him with marked aversion; the colonel would
not look at him; only Armitage--his captain--had a decent word for him
at any time, and even he was stern and cold. The most envied and
careless of the entire command, the Adonis, the beau, the crack shot,
the graceful leader in all garrison gayeties, the beautiful dancer,
rider, tennis-player, the adored of so many sentimental women at Sibley,
poor Jerrold had found his level, and his proud and sensitive though
selfish heart was breaking.

Sitting alone under the trees, he had taken a sheet of paper from his
pocket-case and was writing by the light of the rising moon. One letter
was short and easily written, for with a few words he had brought it to
a close, then folded and in a bold and vigorous hand addressed it. The
other was far longer; and over this one, thinking deeply, erasing some
words and pondering much over others, he spent a long hour. It was
nearly midnight, and he was chilled to the heart, when he stiffly rose
and took his way among the blanketed groups to the camp-fire around
which so many of his wearied comrades were sleeping the sleep of the
tired soldier. Here he tore to fragments and scattered in the embers
some notes and letters that were in his pockets. They blazed up
brightly, and by the glare he stood one moment studying young Rollins's
smooth and placid features; then he looked around on the unconscious
circle of bronzed and bearded faces. There were many types of soldier
there,--men who had led brigades through the great war and gone back to
the humble bars of the line-officer at its close; men who had led fierce
charges against the swarming Indians in the rough old days of the first
prairie railways; men who had won distinction and honorable mention in
hard and trying frontier service; men who had their faults and foibles
and weaknesses like other men, and were aggressive or compliant,
strong-willed or yielding, overbearing or meek, as are their brethren in
other walks of life; men who were simple of heart, single in purpose and
ambition, diverse in characteristics, but unanimous in one trait,--no
meanness could live among them; and Jerrold's heart sank within him,
colder, lower, stonier than before, as he looked from face to face and
cast up mentally the sum of each man's character. His hospitality had
been boundless, his bounty lavish; one and all they had eaten of his
loaf and drunk of his cup; but was there among them one who could say of
him, "