back with Burtis."

"No; come on with me, Langston. I'm in a devil of a fix and want your
advice."

And as they bowled swiftly along homeward over the smooth, hard, prairie
road, Langston admitted to himself, as Willett falteringly unfolded his
tale, that the young man was indeed "in a devil of a fix,"--in what
Langston, who was an old soldier, found it more descriptive to say, a
damnable fix. He pondered over it a moment and then said, "I don't
understand what you want me to do, Willett," and his tone was very cold.
"I don't see how I can help you. From your own account you have behaved
either like a fool or a blackguard, and what I can't fathom is why
Davies's commanding officer, or some friend or comrade, did not warn you
off weeks ago."

Now, admitting that in the absence of almost all his comrades in the
field, and that it was distinctly his duty to protect the honor and
interest of his regimental comrade, let us see to what extent Captain
Devers felt disposed to exercise his prerogative and act against this
indisputable wolf in the sheepfold. Precedents he did not lack.
Everybody had heard how Colonel Atherton, of the --th, had served a
would-be gallant whose attentions to a lady of the regiment, during the
prolonged absence of her husband in the field, had become the talk of a
big garrison. Everybody knew how old Tintop, when he made up his mind
that Lieutenant B---- was becoming infatuated with Mrs. Captain
Potiphar, calmly recommended B.'s immediate and indefinite detail at the
Shoshone Agency, an isolated nook in the heart of the Wind River country
where the mails got through only once a week in midwinter and no one but
the mail rider thought of trying to get out. Colonel Pegleg, in the days
of his original wife, had taken a fatherly interest in garrison matters,
and instituted a system of post government that was almost patriarchal,
especially when most of the men were absent in the field, but Mrs. Stone
the second was made of flimsier stuff, and fond of gladness and gayety,
dancing and feasting, and what she termed "an innocent flirtation" was
harmless occupation so long as her own queendom was unimpaired. There
can be no question, however, that she would long since have put her
husband on the trail of this new disturber of the garrison peace but for
the illness that followed Stone's sudden prostration. The command with
its powers having devolved upon Devers, she could do nothing. It is a
hard thing for a