PRIVATE AUSTIN sat languidly upon his cot and slowly raised a cloud above his head from the disreputable black pipe firmly clenched between his teeth. His eyes, wandering aimlessly, finally rested upon a shotgun leaning against the opposite wall,—one of two furnished by a kind and benignant government for the sole and exclusive use of the sportively inclined members of Company A—and his vague unrest took form in a desire to spend the day with that gun upon the prairie in a search for solitude and game. To gain this privilege, the consent of the officer on duty was indispensable, and Private Austin who had seen much pack-drill and who had acquired a valuable familiarity with the inside of the guard-house, knew that this consent was not for him. However he arose, giving himself a vigorous shake, and his attire, previously wrinkled into a thousand twists and creases, became the undress uniform of a private of remarkably neat appearance. Passing along the narrow gangway between the long line of cots, taking care in doing so not to awaken the sweltering tossing figures slumbering uneasily upon them, he reached the door and stepped out into the open air. For an instant as he inhaled the fresh morning air and gazed upon the blue hills rising from the level stretch of plain, their dusky outlines now tipped as with gold by the sun, his own mean life—his rough companions—were forgotten. Then as slowly and reluctantly his eyes turned from their distant point of vision and roamed around the circle of accustomed objects,—the white frame cottages of the officers' quarters, the bleak, stern, uncompromising walls of the too familiar guardhouse, the well beaten earth of the abhorred parade ground, the very stunted trees that seemed to have lost all graceful form and to stand in stiff unbending ranks as though nature itself felt the control of a military despotism,—he was once more a soldier, common and unclean, with an unquenchable thirst for beer and a loathing for all discipline. As he stood alone with his disgust, his attention centered itself upon Lieutenant Parsons who was returning at breakneck speed from his morning canter. As the lieutenant drew near the post he reined in his horse. This gave Private Austin an opportunity to approach and make his petition. Lieutenant Parsons turned in his saddle and looked at the soldier in utter and unmitigated contempt. To the disciplined well-trained West Pointer the general conduct of Private Austin could only be accounted for by a moral turpitude and a state of original sin shocking to all well-ordered minds, and his present highly audacious request was but one of those constitutional aberrations arising from that condition. A prompt and vigorous expression of his opinion was on his tongue's end, but contenting himself with a brief answer in the negative, half deadened by the bugle-call which rang out at the moment, he continued on his way to headquarters.