A week more, and he had another opportunity of testing it. Going to the

village for the mail, he found a group of men eagerly listening to one

of their number who was reading aloud the terrible details of the Custer

massacre. Graham heard it all in silence, got the mill mail, and walked

thoughtfully homeward. Old Morrow was seated with Nellie in the porch,

and Frost, hat in hand, was standing at the foot of the steps, looking

up at them as he spoke deferentially to the miller.

"Any news, Dick?" asked the miller, shortly.

"Terrible news, sir!" said Graham, eying Frost closely as he spoke.

"General Custer and his regiment, the Seventh Cavalry, were butchered by

the Indians a fortnight ago."

Frost fairly staggered. A wild light shot into his face; his hat fell

from his nerveless hand.

"I do not believe a word of it!" he gasped. "It's a lie! They never

could! Give me the paper," he demanded, hoarsely; but Graham coolly

avoided his attempt to seize it and handed the paper to Morrow. Eying

him closely, as Dick had done, the miller tore the wrapper with

provoking deliberation, and finally gave the contents to Frost. He had

partially recovered self-control by this time, but his hands shook like

palsy as he unfolded the paper.

"My God! it's true!--mainly true, at least," he gasped, while drops of

sweat started to his forehead. "All with him were killed. It has knocked

the breath out of me. I knew so many of them out there, you know."

"In Arizona?" asked Morrow.

"Ye-yes--Arizona!" he stammered. "It tells here what officers were

killed, but does not give the names of the men. I wish it did. I wish I

knew. They are the ones I saw most of." Then he stopped short, as though

he had said too much. And all the time both Morrow and Graham had never

ceased their rigid scrutiny, and he knew it. He hurriedly went away.

CHAPTER III

That night Nellie was fitful and constrained in manner. Dick went home

restless and unhappy. It was very late, but there was the light burning

brightly down at the office.

"Who are there?" he asked the lad who did odd jobs around the miller's

house, and who slept in Graham's cottage.

"Mr. Morrow and Frost. Gosh! how the old man has been cussin' him. He

cusses everybody round here now, don't he? I heerd down in the village

you was going to quit."

Graham made no reply, but turned gloomily into his own room.

Next morning Frost came to him looking very pale and nervous.

"Graham," he said, "I want to ask a great favor. I must go to Chicago,

and I want twenty dollars. Will you lend me that much? I will give it to

you again next week."

"Why do you come to me?" asked Graham, shortly.

"The old man and I are at loggerheads, and--I know he would not let me

have it. Once in Chicago, and I can get money, you shall have it--sure."

Graham hesitated. He had saved but little from the small stipend

allowed him, but a thought struck him that the surest way to get rid of

an objectionable acquaintance was to lend him money. It might keep Frost

from returning. Stepping to his worn old desk, he unlocked and opened

it, took from an inner compartment a small roll of bills, counted out

twenty dollars, and handed it to Frost without a word.

"You think you won't get this back, Graham, but you will," said the

latter, as he eagerly took it and went away. This was a Tuesday morning.

On the following Sunday Dick Graham was amazed to see Frost standing at

the miller's gate talking earnestly with Nellie, who dropped her head

and scurried into the house as she caught sight of his approaching form.

"Back, you see!" said Frost, holding out his hand, which Dick

unwillingly took. He had returned a new man. His clothes, that had begun

to grow shabby, were replaced by new ones of stylish cut and make; his

eyes were bright, his color high, his voice ringing and animated; his

manner was brisk and cheery, yet nervous.

"Have you seen Mr. Morrow?" was all Graham could find to say by the way

of welcome. "He is down at the mill, and wants you."

It had been a wretched five days for Dick. Twice he had surprised Nellie

in tears that she could not explain, and the old man had treated him

with gross injustice on several occasions. All his old fury of manner

had been redoubled. He openly accused Dick of having furnished money to

aid Frost in getting away when he knew him to be a cheat and an

impostor; knew that Frost had garbled the accounts and been stealing at

the mill, and in all probability he was no better than an accomplice.

Twice Dick's indignation and wrath had given way to angry retort, and

the story had gone far and wide around Nemahbin that the old man and the

young one were bitter enemies, and Dick had openly vowed he could stand

it no longer. Then Nellie, who had been coquetting with his hopes and

fears, had once again plunged him into the depths. He loved her blindly,

madly, poor fellow, and was bent as she willed, but the time had come

when he could brook his ills no longer; and that Sunday evening,

standing by the rushing stream down below the dam, and moodily throwing

stone after stone into the dark waters, Dick Graham had determined to

face his fate, and have the matter ended then and there.

He was to take her to the village for evening service. She and her aunt

quite frequently spent the night with friends in 'Mahbin in preference

to coming back to the mill through the darkness, and this bright July

day had turned to night, dark, cloudy, overcast, with heavy fog-wreaths

whirling through the cheerless air. The rain came pattering down as they

left the church, and hospitable friends urged their stay. Ten minutes

later Dick was standing in the bright light of a parlor, face to face

with the girl who had been his idol from boyhood until now. They were

alone. She saw in his face that the crisis had come, and was pale and

nervous as he was pale and determined, yet she strove to assume a light

and laughing manner.

"What is it, Dick? You have been solemn as an undertaker for a whole

week, and to-night you are like--I don't know what."

Quickly he seized her hands, and held them firmly against every effort

to draw them away. His heart beat like a hammer, his eyes were flaming

with the fire of his love, his lips quivered and twitched with the

intensity of his emotion.

"Nellie," he said, "I can stand it no longer! That man is back again; I

saw you with him to-day. I--oh!--time and again I have told you how I

loved you. It is more than love--it is worship, almost. It has been so

ever since you were a little girl and I carried you to school. You did

care for me--you know you did--until this fellow came here and made us

all wretched. Nellie, I will have an answer to-night. I will know if you

love me; tell me, tell me now." It was no longer an imploring prayer, it

was a demand.

Struggle though she might, she could not free herself. His eyes seemed

to burn into hers, and she shrank from their wild gaze as though they

stung to her very soul.

"Answer me," he said. "You told me you loved me last Christmas. Do you

love me now?"

"Oh, Dick, I--I didn't know. I could not tell," she gasped; "I thought I

loved you, but--"

"But now you know you love him, is it?" he almost hissed. "Do you know

what I think of him? He is a scoundrel, a man without home or name. He

has a history he dare not tell; he lies every time he answers a

question; he wants to marry you because you will be rich, but that's

all."

"You shall not speak of him so," she interrupted in wrath and

indignation. "He is a gentleman, and he does love me, and all you say of

him is false. I know he has been unhappy, unfortunate--"

"He has been more than that, I'll be bound," sneered Graham, all bitter,

jealous anger now. "He is a criminal of some kind--mark my words."

"How dare you?" she cried; "oh, how dare you? He would crush you if you

would dare speak so to him. I will never forgive you--never. I never

want to see or speak to you again--"

"What do you say?" he gasped, livid with pain and misery.

"I never want to see or speak to you again," she repeated, though her

eyes quailed before the dumb agony of his. For a moment there was dead

silence. Then with one long look in her paling face he said, slowly,

almost humbly:

"I take you at your word. Life has been hell to me here for a long time,

and you--you, whom I loved--have driven me from the only home I ever

had."

One instant more and he was gone, leaving her sobbing wildly, she hardly

knew why.

And early next morning came the fearful news that her father lay

murdered at the mill.

A week of intense excitement followed. Not only in Nemahbin was the

mysterious death of old Morrow the one subject of conversation, but all

through the surrounding counties people talked of nothing else. By

sunset of that beautiful Monday the news had spread far and wide; the

reporters of the city journals were already on the spot, and by Tuesday

night the verdict of the coroner's jury had gone forth and the officers

of the law were in search of the criminal, whose name flashed over the

humming wires from one ocean to another. Richard Graham stood accused of

the murder of his employer, and Richard Graham had gone, no one knew

whither.

But there were those who could not and would not believe it of him, and

foremost among them was the minister. The evidence against him was

mainly circumstantial; the principal accuser was Frost, and the chain of

circumstances that linked Graham with the crime were substantially as

follows:

The boy who worked around the mill-house and slept in the second story

of the Graham's cottage testified that about half an hour before sunset

Sunday evening he heard old Morrow "cussing and swearing" at somebody

down in the mill, while he was going out to drive the cows home; didn't

see who it was, but ten minutes afterwards as he came back he saw Graham

pitching stones into the stream down below the mill, "looking queer;"

called to him twice, but Graham did not answer; supposed he was mad at

the old man for cussing him so--they had had lots of trouble for a week;

heard the old man tell him he was going to get rid of him if he didn't

do different.

That night he (the witness) went out in the country a piece and did not

come home until half-past ten. It was all dark around the mill when he

got back. It had been raining, but the sky was brighter then, and as he

passed the south door he was surprised to see it open. The old man

generally locked it and went home early. He was just going to go and

shut it when a man came out. It "skeered" him because the old man had

given him fits for being out late and lying abed in the morning, so he

stopped short to wait until he got away. The man shut and locked the

door, and walked up the road ahead of him, and then he saw that it was

not the old man, but young Graham, and that Mr. Graham was going

straight up to the mill-house, so he cut across to the cottage and got

in soft as he could. Yes, it might have been eleven o'clock by that

time, and he did not want Mr. Frost, or Mr. Graham either, to know he

was out so late. It was all dark at the mill-house, and all dark at the

cottage, but Mr. Frost heard him and called him into his room and asked

for a dipper of water. Mr. Frost was in bed and asked him what time it

was, and said he had been asleep, but waked up with a headache; told him

he did not know the time; didn't want him to know it was so late, 'cause

he might tell the old man. Mr. Frost asked him where Dick was, and just

then they heard Dick coming up the front steps, and the witness went up

to his own room. Heard them talking down-stairs for a little while, but

could not understand what they were saying; did not listen particularly;

went to sleep, and slept a good while; was awakened by hearing some

noise in Dick's room, which was directly under his--sounded like

something glass being broken, but everything was quiet right off, and

he thought he might have dreamed it. Next thing he knowed it was

morning, and Mandy, the cook over at the mill-house, was calling to him

from the bottom of the stairs to get up right off--the master hadn't

come home all night, and there was people waitin' down at the mill.

Dick's room was open and the bed hadn't been slept on, and his clothes

and things were all thrown all round on the floor; it looked queer, she

said; he was gone, too; ran down as quick as he could dress and called

Mr. Frost, who was asleep in bed and did not wake easy; called him three

or four times and banged on the door, and at last opened it and called

him louder; then he woke up slowly and wanted to know the matter; told

him Mandy said Mr. Morrow had not been home and that Dick was not there,

and there was farmers with wheat at the mill. He said go and open the

mill and he would be down in a minute; told him that Dick had the key

and had locked the mill late last night; saw him do it. Mr. Frost jumped

right up in bed excited like and said, "You saw him do it! When, where

were you?" and so had to tell him about Dick's being there, coming out

of the mill late as nearly eleven o'clock. Then Mandy came back and said

she found the key hanging on the peg inside the hall-door, and witness

took it and went down and opened the south door. The office window-shade

was down and the office door on the east side was shut, and so it was

kinder dark, but he and the two men waiting there went right through the

mill into the office, and there they found the old man dead on the

floor, with lots of blood streaming from his head. It skeered him

awful, and they ran out. Then Mr. Frost came, and he was pale, and said,

"My God, what an awful thing!" and they sent right to 'Mahbin for Dr.

Green, and the mayor and constable; and that was all he knowed.

Doctor Green's testimony, divested of professional technicalities, was

to the effect that the miller had been killed at least six or eight

hours, and that death was the result of the gun-shot wound through the

head. The bullet was found imbedded in the skull at the back of the

head, and had entered under the left eye. The face was burned and

blackened by powder. No other wound or hurt was found upon the body. The

doctor had arrived at the mill about 6.45 a.m., accompanied by Mr.

Lowrie, the mayor of Nemahbin, an old friend of the deceased. When they

arrived, Mr. Frost was in charge of the premises, and stated that no one

had entered the office since the moment he had arrived at the spot.

Mr. Lowrie testified to coming with the doctor; being received by Mr.

Frost and ushered into the office. The deceased was then lying on his

face with his feet near the window. There was much blood on the floor,

and spattered on the legs of an office chair that stood close by the

head. No weapon of any kind was found in the office, and the object of

the murder was explained at a glance; the desk was rifled, the safe was

open, and while the papers therein were found undisturbed, the cash

drawer, in which it was known that the deceased generally kept a good

deal of money, was empty. Other testimony established the fact that he

had as much as five hundred dollars in the drawer on the previous

Saturday. In presence of the mayor, constable, Mr. Frost, and one or two

neighbors, the bullet had been cut out from behind by the doctor. It was

slightly flattened, and in shape, and in its exact weight as

subsequently determined, it corresponded exactly with those of a

"five-shooting" revolver of peculiar make known as "the Avenger." To Mr.

Lowrie's knowledge only two pistols of that kind were owned in that

neighborhood, and both had been bought by him two years before at a time

when there was a scare about mad dogs. One he still owned, and it was

now at home, locked up in his desk; the other was Richard Graham's, and

he had seen it in his possession less than a week ago.

Mr. Frost's testimony, given with much emotion and apparent reluctance,

was to this effect: His first knowledge of the murder was Monday morning

about six o'clock, when summoned to the mill by the tidings that Mr.

Morrow had not been home all night. Going to the east entrance, he found

the boy, Schaffer, and two young farmers, frightened and excited over

what they had seen in the office. He went in at once, followed by them,

and saw at a glance that murder had been done, though his first thought

was suicide. He merely turned the body enough to see that the wound was

in the face, and to satisfy himself and the others that no pistol was

near, and then, pointing to the fact that the safe and desk were both

open, he ordered everybody out and closed the door until the arrival of

the officials from Nemahbin.

Questioned as to his own movements the previous night, he said that

after supper, when Graham drove the ladies to town, he himself had gone

home and read an hour, but, feeling drowsy, had gone to bed, waking up

some hours later with a headache on hearing the boy coming in. The boy

said he didn't know the time, but it must have been eleven o'clock, and

just then Graham came up the steps and the boy went to his own room;

witness called out to him twice and got no answer, and at last, thinking

it queer that Graham did not go to bed, but kept moving briskly about,

he rose and went into the front room in his night-shirt, and found

Graham packing a big satchel he had, and rummaging through the clothes

on the pegs. Asked him what was the matter, and Graham hardly noticed

him--merely said he was going away awhile; could not help noticing how

queer and strange he looked, and how oddly he behaved; he was very pale,

and muttered to himself every now and then; asked him twice if he had

any reason for going, and when he would return, but only got evasive

answers and averted looks; knew that there had been ugly words between

the deceased and Graham very often during the month past, and that there

was an angry altercation between them down at the mill just before

supper-time; the deceased had told him that he was going to discharge

Graham; he was getting too insolent and rebellious to suit him; Graham

hardly ate anything at supper, and the old man did not come up to the

house until after they had driven off to church. That was the last he

saw of him alive--as he passed the cottage on his way to the

mill-house. Asked as to whether anything of unusual or suspicious nature

had occurred during the day or evening, Frost said that one thing struck

him as queer. Graham's revolver hung habitually at the head of his bed,

and when he concluded to go to bed that evening he went into Graham's

room to look at the clock and saw that his pistol was gone. It had been

there during the day, and he never knew him to carry it before. Asked if

he saw it in Graham's possession Sunday night, he replied that he saw it

sticking from the hip pocket of his trousers; that Graham had his coat

off and was washing his hands at the time. One other ugly circumstance

was noted: Graham had been burning a lot of papers and things in the

stove before being interrupted. When the stove was examined in the

morning some buttons were found, charred and partially destroyed in the

ashes, but they were clearly identified as the buttons of the canvas

overalls Graham wore around the mill--which were missing--and behind the

stove was found a fine cambric handkerchief that Graham only used when

he wore his best, or Sunday suit, which he had on all that day, and this

handkerchief was stained with blood.

Nellie Morrow was so fearfully agitated by the tragedy that her own

evidence was only drawn from her bit by bit. She confirmed the statement

of Dick's pallor and his silence all that evening, and then with

hysterical sobbing told of their quarrel after church and his leaving

her, as he said, never to return; but she protested that he had "never a

thing against father," and that he never, never could have harmed him.

All other obtainable evidence had the same general tendency, and despite

his years of sturdy probity and the excellence of his character, Dick

Graham had to bear the burden of the accumulation of evidence against

him. The absent always have the worst of it, and his flight had

confirmed the theories of many an unwilling mind. He was the murderer of

his former friend and benefactor.

CHAPTER IV.

A week passed, and with no tidings of him. Detectives had been scouring

the country in every direction. A man answering his description was

arrested in Chicago, and turned out to be somebody else. A dozen times

it was reported that now the sleuth-hounds of the law had run down their

victim, but the entire month of July passed away, and the community had

gradually settled down to the belief that Graham had made good his

escape and taken with him some five hundred dollars of his murdered

master's money.

Old Morrow had been duly and reverently buried. A younger brother from a

distant state came to the scene as executor of the will, in conjunction

with Mr. Lowrie, and under his management the mill resumed its functions

for the benefit of the estate. Except some legacies to this brother and

to the sister who had taken charge of Nellie and his household, old

Morrow had left his property, valued at over forty thousand dollars, to

be divided equally between his two children should Sam reappear; but if

proof of his death were obtained, his share was to go to Nellie.

A week after the funeral, acting on the advice of the minister and the

village doctor, Nellie's relatives sent her to Chicago. She had suffered

greatly in health, and was in a condition of nervous depression.

Whenever Dick's crime was mentioned in her presence, she would

vehemently assert her belief in his innocence, and then shudderingly

accuse herself, with piteous crying, of being the cause of all his

trouble, and perhaps of her father's death. Another thing. She who had

plainly shown herself fascinated by Mr. Frost's many graces and

attractions during the preceding winter, now refused to see him. He hung

around the house, full of respectful sympathy and lover-like interest,

but was visibly chagrined at her persistent avoidance. To the minister

she confessed that she had been greatly interested in Frost--perhaps a

little in love with him; he flattered and delighted her, and it made

Dick jealous. She didn't know how or why she so encouraged him, but she

had, and now she shrank from seeing him at all. Her deep affliction

would excuse it.

A week after she left for Chicago Mr. Frost concluded that he would go

thither himself. The new master needed no bookkeeper, he said, and Frost

was too fine a gentleman to do Dick's work around the mill. He was

neither invited to go nor to stay. He was allowed to go and come without

apparent let or hindrance, yet, before the train which bore him away

was well out of sight, a new farm-hand, who worked at odd jobs around a

neighboring place on the lake, suddenly entered the railway station,

wrote ten hurried words on a telegraph-blank, and handed it to the

operator, whereupon the operator gazed at him in quick surprise, then

whistled softly to himself, nodded appreciatively, and clicked away the

message, with the addition of a cabalistic "Rush," and Mr. Frost's train

was boarded at Milwaukee by a number of people who took no special note

of him, and by one man who never lost sight of him from that moment

until he locked his bedroom door behind him at night.

Then the minister received a call from the new farm-hand, who brought

with him a young man who worked on a place over near Eagle Prairie, a

railway station some distance off to the southwest. This young man had

spent Sunday calling on a sweetheart in 'Mahbin, and had started about

7.30 p.m. to walk to the large town seven miles away, where he would

take the cars homeward. He saw Nellie, her aunt, and a young man driving

into town, and by eight o'clock he himself was passing the mill. It was

just growing dark, so that he could not distinguish faces, but he saw

two men standing by the office--one short, stout, and elderly, the other

tall and slender and straight. The older man was talking furiously and

angrily; heard him say, "I told you an hour ago to keep away from me.

You have lied to me right along. You are a thief and a scoundrel, I

believe, and you are a damned coward and deserter--a deserter, by God!

and I've got the papers to prove it!"

What the tall man said he could not hear. He spoke low--seemed to be

arguing with the old man, begging him to be quiet, and they went into

the office. Then the young man walked on a few hundred yards, when it

came on to rain very hard, and he stopped and took shelter under a

little fishing-shed there was right at the edge of the lake. The rain

held up in fifteen minutes, and he started on again over the causeway,

"and hadn't more'n got a rod" when he heard what sounded like a

pistol-shot back at the mill. He stopped short and listened two minutes,

but heard nothing more, so went on and thought no more of it until he

heard of the murder--but that was not until a week after it happened,

when he came up from the farm to Eagle village and heard people talking

about it.

But with the first week in August came exciting news. Far to the

northwest across the Missouri, Dick Graham had been traced and followed

by a Wisconsin detective, who found him in the uniform of the regular

army, just marching off with his comrades to join General Terry's

forces, then in the field up the Yellowstone. In his possession was the

Avenger revolver and over one hundred dollars in greenbacks. On two

five-dollar bills there was a broad and ugly stain, which microscopic

examination proved to be blood. Graham appeared utterly stunned at the

arrest; expressed the greatest grief and horror at hearing of the murder

of Mr. Morrow, and professed his entire willingness to go back and stand

trial. The story of his "escape" to that distance was now easily told.

The detectives had speedily satisfied themselves he had got away on

none of the regular trains that week, but one bright fellow had learned

that four cars full of troops had passed west late that Sunday night,

and followed the clue. They had gone through to Bismarck--a tedious

journey in '76--and thither he followed. Thence the troops had gone by

boat up the Missouri, and he took the first opportunity that came--and

the next boat going up. At Fort Buford he "sighted" his man, told his

story to the commanding officer of the post, who sent for the officers

of the troops with whom poor Dick was serving. They promptly asserted

that their first knowledge of him was on the Monday they reached St.

Paul, when a sergeant brought him to them, saying he begged to be

allowed to enlist and go with them. He told a perfectly straight story;

said he was an orphan, unmarried, had been a miller, but was tired of

small wages, hard work, and no hopes of getting ahead, and had made up

his mind to get into the regulars. Was at the railway station at

midnight when the train was side-tracked to allow another to pass, and

appealed to the sergeant of the guard to take him along; said he would

pay his way until they could enlist him, and as he was a likely fellow

they were glad to have him. He had won everybody's respect in the short

time he was with them, and the whole command seemed thunderstruck to

hear of the allegations against him.

The detective and his prisoner were put on a boat going back to

Bismarck, and on that same boat, returning, wounded and furloughed, was

a sergeant of the Seventh Cavalry--a gallant fellow who had fought

under Benteen and McDougall on the bluffs of the Little Horn, after

Custer's command had been surrounded and slaughtered four miles farther

down stream. The sergeant kept to his room and bunk until they got to

Bismarck, but the detectives had a chance to see and talk with him--and

so had Graham.

It was an eventful day when the detective and his prisoner reached

Nemahbin. The minister was there to meet him, as was Mr. Lowrie, and the

entire male population of the neighborhood. There was no disorder or

turbulence. Dick was quietly escorted to a room in the constable's

house--they had no jail--and there that night he had a long conference

with the minister and other prominent citizens. The minister drove home

quite late--but very much later, along towards two in the morning, in

fact, he was at the railway station and received in his buggy the single

passenger who alighted from the night express.

Next day there was a gathering at the mayor's office--an apartment in

the municipal residence devoted to dining-room duty three times a day,

and opening into the kitchen on the one hand, into the hallway on

another, and into the village post-office on the third. Here sat Mr.

Lowrie, the doctor, the constable, other local celebrities, and one or

two distinguished importations from Milwaukee. Here was the minister,

looking singularly wide-awake, lively, and brisk for a man who had been

up all night; here, too, sat the farm-hand who sent the cabalistic

despatch when Frost went to Chicago, and the young man who heard the

conversation down at the mill that Sunday night; here, too, sat Dick,

looking pale but tranquil, and hither, too, presently came Mr. Frost,

looking ghastly pale and very far from tranquil. Dick looked squarely at

him as he entered, but Frost glanced rapidly about the room, eagerly

nodding to one man after another, but avoiding Dick entirely. Then

followed an impressive silence.

Outside, the August sun was streaming hotly down upon the heads of an

intensely curious and interested throng; inside there was for the moment

no sound but the humming of a thousand flies, or the nervous scraping of

a boot over the uncarpeted floor. Then the mayor whispered a few words

to the minister, who nodded to Mr. Morrow, the surviving brother, and

then Mr. Morrow stepped into the hallway leading to the mayor's parlor,

and presently reappeared at the doorway, and quietly said, "All right."

All eyes turned to glance at him at this moment, but, beyond his square,

squat figure, nothing in the darkened hallway was visible. Then the

mayor cleared his throat and began:

"By the consent of the proper authorities the prisoner, accused of the

murder of the late Samuel Morrow, has been brought here instead of to

the county town, for reasons that will appear hereafter. Graham, you

have desired to hear the evidence of Mr. Frost, one of the principal

witnesses against you at the time of the discovery of the murder. The

clerk will now read it."

And read it the clerk did, in monotonous singsong. Graham sat clinching

his fists and his teeth, and looking straight at Frost as the reading

was finished. The latter, uneasily shifting in his chair, still looked

anywhere else around the room.

"Do you wish to say anything, Graham?" asked the mayor, in answer to the

appeal in Dick's eyes.

"I do, sir. That statement is a lie almost from beginning to end. I had

no quarrel, no words with Mr. Morrow that Sunday evening--never spoke to

him at all. It was Frost himself who was with him at the mill before

supper. As to the rest of the evening I know nothing of what happened.

When I got home, and put up the horse and buggy, it must have been long

after ten. Then I found the east door of the mill was open, and went in

and found everything dark and quiet; came out and locked the door (but

never went into the office), and took the key up to the mill-house, and

hung it up on the hook in the hall. I supposed Mr. Morrow was asleep in

bed. Then I went home and burned some old letters and papers and packed

some things in my bag. I was going away for good--I've told the doctor

and the minister why--they know well enough--and I called Frost; he owed

me twenty dollars, and I needed it, and woke him up, if he was asleep,

and asked him for it, and the very money he gave me was in those

five-dollar bills. I never burned my overalls. I _did_ lose my

handkerchief somewhere about the house that night, and never missed it

until I was gone; and I never had my revolver until just before I took

my bag and started, and never knew until days afterwards--way up the

Northern Pacific--that one of the chambers was emptied. As for the

murder, I never heard of it until I was arrested."

"Mr. Frost," said the mayor, "you made no mention in your evidence of

paying money to the prisoner."

"Certainly not," said Frost, promptly, but his eyes glittered, and his

face was white as a sheet. "Nothing of the kind happened. That money

came direct from the mill safe."

"How do you know?"

"Well--of course--I don't know that; but it is my belief."

"Mr. Frost, there was no mention in your testimony of a violent

altercation between yourself and the late Mr. Morrow at the mill that

evening after Graham came in town with the ladies. Why did you omit

that?"

He was livid now, and the strong, white hands were twitching nervously.

All eyes were fastened upon him as he stood confronting the mayor, his

back towards the hallway, where, in grim silence, stood Mr. Morrow.

"I know of no such altercation," he stammered.

"Were you ever accused of being a deserter from the army?"

Every one saw the nervous start he gave, but, though haggard and wild,

he stuck to his false colors.

"Never, sir."

"That's a lie," said a deep voice out in the hall, and at the

unconventional interruption there was a general stir. Men leaned forward

and craned their necks to peer behind Mr. Morrow, who stood there

immovable.

"Order, gentlemen, if you please," said Mr. Lowrie.

"Then how and where did you know Sam Morrow, as you convinced his father

you did?"

"I?--out in Arizona, where I was mining."

"Why did you not fulfil your promise, as you said you could and would?"

"I couldn't. That was what made the old man down on me. I did believe

last winter I could find Sam and get him home, but I could not bear to

tell the old man he was killed with General Custer."

"That's another lie!" came from the hallway, and, brushing past Mr.

Morrow's squat figure, there strode into the room a tall, bronzed-faced,

soldierly fellow in the undress uniform of a sergeant of cavalry.

Men sprang to their feet and fairly shouted. Old Doctor Green threw his

arms about the soldier's neck in the excess of his joy. There was a rush

forward from the post-office doorway to greet him, a cry of "Sam

Morrow!" and then another cry--a yell--a scurry and crash at the kitchen

entrance. "Quick! Head him off! Catch him!" were the cries, and then

came a dash into the open air.

With a spring like that of a panther Frost had leaped into the unguarded

kitchen, thence to the fence beyond, and now was running like a deer

through the quiet village street towards the railway. A hundred men were

in pursuit in a moment, and in that open country there was no shelter

for skulking criminal, no lair in which he could hide till night. In

half an hour, exhausted, half dead with terror and despair, the

wretched man was dragged back, and now, limp and dejected, cowered in

the presence of his accusers.

CHAPTER V.

Sam Morrow told his story in a few words. He had served in the Seventh

Cavalry for five years under the name of Samuel Moore, and two years

before, while with his troop on the Yellowstone, the man calling himself

Frost was a sergeant in another company. He was only a short time in the

regiment, but his fine appearance, intelligence, and education led to

his speedy appointment as sergeant, and as Sergeant Farrand he had been

for a few months a popular and respected man; but as soon as they got

back to winter-quarters he turned out to be a gambler, then a swindler

and card-sharper. He lost the respect of both officers and men, got into

a gambling-scrape with some teamsters in Bismarck, was locked up by the

civil authorities, and, after a series of troubles of that description,

deserted the service in the Black Hills the summer of '75, taking three

horses with him, and that was the last seen of him until now. Sam had

been shot in the arm in the fight of the 25th of June, after the Indians

had butchered Custer's part of the regiment, and now, having served out

his time, was once more home, with an honorable discharge and a

certificate of high character from his officers.

In substantiation of Sam's story, Mr. Morrow exhibited two letters

which he had found among his brother's papers. They were from the

adjutant of the Seventh Cavalry, in reply, evidently, to inquiries which

old Morrow had instituted in May, and the second one contained a

description of Frost as the soldier Farrand, which tallied exactly.

"And now, Frost, what have you to say as to the murder?" was the next

question; and, cowering and abject, the wretch sat with bowed head and

trembling limbs, gasping, "I did not do it, I did not do it." But this

Nemahbin would believe no longer. There was a wild cry of "Hang him!"

from the excited crowd in the street, and then came a scene. Peaceful

and law-abiding as had been the community, it turned in almost savage

fury upon the scoundrel who had sought to charge his own crime upon an

innocent and long-respected citizen. A dozen resolute men leaped through

the post-office to the doorway of the inner room, but there they halted.

Between them and the cowering form of Frost stood the tall figure of Sam

Morrow, his eyes ablaze, his mouth set and stern, his left arm in a

sling, but in his right hand a levelled revolver.

"Back, every man of you!" he said. "He killed my father, but, by God, it

has got to be a fair trial!" Lowrie, the doctor, and the detective were

at his back, and Nemahbin hesitated, thought better of its mad impulse,

and retired. That night Frost lay behind the prison bars, accused of an

array of crimes, with cold-blooded murder as the climax, and Sam Morrow,

Dick Graham, and Nellie met once more at the old home.

In less than a month Frost's last hope had gone. Whether his pluck and

nerve had given out entirely, whether the rapid accumulation of damaging

evidence had made him fearful that even hanging would be too good for

him if all his past were "ferreted out," as now seemed likely, or

whether he hoped, by confession, to gain mercy, is not known; but,

before his trial, he made full admission of his guilt. He had come to

Nemahbin hoping to get such a hold on the old man by telling him he

could find Sam that he would be welcomed, and allowed to prosecute his

suit with Nellie, who was plainly fascinated. If he could gain her love

and her hand, he might settle down, be respectable on old Morrow's

money, and then, even if Sam did come home, he would not be apt to

expose the man his sister loved and married. But his efforts to convince

the old man that he was trying to find Sam, while all the time he was

doing all he knew how to keep him on the wrong track, were at constant

cross-purposes. The old man soon became suspicious of him, would advance

him no money, paid him a nominal sum for keeping books, etc., the first

three months he was there, then relieved him of that duty, and kept up

incessant cross-questioning. At last Frost found out that Graham

suspected him of being a deserter, and that the old man had got that

idea and also that his own boy was somewhere in the army. Then came the

news of the Custer massacre, and by that time he felt sure he could win

Nellie's hand if her father's consent could be gained; but Morrow was

all suspicion and eagerness, and Frost knew by his manner that he was

on the trail of his lost boy by means of letters--and these letters

would plainly betray him, who had deserted from Sam's own regiment. He

hurried to Chicago, and there--there he came upon that list of killed in

the battle of the Little Big Horn, and among the names was the one he

wanted to see, Sergeant Sam Moore. It decided him at once. He went to

his uncle, claiming that he was about to marry Nellie Morrow, got from

him a small supply of money, and came back determined to win her at

once. She was the old man's only child and sole heir. That very day

Morrow had told him that he had found him out, that in his absence he

had received letters proving him to be a scoundrel, and, giving him just

one chance to tell him where his lost boy was or to leave. Frost feared

to tell then, as he knew the miller would insist on proofs, and in some

way his own connection with the regiment would be known. That evening,

before tea, Morrow, in an angry interview, which Schaffer partially

overheard, told him he had proofs of his rascality--letters to settle

his case for good and all. Then he became desperate. Soon as Dick had

gone to town with the ladies he went to Graham's room, got the revolver,

and once more went to the mill, and found Morrow at the office door. It

was then almost dark. Then came the accusation of desertion, and, once

in the office, Morrow had called him by his soldier name, and Frost knew

"all was up." He must have those papers. He drew the revolver to

frighten the old man, and it went off, killing him instantly. He was

horror-stricken, but strove to collect himself. Flight would betray him

at once as the murderer. Why not make it a case of suicide--leave the

pistol by him? No--that would not do. It was Graham's--Ha! why not make

Graham the guilty one? Quickly he got the safe key from the old man's

pocket, unlocked and obtained the cash-drawer, with its five hundred

dollars in green-backs--opened the desk, and rummaged through the

letters till he found one from the headquarters of the Seventh Cavalry,

which gave a description of several men almost his height and general

appearance who had deserted. Among them he recognized his own and his

soldier name. With these he went to the cottage, leaving all dark at the

mill, burned the letter, hid portions of the money in Graham's mattress,

and was thinking, in terror, what to do next, when he heard voices on

the road. He dare not go out, and so wasted some time in the house. When

he heard Graham drive back with the buggy he hurriedly undressed and

went to bed. Then Schaffer came home and he called him in, that the boy

might say that he was in bed and undressed; but when Graham entered he

shammed sleep. Roused, at last, by Graham's demand for his money and the

news that he was going away, an idea occurred to him. Cutting a slit in

his finger with a razor, he let the blood fall on a couple of

five-dollar bills--smeared and quickly dried it--gave them to Graham

before he started, and as soon as he was gone went busily to work. Going

down to the mill as soon as satisfied that all was safe--Schaffer asleep

and Dick far on his way to the railroad--he found the east door locked.

Then he knew that Graham had been there; had locked the door and taken

the key to the hall of the mill-house, and of course had seen nothing of

the body. He got the key, obtained Graham's overalls from the mill,

burned them in the stove at the cottage--as he argued Dick could have

done had he bloodied them in the affray--and then in Graham's room had

found his cambric handkerchief. Once more he went down to the ghostly

mill, and dipped this into the blood of his victim; then locked the mill

door (he had locked the office door, leaving the key inside), put the

key back in the house, returned to the cottage, and to bed. He had woven

a chain for Graham that, added to the poor fellow's flight and his

previous disagreements, would fasten all suspicion on him as the

murderer. Then he thought of the money. He rose, bundled it loosely in

an old oyster-can, stole out in the gray light of approaching dawn, and

buried it in the loose sand down on the shore of the mill-pond, just

where all the cattle would go for water, and trample out all traces

within an hour; then once more he went back to bed, and to the

counterfeited sleep from which Schaffer had such difficulty in rousing

him. It was well planned--and when he heard the boy declare he had seen

Graham coming from the mill at 11 o'clock he thought it perfect.

But he had failed to cross one track--the bloody print of a slender,

city-made, shapely boot on the flour-dusted floor under the peg where

Graham's overalls generally hung. It was the only footprint in that

corner of the old mill, and Frost's was the only boot in all Nemahbin

that would fit it. Keen eyes had noted this even while the wiseacres of

the law were urging the pursuit of Graham; and then came the inexorable

watch on every move that Frost might make. Even without his confession,

the relentless search of the detectives would have run him down. And now

Dick Graham was free.

It wasn't such a mystery, after all. A greater one was being enacted

right here in the old mill-house, whither Nellie had hurriedly returned

on the telegraphic news of Sam's home-coming. She had sent Dick Graham

sorrowing to his fate only a month ago. She never wished to see him or

speak to him again. She had twined her girlish hero-worship around the

tall beauty of Mr. Frost, and seen it shrivel with aversion in a single

day. And now, surrounded by the halo of his sufferings, his self-imposed

exile, his years of patient, uncomplaining, unswerving devotion, here

was her brother's best friend, sharing with that brother the admiration

and homage of their little village circle; here was her true lover,

Dick, loving, forgiving, unreproaching, and yet unseeking, and one sweet

August night, calm and still and starlit, she stood at the very gate

where he had seen her parting with Frost that dread Sunday morning. And

now her little hand was trembling on his arm as he would have closed the

gate behind him. He felt the detaining pressure, and turned, gently as

ever:

"What is it, Nellie?"

"Dick, will you never forgive me for what I said--that night?"

One instant he could hardly speak--hardly breathe; but then, slowly,

with swimming eyes and quivering lips, soft and tremulous, she looked up

into his radiant face.

And now--eight years after--'Mahbin Mill hums and whirs more merrily

than ever. Dick Graham is master and manager, for Sam, with a

well-earned strap of gold-lace on each broad shoulder, has gone back to

the frontier life he learned to love in the old regiment. Frost

languished but a few months in his prison before death mercifully took

him away, and Nellie--Nellie is the happiest little woman around

Nemahbin for miles; only those two scamps, Sam and Dick, seven and five

years old respectively, keep her in a fidget and their father in a

chuckle with their pranks. They are always in mischief or the

mill-pond.

PLODDER'S PROMOTION.

For five years the life of Second Lieutenant Plodder, of the --th Foot,

had been a burden to him. For more than five years Second Lieutenant

Plodder had been something of a burden to the --th Foot. In the dreary

monotone in which the psalm of life is sung, or was sung, in frontier

garrisons before the introduction of such wildly diverting exercises as

daily target practice, or measuring-distance drill, the one thing that

became universally detestable was the man with the perennial grievance,

and Mr. Plodder's grievance was slow promotion. There was nothing

exceptionally harrowing in his individual experience; dozens of other

fellows in his own and in other regiments were victims of the same

malady, but for some reason Mr. Plodder considered himself the especial

target of the slings and arrows of a fortune too outrageous for even a

downtrodden "dough-boy" to bear in silence, and the dreary burden of his

song--morn, noon, and night--was the number of years he had served, and

might yet have to serve, with never a bar to his strap of faded blue.

Entering the army as a volunteer in '61, he had emerged, after four

years of singularly uneventful soldiering, a lieutenant in the company

in which he started as private. Provost-guard duty and the like had

told but little on the aggregate of present for duty with his command,

and that sort of campaigning being congenial, Mr. Plodder concluded to

keep it up as a profession. A congressional friend got him a

second-lieutenancy at the close of the war, and the devil himself, said

Mr. Plodder, got him into that particular regiment. "I never saw such a

God-forsaken lot of healthy fellers in my life," he was wont to declare

over the second or third toddy at "the store" in the long wintry

evenings. "There ain't a man of 'em died in six years, and here I am

after nigh onto twelve years' consecutive service, and I ain't a first

lieutenant yit."

We youngsters, with our light hearts and lighter pockets, used to rather

enjoy getting old Plodder started, it must be confessed; and when

pin-pool or auction-pitch had palled in interest, and we would be

casting about for some time-killing device, and the word would come from

the window, scattering the group of oldsters, that Plodder was on his

way to the store, somebody would be apt to suggest a project for

"putting up a job on Grumpy," and it would be carried _nem. con._

"Heard the news, Plod?" some young reprobate would carelessly inquire

while banging the balls about the table.

"What news?" says Plodder.

"You're in for a file. They say old Cramps is going to die. He's off on

leave now."

"Who says so?" says Plodder, eying his interlocutor askance. He is

always suspicious of the youngsters.

"Fact, Plodder. Ask the major, if you don't believe me."

And before long Plodder would be sure to make his way into the inner

court --the _sanctum sanctorum_ of the store--sacred ordinarily to the

knot of old officers who liked to have their quiet game aloof from the

crash of pool-pins and the babel of voices in the main room, and there,

after more or less beating round the bush, he would inquire as to

whether the major had recently heard news of old Captain Cramps, and

what was the state of his health; returning then to the billiard-room

with wrath and vengeance in his eye, to upbraid his tormentor for

sending him off on such a cruel quest.

"Well, what did you go for?" would be the extent of his comfort. "I only

said Cramps was going to die, and it's my profound conviction he

will--some time or other."

And Plodder would groan in spirit, "It's all very well for you

youngsters, but just you wait till you've served as long as I have,

twelve years' consecutive service, by George! and if you don't wish

lineal promotion would come in, or the grass was growing green over

every man that ever opposed it, you can stop _my_ pay."

It got to be a serious matter at last. It was Plod's monomania. We used

to swear that Plod spent half his time moaning over the army register,

and that his eyes were never fixed upon the benevolent features of his

captain but that he was wondering whether apoplexy would not soon give

him the longed-for file. Every week or two there would come tidings of

deaths, dismissals, resignations, or retirements in some other corps or

regiment, and second lieutenant so-or-so would become first lieutenant

_vice_ somebody else, and on such occasions poor old Plod would suffer

the tortures of the damned. "There's that boy," he would say, "only two

years out of that national charity school up there on the Hudson, in

leading-strings, by George! when we fellers were fightin' and bleedin'

an--"

"Hello, Plod! I forgot you fought and bled in the provost-guard. Where

was it, old man? Take a nip and tell us about it," some one would

interpose, but Plodder would plunge ahead in the wild recitative of his

lament, and the floor would be his own.

Tuesday evenings always found him at the store. The post-trader's copy

of the _Army and Navy Journal_ arrived soon after retreat, and it was

one of the unwritten laws of the establishment that old Plod should have

first glimpse. There had been a time when he resorted to the quarters of

brother-officers and possessed himself of their copy, but his

concomitant custom of staying two or three hours and bemoaning his luck

had gradually been the means of barring him out, and, never having a

copy of his own (for Plodder was thrifty and "near"), he had settled

into the usurpation of first rights with "Mr. O'Bottle's" paper, and

there at the store he devoured the column of casualties with

disappointed eyes, and swallowed grief and toddy in "consecutive"

gulps.

It used to be asserted of Plodder that he was figuring for the Signal

Corps. He was at one time generally known as "Old Probabilities;"

indeed, it had been his nickname for several years. He was accused of

keeping a regular system of "indications" against the names of his

seniors in rank, and that godless young reprobate Trickett so far forgot

his reverence for rank as to prepare and put in circulation "Plodder's

Probabilities," a Signal Service burlesque that had the double effect of

alienating that gentleman's long-tried friendship and startling into

unnatural blasphemy the staid captains who figured in the bulletin.

Something in this wise it ran (and though poor fun at best, was better

than anything we had had since that wonderful day when "Mrs. _Captain_

O'Rorke av ye plaze" dropped that letter addressed to her friend "Mrs.

Captain Sullivan, O'Maher Barrix"):

"PLODDER'S PROBABILITIES.

"_For Captain Irvin._--Higher living together with lower

exercise. Cloudy complexion, with temperament choleric veering

to apoplectic. Impaired action followed by fatty degeneration

of the heart.

"_For Captains Prime and Chipsey._--Barometer threatening.

Squalls domestic. Stocks lower. Putler and Soaker bills falling

(due N.E., S., and W.) from all parts of the country.

"_For Lieutenant Cole, R.Q.M._--Heft increasing. Nose and

eyelids turgid. Frequent (d)rains, Sp. Fru. Heavy shortage C.

and G. E., S. T. 187(-)X.

"_Cautionary Signals_ for Burroughs, Calvin, and Waterman.

Something sure to turn up."

We were hard up for fun in those days, and even this low order of wit

excited a high degree of hilarity. The maddest men were Prime, Chipsey,

and the R.Q.M., but their wrath was as nothing compared with the blaze

of indignation which illuminated the countenances of Mrs. Prime and Mrs.

Chipsey, next-door neighbors and bosom friends as feminine friendships

go. Each lady in this instance was ready to acknowledge the pertinence

of Mr. Trickett's diagnosis in the case of her neighbor's husband, and

confidentially to admit that there was even some justification for the

allegation of "squalls domestic" next door, but that anything of this

sort should be even hinted at in her own case, nothing but utter moral

depravity on the part of the perpetrator could account for it. Trickett

paid dear for his whistle, but for the time it seemed to hold Plodder in

check. The ruling passion soon cropped out again, however. Gray hairs

were beginning to sprinkle his scanty beard, and crow's-feet to grow

more deeply under his suspicious eyes. He never looked at a senior

without a semi-professional scrutiny of that senior's physical condition

as set forth in the clearness of his eye or skin. He never shook hands

without conveying the impression that he was reaching for a man's pulse.

If any old officer were mentioned as going off on "surgeon's

certificate" to visit the sea-shore, and the question should be asked,

"What's the matter with him?" the interrogated party invariably

responded, "Don't know. Ask Plodder."

It was not only in the regiment that Plodder became a notoriety. For one

eventful year of its history the --th Foot was stationed in close

proximity to department headquarters, and department headquarters became

speedily and intimately acquainted with Mr. Plodder. Having once made

his calls of ceremony upon the commanding general and his staff, it

became his custom to make frequent visits to the city, and, passing

beyond the established haunts where his comrades were wont to dispense

for creature comforts their scanty dimes, to spend some hours pottering

about the offices at headquarters. But for a month no one really

fathomed the object of his attentions. "Trying to get a soft detail in

town" was the theory hazarded by some of the youngsters, who were well

aware of his distaste for company duty; "Boning for aide-de-camp,"

suggested another. But not until the medical director one day

explosively alluded to him as "that ---- old vampire-bat," with an

uncomplimentary and profane adjective in place of the ----, and the

acting judge-advocate of the department impulsively asked if "that

infernal Mark Meddle couldn't be kept at home," did it begin to dawn on

us what old Plodder really was driving at. His theory being that army

casualties could be divided up pretty evenly between the Medical

Department and the Bureau of Military Justice as the expediting means,

he hoped by ingenious engineering of the conversation to pick up points

as to probabilities in the --th Foot, or to furnish such as might be

lacking.

In plain words, it transpired about this time that Plodder had taken to

haunting the office of the judge-advocate at hours when he could hope

for uninterrupted conversation with that officer, and one day, with

very ruffled demeanor, he was encountered making hurried exit therefrom,

pursued, said Mr. Trickett, by the toe of the judge-advocate's boot.

Indeed, Mr. Trickett was not far wrong. He and his now reconciled

captain were about calling upon the judge-advocate when Plodder burst

forth, and surely there was every symptom of a wrathful intent in the

attitude of the staff-officer whom they met at the door. It was a minute

or so before he could recover his composure, though he politely invited

them to enter and be seated. No explanation was vouchsafed as to what

had occurred, but Trickett and Prime came back to barracks full of

speculation and curiosity, told pretty much everybody what they had

seen, and, all being convinced that Plodder and the judge-advocate had

had some kind of a row, it was determined to draw Plodder out.

Consequently there was a gathering in the billiard-room that night, and

when Plodder entered, with visage of unusual gloom, he ought to have

been put on his guard by the unexpectedly prompt and cheery invites to

"take something" that greeted him. But Plodder had been taking several

somethings in the privacy of his quarters, and, being always ready to

partake at somebody else's expense, he was speedily primed into

talkative mood, and then the inquisition began.

"Saw you coming out of Park's office to-day," said Prime. "What was your

hurry?"

No answer for a moment, then a rather sulky growl, "I'd finished my

business, and thought you might want to see him."

"I? Lord, no! What should I want to see him for except socially?"

No answer.

"_Nice_ fellow, Park," said Trickett; "seems such a calm, self-poised

sort of man, you know."

"One of the most courteous men I ever met," said Waterman.

Then the others joined in with some kind of transparent adulation of the

official referred to, all keeping wary eyes on Plodder, who at last

burst forth,

"You all can think what you like. _My_ idea is, he's no gentleman."

Of course Plodder was assailed with instant demands to explain his

meaning. Everybody was amazed; but Plodder would only shake his head and

mutter that he knew what he was talking about. Nobody could tell _him_

what constituted a gentleman. Park wasn't one anyhow, and all hopes for

light upon that interview were for the moment dashed; but a day or two

more brought everything out in startling colors, when it was announced

that Lieutenant Calvin, who had been commanding a detachment "up the

country," was ordered to return and explain certain allegations that had

been brought to the notice of the regimental commander. Plodder's

cautionary signal had been hoisted to some purpose after all.

It seems that being cut off from congenial society, and having no

associates with whom to while away the weary hours of his detached

service, Lieutenant Calvin had sought solace in the flowing bowl, had

become involved in a quarrel with some rather hard cases among the

citizens, and in some mysterious way the matter had reached

headquarters. Calvin was on a sort of probation at the time, for his

conduct on some previous occasions had given great cause for complaint

to his colonel, and that officer had now received a note from

headquarters on the subject of Calvin's recent misdemeanor, and felt

himself called upon to investigate. This note had come three days before

the date of Plodder's last visit to town, and the colonel had

communicated its contents to no one but his adjutant, and yet it was

known throughout the garrison on the day after Plodder's visit that Mr.

Calvin was to be overhauled, and the colonel decided to inquire, among

other things, _how_ it became so speedily known.

"I would prefer to have some officer sent from elsewhere to relieve

him," he had said to the commanding general in presence of the

judge-advocate. "It will then create no talk or speculation at the

barracks before he comes."

"It is known there already," said the judge-advocate.

"Most extraordinary!" said the colonel. "I don't see how that could be

and I not know it." And, indeed, there were very few matters on which he

was not fully informed.

"It is so, nevertheless," said the staff-officer. "One of

your--a--subalterns--a gentleman with whom I have very slight

acquaintance, came to me to tell me about it, as he expressed it,

yesterday."

Then the colonel insisted upon hearing the whole story, and it came out.

It seems that after one or two somewhat embarrassed visits, Mr. Plodder

had succeeded in finding the judge-advocate alone on the previous

afternoon, had then drawn his chair close to that officer's desk, and,

very much to his surprise, had bent forward, and in confidential tone

had remarked, "Say, I want to tell you about Calvin," and before the

astonished judge-advocate could well interrupt him he had rushed through

a few hurried sentences descriptive of the affair in which Calvin was

involved, and looked up in very great astonishment when the

judge-advocate suddenly checked him.

"One moment, Mr. Plodder. I do not understand the object of this

narrative. Have you come to make an official complaint of Mr. Calvin's

conduct? I am not the person. Your colonel--"

"Oh, no, no. You don't understand," interrupted Mr. Plodder. "_I_ don't

want to appear in the matter at all; but you see I happen to know--"

"You don't mean to say that you have come to me to give confidential

information about an officer of your regiment?" burst in the

judge-advocate with growing wrath.

"I thought you ought to know," said Plodder, sulkily. "You have charge

of the court-martial business, and I s'pose charges are to be

preferred--"

"And you want to appear as a witness, do you? or do you mean to prefer

additional charges, or--what the devil do you mean?"

"No, _I'm_ not a witness," exclaimed Plodder, hastily. "I just thought

you ought to know about this, you see, and all you've got to do is to

write to so-and-so, and so-and-so. _They_ were there and saw it. Oh, no,

I don't want to appear at all."

"In plain words, then, Mr. Plodder, you came here as a tale-bearer, and

expect me to treat you like a gentleman," said the judge-advocate,

rising in wrath and indignation, while Mr. Plodder sat gazing at him in

pained surprise. "By G--gulp, sir, I did not suppose the uniform had got

so low as that. Go to your colonel, if you want to tattle, sir; don't

come to me. There's the door, Mr. Plodder; there's the door, sir." And

in utter amaze the gentleman of nigh on to twelve years' consecutive

service slipped out into the hall as ruefully ruffled in spirit as

though he had been kicked thither. It was there he encountered Prime and

Trickett, and it was in this shape that the interview was eventually

made known to the regiment, but not until some time after--not until the

grand evolution of a pet and long-projected scheme. Then it was that

this experience of Plodder's was told, with many unflattering comments;

and so it happened that not one grain of sympathy was felt for him in

the moment of his most supreme dejection--the crowning disappointment of

his life.

For the first time in his "years of consecutive service" Plodder

actually saw a first-lieutenancy within his grasp, and this is how the

matter stood.

Among a lot of desperately, hopelessly healthy and virtuous captains and

first-lieutenants there appeared the unfortunate Mr. Calvin, whose

record had been somewhat mottled in the past, and who was now in a very

precarious state. To get him out of the way would ordinarily secure for

Mr. Plodder only a step, for at this moment he stood third on the list

of second lieutenants; but here was a case of unusual combinations. The

senior second lieutenant was at that moment undergoing trial on charges

that must dismiss him from the service. There was no question as to his

guilt; indeed, he had hardly made any defence against the allegations.

But, even were he to be dismissed, how was that to help Plodder? Look at

the list:

_Second Lieutenants --th Infantry._

1. John B. Riggs (in arrest, undergoing trial).

2. William H. Trainor, _regimental adjutant_.

3. Pariah Plodder.

The army reader sees the scheme at a glance. With Riggs dismissed,

Trainor came to the head of the list, and was entitled to immediate

promotion to first lieutenant, "he being the adjutant." This, then, made

old Plodder senior second, and now--_now_, if he could only get Calvin

out, there were his bars. Under these circumstances, Plodder was not the

man to hesitate. Knowing Calvin's weakness, he had "kept an eye on him;"

had obtained, through some mysterious correspondent, details of his

proceedings at his post of isolation, and it was not long before it

began to be suspected that it was he who inspired the rumors that

appeared in the local papers, and so drew the attention of the

authorities to Calvin's offence.

Well, Calvin came in, had an interview with his colonel, who was stern

and non-committal. Calvin protested that his offence had been grievously

exaggerated. Britton, who took his place up the country, swore that the

best citizens up there came in to speak in high terms of Calvin. The men

with whom he had had the disturbance were rough characters, who had

purposely insulted him, and Britton said that he believed the whole

statement could be traced to one of the enlisted men, a bad fellow, whom

Calvin had disciplined. The man was known to be writing letters

frequently, and no one knew to whom they were sent. Calvin behaved well

around garrison, and the colonel was divided in his mind. He hated to

prefer charges he could not fully substantiate, and it was by no means

certain that the allegations against Calvin could be reliably supported,

although there was strong probability of their truth. Then it began to

be rumored about the post that the colonel was wavering, despite his

firm front against all Calvin's appeals, and that night Plodder was

observed to be in a high state of nervous excitement. He had a

confidential interview with one subaltern, and sought another with at

least one more, but was sternly and angrily rebuffed. "I cannot say what

the matter was," explained the offended youngster, "as he made me agree

to regard his offer, as he called it, confidential. But it lets me out

on Plodder, that's all."

The next day Plodder had a long talk with Calvin. The latter looked

infinitely depressed at its close, and went up to town by permission of

the colonel to see some legal friends. When night came he did not

return, as was understood to be the arrangement, and the adjutant,

driving up in the ambulance immediately after retreat, reappeared at

tattoo, escorting Calvin; and Calvin, perceptibly intoxicated, was

conducted to his quarters, and bidden there to abide in close arrest.

Two days more, and his unconditional resignation was forwarded

"approved" from regimental headquarters, and a few days later, sadly

bidding his comrades adieu, Calvin started homewards. "It was no use

trying to make a fight," he said. "Some fellow had been spying around up

the country, and had prejudiced the colonel, and he told me he meant to

bring up charges for the old matter. I could have stood up against them

separately, but not collectively; and I had no war record, no friends,

no influence. What was the use? Old Plodder gave me a check for four

hundred dollars, payable at the First National in Chicago. I'll go back

to railroading. Wish to God I'd never left it for soldiering, anyhow!"

And with that he was gone, to await at his home the acceptance of his

tendered resignation.

Now there was unexpected sympathy for Calvin in the regiment. He was a

plain man, of limited education, who had run an engine on one of

Tecumseh Sherman's vitally important railways in '64, and when his train

was attacked by Hood's horsemen he had fought like a hero, had been made

an officer in a regiment doing railway-guard duty, and at the end of the

war a lieutenant in the regular infantry. Being sociable, warm-hearted,

and weak, he had fallen into drinking ways, had spent his money fast,

and so had fallen from grace. He had long been unhappy and out of his

element in the service. Perhaps it was best that he should go back to

the old life, where drink was an impossibility.

But the wonder was, how could old Plodder bear to spend four hundred

dollars of his hoarded gains even for the coveted file? _That_ was not

answered until long afterwards, and really has no place in the immediate

_denouement_ of this plot. It might come in handily elsewhere. He _had_

given Calvin four hundred dollars to resign at once, and perhaps the

colonel breathed freer at having the case decided for him. Now we were

all agog for the result. It depended, of course, upon Riggs's sentence.

Now Riggs was an anomaly. He had few friends in the regiment. He was a

shy, sensitive, retiring sort of fellow--a man who read a great deal,

was known to be very well informed, a man who rarely appeared at the

social gatherings at the store, never played cards or billiards, was

civil and courteous to the younger officers, but a little surly to the

seniors. He was disliked by most of the latter, and cordially hated by

his own captain. When they sat on courts together, Mr. Riggs invariably

carried the day in all discussions that came up. He knew more law than

any of them. Indeed, there seemed to be no point on which he had not

more information than all but two or three of his seniors, and he rather

delighted in drawing them out and exposing their ignorance. On the other

hand, in the thousand little ways in which superior officers can inflict

humiliation upon their juniors, his own and other captains made him feel

his dependent position, and poor Riggs, with all his knowledge, was a

very unhappy man. He had not a real friend, certainly not an intimate,

in the regiment; in fact, he incurred the hostility of many of the subs

at the very start by being transferred from an old regiment to near the

top of the list of this one when the consolidation took place in '71--a

transfer that drove Mr. Plodder nearly frantic at the time, and laid the

solid foundation of his undying hate. Riggs made no attempt to

conciliate anybody. He never mentioned his past life or services. No one

knew his war history, though it was known that he had served. No one

ever heard him refer to what he had seen or experienced. Yet the few

caustic comments with which he occasionally silenced Plodder's

reminiscences amid an explosion of laughter from the youngsters assured

every one that he knew whereof he spoke. He was sad, dreamy in

temperament; some said he took opium, all knew he took whiskey, and a

great deal of it, though never was he known to do or say an unseemly

thing under its influence. His face would flush and his speech sometimes

thicken, but for a long time that had been all. He was what was called a

steady drinker, and as an excuse, his wife (and she was a devoted little

woman) was wont to tell the ladies of the regiment who ventured to

allude to it that Mr. Riggs had a pulmonary difficulty, a bad cough, and

that his physicians had prescribed whiskey.

Cough he certainly had, and at times a very consumptive look, and as

time wore on he had grown moody and sullen. Then came an exciting period

in the history of the regiment. Several days and nights of sharp and

stirring service against rioters in the streets of the adjoining city.

Several days with irregular food and nights with irregular sleep, and

after forty-eight hours of such experience Lieutenant Riggs, suddenly

summoned at daybreak by his captain to command a guard to be sent to

some public buildings, plunged, stupidly drunk, into plain sight of

assembled officers and men, and was sent back to the garrison in

disgrace and close arrest. This was the offence for which he had just

been tried. There was no hope for him said the colonel and the officers

of the regiment. Dismissal short and sharp was the only prospect before

him. A presidential announcement had but recently been made that _that_

was the one thing not to be overlooked at an executive mansion where

dismayed diplomats were compelled to struggle through state dinners

unaided by the accustomed Chateau Yquem and Pommery Sec, and rushed away

chilled and alarmed to seek vinous aid for their offended stomachs.

Riggs was ruined, and must expect to go.

But the case had been tried before a general court of considerable rank,

and composed of officers from other posts and commands. Only one of the

--th Foot was on the detail. Admitting the facts alleged in the

specification, Mr. Riggs had called upon one or two officers, his

colonel and the major, for evidence as to his general character and

previous conduct, and they could say nothing of consequence against him,

and _did_ say much that was favorable. When they had retired Mr. Riggs

surprised the court by calling upon one of its own members, an old

surgeon, and subsequently upon another, a veteran lieutenant-colonel of

artillery.

"What in thunder could he have wanted of them?" was the amazed inquiry

down at the barracks that evening when it was there announced, and all

that was said in reply was, that they had known him during the war. Next

day some important documentary evidence was introduced, and then, asking

only twenty-four hours in which to write his defence, Mr. Riggs, in a

voice that trembled with emotion and with eyes that filled with tears he

strove in vain to dash away, proceeded to address the court. "My wife is

very ill, gentlemen, and her anxiety on my account has increased the

trouble. The order convening the court assigned the barracks as the

place of meeting, but it was changed, very properly, to suit the

convenience of the members who were in the city. As it is, I have to

leave there early in the morning, and be away from her all day. May I

ask, as a great favor, that you arrange to meet to-morrow at the old

place? I can then be near her in case--in case--" Here he stopped short,

and, covering his face with his hands, turned his back upon the court.

The solemn silence was broken by the voice of the old surgeon.

"I know Mrs. Riggs, and have known her for years; she is indeed very

much prostrated, and I have a note from Dr. Grant at the barracks

substantiating what Mr. Riggs says." The judge-advocate stepped out and

had a short consultation with the adjutant-general of the department in

his adjoining office, and when the court adjourned it adjourned to meet

at noon on the following day down at the barracks.

It was perhaps an hour after adjournment when the judge-advocate of the

court, accompanied by one of its members, started out to take a drive.

Passing the headquarters building where they had been in session during

the morning, they were surprised to see Lieutenant Riggs standing alone

at the doorway and gazing anxiously down the street.

"Why, I thought his wife was so sick, and supposed that he would be on

his way to barracks by this time," said the member.

"And I, too; I don't understand it," said the junior, who was driving.

"At least," he added, hesitatingly, "he may be waiting for the

ambulance. It's a six-mile drive, and no hackman will go there for less

than a small fortune."

There was silence for a moment as they trotted briskly along. Both the

judge-advocate and the member caught each other in the act of glancing

back towards the dim and lonely figure of Mr. Riggs, and in another

minute the younger officer pulled up his team.

"Major, you want to go back and see what's the matter?"

"Yes, and so do you. Hold up a minute; there's Coles now. He'll know

about the ambulance."

Reining in towards the sidewalk, the sauntering quartermaster was

hailed, and that somewhat bulky official stepped up to the side of their

stylish turn-out.

"Was the ambulance to take Riggs back to the post? He seems to be

waiting for something very anxiously," said the judge-advocate.

The quartermaster started. "Why, yes; I thought it had gone long ago,

and had stopped below here where I met it. Captain and Mrs. Breen and

one or two others were doing a little shopping, I reckon."

"Meantime poor Riggs is waiting to get back to his sick wife, and has

been waiting for an hour," said the legal adviser of the court, with an

impatient crack of the whip that startled his spirited grays as they

were whirled about and sent spinning up the street, leaving the dazed

quartermaster staring after them. At headquarters the team again

abruptly pulled up, and its driver called out, in cheery tones,

"Riggs, we are going out to barracks. Can we give you a lift? It may be

some time before that ambulance comes along."

"It was to have been here over an hour ago," said the infantryman,

slowly. "I don't know what's the matter, and I could not go in search of

it; my arrest limits me to this building when in town. I hate to trouble

you, yet I ought to have been home by this time."

"Jump in, jump in! We'll get you there in less than no time," exclaimed

both occupants. And, only too willing, Mr. Riggs "leaped aboard," and

they sped away for the outskirts of the city.

Passing a favorite restaurant, where officers and ladies were wont to

rendezvous when in town, they caught sight of the missing ambulance.

"Weren't you ordered to be at headquarters for Lieutenant Riggs at

three o'clock?" demanded the judge-advocate of the driver.

"Yes, sir," replied that party, glancing in nervous embarrassment over

his shoulder at somebody in the depths of the vehicle, "but--"

A forage-capped head appeared from behind the curtain; the benign

features of Captain Breen slowly hove in sight, and a smile of greeting

spread thereover as his eyes met those of the staff-officers.

"Oh, ah! Good-afternoon, colonel. How de do, Captain Park. Why--yes,

there was something said about going for Riggs when we got through--when

the ladies finished shopping, you know. I was just reading the evening

paper. If you are ready, Riggs, I--I'll hurry them out now," said the

captain, startled into civility to the subaltern on seeing the

distinguished company in which he drove.

"Thanks; we won't trouble you. Hup there!" said Captain Park, dryly and

energetically, as once more the grays dashed off at rapid trot, and in

half an hour Mr. Riggs was landed in front of his quarters in the

garrison.

He said very little as he stepped from the light road-wagon, but he

grasped the extended hands of the two officers, and looked up in their

faces with mute eloquence. The post surgeon happened along at the

moment, and Riggs turned eagerly towards him.

"A little easier, if anything," said the doctor, in answer to the look

of anxious inquiry. "Better, I think, than she has been for the last two

days. Your telegram cheered her a good deal."

"Excuse me now, will you, gentlemen?" said the lieutenant to his late

conductors. "You understand my haste, and will forgive my inhospitality

in not asking you in. You--you don't know how I thank you." And with

that he was gone.

"Doctor, what seems the matter with Mrs. Riggs?" asked the

judge-advocate, impetuously.

"Heart-trouble mainly. Any great anxiety tells right there. She was a

very sick woman yesterday. Won't you stop at my quarters?"

"Thanks, no. We were just out for a drive, and must get back."

Whether from motives of delicacy, or possibly from lack of curiosity,

very few of the older officers of the --th Foot were present in the

court-room when Mr. Riggs read his brief statement or defence on the

following day; but nothing could keep Plodder away. Among the group of

four or five junior officers his keen little eyes and eager face peered

out, ferret-like, glancing from member to member of the court as though

he sought to probe their inmost souls. Brief as it was, Riggs had

written an admirable little argument. He made no accusations, no

recriminations; indeed, he rather slightingly alluded to a portion of

the evidence which went to show that during the forty-eight hours

preceding his offence he had been kept almost continuously on duty night

and day, while the other company officer, his captain, slept almost as

continuously. He manfully admitted his guilt, he showed that never

before had he been accused of such an offence, and then, with brief

reference to the testimony of the surgeon and his old division

commander of war days, and the documentary evidence in their possession,

he threw himself upon the mercy of the court.

The youngsters could not repress a murmur of admiration as he closed.

Plodder with open mouth and staring eyes looked around the long,

littered table like a military Shylock imploring the fulfilment of his

bond. His eyes brightened as the judge-advocate slowly rose; he knew how

trenchant he could be, at least, and he had confidence that his response

would shatter the favorable impression left by Mr. Riggs's defence. It

was with an almost audible gasp of dismay that he heard the next words

that broke the silence of the court-room. The judge-advocate calmly

said, "The case is submitted without remark."

Not until Mr. Waterman had plucked him by the coat-sleeve and hoarsely

whispered, "Don't stand there like a stuck pig, you old idiot. Court's

cleared," could Mr. Plodder be made to understand that all outsiders

were required to withdraw that the court might proceed to its

deliberation. Even at the outer door he again stopped and looked back, a

half-formed project taking root in his bewildered brain, and again Mr.

Waterman unfeelingly interrupted him. "Come on, Plodder. D--n it all!

are you thinking of going in and haranguing the court yourself?" It was

in more than perturbation that Plodder finally sought his quarters and,

secure in his solitude, unlocked and uncorked his demijohn.

In another hour the court had adjourned and gone its way. Issuing from

the stuffy room over the colonel's office, the members had been met by

hospitable invitations to take luncheon here, there, and elsewhere about

the garrison, and the story of the documentary and war evidence having

got around by this time, there was much questioning as to its exact

nature, and much wonderment that it had not been heard of before. The

surgeon had testified to Mr. Riggs's having been twice severely wounded,

once at Shiloh, again at Chickamauga. The artillery colonel to his

having twice noticed admirable and gallant conduct in action, which he

had praised in orders. The documentary evidence went even further.

Evidently Riggs's stock was looking up. Of course no member of the court

could give the faintest hint of the action taken, and as they finally

drove away, and the officers after evening parade were discussing the

probable fate of the accused, the colonel quietly put a stop to

speculation by the remark made to the second in command, "He pleaded

guilty. They had to sentence him to dismissal. Now only the President

can save him. He has no influence, and the President has just said he

would not overlook such offences in future. That settles it in my mind."

That night, therefore, Mr. Plodder went to bed half full of comfort and

whiskey.

But it was noticed that the judge-advocate, Captain Park, had gone off

with the surgeon after the adjournment of court, and while the rest of

the garrison were at lunch he, with Dr. Grant, had appeared at Riggs's

door.

"She has begged to be allowed to see you," the doctor had explained,

"and what she needs is some little word of hope. _His_ hopefulness she

fears is only simulated for her sake." And nodding appreciatively in

response to the doctor's significant glance, Captain Park was shown into

the plainly furnished little parlor, where, reclining in a broad

sofa-chair, propped upon white pillows, white as her own wan face, was

the fragile form of the invalid. He had known her only slightly, but her

gentle, unassuming, sweet-tempered ways had often attracted his

attention, and her devotion to her husband was a matter that had excited

the somewhat envious remarks of Benedicts less favored. She held out her

thin white hand, and looked with glistening eyes up into the grave

bearded face that bent over her in courteous greeting and kindly

interest.

"I wanted to see you and thank you," she said in her gentle voice. "More

than once Mr. Riggs has spoken of your consideration and courtesy in all

this--this sad affair; but yesterday he was quite overcome. They did not

get back with the ambulance until nearly seven, and all that time he

would have been kept waiting, and I--"

"It was a pleasure to me to be of any service," he answered; "but I am

grieved to see you so prostrated, so ill. Do you know I--I think you are

worrying far too much?"

Eagerly she glanced up into his face. "Oh, Captain Park! I know you

cannot tell me the sentence; I know you cannot tell me anything they

have done, but I am so torn with doubt, so unhappy! Mr. Riggs seems so

friendless here. No one knows him, no one understands him. Last night he

almost broke down as he said that in a whole year yours was the only

voice he had heard that seemed to have a ring of friendship or sympathy.

His people have written to him to come home. They think he must be

dismissed, and have so written to him and to me. They urge me to come at

once and get the little home they offer in readiness, so that he can be

induced to come right there if the order is--is against us. I am ill,

but if need be I could go. I would be glad to think of having that

little haven for him in case he were crushed by this, but _ought_ I to

go? Ought I to leave him here alone? It will be full three weeks or a

month before we can hear from Washington, I suppose."

Still standing, he bent over her chair. "Shall I tell you what I think

you ought to do, at once?" he asked, almost smiling. "I believe I will,

anyway. It may be a very rude and impertinent thing to say, but it is my

belief that the best thing you can do is get well--get well right

away, and be ready, you and Mr. Riggs, to take Christmas dinner with us.

Mrs. Park will be back next week, and I know she will be delighted.

There! It is nearly a month away to be sure, but that will give you

abundant time. Meanwhile, of course you can't go home. Will you promise

me, Mrs. Riggs?" And the legal adviser held out his hand, gave her a

cordial grasp, and vanished before she could find one word in which to

thank him. When Mr. Riggs rejoined his wife she was sobbing like a

little child, and yet there was a world of hope and gladness in her

swollen eyes as she gazed up into his tired face and drew it down to her

lips.

As for Captain Park, it was observed of him that he whistled with

considerable cheeriness on his way back to town, and as he sat at his

desk that evening completing the record of the court. Some weeks

afterwards, in speaking of the requirement that no officer of a court

shall make known its sentence except to the reviewing authority, Captain

Park was heard to mutter, "Wonder if inviting a fellow to a Christmas

dinner would be revealing the sentence of a court?" and somebody present

replied, "How could it be?"

And yet Mrs. Riggs was gaining health and spirits with every day, and

Mr. Riggs, though still confined to the garrison in arrest, was serenely

enjoying life in her society.

Three weeks later a brace of orders arrived from the War Department, and

there was uproar and excitement among the youngsters in the --th Foot.

Full information of course preceded the official announcement, but the

very enlisted men grinned with delight when those orders were read on

parade, for the story of Plodder's speculation had reached the ranks,

where he was no favorite. Divested of their official forms the orders

were, first, publication of the proceedings of the court-martial before

which Lieutenant Riggs was arraigned and tried, and in accordance with

his plea was found guilty and sentenced to be dismissed the service. All

of which was approved; but, said the order, "in view of the earnest

recommendation signed by the entire court, and concurred in by the

commanding generals of the department and of the army, the president has

been pleased to remit the sentence, and Lieutenant Riggs will resume his

sword and return to duty."

Then came the second order from the A.G.O.:

"PROMOTIONS AND APPOINTMENTS.

* * * * *

"--_th Infantry._

"Second Lieutenant John B. Riggs to be first lieutenant, vice

Calvin resigned. December 3, 187-.

"Second Lieutenant William H. Trainor to be first lieutenant,

he being the adjutant. December 3, 187-."

And Plodder's hoarded four hundred dollars had really purchased Riggs's

promotion. "Bless your generous heart, Plod!" burst out that

irrepressible scapegrace Trickett as the officers dispersed after

dismissal of parade. "Let me shake hands with you, old man. Now just

chip in another four hundred and buy me a file and I'll--" But the rest

was lost in the explosions of laughter, under cover of which poor

Plodder went raging to his quarters.

As for Riggs, he wore his bars for the first time at Park's Christmas

dinner, and he wears them yet, only he hates to be spoken of as

"Plodder's Promotion."

THE END.

* * * * *

By CAPT. CHARLES KING.

* * * * *

CAMPAIGNING WITH CROOK, AND STORIES OF

ARMY LIFE. Post 8vo, Cloth, $1 25.

A WAR-TIME WOOING. Illustrated by R. F. Zogbaum.

pp. iv., 196. Post 8vo, Cloth, $1 00.

BETWEEN THE LINES. A Story of the War. Illustrated

by Gilbert Gaul. pp. iv., 312. Post 8vo, Cloth, $1 25.

In all of Captain King's stories the author holds to lofty ideals of

manhood and womanhood, and inculcates the lessons of honor, generosity,

courage, and self-control.--_Literary World_, Boston.

The vivacity and charm which signally distinguish Captain King's pen....

He occupies a position in American literature entirely his own.... His

is the literature of honest sentiment, pure and tender.--_N. Y. Press._

A romance by Captain King is always a pleasure, because he has so

complete a mastery of the subjects with which he deals.... Captain King

has few rivals in his domain.... The general tone of Captain King's

stories is highly commendable. The heroes are simple, frank, and

soldierly; the heroines are dignified and maidenly in the most

unconventional situations.--_Epoch_, N. Y.

All Captain King's stories are full of spirit and with the true ring

about them.--_Philadelphia Item._

Captain King's stories of army life are so brilliant and intense, they

have such a ring of true experience, and his characters are so lifelike

and vivid that the announcement of a new one is always received with

pleasure.--_New Haven Palladium._

Captain King is a delightful story-teller.--_Washington Post._

In the delineation of war scenes Captain King's style is crisp and

vigorous, inspiring in the breast of the reader a thrill of genuine

patriotic fervor.--_Boston Commonwealth._

Captain King is almost without a rival in the field he has chosen....

His style is at once vigorous and sentimental in the best sense of that

word, so that his novels are pleasing to young men as well as young

women.--_Pittsburgh Bulletin._

It is good to think that there is at least one man who believes that all

the spirit of romance and chivalry has not yet died out of the world,

and that there are as brave and honest hearts to-day as there were in

the days of knights and paladins.--_Philadelphia Record._

* * * * *

Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York.

_Any of the above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any

part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._

BOOTS AND SADDLES;

Or, Life in Dakota with General Custer. By

Mrs. Elizabeth B. Custer. With Portrait of General Custer, pp.

312. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50.

A book of adventure is interesting reading, especially when it is all

true, as is the case with "Boots and Saddles." *** She does not obtrude

the fact that sunshine and solace went with her to tent and fort, but it

inheres in her narrative none the less, and as a consequence "these

simple annals of our daily life," as she calls them, are never dull nor

uninteresting.--_Evangelist_, N. Y.

Mrs. Custer's book is in reality a bright and sunny sketch of the life

of her late husband, who fell at the battle of "Little Big Horn." ***

After the war, when General Custer was sent to the Indian frontier, his

wife was of the party, and she is able to give the minute story of her

husband's varied career, since she was almost always near the scene of

his adventures.--_Brooklyn Union._

We have no hesitation in saying that no better or more satisfactory life

of General Custer could have been written. Indeed, we may as well speak

the thought that is in us, and say plainly that we know of no

biographical work anywhere which we count better than this. *** Surely

the record of such experiences as these will be read with that keen

interest which attaches only to strenuous human doings; as surely we are

right in saying that such a story of truth and heroism as that here told

will take a deeper hold upon the popular mind and heart than any work of

fiction can. For the rest, the narrative is as vivacious and as lightly

and trippingly given as that of any novel. It is enriched in every

chapter with illustrative anecdotes and incidents, and here and there a

little life story of pathetic interest is told as an episode.--_N. Y.

Commercial Advertiser._

It is a plain, straightforward story of the author's life on the plains

of Dakota. Every member of a Western garrison will want to read this

book; every person in the East who is interested in Western life will

want to read it, too; and every girl or boy who has a healthy appetite

for adventure will be sure to get it. It is bound to have an army of

readers that few authors can expect.--_Philadelphia Press._

These annals of daily life in the army are simple, yet interesting, and

underneath all is discerned the love of a true woman ready for any

sacrifice. She touches on themes little canvassed by the civilian, and

makes a volume equally redolent of a loving devotion to an honored

husband, and attractive as a picture of necessary duty by the

soldier.--_Commonwealth_, Boston.

* * * * *

Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, N. Y.

Harper & Brothers _will send the above work by mail, postage

prepaid, to any part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the

price_.

BY W. D. HOWELLS.

THE SHADOW OF A DREAM. A Story. 12mo, Paper, 50

cents; Cloth, $1 00.

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. Illustrated. 8vo, Paper, 75 cents; 12mo,

Cloth, 2 vols., $2 00.

Never, certainly, has Mr. Howells written more brilliantly,

more clearly, more firmly, or more attractively than in this

instance.--_N. Y. Tribune._

This new novel is distinguished by the possession in an unusual

degree of all the familiar qualities of Mr. Howells's style.

The humor of it, particularly, is abundant and

delightful.--_Philadelphia Press._

MODERN ITALIAN POETS. Essays and Versions. With Portraits. 12mo, Half

Cloth, $2 00.

Mr. Howells has in this work enriched American literature by a

great deal of delicate, discriminating, candid, and sympathetic

criticism. He has enabled the general public to obtain a

knowledge of modern Italian poetry which they could have

acquired in no other way.--_N. Y. Tribune._

ANNIE KILBURN. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50.

Mr. Howells has certainly never given us in one novel so many

portraits of intrinsic interest. Annie Kilburn herself is a

masterpiece of quietly veracious art--the art which depends for

its effect on unswerving fidelity to the truth of Nature.... It

certainly seems to us the very best book that Mr. Howells has

written.--_Spectator, London._

APRIL HOPES. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50.

Mr. Howells never wrote a more bewitching book. It is useless

to deny the rarity and worth of the skill that can report so

perfectly and with such exquisite humor all the fugacious and

manifold emotions of the modern maiden and her

lover.--_Philadelphia Press._

THE MOUSE-TRAP, and Other Farces. 12mo, Cloth, $1 00.

Mr. Howells's gift of lively appreciation of the humors that

lie on the surface of conduct and conversation, and his skill

in reproducing them in literary form, make him peculiarly

successful in his attempts at graceful, delicately humorous

dialogue.--_Boston Advertiser._

* * * * *

Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York.

_Any of the above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of

the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._

BY CONSTANCE F. WOOLSON.

JUPITER LIGHTS. A Novel. 16mo, Cloth, $1 25.

EAST ANGELS. A Novel. 16mo, Cloth, $1 25.

ANNE. A Novel. Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth, $1 25.

FOR THE MAJOR. A Novelette. 16mo, Cloth, $1 00.

CASTLE NOWHERE. Lake Country Sketches. 16mo,

Cloth, $1 00.

RODMAN THE KEEPER. Southern Sketches. 16mo,

Cloth, $1 00.

Delightful touches justify those who see many points of analogy

between Miss Woolson and George Eliot.--_N. Y. Times._

For tenderness and purity of thought, for exquisitely delicate

sketching of characters, Miss Woolson is unexcelled among

writers of fiction.--_New Orleans Picayune._

Characterization is Miss Woolson's forte. Her men and women are

not mere puppets, but original, breathing, and finely

contrasted creations.--_Chicago Tribune._

Miss Woolson is one of the few novelists of the day who know

how to make conversation, how to individualize the speakers,

how to exclude rabid realism without falling into literary

formality.--_N. Y. Tribune._

Constance Fenimore Woolson may easily become the novelist

laureate.--_Boston Globe._

Miss Woolson has a graceful fancy, a ready wit, a polished

style, and conspicuous dramatic power; while her skill in the

development of a story is very remarkable.--_London Life._

Miss Woolson never once follows the beaten track of the

orthodox novelist, but strikes a new and richly loaded vein

which, so far, is all her own; and thus we feel, on reading one

of her works, a fresh sensation, and we put down the book with

a sigh to think our pleasant task of reading it is finished.

The author's lines must have fallen to her in very pleasant

places; or she has, perhaps, within herself the wealth of

womanly love and tenderness she pours so freely into all she

writes. Such books as hers do much to elevate the moral tone of

the day--a quality sadly wanting in novels of the

time.--_Whitehall Review, London._

* * * * *

Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York.

_Any of the above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of

the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._

BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER

A LITTLE JOURNEY IN THE WORLD. A Novel. pp. iv.,

396. Post 8vo, Half Leather, $1 50.

STUDIES IN THE SOUTH AND WEST, with Comments on Canada. pp. iv., 484.

Post 8vo, Half Leather, $1 75.

A witty, instructive book, as brilliant in its pictures as it

is warm in its kindness; and we feel sure that it is with a

patriotic impulse that we say that we shall be glad to learn

that the number of its readers bears some proportion to its

merits and its power for good.--_N. Y. Commercial Advertiser._

Sketches made from studies of the country and the people upon

the ground.... They are the opinions of a man and a scholar

without prejudices, and only anxious to state the facts as they

were.... When told in the pleasant and instructive way of Mr.

Warner the studies are as delightful as they are

instructive.--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._

Perhaps the most accurate and graphic account of these portions

of the country that has appeared, taken all in all.... It is a

book most charming--a book that no American can fail to enjoy,

appreciate, and highly prize.--_Boston Traveller._

THEIR PILGRIMAGE. Richly Illustrated by C. S. Reinhart. pp. viii., 364.

Post 8vo, Half Leather, $2 00.

Mr. Warner's pen-pictures of the characters typical of each

resort, of the manner of life followed at each, of the humor

and absurdities peculiar to Saratoga, or Newport, or Bar

Harbor, as the case may be, are as good-natured as they are

clever. The satire, when there is any, is of the mildest, and

the general tone is that of one glad to look on the brightest

side of the cheerful, pleasure-seeking world with which he

mingles.--_Christian Union_, N. Y.

Mr. Reinhart's spirited and realistic illustrations are very

attractive, and contribute to make an unusually handsome book.

We have already commented upon the earlier chapters of the

text; and the happy blending of travel and fiction which we

looked forward to with confidence did, in fact, distinguish

this story among the serials of the year.--_N. Y. Evening

Post._

* * * * *

Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York.

_Any of the above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of

the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._

THE CAPTAIN OF THE JANIZARIES.

A Tale of the Times of Scanderbeg and the Fall of

Constantinople. By James M. Ludlow, D.D., Litt.D. pp. iv., 404. 16mo,

Cloth, $1 50.

The author writes clearly and easily; his descriptions are often

of much brilliancy, while the whole setting of the story is of

that rich Oriental character which fires the fancy.--_Boston

Courier._

Strong in its central historical character, abounding in

incident, rapid and stirring in action, animated and often

brilliant in style.--_Christian Union_, N. Y.

Something new and striking interests us in almost every

chapter. The peasantry of the Balkans, the training and

government of the Janizaries, the interior of Christian and

Moslem camps, the horrors of raids and battles, the violence of

the Sultan, the tricks of spies, the exploits of heroes, engage

Mr. Ludlow's fluent pen.--_N. Y. Tribune._

Dr. Ludlow's style is a constant reminder of Walter Scott, and

the book is to retain a permanent place in

literature.--_Observer, N. Y._

An altogether admirable piece of work--picturesque, truthful,

and dramatic.--_Newark Advertiser._

A most romantic, enjoyable tale.... As affording views of inner

life in the East as long ago as the middle of the fifteenth

century, this tale ought to have a charm for many; but it is

full enough of incident, wherever the theatre of its action

might be found, to do this.--_Troy Press._

The author has used his material with skill, weaving the facts

of history into a story crowded with stirring incidents and

unexpected situations, and a golden thread of love-making,

under extreme difficulties, runs through the narrative to a

happy issue.--_Examiner_, N. Y.

One of the strongest and most fascinating historical novels of

the last quarter of a century.--_Boston Pilot._

A refreshing and remarkable production. There is here no

wearisome soul-searching, and no minute analysis of the

trivial, but a straightforward romance, written almost in the

great manner of Scott. As a story, it is absorbingly

interesting from first page to last. As a resuscitation of

history, it has the accuracy without the pedantry of the works

of German and other moderns. As a presentation of the physical

aspects of the Balkan peninsula, it is very striking, and shows

close familiarity with the regions described. As a study of the

life and manner of the remote epoch with which it deals, it

exhibits, without ostentation, a careful and minute research;

and as a literary composition, it has more merits and fewer

faults than most of the books written in this age of hurried

production.--_Dial_, Chicago.

* * * * *

Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York.

Harper & Brothers _will send the above work by mail, postage prepaid,

to any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico,

on receipt of the price_.

BY LAFCADIO HEARN.

Two Years in the French West Indies. By Lafcadio Hearn. pp.517.

Copiously Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, $2 00.

The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard. By Anatole France. The Translation and

Introduction by Lafcadio Hearn. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents.

Chita: A Memory of Last Island. By Lafcadio Hearn. pp. vi., 204. Post

8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 00.

To such as are unfamiliar with Mr. Hearn's writings,"Chita"

will be a revelation of how near language can approach the

realistic power of actual painting. His very words seem to have

color--his pages glow--his book is a kaleidoscope.--_N. Y. Mail

and Express._

A powerful story, rich in descriptive passages.... The tale is

a tragic one, but it shows remarkable imaginative force, and is

one that will not soon be forgotten by the reader.--_Saturday

Evening Gazette_, Boston.

Lafcadio Hearn's exquisite story.... A tale full of poetry and

vivid description that nobody will want to miss.--_N. Y. Sun._

A pathetic little tale, simple but deeply touching, and told

with the beauty of phrasing and the deep and subtle sympathy of

the poet.--_Chicago Times._

There is no page--no paragraph even--but holds more of vital

quality than would suffice to set up an ordinary volume.--_The

Epoch_, N. Y.

... A wonderfully sustained effort in imaginative prose, full

of the glamour and opulent color of the tropics and yet strong

with the salt breath of the sea.--_San Francisco Chronicle._

Mr. Hearn is a poet, and in "Chita" he has produced a prose

poem of much beauty.... His style is tropical, full of glow and

swift movement and vivid impressions, reflecting strong love

and keen sympathetic observation of nature, picturesque and

flexible, luxuriant in imagery, and marked by a delicate

perception of effective values.--_N. Y. Tribune._

In the too few pages of this wonderful little book tropical

Nature finds a living voice and a speech by which she can make

herself known. All the splendor of her skies and the terrors of

her seas make to themselves a language. So living a book has

scarcely been given to our generation.--_Boston Transcript._

* * * * *

Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York.

_The above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the

United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._

BEN-HUR: A TALE OF THE CHRIST.

By Lew. Wallace. New Edition. pp. 552. 16mo,

Cloth, $1 50.

Anything so startling, new, and distinctive as the leading

feature of this romance does not often appear in works of

fiction.... Some of Mr. Wallace's writing is remarkable for its

pathetic eloquence. The scenes described in the New Testament

are rewritten with the power and skill of an accomplished

master of style.--_N. Y. Times._

Its real basis is a description of the life of the Jews and

Romans at the beginning of the Christian era, and this is both

forcible and brilliant.... We are carried through a surprising

variety of scenes; we witness a sea-fight, a chariot-race, the

internal economy of a Roman galley, domestic interiors at

Antioch, at Jerusalem, and among the tribes of the desert;

palaces, prisons, the haunts of dissipated Roman youth, the

houses of pious families of Israel. There is plenty of exciting

incident; everything is animated, vivid, and glowing.--_N. Y.

Tribune._

From the opening of the volume to the very close the reader's

interest will be kept at the highest pitch, and the novel will

be pronounced by all one of the greatest novels of the

day.--_Boston Post._

It is full of poetic beauty, as though born of an Eastern sage,

and there is sufficient of Oriental customs, geography,

nomenclature, etc., to greatly strengthen the

semblance.--_Boston Commonwealth._

"Ben-Hur" is interesting, and its characterization is fine and

strong. Meanwhile it evinces careful study of the period in

which the scene is laid, and will help those who read it with

reasonable attention to realize the nature and conditions of

Hebrew life in Jerusalem and Roman life at Antioch at the time

of our Saviour's advent.--_Examiner_, N. Y.

It is really Scripture history of Christ's time clothed

gracefully and delicately in the flowing and loose drapery of

modern fiction.... Few late works of fiction excel it in

genuine ability and interest.--_N. Y. Graphic._

One of the most remarkable and delightful books. It is as real

and warm as life itself, and as attractive as the grandest and

most heroic chapters of history.--_Indianapolis Journal._

The book is one of unquestionable power, and will be read with

unwonted interest by many readers who are weary of the

conventional novel and romance.--_Boston Journal._

* * * * *

Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York.

_The above work sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United

States or Canada, on receipt of the price._