e they were stationed at
Camp Sandy, and when they met again in Kansas, Ray touched his cap to
his superior officer but withheld his hand. Canker felt very bitterly
towards Ray, claiming that there was no officer in the regiment whom he
had treated with such marked courtesy, and to this, when he heard it,
Ray made response in his characteristic way. He would have no middleman.
He went straight to Canker and said his say in few terse words: "You
consider me unjustified in refusing to treat you as a friend, Captain
Canker; now let us have no misunderstanding whatever. Your conduct
towards _my_ best friend, Captain Truscott, and towards--towards another
good friend of mine at Sandy, was an outrage in my opinion, and I have
yet to learn that you have expressed regret or made amends. That's my
position, sir; and if you care for my friendship, you know how to regain
it." Canker was too much astonished by such directness to make any
reply. Other officers who happened to be standing near maintained an
embarrassed silence, and Ray faced about and walked off. "For all the
world," said Wilkins, "as though he had that d----d chip on his shoulder
again and was begging somebody to knock it off." Canker was hit in a
sore place. Long before this occurrence he realized that several
officers of the regiment had withdrawn every semblance of esteem in
their intercourse with him. He well knew why, but the officer whose
cause Ray so vehemently championed was away on detached service, and
Canker really did not know just what to do, and was too proud and
sensitive to seek advice. He was a gallant soldier in the field, but a
man of singularly unfortunate disposition,--crabbed, cranky, and
suspicious; and thus it resulted that he, too, joined the little band of
Ray haters, despite the fact that he felt ashamed of himself for so
doing.

Then there was Gleason,--"That man Gleason," as he was generally alluded
to, and to those familiar with army life or army ways the mere style is
indicative of this character. For good and sufficient reason Mr. Ray had
slapped Mr. Gleason's face some years back, when the --th was serving in
Arizona, and there was no possible reason for his failure to seek the
immediate reparation due him as an officer, no possible reason except
the absolute certainty of Ray's promptly according him the demanded
luxury. The --th was commanded by a colonel of the old school in those
days, one who had observed "the code" when a junior