The captain nodded. "My people are hell-benders on conforming to custom, also," he added. "We've all been field-artillerymen. "I believe I thanked you for a favor you did me once, but to prove I meant what I said, I'm going to send you a horse, sir. He is a chestnut with silver points, five years old, sixteen hands high, sound as a Liberty Bond, and bred in the purple. He is beautifully reined, game, full of ginger, but gentle and sensible. He'll weigh ten hundred in condition, and he's as active as a cat. You can win with him at any horse-show and at the head of a battery. _Dios_! He is every inch a _caballero_!" "Sergeant, you're much too kind. Really--" "The things we have been through together, sir--all that we have been to each other--never can happen again. You will add greatly to my happiness if you will accept this animal as a souvenir of our very pleasant association." "Oh, son, this is too much! You're giving me your own private mount. You love him. He loves you. Doubtless he'll know you the minute you enter the pasture." Farrel's fine white teeth, flashed in a brilliant smile, "I do not desire to have the captain mounted on an inferior horse. We have many other good horses on the Palomar. This one's name is Panchito; I will express him to you some day this week." "Farrel, you quite overwhelm me. A thousand thanks! I'll treasure Panchito for your sake as well as his own." The soldier extended his hand, and the captain grasped it. "Good-by, Sergeant. Pleasant green fields!" "Good-by, sir. Dry camps and quick promotion." The descendant of a _conquistador_ picked up his straw suitcase, his helmet, and gas-mask. At the door, he stood to attention, and saluted. The captain leaped to his feet and returned this salutation of warriors; the door opened and closed, and the officer stood staring at the space so lately occupied by the man who, for eighteen months, had been his right hand. "Strange man!" he muttered. "I didn't know they bred his kind any more. Why, he's a feudal baron!" III There were three people in the observation-car when Michael Joseph Farrel boarded it a few minutes before eight o'clock the following morning. Of the three, one was a girl, and, as Farrel entered, carrying the souvenirs of his service--a helmet and gas-mask--she glanced at him with the interest which the average civilian manifests in any soldier obviously just released from service and homeward bound. Farrel's glance met hers for an instant with equal interest; then he turned to stow his impedimenta in the brass rack over his seat. He was granted an equally swift but more direct appraisal of her as he walked down the observation-car to the rear platform, where he selected a chair in a corner that offered him sanctuary from the cold, fog-laden breeze, lighted a cigar, and surrendered himself to contemplating, in his mind's eye, the joys of home-coming.