erior head-quarters within the week, and Lieutenant Davies,
just as he was expecting brief leave of absence to visit his wife at
Fort Scott, was detailed to the command of the permanent agency guard.
The Ides of March had come.

And how had it fared with Mira and her sympathetic friends at Scott
during all these weeks of toil and march and scout? Two at a time the
officers had been allowed to run in thither for a few days as soon as
their men and horses were made fairly comfortable at the cantonments.
Cranston and Hay went first, then Truman and Jervis, then came the turn
to which Sanders and the patient Parson had been looking forward, and
Sanders went alone. Already some of those fearless frontierswomen, the
amazons of the Fortieth, had come ahead with bag, baggage and babies and
moved into the log huts of their lords as contentedly as they would have
taken quarters at the Grand Central in Omaha, but Mesdames Flight and
Darling were not of the number. Indeed, there was no reason why they
should be, as it was settled that their companies were those designated
presently to return to Scott; so was Hay's troop, so presumably would be
the detached members of Devers's Troop, "A," as soon as he wrote and
called attention to the fact that nearly one-half his men were detained
eighty miles away where there was now an abundance of other soldiery,
and the truly remarkable thing was that he, always hitherto so quick to
find fault with or criticise the actions of his superiors, was keeping
utter silence, and so long as he made no protest no one else could.
Colonel Stone, still weak and dazed, was just beginning to hobble about
the post, and for six wonderful weeks had Devers succeeded in retaining
the command.

"Your husband will be home any day," said Mrs. Darling to Mira, when
they got the news of the triumphant return of the command to the
cantonments. "He belongs here with his troop, so he's sure to come, and
then," she added, archly, "what will poor Willett do?"

That was a question occurring to many another mind and falling from many
another tongue. The rapture of Cranston's home-coming one sharp evening
in late February was dashed only by the sight of a blooming face at
Willett's side behind that stylish Eastern team. In the windings of the
road among the willow islands in the Platte he had come suddenly upon
them, he riding at rapid gallop, they dawdling with loosened reins.
Willett was bending eagerly toward her, talkin