ieutenant's skull only just in time: there would have been
murder in another second. The next instant he was standing on his own
head in the corner, seeing a multitude of twinkling, whirling stars,
from the midst of which Captain Rayner was reeling backward over a chair
and a number of soldiers were rushing upon a powerful picture of
furious manhood,--a stranger in shirt-sleeves, who had leaped from the
bedroom.

Told as it was--as it had to be--all over the department, there seemed
but one thing to say, and that referred to Buxton: "Well! _isn't_ he a
phenomenal ass?"

XVI.

Mr. Hayne was up and around again. The springtime was coming, and the
prairie roads were good and dry, and the doctor had told him he must
live in the open air awhile and ride and walk and drive. He stood in no
want of "mounts," for three or four of his cavalry friends were ready to
lend him a saddle-horse any day. Mr. and Mrs. Hurley, after making many
pleasant acquaintances, had gone on to Denver, and Captain Buxton was
congratulating himself that he, at least, had not run foul of the
engineer's powerful fists. Buxton was not in arrest, for the case had
proved a singular "poser." It occurred during the temporary absence of
the colonel: _he_ could not well place the captain under arrest for
things he had done when acting as post commander. In obedience to his
orders from department head-quarters, he made his report of the affair,
and indicated that Captain Buxton's conduct had been inexcusable. Rayner
had done nothing but, as was proved, reluctantly obey the captain's
orders, so he could not be tried. Hayne, who had committed one of the
most serious crimes in the military catalogue,--that of drawing and
raising a weapon against an officer who was in discharge of his duty
(Rayner),--had the sympathy of the whole command, and nobody would
prefer charges against him. The general decided to have the report go up
to division head-quarters, and thence it went with its varied comments
and endorsements to Washington: and now a court of inquiry was talked
of. Meantime, poor bewildered Buxton was let severely alone. What made
him utterly miserable was the fact that in his own regiment, the ----th,
nobody spoke of it except as something that everybody knew was sure to
happen the moment he got in command. If it hadn't been that 'twould have
been something else. The only certainty was that Buxton would never lose
a chance of making an ass of himself