Tonio, Son of the Sierras | Page 9

me. I've no use for cocktails. I never touch a drop of
stingo before twelve at noon or after twelve at night. I agree with old
Bluegrass. Bluegrass was post surgeon at the Presidio when the Second
Artillery came out in '65, right on the heels of the war, and he did his
best to welcome them--especially Breck, their adjutant, also a
Kentuckian. Then he was ordered East, and he left Breck his blessing,
his liquor case, and this admonition--Breck told it himself. 'Young
man,' said he, 'I observe you drink cocktails. Now, take my advice and

don't do it. You drink the bitters and they go to your nose and make it
red. You drink the sugar and it goes to your brain and makes it wopsy,
and so--you lose all the good effects of the whiskey'! Haw, haw, haw!"
It was a story the genial old soldier much rejoiced in, one that Stannard
had bet he would tell before dinner was half over, and it came with
Doyle and the chickens. The kindly, wrinkled, beaming face, red with
the fire of Arizona's suns, redder by contrast with the white mustache
and imperial, was growing scarlet with the flame of Bentley's cherished
wine, when in sudden surprise he noted that the junior officer present,
seated alone at his right (there was no other girl in all Camp Almy to
bid to the little feast, and Mrs. Stannard, in mourning for a brother,
could not accept), had turned down the little sherry glass. Thirty years
ago such a thing was as uncommon in the army as fifty years ago it was
unheard of in civil life. For one instant after the young officer's
embarrassed answer the veteran sat almost as though he had heard a
rebuke. It was Mrs. Archer who came to the relief of an awkward
situation. "Mr. Harris believes in keeping in training," she ventured
lightly. "He could not excel in mountain scouting without it. The
general's scouting days are over and we indulge him." Indeed, it wasn't
long before it began to look as though the general were indulging
himself. Claret presently succeeded the sherry, but not until Bentley's
health had been drunk again and the orderly summoned from the front
porch to go, with the general's compliments, and tell him so. "This
claret," he then declared, "is some I saved from the dozen Barry &
Patton put aboard the Montana when I came round to Yuma last year.
It's older than Lilian," this with a fond and playful pinch at the rosy
cheek beside him, "and almost as good. No diluting this, Mr. Willett,"
for he saw that young officer glancing from the empurpled glass to the
single carafe that adorned the table, its mate having met dissolution
when the general's chest was prematurely unloaded in Dead Man's
Cañon en route to the post. "Dilute your California crudities all you
like, but not the red juice from the sunny vines of France. No, sir!
Moreover, this and old Burgundy are the wines you must drink at blood
heat. No Sauturnes or Hocks or champagnes for us fire worshippers in
Arizona! Lilian here and my blessed wife yonder don't like these red
wines for that reason. They want something to cool their dainty palates,
but men, sir, and soldiers---- What's this, Bella, Bellisima?

Salad--French dressing--and cool, too! Bravissima, my dear! How did
you manage it? The olla? Why, of course! Cool anything. Cool my old
head, if need be. Hey, Willett?"
And all this time, when not chatting with the debonair officer at her
side or saying a word to his bronzed, sun-dried, silently observant
comrade opposite, Lilian's fond eyes forever sought her father's
rubicund face, love and admiration in every glance. All this time, even
while in cordial talk with her guests, Mrs. Archer never seemed to lose
a look or word from her soldier liege; never once did her winsome
smile or joyous laugh fail to reward his sallies; never once came there
shade of anxiety upon her beaming face. "The General" was the head of
that house, and they were his loyal subjects. They even sipped at the
outermost ripple of the thimbleful of claret each had permitted Doyle to
pour. Even when a loud "cloop" in the dark passageway to the kitchen
told that another bottle was being opened as the omelet came in, borne
aloft by white-robed Suey, crowned with red poppies and blue blazes,
and set triumphantly before the mistress of the feast, Harris could
detect no flutter of disapprobation. Even when, later still, the general's
eager hand, stretching forth for the dusky flagon (it was sacrilege to
sweep away those insignia of age and respectability), managed to
capsize the candelabrum and sent the fluid "adamantine" spattering a
treasured table-cloth (how quick