What a wonderful summer was that of Geordie's First Class camp! To begin with, even the graduates had helped shoulder him through the sally-port after the announcement of the new appointments, and then turned out in their civilian dress, with canes and silk umbrellas and all manner of unaccustomed, unmilitary "truck," and cheered him, as for the first time he swung the battalion into column and marched it away to the mess-hall; and the new yearlings sliced up the white belts he wore that day and divided them among their number "for luck," and many an appeal came for the old first-sergeant chevrons; but Pops shook his head at that. They went off by mail far out across the rolling prairies to Fort Reynolds, where, in his letter to mother, a few modest words told of the high honor conferred upon him, and that he "thought it should go to Con." Buddie never waited to hear the end of that letter. He bolted, hatless, out of the house and down the line of officers' quarters to tell McCrea, shouting the tidings to everybody he saw as he ran. And McCrea came over to the doctor's forthwith, and Captain Lane and his charming wife dropped in before the family were half through tea; and the colonel came in later to congratulate Mrs. Graham, and so did many another wife and mother during the evening, and it was a season of joy and gladness not soon to be forgotten, and who shall say what volume of praise and thanksgiving and gratitude went up with the loving woman's prayer when at last she could kneel and pour out her heart all alone. Indeed, it seemed, especially to Buddie, an event of much greater moment to the friends on the frontier than it did to Geordie. His first concern was for Connell. Wright, of course—big, ponderous fellow, moving slowly, as big bodies always do—could not be expected to come at once to congratulate the comrades who had stepped over his head. He was "let down easily," however, and made first lieutenant of the company instead of captain; but he came over to shake hands with Graham and tell him it was "all right," and found that Connell had never left his chum from the moment the battalion was dismissed. Brushing his way through the crowd, the loyal fellow had almost fought a passage to Geordie's side. He could not bear the idea that Graham's triumph should be clouded by fear of Connell's disappointment.