rule through affection and regard rather than the stern standard of
command. He was gentle and courteous alike to officers and the rank and
file, though he feared no man on the face of the globe. He was awkward,
bungling and overwhelmingly, lavishly, kind and thoughtful in his
dealings with the womenfolk of the garrison, for he stood in awe of the
entire sisterhood. He could ride like a centaur; he couldn't dance worth
a cent. He could snuff a candle with his Colt at twenty paces and
couldn't hit a croquet ball to save his soul. His deep-set gray eyes,
under their tangled thatch of brown, gazed straight into the face of
every man on the Platte, soldier, cowboy, Indian or halfbreed, but fell
abashed if a laundress looked at him. Billy Ray, captain of the sorrel
troop and the best light rider in Wyoming, was the only man he ever
allowed to straddle a beautiful thoroughbred mare he had bought in
Kentucky, but, bad hands or good, there wasn't a riding woman at Frayne
who hadn't backed Lorna time and again, because to a woman the major
simply couldn't say no.

And though his favorite comrades at the post were captains like Blake
and Billy Ray, married men both whose wives he worshipped, the major's
rugged heart went out especially to Beverly Field, his boy adjutant, a
lad who came to them from West Point only three years before the autumn
this story opens, a young fellow full of high health, pluck and
principle--a tip top soldier, said everybody from the start, until, as
Gregg and other growlers began to declaim, the major completely spoiled
him. Here, three years only out of military leadingstrings, he was a
young cock of the walk, "too dam' independent for a second lieutenant,"
said the officers' club element of the command, men like Gregg, Wilkins,
Crane and a few of their following. "The keenest young trooper in the
regiment," said Blake and Ray, who were among its keenest captains, and
never a cloud had sailed across the serene sky of their friendship and
esteem until this glorious September of 188-, when Nanette Flower, a
brilliant, beautiful brunette came a visitor to old Fort Frayne.

And it was on her account the major would, could he have seen the way,
said no to the adjutant's request to be absent again. On her account and
that of one other, for that request meant another long morning in saddle
with Miss Flower, another long morning in which "the sweetest girl in
the garrison," so said they all, would go about her