r but
clear--Miles threw up his head sharply and listened. In a second he was
pulling at his horse's girth, slipping the bit swiftly into its
mouth--in a moment more he was off and away to meet them, as a body of
cavalry swung out of the valley where the ridge had hidden them.

"Captain Thornton's troop?" the officer repeated carelessly. "Why, yes;
they are here with us. We picked them up yesterday, headed straight for
Black Wolf's war-path. Mighty lucky we found them. How about you--seen
any Indians, have you?"

Miles answered slowly: "A party of eight were on my trail; they were
riding for Massacre Mountain, where I camped, about an hour--about half
an hour--awhile ago." He spoke vaguely, rather oddly, the officer
thought, "Something--stopped them about a hundred yards from the
mountain. They turned, and rode away."

"Ah," said the officer. "They saw us down the valley."

"I couldn't see you," said Miles.

The officer smiled. "You're not an Indian, Lieutenant. Besides, they
were out on the plain and had a farther view behind the ridge." And
Miles answered not a word.

General Miles Morgan, full of years and of honors, has never but twice
told the story of that night of forty years ago. But he believes that
when his time comes, and he goes to join the majority, he will know
again the presence which guarded him through the blackness of it, and
among the angel legions he looks to find an angel, a messenger, who was
his friend.

THE AIDE-DE-CAMP

Age has a point or two in common with greatness; few willingly achieve
it, indeed, but most have it thrust upon them, and some are born old.
But there are people who, beginning young, are young forever. One might
fancy that the careless fates who shape souls--from cotton-batting, from
stone, from wood and dynamite and cheese--once in an aeon catch, by
chance, a drop of the fountain of youth, and use it in their business,
and the soul so made goes on bubbling and sparkling eternally, and gray
dust of years cannot dim it. It might be imagined, in another flight of
fancy, that a spark of divine fire from the brazier of the immortals
snaps loose once in a century and lodges in somebody, and is a
heart--with such a clean and happy flame burns sometimes a heart one
knows.

On a January evening, in a room where were books and a blazing hearth,
a man with a famous name and a long record told me a story, and through
his blunt speech flashed in and out all the time the