Starlight Ranch, and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier

so clear and sunshiny ha

tters for shelter; umbrellas pop up here and there under the beautiful trees along the western roadway; the adjutant rushes through "delinquency list" in a style distinguishable only to his stolid, silent audience standing immovably before him,-a long perspective of gray uniforms and gliste

an is in his overcoat, and here and there little knots of

captain are glistening on his arm, and he alone has not donned the gray overcoat, although he has discarded the plumed shako in deference to the coming storm; yet he hardly seems

of classmates, and he halts and looks about

say about it?" is

hing

good as finds him on

hough he has been as clo

nd Billy McKay can no more live two weeks withou

er the visor of his forage cap. He is not as tall by ha

never mentioned this break of his yesterday, and was surprised to hear t

' him?-Lee? H

officers over there at the time. It is a report he ca

overcoats leap into ranks; the subject of the recent discussion-a jaunty young fellow with laughing blue eyes-comes tearing out of the fourth division just in time

ad said that he "could stand in the fives and wouldn't stand in the forties;" years of his boyhood spent in France had made him master of the colloquial forms of the court language of Europe, yet a dozen classmates who had never seen a French verb before their admission stood above him at the end of the first term. He had gone to the first section like a rocket and settled to the bottom of it like a stick. No subject in the course was really hard to him, his natural aptitude enabling him to triumph over the toughest problems. Yet he hated work, and would often face about with an empty black-board and take a zero and a report for neglect of studies that half an hour's application

was ever the glaring prospect of his being discharged "on demerit." Mr. McKay and the r

s; that the men who drafted such a code were idiots, and that those whose duty it became to enforce it were simply spies and tyrants, resistance to whom was innate virtue. He was forever ignoring or violating some written or unwritten law of the Academy; was frequently being caught in the act, and was invariably ready to attribute the resultant report to ill luck which pursued no one else, o

ill, in which event he would venture on throwing off his uniform and spreading himself out on his bed with a pipe and a novel,-two things he dearly loved. Ten minutes would have decided the question legitimately for

s it battal

ok his head, and went rapidly on, while his comrade, the cadet first captain, clinc

ersisted. Louder

our o'clock. I'll be in confinement,

ith three or four of his assistants, and as Mr. McKay's voice was as well known to them as to the corps, there was no altern

ost at the guard-house, his heart is heavy within hi

had asked him as McKay, fuming and indignant, was throwi

t's just a skin on suspicion anyhow. Lee couldn't have seen me,

a that doesn't know your voice as well as he does Jim Pennock's. Confound i

men don't row me as you do, or stand up for the 'tacks.' I tell you that fellow Lee never loses a chance of skinning

ou'll get a late for supper. I'll see you after awhile. I gave that note to

right after supper. Look out for them for me, will you

ing down the iron stairs, Mr. McKay caught no sign on his f

g before the command for the first company to rise. It was a matter well known to every member of the graduating class that, almost from the day of her

cadet friendships. If she possessed a little streak of romance that was not discernible in him, she managed to keep it well in the background; and though she had her favorites in the corps, she was so frank and cordial and joyous in her manner to all that it was impossible to say whic

s more soldierly than any man of his year, but were unanimous in the opinion that he should show more deference to men of their standing in the corps. The "yearlings" swore by him in any discussion as to the relative merits of the four captains; but with equal energy swore at him when contemplating that fateful volume known as "the skin book." The fourth classmen-the "plebes"-simply worshipped the ground he trod on, and as between General Sherman and Philip Stanley, it is safe to say these youngsters would have determined on the latter as the more suitable candidate for the office of general-in-chief. Of course they admired the adjutant,-the plebes always do that,-and not infrequently to the exclusion of the other cadet officers; but there was something grand, to them, about this dark-eyed, dark-faced, dignified captain who never stooped to trifle with them; was always so precise and courteous, and yet so immeasurably distant. They were ten times more afraid of him than they had been of Lieutenant Rolfe, who was their "tack" during camp, or of the great, handsome, kindly-voiced dragoon who succeeded him, Lieutenan

ed soldier whom we saw on the boat. The rain is falling steadily, which accounts for and possibly excuses Mr. Lee's retention of the young lady's arm in his as he holds the umbrella over both; but the colonel no sooner catches sight of the officer of the day than his own umbrel

,-my

the

sorrow. "Ah, God!" he thinks. "Could his mother but have lived to see him now!" Perhaps Philip reads it all in the strong yet tremulous clasp of those sinewy brown hands, but for the moment neither speaks again. There are some joys so deep, some heart longings so overpowering, that many a man is forced to silence, or to a levity of manner whi

escort, he is suddenly aware of another group that has entered the area. Two ladies, marshalled by