“Here I have been working like a nigger,” he said to Middleton, “watching around and following that fellow Leech in all his rascality; displaying the most consummate qualities of leadership, and singing my head off, and you happen to come along, pick up a driver’s whip and let into a drunken rascal, talk a lot of rot next morning, and in five minutes do what I with all my genius haven’t been able to do in as many months. It’s the old story, Larry, it’s fate! What did I tell you? Long legs are worth more to a man than a long head. But, Larry, look out for Leech. He’s a blood-sucker. Tra-la; I have an engagement. Might as well get some of the good of your glory, old man, while it lasts, you know. Beauty fadeth as a flower.” And leaving Middleton over his report, the cheery little Lieutenant went off to have a ride with Miss Dockett, who, in view of certain professions of his and proceedings of his Captain’s the night before, had honored him so far as to vouchsafe him that privilege. Reely Thurston’s half humorous warning to his friend was not without foundation, as both he and Middleton knew, and within a week the Captain was up to his ears in reports and correspondence relative to his conduct in the county. The quietness of everything around him was a fact to which he pointed with pride; the restoration of order throughout the county was a proof of the wisdom of his course. Crime had diminished; order had been restored; good feeling had grown up; the negroes had returned to work, and were getting regular wages. They were already beginning to save a little and some were buying land. The whites had accepted the status of affairs in good faith and were, he believed, turning all their energies to meet the exigencies of the time in the best way they could. In a word, peace was fully restored in the territory under his command. He congratulated himself that he was able to state a condition of affairs so entirely in accord with the observation of the commander-in-chief of the armies, who about that time visited the State and made a similar report on it. Even Reely Thurston commended Middleton’s report, and confided to Miss Dockett, who was beginning to receive such confidences more graciously of late, that “Larry had somewhere, in that high head of his, a deuced lot of brains,” a compliment which the young Captain would have taken more gratefully from him than from any other soul on earth. Another cause of content was just then beginning to have its effect on Middleton. Miss Cary was beginning to treat him with some degree of Christian charity, and actually condescended to take a ride with him on horseback, and when he proved himself sufficiently appreciative of this honor, took another.