Part 9 (1/2)

”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 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 embarra.s.sed 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. Nor did Loring seem either elated or surprised.

”d.a.m.n 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 something 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 s.h.i.+p just preceding the catastrophe. What friends and chums they had become! How famously he was getting on with his Spanis.h.!.+ What a charming teacher she was, with her lovely s.h.i.+ning 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.

She did. She had learned all this and much more aboard s.h.i.+p, 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 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 manana_. 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 pa.s.sive.

”_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 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 sh.o.r.es, _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 a.s.sociates 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 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 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.”

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.”