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When I got back, a tall, gray-haired trooper was “standing attention” in front of the commanding officer, and had evidently just made some report, for Mr. Gleason nodded his head appreciatively and then said, kindly,–

“You did perfectly right, corporal. Instruct your men to keep a lookout for it, and if seen again to-night to call me at once. I’ll bring my field-glass and we’ll see what it is.”

The trooper raised his left hand to the “carried” carbine in salute and turned away. When he was out of earshot, Gleason spoke to the silent group,–

“Now, there’s a case in point. If I had command of a troop and could get old Potts into it I could make something of him, and I know it.”

Gleason had consummate faith in his “system” with the rank and file, and no respect for that of any of the captains. Nobody said anything. Blake hated him and puffed unconcernedly at his pipe, with a display of absolute indifference to his superior’s views that the latter did not fail to note. The others knew what a trial “old Potts” had been to his troop commander, and did not believe that Gleason could “reform” him at will. The silence was embarrassing, so I inquired,–

“What had he to report?”

“Oh, nothing of any consequence. He and one of the sentries saw what they took to be an Indian signal-fire up Tonto Creek. It soon smouldered away,–but I always make it a point to show respect to these old soldiers.”

“You show d–d little respect for their reports all the same,” said Blake, suddenly shooting up on a pair of legs that looked like stilts. “An Indian signal-fire is a matter of a heap of consequence in my opinion;” and he wrathfully stalked away.

For some reason Gleason saw fit to take no notice of this piece of insubordination. Placidly he resumed his chat,–

“Now, you gentlemen seem skeptical about Potts. Do any of you know his history?”

“Well, I know he’s about the oldest soldier in the regiment; that he served in the First Dragoons when they were in Arizona twenty years ago, and that he gets drunk as a boiled owl every pay-day,” was an immediate answer.

“Very good as far as it goes,” replied Gleason, with a superior smile; “but I’ll just tell you a chapter in his life he never speaks of and I never dreamed of until the last time I was in San Francisco. There I met old General Starr at the ‘Occidental,’ and almost the first thing he did was to inquire for Potts, and then he told me about him. He was one of the finest sergeants in Starr’s troop in ’53,–a dashing, handsome fellow,–and while in at Fort Leavenworth he had fallen in love with, won, and married as pretty a young girl as ever came into the regiment. She came out to New Mexico with the detachment with which he served, and was the belle of all the ‘bailes‘ given either by the ‘greasers’ or the enlisted men. He was proud of her as he could be, and old Starr swore that the few ladies of the regiment who were with them at old Fort Fillmore or Stanton were really jealous of her. Even some of the young officers got to saying sweet things to her, and Potts came to the captain about it, and he had it stopped; but the girl’s head was turned. There was a handsome young fellow in the sutler’s store who kept making her presents on the sly, and when at last Potts found it out he nearly hammered the life out of him. Then came that campaign against the Jicarilla Apaches, and Potts had to go with his troop and leave her at the cantonment, where, to be sure, there were ladies and plenty of people to look after her; and in the fight at Cieneguilla poor Potts was badly wounded, and it was some months before they got back; and meantime the sutler fellow had got in his work, and when the command finally came in with its wounded they had skipped, no one knew where. If Potts hadn’t been taken down with brain fever on top of his wound he would have followed their trail, desertion or no desertion, but he was a broken man when he got out of hospital. The last thing old Starr said to me was, ‘Now, Gleason, I want you to be kind to my old sergeant; he served all through the war, and I’ve never forgiven them in the First for going back on him and refusing to re-enlist him; but the captains, one and all, said it was no use; he had sunk lower and lower; was perfectly unreliable; spent nine-tenths of his time in the guard-house and all his money in whiskey; and one after another they refused to take him.'”