Part 32 (1/2)

For a brief time after their return from the cantonment Mrs. Davies and her new friend, Mrs. Plodder, had kept house together. In those days when so many of our officers were almost constantly in the field, it became quite the thing for some of the ladies left at the garrisons to club together, share expenses, and thereby economize. Old No. 12 was still at Mira's service, but she couldn't bear the house, she said, and so the ladies moved their furniture into an abandoned bachelor den next to Flight's, and for a few days all went merrily. Then there came a servants' squabble, and their cook differed with Mrs. Flight's maid-of-all-work, and, refusing arbitration, was impudent to her employers. Mrs. Plodder was an Amazon in whom there was no weakness. She discharged the cook and sent her back to Braska. Then they ”messed” with Mrs. Flight, and about this time the hops began and the visits from town and the drives, and Mrs. Plodder presently conceived it to be her duty to remonstrate with Mira, who wept and stormed, and after a time, as Willett's visits began to grow frequent, Mrs. Plodder said she would not remain under the same roof with Mira, and moved over and kept house with Mrs. Darling. The Cranston household had gone East some time before this, and, as Mira could not bear the chaplain's worthy wife, and Mrs.

Stone had become estranged, and Mrs. Darling, with Mrs. Plodder, had decided that she was openly encouraging Mr. Willett's devotions and told her so, and as Mrs. Leonard held aloof from them, one and all, it must be admitted that the poor brainless child was restricted in her choice of friends and intimates. Davies had had but brief time in which to give her instructions, and there is no use in setting forth their purport. He asked Mrs. Cranston, if a possible thing, to give his wife the benefit of her experience and aid her in any way Mira might need, and Margaret warmly a.s.sured him that she was ready at any time and glad to be of any and every service to Mrs. Davies, but even in so saying she felt well a.s.sured that there was little hope of being of use. What made the matter worse was that this summer Congress adjourned without making provision for the pay of the army, even while expecting it to perform rather more than its customary functions; but here Cranston stepped in and insisted on placing at Mrs. Davies's disposal a certain sum in Courtenay's bank at Braska. Davies could return it when Uncle Sam resumed payment, and so Mira had been provided with a check-book and taught its use. She was, at least, to have no financial anxieties. The regiment had to remain long in the field and the Cranstons went home, as Davies expected and had advised that Mira go with them to Chicago. Even if her people could not make her welcome at Urbana, she could board there with former friends in perfect comfort, and be ready to rejoin him by and by. Many and many an army wife and mother had similarly to live a Bedouin life that summer.

One cavalry regiment, the --th, for instance, was scattered from Cheyenne to Chicago, facing riotous mobs one month and chasing Indians all over the upper Yellowstone the next. One thing Davies firmly yet gently strove to impress upon Mira,--that her intimates at Scott were not at all the women with whom a poor and debt-burdened officer's wife should foregather. He begged her to be guided by Mrs. Cranston and Mrs.

Leonard, and wrote a brief line to the chaplain, commending Mira to his care, and then he had to go.

But once back at Scott, where she could sport the lovely toilets with which her hopeful aunt had supplied her, Mira went the way of the empty-headed. Admiration, adulation were to her as the breath of life.

So long as she was perfectly innocent of wrong intent how could people--how dare people rebuke her? She told Willett the horrid things Mrs. Darling, Mrs. Plodder, and Mrs. Stone were reported to have said, and he replied that it was all because they envied her her beauty and were jealous of the attentions she won. She almost told him what the chaplain said, but that sent the burning blushes to her forehead, yet she dreaded what the old soldier of the cross might have written to her husband. She knew he would surely condemn the renewal of her a.s.sociation with Mr. Willett, but so long as he wasn't there to say so, and so long as she intended the a.s.sociation to be purely platonic, as a rebuke to all who had rebuked her, she proposed to a.s.sume that no objection existed.

The news that he had been sent for and was coming in as a witness in Captain Devers's court startled her inexpressibly, despite her conscious rect.i.tude. She told Willett that very evening, as they were driving slowly among the willow-wooded islands, and he looked imploringly into her eyes, and Mrs. Flight and Mr. Burtis on the back seat could see that he was talking eagerly, earnestly, pleadingly, and that her eyes were downcast, her cheeks aflame, and still they did not take alarm. ”She's too much in love with herself and her own good looks ever to do that foolish thing,” said Mrs. Flight to those who asked her why she didn't warn her. Willett himself, so Burtis afterwards declared, had said in answer to some friendly words of remonstrance on the Sunday night preceding the meeting of the court, that the girl was as heartless and cold as a stone. No one need worry on her account. It was plain to Burtis that the young fellow was well-nigh insane about her, and he had sent a letter ten days before to Langston urging him to come and look after his kinsman; but Langston was far away at the time and never knew that Willett had quit the sea-sh.o.r.e and gone back to the charmer in mid-continent,--never knew, indeed no one ever knew until too late, that it was she herself who baited the line that drew him there.

There was a gathering at the post on Tuesday evening and all the few society men were out from Braska. The ladies, in their summer toilets, sat on the verandas and told one another and their visitors from town how dreadful it was to be so long bereft of their husbands and protectors, and Mrs. Flight and Mrs. Darling said they wished with all their hearts the court had called some witnesses from the infantry.

Surely they knew as much about the matter as some of the cavalry who had been summoned. There was Mrs. Davies who could expect her husband within the week, while it might be months before they set eyes on theirs. They seemed to take comfort in harping on this theme for Willett's benefit, He sat near Mira's side, as she reclined languidly in her wicker chair, his eyes glowing, his hands and lips twitching at times, listening and occasionally addressing low-toned, eager words to her. ”Mr. Davies will have finished his testimony by Thursday at the latest,” said Mrs.

Flight, decisively; ”I heard Mrs. Leonard say so to the chaplain to-day,” and here she glanced meaningly at Mira; ”so what's to prevent his being here early Friday morning? I know I'd let no gra.s.s grow under my feet.”

And Mira could only say she surely hoped so, but she couldn't tell. The last letter from him was away up near the mouth of Powder River somewhere, and he thought then they mightn't be home before November; but she was plainly unwilling to discuss the matter, and with evident relief took Willett's arm when the musicians presently were heard tuning up at the hop-room.

But it was noticed then how flushed and excited she looked, how quickly she seemed to tire of the dance and went out on the veranda for cooler air, and presently they were missed and were gone from the room the rest of the evening, so that the hop broke up early, and the anxious women hurrying homeward were incensed to find her in a dark, vine-covered corner of the veranda of the quarters, Willett in close attendance. ”I didn't feel like dancing,” was her sole explanation. ”I begged Mr.

Willett to go back to you, but he wouldn't.” And Burtis, later, had to shout angrily for him before he could get him into the wagon and off for town.

She slept that night in the room adjoining Mrs. Flight's, and slept but little, said that lady later. She seemed ablaze with nervous excitement and utterly unlike her usual self,--placid and satisfied except when subjected to reproof. She had gone thither right after the departure of the men and shut her would-be mentor out. Mrs. Flight afterwards declared she saw the coming catastrophe and was determined to avert it if a possible thing, but Mira said she had a dreadful headache and wouldn't talk. Mrs. Flight, considering that she had a duty to perform, began, however, from outside. The result was a quarrel and Mira's announcement from behind the door that she would not speak to Mrs.

Flight again. When Wednesday came she refused to leave her room. It had been arranged that three of the ladies were to drive to town with the sole cavalier left at the post, a lieutenant of the Fortieth, and Mira was one of them, but they supposed she had abandoned the plan. To the surprise of everybody she appeared, satchel in hand, arrayed in sober travelling garb, and asked the driver of the ambulance to help their servant bring out her trunk, and took her seat in the Concord while it was being tossed into the boot. It was Mrs. Darling who ventured to ask what it meant, and Mira calmly explained. She had determined to go and meet her husband in Omaha. They were amazed, yet what could they do or say? It was after luncheon-time and she merely urged that they should drive rapidly so as to get her to the bank before it closed, and then she left them, saying she would remain at the hotel at the station until her train arrived. It was due soon after midnight.

Before returning to the post the others, Mrs. Darling and Mrs. Plodder, called upon Mira at the hotel, for they were oppressed with strange fears. They strove to remonstrate with her, pointed out that Mr. Davies would be with her in three days. Mira said it might not be for a week.

Well, wasn't it unusual for a lady to be going alone? Not at all. She would sleep all the evening in her room, and the landlord would place her in charge of the conductor. Surely Mrs. Plodder had come from Omaha alone. That was different, said Mrs. Plodder, in rueful recognition of the fact that a plain woman is exempted from annoyances which a beauty has to suffer, yet would suffer indefinitely rather than be plain. ”But, _dear_ Mrs. Davies, is it not very expensive?” said Mrs. Darling. ”Not when I have pa.s.ses all the way to Chicago,” said Mira. So they had to return to the fort at dusk, though Mrs. Plodder did suggest staying all night and seeing her off. They had not set eyes on Willett. They both entertained, though neither expressed, a hope that he was not to be of the party. They asked for Willett casually when they met Mr. Burtis.

Burtis said with perfect truth that he was out at the ranch, that he had hoped to be here to meet the ladies, but was called out by urgent business.

It was dark, and they were tired, hungry, and worried when they got back to the post, and the lieutenant on escort found the ladies strangely preoccupied and silent. The first thing on reaching home was to go in search of the chaplain. As a devoted friend of Mr. Davies he should be informed of this odd freak of Mira's, and, if there were any grounds for their fears, there was still time to avert what would bring such awful scandal about their social circle. They a.s.sumed that they were coming back with sensational news, forgetful of the fact that garrison servants helped pack Mira's trunk, and garrison eyes had seen it start with her for town. The chaplain's wife knew all about it before two o'clock, and the chaplain would have known it, too, had he not been long miles away at the death-bed of an old soldier turned cow-boy. Not until after the east-bound train was whistling far down the valley and the dawn was in the sky did an inkling reach him. Somebody said he thought the least Mr.

Willett could have done was to come over and see how his best ”puncher”

was getting on, and somebody else replied, in low tone, that any one could see Willett had no thoughts for anything or anybody outside of Fort Scott, whereupon somebody Number 1 replied that Willett had been at his ”shack” most of the afternoon, packing some things and burning others, and had taken the midnight train at Duncan Switch, ten miles west of Braska.

And even while the news of his going was bringing strange comfort to the good old man, who rejoiced that this wolf in the sheepfold was even temporarily out of the way, there came a messenger from the distant post and a packet was handed in for him. Some letters and a note from his wife.

”Expecting you home during the evening, I did not send these, but they may be important. Mrs. Davies suddenly made up her mind to go to Omaha this afternoon, and was to take the night train at Braska.” Here the other letters dropped to the floor, and the reader's eyes filled with sudden consternation and dismay. Not until his ambulance had been hitched and brought to the door did he cease his restless pacing to and fro. Kneeling a brief moment at the bedside of the unconscious and fast-failing sufferer, he bade his fellows hurried adieu and drove with speed to town, a long eight miles. It was then broad daylight, but he stirred up the sleepy telegraph operator and asked about wiring after the train. ”Grand Island's the place to catch 'em,” said the operator.

”They breakfast there at seven.” And the chaplain flushed and glanced keenly at the man. Why should he speak of catching anybody or anything?

Was all the valley already aware of this shameful flight? The hotel stood not a stone's throw away. There must be no unnecessary scandal about this business. He needed to see the proprietor, and roused him, too. Boniface came down anything but smiling, yet thawed a trifle at sight of the man whom all Nebraska seemed to know and swear by.

Certainly, Mrs. Davies spent the evening at the hotel in her room, and he put her aboard the sleeper at 12.20, the moment the train came in. He had wired to p.a.w.nee and secured her section and checked her trunk to Omaha. She had her tickets, she said. Was Mr. Davies aboard or--anybody else to meet her? Not that the landlord knew of. The porter showed her in and said her section was ready. Everybody else was sound asleep, apparently, but there were some soldiers in the forward cars. Some of them got out and had a cup of coffee at the stand, and ”piled aboard as she pulled out.” They had a prisoner, a deserter, in manacles. Then the chaplain wired to Duncan Switch, and the answer came that Mr. Willett left there, bound for Omaha, at midnight, and then he wired the conductor of the train at Grand Island, and later to Leonard at Omaha, then sat him down to wait and watch and pray.

The sleeping-car, said the conductor afterwards, was fuller than usual that night. Some officers got aboard at Rock Springs, and sat up quite late, chatting with others who had boarded them at b.u.t.te and p.a.w.nee.

There were five officers in all. One of them, who had not taken a berth, went forward about ten o'clock and made a ”roost” in the day car. The conductor heard the others talking about it, and how the lieutenant would never spend an unnecessary cent, and some of them thought he was foolish, and others said he was right, and they respected him for it.

These gentlemen slept late, saying they would rather breakfast after they got to Omaha. The lady who came aboard at Braska was the first one up in the morning. She was astir with the sun, and came back from the dressing-room as soon as the porter had made up her section, looking as fresh and fair as the day. Presently a gentleman joined her,--a man he had often seen on the road,--who travelled, as most cattlemen did in those days, with a pa.s.s, and who boarded them at Duncan Switch, and went at once to his berth. He seemed very much surprised to meet the lady, but sat down and talked with her until we whistled for Grand Island, and there, said the conductor, ”as I bustled off the train, the operator handed me a despatch just at same minute that the brakeman came to tell me we had a cracked wheel on the smoker. One look at the wheel told me that the car must be left behind, so I ordered out the pa.s.sengers while another car was being put on.”

But the telegram took more than one look. It puzzled him, said the conductor. It was sent by the chaplain, a man he knew well, and in brief words it said, ”The lady in Section 7 is the wife of Lieutenant Davies, Eleventh Cavalry. She needs escort to Omaha, where Lieutenant Leonard will meet her. If any army officer is aboard, show him this and introduce him. She should not leave the train.”

”Now, there were officers on the car, but they were not yet up,”