rs. Turner was more desperately
afraid, and that was a cow. She made a ninny of herself when she went
out to drive, and the mere pricking up of the horses' ears was to her
mind premonitory symptom of a runaway, and excuse for immediate demand
to be set down on the open prairie and allowed to walk home. As for
riding, she couldn't be induced to try. To her a horse was a thing that
kicked or bit or showed the whites of his eyes and set his ears back and
switched his tail and gave other evidences of depraved moral nature, and
she would no more touch or approach one than she would a wild-cat,
except when in so doing, with an admiring audience, she could become the
central figure in an effective tableau. Ray wished her in Jericho, as
she stood at arm's length and touched Dandy with the tips of her dainty
fingers and began to speak of him as "it." Equine sex was a matter
beyond Mrs. Turner's consideration, and with eminent discretion she
compromised on "it" as a safe descriptive.

Then old Whaling came along with his better half, and the lady stopped
to see the now celebrated sorrel, and when Ray cordially addressed his
post commander with the natural question, "What do you think of him,
colonel?" he was genuinely surprised at the embarrassed, lifeless
response. The colonel looked away as he replied,--

"Very pretty, very pretty, Mr. Ray," and then walked on as though he
desired to keep aloof, and Mrs. Whaling, announcing that she was going
to see poor Mrs. Muldoon, who was living outside the gate, moved on
after her husband with hardly a glance for Ray.

Something strange in the colonel's manner, something constrained and
distant in that of the adjutant, had occurred to him once or twice
before, but he had given little thought to it. Now he felt that it could
no longer be overlooked. Even Mrs. Turner, who knew that in the regiment
from the colonel down almost everybody had a cordial word for Ray, and
that now he was the idol of the hour,--even Mrs. Turner looked after the
colonel in amaze and then quickly at Ray. A light flashed over her busy
intellect. This was further confirmation of her theory. The colonel,
too, had heard of Ray's devotions to Mrs. Truscott and was offended
thereat.

But now the sunset call was sounding, the band marched away, and Ray and
his fair companion stood watching Dandy, who was being led back to his
paddock. A deep flush was on her cheek. She, too, had noted the
colonel's cold and distant man