A smile upon the face of Sergeant Fones!
Perhaps he smiled that he was going to the Barracks of the Free—
“Free among the Dead like unto them that are wounded and lie in the grave, that are out of remembrance.”
In the wild night he had lost his way, though but a few miles from the barracks.
He had done his duty rigidly in that sphere of life where he had lived so much alone among his many comrades. Had he exceeded his duty once in arresting Young Aleck?
When, the next day, Sergeant Fones lay in the barracks, over him the flag for which he had sworn to do honest service, and his promotion papers in his quiet hand, the two who loved each other stood beside him for many a throbbing minute. And one said to herself, silently: “I felt sometimes”—but no more words did she say even to herself.
Old Aleck came in, and walked to where the Sergeant slept, wrapped close in that white frosted coverlet which man wears but once. He stood for a moment silent, his fingers numbly clasped.
Private Gellatly spoke softly: “Angels betide me, it’s little we knew the great of him till he wint away; the pride, and the law—and the love of him.”
In the tragedy that faced them this Christmas morning one at least had seen “the love of him.” Perhaps the broncho had known it before.
Old Aleck laid a palm upon the hand he had never touched when it had life. “He’s—too—ha’sh,” he said slowly.