hinting, with well-meant but awkward
delicacy, that perhaps it ought to go to some man of more established
reputation and record in the regiment, the colonel cut him short with,
"Here, Mr. Billings, I must have some one at once; old Bucketts has been
doing office-work as both quartermaster and adjutant until he is getting
used up, and young Dana is only good for parade and guard-mounting. I'll
detail you as acting adjutant, and if you like it, at the end of a week
we'll make the appointment permanent. Consult your friends meantime, if
you choose." And so it happened that when Stannard said, "Take it," and
Stryker told him quietly that there were reasons why he himself would
have had to decline, Billings shook his head a few minutes in thinking
over what he had heard of Mrs. Pelham, and wished he might see Ray and
make him understand that he thought the place should go to him, but
Stannard said, emphatically, that Ray was too harum-scarum for
office-work, good as he was in the field. And then came a brief letter
from Truscott, cordial and straight to the point as ever. It wound up
by saying, "The colonel attributes your hesitation to the fact that you
think it ought to go to some man who has served longer with the
regiment. We respect that, and appreciate it; but you are offered this
with the best backing in the regiment,--Stannard's,--and with that you
can afford to laugh at anything the growlers may say."

The next morning the order was issued in due form. That afternoon Mr.
Ray, returning dusty and unshorn from a two weeks' scout up the Saline,
was informed of the fact as he stood at the stables unstrapping from the
back of his sorrel the carcass of a fat antelope, gave a low whistle,
remarked, "Well, I'm damned!" and, as bad luck would have it, postponed
rushing in to congratulate Billings until dinner, when, to his genuine
disappointment, the latter did not appear. He was dining at the
colonel's to meet some officers from Leavenworth, and when the new
adjutant went to his rooms late that night he had not seen Ray at all,
but there was that man Gleason smoking a cigar, sipping a toddy, and
evidently primed for a chat. Already Billings had begun to look upon him
with disfavor, but could find no reason to avoid him entirely; he did
not welcome the unwanted guest; he could not chill him. Gleason had his
chat, and, when Ray stepped forward with sunny smile and glistening
white teeth and cordial, outstretched hand the nex