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A SOLDIER'S TRIAL

AN EPISODE OF

The Canteen Crusade

BY GENERAL CHARLES KING

AUTHOR OF "A DAUGHTER OF THE SIOUX," "COMRADES
IN ARMS," "THE MEDAL OF HONOR," ETC.

NEW YORK
THE HOBART COMPANY
1905

Copyright, 1905,
BY THE HOBART COMPANY

Brig.-Gen. Frederick D. Grant, U.S.A., says: "It is distressing that the prosperity of the keepers of vile resorts is due to the activity of good and worthy though misguided citizens, who have succeeded in abolishing the canteen in the army."

CONTENTS

[CHAPTER I. Two Announcements]
[CHAPTER II. A Face from the Philippines]
[CHAPTER III. A Night at Naples]
[CHAPTER IV. "She is Coming Here!"]
[CHAPTER V. Premonitory Symptoms]
[CHAPTER VI. A Bride—and a Beau]
[CHAPTER VII. The Wolf in the Sheepfold]
[CHAPTER VIII. Accusing Letters]
[CHAPTER IX. An Invitation—to Go]
[CHAPTER X. A Gathering Storm]
[CHAPTER XI. Deeper in the Toils]
[CHAPTER XII. What the Women Told the Major]
[CHAPTER XIII. Worst Deed of His Life]
[CHAPTER XIV. Reaction]
[CHAPTER XV. Retribution]
[CHAPTER XVI. My Lady's Maid]
[CHAPTER XVII. A Momentous Day]
[CHAPTER XVIII. Blenke Covers His Tracks]
[CHAPTER XIX. Again the Saloon]
[CHAPTER XX. A Mother's Dread]
[CHAPTER XXI. Love's Last Appeal]
[CHAPTER XXII. The Lost Found]
[CHAPTER XXIII. A Welcome Peril]
[CHAPTER XXIV. Crisis]
[CHAPTER XXV. Black Wolf's Battle]
[CHAPTER XXVI. Truth Stranger than Fiction]
[CHAPTER XXVII. Exeunt Omnes]

A SOLDIER'S TRIAL

CHAPTER I

TWO ANNOUNCEMENTS

The war with Spain was at an end, and so were the hopes and aspirations of many a warrior. For several reasons Colonel Ray of the ——th Kentucky was a disappointed man. One of the best soldiers doing duty with the volunteers, he had had some of the worst luck. Through long years of service in the regular cavalry he had borne the reputation of being a most energetic and valuable officer. He had won a name as an Indian fighter the Indians themselves respected. He had campaigned all over the frontier before the railways came and conquered. He knew Arizona and New Mexico even better than his native State, and was known from the upper Missouri to the lower Colorado far more generally than in the "blue grass" country of his boy days. Apache and Arapahoe, Comanche and Cheyenne, Sioux and Shoshone, they all had met, and many had measured spear with, the dark-eyed, curly-headed Kentucky light-horseman. He bore the scars of more than one sharp encounter; had given more than he had received, yet found himself in no wise blessed with profit or promotion. The Civil War was fairly ended when he stepped from the Point into his first commission. Over thirty years had he done valiant and faithful duty in the line, yet was he only just wearing the gold leaves as junior major of his regiment, when the long-expected happened in the spring of '98, and the nation called out its first levy of volunteers. Slow as had been his advancement, it was phenomenally swift as compared with that of classmates who, choosing the artillery arm, had languished those thirty years in the line of file closers. Ray had no complaint to make. He was even rejoiceful in his luck when called to Kentucky to command one of her regiments of volunteer infantry. He was, indeed, among the few envied men in the army where so very few have anything to excite the cupidity of their kind. His record and reputation were things no man could undermine, though some might underestimate. His temperament was sweet and sunny. He had long been happily, most happily, married. His wife was charming, admired, and beloved. His children were all a father's heart could wish. Health and competence had always been theirs. They had, indeed, for years known the joys of moderate wealth, for Mrs. Ray had brought her husband something besides beauty and grace, physical and spiritual. The Marion Sanford of the Centennial year of '76 was reputed an heiress, and the children that had come in course of time to bless their union were certainly born to the purple. But army people of those days lived long years in the far West, had to trust their business affairs to agents in the far East, and some agents could not stand such prosperity. Mrs. Ray's property was mainly in real estate, some of which became gradually unproductive. Then there came the financial storm of '93, and a subsequent flitting of financial agents, some to the convenient Canadas, some to the Spanish Main.

Then another thing happened, almost whimsical in the way of retributive justice where Mrs. Ray's relatives were concerned. That the resultant burden should have been saddled on her cavalry husband was perhaps not quite so diverting. There were several of Mrs. Ray's nearest of kin who had by no means approved of her marriage in the army, and to a nameless, moneyless subaltern at that. "He will make ducks and drakes of her fortune," said they. "He will drink and gamble it away," said certain others. Ray had possibly heard, had probably expected this. At all events he had steadfastly declined to use his wife's money. He had gone so far as to grieve her not a little by very gently, but very firmly, declining to undertake the management of her property. That was all left in the hands of her people. It was the agent of their choice who made ducks and drakes of much of it, as well as of their own, and, at the time the Spanish War broke out, from his pay as major in the line of the army "Billy" Ray was contributing to the support of certain of the children of his former detractors.

Then came partial relief. "Sandy" Ray, their eldest son, commissioned like his father in the cavalry, was no longer to be provided for. Indeed, he was sending every month a certain quarter of his salary direct to his mother to repay her for moneys advanced for him when they were much needed. Maidie Ray, their lovely dark-eyed daughter, had married the man of her choice, a well-to-do young New Yorker of most excellent family. There was only Billy, Junior, among their olive branches now to be provided for until he could look out for himself. There was even prospect of his being sent to West Point within the year to make a try at that which had proved too hard a problem for his unmathematical elder brother, for Sandy had worn cadet gray long enough to get much of the practical teaching of our famous school, though he could not assimilate the requisite amount of the theoretical. It was the year after the surrender of Santiago and the muster out of most of the State volunteers that, in the goodness of his heart, Colonel Ray turned to Marion, his wife, and said:

"Why not have Beth and 'Cilla come to us?"—and thereby hangs very much of this tale.

"Beth," be it said at once, did not come, for, even in her reduced circumstances and somewhat mature years, this excellent woman was sought by an old admirer, once deemed ineligible. Beth wrote thankfully and appreciatively to Uncle Will and dear Aunt Marion: "The Doctor has returned to New Jersey and—the old subject." There was now no stern parent to say him nay, and she—could not. But Priscilla would gladly and gratefully come, and, whether or no Priscilla was grateful, Priscilla proved assuredly glad, for Priscilla was a woman with a mission and long in search of a field. Priscilla had often marveled at Aunt Marion's blindness in not having earlier looked to her as the best possible guide, example, and companion for Aunt Marion's most interesting if much-indulged brood. Priscilla never doubted her powers, and never dreamed of the instant protests developed when, in mischievous mood, probably, papa had suggested having Cousin 'Cilla come to the frontier to help mother school the little Rays. All their recollections of that prematurely mature young kinswoman were somewhat appalling. They regarded her as healthy children are sure to look upon an elder cousin who seeks ever to improve her opportunities and their moral nature. Life had had no greater trial to the trio than those rare and even regrettable visits to mother's home and kindred where first they learned to know the superior gifts and graces of Cousin 'Cil.

It has been said that Colonel Ray, the Spanish part of the war ended, was a disappointed man, and that so was many another. Never waiting to see what might result from the general rally of the Filipino insurgents, following speedily the first general scatter, the government swiftly mustered out all the State volunteers not actually on duty in the distant islands, filled up the regulars with raw recruits, and shipped them straightway, undisciplined, undrilled, across the wide Pacific. Then new regiments of volunteers were authorized,—National volunteers, instead of State,—and, though their field officers as a rule were chosen from the regular service, there were by no means enough to go around among the many deserving applicants. The forty odd colonelcies went, in most cases, to the right men, but there were many "left," and Billy Ray was one. He had had no luck whatever with his Kentucky regiment. He had been sent to Chickamauga, and thence to Florida, and thence nowhere worth mentioning. They saw no service without the States; heard no hostile bullets whistle; found, like most of the State volunteers, they were to have no part in the Cuban campaign, and, that being the case, they wished to go home. They hadn't enlisted to play soldier, said they, and much as they admired and honored Colonel Ray, they could not be made to love soldier life that had no fighting. "Give us a chance to do something," was their cry, "and we'll stay till hell freezes over; but no more of this sort of thing for us." Ray had tried hard to keep alive regimental interest and enthusiasm, but few could feel either interest or enthusiasm in a daily routine of drill, parade, and police duty in a hot, malarious Southern camp under Southern summer skies. Other regiments about them were getting orders to go home for muster out, and some of these individual Kentuckians had begun to go, too. If Ray could have moved them a few miles away from the other camps, and close to the sparkling sea water, things might have gone better, but his original brigade commander, a regular whom he knew, and who knew him, had gotten orders for the Philippines, and gone.

He was succeeded by a brigadier whom Ray had never heard of, nor apparently had anybody else outside the contracted limits of his commonwealth, and this gentleman, having never before served with troops, and knowing nothing about modern military conditions, had imbibed his impressions from foreign pictorial papers. His conception of the functions of a general officer found concrete form in a daily circuit of his camps, mounted and accompanied by his full staff and escort. When not so occupied he sat in much state under the fly of his marquee, and had his colonels come and stand attention and listen to his homilies on the military art, which differed from anything they had previously conceived upon the subject. It was this unschooled, unskilled brigadier who turned down Ray's appeal to march his regiment five miles over to the seashore. The colonel of over thirty years' practical experience was being lectured by the general who had none. The unterrified Kentucky rank and file took to guying their civilian star-bearer. There were presently demonstrations that Ray could neither foresee nor prevent. The general thought he could and should, and so informed him, and likewise the division commander. Ray demanded investigation. The division commander sought to smooth matters over, and failed. Ray resigned in disgust, sought orders to his own regiment, and found himself once again at the head of his squadron of regular troopers in the midst of scenes he loved. But his soul longed for action. He was offered a lieutenant-colonelcy of one of the national regiments of volunteers, but that was a step down, not up. It would have placed him under a colonel ten years younger than himself, and he said he preferred the gold leaves in the regulars to the silver in the volunteers, which ended for the present his prospects. Maidie's wedding, too, had something to do with the decision. But now that was over with, and here were he and Marion occupying delightful quarters at old Fort Minneconjou, with every prospect of soon being sent to the Philippines, where their colonel was commanding a division in the field, leaving Major Ray to look after the post, its men, and its military morals. Here it was, in the bracing air of the Dakotas and within range of the bold foothills and remoter pine-crested heights of the Sagamore, that they opened their hearts and doors to Mrs. Billy's niece, Priscilla Sanford, and affairs at Minneconjou, stagnant a while after the departure of the ----d Infantry, once more became alive with interest, for Miss 'Cilla, as has been said, was a woman with a mission and, as perhaps should be said, with some thirty years to her credit, rather more than she had dollars.

Time had been when, with abundant means and few cares, Miss Sanford busied herself in local charities and became a social power in her community. But with loss of money came lack of appreciation. She who had long managed the Mission kindergarten, and mainly financed it, was presently superseded as president of the board. She who had ever been foremost in the counsels of the Infants' Home and the St. Mary's Guild found herself gradually slighted in the matter of entertainments, etc., though still graciously permitted to do most of the clerical work.

For nearly a dozen years she had served as secretary and treasurer of the Young Woman's Church Aid and Temperance Union, a beneficent organization that still held many meetings but few converts. It had the backing of three or four wealthy congregations, however, and the control of a generous fund. When the year '94 was ushered in and the victims of the panic of '93 were enumerated, the case of Priscilla Sanford had excited prompt and rather widespread interest; but the sympathy that might have been as readily accorded was tempered by the reflection that Miss Sanford had ever been what they termed "bossy," by which it was by no means meant to imply that bovine sluggishness and submission were Miss Sanford's marked characteristics, for Miss Sanford was energy personified in petticoats. It had been moved, seconded and carried, in a spasm of feminine generosity, that the secretary and treasurer should be paid a salary, small, to be sure, but something, and Priscilla Sanford, who had labored without fee or financial reward a dozen years, was permitted to hold the position as a salaried official just one year longer, by which time it was determined that Miss Sanford had really been secretary much too long, and, anyhow, that somebody else stood much more in need of it. So Priscilla's party found itself outvoted at the annual election, and the Young Woman's Church Aid ceased, except in name, to be a temperance union. With much that was intemperate in tone and language, the union burst its bonds and flew to pieces, one or more to each congregation. Then Priscilla tried her hand at writing for the various journals of the clerical order. Some few published, but none paid for, her contributions. Then Aunt Marion began sending occasional drafts that were not to be mentioned to anybody. Then came Priscilla's bid to join Uncle Will and Aunt Marion at Minneconjou, and then—Priscilla herself.

She had been there barely forty-eight hours when there arrived from the Philippines a bulky letter from Lieutenant Sandy Ray, eldest son and hope and heir, dated "Camp Lawton, Benguet." It had been nearly three months on the way. It brought tidings that made his mother's soft cheek pale with anxiety and caused Colonel Ray to look up startled as he read it, to go over and take his wife in his arms, lead her to the sofa, and hold her close as he went on with the final pages—a boy's rhapsody over a boy's first love:

My Own Mummie:—Not until I could send you the inclosed, the portrait, and by no means flattering one, of the loveliest girl that ever lived, could I write to tell you of my almost delirious happiness. But look at her—look at her, and see for yourself and rejoice with me, best, blessedest, dearest of mothers, that this exquisite creature loves me—me, your no 'count, ranch boy Sandy—loves me, and will soon, please God, be my own wife. Mother, mother, I have hardly slept in my wild joy, and now I can hardly wait for your approval and blessing. Dad will love and admire her, I know, but mothers, they say, never think any woman good enough for their boys, while I—I could kiss the very ground she treads so lightly. I almost worship the very glove she left me for a souvenir.

As yet I can't quite realize my wondrous luck. Why, Mummie, the other fellows were simply mad about her during her brief stay at Manila. Quite a lot of us, you know, were ordered there when poor Jack Bender was court-martialed. He got a stay of proceedings of some kind, so while the witnesses should have been back with General Young here, they were dancing attendance on her, and the way I got the inside track was, when her parents had to go over to Japan, I coaxed a ten days' leave out of the General and went with them—her father, mother and her own sweet self—on the Hancock to Nagasaki, and came back desolate on the—I don't know what.

I met her at a dance at the Club. She attracted me the instant I set eyes on her, so like is she to Maidie, only darker, perhaps, and taller, and a bit more slender. But her eyes, hair, teeth, coloring, are all so like Maidie's. Her features, perhaps, are more regular. Shannon, of the Twenty-third, was doing the devoted, and he presented me. She danced like a sylph, she danced right into my heart, Mummie, and there she lives and reigns and has her being—my queen! my queen!

Oh, what nonsense this must sound to you! All my wise resolutions as to young men marrying on lieutenant's pay thrown to the wind! That, however, need not worry us. The major, her father, is well-to-do, and she's an only child; but this is sordid. It is she that I love, and the man does not live who could see and know her and not worship. Why, even our old friend Captain Dwight was fascinated and didn't half like it that I should have gone with her to Nagasaki, and he was stiff as a ramrod when I came back. But to return to her father. He, of course, doesn't expect to remain in the army after the war. He was made major and quartermaster, I presume because of his financial experience and worth, and he was so patriotic he felt he had to get into the field as something. He is a Texan by long residence, if not birth; owns two or three ranches, and his wife, my darling's mother, is a Spanish lady whom he met years ago in Cuba, then Señorita de la Cruz y Mendoza y Fronteras, etc., etc., but she, my lady, never speaks of this. She is simplicity and sweetness itself. She bears her father's honored name, and that alone, except for her own Christian name, the sweetest ever—Inez.

The major's health has suffered much in Manila, but it is hoped that six weeks in Japan may restore him entirely. If not, they will take the homeward voyage by way of Vancouver in one of the fine ships of the Empress line instead of our crowded transports. Hundreds of State volunteers are going back by every one of these and, being discharged, or as good as discharged, they consider themselves relieved from all discipline—which makes it unpleasant for families of officers. They (the Farrells) may winter in 'Frisco, where I hope to join them in the spring, and where you will be sure to see them when you and Dad and the squadron embark for the Islands. There won't be anything left of the insurrection, or much of the insurrectos, at the rate things are going, by the time you come, but meanwhile, like the loving Mummie you are, write to them, especially to her, that your future daughter may know a loving welcome awaits her. She seems timid as to that and fears you may not like her, and Dad will, of course, write to Major Farrell, who is as keen a lover of horses as ever he was, and who owns some of the finest blooded stock ever seen in the South. This letter goes registered because of the priceless photograph, which was taken at Hong Kong, Inez tells me, just after their voyage over, when she was looking like a fright. Being registered, it must go slowly and may be long in reaching you, but fancy your Sandy's joy, if you can. Send this to Maidie, if you will, for I have no time to write to both. I am commanding my troop and we march at dawn for the mountains, and may be weeks now in the jungle, chasing Aguinaldo. Several of our fellows have broken down and had to go to the sea or back to Corregidor, even over to Japan, to recuperate, but I feel like a fighting cock and am going in now to win a name for myself, and for her, that you'll all be proud of. One thing I can tell you proudly, mother dear: never since that day at the Presidio, ever so much more than a year ago, have I let even a sip of wine pass my lips, the first and only teetotaler among the Rays, and perhaps that has something to do with my perfect physical trim. I owe you this, and have gladly kept the faith. Now in my new-found happiness I feel as if I could keep that and every other faith to the end. Lovingly, devotedly, your boy,

Sanford Ray.

P. S.—Inez says it should not be announced until you all have approved, whereas I wished and would be for shouting the news from the housetops. There is a chance of getting this to you quicker than I thought. Captain Dwight has never been himself since Bender's trial and conviction. General Young wanted him to take sick leave last month and go to Japan, but he wouldn't. Now he's fairly broken down and has to be left behind, so this will go to Manila with him. I wonder—I can't help wondering—what he'd think if he knew what was in it. The fellows do say she could have had him and his money, yet she chose your boy, Sandy.

For a moment after reading the final page Colonel Ray sat in silence. Aloft could be heard the firm footfalls of Miss Sanford as she bustled about her room unpacking her belated trunks. Within, with merry snap and sparkle, the fresh-heaped wood fire blazed in the broad open fireplace. Without, the orderly trumpeter, away over by the flagstaff, was winding the last note of stable call. The late afternoon sunshine flooded the valley of the Minneconjou. The mountain air, cool, bracing, redolent of pine and cedar, stirred the tracery of the white curtains at the open southward window and fluttered the silken folds of the standard and guidons at the parlor archway. Anxiously the mother heart was throbbing by his side, and the fond eyes sought the soldier's strong, storm-beaten face. Then she noted the look of bewilderment in his gaze, for again he was studying that postscript. Then suddenly he stretched forth his hand, took from the little pile of newspapers on a chair a copy of a recent army journal, swiftly turned over a page or two, searching the columns with half doubtful eyes; then, finding what he needed, thumbed the paragraph and held it where she could easily see. "Read that," said Ray, and Marion read aloud:

"San Francisco, —— 18.—Among the arrivals at the Occidental by the Sheridan from Manila and Nagasaki are Major, Mrs. and Miss Farrell and Captain Oswald M. Dwight, the latter of the —th Cavalry. Major Farrell, Quartermaster U. S. Volunteers, is the owner of valuable properties in Texas, whither he is soon to return. Captain Dwight, one of the most distinguished of our squadron leaders, is rapidly recuperating from serious illness contracted in the Philippines. The voyage proved a blessing in more ways than one, for the dinner given by Major and Mrs. Farrell last night, to a select coterie at the Bohemian Club, was to announce the engagement of their lovely daughter, Inez, to this gallant trooper, who won his spurs in the Apache campaign of the '80's, and the sympathy of hosts of friends on the Pacific coast in the death of his devoted wife six years ago. They will now rejoice with him in his joy, and unite with us in wishing him and his young and beautiful bride all possible felicity."

Mrs. Ray turned, all amaze, incredulity and distress; then, with something like a sob, buried her face on the sturdy blue shoulder. There was suspicious moisture about her husband's blinking eyes, and he for a moment could hardly trust himself to speak.

"Is it—our boy now, dear?" he gently asked, and her head came up at the instant, her blue eyes welling over with indignant tears:

"Oh, Will," she answered, "you know well what I'm thinking. It is of her—of Margaret—it is of their boy—poor little motherless Jim!"

CHAPTER II

A FACE FROM THE PHILIPPINES

The man did not live who could say, much less think, that Oswald Dwight did not devotedly love his devoted wife and had not deeply, even desolately, mourned her untimely death. Margaret Welland was not a woman to be soon forgotten. For six years she had been the object almost of reverence among the officers and men of her husband's regiment, almost of worship among the women. Gentle, generous, and charitable, gifted with many a physical charm and almost every spiritual grace, she had lived her brief life in the army an uncrowned queen, and died a martyr—almost a saint. For long weeks afterward the women would weep at mere mention of her name. The casket that bore the fragile, lifeless form and that of her infant daughter to their final rest was literally buried in flowers that were wet with tears. Strong men, too, turned aside or hid their faces in trembling hands when with bowed head Oswald Dwight was led by, clasping to his breast his sobbing little boy. There were some who said that Dwight could never have pulled up again if it hadn't been for Jimmy. It was long months before the stricken soldier was restored to them. It was longer still before little Jim returned, and every day meantime, after Dwight's appearance, regularly as he rose and went silently about his duties, the father wrote his letter to be read aloud to his only living child, and the one thing that spurred the merry-hearted little fellow to his studies was the longing to read and to answer for himself. Jim's first missive to his father, penned by his own infinite labor, was the event of the second winter at Fort Riley, for it was shown in succession to nearly every comrade and to every even remotely sympathetic woman at the post. There were maidens there who would fain have consoled the tall, distinguished, dark-eyed trooper, so interesting in his depth of melancholy, so eligible as a catch, for Dwight, for an army man, was oddly well to do. Obstinately, however, he refused all consolation from even such a sympathetic source, and would for long brook no companion on his solitary walks or rides. All his talk now was of his boy. All his thoughts, plans, projects, seemed centering on little Jim, who, for the time being, had to be housed among his mother's people. He was still too young for the care of a soldier-father who any day might be compelled to take the field. But then came station at Fort Riley, with its big garrison, its school and its society, and then the yearning at his heart could no longer be denied. The Wellands nearly cried their eyes out when Oswald, toward the end of the third "leave" since Margaret's death, told them that the time for which he had scrupulously sought to prepare them had come at last: he must have his boy—he could not live without him.

Then when Jimmy came it seemed as though an entire garrison had started in to spoil him. He was the merriest, sunniest, friendliest little chap, frank, brave and even beautiful, with all his mother's lovely coloring, with her deep, heavily-lashed, soulful, violet eyes, with her soft curling brown hair, with her sweet, sensitive mouth and pretty white teeth. No wonder big Oswald used to set him on his knee and look long into the smiling little face, so fond and trustful, yet filled with vague wonderment why daddy should so wistfully gaze at him; and then with relief, Jim knew not why, when the strong arms would suddenly draw the lithe, slender little body to that broad and heaving chest and hold it there, close strained, while bearded lips sought and kissed again and again the sunny curls. Dwight just lived for that boy, said Fort Riley, small blame to him! Dwight made little Jim his friend, his confidant, his companion. Jim had his own little pony as soon as he could safely bestride one. Jim had his own little camp bed in the room opening off his father's. Jim had his own shower bath rigged up in his own closet. Jim had his regular setting-up drill and calisthenics, with daddy himself for teacher, his rub-down and his soldier toilet, with daddy to teach him breathing exercises that took the oxygen deep down into his lungs and sent the red blood whirling through his sinewy little frame. Jimmy had his own racket for tennis, his own target rifle, his own kites, tops, marbles, soldiers of every conceivable size, costume and corps, his own railway tracks and trains, his own books and bookshelves, his own desk and study table—pretty much everything a boy could have except his own way, which he was the better without, and his own mother—without whom boy life can never be complete.

Fort Riley could be censorious, Heaven knows, when cause existed, and sometimes when it didn't; but, save the cherished thought of certain sentimental women that little Jim should have a mother's care as well as a father's, Fort Riley had few critics so unwise as to question Dwight's methods with his boy. Jim did not lack for playfellows of his own age—the fort was full of them and they as full of mischief and merriment as even army boys are apt to be; but, though at school and in the "all-round" sports of boyhood Jim mingled with them unreservedly, the father had made it his business to know most of them well before he brought Jim to take his initiation among them. There were some few whose homes Jim was cautioned not to visit. There were some whom, even on rainy days when the railway was in successful operation all over the second story, Jim was not permitted to invite to join his fellow-operatives. A few carping critics there were who thought such indulgence would be sure to spoil any boy, but, under his father's eye and guided by his father's hand, Jim worked and studied quite as steadily as he played. The staff of the little army household was made up mainly of former trooper Hentzler and his buxom wife, Hentzler being butler, steward, and valet, Frau Hentzler cook and housemaid. Mrs. Feeny, of the troop, was their laundress, and Trooper Mehl "boots," striker and groom. But it was Dwight himself who roused his boy for his morning bath and exercise, who sat with him through his study hour, saw him off to school; walked, rode, drove, sometimes shot and fished with him, going for the purpose far up the Smoky Hill. It was Dwight who read with him after their evening tea and who finally knelt with him night after night before he tucked the little fellow into his white bed, imploring God's guidance for himself, God's blessing for his boy.

And so never again had they been separated, Dwight and his boy, until the squadron sailed for Manila and little Jim, refusing to be comforted, had been left with his mother's kindred until matters should shape themselves in the Philippines. But the shaping process that might have been a matter only of months, had the army found no other enemy than the insurgents and their climate, proved long and costly in life, limb, and treasure, thanks to the aid and comfort given that enemy by our fellow-men at home. Dwight had led his squadron through a campaign fierce in its occasional fighting, but well-nigh fatal through hardship and heat prostration to many besides himself. Dwight had had to turn over his command to Captain Gridley, his next in rank, and go to the sea and Corregidor for rest and recuperation. What good effects might have been obtained were offset by the court-martial of an officer whose mind, it was believed, had been affected by sunstroke, yet Captain Dwight was compelled to appear and remain some time in Manila to testify against him. He returned to the field little benefited by the enforced separation from his fellows, and speedily showed symptoms of returning prostration that led the general commanding to order him again to the seashore and recommend his being sent on a sea voyage. It was during this voyage that, after four wonderful days at Nagasaki, he found himself daily, almost hourly, in the presence of Inez Farrell, as beautiful and graceful a girl as ever his eyes had seen. He was strong neither physically nor mentally. He was still an invalid when they met on the veranda of the old hotel overlooking that wonderful land-locked harbor. He had by no means forgotten the impression created by her beauty and her lissome grace when dancing at the club at Manila. He was invited by Major Farrell to be one of their little party on a rickshaw ride over the green hills to Mogi. It was an ideal day. It was an ideal night, with the moon nearing full as they sat later on the upper veranda, gazing out upon the riding lights of the shipping thick-clustered on the placid bosom of the bay. It was followed by other nights as beautiful both ashore and at sea. He was twenty years her senior, yet she seemed to look for him, wait for him, prefer him in every way to younger officers, also homeward bound, and these youngsters left him to his fate.

What time he was not walking the deck, with her little hand resting on his arm, or flung in long, low steamer chair close to hers, where he could watch the wondrous beauty of her face and feel the spell of her soft, languorous, lovely eyes, Dwight found himself in converse with her father, a patriotic quartermaster, the owner of valuable properties in the Lone Star State, to which he must speedily return—his "boys," two nephews, were not trained to business, said he, and they, too, had been seeing service and unsettling their minds and habits with the volunteers that didn't get to Cuba. His daughter was his chief anxiety, he admitted. She had her mother's luxurious Spanish temperament; needed a guiding hand—a husband to whom she could look up with respect and honor, not a callow youngster with no ideas beyond scheming for promotion and better pay. Several of these young chaps had been buzzing about her at Manila, but she had "turned them all down," said Farrell. She had sense and power of observation with all her possibly romantic admiration for soldiers, but what she really admired was the real soldier—a man fit to command and lead, a man with a record behind him, not an uncertainty ahead. Dwight's seat, at the request of the veteran general officer going with them to the States, had been at the captain's table, but Dwight soon effected—at least Farrell effected and Dwight got the discredit of it—a transfer with the officer who had been seated at the side of Inez Farrell, and Dwight's mental condition can perhaps be judged of by the fact that he never noticed that General Hume thereafter not once addressed him on the voyage.

Enough said. Oswald Dwight's many friends throughout the service read with much surprise, most of them with vague disquietude and some few with downright dismay, the announcement of the marriage at Los Angeles, by the Right Reverend the Bishop of the Diocese, assisted by the Very Reverend Fathers Moran and Finley, at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, of Inez, only daughter of Major and Quartermaster James O'Donohue Farrell, U. S. V., of Santa Rosita, Texas, and Maria Mercedes de la Cruz y Mendoza y Fronteras, his wife, to Captain Oswald M. Dwight, —th U. S. Cavalry.

When the happy pair set forth upon their wedding journey some comment was created by the fact that, while they went to New Orleans, the parents of the bride did not go to Texas, as had been planned. Moreover, the major, it seems, had not anticipated that orders honorably discharging him from the volunteer service would meet him within the week of his arrival within the Golden Gate. Officers of the Department Staff, interrogated on the subject, said little but looked volumes. Major Blake, of the Cavalry, an old and intimate friend of the Rays, was understood to say that it was a wonder the major had been honorably discharged at all. Farrell, who was to have gone to his Texas property, found that certain mines in Mexico demanded immediate looking after. Indeed, it was this fact that precipitated an earlier marriage than Miss Farrell, whose trousseau was by no means in readiness, had for a moment contemplated. Farrell said he might be as much as six months in the mountains beyond Guadalajara and other places. The señora had, of course, wealthy kindred with whom she could stay at Mexico or Vera Cruz, but the hitch was about Inez, who, said her father, was so Americanized that she couldn't get along with her mother's people—they were forever at swords' points, and what more natural than that the ardent swain should promptly urge immediate union; then the Farrells could go their way in peace and he could bear away his beautiful bride to the Atlantic seaboard, to be made known to his people, and to embrace little Jim. To this Inez responded coyly that she could not think of such a plan. She could not go back to San Francisco, a bride, in the gowns she wore while there as Miss Farrell. Then said Dwight, we'll go straight to New Orleans, where her mother had many friends and kinsfolk, where the best of modistes abound, where everything a bride could possibly wear could surely be found, and Farrell added his dictum to the pleadings of the groom-elect. The plan appealed to him most, as it would cost him least.

When Farrell gave them his tearful benediction and farewell, ten thousand dollars of Dwight's money was stowed away in bills of exchange on the City of Mexico for investment in the fabulous mines of the Sierras, and Dwight's signature was on the back of one or two bills left in the hands of Farrell's friends and correspondents at the Bank of California, purely, of course, for safe-keeping. And so they went on their respective ways, Farrell not soon to be seen in God's country again.

Three months later, with little Jim at his side and the young step-mother dawdling along after them in her easy carriage, Captain Dwight was tramping through Switzerland. The surgeons had said in so many words he must not return to the Philippines for half a year, and neither before nor after his marriage had a word reached him from the Rays, who were his next-door neighbors and Margaret's most devoted friends until Jimmy was nearly two years old. Even thereafter, though stationed far apart, Marion Ray and Margaret Dwight had kept up their correspondence almost to the end. Dwight, indeed, had seen barely half a dozen of his former comrades, and that only by accident and in haste. There had come since his second marriage the usual number of cards in response to the wedding announcement sent to so many friends both in and out of the army. There had come a curiously unusual dearth of letters of congratulation. But every man was on the move, he persuaded himself. Everybody was either busy in the Philippines or voyaging to or from them. They, too, were moving from pillar to post, and letters must be miscarrying, so few, for instance, had come from Father-in-law Farrell, and those that did come made no mention of matters Farrell could hardly have ignored, and that Dwight had rather counted on.

Still, Dwight's health was mending every week. Inez had seen so much of foreign life in her younger days she could not be expected to care to go poking about, as he did with Jimmy, into all manner of odd nooks and corners. Father and son once more were hand in hand—hand in glove—for hours each day, and but for a shyness Jim would surely soon get over—a queer, silent shrinking from his beautiful young mother—but for this and one or two little worries due to the non-appearance of letters that ought to have come and doubtless would come, Dwight strove to persuade himself that he was again a happy and an enviable man.

Then came a day that left its impress on them all. There had been something very like demur on part of the Welland family when Dwight first announced his intention of taking Jimmy with them to see the Old World. What would Inez—they spoke her name with effort—think of such a plan? Was not a young bride justified in expecting the undivided attention of her husband? Would not any girl, placed as she was, prefer a honeymoon unclouded by the presence of the children of her predecessor? Inez had not warmed to her other kindred by marriage; could she be expected to welcome and, all at once, to warm to little Jim? Conscientiously and consistently they had tried to like Inez, and could not. She was beautiful; she was appealing; she was apparently all desire to please, but she was not convincing. The more they saw of her the less they liked, but Dwight's infatuation was complete. And still he would have his boy, and they spoke at last. He had answered by summoning her to the room—a strange proceeding—and bidding her speak for him, and she did. She said her heart had yearned for little Jim ever since the captain first began to tell of him, and when she realized later how utterly the father's heart was bound up in his boy, she had prayed for guidance that she might prove a second mother to the little fellow, and it was her earnest desire that the lad might come with them. How else was she to hope to win his trust, his affection? There was nothing left for them to say; but the dread and desolation that fell upon the household when, for the second time, they were compelled to part with Margaret's boy, no one but the Wellands was permitted to know.

Inez, who had been a model sailor on the Pacific, kept much to her stateroom on the gray Atlantic, though the voyage was unusually placid. Nor had she later made much effort in her quest for Jimmy's trust and affection. She could not climb mountains, pedal wheels or ride quadrupeds. She cared little for scenery—she had seen so much in her girlhood. She admitted feeling languid and inert. Perhaps mountain air was not congenial. She would be better when they got to sunny Italy. She wished there to see everything and to live in the open air—it was what the doctor said the captain must do—and then she was always exquisitely gowned and ready to meet them when in the late afternoon they came home, all aglow, with just time to get out of their tweeds and into dinner dress. Then Jimmy went early to bed, and she had the long beautiful evenings with her husband. But now they were in sunny Italy and, except to drive in beauteous toilets and dine in evening garb still more resplendent, Inez had no interest in her surroundings and but little in Jim. They were to sail for home, taking the Hohenzollern at Naples, after the Easter week in Rome. They had been driving much of the day and dining early on the balcony of their hotel, looking out upon the glorious view toward Sorrento and Capri, with grim Vesuvius, smoke-crowned, in the middle distance. Any moment, said their host, they should sight the graceful hull of their expected steamer cleaving the blue beyond the rocky scarp of Posilipo, when Jimmy, gazing steadily through the glass at the crowding fleet of shipping off the Dogana, spoke excitedly: "It is our flag, daddy, and the funnel has three stripes!"

"A transport," said his father, who had been bending over Inez. "She must have come in while we were driving." Yet, even as he spoke, anxiously, tenderly, he was studying her face.

"Then—that was one of our officers that spoke to you, mamma?" said Jim, turning quickly, eagerly toward her.

She had been unusually inert and silent since their return, had herself suggested dinner on the balcony. It would save the bother of dressing, and then repacking, since they might have to go on board any hour that evening. She had been gazing listlessly out over the beautiful bay, almost dazzling in the rays of the setting sun. Now she suddenly started, shivered, but almost as suddenly, quickly rallied.

"Spoke to me, Jimmy! Why, child, you've been dreaming!"

"Why, no, mamma! Don't you remember—while daddy was in at the bank?" and the boy's big violet eyes turned full upon her. The white hands gripped the arm of her reclining chair, but she laughed lightly, and the words came quick.

"Jimmy boy, you were sound asleep on the front seat. Don't you remember, Oswald, dear?"

Dwight, too, laughed merrily. "Surely! Why, little man, your peepers were shut and you were curled up like a pussy cat——"

"But I'd waked up, daddy. Mamma gave a little scream and I thought somebody'd hurt her, and there was this gentleman with his hat raised, just standing and staring at her till she bent over and said something quick——"

"Well, of all the traeumbilder I ever heard!" and Mrs. Dwight's pearly teeth gleamed through rosy lips as she laughed delightedly, merrily. "Why, Jimmy boy, I had to shake you awake when I saw papa coming. That's what I bent forward for. You called him for something, dear, or I shouldn't have disturbed him."

"Certainly, I wanted him to see those Italian cavalry officers coming by, and his eyes could hardly open in time. Just look at 'em now."

They were, indeed, worth looking at—big and violet, blue and round and full of wonderment, of incredulity—almost of shock and distress—gazing fixedly upon the lovely, laughing face of the girl in the deep reclining chair.

And then, soft stepping, apologetic, salver in hand, a waiter appeared at the long Venetian window. Dwight took the card, read, and fairly cried aloud:

"By all that's jolly, Inez, it's Sandy Ray!"

CHAPTER III

A NIGHT AT NAPLES

There was a joyous time at the Salone Margherita that evening. Homeward bound, the Burnside, from Manila to New York via Suez, had anchored that morning off the Dogana quay, and twoscore officers and ladies and a numerous contingent of discharged soldiers had come swarming ashore to see what they could of Naples before again proceeding on the morrow. The fact that most of the officers were invalided home, convalescing from wounds or severe illness, seemed but moderately to cloud their enjoyment. By six o'clock most of their number had heard that Dwight of the cavalry, with his bride, was at the Grand, whither several went at once before ordering dinner. First to arrive, alone, and looking pallid and ill, was a young soldier in civilian dress, who seemed nervously impatient at the delay that followed the sending up of his card, and by no means delighted when three or four of his fellows came in and followed suit before his own was acknowledged. So uncompanionable, indeed, was he that he stepped outside to the southward terrace as though to avoid these others, and, but for the cards, the observant portier might have thought them strangers to each other. The late arrivals, as a rule, were garbed in khaki, just as they had come away from Manila, and were objects of polite curiosity to the elegantly capped, cloaked and uniformed Italian officers sauntering in from the Piazza Umberto, many of whom saluted courteously, though few could tell from the dress worn by the Americans which was officer and which was private soldier.

It was full fifteen minutes before Captain Dwight appeared, though little Jim had come bounding down the carpeted stairway all joy at seeing a face or two he well remembered, and in meeting new friends, who were unspeakably welcome because they were soldiers, American soldiers, our soldiers. Father, he said, would be down in a moment. Mamma was not quite well, over-tired, perhaps, from the long drive and day at sight-seeing and shopping. Even when Dwight appeared, shaking hands most cordially, rejoicefully, with all, and, indeed, nearly embracing Sandy Ray, whom he had known since that young gentleman's babyhood, it was a disappointment to all his visitors that he seemed worried and harassed. Mrs. Dwight, he explained, had not benefited as they had hoped by the journeyings abroad, and she had just had something like a sinking spell. They would have to excuse her a while. She'd be down later. "But you, too, Sandy boy! What a tough time you must have been having! I hadn't heard of your being ill. I haven't heard anything, in fact. Your father hasn't written to me at all. What has been the matter?"

And then it appeared that Sandy had been ailing for weeks on top of a not very serious wound, "wasn't at all fit," yet didn't wish to come home—had been ordered out of the Islands, in fact. And then, as it further appeared, when Dwight turned, looking for little Jim, all eagerness that Sandy should see how splendidly the lad was grown and developed since their parting in Arizona years ago, when Jimmy was just beginning to toddle about and talk, there stood the boy, his big blue eyes fixed on the pallid, solemn face of Lieutenant Ray with a look of bewilderment and trouble. Fowne of the Engineers spoke of it later to Foster, who just at that moment had seized Jimmy and swung him to his shoulder, where, instead of gleefully pounding his captor's head and laughing merrily, as of old he would have done, Jimmy was straining his violet blue eyes again, staring after Ray, whom a waiter, bearing his card, had summoned to follow him. Three or four of the laughing party at the moment had surrounded Dwight, compelling him with their chatter, so that he stood with a hand still extended toward the spot where Jimmy had been standing, and did not even see that Ray had been summoned and was gone. Question and answer were flying thick and fast, for full five minutes before, looking about him, Dwight missed his boy. Foster, finding the little fellow unresponsive, at least, had presently set him down, and then, plunging eagerly into the talk over the latest newspaper tidings of the doings of the Islands—of Otis's probable home-coming and MacArthur's succeeding to the command, of what could be looked for at Samar and Mindanao—he, too, had lost sight of the lad. "Hullo!" said Dwight, "Jimmy has taken possession of Ray. Well, that's as it should be. How was Gridley when you last saw him, Foster? And tell me about the Gillettes. They were mighty kind to me when I was so knocked out after Bender's trial. Fit now? I should say so! Never felt finer in my life. I'm going back to Manila just as soon as I can place my wife and Jimmy, no matter what the doctors say."

And so it happened that, for ten minutes or more, neither Lieutenant Ray nor little Jim was greatly missed. But then Dwight began bethinking him it was high time for Inez to appear. She had promised to come down and meet his old comrades. Only a few minutes would be needed, she declared, in which "to prink a bit." She had been looking so white, or yellow, rather—so wan and weak, yet, after a bumper of champagne, had rallied gallantly, had bidden him run down to meet them and keep them entertained. She'd soon be there. That was now full twenty minutes back, and these fellows were getting impatient for dinner. The head waiter was even now announcing that their table was in readiness. Excusing himself a moment, Dwight hastened from the salon and ran swiftly up to their apartments. She was not there. He went out upon the gallery—the last look by day over that incomparable panorama of earth and sea and sky, for the sun was just kissing the far westward wave and throwing a glow of ruddy gold all over the Vesuvian shore. The waiter was clearing the table. Would the signor finish his wine? The signor needed none. Since that heat prostration in Luzon, Dwight found that a single glass would sometimes go to his head, and so when Inez was fatigued on land or ill at sea, and on her account he had ordered champagne, he merely sipped it, as it were, for her sake. There stood the generous flask still beaded with its icy dew, but most of its contents were gone. So was Inez. That waiter had then the proverbial "cheek" of his class—to drink half their wine and offer the signor the dregs. No, he wished no wine. Where was the signora? The signora, with the signorino, said the waiter, had been there but the moment before. The signora had reëntered her apartment as the signor ascended. Dwight tapped at her window, and presently her voice answered him, in apparent exasperation. She had been having "no end of bother" changing her gown. She couldn't come down to meet his friends in the dusty traveling suit she had worn all day. She had hunted through two trunks before she found what she needed, and was so sorry for the delay, but she heard the party was to dine there. She had a maid to help her now, so she was trying to look her best and be worthy of him. Could he help in some way? Oh, dear no. Run back to them, there's a good boy, and in a few minutes she would be there.

So Dwight returned to the laughing party and went with them to their table and sat with them—an odd group in their service-worn suits of khaki amid the sumptuously attired guests in the brilliant room. Yet even among the wearers of the handsome Italian uniform the incessant glances toward the American party were far from critical. These men had but recently seen sharp service, and soldiers respect and envy soldier achievement. It was Dwight who first missed and asked for Ray. Ray? Why, Ray wasn't of our party. Ray wasn't of any party, in fact. Ray was "off his feed, if not off his base." The fellow was utterly hipped, said Foster. "No more like his father than I to Hercules, and nobody knows why." Ray came ashore with the rest of the crowd, had business at Cook's Bank, wandered off by himself and had been mooning by himself most of the voyage. Foster buried his muzzle deep in his brimming glass of Chianti and didn't care a billy what had become of young Ray. Gone back to the ship, probably, to sit and sulk the rest of the voyage. Obviously the quartette was out for pleasure, and Ray would have been a spoil-sport. None the less, Dwight felt that he should find him, if possible, and so went to the office. But assuredly, said the smiling, gold-banded official, the tenente departed as they were all in conversation. The tenente wished not to disturb them. The signorino went with him to his carriage and, behold! the signorino himself! Jimmy, indeed, came through the portal at the moment from the Piazza Umberto side, but not the blithe, bounding, joyous Jimmy of the morning. The young face was clouded with a look the father never before had seen, and when he called and Jimmy suddenly turned and saw him, though the bright eyes lighted instantly with all the old love—perhaps, too, with some relief—the cloud did not entirely vanish, nor did the boy come bounding. He ran; he took his father's hand and looked up in his face, and when he was asked what he had done with Mr. Ray, said slowly: "Why, daddy, he isn't a bit like what I 'sposed he'd be. He only spoke to mamma a minute or two, and—I guess he isn't well. He didn't have time to speak to me—he hardly said good-by, or—anything."

"Oh, then mamma saw Mr. Ray! I'm glad of that," said Dwight, though remembering she had not mentioned it.

"Yes, on the gallery," said Jimmy. "At least, I suppose so. He came out through the corridor, and then mamma sent me after him with the gloves he had left. I wanted to ask him——" hesitated Jimmy. He did not know whether to go on or not, but he need not have worried. Papa had suddenly turned from him, turned to meet his new mamma—his beautiful young mamma, who, with bared neck and arms, in dinner toilet, was coming slowly and with trailing skirts down the broad and carpeted stairway and looking more radiant and beautiful than Jimmy ever before had seen her; she whom, a few minutes earlier, he had found on the gallery pallid and excited, trembling from weakness, perhaps. Now she had diamonds in her ears and at her creamy throat, diamonds flashing in her corsage. There were shimmer and spangle and firefly sparklings in the lustrous folds of her gown. There were starlight twinklings from the bands of those wondrous, dainty, high-heeled little "slipper shoes," as Jimmy called them. There were glowworm gems in the dark masses of her luxuriant hair. There were rich and precious stones upon her slender, clasping fingers, for Dwight had been lavish to an extent he only now began to realize, for, though his heart leaped in unison with the instant admiration and worship in his eyes, it ached in strange, dull foreboding and reproach for the thought that instantly seized him: How utterly unlike Margaret!

A moment later and the men in khaki were being presented. They had sprung to their feet at sight of the radiant vision in the doorway, where for a moment Inez seemed to hesitate. Beautiful she was beyond question, with the rich, dusky beauty of the passionate South, and they who gazed upon her marveled not at the lover worship in Dwight's deep-set eyes—at the pride with which he watched her gracious, graceful, yet half-appealing and timid acknowledgment of their soldier homage. They made way for her, and would have it that she should sit with them as they lingered a few moments over their wine. And then Farnham, their senior present, raised his glass to her with a word of soldier compliment and greeting, after the manner of the days of his forefathers, and they joined in the toast, one and all, and Inez blushed and beamed upon them, and looked up into her husband's eyes as though begging that he should speak for her, and sipped just the tiniest ripple from the brimming glass of champagne. They had not too much time, for boxes had been reserved for all their party at the Salone Margherita, and could not—would not Mrs. Dwight and the captain join them? Several of the ladies from the transport were to be with them, and now it would be incomplete without Mrs. Dwight. Again the deep, dark, lustrous eyes sought the husband's face, as though she would say in this, as in everything, he must decide. The transport was to proceed at dawn. The Hohenzollern could not be going earlier. How she would shine, this bird of paradise, among those simply-garbed army women who perforce were limited to such toilets as could be evolved from the little steamer trunks. It was Dwight who negatived the project. She would be utterly overdressed for the place and the occasion, but he based his regrets upon the long and fatiguing day, the packing that had to be done, the coming at any moment of their ship. Even now she was announced, said Jimmy, hastening in. And so the others went their way without the Dwights and joined their fellow-voyagers in their revel, the merriest group in all that laughing company, and only once or twice did someone, some gentle-hearted woman, speak the thought that more than once or twice occurred to many present: Why should Sandy Ray have withdrawn from all companionship? Someone said he had returned to the steamer—alone.

It was long after midnight when they came rippling back to the huge bulk of the troopship, with silver raining from the blades of their oars into the sparkling bosom of that wondrous bay. A joyous little flotilla of Neapolitan water craft was theirs, for they had chartered several of the clumsy, unwieldly looking, yet most serviceable barklings, each with its dusky, brown-throated oarsman. They had spent some merry hours after the long, hot voyage through Indian seas and under torrid skies. They had heard much catchy music that all could appreciate and few words, fortunately, that any could understand. They were chatting and singing and recalling the brilliant scene, the dazzling lights, the lustrous corridor and stairway of pure white marble, the coaxing, wheedling swarm of beggar children, the sharp and ever-recurrent contrast between splendid opulence and squalid misery, and as they circled under the massive overhang of their stanch and trusty ship, and one after another each merry boatload came again in full view of the frowning cone of old Vesuvius, belching lurid flame and billowing ruddy streams of molten lava from its crest, some sweet-voiced woman in the foremost boat uplifted her heart in the barcarole from "Masaniello": "Behold how brightly breaks the morning," and, though morning was yet some hours away, here but a league or two across the star-reflecting deep and under the shoulder of the mountain furnace lay the vine-covered walls of Portici, where first was trilled that exquisite welcome to Aurora. And so with music and merriment and laughter, homeward bound from distant service in defense of a beloved flag, they came trooping up the side, the opulence of their gladness all the sharper contrast to the dull apathy of one lone watcher who shrank from their approach and sought seclusion across the deck and in the shadow of the long boat.

Ray was not in his stateroom when Foster bustled thither to inquire. Ray had returned some hours before, said the ship's official on duty. Ray was not found, however, until nearly four bells, when Foster, who had smoked too much to feel sleepy and wished to "stay up and see Vesuvius, anyhow," made an extended inspection of the silent deck. Foster had taken it amiss that Ray should seem so downhearted and be so uncompanionable. Foster felt that the time had come when, in the absence of Sandy's own, he (Foster) should assume paternal rights, or at least those of elder brother, and take the youngster to task. Here and there about the big ship he found, in knots of two or three, silent or conversing in low tone, comrades of the commissioned list or of the ranks, unwilling to seek their berths so long as so gorgeous a panorama lasted. These were ranged along the starboard side, where best they could study that superb sweep of shore line, of light and shadow, of slope and mountain, of curving strand—white, flashing in the moonbeams, of twinkling villages low-lying, of distant, rock-ribbed isles, but among these worshipers there was no Ray.

It was over on the other—the dark, the port—side, and all alone, sprawled in a steamer chair he had lugged to the upper deck and the shadow of the big boat, that Foster came upon the lad. His field glasses were in his hand; his eyes fixed dreamily upon the dwindling, diminishing night lights of the westward suburbs, and Foster hailed brusquely. It was time to jar the boy out of his mooning:

"Hello, Sandy! Where on earth have you been all night?"

"Nowhere," was the short reply.

"Where on sea then, if you will be captious?"

"Oh, admiring scenery," and Sandy yawned suggestively.

"Scenery is all on t'other side, man! Nothing here but ships and shore lights."

"Well—that's what I'm—looking at."

Foster turned sulkily. He disliked being "stood off" by anybody, especially a youngster. Dimly in the soft moonlight the sleeping city lay outspread before him. Standing on the rail, grasping a stanchion, he could see, save where the charthouse and huge funnel interposed, the entire sweep from Posilipo at the west around almost to Sorrento. Ray, seated under the shadow of the long boat, could see only from Posilipo to a low-lying cluster of lights almost at the water's edge. That then was the Piazza Umberto, and those few twinkling, starlike sparkles to the left, dancing so merrily on the intervening wave—those were from some still open casements at the Grand. Then Foster saw what Sandy Ray was looking for, and turned and left him.

At dawn they were weighing anchor, but the big ship had not yet swung her nose to the west when Foster again appeared on the dripping deck and again found Ray almost at the same spot. Some of the same lights, a very few, were still faintly to be seen to the west of the Piazza, and Ray's signal glasses were lifted to his eyes. Aloft the sentinel stars were paling, their night watch ended. Ashore, along the quays and basin and about the Dogana, the lantern lights told of the stir of coming day and departing shipping. Beyond the heavy smoke all about the lone and threatening mountain, the skies were taking on a rose hue of their own that dulled the glow of the sluggish streams rolling ever down those scarred and desolate slopes. Near by in silvery chime ship after ship announced the passing of the night hours, the birth of the infant day, and a long, light-girdled shape, floating easily close at hand on the swelling tide, slowly changed from shadowy black to gray, from gray to violet, and finally—as the still invisible sun peered long leagues away beyond the Italian mountains, beyond the Adriatic wave, above the dim Ægean shore, and sent his flashing signals through the upper ether—from cream to snowy white, there lay the Hohenzollern, "all a taunto and impatient" for her westward voyage for "Gib," for the Azores, for home, and they of the bulkier, heavier transport envied possibly the lithe and lissome build of the famous pleasure craft, once the pride of the old German Lloyds. She might follow in the run past Ischia and Sicily. She would lead far in the chase for Sandy Hook.

"Been up all night, Sandy?" hailed Foster sharply, believing it high time to break in upon these romantic moonings.

"No," said the young soldier slowly. "I've been—down."

"Poor boy," thought Foster, as he turned away. "He looks it! Poor, nonsensical, damn little fool!"

Yet Foster was not so very big, so very wise, so very safe and sure. He had yet to know for himself much that Ray knew now.

CHAPTER IV

"SHE IS COMING HERE!"

The valley of the Minneconjou was looking its loveliest in the joyous sunshine of mid-May. The post had been enlarged to meet the needs of the increasing garrison. A colonel of infantry had been sent to assume command, there being now two of his battalions at the station and only one squadron, of four troops, of Ray's old regiment, the —th Cavalry. At any moment our friend of that name and many years, now become lieutenant-colonel in his own right, could expect orders for the Philippines, and he was ready as ever, though there were just a few reasons why he hated to go. It had been decided that Marion, his wife, hitherto his almost inseparable companion, should not venture to Manila. The detail at most would not exceed two years. It might cover only one, for it was certain that, with the coming enlargement of the army, Ray would soon be promoted to the full rank of colonel, and that would probably bring him home again, for, as things had been going in Samar and Mindanao, colonels were in that sort of campaigning about as useful as most of them in church. Keen young captains and lieutenants were in demand. Field officers, so-called, were of less account in the field than in fortified places. Occasionally a sizable column—a major's command perhaps—would push forth into the jungle, where it speedily had to split up into small detachments, probing in single file, and in pursuit of scattering bands of ladrones or banditti, the bamboo or the mountain trail. Moreover, much of the vim and spirit had been taken out of the soldiery, officers and men, old and young, by the fate of the more daring and energetic of their number, who had fallen victims, not to lance or bullet of lurking foe at the front, but rather "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" at the rear. A powerful party at home had shown far more concern over the alleged ill-treatment of the few insurgent bands than their actual treachery to our men-at-arms. Officers and men listened in silence to the public rebukes and sentences administered to the leaders who had shed their gloves and fought the insurrecto with weapons far more effective, yet infinitely less deadly, than fire and steel. Officers and men in silence set forth upon their next ordered expedition, and in silence returned and announced the result—practically nothing. Elusive and flitting little bands of native warriors, vanishing like shadows among the thickets, were not to be trapped by the methods prescribed for dealing with an army arrayed in front of Washington. "Don't come unless you have to," wrote Major Blake from the hospital at Manila to Billy Ray at Minneconjou. "The courts-martial of Hill and Dale and Langham have taken the heart out of our fellows. The young officers say they dare not go out for fear they might do some damage somewhere."

So Ray, who had fought Indians all over the West for many a year—sometimes, it is true, coming in for a Puritanical scorching from press and pulpit in far New England, where, two hundred years ago, with prayerful zest our forefathers burned witches at the stake and put Pequots to the sword—now found himself shrinking from the task of tackling savages with gloves who treated men without mercy. Marion, as has been said, was not to accompany him to the Islands and be near to counsel and to comfort. She was not too well now, and had had many an anxiety. Billy, Junior, when he should have been studying for West Point, had been spooning over a pretty girl not yet in long dresses, and Sandy, their firstborn, the soldier boy, had come home from the Islands wounded in body and soul. The scar of the bullet would not be long healing, but the sting of that other shock and sorrow, who could say what that might yet import? for Sandy would not speak of it. Sandy would not so much as refer to his brief dream of bliss and the girl that inspired it. Sandy had come to them at Minneconjou to recuperate, detached from his own regiment "for such light duty as he might be able to perform" with his father's squadron of the old —th. Sandy was a sad and silent man. "Let him alone to beat it out in time," said the soldier-father. "It is the only way." But Marion's mother heart yearned over her boy and his wordless sorrowing. He must have loved that beautiful but unprincipled creature with all his fervent young heart.

Colonel Stone, who was now in command at Minneconjou, had known the Rays for years and was firmly their friend. Without so much as a hint from any source, he had divined that Sandy's low spirits were not the result of that bullet wound. He could not but note the solicitude with which his cavalry friend and oft-time fellow-campaigner regarded the silent young soldier, his eldest son. Colonel Stone had suggested at first that Sandy be put at surveying the reservation—something to keep him long hours each day in the open air. But barely six months had elapsed since the Engineers, under orders from department headquarters, had completed with chain, rod and transit thorough plotting of the six mile square, to the end that a very finely finished map was received almost at the time the colonel first broached the subject. Sandy could not yet take part in the sharp mounted drills that were his father's delight. Something had to be done to give him measurably congenial occupation. He could not play tennis, croquet or billiards. He would not play poker or find solace in Scotch highballs. He might have derived some comfort from reading and study, but Priscilla was beset with desire to prescribe his reading and guide his studies, for Priscilla, being several years his senior in age and many volumes his superior in reading, was ever mindful of the mission which no conscientious woman should be without. Priscilla had thought to start a school for the children of the garrison, but found that many of the elders were driven every day to town and its high school, while most of the mites were corraled each morning in the basement of the post chapel, pupils of a sergeant schoolmaster whose success had been quite remarkable, so much so that parents were reluctant—and their progeny rebellious—when other and more modern methods, Priscilla's, were suggested. It must be owned that the little ones from the start found Miss Sanford unsympathetic, if not impossible. Children love being catechized as little as do their elders, and they resented it that this somewhat prim, yet by no means unprepossessing, spinster should consider it her duty and her privilege to cross-question them as to their infantile responsibilities and, all uninvited, to undertake supervision of their noisy sports. Finding no opening for a day school, Miss Sanford had sought to interest the weans in an afternoon reading class. The first day or two the major's spacious quarters were well filled, so were the children with alluring goodies they could thoroughly appreciate. But when sermons began to take the place of sandwiches, and moral admonitions and questionings were administered in lieu of lemonade and lady-fingers, Miss Sanford's kindergarten dissolved in air and the would-be gentle monitress in disappointed tears. Uncle Will had whimsically striven to console her with the promise of better luck when school stopped in June, but Aunt Marion had smilingly though silently shaken her head. She knew Priscilla's propensities of old. She had convictions, said Aunt Marion, and theories as to how children should be taught to see the serious side of life. Priscilla was suffering from an accumulation of pent-up zeal and enthusiasm that was yet to find an outlet.

Then one day the outlet came.

Lieutenant Parker, "Exchange officer," so-called, was suddenly ordered to duty at West Point, and Colonel Stone asked Sandy Ray if he would take his place. "Strictly speaking," said he, "I should name one of my own officers, but I have other work for all of them, and lots of it. You have really very little else just now that you can do, except, perhaps, go to stables."

Now, if there was one institution more than another at Minneconjou against which Priscilla Sanford had set her seal, it was the post Exchange. In all her months of residence under Uncle Will's, the major's, roof, never once had the others there sheltered forgotten the day of her first acquaintance with the subject. Sandy was still beyond seas, but Billy, Junior, was of the household when, just as they took their place at table for luncheon, the husband and father spoke:

"Maidie wife, they have some capital cider at the Canteen and I ordered some sent over."

Miss Sanford looked up inquiringly over her poised spoonful of soup.

"The—Canteen?" she asked.

"Yes. The Post Exchange, it is called officially. It's the post shop, restaurant, club, amusement hall, etc.," answered the head of the house, while Marion, his wife, glanced just a trifle nervously at her niece.

"But why—Canteen? It isn't, is it, a—bar?" And Miss Sanford's tone betrayed the depth of her disapprobation of the name.

"Yes, and no," said Uncle Will pleasantly, his dark eyes twinkling under their heavy brows and lashes. He rather liked to have 'Cilla mount her successive hobbies, and thought it better, as a rule, to let her air her theories first in the sanctity of the family circle. "After experimenting a hundred years or so we found it wiser to prescribe the drinks as well as the meats of our men, and to provide a place for them at home where they can have rational amusement and refreshment, rather than send them out into the world where they get the worst of everything."

"But, uncle, do you mean you let—you encourage—these young soldiers to—drink?" And the slender gold chain of Miss Sanford's intellectual pince nez began to quiver, as did the lady's sensitive nostrils.

"Encourage? No! Let? Yes, so long as it is nothing but sound beer or light wine—things we buy for them from the most reliable dealers and provide them practically at cost. You see they have their own clubroom, and billiards, checkers, chess, dominoes, coffee, cake and sandwiches. It keeps them here. It helps and contents them. They can't drink more than is good for them."

"Is it good for them that they should drink—at all?" demanded Priscilla.

"Possibly not. The ascetic in everything would be, physically perhaps, the ideal soldier. But precious few soldiers are ascetics, though many are total abstainers."

"Then why not all, since it is best for so many?"

"Because, 'Cilla, a large number refuse to be abstainers, and we can't make them. They won't enlist or serve if such conditions are imposed. If forbidden to use mild and carefully selected stimulant here they will go elsewhere and get the vilest the frontier can furnish, to the ruin of their stomachs, reputation and moral nature. We teach temperance—not intolerance."

But Priscilla had been reared in the shadow of the stanch old Calvanistic church and the strictest of schools.

"I—cannot see how you dare place such temptation in their way," said she. "You thereby take their souls in the hollow of your hand and become responsible——Oh!"—with a shudder of genuine distress and repugnance—"I knew—I had heard—there was drinking; but I never supposed it was countenanced, encouraged by—by those who ought to be their shield against such temptation and trouble." And here Priscilla's words were oddly reminiscent of the editorial columns of the Banner of Light and certain other most excellent organs of the Prohibition element.

"We do it to keep them from vastly worse temptation and trouble, Priscilla," said the veteran soldier kindly, and signaling Marion not to interpose. "You are right, dear, in the abstract, but we have to deal with men as we find them. We would be glad indeed of ideals, but the ideal doesn't, as a rule, enlist."

"The Bible teaches us it stingeth like an adder," said Priscilla solemnly, with suggestive glance at Billy, Junior, whom she but yesterday had rebuked for sipping claret at the colonel's dinner.

"The Bible also tells us Who turned water into wine at a certain marriage feast," said Uncle Will, his mustache twitching.

Whereat Priscilla flushed; the tears started to her eyes; she arose and left the table, her soup unfinished. It was one thing to quote the Scriptures in support of her views; it was quite another to array them on the other side. When Aunt Marion went to Priscilla's room a little later, with a tray of tea and comfits and a word of gentle expostulation, she found her niece in anything but melting mood. To Priscilla's mind such argument as Uncle Will's was impious. To Aunt Marion's suggestion that at least it was from like authority with her own, Priscilla could find no better reply than "That's different."

Down in her heart of hearts Priscilla thought it a grave mistake on part of somebody that the episode of the marriage of Cana of Galilee had any place in Holy Writ. Indeed it may be hazarded that, long schooled by the Banner and the eloquent lessons of her favorite preachers, Priscilla could have listened with becoming modesty, but no surprise, had it been suggested that she undertake the preparation of an expurgated edition of the Word.

At the date of this initial clash Uncle Will was still commanding the post. Stone, with the Sixty-first, came later. Priscilla, finding her uncle ever smilingly tolerant of her views, but never shaken in his own, had first essayed an inspection of the Canteen—she would not call it the Exchange—and then had descended upon the chaplain—a gentle divine, gifted with much faith but little force, a kindly, sweet-tempered cleric ever ready to follow if never to lead in good work that demanded personal push and energy. Priscilla had spent sleepless hours in thought over the situation. She could not abolish the Canteen since the law ("The law and the prophets," said Uncle Will, though Priscilla would not hear) sustained it. She could, she reasoned, conduct a rival establishment that should wean the soldier from the false faith to the true, and to this end she sought the aid of the cassock.

Uncle Will had taken her, at her request, to see the objectionable institution, and she had peered curiously about the cozy interior. At sight of their much honored squadron leader, the few troopers at the tables, busy with checkers, dominoes or billiards, had sprung to attention, facing him and the grave-eyed lady by his side, and there stood in soldierly respect. Ray smilingly acknowledged their homage, bade them go on with their games; he merely wished his niece from the East "to see how we manage to live in the West." Then he showed her the bookshelves and the reading room with its illustrated weeklies and magazines, the well-furnished writing tables whereat certain young soldiers were working at their letters home; the refreshment counter, with its appetizing little stack of sandwiches and polished urn of steaming coffee, and all this Priscilla saw without sign of surrender. What she looked for she did not find—symptoms of the inevitable intoxication and debauchery to be expected wherever liquor was sold or used. Some of the men had half-emptied beer glasses at their elbow. Two German non-commissioned officers were sipping appreciatively the wine of their native Rhineland as they chatted in quiet comfort over their little table at the window. A veteran sergeant stepped forward and begged the honor of tendering the colonel and the lady a glass of their wine, and again every man was on his feet as Ray drank to their health, and Priscilla thanked their entertainers and said she would be glad of a little coffee—she never used wine. She was silent as she came away—all was so orderly, so cheery; the men seemed so content with their surroundings, so pleased that "the colonel" (never did they forget his volunteer title) should come to see them. She owned that—yes—they looked very—decent now, but—but, it was only the first step; it was what it all led to, said she, that made it so dangerous, so dreadful! Indeed, the mere fact that all was so well ordered made it, presumably, to Priscilla's mind, all the more alluring and terrible. It was the devil's way always, she had been taught—imperceptible, inviting, insidious. Priscilla prayed long that night and pondered. She had almost decided on a campaign of conquest and overthrow, when the new commander came, and in Colonel Stone she found an obstacle quite as firm as Uncle Will—and far less tolerant.

Meantime, however, Priscilla had organized her "Soldiers' Advancement Association"; had started in a vacant set of quarters a rival to the Canteen, where even better coffee and sandwiches could be had and much more improving conversation, but no beer, and Priscilla was presently in the seventh heaven; so many soldiers came she had to send for more seats and more supplies. Every evening after dinner, putting behind her the unworthy, if worldly, impulse to go and join in the music or the dance, Priscilla met her martial friends and pupils, learned their soldier names, something of their history and much of their needs. The chaplain at first was quite assiduous in his attendance, but the chaplain, she speedily decided, was slow, prosy, unconvincing. He did not seem to stir them as they should be stirred, and when one night the kindly old gentleman failed to come, and his goodwife sent word she feared her husband had caught a heavy cold, Priscilla took the Word, as the French would say; read the chapter of her choice; expounded vehemently after the manner of her favorite exhorters, and came home radiant. No less than six of the men had come to her to thank her for her soul-stirring words, and to say that if they had had such teaching as that in their past they would never have brought sorrow to a mother's heart, as some of them feared they had. Uncle Will's eyebrows went up significantly when Priscilla named her converts, and once or twice, as he sat writing to Blake that night in his little den, sounds as of irrepressible chuckling came from that sanctum, and Marion slipped in to say a word of caution. Priscilla, however, at last had found her opportunity and could not be laughed out of it. The chaplain was warned, he said, that exposure to the wintry night air was hazardous, and he was reluctantly compelled to withdraw, and Priscilla, by no means reluctantly, to part with him. She was in desperate earnest and in the full tide of apparent success, with all Minneconjou watching with absorbed if mischievous interest. Priscilla's mourners' bench, it must be owned, was graced by the presence of one or two veteran troopers, the mention of whose names was enough to start the risibilities of that godless array, "the Mess." There was Shaughnessy, who had served six enlistments and never kept the chevrons six months at a time. There was Kelly, the "champeen thrumpether," who could blow "Taps" that would bring tears to your eyes one day and maledictions on his head the next. There was Costigan, who had been "bobtailed" out of two of the best regiments of infantry of the service, and only "taken on" in Ray's old troop by special permission, because of his undeniable valor in Indian campaign and the fact that when he let whisky alone there was not a neater, nattier soldier, Horse, Foot or Dragoon, to be found in the field. Priscilla had indeed gathered in some of the reprobates, and sought to reach more. She begged that, in accordance with their plaintive request, the inmates of the guard-house, immortal "Company Q," might be allowed the benefit and privileges of the Association. Had not He said He came not to call the just but the sinners to repentance? and, as Uncle Will whimsically remarked, "If what Priscilla wants are sinners—she's got 'em."

And this was the state of things when Stone arrived; took command, reinforced the garrison with eight stout companies and band of the Sixty-first, and the guard-house with a score of military malefactors who, hearing of Miss Sanford's Soldiers' Advancement Association, begged leave to partake of its blessings, including the coffee and sandwiches. Then Stone suddenly "tumbled to the scheme," as Billy, Junior, a fierce skeptic from the start, described it. Then Stone himself attended a meeting, to the obvious embarrassment of the congregation, though Priscilla beamed upon him in the sudden belief that here indeed was a heart worth the moving. What Stone saw was quite enough to convince him of the utter absurdity of permitting the further attendance of, at least, the guard-house contingent, but he would not wound Priscilla or, without abundant reason, disturb the edifice builded under Ray's administration. The Association might even have lived and thrived another week on Priscilla's ministrations—and at Ray's expense—for daily coffee and sandwiches for all comers, forty odd, at least, was proving costly. It was "Company Q" itself that broke it up. The privilege and the darkness combined enabled certain of its unhallowed spirits to smuggle whisky into the prison room, and, thus stimulated, a gifted ex-professional of the "dramatic line" set up a wonderfully if wickedly witty burlesque of the evening's lecture, to the irrepressible, and presently uproarious, mirth of his fellow-jailbirds. It was just what Stone was expecting, and so far from ordering it stopped, he sent for Ray and bade him listen. Then the post and the squadron commander shook hands in silence. "You see for yourself," said Stone. "I, too, have been expecting it," said Ray. Then the guard was sent in. The impious revel was suddenly and summarily squelched. Then Ray gently told Priscilla the sinners could come no more, but mercifully would not tell her much, at least, that he had heard. So the Soldiers' Advancement Association retrograded in numbers to less than half, and then, as others not at the moment under guard took alarm, to less than a dozen. But Priscilla wrapped herself up in the nine that were left, and, as all barrack room was now needed, for these they fitted up a little apartment in the basement of the major's quarters, and then came Sandy Ray, as has been said, and spring was turning to summer, and Priscilla's band of stalwarts had been reduced to six, and of these six the apple of her spiritual eye was Blenke.

One of the recruits, regimental and bibli-classical, was Blenke, but already a marked man. Small of stature, lithe, slender and sinewy, with dainty little hands and feet, with pallid face and regular features and great big, mournful brown eyes that looked pleadingly into those of his superiors, Blenke wore the uniform of a private with the ease and grace and care of a dandy subaltern. Blenke's gloves and shoes could not be furnished by the quartermaster's department; they did not deal in such small sizes; but Blenke brought with him all he could need of such items for months to come. Blenke was a silent fellow in barracks. Blenke never whistled or sang. Blenke rarely spoke and never smiled. It was not that Blenke's face was set in gloom, but an air of gentle melancholy hung ever about him. He made no intimates, sought no confidences and gave none among the men. Whatever he was put to do he did surprisingly well. Corporal Donovan, detailed to drill him when he, with the rest of the little party, arrived, informed the first sergeant that "that young feller knew more settin'-up drill than any non-com at the post." So it proved also with the manual of arms. Blenke was an expert. When put into a squad for aiming and position drill, Blenke had nothing to learn, and his shooting and gallery practice was on a par with the best. They sent him out to the rifle range west of the post and there he "qualified" at known distance and excelled at the silhouettes, and still he declared he had never before "taken a blanket." He learned his drill and shooting with the militia, he said; gave "clerk" as his occupation and wrote a beautiful hand, though his spelling at times might be criticised. Blenke had a watch, card-case, shirts, shoes and underwear that told of better days. Blenke, apparently, had no vices. He neither drank, smoked, chewed, gambled nor, unless closely pressed as to his past, was he believed to lie. Blenke looked about him a bit before going either to church or town. Then Blenke began appearing regularly at chapel service, and then, modestly, sought permission to enter Miss Sanford's Soldiers' Advancement Association, where speedily he attracted the especial notice of that devoted and devotional young woman. Then Blenke offered his services as writer, copyist, etc., and Priscilla, being much occupied, gladly installed him at a desk whereat he spent much time when not elsewhere on duty, and all the while, neat, handy, silent, unobtrusive, yet seeing everything with those deep, mournful, watchful eyes, Blenke found means to make himself more and more useful, and presently to communicate the fact that though his present lot was humble there had been "advantages" in the past, there were ambitions for the future. To begin with, he wished to transfer into the cavalry. He knew little, he said, of the relative merits of those arms before enlisting. He had seen much since, he said, to convince him that for a young man of spirit the cavalry offered opportunities not to be looked for in the infantry. This, he judged, would not displease the squadron commander, whose influence through Miss Sanford he earnestly sought, and so it resulted that Blenke, little by little, was far more frequently to be found about the major's quarters than his own.

Ray did not like it. Neither did Blenke's captain, yet neither wished to throw cold water on Priscilla's efforts, and really nothing could be less obtrusive or more precise and soldierly than Blenke. He never presumed to speak except in answer to questions. He was scrupulous in dress, bearing, conduct and military courtesy. His salute was precision itself. His captain really wished to make him a corporal, but a veteran first sergeant respectfully protested. "The men wouldn't stand for it, sir, and him not two months in the company." Sandy Ray, who came home in mood to carp at anything, liked it least of all that he should be forever encountering Blenke about the lower floor or around the walks and quarters. But Priscilla was forever talking of Blenke's helpfulness, his piety, high character, and his modest hopes. Blenke was beginning to talk with her about studying for a commission. Blenke was beginning to be disliked among the men because he ignored them so.

Then one day came the expected. Lieutenant-Colonel Ray, —th Cavalry, was ordered to proceed at once to San Francisco, and thence by transport to Manila. Then came tidings of deaths in the Islands, and retirements at home, and, six months sooner than he had hoped for such a thing, Oswald Dwight saw the gold leaves of a major dangling before his mental vision, and the night before Colonel Ray was to bid his loved ones good-by and take train for the coast, and he and Marion, arm in arm, were coming home from some parting calls, they saw Blenke standing at their gate, a telegraphic message in his hand; Priscilla and Billy, Junior, following, closed upon the elders as Ray tore open the envelope. Blenke, having delivered it, stood scrupulously at attention just beyond the gate, gazing with his mournful eyes straight out at the flagstaff in the middle of the parade. Ray read, turned a bit pale, and glanced hurriedly about him as though in search of someone. Sandy was not in sight. He was busy with the affairs of the Canteen.

"What is it, Will?" asked Marion anxiously, her gloved hand trembling a bit upon his arm.

"Of all things—queer," said Ray. "Dwight gets my squadron, and—she's coming with him."

Then unaccountably Private Blenke's forage-cap, always worn well forward, tilted off and fell at his feet.

CHAPTER V

PREMONITORY SYMPTOMS

Colonel Ray was no coward, but it must be owned that he was glad to be well away from Minneconjou before the coming of the Dwights. What troubled him most was, not how Sandy, his eldest boy, but how Marion, his beloved wife, might suffer. Never to either father or mother had the young officer spoken the name of the second Mrs. Dwight. Never since his coming to Minneconjou had he referred to his infatuation of the previous year, nor had he even remotely mentioned the meeting at Naples. They knew of it, of course. There were so many aboard the transport who had heard all there was to hear about it, and some of these many could not be expected to keep it to themselves. Sandy, indeed, reached the post only a day or two in advance of this interesting piece of news. Marion heard it before her husband and refrained from telling him, in hopes that Sandy himself would open his heart and tell her all there was to be told; but presently it dawned upon her that the boy shrank from the very mention of "that woman's" name—then that Will, too, had heard the story, and not from Sandy, and then that each feared to tell the other. Then as of old, she nestled into her husband's arms, and there, in her refuge, said:

"After all, Will, isn't it better he should have seen her and—had done with it?"

"If only he has done with it," thought the colonel, as he watched the young soldier going doggedly about his duties. "If only he has done with it!" he thought again, when he saw the red burning on the young fellow's cheek that told he knew at last of the impending arrival. But the boy had shown splendid nerve and grit in that vital matter of the gradual repayment of the moneys lost through his neglect at the Presidio in '98. He had shown such manliness in abjuring wine after that one almost excusable lapse so long ago. A boy who could keep himself so thoroughly in hand, said the colonel, in two cardinal points, can be counted on to keep his head even when he may have lost his heart. No. Ray had trusted Sandy thoroughly in the past, and Sandy had thoroughly justified it. Ray meant as thoroughly to trust now to the manfulness and honor of his son. Pride, too, would help the lad even were "that woman" to seek to lure him again.

But it was hard to leave Marion to meet the Dwights. In all her army life, with the possible exception of Grace Truscott, never had Marion met a woman for whom she felt such depth of affection and regard as for Margaret Dwight. The two, as has been said, were devoted friends, and when Margaret died, leaving her husband, crushed and heartbroken, and that idol of her heart, little Jim, it is doubtful if among her own people she was mourned as utterly as she was by Mrs. Ray. In the years that followed Marion was forever planning for the little fellow's future, and pouring forth a perfect flood of sympathy for that bereaved soldier, his father. It came as a shock inexpressible that Oswald Dwight, after six years' brooding, had married again, and had given Margaret's place to—what?—a girl, young, beautiful, obscure, unprincipled—the girl whom her own Sandy had rapturously, loved and implicitly believed in. And now Marion was called upon to meet this woman in "the fierce white light that beats upon" garrison life—see her daily, hourly, possibly as a next-door neighbor, and no husband's arm or counsel to lean upon.

Nor was this all. It had been arranged that the families of officers ordered on foreign service should retain quarters at the station from which said officers took their departure, provided the quarters were not actually needed by the garrison. Three out of five the big army posts had been left with but a detachment to guard them. Minneconjou was an exception. Hither had come Stone, with two battalions of Foot. Headquarters, staff, band and one squadron of the cavalry had been there, but band and headquarters were now shifted to Niobrara. How Marion wished the squadron could have gone, too! But that was not to be. There were still the four troops at the station, and the Rays were still quartered in the big, roomy house to the right of the post commander's—Marion, her sons, her niece and their two servants. There was even abundant space for her niece's diminishing Advancement Association—the secretary's desk and the mournful-eyed young secretary being much in evidence at the basement window on the north side. Three sets, the colonel's and the flanking field officers', had been built with high piazzas and well-lighted basements beneath; all the others were squat on the hard prairie ground. Stone had two majors with him, both junior to Ray and the post surgeon, so they had taken root in the lines and, for army men, were quite content. All on a sudden one day the new major, Dwight, drove out from the railway station in town, reported with soldierly precision to Colonel Stone, and accepted the promptly tendered invitation to be the colonel's guest until ready to occupy his own quarters. Dwight came earlier than had been expected; explained that he "came ahead to select quarters," would send Mrs. Dwight the measurements of the rooms, then ask for a week's leave to return and fetch her with their goods, carpets and variegated chattels from Chicago. Had any letters or dispatches been received for him? None? Dwight looked queer and grave. Indeed, Stone, who had heard much of him and had met him once or twice in by-gone days, confessed to his wife that Dwight must have "gone off" not a little in more ways than one. Was it the old sorrow or—the new wife—or, mayhap, the sunstroke in the Pampangas?

That afternoon Marion Ray, seated on the vine-shaded piazza, writing to her husband, looked up suddenly at sound of a footstep and, startled and for a moment speechless, gazed into the once familiar features of Margaret Dwight's once devoted husband. She was slow to rise and hold forth her hand, so strange was the expression in his tired eyes. When she could speak it was to say, though her heart fluttered, "Welcome again, Major Dwight, but I'm so sorry Will is not here, too! It is barely a week since he started."

"I have hurried," was the answer, as he took her hand. "I am so tired of leave, of dawdling, of—almost everything. I'm wild to get to work—to work again, Mrs. Ray! That's what a man must have."

All the old strength and repose of manner had gone. She was shocked and troubled at the change, and hurried on in her words lest he should see it.

"And how is my boy—our little Jim? And—I hope Mrs. Dwight is well, and—we're to see her soon," she ventured.

"Mrs. Dwight is looking remarkably well, though she and I are anxious about her mother. Indeed, I had hoped to find dispatches—or something—here from Major Farrell," and surely Dwight's face betrayed rather more than his words. "Jimmy's in fine trim," he hurried on. "They got to be fast friends voyaging. They were up on deck all the homeward way, whereas I'm a very poor sailor. I could hardly, hold up my head from the time we left Gibraltar."

"I'm glad of that—friendship," said Marion gravely, guardedly, for already, in the friendship Minneconjou had been hearing of, little Jim was not included. The Hohenzollern, after a stop-over at Algiers, had been boarded at Gibraltar by two crestfallen gentlemen in khaki and a quandary. The transport had preceded the liner into the shadow of the sleeping lion just thirty hours, and, steaming on to sea before the latter was signaled, found some hours out that Foster and Gibson had been unaccountably left behind. At their own expense, their soldier wardrobe and toilet replenished by a score of jovial Britons who had also contributed to their detention, these two warriors completed their voyage, and Gibson said he was practically alone, for, from morn till nearly midnight, from off Cadiz until held up at quarantine, Foster had been dancing attendance on the lovely Mrs. Dwight, the captain being much of the time down with mal de mer.

Now, Sandy had merely referred to "two fellows left at 'Gib,'" without going into particulars. Sandy, of course, could not be expected to know what might have transpired on the Hohenzollern. Sandy had said nothing about the Dwights at Naples. Sandy had not mentioned even Jimmy, and so long as he shrank from the subject the mother wisely would not question. She was glad now that Sandy was not at home, that he was busy with his accounts over at the Exchange. She was glad that Priscilla was not within earshot, that she was busy with her Bible class on the floor below. Priscilla, Aunt Marion owned, was inquisitive at times, and her theory of a mission among men was not limited to the rank and file. Priscilla had ambitions embracing the moral improvement of every officer from "C.O. to sub.," and Priscilla had heard things somewhere about the post that set her to asking all manner of questions of her aunt, questions that set the mother heart to fluttering lest Priscilla next might direct her batteries on Sandy. No good could come from that, she knew, for one of Sandy's earliest antipathies had been Cousin 'Cil, whom he called a preacher in petticoats. Sandy was civil to her now, but by no means inviting, and Priscilla took it much amiss that her cousin rather held aloof, refused to argue the canteen question with her, and could not be drawn into doctrinal discussion of any kind.

Below stairs could be heard the low hum of voices through the open casement. Priscilla had been reading aloud to her soldier wards, but police and stable call would presently be sounding—the signal that, save the secretary, would take away her pupils, and Aunt Marion hoped Priscilla might not appear upon the scene before Dwight departed, yet longed to hear him tell of little Jim, and Dwight seemed intent only on telling her of Inez—Inez and her perfections. Dwight seemed to feel that he must make this devoted friend of his first wife fully aware of the manifold perfections of the second. To all she listened with such attention as she could command, but when again she asked for Jim and whether he was greatly grown and whether he was studious,—or what,—for well she remembered all Margaret's cherished plans for her boy, again Dwight responded with what Inez said and Inez thought. Inez so loved him. Inez so delighted in having him with her in her walks and rides. Inez thought him so keen, so quick, so intelligent. Inez admired his eyes, his face, his slender boyish beauty. Inez could not say enough in praise of him. It was Inez this and Inez that. There would only be three of them, said he, when they came to Minneconjou,—Inez, Jim and himself. They would have no use, said he, for the big house occupied by the Rays. He really preferred one of the sets of captain's quarters. Marion had been wondering whether Inez would not prefer to occupy these—whether, in fine, they would not have to move out and give the Dwights possession, but Dwight said no. In fact, he would not decide what set to take, now that he had seen them, until Inez herself arrived; whereat Mrs. Ray breathed freer.

And then the bugles blared across the broad parade and the white stable frocks began to dot the distant and severe façade of the frontier barracks, and 'Cilla's pupils came forth and hastened to their duties, and, catching sight of Colonel Stone and certain of his officers wending their way to the club, Dwight took his leave and started for the steps. He would see Mrs. Ray again within a day, he said. He was eager to see Sandy, who, somehow, had not seemed himself when they met at Naples. And then Priscilla's even tones were heard below, and the low-pitched, murmurous voice of the deferential secretary, and Marion would have detained the major, she hardly knew why, but he was nervously saying adieu and hurriedly descending the steps just as Miss Sanford and her assistant issued from beneath. At sight of the strange officer Priscilla's glasses went up for deliberate survey, the secretary's hand in quick salute. At sound of his name, as Mrs. Ray spoke a word in parting, Miss Sanford's face beamed with instant interest, the secretary's paled with as instant emotion. Standing in the slant of the afternoon sunshine, where Mrs. Ray could not but distinctly see him, Private Blenke had turned yellow-white as unbleached cotton and was biting his lips to control their twitching. Then, without a word, the moment Dwight went his way, Blenke faced about and bolted another.

Miss Sanford followed the major with curious eyes, then turned to resume certain instructions to her satellite, and behold, he was scurrying away across the parade in pursuit of the earlier departures. "Why, I—hadn't half finished," said she, as she turned to her aunt. "What took him off in such a hurry?"

There was none to answer, however, for Mrs. Ray had turned back to her letters; and on the following day Dwight hastened to Chicago. Within the week came Colonel Stone, with a face eloquent of perplexity.

"Mrs. Ray," said he, "this is simply unaccountable, but Major Dwight writes me that, after all, he shall have to claim the privilege of his rank and—this set of quarters. It seems that Mrs. Dwight is now expecting her mother and others to pay her an extended visit as soon as she is settled, and captain's quarters would not be large enough."

Which was how it happened that, two days later, the goods and chattels of the Rays were being stowed in another and much smaller tenement some distance down the line. There was a very good set—a really roomier set—that Priscilla much preferred only two doors away from that which they were vacating, but Aunt Marion would have none of it. She had made neither comment nor remonstrance when Stone came in with his unwelcome news. She would say nothing about it now. That she should retain the quarters of a field officer was something to be accorded as a courtesy; it could not be demanded as a right, save at certain large posts with small garrisons. But men and women who knew Marion Ray, and they who knew her honored her, felt confident of one thing, that she was intent on getting as far away from the coming household as lay in her power to do. Sandy was but a second lieutenant still and entitled by law to only one room and a kitchen. They were in luck, perhaps, in finding so good and new and commodious a set of quarters as these to which they were assigned.

Sandy had not opened his head on the subject of Major and Mrs. Dwight, even when, at their instance, he, his mother and their household had been dispossessed. Sandy had found an easy horse and, with the consent of the surgeon, had begun to spend some hours in saddle again when not at the "shop." Then Priscilla, believing lonely brooding to be a bad thing for any man, found means to a mount and surprised him one day by appearing in habit and saddle ready to ride. For the life of him Sandy could not look pleased at the prospect. Five years earlier, when Priscilla was well-to-do, he might have found excuse to avoid or to leave her. Now, in the days of her dependence, he could and would not; but he proved a silent companion.

Across the fords and just at the eastern edge of the reservation they passed on their return some ramshackle buildings, only two of which showed signs of recent human occupation, and Priscilla spoke of their abandoned look and then—wished she had refrained.

"Time was," said Sandy, "when they were bustling and lively enough. We had no Exchange then, and the men wandered out here for their beer, and here parted with their money and their hopes. Here they were drugged till their last cent was wheedled or bullied out of them. Then they were kicked out in the cold to take their punishment at the fort. Then it was our men that went to ruin. Now, as you see, it is only the ranch."

It was useless arguing with people so narrow-minded as her cousins, thought poor 'Cilla, as she sharply touched her broncho with the lash and drove him hock deep through the foaming waters. What all men should see was that alcohol in any form was an enemy to be shunned and set aside, a thing never to be tampered with or tolerated, and here were sane and, in many ways, excellent people—people who had been to her most loving and kind and charitable—who were willing to concede that what she said might all be true, but were equally convinced that what she would do was utterly impracticable—people who themselves eschewed the use of wine, yet blindly persisted in providing it for these children of the nation, the soldiers, because, as they said, most of the soldiers could not be made to see the harm in malt or mild wine and would drink vilest whisky if deprived of them. She considered Sandy a scoffer, whereas Sandy did not scoff at all. He simply cited facts. She longed for opportunity to convert him to her views and believed implicitly that if he could but be made to listen he would surely see the light, but whenever Cilla brought her batteries to bear he confounded her with some such incontrovertible truth as this or—changed the subject. This day she had planned a coup, and he had met her, unexpectedly, more than halfway. By the time she had regained her self-control they were past the sentry line and well within the post.

"I want to have a real talk with you, Sandy," she said, as he swung her to the ground in front of their old quarters, where still they lived while fitting up the new.

"You'll have to do it all, 'Cil, if it's Canteen you're hitting at," was the answer, as he led the way up the broad steps; then stopped suddenly, his young face darkening.

A slender, soldierly form had suddenly issued from the hallway at the sound of voices, and there stood Blenke, hand at cap visor, the mournful eyes in mingled depth of respect and appeal, fixed upon his young superior. It was plain to see that Lieutenant Ray little relished the sight. Blenke's desk and duties had been confined to the floor below. Blenke had no occupation or right on the upper deck. Mechanically the subaltern returned the salute, but there were both suspicion and displeasure in his voice as, almost sharply, he inquired:

"What is it, Blenke? Why are you here?"

"By accident, sir," was the prompt reply, subordination and sorrow mingling in tone, as mournful as the mournful eyes. "I was leaving when I thought my name was called—that Mrs. Ray had called me, and I turned back. There seems to be no one here—yet the door was wide open."

"I cannot imagine who could have called you—or why," answered Ray coldly, never relaxing his odd scrutiny of those dark, reproachful eyes. "But, first call has sounded. I won't keep you."

Blenke saluted. One quick glance he shot at the flushing face of his friend and teacher, as though to say, "Plead for me"; then lithe and quick he went bounding down the steps, Priscilla looking after him. Ray pushed on into the dismantled hallway—into the parlor where rugs and carpets were rolled and heaped and curtains stripped from the rods. He passed through into the little room where stood his father's desk and bookcase, "the den" now doubly lonely and forlorn. He passed swiftly through the dining-room and into the rear hallway, where wide open stood the door to the basement stairway. It proved nothing, however, that that door was unbolted and ajar. In the work of packing and moving the men had been going and coming all the afternoon. Sandy came again to the front and followed Priscilla to the second story. Mother was not in her room, the room that soon in all probability would be hers—the girl-wife of his father's old friend—the girl-wife whose name Sandy Ray had ceased to whisper even to himself. He turned back and Priscilla stood confronting him at the doorway.

"What is it, Sandy? Why should you be so—annoyed at Blenke's believing he was called back?"

"Because I don't believe him" said Sandy bluntly, "and—I don't like prowling."

"Oh, how can you be so unfair? Blenke is no prowler, Sandy!" said Priscilla, in fervent reproach. "Blenke is a born gentleman, and I know it, and so will you when you hear his story."

"Oh, fudge!" said Sandy, as he turned impatiently away, entered his own room and slammed the door.

CHAPTER VI

A BRIDE—AND A BEAU

Colonel and Mrs. Stone in the course of the following fortnight had occasion twice, as the society columns expressed it, to "entertain at dinner for" Major and Mrs. Oswald Dwight, and Mrs. Dwight was the topic of all tongues at Minneconjou before she had been two days at the post. They arrived on a Saturday evening; were met at the station by the hospitable Stones; driven at once to the quarters of that efficient and valuable commanding officer; were the recipients on Sunday of many calls, the guests of honor at dinner Monday evening, at which function they met three of the senior officers and the adjutant of the Sixty-first, each accompanied by his better half; were again on dinner duty Tuesday evening to meet eight others prominent in the military social swim, and at nine o'clock were escorted to the hop room, where the regimental band and practically all the officers and ladies of the garrison were arrayed to welcome them and where until midnight the dance moved merrily on.

To neither dinner was Mrs. Ray invited. She preferred not to make a formal call on Sunday, and when, accompanied by Priscilla and her eldest son, she appeared at the colonel's quarters on Monday afternoon, Mrs. Dwight and Mrs. Stone had not yet returned from a drive. As little Jim had spent a long hour that morning with his and his own mother's old friend—Dwight himself bringing him over—it is within the bounds of possibility that the drive had been mentioned. The major had remained but a few moments. He was obviously nervous and ill at ease. He had that matter of his change of mind about the quarters to explain, and Marion had desired that he say nothing whatever about it. It was his right. He was bound to consult his wife's wishes before those of any other woman, so why refer to it? But Dwight haplessly stumbled on. There was still something to be said. Mrs. Dwight had expected to have her mother and two cousins with her all summer and September, but Major Farrell found it impossible to leave Mexico after all. Mrs. Farrell could not think of leaving him, especially as his health had suffered very much, thanks to their enforced sojourn in an unsanitary section of old Manila. It appeared that the major was even an applicant for a pension on that ground—a strange proceeding with one so overcharged with mining stock and cattle profits. It might be a month or six weeks yet before the rest of the family came, but Mrs. Dwight was eager to get settled under her own roof where they would be an incumbrance to nobody, and she was going that very day with Mrs. Stone in search of servants. Only a maid had come with them, a maid whose ministrations Inez declared she must have if expected to appear to any advantage in the society to which her husband was accustomed. Mrs. Stone knew of a good cook in town at the hotel whom Mrs. Dwight might tempt away, and then the major had to hurry to the station to superintend the unloading of their car of furniture.

Not until Tuesday night at the reception, therefore, did the Rays meet Mrs. Dwight. Mother and son again came together, Marion in simple evening toilet, Sandy, as required of all officers for that occasion, in full-dress uniform. Mrs. Dwight stood at the colonel's left. The adjutant, facing her, made all the presentations. She was gowned again, as she was that night at Naples, beautifully, extravagantly, and her jewels were, as then, too much in evidence. She had been looking, so remarked her hostess, somewhat pale and sallow during the day, but there was no lack of color, of radiance, of sparkle now. Her face was exquisite in its dark beauty, wondrous in its witchery. Her smile was sweetness itself, and many a woman envied her those perfect teeth rather more than the diamonds. Her soft Southern accent lent a charm of its own to her few words of gracious welcome and acknowledgment. It was noted that she said very little, that she repeated much; but what she said was so sweetly said, and the meaning smile lent so very much more to make it all impressive. Her very attitude was one of supple, sinuous grace, and, whatsoever may have been lacking in the form and variety of her verbal response to Minneconjou's welcome, there could be no warrant for saying that she did not look, at least, her part. Women stood and watched her and marked the play of her slender little hands, the unconscious, languorous use of her beautiful fan, and women marked how alert, too, were the wonderful dark eyes—how, even as they meltingly and feelingly were uplifted to greet each newcomer, they saw each comer before that comer stood in her presence. She was at her best when Mrs. Ray, pausing first to greet Mrs. Stone and the colonel, was passed on to the star of the evening, and the smiling adjutant, with unpremeditated preference in his tone, announced "Mrs. Ray, Mrs. Dwight; your predecessor at the head of our squadron." And then for the first time that night the bride stepped forward, if only a single pace, and, as though her heart went with it, her hand seemed to leap forward in impulsive greeting.

"I have known Mrs. Ray ever since I first met Major Dwight," said she, with such wealth of gladness in her tone. She never seemed to see the young officer standing with pale, unsmiling face, awaiting his turn to be advanced to the presence. "I cannot begin to say how glad I am to meet her—at last," she continued. And Marion Ray, thoroughbred woman of society, if not of the world, stood in quiet, smiling grace and dignity, listening—without a sign of rancor to the swift patter of words from the beautiful lips of the girl who had played havoc with her firstborn's honest young heart, studying the beauty of the newcomer's wondrous face, and wondering, as mothers will, that even a lover could see therein a resemblance to her own daughter—her dark-eyed Maidie. She hoped that by this time Sandy, too, would see that he had been blind. She responded without embarrassment or effort. Not for a royal ransom would she let this fascinator see that her son had ever so far taken her seriously enough to speak, even to his mother, of a possible admiration.

"The major was very long our near neighbor," she said. "And it is good to have him with us again—and to welcome Mrs. Dwight." Then her hand was extended to Major Dwight as, still smiling and chatting, she seemed imperceptibly sidling toward him; and then Sandy emerged into the field of vision. "So glad to see Mrs. Dwight again," said he, in off-hand assumption of jovial indifference. "Gibson's here, you know. He'll be trotting past the grandstand presently." And though the little hand, slipped into his, gave faint, fluttering, tentative pressure, he edged along, yielding place to 'Cilla and Will, the next comers, and precipitated himself on Dwight. There was unmistakable glance of reproach, perhaps even of pain, from those glorious eyes as the young officer passed unfaltering on, but it was instant; it was unseen by the aging and adoring soldier at her side.

And in this wise was the dreaded meeting accomplished with no one possibly the wiser, with no one warned by word or sign of the complications and catastrophes to come.

It took Major Dwight but four or five days to set his own house in order and move his birdling into the pretty cage he had planned for her. Willing hands by dozens, both officers and troopers, had wrought with him in the transformation. Beautiful rugs, carpets, and curtains, rare in army parlors, had been lavishly provided—this, too, despite well-founded rumors that Dwight had no such bank account to-day as that he owned to at Manila. Saying no word upon the subject, Marion Ray had noted, nevertheless, how much more expensive and luxurious were the surroundings of Inez than had been those of wise and provident Margaret Dwight. They gave their first dinner, did the Dwights, one week from the date of Colonel Stone's first, and to this was Marion bidden. She had not expected it, had not provided herself with a previous engagement, had to accept or decline at once, and accepted.

"Mother," said Sandy, coming in at the moment, "have you seen—has anything been seen of a blouse of mine sent home Tuesday evening? I can't find it, yet the troop tailor swears he left it here himself."

"Who received it?" asked Mrs. Ray. "We were all home dressing for the reception."

"Why, that's the queer part of it," was the answer. "He says he found the back door open, knocked twice and nobody answered, so he walked in the kitchen, laid the bundle on the table and came out and shut the door after him."

Mrs. Ray thought a moment. "I gave Sarah permission to be out, and Minnie was up here helping us. That may have accounted for his knock being unanswered. You went down before I did, 'Cilla," she continued, turning to her niece, who was busy at the desk. "Was Sarah back then? I thought I heard you speak to someone."

"To two of the Bible class," said 'Cilla. "They came to say we couldn't have the use of that little room back of the chapel. I don't understand it at all. We offered to clean it out and store the boxes in the cellar, but——" And 'Cilla shrugged her shoulders. She had begun to believe that the chaplain was jealous of her influence over certain intractables in the garrison, and was aiming to thwart her. This view Mrs. Ray could not share. She presently put down her pen and passed out into the dining-room.

"It's a dark little hole at best, Pris," said Sandy, "and I offered you a good bright room at the Exchange—the very one your paragon used for about the same purpose when he was stationed here." Sandy would tilt at his cousin's fad at times, and this was a time, for Sandy had been crotchety for a week.

"My paragon, as you call him—my ideal of the soldier as we saw him after Porto Rico," answered 'Cilla, with dignity and precision, "held his classes there when the rest of the building was not what it is to-day—a rumshop."

"Not a drop of rum to be had on the premises now, Pris—though there might have been then."

"I don't believe it! My general was an ascetic. No one ever heard of his using liquor—and wine is only liquor in another form."

"Come to the library and I'll show you what your General Ascetic wrote of himself after he was so horribly shot in the Sioux campaign. He said he owed his recovery to a winter in California and drinking plenty of good red wine that made blood."

But Priscilla knew that Sandy "had the papers to prove it," and preferred not to see them, lest her ideals come tumbling. "That might have been necessary and by physician's prescription," said she. "What I condemn is its usage when there is no excuse. I should feel that I was enticing my class into temptation if I led them daily to the Canteen, and most of them feel as I do about it. Blenke, for instance—though you don't believe in him, Sandy—when I told him of your offer, he said he would rather not set foot under that roof."

"When was that?" asked Sandy curiously, seeing a chance for a palpable hit. "He was sent to Leavenworth with the guard of those deserters Wednesday morning, and I didn't have it to offer to you until Tuesday afternoon."

"He came that evening to say he was ordered away with the guard detail. Two of my men have gone. You can see for yourself, Sandy, that for any important duty the total abstainer is chosen."

But Mr. Ray did not answer. He was thinking intently. "Was Blenke one of the two you—spoke of, 'Cilla?" he presently asked.

"No. He came by himself just after they'd gone. He took his leave a very few minutes later. We heard you coming down."

"And where did you receive your visitors, Pris?"

"I spoke with them at the rear door—what other place was there? since you dislike my having soldiers come to the house. Why, Sandy Ray! what are you thinking of? You don't mean——"

"Hush!" said Sandy. There were footsteps at the front and laughing voices, and a bang at the gongbell. Minnie, the housemaid, fluttered through the hallway. "Are the ladies at home?" "Mrs. Stone and Mrs. Dwight!" stage-whispered Priscilla, but in an instant Sandy Ray had found his feet and followed his mother, who was interviewing cook at the kitchen door. "Mrs. Stone and Mrs. Dwight," he echoed, waited until Mrs. Ray had gone to greet the callers, then bolted through the sacred precincts of Sarah's own domain and into the afternoon sunshine beyond. There Minnie presently fetched her young master his broad-brimmed campaign hat, wondering why he should look so pale. Making wide detour, Sandy found himself presently within hail of the club. It was but an hour before sunset. The cavalry people were just coming back from stables to supper. There were not five officers on the broad veranda, but among them stood a man in civilian dress, whose back had a strangely familiar look and whose voice, when he whirled about and shouted greeting, sent a thrill of astonishment not unmixed with wrath, nerve racking, through the young soldier's slender frame.

"Hullo, Sandy! Got over being grumpy yet? Come up and see a fellow."

What brought Stanley Foster, of all men, here to Minneconjou now?

CHAPTER VII

THE WOLF IN THE SHEEPFOLD

A week rolled on and matters at Minneconjou had become electric. The weather was superb. The sun rose in a cloudless sky long hours before society, as represented at our frontier city and station, followed suit, shook off the fetters of sleep and began bestirring itself for the day. And days were long in that northern latitude, long enough for even the most ambitious and enthusiastic of commanding officers intent on the instruction and development of the force intrusted to his care. Yet the days seemed hardly long enough for Oswald Dwight, whose first difference with the post commander was on the subject of morning gunfire and the reveille. To the scandal of the cavalry service, let it be recorded that in the point at issue, without exception the members of Minneconjou's mounted service sided with the easy-going infantryman at the head of affairs, and against their own immediate leader—the over-energetic, the nervously pushing, prodding, spurring, stirring squadron commander.

During the sweet summer months, all along the broad lands of the Dakotas, the morning gun thundered its salutation to the newborn day as the hands of the clock so nearly lapped at half-past five. What Dwight demanded of Colonel Stone was permission to rout out the cavalry at half-past four. It was broad daylight, said he. It was the cool and beautiful time of the day. The men could have their coffee at once, then march to stables, lead to water,—the steeds having been already fed by the stable guard,—groom for twenty minutes, march back to barracks, get their matutinal scrub, a hearty breakfast and be out to squadron drill when all was still fresh, sparkling and exhilarating before the mountain breeze, the lowland dust, or indeed before garrison society, was astir; then they could all be back in time for guard-mounting and the multifarious drills and duties of the morning. Dwight found his people well up in saddle work, as was to be expected of men long led by so genuine a trooper as "Billy" Ray, but they were correspondingly slack in foot and sabre drill, and Dwight in his day had been one of the famous drillmasters of the —th, and seemed beset with desire to keep up the record now. "What would you be doing from nine to noon?" asked Stone, strumming the desk with his finger tips and studying curiously the pale, keen, eager face of the cavalryman.

"Company drill afoot, sabre drill, setting up—almost anything!" was the impatient answer. "These men are soft, sluggish, torpid. Troopers should be all wire and catgut. I want to put those four commands in perfect trim for anything, Colonel, and I can't do it under five hours' drill a day."

But Stone shook his head. There was no occasion he maintained, for robbing them of an hour of their sleep. They had to work harder than his men, anyhow, and, if anything, should be given more sleep, not less.

"Then put them to bed at ten o'clock—or nine, if need be," said Dwight, impatient of demur; but Stone proved obdurate. "I see no reason for so radical a change," said he, to the relief of the juniors, who feared Dwight's vehement onward nature might prevail over the placidity of Stone; and so the new-made major was fain to content himself with sounding mess call right after reveille, then "Boots and Saddles" in place of "Stables," and, by dispensing with morning grooming, getting his troops into line on the flats to the south and starting a humming squadron drill before seven o'clock.

Time had been in the long-ago happy days when it was quite the thing for Mrs. Ray, Mrs. Truscott, Margaret Dwight, and other women of the old regiment to ride, drive, or stroll out to the ground and watch their soldier-husbands through much of the morning's dashing drill. The effect was good in more ways than one. It keyed up the pride of the men and kept down the profanity of their mentors, some of whom, as was a way in the old days of the mounted service, would break out with sudden and startling blasphemy when things went wildly amiss. It is easy on foot to bring instant order out of apparent chaos. The stark command "Halt!" does the business; but, given tenscore, high-strung, grain-fed, spirited steeds, tearing at their bits and lunging full gallop in mad race for a charge, it often happens that neither voice nor trumpet, nor tugging, straining bridle arm can prevail, and it is then the air rings with expletives. No one ever heard Truscott swear. He was a model of self-control. Dwight, too, had been renowned for the success with which he handled horses and men and maintained his personal serenity. But Marion Ray more times than a few in the earlier days of her married life had cause to blush for Billy, who, the idol of his men and perhaps the most magnetic drillmaster and troop leader in the regiment, so lost himself in the enthusiasm and dash of squadron drill at the trot or gallop, that his Blue Grass exhortations could be heard over the thunder of a thousand hoofs, to the entire delight of the sorrel troop, the sympathetic joy of their rivals and the speechless dismay of the pious.

"Tut-tut-tut!" was a dear old chaplain wont to say; "is it not strange that so good a man can use such very bad language?" Yet Captain Ray in private life shrank from profanity as he did from punch. On mounted drill it rippled from his lips with unconscious, unpremeditated fluency.

Just as in the old days, therefore, wives, sisters, and sweethearts of the dashing horsemen of Minneconjou were now riding, driving, or strolling out to the edge of the drill ground and enjoying the spirited scene. It gave them an hour of bracing air and sparkling dew and early sunshine and a wonderful appetite for breakfast. Mrs. Ray did not go. Neither her husband nor her son had now any part in the panorama, and, looking from her window she could see all she cared to see of what might be going on—and more. The sound of Sandy's boot-heels overhead told her that he, too, was up and observant, though Sandy, when Priscilla, as usual precipitate, managed to refer to it at the breakfast table, parried the tongue thrust with a tale about "best light for shaving."

No, there were none of Mrs. Ray's little household who went forth to see the early squadron drill, but there were others—many others—and most observed, if not most observant of these, was the beautiful young wife of the squadron commander and her invariable escort, Dwight's former fellow-campaigner, their fellow-voyager of the Hohenzollern, and now their very appreciative guest, Captain Stanley Foster, only just promoted to his troop in the —th Cavalry and waiting orders at Minneconjou.

Mrs. Dwight was not much given to walking. She could dance untiringly for hours, but other pedestrianism wearied her. Mrs. Dwight was as yet even less given to riding. She explained that the major preferred she should wait a while until her horse and English horse equipment came. Lieutenant Scott, who had met her in Manila, said he had a little tan-colored Whitman that would just suit her, whereat Mrs. Dwight, between paling and coloring, took on something of a tan shade over her dusky beauty and faltered that "the Major preferred the English—to the forked-seat—for a lady." It would seem as though she desired it forgotten that her normal way of riding was astride, whereas more than half her auditors, the officers at least, regarded that as the proper and rational seat for her sex. Mrs. Dwight, caring neither to walk nor to ride, therefore was quite content to appear for two or three successive mornings in a lovely little phaeton with a pony-built team in front, a pygmy "tiger" behind and a presentable swain beside her. The fourth morning brought a rain and no drill, the fifth no rain nor Mrs. Dwight, nor did she again appear at that early hour despite the fact that the drills daily became more dashing and picturesque. Her interest, she explained, had been rather on her husband's account, but she knew so little about such matters she felt her inferiority to real army ladies who had been born and bred to and understood it, and then after dancing so late she wondered how anybody could be up so early.

The major himself, probably, could not have stood it, but he, not being a dancing man, had taken to skipping away to bed at or before eleven on such nights as Minneconjou tripped the light fantastic toe, but "Inez so loved to dance" he considerately left her to finish it, with Foster to fetch her home; which Foster did.

But, of the few elders at Minneconjou who had personal knowledge of Dwight's prowess as a cavalry drillmaster in by-gone days, and of the many who, being told thereof, had gone forth to see and to enjoy, there lived now not one who had not suffered disappointment. So far from being the calm, masterful, yet spirited teacher and leader, clear and explicit in his instructions and serene and self-controlled where men and horses became nervous and fidgety, Dwight proved strangely petulant and querulous. His tone and manner were complaining, nagging, even snarling. Nothing seemed to please him. Troop leaders, subalterns and sergeants were forever coming in for a rasping, and each successive day the command paced slowly, sedately homeward, cooling off after a hot drill, looking more and more sullen and disgusted. Officers dismounted at the Club, quaffed "shandygaff" and sometimes even "Scotch and soda" in silent sense of exasperation. The men rode away to stables, rubbed down and, as they plied the wisps, said opprobrious things between their set teeth. As for the horses, they took counsel together when turned out to herd and settled it to their satisfaction that something was sorely amiss with the major—who had at last begun to swear.

And something was sorely amiss with Dwight, as anyone who noted his brilliant, restless eyes, his haggard face and fitful manner could not fail to see. It was at this stage of the proceedings, as Stone squarely owned up later, that he as post commander should have taken Dwight to task, even to the extent of administering correction. But the strongest soldier is sometimes disarmed at sight of a fellow's suffering, and, for fear of adding one pang, will suppress a needed word. Thus it happens that occasionally a commander passes unrebuked a soldier's fault. Thus it happens time and again that men, stern and unflinching in dealing with their fellows, submit in silence to years of a woman's abuse, because "she's such a sufferer."

But here was something Stone might, and possibly should, have done and thereby measurably cleared the social sky and surely earned Dwight's silent gratitude, and this Stone did not do, even though spurred thereto by a clear-visioned wife, and that was—say a word of admonition to Captain Foster.

He deserved it. All Minneconjou was a unit on that head. He was as utterly out of place there as a cat in a creamery. They who had heard the story of his attentions to Mrs. Dwight during the Hohenzollern's run from Gibraltar to Governor's Island were disturbed by his sudden and unheralded appearance at the post, and distressed that Dwight should be among the first to welcome him, and the one, and at first the only one, to invite him to a room under his roof. Men looked every which way but at each other and held their tongues when it was announced that Foster was the guest of the Dwights. Women looked into each other's eyes and gasped and said all manner of things as the news went round. Yet what, at first at least, was there to block the plan? The infantry officers felt that they must not take the initiative; it was purely a cavalry affair. Dwight and Foster had served together several years. Dwight possibly did feel, as he too often took occasion to say, more than grateful to Foster for "his courtesy to Mrs. Dwight while I was cooped up in my stateroom." Two or three cavalry chums, taking secret counsel together, hit upon a blundering, clumsy, best-intentioned scheme, and Washburn, who couldn't bear Foster and had never foregathered with him, was deputed, as the only captain with spare rooms and no family, to take the bull by the horns and the unwanted visitor to his ingle nook, which Washburn did with simulated joviality and about as follows:

"Say, old man, you don't want to be roosting in a dove-cote while the birds are billing and cooing. You can't have any fun at Dwight's. You'll get nothing but Apollinaris between meals. Come to my shack, where there's a room—and a demijohn—all ready for you," which bid proved, unhappily, none too alluring. Foster thanked him with a glint in his eye. "Dwight asked me long ago," said he, which was the petrified truth, though Dwight's words were perfunctory, and the invitation one of those things so often said to a man when the sayer hopes to Heaven he's seeing the last of him.

But now that Foster was here, his guest, nothing could exceed the glow of Dwight's hospitality. It was painful to note the eagerness with which he sought to assure all Minneconjou of his long-standing friendship for Foster in face of the fact that some of the squadron well knew they had never met in Margaret's day, and were never really comrades thereafter. Moreover, they were men of utterly divergent mold and temperament. Dwight had been reared in the shadow of the flag, a soldier by birth, lineage and education. Foster had come in from civil life, after a not too creditable career at college. He had come, moreover, with the repute of being a Squire of Dames in "swagger" Eastern society. He danced well, dressed well, and talked well—when he felt like it. He "knew a lot," said men who knew little outside of the army.

He knew enough, at all events, to realize that army society would be far less tolerant of a "squire" of his kind than had been that of Gotham, and during his decade of service that, at least, had not been held as his principal fault. A semi-cynical manner, a propensity for stirring fellows on their sore points, a pronounced selfishness and an assumed intimacy with men who disliked him were the things that most conspired to make him unpopular. He had ability; he could be agreeable, but indolence and indifference dwarfed his powers. It was not until he came under the spell of this dark girl's grace and beauty that Stanley Foster had succeeded in doing anything worthy of mention. Now he was being mentioned far more than he wished, and, though he heard it not, he knew.

But they went to a dance the night of the day he came, and Dwight gave a dinner the next night, and another the next. Then there had to be others given in return, and morn, noon, afternoon and evening, Foster found himself at the side of Mrs. Dwight. What could she do? He came to stay only three days, but the week went by, and so, possibly, did his orders. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday they were out at morning drill. Then the pretty phaeton and its lovely occupant and her vigilant convoy came no more. Inez said she "looked like a fright at that hour of the morning, anyway," in which statement most women agreed. Possibly it was that that stayed her.

However, a second Sunday had come since Foster's advent, and the squadron was having a rest and the chaplain holding service, and Major Dwight, as was his wont, came, book in one hand and little Jim clinging fondly to the other, to kneel among the worshipers, to reverently follow the beautiful service, his boy snuggling to his side and reading aloud from the same page. It was the service Margaret had loved, and taught her husband to honor, and had won his promise that Jimmy should ever be led to it, and loyally, devoted, had the father fulfilled the promise, even after the young wife came to wean him from much that Margaret had inspired. Inez this day came not with them. To begin with, Inez had been reared in the fold of the Mother Church, and, though years had served to loose the bonds and possibly sap what little she ever had of faith, she had sought, at least, no substitute. Obediently had she gone at first with her soldier-husband and looked, in the eyes of his kith and kin, the picture of meek piety and adoration as she followed the new, strange ritual. But, once away from family observation, Inez had found refuge in hebdomadal headaches that came with the Lord's Day and kept her from church. She was "feeling far from well this morning," said Dwight, in answer to queries, and had been persuaded to remain in bed. So he and Jimmy had come to church and Foster had gone to the Club to write some letters and wire to Washington, and all were "present or accounted for," as Captain Washburn grimly announced at the Club. It was a lovely warm Sunday, too, and the old chaplain was effective as a reader. The choir was capital, despite Priscilla's criticisms, and the attendance was large. Army folk, as a rule, flock but sparsely to the sanctuary, but Minneconjou had not a few devout church people, even in the ranks, Blenke being so earnest in his piety that when detailed for Sunday guard he never failed to effect an exchange, even though it cost him two tours for one. Furthermore, it was communion service, and unusually long.

Marion Ray had entered early—Sandy, pale-faced and thin, at her side; and together they had knelt, mother and son, and then sat silently awaiting the "Processional." When Dwight and Jimmy walked up the aisle and took a pew on the other side and nearer the altar, Marion had smiled fond greeting to the little fellow, and he had answered. Twice as she gazed at them later, Dwight's arm about Jimmy's curly head, his sinewy hand resting on the further shoulder and drawing him to his side, heavy tears welled up into the blue eyes of the tender-hearted woman. Never yet had that strong, sinewy hand been uplifted to inflict the lightest chastisement on Margaret's beloved boy. Only the day before on his regular visit, nestling to her knee and telling her laughingly how Sergeant Shock, the schoolmaster, had walloped Scotty Burns, the band leader's eldest hope, Jimmy had looked up suddenly into her eyes. "Why, Aunt Marion," he said, "only think! I've never known what it was to be whipped. Can you fancy daddy's ever using a strap on me?"

"God forbid!" she shuddered, not knowing why, thinking perhaps only what agonies that would have cost Margaret, and then Priscilla had come in and their confidences ceased. Priscilla was firm in her theory that children were too much petted and coddled nowadays, and that more of the rod and less of rhubarb was what they needed.

Suddenly, just after the second lesson, while the rich ringing voices of the soldier choir were chanting the "Gloria," little Jim was seen to bow his head and burrow for his handkerchief. Dwight looked down, bent over him, whispered a word or two, smiled encouragement and fond assurance, and, blushing very much, with downcast eyes and his face half hidden in cambric, the lad came forth and hastened down the aisle and out into the brilliant sunshine beyond.

"Nose-bleed," whispered Dwight to Mrs. Stone, who leaned back, sympathetically, from her pew. "It sometimes seizes him just that way."

And the stately service went uninterruptedly on, and Jimmy over home, and little more was said of the incident until the coming of another day.

CHAPTER VIII

ACCUSING LETTERS

For a week Miss Priscilla Sanford had been in a state of mind bordering on the ecstatic. For months letters of portentous size, bearing the stamp of a great and powerful organization of Christian women, had been left at her door, and many an hour had that energetic maiden been devoting to correspondence with boards, committees, secretaries, etc., adding much to the burden of the mail orderly, and not a little to his malevolence. A dour and unsocial Scot was McPherson, as he called himself, but there was wisdom in the selection, for Kennedy, his predecessor, was as genial as Mac was glum, and Kennedy's fall from grace was due mainly to his amiable weakness for the opposite sex, a trait that had led to his lingering far too long in the early spring mornings—and many a "storm house"—along the row, and to concomitant complaint. Letters delayed, letters even diverted from their proper destination, had been all too often charged to him, for more than one housemaid, not to mention a mistress or two, was possessed of a devil of curiosity as to the correspondence of many another, and Kennedy was too much interested in all of them to be austere. Not so McPherson. There was not another of his clan, there were but three of his nationality, in the entire garrison, for seldom, save under the flag of Great Britain, is the Scot in peace time a soldier. Mac had served his native country in the "Forty Twa"; had come to the States a time-expired man; had met his fate, married, and been bereft and deserted within two years, and, like many another man, he had sought in the profession of arms the peace denied him at the domestic fireside. Uncle Sam employs no recruiting solicitors; he needs none, for the petticoat drives to his ranks more men than he will take. Something of Mac's history was made known to his colonel, and when Kennedy had to be replaced, although Mac had not been a year in the regiment, Stone issued his mandate. "There's the man for the place," said he to the adjutant. "There'll be no peeping and prying with that red-headed Sawny in charge."

Priscilla had not been slow to note the substitution, nor to divine the cause. Priscilla had much disapproved of Kennedy, and Kennedy of her. "That prayin', pryin', pesterin' old maid beyant," he described her to the surgeon's becapped and bewitching Kathleen, the belle of the non-commissioned officers' ball. Priscilla found in Presbyterian Mac a far more promising subject, and was aggrieved and dismayed at her lack of success. McPherson would only stand at salute, frigidly respectful, but as icily impenetrable. Mac scented mischief at the outset. He had heard much among the men about Miss Sanford's kindergarten, the Bible class, the prayer meetings, and her persistent preachings against the Canteen. Now, Mac himself disapproved of that institution, and hearing of this—I fear me Sandy told her, and for motives altogether mischievous—Miss Sanford had lain in wait for Mac, and held him one brief moment in converse at the door. The story of that episode delighted Minneconjou and the minority, let us say, when it was later told in Congress.

"I'm so glad to hear, McPherson," said Miss Sanford, beaming upon him, as she took from his hand the little packet of letters, "that you, too, are one of the right sort of soldiers. Now, tell me why you disapprove of the Canteen," for Priscilla was sending that day another long letter of experiences to the Banner of Light; and the reply came, prompt, unflinching, uncompromising, but—most unsatisfactory:

"Because, mem, ye canna get a drap o' whusky."

And so saying McPherson was all simple sincerity. Bred to its use in the raw fogs of his native glen, accustomed to his modest daily tot even when on "sentry go" at the Castle, or the water gate at Gibraltar, he and his comrades of the Black Watch had been reared in the broad faith that teaches temperance, not intolerance. Their canteen sergeant set the limit, not the pace, and doubtless Mac in 'listing for a soldier in the land of liberty had looked perhaps for even greater license. Beer he called "swipes," and despised. Rhine wine, tasted but once, set his grim face awry, and presently townward. Mac's one peccadillo since joining at Minneconjou was a rantin', roarin' drunk in Silver Hill that cost Uncle Sam three days of his services, and the Highlander three months of his pay. There were fines both military and municipal. In disgust Mac swore off. He "had na use for a consairn that compelled a mon to walk three miles to get a wee drappie—and lose three months' siller."

But Priscilla was undaunted still. She had written glowingly, enthusiastically, unceasingly, of all her efforts to promote the cause of temperance among the nation's soldiery. She had told much of her converts to total abstinence, and little of their backsliding. She had managed, through Blenke and others, to get a transcript of the daily guard report, and the punishments awarded by the summary and general courts-martial. Minneconjou had now a garrison of some eight hundred men, with a big and bustling frontier town only a few miles away. Thanks to the system of the post Exchange and the careful supervision, both of its customers and its supplies, drunkenness had been reduced almost to a minimum. Not one out of one hundred men was in confinement, either awaiting or serving sentence. Not more than ten in two months had been fined for minor breaches of discipline due to drink. Some old topers, relics of the sutler-shop days of the army, were still to be found, men whose stomachs could not be always appeased by mild measures, and demanded the coarser stimulant—in bottles smuggled from town; but every case, however mild, had been made, it seems, the text for one of Priscilla's vivid letters descriptive of the depravity still rampant in the army, and due entirely to the presence of that blot upon Christian civilization—the Canteen.

And well had they served their purpose. In fancied security, knowing that their methods had resulted in the greatest good to the greatest number, the officers on duty with troops had read with smiling tolerance marked copies of Eastern papers detailing the concerted efforts of the crusaders against the post Exchange. Congress had been memorialized. Congress had good naturedly listened to the successive readings of a bill abolishing the system and forbidding the sale of either beer or wine at any military post in the United States. Then, brimful, bustling with excitement, and rejoicing, Priscilla read that her letters had been largely instrumental in winning over certain of the opposition, and that when the question came to a vote the noble leaders of a noble cause would be present in force, and when the House sat, there—there would they sit and watch, and woe betide the advocate of the arch fiend rum that dare vote against their sacred measure. Before the army could realize what was coming, the House sat in judgment on the bill, the Society sat in judgment on the House; its members glanced casually at the subject and fearfully at the galleries and—succumbed. "The Senate will kill it, anyhow, so we might as well make ourselves solid,—it's only the army, anyway," was the expression of one long-headed legislator. Priscilla screamed—squealed rather—in ecstasy over the telegram brought her at breakfast, threw the paper to Sandy and herself into a pas seul that fairly amazed Aunt Marion and scandalized the cat. But, when a week or so later the Senate, too, quailed before the basilisk eyes in the galleries, and the bill went to the President and became at once a law, it is safe to say that, for one memorable day, Miss Sanford not unwarrantably looked upon herself as of infinitely more consequence than the commanding officer.

Then, in the midst of the amaze and bewilderment that fell upon the fort, came sensation. Colonel Stone sent for Sandy Ray, nodded "withdraw" to his adjutant, who closed the door behind him, and then looked up with somber eyes at the pale-faced young fellow before him.

"Your occupation's gone, Sandy," said he sorrowfully. "They've pulled from under us the best prop to order and discipline that ever we had. It hasn't been a square deal. They won by methods we couldn't hope to meet, and,"—drawing forth certain newspaper clippings,—"here are specimens. For your father's sake, I liked you before I grew to like you for your own; but if your father himself were here, and head of the house instead of yourself, I'd have to hold him to account as I must hold you. Read—that."

And Sandy, turning paler still, and quivering with mingled wrath and shame, stood and read somewhat as follows:

At Fort Minneconjou the situation is even worse. We have it from indisputable authority that, so far from seeking to check the evil among their men, officers of the highest rank freely mingle with them at the garrison saloon, and urge and incite them to drink. Is it to be wondered at, therefore, that the sickening scenes depicted by our correspondent are of almost daily occurrence?—that young lads, fresh from the pure influences of peaceful homes, the mother's blessing still echoing in their ears, the mother's kiss still warm upon their brows, are forced to witness such revolting crimes, to hear such ribald oaths, and gradually, through the example of officers seeking doubtless to increase the revenue derived from the sale of the vile poisons they purchase at wholesale from equally vile distillers, and in the hope of winning the favor of these all-powerful superiors, to forget the teachings of home, the prayers of parents and kindred, and to yield to the tempter and become in turn slaves of the soul-destroying habit, helpless victims of rum? How long, O Lord, how long will the representatives of a free and enlightened people continue to sanction such infamy?

"That's one of a dozen editorials," said the colonel. "What most concerns us is the one of a dozen letters on which it is based. Now, look at this." And Sandy read.

Fort Minneconjou, S. D., May 30, 19—.

Editor Banner of Light:

Since My Last, of a Week Ago, No Less Than Seven Soldiers, Men Who, Could They Be Divorced From Drink, Would Be Ornaments To The Service of Their Country, Have Been Thrown Into the Garrison Prison, Or Hauled Before Their Judges,—these Latter the Very Men who advocate and encourage the sale of intoxicants,—to receive their punishment for various crimes and misdemeanors committed while under the influence of drink. And so it goes. They, the helpless victims, must suffer the consequences of the crimes of their officers, who are able to divide each month the profits of their nefarious traffic, and go utterly unwhipped of justice. Only two days ago, speaking of this matter after morning service, one of our veteran soldiers said, with tears in his eyes, "If the Christian people of this land only dreamed what sins were being committed under cover of the devil-inspired Canteen, they would rise up as one man and demand its extinction." But, as I said before, so long as their most popular officers are permitted unrebuked to meet them, and carouse with them, and thereby teach and inspire the young and thoughtless soldier to drink, what can we accomplish? The sights and sounds, the fearful scenes and frightful curses to which I have been witness here, all due to the demon that lurks within that protected rum hole opposite my window, would appall a Christian community—which this is not.

Sandy turned to the wrapper, his lips almost as gray as his young face. It was the copy of a letter from the pastor of a church in a far Eastern city, inclosing five newspaper clippings, and calling upon the Secretary of War to order the instant court-martial and dismissal of the military officers responsible for the abominable state of affairs existing at Fort Minneconjou; which letter the Secretary had respectfully referred to the Commanding General, Department of the Middle West, for "investigation and report," which paper and inclosures that official had respectfully referred to the commanding officer, Fort Minneconjou, with similar demand. Stone had received, read, remarked and—sent for Sandy.

An hour later, as Miss Sanford was sallying forth on "an errand of mercy," as she had usually heard such missions described,—she was going to the post hospital with a fresh supply of temperance tracts and a small box of cherries,—she encountered her cousin at the door, and something in his face made her own lose color. The Dwights' phaeton came bowling down the road at the moment, Mrs. Dwight bowing and smiling bewitchingly, Captain Foster gallantly lifting his derby, for, when others could not wear it, Foster favored civilian dress. Miss Sanford responded vaguely, Sandy not at all. Possibly he did not wish to see. Possibly, said Priscilla to herself, it is that that has so upset him. She hoped, indeed, it might be that, and not that which, almost instantly, she feared. He said no word at all, merely motioned to her to turn back. Priscilla was accustomed to dominate, not to domination, but she saw the look of the father in the stern young face before her. Uncle Will she knew was the mildest of men in his dealings with women, until fully aroused. Then Uncle Will became dangerous, and looked very much as did Sandy now. The first question as he practically backed her into the little army parlor was, "Is mother home?"

Priscilla looked aloft. "In her room," she said.

"Then I cannot—speak to you now," said Sandy. "Colonel Stone has called me to account for one of the five inclosures to this paper. Before I answer we've got to have, you and I, a clear understanding, and before we can have that you must read these, and think over what other slanders you have written."

"I was going to the hospital," faltered Priscilla. "Sullivan's worse—and Blenke's been so queer——"

"The hospital, Sullivan, and Blenke can wait," said Sandy firmly, though his voice was shaking. "Colonel Stone and I cannot. I shall say nothing to mother of this as yet. Be ready to see me here at twelve o'clock. Mother will not be home."

So saying, and leaving in her hands the fateful packet, Ray turned abruptly and left the house, Priscilla mounting slowly to her room.

It still lacked an hour to noon, and she had time to read and to think. It was past the hour at which Jimmy Dwight generally came running in to say good-morning to Aunt Marion, but Jimmy had not come. Out on the sunlit parade a dozen garrison boys and girls were in the midst of a shouting, shrieking, frolicsome game of "Pull-Away," and Jimmy, usually one of the blithest and merriest, was not there. Priscilla had noted this when, from the little veranda of the lieutenant's quarters but a few minutes before, she had been disapprovingly watching the sport—it was so uninstructive, thought Priscilla. She could not, from the window at the side, see much of the parade. Over against it, midway along the barrack line of the northeast front, she could see the Exchange building, could see Sandy more than halfway across, walking even more swiftly, stiffly, than ever. She saw the few loungers and convalescents, sunning themselves on the southern benches, rising to their feet at the approach of the young officer. She could hear the tramp of the two battalions and the majors' ringing commands, exercising, one on the plain to the south where Dwight's squadron disported itself before breakfast, the other out on the parade. She could hear faintly the fine band of the infantry practicing at the assembly room adjoining the Exchange. From the open window of Sandy's room, across the hall, she could have seen the deserted veranda of the officers' club. Half an hour hence it would be swarming with thirsty and perspiring gentlemen in khaki just in from a lively drill. She felt rather than saw what was said in that relentless paper on her dressing table, and she shrank from the opening and reading. Sandy's face had told her what to expect. Sandy's tongue had spoken of slanders—slanders that well she realized, like curses, had come home to roost. She could not say, even to herself, that what she had written was never meant for public eyes. She had hoped—she had meant—it should be published, and that all good Christian men and women, readers of the Banner of Light, should approve and applaud her righteous efforts in behalf of so great and glorious a cause. But it had not occurred to her that the Banner would ever find its way to so godless a community as this at Minneconjou—where her statements might be challenged. She was stunned, temporarily, by this most unlooked-for catastrophe. Uncle Will and Aunt Marion had been her best friends and benefactors, and, even though duty demanded that she should make clear to them how deeply they erred in their attitude on so vital a question as that of the Canteen, she knew, and well knew, that what she had written in the enthusiasm of her faith, the intensity of her zeal, was far from warrantable by the cold facts in the case. She followed Sandy with her eyes as he neared the veranda,—saw the hands of the half dozen men go up in salute,—saw him suddenly turn and, facing west, salute in turn, and then the colonel marched into her field of vision, and the veteran of the Civil War and the subaltern of a few skirmishes stood a moment in conference, then strode away together toward the townward gate and the "auxiliary" guard-house, the orderly following after.

And then she heard her aunt's voice at her door.

"Have you seen anything of Jimmy this morning, 'Cilla? It's strange he has not come," and then cook from the kitchen appeared at the landing. "That young man, mum, Mr. Blenke, would like to speak with Miss Sanford a minute." And, leaving the papers on her bureau, glad of a respite, Priscilla hastened down.

Blenke's big mournful brown eyes had of late been darker than ever, and dark circles had sunk in beneath them. Blenke's sallow face had taken on an even sallower hue. "Nothing but indigestion and lack of exercise," said the junior doctor, of whom Priscilla had made inquiries. "The man spends his leisure hours moping or mooning around by himself. He ought to be made to play ball, tennis, spar, ride, wrestle, or something. He's a day-dreamer—maybe a pipe-dreamer," hazarded he, in conclusion, with a queer look at Priscilla, who had flushed indignantly at the insinuation. Blenke had sorrowfully and virtuously repelled that insinuation the moment she brought it to his attention, but circumstances had been combining to make her uneasy about her paragon. If not a "pipe-dreamer," Blenke was becoming odd and nervous, queer, and twitchy. To-day he came with a plea she had never heard him make before. Blenke, who never drank, gambled, smoked, swore, or otherwise misconducted himself, had come to tell Miss Sanford in the best of language that he had urgent need of ten dollars and two days' pass. The pass his captain had signed on the spot, but he wouldn't stand for the ten dollars. Blenke would tell Miss Sanford all about it on his return, but now there was not a moment to lose unless he lose also the train to Rapid City. Would Miss Sanford help him?

Priscilla had but ten dollars to her name, but swiftly she sped upstairs to get it. The bugle was sounding the recall from drill as she entered her little room, unlocked an upper drawer of the dressing-table, and found the two bills in her slender portemonnaie. The batch of official papers, with the portentous, red ink-lined, third indorsement uppermost, still stared at her from the prim, white-covered top, and impatiently she thrust it into the shallow pocket of the summer skirt and hastened away downstairs. Blenke's eyes were eloquent with subdued sadness, mystery, and gratitude as he received the money and turned away. The children out in front on the parade, with shrill shouting and laughter, had just gone racing away toward the eastward gate, and as their clamor died in the distance Priscilla's quick ear caught the sound of sobbing and a piteous wail for help.

Ever sympathetic with those in distress, she hurried through the hallway, out through the gate and there, crouched at the foot of the little shade tree at the edge of the parade, with blood streaming through the clutching fingers from a slashing cut at the edge of the left eye, was little George Thornton, son of a junior officer of infantry. Priscilla in an instant was bending over him.

"What is it, Georgie, dear? Oh, how did you get so cruel a hurt?"

Sobs and screams were at first the only answer. Clasping her kerchief to the wound with her right hand, and leading the little fellow, half running, with the left, she guided him homeward, where presently a badly frightened brace of women, mother and housemaid, busily hindered her skilled fingers in bathing and bandaging the cut. It was not long before the bleeding was stanched, the patient soothed and comforted and the maid had gone for the doctor. Meanwhile the mother, too, had made her demand, "Who—who could have done this?" And to every such query there was but one answer, "Jimmy Dwight."

"Surely not on purpose!" ventured Priscilla, in the interest of peace, truth, and justice, only to receive with vehement emphasis the to-be-expected answer of the stung, angered, and irresponsible child.

"He did, I tell you! We were racin', an'—an' when I was gettin' past him, he just whacked me with all his might."

The boys had all disappeared, when presently Priscilla again came forth, homeward bound. They had swarmed over to the stables, where some troop horses had broken away from their herd, and were having a hilarious time of it, but one or two little girls were slowly returning, and to the foremost of these Priscilla addressed herself for information. Was Jimmy Dwight with the other boys? Yes, he had only come out a few minutes ago. Had they seen how Georgie Thornton was hurt? They had not. They had started with the foremost, and George and Jimmy had run back after a ball, and so got behind. But presently came Kitty Blair, and Kitty had seen. Tiring of the chase she had dropped out as the last boys went bounding by her, and Jimmy Dwight was swinging his jacket, and he just slashed Georgie Thornton right in the face with it. Yes, she was sure. Millie Cross had seen it, too, and had run home to tell her mother.

Thoughtfully, with downcast eyes, Priscilla retraced her steps. Orderly and mess call were sounding now, and with a start she remembered that this was the moment set by Sandy for her explanation as to the clipping, and, glancing up in sudden fright, she found standing at the doorway, the accusing papers in hand, not her cousin, but her cousin's mother, her hostess and her benefactress—Marion Ray.

CHAPTER IX

AN INVITATION—TO GO

Between early morning drills and the fact that Jimmy was now quite big and old enough to look after himself, the father's supervision of the morning tub, rub, and toilet had ceased, and there was but time for a hug and a word before the major swallowed his solitary cup of coffee, swung into saddle, and trotted away. On this eventful morning he had kept his men at their work rather longer than usual and to no good purpose. In common with the rest of the garrison, Dwight had heard the fate of the Canteen, and heard it without remark. An abstemious man, he preferred that others should be the same, but other far more pressing matters were uppermost in his mind; matters here at Minneconjou—matters in far-away Mexico, where an importunate father-in-law, after making ducks and drakes of the thousands liberally supplied him, was now demanding more, or "all would be lost." Then it transpired that a lawyer in town had been retained, by certain of that father-in-law's creditors, to press Major Dwight for payment of the same, or with evidence of fraudulent doings on part of Mr. Farrell. To meet this lawyer, Dwight had ridden to town right after drill, and up to noon had not returned. Foster and Mrs. Dwight, driving thither in the pretty phaeton, with the pygmy tiger, were surprised, possibly disconcerted—to see his orderly with the two horses patiently waiting in front of the office. Possibly that had something to do with their return soon after twelve o'clock. Possibly there was design in Foster's selection of that hour of the day to visit the office of the post Exchange, still in active operation along all its accustomed lines, awaiting official orders, so far as comforting fluids were concerned, to close. At all events, there were no witnesses to a scene,—and but few to certain very audible words,—that became memorable in the chronicles of Fort Minneconjou from that day forth.

It will be remembered that Priscilla saw the meeting between the post commander and his Exchange officer, and their move in company toward the townward gate. But at that distance it was not to be expected that she could see the deep concern in the colonel's face or hear anything of the conversation that passed between them. It was barely an hour since their brief interview at the office. The colonel then looked solemn enough, but now the concern and smoldering wrath in his deep-set eyes exceeded anything his adjutant had ever seen or that Sandy Ray deemed possible in a soldier usually so placid and philosophical.

"Come with me, Mr. Ray," said Stone, in the hearing of the listening men. "There's a matter I want to talk over." Then, once fairly out of earshot, and after a glance to see that his orderly was well to the rear, "Sandy, were you at your office yesterday morning?"

"No, sir; I was at church."

"Ah, yes. I should have known. I used to go, too, while I had a mother," sighed the colonel. "But that was very long ago." Then, with sudden energy, "You wouldn't know whether—er—Captain Foster had been over here at the Exchange—writing letters? Ah—er—who would?"

"Sergeant Bates, sir, probably."

"It's a bit of business I don't like, Sandy. Nobody but my adjutant knows, though some may guess, and I'm going to tell you because——"

"I wish you wouldn't, sir. I—own I don't like Captain Foster," was the blunt interruption.

"I've got to, lad, for I may have to act! But it was your father who spake there, and you have known Foster longer and perhaps better than any man here—Major Dwight possibly excepted. There are reasons why I can't ask Dwight."

"Then, Colonel," and with face still graver the young officer turned appealingly to his commander, "all the more I ask you—don't ask me."

"See here, Ray," said the colonel, halting short. "No, keep back, orderly, I don't want you!" he added with impatient wave of the hand. "There's a piece of devilment going on at this post that it's my business to stop before it gets too late. Pray God it isn't too late yet! That man has no business here as Dwight's guest. He has no business here at all. He isn't straight. He tells everybody he can't imagine where his orders have gone, and that he's been wiring everywhere to find them. This morning I find that he's lying. Yesterday he left Dwight's house to write letters at the Club, as he said, and send more dispatches. He stayed there only about fifteen minutes, until church was fairly started. Then he said he wanted some keg beer which can't be had at the Club, and so he left, saying he'd go to the Canteen and finish the beer and his letters at your desk. That's almost the last they saw of him, but before eleven he went through the east gate and down to old Sergeant Sweeny's on the south flats. Sweeny served with him seven years ago, and he's laid up with rheumatism. The second relief started just at eleven, and the first problem the recruit on No. 4 had to deal with, before the relief that left him was fairly out of sight, was what to do with a gentleman, in civilian dress who was crossing his post. The sentry stopped him, and the stranger said: 'I'm Captain Foster, staying at Major Dwight's,' and went on in the back way. If Sweeny confirms this story I shall send for Captain Foster and—until this is settled never mind about that other matter. Er—have you seen Miss Sanford?"

"Yes, sir," answered Ray, half choking, "and—she was to answer me fully at twelve o'clock."

"Well—er—I may be able to see Sergeant Bates and perhaps you again. I won't take you farther. Wait for me at your desk, will you?"

A distant horseman, trotting swiftly homeward, splashed through the ford at the moment; but long before he reached the gate the colonel had gone on through upon his regular daily tramp, making the rounds of the big wide-spreading post. The young officer, silent and pale, had gone back to his office. The sentry at the gate presented arms as the tall haggard-looking rider came trotting in, sitting very erect and squarely down in the saddle. At the parting of the roads he suddenly reined in and dismounted. "Take him to the stables and get your dinner, Gribble," said he to the trumpeter boy. "I shall not ride again to-day." Then, with grave, anxious, downcast face, went striding up the southward line to his quarters at the farther end—the quarters that had been the Rays'.

On the gallery of Lieutenant Thornton's were two or three young army wives and mothers, who ceased chatting and somewhat curiously studied the coming officer. In brief, absent-minded fashion he lifted his cap and passed them by. Young Dr. Wallen was just coming forth and calling cheerily to them. "Oh, he'll do very nicely now. Miss Sanford handled him admirably;" then, "Oh, beg a thousand pardons, Major," as he bumped sideways into the tall soldier passing by.

"Who's hurt?" asked Dwight with scant interest.

"Why—er—Georgie Thornton got a little—er—gash playing. His mother was scared a bit, and I was coming that way and she called me in. The eye isn't injured."

"Why—how'd it happen?"

"Oh, er—well, I don't know, exactly," answered Wallen, in deep confusion. "Some boy scrap—mishap—accident, probably, and—er—good-day," he finished lamely, as he darted off.

Queer, thought Dwight. Is everybody seeking to avoid me? He only vaguely heard, and for the moment gave little heed to, the angry words that followed him from the open doorway. "Ask your boy how it happened, Major Dwight," for the mother was suffering still, and some natures, suffering, will spit and scratch. Not then, but just a little later, as Jimmy came bounding gladly to meet him and to seize his hand, did Dwight remember Mrs. Thornton's words, and looking down into the joyous, beaming, flushing face, with the big, wide-open, violet eyes, the father questioned:

"What's this about Georgie Thornton? How was he cut?"

"Georgie? Cut? Why, daddy, I didn't know it. Is he hurt?"

"You don't, Jim? Why, they told me to ask you, as though you would know. Weren't you with him?"

"Why, yes, daddy. I—I got out late," and here the young face began to cloud. "And then—such fun!" and the laughter once more came bubbling joyously from his happy heart. "Some 'B' Troop horses got loose, and we all ran to see the round-up, and we were hinder-most at the start, Georgie and I, but I caught 'em, and got there with the foremost, an' I guess he got tired and went home because we ran away from him, really."

But already the father's attention was diverted. His eyes were following Stanley Foster, who, dancing lightly down the steps, waved his hand with exuberant cordiality to the pair as he crossed the road and struck out over the parade.

"When that fellow begins putting his hand on my shoulder or patting my back or calling me old chap I know he's playing to 'do' me some way," once said a brother officer of Foster's, and Sandy Ray was thinking of it when three minutes later Foster came bounding breezily in, confidence, cordiality, and jovial good-fellowship beaming from his well-groomed visage:

"Sandy, old boy, lend me a horse this afternoon, will you?"

Ray was alone at his desk. The bare little army office, with its few maps and ornamental calendars adorning the unpapered walls, its barrack-built table and chairs, its stacks of letter-files, boxes and tins of samples, was an uninviting place at best, yet had never hitherto appeared inhospitable. Even under the management of the still half-crippled cavalryman, himself an abstainer from the cup that sometimes cheers, and a partaker of a cup that always saddens, there had ever been frank and cordial greeting for visiting comrades, followed usually by invitation to taste the good cheer of the Canteen and suggest, if possible, additional improvement. But it was a lack-luster eye that turned on the entering officer this day. Sergeant Bates had but just left the room after having, in answer to question, briefly stated that no one but Captain Foster had visited the lieutenant's office during church time Sunday. The captain had merely tasted the beer, glanced about him, and then departed. No, not the way he came, the parade side. The captain had looked into the reading-room and through the billiard-room, which latter was closed on account of the day, and had strolled out through the rear doorway, a short cut to the east gate. That, then, seemed to complete the chain of evidence described by the colonel, and the heart of Sandy Ray was seething when Foster bustled in, while his voice, when presently there came reply, was as icily cold. All the same he turned in his revolving chair and looked his visitor straight in the eye, as he arose.

"What do you want him for?"

Foster flushed. He read unerringly the intense dislike in the young officer's gaze, but he dissembled:

"To ride, 'bout four o'clock," was the matter-of-course reply.

"Major Dwight said both his horses were at your disposal. He's only had one out to-day. Is Mrs. Dwight going to ride the other?"

Foster's eyelids shut to a narrow slit. His mustache began to bristle at the ends. Now the red was flitting and his face was turning sallow.

"While I consider that none of your business, Mr. Ray—yes!"

"Then," said Sandy, his cheek white, his lips set, his eyes aflame, "you can't have mine."

The low hum of voices, the gurgle of laughter drifting through the stove-pipe hole and through the crevices of the pine partition from the lounging-room beyond, seemed to die away almost at the moment. Ray had hardly uplifted his voice. For an instant a silence fell on the facing pair in the Exchange office—the one rather tall, fair, stylishly garbed in the latest civilian fashion; the other short, slender, trimly built, with dark curling hair and snapping black-brown eyes; both men trembling now, but neither dropping an eyelid. Then with clinching fist and fiery eyes the elder took a step forward. He was throwing off the mask. He was speaking angrily, audibly:

"By Heaven, Ray, if I didn't happen to know that you are, or had been, madly in love with Mrs. Dwight, I—I'd consider that an insult."

"Well," came the ready response, "why not so consider it—anyhow?"

In an instant the larger, heavier, stronger man had hurled himself on the slender junior and, one sinewy hand on the back of the neck, the other at the throat, Foster shook him furiously—but only for a second. No sooner did Ray feel himself seized than he "let go" with both fists, and both fists found their mark on Foster's face—one swing, the right, stinging him on the unguarded jaw. Two more followed in the flash of a second, and Foster, stunned and amazed, dropped his hold and for a second recoiled. In blind fury the next moment he rushed again, Ray springing lightly aside, whirling and sending his right with electric snap square to the already smarting jowl—a blow that staggered yet did not fell the stronger man, the man who even in his rage managed partially, at least, to recover his wits, for as he straightened up he held forth protesting hand and panted: "Stop! Not now. They hear us, and by the God that made me you'll hear from me. You dare to strike—your superior officer!"