it was to keep him out
of harm's way. Up there he couldn't get liquor, down here he could."
When Davies asked if Brannan had shown a disposition to drink since
getting back from the campaign, Cranston again used Devers's authority.
"Differs said he had,--two or three times." But when Cranston wrote to
Boynton, Boynton replied that young Brannan declared that he had been
totally abstemious since the day after they reached the post. The day of
their coming in, he arrived half frozen and all tired out, as he had
been kept back on wagon guard, and he was offered liquor by Sergeant
Haney himself, and drank several times, and was wretchedly ill all the
next day as a consequence,--so ill that it frightened him, and he swore
off more solemnly than before. Hastings said, in fact, that there was a
set in "A" troop, a clique that "stood in" with the first sergeant and
some of his favorites, and that no man outside of it could hope for
recognition and no one in it fear punishment. Brannan was not in it.

It was a Wednesday night, as has been said, that Davies arrived, and
not until the following Wednesday could they be installed in their
quarters, which were being simply but prettily furnished. Private
Barnickel had assumed the duties of striker, and Mrs. Maloney's
strapping daughter Katty was now presiding in Boynton's kitchen as cook
and maid-of-all-work. A tenant had been found for the old house at home,
who was to pay a certain rental to Squire Quimby, which sum was to be
supplemented by a monthly payment from his son-in-law's scanty purse.
"We must live very simply and economically, my wife," said Davies. "At
the very least it will take me two whole years to pay principal and
interest and set us foot free; but we have few other debts. We can be
warm and comfortable. You have all the clothing you will be apt to need
for a good while, and I will get along with what I have." And Mira had
received the suggestion with all wifely grace. They went to chapel
together that first crisp, sunshiny, wintry Sunday, and all Fort
Scott--at least all that happened to be there assembled--remarked on
Almira's rich color--and furs--and on Davies's reverent manner. He was
the only man in the little congregation who actually knelt. The old
chaplain rejoiced that afternoon when the tall lieutenant came in at
Sunday-school, and, taking immediate charge of the most turbulent of his
classes,--the big boys,--held them both interested and respectful unti