a of
building cantonments there, and had urged that all the Indians be
concentrated at the White River reservation, but without avail,--the
Interior Department would have its way. Troops had to be drawn from all
the posts along the railroad to make up the new command at the
Ogallalla, and out of his own pocket Cranston was adding to the log
quarters assigned to him, for Margaret had promptly announced that she
would not remain at Scott, that where he dwelt was her dwelling, and
they had known far greater isolation and danger in the past. Indeed,
there was little danger of their going now, for in the presence of so
strong a force the Indians would be meek enough. Two log huts were
connected and thrown into one as rapidly as possible, and it was fully
decided that by the 25th of March Mrs. Cranston, Agatha Loomis, and the
boys were to join him at the cantonment. It was not a very difficult
trip for such heroines as lived in those days in the army. Cranston's
strong spring wagon, fairly lined with buffalo-robes and blankets, would
carry them in perfect comfort from camp to camp. They would have an
escort and a baggage-wagon, spend the first night at Dismal River, the
next at Niobrara. Hastings would escort them, for he longed to get away
from Scott for a while and visit his comrades in the field. There was
nothing in the least unusual in it, said Margaret, in her home
letters,--for this had she married a soldier. The boys, of course,
gloried in the opportunity and bragged about it, or would brag about it
when they next got away from their kind in the army to their kind in
civil life,--boys who could only vainly long for such opportunities and
vaguely loathe those who had enjoyed them. As for Agatha, she accepted
the change of station with serene and philosophic silence until
cross-questioned as to her own intentions. "Why, certainly I mean to go
with Mrs. Cranston," she replied, with clear, wide-open eyes. "She will
have more need of me there than here--and I of her." Mr. Langston, who
drove out again to spend Sunday at the post, heard of the decision with
grave concern in his soldierly face, but in silence equal to her own.

Some others of the ladies whose lords were thus detached to Ogallalla
preferred, however, to wait until the snow was gone. There was now
abundant room at Scott,--why leave it, with its warmth, its comfort, its
society and all, to go to a mud-chinked hovel at that ghastly spot where
the Indians danced