Broussard, walking rapidly off, in the bright January morning, turned around for one last glimpse at the house that held Anita.  At that moment the great doors of the Commandant’s house opened, and Anita, with a long crimson cloak around her and a hood over her head, ran down the broad stone steps to where Gamechick was standing like a bronze horse, the best-trained and best-mannered and best-bred cavalry charger at Fort Blizzard.  Anita put her arm about his neck and rubbed her cheek against his satin coat, Gamechick receiving her caresses with dignity, as a cavalry charger should, and not with the tender bondings and nosings for lumps of sugar, like Pretty Maid.  The last glimpse Broussard had of Anita was, as she stood, her arm about Gamechick’s neck, her crimson mantle falling away from her graceful shoulder.

[Illustration:  The last glimpse Broussard had of Anita was, as she stood, her arm about Gamechick’s neck.]

“How much simpler,” thought Broussard, as he buttoned his heavy fur coat, for the ride to the station, “is love for a horse, for a child, for anything created, than love for a woman!  No man gets out of that business without complications, and when the woman is half a child, an idealist, precocious, an angel with a devil lurking somewhere about her, it’s the most complicated thing on this planet!”

Broussard carried these thoughts with him through the frozen Northwest, across the sapphire seas, and into the jungles of the tropics, to which he was destined.

CHAPTER V

UNFORGETTING

“As the passing of leaves, so is the passing of men.”  Thus it was with Broussard.  Another man came to take his place; his once luxurious quarters, now plainly furnished, were occupied by another officer, his fighting cocks had disappeared, and Gamechick became a lady’s mount.  Anita quite gave over riding Pretty Maid, and rode Gamechick every day.  She had some of the superstitions of the Arabs about horses, and when she dismounted, she always whispered something in the horse’s ear.  The words were: 

“We won’t forget him, Gamechick, although he has forgotten us.”

At this, Gamechick would turn his steady, intelligent eyes on her, and nod, as if he understood every word.  Colonel Fortescue and Mrs. Fortescue noticed this little trick of Anita’s and looked at each other in silent pity for the girl.  She suddenly developed amazing energy, working hard at her violin lessons and delighting Neroda by her progress, reading and studying until Mrs. Fortescue took the books away from her, going to all the dances, doing everything that her young companions did, and many things which they did not.  She became the chaplain’s right hand for work among the soldiers’ children, and from daybreak until she went to bed at night Anita was ever employed at something and throwing into that something wonderful force and perseverance.  One thing became immediately noticeable to Colonel and Mrs. Fortescue; this was that Anita never spoke Broussard’s name from the hour he left Fort Blizzard.