Part 1 (1/2)

'Laraone fro since disappeared in the broad river botto mountains, too--both the strea in great, swift surges under the Engineer Bridge, its smaller tributary--the ”Lar down its stony bed and sweeping around the back of the fort with a wild vehemence that made some of the denizens of the south end decidedly nervous The rear s of the co torrent, and where the surgeon lived, at the south-west angle, the waters lashed against the shabby old board fence that had been built in by-gone days, partly to keep the children and chickens froh, partly to keep outcoyotes when the water was low South and west the bare, gray-brown slopes shut out the horizon and limited the view Eastward lay the broad, open valley beyond the confluence of the strea banks, bare and rolling along the line of the foot-hills

Northward the saes, were tumbled up like a mammoth wave a mile or so beyond the river, while between the northern lier stream there lay a level ”flat,” patched here and there with underbrush, and streaked by a winding tangle of hoof- and wheel-tracks that crossed and re-crossed each other, yet led, one and all, to the distant bridge that spanned the stream, and thence bore away northward like the tines of a pitchfork, the one to the right going over the hills a three days'

the ”Wakpa Schicha,” the other leading ed shoulder of bluff, and then stretching away due north for the head-waters of the Niobrara and the shelter of the jagged flanks of Rawhide butte Only in shadowy clusters up and down the streae, of course, there was none Cottonwood andin favored nooks along the Platte were just beginning to shoot forth their tiny pea-green tendrils in answer to the caressing touch of the May-day sunshi+ne

April had been a e, wanton wastes of snohirling and drifting down froe that veiled the valley of the Lara sun; and any one who chose to stroll out froentle slope to the bluffs on that side, and to stand by the rude scaffolding whereon were bleaching the bones of so sides of the grand old peak, fully forty miles away,--all one sheen of frosty white that still defied therays Somebody was up there this very afternoon,--two soainst the sky close by the Indian scaffolding; but even at the distance one could see they were not Indian mourners That was not a blanket which the tall, slender shape had just thrown about the slighter for the parade at the moment, knew very well that it was an officer's cape, and that Randall McLean had carefully wrapped it about Nellie Bayard lest the keen wind froes, should chill the young girl after her long spin across the prairie and up the heights

A good-hearted woman was Mrs Miller, and very hter, very h, had she been pressed for a reason for her distrust of the senior ht have found it hard to give satisfactory answer He was a er, and ”thatto some people,” was her analysis of the situation She really knew nothing more detrimental to his character, and yet she wished he had not lost his wife, and her wishes on this point were not entirely because of Elinor's irl had spent in garrison since the death of that lovinghearts full of sy little maiden when that sore affliction befell her She had been taken to her mother's old hoed there, and souished father A marked man in his profession was Dr Bayard, one of the ”swells” of the medical corps of the army, and rapturously had he been loved by the beautiful and delicate woman whose heart he had won, somewhat to the sorrow of her people They did not like the ar years of separation that followed

Bayard was a man who in his earlier service had secured many a pleasant detail, and had been a society leader at Old Point Comfort, and Newport, and Boston Harbor, and now, in his advancing years and under an ad his turn at frontier service, and heartily da the fates that had landed him at Laramie His dead wife's father was a man whose dictum was law in the political party in power The doctor appealed to hie the Secretary of War to revoke the orders which consigned hientleman had heard more than one account of his ed son-in-law's propensities and peccadilloes It was his conviction that Newport was not the place for handsohted in the news that the doctor proh a power in politics, he was in soed hientleloomy Novee on the old people, for he took his daughter with hie blow, and one that was utterly unlooked for Fond as he had been of Elinor's mother, and proud as he was of his pretty child, the doctor had been content to spend only occasional holidays with her Every few months he came to visit the the shops, the theatres, and the picture-galleries She was enthusiastically devoted to hirand, so handsome, so accohters as the child of so fond and indulgent a father She gloried in the pride which hebeauty and graceful ways She welcoht, and was ever ready to drop any other project when papa's brief letters and telegra toward the doctor, her grand-parents had never betrayed theht to undermine--or rather undeceive--her loyal devotion; but never had it occurred to them as a possibility that he would assert his paternal claie of the cherished daughter he had won froe and senator as he was, the grandfather had never been so sore stricken He could not plead, could not huood and sufficient cause he had denied his son-in-law the boon that had been so confidently derin and exasperation Dr Bayard had taken his revenge It was too late now to prepare their little Elinor for characteristics of which she had never dreamed, too late to warn her that her superb father was not the hero her fancy painted In utter consternation, in wretchedness of spirit, the old couple saw her borne away, tearful at leaving the once uard her and to co ordered to so distant a station as Lara of the new year It was a crowded post when he and Elinor arrived in the early winter, but long before the snows had begun to disappear all the cavalry, and all but two companies of infantry there on duty, were ordered northward into the Sioux country, and his assistant was taken with the field colu for the families of all the absentees as well as for the few nified, handso about in the deep snow around the laundresses' quarters was one that afforded rather too ht to a few of the denizens of the club-room at the store; but the conte the doctor himself to a state of mind still less justifiable

All his life he had shunned the contemplation of poverty and distress

He was now for the first tis that had nothing of refinement, and he shrank, like the sensitive and selfish creature that he was, from such contaraph flashed the tidings of the savage fight up a the snows in the Powder River country, but it was coed for an assistant to replace the young surgeon who had been taken to the front, and his request was declined on the ground that the size of the present garrison did not warrant the detail of an additional round his teeth, and swore, when the paper came back to him, ”Respectfully transmitted with attention invited to the endorsement of the medical director,--which is approved” He could have testified under oath now, so strong was his conviction, that his father-in-law, the surgeon-general of the army, and the ue to annoy and hunation froht with Crazy Horse's band of Sioux brought unexpected aid and co to his responsibilities; a large nuht in as fast as ambulance and _travois_ could haul theh to know that an assistant would have to be sent, and he did not even ask The young doctor who came back with the wounded was himself so badly frozen when only two days' march away that he could be of no further aid Bayard went forward through the snow-drifts up the Platte to meet his new patients, saw theave himself up to the devoted efforts in their behalf The iven instructions to take entire charge of the soldiers'

faers on” of the post

And now the 1st of May was co around the fort in search of air and sunshi+ne; many additional troops had passed Laramie on their way up to the front and many more were expected, but there still remained only the two infantry companies to ”hold the fort” At the earliest intimation of trouble there had co the first long leave he had enjoyed in so lieutenant by the name of McLean Border warfare had no more charm for him than it had for any other soldier who re to win and nothing to lose He had seen not a little of it, with hard h winter's cold and sun in the recent past It was hard to give up the leave, but harder to have his regi been defrauded in some measure, therefore, that he found himself retained at the fort, siuard The colu the post, and his chagrin was bitter when he found that, so far fro Horn, he was ordered to assume coh present at the fort, was rapidly breaking doith rheumatic trouble that confined hi, he also wrote to his colonel and telegraphed to the adjutant, but all to no purpose There h it be only a post-guard, and it was his ill-luck to have to be the man

And yet, three weeks after his return, Mr McLean was by no usted and unhappy subaltern he declared hiarrison that Nellie Bayard was the source of comfort which reconciled him to the situation

The fort was croith officers' fae force had beenthe winter, and when the troops took the field in March the ladies and children ree for Major Miller and his two companies of ”foot” Not only was this the case, but such was the threatening and truculent bearing of all the Sioux and Cheyenne Indians reency on White River to the north-east, that a few of the officers on duty at Fort Robinson (the post established there to overlook and overawe (?) the savages) had sent their faees were received and housed and welcomed with a hospitality and warmth that one never sees outside the army Every set of officers'

quarters, therefore, was crowded to its full capacity, and a thing that never before had happened in the chronicles of the old frontier post was now a matter of course Even ”Bedlam,” the ramshackle, two-story frame rookery, once sacred to the bachelor element, had noo families quartered therein, and one of these comprised the wife, maiden sister, and three children of Captain Forrest, of the cavalry,--”refugees from Robinson” For several days after their arrival they had been housed under Major Miller's roof,--all the other quarters, except Dr

Bayard's, being crowded,--and Nellie Bayard had begged her father to invite Mrs, Miss, and the little Forrests to ly accorded her permission to invite Miss Forrest, but drew the line at her unattractive sister-in-law and the sters Before she had known Miss Forrest three days, however, Nellie Bayard felt less eagerness to ask her to be her guest, and Mrs Miller, as kind and generous a soul as ever lived, had gone so far as to say to her, ”Don't”

And yet it see in hospitality or courtesy After his second call at the co, bright-eyed, vivacious young woman, Dr Bayard had rather pointedly inquired,--

”Nellie, dear, I thought you were to invite Miss Forrest to pay you a visit; have you done so?”

”No, papa,” was the hesitating answer ”I did mean to--but--don't you expect Dr and Mrs Graham early next week? You know you'll have to ask the There are two spare rooht share your rooht, papa dear; but--I'm afraid I don't like her That is, she doesn't attractthen”

”Tut, tut, tut! Why, what on earth's thedown over her as they alking home ”It isn't like you, Nell, to be censorious What's she been doing?--ed better than that, had he reflected an instant He never yet had thought of his daughter except as a mere child, and he did notinterest in the young lieutenant was anything h, however, to take his thoughtless speech _au serieux_, and it hurt her

”Papa!” was her one, indignant word of reainst such accusation

”I know!--I understand--I didn't mean it except as the ht you'd laugh at the idea”

But she would not speak of it, and he quickly sought to change the subject, never even asking other reason for her apparent aversion to Miss Forrest It was true that the speedy co of Dr and Mrs Graham would make it necessary that he should open his doors to an officer of his own corps and profession