so to speak, Willett," said the elder. "She
couldn't help seeing you were trying to scrape acquaintance. All young
girls don't take to frivolity any more than all officers to whiskey."

Willett, nettled at this palpable hit, spoke resentfully. "Oh, I dare
say they'd make a good team,--one's a prude and the other a prig."

"Perhaps not a very bad team, as you put it, my boy," was the answer, as
the elder thoughtfully regarded the two now in earnest conversation.
"But a girl who won't flirt isn't necessarily a prude, nor a man who
won't drink a prig. If I were marrying again, I should be glad of a girl
like that for a wife. If I were soldiering again, I'd like that boy for
a sub."

And just before leaving the train on its arrival at the Omaha station
the speaker went to Davies and held out his hand. "Lieutenant," said he,
"my name is Langston. I met and knew a number of West Pointers during
the war, and I am glad to have met you. If ever I can be of service to
you in my way,--and my duties carry me out here on the frontier very
often,--let me know."

Never dreaming how it might be needed, Davies accepted the proffer of
services with all that the proffer implied.

CHAPTER IV.

Guarded by a detachment of veteran infantry, the recruits so turbulent
at noon were spiritless now in every sense of the word. Turning over his
charge, as well as his account of their conduct and of his own, to the
commander of the escort, Captain Muffet remained at department
head-quarters long enough to impress the officials thereat on duty with
his version of the riot at Bluff Siding,--its inciting cause and its
incisive cure. Then he went back to the cavalry depot and presumably
improved on his initial effort. The story of Muffet's wild ride with the
raw recruits and Muffet's method of quelling a mob was often told that
summer at the rear long after Lieutenant Davies and the recruits in
question had gone to the front and were lost to all communication. The
officer who went in command from Omaha was an expert. He established a
sergeant's guard in each recruit car, with orders to flatten out the
first man who left his seat, rap every head that showed outside a window
when the train stopped, and so turned over the one hundred and
seventy-two that were turned over to him a sick and subdued lot by the
time they reached Fort Sanders the following afternoon. "This is Mr.
Davies,--Lieutenant Davies,--just graduated,--who's to go on with 'em