Part 14 (2/2)

”If Captain Jewett will only go on to Union Church,” said Ferry, ”Quinn will see that he never gets back.”

”But you think he will not go on?”

”Ah, now he is discovered, surely not. I think he will turn back at Wiggins.”

”Why Wiggins? does he know Coralie Rothvelt?”

”Yes, he does; and if since last night he has maybe found out she is Charlotte Oliver,--”

”Oh! Lieutenant Ferry, oh! would such a man as that come hunting down a woman, with a troop of cavalry?”

”He is not hunting her; yet, should he find her, I have the fear he would do his duty as a soldier, anyhow. No, he was looking, I think, for Ferry's scouts.”

”But if she should be at Wiggins--”

My leader smiled at my simplicity. ”She is not at Wiggins.”

”Where is she?”

”I do not know.”

XXVII

SOME FALL, SOME PLUNGE

At a farm-house well hidden in the woods of a creek we got a brave supper for the asking and had our uniforms wonderfully cleaned and pressed, and at ten that evening we dismounted before the three brightly illumined tents of General Austin, Major Harper and that amiable cipher our Adjutant-general. On the front of the last the shadow of a deeply absorbed writer showed through the canvas, and Ferry murmured to me ”The ever toiling.” It was Scott Gholson. I had heard the same name for him the evening before, from her whose own lovely shadow fell so visibly and so often upon the bright curtain of Ned Ferry's thought.

My leader went in while I held our horses. Then he and Gholson came out and entered the General's tent; from which Gholson soon emerged again and sent an orderly away into the gloom of the sleeping camp, and I heard a small body of men mount and set off northward. Presently Ferry came out and sent me in, and to my delight I found, on standing before the General, that I did not need to tell what Charlotte Oliver wanted kept back.

”No, never mind that,” he said, ”Miss Rothvelt was here and saw me this afternoon, herself.” Up to the point of my arrival at the bridge I had merely to fumble my cap and answer his crisp questions. But there he lighted a fresh cigar and said ”Now, go on.”

Gholson dropped in with something to be signed, and the General waved him to wait and hear. For Gholson, despite the sappy fetor of his mental temperament, had abilities that made him almost a private secretary to the General. Who, nevertheless, knew him thoroughly. When I had described Oliver's escape and would have hurried on to later details, General Austin raised a hand.

”Hold on; you say nearly everybody fired at Oliver; who did not?” ”I did not, General.”

”Did Lieutenant Ferry fire?”

I said he did not. The General turned his strong eyes to Gholson's and kept them there while he took three luxurious puffs at his cigar. Then he took the waiting paper, and as he wrote his name on it he said, smiling, ”I wish you had been in Lieutenant Ferry's place, Mr. Gholson; you would have done your duty.”

The flattered Gholson received the signed paper and pa.s.sed out, and the General smiled again, at his back. I hope no one has ever smiled the same way at mine.

Ferry and I slept side by side that night, and he told me two companies of our Louisianians were gone to cut off Jewett and his band. ”Still, I think they will be much too late,” he said, and when I rather violently turned the conversation aside to the subject of Scott Gholson, saying, to begin with, that Gholson had wonderful working powers, he replied, ”'Tis true. Yet he says the brigade surgeon told him to-day he is on the verge of a nervous break-down.” But on my inquiring as to the cause of our friend's condition, my bedmate pretended to be asleep.

We rose at dawn and rode eastward, he and I alone, some fourteen miles, to the Sessions's, where the dance had been two nights earlier. On entering the stable to put up our horses we suddenly looked at each other very straight, while Ferry's countenance confessed more pleasure than surprise, though a touch of care showed with it. ”I did not know this,” he said, ”and I did not expect it.”

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