efry day," wailed Schmoll to Sergeant
Casey. "I tell him, 'Lieutenant, dose horseshoes is expendable. We don't
acgount for efry shoe like they was men's shoes, und oder dings dot is
issued.' 'I prefer to cake them cop!' says Baby Bismarck. Und he smile
mit his two beaver teeth."

"Baby Bismarck!" cried, joyfully, the rosy-faced Casey. "Yo-hanny, take
a drink."

"Und so," continued the outraged Schmoll, "he haf a Board of Soorvey on
dree-pound horseshoes, und I haf der stomach pain."

"It was buckles the next month. The allowance exceeded the expenditure,
Augustus's arithmetic came out wrong, and another board sat on buckles.

"Yo-hanny, you're lookin' jaded under Colonel Safetypin." said Casey.
"Have something?"

"Safetypin is my treat," said Schmoll; "und very apt."

But Augustus found leisure to pervade the post with his modernity. He
set himself military problems, and solved them; he wrote an essay on
"The Contact Squadron"; he corrected Bainbridge for saying "throw back
the left flank" instead of "refuse the left flank"; he had reading-room
ideas, canteen' ideas, ideas for the Indians and the Agency, and
recruit-drill ideas, which he presented to Sergeant Casey. Casey gave
him, in exchange, the name of Napoleon Shave-Tail, and had his whiskey
again paid for by the sympathetic Schmoll.

"But bless his educated heart," said Casey, "he don't learn me nothing
that'll soil my innercence!"

Thus did the sunny-humored Sergeant take it, but not thus the mess.
Had Augustus seen himself as they saw him, could he have heard Mrs.
Starr--But he did not; the youth was impervious, and to remove his
complacency would require (so Mrs. Starr said) an operation, probably
fatal. The commanding officer held always aloof from gibing, yet often
when Augustus passed him his gray eye would dwell upon the Lieutenant's
back, and his voiceless laugh would possess him. That is the picture I
retain of these days--the unending golden sun, the wide, gentle-colored
plain, the splendid mountains, the Indians ambling through the flat,
clear distance; and here, close along the parade-ground, eye-glassed
Augustus, neatly hastening, with the Captain on his porch, asleep you
might suppose.

One early morning the agent, with two Indian chiefs, waited on the
commanding officer, and after their departure his wife found him
breakfasting in solitary mirth.

"Without me," she chided, sitting down. "And I know you've had some good
news."

"The be