Part 22 (1/2)
Bluff old Rooke himself was besieged with questions as to his fair patient, the nature of her malady and the cause of the sudden shock, and Rooke told some people not to bother her, others not to bother him, and others still not to bother themselves about her. She'd come out all right if left alone. It was Mrs. Cranston and Miss Loomis to whom he delivered himself of the last mentioned. He liked them both, which was more than he did most people, for this aesculapian countryman of Carlyle had much of that eminent writer's sharpness of vision and bluntness of speech together with even more of his contempt for the bulk of his fellow-men. ”No, Mrs. Cranston,” said he, ”don't wait a day for her.
Start just as soon as you are ready, and don't give a thought to this little flibberty gibbet.” And so the Cranstons, with Miss Loomis, bade farewell to Scott, and one radiant winter morning drove buoyantly away, almost all of the officers and ladies being out to wave them adieu.
Hastings, with a brace of troopers, trotted alongside as they crossed the Platte and reported the camp wagon well on its way to Dismal River.
”I never was so glad to leave a place in all my life,” said Margaret to her friend, as they glanced back from the crest of the distant ridge that spanned the northern sky. ”I never have been at a post where there were so few people I cared for.” The driver halted his strong team at a level spot after a long, tortuous climb, and let the mules breathe a moment while his pa.s.sengers took their final peep at the dim, dingy patch, far away upon the southward slopes beyond the willow-fringed river, which indicated the site of old Fort Scott. Already the snow had disappeared on many an open tract and lay deep only in the ravines and gullies, on the ice coat of the stream and in the dense undergrowth of the islands. To right and left for miles the broad valley lay beneath their eyes, the rigid line of the railway cutting a sharp, narrow slit across the level prairie in the lowlands, straight away eastward until all was merged in the misty, impenetrable veil at the horizon, while westward near the forks of the river, in long, graceful curve, it swept around an elbow of the snow-mantled stream and disappeared among the roofs and spires of far-away Braska. The boys, with the agile energy of their kind, had leaped out to scamper about on the rimy buffalo-gra.s.s, dull gray, dried and withered, yet full of nutriment for the little droves of horned cattle already browsing placidly along the slopes where but a few years before the Sioux and Cheyenne chased great herds of bison. Hastings and his men were riding along a hundred yards or so in front, and the two women were left to their own low-toned confidences.
”I cannot help it,” said Mrs. Cranston, ”it may be uncharitable, unkind, but I am simply glad she could not go with us. She does not like us,--me at least. She has pointedly avoided me, and I half believe it was to avoid going with us that she was taken ill. I only hope Wilbur will not misunderstand the matter.”
”I think you are unjust, Margaret, in one thing at least. There was certainly some severe fright or shock Sat.u.r.day night.”
”Oh, a thing that might unstring a nervous, hysterical woman a few hours, perhaps, but it is no case of nerves or hysteria with her. She's a perfectly healthy country girl. Mrs. Darling, who isn't thoroughly strong and well, seems to have been very little affected.”
”Mrs. Darling has been three years out here and is accustomed to frontier life. Mrs. Davies, probably, never had such an experience before, and she has been worried by these queer incidents that Mrs.
Leonard tells us of,--those midnight whistlings and tappings at her window. Mrs. Davies is alone, her husband miles away at the agency.
Everything has tended to worry the girl. I honestly feel sorry for her, Margaret. I'm sorry that she wouldn't let us be her friends.”
”You are full of excuse for her, Agatha, and down in the bottom of your heart you know perfectly well she doesn't deserve it. I cannot forgive her for this flirtation with Mr. Willett. I only welcomed the idea of taking her with us because of the hope it gave me of breaking up that affair.”
”Has it never occurred to you that she may have broken it off herself?--that besides this queer adventure with those drunken fellows there was something else to agitate her? Be just, Margaret. She came to us utterly inexperienced, even ignorant. She hasn't much mind, I'll admit, but she is innocent of wrong intent. Is it not possible that driving home he may have spoken to her in a way she could not mistake, and that that has had much to do with her prostration? If not, if she did not then and there forbid his coming near her again, how do you account for it that he has not once been out to the fort since Sat.u.r.day?”
”Well, it's only three days, and the sleighing is practically ended.”
”Yes, but he hasn't let forty-eight hours pa.s.s. .h.i.therto without a visit, so I'm told, and he has his buggy and wagon, and unless there was a rupture of some kind was it not more than likely he would be out Sunday or Monday? Wasn't it the proper thing, really, for him to call and inquire for her?”
But here the Concord rattled on again, the boys playing ”giant strides”
hanging to the boot at the back, and the driver, poking his head around the canvas wind-screen at the front, called out to Mrs. Cranston, ”There's two of our fellows coming a couple of miles ahead, mum.” And both ladies leaned from the wagon to strain their eyes in vain effort to distinguish the forms and faces of the distant party, Margaret half hoping that her soldier husband might have been able to stretch a point and ride far down to meet her, Miss Loomis half divining who it must be, and it was Miss Loomis who was right. Fifteen minutes further and the Concord halted again, and Mr. Hastings, with Davies at his side, rode up to the open door.
Even at a glance one could see how much he was changed in the service of those two months. The lines about his clear, thoughtful eyes had deepened and his face was thinner, despite the full, heavy, close-cropped beard, but there was no mistaking the joy with which he met and welcomed his friends and nurses of that long autumn's convalescence. He whipped off his gauntlets and flung them at Louis's head, as the boys came dancing about his horse, and then extended both hands in eager greeting to Mrs. Cranston, who was nearest him, and who frankly grasped and shook them in hearty, cordial fas.h.i.+on.
”Oh, how glad I am to see you!” she cried. ”We thought to meet you at our first camp I had no idea you could come so fast.” And by this time she had released his hands and he was bending farther in to extend the right to Miss Loomis, who welcomed him with friendly warmth, yet with that womanly reserve which seemed never separable from her.
”We did not stop at the Niobrara,” said he. ”We came right through and camped at Dismal River late last night. Did you see Mrs. Davies this morning? How did you leave her?” he asked, with grave anxiety.
”We left her very comfortable. Dr. Rooke said there was no occasion whatever for anxiety,” answered Mrs. Cranston, tactfully evading the question as to ”seeing her,” and then, fearful lest he should be moved to repeat it, plunging impetuously ahead. ”She was looking so bright and well, so lovely in fact, that none of us were prepared for her being ill. Of course you'll hear all about the excitement and adventure they met with, so I won't speak of it now. In deed, you know, we hardly know anything more about it ourselves than you do, for both Mrs. Davies and Mrs. Darling saw so little of what followed the first appearance of the fellows. Mr. Sanders jumped right out among them, it seems, and gave chase after some who ran. The one they afterwards captured was one of your recruits, Paine by name, and Mr. Sanders can tell you all about it when he gets back. He was sent up to Cheyenne. One or two men who have disappeared entirely are the suspected ones, and he is after them.”
”But I don't understand,” said Davies, gravely. ”It seems incredible that even drunken soldiers should have attempted an indignity to a party of officers and ladies. Weren't you with them?”
”No; we were in the midst of packing, you know, and we weren't going anywhere. Indeed, it was an extraordinary thing and no one knows how to account for it, but you'll hear all about it at the fort, and I know you are eager to push ahead, and we'll see you so soon at the Ogallalla, so just tell me how you left my husband and you may gallop on.”
How blithe and radiant was her face as she spoke! How could he suspect the dread that lurked behind it,--the artfulness of her effort to escape further questioning?
”The captain's as well as ever and counting the hours until your coming,” he answered. ”How thankful I am, for my wife's sake as well as my own, that you and Miss Loomis are to be so near us! Think of our having a house while the rest of you live in log huts! But if any sub would exchange with me I'd gladly give him the agency guard and the house and come and live in cantonments.” Then with a parting shake of the hand he waved them on. The driver cracked his whip, the boys scrambled aboard, and away they went bowling on northward, while Davies and his single orderly turned again their horses' heads to the welcome awaiting them at Scott.
Margaret sank back in her seat with fluttering heart and a deep sigh of relief. ”Thank heaven, that's over, and I have told nothing of any consequence, have I?” she murmured to her silent friend. ”What will he say or think when he learns the truth? But you were saying Mr. Willett had not reappeared. For that matter neither had Mr. Burtis nor Mr.
Langston. I believe they'll all be out to the fort this very day. Mr.
Langston thought we were not to start, you know, until to-morrow.”
No answer to this observation. Miss Loomis was quite well aware of the fact and had been, for her, an eager advocate of the earlier start the moment it was declared that Almira could not attempt to move.
”I didn't fib, did I?” asked Mrs. Cranston, after a moment of deep thought.
”No; you managed to control the examination quite successfully without it.”