"Well, I'm blessed if I can understand it," said Bonner. Then callers put a stop to the chat. Then the colonel himself came home to his cosey quarters, and silence had settled down over the beautiful plain. The lights were dimmed in the barracks; the sentries paced their measured rounds; from the verandas of the hotel came the ripple of murmured words and soft laughter, and a tinkle of banjo and guitar. At the gate the colonel exchanged good-night greetings with a happy-faced, motherly looking woman whom Bonner had noticed overwhelmed with pride and emotion during the ceremonies in the morning. He did not at first recognize the tall, erect young fellow on whose arm she proudly leaned as she walked home through the shifting moonlight. "That was young Graham, in whom you were so interested this morning," said Hazzard, briefly. "_Was_ it? Oh, I thought he'd gone with the graduates." "Only down to the city to say good-bye. He came back to his mother by late train. I fancy she's more to him than a lot of fun with the boys." "See here, Hazzard," observed Bonner, solemnly, "I've been looking into things here nigh onto a week. It's fine! It's all right for a soldier school! But, now take that young chap for a sample. What on earth does he know outside of drill and mathematics and what you call discipline? What could he do in case we cut off all this--this foolishness--and came down to business? I'd be willing to bet a sweet sum that, take him out of the army, turn him loose in the streets, and he'd starve, by gad! before he could ever earn enough to pay for a quick lunch." "I think you'd lose," was the quiet answer. "Well, I'd just like to try it. Pit him and his kind against our keen-witted, sharp, aggressive young _bus_iness men--men with _bus_iness heads, _bus_iness experience"--Bonner's emphasis on the first syllable was reinforced by a bang of the fist on the arm of his chair--"and, and, by gad! they'd be skinned alive--skinned out of their last cent, sir." "That," said the colonel, dryly, "is not improbable. They are trained as soldiers, not as sharpers. But, all the same, in spite, if you please, of their soldier training, I fancy most of these lads that quit us to-day, if brought face to face with sudden emergency, responsibility, something calling for courage, coolness, judgment--above all, for action--would hold their own, and I'd back them even in competition with your aggressive young friends in business life." "Why, they're taught to deal only with soldiers--with machines--not men," argued Bonner. "Well, such as they have handled men not soldiers more than once, in your own city, Bonner, and to your vast benefit. They'll come to it again some day. As for that young man, I picked him a year ago from his whole class for the place that calls for the most judgment, tact, quiet force, capacity to command--the 'first captaincy'--and never did I see it better filled."