attraction. Routine duty at a cavalry post
soon palls on the most enthusiastic. The endless round of roll-calls,
stables both morning and evening, of drills and guard-mount, boards of
survey and garrison courts, recitations and rifle-practice,--all serve
to keep up constant demands on time and attention. There is just one
thing that will throw about them all a halo of romance and
interest,--the presence at the garrison of the girl you love; and when
such a blessing has once been enjoyed and then is suddenly taken away,
the utter blank is beyond description. Only to a few has it happened
that the love of their lives has been found in garrison, and only they
will quite realize what life at Russell became to Ray after Marion
Sanford went East. He had greatly changed as every one saw. Not that he
was less buoyant and brave, but that he was far more thoughtful, grave,
and earnest. He was exact and punctilious in the performance of every
military duty, was always ready to "bear a hand" at the entertainments
and parties, but the haunts where he had once reigned supreme knew him
no more. The post trader was heard regretfully to remark that Ray wasn't
half the man he expected to find him, and there were rattle-pates among
the youngsters in the regiment to whom "Ray's reformation" was a source
of outspoken regret. "If that's the effect of getting all over in love,"
said Mr. Hunter, "I don't want any of it in mine."

Poker, too, languished as a popular pastime; the demand for morning
cocktails had unaccountably fallen off; the bar-keeper would fall asleep
at the club-room from sheer lack of employment during the afternoons and
early evenings, for many of the married ladies had brought maiden
relatives as friends to spend the winter with them, and half a dozen new
romances were starting; and the colonel had his eye on some of the old
_habitues_ of "the store," and Wilkins and Crane and one or two other
formerly reliable patrons were kept too busy to spend time or money at
that once seductive retreat, and with the injustice of embittered human
nature it was their wont to ascribe it all to Ray's backsliding, a
matter of which that young gentleman was for some time in ignorance. He
spent his off-duty hours in writing or reading or long chats with
Truscott and romps with Baby Jack; he always dined with them on Sunday,
and was in and out between their house, the Stannards', and "Saint's
Rest" (as Blake had named the bachelor ranch which