All the same it was an eager group that surrounded the colonel the evening he came down with the captain’s letter.  “It settles the thing in my mind.  We’ll go back to Sibley to-morrow; and as for you, Sergeant-Major Fred, your name has gone in for a commission, and I’ve no doubt a very deserving sergeant will be spoiled in making a very good-for-nothing second lieutenant.  Get you back to your regiment, sir, and call on Captain Armitage as soon as you reach Fort Russell, and tell him you are much obliged.  He has been blowing your trumpet for you there; and, as some of those cavalrymen have sense enough to appreciate the opinion of such a soldier as my ex-adjutant,—­some of them, mind you:  I don’t admit that all cavalrymen have sense enough to keep them out of perpetual trouble,—­you came in for a hearty endorsement, and you’ll probably be up before the next board for examination.  Go and bone your Constitution, and the Rule of Three, and who was the father of Zebedee’s children, and the order of the Ptolemies and the Seleucidae, and other such things that they’ll be sure to ask you as indispensable to the mental outfit of an Indian-fighter.”  It was evident that the colonel was in joyous mood.  But Alice was silent.  She wanted to hear the letter.  He would have handed it to Frederick, but both Mrs. Maynard and Aunt Grace clamored to hear it read aloud:  so he cleared his throat and began: 

“MY DEAR COLONEL,—­

“Fred’s chances for a commission are good, as the enclosed papers will show you; but even were this not the case I would have but one thing to say in answer to your letter:  he should go back to his troop.

“Whatever our friends and fellow-citizens may think on the subject, I hold that the profession of the soldier is to the full as honorable as any in civil life; and it is liable at any moment to be more useful.  I do not mean the officer alone.  I say, and mean, the soldier.  As for me, I would rather be first sergeant of my troop or company, or sergeant-major of my regiment, than any lieutenant in it except the adjutant.  Hope of promotion is all that can make a subaltern’s life endurable, but the staff-sergeant or the first sergeant, honored and respected by his officers, decorated for bravery by Congress, and looked up to by his comrades, is a king among men.  The pay has nothing to do with it.  I say to Renwick, ’Come back as soon as your wound will let you,’ and I envy him the welcome that will be his.

“As for me, I am even more eager to get back to you all; but things look very dubious.  The doctors shake their heads at anything under a month, and say I’ll be lucky if I eat my Thanksgiving dinner with you.  If trying to get well is going to help, October shall not be done with before B Company will report me present again.