f Sandy's boot-heels overhead told her
that he, too, was up and observant, though Sandy, when Priscilla, as
usual precipitate, managed to refer to it at the breakfast table,
parried the tongue thrust with a tale about "best light for shaving."

No, there were none of Mrs. Ray's little household who went forth to see
the early squadron drill, but there were others--many others--and most
observed, if not most observant of these, was the beautiful young wife
of the squadron commander and her invariable escort, Dwight's former
fellow-campaigner, their fellow-voyager of the _Hohenzollern_, and now
their very appreciative guest, Captain Stanley Foster, only just
promoted to his troop in the --th Cavalry and waiting orders at
Minneconjou.

Mrs. Dwight was not much given to walking. She could dance untiringly
for hours, but other pedestrianism wearied her. Mrs. Dwight was as yet
even less given to riding. She explained that the major preferred she
should wait a while until her horse and English horse equipment came.
Lieutenant Scott, who had met her in Manila, said he had a little
tan-colored Whitman that would just suit her, whereat Mrs. Dwight,
between paling and coloring, took on something of a tan shade over her
dusky beauty and faltered that "the Major preferred the English--to the
forked-seat--for a lady." It would seem as though she desired it
forgotten that her normal way of riding was astride, whereas more than
half her auditors, the officers at least, regarded that as the proper
and rational seat for her sex. Mrs. Dwight, caring neither to walk nor
to ride, therefore was quite content to appear for two or three
successive mornings in a lovely little phaeton with a pony-built team in
front, a pygmy "tiger" behind and a presentable swain beside her. The
fourth morning brought a rain and no drill, the fifth no rain nor Mrs.
Dwight, nor did she again appear at that early hour despite the fact
that the drills daily became more dashing and picturesque. Her interest,
she explained, had been rather on her husband's account, but she knew so
little about such matters she felt her inferiority to _real_ army ladies
who had been born and bred to and understood it, and then after dancing
so late she wondered how anybody _could_ be up so early.

The major himself, probably, could not have stood it, but he, not being
a dancing man, had taken to skipping away to bed at or before eleven on
such nights as Minneconjou tripped the light