.
No need of new duds when you're scouting for old 'Gray Fox,' you know."

"I thought you wanted to take a leave this summer and visit the old home
in Kentucky," says the major, with a look of rather kindly interest from
under his shaggy eyebrows.

"Want must be my master, then. I couldn't pay my way home if they'd take
me as freight," replies the lieutenant, in the downright and
devil-may-care style which is one of his several pronounced
characteristics. "Of course," he continues presently, "I would like to
look in on the mother again; she's getting on in years now and isn't
over and above strong, but she has no cares or worries to speak of; she
don't know what a reprobate I am; sister Nell is married and out of the
way; the old home is sold and mother lives in comfort on the proceeds;
she's happy up at Lexington with her sister's people. What's the use of
my going back to Kentuck and being a worry to her? Before I'd been there
a week I'd be spending most of my time down at the track or the stables;
I could no more keep away from the horses than I could from a square
game, and she hates both,--they swamped my father before I knew an ace
from an ant-hill. No, _sir_! The more I think of it the more I know the
only place for me is right here with the old regiment. What's more, the
livelier work we have in the field and the less we get of garrison grind
the better it is for me. I almost wish we were back in Arizona to-day."

"Why, confound it! man, it isn't a year since we left there," breaks in
the major, impatiently, "and we haven't begun to get a taste of
civilization yet. You let the women in the regiment hear you talk of
wanting to go back there, or what's worse, going up to join Crook in
Wyoming, and they'll mob you. Who was it your sister married?" he
suddenly asks.

"A man named Rallston,--a swell contractor or something up in Iowa. I
never saw him; indeed, it's nearly nine years since I saw her; but she
promised to be a beauty then, and they all say she grew up a beauty; but
Nell was headstrong and always in mischief, and I'm glad she's settled
down. She used to write to me when she was first married, four years
ago, and send me occasional 'tips' for Christmas and birthdays, and she
was going to give me a Lexington colt when I came East, but she's quit
all that, because I was an ungrateful cub and never answered, I suppose.
She knows there's nothing I hate worse than writing, and oughtn't to be
hard on me. It'