A Trooper Galahad

ed desk before him an official communication just received from Department H

econd in command, a burly major, glancing over the to

a million to-day, is running for Congress, and will probably be on the military committee next year, while here's Lawrence, who was judge advocate of the court that tried him, gone all to smash.

left it. "Damn that sabre,-and the service generally!" he growled, as he recovered his balance and tramped to the window. "I'd almost be willing to quit it as Pigott did if I could see my way to a moderate competence anywh

pt shut until the adjutant comes; and you stay out on the porch.-It isn't Lawrence I'm so sorely troubled about, Brooks. He has ability, and cou

would listen; and he never would listen to anything or anybody-they tell me," he added, after a minute's reflection. "I don't know it myself. It

ant to. As for Canker, by gad, there's another absurdity. They put him in the cavalry because

g from him. But what I don't understand is, who made the allegation. What's his offence? Every one knows that he's in debt and troubl

but a fighting record and a family to provide for are turned loose on a year's pay, which they're to have after things straighten

s, starting back from the

liest '70s,-dull-hued barracks on one side or on two, dull-hued, broad-porched cottages-the officers' quarters-on another, dull-hued offices, storehouses, corral walls, scattered about the outskirts, a dull-hued, sombre earth on every side; sombre sweeping prairie beyond, spanned by pallid sky or snow-tipped mountains; a twisting, winding road or two, entering the post on one front, issuing at the other, and tapering off in sinuous curves until lost in the distance; a few scattered ranches in the stream valley; a collection of sheds, shanties, and hovels surrounding a bustling establishment known as the store, down by the ford,-the centre of civilization, apparently, for thither trended every roadway, path, track, or trail visible to the naked eye. Here in front of the office a solitary cavalry horse was tethered. Yonder at the sutler's, early as it was in the day, a dozen quadrupeds, mules, mustangs, or Indian ponies, were blinking in the sunshine. Dogs innumerable sprawled in the sand. Bipeds lol

the military service,-taken all those years out of their lives that might have been given to establishing themselves in business,-they were bidden to choose between voluntarily quitting the army with a bonus of a year's pay, and remaining with no hope of advancement. Most of them, despairing of finding employment in civil life, concluded to stay: so other methods of getting rid of them were devised, and, to the amaze of the army and the disma

led colonel if he have only the pay of a sub? Hundreds of men who eagerly sought his aid or influence during the war "held over him" at the end of it. Another general took him on his staff as aide-de-camp, where Lawrence was invaluable. Kitty dearly loved city life, parties, balls, operas, and theatres; but Lawrence grew lined and gray with care and worry. The general went the way of all flesh, and Lawrence to Texas, unable to get another staff billet. They set him at court-martial duty at San Antonio for several months, for Texas furnished culprits by the score in the days that followed the war, and many an unpromising army career was cut short by the tribunal of which Captain and Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel Lawrence was judge advocate; but all the time he had a skeleton in his own closet that by and by rattled its way out. Time was in the war days when many of the men of the head-quarters escort banked their money with the beloved and popular aide. He had nearly twelve hundre

rmy names and army reputations, it was set for scandal, not for services, and the old story of those unpaid hundreds was enmeshed and served up seasoned with the latest spice obtainable from the dealers rebuked of that original court. And, lo! when the list of victims reached Fort Worth in the reorganization days, old Frazier, the colonel, burst into a string of anathemas, and more than one good woman into a passion of tears, for poor Ned Lawrence, at that moment long days' marches away towards the Rio Bravo, was declared supernumerary

hed the matter by the prompt renomination of others to fill the vacancies just created, and once these were confirmed by the Senate there could be no appeal. The detachment led by Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel Lawrence, so later said the Texas papers, had covered itself with glory, but in its pursuit of the fleeing Indians it had gone f

ing for recognition, and everybody has a cheery, cordial word for him so long as he and his general live and serve together. But that proves nothing when the general is gone. Colonels who eagerly welcomed and shook hands with the aide-de-camp and talked confidentially with him about other colonels in days when he rode long hours by his general's side, later passed him by with scant notice, a

out to the line where stood the sergeant-major; then he turned, entered the building, and paused with hopeless eyes and pallid, careworn features at the office doorway. His old single-breasted captain's frock-coat, with its tarnished silver leaves at the shoulders, hung loosely about his shrunken form. The trousers, with their narrow welt of yellow at the seam, looked far too big for him. His f

what I can do for you." He spoke kindly, and

art at once. I'm going right to Washington to have this straightened out. I want to thank you, colonel,

urney yet," said Frazier, thinking sorrowfully of what his wife had told him

I can keep my old quarters a month, can't I?" he queried, with a quivering smile. "Even if the order isn't revoked, it wo

s, who shook his head and refused t

till next week's stage and take those poor little folks with you. I've watched this thing. I know h

n find no friends in the War Office, then life is a lie and a sham. Senator Hall writes me that he will leave no stone unturned. No, c

; but indeed, Lawrence, I shall

sly. "Fuller promised to see me before he went out

er is going to let him have money for the trip. He can afford to, God knows, after all he's made out of this garrison. But the question is, ought I no

or, in sudden interest. "They didn't know whe

captaincy in the 30th,-but was co

ejaculated the major, in exc

he colonel, impatiently. "Not

im Galahad. But, talk about ups and downs

d me," answered the veteran, half testily.

ago Barclay believed himself engaged to a girl, and she threw him ov