e
regiment and to my troop."

"You feel that--you _ought_ to go?" asked the colonel, dropping the
subject like a hot brick, and resuming the previous question.

"Our guest, Miss Arnold, is in no condition to travel alone," said
Captain Sumter gravely. "My wife decides to accompany her, at least to
Chicago, and I desire to go with my wife."

The colonel bit his lip, and bowed. "I see," said he. "Miss Arnold was
very much shaken by what happened--after she got home?"

"Rather by what happened _before_ she got home," was the calm yet
suggestive reply, and it stung the commander to the quick.

"Captain Sumter," said he, flushing angrily, for no one of his officers
held he in higher esteem, "your attitude is that of opposition, if not
of rebuke, to the official acts of the post commander."

"Then let me disclaim at once the faintest disrespect, Colonel Button,
but--as Mr. Lanier's troop commander and personal friend, I beg leave to
say that so far as I know, his offense is one which his comrades have
committed time and again, without rebuke."

"Which simply goes to show, sir," responded the colonel, with glittering
eyes, "that you do not know the twentieth part of his offense."

For a moment the silence in the office was painful. Men looked at each
other without speaking. Sumter stood before his commander, turning paler
with the flitting seconds. At last he spoke:

"If that be true, Colonel Button, of course I cannot think of going. I
withdraw my application;" and, turning slowly, left the office.

Between him and the adjutant flashed one quick glance. There was
something to come yet. The officers-of-the-day had gone--Curbit to shed
furs and sabre at his quarters and say "Thank God!" Snaffle, his junior
in rank but senior in years, a veteran of the old dragoons, to plod
wearily back towards the guard-house for a conference with Lieutenant
Crane, commander-of-the-guard.

In the office of the sergeant-major the clerks were busily at work
consolidating the morning reports of the ten companies--six of cavalry,
four of infantry--stationed at the post. A note on that of Captain
Snaffle had already caught the eye of the sergeant-major, who had
bustled in to impart the tidings to his immediate superior, the
adjutant, and was disappointed to find them known already.

Instead of carrying three enlisted men present as "casually at post,"
the "return" of Troop "C" had but two. Trooper Rawdon, whose horse,
horse equipments,