you will dance. If you refuse you will be put in irons and
taken out to-morrow and shot. It will do you no good to sit and think,
poor boy."

"I have no clothes," I protested.

"Johnson will have your boxes out in time. But you don't want your own
clothes. This is _bal masque_, of course, and you want some sort of
disguise, I think you'd look well in one of Matt's uniforms."

"That's so," said Stevenson, "we're about of a size. Good disguise, too,
especially since you've never been here. They'll wonder who the new
officer is, and where he comes from. I say, Kitty, what an awfully good
joke it would be to put him up against two or three of those heartless
flirts you call your friends--Ellen, for instance."

"There won't be a button left on the uniform by morning," said Kitty
contemplatively. "To-night the Army entertains."

"And conquers," I suggested.

"Sometimes. But at the officers' ball it mostly surrenders. The casualty
list, after one of these balls, is something awful. After all, Jack, all
these modern improvements in arms have not superceded the old bow and
arrow." She smiled at me with white teeth and lazy eyes. A handsome
woman, Kitty.

"And who is that dangerous flirt you were talking about a moment ago?" I
asked her, interested in spite of myself.

"I lose my mess number if I dare to tell. Oh, they'll all be here
to-night, both Army and civilians. There's Sadie Galloway of the Eighth,
and Toodie Devlin of Kentucky, and the Evans girl from up North, and
Mrs. Willie Weiland--"

"And Mrs. Matthew Stevenson."

"Yes, myself, of course; and then besides, Ellen."

"Ellen who?"

"Never mind. She is the most dangerous creature now at large in the
Western country. Avoid her! Pass not by her! She stalketh by night.
She'll get you sure, my son. She has a string of hearts at her will as
long as from here to the red barn."

"I shall dance to-night," I said. "If you please, I will dance with her,
the first waltz."

"Yes?" She raised her eyebrows. "You've a nice conceit, at least. But,
then, I don't like modest men."

"Listen to that," chuckled Stevenson, "and yet she married me! But what
she says is true, Cowles. It will be worse than Chapultepec in the crowd
anywhere around Ellen to-night. You might lose a leg or an arm in the
crush, and if you got through, you'd only lose your heart. Better leave
her alone."

"Lord, what a night it'll be for the ball," said Kitty, sweeping an idle
arm toward Parade,