Trent's Trust & Other Stories w/ Direct link technology (A Western Adventure Story)

It was a revolutionized society long before that budding May morning on which the captain had to take train for the far West, leaving wife and little ones to his father's care until the long threatened and now imminent campaign should be over. Then, should God spare his life through what proved to be the fiercest and most fatal of ten fierce and fatal summers, they should rejoin him at some distant frontier fort, and the boys' triumphant reign at school be ended. Loudly did they clamor to be taken with him. Stoutly did Louis maintain that his pony could keep up with the swiftest racer in the regiment, and indirectly did he give it to be understood at school that just as soon as the war really began he'd be out with "C" troop as he had been in the past. The war had begun and some savage fighting had already taken place, when the orders were launched for the Eleventh Cavalry to concentrate for field service. Cranston wired that he would give up the last ten days of his leave, and Mrs. Cranston, brave, submissive, but weeping sore at times, set to packing her soldier's trunk. It was their last evening together for many a long month, and their friends knew it, and therefore, even if they called to leave a sympathetic word with the grandparents, they did not expect to see the captain and his wife. Once or twice the gray-haired mother had come to twine her arms about her big boy's neck, or to say that Mr. and Mrs. Somebody had just called, but wouldn't intrude. It was, therefore, a surprise when towards nine o'clock she came to announce a caller below,--a caller who begged not to be denied,--Mrs. Barnard.