“I knew you were, sir.”

This was too much for Grafton.  “Now-how-on-earth—­” and then he checked himself—­it was not his business.

“You’re a Crittenden.”

“That’s right,” laughed the Kentuckian.  The Sergeant turned.  A soldier came up and asked some trifling question, with a searching look, Grafton observed, at Crittenden.  Everyone looked at that man twice, thought Grafton, and he looked again himself.  It was his manner, his bearing, the way his head was set on his shoulders, the plastic force of his striking face.  But Crittenden saw only that the Sergeant answered the soldier as though he were talking to a superior.  He had been watching the men closely—­they might be his comrades some day—­and, already, had noticed, with increasing surprise, the character of the men whom he saw as common soldiers—­young, quiet, and above the average countryman in address and intelligence—­and this man’s face surprised him still more, as did his bearing.  His face was dark, his eye was dark and penetrating and passionate; his mouth was reckless and weak, his build was graceful, and his voice was low and even—­the voice of a gentleman; he was the refined type of the Western gentleman-desperado, as Crittenden had imagined it from fiction and hearsay.  As the soldier turned away, the old Sergeant saved him the question he was about to ask.

“He used to be an officer.”

“Who—­how’s that?” asked Grafton, scenting “a story.”

The old Sergeant checked himself at once, and added cautiously: 

“He was a lieutenant in this regiment and he resigned.  He just got back to-day, and he has enlisted as a private rather than risk not getting to Cuba at all.  But, of course, he’ll get his commission back again.”  The Sergeant’s manner fooled neither Grafton nor Crittenden; both respected the old Sergeant’s unwillingness to gossip about a man who had been his superior, and Grafton asked no more questions.

There was no idleness in that camp.  Each man was busy within and without the conical-walled tents in which the troopers lie like the spokes of a wheel, with heads out like a covey of partridges.  Before one tent sat the tall soldier—­Abe—­and the boy, his comrade, whom Crittenden had seen the night before.

“Where’s Reynolds?” asked Crittenden, smiling.

“Guard-house,” said the Sergeant, shaking his head.

Not a scrap of waste matter was to be seen anywhere—­not a piece of paper—­not the faintest odour was perceptible; the camp was as clean as a Dutch kitchen.

“And this is a camp of cavalry, mind you,” said Grafton.  “Ten minutes after they have broken camp, you won’t be able to tell that there has been a man or horse on the ground, except for the fact that it will be packed down hard in places.  And I bet you that in a month they won’t have three men in the hospital.”  The old Sergeant nearly blushed with pleasure.

“An’ I’ve got the best captain, too, sir,” he said, as they turned away, and Grafton laughed.