explosive with tremendous tales of his personal valor—Pops would brag when he was young, and many another boy would have done the same under like conditions—but he was too big and strong for "Buddie;" and so when Bud came roaring in one day to tell how "Pops fwowed me down and hit me," Pops owned up that it was true. Bud would meddle with what he and Dick were trying to make, and he "just pushed him away." Mamma gravely admonished; but papa gave warning. It happened again before very long, and this time the doctor took Pops into his den, and presently poor Mrs. Graham ran to the dining-room and covered her ears, and Buddie howled in sudden revulsion of feeling. The doctor seldom punished, but what his right hand found to do he did with all his might.

"I want you to remember this, George," said he, half an hour later, "a manly boy must be merciful. It isn't enough that you should make allowances for Buddie's blunders, you must be lenient to his faults. When he is older he will be wiser. Meantime, the blows you strike must be for, not against him."

He needn't have said that. Pops was far readier to fight for his younger brother than he was to worry him in the least, and he took his flogging sorely to heart. He was only ten at the time. Bud had tried him severely. He had begged the little fellow to desist, and finally, losing all patience, had violated orders and thumped him—not very hard, perhaps, but still hard enough to warrant half at least of the pitiful tale the smaller boy ran to tell at once and at home. Geordie felt very much aggrieved at Bud when sent forth finally to go to his room and meditate on his sins and nurse his many sore spots; but when he saw the misery in the little fellow's face, when Bud, with fresh outburst of tears, threw himself into his brother's arms, clung to him sobbing, and could not say for the very violence of his grief how he hated himself for telling, the reconciliation was complete, and the three—mother and boys—stole away up-stairs and had a hug and cry together all by themselves, and came down again an hour later much happier after all, and quite ready to make it up with papa. But the doctor wasn't there. He had slipped out, despite the fact of its being his study hour, and was found at tea-time miserably promenading the bank of the stream half a mile from the post, and quite unconscious that the evening gun had fired. He never whipped Pops again; indeed, the boy gave him no cause to; and he never thrashed Buddie, even when that unrepentant little sinner well deserved it. He even declined to reprimand Pops at the excited appeal of Mrs. Captain Vaughan, whose twelve-year-old son came home from the swimming-pool, five days after, with a battered countenance, and a complaint that he had been beaten without cause by Pops Graham. Investigation of the case resulted in the fact that young Vaughan was trying to duck Buddie, when the latter's big brother happened upon the scene. Between the doctor and his boys there grew up a sort of tacit understanding, a firmly grounded trust and affection, that seldom found vent in caress of any kind, and was rarely apparent in word. George shot up from sturdy boyhood into athletic youth with thorough faith in his father, who, he believed, was the best friend he had or could expect to have. With all his heart he honored him, and with all his soul he loved his mother.

And now they were stationed at Fort Reynolds, with a thriving Western mining metropolis just six miles away to the east, with hunting and fishing in the lofty mountains to the west, and a great tumbling sea of grassy prairie stretching away to the east and south. Geordie's pony had been turned over to Bud long months ago, for the bigger boy could back and ride and control the liveliest bucker among all the bronchos in the cavalry stables. Officers and troopers alike declared that Pops was