the little world she lived in
had crippled and narrowed her and marked her for its own. He
remembered what she had said to him the first night he had seen her.
"That is the picture of the girl who ceased to exist four years ago,
and whom you have never met." He wondered if she had ever existed.

"It looks more like Hope than her sister," he mused. "It looks very
much like Hope." He decided that he would let it remain where it was
until Hope gave him a better one; and smiling slightly he snapped the
lid fast, as though he were closing a door on the face of Alice Langham
and locking it forever.

Kirkland was in the cab of the locomotive that brought the soldiers
from the mine. He stopped the first car in front of the freight
station until the workmen had filed out and formed into a double line
on the platform. Then he moved the train forward the length of that
car, and those in the one following were mustered out in a similar
manner. As the cars continued to come in, the men at the head of the
double line passed on through the freight station and on up the road to
the city in an unbroken column. There was no confusion, no crowding,
and no haste.

When the last car had been emptied, Clay rode down the line and
appointed a foreman to take charge of each company, stationing his
engineers and the Irish-Americans in the van. It looked more like a
mob than a regiment. None of the men were in uniform, and the native
soldiers were barefoot. But they showed a winning spirit, and stood in
as orderly an array as though they were drawn up in line to receive
their month's wages. The Americans in front of the column were
humorously disposed, and inclined to consider the whole affair as a
pleasant outing. They had been placed in front, not because they were
better shots than the natives, but because every South American thinks
that every citizen of the United States is a master either of the rifle
or the revolver, and Clay was counting on this superstition. His
assistant engineers and foremen hailed him as he rode on up and down
the line with good-natured cheers, and asked him when they were to get
their commissions, and if it were true that they were all captains, or
only colonels, as they were at home.

They had been waiting for a half-hour, when there was the sound of
horses' hoofs on the road, and the even beat of men's feet, and the
advance guard of the Third and Fourth regiments came toward them at a
quickstep.