leap was made,
Anita sprang to her feet and Broussard was on the tanbark. Wild
cheering almost drowned the crash of the band; some of the women were
weeping and others laughing hysterically, the men cheering like madmen.
Broussard smilingly picked up Anita's cavalry cap, which had fallen on
the tanbark, brushed it and put it on Anita's pretty head; some words,
unheard by others, passed between them. The mare then lay perfectly
quiet. Broussard, amid the roar of cheers and shouts and furious
handclapping and music, got the mare on her feet. She stood trembling,
frightened and ashamed; Anita patted her neck gently and rubbed her
nose reassuringly. Then Broussard, taking the girl's slender waist
between his hands, swung her into her saddle, himself mounted, and, the
riders falling in behind, it was as if Tragedy had not showed her awful
visage for one fearful moment.

All the cheering and clapping and weeping and laughing and shouting
that had gone before were nothing to what followed after, while the
band played "For He Is a Jolly Good Fellow," and everybody who could
sing, or thought he could sing, joined in the refrain. Colonel
Fortescue, whiter than death, sat straight up in his place. Mrs.
Fortescue whispered in his ear:

"Be brave,--brave as you were in battle."

Colonel Fortescue had been in battle, but the screaming shells and
crash of machine guns brought with them no such wild and shivering
terror as when he saw Gamechick's forefeet in the air over Anita, lying
on the tanbark.

The procession passed once more around the hall, Anita's face flushed
and smiling, Broussard outwardly calm, but the red blood showing under
his dark skin. When they reached the entrance doors and were about to
ride out Sergeant McGillicuddy stopped Broussard with a word. The
audience, watching and smiling, knew what would happen and all eyes
were fixed on the C. O.'s. box. In a minute Broussard, with his
cavalry cap in his hand, was seen mounting the stairs; Colonel
Fortescue rose and clasped Broussard's hand, while Mrs. Fortescue
frankly kissed him on both cheeks. The band broke loose again and so
did the people. Although Fort Blizzard was a great fort it was so far
away in the frozen northwest that those within its walls constituted
one vast family. Anita was known to all of them, officers and ladies,
troopers and troopers' wives and children, and the company washerwomen,
and the regimental blacksmiths; they felt as i