o make her my wife. Nina, I
loved Alice Renwick. Good-by. Don't mourn for me after this."

XX.

They were having a family conclave at Sablon. The furlough granted
Sergeant McLeod on account of wound received in action with hostile
Indians would soon expire, and the question was, should he ask an
extension, apply for a discharge, or go back and rejoin his troop? It
was a matter on which there was much diversity of opinion. Mrs. Maynard
should naturally be permitted first choice, and to her wish there was
every reason for according deep and tender consideration. No words can
tell of the rapture of that reunion with her long-lost son. It was a
scene over which the colonel could never ponder without deep emotion.
The telegrams and letters by which he carefully prepared her for
Frederick's coming were all insufficient. She knew well that her boy
must have greatly changed and matured, but when this tall, bronzed,
bearded, stalwart man sprang from the old red omnibus and threw his one
serviceable arm around her trembling form, the mother was utterly
overcome. Alice left them alone together a full hour before even she
intruded, and little by little, as the days went by and Mrs. Maynard
realized that it was really her Fred who was whistling about, the
cottage or booming trooper songs in his great basso profundo, and
glorying in his regiment and the cavalry life he had led, a wonderful
content and joy shone in her handsome face. It was not until the colonel
announced that it was about time for them to think of going back to
Sibley that the cloud came. Fred said _he_ couldn't go.

In fact, the colonel himself had been worrying a little over it. As Fred
Renwick, the tall distinguished young man in civilian costume, he would
be welcome anywhere; but, though his garb was that of the sovereign
citizen so long as his furlough lasted, there were but two weeks more of
it left, and officially he was nothing more nor less than Sergeant
McLeod, Troop B, ----th Cavalry, and there was no precedent for a
colonel's entertaining as an honored guest and social equal one of the
enlisted men of the army. He rather hoped that Fred would yield to his
mother's entreaties and apply for a discharge. His wound and the latent
trouble with his heart would probably render it an easy matter to
obtain; and yet he was ashamed of himself for the feeling.

Then there was Alice. It was hardly to be supposed that so very high
bred a young woman would r