CHAPTER I

"MISS BETTY" IN A NEW RÔLE

Colonel John Hope Fortescue, commanding the fine new cavalry post of
Fort Blizzard, in the far Northwest, sat in his comfortable office and
gazed through the big window at the plaza with its tall flagstaff, from
which the splendid regimental flag floated in the crystal cold air of
December. Afar off was a broad plateau for drills, an aviation field,
and beyond all, a still, snow-bound world, walled in by jagged peaks of
ice. It seemed to Colonel Fortescue, who was an idealist and at the
same time a crack cavalry officer, that the great flag on the giant
flagstaff dominated the frozen world around it, and its stars were a
part of the firmament. When the sun rose and the flag was run up, then
indeed it was sunrise. And when the sun descended in majesty, so the
flag descended in glory.

As the last pale gleam of splendor touched the flag, the sunset gun
cracked out suddenly. Colonel Fortescue and his right-hand man for
twenty years, Sergeant Patrick McGillicuddy, rose to their feet and
stood at "attention," as the flag fell slowly. Then it was reverently
furled, and the color sergeant, with the guard, started toward the
Colonel's quarters, all whom they passed making way for them and
saluting the furled colors.

Colonel Fortescue continued to look out of the window, while Sergeant
McGillicuddy, getting some belated mail together, passed out of the
office entrance of the fine new commandant's quarters. Two
horsewomen--Mrs. Fortescue, she who had been Betty Beverley, and her
seventeen-year-old Anita--followed by a trooper as escort, were coming