de colonel. Billy, junior, a lad of
barely seventeen, enlisted at Lexington as a bugler in his father's
regiment, and swore he'd shoot himself if they didn't let him serve. The
Kentuckians were ordered to Chickamauga, the young regular to the
Presidio at San Francisco, and Mrs. Ray, after seeing her husband and
youngest son started for the South, returned to Leavenworth, where they
had just settled down a week before the war began, packed and stored the
household furniture, then, taking "Maidie" with her, hurried westward to
see the last of her boy, whose squadron was destined for service at
Manila.

The lieutenant, as they delighted in calling him, joined them at Denver,
looking perfectly at home in his field uniform and perfectly happy. They
left Maidie to spend a week with old army friends at Fort Douglas, and
as soon as Sandy was settled in his new duties and the loving mother had
satisfied herself the cavalry would not be spirited away before July,
she accepted the eager invitation of other old friends to visit them at
Sacramento, and there they were, mother and daughter, again united this
very raw and foggy evening, when Mr. Ray, as officer of the guard, stood
at the bend of the roadway east of the Presidio guard-house, gazing
after the vanishing forms of Captain Kress and the burly stranger in
civilian clothes, and wondering where on earth it was he had seen the
latter before.

So engrossed was he in this that it was only when a second time
addressed that he whirled about and found himself confronting a tall and
slender young officer, with frank, handsome blue eyes and fine,
clear-cut face, a man perhaps five years his senior in age and one grade
in rank, for his overcoat sleeve bore the single loop and braid of a
first lieutenant.

He was in riding boots and spurs, as Ray noted at first glance, and
there behind him stood an orderly holding the horses of both.

"Pardon me. I am Lieutenant Stuyvesant of General Vinton's staff. This
is the officer of the guard, I believe, and I am sent to make some
inquiry of a prisoner--a man named Murray."

"We have such a man," said Ray, eying the newcomer with soldierly
appreciation of his general appearance and not without envy of his
inches. "But he's just been locked in a cell, and it will take an order
from the officer of the day to fetch him out--unless you could see him
in there with other prisoners within earshot."

"Not very well," answered Stuyvesant, looking cu