t spoiled by those straggling skirmishers, bristling
with importance but waiting in vain for recruits. The top of his head had
got above timber line and glistened in the sun of early summer that
streamed through the clear windows of Mrs. Huzzard's back room.

But as that head was generally covered by a hat that sported a cord and
tassel, and as his bulging breastbone was covered by a dark-blue coat and
vest, on which the brass buttons shone in real military fashion--well, all
those things had their weight in a community where few men wore a coat at
all in warm weather.

Mrs. Huzzard, in the depths of her being, thought it would be a fine thing
to go back to Pennsylvania as "Mrs. Captain," even if the captain wasn't
as forehanded as she'd seen men.

Even the elegant way in which he could do nothing and yet diffuse an air
of importance, was impressive to her admiring soul. The clerical whiskers
and the military dress completed the conquest.

But Mrs. Huzzard, having a bit of native wisdom still left, knew he was
a man who would need managing, and that the best way was not to let his
opinion rule her in all things; therefore, she only laughed cheerily at
his indignation.

"Well, captain, I can't say but she did flare up about the Indians, when
you said they were all thieves and paupers, stealing from the Government,
and all that. But then, by what she says, she has knowed some decent ones
in her time--friends of hers; an' you know any one must say a good word
for a friend. You'd do that yourself."

"Maybe; I don't say I wouldn't," he agreed. "But I do say, the friends
would not be redskins. No, madame! They're no fit friends for a gentleman
to cultivate; and so I have told Dan. And if this girl owns such friends,
it shows plainly enough that the class she belongs to is not a high one.
Dan's mother was a lady, Mrs. Huzzard! She was my wife, madame! And it is
a distress for me to see any one received into our family who does not
come up to that same level. That is just the state of the case, and I
maintain my position in the matter; let Dan take on all the temper he
likes about it."

The lady of the pies did not respond to his remarks at once. She had an
idea that she herself might fall under the ban of Captain Leek's
discriminating eyes, and be excluded from that upper circle of chosen
humanity to which he was born and bred. He liked her pies, her flap-jacks,
and even the many kinds of boiled dinners she was in the h