ired. He was a graduate of West Point, he had seen
service in Cuba, in the Boxer business, and in the Philippines. For an
act of conspicuous courage at Batangas, he had received the medal of
honor. He had had the luck of the devil. Wherever he held command
turned out to be the place where things broke loose. And Aintree
always attacked and routed them, always was the man on the job. It was
his name that appeared in the newspapers, it was his name that headed
the list of the junior officers mentioned for distinguished conduct.
Standish had followed his career with an admiration and a joy that was
without taint of envy or detraction. He gloried in Aintree, he
delighted to know the army held such a man. He was grateful to Aintree
for upholding the traditions of a profession to which he himself gave
all the devotion of a fanatic. He made a god of him. This was the
attitude of mind toward Aintree before he came to the Isthmus. Up to
that time he had never seen his idol. Aintree had been only a name
signed to brilliant articles in the service magazines, a man of whom
those who had served with him or under him, when asked concerning him,
spoke with loyalty and awe, the man the newspapers called "the hero of
Batangas." And when at last he saw his hero, he believed his worship
was justified. For Aintree looked the part. He was built like a
greyhound with the shoulders of a stevedore. His chin was as
projecting, and as hard, as the pointed end of a flat-iron. His every
movement showed physical fitness, and his every glance and tone a
confidence in himself that approached insolence. He was thirty-eight,
twelve years older than the youth who had failed to make his
commission, and who, as Aintree strode past, looked after him with
wistful, hero-worshipping eyes. The revulsion, when it came, was
extreme. The hero-worship gave way to contempt, to indignant
condemnation, in which there was no pity, no excuse. That one upon
whom so much had been lavished, who for himself had accomplished such
good things, should bring disgrace upon his profession, should by his
example demoralize his men, should risk losing all he had attained, all
that had been given, was intolerable. When Standish learned his hero
was a drunkard, when day after day Aintree furnished visible evidences
of that fact, Standish felt Aintree had betrayed him and the army and
the government that had educated, trained, clothed, and fed him. He
regarded Ai