softly-shaded round table in the dining-room, Anita's chair was close to her father's—the two were never far apart when they could be close together. Mrs. Fortescue wore around her white throat a locket with a miniature in it of her boy soldier. He was to her what Anita was to the Colonel, but being a stout-hearted woman she had sent her son away to be a soldier and had worn a smile at parting. There was a strain of the Spartan mother in this smiling daughter, wife, and mother of soldiers.

"Did you have a pleasant visit from Mr. Broussard?" asked Colonel Fortescue.

"Very pleasant, daddy dear. He knows so much about birds."

"I think," replied the Colonel, darkly, "Mr. Broussard's knowledge comes chiefly from the study of fighting chickens."

"I hear he has cockfights on Sunday, in the cellar of his quarters," said Mrs. Fortescue, willing to give Broussard a slashing cut under the fifth rib.

"Cocking mains, my dear," corrected the Colonel, and then kept on, earnestly, to Anita.

"Yon can scarcely imagine the horrors of a cockpit. The poor gamecocks, with cruel spurs upon their feet, tearing each other to pieces, and blood and feathers all over the place."

"You seem wonderfully familiar with cockpits," remarked Mrs. Fortescue. "It seems to me, when we went to our first post after we were married, that you were sometimes missing on Sunday morning, and used to tell me afterward about the grand time you had, and the superior fighting qualities of the Savoys over the Bantams."

The Colonel scowled.

"I don't recall the circumstances, Elizabeth," he said.

"But I do, John," tartly responded Mrs. Fortescue.

Anita knew that when it was Jack and Betty the skies were serene, and when it became John and Elizabeth there were clouds upon the horizon.

At this point Kettle, who was serving dinner, felt that his duty as Broussard's ally was to speak.

"Miss Betty," said he with solemn emphasis, "Mr. Broussard doan' keep them chickens in his cellar fur to fight; he keeps 'em to lay aigs fur his breakfus'."

"That's queer," said the Colonel, "all of Mr. Broussard's chickens are cock chickens."

This would have abashed a less ardent partisan, but it only stimulated Kettle.

"Come to think of it, Miss Betty," Kettle continued stoutly, "them chickens is cock chickens, but Mr. Broussard, he keep 'em for fryin' chickens and bri'lers; he eats a cock chicken ev'ry mornin' fur his breakfus', day in and day out."

"Oh, Kettle!" said Anita, in a tone of soft reproach. She disliked the notion of a cockpit, but she was a lover of abstract truth, which Kettle was not.

"Well, Miss Anita," Kettle began argumentatively, "the truth is, Mr. Broussard, he jes' keep them chickens to' 'commodate the chaplain. The chaplain, he's a gre't cockfighter, an' he say, 'Mr. Broussard, the Kun'l is mighty strict, an' kinder queer in his head, an' he ain't no dead game sport like me an' you, so if you will oblige me, Mr. Broussard, jes' keep my fightin' chickens in your cellar, an' if the Kun'l say anything to you, tell him them chickens is yourn. You wouldn't mind a little thing like that, would you, Mr. Broussard?' That's what I hee'rd the chaplain say."

"Kettle!" shouted the Colonel, and Mrs. Fortescue remarked candidly:

"You are a big story-teller, Kettle, there isn't a word of truth in all you have been telling."

"That's so, Miss Betty," announced Kettle, brazenly. "Truth is, Mr. Broussard ain't got no chickens at all in his cellar, he keeps ducks, Miss Betty, 'cause the water rises in the cellar all the time."

Kettle's active help did not end with wholesale lying as a means of helping Broussard. Within a week every time the After-Clap caught sight of Broussard he would shout for "Bruvver." This, Kettle carefully explained, was the baby's way of saying Broussard, but it brought a good many quarters from Broussard's pocket into Kettle's palm.

CHAPTER II

A PRETTY MAID AND A GAMECHICK

The December days sped on, and Christmas was nearing. As the great, splendid fort was a shut-in place, the people in it made great preparations for Christmas, if only to forget that they were shut in. The Christmas Eve exhibition drill and music ride was to be the principal event of the season, and, wonder of wonders, Anita was to ride with Broussard at the music ride. This was not accomplished without pleadings and even tears from Anita. Mrs. Fortescue took no part in this affair between the Colonel and the adored of his heart; Anita and the Colonel had always settled their problems between themselves solely. Sergeant McGillicuddy had something to do with wringing from the Colonel his consent that Anita should ride with Broussard.

"Accordin' to my way of thinkin', Mr. Broussard is the best rider of all the young orficers, sir," said McGillicuddy to the Colonel, in the seclusion of the office. "Miss Anita, she'd look mighty pretty ridin' with him, and Pretty Maid is as quiet as a lamb, sir, under the saddle. I wouldn't answer for her in shafts, sir. Lord! There's nothin' too devilish for a horse to do in shafts, or hitched to a pole. Missis McGillicuddy can't see it in this light, judgin' from the Christmas gift she's preparin' to give me."

"What is it, McGillicuddy?" asked the Colonel.

"It's a buggy, sir," answered the Sergeant despondently. "When I wanted to enlist in the aviation corps that woman, sir, forbid it; she said to me, 'Patrick McGillicuddy, I never did believe one word about your bein' afraid av horses in wheeled vehicles.' An' ivery time I go up in a flyin' machine, just for the fun av it, Missis McGillicuddy, she says to me 'Patrick, if they was to lop off the f from that flyin' machine, it would fit you to a t, bedad!' And that's the way she talks to me when I spent seven dollars and fifty cents in gettin' prognostications that I was goin' to marry a woman as would follow me around like a poodle dog!"

"Women have a good many burrs in their convolutions," said the Colonel, lighting a cigar and handing a handful to the Sergeant.

"They has, sir," replied McGillicuddy, accepting the cigars with doleful gratitude, "and Missis McGillicuddy threatens to take me out in that buggy on Christmas day. Well, sir, I've made my will and settled up my account at the post trader's, and the aviation orficer has promised to tak' me on a fly Christmas Eve morning. It may be the last fly I'll take until I get wings, for I hardly expects, sir, to escape the dangers of that buggy."

In talking with Mrs. Fortescue about the music ride Colonel Fortescue dwelt upon the superiority of a quiet horse like Pretty Maid over a constitutional kicker like Birdseye.

"It's the quiet ones, horses and women, that need watching," replied Mrs. Fortescue, who had never been accused of being a quiet one.

For two weeks before Christmas the exhibition drill and music ride was the great subject of attention at Fort Blizzard. The most interesting part of the show was the music ride, in which the girls of the post were to ride, each girl having her attendant cavalier. When it was known that Anita was to ride with Broussard all the other sublieutenants who had hoped to sit in Broussard's saddle promptly provided themselves with other charming young ladies of the post. Next to Anita, the best rider was Sally Harlow, the daughter of her who had been Sally Carteret. Mrs. Harlow followed the example of Mrs. Fortescue, whose bridesmaid she had been, and had married within a year the dashing young officer with whom she "stood up" at Mrs. Fortescue's wedding. Mrs. Harlow, like Mrs. Fortescue, showed a marked inability to grow old and was as gay and drank the wine of life as joyously as did her daughter, Sally the Second.

For a fortnight before Christmas the practice rides took place every afternoon in the great riding hall, in which four troops of cavalry could manoeuvre.

As the daughter of the C. O.,