"Where are they living in Chicago?"
"You would know better than I, for—think of it!—I have never been east of the Missouri since my babyhood," answers Wing. "Fan writes that her aunt has a lovely house on what they call the North Side,—near the great water-works at the lake front."
"I know the neighborhood well," says Drummond. "Chicago is as familiar to me as San Francisco was to you. Only—I have no roof to call my own anywhere, and as soon as Puss is married shall not have a relative or friend on earth who is not much more deeply interested in somebody else." And the senior lieutenant is lying on his back now, blinking up at the rapidly scudding clouds. Presently he pulls the broad brim of his campaign hat down over his eyes. "What do you hear from your mother, Wing?"
"Nothing new. Bless the dear old lady! You should have seen her happiness in Harvey. She could hardly bear to let the little fellow out of her arms, and how she cried and clung to him when we parted at the Oakland wharf! Poor little mother! She has never given up the hope of seeing that scapegrace of an uncle of mine again."
"Has she ever heard how he tried to murder his nephew?" queries Drummond, grimly.
"Never. Nor have we the faintest trace of him since the break up of the old Morales gang at Fronteras. They went all to pieces after their encounter with you and 'C' troop. What a chain of disasters! Lost their leaders and three of their best men, lost their rendezvous at Moreno's, lost horses and mules,—for what our men didn't get the Apaches did,—and won absolutely nothing except the twenty-four-hour possession of a safe they hadn't time to open. Whereas I got my commission and my wife; Feeny, honorable wounds and mention and the chevrons of a first sergeant; Costigan got his sergeant's stripes and the medal of honor, Murphy his sergeantcy, Walsh and Latham medals and corporalships; and the only fellow who didn't get a blessed thing but scars was the commanding lieutenant,—your worthy self,—thanks to wiseacres at Washington who say Indian fighting isn't war."
"Didn't I get a letter of thanks from the department commander?" grins Drummond. "What else could I expect?"
"What else?" is Wing's impulsive rejoinder. Then, as though mindful of some admonition, quieting at once and speaking in tone less suggestive. "Well, in your case I suppose you can be content with nothing, but bless me if I could." Then, suddenly rising and respectfully touching his weather-beaten hat, he salutes a stoutly-built, soldierly-looking man in rough scouting dress, whose only badge of rank is the tarnished shoulder-strap with the silver leaf on the shabbiest old fatigue-coat to be found in the battalion, most of whose members, however, wear no coat at all.
"Hullo, Wing!—didn't mean to disturb your siesta,—Drummond here?" says the commander in his off-hand way, and at sound of the well-known voice Drummond, too, is on his feet in a twinkling.
"Seen the papers that came in to-day?" queries the colonel, obliterating from his sentences all verbal superfluities.