A Trooper Galahad

rattling ambulance, bore our army travellers from the far frontier to San Antonio. Another trundled and bumped them away to the Gulf. A Morgan Line steamer picked them up and tossed a

ort Worth was agog to meet him. Brooks knew but a modest bit of his story, and what he knew he kept from every man but Frazier, yet had had to tell his wife. The Winns were silent on the subject. Winn himself was a man of few intimates,-a young first lieutenant of cavalry,-and the tie that bound him to Lawrence was the fact that he and Kitty Tyrrell were first-cousins, their mothers sisters, and Winn, a tall, athletic, slender fellow, frank, buoyant, handsome, and connected with some of the best names in the old army, was one of the swells of his class at the Point and the beau among all the young officers the summer of his graduation,-the summer that Laura Waite, engaged to Brevet Captain Galbraith Barclay of the Infantry, came from the West to visit relatives at that enchanting spot, spent just six weeks there, and, after writing letters all one month to close her absent lover's eyes, wound up by writing one that opened them. She was a beautiful girl then; she was a lovely-looking woman now, but the

how rich, and nobody would have known he was rich at all, judging from the simplicity and strict economy of his life. In fact, it was this simplicity and strict economy that had given rise to the belief that existed for a year or two after he joined the 30th that he was hampered either with debts or with dependent relatives. Relatives they knew he had, because sisters sent their boys to visit him at Sanders, and he took them hunting, fishing, etc.; from these ingenuous nephews the ladies learned of others, nephews, nieces, sisters, cousins, aunts, who wrote long letters to Uncle Gal, and the mail orderly said he left more letters at Captain Barclay's quarters than at anybody's else. So Fort Sanders dropped the theory of debts and adopted that of dependants, and that held good for the first year of his service with them. He had joined from the volunteers, where he had risen to the grade of major. He was "pious," said Hodge,-wouldn't drink, smoke, chew, play cards, or swear,-thought they ought to have services on Sunday. He left the roistering bachelors' mess soon after his reaching the post, and had ever since kept house, his cook and housemaid being on

was her first winter in army society. She had spent her girl years at school, and now was having "simply a heavenly time," if her letters could be believed. Her father was a field officer of cavalry with rather a solemn way of looking at life, and her mother was said to be the explanation of much of his solemnity,-she being as volatile as he was staid. She too had been a beauty, and believed that beauty a permanent fixture. But Laura was fresh and fair, sweet and winsome, light-hearted and joyous, and the father for a time took more pride in her than he did in his sons. Major Waite

y one to whom Mrs. Waite confided it, and they were not few. The old soldier begged of the younger not to think of it, at least just yet. But when it transpired that the younger had been most seriously thinking of it and could think of nothing else, then the major changed his tune and told him what he did not tell his wife; and that only became known through the father's own intemperate language long months after. He told Barclay he knew no man to whom he would rather intrust his daughter's happiness, but he feared, he believed, she was still too young

thinking himself happiest of the happy, or bound to be when, in the coming autumn, he could claim her as his own. But Waite was troubled. He was to take the field the 1st of May; his troops would be in saddle and on scout away to the west all summer long; his wife and daughter were to spend those months at the sea-shore and in shopping for the great event to come in November. He had a long, earnest talk with Barclay when once more the devoted fellow came to see the lady of his love on the eve of her departure for the East, but Barclay looked into her radiant, uplifted eyes, and could not read the shadow of coming events, of which she was as ignorant as he. In May he led his men on the march to the Big Horn, and in June she led with Cadet Lieutenant Winn the german at the graduation hop at West Point. Then Winn was assigned to duty, as was the custom of the day, one of two or three young graduates chosen as assistant instructors during the summer camp. He had an hour to devote to drill each morning and a dozen to devote to the girls, and Laura Waite, with her lovely face and form, was the talk of the brilliant throng of visitors that summer. She and her mother returned to the Point as guests of some old friends there station

wept over Sanders. Barclay, who lived so simply in garrison, was discovered (through a breach of confidence on the part of the officiating clergyman, that well-nigh led to another breach) to be the principal subscriber to the mission church being built in Laramie City. It suddenly became known that Barclay had a balance in the local bank and reserve funds at the East, whereupon promoters and prospectors by the dozen called upon him at the fort and strove to induce him to take stock in their mines. Nine out of ten were sent to the right-about, even those who called his attention to the fact that Colonel This and Major That were large shareholders. One or two he gave ear to, and la

e had in the first place, there came one from far Chicago; and later, after Porter reached the post, overjoyed to find his beloved one slowly mending and so skilfully guarded, the doctors told him she must be taken to the sea-shore or the South, and, though every one at Sanders knew poor Porter had not a penny, it was all arranged somehow, and Emily Porter came back the next winter a rosy, blooming, happ

records of their Church. All this and more did Hodge tell of Barclay, as in duty bound, he said, after first telling what other fellows long said of him,-that he was close and mean, a prig, a namby-pamby (despite the way he fought Crow-Killer's warlike band), a wet blanket to garrison joys, etc., etc.; and yet they really couldn't tell why. He subscribed just as much to the hop fund, though he didn't hop,-to the supper fund, though he didn't sup,-to the mess fund for the entertainment of visiting officers, though he didn't dr

Hodge, when describing it. "There wasn't a

d looked up to as the -th did to Mrs. Stannard, "that for a long

him 'Gal I had' when he went to Omaha and 'Gal I hadn't' when he got bac

or Gleason. I'd rejoice in Barclay's coming if it were