ame thing every time they go to Cheyenne!" said Mrs. Flight, when taken
to task about it. "When I was up there visiting Fanny Turner last month
we thought _nothing_ of it!" All the same Mrs. Wright and Mrs. Leonard
and others of their standard not only wouldn't go driving alone with
the gentlemen from town, but declined to go to Cresswell's with anybody.
And Mrs. Wright's bonny face flushed and her eyes flashed when she said
why. As to what the ladies of the --th did out at Russell, that was not
her business. "Nevertheless," said Mrs. Wright, "I'll warrant you that
Mrs. Stannard, or Mrs. Freeman, or Mrs. Truscott did nothing of the
kind, and I don't care what Mrs. Flight says or Mrs. Turner does."

And then the whole regiment came flocking home, and there was joy and
gladness unspeakable in many a little army household and some
modification thereof in others, and presently Devers and his troop
arrived after a long, long march, and Devers began giving "Pegleg"
something more to think about. The resources of the quartermaster's
department were insufficient to fill that ambitious dragoon's
requisitions. There wasn't anything he didn't want for his men, his
horses, or himself, and the next thing Pegleg knew he was involved just
as he was told he would be in a voluminous warfare with the troop
commander, and was minded of a saying attributed to the wag of the --th
Cavalry, a certain Lieutenant Blake, who knew Devers well and shared the
universal opinion of him. An officer had talked of challenging Devers in
by-gone days when vestiges of the code still lingered, but Blake scouted
the idea. "The only pistol he can fight with is the epistle," said
Blake. So Blake was another detestation of Devers, and doubtless for
good reason. He was forever getting a laugh on the captain when they
happened to come together, and, contentious and critical as he was, the
big dragoon couldn't abide being laughed at. Somebody once referred to
Devers as reminding her of a Hercules on horseback, which prompted Blake
to respond, "Hercules! yes, by Jove, of the Farnese variety," whereat
there was a guffaw among the men present who knew anything of art, and a
general titter on every hand, for no one was ignorant of Devers's wide
physical departure from artistic lines. But Tom Hollis and others of his
ilk only caught the "far knees" part of it, which, however, was quite
enough. Blake would have been a comfort to old Stone this breezy, wintry
December, bu