and to the girl seated in silence by her side.  Both followed him with their eyes as he hurried away to the rear of the car, and then, with joyous shouts, three or four burly, fur-enveloped men came bursting in the front door, and the two ladies, the baby, and the kitten were pounced upon and surrounded by a group that grew larger every minute.  Released finally from the welcoming embrace of her stalwart husband, Mrs. Rayner found time to present the other and younger officers to her sister.  As many as half a dozen had followed the captain in his wild rush upon the car, and, while he and his baby boy were resuming acquaintanceship after a separation of many long months, Miss Travers found herself the centre of a circle of young officers who had braved the wintry blizzard in their eagerness to do her proper homage.  Her cheeks were aflame with excitement and pleasure, her eyes dancing, and despite the fatigue of her long journey she was looking dangerously pretty, as Captain Rayner glanced for a moment from the baby’s wondering eyes, took in the picture like an instantaneous photograph, and then looked again into Mrs. Rayner’s smiling face.

“You were wise in providing against possibilities as you did, Kate,” he said, with a significant nod of the head.  “There are as many as a dozen of them,—­or at least there will be when the ——­th gets back from the field.  Stannard is out yet with his battalion.”

“Oh, yes:  we saw them at a station east of here.  They looked frozen to death; and there are ever so many of the soldiers frozen.  The baggage-car is full of them.  Didn’t you know it?”

“Not a word of it.  We have been here for three mortal hours waiting at the station, and any telegrams must have been sent right out to the fort.  The colonel is there, and he would have all arrangements made.  Here, Graham!  Foster!  Mrs. Rayner says there are a lot of frozen cavalrymen forward in the baggage-car.  Run ahead and see what is necessary, will you?  I’ll be there in a minute, as soon as we’ve got these ladies off the train.”

Two of the young gentlemen who had been hovering around Miss Travers took themselves off without a moment’s delay.  The others remained to help their senior officer.  Out into the whirling eddies of snow, bundling them up in the big, warm capes of their regulation overcoats, the officers half led, half carried their precious charges.  The captain bore his son and heir; Lieutenant Ross escorted Mrs. Rayner; two others devoted themselves exclusively to Miss Travers; a fourth picked up the Maltese kitten.  Two or three smart, trim-looking infantry soldiers cleared the section of bags and bundles of shawls, and the entire party was soon within the door-way of the waiting-room, where a red-hot coal-stove glowed fierce welcome.  Here the ladies were left for a moment, while all the officers again bustled out into the storm and fought their way against the northwest gale until they reached the little crowd gathered about the door-way of the freight-sheds.  A stout, short, burly man in beaver overcoat and cap pushed through the knot of half-numbed spectators and approached their leader: