Under Fire Part 25

"That," said the adjutant, in his deep, deliberate tone, "is precisely what I believe, but needed your evidence to establish. Now you will excuse me from further talk about this or anything else until, say, after office hours to-morrow morning. I have much to attend to. If you and the chaplain will meet me at ten o'clock, we can settle various matters. Meantime I'll lock these papers in my desk." Across the dim hall-way, as the two friends left the office, stood the door of the sanctum of the post commander. It was just ajar, but there was no light beyond, and to all appearances the room was as deserted as it was dark.

Rooke was just coming out of No. 12 as they returned thither.

"I'm glad you're home, Mr. Davies, and I'll be gladder when you've got that pretty little bunch of nerves and nonsense off my hands and off this military reservation."

"She will be well enough to travel--when?" asked Davies, as placidly as he could. Even when the wife of one's bosom has been behaving outrageously it isn't pleasant to hear it from one's neighbors, unasked.

"She could go to-morrow and be the better for it," said Rooke, bluntly.

"What she needs is a firm hand and a change of scene--and surroundings.

We're too volatile hereabouts." And this it seems was practically what he had told Almira herself, much to her scandal and dismay. She piteously asked why she couldn't see Dr. Burroughs; and was unfeelingly told that there was no reason whatever, provided she started to-morrow; that he was at Ogallalla and would be very glad to see her. "Once up there," said the old cynic, "you can have Burroughs and lollipops to your heart's content."

"Oh, doctor, but think of the peril, the danger," she moaned.

"Tut, woman, you'll be in no such danger there as here," he answered brusquely; and Davies found her weeping dejectedly, but weeping to no purpose. When morning came Barnickel and Katty were boxing up the lares and penates, and toward nightfall Mira herself was meekly, though not resignedly, bearing a hand. This indeed was not what she had pictured army life to be. Davies and the chaplain were to have joined Leonard as planned at ten o'clock. At nine the orderly came to the door of No. 12, and said that Mr. Leonard would be very much obliged if Mr. Davies would come to the office at once, and Davies went. Colonel Stone, as had been arranged, was once more restored to his desk in the office, and though looking gray and ten years older, was "on deck." He was absorbed in turning over some official papers, so Davies did not disturb him. He went into Leonard's den. The officer of the day was comparing the list of prisoners in the guard report with some memoranda on the adjutant's desk, but presently finished, shook hands with Davies and said welcome back to Scott, then went his way.

The moment he was gone Leonard whirled about in his chair. "Davies, you remember our locking those papers in this drawer last night?"

"Certainly."

"Well, look at it now, and as I found it ten minutes ago."

The drawer was absolutely empty.

CHAPTER XXV.

The closing week of March was marked by a furious snow-storm that swept the big prairie like a besom, but plugged up every _coulee_ and ravine.

For four days no communication had been held with the Ogallalla Agency.

The wires were down, the road impa.s.sable, and Mrs. Davies had reached her new harbor of refuge none too soon. The quartermaster's ambulance bore the couple half-way to the new station, and Cranston's Concord came to meet and carry them the rest of the way. Mira's parting with her devoted lady friends at Scott was cut short by a start at early dawn, against which she rebelled faintly, but to no purpose. It had taken only two days to pack their few belongings. They spent the last night of their stay in Scott under Leonard's roof, and Mrs. Leonard did her best to cheer and gladden the mournful bride. It was of little avail, however. Almira was dimly beginning to see that her conduct had cost her the respect of those women most worth knowing, and that although the dreaded interrogatories which Percy was to put to her as soon as she was stronger were still in the future, his faith in and love for her, whatsover they might have been, were seriously shattered. In manner he was still grave, kind, and gentle almost as before, but everything like tenderness had vanished. One question he said he must ask her before they left Scott. Had she ever accepted any gifts or letters or anything from Mr. Willett? And Almira answered that once he had sent her just a few violets with a note inviting Mrs. Darling and her to drive with him the next day, but she had tossed them into the fire long ago. Nothing more, nothing else at any time? asked Davies, gravely, and Almira answered no. How could he torment her with such unjust suspicions? Far better would it be to let her return to the father and sisters who longed for and missed her, to her peaceful home where down in the bottom of her heart Mira knew she was not wanted by either father or sisters or step-mother. Davies looked graver, but questioned no longer. The day before their start Mr. Langston came out from Braska and inquired for Davies, and told him how glad he was to renew his acquaintance, and Davies greeted him with much reserve. This was the man who was travelling with Willett the June gone by, and just as it had at first affected Miss Loomis, so did the recollection now prejudice the officer against him. Langston saw it, but went quietly on with the business in hand.

"I am the bearer of a note to you from Mr. Willett, whose people, at least, are old friends of mine. He has gone home, at my advice, and it will be against my advice if he return here within a year. If he should do so, I wash my hands of him. It is not to make excuses for him or Burtis that I have come, but to ask you about one matter. On his way back to the agency your comrade Mr. Sanders came to town and heaped reproaches on Willett and on the proprietor of the restaurant, alleging that certain disreputable people were allowed to occupy the adjoining dining-room while the party from the fort was dancing. Cresswell was very indignant at the charge. He says that the party in the adjoining room was the family of old Pierre Robideau, from Kearney,--just himself, his wife and daughter, with a friend whom they called Mr. Powell, and it was Mr. Powell who paid the bill.

"Robideau is an old trader and trapper, but he and his people are honest and respectable as any in Braska, and the young man with them was supposed to be paying attention to the daughter. Robideau and his family went back to Kearney that night after a week's visit to friends up here in Braska. The daughter, Angie, had been here some time visiting a school friend. We feel sure you have made no such statement to Mr.

Sanders without some strong ground of suspicion. May I ask how you heard it so soon after your arrival?"

"I heard it before I got here," said Davies, quietly, "though when it was told me I had no idea my wife was one of the party. My orderly was cold and tired and we stopped at the Scott station at the point where the road crosses the railway to give him a cup of coffee and water the horses. There were some trappers and plainsmen in there, and one of them was telling with much gusto of the performances of a soldier of our troop who deserted that night,--how he had chartered the adjoining room to that in which the officers and ladies were dancing and had a whirl to the officers' music with some ladies of his own choosing, and the girls la.s.soed a waiter and hauled him into their room and got a bottle of the officers' champagne----"

"Pardon me, Mr. Davies, but do not these plainsmen rather like to tell big stories at the expense of the officers,--the bigger the better?"

"I believe so, and paid little attention to it at first, but among the listeners was a scout who went through last summer's campaign with us and did good service. He rode over to the post with me, and on the way we met a sergeant and two men of 'A' Troop, returning from an unsuccessful pursuit of deserters. They told the same story with some additions, and said the fellow openly boasted in Braska that afternoon that he was going to the dance. Then the scout admitted reluctantly that he had heard the story from several sources, and gave the names of the women who were said to have been introduced there, and they were not Robideau's family. The sergeant had heard just what the scout had as to the ident.i.ty of the intruders. Then on my arrival at home I learned that Mrs. Davies was one of the fort party, and Mrs. Stone and other ladies who were present referred to some rude creatures in a neighboring room who peeped and stared at the dancing. There was also awaiting me with my mail an anonymous letter, which I burned without reading through. Next I learned that the man who frightened them on the homeward way and then deserted after a fracas with Mr. Willett was Howard, of 'A' Troop, and that man's a.s.sociations in town are matters of notoriety. That was the chain that led to my belief in the story."

Langston looked grave. "And Howard was probably Robideau's friend, though Cresswell didn't know it! He had been paying court to Robideau's daughter during her visit to Braska, always in civilian dress and always claiming to be a civilian clerk in the quartermaster's department with a salary of twelve hundred a year. I have seen her friends in town where she visited, and they are very plain, honest, and well-to-do people, whose daughter was sent to Illinois to school and met Angeline Robideau there. They had another friend living in Cheyenne, and when they were up there visiting her for a few days they said Mr. Powell was coming up to spend one evening,--Powell is the name they all knew him by, and the belief is that Angie was much fascinated by him, and had met him East before meeting him here. Mr. Davies, I am glad to relieve your mind of one uncomfortable theory in connection with this affair. I wish I could extenuate or explain Willett's conduct as easily, but that young man is a fool of the first magnitude."

Davies had taken the note handed him by Langston and was mechanically turning it and twisting it in his fingers. His impulse was to toss it, as he had the anonymous billet, into the fire. There was something about the handwriting of the former that was vaguely familiar to him even through its disguise, but Willett's scrawling superscription he had never seen. Something told him, however, that anything of which a man of Langston's calibre chose to be the bearer was ent.i.tled to consideration.

He made no reply to Langston's closing words. He had fully made up his mind as to what his course should be, and what was the extent of Mira's misdoing. Just as he said to her, he blamed those who should have been her advisers and protectors far more than he blamed her, and as to this popinjay who had become infatuated with her beauty, though the lieutenant's blood boiled in wrath and indignation, his calmer judgment and his disciplined spirit tempered any and every expression. He had spent long, wakeful, prayerful hours in the silence and solemnity of the night, and no man knew the story of the struggle. He had trained himself to meet this man who had so openly and persistently shown himself a worshipper at the feet of his wife, and to meet him with cool contempt, yet the same hot blood that rioted in his veins when, long years before, he had downed the village scoffer who had ventured to ridicule his aged mother, now prompted him to horsewhip Willett should he venture again to visit the fort.

It was relief, therefore, to hear that he had gone.

At last he opened and read the note, a clumsy, cubbish attempt to explain his language in Sanders's room, and to say the package was absolutely nothing but some violets, to apologize for any and every annoyance he might have caused Mr. and Mrs. Davies, for whom he entertained nothing but sentiments of the most profound respect and esteem, and begging if ever they met again to be regarded as most sincerely their friend, etc.

"There is no answer," said Davies, as he finished it, a smile of contempt on his lips. "You must have known there couldn't be, did you not?"

"Well, I fancied as much. He had no friend to carry it for him unless I would, and the young idiot has gone off feeling profoundly wretched about the whole business, as he deserves to. Had I been here, as an old friend of his family, it would have been my right to warn him weeks ago, and to put a stop to his foolishness if he was not to be advised. More than that, Mr. Davies, I wish to say that ever since I met you on the train last June I felt an interest in you that would have prompted me to stand your friend in your absence whether I felt any interest in him or not. I should like to know you better and to convince you that I meant what I said when we parted there."

And Davies at last held out a cordial hand.

This was the afternoon before his early start, and though he left the post feeling that he had gained a friend worth having, Davies did not fully realize how dangerous a thing it was to leave a community of women, none of whom he had sought to placate and some of whom he had offended. Mrs. Darling had declared war against him, and Mrs. Stone, if not Mrs. Flight, was in full sympathy with her. How dare he say they were responsible for Mrs. Davies's flirtation? How dare he insinuate that they had led her to the forbidden shades of Cresswell's? There was a tempest in a teapot among Mrs. Stone's friends and a.s.sociates over Mrs. Darling's account of his rebuke to her, for Mrs. Darling had deftly managed to include Mrs. Stone and Mrs. Flight in the scope of his condemnation, and very possibly old Peleg might have been wrought up to pitch of sympathetic resentment but for the fact that he was concentrating all of his shattered faculties on the mysterious robbery of the adjutant's desk.

Captain Devers, relieved at last from command of the post and overshadowed by vague sense of official condemnation, was now, in hopeful imitation of the Homeric Achilles, sulking in his tent. Invited by Colonel Stone to appear at the office and give his counsel as to the matter, Captain Devers had replied that in view of the discourtesies to which he had been subjected at the hands of the adjutant he could hardly be expected to care to visit the building except when compelled to do so, and having been relieved from command under circ.u.mstances indicative of disapproval of his methods, he should consider it indelicate on his part to say what he thought of the matter in question.

But the orderly trumpeter had told the sergeant-major that Captain Devers was on the piazza looking in the adjutant's window when the gentlemen were there examining the map, and that he entered the hall-way. The sergeant-major told Mr. Leonard, and Leonard was actually startled. He conveyed the information to Pegleg, and Pegleg sent his compliments to Captain Devers with the information that his immediate presence was desired, so Devers came, and shrewdly guessed what was the cause. Certainly, he said, he went to the office to get certain papers that he had left in the commanding officer's desk. He did look in for one instant through the adjutant's window, attracted by the unusual sight of the adjutant, the chaplain, and his own subaltern, of whose services he had been deprived, in apparent consultation. They were so absorbed in talk that they did not hear him as he entered his own office or when he left. Certainly he lit no candle; he needed none. He knew just where his papers were, got them, and came away. Did he leave before or after the others? Really, that was a matter he couldn't answer. He was absorbed in his own reflections when he came out and couldn't say whether the other gentlemen were there or not.

Pegleg asked whether he had any theory as to the disappearance of the batch of papers from Leonard's desk, and Devers said he had none whatever, he didn't know how the matter could be supposed to interest him. He did not inquire the means resorted to, but perhaps that was unnecessary, as the drawer had evidently been forced by a heavy chisel and the woodwork about the lock was crushed. Leonard glowered at him with stormy eyes during the brief interview but, true to his notions of subordination, asked no questions whatever. It was the colonel who presently gave it up as a hopeless job and dismissed the cavalryman with a brief, "Well, that will do, captain; I see you can't help us," and Devers left with livid, twitching face. He had no fear of Stone, weakened as he evidently was both physically and mentally by his recent shock. It was that silent, gloomy thunder-cloud of an adjutant he dreaded, and with good reason. There was an unsettled account between these men and one that Devers would have been glad indeed to drop, but Leonard was a man who never let go. "I hate to have you leave just now,"

he said to Davies, "for I know we shall need you presently."

But once more there was a week of no communication with the Ogallalla agency. Three days of blizzard and three of repairs before the flimsy telegraph line could be used again. Mrs. Davies, busily occupied in putting her new house in order, was aided by Mrs. McPhail and one of the ladies from the cantonment, who, happening to be visiting the agent's wife when the storm broke, found it pleasanter to remain there than go back to the log huts across that mile of blast-swept prairie. The Indians, with the stoicism of their race, huddled in their foul, smoky tepees instead of swarming about the agency, and except Davies's detachment none of the command appeared. It was therefore a rather busy time for Mira, as there was abundant opportunity for conversation, and both Mrs. McPhail and Mrs. Plodder rejoiced in so interested a listener.

The three seemed to be getting along together famously, a fact which Davies noted with the same half-dreamy, half-amused smile. It was a relief in seeing her really interested in setting her little house to rights, but it was as evidently a relief to her that the otherwise inevitable visitors were blockaded by the storm. Davies really did not know which she dreaded most, the Cranstons or the Indians.

It was the latter who were the first to call. The gale went down with the sun one night, and the morning dawned clear and fine. Up with the sun, true to his cavalry teaching, Davies had been out superintending the grooming and feeding of his horses. He and Mira were at breakfast and Mrs. Plodder had come to help. Trooper Gaffney was the household cook for the time being, and a good one. The coffee was excellent, despite the fact that Gaffney could get no cream, and condensed milk was the only subst.i.tute obtainable. The steak was juicy and tender, as the finest of the contractor's beef was sure to go to the agency itself, and Gaffney's soda biscuits were enticing, whatsoever might be the after-effect. The two ladies were chatting in very good spirits when one considers the depths of woe from which Mira had so recently emerged, and the lieutenant was beginning to take some comfort in the outlook, when all on a sudden Mira turned a chalky white, screamed violently, and cowered almost under the table, her face hidden in her hands. Davies's instant thought was of the repeated whisper of warning that came to him regarding Red Dog, but Mrs. Plodder's merry peal of laughter rea.s.sured him, as he whirled to confront what proved to be the foe. There on the porch without, crouching low, shading their eyes with their broad brown paws, their painted faces almost flattened against the window, three Indians, a brave and two squaws,--all innocent of any violation of etiquette or decorum, but just as their kith and kin and instincts taught them,--were staring hungrily into the room. To Eastern readers it would have seemed bare, homely, plain in the last degree; to the untutored minds of these children of the prairie it spoke of wealth, luxury, and plenty. Peering over the shoulders of one of the squaws, from its perch on her toil-bowed back, was a wee pappoose, its beady little black eyes gleaming, its tiny face expressive of emotions that in later years it would speedily learn to suppress,--wonderment and interest. A thinly-clad girl of five or six clung to the mother with one hand and clutched her little blanket with the other. They all looked cold and hungry, and the big eyes wore that dumb, professionally pathetic look which these born beggars are adepts in a.s.suming.

"Go 'way! Scat!" called Mrs. Plodder, with appropriate gesticulation as she waved them aside. "You're darkening the room." But for answer the visitors only huddled the closer and mournfully patted and rubbed the region of their stomachs. Davies, laughing, went to the door and called them in, which signal they promptly obeyed, and came trooping smilingly after the stalking warrior, who took the lead as he would have taken anything else. Mira by this time had backed into a corner, where she cowered in terror, but Mrs. Plodder laughingly shook hands with the man as Davies pa.s.sed them in, and then blockaded him in an opposite corner where he could not lay hands on anything they might give the squaws and children. He wanted to shake hands with Mira, too, but she implored them to keep him away. Davies took the little girl by the arm and led her to his wife. "Do look at her, dear, and see what a pretty, intelligent face she has. I want you to know how really friendly they mean to be." And still Mira shrank and trembled. The younger woman was a Minneconjou girl, with frank, attractive, almost pretty face. She dropped her blanket from her head and let it fall about her calico-covered shoulders, smiling affably about her, but eying the breakfast things appreciatively. Davies held out a lump of sugar to the baby, which that embryo warrior grasped eagerly and thrust into his ready maw, and then b.u.t.tering one of Gaffney's biscuits and calling for a fresh supply, the lieutenant, with Mrs. Plodder lending active aid, began feeding their unbidden guests. Gaffney came in with a heaping platter of his productions and a pitcher of maple syrup. "This is what they like, mum,"

said he to the lady of the house. "Give that little kid a mola.s.ses sandwhich and she'll be your friend for life. Heap walk? heap hungry?"

he continued, addressing the head of the family, in sympathetic tone.

"Heap walk--plenty heap hungry," was the warrior's prompt response, with appropriate pantomime and immediate lapse of dignity. Mrs. Plodder had cut off a big slice of the steak and handed it to the mother with rea.s.suring gesture, but that well-disciplined wife pa.s.sed it immediately on to her lord, and in eloquent silence pleaded with open hand and eyes for more. "The heathens!" exclaimed Mrs. Plodder. "We'd cure them of that notion in no time, wouldn't we, Mrs. Davies?" But Mira was watching the Minneconjou maiden, forgetful even of the adulation in the eyes of the little five-year-old girl now licking the syrup off her slab of soldier bread and gazing adoringly up into the shrinking donor's face.

Miss Minneconjou had caught sight of her own winsome face in a mirror that hung in a stained-wood frame opposite Mira's seat, and with no little shy giggling was revelling in the study of her charms even while busily munching the big biscuit in her slender brown hand. Here was a trait that formed a bond of sympathy, and Mira took courage. It is not the contemplation of their n.o.bler qualities, but their weaknesses, that puts us on easy terms with our fellow-men. Breakfast promised to last a long time. Gaffney, with the adaptability of the trooper of years of service on the frontier, had been worming something of their visitors'

story out of them. The average Indian never wants to tell his name, but gets a friend to give it for him. It proved, however, to be Bear-Rides-Double who, with his wife, sister, and little ones, had honored them with this early visit, and after riding double long years among his people, this young chief had come afoot long miles to see the Great Father's man and lodge a complaint. He had actually walked from the Minneconjou village, five thousand yards away down-stream. But for the chance of making a theatrical _coup_ Bear-Rides-Double could easily have borrowed a pony, even though his own were gone to pay a poker debt incurred within thirty-six hours, and when he waked up the morning after the protracted play he found that Pulls Hard and the half-breed "squaw man" with whom he had been gambling had not only played him with cogged dice, but plied him with drugged liquor, and then gone off with his war ponies as well as the rest. He wanted the Great Father to redress his wrongs, recover his stock, and give him another show with straight cards, and then he'd show Pulls Hard and Sioux Pete a trick or two of his own. Davies had proffered chairs during this recital, which Gaffney managed between the sign language and a species of "pidgin English,"

called "soldier Sioux," to interpret for him, but the family preferred to squat on the floor. Mrs. Plodder, tiring of the diplomatic features, took Miss Minneconjou into Mira's room to show her the pretty gifts the pale-face bride had brought with her, and Mira, with her five-year-old friend toddling alongside, speedily followed. Davies strove to make the double equestrian understand that he had no authority in the premises, and that McPhail was the proper person to apply to, but the warrior wished to deal only with his kind,--a heap brave chief,--the conqueror of the redoubtable Red Dog. He could get more to eat through him in any event, and in the midst of it all Gaffney came in from a brief visit to his kitchen to say that Sioux Pete, the malefactor in question, was actually in the corral at that moment trying to sell two ponies to the sergeant of the guard. Leaving Gaffney to the duty of entertaining his guests, Davies went out to investigate. Pete had come over from Red Dog's camp with some of his plunder, and had no idea the complainant had forestalled him. Pete spoke English,--that is, plains English,--but he shrank a little at sight of the tall, grave-faced young officer of whom Red Dog's people spoke with bated breath.

"You want how much for these ponies?" asked the lieutenant, as though he had heard the talk.

"Tirty dollar."

"Where are the others?"

"No got."

"You rode off with four ponies from the lodge of Bear-Rides-Double two nights ago. Where are the other two?"

Pete turned sickly gray. Could this white-faced soldier read visions and dreams and thoughts? Was he a medicine-man?

"No got," he sullenly answered once more.

"You will leave these two with me for safe-keeping," said Davies, "and go and fetch the others at once, even if you have to take them from Pulls Hard, and get back here with them at noon without fail. No, you need not appeal to the agent, or I'll tell him that you loaded Bear with drugged liquor and marked cards and cogged dice. Off with you, Pete," he continued, and the half-breed rode away on his Cayuse pony with scared face, and told in the camp of Red Dog that the young chief Davies was a seer, a mind-reader as well as a brave who feared not to grapple their war chief; and when he was gone, Bear-Rides-Double was summoned and bidden to ride double if he could, but to go and sin no more with cogged dice, and the Minneconjou looked with evident awe and wonderment upon the grave, reticent cavalryman, and went away homeward on one of the recovered ponies, his women-folk, laden with Mira's discarded finery and leading the other, trudging contentedly along behind him afoot.

"You'll be a heap bigger man among the Indians than the agent can ever hope to be, lieutenant," said Gaffney, with an Irish grin.