You don't mean Captain Devers?"

"Yes,--Captain Differs, for a fact."

"Well, then your _protege_ and Mr. Davies have gone into the same troop.
What a strange coincidence! Isn't it time Mrs. Barnard answered Agatha's
letter?"

"Time she answered it? Yes," replied Cranston, "yet not time for her
answer to get here. Poor lady! She was so distressed at the thought of
his going into the army. I hope that letter will comfort her. It ought
to. I doubt if he ever did an honest day's work before."

CHAPTER VI.

The battalion had halted at the foot of the slope, each troop closing up
on its predecessor and huddling in shivering silence. No trumpet
sounded; no word of command was heard. Every troop leader threw up his
hand when he thought he had gone far enough and rolled stiffly out of
saddle, his horse only too willingly standing stock-still the instant he
found himself no longer urged. "Dismount" either by signal or command
would have been an affront to a cavalry force two-thirds of whose array
seemed to be dismounted already, some towing along by taut bridle-rein
the famished relic of a once spirited charger, others comforting
themselves with the reflection that at least they had now only their own
carcass to care for, others still wishing they had not even that
responsibility, wondering how much longer their aggrieved stomachs might
have to struggle with the only pabulum upon which they had been allowed
to expend their gastric juices for over forty-eight hours, and suffering
the pangs of remorse, both physical and mental, in the poignant
consciousness that the cause of this distress was the undigested
portion of some late faithful four-footed friend and companion, for the
command for rations had been reduced to horse meat on the hoof. Three
hundred miles from the nearest post when their supplies gave out, in the
heart of the Bad Lands and the height of the worst season of the year,
except midwinter, it had turned its back to the forts and its face to
the foe, true to its orders, still following the trail of the hostile
tribe,--the only hot thing it had struck for a week. "Live on the
country, there isn't anything else," were their orders, as they cut
loose from the main command, and their major--a reserved and
conservative fellow at other times--came away from the grim presence of
his commander with blasphemy on his bearded lips. The only human
habitation within scores of miles of his line of march were Indian