Betty at Fort Blizzard Part 17

It was easy enough to see Anita every day. Often they rode together in the gay riding parties that were among the constant amus.e.m.e.nts of the young things at the post. Then, there was the weekly dance in the great ball-room and many little dances and dinners, and Broussard always contrived to be with Anita the best part of the evening. He was always willing to sing and Anita was always ready to play the violin obligatos for him. Broussard developed wonderful knowledge of song birds and entirely abandoned game chickens, and was astonishingly regular in his attendance at the chapel, which induced Anita to think him a model of Christian piety. If Broussard had been a conceited man he would have seen that Anita's heart was his long before he asked for it; but being a modest fellow and thinking Anita was but a little lower than the angels, Broussard paid her the delicate and tender court which women love so well.

The regimen of love and leisure did wonders for Broussard. His thin face filled up, his color returned, he was soon able to dance and ride and shoot with the best of his comrades. He did not forget the man in the military prison or the wife that watched and waited and prayed and hoped.

But there was reason to hope: Lawrence was, from the beginning, a model prisoner, and the chaplain, who had lost, in the course of years, some of his confidence in repentance, began once more to believe that it was possible to regenerate a man's soul. Most prisoners are a trifle too ready to accept the theory of the forgiveness of sins. Not so Lawrence.

Often, he had paroxysms of despair, accusing himself wildly and doubting whether the good G.o.d could forgive so evil a sinner as he. Sometimes, he would refuse to see his wife, declaring he was not fit for her to speak to; again, he would weep and ask for a sight of his child, now far away and in good hands. All these things, and more, the chaplain knew, from long experience, meant that Lawrence's soul was struggling toward the light. Regularly Broussard went to see him at the prison and the two men, the high-minded officer and the disgraced private, were drawn together by the secret bond between them. Often, they talked in whispers of their dead mother and Broussard would say to Lawrence:

"Our mother's spirit and your wife's love ought to save you."

Another visitor Lawrence had was Sergeant McGillicuddy. The Sergeant's merciful soul could not accept the chaplain's theory that the blow provoked by McGillicuddy had been Lawrence's salvation.

"I never knew a man who was helped by being a deserter, sir," was the Sergeant's answer to the chaplain's kindly sophism, "but Lawrence is a penitent man--that I see with my own eyes. I don't need no chaplain to tell me that, sir."

Meanwhile, Broussard kept up a steady courtship of Colonel Fortescue.

Whatever views the Colonel advanced, Broussard promptly endorsed. He gave up c.o.c.k fighting, motors, superfluous clothes and high-priced horses, and, if his word could be taken for it, he had adopted Spartan tastes and meant to stick to them. Colonel Fortescue rated Broussard's newly-acquired taste for the simple life at its true value, and was sometimes a trifle sardonic over it.

"I wish," said Colonel Fortescue savagely one night in his office, where he always smoked his last cigar, Mrs. Fortescue sitting by, "I wish Broussard would let up a little in his attention to me. I know exactly what it means and it is getting to be an awful nuisance."

"Cheer up," answered Mrs. Fortescue encouragingly, "he'll let up on his devotion to you as soon as he marries Anita--for I have seen ever since the night of the music ride that Anita has a secret preference for him, and it's very natural--Broussard is an attractive man."

"Can't see it," growled the Colonel.

"If you would just limber up a little and not be so stiff with him,"

urged Mrs. Fortescue, "let him see he can have Anita."

"How can I limber up and tell him he can have Anita?" roared the Colonel.

"The fellow hasn't asked me for Anita."

"He's asking you all the time," answered Mrs. Fortescue, smiling.

Colonel Fortescue looked up at her with sombre eyes. He had seen Anita become the target for the flashing eyes of junior officers. He realized that Mrs. Fortescue, woman-like, did not share and could not understand the pangs of his soul at the thought of parting with Anita. He had often observed that mothers willingly gave their daughters in marriage, but he had never seen a father give up his daughter cheerfully to another man.

Mrs. Fortescue saw something of this in Colonel Fortescue's face and leaned her cheek against his.

"Dear," she said, "I believe most fathers suffer as you do at the thought of giving up a daughter and some day I shall suffer the same at giving up my son to another woman. So, after all, since our children will take on a new love, we must return to our honeymoon days and not let anything matter so long as we are together. Then, the After-Clap--I always feel so ridiculously young whenever I look at that baby."

At this the Colonel's heart was soothed and he did not hate Broussard quite so much.

There was, however, no let-up in Broussard's ardent wooing of the Colonel, who took it a trifle more graciously. One afternoon, late in December, Broussard, pa.s.sing the headquarters building, saw Colonel Fortescue's orderly holding the bridle reins of Gamechick, who was saddled. Broussard was in his riding clothes and was himself waiting for the horse lent him for the afternoon by a brother officer. He stopped and began to pat Gamechick's beautiful neck and the horse, who was, like all intelligent horses, a sentimentalist, rubbed his nose against Broussard's head, and said, as plainly as a horse can say:

"Dear master, I love you still."

Colonel Fortescue, coming out of the gate, saw Broussard, and his heart softened as he recalled the last time he had seen Broussard riding Gamechick. It was now nearly a year ago.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Broussard," said the Colonel, "I see you are dressed for riding. Perhaps you would like to ride that old charger again; if so, I will send for my own horse. Gamechick belongs to my daughter and I only ride him to keep him in condition, because sometimes she is a little lazy about exercising him."

"Ladies are seldom judicious with horses," answered Broussard, agreeing as always with Colonel Fortescue. "I shall be glad to ride the old horse once more, and thank you very much."

In a few minutes, the Colonel's own horse was brought and the two men, mounting, rode off and away from the post for an hour's brisk ride in the late winter afternoon.

Broussard, whose tongue was usually frozen to the roof of his mouth when he was in the Colonel's presence, felt a sudden sense of freedom and talked naturally and therefore intelligently. His description of military affairs in the East was wonderfully illuminating, and the Colonel plied him with questions. They were so interested in their talk that they reached the spur of the mountain ranges before they knew it.

The crisp air had got into their blood and into that of their horses, which took the mountain road sharply, and at an eager trot. They had climbed a good mile along the steep winding road, the snow under their feet frozen as hard as stone, the rocks ice-coated, and the fir trees like great trees of crystal. Gamechick was so sure-footed that Broussard gave him the reins but Colonel Fortescue watched his horse carefully.

Ahead of them was a sudden turn in the road under the great overhanging cliff, and on it, a magnificent fir tree reared itself, glittering with icicles, in the rose-red light of the sunset.

"Look," said Colonel Fortescue, pointing to the tree. "Was there ever anything more beautiful?"

As the words left his lips he saw, and Broussard saw, a huge boulder suddenly start down the mountain side and strike like a cannon ball the splendid tree. There was a fearful breaking and splintering and all at once it was as if the cliff crumbled and trees and boulders and ice and snow came thundering and crashing down into the roadway. One moment the crystal air had been so still that the click of the iron hoofs of their horses seemed to be the only sound in the world. The next minute the roar of breaking trees and falling rocks echoed like an earthquake and a white cloud of misty snow and flying icicles hid the steel-blue heavens.

It was done in such a fragment and flash of time that Broussard hardly knew what had happened. He found himself standing on his feet, entangled in the frozen branches of a fir tree. A little way off he heard Gamechick, whinnying with fear, while under a fallen boulder Colonel Fortescue's horse lay, his neck broken. Close by Colonel Fortescue lay stark upon the ground. Broussard ran to him; he was lying upon his back and said as coolly as if on dress parade:

"I had a pretty close shave, but I don't think I'm hurt, except my ankle."

Broussard, having had experience with injured men, thumped and punched the Colonel only to find that he was not injured in any way except the broken ankle; but a man with a broken ankle, six miles away from the fort, with night coming on, and the thermometer below zero, presents problems.

"What a pity neither of us has a pistol," said Colonel Fortescue, when Broussard had got him up from the frozen earth and arranged a rude seat from the branches of the fir tree for him. "We could kill my poor horse and end his sufferings."

"He's already dead, thank G.o.d," replied Broussard, going over and looking at the horse, lying as still and helpless as the rock that lay upon his neck. Gamechick, the broken rein hanging upon his neck, stood trembling and snorting with terror.

"I think you had better ride back to the post and get help," said Colonel Fortescue.

Broussard walked toward Gamechick, but the horse, stricken with panic, backed away and before Broussard could catch him, he whirled about wildly and galloped down the mountain road at breakneck speed. The sound of his iron hoofs pounding the icy road as he fled, driven by fear and anguish, cut the silence like a knife. The two men listened to the clear metallic sound borne upon the clear atmosphere by the winter wind.

"He's a good messenger," said Broussard, "he is making straight for the post."

"If he gets there before he breaks his neck," replied the Colonel coolly, taking out his cigar case and striking a light.

Broussard listened attentively until the last echo had died away in the distance.

"He has got down all right and is now on the open road, and will get to the fort in thirty minutes," he said.

Then Broussard, gathering the broken branches of the fir tree, made a fire which not only warmed them, but the blue smoke curling upward was a signal for those who would come to search for them. He took the saddle and blanket from the dead horse and arranged a comfortable seat for the Colonel, who declared that a broken ankle was nothing; but his face was growing pale as he spoke.

"You remember," he said to Broussard, "that story about General Moreau, something more than a hundred years ago, who smoked a cigar while the surgeons were cutting off his leg."

"Yes, sir," replied Broussard. "You are not as badly off as General Moreau, and I think I can help you, sir." Broussard proceeded to take off the Colonel's boot and stocking. He rubbed the broken ankle with snow and then, with his handkerchief and a splinter of wood, made a bandage and splints, as soldiers are taught to do.

Then Broussard accepted the cigar offered him by the Colonel, and smoked vigorously. A lieutenant does not lead the conversation with a Colonel, and so Broussard said nothing more and devoted himself to keeping the fire going.

Colonel Fortescue bore the pain, which was extreme, in grim silence, but Broussard noticed that he stopped smoking and threw away his cigar. It could not soothe him as it did General Moreau. Broussard immediately threw away his cigar, too, which annoyed the Colonel.

"Why don't you keep on smoking?" asked the Colonel tartly.

"Oh, I don't care about it particularly," shamelessly answered Broussard, who was an inveterate smoker.

"When we got out of tobacco in the jungle I kept the men quiet by singing the old song ''Twas Off the Blue Canaries I Smoked My Last Cigar.'"

"Music has always had a soothing influence over me," said Colonel Fortescue, after a moment. "Suppose you sing that song. It may help this infernal ankle of mine."

Broussard obeyed orders immediately, and the old song was sung with all the feeling that Broussard could infuse into his fine, rich voice. When it was over, the Colonel said sternly:

"Sing another song. Keep on singing until I tell you to quit."