OOD-BYE"

Broussard, after reading his orders, walked quickly to his quarters.
On the desk in his luxuriously furnished sitting-room was a letter from
the C. O. giving the order in detail from the War Department; Broussard
was to make the next steamer sailing from San Francisco. He went
through with a rapid mental calculation. To do that, he would be
obliged to leave Fort Blizzard not later than the next afternoon.

Broussard took his orders with a soldier's coolness. He particularly
disliked them; he did not want to leave Fort Blizzard for any other
spot on the habitable globe, and least of all did he want to go to the
island possessions. But he said no word of complaint, took, with
perfect good humor, the condolences and chaff of his brother officers
at the mess dinner that night, and plunged into his preparations to
leave.

The disposal of the expensive impedimenta which Broussard had
accumulated gave him much trouble. He did not value them greatly, and
without much thought determined to give his costly rugs and lamps and
glass and china to the Lawrences--they were originally used to that
sort of thing and Broussard was in no fear of the Colonel's
misunderstanding it, or any one else, for that matter, as it had been
well known that there was some tie or association between Broussard and
Lawrence in their childhood.

The scattering of costly gifts by a very free-handed person is usually
most indiscreet, and Broussard was no exception to the rule. He
presented his finest motor to a brother officer, who had to support a
wife and children on a captain's pay and could not afford to support
the motor besides. The game chickens, the beloved of Broussard's
heart, he presented to another officer, whose wife objected seriously
to cock-fighting. The chaplain, seeing the grand piano was about to be
thrown away on anybody who could take it, managed to secure it for the
men's reading-room. The thing which perplexed Broussard most was, what
to do with Gamechick. He longed to give the horse to Anita but dared
not. However, fate befriended him in this matter and Anita got
Gamechick by other means. When Colonel Fortescue came home for the cup
of tea that Mrs. Fortescue was always waiting to give him at five
o'clock, with the sweet looks and tender words that made the hour so
happy, he mentioned, in an off-hand way, Broussard's orders and that he
was leaving the next day. Neither the father nor the mother looked
towar