So, between the upper and the nether grindstones, Mary Cahill was
left without the society of her own sex, and was of necessity forced
to content herself with the society of the officers. And the officers
played fair. Loyalty to Mary Cahill was a tradition at Fort Crockett,
which it was the duty of each succeeding regiment to sustain.
Moreover, her father, a dark, sinister man, alive only to money-
making, was known to handle a revolver with the alertness of a town-
marshal.
Since the day she left the convent Mary Cahill had held but two
affections: one for this grim, taciturn parent, who brooded over her
as jealously as a lover, and the other for the entire United States
Army. The Army returned her affection without the jealousy of the
father, and with much more than his effusiveness. But when Lieutenant
Ranson arrived from the Philippines, the affections of Mary Cahill
became less generously distributed, and her heart fluttered hourly
between trouble and joy.
There were two rooms on the first floor of the post-trader's--this
big one, which only officers and their women-folk might enter, and
the other, the exchange of the enlisted men.
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