miniscent effects of the
murrey-colored gown, and the dainty freshness of the cambric fichu, and
the delicate feminine attraction that hung about her like an exquisite
fragrance, and seemed, because of her lack of arrogation, less peculiar
to herself than some sweet quality appertaining to the whole species of
womankind.

She noted how the future of men like these is not with the future of the
country. They were not to participate in the prosperity which their
presence here might foster. While all the others looked forward they
looked backward, or perhaps aside, as at a separate life. Such is the
part a garrison must always play. She doubted if many felt it. With Mrs.
Halsing, she, too, marveled if Captain Stuart felt the need of aught.

But Demere, looking into the past as the tide of reminiscence rose, said
to a sympathetic heart a thousand things of home. Trifles came back,
hitherto forgotten; sorrows seared over by time; old jests that had
outworn the too frequent laugh at last; resolutions failing midway,
half-hearted; friends heretofore dead even to memory; old adventures
conjured up anew; affections lingering about an old home, like the scent
of roses when the fallen petals have left but the bare stalk; vanished
joys, reviviscent with a new throb that was more like pain than
pleasure. And if he did not look to the future that sweet December night
of Saint Martin's summer by the placid Tennessee River, perhaps it was
as well,--oh, poor Captain Demere!

CHAPTER V

The next day ushered in a crisis in the affairs of the would-be
stationers--the house-raising began. All the men of the settlement
gathered to the fore, and the cabins--a substantial double-cabin the
larger was, and the other, one room and a loft--went up as if by magic.
The stockade, boles of stout young trees sawed off in lengths of twenty
feet and sharply pointed at the upper end, the other end deeply sunken
into the ground, began to grow apace. The spring was within the
enclosure--a point of vast importance in that day, since in times of
danger from the Indians it was not necessary to sally forth from the
protection of the stockade for the indispensable water-supply for
household and cattle. The prospects of many an early station were
blighted by overlooking in a period of comparative peace and comfort
this urgent advantage, and many a life was taken during some desperate
sortie with piggins and pails by the defenders of the stockade, who