long line, and presently entering the back gate at
Sumter's.

It was an odd arrangement, somewhat peculiar to frontier stations of the
day. The enclosure of Fort Cushing was diamond-shaped. The entrance gate
was at the eastern apex. The hospital and surgeons' quarters stood on a
line with this gate, their front perpendicular to the long axis of the
diamond. Their "rear elevations," therefore, were not far from officers'
row. From the front of Sumter's house, around by way of the main gate to
the doctor's door--the first to the left (north) of the post
traders's--was quite a walk. From back door to back door, however, it
was less than two hundred paces. "We are near neighbors," Doctor
Larrabee had been saying, "though my wife thinks it a long walk on a
windy day. I could reach you day or night, almost in a minute. As for
Schuchardt and Bob Lanier, they could talk to each other out of their
back windows this morning, but you couldn't hear a bugle across there
now."

"Is he sitting up?" Mrs. Sumter inquired. "I thought, from what we
heard, Doctor Schuchardt was trying to keep him in bed."

"He won't stay," was the brief answer. "I doubt if he slept a wink last
night."

But Schuchardt was even less communicative. In answer to Mrs. Sumter's
appeal, that young but gifted physician had looked perturbed, and
finally answered: "Mr. Lanier's hurt is more mental than physical,
therefore the more difficult for me to reach."

"You've seen him this morning?"

"Twice, Mrs. Sumter, and I'm going again as soon as we've seen you
home."

And the moment they reached the rear storm-door, and their fur-hooded,
fur-mantled charges were safely within, Schuchardt excused himself,
Miriam Arnold's eyes following with a mute message that he felt, if he
did not hear.

But Larrabee lingered. Stamping and shaking off the snow, he followed
into the warm and cozy army quarters. Cook and housemaid both looked
astonished at the unexpected procession through the kitchen. Mrs.
Captain Snaffle's "chef"--like her mistress, of Hibernian
extraction--sprang up in some confusion from her chair and the cup of
"tay" over which the three had been chatting, as is the way of our
domestics at such times and places,--she had reason to know the mistress
of the house did not well approve of her, or of these frequent
visitations. "We shall probably dine at home," said Mrs. Sumter,
somewhat coldly, to her own retainers, and bestowing no notice upon
their visit