first fierce onset at Shiloh. What else could have been expected of men to whom arms had been issued but ten days before, and who had not yet learned which end to bite from the cartridge? Hurled from his terrified horse, the general had been picked up senseless, to see no more of fighting until Stone's River, eight months later, where with a more seasoned command the same thing happened. And still he persisted, when well of an ugly wound, and, while juniors in years and length of service were now heading corps and divisions, with double stars on their shoulders, and he had to begin again with a brigade, he got into line for Chickamauga with his usual luck just within range of the fatal gap left by a senior in command—the gap through which poured the impetuous gray torrent of the Southland—and for the third time everything crumbled away in spite of him, while he was left for dead upon the field. He had done his best, as had other men, and had fared only the worst. It was a case of three times and out. The impatient North had no more use for names linked only with disaster. When, finally exchanged, he limped back to duty, they put him on courts, boards and other back-door business until the war was over, then sent him to the Pacific Slope, with the blanket brevet of March, 1865, and here he was, eight long years thereafter, "The General" by way of title, without the command; silver leaves where once gleamed the stars on his shoulders; silver streaks where once rippled chestnut and gold; wrinkled of visage and withered in shank; kindly, patient, yet pathetic; "functioning" a four-company post in a far-away desert, with grim mountain chains on east and west, and waters on every side of him, four long weeks and four thousand miles by mail route from home, and much longer by sea; with nothing to do but send out scouts, sign papers, sing an old song or two when the spirit moved him; with not a thing in his soldier past to be ashamed of, nothing much in his soldier present to rejoice in, nothing whatever in his soldier future to hope for, finding his companionship in the comrades about him, and his sweetest comfort in the unswerving love of a devoted wife, and their one unstinted pride and delight, Lilian, their only daughter—their only surviving child.
Many of these eight years of what then was exile, while he, at first as a major of foot, was campaigning in regions long since reclaimed from savagery, and rusticating at frontier forts long since forgotten, Lilian and her mother had dwelt in lodgings at "The Bay" that the child might have the advantage of San Francisco's schools. Only once each year, until of late, had he been able to visit them, usually at Christmas-tide, but by every runner, courier, stage or post there came to them his cheery letters, bearing such old-time, outlandish post-marks or headings as "Lapwai," "Three Forks, Owyhee," and later "Hualpai," or "Hassayampa," until finally it became mild, civilized, pacific, even "Almy."
The uniform of a general, that the law had let him wear just as long in peace as had been the war in years, was finally packed in camphorated hope of resurrection, and the garb of actual rank resumed in 1870. He could bear the title ad infinitum, but not the sign.
The silver leaf, as said, had come to replace the worn and tarnished gold by '73, then mountain fever had seized and laid him by the heels, and then all the Indians in Arizona, or the army women out of it, could not dissuade Mrs. Archer from her duty. She and Lilian were the heroines of a buckboard ride from Drum Barracks to the Colorado, from the Colorado to Prescott, from Prescott down through wild and tortuous cañons to and beyond the valley of the Verde—to the wondering eyes of the waiting garrison and the welcoming arms of the fond husband and father at Almy.
And this was but the week gone by, just before the "Newly Arrived" had reached Prescott—just before "Hefty" Harris had returned from scout. Not until this very morning—the first since their reunion of that warm, yet winter's evening of the previous day—had the two classmates set eyes on Miss Archer (it was as she rode away by her father's side for a canter up the valley), and not until this late afternoon, as the sun was dipping behind the black range of the Mazatzal, did they have opportunity to speak with her.
Even as 'Tonio stood, silent and statuesque, while the doctor went on record as to the rainfall of the Verde watershed, there came suddenly into view, jogging quietly up the winding road from the lower ford, three riders, followed by half a pack of lagging, yapping hounds—"The Old Man," the maiden and the orderly—and all men on the wooden porch of the unpainted mess building, rose to their feet in deference to the united "powers above," rank and age, youth and beauty, and presently the commander was saying for the benefit of the two new-comers: "My daughter, gentlemen. Lilian, Mr. Harris, Mr. Willett."
Inadvertently he had named them in the inverse order of rank—a small matter, though Willett had been promoted to his bar a year ahead of Harris. Otherwise, it was with a fair field and no favor the old-time rivals of cadet days stood for the first time in the presence of the only army girl at that moment to be found in the far-flung shadow of the Mazatzal—stood side by side, facing both the starter and the prize in what was destined to be the last great contest of their lives.
CHAPTER II.
"Come and dine with us this evening, you two," the "Old Man" was saying, a few minutes later. He had been home long enough to consult the "Commanding General," as he frequently referred to that smiling better half, and to compare notes as to the condition of the larder and cellar. He had flung conventionality to the winds, as most of us had to in early Arizona days. "You others," he said, "have suffered so often from my steaks and stories, you're glad not to be included. To-day I'm bidding only these two youngsters. You know our dining table holds only six. No, never mind about the call!" he interposed, with uplifted hands, one to receive the toddy Briggs was stirring for him, the other in kindly protest, for both the youngsters were on their feet confusedly striving to make it understood that they had only been waiting for the cool of the evening to come to pay their respects. "And never mind about spike tail and shirt fronts either—come just as you are!"
"Indeed, I'll have to, sir," said Willett, whose undress uniform fitted him like a glove and was cut and made by the then expert military artist of the far East. They had not taken it too kindly, these others in white cotton sack coats, hewed and stitched by the company tailor, or even in canvas shooting rig, as was Harris, that the young aide-de-camp, after brief siesta in the mid-day lazy hour, should have appeared among them all, fresh-shaved and tubbed, and in faultless, bran-new, spick-and-span cap and blouse and trousers, with black silk socks and low-cut patent leather "Oxford ties." Harris, hammock slung, and moodily studying 'Tonio, looked approvingly, but made no remark whatever. Stannard, ever blunt and short of speech, had shoved his hairy hands deep in his trousers' pockets, a thing no sub would twice venture in his presence, looked Willett over from head to foot, then, with a sniff, had turned away, but Bentley and Turner had indulged in whimsical protest, "Gad, man, but you put us all to shame," said the surgeon. "I've seen no rig to match that since I came to this post. It's rarer than rain."
"What do you wear when you call on the commanding officer?" queried the Latest Arrival, with jovial good-nature. "Thank you, Briggs. That was a good toddy."
"Never had a family here until this week," said Bentley, "and such calling as I've done has been in what I happened to have on, and even then I've wished we dressed like 'Tonio there. Why, Mr. Willett, only once since I came to this post has there been an officer's daughter with us. Only twice has there been an officer's wife. Even Mrs. Archer wouldn't have tried it if the general hadn't been sick."
Willett laughed again, good-naturedly as before. "Well," said he, "in the field 'The Lost and Strayed' didn't dandy much, but here I had not even unpacked my trunk; had a whole buckboard to myself after we left Captain Wickham at the Big Bug, so I just fetched 'em along. This is light, you see—nothing but serge," and he held forth his arm. "Up there, of course, we had no use for white. Gunboats and 'plebeskins' was full dress half the year round——" And just then it had occurred to him to put that question: "Does it never rain here?" and in so doing he had appealed rather to Stannard and his fellows of the line, quite as though he thought Bentley doing too much of the talk, especially since Bentley's bent was criticising. But Stannard, as we have seen, had referred back the question, whereat the doctor, defrauded of his game, yawned languidly and turned over the matter to 'Tonio, thus dragging Harris, all unwilling, into the tide of talk, and presently out