An Apache Princess Part 9

"Can't you, as post surgeon, tell him he isn't fit to ride?"

"Not when he rides the first half of the night and puts out a nasty fire the last. Can't you, as post commander, tell him you forbid his going till you hear from Byrne and investigate the fire?" If Graham had no patience with a frail woman, he had nothing but contempt for a weak man. "If he's bound to be up and doing something, though," he added, "send him out with a squad of men and orders to hunt for Downs."

Cutler had never even thought of it. Downs was still missing. No one had seen him. His haunts had been searched to no purpose. His horse was still with the herd. One man, the sergeant of the guard, the previous day, had marked the brief farewell between the missing man and the parting maid--had seen the woman's gloved hand stealthily put forth and the little folded packet pa.s.sed to the soldier's ready palm.

What that paper contained no man ventured to conjecture. Cutler and Graham, notified by Sergeant Kenna of what he had seen, puzzled over it in vain. Norah Shaughnessy could perhaps unravel it, thought the doctor, but he did not say.

Cutler came forth from the shaded depths of the broad hallway to face the dazzling glare of the morning sunshine, and the pale, stern, reproachful features of the homeless lieutenant, who simply raised his hand in salute and said: "I've been ready two hours, sir, and the runners are long gone."

"Too long and too far for you to catch them now," said Cutler, catching at another straw. "And there is far more important matter here. Mr. Blakely, I want that man Downs followed, found, and brought back to this post, and you're the only man to do it. Take a dozen troopers, if necessary, and set about it, sir, at once."

A soldier was at the moment hurrying past the front of the hospital, a grimy-looking packet in his hand. Hearing the voice of Captain Cutler, he turned, saw Lieutenant Blakely standing there at attention, saw that, as the captain finished, Blakely still remained a moment as though about to speak--saw that he seemed a trifle dazed or stunned.

Cutler marked it, too. "This is imperative and immediate, Mr.

Blakely," said he, not unkindly. "Pull yourself together if you are fit to go at all, and lose no more time." With that he started away.

Graham had come to the doorway, but Blakely never seemed to see him.

Instead he suddenly roused and, turning sharp, sprang down the wooden steps as though to overtake the captain, when the soldier, saluting, held forth the dingy packet.

"It was warped out of all shape, sir," said he. "The blacksmith pried out the lid wid a crowbar. The books are singed and soaked and the packages charred--all but this."

It fell apart as it pa.s.sed from hand to hand, and a lot of letters, smoke-stained, scorched at the edges, and some of them soaking wet, also two or three _carte de visite_ photographs, were scattered on the sand. Both men bobbed in haste to gather them up, and Graham came hurriedly down to help. As Blakely straightened again he swayed and staggered slightly, and the doctor grasped him by the arm, a sudden clutch that perhaps shook loose some of the recovered papers from the long, slim fingers. At all events, a few went suddenly back to earth, and, as Cutler turned, wondering what was amiss, he saw Blakely, with almost ashen face, supported by the doctor's st.u.r.dy arm to a seat on the edge of the piazza; saw, as he quickly retraced his steps, a sweet and smiling woman's face looking up at him out of the trampled sands, and, even as he stooped to recover the pretty photograph, though it looked far younger, fairer, and more winsome than ever he had seen it, Cutler knew the face at once. It was that of Clarice, wife of Major Plume. Whose, then, were those scattered letters?

CHAPTER XIV

AUNT JANET BRAVED

Nightfall of a weary day had come. Camp Sandy, startled from sleep in the dark hour before the dawn, had found topic for much exciting talk, and was getting tired as the twilight waned. No word had come from the party sent in search of Downs, now deemed a deserter. No sign of him had been found about the post. No explanation had occurred to either Cutler or Graham of the parting between Elise and the late "striker."

She had never been known to notice or favor him in any way before. Her smiles and coquetries had been lavished on the sergeants. In Downs there was nothing whatsoever to attract her. It was not likely she had given him money, said Cutler, because he was about the post all that day after the Plumes' departure and with never a sign of inebriety. He could not himself buy whisky, but among the ranchmen, packers, and prospectors forever hanging about the post there were plenty ready to play middleman for anyone who could supply the cash, and in this way were the orders of the post commander made sometimes abortive. Downs was gone, that was certain, and the question was, which way?

A sergeant and two men had taken the Prescott road; followed it to d.i.c.k's Ranch, in the Cherry Creek Valley, and were a.s.sured the missing man had never gone that way. d.i.c.k was himself a veteran trooper of the ----th. He had invested his savings in this little estate and settled thereon to grow up with the country--the Stannards' winsome Millie having accepted a life interest in him and his modest property.

They knew every man riding that trail, from the daily mail messenger to the semi-occasional courier. Their own regiment had gone, but they had warm interest in its successors. They knew Downs, had known him ever since his younger days when, a trig young Irish-Englishman, some Londoner's discharged valet, he had 'listed in the cavalry, as he expressed it, to reform. A model of temperance, soberness, and chast.i.ty was Downs between times, and his gifts as groom of the chambers, as well as groom of the stables, made him, when a model, invaluable to bachelor officers in need of a competent soldier servant. In days just after the great war he had won fame and money as a light rider. It was then that Lieutenant Blake had dubbed him "Epsom" Downs, and well-nigh quarreled with his chum, Lieutenant Ray, over the question of proprietorship when the two were sent to separate stations and Downs was "striking" for both. Downs settled the matter by getting on a seven-days' drunk, squandering both fame and money, and, though forgiven the scriptural seventy times seven (during which term of years his name was changed to Ups and Downs), finally forfeited the favor of both these indulgent masters and became thereafter simply Downs, with no ups of sufficient length to restore the average--much less to redeem him. And yet, when eventually "bobtailed" out of the ----th, he had turned up at the old a.r.s.enal recruiting depot at St. Louis, clean-shaven, neat, deft-handed, helpful, to the end that an optimistic troop commander "took him on again," in the belief that a reform had indeed been inaugurated. But, like most good soldiers, the commander referred to knew little of politics or potables, otherwise he would have set less store by the strength of the reform movement and more by that of the potations.

Downs went so far on the highroad to heaven this time as to drink nothing until his first payday. Meantime, as his captain's mercury, messenger, and general utility man, moving much in polite society at the a.r.s.enal and in town, he was frequently to be seen about Headquarters of the Army, then established by General Sherman as far as possible from Washington and as close to the heart of St. Louis. He learned something of the ins and outs of social life in the gay city, heard much theory and little truth about the time that Lieutenant Blakely, returning suddenly thereto after an absence of two months, during which time frequent letters had pa.s.sed between him and Clarice Latrobe, found that Major Plume had been her shadow for weeks, her escort to dance after dance, her companion riding, driving, dining day after day. Something of this Blakely had heard in letters from friends. Little or nothing thereof had he heard from her. The public never knew what pa.s.sed between them (Elise, her maid, was better informed). But Blakely within the day left town again, and within the week there appeared the announcement of her forthcoming marriage, Plume the presumably happy man. Downs got full the first payday after his re-enlistment, as has been said, and drunk, as in duty bound, at the major's "swagger" wedding. It was after this episode he fell utterly from grace and went forth to the frontier irreclaimably "Downs." It was a seven-days' topic of talk at Sandy that Lieutenant Blakely, when acting Indian agent at the reservation, should have accepted the services of this unpromising specimen as "striker." It was a seven-weeks' wonder that Downs kept the pact, and sober as a judge, from the hour he joined the Bugologist to the night that self-contained young officer was sent crashing into his beetle show under the impact of Wren's furious fist. Then came the last pound that broke the back of Downs' wavering resolution, and now had come--what?

The sergeant and party rode back from d.i.c.k's to tell Captain Cutler the deserter had not taken the Cherry Creek road. Another party just in reported similarly that he had not taken the old, abandoned Grief Hill trail. Still another returned from down-stream ranches to say he could not have taken that route without being seen--and he had not been seen. Ranchman Strom would swear to that because Downs was in his debt for value received in shape of whisky, and Strom was rabid at the idea of his getting away. In fine, as nothing but Downs was missing, it became a matter of speculation along toward tattoo as to whether Downs could have taken anything at all--except possibly his own life.

Cutler was now desirous of questioning Blakely at length, and obtaining his views and theories as to Downs, for Cutler believed that Blakely had certain well-defined views which he was keeping to himself. Between these two, however, had grown an unbridgeable gulf.

Dr. Graham had declared at eight o'clock that morning that Mr. Blakely was still so weak that he ought not to go with the searching parties, and on receipt of this dictum Captain Cutler had issued his, to wit, that Blakely should not go either in search of Downs or in pursuit of Captain Wren. It stung Blakely and angered him even against Graham, steeling him against the post commander. Each of these gentlemen begged him to make his temporary home under his roof, and Blakely would not. "Major Plume's quarters are now vacant, then," said Cutler to Graham. "If he won't come to you or to me, let him take a room there." This, too, Blakely refused. He reddened, what is more, at the suggestion. He sent Nixon down to Mr. Hart's, the trader's, to ask if he could occupy a spare room there, and when Hart said, yes, most certainly, Cutler reddened in turn when told of it, and sent Lieutenant Doty, the adjutant, to say that the post commander could not "consent to an officer's occupying quarters outside the garrison when there was abundant room within." Then came Truman and Westervelt to beg Blakely to come to them. Then came a note from Mrs. Sanders, reminding him that, as an officer of the cavalry, it would be casting reflections on his own corps to go and dwell with aliens. "Captain Sanders would never forgive me," said she, "if you did not take our spare room. Indeed, I shall feel far safer with a man in the house now that we are having fires and Indian out-breaks and prisoners escaping and all that sort of thing. _Do_ come, Mr. Blakely." And in that blue flannel shirt and the trooper trousers and bandanna neckerchief, Blakely went and thanked her; sent for Nixon and his saddle-bags, and with such patience as was possible settled down forthwith. Truth to tell it was high time he settled somewhere, for excitement, exposure, physical ill, and mental torment had told upon him severely. At sunset, as he seemed too miserable to leave his room and come to the dining table, Mrs. Sanders sent for the doctor, and reluctantly Blakely let him in.

That evening, just after tattoo had sounded, Kate Sanders and Angela were having murmured conference on the Wrens' veranda. Aunt Janet had gone to hospital to carry unimpeachable jelly to the several patients and dubious words of cheer. Jelly they absorbed with much avidity and her words with meek resignation. Mullins, she thought, after his dreadful experience and close touch with death, must be in receptive mood and repentant of his sins. Of just what sins to repent poor Pat might still be unsettled in his mind. It was sufficient that he had them, as all soldiers must have, said Miss Wren, and now that his brain seemed clearing and the fever gone and he was too weak and helpless to resist, the time seemed ripe for the sowing of good seed, and Janet went to sow.

But there by Mullins's bed, all unabashed at Janet's marked disapprobation, sat Norah Shaughnessy. There, in flannel shirt and trooper trousers and bandanna neckerchief, pale, but collected, stood the objectionable Mr. Blakely. He was bending over, saying something to Mullins, as she halted in the open doorway, and Blakely, looking quickly up, went with much civility to greet and escort her within. To his courteous, "Good-evening, Miss Wren, may I relieve you of your basket?" she returned prompt negative and, honoring him with no further notice, stood and gazed with Miss Shaughnessy at the focus--Miss Shaughnessy who, after one brief glance, turned a broad Irish back on the intruder at the doorway and resumed her murmuring to Mullins.

"Is the doctor here--or Steward Griffin?" spoke the lady, to the room at large, looking beyond the lieutenant and toward the single soldier attendant present.

"The doctor and the steward are both at home just now, Miss Wren,"

said Blakely. "May I offer you a chair?"

Miss Wren preferred to stand.

"I wish to speak with Steward Griffin," said she again. "Can you go for him?" this time obviously limiting her language to the attendant himself, and carefully excluding Mr. Blakely from the field of her recognition. The attendant dumbly shook his head. So Aunt Janet tried again.

"Norah, _you_ know where the steward lives, will you--" But Blakely saw rebellion awake again in Ireland and interposed.

"The steward shall be here at once, Miss Wren," said he, and tiptoed away. The lady's doubtful eye turned and followed him a moment, then slowly she permitted herself to enter. Griffin, heading for the dispensary at the moment and apprised of her visit, came hurrying in.

Blakely, pondering over the few words Mullins had faintly spoken, walked slowly over toward the line. His talk with Graham had in a measure stilled the spirit of rancor that had possessed him earlier in the day. Graham, at least, was stanch and steadfast, not a weatherc.o.c.k like Cutler. Graham had given him soothing medicine and advised his strolling a while in the open air--he had slept so much of the stifling afternoon--and now, hearing the sound of women's voices on the dark veranda nearest him, he veered to the left, pa.s.sed around the blackened ruin of his own quarters and down along the rear of the line just as the musician of the guard was sounding "Lights Out"--"Taps."

And then a sudden thought occurred to him. Sentries began challenging at taps. He was close to the post of No. 5. He could even see the shadowy form of the sentry slowly pacing toward him, and here he stood in the garb of a private soldier instead of his official dress. It caused him quickly to veer again, to turn to his right, the west, and to enter the open s.p.a.ce between the now deserted quarters of the permanent commander and those of Captain Wren adjoining them to the north. Another moment and he stopped short. Girlish voices, low and murmurous, fell upon his ear. In a moment he had recognized them. "It won't take me two minutes, Angela. I'll go and get it now," were the first words distinctly heard, and, with a rustle of skirts, Kate Sanders bounded lightly from the piazza to the sands and disappeared around the corner of the major's quarters, going in the direction of her home. For the first time in many eventful days Blakely stood almost within touch of the girl whose little note was even then nestling in an inner pocket, and they were alone.

"Miss Angela!"

Gently he spoke her name, but the effect was startling. She had been reclining in a hammock, and at sound of his voice struggled suddenly to a sitting posture, a low cry on her lips. In some strange way, in the darkness, the fright, confusion,--whatever it may have been,--she lost her balance and her seat. The hammock whirled from under her, and with exasperating thump, unharmed but wrathful, the girl was tumbled to the resounding floor. Blakely sprang to her aid, but she was up in the split of a second, scorning, or not seeing, his eager, outstretched hand.

"My--Miss Angela!" he began, all anxiety and distress, "I hope you're not hurt," and the outstretched hands were trembling.

"I _know_ I'm not," was the uncompromising reply, "not in the least; startled--that's all! Gentlemen don't usually come upon one that way--in the dark." She was panting a bit, but striving bravely, angrily, to be calm and cool--icy cool.

"Nor would I have come that way," then, stupidly, "had I known you were--here. Forgive me."

How could she, after that? She had no wish to see him, so she had schooled herself. She would decline to see him, were he to ask for her at the door; but, not for an instant did she wish to hear that he did not wish to see her, yet he had haplessly, brusquely said he wouldn't have come had he known she was there. It was her duty to leave him, instantly. It was her desire first to punish him.

"My aunt is not at home," she began, the frost of the Sierras in her tone.

"I just left her, a moment ago, at the hospital," said he, steadfastly ignoring her repellent tone. Indeed, if anything, the tone rejoiced him, for it told a tale she would not have told for realms and empires. He was ten years older and had lived. "But--forgive me," he went on, "you are trembling, Miss Angela." She was, and loathed herself, and promptly denied it. He gravely placed a chair. "You fell heavily, and it must have jarred you. Please sit down," and stepping to the _olla_, "let me bring you some water."

She was weak. Her knees, her hands, were shaking as they never shook before. He had seen her aunt at the hospital. He had left her aunt there without a moment's delay that he might hasten to see her, Angela. He was here and bending over her, with br.i.m.m.i.n.g gourd of cool spring water. Nay, more, with one hand he pressed it to her lips, with the other he held his handkerchief so that the drops might not fall upon her gown. He was bending over her, so close she could hear, she thought, the swift beating of his heart. She knew that if what Aunt Janet had told, and her father had seen, of him were true, she would rather die than suffer a touch of his hand. Yet one hand had touched her, gently, yet firmly, as he helped her to the chair, and the touch she loathed was sweet to her in spite of herself. From the moment of their first meeting this man had done what no other man had done before--spoken to her and treated her as a grown woman, with a man's admiration in his fine blue eyes, with deference in word and chivalric grace in manner. And in spite of the mean things whispered about him--about him and--anybody, she had felt her young heart going out to him, her buoyant, joyous, healthful nature opening and expanding in the sunshine of his presence. And now he had come to seek her, after all the peril and excitement and trouble he had undergone, and now, all loverlike tenderness and concern, was bending over her and murmuring to her, his deep voice almost as tremulous as her hand. Oh, it couldn't be true that he--cared for--was interested in--that woman, the major's wife! Not that she _ought_ to care one way or another, except that it was so despicable--so unlike him. Yet she had promised herself--had virtually promised her father--that she would hold far aloof from this man, and here he stood, so close that their heart-beats almost intermingled, and he was telling her that he wished she had kept and never returned the little b.u.t.terfly net, for now, when it had won a value it never before had known, it was his fate to lose it. "And now," he said, "I hope to be sent to-morrow to join your father in the field, and I wish to tell you that, whenever I go, I shall first come to see what you may have to send to him. Will you--be here, Miss Angela?"

For a moment--silence. She was thinking of her duty to her father, of her implied promise, of all that Janet had told her, and so thinking could not for the moment answer--could not meet his earnest gaze. Dark as it was she felt, rather than saw, the glow of his deep blue eyes.

She could not mistake the tenderness of his tone. She had so believed in him. He seemed so far above the callow, vapid, empty-headed youngsters the other girls were twittering about from morn till night.

She felt that she believed in him now, no matter what had been said or who had said it. She felt that if he would but say it was all a mistake--that no woman had crossed his threshold, all Camp Sandy might swear to the truth of the story, and she would laugh at it. But how could she ask such a thing of him? Her cheeks took fire at the thought. It was he who broke the silence.

"Something has happened to break your faith in me, Miss Angela," said he, with instant gravity. "I certainly had it--I _know_ I had it--not a week ago"; and now he had dropped to a seat in the swaying hammock, and with calm strength and will bent toward her and compelled her attention. "I have a right to know, as matters stand. Will you tell me, or must I wait until I see your father?" With that Neil Blakely actually sought to take her hand. She whipped it behind her at the instant. "Will you tell me?" he repeated, bending closer.

From down the line, dancing along the wooden veranda, came the sound of swift footfalls--Kate Sanders hurrying back. Another moment and it would be too late. The denial she longed to hear from his lips might never be spoken. If spoken at all it must be here and now, yet how could she--how could _she_ ask _him_?

"I will tell you, Mr. Blakely." The words came from the window of the darkened parlor, close at hand. The voice was that of Janet Wren, austere and uncompromising. "I got here in time to hear your question--I will answer for my niece--"

"Aunt Janet--No!"

"Be quiet, Angela. Mr. Blakely, it is because this child's father saw, and I heard of, that which makes you unworthy the faith of a young, pure-hearted girl. Who was the--the creature to whom you opened your door last Wednesday midnight?"

Kate Sanders, singing softly, blithely, came tripping along the major's deserted veranda, her fresh young voice, glad, yet subdued, caroling the words of a dear old song that Parepa had made loved and famous full ten years before:

"And as he lingered by her side, In spite of his comrade's warning The old, old story was told again At five o'clock in the morning."

Then came sudden silence, as springing to the sandy ground, the singer reached the Wrens' veranda and saw the dim form of Mr. Blakely, standing silently confronting a still dimmer form, faintly visible at the side window against the soft, tempered light of the hanging lamp in the hall.

"Who was the creature?" I repeat, were the strange words, in Miss Wren's most telling tone, that brought Kate Sanders to a halt, startled, silent.