personal charm that wins its way too easily. He danced well; he
was facile at the piano; and he had so pronounced a gift as an amateur
actor that a celebrated professional had advised him to go on the stage.

The two entering the cadet officers' school at the same time, chance
made them roommates and choice soon made them chums. They had in common
cleverness and the abundant energy that must continually express itself
in action, and a mutual attraction in the very complexity of dissimilar
traits that wove well in companionship.

While they were together Lanstron was a brake on his friend's impulses
of frivolity which carried him to extremes; but they separated after
receiving their commissions, Feller being assigned to the
horse-artillery and Lanstron to the infantry and later to the staff. In
charge of a field-battery at manoeuvres Feller was at his best. But in
the comparative idleness of his profession he had much spare time for
amusement, which led to gambling. Soon many debts hung over his head,
awaiting liquidation at high rates of interest when he should come into
the family property.

To the last his mother, having ever in mind a picture of him as a fine
figure riding at the head of his guns, was kept in ignorance of this
side of his life. With her death, when he had just turned thirty, a
fortune was at his disposal. He made an oath of his resolution to pay
his debts, marry and settle down and maintain his inheritance
unimpaired. This endured for a year before it began to waver; and the
wavering was soon followed by headlong obsession which fed on itself. As
his passion for gambling grew it seemed to consume the better elements
of his nature. Lanstron reasoned with him, then implored, then stormed;
and Feller, regularly promising to reform, regularly fell each time into
greater excesses. Twice Lanstron saved him from court-martial, but the
third time no intercession or influence would induce his superiors to
overlook the offence. Feller was permitted to resign to avoid a scandal,
and at thirty-three, penniless, disgraced, he faced the world and sought
the new land which has been the refuge for numbers of his kind. Only one
friend bade him farewell as he boarded a steamer for New York, and this
was Lanstron.

"Keep away from cities! Seek the open country! And write me,
Gustave--don't fail!" said Lanstron.

Letters full of hope came from a Wyoming ranch; letters that told how
Feller had learned to rope a stee