, who had reason to know
what he was talking about, never lived at Scott in the Centennial times
or at old Camp Sandy in the Arizona "days of the empire," for then he
would have known no such difficulty in deciding. Just as the stanch old
chaplain was just such another God-fearing, God-serving, devil-downing
man as Davies's father, so was the chaplain's wife a counterpart of
Davies's mother, filled with the milk of human kindness still unturned,
and overflowing with best intentions uncontrollably effervescent. Had
she told her husband all might have been stopped right there, but, as
the demon of ill luck would have it, he had gone to a distant
convention. So she sallied forth, brimming with eagerness to snatch this
lovely brand from the burning, to turn this fair, motherless, guideless,
possibly guileless girl to the contemplation of her dangers, to the
knowledge of her peril, to banish Willett from the dove-cote,--wily hawk
that he was,--and settle forthwith the fate of that young scamp Brannan.
She did not find Almira until after dark, but meantime told her
thrilling tale to Mrs. Stone (now full panoplied for further social
triumphs, the colonel being on the mend, and herself so young as not to
have looked unmoved on those famous sleigh-rides, nor without envy on
Almira's blooming cheek), and from her side sped the chaplain's wife to
hunt up Captain Devers. In him she found a listener indeed in whom there
was no end of guile.

This was just before Cranston's return. The ball to be given by the
townsfolk had been indefinitely postponed in deference to Colonel
Stone's condition and the absence of so many dancing men in the field,
but the weekly hops, although with thinned attendance, went regularly
on. Now there were several households who did not attend at all, among
them Cranston's, Leonard's, and Hay's. More civilians came out from
town, whom Devers welcomed affably and Hastings and the resident
"doughboys" entertained as best they could. No need to trouble
themselves: the visitors came to "dance with the grass widows at the
fort," and had no embarrassment other than richness. There were always
wall-flowers, but never in the person of pretty Mrs. Davies, to whom
"Phaeton" Willett's devotion was now the talk of all.

It was just at this time, too, that there came to Braska a middle-aged
lawyer with all the ear-marks of the soldier about him, including a
white seam along his cheek that told of a close call his intimat