Excerpt
CHAPTER I. TWO TROOPERS.
"Ray, what would you do if some one were to leave you a fortune?"
"Humph! Pay for the clothes I have on, I suppose," is the answer, half humorous, half wistful, as the interrogated party, the younger of two officers, glances down at his well-worn regimentals. "That's one reason I'm praying we may be sent to reinforce Crook up in the Sioux country. No need of new duds when you're scouting for old 'Gray Fox,' you know."
"I thought you wanted to take a leave this summer and visit the old home in Kentucky," says the major, with a look of rather kindly interest from under his shaggy eyebrows.
"Want must be my master, then. I couldn't pay my way home if they'd take me as freight," replies the lieutenant, in the downright and devil-may-care style which is one of his several pronounced characteristics. "Of course," he continues presently, "I would like to look in on the mother again; she's getting on in years now and isn't over and above strong, but she has no cares or worries to speak of; she don't know what a reprobate I am; sister Nell is married and out of the way; the old home is sold and mother lives in comfort on the proceeds; she's happy up at Lexington with her sister's people. What's the use of my going back to Kentuck and being a worry to her? Before I'd been there a week I'd be spending most of my time down at the track or the stables; I could no more keep away from the horses than I could from a square game, and she hates both,—they swamped my father before I knew an ace from an ant-hill. No, sir! The more I think of it the more I know the only place for me is right here with the old regiment. What's more, the livelier work we have in the field and the less we get of garrison grind the better it is for me. I almost wish we were back in Arizona to-day."
"Why, confound it! man, it isn't a year since we left there," breaks in the major, impatiently, "and we haven't begun to get a taste of civilization yet. You let the women in the regiment hear you talk of wanting to go back there, or what's worse, going up to join Crook in Wyoming, and they'll mob you. Who was it your sister married?" he suddenly asks.
"A man named Rallston,—a swell contractor or something up in Iowa. I never saw him; indeed, it's nearly nine years since I saw her; but she promised to be a beauty then, and they all say she grew up a beauty; but Nell was headstrong and always in mischief, and I'm glad she's settled down. She used to write to me when she was first married, four years ago, and send me occasional 'tips' for Christmas and birthdays, and she was going to give me a Lexington colt when I came East, but she's quit all that, because I was an ungrateful cub and never answered, I suppose. She knows there's nothing I hate worse than writing, and oughtn't to be hard on me. It's all I can do to send a monthly report to the mother."
"Did you say you never saw her husband?" asks the major after a pause, in which he had been apparently studying the quick-tripping hoofs of Ray's nimble sorrel.
"No; never set eyes on him. It was a sudden smite,—one of those flash-in-the-pan, love-at-first-sight affairs. He was down in Kentucky buying horses, saw her at a party, and made no end of fuss over her; had lots of money and style, you know, and the first I heard of it they were married and off. It was our first year in Arizona, and mails were a month old when they got to us."
"How long is it since you heard from her?" says the major, after another pause.
Mr. Ray looks up in some surprise. He hardly knows what to make of this display of curiosity on the part of his ordinarily indifferent companion, but he answers quietly enough,—
"Over a year, I reckon. She was in Omaha then and Rallston was away a good deal,—had big cattle interests somewhere; I know that mother used to ask if Nell told me much about him, and she seemed anxious. Nell herself said that mother was much opposed to the match,—didn't seem to take to Rallston at all,—but she was bound to have him, and she did, and she's just that high-strung sort of girl that if disappointed or unhappy would never let on to the mother as long as she lived."
They are riding slowly in from troop-drill, the battalion commander and a pet of his, Mr....