st to last. That man is a born
iconoclast. He pulls down everybody's idols and sneers at what he cannot
pull down,--our ideals."

"Well, now let me ask you," said the chaplain, a man whose broad charity
led him at any and all times to the defence of the absent. "Without
detracting in the faintest degree from the heroism and value of Mr.
Ray's exploit, are there not degrees of personal bravery, are there not
possibilities of an order of courage higher even than his? As I recall
him, he was what I should term a fearless man, brave to a fault; but
have we not in the army tens and perhaps hundreds of honorable gentlemen
who are as keenly susceptible to the thrill of danger as Ray is
apparently dead to it? Have I not heard man after man say how his own
knees trembled or his comrade's cheek blanched at the whistle of the
first bullets of the battle? And as for this Indian campaigning, can
there be a warfare imagined in which the percentage of peril is so
great, the possibilities of ambush, surprise, sudden death in the midst
of fancied security so constant, the daily and nightly circumstances so
full of incessant nervous strain? Now, who is the better soldier,--the
really braver, or, perhaps better, the more courageous man,--he who
rides the trail utterly reckless of or insensible to its peril, or he
who, sighting danger in every bush, scenting death on every breeze,
looking every instant for the war-whoop, the death-wound, nevertheless
so bears himself with all his faculties in hand as to seem calm, serene,
confident, and stands ready for death or duty at any moment? I have
always held that the Christian gentleman was the highest type of the
highest order of courage; the man who replaced the fatalism of the
Mahometan with the sustaining faith of the soldier of the Cross. But I
see you think I'm in the pulpit and preaching again," said he, smiling
at Leonard. "We both warmed up to our hobby."

They were silent a moment. Across the wintry night the trumpets were
singing the lullaby of the crowded garrison, and hurrying footsteps told
of belated subalterns speeding to their companies to supervise the
roll-calls. Leonard rose to his full height and threw his cloak over his
broad shoulders.

"We are more in accord in this matter than you think, perhaps, chaplain;
only the man doesn't live who could be insensible to the danger of
cutting his way through a band of encircling Cheyennes. I've heard of
no braver deed in many a year