up like so many blue
pocket-rules, and the newspaper men chuckled with glee. By tacit
consent, apparently, the Chicago papers were saying as little as
possible against the regulars just then, and many a bright fellow who
owned that he hadn't known anything about them before, except what he
had read in his paper in the past, found many a friend among them and
many a cause for writing of them in a new and different vein.

Cranston's old home was decorated in style the day the cavalry marched
away. Mrs. Mac had the old guidons and a big flag swung out on the
porch, Mac in his most immaculate uniform standing at the salute. Many
an eye in the long, dusty column danced at sight of the honest couple,
and one young fellow, their graceless nephew, now a recruit in Captain
Davies's troop, braced up in saddle and fixed his eyes fiercely on his
file-leader, and for fear of the stern avuncular injunction to "Kape yer
eyes to the front, there!" couldn't be induced to peep at Aunt Mollie as
she swung a tattered guidon that had been carried by Mac in the ranks of
"C" troop many a year before. Captain Davies himself rode out of column
and held forth a cordial hand to the old sergeant, as the last troop
went clinking by. "We'll make a soldier of the boy, sergeant, as you
tried to make of me when I joined," said he; "and if he has half the
stuff there was in his uncle it'll be no trouble at all."

And so they went on up the avenue, with hats and handkerchiefs waving
adieu and cordial voices shouting approving words. Presently, riding at
ease now, they filed along under the beautiful facade of the Lambert
Memorial, and, glancing up, Cranston saw at the broad bow window the
familiar features of Mr. Wells and caught his joyous "Hurrah!" By his
side, smiling and nodding and kerchief-waving, was his buxom helpmeet,
one arm thrown about a fragile, pale-faced girl in black. Off came
Cranston's broad campaign hat; he bent low over the pommel of his
saddle, ay, and looked back again with admiration in his eyes and a
fervent "Thank God!" upon his lips. There were decorations in plenty,
and enthusiastic demonstrations, too, from a wide portico, "crowded with
prominent society people," as the papers said, when a few moments later
the column swung by Allison's impressive home; but here the major merely
raised his hat and neither bent nor bowed.

Riot duty over for the time being, Mr. Forrest was recalled from the
command of his company to a desk a