“Well, old man,” says the cavalry leader, “you can hardly get into a scrape ’twixt here and Sidney.  We’ve seen you through all right so far; now we’ll go on about our scouting.  Your old friend Feeny asked permission to see you safely to the railway.”

“What, Feeny? and a first sergeant too?  I’m honored, indeed!  Well, sergeant,” he adds, catching sight of the grizzled red face under the old scouting hat, “I’ll promise to let you run the machine this time and not interfere, no matter what stories come to us of beauty in distress.  All ready?”

“All ready, sir, if the major is.”

“He wasn’t that civil to me in Arizona,” laughs the paymaster, as he turns to shake hands with the officers about him.

“You see you were new to the business then,” explains a tall captain; “Feeny considers you a war veteran now, after your experience at Moreno’s.  We all had to serve our apprenticeship as suckling lieutenants before he would show us anything but a semblance of respect.  Good-by, major; good luck to you.”

“Good-by all.  Good-by, Drummond.  Good-by, Wing.—­Here!  I must shake hands with you two again.”  And shake he does; then is slowly “boosted” into his wagon, where, as the whip cracks and the mules plunge at their collars and tilt him backward, the major’s jolly red face beams on all around, and he waves his broad-brimmed hat in exuberant cordiality as they rattle away.

The group of officers presently disperses, two tall lieutenants strolling off together and throwing themselves under the spreading branches of a big cottonwood.  One of them, darker and somewhat heavier built now, but muscular, active, powerful, is Drummond; the other, a younger man by a brace of years, tall, blue-eyed, blonde-bearded, wearing on his scouting-blouse the straps of a second lieutenant, is our old friend Wing, and Wing does not hesitate in presence of his senior officer—­such is the bond of friendship between them—­to draw from his breast-pocket a letter just received that day when the courier met them at the crossing of the Dry Fork, and to lose himself in its contents.

“All well with the madam and the kid?” queries Drummond, after the manner of the frontier, when at last Wing folds and replaces his letter, a happy light in his brave blue eyes.

“All well; Paquita says that Harvey has captured the entire household, and that Grandpa Harvey is his abject slave.  There isn’t anything in Chicago too good for that two-year-old.  They’ve had them photo’d together,—­the kid on his grandfather’s shoulder.”

“Aren’t you afraid his Arizona uncle will be jealous for his own boy’s sake?” laughs Drummond.

“I don’t believe Ned would begrudge Fanny anything the old man might feel for her or for hers.  He is generosity itself towards his sisters, and surely I could never have found a warmer friend—­out of the army.  You know how he stood by me.”

“I know, and it was most gratifying,—­not but that I feel sure you would have won without his aid.  The old man simply couldn’t quite be reconciled to her marrying in the army and living in Arizona.”