"The men had some good music the other evening; why didn't you suggest a waltz on the prairie to Mrs. Davies?"
"Well, I did think of it. She looks bored to death. I saw her just now as I came by. She was yawning in the shade of the tent fly while Langston and the Parson were chatting inside." Why don't you and Miss Loomis go over there and cheer her up sometimes? was the question he checked just as it trembled on his lips. Some brief inspiration of discretion warned him that that was ground too sacred for his blundering intrusion. "She seems downright lonely," he concluded, somewhat lamely and suggestively. "I don't think Mrs. Davies is cut out for this kind of army life. Here comes Langston now." He needn't have made that announcement. Mrs. Cranston was watching, waiting for him, and she glanced quickly to see where Miss Loomis was. That young lady, however, never looked up from the slate whereon Louis's hieroglyphics were in mad arithmetical tangle, even when she heard Langston's courteous greeting to the lady of the house and his inquiries for the captain, and heard them without evidence of any emotion whatsoever.
"The captain is at the stables, Mr. Langston. We are so glad to see you. I'll send him word in a moment. Do sit down and tell us all the news from Braska," said Mrs. Cranston, hospitably.
"I will do all that most gladly, Mrs. Cranston, but the matter on which I desire to see him at once is urgent, and perhaps Mr. Sanders will walk over to the stables with me. Then, may I not call and see you later?"
"By all means! and will you not dine with us? A real campaign dinner, you know, but we shall be so pleased to have you."
Langston's face fairly glowed. "I'll be here in half an hour, if I may, but I must see the captain at once, and will go. I trust—Miss Loomis—is well."
"Very well, and quite able to answer for herself," said Mrs. Cranston, mischievously, while Langston's eyes eagerly searched the door-way and dim interior; but Miss Loomis was nowhere in sight, and chose to appear to be not within hearing.
"Why didn't you come or speak?" said Meg, reproachfully, the moment he was gone.
"I was busy. These are school days," was the calm reply, one that would have been no comfort to Langston, who walked rather ruefully on with the subaltern. The business with Cranston proved interesting.
"You have a young trooper, Brannan, whom I need to see confidentially, and at once. May I do so, captain?"