it. I'm no more afraid of standing trial
than I am of Squeers--and be d----d to him!"

"Good Lawd, youngster--you--you aren't quite such an ass as to suppose a
court is going to regard any schoolboy obligation as paramount to that
which your oath of office demands. Look hyuh, Billy, your head's just
addled! _I_ can't work on you, but somebody must!"

And Gordon went away very low in his mind. He liked that boy. He loved a
keen, alert, snappy soldier on drill, and Billy had no superior in the
battalion when it came to handling squad or company. The adjutant plainly
saw the peril of his position, and further consultation with his
brother-officers confirmed him in his fears. Schuyler, the brigade
commissary, being much with the --teenth--messing with them, in fact,
when he was not dancing attendance on Miss Prime--heard all this camp
talk and told her. Thus it happened that the very next day when he drove
with the cousins (Mr. Prime being the while in conference with the
detectives still scouring the city for the young deserter, who the father
now felt confident was his missing boy), Miss Lawrence looked the captain
full in the face with her clear, searching eyes and plumped at him the
point-blank question:

"Captain Schuyler, do Mr. Gray's brother-officers really consider him in
danger of dismissal?"

"Miss Lawrence, I grieve to say that not one has any other opinion now."

There could be no doubt of it. Amy Lawrence turned very pale and her
beautiful eyes filled.

"It is a shame!" she said, after a moment's struggle to conquer the
trembling of her lips. "Has--is there no one--influential enough--or with
brains enough" (this with returning color) "to take up his case and clear
him?"

They were whirling through the beautiful drive of the Golden Gate Park,
passing company after company at drill. Even as Amy spoke Schuyler lifted
his cap and Miss Prime bowed and smiled. A group of regimental officers,
four in number, stood, apparently supervising the work, and as Miss
Lawrence quickly turned to see who they might be, her eyes met those of
Colonel Armstrong. Five minutes later, the carriage returning drew up as
though by some order from its occupants, at that very spot. Armstrong and
his adjutant were still there and promptly joined them.

Long weeks afterward that morning lived in Stanley Armstrong's memory. It
was one of those rare August days when the wind blew from the southeast,
beat back the drenching Pacific