n
soldiers here just after the men had come in from the herd, and what I'm
afraid of is that he'll go up into the post and get bilin' full there.
I've sent other non-commissioned officers after him, but they cannot
find him. He hasn't even looked in at the store, so the bar-tender
swears."

"The sly old rascal!" said Carroll. "He knows perfectly well how to get
all the liquor he wants without exposing himself in the least. No doubt
if the bar-tender were asked if he had not filled some flasks this
evening he would say yes, and Potts is probably stretched out
comfortably in the forage-loft of one of the stables, with a canteen of
water and his flask of bug-juice, prepared to make a night of it."

Blake moodily gazed into the embers of the bivouac-fire. Never had we
seen him so utterly unlike himself as on this burlesque of a scout, and
now that we were virtually homeward-bound, and empty-handed too, he was
completely weighed down by the consciousness of our lost opportunities.
If something could only have happened to Gleason before the start, so
that the command might have devolved on Blake, we all felt that a very
different account could have been rendered; for with all his rattling,
ranting fun around the garrison, he was a gallant and dutiful soldier in
the field. It was now after ten o'clock; most of the men, rolled in
their blankets, were sleeping on the scant turf that could be found at
intervals in the half-sandy soil below the corrals and stables. The
herds of the two troops and the pack-mules were all cropping peacefully
at the hay that had been liberally distributed among them because there
was hardly grass enough for a "burro." We were all ready to turn in, but
there stood our temporary commander, his long legs a-straddle, his hands
clasped behind him, and the flickering light of the fire betraying in
his face both profound dejection and disgust.

"I wouldn't care so much," said he at last, "but it will give Gleason a
chance to say that things always go wrong when he's away. Did you see
him up at the post?" he suddenly asked. "What was he doing, Carroll?"

"Poker," was the sententious reply.

"What?" shouted Blake. "Poker? 'I thank thee, good Tubal,--good
news,--good news!'" he ranted, with almost joyous relapse into his old
manner. "'O Lady Fortune, stand you auspicious', for those fellows at
Phoenix, I mean, and may they scoop our worthy chieftain of his last
ducat. See what it means, fellows. Win or lo