cting as his counsel,
would gladly have kicked him. The findings of the court-martial, that
neither cleared nor condemned, and the reprimand, were an intolerable
insult to his feelings, and, in a fit of bitter disgust with the
service and every one in it, Swanson resigned. Of course, the moment
he had done so he was sorry. Swanson's thought was that he could no
longer associate with any one who could believe him capable of theft.
It was his idea of showing his own opinion of himself and the army.

But no one saw it in that light. On the contrary, people said:
"Swanson has been allowed to resign." In the army, voluntarily
resigning and being "allowed to resign" lest greater evils befall, are
two vastly different things. And when it was too late no one than
Swanson saw that more clearly. His anger gave way to extreme
morbidness. He believed that in resigning he had assured every one of
his guilt. In every friend and stranger he saw a man who doubted him.
He imagined snubs, rebuffs, and coldnesses. His morbidness fastened
upon his mind like a parasite upon a tree, and the brain sickened.
When men and women glanced at his alert, well-set-up figure and
shoulders, that even when he wore "cits" seemed to support epaulets,
and smiled approvingly, Swanson thought they sneered. In a week he
longed to be back in the army with a homesickness that made every one
who belonged to it his enemy.

He left San Francisco, where he was known to all, and travelled south
through Texas, and then to New Orleans and Florida. He never could
recall this period with clearness. He remembered changing from one
train to another, from one hotel to the next. Nothing impressed itself
upon him. For what he had lost nothing could give consolation.
Without honor life held no charm. And he believed that in the eyes of
all men he was a thief, a pariah, and an outcast.

He had been in Cuba with the Army of Occupation, and of that beautiful
island had grown foolishly fond. He was familiar with every part of
it, and he believed in one or another of its pretty ports he could so
completely hide himself that no one could intrude upon his misery. In
the States, in the newspapers he seemed to read only of those places
where he had seen service, of those places and friends and associates
he most loved. In the little Cuban village in which he would bury
himself he would cut himself off from all newspapers, from all who knew
him; from those who had be