ean from the very start.

"All true cavalrymen ought to be able to take a hand at poker," sneered
Burleigh, at the first night's camp, for here was a pigeon really worth
the plucking, thought he. Dean's life in the field had been so simple
and inexpensive that he had saved much of his slender pay; but, what
Burleigh did not know, he had sent much of it home to mother and Jess.

"I know several men who would have been the better for leaving it
alone," responded Dean very quietly. They rubbed each other the wrong
way from the very start, and this was bad for the boy, for in those
days, when army morals were less looked after than they are now, men of
Burleigh's stamp, with the means to entertain and the station to enable
them to do it, had often the ear of officers from headquarters, and more
things were told at such times to generals and colonels about their
young men than the victims ever suspected. Burleigh was a man of
position and influence, and knew it. Dean was a youngster without
either, and did not realize it. He had made an enemy of the
quartermaster on the trip and could not but know it. Yet, conscious that
he had said nothing that was wrong, he felt no disquiet.

And now, homeward bound, he was jogging contentedly along at the head of
the troop. Scouts and flankers signaled "all clear." Not a hostile
Indian had they seen since leaving the Gap. The ambulances with a little
squad of troopers had hung on a few moments at the noon camp, hitching
slowly and leisurely that their passengers might longer enjoy their post
prandial siesta in the last shade they would see until they reached
Cantonment Reno, a long day's ride away. Presently the lively mule teams
would come along the winding trail at spanking trot. Then the troop
would open out to right and left and let them take the lead, giving the
dust in exchange, and once more the rapid march would begin.

It was four P. M. when the shadows of the mules' ears and heads
came jerking into view beside him, and, guiding his horse to the right,
Dean loosed rein and prepared to trot by the open doorway of the stout,
black-covered wagon. The young engineer officer, sitting on the front
seat, nodded cordially to the cavalryman. He had known and liked him at
the Point. He had sympathized with him in the vague difference with the
quartermaster. He had had to listen to sneering things Burleigh was
telling the aide-de-camp about young linesmen in general and Dean in
particula