CHAPTER IV.
"GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART, GOOD-BYE" Broussard, after reading his orders, walked quickly to his quarters.
On the desk in his luxuriously furnished sitting-room was a letter from the C.O.giving the order in detail from the War Department; Broussard was to make the next steamer sailing from San Francisco.

He went through with a rapid mental calculation.

To do that, he would be obliged to leave Fort Blizzard not later than the next afternoon.
Broussard took his orders with a soldier's coolness.

He particularly disliked them; he did not want to leave Fort Blizzard for any other spot on the habitable globe, and least of all did he want to go to the island possessions.

But he said no word of complaint, took, with perfect good humor, the condolences and chaff of his brother officers at the mess dinner that night, and plunged into his preparations to leave.
The disposal of the expensive impedimenta which Broussard had accumulated gave him much trouble.