ll right! Blake, just you wait. All I've got to say is that if Ray
wants to keep his skirts out of the mud he'd better quit the company of
that fellow Rallston, and I hear he's with him day and night, and has
done no little drinking and card-playing with him already. _I_ don't say
gambling, but there's those that do," continued Wilkins, hotly.

"More than that," he went on, after a pause. "When Wayne came through
Kansas City, Gleason and Buxton were at the train to meet him, but they
didn't know, they said, where Ray was. _I_ heard he was at the hotel
sick; been on a tear, I suppose."

"See here, Wilkins, unless you can prove it let up on this sort of talk.
Ray told Stannard when he went on this detail that he would touch no
card so long as he was disbursing officer, and that he'd let John
Barleycorn alone. Now, do you know he has been on any spree?"

"No, I don't know it, Blake, and yet I'm certain of it just from past
experience with him."

"By gad! you're as bad as old Backbite himself. Do you remember that
time Chip of the artillery was walking down Nassau Street, and a
steam-boiler or something burst under the sidewalk and broke his leg?
The first thing old Backbite said when he heard of it was, 'H'm! been
drinking, I suppose.' Now here's Billings with a despatch. What is it,
bully rook?" he hailed, as the adjutant came bounding in.

"Truscott starts to-night, and the horse board will break up next week,
so we'll have Jack and Ray with us inside of ten days."

"_Pre_cisely. Now, Wilkins, if you want a nice mud-bath for your head,
there's an elegant spot back of the stables. Come on, Billings, I'm
going to camp."

And with that he left, followed by all the cavalrymen but Wilkins and
his associate Crane. The latter held the ground, and, as they were
plainly the defeated parties in the argument so far, human nature
demanded that Mr. Wilkins should set himself right in the eyes of the
reluctant auditors, and so it happened that among the officers composing
what might be termed the permanent garrison of the post the first
impressions received of Mr. Ray were conveyed by a tongue as ill
regulated as--other people's children.

CHAPTER VII.

WAR RUMORS.

The announcement that Captain Truscott had gone to Washington was
received at the officers' mess with no little excitement. Questioned as
to the meaning of it, the commandant of cadets unreservedly replied that
Truscott would not risk failure, but, with