Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1889-10-19
CHAPTER l.

+ ST
T WAS nearly midnight, and
still the gay party fingered on
- the veranda. There had been
. fortnight Of getting settled" at the
new post, preceded by month Of march
ing that had brought the battalion from
distant service to this strange Texan sta
ton. The new Corners had been hospita-
bly, welcomed by the officers Of the little
garrison of infantry, and now, in recog.
milton of their many courtesies, the field
officer commanding the arriving troops
had been entertaining the resident Off,
GERS and ladies at dinnsr. The colonel
was host in himself, but preferred not
to draw too heavily on his reserves of
anecdote and small talk, so he had called
in two Of his subalterns to assist in the
pleasant duty Of being attentive to the
infantry ladies, and just now, at 1145p
M, he was wondering II Lieut.. Perry
had not too literally construed his in
structions, for that young gentleman
was devoting himself to Mrs. Belknap in
a manner SO marked as to make the cap
tain. her lawful lord and master, mani.
festly uneasy.
Mrs. Belknap, however, seemed to en-
Joy the situation immensely. She was
pretty woman at most times, as even
her rivals admitted. She was beauti-
full woman at all times, was the verdict
of the officers of the regiment when they
happened to speak of the matter among
themselves. She was dark, with lus-
trous eyes and sweeping lashes, with
coral lips and much luxuriance of tress,
and a way of glancing sideways from
under her heavily fringed eyelids that
the younger and more impressionable
men found quite irresistible when ac-
corded the rare luxury of tete-a-tete.
Belknap was big and boisterous man;
Mrs. Belknap was small in stature, and
soft-very soft-of voice. Belknap was
either brusqucly repellent or oppressively
cordial in manner; Mrs. Belknap was
either gently and exasperatingly indif-
ferent to those whom she did not care to
attract, or caressingly sweet to those
whose attentions she desired.
In their own regiment the young off,
GERS soon found that unless they wished
TO be involved in an unpleasantness with
Belknap it was best to be only very mod
erately devoted to his pretty wife, and
those to whom an unpleasantness with
the big captain might have had no ter
rors Of consequence were deferred by
the fact that Mrs. Belknaps devotee
among the youngsters" had invariably
become an object of coldncss and aver
sion to the other DANES and damsels OF
the garrison. Very short lived, there.
fore, had been the little djrtations that
sprang up from time to time in those
frontier posts wherein Capt. and Mrs.
Belknap were among the chief orna-
ments of society; but now matters
seemed to be taking other shape. From
the very day that handsome Ned Perry
dismounted in front of Belknap's quar-
ters and with his soldiery salute reported
to the then commanding officer that Col.
Brainard and his battalion of cavalry
would arrive in the course OF two or
three hours, Mrs Belknap had evinced
contentment in his society and assumed
an air of quasi-proprietorship that served
to annoy her garrison sisters more than
little. For the time being all the cav
alrymen were bachelors, either by ac-
tual rank or "by brevet," as none of the
ladies of the --th accompanied the bat
talon on its march, and none were ex.
pected until the stations of the regiment
in its new department had been definite
ly settled. The post surgeon, too, was
living life of single blessedness as the
early spring wore on, for his good wife
had betaken herself, with the children,
to the distant east as soon as the disap-
pearance of the winters SHOWS rendered
staging over the hard prairie roads a
matter of no great danger or discomfort.
1t was the doctor himself who, seated
in an easy chair at the end of the ve-
randa, first called the colonels attention
" Perry's devotional attitude at Mrs.
Belknap's side. She was reclining in a
hammock, one little, slippered foot occa-
sionally touching the floor and impart-
ing gentle, swinging motion to the
affair, and making soothing swish
swish of skirts along the mating under
meath. Her jeweled hands looked very
slender and fragile and white as they
cleaned in the soft light that shone
from the open windows of the parlor.
They were busted in Strengthening out
the kinks in the gold cord of his forage
cap and in rearranging little silken
braid and tassel that was fastened in a
clumsy. man like fashion to one of the
buttons at the side; he, seated in camp
chair. was bending forward so that his
handsome, shapely head was only a
trifle higher than hers, and the two
hers so dark and rich in coloring, his
90 fair and massive and strong-came
rather too close together for the equa.
nimity of Capt. Belknap, who had es'
sayed 10 take hand at whist in the par.
lOr.
One or two of the ladies, also, wert
silent observers Of the scene-silent as t.
the scene because, being in conversation
ut the time with brother officers of Lieut.
Perry, they were uncertain as yet how
somments on his growing Irritation nigh
be received. That their eyes should oc
casionally wander towards the hammocl
and then glance with sympathetic sig
nifcance at those Of some fair ally an,
intimate was natural enough. But whel
it became presently apparent that Mrs
Belknap was actually unfastening tn
little silken braid that had hung on Ne'
Perrys cap ever since the day OF his ar
rival--all the while, too, looking shyl
up in his eyes as her fingers worked
when it was seen that she presently dc
tached it from the button and then, hal
hesitatingly, but evidently in complianc
with his wishes, handed it TO him; whe
he was seen TO toss II carelessly-eve
contemptuously-away and then ben
down lower, as though gazing into he
shaded eyes, Mrs. Lawrence could stan
it no longer.
"Mr. Graham" said she, isn't you
friapI Mr. Dar,.r enmathintr af "a Hirfyi