le lady's
lips. Not that she was always so silent as on that morning, there
among the young wives of the post, at her own guest's side. She had
her hours of overflowing spirits like any girl, but in some company
she was always grave.

When Major King was in attendance, especially, the seeing ones made
note. And there were others, too, who said that she was by nature a
colonel among women, haughty, cold and aloof. These wondered how the
major ever had made headway with her up to the point of gaining her
hand. Knowing ones smiled at that, and said it had been arranged.

There were ambitions on both sides of that match, it was known--ambition
on the colonel's part to secure his only child a station of dignity, and
what he held to be of consequence above all achievements in the
world. Major King was a rising man, with two friends in the cabinet.
It was said that he would be a brigadier-general before he reached
forty.

On the major's side, was the ambition to strengthen his political
affiliations by alliance with a family of patrician strain, together
with the money that his bride would bring, for Colonel Landcraft was a
weighty man in this world's valued accumulations. So the match had
been arranged.

The veranda of the colonel's house gave a view of the parade grounds
and the long avenue that came down between the officers' houses,
cottonwoods lacing their limbs above the road. There was green in
the lawns, the flash of flowers between the leaves and shrubs,
white-gleaming walls, trim walks, shorn hedges. It seemed a pleasant
place of quiet beauty that bright September morning, and a pity to
give it up by and by to dust and desolation; a place where men and
women might be happy, but for the gnawing fire of ambition in their
hearts.

Mrs. Colonel Landcraft was not going. Indians made her sick, she said,
especially Indians sitting around in the tall grass waiting for the
carcasses to be cut up and apportioned out to them in bloody chunks.
But there seemed to be another source of her sickness that morning,
measuring by the grave glances with which she searched her daughter's
face. She wondered whether the major and Frances had quarreled; and if
so, whether Nola Chadron had been the cause.

They were off, with the colonel and a lately-assigned captain in the
lead. There was a keener pleasure in this beef day than usual for the
colonel, for he had new ground to sow with its wonders, which were
beginning to pale in his