il contractors of supplies whom the Government was
obliged to employ, who visited the camp half officially, and whom the
army alternately depended upon and abused. Brant had dealt with his
underlings in the Commissariat, and even now remembered that he had
heard he was coming, but had overlooked the significance of his name.
But how he came to leave his theatrical profession, how he had attained
a position which implied a command of considerable capital--for many of
the contractors had already amassed large fortunes--and what had become
of Susy and her ambitions in this radical change of circumstances, were
things still to be learned. In his own changed conditions he had seldom
thought of her; it was with a strange feeling of irritation and half
responsibility that he now recalled their last interview and the emotion
to which he had yielded.

He had not long to wait. He had scarcely regained the quarters at his
own private office before he heard the step of the orderly upon the
veranda and the trailing clank of Hooker's sabre. He did not know,
however, that Hooker, without recognizing his name, had received the
message as a personal tribute, and had left his sarcastic companions
triumphantly, with the air of going to a confidential interview, to
which his well-known military criticism had entitled him. It was with
a bearing of gloomy importance and his characteristic, sullen, sidelong
glance that he entered the apartment and did not look up until Brant had
signaled the orderly to withdraw, and closed the door behind him. And
then he recognized his old boyish companion--the preferred favorite of
fortune!

For a moment he gasped with astonishment. For a moment gloomy
incredulity, suspicion, delight, pride, admiration, even affection,
struggled for mastery in his sullen, staring eyes and open, twitching
mouth. For here was Clarence Brant, handsomer than ever, more superior
than ever, in the majesty of uniform and authority which fitted him--the
younger man--by reason of his four years of active service, with the
careless ease and bearing of the veteran! Here was the hero whose name
was already so famous that the mere coincidence of it with that of the
modest civilian he had known would have struck him as preposterous.
Yet here he was--supreme, and dazzling--surrounded by the pomp and
circumstance of war--into whose reserved presence he, Jim Hooker, had
been ushered with the formality of challenge, saluting, and presented