e from the superintendent of the Academy, and
his, the captain's, request to be immediately relieved from duty at West
Point with orders to join his regiment, then _en route_ to reinforce
General Crook.

The Secretary mechanically took the note between his nerveless fingers,
and simply stared at his visitor. At last he broke forth,--

"By the Eternal!" (and the administration was not Jacksonian either)
"Captain Truscott. This beats anything in my experience. Since I've been
in office every man who has called upon me has wanted orders for himself
or somebody else to come East. Do you mean you want to go West and
rejoin your regiment to do more of this Indian fighting?"

"Certainly, Mr. Secretary," was Truscott's half-amused reply.

"It shall be as you wish, of course," said the cabinet officer; "but
I've no words to say how I appreciate it. You seem to be of a different
kind of timber from those fellows who are always hanging around
Washington,--not but what they are all very necessary, and that sort of
thing," put in the Secretary, diplomatically; "but we have no end of men
who want to come to Washington. You're the first man I've heard of who
wanted to go. By Jove! Captain Truscott. Is there anything else you
want? Is there anything I can do that will convey to you my appreciation
of your course?"

"Well, sir, I have spoken to the adjutant-general about some six men of
the cavalry detachment at the Point who are eager to go to the frontier
for active service. If they could be transferred,--sent out with
recruits; we are short-handed in the --th, and my own troop needs
non-commissioned officers."

"Certainly it can be done. We'll see General T----about it at once."

That night Grace's last hope was broken by the telegram from Washington,
which told her that Jack would be home next day and that the orders were
issued.

Mrs. Pelham had stormed, of course, that is--to her husband. She stood
in awe of Jack, and had counted on spending much of the summer at the
Point. Living as they were at a Washington hotel, expenses were very
heavy, and madame had planned to recuperate her exhausted frame and
fortune in a long visit to dear Grace, who really ought to have a
mother's--"well, at least, if the captain is to be away so much of the
time, she will surely be lonely," madame had argued. It was really quite
fortunate that he had to go to Kentucky to buy horses. In his absence
she might recover much of the ground she felt