Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-05-20

bent toward her, as she leaned against the
railing.
Three years ago. here. on this very spot,
| tried to tell you what I've come to tell
you now No, Ethel, you must listen to
me- he pleaded. for she struggled to free
her hand and check him. But everything
seemed to interpose. You went one way, l
another; and when we met at Groveton you
know that duty alone-duty to the mother
and sisters dependent on me-kept me 81
lent. Last week-ah. listen, Ethel, Jane
looked into my face she told me her hap
piness and --''
But she would not listen. She lifted up
her head. the sweet, pale face turning full
upon him, earnest intent, resolved, and.
though her voice was low, it was firm and
strong.
You know your duty. Captain Fame, and
L have mine. | will not hear another word
And so she left him: and yet in all the
light and glamour and gladness about her.
in the midst of all the mirth and music and
rejoicing after graduating parade and at
the graduating ball, her deep eyes sought
him on every hand the hours sped by,
and he never appeared. 1t was Brother Jim
who broke the spell. All excitement and
Importance he came fairly sliding to her
size. Great news, Ethel, I'm assigned 10
the til, FaneS regiment. The whole Sioux
Nation are out! Crooks called for help.
Every mothers son of us is needed, Fame
started at noon" Then duty had sum-
mOned him again.
woeful summer was that that followed
Even as the joyous class was ringing its
parting cheer from the crowded deck of the
DAY boat, and all the rocky heights about
the point were alive with the fiutter of kec-
chief and the frantic waving of hats and
helmets. caps and class banners away out
among the foothills of the wildly beautiful
Big Horn, along other bold and wooded
heights, in countless hordes the red
riors We're sWarming In hate and fire on
the battling lines of Crook. Another week
and in even greater force and fury they had
ergulfed the fated squadrons of Custer.
leaving not a soldier soul to tell the tale.
And then while, all rejoicing, the nation
was focking to Philadelphia and the first
great exposition in our land, the stubborn
bands of Sitting Bull and their kindred
warriors, Sioux and Cheyenne led on from
one wild range to another, Turing the pur
suing columns farther and farther away
from camp and supplies, rarely facing them
in fair fight, but ever enticing, to the end
that, after long weeks of marching and
scouting through blistering heat or pitiless
rain, through storm and tempest, hail and
prairie fire, through ashen bad lands,
where even sage and greasewood could not
grow, where the turbid streams were thick
with mud and alkali, where game was
scarce and grass was gone-burned skill
fully away-where wagons could not fol-
low and pack mules mired in quicksand,
without shelter of any kind and presently
without rations, their Scanty clothing in
rags, their boots worn TO shreds, gaunt and
famished, officers and men faring and shar-
ing alike, the so-called ''dapper handles"
of the old regiment fell upon their starving
horses, when even prairie dogs could not
be found and ate the luckless beasts that
for days had been too weak to bear a nd
cr's weight. Take the nonsense out of
Brother Jim indeed! There were long
weeks in which no word whatever came
from the column, and mothers and wives,
sisters and sweethearts in distant homes
watched and prayed and shuddered,
thinking over the awful fate of Clusters
men and dreading with each new-coming
a hoo t,A e IL Ia n
JuEe the regiment had passed through
Denver. northward bound. In July it had
struck the Cheyennes on the War Bonnet
and chased them TO the agency. In early
August it was at the Big Horn; in late
August on the Yellowstone, and then Il
dove into the wilderness, to be heard of
again at last in the Black Hills, after stir
ring, spirited battles with Crazy Horse and
his bands-drenched, dripping, haggard and
well-ngh unrecognizable, yet tough and
hardy in spite of all, and finally in the
bleak November came Jimmy's eXultant
missive from old Red Cloud Agency: Dis
armed the Sioux today. Home on leave
Thanksgiving" and nothing would do but
that the sub-assistant secretary of the con-
sulate at CoblentZ should also get leave and
come across the Atlantic that the father
might have his two boys with him at least
once more. Despite the Indian experience
of Arizona, Hayden Hoyt could only with
difficulty be held at his post. He was SIM
ply wild TO be once more with the old regi
of Jim, actually an officer in his old troop.
But if Ronald Fame had been the hero of
one boys talk before what he now
with both lads home-Jim still gaunt as a
greyhound, and as hungry, but idolatrous
as a spaniel? Oh, Crook was all right.
Crook was great. SO was Atherton-so was
old Stannard, their major. And there were
rafting good soldiers in that little cavalry
brigade and the wonderful command of in
fantry that, "hoofing it, from start to fin
ish used to outmarch them day after day
on empty stomachs, because they had no
horses to tow along. But Jim Hoyt had
der, Fame, and Ethel, who had had to listen
to Hayden's panegyrics all the winter
months that followed their eastward fitting
from Groveton, had now TO hear both lads
from Thanksgiving until after Christmas
when each was summoned back to his sta
ton, and she was once again alone in her
vigil with her father and mother-the lat
ter but recently restored to them from long
illness-aone with them and her thoughts
of the lover whose suit she had utterly re-
fused to hear.
And then there came time, late the fol-
lowing spring, when again the boys sought
leave, Jim Fastening homeward from Ne
braska in answer to Geographic summons
from that friend at court'-and the War
Department. 1t was not unexpected Eth
els letters had been preparing him for the
inevitable. and yet when 1t came it was all
mercifully swift and sudden, so peace
full and so serene.
They took them to the seashore for a
while after the loved old father had been
laid away: the mother mourning as ever,
and as ever leaving to Ethel all matters of
management and business. Then Jim had
to hurry to his troop. for once again the
regiment was afield and Indian chas-
ing all summer long. Then 1.-The dip
lomatic corps persuaded the family,
and with much difficulty, that mother
would be happier with her boys in the for
egn life she loved and lived so long To
them therefore, and to the Rhineland She
voyaged before the harvest moon had
waned. leaving Ethel visiting with old fam
lily friends until all the business details
could be settled Ethel would follow
later though Jim had his own ideas about
4 hat Thara in he CHI