y should she not accompany
Grace to Wyoming and see something of that odd army life of which she
had heard so much. If Captain Truscott would have her she knew no reason
to prevent. And they all knew that in the captain's enforced absence on
the campaign no one could be so great a comfort, so dear a companion to
Grace, as her schoolmate Marion. There was only one question, said
Truscott, "Will Mr. Sanford consent?"

"I will write to-night," said the young lady, in reply, "and I feel
confident of his answer."

Within a week, as we know, the telegram had reached the --th announcing
Truscott's move, and that very afternoon Mrs. Stannard, seated on the
piazza of her new quarters and gazing southward across the bare parade
to the dun-colored barracks on the other side and the snow-capped peaks
of Colorado seemingly just beyond, was startled by a sudden sensation in
the group of officers in front of Colonel Whaling's. Another telegram.
Presently her husband left the group and came quickly to her, hands in
his pockets as usual, and with his customary expression of
unastonishable _nonchalance_. Still, she saw he had disturbing news,
and she rose anxiously to meet him, her sweet blue eyes clouded with the
dread she strove to repress.

"What is it, Luce?" she asked.

The major unpursed his lips and abandoned the attempted whistle.

"Been a fight--way up on the Rosebud," he briefly said, as he dropped
into a chair, still maintaining his apparent indifference of manner.

"Yes; but--what was it? Who is hurt this time?"

"H----, of the Third; shot through the face; can't live, they say.
Reckon that isn't the worst of it, either. Crook found the Indians far
too many for him and he had to fall back to his camps."

"Oh, Luce! Then it will be a hard campaign. What news for the --th?"

"Nothing as yet. We march, of course, at daybreak, and I suppose the
rest of the regiment will be hurried up from Kansas. What must be looked
after at once is the great mass of Indians at the Red Cloud and Spotted
Tail reservations on White River. They will get this news within the
next twenty-four hours, and it will so embolden them that the entire
gang will probably take the war-path. There is where we will be sent, I
fancy. Orders will reach us at Laramie. They say Sheridan himself is on
his way to the reservations to look into matters. Mrs. Turner been
here?" he suddenly asked, with a quick glance from under his shaggy
eyebrows.

"Mrs. Turne