commander's tent. Foremost among them, in loose flapping
raiment and broad-brimmed hat and green goggles, the rotund and portly
shape of Major Plummer, the paymaster.

"Well, old man," says the cavalry leader, "you can hardly get into a
scrape 'twixt here and Sidney. We've seen you through all right so
far; now we'll go on about our scouting. Your old friend Feeny asked
permission to see you safely to the railway."

"What, Feeny? and a first sergeant too? I'm honored, indeed! Well,
sergeant," he adds, catching sight of the grizzled red face under the
old scouting hat, "I'll promise to let you run the machine this time
and not interfere, no matter what stories come to us of beauty in
distress. All ready?"

"All ready, sir, if the major is."

"He wasn't that civil to me in Arizona," laughs the paymaster, as he
turns to shake hands with the officers about him.

"You see you were new to the business then," explains a tall captain;
"Feeny considers you a war veteran now, after your experience at
Moreno's. We all had to serve our apprenticeship as suckling
lieutenants before he would show us anything but a semblance of
respect. Good-by, major; good luck to you."

"Good-by all. Good-by, Drummond. Good-by, Wing.--Here! I must shake
hands with you two again." And shake he does; then is slowly "boosted"
into his wagon, where, as the whip cracks and the mules plunge at
their collars and tilt him backward, the major's jolly red face beams
on all around, and he waves his broad-brimmed hat in exuberant
cordiality as they rattle away.

The group of officers presently disperses, two tall lieutenants
strolling off together and throwing themselves under the spreading
branches of a big cottonwood. One of them, darker and somewhat heavier
built now, but muscular, active, powerful, is Drummond; the other, a
younger man by a brace of years, tall, blue-eyed, blonde-bearded,
wearing on his scouting-blouse the straps of a second lieutenant, is
our old friend Wing, and Wing does not hesitate in presence of his
senior officer--such is the bond of friendship between them--to draw
from his breast-pocket a letter just received that day when the
courier met them at the crossing of the Dry Fork, and to lose himself
in its contents.

"All well with the madam and the kid?" queries Drummond, after the
manner of the frontier, when at last Wing folds and replaces his
letter, a happy light in his brave blue eyes.

"All well; Paquita says that H