dreams was indeed but a favorite hound he had
lost in the Columbia; that no Stella had penned a line to him in years,
and, taking her sweet, upturned face between his palms, with the soft,
tender brown eyes looking fondly down into the trustful, beautiful
blue, he had said: "My darling, like other men, I have had fancies in
boyish days, and even a flame or two, but never a love, _real_ love,
until you came into my life. In a week now I must be with my general at
Prescott, but every day, every moment of my absence, you will be the
only girl in all the world to me. I shall shrink from the mere touch of
another hand. I shall count the hours until you become my wife."

And she believed him, utterly, poor soul. He even believed himself.

CHAPTER XXV.

The Gray Fox had returned to his own. The general commanding the
department was spending a month at head-quarters--for him, who loved
the mountains and the field, a most unusual thing. The wild tribes of
Arizona, with the exception of one specially exempted band of
Chiricahuas and a few hopeless desperadoes with a price on their heads,
were gathered to their reservations--a most unheard-of thing in all
previous annals of the territory--and a season of unprecedented gayety
had dawned on the post of Fort Whipple and the adjacent martial
settlement, the homes of the staff and their families. The general and
his good wife, childless, and boundless in their hospitality, had
opened their doors to army wayfarers. New officers were there from
'Frisco and the States. Matrons and young women, new to Arizona, had
come to enliven the once isolated posts of the desert and mountain.
Major Dennis, of one supply department, was accompanied by a young and
lovely and lively wife, who danced, if Dennis did not. Major Prime, of
another, had recently been joined by his wife and two daughters,
bright, vivacious girls, just out of school and into society, and,
perhaps most important of all, Colonel and Mrs. Darrah, of the
Infantry, had come, accompanied by their daughter Evelyn, as beautiful
and dashing a belle as had ever bewildered the bachelors about the
Golden Gate, and from every camp or post within a hundred miles or more
junior officers had been called in to Prescott, on "Board,"
court-martial duty or leave, until nearly a dozen were gathered, and
while boards and courts dragged their slow length, and maps, reports
and records of the recent campaign were being laboriously yawned over