The Code of the Mountains Part 28

But the gaze with which the Deacon met his was in no wise weaker. As Black Pete listened to the proceedings in which his life-sands were running out, his eyes were thoughtful and perhaps a shade wistful, but undrooping, and unwavering.

The defendant testified that, when he was captured, they offered him choice between death and a captain's commission. He had chosen the latter. They took him north, and he had talked with Aguinaldo in person.

The "President" had received him as an officer and a dignitary. He had beguiled him with hopes of foreign recognition and a filmy vision of ultimate success. The Deacon had held during his life one goal and one ideal. His dream was leadership. He had tired of the warrant of the "non-com." He wished to sit in council with men of higher rank. The experiment had failed. He made no plea.

The hearing before G.C.M. came after the regiment had left the town with the church. It was on a larger parade ground that the united battalions were drawn up at sunset, and the regimental adjutant stepped a pace forward to the colonel's side and "published the order," which announced that Peter Spooner was "to be hanged by his neck till dead."

The lines stood silent as the adjutant's words were read. Black Pete at "the front and center," to be seen of all men, presented a picture quite as uncompromising as he had ever presented before. His contemplative gray eyes bore straight to the front as he stood at attention, and in them slept a thoughtful expression, as though they were looking off beyond horizons hidden to other men, and already piercing the opaque things of life and death.

And Newt Spooner gave his company front a motionless, sternly impersonal figure upon which to gaze. In neither condemned nor informer was there a vestige of tremor as the officers came to the "front and center" and the formation ended.

In the wet mists of a rainy morning, they escorted Black Pete to a scaffold around which ranged, in hollow square, the regiment he had betrayed--and there they hanged him high as Haman. Brooding hills looked down, rain-shrouded, and to their crests at the last moment the condemned man raised his eyes.

There was silence, save for the pelting of rain on iron roofs, until it was broken by noise of the falling trap and the low whip-like snap of the tautened rope. Then the burial detail went out and did its work.

Sergeant Newton Spooner returned to his routine duties with a grim taciturnity which did not invite conversation.

It was at Manila, many months later, that Major Henry Falkins again called Sergeant Spooner to battalion headquarters, and spoke with a certain embarra.s.sment:

"Spooner," he inquired slowly, "have you come to realize that one man may bear testimony against another for reasons other than spite?"

A slow flush, brick-red and hot, spread over the bronzed face of the non-commissioned officer.

"I've come to understand a good many things, sir," he replied gravely.

"And I've paid for learning them."

"We'll be mustered out before long," suggested Henry Falkins, "but I won't be long out of uniform, I hope. I'm going to stay in the service.

Once I promised you a chance--"

Newt Spooner grinned.

"I reckon the uniform's good enough for me, too, sir," he interrupted.

Then he added, with a diffidence which all expression of deep feeling brings to the mountaineer: "I reckon, sir, as long as I can serve under you I'll go on reenlisting."

Falkins was a mountaineer, too. He hastily changed the subject.

"Commissions from the ranks are going to men less capable than you--but examinations must be pa.s.sed. If you'll study, Spooner, I'd like to get behind you and help."

"I've never spoken of that to any man, sir, but I've been thinking about it," announced the sergeant diffidently. "I've been studying for eighteen months."

Not far from the corner of Main and Limestone Streets in Lexington, Kentucky, and almost in the shadow of the Phoenix Hotel, a poster on the sidewalk and a flag from an overhead window proclaimed that "Men were wanted for the United States Army." Out of the door of the building so decorated, one spring morning, when the trees were in delicate new leaf.a.ge, came a sergeant attached to the recruiting station. He was selected, as many of these men are, for his soldierliness of appearance.

Such men are the best advertis.e.m.e.nt the service can use, and it uses them.

The sergeant was not overly tall, and, though spare, he was by no means lean. His shoulders swung back squarely, and his chest, rounded and strong like a barrel, bore on its olive-drab blouse a sharp-shooter's cross and the Medal of Honor, which must be bestowed by an Act of Congress.

His face was clear-cut and bronzed by tropic sun and ocean winds. In fine, as the sergeant walked to the corner, casting his eyes up and down Limestone Street, he was an inspiriting figure of a man--and a soldier man. He had for the time nothing better to do than to stroll, and as he strolled a flicker of reminiscent amus.e.m.e.nt brought a pleasant grin to his firm lips. Sergeant Newt Spooner was thinking of the black-clad, lowering-faced boy who years ago hiked through this town, bent on a.s.sa.s.sination.

As he went along the historic street, where every square held traditions of ante-bellum days, he began to encounter other strollers, college lads in sweaters and caps, and college girls with books. But his eyes finally focused their gaze on a young woman who came out of a house and also turned up the street, walking ahead of him. She was a slim girl in simple gingham, but in her cheeks was an apple-blossom glow and delicacy, and her movements were informed with the lithe grace of out-of-doors. Newt wanted to overtake and accost her. He wanted to see if she would recognize him, changed as he was, as quickly as he had recognized her, who was even more changed.

For this girl looked like some splendid young blossom that had come to flower in open woods, and the soldier saw, with mingled pride and twinging jealousy, that all the boys and men who pa.s.sed took off their hats with frank ardor in their eyes. This was such a metamorphosed Minerva that he fell into shyness and delayed announcing himself until they had reached the stone gate-posts of the rolling campus, where, under the maples, the macadam road wound up to the college buildings, and the old field-gun of civil-war days looked out over the cadets'

drill-ground.

There he plucked up courage to call in a low voice, "M'nervy!" and at the mountain p.r.o.nunciation, coming unexpectedly from behind, the girl wheeled and stood for a moment, confronting him in a pretty picture of delight and astonishment, while a warm color stole into her cheeks.

"Newty!" she cried, as she held out both hands in greeting. "Where in the world did you spring from?"

They stood there under the maples for a while, and the boy made her talk of herself, and, while they talked, a man, wearing the uniform of a lieutenant of infantry, came down the walk. He was a likeable-looking fellow, well set-up and soldierly, but very young. From his campaign hat to his polished puttees, he was new, new like the lately minted coin that has not long circulated. Lieutenant March was not long from the "Point," and he was at present stationed here as Commandant at the University. The sergeant, with his back turned that way, was deep in conversation with the girl, so that, as he heard a pleasant voice saying, "How are you, Miss Rawlins," he turned just in time to see the officer's lifted hat, and to catch the smile on his lips. But his soldier instinct was now second nature, and in the same glance he saw the "U.S.A." of the collar-ornaments.

At once, Sergeant Newt Spooner stood at attention, his heels together and his hand at his hat-brim in salute. The officer, too, was taking in those things which military men observe. He saw the service stripes and the two medals on the breast, and his eyes brightened. As he returned the salute he cheerily inquired:

"What command, sergeant?"

"Fifty-ninth Infantry, sir; late of the 26th Volunteers."

"Here on leave?"

"Recruiting detail, sir."

The officer's eyes were dwelling on the decorated breast.

"Medal of Honor man," he said. "What service was that, sergeant?"

The girl, whose less-trained eyes had not recognized the import of the little metal disc, flushed with pleasure. Newt flushed, too. It irked him to talk about himself; but the military ethics were ingrained, and he still stood upright, and answered respectfully, but as briefly as possible:

"The islands, sir. Province of Nueva Ecija." When the lieutenant had gone, the sergeant looked down in an embarra.s.sed fashion at the white road.

"Minerva," he said, "I don't know whether it interests you, but I'm studying pretty hard myself. That's why I asked for this detail. That and one other reason. I'm only a non-commissioned officer, and you're almost a school-teacher. I'm on the wrong side of the line, but I've applied for an examination, and, when this term of enlistment is up I've got a good chance of a commission." He saw her looking at his medal, and heard her saying:

"I should think you would have, Newty."

"Oh," he hastened to tell her, "I mean that I've got an influential friend, who's going to help me."

"Who is that, Newty?" she demanded; and, as he answered, the young sergeant flushed.

"The best soldier in the service, Colonel Henry Falkins."

The girl looked down at the pavement and then up at the tender green of the maples. Her only reply was a low, "Oh!" but her voice said more, and presently she added a question:

"You said, Newty--" her eyes now held a challenging twinkle as she spoke--"that there was one other reason why you asked for this--what do you call it?--oh, yes, I know, this detail. What was that reason?"

The sergeant raised his face, and held her eyes with a steady gaze, until her own eyes fell, and her cheeks grew more rosy.

"That reason," he announced boldly, "is that I want plenty of chance to tell you what the reason is."

THE END