t to the Philippines; and just as the band at the _kiosk_ on
the Luneta began the daily concert, and carriages of every kind drew up
along the curb, and officers in spotless white went cap-doffing from
point to point, and fair women smiled and flirted their fans, Colonel
Stone, but recently arrived, began telling for the twentieth time, at
least, the story of the marvelous escapade by means of which the
renowned Blenke secured his final freedom:

"Caught in Chicago; shipped back to the guard-house; shammed crazy, sir,
till he fooled every surgeon in the Cheyenne Valley; got ordered to the
government hospital for the insane; got supply of Skidmore whisky,
properly doped; got the corporal drunk who went in charge of him, and,
by gad, sir, got the corporal's outfit and papers and turned _him_ over
at Washington as the insane man; got his receipt and vanished--the last
ever heard of him. What became of her? Oh, after her flare-up with that
poor devil Foster--you know the child didn't live--she got back to
Mexico somehow: women like her never die--but she'll never be able to
bother Dwight. That marriage, of course, wasn't legal. He'd simply been
tricked. No, old Dwight's a free man, and I reckon he'll think twice
before he tries it again."

Whereupon Stone was swiftly kicked in the shin by the long-legged
lieutenant-colonel of cavalry at his side, for, in his enthusiasm, the
colonel had turned and addressed his closing remarks to the two ladies
in the nearmost carriage, and one of them was reddening like the rose.

"Dwight's here, you owl," said Blake, in explanation, later. "Came in on
the _Sheridan_ this very afternoon, and he isn't so confounded free as
you were in your remarks. Why--hadn't you _heard_? May be another case
of 'out of the frying-pan into the fire'--a toss-up 'twixt 'Cilla and
Charybdis, but----"

"Good Lord!" cried Stone, "and what did I say? You don't mean she's
going to marry Dwight?"

"She can't help herself. He won't take no for an answer."

"Well--I'll--be--hanged," said Stone, reflectively, "and I ought to be.
It's just what my wife said--when the daily readings were going
on--would likely be the upshot of the whole business. She said more than
that--and she knows women, too--that Priscilla Sanford would make for
him the best kind of a wife."

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SOLDIER'S TRIAL***

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