stache, are little curves or dimples or something,
that betray to the initiated the presence of a humorous vein that
softens the asperity of the soldier. Some who best know him can detect
there a symptom of tenderness and a possibility of sentiment, whose
existence the major would indignantly deny. The erect carriage of the
head, the square set of the shoulders, the firm yet easy seat in the
saddle, speak of the experienced soldier, while in the first word that
falls from his lips one hears the tone of the man far more at home in
camp than court. There is something utterly blunt and abrupt in his
manner, a scathing contrast to the affected drawl brought into the
regiment by recent importations from the East, and assiduously copied by
a professed Anglo-maniac among the captains. Rude indeed may he
sometimes be in his speech, "and little versed in the set phrase of
peace," but through it all is the ring of sturdy honesty and
independence. He uses the same tone to general and to private soldier
alike; extending the same degree of courtesy to each. No one ever heard
of "old Stannard's" fawning upon a superior or bullying an inferior; to
all soldiers he is one and the same,--short, blunt, quick, and to the
point. Literally he obeys the orders of his chiefs, and literally and
promptly he expects his own to be obeyed. He has his faults, like the
best of men: he will growl at times; he is prone to pick flaws, and to
say sharp and cutting things, for which he is often ashamed and sorry;
he can see little good in the works or words of the men he dislikes; he
absolutely cannot praise, and he is over-quick to blame; but after all
he is true as steel, as unswerving as the needle, and no man, no woman
could need a stancher friend than the new major of the --th, "old
Stannard."

As for Ray, no officer in the regiment is better known or more talked
about. Ten years of his life he has spent under the standard of the
--th, barring a very short but eventful detail at "the Point." Nebraska,
Kansas, and Arizona he knows as well as the savannas of his native
blue-grass country. He has been in more skirmishes with the regiment and
more scrapes of his own than any fellow of his age in service, but he
has the faculty of "lighting on his feet every time," as he himself
would express it, and to-day he rides along as buoyantly and recklessly
as he did ten years ago, and the saddle is Ray's home. Ephemeral
pleasure he finds in the hop-room, for he