er, took themselves off to bed. It was not much of a
game, said Strong, who was there, only Willett, Craney, Watson, Briggs
and himself, and was remarkable for only one fact, that Case, the
bookkeeper, who never before had seemed to care to play, had happened
in late, looked curiously on a moment, and then, without having been
presented to Willett, seemed desirous of taking a hand. Craney wondered
if Case had been drinking again, but Willett took no notice. Willett
was feeling very jolly, said Strong, and it was quite late when they
finally quit.

Harris was up with the sun looking over his pack train and observing
'Tonio and his fellows. Willett did not turn out until office hours,
when he had a conference with General Archer, ending in his expressing
a wish to "look about" him for the day. He had asked no questions of
Harris; had met him heartily, as classmates should, but with just a
suspicion of superiority of manner that Harris could not like, and
without a word of appreciation of the capital soldier work Harris had
been doing.

There was another reason why Harris resented Willett's investigating
his scout that second evening. A total abstainer himself from boyhood,
reared by a careful mother and aware for many a year that his father's
occasional lapses were her perennial dread, Harris had set his canon
against the practice from the day he doffed the gray at West Point, and
never swerved from his creed after donning the blue. Not so with
Willett. Not so with nine-tenths of his associates. Harris had seen,
without remark, that Willett enjoyed the occasional beverages mixed for
him at the Mess in the late afternoon, and again had noted that his
comrade did quite his share this second evening toward finishing the
doctor's sherry, though it was the "Old Man," after all, who "got away
with" most of the Bordeaux. Twice after dinner Archer had ushered his
guests within doors, once to try what was left of the claret, and
later, after the snake episode, when some nerves might be in need of
bracing, to sample some phenomenal Monongahela. Then when Harris was
through, after saying good-night, he was presently followed by Willett,
flushed in face and abrupt in manner. Miss Archer had been spirited off
by her mother, and presumably gone to bed. She'd get used to snakes if
she stayed long in Arizona, said Willett. What was the sense in scaring
her, anyway? Why hadn't Harris quietly given him the tip? _He_ could
have snapped Mr