close observer and a man who loved all that was strong, high-minded and
true in his own sex, and that was pure and sweet and winsome in woman. A
keen soldier, he had spent many years in active service, most of them in
the hardy, eventful and vigorous life of the Indian frontier. He had been
conspicuous in more than one stirring campaign against the red warriors
of the plains, had won his medal of honor before his first promotion, and
his captaincy by brevet for daring conduct in action long antedated the
right to wear the double bars of that grade. He had seen much of the
world, at home and abroad; had traveled much, read much, thought much,
but these were things of less concern to many a woman in our much married
army than the question as to whether he had ever loved much. Certain it
was he had never married, but _that_ didn't settle it. Many a man loves,
said they, without getting married, forgetful of the other side of the
preposition advanced by horrid regimental cynics, that many men marry
without getting loved. Armstrong would not have proved an easy man to
question on that, or indeed on any other subject which he considered
personal to himself. Even in his own regiment in the regular service he
had long been looked upon as an exclusive sort of fellow--a man who had
no intimates and not many companions, yet, officers and soldiers, he held
the respect and esteem of the entire command, even of those whom he kept
at a distance, and few are the regiments in which there are not one or
two characters who are best seen and studied through a binocular. Without
being sympathetic, said his critics, Armstrong was "square," but his
critics had scant means of knowing whether he was sympathetic or not. He
was a steadfast fellow, an unswerving, uncompromising sort of man, a man
who would never have done for a diplomat, and could never have been
elected to office. But he was truthful, just, and as the English officer
reluctantly said of Lucan, whom he hated, "Yes--damn him--he's brave."
The men whom he did not seem to like in the army and who disliked him
accordingly, were compelled to admit, to themselves at least, that their
reasons were comprised in the above-recorded, regretable, but
unmistakable fact--he didn't like them. Another trait, unpopular, was
that he knew when and how to say no. He smoked too much, perhaps, and
talked too little for those who would use his words as witnesses against
him. He never gambled, he rarely dr