The Caucasian. (Clinton, N.C.) 188?-1913, 1890-12-04


cavalry officer, when once he got in sad
die and settled down to business, one
would hardly ask to find. Tall, athletic,
slender of build, with frank, laughing
blue eyes, curly, close cropped, light
brown hair, and a twirling mustache
that was a source of inexpressible delight
to its owner and of some envy to his
brother subalterns, Mr.. Perry was prob
ably the best looking of the young Off
GERS who marched with the battalion to
this far away station on the borders of
the Llano Estacado. He had been ten
years in service, counting the four he
spent as Il cadet, had just won his silver
bar as the junior first lieutenant of the
regiment, was full to the brim of health,
energy, animal spirits and fun, and, bar
ring few duns and debts in his earlier
experiences, had never known a heavier
care in the world than the transient
and ephemeral anxiety as to whether he
would be called up for recitation on a
subject he had not 80 much as looked at,
or ''hived" absent from a roll call he had
lazily slept through.
Any other man, his comrades said,
would have been spoiled dozen times
over by the petting he had received from
both men and women; but there was
something essentially sweet and genial
about his nature-something "lacking in
guile about his perceptions" said a cyni-
cal old captain of the regiment-and a
jovial, sunshiny way of looking upon the
world as an Eden, all men and all women
as friends, and the army as the profes-
sion above all others, and these various
attributes combined to make him popular
with his kind and unusually attractive
to the opposite sex. AS a cadet he had
been perpetually on the verge of dismis,
sal because of the appalling array of de-
merits he could roll up against his name,
and yet the very officers who jotted down
the memoranda of his sins-omission
and commission-against the regulations
were men who openly said he ''had the
making of one of the finest soldiers in
the class" AS junior second lieutenant
-''plebe"-of the regiment, he had beer
welcomed by every man from the colone,
down, and it was considered particularly
rough that he should have to go to such
company Us Capt. Canker's, because
Canker was a man who never got along
with any of his juniors; but there was
something SO irrepressibly frank ani
| contrite in Perry's boyish face when ht
would appear at his captains dool
| in the early morning and burst ou
with: by Jove, captain! I slep
through reveille again this morning
and never got down till stable:
were nearly over" that even that eros:
grained but honest troop commando
was disarmed, and, though he threat
ened and reprimanded, he would neve
punish-would never deny his subalterr
the faintest privilege; and when promo
ticn took the captain to another regi
ment he bade good-by to Perry with eye
that were suspiciously wet. "Why
blow it all, what do you fellows hat
Canker so for?" the youngster Otter
said. He ought to put me in arres
time and again, but he won't. Blamed
if don't put myself in arrest, or confn
myself to the limits of the post, and d
| something, to cut all this going to tow
and hops and such things. Then I cal
stick to the troop like wax and get up a
reveille; but if I'm out dancing till 2 0
8 in the morning it's no use, tell you;
| just can't wake up"
1t was always predicted of Ned PER-
that he would be married and don
for" within a year of his graduation
Every new face in the five years tina
followed revived the garrison propI
ecy, ''Now he's gone, surer' but, how
ever devoted he might.seem to the damse
in question, however restless and impa
tent he might be when compelled by hi
duties to absent himself from her side
! however promising to casual Observers
| perchance to the damsel herself-migh
be all the surface indications, the absc
lutte franlness with which he proclaime
his admiration TO every listener, and tn
fact that he had been just so with hal
dozen other girls" enabled the coole
! heads of the regimentto decide that th
time had not yet come-or at least tn
woman.
81 do WISH" said Mrs Turner, ''tha
Mr.. Perry would settle on somebody, be
cause, just so long as he doesn't, it
rather nard to tell who he belongs to
And, as Mrs. Tuner had long been
reigning belle among the married wome
of the --th, and one to whom the your
officers were always expected to sho
much attention, her whimsical way
describing the situation was readily III
derstood
But here at the new station-at f
away Rossiter-matters were taking
a new look. To begin with, the wiv
of the officers of the cavalry battaEs
had not joined, none of the ladies of Il
-th were here, and none would
apt to come until the summers scou
ing work was over and done with. II
ladies of the little battalion of infantl
were here, and, though there were ]
maiden sisters or cousins yet at the pc
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