And then in army circles there came to the front a man with a head on his shoulders and a hand on the steering gear. In the interest of civilization and civilian dealers Congress had cleaned out the old-time sutler shop, which was no deplorable loss, and transferred the traffic of his successor, the post trader, to his ubiquitous rival, the publican. "The soldier's pay comes from the people and should return to the people," said the advocates of the measure, and the soldier non-voter, having about as many friends at the seat of government as a crow in a corn field, matters at Minneconjou speedily became bad as ever, for, reform having started at Silver Hill, the gamblers and harpies being kicked from its corporate limits, these philosophers,--the flotsam and jetsam of the frontier,--lost little cash and less time before settling again, and in greater numbers, on the skirts of Uncle Sam.
And then it was that, after a year or two of turmoil and trouble, "in our day there lived a man" who solved the problem, dealt rum, the flesh and the devil the worst blow known to the combination, and started under the auspices of the post Exchange the common sense and only successful system ever tried in the army, known to the Press and its civilian readers by the name of the Canteen.
And then again after a few years of peace, prosperity and contentment, good order and discipline, after the man whose monument is inscribed "The Soldier's Friend," his good work finished, was gathered to his fathers, the resultant years of thought and experiment were overthrown in a day. A congress of women over-mastered a congress of men. Exit the Canteen: Re-enter the grog shop, the hell and the hog ranch. Burned out at the borders of Silver Hill, the way blazed for him and his vile retinue of swindlers and strumpets by the best intentions that ever paved the streets of sheol, back to the gates of Fort Minneconjou came the saloon and its concomitants--and the day of order and discipline was done.
"I wouldn't say a word against it," protested Colonel Stone to the grave-faced Inspector sent out from St. Paul to investigate the first killing, "if, when they shut up _our_ shop they had shut up _those_!" and with clinching fist he struck savagely at empty space and the swarming row of ramshackle tenements beyond the stream. "Of what earthly good was it to anybody, I ask you,--except the distiller and dealer in liquors,--to close our guarded, homelike tables and reopen that unlimited unlicensed hell?"