For forty-eight hours Fort Worth was in turmoil. To begin with, the sudden, unheralded advent of a department inspector in those days meant something ominous, and from Frazier down to the drum-boys the garrison scented mischief the moment that familiar old black-hooded, dust-covered spring wagon, drawn by the famous six-mule team, came spinning in across themesajust after retreat, no escort whatever being in sight. Cavalrymen had trotted alongside, said Riggs, from two of the camps on the way, but they had made that long day's drive from Crockett Springs all alone, trusting to luck that the Friday gang, so called, would not get wind of it. Just who and how many constituted that array of outlaws no man, including its own membership, could accurately say. Two paymasters, two wagon-trains, and no end of mail-stages had been "jumped" by those enterprising road agents in the course of the five years that followed the war, and not once had a conviction occurred. Arrests had been made by marshals, sheriffs, and officers in command of detachments, but a more innocent lot of victims, according to thetestimony of friends and fellow-citizens, never dwelt in Dixie. Three only of their number had been killed and left for recognition in the course of those three years. One only of these was known, and the so-called Friday gang managed to surround its haunts, its movements, and its membership with a mystery that defied civil officials and baffled the military. Escorts the size of a cavalry platoon had been needed every time a disbursing officer went to and fro, and a sizable squad accompanied the stage whenever it carried even a moderate amount of treasure. At three points along the road from the old Mexican capital to the outlying posts, strong detachments of cavalry had been placed in camp, so that relays of escorts might be on hand when needed. At three different times within the past two years, strongposseshad gone with the civil officials far into the foot-hills in search of the haunts of the band, but no occupied haunt was ever found, no band of any size or consequence ever encountered; yet depredations were incessant. The mail-stage came and went with guarded deliberation. The quartermaster's trains were accompanied by at least a company of infantry. The sutler's wagons travelled with the quartermaster's train, and the sutler's money went to San Antonio only when the quartermaster and commissary sent theirs,and then a whole squadron had been known to ride in charge. Anything from a wagon-train down to a buckboard was game for the gang, and soldiers, ranchmen, and prospectors told stories of having been halted, overhauled, and searched by its masked members at various times, and, whether found plethoric or poor, having been hospitably entertained as soon as robbed of all they possessed. Only four days before Riggs made his venturesome dash, three discharged soldiers, filled with impatience and whiskey, had sought to run the gauntlet to the camp at Crockett's, and came back, in the robbers' cast-off clothing, to "take on" for another term, having parted with their uniforms and the savings of several years at the solicitation of courteous strangers they met along the route. Nothing but an emergency could have brought Riggs, full tilt, for he was getting along in years and loved the comforts of his army home.
Emergency it was, as he explained to Frazier instantly on his arrival. The general had indubitable information that ranches to the south had long been buying government stores, bacon, feed, flour, coffee, etc. The source of their supply could only be the warehouses at Worth, and Marsden was a "swell" sergeant, whose airs and affluence had made him the object of suspicion. Those were the days when cavalry regiments hada commissary, but Congress did away with the office, and Winn, whom an indulgent colonel had detailed to that supposedly "soft snap" when regimental head-quarters were stationed at Worth, had been left there with his bulky array of boxes and barrels when the colonel and staff were transferred to a more southern post, the understanding being that he was to turn over everything to Frazier's new quartermaster as soon as that official should arrive. Frazier's appointee, however, was a lieutenant from a distant station. The War Department had not improved the appointment when made. Correspondence had been going on, and only within the week was notification received that the choice was finally confirmed and that Lieutenant Trott would soon arrive. Meantime Winn remained, but the stores were going. Somebody had money enough to bribe the sentries nightly posted at the storehouse at the northern corner of the big rectangle, and wagon-load after wagon-load must have been driven away. Outwardly, as developed by the count made early on the morning following Riggs's coming, all was right, but a veteran cavalry sergeant scoffingly knocked in the heads of cask, box, and barrel, and showed how bacon by the cord had been replaced by rags and boulders, sugar, coffee, and flour by bushels of sand,molasses and vinegar by branch water, and tea and tobacco by trash. "Two to three thousand dollars' worth of rations gone," said Riggs, at noon, "and the devil to pay if Winn cannot." Vain the night ride to Fuller's ranch in search of Marsden. That worthy had long since feathered his portable nest, and on one of the quartermaster's best horses had left the post within the half-hour of Riggs's coming, no man knew for what point after once he crossed the ford. Hoof-tracks by the hundred criss-crossed and zigzagged over the southwardmesa. Thick darkness had settled down. Fuller's people swore no signs of him had been seen, and, though patrols kept on all night, poor Winn came back despairing an hour before the dawn to face his fate; even at noon he had hardly begun to realize the extent of his overwhelming loss.
"Go home and try to sleep," said the colonel, sadly, to the dumb and stricken man. "You can do no good here. I'll send the doctor to you."
But Winn started up and shook the old fellow's kindly hand. "I cannot go. My God! I must know the whole business," he cried. "I cannot sleep or eat a morsel."
"Whatever you do, don't drink," said Riggs, in not unkindly warning. "Go and see your wife, anyhow, for an hour or so. She has sent threetimes." But words were useless. Sympathetic comrades came and strove with him and said empty words of hope or cheer,—empty, because they knew poor Winn had not a soul in the world to whom to look for help. Kin to half a dozen old army names, it helped him not a whit, for no one of them was blessed with means beyond the monthly pay, and some had not even that unmortgaged. Twenty-five hundred dollars' shortage already, to say nothing of the cash for recent sales, and more, no doubt, to come. The very thought was ruin. Refusing comfort, the hapless man sat down at his littered desk, stared again at the crowded, dusty pigeon-holes, and saw nothing, nothing but misery, if not despair.
Brayton went over at luncheon-time and begged a word with Mrs. Winn. She peered over the balustrade from the second story, with big, black-rimmed eyes, but could not come down, could not leave baby, who was fretful, she said. Oh, why didn't Mr. Winn come home? What good did it do to stay over there and worry? When would they get through? Brayton couldn't say, but Winn couldn't come,—felt he must stay at the office; but if Mrs. Winn would have some tea and a bite of luncheon prepared, he, Brayton, would gladly take it over. Yet even this friendly office seemed to bring no solace. Winn barelysipped the tea or tasted the savory broth. Frazier and Riggs went out to luncheon, leaving him still seated at his desk; and their faces were black with gloom when they reached the colonel's door. Winn's distressing plight, following so shortly after the dire misfortune that had happened to Lawrence, would have saddened the whole garrison and tinged all table-talk with melancholy but for the blessed antidote afforded in Captain Barclay's sudden and most unlooked-for coming.
And what a surprise it was! All one afternoon and part of one evening had Fort Worth been telling that Captain Barclay had refused the assignment to a regiment and post where he must meet Laura Winn; that he had resigned rather than encounter once more the woman who had played him false; that he was too wealthy to care to bury himself in this out-of-the-way hole in Texas anyhow; and even while they were talking, all unheralded, here he was. The major's hospitable doors opened to receive him within ten minutes of his dust-covered advent, and only by hearsay all that night could the garrison know of his presence. One small sole-leather trunk, with the travelling-bag, rifle, field-glasses, canteen, and lunch-box, constituted all the personal luggage of the new arrival. It could not even be said that any one outside of Brooks's had even seenhim, so coated with dust were the contents of that old spring wagon when unloaded at the colonel's steps; and many a woman hastened to her door on the following morning, attracted thither by the announcement that Captain Barclay was on the major's porch.
There, with his host, he stood for quite a while, the major pointing out the landmarks along the westward range, and indicating, apparently, other features in the landscape. One or two officers, hastening by, raised their caps or ran up the steps and shook hands with the new-comer, but he was presently summoned in to breakfast, and neighbors could only say he was not very tall, not very stout, not very slight, not very anything. Captain De Lancy, who had had three minutes' conversation, said he "seemed pleasant," but that was all. Mrs. De Lancy was confirmed in her preconceived opinion that men were owls, because her husband was unable to add to the military descriptive list of brown eyes, brown hair, brown beard and clothes, any of the particulars she sought. He couldn't tell whether Barclay had fine teeth or good complexion, what his mouth was like, whether he had nice hands and voice. Indeed, he couldn't see why Mrs. De Lancy should be so anxious to know. Not until towards noon was any reliable particularconcerning Captain Barclay passed along the line. Then the domestic bulletin dealt out the fact that the millionaire mine-owner wore a flannel shirt and a silver watch, which information was distinctly disheartening.
But that evening, while the colonel and other officers began calling at Brooks's to welcome formally the unexpected addition to the commissioned force, Mrs. Brooks was able to slip out and over to her crony, Mrs. De Lancy, and in ten minutes she had an audience, married and single, that gladdened her heart. She could and did talk almost uninterruptedly for over an hour. Arriving dames or damsels were signalled not to interrupt, and, joining the circle, patiently withheld their questions until she paused for breath; and then what every one seemed to want to know was, had he said anything or asked anything about Mrs. Winn? He had. He expressed the utmost sympathy with poor Mr. Winn. He told Major Brooks of a similar experience that occurred in the —d Cavalry only the year previous, and how it would probably take the defrauded officer years to square the account. He most delicately inquired as to the general health and well-being of Mrs. Winn, whom he had had the pleasure, he said, of meeting several years before; but more particularly he had asked about Lawrence, andLawrence's children, and who was in charge of them; it was evident that he was deeply concerned about them and most anxious to meet Captain and Mrs. Blythe.
"Well, that's one thing at least in his favor," was the verdict; for throughout Brooks's battalion, as it was then called, or squadron, as we should call it to-day, there existed an indefinable feeling of antagonism towards this stranger within their gates, thus coming to usurp the place Ned Lawrence held in their hearts and homes, if no longer on their rolls. Some one slipped out and brought in Mrs. Blythe, for whose benefit Mrs. Brooks not unwillingly went over all she had told about Captain Barclay's queries as to the children and their benefactors; and that sweet, tender-hearted, motherly woman ought to have softened to him, but didn't. "He could have heard it all at San Antonio for the asking," she declared. "But he didn't stop two days at San Antonio," explained Mrs. Brooks. "The moment he heard that Colonel Riggs was going on by special ambulance he begged to be allowed to go with him, and Riggs couldn't see a way to say no, and later confessed he was very glad he had said yes."
"Brooks, you were all growling at the idea of having any outsider, much less a doughboy, take Lawrence's place," were the bluff old veteran'sexact words; "but you mark what I say. I was rather prejudiced against this young fellow myself, and it has just taken this jolt together from San Antonio to satisfy me he is grit to the backbone, and you are in big luck to get him."
At least a dozen men called at the major's that evening to pay their respects to the new comrade. It was long after taps when the last one left, but, almost to a man, they gathered at the club-room later to compare notes. Hodge, of course, had called among the first, his claim of intimate or at least old acquaintance rendering it necessary. Barclay's brown eyes certainly lighted at the sight of the face he had known in the far northwest; he chatted for a moment with the infantryman, and expressed his pleasure at meeting him again. Then Blythe entered, with his grave, massive face and courteous yet reserved manner; and Brooks spoke of the fact that Barclay seemed to shake hands more earnestly with him than with any of the others, and to look at him oftener, though striving to slight no one. They sat there, as men will at such times, somewhat awkwardly, only one speaking at once, and generally the same one. Hodge, for instance, had much to say and many questions to ask about fellows he had known in Wyoming, and when he left and others came in, three or four went at the same time, having satstolid listeners, calmly studying Barclay with their eyes and finally saying good-night, and "hope to see you when you get settled," etc.
They were talking of him at the store, and wondering when and where he would settle, and whether he would take Lawrence's quarters, and what would then become of Ada and little Jim, who with old Mammy still occupied their rooms there and had all the furniture as poor daddy left it, but who went over to the Blythes' three times a day to take their rations with their army chums and playmates, the little Blythes. "What a godsend it would be if he would buy poor Ned's books and furniture!" said De Lancy. "It would yield enough to send those poor babies home."
"Home," said Blythe, sadly: "what home has a child whose kith and kin are all of the army? They have neither home nor mother."
But no man made the faintest comment on facts the women remarked instanter, that Barclay's watch was only silver and his guard an inexpensive little cord or braid of fine leather, worn about his neck; that his travelling suit was of rough gray mixture, and his shirt a flannelnégligé. But then, as Mrs. De Lancy explained in extenuation of their blindness, he had donned his uniform by the time they called that second evening, and it became him very well.
A week went rapidly by. Captain Barclay had gone on duty, and Mr. Brayton, his sub, had not yet "sized him up." Lieutenant Trott, the new regimental quartermaster, had arrived by the Saturday's stage, and was ready to receipt to Lieutenant Winn for all property he had to turn over; but Winn had broken down under his weight of woe and taken to his bed. From Washington came tidings, telegraphed as far as San Antonio, that Lawrence was slowly mending and would soon be sitting up. Mrs. Winn, absorbed in the care of her suffering husband, had accepted no invitations, but the many sympathetic women who called to ask if there were not some way in which they could be of aid reported her as looking feverish and far from well. Some of them had ventured to speak of the new arrival, and, though her ears were evidently open, her lips were closed. That she was willing, if not eager, to hear anything they had to say or tell about Captain Barclay was all very well as far as it went, but what some of her visitors most desired was to hear what she had to say about him; asshe would say nothing, one or two had resorted to a little delicate questioning in the hope of drawing her out. Mrs. Faulkner, a young matron of her own age and previous social standing, an army girl like herself, and for some time her one intimate friend at Worth, went so far as to ask, "You used to know him very well, did you not?" and was checkmated by the answer, "Not well enough to talk about," which answer Mrs. Faulkner pondered over and considered deliberately and inexcusably rude. With the kindest feeling for her in the world, as all the women avowed, and no animosity whatever towards Barclay over and beyond that feeling on poor Colonel Lawrence's account, there was the liveliest interest at Worth as regarded Mrs. Winn and Captain Barclay in seeing what they would do; and, to the disappointment of all Fort Worth, they had done nothing.
Barclay promptly returned the calls of the officers who had called upon him, and had done all proper homage to the wives of those who were possessed of such blessings, but there were still certain quarters where his face or his card had not been seen: at Captain Cram's, for instance, because that warrior was on scout and couldn't call, ditto his lieutenant; at one or two of the new and unpolished pillars of the temple, because theyhad not known enough or had been too shy to call; and at Winn's, because that officer was ill of a fever and could not call. There was another set of quarters in which he had not yet set foot,—Ned Lawrence's; and that was the house most people expected him to visit first.
Nor did he remain at Brooks's. The major's house was big, but so was his household. "You have a vacant room here, Mr. Brayton," he said, the third day after his arrival, as he dropped in at his subaltern's. "It may be a month before I get shaken down into place. I dislike to disturb women and children, and so have decided to ask you to let me move my cot and trunk in here awhile and to propose my name at the mess." And Brayton, blushing at the realization of the fact that the furniture in the room referred to consisted solely of some chairs, a square pine table covered with a cavalry blanket, with a cigar-box half full of smoking-tobacco, another half full of white beans, and a pack of cards for its sole ornaments, nevertheless bravely ushered his new captain into the bower, and Barclay looked neither surprised nor satirical at the sight. "We sometimes play a mild game of draw here, sir," said downright Brayton, "which accounts for the appearance of things; but my striker can clean it up in ten minutes, and you are most welcome."
"It won't put you out in any way?" asked Barclay, without the comment of an uplifted eyebrow on the evidence adduced.
"Not so much as poker, if it does at all," said Brayton, promptly. He was determined his captain should know the extent of his frailties at the start.
Barclay smiled quietly and turned to the boy with liking in his eye. "I'm hardly ten years your senior, Brayton," said he, "and so shall not preach, but I believe we can put that room to a little better use."
The next day he took his seat at the bachelors' mess, where a dozen officers were congregated, all of them but two his juniors in rank. The sideboard was lavishly decked with the indispensables of that benighted day. The old-timers and the new took their anteprandial cocktail or toddy, and hospitably invited Barclay to join. Barclay smiled gratefully, but said he had "never yet got in the way of it, somehow," nor did he more than sip at the Bordeaux which the presiding officer ordered served in honor of the occasion. The mess was rather silent. Most men seemed desirous of listening to Barclay when he spoke at all. They knew every twist and turn of each other's mode of speech by that time, and could repeat verbatim every story in the combination.Barclay might have something new; but if he did he had no chance. Captain Follansbee took and kept the floor from first to last. He was airing his views on the subject of consolidation, reorganization, and purification as practised at the War Department, a topic which the others considered inexcusable, not so much from the fact that it must be most unpalatable to Captain Barclay, a beneficiary of the business, as it turned out, as because Follansbee had worn them all out with it weeks before.
And, to everybody's surprise, so far from seeming annoyed or embarrassed or bored, Barclay led him on from point to point, and, even after coffee was served, sat an apparently absorbed listener, for by that time Follansbee had absorbed most of the claret and was dilating on the matter with especial reference to the case of Colonel Lawrence. Later that evening Barclay spent an hour at the Blythes', and two days after he and Brayton dined there.
It was a seven-o'clock dinner. The doctor and his wife, Major and Mrs. Brooks, Miss Frazier and Miss Amanda Frazier, were the other guests. Those were the days when officers of all grades wore epaulets when in full uniform, but, except in one or two swell messes, full dress was not considered requisite for either dinner or hops. Themen wore the uniform frock-coat with shoulder-straps; some few privileged characters even dared to appear in a sack-coat with white tie. Such a thing as the evening dress of civil life was unknown at a military post, and unowned in the fighting force of the army, outside, perhaps, of the artillery. The doctor was a privileged character, a man who said what he thought and did what he thought right; and when Mrs. Blythe, glancing out of her parlor window, saw their favored friend and medical adviser coming along the walk, his hands deep in his trousers-pockets and himself in a fit of abstraction and a new sack-coat, while the partner of his joys and sorrows chatted briskly with the Frazier girls, Mrs. Blythe called up-stairs to her massive liege lord, "Wear your blouse, dear; the doctor has on his"; whereupon Blythe slipped out of the uniform coat of formal cut and into the easy sack, and came trotting down the creaking stair in time to welcome his guests. Brooks, Barclay, and Brayton, who came later, were in the prescribed regulation dress, whereat Dr. Collabone exclaimed, "Hullo! Now that's what I ought to have done, if I'd had as much regard for conventionality as I have for health. Gentlemen, do you know you simply invite an apoplectic seizure by sitting down to dinner in a tightly buttoned uniform coat? Itis barbarous. There ought to be a regulation against it."
It was observed that while the doctor included all three of the cavalrymen in his remarks he looked at and apparently addressed only one, Captain Barclay, whose uniform coat was brand-new, very handsomely cut, its buttons and shoulder-straps of the finest make and finish, whereas the doctor's were tarnished, if not actually shabby. Brooks frowned, and Brayton looked embarrassed lest Barclay should take it amiss; but that officer remained smilingly interested, and in nowise troubled. The Frazier girls giggled, and Miss Amanda was prompt to assert that for her part she loved to see the officers wear the proper uniform, and she wasn't alarmed about apoplexy; whereupon Collabone smiled benignly and said, "What did I tell you about the danger of tight lacing?" Amanda couldn't bear the doctor. Her elder and primmer sister only half liked him. Many of the women thought him brusque and rude, but officers and men and mothers of families swore by him, and children adored him. A childless man himself, he seemed to keep open house for the offspring of his comrades. They swarmed about his quarters at all hours of the day. They invaded his parlor, overflowed his dining-room, and ruled his kitchen.
A kindly and placid soul was Mrs. Collabone, a woman who had few cares or perplexities, and these she promptly turned over to her broad-minded, broad-shouldered liege for final disposition, as serenely confident of their speedy dissipation as she was of the prompt conquest of any and all the manifold ills to which childish flesh is heir by that practitioner's infallible remedies. Children ran loose in those days in Texas; and so they ought to, said Collabone. "Savage races are the only scientific rearers," he maintained. "Boys or girls, they should be burdened with but a single garment, or less, from the time they're born until they're eight or ten, and meantime they should be made to eat, sleep, and live outdoors." He preached for children regularity in matters of diet, prescribed four light meals a day, practised heterodoxy, and distributed bread and milk, bread and syrup, bread and jam, cookies, corn dodgers, and molasses candy, morning, noon, and night. Aunt Purlina, the fat and jocund goddess of the Collabones' kitchen, had standing orders on such subjects, and many a time had the post surgeon to wait for his own refreshments because "the kids" had possession of the premises. There was never a worry along officers' row when children strayed from home. "Oh, they're over at the doctor's," was the soothing response to allqueries. The doctor's big yard was the garrison play-ground; for, when a soulless, heartless, childless, wifeless post commander, Frazier's predecessor, had dared to prohibit the use of the parade-ground for croquet, hop-scotch, marbles, or "Tom, Tom Pull-away," it was Collabone who rigged up swings and giant strides at his own expense and without the aid of the post quartermaster, and sent away to New Orleans for croquet sets for the exclusive use of the youngsters. It nettled inexpressibly the field officer commanding. He took it as a rebuke from his junior, and took it out in a course of nagging and persecution at the doctor's expense, that roused the energies of the entire post. Frazier was sent from Concho to supersede the objectionable lieutenant-colonel, who thereupon declared his intention of moving the doctor out and taking his quarters; but a courier galloped all the way from Worth to the camp at San Patricio, whither the department commander had gone a-hunting, and another got back in the nick of time with orders for the devastating officer to move to the cantonment on the Pecos, the worst hole in all Texas, as reported by the department inspector. The children had won the day.
At the very moment when the party took their seats at Blythe's, the children of thatestablishment and their friends the Lawrences were holding high carnival at the doctor's, Aunt Purlina and the colored maid vying with each other in efforts to stuff them to repletion. Over this uproarious feast presided the tall slip of a damsel with whom poor Ned had parted so mournfully when he went away in February. Ada's was the only face in all the merry party that seemed to have known a trace of sorrow. Her big, dark, mournful eyes and shaggy hair, her sallow face and shabby frock, twice let down and still "skimpy," told a pathetic story. Thirteen years of age, the child had already seen much of anxiety and trouble,—much, indeed, beyond the ken of many an elder; and the week going by brought hour after hour of nervous wear and tear, the cause of which only one woman knew, and strove in vain to banish. Ada shrank with actual dread and repulsion from the thought of having to meet the man who had come to take her loved father's place.
Thrice had Barclay spoken to Mrs. Blythe of a desire to see the children of Colonel Lawrence; now he felt confident that he knew the cause of her evasion, and pressed no more. But all through dinner, even while speaking in the low, somewhat measured tones habitual to him, he lost no talk in which the children were mentioned; and atBlythe's they were never forgotten. It was not long before he discovered that the Blythes and Lawrences—the young people—were at the doctor's, Ada presiding. Indeed, with much gusto, almost as soon as soup was served, Collabone began telling of her matronly, motherly ways. Half an hour later a messenger came to the door and asked if Dr. Collabone would please step over and see Mrs. De Lancy a moment. "Tell her I'll be there in just one hour," said the doctor, looking at his watch. Then he added, for the benefit of the party present, "There's nothing in the world the matter with Mrs. De Lancy, and by that time she'll have forgotten she sent for me." Ten minutes later came another call. It was the Collabones' domestic this time. "Little Jimmy's cut his hand, and Miss Ada can't stop the bleeding." "Say I'll come instantly," said he, springing from the table and making his excuses to the lady of the house.
Barclay's face shone with instant sympathy and interest. Dessert was nearly over. He turned to the motherly woman whose own gentle face betrayed her anxiety.
"Will you think me very rude?" he said. "You know I do not smoke, and I do want so much to meet those children. I feel that Ada purposely shuns me, and this is an opportunitynot to be lost. May I be excused? I will soon return." Mrs. Blythe's eyes were eloquent as she bade him go.
Three minutes later he softly entered the doctor's sitting-room. There in a big easy-chair sat a tall, sallow-faced, tumbled-haired girl, holding in her arms a burly little fellow whose frightened sobbings she had at last controlled, and who, with only an occasional whimper, was now submitting to the doctor's examination and deriving much comfort from his professional and reassuring manner.
"Why, this is no cut at all, Jimmy, my boy. The reason you bled so much is that you are so uncommonly healthy and full of blood. This won't keep you out of mischief six hours. Hold the basin steady, Purlina. Kick all you want to, Jimmy. Don't you dare to laugh, Kittie Blythe. Well, if here isn't Captain Barclay, too, come in to see you! Here is the little wounded soldier, captain. You had your arm in a sling six long months, didn't you? The Sioux did that for him, Jimmy, and you've only got to be done up in a bandage till to-morrow night. Let Captain Barclay hold you? Indeed I won't. He doesn't know how to hold little boys—like Ada. He's got no little boys, nor big Ada either. Bet your boots he wishes he had, Jimmy." Thus thedoctor chatted as he bathed and bandaged the pudgy little fist, while Jimmy lay, half relieved at the rapid termination to his woes, half resentful they should be declared so trifling, and, with eyes much swollen with weeping, critically studied the new captain's appearance and gave token of modified approval. But Ada's white lids and long dark lashes were never once uplifted.
Presently Collabone pronounced everything doing finely, and said he'd go and see Mrs. De Lancy. "You tell them there's nothing much the matter, will you?" he said to Barclay.
"I will—when I get there," was the smiling reply; "but I'm going to tell this little fellow a story first about a Sioux baby boy I knew in Wyoming, and his playmate, a baby bear." And, with wondering, wide-open eyes upon him, Barclay seated himself close to Ada's chair, while the doctor stole silently away.
Half an hour later, when he returned, a circle of absorbed listeners was gazing into Barclay's face. Ada only sat apart, and little Jimmy's curly head was pillowed on the story-teller's breast.
Ten days passed. Barclay had become an institution at Fort Worth, yet opinions were as divided and talk of him as constant as before he came. First and foremost, he had met Mrs. Winn, and his demeanor on that presumably trying occasion had proved a distinct disappointment. Winn was recovering health, if not spirits. A stage-load of officers and ladies had come from the cantonment to spend forty-eight hours, and a big dance was prescribed for their benefit. Mrs. Winn danced divinely, and never looked so well as when with a suitable partner on a suitable floor. Those were the days when we raved over the "Mabel," the "Guards," the "Maude," and the "Hilda" waltzes, Godfrey's melodious creations,—when the galop andtrois tempswere going out, and we "Boston dipped" to every tune from Pat Malloy to Five O'Clock in the Morning, and the Worth orchestra was a good one when the first violin wasn't drunk, a condition which had to be provided against with assiduous care. The party arrived during one of his lucidintervals, and the adjutant promptly placed the artist under bonds to shun the cup until after the guests had gone; then he could fill up to his heart's content and no fear of a fine. Winn couldn't attend, but Laura was looking wan and sallow. She needed air and exercise, and her husband urged her to accept Mr. Brayton's escort and go; so did Collabone; so did her own inclination. Superbly gowned and coiffed and otherwise decorated, she went, and her entrance was the sensation of the evening. It was long after ten when she appeared. The hop was in full blast; the big room, gayly decorated, was throbbing with the rhythmic movement of the closing figure of the Lancers. Almost everybody was on the floor, for energetic were our dancers in those bygone days. Just as the music came to full stop, and with joyous laughter and merry words of parting the sets broke up, the women and girls, middle-aged or young (they never grow old in the army), clinging to their partners' arms, fanning, possibly, their flushed faces, were escorted to their seats, and the floor like magic was cleared for the coming waltz. The group at the flag-draped entrance parted right and left, making way for a young officer in cavalry uniform at whom nobody so much as glanced, because of the tall and radiant woman at his side, on whom all eyes werecentred. "Look at Laura Winn," was the whisper that flew from womanly lip to lip. "Isn't she simply superb?" "Look at Mrs. Winn," muttered many a man, his eyes lighting at the sight. "Isn't she just stunning?"
And then people began to hunt for Barclay.
He was standing at the moment talking quietly with Mrs. Frazier, who was making much of the young captain now, and was accused of having hopes of him on account of her eldest darling, who had dined by his side three different times at three different houses during the week, and was therefore said to be "receiving considerable attention." But the hush of laughter and miscellaneous chatter almost instantly attracted the matron's attention. She glanced at the door, gasped involuntarily, and then as suddenly turned and narrowly watched him, for he too noted the lull in conversation, and, slowly facing the doorway, saw before him not ten paces away the woman who was to have been his wife, gazing straight at him as though challenging him to look and be blinded, as blinded by her beauty he had been before. She was only a young, immature, untaught girl then, ignorant of her powers. Now the soft bloom was gone, but in its place there lurked among the tiny threads of lines or wrinkles just forming at the corners of her brilliant eyes,and in the witching curves about her mobile, sensitive, exquisite lips, a charm beside which her virgin graces were cold and formal. She had been what all men called a wonderfully pretty girl. She was now what many women termed a dangerously beautiful woman, and she knew it well. When we had no one especially selected to "receive" in those days, it was a sort of garrison custom for everybody to present himself or herself to the wife of the commanding officer, in case that official was so provided. Mrs. Frazier was seated in plain view of the queenly creature who, having advanced a few steps beyond the portals and the loiterers there assembled, now halted, and like some finished actress swept the room with her radiant eyes, as though compelling all men, all women, to yield to her their attention and regard, and then, smiling brightly, beamingly (dutiful Brayton guided by the pressure of her daintily gloved hand), moved with almost royal grace and deliberation to where Mrs. Frazier sat in state; and the first lady of the garrison rose to greet her.
Unsuitable as is the full uniform for cavalry purposes to-day, it was worse in 1870, when our shoulders were decked with wabbly epaulets and our waists were draped with a silken sash that few men wore properly. But whatever might be said of Sir Galahad's shortcomings as a booncompanion, or of his severely simple and economical mode of life, there was no manifestation of parsimony in his attire. No man in the room was so well uniformed, or wore the garb of his profession with better grace. He who came in a flannel shirt and a rough gray suit, with a silver watch and leather watch-chain, appeared this night in uniform of faultless cut and fit, with brand-new glittering captain's epaulets, while his sash was of the costliest silk net, of a brighter red than generally worn,—most officers appearing in a stringy affair that age and weather had turned to dingy purple. On his left breast Barclay wore the badge in gold and enamel of a famous fighting division in a gallant corps; and such badges were rare in the days whereof I write. Moreover, though neither a tall man nor a stalwart, Captain Barclay was erect, wiry, and well proportioned, and his head and face were well worth the second look every one had been giving this night. "The Twelfth have been swearing like pirates at having another doughboy saddled on 'em," chuckled Captain Perkins, himself a doughboy. "Begad, the Twelfth has no better picture of the officer and the gentleman than this importation from the Foot." But no one spoke with the thought of being heard as Laura Winn finished her greeting to Mrs. Frazier. Every man and woman wasintent only on what was coming next, although many strove to speak, or to appear to listen, to their neighbors. Charlotte Frazier actually rose from her seat and stepped out into the room that she might have a better view.
And Barclay would not have been the observant man he had already shown himself to be had he not known it. His color was a bit high for one whose face was ordinarily so pale, but he stood calmly erect, with an expression of pleased contemplation in his fine eyes, waiting for Mrs. Winn to finish the somewhat hurried yet lavish words that she addressed to Mrs. Frazier; then she turned effusively upon him.
"Captain Barclay!" she exclaimed. "How very good to see you here! and how glad we all are to welcome you to the Twelfth! Mr. Winn and I have been in despair because his illness has kept him a prisoner. Indeed, I doubt if I should have left him at all to-night but for his positive orders—and the doctor's; then, of course, I much wanted to see you—too."
She had begun confidently, even masterfully. She looked him with determined effort straight in the face at the start, but her confidence flitted before a dozen words were said. Her voice faltered before she had half finished, for Barclay's eyes frankly, even smilingly, met hers, and withease and dignity and courteous interest all commingled he had bowed slightly over her hand, lowered it after a brief, by no means lingering, pressure, and stood, merely mentioning her name, "Mrs. Winn," and, as was rather a way of his, letting the other party do all the talking. It was a godsend to Laura Winn that the waltz music began at the next instant, for his nonchalance was something utterly unexpected. Oh, how dared he look so calmly, indifferently, forgetfully, almost unrecognizingly, into her eyes, and stand there so placidly, when her heart was fluttering wildly with nervous excitement, her words coming in gasps!
"Oh, Mr. Brayton, how heavenly!" she exclaimed. "Don't let us lose an instant of that waltz." Over his glittering shoulder she beamed in parting a bewitching smile, levelled all at Barclay, and glided away, a floating cloud of filmy drapery, a vision of flashing eyes, of flushing cheeks, of dazzling white teeth gleaming between the parted rose-leaves of her mouth, of snowy shoulders and shapely arms, of peeping, pointed, satin-shod feet, the handsomest creature in all that crowded room, and the most dismally unhappy. She had met him in the witnessing presence of all Fort Worth, and all the garrison saw that she had sustained a crushing defeat. Shewho was to have been his wife and had duped him, she who had looked to subjugate him once more, was duped in turn, the victim of her own vanity.
"And to think," said Mrs. De Lancy, "she only changed her half-mourning a month ago, and now—in full ball costume!"
Fort Worth didn't stop talking of that episode for all of another week, and that, too, in the face of other interesting matter.
To begin with, Sergeant Marsden had disappeared as though from the face of the earth. Whither he had fled no man could say. No settlement worth the name had not been searched, no ranch remained unvisited. Fuller's people would not shield the fugitive, for Fuller, as the post sutler, suffered equally with Uncle Sam from the sergeant's depredations. Settlers and ranch people who bought of the latter cut into the business of the former, and Fuller would most gladly have had him "rounded up" long weeks ago; but Marsden and his few confederates in the garrison had admirably covered their tracks, and the indications of declining trade that had roused the sutler's suspicions led to no arousal of vigilance within the sentry line: wherefore Fuller's heart was hardened against the post commander and the erstwhile commissary, and this, too, at a timewhen the latter stood in sorest need of financial help. The extent of poor Winn's losses and responsibility was now known: so far as his commissary accounts were concerned, not a cent less than three thousand dollars would cover them. The quartermaster was out a horse and equipments, and several confiding enlisted men and laundresses were defrauded of money loaned the dashing sergeant. Uncle Sam, be it known, has summary methods as a bill-collector. He simply stops his servant's pay until the amount due is fully met. Winn's total pay and emoluments as computed in '70 and '71 would barely serve in two years to square himself with his exacting Uncle. Meantime, what were wife and baby and other claimants to do? What was he to live on, and so insure payment of which his death would destroy all possibility? Crushed as Winn was, there were men and women who roundly scored his wife for appearing superbly dressed at the first ball graced by the presence of her discarded lover. Yet had she stayed away, their disappointment would have exceeded this disapprobation. Collabone said his patient suffered from a low fever, which the unprofessional found difficult to understand, in view of Mrs. Winn's diagnosis, which declared it alarmingly high. Certain it is that he kept his room until four days after theevening of the ball; then he had to turn out and face the music, for orders came from "San Antone."
Then, too, came another invoice of interesting matter to Fort Worth, and it must be remembered that, in the narrow and restricted life of the far frontier, interest existed in matters that seem too trivial for mention in the broader spheres of the metropolis. The invoice was an actual and material fact, and consisted of a big wagon-load of household goods consigned to Captain Barclay, accompanied by a dignified Ethiopian and two very knowing-looking horses that had many of the points of thoroughbreds. The quartermaster's train under proper escort had made the long pull from Department Head-Quarters, and all unannounced came these chattels to the new troop leader. The very next morning, which was a Sunday, when Brooks's four troops formed line for inspection in the old-fashioned full dress of the cavalry, the men in shell jackets and plumed felt hats, the officers in long-skirted, clerical-looking frock-coats, black ostrich plumes, gold epaulets, and crimson sashes, there rode at the head of Lawrence's old troop a new captain, whose horse and equipments became the centre of critical and admiring eyes the moment it was possible for his comrades to leave their commands and gatherabout him. Very few officers in those days possessed anything better than the regulation troop bridle and raw-hide McClellan saddle, which with their folded blankets satisfied all the modest requirements of the frontier. The light-batterymen indulged in a little more style and had picturesque red blankets to help out, but even they were put in the shade, and came trotting over during the rest after Brooks had made the formal ride round to look at the general appearance of his command. All hands seemed to gather in approbation about Barclay's charger. The horse himself was a bright, blooded bay, with jet-black, waving mane, tail, and forelock, superb head, shoulders and haunches, and nimble legs, all handsomely set off by a glistening bridle with double rein, martingale, glossy breast-strap and polished bits, curb-chain, bosses, rings, and heart, with the regimental number in silver on the bosses and at the corner of the handsome shabraque of dark blue cloth, patent leather, and the yellow edging and trimming of the cavalry. "The only outfit of the kind at Worth," said Brooks, emphatically. "And yet, gentlemen," he continued, seeing latent criticism in the eyes of certain of the circle, "it's all strictly in accordance with regulations, and just as we used to have it in the old days before the war. I wish we all hadthe same now. I haven't seen a Grimsley outfit since '61."
"Grimsley it is," said the veteran captain of the light battery. "Mine went to Richmond in '61 with what we didn't save of our battery at First Bull Run."
"Grimsley it is," said his junior subaltern. "If Sam Waring could only see that, he'd turn green with envy to-day and borrow it to-morrow." Whereat there went up a laugh, for Waring was a man of mark in the queer old days of the army.
Then of course every one wanted to know, as the cavalcade rode from the drill-ground up to the post, where Barclay had bought his horses, and some inquired how much they cost; and to all queries of the kind Barclay answered, with perfect good humor, that he had ordered the equipments of the old firm of Grimsley, still doing business in St. Louis, as it did in the days when Jefferson Barracks and Leavenworth and Riley were famous cavalry stations in the '50s; the horses he had bought of a family connection in Kentucky, and had given seven hundred dollars for the pair.
"See here, Hodge," growled the old stagers as they clustered about the club-room, sipping cooling drinks after the warm morning exercise, "what's all this you've been telling us aboutBarclay's inexpensive, economical, and skimpy ways? He's got the outfit of a British field-marshal, by gad!"
But Hodge was too much concerned and confounded to speak. "It's more'n I can explain," he said. "Why, he wouldn't spend ten cents in Wyoming."
And yet, had Hodge only known it, Barclay's infantry outfit was of just as fine finish and material, as far as it went, as these much more costly and elaborate appointments of the mounted service. Everything connected with the dress or equipments of his profession Barclay, who would spend nothing for frivolities, ordered of the best furnishers, and no man ever appeared on duty in uniform more precise or equipments of better make.
Of course the club-room was not the only place where Barclay's really bewildering appearance was discussed. Among the officers there were many who growled and criticised. It was all right to have handsome horses, if he could afford it: any cavalryman would try to do that, was the verdict. "But all these other jimcracks, they're simply moonshine!" And yet, as pointed out by Major Brooks, it was all strictly according to regulation. "Damn the regulations!" said Captain Follansbee; "they're too expensive for me."And, take it all in all, the feeling of the mess was rather against than with Barclay; he had no business wearing better clothes or using better horse-furniture than did his fellows. Follansbee went so far as to tackle Blythe on the subject and invoke his sympathy, but that massive old dragoon disappointed him. "Barclay's right," said he; "and if the rules were enforced we'd all have to get them."
"But they cost so much," said Follansbee.
"Not half what you spend in whiskey in half the time it would take to get them here," was the unfeeling rejoinder.
Mrs. Frazier and Mrs. De Lancy, however, wished the captain had brought an easy open carriage with driving horses instead of saddlers. It would have been far more useful, said those level-headed women. And so it might have been—to them.
But in the midst of all the talk and discussion came tidings that amazed Fort Worth. Ned Lawrence was actually on his way back to Texas,—would be with his precious babies within the fortnight,—would reoccupy his old quarters for a while at least as the guest of the usurper, for they had been formally chosen by Captain Barclay, to the frantic wrath of Ada when first she heard the news,—wrath that sobbed itself out inthe lap of her loving friend Mrs. Blythe, as the motherless girl listened with astonished ears to the explanation.
"So far from raging at him, Ada, you should be thankful that your dear father and you and Jimmy have found so thoughtful and generous a friend as Captain Barclay. If he had not chosen your house, Captain Bronson would have done so, and you would have had to go. As it is, nothing of yours or your father's will be disturbed."
And sorely tempted was the enthusiastic, tender-hearted woman to tell much more that, but for his prohibition, she would have told; and yet she did not begin to know all.
Within the fortnight came poor Ned Lawrence back to Worth, and men who rode far out on the Crockett trail to meet the stage marvelled at the change three months had made in him. He had grown ten years older, and was wrinkled and gray. Winn was of the party, and Winn, who a month gone by was looking haggard, nervous, miserable, now rode buoyantly, with almost hopeful eyes and certainly better color than he had had for months, despite the fact that he had lost both flesh and color during his illness. Something had happened to lighten his load of dread and care. Something must have happened to enable Lawrence to take that long, long journey back to Texas. Fort Worth indulged in all manner of theories as to where the money was coming from, and Barclay, of course, was suspected, even interrogated. The frankest man in some respects that ever lived, Captain Galbraith Barclay was reticent as a clam when he saw fit to keep silent, and men found it useless to question or women to hint. As for Winn, he had but one classmate at the post, Brayton, who had never been one of hisintimates at the Point, and, being rather, as was said, of the "high and mighty," reserved and distant sort with the subalterns he found at Worth on joining three winters before, Winn had never been popular. Lawrence was his one intimate, despite the disparity in years. And so no man ventured to ask by what means he expected to meet the demands thus made upon him. The board of survey ordered to determine the amount of the loss and fix the responsibility had no alternative. Winn and his few friends made a hard fight, setting forth the facts that the count had been made every month as required by orders and regulations, and that except by bursting open every bale, box, and barrel, and sifting over the contents, it would have been impossible to detect Marsden's methods. On some things the board was disposed to dare regulations and raps on the knuckles, and to let Winn off on several others; but what was the use? "the proceedings would only be sent back for reconsideration," said their president; and as it transpired that Winn had not exercised due vigilance, but had trusted almost entirely to his sergeant, they decided to cut the Gordian knot by saddling the young officer with the entire responsibility, which meant, sooner or later, a stoppage of nearly three thousand dollars of his pay.
It is a sad yet time-honored commentary at the expense of human nature that the contemplation of the misfortunes of our fellow-men is not always a source of unalloyed sorrow. There was genuine and general sympathy for Lawrence, because he had been poor and pinched and humbled for years, had worn shabby clothes, and had sought all possible field duty, where "deeds, not duds," as a garrison wit expressed it, seemed to make the man. He had frankly spoken of his straits and worries to such as spoke to him in friendship, and this, with his deep and tender love for his children, and his capital record as a scout leader, had won over to him all the men who at one time were envious and jealous and had cherished the linesman's prejudice against the fellow whose duties for years had kept him on the staff. The women were all with him, and that meant far more than may seem possible outside the army. There was many a gentle dame in the old days of adobe barracks who could be an Artemisia in the cause of a friend.
No one knew just what object Ned Lawrence had in coming back to Dixie. Every one knew he had indignantly refused the second lieutenancy, despite the fact that one or two men with war service and rank almost equal to his own had meekly accepted the grudgingly tenderedcommission, and others were said to be about to follow suit,—all, presumably, with the hope that their friends and representatives in Congress assembled would speedily legislate them back where they thought they belonged. No one knew where Ned Lawrence had made a raise of money, but raise he certainly had made, for, to Blythe's indignation, there came a draft of one hundred dollars to cover the expenses, he said, of his children and old Mammy and to pay the latter some of her wages. The balance he would settle, he wrote, when he arrived. Blythe would far rather he had waited until his accounts were adjusted; then, if Lawrence were in funds, Blythe could have found no fault with this insistence on at least partially defraying the expenses incurred in providing for the little household. Lawrence hoped to have his accounts adjusted, his letter said, and he had reason to believe, from what friends in Washington told him, that he would find his successor willing to receipt to him for missing items, trusting to luck and the flotsam and jetsam of the frontier to replace them in course of time. Lawrence, indeed, was curious now to meet and know Captain Barclay, for he had been told many things that had gone far to remove the feeling of unreasoning antagonism he had felt at first.
Only one thing did he say to Blythe that threw light on his future plans. "I am dreadfully sorry," he wrote, "to hear such ill tidings about Harry Winn. I was always fearful there was something wrong about that fellow Marsden, and sometimes strove to caution him,—I, who could not see the beam in my own eye,—I, with two scoundrels in my orderly-room, trying to warn him against the one in his! Winn is a proud, sensitive, self-centred sort of fellow, whom wealth perhaps might have made popular. He is no better manager than I. He has a wife who could never help him to live within his means, as poor Kitty certainly tried to do with me." (Oh, the blessed touch of Time! Oh, the sweet absolution of Death! Kitty was an angel now, and her ways and means were buried with all that was mortal of her.) "And, worse than all, poor Hal has no one, I fear, to help him now, as—I write it with blinded eyes, dear Blythe—it has pleased God I should find in many friends in the days of my sore adversity,—you and your blessed wife, and the colonel, and Brooks,—even rough old Follansbee and our dilettante De Lancy, and that inimitable Collabone. My heart overflows, and my eyes, too, at thought of all you and they have done and said and written for me and mine. And here, too, where in my bitterness I thought I wasdeserted of all, here is gallant old Front de Bœuf (you remember how we swore by him in the Valley after Davy Russell was killed). He has housed and fed and nursed and cared for me like a brother, and Senator Howe and even old Catnip—God bless him!—have worked hard for me; and, though my soldier days seem over for the time at least, my stubborn spirit has had to surrender to such counsellors and friends as they have been to me. They all say Congress will surely put me back next winter, and meantime 'Buffstick' says I'm to have a salaried position in a big company with which he is associated, and to begin work as soon as my health is re-established and my accounts straightened out."
"Who is Buffstick?" queried Mrs. Blythe, at this juncture.
"Buffstick? Oh, that was our pet name for Colonel Dalton, of the —th Massachusetts, Lawrence's friend and host in Washington; a magnificent fellow, dear, with a head and chest that made some lover of Scott liken him to Front de Bœuf,—out of 'Ivanhoe,' you know. But he was a stickler for neatness in dress and equipments, and his regiment called him Buffstick, and grew to love him all the same. He commanded a brigade after Cedar Creek, and now,—just think of it!—he's a capitalist."
"Does he know Captain Barclay, do you think?" she asked, after a reflective pause.
"I'm sure I don't know. Probably not," was the answer. "They never served in the same part of the army. Why do you ask?"
"Oh, I was wishing—I couldn't help thinking—how much Mr. Winn needed some good friend, too."
"Winn and Lawrence are very different men," said Blythe, gravely. "Lawrence has made friends, while poor Winn has only enemies, I fear, and, really, none worse than himself."
Mrs. Blythe sighed as she turned away. It was much as her husband said. The Winns had come to the regiment after a round of receptions, dinners, and dances in their honor all the way from Washington to Worth, and had "started with a splurge," as the chroniclers declared. Laura's gowns and airs and graces won her no end of prominence, but very few friends. Winn's "high and mighty" ways, so they were termed by all the garrison, in which at that time only two or three West Pointers could be found, had alienated all the subs, most of the seniors, and many of the women. Their extravagance during the first year of service, the explanations and excuses tendered by Laura in the next, and Harry's increasing moodiness and distraction, served onlyto widen the breach. Men and women both, who began by envying, turned to openly decrying. Cutting things were said to Laura, whose mendacities provoked them. Sneering or at least suggestive things were often said in presence of Winn, if not exactly to him; for there was one quality about the swell the garrison had to respect,—his cheerful and entire readiness to fight on very small provocation, and those were the days when the tenets of the "code" were not totally forgotten, and there still remained in the army a sentiment in favor of the doctrine of personal responsibility for disparaging words. There would be fewer courts-martial to-day were there more of it left. But when women heard the stories about the big bill at the sutler's and others that came by mail, and made little icy comments about some people being able to afford much more thantheycould, Laura laughed off the allusions to their superior style of living by stories of an indulgent papa, until papa's death left her without further resource from that quarter. Then she set afloat a fabrication about a doting aunt of Harry's who had no children of her own,—an amiable old widow who was to leave him all her money. He did have an aunt of that description, but she didn't have the money, and there were men who were malicious enough to refer inWinn's presence to their wish that they had wealthy fathers-in-law or doting dowager aunts, thereby giving some other fellow a chance to say, "And so does Fuller, no doubt."
Indeed, so practically friendless were the Winns that among nine out of ten families along officers' row there was a feeling of lively curiosity to note the effect of this supposably crushing blow on the unhappy pair, and a consequent sentiment, only partially veiled in many cases, of keen disappointment when the news flew around the garrison that Mr. Winn had announced his readiness to meet the demand in full.
"Why, it can't be true," said many a woman. "I'll believe it when I see the money," said many a man. "Do you suppose—he could have accepted it from—Captain Barclay?" asked, in strictest confidence, Mrs. De Lancy of Laura's erstwhile intimate, Mrs. Faulkner.
"NotHarryWinn, probably," answered Mrs. Faulkner, in confidence equally inviolable, "but——" and the pause that followed was suggestive. Follansbee and Bellows bolted down to the sutler's with the surprising news, wondering if Fuller could have been ass enough to advance the money. There was a time when he would have done so, perhaps, for he was one of the first to be enthralled by young Mrs. Winn's grace andbeauty, and lavished presents upon her—and upon Winn, of course—for a month, until Winn put a stop to the presents and Mrs. Fuller came post-haste back from San Antonio and put a stop to other manifestations. But Fuller had long since become estranged from the Winns,—the presentation of his bill at inopportune times having later widened the apparent breach. His jaw fell and his mouth opened wide when he heard the news, for Fuller had begun to believe that he would never get his money, and resented it that Uncle Sam should be luckier.
"Send up another 'bill rendered' by Ikey to Mr. Winn this afternoon," he bade his clerk, as the investigators departed to follow other clues. Fuller had gone down into his pockets, unbeknown to the post, and had actually pressed on Lawrence a loan of three hundred dollars, and bade him come for more when that was gone, but not a cent would he put up for Harry Winn,—not he; "the damned supercilious snob," was what Fuller now called him, not so much because he thought him a snob or supercilious or even deserving of damnation, as because he had allowed himself to be robbed of three thousand dollars' worth of goods that might otherwise have been purchased of him, Fuller, for double or treble the money. No, plainly, Fuller was not the angelthat had come to the rescue of Winn, nor could Follansbee or Bellows or the rest of the fellows find out who had. The mystery of Gilgal was outdone. Even Frazier and Brooks did not know, and when some one, possibly Mrs. Frazier, suggested to the colonel that as the commanding officer he really ought to know, the colonel did send for his new quartermaster and say to him, "Mr. Trott, as you are to receipt to Mr. Winn for the money value of his shortage, it would be well to be very circumspect. He probably cannot have that much in currency here. How does he propose to pay it?"
"I don't know, sir," said the man of business, promptly. "He says he will be ready to cover the entire amount on or before the 20th of May. I didn't like to ask him where it was to come from."
Neither did Frazier, despite no little prodding at home. Only one man ventured to speak of it to Winn, and, the resultant conversation having been variously and exaggeratively reported, the truth should here be told. It was at the club-room, which, for the first time in weeks, Mr. Winn entered. He asked for Major Brooks, and, finding him absent, turned to go out with no more than a nod to the party at the poker-table. That party was made up mainly of the class that was numerous in the army in those days and isas rare as an Indian fight now. The least responsible among them at the moment was Lieutenant Bralligan, ex-corporal of dragoons, who could no more have passed the examination exacted of candidates to-day than a cat could squeeze through a carbine. "Hwat d'ye warrnt of the meejor, Winn?" he shouted. "Sure ye've got permission to ride out wid us to meet Lawrence."
Winn vouchsafed no answer. Bralligan and he were things apart, a reproach to each other's eyes, and the evil blood in the Irishman, inflamed already by whiskey, boiled over at the slight. "It's Barclay ye're looking for, not Brooks!" he shouted, in tempestuous wrath. "Faith, if ye want anything out o' the Quaker, let yer wife do the——"
Instantly a brawny hand, that of Captain Follansbee, was sprawled over the broad, leering mouth. Instantly there was a crash of chair-legs hastily moved, of grinding boot-heels as men sprang to their feet, of poker-chips flying to the floor,—a sound of oaths and furious struggles, for two of the party, with the attendant, had hurled themselves on the half-drunken lieutenant and were throttling him to silence, while Captains Bronson and Fellows sprang to head off Winn, who with blazing eyes and clinched fists came bounding back into the room.
"What did that blackguard say?" he demanded. "I did not catch the words."
"Nothing, nothing, Winn, that you should notice," implored Bronson. "He's drunk. He doesn't know what he is saying. He's crazed. No, sir," insisted Bronson, sternly, as Winn strove to pass him. "If you do not instantly withdraw I shall place you under arrest. Be sure that this poor devil shall make all reparation when he's sober enough to realize what has happened. Go at once.—You go with him, Fellows."
And so between them they got Winn away, and others soused Bralligan withacequiawater and locked him up in his room and had him solemnly sober by afternoon stables, while, vastly to their relief, Winn with two or three cavaliers rode away at three o'clock to meet Ned Lawrence somewhere afar out on the Crockett trail. Greatly did Follansbee and Fellows congratulate Bronson, and Bronson them, on the fact that they had happened to be looking on at the game when Winn happened in and Bralligan broke out; for thereby they had stopped what might have been a most tremendous row. "All of which mustn't be known to a soul," said they.
But Bralligan's voice was big and deep. It was one of the causes of his unhallowed preferment in the days when second lieutenancies were showeredon the rank and file the first year of the war. Bralligan's taunting words, only partially audible to Winn as he issued from the front of the building, were distinctly heard by domestics lying in wait for a chance to borrow of the steward and pick up gossip at the back. By stables that evening the story was being told high and low all over the post; even the children heard with eager yet uncomprehending ears; and so it happened that just as the drums of the infantry were sounding first call for retreat parade, and the women-folk were beginning to muster on the porches, and the warriors of the Foot along the opposite side at the barracks, and as Captain Barclay, a light rattan stick in his hand, came strolling back from stables, Lieutenant Brayton at his side, little Jim Lawrence made a dash from a group of children, and, in the full hearing of several officers and half a dozen women, a shrill, eager, childish voice piped out the fatal words,—
"Uncle Gal—Uncle Gal—what did Mr. Bwalligan mean by telling Mr. Winn to send his wife to you for money?"
Laura Winn herself was on the nearest piazza at the moment, stunningly handsome, and posing for a bow from her next-door neighbors as they came by. She and every other woman there distinctly heard the words and marked the effect.
Sir Galahad's face flushed crimson. He caught his little friend up in his arms and held him close to his burning cheek. "Hush, Jimmy boy. He meant nothing, and soldiers never repeat such nonsense. Run to sister Ada and help her get everything ready for papa's coming. Think, Jimmy, he'll be here by tattoo." And with a parting hug he set the youngster down at his doorstep and started him on his way. Then, courteously raising his cap to the gathering on the nearest porch, and noting, as did they, that Mrs. Winn had disappeared within her hall, Barclay quickly entered his own portal, and nabbed Brayton as he was making a palpable "sneak" for the rear door. The youngster found escape impossible. Will he, nill he, the boy told the story as it had been told to him, Barclay standing looking straight into his eyes, as though reading his very soul, yet never saying a word beyond the original, "You heard what Jimmy said. It is another instance of 'out of the mouths of babes and sucklings,' Brayton. Now, tell me exactly what you know."
It was a warm May evening. A hot south-wester had been blowing from the broad valley of the Rio Bravo, and the few men in the club-room at nine o'clock were demanding cooling drinks. Bralligan was there, looking somewhat solemnand sheepish. He knew that nothing but the presence of senior officers had prevented a serious fracas as the result of his asinine bray that morning, but, now that Winn was out of the way and the matter in the hands of his captain, he had no dread of the thrashing he deserved, and was disposed to an exhibition of bravado. A drink or two added to his truculence, as well as to his desire to resume the game interrupted that morning. There were always in those days a few reliable gamblers at the big frontier posts, and presently Bralligan, in his shirt-sleeves, was contemplating a sizable pile of chips and bantering a burly captain to "see his raise," when suddenly he became aware of a distracted look in the eyes of the group about the table, and, glancing towards the door, his own blood-shot orbs lighted upon the trim figure of Captain Barclay, standing calmly surveying the party,—Barclay, who never smoked, drank, or played cards, and who was reported to have started a movement for prayer-meetings among the enlisted men. His very presence in that atmosphere was ominous, especially as the gaze of his usually soft brown eyes was fixed on Bralligan. One or two men said, "Good-evening, captain," in an embarrassed way, but the Irish subaltern only stared, the half-grin on his freckled face giving place to an uneasy leer.On a bench to the left of the entrance stood a huge water-cooler, with gourds and glasses by its side. Underneath the spigot was a big wooden pail, two-thirds full of drippings and rinsings. Without a word, the new-comer stepped quietly within the room, picked up the bucket, and, striding straight to the table before Bralligan could spring to his feet, deftly inverted the vessel over the Irishman's astonished head, deluging him with discarded water and smashing the rim well down on his unprotected shoulders. An instant more, and Bralligan sent the bucket whirling at his assailant's head, which it missed by a yard, then, all dripping as he was, followed it in a furious charge. Sir Galahad "side-clipped" with the ease and nonchalance of long but unsuspected practice, and let fly a white fist which found lodgement with stunning crash straight under the Irishman's ear, felling him like an ox.