turned hurriedly towards them, exhibiting a little bundle of
handkerchiefs, his broad Ethiopian face clouded with anxiety and
concern:

"The gentleman told me to take all his handkerchiefs. We'se got a dozen
frozen soldiers in the baggage-car,--some of 'em mighty bad,--and
they'se tryin' to make 'em comfortable until they get to the fort."

"Soldiers frozen! Why do you take them in the baggage-car?--such a barn
of a place! Why weren't they brought here, where we could make them warm
and care for them?" exclaimed Mrs. Rayner, in impulsive indignation.

"Laws, ma'am! never do in the world to bring frozen people into a hot
car! Sure to make their ears an' noses drop off, that would! Got to keep
'em in the cold and pile snow around 'em. That gentleman sittin'
here,--he knows," he continued: "he's an officer, and him and the
doctor's workin' with 'em now."

And Mrs. Rayner, vanquished by a statement of facts well known to her
yet forgotten in the first impetuosity of her criticism, relapsed into
the silence of temporary defeat.

"He _is_ an officer, then," said Miss Travers, presently. "I wonder what
he belongs to."

"Not to our regiment, I'm sure. Probably to the cavalry. He knew Major
Stannard and other officers whom we passed there."

"Did he speak to them?"