CHAPTER XXII.

And now the winter is gone, the glad spring-time has come, the voice of the turtle would doubtless be heard in the land if that sort of melody were in vogue in these days of scepticism, and the promotion, which we are biblically assured cometh neither from the east nor from the west, nor from any source whatever, as is beginning to be the creed in our veteran army, has nevertheless come to Jack Truscott.

A vacancy has occurred in a popular staff department. Applicants for that majority are numbered by the dozen. Senators and Representatives in Congress assembled swarm about the White House to advocate the claims of captains by the score, of lieutenants by divisions, and there are majors in the line who wouldn’t mind losing a year or two of rank to get out of frontier duty and into an easy office chair, with clerks and check-books and cigars _ad libitum_. There are old captains who have commanded divisions or brigades during the great war, fellows with unimpeachable records and undoubted ability and not a few battle-scars and gray hairs and grandchildren; old soldiers, who would gladly turn over their small squad of a company to some young and vigorous and unencumbered enthusiast, in whose breast hope springs eternal; old soldiers, who would lend dignity and honor to the department in which the vacancy has occurred, and would thrice welcome the opportunity to see a prospect of a home before them and school for the youngsters. Congress is in session, important measures are up for discussion, yet the newspapers give daily a quarter of a column to telegraphic speculations as to whom the President will appoint to the vacancy in that department. Captain A. is warmly backed by Senator B. Other captains, with undeniable war records, are backed by the delegations of their States; but Captain C., who is a first cousin of a prominent inmate of the White House, has a capital chance, unless the President, in despair at having to choose from so many admirable war histories, should decide on Lieutenant D., only a few years out of the Point, and whose numerous friends at Washington are confident of his success.

At last the announcement is made. “The President has determined that the appointee shall represent the fighting branch of the service, and it is now known that his excellency will nominate a gallant officer of a distinguished cavalry regiment that has for years past been doing arduous and bloody work among the savages of Arizona.” And eminently proper this seems to the army at large and to the general public, who have no personal interest in the candidates. And so it results that our gallant friends of the —th are recognized, and the promotion falls upon a distinguished officer of that distinguished regiment; and Captain Wormley, of the District of Colombia for years past, and known to the —th only upon its monthly returns, but having a wide circle of admiring friends in the Capital City, where he has been for years on some mysterious staff duty, becomes Major Wormley of the —’s department. He is son of a statesman, nephew of a cabinet officer’s lady, brother of a Congressman’s wife, cousin of a War Department official, and cousin-german, so to speak, to half the pretty girls in Washington. Welcome, major, to your leaves and laurels, and long may you live to lord it over subsequent appointments by telling them that you “came in from the cavalry”!

“But it gives Jack Truscott the double-hurdles on his straps,” shouted Mr. Ray, in huge delight. “Let’s send him a royal old telegram of congratulation.” And that evening, as he sits at dinner and receives the hearty greetings of the officers’ mess on the far-away banks of the Hudson, Jack’s heart turns to the old crowd in the —th, now marching in from Arizona. Their message had reached him.

So has another,—a letter from his loyal friend, the general’s wife, who long since assured him that she knew “it would all come out right.” So, too, has another still; for only this very day has he heard from Mrs. Tanner, and it must be admitted that Jack’s thoughts wandered more upon what they had written than upon the elevation he had so unexpectedly attained. Extracts may be of interest to those who have found anything of interest in our story.

“Didn’t I tell you so?” wrote the first. “Grace Pelham’s engagement is broken at last. She never cared—she never _could_ care for such a humdrum creature as Mr. Glenham. Why, Jack, when she came up here after you went East, he followed too, and it just used to make me sick the way he moped and whined around after her. She has tried a dozen times to get him to release her, so everybody says, but he wouldn’t. That mother of hers made her stick to her word (although I hear she had mighty small regard for her own), and the colonel of course would not interfere. Once they thought Mr. Ray was going to cut in and win her away; but _I know_ that was just a real frank liking she had for him. Anyhow, the engagement’s broken, and I have heard he’s going to resign when they get East. She left here for San Francisco, with her mother, Mrs. Turner, and Mrs. Raymond, all under Ralph’s charge, three days ago. Mrs. Wilkins swears she’s going to march across the continent with the boys.

“Well, we’re mighty sorry to lose the —th, though it did seem to run down-hill after you left. I’m not the only one that says so, Jack; so you needn’t laugh. They will have better stations and all that sort of thing in the East, but all the ladies will join now, I suppose, and then won’t there be fun?

“And now, Jack, you may say it’s none of my business, but if you don’t very soon write to me that you have succeeded in consoling a certain young lady for the loss of much valuable time and one lover, I shall be a disappointed woman.”

Upon the same subject Mrs. Tanner wrote from her home in Massachusetts:

“Letters from the old regiment bring me most interesting news. There is no doubt that Mr. Glenham has at last released Grace Pelham from her engagement. Both Mrs. Wilkins and Mrs. Turner write to the same effect. She has been very unhappy in this tie to a man who was greatly her inferior, and the rupture of the engagement must be a relief inexpressible.

“Of course, both letters are filled with gossipy details as to how it was brought about; but, knowing your horror of all that sort of talk, I refrain. One thing, however, seems certain. It was _his_ doing and is final.

“Jack, dear friend, I grew to know her so well and to love her dearly in those sad days at Sandy, but there were some matters of which we never spoke. You know how I grieved over the wrong done you by my own kith and kin years ago, and how I _must_ want to see you happy. There was something more than suspicion in my mind that you and sweet Grace Pelham had been ruthlessly separated by misunderstanding—perhaps by design—at Sandy. There was some garrison talk of a letter of yours that never reached her, and yet was delivered _for_ her to Mrs. Pelham, and in some way I found it was generally known that she had sent back your spurs without a word of explanation. Have you those spurs yet, Jack? I fancy that if they were to find their way into her hands again, you might find it difficult to reclaim them.”

That April evening a warm south wind was sweeping up the Hudson, and moist and sweet, bearing the faint perfume of the early lilacs upon its bosom, it played through the curtains of Truscott’s open window. He had early left the mess, and separated from the officers who had strolled homeward with him. “Had letters to write,” he explained, and yet, half an hour afterwards, when three or four lively comrades stopped under the window in the “Angle,” and looked up, they abandoned the project of rushing in “to give Truscott a rattle over his promotion,” for, said they, “he must be out.” There was no light in his room.

No light burning from jet or lamp, perhaps, but Jack was there, and a light of hope, love, and deep thankfulness was burning in his heart of hearts, and he was thinking—thinking. Well he recalled that last night at Sandy. How old Pelham had walked home with him from the Turners’, and in deep embarrassment had told him of Ralph’s letter. Tears of gratitude and of deep emotion stood in the colonel’s eyes and his voice was broken, his hand tremulous. That night all the old trust and affection was restored between them, but not a word was said of Mrs. Pelham or Grace until Jack reminded him that he had to go and see Mrs. Tanner a little while, and then it came out.

“I’ve got one thing I _must_ ask you, Truscott. I’ve overheard some talk about a letter you sent to our house for Grace before you went out on that scout. She never got it, I understand. Did you ever send such a letter?”

“Yes, colonel, once, and no reply ever reached me.”

“Then depend upon it, Jack, it never got to Grace; she was ill you know, and it—it must have been mislaid.”

But now it was too late: the mischief was done. The colonel did not dream how much depended upon that little note, and not until long afterwards did he know the truth, that Mrs. Pelham had shown it to Arthur Glenham, and he had been weak—mean enough to read it. Then it was that under the influence of that indomitable woman he had removed from Truscott’s quarters and afterwards accused him of treachery.

Well Jack recalled her sweet face and animated manners as Grace sat conversing with Ray that night, and his sense of utter desolation as he left the garrison at sunrise. No one but he really knew that he expected to be met at Prescott by telegraphic orders to proceed at once to the Military Academy for duty in the department of tactics, and he dreaded the formal “good-byes” that would have to be undergone were the order to reach him while still at Sandy. And now he understood why she had never replied to that urgent little note of his, and bitterly he blamed himself for ever permitting the thought that she had received and had trifled with it as she had with his love. Over an hour he sat there plunged in deep thought, for even in his new-found hope and happiness he dared make no false step. Then he rapidly wrote a short letter, and on the following evening Mrs. Tanner received this query: “Where will a letter reach Miss Pelham?” On the third day the answer came: “Care of Adjutant-General, Division of the Missouri, Chicago. They are visiting friends there while waiting for the regiment to come in. Then they go to Fort Hays. They may visit Mrs. Treadwell there for a while.”

* * * * *

One rainy, dripping, depressing morning a week later, while a damp, smoke-laden, coal-blackened fog had settled down on the wicked city of Chicago, and the minds of its denizens were more than ever disposed towards the inevitable ills that life in such an atmosphere must generate, three ladies of or beyond medium age sat yawning and disconsolate under the lighted chandelier in a comfortable parlor; a fourth—young, sweet, and vastly attractive—sat somewhat listlessly at the piano, her slender hands wandered over the keys, and Schubert’s beautiful, dreamy “Praise of Tears” softly rose and fell in plaintive melody through the silence of the room.

“For goodness’ sake, Grace,” exclaimed one of the elder ladies, pettishly, “_do_ stop that dismal thing and play something lively! You will drive us all into our shrouds with such funeral stuff as that.”

In vain the others protested it was lovely, and begged Grace Pelham to continue. Mamma had resumed her sway, and Grace, away from the supporting voice of her father, and no longer the prospective Mrs. Arthur Glenham, with a fortune at her disposal and a fool at her feet, had meekly, resignedly fallen back into her old habit of uncomplaining obedience.

A servant entered with the mail, handing to Mrs. Pelham two or three bulky letters, in which she immediately became engrossed, and to Grace a small parcel, at which the young lady glanced curiously, then eagerly, and then fled from the parlor.

Once safely in her own room, and with the door locked between her and would-be pursuers, she carried her prize to the window. It was small, compact, firmly wrapped in strong white paper, strongly tied, sealed, and registered. It was post-marked West Point, and needed only a glance at the superscription to tell her the sender’s name. For an instant she held it, trembling from head to foot, then cut the strings, opened the little box, unrolled with quivering fingers and beating heart the dainty wrapping of tissue-paper, and came upon something white and soft, tied with ribbon. On it was a card.

“These are yours. The spurs you won at Sandy; the handkerchief you dropped at my door at Prescott, and in faith and constancy I have worn it till now.

“If you value that which you have won, hold it, and return to me the only semblance of the tie that has bound me to you, and it shall bind forever. If your prize be worthless to you, send it back, and in so doing break the tie. _Comme—fidèle._

“J. G. T.”

And Grace Pelham read till the tears blinded her eyes, dashed them away, then read again, tore open the little packet in which lay two silver spurs rolled in a snowy kerchief, which was rent and torn inexplicably, and which bore in white embroidery in the corner the simple name, “Grace.”

And then she sank upon her knees, burying her bright, beautiful head in the pillow, and wept unrestrainedly, but oh! so humbly, so gratefully, so joyously, holding her treasures to her heart.

And three days more the torn handkerchief was back in Truscott’s breast.

“Colonel,” said he to the commandant of cadets the following morning, “I want a week’s leave. It is an unusual time for one of the department to be away, but, as you know, I cannot leave in the summer. My regiment is just back in Kansas, and I want to run out to Fort Hays and see them. Mr. X., with your consent, will take charge of my duties. I will be back for muster on the 30th.”

And the leave was granted. It would give him just time, provided there was no detention, to speed westward to St. Louis, thence to Kansas City, and so on to Fort Hays, to spend twenty-four hours there, and then rush back the way he came. Not much satisfaction, possibly, for so long a journey, but he went.

* * * * *

Headquarters and four troops, with the band, had arrived at the little frontier post of Fort Hays, officers and men being still encamped upon the open prairie alongside, while those ladies who had hurried thither to meet their returning lords were hospitably entertained by the families in the garrison who had not yet moved away, and here it was that Mrs. Treadwell had thrown open the large and commodious quarters of the commanding officer to Mrs. and Miss Pelham. Here, too, were our old acquaintances, Mrs. Raymond and Mrs. Turner. Here were other ladies of the regiment whom it has not been the felicity of the reader to meet. Here, too, were three or four young ladies, gathered from neighboring posts, and ready and eager to put up with scant accommodation, for would there not be two bands at Hays for a while, and was there not to be given a grand ball by the outgoers to the incomers, and was not that big, empty barrack, with its polished wax floor, “the loveliest place in the world for a German”? Oh, bright and bonny and sunshiny and jubilant was everything and everybody at Hays in that glorious, radiant spring weather, and who more bright, who so bonny, who half so radiant and lovely as Grace? The colonel wondered at her brilliant color and sparkling eyes, marvelled at the lightness of her step, at the ringing music of her sweet voice. Sing! Why, she sang from morn till night.

“And yet,” said one of the visitors, “you tell me she has been jilted by that young man with ten thousand a year who has just resigned. I would be down in sackcloth and ashes.”

Would he write? Would he come? One or other she knew it would be, and that right soon. And so when Major Bucketts came stumping into the Treadwells’ parlor one evening waving a despatch and beaming with delight, she felt sure what was coming before her father burst out with,—

“By Jove! that _is_ good. Jack Truscott will be here to-night.”

There was an impromptu dance going on, and thither Grace could not but wend her way, and her escort, a deeply-smitten youth of the infantry persuasion, was impatiently awaiting her. Dozens of young people were blithely dancing to the strains of sweet music from the tireless orchestra, and, though she danced unceasingly, joyously, the hours seemed to drag. It would be near midnight before the train from the East reached the station. Would it be late? Would the dance break up before he could come? Would Major Bucketts be stupid and take him off to his own quarters instead of bringing him there? Would he speak to her then? Could she see him? Could she look in his face and not betray to every soul in the room the glowing secret that seemed bursting from heart and brain? Eleven o’clock came at last, and then the minutes stretched into hours, and midnight lay a century away. Yet she was striving to be calm, striving to be bright and “entertaining” with her round of partners. Oh, how she tired of their chatter! their utterly vapid efforts to amuse her! How she wished Ray were there! He would let her dance, or sit in silence and wait and think and dream, keeping vigilant guard lest others interfere, as he had learned to do for her in Arizona, yet interfering not himself; but Ray was far to the westward. Fate had assigned him elsewhere,—and midnight came at last. To her misery, the hop was breaking up, the dancers going home. Some had already left.

“Oh, can’t we have just one more waltz?” she implored, and obediently the leader signalled to his sleepy bandsmen. Then there was a rush and commotion at the doorway. Young officers were dropping their partners and precipitating themselves on a new arrival; a dozen glittering uniforms were crowding about a tall, soldierly-looking fellow in civilian’s dress who was being half dragged, half pushed, then carried, nearly smothered, into the hall. Mesdames Raymond and Turner rushed rapturously upon him, other dames followed suit. The younger damsels gazed with decorous curiosity, and Miss Pelham’s infantry escort, with misguided jocularity, inquired, “Who may be this lengthy party in cits? I suppose we may venture to dance, may we not?” And had he been a youth of brain he might have learned a lesson from the manner of her reply.

“Not just now. It’s Captain Truscott, our old adjutant.”

“Oh! That’s Jack Truscott, is it?” was all the crestfallen youth could say, and then they stood still and watched, and the band stopped playing.

Is the world made up of idiots? Could no one see how his eyes were wandering over their heads about the room? Had not those little whip-snappers of boys more sense than to know that it was not on their account he had come all that distance? Would they never let him go? Would those absurd women never release him? Must he stand there patiently striving to answer a dozen questions asked at once while she stood waiting? And when he did break through, and came towards her with quick, eager step and a glorious light in his dark eyes, could they not even then see through it all? must they still hang to his skirts with idiotic inquiries of no earthly importance? Only for an instant could Grace glance up in those glowing hazel eyes, while her cheeks burned with their shy delight.

“I’m so glad to see you again,” was all she had time to falter in response to his tremulous voice breathing only her name. Then he was dragged off, and she homewards. He to Bucketts’s quarters, where his old comrades crowded around him till late towards morning; she to wait, with trembling joy, for the coming day.

Yet what did that bring? She was out at guard-mounting, so was he, and, breaking loose from the group surrounding him, came at once to meet her, and the wooden-headed imbeciles flocked instantly about them, and not a word alone had he in the hour they were together. Then came madame, with Mrs. Treadwell, and the carriage to take a drive. She had not known when to expect him, had promised to go, and could not now avert it. It was nearly one when they returned, and then they had to dress for luncheon at the doctor’s. And he had been dragged off to stables by the colonel to see the new horses by the time they came back, and the colonel did not release him until near retreat. Nor was he one instant alone with him. Even _his_ placidity was sorely tried. “But never mind,” he thought, “I dine at the Treadwells’, and there, at least, there will be opportunity.” Nevertheless, at parade, finding it impossible to separate her from the swarm of feminines who flocked about her, and the officers who gathered in clusters the instant they were dismissed from their duties, he turned to Bucketts.

“Old man, have the ambulance at Treadwell’s at ten o’clock to take me to the station. Put my valise in, _and do all you can to keep the crowd away from there to-night_.” And Bucketts understood.

Even at dinner all went wrong. Oh, Mrs. Treadwell, either your tact had deserted you, or Lady Pelham’s malign influence had been again at work. Grace was seated beyond his reach. He could not even see her, for she was on his side of the table, and there were other guests between them. Dinner was long, frightfully long.

“Jack, must you go to-night?” called the colonel to him. “Can’t you wait until to-morrow’s train? You will reach the Point by the 30th even then.” And Truscott could only shake his head.

Would that ghastly dinner never end? It was nearly nine o’clock when they rose and strolled into the parlor. Then he went at once to her side. Two young officers were speaking to her then, but time was precious. She half moved forward to meet him.

“Must you go to-night?” she murmured, looking almost tearfully up in his eyes.

“Yes, at ten. Yet I cannot——”

“Captain Truscott, _Captain_ Truscott, didn’t you hear? Colonel Treadwell says won’t you smoke?” And Mrs. Turner was pulling at his coat-sleeve. (Smoke at such a time!) “How ungallant you’ve grown! You used to be the soul of—why, _I_ don’t know—_devotion_, and here I had to call you twice—three times.”

“_Did_ you see Mrs. Tanner? Isn’t it lovely she’s so well off? Do you think she’ll marry again?” Mrs Raymond was firing at him from the other side.

“_Do_ tell us about West Point. Is Mrs. Ruggles there now? _Why_ do you have to go to-night? How stupid of you to come for so short a time!” Mrs. the doctor was having her say.

The other men, except two or three youngsters, were still in the dining-room smoking. What _could_ be done? He was surrounded by these chattering magpies, and Grace was fairly driven from his side. Mrs. Pelham had called her. Mrs. Treadwell was asking her to sing. Then the women turned on her and _implored_ her to sing. Everybody knows that right after dinner is the very time of all others one feels like singing. Grace had to sing, and it was half-past nine before the oldsters came out, and then tattoo drew several of the younger people away.

“_Surely_, you are going to the hop-room, Grace?” Mrs. Pelham was heard to say. “I heard Mr. Roberts asking you.”

And Grace looked imploringly at her father.

“Indeed, she’s not. Truscott’s got to go in twenty minutes, and I want to see him, so does Grace,” that veteran answered, stoutly.

Still there were a dozen people in the parlor, and time was spinning away. Grace was implored to sing again, and sing she had to. Mrs. Treadwell and Mrs. Pelham were chatting with the doctor at a distant end of the room. The colonel and Treadwell, lolling back in their easy-chairs, were beating time and enjoying the music. The doctor’s wife and Mesdames Raymond and Turner were pestering Truscott with questions even as she sang. Grace was at the piano, and he had eagerly stepped to her side to turn over the leaves for her, but they called him away as the song ceased, and nervously looking at his watch, pulling savagely at his moustache, Jack Truscott commenced pacing rapidly up and down the parlor. How odd of him! How excitable for one ordinarily so calm!

Listening eagerly to his every word, listening in torture to their senseless chatter and questioning, Grace Pelham sat running dreamily over the exquisite music, the accompaniment of Kucken’s “Good-night,—Farewell,” an accompaniment that is a lovely song in itself.

“Yes indeed, Mr. Truscott—Captain Truscott, I mean,” Mrs. Turner was saying, “we’ve been hearing all manner of accounts of you at West Point. I quite expected long ere this to hear of your being in love somewhere, and (coquettishly) forgetting all your old friends in the —th. _Of course_ now, with your captaincy, you will be seeking a wife?”

“Of course,” he answered, with a sudden resumption of preternatural calmness, but still striding up and down.

“You mean to be married, _really_?” Vividly interested were the ladies now, and the sweet accompaniment went tremulously on.

“Certainly, I do.”

“You _have_ fallen in love, then?”

“Long ago.”

“Oh, Mr. Truscott!” “Why, Captain Truscott!” “Oh, when?” “What a surprise!” “Who is she?” “_Do_ tell us!” came in general chorus, even Pelham and Treadwell pricking up their ears.

“Are you really, _really_ in love? _very_ much?”

“I am—deeply.”

“Then when are you to be married?”

[Breathless silence.]

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t know! Why not?”

“Because I’ve never asked her yet.”

“How absurd! Why haven’t you? Doesn’t she love you?”

“I’ve never asked her.”

“Preposterous! What do you mean?”

“She knows you love her, does she not?”

“Yes.”

“Then why don’t you ask her? Why haven’t you——”

“I have never had a chance, and at this rate never expect to get one.”

(The accompaniment had wellnigh died away. Grace was bending blindly over her piano.)

“What can you mean? _Who_ is it?” persisted that eminently brilliant cross-examiner, Mrs. Turner, though others with gradually expanding ideas were beginning to take in the situation.

He had stepped close by the piano, his watch again in his hand. The wheels of an ambulance rattled up to the door. Proudly, almost defiantly, he turned and faced them all, then bent over the beautiful, bowed head, the trembling form that drooped over the keys. A wonderful depth of love, reverence, tenderness, passion thrilled through every word, as he murmured—

“Gracie. It is my only opportunity; but, before the world, if need be, I would say it proudly, I love you.”

The accompaniment had ceased. The sweet, blushing face was hidden by his arm. Before them all he had wooed and won her.

“All the world loves a lover” (unless it be the lady’s younger brother, when she has one). If not, how did it happen that on this particular evening that express train on the Kansas Pacific should be telegraphed as two hours late, and that Bucketts should find it out just in the “nick of time,” and bring word to Truscott as he was coming forth to drive to the station, taking leave of his sweet betrothed, even as he had had to plead his cause—before them all? Will it be believed that when the quartermaster appeared with his glad tidings and called out, “Jack, old boy, that train won’t be along till after midnight, so I’ll send the trap back to the corral,” Mrs. Turner absolutely proposed staying and making up a party to see him off, and was indignant because her husband spirited her off homewards? Then the others followed, and, thanks to Pelham’s resolution, Jack Truscott and his _fiancée_ were left in peace. Mrs. Pelham, a martyred wife and mother, was sent to bed, and the colonel and Treadwell retired to the dining-room to smoke another cigar. It was the happiest night the colonel had known in ever so long.

And now the minutes flew like seconds; the blessed two hours whirled away. Once more ’twas almost time for the ambulance to rattle up to the house, and this time there could be no postponement. They were standing under the hanging-lamp in the centre of the room, the bright light shimmering through her rippling hair, and shining back from the beautiful eyes ever and anon raised so happily, so trustingly to his.

“There is something I want to ask you,” she said, shyly, as another reference to his watch showed that they had but a few moments more to call their own. He was looking smilingly down into her bonny, blushing face.

“What is it, Gracie?”

“About the packet you sent me with the spurs. Was my handkerchief really so torn when I dropped it?”

“It was not torn at all.”

“Then how did you come to abuse it so frightfully, sir? Is that the way you treat my property?”

He was smiling mischievously now.

“I kept it in as safe a spot as I could find,” he answered.

“Where?” and her head drooped as she asked it.

“Very near to my heart, Miss Pelham.”

“Then how came those jagged rents, I’d like to know?”

“An arrow did that, mademoiselle, the morning of Tanner’s fight down in Tonto basin,—a day or two after you jilted me, to be explicit.”

And for all response she could only bury her face upon the breast where, at that moment, her torn treasured handkerchief was lying.

“What else have you to ask?” he questioned, as she presently glanced up into his eyes again.

“What does _comme_—_fidèle_ mean?”

“Where is your French, Miss Pelham?”

“I never did know so very much, and this is utterly beyond me,” she answered, laughingly. “You wrote it so queerly: _comme_, then a dash, then _fidèle_. There is no sense to it that I can see.”

He drew her closer to his heart, and bent until his lips almost brushed the soft, perfumed ripples of her hair. “It has its meaning, though, and a deep one. It is my pledge to you, my darling,—_Fidèle—à la fin, comme—au commencement_.”

Presently the ambulance once more was heard, and old Pelham came blithely in.

“Grace dear, I’m going to drive over to the station with Truscott, and I want somebody with me coming back,—to keep the wolves away, you know,” he added, with a Weller-like wink, very unbecoming such rank and dignity. “Run and wrap up warm, daughter.”

Then, as she obediently went, the two men clasped hands and looked into each other’s eyes.

“Does it occur to you that it was about time I asked your consent, sir?”

“You have had it—all along. God bless you, Jack!”

Will she ever forget that ride to the station, I wonder? How those scamps of bachelor officers poured forth from Bucketts’s tent over in camp and surrounded the ambulance ostensibly to bid “him” good-by; the stage-whispers which passed between them.

“Good-by, Jack. We all meant to come over to the station to see you off, but the colonel gives us fits if we’re up after midnight now.”

“Take care of yourself, old man. _Say_, don’t let the colonel see you go into Tommy Dunn’s. _What!_ Miss Pelham, you here too!”

She sat in the dark corner of the carriage, where she could dimly see his form as he leaned forward talking earnestly with her father as they drove rapidly over the smooth prairie roads. Not a word did she speak, but an inexpressible content and joy possessed her. He was going. It might be many a long weary month before she could see him again, but her heart went with him, and his?—ah, had it not been in her keeping for months past?

They reached the station; dark and still it looked: one faint light burning in the station-master’s office; but thither the colonel found it necessary to go. The ambulance and its driver went off, oddly enough, and “hitched” directly in front of the very establishment Jack had been warned to shun. And then on the dark platform, lighted only by the glowing stars above, the red and green signal-lamps up and down the track, Grace Pelham and her lover were alone.

All too soon, far up the line the brilliant head-light of the train came sweeping into view. They were pacing slowly along the platform, her hands clasped upon his arm. She stopped suddenly.

“You have never asked me why—why Mr. Glenham broke our engagement, and I thought it was something you ought to know,” she said, falteringly.

“I never intended to ask, Gracie, nor do I care to question you about any of that wretched experience at Sandy,” he said, tenderly.

“But it was something I want you to know, and I cannot tell you unless you ask.”

“Then, I do ask,” he answered, smiling.

“He told me two months ago that he knew I cared nothing for him, and asked me whom I did love?”

“And you told him——”

“That I loved you, Jack.”

Both his arms were round her in an instant, his head bent down over the sweet face now buried on his breast. She _had_ to raise it shyly and glance up into his eyes in answer to his appeal, then his lips sought hers, and their fervent pressure was answered. One moment more and he was eastward bound.

* * * * *

Many a letter came flying back to Hays. The daily mail was never without its missive for Grace, and even in separation some delight is found.

“Two weeks now I have been back at the Point,” he wrote one May afternoon, “and never has the dear old spot looked so beautiful. It is hard to realize that these scenes, so familiar to you, so very familiar to me, have never been viewed together; that there ever has been a time in my life when I looked out upon that glorious reach up the river, and around upon the rocky heights, and knew not this now incessant longing to have you at my side. Time was when all my hope, ambition, pride, and pleasure were centred in the coming summer, with camp or furlough, when May with its verdure and sweet balmy breath was a foretaste of Paradise. _Now_, I wait with eager impatience for the coming again of autumn, for the keen frosts that will shiver leaf and flower and rob the landscape of all this vernal beauty. Welcome, November, with frost and fog and gale, for none can chill the light and glory of my life, for with them comes its crowning blessing, for with them, and despite them, I shall welcome you, my wife, my darling, my queen.”

And Truscott had many letters, congratulatory, exclamatory, and otherwise satisfactory. This was from Ray:

“DEAR JACK,—News just reached me. Bad news travels fast, you know. I’m cut up—cut out—and never was cut out for anything better. With all my heart I congratulate you, and wish it was _me_. As I can’t walk to singing-school with her myself, please may I sit on the fence and watch out for you to go by? Anyhow, may the Fates deal you no end of blessings, and me, two or three full hands for the wedding present! There goes stable-call. _Toot à toi._

“RAY.

“See here, Jack, I may not have had a clear idea on the subject before, but isn’t this last capture of Miss Pelham’s a new thing in ‘_Winning his Spurs_’?”

THE END.

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Transcriber’s Note (continued)

Errors in punctuation and simple typos have been corrected without note. Archaic or variant spelling, inconsistent hyphenation, etc., has been left as it appears in the original publication unless as noted in the following:

Page 114 – “decalogue” changed to “Decalogue” (half the sins in the Decalogue)

Page 187 – “’7” changed to “’71” (the old road to Prescott as it lay in ’71)

Page 286 – “Eskiminziu” changed to “Eskiminzin” (Advices just received from Stryker prove Eskiminzin)

Page 365 – “Arrapahoes” changed to “Arapahoes” (the Sioux, Cheyennes, and Arapahoes)