MARION'S FAITH.

BY THE AUTHOR OF

"THE COLONEL'S DAUGHTER."

Capt. CHARLES KING, U.S.A.,

AUTHOR OF "KITTY'S CONQUEST," ETC.

PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
1890.

Copyright, 1886, by J. B. Lippincott Company.

Copyright, 1887, by J. B. Lippincott Company.

TO

The Memory

OF

EMMET CRAWFORD,

CAPTAIN THIRD REGIMENT OF CAVALRY,

ONE OF THE NOBLEST MEN, ONE OF THE KNIGHTLIEST SOLDIERS, AND ONE OF THE MOST INEXCUSABLE SACRIFICES IN THE HISTORY OF OUR ARMY,

THIS STORY

OF SCENES WHEREIN HE WAS LOVED AND HONORED,

IS DEDICATED.

PREFACE.

The kind reception accorded "The Colonel's Daughter" was a surprise and delight to the author, nevertheless it was a long time before he could be induced to write this sequel.

When Mr. Sam Slick, at the first essay, shot the cork out of a floating bottle some thirty yards away, he had the deep sagacity never to pull trigger again, well knowing he could not improve on the initial effort, and so Prudence whispered that with the Finis to the story of Jack Truscott and sweet Grace Pelham there had best come a full stop.

But many a plea has been received to "Tell us more about the —th," and at last the motion prevailed. Thackeray has said, "It is an unfair advantage which the novelist takes of the hero and heroine to say good-by to the two as soon as ever they are made husband and wife, and I have often wished that we should hear what occurs to the sober married man as well as to the ardent bachelor; to the matron as to the blushing spinster." And so, many of the characters of the old story reappear upon the scene. That they will be welcomed for the sake of auld lang syne has been promised, and that they and their associates may find new interest in the eyes of the indulgent reader is the prayer of

THE AUTHOR.

CONTENTS.

MARION'S FAITH.

A SEQUEL TO THE COLONEL'S DAUGHTER.

CHAPTER I.

TWO TROOPERS.

"Ray, what would you do if some one were to leave you a fortune?"

"Humph! Pay for the clothes I have on, I suppose," is the answer, half humorous, half wistful, as the interrogated party, the younger of two officers, glances down at his well-worn regimentals. "That's one reason I'm praying we may be sent to reinforce Crook up in the Sioux country. No need of new duds when you're scouting for old 'Gray Fox,' you know."

"I thought you wanted to take a leave this summer and visit the old home in Kentucky," says the major, with a look of rather kindly interest from under his shaggy eyebrows.

"Want must be my master, then. I couldn't pay my way home if they'd take me as freight," replies the lieutenant, in the downright and devil-may-care style which is one of his several pronounced characteristics. "Of course," he continues presently, "I would like to look in on the mother again; she's getting on in years now and isn't over and above strong, but she has no cares or worries to speak of; she don't know what a reprobate I am; sister Nell is married and out of the way; the old home is sold and mother lives in comfort on the proceeds; she's happy up at Lexington with her sister's people. What's the use of my going back to Kentuck and being a worry to her? Before I'd been there a week I'd be spending most of my time down at the track or the stables; I could no more keep away from the horses than I could from a square game, and she hates both,—they swamped my father before I knew an ace from an ant-hill. No, sir! The more I think of it the more I know the only place for me is right here with the old regiment. What's more, the livelier work we have in the field and the less we get of garrison grind the better it is for me. I almost wish we were back in Arizona to-day."

"Why, confound it! man, it isn't a year since we left there," breaks in the major, impatiently, "and we haven't begun to get a taste of civilization yet. You let the women in the regiment hear you talk of wanting to go back there, or what's worse, going up to join Crook in Wyoming, and they'll mob you. Who was it your sister married?" he suddenly asks.

"A man named Rallston,—a swell contractor or something up in Iowa. I never saw him; indeed, it's nearly nine years since I saw her; but she promised to be a beauty then, and they all say she grew up a beauty; but Nell was headstrong and always in mischief, and I'm glad she's settled down. She used to write to me when she was first married, four years ago, and send me occasional 'tips' for Christmas and birthdays, and she was going to give me a Lexington colt when I came East, but she's quit all that, because I was an ungrateful cub and never answered, I suppose. She knows there's nothing I hate worse than writing, and oughtn't to be hard on me. It's all I can do to send a monthly report to the mother."

"Did you say you never saw her husband?" asks the major after a pause, in which he had been apparently studying the quick-tripping hoofs of Ray's nimble sorrel.

"No; never set eyes on him. It was a sudden smite,—one of those flash-in-the-pan, love-at-first-sight affairs. He was down in Kentucky buying horses, saw her at a party, and made no end of fuss over her; had lots of money and style, you know, and the first I heard of it they were married and off. It was our first year in Arizona, and mails were a month old when they got to us."

"How long is it since you heard from her?" says the major, after another pause.

Mr. Ray looks up in some surprise. He hardly knows what to make of this display of curiosity on the part of his ordinarily indifferent companion, but he answers quietly enough,—

"Over a year, I reckon. She was in Omaha then and Rallston was away a good deal,—had big cattle interests somewhere; I know that mother used to ask if Nell told me much about him, and she seemed anxious. Nell herself said that mother was much opposed to the match,—didn't seem to take to Rallston at all,—but she was bound to have him, and she did, and she's just that high-strung sort of girl that if disappointed or unhappy would never let on to the mother as long as she lived."

They are riding slowly in from troop-drill, the battalion commander and a pet of his, Mr. Ray, of the —th Cavalry. It is one of those exquisite May mornings when the rolling prairies of Western Kansas seem swimming in a soft, hazy light, and the mirage on the horizon looks like a glassy sea. The springy turf is tinted with the hues of myriads of wild flowers, purple, pale blue, and creamy white; the mountain breeze that is already whirling the dust-clouds on the Denver plains has not yet begun to ruffle the cottonwoods or the placid surface of the slow-moving stream, and in many a sheltered pool the waters of the "Smoky Hill" gleam like silvered mirror, without break or flaw. Far out on the gentle slopes small herds of troop-horses or quartermaster's "stock," each with its attendant guard, give life to the somewhat sombre tone of the landscape, while nearer at hand two or three well-filled cavalry "troops" with fluttering guidons are marching silently in towards the little frontier garrison that lies in a shallow dip in the wide, treeless prairie.

Bits of color are rare enough, save the faint hues of the flowerets,—almost as indistinguishable in the general effect as their fairy fragrance on the air. Aloft, the sky is all one blaze of sunshine, that seems to bleach it into palest, most translucent blue. Far to the west some fleecy clouds are rolling up from the horizon, wafted from the peaks of the hidden Rockies. Down in the "swale," the wooden barracks, stables, quarters, and storehouses are all one tint of economical brown, brightened only by the hues of the flag that hangs high over the scene. Beyond the shallow valley and across the stream, looking only long rifle-shot away, but a good two miles when one comes to walk it, a brick school-house with glistening cupola stands sentinel in the centre of the scattering frontier town; there, too, lies the railway station, from which an ugly brown freight-train is just pulling out Denverwards, puffing dense clouds of inky smoke to the sky. Space, light, and air there are in lavish profusion. Shade there is little or none, except close along the winding stream; but shade is a thing neither sought nor cared for, as the sun-tanned faces of the troopers show. Every now and then a trumpet-call floats softly over the prairie, or the ringing, prolonged word of command marks some lazily-executed manœuvre on the homeward way. Drill is over; the sharp eyes and sharper tongue of the major no longer criticise any faulty or "slouchy" wheel; the drill proper has been stiff and spirited, and now the necessary changes of direction are carried out in a purely perfunctory manner, while the battalion commander and his subaltern, troops and all, amble back and give their steeds a breathing spell.

Typical cavalrymen are those two, who, chatting quietly together, are riding somewhat in advance of the returning companies. The major is a man a trifle over forty, short, stout, with massive shoulders, chest, and thighs, a neck like a bull, a well-shaped head covered with straight, close-cropped, brown hair, innocent of kink or curl; a florid face, bronzed and tanned by years of life in sun and wind and storm; clean-shaven but for the drooping brown moustache that conceals the rugged lines of his mouth, and twinkling blue-gray eyes that peer out with searching gaze from under their shaggy brows. Firmness, strength, self-reliance, even sternness, can be read in every line; but around the gathering crowsfeet at the corners of his eyes, and lurking under the shadow of the grim moustache, are little curves or dimples or something, that betray to the initiated the presence of a humorous vein that softens the asperity of the soldier. Some who best know him can detect there a symptom of tenderness and a possibility of sentiment, whose existence the major would indignantly deny. The erect carriage of the head, the square set of the shoulders, the firm yet easy seat in the saddle, speak of the experienced soldier, while in the first word that falls from his lips one hears the tone of the man far more at home in camp than court. There is something utterly blunt and abrupt in his manner, a scathing contrast to the affected drawl brought into the regiment by recent importations from the East, and assiduously copied by a professed Anglo-maniac among the captains. Rude indeed may he sometimes be in his speech, "and little versed in the set phrase of peace," but through it all is the ring of sturdy honesty and independence. He uses the same tone to general and to private soldier alike; extending the same degree of courtesy to each. No one ever heard of "old Stannard's" fawning upon a superior or bullying an inferior; to all soldiers he is one and the same,—short, blunt, quick, and to the point. Literally he obeys the orders of his chiefs, and literally and promptly he expects his own to be obeyed. He has his faults, like the best of men: he will growl at times; he is prone to pick flaws, and to say sharp and cutting things, for which he is often ashamed and sorry; he can see little good in the works or words of the men he dislikes; he absolutely cannot praise, and he is over-quick to blame; but after all he is true as steel, as unswerving as the needle, and no man, no woman could need a stancher friend than the new major of the —th, "old Stannard."

As for Ray, no officer in the regiment is better known or more talked about. Ten years of his life he has spent under the standard of the —th, barring a very short but eventful detail at "the Point." Nebraska, Kansas, and Arizona he knows as well as the savannas of his native blue-grass country. He has been in more skirmishes with the regiment and more scrapes of his own than any fellow of his age in service, but he has the faculty of "lighting on his feet every time," as he himself would express it, and to-day he rides along as buoyantly and recklessly as he did ten years ago, and the saddle is Ray's home. Ephemeral pleasure he finds in the hop-room, for he dances well; perennial attraction, his detractors say, he finds at the card-table, but Ray is never quite himself until he throws his leg over the horse he loves. He is facile princeps the light rider of the regiment, and to this claim there are none to say him nay. A tip-top soldier too is Ray. Keen on the scout, tireless on the trail, daring to a fault in action, and either preternaturally cool or enthusiastically excited when under fire. He is a man the rank and file swear by and love. "You never hear Loot'nant Ray saying 'Go in there, fellers.' 'Tis always, 'Come on, boys.' That's why I like him," is the way Sergeant Moriarty puts it. Among his comrades, his brother officers that is to say, opinions are divided. Ray has trusty friends and he has his bitter enemies, though the latter, when charged with the fact, are prone to say that no one is so much Ray's enemy as Ray himself,—an assertion which cannot be altogether denied. But as his own worst enemy Ray is thoroughly open and above-board; he has not a hidden fault; his sins are many and they are public property for all he cares; whereas the men who dislike Ray in the regiment are of the opposite stamp. Among themselves they pick him to pieces with comparative safety, but outside their limited circle, the damnation of faint praise, the covert insinuations, or that intangible species of backbiting which can,

"Without sneering, others teach to sneer,"

has to be their resort, and for good reason. Ray tolerates no slander, and let him once get wind of the fact that some man has maligned him, there is a row in the camp. Minding his own business, however unsuccessfully, he meddles with the affairs of no one else, and thinking twice before he alludes once to the shortcomings of a comrade, he claims that consideration for himself, but doesn't get it. There be men who outrival the weaker sex in the sinister effect they can throw into the faintest allusion to another's conduct, and in the dexterity with which they evade the consequences, and of such specimens the —th has its share. There was Crane, whom Ray had fearfully snubbed and afterwards "cut" in Arizona; there was Wilkins, whom Ray had treated with scant courtesy for over a year, because of some gossip that veteran had been instrumental in putting into circulation; there was Captain Canker, who used to like and admire Ray in the rough old days in the cañons and deserts, but who had forfeited his esteem while they were stationed at Camp Sandy, and when they met again in Kansas, Ray touched his cap to his superior officer but withheld his hand. Canker felt very bitterly towards Ray, claiming that there was no officer in the regiment whom he had treated with such marked courtesy, and to this, when he heard it, Ray made response in his characteristic way. He would have no middleman. He went straight to Canker and said his say in few terse words: "You consider me unjustified in refusing to treat you as a friend, Captain Canker; now let us have no misunderstanding whatever. Your conduct towards my best friend, Captain Truscott, and towards—towards another good friend of mine at Sandy, was an outrage in my opinion, and I have yet to learn that you have expressed regret or made amends. That's my position, sir; and if you care for my friendship, you know how to regain it." Canker was too much astonished by such directness to make any reply. Other officers who happened to be standing near maintained an embarrassed silence, and Ray faced about and walked off. "For all the world," said Wilkins, "as though he had that d——d chip on his shoulder again and was begging somebody to knock it off." Canker was hit in a sore place. Long before this occurrence he realized that several officers of the regiment had withdrawn every semblance of esteem in their intercourse with him. He well knew why, but the officer whose cause Ray so vehemently championed was away on detached service, and Canker really did not know just what to do, and was too proud and sensitive to seek advice. He was a gallant soldier in the field, but a man of singularly unfortunate disposition,—crabbed, cranky, and suspicious; and thus it resulted that he, too, joined the little band of Ray haters, despite the fact that he felt ashamed of himself for so doing.

Then there was Gleason,—"That man Gleason," as he was generally alluded to, and to those familiar with army life or army ways the mere style is indicative of this character. For good and sufficient reason Mr. Ray had slapped Mr. Gleason's face some years back, when the —th was serving in Arizona, and there was no possible reason for his failure to seek the immediate reparation due him as an officer, no possible reason except the absolute certainty of Ray's promptly according him the demanded luxury. The —th was commanded by a colonel of the old school in those days, one who had observed "the code" when a junior officer, and would have been glad to see it carried out to this day; but Gleason was not made of that stuff, and to the scandal of the regiment and the incredulous mirth of Mr. Ray, Gleason pocketed the blow as complacently as he did the money he had won from the Kentuckian by a trick which was transparent to every looker-on, and would have been harmless with Ray—had he been himself. Those were the rough days of the regiment's campaign against the Apaches; officers and men were scattered in small commands through the mountains; in the general and absorbing interest of the chase and scout after a common foe there was no time to take up and settle the affair as something affecting the credit of the entire corps; many officers never heard of it at all until long afterwards, and then it was too late; but to this day Gleason stood an unsparing, bitter, but secret and treacherous enemy of the younger officer. He hated Ray with the venom of a snake.

So far as the regiment was concerned, the enmity of a man of Gleason's calibre could hardly be of consequence. Like Canker, he had come into the —th from the "supernumerary list" at the time of the general reorganization in '71. Scores of infantry officers left out of their regiments by consolidation were saddled upon the cavalry and artillery, and in many instances proved utterly out of their element in the mounted service. All the cavalry regiments growled more or less at the enforced addition to their list of "total commissioned," and the —th had not been especially fortunate. Many a fine soldier and excellent comrade had come into the cavalry in this way, and of them the —th had found a few; but a dozen or more, valuable neither as soldiers nor comrades, had drifted into the mounted service, and of these the regiment had, to say the least, its full share. "All I've got to remark on the subject," said old "Black Bill," the senior major at that eventful period,—"all I've got to remark is simply this: those infantry fellows showed profound discrimination in getting rid of their chaff, but they had no mercy on us. When a man ain't good enough for a doughboy officer he ain't fit for anything."

Now, it by no means resulted from inefficiency on their part that so many of the transferred officers had left their own regiments. Many had requested the move; many more were rendered supernumerary as being the juniors of their grades; but there were others still who ranked well up in their old regiments, and yet were mysteriously "left out in the cold." And of such was "that man Gleason." Six years had he served with the new regiment in the field, and not a friend could he muster among the officers,—not one who either liked or respected him,—not one who more than tolerated him except among the two or three who daily and nightly haunted the card-room at the trader's store; but to hear Gleason talk one would fancy him to be on terms of intimacy with every "solid" man of the regiment, and the casual visitor at the garrison would be more than apt to leave it with the impression that Gleason was the figure-head of the commissioned element. He had fair manners; his appearance was prepossessing; he was bland and insinuating among daily associates, confidential and hospitable with strangers. A visitor could go nowhere without meeting Gleason, for his social status was just so balanced between adverse influences that one could neither forbid nor welcome him to his home. No matter who might be the entertaining officer, the first to call and pay his respects to the guest would be that objectionable Gleason, and very sprightly and interesting could he be. Ten to one the chances were that when he took his departure he had left a pleasant impression on the mind of the new arrival, who would find himself at a loss to account for the evident perturbation with which his host proper regarded his acceptance of Gleason's hospitable invitations. Gleason's horse, Gleason's dogs or guns or rods were promptly at the door for him to try, and when others sought to do him honor, and other invitations came to hunt or ride or dine, Gleason had the inside track, and somehow or other it seemed to make the better men of the —th retire into their shells when they heard of it. This had been the way with visiting officers from other posts and regiments when in Arizona, and the same thing was being repeated here in Kansas. The —th did not like it, but could not exactly see how to help it. The only vulnerable and tangible points upon which he could be "sent to Coventry" were shady transactions at cards or horse-racing that had occurred in Arizona, and his failure to resent Ray's blow; but two and three years had elapsed since these occurrences; the scattered condition of the regiment had prevented regimental notice of them at the time, and it was generally held that now it was too late for any such action. With any other man coldness, distance of manner, or at the least the pronounced snubs that greeted Gleason, would have long since had effect, but he was proof against such methods, and no sooner detected them than he found excuses to force himself upon the attention or conversation of the officer, and in so insidious a way as to disarm resistance. He would fairly beam with cordiality and respect upon the commanding officer who was short and gruff with him; he would invade old Stannard's quarters to ask his advice about the purchase of a horse or the proper method of dealing with some one of his men,—and the major had a soft side in looking after the rights of the rank and file; he would drop in to ask Mrs. Stannard the name of a new flower he had picked up out near the targets. He cared no more for flowers than she did for him, but it gave him temporary admission, generally when other ladies had called for a morning chat, and though she cordially disliked him, Mrs. Stannard was too thorough a lady to show the least discourtesy to an officer of her husband's regiment. Gleason well knew it, and laid his plans accordingly. For a long time, indeed, there were ladies who could not understand why Mr. Gleason should be so contemptuously spoken of by the officers. He was so thoughtful, so delicate, and then he was so lonely. Gleason was a widower, whose eyes would often overflow when he spoke of the little woman whom he had buried years ago down in Connecticut; but when Mrs. Turner once questioned Captain Baxter, who knew them when they were in the old infantry regiment in Louisiana, and referred to its being so sad and touching to hear Mr. Gleason talk of his dead wife and their happy days among the orange-groves near Jackson Barracks, the captain astonished her by an outburst of derisive laughter. "Happy, madam?" said he; "by gad! if ever a woman died of neglect, abuse, and ill-treatment Mrs. Gleason did, and next time he attempts to gull you with sentiment, just you refer him to me." But then, as Mrs. Turner said, poor Captain Baxter's finer sensibilities seemed to have been blunted by a lifetime in the quartermaster's department, and for quite a while Mr. Gleason was one of her favorites,—quite a devotee in fact, until the disastrous day when she discovered that so far from having been ill and unable to ride with her, as he claimed, he had been spending the afternoon in the fascinations of poker. One by one the ladies of the —th had learned to trust Mr. Gleason as little as did their lords, but there was no snubbing him. "Snubs," said the senior major, "are lost on such a pachydermatous ass as Gleason," and however tough might be his moral hide, and however deserved might have been the applied adjective, the major was in error in calling Gleason an ass. Intriguing, full of low malice and scheming, a "slanderer and substractor" he certainly was, but no fool. More's the pity, Mr. Gleason was far too smart for the direct methods and simple minds of his associates in the —th. He never in all his life failed to take full note of every slight or coldness, and though it was his rôle to hide the sting, and "smile and smile and be a villain still," never was it his purpose to permit the faintest snub to go unpunished. Sooner or later, unrelentingly but secretly he would return that stab with interest ten times compounded. And sooner or later to the bitter end he meant to feed fat his ancient grudge on Ray.

Up to this time he had scant opportunity. For two or three years preceding their removal to the East Gleason had been stationed in Southern Arizona, while Ray, after months of lively service in the mountains, had been sent to regimental headquarters, and marched with them when they came into Kansas. Now once more six companies were gathered at the post of the standard,—two were tenting on the prairie just outside the garrison, the other four were regularly in barracks, and the concentration there boded a move or "business" of some kind. "Old Catnip," the colonel, was East, but the lieutenant-colonel was commanding, and the junior major was there. Drills were incessant, but scouts were few, and after the years of "go-as-you-please" work in Arizona the —th was getting rapidly back into soldierly shape. The little frontier fort was blithe and gay with its merry populace. All the officers' families had joined; several young ladies were spending the spring in garrison and taking their first taste of military life; hops and dances came off almost every night, a "german" every week; rides, drives, hunts, and picnic-parties were of daily occurrence; the young officers were in clover, the young ladies in ecstasy, the young matrons—perhaps not quite so well pleased as when they had the field to themselves in Arizona, where young ladies had been few and far between, and all promised delightfully for the coming summer,—all but the war-cloud rising in the far Northwest.

CHAPTER II.

GARRISON TALK.

It was a picturesque group that assembled every pleasant morning on the veranda of the colonel's quarters. There had been a time in the not very distant past of the regiment when the ladies gathered almost anywhere else in preference, but that was when Colonel Pelham had retained the command, and when his wife sought to rule the garrison after methods of her own devising. However successful may be such feminine usurpation for a time, it is at best but a temporary power, for women are of all things revolutionary. The instances where some ambitious matron has sought to assume the control of the little military bailiwick known as "the garrison" are numerous indeed, but the fingers of one hand are too many to keep tally of the cases of prolonged and peaceful reign. Mrs. Pelham's queendom had been limited to a very brief fortnight,—so 'twas said in the regiment,—despite the fact that the more prominent members of the social circle of the —th had been quite ready to do her every homage on her first arrival,—provided the prime ministry were not given to some rival sister. But Mrs. Pelham's administration had been fraught with errors and disasters enough to wreck a constitutional monarchy, and, as a result, affairs were in a highly socialistic, if not nihilistic condition for some months after the return of the regiment from its exile in Arizona. Only a few of the officers had taken their families thither with them, for the journey in those days was full of vast discomfort and expense, and life there was an isolation; but those ladies who had shared the heat and burden of the Arizona days with their lords were not unnaturally given to regarding themselves as entitled to more consideration as regimental authorities than those of their sisterhood who had remained in comfort in the East. Then, too, there was a little band of heroines who had made the march "cross country" with the —th, and held themselves (and were held by the men) as having a higher place on the regimental unwritten records than those who were sent home by way of the Pacific, San Francisco, and the one railway that then belted the continent. Of these heroines Mrs. Pelham was not, and when she rejoined at Fort Hays, got her house in order and proceeded, though with inward misgiving, to summon her subjects about her, she found that even the faint rally on which she had counted was denied her. The ladies who knew her at Camp Sandy had thrown off the yoke, and those who were joining for the first time had been unmistakably cautioned by the determined Amazons of the homeward march. Courtesy, civility, and a certain degree of cordiality when in their social gatherings, the ladies were willing to extend to the colonel's wife, but the declaration of independence had been signed and sealed,—they would have no more of her dominion.

To a woman of her character garrison life was no longer tolerable to Mrs. Pelham; the colonel, too, was getting tired of it, was aging rapidly and no longer able to take his morning gallops. Then, too, he was utterly lonely; his one daughter, the light of his old eyes, had married the man of her choice during the previous year; his sons were scattered in their own avocations, and the complaints and peevishness of his wife were poor companions for his fireside. The officers welcomed him to their club-room, and gladly strove to interest him in billiards or whist, to the exclusion of the Gleason clique and concomitant poker, which was never played in the colonel's presence; but even this solace was denied him by his wife. She was just as lonely at home, poor lady, and she had to have some one to listen to her long accumulation of feminine trials and grievances, otherwise the overcharged bosom would burst. We claim it an attribute of manhood that "to suffer and be strong" is an every-day affair; but the best of men feel infinite relief in having some trusted friend who will listen in patience to the oft-told story of their struggle. To suffer, be strong, and be silent is a task for the stoutest of our sex, but woman triumphs over nature itself in accomplishing the triple feat, and undergoes a torture that outrivals martyrdom. Suffer Mrs. Pelham could and did, if her voluble lamentations could be credited; strong she deemed herself beyond all question, in not having succumbed to the privations and asperities of Western life, but silent? ah, no! Poor old Pelham's life had become a perennial curtain-lecture, so Lieutenant Blake expressed it, and when January came, and with it an opportunity to accept a pleasant detail in the East, the colonel lost no time in taking his departure. He left the —th with a sorrowful heart, for officers and men were strongly attached to the old soldier who had for years past shared every exile with them, but they could not bear his domineering wife, and many a fellow who hadn't told an appreciable lie for six months gulped unconscionably when it came to saying good-by to Mrs. Pelham. How could an honest man say he regretted her going? Stout old Bucketts, the quartermaster, looked her straight in the eye and wished her a pleasant journey and a long and happy visit East, whereat several ladies gasped audibly, yet told it over and over afterwards with infinite delight. The majority of the officers contented themselves with saying that the garrison would not be the same place without the colonel and herself, which was gospel truth despite its ambiguity, but Gleason came in from a hunt purposely to say farewell, and was most effusive in his regrets at her ladyship's departure, and as for the ladies of the regiment. Ah, well! Why should they be any different, any more frank in garrison than out of it? There was not one of their number who did not inwardly rejoice at Mrs. Pelham's going, but they clouded their gentle faces in decorous mourning; they grouped about her on the piazza when the hour for parting came, looking infinitely pathetic and picturesque, and the soft voices were touching in their subdued sorrow; there were even eyes that glistened with unshed tears, and both Mrs. Raymond and Mrs. Turner begged that she would write to them, and heaven only knows what all. Who that saw it could doubt the forgiving nature of the gentler sex? Who dare asperse the sweet sincerity of feminine friendship?

But Lady Pelham had gone, and gone for good they hoped; the lieutenant-colonel had arrived and assumed command, and Major and Mrs. Stannard made their first appearance at regimental headquarters. A new era had dawned on the —th; the staff sent in their resignations, and were promptly and pleasantly notified by the new commander that he hoped they would not deprive him of services that had been so valuable to his predecessor; whereat they resumed duty with lighter hearts. It was all well enough where Bucketts was concerned; he had been quartermaster for years and no one expected anything else, but there were those in the regiment who hoped there might be a change in the adjutancy. The office was held by one of the senior lieutenants, to be sure, and one who possessed many qualifications which were conceded, but his appointment had been something of an accident.

He, too, had come into the —th by transfer in '71 for the avowed purpose of seeking service on the Western frontier with the cavalry. As it was the artillery which he abandoned for that purpose, the —th admitted that here was a fellow who might be worth having, but, to the scandal of the entire regiment, no sooner was the order issued which doomed them to a five years' exile in Arizona—then overrun with hostile Apaches—than the newly transferred gentleman accepted a detail as aide-de-camp on the staff of a general officer, and the —th went across to the Pacific and presently were lost to recollection in the then inaccessible wilds of that marvellous Territory. Here they spent four long years of hard scouting, hard fighting, and no little suffering, while the aide in question was presumably enjoying himself in unlimited ball and opera in a gay Southern capital. Suddenly he turned up in their midst just in time to take part in the closing campaign which left the Apaches for several years a disarmed and subjugated race; he happened to get command of a well-seasoned and thoroughly experienced "troop," and through no particular personal merit, but rather by the faculty he had of seeking the advice of the veteran sergeants in the company, he had won two or three lively little fights with wandering bands of hostiles, and had finally been quite enviably wounded. It was all a piece of his confounded luck, said some of the —th not unnaturally. Many a gallant fellow had been killed and buried, many another wounded and not especially mentioned, and all of them had done months of hard work where Billings had put in only so many days, but here he came in at the eleventh hour, and they, who had borne the heat and burden of the campaign and received every man his penny, couldn't help a few good-natured slings at the fact that Billings's penny was just as big and round as theirs. The department commander had been close at hand every time that fortunate youth came in from a scout, and even Ray, who was incessantly seeking the roughest and most dangerous service, could not repress a wistful expression of his views when he heard of the final scrimmage far up towards Chevelon's Fork. "Here we fellows have been bucking against this game for nigh onto four years now, and if ever we raked in a pile it's all been ante'd up since, and now Billings comes in fresh—never draws but he gets a full hand—and he scoops the deck. He has too much luck for a white man." The remark was one that, said by Ray himself in his whimsical and downright manner, was destitute of any hidden meaning, and Billings, who had not seen Ray for years, would never have misunderstood it, but when he first heard it six months afterwards, and while Ray and himself had yet to meet, it was told semi-confidentially, told as Ray never said it, told in fact—by Gleason; and Billings, who was of a nervous, sensitive disposition, as outspoken in a way as Ray was in his, was hurt more than a little. He had known Ray a dozen years before when both were wearing the gray as cadets at the Point, but they were in different classes and by no means intimate. Each, however, had cordially liked the other, and Billings would have been slow to believe the statement as told him for a single instant except for two things,—one was that Gleason was a new acquaintance of whom up to that time he knew nothing really discreditable; the other was that just before the regiment came East from Arizona the adjutancy became vacant, Lieutenant Truscott, who had long held the position, was detailed for duty at West Point and speedily promoted to his captaincy; Billings was brought in wounded and sent off by sea to San Francisco as soon as he could travel, and so heard little of the particulars of some strange mystery that was going on at regimental headquarters, and when, some months later, he rejoined the regiment in Kansas, it was with much mental perturbation that he received from "Old Catnip" the offer of the still vacant adjutancy.

Of course, he had heard by that time just why Truscott had resigned and refused to re-accept the position; he also knew that the colonel had said that he could give it to no officer who had not served with them in the rough days in Arizona; and, moreover, that he had once declared that offering the adjutancy to a second lieutenant was equivalent to saying that no first lieutenant was capable of performing the duties. But he did not know that soon after Truscott's resignation the colonel had tendered the adjutancy to Ray, and that impolitic youth had promptly declined. He knew, as did the whole regiment, that for Truscott Ray had an enthusiastic admiration and regard, and for that matter, Billings himself had reason to look upon the ex-adjutant as a friend worth having; but he did not suspect, as some at old Camp Sandy more than suspected, that Ray had been offered his place. The colonel, in his surprise and mortification, would speak of it to no one. Ray, in his blunt honesty, conceived it to be his duty to regard the offer as confidential, since he had declined, and so, snubbed any one who strove to extract information. Most of the senior lieutenants were on detached service when they came in from Arizona. Everybody thought Stryker would get the detail as soon as he returned from abroad, whither he had gone on leave after making, as mountain scout leader, the best four years' record in the regiment; but Stryker came just as Billings did, and to Billings, not Stryker, was the adjutancy tendered. What made the regiment indignant was, that so far from being in the least put out about it, Stryker placidly remarked that Billings was the very man for the place. "He isn't entitled to it," said the —th; "in ten years' service he hasn't spent ten months with us." But Stryker did not see fit to tell them what he knew and the colonel knew,—that he had been tendered and had accepted the position of aide-de-camp to his old Arizona chief, and was daily awaiting orders to join; and Ray was off scouting with his troop when Billings reached headquarters, and had to face, as he supposed, an opposition. Stannard was the only man who really knew very much about him as a cavalry officer, and Stannard's opinion was what brought it all about. They had served for some months at the same post, and both the major and his clear-sighted wife had taken a fancy to the young officer, whose first appearance in "citified garb and a pince-nez" gave little promise of future usefulness in the field. Pelham and Stannard knew that it had to be Billings or a second lieutenant, but Billings had at first no such intimation. Possibly his strong sense of self-esteem might have stood in the way of acceptance had he supposed that he was merely a last resort. Stannard really hoped he would be the appointee, but all he would say to the colonel when asked for his opinion was, "I have had less to find fault with in him than any officer who ever served in my troop; but then he was only with me six months or so. I like him," which was tantamount to saying others probably wouldn't. But Stannard and Billings were firm friends, as anybody could see, and the colonel was quick to note that when Stannard had given Billings anything to do, he bothered himself no further about the matter, instead of going along and supervising as was his wont with most of the others. "If he's good enough for Stannard, he'll do for me," was the colonel's comment, and when Billings sought to decline the appointment offered, hinting, with well-meant but awkward delicacy, that perhaps it ought to go to some man of more established reputation and record in the regiment, the colonel cut him short with, "Here, Mr. Billings, I must have some one at once; old Bucketts has been doing office-work as both quartermaster and adjutant until he is getting used up, and young Dana is only good for parade and guard-mounting. I'll detail you as acting adjutant, and if you like it, at the end of a week we'll make the appointment permanent. Consult your friends meantime, if you choose." And so it happened that when Stannard said, "Take it," and Stryker told him quietly that there were reasons why he himself would have had to decline, Billings shook his head a few minutes in thinking over what he had heard of Mrs. Pelham, and wished he might see Ray and make him understand that he thought the place should go to him, but Stannard said, emphatically, that Ray was too harum-scarum for office-work, good as he was in the field. And then came a brief letter from Truscott, cordial and straight to the point as ever. It wound up by saying, "The colonel attributes your hesitation to the fact that you think it ought to go to some man who has served longer with the regiment. We respect that, and appreciate it; but you are offered this with the best backing in the regiment,—Stannard's,—and with that you can afford to laugh at anything the growlers may say."

The next morning the order was issued in due form. That afternoon Mr. Ray, returning dusty and unshorn from a two weeks' scout up the Saline, was informed of the fact as he stood at the stables unstrapping from the back of his sorrel the carcass of a fat antelope, gave a low whistle, remarked, "Well, I'm damned!" and, as bad luck would have it, postponed rushing in to congratulate Billings until dinner, when, to his genuine disappointment, the latter did not appear. He was dining at the colonel's to meet some officers from Leavenworth, and when the new adjutant went to his rooms late that night he had not seen Ray at all, but there was that man Gleason smoking a cigar, sipping a toddy, and evidently primed for a chat. Already Billings had begun to look upon him with disfavor, but could find no reason to avoid him entirely; he did not welcome the unwanted guest; he could not chill him. Gleason had his chat, and, when Ray stepped forward with sunny smile and glistening white teeth and cordial, outstretched hand the next morning, Billings looked him in the eye, took his hand, but there was no warmth in the welcome, and Ray felt rebuffed. "I heard Ned Billings had developed into something of a snob," said he afterwards, "but he's changed more, for a frank-hearted fellow that he was ten years ago, than any man I know." And so it happened that two men whose lives were closely interwoven from that time on, who had much in common, who, "had they but known," could never have drifted apart, began the next stage with an unknown, unseen, yet undeniable influence thrusting them asunder. And it was of these two men that the picturesque group on the colonel's piazza happened to be speaking this very May morning as the major and Mr. Ray, dismounting at the south gate, strolled lazily up the lane. It was the habit of the former when not on military duty to thrust his hands deep down into his trousers pockets, and allow his ample and aldermanic paunch to repose its weight upon his sabre-belt. As the belt was worn only at the hours of drill or parade, it followed that there were lapses of time wherein the paunch knew no such military trammel, and a side elevation of the battalion commander warranted the simile put in circulation by Lieutenant Blake: "The major looked as though he had swallowed a drum." Ray, on the contrary, was slimly, even elegantly built, a trifle taller than his bulky superior, and though indolent in his general movements, excitement or action transformed him in an instant. Then in every motion he was quick as a cat. It was his wont to wear his forage-cap far down over his forehead and canted very much over the right eye, while, contrary to the fashion of that day, his dark hair fell below the visor in a sweeping and decided "bang" almost to his eyebrows, which were thick, dark brown, and low-arched. A semi-defiant backward toss of the head was the result as much perhaps of the method of wearing his cap as of any pronounced mental characteristic. When Stannard was talking eagerly of any subject his hands went deeper into his pockets, his head thrust forward, and his eyes fairly popped, as though slight additional pressure would project them into space like many-tinted grape-shot. If he were standing still, he tilted on his toes and dropped his head to one side as he expounded, until the ear wellnigh reposed upon the shoulder-strap. Ray, on the other hand, threw his head farther back and, unless he was angry, showed his white teeth to the molars.

As they came along the walk from the main gate and passed one by one the snug little brown cottages known as the officers' quarters, the ladies grouped on the colonel's piazza began their very natural comment,—there were no other men in sight on that side of the garrison.

"Last year you never saw Major Stannard without Mr. Billings; now you never see him with him, and he is just as chummy with Mr. Ray," remarked our old friend Mrs. Turner, who was languidly swinging in the hammock, her eyes commanding a view of the sidewalk, and the sidewalk commanding a view of her very presentable feet encased in a new pair of French heeled slippers, and stockings whose delicate mauve tint matched the ribbons of her airy dress.

"Well, Mr. Billings is adjutant and cooped up in the office all day," was the reply of Mrs. Raymond, who could readily find reason for taking exception to the remarks or theories of her next-door neighbor and social rival.

There were five ladies in the group, all under thirty, two of them under twenty, only one unmarried, none of them avowedly interested in either of the two officers slowly approaching. No one of them, however, neglected a sweeping glance at her draperies or some slight readjustment of pose or petticoat. Possibly the formality would have been equally observed had they all been over fifty.

"I never could understand why Mr. Billings was made adjutant," remarked the one spinster, her eyes dreamily resting on the lithe form of Mr. Ray. "I don't mean, of course, that he doesn't do very well, but—there were so many others who would have—at least who deserved it so much more."

"Well, you must remember this," responded Mrs. Turner, "there wasn't anybody else when it was given to him, and there was no real reason why the colonel should remove him when he took command. Mr. Stryker was going as aide-de-camp; Mr. Gleason—well, anybody knows he wouldn't do; Mr. Crane and Mr. Wilkins were neither of them fit for it; Mr. Ray wouldn't have it, and Mr. Blake and Mr. Freeman hadn't joined. It was really Billings or nobody, except, of course, the second lieutenants. Dear me! how I wish one of them could have been appointed!" And Mrs. Turner sighed pathetically. The younger officers were her especial henchmen, and each in turn paid his devotion a year or more at the shrine. If any one of them had been put in power, how much easier 'twould have been to get the band every evening! and then the hops wouldn't have to close at midnight either! and Mrs. Turner was devoted to dancing.

"But papa says Mr. Billings is right about not letting the band play after midnight," broke in the young lady, whose years had been spent in many a garrison, and whose papa—the post surgeon—had pronounced views on matters of military and medical discipline. "Papa says the officers have no right to make the band play until late at night unless they pay them extra. They have to be up at reveille, and it's a shame to make them work all day and at night too!"

"The doctor is by no means alone in that idea," began a third speaker in a quiet voice, and both Mrs. Turner and Mrs. Raymond, who had impulsively burst into speech at the same instant, checked their nimble tongues, bridled, sweetly said, "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Stannard," and inclined attentive ears to a lady who at the moment had stepped from the open door-way to the piazza. It was evident that she was a late arrival, in whose presence the others felt bound to observe the deferential manners which further intimacy would possibly extinguish. "Indeed," she went on, "only this morning at breakfast Colonel Foster was saying that the bandsmen were getting their full share of work, and that Mr. Billings was quite right in the stand he made in the matter."

"Ah, Mrs. Stannard, I don't wonder Mr. Billings is devoted to you!" said Mrs. Raymond. "You are always ready to defend him."

"He was in our troop, you know, and I feel that he belongs to us to a certain extent," said Mrs. Stannard, smiling brightly, and nodding pleasant greetings to the two officers who were passing at the moment, still intent in their earnest talk. The major merely glanced at the piazza and pulled off his cap, as though he wished its fair occupants were beyond saluting distance. Ray bowed with laughing grace, and sung out cheerily,—

"Don't expect the major home just yet, Mrs. Stannard; he's giving me fits, and I'm in for a lecture."

The ladies were silent a moment, until the pair had passed on out of earshoot. Then Mrs. Turner took up the cudgels again.

"And yet, Mrs. Stannard, it wasn't so when Mr. Truscott was adjutant. We could have the band night after night if we wanted to, and surely you won't say that Mr. Truscott wasn't the very paragon of an adjutant."

"No, indeed," was the reply. "We all know how unequalled Mr. Truscott was; but then, were not the conditions very different, Mrs. Turner? For instance, in Arizona the band was not mounted, the men had no stable duty, and it was so hot in the daytime that they really had no duty to perform but to play after dark when it was cool. Now, here they have their horses, they have two parades each day; they practice every morning, and play on the parade every afternoon; that, with morning and evening stable duty, keeps them very busy, and don't you think Mr. Billings is right?"

Now, all this was well understood by both Mrs. Turner and Mrs. Turner's friends, and as put by Mrs. Stannard, the case was clearly in favor of the bandsmen and the adjutant. Down in the depths of her consciousness Mrs. Turner was well aware of the fact. She had gone over the fight with her liege lord, the captain, more than once since the spring weather had set in and the services of the band were in requisition several hours each day. She knew perfectly well that there was no parallel in the conditions existing in Arizona in Mr. Truscott's time and those of the day in Kansas with Billings. Still, she wanted to contrast the men and their methods, and, as is not unusual, pronounced the abstract statement that "it wasn't so with Mr. Truscott. Then we could have the band night after night." She was only stating a fact, was her mental justification, but that she was doing an injustice she would probably have not admitted for an instant.

Mrs. Stannard, however, had seen through the argument, and in her courteous way had shattered its effect. This put Mrs. Turner on her mettle, and she half rose from the hammock.

"Don't for a moment think I mean to criticise Mr. Billings, Mrs. Stannard; I really like him, very much; only it's so poky not to have the band now. The evenings are so lovely for dancing, and with so many young officers here, it seems such a pity to waste so much time. They are out drilling or shooting, or something, all day long, and who knows but what they'll all be ordered off somewhere the next minute? Then we can have the band all day and nobody to dance with. It's always the way."

"Well, I like Mr. Billings, too," said Mrs. Raymond, eager to say something pleasant of Mrs. Stannard's friend; "and Captain Raymond says he is a very soldierly officer,—very military, I mean,—and knows his duties so well, only we can't help contrasting him with Mr. Truscott. Mr. Truscott was so dignified and calm and deliberate, while Mr. Billings is a regular bunch of springs. They say he's very quick and irascible; real peppery, you know; but I suppose that is because they bother him a good deal."

"Mr. Billings has a very nervous temperament I know," replied Mrs. Stannard, "but we never thought him ill-tempered at Fort Gaines, and certainly Captain Truscott thinks all the world of him. They correspond constantly, and only last evening he showed me a letter just received from the captain."

"Did he?" said Mrs. Turner, with sudden interest. "What did he say about Grace?"

"About Mrs. Truscott?" said Mrs. Stannard, smilingly. "He said a good deal about her. She was so bright and well and so pleased with West Point, and they had such lovely quarters, looking right out on the plain where they could see everything that was going on, and Miss Sanford was visiting them——"

"What Miss Sanford?" asked Mrs. Turner, with that feminine impetuosity which is born of an incredulity as to any one's being able to convey information in one's own time and way.

"Miss Marion Sanford. She was a classmate of Mrs. Truscott's in their school-days, and belongs to a wealthy New Jersey family, Mr. Billings says."

"Oh, I know!" said Mrs. Raymond. "She's that handsome girl in the album that Grace had at Sandy, don't you know? with the Worth dress and the something or other the matter with her forehead,—a burn or a birth-mark,—wears her hair so low over it. Don't you know? Grace told us she had such a sad history,—her mother died when she was sixteen and her father married again, and she has her mother's fortune and had gone abroad. She was travelling with the Zabriskies and was presented at court last year, and the Prince of Wales said something or other about her. Don't you know? we read it in the New York something as we were coming out on the Kansas Pacific last fall. My! Just think of her at West Point! What a catch!" And Mrs. Raymond paused, breathless with admiration, not with effort. Talking fatigued her far less than silence.

"Yes, Mrs. Raymond, that is the very one, I believe," continued Mrs. Stannard in her pleasant tones, as soon as the lady came to a full stop. "Mr. Billings says that he has heard that her father married a very unpleasant woman the last time, and that 'twas said he would be——"

"What! Mr. Billings said that? Oh, Mrs. Stannard, how rejoiced I am to hear it! Captain Turner tried to make me believe that he was another Truscott in his horror of gossip. Now, won't I crow over him when he comes in to dinner?"

"Not crow, dear,—cackle," suggested Mrs. Raymond, mildly; "it's the other sex that does the crowing."

"Very possibly I have betrayed a trust," laughed Mrs. Stannard, coming to the rescue in the interests of harmony. "It was my mistake in referring to it. Do tell me about Mrs. Truscott; you know I never met her."

"What is there to tell except that she is Mrs. Truscott," half laughed, half pouted Mrs. Turner, who never quite forgave the fact that her queendom, real or imaginary, had been invaded by that very lady a year before, to the temporary loss of her throne. As Grace Pelham, Mrs. Truscott had won all hearts at Sandy. "She is undeniably pretty and lady-like; but what else can any one say of her? Stylish? no. Now, Mrs. Raymond, you need not try and say you think her stylish, because only last year at Prescott you wouldn't admit it. And as to her winning Mr. Truscott as she did, it is simply incomprehensible. What men see in some women is beyond me. She is neither deep, nor intellectual, nor particularly well read that I ever saw or heard of, and how she's a match for him, as people say, I can't see. He's just head over heels in love with her,—at least he was,—and she was simply wrapped up in him,—at least she is. You ought to have seen the letter she wrote Mrs. Page a few months ago; all about her happiness and Jack,—just as if there never had been another man in the world worth looking at. She'd have been just as rapturous over Mr. Glenham if she'd married him as she promised to do, I haven't a doubt, or Ray. He was ready to bow down and worship her at one time; and she encouraged him not a little before we left Sandy, too."

"Don't you believe that," interposed Mrs. Raymond. "They were warm friends, I know, but Ray was never her lover."

"You always will contradict me, Nellie," protested Mrs. Turner; "but if you could not see what every one else saw you were simply blind. I wonder she doesn't sometimes regret not marrying Glenham, though. They say he has gone abroad and has more money than he can ever spend."

"More than he ever could if he's as close as he was in Arizona," interposed Mrs. Raymond.

"But did you not know that Captain Truscott's ventures were coming out wonderfully well?" asked Mrs. Stannard, eager to give a pleasanter tone to the talk. "I heard not only that was true, but that an uncle had left him a good deal of money. One thing is certain, they have fitted up their quarters beautifully at the Point, and are living there in a good deal of style."

"Here come the officers in from drill," exclaimed Mrs. Turner, as a group of bronzed and soldierly-looking men came suddenly around the corner of the adjutant's office and strolled towards them. "Ask Captain Merrill, he will know. Captain Merrill," she called, raising her voice. "Do come here a moment." And obediently he came, doffing his cap and accepting the seat tendered him beside her by Mrs. Raymond.

"You were at the Point last month. Is it true that Captain Truscott has a good deal of money now?"

"Can't prove it by me, madame," said Merrill, sententiously. "Ask Blake. He's our Jenkins. How is it, Blake?"

"Don't call me pet names, dearie. 'When my tongue blabs then let mine eyes not see,'" declaimed Mr. Blake, sauntering up to the group and swinging a long, lean leg over the railing. "What do you want to know?"

"Is Mr.—Captain Truscott rich?"

"If my individual experiences are indicative, I should say he was boundless in wealth and prodigality."

"Why?"

"He lent me a hundred dollars when I was East on leave, and I know he never expects to see it again."

"I declare, Mr. Blake, you are as bad as Mr. Ray!"

"They are scoundrels and substractors that say so of me. Mrs. Turner, you—you make me blush. Ray, come hither and bear me consolation. Friend of my youth, Merrill calls me Jenkins; Mrs. Turner calls me bad as you; and you—called me with a pair of kings when mine was a bobtail. The world is hollow, Ray."

"Mr. Blake! Will you stop your everlasting nonsense and tell us about Truscott? When were you there?"

"Mrs. Turner, you aggrieve me, but I was there in April."

"And are they so delightfully situated?"

"Yea, verily,—blissfully."

"Was Miss Sanford there?"

"She came, alas! the very eve I hied me hence. I saw her but a moment; 'twas——"

"You saw her? Tell us what she's like. Is she pretty? is she sweet-mannered as they say?"

"Sweet? She's sweet, aye, dix-huit; at least she was a year agone. Pretty? Ah me!" And Blake sighed profoundly, and straddled the rail a picture of dejection. His auditors groaned in chorus, the customary recognition of one of Blake's puns, but gathered about him in manifest interest. With all his rattling nonsense he was a regimental pet.

"But where is she from? What connection of the New Jersey Sanford?"

"The Autocrat of the Preakness Stable, mean you? Marry, I know not. She is a Sanford and has a Sanford's wealth, but 'twas not for me. She adores a horse and worships a horseman. This I gathered from our too brief converse. I strove to win her ear with poesie, but she bade me cease. Her soul is not attuned to melody,—she'd none of mine. She preferred my Lady Truscott and buttered muffins."

"What did Truscott say about Crook's fight with Crazy Horse?" asked Ray, who looked blank enough at Blake's jargon, and wanted facts.

"I don't think Jack liked the looks of things," said Blake, relapsing into sudden gravity. "He told me that he thought it more than likely we'd all be in the field again in less than a month."

"We?" said Merrill. "It isn't a matter that affects Truscott one way or another. He has his four years' detail at the Point. What difference does it make to him whether we're ordered up to reinforce Crook?"

"Just this difference, my bully rook: that Truscott would catch us before we got to Laramie—unless we went by rail."

"Why, Blake, you're addled!" replied the captain, in that uncomplimentary directness which sometimes manifests itself among old comrades of the frontier, even in the presence of the gentler sex. "Why, Mr. Blake, you don't suppose he is going to give up his young wife, his lovely home, his pleasant duties, to join for a mere Indian campaign, do you?" asked more than one present, and a general murmur of dissent went round. "What do you say, major?" said one voice, in direct appeal to the senior officer of the group.

"It depends on what you consider a 'mere Indian campaign,'" was the cool response.

"But as to Truscott's going, what do you think, Ray?"

"I don't think anything about it. I know."

CHAPTER III.

HEROINES.

"What is so rare as a day in June?" sings the poet, and where can a day in June be more beautiful than at this Highland Gate of the peerless Hudson? It is June of the Centennial year, and all the land is ablaze with patriotic fervor. From North, from South, from East and West, the products of a nation's ingenuity or a nation's toil have been garnered in one vast exhibition at the Quaker City; and thither flock the thousands of our people. It is June of a presidential nomination, and the eyes of statesmen and politicians are fixed on Cincinnati. It is the celebration of the first century of a nation's life that engrosses the thoughts of millions of hearts, and between that great jubilee and that quadrennial tempest-in-a-teapot, the nomination, who but a few lonely wives and children have time to think of those three columns far, far out in the broad Northwest,—those three columns of regulars, cavalry and infantry, rough-garbed, bronzed and bearded, steadily closing in towards the wild and beautiful region along the northern water-shed of the Big Horn Range, where ten thousand hostile Indians are uneasily watching their coming? On the Atlantic seaboard comrades in full-dress uniform, with polished arms, are standing guard over government treasures on exhibition, and thoughtless thousands wonder at the ease and luxury of the soldier's life. Out on the frontier, in buckskin and flannel, slouch hats and leggings, and bristling prairie-belts, the little army is concentrating upon an outnumbering foe, whose signal-fires light the way by night, whose trail is red with blood by day. From the northeast, up the Yellowstone, Terry of Fort Fisher fame, the genial, the warm-hearted general, whose thoughts are ever with his officers and men, leads his few hundred footmen, while Custer, whose division has flashed through battery after battery, charge after charge, in the great Rebellion, now rides at the head of a single regiment. From the northwest, down the Yellowstone, with but a handful of tried soldiery, comes Gibbon; he who led a corps at Gettysburg and Appomattox. From the south, feeling his way along the eastern base of the Big Horn, with less than two thousand troopers and footmen, marches the "Gray Fox," the general under whom our friends of the —th so long and so successfully battled with the Apaches of Arizona. He has met his match this time. Cheyenne, Ogallalla, Brulé, Uncapapa, Minneconjou, Sans Arc, and Blackfoot, all swarm over the broad and breezy uplands in his front, or lurk in the deep shade of the lovely valleys. Twice have they sprung upon him and checked his advance. Once only has he been forced to hesitate, but now, as the longest days of the year approach and the glistening dome of Snow Peak is yet warm with the flush of the setting sun, when "morn, in russet mantle clad," tinges the eastern slopes with glowing light; now, at last, the long-dreaded leaders of the border warfare are being hemmed in between the encircling advance. Now may we look for stirring work along the bluffs and boulders of the Big Horn.

And June, Centennial June, has come to West Point. Examinations are going briskly on, four buoyant classes are all excitement with the joyous prospects of the season: the seniors look forward to the speedy coming of the longed-for diploma and the prized commission, for relief from the restraint of academic life and for the broader field of the army; the second, the juniors, to reaching the dignity of "first-class camp," with the highest offices and honors to be achieved so long as they shall wear the gray; the third, ah! they are the furloughmen, so soon to be restored for two brief months to home and kindred after the two years of rigid discipline and ceaseless duty; the fourth, to step at once and for all from the meekness of "plebedom" and become the envied "old cadet." June brings bliss for all,—for all but those who fail.

And June brings joy to sisters and sweethearts by the dozen, to fond mammas, to proud paternals, who throng the hostelries of the Point and the neighborhood, and swarm in lively interest all over the historic spot, listening with uncomprehending but tireless patience to examinations on fortification or grand tactics, mechanics or calculus; gasping with excitement over dashing charges on the "cavalry plain," shuddering over the reckless daring in the riding-hall, stopping their ears against the thunder of the great guns at the batteries, and beating time with head and foot to the spirited quicksteps of the band. Dress-parade, the closing ceremony of each day, concentrates the entire assemblage along the shaded walk that borders on the west the beautiful green carpet of the "infantry plain," and, at last, as the four gray and white companies go dancing off in double-time through the grim sally-port beneath the barracks, and the carriages and stages whirl away the watching throngs, and the plumed cadet officers scurry off to supper, and, group after group, the spectators saunter homewards, the band disappears below the crest of the plain towards "Bumtown," and little by little the light turns to violet on the wooded heights across the swirling Hudson, and silence settles down upon the scene.

Gazing out from under the foliage of the great elms, watching these very changes, two ladies are seated upon the piazza of the officers' quarters opposite the southern half of the plain. One is a young matron, whose eyes once seen are not soon forgotten,—so soft, so deep, so brown, so truthful are they under the long curling lashes, under the low-arched, heavy brows. Beautiful eyes were they when, in all their girlish fearlessness and innocence, they first beamed upon our old friends of the —th in the days of exile in Arizona. Lovelier still are they now in that consummation of a woman's happiness,—a worshipped wifehood. It was early in the previous winter when Captain Truscott brought his fair bride to make her home among the scenes so dear to both, and her life has been one song of unutterable gladness. If earth contained a thing to wish for in those six months, Grace Truscott could not name it. Her pretty army house is the gem of the military community, the envy of many a wife. Her husband is a man whom all men honor and hold in deep esteem. In strength, in dignity, in soldierly ability, and in his devotion to her he is all her heart could ask. If she loved him dearly when they were married, her love has developed into almost an idolatry,—"Jack" is her world. Not that she talks or writes very much of that matter, however; for quite a wise little head is that which is perched on Mrs. Truscott's white shoulders. Once in a while in some letter to an old and trusted friend she finds it more than she can do to utterly repress her overwhelming sense of bliss, and then she lets slip some little confession of which Jack is the subject. She never dreamed a man could be so lovely, so delicate, so thoughtful, so considerate, so everything that was simply perfect, is the way she has once or twice found herself constrained to clinch the matter in default of adjectives sufficiently descriptive. "Every day he develops some new, lovely, and unsuspected trait," she once confided to her friend Mrs. Tanner (with whom she has corresponded quite regularly since her marriage, and to whom we are indebted for some of these interesting details), and as Jack Truscott was confessedly a man of many admirable qualities before his matrimonial alliance, it may be conjectured that ere the waning of her honeymoon Mrs. Jack's enumeration table was beginning to prove inadequate. And bliss has been, and is, becoming to Grace. She has lost none of the girlish delicacy of expression which was so marked a characteristic of her youthful beauty a year before, still she has rounded somewhat, and both mentally and physically has developed. The slender white hand that rests upon the volume of Carlyle in her lap looks less fragile than it did that day at old Camp Sandy when, in Tanner's library searching for the children's books among the shelves, it showed itself to Truscott's eyes without a certain ring. Mrs. Jack does not fancy Carlyle. He is too crabbed by far, she thinks, and she wonders how and where people get such distorted views of life, but the captain has been reading him a great deal during the past two months, and anything that interests him is food for her. Happy she is beyond all question, happy as woman ever becomes in this world where happiness is never perfect. If it were, where would be the use of heaven hereafter? And as she sits here gazing out upon the soft lights and shadows settling upon the distant hills, her sweet, mobile face is fit subject for the brush of some inspired painter who seeks a model for an ideal picture,—"I Ask No More."

It is twilight, too, the hour of all others when the faintest sorrow is apt to assert itself upon reposeful features,—the hour when it takes a very happy woman to look happy; yet Grace Truscott's eyes tell of only one story,—love, peace, tranquillity; and at last the silence is broken by the remark, which is naturally the result of a woman's undisturbed contemplation of such a face,—

"I declare, Grace, it is enough to make one want to marry just to look at you!"

Mrs. Truscott returns to earth with sudden bound, dropping her blissful day-dream with a merry laugh and a blush that refuses to down at her bidding. She holds forth her hand appealingly, leaning forward in the great wicker rocking-chair in which, till now, she has been lazily inclining.

"How absurd, to be sure! I wish you would seize me and shake me, Marion, whenever you see me going off into dreamland like that. It is simply detestable. Yet, I can't help it. Oh!" with sudden impulse, "wait till you marry some one the least like Jack, and then see for yourself."

"But I never shall marry any one the least like Jack," replies Miss Sanford. "To begin with, you would not be apt to admit any such man could exist. Now, don't bristle all over, Grace; you are not in the least absurd,—to ordinary people that is; you really behave very creditably for so young a wife, but you are quite warranted in betraying your admiration to me. I like it. It was simply mean of me to interrupt your revery as I did, but the exclamation was involuntary. I had been watching your face for several minutes, and thinking how few, how very few women are blessed as you are."

Mrs. Truscott's eyes filled with tears, and her hand sought and clasped that of her friend. A most unusual caress for her.

"Sometimes I fear I'm growing very selfish in it all, Marion, and I blame myself more than I can tell you when these spells come over me. We had planned to make your visit lovely,—Jack and I,—and here, the moment we are alone together, I go mooning off and leaving you to be entertained by the sight of my imbecility." Mrs. Truscott gave herself a vigorous shake. "There! Now tell me about your walk. Was Mr. Ferris pleasant?"

"Pleasant? Very! They all are for that matter, and I hate to think how much I've lost in being away all May. Father insisted though, and so those six weeks had to be spent at —— with them. It is mockery to call it home." And a deep trouble seemed to settle on her beautiful face.

Mrs. Truscott leaned nearer to her friend, an eager tremor in her voice.

"Listen, Marion dear," she spoke; "I cannot allude to the subject except when you do; but, much as your father loves you, he must see now that it is next to impossible for you to live at home, and after her conduct this spring,—first demanding that you should come instead of spending May with us as was arranged, and then making it so wretched for you, and finally almost driving you from the house,—it is useless to think of going back this summer. Do spend it with us. We both ask it, Jack and I. It was such a disappointment to lose you in May, and now that we've got you again,—though you said 'twas only for a week,—we talked it all over last night, Maid Marion,"—and here Mrs. Truscott has recourse to one of the pet names of their school-days,—"we talked it all over, Jack and I, and that was one of the things he went to the city for to-day. He had determined to ask your father to let you spend the summer here. I want it so much, so does Jack, for he may have to go to Kentucky to buy horses for the cavalry stables. Marion, do stay if he will let you." And both Mrs. Truscott's white hands now seized and clasped the unresisting, passive members that lay, still gloved, in her companion's lap.

For a moment there was no move. Two big tears were starting from Miss Sanford's eyes; her sweet, sensitive lips were twitching nervously. She glanced hurriedly up and down the broad road in front of the quarters,—they were unobserved and alone,—and, leaning back in her chair, she gently withdrew one hand and held her handkerchief to her face. Mrs. Truscott quickly rose and bent over her, pressed her lips one instant upon the luxuriant hair that fell thickly over the girl's forehead; then, twining her arm around her head, nestled her own soft cheek where she had pressed her lips. And there she hovered, saying nothing more, waiting until the little rain-cloud had passed away.

Presently there came the sound of quick, springy footsteps along the asphalt from the direction of the barracks. Mrs. Truscott raised her head.

"It is Sergeant Wolf, Marion. I think he is coming here."

Miss Sanford started up, wiped her eyes and half turned her back, as a young soldier in the undress uniform of a cavalry sergeant entered the gateway, and, halting at the foot of the steps, respectfully raised hand to his cap, and stood there as though addressing an officer.

"Pardon me, madame," he asked, with a distinctly German accent, but with the intonation of a gentleman on every syllable. "The captain has not yet returned?"

"Not yet, sergeant; I expect him on the eight-thirty train."

"It is about Corporal Stein, madame; he has overstayed his pass."

"I presume Mr. Waring should be told. Have you seen him?"

"Madame, the lieutenant is neither at his quarters nor the mess."

"Then there is nothing further to be done that I know of," said Mrs. Truscott, whose girlhood had been passed in garrison at times, and whose earliest recollections were of papa's dragoons. "I will tell the captain as soon as he returns." And she stepped backward towards the chairs.

The sergeant paused one moment. He was tall, lithe, of graceful and muscular mould; his face was of the singular Saxon cast,—so very fair; his eyes were blue and clear, his nose and mouth finely shaped; his teeth were white and even, his hair crisp and curly, and the very color of bleached straw, but redeemed from that dead, soda-dried effect by the sheen of every lock; his face was oval; clean-shaved but for the upper lip, whose long, blond moustache twirled trooper-fashion till the ends almost swept his ears. He was a handsome fellow, and his manners and language bespoke him a man of education. After the moment's hesitation, he again touched his cap and quitted the little garden, walking with quick, brisk steps and erect carriage away towards the upper end of the row.

Mrs. Truscott stood silently looking after him a moment, then she turned:

"Did you notice his hands, Marion?"

"Certainly; I did the first time I saw him, and he is always here. You say Wolf is an assumed name?"

"Yes. Jack says there can be no question but that he is an educated German officer who has had to quit the service there for some crime or trouble. He came here just when I did, last December; and Jack says he is the finest first sergeant he ever saw, though I believe the men don't fancy him. He speaks French as well as he does English, and there is apparently nothing he does not know about cavalry service."

"And how did he happen to be in the army?"

"I do not know; there was nothing else for him to do, I suppose. The old first sergeant of the cavalry detachment here was discharged last fall, and when a new one was needed, and there seemed to be no really good one in the troop, Jack wrote to a recruiting officer in the city to send him a first-class man. One day he got a letter saying that a young German desired to enlist for cavalry service who was evidently a thorough soldier, and that there was some mystery about him. He was dressed like a gentleman, but had not a cent of money, and claimed to have arrived only within three days from the old country. Next day the man himself came here. Jack had told me nothing about the letter. The servant said there was a gentleman in the parlor wanted to see the captain. Jack was away at the riding-hall, and I went into the parlor, and there stood this tall, fine-looking fellow. I thought, of course, he must be some officer on leave,—some one whom Jack knew. It was a little dark,—one of those rainy December days, and he had his back to the light,—but the moment he spoke and I heard the German accent I saw there was a mistake. He seemed greatly embarrassed, said he had been told he would find the captain here, apologized for the intrusion, and started for the door, when I saw his face was as white as a sheet and that he was staggering, and the next thing I knew he had dropped like a fainting woman in the big arm-chair. Something told me he was weak from want of food. I called Mary, and got some wine and made him drink it, and pretty soon he revived, and then Jack came, and I left them together. He said that he had eaten nothing for three days and was exhausted.

"Well, Jack questioned him closely that evening after he had made him rest and had fed him well, poor fellow! and the result was that in a day or two he regularly enlisted. Jack really tried to induce him not to, telling him that a man of his education would surely find something better, but it was useless. He said that if he could not enlist here he would go back to New York and enter for service on the frontier, so, finally, it was settled. He was made a corporal in a few weeks, and now he is first sergeant. He is invaluable in that respect; still, I do wish there were no mystery. I hate mysteries. He is never seen with the men at all, and when not on duty he is always reading. Jack lends him books that no other soldier cares to look at and that they do not have in the troop library. That is what brings him here so often. He comes every day or two with a book he has read and wants another; but his name isn't Wolf. Somewhere, he has a seal ring with a crest on it, and last month—there had been some trouble among the men, and two hard characters had laid in wait for the sergeant one dark night near the stables and assaulted him, but he was too quick and powerful for them, though they escaped—last month he brought Jack a sealed packet which he asked him to keep, and if anything happened to him it was to be returned to an address he gave in Dresden. It's really quite a romance, but I wish——" And Mrs. Truscott broke off abruptly without saying what she did wish.

Miss Sanford was silent. She had recovered her self-control, and the traces of recent tears were vanishing. Once more Mrs. Truscott seated herself by her side.

"You will stay with us, won't you?" she said, with that uninterrogative accent on the "won't" which is indicative of a conviction on part of the questioner that denial is impossible.

"Yes, Grace, gladly, if Captain Truscott can win papa over to it. I shall be far happier here, and he will at least have peace at home. She will be satisfied and content if I am not there. How can I thank you enough, Gracie? I had almost made up my mind to ask Mrs. Zabriskie to take me back to Europe with her. You know she returns on the 'Werra' in July."

"Indeed you shall not. I had counted on having you for bridesmaid, and you would not come home. That was the only disappointment in my wedding; but, after all, since Mr. Ray couldn't come, there would have been a groomsman short if you had been there."

"Why didn't he come? You never told me."

"Why? Poor Mr. Ray! He wrote one of his laughing letters to Jack to say that he'd be switched if he was going to play hangman at his own execution. You never knew such a queer fellow as he is. The real reason was that he could not afford to come East from Kansas and give us a wedding present too. Jack and I would have far rather had him drop the present, but could not see how to tell him. He sent us that lovely ice-cream set, you know,—one of the prettiest of all my presents. Everybody thought Ray must have been studying up on art, it was so graceful and pretty. Mr. Gleason, I believe it was, said that Ray wrote to Colonel Thayer of the lieutenant-general's staff and had him buy it: he was in Chicago when we were married,—you know that was Grandmother De Ruyter's stipulation,—and that Colonel Thayer, not Ray, was entitled to the credit for taste; but Jack says that there is far more to Ray than most people give him credit for. He's a loyal friend anyway!"

"What was the name of that droll creature who was here last April,—Drake? Blake?"

"Mr. Blake? Oh, yes! He is one of the characters of the regiment. He is the book of nonsense on two very long legs, but he is full of fun and full of goodness. He is not at all Mr. Ray's kind, however. Jack says that Mr. Ray is the man of all others whom he would most expect to come to the front in a general war, and that nothing could shake his faith in him. Ray could never do or say a dishonorable thing."

"And wasn't it Mr. Ray who saved you when your horse was running away?"

"The very man. You glory so in daring horsemanship, Marion, I just wish you could see Ray ride. Jack is splendid, of course, but he is so much larger, heavier, you know. Ray rides as lightly as a bird flies; he seems just part of a horse, as indeed Jack does, but then there's this difference: Mr. Ray rides over hurdles and ditches and prairie-dog holes and up and down hill just like an Indian, and the wonder is he isn't killed. Jack is a fine horseman,—nobody looks better in the saddle than he,—but then Jack rarely rides at top speed,—never, unless there's some reason for it.

"See, Marion, it's almost dark. Shall we go in the parlor and light the lamps?"

"Grace, wasn't Mr. Ray just a little bit in love with you once?"

"Honestly, Marion, no! I know he admired me, and I liked him, and had reason to like him greatly, for he was a true friend to me when I wanted one at Sandy. Once he was a wee bit sentimental," and even in the dusk Grace could feel that Marion saw the flush that mounted to her very brows, "but that was when I fainted after the runaway; never before, never since. Don't talk nonsense, Maidie."

"I think I should like to know him," said Miss Sanford, as she rose to enter the hall.

"I know you would. Only—well, you might not like him entirely, either. Jack should be here in less than half an hour now, then we'll have tea. Oh, Marion! I'm so glad you will stay, so will he be."

On the parlor-table, as they entered, lay two letters. Turning up the gas, Mrs. Truscott scanned the superscriptions. Both were addressed to her husband. One was postmarked Fort Hays.

"This is the one Jack will open first," she said to her friend. "I don't know whom the other comes from, but this is news from the regiment. It is Mr. Billings's writing, and Jack is always eager for news from him."

"Mr. Ferris asked me this evening, while we were walking, if Captain Truscott had any news from his regiment. He seemed unusually interested. I could not tell why, but it was something about General Crook being heavily reinforced by troops from somewhere. They were talking of it down at the mess to-day, and Mr. Waring said that if his regiment were ordered on that duty, he would apply by telegraph to Washington for orders to join it at once. There was some embarrassment then, because one of the gentlemen present—Mr. Ferris wouldn't say who—belonged to a regiment already there on that very campaign, and he had not applied for orders at all, and wasn't going to, and——Why, Grace! What is the matter?"

With her face rapidly paling Grace Truscott had stood gazing piteously at her companion, and then, seizing the letter in her trembling hands, she stood glaring at the address. For a moment she made no reply, and again Miss Sanford, alarmed, repeated her question.

"Marion! Marion! It means that I know now why Jack did not show me Major Stannard's last letter. It means that this letter from the adjutant is to tell Jack that the —th is ordered into the field. It means—it means"—and she threw herself prone upon the sofa, clinching her hands above her head—"it means that my dream of delight is shattered; they will take my husband from me."

"But how—but why, Grace? I don't understand. Mr. Ferris said distinctly that Captain Truscott would not be affected, that he had just begun his detail here. If an officer doesn't have to go when his regiment is already in the field, how can your husband be required?"

"My husband! Marion. You don't know him, neither does Mr. Ferris, if that's his idea. My husband would never wait to be ordered to join his comrades on campaign. If that letter says the —th is to go, that ends it all, for Jack will start to-morrow."

CHAPTER IV.

IMPENDING SHADOWS.

When Captain Truscott drove up from the ferry and sprang from the carriage at his gate, a cheerful light beamed from the open door and windows of his home, and Grace, all loving greeting, met him on the piazza. He could not but note the warmth of her embrace and welcome; but Jack had been in town since early morning and never before since their marriage had they been separated a single day. In the dim twilight on the piazza he could not see what was apparent as soon as they entered the parlor,—that his young wife's face was unusually pale and her lovely eyes showed suspicious trace of tears; but he could only glance an anxious inquiry, there was then no time for more, as Miss Sanford stood smilingly at the centre-table.

Truscott stepped forward with his old-fashioned courtesy and bowed over her extended hand. A few words of pleasant welcome and greeting were exchanged, a few inquiries as to whom he had seen in New York and what had been the result of his various commissions. Then as the dining-room door was opened and the maid announced that tea was served, Truscott looked inquiringly at the table.

"Any mail, Gracie?"

"Oh, yes, Jack. I put them under Carlyle; two letters."

The captain merely glanced at the superscription of the first letter, but when the second caught his eye, he shot one quick look at his wife, their eyes met, and leaving the first letter upon the table, he stowed the heavier missive in the breast-pocket of the civilian suit he was wearing, led the way to the dining-room door, and there smilingly bowed the ladies to the brightly-lighted table, and demanded of Miss Sanford an immediate and detailed account of the day's conquests.

Not until near midnight could Grace see her husband alone.

It was "band night," and long before they had finished tea rich strains of music came floating in from the parade, and, as is always the case, visitors began to arrive. Several ladies and officers dropped in during the evening; they sat on the piazza enjoying the serenade until the shrill piping of the fifes and rattle of the drums sounding tattoo sent the musicians off to bed and numerous pairs of white trousers scurrying towards the cadet barracks. They watched the simultaneous "dousing of the glim" in the long façade as the clock struck ten and the three taps of the drum ordered "lights out." Then they entered the parlor and Grace had to sing. For the last year she had gloried in singing, her voice seemed so rich with melody, her heart so rich with joy. To-night all the strange old feeling came back. It made her think of those wretched days at Sandy, when with Jack thousands of miles away, perhaps never to see or speak to her again, she had to sing because her father loved it so. She was a soldier's daughter, a soldier's wife, and she rallied all her strength and pride and strove to be blithe and animated and entertaining. From her first appearance Mrs. Truscott had been a favorite in that somewhat exacting garrison, perhaps the hardest one in the army in which to achieve popularity, because of the various cliques and interests; and now that that very interesting Miss Sanford was with her, their pretty home on the plain was always a rendezvous for the socially disposed. And so it happened that all the long evening neither she nor Jack could obtain release from their duties as entertainers. Eleven o'clock came before the last of the ladies departed, and then Mr. Ferris lingered for a tête-à-tête with Miss Sanford, and poor Grace found herself compelled to sit and talk with Mr. Barnard, who was a musical devotee and afflicted with a conviction that they ought to sing duets, and Mrs. Truscott could not be induced to sing duets with any man, unless Jack would try.

She knew that he had gone to the little library where he kept his favorite books and did his writing. She heard the door close after him, and, with unutterable longing, she desired to go and throw herself upon her favorite perch, his knee, and twine her arms around his neck and bury her head upon his broad shoulder. She could think of nothing but that fateful letter from Hays. She wished that it might be Mr. Waring who had come in, for he was in the cavalry and would know something of what really was going on out on the frontier. She was feverishly anxious to learn the truth, and twice directed the talk that way, but Mr. Barnard was obtuse. He only vaguely knew from remarks he had heard at mess that General Crook had called for reinforcements, and that Sheridan was ordering up cavalry and infantry to his support. He did not know what cavalry,—in fact, he did not care,—he was in the artillery, and, forgetful of Modoc experiences, believed that Indian fighting was an abnormal species of warfare of which men of his advanced education were not expected to take cognizance. That it ever could call for more science, skill, and pluck than the so-called civilized wars of which Mr. Barnard was a conscientious student he would probably never have admitted, and his comment at mess on the frequently-recurring tales of unsuccessful attack upon savage foes was the comprehensive remark that the affair must have been badly handled; "those fellows of the cavalry didn't seem to understand the nature of the work they had to tackle." As those were the days before a cavalry superintendent went to the Academy and showed an astonished academic board what a cavalryman's idea of scholarship and discipline really was, it followed that the corps of instructors was made up almost entirely from the more scientific arms; only two or three cavalrymen were on the detail of forty officers, and they were mainly for duty as instructors in tactics and horsemanship. So when Mr. Barnard dreamily blew the smoke of his cigarette through his elevated nostrils and gave it as his opinion that those cavalry fellows didn't seem to understand their work, his audience, consisting mainly of staff and artillery officers, gave the acquiescence of silence or the nod of wisdom; and the casual visitor would have left with the impression that the whole mistake of this Indian business lay in failure to consult the brilliantly-trained intellects of the higher corps. Odd as it may seem, it is the men who have had the least to do with Indians and Indian fighting who have apparently the most ideas on the subject. This is not a paradox. Those who have spent several years at it probably started in with just as many, and exploded them one after another.

Mr. Barnard, therefore, was more intent on humming the tenor part of "See the Pale Moon" than of affording Mrs. Truscott any information as to rumors of the orders sending additional troops to the field, but her anxiety was only slightly appeased by his airy dismissal of the subject.

"Indeed, Mrs. Truscott, I would not feel any concern in the matter; with the forces now concentrated up there in the Yellowstone country, the result is a foregone conclusion. The Indians will simply be surrounded and starved into surrender."

At last they went. Mr. Ferris with evident reluctance and not until he had plainly received intimation from Miss Sanford that it was more than time. Knowing Mrs. Truscott well, she could see what was imperceptible to their visitors, that the strain was becoming almost unbearable. The moment they were gone she turned to her friend.

"I must write a short letter before going to bed, Grace dear. Now go to him at once;" then impulsively she threw her arms around her. "I shall pray it is not true," she murmured, then turned and ran quickly to her room.

Mrs. Truscott closed and bolted the front door, turned out the parlor lights, and stepped quickly to the library; then she paused a moment before turning the knob: her heart was beating heavily, her hands trembling. She strove hard to control the weakness which had seized her, and, for support, rested her head upon the casement and took two or three long breaths; then with a murmured prayer for strength she gently opened the door, and the soft swish of her trailing skirts announced her presence.

His back was towards her as she entered; he was seated in a low-backed library-chair, with both elbows upon the writing-table before him, and resting his head upon the left hand in an attitude that was habitual with him when seated there thinking. Before him, opened, lay a long letter,—the adjutant's letter from Hays. A pen was in his hand, but not a scratch had he made on the virgin surface of the paper. Truscott never so much as wrote the date until he had fully made up his mind what the entire letter should be, and he had far from made up his mind what to say in this.

Without a word Mrs. Truscott stole quietly up behind him. He had been expecting her any moment; he knew well she would come the instant her visitors left her free; he was listening, waiting for her step, and had heard Miss Sanford trip lightly up-stairs. Then came the soft, quick pitapat of her tiny feet along the hall and the frou-frou of the skirts,—never yet could he hear it without a little thrill of passionate delight. He half turned in readiness to welcome her, his love, his wife; then came her pause at the door,—a new, an unknown hesitancy, for from the first he had taught her that she alone could never be unwelcome, undesired, no matter what his occupation in the sanctum, and Jack's heart stood still while hers was throbbing heavily. Could she have heard? Could she have suspected? Must he tell her to-night? He turned again to the desk as she entered, and waited for—something he loved more than he could ever tell,—her own greeting.

Often when he was reading or writing during the day, and she, on household cares intent, was tripping lightly about the house, singing sweetly, softly as she passed the library, and bursting into carolling melody when at undisturbing distance away, it was odd to note the many little items that required her frequent incursions on the sanctum itself,—books to be straightened and dusted, scraps of writing-paper to be tidied up, maps to be rolled and tied. Mollie, the housemaid, could sweep or tend the fires in that domestic centre, the captain's den, but none but the young housewife herself presumed to touch a pen or dust a tome. Jack's mornings were mainly taken up at the barracks, riding-hall, or in mounted drill far out on the cavalry plain, whence his ringing baritone voice could reach her admiring ears and—for it was only honeymoon with her still—set her to wondering if it really were possible that that splendid fellow were her own, her very own; and time and again Mrs. Grace would find herself stopping short in her avocation and going to the front windows and gazing with all her lovely brown eyes over to the whirling dust-cloud on the eastern plain and revelling in the power and ring of Jack's commanding voice, and going off into day-dreams. Was it possible that there had been a great, a fearful war, in which the whole country was threatened with ruin, and hundreds of men had made wonderful names for themselves, and Jack not one of them,—Jack, her hero, her soldier beyond compare? Could it be that the war was fought and won without him? But then, who could be braver in action, wiser in council, than he? Did not the —th worship him to a man? Was not Indian fighting the most trying, hazardous, terrible of all warfares, and was not Jack pre-eminent as an Indian-fighter? Was there not a deep scar on his breast that would have been deeper and redder but for her little filmy handkerchief that stopped the cruel arrow just in time? Was any one so gallant, so noble, so gentle, so tender, true, faithful,—um-m-m,—sweet? was the way Mrs. Grace's intensified thoughts would have found expression, had she dared, even to herself, to give them utterance? And he loved her! he loved her! and—heavens and earth! but this isn't practising, or housework either; and pretty, happy, blushing Mrs. Truscott would shake herself together, so to speak, and try to get back to the programme of daily duty she had so conscientiously mapped out for herself. Perhaps it was because she accomplished so little in the mornings that, when Jack betook himself to his study for his two hours of reading or writing in the afternoon, his witching wife would find such frequent need of entering. At first she had been accustomed to trip in on tiptoe after a timid little knock and the query, "Do I disturb you, Jack dear?"—a query which he answered with quite superfluous assurance to the contrary. Later, even after their wise conclusion that they must be rational, she had been accustomed to put the question, not at all as a purely perfunctory marital civility, but, as she shyly admitted to herself, because it was so sweet to hear Jack's negation and see the love-light in the eyes that soon brought her, fascinated and fluttering, to be folded in his arms a moment. Later still, so confident had she become in her dominion, both knock and query were abandoned, and, unless only five minutes or so had elapsed since the previous visit, she had a pretty little way of greeting him that, though very gradually acquired despite surging impulse, was at last quite a settled fact, and he loved it,—well, he would have been an unappreciative, undeserving brute had he not. She would steal behind him, lean over the back of the chair (Jack refused to exchange it for the high-backed one suggested by Mrs. Pelham on the occasion of a brief visit paid them in March), and, twining her arms around his neck, would draw back his head till it rested on her bosom, then sink her soft, sweet lips upon his forehead. It was this he waited for to-night, and not in vain.

Another minute and he had drawn her around and seated her on his knee, folding her closely in his arms. But soon she gently released herself, slipped to the little ottoman that stood always ready by his chair, and, clasping her hands upon his knee, looked bravely up in his face. No need to speak one word,—no need to break it to her; he saw she well divined that news, and hard news, had come from the frontier,—news which meant more to her than to any woman at West Point.

"Shall I read it, Gracie?" he presently asked, gently stroking the shining, shimmering wealth of her hair,—her glory and his. She bowed lower her head and clasped tightly her hands.

"One word first, Jack. Does the —th go?"

"Yes, darling."

She shivered as though a sudden chill had seized her, but spoke no word. Truscott bent and strove to draw her again to his breast, but she roused herself with gallant effort,—threw back her head and again looked bravely up in his eyes.

"No; I'll bear it best here, Jack. I won't——Read it, dear."

"My brave girlie!" was all he said, as his eyes moistened suspiciously and his hand lingered in its caress upon her soft cheek.

"It's from Billings, you know."

"Yes, Jack; go on."

And then he read to her:

"Fort Hays, Kansas, June 6, '76.

"Dear Truscott,—Stannard showed me your letter and bade me answer it. There was no time for him to do it, and I myself am writing 'on the jump.' You sized up the situation about as comprehensively as Crook himself could have done it, and your predictions have come true. Eight troops of the regiment left night before last by rail for Cheyenne via Denver, and by this time headquarters and most of the —th are tenting somewhere near Fort Russell, where we are all to take station and wait further developments. The band follows as fast as we can pack up plunder and be off. It means, of course, a permanent transfer of the regiment to the Department of the Platte, and from the mere fact that the colonel and eight companies were hurried ahead, there can be no question but that we are destined to take part in the campaign against Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, etc., and for myself, I'm glad of it.

"But I'm glad you weren't here, Jack. There was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth among the women-folks, and some two or three Benedicts looked bluer than brimstone. You know they had counted on a peaceful summer and a good time, and it's particularly rough on those who had fitted up their quarters so handsomely and had young ladies to visit them, like the Raymonds and others. Most of them have to break up and go East, but as six troops are to take permanent station at Russell, yours among them, those who are ordered there will simply move from Hays to Russell with us, as the officers can choose quarters on the way up; for up we are going, and I'll bet a farm we water our horses in the Yellowstone before we see Russell a second time. As soon as packed I shall move all baggage to Russell, public and personal, escort the ladies thither and see them comfortably settled in their new quarters. Mrs. Stannard, Mrs. Turner, and Mrs. Wilkins (of course) go to Russell with us. Old Whaling of the Infantry is to remain in command there until the campaign is over, as it will be the main supply depot. His wife is an enlivening Christian, a sort of Mrs. Gummidge and Mrs. Malaprop rolled into one, but, barring a sensational tendency and a love for theatricals in every-day life, there is nothing dangerous about her. I'm glad my own wife will be able to remain with the home people, for Mrs. Whaling would scare the life out of her with her tales of fearful adventure in the Indian country, and I don't quite like the idea of our ladies being subjected to her ministrations during the separation. However, Mrs. Stannard will be there, and she's a balance-wheel. Bless that woman! What would we do without her?

"Now, Jack, a word from Stannard himself. He said to write you fully, that nothing might be concealed. Stryker's letter is straight to the point. It is going to be the biggest Indian war the country has ever seen, and one in which there must be hard fighting. Armed, equipped, and supplied and mounted as those Sioux and Cheyennes are, it will take our best to thrash them. Stannard says that you must be influenced in your action by no misrepresentation one way or other. No man in the regiment can say in his presence or mine that you have not done your full share of Indian work, and no gentleman in the regiment will blame you should you see fit to stick to the Point and let the rest of us tackle Mr. Lo. You are the only newly-married man in the crowd. On the other hand, your troop is commanded in your absence by Gleason, whom—well, you know him better than I; and in his absence by young Wells, who is to take his first lesson in campaigning this summer. Just as luck would have it, Gleason and Ray were ordered to Leavenworth on a horse board, and were not here to go with the command. Ray heard of the move and telegraphed, begging Stannard to get him relieved and sent at once to the regiment, but the board was ordered at division headquarters and 'twas no use. Ray will have to stay until the horses are all bought; and I'm bound to say he did his best to get back. For some reason, which I could better explain if I didn't have to write, Ray and I don't seem to 'gee.' He has been offish to me ever since our first meeting here, and was one of the men whose failure to congratulate me on the adjutancy I felt. Then I heard of some unjustifiable though, perhaps, natural things he said. However, let that slide. I wish you were adjutant again, that's all. Very probably the others do too. The colonel telegraphed to all officers on leave, and every blessed one responded inside of twenty-four hours, 'Coming first train, you bet,' or words to that effect. It makes one proud of the old —th. Gleason hasn't chirped, but then he is somewhere in central Iowa buying. They say Ray's brother-in-law is one of the largest horse-dealers, and Stannard clamps his mug and looks ugly when it is spoken of. He knows something about him, and was a good deal stampeded when he heard Ray was being wined and dined by him at Kansas City. But, be it understood, I don't think Ray has any suspicion of Stannard's objection to the man. And now, Jack, I'll wind up this rigmarole. It is long after taps, and the men are still at work packing. I've been interrupted time and again, and this is all incoherency. If you decide to join, let it not be said for an instant that the faintest urging came from us. Address your next to Russell. The colonel forbade my telegraphing you lest it might sound like a hint. My compliments to Mrs. Truscott, and tell her I saw her old friend Ranger off for the wars two nights ago; likewise that young imp of the devil,—the Kid. Tanner's old troop isn't what it was in his day.

"Yours always faithfully,
"Billings."

Long before he had finished reading she had bowed her head upon her hands, but there came no sound. At last he laid the letter down, and then bent over her.

"Grace,—darling!"

Slowly she lifted her eyes and looked up in his face. All the light, all the joy and gladness had fled. Her lips moved as though to question, but a hard, dry lump seemed to have formed in her throat; she could not speak. His strong hands trembled as they gently raised her from the lowly attitude in which she had been crouching at his knee. He would have drawn her to his breast again, but she put her little hands upon his shoulder and held herself back. Twice she essayed to speak before the words came,—

"Jack, God knows I have tried to be ready for this. But is there no way? I never thought to stand between you and your duty—your honor. I would not—I would not now if I were—all. Oh, Jack,—my husband, there—there is another reason."

CHAPTER V.

MARION SANFORD.

As a school-girl Marion Sanford started by being unpopular. On first acquaintance there were very few girls in Madame Reichard's excellent establishment who did not decide that she was cold and unsympathetic. Courteous, well-bred, self-possessed, she was to a fault, but—unpardonable sin in school-girl eyes—she shrank from those dear and delicious intimacies, those mushroom friendships of our tender years, that are as explosive as fire-crackers and as evanescent as the smoke thereof. The volumes of satire that have been written on the subject have exhausted the field and rendered new ideas out of the question, but they have in no wise diminished the impetuosity with which such friendships are daily, hourly entered into, and they never will. Ours is a tale which has little that is new and less that is didactic. Army life and army loves differ, after all, but little from those which one sees in every community. Human nature is the same the world over, despite our different tenets and traditions. Boys are as full of mischief and sure to get into scrapes as in the days of Elijah and the bears. Girls have had their sweet secrets and desperate intimacies with one another since long before Elijah was heard of. Nothing one can say is apt to put a stop to what the Almighty set in motion. Let us not rail at what we cannot correct, but make the best of it. Let us accept the truth. School-girls meet, take desperate and sudden fancies, swear eternal friendships, have eternal tiffs and squabbles, kiss and make up, fall out again, and as they grow in grace and wisdom they keep up the system, simply taking a new object every few months. It is one of their weaknesses by divine right, over which common sense has no more control than it has over most of ours.

But Marion Sanford had no such weakness. Being destitute of the longing for intimate and confidential intercourse with some equally romantic sister, she was spared the concomitant heartburnings, recriminations, and enmities. She passed her first year at the school without an intimate friend. She left it without an enemy. Hers was not the most brilliant mind in the class. She was not the valedictorian of the school on that eventful day when,

"Sweet girl-graduates with their shining hair,"

they listened in tears and white muslin to Madame's parting injunctions; but her last two years at the old pension had been very precious to her. Grace Pelham was her room-mate, and Grace Pelham's loving arms had opened to her when, motherless and heart-broken, Marion Sanford had returned from the second year's summer vacation. Between the two girls there had gradually grown a deep and faithful friendship, born of mutual respect and esteem. It would be saying too much to assert that at first there had been no differences. Four years at one school give opportunities which are illimitable, but the present writer knew neither of them in the bread-and-butter period, and was properly reproved by the one and snubbed by the other when, in the supposed superiority of his years and co-extensive views on the frangibility of feminine friendship, he had sought to raise the veil of the past and peer into the archives of those school-days. Partly from school-mates and partly from observation the author formed his opinion of what Marion Sanford had been as an undergraduate. What she became the candid reader must judge for ——self.

For a woman she was reticent to a marked degree in discussing the faults and foibles of others. She was slow to anger, loath to believe ill of a man or woman, truth-loving, sincere, and simple-hearted. She had not been the most studious girl at school. Deep down in her heart of hearts she had a vein of romance that made the heroes of fiction the idols of a vivid imagination. Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, Sir Galahad, Launcelot, William Wallace, Bayard, Philip Sidney, were men whom she fondly believed to have existed in other shapes and names time and again, and yet she was staggered in her faith because the annals of our matter-of-fact days told no such tales as those she loved of knighthood and chivalry. Once—once she had found a modern hero. Heaven only knows to what a wild worship would not that brief dream have expanded had she not seen him. He was the elder brother of one of her friends at school,—a navy officer,—a man who when his ship was cut down by a blundering Briton, and sent to the bottom with over a hundred gallant hearts high-beating because "homeward bound," he, the young ensign, gave his whole strength, his last conscious minute to getting the helpless into the lowered boats, and was the last man in the "sick-bay" before the stricken ship took her final plunge, carrying him into the vortex with a fevered boy in his strong young arms. Both were unconscious when hauled into safety, and that ensign, said Marion, was the man she would marry. She was less than sixteen and had never seen him. The nearest approach to a desperate intimacy she ever had was with that fellow's sister: a girl of hitherto faint attractions. At last the ensign came to the school,—such a day of excitement!—and as a great, a very great concession, Madame had permitted that he should be allowed in her presence to speak with his sister's most intimate friends. She was threatened with popularity for the time being, and Marion was presented. The hero of her four months' dream was a stoutly-built youth of twenty-five, with florid complexion and hair, and a manner so painfully shy and embarrassed that additional color was lent to his sun-blistered features. He had faced death without a tremor and, in the most matter-of-fact way in the world, had saved three lives at the imminent risk of his own, but he could not face these wide-eyed, worshipping school-girls, and was manifestly ill at ease in a very unbecoming civilian suit. Still, he wriggled through the interview and made his escape, leaving only a modified sensation behind. The fatal coup occurred next day when, as prearranged, he came to say farewell. This time Jack Tar had braced for the occasion, and was unexpectedly hilarious and demonstrative. In bidding good-by to his sister he had effusively embraced her, then turned suddenly upon Marion, and before she could dream of what was coming, had caught her in his arms and imprinted upon her fresh young lips a bacchanalian salute that left thereon a mingled essence of Angostura bitters, cloves, and tobacco, and drove her in dismay and confusion from the room to seek her own in a passion of angry tears and disenchantment. Never before in her life had she known such an affront. Never for long afterwards did she worship modern heroes.

But while she sought no intimacies, as a school-girl her friendship and affection for Grace Pelham strengthened with every week of their association. Their last two years at school were spent as room-mates, and then Marion had gone almost immediately abroad. Some hint has been conveyed to the reader of a domestic unpleasantness in the Sanford homestead. Sanford paterfamilias was a successful business man of large means and small sensibilities. His first wife, Marion's mother, was a New York beauty, a sweet, sensitive, refined, and delicate girl; in fine, "a sacrifice at the altar of Mammon." She married Mr. Sanford when she was eighteen and he thirty-eight, and she married him because the family necessities were such that she could not help herself. Marion was their first child, the darling of a young mother's heart, and later, the pride of a fond father's. Yet, before that daughter was eighteen she was called upon to welcome in the place of her idolized mother—who had died after some years of patient suffering—the children's governess. It marred all joys of graduation, so far as Miss Sanford was concerned. She had gone home in obedience to her conviction of filial duty, and had striven to make her little sister and her brother believe that the new mamma was all that she should be. She had been conscientiously earnest in her effort to like in her new rôle the ex-governess, whom she had found it impossible to believe in before. The effort was a failure, due quite as much to the jealous and suspicious nature of the lady of the house as to Miss Sanford's unconquerable prejudice. Pretences for rupture were easily found; the rupture came; Mrs. Sanford did all the talking, Miss Sanford said nothing. When her father came home from the city he found his new wife in tears and his daughter fled. The Frenchman who wrote les absents ont toujours tort was undoubtedly thinking of the field as left in possession of a woman, and that Mrs. Sanford's recital of the trouble was a finished calumny at Marion's expense we are spared the necessity of asserting. In her few words written to her father that day, Miss Sanford simply said that she was going to pay a brief visit to the Zabriskies; but in less than a fortnight, with his full consent and a liberal allowance, she went with them abroad. That his experiences in his new marital relations were not blissful we may conjecture from the fact that he soon found reason to believe that he couldn't believe Mrs. Sanford. Unbelief grew to conviction and developed into profound distrust. Still, as she not infrequently had to remind him, she was his lawfully wedded wife, and held the fort. He aged rapidly, and his struggles for the mastery were futile. She was young, active, healthy, and wise as the serpent. He mourned for his absent daughter, and when, yielding to her own yearnings, she returned to America in the spring of the Centennial year, he sent for her to come to him. She went, and remained as long as she could, but in leaving, she told him, with eyes that filled and lips that quivered but never shrank, that it was her last visit so long as her step-mother remained beneath the roof, and he broke down and sobbed like a little child, but sought not to dissuade her.

"Her mother's fortune," said the Mrs. Grundys of Fort Hays, was now her own; but her mother had no fortune, and if she had, it would have been shared by the two other children. In the old days her father had laughingly bought and set aside for Marion's own account some government bonds and some railway stocks; the latter at time of purchase being practically drugs on the market. In fifteen years they were at a heavy premium. When it came to parting, he had placed these bonds with all their unclipped coupons to her credit at his banker's, and she was mistress of a little fortune it seemed to her, which, added to the liberal allowance he insisted on keeping up, gave her far more than she could ever spend on herself even were her tastes extravagant.

She dressed richly; she would have nothing that was not of the best, but she was never wasteful. It had been her habit to keep accurate account of her expenditure, and to send her father a quarterly balance-sheet that was a delight to his pragmatical eyes. He would have doubled her allowance her last two years at school, but she would not agree to it. She was in deep mourning and in sore distress, and money was the one thing she had no use for. All the same he paid it to her account, as he termed it, and in due time the money became her own. She had loved him dearly despite his rough exterior and what she thought his lack of appreciation of her gentle mother. But when he married the governess before that second winter's snow had mantled the hallowed grave, her soul rebelled in indignation and dismay. For a year her heart had held out against him, and softened only when she saw that he was breaking under the self-imposed burden,—a shrewish second wife. However, Mrs. Sanford "held the fort," as has been said, and Marion, high-spirited, sensitive, refined, and loving, was entering on her twentieth year—without a home.

Was she pretty? Yes. More than pretty, said those who knew her best. She was simply lovely. But alas for those to whom disappointment is sure to come, she was a decided blonde.

A fairer, lovelier, whiter skin than Marion Sanford's was rarely seen; her complexion was wellnigh faultless, her eyes were large, clear, full of thought and truth and expression, and in tint a deep, deep blue, shaded, like Grace Truscott's, with curling lashes, not so long, but thick and sweeping; her hair was too dark, perhaps, for the purity of her blond complexion. It was a shining, wavy brown, very soft, thick, and luxuriant. She would be far more striking, said her commentators, had she real blond hair, but those who grew to know her well soon lost sight of the defect. Her mouth was a trifle large, but her teeth were perfect, and the lips so soft, so sweetly curved, that one readily forgave the deviation from the strict rule of facial unity when watching her frequent smiles. In stature she was perhaps below, as Grace was above, the medium height of womanhood, but her figure was exquisite. Her neck and arms were a soft and creamy white, and the perfection of roundness and grace. "She must lace fearfully," was the invariable comment of the sisterhood on first acquaintance. In truth, she did not lace at all. It was a fault beyond her control, but her waist was perhaps too small. Her hands and feet were not like Grace's, long and slender. They were tiny, but her hand was plump and white and might be compressible. It was undeniably pretty, and her foot was always so stylishly shod that its shape was outlined most attractively.

But what would have made Marion Sanford attractive had she been simply plain instead of pretty, was her manner. Cold and unsympathetic had been the original school-girl verdict pronounced because of her distaste for imparting confidences. This was amended in her second year, abandoned in her third, and would have been attacked, if asserted, in her fourth. Over no girl's departure was there such frantic lamentation among the younger scholars as over Marion's. They had learned to love her. To all who were her elders there was gentle deference, to her equals and associates a frank and cordial bearing without degeneration into "confidences." To younger girls and to children Marion Sanford was an angel, the sweetest, the gentlest, the kindest, the most winning girl that lived. No matter who was with her, no matter what her occupation, for them she had ever smiles and sunshiny greeting. It was to her the younger girls soon learned to go in homesickness or troubles, sure of welcome to her arms and comfort in her sympathy; it was to her that the wee toddlers were never afraid to run for "sweeties," or refuge from pursuing nurse-maids; it was to her that girls of younger sets, accustomed to being snubbed and put down by those two years older, would yield the outspoken homage of loyal subjects. She was Queen Marion to the youngsters of the school, brave, wise, and, oh! so generous; while to the chosen few in the class, who knew something of her love for the heroic, she was Maid Marion, but only "Maidie" to one, her loyal and faithful ally, Grace.

She was still abroad in the fall of '75 when that quiet wedding took place which she was vainly implored to attend as first bridesmaid. Three years had elapsed since her mother's death, but her heart was still in mourning. But early in the spring of the Centennial year, after a stormy passage, she was safely restored to her own land, and the evening after the arrival of their party Captain and Mrs. Truscott were dining with them at the Clarendon. There had been a brief, a very brief call from her father and step-mother, and then she accepted Grace's invitation to come to them at the Point. A slight illness of Mr. Sanford's made it necessary to abandon the visit at the time, as she was telegraphed for before she had been forty-eight hours at the Point. The month that followed settled the question as to future relations with Mrs. Sanford. She would meet her father whenever or wherever he wanted except under that roof; on that point she was adamant, and he neither could nor did blame her. And so it resulted that she was once more with Grace and the "Admirable Crichton," as she had been accustomed to allude to him in her letters for the past year; and up to the moment of his return from the city he was the only hero who had appeared to her eyes in that manufacturing centre where the article is supposed to be turned out at the rate of fifty a year. It never had occurred to her that men so particular about the cut of their uniform trousers, the set of a "blouse," or the nice adjustment of the hair could by any possibility develop heroic qualities, and yet Captain Truscott always looked as though he had stepped out of a band-box.

It was late when she went to her room this lovely night in June. It was true that she had one or two letters to write, but they were very brief. She longed to have Grace come to her and tell her the result of her interview with Jack, and she longed to know what that letter would say. Never for an instant had it occurred to her that at a moment's notice a home could be abandoned, a young wife left to mourn, a delightful station left to anybody who wanted the place, and all as an every-day incident of army life. That such things could be expected and demanded in the midst of a mortal struggle for national honor was another matter entirely,—something to be encountered once in a lifetime, and something to be cherished in family tradition as grand, patriotic, heroic, and worthy of keeping in remembrance from generation to generation; but that to do all this merely as a piece of duty because one's particular regiment happened to be setting forth on probably hazardous service, but of a trivial nature as compared with the interests involved in the only war she heard much talked of, why, she never dreamed of such a possibility, and her ideas were no more vague than are those of the general public on precisely the same subject.

Twelve o'clock struck from the great bell over at the tower, and still Grace and her husband remained below. It was time—high time to go to bed, said Miss Sanford, though still perplexed, anxious, and distressed. Grace would surely come to her as soon as matters were decided. She stepped to her window to take a good-night look at the moonlit plain. Drawing aside the curtain, she peered through the blinds. Standing in silence at the front gate, leaning on the iron fence and gazing fixedly in the direction of the library window which opened toward the north, there appeared the figure of a man. A moment he stood there motionless, attentive. Then, without a sound, he swung back the gate, and quickly and almost on tiptoe, it seemed to her, stepped up the walk, passed through a broad, moonlit space, and was as quickly lost to sight and hearing around the corner of the house. She recognized the form and bearing at a glance. The man was Sergeant Wolf.

CHAPTER VI.

AT THE FRONT.

Rare indeed is a day in June! Warmth and fragrance, sunshine and roses, strawberries, straw hats, summer costumes, music and moonlight, soft zephyrs, softer speeches, softest of swains have we left at the Point. Farewells—sweet, sad, sentimental some of them—have been said. The corps of cadets has gone to the Centennial with thousands of sight-seers from all over the nation. They hardly had dared hope for such an unaccustomed delight. They had not expected to go, but went. The nation flocks to Philadelphia, but out in the Northwest some hundreds of its defenders are flocking in another direction. Come with us and take another look at our old friends of the —th. They had expected to go, but didn't.

It is a rare, rare day in June, but where are the soft breezes, the sweet fragrance, the blossoms and the bliss of that month of months at the dear old Point? Rare indeed is the breeze, cloudless the sky, brilliant, beaming, magnificent, the sunshine, but not a leaf stirs in answering rustle to the wind. Far and near no patch of shade delights or tempts the eye. Look where you will,—look for miles and miles over boundless expanse of rolling upland, of ridge and ravine, of dip and "divide," of butte and swale, no speck of foliage, no vision is there of even isolated tree. The solid earth beneath our feet is carpeted with dense little bunches of buffalo-grass, juicy, life-giving, yet bleaching already of the faint hues of green that came peeping through the last snows left in May. Tiny wild flowers purple the surface near us, but blend into the colorless effect of the general distance. We stand on a wave of petrified ocean, tumbling in wild upheaval close at hand; stretching away to the east in a league-long level flat as the barn floor of tradition, and bare as the description.

Far to the east the prairie rolls up to the horizon wave after wave till none is seen beyond. Far to the north, bare and treeless, too, the same effect is maintained. Far to the south, across an intervening low-land one would call a valley elsewhere, the ground rises against the sky, until its monotonous gray-green meets the gray-blue of the southern heaven; but west of south, what have we here? The farthest wave of prairie surges, not against the naked sky, but against a cold gray range, whose peaks and turrets are seamed and sprinkled with glistening snow. Aye, there they stand, the monarchs of the Rockies; there through the short summer sunshine their lofty crests defy the melting rays and bear their plumage through the very dog-days, to greet and welcome the first, faint, timid snow-flakes of the early fall. There they gleam and glisten, no longer as we saw them from the Kansas plains, dim in the western distance, unapproachable, but close at hand, neighborly, sheltering, for we nestle under their very shoulders. Here, to the west, just behind us, no great day's walk away and seemingly far nearer, in jagged outline against the blue of heaven, are the guardians of the old transcontinental pass. Here, to the west, where you see the rugged spurs jutting out from the range, runs the old trail which the engineers have followed, and carried the Union Pacific to its greatest altitude between the oceans. Far out there among the buttes runs that climbing ridge, yet it seems so close, so neighborly with the foreshortening of that strange scenery, that one cannot realize that in its climb it carries the iron rails still two thousand feet farther aloft. For years we have read of the Rockies, and is this possible? Do you mean that here, with this expanse of level prairie before us, we are up among the clouds, so to speak,—far up on the very backbone of the continent, and that is why, instead of towering thousands of feet aloft in air, the great peaks—Long's and Hahn's and Pike's—seem so near us to the south'ard and no higher at all? Aye, call it prairie level if you will, for straight to the east it looks as flat as Illinois, but we are standing six thousand feet higher in air than the highest steeple in Chicago, and our prairie flat is but the long, long slope of mountain-side that begins in the Black Hills of Wyoming—back at Cheyenne Pass—and ends at the forks of the Platte down near Julesburg.

You say it must be up-hill to that ridge that meets the horizon at the east. Is it? Look over here to our left front, a little to the northeast. See that tiny lake surrounded by low, wooden buildings, and approached by the hard, beaten road from the distant town. A pleasure resort of some kind, judging from the streamers and bright flags about the place. It stands on a hill, does it not? and the hill has risen gradually from the west, but slopes abruptly again to the east and south to the general level. Did you ever see a lake on a hill before? How does the water get there? Springs? No. Mark that slender rivulet that runs from far up the ravine at the southwest; it crosses the prairie in the near distance, and then goes twisting and turning up that apparent slope until it reaches the little lake on the hill. The outlet, you say? Yes. From here it certainly looks so, but step forward a few hundred feet and look at the rivulet, and by all that's marvellous! the water is running up-hill.

So it certainly seems, but the explanation is simple. The prairie is not horizontal by any means. It is a gradual but decided slope to the east, and the top of the little hill two miles away is forty feet lower than the point on which you stand.

Then how deceptive is the distance! Across the level to the southeast lies the bustling frontier city. You wonder to see glistening dome and spire far out there under the very shadow of the Rockies. At least you would have wondered a decade ago in the Centennial year. You note the transparency of the atmosphere. Science has told you that at such an altitude the air is rarefied. There is no light haze to soften outlines and to lend enchantment to a distant view. Roof, spire, chimney, all stand out clear and hard, and the coal-smoke from the railway blots the landscape where it rises, yet is quickly scattered by the mountain breeze. Between you and the little town lies the prairie over which the stage road runs straight and hard as a pike until, nearing us, it begins to twist and turn among the foot-hills for a climb across the ridge into the valley of Lodge Pole Creek beyond. Lodge Pole indeed! The creek valley has not a stick of timber far as one can see it. Follow it to its source, two days' trot or tramp up towards Cheyenne Pass, and there you find them, as the Sioux did twenty years ago, before we bade them seek their lodge-poles farther north. How far is it to the prairie metropolis,—a mile and a half, you venture? My friend, were you an artillerist, and were you to sight a two-hundred-pounder to throw a shell into Cheyenne from where we stand, "setting your sights for three thousand yards,"—more than your mile and a half,—the shell would rip up the prairie turf somewhere down there where you see the road crossing that acequia. Cheyenne lies a good four miles away, and is a good deal bigger than you take it to be. But here to the south lies a strange diamond-shaped enclosure,—a queer arrangement of ugly brown wooden barns and sheds far out all by itself on the bare bosom of the prairie. That is called a frontier fort. It is not a fort. It never has been. Even tradition cannot be summoned to warrant the name. It was built after our great civil war, and named for one of the gallant generals who fell fighting in the Shenandoah Valley. It has neither stockade nor simplest defensive work. It is all it can do to stand up against a "Cheyenne zephyr," and a shot fired at one end of it would go clean through to the other without meeting anything sufficiently solid to deflect it from its course. It is a fort by courtesy, as some of our non-combatants are generals by brevet, and would be as valuable in time of defensive need. All around it, east, west, and north, sweeps the level prairie. South of its unenclosed limits there flows a rapid-running stream, down in whose barren valley are placed the long unsightly wooden stables, the big square corrals for quartermaster's stock, the huge stacks of hay and straw, and vast piles of cord-wood. Farther east along this tortuous stream, and on its left bank, too, midway between fort and city, is another big brown enclosure, in which are dozens of sheds and storehouses. It is a great supply depot for quartermaster's stores and ordnance, and over it, as over the fort, flutters the little patch of color which stamps the property as Uncle Sam's. For reasons that can soon be explained only small-sized flags are ever hoisted near Cheyenne. By noon of three hundred days a year, straight from the wild pass to the west, there comes sweeping down a gale that would snap the stoutest flag-staff into flinders, and that whips even a storm-flag threadbare in a few brief weeks.

But it is a rare June morning now, too early for the "zephyr," and nature beams and sparkles even over such bare landscape. The air is crisp, cool, invigorating. Far out on the slopes and side hills great herds of horses and mules are grazing, guarded by vigilant troopers, some alert in saddle, others prone upon the turf. Out along the road from town comes a train of white-covered wagons slowly crawling northward, with stores and supplies for the army up in the Indian country, and down here to our right front, covering the flat between fort and depot, blocked out in regular rows and groups, dotting the plain with gleaming canvas, is the camp of the —th regiment of cavalry. For the first time since the war of the rebellion two-thirds of its entire strength is massed under command of its senior officer.

Morning mounted drill is just over, and the two battalions, having unsaddled and turned the horses out to graze, are now busily occupied about the camp. The soft notes of the trumpet sounding "Officer's Call" has drawn to the colonel's tent a knot of tanned and athletic men in rough field uniform and bristling beards. Those who best know the —th will be quicker to recognize old friends in this guise than when in the glitter of parade uniform or the accurate and irreproachable evening dress of civilization. There is not a man in the group who is not quite at his ease in ball-room attire; most of them have held acquaintance time and again with the white tie and stiff "choker" of conventionality, but the average gallant of metropolitan circles would turn up his supercilious nostrils at the bare suggestion were he to see them now. The —th is in its element, however, for the order has come, and with the coming dawn it will be on the march for the Black Hills of Dakota, and the colonel has summoned the officers to his tent for some final instructions. It must be conceded that they look like business in their dark-blue flannel shirts, their "reinforced" riding-breeches, the substantial boots, and the field blouses and broad-brimmed campaign hats that Arizona suns and storms have long since robbed of gloss or freshness. The faces are strong and virile in almost every case. It is ten days since the razor has profaned a single chin, and very stubbly and ugly do they look, but long experience has taught them that the sooner the beard is allowed to sprout when actual campaigning is to be done the greater the eventual comfort. Occasionally some fellow draws off the rough leather gauntlet, and then the contrast between his blistered, wind-and-sun tanned face and the white hand is startling. Every man is girt with belt of stout make, and wears his revolver and hunting-knife,—the sabre is discarded by tacit consent,—its last appearance for many a long month. Some of the number, indeed, have taken the order to prepare for campaign work as a permit to doff the uniform entirely. Gruff old Stannard hates the blouse on general principles, and looks solid and "stocky" in his flannel shirt; not a vestige of "rank" can be found about him. Turner and old Wilkins, Crane and Hunter, are of his way of thinking, but others who preserve the military proprieties to the last are still garbed in the undress uniform coat. Perhaps they are thinking of the good-byes to be said in the garrison to-night. Less than twenty officers are there who report in answer to the signal, and, having saluted the colonel, dispose themselves on the few camp-stools or on the grass and wait for his remarks.

Some are old friends, and some old friends are absent. It is odd to think of the —th being here in force without Truscott, or Ray, or old Bucketts, the men we knew so well in Arizona. Colonel Pelham is, of course, not looked for: he is far too old to be in saddle on so hard a campaign as this promises to be. Truscott's troop is not yet here, but is under orders to remain in Kansas for the present, and he, we know, is far away at the Point. Ray, with one of the captains whom we have yet to meet, and with Mr. Gleason, is still detained on that horse board,—very reluctantly, too, fretting himself into a fever over it say some accounts, and other accounts say worse. Bucketts, as quartermaster, is behind at Hays gathering up the fragments that remain and shipping property to the new station. Captain Canker is here: he was East with his wife and little ones, vastly enjoying the surf at Cape May, when the telegram reached him saying that the —th were off for the wars again, and within twelve hours he was in pursuit. Four of the group now waiting around the colonel's tent came in just that way.

"Gentlemen," says the colonel, stepping quickly from the tent, "I called you here for a word or two. First, there will be forty new horses here at three this afternoon. They will be distributed according to color among the eight companies, five to each. See to it that they are shod first thing. There will be twenty in the next lot; they are to be left here for Webb and Truscott. Overhaul your ammunition and equipments at once, and if anything is lacking, you can draw from Cheyenne depot this afternoon. I presume those of you who are to take station at Russell will want to go over to see about your quarters, but my advice is that only those who have families make any selection: there will be some changes by the time we get back. We march at six in the morning, so have everything cleared up to-day. There will be no further drill. Those who have business to attend to in town or at the fort can leave camp without further permission. I shall remain here until we start, and one officer from each troop must be in camp, at stables, and during night. That's all, unless somebody has questions to ask." And the colonel looks inquiringly around.

Apparently nobody has, and the group breaks up. Some few of the older officers remained to talk over the prospects at the colonel's tent. Others went to the garrison to rejoin anxious wives and children, and to spend the last day with them in helping get things settled in the new army homes to which they had been so suddenly moved. A third party, "the youngsters," or junior officers, sauntered across the intervening stretch of prairie towards the low wooden building standing just north of the entrance-gate of the fort. In old army days 'twas known as "the sutler's." In modern parlance it is simply called "the store." The middle room of which, fitted up with a couple of old-fashioned billiard-tables, a huge coal stove, some rough benches, chairs, two or three round tables, and the inevitable bar and cigar-stand, bore on the portals the legend "officers'," as distinguished from the general "club-room" beyond.

Seated around the room in various attitudes of ennui and dejection were three or four infantry officers stationed at the post, while at one of the tables a trio of young lieutenants were killing time after morning drill in the fascination of "limited draw." Target practice, as now conducted, was then unknown, or there would have been no time to kill. The announcement languidly conveyed from the occupant of the window-seat, "A squad of the —th coming," produced neither sensation nor visible effect.

A minute more, however, and the door burst open, and in they came, half a dozen glowing, breezy, vigorous young cavalrymen, ruddy with health, elastic with open-air life and exercise, brimful of good spirits and cordiality, and headed by the declamatory Blake, who made a bee-line for the bar, shouting,—

"'An if a man did need a poison now,
Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.'

His name's Muldoon, and he's a fluid man. Step out, Muldoon. What'll ye have, fellers?" he asked, with the sudden transition from the sublime to the ridiculous, which was one of Blake's delights. "Name your respective pizens, gentlemen. Come, join us, ye gallants of mud-crushers. What, ho! Poker?" and with one stride he was at the table and peering over the hands: "No use, Sammy,—

'Two queens with but a single ace,
Two sharps that beat as one.'

That's no hand to tackle a one-card draw with. Never you mind whether he's bluffing or not. There ain't enough in that pot to warrant the expense of testing the question. Take another deal. What did you say, Muldoon? Whiskey? No! Throw whiskey to the dogs; I'll none of it. Give me foaming lager. That's right, my doughboy ancient. Didn't I tell you to take another hand? What says the inimitable Pope?—

'Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare,
And Sammy scoops us with a single pair.'"

"Good heavens! Blake. Give us a rest! Here, swallow your beer, or take something to choke you," laughed the victim at the table, while a chorus of groans saluted Blake's unconscionable parodies. "If you were to be here a week longer I vow I'd go mad. The best news I've heard in a year is that you're ordered to march in the morning. What quarters did you choose?"

"What difference does it make to you, Rags?" put in Mr. Dana. "You fellows will have the post to yourselves all summer, anyhow. We shan't get out so much as a chair until we come back from the campaign."

"Well, the married officers have chosen theirs, you know. Stannard's traps are all moved into No. 11, and they are pretty nearly settled already,—the carpets were all down yesterday. So they were at Turner's. Mrs. Whaling has been helping them unpack for the last three days, and telling everybody what they had and didn't have. I tell you what, fellows, we're going to have no end of a good time here this summer with your band and all the ladies while you're roughing it out on the Big Horn. Whaling says he'll bet a hat none of you get back before Thanksgiving."

"Is it so that Truscott comes here with his troop?" asked one of the captains of Lieutenant Crane.

"Well, the troop comes, but as to Truscott, that's another matter."

"I don't understand you, Crane," said Mr. Blake, with sudden change from his roystering manner. "I thought you heard Ray say that he knew Truscott would be after us as soon as it was settled that we would take the field."

"Ray knew no more about it than you do, Blake," was the impatient reply. "Ray has a fashion of being oracular where Truscott is concerned as though he were on intimate and confidential terms with him. Now I, for one, don't believe he had any authority whatever for saying what he did."

"Well, hold on here," said Blake, deliberately. "My recollection is that Ray only spoke of it as his conviction,—not that Truscott had told him anything; still, he was certain that Truscott would come, and that he would lose no time in getting relieved either. You know he is at the Point," he said, in explanation, to the silent infantryman.

"Well, I'm d——d if I can understand it in him," muttered Wilkins, as he buried his broad face in a beer-mug.

"No, Wilkins, I dare say you can't," was the drawling reply, and the sarcasm was not lost among the listeners, though it missed its effect on the stolid object. "Truscott, Ray, Heath, and Wayne, and Canker, are not the style of men to spend this summer, of all others, away from the regiment."

"Well, here we are, marching to-morrow, and where are your Ray and Truscott?" asked Wilkins, with as near an approach to a sneer as he dare venture.

Blake rose quickly from his chair, near where the trio still continued their game, though by this time far more interested in the tone of the talk than in "ten-cent ante." Dana and Hunter, too, were flushing and looking ill at ease.

"This is no time or place to be discussing regimental matters," said he; "but since the matter has come to it, I mean to give what I believe to be the general opinion as opposed to that of a limited few. Crane, Wilkins, you are the only men I have heard express any doubts as to Truscott's coming, or Ray's, for that matter. I've got just fifty dollars here to bet against your ten that if this regiment has any fighting to do this summer they'll both be in it."

"I'm not making bets on any such event, Blake, and I did not mean to intimate that they were not apt to come," said Crane, conscious that he had been incautious.

"Well, you then, Wilkins," said Blake, impulsively. "I want this thing clinched. It is the third or fourth time I've heard you half sneering about these two men. It's bad enough in the regiment, but you are talking now in a bar-room and among outsiders. By Jove! if there's no other way, I say stop it."

There was an embarrassed silence. This was a new trait in Blake, one of the most jovial, whole-souled, rattle-brained fellows imaginable ordinarily, but now he seemed transformed. For years the regiment had been serving by itself. Now for the first time it was thrown into contact with the comparative strangers of the infantry. These gentlemen, too, were ill at ease at the suppressed feeling in the conversation, but Wilkins was "mulish" at times, and he had a reserve.

"If you know Truscott's coming it ain't fair to bet," he muttered, sulkily; "but you'd better go slow on backing Ray; that's my advice, Blake, unless you've more money than you know what to do with."

"All the same, I stand by my bet. Do you take it?"

"Oh, dash your bet! Blake, I'm no betting man; but you'd better be certain what Ray's doing before you champion him so glibly. Perhaps I know more than you think."

Blake's face clouded a little.

"I don't like your hints, Wilkins. We all know, of course, that Ray has been wild and reckless many a time, but he is disbursing officer of that horse board; he is the man of all others on it to decide what they'll take and what they won't take. Buxton knows mighty little about horses and will vote as Ray does, so that leaves the responsibility with him. He never failed us yet, and, by gad! I don't believe he will now."

"All right! Blake, just you wait. All I've got to say is that if Ray wants to keep his skirts out of the mud he'd better quit the company of that fellow Rallston, and I hear he's with him day and night, and has done no little drinking and card-playing with him already. I don't say gambling, but there's those that do," continued Wilkins, hotly.

"More than that," he went on, after a pause. "When Wayne came through Kansas City, Gleason and Buxton were at the train to meet him, but they didn't know, they said, where Ray was. I heard he was at the hotel sick; been on a tear, I suppose."

"See here, Wilkins, unless you can prove it let up on this sort of talk. Ray told Stannard when he went on this detail that he would touch no card so long as he was disbursing officer, and that he'd let John Barleycorn alone. Now, do you know he has been on any spree?"

"No, I don't know it, Blake, and yet I'm certain of it just from past experience with him."

"By gad! you're as bad as old Backbite himself. Do you remember that time Chip of the artillery was walking down Nassau Street, and a steam-boiler or something burst under the sidewalk and broke his leg? The first thing old Backbite said when he heard of it was, 'H'm! been drinking, I suppose.' Now here's Billings with a despatch. What is it, bully rook?" he hailed, as the adjutant came bounding in.

"Truscott starts to-night, and the horse board will break up next week, so we'll have Jack and Ray with us inside of ten days."

"Precisely. Now, Wilkins, if you want a nice mud-bath for your head, there's an elegant spot back of the stables. Come on, Billings, I'm going to camp."

And with that he left, followed by all the cavalrymen but Wilkins and his associate Crane. The latter held the ground, and, as they were plainly the defeated parties in the argument so far, human nature demanded that Mr. Wilkins should set himself right in the eyes of the reluctant auditors, and so it happened that among the officers composing what might be termed the permanent garrison of the post the first impressions received of Mr. Ray were conveyed by a tongue as ill regulated as—other people's children.

CHAPTER VII.

WAR RUMORS.

The announcement that Captain Truscott had gone to Washington was received at the officers' mess with no little excitement. Questioned as to the meaning of it, the commandant of cadets unreservedly replied that Truscott would not risk failure, but, with the full permission of the superintendent, had gone to see the Secretary of War and get immediate orders to join his regiment. The —th was to take the field at once, said the colonel, and Truscott felt that it was his duty to go. Things looked very much as though there would be a stubborn and protracted Indian war, and undoubtedly the captain was right in his view of the matter. In this opinion there was general acquiescence among the staff and artillery officers present,—it is always safe to adhere to general principles which are not apt to be personal in their application, and the staff and artillery rarely were called upon to take part in such hostilities,—and Mr. Ferris being a cavalryman of spirit was quite disposed to think it the proper thing for him, too, to ask for orders, although the possibility of his regiment's being involved was indeed remote. One or two officers, however, maintained that the principle was bad as a precedent; that hereafter officers might feel it a reflection upon them if they did not immediately ask to be sent to their commands on the first rumor of hostilities, no matter how important might be the duties upon which they were detached. On this view of the case very little was said, but one or two gentlemen whose regiments were known to be marching on the Yellowstone country looked gratefully at the originator and nodded their heads appreciatively. It was mid June now, and except the fight with Crazy Horse's band on Patrick's Day and an unimportant brush with the Sioux on the head-waters of the Tongue River, nothing that could be called "hostilities" had really taken place. "The Indians will be surrounded and will surrender without a blow," said those who sought for reason to evade going; but no man who knew anything of Indian character or Indian methods believed that for an instant. Every experienced officer knew, and knew well, that a mortal struggle must come and come soon, and come it did.

But Jack Truscott needed no such spur to urge him on the path of duty. What it cost to cut loose from all that was so beautiful to him in his happy home no one ever knew. What it cost his brave young wife to let him go was never told. Barely half a year had they rejoiced together in their love-lit surroundings, the most envied couple at the Point,—and there is vast comfort in being envied,—and Grace Truscott had never for an instant dreamed that so rude an interruption could come; but come it had, with blinding, sudden force, that for a time stunned and wellnigh crushed her. Jack had lifted her in his strong arms and almost carried her to their room the night when he had to tell her of his determination, but, once satisfied that his duty was plain, she rallied, like the soldier's daughter she was, and spoke no word of repining. She looked up in his eyes and bade him go. True, she cherished faint hope that in Washington there would be attempt to dissuade him, for she had good reason to know that in the days whereof we write there were officials of the War Department who regarded Indian warfare on the frontier as a matter quite beneath their notice,—one which might of course concern the officers and men actually engaged, but that could be of small moment to the Army,—that is, the Army as known to society, as known to the press, and, 'tis to be feared, as understood by Congress,—the Army in its exclusive and somewhat supercilious existence at the National Capital. Colonel and Mrs. Pelham were there, and Jack would of course see them; and was it not possible that there would be officials of the highest authority who could convince him that his services were not needed at the front, but could not be dispensed with at the Point? Poor Grace! She little dreamed that for such a place as her husband held there were dozens of applicants, and that senators and representatives by the score had favorites and friends whom they were eager to urge for every Eastern detail; and then, even now she did not entirely know her Jack: so gentle, loving, caressing, as he was with her, she could hardly realize the inflexibility of his purpose. The interview with the Secretary of War was over in five minutes, and never had that functionary experienced such a surprise. He had received Captain Truscott's card and directed that he be admitted, vaguely remembering him as the tall cavalry officer whom he had seen at the Point on the first of the month, and whom, after the manner of his kind, he had begged "to let him know if there should ever be anything he could do for him in Washington," and now here he was, and had a favor to ask. The Secretary sighed and looked up drearily from his papers, but rose and shook hands with the young officer who entered, and blandly asked him to be seated. Captain Truscott, however, bowed his thanks, said that he had just left the adjutant-general, and had his full permission to present in person this note from the superintendent of the Academy, and his, the captain's, request to be immediately relieved from duty at West Point with orders to join his regiment, then en route to reinforce General Crook.

The Secretary mechanically took the note between his nerveless fingers, and simply stared at his visitor. At last he broke forth,—

"By the Eternal!" (and the administration was not Jacksonian either) "Captain Truscott. This beats anything in my experience. Since I've been in office every man who has called upon me has wanted orders for himself or somebody else to come East. Do you mean you want to go West and rejoin your regiment to do more of this Indian fighting?"

"Certainly, Mr. Secretary," was Truscott's half-amused reply.