He rode straight toward his troop, his eyes searching the ranks until
they rested upon the averted face of Hampton. He pressed forward, and
leaned from the saddle, extending a gauntleted hand. "Nolan, old man,
welcome back to the Seventh!"
For an instant their eyes met, those of the officer filled with manly
sympathy, the other's moistened and dim, his face like marble. Then
the two hands clasped and clung, in a grip more eloquent than words.
The lips of the disgraced soldier quivered, and he uttered not a word.
It was Calhoun who spoke.
"I mean it all, Nolan. From that day to this I have believed in
you,--have held you friend."
For a moment the man reeled; then, as though inspired by a new-born
hope, he sat firmly erect, and lifted his hand in salute. "Those are
words I have longed to hear spoken for fifteen years. They are more to
me than life. May God help me to be worthy of them. Oh, Calhoun,
Calhoun!"
For a brief space the two remained still and silent, their faces
reflecting repressed feeling. Then the voice of command sounded out in
front; Calhoun gently withdrew his hand from the other's grasp, and
with bowed head rode slowly to the front of his troop.
In column of fours, silent, with not a canteen rattling, with scabbards
thrust under their stirrup leathers, each man sitting his saddle like a
statue, ready carbine flung forward across the pommel, those sunburnt
troopers moved steadily down the broad coulée. There was no pomp, no
sparkle of gay uniforms. No military band rode forth to play their
famous battle tune of "Garryowen"; no flags waved above to inspire
them, yet never before or since to a field of strife and death rode
nobler hearts or truer. Troop following troop, their faded, patched
uniforms brown with dust, their campaign hats pulled low to shade them
from the glare, those dauntless cavalrymen of the Seventh swept across
the low intervening ridge toward the fateful plain below. The troopers
riding at either side of Hampton, wondering still at their captain's
peculiar words and action, glanced curiously at their new comrade,
marvelling at his tightly pressed lips, his moistened eyes. Yet in all
the glorious column, no heart lighter than his, or happier, pressed
forward to meet a warrior's death.