"Your husband will be home any day," said Mrs. Darling to Mira, when they got the news of the triumphant return of the command to the cantonments. "He belongs here with his troop, so he's sure to come, and then," she added, archly, "what will poor Willett do?"
That was a question occurring to many another mind and falling from many another tongue. The rapture of Cranston's home-coming one sharp evening in late February was dashed only by the sight of a blooming face at Willett's side behind that stylish Eastern team. In the windings of the road among the willow islands in the Platte he had come suddenly upon them, he riding at rapid gallop, they dawdling with loosened reins. Willett was bending eagerly toward her, talking earnestly. She sat with downcast eyes that never saw the swift rider until he had almost passed them by. Mrs. Darling, chatting with Mr. Burtis on the rear seat, was the first to announce his coming, and with rare presence of mind to turn and send sweetest smiles and beaming glances and the welcome of a waving hand after the grim, bearded face that had no smile for their civilian escorts and only grave courtesy for the ladies themselves. He would not mar the joy of his home-coming by the faintest reference to what he had seen, but Margaret read his honest eyes as she read her boys', and knew that he must have met them on the way. For weeks she had seen the rapid growth of the new intimacy and deplored it, and had no one to confer with about it except Agatha, but Agatha flatly refused to open her lips upon the subject. It was a mercy that Wilbur at last came home and unloosed her tongue. As she pathetically said, "I simply could not contain myself any longer."
But if Mrs. Cranston had held her tongue, there was no lack of others who had not, and foremost of these was Mrs. Flight, who spoke by the card. For a fortnight or so the devotion of these two ladies, Mrs.Flight and Mira, to one another had been of that seething and tireless character that rendered them incapable of spending an hour apart, and then came the little tiffs and coolnesses that betokened that this, too, was inevitably going the way of all such feminine intimacies. Up to the day of Mira's coming Mrs. Flight and Mrs. Darling had been inseparable for as much as a week at a time. Both were young, pretty, and empty-headed; neither was burdened with children nor ideas. Both were healthy, one was wealthy, neither was wise. Mrs. Darling had the advantage over Mrs. Flight in that she was able to entertain lavishly, whereas Mrs. Flight could only entertain by personal charm and sprightly chat. They were the reigning belles at Scott, and not only the young officers at the post, but the young civilians in town, found great pleasure in their society. There was capital sleighing for several weeks, and Willett and Burtis came as often as every other day to take the ladies an airing. At first it had been Mesdames Flight and Darling, then the bride had to be invited because she was the bride, then because she was a beauty, and finally because Willett would have no one else. Then as it was generally at Darlings' they lunched, dined, danced, supped, were wined and warmed and welcomed, it transpired that Mrs. Flight found herself very frequently dropped from the sleigh-rides,—only invited semi-occasionally, perhaps once in ten days, when Burtis pointed out to Willett that they really must, you know, to which the now infatuated Willett merely responded, "All right. You ask her, then, and let her sit with you." No one but Mrs. Davies shared the sleigh man's seat.
During the fortnight that followed the departure of Lieutenant Davies, Mrs. Flight had been devotion itself to her dear, bereaved friend, and, having wept with her, slept with her, sleighed with her, bared her innermost soul to her, and made herself, as she supposed, indispensable, it was to be expected that Mrs. Flight could not look with equanimity upon the discovery that she was not so indispensable after all. She had started Mira on the road to conquest, never dreaming that she herself would be the first overtaken and supplanted. She had thought hitherto no possible harm could come of their taking an occasional drive with their friends, especially as Mr. Flight expressed himself so grateful for the attention shown his wife, and as she and Mrs. Darling seemed chosen rather to the exclusion of the other women, but when Mira and not herself became the invariable occupant of the seat by the swell civilian's side, the indiscretion, not to say the impropriety of the affair, became glaringly apparent. It is rarely from the contemplation of our own, but rather from the errors of our neighbors, that our moral lessons are drawn, and now that in all its nakedness the scandalous nature of Mira's conduct was forced upon her attention, Mrs. Flight reasoned, most logically, that she could be no true friend if she failed to remonstrate and, if need be, admonish and reprove. She did so, and Almira pouted and was grievously vexed. She didn't think so at all, neither had Mrs. Flight until—until she began to be counted out. This led to war, and from pointing the moral Mrs. Flight now turned to adorning the tale with what "everybody was saying." Mira challenged herauthorities. "I know who you mean,—Mrs. Cranston and Miss Loomis. They hate me and would say anything mean of me." Now, it was not Mrs. Cranston and Miss Loomis at all. They had no more intimacy with Mrs. Flight than they had with Mira, nor as much. They looked upon Mrs. Flight as responsible in great measure for Almira's wrong start. They under no circumstances would confide to Mrs. Flight what they thought of Mrs. Davies, and Mrs. Flight knew it, still she was not unwilling to let Mira suppose that she was now enjoying their confidences even while she referred to other authorities by the dozen as condemning or deploring Mira's conduct, and a stormy scene followed, ending in tears and reproaches,—much heat, followed by chilling cold.
For the following fortnight Almira's intimacy was transferred to Mrs. Darling, and from going to spend the night with Mira, Mrs. Flight took to revolving in mind her singular observations while she was there. There had been a thrilling, a delicious, a mysterious and romantic occurrence. Somebody twice came and whistled a strange, soft melody under the window and tapped as with a cane, gently, stealthily, a signal that sounded like Rattattat, rattattat, just once repeated, and Mrs. Davies trembled all over and grew icily cold, and begged Mrs. Flight to go to the window and say, "Go away, or I'll call the guard," and when pressed for explanation Mira moaned hysterically and said, but Mrs. Flight must never, never tell, that there was once a young man whom she had known long before who had got desperate on her account, for she couldn't return his love, and he had run away from home andenlisted, and she feared that he was there now, though she had never seen him and never wanted to see him, and it became Mrs. Flight's belief that it was no one less than that handsome young fellow, Brannan, who Captain Devers said was drinking himself to death. And now that Mira had withdrawn from her the confidences of the month gone by and was recklessly driving the road to ruin, flouting her admonitions, what more natural than that Mrs. Flight should forget her own vows of secrecy and conclude it time to seek other advice? Mrs. Darling would have been her first confidante in this revelation, but they, too, had once been devotedly intimate and had now drifted apart. They were no longer on anything more than merely frigidly friendly terms, smiling and kissing in public and hiding womanfully their wounds, yet confiding to friends how much they had been disappointed in the other's character, if not actually deceived. Mrs. Flight found a confidante in the chaplain's wife, a woman simply swamped under an overload of best intentions. It was Bulwer who declared that "It is difficult to say who do the most harm, enemies with the worst intentions or friends with the best," but Bulwer, who had reason to know what he was talking about, never lived at Scott in the Centennial times or at old Camp Sandy in the Arizona "days of the empire," for then he would have known no such difficulty in deciding. Just as the stanch old chaplain was just such another God-fearing, God-serving, devil-downing man as Davies's father, so was the chaplain's wife a counterpart of Davies's mother, filled with the milk of human kindness still unturned, and overflowing withbest intentions uncontrollably effervescent. Had she told her husband all might have been stopped right there, but, as the demon of ill luck would have it, he had gone to a distant convention. So she sallied forth, brimming with eagerness to snatch this lovely brand from the burning, to turn this fair, motherless, guideless, possibly guileless girl to the contemplation of her dangers, to the knowledge of her peril, to banish Willett from the dove-cote,—wily hawk that he was,—and settle forthwith the fate of that young scamp Brannan. She did not find Almira until after dark, but meantime told her thrilling tale to Mrs. Stone (now full panoplied for further social triumphs, the colonel being on the mend, and herself so young as not to have looked unmoved on those famous sleigh-rides, nor without envy on Almira's blooming cheek), and from her side sped the chaplain's wife to hunt up Captain Devers. In him she found a listener indeed in whom there was no end of guile.
This was just before Cranston's return. The ball to be given by the townsfolk had been indefinitely postponed in deference to Colonel Stone's condition and the absence of so many dancing men in the field, but the weekly hops, although with thinned attendance, went regularly on. Now there were several households who did not attend at all, among them Cranston's, Leonard's, and Hay's. More civilians came out from town, whom Devers welcomed affably and Hastings and the resident "doughboys" entertained as best they could. No need to trouble themselves: the visitors came to "dance with the grass widows at the fort," and had no embarrassment other than richness. Therewere always wall-flowers, but never in the person of pretty Mrs. Davies, to whom "Phaeton" Willett's devotion was now the talk of all.
It was just at this time, too, that there came to Braska a middle-aged lawyer with all the ear-marks of the soldier about him, including a white seam along his cheek that told of a close call his intimates knew to have occurred at Spottsylvania. His name was Langston, and his first visit to the post was the result of a letter of introduction to Captain Cranston from a classmate in the East. Cranston had driven over to Braska to seek him out on receipt of the letter enclosing Langston's card, bade him hearty welcome to the West, and was surprised to hear that his practice brought him frequently to the neighborhood. He asked him out to dinner two weeks later, Captain and Mrs. Hay, Mrs. Davies, and Mr. Hastings being invited to meet him, for almost his first question had been for that soldierly young officer, the hero of the riot on the train. Mrs. Davies pleaded previous engagement, but Captain and Mrs. Cranston took the trouble to call and explain that this Mr. Langston especially admired and asked for her husband, Mr. Davies, and so Almira simply had to go. Hastings called for and escorted her. He was a blunt fellow, who held that when the husband was away and the lady of the house alone, no other man ought to set foot within the threshold, and he waited on the porch. But the lady was not alone. Willett's sleigh was in the trader's stable, and Willett himself biting his nails and swearing in Almira's parlor while Mrs. Darling was putting the finishing touches to Almira's toilet.Willett had driven outsolusthis time, thinking to persuade Mrs. Davies to take a drive, with some other dames playing propriety on the back seat, and, finding she was engaged for dinner and could not go, lost a chance of scoring a point by asking the other women anyhow, for by this time his infatuation had utterly overcome his senses. Katty again appeared and begged the lieutenant to step in wid Mr. Willett, and Hastings turned fiery red, scowled malevolently, said "No," and took himself outside the gate, pacing up and down like the orderly in front of Devers's quarters, a short pistol-shot away, until Almira came fluttering out, Willett in close attendance, Mrs. Darling mercifully following. Hastings bade the others a gruff good-evening, silently tendered Mrs. Davies his arm, and led her away with the sole remark "Aren't we late?" which gave her a chance to talk the rest of the way.
And though Langston sat on Mrs. Cranston's right, with the pretty bride on his other side, so that he might descant about the absent Percy to his heart's content, his eyes ever wandered across the simple table and dwelt on Agatha Loomis's noble face. She had recognized him at once as the one of the two civilians on the sleeper the previous June who had not been suggestively and impertinently intrusive, yet she welcomed him only formally even now because of that association. Langston had heard the first mention of a Mrs. Davies with an inexplicable little pang, and the further description of her with quick reaction, for his instant thought was of Miss Loomis. The dinner dragged, despite every effort, for Almira was distinctly and determinedly unresponsive. Margaret was gladwhen it was over, glad when Almira early went home, for matters brightened somewhat with her disappearance. Langston paid his dinner call with surprising promptitude, and then overjoyed "the ladies" with a box of rarest roses expressed from Margaret's own beloved home. "I know how many of these are meant for me," she said, with almost fierce rejoicing. "Oh, Wilbur!" she cried that evening, as she nestled in his arms in front of their cheery fire, "if only he is all they say of him, and she should——"
"Should what, Meg?" he densely queried.
"Should—why, you know just as well as I do, and he has such a fine practice, and comes from such an admirable family and all that."
"Undoubtedly,—but where does Agatha come in?"
"Wilbur, you are just as provokingly sluggish as our own Chicago River,—what wouldn't I give for a sight of its dirty face sometimes when—when you're away! Now, be honest. Don't you know he never could have sent all that way for all those roses—just for me?"
"Iwould."
"Oh, you,—you are——" but the entrance of Miss Loomis herself with sorrow in her face blocked the conference.
"Captain Cranston," she said, "Brannan has been sent to the guard-house again. I know he has not been drinking. What can it possibly mean?"
It meant, said Captain Devers, when respectfully approached upon the subject in the morning, that on very strong circumstantial evidence he had discovered the identity of the night prowler. Brannan certainlyanswered the description given by the chaplain, despite the chaplain's assurance that he didn't believe it was Brannan, and Brannan, said Devers, when not in the guard-house or hospital, had frequently been out of his quarters at midnight.
Cranston's six days home-keeping sped all too swiftly away. It was now definitely settled that his troop and Truman's were to remain indefinitely on duty at the agency. The general hated the idea of building cantonments there, and had urged that all the Indians be concentrated at the White River reservation, but without avail,—the Interior Department would have its way. Troops had to be drawn from all the posts along the railroad to make up the new command at the Ogallalla, and out of his own pocket Cranston was adding to the log quarters assigned to him, for Margaret had promptly announced that she would not remain at Scott, that where he dwelt was her dwelling, and they had known far greater isolation and danger in the past. Indeed, there was little danger of their going now, for in the presence of so strong a force the Indians would be meek enough. Two log huts were connected and thrown into one as rapidly as possible, and it was fully decided that by the 25th of March Mrs. Cranston, Agatha Loomis, and the boys were to join him at the cantonment. It was not a very difficulttrip for such heroines as lived in those days in the army. Cranston's strong spring wagon, fairly lined with buffalo-robes and blankets, would carry them in perfect comfort from camp to camp. They would have an escort and a baggage-wagon, spend the first night at Dismal River, the next at Niobrara. Hastings would escort them, for he longed to get away from Scott for a while and visit his comrades in the field. There was nothing in the least unusual in it, said Margaret, in her home letters,—for this had she married a soldier. The boys, of course, gloried in the opportunity and bragged about it, or would brag about it when they next got away from their kind in the army to their kind in civil life,—boys who could only vainly long for such opportunities and vaguely loathe those who had enjoyed them. As for Agatha, she accepted the change of station with serene and philosophic silence until cross-questioned as to her own intentions. "Why, certainly I mean to go with Mrs. Cranston," she replied, with clear, wide-open eyes. "She will have more need of me there than here—and I of her." Mr. Langston, who drove out again to spend Sunday at the post, heard of the decision with grave concern in his soldierly face, but in silence equal to her own.
Some others of the ladies whose lords were thus detached to Ogallalla preferred, however, to wait until the snow was gone. There was now abundant room at Scott,—why leave it, with its warmth, its comfort, its society and all, to go to a mud-chinked hovel at that ghastly spot where the Indians danced and coyotes howled the live-long night? Of course if there werequarters in which a woman could live with even reasonable comfort, that would be very different. Then their remaining at Scott would be inexcusable. Mrs. Flight and Mrs. Darling were women who were at variance on very many points of late, but openly in accord on this. Indeed, almost every woman at Scott had all of a sudden been seized by some strange lingual epidemic that manifested itself in the persistent repetition of such expressions as "Of course no woman who could see her way to any kind of a civilized house would be justified in not joining her husband there instead of staying here." It was sure to attack them, too, whenever Almira happened to be within ear-shot, for the news came down one March morning that one officer at least was to have a very comfortable little frame cottage,—the commander of the agency guard. It would be finished in a week or two, and even the stoves, fuel, and much of the furniture would be provided by the Indian bureau. Again did Mrs. Cranston go and call on Mrs. Davies and warmly congratulate her, and say that Captain Cranston's men who were packing up the troop property would gladly box and pack her furniture too and send it out by their wagons, and then she said there were six inside seats in the big Concord wagon and it would afford so much pleasure if Mrs. Davies would go with them. But Almira faltered unresponsively. Mr. Davies had not fully decided. It was such a shock to her,—his being detained there. She had never dreamed of his being away more than a week or ten days, if she had she would have returned home to Urbana, but now it was nearly two months, and really Mr. Davies would haveto come down and look after the household affairs and matters that she didn't fully understand.
Davies understood them well enough when he got the commissary and grocer and butcher and baker and other bills that Mira had managed to run up, both at Scott and at Braska. He went with grave face to Cranston. "I'm afraid Mrs. Maloney and Katty have been taking advantage of my wife's inexperience," said he, "and ordering all manner of things in all possible quantities, and possibly, or probably, stocking the Maloney larder at my expense. I simply cannot pay these and my home assessments too."
Cranston was a man of few words. "Davies," said he, after looking over the accounts, "Mrs. Davies has been cheated right and left by those people, but in any event you cannot keep up two establishments. Break up the house at Scott at once, let her come out with my people and leave the Maloneys and Barnickel—and Scott behind. Let my Braska banker be yours for the present. A few mouths here will float you well above water."
And though Davies declined the offer of pecuniary aid, the very night of Mrs. Cranston's visit the agency telegraph flashed to Mira a despatch directing her to get ready to come on with them, whereat Mira fled in tears to Mrs. Darling,—Mira, who, it may be remembered, longed to come and cook and bake and darn and sweep and sew and share the merest hovel with her Percy so long as she thought it just possible that he might yet change his mind and leave his simple village maid no fate but lonely grief and an early grave. Mira's enthusiasm for the bliss of frontier life fled atthe contemplation of the utter isolation at the agency,—with wild Indians and animals all around, and without Mrs. Darling, without the lovely, cosey fireside confidences, without the band, the hops, the sleigh-rides, not to mention the glowing devotions of Mr. Willett.
But Mrs. Darling rose to the occasion. From having been first favorite in Scott social circles up to the time of Mira's coming she, with Mrs. Stone and Mrs. Flight, was struggling now for second place. She felt constrained to remind Mira that she was now a soldier's wife, and should share a soldier's lot, especially a lot that included furnished quarters. Other women had gone or were going to live in the log huts, and it would never do to have it said of her, of Almira Davies, that she had shrunk from joining her husband at the agency when everything—everything was provided. Everything wasn't provided, by any means, but in the largeness of her convictions woman sometimes drifts to breadth of statement. The interview with Mrs. Darling proved but cold comfort to poor Mira. She went homewards through the chill gloaming with restless heart. There was a little parcel lying on her table, securely wrapped and sealed. The post ambulance driver brought it out from Braska, said Katty, "an' there was no address, 'twas only to be left for Mrs. Davies," and Katty fain would have followed her mistress into her chamber to see it opened, but Mira closed the door before she cut the string. It contained some exquisite double violets and a tiny note sealed as carefully as was the box.
Before tattoo Mrs. Flight and other ladies hastenedin to offer their congratulations. They were desolated at the thought of losing Mrs. Davies, but rejoiced with her that she was so soon to be comfortably housed with her devoted husband at the agency, and Mira's cheeks were flaming, her eyes, full of a feverish excitement, flitted from one to another. She had but very, very little to say. She was glad, oh, yes, so glad, though it was dreadful to leave Fort Scott, where so many people had been so kind to her,—dreadful.
This was about the 20th and the general situation of affairs was somewhat complicated. The bureau, resuming control over the Indians reassembled at the agency, conferred no longer with the general who had gathered them in, and for whose naked word they had more respect than for all the formal treaties of agents or inspectors, but contented itself with sending curt, crisp orders signed, however reluctantly, by his superiors at Washington. The general, leaving matters at Ogallalla where he had no influence, had gone after other malcontent braves in a far corner of Wyoming. Colonel Peleg was beginning to evince a desire to resume command, despite Rooke's knitted brows and reluctant answers. An official from Sheridan's headquarters had just paid informal visit to Scott, had had long talks with Stone, Leonard, and the chaplain, and a very short one with the plausible Devers, and had gone back to Chicago. He arrived at Scott within four days of Cranston's departure for the agency, and within five of the re incarceration of Trooper Brannan on charge of night prowling. He made very brief examination in Leonard's office of Sergeants Haney and Finucane, Corporal Boyd and Trooper Howard,who were witnesses, so Devers said, to the frequent absences of Trooper Brannan from quarters during the dead hours of the night, and their expert testimony seemed to be given with much reluctance and to be received with equal incredulity. He asked of Devers what his reasons were for refusing to forward Brannan's application for transfer to Cranston's troop, and Devers, much disturbed to find that this was known, hesitated in his reply. He said he had not refused, he had merely taken time to consider. The man had given him much trouble. Some officers considered it all right for a captain under such circumstances to shunt a reprobate off on some other company commander, but he differed with them. He wanted to know something of the man's antecedents. "Well," said the aide-de-camp, "Cranston knows all about them and is willing to take him. You might relieve yourself of any feeling of punctilio on that score."
"Then Captain Cranston is your informant in this business, colonel," said Devers, with an attempt at a sneer.
"Not at all," said the aide-de-camp, placidly. "Brannan's mother told us all about it. She is a very superior woman, and we dine there occasionally."
Devers stared blankly at the speaker just a moment, half incredulous, half resentful, then at last he realized that it was no pleasantry on the part of his visitor and, for once in his life, collapsed entirely.
That night Brannan was released and bidden to go to his troop and be patient. This time there was no doubt of his application being forwarded to regimental head-quarters, and there's no doubt, said the chaplain,who had a talk with him within an hour of his restoration to duty, that a week would see himen routeto join Cranston's troop at Ogallalla. Devers was still commanding officer of the post, however, and gave the chaplain to understand that so long as the man remained at Scott the interests of discipline required that there should be no exhibition of exuberant triumph on his part or of further interference on the part of his spiritual sympathizers. He hated the chaplain by this time as much as he feared Cranston. Something had told him that the aide-de-camp's visit meant that the toils were tightening, and that even though the Gray Fox was away his great superior, the lieutenant-general, had an eye on the situation and an ear for the stories of his defamers. Devers felt that the inspector came because of sudden and direct appeal from Brannan's friends. He could not longer attribute it to Davies. Well, it would take a week or ten days anyhow before Brannan's orders could come, and a week was a long time to a man with a treacherous thirst.
But what Devers only suspected and did not know was that in the long consultation with Leonard that officer gave, by request, his version of the altercation which had taken place between himself and Devers, and of the events leading up to it. The staff officer brought with him the original report of the investigation made of the Antelope Springs affair and Devers's topographical sketch of the ground, trails and all, and Leonard's black eyes burned as he studied it. The aide-de-camp had some social calls to pay and left these papers in Leonard's hands while he was gone. "I have made a tracing of that map, colonel," saidthe adjutant, when after two hours the official returned. "I hope you don't object. I know you can't leave the originals with me."
"That's all right," was the answer. "Say, Leonard, who's that young cit with the swell team who came to take Mrs. Davies sleighing? I didn't catch the name."
"His name's Willett," said Leonard, briefly.
"What's he doing here?"
"Cattle."
"Cattle in Braska, perhaps, but here, I mean."
"I don't know," said Leonard to the officer. "I wish I did," said Leonard to himself. "If I did—I'd smash him."
Mr. Langston had driven out to the post with Willett that afternoon. He had other calls to pay, and this was Saturday, a favorite day for visiting at Braska. The Cranstons' house was topsy-turvy, everybody in the midst of packing, but Langston had a box ofbon-bonswhich the ladies, or the boys, might enjoy as reminders of Chicago, and he rang. Miss Loomis herself, in cap and apron, opened the door. Her shapely, soft white hands were covered with the dust of books and papers she had been busily storing in the boxes, and her face flushed, just a bit, at sight of her visitor.
"I cannot shake hands with you, Mr. Langston, and, as you see, we're all at work, but welcome in. I'll call Mrs. Cranston."
"No. Don't," he said, hurriedly. "I only came to offer these trifles. I heard you were all busy packing and had hoped to hear that, after all, you were not going up to that forsaken spot. Is it true?"
"Certainly. Wherever Captain Cranston goes there goes his wife, and where she goes to live is my home and duty."
He stood looking steadfastly into her brave, beautiful face. He was tall and stalwart: she almost Juno-like in the grandeur of her form. He could not conceal the admiration that glowed in his eyes. He could not, dare not speak so soon the thoughts that had been surging in his brain, springing up from his very heart. What would he not give could she but accept the offer he longed to lay at her feet, that of a name, a love, a home wherein she should reign as queen, not live as a dependent. Such silences are eloquent. She turned quickly away. "Louis, tell mother Mr. Langston has come out to say good-by," said she, and Mrs. Cranston, not ten feet away, these being army quarters, had to appear.
"I didn't mean to say good-by here exactly," said Langston. "I rather planned to see you. I thought perhaps you'd honor me by breakfasting or lunching with me in Braska on your way," he said, hesitatingly. "They tell me ladies often——"
"Well, we go direct. Ours is the through express, Mr. Langston," said Mrs. Cranston, laughing, "and it's a hotel car we travel by. Braska is some distance off the air line."
"Braska doesn't seem to have been in your line at any time," he said, after a moment's pause. "I hear of frequent visits on the part of the other ladies, many of them, but you never honor us."
"Oh, we sometimes go there for shopping."
"But to Cresswell's, I mean, for luncheon or supper.They say he gives a very creditable spread, and as quite a number of the ladies go there at times, and Willett and Burtis have a little party there to-night in honor of some of your friends, I thought I might persuade you; but—of course—if you do not go that way," he concluded, vaguely.
"No, thank you, Mr. Langston, we do not—go that way."
"But I shall see you, both, again before you start, I hope," he said, addressing Mrs. Cranston, but palpably appealing to Miss Loomis in the weakness of a strong man deeply in love.
"It will be a pleasure," said Margaret, cordially. She wished him to come. She meant him to come. She saw and forgave the wandering eyes. He might come any day he pleased before the 25th. There would still be a box or a trunk for him to sit on; but now, she concluded, artfully, she must get right back to the boys a minute. They were trying on some clothes that had just come from home, and she'd return very soon. So saying she vanished. It was half an hour before she reappeared, and Langston was on his knees in the parlor—packing books. It was the sweetest work he had known in years.
But when he was finally gone Margaret turned impulsively to Agatha. "Do you think it possible that—that shecanbe going there—with him—to-night? No matter who else goes. She cannot realize what she's doing. Would you go—should I go to see her?"
Miss Loomis stood at the window, leaning her forehead against the cold pane and gazing silently out over the snowy expanse of the parade. "You would betoo late, Margaret," she answered, presently, and drew back from the folds of the heavy curtain, and Mrs. Cranston seemed to read in her companion's face what was coming along the road.
Two double sleighs drove briskly past the window. First came Stone's old swan-head behind his sedate team of bays, but from a perfect nest of robes and furs a gay party waved their hands in laughing salutation. Mrs. Stone and Mrs. Flight on the back seat, Messrs. Darling and Tommy Dot opposite them in the body of the sleigh. Captain Pollock in the driver's perch with a fair companion whose husband was still detained at the agency, but wanted her to have the best time possible instead of moping at home. Then came Willett's stylish sleigh and team, Sanders on the back seat with Mrs. Darling, Almira blooming in her accustomed place by "Phaeton's" side. She neither bowed nor kissed her hand to Cranston's window, but smiled sweetly up into her companion's eyes.
Mr. Langston, meantime, was dining at the officers' mess, and presently when Mrs. Leonard came over to see if she could not help her neighbor a trifle in her packing, she unfolded some of the details of the Braska plan. Messrs. Burtis and Willett desired to entertain some of their fort friends in town; Colonel "Pegleg" was the only man at the post who owned a sleigh; Mrs. Stone was invited as a matter of course, and accepted, provided the colonel felt well enough to let her go, and it was duly settled that six of the party should go in her sleigh. The rest was easily arranged. Langston was only too glad to go out with Willett and spend the hours until the return of the party incalling and dining at the post, hoping thereby to obtain more than one glance at and more than a few words with Miss Loomis. It was nearly sundown when they started. It would be eleven before they got back. Long before that hour the lights in Cranston's quarters were out and all was silence and peace. Langston, strolling by after making his evening calls, looked long, as lovers will, at the window of the room he knew to be hers, then went resignedly over to the store and took a hand with the officers at a game for which at other times he had no use whatever,—pool. He had to do something to while away the time until the sleigh-bells came tinkling back, and that seemed to be the only thing going.
But midnight came before the foremost sleigh. Pollock safely tooled his party into the post as the twelve o'clock call was going the rounds. Oh, they had had a blissful time! a glorious time! Such a delightful supper,—partridges and celery and all manner of dainties from Chicago, and such oyster patties! to say nothing of Roedererad libitum. Then they had danced, and then they had more supper, and then started home. Willett would be along in a minute.
But ten, twenty minutes sped and no Willett. Pegleg's horses, being homeward bound, had possibly made phenomenal time, and Willett, probably, was in no hurry. "It's about his last chance to have Mrs. Davies beside him," laughed Mrs. Stone, "so he's making the most of it." It was 12.30 when at last the bells of the New Yorker's sleigh were heard tinkling faintly at the corner, and presently the party came slowly into view. Only three now, and three silent,embarrassed if not evidently agitated people, for they seemed to whip up and hurry by the little knot of anxious faces gathered at the colonel's gate.
"Where's Mr. Sanders?" was the cry.
"Tell you in a minute!" shouted Willett, as he drove straight by to No. 12, where he sprang out, lifted Mira from the sleigh and almost bore her to the gate, Mrs. Darling following. Already Mr. Darling was hastening up the road to join his wife. At the door Willett simply had to turn back to his spirited team, as they were standing unhitched, and Mrs. Darling disappeared with Mira into the hall.
"Where's Sanders? What kept you?" panted Darling, hastening up.
"Hush! Don't make any fuss," muttered Willett. "He jumped out half a mile back. Some drunken men, or soldiers perhaps, gave us a little trouble. I'm going back after him now."
"Hold on one minute till I see my wife and I'll go with you," sang out Darling, as he ran into the house, where Mira had sunk nerveless into a big chair and was wildly imploring Mrs. Darling not to leave her.
The Cranstons were ready to start on the 23d, but nothing was in readiness at Mrs. Davies's. On the contrary, that lovely and most interesting young woman was, according to her own account, as transmitted to the garrison by her now devoted friend and nurse,Mrs. Darling, in a state of prostration and could do nothing at all. Mr. Davies had been telegraphed for and was coming, and Dr. Rooke said she must be kept very quiet meanwhile,—so at least Mrs. Darling reported to sympathetic friends who called to inquire and possibly hoped to see. Bluff old Rooke himself was besieged with questions as to his fair patient, the nature of her malady and the cause of the sudden shock, and Rooke told some people not to bother her, others not to bother him, and others still not to bother themselves about her. She'd come out all right if left alone. It was Mrs. Cranston and Miss Loomis to whom he delivered himself of the last mentioned. He liked them both, which was more than he did most people, for this Æsculapian countryman of Carlyle had much of that eminent writer's sharpness of vision and bluntness of speech together with even more of his contempt for the bulk of his fellow-men. "No, Mrs. Cranston," said he, "don't wait a day for her. Start just as soon as you are ready, and don't give a thought to this little flibberty gibbet." And so the Cranstons, with Miss Loomis, bade farewell to Scott, and one radiant winter morning drove buoyantly away, almost all of the officers and ladies being out to wave them adieu. Hastings, with a brace of troopers, trotted alongside as they crossed the Platte and reported the camp wagon well on its way to Dismal River. "I never was so glad to leave a place in all my life," said Margaret to her friend, as they glanced back from the crest of the distant ridge that spanned the northern sky. "I never have been at a post where there were so few people I cared for." The driver halted hisstrong team at a level spot after a long, tortuous climb, and let the mules breathe a moment while his passengers took their final peep at the dim, dingy patch, far away upon the southward slopes beyond the willow-fringed river, which indicated the site of old Fort Scott. Already the snow had disappeared on many an open tract and lay deep only in the ravines and gullies, on the ice coat of the stream and in the dense undergrowth of the islands. To right and left for miles the broad valley lay beneath their eyes, the rigid line of the railway cutting a sharp, narrow slit across the level prairie in the lowlands, straight away eastward until all was merged in the misty, impenetrable veil at the horizon, while westward near the forks of the river, in long, graceful curve, it swept around an elbow of the snow-mantled stream and disappeared among the roofs and spires of far-away Braska. The boys, with the agile energy of their kind, had leaped out to scamper about on the rimy buffalo-grass, dull gray, dried and withered, yet full of nutriment for the little droves of horned cattle already browsing placidly along the slopes where but a few years before the Sioux and Cheyenne chased great herds of bison. Hastings and his men were riding along a hundred yards or so in front, and the two women were left to their own low-toned confidences.
"I cannot help it," said Mrs. Cranston, "it may be uncharitable, unkind, but I am simply glad she could not go with us. She does not like us,—me at least. She has pointedly avoided me, and I half believe it was to avoid going with us that she was taken ill. I only hope Wilbur will not misunderstand the matter."
"I think you are unjust, Margaret, in one thing at least. There was certainly some severe fright or shock Saturday night."
"Oh, a thing that might unstring a nervous, hysterical woman a few hours, perhaps, but it is no case of nerves or hysteria with her. She's a perfectly healthy country girl. Mrs. Darling, who isn't thoroughly strong and well, seems to have been very little affected."
"Mrs. Darling has been three years out here and is accustomed to frontier life. Mrs. Davies, probably, never had such an experience before, and she has been worried by these queer incidents that Mrs. Leonard tells us of,—those midnight whistlings and tappings at her window. Mrs. Davies is alone, her husband miles away at the agency. Everything has tended to worry the girl. I honestly feel sorry for her, Margaret. I'm sorry that she wouldn't let us be her friends."
"You are full of excuse for her, Agatha, and down in the bottom of your heart you know perfectly well she doesn't deserve it. I cannot forgive her for this flirtation with Mr. Willett. I only welcomed the idea of taking her with us because of the hope it gave me of breaking up that affair."
"Has it never occurred to you that she may have broken it off herself?—that besides this queer adventure with those drunken fellows there was something else to agitate her? Be just, Margaret. She came to us utterly inexperienced, even ignorant. She hasn't much mind, I'll admit, but she is innocent of wrong intent. Is it not possible that driving home he mayhave spoken to her in a way she could not mistake, and that that has had much to do with her prostration? If not, if she did not then and there forbid his coming near her again, how do you account for it that he has not once been out to the fort since Saturday?"
"Well, it's only three days, and the sleighing is practically ended."
"Yes, but he hasn't let forty-eight hours pass hitherto without a visit, so I'm told, and he has his buggy and wagon, and unless there was a rupture of some kind was it not more than likely he would be out Sunday or Monday? Wasn't it the proper thing, really, for him to call and inquire for her?"
But here the Concord rattled on again, the boys playing "giant strides" hanging to the boot at the back, and the driver, poking his head around the canvas wind-screen at the front, called out to Mrs. Cranston, "There's two of our fellows coming a couple of miles ahead, mum." And both ladies leaned from the wagon to strain their eyes in vain effort to distinguish the forms and faces of the distant party, Margaret half hoping that her soldier husband might have been able to stretch a point and ride far down to meet her, Miss Loomis half divining who it must be, and it was Miss Loomis who was right. Fifteen minutes further and the Concord halted again, and Mr. Hastings, with Davies at his side, rode up to the open door.
Even at a glance one could see how much he was changed in the service of those two months. The lines about his clear, thoughtful eyes had deepened and his face was thinner, despite the full, heavy, close-croppedbeard, but there was no mistaking the joy with which he met and welcomed his friends and nurses of that long autumn's convalescence. He whipped off his gauntlets and flung them at Louis's head, as the boys came dancing about his horse, and then extended both hands in eager greeting to Mrs. Cranston, who was nearest him, and who frankly grasped and shook them in hearty, cordial fashion.
"Oh, how glad I am to see you!" she cried. "We thought to meet you at our first camp I had no idea you could come so fast." And by this time she had released his hands and he was bending farther in to extend the right to Miss Loomis, who welcomed him with friendly warmth, yet with that womanly reserve which seemed never separable from her.
"We did not stop at the Niobrara," said he. "We came right through and camped at Dismal River late last night. Did you see Mrs. Davies this morning? How did you leave her?" he asked, with grave anxiety.
"We left her very comfortable. Dr. Rooke said there was no occasion whatever for anxiety," answered Mrs. Cranston, tactfully evading the question as to "seeing her," and then, fearful lest he should be moved to repeat it, plunging impetuously ahead. "She was looking so bright and well, so lovely in fact, that none of us were prepared for her being ill. Of course you'll hear all about the excitement and adventure they met with, so I won't speak of it now. In deed, you know, we hardly know anything more about it ourselves than you do, for both Mrs. Davies and Mrs. Darling saw so little of what followed the first appearance of the fellows. Mr. Sanders jumpedright out among them, it seems, and gave chase after some who ran. The one they afterwards captured was one of your recruits, Paine by name, and Mr. Sanders can tell you all about it when he gets back. He was sent up to Cheyenne. One or two men who have disappeared entirely are the suspected ones, and he is after them."
"But I don't understand," said Davies, gravely. "It seems incredible that even drunken soldiers should have attempted an indignity to a party of officers and ladies. Weren't you with them?"
"No; we were in the midst of packing, you know, and we weren't going anywhere. Indeed, it was an extraordinary thing and no one knows how to account for it, but you'll hear all about it at the fort, and I know you are eager to push ahead, and we'll see you so soon at the Ogallalla, so just tell me how you left my husband and you may gallop on."
How blithe and radiant was her face as she spoke! How could he suspect the dread that lurked behind it,—the artfulness of her effort to escape further questioning?
"The captain's as well as ever and counting the hours until your coming," he answered. "How thankful I am, for my wife's sake as well as my own, that you and Miss Loomis are to be so near us! Think of our having a house while the rest of you live in log huts! But if any sub would exchange with me I'd gladly give him the agency guard and the house and come and live in cantonments." Then with a parting shake of the hand he waved them on. The driver cracked his whip, the boys scrambled aboard, and away they went bowling on northward, while Davies andhis single orderly turned again their horses' heads to the welcome awaiting them at Scott.
Margaret sank back in her seat with fluttering heart and a deep sigh of relief. "Thank heaven, that's over, and I have told nothing of any consequence, have I?" she murmured to her silent friend. "What will he say or think when he learns the truth? But you were saying Mr. Willett had not reappeared. For that matter neither had Mr. Burtis nor Mr. Langston. I believe they'll all be out to the fort this very day. Mr. Langston thought we were not to start, you know, until to-morrow."
No answer to this observation. Miss Loomis was quite well aware of the fact and had been, for her, an eager advocate of the earlier start the moment it was declared that Almira could not attempt to move.
"I didn't fib, did I?" asked Mrs. Cranston, after a moment of deep thought.
"No; you managed to control the examination quite successfully without it."
But people at Scott that afternoon were less skilful or less fortunate. Arriving nearly ten hours earlier than he was expected, Mr. Davies dismounted at his quarters and, tossing the reins to his orderly, quickly and noiselessly entered. He expected to find his wife an invalid in a darkened chamber. He strode in upon a cosey little party at luncheon, Almira presiding at the tea things in a most becomingnégligée, and Mrs. Stone and Mrs. Darling nibbling at the dainties set before them, rising in surprise and some confusion as the young wife fluttered from her chair to the arms of her returned hero and becomingly precipitated herselfupon his breast. The visitors managed to retire soon after luncheon was over, despite Almira's evident desire to hold one or both at her side, for in that brief quarter of an hour Davies learned, as the result of questions that presently became insistent, very much to deepen the grave anxiety in his grave face, very much that made him impatient to hear from other witnesses.
Over the interview between him and his now nervous and fluttering wife we need not linger. She read disapproval, even distrust in his eyes, in his grave, deep tones, and all the prostration of the three days previous showed forcible symptoms of immediate return. She knew she was going to be wretchedly ill again; she must have Mrs. Darling and Dr. Rooke. Oh, why had they taken Dr. Burroughs away? he was so much nicer, and Barnickel should go for Dr. Rooke at once; and Barnickel, who was unpacking the lieutenant's saddle-bags and blanket roll, said he knew the doctor had gone to town and there was no one but the steward about. Mr. Sanders was just back, said he, and some gentlemen from town with him; whereat Almira started nervously and with fear in her face, and Davies took his cap and, presently, his leave.
"I will ask Mrs. Darling to come to you at once," he said, gently, "but I must go and see Mr. Sanders." He stooped and kissed her flushed forehead and then turned slowly away. The instant he closed the hall door behind him she crept to the parlor window, watching him as he walked rapidly westward along the row; then, slipping the bolt, she flew back to her room, searching in the bureau drawer an instant, drewforth two or three little notes, tied with silken ribbon, also a bunch of faded violets. The next instant notes and violets were blazing in the parlor base-burner.
Davies went straight to Sanders's quarters. It was then only a little after two and no one happened to be visible along the row. Over at the barracks and office there was the customary drowsy silence that followed the mid-day meal of men who had to be up with the dawn, and at stables, drill, or exercise until the noon recall. But Mrs. Stone had hurried home to her colonel and told him of Davies's arrival, and the colonel was eager to see him. Mrs. Darling had similarly warned her consort, and Darling was as eager to dodge.
"Lieutenant Sanders has gone to report to Captain Devers," said the striker who answered Davies's ring, and Davies said he would come in and wait until his return. He wanted to get by himself and quietly think over Almira's fragmentary and reluctant account and admissions concerning this supper-party at Braska. He threw himself into Sanders's big arm-chair drawn up in front of the stove, and leaned his head on his thin, white hand. Trooper Hurley, Sanders's striker, acting under his usual instructions, presently reappeared with a decanter of whiskey, glasses, sugar, and spoon on a tray. "We're all torn up, sir, packing the lieutenant's traps for the move, but here's everything but bitters, or lemon, and I can get them in a moment, sir."
Davies wearily thanked him, but waved the proffered refreshment aside. Hurley deposited his tray on the table close to the lieutenant's elbow and tiptoed out.
"Did Mr. Sanders say he'd come back here?" called the visitor.
"No, sir," said Hurley, poking his head back in the door-way; "but he will, sir. He was sent for by Captain Devers before he had been ten minutes in the post, and he went as soon as he could change his clothes and get into uniform. Mr. Darling run in here just a few moments ago after him, but he was gone. Mr. Willett fetched him out from town, sir, along with some other gentlemen. They went over to the store."
"I'll wait a few minutes," said Davies. So Hurley hospitably brought the late papers and placed them within reach.
"There's pipes and tobacco if the lieutenant would like to smoke, and I'll be in the back room, sir, packing."
"Did you hear whether Mr. Sanders had succeeded in arresting the other men?"
"No, sir, he didn't. They couldn't be found and hadn't been heard of in Cheyenne, but Mr. Sanders said they had bought their tickets for there, and that they were on the train as far as Sidney anyhow. I heard him say that. They were a bad lot, sir, them two fellows, especially Howard. The men in 'A' Troop say he made many a ball for Paine to throw, and that he was the one that was always making trouble for Brannan."
Davies bowed silently. He remembered Howard well all through the long dismal summer, one of the very "likeliest looking" of the recruits, at first glance, and almost the only one of the lot whom Captain Devers seemed to fancy, yet Davies was surprised,when he rejoined after his sick-leave, to find him in the troop office instead of the drill squad. All through the regiment the story had gone the rounds of how Sanders had arrested him on the train in "cits" and evident intent to desert, and how Devers had ordered his release, virtually assuming responsibility for the entire affair, and no man could account for Devers's action in the matter except that it was Devers's, and therefore bound to be different from that which any other officer would have taken.
And it was Howard who, this time at least, had deserted for good, taking with him a garrison ne'er-do-well whose going was only a good riddance, and leaving as a captive in the hands of Lieutenant Sanders the luckless Paine, now languishing in the guard-house, while, under the orders of a nervous and evidently anxious post commander, parties were searching everywhere for the other two.
From the somewhat garbled and excited account given by the ladies at the luncheon-table, Davies had been able to gather only these particulars,—that, as the second sleigh was coming along, oh, just a little distance behind Colonel Stone's, and as they rounded a sharp turn at the head of one of the islands, a brilliant light flashed from the bank, so close to the horses that they shied violently, nearly toppling Mrs. Davies out, and in this flash they distinctly saw the face and form of a tall young man in dark slouch hat and civilian clothes, and the expression on his face was so wicked, and he was so ghastly pale that it looked like an apparition, and Mrs. Davies screamed and nearly fainted from the fright and shock, and Mr. Willett, who wasdriving, made a furious cut at the fellow with his whip, and then as the horses tore away in fright the occupants of the sleigh had just time to catch a glimpse of some soldier overcoats, and when at last Mr. Willett regained control of his horses, Mrs. Darling cried out that they must go back for Mr. Sanders. He had leaped right out among those brutes, and she was sure she had heard shots. Mrs. Davies admitted that here she protested against going back, so terribly was she frightened, but Mrs. Darling said that they must do so and Willett said that they must, and go they did, only to find the spot abandoned. Even when Willett called for Sanders there was no answer, and then they were dreadfully alarmed for fear he had met with violence, and Mrs. Darling took the reins while Willett searched, and Mrs. Davies, as she admitted, cowered under the buffalo robe, and then, all on a sudden, they heard the sound of angry voices, heard some one furiously denouncing Mr. Willett for lashing a gentleman with his whip, heard Willett curse the stranger for flashing a match purposely to frighten his horses,—some sneering reply to the effect that a man had a right to light a cigar on a public road, then Willett's voice calling the man a liar, then heavy blows and scuffle, and then Sanders came running up the road just in time, for the stranger had Mr. Willett down in the snow and was throttling him. He sprang up and dashed into the willows the instant he heard Sanders's voice, and that was the last seen of him, for Sanders's first care was for the civilian, who was bruised and choked, but, after all, not seriously hurt. He helped Willett back to his seat, bade him drive the ladies atonce to the fort, but said he was going after those marauders, for two at least were soldiers. That was all. When Willett and Mr. Darling drove back they found that he had captured Paine, too drunk to run well, and that the others were gone. Next morning Trooper Howard was reported absent, and that settled the identity of the man in civilian dress. Mr. Willett had not been out at the post since the affair simply because he was nursing a black eye and a sprained thumb.
What Mrs. Darling and Mrs. Stone couldn't understand was what could possibly have prompted the man Howard to stand right on that little bank, close to the track, and there flash his phosphorus match. He must have known it would scare the horses even if it did not terrify the people. It was a reckless, diabolical thing to do, and then to think of his daring to strike and beat Mr. Willett afterwards. Mrs. Darling was full of indignation at his conduct; Mira was agitated, but had little to say. She was thinking of the cross-questioning that was inevitable when her supporters were gone.
And now, sitting there in Sanders's easy-chair, Davies was pondering over all that he had been told at the table, and the little that he had wrung from her reluctant lips, putting them together with the frequent questions asked him by the few women who had joined their husbands at the cantonment,—questions so frequent and persistent as to whether he often heard from his wife, and wasn't she soon coming,verysoon, to join him, that even to his unsuspicious nature they carried a significance he could not down, and now it seemed thatAlmira had gone with a gay party to a supper and dance in town at a time when he supposed that she was spending her hours with his friends, the Cranstons, or in quiet and seclusion at her home. There, at least, he showed his inexperience, for in nine cases out of ten the friends the newly-arrived wife is surest to fancy in garrison are not those whose praises her lord has been sounding for six months ahead. Of the hops and dances and drives that had preceded this eventful evening he had as yet,mirabile dictu, heard nothing beyond Mira's own meagre account. In fact, he had no idea of them at all.
He was worn and weary after the long, hard eighty-mile ride. The fire was warm, the room still and peaceful; no sound broke the silence but Hurley's occasional step and soft whistle out in the "linter" at the rear where lay his packing-boxes. Possibly Davies may have become drowsy, dreamy, as he reclined there. At all events he never moved as a quick, nervous step came bounding across the veranda and into the hall. The door burst open and a voice, surely a little tremulous and agitated, spoke low and quickly.
"Where are you, Sanders? Oh, say, will you do me a favor? I can't—at least I don't want these other women to know. Was there ever such a streak of hell's luck as this? He's home. I've got to go. Will you see that Mrs. Davies gets this before to-night?"
And in the dim light of the little bachelor den, Percy Davies, slowly turning, was aware of a stylishly-dressed, handsome young civilian, whose face, though pale and apparently bruised, was vaguely familiar tohim, in whose outstretched hand was a little box-shaped packet. Just then another step came bounding into the hall-way, into the room, and the lawful occupant of the quarters halted short at sight of the two tall, slender forms confronting each other, one that of the civilian, slowly recoiling toward the door with twitching, tremulous hands, and a face livid as death, the other, in cavalry undress, with bearded, haggard face, deeply lined, under whose heavy, bushy, overhanging brows a pair of blue eyes were blazing. For a moment not a word was spoken, then Davies broke the silence.
"Sanders, this gentleman wishes you to see that that package is promptly delivered to my wife, and I should be glad to see you as soon as possible at my quarters."
Not until the speaker had coolly stepped past them both and out of the room had Sanders recovered sufficient presence of mind to sing out, "All right, old man; I'll come." Then, as the outer door closed after the retiring officer, he whirled on Willett.
"You inveterate ass! How dare you haul me into this?"
Among the gentlemen from Braska visiting the post that afternoon was Mr. Langston, who drove thither full of eager anticipation, and hailed the first glimpse of the bright hues of the flag with a thrill of hope and joy. No spot in all God's green earth at that moment held in his eyes such vivid charm and interest.Ten minutes later no spot in all the world seemed so barren and desolate. The sunshine, the sailing clouds in the vault of blue, the chasing shadows along the slopes, the streaming colors of blue and white and scarlet at the tip of the swaying staff, the glint and sparkle of the accoutrements of the guard, the gaudy lining of the troopers' capes, were absolutely unaltered, yet the light had gone from his eyes—following the trail to the far Ogallalla. To him who loves a woman with all his heart there is more beauty in a mud-chinked hovel in a frontier fort where she may dwell than in all "the castled crags" of storied Rhineland or the cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces among the mirror lakes of Alpine Italy.