eping down his cheek, toughened by the fires of
thirty years' campaigns.

"I'll never soldier any more," he said, "the politicians have got me.
They've been after me a long time, and they've got me. But there is
one easement in my disgrace--"

"Don't speak of it on those terms, sir!" implored Major King, more a
man than a soldier as he laid a consoling hand on the old man's arm.

"No, no!" said Frances, clinging to her father's hand.

Colonel Landcraft smiled, looking from one to the other of them, and a
softness came into his face. He took Major King's hand and carried it
to join Frances', and she, in her softness for her father, allowed it
to remain in the young soldier's grasp.

"There is one gleam of joy in the sundown of my life," the colonel
said, "and that is in seeing my daughter pledged to a soldier. I must
live in the reflection of your achievements, if I live beyond this
disgrace, sir."

"I will try to make them worthy of my mentor, sir," Major King
returned.

Frances stood with bowed head, the major still holding her hand in his
ardent grasp.

"It's a crushing blow, to come before the preferment in rank that I
have been led to expect would be my retiring compensation!" The
colonel turned from them sharply, as if in pain, and walked in
marching stride across the room. Frances withdrew her hand, with a
little struggle, not softened by the appeal in the major's eyes.

"My poor wife is bowed under it," the colonel spoke as he marched back
and forth. "She has hoped with me for some fitting reward for the
years of service I have unselfishly given to my country, sir, for the
surrender of my better self to the army. I'll never outlive it, I feel
that I'll never outlive it!"

Colonel Landcraft had no thought apart from what he felt to be his
hovering disgrace. He had forgotten his rage against Chadron,
forgotten that his daughter had lived through a day as hazardous as
any that he had experienced in the Apache campaigns, or in his bleak
watches against the Sioux. He turned to her now, where she stood
weeping softly with bowed head, the grime of the dugout on her habit,
her hair, its bonds broken, straying over her face.

"I had counted pleasurably on seeing you two married," he said, "but
something tells me I shall never come back from this journey, never
resume command of this post." He turned back to his marching, stopped
three or four paces along, turned sharply, a new light in his face.
"Why should