has to be
guarded in what he says, or first thing he knows he'll be hoisting some
fellow over his own head in a moment of enthusiasm. No. I know just how
you regard me, but I spent six weeks of a three months' leave in
Washington last winter, and sat night after night at the club, or day
after day among the army crowd at the Ebbitt, or in some fellow's den at
the Department, and never once did I hear one word of frank, outspoken,
fearless praise of some other fellow's work or deeds, unless it were to
his face. Ask a man flat-footed if that wasn't a capital scout of
Striker's last winter in the Tonto Basin, or if Jake Randlett hadn't
done a daring thing in going all alone through the Sioux country to drum
up Crow scouts for Crook's command, or what he thought of Billy Ray's
cutting his way out through the Cheyennes to bring help to Wayne last
June, and ten to one he'll hum and haw and say yes, he _did_ hear
something about that, and now that I mentioned it he believed Striker or
Jake or Billy had really behaved quite creditably, but the whole tone
was significant of nothing like what some other fellow I might mention,
modesty only forbidding, would have done under similar circumstances.'
It's just the damnation of faint praise. The trouble with the whole gang
of those fellows seems to be a mortal dread lest somebody's eyes should
be deflected from the valor of the warriors at Washington to that of the
warriors on the plains. What recognition do you suppose Ray will ever
get for that feat? General Crook says it's useless to recommend him for
brevet, because the Senate wouldn't confirm it, and the reason they
won't is that those hangers-on about the capital don't mean to let such
rewards be given to the men on the frontier. And yet this sort of thing
doesn't happen only in Washington. It was a cavalry officer who said of
that very affair that Ray was simply a reckless fellow under a cloud,
with everything to gain and nothing to lose, and that doing a reckless
thing was just as much a matter of instinct with him as battle is to a
bull-dog."

It was unusual to see Leonard warm up in this way. Besides the chaplain
and the silent host, there were three officers in the dreary little
bachelor den at the moment. Each and every one seemed surprised at the
adjutant's outbreak, but not one of them at the concluding revelation.

"No need to ask who that was," said Captain Hay, with a prefatory
"Humph." "It savors of Devers from fir