Aintree forgot. It
was Standish who remembered.

The men of the Zone police are hand-picked. They have been soldiers,
marines, cowboys, sheriffs, "Black Hussars" of the Pennsylvania State
constabulary, rough riders with Roosevelt, mounted police in Canada,
irregular horse in South Africa; they form one of the best-organized,
best-disciplined, most efficient, most picturesque semi-military bodies
in the world. Standish joined them from the Philippine constabulary in
which he had been a second lieutenant. There are several like him in
the Zone police, and in England they would be called gentlemen rankers.
On the Isthmus, because of his youth, his fellow policemen called
Standish "Kid." And smart as each of them was, each of them admitted
the Kid wore his uniform with a difference. With him it always looked
as though it had come freshly ironed from the Colon laundry; his
leather leggings shone like meerschaum pipes; the brim of his sombrero
rested impudently on the bridge of his nose.

"He's been an officer," they used to say in extenuation. "You can tell
when he salutes. He shows the back of his hand." Secretly, they were
proud of him. Standish came of a long chain of soldiers, and that the
weakest link in the chain had proved to be himself was a sorrow no one
else but himself could fathom. Since he was three years old he had
been trained to be a soldier, as carefully, with the same singleness of
purpose, as the crown prince is trained to be a king. And when, after
three happy, glorious years at West Point, he was found not clever
enough to pass the examinations and was dropped, he did not curse the
gods and die, but began again to work his way up. He was determined he
still would wear shoulder-straps. He owed it to his ancestors. It was
the tradition of his family, the one thing he wanted; it was his
religion. He would get into the army even if by the side door, if only
after many years of rough and patient service. He knew that some day,
through his record, through the opportunity of a war, he would come
into his inheritance. Meanwhile he officered his soul, disciplined his
body, and daily tried to learn the lesson that he who hopes to control
others must first control himself.

He allowed himself but one dissipation, one excess. That was to hate
Major Aintree, commanding the Thirty-third Infantry. Of all the world
could give, Aintree possessed everything that Standish considered the
most to be des