to take care of himself, and Devers was inferentially "whitewashed"
and Davies held to explain, when convalescent, and McGrath to
substantiate his statement if McGrath ever again turned up on earth.
Otherwise there could be no substantiation until the judgment day. Now,
McGrath, lost in the thick of an Indian fight, was as apt to be found
alive, or found at all, as a pin in a mill-pond. Davies, broken by the
campaign and sore smitten with brain fever, had but one chance in a
hundred of recovery. All things considered, therefore, it may be
conceded that Captain Devers was a very gifted man.

But Devers wasn't the first man, or the last, to count on another
fellow's death or disappearance to cloak his own crime. It gave him a
queer turn to hear that Cranston and his wife and niece had undertaken
the building up of the absent patient. He hated Cranston,--his junior as
an officer, but infinitely his superior as a soldier. He feared him when
word came out to the homeward marching command that Cranston said Davies
was on the mend and would soon be on the war-path. But he drew another
long breath of relief when there reached them the news that General
Sheridan himself had telegraphed directing Davies to hasten home, that
his mother was dying. When next that young officer appeared upon the
scene and reported for duty, it was in midwinter at Fort Scott, a big,
brilliant, sunshiny post, the head-quarters of an infantry regiment, the
station of a cavalry battalion, whose major, Warren, had gone on long
leave abroad, whose senior captain, Devers, was its commander _pro
tempore_, whose other captains, Cranston, Truman, and Hay, were present
for duty; so were most of their subalterns, so were most of the infantry
officers, so were the wives and families of nine-tenths of the array,
for it was a much-married garrison, and there was not a little talk and
speculation when it was announced that Lieutenant Davies would come
accompanied by his bride.

CHAPTER XI.

"The main objection to Fort Scott," said Winthrop, when one of his
battalions was finally ordered thither, "is that it's too fashionable
for my taste. What this regiment needs now is more drill and less
dinners." He loved to be epigrammatic. The head-quarters, staff, band,
and six troops had taken station at a big frontier post, two other
troops went with the lieutenant-colonel to a second post, so that that
officer could have a command, and two more with the senior ma