CHAPTER I.
The stage coach was invisible in a cloud of its own dust as it lurched
and rolled along the alkali flats down the valley, and Sancho, the ranch-keeper,
could not make out whether any passengers were on top or not. He had brought
a fine binocular to bear just as soon as the shrill voice of Pedro, a swarthy
little scamp of a half-breed, announced the dust-cloud sailing over the
clump of willows below the bend. Pedro was not the youngster's original
name, and so far as could be determined by ecclesiastical records, owing
to the omission of the customary church ceremonies, he bore none that the
chaplain at old Camp Cooke would admit to be Christian. Itinerant prospectors
and occasional soldiers, however, [Pg 6]had suggested a change from the
original, or aboriginal, title which was heathenish in the last degree,
to the much briefer one of Pedro, as fitting accompaniment to that of the
illustrious head of the establishment, and Lieutenant Blake, an infantry
sub with cavalry aspirations which had led him to seek arduous duties in
this arid land, had comprehensively damned the pretensions of the place
to being a "dinner ranch," by declaring that a shop that held Sancho and
Pedro and didn't have game was unworthy of patronage. Sancho had additional
reasons for disapproving of Blake. That fine binocular, to begin with,
bore the brand of Uncle Sam, for which reason it was never in evidence
when an officer or soldier happened along. It had been abstracted from
Blake's signal kit, when he was scouting the Dragoon Mountains, and swapped
for the vilest liquor under the sun, at Sancho's, of course, and the value
of the glass, not of the whisky, was stopped against the long lieutenant's
pay, leaving him, as he ruefully put it, "short enough at [Pg 7]the end
of the month." Somebody told Blake he would find his binocular at Sancho's,
and Blake instituted inquiries after his own peculiar fashion the very
next time he happened along that way.
"Here, you Castilian castaway," said he, as he alighted at Sancho's
door, "I am told you have stolen property in the shape of my signal glass.
Hand it over instanter!"
And Sancho, bowing with the grace of a grandee of Spain, had assured
the Señor Teniente that everything within his gates was at his service,
without money and without price, had promptly fetched from an adjoining
room a battered old double-barreled lorgnette, that looked as though it
might have been dropped in the desert by Kearny or Fauntleroy, or some
of the dragoons who made the burning march before the Gadsden purchase
of 1853 made us possessors of more desert sand and desolate range than
we have ever known what to do with.
"This thing came out of the ark," said Blake, rightfully wrathful. "What
I want is the signal glass that deserter sold you for whisky last Christmas."[Pg
8]
Whereat Sancho called on all the saints in the Spanish calendar to
bear witness to his innocence, and bade the teniente search the premises.
"He's got it in that bedroom yonder," whispered old Sergeant Feeney,
"and I know it, sir."
And Blake, striding to the door in response to the half-challenge, half-invitation
of the gravely courteous cutthroat owner, stopped short at the threshold,
stared, whipped off his scouting hat, and, bowing low, said: "I beg your
pardon, señora, señorita; I did not know—" and retired in
much disorder.
"Why didn't you tell me your family had come, you disreputable old rip?"
demanded he, two minutes later, "or is that too—stolen property?"
"It is the wife of my brother and his daughter," responded the ranchman
with unruffled suavity.
Nothing could equal Sancho's equanimity in the presence of those he
desired to placate; nothing exceed the frenzy of his wrath when[Pg 9] angered
by those whom he could harm without fear of reprisals. Blake was backed
by a troop of horse and the conviction that Sancho was an unmitigated rascal;
therefore were his palpable allusions to be accepted as mere pleasantries
or deprecated as unmerited injustice. Blake had blackened the character
of the ranch cuisine, even if he had been unequal to the task of blackening
that of the owner. Blake had declared Sancho's homestead to be a den of
thieves, and the repast tendered the stage passengers a Barmecide feast—the
purport of which was duly reported to Sancho, who declared he would ultimately
carve his opinion of Blake on that officer's elongated carcass, and until
he could find opportunity so to do it behooved him to lull the suspicions
of the prospective victim by elaborate courtesy of manner, and of this
is the Spaniard or his Mexican half-brother consummate master. Blake left
without a glimpse of his glass, but not without another of "the daughter
of my brother" but recently arrived, and that peep made him[Pg 10] desirous
of a third. Riding away, he waved his hand.
"Adios, Sancho; hasta otra vista!" he had hailed, but his gaze sought
the little window in the adobe wall where a pair of dark, languorous eyes
peered out from between the parted curtains and a dusky face dodged out
of view the instant it saw it was seen. What Sancho said in answer is not
recorded, but now he was watching the coming of the stage from Yuma. Some
one had warned him Lieutenant Blake would return that way, ordered back
to the old post to the north as witness before an important court-martial.
Those were later termed "the days of the Empire" in Arizona. Perhaps
five thousand souls were counted within its borders at the time our story
opens, not counting the soulless Apaches. Arizona had the customary territorial
equipment of a governor, certain other officials constituting the cabinet,
and a secretary. Nine men out of the dozen Americans in the only approach
to a town it then possessed—Tucson—would have said "Damfino"[Pg 11] if
asked who was the secretary, but all men knew the sheriff. The grave, cigarro-smoking,
serape-shrouded caballeros who rode at will through the plaza and ogled
dark-eyed maidens peeping from their barred windows, could harbor no interest
in the question of who was president of the United States, but the name
of the post commander at Grant, Lowell or Crittenden was a household word,
and in the eyes of the populace the second lieutenant commanding the paymaster's
escort was illimitably "a bigger man" than the thrice distinguished soldier
and citizen whose sole monument, up to that time, was the flagstaff at
the adobe corral and barracks sacred to his name. Mr. Blake had never been
in such a God-forsaken country or community before, but there was something
in the utter isolation, the far-stretching waste of shimmering sand, the
desolate mountain ranges sharply outlined, hostile and forbidding, the
springless, streamless, verdureless plains of this stricken land, that
harmonized with the somewhat savage and cynical humor in which he had sought
service in the most in[Pg 12]tolerable clime then open to the troops of
Uncle Sam. Blake had been jilted and took it bitterly to heart. Wearing
the willow himself, he cherished it as the only green and growing thing
in the Gila valley; whereas, had he sought sympathy he would have found
other young gentlemen similarly decorated, and therefore as content as
he to spend the months or possibly years of their embittered life just
as far from the madding crowd and, as Blake cynically put it, "as near
hell." Blake was a man of distinction, as relatives went, and those were
days when friends at court had more to do with a fellow's sphere of duty—very
much more—than had the regimental commander or even the adjutant-general.
Blake took Arizona in preference to a tour in the signal office at Washington.
He wanted to get as far away from the national capital and the favorite
haunt of "the Army and Navy forever" as he possibly could. It was the most
natural thing in the world to him that he should ask for duty in the land
of deserts, centipedes, rattlesnakes, and Apaches. He put it[Pg 13] on
the ground of serious bronchial trouble which could be cured only in a
dry climate, but the war office knew as well as the navy department that
it was an affair of the heart and not of the throat. He wasn't the first
man, by any manner of means, to fall in love with Madeleine Torrance, the
prettiest girl and most unprincipled flirt that ever wore the navy button
or tormented a sailor father. Blake sought the roughest duty—that of escorting
inspectors, staff officers or paymasters on their wearisome trips through
the wilderness—and no one denied him. The cavalry was short of officers
and he got assigned to Sanford's troop, and the biggest surprise that had
come since his commission met him one day at Gila Bend, when that same
old red stage, a relic of California days, emerged from the dust-cloud
of its own manufacture, and a quiet youth in pepper-and-salt and sand-colored
costume, looked up from behind a pair of green goggles saying:
"Hullo, Blake!"
It was the voice, not the face, that the tall trooper recognized.[Pg
14]
"Well—of—all—the—Why, what in the name of Pegasus brings you here,
Loring? I thought you had graduated into the engineers."
"Fact," said the newcomer sententiously.
"Well, what's an engineer doing in Arizona? I'd as soon look to see
an archbishop."
"Scouting," said the dust-colored man. "Where's dinner?"
"In the shack yonder, if your stomach's copper-lined. Better come over
to my camp and take pot-luck there."
Which Loring gladly did, and then went on his dusty way, leaving Blake
with something to think of beside his own woes. Within half a year of his
graduation from West Point the young engineer, one of the stars of his
class, had been ordered to report to the general commanding the Division
of the Pacific and was set to work on a military map in that general's
office. Loring found all maps of Arizona to be vague and incomplete, and
was ordered forthwith to go to the territory and gather in the needed data.
That he, too, should be lass-lorn never for a moment occurred to his comrade
of[Pg 15] the line. Had such facts been confessed among the exiles of those
days many a comradeship of the far frontier would have been strengthened.
That the girl who duped Gerald Blake should have been known to her who
had captivated Mr. Loring was suspected by neither officer at the time,
and that, despite the efforts and the resolution of both men, both women
were destined to reappear upon the stage, and temporarily, at least, reassume
their sway, was something neither soldier would have admitted possible.
Yet stranger things had happened, and stranger still were destined to happen,
and the first step in the drama was taken within the fortnight of this
chance meeting at Gila Bend.
Sancho, studying the coming stage with Blake's binocular until it dove
into the arroyo five hundred yards to the west, handed that costly instrument
to the silent, dumpy, dark-skinned woman who stood patiently at his side,
and said briefly, "Dos" at which she vanished, and after restoring the
glass to its hiding-place in her bedroom, was heard uplifting a shrill,[Pg
16] raucous voice at the back of the house, ordering dinner to be ready
for two. When the vehicle came rattling up to the door Sancho stood at
his threshold, the old lorgnette in hand, bowing profoundly as two travelers,
officers of the army apparently, emerged in their dusters and stiffly alighted.
"Have any letters or dispatches been left here for me?" asked in quiet
tone the elder of the two, limping slightly as he advanced, leaving to
his comrade the responsibility of seeing that none of their luggage had
been jolted out of the rickety vehicle. One or two hangers-on came languidly,
yet inquisitively, within earshot.
For answer the ranch-keeper, with another elaborate bow, produced a
bulky official envelope. The officer hastily glanced at the superscription,
said "This is for me," strode within the adobe-walled corral, halted under
a screen of brown canvas, and there tore open the packet. Several personal
letters fell to the ground, but he at first paid little heed to them. Rapidly
his eyes ran over a sheet of closely-[Pg 17]written matter, then he turned
to the silent and ceremonious ranchman.
"When did this come?" he asked.
"At sunset yesterday, Señor Comandante."
"Where's the courier?"
"He returned before dawn to-day."
The loungers drew still nearer as the senior calmly turned to his companion,
who, having assured himself that their impedimenta were all safe, came
with quick, springy step to join him.
"Where do you suppose Blake and his detachment to be at this moment,
Loring?"
"Perhaps thirty miles ahead, sir; over toward Maricopa. Do you need
him, colonel?"
"Yes, and at once. Our bird has flown. In other words, Nevins has skipped."[Pg
18]
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CHAPTER II.
Just what an officer's actual rank might be in the days that followed
close on the heels of the war was a matter no man could tell from either
his dress or address. Few indeed were they who escaped the deluge of brevets
that poured over the army and soaked some men six deep. There were well-authenticated
cases of well-preserved persons who had never so much as seen a battle,
and were yet, on one pretext or another, brevetted away up among the stars
for "faithful and meritorious services" recruiting, mustering or disbursing.
We had colonels by title whose functions were purely those of the file-closer.
We had generals by brevet who had never set squadron in the field and didn't
know the difference between a pole yoke and a pedometer. Every captain,
except one or two who had laughingly declined, wore the straps of field
officers, some few even of[Pg 19] generals, and so when one heard a military-looking
man addressed as colonel the chances were ten to one that he was drawing
only the stipend of a company officer, and in matters of actual rank in
the army it was money that talked.
But there could be no questioning the right of the senior of the two
officers who had alighted at Sancho's to the title of colonel. Soldier
stood out all over him, even though his garb was concealed by a nondescript
duster. His face, lined, thin-lipped and resolute, was tanned by desert
suns and winds. His hair, once brown, was almost white. His beard, once
flowing and silky, was cropped to a gray stubble. His steely blue eyes
snapped under their heavy thatch, his head was carried high and well back,
and his soft felt hat, wide-brimmed, was pulled down over the brows. His
deep chest, square shoulders, erect carriage and straight muscular legs
all told of days and years in the field, and every word he uttered had
about it the crisp, clear-cut ring of command. It was safe to bet that
no mere[Pg 20] company was the extent of this soldiers authority, and Sancho,
keen observer, had put him down for a lieutenant-colonel at least. Full
colonels were mostly older men, and Arizona had but one in "the days of
the Empire."
The ranchman had eagerly whispered questions to the loungers as to the
identity of the two arrivals, but without success. Both were strangers,
although the junior had been seen at the ranch once before, the day Blake's
troop was camped there on the way back from the Dragoons. There was the
packet left by the orderly to be called for by officers arriving on the
Yuma stage, addressed in clerkly hand, but Sancho, alas! could not read.
Hovering as near as the gravity and dignity of his station would permit,
he had heard the colonel's query about Blake. He pricked up his ears at
once. Teniente Blake! Thirty miles east on the Maricopa road! Why, how
was this? Some one had told him Blake had been to the Colorado and was
coming back by this very stage. How did Blake get to the east of[Pg 21]
Sancho's ranch, after having once gone west, without Sancho's knowing it?
Suspiciously he watched the two soldiers, the grizzled colonel, the slim
lieutenant. They were talking together in low tones, at least the colonel
was talking, eagerly, energetically, and with much gesticulation. The junior
listened wordless to every word. What had he meant by "the bird had flown?"
Why should Nevins "skip?" An unpleasant fear seized upon Sancho. He knew
Nevins, at least a Nevins, a captain whom everybody knew, in fact, and
few men trusted. What had Nevins been doing? or rather, what that he had
been doing was he to be held to account for? Why should the colonel so
eagerly ask where they could reach Blake? Time was when Sancho flattered
himself that there was no deviltry going on in Arizona, except such as
originated with the Indians, in which he had not at least the participation
of full knowledge, yet here came two officials, hastening by stage instead
of marching with military deliberation and escort, and they were in quest
of the Señor Capitan Nev[Pg 22]ins of whom all men had heard and
at whose hands many had suffered, for was not he a player whom the very
cards seemed to obey? Was it not he who broke the bank at Bustamente's
during the fiesta at Tucson but five months agone? Was it not Nevins who
won all the money those two young tenientes possessed—two boys from the
far East just joining their regiment and haplessly falling into the hands
of this dashing, dapper, wholesouled, hospitable comrade who made his temporary
quarters their home until they could find opportunity to go forward to
the distant posts where their respective companies were stationed? Was
it not Nevins who, right there at Sancho's ranch, finding a party of prospectors,
several ex-Confederate soldiers among them, languidly staking silver at
the monte table presided over by Sancho's own brother, had calmly opened
a faro "layout" and enticed every man from the legitimate game and every
peso from their pockets before the two-day's session was finished? Well
did Sancho recall his own wrath and that of his brother at this unlicensed[Pg
23] interference with their special business, and the surprising liberality,
too, with which the Señor Capitan had silenced their remonstrance.
Rascal though he was, Sancho had sense enough to know that such proceedings
were not seemly in a man bearing the commission of an officer. But Sancho
little knew how many a congressman along at the close of the war, finding
himself compelled to provide some kind of living for political "heelers,"
or some impersonal reward for services rendered, had foisted his henchmen
into the army, then being enlarged and reorganized, and Nevins was one
of the results of the iniquitous system.
Commissioned a first lieutenant of a regiment that had had a proud record
in the regular division of the Army of the Potomac, and had been hurried
at the close of the war to the Pacific coast, Nevins had joined at Fort
Yuma and served a few weeks' apprenticeship as a file-closer, just long
enough to demonstrate that he knew nothing whatever about soldiering and
too much about poker. All his seniors in grade, except the West Pointers[Pg
24] graduated in '65, had brevets for war service, and Nevins' sponsor
was appealed to to rectify the omission in the lieutenant's case. Nevins
had held a commission in a volunteer regiment in the defenses of Washington
the last few months of the war, and that was found amply sufficient, when
a prominent member of the committee on military affairs demanded it, to
warrant the bestowal of a brevet for "gallant and meritorious services."
Hence came the title of captain. Then, as company duty proved irksome,
and Nevins' company and post commander both began to stir him up for his
manifold negligences and ignorances, the aid of his patron in congress
was again invoked. A crippled veteran who could do no field service was
in charge of a supply camp for scouting parties, escorts, detachments,
etc., and, to the wrath of the regimental officers, this veteran was relieved
and Lieutenant and Brevet-Captain Nevins by department orders was detailed
in his place. This made him independent of almost everybody, beside placing
in his hands large quan[Pg 25]tities of commissary and quartermaster stores
which were worth far more to the miner, prospector and teamster than their
invoice price. The stories that began to come into Yuma and Drum Barracks,
and other old-time stations, of the "high jinks" going on day and night
at Nevins' camp, the orders for liquors, cigars and supplies received at
San Francisco and filled by every stage or steamer, the lavish entertainment
accorded to officers of any grade and to wayfarers with any sign of money,
the complaints of victims who had been fleeced, the gloomy silence of certain
fledgling subalterns after brief visits at "Camp Ochre," as Blake had dubbed
it, all pointed significantly to but one conclusion, that, so far from
living on his pay, Nevins was gormandizing on that of everybody else, and
doubtless "raising the wind" in other ways at the expense of Uncle Sam.
Even in Arizona in the days of the Empire it could not last forever. Easy
come, easy go. Nevins had lavishly spent what was so lightly won. Tucson
and Yuma City were within easy stage ride, even San Francisco[Pg 26] had
twice been found accessible. Dashing associates of both sexes were ever
at hand. The sudden turn of the tide came with the order that broke up
the supply camp, required him to turn over his funds and stores to the
quartermaster at Camp Cooke, and report for duty in person at that post.
Then came the expected discovery of grievous shortages in both funds and
property, the order for the arrest of the delinquent officer and his trial
by court-martial. Colonel Turnbull, inspector-general of the department,
was hurried out from the shores of the Pacific to sit as one of the senior
members of the court. Lieutenant Loring, vainly striving along the Gila
to find some resemblance between its tracing on a government map and its
meanderings through the desert, was selected to perform the duties of judge
advocate. The court was authorized to sit without regard to hours, and
to sift the official career of the protégé of the house committee
of military affairs without regard to consequence, when that volatile and
accused person took matters into his own hands, and[Pg 27] between the
setting and rising of the sun, disappeared from the brush, canvas and adobe
shelters of old Camp Cooke and left for parts unknown, taking with him
the best horse in the commanding officer's stable, and, as genius has ever
its followers, the admiration if not the regard of much of the garrison.
But other followers were needed at once. "That man must be caught at
any cost, Loring," said the colonel. "No one begins to know the extent
of his rascalities, and you and Blake must catch him."
For answer the engineer took out his watch—it was just a quarter to
one—stepped out into the glare of the sunshine and gazed to the far horizon.
The plain to the east was flat as a board for many a mile and well nigh
as barren. Then he turned sharply on Sancho. "Dinner ready?" he asked.
"In one—two minutes, Señor Capitan," responded the ranchman gravely,
conferring on the officer the brevet of courtesy.
Out in front of the ranch the old red stage, long since faded to a dun
color, stood baking[Pg 28] in the burning rays. The mules had been taken
into the corral for water, fodder and shade. The driver was regaling himself
within the bar. The few loungers, smoking, but silent, seemed dozing the
noontide away. Loring stepped to the side of the vehicle and drew forth
a leather valise, swung it to his shoulder and strode back to where the
colonel stood pondering under the canvas screen.
"Good hefting power in that right arm of his," muttered one of the loungers
to a mate sprawled full length on the sand beneath the shelter of the tent
fly, and watching the officer from under his half-closed lids. A grunt
of assent was the only reply.
"Know what regiment he belongs to?" queried number one.
"No, but it's cavalry," was the murmured answer. "Saw him straddling
a broncho at Maricopa Wells last week. He knows how."
Somewhere within the ranch a triangle began to jangle. "Quim-a-do!"
shrilled little Pete, and three or four lazy, drowsing forms began slowly
to get to their feet and to shuffle[Pg 29] away toward the doorless aperture
in the adobe wall, the entrance to the dining-room of the stage and ranch
people. Two men lingered, the two who were speculating as to the military
connections of the young officer. One of them, after a quiet glance about
the neighborhood, strolled out toward the stage, hands deep in the pockets
of his wide trousers. There he seemed casually to repeat his leisurely
survey of the surroundings, then he lounged back.
"No go," said he, in low tones, "both of 'em there yet. Young feller
changing his dress. Their dinner's ready though. The colonel's writing."
Presently Sancho, grave and deliberate as became his race, emerged from
the shadows of the bar and came close before he spoke.
"He goes to ride—that youth. Know you whither? And he has no horse."
And, as though to confirm this statement, with his quick, elastic step,
Loring came forth to the side gate, dumped his valise into the stage, turned
and looked keenly over the group, then as quickly approached them. He[Pg
30] had discarded his linen coat and trousers in favor of a pair of brown
cord breeches with Hualpai leggings and light spurs. A broad belt with
knife and revolver was buckled to his waist. A silk handkerchief was loosely
knotted at his throat. A light-colored felt hat was pulled down to his
eyebrows, and dust-colored gantlets were drawn upon his hands. "Sancho,"
said he, "have that roan of yours saddled in ten minutes. How much if I
keep him a week?"
"Everything in my house is at the service of the Señor Capitan,"
began Sancho grandiloquently, "but as to that horse——"
"No other will do. How much a week? though I may keep him only a day."
"Señor, he is the horse of my brother, and my brother is not
here. If harm should come——"
"Full value will be paid. Here!" and a glittering gold piece, a double
eagle, flashed in the sun. "Waste no talk now. Take this and saddle him."
Slowly, gingerly, with thumb and finger[Pg 31] tips the ranchman plucked
the coin from the open and extended palm, then bowed with the same native
grace and gravity.
"Come, Loring," growled the colonel impatiently, "dinner," and Sancho
caught the name.
"The Señor Loreeng—will not ride him hard—or far? It is to the
camp of the major he goes?"
But, turning on his heel, not another word would Loring say. Ten minutes
later, his hunger appeased with bacon, frijoles and chocolate, he mounted
and rode quietly away eastward until Sancho's ranch was two miles behind,
then gave the roan both rein and spur and sped like the wind up the Gila,
two of Sancho's oldest customers vainly lashing on his trail.[Pg 32]
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CHAPTER III.
Three days later, just at sundown, the loungers at Sancho's were treated
to a sensation. Up from the south—the old Tucson trail—came, dusty, travel-stained
and weary, half a troop of cavalry, escorting, apparently, some personage
of distinction, for he was an object of the utmost care and attention on
part of the lieutenant commanding and every man in the detachment. As the
cavalcade approached the dun-colored walls of the corral and, without a
word or sign to the knot of curious spectators gathered at the bar-room
door, filed away to the spot where wandering commands of horse were accustomed
to bivouac for the night (tents would have been superfluous in that dry,
dewless atmosphere), the women whispering together behind their screened
window place, stared the harder at sight of the leaders. One was Lieutenant
Blake—no[Pg 33] mistaking him, the longest legged man in Arizona. Another
was big Sergeant Feeney, a veteran who bad seen better days and duties,
but served his flag in the deserts of the Gila as sturdily as ever he fought
along the Shenandoah three years before. Between these two, dapper, slender,
natty, with his hat set jauntily on one side and his mustache and imperial
twirled to the proportions of toothpicks, rode a third cavalier whom every
one recognized instantly as the fugitive of Camp Cooke, the urgently-sought
Captain Nevins. And, though Nevins' arms and legs were untrammeled by shackles
of any kind, it was plain to see that he was a helpless prisoner. He had
parted with his belt and revolver. His spurs were ravished from his heels,
and his bridle-rein, cut in two, was shared between Blake and his faithful
sergeant. Behind these three rode another set. Sandwiched between two troopers
was a man whom Sancho's people well remembered as Nevins' clerk and assistant,
despite the fact that a bushy beard now covered the face that was smooth-shaven
in the[Pg 34] halcyon days of the supply camp. Then came some thirty horsemen
in long, straggling column of twos, while, straight from the flank to the
gate of the corral, silent and even somber, rode the engineer, Lieutenant
Loring. To him Sancho whipped off his silver-laced sombrero and bowed,
while two jaded-looking vaqueros, after one long yet furtive stare, glanced
quickly at each other and sidled away to the nearest aperture in the wall
of the ranch, which happened to be the dining-room door. Loring mechanically
touched his hat-brim in recognition of the ranch-keeper's obeisance, but
there was no liking in his eye. At the gate he slowly, somewhat stiffly,
dismounted, for it was evident he had ridden long and far. The roan with
hanging head tripped eagerly, yet wearily, to his accustomed stall, and
a swarthy Mexican unloosed at once the cincha and removed the horsehair
bridle. Thus Sancho and the engineer were left by themselves, though inquisitive
ranch folk sauntered to the gateway and peered after them into the corral.
Over at the little clump[Pg 35] of willows Blake's men were throwing their
carbines across their shoulders and dismounting as they reached the old
familiar spot, and Loring cast one look thither before he spoke.
"Who were the two men who followed me?" he calmly asked, and his eyes,
though red-rimmed and inflamed by the dust of the desert, looked straight
into the dark face of the aggrieved Sancho.
"Surely I know not, Señor Teniente"—he had dropped the "capitan"
as too transparent flattery.
"Don't lie, Sancho. There's ten more dollars," and Loring tossed an
eagle into the ready palm. "That's thirty, and I shall want that horse
again in the morning."
"To-morrow, señor! Why, he will not be fit to go."
But to this observation Mr. Loring made no reply. Straight from Sancho's
side he walked down the corral, halted behind two rangy, hard-looking steeds
that showed still the effects of recent severe usage, and these he studied
coolly and thoroughly a few minutes, while[Pg 36] peering from two narrow
slits in the ranch wall between the windows two sun-tanned frontiersmen
as closely studied him. With these latter, peeping from the shaded window,
was "the wife of my brother," exchanging with them comments in low, guarded
tones. In the adjoining room, a bedroom, a girl of perhaps sixteen, slender,
graceful and dark-eyed, peeped in the opposite direction, over toward the
willows where Blake's men were now unsaddling—whence presently, with giant
strides came Blake himself, stalking over the sand. Sancho, despite his
anxious scrutiny of Loring's silent movements, saw the coming officer and
prepared his countenance for smiles. But with a face set and forbidding
Blake went sternly by, taking no notice of the proprietor, and made directly
for the little group now muttering at the dining-room door. The loungers,
some of whom had deserted the supper-table for a sight of the captives
and the cavalcade, sidled right and left as though to avoid his eye, for
into each face, most of them hang-dog visages, he gazed sharply as though[Pg
37] in search of some one, yet never faltered in his stride. Back from
her barred window shrank the young girl as the tall soldier came within
a dozen paces. To one side or another, smoke inhaling, and striving to
look unconcerned, edged the swarthy constituents of the group, and with
never a word to one of them, straight through their midst and the doorway
beyond went Blake, catching the three peepers, "the wife of my brother"
and the brace of palpable cutthroats at their loopholes. So unexpected
was the move that it had not even occurred to one of the creatures at the
door to mutter a word of warning. So engrossed were the three in their
scrutiny that Blake's entrance was unheard. True, he had discarded boots
and spurs, and his feet were encased in soft Apache moccasins. The floor,
too, was earthen, but he had made no effort at stealth, and in the gloom
and shadow of the low-roofed room it was for a moment difficult to distinguish
the human figures against the opposite wall. It was his ear that first
gave warning, for low, yet distinct, he heard the words:[Pg 38]
"If he'd taken any horse but that roan—or knew less about riding—we'd
'a caught him twenty miles out, and they'd never 'a caught Nevins. Dash,
dash the whole dashed blue-bellied outfit, and be dash, dash, dashed to
their quadruple dashed souls!" and the concentrated spite and hatred of
the speaker hissed in every syllable.
"'Taint a question of what we couldn't do. What can we do? He's got
money and plenty of it cached somewhere about the old camp, and five hundred
dollars of it's mine. That's what I want. I don't care a damn what they
do with him so long as they don't send him to prison where we can't nail
him. That's what that bloody court will do though, an' I know it."
"How d'ye know?" fiercely demanded the other; "'nless you've been in
the army—which you swear you haven't. Where'd you desert from? Come, own
up now," and, turning for an instant from his peephole, the speaker became
suddenly aware of the silent form of Lieutenant Blake.[Pg 39]
"None of your dashed business," began the other, when a harsh "Shut
up!" brought him around in amaze and he, too, confronted the dark figure
standing like a sign post between them and the violet light beyond the
open doorway. Instinctively the hands of both men sought their pistol-butts,
but Blake made never a move. The woman, looking around for the cause of
the sudden silence, caught sight of the statuesque intruder and, with a
low cry, threw her shawl over her head and, bending almost double, with
outstretched, groping hands, scurried to where the mission-made blanket
hung at the doorway of the bedroom and darted through the aperture like
a rabbit to its form, the folds of the heavy wool falling behind her.
And still the tall lieutenant neither spoke nor moved. His revolver
hung at his right hip, his hunting-knife slept in its sheath, but his hands
sat jauntily on his thighs. The stern, set look of his clear-cut face had
given place to something like a grin of amusement. First at one, then at
the other, of the two bewildered worthies he gazed, looking each deliberately[Pg
40] from head to foot as they hovered there, both irresolute and disconcerted,
one of them visibly trembling. There was a doorway leading into the room
in which was set the table for stage passengers of the better class, officers
and the few ladies who had ventured to follow their lords into far-away
Arizona, or the gente fine, which included Amazons whose money could pay
their way pretty much anywhere and was made pretty much anyhow. But that
room was empty and the one beyond it, the bar, had only one or two occupants,
too far away to see what was going on. There was a doorway and a swinging
screen of dirty canvas just beyond the loophole lately occupied by "the
wife of my brother," a doorway that gave on the corral, and to each of
these each silent "tough" had given a quick, furtive glance, but not a
step was taken. How long the strain of the situation might have lasted
there is no saying. It was broken by the sudden lifting of that dirty canvas
screen, as sudden and perceptible a start on part of each of the confronted
men and the quick entrance of the engineer. For[Pg 41] another second or
two no word was spoken. Loring's eyes were evidently unable at the instant
to penetrate the gloom. Then he recognized Blake, then gradually the two
men at the wall, and then at last Blake spoke.
"There are your followers, Loring."
A moment's careful scrutiny, then a nod of assent was Loring's answer.
"Now, then, you two," said Blake. "I've suspected you before. Now I
more than suspect you. You—the long villain—I warn never to come nosing
about our camp again, and you, the shorter, I'll trouble to come into camp
forthwith. No, don't draw that pistol unless you want a dozen bullets through
you. Half a troop is right here at my back. Your soldier name was Higgins
and you're a deserter from Cram's battery, New Orleans."
For a moment there was a silence, broken only by the hard breathing
of the two cornered men, then came a flash, a sharp report, a piercing
scream as the lithe Mexican girl sprang forth from behind the blanket and
hurled herself on Blake, a panther-like leap of[Pg 42] the accused man
under cover of the flash and smoke, a thwack like the sound of the bat
when it meets a new baseball full in the middle, and Loring's fist had
landed full on Higgins' jowl and sent him like a log to the floor.[Pg 43]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER IV.
The court-martial that met at Camp Cooke in compliance with orders
from division headquarters at 'Frisco had, three weeks later, practically
finished the case of Brevet-Captain Nevins, and that debonair person, who
had appeared before it on the first day, suave, laughing, and almost insolently
defiant, had wilted visibly as, day after day, the judge advocate unfolded
the mass of evidence against him. All that Nevins thought to be tried for
was a charge of misappropriation of public funds and property, and it was
his purpose to plead in bar of trial that he had offered to make complete
restitution, to replace every missing item, and doubly replace, if need
be, every dollar. This, indeed, he had lost no time in doing the moment
he was handed over to the post commander, two days after the exciting episode
at Sancho's, but he coupled with[Pg 44] the offer a condition that all
proceedings against him should be dropped, and the veteran major commanding,
while expressing entire willingness to receipt for any funds the accused
might offer, would promise nothing whatever in return. That Nevins should
be charged with desertion and breach of arrest the accused officer regarded
as of small importance. He was merely going to Tucson fast as he could
to get from business associates, as he termed them, the money deposited
with them, and owed to him, and this must also excuse his having borrowed
the major's best horse. His friends in congress would square all that for
him, even if the court should prove obdurate. That grave charges should
have followed him from a former sphere of operations, that his record,
while retained in the volunteer service until the spring of '66 and assigned
to some mysterious bureau functions in the South, should all have been
ventilated and made part and parcel of the charges, that it should be shown
that he, as a newly commissioned officer of the army, had made the journey
from New[Pg 45] Orleans to the Isthmus and thence to San Francisco with
men whom he knew to be deserters from commands stationed in the Crescent
City, that he should have gambled with them and associated with them and
brought one of them all the way with him to Yuma and concealed from the
military authorities his knowledge of their crime, that it should be proved
he was a professional "card sharp," expert manipulator and blackleg he
never had contemplated as even possible, and yet, with calm and relentless
deliberation "that cold-blooded, merciless martinet of a West Pointer,"
as he referred to the judge advocate at an early stage in the proceedings,
had laid proof after proof before the court, and left the case of the defense
at the last without a leg to stand on. And then Nevins dropped the debonair
and donned the abject, for the one friend or adviser left to him in the
crowded camp, an officer who said he always took the side of the under
dog in a fight, had told him that in its present temper that court, with
old Turnbull as one of its[Pg 46] leaders, would surely sentence him to
a term of years at Alcatraz as well as to dismissal from the military service
of the United States. Dismissal he expected, but cared little for that.
He had money and valuables more than enough to begin life on anywhere,
and the pickings of his accustomed trade were all too scant in Arizona.
He needed a broader field, and a crowding population for the proper exercise
of his talents; and the uniform of the officer, after all, had not proved
to be so potent in lulling the suspicions of prospective victims as he
had expected it might be. But Alcatraz! a rock-bound prison! a convict's
garb! hard labor on soft diet! that was indeed appalling.
"That man Loring has made you out an innate blackguard, Nevins. You've
got to plead for mercy," said his shrewd adviser, and Nevins saw the point
and plead. He laid before the court letters from officers of rank speaking
gratefully of his aid during the prevalence of yellow fever in the Gulf
States. He begged the court to wait until he could show them the affidavits
of many statesmen and[Pg 47] soldiers, whom it would take months to hear
from by mail, and there was then no telegraph in Arizona. He begged for
time, for pity, and the court was moved and wrote to Drum Barracks for
instructions, and adjourned until the answer came, which it did by swift
stage and special courier within a week. "Advices from Washington say that
the congressional backers of the accused have declared themselves well
rid of him and suggest the extreme penalty of the law," and this being
the advice of Washington it was simply human nature that the court should
experience a revulsion of feeling and consider itself bound to see that
the poor fellow was not made to suffer martyrdom. Most of the members were
men from the volunteers or from the ranks. West Pointers were the exception,
not the rule, in the line of the army for years after the war. Most of
the court had been the recipients of Nevins' exuberant hospitality at one
time or other. He had objected to the few who had lost heavily to him at
cards, and the objection had been sustained, and when the last day for[Pg
48] the long session arrived and a sad-eyed, pale-faced, scrupulously groomed
and dressed accused arose before the dignified array and the little line
of curious spectators, to make his last plea, a silence not unmixed with
a certain sympathy, fell upon all hearers, as in low voice and faltering
accents the friendless fellow began his story. Partly from manuscript,
which he seemed to find hard reading, but mainly as an extemporaneous effort,
his remarks were substantially as follows:
"I've come to make a clean breast of it, gentlemen. I'm not fit to wear
your uniform. I never was. I never wanted to. It was practically forced
upon me by men who ought to have known better, who did know better, but
who didn't care so long as they got me out of the way. My father as much
as owned more than one congressman in York State. The Honorable Mr. Cadger,
of the Military Committee, couldn't 'a been renominated if it hadn't been
for him, and he didn't want me round home any more. He got me kept on bureau
work long after all but a few volunteers were mus[Pg 49]tered out and shoved
me down to New Orleans, where I'd often been steamboating before the war.
I had the fever there when I was only twenty. Perhaps he thought I could
get it again, and that would be the end of me. If there's a worse place
for a young officer to start in than that infernal town was just after
the war it ain't on the map o' these United States. I had the luck and
the opportunities of the devil for nigh onto a year. I got more money and
learned more ways of getting it than I knew how to use, and then I got
married. A homeless woman, a woman with brains and good looks and education,
married me for the position I could give her, I suppose. They told me afterward
she did it out of spite or desperation; that she was a Northern girl who
had been employed as governess in an old Southern family that was ruined
by the war; that she had a younger sister in New York whom she was educating,
a girl who had a magnificent voice and wanted to go on the stage, and all
the money she could save went to her. She got employment when Ben Butler
took com[Pg 50]mand, for she knew all the Southern families, and who had
money and plate and jewels, and who had nothing but niggers. She fell in
love, they told me afterward, with a swell colonel who came there on staff
duty, for he cut a dash and made desperate love to her until his wife got
wind of it and came down there all of a sudden just after the smash-up
of the Confederacy, and put a stop to his fun. That was in May, and I got
there in July. We were married that winter, and I loaded her with the best
I could buy and gave her all she could spend on her sister until she found
out how my money was made there—in cotton and cards. She thought, and I'd
let her think so, that I had big property in the North. It was another
woman gave her the tip, and then the trouble began. She swore we must give
up the house we lived in, the horses and carriage, and go to a cheap boarding-house.
She got the jewelers to take back the watch and every trinket I'd given
her—at their own valuation, about a quarter of what they cost me. She argued
and pleaded and prayed, and swore she'd confess[Pg 51] the whole thing
to General Sheridan, who came there right after the riots of '66 and took
command, and that would have sent me to the penitentiary. There were regular
officers in the deals beside me, and they got wind of it and tried to bribe
her; and she'd cry all night and mope all day, and swore she'd leave me
unless I cut loose from the whole business and restored what I'd made.
By God, I couldn't! I'd spent it! I was no worse than three or four others
who had eyes open to their opportunities—two of 'em in the regular army
now—bang-up swells, and at last I couldn't stand it and got to drinking,
and then I lost my card nerve and the money went with it, and it made me
desperate, crazy, I reckon; for one night when I came home drunk and she
made a scene I suppose I must have struck her, and then she took sick and
got delirious, and I was horribly afraid, and so were my partners, that
she'd give up the whole business; so they got me leave of absence. They
saw me aboard the steamer for New York. My money was running short, and
they gave me enough to place[Pg 52] her in a sanitarium on the Hudson and
get her sister with her, and then I came back, and bad luck followed. I
was strapped when the old man told me I'd have to go out and join my regiment,
for he'd got me appointed in the regulars. Why, some of Sheridan's officers
when they saw my name in the papers, wrote to stop it, but it was no use.
The military committee in congress couldn't go back on Mr. Cadger, and
he daren't go back on my father. But they got me sent out here to be as
far away as possible; and yes, there were three deserters from Cram's battery
aboard the steamer, so I learned, and one of them, the man you call Higgins,
who was betrayed to Lieutenant Blake by another deserter just as bad as
him, was staking the other two, for he had money in plenty until after
I had done with him. What my life's been out here you know well enough;
same as it was in New Orleans—all luck and plenty at first, then all a
collapse. I'm ruined now. When I had hundreds and thousands I helped everybody
who wanted it. There are men in Yuma and[Pg 53] Tucson now whom I set on
their pins, and they give me the cold shoulder. All that offer to the major
was a bluff. They've got all my money. I haven't a cent anywhere, and so
far as I'm personally concerned I don't care. If there was no one on earth
dependent on me I'd as lief you'd shoot me to-morrow.
"But, gentlemen, there's the rub. I own it now. There's my poor wife
and her sister. I've lied to them both. She got well at the sanitarium.
She's believed my promises and she's come all the way to San Francisco,
and was expecting me there when—when the bottom fell out of the whole business.
She's there now, she and her sister. They've got enough to pay their expenses
perhaps a month or so, and that's all. I can make a living, I can get along
and provide for her if you'll only give me a chance. I know I deserve dismissal.
That's all right; but for God's sake, gentlemen, don't send me to Alcatraz—don't
put me in jail, leave me free to work. There's men in this territory that
owe me nearly a thousand dollars to-day. Let me gather that up and go to[Pg
54] my wife—I—I—She's a good woman, gentlemen—" and here the tears came
starting from the pleading culprit's eyes, and one or two sympathetic souls
about the rude tables sniffed suspiciously. "It ain't for me to talk of
such things. Perhaps you won't believe me, but—" and he fingered the leaves
of the blue-bound copy of the regulations that lay to the left of the judge
advocate's elbow, "I—I love that woman and I want to care for her, and
take good care of her. Look here," he continued, as with sudden, impulsive
movement he unbuttoned his trim-fitting, single-breasted frock coat and
displayed a snowy shirt bosom on which sparkled and glistened a great diamond
set in the style much affected by the "sporting gent" of the day. "See
this diamond. It cost eleven hundred dollars in San Francisco six months
ago; and here, this solitaire," and he produced from an inner pocket an
unquestionably valuable ring and, with trembling hands, laid them upon
the table in front of the judge advocate; "and here," and he whipped from
the waistband of[Pg 55] his trousers a massive and beautiful watch. "There
are all the valuables I have in the world. These I place in the hands of
the worthy officer and gentleman who has only done his duty in representing
the government through this long and painful trial. These I publicly turn
over to him with the request that he personally hand them to my poor wife
as soon as he reaches San Francisco as earnest of my intention to lead
an honest life and to care for her in the future. And now, gentlemen, I've
nothing to ask for myself—nothing but liberty to go and work for her. I'm
not fit to sit with such as you."
He finished and, quivering as with suppressed emotion, turned his back
upon the court, pressed his handkerchief to his streaming eyes and groped
his way to the little table set apart for him a few yards to the left of
the judge advocate. The silence among the members and along the benches
whereon were seated the dozen spectators was for a moment unbroken by a
sound except a little shuffling of feet. Then one veteran member cleared
his[Pg 56] throat with a "hem" of preparation to speak, yet hesitated.
The junior officer of the court, a lieutenant of cavalry, slowly stretched
forth his hand, picked up the solitaire and eyed it with an assumption
of critical yet respectful interest. The president, a grizzled, red-faced
veteran, presently stole a glance at Turnbull, who sat with stolid features
immediately on his right. One by one the nine members (two of the original
eleven having been challenged and excused) began to look cautiously about
them. A captain of infantry was observed to be very red about the eyelids,
but—that might have been, and possibly was, the result of cocktails. Loring
alone remained in the same position. He had half turned his back to Nevins
when the latter began to speak, rested his left elbow on the table, and
his head on his hand, his eyes shaded under the curving palm against the
glare of light that came from without. There was no room or building big
enough for the purpose at the post, and the court had held its session
under a brace of hospital tent flies stretched on a framework[Pg 57] adjoining
the office of the major commanding, and Camp Cooke, as a rule, looked on
from afar. The spectators who ventured beneath the shade were officers
of the little garrison, the sutler and half a dozen "casuals" of the civilian
persuasion, among whom, if not among the members of the court, Nevins'
harangue had created undoubted sensation, for glances indicative of surprise
if not of incredulity passed among them.
At last as though he felt that something must be said rather than that
he knew what was appropriate to say, the presiding officer addressed the
member who had cleared his throat.
"You were about to say something, major?"
"I—er—should like to ask the accused whether—his wife is informed of
his—er—predicament?"
And Nevins, slowly turning, answered, "I wrote last week confessing
everything. It will be a relief to her that I am no longer in the army.
She said she could never look an officer in the face." There was another
pause, then Nevins spoke again. "I hope I have not[Pg 58] imposed too much
on the judge advocate. I have asked because he is the only gentleman here
who is not entirely a stranger to my wife."
Then all eyes were on Loring as he slowly dropped his hand and looked
with undisguised astonishment at the accused. Blake, a spectator, suddenly
drew his long legs under him and straightened up in his seat. It was needless
for Loring to speak. His eyes questioned.
"I do not mean that Mr. Loring knows my wife, but—she has heard of him
from her sister. They hoped to find him in Frisco."
Loring had picked up a pencil as he turned. Its point was resting on
the pine-topped table. He never spoke. His eyes, still steadily fixed upon
the twitching face of Nevins, questioned further, and every man present
strained his ears for the next word.
"I should explain—her sister is Miss Geraldine Allyn."
And with a snap that was heard all over the assemblage the lead of Loring's
pencil broke short off. He sat staring at Nevins, white and stunned.[Pg
59]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER V.
The sutler's "shack" at Camp Cooke was crowded with officers that evening
and the episode of Nevins' address was the talk of all tongues. Certain
civilians were there, too, frequenters of Sancho's place, but they were
silent, observant and unusually abstemious. To say that Nevins had astonished
everybody by an exhibition of feeling and an access of conscience would
be putting it mildly. But the fact was indisputable. He himself, after
adjournment, exhibited to the interrogative major two long letters, recently
received from San Francisco, in graceful feminine hand, and signed "Your
sad but devoted wife, Naomi." One of these referred to Lieutenant Loring,
"whom Geraldine met at West Point and saw frequently the summer and fall
that followed his graduation."
There were members of the court who[Pg 60] sought to hear what Loring
had to say on the subject, but he proved unapproachable. All men noted
the amaze—indeed, the shock—that resulted from Nevins' public and somewhat
abrupt mention of the sister's name. The judge advocate sat for a moment
as though stricken dumb, his eyes fixed and staring, his face pallid, the
muscles of his compressed lips twitching perceptibly, his hand clinched
and bearing hard upon the table. There were few army women at Camp Cooke
in those days, only two or three veteran campaigners and one misguided
bride, but had the post been full of them there could hardly have been
curiosity more lively than was exhibited by most of the court all that
long afternoon and evening. Conjecture, comment, suggestion passed from,
lip to lip. One or two men even went so far as to drop in at the tent assigned
to the lonely accused and after expressing interest and sympathy and a
desire to see that he got "fair play and a fresh start," they ventured
to inquire if Nevins knew why Mr. Loring had been so much astonished, if
not overcome, by[Pg 61] the mention of the name of Nevins' sister-in-law.
Nevins didn't know, but at that moment he would have given his hopes of
mercy to find out. He was writing to his wife when his visitors came, and
demanding explanation. He could think of several possibilities, any one
of which in his unenlightened mind might give him a claim, even a hold
on the hitherto intractable West Pointer. Why, why had he not heard or
dreamed before this long trial came to its dramatic close that there was
some strong and mysterious connection between him and Loring, between prosecutor
and accused? The one plausible theory was that Loring and Geraldine were
or had been affianced. From all his wife had told him in their few days
of moderate content and apparent bliss, he knew Geraldine to be beautiful,
gifted and attractive to any man, despite her poverty. That she had been
petted and spoiled, that she was selfish to the core, grasping and ambitious,
he had never heard, yet might have inferred from Naomi's faltering pleas
on her sister's behalf early in the days of[Pg 62] their wedded life. In
his eagerness to learn something of the truth he sent a messenger during
the afternoon, after the final adjournment, and begged that Mr. Loring
should come to see him. The reply was that Mr. Loring would do so later.
Only two men succeeded in seeing Loring that afternoon and evening, the
post commander, Major Stark, at whose quarters he was housed, and the veteran
president of the court. On the plea of being very busy writing the record
of the week's session, he had excused himself to everybody else. There
had been something of a scene before the adjournment that morning. The
court was ordered to try "such other prisoners as might properly be brought
before it," and it was understood that two deserters, captured at Tucson,
had announced their intention of pleading guilty and throwing themselves
on the mercy of the court. Higgins had been sent to Fort Yuma. It would
take long weeks to get the evidence in his case from New Orleans, but the
two victims at Cooke knew well that their case was clear. There was no[Pg
63] use in fighting. The sooner they were tried the shorter term would
they serve as prisoners. Nevins finished at ten o'clock. Loring's brief
stupefaction was conquered not without evident effort. Vouchsafing no response
to the plea of the accused for mercy, he announced that he submitted the
case without remark, and the president nodded to Nevins the intimation
that he might retire. Nevins slowly gained his feet, took a long look about
the silent array, hesitated, and then with his eyes on Loring said:
"I should like to be assured that the judge advocate accepts the trust.
It will be two or three months before the orders in my case can get back
from Washington, meantime my pay is stopped and has been for three months
back. My wife must have means to live on, and that's all I have to offer.
There is no other way of getting it to her that I consider safe."
Loring's white hand was trembling visibly, but his head was bowed as
though in painful[Pg 64] thought. The president had to speak. "I presume
you will not refuse, Mr. Loring?"
For another moment there was silence. At last, slowly, the judge advocate
looked up, turned to the accused and said, "Write Mrs. Nevins' address
on that," holding forth as he did so a heavy official envelope. Wrapping
the pin and ring together in note paper he stowed them in a smaller envelope,
moistened the gummed flap, closed it and slid it within the heavier one
which Nevins, after addressing, laid before him. Then turning to the president,
Loring calmly bowed and said, "I will accept, sir."
Five minutes later, cleared of all persons except the members and the
judge advocate, who in those days did not withdraw during the deliberations
of the court, this open-air temple of military justice was given over to
the discussion on the findings and the determination of the sentence. In
low, grave tones those members who had opinions to express gave utterance
to their views. The votes on each specification and to the various charges
were[Pg 65] recorded, and finally the sentence was arrived at. By 11:30
the case of Brevet-Captain Nevins was practically concluded and the president,
eager as were his associates to finish their work after their long detention
at this hot, barren, yet not inhospitable post, looked briskly up at the
silent, somber young officer at the opposite end of the long table.
"Shall we take ten minutes' recess and have a stretch before you go
on with the next case, Mr. Judge Advocate? I understand both victims plead
guilty and we can do 'em up in thirty minutes."
Nevins' watch was going the rounds of the court at the moment, its beautiful
and costly case and workmanship exciting general admiration. Again the
judge advocate was slow and hesitant in his reply, utterly unlike the prompt,
alert official whose conduct of the trial had won golden opinions from
every man, old or young, in the service. It was nearly half a minute before
he spoke, and then only after the president reminded him that several officers
wished to start that afternoon for the Gila so as to[Pg 66] meet the eastward
stage at Sancho's two days later.
"Give me an hour, sir. I cannot go on sooner."
Out under the canvas shelter at the adjutant's office stood the two
prisoners with their guards. For an hour or more they had been waiting
their turn. A shade of disappointment stole over one or two faces, but
the president's answer was prompt.
"Certainly, Mr. Loring. The court owes it to you," and the recess was
declared accordingly. The post quartermaster was one of the junior members
and Loring detained him. Bidding the orderly remain in charge of the premises
he turned to this official.
"You have a safe at your office. Will you permit me to place these in
it?—and come with me until I do so?"
"Certainly. Come right along. It's but a step."
Wrapped in a silken handkerchief Nevin's watch, with the envelope containing
the diamonds, was stored in a little drawer within[Pg 67] the safe and
securely locked. "You need a drink," said the quartermaster to the engineer,
noting again his pallid face.
"None, I thank you," said Loring briefly, and without another word he
took himself straightway to Major Starke's. At 12:30 when court reconvened
the judge advocate went swiftly and methodically through his work, read
the orders, propounded the usual questions, swore the court, took his own
oath, read the charges and recorded the pleas without loss of a second
of time or use of a superfluous word. At 1:15 the court stood adjourned
sine die, leaving the president and judge advocate to finish and sign the
record. By 3 P. M. five of its members, in the one "four-mule" road wagon
belonging at Cooke, were speeding southward, hoping to catch the stage
to take them to their posts lying far to the east. By midnight the record
was well-nigh complete, and Loring, locking up the papers, stepped softly
out into the starlight.
Over across the contracted parade a lamp was burning dimly at the guard
tents and[Pg 68] several others flared at the brush and canvas shack of
the sutler. Everywhere else about Camp Cooke there was silence and slumber.
The muttered word of command as the half-past-twelve relief formed at the
guard tent, the clink of glasses and murmur of voices, sometimes accentuated
by laughter, came drifting on the night from the open clubroom. Beyond
the guard tents the dim walls of the corral loomed darkly against the dry,
cloudless, star-dotted sky that bordered the eastern horizon. The sentry,
slowly pacing his beaten path along the acequia that conducted the cool
waters of the Yavapai, from the northward hills to the troughs in the corral,
moved noiseless, dim and ghostly, and Loring, listening for a moment to
the faint sounds of revelry at the shack, turned away to the north, passed
the rude shelters which had been built by the labor of troops for the accommodation
of the officers and the few families there abiding, and found himself presently
on the open plain full a hundred yards out from the buildings and beyond
the post of the sentry on that flank,[Pg 69] who, far over at the west
end of his long beat at the moment, was dreaming of the revels he'd have
when his discharge came, and neither heard nor saw the solitary officer
whose one desire was to get away by himself to some point where he could
calmly think. He needed to be alone. Even Blake, whom he had grown to like
and whom he believed to be still at the camp, would have been in the way.
A strange fellow was Loring, a man grown, so far as judgment and experience
were concerned, when at the age of twenty he entered West Point, and from
the very start became one of the leaders of his class in scholarship, and
later one of the prominent officers of the battalion of cadets. In scientific
and mathematical studies, indeed, he had no superior among his comrades,
but languages and drawing, as taught in those days at the academy, threw
him out of the head of the class, but could not prevent his landing a close
second to the leader in general standing. Never a popular man in the corps,
he commanded, nevertheless, the respect and esteem of the entire[Pg 70]
battalion, and little by little won a deeper regard from his immediate
associates. He was a man of marked gravity of demeanor. He rarely laughed.
His smile was only a trifle more frequent. He was taciturnity personified
and for two years at least was held to be morose. Of his antecedents little
was known, for he never spoke of them and seldom of himself. He was methodical
in the last degree, exercising just so long in the gymnasium every morning
during the barrack days and putting on the gloves for fifteen minutes every
evening with the best middleweight in the corps. There were times in his
early cadet days when he was suspected of having an ugly temper, and perhaps
with reason. Exasperated at some prank played at his expense by a little
"yearling" toward the close of his first—the "plebe"—encampment, Loring
actually kicked the offender out of his tent. The boy was no match for
the older, heavier man, but flew at him like a wildcat then and there,
and Loring suddenly found himself in a fierce and spirited battle. The
little fellow had pluck, science and[Pg 71] training, and Loring's eyes
and nose were objects to behold in less than a minute. For that moment,
shame-stricken, he fought on the defensive, then, stung by the taunts of
the swift-gathering third classmen, he rushed like a bull, and two heavy
blows sent the yearling to grass and that fight was ended. But challenges
rained on him from "men of his size and weight," and the very next evening
he went out to Fort Clinton with one of the champions of the upper class
and in fifteen minutes was carried away to a hospital a total wreck. It
was ten days before he was reported fit for duty. Then camp was over and
barrack life begun. Not a word would he or did he say about his severe
defeat, but systematically he went to work to master "the noble art of
self-defense," and two years from that time the corps was treated to a
sensation. Loring, back from cadet furlough, had been made first sergeant
of Company "D," in which as a private and first classman was the very cadet
who had so soundly thrashed him. Loring proved strict. Certain[Pg 72] "first-class
privates" undertook to rebel against his authority, his former antagonist
being the ringleader. Matters came to a crisis when Loring entered the
names of three of the seniors on the delinquency book for "slow taking
place in ranks at formation for dinner." It was declared an affront. His
old antagonist demanded satisfaction in the name of the aggrieved ones,
and that fight was the talk of the corps for six months. Loring named the
old battle-ground at Fort Clinton as the place, and in ten minutes utterly
reversed the issue of his plebe effort, and the first classman was the
worst whipped victim seen in years, for he fought until fairly knocked
senseless. That was Loring's last affair of the kind. He went about his
duties next day as seriously and methodically as ever, without the faintest
show of triumph, and when the vanquished cadet finally returned from hospital,
treated him with scrupulous courtesy that, before the winter wore away,
warmed even to kindliness, and when the springtime came the two were[Pg
73] cordial friends. The summer of his graduation Loring was ordered on
temporary duty as an instructor during the encampment of cadets. He did
not dance. He cared little for society, but one evening at Cozzens' he
was thrilled by the sweetness of a woman's song, and gazing in at her as
she sang to an applauding audience in the great parlor, Loring saw a face
as sweet as the voice. Several evenings he spent on the broad veranda,
for every night she sang and ere long noticed him; so did prominent society
women and read his unspoken admiration. "Let me present you to her, Mr.
Loring," said one of the latter. "She is a lovely girl, and so lonely,
you know. She is engaged as companion, it seems, to Miss Haight—a dragon
of an old maid who is a good deal of an invalid and seldom out of her room.
That is why you never see the girl at the 'hops' at the Point, yet I know
she'd love to go."
Loring felt that he blushed with eagerness and pleasure, though he merely
said "please," and so Miss Geraldine Allyn met[Pg 74] Lieutenant Loring
of the engineers, and within the fortnight he knew, though he strove to
hide it, that he was madly in love with her. Such beauty, such a voice,
such appealing loneliness were too much for him. Six long weeks, though
he became her shadow, Loring struggled against his passion. He had planned
that for years he should remain single until he had saved a modest nestegg;
then, when he had rank and experience, had moved in the world and had ample
opportunity to study women, he would select for himself and deliberately
lay siege to the girl he thought to make his wife.
But when his duties were completed with the twenty-eighth of August
and he should have gone to his home, Loring remained at the Point fascinated,
for Miss Haight and her musical companion stayed at Cozzens through September.
In October they were to go to Lenox, and before the parting Loring's ring
was on that little finger. She had promised to be his wife. Home then he
hurried in response to the pleading of his sister, but the[Pg 75] moment
the Lenox visit was over and Miss Haight returned to New York thither went
Loring to find his fiancée at the piano, with a middle-aged, somewhat
portly civilian bending eagerly over her and so engrossed that he never
saw or heard the intruder. This was November fourth. The engagement was
barely six weeks old, but Loring's ring was not on her finger as she rose
in confusion to greet him. More than that, she wrote a piteous letter to
him, begging for her release. She "really had not known her own mind."
Loring gave it without a word to or without other sight of her, packed
his trunk, and left New York on the morning train. There was a sensation
at the Point when it was announced that Miss Allyn was to marry Mr. Forbes
Crosby, a wealthy "board-of-trade man" of forty. Loring reappeared no more.
He got his orders for San Francisco and sailed late in the fall, and barely
had he gone than the story spread from lip to lip that Mr. Crosby had broken
the engagement, that Miss Haight had decided to go abroad and would not
require a companion[Pg 76] what was more, that Forbes Crosby had been making
very judicious investments for Miss Haight herself, and people really wouldn't
be surprised if—and then Geraldine Allyn, too, disappeared from New York
and was next heard of living very quietly with a married sister, herself
an invalid, a Mrs. Nevins, whose husband was said to be somewhere in the
army.
And so that girl whom Loring had so deeply loved was sister to the wife
of this military castaway, this unprincipled gambler, swindler and thief,
and he, Loring, had charged himself with a commission that might bring
him once more face to face with her who had duped him.
Circling the camp at wide distance, he had crossed the acequia and reached
the Gila road. To the north now lay the camp, and the twinkling lights
of the sutler's bar, and between him and these twinkling lights two dark
objects bobbed into view some thirty yards distant, and, as plain as he
could hear his own heart beat, Loring heard a voice say: "Then[Pg 77] I'll
count on you not to let him out of your sight," and the voice was that
of Nevins—Nevins who was supposed to confine himself, day and night in
arrest, to the limits of the garrison.[Pg 78]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VI.
The members of the court had scattered to their posts, all save the
veteran president and Colonel Turnbull, the department inspector. Lieutenant
Blake, to his disgust, had been sent scouting up the Hassayampa where the
Apaches had been seen some days before, but couldn't be found now—it being
the practice of those nimble warriors to get far from the scene of their
deviltries without needless delay, and the rule of the powers that were,
until General Crook taught them wiser methods, to promptly order cavalry
to the spot where the Indians had been, instead of where they had presumably
gone. A buckboard en route to Date Creek, with two of the array that had
sat in judgment on Nevins, had been "held up" at night by a gang of half
a dozen desperadoes and the three passengers relieved of[Pg 79] their valuables,
consisting of one gold watch and two of silver, one seal ring, three revolvers,
three extra-sized canteens, a two-gallon demijohn, and in the aggregate
three gallons of whisky. The victims had submitted to the inevitable so
far as their gold and silver were concerned, but pathetically pointed out
to the robber chief the hardship of being bereft at one fell swoop of the
expensive and only consolation the country afforded, and despite his wrath
and disappointment at finding that the gentlemen had already been robbed,
two of them having spent four nights hand-running at the post poker-room—the
leader was not so destitute of fellow-feeling as to condemn the hapless
trio to the loss of even the necessaries of life, and mercifully handed
back half a gallon.
"We hope to catch some of you gentlemen when you haven't been playing
poker," said he, striving to stifle his chagrin. "Who got it all, anyhow?"
he asked, with an eye to future business. "Ah, yes—might have known it,"
he continued in response to the rueful ad[Pg 80]mission of one of the party.
"Wonderfully smart outfit that at Cooke, wonderfully—most as smart as some
of our people at Sancho's. Well, so long, gentlemen. 'F any of your friends
are coming this way recommend our place, won't you? We've treated you as
well as we knew how. Drive on, Johnny. Nobody else will stop you this side
of Date. They know we got here first."
Arizona was an interesting region in those days of development that
followed close on the heels of the war. Hundreds of experienced hands had
been thrown out of employment by the return of peace, and the territories
overflowed with outlaws, red and white, male and female. It was taking
one's life in one's hands to venture pistol shot beyond the confines of
a military post. It was impossible for paymasters to carry funds without
a strong escort of cavalry. The only currency in the territory was that
put in circulation by the troops or paid to contractors through the quartermaster's
department. Even Wells-Fargo, pioneer expressmen of the Pacific slope,
sent their[Pg 81] messengers and agents no further then than the Colorado
River, and Uncle Sam's mail stage was robbed so often that a registered
package had grown to be considered only an advertisement to the covetous
of the fact that its contents might be of value.
And so when the record of the court was duly signed and sealed in huge
official envelope, and Lieutenant Loring, even more grave and taciturn
than usual, went the rounds of the rude quarters to leave his card or pay
his ceremonious parting call on the officers who knew enough to call on
him—which in those crude days of the army many did not—he was asked by
more than one experienced soldier whether he had requested an escort in
view of the fact that he was burdened with valuables that, though small
in bulk, were convertible into cash that was anything but small in amount.
To such queries Mr. Loring, who had an odd aversion to answering questions
as to what he was going to do, merely bowed assent and changed the subject.
Lieutenant Gleason, an officer who had recently joined the infantry[Pg
82] and was one of Nevins' victims, a man of unusual assurance despite
his few months of service, had persisted in his queries to the extent of
demanding from what quarter Loring expected to get an escort, Blake being
away at the Hassayampa, and no other cavalry being within sixty miles;
and Gleason felt resentful, though he deftly hid the fact, because the
engineer ignored the question until it had been thrice repeated, and then
he said, somewhat tartly: "That is my affair, Mr. Gleason." Everybody thought
that Loring was decidedly unsociable, and some went so far as to call him
supercilious and haughty.
"Too damned big to mingle with men who fought all through the war while
he was a schoolboy at the Point," said Gleason, who had never seen a skirmish.
This latter gentleman took it much amiss that Loring had won the shoulder-straps
of a first lieutenant the day he first donned his uniform (many vacancies
then existing in the Corps of Engineers), while Gleason and others, with
what he called war records, were still[Pg 83] second lieutenants. Officers
of the caliber of Turnbull and Starke saw much to respect in the grave,
silent, thoughtful young officer, but the juniors—the captains and lieutenants—though
they had marked the ease and ability with which Loring handled what was
probably his first case as judge advocate, nevertheless agreed that he
was "offish" toward the general run of "the line," held himself aloof as
though he considered himself of superior clay, didn't drink, smoke, swear,
or play cards, and was therefore destitute of most elements of soldier
companionship as then and there defined. It was resented, too, by almost
everybody that Loring would not say when and how he expected to leave Camp
Cooke. He had come on Sancho's famous roan, but had returned that animal
by special courier without delay. Starke and Turnbull were informed, but
at Loring's request saw fit to hold their tongues. No one should know,
he had said to them, if he was to be responsible for those valuables. It
might leak out, and the veteran officers saw the point. The juniors could
not well ask[Pg 84] them, the veterans, but they could and did ask Loring,
and held it up against him in days to come that he declined to be confidential.
There was a man at Cooke who could have told them Loring showed wisdom
in his observance of caution, and that man was Nevins, who had been sent
for by the commanding officer the morning after the adjournment of the
court, and subjected to a questioning and a lecture that nobody else heard,
but that everybody speedily knew must have been severe, because Nevins,
lately so meek and lachrymose, was seen to go to his tent flushed with
rage, and then from within those canvas walls his voice was heard uplifted
in blasphemy and execration. Nor did he take advantage of garrison limits
the rest of that day, nor once again that day appear outside. At so great
a distance from civilization trifles prove of absorbing interest, and callers
came to see what they "could do for him," and learn for themselves, and
Nevins' face was black as a storm and his language punctuated with profanity.
He raved about tyranny and oppres[Pg 85]sion, but vouchsafed no intelligible
explanation of what he confessed to be the commanding officer's latest
order—that he was remanded to close arrest.
Let it be here explained for the benefit of the lay reader that when
an officer is accused of a crime, or even of a misdemeanor, he is placed
in arrest, which means that he is suspended for the time being from the
exercise of command, must not wear a sword, and must confine himself to
certain limits—to his tent or quarters if in close arrest, as for one week
the officer generally is, and to the limits of the parade or garrison if
allowed out for exercise. No sentry is posted, for an officer is supposed
to be on honor to observe the prescribed restrictions, and only when he
breaks his arrest, by visiting the quarters of some brother officer or
by going outside of camp, is he in danger of other humiliation. To none
of his few visitors did Nevins reveal the fact that on the previous night,
if not before, he had broken his arrest and gone far out on the mesa back
of the post, that he had been detected, by whom he knew[Pg 86] not, reported
to the commanding officer, and by him severely reprimanded and threatened
with close confinement under guard, as when first brought back to the post,
if he again ventured beyond the restricted limits now assigned him.
"I have twice sent to ask that Mr. Loring should come to see me," railed
Nevins. "I have important matters—papers and messages from my wife, and
he holds aloof. By God, Gleason! you tell him for me that if he can't treat
me decently, and come to see me before tattoo this night, I demand that
he hand back those diamonds and things! Do you understand?"
And that message Mr. Gleason, who of all things loved a sensation, faithfully
promised to deliver and fully meant to, but the game at the sutler's developed
into a big one that eventful night. Jackpots were the rule before the drums
of the infantry hammered out first call for tattoo, and in the absorbing
nature of his occupation he never thought of Nevins' charge except as something
to be attended to later,[Pg 87] and not until guard-mount of another day,
when his head was muddled with the potations of an all-night session and
the befogging cocktails of the morning, did Mr. Gleason approach the engineer
upon the subject, and then there was a scene.
Loring was standing at the moment in front of the rude brush and adobe
quarters of Major Starke conversing with two or three officers, or rather
listening in silence to their observations. Turnbull was seated under the
shelter of a sort of arbor made of framework and canvas signing some papers.
The president of the court had disappeared and a rumor was flitting about
the post that early in the morning, before the dawn, in fact, that hardy
veteran had pushed ahead in saddle, escorted by most of Blake's troop,
which had unexpectedly returned during the previous night, but merely unsaddled
and, after a "rub-down, feed and water," had gone on again. If that were
true, they had left as silently and mysteriously as they came, and only
a corporal's guard remained. Had Gleason been intent on anything[Pg 88]
but the manner in which he could make his communication most public and
significant, if not offensive, he would have noticed that both Turnbull
and Loring were in riding dress. But while it could not be said of him
that in his condition he was capable of seeing only one thing at a time,
those things which he did see were duplicate images of the same object,
and he lurched up to the dual Loring and the hazy figures that seemed floating
about him, and, with an attempt at majestic impressiveness, thickly said:
"Mr. Loring, I'm bearer of a message from my fren' Mr.—Captain Nevins,
d'manding the me'dy't r'turn of the diamon's an' valu'bles he placed in
your p'ssession."
Other officers within earshot heard, as Gleason intended they should
hear, and turned instantly toward the group, all eyes on the two—the flushed,
swaying subaltern in fatigue uniform; the calm, deliberate man in riding
dress. A faint color, as of annoyance, quickly spread over Loring's face,
but for a moment he spoke not a word. Angrily the post, commander came
hurrying forth, bent on the[Pg 89] prompt annihilation of his luckless
subaltern, and was about to speak, but Loring interposed.
"One moment, sir, I beg." Then turning again on Gleason the engineer
looked him calmly over from head to foot a second or two and then as calmly
said:
"Too late, sir, they've gone."[Pg 90]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VII.
Three days after the adjournment of Nevins' court Camp Cooke had dropped
back to the weary monotone of its everyday life. Everybody was gone except
the now sullen and complaining prisoner and the little garrison of two
companies of infantry. Vanished even were all but two or three of the colony
of gamblers and alleged prospectors, who occupied, to the annoyance of
the commanding officer and the scandal of the sutler, a little ranch just
outside the reservation lines whither venturesome spirits from the command
were oft enticed and fleeced of the money that the authorized purveyor
of high-priced luxuries considered his legitimate plunder. By this time
Camp Cooke waked up to the fact that it had been dozing. While its own
little force of cavalry was scouting the valleys of the Verde[Pg 91] and
the Salado to the east and Blake's troop had been rushed up the Hessayampa
to the north, and there was no one apparently to do escort duty through
the deserts along the Gila, Camp Cooke and the outlying prowlers believed
that those costly trinkets which Nevins had begged Mr. Loring to take to
his wife would not be withdrawn from the quartermaster's safe, much less
sent forth upon their perilous way. Not until after Colonel Turnbull and
the engineer had ridden off southward, escorted by a sergeant with six
tough-looking troopers; not until after Loring's announcement that the
jewels themselves had been sent ahead; not until after Mr. Gleason had
been remanded to his quarters to "sober up," and the adjutant dispatched
to Captain Nevins with the intimation that if his too audible imprecations
were not stopped he and his tent would be transferred to a corner of the
corral, did Camp Cooke learn that Major Starke had sent a fly-by-night
courier after Blake, recalling the troop, that it had halted on that stream
ten miles above the post, resting all afternoon and[Pg 92] evening, had
ridden silently in toward camp an hour after midnight and, after receiving
certain instructions from Starke and a visit from Loring, had gone on southward,
silently as it came, accompanied by the presiding officer of the court,
who hated day marches and the sun-scorched desert, and leaving escort for
those who were still to follow. There was mild surprise in camp, but untold
wrath and vituperation along the line to Sancho's, for from far and near
the choicest renegades of Arizona had been flocking to the neighborhood
only to find themselves outwitted by the engineer. Not half an hour after
the burst of blasphemy from Nevins' tent informed the camp that something
more had happened to agitate anew his sorely ruffled temper, and the story
flew from lip to lip that it was because the precious jewels were already
on their way to 'Frisco, guarded presumably by Blake and forty carbines,
a swarthy half-breed courier spurred madly southward from the outlying
roost on the borders of the reservation, with the warning that it would
be useless risk to[Pg 93] meddle with the Teniente Loring's party when
it came along—there were no valuables with them; they had been sent with
the cavalry hours before the dawn.
Yes, even the sealed record of the court must have been sent at that
time, too, for at ten o'clock in the morning, when Colonel Turnbull and
Mr. Loring mounted and gravely saluted the cap-raising group of officers
as they rode away from the major's quarters, it was observed that Loring
had not even saddle-bags, and the major's striker admitted that he had
hoisted the lieutenant's valise to the pommel of a trooper's saddle at
two o'clock in the morning. Various were the theories and conjectures at
the sutler's all the rest of the day as to the information possessed by
Lieutenant Loring which led to such extreme precaution. The major was close-mouthed,
and, for him, rather stern. He held aloof from his juniors all day long
and seemed to be keeping an eye and an ear attent on Nevins. That officer's
conduct was a puzzle. Six months before he was the personification of all
that was lavish, hospit[Pg 94]able, good-natured, extravagant. Everybody
was apparently welcome to the best he had. Then came the collapse, his
arrest, his flight, his capture and confinement, his laughing defiance
of his accusers until he found how much more they knew than he supposed,
his metaphorical prostration at the feet of his judges, his humility, repentance,
suffering and sacrifice, his pledge of future atonement, his protestations
of love for his long-suffering wife, his surrender of his valuables for
her benefit, his meekness of mien until the court had concluded his case
and gone. Then, his sudden resumption of bold, truculent, defiant manner,
his midnight breach of arrest, which had leaked out through the guard that
was promptly sent forth to fetch him in; then his demand for the return
of his property, and his furious outburst on learning that Loring had taken
him at his word and sent it without delay by the safest possible hands.
That proved an exciting day. The adjutant's message had temporarily
awed and quieted the man, but toward three P. M. the[Pg 95] mail carrier
arrived from the Gila with his sack of letters and papers. He reported
having been stopped only five miles out from Sancho's by masked men who
quickly examined his big leather bag, silently pointed to a curious mark,
a dab of paint that must have gotten on it while he was there at the ranch,
and sent him ahead without a word being spoken. He saw other men, but they
passed him by in wide circuit. He met Lieutenant Blake and the troop, and
the lieutenant bade him hurry, so the letters were delivered nearly two
hours earlier than usual. In the mail were a dozen missives for Captain
Nevins, two in dainty feminine superscription postmarked San Francisco,
several that might be bills, others that were local, one postmarked Tucson,
and one slipped in at Sancho's. The major himself looked these envelopes
over as though he thought their contents ought to be examined, but even
a convicted man had his rights, and the letters were sent to him. In less
than three minutes thereafter the hot, breathless air of the long afternoon
was sud[Pg 96]denly burdened with another eruption of oaths and ravings.
One or two women sitting in the shade of their canvas shelters across the
parade clapped their hands to their ears and ran indoors, and the major's
orderly dashed full tilt for the guard. Half an hour later Captain Nevins
was escorted to a new abode, a tent pitched just outside, not within, the
corral, and there he was left to swear at will, with the sentry on No.
4 warned to call the corporal of the guard if the gentleman for one moment
quit the seclusion of his solitary quarters.
And this was the status of affairs when the sun went down at the close
of the third day after adjournment. When it rose upon the fourth all was
quiet about the impetuous captain's canvas home—too quiet, thought the
officer of the day after his visit to the guard at reveille, and therefore
did he untie the cords that fastened the flaps in front and peer within.
Five minutes later two new prisoners were placed in charge of the guard,
of which they had been members during the night[Pg 97]—Privates Poague
and Pritzlaff, of the first and second reliefs, respectively. But the aggregate
gain in the column of "in arrest or confinement" was only one, for Captain
Nevins had disappeared.
Of course there was a rush to the outlying ranch, whose few remaining
occupants grinned exasperatingly and shrugged their shoulders, but gave
no information. Of course a courier was sent scurrying away on the trail
of the cavalry, but he came back sore-footed at night, relieved of his
horse, arms and equipments, and thanking God for his life. Of course another
courier was started by night to make the perilous ride to the Salado and
order the instant return of at least a platoon, but nothing more was heard
of him for a week, and it was nearly five days before these desert-bound
exiles of Camp Cooke got another atom of reliable news from Sancho's, and
meantime wondrous other things had happened.
It did not take long to determine the means by which Nevins had succeeded
in getting away. There was little, indeed, to prevent his[Pg 98] doing
so if he saw fit to go, for, unless sentries were posted on all four sides
of his tent, he might crawl off in the darkness unobserved. The sentry
on No. 4 had received orders merely to summon the corporal and report to
him if the officer ventured to leave his tent, and as No. 4 was a post
over a hundred yards in length, and the sentry responsible for all of it,
there was no right or reason in demanding of him that he should give his
undivided attention to what might be going on close to the corral. In fact,
by removing Nevins from the inner quadrangle of the camp and placing him
outside the walls, Major Starke had made it all the easier for him to skip
a second time if he saw fit to do so; but Starke reasoned that Nevins still
had some hope that congressional influence would save him from dismissal,
and therefore would not peril his chances by a second flight. Starke did
not know that Nevins was honest at least in one statement, that he expected
dismissal. His fate was sealed, his pay was confiscated to square shortages.
There was actually nothing to be gained[Pg 99] by staying at Cooke in virtual
confinement, perhaps eight or ten weeks, until his case could be decided
in Washington and the orders received back in Arizona. It actually simplified
matters in many ways for Nevins to go. Somebody, for instance, would have
to pay the cost of his subsistence all that time at Cooke. Thrice a day
his meals were sent to him from the little bachelors' mess, already sorely
taxed for the "entertainment" of the members of the court, and the four
poor fellows who constituted that frontier club had been only too glad
when its members from other stations insisted that they should pay their
share of the long three weeks' burden on the culinary department. But Nevins
now was penniless, so he said, and why should impecunious infantry subalterns
support in idleness a disgraced and virtually dismissed officer? Yet that
is precisely what the government compelled them to do—or starve him. Thinking
it all over during the day, Major Starke concluded that at least Camp Cooke
had something to be thankful for, and sending for[Pg 100] Privates Poague
and Pritzlaff, he sternly rebuked them for their probable negligence (for
"discipline must be maintained"), and with dire threats of what they might
expect in the way of punishment if they transgressed in the slightest way
for six months to come, he bade them go back to duty, released, which they
did, each with his tongue in his cheek and a wink of the inner eye, as
they strode off together and went grinning to the guard-tents for their
blankets.
All the same Starke wished to know whither Nevins had gone, and whether
anything new had started him. This time no horse or mule had disappeared,
but the tracks of two quadrupeds were found on the Mesa coming from "Rat
Hell," as Captain Post, who had done time in Libby, named the gambling
ranch outside the reservation—to a point within one hundred yards of the
corral, and thence bore away southward straight as the flight of the crow.
Two reprobates in the captain's company declared that the black-bearded
clerk arrested with Nevins, but released because he[Pg 101] was a civilian
over whom the military had no jurisdiction, had been over at the ranch
all the previous day. Sentry Poague frankly admitted that he had heard
horses' hoofs out on the Mesa and voices in the captain's tent, but saw
nobody crossing his post and couldn't be expected to in the pitchy darkness.
Whither Nevins went was therefore a matter that could only be conjectured
in the light of later events. How he went was a matter of little moment.
It was good riddance to bad rubbish, said Starke, until at last the next
mail came from Sancho's. For nearly five days the major declared himself
content if he never saw Nevins again. Then he turned to and prayed with
all his soul that he might catch him—if only for five minutes.[Pg 102]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VIII.
It was two long days' cavalry march from Sancho's to Camp Cooke, and
many a time it had taken three. Midway, very nearly, the Hassayampa emptied
its feeble tribute into the murky Gila. There was water enough, such as
it was, for man and beast along the way, but, except in the winter months,
both man and beast preferred the night hours for the journey. In order
to provide mounts for the three officers Blake had left as many of his
men at Cooke, and pushed ahead with the veteran president two hours before
the dawn. That his march was watched from afar by mounted men he knew as
soon as the sun rose upon his pathway, but Blake's only concern was that
they kept at respectful distance. Not more than half a dozen did he see,
and these were as single scouts or in pairs. He felt[Pg 103] little anxiety
for Turnbull and Loring; they, too, were well guarded. The only thing he
hated about the whole affair was having to dismount any of his men, but
there were only two ambulances at Cooke, one was undergoing repairs and,
the inspector being present, the post surgeon wisely protested against
the other being sent to the distant south. It was the plan of the party
to ride leisurely to Sancho's, there to await the coming of the stage,
which should pass through on its way to Yuma Saturday noon.
And early Friday evening the troop went into bivouac at the same old
willow clump, and Sancho, profusely and elaborately courteous, had come
forth, sombrero in hand, to implore the caballeros to partake of his hospitality.
His brother was returned from a visit to Guaymas and Mazatlan, and he had
brought wine of the finest and cigars such as Arizona never had known,
and Sancho was manifestly disconcerted at the regrets or refusals, coldly
courteous on the part of Loring, blunt and brusque on the part of Blake.
The veterans,[Pg 104] however, saw no harm in going and were sumptuously
entertained by mine host in the best room of the ranch. Blake caused a
strong guard to be posted at camp, a most unusual thing, and one instantly
noted among Sancho's people, and after making the rounds and giving strict
instructions to the three sentries, and further ordering side lines as
well as lariats for the horses—all this as a result of a low-toned conference
with Loring—he came back to find that officer with his valise rolled in
a blanket and used as a bolster, while the owner lay on his back gazing
dreamily up at the stars. A trooper was silently making down the bedding
of the other officers. The sand was soft and dry, no campfire was needed,
no tent, no mattress. All four were hardened campaigners and the night
was warm and dewless.
For a moment or two Blake fidgeted about. Good wine and cigars were
as acceptable him as to anybody. It was Sancho and Sancho's brother he
could not stomach, and he would not be beholden to either.[Pg 105]
"You can think of nothing else in the way of precaution, Loring?" he
presently asked, as he threw himself down beside him, puffing at his little
brier-root.
"Nothing."
"It would take a nervier gang than Arizona owns to try and rob this
outfit," and Blake looked complacently around among the shadowy forms of
the troopers flitting about the bivouac.
"We are all right so long as we've got you and your men," said Loring
quietly.
"Well, there's no order that can come in time to take us away from you,
old man. I'll send one platoon ahead at daybreak to camp halfway, and they'll
be fresh to ride into Yuma with you Sunday morning."
Loring nodded appreciatively.
From the open doorway of the ranch came the faint clink of glasses and
the murmurous flow of voices. Presently the boom of the veterans' jovial
laugh swelled the "concourse of sweet sounds," and Blake stirred uneasily.
"Wonder what that old thief is giving them,"[Pg 106] muttered he. "Uncle
Billy's telling his bear story."
Quarter of an hour passed. The infant moon had sunk below the westward
horizon. The sounds of joviality increased, and Blake's mouth watered.
"Damn those heartless profligates!" he muttered. "Reckon I'll have to go
and reconnoiter. You don't mind being left to your own reflections, Loring?"
"Go ahead," said Loring, and so presently the tall, shadowy form of
"the longest-legged officer in Arizona" was dimly seen stalking forth from
the gloom of the willows and threading its way through the open starlight
toward the bright and welcoming doorways of the ranch. Only one or two
of the usual loungers had been seen about the premises since the cavalry
came in. Sancho and his brother were practically destitute of other guests
than the officers whom they were entertaining. Slowly and more slowly did
the lieutenant saunter, open-eared, toward the scene of revelry. More than
half the distance had he gone when, suddenly from another and smaller[Pg
107] clump of willows below the ranch there came floating on the still
night, faint and cautious, the musical tinkle of a guitar, and then soft,
luring, yet hardly sweet or silvery, the voice of a girl was timidly uplifted
in song. Blake knew it at once. "The daughter of my brother" was out there
in the willows, a most unusual thing. Blake remembered how her eyes had
spoken to him twice before, how she had thrown herself upon him the night
of Higgins' arrest. Could it be, was it possible, that she was signaling
to him now? Much as his curiosity and interest had previously been aroused
by the occasional peeps he had had at this attractive little Mexican girl,
the events of that night had intensified them. True, it was a moment of
thrilling excitement. Higgins, cornered like a rat, had drawn and fired,
not with either aim or idea of shooting his accuser, but in the hope of
so startling both officers that in the confusion he could leap to the back
doorway and escape. Loring's imperturbable nerve and practiced fist had
defeated that scheme and laid the deserter low, and Higgins[Pg 108] was
now languishing at Yuma, awaiting trial on triple charges. But Blake for
a second or two had felt the clasp of soft arms about him, the wild flutter
of a maiden heart much below his own, and Blake was human. Somewhere he
had met that slender girl before. Twice he had danced at the bailes in
Tucson, and once attended a masquerade, where for nearly an hour he had
enjoyed the partnership of and been tantalized by a maid of just about
the stature of this dark-eyed "daughter of my brother." Blake knew as well
as does the reader that this was no time for philandering, and had been
told, but not yet taught, the wisdom of keeping well away from the damsels
who, like the sirens of old, twanged the vibrating strings and sang their
luring songs. Why should she have flung herself between him and the desperadoes
at that perilous moment and thrown her arms around him unless—unless she
was the girl he had been making love to, in broken Spanish, during the
fiesta at Tucson? He would not have let Loring know where he was going,
or why, for a good deal.[Pg 109] But once away from him, Blake was alone
with no one to interpose objection, and—he went. In three minutes he had
made his cautious way to the westward willows, and his heart began beating
in spite of his determination to be guarded and even suspicious, for there
sat the little señorita alone. That fact in itself should have opened
his eyes, and would have done so a year or two later, but Blake was still
a good deal of a boy, and in another moment he stepped quickly to her side
and almost swept the ground with his broad-brimmed scouting hat, as he
bowed low before her. Instantly the song ceased, the guitar dropped with
an æolian whine upon the sand, and as Blake stooped to raise it she
sprang to her feet—a half-stifled cry upon her lips. With smiling self-assurance
he bowed low again as he would have restored the instrument to the little
hands that were half-upraised as though to warn him back; but she began
coyly retreating from the bench on which she had been seated, and he quickly
followed, murmuring protest and reassur[Pg 110]ance in such Spanish as
he could command, declaring he had never yet had opportunity to thank her
for a deed of daring that perhaps had saved his life (he knew it hadn't—the
long-legged, nimble-tongued reprobate), and trembling, timorous, sweetly
hesitant she lingered; she even let him seize her hand and only faintly
strove to draw it away. She began even to listen to his pleading. She shyly
hung her pretty head and coyly turned away and furtively peeped across
the starlit level toward the ranch, where two dark forms serape-shrouded,
were lurking at the corner of the corral. They had come crouching forward
a dozen yards when something, some sudden sound, drove them back to shelter,
and in the next moment Blake heard it, and the girl, too, for like a frightened
fawn she darted away and went scurrying to the rear entrance of the ranch,
leaving him to confront and hail two horsemen, "Gringos," evidently, who
came loping in on the Yuma trail, and at his voice the foremost leaped
from saddle and called:
"Is it Lieutenant Blake? We've come with[Pg 111] dispatches, sir, from
Yuma," and, unfastening his saddle-bag, the trooper placed a packet in
the officer's hand.
"Come this way," said Blake briefly, leading toward the light, and inwardly
bemoaning an ill-wind that had blown him far more good than he dreamed.
A few strides took him to the door of the ranch. The dispatches were for
the president of the late court at Camp Cooke, for Turnbull, for Loring
and for himself. Sending the courier to camp, he tore open his order—a
brief letter of instructions to furnish such escort as might be deemed
sufficient for the safe conduct of Lieutenant-Colonels Vance and Turnbull
to Tucson. Then he waited to hear from them. With Sancho eagerly scanning
their faces the two veterans had opened and read their orders, then looked
up at each other in evident surprise. Presently they arose, and, begging
their host to excuse them a moment and beckoning Blake to follow, stepped
into the lighted bar beyond. Another court had been convened, another officer
was to be tried, and the two who had officiated as[Pg 112] seniors at Camp
Cooke were directed to proceed at once to the old Mexican capital for similar
duty there.
Before sunrise, escorted by a dozen troopers, Vance and Turnbull were
on their way, their farewell words to Blake being an injunction to see
Loring and his precious charges safe to Yuma City.
As long as he lived Gerald Blake was destined to remember the Saturday
that dawned upon them as the little party rode away south-eastward. Even
the men seemed oddly depressed. Neither to Turnbull, to Loring nor to Blake
had this detachment suggested itself as possible. What with having to send
a large portion of his command forward on the Yuma road so as to provide
comparatively fresh horsemen to accompany the stage with its relays of
mules, Blake found himself at reveille with just eighteen men all told,
awaiting the coming of that anxiously-expected vehicle. He prayed that
it might bring at least one or two officers from Grant or Bowie. He vainly
sought another peep at or word with Pancha;[Pg 113] but, though Sancho
was everywhere in evidence, grave, courteous, hospitable, imperturbable;
though one or two ranchmen rode in and out during the morning, and there
was a little gathering, perhaps half a dozen of men and mozos, apparently
awaiting the coming of the stage at noon, the women kept out of sight.
At twelve the old lorgnette was brought to bear on the eastward trail,
but, to the apparent surprise of the loungers, one o'clock came and no
stage, and so did four and five and then Blake and Loring took counsel
together in the seclusion of the willow copse, while their men, silent
and observant, gathered about the horses thirty yards away, grooming and
feeding and looking carefully to their shoeing, for there was portent on
the desert air and symptoms of lively work ahead.
At six came Sancho, oppressed with grievous anxiety as to the safety
of the stage. There has been rumors of Apache raids to the east of Maricopa.
Only three days before he had warned the caballeros—the gentlemen of the
court who were going back to Grant and[Pg 114] Bowie, to be on their guard
every inch of the way beyond the Wells, and now his heart was heavy. He
feared that, disdainful of his caution, they had driven straight into ambush.
Ought not the Teniente Blake to push forward at once with his whole force
and ascertain their fate? Blake bade him hold his peace. If harm had come
to that stage, said he, it was not on the eastward, but the westward run,
not at the hands of Apaches, but of outlaws, and Sancho went back looking
blacker than night and saying in the seclusion of the corral, to beetle-browed
hermano mio and his dusky wife, things that even in Spanish sounded ill
and would not be publishable in English. Both officers by this time felt
that there was mischief abroad. It was decided between them that if by
midnight the stage did not arrive, Loring, with the precious packet in
one saddle-bag and the court proceedings in the other, should take eight
men as escort and gallop for the west until he reached the platoon sent
forward at dawn. From that point the danger would be less, and with either
the same or a smaller number of[Pg 115] fresh riders he could push on for
Yuma, sending all the others back to join Blake, who meantime, with what
little force he had, would scout eastward for news of the stage.
But that plan was destined never to be carried out. The long day came
to an end. The darkness settled down over sandy plain and distant mountain.
The silence of midnight reigned over the lonely bivouac and the somber
ranch, yet had not Blake given orders that every man must remain close
to the horses throughout the evening, adventurous spirits from the troop
could surely have heard the ominous whisperings within the corral and marked
the stealthy glidings to and fro. At nine o'clock the famous roan was cautiously
led forth from the gateway and close under the black shadow of the wall,
and not until well beyond earshot of the willows was he mounted and headed
eastward. At ten Loring was sleeping soundly in preparation for the night
ride before him, and Blake, nervously puffing at his pipe, was listening
to the low, murmurous chat where the guard were gathered about[Pg 116]
their watchfires, when soft, timid, luring, sweet, again he heard the tinkle
of that guitar. It ceased abruptly. There was a minute of silence, then,
a trifle louder, it began again; again ceased as though waiting reply,
and Blake sat up and listened. Once more, not at the westward willows,
not at the ranch, not on the open plain, but somewhere close at hand, close
to his side of the bivouac, away from the guard, away from the occasionally
stamping, snorting horses, and equally far from the dark, shadowy buildings
of the stage station, and Blake slowly, noiselessly got to his feet and,
after listening one moment to Loring's deep, regular breathing, buckled
on his revolver belt and stole forth into the starlight. Yes, there was
the sound again—a few notes, a bar or two of the song Pancha was singing
at the willows the night before, and close to the edge of the willows crouched
the musician. With his hand on the butt of his revolver, Blake strode slowly
toward the shrinking form, and, beckoning, it rose and moved swiftly away.[Pg
117]
"Halt where you are," growled the lieutenant, "if you want me to stay
here."
For answer there came the same softly played bars and another gesture
as though imploring him to come farther away from hearing of the ranch
or even of his bivouac, and, whipping out his revolver, the tall trooper
sprang forward and a heavy hand came down on the shoulder of the shawl-hidden
form, and there, trembling, imploring, ay weeping, was Pancha. Before he
could speak one word she began, and, to his amaze, began in English—broken
English to be sure, disjointed, incoherent, tremulous—and he listened,
at first incredulous, then half-convinced, then utterly absorbed, too absorbed
to note that a dark form went scurrying from the shelter of some stunted
brush straight toward the ranch, whence presently a bright light shone
forth and loud voices harshly shouted the name of Pancha! Pancha! whose
wrist he still grasped—Pancha! who, weeping, had implored him to hasten
with all his men, that the stage was not three miles away with officers
from Grant[Pg 118] aboard, that wicked men had planned to murder them to
prevent their joining him, and now, in terror, she sought to break away.
She begged him to release her. They would kill her if they knew——
And even as she pleaded, far out on the dark, eastward plain there suddenly
uprose a chorus of yells, a rattling fusillade, and Blake darted back to
the bivouac, shouting as he ran, "Up with you, 'C' troop! Mount, men, mount!"
and then all was stir and bustle and excitement. Springing from their blanket
beds the troopers threw their carbine slings over their shoulders and flew
to their horses. "Never mind your saddles—no time for that!" yelled Blake,
as he slipped the bit between the teeth of his startled charger, then threw
himself astride the naked back. "Up with you and come on!" Then with a
dozen ready fellows at his heels away he darted into the gloom, guided
only by the yells and flashes far out over the sandy plain. In less than
two minutes every trooper in the little command had gone spurring in pursuit,
and Lieutenant[Pg 119] Loring, suddenly aroused from slumber, revolver
in hand, looking eagerly about for explanation of the row, found himself
standing guard over his treasure-laden saddle-bags—utterly alone.
Then came the whish of a riata through the pulseless air, the quick
whir-r-r of the horse-hair rope through the loop as it settled down over
his head, a snap as it flew taut, a sudden and violent shock as his feet
were jerked from under him, the crack of his revolver—aimless, a stunning
blow on his prostrate head, then oblivion.[Pg 120]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER IX.
A week later the surgeon at Camp Cooke found himself minus one of his
ambulances after all. In response to a penciled note from Blake it had
been hurried from what there was of the shack aggregation at that point
to what was left of Sancho's, Major Starke and the doctor with it. They
found much of the corral in ruins and one end of the rancho badly scorched.
"The wife of my brother," with Pancha, and that ceremonious copy of the
Castilian himself had disappeared, but Sancho was still there, a much wronged
man, and Pedro and José and Concho and a decrepit mule or two, all
under the surly surveillance of Sergeant Feeny and half a dozen troopers
whose comrades were afield chasing banditti through the deserts and mountains,
while those who were detailed to remain spent long, anxious hours watching
over and striving to soothe a young officer delirious from injuries[Pg
121] to the head and resultant fever. Loring a sick man, indeed, when the
surgeon reached him; but poor Blake, wearing himself down to skin and bone
in fruitless chase, would gladly have been in his place.
The stage which he and his men had rushed to rescue was actually out
there to the east, as Pancha had declared, "held up" among some little
sand dunes, but it bore neither passengers nor treasure, and what on earth
the robbers should have detained him for nearly twenty miles east of Gila
Bend—held him in the hot sun from nine in the morning until late in the
afternoon, then sent him on again, only to be once more "rounded to" with
a furious chorus of yells and volleyings of pistols when within only two
miles of Sancho's, that bewildered Jehu could not imagine. The marvel of
it was that, though the old stage was "riddled like a sieve," as he said,
"and bullets flew round me like a swarm of buzzin' bees, not one of 'em
more'n just nipped me and raised a blister in the skin." Indeed, even those
abrasions were indistin[Pg 122]guishable, though Jake solemnly believed
in their existence. Then another queer thing! Long before the lieutenant
and "his fellers" reached the imperiled vehicle all but two or three of
the dozen assailants went scurrying off in the darkness, and when the cavalry
came charging furiously through the gloom there was no one to oppose them.
Jehu Jake couldn't even tell which way the bandits had gone—every way,
he reckoned; and after careering blindly about for half an hour or so,
Blake's most energetic men came drifting back and said it was useless to
attempt pursuit until dawn, even though that would give the renegades six
hours' start. Slowly and disgustedly Blake ordered his men to form ranks
and march back to camp, when suddenly an idea struck him—Loring! Loring,
with his precious saddle-bags, had been left alone; and, calling for a
set of fours to follow him, Blake clapped his spurless heels to his indignant
horse's flanks and galloped for home, only to find Sancho and Pete lamenting
over the prostrate, senseless and bleeding form of the[Pg 123] engineer,
whose arm was still thrown protectingly over the ravished saddle-bags.
The pocket containing that precious envelope was slashed open. The envelope
and watch were gone. The record of the court in the other bag was undisturbed.
And then as he bathed his comrade's head and stanched the blood and
strove to call him back to consciousness, Blake saw it all, or thought
he did, and gnashed his teeth in impotent wrath. He was tricked, betrayed,
yes, possibly ruined, all by a gang of miserable "greasers," through the
medium of a pretty Mexican girl and his own wretched imbecility. There
was no name Blake didn't call himself. There was nothing disreputable he
did not not think of Sancho, but what could he prove? Sancho was a heavy
loser. Sancho's best mules and all his fine horses, including the famous
roan had been spirited away. The gang had made a wreck of the bar and a
puddle of his famous liquor. Manuel, his brother, with his beloved wife
and child, had fled in terror, said Sancho, else would they[Pg 124] now
be here nursing the heroic officer who had striven to defend them against
such a rush of wretches. Blake drove him away with imprecations, vowing
that he, Sancho, was in collusion with the gang, against which unmerited
slur Sancho protested in sonorous Spanish, and to prove his innocence pointed
to his bespattered bar-room, and as that failed to move the obdurate heart
of the raging cavalryman, went sorrowfully back to the dark ranch whence
there suddenly arose a sheet of flame and the cry that the villains had
set fire to the corral before they left. For half an hour the straw and
hay made a fierce blaze, and the troopers turned to and saved the ranch,
as Sancho knew they would, and the actual damage was but slight. Some day
Sancho would present a claim against the government for twenty times the
amount and get such portion of it as was not required by the local agent
and lobbying aids who rushed it through congress. Against Sancho there
was no proof whatever, and when Blake rode away at dawn to take the trail
of the robber band he had to[Pg 125] invoke Sancho's assistance in looking
after his stricken friend. There were hours that day when Blake could almost
have blown his brains out. He, who prided himself on the field record he
was making, had been outwitted, tricked, utterly and ridiculously fooled.
By heaven! if horses could hold out those rascals should not go unwhipped
of justice! Bitter as was his cup the previous year, this was bitterer
still.
Not for ten days, after a long and fruitless chase through the Dragoon
Mountains and almost into Mexico, did Blake return to the Bend, and by
that time Loring was just gone, borne in the ambulance to Yuma. He had
regained consciousness under the doctor's care, said old Feeny, but was
sorely weak and shaken, and the doctor had gone on with him.
So ended for the time being, at least, the survey of the Gila Valley,
for the surgeon at Fort Yuma coincided with the opinion of his brother
from Cooke that Lieutenant Loring could perform no duty for weeks, that
he should have care, rest and a sea voyage. The[Pg 126] record of the court
had been sent on by mail stage to San Francisco, and after a fortnight
of total quiet at Yuma, Loring was conveyed down the Colorado to the Gulf
and shipped aboard the coasting steamer for the two weeks run around Old
California and up the Pacific to Yerba Buena. The very day they sailed
old Turnbull came to join him on the voyage. Not a trace had been discovered
of the fugitive, Captain Nevins, and such suspicious characters as Blake
had overhauled were long since released for lack of evidence. Sancho held
the fort as imperturbably as ever. The "family of my brother" were reported
gone to Hermosillo.
Those were years in which the steamer, plying every month between the
Colorado and the Bay of San Francisco, carried heavy burdens of freight,
stores, and supplies into the far territory, but took little out. Gold
being the monetary standard of California at the time, it cost a captain
a month's pay to take that two weeks' voyage. The government paid the way
into the territory in the case of offi[Pg 127]cers going under orders,
and once landed there a man speedily found himself too poor to think of
returning. Therefore was the stout mariner who commanded the Idaho more
than surprised to find two army officers on his scanty passenger list.
Turnbull he had met before; Loring was a stranger.
"Make yourselves comfortable, gentlemen," said he; "you practically
own the ship till we get to Guaymas. There we pick up some Mexican families
going to 'Frisco, and two mighty pretty girls."
"Who are they?" asked Turnbull languidly, as he sat on the upper deck,
heels lifted on the taffrail, gazing out over an apparently limitless plain,
half dim vista of far-spreading sand, half of star-dotted, flawless salt
water, the smoke of his cigar curling lazily aloft as the black hull rode
at anchor.
"Daughters of old Ramon de la Cruz, for two that I know of, and some
cousin of theirs, I believe. They came aboard on our up trip. The old man
likes our tap of champagne and don't care what it costs. He has more ready[Pg
128] cash than any Mexican I know. You're a married man, colonel, but how
about the lieutenant here?"
Loring, still pallid and listless, smiled feebly and shook his head.
"Well, here's your chance, young man," said the bluff salt, unconscious
of giving offense. "No time like a voyage for love making, once the girl
gets her sea legs on. You ought to capture one of 'em before we're halfway
to the Golden Gate. They rate 'em at two hundred thousand apiece. Don't
know how long it takes a soldier to win a prize like that, but give a sailor
such a show and she'd strike her colors before we sight St. Lucas. If you
don't care for ducats and only want beauty, there's that little cousin.
She can sing and play your soul away; give her half a chance and a good
guitar."
"Who's she?" queried Turnbull, balancing his half-smoked cigar between
the fingers, as he blew a fragrant cloud to the cloudless vault above.
"Didn't get the family name—Pancha they[Pg 129] called her, a slip of
a sixteen-year-old, going to school, perhaps." And the captain turned away
to answer a question from his steward, leaving the two soldiers looking
intently at each other, with new interest in their eyes.
"Blake's destroyer was a sixteen-year-old Pancha, wasn't she?" asked
the colonel in low tone. He had no mercy whatever on Blake, and was outspoken
in condemnation of what he called his idiocy.
Loring was silent a moment, then he drew a letter from an inner pocket.
It had come with Turnbull—the last news from Arizona. "Read that when you've
time, colonel," said he. "Perhaps had you been in Blake's place at his
age you'd have forgotten everything but the stage and the fight. I think
I should."
And as this was the longest speech Turnbull had ever heard from Loring's
lips, except his arraignment of Nevins before the court, the colonel pondered
over it not a little. He took the letter and read it when, an hour later,
the Idaho was plowing her lazy way southward through a dull and leaden
sea.[Pg 130]
"I'm not the first man to be fooled by a slip of a girl, Loring," wrote
Blake. "It isn't the first time that a woman has got the better of me,
and it may not be the last. But the chagrin and misery I feel is not because
I have suffered so much, but because you have, and all through my fault.
I suppose you know the general has ordered me relieved and sent back to
my company as no longer worthy to be called a cavalryman. All the same,
one of these days I mean to get a transfer. My legs are too long for the
doughboys anyhow. Meantime, with all meekness I'll bear my burden—I deserve
it; but you'll believe me when I say it isn't the punishment, the humiliation
this has cost me that so weighs upon me now; it is the thought of your
loss and your prostration. One of these days I may find means to show you
how much I feel it. Just now I have only a hint. Last year at this time
my most cherished possession was my new spring style, ten-dollar Amidon.
A silk hat is as out of place in Arizona as a sunshade in Sitka, yet my
striker has just unpacked it[Pg 131] and asked, with a grin on his confounded
mug, 'What'll I be doin' wid this, sor?'"
"I know! Sole leather hat box and all, it goes by buckboard to your
address at division headquarters. Our heads are about of the same caliber;
the main difference is that yours seems loaded. The Alta says silk hats
are now worn on sunny mornings. Sport mine for me, though it be of the
vintage of a by-gone year. I shall not show my face in civilization till
I have lived down my shame. So now for two years at least of Yuma and the
consolation to be derived from the solitary study of philosophy and Shakespeare.
"Yours in meekness of spirit,
"Gerald Blake.
"P. S.—They say that Sancho's brother's real name is Escalante. If ever
you come across one of that race keep your eyes peeled."
Another day and the billows of the gulf were breaking under the Idaho's
counter and hissing sternward in snowy foam, answering the rush of a strong
southwest wind. It was late at evening when the black hull went reeling
in toward the lights of Guaymas, and the[Pg 132] massive anchor, with prodigious
splash dove for the sandy bottom, but late as it was the shore boats and
lighters came pulling to the gangway stairs, and merchants, clerks and
customs officers nimbly scrambled up the side, and then followed a number
of passengers, cigarette smoking and cackling about the swarming deck,
and Turnbull and the Engineer hung over the rail and watched for the promised
boatload of beauty and presently it came. Two or three small boats were
rowed alongside, and there were glimpses of shrouded forms and there were
sounds of joyous laughter and murmured gallantries of dark-eyed, dark-skinned
caballeros, and the growling injunctions of, presumably, paterfamilias.
And presently the ladder-like stairs were cleared, and, one after another,
woman after woman was assisted up the narrow way, and came sailing into
the zone of light from the polished reflectors, elder women first, then
slender, sparkling-eyed damsels whose white teeth gleamed as they chatted
with their escorts. Two undeniably attractive, Spanish-looking[Pg 133]
girls were objects of most assiduous care. Then came a third, younger,
a mere slip of a maid, with but a single cavalier, a grim, grizzled, stern-looking
Mexican, who glanced sharply about as he set foot on the solid deck, and
then, without a word, Loring's hand was placed on the colonel's arm, and
the lieutenant's eyes said "Look!" for as the girl's face was turned for
an instant toward them, there stood revealed the dusky little maid of the
Gila, Blake's siren—Pancha.[Pg 134]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER X.
Not for many moons did that voyage of the Idaho lose first place in
the memory of the bevy of passengers who watched the lights of Guaymas
fading away astern that April night. All had been bustle and gayety aboard
during an hour of sheltered anchorage. Señor de la Cruz had verified
the captain's verdict and opened a case of Sillery and besought all hands
to drink to a joyous and prosperous voyage for his beloved daughters, their
duenna and his little niece—their cousin from Hermosillo. "All hands" would
have included the ship's company had the captain permitted, so hospitable
was the Mexican, and indeed was intended to include every soul on the passenger
list, most of them boarding the boat at Guaymas. The Señor Coronel
Turnbull was formally presented to the Señor de la Cruz and by him
to his charming family and their many friends, but the junior officer,
on[Pg 135] the score of recent and severe illness, had begged to be excused.
Loring stood alone at the taffrail, listening in thoughtful silence to
the sound of revelry within the brightly-lighted cabin, while the hoarse
screeching of the 'scape-pipe drowned all other voices and proclaimed the
impatient haste of the skipper to be off. Straight, but often storm-swept,
was the southerly run to La Paz—over on the desolate shore of the long,
arid peninsula, and the green surges were rolling higher every moment and
bursting in thunder into clouds of wind-driven, hissing spray on the rocks
beyond the point. Wind and wave were both against their good ship, and
every officer and man was at his station awaiting the order to weigh anchor.
The mail sacks were aboard. The consul had gone down over the side and
still Don Ramon seemed unable to part from his loved ones and the Idaho's
champagne. It was the captain who had finally to put abrupt stop to the
lingering leave-takings.
"I must be off at once," he said. "Come, Don Ramon, we'll take the best
of care of[Pg 136] these ladies and land them all at 'Frisco within the
fortnight. Kiss 'em all around now and jump for your boat. Come, Señor—I
didn't catch the name. Ah, yes, Escalante—the father of the Señorita
Pancha, I suppose. No—only her uncle? Well, I'll be her uncle now," and
so saying he led the way to the deck. Loring saw the lively party come
surging forth from the companionway—señoras, señoritas, gray-haired
men and gay young gallants. There was a moment of clasping, clinging embraces,
of straining arms and lingering kisses, of crowdings and murmurings here
and there, some little sobbing and many tear-wet eyes as the father was
finally hurried down the ladder, and then there was further delay and shouts
for Escalante, and not until then did Loring, silently watching the animated
throng on the port side, become aware of two dark forms in the shadow of
the deckhouse on the opposite quarter. One was that of a slender girl,
and she was sobbing, she was praying in eager words not to be sent away;
she was imploring pitifully to be taken back to[Pg 137] the shore. Loring
had studied Spanish long enough to understand almost every word, and even
before he realized that he was an unwonted listener he had heard both her
sobbing plea and the abrupt, almost cruel answer.
"You have no home, nor has your father. You may thank heaven for the
chance to get away."
The second officer came bustling round in search of them, and, leaving
the girl shrinking and sobbing on the narrow bench in the shadow, the Mexican
was hurried off. Before the little boats had fairly cast adrift and the
swinging steps were raised the throb of the screw was felt churning the
waters of the bay, and as the steamer slowly gathered way and her bow swung
gradually seaward, women and girls, kerchief waving, came drifting back
along the rail, leaning far over and throwing kisses to the tossing shallops
on the dark waves beneath, then gathering about the stunted flagstaff at
the stern, calling loudly their parting words, all unconscious of Loring,
who had stepped aside to give them room and[Pg 138] so found himself close
to little Pancha, lost to everybody in the desolation of a loneliness and
grief that Loring could not see unmoved, yet could not reconcile with what
he had believed of her.
Up to this moment he had heard of her only as an artful girl, the confederate
of thieves and ruffians. Up to this moment he had seen her only once, the
afternoon she threw herself on Blake, as Blake and he had both come to
believe, to prevent his drawing revolver on the two rascals at the ranch.
Yet, never had Loring heard such pathetic pleading, never had he seen child
or woman in such utter abandonment of woe. Never had he thought it possible
that Pancha, the siren of Sancho's ranch—cold, crafty, luring, designing,
treacherous as any Carmen ever since portrayed upon the stage—could be
capable of such intensity of feeling. Drawing his uniform "cape" snugly
about him, for now the sharp sea wind was whistling through the cordage
and chilling his fever-weakened frame, Loring leaned against the rail,
gazing back at the[Pg 139] receding shores, trying not to hear the girl's
sobbing. The chatter of the flock of women was incessant. Turnbull and
two Guaymas merchants had joined the group, but all were intent on those
harbor lights now fast glimmering to mere sparks upon the sea, and the
lonely girl sat there forgotten. Not once was voice uplifted in question
as to what had become of her. Every moment now the stern was lifted higher
in air and then dropped deeper into the roaring, hissing waters, and women
tightened their hold upon the taffrail and gave shrill little shrieks,
and huddled closer together, and presently one of the elders fell back
and begged to be led below, and then another, and by the time the last
glimmer of the town had been hid from view and only the steady gleam of
the lighthouse shone forth upon their foaming wake, the hardiest of the
gay little party of the earlier evening had been carefully assisted down
the brass-bound stairway, and when five bells tinkled windily somewhere
forward, there, with little hands clasped about the stanchion, a shawl
thrown[Pg 140] over her head, that head pillowed in her arms, there alone
in the darkness and the rush of the wind and sea, there, the very picture
of heartbroken girlhood, still sat Pancha, and Loring could bear it no
longer.
He was thinking over his Spanish to be sure of his words when the starboard
doors of the companion way were suddenly thrown open, and in the bright
light from within two burly forms stepped unsteadily forth, then lurched
for the nearest support, and Loring heard the jovial tones of Turnbull:
"He must be up here—or overboard; he's nowhere below!" Then glancing
sternward, "O! Loring!" he shouted, and at the name Pancha's little dark
head was suddenly uplifted, and a pair of black eyes, red-rimmed and swollen
with weeping, gazed, startled, toward the dark figures. For the life of
him Loring could not answer the hail. Turnbull's voice and words alone
had been sufficient to rouse her from a depth of woe, and to give rise
to new and violent distress. She was trembling, and he could plainly see
it. To[Pg 141] answer would only announce to the frightened girl that the
man whose name was sufficient to cause such evident dismay was standing
there just beyond her seat, within a few paces of her, and had probably
been there for some time. Quickly, watching his chance, as the Idaho careened
to port, Loring shot round the deckhouse and made his way forward until
he reached the companion stairs on that side, and in another moment was
clinging to the outer knob of the doorway on the other, and answering the
eager questions as to where he'd been and whether he better not turn in.
"Have a brandy and water, sir," urged the colonel's new companion. "Nothing
like it to head off mal de mer. We're in for a lively night. Half the women
are sick already, and the colonel here was turning white about the gills."
"The air in the cabin was close after all that champagne. It's fresh
in the staterooms, though," answered Turnbull. "Come on, Loring. It's time
for you to be abed." Then in low tone he queried: "What's become of[Pg
142] the child? Did she see you? Has she got back to shore?"
For answer Loring pointed to the dark figure shrinking from view half
a dozen yards away toward the heaving stern. Their jovial fellow-passenger
again interposed.
"Come, gentlemen, brandy and water's what we need, ain't it?" The Idaho's
champagne had evidently taken effect.
"Right!" said Turnbull "Run down and order for us, quick, or it'll be
too late. We'll join you in a minute." The burly merchant dove for the
doorway on the next stomach-wrecking lurch, and collided with the white-capped
stewardess, hastening up, with anxiety in her eyes. The two officers clung
to the mizzen shrouds opposite the companionway as she emerged from the
broad light into the darkness of the wind-swept deck. It was a moment before
she could distinguish objects at all. Then with practiced step she went
swiftly to the crouching figure at the distant end of the long seat.
"I have learned something of her," mur[Pg 143]mured Turnbull. "That
was her father's brother, Escalante, who came aboard with her. That woman
at Sancho's was not her mother. She has been dead for many a year. She
was own sister to De la Cruz. There is something back of their sending
this girl to San Francisco. Hush! Here she comes!"
With her arm thrown about the drooping girl, the stewardess came slowly
leading her to the doorway. The swinging portals had slammed shut in the
last plunge of the Idaho, and as the buoyant craft rose high on the next
billow, Turnbull and Loring both turned to open them. The light shone full
on their calm, soldierly faces as the stewardess thanked them, and the
shrinking child lifted up her frightened eyes for one brief moment, glanced
quickly from one to the other, then, with a low cry, slipped, limp and
senseless, through the woman's arms and fell in a dark heap upon the deck.[Pg
144]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XI.
Another day and the Idaho was battling for her life and that of every
soul aboard. Forging her way southward, she took the furious buffets of
the gale on the starboard quarter—"the right front," as Turnbull would
have put it had he not been too ill to care a fig where she was hit, and
only wished she might go down if that would keep her still. Sea after sea
burst over the dripping decks and tossed her like a cockle shell upon the
waters. Time and again the bows would plunge deep in some rushing surge
and then, uplifting, send torrents washing aft and pour cataracts from
her sides. Long before the dawn of day the red-eyed commander had ordered
the southward course abandoned and headed his laboring craft for the opposite
shores. Harbor there was none north of the deep sheltered bay of La Paz,
but there would be relief from the tremendous poundings of the billows
when once under the[Pg 145] lee of Old California. Obedient to her helm,
the Idaho now met "dead ahead" both wind and sea. The rolling measurably
ceased. The pitching fore and aft continued, but the passenger list by
this time cared no longer to discriminate. It was all one to all but one
of their number. Loring, of the engineers, thanks to long weeks of illness
of another sort, was mercifully exempted from the pangs of seasickness,
but the sights and sounds between decks were more than could long be borne,
and, making his way forward shortly after dawn, he had succeeded in borrowing
a spare sou-wester and pair of sea boots from the second officer, and,
equipped in these and a rubber coat, leaving nothing but his nose and mouth
in evidence, he was boosted up the narrow stairway to the shelter of the
pilot-house on the uppermost deck—the Idaho had no bridge—and there he
saw the sun come up to the meridian and the sea go gradually down as the
steamer found smoother waters under the lee of San Ildefonso. Only lightly
laden, the stanch little craft had well-nigh "jumped out of her[Pg 146]
boots," as the jovial skipper expressed it, and now, all brine and beaming
satisfaction after his long hours of stormy vigil, he clapped Loring on
the shoulder, complimented him on his possession of a "sea stomach" and
ordered coffee served forthwith. They were steaming slowly along at half-speed
now, taking a breathing spell before attempting the next round, and the
captain waxed confidential.
"What's wrong with that pretty little niece?" he asked. "She was bright
enough the day they came aboard on our up trip. Now, the stewardess tells
me she fainted dead away and has been begging to be put ashore all night."
Loring couldn't say.
"But you helped carry her down, you and Turnbull. The stewardess says
you were both very kind to her, where her own people neglected her. I didn't
fancy that scrub Escalante. Do you know anything about him or her own people?"
"Nothing—to speak of," said Loring.
"Fernandez, one of those young Guaymas swells, says the mother was own
sister to De la[Pg 147] Cruz—married against his wishes when she was a
mere girl—died a few years later, and that Don Ramon offered to adopt and
educate her little girl, but only lately would the Escalantes give her
up. All I know is that she's too damned miserable about something else
to be even seasick like the rest of 'em. You'd a-been down there with Turnbull
if you hadn't just had more'n your share of illness," added he, with the
mariner's slight disapprobation of the landsman who defies initiations
of Neptune.
"Very possibly," said Loring.
"The purser tells me Escalante gave him a little packet belonging to
her—very valuable, which he ordered kept in the safe until their agent
should call for it at 'Frisco."
"Indeed!" said Loring, looking up in quick interest.
"Fact," said the skipper. "Now, have some more coffee? I'm going to
turn in for forty winks. Let the steward know when you want anything. Nobody
else will. We've got to face some more rollers after awhile. I dassen't
go inside Carmen Island."[Pg 148]
But Loring had something more engrossing to think of than breakfast
or luncheon. So there was a little packet in the purser's safe, was there?
Valuable and not to be delivered except to their agent in 'Frisco. It was
in Pancha's name, yet not subject to Pancha's order. Why that discrimination?
And it was given the purser by Escalante—brother of the Escalante—another
brother of the accomplished sharper of Sancho's ranch. A precious trinity
of blood relations were these! Small wonder Don Ramon, had opposed his
girl sister's union with one of their number. Now, what on earth could
that small packet contain, and was it likely that the valuables were any
more valuable than those snatched from his saddle-bags the night of the
assault at Gila Bend?—the watch and diamonds of the late Captain Nevins
now vanished into thin air, apparently, for not a trace of him had appeared
since the night he rode away from Camp Cooke.
In genuine distress of mind, Loring had written from Yuma, as soon as
the doctor would[Pg 149] permit, to the address penned by Nevins in presence
of the court, informing that vagabond officer's wife that the valuables
he had been charged to place in her hands had been forcibly taken from
him, after he himself had been assaulted and stricken senseless; that every
effort had been made to recover them, but without success; that he deplored
their loss and her many misfortunes, and begged to be informed if he could
serve her in any other way. The doctors had promised him that he would
be restored by a sea voyage. It would be three weeks, probably, before
he could reach San Francisco, and meantime he knew from the captain's admission
that she was probably in need.
"No one," wrote Loring, "is dependent upon me, and I beg your acceptance
as a loan, as a temporary accommodation, or as anything you please, of
the inclosed draft." (It covered nearly every dollar he happened to have
to his credit in the bank at San Francisco, though he had pay accounts
still collectible.) It took nearly ten days for answer to reach him, and[Pg
150] Loring hid himself away to read it when the letter came, addressed
in a hand he knew too well:
"Naomi, my beloved sister, is prostrated by her sorrows and anxieties,"
it began, "and I must be her amanuensis—I who would die for her, yet who
shrink from this task, well knowing, though she does not, how hard it is
to write to one to whom I have given perhaps such infinite pain. Indeed,
I should not have had courage to write had she not required it of me, had
not your most generous offer and action demanded response. But for your
aid my heartbroken sister and I would by this time have had no roof to
cover our heads. These people had refused to house us longer. As soon as
she is well enough to move and I can obtain the means from Eastern friends
we shall sail for New Orleans, where she expects to find friends and employment,
and she bids me say that within the year you shall be repaid. Meantime
the thought that you, too, have been made a sufferer, all on account of
that unprincipled scoundrel who has deceived and deserted her, weighs upon
her spirits as it does on mine. It is not the loss of the jewels[Pg 151]
(though we would have been beyond the possibility of want had they reached
her) that we mourn; it is that one whom I fear I have sorely angered, perhaps
past all forgiveness, should have to suffer so much more on our account,
and yet if you only knew—if I could only explain! But this is futile. Despise
me if you will, yet believe that my gratitude is beyond words.
"Geraldine Allyn.
"P. S.—Should you care to see—sister on your arrival we shall probably
still be here."
Then there had come, not to him but to the post surgeon at Yuma, another
letter just before Loring started down the Colorado. The doctor was with
his patient at the moment, and the superscription caught the latter's eye.
The doctor changed color and looked embarrassed as he read. Evidently he
did not desire to be questioned, nor was he, at the time, for Loring had
a way of thinking before he spoke, but as the doctor completed certain
injunctions at parting, the engineer turned full upon him:
"Any news of Nevins in the letter you got this morning?"[Pg 152]
The doctor flushed, looked bothered and confused, then finally fished
the letter from an inner pocket.
"Read it yourself," said he, and turned away. It was from Miss Allyn.
It apologized for intruding on a stranger, on his time and patience, but
she knew he had been Mr. Loring's medical adviser, and she felt compelled
to make certain inquiries, her sister being still unable to write for herself.
The doctor was probably aware that Mr. Loring had written apprising them
of the loss of certain articles of great value that had been intrusted
to his care and intended for them. He had expressed the utmost sorrow and
had tendered certain reimbursement (that check was for two hundred dollars,
not a cent less), not a fortieth part of the value of the lost articles,
probably, but now they were in receipt of a letter from Captain Nevins
that must have come by private hand to San Francisco, telling them that
he must go forth to seek his fortunes anew; that his wife would never hear
from him until he could come with full hands; that he had sent[Pg 153]
her every penny and possession he had—enough to keep her in comfort—and
if Lieutenant Loring did not promptly deliver the same to take legal steps
to compel him to do so, as he, Nevins, was now convinced the officer might
appropriate them to his own use, if he could find any way to cover his
breach of trust, such as swearing they were stolen from him. Captain Nevins
had written other things in condemnation of Mr. Loring which neither Mrs.
Nevins nor herself could believe; but—it did seem strange that an officer
could find no safe method of sending valuable jewels when so much depended
on his fidelity.
Loring read no further. His blue eyes were blazing already and his face
was white with wrath when he returned the missive to his friend, who, knowing
nothing of Loring's past infatuation for the writer, wondered at sight
of his emotion.
"Why, Loring," said he, "you take this shallow girl too seriously. It's
the way with women all over the world. They can never wholly acquit a man
of complicity when they[Pg 154] have suffered a loss. If that package were
with you on the Idaho and she was to go down in midocean and the jewelry
with her, some women would say you scuttled the ship in order to rob them."
The doctor's name, it must be observed, is unrecorded, because of the
extremity of his cynicism. He went back to Yuma and his duties and stowed
that letter away, to be answered later on. What the writer said her sister
desired most to know was whether Mr. Loring had sustained any injury that
might affect his mind or memory, and the doctor sniffed indignantly at
the notion while we read, yet marveled much at the effect that half-uttered
accusation had on his usually calm, self-poised patient. He spoke of it
to Turnbull when that veteran came hurrying in by stage and followed Loring
down the murky stream, only just in time to catch the steamer, but Turnbull
paid faint heed. Loring was still weak, he said, and a man of sensitive
honor might well be wrathful at such insinuations.
And now as Loring clung to the rail upon[Pg 155] the lofty deck and
gazed out over the waste of tumbling waters toward the barren shores, he
was thinking deeply of that letter, of the strange bent of mind that could
dictate such unjustifiable suggestion—if not accusation. He was thinking,
too, of Pancha and that little packet in the purser's safe, when suddenly
that officer himself came popping up the narrow stairway and poked his
unprotected head into the whistling wind.
"Lieutenant, come below and have a bite while we're here off Ildefonso.
We'll be turning handsprings in half an hour," and Loring followed to the
steward's cuddy where a smoking luncheon awaited them, and the silent soldier
fell to with the appetite that follows fever. Purser and steward looked
on with admiration.
"I'll prescribe a course of typhoid to the next friend of mine that
contemplates a voyage like this," said the former presently. "It made you
invulnerable, but was it typhoid?"
"No—some head trouble."
"Sunstruck?" queried the purser. "Hot as[Pg 156] it is, that don't often
happen in Arizona—too dry."
"Struck, but not by sun—pistol-butt, perhaps," said Loring. "Night attack
of Gila Bend—robbers."
"Oh, Lord, yes! I remember. I heard about that," said the genial purser.
"Got away with some money, didn't they?"
"No money, but with a valuable package," and the blue eyes were fixed
intently on the purser as he spoke, while the steward uncorked another
pint of Margaux. "A tin box about eight by three, containing a watch and
jewels. You sometimes get such for safekeeping, do you not?"
"Got one now," was the prompt reply, as the officer smacked his lips
and held out his glass for another sip of the red wine of France. "Old
Escalante gave it to me at Guaymas. It's the little señorita's."[Pg
157]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XII.
The afternoon and night that followed brought little comfort to the
cabin passengers. Not till nearly dark did the steamer find the shelter
of another island, and all the intervening hours she wallowed in the trough
of the sea, with the wind abeam, and by the time the heights of Carmen
Island loomed between them and the red glow of the sunset skies, Turnbull
had thrice wished himself in hotter climes than even Arizona, and could
only feebly damn his junior for coming down to ask if there were not something
he could do for him.
"Yes, take this pistol and shoot me," moaned the sufferer. "No, of course
I don't want brandy and water, nor you nor anybody. It's simply scandalous
for you to be up and well. Go 'way!" And though Loring sorely needed counsel,
he felt that Turnbull was in no mood[Pg 158] for talk, and so climbed back
on deck again. He had made up his mind to tell the purser the whole story
and to ask him to examine the contents of the package. All the livelong
night the Idaho plowed and careened through the rolling seas, gaining scant
relief off Santa Catalina and San José, but when in the undimmed
splendor of the morning sun she swept proudly into the placid, land-locked
harbor of old La Paz, Loring was the only man among her passengers to appear
on deck. Even after she dropped anchor and one or two bedraggled victims
were hoisted from below and dropped over the side to be rowed ashore, none
of the women of the gay Guaymas party was able to climb the stairs. The
wind was gone by sundown, and the Idaho once more steering coastwise for
Cape San Lucas. The night wore on and Loring was still alone when, just
as the tinkle of the ship's bell told that nine o'clock had come, with
a soft, warm air drifting off the land, a fragile little form issued slowly
from the companionway, and the stewardess smiled invitingly on the blue-eyed[Pg
159] officer, as though begging him to aid her feeble charge to a seat.
"I have brought the señorita up for half an hour. I made her
come," said she, as she dumped the pile of shawls into a spreading chair
and began preparing a nest, while Pancha, turning away at sight of Loring,
sank to the end of the bench, the very seat she occupied as they put to
sea from Guaymas. But now it was Loring who tendered his arm, and, calmly
ignoring her evident if unspoken protest, aided in lifting her from the
bench and seating her in the depths of the easy reclining chair. The stewardess,
with practiced hand, carefully tucked the rugs about her, and bidding the
little damsel make the most of the soft, salt air, while she herself ran
below to prepare her chocolate, would have gone at once but for Pancha's
trembling, yet restraining hand. The child seemed to cling to her in desperation.
Rapidly and in low tone she poured forth a torrent of pleading, and the
kind-hearted woman looked about her in perplexity and distress.[Pg 160]
"What can I do, sir?" said she to Loring, in English. "This poor little
thing has eaten nothing since she came aboard. She has cried herself sick.
She is as weak as a baby and must have food, yet she will not let me go."
"Stay with her until she is calmer," said Loring. "I'll get what is
needed."
"But I cannot. The other ladies call for me incessantly."
A little disk of gold was slipped quickly into the disengaged hand.
"Let them call awhile but don't you go," was the double answer.
It is odd to note how soon the troubled waves subside along those summer
shores. The Idaho was only lazily bowing and courtesying to Old Neptune
now. A long, languorous heave of the billows, as though worn out with the
furious lashing of the last few days, was the only greeting of the broadening
sea as the steamer rounded the southeast headland and slowly bore away
for Cape San Lucas. Little Pancha's dusky head was resting wearily, yet
resignedly, on the pillow, her hand still clasping that of the stewardess,
as an attend[Pg 161]ant from below appeared with a little tray and some
scalding hot chocolate, some tender slices of the breast of chicken, some
tempting little dainties were quickly set before her. "Make her take them,"
whispered Loring from the shadows, and, once the effort was made and the
"ice broken," the dark-eyed invalid ate almost eagerly. At three bells
the stewardess was allowed to slip away for just a little more chocolate,
and, glancing furtively, fearfully about her, Pancha was aware of a dim
masculine form seated not ten feet away. She knew it was Loring, and yet
could not move. She felt that he must presently rise and accost her, and
she shrank from the meeting in dismay, yet soon began to look again, and
to note that he had not changed his attitude. Apparently indifferent to
her presence, he was gazing dreamily out across the slowly-heaving billows,
wherein the stars were dancing. The stewardess was gone full quarter of
an hour, and in all that time he never even once glanced her way, and poor
Pancha found her eyes flitting toward him every little while in some[Pg
162]thing almost akin to fascination. Could it be that he had—forgotten?—or
that he did not recognize her? Yet she had heard how both Loring and the
other, that older officer, the Colonel Turnbull, had carried her below
as she slowly rallied from her fainting spell two nights before. Surely
she thought she remembered seeing recollection or recognition in the eyes
of both, yet now when he had opportunity to accuse her, not one word did
he attempt. She was warmed and comforted by the chocolate and the food.
She enjoyed the second cup just brought her. She begged the stewardess
to stay, yet only faintly protested when told she had to go. Once again
Pancha was alone when the chiming tinkle, four bells, told that ten o'clock
had come, and then for a moment she turned cold again and shrank within
her rugs and wraps, for Loring slowly and deliberately rose and looked
toward her. Now he was coming. Now he would speak. Now he would demand
of her to explain her part in the wicked thing that had happened. She dreaded,
yet she longed to[Pg 163] say, for she had a story that she could eagerly
tell—to him. For a moment her heart lay still, and then leaped and fluttered
uncontrollably. Slowly the shadowy fellow-passenger had found his feet.
Steadily he looked, as though straight at her, for nearly a minute, then
as slowly and deliberately turned his back and walked away forward. When,
nearly an hour later, the stewardess came to lead her below, and the purser
and one of the ship's officers had both been to inquire if she felt better,
and to tell her to be of good cheer, she'd be all right on the morrow and
trolling for dolphin on the blue Pacific, though she saw Loring slowly
pacing up and down, though twice he passed so close to her that by stretching
forth her tiny foot she could have checked or tripped him, not once again
did she detect so much as a glance at her.
And yet, when a little later the stewardess tucked her in her white
berth, and invented messages and inquiries from her prostrated aunt and
cousins in neighboring staterooms, that designing woman wove a tale about
the[Pg 164] blue-eyed, silent officer pacing the lonely deck—how anxious
he was to do something for the little invalid—how eagerly he had gone and
ordered for her, and superintended the preparation of that dainty little
supper—how he had bidden the stewardess to stay by her and soothe her,
and was so deeply interested. High and low, rich and poor, they love romance,
these tender hearts, and for that reason, doubtless, no reference did Madame
Flores make of the five-dollar gold-piece that had found its way to her
ready palm. "And he spoke Spanish beautifully, did the Señor Teniente,"
said Madame Flores, whereat did Pancha's heart begin to flutter anew, for
that meant that he must have heard and understood her pleadings.
And so it happened that till long after midnight the child lay wide-eyed
and awake, listening to that steady, measured tread upon the upper deck.
Strange and sad and eventful had been that young life thus far. What strange
new thing had Fate in store for her now?
The Idaho dropped anchor at San Lucas and put off a passenger and took
on the mails—two[Pg 165] bags with flanks as flat as the sandy strand on
which the long white line of breakers beat in ceaseless, soothing melody.
The broad blue ocean glistened under the sunshine of another day, and late
in the afternoon one or two pallid and attenuated shapes were aided to
the deck, where Pancha had been reclining ever since noon, and the captain
had come and rallied her upon her big, pathetic eyes and hollow cheeks,
and coaxed her to promise to play her guitar that evening, and the purser
had been polite and the stewardess had brought up an appetizing lunch,
and Colonel Turnbull put in an appearance toward sundown (a grewsome face
was his) and all this time Mr. Loring was either briskly pacing the deck
or reading in a sheltered nook back of the purser's cabin, but never once
did he address her or intrude upon her meditations, and Pancha's spirits
and courage—or was it innate coquetry?—began to ferment. That evening no
less than five passengers appeared at table, though all five did not remain
through the several courses. That evening Pancha was again tucked in her
chair,[Pg 166] and Cousin Inez was aided from her room and placed beside
her, and very attentive was Mr. Traynor, the purser, though fair Inez was
but languid and unresponsive still, and kept her veil about her face, and
Colonel Turnbull came and poured champagne for both with lavish hand, and
vowed it was specific against further assaults of the salty seas, and still
Mr. Loring never spoke a word. With the sparkling sunshine of yet another
day, the little maid was early on the shining deck, fresh from its matutinal
ablutions, and there was Loring taking his early exercise, striding up
and down, up and down, and drinking in the glorious, invigorating sea air;
but even now he came no nearer, and she who feared at first to venture
to her accustomed seat, lest he might take advantage of her solitude and
come and ask things or say things she could not bear to hear, finally sidled
along one side while he was patrolling the other, made her timid way to
the stern and stood there clinging to the flagstaff, and became absorbed
in the rush of the foaming, boiling waters unrolling a gradually[Pg 167]
narrowing streak of dazzling white through the blue-green waste of billows,
all sparkling in the slanting sunshine. Wheeling in flapping circles overhead,
skimming the crested waves, settling down and lazily floating on the heaving
flood, so many dots of snow upon the sapphire, the flock of gulls sailed
onward with the ship, white scavengers of the sea, and sometimes dropped
so close to the rail on wide extended wing that Pancha could plainly see
the eager little red beads of eyes, could almost bury her soft cheek in
the thick plumage of their fleecy breasts. Away out toward the invisible
coast a three-master was bowling along under full spread of canvas, and,
midway between, some huge black fish were plunging through the swelling
brine. Early as it was the deck hands had cast astern the stout trolling
line, and far in their wake the spinning, silvery bait came leaping and
flashing from the northward slope of each succeeding wave, and Pancha,
who had seen the previous day a dolphin hauled in to die in swiftly changing,
brilliant hues upon the deck, tested the taut[Pg 168] lanyard with her
slender fingers, wondering whether she alone could triumph over the frantic
struggles of the splendid fish, or what she would do if she found she could
not. It was an hour to breakfast time. Only Loring and herself had yet
appeared on deck, and she stole a peep at him. There he was tramping up
and down as though he had to finish a thousand laps within a given time,
and stood at least a hundred laps behind. Four days earlier the child looked
with terror to the possibility of his even drawing near her. Now she was
beginning to wonder if he never would again. Five days before she could
have sobbed her heart out, praying not to be subjected to the possibility
of his asking her a question. Now she was wondering if he did not even
care to ask—if indeed she would ever have a chance to tell.
She did not know, poor little maid, that late the previous evening,
after consultation between Turnbull and Loring, the latter had asked Mr.
Traynor to place a packet of his within the safe, and that then and there
Tray[Pg 169]nor had permitted him a peep at the valuable parcel to be delivered
to Escalante's representative in San Francisco. Loring had been allowed
to "heft" it in his hand, to curiously study the seals and superscription,
to satisfy himself it could not be the tin case stolen from him at Sancho's,
for this one was smaller, yet not to satisfy himself it did not contain
the missing watch and diamonds, for it was big enough to hold them. Pancha
did not know that the two officers had agreed upon a plan of action to
be put in operation the moment they were within the Golden Gate. She did
not dream that the thoughts of the silent officer dwelt on her and her
past intently as did hers on him. She was heartsick, lonely and oppressed
with anxieties, such as seldom fall to the lot of maidens of sixteen, yet
her heart was beating with the hope that lives in buoyant health and youth.
She had left the father whom she devotedly loved and had believed all that
a father could or should be, had received his parting blessing at Hermosillo
and his faltering promise to soon be with her—at Guaymas.[Pg 170] She had
been radiant with the thought of soon again springing to his arms when
the Idaho stopped there on the northward trip. She had been stunned and
stricken when told it was his wish she should go with her cousins to San
Francisco, dwell with them there, be educated there, and without hope of
again seeing him until he could come to her perhaps late in the summer.
She had then been told that his life was threatened and that hated Gringos
and suspicious compatriots, both, were thirsting for his blood. She had
been told that she herself was in danger of arrest for complicity in robberies
at Gila Bend—she, who had overheard the plot to meet the stage, murder
the passengers and rob the mails, at least that was what the woman whom
she was bidden to respect as her stepmother had fearfully told her and
asked if there were no way in which she could warn Blake. How was she to
know, poor child, what would result? How could she help shrinking from
sight of the officers she had watched with such eager interest at Sancho's,
when she was later told[Pg 171] they were seeking her father's life—told
that, could they force a confession from her, nothing on earth could save
him? Yet here was the gray-haired colonel devoting himself to Inez and
being kind to her own trembling self. Here was the Teniente Loring who
had been lovely to her, said the stewardess, until he saw her terror, her
shrinking from him, and now when she longed to tell him her simple story,
he would not come near her. Of the packet and its contents she knew next
to nothing. Of their intention to secure it and, if need be, her arrest
with it, the moment they reached the wharf at San Francisco, she could
not dream. That that fated packet was destined never to reach the Golden
Gate, that every plan and project, based on the safe return of the Idaho
to port, was doomed to die, no one of her passengers or crew could possibly
have predicted this beaming April morning as she cleft the billows on her
northward way. Pancha was only wondering how and when Loring's silence
would end, when within the minute the end came.[Pg 172]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XIII.
The waiters were just beginning to set the tables for breakfast in
the "saloon" beneath the broad skylight. The crew had ceased the morning
"squilgeeing" and swabbing forward, and were busy stowing away mops, buckets
and brooms. One or two passengers had crawled up the companion way and
dropped into seats amidships, staring in envy, if not disapproval, at the
swinging stride of the young officer whose cheeks were beginning to glow
again with the flush of health, and Pancha, clinging to her perch at the
stern, after following him with her eyes far up the deck until she knew
he had almost reached the point where he suddenly faced about in his swift
march, again resolutely turned her back upon the Idaho and all that appertained
to her, and found herself for the fortieth time gazing out over the glistening
wake, and for[Pg 173] the first time with a thrill of excitement. The taut
trolling line was snapping and swaying, and far astern something gleaming
in the slant of the sunshine came springing into view from the crest of
a wave, then diving into the depths of the next and darting to right and
left beneath the heaving waters—a dolphin! a beauty! she knew in an instant,
and grasping the cord she strove with all her strength to haul in. For
a second or two it came readily enough, then with sudden jerk, whizzed
taut again, as the game victim made a magnificent dash for liberty. Again
she laid hold and, bracing her slender feet, threw her whole weight on
the line and pulled away; again with only temporary success, for the dolphin
only shook himself and struggled, but suddenly darting forward, he as suddenly
slackened the line and Pancha, who had been pulling for dear life with
set teeth and straining muscles, fell suddenly back and was spared a hard
tumble only by a pair of strong, clasping arms that quickly righted, if
they did not as quickly release, her, and Pancha, furiously[Pg 174] blushing,
excitedly panting, could only show her white teeth one instant as she fluttered
out a faint "Gracias" and wriggled out of the gentleman's embrace, then
with the instinct of her sport-loving race, grabbed again for the line
and now there was seasoned muscle behind her, and the dolphin knew he had
met his master. Hand over hand they pulled away, five, ten, fifteen fathoms,
and the dripping cord curled upon the deck, and at last the gleaming beauty
of the Pacific seas came leaping into view and swinging at the stern, and
then Pancha, with sparkling eyes and eagerly flushing cheeks, ducked out
of the way as Loring skillfully swung her prize aboard and sent the magnificent
fellow gasping and flapping upon the deck.
And so at last the spell was broken. He had spoken slowly and with grave
kindness in his modulated voice a few words of the stately and sonorous
tongue she loved, and now in the fresh, sweet air of the morning, in the
gladness of the ocean breeze and the heyday of life and youth, these two
stood there at[Pg 175] the taffrail of the Idaho, she so slender, dark
and willowly, he almost Saxon in his blue-eyed, fair-haired, fair-skinned
manliness, alone with each other and their prize. The child who had fainted
at sight of him less than a week agone, was peeping shyly up at him now,
and thinking how good a face was that, so fresh and fair and strong, with
its smooth-shaven chin and cheeks, its round white throat, and the flawless
teeth that glistened under the curling mustache whenever he opened his
lips to speak, and that showed so seldom at any other time. Not until this
moment had she ever seen him smile.
The fringe of her Mexican rebosa had caught the button of his snugly-fitting
sack coat, and it needed her deft, slim fingers to release it. Then in
its frantic struggles the dolphin threatened to spring back to its native
element, and Loring had to head him off and thrust him to the middle of
the deck again, close to the skylight of the "saloon," and there he bade
her come and watch the vivid, swiftly changing, iridescent hues of the
beautiful creature,[Pg 176] and she obediently drew near and stood bending
over in mingled triumph and compassion. "Ah, que es bonito!" she sighed,
as the frantic leapings seemed to cease and the prize lay gasping at full
length, exhausted by the violence of the long battle. Presently Loring
called the steward to send up for the Señorita's captive, and to
serve it at the Señorita's table for breakfast, and then perhaps
he might have returned to his solitary walk, but the study of Spanish is
never more fascinating than when rosy lips and pearly teeth are framing
the courtly phrases. Whatever the cause of her agitation the night of the
meeting, whatever his preconceived idea of her complicity in the scheme
that robbed him of his guard at Gila Bend and laid him low in the dust
of the desert, Loring found, as the result of five days observance and
reflection, that his original views had given place to doubt, and doubt
at last to confidence in her utter innocence. Knowing what ordeal was before
him at the end of the voyage, he had studiously avoided her, but now avoidance
was no longer possible.[Pg 177] For a few moments they stood there, saying
little, for he was not practiced in the speech of Spanish, and at any time
his words were few, and then he asked her if she would not like to walk.
When Turnbull clambered up the stairway just as the breakfast gong was
banging, he was amazed to find the Engineer and Pancha, arm in arm, pacing
swiftly up and down the deck in perfect step and apparently in as perfect
accord, the girl's delicate face lighted up with a glow that was not all
of exercise, her wonderful eyes looking frankly into Loring's fine, thoughtful
face, her free hand gesticulating eagerly as she chattered blithely, almost
ceaselessly, for Loring was a flattering listener to men or women, old
or young. It was a transfigured maiden that met the sisters De la Cruz
as they ventured from their staterooms to the table. Even Inez, their boasted
beauty, looked sallow and wan beside her radiant cousin, and the fat duenna,
their aunt, gazed in mingled astonishment and disapproval at the sight.
But Pancha was the heroine of the day. Pancha's hand[Pg 178] had caught
the dolphin, and the captain showered his loud congratulations, the purser
handed her to her seat, and would gladly have sidled into the chair of
Señor Sepulvida, who had come aboard with them at Guaymas and kept
his berth until the previous evening, yet now came forth to face the gathering
company at breakfast. The skipper had placed the stout señora at
his own right, with Turnbull just beyond her. To Señorita Inez he
had given the left-hand seat, with Loring on her other side, and Señorita
Carmen just beyond him. So there was the Engineer flanked by damsels said
to enjoy no little wealth and social station, yet his blue eyes ever wandered
over across and further down the table where sat Pancha with a stuffy old
cigar merchant between her and their party, and that scape-grace, Sepulvida,
ogling on the other hand. Two, at least, of that reassembling company deserved
their appetites at breakfast. But Turnbull had no zest for anything, and
the women generally only feebly toyed with their forks. The colonel had
found time to seize[Pg 179] Loring by the arm and whisper to him on the
stairs:
"By Jove, young man, you're playing a deep game! D'you expect to find
out anything?"
"I have—already," said Loring.
"The devil you have! What?"
"She's innocent—utterly!"
And that bright morning was followed by a cloudless afternoon and a
sweet, still, starlit evening, and by this time all men and all women were
on deck, and the Idaho was foaming swiftly on through the summer seas,
and people went below reluctantly at night, and woke to new and brighter
life on the morrow; and Loring was up with the sun and drinking deep draughts
of old ocean's ozone, as he paced the decks till Pancha came. And one day
followed another, and Turnbull read and yawned and dozed and tried to talk
to the charming señoritas, but couldn't muster enough Castilian,
and Traynor chalked the decks for "horse billiards" and shuffleboard, and
everybody took a hand at times, and one evening,[Pg 180] despite the havoc
moist salt air plays with catgut, Pancha's guitar and that of the purser
were brought into requisition, and Pancha was made to sing, a thing she
didn't do too well as yet, and Pancha knew it without asking when she looked
in Loring's eyes, and no power or persuasion could make her try again—until
long, long after.
They were having now an ideal voyage, so far as wind and weather were
concerned, but the Señoritas de la Cruz declared it the stupidest
they'd ever known, and the officers—los Americanos—the least attentive
or attractive of those with whom they had ever sailed. And everybody seemed
to long for the sight of the green headlands of the Golden Gate and the
terraced slopes of San Francisco—all save two; Pancha, to whom the ending
of that voyage meant the ending of the sweetest days her life had ever
known, and the beginning of a school drudgery she dreaded, and Loring,
to whom the return to San Francisco meant the taking up anew of a tangled
case that had become hateful to him, to whom there was the[Pg 181] prospect
of a meeting that he would gladly avoid, to whom there was coming an inevitable
parting, the thought of which oppressed him strangely, and he could not
yet tell why.
The marvelous green of the California bluffs spanned the horizon for
miles on their starboard hand one radiant afternoon as they went below
to the captain's dinner, the last before reaching port. The sunshine had
been brilliant all the day, yet there came a chilly, shivering air toward
two o'clock, and the first officer shrugged his shoulders and looked dubiously
ahead, but gave no other sign. Gaily they drank the skipper's health and
pledged the Idaho in her best champagne. Long they lingered over the table
and laughter, jest and song and story enlivened the hours that came to
an end at last, and Pancha stole her little hand within Loring's arm for
the last starlight walk along the now familiar decks, and lo, when they
issued from the brightly-lighted saloon the stars were gone, the steamer
was forging ahead through a chill mist that grew thicker with every moment,
and as half-[Pg 182]speed was ordered and the mournful notes of the whistle
groaned out throbbingly over the leaden sea, she swayed uneasily over a
heavy ground swell that careened her deeper and deeper as the mist thickened
to fog, and oilskins and sou'westers came out and dark figures went dripping
about the decks, and Loring fetched his uniform cape from below and muffled
in it Pancha's slender form, and for awhile they tottered up and down,
then abandoned the attempt to walk, and settled in their chairs at the
end of the bench, just where she had sat and clung to the white stanchion
and sobbed her heart out that night in Guaymas Bay. Ay de mi—Pancha could
have sobbed almost as hard, though no longer in loneliness and desolation—this
very night.
As early as 9.30 Señora Valdez had gone below, following her
lovely nieces, and warning Pancha to come at once. It was too dark, too
damp to remain there longer, but Loring begged, and the Idaho lurched and
rolled sympathetically at the moment and the duenna found further argument
impossible. She had[Pg 183] to rush for her room, and later to confide
her mandates as to Pancha to the stewardess, who came, peeped, and considered
them ill-timed. At six bells Turnbull and a few determined, yet uncomfortable
souls were consuming cognac and playing vingt et un in the cabin, while
the lookouts were doubled on the deck and every ship's officer stood to
his post. The sound of the muffled tinkle of the bell roused Pancha from
the silence that had fallen on the pair.
"I must go," she murmured for perhaps the twentieth time, and yet she
could not.
Once more, mournful, moaning, the deep-toned whistle poured forth its
warning on the night, and before the long blast had died away, up from
the depths of the dense fog bank ahead arose an echo, accentuated with
sharp, staccato shrieks. Then came a sudden, startling cry at the bow;
then deep down in the bowels of the ship the clang of the engine gong;
then, shouts, and rushings to and fro at the hidden forecastle; and Loring
started to his feet only to be hurled headlong to the[Pg 184] deck, for,
with fearful shock, some mammoth monster struck and pierced and heeled
to port the stanch little coaster, and then, withdrawing from the fearful
rent in her quarter, came crushing and grinding down the side, sweeping
away every boat that hung at the starboard davits, ripping through the
shrouds like pack-thread, and rolling and wallowing off astern amid a pandemonium
of shouts for aid, and frantic screams of startled women. In one minute
the great steamer had vanished as suddenly as she came, and the Idaho was
settling by the bows. A signal rocket tore aloft to tell the tale of desperate
peril.
"Stand by us, Santiago! Don't you see you've cut us down?" bellowed
the captain through his trumpet. Again the steam-pipe roared and the mournful
whistle crooned the death song. No answering signal came to cheer their
hearts with hope of rescue. The great Pacific mailer was lost in the fog
full half a mile away. The crew came rushing up on deck, reporting everything
under water below. There was a mad dash of fear-crazed[Pg 185] men for
the boats, discipline and duty both forgotten.
Over the first officer's prostrate form they sprang at the "falls" of
the sternmost—the longboat, a huge, bearded seaman in the lead. The captain,
with fury in his eye, leaped in the way, shouting blasphemy and orders
to go back, and was knocked flat with a single blow. The brawny hand had
seized the swaying tackle and three seamen were already scrambling into
the swinging craft when a revolver cracked; the big leader threw up his
hands with a yell of agony and toppled headlong upon the deck. Then a lithe
figure vaulted over the longboat's gunwale. One after another three seamen
came tumbling out abashed and overawed. The captain regained his feet and
senses. The boat was lowered by cooler hands until it danced in safety
on the waves, and one after another the women were carefully passed down
to the care of him whose stern, clear-headed sense and instant action had
proved their sole salvation—a landsman, Loring of the Engineers.[Pg 186]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XIV.
That was a woeful night on the fog-shrouded Pacific. In less than ten
minutes from the moment of the crash the Idaho's stern was lifted high,
then down she dove for her final berth, untold fathoms underneath—her steadfast
captain standing to his post till the last soul left the doomed and deserted
wreck. It was God's mercy that limited the passenger list to a mere dozen
in the first cabin and less than twenty in the second. The boat, with all
the women, was pushed off from the side, the first officer taking charge.
Through the fog they could dimly see the others lowered, then manned and
laden. Discipline had been restored. Water and bread and blankets had been
hastily passed to the longboat. The purser had found time to dive into
his safe, and to load up with some, at least, of the valuable contents.
There was even a faint cheer when[Pg 187] the steamer took the final plunge.
Huddled together, many of the women were weeping, all were pale with dread,
but Loring and the ship's officer bade them be of good cheer. Even if they
were not found by the Santiago they were but a few miles from shore. The
sea, though rolling heavily, was not dangerous. They were sure of making
land by morning. But there were women who could not be comforted. Their
husbands or brothers were in the two smaller boats, perhaps paddling about
in the darkness in vain search for the steamer that cut them down. For
awhile there were answering shouts across the heaving waters. Then for
half an hour the boat with the second officer, crammed with male passengers
and members of the crew, kept close alongside—too close, for some of the
former scrambled into the bigger craft and others tried to follow; so close
that its young commander could mutter to his mate: "The captain's boat
is even fuller than mine. Can't you take off half a dozen?"
But the first officer shook his head: "If the[Pg 188] worst comes, they've
got life preservers and can swim," said he. "These women would be helpless
except for what we can do for 'em."
For a time they shouted in hopes of being heard aboard the Santiago,
but only those who have tried it know that it is a matter of merest luck
when a steamer rounding to in a fog succeeds in finding or even coming
anywhere near the spot where she was in collision not ten minutes before.
The Santiago's captain swore stoutly that, though badly damaged and compelled
to put back to San Francisco, for three mortal hours they cruised about
the scene, setting off rockets, firing guns, sounding the whistle, listening
intently with lowered boats, but never heard a sound from the wreck, never
until two days after knew the fate of the vessel they had cut down. At
last the first officer, fearful for his precious freight, bade his four
oarsmen to pull for shore, his little pocket compass pointing the way.
At dawn they heard the signals of a steamer through the dripping mist,
and raised their voices in prolonged shout. An hour more and they were[Pg
189] lifted, numb and wearied, but, oh, so thankful, to the deck of a coaster
creeping up from Wilmington and Santa Barbara, and were comforted with
chocolate and coffee, while for long, long hours the steamer cruised up
and down, to and fro, seeking for their companions and never desisting
until again the pall of night spread over the leaden sea. Late the following
morning the fog rolled back before the waking breeze and the Broderick
steamed hopefully on for the Golden Gate, and by nightfall was moored at
her accustomed dock, there to be met by the tidings that, while the second
officer managed to beach his boat in safety, the captain's overloaded craft
was swamped in the breakers off Point Pinos, and that brave old Turnbull
had lost his life, dragged under by drowning men. At Monterey the people
thought the longboat too must have overturned, and that all the women had
perished. The Santiago, nearly sinking, had only just reached port. The
beach above Point Pinos was thronged with people searching in the surf
for the bodies of the victims,[Pg 190] and the captain of the Idaho was
broken hearted, if not well-nigh crazed. The news of the safety of the
women flew from street to street, fast as the papers could speed their
extras. Loving friends came pouring down to meet and care for the survivors
on the Broderick. The owners of the Idaho hastened to congratulate and
commend their first officer and praise his seamanship and wisdom. The women
were conveyed in carriages to the homes of friends or cared for by the
company, and after a brief handclasp and parting word with Pancha, whose
pathetic eyes haunted him for days, Mr. Loring took a cab and drove alone
to headquarters. Evidently the story of the panic and its prompt suppression
had not yet been told.
And then for at least five days the papers teemed with details of that
marine disaster, and public-spirited citizens started a subscription for
a presentation to the first officer, through whose heroism and determination
was checked what promised to be a mad scene of disorder and dismay, such
as ensued when the[Pg 191] Arctic went down and that "stern, brave mate,
Gourlay, whom the sailors were wont to obey" was not there to check the
undisciplined rush to the boats. For forty-eight hours and thereafter the
first officer modestly declared he had merely done his duty, sir, and no
good seaman would have done less. The public dinner to be given in his
honor, however, languished as a project on the later arrival of survivors
from Monterey, and then inquiries began to be made for Lieutenant Loring
and new stories to appear in papers that had not already committed themselves
to other versions of the affair, and then it transpired that something
had gone amiss at Department Headquarters. Lieutenant Loring, after an
interview with the commanding general, had hastened to Monterey in search
of the captain and purser. The former he found there prostrate and actually
flighty, so much so that he could give no coherent answer to questions
propounded to him. In the marine hospital, suffering from a gunshot wound,
was the huge sailor who had felled the commander to the[Pg 192] deck in
the rush for the remaining boats, a rush in which he was ringleader, and
a piteous tale he told—that he had been shot by a passenger whom he was
trying to prevent from getting into the boat they were holding for the
women. The gallant little second officer had gone to his wife and children
in the southern part of the State, and was not there to tell the truth.
The captain was almost delirious. The first officer in San Francisco had
been tacitly posing as a marine lion, and could not well be expected to
volunteer information that might rob him of his laurels. The survivors
among the passengers were scattered by this time, and the purser, whose
testimony might be of great value, had disappeared. "Must be in 'Frisco,"
said the agent who had been sent down to see that every man was furnished
with clothing and money at the company's expense, and sent on his way measurably
comforted. "Traynor had a desperate squeak for life," said the agent. "He
was in the captain's boat when she sunk and was weighed down with his money
packages, belted about him[Pg 193] underneath his coat, and was hauled
ashore more dead than alive, and some of his valuables were lost—he couldn't
tell how much."
And this was the man Mr. Loring most needed to see. There had come to
Department Headquarters a person representing himself as the San Francisco
agent of the Escalante brothers, presenting a written order for a valuable
package which had been given the purser for safe keeping—had been locked
by him in his safe, and which now could be found nowhere. Mr. Traynor had
declared to the owners that after getting the women aboard the boat he
had taken all the money from the safe and such packages as it was possible
to carry, and tossed three or four to Loring as he stood balancing himself
on a thwart and clinging to the fall, and that he was sure one of them
was that of the Señorita Pancha, for she was at the moment clasping
Loring's knees and imploring him to sit down. The boat was alternately
lifting high and sinking deep as the great waves rolled by, and Traynor,
while admitting haste and excitement, declared that[Pg 194] he could almost
swear that Loring received three packages and one of them must have been
that now demanded by the Escalante's agent. Hence the visit of that somber
person to headquarters and his importunate appeals to Loring, who told
him the whole story was absurd.
But then this agent had appealed to the general, and that officer, whose
manner the day of Loring's return to duty had been marked by odd constraint,
sent for the Engineer and required of him a statement as to the truth or
falsity of these allegations, and when Loring, startled and indignant,
answered "False, of course, sir," and demanded what further accusation
there was, the chief tossed aside the paper folder he was nervously fingering,
sprang up and began to pace the floor, a favorite method, said those who
long had known him, of working off steam when he was much excited.
"I can't—discuss this painful matter, Mr. Loring," said he, testily.
"You'll have to see Colonel Strain, the adjutant-general. This[Pg 195]
deplorable loss of Colonel Turnbull has upset everybody."
So Loring went to Colonel Strain, a man to whom he was but slightly
known, and then it was developed that a young lady wearing mourning, a
very lovely girl, so every one described her, had called no less than three
times to inquire if Mr. Loring were not returned. Once only had the general
seen her, but Strain was three times her listener, and a patient one he
proved, and a most assiduous friend and sympathizer for several days, until,
as it subsequently transpired, in some way matters reached the ears of
Mrs. Strain. The colonel very pointedly told the engineer lieutenant that
the lady claimed to have received letters proving that he was still in
possession of the Nevins jewels while sojourning at Fort Yuma, had endeavored
to compromise the matter by the tender of a check for two hundred dollars,
which in her destitute condition her sister had felt compelled to accept
until she could have legal advice, "and this," said Colonel Strain, "followed
now by the claim of[Pg 196] this Mexican agent, has created such a scandal
in the general's eyes that you cannot too speedily take steps to assure
him of your innocence, which of course you should have no difficulty in
doing unless—unless—" and the colonel coughed dubiously.
For a moment Loring stood there like one in a daze. Good God! Geraldine
Allyn his accuser! The girl who had wronged him so bitterly before! The
girl whom he had sought to aid when he found her well-nigh destitute! Gradually
the whole force of the situation dawned upon him. With Turnbull dead, the
captain daft and Traynor telling the strange story of his (Loring's) eagerness
to examine the Escalante packet early on the voyage, and now declaring
that he had given it into Loring's keeping! Who in the name of Heaven was
left to speak for him? Loring had come a stranger to this distant station.
He had chosen to be sent at once to duty in a desert land. He was personally
as little known to his superiors here at San Francisco as though they had
never met. Even as the[Pg 197] men began about the steamship offices and
on the streets and in the hotels whither the Idaho's few passengers had
told the tale, to speak of Walter Loring as the man who really quelled
the panic, if not a mutiny, and saved the lives of a score of helpless
men and women, that officer stood accused before his comrades of the army
of breach of trust, of mean embezzlement, of low-down theft and trickery,
and not a man could he name to help to prove him innocent. Blake, to be
sure, was at Yuma, but what could he establish save that the stage had
been attacked, Loring left alone, and when the cavalry returned there lay
the Engineer apparently unconscious, the empty saddle-bag beside him. Blake
had seen no robbers. Blake suspected Sancho of every villainy, but could
convict him of none. Traynor, the purser, whether he believed or disbelieved
his own story that he had passed that packet down to Loring, could truthfully
declare that Loring had displayed most mysterious and unaccountable interest
in it. One talk with Pancha, it seems, had banished Loring's[Pg 198] intention
of confiding his suspicion and the whole story, in fact, to Mr. Traynor.
And so there was no friend to whom he could turn. Five days after his arrival
in San Francisco Loring found himself facing charges of the gravest nature,
for Traynor, being sent for, told his story to the general in person, and
Loring stood alone.[Pg 199]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XV.
April had gone, and May and June was well-nigh half over. The old semaphore
of Telegraph Hill would have worn itself out signaling sidewheel steamers
had it still been in operation. The transcontinental railway was stretching
out up the valley of the Platte toward the center of the continent, but
Wells-Fargo, and the pony express charging a dollar a letter, were the
only transcontinental rapid transit of the day. People still went to and
from the distant East by way of Aspinwall and Panama, and the big boats
of the Pacific mail were crowded, going or coming; and one bright June
day two women in mourning were escorted aboard the Sonora and shown to
their little stateroom, one a decidedly pretty girl, the other a sad-faced,
careworn, delicate looking widow, ten or twelve years apparently the senior.
They sailed with only one friend to see them off, an aide-de-camp of the
command[Pg 200]ing general, yet not without much curiosity on part of the
younger woman as to the composition of the passenger list. Even before
they were beyond the rocky scarp of Alcatraz, for few things are impossible
to a pretty woman, she had been able to secure a copy and to say, with
bated breath, to the languid invalid: "At least he's not going on this
ship. It might be better if he were." For Miss Geraldine Allyn had not
lost faith in her power to charm.
And one reason why the "he" referred to was not going on this ship was
that the sisters Nevins and Allyn had "booked" their passage nearly two
weeks before, it being useless to remain longer on the Pacific coast in
hopes of finding the fugitive husband, for the consul at Guaymas was authorized
to report the death at Hermosillo, "through wounds and exposure, of the
gallant but unfortunate captain, whose mind must have given way under his
accumulation of troubles." A seal ring that Nevins used to wear and some
letters were all he had to leave, and these had been duly forwarded[Pg
201] to the address of his wife, whose pathetic inquiries for further particulars
elicited nothing more reliable than that Nevins was dead and buried, and
that was the end of him. The quartermaster got "transportation" for them
to New Orleans. A sum sufficient for their immediate needs was placed in
their hands. Another sum, which did not receive immediate acknowledgment,
was also sent to the disconsolate widow, and now they were going, and that
was all. Going, too, was Loring, though not on that trip, shaking, so to
speak, the dust of California from his feet, a silent but much-disgusted
man. For nearly five weeks he had lived a life that would have tried the
endurance of the patriarch of Holy Writ and wrecked the sunny nature of
a Tapley. Hounded day after day by the so-called agent of the Escalantes
with insolent demands for property that was never in Loring's possession;
threatened with arrest if he did not make restitution or propose an equivalent;
sent practically to Coventry by officials at headquarters, to whom he was
too proud or too sensitive to dilate[Pg 202] upon his wrongs or to tell
more than once the straight story of his innocence; saved from military
arrest only by the "stalwart" letter written by the Yuma surgeon in response
to his urgent appeals; comforted measurably by Blake's eloquent, but emphatically
insubordinate, outburst at the expense of department headquarters; unable
to bring to bear for nearly five weeks the mass of testimony as to character
forthcoming from the superintendent and officers at West Point, and the
letters of classmates and comrades who knew him and felt that the charges
must be false, our Engineer passed through an ordeal the like of which
few men have had to encounter. Then the unexpected happened. The captain
of the Idaho slowly recovered his mind and strength, and with convalescence
came keen recollection of all that had occurred. He too made full report
to the owners of Loring's coolness and determination the night of the wreck,
and was amazed to be told of the charges against that officer.
"Who says so? Who makes such accusa[Pg 203]tions?" he demanded angrily,
and was informed that his friend and shipmate, Purser Traynor, was the
person; whereat the big skipper gave a long, long whistle, looked dazed
again, smote his thigh with a heavy fist, and presently said, "Just you
wait a little;" wherewith he took himself off. Traynor and the first officer
had been very "thick" for a fortnight or so, though that dinner had never
come off. Traynor and the first officer had both been promised excellent
berths the moment the new steamer arrived that was to take the place of
the Idaho. But the captain went cruising out beyond Sacramento, where the
purser had a little nest and brood, and came back later with a tale he
poured into the ears of the company, the result of which was that Traynor
was informed he would be wise to seek other employment; there would be
no place for him on the new Montana; and Traynor took first boat for the
Columbia, and got far away from San Francisco. No specific charges had
been laid at his door, said the owners, when questioned. Nothing had been
proved, nothing probably[Pg 204] would be, that they knew of; but the captain
had sailed with Traynor several years, and had views of his own as to that
gentleman's integrity, which when communicated to Mr. Traynor did not seem
to surprise him, and remained uncontradicted.
Then came the captain to department headquarters. The British sailor
has scant reverence for soldiers of his own land and less for those of
any other, no matter what the rank, and this particular son of the sea
was more Briton than Yankee despite the fact that he had "sailed the California
trade" long years of his life and had taken out his papers in the early
statehood of that wonderful land. Ever since the days of Stockton and Kearny
he had fed fat the ancient grudge he bore the army and steered as clear
of soldier association as was possible for a man whose ship was dependent
in great measure on army patronage. Days before his unheralded coming to
general headquarters the rumors of Loring's bravery and coolness the night
of the wreck had been floating about the building. But[Pg 205] the Engineer
had drawn into his shell. He came and went to and from the office assigned
to him, working apparently over field reports and maps, and never entered
another room in the building unless sent for. It was believed that he had
written urgently to the Chief of Engineers, requesting to be relieved from
further duty at San Francisco. He was neither cleared nor convicted of
the allegations at his expense. There seemed no way of bringing about either
result in the absence or silence of witnesses. But, meantime, he had bitterly
resented the apparent readiness of certain of the officials to look upon
him with suspicion, and had withdrawn from all except most formal and distant
association. No wonder he desired to be relieved from further service with
or near them. Mrs. Nevins had insisted on removing to a cheap lodging in
Sacramento as soon as able to move at all, and had taken her dependent
sister with her, sorely against that young woman's wish, as she had made
an impression, a decided impression upon an unmarried aide-de-camp who[Pg
206] was reported to be wealthy, but whose attentions fell short of the
matrimonial point, as the poverty of the sisters became revealed to him.
There was, therefore, no longer to Loring the possible embarrassment of
meeting or seeing the girl who had so wronged him, yet there was constant
evidence of the seeds that she had sown. Some man, he felt sure, must have
kept alive the rumors to his discredit, and the extreme constraint of manner,
the avoidance, shown by this very gentleman, stamped him as in all probability
the person at fault. Loring was only waiting now for proofs.
It so happened the very day the stanch old salt came searching through
the building in quest of his friend that the General with two aides and
others of the staff, had assembled in the office of Colonel Strain. Several
of them had known and sailed with the Idaho's master and liked her captain
well, despite his frequent flings at soldiers. His appearance at the doorway,
therefore, was the signal for quite a cordial welcome. The General himself[Pg
207] came forward to take him by the hand and say how sorry he was at the
loss of his ship, and how he hoped soon to see him on the decks of a bigger
and better one. But the bluff captain thought as little of land generals
as of lubbers of lower grade, and was not as grateful as he should perhaps
have been, and was evidently looking for somebody beyond the sympathetic
group, and presently said so.
"I've come to see Mr. Loring, by George! I haven't laid eyes on him
since the night he backed me up in restoring order and discipline on my
ship. That man ought to have been a sailor! Where'll I find him?" he concluded
abruptly, staring round at the circle of somewhat embarrassed faces.
"We heard some rumor about this, captain," said the General. "Suppose
you come into my office and tell me the whole story?"
"Why not right here where they can all hear?" was the instant answer.
"I'm told that more'n one man has been at work trying to rob him of the
credit, and as for Mr. Jennings, who was our first officer, I gave the[Pg
208] company a piece of my mind the moment I heard it, and I've got a tongue-lashing
in store for him. 'Taint the first I've had to give him, either, and it
won't be the last if he ever runs foul of me again. They tell me, what's
more, that Escalante's agent has had the impudence to come here a dozen
times threatening Mr. Loring. Next time he comes you have him kicked out
and charge it to me. That man's a thief, and so is one of the Escalantes—if
not more than one. As for Loring, he's head and shoulders above any of
the young fellows that have sailed with me, and when I was flattened out
by the rush of that cowardly gang, he stood up to 'em like a man. That
one shot of his brought 'em up with a jerk and put an end to the trouble."
He broke off short and glanced about him to note the effect of his words.
It was an awkward moment. Three of the group had had their doubts as to
the possibility of Loring's being culpable, but so disturbed and partially
convinced had been the General and his chief-of-staff, so active had been
the aide-de-[Pg 209]camp referred to in his collection and dissemination
of scandal at Loring's expense that no one felt able to say anything until
the General himself had spoken. The Chief evidently felt his dignity assailed,
and his commanding attitude imperiled. No further revelations ought to
be allowed except such as should be filtered through him or his accredited
staff officer.
"Come into my den, captain," he exclaimed, therefore. "You interest
me greatly, and I want to hear all about it."
"I'll come quick enough," said the captain briefly, "after I've seen
Loring. I want to shake hands with him, I say, before I do anything else.
Where'll I find him?" And with most depressing disregard of the General's
greatness, the sailor would have turned his back on the entire party in
order to find his injured friend, but the Chief was a strategist.
"Ah—go to Mr. Loring, captain," said he, to a ready staff officer, "and
say to him that I desire he should come to my room a moment." And the aide-de-camp
was off like a shot, so the[Pg 210] seaman could only wait. The General
led the way into his comfortable room and signaled to one or two to follow,
and presently back came his messenger, and a moment after him, grave, composed,
but freezingly formal, there at the door stood the Engineer. His eyes brightened
up the instant he laid them on the Idaho's sturdy commander, but etiquette
demanded that he should first address the General.
"You sent for me, sir?"
"I did, Mr. Loring. Our good friend, Captain Moreland, has been telling
us of your most—er—praiseworthy conduct the night of the disaster. We all,
I wish to assure you, are—er—gratified to hear of this. And now it has
occurred to me that Captain Moreland might be able to throw some light
on the very—unpleasant matter which we had to bring to your attention a
few weeks since. Surely he must know something of these—er—people who were
your accusers."
The General was seated at his big desk. He was flanked by the adjutant-general
and[Pg 211] backed by a brace of aides. Moreland, the mariner, was standing
at the table and started forward as Loring entered as though to grasp his
hand. The General still considered it essential to observe a certain air
of formality in speaking. It was as though he had begun to believe Loring
an injured man, and therefore he himself must be an aggrieved one, for
surely the lieutenant should have spared the General the mortification
of being placed in the wrong.
But to this tentative remark Mr. Loring made no reply. He stood calmly
before the department commander, looked straight into his face, but did
not open his lips.
"I say," repeated the General, in louder tone, "the captain appears
to know and may be able to tell us something about the people who were
your accusers."
"Possibly, sir," said Loring, finding that he was expected to say something,
but with an indifference of manner most culpable in one so far inferior
in rank.
"I was in hopes, Mr. Loring," said the Gen[Pg 212]eral, evidently nettled,
"that you would appreciate the evident desire of myself and my confidential
officers to see you relieved of these—er—aspersions. For that reason I
urged Captain Moreland to make his statement public."
And still looking straight at the department commander, whose florid
face was turning purple, Loring was silent. Perhaps after a month of accusation,
real or implied, on part of the General and the "confidential officers,"
he found it difficult to account for the sudden manifestation of desire
to acquit. He was thinking, too, of a tear-stained little letter that had
come to him only a few days earlier—the last from Pancha, before the child
was formally entered at the school of the good gray sisters. He was wondering
if she at sixteen were really more alone in her little world than he in
the broad and liberal sphere of soldier life. Then the sight of Moreland's
weather-beaten face, perturbed and aggrieved, gave him a sense of sympathy
that through all the weeks of his virtual ostracism had been lack[Pg 213]ing.
He had other letters, too, worth far more than a dollar apiece, which was
what their carriage cost him, bidding him have no fear, documents of weight
were coming that would teach the authorities of the Pacific coast the error
of their views and ways, but of these he did not care to speak. He chose
to await the coming of the documents themselves. The silence, however,
was oppressive, and the sailor spoke.
"If the only accusers this gentleman has are Escalantes, or associates
of the Escalantes, you'd better beg his pardon and have done with it,"
said he, "and thereby put the matter in its most luckless way."
Angrily the General turned to the aide-de-camp fidgeting on his left.
"Do you know whether the Escalantes are the sole accusers, captain?"
said he deliberately.
"I regret to say that they are not," was the answer. "And Mr. Loring
has shown strange reluctance, to put it mildly, to meet the—others."[Pg
214]
"I have answered, once and for all, every charge brought to my ears,"
said Loring, turning on the speaker, with eyes that blazed, and Moreland,
who had seen him cool and composed in the face of panic, marveled now to
note the intensity of his emotion, for Loring was white and trembling,
though his gaze was steady as the hand that held back the terror-stricken
crew that wild night on the waters.
"Perhaps you are unaware of the more recent developments—and the source
of information," said the aide uneasily.
"I am; and I demand the right to know or to meet both without delay.
Captain Moreland," and here he turned on the wondering sailor, "can you
be here to-morrow?"
"Certainly I can, and will," was the prompt answer.
"That wouldn't help," said the aide-de-camp, on whom all eyes were fixed
again. "My informant couldn't be here."
"Very good. We'll go to your informant, then," answered Loring.
Another silence. It was not Loring now[Pg 215] who seemed hesitant or
reluctant. It was the aide.
There came a knock at the door. An orderly appeared with several telegraphic
dispatches. Colonel Strain stepped forward, took them, shut the door in
the orderly's face, handed them to the General, and resumed his seat. Glad
of a diversion, the commander glanced at the superscription. "Here is one
for you, sir," said he to the Engineer, who received it, but did not open
it. He was again facing the embarrassed aide, who finally found words.
"Mr. Loring, my informant was here a whole month and said you refused
to appear. Now—they are beyond recall, unless—it should come to trial."
The answer came like a flash:
"Your informant, sir—and there was but one—would never appear in the
event of trial. That informant sailed three days ago on the Sonora, and
you know it." Then, as a sudden thought struck him, he tore open his dispatch
and read, then turned again to his faltering[Pg 216] opponent: "So long
as that informant could be confronted you kept me ignorant of any new allegations,
if there were any. Now come out with your story, and by the next steamer
I'll run it down."[Pg 217]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XVI.
The worst of having a man of Moreland's views present on such an occasion
is that the whole thing is sure to be noised abroad with scant reference
to military propriety. Moreland told the owners of the steamer line, the
Chamber of Commerce, the easily-gathered audience on Rush and Montgomery
streets, the usual customers at Barry & Patton's, the loungers in the
lobbies of the hotels, everybody who would listen—and who would not?—how
that brave fellow Loring, who ought to have been a sailor, faced down that
quartette of "blue-bellied lobsters" up at headquarters. The General was
not a popular character. His principal claim to distinction during the
great war seemed to be that of being able to criticise every other general's
battles and to win none of his own. "He never went into a fight that he
didn't get licked," declared the exultant Moreland, "and now he's bowled
over by his[Pg 218] youngest lieutenant." The story of that interview went
over the bay like wildfire and stirred up the fellows at the Presidio and
Angel Island, while the islanders of Alcatraz came bustling to town to
learn the facts as retailed at the Occidental, and to hear something more
about that queer, silent fellow Loring. Among the junior subalterns in
the artillery were one or two who knew him at the Point, and they scouted
the story of his having ever having stolen a cent's worth, or the idea
of extracting anything about the matter from his lips. The latest yarn
in circulation was that after the now famous interview Loring had "laid
for" Captain Petty, the aide-de-camp referred to, a young Gothamite of
good family who had got into the regulars early in the war and out of company
duty from that time to this, and, having met the aide-de-camp, Loring had
thereupon calmly pulled the gentleman's aquiline nose for him. Petty could
not be found, had gone to Fort Yuma on important business for the department
commander, was the explanation. The General properly refused to[Pg 219]
be interviewed by reporters of the papers and couldn't be approached by
anybody else on the subject. Only two things were positively known. Lieutenant
Loring had received telegraphic notification from the Chief of Engineers
of his relief from duty in the department and his assignment to similar
work in the Department of the Platte, and it was rumored, though it could
not be confirmed, that the General had been directed by telegraph to designate
a staff officer to receipt to Lieutenant Loring at once for the public
property for which he was accountable, in order that the latter officer
might take an early steamer for the Isthmus, as his services were urgently
needed at his new station. It was an open secret that the General considered
himself aggrieved by the action of the authorities at Washington and said
so. He had made no charge against Lieutenant Loring. He had merely called
that gentleman's attention to the very serious allegations laid at his
door, and this was true. On the other hand, people who had been permitted
to know anything about the matter,[Pg 220] notably certain senior officers
of the Engineer Corps not under the General's orders, and one or two staff
department officers who, unhappily for themselves, were under his orders
and subject to his semi-occasional rebuke, now openly said that not one
allegation against Loring came from a reliable or respectable source, and
that it was an outrage to have held him even to inferential account on
the statement of such a cad as Escalante's agent, who hadn't been near
the office since the recovery of Captain Moreland, the insinuations of
Mr. Purser Traynor, now totally vanished, and the rumored aspersions of
a fair incognita, known only to Captain Petty, a man who had few associates
in the "line" or outside the limited circle of the General's personal staff,
and who was not too well liked even there.
And, as the revulsion of feeling set in, Petty set out for Yuma. "Where
there is so damned much smoke," said he, as it later transpired, "there
must be some fire," and the General had bidden him to go to Yuma, to Gila
Bend,[Pg 221] to Guaymas, to the devil, if need be, and find out all the
facts. But the linesmen at Presidio and the jovial blades at Moreland's
elbow were loud in their laughing statement that if Petty were looking
for fire he could have found it here in abundance. Loring could have given
him more than he wanted.
Then came the order in the case of Captain Nevins, dismissing that worthy
from the service on charges of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman,
and awarding a year's imprisonment at such penitentiary, etc., as the reviewing
authority should direct, and by the same post the official order transferring
Lieutenant Loring of the Engineers to duty in the Department of the Platte,
and then what did the steamship company do but issue invitations for a
dinner to be given in honor of that distinguished young officer, and great
was the noise thereof until it was known that the gentleman had gratefully,
but firmly declined. Then the papers said "it was rumored" that the General
had forbidden his acceptance, despite the fact that the General had expressed[Pg
222] publicly his gratification that the company had at last done something
in recognition of its indebtedness to the army—which was most adroit, and
equally impersonal. And all the while Loring himself was having anything
but an enviable time of it. A man so reticent and retiring could not but
be annoyed by the persistent calls and cross-questions of all manner of
people in whom he had but small personal interest. He wished to have nothing
whatever to say upon the subject, denied himself to reporters and relapsed
into impenetrable reserve when importuned by brother officers whom he but
slightly knew. One or two with whom he would gladly have held counsel were
far removed, one at least forever, from his circle. The stalwart old inspector,
Turnbull, lay sleeping his last sleep in the cemetery at Monterey. The
veteran who served as president of the Nevins' court was in far Arizona,
and Blake, sound of heart, if not of head, was under a cloud at Yuma. His
forceful expressions concerning the imbecility of department officials
led to his being confined very closely[Pg 223] to company work and minor,
yet exacting, duties at the post, all because of his abandonment of Lieutenant
Loring at a critical moment, said the few defenders of the department's
letter to the post commander on that subject. "All because of his too vehement
defense of Loring," said everybody else.
With feverish eagerness, Loring awaited the sailing of the next steamer.
Every item for which he stood accountable was then at his office, invoices
and receipts made out in full. Nothing was needed but the officer designated
to relieve him. The Columbia was to leave on Saturday, and up to Thursday
evening no relief had appeared. Friday morning the adjutant-general received
a written communication, most respectful yet urgent in terms, requesting
that the officer might be designated without further delay, and as no answer
was received up to noon, Loring followed it with a personal call upon the
chief of staff, who said the General had the matter under advisement.
"My luggage goes aboard the Columbia to-night, sir, and I should be
aboard by ten[Pg 224] o'clock to-morrow," said Loring. Colonel Strain coughed
dubiously.
"It might be impracticable to relieve you from duty so soon. The General
is in communication with the War Department upon the subject, and possibly
if—you—had had the courtesy to call upon the General or upon me, his chief-of-staff,
and to explain your wishes, the thing might have been arranged."
Loring flushed. He saw through the motive at a glance, and could have
found it easy to express his opinion in very few words. There are times
when a man is so goaded that an outburst is the only natural relief, but
it is none the less fatal. There might even be method in the colonel's
manner, and Loring curbed, with long-practiced hand, both tongue and temper.
It would have been warrantable to say that the manner of both the General
and his chief-of-staff had been too repellent to to invite calls, but he
knew that, whatever the merits of the case, superior officers, like inferior
papers, always have the last word. He might be only inviting reprimand.
Without[Pg 225] a word, therefore, he faced about, went straight to the
telegraph office down the avenue and wired to Washington. "Steamer sails
noon Saturday. Not yet relieved. What instructions?"
By that hour there would be no one in the office of the Chief of Engineers
at Washington, but Loring addressed it direct to the home of the assistant,
upon whose interest in the case he had reason to rely, and then returned
at once to his desk. Were he not to be there it would place it in the power
of a would-be oppressor to say the officer designated to receive the property
had called during office hours and could not find Mr. Loring. And then,
with such patience as he could command, Loring received the visitors who
kept dropping in, among them the boisterous Moreland, whose Bay of Biscay
voice had become almost as trying to his host as to the other occupants
of the building, and during the long afternoon awaited the action of the
General upon his morning's letter and that of the War Department upon his
telegram.[Pg 226]
Four o'clock came at last. Office hours were over. Neither relief nor
reply had reached him. He heard the halls resounding to the footsteps of
officers and clerks as they closed their doors and left the building. Bidding
his assistant remain a moment he strode to the further end of the long
passage. The General was at the moment issuing from his private office,
conversing with two of his staff. The adjutant-general, a bundle of papers
in his hand, was hastily crossing the hall toward his own office. Loring
raised his hat in grave salutation to his commander, who bowed with dignified
reserve in return, and moment later the Engineer was facing the colonel
at his desk.
"Colonel Strain," said he, "I have much to do. Will you name the hour
at which I am to meet my relief?"
"Mr. Loring," said the official tartly, "when we are ready to relieve
you the order will be issued—and not before."
"Colonel Strain," answered Loring, "I shall be at my office all evening,
ready to receive[Pg 227] that order." And wheeling about he met the General
at the door. An open telegram was in the latter's hand, a queer look on
his flushed and angry face. Relieving his impatient clerk, Loring seated
himself to answer a letter, and there fell from the package he drew from
his pocket a little note, and with a sudden pang of shame and sorrow he
stooped and picked it up. It was only a tiny missive, only a few sad, almost
pleading, words. Did he mean to go without a word of good-by to Pancha?
His heart reproached him as he remembered that this had reached him two
days before.
He was writing a note to the Lady Superior, telling her of his expectation
of sailing on the morrow, and asking if he might be permitted to call to
say adieu to his little friend of the shipwreck, when an orderly entered.
"Colonel Strain's compliments and desires to see the lieutenant at once."
It was not customary for officers to be so summarily summoned after office
hours, but Loring went. With a hand that trembled visibly, but with[Pg
228] every effort to control his voice, the chief-of-staff held forth a
telegram and said:
"The General desires to know, sir, whether you have sent any telegram
to Washington which can account for this?"
Loring took and slowly read it. Divested of address and signature it
read as follows:
"The Secretary of War is informed that Lieutenant Loring has not been
relieved as directed. Report reason by telegraph."
Loring deliberately finished reading, and then as deliberately looked
up.
"I have, sir."
"Then it is the General's order, sir," said the chief-of-staff, "that
you go at once to your quarters in close arrest."[Pg 229]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XVII.
There was the mischief to pay in and about department headquarters
for something like twenty-four hours. Colonel Strain, as chief-of-staff,
had a sleepless night of it. Mr. Loring, reticent as ever, had gone straight
to his rooms, which were far from the office and not very far from the
convent of the good gray sisters. He had no thought of insubordination
in wiring as he did to Washington. He considered it was his paramount duty
to make every effort in his power to sail by the first steamer. Letters
of instruction that had reached him informed him that a new post was to
be built along the Big Horn range in Wyoming, and that the moment he arrived
a board of officers, of which he would serve as junior, would be sent out
to select the site. There was urgent need of his services, therefore, and
no time to be lost. He felt that this[Pg 230] sudden and summary arrest
was a wrong to him personally and professionally, but the lessons of obedience
and discipline taught in the four long years at West Point were fresh in
his mind, and whatever should be the result of his detention the responsibility
now lay with the department commander. Arrived at his quarters, Loring
calmly wrote a dispatch to the assistant in the office of the Chief of
Engineers at Washington, saying so many words: "Placed in close arrest
because of previous telegrams. Cannot sail to-morrow." This and a note
to the Lady Superior at the convent saying he would be unable to come to
say good-by to Pancha, and would probably be detained, he sent by his servant,
bidding the man go first to the telegraph office and then to stop at headquarters
for certain books, and then to deliver the note at the convent on his homeward
way. Dennis was a retired dragoon who had found such employment with the
officers on duty in San Francisco for several years past, and was endowed
with the Irishman's almost pathetic sense of fealty to his[Pg 231] "commander,"
as he insisted on speaking of his employer. Master was a word he could
not tolerate because of its implication of servitude. But even while rebelling
at the term, he yielded to the fact a degree of devotion to Loring's interests
far exceeding that usually accorded by the body servant of tradition, and
this calm, deliberate, methodical, silent young soldier was, in spite of
himself and the proverb, "a hero in the eyes of his valet de chambre."
Dennis had packed his boxes with blinking eyes and a saddened heart. "He
had wurrked," he said, "for twinty gintlemin, most av thim foine men, but
the looten'nt was the best av all." Dennis had his wife and brood in a
little shanty near the sand lots, and could not follow Loring to the East.
He would have howled with delight to hear the order countermanded that
was to take the lieutenant away, but when he heard at headquarters, from
his fellow-countrymen, the janitor and the guard, that such a countermand
had been issued in the shape of an arrest, he swore with wrath. A good
Catholic was Dennis, and[Pg 232] many a job had been given to him and his
lusty helpmate at the gray sisters, and a warm friend had they in the lady
superior, to whom he presently bore the note and the tale of his hero's
unjustifiable treatment. Then went he on his way, and came in upon Loring
just in time to hear the closing words of what had been probably a brief
and frigid conversation between the Engineer and the General's assiduous
aide-de-camp, Captain Petty. Frigid as it sounded the captain looked hot
enough as he took his leave, and collided with Dennis at the door, damned
him for being there; then whirled about for a parting shot. "I'll report
your exact language to the General, sir," said he, with anger in his tone.
"Try to, at least," said Loring pointedly.
"I didn't come here to be insulted, sir!" said Petty fiercely.
"No, sir. You came here to insult," was the cool reply.
The aid went down the stairs with thundering heels and raging heart.
Such contemptuous sang froid on part of an officer four years his[Pg 233]
junior in service was something unheard of, something not to be tolerated,
and as Loring refused to budge from his position of calm superiority, the
only thing left for Petty was to leave. So far from going to Yuma, he had
progressed only to Monterey, and there spent two or three days poking about
the resorts around the plaza in search of gossip that was rumored to be
in circulation at Loring's expense. He found the gossipers easily enough,
but had greater difficulty in reaching their authorities. It proved disheartening
work, for the further he went the less he learned—each tale bearer having
apparently added to the pile of his informant, as Petty should have had
sense enough to know would be the case. But at last he "lit" on something
tangible: The hardy giant who led the rush the night of the wreck was now
well enough to be hobbling about town and breathing his tale of woe and
wrong to all listening ears, and, the officers being gone and no one present
to contradict, he had so frequently repeated his version of the wreck of
the Idaho as to make a[Pg 234] sinner of his memory and "credit his own
lie." The burden of his latest song was that Loring had been to see him
at hospital and had promised him, on condition of being guaranteed against
action or prosecution because of the shooting of a wronged and inoffensive
man, that he (Loring) would pay him handsomely—would send him ten dollars
a week, and gave him twenty-five dollars then and there. "But now, for
more than a month," said he, "not a cent had come, and he heard that Mr.
Loring was trying to get away East." The man told his story reluctantly
and with some palpable "breaks" when he found he was being questioned by
an officer; but Petty posted back to 'Frisco without delay, convinced that
here was something with which to confront and confound that cool, supercilious
snob. Then he could take a fresh start for Yuma and get more. One can always
get something when the object of the story is away, and, like the seaman's
story of his interview with Loring, Petty's version of the seaman's interview
with him waxed as he hastened to his General, and[Pg 235] had assumed the
proportions of a magnificent scandal by the time he told it to that much
ruffled brigadier. Even Strain, had he heard the account, would have riddled
it—Captain Moreland's evidence was conclusive on that point—and while Loring,
in pity and compassion, might have left money with the man for comfort
in his convalescence, it was incredible that he should have tendered payment
as a bribe for silence. Strain's exaggerated self-esteem was deeply wounded
by the Engineer's evident lack of appreciation of his greatness, and he
would be glad indeed to bring him to heel, and convince him he would be
wise in future to do homage instead of slight. And what made Loring's indifference
so exasperating was that Strain himself was forced to see that Loring was
not only no fool, as he admitted, but a man of brains, courage and ability,
which he would not concede aloud. Strain, sent for at eight o'clock by
the department commander to listen to the aid's wrathful account of the
interview with Loring, fumed and fidgetted and strove to ask some[Pg 236]
questions to make matters clear, but Petty was already on the defensive
and did not mean to be questioned, and the General kept interposing. "Let
him tell his tale his own way, Colonel. Let him give you the whole story,
Monterey and all," and Strain, who had hoped to spend the evening with
his cronies at the club and whist, was compelled to sit till long after
nine and hear the details of Petty's asininity.
Stripped of unnecessary explanation, it seems that the General and Strain
had decided that their dignity and prerogative had been invaded by the
summary orders from Washington, which were at once a criticism of their
action in not relieving Loring, and a demand for an immediate explanation
as well as an implied threat that unless that report was entirely satisfactory
Loring must be allowed to proceed. They had spent an hour or more in the
preparation of the telegram which finally caught the wires at six o'clock,
presented their view of the case, represented that if Loring left it would
be under a cloud, and that he should[Pg 237] not now be allowed to leave,
because of the fact that his having resorted to forbidden and insubordinate
means to procure his release was in itself a virtual admission that he
feared to stay and face the constantly recurring accusations. It was very
adroitly and impressively worded, but still the General and chief-of-staff
felt nervous and ill at ease. Down in their hearts both realized that nothing
had been proved against Loring, and that the chances were ten to one that
nothing ever could or would be. What was more, both were beginning to realize
that Loring had been badly and shabbily treated. Yet this conviction only
made them the more ready to listen to any story, grasp at any straw, that
lent an atom of weight to the case against him. Dinner had brought no comfort
to either, and Petty's preposterous story, swallowed whole by the chief
while still bristling with the nervous strain of the concoction of that
telegram of explanation, had further upset his digestive powers. The aide
had been sent forthwith to notify Mr. Loring of the new story at his expense,
and to[Pg 238] demand his version thereof. Petty was at no time a diplomatic
man, and at this time did not mean to be. Both in language and manner he
contrived to make his mission as offensive as he dared, for Loring had
braved him so exasperatingly on every previous occasion that, now that
he had him safe in arrest, he meant to taunt—and did it, but his sneering
slings broke harmless on the polished armor of the Engineer's placid disdain.
The madder Petty got the cooler was Loring, and when Dennis dropped in
just at the close of the interview a worse whipped man was never seen than
the aid, who rattled back to his general, thinking of what he ought to
have said, his wits, like his brevet to the double bar, coming to him long
after the war was over.
"He treated me and the General's orders with perfect contempt," said
Petty finally, and the General looked into the face of his senior staff
officer hopeful that Strain would seem properly impressed. But Strain did
not. It was one thing for Loring to ignore him, but quite different when
that officer failed to stand[Pg 239] and deliver at the demand of Petty.
Strain treated him with scant respect himself when the General wasn't around,
and had been heard to say that generals who allowed their wealthy relatives
to dictate who should be their aids were foisting heavy loads upon the
service. It was nearly ten o'clock; his evening was spoiled. He was crabbed,
therefore, and he spoke accordingly:
"Mr. Petty—I—mean Captain Petty." (Strain, who didn't get one, said
a March '67 brevet was of no earthly account, and he for one proposed to
ignore them). "May I ask what were your words when you—you have given us
Mr. Loring's—were communicating the General's message to him? Were they,
for example, carefully chosen? Did you observe courtesy of manner, avoiding
all that could irritate, or——"
"Of course I did. You never saw a man so contemptuously, insultingly
cool in your life. He just——"
But Strain held up his hand. "I should like to know just what you said.
The General[Pg 240] has told me the message you were to give. Now-w, how
did you give it?"
But that was something Colonel Strain was destined not to know for many
a year, if indeed, he ever heard. There came a knock at the door. A servant
entered with a card. "The lady, sir, begs to see the General at once, if
only for five minutes."
The General frowned as he took the card. What lady would be calling
at ten o'clock at night and demanding interviews when he was so much occupied.
But his face changed as he read, then glanced up at his chief-of-staff.
"This is remarkable, Strain. The lady superior of the gray sister's
convent. Alone?" he asked, turning to the servant.
"No, sir. Young lady with her, sir."
"You'll have to excuse me a moment, gentlemen," said he. "I'll rejoin
you here."
Strain was about to return to the subject when the butler spoke. "A
messenger from headquarters is at the door, sir. Says he has a dispatch
to deliver in person. Shall I send him up?"[Pg 241]
It was the General's library, and Strain was wondering what was going
on in the General's parlor. He knew of the lady superior. He knew the story
of little Pancha, her brave, uncomplaining conduct the night of the wreck,
and of her being placed in the convent of the gray sisters. He decided
to go to the hall door himself, and was astonished to hear the sound of
sobbing as he passed the parlor. Mechanically he took and receipted for
the dispatch. Slowly, absently he retraced his steps, listening to the
strange sounds, a pleading, choking, girlish voice, soothing words in the
gentle, loving woman's sweet tones, the occasional gruff monosyllables
from the General himself. Strain reached the library again in something
like a dream, finding Petty stalking up and down, tugging at his slim mustache,
and nervously expectant of further question, but none came. They were startled
by the quick, hurried footsteps of the General, as he waddled back to join
them, and burst in, red-faced, ruffled, apoplectic.
"Strain—Petty, this thing has got to be set[Pg 242]tled somehow at once!
That young woman—Ugh! damn the gout! Here, Strain—Don't you go, Petty;
you won't do—Hold on! Yes, you'll have to, by Jove! There's no time to
be lost. Go and say to Mr. Loring, with my compliments, I desire to see
him a moment in the morning before he sails, and-d—He's—he's released from
arrest—It's all—it's all—well, not all of it, but—damnation! I can't explain
now. Go Petty—go! Tell him he's released—relieved, and Strain, you issue
the order relieving him at once, and directing him to proceed without delay
to his new station. I want to get the order out before those damned fellows
at Washington can order it themselves. What's that you've got?"
"It's the order from those damned fellows at Washington," said Strain.[Pg
243]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XVIII.
Once upon a time a very level-headed old soldier was commandant of
cadets at West Point, and one day one of his assistants, an energetic young
officer, came hastily in to say that he had just happened upon a cadet
duel at Fort Clinton, had captured one of the participants and placed him
under arrest, but the principals, seconds and most of those present had
managed to escape. The veteran listened grimly a moment and then said:
"Were they actually fighting when you got wind of it?"
"Yes, sir," was the earnest reply. "Anybody could have heard them."
"Um," said the colonel, reflectively. "Then I think you—erred in interfering.
Couldn't you have got there just a little later?"
"But the regulations prohibit fighting, sir!" said the junior, aggrieved.
"Certainly, and your course promotes it.[Pg 244] You see they were already
at it. Five minutes more would have settled the thing one way or another,
and that would have been the end of it. They would have shaken hands and
been good friends. Now, neither of them has had enough. Each believes he
can whip the other, and those youngsters will neither be able to sleep
nor study till they've fought it out. Always prevent a quarrel when you
can, but once they get going, never stop a square fight, never see or hear
it—until you know it's over."
In like manner a wiser head than that which dictated the telegraphic
instructions to the department commander that night, would have seen that
it was far better for all parties in the mix at San Francisco if Mr. Loring
had been detained there long enough to have the matter investigated from
start to finish, and so to "fix the responsibility." It was not of vital
importance that he should sail by first steamer, but there had been friction
between this particular General and the Engineers, between him and the
adjutant-general, between him[Pg 245] and the secretary of war, between
him and the division commander, then temporarily absent, and a general
who differs with so many eminent and astute authorities as these enumerated
must occasionally err in judgment. Had Loring stayed and been accorded
a complete investigation, the chances are that he and the General would
have shaken hands and parted friends, for both had sterling qualities.
But orders given in compliance with orders from superiors are sometimes
given only grudgingly. The General had heard in that brief interview with
his late-at-night callers enough to convince him that the harshest charges
laid at Loring's door belonged elsewhere. But there were things Loring
had been too proud to explain. There was his insubordinate—so the General
regarded it—appeal over his commander's head to the bureau in Washington.
There was his defiance of his envoy and representative, Captain Petty.
There were lots of little things that ruffled the dignity of the veteran
autocrat, especially the somewhat peremptory tone of the dispatch[Pg 246]
from the War Department, and the General felt himself wronged by his superiors.
Strain, too, suffered in his own estimate, and Petty was fuming with pent-up
wrath and hate against that cool, supercilious, contemptuous upstart of
an Engineer. Who in blazes was he anyhow? What was his family? What his
social status? demanded Petty to himself, even though he knew that these
were matters whereof our democratic military system took no thought whatever.
It is the proud boast of the American Army that neither wealth nor name
nor ancestry can count in the long race for the stars. In these glad days
of peace and national prosperity, the officer is speedily taught that promotion
is the result of only one of two things, patient waiting or political influence.
And so it resulted that when Walter Loring steamed away southward on
the long run for the States, he left behind an unsettled fight, three or
four aggrieved officials—aggrieved because of him or his affairs and their
mismanagement of both—and one inveterate[Pg 247] enemy. He had plenty of
time to think it all over after he was fairly at sea, but none before.
He and Dennis needed every moment to get his belongings aboard and his
business closed. He called upon the General as directed and stood in respectful
silence while that choleric warrior paced up and down the room and explained
his position. He wished Mr. Loring to understand that while he felt that
the young officer had behaved with disrespect, at least with disregard
of his commanding general, the latter was too magnanimous to stand in his
way, and had therefore determined the evening previous to release him from
arrest and from further duty that he might lose no time in "joining" his
new station, even went so far as to say he had found much—very much to
commend in the young gentleman and his performance of duty in Arizona,
and, but for the unfortunate entanglements that had resulted, would have
taken pleasure in making public announcement of the fact. He could not
but deprecate the conduct of Mr. Loring's friends in Washington,[Pg 248]
and might find it necessary to appeal to the President for justice. Meantime,
however, he desired Mr. Loring to know that no personal consideration had
actuated his conduct. He had done what he believed to be his duty, and
then, like the orator, the General paused for reply.
Mr. Loring stood in civilian dress and soldier attitude, hat in hand,
an attentive listener, never interposing a word or hazarding a remark.
When the General stopped the lieutenant remained silent and standing. The
General looked perturbed, halted and glared, as much as to say, "Why the
devil don't you speak?" a thing Loring never did when he had nothing to
say. The chief found it necessary to begin anew, but broke off presently.
"You understand, do you not?"
"Yes, sir," said Loring.
"Then I suppose—you're very busy—have many things to do?"
"Only one, sir."
"Well, I won't detain you. I—I wish you[Pg 249] well, Mr. Loring, and—and—bon
voyage!" and the General strove to smile.
"Thank you, General. Anything else, sir?"
The General stood and could think of nothing. "I believe not," he replied,
"unless—however, never mind, I won't detain you."
"Good-day, sir," said Loring, and marched quickly away to the room of
the aide-de-camp. Petty was not there. An embarrassed lieutenant arose
and smiled vaguely.
"Petty isn't about anywhere this morning. He was out late last night—I
expect him every moment."
"You needn't. He won't come. Tell him I waited until 11:30." Then Loring
shut the door and left. He had many an hour later in which to think over
his final interview with the aide. A most unwelcome duty was that second
call to Petty. He would rather be kicked than go to Loring and say he was
released from arrest and free to go; perhaps he thought the kick forthcoming
if he went. But Loring treated him with the same contemptuous coolness
as he had earlier in the night.[Pg 250] Nor did Loring seem either elated
or surprised.
"Damn the man!" said Petty. "I'd give a month's pay to tell him something
that would stir him!" Petty could easily have done that had he seen fit
to mention that the General had received a visit from the Lady Superior
with a young girl from the convent of the good Gray Sisters. But that was
a mysterious affair that even the General had seen fit to say nothing further
about, even to Loring, who was most concerned. It was a matter that gentle
and gracious woman herself never referred to when the Engineer at ten the
next morning presented his card and was ushered into her presence. She
was most courteous. There was peace and loving kindness ineffable in her
placid face. There was infinite sympathy in her manner when she presently
met and led in to him a pallid little maid, who put a long slim hand in
Loring's as he smiled upon her downcast, red-rimmed eyes. Struggle as she
might for composure and strength, Pancha had evidently been sorely disturbed
over some[Pg 251]thing through the long watches of the night. Loring's
heart reproached him as he realized how selfishly he had been engrossed
for weeks, how little he had thought for her, of her who must be so lonely
and homesick in her new sphere. He was almost shocked now at the pallor
of her face, the droop and languor of the slender figure that was so buoyant
and elastic those bright days aboard ship just preceding the catastrophe.
What friends and chums they had become! How famously he was getting on
with his Spanish! What a charming teacher she was, with her lovely shining
eyes, her laughing lips, her glistening white teeth! She seemed happy as
a queen then, and now—what had come over the child?
"They are going to let me write to you, Pancha," he had told her, "and
I shall write every month, but you will write to me long letters, won't
you?"
"Si," and the dusky little head bowed lower, and Pancha was withdrawing
her hand.
"You know I have no little sister," he went on.[Pg 252]
She did. She had learned all this and much more aboard ship, and remembered
every word he had told her, very much more than he remembered. She knew
far more about him than did he about her, but he looked far more interested
now. The good gray sister was more than good; she was very busy at something
away across the room, and Loring had drawn his little friend to the window.
"How I wish I had known you there at—at the Gila, Pancha," he managed
to say in slow, stumbling Spanish. "Do you know we made a great mistake,
Mr. Blake and I?"
She did not wish to know. Two little hands went up imploringly, the
dark head drooped lower still, the slender, girlish form was surely trembling.
What ailed the child? It was time to go, yet he lingered. He felt a longing
to take her hands again—clasped in each other now, and hanging listless
as she leaned against the window casing. He meant to bend and kiss her
good-by, just as he would have kissed a younger sister, he said to himself,
not as he had kissed Geraldine Allyn. But somehow he[Pg 253] faltered,
and that was something unusual to Walter Loring. Even at risk of being
abrupt, he felt it time to go, but after the manner of weaker men, took
out his watch.
"Yes, I must go, Pancha. We won't say good-by, will we? It is until
to-morrow—hasta la mañana. You know we always come again to California.
You'll be quite a woman, then, though." He who was so brief and reticent
with men, found himself prattling with this child, unable to break off.
At last, with sudden effort, he seized both her hands in his, where they
lay limp and passive.
"Adios, little one! Dear little friend!" he said, bent swiftly, and
his curling brown mustache was crushed one instant against the top of her
dusky head. Then he hurried to the lady superior and took his leave, Pancha
standing silent at the window until the door had closed behind him.
Another day, and he was looking back along the sparkling wake of the
crowded steamer, thinking how beautiful the ocean seemed to him only a
few weeks earlier. Another week[Pg 254] and he was at the Isthmus, homeward
bound, yet clinging with strange interest to the scenes of so much trial.
Another month and he was spinning along old, familiar shores, en route
for the distant field of new and stirring duty. Without a day's delay he
was hurried on the trail of a party of officials, designated to select
the site for the new post far up in the heart of the Sioux hunting grounds.
For associates he found a veteran quartermaster with a keen eye for business,
and an aide-de-camp of his new general commanding, and recent experiences
with such combined to render him more reticent than ever. Major Burleigh
confided to Captain Stone that if that was a specimen of West Point brains
and brilliancy, it only confirmed his previous notions. The site for the
new post was decided upon after brief but pointed argument, and a vote
of two to one, the Engineer being accorded the privilege of a minority
report if he saw fit to make it. Commanding their escort was a young officer
whom Loring had known when as cadets they had together worn the gray, and
though there[Pg 255] had been no intimacy there was respect, and the two
subalterns, Engineer and dragoon, agreed that the board might better have
stayed at home and left the selection to the Indians, but Lieutenant Dean
had no vote and Loring no further responsibility. He could make his remonstrance
when he got to Omaha, which would probably be too late. On that homeward
way he saw enough of Burleigh to convince him he was a coward, for the
major collapsed under the seat of the ambulance at the first sign of the
Sioux. Then there came an episode that filled Loring with sudden interest
in this new, yet undesirable acquaintance. Men get to know each other better
in a week in the Indian country than in a decade in town. They had reached
the little cantonment and supply station on the dry fork of the Powder,
stiff and weary with their long journey by ambulance, and glad of a chance
to stretch their legs and rest. The camp commander was doing his best to
be hospitable. Burleigh had been shown into the major's hut, where a lot
of mail was awaiting him. A[Pg 256] bronzed subaltern had taken charge
of Mr. Aide-de-camp Stone, and another of Loring. The latter had just emerged
from a tub, dripping and refreshed, and was rubbing himself dry, when across
the canvas screen he heard the voice of the commander hailing his host.
"Mr. Post Quartermaster," said he, "I wish every other kind of quartermaster
but you was in——. That old rip Burleigh is utterly upset by some letter
he's got. He's limp as a wet rag, shaking like a man with a fit. Took four
fingers of my best rye to bring him around. Says he must have your best
team and ambulance at once. Got to push on for Frayne."
And indeed Burleigh's face when he came forth to start for the Platte
was a gruesome sight. "He looked," said the unfeeling linesman, after he'd
gone, "as though he'd seen more Indians."
An hour later a soldier servant handed the major an envelope. "Picked
it up under the table, sir. There's still something in it."[Pg 257]
The major glanced curiously at the superscription.
"That's the envelope, at least," said he, handing it to Loring, "of
the letter that stampeded the old man."
And Loring looked at it first with but scant interest. Then took and
held and studied the writing with eyes that kindled wonderfully.
"Why, do you think you know that hand?" asked the major curiously.
Loring handed it back, hesitated a moment, nodded, but said no word.[Pg
258]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XIX.
A pleasant welcome awaited Mr. Walter Loring, of the Engineers, when
he opened his office and got settled down to work at his new station. Here
was a commanding general who knew something of his past, whose nephew was
with him at the Point, and one at least of whose aides had found reason
to respect him highly, even though they had differed as to the site for
the new post, and the Engineer had seemed to take far more kindly to the
companionship of an unheard-of sub in the cavalry than he did to the society
of two men so distinguished in the department as Major Burleigh, depot
quartermaster at Gate City, and Brevet-Captain "Omaha" Stone, the aide
in question. Burleigh had surprised the aide by a display of great interest
in and an impatience to meet the newcomer, who had hurried out from Omaha
with not a day's delay, and who overtook them at Fort Frayne, after[Pg
259] riding by night through the mountainous region of the Medicine Bow,
with only a single trooper as attendant and escort. Burleigh had been oddly
inquisitive, thought Stone, and had plied the taciturn Engineer with question
after question about officers whom he knew and matters he seemed to know
along the Pacific slope. Mr. Loring was evidently a bit surprised, yet
replied courteously, though very briefly. Burleigh did all the talking
the first day's drive in the big ambulance over the rolling open prairies
north of the Platte, giving Stone no chance at all. He enlivened the occasion
and relieved the tedium of the journey with anecdotes of the General whose
command Loring had recently left, and Strain, his chief-of-staff, and Petty—"that
damned fool Petty," he called him, and Burleigh had nothing good to tell
of any of them, and much that was derisive, if not detrimental, of all.
Loring listened with neither assent nor dissent, as a rule, though when
appealed to he said he had no opportunity to study the characteristics
as described by Burleigh, as he had spent most[Pg 260] of his short service
there surveying in Arizona and saw little and knew less of the officials
in San Francisco. One man of whom Burleigh spoke with regard and regret
was stanch old Turnbull, whose sad death by drowning in the surf off Pinos,
the quartermaster referred to several times. He seemed familiar, too, with
the story of Loring's conduct the night of the collision at sea and the
sinking of the Idaho, and referred to that more than once in terms of commendation.
They stopped for luncheon and to bait the mules and to give the cavalry
escort a brief respite, and it was after this that Burleigh, as though
suddenly reminded of something, began—
"I don't know what made me think of it unless it was Stone's speaking
of New Orleans a moment ago, but did you meet a long-legged fellow named
Blake in Arizona? I knew the girl that drove him out there. One winter
she was in New Orleans while her father was commanding the monitors moored
at Algiers—Miss Torrence. Saw her afterwards in New York. She married old
Granger, you know."[Pg 261] Granger was about Burleigh's age, but Burleigh
was a widower and desirous of being considered young. And Stone wondered
why Loring should look disquieted if not embarrassed.
"I met Blake, yes," was, however, his prompt reply.
"How's he standing it? He was a good deal cut up at first. They were
to have been married last summer. He was regularly engaged to her, and
never knew she'd thrown him over until he met Granger in St. Louis."
Then Loring did a thing they both noted was unlike him. Ordinarily he
listened courteously until the question was finished. This time he broke
in:
"Blake is in his element doing cavalry duty. We had a lively chase together
after an officer who was deserting to Mexico."
"So you did," said Burleigh, with interest. "I remember hearing of it.
You were on his court, weren't you? Why! what was the fellow's name? I
remember having met him in New Orleans, too, when I read the order to[Pg
262] the court. Let's see, you were judge advocate, weren't you?"
"Yes. And his name was Nevins."
"Ah, yes. Dismissed, I believe. What ever became of him? There was a
rumor that he had died."
"So the consul at Guaymas reported," was Loring's brief reply.
"Well, was it never settled? Wasn't it proved in some way? I heard a
story that his wife had followed him out there. She was a damned sight
better lot than he was. I met her more than once in New Orleans. She came
of good family, but she was stranded down there by the war. They say she
had a younger sister who bled her to death, a girl she was educating. I
remember Nevins told me something about her. That fellow had some good
points, do you know, Loring? He behaved first rate during the fever epidemic;
nursed more'n one fellow through. He said that that sister was a beauty
and selfish to the core, and he wished to God she'd marry some rich man
and let them alone. Didn't you[Pg 263]—didn't I hear that they were out
there, and that he made some dramatic scene before the court, and sent
his wife his valuables, or something of that kind?"
Loring was slowly reddening. He more than half believed that Burleigh
had heard the story set afloat by the gossips in San Francisco, and was
trying to draw him out. His tone, therefore, was cold and his answer brief.
"They were there, but I never saw them. Pardon me, major, your rifle
is slipping," and leaning forward the Engineer straightened up the endangered
weapon and braced it with his foot. "A dreary landscape this," he added,
glancing out at the barren stretches of rolling prairie extending to the
horizon.
"Very. All like this till you get over towards the mountains, then it's
fine. But, isn't it really believed out there that Nevins is dead? What
became of his wife?"
"She went back to New Orleans, I was told. If Nevins isn't dead, he
at least hadn't been heard of up to the time I left."
And several times again that long afternoon[Pg 264] did Burleigh return
to the charge and speak of Nevins, and more than once during the busy days
that followed, but by the time they started on their return he had probably
concluded that Loring really knew no more about him, and once or twice
when Blake and his love affairs were mentioned Loring seemed unwilling
to hear. Stone pondered over it not a little before they got to Reno on
the back track, and there it was that Burleigh had demanded to be sent
right on to Frayne, despite fatigue, for something had come to him in this
mail that filled him with dismay, as the major commanding told them a dozen
times over. Moreover, Mr. Omaha Stone became gradually convinced that Loring
was in partial possession of the secret of Burleigh's stampede. Unless
Stone was utterly in error, Loring had seen somewhere before the handwriting
of the superscription of the envelope Burleigh had dropped in his nerveless
collapse. But Stone might as well have cross-questioned the sphinx. Loring
would admit nothing.
Yet it was of this very matter the Engineer[Pg 265] was thinking one
soft still evening soon after his return to department headquarters. His
boxes had just arrived. He had found a fairly comfortable room away from
the turbulent section of the new and bustling town, and equally distant
from the domicile of Stone and his particular set. Loring never gambled
and took little interest in cards. He was still "taking his rations" at
the hotel, but much disliked it, and was seriously thinking of seeking
board in some private family. The barracks were too far out, and the roads
deep in mud, or he would have lived and "messed" out there. The few boarding
houses were crowded, and with an uncongenial lot as a rule. Private families
that took two or three table boarders were very few, but some one suggested
his going to see the rector of the new parish, himself a recent arrival.
The sun had gone down behind the high bluffs at the back of the straggling
frontier town. The plank sidewalks were thronged in the neighborhood of
the hotel with picturesque loungers as the young officer made his[Pg 266]
way westward, and soon reached the outlying, unpaved, deep-rutted cross
streets. He readily found the rector, a kindly, gentle-mannered widower
he proved to be, whose sister had come to keep house for him, and never
before had either of them lived in a community so utterly primitive, if
not uncouth. It was plain to be seen that he was a Southerner, and in the
joy of a few minutes' conversation with a young man whose language and
manners bespoke the gentleman, Mr. Lambert speedily made known to him that
his health had suffered in New Orleans and his physicians had insisted
on total change of climate, and the great Northwest was a new, untrodden
field for the sons of the cross, of his sect at least. He had read with
admiration of the missionary work accomplished among the savage Indians
by the church of Rome, but there were heathen rather more intractable than
they, said he, with a sigh. Mr. Loring was sympathetic, but already informed
on that point. What he wished to learn was, did the rector know of any
family among his parishioners at[Pg 267] whose table he could find his
daily bread for a reasonable consideration. Loring, as has been seen, was
a man to whom the converse of his fellow-men, as found upon our frontier,
was neither edifying nor improving. He preferred the society of his own
thoughts. The rector, the General (Colonel Newcome, it will be remembered,
always accorded the head of column to the church), the adjutant-general
of the new department and one solitary subaltern of cavalry were the only
men he had met since reporting at Omaha whom he found really congenial.
But then it must be remembered that it was the early summer, and the troops
were all afield.
The rector brought the tips of his fingers together and bowed his gray
head, his characteristic attitude in reflection and repose. Yes, he knew
of one, a woman widowed but a year ago, who was striving to keep her home
by taking boarders, and who perhaps could find room for him at her table.
Already she had given shelter to a most estimable woman, a widow like herself,
a woman of many sorrows,[Pg 268] whom he had well known during the troublous
days in New Orleans, a gentlewoman, he might say, whose birth and breeding
were apparent to the most casual observer, a Mrs. Fletcher, who had come
to him for advice, and who, through his recommendation gladly given, had
recently gone to a good position—a lucrative position—and a home at Gate
City. Loring was politely interested, but could the rector direct him to
the house? He would call at once and make inquiries. The rector could,
of course, but he was aging, and he loved a listener. He hated to let a
hearer go. Might he ask if Mr. Loring was any connection of the General
of that name so conspicuous in the service of the South in the defense
of their beloved old Creole city before the hapless days of Butler, though
he must concede to General Butler that his vigorous administration of municipal
affairs had cleansed and quarantined the city as they had never seen it
done before. The similarity of name had suggested the—
"None whatever that I know of," said Lor[Pg 269]ing, finding it necessary
to interpose; "and where is Mrs. Fletcher's?"
"Ah, to be sure. Mrs. Fletcher is the name of the lady who boarded there
awhile, but she has gone to Gate City. Mrs. Burton it is—a worthy soul.
Perhaps, indeed I think, a breath of air will do me good. I might walk
around there with you."
So despite the remonstrance in his sister's eyes and Loring's respectful
protest, the rector got his hat and linked his arm in that of the young
athlete on his left, and led forth into the gloaming, prattling all the
way. Soon they reached the cross street that led northward, parallel with
the bluff line at the west, and against the twilight of the northern sky,
the scattered houses, the few straggling saplings hopefully planted along
the gutter, even the silhouetted figure of a long-legged dog, trotting
across the road, were outlined sharp and, clear, black against a lemon
horizon that shaded away imperceptibly into a faint violet. Long years
after Loring could see the picture, and how, right in the midst of it,
there rose[Pg 270] slowly into view two black dots, the heads, evidently,
of two pedestrians like themselves, ascending from the north, with the
whole wide Missouri valley at their backs, the pathway he and his genially
chatting conductor were threading from the south, with only this gentle
rise between them, perhaps fifty yards away. It was interesting to the
Engineer to watch the gradual development of the shadows against the sky,
coming slowly into view as the fairies rise to sweet, thrilling melody,
from underneath the stage in the transformation scene of the last act of
the pantomime and spectacular drama beloved of our youth. Courteously inclining
his ear to the monologue at his right, he kept his keen eyes fixed upon
those coming figures. Slowly they rose, one that of a slender, dapper man,
the other that of a slender, graceful girl, and the long arms of the former
as they swung in sight were in energetic motion, in emphatic gesture. Little
by little the murmur at Loring's right dulled over his senses. Little by
little the slowly approaching figures sharpened and fixed themselves upon
his sight, until when[Pg 271] the pair could not have been more than fifty
feet away, the rector looked suddenly up in alarm, as Loring halted short.
"My dear young friend, how thoughtless I am! Are you not well? What
is wrong?"
A big wooden house, in whose windows the lights were feebly shining,
stood just a few paces back of the fence, back of the gate where now the
pair was standing, in low whispered talk, eager and impetuous on part of
the man, doubtful and reluctant on part of the girl. Then the former became
suddenly aware that two men were standing only a short distance away, observing:
"Then, good-night," he said. "You think it over;" and, without raising
his hat, turned sharply and went striding back the way they came.
Only one glance did Loring give that receding figure, but his eyes followed
that of the girl, who skimmed lightly up the steps and into the house,
banging the door behind her.
The rector was clinging to his arm and look[Pg 272]ing into his face
with much concern when Loring pulled himself together.
"This is Mrs. Burton's," said he. "Let us enter. Surely you need a glass
of wine, or—water," he added vaguely.
"Thank you, Mr. Lambert, not—there. Let us turn about."[Pg 273]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XX.
Within the fortnight that followed came a climax in the life of Loring,
and astrologers who could have heard would have made much of such a combination
of strange influences. Having told the General that it was his desire to
find a quiet place in the northwestern section of the new city, Loring
had moved back to the hotel. Having told the rector he desired to obtain
table board at Mrs. Burton's, it of course resulted that the worthy ecclesiastic
should speak to her at first opportunity, and that she should speedily
come in search of Mr. Loring to inquire why he had failed to carry out
his plan, and further, to intimate that on the strength of the rector's
representations she had ordered a much nicer set of china, and laid in
a stock of provisions that just then were to be had at lower rates, which,
except that she expected him, she could not have thought of doing. Indeed,
Mrs. Burton not[Pg 274] only called once at his office, but followed it
up by a visit to his lodging, where she shed tears in the presence of the
person from whom he rented his rooms, and, this still proving ineffectual,
she came again to department headquarters with the manifest object of taking
the General and his staff into her confidence, to the equally manifest
dismay of the chief and the disgust of his adjutant-general, neither of
whom could check the volume of the good lady's words of woe. Loring found
his soldierly commander grinning whimsically when he dropped in to say
good-morning. The General was that rare combination—a devout churchman
and a stalwart fighter. Time and money had he devoted to the building up
of this little church in the wilderness, and the communion service was
his gift. More than once had he knelt to receive the sacred elements from
the trembling hands of the worthy rector and listen to Mrs. Burton's effusive
"Amen!" on his left ere she parted with the cup that was then passed to
his bearded lips. At the chancel rail all good Christians knelt[Pg 275]
in common and meekly bowed their heads, but when Mrs. Burton came up to
headquarters with a rail of her own, the General couldn't stand it, and
said so to worthy Lambert, who remonstrated with the widow.
"Then the least he can do as a gentleman, after deceiving me so, is
to help pay for them things I bought on the strength of his promise to
board with me," was that pragmatical person's reply, and this view of the
case the energetic lady ventilated to her six boarders, and they to the
flock. There was one boarder, a temporary sojourner only, who listened
and said naught. But that was only another of her aristocratic, stuck-up
ways, said they. She was "a lovely young lady," as all admitted on her
first timid appearance, and the three women who sat at table with her were
eager to take her into close fellowship and confidence, and the two young
men, clerking in the new stores, no doubt, were as eager. But it became
apparent within twenty-four hours that she held herself above, and desired
to hold herself aloof from them, which led to a[Pg 276] dissection of her
personal charms on part of the women, and of her mental gifts on part of
the men. Mr. Lambert had commended her to the care of Mrs. Burton. Her
board was paid in advance and no questions asked. She went to church and
sang softly, but in a voice so exquisitely sweet and penetrating that it
tempered the strident melodies of the devout Omahannas, and caused many
a head to turn. She spent the first few days at the rector's, or in her
room. Then came a roomer with the rumor that she had a follower, and for
two evenings she was seen with a strange young man, pacing slowly up and
down the walk, but never going into town. Within ten days after Loring
settled in Omaha Mrs. Burton's boarders were engrossed in just two topics—the
young lady in the second-story front, and the story of the young officer
who first would and then wouldn't be one of their number. No exception
to this statement as to Mrs. Burton's boarders is made in the case of the
damsel herself.
Loring frankly told his story as to Mrs. Bur[Pg 277]ton to the General.
He had merely asked Mr. Lambert if he could tell him of a place to board.
Lambert had led him to Mrs. Burton's. He found it too far out and otherwise
unsuitable, and had abandoned the idea. He had never seen Mrs. Burton or
authorized any one to speak to her for him. The General laughed and said
he understood it all, was perfectly satisfied and never thought of questioning
him; and satisfied he was for several days. Then suddenly it was announced
that Loring had decided not only to return to the hotel for table board,
but was actually rooming there, and the landlord of whom he had rented
his rooms turned up with a grievance, at least his wife did, and when a
woman has a grievance, nine times out of ten the world gets the benefit
of it. Mrs. Landlord came round to the chief quartermaster with her complaint.
It was a lovely summer morning. Lieutenant Loring had walked down to
the office and raised his hat to the General as that genial officer was
driven by behind his sturdy old team, and waving his hand cordially to
the[Pg 278] grave young gentleman who walked so erect with such measured
stride, and with never a glance into the windows of the shops or bars.
Loungers had no use for Loring. He never stopped to pass the time of day
or suggest a toddy, and Loring had less use for them. Ten minutes later
the lieutenant found the office in commotion, clerks and orderlies hastening
about with grave faces, Stone and Stanton with the General in his room;
the general himself, pallid and mopping his wet forehead.
"This is horribly sudden," he said, as he thrust an open dispatch into
Loring's hand. It was the brief announcement that the General commanding
the department of California, the chief Loring had so recently left, had
dropped dead at his desk the night before. Little as he had liked him,
the Engineer was shocked and grieved.
"It may make grave changes," said the adjutant-general a little later.
"It may send our kind and thoughtful chief to the Pacific coast and give
us—whom?"
"It will make one, at least," said Stone[Pg 279] impetuously. "It'll
send that galoot Petty back to his regiment right here in Nebraska and
give him a taste of service he will little like."
"Why do you say back, Stone? Where did Petty ever serve with it except
when it was in the garrison of Washington?" asked the adjutant-general.
"You know him, I believe, Loring?"
"I know him—yes."
"Think he'd pan out well in an Indian fight?"
"He might."
"You're an optimist, Loring," said Stone, who was ever seeking yet never
succeeding in the effort to penetrate the armor of Loring's reserve. "I
believe you think even Burleigh would fight at a pinch."
"I'm sure he would!" said Loring, as he walked thoughtfully away.
"That's the dash, dashest man I ever met," said Stone, in terms he never
knowingly used in the hearing of his commander. "What he'd say to a man
I can only guess from a letter[Pg 280] Skinny wrote from Alcantraz after
that row they had at 'Frisco. Of a man you can't get him to speak."
"We may have to," said the adjutant-general to himself, as he turned
back to his desk and to a packet of papers and dispatches from Gate City.
It was a day of perturbation. Not ten minutes later the Engineer was
called to conference with the department commander and found him closeted
with his chief of staff.
"You were not favorably impressed with Major Burleigh," said he, after
a moment of silent study of the young officer's face. "Will you tell me
why?"
Loring stood and colored. He had spoken no word of Burleigh, except
in answer to direct question. Stone must have seen his aversion, and had
possibly told of it.
"You dislike to, I see," said the General kindly. "Let me remove your
scruples. Major Burleigh has been absent from his post without leave at
a time when his services were urgently needed. His affairs are in a good
deal of a[Pg 281] tangle. It is believed that he has been making use of
government funds. I tell you this in strict confidence. Do you know what
caused his panic there at Reno and made him insist on being taken right
on to Fort Frayne?"
Loring thought a moment, then "No, sir."
"Mr. Loring," said the General, "Major Burleigh has been an object of
distrust for over a month. While he was away on this trip to Warrior Gap
matters were brought to my attention that were of a grave nature. Investigations
have been made. Major Bruce at Reno says you seemed struck by the superscription
on the envelope of the letter he received there that threw him into such
a panic. Would you know the handwriting, do you think?"
"Yes, General."
Silently the chief-of-staff held forth a note which Loring took and
closely examined. It read "Captain Newhall begs to assure the adjutant-general,
Department of the Platte, that he meant no discourtesy in failing to register.
He was unaware of the rule existing[Pg 282] at department headquarters,
had come here on personal business connected with certain real estate in
which he has an interest, is on two months' leave from his station New
Orleans, Louisiana, and will register the moment the office opens in the
morning unless he should be compelled to leave for St. Joe to-night."
Loring looked up, puzzled. The handwriting was familiar; so was a form
that he had recently seen vanishing in the distance one evening a week
before, and something in the voice had a familiar ring, but this name was
new.
"To explain all this," said the adjutant-general, "there was a dashing-looking
fellow here for two or three days drinking a good deal down about the depot
on the flats and around the quartermasters' corrals. He said he was Captain
Newhall, of the Thirty-ninth Infantry, and the general finally told me
to send an aide to look him up and remind him it was his duty to call at
headquarters and account for his presence. Between that night and the next
morning he disappeared, and at[Pg 283] last accounts was hobnobbing with
Burleigh at Gate City. You know of him, I see."
"Possibly."
"Then, General," said the chief-of-staff, with prompt decision, "the
quickest way to got at the root of the matter would be to send Loring at
once to Gate City."
The General thought for a moment.
"How soon could you go?"
"First train, sir."
It was then too late for the single passenger express that daily went
clanking over the prairies toward Cheyenne. But that afternoon was held
a long conference at department headquarters, which caused some wonderment
among the officers not included, Stone especially, and there were many
eyes on Loring's grave face as he finally came forth from the General's
room, and without a word of explanation went straight to his own.
"Wonder what he's been doing," said a man from the garrison, who had
happened in in search of news.
Stone shrugged his shoulders, offered no[Pg 284] explanation, but looked
volumes. An aide-de-camp should never reveal what he knows of other officers'
affairs—much less that he knows nothing.
The night came on, warm and stifling almost as the day. The window of
Loring's room opened on the crude wooden gallery that ran the length of
the hotel, and he kept it open from the bottom for such air as could be
obtained. A note lay on the mantel shelf when he returned from the office
late in the afternoon. This he had taken downstairs, inclosed it, unopened,
in one of the coarse hotel envelopes, addressed and sent it by a messenger
to Mrs. Burton's. At ten o'clock at night, in his shirt sleeves, he was
packing a valise, when at the open window, on the gallery without, there
appeared suddenly a slender, graceful, girlish form; a fair face gazed
appealingly, imploringly in, and a soft voice pronounced his name.
Starting up, he stepped quickly toward the apparition. One instant the
lovely face lighted with hope, joy, triumph, then changed to sud[Pg 285]den
wrath before the shade, pulled vehemently down, shut it from sight.
Even as she stood there, baffled, "a woman scorned" in the presence
and hearing of another, who nevertheless stepped quickly forward to express
her opinion of such heartless, soulless conduct despite the interposing
shade, there came a sharp, imperative rap on Loring's door, and the summons
"Wanted at headquarters at once, sir!"
And, weeping as though bereaved and forsaken, the younger woman threw
herself upon the broad and sympathizing bosom of the elder.
"There, there, poor darling! Don't cry. Wait till Mr. Lambert and the
General hear how he has treated you," said Mrs. Burton, "and we'll see
what'll happen."[Pg 286]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XXI.
The day of perturbation had been succeeded by a night of worry at department
headquarters. Dispatches full of grave import were coming in from Gate
City and Cheyenne. Old John Folsom, long time a trader among the Sioux,
and known and trusted by the whole tribe, had given warning weeks before
that serious consequences would attend the effort to build another post
along the Big Horn. Red Cloud and his hosts of warriors had sworn to sweep
it from the face of the earth and every man of its garrison with it. All
this had been reported by the General to his superiors at Washington, and
all this had been derided by the Indian Bureau. Against the judgment, against
the counsel of the department commander, the work went on. A large force
of laborers hired by Major Burleigh at Gate City early in the spring had
been sent to Warrior[Pg 287] Gap under strong escort, and the unseasoned
timber and fresh-cut logs were being rapidly dovetailed and mortised, and
long wagon trains laden with stores and supplies, purchased by Major Burleigh's
agents, were pushing out across the Platte.
"Indians, indeed!" said that experienced officer disdainfully. "They
do not presume to interfere!" and long since the whisper had been going
the rounds that Major Burleigh's interest in the construction of that new
post, involving an expense of some hundreds of thousands of dollars, was
something more than official. In vain John Folsom and veteran officers
of the fighting force had pointed out that Indians never do interfere when
they see huge trains of provisions and supplies coming just where they
want them. Orders were orders, and the building went on. John Folsom said
that any day the news might come that Red Cloud and his braves had massacred
every man and carried off every woman in the new cantonment. Wives and
children were there, secure, as they believed, behind the stout hearts
and far and[Pg 288] fast-shooting new breechloaders, trustful, too, of
the Indians whom they had often fed and welcomed at their doors in the
larger and less exposed garrison.
"Two of our companies can stand off a thousand Sioux," said one gallant
officer, who based his confident report on the fact that with fifty of
the new breechloaders, behind a log breastwork, he had whipped a horde
of mountain braves armed only with lance and bow and old "smooth-bores"
or squirrel rifles.
"We came down through the whole tribe," said Burleigh, with swelling
breast. "I had only a small troop of cavalry, and Red Cloud never so much
as raised a yelp. He knew who was running that outfit and didn't care to
try conclusions."
It all sounded very fine among the barrooms and over the poker-table
at Gate City, where Burleigh was a patron and an oracle, but in distant
camps along the Platte and Powder rivers, and among troopers and linesmen
nearer home there were odd glances, and nudging elbows whenever Burleigh's
boastings[Pg 289] were repeated. Even as far as department headquarters
the story was being told that the mere report of "Big band of Sioux ahead"
sent in by the advance guard, a report that brought Loring and Stone leaping
nimbly out of the ambulance, rifle in hand and ready for business, sent
Burleigh under the seat and left him there quaking.
"Get your men down from the Big Horn," was John Folsom's urgent advice
to the department commander. "Get your men up there," was the order from
Washington, and no wonder the General was troubled. Then in the midst of
it all began to come these rumors affecting Burleigh's integrity; then
the determination to send Loring to look after this new boon companion
with whom Burleigh was consorting; then a dispatch from old Colonel Stevens,
"Old Pecksniff," as the irreverent youngsters called him, the commander
at Fort Emory on the outskirts of Gate City, telling of a tremendous storm
that had swept the Laramie plains and the range of the Medicine Bow and
Rattlesnake Hills,[Pg 290] just after Lieutenant Dean had been sent forth
with a small party of troopers to push through to Warrior Gap with a big
sum of money, ten thousand dollars in cash, for the payment of contractors
and their men at the new post, and, what was of thrilling import, there
had been a deep laid scheme to head him off, ambuscade him and get that
money. Hank Birdsall and his gang, forty of the worst toughs on the Western
frontier, had "got the tip" from some one in the secret in Gate City, and
no one outside of the post commander himself and one of Burleigh's confidential
clerks, had the faintest inkling of the transaction. Nothing but that storm
could have defeated their purpose. Several of the outlaws and many of their
horses were drowned, and one of the gang, rescued at the last minute by
the mail carrier to Frayne—rescued just in time to save his life, had gasped
his confession of the plot. Birdsall and his people were now scattering
over the territory, but "Old Pecksniff" felt that matters so serious demanded
full report to the department commander, and this full report[Pg 291] had
reached Omaha the very night that Loring got his orders to leave.
Hastening to the office in compliance with the imperative summons, his
heart beating heavily despite his calm of manner, his thoughts reverting
to that well-known face and the appealing voice at his window despite his
utmost effort to forget them, Loring found the General with his chief-of-staff
and Captain Stone busy over telegrams and dispatches. One of these the
General handed to the Engineer. Then, as the latter read, the veteran of
three wars arose from his chair, took the young soldier by the arm and
led him aside, a proceding that caused Captain Stone to glance up from
the telegram he was swiftly copying, and to follow with angering eyes,
until suddenly aware that the adjutant-general was observing him, then
his pen renewed its scratching. It was not good that a newcomer, a young
lieutenant, should be preferred to him, and it was too evident that between
the General and the Engineer was a bond of some kind the aid could not
explain.[Pg 292]
"Do you understand this?" asked the General, as he pointed to the letter
in Loring's hand.
It was brief enough. It was written by a clerk in Burleigh's office
to a fellow-clerk in that of the chief quartermaster at Omaha, and the
latter had felt it his duty, he said, to inform his immediate superior,
who in turn had laid it before the chief-of-staff. It read as follows:
"The old man's rattled as I never saw him before, and God only knows
what's amiss. Two young lieutenants came in and thrashed him right before
the whole of us, called him a liar, and all that. His friend Newhall, that
pulled him through the yellow fever, he says, was there at the time drunk,
and actually congratulated them, and though Burleigh raved and swore and
wrote no end of dispatches to be sent to Omaha demanding court-martial
for Lieutenant Dean, devil a one of them was ever really sent. Not only
that, but Burleigh was threatened and abused by Newhall, and had to buy
him off with a roll of greenbacks—and I[Pg 293] saw it. Who's Newhall,
anyhow, and what hold has he on Burleigh? Nursing him through yellow fever
don't go. Newhall's gone, however, either over to Cheyenne or out on the
Cache la Poudre. There's something rotten in Denmark, and I want to get
out of this."
Loring read it carefully through twice, the General keenly studying
his face the while.
"I have determined to go to Gate City myself, even though time can ill
be spared, Loring," said he. "There is urgent need of my presence at Laramie.
Possibly I may have to go to Frayne, and shall need you with me, but meantime
this thing must be explained. Everything seems to point to Burleigh's being
in some unusual trouble. Everything indicates that this Captain Newhall,
who was one of his chums in New Orleans, has some heavy hold on him, a
gambling debt, perhaps, or knowledge of cotton transactions during the
war. I cannot but feel that you know something of the man. Tell me, did
you meet that fellow when he was here?"[Pg 294]
Loring stood looking gravely, straight into the face of his superior.
Swiftly his thoughts sped back to that soft, warm evening when he and the
rector slowly ascended the gentle grade toward Mrs. Burton's homestead,
and there was unfolded before his eyes that picture he was destined never
to forget, the lovely tints of the clear northern sky, the broad valley
of the great river, with its bounding bluffs and hillocks, hued by the
dying day, the dark forms, slender and graceful both, coming nearer and
nearer, until in startled recognition of one at least, he halted in dumb
amaze, and therefore caught but flitting glimpse of the other as it whisked
jauntily away. He had his suspicions, strong and acute, yet with nothing
tangible as yet on which to base them, and if he breathed them, what would
be the result? The girl whose identity he had promised not to betray "until
sister Naomi could be heard from," would beyond all question be called
to account. To his very door had she come within forty-eight hours of that
strange evening, which the rector's prattle had made public property,[Pg
295] begged a minute's interview without giving any name, and stepping
down into the plainly furnished little western parlor, there in the dim
light of a single kerosene burner, Walter Loring had come face to face
with his old love—Geraldine.
Mindful of all the harm she had done him in San Francisco, rather than
of what had passed before, he met her in stern silence. On his generosity,
his magnanimity she threw herself. She had deceived and wronged him in
ever engaging herself to him, she said, and would have gone on to say more.
"That is all past and done with," he coldly interposed. "What is it now?"
And then it transpired that good Mr. Lambert had been the means of securing
for Naomi an excellent position, that Naomi had gone to enter on her duties
and had sent for her sister to come and live at Mrs. Burton's until she
could better provide for her, that Naomi was living under an assumed name,
and that she prayed that no one might know their unhappy past. The interview
was cut short by the curiosity of some member of[Pg 296] the household
who came in ostensibly to trim the lamp.
"It shall be as you wish until you hear from your sister," said Loring,
bowing her out with punctilious civility and praying in secret that there
it might end, but end it did not. Within another forty-eight hours she
was there with another quest. The servant who announced her presence in
the parlor below did so with a confidential and impertinent grin. "The
same lady wants to see Lieutenant Loring," and this time he was colder
and sterner than before. Her evident purpose was to revert to the relations
that once existed, though her plea was only for news from California. Had
nothing ever been heard of the missing jewels? she asked. Their need was
so great. She had most excellent prospects of an engagement in Boston if
she could only have six months instruction under Signor Calabresi, but
his terms were so high and she would have to live in New York, and people
kept writing her that she and Naomi really ought to make some effort to
recover the value of that property,[Pg 297] and she had come, friendless
as she was, to ask if he thought a suit against the steamship company would
result in their getting anything. Captain Pet—a gentleman, that is, who
had been most kind in San Francisco, had promised to do something, but
now that the General was dead what could he do? There was no doubting the
identity or intentions of that gentleman, thought Loring as he gravely
replied that they would only be defeated in any such attempt. Then with
swimming eyes she had bemoaned her past, her fatal errors, her greed for
wealth and position that had led her to stifle her own heart throbs and
deceive the one true friend she had ever known, and Loring broke short
the conversation by leaving the room. Then she came again, alone, and he
refused to see her. Then she came with Mrs. Burton, and the house was in
a titter, and he broke up his establishment and moved back to the hotel,
to the scandal of his landlord, as has been said, who made loud complaint
to the powers at headquarters. Then she wrote that she was being followed
and[Pg 298] persecuted by a man she never knew before, the man who was
with her the night Mr. Lambert said they met them in front of Mrs. Burton's,
a dreadful man who said that he believed that she loved Lieutenant Loring
and made threats against him. She implored Loring's protection, and Loring
saw through the flimsy device and returned the letter unanswered, and later
letters unopened, and then the woman seemed to take fire, and in turn she
threatened him.
And now she had brought Mrs. Burton to witness his cruelty to her, the
meek, suffering girl to whom he was pledged and plighted, who she had followed
to Omaha in hopes of softening his heart and winning back his wayward love,
as was the burden of her sorrowing song to that most sympathetic of women,
already burning with prejudice and fancied wrong of her own. One "woman
scorned" is more than enough for many a reputation. Two, in double harness,
would wreck that of Saint Anthony.
All this and more had sped through Loring's[Pg 299] mind that night
and was uppermost in his thoughts as he stood there facing his patient
commander. The General's fine, clear-cut features clouded with anxiety
as he noted the long silence and hesitation. Again he spoke, with grave,
yet gentle reproof in his tone.
"Surely, Loring, if you know of the fellow, it is our right to know."
"I realize it, sir. But I can do better than tell a mere suspicion.
Give me authority to act and I'll land that man in jail and lay his whole
story on your desk."
"Then go and do it!" said the chief.[Pg 300]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XXII.
Another week and all Wyoming was awake and thrilling. There had been
dreadful doings on the Big Horn, and John Folsom's prophecy had come true.
Enticing one detachment after another out from the stockade at Warrior
Gap by show of scattered bands of braves, that head devil of the Ogallallas,
Red Cloud, had gradually surrounded three companies with ten times their
force of fighting men and slaughtered every soldier of the lot. There had
been excitement at Gate City during a brief visit of the General and his
aid inspecting the affairs of Major Burleigh, who, confined to his bed
by nervous prostration, and forbidden by his doctor to see anybody, had
nevertheless sent his keys and books and bank account, and to the mystification
of the chief, more money was found in the big office safe at the depot
quartermaster's than was necessary to cover his accountability. The General[Pg
301] and his inspector were fairly puzzled. They personally questioned
the bank cashier and the quartermaster's clerks. They ransacked that safe
and pored over the books, both there and at the bank. The only queer thing
discovered was that a large sum of money, five thousand dollars or so,
had been withdrawn from the bank in cash one day and within the week replaced.
Then the General had to turn back to Cheyenne and hasten thence to the
forts along the Platte, to expedite the sending of his soldiers to the
relief of the beleaguered posts along the Big Horn, the tidings of the
massacre reaching Gate City and plunging Fort Emory in mourning only a
few hours after his departure.
Then came still another excitement at Gate City. Major Burleigh had
suddenly become endowed with new youth and energy. He who was declared
by his physicians to be in a critical condition, one demanding the utmost
quiet, he who could not even see the department commander, and of whom
the doctor had said it might be weeks before he was again fit for duty,
had sprung from his bed, dictated[Pg 302] certain letters, wired important
news to the chief quartermaster at Omaha, demanded of the railway authorities
an engine and caboose to bear him over the newly-completed mountain division
to Cheyenne, had taken every cent from his private safe, had entered his
office at an early hour, satchel and safe key in hand, was confounded by
the sight of two clerks there smoking forbidden pipes, and turning, without
a word, had fled. One of these was the young man who so recently had written
to a confidant in Omaha, telling of Burleigh's queer doings and his own
desire to get from underneath.
It transpired later that Burleigh went back to the bank, presented a
check for the balance to his credit and demanded currency, but the cashier
had become alarmed by the investigations made by the General and had temporized—said
he must consult the president, and asked the major to call two hours later,
whereat Burleigh had taken alarm. He was looking ghastly, said the cashier.
It was apparent to every one that mentally, bodily, or both, the[Pg 303]
lately debonair and successful man of the world had "lost his grip."
And before even the swift-running engine could have landed the fugitive
in Cheyenne, the truth was known. The package purporting to contain ten
thousand dollars in currency for the payment of the workmen at Warrior
Gap, sealed in Burleigh's office and sent at incredible risk by the hands
of a young cavalry officer, with only ten troopers through the Indian lines,
borne intact to the commanding officer of the new post, though its gallant
guardians had run the gauntlet at the cost of the blood of more than half
their number, was found when opened to hold nothing but waste paper. Then
indeed was explained Burleigh's insistence. Then indeed was apparent why
he had not pressed his charges against the officer who had publicly horsewhipped
him. Then indeed was explained why good old John Folsom had withdrawn so
large a sum in cash from his bank and how Burleigh was enabled to replace
what he himself had taken. Then did it begin to dawn on people[Pg 304]
where Hank Birdsall, "The Pirate of the Plains," as he had been alliteratively
described, had got the "straight tip" which enabled him to instantly enlist
the services of so many outlawed men in a desperate game. Gradually as
the whole scheme became evident and the truth leaked out, Gate City woke
up to a pitch of pious fury against its late popular and prominent "boomer"
and citizen. Gradually it dawned upon them that, in jealous hatred of the
young soldier whom Folsom's lovely daughter seemed to favor, he had first
sought to undermine him, then to ruin and finally to make way with, even
while at the same time covering the tracks of his own criminality. It was
Elinor Folsom's lover, Lieutenant Dean, who horsewhipped him for good and
sufficient reasons. It was Elinor's father who bribed him with a big and
sorely-needed loan to prefer no charges against the boy. It was Burleigh
who almost immediately after this tremendous episode had secured the sending
of Lieutenant Dean on a mission so fraught with peril that the chances
were ten to one against[Pg 305] his ever getting through alive. Who could
have "posted" Birdsall but Burleigh? Who could say what the amount of his
shortage really was? The key of the big safe was gone with him, and in
that safe at the time of the general's visit were at least fifteen thousand
dollars. "Old Pecksniff," commanding officer at Fort Emory, had wired to
department headquarters. An expert safe-opener was ordered out from Chicago,
and right in the midst of all the turmoil there suddenly appeared upon
the scene a blue-eyed young man, with pale features, clear-cut and strong,
a light brown mustache that shaded his mouth, and, though he wore no uniform,
the rumor went round that this was Lieutenant Loring of the Engineers.
Infantry and cavalry, commissaries and quartermasters, doctors and sutlers,
the denizens of Gate City well knew as attachments of the army, but what
the mischief was an Engineer? Loring put up at Gate City's new hotel, simply
registering as from Omaha, but that he bore credentials and was a man of
mark, Gate City learned from the fact that Colonel Stevens[Pg 306] himself
had met him on arrival and wished to take him out to the fort, and was
ill-pleased when Mr. Loring explained that his business would be best performed
in town. Gate City followed the young man with eager eyes, confident that
Engineer must be the army name for detective. He studied the hotel register.
He curiously examined all relics of the late lamented Newhall, who disappeared
before Burleigh. He questioned the clerks at the corral, reconnoitered
the neighborhood, asked what were their means of defense, turned inside
out a worn yet shapely boot that had been the captain's, bade man after
man to describe that worthy, and finally walked away from the depot, having
picked up lots of information and imparted none. He spent some time at
Folsom's that evening. He drove out to the fort in the afternoon, "and
what do you think he wanted?" said Old Pecksniff, whose command had been
cut down to one company and the band, "wanted me to post a strong guard
over the quartermaster's depot, lest that damned marauding gang of Birdsall's
should[Pg 307] gallop in some night with Burleigh's safe key and get away
with the funds. I asked him if those were the General's orders and he said
no. I asked him if they were anybody's orders and he said no. I asked him
if it was anybody's idea but his own and he said no, and then I told him,
by gad, I hadn't men enough to guard the public property here at the post.
The quartermaster's depot was responsible for most of them being away,
let them take care of their own."
Gate City Hotel was alive with loungers that night waiting for the Engineer.
At half-past nine he had come from the quartermaster's corral, and after
a few minutes had gone away with Mr. Folsom, who drove up in his carriage.
He was up at the old man's now, said the impatient ones, fooling away the
time with the girls when he ought to be there answering their questions
and appeasing their curiosity. The talk turned on the probable whereabouts
of Burleigh and his "pals." So had the mighty fallen that the lately fawning
admirers now spoke of the fugitive as a crimi[Pg 308]nal. He couldn't follow
the Union Pacific East; everybody knew him, and by this time officers were
on the lookout for him all along the road. He had reached Cheyenne, that
was known, and had driven away from there up the valley of Crow Creek with
two companions. Loring himself had ascertained this in Cheyenne, but it
was the sheriff who gave out the information. He was in hiding, declared
the knowing ones, in some of the haunts of Birdsall's fellows east of Laramie
City, a growing town of whose prowess at poker and keno Gate City was professionally
aware and keenly jealous. He might hide there a day or two and then get
out of the country by way of the Sweetwater along the old stage route to
Salt Lake or skip southward and make for Denver. Northward he dare not
go. There were the army posts along the Platte; beyond them the armed hosts
of Indians, far more to be dreaded than all the sheriffs' posses on the
plains. Half-past ten came and still no Loring, and the round of drinks
were getting monotonous. Judge Pardee, a bibulous and oracular limb of[Pg
309] the law, had been chosen inquisitor-general, with powers to call for
all the news that was stowed away in that secretive "knowledge-box" on
the shoulders of the Engineer. Gate City had resolved and "'lowed" that
a man reputed to know so much should be held up and compelled to part with
at least a little. Jimmy Peters, the landlord's boy, scouting out to Folsom's,
came back on the run, breathless from three-quarters of a mile of panting
through that rare atmosphere, to say that he had just seen a couple of
officers ride away to the fort, and old man Folsom with "the Engineer feller"
were coming out the front gate. They'd be along in a few minutes. So in
their eagerness some of the loungers strolled out in front and gazed westward
up the long, broad, hard-beaten street on which, in many a spot, the bunch
grass of the prairie still lingered. It was a lovely summer night, warm,
starlit, but the baby moon had early sunk to rest, and the darkness was
intense. Yet the first men to come forth could have sworn they saw two
horsemen, dim and shadowy, go loping across[Pg 310] the broad thoroughfare
from north to south, at the first cross street. There was nothing remarkable
in horsemen being abroad at that hour; horses were tethered now in front
of the hotel. What was strange was that they passed within a mile of Peter's
bar and didn't stop for a drink. Men who are capable of that neglect of
opportunity and the attendant privilege of "setting em up" for all hands,
could be nothing less than objects of suspicion. Two minutes later and
somebody said, "Shut up!" a frontierism for "hush," and all ears were turned
expectant. No, there was no sound of brisk, springy footsteps on the elastic
wooden walk. Already men had noted that quick, alert, soldierly gait of
the new officer. But "shut up" was repeated when audible murmurs were made.
"There's more fellows a-horseback up yonder. Who in 'ell's out to-night?"
queried the citizen with the keenest ears. "Jimmy, boy, run up there and
scout—I'll give you a dime."
And Jimmy, nothing loath, was off, swift and noiseless as an arrow.
It was time for[Pg 311] Loring and "old man Folsom" to be getting there
if they were coming, and the boy was athrill with excitement and interest.
Bending low, as he knew the Indians went on scout, springing along the
plank walk he shot like a flitting specter up the street, stooping lower
and glaring to left and right at the first crossing, but seeing nobody.
A noiseless run of a third of a mile brought him to a corner, where, looking
southward by day, one could see the flagstaff and the big white gateway,
and beyond it the main office of the quartermaster's corral. Staff and
gateway were invisible now, but beyond the latter gleamed two lights, each
in a separate window of that office. Jimmy knew they never worked that
late. Why should the curtains be up now? Why, indeed! It was a question
that interested other prowlers beside himself, for, as he paused for breath,
close at hand he heard the stamp of a horse's hoof, followed by a muttered
curse, and evident jerk of the bit and jab with the spurs, for the tortured
creature plunged and stamped in pain.[Pg 312]
"Keep that damned broncho quiet!" growled a voice. "You'll give the
whole thing away."
"It's given away now," was the surly half whisper, in reply, "else those
fellows would never be up at this hour of the night. They've mounted guard.
Where'd the man go with the key?"
"Up to Folsom's back gate. Three of our fellows are shadowing him, though.
He can't get away with it. He said he had to see his wife or she'd betray
the whole business."
"All the same I don't like it. The old man always has a raft of fort
people there. Hello, listen!"
All on a sudden there came from afar up the broad avenue the sound of
scurrying hoofs. Down through the darkness, louder and louder, spurring
and thundering, came three horsemen whom the shadows at the corner reined
out eagerly to meet. There was no suspense. "Come on!" savagely growled
a hoarse voice. "The game's up! Newhall's wife led him square into a trap.
They've got him, key and all."[Pg 313]
Then away they rode, athirst and blasphemous, and away sped Jimmy with
his wondrous news, and out tumbled the loungers at Peter's bar, the judge
and the sheriff last, and those who had horses mounted and galloped up
to Folsom's and those who had not trudged enviously after, and a few minutes
later there was gathered at the corral a panting and eager band of men,
for thither had Mr. Loring, with his grip on the collar and his pistol
at his captive's ear, marched an ashen-faced, scowling, scurrilous man,
a dashing-looking fellow at times, a raging rascal now, cursing his wife
for a foul traitress, cursing his captor for an accomplice, saying filthy
words about women in general, until choked by a twist of the collar.
Into the lighted office and the presence of two armed clerks the Engineer
marched his man, the first arrivals following eagerly until the door was
shut and barred. Into the hands of a sheriff did Loring personally commit
his prisoner. Then calling to his aid the chief clerk, he tried the key
in the lock of the[Pg 314] safe. It worked exactly. Then he turned to the
civil officer of the law.
"Guard this man well," said he. "He has escaped twice before. It is
not Captain Newhall. He is a thief—whose name is Nevins."
"And you hear me, young cock of the walk," was the furious outbreak
of the captive runagate, "you stole that key from me—to whom it was given
to deliver to Colonel Stevens. It isn't the first time you stole either.
You'll sweat for this night's work so sure as there's a God in heaven!"[Pg
315]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XXIII.
Gate City had found a hero and wished to worship him, but its hero
proved as intractable as he was reticent. For three days after the capture
of Nevins the community was agog with rumor and excitement. To begin with,
the captive "had the cheek of a brass monkey," said the sheriff, and swore
stoutly that he was a wronged and injured man. So far from being a prisoner
he should be on a pinnacle, rewarded by a generous and grateful government
for important services rendered. Who but he had followed and found the
renegade major and wrested from him full confession and the key of the
safe, which in turn had been forcibly wrested from him through the malevolent
jealousy of that upstart Engineer; but never, said Nevins, would he now
betray Burleigh's hiding-place or impart his confession until full reparation
was made for the wrongs[Pg 316] and indignities heaped upon him. The sheriff
was fairly dazed.
"Who were all the fellows you had with you," he demanded, "if they weren't
some of Hank Birdsall's crowd, come there to raid the quartermaster's department
depot?" Nevins' indignation was fine to see. He denied all knowledge of
the presence of any such. He demanded an interview with Folsom. He utterly
refused at first to accord one to his wife, as Naomi Fletcher, Folsom's
housekeeper was now understood to be. That woman was in league with his
enemies, he swore. That woman wrote and bade him come and then had Folsom
and Loring and other armed men there to pounce upon him. Folsom came and
had a few words with him, but told him bluntly that he wouldn't believe
his preposterous story, and would have nothing to do with him until he
withdrew the outrageous accusations against both his wife and Loring. That
woman's a million times too good for you, said Folsom. Then Nevins concluded
he must have a talk with Loring, and, on his message being conveyed[Pg
317] that officer, the bearer was bidden to say that Mr. Loring refused
to have anything whatever to do with him, whereat the captive ex-captain
ground his teeth with rage and made the jail-yard ring with malediction.
Events succeeded each other with marvelous rapidity. Folsom's visit was
early the morning after the capture, and by noon he was bowling along on
a seventy-mile ride to the ranch in the Laramie valley, hurried thither
by the news that Birdsall's gang had run off many of his son's best horses
and that Hal Folsom himself was missing. Loring galloped by the side of
the ambulance several miles, conferring with the old frontiersman all the
way, then turned back to resume his work at the depot. Eagerly he wired
dispatches to the General, which were forwarded from Cheyenne to the Platte,
telling of his important capture, smiling quietly as he wrote. Had he not
promised to produce the mysterious Newhall himself? Admirable service,
indeed, had the young Engineer rendered. The testimony of Folsom, Loring,
Jimmy Peters and one or two wakeful citizens all[Pg 318] proved that there
must have been a dozen of Birdsall's gang in town that night. There could
be only one explanation, for a price was on the head of every man. They
had come with "Newhall" and the key straight from some distant lair in
the Black Hills of Wyoming, the big-shouldered range that stretches from
the Laramie near its junction with the Platte southward to Colorado. They
were bent on a sudden rush upon the corral in the dead of night, the forcing
of the gate and the office door, then, with "Newhall" to unlock the safe,
they would be up and away like the wind, with money enough to keep them
all in clover—and whisky—until the last dollar was gambled or guzzled.
Loring's suspicions had proved exactly correct. Loring's precautions in
having the office brightly lighted and a show of armed men about had held
the would-be robbers at bay during the early hours of the night, and then
his prompt action in hurling himself on the mysterious stranger who came
stealthily in at Folsom's back gate, had finally and totally blocked the
game.[Pg 319]
But, just in proportion as Loring turned out to be right, old Pecksniff
turned out to be wrong, for he had refused a guard for the depot, and therefore
was it now Pecksniff's bounden duty to himself to pooh-pooh the precautions
of the Engineer and belittle the danger. Not for a moment would he admit
that armed desperadoes had come at Nevins' back. As for the key in his
possession, with all respect to the statements of Mr. Loring, the story
of the unfortunate captain was just as plausible, and that key should have
been delivered to him, the commander at Fort Emory, instead of being taken
possession of by the Engineer. True, Nevins had been dismissed in disgrace,
and in a question of veracity between the two men there was little doubt
that Loring's would prevail. But a very peppery, fidgety, unhappy old man
was Colonel Stevens for many days, prating about this independence of action
of stripling officers right under his nose. But the worst came on the day
when the little troop of cavalry at Fort Emory was still further depleted
by the[Pg 320] detachment of a sergeant, two corporals and eight troopers,
ordered to report with pack-mule and ten-days' rations to Lieutenant Loring,
of the Engineers, and Colonel Stevens had not been consulted again. The
senior colonel in the department, he had seen his command cut down, company
by company, until only a bare squad, said he, remained to guard the most
important post in Wyoming. (Which it wasn't by any means, but he had been
led to think so.) And now young whipper-snappers just out of West Point
were running away with his men right under his nose!
But Loring's orders came to him direct from Omaha. He had need of every
precaution. He was now going on a mission that demanded the utmost secrecy,
and the colonel could no more conceal a movement than a sieve could hold
water.
Quitting the quartermaster's depot one summer night at twelve, the little
detachment rode silently out across the southward prairie, swung round
to the east when the dim lights of town were a mile behind, took the trot
over[Pg 321] the hard, bounding turf, and at dawn were heading straight
for the breaks of the Laramie. Halting for rest and coffee when the sun
was an hour high, they again pushed on until noon, when they unsaddled
in a grove of leafy cottonwoods in a little fork of the Medicine Bow, watered
the weary horses and gave them a hearty feed and themselves as hearty a
dinner, and then picketing and hoppling their steeds, who were glad enough
to roll and sprawl in the sand, all hands managed to get some hours of
sound sleep before the sun was sinking to the edge of the Sweetwater Range.
Then came the careful grooming of their mounts, then a dip in the cool
waters, then smoking tins of soldier coffee and sizzling slips of bacon.
Then again the saddle and the silent trail, with the moon looking down
from the zenith on their warlike array. Heavily armed was every man, each,
even the lieutenant, with carbine and brace of Colts, and on they rode
through the still, soft night air, chatting in low tones, no man knowing
but every one believing that the taciturn, blue-eyed young officer in the
lead[Pg 322] was heading them for a lair of the Birdsall gang. It was too
far south just then for Sioux.
Another morn and they had crossed, during the dark hours, the broad
plains of the Laramie and were winding up among the hills. Another rest
and, spurring from the rear, there overtook them a bronzed, weather-beaten
frontiersman whom Mr. Loring greeted without show of surprise, and when
again they moved on it was he who rode at the lieutenant's left, up, up
a winding trail among the frowning heights, until just as every man was
wondering when on earth they could hope for a bite, the noiseless signal
halt was given, while the leaders dismounted and peered over a shoulder
of bluff ahead, held brief consultation, then down the ravine to the left
rode the stranger, and back to his men came Loring, his eyes kindling.
"There is a camp half a mile ahead where I have to make an arrest,"
said he quietly. "Keep close at my heels. We'll have to gallop when we
get in view. Draw pistol.[Pg 323] Don't fire unless they do. They probably
won't."
And they didn't. Half a dozen startled men, gambling about a blanket;
two or three sleeping off a drunk, and one hunted, haunted wretch nervously
pacing up and down among the pines, were no match for the dash of a dozen
blue jackets coming thundering into view. There was no thought of fight.
Those who could catch their horses threw themselves astride bareback and
shot for the heart of the hills; two or three scrambled off afoot and were
quickly run down, one a heavily-built, haggard, hollow-eyed man shook from
head to foot as the lieutenant reined up his panting and excited horse
and coolly said:
"You are my prisoner, Burleigh."
Nor was there attempt at rescue. Mounting his four captives on their
horses, their feet lashed to the stirrups, their hands bound, all the abandoned
arms, ammunition and provisions destroyed and the camp burned, Loring led
promptly away up the range toward the north until clear of the timber,
then down the[Pg 324] westward slope toward the Laramie valley once more,
searching for a secure place to bivouac. Far to the north the grand old
peak loomed against the blue gray of the Wyoming skies. Off to their left
front, uplifting a shaggy crest from its surrounding hills, a bold butte
towered full twenty miles away, and toward that jagged landmark Loring
saw his sergeant peering time and again, with hand-shaded eyes.
"What do you see?" he presently asked.
"Smoke, sir, I think. Will the lieutenant look with his glass?"
Silently Loring unslung his binocular and gazed. His eyes were keen,
but untrained. "Take it yourself, sergeant," he said; and the veteran trooper
reined out to one side and peered long and steadily, then came trotting
up to the head of the column, doubt and suppressed excitement mingling
on his weather-beaten face.
"I couldn't be sure, sir, but it looked for a minute like smoke."
"And that means——"[Pg 325]
"Indian signals, sir. That's Eagle Butte, only a couple of miles from
Hal Folsom's ranch."
Loring pondered. It was long since, in any force, the Sioux had ventured
south of the Platte; but now, after their victory at Warrior Gap and the
tremendous reinforcement they had received from all the turbulent tribes,
what was to prevent? John Folsom himself had told him it might be expected
any moment. John Folsom himself had gone to that very spot, consumed with
anxiety about the safety of his son, but confident of the safety of himself
and those he loved when once he could reach the ranch. "No Sioux," said
he, "would raise hand to harm me."
But Loring's men and horses both were sorely wearied now, and at sundown
the little command reached a sheltered nook where grass, wood, and water
were abundant. Here restfully, yet anxiously they bivouacked until three
in the morning, and then once more, refreshed but alert and cautious, watchful
of their prisoners and watchful of the signs ahead,[Pg 326] on they sped
for Folsom's ranch. The dawn broke beautifully clear. The trail led down
into the romantic valley of the Laramie at the bend where it begins its
rush through the range. Then, turning westward as they reached the foot
of a steep and commanding height, Loring signaled to his sergeant and the
troopers spurred up alongside. There before them lay the broad and beautiful
valley just lighting up with the rosy hues of the glad young day. There
to the northward, black-bearded with its growth of pine, the rays of the
rising sun just glinting on the topmost crags, towered Eagle Butte, a plume
of smoke-puffs, even at the moment beginning to soar slowly aloft. There,
not a mile away straight ahead was the steep ridge that, hiding Folsom's
from view, stretched down from the northward foothills to the very bank
of the lapping Laramie. There south of the stream, the gradual slope of
the black range, studded here and there with bowlders that seemed to have
rolled down from the precipitous cliffs under which they were now moving,
two seasoned old dragoons[Pg 327] three hundred yards out to the front,
covering the cautious advance. All the broad sweep of rolling landscape
far to the west just lighting up in the slant of the summer sunshine. Not
a living thing in sight save their own little band, yet beyond that ridge,
only two miles away, lay the ranch. All seemingly peaceful and secure,
yet, over that jagged watch tower to the north the war signals of the Sioux
were flaunting, and every hand seemed to seek the small of the gun stock.
Even two of the prisoners plead for "a show in the fight," if there was
to be one, and not five minutes later it came. Borne on the still, breathless
air there rose throbbing from the west the spiteful crack, crack of rifles,
the distant clamor of taunting jeer and yell. Back from the front came
one of the troopers at mad gallop, his eyes popping almost from his head.
"My God! lieutenant, Folsom's ranch is afire and the valley's thick with
Sioux!"
Even then, when every carbine seemed to leap from its socket, men remembered
the[Pg 328] groan of despair that rose from Burleigh's lips.
"Look after the prisoners, corporal. Sergeant Carey, you and the first
six come with me!" cried Loring. A gallop of less than a minute brought
them almost abreast of the ridge. Black and billowing a cloud of smoke
was rising, lashed from beneath by angry tongues of red flame.
"It isn't the house, thank God!" cried the sergeant. "It's the haystacks.
But—look at the Indians!"
Look, well they might! All about the corrals they were darting. All
of a sudden there blazed from the ridge line across the stream the fire
of a dozen rifles. All around them the spiteful bullets bit the turf. One
horse madly reared and plunged, his rider cursing heartily. Wildly the
more excitable troopers returned an aimless shot from the saddle, while
others gazed eagerly to the officer for orders. It was his first meeting
with the Sioux. It had been his hope to gain that threatened ranch by dawn
and join its garrison, but where was[Pg 329] that hope now? Down along
the banks of the Laramie, lashing their bounding ponies, brandishing their
weapons and yelling like mad, a band of Sioux, full forty strong, came
charging at them, splashing through the shallows and scattering out across
their front in the well-known battle tactics. Not an instant was there
to be lost!
"Jump for those rocks, men!" rang Loring's order. "Cut loose your prisoners,
corporal. They must fight for their lives."
But oh, what chance had so few against so many! Springing from saddle,
turning loose their startled, snorting horses, that go tearing away down
the valley, the old hands have jumped for the rocks, and kneeling and taking
deliberate aim, opened fire on the foremost of the foe. A gaudy warrior
goes down in the flood, and a yell goes up to heaven. Another good shot
slays a feather-decked pony and sends his rider sprawling, and wisely the
others veer away to right and left and scurry to more distant range. But
up the slopes to the south still others dart. From three sides[Pg 330]
now the Indian bullets are hissing in. In less than four minutes of sharp,
stinging fight, gallant Sergeant Carey is stretched on the turf, with a
shattered elbow, Corporal Burke and two troopers are shot dead, Loring,
with white, set face and a scorching seam along the left cheek, seizes
a dropped carbine and thrusts it into Burleigh's shaking hands. "Up with
you, man!" he cries. "It's your scalp you're fighting for. Here, take a
drink of this," and his filled canteen is glued to Burleigh's ashen lips.
A long pull, a gasp, and hardly knowing what he does, the recreant officer
kneels at the nearmost rock, aims at a painted savage leaping to the aid
of a fallen brother, and the chance shot, for a marvel, finds its mark,
and with a howl the warrior drops upon the bank.
"Well done, Burleigh!" shouts Loring. "Fire again!"
Hope, or whiskey, or lingering spark of manhood has fired the major's
eye and nerved his hand. With something like a sob, one of Birdsall's captured
crew rolls over to where the young commander is coolly loading and[Pg 331]
firing—and despite their heavy loss the stout defense has had its effect,
and the yelling braves are keeping at wider range.
"I'm done for, lieutenant," he moans. "For God's sake lie flat behind
me," and he feebly points to the slope behind their left rear, where half
a dozen Sioux, dismounted, are skipping to the shelter of the rocks. Another
minute and their bullets are hissing at the backs of the besieged. Another
minute and Burleigh topples over on the sward, the life blood pouring from
his side, and Loring sees that half his fighting force is gone, even as
everything begins to swim before his eyes, and the hand that strives to
sweep away the blur before his sight, leaves his pallid face smeared with
blood. There is a sound of coming thunder in his ears, the blare of distant
trumpet, the warning yell of wary Indians, the rousing cheer of charging
horse, and the earth seems turning round and rolling up to meet him as
he droops, fainting at his post, the battle won.
Well and gallantly done, was the universal[Pg 332] verdict of the frontier
on Walter Loring's maiden fight. Brave, cool and resolute in face of desperate
peril he had proved, and many a sympathizing soldier hovered about the
hospital tent, where day after day he lay in the delirium of fever that
followed his wounds. Yet will it be believed that, when at last convalescence
came and the doctors were compelled to raise the blockade, the news was
broken to him that so soon as he should be declared strong enough there
was still another ordeal ahead. The gallant General he had served so well
had indeed been ordered elsewhere, as was prophesied at Omaha. "A new king
came who knew not Joseph." The senior colonel was assigned to temporary
command of the department, and he, old Pecksniff, listened to the tales
of Nevins, and of that new arrival from California, Petty, reinforced by
Heaven alone knows what allegations from the lambs of Lambert's flock.
"They found some damned trumpery jewelry in a flat tin case in a trunk
you left with your traps at Omaha," was the indignant out[Pg 333]burst
of Lieutenant Dean, who had led the rush of the cavalry to the rescue of
Folsom's ranch and Loring's exhausted party, "and some idiot has preferred
charges on the strength of them."[Pg 334]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XXIV.
That Loring court was the talk of the West for many a month. Long before
its meeting the wrathful division commander had sent Colonel Stevens back
to the obscurity of Fort Emory, welcomed the new brigadier and bade him,
if a possible thing, quash the proceedings, but now it was Loring who was
obdurate. "This matter has been a scandal for months," said he. "It must
be settled now once and for all."
But, oh, what complications had not been brought about by Pecksniff's
spell of brief authority! Never before intrusted with a higher command
than that of a regiment, to the head of which he had risen by reason of
long years of unimpaired bodily health and skillful avoidance of all danger,
the old colonel had lost no time in moving, bag and baggage, to Omaha,
in having Nevins transported thither, in opening wide his ears to his story[Pg
335] of the heinous wrongs inflicted on him by that Arizona court, through
the malignity of its judge advocate, of that judge advocate's heartless
treachery to two helpless women, one of whom was Nevins' wife, the other
the officer's own deserted and broken-hearted betrothed. Then came Petty,
ordered to join his company in the field and eager as ever to seek some
loophole of escape. Reporting to pay his homage to the temporary commander
at headquarters he soon got an inkling of what was going on, and all at
once there flashed upon him the magnificence of his opportunity. Here he
could at one and the same time feed fat his ancient grudge against Loring
and make himself indispensable to the aging commander of the department—perhaps
even secure another staff billet, certainly, at least, succeed in being
kept there on duty and away from the perils of the field until after the
court, and meantime, what would friends be worth if they could not move
the powers at Washington.
Day after day he was closeted with old[Pg 336] Stevens, adding fuel
to the flame of that ingenuous veteran's suspicions, but it is doubtful
if even Petty dreamed of the depth of Nevins' scoundrelism. Burleigh, whom
the ex-captain had "bled" and blackmailed, had passed beyond the bar of
human arraignment, "dying like a gentleman" even while captive in the hands
of the authorities; and so did Nevins impress his uncontradicted tale of
loyal service to the State on the old weakling in command, that Stevens
had declared that there was no evidence on which to hold him, had ordered
his release from custody on parole, unless the civil authorities desired
to prosecute him for "personating an officer," and had written to the division
commander, praising Nevins' conduct, and urging that the sentence of imprisonment
be set aside.
And then, he never could tell just who brought this about—whether it
was Mrs. Burton or Miss Allyn with their tears and tribulations; whether
it was Nevins, with his bold accusations, or Petty, with his insidious
tales, but between them all the old colonel was in[Pg 337]duced to send
his adjutant and acting aid to examine certain baggage of Loring's stored
at the hotel. Never having given up his room when hurrying off to Gate
City; expecting to be back within a week and merely to pay room rent when
absent, as was the arrangement of the day, Loring had left his trunks and
desks securely locked. Two officers and the protesting hotel clerk were
present at the opening. The locksmith, even, seemed to hate his job; the
adjutant had never a meaner one, but Petty was eager. Fresh from an interview
with Geraldine, he was the directing spirit. It was his hand that extracted
from deep down under the packed clothing in the trunk, a small tin box,
wrapped in a silk handkerchief. Within the box, when opened, were certain
letters in a woman's hand—Geraldine Allyn's—letters written to Loring in
the days of their brief engagement, letters long since returned to her
under his hand and seal, and with them, in closely-folded wraps of tissue
paper, inclosed in stout envelope, a valuable solitaire and as valuable
a ring. The regimental adjutant it[Pg 338] was who opened the box and who
made these discoveries. Half an hour later they were identified by Nevins,
in the presence of old Pecksniff, as the diamonds intrusted to Loring's
care in Arizona, and Nevins professed to be disappointed because the watch,
too, was not found with them.
Not until late July did Loring learn of the action taken in his enforced
absence, and of the resulting developments. Not a word would he vouchsafe
in explanation, when old Pecksniff, wilting under the criticisms of his
superiors, sent his adjutant to "invite remarks." "The court has been ordered,"
said Loring, with coolness described as contemptuous, "I'll make my remarks
there." But long before that court could meet, the colonel, as has been
said, went back to his post. The new commander arrived, and ordered Nevins
to an Iowa prison to serve out the year awarded him; sent Captain Petty
summarily to Laramie, and bade Mrs. Burton go about her business when that
lachrymose person came to urge that he should do something "to make[Pg
339] Lieutenant Loring settle." She had lost her lovely boarder, too, for
no sooner had "Mrs. Fletcher" heard of the new accusations against Loring
than she appeared at Omaha, and whisked her sister away, no one at Omaha
knew where, but indignant old John Folsom could perhaps have told. He cut
Pecksniff dead when that officer returned to Emory, and refused to go near
the fort. He threw open his doors and his heart to Loring when the convalescing
Engineer was brought in from the ranch. The new General actually came,
ostensibly to inspect the post, but spent twelve hours at Folsom's by Loring's
side to the one devoted to Stevens, and everybody felt that there was a
storm brewing that would break when finally the witnesses for the defense
arrived and the Loring court could meet.
But who would have dreamed there could be such dramatic scene before
a military tribunal?
It came with the third day of the trial. The court had been carefully
selected by old Pecksniff, whose adjutant had obediently signed[Pg 340]
the charges drawn up under the chief's directions. There were only nine
officers in the array—"no others being available without manifest injury
to the service"—read the formula of the day. Five were officers of Stevens'
regiment, one a cavalry major, the others of the pay, commissary and quartermaster's
departments. None had known Loring. Everybody expected him to object to
some at least, but he objected to none. The judge advocate was a vigilant
official who made the most of his opportunity, but his witnesses for the
prosecution were, with one exception, weak; the exception was Nevins. He
swore stoutly that he had given the valuables in Arizona to Loring, and
from that day had never seen them until they were found secreted in Loring's
trunk, and, to the amaze of the court, Loring declined to cross-examine.
Petty was a failure. He wanted to swear to a thousand things that other
people had told him, for of himself he knew nothing, and though the defense
never interposed, the court did. It was all hearsay, and he was finally
excused.[Pg 341] Mrs. Burton appeared, but like Mrs. Cluppins of blessed
memory, had more to say of her domestic and personal affairs than the allegations
against the accused. Miss Allyn, said the judge advocate, in embarrassment,
was to have appeared on the afternoon of the second day, but did not, nor
could he find her. She was a most important witness, so he had been assured
by—various persons, but at the last moment she had apparently deserted
the cause of the prosecution. A civil court would have had power to drag
an unwilling witness before it and compel his or her testimony; a military
court has neither, so long as the desired person is not in the military
service, which Miss Allyn and some sixty million others at that time could
not be said to be. A sensation was "sprung" on the court at this juncture
by the defense. It magnanimously informed the court that John Folsom, of
Gate City, knew where that witness was in hiding, and that she could be
reached through him, whereupon the judge advocate seemed to lose his eagerness.[Pg
342]
Something was wrong with the prosecution anyway. It had begun with
truculent confidence. It was unnerved by the serene composure of the accused,
and his refusal to object to anything, to cross-examine, to avail himself
of any one of the privileges accorded the defense. This could have only
one interpretation, and Nevins, twitching with nervous dread, was worrying
the judge advocate with perpetual questions as to the witnesses for the
defense. When were they to be produced? Who were they? And the judge advocate
did not know. Very unfairly had he been treated, said he, for the list
of witnesses for the defense not only had not been furnished him, but he
had never been "consulted." Two or three "stuck-up" Engineers had come
out from St. Louis and Detroit, and Loring and they had been actually hobnobbing
with the department commander. But the mere fact that the meeting of the
court was delayed until the end of September proved that they must be coming
from the Pacific coast, at which announcement Petty looked perturbed and
Nevins twitched[Pg 343] from head to foot. He didn't suppose, he said,
the United States would stand the expense of fetching witnesses way from
California, transportation and per diem would cost more than the whole
business was worth.—and the judge advocate was wishing himself well out
of it when, on a sunny Friday morning, the third day of the court, the
president rapped for order and the big roomful of spectators was hushed
to respectful silence. The defense had made its first request, that the
principal witness for the prosecution, Nevins, should be present, and there
he sat, nervous and fidgety, as Loring was serene.
In halting and embarrassed fashion, very unlike the fluent ease with
which he opened the case, the judge advocate announced that, owing to the
impossibility of compelling the testimony of witnesses on whom he had relied,
he was obliged to announce that the prosecution would here rest. The defense,
of course, he said, vaguely, would wish to be heard, though he had not
been honored with any conference or even a list of the witnesses.[Pg 344]
Then he looked inquiringly at Loring, and every neck in the thronged apartment,
the biggest room at headquarters, was "craned" as Loring quietly handed
him a slip of paper.
The judge advocate read, looked puzzled, glanced up, and cleared his
throat.
"You mean you want these summoned?"
"No, they're here, in my office."
The judge advocate turned to the orderly of the court, a soldier standing
in full dress uniform at the door. The hallway, even, was blocked with
lookers-on. The windows to the south were occupied by curious citizens,
gazing in from the wooden gallery. Those to the north, thrown wide open
to let in the air, were clear, and looked out over a confused muddle of
shingled roofs and stove-pipe chimneys. Hardly a whisper passed from lip
to lip as the orderly bustled away. Members of the court fidgeted with
their sash tassels, or made pretense of writing. Nevins, the sheriff's
officer, in close attendance, sat staring at the doorway, his face ashen,
and beginning to bead with sweat. Presently the people in the hall gave[Pg
345] way right and left, and all eyes save those of Loring were intent
upon the entrance. He sat coolly looking at the man whom six months before
he had convicted in Arizona. There was a stir in the courtroom. Half the
people rose to their feet and stared, for slowly entering upon the arm
of a tall, slim, long legged lieutenant of infantry, a stranger to every
man in the court, came a slender, shrinking little maid, whose heavy eyelashes
swept her cheeks, whose dark, shapely head hung bashfully. Behind them,
in the garb of some religious order, unknown to all save one or two in
the crowded room, came a gentle-faced woman, leaning on the arm of a field
officer of the Engineers, at sight of whom the president sprang from his
chair, intending to bow, but the silence was suddenly broken by the quick,
stern order, "Look out for your prisoner!" followed by a rush, a crashing
of overturned chairs, as court and spectators, too, started to their feet—a
general scurry to the northward windows, shouts of "Halt!" "Head him off!"
"Stop him!" in the midst of which a light,[Pg 346] supple form was seen
to poise one instant on the sill, then go leaping into space. "He's killed!"
"He's not!" "He's up again!" "He's off!" were the cries, and with drawn
revolver the deputy sheriff fought his way through the throng at the door
and with a dozen men at his heels, darted down the hallway in vain pursuit
of Nevins, now out of sight among the shanties half a block away.
Of all that followed before the court when at last it came to order,
there is little need to tell. The judge advocate would have been glad to
drop the case then and there, but now the defense had the floor and kept
it, though not a word of evidence was needed. The first witness sworn was
Lieutenant Blake, who told of the trick by which he and his men, Loring's
guards, had been lured from the camp at Sancho's ranch, and of their finding
Loring senseless, bleeding and robbed on their return. The next was little
Pancha, and Loring sat with his hand shading his blue eyes as the pallid
maid, with piteously quivering lips at times, with brave effort to force
back her tears,[Pg 347] in English only a little better than that in which
she had poured out her fears to Blake that eventful night at Gila Bend—sometimes,
indeed, having to speak in Spanish with the gray sister sworn as her interpreter—told
the plaintive story of her knowledge of and connection with Sancho's wicked
band. Her dear father and her stepmother were ruled by Sancho. She had
seen Nevins there often, "him who had fled through the window." She gathered
enough from what she heard about the ranch to realize that they were planning
to rob the officer, "this officer," before he could get away with the diamonds.
Nevins had ridden in with six men, bad men, that very night, and she heard
him planning with Sancho and her father, and she had tried to warn the
officers, and "this gentleman" (Blake this time) had come, and before she
could tell him she was followed and discovered. But then her stepmother
had later whispered awful things to her—how they were going to rob the
stage and kill the passengers, and bade her take her guitar and try to
call the officer again,[Pg 348] and tell him to take his soldiers and go
to the rescue, and this she had done eagerly, and then when they were away
her mother seized her and drew her into the room and shut her there, but
she heard horsemen rush into the camp, and a minute later Nevins, jeering
and laughing in the bar, and that very night they took her away—she and
her father and the stepmother, and Nevins was with them. They went by Tucson
to Hermosillo and to Guaymas, and her mother told her she must never breathe
what she knew—it would ruin her father, whom she loved, yes, dearly, and
whom she would not believe had anything to do with it. And at Hermosillo
Nevins had the watch, the diamond ring, the diamond stud, these very ones,
she was sure, as the valuable "exhibits" were displayed. But at San Francisco
when the lady superior told her of the accusations against "this gentleman"
(even now her eyes would not look into Loring's) and of all his trouble,
she forgot her father's peril, forgot everything but that Lieutenant Loring,
who had been so good and kind and brave, was[Pg 349] wrongfully accused,
and she told all to the lady superior and went with her and repeated it
to the General, the General who had died. And when at last she finished
her trembling, tearful story, Loring rose before them all, went over and
took her hand and bowed low over it, as though he would have kissed it,
and said, "Thank you, señorita." And the judge advocate declined
to cross-examine. What was the use? But the defense insisted on other witnesses—a
local locksmith who had sold Nevins keys that would open any trunk, a hotel
porter who swore that the blinds to Loring's room had been forcibly opened
from without, a bell boy who had seen Nevins on the gallery at that window
three nights before the search of the luggage was made. And the court waxed
impatient and said it had had more than enough. Every man of the array
came up to and shook Loring by the hand before they let him leave the courtroom,
and Blake hunted high and low through Omaha until he found poor Petty and
relieved his mind of his impressions, and finally the order announcing
the honorable[Pg 350] acquittal of Lieutenant Loring, on every charge and
specification, was read to every command in the department fast as the
mails could carry it.
Brought to by a bullet in the leg, George Nevins was recaptured down
the Missouri three days later, and sent for his wife that she might come
and nurse him. Though everybody said no, she went and did her best, and
if nursing could have saved a reprobate life he might still have remained
an ornament to society such as that in which he shone. But Naomi wore a
widow's veil when late in October she returned to Folsom's roof; the good
old trader had stood her friend through all.
There were some joyous weddings in the Department of the Platte the
summer that followed, Loring gravely figuring as best man when Dean, of
the cavalry, was married to Elinor Folsom, and smiling with equal gravity
when he read of the nuptials of Brevet Captain Petty and the gifted and
beautiful Miss Allyn. He had reverted to his original idea, that of waiting
in patience until he had accumulated[Pg 351] a nest egg and had acquired
higher rank than a lieutenancy in the Engineers; and so he might have done
if it took him a dozen years had not orders carried him once more to the
Pacific coast, after the completion of the Union Pacific railway.
Regularly every month he had written to Pancha, noting with surprise
and pleasure how rapidly she learned. Gladly he went to see her at the
gray sisters the day after his arrival. He had meant to laughingly remind
her of his good-by words: "You know we always come back to California,"
but he forgot them when she came into the room. He took her hands, drew
her underneath the chandelier and looked at her, and only said:
"Why, Pancha!"
Loring never did say much, and it was a beautiful, dark-eyed girl who
uplifted those eyes to his and smiled in welcome, saying as little as he.
She was a graduate now. She was teaching the younger girls—until—until
it was decided when she should return to Guaymas—to the home of Uncle Ramon,
who had[Pg 352] been good to her always, but especially since her poor
father's death. She did go back to Guaymas, by and by, but not until Uncle
Ramon had come twice, at long intervals, to San Francisco to see her and
the good lady Superior, and to confer with a very earnest, clear-eyed,
dignified man at headquarters. There came a new Idaho on the line to Guaymas,
and a newer, bigger, better steamer still a year or two later, and bluff
old Captain Moreland was given the command of the best of the fleet, and
on the first trip out from 'Frisco welcomed with open arms two subalterns
of the army, one of the Engineers, the other a recent transfer to the cavalry,
both old and cherished friends.
"We won't have you with us on the back trip, Blake, old boy," he said,
as he wrung their hands when he saw them go ashore at Guaymas, "but I can
tell you right here and now there won't be anything on this ship too good
for Mrs. Loring—of the Engineers."
"It is a pretty name! I'm glad its mine now," said Pancha, one starlit
night on the[Pg 353] blue Pacific, as they neared the lights of the Golden
Gate.
"It was a wounded name, Pancha, wounded worse than I," he answered reverently,
"until you came and healed and saved it."
THE END
