There follows a week in which sadder faces yet are seen about the old hotel. The routine of the Academy goes on undisturbed. The graduating class has taken its farewell of the gray walls and gone upon its way. New faces, new voices are those in the line of officers at parade. The corps has pitched its white tents under the trees beyond the grassy parapet of Fort Clinton, and, with the graduates and furlough-men gone, its ranks look pitifully thinned. The throng of visitors has vanished. The halls and piazzas at Craney's are well-nigh deserted, but among the few who linger there is not one who has not loving inquiry for the young life that for a brief while has fluttered so near the grave. "Brain fever," said the doctors to Uncle Jack, and a new anxiety was lined in his kindly face as he and Will McKay sped on their mission to the Capitol. They had to go, though little Nan lay sore stricken at the Point.
But youth and elasticity triumph. The danger is passed. She lies now, very white and still, listening to the sweet strains of the band trooping down the line this soft June evening. Her mother, worn with watching, is resting on the lounge. It is Miriam Stanley who hovers at the bedside. Presently the bugles peal the retreat; the sunset gun booms across the plain; the ringing voice of the young adjutant comes floating on the southerly breeze, and, as she listens, Nannie follows every detail of the well-known ceremony, wondering how it could go on day after day with no Mr. Pennock to read the orders; with no "big Burton" to thunder his commands to the first company; with no Philip Stanley to march the colors to their place on the line. "Where is he?" is the question in the sweet blue eyes that so wistfully seek his sister's face; but she answers not. One by one the first sergeants made their reports; and now—that ringing voice again, reading the orders of the day. How clear it sounds! How hushed and still the listening Point!
"Head-quarters of the Army," she hears. "Washington, June 15, 187-. Special orders, Number—.
"First. Upon his own application, First Lieutenant George Romney Lee, —th Cavalry, is hereby relieved from duty at the U. S. Military Academy, and will join his troop now in the field against hostile Indians.
"Second. Upon the recommendation of the Superintendent U. S. Military Academy, the charges preferred against Cadet Captain Philip S. Stanley are withdrawn. Cadet Stanley will be considered as graduated with his class on the 12th instant, will be released from arrest, and authorized to avail himself of the leave of absence granted his class."
Nannie starts from her pillow, clasping in her thin white fingers the soft hand that would have restrained her.
"Miriam!" she cries. "Then—will he go?"
The dark, proud face bends down to her; clasping arms encircle the little white form, and Miriam Stanley's very heart wails forth in answer,—
"Oh, Nannie! He is almost there by this time,—both of them. They left to join the regiment three days ago; their orders came by telegraph."
Another week, and Uncle Jack is again with them. The doctors agree that the ocean voyage is now not only advisable, but necessary. They are to move their little patient to the city and board their steamer in a day or two. Will has come to them, full of disgust that he has been assigned to the artillery, and filling his mother's heart with dismay because he is begging for a transfer to the cavalry, to the —th Regiment,—of all others,—now plunged in the whirl of an Indian war. Every day the papers come freighted with rumors of fiercer fighting; but little that is reliable can be heard from "Sabre Stanley" and his column. They are far beyond telegraphic communication, hemmed in by "hostiles" on every side.