uart, whom he finally found at the block-house in the
northwestern bastion, was standing on the broad hearth of the great
hall, where the fire was so brightly aflare that although it was day the
place had all the illuminated effect of its aspect of last night. The
officer's fresh face was florid and tingling from a recent plunge in the
cold waters of the Tennessee River. He looked at Hamish with an
unchanged expression of his steady blue eye, and drawing the watch from
his fob consulted it minutely.

"The hunters of the post," he said, still regarding it, "have been gone
for more than half an hour. There is no use in trying to overtake them.
They have their orders as to what kind of game they are to bring in."

He smiled slightly, with the air of a man who in indulgent condescension
would humor natural anxiety and overlook the effort of intermeddling,
and as he returned the watch to his pocket, Hamish felt dismissed from
the presence. The sun was well over the great range of purple bronze
mountains in the east, their snowy domes a-glister in the brilliance
between the dark slopes below and the blue sky above, and the fort, as
he came forth, was a scene of brisk activity. The parade ground had
already been swept like a floor, and groups of soldiers were gathered
about the barracks busily burnishing and cleaning their arms,
pipe-claying belts and rotten-stoning buckles and buttons, and at the
further end near the stables horses were in process of being groomed and
fed; one of them, young and wild, broke away, and in a mad scamper, with
tossing mane and tail, and head erect and hoofs scattering the gravel,
plunged around and around the enclosure, baffling his groom. A
drill-sergeant was busy with an awkward squad; another squad without
arms, in charge of a corporal, was marching and marching, making no
progress, but vigorously marking time, whether for exercise or
discipline Hamish could hardly determine, for he began to have a very
awesome perception of the rigor of authority maintained in this frontier
post. He had noticed--and the gorge of a freeman had risen at the
sight--a soldier mounted high upon a trestle, facetiously called a
horse, and he was well aware that this was by no means a new and a merry
game. Hamish wavered a little in his mental revolt against the powers
that be, as he noticed the reckless devil-may-care look of the man. He
was a ruddy young fellow; he had a broad visage, with a wide, facetious
red-li