clear against the westward skies. The smoke from the camp-fires
along the stream rose in misty columns straight aloft, for not so much
as a breath of breeze had wafted down from the far snow fields of Cloud
Peak, or the sun-sheltered rifts of the Big Horn. The flag at the old
fort, on the neighboring height, clung to the staff with scarcely a
flutter, awaiting the evening salute of the trumpets and the roar of the
sunset gun.

The long June day had seemed unusually unconscionably long to the young
girl flitting restlessly about the vine-covered porch of the roadside
cottage. She laid the big binocular aside, for perhaps the twentieth
time within the hour, with a sigh of impatience, a piteous quiver about
the pretty, rosebud mouth, a wistful, longing look in the dark and
dreamy eyes. Ever since stable call, and her father's departure to his
never-neglected duty, she had hovered about that shaded nook, again and
again searching the northward slopes and ridges. The scouts had been in
three hours ago, reporting the squadron only a mile or so behind. It
should have dismounted, unsaddled, fed, watered, and groomed by this
time, and Rawdon should have been here at her side--Rawdon, whom she had
not seen for three mortal days--Rawdon, whom, for three mortal weeks
before the march, she had not missed seeing sometimes several times a
day, even when he was on guard--Rawdon, whom she had never set eyes on
before the first of April, and whom now she looked upon as the foremost
soldier of the regiment, when in point of fact he was but a private
trooper, serving the first part of his first enlistment, in the eyes of
his elders a mere recruit, and in those of Sergeant Fitzroy an
unspeakable thing.

Another long peep through the signal glasses, another sigh, and then she
came, this girl of seventeen, in her dainty white frock, and plumped
herself dejectedly down on the top step, with two very shapely, slender,
slippered feet displayed on the second below, two dimpled elbows planted
on her knees, two flushed, soft, rounded cheeks buried in two long and
slender hands. Away over at the stables she could hear the tap, tap, of
curry-comb on brush-back, as the First Squadron groomed its fidgety
mounts. Away up the valley the voices of the children in the Arapahoe
village rose gleefully on the air. Away up among the barracks and
quarters at the fort, the band of the Infantry was playing sweet melody.
Peace, content, and harmony were roundabou