more comic, according to their bent, and were closer to primeval men
and women than they knew. So it was at Fort Blizzard, standing grimly
watchful over the world of snow and ice and holding within its limits
all the struggle and striving and love, and laughter and dancing, and
the weeping and working and resting, and the hazards and the triumphs
of human life. On the aviation plain men daily played a fearful game
with destiny, the stakes being human lives, while the young officers,
when not flying toward the sun, were dancing every evening with the
dainty girls, in little muslin frocks that made them look like white
butterflies.

Broussard, owing to a slight defect of vision, was not in the aviation
corps, but, like Sergeant McGillicuddy, he would fly whenever he had an
invitation from Lawrence, the gentleman-ranker with whom Broussard was
seen too often to please Colonel Fortescue. Lawrence had a pale,
fragile, handsome wife, like himself, of another class than the honest
soldiers and their buxom wives, and there was a little boy, Ronald, who
looked like a young prince--a beautiful boy, much noticed by all who
knew him. The soldiers forgot their grudge against Lawrence for what
they called his "uppish airs," and the soldiers' wives forewent their
objections to Mrs. Lawrence and her aloofness from them, when the boy,
Ronald, appeared. The officers, and their wives, too, had a kind word
for the little fellow, so handsome and well-mannered, and especially
was he a favorite with Broussard. It was, indeed, more than friendly
favor toward the child; Broussard was conscious of a strong affection
for the boy, about whom there was something mysteriously appealing to
Broussard, an expression in the frank young eyes, a soft beauty in the
boy's smile, that reminded Broussard of something loved and lost, but
he knew not what it was nor whence it came. Anita, although knowing
nothing of the gentleman-ranker and his wife and the handsome boy