or the cavalry and
the great stacks of hay; while the row on which he chose to
live--"Prairie Avenue," as it was termed--was far worse at his end of it
than at the other. It covered the whole eastern front. The big, brown
hospital building stood at the northern end. Then came the quarters of
the surgeon and his assistants, then the snug home of the post trader,
then the "store" and its scattering appendages, then the
entrance-gateway, then a broad vacant space, through which the wind
swept like a hurricane, then the little shanty of the trader's fur house
and one or two hovel-like structures used by the tailors and cobbler of
the adjacent infantry companies. Then came the cottage itself: south of
it stood the quartermaster's store-room, back of which lay an extension
filled with ordnance stores, then other and similar sheds devoted to
commissary supplies, the post butcher-shop, the saddler's shop, then big
coal-sheds, and then the brow of the bluff, down which at a steep grade
plunged the road to the stables. It was as unprepossessing a place for a
home as ever was chosen by a man of education or position; and Mr. Hayne
was possessed of both.

In garrison, despite the flat parade, there was a grand expanse of
country to be seen stretching away towards the snow-covered Rockies.
There was life and the sense of neighborliness to one's kind. Out on
Prairie Avenue all was wintry desolation, except when twice each day the
cavalry officers went plodding by on their way to and from the stables,
muffled up in their fur caps and coats, and hardly distinguishable from
so many bears, much less from one another.

And yet Mr. Hayne smiled not unhappily as he glanced from his eastern
window at this group of burly warriors the afternoon succeeding his
dinner at the colonel's. He had been busy all day long unpacking books,
book-shelves, some few pictures which he loved, and his simple,
soldierly outfit of household goods, and getting them into shape. His
sole assistant was a Chinese servant, who worked rapidly and well, and
who seemed in no wise dismayed by the bleakness of their surroundings.
If anything, he was disposed to grin and indulge in high-pitched
commentaries in "pidgin English" upon the unaccustomed amount of room.
His master had been restricted to two rooms and a kitchen during the two
years he had served him. Now they had a house to themselves, and more
rooms than they knew what to do with. The quartermaster had sent a
d