CHAPTER X.
One of Colonel Frost’s consuming ambitions was to be the head of his department, with the rank of brigadier-general, but he had strong rivals, and knew it. Wealth he had in abundance. It was rank and power that he craved. Four men—all with better war records and more experience—stood between him and that coveted star, and two of the four were popular and beloved men. Frost was cold, selfish, intensely self-willed, indomitably persevering, and though “close-fisted,” to the scale of a Scotch landlord as a rule, he would loose his purse strings and pay well for services he considered essential. When Frost had a consuming desire he let no money consideration stand in the way, and for Nita Terriss he stood ready to spend a small fortune. Everybody knew Mrs. Frank Garrison could never dress and adorn herself as she did on poor Frank Garrison’spay, and when she appeared with a dazzling necklace and a superb new gown at the garrison ball not long after Frost and his shrinking bride left for their honeymoon, people looked at her and then at each other. Nita Terris was sold to “Jack” Frost was the verdict, and her shrewd elder sister was the dealer. Mrs. Frank knew what people were thinking and saying just as well as though they had said it to her, yet smiled sweetness and bliss on every side. Frankly she looked up into the faces of her sisters in arms: “I know you like my necklace. Isn’t itlovely? Colonel Frost’s wedding present, you know. He said I shouldn’t give Nita away without some recompense, and this is it.”
But that could have been only a part of it, said the garrison. An honorarium in solid cash, it was believed, was far the greater portion of the consideration which the elder sister accepted for having successfully borne Nita away from the dangers and fascinations of the Point—having guarded her, drooping and languid, against the advances of good-lookingsoldier lads at headquarters, and finally having, by dint of hours of argument, persuasion and skill, delivered her into the arms of the elderly but well-preserved groom. All he demanded to know was that she was fancy free—that there was no previous attachment, and on this point Mrs. Frank had solemnly averred there was none. The child had had a foolish fancy for a cadet beau, but it amounted to absolutely nothing. There had been no vows, no pledge, no promise of any kind, and she was actually free as air. So Frost was satisfied.
They made an odd-looking pair. Frost was “pony built” but sturdy, and Nita seemed like a fairy—indeed as unsubstantial as a wisp of vapor, as she came down the aisle on his arm. They were so far to the south on this honeymoon trip as almost to feel the shock and concussion when the Maine was blown to a mass of wreckage. They were in Washington when Congress determined on full satisfaction from Spain, and Colonel Frost was told his leave was cut short—that he must return to his station at once. Going first to the Arlington andhurriedly entering the room, he almost stumbled over the body of his wife, lying close to the door in a swoon from which it took some time and the efforts of the house physician and the maids to restore her. Questioned later as to the cause she wept hysterically and wrung her hands. She didn’t know. She had gone to the door to answer a knock, and got dizzy and remembered nothing more. What became of the knocker? She didn’t know. Frost inquired at the office. A bellboy was found who said he had taken up a card in an envelope given him by a young feller who “seemed kind o’ sick. Mrs. Frost took it and flopped,” and a chambermaid ran in to her, and then hurried for the doctor. “What became of the letter or note or card?” asked Frost, with suspicion and jealousy in his heart. Two women, mistress and maid, and the bellboy swore they didn’t know, but the maid did know. With the quick intuition of her sex and class she had seen that there was or had been a young lover, and sympathy for Nita and a dislike for Frost, who gave no tips, prompted her to hide it until shecould slip it safely into Nita’s hand; Nita who read, shuddered, tore it into minute scraps, and wept more, face downward on the bed. They had reached their winter station before the cable flashed the stirring tidings of Dewey’s great victory in Manila Bay, and within half a week came telegraphic orders for Colonel Frost to proceed at once to San Francisco, there to await instructions. The first expedition was organizing when he arrived, his pallid little wife by his side, and there were his instructions to proceed to Manila as chief of his department—an independent position, and yet it was a horrid blow. But there was no recourse. Nita begged that she might stay with her sister. She could not bear the idea of going. Frost knew that no women could accompany the expedition, and, shipping his chest and desks by the transport, he had secured passage for himself and wife to Hongkong on one of the splendid steamers of the English line from Vancouver, and so informed her. It dashed Nita’s last hope. They were occupying fine rooms at the Palace Hotel. The city was thronged withofficers and rapidly arriving troops. Other army women, eager to accompany their husbands, were railing at the fate that separated them, and Nita had been forced to conceal the joy with which she heard their lamentations. But she had yet to learn how exacting Frost could be. It had never occurred to her that he could obtain permission to go except by transport. It had not seemed possible that he would take her with him. “You should have known,” said he, “that even if I had had to go by transport, you would have gone by the Empress of India. It is only sixty hours from Manila to Hongkong, and I could have joined you soon after your arrival. As it is I shall see you safely established there—I have letters to certain prominent English people—then shall go over to join the fleet when it arrives in Manila Bay.”
That night she wrote long and desperately to Margaret. “He swore he would follow me wherever we went until I granted him the interview. You know how he dogged me in Washington, followed me to Denver, and any momenthe may address me here. F. will not let me return to you. He insists on my going to Hongkong, where he can occasionally join me. But Rollin holds those letters over me like a whip, and declares that he will give them into Frost’s hands unless I see him whenever he presents himself. You made me swear to Frost I never cared a straw for my darling that was. O God, how I loved him! and if these letters ever reach the man to whom you have sold me, he would treat me as he would a dog, even if he doesn’t kill me. Meg—Meg—you must help me for I live in terror.”
And that she lived in terror was true, some women were quick to see. Never would she go anywhere, even along the corridor, alone. If the colonel could not come to luncheon she was served in their rooms. If she had to go calling or shopping it was in a carriage and always with some army woman whom she could persuade to go with her.
One day, just before their intended departure, she drove out paying parting calls. It was quite late when the carriage drew up at theMarket Street entrance, the nearest to their elevator. The door boy sprang across the sidewalk to open the carriage, and as she stepped wearily out, a tall young man, erect and slender, dressed in a dark traveling suit, fairly confronted her, raised his derby, and said: “You can give me ten minutes now, Mrs. Frost. Be good enough to take my arm.”
Bowing her head she strove to dodge by, but it was useless. Again he confronted her. Piteously she looked up into his pale, stern face and clasped her hands. “Oh, Rollin,” she cried, “give me my letters. I dare not—see you. Have mercy—” and down again she went in a senseless heap upon the stone. Colonel and Mrs. Frost did not sail with the Empress of India. Brain fever set in and for three weeks the patient never left the hotel. Frost made his wife’s dangerous illness the basis of an application to be relieved from the Manila detail, but, knowing well it would be late summer before the troops could be assembled there in sufficient force to occupy the city, and that his clerks and books had gone bytransport with the second expedition in June, the War Department compromised on a permission to delay. By the time the fourth expedition was ready to start there was no further excuse; moreover, the doctors declared the sea voyage was just what Mrs. Frost needed, and again their stateroom was engaged by the Empress line, and, though weak and languid, Mrs. Frost was able to appear in the dining-room. Meanwhile a vast amount of work was saddled on the department to which Frost was attached, and daily he was called upon to aid the local officials or be in consultation with the commanding general. This would have left Mrs. Frost to the ministrations of her nurse alone, but for the loving kindness of army women in the hotel. They hovered about her room, taking turns in spending the afternoon with her, or the evening, for it was speedily apparent that she had a nervous dread of being left by herself, “or even with her husband,” said the most observing. Already it had been whispered that despite his assiduous care and devotion during her illness, something seriouswas amiss. Everybody had heard of the adventure which had preceded her alarming illness. Everybody knew that she had been accosted and confronted by a strange young man, at sight of whom she had pleaded piteously a minute and then fainted dead away. By this time, too, there were or had been nearly a dozen of the graduating class in town—classmates of Rollin Latrobe—their much-loved “Pat”—and speedily the story was told of his devotion to her when she was Nita Terriss, of their correspondence, of their engagement to be married on his graduation, which in strict confidence he had imparted to his roommate, who kept it inviolate until after her sudden union with Colonel Frost and poor “Pat’s” equally sudden disappearance. Everybody, Frost included, knew that the young man who had accosted her must be Latrobe, and Frost by this time knew that it must have been he who caused her shock at the Arlington. He raged in his jealous heart. He employed detectives to find the fellow, swearing he would have him arrested. He became morose and gloomy, forall the arts by which Mrs. Garrison persuaded him that Nita looked up to him with admiration and reverence that would speedily develop into wifely love were now proved to be machinations. He knew that Nita feared him, shrank from him and was very far from loving him, and he believed that despite her denials and fears and protestations she loved young Latrobe. He wrote angrily, reproachfully to Margaret, who, now that her fish was hooked, did not greatly exert herself to soothe or reassure him. That he could ever use violence to one so sweet and fragile as Nita she would not believe for an instant. Then the nurse, still retained, heard bitter words from the colonel as one morning she came to the door with Mrs. Frost’s breakfast, and while she paused, uncertain about entering at such a time, he rushed angrily forth and nearly collided with her. Mrs. Frost was in tears when the nurse finally entered, and the breakfast was left untouched.
Late that afternoon, just after the various trunks and boxes of the Frosts that were to go by the transport were packed and ready, andMrs. Frost, looking stronger at last, though still fragile, almost ethereal, was returning from a drive with one of her friends, the attention of the two ladies was drawn to a crowd gathering rapidly on the sidewalk not far from the Baldwin Hotel. There was no shouting, no commotion, nothing but the idle curiosity of men and boys, for a young soldier, a handsome, slender, dark-eyed, dark-complexioned fellow of twenty-one or two, had been arrested by a patrol and there they stood, the sergeant and his two soldiers fully armed and equipped, the hapless captive with his arms half filled with bundles, and over the heads of the little throng the ladies could see that he was pleading earnestly with his captors, and that the sergeant, though looking sympathetic and far from unkind, was shaking his head. Mrs. Frost, listless and a little fatigued, had witnessed too many such scenes in former days of garrison life to take any interest in the proceeding. “How stupid these people are!” she irritably exclaimed. “Running like mad and blocking the streets to see a soldier arrested for absencefrom camp without a pass. Shan’t we drive on?”
“Oh—just one moment, please, Mrs. Frost. He has such a nice face—a gentleman’s face, and he seems so troubled. Do look at it!”
Languidly and with something very like a pout, Mrs. Frost turned her face again toward the sidewalk, but by this time the sergeant had linked an arm in that of the young soldier and had led him a pace or two away, so that his back was now toward the carriage. He was still pleading, and the crowd had begun to back him up, and was expostulating, too.
“Awe, take him where he says, sergeant, and let him prove it.”
“Don’t be hard on him, man. If he’s taking care of a sick friend give ’m a chance.”
Then the sergeant tried to explain matters. “I can’t help myself, gentlemen,” said he; “orders are orders, and mine are to find this recruit and fetch him back to camp. He’s two days over time now.”
“Oh, I wish I knew what it meant!” anxiously exclaimed Mrs. Frost’s companion.“I’m sure he needs help.” Then with sudden joy in her eyes—“Oh, good! There goes Colonel Crosby. He’ll see what’s amiss,” and as she spoke a tall man in the fatigue uniform of an officer of infantry shouldered his way through the crowd, and reached the blue-coated quartette in the center. Up went the hands to the shouldered rifles in salute, and the young soldier, the cause of all the gathering which the police were now trying to disperse, whirled quickly, and with something suspiciously like tears in his fine dark eyes, was seen to be eagerly speaking to the veteran officer. There was a brief colloquy, and then the colonel said something to the sergeant at which the crowd set up a cheer. The sergeant looked pleased, the young soldier most grateful, and away went the four along the sidewalk, many of the throng following.
And then the colonel caught sight of the ladies in the carriage, saw that one was signaling eagerly, and heard his name called. Hastening to their side, he raised his cap and smiled a cordial greeting.
“Oh, I’m so glad you came, colonel, we are so interested in that young soldier. Do tell us what it all means. Oh! I beg your pardon, Mrs. Frost, I surely thought you had met Colonel Crosby—let me pre— Why, Nita! What’s— Are you ill? Here, take my salts, quick!”
“No—no—go on—I—I want to hear! Where are they taking him?” faintly murmured Mrs. Frost.
“Try to control yourself,” said her companion. “I’ll tell you in one moment.” Meantime from without the carriage the colonel continued, addressing Nita’s companion:
“He tells a perfectly straight story. He says he has an old friend who is here so desperately ill and out of money that he got a doctor for him and had been nursing him himself. Those things he carried are medicines and wine that the doctor bade him buy. All he asks is to take them to his friend’s room and get a nurse, then he is ready to go to camp and stand his trial, so I told the sergeant I’d be responsible.”
“Oh, thank you so much! Do see that thepoor fellow isn’t punished. We’ll drive right round. Perhaps we can do something. It is Red Cross business, you know.Good-afternoon, colonel. Please tell our driver to follow them.”
But, to her consternation, no sooner had they started than she felt Nita’s trembling hand grasping her wrist, and turning quickly saw that she was in almost hysterical condition.
“My poor child, I had forgotten you were so worn out. I’ll take you home at once—but then we’ll miss them entirely. Oh, could you bear——”
“Oh! No! No!” moaned Nita, wringing her little hands. “Take me—anywhere. No! Take me home—take me home! and promise me not to—not to tell my husband what we saw.”
CHAPTER XI.
For a man ordinarily absorbed in his own command, Colonel Stanley Armstrong had become, all on a sudden, deeply engrossed in that of Colonel Canker. The Frosts had been gone a week, via Vancouver—the expedition only about sixteen hours—when he appeared at Gordon’s tent and frankly asked to be told all that tall Southerner knew of the young soldier Morton, now gone from camp for the third, and, as Armstrong believed, the last time.
“Why, that young fella’s a bawn gentleman,” drawled Gordon, as he offered the colonel a chair and cigar. “He was behavin’ tip top, steady as you please until about a month ago. He’s only been with us since the first of May—came with a big batch of recruits—a regular athlete, you know. Then after he’d drilled awhile I nailed him for headquarters clerk. I never knew him to be off an hour untilabout four weeks ago. The men say another young fella came out here one night, had a talk with Morton, and they went out together. He got regular permission. Nobody has set eyes on his friend out here since that time, but Morton got three passes to town in ten days, and Squeers happened to want him, and gave ordersheshould have to be consulted hereafter. ’Bout a fortnight since, by Jove, Morton lit out suddenly and was gone forty-eight hours, and was brought back by a patrol, perfectly straight, and he said he had to go on account of a friend who had been taken very ill and was a stranger here. Squeers let him off with a warning, and inside of three days he begged for a twenty-four-hour pass, and Squeers wouldn’t give it. He went without it, by George! It was just about the time the Prime family arrived, looking up the boy they heard was in your regiment. This time there was big trouble. The patrol sent for him went directly to the lodgings of his sick friend, and there they found him and he laid out two of our best men for forcing a way into the room. They told me your carriagenearly ran over him the day of the review. Then came that dam fool charge about his being mixed up in this robbery. Then his escape from under Billy Gray’s nose, by George, and that’s the last of him. Canker sent a party in to look him up at the usual place, and both birds had flown, both, by George! The sick man was well enough to be driven off in a carriage, and there’s nothing further to tell as yet.”
“I wish I had known about him earlier—before the Primes came,” said Armstrong thoughtfully, knocking the ashes off his cigar. “Of course you divine my theory?”
“That Morton’s the missing son and heir? Of course. Now that I’ve seen Miss Prime the family resemblance is strong. But if he wanted to soldier, what’s to prevent. Those tents yawnduh are full of youngsters better educated than I am,” and Gordon arose, tangling a long, lean leg in the nearest campstool, which he promptly kicked through the doorway into the sailing fog outside. It was barely eleven o’clock, but already the raw, wet wind waswhistling in over the barren, sandy slopes and dunes, and the moisture dripped in big drops from the sloped rifles of the men marching sturdily in from drill.
“Yawnduh comes the Prime carriage now, by George,” continued the adjutant, as he limped to the entrance. “Ole man seems all broke up, don’t he?” Armstrong had promptly risen and came striding to his comrade’s side.
“Naturally,” was the answer. “He had hoped much from this visit. The boy was just under twenty-one when he enlisted, and, as his father’s consent was lacking, a discharge could have been ordered. It may have been fear of that that drove the youngster off. Where is the carriage—and your glass?” continued the colonel, looking about until he found a binocular.
“Comin’ right down the road back of the officers’ tents. Reckon it’s another visit of condolence to Gray. You know I shouldn’t wonduh if this arrest of his proved a blessin’ in disguise for that lucky boy.”
No reply coming to this observation, Gordonglanced over his shoulder. Armstrong was replacing the glasses. Again the adjutant hazarded.
“I—I was sayin’ this arrest may be, after all, the biggest kind of blessing in disguise for that lucky Billy.Yes, by Jove! They’re comin’ to his tent.That’sa splendid girl, ole man!”
“Miss—Prime, you mean?” calmly queried Armstrong, striking match after match in the effort to light a fresh cigar, his face averted.
“Miss Prime Idon’tmean,” answered Gordon, glancing curiously at the senior officer. “Not but that she’s a most charming young lady and all that,” he hurriedly interpolated, Southern chivalry asserting itself. Then with a twitch about the lip: “By the way, ole man, those cigars light better from the other end. Take a fresh one.”
Armstrong quickly withdrew the ill-used weed from between his strong, white teeth, gave it one glance, and a toss into the waste-basket.
“No, I’ve smoked enough. But how canthey see him? How about that sentry over Gray’s tent?”
“Huh! Chief made him take it off directly he heard of it,” grinned Gordon. “Moses! But didn’t Squeers blaspheme!” And the adjutant threw his head back and laughed joyously over the retrospect. “Yes, there’s that curly pate of Billy’s at the tent door now. Reckon he was expectin’ ’em. There they are, ole Prime, too. Don’t be in a hurry, colonel.”
They had known each other years, these two, and it had been “Armstrong” and “Gordon” when they addressed each other, or “ole man” when Gordon lapsed into the semi-affectionate. To the adjutant’s Southern sense of military propriety “ole man” was still possible. “Armstrong” would be a soldierly solecism.
“I am to see the General before noon,” said Armstrong gravely, “and it’s time I started. If you should hear of your runaway let me know. If you shouldn’t, keep our views to yourself. There’s no use in rousing false hopes.” With that Armstrong turned up the collar of his overcoat and lunged out into the mist.
Gordon watched him as he strode away, the orderly following at the conventional distance. The shortest way to general headquarters was up the row of company officers’ tents in front of the still incarcerated Billy; the longest was around back of the mess tent and kitchen. Armstrong took the latter.
That escape of prisoners was still the talk of camp. Men had come by battalions to see the tunnel, observing which Canker promptly ordered it closed up. Opinion was universal that Canker should have released the officers and men he had placed under arrest at once, but he didn’t. In his bottled wrath he hung on to them until the brigade commander took a hand and ordered it. Canker grumblingly obeyed so far as the sergeant and sentries were concerned, but entered stout protest as to Gray.
“I still hold that officer as having knowledge of the scheme and aiding and abetting. I can prove that he telephoned for that carriage,” he said.
“At least there’s nothing to warrant the posting of that sentry at Mr. Gray’s tent, ColonelCanker,” said the brigadier, with some asperity. “Order him off at once. That’s all for to-day, sir,” and the man with the starred shoulders “held over” him with the silver leaves. The latter could only obey—and objurgate.
But Canker’s knuckles came in for another rasping within the hour. The brigadier being done with him, the division commander’s compliments came over per orderly, and would the colonel please step to the General’s tent. Canker was fuming to get to town. He was possessed with insane desire to follow up that boarding house clue. He believed the landlady could be bullied into telling where her boarder was taken, and what manner of man (or woman) he was. But down he had to go, three blocks of camp, to where the tents of division headquarters were pitched, and there sat the veteran commander, suave and placid as ever.
“Ah, colonel, touching that matter of the robbery of your commissary stores. Suspicion points very strongly to your Sergeant Foley.Do you think it wise to have no sentry over him?”
“Why—General,” said Canker, “I’ve known that man fifteen years—in fact, I got him ordered to duty here,” and the colonel bristled.
“Well—pardon me, colonel, but you heard the evidence against him last night, or at least heard of it. Don’t you consider that conclusive?”
Canker cleared his throat and considered as suggested.
“I heard the allegation sir, but—he made so clear an explanation tome, at least—and besides, General”—a bright idea occurring to him—“you know that as commissary sergeant he is not under my command——”
“Tut, tut, colonel,” interrupted the General, waxing impatient. “The storehouse adjoins your camp. Your sentries guard it. Captain Hanford, the commissary, says he called on you last night to notify you that he had placed the sergeant under arrest, but considered the case so grave that he asked that a sentry be placed over him, and it wasn’t done.”
“I dislike very much to inflict such indignity on deserving soldiers, General,” said Canker, stumbling into a self-made trap. “Until their guilt is established they are innocent under the law.”
“Apparently you apply a different rule in case of officers,” calmly responded the General, “videMr. Gray. No further words are necessary. Oblige me by having that sentry posted at once. Good-morning, sir.”
But to Canker’s dismay the officer of the guard made prompt report. The sentry was sent, but the sergeant’s tent was empty. The colonel’s pet had flown. This meant more trouble for the colonel.
Meantime Stanley Armstrong had hied him to General Drayton’s headquarters. The office tents were well filled with clerks, orderlies, aides and other officers who had come in on business, but this meeting was by appointment, and after brief delay the camp commander excused himself to those present and ushered Armstrong into his own private tent, the scene of the merry festivities the evening of Mrs.Garrison’s unexpected arrival. There the General turned quickly on his visitor with the low-toned question:
“Well—what have you found?”
“Enough to give me strong reason for believing that Morton, so-called, is young Prime, and that your nephew is with him, sir.”
The old soldier’s sad eyes lighted with sudden hope. Yet, as he passed his hand wearily over his forehead, the look of doubt and uncertainty slowly returned. “It accounts for the letters reaching me here,” he said, “but—I’ve known that boy from babyhood, Armstrong, and a more intense nature I have never heard of. What he starts in to do he will carry out if it kills him.” And Drayton looked drearily about the tent as though in search of something, he didn’t quite know what. Then he settled back slowly into his favorite old chair. “Do sit down, Armstrong. I want to speak with you a moment.” Yet it was the colonel who was the first to break the silence.
“May I ask if you have had time to look at any of the letters, sir?”
“Do I look as though I had time to doany-thing?” said the chief, dropping his hands and uplifting a lined and haggard face, yet so refined. “Anything but work, work, morn, noon and night. The mass of detail one has to meet here is something appalling. It weighs on me like a nightmare, Armstrong. No, I was worn out the night after the package reached me. When next I sought it the letters were gone.”
“How long was that, General?”
Again the weary hands, with their long, tapering fingers, came up to the old soldier’s brow. He pondered a moment. “It must have been the next afternoon, I think, but I can’t be sure.”
“And you had left them——?”
“In the inside pocket of that old overcoat of mine, hanging there on the rear tent pole,” was the answer, as the General turned half-round in his chair and glanced wistfully, self-reproachfully thither.
Armstrong arose, and going to the back of the tent, made close examination. The canvashome of the chief was what is known as the hospital tent, but instead of being pitched with the ordinary ridgepole and uprights, a substantial wooden frame and floor had first been built and over this the stout canvas was stretched, stanch and taut as the head of a drum. It was all intact and sound. Whoever filched that packet made way with it through the front, and that, as Armstrong well knew, was kept tightly laced, as a rule, from the time the General left it in the morning until his return. It was never unlaced except in his presence or by his order. Then the deft hands of the orderlies on duty would do the trick in a twinkling. Knowing all this, the colonel queried further:
“You went in town, as I remember, late that evening and called on the Primes and other people at the Palace. I think I saw you in the supper room. There was much merriment at your table. Mrs. Garrison seemed to be the life of the party. Now, you left your overcoat with the boy at the cloak stand?”
“No, Armstrong, that’s the odd part of it. Ionly used the cape that evening. The coat was hanging at its usual place when I returned late, with a mass of new orders and papers. No! no! But here, I must get back to the office, and what I wished you to see was that poor boy’s letter. What can you hope with a nature like that to deal with?”
Armstrong took the missive held out to him, and slowly read it, the General studying his face the while. The letter bore no clue as to the whereabouts of the writer. It read:
“March1st, ’98.“It is six weeks since I repaid all your loving kindness, brought shame and sorrow to you and ruin to myself, by deserting from West Point when my commission was but a few short months away. In an hour of intense misery, caused by a girl who had won my very soul, and whose words and letters made me believe she would become my wife the month of my graduation, and who, as I now believe, was then engaged to the man she married in January, I threw myself away. My one thought was to find her, and God knows what beyond.“It can never be undone. My career is ended,and I can never look you in the face again. At first I thought I should show the letters, one by one, to the man she married, and ask him what he thought of his wife, but that is too low. I hold them because I have a mad longing to see her again and heap reproaches upon her, but, if I fail and should I feel at any time that my end is near, I’m going to send them to you to read—to see how I was lured, and then, if you can, to pity and forgive.“Rollin.”
“March1st, ’98.
“It is six weeks since I repaid all your loving kindness, brought shame and sorrow to you and ruin to myself, by deserting from West Point when my commission was but a few short months away. In an hour of intense misery, caused by a girl who had won my very soul, and whose words and letters made me believe she would become my wife the month of my graduation, and who, as I now believe, was then engaged to the man she married in January, I threw myself away. My one thought was to find her, and God knows what beyond.
“It can never be undone. My career is ended,and I can never look you in the face again. At first I thought I should show the letters, one by one, to the man she married, and ask him what he thought of his wife, but that is too low. I hold them because I have a mad longing to see her again and heap reproaches upon her, but, if I fail and should I feel at any time that my end is near, I’m going to send them to you to read—to see how I was lured, and then, if you can, to pity and forgive.
“Rollin.”
“Rollin.”
Armstrong’s firm lips twitched under his mustache. The General, with moist eyes, had risen from his chair and mechanically held forth his hand. “Poor lad!” sighed Armstrong. “Of course—you know who the girl was?”
“Oh, of course,” and Drayton shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, we’ll have to go,” and led on to the misty light without.
Over across the way were the headquarters tents of a big brigade, hopefully awaiting orders for Manila. To their left, separated by a narrow space, so crowded were the camps,were the quarters of the officers of the —teenth Infantry, and even through the veil of mist both soldiers could plainly see along the line. Coming toward the gate was Mr. Prime, escorted by the major. Just behind them followed Mildred and the attentive Schuyler. But where was Miss Lawrence? Armstrong had already seen. Lingering, she stood at Billy’s tent front, her ear inclined to his protruding pate. He was saying something that took time, and she showed no inclination to hurry him. Miss Prime looked back, then she and Schuyler exchanged significant smiles and glances. There was rather a lingering handclasp before Amy started. Even then she looked back at the boy and smiled.
“H’m!” said the General, as he gazed, “that youngster wouldn’t swap places with any subaltern in camp, even if heisunder charges.”
There was no answer from the strong soldier standing observant at his elbow. But when the chief would have moved Armstrong detained him. “One more question, General. In case you were away and wanted something youhad left in this tent, you would send an aide—or orderly, or—would an order signed by one of your staff be sufficient?”
“H’m, well—yes, I suppose it would,” said the General.
CHAPTER XII.
Opinion was divided at Camp Merritt as to whether Billy Gray should or should not stand trial. Confident as were his friends of his innocence of all complicity in Morton’s escape, there remained the fact that he had telephoned for a carriage, that a carriage had come and that a carriage with four men, apparently soldiers, had driven rapidly townward along Point Lobos Avenue. It was seen by half a dozen policemen as it shot under electric light or gas lamp. Then there was the bundle inside his rolled overcoat that Gray had personally handed Morton when a prisoner. Everybody agreed he should have sent it by orderly—everybody, that is, except some scores of young soldiers in the ranks who could see no harm in it having been done that way, especially two “Delta Sigs” in the —teenth. Then there were the long conferences in the dark. What didthey mean? All things considered the older and wiser heads saw that, as the lieutenant could or would make no satisfactory explanation of these to his colonel, he must to a court—or take the consequences.
“You’ve made a mess of the thing and an ass of yourself, Billy,” was Gordon’s comprehensive if not consolatory summary of the matter, “and as Canker has been rapped for one thing or another by camp, division and brigade commanders, oneafteranother, he feels that he’s got to prove that he isn’t the only fool in the business. You’d better employ good counsel and prepare for a fight.”
“Can’t afford it,” said Billy briefly, “and I’m blowed if I’ll ask my dear old dad to come to the rescue. He’s had to cough up (shame on your slang, Billy) far too much already. I tell you, Gordon, I’m so fixed that I can’t explain these things unless I’m actually brought to trial. It’s—it’s—well—you have no secret societies at the Point as we do at college, so you can’t fathom it. I’m no more afraid of standing trial than I am of Squeers—and be d——d to him!”
“Good Lawd, youngster—you—you aren’t quite such an ass as to suppose a court is going to regard any schoolboy obligation as paramount to that which your oath of office demands. Look hyuh, Billy, your head’s just addled!Ican’t work on you, but somebody must!”
And Gordon went away very low in his mind. He liked that boy. He loved a keen, alert, snappy soldier on drill, and Billy had no superior in the battalion when it came to handling squad or company. The adjutant plainly saw the peril of his position, and further consultation with his brother-officers confirmed him in his fears. Schuyler, the brigade commissary, being much with the —teenth—messing with them, in fact, when he was not dancing attendance on Miss Prime—heard all this camp talk and told her. Thus it happened that the very next day when he drove with the cousins (Mr. Prime being the while in conference with the detectives still scouring the city for the young deserter, who the father now felt confident was his missing boy), Miss Lawrencelooked the captain full in the face with her clear, searching eyes and plumped at him the point-blank question:
“Captain Schuyler, do Mr. Gray’s brother-officers really consider him in danger of dismissal?”
“Miss Lawrence, I grieve to say that not one has any other opinion now.”
There could be no doubt of it. Amy Lawrence turned very pale and her beautiful eyes filled.
“It is a shame!” she said, after a moment’s struggle to conquer the trembling of her lips. “Has—is there no one—influential enough—or with brains enough” (this with returning color) “to take up his case and clear him?”
They were whirling through the beautiful drive of the Golden Gate Park, passing company after company at drill. Even as Amy spoke Schuyler lifted his cap and Miss Prime bowed and smiled. A group of regimental officers, four in number, stood, apparently supervising the work, and as Miss Lawrence quickly turned to see who they might be, her eyes met those of Colonel Armstrong. Fiveminutes later, the carriage returning drew up as though by some order from its occupants, at that very spot. Armstrong and his adjutant were still there and promptly joined them.
Long weeks afterward that morning lived in Stanley Armstrong’s memory. It was one of those rare August days when the wind blew from the southeast, beat back the drenching Pacific fogs, and let the warm sun pour upon the brilliant verdure of that wonderful park. Earth and air, distant sea and dazzling sky, all seemed glorifying their Creator. Bright-hued birds flashed through the foliage and thrilled the ear with their caroling. The plash of fountain fell softly on the breeze, mingled with the rustling of the luxuriant growth of leaf and flower close at hand. It was not chance that brought the stalwart soldier instantly to Amy’s side. Her gaze was upon him before the carriage stopped, and irresistibly drew him. The man of mature years, the hero of sharp combats and stirring campaigns with a fierce and savage foe, the commander of hundreds of eager and gallant men, obeyed withoutthought of demur the unspoken summons of a girl yet in her teens. There was a new light in her clear and beautiful eyes, a flush upon her soft and rounded cheek, a little flutter, possibly, in her kind and loyal heart. Heaven knows his beat high with an emotion he could not subdue, though his bearing was grave and courteous as ever, but about that sweet and flushing face there shone the halo of a woman’s brave determination, and no sooner had be reached the carriage side than, bending toward him, she spoke. Mildred Prime could not repress a little gasp of amaze.
“Colonel Armstrong, will you kindly open the carriage door? I want to talk with you a moment.”
Without a word he wrenched the handle and threw wide the door. Light as a bird she sprang to the ground, her fingers just touching the extended hand. Side by side they strolled away across the sunlit lawn, he so strong, virile, erect, she so lissome and graceful. Full of her purpose, yet fearful that with delay might come timidity, she looked up in his face:
“Colonel Armstrong, I have heard only to-day that Mr. Gray is in really serious danger. Will you tell me—the truth?”
Just what Armstrong expected it might be hard to say. The light that had leaped to his eyes faded slowly and his face lost something of the flush of robust health. There was a brief pause before he spoke as though he wished time to weigh his words.
“I fear it is true,” he gravely said. Then in a moment: “Miss Lawrence, will you not take my arm?” And he felt her hand tremble as she placed it there. It was a moment before she began again.
“They tell me he should have counsel, but will not heed. I have not seen him to-day. There is no one in his battalion, it seems, whom he really looks up to. He is headstrong and self-confident. Do you think he should—that he needs one?” And anxiously the brave eyes sought the strong, soldierly face.
“It would seem so, Miss Lawrence.”
She drew a long breath. She seemed to cling a little closer to his arm. Then—straight came the next question:
“Colonel Armstrong, will you do me a great favor? Will you be his counsel?”
He was looking directly to the front as she spoke. Something told him what was coming, yet he could not answer all at once. What did it mean, after all, but just what he had been thinking for a week, that the girl’s fresh young heart had gone out to this merry, handsome, soldierly lad, whom he, too, had often marked with keen appreciation when in command of his big company at drill. What possible thought of hers could he, “more than twice her years,” have ever hoped to win. She had come to him in her sore trouble—and her lover’s—as she would have gone to her father had he been a soldier schooled in such affairs. Armstrong pulled himself together with quick, stern self-command.
Looking down, he saw that her eyes were filling, her lips paling, and a rush of tenderness overcame him as he simply and gently answered:
“Yes, and there is no time to be lost.”
All these last days, it will be remembered, Mrs. Frank Garrison with pretty “Cherry Ripe” had found shelter at the Presidio. The Palace was no place for a poor soldier’s wife, and there was no longer a grateful nabob as a possible source of income. It is doubtful indeed whether that mine could be further tapped, for the effusive brother-in-law of the winter gone by had found disillusion in more ways than one. Garrison, busy day and night with his staff duties, had plainly to tell his capricious wife that she had come without his knowledge or consent, and that he could not think of meeting the expense of even a two weeks’ stay in town. He could not account for her coming at all. He had left her with his own people where at least she would be in comfort while he took the field. He desired that she should return thither at once. She determined to remain and gayly tapped his cheek and bade him have no concern. She could readily find quarters, and so she did. The regular garrison of the Presidio was long since afield, but the families of many of its officers still remained there, while thehouses of two or three, completely furnished so far as army furnishings go, were there in charge of the post quartermaster. From being the temporary guests of some old friends, Mrs. Frank and her pretty companion suddenly opened housekeeping in one of these vacated homes, and all her witchery was called into play to make it the most popular resort of the younger element at the post. Money she might lack, but no woman could eclipse her in the dazzle of her dainty toilets. The Presidio was practically at her feet before she had been established forty-eight hours. Other peoples’ vehicles trundled her over to camp whenever she would drive. Other peoples’ horses stood saddled at her door when she would ride. Other peoples’ servants flew to do her bidding. Women might whisper and frown, but for the present, at least, she had the men at her beck and call. Morn, noon and night she was on the go, the mornings being given over, as a rule, to a gallop over the breezy heights where the brigade or regimental drills were going on, the afternoons to calls, wherein it is ever more blessed to give than toreceive—and the evenings to hops at the assembly room, or to entertaining—charmingly entertaining the little swarm of officers with occasional angels of her own sex, sure to drop in and spend an hour. Cherry played and sang and “made eyes” at the boys. Mrs. Frank was winsome and genial and joyous to everybody, and when Garrison himself arrived from camp, generally late in the evening, looking worn and jaded from long hours at the desk, she had ever a comforting supper and smiling, playful welcome for her lord, making much of him before the assembled company, to the end that more than one callow sub was heard to say that there would be some sense in marrying, by George, if a fellow could pick up a wife like Mrs. Frank. All the same the post soon learned that the supposedly blest aide-de-camp breakfastedsoluson what he could forage for himself before he mounted and rode over to his long day’s labor at Camp Merritt. Another thing was speedily apparent, theentente cordialbetween her radiant self and the Primes was at an end, if indeed it ever existed.She, to be sure, wassunshine itself when they chanced to meet at camp. The clouds were on the faces of the father and daughter, while Miss Lawrence maintained a serene neutrality.
They were lingering in ’Frisco, still hopefully, were the Primes. The detectives on duty at the landing stage the evening Stewart’s regiment embarked swore that no one answering the description of either of the two young men had slipped aboard. Those in the employ of the sad old man were persistent in the statement that they had clues—were on the scent, etc. He was a sheep worth the shearing, and so, while Mr. Prime spent many hours in consultation with certain of these so-called sleuth-hounds, the young ladies took their daily drive through the park, generally picking up the smiling Schuyler somewhere along the way, and rarely omitting a call, with creature comforts in the way of baskets of fruit, upon the happy Billy, whose limits were no longer restricted to his tent, as during the first week of his arrest, but whose court was ordered to sit in judgment on him the first of the comingweek. Already it began to be whispered that Armstrong had a mine to spring in behalf of the defense, but he was so reserved that no one, even Gordon, sought to question.
“Armstrong is a trump!” said Billy to Miss Lawrence, one fair morning. “He’ll knock those charges silly—though I dare say I could have wormed through all right; only, you see, I couldn’t get out to find people to give evidence for me.”
“Do you—see him often?” she asked, somewhat vaguely.
“Armstrong!” exclaimed Billy, in open-eyed amaze. “Why, he’s here with me every day.”
“But never,” thought Miss Lawrence, “in the morning—when we are.”
The eventful Monday was duly ushered in, but not the court. That case never came to trial. Like the crack of a whip an order snapped in by wire on the Thursday previous—three regiments, the —teenth regulars and the “Primeval Dudes,” Armstrong’s splendid regiment among them—to prepare for sea voyage forthwith. More than that, General Draytonand staff were directed to proceed to Manila at once. Two-thirds of the members of the court were from these regiments. A new detail would be necessary. The General sent for Armstrong.
“Can’t we try that case here and now?” he asked.
“Certainly,” said Armstrong, “if you’ll send for Canker thathemay be satisfied.”
And Canker came and listened. It was admitted that Gray had had a long talk with the prisoner, took him his overcoat, newspapers, etc., but, in extenuation, they were members of the same college society and their social standing was, outside the army, on the same plane. Gray deserved reprimand and caution—nothing more. As to the carriage, he had nothing to do with the one that drove to camp that night. A man in the uniform of a commissary sergeant giving the name of Foley (how Canker winced) had ordered it at the stable and taught the driver “Killarney.” Gray had ’phoned for a carriage for himself, hoping to get the officer-of-the-day’s permission to be absent two hoursto tell his story in person to the General, who was dining with the department commander. He never got the permission, and the carriage went to the wrong camp. Lieutenant W. F. Gray was released from arrest and returned to duty.
“I shall never be able to thank you enough,” said he, sentimentally, to Miss Lawrence, at the Palace that evening. They were strolling up and down the corridor, waiting, as was Schuyler, for Mildred to come down for the theater. Gray’s curly head was inclined toward the dark locks of his fair partner. His eyes were fastened on her faintly flushing face. They made a very pretty picture, said people who looked on knowingly, and so thought the officer in the uniform of a colonel of infantry, who, while talking calmly to Mr. Prime full thirty yards away, watched them with eyes that were full of sadness. How couldhesee at that distance that her eyes, clear and radiant, were seldom uplifted to the ardent gaze of her escort, and were at the moment looking straight at him? How could he hear at that distance the promptresponse, given with an inclination of the bonny head to indicate her meaning?
“There’s where your thanks are due, Mr. Gray.”
Quite a gathering of army folk was at the Palace that night. So many wives or sweethearts were going home, so many soldiers abroad, and Mrs. Frank Garrison, gay and gracious, passed them time and again, leaning on the arm of Captain McDonald, a new devotee, while poor Cherry, with an enamored swain from the Presidio, languished in a dim, secluded corner. She had been recalled by parental authority and was to start for Denver under a matronly wing on the morrow. Mrs. Frank had been bidden, and expected, to go at the same time, but that authority was merely marital. Up to this time not one army wife had been permitted to accompany her husband on any of the transports to Manila, though one heroine managed to get carried away and to share her liege lord’s stateroom as far as Honolulu. The General and his staff, with a big regiment of volunteers, were to sail on the morrow,the other regiments as fast as transports could be coaled and made ready.
Something in Mrs. Garrison’s gay, triumphant manner prompted a sore-hearted woman, suffering herself at the coming parting, to turn and say: “Well, Mrs. Garrison, I suppose that after your husband sails you’ll have to follow the rest of us into grass-widowhood.”
One thing that made women hate Margaret Garrison was that she “could never be taken down,” and the answer came cuttingly, as it was meant to go, even though a merry laugh went with it.
“Not I! When the ship I want is ready, I go with it!”
But as she turned triumphantly away, the color suddenly left her cheek and there was an instant’s falter. As though he had heard her words, Stanley Armstrong too had suddenly turned and stood looking sternly into her eyes.