Part 13 (1/2)
”h.e.l.lo, Parson! Up for all day and meditating a sermon?”
Davies ignored the question and went straight to business. ”I want to see Captain Cranston as soon as possible. Does he go to stables this morning?”
”Never misses 'em. What's up? Hope Mrs. Davies isn't ill.”
”Mrs. Davies isn't very well, but it's on personal business I want to see the captain. I'll go down with him.”
”Come over to my house and have some coffee, or a c.o.c.ktail,” said Sanders, with cheery hospitality. ”Just what you need, old man. You look as if you'd been dragged by the heels through a knot-hole.”
”Barnickel is making some coffee for me, thank you, Sanders. It will pull me together all right, I fancy.” And Sanders went whistling on. The world and its cares, the flesh and the devil all dropped lightly on the shoulders of this young sinner, and either rode there or fell to the ground unnoticed. Garrison days were but a merry-go-round with him. ”If that's a specimen of the bridegroom cometh,” said he to himself, ”I've got no more use for matrimony than I have for the catechism.” And doubtless to this gay and nonchalant spirit the deeply religious temperament of the Parson seemed a sombre and repellent thing,--a thing to be lamented, yet indulged as something too solemn or sacred for remonstrance.
The morning air was bitter and Davies felt his toes and fingers tingling. The boards cracked and snapped under his tread, so, rather than disturb Almira, he stepped out on the walk and began pacing up and down, still burning with indignation over the events of the previous night. There had been a fresh fall of snow Sunday morning, and though the walks and paths were cleared, the soft white mantle lay like a glistening carpet over the parade and prairie and along the slanting roofs of the quarters. There was an open s.p.a.ce of sixty feet from outer wall to wall along officers' row, and a paling or picket fence, running at right angles to the roadway in front, divided this s.p.a.ce equally, so that each set of quarters had its own yard. Davies had remarked with a smile the previous evening, the contrast presented by the Leonards's yard at the west end and his at the east of the double set in which they lived. Leonard's yard was criss-crossed, cut up in every direction by tracks of sled-runners and st.u.r.dy little rubber boots. His own lay like a flawless sheet without even a kitten's footprint to mar its virgin surface. Now as he strode rapidly westward again and came in front of the Leonard playground, he noted once more the traces that spoke so eloquently of happy, healthy childhood, of rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes and merry laughter. Then he turned back to his own, still tramping briskly in the endeavor to send the blood to his finger-tips, and then coming in view of what at nightfall had been an unbroken coverlet of snow, Davies stopped short, amazed. Straight from the corner at the front where the fences met, straight as a lance, went the footprints of a man, in long, unhesitating stride, to a point immediately underneath the closed blinds of the window behind which his wife now lay placidly sleeping. Davies stood and studied the tracks a moment, then went to the point of meeting of the front fence,--a flat-topped affair,--with its picketed offshoot. Beyond doubt the maker of those tracks had swung himself over the fence at that point, dropped lightly to the ground inside and gone straightway to that side window. There he must have stood a moment or two, for the snow was trampled. Thence the tracks led around to the back of the house. Returning to his gate and hall-way, Davies tiptoed noiselessly through the little dining-room to the kitchen in the shed at the back. There Barnickel was sleepily starting a fire, and the door leading into his little den farther back discovered the soldier blankets of his bunk tumbled over as though he had just arisen.
The door to the yard was still bolted. Davies slipped the bolt and stepped out on the plank walk leading from the kitchen to the gate in the rear fence. These had been tramped by many feet in that direction, and by only one pair in the other. Coming around from the side of the house were the tracks of the same foot gear, the heavy soldier arctics worn then by officers and men alike, that he had marked at the front.
They led to a point underneath the rear or north window of Almira's room, and there, after evident s.h.i.+fting and tramping of a minute or two, had turned sharply away, led straight past the kitchen door and were lost in the general run of those towards the gate.
”What time did you come in to bed last night, Barnickel?” asked the lieutenant, at the kitchen door.
”About 10.30, sir. I'd been over to Sergeant Walsh's quarters. I went in to see if the lieutenant wanted anything, sir, but he'd turned down the lights and gone out.”
”Yes. And now did you hear any noise,--any footsteps?”
”No, sir. Only Mrs. Davies, sir; she was stirring round, excited like, and peeped out of her room to ask did I know where the lieutenant was.”
”Did you come in through the front hall or the back way?”
”The back way, sir. There's standing orders against enlisted men crossing the parade or bein' on the officers' sidewalk.”
Davies paused a minute. ”Give me your broom,” said he, and taking it through the partly opened door he carefully turned the k.n.o.b behind him, swept away the traces leading to the rear window, swept and obliterated those at the back and side, as far as and including those under the east window, then, tossing the broom to the door, strode round the house to the front just as stable call was pealing, and Captain Cranston in huge beaver skin overcoat and cap came forth into the frosty day. The instant he caught sight of Davies the captain hastened to him and drew his arm within his own.
”The very man I want to see, and you are waiting for me!”
”Yes. I presume you know why.”
”I've heard. Come with me to stables, by way of the hospital. I want to see how Brannan pa.s.sed the night.”
”I cannot go in, captain. I am virtually forbidden further connection with the case.”
”I understand, but I am not included in the order, and wouldn't heed it if I were.” Plainly Captain Cranston was in aggressive mood. Other officers, issuing from their quarters, set forth across the parade, but catching sight of the popular troop commander, pulled up as though to wait for him, then looked surprised to see him earnestly talking with the pale-faced subaltern, going straight on eastward. Directly in front of Devers's house they met that officer himself, a bundle of papers in his hand. In the ”Tactics” of the day one of the foremost paragraphs read, ”Courtesy among military men being indispensable, it is enjoined on all officers to salute each other on meeting, the junior tendering the first salute,” or words to that effect, but it was a rule far more honored in the breach than the observance. The post commander was about the only one to receive such recognition from his juniors, all others, as a rule, contenting themselves with a jovial ”'Morning, Jack.” ”How are you, major?” and, possibly, an off-hand and perfunctory touch of the cap. Only among sticklers for military propriety like Leonard was the salute tendered to superiors. In nine cases out of ten it meant, when given, that personal relations were strained. Approaching the battalion commander Mr. Davies looked him straight in the eye and raised his gloved right hand to the cap visor. Cranston, with the most off-hand nod imaginable, gruffly and shortly said, ”Good-morning,” without so much as a tempering ”sir” or ”captain,” and hurried st.u.r.dily by. Devers flushed, looked after the two an instant as though tempted to call, then turned back across the parade and was presently swallowed up in the door-way of the troop office.
Leaving Davies outside, Cranston ran into the hospital, and presently reappeared. ”Sleeping quietly,” said he, ”and the poor devil would have been in the terrors of delirium tremens if Devers's orders had been carried out and the doctor hadn't been sent for. Now tell me the whole story. Agatha has told me her version.”
Lashed tight to the heavy picket rope, the horses were revelling in the keen morning air and slanting suns.h.i.+ne, nipping at each other's noses, challenging, with sparkling eye and tip-tilted ear, each well-known face and form of officer or man to caress or frolic, snapping and squealing at each other across the line, occasionally rearing and plunging in uncontrollable jollity. Bending to their work in their white stable frocks and overalls, the men were making brush and currycomb fly over the s.h.i.+ning coats of their pets, carefully guarding, however, the long, thick winter crop of hair, for no man could say how soon they might have to take the field and face unsheltered the keen Dakota blasts. The frosty quadrangle was merry with musical tap, tap of the metal comb, and the snort and ”_purr_” and paw of hoof of the spirited bays. Little Sanders, an enthusiastic horseman, was darting in and out among his charges, praising this man's work, condemning that, and occasionally seizing brush and comb himself and giving a practical lesson to some comparative novice. And, leaving matters for the nonce to his subaltern, Cranston paced gravely up and down, Davies by his side, absorbed in close converse. Captain Devers left his line to Mr. Hastings and did not appear at stables at all. ”That means he's concocting an epistle,” said Hastings, with a grin. ”He's hobn.o.bbing with his new pet, Howard, and somebody'll get the benefit of an official letter this morning.”
”We expect you to breakfast,” said Cranston, as he bade the lieutenant good-by at the gate, ”and I hope Mrs. Davies is feeling all right now.”
But Mrs. Davies was not. She was so far from well that she had decided to remain in bed. No, she wanted no breakfast, no doctor, no anybody.
All the same, Mrs. Cranston sent her a dainty tray on which was displayed a most appetizing little feast, and Almira's resolution gave way at sight of it. Wisely Mrs. Cranston refrained from calling, but other women were presently on hand to cheer and sympathize when at ten o'clock the commanding officer's orderly appeared with the commanding officer's compliments and he desired to see Mr. Davies at the office.
”Precisely as I told you,” said Cranston, who was waiting for him on the walk without. ”It was best to let Devers make the attack. Now for the defence.”