e post, and
as for money--well, her dad could have bought and sold all the officers
in a lump; but they and their wives looked down on her, and she didn't
mix with them none whatever. To make it short, the captain married her.
Seemed like he got disregardful of everything, and the hunger to have a
woman just overpowered him. She'd been courted by every single man for
four hundred miles around. She was pretty and full of fire, and they
was both of an age to love hard, so Jefferson swore he'd make the other
women take her; but soldierin' is a heap different from any other
profession, and the army has got its own traditions. The plan wouldn't
work. By-and-by the captain got tired of trying, and gave up the
attempt--just devoted himself to her--and then we was transferred, all
but him. We shifted to a better post, but Captain Jefferson was changed
to another company and had to stay at Supply. Gee! it was a rotten
hole! Influence had been used, and there he stuck, while the new
officers cut him out completely, just like the others had done, so I
was told, and it drifted on that way for a long time, him forever
makin' an uphill fight to get his wife reco'nized and always quittin'
loser. His folks back East was scandalized and froze him cold, callin'
him a squaw-man; and the story went all through the army, till his
brother officers had to treat him cold in order to keep enough warmth
at home to live by, one thing leading to another till he finally
resented it openly. After that he didn't last long. They made it so
unpleasant that he quit the service--crowded him out, that's all. He
was a born soldier, too, and didn't know nothing else nor care for
nothing else; as fine a man as I ever served under, but it soured him
so that a rattlesnake couldn't have lived with him. He tried to go into
some kind of business after he quit the army, but he wasn't cut out for
it, and never made good as long as I knew of him. The last time I seen
him was down on the border, and he had sure grown cultus. He had quit
the squaw, who was livin' with a greaser in Tucson--"

"And do you think I'm like that woman?" said Necia, in a queer,
strained voice. She had listened intently to the Corporal's story, but
he had purposely avoided her eyes and could not tell how she was taking
it.

"No! You're different, but the army is just the same. I told you this
to show you how it is out in the States. It don't apply to you, of
course--"

"Of course!" agreed