"Why, colonel, you distinctly said they mustn't be herded over five hundred yards from camp. Of course if I'd been allowed to think I probably wouldn't have done it, but I sent mine down there accordingly. That's the only camp I see,—this is only a bivouac." And all Tintop could ejaculate in response was, "Well, may I be damned!"

These and a host of similar stories had come to Warren's ears in the course of the campaign, and he had laughed at them as had everybody else, for after all no man could say that actual harm had occurred as a result of Devers's experiments. So curiously are we constituted that when it is only the commander who is braved or his adjutant who is ruffled, the bulk of the line can bear it with equanimity. Therefore, while Tintop, Black Bill, Riggs, and his seniors generally could never refer to Devers except with sympathetic swear words, there were not a few of the officers junior in rank to his who found no little fun in all these incidents. Like most stories in or out of the army, they were perhaps exaggerative, but, like smoke, they could not exist without smouldering fire. If there were any speculation about Devers in the regiment, it was as to how he would behave if he ever did get into a fight, or what would happen in the event of his some day squirming out of an order on which vital issues depended. "You'll go too far yet, Devers," said a soldier who strove conscientiously to be his friend and counsellor, "and when you do, where will be the commander under whom you have ever served to say a good word for you?"

And now on this fatal September morning that ominous warning was ringing in his ears again and again. Down in the bottom of his brooding heart he knew, and well knew, that had he obeyed, as he should have obeyed, Warren's orders, this catastrophe could not have occurred, and that he more than any other man on earth was responsible for the death of these gallant fellows, who, whether they looked up to him or not, were by the stern discipline of the service dependent on him for the expected support. If he could realize this, how much the quicker would others be to attach the blame to him! how much the more necessary must it be to lose no time in diverting suspicion elsewhere! The fatal propensity to distort or disobey, which perhaps he could have downed had Tintop or Riggs been there, he could not resist with Warren,—an envied contemporary, presumably new to his idiosyncrasies. Nor would he, of course, even with him, have disobeyed could he have foreseen the fatal consequences. That would have been risking too much. But now that he had disobeyed, and in all probability would be held accountable for the catastrophe, his one road to safety and to acquittal lay in saddling all possible responsibility on some one else,—preferably Davies. This, if Davies were silent in death, would not be difficult. Whatsoever others might think or say, they could prove nothing. If, however, Davies turned up alive and alert, then matters might be grave indeed. No wonder he climbed again and again the westward bank and levelled his glasses at the dull-hued ridge against the brilliant westward sky, frequently giving vent to loud denunciation of the leaders in the mismanaged campaign. It was nearly ten o'clock before his dead were laid away,—before anything occurred that looked like discovery of the missing pair. Then came new excitement.

Far down toward the point where the distant spur seemed to sink to the general level of the prairie one or two of Warren's scouts could be seen rapidly spurring, as though in answer to signals. Presently they, too, began waving their hats to those searching higher up the ridge. Then all disappeared over on the westward side. Something evidently had been found, and Devers's men, their work completed, were grouped eagerly up the bank. Over half an hour in mingled hope and suspense they waited, and then there rode in a mounted messenger.

"The major's compliments to Captain Devers," he said, "and he'll wait for the captain and his troop over yonder. I'm to show the way."

"Have they found anything?" asked Devers.

"Yes, sir,—Mr. Davies; but he's more dead than alive. There is no sign of McGrath."

"Do you mean Mr. Davies is wounded?"

"No, sir. He seems just dazed-like."

"That's what I said all along," spoke the captain, loudly, so that it was heard by all the soldiers near at hand. "He never tried to rejoin his detachment. He never had any nerve. He probably saw what was going on and hid himself, never daring even to let us know. Damn these psalm-singing, Sunday-go-to-meeting soldiers anyhow! Here, Howard," he continued, turning to a young trooper who stood silently at his horse's head, "you come with me. Lead on, corporal. Sergeant Haney, mount the troop and follow." And with that the captain rode away.

For a moment, as the men were bringing up their horses and leading them into line, there was silence. Looking after the three horsemen now well out on the prairie to the west, the party saw that the messenger was riding some distance in advance, and that Howard, a recruit who joined with the detachment early in the campaign, was now side by side and evidently in conversation with the captain. It had been a summer of campaigning in which not only the nicer distinctions as between officer and man—not only all symbols of rank and uniform—had gradually disappeared, but with them, little by little, some of the first principles of good order and military discipline. Officers had been heard openly condemning or covertly sneering at the seniors in command. It was not strange that the rank and file should fall into similar ways.

"Never had any nerve, is it?" muttered Private Dooley, after a moment. "Boy and man I've soldiered in this regiment longer than you, Captain Differs, and I know an officer and a gentleman when I see wan, and it's the public opinion av more than wan private that there's more av both in that young feller's starvin' stummick than in your whole damn overfed, bow-legged carcass. How's that, Brannan?" said he, turning to his next neighbor, a wan, sad-faced recruit.

"Shut up there, Dooley!" ordered Sergeant Haney, briefly. "No more of that! Count fours."



CHAPTER X.

So far as the Eleventh and one or two other regiments were concerned, that summer's campaign, so fraught with incident and tribulation, was now at an end. It would take weeks and months of care to restore their horses to serviceable condition. Others were ordered up to replace the worn-out command, and while an indomitable general pushed fresh columns into the field to track the savages to their winter lairs, the ragged troopers—for all the world like so many beggars a horseback, so many mounted scarecrows—were ordered in to the big garrisons near the supply depots to refit, recuperate, and restore to discipline. Some, officers and men both, had been sent ahead, too weak or ill to remain in the field, and among these, consigned to the tender care of the post surgeon of Fort Cameron, was Lieutenant Davies, over whose condition the doctors shook their heads. Brain fever was the malady, but his system was so reduced by starvation and exposure that even a moderate fever would have been most serious. Not until he had been gone nearly a month did the regiment follow, and then, scattered in detachments to various posts, became busily occupied in the work of rehabilitation. Cameron was a big new frontier fort with few accommodations, over-crowded, too; yet, being the nearest to the field of action, thither had Captain Wilbur Cranston gone just as soon as he was convalescent and able to move. Thither with him went his devoted wife and her devoted cousin and companion, Miss Loomis, for whose reception the subalterns of the infantry guard promptly gave up their frame quarters and moved into tents, and Cranston was there on light duty in charge of the big corral of remount horses when Davies was bundled in and established under Cranston's roof. There, carefully treated by Dr. Glover and regularly visited, often tenderly nursed, by Mrs. Cranston and her friend, the naturally strong constitution of the young officer triumphed and he began slowly to mend. Meantime, as is or was the way, it fell to the lot of the gentle and sympathetic army wives or maidens at the post to keep the distant mother informed of her boy's slow progress toward recovery, and presently to answer the importunate letters of another. Mrs. Cranston, a shrewd observer, could not fail to note that as soon as her patient was allowed to read at all it was his mother's letters, not the great packet in Miss Quimby's unformed hand, that he eagerly opened. Then when at last he did begin these latter the steady progress of his convalescence was impaired. He became again feverish, restless, and depressed. Too ill and weak as yet to write for himself, he read with grateful eyes his mother's allusions to the kind and sympathetic missives sent her by Mrs. Cranston, and occasionally, as happened, by Miss Loomis. Gladly, too, did he avail himself of their services in reply. But when it became necessary presently to answer those of his fiancee, there might have been embarrassment but for Mrs. Cranston's tact. She had begun to feel a strong interest in and respect for her patient. So, too, had her husband, who came daily to sit by his bedside, but who avoided, as much as possible, all reference to the closing days of the campaign.

As yet the young officer had not been told of McGrath's disappearance, and had not been encouraged to tell of his own experience. Indeed, there was very little he could tell, but his story was frankly imparted to his friend and comrade, Captain Cranston. Much seemed to be a total blank. He spoke with a shudder of his last look at poor Mullen and Phillips, and at the pale, drawn faces of Captain Devers and the troop,—of another backward glance from near the top of the ridge, then of their losing sight of Devers and his men, and pushing on to the deeper gloom of the east valley. It was then too dark to see, and for half an hour he and McGrath, weary and heart-sick, had scouted northeastward in search of his party. They had seen some flashes as they began the descent and rode in their direction, believing them to be signals, but soon all was darkness, all silence, but for the sigh of the night wind. Conscious of growing faintness, he suggested firing a shot or two as signals, and McGrath obeyed. Then off to the southeast, far from the point where they had seen the first flashes, the shots were answered and distant yells were heard. McGrath considered this ominous, and asked him to wait in a little ravine while he reconnoitred. In ten minutes two or three shots rang out in the direction taken by the sergeant, and presently back he came fast as a staggering horse could bear him, crying, "Indians! Indians everywhere!" It was all up with Davies's party, and their only hope was to hasten back to find the command; but the Indians came in chase, and though they plied spur, their poor horses seemed too weak for speed. How far they got he never knew, but remembered a sudden plunge, his horse's going down, rolling all over him, and nothing more.

"When you parted from Devers," asked Cranston one day, "how far was he from the top of the ridge?—how far to the west?"

And Davies answered, "At least two and a half or three miles."

Over this did Cranston ponder long. It ill accorded with what they wrote him from the front as Devers's story.

"You write to Mr. Davies's mother, Agatha," Mrs. Cranston had said. "I haven't time for both, but I'll take care of Miss Quimby." Just what might be the tone and tenor of that young lady's letters to her prostrate lover Mrs. Cranston could not positively say, as no one saw them but himself, but she was ready to hazard a something more than mere conjecture when Miss Quimby took to writing to her as well. As was her wont when moved, Mrs. Margaret unbosomed herself to her lord. "I've no patience with the girl," she said. "She'll worry him to death. If she writes such silly, romantic trash to me, what mustn't she be saying to him? What on earth can he ever have seen in her?"

Now, that's just one thing no woman can find out,—what a man can see to admire in one in whom she sees nothing. It didn't help matters that Cranston, in his conservative, whimsical way, should counsel silence and patience. What woman can be silent under strong provocation? What woman can patiently abide the personal application of a general rule?

"I don't suppose there ever was a match yet of which some woman didn't say she couldn't see what he saw," said Cranston, deprecatingly; and then, with one of his whimsical grins, began to add, "Let's see, wasn't it Kitty Benton who said, when she heard of our engagement, that she——" But he got no further in face of his wife's impetuous outbreak:

"That's simply hateful in you, Wilbur, and you know it as well as I do. She knew me only slightly, for we were not in the same set at school at all——"

"Well,—still, didn't she know you rather better than you do Miss Quimby, whom you never saw at all?"

"I don't care. I know what she's like," answered Mrs. Meg, with flushing cheeks. And that was really before poor Almira's first letter came, and if Mrs. Cranston thought she was right before, she knew it when she read now.

The closing paragraph of a long, almost incoherent missive must suffice. Even Cranston's lips twitched under the heavy thatch of his moustache as he listened. Even we, who like Mrs. Cranston, must admit it wasn't quite kind in her, no matter how natural, to read it afterward to Agatha Loomis, who, although declining to read, did not quite decline to hear at least a line or two.

"If you knew how I suffered—what tortures of anxiety, what nights of sleeplessness and woe, tossing on fevered pillow, tortured with visions of my beloved nobly fallen on the field of battle and pining for the touch of this hand—you would indeed pity me; but my father is inflexible. He refuses his daughter the poor boon of flying to the stricken lover's side,—her husband that is to be. In vain have I pointed out that I ask no sweeter bliss than to share my Percy's lot, for weal or woe, to live in the humblest cot, a tent, a hovel even, with only a crust,—it meets only his scornful refusal. When my arms are eagerly outstretched to enfold my soldier hero, I have to be content with nursing day and night his afflicted mother, whom for his sake I love as I would my own, had she not been taken from me years ago when I was but an unsophisticated child. When I think of you privileged to sit by his delirious bedside, cooling his fevered brow, I envy you as I never thought to envy any woman on earth since, long years ago, my Percy blessed me with his love; and now if after all he should be taken, or if some proud lady should win him from his simple little village maid, there would be no refuge for me but the grave."

"Now," said Mrs. Cranston, "something besides the bedside is delirious in that case. No wonder the poor fellow is picking up so slowly."

"Well, wait a little," responded her conservative lord and master. "Seems to me a man ought to rejoice in knowing that the arms of lovely woman are outstretched in eagerness to enfold him. Now, if I were he——"

"Yes, if you were he I've no doubt you'd be off to Urbana by first train; but this young man has some sense in his head" (here Cranston began to finger his own skull tentatively), "and in losing his freedom hasn't entirely parted with his wits."

"Was that—my predicament?" asked Cranston, looking plaintively up.

"Well, at least I have to do your thinking for you, and what you have to do is help him here. Have you had any talk with him about—about what Captain Truman and Mr. Gray wrote?"

"Certainly not, Meg," answered Cranston, becoming grave at once, "and I do not mean to until he is well enough to hear it."

"Well, the more I know of him the more I know it's utterly untrue. Hasn't anything been heard yet of Sergeant McGrath?"

"Not a word. Even friendly Indians say they haven't an idea what could have become of him." And Cranston's face was both anxious and troubled.

The matter was indeed one to give him deep concern. The massacre of the little detachment from Warren's battalion late in September—all of them members of Devers's troop—had brought down sharp and deserved criticism, and there was every prospect that the matter would be officially investigated just as soon as the department commander could turn his attention from the rounding up of the hostile band still at large. Meantime, between Warren and his senior troop commander, Captain Devers, strained relations existed,—the former holding to the theory that the responsibility for the disaster lay with Devers and no one else, the latter volubly, plausibly, incessantly protesting against the imputation as utterly unjust, indeed, as utterly outrageous, and moving heaven and earth to unload the entire blame on the shoulders of the absent and defenceless.

Now, as a rule this is an easy matter, almost as easy in the army as out of it, and had his accuser been any other captain in the entire field column, poor Davies might indeed have been prejudged; but with Devers it was different. His idiosyncrasies were notorious. His whole mental and moral fabric was one of antagonism to his fellows in general and his seniors in particular. It was said, and generally said, of him that the mere fact that everybody liked or respected a man was enough to set Devers dead against him. The fact that Mr. Davies had thrown up his graduating leave and sought instant service in the field as a result of the tragedies of the early days of the campaign had won him instantly the interest and good will of officers and men throughout the entire command. He started well, so to speak, and his quiet, reticent, observant, but unobtrusive ways favorably impressed his regimental comrades and led to many a commendatory remark from veteran officers. But there was universal comment, half humorous, half commiserating, upon his assignment to Devers's troop, and Devers knew it. He treated the young man with cool civility at first, but became speedily captious and irritating, rebuking him openly in the presence and hearing of other officers and of enlisted men for matters for which he was not justly blamable. Old Winthrop spoke to Devers about it one day, and spoke seriously. "You'll disgust that young gentleman with the service if you're not careful, Devers," said he, "and be the means of depriving us of a good officer."

"That's just where I'm compelled to differ with you, colonel," was the response, and it was this propensity for differing that had led to his sobriquet. "I've had constant and daily opportunity of observing him, and he's mistaken his vocation. That young man should be a missionary or a Sunday-school superintendent. He's too pious for Indian fighting, which is the only thing expected of us."

But for weeks after there was no Indian fighting. What had become of the swarms of red warriors that had swooped upon the front, flank, and rear earlier in the campaign no one could say. Their trails led all over the northwest, and the pursuing column pushed on night and day in dust and sun-glare, in mud and rain, in pelting hail-storm and darkness, and never once until late in the autumn could they again come within striking distance. By that time the jaunty riders of the early spring-tide were worn to skeletons; the mettlesome horses—those that were left—barely able to stagger through weakness, exhaustion, and starvation. Then like prairie wolves the warriors closed once more about the jaded flanks, waiting, watching every chance of picking off the stragglers. Just one day did Differs's troop get under fire,—a long way from under, said satirical subalterns of a command that sustained some losses,—but so scientifically did the captain handle his men that not a trooper or horse was scratched. Mr. Davies on this occasion commanded a platoon, dismounted on the skirmish line. It was his first affair, and he kept his appropriate thirty paces in rear of his dispersed men to watch and direct their fire, expecting that the enemy would charge or attack or do something, he didn't know just what. He simply behaved as he had been taught at skirmish drill at the Point,—was ready to do his full duty, but having no experience in Indian battle, thought it his business to wait orders, which was precisely what Differs had told him to do, until attacked. All the same, when others twitted Devers on the fact that his troop "didn't seem to get in," that officer did not hesitate to respond that they'd have to settle that with their admiration, Mr. Davies, who was commanding the fighting line, but probably wasn't done saying his prayers. There was a lively, rattling skirmish next morning between the rear-guard and the Indians, and at one time things looked as though the thinned battalion of their comrades of the —th might be cut off, and some of Devers's regiment thought the rearmost troops ought to be deployed in support of the fellows who were fighting off the warriors, who came charging after them over wave after wave of prairie. But Devers couldn't see it in that light. He was bringing up the rear of his own regiment. Indeed, not until the fatal day of their debouchement from the Bad Lands and sighting the broad valley of the Ska had Devers's men felt the sting of Indian lead, and then he was not with them.

And now while the worn and ragged commands lay basking day after day in the warm October sunshine at Camp Recovery, and men for the time had nothing to do but eat and sleep and discuss the events of the late campaign, the Eleventh was in turmoil over the tragedy of Antelope Springs.

When Davies was finally found that morning by Warren's scouts, he was lying in a depression of the prairie at least a mile to the west of the point where that long—that fatally long—curtaining ridge sank into the general level of the valley, and therefore full four and a half or five miles away from the point where his little detachment had died fighting, and very nearly two miles south, or west of south, of the point where he and McGrath had last been seen by their comrades,—just at dusk,—just at what looked to be the comb or crest of the ridge from the point where Devers had halted his troop and made the dramatic display of his dead. But what looked to be the crest from the west was in point of fact not the crest at all. Invisible to the halted command, there lay still farther over to the eastward, where the spur seemed to broaden considerably, a wave that overtopped the westward edge by a dozen feet or more. Supposing from Devers's account that the trail of his command could be found distinctly marked along the westward slope and close under the crest, Warren was searching there with his scouts when attracted by the signals two miles to the south announcing probably important discoveries. He had found some Indian pony tracks, also those of one shod horse, but dropped everything else to go at once in answer to the signals. Then they had borne the unconscious officer southeastward toward the clump of trees at the Springs, placed him in the ambulance, and then came a courier from the general himself directing Major Warren to report to him in person at Birchwood, thirty miles away, and the major went, the ambulance following. And so, to his unspeakable relief, Captain Devers was left once more the senior officer on the ground to continue the search for McGrath, and in the conduct of this he took excellent care that only himself and one or two of his chosen should search any portion of the prairie that might involve running over the trail west of the ravine which he had made the previous day. The scouts and searching parties were kept in the valley and in the timber along the river, not on the back track. That search Devers conducted in person, and made a rough topographical sketch of the neighborhood as it appeared in his eyes and as he wished it to appear in those of others. Just before dusk, sounding the rally far up the spur, he rode to the point where his two hunters had met their fate, and there assembled his men, gathering some fifty troopers, and thence led them in column of twos southward close under the spur and well to the east of the ravine which on the previous day had partially caused his wide departure from the line of direction indicated to him by the major. It was therefore very late, and his men were very tired,—much too tired to sit up and talk,—when they got to camp.

Pursuing its homeward march, the main column under the general commanding had gone on through the wild hill country, and not until nearly a month had elapsed was the scene of the tragedy revisited. The officer who went thither with an escort, and Captain Devers and Corporal Finucane and Troopers Boyd and Howard, had had pointed out to him the scene of the massacre itself, then, far up the spur, the spot where Mullen and Phillips were shot, and from thence the trail of Davies's little squad as it marched away on its fatal errand toward the Springs, and the trails of the various parties. Off to the southwest went Truman in chase of the murderers,—off after Truman went Calvert and the invalid corps,—off straight to the south—to the river—along the westward side of the ridge, far to the east of the ravine and close under the crest, went another; that, he was assured, was the trail made by Captain Devers. Many of these trails, said the officer's report, were now dim and nearly effaced, "but there can be no mistaking that of Captain Devers along the spur,—it is quite sharp and clear. It isn't more than five hundred yards from the point where Mr. Davies and Sergeant McGrath had disappeared over the ridge to the nearest point on the trail, where—while Captain Devers couldn't be sure—his troopers are positive Mr. Davies had left to return to his men, and where they are also positive the captain had again enjoined upon him the necessity of vigilance, and reminded him that as it was growing dark he could no longer see, and must therefore depend upon his lieutenant to keep him informed of what was going on over on that side, as under his new orders he, Captain Devers, must now go on and bury his dead. Mr. Davies and his sergeant must have seen the attack just as soon as they got back across the ridge, but what they did and why they had not instantly warned their captain remains a mystery. At all events it would seem that Captain Devers," so concluded the report, "had conscientiously carried out his instructions, though he might perhaps, if unburdened with his dead, have kept higher up towards the crest, and should perhaps have detached a couple of flankers to keep communication, and so relied less on Lieutenant Davies, who was at least inexperienced in frontier warfare." The officer could not understand how it was that in broad daylight Major Warren when searching had failed to see Devers's trail. It certainly was there. And so the old, old story was told again. The absent it was who had to take care of himself, and Devers was inferentially "whitewashed" and Davies held to explain, when convalescent, and McGrath to substantiate his statement if McGrath ever again turned up on earth. Otherwise there could be no substantiation until the judgment day. Now, McGrath, lost in the thick of an Indian fight, was as apt to be found alive, or found at all, as a pin in a mill-pond. Davies, broken by the campaign and sore smitten with brain fever, had but one chance in a hundred of recovery. All things considered, therefore, it may be conceded that Captain Devers was a very gifted man.

But Devers wasn't the first man, or the last, to count on another fellow's death or disappearance to cloak his own crime. It gave him a queer turn to hear that Cranston and his wife and niece had undertaken the building up of the absent patient. He hated Cranston,—his junior as an officer, but infinitely his superior as a soldier. He feared him when word came out to the homeward marching command that Cranston said Davies was on the mend and would soon be on the war-path. But he drew another long breath of relief when there reached them the news that General Sheridan himself had telegraphed directing Davies to hasten home, that his mother was dying. When next that young officer appeared upon the scene and reported for duty, it was in midwinter at Fort Scott, a big, brilliant, sunshiny post, the head-quarters of an infantry regiment, the station of a cavalry battalion, whose major, Warren, had gone on long leave abroad, whose senior captain, Devers, was its commander pro tempore, whose other captains, Cranston, Truman, and Hay, were present for duty; so were most of their subalterns, so were most of the infantry officers, so were the wives and families of nine-tenths of the array, for it was a much-married garrison, and there was not a little talk and speculation when it was announced that Lieutenant Davies would come accompanied by his bride.



CHAPTER XI.

"The main objection to Fort Scott," said Winthrop, when one of his battalions was finally ordered thither, "is that it's too fashionable for my taste. What this regiment needs now is more drill and less dinners." He loved to be epigrammatic. The head-quarters, staff, band, and six troops had taken station at a big frontier post, two other troops went with the lieutenant-colonel to a second post, so that that officer could have a command, and two more with the senior major, but the Interior Department had moved some thousands of the lately hostile Indians down close to the line of the railway, where they could be more readily fed and cared for. Great thereat was the alarm of the settlers, and great the protest of the cattlemen, whose steers now roamed all over the prairies within tempting distance of the restless young braves across the reservation line. Scott was not a cavalry post at all. It had no suitable stables, and only infantry ordinarily had been stationed there since the completion of the railway, and thither Devers had been sent when the final dissolution of the field column took place, and no one of the field officers wanted him in his command, and he preferred to be as usual,—alone. But then came the move of the Indians and the cry of inadequate protection. Tintop had to part with two of his pet companies—Cranston's and Hay's—at the reluctant orders from department head-quarters. Still a fourth had to be sent, and Truman was taken from the lieutenant-colonel and Major Warren despatched from head-quarters to Scott as commander of this cavalry battalion or squadron at the very moment when he was clinching his arrangements for long leave of absence. He went, commanded a month, but persisted in his application. Long years of service entitled him to the indulgence and it was granted, but neither the lieutenant-colonel nor senior major would consent to give up the command of a post to go to Scott as a subordinate to old Colonel Peleg Stone, an infantry veteran of many a war, both in garrison and in the field. A shout of merriment was heard in the camp of the cavalry when the original orders were read distributing the troops to stations. "Old Pegleg's got his match at last," was the comment of the knowing ones. "He can't worry Devers half as much as Devers will worry him." Scott was the innermost and easternmost of all the stations to which the three regiments of cavalry were distributed. The big, bustling, growing cattle town of Braska lay but a few miles away. Thriving and populous ranches surrounded the post on every side, replacing the buffalo, antelope, and deer of the decade gone by with countless herds of horned cattle. Braska sported a theatre, an assembly-room, restaurants, concert-halls and banks—of all kinds. It had the unhallowed features of the average frontier metropolis and some of the more agreeable traits of an Eastern city. It contained a very large number of abandoned characters who were not all half as bad as they were painted, and quite an array of citizens of high repute who were not all as good as they looked. As between bad morals and bad manners, society seems to find it easier to forgive the former, and most of the Eastern men who had come West to embark in business had charming manners and were welcome visitors at the fort, welcome companions at every party, picnic, and dance, most hospitable entertainers in their turn when the fort people went to town. During the long battle summer Fort Scott was garrisoned by Colonel "Pegleg," the chaplain, the doctors, the adjutant and quartermaster, the band, one company of his reliable old corps, the Fortieth Foot, and the wives and children of pretty much all the rest of the regiment. Famous campaigners were they of the Fortieth. They hadn't missed a chance, winter or summer, for ten long years. They had tramped, scouted, picketed, escorted, explored, surveyed, fought and bled all over the great Northwest, some of the officers being so incessantly abroad as to find themselves quite ill at ease at home, many of their ladies declaring it a difficult matter to know their lords on the rare occasions of their return, some few, indeed, being accused of having forgotten them entirely in their absence. These were days the army little knew before and will never know again,—the decade that followed the war of the rebellion. Too old to take the field himself, the veteran colonel at least could take his ease at home, and was quite placid and content when he had the band to play for him, one company to guard and "police" the post, and a host of women and children, bereft of their natural protectors, fluttering about him. When all his companies were home he had to spend hours at his desk overhauling ration and post and forage returns, and as he was essentially a "red-tape" soldier,—one who knew the regulations and recognized nothing else,—he made in busier times his own life and those of his officers something of a burden. The summer had been lovely at Scott. Thrice a week on sunshiny afternoons the band played in its kiosk, and the gallants from town or the neighboring ranches drove in with their stylish "turnouts" and called on the ladies at the fort or took them driving over the hard prairie roads, or danced with them on the waxed floor of the airy assembly-room. "Really," said some of the ladies, "if it hadn't been for our friends from town and the ranches I don't know what we should have done." What some of them—ay, many of them—did was to gather their little broods about them morn and night and pray to the Father in heaven for the life and safety of the father in the field,—to lead pure and patient and faithful lives, striving to keep their little house in order against his coming, to teach his children to honor and love his name, to guard that name from any and every possibility of reproach. What others did was to accept most liberally the parting injunction, "not to mope, but try to have a good time and be brave and cheerful," while the soldier went his way. From this it was an easy step to accept as liberally the proffered attention of the gentlemen with the charming manners from Braska and Braska County. It was a gay post, a fashionable post, a frivolous post, for the tone of garrison life depends immeasurably upon its social leader, the wife of the commanding officer, and Mrs. Stone was but little older than her husband's daughters. The latter were East at school or visiting their own mother's relatives. The former had been a belle at home and was glad to continue her belledom on the plains. There were times when Mrs. Stone and the colonel lent the countenance of their presence to charming little dinners and lunches, or after theatre to suppers at the leading restaurant in town. There were times when some of the ladies accepted refreshment there without such official accompaniment. "Really, one had to drive very frequently to Braska even if there was no actual shopping, for there was nowhere else to go," was an oft-heard remark at Scott that summer. But breathes there a woman who cannot find excuse for shopping? And shopping was hungry work and the drive was long, the air keen, bracing, appetizing. What more natural than that Mr. Courtenay and Mr. Fowler of the bank, Mr. Willett or Mr. Burtis of the Cattle Club,—such charming dancers these,—should sometimes, indeed frequently, suggest just a little bite, just a hot bird and a cold bottle at Cresswell's? Such delicious salads as he could concoct out of even canned shrimp or lobster, such capital oysters as came to him, fresh, three times a week from Baltimore, such delicious champagne, so carefully iced. What possible harm could there be in Mrs. Flight and Mrs. Darling and Mrs. Watson's going together, mind you, and lunching with their friends? "Why, the ladies at Fort Russell all do the same thing every time they go to Cheyenne!" said Mrs. Flight, when taken to task about it. "When I was up there visiting Fanny Turner last month we thought nothing of it!" All the same Mrs. Wright and Mrs. Leonard and others of their standard not only wouldn't go driving alone with the gentlemen from town, but declined to go to Cresswell's with anybody. And Mrs. Wright's bonny face flushed and her eyes flashed when she said why. As to what the ladies of the —th did out at Russell, that was not her business. "Nevertheless," said Mrs. Wright, "I'll warrant you that Mrs. Stannard, or Mrs. Freeman, or Mrs. Truscott did nothing of the kind, and I don't care what Mrs. Flight says or Mrs. Turner does."

And then the whole regiment came flocking home, and there was joy and gladness unspeakable in many a little army household and some modification thereof in others, and presently Devers and his troop arrived after a long, long march, and Devers began giving "Pegleg" something more to think about. The resources of the quartermaster's department were insufficient to fill that ambitious dragoon's requisitions. There wasn't anything he didn't want for his men, his horses, or himself, and the next thing Pegleg knew he was involved just as he was told he would be in a voluminous warfare with the troop commander, and was minded of a saying attributed to the wag of the —th Cavalry, a certain Lieutenant Blake, who knew Devers well and shared the universal opinion of him. An officer had talked of challenging Devers in by-gone days when vestiges of the code still lingered, but Blake scouted the idea. "The only pistol he can fight with is the epistle," said Blake. So Blake was another detestation of Devers, and doubtless for good reason. He was forever getting a laugh on the captain when they happened to come together, and, contentious and critical as he was, the big dragoon couldn't abide being laughed at. Somebody once referred to Devers as reminding her of a Hercules on horseback, which prompted Blake to respond, "Hercules! yes, by Jove, of the Farnese variety," whereat there was a guffaw among the men present who knew anything of art, and a general titter on every hand, for no one was ignorant of Devers's wide physical departure from artistic lines. But Tom Hollis and others of his ilk only caught the "far knees" part of it, which, however, was quite enough. Blake would have been a comfort to old Stone this breezy, wintry December, but in default of native wit to aid him wrestle with his acute antagonist, the colonel begged that if only one more cavalryman should be sent to the post in response to the new outcry for protection, he should come in the shape of a field officer to straighten out Devers. "He's got," said he, "too damn much individuality for me."

And not only had more cavalry come, but the major had come and gone. If anything, said Stone, Devers was more unbearable than before, as he now had over two hundred men to represent instead of a little more than fifty. Fort Scott was in the height of the holiday festivities, Captain and Mrs. Cranston with Miss Loomis and the boys were just settling into the new quarters when Lieutenant and Mrs. Davies were announced as en route to join.

And now arose a serious question. Who was to receive and entertain the new-comers until they were able to furnish and move into their own quarters? If any one, his own captain should be the first to tender hospitality, but Captain Devers made no move whatsoever. He had a large and interesting family of his own, which was sufficient excuse. There were now two classmates of Davies at the post, both in the Fortieth, but they were youngsters, only a few months in service, who roomed together in the upper story of old Number Three, and lived at the bachelor mess, which comprised the contract doctor, the sutler's clerk, and certain of the quartermaster's employes. The boys would give "Dad" the best they had and gladly, but they hadn't anything. Even the iron bunks on which they slept were borrowed from the hospital. "How can a fellow invite a bride to occupy his one room when he don't own C. and G. E. enough to furnish a hen-coop?" And by C. and G. E., the army abbreviation for camp and garrison equipage, the youngster meant to imply that he had no furniture beyond a camp-chair and a trunk. Cranston himself would gladly have taken them in but for two reasons,—he had not a vacant room under his roof, and Margaret did not seem to wish it. It must be confessed that there had been an outburst heard only by him—confided only to him—when Mrs. Cranston received, a few weeks after the letter which sadly told of Davies's mother's death, the brief and possibly constrained note from her late patient announcing his approaching marriage to Miss Quimby, who he said had been utterly devoted to poor mother during her declining days and those of her brief but painful illness. Margaret could not bear to speak of it to Miss Loomis. It was Agatha herself who calmly asked, "And when is he to be married?" In answering Mrs. Cranston found it impossible to conceal that she thought it both quixotic and unnecessary. Miss Loomis quietly but decidedly took the opposite view. No honorable man could have done otherwise. They had long been engaged. It was not only their own but his mother's choice. She was young, beautiful, deeply in love with him. He had long been in love with her. Doubtless they would be very happy, as they deserved to be. Margaret flared up again: "I believe he's doing it as he does everything else,—from sheer sense of duty, and that you advised him to." A random shot which went nearer the mark than the archer supposed, for Miss Loomis flushed in an instant, and made no reply. "Well!" said Mrs. Cranston, "she longs only to share the humblest cot, the rudest habitation with her beloved. We'll see how she'll take to frontier life."

A detachment of thirty troopers had been ordered kept at the new agency eighty miles to the north, and thither to his supreme disgust had Lieutenant Boynton of the Eleventh been banished in command, with the promise of relief soon after Christmas. Cranston wrote asking permission to use the lieutenant's vacated rooms for the new-comers, saying he would provide servants and such fittings as would be needed. Boynton wired back yes, of course, and the dreary bachelor den was made as habitable as Mrs. Cranston's busy hands and brain could make it. Other kindly women lent their aid, as well as pillow shams, towels, comforters, bed linen, lamps, wardrobe, bureau, rocking-chairs, lounge, etc. The Davieses were to breakfast and lunch with the Cranstons each day, and to be invited round to dinner until their own cot was ready. And in thus wise did traditional army hospitality vindicate itself. There was that still unexplained something hanging over Davies's head, but as yet he knew nothing of it,—had never heard of the allegations so vehemently, volubly laid at his door when Captain Devers had his own portals to clear. Nor was the latter now given to faintest reference to the matter. This at first glance may seem inconsistent, yet has its explanation. As matters now stood there would be no further inquiry into that wretched business. If Davies were once to know his good name had been attacked, and that his explanation of his failure to reach his men or give notice of their plight had been aspersed, somebody might put him up to demanding a court of inquiry. Devers had even concluded it a diplomatic move to treat the lieutenant with a courtesy hitherto withheld. Mrs. Devers was already instructed to be particularly civil to the bride.

Another thing had Devers done, and done most diplomatically. Realizing his own narrow escape and suspecting his unpopularity in the regiment, though little dreaming (which of us does?) how ill he was really regarded, the temporary battalion commander began making friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, so to speak, and exerting himself to show his juniors how courteous and considerate he could be in that capacity. As a general rule it is the subaltern who makes the greatest outcry against the disciplinary measures of his captain, or the captain who most vehemently condemns the policy of his colonel, who proves in turn the most inconsiderate and annoying of superiors. But Devers was shrewd,—"wise in his generation." He knew his reign must be short at best. He felt that he had a difficult role to play. He had always been an outspoken "company rights" man as opposed to the federalizing policy of the battalion or regimental commander. He had bitterly resented in the past any or all interference with his management of his troop, yet had been an unsparing critic of everybody else's system, and, as we have seen, a nimble and active opponent of anything like control on the part of his commander. Of him it had been predicted that he would immediately begin to "boss" the entire battalion and require his brother captains to conform to his own ways of conducting troop affairs. He had always made it a point to try to be cordial to other fellows' lieutenants, but was never liked by his own. Mr. Hastings cordially hated him, but Hastings had his peculiarities, too. As for the captains, Hay and Devers hadn't been on speaking terms for two years. Truman could not like him, yet had had no open rupture. Cranston and he were personally and officially antagonistic. One and all, the officers regarded this detail under his command as one of the most unpromising of their experience, and could hardly contain themselves when Warren left. As for Warren, his relations with the senior troop commander had been of the stiffest and most formal character ever since the close of the campaign.

But just as he had baffled his own commanders in the past, so now did Devers baffle all. Far from interfering or assuming control, he did so only when in actual command at mounted inspection or drill, and then in the most courteous way of which he was capable. He declined to overhaul or inspect the quarters or stables of the other troops, which, as battalion commander, it was really his duty to do at least once a month. "I have always held that the captain should not be spied upon," he said, "and I have too much confidence in the ability and sense of duty of you gentlemen to differ now."

Hay was amazed, so was everybody up at head-quarters. Colonel Tintop didn't know what to make of it. Cranston presently decided he had solved the mystery, but kept his theory to himself. Truman, a little later, arrived at a like conclusion, and was for giving it abroad, but Cranston counselled reticence. An appeal to Truman's regimental pride was always effective.

"Never mind what's at the bottom of it all, old man. We're getting along smoothly and swimmingly, just like a happy family. Let's keep up the illusion and fool these fellows of the Fortieth awhile longer," said he, and Truman promised. But these fellows of the Fortieth were not so easily fooled. They had been on the campaign and knew a thing or two themselves, and as Devers and the adjutant speedily locked horns again and Devers said some unjustifiable things, the infantry retorted, and the infantry weapon had a longer range. It was the very day of Davies's arrival with his bride that this smouldering fire burst forth. Devers was in the adjutant's office snarling about the neglect of the post quartermaster to pay any attention to his requisitions. Now, it was an aide-de-camp and a cavalry officer who had been sent to the scene of the affair at Antelope Springs to compare the situation there with Devers's description and rough sketch, and a cavalry officer who had written what was practically a vindication of Devers's course. Stung by the language of the captain, the adjutant, himself a veteran soldier of years of war service such as Devers had never rendered, looked up from his desk and sharply asked what was Devers's complaint at the expense of his regimental comrade,—the quartermaster.

"What I mean," said Devers, "is simply this: that just so long as we have to appeal to an infantry staff officer I can never get my stables whitewashed."

"We-l-l," said Mr. Leonard, looking his man squarely in the eye, "I am inclined to think that the cavalry staff officer is sometimes given to too much 'whitewashing,' and if an infantryman had been sent instead of a cavalryman the most discreditable affair of the late campaign would not have been, as it was, whitewashed entirely."

"If somebody had whitewashed old Differs's face he couldn't have turned a sicker shade," said Tommy Dot, the only other infantryman present at the moment. Cranston was there, so was Devers's own lieutenant, Mr. Hastings, and the thing couldn't be overlooked. The adjutant was as big and powerful a man as Devers, more so if anything, and his black eyes were snapping like coals, and his mouth was rigid as the jaws of a steel-trap as he rose and squarely confronted the irate captain, and Devers knew and knew well that more than his match was there before him.

"This is something you'll have to answer for, Mr. Leonard," said he, in tones that trembled, despite every effort at self-control. "You are witness to the language, Captain Cranston, Mr. Hastings."

"The language will be publicly repeated, sir," said Leonard, "if you desire more witnesses." But by this time the colonel at his desk in the adjoining room seemed to catch a whiff of the impending crisis, and could be heard calling his adjutant. "I'll return in a moment, sir," said Leonard, and he did, but when he returned Devers was gone.

And now the questions were, what will Devers do about it? and what will Davies say when he hears what Devers has done? There could be no fight, except on paper, for that was Devers's only field. He had gone forth in evident wrath and excitement, bidding Cranston and Hastings to follow. Hastings as his subaltern went without a word. Cranston said he had come to transact certain business and would follow when that was done. Devers was tramping up and down in front of his quarters; Hastings, with embarrassed mien and moody face, leaning, his hands in his pockets, against the fence.

"What do you think of that as an insult to the cavalry?" asked Devers of his junior, as Cranston with his usual deliberation came finally to the spot.

"I think it provoked, sir, by your slur on the infantry."

"I merely generalized," answered Devers. "He insulted both Archer and me." Archer, by the way, was the aide-de-camp in question.

"Well, then I presume Archer and you can settle it," said Cranston, coolly.

"It's evident your sympathy for your patient has blinded your sense of justice to—to the rest of the regiment. I looked for more loyalty from you, Cranston."

"It is my loyalty to the regiment and my sense of justice that refuse to be blinded by you, Devers. I cannot reconcile Mr. Davies's story with your report, and I do not see how Archer could, if indeed he ever saw Davies's story or heard of it."

"Captain Cranston, your protege may thank heaven that I haven't yet preferred charges against him for that affair," said Devers, white with passion.

"It has always been my belief, Captain Devers, that charges should have been preferred, and the sooner that it is done the sooner will Davies be cleared. I presume that you can want nothing further of me." And Cranston walked calmly on.

And that evening the bride arrived. "The Parson's" classmates drove over to the railway to meet the happy pair and escort them to the post. The ladies, one and all, had done their best to brighten up the absent Boynton's quarters so as to make a fitting habitation for the new-comers to their ranks. The officers had passed the word, as was the expression, to keep from Davies, for the present at least, all mention of these affairs in which his name was involved. Somebody at division head-quarters must have had an eye on the situation, for there came a letter from a trusted aide of the lieutenant-general to old "Pegleg" reminding him of the gratitude we all owed the young man's noble father, and bidding him lend a helping hand to Davies, and see that his life wasn't made a burden to him by his troop commander. The general evidently knew of Devers's idiosyncrasies, but Mrs. Devers herself came early to join the circle of helping hands, and announced that she would be there to welcome the bride to her temporary nest; and she was there in the crisp, cold starlight when the ambulance with its spanking team drove briskly into the big quadrangle, and in warm furs and happy blushes and half-shy delight, a very pretty girl was lifted from the dark interior and presented to the little knot of hospitable friends awaiting her coming.



CHAPTER XII.

Within the week of their arrival, thanks to the energetic movements of Mr. Davies, the new couple were established in Number 12, the outermost of the long row of officers' quarters, the one nearest the open prairie and farthest from the official and social centre of the post, but the best they could hope for on the rank of a junior lieutenant in a crowded garrison. Even this roost was not to be entirely their own, for Acting Assistant Surgeon Burroughs occupied the rear room aloft, and had he chosen to fight for his rights, would probably have been accorded the entire floor, but like everybody else he was eager to make everything pleasant for the bride. Davies had expected no such luck, and had duly explained to her that a combined dining-, sitting-, and bedroom, and an out-door kitchen was absolutely all that they could expect, and more than they were really entitled to. But Almira had enthusiastically declared, as she had written, that even an Indian lodge in some vast wilderness she would rather share with her Percy than a palace with a prince royal. That there was a halo of romance about this marriage was something everybody in the Fortieth had heard and many in the Eleventh believed. All manner of theories and not a few stories had been put in circulation, and no end of questions propounded of Captain Cranston's household—who were believed to know all the facts—and not a few of the fair bride herself, who showed no unreadiness to enter into particulars, but had evidently been cautioned to curb her confidences. Taking a leaf from the journalism of the day, let us congratulate the reader on having now laid before him or her the first and only authentic record of the facts in the case,—let us proudly await the commendation due their herald.

It was no part of Percy Davies's plan when he left the roof of his devoted nurses at Cameron to return to the regiment within two months a married man, but other forces had been at work. A halo of heroism had been thrown about his head by the events of the summer. The papers of his State had made much of his prompt and soldierly tender of service. It was before the day of illustrated daily journalism, or his picture might have appeared in several papers, all, presumably, copies from the same photograph, and no two of them recognizably alike. According to local predictions he was on the high-road to fame, rank, and promotion, and Almira's romance was redoubled, and her importance in the community, in her own eyes at least, immeasurably enhanced. One paper indeed had referred poetically to the lovely bride from whose entwining arms at the call of duty the heroic youth had torn himself, and the pen-picture drawn of Almira was as flattering as the wood-cut might have been frightful. Then something occurred that turned her head as nothing had before. Who should write to her but rich Aunt Almira, her own dear dead mother's long-talked-of sister, now the wife of the great railway magnate, and Aunt Almira urged her niece to come and visit her, and Almira went, as pretty a village maid as ever set foot in a Pullman car; but Aunt Almira looked aghast at the rural cut of her garments, even though she gasped with envy over her complexion. She drove her lovely niece forthwith to a great mart where all manner of feminine wear was in readiness for immediate donning, and Almira was in a heaven of bliss and her aunt in corresponding spell of complacency over the improvement instantly effected. This, however, was only a temporary arrangement. To her own milliner, mantua-makers and modistes, and what not, the happy, blushing girl was next transported, and Urbana looked upon her with envy and delight when at the close of that changeful moon she was restored to friends and fireside. Aunt Almira had given her niece a party, to which came famous officers of the army, stationed in the city, to say nice things to her about her hero lieutenant and honeyed words about herself. There was a reception at which three cavaliers appeared in blue and gold, with medals on their broad chests, great braids and loops of glittering cord pendent from their armored shoulders. (Percy at that time, in the rags of his first uniform and a shocking bad hat and the wreck of a pair of soldier boots, cold and wet, faint and starving, was staggering through the Bad Lands, dragging his skeleton horse behind him.) A great military band was playing thrilling waltz music, and a young lieutenant-colonel swung her twice around the whirling parlor and helped her to champagne and praised her waltzing, which he declared perfect,—and indeed she had enjoyed excellent teaching, but, alas! at the hands of Powlett, not Percy, who would not dance at all. Yes, the aide-de-camp helped her to champagne and more flattery. There was a military wedding in a great cathedral church one evening where some of Percy's classmates in glittering uniforms served as ushers and crowded about her to talk of "Dad," as they called him, and to dance with her and marvel among themselves later at her beauty, her unsophistication, and at her being his choice. She went back to Urbana at the end of the month, believing army life to be one long round of balls, parties, music, dancing, champagne,—army men heroic gallants in gorgeous attire who danced divinely and said the sweetest things ever whispered into dainty ears. She went back with Aunt Almira's promise to provide still more raiment for her trousseau, and finally with Aunt Almira's tearful tale that her heart, too, was with the Eleventh, wherein her own beloved boy, her idolized black sheep, was a trooper serving his country on a private's pay and under the name of Brannan; and then, with a start, Almira bethought her of certain wild, raving letters that she had left hidden at home,—letters she had never spoken of to anybody,—letters that had come to her from time to time in the spring and early summer and then suddenly ceased, as Percy's had, entirely, for there were long weeks that battle year when the field column was cut off from all communication with friends and home, and these letters, too, had told of Brannan,—told things she would not, could not tell Aunt Almira,—could not indeed tell anybody, for her letters, though signed Bertie, were written by another trooper, whose address was Howard.

After such joys under Aunt Almira's roof, life at home became insupportable. Mrs. Quimby said it was Almira herself, not the life. Clash followed clash; there came sneers, tears, squabbles, rows, and at last practical banishment. Old Quimby could stand it no longer. Almira went to live with her prospective mother-in-law, who was not sorry, and who, hearing for weeks only her side of the story, believed all she said about home troubles and their inciting cause. She could not hear enough about Percy, and so who so welcome as Almira, who never tired of the topic, or of the telling of the officers she had met and all they had said of him and of his spirited conduct. Even a great general, she said, had been presented, and before all the company had drawn her to his broad-sashed, button-studded bosom and kissed her mantling cheek, as was his way with every pretty girl he met,—Almira did not mention that. And then these two women, invalid mother and impatient daughter-in-law elect, were drawn closely together by tidings of Percy's illness, Percy's careful nursing, etc., then of Percy's slow convalescence. They could not go to him, because Mrs. Davies was far too feeble. Almira raved about going,—wanted to go,—wept, implored, and ranted, but her father was implacable and Mrs. Davies opposed. The latter was sure everything was being done that could be done and she needed Almira. But from the very first Almira was suspicious of Mrs. Cranston and Miss Loomis, jealous of their attention, fearful of their influence. Percy, she cried, not she, would prove faithless. She would gladly, willingly, eagerly fly to his side, nurse him night and day, dwell with him in bliss and a wigwam if need be; but he—he was cold—he was changing—he would prove faithless to his humble, adoring village maid, and then there would be nothing left for her but despair. Then as his convalescence progressed she became insistent and Mrs. Davies weaker. Almira poured forth her plaint to her aunt by letter. Aunt Almira gave another dinner, to which some of the staff were bidden, and a mellow symposium it was, and over the oft-replenished champagne glasses did the kindly woman tell of Mrs. Davies's craving to see her boy once more, and how the boy would ask no favors, though her husband, the magnate, offered to send to the lieutenant passes all the way from Cheyenne. Two Almiras prevailed, and the last month of the mother's life was blessed and gladdened by the presence of her devoted son. Almost the last promise asked of him was that there should be no delay in the marriage of her dear children, as she called them, though the poor soul had many a misgiving now as to whether Almira, after all, would prove a worthy helpmate for her earnest, duteous son. Indeed, she at one time had thought to ask that they might be united before her eyes, but Almira's wedding garment wasn't ready, and Almira, who had urged all speed, was not prepared for speed so great as that. She, too, secretly nourished the idea of a military wedding and a big church. Davies never meant to retreat from his obligation, but he had hoped to make the girl fully understand what was before her,—what army life and its duties were really like,—but his every effort to talk with her gravely and earnestly met with reproach and tears. She didn't care what it was, all she asked was to share his lot, no matter how poor, how humble. It was he who, after for years making her love him so, was now doubting and distrusting her. She knew how it would be when those other women, instead of her, had been chosen to nurse and care for him. They had usurped her place. They had undermined her. That—that Miss Loomis whom he was holding up as a model to her—all this time! He'd break her heart, and she'd just go—anywhere except home—and die. She had no home. She had given up everybody—everything for him, and now he was tiring of her. Well, it was pretty trying, but Davies strove to explain and to undeceive. He didn't take her in his arms and kiss away her tears as he ought to have done, and plead and pet and soothe as she planned he should do, poor child. It wasn't his way. He strove to appeal to her judgment and to her common sense, but could not reach them. And then came to him the great sorrow of his mother's death, peaceful, placid, hopeful though it was,—and then when she was laid away and he faced the world again, he found that there were outstanding claims against the homestead of which, through motives of kindness, both his mother and himself had been kept in ignorance during her life. Unless he could pay regularly the interest on a large sum the old place his father loved must go. It had ever been Percy's plan to hold it, and in the fulness of time to return perhaps to take his father's place in the church, at any rate to strive to do so in the community. He had planned to lease it until he and Almira should be ready to go to housekeeping there if she remained faithful all these years, but now only by pinching could he hope to save it at all.

And this he explained, but it made no difference. She would help him pinch and save and starve if need be. They could live on a crust, and she could cook and bake and darn and sew and sweep for him. The one thing she could no longer do was wait, for people were pestering to know when she was to be married, and some girls had openly hinted that Percy Davies had changed his mind. Then came the naming of the day, and, as he was in deep mourning, to her bitter disappointment he said their wedding must be very simple and quiet,—just a few friends present as witnesses. She had projected on a smaller scale an imitation of the swell affair she had seen in the fall, but Percy wouldn't even have a best man. Then he told her gravely that as they must live so quietly he thought her aunt should not lay out money on party and dinner dresses and expensive trifles. Almira should dress very simply as became a poor soldier's wife, and as he was in deep mourning, and they could not go to dances or dinners or anything of the kind, that she should so notify her, but Almira could not thwart her aunt, and Percy's brow darkened when the trunks arrived. "I fear she looks in return for all this for various things which I cannot possibly do for her son," said he. He had not seen the boy for months, and did not know how he might be withstanding the temptations surrounding garrison life after long months of enforced abstinence in the field.

In the days of Davies's convalescence Cranston had told him of Mrs. Barnard's call and of Brannan's story, and rejoiced that Brannan was Miss Loomis's patient on the train, and that all through the campaign the boy had borne himself well, and all this you may be sure did Cranston write to Mrs. Barnard, and most gratefully was it all acknowledged. She urged that as soon as possible now her son should be transferred to Cranston's troop as a surer and simpler path to his commission. After meeting and knowing the military gentlemen at home,—people in whom she had taken no interest whatever until her wayward son had taken to the army,—she had begun to picture him in a staff uniform and on duty with the general at home, and, motherlike, was eager to speed the consummation. And then Cranston's next letter told her that her boy's best friend and adviser, Lieutenant Davies, was from Urbana, and then very soon came the story of his engagement to Almira Quimby, her own niece. It was then that Almira was sent for and became Queen Paramount, for when do mothers cease to plan for wayward sons?

And now the bride was actually there in the army. The ladies had gathered to welcome her. The band had seranaded her the night of her arrival. The colonel and his wife, captains and lieutenants by the dozen, came to call, most of them with their better halves, some of the latter refined, high-bred, cultured women, some simple-mannered, warm-hearted army girls who knew no home but the regiment, no life but that on the plains. Some vapid, frivolous, and would-be fashionable, but all full of kindly motive. She could have had luncheons, dinners, and parties in her honor, and secretly moaned that it could not be, but Mr. Davies's deep mourning prohibited. She had dined en famille and in deep constraint at the Cranstons the evening after her coming, and not all Mrs. Cranston's cheery, chatty, cordial way, or Miss Loomis's courtesy and tact, could put poor Almira at her ease. She was set against them from the start, and it made the feast an ordeal which both Cranston and Davies would gladly have eliminated from memory could they do so. The latter had never yet spoken reprovingly to his wife, but this night he felt that something must be said. Just in proportion as her manner to her hostess had been unresponsive and cold so had her assumption of little wifely airs and proprietorship been comical. She seemed bent on extracting from Percy public and frequent demonstration of his lover-like side, and her appeals and endearments had furiously embarrassed him. They went home early, met callers at their own door, and were kept up late. That Mrs. Cranston should have turned and looked inquiringly into Agatha Loomis's face the instant the door closed upon them was to be expected. Her eyes were sparkling, her lips twitching with the mental ebullition going on within; but Agatha turned abruptly away. Mrs. Cranston then sought to search her husband's face, but the captain was forearmed and chose to keep his back towards his better half and to pull on his arctics and overcoat and gather up his little hurricane lamp. The trumpet was sounding first call for tattoo, and though it was no concern of his, for Mr. Sanders, his cheery subaltern, had just gone whistling by on his way to the troop quarters, Cranston preferred to face the falling snow rather than those speaking, luminous, quizzical, questioning, tormenting eyes, and so invented business for the occasion. "Don't sit up for me, Meg," said he, and she knew he simply would not be drawn into a discussion.

But she had to talk to somebody, and what was Agatha for? Agatha had palpably dodged and gone to her room, and would have been glad not to come down again. She even went into the boys' room and romped with her two young trooper cousins instead of allowing them to go to sleep. So up came Mrs. Cranston and ordered her out, and then, when the girl would have escaped and gone down-stairs again, Margaret confronted her in the hall, placed her hands on her shoulders, and with a world of mingled merriment and commiseration in her tone said, or rather asked,—

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"What do you think now?"

"Simply what I have maintained all along. That he did right."

"But what do you think of—of her?"

And Miss Loomis, shaking herself free, hurried by her friend and down the stairs. She refused to say.

Perhaps it might have been better had Mr. Davies postponed his first marital lecture. It was very gentle, very brief, but Almira had seen his vexation as they hastened home and had striven to avert the coming comments. She well knew wherein she had erred. Public endearments of any kind by word or touch had already been pointed out to her as unconventional in society. There were no people on the post in whose presence he more dreaded such demonstration than the two ladies of Cranston's household. There were no people in the world in whose presence she was more bent upon making display of her possession. He had interdicted the gown she longed to wear and indicated a simple black silk. In this point she had to yield, but she had conquered on the other, and now when he gravely reminded her of his caution, she declared she thought these people were his intimate friends, his confidants,—not mere society people,—and—of course—if he was ashamed to have them see—how dear he was to her——Oh, but why go on with the rest? Sobs and tears and swollen eyelids and sore lamentation, and pleas to be taken home again if this was to be the beginning of their married life. Davies knelt alone that night, and his prayer for guidance and strength came from the depths of an anxious heart.



CHAPTER XIII.

One of the first inquiries made by Mr. Davies was for Trooper Brannan. "He is with the detachment up at the reservation," said Mr. Hastings. "That's our Botany Bay. That's where Differs ships his bad eggs. Not that Brannan was a bad egg, but that Differs so regarded him."

"Had he been drinking or in any trouble?"

"Well, not exactly trouble," said Hastings. "He didn't get along with one or two of the sergeants. They made frequent complaint of his 'lip,' and the old man seemed suspicious of him." Only one new hand or recruit had been selected to go to the agency with Boynton's detachment, and that was Brannan. He was sent to replace Fogarty, who broke his leg, just about the time the other troops came. When Davies reported to his troop and battalion commander for duty, Captain Differs received him with much grave dignity,—with a certain air in which majestic courtesy was mingled with that of forgiveness for injuries received, as though he would say, "Let by-gones be by-gones. We'll make a fresh start, and in consideration of your ills, inexperience, and the like, I'll try to overlook your shortcomings in the field." Davies had never set eyes on him from the moment of their parting at dusk that gloomy Dakota evening to the northwest of the Springs,—from that evening to that of his return. Totally ignorant of much that had taken place during his illness, he was ready to serve his captain faithfully, even though he felt that he could not like or trust him. They had but brief converse. "Take all the time you need to get your quarters ready, Mr. Davies. You and Hastings can divide the detail work of stables and roll-call between you," said Devers. "Just remember we've got an infantry adjutant here who's only too anxious to find fault and stir up trouble between us and the post commander."

Going into the troop office the day after his return, Davies was surprised to see a dark-eyed, dark-haired, rather handsome young soldier at the clerk's desk. He recognized him as one of the recruits whom he had brought out in July, but of whom he had seen very little during the campaign.

"That's our new company clerk," said Hastings. "One of Differs's latest pets. There are better clerks and better men in the troop. He relieved a better man when he sent Moran up to the agency. But what Devers is driving at is past finding out. There's been a total shaking up since that—well, since the campaign."

And that this was true Davies could see for himself. Never having known the troop, except in the field on the worst of campaigns, it took him a few days to become accustomed to the change. Some of the most prominent of the troop sergeants were still on duty with it, but in their spick-and-span uniforms and clean-shaven cheeks and chins he found them greatly altered. The first sergeant was the same, and the relationship between him and the captain seemed closer than ever. Haney recognized no middleman in his dealings with the troop commander, and had long been allowed to consider himself as of far more importance than a junior lieutenant, a theory in which, perhaps, there was much to sustain him. The manner of this magnate to the two subalterns, therefore, was just a trifle independent. Two veteran corporals had stepped up to an additional stripe vice Daly killed and McGrath missing in September. Some new corporals had been "made." None of those whom Davies best knew and most noticed during the summer were among them. He missed two or three of the old hands and asked for them. Sergeant Lutz had gone to the agency. Corporal O'Brien had been reduced for a spree on the home-coming and was serving as private in Boynton's detachment, and Privates Sercomb and Riley were up there, too. The resultant vacancies in the troop had been filled by raw recruits who were being energetically licked into shape.

When Cranston was asked why he supposed it had pleased Captain Devers to send a recruit like Brannan up to the bleak and unwholesome life at the agency, Cranston replied by saying, "Differs said it was to keep him out of harm's way. Up there he couldn't get liquor, down here he could." When Davies asked if Brannan had shown a disposition to drink since getting back from the campaign, Cranston again used Devers's authority. "Differs said he had,—two or three times." But when Cranston wrote to Boynton, Boynton replied that young Brannan declared that he had been totally abstemious since the day after they reached the post. The day of their coming in, he arrived half frozen and all tired out, as he had been kept back on wagon guard, and he was offered liquor by Sergeant Haney himself, and drank several times, and was wretchedly ill all the next day as a consequence,—so ill that it frightened him, and he swore off more solemnly than before. Hastings said, in fact, that there was a set in "A" troop, a clique that "stood in" with the first sergeant and some of his favorites, and that no man outside of it could hope for recognition and no one in it fear punishment. Brannan was not in it.

It was a Wednesday night, as has been said, that Davies arrived, and not until the following Wednesday could they be installed in their quarters, which were being simply but prettily furnished. Private Barnickel had assumed the duties of striker, and Mrs. Maloney's strapping daughter Katty was now presiding in Boynton's kitchen as cook and maid-of-all-work. A tenant had been found for the old house at home, who was to pay a certain rental to Squire Quimby, which sum was to be supplemented by a monthly payment from his son-in-law's scanty purse. "We must live very simply and economically, my wife," said Davies. "At the very least it will take me two whole years to pay principal and interest and set us foot free; but we have few other debts. We can be warm and comfortable. You have all the clothing you will be apt to need for a good while, and I will get along with what I have." And Mira had received the suggestion with all wifely grace. They went to chapel together that first crisp, sunshiny, wintry Sunday, and all Fort Scott—at least all that happened to be there assembled—remarked on Almira's rich color—and furs—and on Davies's reverent manner. He was the only man in the little congregation who actually knelt. The old chaplain rejoiced that afternoon when the tall lieutenant came in at Sunday-school, and, taking immediate charge of the most turbulent of his classes,—the big boys,—held them both interested and respectful until the close of the session. Almira came too, and made an impression on the juvenile minds of some of the laundresses' children, who studied her pretty face and new hat and garments with close attention; but it gave her a headache and she would rather not go to the evening service, she said,—a service held more especially for the benefit of the soldiers and their families, and but sparsely attended otherwise. Davies went, however, and when he came home to their temporary quarters, found Almira, all animation, chatting with Mrs. Flight and Mrs. Darling, to whom she had been showing the contents of her big trunk. They were called for presently by Mr. Sanders and his classmate Jervis, both of whom had known the "Parson" in his cadet days, but from the somewhat immeasurable altitude of a two years' start, yet they were the younger looking now, gay, debonair bachelors, pillars of the social gatherings at the post and most delightful partners, and, having completed their duties with tattoo roll-call, they were now in search of these reigning belles and an opportunity to talk over the hop projected for the coming Wednesday night. Of course Mrs. Davies would come, said Jervis, but Sanders's warning kick brought him to consciousness. "At least I hope—we all hope you'll very soon be able to attend our parties, Mrs. Davies. I suppose you've reformed the Parson and taught him to waltz." Mira looked at her husband, and she knew not just what to say.

Davies smiled gravely and said no, he feared that he was too old and awkward to learn even at the Point, but that Mrs. Davies was very fond of dancing, and by and by, perhaps, they would attend. Then the chat flowed merrily on, of the lovely time that they had all enjoyed,—that is, the garrison people had enjoyed all summer, and the pleasant associations they had formed with the gentlemen from town, and how much lovelier it would be now. And while they were talking, through the thin partition which separated Mr. Boynton's official and personal quarters from those of Lieutenant and Adjutant Leonard there came the sound of sacred music,—Mrs. Leonard at her piano, her clear, true voice blending with the deep resonant bass of her soldier husband and the sweet treble of the children, and Davies stopped to listen. It was a hymn his father loved, one they often sang at the old church at home,—

"Son of my soul, Thou Saviour dear."

It brought sweet and sacred memories. It spoke of home and holy influences, of mother love and father's blessing and children's hope and faith. It filled his heart with reverence and his eyes with tears. The babble and chat for an instant were silenced, and then Mrs. Darling spoke.

"The worst of these army quarters is that you can hear just what's going on next door; but," she added, cheerfully, "you'll soon be where you won't be bothered on one side, at least."

Sanders gave a queer, quick glance at the speaker and then at Davies. Jervis plunged into an immediate rhapsody on the subject of Mrs. Leonard's children, whom he declared to be the best little beggars he ever knew, unless it was Cranston's. "Of course," he added, diplomatically, "I can safely praise them in your presence, ladies, as you have none of your own."

Then conversation languished, for Davies was silent and Mrs. Davies uninspired. The visitors left and went laughing down the row, their gay voices ringing in the frosty air.

"How long had they been here, dear?" asked Davies as he returned to the fireside.

"The ladies? Oh, I don't know. Quite a little while. They were so interested in everything,—so friendly. I quite forgot my headache while they were here. Now it seems to be coming on again, and if you don't mind I think I won't sit up,—unless somebody else is coming."

"There will hardly be any more callers to-night," he answered, gravely. "If your head aches you might be better for going early to bed, and I will sit here and read awhile."

But the wandering thoughts refused to be chained to the page before him. His heart was full and vaguely troubled. "I shall be better for a turn in the cold air," he thought, and so, throwing his cape over his shoulders, he quietly left the house.

It was just after ten, a still, sparkling winter's night. Across the snowy level of the parade the long rows of wooden barracks lay dark and silent, no lights burning except in the window of some company office or first sergeant's room. Those were the days of "early to bed and early to rise," and every man was supposed to be sleeping by ten so as to be up and doing stable duty—or nothing—at dawn. Officers and ladies, the privileged class of the army, made their own regulations as to domestic hours of retiring. The enlisted man slept or was supposed to sleep "by order." Mr. Davies, finding it essential to his comfort to sally forth and imbibe free air, had no one to say him nay,—Mrs. Davies having retired,—and might wander the live-long night about the post at will. Trooper Blaney or Private Rentz, on the contrary, might toss for hours on sleepless pillow, and could only grin and bear it. It meant so many dollars "blind," or such other punishment as a court-martial might inflict to a soldier caught out of barracks after the sound of the signal to extinguish lights.

Already, in the quarters of his next-door neighbor, the adjutant, the parlor was darkened, and except for the studious head of the family, now poring over some precious volume in the privacy of his den, the household had gone aloft. Davies paused a moment, irresolute. To his right the walk extended only a short distance. There were but two more houses. To his left lay the main length of the line,—the colonel's, the surgeon's, the cavalry commander's, and most of the captains'. Cranston's roof, however, was one of the two to the right, and thither Davies turned. Dim lights were burning in the little army parlor, as he could see through the half-drawn curtain. A shadow flitted across the dormer window above him,—Mrs. Cranston's. The other windows in the upper floor were dark. He wanted to go in and commune with Cranston, the man of all others whom he most liked, but he shrank from ringing their bell at so late an hour. Elsewhere along the row many a window was brilliantly illuminated and the social life of the post seemed in full flow. The Cranstons were home-keeping folk as a rule, "not at all sociable," said some of the dames of the Fortieth, and yet they were highly regarded throughout the garrison.

Except for a mere bow, as they were going to morning service, he had not met Mrs. Cranston or Miss Loomis since the dinner of Thursday evening,—the evening of Almira's provincial display of endearments, for between Katty and Striker Barnickel they had been enabled to breakfast at Boynton's quarters, and had lunched and dined elsewhere among the many hospitably disposed throughout the garrison. Davies wanted to see and talk with the captain, but to-night he shrank unaccountably from meeting either of the ladies. It is under such circumstances that many a man finds Fate unkind. Even as he stood there the hall door flew open and a bright beam from the astral lamp within shot athwart the road. A blithe voice called back in answer to some presumable remonstrance. "What nonsense, Margaret! I can run over there as well as not and be back in a moment." The door closed, and muffled in her long fur-lined cloak, Miss Loomis was at the gate. "Why! Mr. Davies!" she exclaimed in surprise.

"I was just wondering whether I might venture to ring and ask for the captain," he hesitatingly said. "I wanted very much to see him."

"Captain Cranston is out. That is how it happens that I am going out," she spoke, with prompt and cheery tone. "Old Sergeant Fritz is very low to-night, and you'll find the captain there," and she indicated the way to the married men's quarters over to the southwest. "I have to run over to the hospital, for Louis's cough is very troublesome, and we happened to be entirely out of medicine."

"Well, my talk with the captain can wait, Miss Loomis. Let me be your orderly for to-night. What can I get for you?"

"Indeed you shall not!" she answered, with quick decision. "I'm accustomed to doing my own errands. Good-night." And with that she turned independently away to where the dim lights in the hospital glimmered at the eastward.

"Then your ex-patient may at least trot along as escort," said he, as promptly placing himself by her side and, army fashion, tendering his arm.

"No, thank you," she answered, resolutely muffling her cloak about her and rebelling against the rising impulse of vexation, "I do not need support, and indeed, Mr. Davies, I need no escort. I'm quite accustomed to going about the post by myself. I—I would very much rather you went on to see Captain Cranston, as was your intention."

"And I would very much rather walk with you to the hospital," he answered, with calm decision. "Come."

She had stopped as though striving to dismiss him from her side, but he ignored her wishes entirely. His lips were curving into something very like a smile of amusement, and it nettled her.

"To be perfectly frank with you, Mr. Davies, I wish now that I had made a reconnoissance before venturing out so boldly. If there is anything I hate it is this idea of burdening a man with escort duty. Just as though one needed to be guarded at every step. It is the dependence of the thing I despise,—a dependence that is entirely forced upon us."

"Well, so long as the escort is not forced upon you, I hope you will not despise it. I am going with you because, as it's after taps, you may need help in rousing the steward. He was up all last night, I'm told, with Fritz, and may be abed now."

And so her protests, not her scruples, were silenced. Down the row they rapidly walked, under the sparkling heavens, through the keen, exhilarating air of the wintry prairie, passing, door by door, the quarters of the officers of the garrison, some still brightly lighted, others dark and silent. She was talking fast and with a nervous impulse as they hurried by the colonel's, the broad portals of whose official residence were just then thrown open to admit another party to join the little circle sure every evening to be surrounding Mrs. Stone, and welcoming voices and laughter floated out on the night. The moment before they passed the gate whence he had issued forth barely three minutes earlier. The hall light burned low as he left it, the parlor shades were down. Almira presumably was nursing her headache in the sanctity of the chamber at the rear. Boynton's upper story was occupied by a junior subaltern of the Fortieth, who was believed to sleep there at odd hours, but was generally to be found almost anywhere else.

"Mrs. Davies looked so well to-day," remarked Miss Loomis. "I hope she finds her welcome pleasant."

"She is very well, except for a headache that sent her early to bed to-night," he answered. "And her welcome from everybody has been most kind and cordial, and from none more so than from Mrs. Cranston and yourself. You are always adding to the obligations I am under."

"I shall quarrel with you some day if you talk of obligations, Mr. Davies. But I'm so sorry to hear of her headache," she went on, quickly, as though to prevent argument on the point. "The chapel does get very hot and stuffy by evening service. Ought they not to air it after Sunday-school?"

"It would be a good plan. But my wife did not go to-night. Her headache began earlier in the day. I thought the close atmosphere of the chapel would only increase it and so counselled her remaining home."

He remembered, however, that he had counselled her going early to bed, but found her engrossed in her volatile callers on his return. It was all very natural. Upon spirits like Almira's, communion with such gay and frothy natures acted like champagne. He was trying to believe he was glad she could be so readily benefited. The houses grew darker as they approached the east end. Even the hall lamp was extinguished at Devers's quarters, though there were lights aloft. Devers had a storm-door, another instance of his individuality, as even the colonel's quarters were not so embellished. It was a perfectly still night, not a whiff of wind astir, and yet Davies could have sworn the storm-door swung slowly open a foot or so as they neared the gate, then suddenly shut to. What was more, he felt that his companion had seen and noted the same circumstance, for she drew an instant closer to his side, then as quickly seemed to recollect herself and edged away.

Davies looked back over his shoulder. So certain was he that the storm-door had been opened and closed by some unseen hand within the wooden casing that he would have turned to investigate, but for his companion. He could not well leave her. They had now reached the east end, right in front of the set of quarters which were so soon to be his own. The hospital loomed up dark and massive across an open space two hundred yards away. Only a narrow foot-path had been cleared from the end of the sidewalk to the main entrance of the big building. He had not thought to put on his over-shoes, and so, letting Miss Loomis lead, Davies fell behind. Now that they were away from ear-shot of the quarters their talk languished. Davies at least was thinking of that mysterious door and wondering if he should not have looked into the matter then and there. Now it was too late. If some garrison prowler were the cause, he had doubtless by this time taken alarm and slipped away; if Captain Devers or any of his household were the "power behind," then it was none of Davies's business. Hurrying up the creaking, snapping steps of the hospital, they found the office-door locked. "I more than suspected you would need me," said Davies. "Will you wait one moment?" He tiptoed away through the long corridor, found the drowsy attendant in the big ward, and learned that the steward had gone to his little home in Sudstown, but would return in five minutes. It was nearer fifteen when he came, and meantime Miss Loomis and her escort seated themselves in the warm corridor and chatted in low tone as befitted the time and place. In one of the little wards a suffering soldier was moaning, evidently in penance for recent spree, and weakly imploring drink of a stolid nurse.

"Don't make a fellow mad with misery," they heard him plead. "You know where to get it. You know it's worse than hell to have to choke off short."

"Of course I do," was the brutal answer. "If I'd never knew it before, I'd learned it that night on the train when you could have sent me help and wouldn't."

"My God, Paine! you asked me to steal from the captain's flask. I simply ask for what's my own——"

But the voice was suddenly hushed, for, springing to his feet, Mr. Davies hurried to the door. "Who is this—who have you here?" he asked. "You—you? Brannan!"

And then, as a slender, graceful, womanly shape came noiselessly in and appeared by the lieutenant's side, quivering, shaking in an agony of shame and misery and nervousness, the lonely patient threw himself over towards the wall, and burying his distorted face in his arms, burst into a passion of tears, the attendant meantime slinking out into the hall.

"Come back here, my man," ordered Davies, in low, stern voice, while Miss Loomis, without one instant of hesitation, threw off her cloak, drew a chair to the bedside, and laid her soft white hand upon the tumbled head of the wretched boy. Unwillingly, sullenly, the man obeyed.

"You are Paine, of 'A' troop, are you not?"

"Yes, sir. And the captain's orders and the doctor's were that he shouldn't have a drop."

"Never mind that. When did he get here? How did he come?"



"With the mail-carrier this morning, from the agency, sir, and he'd been drinking on the way and got to going harder as soon as he reached the post. The captain ordered him confined and the doctor sent him here. But my orders was——"

"Never mind your orders. What I want to know is, who detailed you, and when were you detailed for hospital duty?"

"The captain sent me over, sir, after Brannan was taken in, and he's been begging like that for a drink for an hour back."

Meantime, with great sobs shaking his form, Brannan lay there saying no articulate word. Miss Loomis gently drew an arm from underneath his head. "Let me have your wrist, Brannan," she gently said. "You know your old nurse of last summer, don't you?" And in another moment her practised touch was on the sufferer's pulse. In silence Davies awaited the result. Her eyes filled with grave anxiety as she counted the feeble fluttering,—a mere shadow of the vigorous throb of a soldier's heart. "This man ought not to be here—neglected," she murmured to Davies. Then, rising, she turned to the attendant. "Go at once to Dr. Burroughs and say that Miss Loomis asks him to come here as quick as he can."

And Private Paine concluded it best to go without further words. The steward, returning to his post, was met at the steps by the young contract surgeon coming over from his corner on the run. A moment more and the two stood in presence of the sufferer and of his nurse. She smiled kindly upon the new-comers. "I sent for you, doctor, because I knew you had not been informed of Brannan's state. His pulse——" and here she lowered her voice so that only Burroughs and Davies could hear,—"is so thin and wiry as to be almost gone. My father would say he needed stimulant at once, and treatment later. See for yourself."

And the daughter of the well-known and beloved old army surgeon knew her ground and never faltered. Burroughs made brief examination and no remonstrance. In another minute the steward was administering brandy and water in a tablespoon while, anxious to re-establish himself, the young doctor was explaining. "I had no previous knowledge of the case," he stammered. "Captain Devers told me of the man's arrival and downfall, and I ordered him into hospital at his request, and,—yes,—I did say no stimulants of any kind. The captain so urged, and of course that would be the customary mode of treatment in most cases, but in a case like this, of course, had I been aware——"