graveyard, and it's only natural he should enjoy getting here, where
there are theatres and concerts and operas and dances and dinners--"

"Yes, dances and dinners and daughters,--all delightful, I know, but no
excuse for a man's neglecting his manifest duty, as he is doing and has
been ever since we got here. Any other time the colonel would have
straightened him out; but no use trying it now, when both women in his
household are as big fools about the man as anybody in town,--bigger,
unless I'm a born idiot." And Chester rose excitedly.

"I suppose he had Miss Renwick pretty much to himself to-night?" he
presently demanded, looking angrily and searchingly at his junior, as
though half expecting him to dodge the question.

"Oh, yes. Why not? It's pretty evident she would rather dance and be
with him than with any one else: so what can a fellow do? Of course we
ask her to dance, and all that, and I think he wants us to; but I cannot
help feeling rather a bore to her, even if she is only eighteen, and
there are plenty of pleasant girls in the garrison who don't get any too
much attention, now we're so near a big city, and I like to be with
them."

"Yes, and it's the _right_ thing for you to do, youngster. That's one
trait I despise in Jerrold. When we were up there at the stockade two
winters ago, and Captain Gray's little girl was there, he hung around
her from morning till night, and the poor little thing fairly beamed and
blossomed with delight. Look at her now, man! He don't go near her. He
hasn't had the decency to take her a walk, a drive, or anything, since
we got here. He began, from the moment we came, with that gang in town.
He was simply devoted to Miss Beaubien until Alice Renwick came; then he