Among the men at mess that night I saw a new face which was nothing remarkable, except that something in it told me that I had already seen that face somewhere, some time.  It is my gift never to forget a face, once seen, no matter how many years may pass before I see it twice.  This soldier was a pleasant fellow, too, and, in a story he was telling, clever at imitating others.

“Who is that man, Bev?  The third one over there?” I asked my cousin.

“Stranger to me.  I don’t believe I ever saw him before.  Who is the fellow with the smile, Captain?” Beverly asked the officer beside him.

“I don’t know.  He’s not in my company.  I’m finding new faces every day,” the captain replied.

As twilight fell I saw the man again at the edge of the camp.  He smiled pleasantly as he passed me, turning to look at Beverly, who did not see him, and in a minute he was cantering down to the creek beside our camp.  I saw him cross it and ride quickly out of sight.  But that smile brought to the face the thing that had escaped me.

“I know that fellow now,” I said to Beverly and the officer who came up just then.  “He’s Charlie Bent, the son of Colonel Bent.  Don’t you remember the little sinner at old Fort Bent, Bev?”

“I do, and what a vicious little reptile he was,” Beverly replied.  “But Uncle Esmond told me that his father took him away early and had him schooled like a gentleman in the best Saint Louis had to give.  I wonder whose company he is in.”

The officer stared at us.

“You mean to say you know that cavalryman to be Charlie Bent?” he fairly gasped.

“Of course it’s Charlie.  I never missed a face in all my life.  That’s his own,” I replied.

“The worst Indian on the plains!” the captain declared.  “He stirs up more fiendishness than a whole regiment of thoroughbred Cheyennes could ever think of.  He’s led in every killing here since March.”

“Not Colonel Bent’s son!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, he’s the half-breed devil that we’ll have to fight, and here he comes and eats with us and rides away.”

“He must be the fellow that the Mexican told us about back at Burlingame, Gail.  I remember now he did say the brute’s name was Bent, but I didn’t rope him up with our Fort Bent chum.  Gail would have run him down in half a minute if he had heard the name.  I never could remember anything,” Beverly said, in disgust.  But the smile was peeping back of his frown, and he forgot the boy he was soon to have cause enough to remember.

“We must run that rascal down to-night,” the Captain declared, as he hurried away to consult with the other officers.

But Charlie Bent was not run down that night.  Before we had time to get over our surprise a scream of pain rang through the camp.  Another followed, and another, and when an hour had passed a third of our forces was writhing in the clutches of the cholera.