“The roan filly always blamed my Major for making such a mess of the whole thing; but even though I recognised how foolish he was to kick over the traces, I saw there were reasons enough to excuse him. In the first place, he enlisted when he was only nineteen, and having served straight through, he had had almost no experience of women. Then for six months he had been suffering terribly with his arm, with the result that what was left of his nerves were all on edge. He began to ride before he ought, and though I did my best to be easy, I suppose that every moment in the saddle must have caused him intense pain. Finally, he had entered himself for the running only after Mr. Lewis had turned the first mile-post and had secured the inside track. I really think, if ever a man was justified in fretting on the bit my chum was. “At the end of the week Miss Gaiety bade me good-bye. ‘I heard Mr. Fairley say that we could now go back to Yantic; that’s where we live, you know,’ she told me. ‘It’s been a long job getting our claim for uniforms and blankets allowed, but the controller signed a warrant yesterday. I’m really sorry that we are to be separated. If your associate had behaved decently, you might have been asked to visit us.’ “‘Yes,’ announced the big grey; ‘Miss Fairley has asked the bully who rides me and myself to spend a few days with you next week. I suppose they’ll settle it then.’ “But the officer and horse who commanded the battery which held the Weldon railroad weren’t going to be beaten as easily as that, you may be sure! When I took my rider back to the stable that afternoon, I heard him say to the orderly: ‘Jackson, I’m going north next week, and shall want Reveille to start before me. I’m in too much pain to give you your orders now, but come round to-morrow morning and get your instructions.’ “Yantic was nothing but a little village clustered about a great woollen-mill, without any stable or hotel to live in, so we had to put up at Norwich, a place seven miles away; and it was a case of put up, I tell you, in both food and attendance! For a decently brought up horse to come down to a hotel livery-stable is a trial I never want to go through again. In the field I never minded what came, but I do hate musty corn and damp bedding. “You girls would have laughed to see the roan filly’s face the first time we met on the road. “‘Horse alive!’ she cried, without so much as a greeting, ‘you don’t mean to say you have hopes? Why, Mr. Solitaire and that horrid Mr. Lewis arrive to-day, and the thing’s probably as good as decided.’ “‘My Major is very resolute,’ said I. “‘So is a mule,’ snapped Miss Gaiety, ‘but we don’t think the more of him for that.’” The polo pony gave a horse laugh as he said, “_That_ was one on you.” “It was,” acknowledged Reveille; “and I regret to say it made me lose my temper to such an extent that I retorted, ‘I can’t say much for the taste of _your_ woman!’