the wild exhilaration, to dance incessantly, with man after man who sought her, though few had opportunity owing to his persistence. And she had been dancing incessantly, as we danced in those days--galop, deux temps, redowa, waltz, the long, undulating, luxurious, sensuous sweep of the "glide," and men and women stood and watched them, time and again, when Willett claimed her--and he hardly had look or word for others--so wondrous was that harmony of motion, that grace and beauty of feature and of form. Then at last came exhaustion. There were some little clumps of cedars on the slope just south of the assembly hall, as it stood there on the low ground midway between the head-quarters houses on the ridge to the south, and the even less commodious cottages of the puny garrison. There was a boardwalk of creaking pine, leading across the shallow ravine, for it sometimes rained up here in the mountains, though it never seemed to in the deep, arid valleys to the east. Then there was a gravel path stretching away toward the garrison houses north and north-east, and one, still narrower and crookeder, winding up among the pines and cedars and disappearing over the top of the knoll, where the broad veranda of the general's mansion overlooked the entire scene. Sometimes when the evenings were warm and the dancers flushed, and sometimes even when there was no such excuse, young couples were wont to saunter out in the starlight for air and sentiment and "spooning." Already Willett knew the labyrinth, and welcomed the excuse to lead her forth, his arm almost supporting her. It was about eleven. The elders were absorbing mild refreshments at the moment. The musicians were glad of a rest, a sandwich and a cup of coffee, and a puff at a pipe before again resuming their melodious, if monotonous, labor. The windows of the assembly room were so near the ground that it was easy for these who did not attend the dances to supervise from without, and it often happened that a fringe of respectfully admiring spectators would surround the building until the late roll-call summoned the soldier circle away.