sir, and thank you very 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 449 
 
 much." So saying, Captain Ray wheeled about and trudged away 
 down-stream to make report to his battalion commander, 
 
 "Did he say Merriweather could go?" asked the major, glancing 
 up at Ray's sunshiny face. " I wouldn't, if I were in his place." 
 
 "He wasn't over-willing at first," was the answer. " Howev^er, 
 my fellows will all be wishing themselves back in the field before 
 they've been home a fortnight, — small blame to them." 
 
 " What's the reason you're so down on garrison life, Ray ?" 
 
 " I'm not down on it exactly, major, but if it weren't for the wife 
 and boys I'd be glad if we were forever in the field," answered Ray. 
 " Men get killed in this Indian business, but they — keep out of trouble. 
 There's Merriweather, now. He was a tip-top sergeant in the Sioux 
 campaign. He was one of the best all-round troopers and non-com- 
 missioned officers in the regiment all through the campaigns that fol- 
 lowed in the next three years, and he's been running down steadily 
 ever since he fell in love with that flibbertigibbet of Freeman's. Gar- 
 rison life and girls spoil many a good cavalryman," he concluded, 
 oracularly. 
 
 "Don't dare me to tell that to Mrs. Ray as your sentiments," 
 grinned the major. 
 
 " Oh, everything depends on the girl, of course," said Ray, growing 
 instantly grave. " Blakey and I — well, /, at least, owe everything to 
 my wife," he finished, almost reverently. Then presently he spoke 
 again. "But what chance has the average trooper? What manner 
 of woman has he to mate with, if he mate at all ? Next batch of re- 
 cruits I get should be anchorites, so far as women are concerned." 
 
 " Sailors are just as bad as soldiers," said Mainwariug, sagely. 
 Whereat Blake ducked his head under his blanket in convulsions of 
 delight. 
 
 " I know, sir," said Ray, glancing vengefully at the contortions 
 of the worn gray slumber-robe, and biting his own lip hard to repress 
 the bubbling fun. " What I mean is that I'd like to get the troop full 
 of fellows that couldn't be twisted around a woman's finger." 
 
 " You never will, Ray," said Mainwariug, thereby proving that he 
 knew human nature, if not books. " You can take your pick of this 
 gang that Rawson's bringing out with him, or of any of the men that 
 offer themselves at Ransom, and I'm willing to bet that the next man 
 you enlist will be woman-driven from the word go." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The night express was fifty minutes late already, and engine 783, 
 waiting at the Junction with her snow-plough set, was hissing and 
 rumbling impatiently. The big brown building, embracing hotel and 
 waiting-rooms, ticket- and station-master's office, loomed up against 
 the star-dotted sky. The switch-lights gleamed in crimson, green, and 
 dazzling white here, there, and everywhere along the glinting rails. 
 Bleary lamps were burning in frost-covered windows, and tiny sparks 
 
 - Vol. LIX.— 29 
 
450 RAV'S RECRUIT. 
 
 fluttered from the pipe of the solitary biped on the platform, a burly 
 man in the toil-stained garb of a locomotive engineer, a sturdy fellow 
 who limped as he stamped up and down the creaking planks of the 
 platform, his hands in his pockets, his eyes everywhere. To him came 
 forth his fireman, splitting his mouth with a wedge of bilious-looking 
 pound-cake. He strove to speak, but, finding articulation impossible, 
 jerked backward his head and pantomimed the process of serving 
 himself with a cup of comforting drink, — coffee, presumably, for he 
 was fresh from the lunch-counter. 
 
 "Come, swallow the rest of that grub, now, and be lively with 
 your oil-can. We can't wait two minutes after she once gets in. No," 
 he continued, as the younger repeated his persuasive pantomime, " I 
 had my tea at home, and that's enough. You'll die of over-eating, 
 first thing you know. Do your best now. We've got an extra Pull- 
 man and a car-load of greenhorns to haul up to Butte this night of all 
 others, and I'm betting it's snowing in the mountains now." 
 
 So saying, the engineer turned and gazed anxiously westward, 
 where even the stars seemed blotted from sight, then quickly whirled 
 about and bent his ear. 
 
 " Coming at last," he muttered. " That's old Coyote's yelp for the 
 cross-roads. Damned little wind for whistling has she left, either. 
 No wonder No. 3's late, with nothing better than that limping carcass 
 to drag it. She ought to be in the bone-yard, — ought to 'a' been there 
 a year ago. But here's the beauty," said he to himself, as he turned 
 and laid a loving l)and on the massive driving-rod of the huge 
 machine. "Lively, Scut," he added : "3's coming." 
 
 Scut was descending from the cab as a cat comes down a tree, 
 backward. "What 'n 'ell they takin' recruits to Ransom for now?" 
 he asked. " The war's over." 
 
 "It's to fill the gaps made when the war wasn't over, young man, 
 and mighty hard they'll find it to fill some of 'em, too. Jim Strang, 
 that was killed at Cave Springs, was corporal with me in Bates's troop 
 eight years ago, and there wasn't a better sergeant in all the cavalry. 
 Lo loves a shining mark, or I'd never got hit twice in one day." 
 
 " Would you go back to soldierin' if you could, Mr. Long?" asked 
 the fireman, tilting up his long-necked can as he thrust the nozzle deep 
 in between the spokes of a massive driver. 
 
 " I ? Give me back the legs I had before the Sioux made a sieve 
 of my skin, and it isn't the rail I'd be riding, but the best sorrel in 
 Billy Ray's troop, and with the best office in it, and that's first ser- 
 geant." 
 
 " It's takin' chances to be in the cavalry these days," said he of the 
 oil-can, listening to the low, far-away rumble of the coming train. 
 "Do you see her head-light yet?" 
 
 "She isn't through the cut," was Long's answer. "As to taking 
 chances, they've done nothing but take chances in that regiment ever 
 since the war; yet there isn't a day of our lives we don't take chances, 
 and bigger chances, right here (m this mountain division." 
 
 A tall young fellow in travelling-cap and ulster had come out from 
 the lunch-room and was strolling over towards the hissing engine. 
 
RAV'S RECRUIT. 451 
 
 He stopped aud listened as Long spoke, then seemed to be pondering 
 over the words and looking to the engine-man for explanation. 
 
 "How do you mean?" asked Scut, pausing in his work and look- 
 ing up. " We haven't had a ' hold-up' on the road for over a year." 
 
 "Neither have we had a head-on collision, nor spreading rails, nor 
 a plunge from a trestle, but they are only three of the things likely to 
 occur any minute, especially when trains are running behind as we are 
 to-niglit, — all on account of that one-eyed Coyote that's peeping at 
 you down yonder." 
 
 It was the head-light of No. 3, just dawning on the view at Mile 
 End Crossing, to which the engineer referred. 
 
 " Watch how slowly she comes," he added. " The old maid is 
 about worn out. Here's the girl that can shake that train up grade as 
 though 'twas made of bandboxes. I'll bet you we make Butte by 
 seven o'clock." 
 
 " I'll bet you don't, if you'll let me in," was the cool interjection 
 of the young man ulster-clad ; " for Butte's my objective point." 
 
 "What do you know about it, or about railroading?" asked Long, 
 suspiciously. 
 
 " As much as you did when you quit soldiering, and no more, 
 wherein we have much in common, Mr. Long; but here's where the 
 difference comes in. You quit soldiering to take to the railroad ; I 
 quit the road to take to soldiering." 
 
 "Oh, I see. Then you're an officer?" queried Long, his accus- 
 tomed lips framing the little word "sir" and almost resenting his 
 enforced omission of the once familiar monosyllable. Long said " sir" 
 to no one under the division superintendent now. 
 
 "I? Devil a bit," was the laughing answer. "I'm not even a 
 lance, — not even a recruit. Man, I haven't signed my papers yet." 
 
 " Then take a fool's advice and don't sign them," interposed Long. 
 "You've got no call to go soldiering. Such as you come in only when 
 it's whiskey or women or cards." 
 
 " Say it's all three, if you like," was the half-laughing answer. " I 
 heard of you as one of the old cavalrymen at the barracks yonder," 
 and the stranger nodded carelessly over his shoulder in the direction 
 of the post, established long years before when the road was being 
 built. " They sent me there by mistake. It's the cavalry I want, not 
 infantry.'^ 
 
 The engineer looked the speaker over in surprise. Away down 
 the track the head-light of the incoming train was growing bigger 
 every moment, and the rumble of the bulky approach could be plainly 
 heard. 
 
 "You don't look like a man who had to take to soldiering," he 
 said. 
 
 "Oh, I'm not," was the prompt, good-natured reply. "I do it 
 simply because I've a hankering that way, and — no other," he added, 
 under his breath. "Perhaps you can tell me something of the regi- 
 ment at Ransom ?" 
 
 " Enough about it to talk from here to 'Frisco, but there's no time 
 now. We've got to pull out with that train the moment their engine 
 
452 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 gets out of our way. But you're the first man I ever met out here 
 who would openly say he was going to enlist. They all come up 
 shamefaced like, as though it was the last thing they wanted people to 
 know." 
 
 "Oh, I never found it paid to sail under false colors," was the 
 answer, in a tone of gay good humor, not unmixed with a dash of 
 reckless disdain. "I've nothing to lose. But I would like to ask 
 you something about the troop commanders there at Ransom. Can't 
 you give me a lift in the cab? I've a pocketful of better weeds than 
 you get out this way, if that's any inducement." And, so saying, he 
 reached down into the deep pocket of his ulster and brought out a 
 handful of cigars. 
 
 Mr. Long's manner changed in an instant. " 'Gainst orders," said 
 he, briefly, gazing suspiciously into the stranger's face as he spoke. 
 "Better get your ticket, if you're going to Butte." And, swinging 
 himself up to his perch, he grasped the reversimg lever with one hand 
 and the throttle with the other. Scut laid hold of the cord and set the 
 big bell to swinging warning of their coming. The huge machine 
 began slowly to move rearward as the much maligned and belated 
 Coyote came hissing by on the fireman's side, and that begrimed young 
 man availed himself of the chance to chaff his fellow-workers in the 
 flitting cab. He took no heed, therefore, of the stranger's parting hail, 
 but Long was eying him closely and listening for any word. 
 
 " I've got tickets all right," said the lonely man on the platform, 
 "but I'd rather sit up in a cab than sleep in a Pullman. It's all 
 right, though. Have a smoke anyhow." And with lavish hand he 
 tossed half a dozen cigars into the cab as he walked beside the moving 
 engine. Then, with a cordial wave of his hand, he turned aside to the 
 lunch-room, into the door-way of which a half-score of hungry pas- 
 sengers from the arriving train were eagerly pushing. 
 
 " Only three minutes, gents," sung out the conductor. " We've 
 got to make up time before we reach the Rockies — can't do it there." 
 And he darted into the train-despatcher's office to register and receive 
 his orders. 
 
 Meantime Scut, still clinging to the bell-cord with one hand, was 
 scooping up cigars with the right. " That fellow's a prince," said he. 
 "Just look at that for a seegar." And he held it admiringly up to 
 Long to see, and was amazed at the gloom in his companion's face. 
 "Why, what's up?" he asked. 
 
 " What's up ?" repeated the engineer, as he slowed down on nearing 
 the forward end of the mail-car. " A hold-up, unless I'm mistaken, 
 and the fewer of them cigars you stick in your mouth the more brains 
 you'll have left in the morning." With a sharp click the heavy 
 coupling-pin was driven home, and Long sent the reversing lever over 
 to the front, then poked his head out of the side of the cab and shouted 
 to a train-hand he saw hurrying by, " Where you got them recruits, 
 Billy?" 
 
 " First coach behind the baggage," was the answer, as the man 
 glanced over his shoulder. " There's some of 'em now." And, as he 
 spoke, bounding, laughing, and dodging through the knot of hungry 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 453 
 
 passengers, half a dozen young fellows in fatigue uniform or bright 
 blue overcoats went hastening by to the lunch-room, followed by 
 shouts from somewhere back along the train. Presently a middle-aged 
 man in the garb of a sergeant of cavalry came stalking after them, a 
 man who seemed just aroused from sound sleep, and not too well 
 pleased as a consequence. 
 
 **' Gret back to that car, you men," he ordered, authoritatively. 
 " Didn't I tell you not a soul of you could leave it without my per- 
 mission ?" 
 
 But the recruits were lined up at the lunch-counter by this time, 
 and gleefully shouting for coffee and reaching for doughnuts, pie, any- 
 thing edible within reach. The waiter looked perturbed and hesitated. 
 The proprietor came hurrying over from his desk. The little throng 
 of passengers seemed sympathetic and interested. " Who's to pay for 
 this?" demanded the owner, as the sergeant came fuming and almost 
 fighting his way into the crowded room. " Have your men got any 
 money ?" 
 
 " 'Course we have," sung out a jovial Pat, " and the credit of a 
 benevolent and paternal government to back it, and there's ray last 
 cint to prove what I say," he added, whacking down a silver dollar on 
 the counter. 
 
 " That ain't enough by the mate to it," said the proprietor, gruffly. 
 " Come, clear out, you boys. Train's going ; no time for coffee. This 
 will pay for the things you're eating," said he ; and he made a grab for 
 the dollar, but Pat was too quick for him. 
 
 " 'Board," shouted a hoarse voice on the platform without. 
 
 " Back to your car, you men," ordered the sergeant. 
 
 " Give me that dollar," demanded the boss. 
 
 " Give us the coffee," replied the recruits, and for once the populace 
 seemed to side with the soldier. The tall young man in the ulster and 
 travelling-cap lounged up to the counter and tossed a two-dollar bill at 
 the angry manager. " Give them what they want," said he, " and be 
 quick about it. Have some coffee yourself, sergeant. There'll be no 
 other chance till you get to Butte." Then, with swift, significant, 
 downward glance at the flap of a pocket, he lifted into view the silver 
 top of a sizable flask, and the sergeant grinned and nodded apprecia- 
 tively. The steaming cups were slid along the board, the embryo 
 soldiers laughing and hustling good-naturedly, pouring the hot liquid 
 into the thick stone saucers and blowing industriously at the yellow- 
 brown flood. The conductor came to the door and stormed ; the 
 passengers began to edge away for their cars. No. 783 gave a warn- 
 ing whoop or two, and the fireman pulled at the bell-cord, but the 
 blue-coats wouldn't budge. 
 
 " Go ahead. Long. Damned if I'll hold this train another second," 
 shouted the conductor, with energetic wave of his lantern. Hiss went 
 the stop-cocks. The big engine quivered and trembled in response, 
 and with convulsive cough a volume of inky smoke was belched from 
 the stack. Scut's bell clanged furiously, but only very slowly the 
 long, ponderous train began to move. The crockery rattled and the 
 windows shook as the massive engine came boiling and rumbling and 
 
454 BAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 panting by. The conductor heard his name called by the engineer and 
 hurried alongside. "Look out for that kid in the big ulster. Tell 
 you why at Willow Springs," was the hoarse warning, as, with slowly 
 quickening speed, old 783 went ponderously on. The conductor 
 looked dazed. The joyous band of blue-coats came tumbling forth as 
 the foremost car rolled smoothly past, and, agile as monkeys, leaped to 
 the platform of the baggage and " smoker," waving their caps and 
 shouting jovial farewells. The sergeant, once more assuming official 
 relations, sternly ordered them within their own car, and bade them 
 keep quiet, that the other men, wearied, might sleep. Then the con- 
 ductor came hurriedly in and glanced eagerly about him as the sergeant 
 looked at his watch. 
 
 It was just half-past one. 
 
 "Who's your friend in the ulster?" demanded the conductor. 
 « Where'd he go ?" 
 
 " Never saw him before in my life," said the sergeant. " I s'posed 
 we left him there," he added, with regretful thought of that handsome, 
 capacious, silver-topped flask. 
 
 "Did you see where he went?" asked the conductor of the brake- 
 man who followed in. 
 
 " Thought he jumped on the next car," was the answer. " He had 
 a grip-sack, I know." 
 
 *' Go and see," was the brief order. 
 
 The official turned once more to the sergeant, who was settling him- 
 self back in his seat. " Say, you'll have to take better care of your 
 men," he began. " I can't have them bouncing out at every stopping- 
 place and delaying the train." 
 
 " You don't," said the sergeant, with a yawn. " That's the first 
 time any one of them has got oif, and they wouldn't have done that if 
 it wasn't that they were hard up for coffee." 
 
 " You should have given them coffee last night at the supper 
 station," said the conductor, wrathfully. 
 
 " I did, and it was so bad they threw it away. This was better, 
 and I'm sorry they weren't all awake to have some. They'll need it 
 before we get to Butte. What time can we make it now, d'you 
 s'pose?" 
 
 " Not before seven, if we do then. We have two freights and a 
 cattle-train to meet, and everything's running crooked to-night, even 
 if we have no other trouble. Sure you never saw that fellow in the 
 ulster before ?" 
 
 " Sure. What's the matter with him ? He treated like a nabob." 
 
 "That's one reason I want to know all about him. What arms 
 have you fellows?" 
 
 " None at all," was the answer, as the sergeant looked up in sur- 
 prise. " I've a revolver, of course, but that's all. Why ? You never 
 have a ' hold-up' along here, do you ?" 
 
 But the conductor did not answer. The train had "struck its 
 gait," as he expressed it, now, and was swaying as it tore westward 
 along the rattling rails. The brakeman was hastening back to the car. 
 "See him?" queried the conductor, impatiently. 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 455 
 
 " No, sir : he's gone back to the sleeper." 
 
 Somewere among the drowsing car-load of recruits a voice was 
 uplifted in not unmelodious song. Most of the men were sleeping 
 soundly, but the lively squad of night-owls just bundled aboard, 
 refreshed by their coffee and bite at the station, seemed desirous of 
 further entertainment. "Odd," said the conductor, "I've hauled 
 many a lot of poor devils out to Wyoming and beyond ; most of 'em 
 never came back, but I never yet saw a lot that didn't sing. What 
 on earth iiave they got to sing for?" 
 
 " The Lord knows," answered the sergeant, " and I've been soldier- 
 ing twenty years." 
 
 " Always in the cavalry ?" 
 
 " Yes, all but one 'listment in a casemate that brought me nearer 
 to desertion than ever I thought to be." 
 
 "Never meet my engineer, — Jimmy Long? He used to be ser- 
 geant in the cavalry out here. Got shot through the legs in an Indian 
 fight seven or eight years ago and had to quit." 
 
 " Know of him well, as most of us did, and I'd be glad to see him. 
 He's pulling us to-night, is he?" 
 
 " Yes, and I wish you'd come forward with me when we get to 
 Willow Springs, only a few miles ahead now. He thinks there's some- 
 thing wrong with that young fellow in the ulster. I've got to go back 
 and look him up. Meet me on the platform, right-hand side, when 
 we stop, will you ?" 
 
 The sergeant nodded, and the conductor went his way. 
 
 In the foremost sleeper he found the object of his search, already 
 comfortably ensconced in the smoking-compartment, his ulster thrown 
 aside, his feet on the opposite seat, a fragrant cloud of smoke curling 
 from the tip of his cigar. He had raised the window, and was gazing 
 out upon a spangled firmament above, a black void where lay the 
 barren earth below. Without a word, his cigar still between his teeth, 
 he felt in the waistcoat-pocket of a well-made travelling-suit of tweed, 
 took out a card-case, and extracted therefrom his railway and berth 
 tickets and handed them to the lantern-bearing official. 
 
 The conductor studied the former closely. It was a " through" 
 from Chicago to Butte, unlimited. He turned it upside down, hind 
 side foremost, and still seemed to find nothing amiss. 
 
 " Where'd you get this?" he presently asked, glancing keenly at the 
 young man from under his cap visor. The passenger, still without 
 removing his cigar, simply pointed to the head of the ticket, which 
 showed that it was purchased at the office of the C R. I. & P. in 
 Chicago. "Stopped off at Platte Junction ?" asked the conductor. 
 
 "Yes. What time will we reach Butte?" 
 
 " Not before seven. Plenty of time to go to bed and sleep." And 
 the tone of the railway official plainly indicated that that was what the 
 conductor thought the young man ought to do, instead of mooning to 
 all hours of the night in the smoking-room. The passenger gravely 
 nodded acquiescence and said nothing. After an irresolute pause the 
 conductor again spoke : "Did you tell the porter to show vou to your 
 berth ?" 
 
456 RAV'S RECRUIT. 
 
 The traveller in tweeds was evidently a youth of varying moods. 
 Chatting with the engineer he was frank, jovial, light-hearted, even 
 confiding. In the brief scene with the troopers he was laughing and 
 friendly, even lavish, from their point of view. Was it some sense of 
 suspicion, some subtle intuition that he was the object of a special 
 scrutiny on the conductor's part, — that he was being subjected to a 
 cross-questioning never thought of in the case of other patrons of the 
 road? Something in the conductor's look, tone, and manner had given 
 him umbrage. Like some itinerant clam, storm-tossed and at odds 
 with the world, he drew within his shell and clamped the jaws of his 
 reserve. Something akin to a frown settled between his eyebrows. 
 He looked coolly, almost defiantly, straight into the half-closed eyes of 
 his questioner, with a pair of wide-open keen blue orbs of his own, 
 and under his soft brown moustache his curved pink lips set like a trap. 
 For a moment he made no reply, then finally answered, " No." 
 
 Mr. Jarvis was an old hand. He had run trains over the Trans- 
 continental ever since it first bored a way through the hunting-grounds 
 of the Sioux, and many a tramp had he hustled off the cars in mid- 
 prairie, but this was no tramp. This was a self-possessed, well-dressed, 
 fine-looking tourist, and, but for the straight, sharp, American clip to 
 his words, rather of the English type. He nettled the conductor, and 
 the conductor had nettled him. Each was now bristling at every point, 
 and in no mood to appreciate the other's position. 
 
 " Well, do you propose to sit up all night?" was the next question, 
 propounded in a tone common enough on the far-away Western railway 
 a decade or so ago. 
 
 " What earthly business is it of yours whether I do or not ? I've 
 bought a berth and the privilege of using it or nt)t as I see fit." 
 
 The train was slowing. It was nearing Willow Springs. The 
 conductor had other duties to attend to, and knew he must quit the 
 field. 
 
 " I'll see you later, my cocky friend," he muttered to himself, as 
 he turned angrily away, with distinct sense of defeat, then let himself 
 out on the platform with a most unprofessional slam of the sleeper 
 door. 
 
 It was a long hundred yards up to the engine, but Jarvis hastened 
 through the day-car and smoker until he came to the recruit-car plat- 
 form, by which time the train was at a stand and he could safely spring 
 off and run alongside. Under the dim light of the station, the tall 
 figure of the cavalry sergeant loomed before his eyes, his chevrons, 
 stripes, and buttons gleaming. The station-keeper came sleepily forth 
 as the conductor stepped into the dim beam of light from the office 
 window. "Come on up to the engine witii me," he said, and, wondering, 
 the drowsy servitor followed. The platform was short, and the trio 
 presently had to spring down and trudge along the prairie sod by the 
 track side. Long was waiting for them, leaning out from his cab. At 
 sight of the once familiar crossed sabres and buttons a gleam of pleasure 
 shot across his grimy face. 
 
 " Hullo," he said. " I used to know pretty much every fellow that 
 wore the stripes in that regiment." 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 457 
 
 " And pretty much every fellow in it knew you or of you. My 
 name's Kearney/' said the sergeant, reaching up a hand. But the 
 conductor had no time for ceremonies. 
 
 " What's this about the feller in the ulster?" he demanded. " He's 
 ticketed through to Butte from Chicago, and is sassy as they make 'em. 
 What d' you know ?" 
 
 " I don't hnoio anything. But you remember that affair on the 
 K. P. last July, — the swell that shot the expressman near Wallace? 
 Well, he was just such another good-looking fellow as this, well dressed 
 and all that, with lots of money. What makes me suspicion this chap 
 is that he says he's out here to enlist; wanted to ride in the cab and 
 talk about it to me. Who ever heard of a fellow wanting to enlist 
 until he was dead broke or half starved? This young fellow's pockets 
 are full of cigars." 
 
 "iJe don't want to enlist," chimed in Sergeant Kearney, derisively. 
 "He has a roll as thick as my hand. Treated all the crowd back 
 there at the Junction." 
 
 "You hear that?" said Long. "It's just like as not he's aboard 
 to find out who's in that sleeper and who's armed in the day-car, and 
 we'll meet his pals somewhere up in the foot-hills. Better let some 
 of the soldiers into the express-car and one or two here with me after 
 we pass No. 12. Where does she side-track for us?" 
 
 " We'll get orders at Boulder Creek," answered the conductor. 
 "I'll watch our cocky friend till then. No. 12 can't pull out of 
 Thunder Gap till we get there. Now let her go for all she's worth, 
 Jimmy." 
 
 Then back to the platform he hurried, eagerly explaining to the 
 silent station-master the cause of their delay earlier in the night. The 
 sergeant sprang aboard, and Jarvis swung his lantern. 
 
 " You haven't heard of 12 at all ?" he shouted. 
 
 " Not since she left Pawnee," was the answering cry. " They'll 
 hold her at the Gap." 
 
 And now as the sergeant re-entered the stuify coach the songster 
 had ceased. The melodious sounds had given place to many a snore. 
 He glanced again at his watch, and the hands were pointing to five 
 minutes of two. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Rushing westward through the night, the great train was indeed 
 "going for all she was worth." Twenty-five miles away lay the foot- 
 hills. There began the tortuous up-hill climb to the high plateau at 
 Pawnee, forty miles of twist, turn, tug, and pull, that in the earlier 
 days of the road were never attempted without two engines. Now the 
 mammoths like 783 scorned even a pusher. But to-night she had to 
 haul an extra sleeper and an extra coach, both crowded, the latter 
 packed with recruits, the former with a joyous party of excursionists, 
 bound for the Pacific coast. It was swift, straight, smooth running 
 along the flats of the broad valley, dotted here and there as it was with 
 
458 RAV'S RECRUIT. 
 
 farms and ranches, and traversed over the old buffalo ranges by great 
 herds of horned cattle. This crisp, moonless, star-lit night all the 
 Western world was dark and still, but for the clank and rush of the 
 flashing monster with its long, dimly-lighted train. The lonely occu- 
 pant of the smoking-compartment, gazing silently out upon the north- 
 ward heavens, had forgotten to keep alive the tiny fire of his cigar, and 
 it had died unnoticed between his long, white, slender fingers. A 
 glance at the handsome watch he drew from his waistcoat-pocket told 
 him it was almost two o'clock as, after a brief stop at some unknown, 
 almost unseen, station, the train rolled on again. Tiie porter had come 
 in to ask some question about how he would have his pillow, front or 
 back, and was told it made no difference. Would the gentleman like 
 one here in the smoking-room ? No, he would turn in presently. 
 Call him in plenty of time for Butte. Then the porter tiptoed off to 
 the rear of the heavily curtained aisle and curled himself up in a 
 vacant section, leaving the stranger to his thoughts. 
 
 And that these were sad there could be no doubt whatever. His 
 face as it sank into repose looked white and drawn in the dim light 
 of the overhanging lamp. Once or twice, as he gazed out upon the 
 waste of darkness, his eyes seemed to fill, his lip to quiver with strange, 
 strong emotion. Once he bent forward, covered his face with both 
 hands, and leaned his elbows on his knees, then suddenly started, pulled 
 himself together, " braced up" as he perhaps would have expressed it, 
 thrust the moist end of the cigar between his teeth, found it cold and 
 unresponsive, tossed it away, arose, gave himself a shake, took the flask 
 from his ulster-pocket and j)assed through the door-way to the lavatory 
 where were the ice-water tanks, and started despite himself. 
 
 A haggard face, flattened against the glass of the forward door-way, 
 was peering in at him, — a face that was instantly withdrawn. 
 
 This was before the days of vestibuled cars. Seizing the door-knob 
 and laying his flask on one of the basins, the young fellow quickly let 
 himself out upon the platform and glanced about him. There on the 
 lowest step, clinging to the hand-rail, cringed and cowered the figure 
 of a man who turned his head and gazed piteously, pleadingly up at 
 the tall stranger. A tramp beyond doubt, and a shivering wretch he 
 was, for the night air was sharply cold. A powerful hand was laid 
 upon the shoulder of the crouching figure and heaved it up, and the 
 poor creature's teeth chattered as he made some inaudible plea. 
 
 " I can't hear you," said the man in tweeds. " Come in here. 
 You're half frozen." And he would have led him into the sleeper, 
 but found that the snap-latch was set, — that he had locked himself out. 
 Still clinging to his prisoner, he led on into the rear door of the day-coach 
 ahead. The lights were burning blear and dim. The passengers, 
 curled or sprawled about their seats, were sleeping as best they could. 
 A brakeman's lantern lay on the floor at the head of the aisle, and the 
 brakeman sat in a forward seat, half dozing, wholly unconscious of 
 the addition to the car-load. 
 
 "Stealing a ride, I suppose?" said our traveller, presently. 
 " Where're you trying to get to?" And with a shrug of his shoulders 
 he glanced pityingly at his quaking captive. 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 459 
 
 " To Pawnee, — half-way over the range," was the shivering answer. 
 " I've got a sick wife there, and was beatin' my way as well as I 
 
 could " But the poor fellow gave it up. Cold and misery and 
 
 hunger were too much for him. The train was slowing up again; 
 another prairie station, — they had them every ten or dozen miles. 
 The brakemau shook himself, picked up his lantern, and went out in 
 front. The party in tweeds shoved his new acquaintance into the first 
 vacant seat, swung himself to the ground the moment the train stopped, 
 ran back, and tapped under a rear window of the sleeper, and the sash 
 was raised and the porter's head popped out. 
 
 " Let me in at the rear door, porter," said Tweeds. ^' I locked 
 myself out." 
 
 The negro recognized the voice of his well-dressed passenger, sniffed 
 a double fee, and jumped for the door. 
 
 " Beg pardon, suh ; sorry, suh, but we has to lock these doors at 
 night out hyuii : tramps come in 'most any time if we don't." 
 
 But the young man smiled carelessly, hastened through the car, got 
 his flask, set the latch so that he could re-enter, and the next minute 
 was administering a stiff drink to the rag-heap on the rear seat. Once 
 more the man essayed to tell his story. He was penniless, he hadn't 
 even anything left to sell, but out from an inner pocket he took an old 
 worn card photograph and showed it to his new-found friend. " My 
 wife and baby," said he, with a choke, " but the baby's gone, — thank 
 God." 
 
 " Here, take another drink," said Tweeds. Then back to the 
 smoker he went, and reappeared with some sandwiches. The train 
 again moved on. The brakeman returned, became aware of the new- 
 comers, and came down and curiously inspected them. The liquor, the 
 warmth, the food, and human sympathy were restoring courage to the 
 abject object of a few minutes before. He looked up without a quaver 
 at the brakeman's hail, but Tweeds spoke for him. " I found this 
 poor fellow back here a few miles half frozen, and hauled him in. He 
 only wants to go on to Pawnee. It's all right : he can pay his fare 
 when the conductor comes." 
 
 The brakeman went off suspiciously to hunt up his chief and report, 
 and the conductor promptly appeared. His face grew darker at sight 
 of the two. He held irresolutely the ten-dollar bill handed him by 
 Tweeds, and looked from one man to the other in deep distrust. " I 
 don't understand this," he said. " How'd you — where'd you get 
 aboard ?" 
 
 "At Willow Springs," said the tramp. " I walked there from the 
 Junction. I'd 'a' frozen if it hadn't been for this gentleman." 
 
 " I can't change this," said the conductor. " I'll fetch it presently." 
 And, nodding to his brakeman to follow him, he hurried up the aisle. 
 At the forward end of the car he whispered, " Watch those two like a 
 cat, now. I'm going forward to get the sergeant and some of his men 
 and seat them here where they can keep an eye on that precious pair. 
 There's fun ahead for somebody this night, but, by God, they don't 
 catch old Bill Jarvis napping. You stay here, now, till I come." 
 
 But no sooner weie they gone than the tramp began brokenly to 
 
460 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 heap thanks and blessings on his benefactor, and the latter impatiently 
 turned away. " That's all right," said he. " Never mind that. I'm 
 glad to help, for I believe your story. The conductor will give you 
 the change when he comes in. Now, good-night : I've got to turn in." 
 
 " But — say ; Mister ; Stranger, — hold on one minute. I — I want 
 to pay this back — some day. How'U I know you ? Where'll I send 
 it?" 
 
 But Tweeds shook his head, waved him off, strode back to the 
 sleeper, sprung the latch against pursuit, then half filled a glass from 
 his flask, gulped the contents down, and reseated himself in the 
 smoking-compartment. " That's the first man I've found in a fort- 
 night," said he, " more miserable than I am." 
 
 With that he took some letters from his pocket, glanced them over, 
 and tore the envelopes to shreds, sending the fragments sailing on the 
 night. At a small card photograph in a flat Kussia leather case, a 
 portrait of a laughing girlish face, he gazed lingeringly, then returned 
 it to an inner pocket. " No one would know it now," he muttered. 
 Next he lifted from his card-case a dozen or more pasteboards that bore 
 in plain, heavy script the words "Mr. Darcy Hunter Gray," ripped 
 them into shreds, and sent them flying. As calmly and methodically he 
 searched through every pocket for every scrap of paper, bills or billet- 
 doux, anything that could tend to establish his identity ; glanced 
 dubiously at the monogram on the back of his watch ; scraped the 
 lettering out of the crown of his hat; took a fountain-pen from his 
 pocket and some j)aper and envelopes from his satchel ; wrote with 
 infinite difficulty, owing to the swaying of the car, two brief notes 
 which he enclosed and stowed under the flap of his bag, then once 
 more glanced at his watch. It was two forty-five, and No. 783 was 
 whistling for Boulder Creek. At last they were out of the valley. 
 Now for the climb up the divide. 
 
 " One cigar," he muttered. " I let the other go out." His match- 
 box had disappeared. He tried one pocket after another, without 
 result. Neither was there one to be had in the compartment. The 
 train had stopped, and he could hear footsteps on a wooden platform 
 and the muffled voices of men. Tiptoeing through the long, dim, 
 curtain-bordered aisle, he was suddenly checked. Out from a narrow 
 opening between the curtains of the second section came a slender little 
 white hand, holding a silver travelling-cup, and a soft voice, silvery 
 as the cup, murmured, "Oh, porter, would you kindly get me some 
 water?" Mr. Gray took the cup, filled it, restored it with a bow to 
 the unseen occupant, watched the lily-white hand, with its few treasures 
 of rings, slip back between the folds, then aroused the porter, proffered 
 his request for matches, and asked if there was any possibility of the 
 ladies being incommoded by his smoking. 
 
 "No, suh, not a bit, suh. They can't smell it when you stay in 
 the smoking-room. There's only two ladies in the car, suh. Both 
 going up to Butte, — Mrs. Main waring and a young lady with her." 
 
 " Know her name?" 
 
 " No, suh, I don't, suh. The lady with her calls her Pet mos' the 
 time." 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 461 
 
 Mr, Gray once more returned to his compartment, lighted his cigar, 
 and seated himself in the corner by the open window. The train still 
 lay at the station. Voices still echoed among the dingy wooden 
 buildings, and a light or two flickered about the platform. The con- 
 ductor's voice was presently heard. He was interrogating the station- 
 agent, and Gray, seated close to the open casement, couldn't help 
 hearing, 
 
 '' Both took tickets to Pawnee ?" 
 
 " Yes, both. Left their horses here in Hank's stable and took 
 supper. No, they haven't been drinking at all." 
 
 Mr. Jarvis lowered his voice. He was talking eagerly, but only 
 the answer was audible. 
 
 "Oh, of course; cowboys always are. Each has his revolver and 
 knife. But you'll see 'em for yourself: they're in the smoking-car." 
 
 "Sure nobody knew 'em around here?" 
 
 "Certain. They said they'd never been here before." 
 
 Mr. Jarvis waved his lantern. " Well, we've got to go," said he, 
 " but you keep your eyes and ears open, and wire after us. I sup- 
 pose it's all right about No. 12," he shouted, as he swung on the 
 platform. 
 
 The station-agent's voice followed them out into the night. 
 
 " She's coming along all right. Suppose you'll meet her at the 
 Gap. She's due there at three ten." 
 
 " Due there in five minutes," thought Mr. Gray to himself, as he 
 meditatively puffed at his fine havana, " and by good rights I should 
 have been sleeping the sleepof the just and innocent hours ago." The 
 train soon seemed hiboring in a heavy sea. The hoarse panting of the 
 engine came throbbing back on the night. The huge Pullman rolled 
 deep, first to one side awhile, then to the other, as it trailed on around 
 the sharp reverse curves of some unseen grade. Out of the darkness 
 to the right and against the northern stars loomed up dim, bulky 
 shapes, and Gray realized that the foot-hills were reached, that the 
 long tortuous climb was beginning. Up, up, higher and higher 
 steamed the straining giant in the lead, the dense smoke-clouds rolling 
 rearward lighted brilliantly every few seconds by the glare from the 
 roaring furnace into which Scut's shovel was heaping coal by the 
 bushel. No. 783 was doing her best, as Long predicted, but even her 
 superb lungs and tempered muscles could barely drag so heavy a 
 burden. Only nine or ten miles an hour was she making now, thought 
 Gray, as once more the sleeper door was opened, and the conductor, 
 followed by a brakeman, bustled in. He glared suspiciously into the 
 dim recess of the smoking-compartment, the brakeman peering over 
 his shoulder. 
 
 "Ain't you going to bed to-night?" he asked. 
 
 " Presently," yawned Gray, " if I get sleepy." 
 
 "Your friend there in the other car hasn't lost much time. He's 
 snoring like he hadn't slept for six weeks. Where'd he say he 
 lived?" 
 
 " Pawnee." 
 
 "Know him — there?" 
 
462 RAVS RECRUIT. 
 
 " No, nor anybody else." 
 
 " Never been out here before ?" 
 
 Gray was in no mood for talk, much less for cross-examination. 
 He shrugged his broad shoulders impatiently. "Never." 
 
 The conductor hesitated, looked long and fixedly at his passenger, 
 studying what he could see of his face, figure, and clothes in that dim 
 light. He turned half reluctantly away, then turned back. 
 
 " Well, if you want any sleep before we get to Butte you'd better 
 be getting it," said he, with that broad freedom of manner and absence 
 of conventional restraint begotten of years in the boundless West, and 
 then stood awaiting the result. 
 
 It came, not too soothingly or satisfactorily. 
 
 " When I want it, I'll take it." 
 
 The conductor drew away with distinct sense of another defeat. 
 He stirred up the porter with no gentle touch. " How many of your 
 passengers have got guns?" he asked. 
 
 The negro started from his seat, dazed and frightened. " Only 
 two or three of 'em, that I see," was the answer. " That officer in 
 lower 3, and two gentlemen in 8 and 9. What's the matter?" 
 
 " Nothing as yet, but I've a good mind to wake the lieutenant," 
 said Jarvis, his fingers working nervously, as he glanced about the car. 
 The porter's eyes were big, his eyeballs staring. 
 
 " Wait till I come back," said Mr. Jarvis, presently, and let him- 
 self out at the rear door. The last sleeper was dark and silent. 
 Every curtain seemed drawn. Jarvis found his bunch of keys, and 
 after a few seconds' fumble opened the door. The air within was close, 
 almost stifling, for every section was occupied. He found the port<er 
 snoring in the smoking-room, stirred him vigorously, and propounded 
 rapid questions. The bewildered darky answered to the point. Some 
 of the young men among his excursionists might have pistols in their 
 grips, but he'd only seen one in a hip pocket. There were ten ladies 
 and twelve men, he said, all unconscious of danger of any kind, and, 
 as it was a chartered car and they were out for a long pleasure-trip, 
 no doubt there was plenty of money, to say nothing of watches and 
 jewelry, in the party. It was the first of the kind that had come up 
 the road for a month. Jarvis knew it had been well advertised. 
 What more likely than that the daring fellows who had made things 
 lively on the other road should have planned to hold up this particular 
 train ? What better place could they select than the lonely, rugged, 
 almost mountainous tract between Thunder Gap and Boulder Creek ? 
 And if they weren't already boarding his train, one or two at a time, 
 just as they did on the K. P., then call him a Chinaman. That 
 swagger and stylish young man at the Junction, "salooning the 
 soldiers and making himself solid with them," the shivering tramp at 
 Willow Springs who was so promptly found and so lavishly paid for 
 and provided for by the same suspicious party (" Fancy his enlisting !" 
 thought the conductor: "that cock-and-bull story that he told Long 
 was enough to damn him from the start"), and now these two cowboys 
 in the smoker, — fellows that took sii|)per and left their plugs at 
 Hank's and said they were going up to Pawnee for a flyer, but allowed 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 463 
 
 they knew nobody there, or in that part of the valley. Jarvis felt 
 more uneasy with every minute. 
 
 " I'm blessed if I don't think I ought to wake some of the likeliest 
 of these young fellows," said he to the porter; "but I'll go and have 
 out the lieutenant anyhow." 
 
 Suiting action to the word, back he went to the forward sleeper. 
 " Wake the gentleman in No. 3," said he to the porter, as he re-entered, 
 and found that dusky guardian eagerly, anxiously awaiting him. 
 
 " He's gittin' up, suh. I done called him." And at the moment, 
 rubbing a pair of bleary, sleepy, red-rimmed eyes with one hand and 
 buttoning a cavalry sack-coat with the other, a stocky, heavily built 
 man of about thirty-five came lurching down the aisle. Briefly the 
 conductor told his suspicions and asked what help he could have in case 
 of trouble. The cavalryman was evidently a trifle hard to rouse. He 
 seemed slow of comprehension. He pondered a bit, looking dumbly 
 from the conductor to the porter, with eyes that did not clear as rapidly 
 as they should have done. At last he said, — 
 
 "One of them in this car?" 
 
 "Yes, smoking in the compartment yonder." 
 
 Following the conductor, the officer meandered up the aisle. The 
 Pullman was swaying violently now. The train had reached the 
 summit of the divide and was rushing down the westward slope at a 
 speed that became swifter every moment. The lieutenant stopped at 
 his berth and rummaged under a pillow. 
 
 "You're not getting a gun now?" whispered the conductor, Avarn- 
 ingly. 
 
 " No, — only a pocket pistol," was the answer, as the blue blouse 
 straightened up and produced a half-filled flask. 
 
 " I wish your men, those recruits, had arms," muttered the con- 
 ductor, as they went on again. Then he held up a warning hand. 
 They were just squeezing through the narrow ])assage between the 
 smoking-coinpartnient and the side of the car. " Wait till I see what 
 he's doing," said Jarvis, and disapjieared around the corner. Presently 
 he beckoned, and, flask in hand, the lieutenant followed on, glancing 
 casually at the dim form near the window, stepped to the wash-stand 
 and found a tumbler, half filled it with liquor, and proffered it to the 
 conductor, who shook his head. The soldier poured in a little water, 
 and swallowed it all at a gulp. 
 
 " Now," said he, " let's have a look at your man." 
 
 The conductor stepped inside the smoker, feigning to try to de- 
 cipher the writing on a card he held in his hand, but, as though the 
 light were too dim, reached u)> and turned higher the flame, brightly 
 illuminating the little compartment in a moment. Gray may have 
 been dozing. He glanced quickly up, as though startled, and his eyes 
 met those of the stout man in cavalry uniform. For a moment they 
 looked at each other, searchingly and without a word. A flush as of 
 surprise and annoyance began to mount to the civilian's face; a flush 
 that was not of surprise was already manifest on that of the soldier. 
 The conductor glanced from one to the other as though about to speak. 
 
 Suddenly the night was rent by one sharp, quick, almost agonized 
 
464 RAV'S RECRUIT. 
 
 shriek from the engine, far ahead. Suddenly, so suddenly that it almost 
 hurled Jarvis and the lieutenant off their feet, the air-brakes gripped 
 like a vice, the whizzing wheels instantly checking their way, the 
 smooth, swift motion changed to a jerky, grinding, straining series of 
 bumps. Jarvis, turning white as a sheet, sprang to the door the instant 
 he could recover balance. For six, eight seconds the Pullman went 
 thumping ahead, slower and slower every second, yet still at dangerous 
 speed. Then came a thunderous shock and crash. Gray, whose feet 
 were on the opposite seat, doubled up like a jack-knife, his nose and 
 knees jammed together, the back seat clamped tight against that in 
 front. The lieutenant shot forward out of sight, and was overheard 
 fetching up with a resounding thump against the front door. There 
 was a crackling of window-glass, a sound of stifled shrieks and groans. 
 The big car recoiled some thirty or forty yards, then came to a stand- 
 still, and Mr. Gray, scrambling out from the smoking-compartment, 
 nearly stumbled over the prostrate officer, who was slowly finding his 
 feet. But, following some half-articulate cry for help, Gray darted 
 through the narrow passage-way, into the curtained aisle, now rapidly 
 filling with men, much more dazed than dressed, some of them bleeding 
 from contusions, all of them shaken and scared, and, slowly sliding out 
 of the nearest berth, came a blue-robed, slender, senseless form, — that 
 of the soft- voiced occupant who half an hour earlier had importuned 
 him for water. In an instant Gray stooped, raised her in his arms, 
 bore her through the passage, nearly capsizing the lieutenant the second 
 time, laid her flat upon the long seat in the smoker, and applied his 
 fine cambric handkerchief to a gash in the left temple, from which the 
 blood was oozing. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A MELANCHOLY scene of wreck and disaster was that which greeted 
 the eyes of Mr. Gray when perhaps half an hour later he stepped from 
 the platform and made his way forward. Through some strange 
 neglect of telegraphic orders from Butte, the conductor and engineer 
 of No. 12 had not been bidden to side-track at Thunder Gap, but 
 had been sent spinning on their way down grade five miles to Alkali 
 Flats, where the road crossed to the northeast and began to climb over 
 the divide to Boulder Creek, and right here, at the end of a straight- 
 away mile of track, the head-light of the Pacific express flashed into 
 view. Each engineer sighted the glaring eye of the other's steed at 
 the same instant. Each sounded his warning cry. Each instantly re- 
 versed his lever, reckless of cylinder-heads. Long had vainly sprung 
 the air-brake, and No. 12's brakemen had spun their iron wheels for 
 all they were worth, but still, with the fearful momentum of their 
 down-grade rush, the two trains dashed at each other like maddened 
 bulls, and engineer and fireman, having done all that mortal men 
 could do, jumped for their lives a second or two before the crash. The 
 lighter train of the two, the express, had so far slackened speed that 
 Long and his fireman, landing and rolling in the soft sand, were but 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 465 
 
 slightly hurt. The engineer of the freight, however, was tumbled 
 heels over head, and then knocked senseless by a flying splinter. The 
 fireman had only just been found as Gray reached the point where the 
 two engines, locked deep in each other's embrace, stood welded together, 
 a tangled mass of metal. The whistle of one of them, dislocated by 
 the shock, was emitting a low, moaning sound, as of some huge 
 beast in agony. The tender of the express had telescoped half its 
 length through the mail-car, and the postal clerk had been hauled from 
 under a confused heap of coal and mail-sacks. The mail-car in turn 
 had smashed in the front of the express, and this, forced flat against 
 the front of the baggage-car, left the messenger a helpless prisoner 
 within his own premises, unable to open even a side door. How the 
 baggage-man escaped death he never could tell. He and his trunks 
 were hurled to the front end of the car, all in a heap, yet, barring 
 damages to clothing and cuticle, he was little the worse for the adven- 
 ture. Then came the car-load of recruits. Hardly a man of their 
 number had a whole skin left. The seats were wrenched loose, the 
 windows were shattered. The smoker, too, was a sight : its few occu- 
 pants had been hurled about promiscuously, and were still swearing 
 when Gray got to the front. People in the day-coach were less damaged, 
 but equally dazed, and in the two Pullmans consternation reigned su- 
 preme. The excursionists were all sound asleep up to the instant of 
 impact, and those in the upper berths had been tumbled into the aisle, 
 and all the car-load violently shaken. But in the forward Pullman 
 the actual damage was greater. The porter was groaning with a twisted 
 back. Two of the men were badly wrenched. Lieutenant Rawson 
 had a bump as big as a grape-shot on the side of his head. Mrs. 
 Mainwaring, though uninjured, was so terrified as to be worse than 
 helpless, and as for the fair girl with her, she had happened to be 
 awake, had lifted herself on her elbow at the shriek of the whistle, 
 fearful of ill, and almost instantly had been dashed against the edge 
 of the seat and cruelly stunned. Of the freight train, the six cars 
 immediately behind the engine were crushed to fragments, and the 
 fragments hurled far and wide. It was from under a heap of these 
 they lugged the fireman as Gray appeared, and this summed up the 
 damage to person and material, but not to nerves, tempers, or records 
 for piety. The language of Mr. Jarvis and his friend of the freight 
 train beggared description. The cavalry sergeant felt an access of en- 
 vious respect as he listened. Lieutenant Rawson invited both to have 
 a drink, and this time it was accepted. 
 
 It was a five-mile stretch up to the Gap, and much more than that 
 back to Boulder, but news of the mishap had to be sent and help sum- 
 moned. It was then that Gray's shabby tramp had come to the fore. 
 He had been warmed, fed, and rested, as he had not been for a week. 
 He was used to walking, he said, and offered to carry the conductor's 
 pencilled despatch. It should have been sent by a brakeman of the 
 freight, but both were lamed and badly bruised. Jarvis looked more 
 than uncertain at first, but finally gave the man the important paper. 
 Twenty minutes later, the two cowboys, despite bangs and bruises, de- 
 clared that they too would " hoof it," and pushed ahead through the 
 Vol. LIX.— 30 
 
466 . RAV'S RECRUIT. 
 
 pallid dawn. Gray, silent and observant, appeared just as they de- 
 parted, and found the lieutenant, the two conductors, and the cavalry 
 sergeant in a quadrangular council. At sight of the new-comer Jarvis 
 cautioned silence, and dissolved the meeting. 
 
 The girl whom Gray had so promptly and tenderly cared for had 
 recovered consciousness within five minutes. She looked up, dazed 
 and startled, into the strange face bending over her, and then almost 
 instantly asked for Mrs. Mainvvaring. 
 
 " She is unhurt," said Gray, quietly. " Don't worry. You have 
 quite a bruise here on the side of your head. Please lie still until I 
 check the bleeding. Mrs. Mainwaring will be back in a moment." 
 
 Mrs. Mainwaring had been there, half distracted, wringing her 
 hands and laughing and crying by turns, and was now lying in her 
 berth, being ministered to by some sympathetic woman from the other 
 car. Another had come to aid Gray, but, seeing how deftly he bathed 
 and stanched the wound, she confined her attentions to wetting towels 
 and passing them to the strange gentleman. So skilful were his min- 
 istrations that the young lady presently declared herself able to sit up 
 and walk, and insisted on seeing Mrs. Mainwaring. She was assisted 
 to her feet, and, leaning on his arm, was taken to her friend. Gray 
 left her there, slipped quietly away, and came forth, his heart beating 
 with odd emotion. 
 
 The next thing he found to do was to help straighten out the fireman 
 of the freight, who was shaking like an aspen, completely demoralized 
 and almost crying. He, too, had struck soft sand when he leaped 
 from the train, but after a somersault or two had been buried under an 
 avalanche of splintered board, distributed from the roofs, sides, and 
 flooring of the shattered cars. The heavy trucks, wheels, and beams 
 fortunately had not been hurled more than a dozen yards from the 
 track, but kindling-wood in distracting quantities had been showered 
 far and near. The handsome silver-topped flask, so admired of the 
 sergeant at the Junction, was promptly produced, and the fireman took 
 a long, long pull. Then Gray bethought him of his tramp. The 
 recruits and passengers mingling in confused knot with the damaged 
 men were still grouped about the wreck, some detailing personal im- 
 pressions and experiences, some noisy and nervous, others silent and 
 doubtless thankful for their escape, others still thinking only of the 
 injured. Of these latter was Gray, at whom the conductor was scowl- 
 ing suspiciously the while, and saying something in a low tone to tiie 
 lieutenant. 
 
 " Do you know what became of that poor fellow we picked up at 
 Willow Springs?" asked Gray of the brakeman, who was ruefully 
 contemplating a ruined lantern. The man looked up instantly, but, in- 
 stead of answering, turned and glanced significantly at the conductor. 
 
 " If you want him," said the latter, coolly, "you'll have to follow 
 the track five miles or more. Perhaps you knew the two that went 
 after him. Birds of a feather, I take it, — bound for the Gap and a 
 spree on what's left of that ten-dollar bill." 
 
 " I'm very glad to hear he isn't hurt," said Gray. " You've sent 
 for help, I presume?" 
 
RAV'S RECRUIT. 467 
 
 "I've sent a message by that tramp friend of yours, if that's 
 what you mean. None of my crew or the freight could walk a 
 mile." 
 
 All this time Lieutenant Rawson stood aloof, his forage-cap pulled 
 down over his brows, intently eying the stylishly dressed man in 
 tweeds. Gray became conscious of the scrutiny, and it annoyed him. 
 Of the passengers in the day-coach none were men whom he would 
 have been at all likely to meet on equal terms in his past. Among 
 those of the forward sleeper only two or three appeared to be men of 
 education or social standing, and they were nursing their bruises back 
 in the lavatory. The young fellows of the rear Pullman were laugh- 
 ing and chatting noisily together as they rummaged about the wreck. 
 The officer was the one man aboard the train whom ordinarily Gray 
 would have felt inclined to address. But while the uniform and the 
 assurance of at least a certain social standing on the part of its wearer 
 attracted him, there was that in Rawson's face which repelled. Nor 
 was this wholly due to the fact that it lacked refinement and was a 
 trifle bloated, — that the eyes were somewhat dull and clouded ; but in 
 them Gray read unerringly an expression of distrust, even of hostility, 
 and the pugnacious in him was aroused at once. 
 
 All of a sudden he recalled that the porter had told him Mrs. 
 Mainwaring was an army lady; so, doubtless, was the young lady 
 with her. Very possibly the lieutenant was their escort, and the 
 escort was wrathful over his usurpation of an escort's functions, so far 
 as the damsel was concerned. Gray could not remember the officer's 
 busying himself in any way to aid Mrs. Mainwaring. True, he was 
 still half stunned, and was bathing his bruises, while Gray was caring 
 for the very attractive if somewhat dishevelled girl in tlie pale-blue 
 wrapper. Something in the contemplation of his loneliness and isola- 
 tion during the earlier night — a man without a home, the would-be 
 sharer of the fireman's seat, the companion of the rude soldiery, the 
 aider and abettor of tramps — and the exaltation of his present, tickled 
 his sense of the humorous. Had he not won the gratitude, the almost 
 effusive thanks, of Mrs. Mainwaring, the eloquent, if silent, recognition 
 of a very pretty girl, and now the undoubted jealousy and dislike of 
 an army officer? "There's some fun left in life, even now," was his 
 grim comment, as he calmly studied Rawson's reddening face, gazing 
 speculatively into the latter's shifting eyes until uneasily they turned 
 away. 
 
 The gray dawn was sheeting the slopes about them, and farther to 
 the west the mountain-tops loomed, dim, })allid, and white with snow. 
 Fine, soft flakes were sifting down even here, and Long's prediction 
 was being verified. That faithful soldier of his country and "the 
 Road" was now stretched on the flat of his back on the floor of the 
 baggage-car, with some car-seats for mattress, pluckily stifling the 
 moan of pain that would have forced itself through his set teeth. To 
 him came the younger soldier, the sergeant, full of sympathy. 
 
 "You're badly shaken, Mr. Long: wouldn't a little whiskey help 
 you?" said he, the cavalry cure-all of the old days most naturally 
 suggesting itself. 
 
468 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 "I don't know but what it would," groaued the engineer. "The 
 lieutenant has some, hasn't he?" 
 
 " Yes, he has," was the half-hesitant reply. Then the freemasonry 
 of the craft seemed to show in the look that followed, half comical, 
 half confiding, but all significant. " But — he ain't the sort of man 
 I'd ask for anything. 'Tain't like as if it was Captain Ray or Blake 
 or Truscott or any of them was here, you know. But — I can find you 
 some all right." 
 
 And, jumping from the car, Sergeant Kearney went straight to 
 Mr. Gray. " Our engineer, sir," said he, " is badly stove up. Could 
 you oblige me with a little whiskey?" 
 
 " Certainly," said Gray, going down into his pocket and fishing up 
 the silver-topped flask. " Give him a good swig, and, sergeant, help 
 yourself." 
 
 The sergeant grinned, thanked him, hurried back to his new friend, 
 and gave him what he called an honest cavalry four fingers. 
 
 " God !" said Long, smacking his lips, his eyes snapping. " That 
 was an old-timer." Then, as the potent liquor, long a stranger to his 
 once casehardened system, began glowingly to assert itself, he blinked 
 his gratitude and looked admiringly at the handsome flask. " That's 
 a swell stopper you've got to that canteen, sergeant. Where'd you 
 capture it?" 
 
 " Tall young fellow in the first sleeper. Seems to have money and 
 whiskey, cigars and good nature, till you can't rest," said Kearney, in 
 the vernacular of the day, and was surprised at Long's sudden interest. 
 The engineer braced himself up on an elbow, all eagerness. 
 
 " Smooth face, with light moustache, regular six-footer, slim, broad- 
 shouldered, travelling-cap and big ulster?" 
 
 " That's the feller. Treated half my squad to pie and coffee back 
 
 there at the Junction. No end of a swell, I Why, what's amiss ? 
 
 Say, I wouldn't take another drink just now, would you?" he broke 
 off, anxiously, for Long was reaching for the flask. 
 
 " I want to see the monogram, or whatever you call it, on that 
 silver stopper. D'ye know what I think of that feller? He's first- 
 cousin or twin brother to the foxiest gang of bank- and train-robbers 
 in the whole country, and if we hadn't run over or run our nose slap 
 into No. 12 right here at Alkali Flats, I'm betting my bottom dollar 
 Ave'd have found his gang waiting for us back of Thunder Gap." 
 
 Kearney drcM^ back, startled. Long had seized the flask, and was 
 studying the stopper with keen interest. No wonder he couldn't 
 decipher it. There was no monogram. Instead there was a queer- 
 shaped shield with diagonal lines and odd little figures, like tiny 
 leaves, cut on the surface, and above it was the paw of an animal 
 grasping a dagger, and there was a scroll with some words in a foreign 
 tongue. Long knew not what. He searched the cuj) of silver that 
 fitted on the base, but that was smooth and polished. The red Russia 
 leather covering also bore no mark. 
 
 "That don't look like a train-robber," said Kearney, pointing to 
 the device on the top of the stopper. " Ain't that what you call a 
 coat of arms, or something?" 
 
BAV'S RECRUIT. 4g9 
 
 " Exactly ; and what's an American doing with a coat of arms ? 
 He's lifted it from some dook or other, touring through the West for 
 buffalo and Indians. He's a slick one, sergeant, but he can't fool me. 
 Why, he just gave himself dead away when he told me he wanted to 
 ride up with me and Scut in the cab, pretending he was out here to 
 enlist in the cavalry and wanted to talk with me about the officers that 
 were coming there to Ransom. Yes, sir." And Long grinned sar- 
 donically, despite his pain. 
 
 Kearney's answer was a long whistle of amazement. 
 
 " You'd never have got me to believe it if he hadn't made that 
 break. Fancy a swell like him a-grooming horses and cleaning out 
 stalls. Hush," suddenly lowering his voice, for at the instant Mr. 
 Gray came briskly into the car. 
 
 The dawn was so far advanced that the night-lights were no longer 
 needed and were burning blear and dim. The battered baggage-man, 
 in no pleasant humor, because an excursionist from the rear Pullman, 
 with ill-timed jocularity, had asked him how he liked the taste of his 
 own medicine, was muttering profane comment on excursionists in 
 general and this one in particular, as he took down the nearest lamp 
 and extinguished it. Gray's tall figure, bereft now of the ulster, was 
 outlined against the brighter light at the rear door as he entered, and 
 Long turned his head and stared at him curiously. For a moment, 
 coming as he did from the outer air where it was now almost broad 
 daylight, though the sun was not yet peeping over the eastern horizon, 
 the new-comer was not quite sure whether the dark object on the floor 
 was or was not the engineer, but he spoke cheerily. 
 
 '^ I'm looking for Mr. Long," he said. " I hear he's badly 
 wrenched. Ah, there you are. How are you feeling ?" 
 
 " As well as a man can who's turned half a dozen somersaults in 
 the mud. You can thank God you didn't get aboard the cab." 
 
 " I can indeed," laughed Gray. " I've never practised mounting 
 and dismounting at a gallop from a locomotive, though I've tried it 
 often enough from my horse." 
 
 Mr. Long winked expressively at Kearney, as though he would say, 
 "Now watch out for a lie," and promptly popped the question. 
 
 " So you thought you'd join the cavalry on that account, did you ?" 
 
 And, to the amazement of Sergeant Kearney and the incredulous 
 disdain of Mr. Long, the calm reply was, " That's what I'm going to 
 Butte for. I expect to be at squad drill in a day or two. Possibly 
 the sergeant here will be giving me my setting up," said he, turning 
 frankly and smilingly to Kearney. 
 
 " You talk as though you knew the drill already, sir," said the ser- 
 geant, still unable to credit the statement, yet powerless against the gay, 
 frank good humor of the civilian; "and it isn't the likes of you that 
 generally take a blanket." 
 
 " Oh, I used to shoulder arms in the militia," laughed Gray, " and 
 do the four exercises, but I'm green as any recruit in your party, as 
 you'll probably find out, if you're going to Ransom." 
 
 Kearney looked at Long, and Long glared at Kearney. This was 
 simply too brazen a fraud for the engineer's patience. 
 
470 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 " Do you raeau to tell me a man who wears clothes like them and 
 carries a flask like this can't find any easier way of making a living ?" 
 said he. 
 
 " Positive fact," laughed Gray, debonair as before. " I'm at the 
 end of my tether, or soon will be, and I've come all the way out here 
 for no other purpose." 
 
 " Why didn't you save your money and 'list in the East, where 
 you came from?" asked Long, prodding Kearney with his toe to call 
 attention to his astuteness. 
 
 " For the simplest of reasons. Had I enlisted there they might 
 have sent me to any regiment, whereas I wanted a particular one, — 
 the — th, in fact." 
 
 Long had lost another point, but rallied. His tone was gruff as 
 Mainwaring's as he returned to the attack : " One would suppose a 
 feller — a man like you could command influence enough to get assigned 
 to any regiment he wanted. That ain't much of a trick." 
 
 " No," answered Gray, as he seated himself on the conductor's big 
 wooden chest and carelessly swung his slender foot; "no, I don't be- 
 lieve I've got either friends or influence, or anything in the wide world, 
 but — what I've got on and what's in an old trunk somewhere along 
 the road here." 
 
 "Didn't you say something about quitting railroading to take up 
 soldiering?" queried Long, so astonished that he was forgetting his 
 pain. 
 
 " I did. Two years ago I did some railroading at the general 
 manager's end of the line. So you see how little I must have known 
 about it. Yes," he went on, with twinkling eyes, " I used to ride my 
 own horse, but I've lost him, so it's got to be one of Uncle Sam's." 
 
 For a moment nothing further was said. A pair of frank blue 
 eyes were gazing smilingly down into the engineer's face, and that ex- 
 trooper could find no excuse for another expression of doubt. Slowly 
 he held forth the half-emptied flask. 
 
 " Here," said he, " take this. I'm damned if you're not too many 
 for me. But," a sudden thought striking him, " why don't you sell 
 this and your watch and them clothes and go to the mines and make a 
 stake there?" 
 
 " Because I'd rather soldier, man," was the smiling answer, — Gray's 
 good humor was indomitable, — " and down in the bottom of your 
 heart you know perfectly well you never see the uniform," and here he 
 laid a hand on Kearney's shoulder, " that you don't more than half 
 wish you were in it again and riding the trail or the prairie rather than the 
 iron track. I don't have to sell anything yet," he added, with almost 
 a laugh. "Keep the whiskey, Mr. Long. You've more need of it 
 than I have. I'll see you again after a while." And with that he 
 rose, and, nodding smilingly to Kearney, sauntered from the car. 
 
 "Well, if that's a train-robber," said the latter, as he reached and 
 took the flask from Long's unresisting hand, " here's" — the top came 
 off and the flask was lifted to his lips — " here's long life to him." 
 
 Late that morning the relief train came down from Pawnee, the 
 East-bound express at its heels. Passengers and baggage were labo- 
 
RAVS RECRUIT. 471 
 
 riously transferred from one train to the other around the scene of the 
 wreck. Mr. Long, bidding mournful adieu to No. 783, asked Sergeant 
 Kearney to see that the now empty flask was returned to the tall feller 
 that talked of enlisting. "He may talk till hell freezes over," said 
 Long, " but not till I see him in uniform will I believe he isn't lying, 
 and even then I'll misdoubt him for a reformed train-robber or an 
 escaped lunatic." 
 
 But of this and other unflattering comments Mr. Gray was uncon- 
 scious. By eight o'clock some railway-men arrived from the Gap on 
 a hand-car, proving that the suspected tramp had at least delivered his 
 despatches. People were getting hungry by that time, and it presently 
 transpired that " the tall gent" in the first sleeper was going back with 
 the hand-car to see what he could buy and send to them, as it would be 
 noon perhaps before the wrecking-train, etc., could come. Then the 
 porter addressed Mr. Gray with a message. Mrs. Mainwaring begged 
 to see the gentleman before he started. 
 
 She was calm and collected now, and evidently ashamed of the 
 trouble she had given. The young lady was seated by an open window, 
 languidly drinking in the fresh air, a silken handkerchief bound about 
 her head. 
 
 " We are so very much indebted to you," said the matron, rising at 
 the entrance of the young man, " and both my niece. Miss Leroy, and I 
 wished to thank you before we parted. I am Mrs. Mainwaring, and 
 ray husband, Major Mainwaring, whom I expect to meet to-day, will 
 be glad to add his thanks to mine, if you will kindly give me your 
 address." 
 
 " I assure you the thanks are unnecessary. I am only too happy 
 to have been of the faintest service. I am awfully clumsy, I fear," 
 said Gray, smiling, as his eyes wandered to Miss Leroy's face. She 
 was leaning forward now and extending the pretty white hand he had 
 so admired much earlier that morning. 
 
 "And I want to say, yet I don't know how to say, how very much 
 
 I thank you," she murmured, her words falling hesitatingly, "and 
 
 Pray, do not think me impertinent, but did I not see you — were you 
 not on the Rhine last May ?" 
 
 His whole manner seemed to change instantly. Quiet good humor 
 and courtesy gave place to embarrassment, even awkwardness. 
 
 "It was — possibly a brother of mine," he faltered. " I — I hope 
 you'll have a very pleasant journey. Such ill luck thus far, you 
 
 know " He barely touched the extended hand. " Good-by. 
 
 Good-by, Mrs, Mainwaring. They — they're waiting for me with that 
 hand-car." And in an instant he was hastening away. 
 
 " But you haven't told us your name or your address," persisted 
 the elder lady. 
 
 " Oh, it's of no consequence. — You remember Mr. Toots, don't 
 you ?" he called back over his shoulder, as he made his escape from the 
 car. But on the platform without the flitting smile vanished, and his 
 face grew gray and sad, as he stopped and took a long, long breath. 
 
 " Lesson number one, and a tough one, Darcy, my boy," he panted. 
 " My God, what is my name to be now ?" 
 
472 RAr'i> RECRUIT. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The — th had been having what Captain Ray called a " poky" 
 time most of that year, and when Ray's usually sunny nature clouded 
 over something was sure to be amiss with the professional side of the 
 man. His domestic side was perennial joy. The regiment had known 
 many a hard winter, many a fierce summer, many a sharp campaign 
 and savage battle. Its long exile in Arizona in the old days was full 
 of peril and suffering. Its sometimes desperate encounters with the 
 red warriors of the northern plains and mountains had made sad in- 
 roads on its membership. Its records of casualties embraced every 
 conceivable catastrophe : death by sunstroke, starvation, freezing, light- 
 ning, flood, fire, rattlesnakes, explosions, thirst, arrow and tomahawk, 
 shot, sabre, and shell. A peaceful year it never knew from the day 
 of its first muster on the plains of Texas until a quarter-century after, 
 when, mirabile dictu, there hadn't even been a horse-thief to follow or 
 an Indian to chase until, late in the summer, it occurred to a band 
 of Cheyennes to ride northward and call on some kindred up in the 
 Powder River country, and these children of nature never thought of 
 asking anybody's leave. The — th had been having, as Ray said, so 
 poky a time at Russell — just drilling,drilling, drilling on that wide sweep 
 of upland prairie, instead of scouting and fighting through the mountains, 
 their normal summer recreation — that the regiment shouted for very 
 joy when it heard that Sharp-Knife, the young Hotspur that headed 
 the raid, had soundly thrashed the first detachment sent to head him 
 off, and, indignant at the discourtesy of the Great Father in essaying 
 to curb his inclination to roam, was helping himself to all the horned 
 cattle, horses, and household goods that lay in his way, not to mention 
 a few of the households, and was careering onward bound for a big 
 time in the Big Horn Mountains, bragging to the Northern Cheyennes 
 of the fun he had had. 
 
 Then away went Colonel Atherton, with Stannard and Mainwaring, 
 the old and the new majors, and eight " husky" troops, full tilt for the 
 Hills, only to find when they reached the broad valley of the Ska that 
 Sharp-Knife and his shifty followers had crossed forty-eight hours 
 ahead and were circling westward across the Little Missouri by that 
 time. Never is a stern chase so long a chase as when the Indian has 
 the lead. The department commander followed by rail, stage-coach, 
 and buckboard, and half the troops in the Territories of Dakota, 
 Montana, and Wyoming were centring on the Cheyennes, when Sharp- 
 Knife cut loose from all semblance of a base and took to the woods in 
 earnest. His people scattered to the four winds. Some hid among 
 the northern bands of the same tribe, some slipped in among the Sioux 
 at the great reservations in Dakota, others scattered far and wide, 
 broke up into little squads of three or four and even less, and jogged 
 back l)y circuitous routes to the southern })lains and swore they'd only 
 l)een hunting along the Arkansas. There's only one creature that can 
 beat an Indian, — murder one minute and look the image of piety the 
 next, — and that's a cat. It wan " a poky sunmier," said Ray, at Rus- 
 sell. It was poor kind of campaigning, said that same authority, but 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 473 
 
 better than noue. It was the move that followed that stirred the 
 social fabric of the — th to its foundations. The regiment had been 
 stationed for some years at Russell, a big post on the Union Pacific, 
 but the department commander decided that he wanted Atherton and 
 his seasoned campaigners closer to the malcontents, and, to the un- 
 speakable — not speechless — indignation of nine- tenths of the ladies in 
 the — th and the financial, though unconfessed, comfort of many of 
 their lords, the order was issued that it should not return to Russell, 
 but direct its retrograde march on the older, smaller, but just now 
 rather more important post of Fort Ransom. 
 
 " Squeeze into quarters as best you can," said the general, cheer- 
 fully, " and you won't mind crowding this winter. We'll fit you out 
 better in the spring." 
 
 Now, the winter was the time they most objected to being crowded, 
 for then they had their friends from the East and their social pleasures, 
 did these dames and damsels of the army, while in summer the troops 
 were almost always afield, and the women, those who could afford it, 
 went East. Few had done so this year, because the regiment was not 
 sent out for summer camp, and when the Sharp-Knife chase was 
 ordered it was too late in the season. 
 
 So the two battalions, then so called, marched in to Ransom. 
 Then, so many at a time, the officers were allowed to go to Russell to 
 supervise the packing and shipment of their household goods, while 
 the quartermaster and other sergeants did as much for the companies. 
 Mrs. Atherton, with her lares and penates, was there at Butte to 
 welcome the regiment when it arrived. Mrs. Mainwaring, with her 
 fair niece. Miss Leroy, was to have been there, but, as we have seen, 
 became involved in a collision in the mountain division. The major 
 hurried eastward to meet his helpmate at Pawnee, and there got full 
 details of the crash, and sought among the passengers for the young 
 man in the ulster and travelling-cap who had been so helpful in time 
 of need, but he had disappeared, said the conductor who took Mr. 
 Jarvis's load. The last seen of him he was taking dinner at Ford's 
 restaurant with a couple of cowboys and a dilapidated party who had 
 been fellow-passengers with him on No. 3 at the time of the wreck. 
 Then the cowboys had gone one way and the young man another. 
 Sergeant Kearney, who under Lieutenant Rawson was in charge of 
 the recruits, said, begging the new major's pardon, that the conductor 
 and engineer of No. 3 were sure there was something queer about that 
 party. It was believed they were all connected with a gang of train- 
 robbers. Whereat the major scoffed until Rawson came up and cor- 
 roborated what Kearney had said, and was presented by the major to 
 his wife and Miss Leroy, who were not over-cordial. Women learn 
 so much more about their fellow-passengers in the course of a few 
 hours than do men. Then the major, in his happy way, went on to 
 chaff the wife of his bosom upon her having nearly captured a train- 
 robber, and then Miss Leroy spoke her mind. She didn't believe a 
 word of it. 
 
 At Butte, where they arrived late at night, while the major was 
 bustling about after the ambulance and baggage -wagons, Mrs. Main- 
 
474 EAV'S RECRUIT. 
 
 wariug, sitting at an open window and gazing out at the flitting lights 
 on the platform and awaiting the summons to leave the car, was sud- 
 denly attracted by the sight of a little detachment of recruits marching 
 by. The young lady, too, was at a near window, and the sergeant, 
 catching a glimpse of her face, remembered the conversation he had 
 heard at Pawnee and her prompt defence of the absent, and he had 
 felt ill at ease and shame-stricken ever since. What right had he to 
 brand a man as a criminal on tiie mere suspicion of some railway em- 
 ployees? The young lady's spirited stand in defence of the defamed 
 had astonished the major and delighted Kearney. A sudden thought 
 struck the honest trooper, as he was marching by, and, springing 
 quickly to the side of the car, he held up to the window the handsome 
 silver-topped flask. " I beg pardon," said he, " but this belongs to 
 that young gentleman. I was to have given it to him, but I've got to 
 return to St. Louis to the recruiting depot, and he's stopped back there 
 about Pawnee. He never came on this train at all, but he declared lie 
 was coming up to Fort Ransom later. Would you please give it to 
 him, miss ?" 
 
 And, before she knew what to say, the sergeant was gone, and there 
 she sat with the stranger's flask in her gloved hand, — the stranger 
 whom she could have sworn she saw at Bonn and Cologne not four 
 months before, — who thought it might have been his brother, who 
 wouldn't give his name, but who had forgotten the handkerchief with 
 which he had stanched the flow of blood from her temple, — an unsightly 
 relic at the moment, to be sure, but safely stowed in her little satchel 
 for all that, and already searched, and not vainly, for a trace of owner- 
 ship. Bathed in her own blood were the letters D. H. G. 
 
 And what on earth she was to do with that handsome flask and 
 that once more presentable handkerchief was a problem that confronted 
 Miss Leroy two weeks later, after she had begun to feel reasonably at 
 home at Ransom. It was the queerest phase of life that ever she had 
 encountered. City-bred, convent-educated, she found frontier ways at 
 an army post as full of. novelty and sensation as her first explorations 
 in foreign parts. For two or three days they had lived at the hotel in 
 Butte until the major reported the carpets down and the stoves up. 
 The next two or three were devoted to unpacking furniture, pictures, 
 glass, and crockery, and putting everything where it belonged and 
 much where it didn't. It seemed to make little difference, for in all 
 these functions, at all hours of the day, and not a few of the night, 
 the young officers, in shirt-sleeves and the best of spirits, bore willing 
 part. Such gay good humor, such utter lack of stiffiiess and con- 
 ventionality, she had never seen. All drills and duties, it seemed, 
 except the necessary guard, police, and stables, were suspended until 
 officers and men were comfortably housed and settled down. The 
 bachelor lieutenants ])itched tents on the parade and placidly awaited 
 their turn to choose quarters, a ceremony which impresse<l Miss Leroy 
 as something incomprehensible. It was not easy to make her realize 
 just why Captain Ray couldn't move Mrs. Ray and the baby boys 
 up from the hotel until Captain Freeman had chosen, and why Mrs. 
 Blake should remain at Cheyenne near her own old home until the 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 475 
 
 Truscotts and Rays had settled on what houses they would take. 
 (They wanted the big double brick next but one to the colonel's, but 
 were afraid to move in, lest the new surgeon ordered out from Omaha 
 should take a fancy to that very set.) It was all plain sailing, as 
 she could see, for the colonel, the two majors, and the two senior 
 captains, but then came the tug of war. The Greggs had moved 
 into No. 5, confident the doctor would prefer the other side of the 
 garrison, the very house the Truscotts and Rays thought to occupy 
 together, but the doctor came, saw, and concluded that the house he 
 and Mrs. Doctor wanted was No. 5 and no other, whereat Mrs. Gregg 
 was furious, and the captain philosophic. *' I told you so, M'riar," he 
 was unfeeling enough to say a dozen times a day, until she flew to the 
 Stannards for sympathy. It seemed to Miss Leroy that whether these 
 families got settled or not the feuds never would be; and yet in less 
 than ten days even the young married couples were snugly stowed 
 away. Smiles and sunshine met her on every side. The men, who 
 looked like hairy monsters at first, had shaved their beards and donned 
 their neatly fitting uniforms. The band played every afternoon. 
 Parades were fine, guard-mounting " lovely." The little dinners and 
 suppers and dances were just as jolly, friendly, and delightful as could 
 possibly be. Many of the young matrons were charming companions. 
 Several of the young officers danced divinely, all of them rode well, 
 and none of them thought anything of coming banging at the hall 
 door at any hour of the day to ask Mrs. Main waring to come and do 
 this or Miss Leroy to come and see that. The ladies ran in and out 
 from house to house as though it were one big family, and before the 
 10th of November came Miss Leroy found herself completely carried 
 away by the life and swing and movement that seemed to characterize 
 everything that went on in the old regiment. She was on the 
 pleasantest of terms with Mesdames Ray, Truscott, and Blake. She 
 found her aunt tireless as a hostess. She admired the colonel and his 
 accomplished wife. She " took" to Mrs. Stannard from the start, and 
 wondered why Mrs. Mainwaring didn't enthuse over her as everybody 
 else did. She liked bluff old Stannard and most of the officers 
 thoroughly, and so, blithe, busy, "on the go," as they said, from morn 
 till late at night, she had well-nigh cea'^ed to think of the shock she 
 had sustained on the night of the collision or to speculate about the 
 tall young gentleman who had restored her to consciousness and to 
 whom she had not restored the handkerchief and flask, when the 10th 
 of November came, and with it her birthday, a new sensation, and an 
 excitement at the fort. 
 
 The recruits brought to Ransom by Lieutenant Rawson were for 
 distribution to those troops of the regiment most in need of new blood, 
 and, as luck would have it, these were all of the battalion at Fort 
 Fred Winthrop, an outlying post close to the now crowded reserva- 
 tion of the Sioux. Thither had Atherton ordered Rawson without 
 delay of a day, partly because recruits were needed, but mainly because 
 the lieutenant showed symptoms of an oncoming attack of a bibulous 
 character, and Atherton would have none of that in his garrison. 
 Rawson was ordered northward forthwith, and marched with his 
 
476 RAF'S RECRUIT. 
 
 Johnuy Raws at dawn next day, and, except for the voice of one 
 crying in the wilderness that the party had looted the groggery of 
 Laramie Pete at the Dry Fork of the Ska, nothing more was heard 
 of them till they joined at Winthrop, none the worse for their wintry 
 march. Ray had looked over the array and decided that he could 
 afford to wait and pick for himself. Sergeant Kearney had gone back 
 to the recruiting depot. The regimental adjutant had been designated 
 as recruiting officer at the station, and had disdainfully rejected, one 
 after another, half a dozen seedy-looking tramps, when one day, per- 
 haps the fifth after their arrival at the post, the sergeant-major put his 
 handsome head into the office, followed it in, carefully shut the door 
 behind him, stood scrupulously at attention, and hemmed behind his 
 hand to attract his superior's notice. 
 
 Mr. Dana looked up from the tangled mass of figures at the foot 
 of his regimental return, laid down his pen, and said, " Well ?" 
 
 " Will the adjutant see a man that wants to enlist?" 
 
 "Not if he's like the lot that have been here so far." 
 
 " He isn't, sir, but I don't know about him." 
 
 "What's the matter? I haven't time to waste if he isn't good 
 enough to suit us." And Dana glanced out along the wooden porch 
 as though in search of the would-be trooper. 
 
 " He's good enough, I don't doubt, sir," said the sergeant-major, a 
 half-smile breaking about the corners of his mouth, " as far as looks 
 go; but I never knew fellows like this one to enlist that didn't have 
 something wrong with 'em, and he says he wants to take on with Cap- 
 tain Ray." 
 
 " He'll take on where we see fit to put him," said Dana, with the 
 dogmatism of the service. " Let's see the gentleman who wants to 
 dictate where he'll go." 
 
 So the sergeant-major opened the door, jerked his head backward 
 in encouragement to the invisible party in the outer office, and said, 
 " Come in." 
 
 There stepped quickly into the room a young man about six feet 
 tall, erect and athletic in build and carriage, with a fine, clear-cut, 
 frank face, crowned with a crop of curly, close-cut, light brown hair, 
 with very deep blue eyes, large and clear, under heavy brows, and 
 thick, long, curling lashes, a curly blond moustache sweeping out at 
 the ends and barely hiding the curve of his handsomely chiselled lips, 
 chin and jaws cleanly shaved, throat powerful, open and bare, for the 
 rolling collar of a brand-new blue flannel shirt was confined only by a 
 loosely knotted tie of silk. The coat he wore was a sort of double- 
 breasted pea-jacket of dark blue beaver, now thrown open in deference 
 to the warmth of the room, but the first significant, if not suspicious, 
 thing the young man did as he entered was to begin buttoning it 
 throughout. Snugly fitting trousers of dark blue, belted at the waist, 
 stout, slender, well-made shoes, and a soft black crush hat, completed 
 his attire. As Dana looked at him in some surprise, the new-comer 
 brought his heels together, and between him and the foremost non- 
 commissioned officer in the — th the expert eye could hardly have told 
 which was the more soldierly in build and carriage. 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 477 
 
 For a moment no one spoke. It was Dana who finally broke 
 silence. 
 
 " Why you've served before." 
 
 "Only in a militia regiment, sir." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " In New York City." 
 
 The adjutant had a dozen more questions on the tip of his tongue, 
 and the visitor saw it. 
 
 " I have answered that, sir, because I presume I have to account 
 for standing attention, but there are many questions that may occur to 
 you that I do not wish to answer. If I may speak wnth Captain Ray 
 I think I can satisfy him without going into particulars." 
 
 Dana whipped his wooden chair around and squarely confronted 
 the speaker. That he was a man of education and social position in 
 the past, at least, Dana saw at a glance, and just as quickly did the 
 com])anion thought flash across his mind, " Another case of the prodi- 
 gal son." Incredulity as to the motives of a man in enlisting in those 
 days was not confined to the rank and file. 
 
 "Captain Ray may or may not be satisfied, but in either event, as 
 recruiting officer of the regiment, I have to be," said the young officer, 
 with a touch of asperity in his tone. It was not good to his ears to 
 be told that a would-be recruit declined to answer questions. 
 
 The new-comer, far from looking disconcerted, smiled affably and 
 frankly. His blue eyes twinkled, his white teeth gleamed. "The 
 best-looking scapegrace that ever came to us. Confound his impudence 
 for grinning," said Dana to himself. 
 
 " That is why I wish to speak with Captain Ray, sir," said the 
 civilian. "He might be able to satisfy you when I, probably, could 
 not." 
 
 " I don't know how you make that out," said Dana, curiosity be- 
 traying him into a half-argument with the applicant, which Dana very 
 well knew was iiifra dig. 
 
 "Possibly Captain Ray will explain it," was the answer, and the 
 serenity of the applicant remained unruffled. 
 
 " Oh, very well," said Dana, nettled in spite of his better nature. 
 "Go see Captain Ray if you wish." 
 
 But even as he spoke the hall door opened and in burst Major 
 Mainwaring. There is no other way of describing the major's method 
 of entering a room. It has been said that he was blunt both in speech 
 and in action. A soldier for years of his life, no amount of domestic 
 polish had ever succeeded in smoothing off the rough edges of the 
 camp. Mainwaring prided himself on being direct in everything he 
 said and did. Men and women who knew him well knew there was a 
 mine of genuine kindness and goodness under the rugged surface. 
 Men and women who heard him speak for the first time declared him 
 a brute. 
 
 " What you got here ?" blurted Mainwaring, glaring at the sergeant- 
 major and his silent companion. 
 
 " Man wants to enlist, sir," was the reply. 
 
 Now, Mainwaring was not the recruiting officer of the regiment. 
 
478 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 He was in no wise responsible for their selection. He had been but a 
 few months a member of the regiment himself, having, as has been 
 explained, been j)romoted to it from another when Major Barry became 
 lieutenant-colonel; but it was a peculiarity of Mainwaring's that he 
 considered it his inalienable right to have a say in everything going 
 on, and it wasn't so much what he said as how he said it tiiat made it 
 obnoxious. He scowled at the very presentable new-comer as though 
 words were inadequate to express his disapprobation, then gruffly 
 demanded, — 
 
 " Where you from ?" 
 
 A flush went up to the forehead of the young man, and there was 
 an instant's hesitation ; then in a very quiet tone he replied, " The 
 East." 
 
 Major Mainwaring was studying him sharply, a suspicious light in 
 his black eyes. "Haven't I seen you before ?'Mie presently asked, 
 the words tumbling all over one another's heels. 
 
 " Not out here, certainly," was the tempered reply, though the blue 
 eyes were firing up and looking squarely into the kindling black. 
 
 "Do you mean to tell me you haven't been in service before?" 
 The major's precipitate style of questioning left barely time for answer. 
 
 But the civilian took his time and chose his words. "I do not 
 mean to tell you — anything, sir." 
 
 For a moment Mainwaring simply glared as though he could not 
 realize the full significance of the words. 
 
 " What in thunder do you mean by that?" he finally growled. 
 
 " Just what I have said, sir," was the reply. " Five minutes ago 
 I wished to enlist in this regiment; now I don't. Good-day to you, 
 gentlemen." And, to the speechless amaze of the sergeant-major, the 
 suppressed delight of Dana, and the profane astonishment of Main- 
 waring, he calmly walked past the two officers, replacing his hat as he 
 did so, stalked deliberately into the hall-way and out of the front 
 door. 
 
 "Well, of all the chip-on-the-shoulder specimens I ever saw," 
 loudly laughed Mainwaring, " that fellow beats the lot. What do you 
 s'pose fired him off so? I hadn't begun to say anything to him. 
 The man's a dash-dashed double-dashed liar, and I know it. I've seen 
 him somewhere before, and he knows it, and he's afraid to show up 
 again, and took the first excuse to get oif. That man's a dash-dashed 
 deserter, or a horse-thief, or something. He knows me, and didn't 
 know of my promotion to this regiment or my being here. You are 
 well rid of him, Dana. He'll never show up at Ransom again." 
 
 But he did, for just two days later Captain Ray came cheerily into 
 the office with enlistment papers in his hand. " Dana, old boy, I've 
 got a tip-top man to be sworn in. — This way, ])lease, Hunter." And 
 there at the door-way stood the applicant of two days before. 
 
 Dana glanced over the papers. " Arthur Hunter, born New York, 
 by occupation a clerk, do hereby acknowledge to have voluntarily en- 
 listed this sixth day of November, 188-, as a soldier in the army of 
 the United States, etc., etc., and do solemnly swear that I am twenty- 
 five years and seven months of age, etc., etc., and I, Arthur Hunter, 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 479 
 
 do solemnly swear that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the 
 United States of America, etc., etc." 
 
 Then Dana looked up at the dark eyes and curling black moustache 
 and animated face of one of the crack captains in tiie regiment, and 
 from him to the silent, blue-eyed, and, as before, thoroughly present- 
 able stranger, and there was embarrassment in the adjutant's face. For 
 a moment he hesitated, then turned to the would-be recruit. 
 
 " Will you step outside a moment? I have to speak with Captain 
 Kay." 
 
 He was instantly obeyed. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, captain," said Dana, " but I have to ask a 
 question or two. Major Mainwaring is sure he has seen this man 
 before, and that he is a deserter or something disreputable despite his 
 good looks. He refused to answer for himself two days ago." 
 
 " Yes, I know," answered Ray, smilingly. "We all know how 
 suave and encouraging the major is apt to be to strangers. It's a won- 
 der some wild Westerner hasn't put a bullet through him, I've heard 
 all about that interview." 
 
 "And — you're willing to take chances? You're satisfied this 
 man's all right?" 
 
 " All right as men go, Dana. We can't expect all the ' vartues and 
 timperance besides for thirteen dollars a month,' as Mulligan said in the 
 Mexican war. But this applicant satisfies me that he means to serve, 
 that he loves a horse, and can ride like a Kentuckian. I'll bet he can 
 fight, and it's none of our business who he is, where he hails from, or 
 why he enlisted, so long as he does his duty. Now I'm willing to 
 take him." 
 
 And that settled it. Recruit Arthur Hunter was formally accepted 
 as a member of the sorrel troop, took his first lesson with the curry- 
 comb and brush without a word, and, " without turning a hair," his 
 initiation on Buckler, the meanest brute in the stable, and rode him 
 barebacked to water despite furious plunges and wild howls of delight 
 from threescore trooper throats. Furthermore, Hunter accepted bar- 
 rack fare without remark and barrack chaff without remonstrance, and 
 when forty-eight hours elapsed and his captain asked him how he 
 liked it, the new trooper clicked his heels together and said, " Better 
 than I hoped to, sir," and then surprised that officer by a request to be 
 allowed to be absent until next day. Etiquette required that such 
 favors should be asked through the first sergeant in writing. The 
 colonel's consent had also to be given, but Hunter produced in ex- 
 planation a telegram received but half an hour before stables. That 
 despatch was addressed properly to Trooper A. Hunter, Fort Ransom, 
 and said, " Must move to-night. Will bring your things on No. 3," 
 and it came from Pawnee. 
 
 Captain Ray looked it over in some uncertainty. " What things 
 are these?" he asked. 
 
 " A trunk, sir, and some other property, principally clothing." 
 
 Colonel Atherton did not look over-pleased at the application of 
 Captain Ray for permission for a new recruit to be absent over-night, 
 but Rav was a favorite. Sergeant Merri weather was ffbing: to Butte on 
 
480 RAVS RECRUIT. 
 
 pass after supper; Recruit Hunier could go with him in the post- 
 trader's wagon. Ray felt sure of his man, and the colonel consented. 
 
 And so it happened that Merriweather's pretty wife, the invalid of a 
 fortnight agone, was surprised by the sight of a tall, very fine-looking 
 young man, in a new fatigue suit not yet altered to fit him, who 
 appeared at the door-way of her little abode shortly after gun-fire and 
 asked for the sergeant. 
 
 " He'll be here directly. Surely this must be Mr. Hunter," said 
 she, dusting a chair and looking up at him from under her long lashes. 
 "You'll come in and wait, won't you?" she added, invitingly. But 
 Hunter thanked her briefly and said he'd go to the store, which he did, 
 with her bright eyes following him in lively curiosity. 
 
 It was midnight when Sergeant Merri weather, driving in, reported 
 his return at the guard-house and found the officer of the day and 
 half the guard searching busily about the premises in hopes of dis- 
 covering by what means two general prisoners had sawed their way out 
 of their iron-barred room. The rest of the guard were in pursuit. It 
 was a night of excitement and disgust for most of them, and they were 
 all wide awake and eager for news when, at the break of day, there 
 came galloping out from Butte the local agent of the Transcontinental, 
 with a startling story. Train No. 3, " The Owl," the Pacific ex})ress, 
 had been held up by robbers about an hour earlier, just east of Ska 
 Bridge. Jimmy Long, engineer of 783, was badly shot. His fireman 
 was killed. The robbers, nearly a dozen in number, had terrorized 
 the train-hands, got everything there was in the safe, in the mail-car, 
 and among the passengers in the day-coach and sleeper, and had then 
 ridden oif northwestward across the Ska. They were heading for the 
 Dry Fork. The sheriff was trying to raise a posse in town, but it was 
 slow work. For God's sake, couldn't the cavalry go in pursuit? 
 
 CHAPTER Vr. 
 
 A Territorial governor is not an awe-inspiring official ordinarily, 
 but the governor of Wyoming, relieved of his valuables at the point 
 of the pistol, was not slow in seeking redress. From Butte he wired 
 full particulars of the robbery to the department commander, who was 
 at Pawnee, just back from an inspection of the Sioux agencies, fifty 
 miles to the north. The general was waiting for the East-bound train 
 at the depot hotel, was aroused in an instant, and lost no time in wiring 
 authority to Colonel Atherton to use any means in his power to head 
 off and capture the robbers, without waiting for civil process. The 
 news of the " hold-up" with its attendant casualties went buzzing 
 over the post at reveille, and barely had the story reached Atherton as 
 he stood under the flag-staff, receiving the reports of the troop com- 
 manders, when out came the telegrapii operator, racing, and the colonel 
 read the hurriedly penned lines and turned to Ray. Somehow or 
 other, whenever any swift, hard riding had to be done, Ray and Ray's 
 troop were the first fellows thought of. 
 
RAV'S RECRUIT. 481 
 
 " Let your men finish breakfast/' said the colonel, " then — do your 
 best." And he handed the dark-eyed Kentuckian the despatch. 
 
 In an hour from that time, Mrs. Ray, holding her baby boy in her 
 arras, was gazing from the north window of her army home at some 
 black specks on the far horizon, and little Sandy, tugging at the skirts 
 of her pretty morning wrapper, was coaxing for mother to hold him 
 up too. The sorrel troop were up and away, heading for Wheelan 
 Springs, on the Laramie trail, and bets were even between Stannard 
 and Mainwaring that " Ray would nab the outfit before sundown." 
 
 But who could that " outfit" be? Jim Long said all were masked 
 and he recognized none. Scut, his fireman, died without a sign. Parks, 
 the expressman declared every form unfamiliar. Jarvis, the conductor, 
 and Ryan, a brakeman, alone could furnish anything like a clue. Two 
 of the desperadoes were dressed like two cowboys they had had aboard 
 the night of the collision, a fortnight back, and the leader, who was 
 tall, slender, well dressed, with the voice and intonation of a man of 
 education and social position, closely resembled in build a passenger 
 who boarded the sleeper that night at the Junction and left it after the 
 accident and went to Pawnee. The division superintendent wired to 
 Omaha such particulars as he could give. The legal representative 
 and certain detectives of the road were ordered to leave for the scene 
 by first train. The sheriff at Butte had a good-sized posse in readiness 
 by breakfast-time, and then started valiantly on the trail of Ray's 
 troop, passing through Fort Ransom about the time that Mr. Dana 
 was mounting guard. Other sheriff's officials went out to Mindeu 
 with the division superintendent, and others still pushed on to Pawnee, 
 up on the broad plateau, to inquire for two cowboys, a tramp, and a 
 swell, all of whom had appeared there in company, just after the 
 smash-up at Alkali Flats, none of whom were there now, but one of 
 whom, the tramp, so called, looking so entirely a different man — with 
 trimmed hair and beard and good clothes — as to have been unrecog- 
 nizable had he not rashly given himself away to everybody by bragging 
 about his exploits the night of the smash-up, — that tramp had boarded 
 No. 3 at three thirty A.M. at Pawnee, with a ticket for Sweetwater, 
 but, so it transpired, had checked his trunk only as far as Butte. All 
 this by rapid telegraphing to and fro was developed before the posse 
 started on its way, but not until after the despoiled train had changed 
 engines at Butte, and then, according to the inexorable rules of the 
 railway, had gone on again. Jarvis remembered that a very decent, 
 quiet fellow boarded the forward passenger coach at Pawnee with a 
 ticket for Sweetwater, but he did not connect him with the tramp so 
 lavishly provided for by the "swell" the night of the collision. But, 
 now they spoke of it, they were about the same size and build, and 
 what made it significant, that fellow seemed to have disappeared when 
 the robbers jumped aboard and went through the passengers, nor did 
 he appear again until just as the train pulled out for Butte, after the 
 robbers were gone. Wiring west after the rushing train speedily 
 brought this answer : *' No party with ticket from Pawnee to Sweet- 
 water aboard." And as he had been seen, and talked with, and listened 
 to, up to the moment of the arrival of No, 3 at Butte, Jarvis declared 
 Vol. LIX -^31 
 
482 RAFS RECRUIT. 
 
 the man must be somewhere about the town at this moment, and Butte's 
 few policemen were put in search. 
 
 AH they discovered by noon was that such a party had been seen 
 talking excitedly with a tall stranger in heavy overcoat and cap near 
 the baggage-room just after the train came in. The baggage-man said 
 that the man who presented check for the trunk from Pawnee was tall, 
 slender, and dressed in rough, heavy coat and travelling-cap. The 
 trunk was sole-leather. It had a lot of foreign stamps, hotel posters, 
 and railway-luggage slips all over it, but the baggage -master had no 
 time to examine it. Two men had carried the trunk away between 
 them, declining the offers of the baggage-man. Somebody remembered 
 such a trunk being wheeled in a barrow up Hoyt Street just after 
 No. 3 came in, two men with it, a tall and a short, and that was all. 
 
 Recruit Hunter's pass was up at noon, and at eleven thirty he 
 jumped from a light wagon at the south gate, and was hailed by the 
 corporal of the guard as he was striding briskly towards his troop 
 quarters : 
 
 " Say, young feller, come back here." 
 
 The tall recruit halted, turned and looked around, irresolute. It 
 might be authoritative, it might be mere practical joke ; at all events 
 the corporal was responsible, and the soldier walked straight to where 
 the non-commissioned ofiScer was seated on a bench, near the hall door 
 of the guard-house. 
 
 " Where you been ?" 
 
 " To town on pass," was the calm answer. 
 
 " What did you hear about that hold-up?" 
 
 " Nothing of consequence." 
 
 *' Well, your troop's gone thief-catching, and you're to report to 
 Sergeant Merri weather as soon as you come in. Now you've come in, 
 you haven't any cigars or drinkables about you, have you ? This is 
 the custom-house if you have." 
 
 Hunter looked neither annoyed nor disconcerted. Taking two or 
 three cigars from his overcoat-pocket, he said, "Catch," tossed them 
 carelessly to the vigilant wearer of the chevrons, hastened to barracks, 
 deposited his bundles on the bed assigned him, and looked uj) and down 
 the now silent and almost deserted building in search of some one to 
 tell him what had taken place. Two men, one laid up from the kick 
 of a horse, the other with an arm in a sling, came down to investigate 
 the contents of his bundles, but were disarmed of hostile intent by his 
 easy good nature and prompt offer of cigars. Whiskey he had none. 
 Asking for Merriweather, he was told to look for him at his quarters. 
 
 "Catch him out of watching distance of the little woman," said 
 one of them, with a grin. " Mind your eye. Hunter ; she'll be making 
 up to you next," said the other, " and we don't want you to be found 
 with your head in the horse-pond, like Pat Shea ;" and then it trans- 
 pired that Trooper Shea had been a devoted admirer of pretty Mrs. 
 Merriweather while she was still housemaid at the Freeraans', and that 
 Pat's devotions were equally divided between her and Muldoon's saloon 
 until one winter's morning he was dragged by the legs from his icy 
 winding-sheet with a dreadful gash in his throat and the neck of a 
 
RAF S RECRUTT. 483 
 
 bottle still grasped in his frozen hand. Hunter obeyed his orders and 
 went, and Mrs. ISIerri weather saw him coming, and ran to her glass 
 before she answered the sharp knock at the door. 
 
 " Why, it's Mr. Hunter," she said. " Sure I knew the step before 
 I saw you. Come in, Mr. Hunter. The sergeant's gone to the com- 
 missary, and I expect him back every minute." 
 
 But the trooper's blue eyes glanced only indifferently into the 
 coquettish and smiling face. 
 
 " I was directed here," he said, '' to report to Sergeant Merriweather, 
 but I'll go on down to the stables and stop on my return. Thank you, 
 no," he continued, with cold courtesy, as she again urged that he 
 should enter, and strode away stablewards with more than one pair of 
 eyes from the laundresses' quarters gazing after him, — those of Mrs. 
 Merriweather being clouded and perplexed. 
 
 It had been a perfect morning, keen and frosty at guard- mount, 
 but warmer as the sun wheeled high towards the zenith, and Atherton 
 had had the regiment out for drill. The broad prairie northeast of 
 the post was alive with prancing, high-mettled steeds, with dashing 
 riders, and not a few carriages and Concord wagons, filled with ladies 
 of the post, all rejoicing at having the regiment once more at home. 
 For nearly two hours Atherton had had the seven troops in rapid 
 movement here and there and everywhere over the plain, and now, the 
 drill over, troop after troop came marching sedately and quietly home- 
 ward to cool and calm the horses before reaching stables. In full 
 ranks, fifty men at least to each company, in their trim-fitting fatigue 
 dress, and with the silken swallow-tail waving at the head of each 
 little column, they looked wonderfully business-like and serviceable. 
 The easy, practised seat of every man, the n(inchalant grace of every 
 pose, the resolute, dust-covered, sometimes devil-may-care faces, all 
 seemed thoroughly in keeping with the scene and surroundings, thor- 
 oughly in accord with the buoyant action of the mettlesome mounts. 
 Accustomed from boyhood to the best of horse-flesh, a born rider and 
 judge, Trooper Hunter could not but see that though these frontier 
 steeds might lack the dainty trappings and satin coats of the park and 
 avenues of Gotham, there was life and spirit, fire and endurance, in 
 almost every one in each of the seven columns. Standing by the 
 northward gate, he keenly studied each troop as it came jogging briskly 
 in. The colonel and the major, the adjutant and certain other officers, 
 seemed to have grouped about the carriages of the ladies at the edge 
 of the drill-ground, but at least one officer rode with every troop, — 
 the best opportunity the new-comer yet had enjoyed of studying these 
 future comrades with whom he might never expect to exchange a word 
 or meet with more than the formal and punctilious touch of the hand 
 to cap. They were moving at ease now until each troop in succession 
 might cross the sentry-post and be called to attention in recognition 
 of the salute of its solitary occupant. Hunter watched the man as he 
 halted, faced outward as the nearest troop drew nigh, then snapped his 
 carbine to the present as the head of the column turned to enter the 
 gate, and Captain Gregg whipped out his sabre, gave voice over his 
 shoulder to the prolonged " 'Tensh-o-o-on" which brought every man's 
 
484 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 head and eyes up and to the front, and then, looking square at the 
 sentry, lowered the glittering blade in acknowledgment of the honor 
 paid to himself and his command. Hunter's eyes kindled at the sight. 
 No matter how humble the private soldier, there at least, on post as 
 sentry, he could expect the recognition of the President himself, than 
 whom in the eyes of the — th there lived no grander potentate on 
 earth. Then, the next thing Hunter knew, the troop came tripping 
 by the line of picket-fence on which he leaned, gazing out upon the 
 spirited scene beyond ; and now it was his turn. The teachings of the 
 old days in the famous regiment, wherein every man might be said to 
 have worn kid gloves when not on military duty, were fresh in his 
 mind, as he had been well schooled in the first principles of soldier 
 duty. Yet Hunter felt the blood was mounting to his temples and 
 his heart was beating quicker as he faced the coming column, braced 
 his heels together, and raised his hand to the cap visor, as Captain 
 Gregg came ambling by. The big troop-leader glanced curiously at 
 the lonely figure in the cheap fatigue dress, and again, but with far 
 less precision, returned the salute, and Hunter could not but note the 
 difference. Before another troop could pass him by, he moved quickly 
 away, twenty yards or more beyond the gate, where he still could have 
 good look at the returning soldiery, but was himself beyond saluting 
 distance. One after another the seven separate comj)act little columns 
 of fours marched steadily in, and jogged on down the gentle slope 
 towards the huge wooden stables. He was still gazing in some odd 
 fascination after the last, the roan troop, when the sound of bounding 
 hoofs, whirring wheels, and gay laughter recalled his wandering 
 thoughts, and, turning sharply to the prairie once more, his eyes fell 
 upon the foremost of the rapidly nearing carriages. 
 
 It was a light, open phaeton, drawn by two spirited bays, whose 
 fine action and well-made harness won his instant approval. Beside . 
 the carriage trotted the stocky, burly major whom he so well remem- 
 bered the day of his first interview with Dana in the office. On the 
 other side rode Dana himself, a handsome young soldier, and, far more 
 interested in them than in the possible occupants of the vehicle. Hun- 
 ter was looking upon them with a soldier's eye, keenly appreciative of 
 Dana's graceful, easy seat and of Mainwaring's good, if bulky, horse- 
 manship, when he suddenly became aware of the fact that instead of 
 turning in at the gate the driver was heading straight southward, evi- 
 dently intending to drive around to the main gate instead of passing, 
 as Hunter had come, through that portion of the post best known as 
 " Sudstown." 
 
 Another minute, and they must flash past him, not ten yards away, 
 with only that low picket-fence between them. Already the sentry 
 had halted and presented arms, both officers touching their caps in 
 acknowledgment. Already the swift team was darting past the gate. 
 The lady occupants of the stylish vehicle were whisking into view, and, 
 yielding to sudden and uncontrollable impulse, Hunter whirled about, 
 jumped the shallow ditch, and sprang behind the nearest of the little 
 houses devoted to the use of the married soldiers. In that one swift 
 glance at the fair occupants he had seen a face at sight of which the 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 485 
 
 blood went rushing to his own. There, side by side, were Mrs. Main- 
 waring and the young lady whom he had picked up in his arms the 
 night of that " head-on" collision at Alkali Flats. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Major Stannard had won his bet, and Mainwaring was more 
 than usually " grumpy" in consequence. Ray and his men, riding like 
 the wind, had run down the train-robbers before they reached the 
 Dry Fork, and in a long, stern chase had overhauled first one man, 
 then another, until darkness set in and hid the leading fugitives from 
 sight. Seven lively specimens of the border ruffian were tiie captives 
 of the sorrel troop by nightfall, and, closely guarded, these were the 
 men turned over next morning to Mr. Sheriff Conway when that much 
 fatigued official and his posse reached tiie spot where Ray and his men 
 had made camp the night before. Ray himself, with a dozen troopers, 
 had pushed on at daybreak, following the trail of the fugitives in 
 hopes of capturing the more prominent members of the party, who, as 
 it turned out, had most of the ill-gotten booty, while his lieutenant, 
 Mr. Scott, remained in charge of the main body and of the prisoners 
 until the arrival of the civil authorities, who promptly demanded and 
 obtained possession. Conway and his posse, rejoicing, turned home- 
 ward at once with their dishevelled prizes, hoping to reach Butte and 
 receive a triumph by evening of the next day. Seven train-robbers 
 was more than had ever been caught before in the history of the 
 Territory, and great would be the rejoicings. Securely bound, the 
 luckless captives, each man lashed to the stirrup of some one of the 
 numerous posse, trudged painfully along the homeward trail. Silent, 
 resolute, almost defiant, no one of their number would give the whisper 
 of a hint as to the identity of the leaders or of one another. All were 
 strangers to Butte. Neither Conway nor his deputies had ever seen 
 one of their faces before. Lieutenant Scott had lost no time in 
 saddling and pushing on after his captain, two of the posse riding with 
 him so as to give the possibly necessary civil sanction to the arrest of 
 the robbers and to take the customary civil credit for the same, naively 
 explaining, "You fellows in the regular army don't need it: we do, 
 or there's no chance for Conway's crowd next election." 
 
 And on his triumphant homeward way, what was more natural 
 than that Conway should march through Ransom the following even- 
 ing just as the ghost-like column in white stable-frocks came swinging 
 up to barracks through the gloaming? As the shortest road ran close 
 to the men's quarters, it happened that the burly sheriff, with his cap- 
 tive train, went clattering by the long wooden porches, and such 
 troopers as happened to be excused from stables — precious few in 
 Atherton's regiment — came rushing out of quarters to see them. All 
 the companies had had to " stand to heel" and have their stalls inspected 
 before they started up the slope, but in Ray's stable were only a few 
 horses, and the few men under charge of Sergeant Merriweather had 
 
486 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 already gone to barracks, and were there when Conway came through, 
 and of this few was the new trooper, Hunter. 
 
 Still wearing his white stable-frock, and looking a trifle tired and 
 sombre, the recruit had stopped at the corner of the porch and was 
 gazing with but languid interest at Conway's motley cavalcade, when 
 Merriweather joined him. " A precious lot of jail-birds," said the 
 sergeant, as the party came jogging by, sheriff and deputies grinning 
 affably, and many of the latter shouting words of condolence to the 
 stay-at-homes who hadn't been partakers with them in the glories of 
 the chase and capture. Four prisoners had trudged wearily by, while 
 Trooper Hunter replied briefly but without especial civility to the 
 sergeant's remark. Then came the fifth, whose eyes, haggard and 
 hunted-looking, glanced up just one second at the man in stable-frock 
 at the edge of the porch, and instantly there was a flash of recognition. 
 Sergeant Merriweather, turning to his companion in surprise, saw him 
 gazing after number five with an expression of amazement and dismay 
 upon his handsome face. 
 
 " Then you've met one of these fellows before, have you ?" said 
 Merriweather, with instant suspicion. 
 
 But Hunter answered never a word, and, turning short, plunged 
 into the shadows of the great, gloomy barrack. 
 
 Not for forty-eight hours longer did Captain Ray return, and with 
 him came the two deputies and one more prisoner. The others, so said 
 the hoof-tracks, had scattered during that first night over the face of 
 the earth, and even the trail soon became indistinct on the hard prairie 
 beyond the Ska ; but enough was known to warrant the statement that 
 two of the number had gone towards the agencies away to the north- 
 east, and that their mounts were evidently blooded stock, far swifter 
 than Ray's, for never once had their leaders been in view, and there 
 was no use in further pursuit. Huddled in the county jail, the eight 
 malefactors were awaiting the action of the civil authorities and 
 their identification by the railway people while Ray and his returned 
 men shook off the dust of travel and settled down to garrison duty 
 again. The first thing demanded of Sergeant Merriweather was an 
 account of his stewardship and the progress of the new trooper, and 
 Merriweather looked solemn and mysterious, and was finally under- 
 stood to say that he had nothing to complain of in him, but he "reck- 
 oned other people might." Whereupon Ray bade him speak out. The 
 Kentuckian could not tolerate insinuation or innuendo in a soldier. 
 And Merriweather told the story of the mutual recognition of Hunter 
 and the unknown captive. 
 
 It was the evening of his return to Ransom, and just before tattoo, 
 which in those days was always accompanied by a roll-call. 
 
 " See if Hunter is in quarters," said the captain, "and send him to 
 me." And Merriweather hastened on his errand. 
 
 No. The men in barracks said the swell recruit was out some- 
 where. " Mabbe he's gone down to pay his respects to Mrs. Merri- 
 weather, sergeant," sneered an ill-conditioned fellow, a man no otiier 
 liked, yet wiio had served with the old troop over half a dozen years. 
 Merriweather knew it would never do to notice the remark, but it 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 487 
 
 stung him all the same. " Find him, you, and tell him the captain 
 wants him at once," said he to the would-be sneerer, then slammed the 
 door behind him and sprang out into the night. He had not been 
 home for nearly an hour, and he needed, he told himself, a drink : so 
 thither he went. 
 
 Bright lights were burning in some of the quarters, dim ones in 
 others, but in his own the light seemed lowered to the verge of dark- 
 ness. Not two yards from his door tiie tall figure of a man in soldier 
 overcoat loomed into view, and, peering closely at him, Merriweather 
 discovered the recruit. 
 
 " Where you been. Hunter ?" was the sharp, stern demand. 
 
 " Looking for you, sergeant," was the quiet reply. 
 
 " Who sent you ?" And there were both anger and suspicion in the 
 tone. 
 
 "Oh, no one. I wished to speak with you a moment. I want 
 some advice." 
 
 "There is no need of your coming here, then. You've seen me a 
 dozen times in the last two days : why didn't you ask it then ?" 
 
 For a moment the younger man was silent ; surprise and disap- 
 pointment clouded his face. So, too, there crept into it a shade of 
 indignation, and it showed plainly in the tone of his reply. 
 
 " I had no need of it then," was the answer, as the younger soldier 
 looked squarely into the eyes of the senior. Then, just as when 
 angered by the overbearing ways of Major Mainwaring, Hunter's high 
 spirit overmastered his resolution to take men and matters as he found 
 them, and his eyes, too, flashed angrily. " Whatever thought I had 
 of it ten minutes ago," he said, " is gone now. I won't trouble you." 
 
 And with that he would have gone his way, but Merriweather, 
 smarting with jealousy and suspicion, threw himself across his path. 
 
 " You go no further, young man, till you hear what I've got to say. 
 This is the third time in less than a week you've been prowling here 
 around my door. Keep your distance in future. D'ye understand ? 
 No man enters that house except on my invitation. Now you go to 
 Captain Ray and tell him I sent you." 
 
 For a moment the tall young soldier stood there, too astonished to 
 make reply. He had heard the men talk of Merriweather as " tough 
 on recruits." He had understood that new men must take a great deal 
 of bullying from the elders, — that it was purposely done to try their 
 temper and test their sense of subordination. Hitherto he had looked 
 upon Merriweather's asperities as having no personal significance. 
 Now, for the first time, it flashed upon him that he was singled out for 
 harsh, overbearing, and abusive language from a man coarse by nature, 
 mentally, physically, and socially his inferior. All on a sudden the hot 
 blood boiled in his veins, and, forgetful of his new obligations, reck- 
 less of anything but his wrath. Trooper Hunter hit out straight, hard, 
 and well, taking Merriweather squarely between the eyes and knocking 
 him flat. The resounding thwack of the blow, the heavy crash of the 
 fall, were echoed from the door-way by a woman's startled cry, and 
 the next thing Hunter knew as he stood there still quivering, his fist 
 clinched and ready to dash again at his floored victim, now feebly 
 
488 RAV'S RECRUIT. 
 
 struggling to his knees, the slender form of the sergeant's wife was 
 bending over the beaten man ; then she threw herself upon her knees 
 beside her prostrate husband. 
 
 " You've struck him cruel hard," she moaned. " Oh, you shouldn't 
 have minded what he said, Mr. Hunter. He's awful jealous. — There, 
 Danny, sit still, — sit still," she pleaded, soothingly. " Run for a little 
 water, Mr. Hunter; he's bleeding fearful. Do be still, Danny. Sure 
 the gentleman never set foot inside your door, nor spoke a word to me. 
 You're foolish, Danny." She strove to stanch the blood with her 
 handkerchief, but he was slowly regaining his faculties, and thrust her 
 rudely away, and then she saw he was fumbling inside the breast of 
 his coat, and fear gave her strength. Hunter had taken a dipperful 
 of water from the barrel at the side of the little hut, and was bringing 
 it, dripping, wondering as he came what would be the outcome of this 
 mad impulse, but she met him half-way, seized the dipper, and bade 
 him go. "Quick," she panted; "don't stop an instant now. Get 
 away before he comes to himself, or he'll shoot. Go instantly, please, 
 Mr. Hunter, or maybe he'll kill me too." 
 
 " I can't go if I've hurt him. I must help him up," he began, 
 but she clutched his arm with trembling hands and whirled him about 
 towards the barracks. 
 
 " No, no ; leave everything to me. Don't come here till I tell you. 
 Don't you speak of this to a soul, unless you want him to kill me. He'll 
 never liarm me now unless he sees you still here ; but not a word of 
 it. I can keep him quiet." Then she pushed him violently from her, 
 just as the sergeant, staggering to his feet, held forth a feeble hand as 
 though seeking support. 
 
 And at that moment, up along the line of barracks, the trumpets 
 began the spirited music of the tattoo. The doors of neighboring 
 cottages began to open, and soldier forms, env^eloped in the long caped 
 overcoats, hastened forth. Irresolute, bewildered, hardly knowing 
 what he did and far from knowing what he ought to do, Trooper 
 Hunter hurried from the spot, breasted the slope to the " bench" on 
 which was spread the garrison proper, and found full two-thirds of his 
 troop already gathering in front of their quarters awaiting the signal 
 to form ranks, — the quick, stirring assembly. 
 
 "Did you see Doyle? He was looking for you. Hunter," chir- 
 ruped a little Patlander. " You're blowing, man. Where ye running 
 from ?" 
 
 But Hunter made no reply. Hooking the collar of his overcoat 
 and buttoning it throughout, he stepped quietly to the point where the 
 centre of his troop usually formed for roll-call, for his place in ranks 
 was close behind a tall corporal who marked the left of the first platoon. 
 The first sergeant, silent and solitary, his swinging lantern in his hand, 
 stood a few yards away, gazing out across the dim parade at the bright 
 lights in the distant quarters of the officers. The soldierly form of 
 the second lieutenant could be dimly discerned a few yards beyond the 
 sergeant. To the right and left, in front of the other barrack build- 
 ings, big black groups of men were gathered and sergeants' lights 
 were gleaming, all awaiting the next signal. Suddenly it came, quick 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 4<S9 
 
 rippling, merry. " Fall in," were the hoarse words growled from half 
 a dozen soldier throats. The groups quickly resolved themselves into 
 two long columns of files that faced to their left the instant the music 
 ceased, and stood motionless while, with the ease and rapidity of daily 
 practice, the sergeant called the roll. 
 
 The non-commissioned head of the sorrel troop twice repeated one 
 name in a questioning, surprised tone, then faced his lieutenant and 
 reported, " Sergeant Merriweather absent, sir." The officer acknow- 
 ledged the salute, said, " Dismiss the troop," and, facing about, found 
 himself confronting the unexpected apparition of Captain Ray, and 
 heard in the soft dialect of the Blue Grass his captain's words : 
 
 "Send Trooper Hunter to me, sergeant, directly you dismiss." 
 
 And while Lieutenant Scott went away to report the result of roll- 
 call to the adjutant, and the sergeant again faced his company. Hunter 
 felt his heart sink within him. Already Merriweather, then, had man- 
 aged to get word to his captain, and the captain was there to wreak 
 vengeance on him, the luckless offender. In violation of the strictest 
 articles of war, he. Hunter Gray, had struck down his superior officer, 
 and was now to suffer the penalty of the law. 
 
 " You hear, Hunter : the captain wants you." Then, " Break 
 ranks. March !" was the order, and the troop, cohesive and compact 
 but the moment before, dissolved at the word and fell to pieces, leaving 
 the new member standing all alone. For one moment he remained 
 there to pull himself together, then, nerved to face the worst, strode out 
 to meet his fate, his heart thumping in his breast. 
 
 " Hunter," said the captain, "did I not understand you to say that 
 you were a total stranger west of the jMissouri, and that you had 
 neither friends nor enemies out here ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir," was the trooper's reply, his hand still at the cap 
 visor. 
 
 " Then how did you come to know that prisoner in the lot brought 
 in by the sheriff?" 
 
 Hunter was silent. 
 
 "You admit having seen him before?" 
 
 " I do, sir." 
 
 " Where and when ?" 
 
 " Before I joined the regiment, sir. I met him with another man 
 at Pawnee." 
 
 Captain Ray was silent a moment. He stood scrutinizing in deep 
 concern the pale, clear-cut face before him. 
 
 "When I vouched for you in the adjutant's office the day of your 
 enlistment, I felt somehow that you were a truthful man and not a 
 runagate, and I don't wish to be disappointed in you. I don't want to 
 find a man with a clouded record in my troop. What do you know 
 about that robbery ?" 
 
 " Nothing more than everybody else, sir, — that it took place, and 
 that " but here again he hesitated. 
 
 " Well, that what, Hunter?" said Captain Ray, noting the soldier's 
 significant pause. 
 
 "Nothing more, sir. I met one of the prisoners at Pawnee in a 
 
490 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 restaurant some few weeks ago. I never saw him before, and I've 
 never seen hiua since — except tiiat day." 
 
 Ray stood calmly studying his man. " I told you it was taking 
 chances to enlist an applicant who looked as though he might have 
 been a man of high social standing," said he, presently, " and you 
 looked me in the eye and said I shouldn't regret taking you in my 
 troop. You've been with me barely a week, and already you are the 
 object of suspicion. How long will it be before I hear you directly 
 accused of something to make me deeply regret my over-confidence ?" 
 
 Hunter started as though to speak, but the words died on his lips. 
 From the direction of the barracks a soldierly step was swiftly ap- 
 proaching. The turf beneath their feet began to light up with the 
 gleam of a nearing lantern. It was the first sergeant again, and 
 Hunter heard him abruptly halt, true to the formal etiquette of the 
 old cavalry days, and await his captain's signal to approach. 
 
 " Remain here a moment," said Ray to his anxious recruit. — " What 
 is it, sergeant ?" 
 
 " I found Sergeant Merriweather, who was absent from roll-call, at 
 his quarters, sir." 
 
 Ray frowned. Another instance of Merriweather's falling off since 
 his marriage. 
 
 " What excuse had he for his absence?" was the brief question. 
 
 " Well, sir, his wife says that he had met with a mishap, — had a 
 fall in the dark. But it looked to me more like a blow, and he 
 couldn't deny it, sir." 
 
 " A blow ? Assaulted ? When, and by whom ?" 
 
 " Just a few minutes ago, sir. Close to his own door, I think." 
 
 Ray's head went back with a jerk, an odd old trick of his when 
 mentally aroused. "He must know who did it, unless he was struck 
 from behind. Did you ask him?" 
 
 " Certainly, sir, and he declares he didn't see, and Mrs. Merri- 
 weather declares it was two men, and they ran away towards barracks 
 the moment they downed him." 
 
 For a few seconds the sergeant stood looking at his captain's per- 
 plexed face. Then the recruit suddenly and impulsively stepped for- 
 ward. Before he could speak. Captain Ray threw up his hand in 
 warning gesture, as though commanding silence. The first sergeant 
 whirled abruptly and stood facing towards the distant south gate. 
 Borne on the night wind came a confused medley of hoarse murmurs, 
 of distant shouts, of rapid-running feet ; then, from far out across the 
 townward stretch of prairie, the muffled report of fire-arms, one, two, 
 three ; and from the direction of the guard-house a soldier came rush- 
 ing like a Wyoming gale. 
 
 " What is it, Kid ?" sang out the sergeant to the sprinter. 
 
 " Sheriff Conway — stabbed, and his prisoners loose. They want 
 the doctor." 
 
 " Why," said Ray, in surprise, " what business could he have out 
 here ? What does it mean ?" 
 
 " They were telling me just before tattoo, captain, that Conway 
 came out with a warrant for some one here at the fort, but asked to see 
 
RAF'S RECRUIT. 491 
 
 Prisoner Healy, one of the two that escaped the night of the train- 
 robbery, — the one of the two that was recaptured. The man must 
 have knifed him and got away." 
 
 " Is Captain Ray there ?" came a call from the darkness, in the 
 deep, well-known voice of the colonel, and Ray sprang to answer. 
 Then the sergeant turned on Trooper Hunter. 
 
 " Look here, young feller," said he. " They tell me you're the 
 chap Conway wanted." 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A GENERAL court-martial had convened at Ransom for the trial 
 of such enlisted men as should be brought before it, and the president 
 thereof looked out from behind his newspaper during a lull in the 
 proceedings, and, with the characteristic expression which seemed to 
 say, " Don't you dare lie to me now," popped the following ques- 
 tion : 
 
 " Blake, what's the name of the Three Guardsmen ?" 
 
 And Blake, never laying down his paper or changing a muscle 
 of his long, sallow countenance, placidly and promptly responded, 
 " Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos." 
 
 Captain Gregg, sitting at the right of the presiding officer, after 
 reflecting profoundly a moment, slowly nodded, as though to say, 
 "Right, though I didn't think you knew." Captain Truscott, sitting 
 opposite Gregg and busily occupied with a letter, glanced quickly from 
 under his heavy lashes and compressed his lips. Some of the young- 
 sters farther down the long table looked a bit mystified ; but Blake's 
 balance-wheel, Captain Ray, was not a member of the court, and 
 probably would have accepted the reply as authoritative had he been 
 there, for Ray was no reader. It was the questioner who looked dis- 
 satisfied, and the questioner, as usual, was Mainwaring. 
 
 For a moment he pondered, scowling at Blake the while, then 
 outspoke : 
 
 " Well, that's all right, probably ; but what I want to get at is the 
 name of that other fellow with 'em — Dee — something — how do you 
 pronounce it?" 
 
 " Depends on whether you're in a salon or a saloon, major," 
 answered Blake. " Dartauyan in one case and Dee Arta^nan in 
 t'other. What have you stumbled on now ?" 
 
 " Nothing much. Reading about a fellow that named his horse 
 that and thinks he's going to sweep the race-tracks from Jerome Park 
 to Jerusalem. Dee — what d' you call him? I wouldn't ride one of 
 their steeple-chases on an English saddle if you'd give me a thousand 
 dollars." 
 
 " I wouldn't care to ride one on any other kind ; certainly not on 
 one of our service saddles," said Blake, whose long legs could wrap 
 around any horse in the regiment. " Those high, sharp pommels are 
 the worst kind of thing to use 'cross country." 
 
 " Not if you know how to ride," said the major, who loyally stood 
 
492 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 by everything that was regulation. " I'll bet you any real cavalryman 
 will tell you that he'd rather use a McClellan for any kind of riding 
 than any other kind of saddle." 
 
 " Done !" said Blake, " and leave it to Staunard or Ray." And 
 here he kicked across under the table to rouse his opposite fellow- 
 member to full rejoicing in the colloquy, for Mainwaring couldn't bear 
 to hear Stannard quoted as authority on any subject, and was sure that 
 Ray was a vastly overrated officer. 
 
 " What does Stannard know about it, anyhow ?" bristled Main- 
 waring : " he never rode anything but a McClellan. And as for 
 Ray, I know a dozen better riders and cavalrymen who agree with 
 me." 
 
 "All right. You come out to the hurdles after court adjourns, 
 major, and we'll give you a chance to see the difference. That pretty 
 mare of Mrs. Ray's is to have a jumping-lesson this afternoon, and 
 you can try both saddles and systems, if you like." 
 
 But the re-entrance of the judge-advocate with the prisoner put a 
 stop to the chat, and Mainwaring called the court to order. 
 
 A week had rolled by since the night of the assault on Sergeant 
 Merriweather and the stabbing of Sheriff Conway. The first episode 
 seemed to have died out of the interest of even the few who knew of 
 it, for Merri weather's lips were sealed, but the second was still the 
 topic of excited talk. 
 
 And well it might be. Armed with a warrant, so he claimed, for 
 the arrest of certain soldiers of the garrison, Conway had come to the 
 post about tattoo that evening, had stopped at the guard-house and 
 asked to see Prisoner Healy, a soldier under charges of assault and 
 robbery of a fellow-trooper only a few weeks before. Healy and a 
 companion confined as an accomplice had sawed their way out and 
 escaped, as has been told, but the former was recaptured and brought 
 back. He was a merry little Irishman, an almost universal favorite 
 before the trouble occurred. The garrison declared to a man he couldn't 
 have had a hand in the robbery, though it was probable he couldn't 
 have kept out of the assault. But evidence of a serious character was 
 piled up against him when he made the suspicious attempt to getaway. 
 Conway was possessed with the idea that Healy knew something about 
 the train-robbery. No one could surely identify any of the seven 
 languishing in Butte's stronghold, and the sheriff was at his wits' end. 
 The officer of the guard had gone over to get his heavy coat and to 
 change into rough rig for the night when Conway appeared, and an 
 over-confident sergeant, detailing a sentry to stand close by, permitted 
 Healy to come out of the prison-room and be questioned. At first the 
 young Irishman was stubborn and would tell nothing, but gradually 
 he made admissions and kept glancing fearfully over his shoulder as 
 though he thought the sentry might hear. So Conway drew him around 
 behind the portico of the heavy log structure, and told the sentry to 
 come no nearer : he would be responsible. The very next minute the 
 sentry heard a stifled cry, a scuffle. Healy darted away like a shot into 
 the darkness. The sentry and the guard pursued in vain, and Conway 
 lay stabbed to the hilt of a ghastly-looking knife. He had bled almost 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 493 
 
 to death before the surgeon reached him or unskilled hands could check 
 the flow. Now he was lying at the post hospital, slowly convalescing, 
 but very weak and dazed. 
 
 The question was, what had become of Healy ? Where was he in 
 hiding? for no man answering his description had boarded the Trans- 
 continental trains far or near. Butte was a big, straggling frontier 
 town, illimitable in its future possibilities, said the " promoters," and 
 equally illimitable in present devices for concealing stolen property or 
 stealing practitioners. Butte had a large floating population and small 
 sinking fund, the latter devoted to rewards for capture of malefactors, 
 and Conway had a wide-spread reputation for sleepless vigilance and 
 luckless ventures. He made many arrests, and nearly as many errors 
 in the eyes of the law, since convictions were few and far between. 
 He had gloried in his seven desperadoes just about forty-eight hours. 
 Then, as man after man looked them over and said he couldn't testify 
 against them, as they proved to be perfect strangers, Conway's face 
 grew lined and anxious. It began to look as though failure were again 
 about to stamp him, when some one suggested that Pat Healy at the 
 post could tell him all he wanted to know, and somebody else whispered 
 that the sooner he got every man even remotely connected with the 
 robbery the better would it be for his chance of re-election. Then he 
 came to Ransom trebly armed, but his very first victim proved far too 
 clever, adroit, and dangerous. The knife was driven furiously, and it 
 was God's mercy the sheriff was not killed outright. 
 
 And then Miss Leroy, the Mainwarings' guest, had developed an 
 odd fad for an Eastern girl. A more independent young woman had 
 never been seen at Ransom. She was always unlike otiier girls, said 
 Mrs. Main waring. She had always visited the poor and needy at home, 
 had headed all manner of charitable schemes as a young girl, and had 
 a mania for reading aloud to the sick. Few of the ladies of the — th, 
 deeply imbued though some of them were with religious faith, had 
 ever thought it their duty to visit the patients in the big post hospital. 
 The surgeon and the steward did all that. The young assistant surgeon 
 was a bachelor and susceptible. Miss Leroy's plea to be allowed to 
 visit the hospital was eagerly granted, and he himself was there to 
 escort her. One of the first patients to interest her was Sheriff* Con- 
 way, to whom she was now reading aloud an hour every morning. 
 Mild raillery had no effect upon her. Expostulation was not resorted 
 to, for it speedily developed that, with all her slender, dainty physique, 
 Miss Leroy had a vigorous, if placid, will of her own. The post 
 surgeon had said there was no harm whatever, in fact it was a blessing 
 to more patients than one, therefore by all means let Miss Leroy keep 
 it up. Thereafter there was no one to say her nay. Secretly Mrs. 
 Main waring had hoped the colonel and her husband would express 
 disapproval, but, with the perversity of their sex, they persisted in 
 saying to Miss Leroy that she was an angel of goodness, and it was a 
 wonder that other women had not done likewise long before. By the 
 time she had been three weeks at Ransom Kate Leroy was better known 
 and infinitely better loved in the quarters of the married soldiers whose 
 little ones were ailing, and in the wards of the big hospital, than all 
 
494 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 but two or three of the ladies of" tlie regiment. It was a new departure 
 at the post. 
 
 Day after day, then, was she to be seen, each morning about ten 
 o'cloci^, on her way to her patients, and with them she would stay until 
 orderly call sounded at noon. There were four men in hospital when 
 she began ; there were seven men at the end of the week, and the 
 doctor said she was making it too attractive a place after all. 
 
 "Next thing," said Wilkins, "she'll be after beatifying the gyard- 
 house." 
 
 Mrs. Mainwaring found that telling her niece what people said 
 about this fad of hers had no effect whatever. So she went a bit fur- 
 ther, and told her things people really had not said, but might say : 
 this, too, fell harmless. Afternoons and evenings Miss Leroy was 
 ready to devote to social duties and Mrs. Mainwaring, but the morning 
 readings to the men in the convalescent ward went on without inter- 
 ruption or noteworthy incident an entire week ; then came a change in 
 the arrangement. 
 
 True to his colors, Mainwaring was out at the hurdles ten minutes 
 before anybody else that afternoon, and loudly calling for Blake to 
 come and make good his word. He came soon enough, Mrs. Ray and 
 Mrs. Blake, two charming women, with him. Presently out rode 
 Captain Billy on his old favorite " Dandy," now a sedate steed over 
 ten years of age ; after him strode his Irish groom Hogan, leading a 
 beautiful little bay mare, all points and elasticity, a spirited, dancing 
 creature, with dainty head and legs, brilliant eyes, pretty pointed ears, 
 and a satin coat that fairly glistened. The hurdles were at the edge 
 of the drill-ground on the northeast side of the post, and no sooner 
 was the party sighted from the barracks than a number of troopers 
 made their way to the fence, and, with appreciative eyes, stood watching 
 at respectful distance the preparation for Stella's first lesson with side- 
 saddle and skirt. 
 
 Among the men was Sergeant Merri weather, still discolored as to 
 his face, but an interested spectator for all that. Mainwaring, Ray, 
 and Blake were in riding dress, Mainwaring and Ray in saddle, and 
 Mainwaring's first bellow was, " Now, where's your English saddle?" 
 
 " Coming," said Blake, coolly, and pointed towards the stables, 
 whence, at easy gait, a tall, slender soldier came riding a troop horse, 
 carrying something over his arm. Blake recognized at once Ray's 
 recent acquisition, Hunter. Mainwaring stopped glaring at Blake, 
 turned and gazed at the new-comer witii all his eyes, and then whirled 
 in saddle towards Ray and ejaculated, " Well, I'll be damned !" There 
 were times when even the presence of ladies couldn't restrain Main- 
 waring's impulse to verbal outbreaks. 
 
 " Thought you had a whole troop of rough riders, Ray," said he, 
 after again glowering at the new-comer until he grew tired of the calm 
 indifference which rewarded his gaze. " This ain't one of your lot, is 
 it? I've seen him before." 
 
 " Yes, the day you persuaded him not to enlist," laughed Ray, 
 good-naturedly. " I roped him in afterwards." Then, lowering his 
 voice, " He's got a hand on a horse's mouth as light as a child's." 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 495 
 
 The tall recruit had dismounted from his own troop-horse, and, 
 having thrown the reins over a picket of the fence, was now quietly 
 approaching Stella, with a light English saddle in his hand. Hogan, 
 dismounted, was petting her glossy neck and speaking soothingly, but 
 the pretty creature, with ears erect, was switching about, apparently 
 hunting for something at which to shy, and the ladies' furs gave her 
 ready excuse. The moment Mrs. Ray stepped forward to pat her, 
 Stella backed vigorously, dragging Hogan with her, and, despite Ray's 
 practised hand extended to aid, back she persisted in going until she 
 bumped into the hurdle-post. This furnished excuse for a kick and a 
 plunge. Ray sprang from his saddle, and, telling Hogan to look after 
 Dandy, himself took Stella's bit and began Blue Grass expostulation, 
 which seemed more intelligible than Irish. At all events, the mettle- 
 some creature quieted down long enough to admit of Hunter's approach, 
 and that tall, silent young soldier quickly set and girthed the saddle, 
 and then, at a nod from his caj)tain, vaulted on her back, Ray letting 
 go the moment the reins were gathered. 
 
 And then did Stella dance nimbly, daintily about, playful and 
 spirited, but not in the least vicious, Hunter giving her head abundant 
 room to toss, and maintaining only light and easy pressure on the bit. 
 Mainwaring sniffed disdainfully at tlie uncavalrylike pose, the long, 
 flat seat, the knees far to the front, the feet set home in the stirrups 
 and away forward. He sniifed still more when Stella began to bound 
 and curvet, and Hunter rose slightly in his stirrups, riding lightly, spring- 
 ingly, and never thinking of sitting fast. Ray called to Merriweather 
 to bring one or two men and come over to the hurdles, and, without an 
 audible word, the order was obeyed, though it was remarked at the time 
 that the sergeant hesitated a bit, possibly because of his disfigured face. 
 
 "Try her over the bar first, Ray," said Mainwaring. And, with 
 a man stationed at each post and the bar set easily nearly three feet 
 from the ground, Hunter guided his pretty mount to the spot, let her 
 sniff at and examine the strange affair, then as quietly rode her a dozen 
 yards away, turned her head to the bar, and, relaxing the reins, gave 
 her the hint to go, his long sinewy legs close pressed to the saddle. 
 Stella came at it delightedly, but changed her mind with the second 
 stride, and would have flown the track but for the firm hand and closed 
 leg. Finding she couldn't dodge and had to do it, she rose high, and, 
 half affrighted, cleared the bar and came bounding lightly to the turf, 
 then bolted away with blood in her eye and the bit in her teeth. Only 
 a few rods, however. Hunter, sitting her like wax now, reined her 
 round in broad circle, headed her back for the group, gradually check- 
 ing her speed as he neared the party. 
 
 " Try it from that side," said Ray, and over she popped, light as a 
 bird. A third and a fourth time was the leap repeated, Stella enjoying 
 being the centre of attraction and improving on her efforts. Then 
 came the attempt at the wider hurdle, a man being stationed at each 
 end to give her the idea of posts between which she must jump : this, 
 too, proved a bagatelle. And all this time Hunter had never opened 
 his lips to speak. Now, in obedience to the captain's signal, the 
 trooper reined up close to him. 
 
496 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 "What do you think of her jumping?" asked Ray. 
 
 " She has been well taught, sir," was the answer, in low, quiet tone. 
 " I think she will give Mrs. Ray little trouble ; but she has never been 
 ridden with the side-saddle and skirt, I understand." 
 
 No, she had not. Hogan produced the side-saddle and a cavalry 
 blanket. In two minutes the mare was housed in the one and Hunter 
 rolled, as to his legs, in the other. This time mounting was not so 
 easy. Stella despised that blanket and would not suffer it to come 
 near her, and that blanket was to be tried in lieu of a riding-skirt, 
 Mainwaring sat on his horse, shouting all manner of suggestions, 
 sorely trying Ray's sense of subordination. At last, impatiently, he 
 hazarded the remark, " Phoo, Ray ! that man can't ride. There's a 
 dozen men in my old troop would have had her over the hurdle, 
 blanket and all, by this time." 
 
 The blood rushed to Hunter's face, and he bit his lip hard. Thus 
 far Ray had been holding the mare's head by the bit, — a hub, so to 
 speak, about which she circled, first one way, then the other, to dodge 
 the blanket-swathed form. Now the trooper was heard to speak. 
 
 "Pardon me, captain, but may I take her myself?" 
 
 Instantly the two ladies exchanged a glance. "I told you he 
 looked like a gentleman," said Mrs. Ray, in low tone. 
 
 Then began a very pretty piece of coaxing. With one firm hand 
 at the bit, the blanket still strapped about his waist. Trooper Hunter 
 had managed to reach Stella's neck with his right hand, and, patting 
 her softly, was murmuring gently. " Makin' love to her in Irish," 
 Hogan muttered to Duiiy. Several additions had been made to the 
 group by this time. The colonel, Dana by his side and followed by 
 his orderly, came riding around from the direction of the stables, and, 
 doffing his cap to the ladies, sat in saddle an interested spectator. 
 Several Avives and children of the soldiers had been attracted from 
 their quarters to the fence, while a little farther buck, aloof from the 
 general run of Sudstown people, with a pale-blue shawl, one of Mrs. 
 Freeman's discarded evening wraps, over her head, pretty Mrs, Merri- 
 weather stood at gaze. Hunter slowly lifted an edge of the blanket 
 and let Stella nose it, which she did, feigned to be much frightened, 
 and attempted again to pull away. But at last, wearying of fruitless 
 efforts, she consented to smell of it, and then nudged it disdainfully 
 aside. The next thing she knew. Hunter had slipped both hands back, 
 one to the pommel, the other to her mane, and with agile spring 
 alighted on the saddle, threw the right leg over the horn, and, despite 
 her plunging, Stella found herself once more under his weight, firmly 
 held as ever. Five minutes' petting made her forget her burden, even 
 when shown the shadow of the skirt. In less than ten she had leaped 
 the hurdle to and fro half a dozen times, and was realizing she had 
 made a fool of herself. And then some unhallowed inspiration seized 
 the major. 
 
 " What I v.^ant is to see how she'll behave under a cavalry saddle. 
 — You've ridden one often enough, I suppose?" he said, scowling at 
 Hunter. 
 
 " Never until I came here, sir." 
 
RAV'S RECRUIT. 497 
 
 " Mean to tell me you've never been in the cavalry?" 
 
 " I told the major as much a fortnight ago," was the firm yet 
 respectful reply. 
 
 " Well, where'd you learn to ride, then ?" asked Mainwaring, who 
 had a fixed idea that no one not of the cavalry could be at home in the 
 saddle; this, too, despite long years among vaqueros, Comanches, and 
 cowboys. 
 
 " I learned to ride as a boy, sir." 
 
 " Well, dismount and put on that McClellan saddle," said Main- 
 waring, curtly. 
 
 Atherton heard the order, saw the quick glance of the soldier 
 towards his captain, and the half-vexed expression in Ray's face, and, 
 glancing at Mrs. Hay, hesitated no longer. 
 
 " No, no, major, don't change the saddle. Let us see how she'll 
 take the bar again. Set it loosely, you men, so that it will slide off 
 the pegs if she strikes." 
 
 Sergeant Merriweather was busily setting the peg at three feet 
 again, when, glancing up to see that the opposite end was at the same 
 notch, he caught sight of the slender figure of his wife standing well 
 back of the group at the fence, her eyes fixed, not on him or on the 
 ladies, but, with deep, intense interest in her gaze, upon the tall, erect 
 young soldier on the spirited mare. Up to this moment Merriweather 
 had been silently carrying out his instructions, all his attention given 
 to them or to Stella. Of the man in saddle he took apj)arentTy no 
 notice whatever. Now, forgetting everything else in hand, he stood 
 there, half bent over, gazing, with heaven only knows what thoughts 
 surging through his brain, straight and steadfast at his unconscious wife. 
 
 "Sergeant, don't you hear?" At last the impatient words seemed 
 to reach him, and the flustered face of his comrade at the opposite post 
 recalled him to himself. " The captain says set it at three feet six. 
 Quick ! She's coming." 
 
 Coming she was, with a rush, Hunter's hands held low on her 
 withers, his legs dangling on the near side as she bounded over the 
 springy turf. Merriweather jerked out the iron })eg and thrust it into 
 the three-six hole, lifting the bar as he did so, but turning the hook of 
 the pin upward instead of down. It was no leap at all. There was no 
 reason why she should strike, no reason why, if she did strike, any 
 harm would occur. But it was all done in a second of time. Sitting 
 sideways, instead of astride, Hunter was at a disadvantage. He could 
 not " lift her" as he was accustomed. The excited creature dashed at 
 the bar as though reckless of its added height; the off forefoot struck 
 the tough, unyielding wood, tripped her, threw her headlong on the 
 turf, hurling Hunter, blanket, and herself in a confused and rolling 
 heap. A woman's shriek went up at the instant, but it came not from 
 the lips of the women on the field. 
 
 It seemed but another instant before Hunter was on his feet, reins 
 in hand, while Stella was struggling to rise. Forgetful of himself, he 
 sought to see if the mare were harmed. Ray and Hogan sprang to 
 his side. " Are you hurt, man ?" they eagerly asked, but he laughed 
 it off. 
 
 YoL. LIX.— 32 
 
498 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 " Not at all, sir. I'm only troubled about her." 
 
 Panting, wide-eyed, and startled, Stella stood, with heaving flanks, 
 wondering what it all meant. Ray hastened to reassure his wife. 
 Atherton rode up to satisfy himself the soldier was uninjured. Over 
 beyond the roadway and fence two of the laundresses were leading 
 Mrs. Merriweather, shocked and actually weeping, away. At them 
 the sergeant stood gazing fixedly, his discolored face working with 
 passion, and Captain Blake had twice to bid him pick up the bar 
 before he answered and obeyed. 
 
 " That's what you call a stand-oif, I suppose," muttered the man 
 at the opposite post, as Merriweather brushed him by. " Don't tell 
 me I don't know who floored you." But the sergeant never heard. 
 He was hastening after his wife. 
 
 " Ray," said the colonel as they were riding into the garrison a few 
 minutes later, " tliat was a piece of gross carelessness on the part of 
 your sergeant. That man has been getting less reliable every month 
 for the last two years. You'd better think twice should he apply for 
 re-enlistment." 
 
 " Gerald," said clear-sighted Mrs. Blake, as she clung to the arm 
 of the captain, after leaving Mrs. Ray at her gate, " I'm glad that 
 didn't happen in your troop. Are you sure Sergeant Merriweather set 
 that pin properly? Wasn't it his wife that shrieked?" 
 
 " Pet," said Mrs. Main waring to her niece, just as the young doctor 
 lifted his cap and looked for an invitation to enter, as he met the two 
 ladies returning from a call at the Rays' an hour later, " you and Dr. 
 Jayne came near getting another patient this afternoon, and a most 
 interesting one, they say, a mysterious swell in the Sorrels. He might 
 serve to make you forget the handsome unknown who played doctor 
 for you the night of the collision. — She hasn't told you about that, I 
 suppose, has she, doctor?" 
 
 "'M — ah, no, no indeed," said Dr. Jayne, in evident dismay. 
 " What was he like, pray ?" 
 
 " Oh, divinely tall and most divinely fair," said Mrs. Mainwaring, 
 laughing. "Kate has his flask and handkerchief yet, waiting for him 
 to return and claim them — and her." 
 
 And that evening Miss Leroy wondered whether aunts were always 
 so disagreeable, or whether this was merely her own fault, and entirely 
 her fault, because she had admitted that, though there were agreeable 
 men in the regiment, they were all married. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Conway, convalescing, had been bundled back to town, leaving 
 blessings on the head of his fair nurse and reader. Corporal Shannon, 
 kicked by a mule in the quartermaster's corral, was installed in his 
 place. The daily reading was going on in the hospital, despite social 
 duties that grew more exacting as Miss Leroy became better known 
 and more appreciated. Over in the sorrel troop's quarters Hunter, 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 499 
 
 despite inflexible reserve as to his past, had won the good will of most 
 of the men. Qiiin, a garrison bully, pitching upon a smaller comrade 
 for a fancied aifront, had been himself pitched into a snow-drift, and 
 when he rushed at his antagonist was floored flat by as neat a swing on 
 the jaw as ever the — th had heard of. It was a new blow, in fact, to 
 the regiment, and the story went from barrack to barrack that the 
 Sorrels had got a swell boxer as well as rider. Curiosity as to Hunter's 
 antecedents burst all bounds. Major Main war ing's assertion that he 
 had seen the fellow somewhere before and knew he must be a deserter 
 was sufficient to make the recruit an object of interest in garrison 
 society, even if he had not won distinction as trainer of Mrs. Ray's 
 beautiful mare, whose delicate mouth and Eastern schooling made her 
 somewhat too sensitive for ordinary cavalry handling. Ray, once the 
 light rider of the regiment, could have coached her beautifully, but 
 Ray was growing bulky with years, and an old bullet-wound in the 
 thigh, received during a Sioux campaign years before, was troubling 
 him as winter wore on. What no one understood was how Ray came 
 to select Hunter, for Ray declared he had no previous knowledge of 
 him whatever, which was true. Truscott, when appealed to for his 
 opinion, smiled gravely, as was his wont, and said Ray had as unerring 
 an eye for a horseman as he had for a horse. But it was in " Suds- 
 town," where dwelt the wives and daughters of the soldiery, that 
 Trooper Hunter's goings and comings, doings and sayings, were be- 
 coming matters of such absorbing interest. He was credited with 
 being fabulously wealthy, among other things, for he certainly had 
 money at his command. He also had friends and acquaintances — some 
 said a wife and family, or at least a lady-love — somewhere in town, 
 for he had twice asked for passes, and more than once was believed to 
 have gone thither without that formality. Mrs. Merriweather, who 
 held her head so high above the other women, was accused of "setting 
 her cap" for the stranger, and she laid herself open to calumny by de- 
 claring to one or two envious dames that Mr. Hunter was a frequent 
 caller, only "Dan" didn't like it and had warned him off. "Indeed, 
 he got to coming too often for his own good," said she, which meant 
 worlds of helpless regret on her part. 
 
 Men sought the confidence of the new soldier, but gave it up in 
 ignorance as deep as that with which they came to him. Some he 
 laughed at, some he snubbed, none he gratified. It was fortunate he 
 knew how to fight, for there were evil spirits that would have mauled 
 him otherwise on general principles, but Ray kept a sharp lookout for 
 his protege. He, at least, should have fair play, despite the hints of 
 the first sergeant that Conway could tell something about him, and had 
 even asked him, Sergeant Fellows, where he could find Hunter the 
 night he came out with a warrant and was knifed by Healy. Ray 
 rode to town and demanded of Conway what he knew or suspected, 
 and Conway said, " Nothing ; at least nothing that I could prove." 
 Ray had flouted the idea of Hunter's being connected in any way with 
 the train-robbers : indeed, it was doubtful if the leaders would ever be 
 caught. They were lost to all search, deep in the Hills, and their 
 luckless accomplices were still held awaiting the action of some Federal 
 
500 RAF'S RECRUIT. 
 
 official yet to arrive. Stannard and Main waring had had almost an 
 open rupture, all on account of Hunter, who, daily exercising and train- 
 ing Mrs. Ray's pretty Stella, was, nevertheless, performing all other 
 duties with his troop. Mainwaring, noting how successful Hunter had 
 been with Stella, concluded that he should like to have him try his 
 hand on Velvet, Mrs. Mainwaring's saddler, who had never been 
 known to jump, and was confounded when the trooper most respect- 
 fully but positively begged to be excused. Atherton was away, sum- 
 moned to meet the department commander at Pawnee. Stannard was 
 in temporary command. Mainwaring asked that the trooper should 
 be directed to perform duty for him, for which he was perfectly willing 
 to pay, or else be ordered to cease doing it for Ray. Stannard said no 
 soldier could be compelled to perform menial service for any officer if 
 he didn't wish to, and if he did not wish to train Mrs. Mainwaring's 
 horse he should not be made to. Mainwaring declared training horses 
 could not be menial service in the eyes of a true cavalryman, and 
 Stannard said that it was if a man thought so. Mainwaring got very 
 wroth, and swore that between them, Stannard and Blake and Ray, 
 they were bound to spoil a man who gave promise of being a good 
 soldier, despite his shadowy antecedents, and again demanded that he 
 be ordered to cease handling Stella for Ray. Stannard said he only 
 did it for the love of the thing, for practice and recreation, and not for 
 emolument, and he should not be denied. Then Atherton came back ; 
 Mainwaring appealed to him from Stannard's decision, and Atherton 
 said he'd investigate and decide next morning. 
 
 But it was decided for him that night. 
 
 " Ray," said he, at evening stables, " whoever set that huge hay- 
 stack so close to the stables had no idea of prudence. If it were to 
 catch fire your premises would go. I shall order it removed to- 
 morrow." 
 
 Sergeant Merriweather, stable sergeant of the troop up to a week 
 before, heard these words, and so did Sergeant Conro, to whom he was 
 pointing out certain defects in the mechanism of a grain-chute from 
 the loft above their heads. It was storming, and grooming was being 
 conducted inside. Merriweather stopped short in his explanation, 
 stared at the colonel as though the words had dazed him in some way, 
 and then had to be reminded of the subject which he was discussing. 
 
 The wind that had banked the snow-clouds in the southeast during 
 the day veered towards nightfall and blew strong from the southwest. 
 At tattoo it was whisking the hay from the quartermaster's corral and 
 sending it streaming across the line of stables and out upon the bleak 
 prairie, while, still farther along, under the " bench," the big hay-stacks 
 beyond the corral seemed stripping in the gale, and the biggest of all 
 was that which projected half-way across the open space in front of the 
 line of gable-ends and just opposite that of Ray's troop. At tattoo the 
 gale was almost a blizzard, and Atherton, ever on the defensive against 
 fires, bade the troop officers look well to their company kitchens and 
 see that all the ranges and stoves were securely banked, then went over 
 to the guard-house in person and held brief consultation with Blake, 
 who was officer of the day, and his officer of the guard, who, as ill 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 501 
 
 luck would have it, was Lieutenant Brady, at whom Atherton looked 
 with scant favor. He was a young man whom Blake described as 
 " one of the detriments of the service." He had been fairly well 
 educated somewhere, had enlisted when it was too evident he was in 
 no condition to make a living otherwise, but that was in the summer 
 of '76, when twenty-five hundred men were suddenly raised by Con- 
 gress to fill the gaps in the regiments engaged in the Sioux war, and 
 the riff-raff of the Atlantic cities was rushed to the frontier. He won 
 a company clerkship in three months, which was considered immense 
 good luck, and lost it within the year, which was supposed to be luck 
 as bad, but turned out to be the stepping-stone to fortune in the 
 soldier's eyes. He was one of an escort attacked by road agents, and, 
 in fighting desperately for his own life, had saved that of the pay- 
 master. The sergeant and corporal with them were killed. Brady 
 was " lanced" on the spot and came home a hero, the subject of a pane- 
 gyric from the pen of the paymaster, whose uncle was a Senator of 
 much wealth and much knowledge of mining, but little of men. He 
 was on the paymaster's bond for a big sum, and the next thing the 
 — th knew a stranger to their ranks appeared with a commission as 
 second lieutenant, a glib tongue and a convivial turn, plenty of money 
 to start with, and a letter of introduction to Atherton from a famous 
 war general, which letter was susceptible of two interpretations and 
 was written, there was little doubt, at the instance of the Senator in 
 question, a prominent member of the committee on military affairs. 
 "This will be handed you by Lieutenant Brady," said the letter, 
 " who so distinguished himself in the affair on the Mirabres last year. 
 The department thought best to assign him to the — th, and I have 
 assured his friends that in consigning him to you I have placed him in 
 the best hands possible." Senator Sivright was thoroughly satisfied, his 
 nephew the paymaster a bit perplexed, but too wise just then to dissect 
 any other man's motives or letters, lest his own should become objects 
 of scrutiny. Brady proved a jolly acquisition at first, could sing a 
 good song, tell a good story, and was " smart" in many ways and lavish 
 in all. There was a story (put in circulation by a soldier whose reward 
 for that Mimbres affair had been a discharge and not a commission) 
 to the effect that when they were suddenly attacked by those despera- 
 does the paymaster had crawled under the wagon and cried, and Brady 
 "allowed" when in his cups that he could tell things, and would if not 
 " properly persuaded." Certain it is that for the first year of his service 
 Brady spent and drank more than a second lieutenant's share. Then 
 the Senator failed of re-election, owing possibly to some shortcomings 
 in his mines; his nephew, the paymaster, succeeded in planning a 
 robbery that worked better ; and this opened the stagnant flow of pro- 
 motion in the pay corps, and left Brady without a protector. 
 
 But he held a life office, if he behaved himself, and, being a 
 bachelor in a regiment that spent most of its days in the inexpensive 
 luxuries of field-service, he had managed to pay his debts and, so long 
 as he let whiskey alone, keep out of serious trouble. But Brady and 
 John Barleycorn never "connected" that the former did not, as Blake 
 said, make an ass of himself, and his asininity took shape in a peculiar 
 
502 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 form of mania that afflicts the bibulous Hibernian. — that of imagining, 
 believing, and telling tales of deep and bloody mystery at the expense 
 of his lellow-men in higher social esteem than himself. Friends 
 Brady had few, enemies none worse than himself. He felt the isola- 
 tion of his lot, wanted to marry, and was refused by the girls he 
 wanted, which made him gloomier, but campaign work saved him from 
 the solace he would have sought, and Brady had been doing fairly 
 well, for him, when Rawson returned from leave and gave him a crony 
 and an excuse for a start. Atherton whisked the crony off, as has been 
 said, before much mischief was done, but he could not banish the 
 whiskey, and Brady marched on guard the morning of this eventful 
 day, looking much the worse for three weeks' wear and tear and little 
 the better for two strong cocktails. 
 
 Still, he was not incapable of performing his duty, by any means, 
 though eyes and nose held out their danger-signals. Blake had given 
 him a sharp reminder at retreat, and Brady had taken a stiffer brace 
 for fear of consequences. He was feeling shaky wiien the colonel 
 strode into the ill-lighted room of the officer of the guard, Blake at 
 his heels, and thus addressed him : " Mr. Brady, I want you to keep a 
 special watch against fire to-night. Order your sentries about the 
 stacks and stables to allow no one to approach them with pipe or cigar. 
 Who are sentries on Numbers 5 and 6 ?" 
 
 Brady looked appealingly at the sergeant, who quickly pi'oduced 
 his lists. "Reinhardt and Monahan, first relief; Blair and Scully 
 second ; Duffy and Hunter third, sir. All good men, sir." 
 
 " Hunter's our new man," said the colonel, eying sharply the officer 
 of the guard. "Have you given him personally his orders?"' 
 
 " N — not his night orders as yet, sir," said Brady, well knowing 
 he had questioned him as to none of them, day or night. 
 
 "Well, sir," said Atherton, "you cannot be too vigilant to-night. 
 Make frequent inspections, and see that your non-commissioned officers 
 do likewise." Then, as once more he got out into the wind, he bent 
 his head to avoid the blast. " Have you cautioned him, Blake ? He 
 looks anything but alert." 
 
 " I don't think he's been drinking much to-day, sir. He seems to 
 realize that he can take no chances. I'll keep an eye on him." 
 
 There was a joyous little gathering at Ray's that night. The 
 Mainwarings, Truscotts, and Blakes, with devoted Dr. Jayne on Miss 
 Leroy's account, had dined there ; a number of post people had dropped 
 in later, and Miss Leroy, " looking uncommonly well, if not absolutely 
 pretty," said a lady friend, was being made much of by everybody, 
 despite a slight propensity on the part of some to be facetious about 
 the daily Bible class, for that artful maiden and daughter of the 
 church, after getting her auditors interested in tales of flood and field, 
 had gradually led on to the introduction of holier themes. By the 
 end of the first week the New Testament was slipped in among her 
 books, and selected chapters were explained in very different style from 
 anything her soldier patients had ever heard before, and these had 
 become part of the lesson of the day. Blake declared that Father 
 Keefe, of Butte, was getting jealous; but Miss Leroy was serenely 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 503 
 
 superior to any and all allusions or reflections. She would stoop to 
 neither controversy nor defence. It was her faith, and that was 
 enough. The quartermaster had laughingly suggested that he thought 
 of getting sent to hospital so as to become one of the elect, and Miss 
 Leroy had studied his face one moment with those clear, l)eautiful eyes 
 of hers, and gravely replied that it might be necessary for him to go 
 to even greater lengths before he could be considered worthy. Then 
 Mainwaring had jocosely asked why she didn't start a missionary 
 boom among the officers, whereat Miss Leroy flushed just a little and 
 then smilingly replied that it was not because they did not need it 
 more than the men she had met, but she had no surplus energy to 
 waste. 
 
 " Has no surplus seed to sow on barren ground, major," interposed 
 Blake. " You remember the parable of the hare and the tortoise." 
 Which helped Mainwaring no whit, and only evoked a reproachful 
 glance from Miss Leroy, seeing which Blake whispered so that several 
 heard, " I'd wear sackcloth and ashes a week if Mainwaring could 
 prove he knew the difference between Jacob's Ladder and Jack and 
 the Bean-Stalk." 
 
 " Blake," remonstrated Truscott, a moment later, when he got him 
 to one side, "you must be more prudent, not to sav considerate. 
 Mainwaring is too good a soldier to be treated with derision, and you'll 
 make an enemy I should hate to see you have, if you continue." 
 Blake had had other warnings. His clear-headed young wife had 
 already seen in Mrs. Mainwaring's somewhat studied courtesy of greet- 
 ing that something was amiss, and had little doubt that the major had 
 carried home his version of the Three Guardsmen episode in the court- 
 room, which was indeed the case, though, fortunately for Blake, Main- 
 waring couldn't remember the strange names so glibly given him. 
 Mrs. Blake had sought by every gentle, tactful way in her power to 
 make amends for her beloved Gerald's uncanny propensity to ridi- 
 cule, but the wound was deeper with Mrs. Mainwaring than with the 
 doughty major. She refused to be mollified, while he, ever tempting 
 somebody by his irrepressible habit of launching impetuous comment 
 or criticism at anybody whose methods differed from his own, was as 
 constantly inviting reprisals. Relations were strained, therefore, and 
 Blake should have been more guarded. They had even come to such 
 a pass that Mrs. Mainwaring was finding serious fault with her niece 
 because of a growing intimacy between her and Nannie Blake, and 
 matters were destined to come to a climax in more than one garrison 
 affair, and come to it this very night. 
 
 Mrs. Ray had been in ignorance of any serious difference between 
 the Mainwarings and Blake. Indeed, she often said she did not see 
 how anybody could take Blake seriously. But during the dinner it 
 had become apparent more than once. Not in Mainwaring : he, as 
 Blake put it, was mannerless as ever. Mainwaring talked as much 
 and as loudly to Blake as he did to his hostess, on whose right he sat. 
 There were few topics that could be discussed, outside of horse-shoeing, 
 grooming, and company kitchens, in which Mainwaring could be con- 
 sidered authority, but in one and all was he disputatious, challenging 
 
504 RAV'S RECRUIT. 
 
 tlie speaker to prove the words, even, as sometimes happened, when 
 the challenged party was a woman and entitled to assert no stronger 
 reason than " Because." 
 
 Main waring carried a conversational chip on his shoulder even at 
 dinner-parties, and to-night it had been more than ordinarily in evi- 
 dence. It was after dinner, and before visitors came dropjnng in, and 
 the five ladies were chatting in the parlor, that Mrs. Mainwaring's 
 constraint towards Mrs. Blake became marked, as well as her frequent 
 efforts at breaking in upon the cordial, friendly talk between that lady 
 and her niece. 
 
 Finally, just after midnight, when it was time for all to be going 
 to their homes, Blake, whose duty as officer of the day had twice called 
 him away, again was missing. Ray promptly threw his cape over his 
 shoulders to escort Mrs. Blake, although she lived close at hand, and 
 with merry chat and laughter the various ladies and their escorts were 
 trooping forth into the keen night air, when Mrs. Truscott, who was 
 foremost, held up her hand and said, " Hush ! I hear something," 
 and her face took on an instant expression of alarm. 
 
 The wind was no longer violent, but it blew with steady force 
 across the parade, and sounds from the direction of the guard- house 
 near the south gate, or the stables along the east front, were carried 
 out to the waste of prairie stretching away towards the far, pine-crested 
 heights of the Elk range. Yet it was towards the guard-house, whose 
 twinkling lights could be plainly seen, that Mrs. Truscott was gazing. 
 Mainwaring was, as usual, talking loudest of the party, and was the 
 last to cease. " Nonsense, Mrs. Truscott, you can't hear the baby 
 crying," he almost derisively exclaimed, whereat the lady stamped a 
 shapely foot and spoke as her father, their old colonel, would have 
 spoken when his wife was not present, and this time with effect. 
 
 Some one, panting, came running across the parade. It was the 
 corporal of the guard. 
 
 " Captain Ray," he cried, " Captain Blake says please come to him, 
 quick, at the south gate." 
 
 Ray went like a shot. The corporal started to follow, but Mrs. 
 Blake, alarmed and trembling, begged him to stop. 
 
 "What's happened?" demanded Mainwaring. "Who's hurt?" 
 
 " I don't know, sir. Nobody's hurt that I know of, but there's a 
 patrol out." 
 
 "After some drunken man of Ray's troop, — that's all," said 
 Mainwaring, "and Blake don't want to put him under guard. See if 
 it ain't. Come," he said, tendering an arm to his wife. 
 
 But Mrs. Blake knew her own mind, and, without a word of reply, 
 started straight across the road in the direction taken by Ray. 
 
 " Oh, don't go, Mrs. Blake ;" " Don't go, Nannie ;"' " I'm sure it's 
 nothing serious," were the various cries that followed her, but she 
 never faltered. " Good- night," she cried ; " I'm going to Gerald." 
 Reluctantly the doctor called after her, — 
 
 " Oh, wait, Mrs. Blake. If you must go, I'll — I'll escort you." 
 
 " Yes," said Miss Leroy, firmly, " and take me too." Saying 
 which, she started her escort almost on a run. 
 
RAV'S RECRUIT. 505 
 
 "Pet — Kate — indeed I protest. Indeed you must not go!" called 
 Mrs. Mainwaring, loudly. 
 
 *' Aw, Kate, don't be so idiotic," shouted the major, but all to no 
 purpose. " Pet" and her obedient -3i^sculapius were already in swift 
 pursuit, and, if not out of hearing, out of sight. 
 
 And then, all of a sudden, the eastward gable ends of the barracks, 
 the east side of the guard-house tower, the topmast of the tall white 
 flag-staff, were all for one brief instant flashed on the night in a lurid 
 glare, and as suddenly died out of sight. Away over beyond the edge 
 of the bluti' a dull, smothered, booming sound smote the wintry air, 
 and something shook the windows and caused the earth to tremble. 
 Then a carbine cracked and a sentry yelled, half stifled ; then came a 
 distant sound of crackling, like pistol-shots ; a trumpet pealed, and 
 sounds of rush and scurry followed. There was only one explanation, 
 — the magazine. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 It was eleven-thirty that night when Corporal Judkins, posting his 
 relief, came stumbling along the rough ground below the " bench," 
 and turned into the flat between the quartermaster's hay-stacks and the 
 stables. No. 5 he had posted at the east gate and picked up the 
 shivering sentry who for two mortal hours had been swearing and 
 trotting up and down in vain eifort to keep warm. No. 6, down 
 among the shadows of the stacks and stables, was not so easy to find. 
 When at last his challenge was heard, he leaped from the shelter of the 
 very stack that had called forth the colonel's condemnation that evening 
 at stables, and, between cold and excitement — or something, was in- 
 coherent in his formula for receiving relief, and had to be sharply 
 prompted by the corporal in turning over his orders. " What's the 
 matter with you, Scully ?" snarled the corporal. " You talk as if you'd 
 been asleep. Turn over your orders, man, and don't keep us shivering 
 here." 
 
 The tall soldier who was to relieve him stood patiently, with his 
 carbine at port. Silently he listened to the mumbled words, "Allow 
 no one to approach the stables or stacks with lighted pipe or cigar. 
 Allow no vehicles to be driven to or from the stables, or horses taken 
 out except in presence of a commissioned officer, stable sergeant, or non- 
 commissioned officer of the guard. Be on the alert for fires, and keep 
 special lookout for the sparks from laundresses' quarters when they 
 start their fires in the morning " And then Judkins cut him short. 
 
 "You've got 'em twisted; but you know them all, don't you. 
 Hunter?" 
 
 The tall recruit nodded. 
 
 "Take your post," said the corporal. "Fall in, Scully. Darned 
 lot of use you'd be to-night. You smell as if you'd been drinking." 
 
 " I wish I had, bedad," shivered No. 2. " Go on, corporal, or we'll 
 never get thawed." And in a moment more the tramp of the foot- 
 steps died away, and Hunter was alone. 
 
506 RAF'S RECRUIT. 
 
 He was warm]y clad, for, in addition to the fur cap and gauntlets, 
 heavy overshoes had been added to the soldier's equipment for winter 
 duty dismounted, and, as there was every indication of snow, the guard 
 had been ordered to wear them this night. Then in Ray's troop they 
 had a knack of keeping hot coffee in the kitchen on the bitter winter 
 nights for the benefit of their guards, and, though it reminded him but 
 feebly of the fragrant Mocha of other days and climes, it had cheered 
 him not a little, and he felt alert and vigorous and independent as he 
 began patrolling his lonely post. Along the bluff to the westward the 
 black bulk of the barracks loomed up against the starry sky. Between 
 him and them were, close at hand, the huge hay-stacks, and then the 
 scattered huts and cottages of the married men. In one or two of 
 these faint night lights were glowing. Several children had been 
 ailing, and there were anxious hearts among the lowly. But there 
 were no little ones at Merri weather's, yet a dim light shone from the 
 southward window. What manner of man was Merriweather, any- 
 way ? pondered the sentry, as, pacing briskly up the open space before 
 the stables, he went over in mind the adventure now nearly two weeks 
 gone by. Never once, by word or act, had the sergeant shown the 
 faintest intention to seek satisfaction for the blow that had floored him. 
 True, he never spoke to Hunter, never seemed to see him, and the 
 accident to Stella and himself might, despite all the sergeant's protests 
 to his captain, have been the result of his design. Once, twice. Hunter 
 had seen Mrs. Merriweather, but at such a distance that speech with 
 her was out of the question, even had he sought it. But she had seen 
 him and looked long and meaningly at him, and he could not but know 
 it. For some reason Merriweather saw fit to hide the facts connected 
 with his absence from tattoo that night, and, so long as no one in 
 authority questioned, it was not Hunter's province to explain. 
 
 Keeping vigilant lookout on every side as he paced up and down, 
 the soldier gave his thoughts free rein. He was glad to be alone to 
 think and plan. There was no glamour about soldiering as he had 
 found it, and it was useless denying even to himself that he would 
 gladly have recalled his rash enlistment, but, that being impossible, 
 grit and pride asserted themselves and bade him stand to his guns and 
 give no sign. Barring the inquisitive proddings of the men, he had 
 had no active annoyances after the first few days. Would-be tormentors 
 respected a man who was so free with his fists — and his money. His 
 officers, except Mainwaring, had treated him with grave and distant 
 courtesy, for of Brady he had seen nothing at all until this day. News 
 from home and abroad he had had none and wanted none. It was his 
 purpose to shut himself out from the old world for good and all. 
 Parents he had lost in early boyhood. Brothers and sisters he had 
 none. Sweethearts — two. One, — the first, — his senior by at least four 
 years, and now a staid wife and mother. The second might or might 
 not be wearing a coronet by this time. His Grace of Lancaster was 
 on his last legs, and his eldest hope. Lord Lunemouth, on his last 
 lung, when Gray left Switzerland in April. That "Amy, shallow- 
 hearted," had wedded Rokeby by this time was possible, if not probable. 
 There were New York papers in the post library, but Hunter had seen 
 
RAV'S RECRUIT. 507 
 
 none, would see none. In liis stern renunciation of the world, the flebn, 
 and the devil of his old life, Trooper Hunter would admit no interest 
 in the doings of Gotham. The one thing that bound him to the old 
 life was the knowledge that, up to October at least, his fond old uncle 
 was still in the land of the living. A stroke of some kind had pros- 
 trated him before Gray's return from abroad. Physicians had pre- 
 scribed a long sea-voyage. Mr. and Mrs. Darcy Hunter had sailed 
 for North Cape, had gone thence to some German spa. His health was 
 shattered, his mind almost a blank. She was still in the })rime of life. 
 He, said the last news Darcy had of him before starting: for the wide 
 West, hardly recognized his attendants. She bore her sorrows with 
 the patient resignation of the Christian who knows there's life for her 
 beyond the grave — of a departed husband. 
 
 Of the remnant of his fortune Gray had still a few thousand dollars 
 banked where it would be safe until sorely needed. Under an humble 
 roof within the limits of Butte were stored certain trunks containing 
 civilian clothing and things he valued. Here at barracks he had only 
 his soldier outiit of uniform, with the addition of better underwear 
 and shoes than were issued by Uncle Sam. One poor fellow and his 
 suffering wife, at least, were the better for the strange coming of this 
 eccentric : the starving tramp who boarded the train that night at 
 Willow Springs had now a roof over his head and hers, and food, fire, 
 and clothing. She was sufficiently recovered to take in washing, for 
 Chinamen were unpopular if not unprofitable servants just then in 
 Wyoming, and he, the starveling of that night on the train, was once 
 more a carpenter, his tools out of pawn and he no longer out of work. 
 That man's actual misery and suffering, all for the lack of a few dollars, 
 no more than he, Hunter Gray, had been accustomed to throw away 
 on cigars or sundries in the course of a mouth, had opened the eyes 
 of the world-weary traveller and given him food for thought and spur 
 to action. 
 
 One anxiety had oppressed him since his voluntary entrance upon 
 the task of training Stella, a duty which need have occupied but a few 
 days had it not been for that untoward mishap. She fought shy of 
 the bar for several lessons thereafter, connecting it and the flapping 
 blanket unerringly with her violent fall. Hunter's anxiety was that 
 any afternoon when so occupied he might find Mrs. Mainwaring and 
 her niece among the lookers-on, and he shrank from recognition. He 
 had even sought to get his captain to change the hour to morning, but 
 there had been fine, open weather, and Atherton lost no opportunities 
 for battalion drills. Hunter took to these, despite the crowding and 
 squeezing when in line, like a duck to the water, but all the same he 
 would have preferred giving Stella her lesson when he knew Miss 
 Leroy to be engaged at the hospital, for the fame of that benevolent 
 young lady's work had spread throughout the barracks as well as the 
 quarters. 
 
 And it was of her and that odd introduction he was thinking now, 
 as he briskly tramped up and down, peering among the hay-stacks and 
 stables. Just before the midnight call his post had been visited by the 
 sergeant of the guard, who inquired as to his orders and bade him look 
 
508 RAV'S RECRUIT. 
 
 out any moment for Captain Blake or Lieutenant Brady. The mid- 
 night call of the sentries went round in rather slipshod i'ashion, thanks 
 to the wind, but no sooner had Hunter shouted the prolonged *' All's 
 well" than he wished he could recall it. Not a suspicious sight or 
 sound had he noted after the sergeant went his way, but now, before 
 he could realize or dodge, something came spinning through mid-air, 
 over his head, settled down on his shoulders with a jerk ; then a blanket 
 was whirled about his face, and, with his breath fairly choked out 
 of him, with only time for one startled, stifled cry, the loop of a lariat 
 was suddenly drawn taut, hurling him violently to the frozen ground, 
 and in another second two or three men had thrown themselves furi- 
 ously upon him. Despite mad struggles, he was bound, gagged, and 
 kicked behind the hay-stack. His carbine was whisked away. He lay 
 there helpless and half strangled, but they had removed the blanket, 
 so that he at least could breathe and see. And then from beyond the 
 stable of his troop came two more men with a cart. Into this was 
 swiftly loaded box after box of some weighty substance, the boxes being 
 dragged from underneath the very stack that had caused the colonel's 
 censure, — the stack that interposed between Ray's stable and the little 
 domicile of Sergeant Merriweather under the low bluff. Loaded with 
 all it could safely carry, the cart was swiftly trundled off into the 
 darkness, three burly forms propelling, two remaining close at hand. 
 Not a word was spoken that Hunter could hear. The cart came back 
 for another load in less than five minutes, and this time, in addition to 
 heavy little boxes which he could almost swear contained ammunition 
 and, possibly, revolvers, they dragged sacks of oats from underneath 
 the stack, and loaded them too upon the cart. Three trips were made 
 in all, then every man vanished and he was utterly alone. 
 
 Raging at his plight, powerless to help himself in any way, and 
 suffering not a little from the sharpness of his cords and the brutal 
 manner in which he had been gagged, Hunter managed to keep cool 
 and think. At tlie utmost he probably would not be left there more 
 than twenty minutes. When the call was passed at twelve-thirty his 
 voice would be missed ; the corporal would have to come down, and, 
 not finding him on his post, would institute search ; then he would be 
 released and could tell his story. 
 
 Even as he lay there he could swear he heard the sound as of hoofs 
 and heavy-laden wheels crashing tlu'ough the ice on the little shallow 
 stream beyond the stables. Presently the bitter cold of the frozen 
 ground seemed to penetrate through his heavy clothing, and he began 
 to suffer keenly. The wind blew but lightly where he lay in the lee 
 of the stack, and, though he knew it was not time for the sentries to call 
 off, he strained his ears to catch the sound of footfalls, — Blake or 
 Brady, — and the sergeant, too, might be along again. He prayed in- 
 deed they might be, for robbery had been committed before his very 
 eyes. He had heard rumors of the disappearance of forage. He had 
 heard the men talk of the exposed situation of the brick niagazine out 
 there on the prairie, southeast of the post. Only on bright moonlit 
 nights could the sentry see it from the east gate, while from the south 
 gate it was hidden entirely. He knew that most of the ammunition, 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 509 
 
 pistol, carbine, and cannon, was kept there, and at one time quite a lot 
 of small-arms. The ordnance sergeant slept in the garrison, his keys 
 in a strong box under his bed, yet thieves had plundered both the 
 magazine and the stables, and hidden their booty underneath the big 
 hay -stack, awaiting opportunity to run it away to some reliable customer 
 in town. That they were members of the garrison was evident from 
 that very fact. Townsfolk would have come with wagons in the first 
 place. 
 
 Fifteen minutes at least had he still to wait and suifer, possibly 
 more, if no officer of the guard chanced to inspect right after twelve, 
 or if the corporal should be slow running to ascertain why the twelve- 
 thirty call was not repeated. Fifteen minutes, and already he was 
 enduring torment. Then came sudden hope, — the sound of a swift, 
 light footfall, — then a woman's voice. 
 
 "Dan! Danny! where are you? Come home quick, for God's 
 sake. They're hunting for you now." 
 
 No answer. 
 
 Again the plaintive cry was repeated. A woman's slender form 
 sped swiftly by, turned the corner of the huge stack, and then, as 
 though recoiling at sight of danger, darted back, shuddering, stumbled 
 over his prostrate body, and only with difficulty saved itself from 
 falling. Quick as thought the woman whirled upon him, one half- 
 stifled, nervous cry escaping from her lips. 
 
 "Scully, you beast! Why are you lying there? You are not 
 drunk. The liquor he gave you wouldn't do this. Where's he gone? 
 Answer, I say. Ah-h !" And the cold hands that had seized and 
 shaken him fell away in fright at touch of the gag. Quickly she re- 
 covered herself, fumbled in her pocket, found a pair of scissors, and 
 slashed the bands that were strangling him. " What fool work is 
 this ?" she whimpered. " Sure Dan shouldn't have gagged you, Scully. 
 Who was with him? Who did it? Answer," she implored, shaking 
 him vehemently. " Get up, Scully, quick ! For the love of God find 
 him ! They've been to the house already — the guard. Somebody's 
 
 peached. Somebody Who tied this lariat? It's knotted like 
 
 Wait till I get a knife. Lie still, Scully." And away she sped, 
 leaving him to wonder, bound as he was, how he could lie otherwise. 
 She was back in a moment, panting, breathless. She sawed at the 
 thick cordage until it snapped, then stared wildly one instant as the 
 tall figure straightened up, then with a cry of horror started back. 
 "Scully— No! What?— you? Hunter? Oh, blessed saints, have 
 mercy !" 
 
 But the instant he was released and had gained his ieei, unarmed 
 though he was and half numbed, the tall, athletic soldier sprang away 
 into the darkness and ran like a deer across the open space and on past 
 the stables towards the stream, shouting as he ran at the full strength 
 of his powerfid lungs, " Corporal of the guard. Number 6 ! Corporal 
 of the guard, Number 6 !" 
 
 Out on the low bank across the narrow stream he could see, out- 
 lined against the sky, two dark, shadowy figures go scurrying swiftly 
 by, running from the direction of the old magazine. It stood only a 
 
510 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 few yards beyond the crest. Again he set up his powerful shout, 
 "Corporal of the guard, Number 6 !" and away off' to the northeast, 
 although farther than himself from the guard-house, Duffy on No. 5 at 
 the east gate, sure that something was dreadfully amiss, was repeating 
 the cry. Hardly knowing what he should do if he overtook them, 
 Hunter dashed into the shallow stream, in hopes of reaching the oppo- 
 site bank and overhauling the marauders, but the broken, slippery ice 
 trapped and threw him again. Down he went splash into the chilling 
 waters ; up he scranjbled, only to slip and go down a second time ; 
 then staggered to his feet, breathless, almost exhausted nov/; tumbled 
 up the opposite bank ; clambered on all-fours to the crest ; gazed hur- 
 riedly about in search of friend or foe ; peered into the darkness to the 
 south and southwest, but the runners had disappeared ; then gazed to the 
 east and sprang to his feet, startled. Not twenty yards away loomed 
 the black bulk of the old brick magazine, and, hissing and sputtering, a 
 fiery serpent seemed dancing in front. It bounded to the door-way, 
 now in the ruddy light dimly seen to be open, disappeared within a 
 little cloud of sulphur smoke, and then the heavens lit up with an 
 awful glare ; he felt himself hurled violently backward ; for one instant 
 he seemed to see a million stars criss-crossing thi'ough the skies; his 
 ears were stunned and deafened by a thunderous roar; the air was 
 filled with flying bricks and beams and sheets of flame that scorched 
 and seared and blinded him. Then something crashed upon his skull, 
 and he toppled over the bank and went plunging down to the icy flood 
 beneath. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 November had given way to a still more wintry month, and De- 
 cember, cold, clear, snow-white, and sparkling, chained the streams in 
 icy fetters and spread abroad its fleecy blanket. The holidays were 
 drawing nigh, and garrison children were revelling in hope and 
 whispered rumors of the great times to come. There was to be a 
 Christmas-tree in the post hall, with presents for all the little ones. 
 Miss Leroy was managing everything, and what Miss Leroy under- 
 took went with a dash. The afternoons now were given up to all 
 manner of sewing and stitching and contriving, dressing dolls and 
 filling cornucopias and parcelling out gifts so that no child should be 
 overlooked or forgotten, but never once did Miss Leroy neglect her 
 morning Bible class, for such it had become, and into the fold were 
 gladly drawn, not only convalescent patients in hospital, but volunteers 
 from baiTacks and quarters M'ho had no bodily ills, but who rejoiced in 
 souls in need of saving. Ransom had no chaplain in those days, or 
 sectarian piety might have taken alarm at the rapid increase in Miss 
 Leroy's weekday Sunday-school. Two of the most devout and regular 
 attendants of late were Sergeant and Mrs. Merriweather. Drills were 
 suspended, it being now too cold and snowy, and Miss Leroy's hospital 
 services began regularly at ten. She would enter, bright, smiling, 
 happy-faced, go at once to her little desk, and open the ball? Now, 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 511 
 
 the Scriptures came first, — there was uo longer doubt as to the main 
 object of her charitable enterprise, — but when the lessons of the day 
 were disposed of, and a brief sermon read from the collection of some 
 famous divine, the barrack squad and Sudstown people would retire, 
 and she could then devote another hour to lighter reading for the 
 benefit of her patients exchisively, some of whom were still in the 
 ward with the graver cases. 
 
 And among these latter, with bandaged eyes and burned and 
 blistered face and hands, an unrecognizable bundle of bandages, lay 
 Trooper Hunter, over whose head, unseen, unknown, there was hanging 
 a sword. 
 
 For some days and nights concussion of the brain was feared. 
 The magazine had been blown into a thousand fragments, and how 
 many of these, beams or bricks, had felled him, no one ever knew. 
 He was hauled out of the stream, feet first, like poor Pat Shea, bleed- 
 ing, burned, and senseless. He began to mend in a few days, however, 
 and by the 8th of December was occasionally sitting up in an invalid 
 chair, his eyes and (iheeks still under cover. But from the time his 
 convalescence began, Trooper Hunter had spent two hours each morning 
 listening to the voice of the charmer who charmed so wisely, and there 
 came a day when she bent over his couch and laid her cool soft white 
 hand on his forehead and asked him if there were notiiing she could 
 do, no friends or relatives to whom he would like her to write, and he 
 murmured that he couldn't think of any just then, but might if she'd 
 come again to ask him on the morrow. She came, and on the next 
 and the next day, too, marvelling not a little at the voice, the intelli- 
 gence, the language, of this particular patient. She strove to study his 
 features, but without success, for when the doctor thought to remove 
 the bandages the patient declared the morning light was altogether too 
 much for his weakened eyes. He would be bandaged in the morning, 
 though the afternoon sunshine was really more brilliant, and he didn't 
 seem to mind it then. Miss Leroy took to sitting by Hunter's bedside 
 as much as ten minutes at first; then the ten began to lengtlien to 
 fifteen and even twenty, and other patients waxed impatient and said 
 things about Hunter and thought things about her tiiat proved how 
 jealous is the human heart, even when it beats beneath a flannel shirt. 
 The surgeon said Hunter could soon return to his troop, as far as his 
 health was concerned, but there were reasons to fear his health might 
 suffer after he got there, for Major Mainwaring, now in temporary 
 command of the post, was making frequent and impetuous inquiries. 
 Colonel and Mrs. Atherton had gone East on two months' leave; 
 Major and Mrs. Stannard had gone to Russell for a fortnight to visit 
 old friends in another regiment; and here, to his huge delight, was 
 Mainwaring in command of an eight-company post. Then the surgeon 
 asked why Mainwaring was so anxious to have the patient out, and 
 learned something that proved a painful shock. 
 
 "Well, major," said he, after a solemn silence, "of course you're 
 commanding officer, but I find it mighty hard to believe that story, 
 and I protest against its being made known to him until he is strong 
 enough to bear it, — which he isn't now." 
 
512 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 There had been much talk at the hospital, among the stewards and 
 attendants and patients who could talk at all, as to the result of the 
 board of survey promptly convened at Colonel Atherton's request to 
 ascertain the cause of the mysterious explosion which had wrecked the 
 magazine and ruined its contents, and it did not take long for such 
 keen scouts and trailers as Kay, Blake, and old Wilkins to make up 
 their minds. Coupled with what had occurred at the south gate that 
 night, just a little while before the explosion, there was no doubt that 
 an extensive robbery had taken place and that the object of the destruc- 
 tion of the magazine was the obliteration with it of evidences of the 
 crime. 
 
 It seemed that shortly before eleven-thirty that night two veteran 
 sergeants of Truscott's troop, returning from Butte on pass, became 
 aware of a v,^agon driving ahead of them as they left town and soon 
 disappearing out on the prairie east of the road. Now there was not 
 a ranch or house to which it could have gone; everything of that kind 
 lay farther down the stream, where it swept in bold curve, first to the 
 south, then eastward again. Rumors of forage-stealing they had heard, 
 and therefore decided to find where the wagon went, but after searching 
 awhile in the gale and the darkness they gave it up, yet warned the 
 sergeant of the guard as they alighted at the south gate, and their hack- 
 driver returned with his rig to town. Captain Bhike was notified, and 
 a patrol was ordered out to scour the right bank of the little stream 
 that flowed back of the stables. They hadn't gone fifty yards before 
 they stirred up a squad of troopers that scattered at their approach, 
 but one was captured, — Ray's rapscallion of a trumpeter " the Kid," 
 — and the Kid refused flatly and characteristically to say who the 
 others were. A privileged character was the Kid. He had been ten 
 years or more in the regiment, and ten dozen times in scrapes. A 
 better little soldier on campaign or a worse one in garrison couldn't be 
 found in all the — th, and as the regiment had spent more of those ten 
 years in the field than in the fort, the Kid had still a small balance to 
 his credit. He had a medal of honor from Congress for heroism in 
 fierce, savage battle, and a record for deviltry of every conceivable kind. 
 Ray was the only man, except Atherton, he either feared or loved. 
 Grinning from ear to ear, he told Blake that there wasn't any officer in 
 the regiment smart enough to scare him into giving away a fellow- 
 soldier, and Blake sent for Ray. Something told him there was mis- 
 chief afoot, and Ray and the explosion came almost together. 
 
 Only two men in all Fort Ransom, however, were found to have 
 anything to explain as to their whereabouts that night : first. Sergeant 
 Merri weather, whom the sergeant of the guard had inquired for just 
 after visiting sentries, and solely because a light was burning so late in 
 his window. The second was the new trooper. Hunter, found nearly 
 three hundred yards away from his proper post, blinded, senseless, 
 bleeding, and half drowned. The Kid had told the plausible tale 
 that " him and three other fellers was sneaking off to town for a lark" 
 when detected. Merriweather declared that he had heard horses 
 stamping and snorting in the stables, and had considered it his duty, 
 though no longer stable sergeant, to go and investigate, and that he 
 
RAV'S RECRUIT. 51 3 
 
 saw no sentry on No. 6, but hunted up and down for him, wondering 
 where he could be, and was so occupied when the explosion occurred. 
 But Hunter had not yet been approaclied. There were reasons why it 
 was deemed best to let him suppose no suspicion attached to him. 
 
 For, no sooner was it light enough to see, the morning after the ex- 
 plosion, than Atherton had some of his best officers scouring the prairie 
 for traces. They found bricks, bullets, and unexploded boxes of car- 
 tridges all over the neighborhood, but not one of the forty revolvers 
 and only twenty of the eighty boxes of carbine, rifle, and revolver 
 cartridges that should have been there. Of the barrel of rifle powder 
 and half-barrel of cannon cartridges not a vestige, of course, remained. 
 All this was brought out by the board, and, the board's findings having 
 been sent to Department head-quarters, Atherton, as has been said, 
 had gone off on leave ; so had Stannard, and this left Mainwariog in 
 command. 
 
 *' Not a word, not a hint to that fellow until I tell you," said 
 Mainwaring to the post surgeon, who, an older man and a major senior 
 in rank by several years, was nevertheless his inferior in the eyes of 
 military law and regulation, he being debarred from assuming com- 
 mand. And so, as Hunter grew stronger every day and watched with 
 eagerness for the coming each morning of the young devotee, there 
 dawned upon him no ray of suspicion of the toils that were surrounding 
 him, for Miss Leroy, who used to talk at home of her pu{)il patients, 
 had become silent as to one at least, and uncommunicative as to all, 
 for Mrs. Mainwaring of late had expressed her disapprobation in no 
 measured terms, and there was no longer that sweet accord which 
 should obtain between aunt and niece. 
 
 One bright morning the doctor bade Hunter lay aside the shrouding 
 bandages entirely and wear only a green shade over the eyes. Orders 
 were orders, but when Miss Leroy entered and as usual spoke to him, 
 a dainty handkerchief was pressed to his face. The light, he said, was 
 still too dazzling. 
 
 " But you are much better," said she, in her clear tones. " The 
 doctor says you can soon return to light duty, probably before 
 Christmas." 
 
 Then as she took her seat to read, her side face towards him, he 
 slipped the kerchief a little to one side that he might gaze undisturbed. 
 
 The men had asked that she should give fifteen minutes at least to 
 the leading events of the day, and a Chicago paper was selected for 
 their edification. From this she chose such items as she thought might 
 prove of interest, and to these Hunter listened, in spite of himself. 
 First she read of the political news; then the doings of great dignita- 
 ries, foreign and domestic ; and then came accidents by flood and field, 
 and anotiier railway hold-up on a small scale. To all these he lent 
 but languid ear. He was watching with eager eyes the movements 
 of those soft, sensitive, curved red lips. He hardly paid even faint 
 attention to what she was saying, until something in the names struck 
 him as familiar. All the foremost part of the paragraph had passed 
 unheard, unheeded, but now, now only by strong effort could he restrain 
 himself from sitting bolt upright in bed and reaching out and seizing 
 Vol. LIX.— 33 
 
514 EAF'S RECRUIT. 
 
 the paper and reading for himself; for what she read, when once again 
 he became conscious of her words, was this : 
 
 " The overturned yacht now lies in forty feet of water, her taper 
 masts and upper rigging all that remain visible. Mr. Hunter is doing 
 well, carefully attended by Dr. Lambert at the Hotel des Ambassa- 
 deurs. The bodies of Mrs. Hunter and her unfortunate friends will 
 doubtless be recovered this morning. The ladies were caught in the 
 cabin when the Amorita was struck, and escape was impossible. She 
 went to the bottom like a shot. English and American residents are 
 in deep grief. The ball-room at the Casino last night was almost de- 
 serted. Many New York and Philadelj)hia families are at Nice for 
 the winter, and the tragic fate of Mrs. Hunter has cast a gloom over 
 the community. Mr. Hunter had greatly improved in health, but it 
 is feared this bereavement may again prostrate him. They have no 
 children." 
 
 The Amorita ? That yacht was owned by a wealthy English ad- 
 Euirer of his uncle's wife. For more reasons than one, Hunter Gray 
 had never fancied him, and even his easy-going uncle seemed to hold 
 aloof. But Mrs. Hunter, so much her husband's junior in years, 
 loved society, adored yachting, and what was more necessary for her 
 beloved invalid's recovery than the soft sea-breezes of the Riviera and 
 the idyllic dolce far niente days and nights under those incomparable 
 Mediterranean skies and on the Amorita's dainty deck? There was a 
 late supper going on one joyous night aboard, just as she was coming 
 in from a day's dancing over the blue waters. There was misunder- 
 standing between her skipper and that of a steamer over the right of 
 way, — signals, or God knows what, — for when the Amorita rounded to 
 the cruel black prow struck her amidships and ground her underneath 
 the iron keel. Through the devotion of the crew Mr. Hunter and one 
 or two friends with him were rescued. They were on deck. But 
 nothing could save the hapless banqueters still below. Darcy Hunter 
 had survived the wreck of his business, the wreck of the Amorita, — 
 had survived even his young, light-hearted wife, with whose remains, 
 said the paper, he would return to America at once. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 That evening when the surgeon was making his visit to the hos- 
 pital the steward told him Trooper Hunter desired to speak with him, 
 and, halting somewhat in his gait and looking very pallid still, but 
 otherwise little the worse for wear, the tall soldier was ushered into 
 the dispensary. 
 
 The junior medical officer, for reasons the senior could not quite 
 fathom, had on several occasions recently asked the senior if he did 
 not think Hunter fit to return to light duty, and gave his opinion that 
 he was getting soft and lazy there. The post surgeon, for reasons the 
 junior could not fathom at all, replied that he thought it might be 
 several days before he should permit Hunter to return to his troop. 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 515 
 
 This in no wise added to Jayne's good will towards his gentlemanly 
 and attractive patient. Hunter was fortunate in having won the sym- 
 pathy of the senior. To-night he won something more. 
 Standing bolt upright at the door, he said, — 
 " May I speak one moment with the colonel, in private ?" 
 The surgeon almost blushed as he whirled towards the speaker. 
 All through the war of the rebellion he had served, a gallant, skilful, 
 devoted officer, ever seeking duty at the front, ever ready night or day 
 to brave peril, hardship, or fatigue to go with his regiment into action. 
 Time and again he had dashed with them into battle. More than once 
 he had cheered them in headlong charge until recalled to himself and 
 duties that bade him sheathe the sword for the scalpel. Scorning to 
 leave his wounded, he had fallen with them into the hands of the 
 enemy and had starved with them at Andersonville. Once he had 
 been seriously wounded as he knelt beside a stricken comrade on the 
 battle-line. Twice he had been offered hospital duty at Annapolis and 
 Washington, and declined. From one end of the war to the other he 
 had been known among the men as the fighting doctor, and the fame 
 had followed him to the far frontier, where in one long and fierce 
 campaign against the Sioux he had spared himself no hardship that 
 the humblest soldier had to endure; and the cavalry swore by him, ay, 
 and the lithe, sinewy, hard-marching, hard-fighting doughboys too, 
 and loved him for the love he bore them. With all he was a student 
 of his trade and gloried in it, but most he gloried that he was a soldier. 
 He looked it, lived it, deserved it and everything the name implied; 
 but he had one weakness, if weakness honest glory in one's profession 
 could be called. " I've been a soldier twenty years of my life. I've 
 won the brevets of major and lieutenant-colonel on the battle-field and 
 colonel for the war, but never have I been called or can I look to be 
 called anything but doctor. Here are your paymasters, commissaries, 
 quartermasters, — fellows that never heard a hostile bullet whistle or 
 saw the smoke of battle, — lots of 'em ; you call them captain or major, 
 as though they were soldiers, but you snub, by God ! the one staff 
 corps that never leaves the fighting-line when the fighting begins." 
 
 Now, the surgeon had come but lately to Ransom. He had served 
 but a few weeks witli the — th, yet Truscott and Ray had discovered 
 his sensitiveness and gladly hailed him as colonel. Blake promptly 
 followed suit ; but when Mainwaring heard it, Mainwaring bristled. 
 " What right's a d — d doctor to expect to be called anything but 
 doctor?" he asked, explosively, and he no more meant to be offensive, 
 or thought he could be considered offensive, in his language than did 
 the doctor in claiming recognition as a soldier. And then, as Main- 
 waring prided himself on " never saying behind a fellow's back what 
 he wouldn't say to his face," — and the Lord only knew what he hadn't 
 said to people's faces, — what did the major do, only that very day, but, 
 in attempted jocularity, pitch into the post surgeon at the morning 
 gathering of the officers and try to chaff him about wanting to be 
 called colonel ! It stung the honest old soldier-surgeon to the quick. 
 It hurt him sore, and he left the room disgusted. 
 
 And so, when from the lips of this tall trooper came the title he 
 
5^6 RAV'S RECRUIT. 
 
 valued, the post surgeon fairly blushed, for he had been thinking 
 intently over the events of the morning, and, if the truth must be 
 told, was wondering how he could get square with Major Mainwaring, 
 and iiere was a possible opportunity. 
 
 Obedient to his superior's nod, the hospital steward went out, 
 closing the door behind him. 
 
 " What is it, Hunter?" asked the surgeon, kindly. 
 
 " I have come to ask, sir, if it would be possible for me to return 
 to my troop to-night, and if the colonel could aid me in any way to 
 get a furlough of twenty or thirty days." 
 
 Colonel Connell looked up, })erplexed, even troubled. Both re- 
 quests were unusual from old soldiers, and never heard of from re- 
 cruits. 
 
 " I fear not. Hunter. You see, there are reasons why you ought 
 not to attempt to return to duty yet ; and what can you allege as reason 
 for a furlough so soon after enlistment?" 
 
 " Urgent personal affairs, sir," was the answer, a half-smile twitch- 
 ing at the corners of the handsome mouth. "Even a trooper may 
 have them, you know." 
 
 " Hunter," said the surgeon, after a moment's pause, " be advised 
 by me. Don't think of going back to duty for two or three days yet, 
 and don't let any one know you wish to leave Ransom on any account, 
 just now." 
 
 For a moment there was silence. The soldier still remained re- 
 spectfully at attention, standing close to the door. The surgeon had 
 spoken impressively, earnestly, significantly, and Hunter could not but 
 notice it, could not but realize that behind it there was some urgent 
 meaning or reason, yet he persisted. 
 
 " I hope the colonel will pardon me," he said. " I Avill not refer 
 to the furlough again until 1 can explain more fully, which will be 
 possible after I have talked with Captain Ray ; but as to returning to 
 the troop I beg that I may not be detained here through — another 
 morning." 
 
 The surgeon was seated in a wicker-bottom office chair, which he 
 twisted round and so squarely faced his visitor, looking keenly yet not 
 unkindly into the pale, handsome face. It was a moment before he 
 spoke, 
 
 "I thought you greatly appreciated those morning readings," said 
 he, at last. " I'm sure the young lady has done very much to make 
 hospital life bearable." 
 
 It M'as Hunter's turn to color, but before he could speak he had 
 to spring aside. Into the outer hall came banging a burly form 
 enwrapped in cavalry circular. "Where's Dr. Connell?" brusquely 
 demanded a loud, unmodulated voice, then slap-bang, with all his 
 characteristic im})etuosity, Mainwaring burst into the room. 
 
 Direct as ever, never noting or caring who was present, he went 
 straight to the point. " Hullo, doc !" said he, loud, gruff, yet hearty. 
 " Just the man I'm looking for. Say, Truscott tells me I hurt your 
 feelings this morning, and I've come to 'pologize. I didn't mean a 
 d — d thing. It's all right. If vou want to be called colonel, why, 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 517 
 
 colonel it shall be. I'll issue orders calling the attention of the whole 
 command to it, if you like." 
 
 And then for the first time he became aware of the tall soldier, 
 now trying to slip quietly behind inm so as to leave the room. Main- 
 waring whirled on him in a trice. "Hullo, you're up again, are you? 
 — Well, this man's able to answer for himself now, I see, doc — er — 
 colonel ?" 
 
 But the post surgeon had risen from his chair and held up a hand 
 appeal! ugly. 
 
 " He is still a patient under my charge, sir, and is not restored to 
 health or duty as yet. I protest " 
 
 " Oh, you needn't protest. I'm done for the present. I'm giving 
 way to everybody this evening, all on your account." Here the sur- 
 geon signalled significantly to the soldier, and, silently, wonderingly, 
 Hunter withdrew. " 'Tisn't only Truscott. My wife's jumped on 
 me with both feet; says I've insulted you, — done notiiing but make 
 enemies ever since I came into the — th. Why, I've been catching it 
 right and left, doc — colonel; haven't had a moment's peace. What 
 d'ye think that dash-dashed long-legged lath of a man Blake says to 
 me, not an hour ago, begad? I asked him if he thought you had any 
 right to feel offended, and he said if you didn't it was only because 
 everybody agreed that no notice was to be taken of anything I ever 
 said. I never know whether he's in earnest or joking. If I thought 
 he meant what he said, by God, he'd be in arrest this minute." 
 
 Again the post surgeon held up a warning hand. " Pray do not 
 speak quite so loud, Mainwaring," said he. *' Some of my patients 
 are trying to sleep. I beg you will think no more of this morning's 
 incident. What you have said is more than sufficient. I am possibly 
 hypersensitive." 
 
 And then it was the doctor's turn to be abruptly silenced. For a 
 second time the outer door was hurriedly opened, silvery voices and soft 
 laughter were heard in the corridor, and then, marshalled by Blake, 
 there at the entrance stood Mrs. Mainwaring, and behind her, silent 
 and a trifle pale and anxious-looking, Kate Leroy. 
 
 "I knew he'd be coming right over here," laughed Mrs. Main- 
 waring. " But, really. Colonel Connell, my husband is even more 
 impetuous in rushing to make amends than he is in treading on people's 
 tender spots. — No, don't go wandering off to the wards, Kate," she cried, 
 for Miss Leroy looked anxiously up the corridor and showed a tendency 
 to follow her eyes. " Come now, major, if you have finished what you 
 were saying to the colonel, we want you to come home. Indeed," she 
 persisted, as she saw how angrily his eyes w^ere regarding Blake, 
 "you've got to come and make your peace with us now, for you were 
 simply unbearable all through dinner, and we had to ask Captain 
 Blake to escort us in search of you." Then, as Mainwaring still held 
 back as though striving to speak, she seized his arm. " Come. Indeed," 
 lowering her voice, " I must speak with you before you go any further 
 in that case." And then did Connell feel sure she spoke of Hunter. 
 
 An instant later he was surer still, for in came an attendant, alarm 
 on his face. 
 
518 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 "Did the post surgeon give Hunter permission to leave hospital? 
 He's picked up his coat and gone, sir." 
 
 Outside the raoon was shining brightly on the glistening snow. 
 Objects were plainly visible over one hundred yards away. Main- 
 waring sprang to the door with excitement in his eyes and flew to the 
 porch, the others following, in every stage of astonishment. Outside 
 the gate, as luck would have it, was marching a relief of the guard, the 
 men swinging rapidly by in their heavy winter dress, the carbine butts 
 grasped in their fur-gloved hands, the gleaming barrels tossed over the 
 shoulder. Over towards the trader's store a tall, slender form in sol- 
 dier's overcoat was rapidly striding. Mainwaring's voice rang out with 
 the force and volume of a trombone. "Halt your relief, corporal! 
 Catch that man over yonder, quick, and bring him here." 
 
 Astonished, the corporal obeyed. "Relief, halt!" he ordered. 
 " Come with me, two of you." Then away he rushed. "Halt! Halt, 
 you !" were the next shouts, and all in a moment they had overhauled 
 the offending soldier. There was brief parley, and then back they 
 came, the unresisting prisoner between the two members of the guard. 
 
 " Oh," almost whimpered Mrs. Mainwaring, " do hear Captain 
 
 Blake first. He's sure there's some mistake " then broke off short 
 
 with exclamation of amaze. From the lips of Kate Leroy, too, there 
 burst a stifled cry, for there before them, his clear-cut, refined face per- 
 fectly outlined in the brilliant moonlight, — there, clad in the rough 
 garb of a private soldier, stood the courteous, helpful, distinguished- 
 looking stranger of the night of the collision. 
 
 Mainwaring must have had a love for the dramatic. 
 
 " Corporal Rice," said he, deliberately, " take Trooper Hunter to 
 the guard-house and confine him by my order on the charge of con- 
 niving at the robbery and destruction of the magazine." 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 In the forty-eight hours that followed the arrest and incarceration 
 of Trooper Hunter one excitement chased another with such rapidity 
 that it was hard to keep track of them, and Mainwaring, with almost 
 a sigh of relief, welcomed the premature return of old Stannard, to 
 whom somebody (believed to be Ray) had given the tip by telegraph 
 that the sooner he got back the better. 
 
 " Take this infernal regiment and see what you can do with it," 
 said Mainwaring, despairingly. " I thought I knew something about 
 soldiering, but there's too d — d much individuality in the — th for 
 me." 
 
 And, beside Trooper Hunter's incarceration on the charge of aiding 
 and abetting in the robbery and destruction of the magazine, the senior 
 major had the following matters now to tackle : Captain Blake, in 
 arrest for using insubordinate language to the commanding ofiicer ("said 
 that compared with my mental condition the magazine wasn't a cir- 
 cumstance in the way of a wreck, begad," explained Mainwaring to his 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 519 
 
 senior, who strove to keep a straight face, but couldn't); Mrs. Merri- 
 weather, disappeared since the night of Hunter's transfer from hospital 
 to guard-house ; Sergeant Merriweather, transferred from guard-house 
 to hospital with a bullet through one lung and a knife-wound in the 
 other ; Corporal Croxford and Trooper Elzey, deserted, — two hitherto 
 shining lights of the garrison and admirers of Mrs. Merriweather 
 (could Mrs. Merriweather have gone with either of them? asked some 
 of the ladies, or with both ? asked certain brutes among the officers) ; 
 and, finally, Lieutenant Brady, back from a bacchanalian bout with his 
 kindred spirit Rawson, and now laid by the heels in quarters with an 
 Irish orderly in attendance, for doctors would have nothing to do with 
 him. 
 
 The way Stannard sailed in was characteristic. Brady had not 
 been drunk on duty. He had taken advantage of the absence of 
 Atherton and Stannard to relax the reins of his self-control, but had 
 only got a real good start when he sought and received a seven days' 
 leave from Major Mainwaring, which enabled him to meet Rawson at 
 Pawnee. This was about ten days after the explosion. He was to 
 have stayed his week away, but in two days suddenly reappeared in 
 Butte, full of whiskey and information. Mainwaring, who knew him 
 but slightly, received a despatch saying that he had news of most im- 
 portant character resulting from discoveries "he had made at Pawnee, 
 and urging the commanding officer to meet him at the railway station 
 on his arrival, which Mainwaring did, and then the very next night 
 ordered Hunter's arrest. 
 
 " I always said that when Brady drank he could be depended upon 
 to make an ass of himself," said Blake, "and this proves it." But 
 what Brady's revelations might have been Mainwaring refused to dis- 
 close. It was enough, he said, to hang Hunter high as the hayman, 
 and the hay-contractor, in Mainwaring's opinion, was the double- 
 dashedest scoundrel that ever lived. This statement so rejoiced Blake's 
 heart that he repeated it broadcast, and was in the merriest of moods, 
 until he heard that Mainwaring had forbidden Captain Ray's having 
 an interview with his imprisoned recruit. Then Blake l)oiled over and 
 made the odious comparison between Mainwaring's brain and the 
 blown-up building which resulted in his own summary confinement to 
 quarters. Brady's leave had still two days to run when Stannard got 
 back, but Stannard had heard enough of his doings in Butte to war- 
 rant the immediate action taken. An officer was sent with the post 
 ambulance and orders to fetch him forthwith. Then and there Dana 
 waited on him with the major's message to the eifect that he would give 
 him twenty-four hours in which to sober up and face the music, and 
 Brady had sense enough to know he had no time to lose. 
 
 Then another snarl had to be disentangled, in which Stannard could 
 not help, since it was purely domestic. The veteran ])ost surgeon had 
 had a flare-up with Mainwaring, all on account of Trooper Hunter. 
 The doctor protested against his patient's being put in the guard- 
 house, declaring that, no matter what the charges were, he was entitled 
 to humane as well as medical treatment. Mainwaring said the man 
 of his own volition had removed himself from hospital, and therefore 
 
520 BAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 deserved no consideration. The doctor said if Hunter were kept in 
 the prison room with the garrison malefactors over-night he would 
 hold Ma in waring responsible for ill results that were certain to occur, 
 which stacrgered Mainwaring for a minute. He finally compromised, 
 ordered Hunter sent back to hospital, but put in a room by himself 
 with a sentry at the door and another at the window, and orders pro- 
 hibiting his being seen or spoken to by anybody except the doctors and 
 the steward, unless it were himself or on his ov/n written order. 
 
 Then Mainwaring had to go home and face the women-folk, and 
 there for the first time (Miss Leroy, shocked and stunned, having gone 
 to her room) did Mrs. Mainwaring have him to herself and tell him 
 of the identification of Hunter as the polite and helpful stranger of 
 the night on the train. Then furthermore did she add her plea to the 
 doctor's, and finally admit that, much to her own distress and conster- 
 nation, she feared Pet was actually deeply if not indeed very painfully 
 interested in this mysterious trooper. In justice to Pet, she must say 
 that that young lady was probably unaware of the feeling that had 
 been growing upon her until the denouement of that evening. Slie, 
 Mrs. Mainwaring, had striven to wean her from the morning services, 
 but without success, and now she knew not what had happened, for 
 Pet had shut herself in her room and begged to be left undisturbed. 
 
 Which was more than " Pet" would permit the major to be next 
 day, however, for she was up and on the lookout for him on his return 
 from stables. He marvelled and was shocked at the pallor of her 
 face, the trouble iu her eyes. Without preliminary remark, she went 
 straight to her subject. 
 
 " Major Mainwaring, at what time and where may I see Trooper 
 Hunter, as you call him, to-day ?" 
 
 " Well — 1, I'm sure I don't know, Kate;" for the major, like many 
 a lion among men, was a lamb among women. " I — don't think you 
 — ought to wish to see him." 
 
 " But I do wish it, major. Moreover, I should be ashamed of 
 myself if I did not." And the reply conveyed all the more weight 
 because of the calm decision of her manner. 
 
 And so the first written order Mainwaring signed was one to per- 
 mit the bearer to visit the prisoner Hunter, and at ten o'clock that 
 morning, when, pale, calm, but resolute as ever, and smiling still, 
 despite her sleepless night. Miss Leroy entered the hospital for the 
 customary reading, she sent the steward to tell Mr. Hunter that she 
 hoped he would be able to see her soon after eleven, and then indomi- 
 tably went on with her self-appointed task. 
 
 At eleven-fifteen the post surgeon came, silently gave her his arm, 
 as they left the big sunshiny ward, and led her to a door-way up the 
 corridor in front of which a sentry was pacing, — a sentry who halted 
 and presented arms as the doctor opened the door and ushered her in. 
 
 It was that night that Merriweather was brought back from town 
 to the guard-house, shot and stabbed as has been said. Mrs. Merri- 
 w'eather had fled during the previous night, and the sergeant had been 
 missing since reveille. It was the next night that Stannard returned 
 and had Brady hunted up. Then came new labors and honors for 
 
EAV'S RECRUIT. 521 
 
 Sheriff Conway, and this time there were no troops to divide the 
 honors of the capture with him, for his prisoners were deserters all, — 
 one from an over-indulgent husband, the others from a not too indul- 
 gent Uncle Sam. Pawnee was the Mecca of the fugitives. Thither 
 had Mrs. Merriweather fled to a married sister. Thither had Crox- 
 ford and Eizey followed, after having remained to cover her retreat 
 and settle matters with the sergeant, — which they had done only too 
 effectually, for Merriweather's days were numbered. 
 
 Two days later Stannard had straightened out affairs at the post in 
 marvellous fashion (all save matters domestic, — wherein, said he, no 
 wise man meddled), and the man to start him on the right scent was 
 that scapegrace the Kid, whom he had disciplined time and again in 
 Arizona days and appreciated at his true value. The Kid's derisive 
 and explosive laughter when told that Major Main waring had ordered 
 Trooper Hunter confined as accessory to the magazine robbery, etc., 
 had been promptly reported to Stannard on his return, and that versa- 
 tile young reprobate was sent for, marched to the adjutant's office, and 
 collared by his old-time troop commander, — for one of his several 
 enlistments the Kid had spent with Stannard, and knew him well. 
 
 And this was what the Kid divulged. Every one knew he could 
 use a lasso like a cowboy, and Croxford had asked him, just for 
 deviltry, to join him and "some other fellers" in roj)ing the swell, 
 Hunter, on the midnight relief; and he was going to, but happened to 
 hear tiiat Merriweather was in it, and that set him to thinking. He'd 
 heard the women talking about Mrs. Morriweather's boasting that she 
 had made a conquest of the swell recruit, and he remembered Merri- 
 weather's black eye and the rumor that it was Hunter "laid him out," 
 and the Kid scented mischief and backed out. Then Croxford came 
 and told him it would be best for him to keep his ])romise, as he might 
 get the credit of it anyhow; which prompted the Kid to tell them all 
 to go to Ballyhack. But when Elzey and Hughes later came and 
 "stumped him" to join them in a spree to town that night, and dis- 
 played their money, he forgot Croxford's threat in the prospect of 
 whiskey, and, anything for a frolic, started with them, only to run 
 foul of the patrol just across the creek. 
 
 But the moment he heard of Hunter's being hauled out of the 
 stream after the explosion the whole plot dawned on him, and some- 
 thing more ; for he remembered the stories of forage and cartridges 
 being sold in town, and saw that it was planned to fix the guilt on 
 Hunter, and, if not, to fix the crime of the assault on the sacred person 
 of a sentry upon himself, the innocent Kid. Then Stannard would 
 have cross-questioned the two deserters, for such they were, despite 
 stalwart protestations that they were only out for twenty-four hours' 
 fun ; but detectives, ferreting their movements, warned him to make 
 no attempt. Merriweather might make an ante-mortem statement, but 
 not these men. Neither would Mrs. Merriweather " peach." She was 
 in the county jail, begging piteously to be taken to her Danny, and 
 declaring he and she were only going to Pawnee to see her sister for a 
 day, and he must have been waylaid in town. 
 
 But while Stannard was waiting for Merriweather to regain con- 
 
522 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 sciousness and Brady to become once more a responsible being, there 
 came still another witness, an old carpenter and new citizen of" Butte, 
 who appeared at Ransom, sorely troubled on account of a friend there 
 enlisted whom he hadn't seen for many a day, — not, in fact, since the 
 morning of the train- robbery, — and had just heard of him as having 
 been arrested for complicity in the robbery of the magazine. Stan- 
 nard heard hie story, which was that the accused was a man of means, 
 a charitable, kind gentleman who, just for a whim, had come out to 
 enlist for a while in the cavalry ; that he had helped him, the carpen- 
 ter, to a home and work and his wife to health, and his clothes and 
 things were all at his, the ex-tramp carpenter's, house, and couldn't he 
 see Mr. Hunter? Whereupon Stannard said, "Come on," took him 
 to the hospital, and marched into the room where, seated in an easy- 
 chair, was the invalid benefactor, and with him the old surgeon and 
 the young lady. Dr. Jayne, it seems, had suddenly discontinued his 
 attentions to both the patient and the nurse. 
 
 It struck Stannard unpleasantly at the time that no one of thera 
 looked pleased at his coming ; but men are obtuse. A woman would 
 have appreciated the impropriety of interruption at a glance. 
 
 And even while they stood there, hesitant, at the door, the steward 
 came hurriedly to say that Merriweather was conscious, and had asked 
 for his wife and a priest. The two veteran majors, trooper and doctor, 
 hastened at once to the greater ward, and Hunter, smiling, held forth 
 a long, thin, white hand. 
 
 " The ring I left with you would slide off the biggest of these 
 fingers now, wouldn't it?" he asked. — " Miss Leroy, this is Mr. Mur- 
 ray, now a resident of Butte, but a fellow-passenger with us on the 
 night of the collision." 
 
 Before the sounding of the retreat that night and the boom of the 
 sunset gun, Sergeant Merriweather's soul had drifted away over the 
 dreary waste of snow-clad slopes and leagues of prairie, but not before 
 he had made clean breast of all his trials, temptations, and downfall. 
 His vain, empty-headed, frivolous wife was brought out from Butte, 
 but proved scant comfort to his dying hours. To Father Keefe and 
 Stannard, Blake and Ray, he told his piteous tale, Kittie sniffling, 
 sobbing, wailing at intervals, but ever intently listening. One ex- 
 travagance after another had swamped him. He used the money of 
 the men's Athletic and Dramatic Association, of which he was treasurer. 
 He stole forage from the stables and sold it to a dealer in Butte to cover 
 his shortage, but, that not yielding enough, planned the robbery of the 
 magazine, which took place, Croxford and Elzey assisting, one furiously 
 stormy night. They worked the old ordnance sergeant with liquor and 
 got his keys, took out the boxes of cartridges, revolvers, etc., and, lo ! 
 the wagon of their confederates in Butte failed to come. It was beaten 
 back by the storm. They then ran everytiiing to the stack nearest 
 Merriweather's stable and cottage and hid the plunder underneath. 
 Dawn almost surprised them at the task. Luckily, the old sergeant 
 was made too sick to go to his magazine for two days. They had 
 arranged for the wagon to come out the next night, and then to blow 
 up the magazine and so destroy evidence of their guilt, but again there 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 523 
 
 was failure; and Merri weather was at his wits' end when he heard the 
 colonel say that stack must be moved on the morrow. Then, rain or 
 shine, snow or sleet, the wagon had to come, and then it was found, 
 too late to change the hour, that the swell recruit, Hunter, was on the 
 very post that guarded the stacks and stables, and would be there at 
 the very time they needed to act. So to robbery they were compelled 
 to add assault. 
 
 The plunder was safely run off to Butte and paid for at about one- 
 fifth its cost and one-tenth its value in a frontier city. They got their 
 money, and felt measurably safe so long as Hunter remained in hos- 
 pital, used up as a result of the fearful contusions he had received. 
 But his wife had told them of her encounter with and revelations to 
 Hunter, and their fears of discovery were such that Croxford and 
 Elzey determined to desert. The news that Hunter was arrested as 
 having guilty knowledge of the whole affair was a thunderbolt. Now 
 in self-defence he would have to produce even a woman as witness, 
 and that woman Merriweather's wife. 'Twas Merriweather who bade 
 her go at once to Pawnee, whither Croxford and Elzey followed. The 
 three men were to meet and divide their spoils in a certain saloon in 
 town. The first two demanded more than their share. There was a 
 quarrel, then a murderous battle. They took all he had and fled, but, 
 with fatuous blundering, had gone to Pawnee to buy her silence, and 
 there all three were jailed. Hunter was an innocent man. 
 
 And when this was told to Mainwaring he bellowed, " Then what 
 in dash-dashnation did Brady mean by his story ?" For Brady's story 
 was practically this. 
 
 That he and Rawson occupied a room together over the one fine 
 restaurant in Pawnee, and one night they were having supper in one 
 box when a party of four railway hands came into that adjoining, 
 talking loudly about the engineer of 783, old Jim Long, and the swell 
 that engineered the hold-up, — how he had pretended to be out there to 
 enlist in the cavalry, how he had tried to ride with and get points from 
 Long, and had two or three of his gang on that very train all ready 
 for business, but was scared off by the fact that there was a car-load 
 of soldiers. Then when the train-robbery did take place they nabbed 
 seven of the followers after a long chase, but never got the leaders at 
 all. Why, one of them was right there at the fort this very day, 
 enlisted so as to divert suspicion, and he was keeping his hand in by 
 engineering other robberies. That magazine explosion they had read 
 about was all his doing. 
 
 If Brady had not been addled he could have remembered that 
 Hunter had enlisted before the train-robbery took place. But he 
 posted back to Butte, gave Mainwaring a wildly exaggerated account 
 of what he had heard, vowed he could bring the men with him next 
 trip, and Mainwaring, already suspicious, had ordered Hunter's arrest 
 accordingly. 
 
 The fact that Hunter could not have been connected with the robbery 
 was pointed out to Mainwaring as they sat in consultation, Stannard, 
 Mainwaring, Truscott, and Dana, in the adjutant's office that night, 
 Blake being still in limbo, and Ray being excluded because he had 
 
524 RAV'S RECRUIT. 
 
 resented Mainwaring's refusal to allow him an interview with his im- 
 prisoned trooper. It was pointed out that Hunter's enlistment occurred 
 some time previous to the train-robbery, and none present happened to 
 think of the fact that he had asked for and obtained a pass the very- 
 night before it happened. Then Brady was sent for, and with him 
 came his comrade, still on leave from Winthrop, Mr. Rawson. 
 
 " You hear how completely Sergeant Merriweather's ante-mortem 
 statement has cleared Hunter, gentlemen," said Stannard. " Now I 
 suppose you are satisfied." 
 
 "As to that point, major, yes," said Mr. Rawson, with preter- 
 natural sang-froid. *' But I understand you have ordered his release, 
 and he is to come here presently for his exoneration. Is that so?" 
 
 " Certainly," growled Stannard. " What of it ?" 
 
 " Well, first I would ask the trooper when he comes to say where 
 he was at the time of the robbery of the train." And Rawson's face 
 beamed with the consciousness of calm conviction of an erring brother's 
 guilt, 
 
 Stannard nodded brusquely. " Entirely unnecessary, Mr. Raw- 
 son," said he : '* that has already been settled. He has witnesses in 
 plenty — three, at least, here at the post or in town — to establish where 
 he was at that very time. He spent that night and the morning follow- 
 ing at the house of one Murray, a carpenter in Butte." 
 
 Brady and Rawson exchanged glances indicative of incredulity, 
 but Rawson then went on : 
 
 " In justice to my friend Mr. Brady and myself, I ask that he be 
 required then to bring with him the silver-topped flask the steward says 
 he has there in his room this very day, and explain where he was the 
 morning of the train -robbery, if not with the robbers." 
 
 Stannard snorted derisively, but sent the order as requested, and 
 just as the first call was sounding for tattoo. Trooper Hunter, pallid, 
 yet calm and self-possessed, and decidedly prepossessing, was ushered 
 in and stood patiently at attention. 
 
 Stannard looked him carefully over, and said, "Did you bring that 
 flask?" to which the soldier calmly replied, — 
 
 "I did, sir, rather unwillinglv." 
 
 "Why unwillingly?" 
 
 " Because," and here a quiet smile flickered over his face, " it is 
 hardly a part of a private soldier's equipment. But it has only been 
 in my possession a few hours since my joining the regiment, and I've 
 not had time to send it away." 
 
 Then Stannard turned in his chair and glared at Brady and Rawson. 
 " Well, what do you wish to ask about this flask?" 
 
 Rawson rose deliberately. " First, that it be placed here on the 
 table where all can see it; then, that I maybe permitted to read this." 
 And he unfolded a newspaper. 
 
 Very coolly the soldier stepped forward and handed the handsome 
 toy to Stannard, who gazed admiringly at it and placed it in the full 
 light of the lamps on the table of the commanding officer. 
 
 Then, clearing his throat, the lieutenant began : 
 
 "Among the passengers arriving in this city from the East to-day 
 
RAV'S RECRUIT. 525 
 
 is Lord Luuemouth, eldest son and heir of the Earl of Lancaster. 
 Lord Lunemouth is travelling for his health, and has been advised to 
 seek the glorious climate of California, but has met with unpleasant 
 experiences on the way. His train was held up by desperadoes in 
 Wyoming, the passengers were robbed, and his personal losses con- 
 sisted of some two hundred dollars in cash, a superb watch, and a 
 handsome, silver-topped flask, the arms of his noble house engraved 
 on the stopper. The latter he valued as a keepsake. Here follows," 
 said Mr. Rawson, "a description of the arms. Here," said he, lifting 
 the flask, " are the arms and motto of the house of Lancaster ; and 
 now perhaps this gentleman, whom I perfectly well remember seeing 
 in very different attire aboard the Pacific express the night of the col- 
 lision, will explain how he came into possession of the missing flask 
 of Lord Lunemouth ?" 
 
 Then Mainwaring's face was indeed a sight to see, but the amaze 
 deepened, broadened, almost overmastered him, when, with perfect 
 composure, the strange trooper replied, — 
 
 " With pleasure ; though this is not Lord Lunemouth's, but the 
 mate to it. It was given to me by a member of the house of Lan- 
 caster months ago. At the time of the train-robbery it was not in ray 
 possession at all. For further information on that head I must refer 
 you to Major Mainwaring." 
 
 " House of Lancaster be bio wed !" was that veteran's explosive reply. 
 "It was in my house right here at Ransom at that very time. Say, 
 Rawson, you and Brady haven't had any more sense in this matter 
 than— I have !" 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 A REMARKABLE winter, from a cavalry point of view, was that ; 
 the first which the old regiment spent at Ransom, but, like many other 
 things temporal and most things military, it came to an end, and people 
 looking back upon it afterwards declared they were rather sorry, after 
 all, for there was so much to make it vividly interesting at the time 
 and to form topics for talk in the weeks to come. 
 
 Sensations flattened out lamentably for nearly a fortnight after the 
 quashing of Mainwaring's martial indictment against "the swell of the 
 sorrel troop," as Blake described Hunter, and when they reopened, about 
 the height of the holiday season, other names and households than those 
 herein mentioned were mainly conspicuous, although Blake managed 
 to mix in more than one of them. Between him and Mainwaring was 
 patched a truce, based primarily on the latter's admission that he had 
 probably made a mess of the whole business, but really couldn't be 
 held responsible in the face of such testimony as was offered by promi- 
 nent officers of the — th, — Messrs. Brady and Rawson. Then Blake 
 apologized for comparing the head of the junior major to the wreck 
 of the magazine, and peace with honor, though not without difficulty, 
 was established so far as the men were concerned. It was, in fact, less 
 difficult than in the case of the women, for Miss Leroy had, it seems, 
 
526 RAV'S RECRUIT. 
 
 a very pretty will of her own, that Mrs. Mainwaring could neither 
 bend nor break. Mrs. Mainwaring was of an old and distinguished 
 family, and so was Miss Leroy, and the woman Miss Leroy most seri- 
 ously affected was Mrs. Blake, nee Bryan, daughter of a rather dissolute 
 old ranchman once well known about Russell. It stung Mrs. Main- 
 waring that her niece should have, as she said to her and whispered to 
 others, so little pride. The story spread in the regiment through what 
 was whispered, not through what was said, and Miss Leroy, already 
 popular, became a hot favorite forthwith. 
 
 She had come to spend the winter, but as soon as the holidays were 
 over and her precious post children had had their Christmas-tree and 
 other Christmas joys — even before the new year was fairly ushered in — 
 she returned from the morning reading one day and found Mrs. Main- 
 waring impatiently awaiting her. There were invitations for dinners, 
 etc., extending a week, even ten days, ahead, and Mrs. Mainwaring 
 wished to know which it was her niece's pleasure to accept, and was 
 aghast at the reply : any that might be acceptable to aunty up to 
 January 5th, none for her after that date, as she would then have to 
 return to New York. 
 
 Remonstrance proved utterly useless. The second week in January 
 saw Miss Leroy, accompanied to the station by most of the ladies and 
 a few of their lords, safely aboard the East-bound train, with old 783 
 and Jimmy Long in the lead. There were dozens of the children 
 there to bid her good-by. There were even a number of enlisted men, 
 with whom she warmly shook hands before she took her seat in the 
 roomy Pullman. Captain and Mrs. Blake, her devoted friends, went 
 with her as far as Omaha, where she was to join another party. 
 Mrs. Mainwaring fairly dissolved in tears as they kissed each other 
 good-by ; for, after all, Kate was the daughter of a long-loved, long- 
 lost brother, if she was headstrong and independent, and never yet 
 had woman left the dingy precincts of old Ransom so generally and 
 thoroughly esteemed. 
 
 But every one wondered for all that — even the many who would 
 not give their thought expression — whether an understanding did not 
 exist, whether she was not going with the expectation of meeting 
 somewhere the remarkable recruit by the name of Hunter, for Hunter 
 had left on a month's furlough just ten days before. 
 
 Mrs. Mainwaring declared that Kate's sole reason for going was that 
 she was too conscientious. She found her health restored (no one re- 
 membered having heard of it as impaired), and she felt she must return 
 to her kindred in the East and resume her interrupted duties there. But 
 Mrs. Stannard and other wise women well knew that the main reason 
 for her going was that life with Uncle and Aunt Mainwaring was not 
 as peaceful or congenial, despite their pride in and affection for her, as 
 it should have been. 
 
 And then there was still another and more vital reason. " Every- 
 body" was talking about her interest in Trooper Hunter and his 
 undoubted admiration for her. But Hunter had had to go back to 
 duty with his troop, had met Miss Leroy only on the long afternoons 
 and evenings when he, with two or three other blue-jackets, worked at 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 527 
 
 the festooning and decorating, under her active supervision, of the post 
 assembly hall. Then he had had an interview with Ray, his cap- 
 tain, that brought matters to a climax. He applied for and received 
 his furlough in the midst of the holidays, — left his kit with the first 
 sergeant, his uniform with Murray, the carpenter, and Butte in a snow- 
 storm, the Pullman smoker, and familiar-looking tweeds, travelling- 
 cap, and ulster, at which Jim Long stared in astonished recognition 
 when, as he alighted from his cab at the Junction, a swell civilian 
 stepped up and smilingly tendered him a cigar. 
 
 Whatever clouds had lowered over the house of Hunter were 
 wafted away the night of that decisive conference of the powers, when 
 Stannard and Truscott demolished the theories of Mainwaring- and the 
 aspersions of Brady & Company. Even Conway had limped out of 
 his buggy a few days later to say he, too, had been fooled. (He was 
 destined to be fooled still more when a jail-delivery turned loose his 
 seven star performers on Christmas Eve.) Corporal Croxford and 
 Trooper Elzey still maintained their conviction of Hunter's guilt, until 
 Mrs. Merriweather weakened over her husband's death and confirmed 
 his whole confession. The Kid was enjoying a temporary relapse into 
 virtue, and was wearing a halo until pay-day. Mrs. Merriweather, 
 bailed out by Freeman, was living in temporary retirement in Butte, 
 yet already beginning to " take notice," and all Ransom was wondering 
 what Trooper Hunter had gone on thirty days' furlough for, and bet- 
 ting two to one that he never would come back, when he suddenly 
 came. 
 
 He had been gone but twenty of the thirty days. He reported in 
 person in the nattiest of fatigue uniforms to Captain Ray just before 
 stable-call one sharp, clear January afternoon, and in a brief conversa- 
 tion asked of his captain that he would send to Miss Leroy a little 
 package he had brought with him from the East, and was manifestly 
 disappointed when told that she had gone. 
 
 Then they probably had not met at all, and Ransom was off the 
 scent again. 
 
 Just what might have been the result of this disappointment had 
 matters remained in the usual midwinter plane of monotony, cannot be 
 stated. What did happen was a sudden call from the department com- 
 mander, a sudden demand for a strong escort to accompany him to the 
 Hills, despite the biting weather, for sacred Indian lands were being 
 invaded, and only his presence could prevail upon the Sioux to trust 
 the matter of righting the wrong to him and Uncle Sam. Him they 
 trusted readily enough, but shook their shaggy heads at mention of the 
 Great Father. ^' Let the Gray Fox leave enough soldiers here to drive 
 away the would-be miners and prospectors, and they would keep the 
 peace." And so it was ordered. March and April saw the swell 
 trooper deeply interested now, despite longings for news from civiliza- 
 tion, in daily contact with and study of these warlike people, learning 
 their uncouth language, buying their furs and bead- work, winning their 
 good will by unexpected gifts and straightforward dealing. May came, 
 and trouble. Congress was too busy with other matters to heed the 
 request of the President that the recommendations of the general com- 
 
528 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 raanding the department of the frontier be immediately carried out. 
 The horned cattle and other supplies failed to arrive. The Indians 
 said, " Sold again," and scalped an attache of the nearest agency as a 
 hint of what might happen to the agent himself if he didn't expedite 
 those supplies. Mid-May failed to bring the goods, but it brought the 
 grass, and that was enough. Storm-signals had been set for a fortnight, 
 yet the tornado burst with sudden and shocking force. Five hundred 
 warriors swooped suddenly into the lower valley of the Ska. Out went 
 every available man from Ransom, Rossiter, and Winthrop, and there 
 was war to the knife ere the Gray Fox could interpose. 
 
 A "■ dandy" battalion was that with which Mainwaring danced away 
 that sweet May morning, men and horses the pictures of health and 
 high condition and eager for the field and the fray. Stannard with 
 his four troops had marched eastward for the lower valley, but Main- 
 waring was to hasten to the Hills, gather up the little force still in 
 stockade at the nearest agency, then sweep on down to join the others. 
 The telegraph line was repaired to Crested Butte, where the mutiny 
 began, and there came this startling message just in time to meet 
 them : 
 
 " Sioux agency reports that Lord Lunemouth and party of friends, 
 twelve in all, including guides, passed uj) the Ska en route to the 
 northern hills two days before the outbreak. Use all means in your 
 power to find and protect them. Acknowledge receipt and report 
 action." 
 
 It was forwarded to Mainwaring by Atherton, who said he was 
 coming post-haste to take command in person in that part of the field ; 
 meantime to lose not a moment, but do his best. As usual, the call 
 went out for Ray. 
 
 Two days later, away up among the pine-crested heights, hot on 
 the trail of a big war-party of Indians the sorrel troop was pushing. 
 Mainwaring, with the three remaining companies, was trotting down 
 into the valley of the North Fork to intercept and beat back further 
 parties should they be tempted to follow their friends in the search for 
 the unsuspecting tourists. Atherton, with the Winthrop battalion at 
 his heels, was coming across country to the support of Mainwaring, 
 while old Stannard, on familiar ground, was rounding up stragglers 
 down the Ska, herding them back to the agency, and eagerly watching 
 for the coming of the troops from Rossiter and the big posts away to 
 the north. Then the Indians would be hemmed in. 
 
 But meantime what damage might they not do! There were no 
 railways then save the few trunk lines, no means, except by marching, 
 to reach the fabled Indian lands, and Lo was in his glory. Warned 
 of their peril, settlers, herders, and stockmen had taken to flight and 
 abandoned the lower valley, so the Indian was riding, proud monarch 
 of all he surveyed, over the broad waste of the low lands, burning, 
 pillaging, and raising, as the newspaper men first on the scene expressed 
 it, " no scalps, but much hell." If only good news could be heard of 
 those toui'ists, all might yet be well. 
 
 But what mad-brained trick could have prompted so hazardous a 
 picnic? The agent at Brule Springs swore he had done his best to 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 529 
 
 dissuade them, but there were three Englislimen who had never seen 
 elk and were possessed with longing to stalk and slioot them. They 
 were lavish with their money. Their interpreters talked directly to 
 some of the old chiefs, Thunder Eagle and Rolling Bear especially, 
 and the presents made these warriors caused the Sioux to clamor for 
 more, but won a lordly permit from the crafty leaders to go shoot what 
 they would, — the Sioux wouldn't care, — and so led them squarely into 
 the trap. Ray had found the debris of one of their camps towards 
 noon of the second day of his daring march, and four hours later as he 
 sped along their northward winding trail he came suddenly upon a deep 
 cleft among the hills, away down in whose depths trickled an ice-cold 
 rivulet where the tourists had drunk their fill, then gone on up the 
 opposite heights, and after them, swift pursuing, a formidable war- 
 party that had evidently come up this tributary to the Ska hoping here 
 to find and intercept their prey. 
 
 Men and horses of Ray's troop both were weary. They drank 
 eagerly, and some eyes, already haggard, looked appealingly at the set 
 face of their captain. Forty-eight hours had they come with but scant 
 halt for rest, and there was hardly a man in the party that could not 
 have slept instantly had he lain down on that soft, inviting turf, — all, 
 perhaps, but the indomitable leader and the tall trooper originally of the 
 centre set of fours, yet so often on this second day riding side by side 
 with, instead of following six yards behind, his commander, the place 
 where the orderly is supposed to be. Scott, the young lieutenant, who 
 should perhaps have taken exception to such favoritism, seemed to 
 understand and object not at all. "Hunter was up through here last 
 month with surveyor's escort," was the explanation, and, though some 
 men might have growled the information that "other fellers were 
 along too," no one seemed to object, for the reason that it was thor- 
 oughly known that Hunter made topographical notes from day to day 
 and had them with him now, and it was these to which Ray so fre- 
 quently referred as they hastened on. 
 
 Plainly enough had the captain seen the symptoms of growing ex- 
 haustion on both his men and mounts, — the dark lines under the deep- 
 set eyes, the utter silence that prevailed along the dusty little company, 
 the painful stumbling of the horses, and the constant eifort needed 
 to keep closed on the head of column. But he knew his men, and 
 they knew him. It was not the first by many times they had been 
 called upon to ride with life or death the stake. Somewhere, not three 
 hours ahead, probably, was a murderous band of Sioux seeking to 
 redress undoubted injuries by the only method the Indian knows, — the 
 blood of the pale-faced brothers of those that had wrought the wrong. 
 That these tourists had bought the consent of their chief to hunt, camp, 
 and explore through the Indian lands, that they w^ere innocent of 
 wrong-doing, that they despised the robbers of the red man as much as 
 the Indian hated him, had no bearing on the case. These were white 
 men, rashly intruding far within the Brule lines at a time when the 
 Great Spirit, through their medicine-men, had sounded the call to bat- 
 tle, and high or low, rich or poor, English or American, man, woman, 
 or child, it made no difference. That fated party represented just 
 Vol. LIX.— 34 
 
530 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 SO many coveted scalps, no more and no less, and if Indian strategy 
 could compass their capture alive or their destruction without the spill- 
 ing of a drop of Indian blood, all the more would their warrior band 
 receive the acclamations of a tribe that worshipped prowess like unto 
 that of the prairie wolf or fleet-footed fox. Ninety strong, led by a 
 daring young chief whose father and mother both had died when the 
 soldiers of the Long Hair dashed upon their village some years before, 
 they had cut loose from all bands around the Ska, and hastened in 
 search of the white invaders guaranteed by old Rolling Bear safe- 
 conduct not a week before. 
 
 And unerringly their instinct led them to the lovely park country 
 on the north side of the hills, for there was noble game in profusion. 
 Thither must the lordly whites have gone, rich in horses, arras, stores, 
 and provisions of every kind, and for mouths the Sioux were starving. 
 
 It was the sight of the fresh hoof-prints of fourscore ponies that 
 settled all question of rest at the rivulet in the mind of Captain Ray. 
 " Men," said he, " I hate to wear you out, but before another sunrise 
 we must circumvent these fellows, or it's all up with the tourists." 
 
 There were Irish troopers in the leading four who loved to talk of the 
 Clan na-Gael and Home Rule for Erin and death to " England's cruel 
 red" when time hung heavy on their hands in camp or barrack. But 
 that seemed all forgotten now. Like the famous Mavericks, they only 
 talked of mutiny when no other fighting was to be done. Only the 
 horses seemed to groan at the command to mount, and once more on 
 went the Sorrels au secows. 
 
 An hour after nightfall, in the bright light of the climbing moon, 
 they had splashed through another shallow, foaming stream in another 
 and narrower rift among the hills, two veteran sergeants, with Ray and 
 Hunter, well out in front, when just as the foremost, a shadowy form, 
 rode warily to a little point of bluff three hundred yards ahead, Ray's 
 gauntleted hand swung high his scouting hat in air, as half turning in 
 saddle he signalled " Halt !" for the leading rider was gesticulating 
 wildly, and Sergeant Conners came galloping back. 
 
 " Treed 'em, by God, sir !" he cried, in excitement irrepressible. 
 " They've stopped for a scalp-dance. You can hear 'em ])lain." 
 
 Yes, faint, but distinct, beating quicker every minute, the weird 
 throb of the war-drum could be heard, and with it the shrill whoop 
 and yell of excited dancers. 
 
 " Then you're right. Hunter," promptly spoke the captain. " That 
 can mean only one thing. They've located the party over in Keogh's 
 Park, just where you said they'd pitch their camp, and these beggars 
 mean to jump them at dawn. We'll show 'em a trick worth ten of 
 that, won't we, Dixie?" he continued, patting the neck of the game 
 little sorrel he rode. " What blessed luck that they should stop to 
 celebrate !" 
 
 Slowly, cautiously, the shadowy troop led forward to a grove of 
 pines not far from the water's edge, and close to the sheltering bluff 
 beyond which the warriors were having their jollification. There they 
 waited, breathless, the sound of revelry gaining every minute on the 
 night. Taking Conners and Hunter with him, Ray crept forward to 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 531 
 
 reconnoitre, — he and his sergeant veterans in the craft, Hunter a novice, 
 whose heart beat wildly, but who never faltered. 
 
 Fast and furious drove the dance. Loud and shrill arose the 
 whoops and war-cries, dying away at times like the yelp of prairie 
 wolves to faint and distant gurgling, then swelling again like the 
 chorus of hounds in full view of the quarry. Drum, rattle, and 
 piercing whistle added to the clamor, echoed back from the dark, pine- 
 crested cliffs that overhung this wild nook in the hills. Fresh fagots 
 heaped upon the fire threw the dusky, writhing forms, resplendent in 
 war-bonnet and savage finery, into bold relief, and Ray's brave heart 
 almost sank within him as he counted. Ponies they could not see, for 
 they were herded farther up the cove beyond the fire, but every indica- 
 tion pointed to there being well-nigh a hundred well-armed warriors 
 right there within revolver-shot, while others, doubtless, hovered like 
 watchful spies about the unsuspecting camp beyond the range. 
 
 " We could never get past them without discovery," muttered the 
 captain, finally. " We're far too few to drive them. How far is it 
 back down the valley and around to the park?" 
 
 " Not less than forty miles, sir," answered Hunter, " though it can't 
 be more than six or seven over the old game trail across the range." 
 
 " Then," said Ray, " there's nothing for it but to send a brace of 
 men up the heights afoot to warn the camp before daybreak, while the 
 troop hangs on to their heels." 
 
 It was barely nine o'clock now, and high aloft on the northern side 
 of the gorge, glistening white, the cliffs broke through the sombre 
 fringe of pine and shone like silver in the moonlight. Somewhere 
 ahead of the watchers in the black depths of the westward end of the 
 deep ravine an old game trail wound and twisted up the mountain side 
 over into the beautiful park beyond. Hunter well remembered and 
 had traced it in his notes. Over this trail Lord Lunemouth's joyous 
 party had evidently gone. Over this the Indian scouts had tracked 
 him. Over this the war-party doubtless meant to follow in time to 
 make their dash at daybreak. Over this, neck or nothing, warning 
 must be sent, and the intermediate ground was so completely occupied 
 by the Indians that cavalry could not hope to slip by undetected. It 
 could only be attempted by daring fellows afoot. 
 
 And the first man to speak out when, in few words, Ray explained 
 the situation to the troop, was that incorrigible rascal, the Kid. " I'm 
 game to go, sir." 
 
 " Good for one," said Ray. 
 
 "Here's another, sir," "And here," "And here," came in low tone 
 from half a dozen in the wearied troop, but Ray waited for still another 
 voice, until, half turning, he looked as though inquiringly at Hunter, 
 who had already kicked off his boots and was pulling on a pair of 
 moccasins, drawn from his saddle-bags. Then Hunter looked up and 
 spoke. 
 
 "I, of course, sir. I'm the only man that knows the way." 
 Whereat Ray's white teeth gleamed in the moonlight, and the men 
 knew all was well. 
 
 Three hours later a strangely assorted pair, a tall, slender, blond- 
 
532 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 bearded raaii; with clear-cut, handsome features, and an undersized, 
 weazen-faced, devil-may-care Irish lad, dressed alike in dark-blue shirts 
 and blouses, in light-blue riding-breeches and Indian-tanned leggings, 
 girt with cartridge-belt and revolver, and carrying the brown carbine 
 in hand, halted for breath at the very summit of the divide between 
 Keogh'sPark and the deep gorge in the southeastward hills. Perilous, 
 indeed, had been their journey. Leaving their comrades well belo'vf 
 the position of the Indian camp, they had slowly scaled the clifi's to 
 the north, then crept along among the pines until immediately above 
 the rejoicing Indians, and then, slowly and cautiously through the 
 scattered timber, followed westward by the stars until at last in a de- 
 pression they came upon the trail, easily recognizable in the occasional 
 patches of moonlight. Then, eager and cautious, they followed up, up 
 the winding way, ever alert for sound of hoof-beat, until at last they 
 reached the crest and Hunter's watch proclaimed it midnight. 
 
 From a rocky point they could see outspread beneath thera to the 
 northward a beautiful park country, faintly pictured in the silverv 
 light, and, laying a hand on his companion's sleeve, Hunter pointed 
 afar down to their left front. 
 
 " The springs lie just south of that high butte," he murmured, 
 "and there we'll find their camp, if only we can dodge the Indian 
 watchers on the way." 
 
 Ay, there was the rub, and there was no time to lose. Ever watch- 
 ful, as before, they began the gradual descent, peering from tree to tree, 
 flitting like shadows from rock to rock, until at last they reached the 
 lower limit of the timber-line, and there before them lay an almost 
 open valley, two miles wide, destitute of " cover" except along the 
 stream that nearly equally divided it, and up that stream, perhaps two 
 miles, some white objects gleamed in the moonlight near a clump of 
 trees, and there at Keogh's Springs, just as Hunter had predicted, lay 
 the threatened camp. 
 
 But how were they to reach it unobserved? for here and every- 
 where the Kid could point out fresh pony-tracks, and even as they 
 paused at the belt of pines, away out on the slopes beyond, hidden 
 from camp by intervening rises in the ground, dark forms of horsemen, 
 three or four, were plainly visible, and the Kid could tell from old 
 experience that nothing living would escape those watchers' eyes. 
 
 But up the slope the trees were thicker, and again, though wearily, 
 they sought their shelter, and slowly crawled from clump to clump 
 until towards three o'clock they were nearly opposite the sleeping camp, 
 lying out there in a lovely glade, barely long rifle-shot away. 
 
 Twice, thrice they had seen an Indian on nimble pony, moving 
 cautiously about, well out of sight of camp. Time and again the 
 coyotes yelped and loud-mouthed challenge was bayed by suspicious 
 watch-dogs near the tents, but still the Saxons slept all innocent of 
 danger, and time was getting fearfully short. 
 
 " What's to hinder our crawling out as far as we can go? then, if 
 we're seen, shoot the sucker that tries to stop us, and run for it," 
 muttered the Irishman. " It's the only chance I see." 
 
 The moon was well over to the west, but still so high her light 
 
RAV'S RECRUIT. 533 
 
 betrayed every moving object in the open ground; but, as the Kid 
 explained, there seemed to be no other way. Down went the two flat 
 upon their stomachs, and the slow, tortuous process began. Before 
 they had made a hundred yards Celtic patience gave out. " Damned 
 if I can stand this," said the Irishman. "There's not an Indian in 
 sight now. Come on. Let's run for it." 
 
 Suiting action to the word, the little sinner was on his feet, and in 
 another minute skimming away like a racer to the goal. 
 
 And then as Hunter started to follow he saw a sight that made him 
 thrill with dread. As though they sprang from the bowels of the 
 earth, two Indians on swift ponies darted into view, and, bending low 
 over their chargers' necks, lashing them to mad gallop, they fairly shot 
 across the resounding, turf-clad prairie, swift and straight towards the 
 scudding form. 
 
 " Look out, Kid ! Look out !" rang Hunter's voice in a yell that 
 woke the valley. Bang ! went the Paddy's ready carbine in reply. 
 Dogs, coyotes, carbines, rifles, Indian yells, and Saxon blasphemy burst 
 upon the silence of the night. An Indian pony plunged and tossed 
 his rider sprawling within a dozen yards of where the Kid had turned 
 at bay, and Hunter, rushing to the rescue, had just time to kneel, when 
 two or three revolvers seemed to crack at once, and the air was rent 
 with fire-flashes. But the soldier's aim was true, and one tall warrior 
 toppled heavily forward and bit the dust as Hunter sped on to his 
 comrade's aid. He found him clasping his hands about his knee and 
 rolling in agony on the turf. 
 
 " For the love of God, don't stop !" cried he. " They've smashed 
 my leg, and I'm done for. There's a dozen to one of us." Dozen or 
 not, they were in for it now. Hunter knelt, and, though his heart beat 
 hard, sent shot after shot at every flitting form he saw, until, amazed 
 at the vigorous defence, the Indians seemed to haul away. Then up 
 he lifted the protesting Kid and lugged him full another hundred 
 yards before again he had to drop him and fight. Then once more, 
 half lifting, half dragging, he rushed him on, cheered by the evidence 
 that the Indians dared not come too close and that camp was aroused 
 and blazing away. Luckily, the guides had quickly realized what was 
 up. Luckily, they reasoned that there could be but few Indians in the 
 immediate neighborhood, for out they came — three or four — to the 
 succor of the burdened man, and reached him only as, exhausted by 
 his efforts and by loss of blood from a wound hardly noticed when 
 received, he sank, fainting, to the ground, the Kid still pluckily swear- 
 ing in his arms. 
 
 And so, an hour later, when the Indians swooped in force upon the 
 camp they found it thoroughly prepared, surrounded by hastily con- 
 structed rifle-pits or breastworks, around which, five hundred yards 
 away, they dashed and yelled and kept up their wild fusillade, but both 
 times they strove to charge three or four saddles were emptied by the 
 cool aim of the defence, and then, to cap the climax of their discom- 
 fiture, out from the foot-hills burst their old acquaintance the sorrel 
 troop, " Laughing Lightning," as once the Cheyeunes had named Ray, 
 cheering in the lead. And the warriors broke for cover, and kept in 
 
534 RAY'S RECRUIT. 
 
 cover at respectful distance until Mainwaring himself, a whole day 
 later, with his three comrade troops, came trotting up the valley, and 
 then they disappeared entirely. 
 
 But meantime there had been a meeting and recognition little looked 
 for. Four happier Englishmen were never seen than Luneraouth and 
 the trio with him, for no other reason than that for a time their lives 
 had been in mortal peril and they had enjoyed the unlooked-for luxury 
 of a square fight. That exultation over, they had had time to thank 
 the American "Tommies" to whose daring they owed it that they were 
 not massacred in their beds. Both troopers were wounded, the little 
 fellow profanely voluble, the tall one strangely silent. Over this latter 
 bent the younger of the first two Englishmen. 
 
 "You are not much hurt, I hope, my good fellow? You're 
 
 Good God ! You? — Gray? I vow I heard you were dead." 
 
 A faint smile flitted about the bearded face, and the prostrate 
 soldier winced as he answered : " And you, Rokeby, I heard you were 
 married." 
 
 Even when Mainwaring came, it was useless to resume trooper 
 relations, for he found Hunter installed in the best cot the tourists 
 owned, the Kid, too, in clover, despite the pain of his wound. The 
 doctor said Hunter's hurt would not soon heal, and Lord Lunemouth 
 vowed that both were his guests until they could be safely moved, and 
 rather plainly intimated to the major that he considered one particular 
 private, at least, of more account than the battalion commander, which 
 was subversive of good order and military discipline. Then of course 
 Mainwaring had to hear the truth, already known to Ray and rumored 
 throughout the Sorrels, that their swell comrade was even an older 
 friend of these swells from abroad. 
 
 "Then where in thunder was it I met you before?" growled Main- 
 waring, in distinct sense of personal injury, as he looked down into the 
 placidly smiling face of the wounded trooper, and Blake nearly ex- 
 ploded with delight over the cool response : 
 
 "At the armory of my old regiment, when the major was on re- 
 cruiting service in New York City, I had the honor of being on the 
 reception committee the night of our ball." 
 
 " Good God !" said Mainwaring ; " and yet you look just like a 
 fellow that deserted from the Dragoons." 
 
 No, Hunter didn't rise to a commission. There was talk about it, 
 but he had acquired other views. He is said to have remarked that 
 the " N.G.N. Y. would suffice in the future." His wounds proved 
 painful ; an honorable discharge was asked for and granted, and there 
 was a big time at the agency when he and the Kid bade good-by to 
 their comrades and were taken back to Ransom in an ambulance, the 
 Kid " rich beyond the dreams of avarice" with the largesse of Lan- 
 caster, and Gray parted with only after his promise to spend a month 
 at the ancestral seat that very year. 
 
 Later Hunter went East. The Blakes and Rays heard from him 
 frequently for several weeks. He was once more under his uncle's 
 roof, once more in daily company with the bereaved widower, now re- 
 
RAY'S RECRUIT. 535 
 
 stored to partial health and unexpected fortune since the tragic death 
 of his wife ; but when the iiope of the house of Lancaster went back 
 to England, Luneraouth's lung in surprising working order, Gray, 
 who might have gone, declined. The Langdons were still abroad 
 somewhere, and Amy wore no coronet. It had somehow dawned on 
 Rokeby that that coronet was an indispensable adjunct to the engage- 
 ment, and the glorious climate of California had played havoc with 
 Amy's expectations. There was some society talk of Gray's going in 
 search of that lovely but disappointed damsel, and " No doubt," said 
 he to a serious- faced, beautiful-eyed young woman with whom he was 
 found limping along the sands one August evening at the sea-shore, 
 " no doubt I should have gone and been refused again, but for just one 
 thing." 
 
 " And what was that, pray ?" asked Miss Leroy, a quiver about 
 her lips despite her nonchalance of manner, for he had been her shadow 
 since he came. 
 
 "This," said he, taking from an inner pocket a worn little glove 
 of undressed kid. " It was dropped by my bedside when I lay in 
 hospital at Ransom. I have been looking, longing for the hand that 
 lost it, ever since." 
 
 THE END. 
 
536 OVSTER-PLANTINO AND OYSTER-FARMING. 
 
 OYSTER-PLANTING AND OYSTER-FARMING. 
 
 SINCE the beginning men have delighted in the food provided for 
 them by the mollusks, and the shell-heaps which formed the 
 debris of their feasts upon these delicacies remain until now in all 
 regions of the world where Nature has produced creatures of the 
 genus Moll u sea. 
 
 Of all species of the mollusks, the oyster has been and is the 
 favorite. Of these Nature has been so marvellously prolific in their 
 development that they are to be found in abundance in nearly all seas. 
 And the oyster-rocks have yielded a goodly proportion of the food of 
 savage and civilized men in all ages, along the shores of their nativity. 
 
 To-day the oyster-interest is one of the most important industries; 
 it gives employment to thousands of persons, and millions of dollars 
 of capital are invested therein. There is a constantly growing de- 
 mand for them, at present much in excess of their natural productive 
 power : so that the increase of the oyster-supply is one of the practical 
 questions of the time. By the application of modern methods the 
 oyster-grounds are made to yield far beyond the natural supply ; and 
 by proper care they can be made to produce an almost unlimited 
 quantity. 
 
 In early days oysters were to be found in lavish abundance along 
 all our coasts. Nearly all the creeks and inlets along the sea-coast 
 of New York State abounded with a fine quality of oysters. In 
 Nieuw Amsterdam, in 1621, " very large oisters" were so common that 
 a market could not be found for them, as any one could supply him- 
 self from the beds. In 1671 Arnoldus Montanus, and in 1681 Sir 
 George Calvert, reported that the new settlements had among other 
 advantages oysters a foot long in great plenty. Letters written about 
 the same time contain such statements as these : " At Amboy Point 
 and several other places there is abundance of brave oysters ;" " Oysters 
 such as I think would serve all England ;" " We have one thing more 
 particular to us, which the others want also, which is vast oyster banks, 
 which is the constant fresh victuals during the winter to English as 
 well as Indians. Of these there are many all along our coast, from 
 the sea as high as against New York, whence they come to fetch 
 them." 
 
 Peter Kalm, who wrote upon the subject in 1748, says, "The 
 Indians who inhabited the coast before the arrival of the Europeans 
 have made oysters and other shell-fish their chief food ; and at present, 
 whenever they reach salt water where oysters are to be got, they are 
 very active in catching thega, and sell them in great quantities to other 
 Indians who live higher up in the country ; for this reason you see the 
 immense numbers of oyster and mussel shells piled up near such 
 places, where you are certain that the Indians formerly built their 
 huts." He also states that tiie oyster-beds were within view of the 
 town of New York in 1748, and that the oystermeu were able to earn 
 
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