s all I can do to send a monthly report to the mother."

"Did you say you never saw her husband?" asks the major after a pause,
in which he had been apparently studying the quick-tripping hoofs of
Ray's nimble sorrel.

"No; never set eyes on him. It was a sudden smite,--one of those
flash-in-the-pan, love-at-first-sight affairs. He was down in Kentucky
buying horses, saw her at a party, and made no end of fuss over her; had
lots of money and style, you know, and the first I heard of it they were
married and off. It was our first year in Arizona, and mails were a
month old when they got to us."

"How long is it since you heard from her?" says the major, after another
pause.

Mr. Ray looks up in some surprise. He hardly knows what to make of this
display of curiosity on the part of his ordinarily indifferent
companion, but he answers quietly enough,--

"Over a year, I reckon. She was in Omaha then and Rallston was away a
good deal,--had big cattle interests somewhere; I know that mother used
to ask if Nell told me much about him, and she seemed anxious. Nell
herself said that mother was much opposed to the match,--didn't seem to
take to Rallston at all,--but she was bound to have him, and she did,
and she's just that high-strung sort of girl that if disappointed or
unhappy would never let on to the mother as long as she lived."

They are riding slowly in from troop-drill, the battalion commander and
a pet of his, Mr. Ray, of the --th Cavalry. It is one of those exquisite
May mornings when the rolling prairies of Western Kansas seem swimming
in a soft, hazy light, and the _mirage_ on the horizon looks like a
glassy sea. The springy turf is tinted with the hues of myriads of wild
flowers, purple, pale blue, and creamy white; the mountain breeze that
is already whirling the dust-clouds on the Denver plains has not yet
begun to ruffle the cottonwoods or the placid surface of the slow-moving
stream, and in many a sheltered pool the waters of the "Smoky Hill"
gleam like silvered mirror, without break or flaw. Far out on the gentle
slopes small herds of troop-horses or quartermaster's "stock," each with
its attendant guard, give life to the somewhat sombre tone of the
landscape, while nearer at hand two or three well-filled cavalry
"troops" with fluttering guidons are marching silently in towards the
little frontier garrison that lies in a shallow dip in the wide,
treeless prairie.

Bits of color are rare enough, save th