“Well, now, boys,” said Andrew, “I hev hed twenty years’ experience in these regions, where both of you are, relatively speaking, newcomers. And I tell you, airly as it is in the season, there’s snow not far off, and if so be we are bound to start, we had better be off to-morrow. What do you say?” “I’m riddy,” said Mike. “And you, Mr. Longman?” “I agree with you. “‘Laugh those who can! Weep those who may! Southward we march by break of day!’” CHAPTER VI AT THE FORT It was a glorious November morning, not yet cold in the latitude of the fort. Though there was a large wood fire in the sitting-room of the colonel’s quarters, the front windows were open, admitting the fresh air as well as the bright sunshine. The colonel’s wife sat in her sewing-chair beside her work-stand at some little distance from the open window and nearer the fire, engaged in making a frock for one of her younger girls. Judy sat at the window with a book in her hand, dividing her attention between the open page and the open view. There was no one else in the room. The colonel and his eldest son, “Jim,” were at the adjutant’s office. All the younger children were in the schoolroom under the charge of their eldest sister, “Betty,” who was their teacher. Judy had been three months separated from her brother, and from her betrothed, and under the exclusive care of Mrs. Moseley. Quick, witty, imitative and anxious to improve, Judy had made rapid advances. She had recovered all the half-forgotten book knowledge taught her at the convent school, and had progressed considerably beyond that. Hearing only good English spoken about her, she had gradually dropped her sweet dialect, which both Col. Moseley and Mr. Jim declared to be a lost charm, and only occasionally, under emotion or excitement, she would suddenly fall into it again. She was also better dressed than formerly; though again the colonel and his son declared not so picturesquely. Mrs. Moseley had judiciously expended a portion of the money left by Mike for the benefit of his sister, and her short, red skirt and black jacket had given place to a brown dress with white cuffs and collars, exchanged on Sundays for a fine, dark blue one with embroidered frills. The mail came twice a week to the fort, and every mail brought Judy two or more letters from Ran; for he wrote nearly every day. The desire to answer all Ran’s letters was a great spur to improvement in Judy, who, showing all her compositions to Mrs. Moseley, begging her to correct the spelling, grammar and punctuation, and then carefully studying these corrections before making the clean copy that finally went to her betrothed, made greater progress in her education than she could have accomplished under any other circumstances.