The Captain of the Gray-Horse Troop. Garland Hamlin

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СКАЧАТЬ and Jessie Eagle were. "I quite fell in love with the tots, they were so cunning. I hope they got the toys I sent."

      Brisbane gave Curtis the most studious attention, lounging deep in his big chair. Occasionally he ponderously leaned forward to listen to some remark, with his head cocked in keen scrutiny – actions which did not escape the Captain's notice. "He's sizing me up," he thought. "Well, let him."

      Elsie also listened, curiously like her father in certain inclinations of the head – intent, absorbed; only Lawson seemed indifferent to the news the agent guardedly recited.

      Brisbane broke his silence by saying: "I infer you're on the side of the redskin?"

      "Decidedly, in this connection."

      "Quite aside from your duty?"

      "Entirely so. My duty in this case happened to be my inclination. I could have declined the detail, but being a believer in the army's arrangement of Indian affairs, I couldn't decently refuse."

      Brisbane settled back into his chair and looked straight at his visitor.

      "You think the white man the aggressor in this land question?"

      Curtis definitely pulled himself up. "I am not at liberty to speak further on that matter."

      Mrs. Wilcox interrupted smilingly. "Andrew, don't start an argument now. Dinner is served, and I know Captain Curtis is hungry."

      Elsie rose. "Yes, papa, leave your discussion till some other time, when you can bang the furniture."

      Curtis expected to take Miss Cooke in to dinner, but Elsie delighted him by saying, "You're to go in with me, Captain."

      "I am very glad of the privilege," he said, with deliberate intent to please her; his sincerity was unquestionable.

      Curtis would have been more profoundly impressed with the spaciousness of the hall and the dining-room had they been less like the interior of a hotel. The whole house, so far as its mural decoration went, had the over-stuffed quality of a Pullman car (with the exception of the pictures on the walls, which were exceedingly good), for Brisbane had successfully opposed all of Elsie's new-fangled notions with regard to interior decoration; he was of those who insist on being masters in their houses as well as in their business offices, and Elsie's manner was that of an obedient daughter deferring to a sire who had not ceased to consider her a child.

      Seated at Elsie's right hand, with Mrs. Wilcox between himself and the head of the table, Curtis was fairly out of reach of Brisbane, who was dangerously eager to open a discussion concerning the bill for the removal of the Tetongs.

      Elsie turned to him at once to say: "Do you know, Captain Curtis, I begin to long to return to the West. All my friends are enthusiastic over the studies I made last year, and I've decided to go back next spring. How early could one come out?"

      "Any time after the first of May – in fact, that is the most beautiful month in the year; the grass is deliciously green then. I'm glad to know you think of returning. Jennie will also rejoice. It seems too good to be true. Will Mr. Lawson also return?"

      "Oh yes. In fact, I go to complete his work – to do penance for neglecting him last summer." And in her tone, he fancied, lay a covert warning, as though she had said: "Do not mistake me; I am not coming out of interest in you."

      He needed the word, for under the spell of her near presence and the charm of her smile, new to him, the soldier was beginning to glow again and to soften, in spite of his resolution to be very calm.

      She went on: "I am genuinely remorseful, because Mr. Lawson has not been able to bring his paper out as he had planned."

      "I will see that you have every possible aid," he replied, matter-of-factly. "The work must be done soon."

      "How handsome he is!" the girl thought, as she studied his quiet face. "His profile is especially fine, and the line of his neck and shoulders – " an impulse seized her, and she said:

      "Captain, I'd like to make a sketch of you. Could you find time to sit for me?"

      "That's very flattering of you, but I'm afraid my stay in Washington is too short and too preoccupied."

      Her face darkened. "I'm sorry. I know I could make a good thing of you."

      "Thank you for the compliment, but it is out of the question at present. Next summer, if you come out, I will be very glad to give the time for it. And that reminds me, you promised to show me your pictures when I came, and your studio."

      "Did I? Well, you shall see them, although they are not as good as I shall do next year. One has to learn to handle new material. Your Western atmosphere is so different from that of Giverney, in which we all paint in Paris; then, the feeling of the landscape is so different; everything is so firm and crisp in line – but I am going to get it! 'There is the mystery of light as well as of the dark,' Meunnot used to say to us, and if I can get that clear shimmer, and the vibration of the vivid color of the savage in the midst of it – "

      She broke off as if in contemplation of the problem, rapt with question how to solve it.

      "There speaks the artist in you, and it is fine. But I'd like you to see the humanitarian side of life, too," he replied.

      "There is none," she instantly replied, with a curious blending of defiance and amusement. "I belong to the world of Light and Might – "

      "And I to the world of Right – what about that?"

      "Light and Might make right."

      "Your team is wrongly harnessed – Light and Right are co-workers. Might fears both Light and Right."

      Mrs. Wilcox, who had been listening, fairly clapped her hands. "I'm glad to have you refute her arguments, Captain. She is absolutely heartless in her theories – in practice she's a nice girl."

      Elsie laughed. "What amuses me is that a soldier, the embodiment of Might, should dare to talk of Right."

      Curtis grew grave. "If I did not think that my profession at bottom guarded the rights of both white men and red, I'd resign instantly. Our army is only an impartial instrument for preserving justice."

      "That isn't the old-world notion," put in Lawson from across the table.

      "It is our notion," stoutly replied Curtis. "Our little army to-day stands towards the whole nation as a police force relates itself to a city – a power that interferes only to prevent aggression of one interest on the rights of another."

      Brisbane's big, flat voice took up the theme.

      "That's a very pretty theory, but you'll find plenty to claim that the army is an instrument of oppression."

      "I'll admit it is sometimes wrongly used," Curtis replied. "We who are in the field can't help that, however. We are under orders. Of course," he added, modestly, "I am only a young soldier. I have seen but ten years of service, and I have taken part in but one campaign – a war I considered unavoidable at that time."

      "You would hold, then, that an officer of the army has a right to convictions?" queried Brisbane, in the tone of the lawyer.

      "Most certainly. A man does not cease to think upon entering the army."

      "That's dangerous doctrine."

      "It's СКАЧАТЬ