There was much wedging and crowding in the camp that night, lightened somewhat by the big hop which shortened the night for so many. Not for Magnus. He went to bed, thinking the night would be two nights long: quite sure he should not close his eyes.

But youth, and health, and the long journey, and even sorrow, quite upset his calculations. When the hop men turned in, Magnus hardly roused up enough to give a short answer to some details; and when the sharp voice of the reveille gun spoke in his ear, it was as clear a wake-up—and alas! as disgusted a one—as Cadet Kindred had ever known. But breaking camp at least would be welcome: hard work suited his mood just now much better than play.

Yet before the hour drew on, he strolled out towards the visitors' seats; the exquisite morning, the dainty wreaths of mist, and the sweet, pure air, making him so homesick that he craved even a chatter of tongues that should stop his thoughts.

The seats were a waving line of colour. Hats turned up, and hats turned down; bonnets too small to be seen, and hats like umbrellas; ribands, laces, streamers of every kind. Plenty of grey coats, too; first classmen and yearlings in their glory, with other disconsolate furlough men, searching the crowd for a friend, if possibly such a thing remained to them east of the Rockies, or north of Mason and Dixon's line. Everywhere a busy chatter, with introductions, greetings, inquiries, and much swinging of cadet caps. Sugar-plums abounded. On the grass a group of children sunned themselves in front of the grown-up people, sometimes aping their ways.

Magnus was taken possession of rapturously,—had to touch a half-dozen gloves in as many seconds.

"And where have you been all summer, Mr. Kindred?" Miss Fashion inquired in gracious tones.

"In a much better place than this old camp, Miss Fashion."

"That goes without saying," chimed in Miss Saucy. "Any place where you were, would of course overtop the rest of the world."

"It might," Magnus answered, thinking of the oak shadows where he had sat with Cherry. I am not so sure that he heard Miss Fashion's next words, looking over her head towards the Western sky. The West! The West!

"And of course your desire for study is immense," the young lady went on, a little louder.

"Quite insatiable!"

"Oh, you're too good to be true!" said Miss Saucy.

"But don't you feel all out of training?" said another girl. "I should think it would come awfully hard at first."

"On the contrary, I feel in better training than ever in my life before."

"But that is awful!" said the Kitten. "Back from furlough 'in training'? Why, Magnus, you'll come out blue."

"I expect it," said Magnus, with a bow. "That is what I am aiming for." "Now that I call mean," said the young lady; "taking one up so. How sharp you have grown all of a sudden!"

"Best let him alone, Puss," said Miss Saucy, "or you'll cut your fingers. He's been at the seaside, eating razors."

"Using 'em, too," said the Kitten, gazing at Magnus. "Didn't it go to your heart to cut off your moustache?"

"Everything goes to my heart. That is my weak point."

"What was the last arrival?" demanded Miss Saucy.

"That drum." And in answer to the warning rub-a-dub, Cadet Kindred touched his cap to the ladies and crossed the green strip in front of the colour line.

"Oh, dear!" sighed Miss Kent, a pretty blonde in her first West Point season, and who had taken the whole yearling class as near to her heart as is usual on such occasions; "I shall just cry, I know I shall, when that camp goes down! Think, girls, there won't be any place to go to spend the day!"

"The seats under the trees," suggested Miss Beguile.

"Oh, yes, you can sit there as long as you please," said Minna Kent, "but they can't come and sit with you. Some old dowager always pokes along and turns them out."

"And if the men look at you in ranks, you're none the wiser," said Miss Saucy. "Do you know, I just made Clinch look at me the other night as he came round Towser. He was acting-adjutant. It's the meanest thing to break camp before cold weather. There it goes!—our camp!"

But it was the same old story, after all. Always crushed sugar plums under foot and withered flowers; the air filled with heart-beats that nobody heard, and glances that no one saw.

The cadets get rid of their plumes and trappings; the girls hold fast to all they have; and away they all go, for walks, talks, and flirtations. Two girls to a cadet, three cadets to a girl, or two very special chums together.

Among the solitary stragglers was Charlemagne Kindred. He waited till every girl was out of sight, dodged or shook off his loitering comrades, and then, with steady step went straight across the plain and took stand beneath the waving folds of his old love, the flag.

Two whole years—two years and three months almost—since the first day when he stood in that circling shadow and took his vow of brave allegiance. Leaning back now against the white pole, he tried to scan the two years' record.

In the main, he had kept his vow; love had never faltered, nor fealty. But he knew now, far better than he knew then, that for this love as for the other he must live, as well as be ready to die. The honour of the Stars and Stripes was at stake, wherever an American fought out his personal life-fight with evil. On harder fields sometimes than Chapultepec, and with no earthly glory for reward. No name on a tall column, no tablet in chapel or hall. Unknown, perhaps, while the fight lasted: no notice taken, until the Great Captain shall speak the "Well done," when he comes to survey the field.

Looking up at the red, white, and blue, Magnus said to himself that devotion, purity, and truth were the real defenders of the country; winning victories far beyond what powder and shot could ever gain; keeping the flag not only flying, but unstained.

"Winning victories"—he repeated to himself, looking up again at the lovely waving folds of the flag: "positive, as well as negative."

Bible words are very positive.

"He that is not with me is against me," said the Lord Jesus. "He that gathereth not with me, scattereth."

"But they don't leave us time for anything like that," Magnus thought, in half excuse. "It takes so long just to be; to look after your own prayers and reading. There isn't any chance to do." And now he remembered the lovely, constant shining of Cherry's life in even the commonest, everyday things; the halo that was always about her. Set her at any sort of work, in any sort of company, and you could never doubt for a moment whose she was and whom she served. The King's seal was there. Such a life is positive, by its very nature.

"But then she is like nobody else," Magnus went on, as his rapturous thoughts finished off with a long, heavy sigh. "And she has a little space to breathe in, too. But here—just math. and chem., study and drill, from dawn to dark." Then other words came up before his eyes.

"Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily; as to the Lord, and not to men."

"Whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus."

"Even those old lessons," commented Cadet Kindred. "I rather suspect I've been setting my study books at the wrong angle. I know Cherry says that drudgery fades out, if you write the name of Jesus on it. Wonder if it would work so with anybody but her?"

And a long, dull procession of days rose up in sight; each one loaded down with hard, monotonous work. Not prettily varied, with one day this and next day that, but a steady, straight on pull in the same lines, for weeks together.

"And we can't turn and twist about as you do, old flag," he said, "but have got to stand attention (or sit it) every time. It would feel sort o' good, if we could just choose our own positions for firing off blunders."

"Whatever in the world are you holding up the flagstaff for?" said Rig's astonished voice, as that young man came up from among the guns. "Beastly dull here, isn't it? I say, Kin, when's that awfully pretty sister of yours coming?" "Which one?"

"Well, both, then," corrected Rig.

"After you graduate—if you ever do."

"You may well say if. But you'll be gone yourself, then."

"Maybe I shall not let them come at all. There are too many girls here now." And Magnus cast cynical eyes towards several free-and-easy damsels who were sauntering across the plain, well attended.

"There they go," he said; "men and girls and parasols. And the parasols are the only things in the lot with a grain of sense. Just hear that pink girl laugh! She's got Duncy in tow, telling him: 'Oh, Mr. Duncy! you are so amusing!'"

"Shouldn't wonder if she wasn't. I think he is, sometimes, myself," said Rig.

"He is a consistent goose," said Magnus.

"Come, now, Kin, you're out of humour," Rig said soothingly. "You'll feel better after dinner."

"No I shall not," Magnus answered crossly. "Last Thursday I had chicken pie and apple fritters."

Rig gave a groan.

"Well," he said, "it can't be helped, so eat all you can. And there goes the drum."

The two set off for barracks, but if Magnus had eased his mind, he had certainly given his heart an extra load.

"Kindred's as glum as a post," remarked a smart first classman. "Easy to see his girl's gone back on him."

Magnus caught the words, but then came a thrill of joy. No, that could never be true; and his girl was the very best in all the world. The sights and sounds about him grew indistinct; and with thoughts two thousand miles away, Cadet Kindred finished his dinner and never knew what it was. Only "Company A, rise!" awaked him from his dream.