Starlight Ranch Part 18

from Senate and House did not triumph over the principles of military discipline.

A miserable man is Billy! For a week he has moped in barracks, forbidden by Stanley and his advisers to admit anything, yet universally suspected of being the cause of all the trouble. He, too, wishes to cancel his engagements for the graduating ball, and thinks something ought to be done to those young idiots of yearlings who set off the torpedo.

"Nothing could have gone wrong but for them," says he; but the wise heads of the cla.s.s promptly snub him into silence. "You've simply got to do as we say in this matter, Billy. You've done enough mischief already." And so it results that the message he sends by Uncle Jack is: "Tell mother and Nan I'll meet them at the 'hop.' My confinements end at eight o'clock, but there's no use in my going to the hotel and tramping through the mud." The truth is, he cannot bear to meet Miriam Stanley, and 'twould be just his luck.

One year ago no happier, bonnier, brighter face could have been seen at the Point than that of Nannie McKay. To-night, in all the throng of fair women and lovely girls, gathered with their soldier escort in the great mess-hall, there is none so sad. She tries hard to be chatty and smiling, but is too frank and honest a little soul to have much success.

The dances that Phil Stanley had engaged months and months ago are accredited now to other names, and blissful young fellows in gray and gold come successively to claim them. But deep down in her heart she remembers the number of each. It was he who was to have been her escort.

It was he who made out her card and gave it to her only a day or two before that fatal interview. It was he who was to have had the last waltz--the very last--that he would dance in the old cadet gray; and though new names have been subst.i.tuted for his in other cases, this waltz she meant to keep. Well knowing that there would be many to beg for it, she has written w.i.l.l.y's name for "Stanley," and duly warned him of the fact. Then, when it comes, she means to escape to the dressing-room, for she is promptly told that her brother is engaged to Miss Waring for that very waltz. Light as are her feet, she never yet has danced with so heavy a heart. The rain still pours, driving everybody within doors. The heat is intense. The hall is crowded, and it frequently happens that partners cannot find her until near the end of their number on that dainty card. But every one has something to say about Phil Stanley and the universal regret at his absence. It is getting to be more than she can bear,--this prolonged striving to respond with proper appreciation and sympathy, yet not say too much,--not betray the secret that is now burning, throbbing in her girlish heart. He does not dream it, but there, hidden beneath the soft lace upon her snowy neck, lies that "knot of ribbon blue" which she so laughingly had given him, at his urging, the last day of her visit the previous year; the knot which he had so loyally treasured and then so sadly returned. A trifling, senseless thing to make such an ado about, but these hearts are young and ardent, and this romance of his has many a counterpart, the memory of which may bring to war-worn, grizzled heads to-day a blush almost of shame, and would surely bring to many an old and sometimes aching heart a sigh. Hoping against hope, poor Nannie has thought it just possible that at the last moment the authorities would relent and he be allowed to attend. If so,--if so, angry and justly angered though he might be, cut to the heart though he expressed himself, has she not here the means to call him back?--to bid him come and know how contrite she is? Hour after hour she glances at the broad archway at the east, yearning to see his dark, handsome face among the new-comers,--all in vain. Time and again she encounters Sallie Waring, brilliant, bewitching, in the most ravishing of toilets, and always with half a dozen men about her. Twice she notices Will among them with a face gloomy and rebellious, and, hardly knowing why, she almost hates her.

At last comes the waltz that was to have been Philip's,--the waltz she has saved for his sake though he cannot claim it. Mr. Pennock, who has danced the previous galop with her, sees the leader raising his baton, bethinks him of his next partner, and leaves her at the open window close to the dressing-room door. There she can have a breath of fresh air, and, hiding behind the broad backs of several bulky officers and civilians, listen undisturbed to the music she longed to enjoy with him.

Here, to her surprise, Will suddenly joins her.

"I thought you were engaged to Miss Waring for this," she says.

"I was," he answers, savagely; "but I'm well out of it. I resigned in favor of a big 'cit' who's worth only twenty thousand a year, Nan, and she has been engaged to him all this time and never let me know until to-night."

"_w.i.l.l.y!_" she gasps. "Oh! I'm so glad--sorry, I mean! I never _did_ like her."

"_I_ did, Nan, more's the pity. I'm not the first she's made a fool of;"

and he turns away, hiding the chagrin in his young face. They are practically alone in this sheltered nook. Crowds are around them, but looking the other way. The rain is dripping from the trees without and pattering on the stone flags. McKay leans out into the night, and the sister's loving heart yearns over him in his trouble.

"w.i.l.l.y," she says, laying the little white-gloved hand on his arm, "it's hard to bear, but she isn't worthy _any_ man's love. Twice I've heard in the last two days that she makes a boast of it that 'twas to see her that some one risked his commission and so--kept Mr. Stanley from being here to-night. w.i.l.l.y, _do_ you know who it was? _Don't_ you think he ought to have come forward like a gentleman, days ago, and told the truth? _Will!_ What is it? _Don't_ look so! Speak to me, w.i.l.l.y,--your little Nan. Was there ever a time, dear, when my whole heart wasn't open to you in love and sympathy?"

And now, just at this minute, the music begins again. Soft, sweet, yet with such a strain of pathos and of sadness running through every chord; it is the loveliest of all the waltzes played in his "First Cla.s.s Camp,"--the one of all others he most loved to hear. Her heart almost bursts now to think of him in his lonely room, beyond hearing of the melody that is so dear to him, that is now so pa.s.sionately dear to her,--"Love's Sigh." Doubtless, Philip had asked the leader days ago to play it here and at no other time. It is more than enough to start the tears long welling in her eyes. For an instant it turns her from thought of w.i.l.l.y's own heartache.

"Will!" she whispers, desperately. "This was to have been Philip Stanley's waltz--and I want you to take--something to him for me."

He turns back to her again, his hands clinched, his teeth set, still thinking only of his own bitter humiliation,--of how that girl has fooled and jilted him,--of how for her sake he had brought all this trouble on his stanchest friend.

"Phil Stanley!" he exclaims. "By heaven! it makes me nearly mad to think of it!--and all for her sake,--all through me. Oh, Nan! Nan! I _must_ tell you! It was for me,--to save me that----"

"_w.i.l.l.y!_" and there is almost horror in her wide blue eyes.

"_w.i.l.l.y!_" she gasps--"oh, _don't_--don't tell me _that_!

Oh, it isn't _true_? Not you--not you, w.i.l.l.y. Not my brother! Oh, quick! Tell me."

Startled, alarmed, he seizes her hand.

"Little sister! What--what has happened--what is----"

But there is no time for more words. The week of misery; the piteous strain of the long evening; the sweet, sad, wailing melody,--his favorite waltz; the sudden, stunning revelation that it was for w.i.l.l.y's sake that he--her hero--was now to suffer, he whose heart she had trampled on and crushed! It is all more than mortal girl can bear. With the beautiful strains moaning, whirling, ringing, surging through her brain, she is borne dizzily away into darkness and oblivion.

There follows a week in which sadder faces yet are seen about the old hotel. The routine of the Academy goes on undisturbed. The graduating cla.s.s has taken its farewell of the gray walls and gone upon its way.

New faces, new voices are those in the line of officers at parade. The corps has pitched its white tents under the trees beyond the gra.s.sy parapet of Fort Clinton, and, with the graduates and furlough-men gone, its ranks look pitifully thinned. The throng of visitors has vanished.

The halls and piazzas at Craney's are well-nigh deserted, but among the few who linger there is not one who has not loving inquiry for the young life that for a brief while has fluttered so near the grave. "Brain fever," said the doctors to Uncle Jack, and a new anxiety was lined in his kindly face as he and Will McKay sped on their mission to the Capitol. They had to go, though little Nan lay sore stricken at the Point.

But youth and elasticity triumph. The danger is pa.s.sed. She lies now, very white and still, listening to the sweet strains of the band trooping down the line this soft June evening. Her mother, worn with watching, is resting on the lounge. It is Miriam Stanley who hovers at the bedside. Presently the bugles peal the retreat; the sunset gun booms across the plain; the ringing voice of the young adjutant comes floating on the southerly breeze, and, as she listens, Nannie follows every detail of the well-known ceremony, wondering how it _could_ go on day after day with no Mr. Pennock to read the orders; with no "big Burton"

to thunder his commands to the first company; with no Philip Stanley to march the colors to their place on the line. "Where is _he_?" is the question in the sweet blue eyes that so wistfully seek his sister's face; but she answers not. One by one the first sergeants made their reports; and now--that ringing voice again, reading the orders of the day. How clear it sounds! How hushed and still the listening Point!

"Head-quarters of the Army," she hears. "Washington, June 15, 187-.

Special orders, Number--.

"_First._ Upon his own application, First Lieutenant George Romney Lee, --th Cavalry, is hereby relieved from duty at the U. S. Military Academy, and will join his troop now in the field against hostile Indians.

"_Second._ Upon the recommendation of the Superintendent U. S. Military Academy, the charges preferred against Cadet Captain Philip S. Stanley are withdrawn. Cadet Stanley will be considered as graduated with his cla.s.s on the 12th instant, will be released from arrest, and authorized to avail himself of the leave of absence granted his cla.s.s."

Nannie starts from her pillow, clasping in her thin white fingers the soft hand that would have restrained her.

"Miriam!" she cries. "Then--will he go?"

The dark, proud face bends down to her; clasping arms encircle the little white form, and Miriam Stanley's very heart wails forth in answer,--

"Oh, Nannie! He is almost there by this time,--both of them. They left to join the regiment three days ago; their orders came by telegraph."

Another week, and Uncle Jack is again with them. The doctors agree that the ocean voyage is now not only advisable, but necessary. They are to move their little patient to the city and board their steamer in a day or two. Will has come to them, full of disgust that he has been a.s.signed to the artillery, and filling his mother's heart with dismay because he is begging for a transfer to the cavalry, to the --th Regiment,--of all others,--now plunged in the whirl of an Indian war. Every day the papers come freighted with rumors of fiercer fighting; but little that is reliable can be heard from "Sabre Stanley" and his column. They are far beyond telegraphic communication, hemmed in by "hostiles" on every side.

Uncle Jack is an early riser. Going down for his paper before breakfast, he is met at the foot of the stairs by a friend who points to the head-lines of the _Herald_, with the simple remark, "Isn't this hard?"

It is brief enough, G.o.d knows.

"A courier just in from Colonel Stanley's camp brings the startling news that Lieutenant Philip Stanley, --th Cavalry, with two scouts and a small escort, who left here Sunday, hoping to push through to the Spirit Wolf, were ambushed by the Indians in Black Canon. Their bodies, scalped and mutilated, were found Wednesday night."

Where, then, was Romney Lee?

CHAPTER VII.

BLACK CAnON.

The red sun is going down behind the line of distant b.u.t.tes, throwing long shadows out across the gra.s.sy upland. Every crest and billow of the prairie is bathed in crimson and gold, while the "breaks" and ravines trending southward grow black and forbidding in their contrasted gloom.

Far over to the southeast, in dazzling radiance, two lofty peaks, still snow-clad, gleam against the summer sky, and at their feet dark waves of forest-covered foot-hills drink in the last rays of the waning sunshine as though h.o.a.rding its treasured warmth against the chill of coming night. Already the evening air, rare and exhilarating at this great alt.i.tude, loses the sun-G.o.d's touch and strikes upon the cheek keen as the ether of the limitless heavens. A while ago, only in the distant valley winding to the south could foliage be seen. Now, all in those depths is merged in sombre shade, and not a leaf or tree breaks for miles the grand monotony. Close at hand a host of tiny mounds, each tipped with reddish gold, and some few further ornamented by miniature sentry, alert and keen-eyed, tell of a prairie township already laid out and thickly populated; and at this moment every sentry is chipping his pert, querulous challenge until the disturbers of the peace are close upon him, then diving headlong into the bowels of the earth.

A dun cloud of dust rolls skyward along a well-worn cavalry trail, and is whirled into s.p.a.ce by the hoofs of sixty panting chargers trotting steadily south. Sixty sunburned, dust-covered troopers ride grimly on, following the lead of a tall soldier whose kind brown eyes peer anxiously from under his scouting-hat. It is just as they pa.s.s the village of the prairie dogs that he points to the low valley down to the front and questions the "plainsman" who lopes along by his side,--

"That Black Canon down yonder?"

"That's it, lieutenant: I didn't think you could make it to-night."

"We _had_ to," is the simple reply as again the spur touches the jaded flank and evokes only a groan in response.

"How far from here to--the Springs?" he presently asks again.

"Box Elder?--where they found the bodies?--'bout five mile, sir."

"Where away was that signal smoke we saw at the divide?"