Part 25 (1/2)
”That,” said the adjutant, in his deep, deliberate tone, ”is precisely what I believe, but needed your evidence to establish. Now you will excuse me from further talk about this or anything else until, say, after office hours to-morrow morning. I have much to attend to. If you and the chaplain will meet me at ten o'clock, we can settle various matters. Meantime I'll lock these papers in my desk.” Across the dim hall-way, as the two friends left the office, stood the door of the sanctum of the post commander. It was just ajar, but there was no light beyond, and to all appearances the room was as deserted as it was dark.
Rooke was just coming out of No. 12 as they returned thither.
”I'm glad you're home, Mr. Davies, and I'll be gladder when you've got that pretty little bunch of nerves and nonsense off my hands and off this military reservation.”
”She will be well enough to travel--when?” asked Davies, as placidly as he could. Even when the wife of one's bosom has been behaving outrageously it isn't pleasant to hear it from one's neighbors, unasked.
”She could go to-morrow and be the better for it,” said Rooke, bluntly.
”What she needs is a firm hand and a change of scene--and surroundings.
We're too volatile hereabouts.” And this it seems was practically what he had told Almira herself, much to her scandal and dismay. She piteously asked why she couldn't see Dr. Burroughs; and was unfeelingly told that there was no reason whatever, provided she started to-morrow; that he was at Ogallalla and would be very glad to see her. ”Once up there,” said the old cynic, ”you can have Burroughs and lollipops to your heart's content.”
”Oh, doctor, but think of the peril, the danger,” she moaned.
”Tut, woman, you'll be in no such danger there as here,” he answered brusquely; and Davies found her weeping dejectedly, but weeping to no purpose. When morning came Barnickel and Katty were boxing up the lares and penates, and toward nightfall Mira herself was meekly, though not resignedly, bearing a hand. This indeed was not what she had pictured army life to be. Davies and the chaplain were to have joined Leonard as planned at ten o'clock. At nine the orderly came to the door of No. 12, and said that Mr. Leonard would be very much obliged if Mr. Davies would come to the office at once, and Davies went. Colonel Stone, as had been arranged, was once more restored to his desk in the office, and though looking gray and ten years older, was ”on deck.” He was absorbed in turning over some official papers, so Davies did not disturb him. He went into Leonard's den. The officer of the day was comparing the list of prisoners in the guard report with some memoranda on the adjutant's desk, but presently finished, shook hands with Davies and said welcome back to Scott, then went his way.
The moment he was gone Leonard whirled about in his chair. ”Davies, you remember our locking those papers in this drawer last night?”
”Certainly.”
”Well, look at it now, and as I found it ten minutes ago.”
The drawer was absolutely empty.
CHAPTER XXV.
The closing week of March was marked by a furious snow-storm that swept the big prairie like a besom, but plugged up every _coulee_ and ravine.
For four days no communication had been held with the Ogallalla Agency.
The wires were down, the road impa.s.sable, and Mrs. Davies had reached her new harbor of refuge none too soon. The quartermaster's ambulance bore the couple half-way to the new station, and Cranston's Concord came to meet and carry them the rest of the way. Mira's parting with her devoted lady friends at Scott was cut short by a start at early dawn, against which she rebelled faintly, but to no purpose. It had taken only two days to pack their few belongings. They spent the last night of their stay in Scott under Leonard's roof, and Mrs. Leonard did her best to cheer and gladden the mournful bride. It was of little avail, however. Almira was dimly beginning to see that her conduct had cost her the respect of those women most worth knowing, and that although the dreaded interrogatories which Percy was to put to her as soon as she was stronger were still in the future, his faith in and love for her, whatsover they might have been, were seriously shattered. In manner he was still grave, kind, and gentle almost as before, but everything like tenderness had vanished. One question he said he must ask her before they left Scott. Had she ever accepted any gifts or letters or anything from Mr. Willett? And Almira answered that once he had sent her just a few violets with a note inviting Mrs. Darling and her to drive with him the next day, but she had tossed them into the fire long ago. Nothing more, nothing else at any time? asked Davies, gravely, and Almira answered no. How could he torment her with such unjust suspicions? Far better would it be to let her return to the father and sisters who longed for and missed her, to her peaceful home where down in the bottom of her heart Mira knew she was not wanted by either father or sisters or step-mother. Davies looked graver, but questioned no longer. The day before their start Mr. Langston came out from Braska and inquired for Davies, and told him how glad he was to renew his acquaintance, and Davies greeted him with much reserve. This was the man who was travelling with Willett the June gone by, and just as it had at first affected Miss Loomis, so did the recollection now prejudice the officer against him. Langston saw it, but went quietly on with the business in hand.
”I am the bearer of a note to you from Mr. Willett, whose people, at least, are old friends of mine. He has gone home, at my advice, and it will be against my advice if he return here within a year. If he should do so, I wash my hands of him. It is not to make excuses for him or Burtis that I have come, but to ask you about one matter. On his way back to the agency your comrade Mr. Sanders came to town and heaped reproaches on Willett and on the proprietor of the restaurant, alleging that certain disreputable people were allowed to occupy the adjoining dining-room while the party from the fort was dancing. Cresswell was very indignant at the charge. He says that the party in the adjoining room was the family of old Pierre Robideau, from Kearney,--just himself, his wife and daughter, with a friend whom they called Mr. Powell, and it was Mr. Powell who paid the bill.
”Robideau is an old trader and trapper, but he and his people are honest and respectable as any in Braska, and the young man with them was supposed to be paying attention to the daughter. Robideau and his family went back to Kearney that night after a week's visit to friends up here in Braska. The daughter, Angie, had been here some time visiting a school friend. We feel sure you have made no such statement to Mr.
Sanders without some strong ground of suspicion. May I ask how you heard it so soon after your arrival?”
”I heard it before I got here,” said Davies, quietly, ”though when it was told me I had no idea my wife was one of the party. My orderly was cold and tired and we stopped at the Scott station at the point where the road crosses the railway to give him a cup of coffee and water the horses. There were some trappers and plainsmen in there, and one of them was telling with much gusto of the performances of a soldier of our troop who deserted that night,--how he had chartered the adjoining room to that in which the officers and ladies were dancing and had a whirl to the officers' music with some ladies of his own choosing, and the girls la.s.soed a waiter and hauled him into their room and got a bottle of the officers' champagne----”
”Pardon me, Mr. Davies, but do not these plainsmen rather like to tell big stories at the expense of the officers,--the bigger the better?”
”I believe so, and paid little attention to it at first, but among the listeners was a scout who went through last summer's campaign with us and did good service. He rode over to the post with me, and on the way we met a sergeant and two men of 'A' Troop, returning from an unsuccessful pursuit of deserters. They told the same story with some additions, and said the fellow openly boasted in Braska that afternoon that he was going to the dance. Then the scout admitted reluctantly that he had heard the story from several sources, and gave the names of the women who were said to have been introduced there, and they were not Robideau's family. The sergeant had heard just what the scout had as to the ident.i.ty of the intruders. Then on my arrival at home I learned that Mrs. Davies was one of the fort party, and Mrs. Stone and other ladies who were present referred to some rude creatures in a neighboring room who peeped and stared at the dancing. There was also awaiting me with my mail an anonymous letter, which I burned without reading through. Next I learned that the man who frightened them on the homeward way and then deserted after a fracas with Mr. Willett was Howard, of 'A' Troop, and that man's a.s.sociations in town are matters of notoriety. That was the chain that led to my belief in the story.”
Langston looked grave. ”And Howard was probably Robideau's friend, though Cresswell didn't know it! He had been paying court to Robideau's daughter during her visit to Braska, always in civilian dress and always claiming to be a civilian clerk in the quartermaster's department with a salary of twelve hundred a year. I have seen her friends in town where she visited, and they are very plain, honest, and well-to-do people, whose daughter was sent to Illinois to school and met Angeline Robideau there. They had another friend living in Cheyenne, and when they were up there visiting her for a few days they said Mr. Powell was coming up to spend one evening,--Powell is the name they all knew him by, and the belief is that Angie was much fascinated by him, and had met him East before meeting him here. Mr. Davies, I am glad to relieve your mind of one uncomfortable theory in connection with this affair. I wish I could extenuate or explain Willett's conduct as easily, but that young man is a fool of the first magnitude.”
Davies had taken the note handed him by Langston and was mechanically turning it and twisting it in his fingers. His impulse was to toss it, as he had the anonymous billet, into the fire. There was something about the handwriting of the former that was vaguely familiar to him even through its disguise, but Willett's scrawling superscription he had never seen. Something told him, however, that anything of which a man of Langston's calibre chose to be the bearer was ent.i.tled to consideration.
He made no reply to Langston's closing words. He had fully made up his mind as to what his course should be, and what was the extent of Mira's misdoing. Just as he said to her, he blamed those who should have been her advisers and protectors far more than he blamed her, and as to this popinjay who had become infatuated with her beauty, though the lieutenant's blood boiled in wrath and indignation, his calmer judgment and his disciplined spirit tempered any and every expression. He had spent long, wakeful, prayerful hours in the silence and solemnity of the night, and no man knew the story of the struggle. He had trained himself to meet this man who had so openly and persistently shown himself a wors.h.i.+pper at the feet of his wife, and to meet him with cool contempt, yet the same hot blood that rioted in his veins when, long years before, he had downed the village scoffer who had ventured to ridicule his aged mother, now prompted him to horsewhip Willett should he venture again to visit the fort.
It was relief, therefore, to hear that he had gone.
At last he opened and read the note, a clumsy, cubbish attempt to explain his language in Sanders's room, and to say the package was absolutely nothing but some violets, to apologize for any and every annoyance he might have caused Mr. and Mrs. Davies, for whom he entertained nothing but sentiments of the most profound respect and esteem, and begging if ever they met again to be regarded as most sincerely their friend, etc.