usual derelict fashion cursed the fate that had sent him, after
graduating, to a frontier garrison--the dull monotony of whose
duties made the Border horse-play of dissipation a relief. Already
he had reached the miserable point of envying the veteran
capacities of his superiors and equals. "If I could drink like
Kirby or Crowninshield, or if there was any other cursed thing a
man could do in this hole," he had wretchedly repeated to himself,
after each misspent occasion, and yet already he was looking
forward to them as part of a 'sub's' duty and worthy his emulation.
Already the dream of social recreation fostered by West Point had
been rudely dispelled. Beyond the garrison circle of Colonel
Preston's family and two officers' wives, there was no society.
The vague distrust and civil jealousy with which some frontier
communities regard the Federal power, heightened in this instance
by the uncompromising attitude the Government had taken towards the
settlers' severe Indian policy, had kept the people of Logport
aloof from the Fort. The regimental band might pipe to them on
Saturdays, but they would not dance.

Howbeit, Lieutenant Calvert dressed himself with uncertain hands
but mechanical regularity and neatness, and, under the automatic
training of discipline and duty, managed to button his tunic
tightly over his feelings, to pull himself together with his sword-
belt, compressing a still cadet-like waist, and to present that
indescribable combination of precision and jauntiness which his
brother officers too often allowed to lapse into frontier
carelessness. His closely clipped light hair, yet dripping from a
plunge in the cold water, had been brushed and parted with military
exactitude, and when surmounted by his cap, with the peak in an
artful suggestion of extra smartness tipped forward over his eyes,