Marion's Faith. Charles King

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      "Just this difference, my bully rook: that Truscott would catch us before we got to Laramie—unless we went by rail."

      "Why, Blake, you're addled!" replied the captain, in that uncomplimentary directness which sometimes manifests itself among old comrades of the frontier, even in the presence of the gentler sex. "Why, Mr. Blake, you don't suppose he is going to give up his young wife, his lovely home, his pleasant duties, to join for a mere Indian campaign, do you?" asked more than one present, and a general murmur of dissent went round. "What do you say, major?" said one voice, in direct appeal to the senior officer of the group.

      "It depends on what you consider a 'mere Indian campaign,'" was the cool response.

      "But as to Truscott's going, what do you think, Ray?"

      "I don't think anything about it. I know."

CHAPTER III.

       Table of Contents

HEROINES.

       Table of Contents

      "What is so rare as a day in June?" sings the poet, and where can a day in June be more beautiful than at this Highland Gate of the peerless Hudson? It is June of the Centennial year, and all the land is ablaze with patriotic fervor. From North, from South, from East and West, the products of a nation's ingenuity or a nation's toil have been garnered in one vast exhibition at the Quaker City; and thither flock the thousands of our people. It is June of a presidential nomination, and the eyes of statesmen and politicians are fixed on Cincinnati. It is the celebration of the first century of a nation's life that engrosses the thoughts of millions of hearts, and between that great jubilee and that quadrennial tempest-in-a-teapot, the nomination, who but a few lonely wives and children have time to think of those three columns far, far out in the broad Northwest—those three columns of regulars, cavalry and infantry, rough-garbed, bronzed and bearded, steadily closing in towards the wild and beautiful region along the northern water-shed of the Big Horn Range, where ten thousand hostile Indians are uneasily watching their coming? On the Atlantic seaboard comrades in full-dress uniform, with polished arms, are standing guard over government treasures on exhibition, and thoughtless thousands wonder at the ease and luxury of the soldier's life. Out on the frontier, in buckskin and flannel, slouch hats and leggings, and bristling prairie-belts, the little army is concentrating upon an outnumbering foe, whose signal-fires light the way by night, whose trail is red with blood by day. From the northeast, up the Yellowstone, Terry of Fort Fisher fame, the genial, the warm-hearted general, whose thoughts are ever with his officers and men, leads his few hundred footmen, while Custer, whose division has flashed through battery after battery, charge after charge, in the great Rebellion, now rides at the head of a single regiment. From the northwest, down the Yellowstone, with but a handful of tried soldiery, comes Gibbon; he who led a corps at Gettysburg and Appomattox. From the south, feeling his way along the eastern base of the Big Horn, with less than two thousand troopers and footmen, marches the "Gray Fox," the general under whom our friends of the—th so long and so successfully battled with the Apaches of Arizona. He has met his match this time. Cheyenne, Ogallalla, Brulé, Uncapapa, Minneconjou, Sans Arc, and Blackfoot, all swarm over the broad and breezy uplands in his front, or lurk in the deep shade of the lovely valleys. Twice have they sprung upon him and checked his advance. Once only has he been forced to hesitate, but now, as the longest days of the year approach and the glistening dome of Snow Peak is yet warm with the flush of the setting sun, when "morn, in russet mantle clad," tinges the eastern slopes with glowing light; now, at last, the long-dreaded leaders of the border warfare are being hemmed in between the encircling advance. Now may we look for stirring work along the bluffs and boulders of the Big Horn.

      And June, Centennial June, has come to West Point. Examinations are going briskly on, four buoyant classes are all excitement with the joyous prospects of the season: the seniors look forward to the speedy coming of the longed-for diploma and the prized commission, for relief from the restraint of academic life and for the broader field of the army; the second, the juniors, to reaching the dignity of "first-class camp," with the highest offices and honors to be achieved so long as they shall wear the gray; the third, ah! they are the furloughmen, so soon to be restored for two brief months to home and kindred after the two years of rigid discipline and ceaseless duty; the fourth, to step at once and for all from the meekness of "plebedom" and become the envied "old cadet." June brings bliss for all—for all but those who fail.

      And June brings joy to sisters and sweethearts by the dozen, to fond mammas, to proud paternals, who throng the hostelries of the Point and the neighborhood, and swarm in lively interest all over the historic spot, listening with uncomprehending but tireless patience to examinations on fortification or grand tactics, mechanics or calculus; gasping with excitement over dashing charges on the "cavalry plain," shuddering over the reckless daring in the riding-hall, stopping their ears against the thunder of the great guns at the batteries, and beating time with head and foot to the spirited quicksteps of the band. Dress-parade, the closing ceremony of each day, concentrates the entire assemblage along the shaded walk that borders on the west the beautiful green carpet of the "infantry plain," and, at last, as the four gray and white companies go dancing off in double-time through the grim sally-port beneath the barracks, and the carriages and stages whirl away the watching throngs, and the plumed cadet officers scurry off to supper, and, group after group, the spectators saunter homewards, the band disappears below the crest of the plain towards "Bumtown," and little by little the light turns to violet on the wooded heights across the swirling Hudson, and silence settles down upon the scene.

      Gazing out from under the foliage of the great elms, watching these very changes, two ladies are seated upon the piazza of the officers' quarters opposite the southern half of the plain. One is a young matron, whose eyes once seen are not soon forgotten—so soft, so deep, so brown, so truthful are they under the long curling lashes, under the low-arched, heavy brows. Beautiful eyes were they when, in all their girlish fearlessness and innocence, they first beamed upon our old friends of the—th in the days of exile in Arizona. Lovelier still are they now in that consummation of a woman's happiness—a worshipped wifehood. It was early in the previous winter when Captain Truscott brought his fair bride to make her home among the scenes so dear to both, and her life has been one song of unutterable gladness. If earth contained a thing to wish for in those six months, Grace Truscott could not name it. Her pretty army house is the gem of the military community, the envy of many a wife. Her husband is a man whom all men honor and hold in deep esteem. In strength, in dignity, in soldierly ability, and in his devotion to her he is all her heart could ask. If she loved him dearly when they were married, her love has developed into almost an idolatry—"Jack" is her world. Not that she talks or writes very much of that matter, however; for quite a wise little head is that which is perched on Mrs. Truscott's white shoulders. Once in a while in some letter to an old and trusted friend she finds it more than she can do to utterly repress her overwhelming sense of bliss, and then she lets slip some little confession of which Jack is the subject. She never dreamed a man could be so lovely, so delicate, so thoughtful, so considerate, so everything that was simply perfect, is the way she has once or twice found herself constrained to clinch the matter in default of adjectives sufficiently descriptive. "Every day he develops some new, lovely, and unsuspected trait," she once confided to her friend Mrs. Tanner (with whom she has corresponded quite regularly since her marriage, and to whom we are indebted for some of these interesting details), and as Jack Truscott was confessedly a man of many admirable qualities before his matrimonial alliance, it may be conjectured that ere the waning of her honeymoon Mrs. Jack's enumeration table was beginning to prove inadequate. And bliss has been, and is, becoming to Grace. She has lost none of the girlish delicacy of expression which was so marked a characteristic of her youthful beauty a year before, still she has rounded СКАЧАТЬ