Part 13 (1/2)

”Oh, I see. That's all, Miss Alice. I'll go back to the colonel.

Good-night!” And Armitage went forth with a lighter step.

”One sensation knocked endwise, colonel. I have it on the best of authority that Mrs. Maynard so fearlessly went to the window in answer to the voice and noise at the shutters simply because she knew you were out there somewhere and she supposed it was you. How simple these mysteries become when a little daylight is let in on them, after all!

Come, I'm going to take you over to my room for a stiff gla.s.s of grog, and then after his tramps.h.i.+p while you go back to bed.”

”Armitage, you seem to make very light of this night's doings. What is easier than to connect it all with the trouble at Sibley?”

”Nothing was ever more easily explained than this thing, colonel, and all I want now is a chance to get that tramp. Then I'll go to Sibley; and 'pon my word I believe that mystery can be made as commonplace a piece of petty larceny as this was of vagrancy. Come.”

But when Armitage left the colonel at a later hour and sought his own room for a brief rest he was in no such buoyant mood. A night-search for a tramp in the dense thickets among the bluffs and woods of Sablon could hardly be successful. It was useless to make the attempt. He slept but little during the cool August night, and early in the morning mounted a horse and trotted over to the railway-station.

”Has any train gone northward since last night?” he inquired at the office.

”None that stop here,” was the answer. ”The first train up comes along at 11.56.”

”I want to send a despatch to Fort Sibley and get an answer without delay. Can you work it for me?”

The agent nodded, and pushed over a package of blanks. Armitage wrote rapidly as follows:

”CAPTAIN CHESTER,

”Commanding Fort Sibley.

”Is Jerrold there? Tell him I will arrive Tuesday. Answer.

”F. ARMITAGE.”

It was along towards nine o'clock when the return message came clicking in on the wires, was written out, and handed to the tall soldier with the tired blue eyes.

He read, started, crushed the paper in his hand, and turned from the office. The answer was significant:

”Lieutenant Jerrold left Sibley yesterday afternoon. Not yet returned.

Absent without leave this morning.

”CHESTER.”

XI.

Nature never vouchsafed to wearied man a lovelier day of rest than the still Sunday on which Frank Armitage rode slowly back from the station.

The soft, mellow tone of the church-bell, tolling the summons for morning service, floated out from the brown tower, and was echoed back from the rocky cliff glistening in the August suns.h.i.+ne on the northern bluff. Groups of villagers hung about the steps of the little sanctuary and gazed with mild curiosity at the arriving parties from the cottages and the hotel. The big red omnibus came up with a load of wors.h.i.+ppers, and farther away, down the vista of the road, Armitage could see others on foot and in carriages, all wending their way to church. He was in no mood to meet them. The story that he had been out pursuing a tramp during the night was pretty thoroughly circulated by this time, he felt a.s.sured, and every one would connect his early ride to the station, in some way, with the adventure that the grooms, hostlers, cooks, and kitchen-maids had all been dilating upon ever since daybreak. He dreaded to meet the curious glances of the women, and the questions of the few men whom he had taken so far into his confidence as to ask about the mysterious person who came over in the stage with them. He reined up his horse, and then, seeing a little pathway leading into the thick wood to his right, he turned in thither and followed it some fifty yards among bordering treasures of coreopsis and golden-rod and wild luxuriance of vine and foliage. Dismounting in the shade, he threw the reins over his arm and let his horse crop the juicy gra.s.ses, while he seated himself on a little stump and fell to thinking again. He could hear the reverent voices of one or two visitors strolling about among the peaceful, flower-decked graves behind the little church and only a short stone's-throw away through the shrubbery. He could hear the low, solemn voluntary of the organ, and presently the glad outburst of young voices in the opening hymn, but he knew that belated ones would still be coming to church, and he would not come forth from his covert until all were out of the way. Then, too, he was glad of a little longer time to think: he did not want to tell the colonel the result of his morning investigations.

To begin with: the watchman, the driver, and the two men whom he had questioned were all of an opinion as to the character of the stranger: ”he was a military man.” The pa.s.sengers described his voice as that of a man of education and social position; the driver and pa.s.sengers declared his walk and carriage to be that of a soldier: he was taller, they said, than the tall, stalwart Saxon captain, but by no means so heavily built.

As to age, they could not tell: his beard was black and curly,--no gray hairs; his movements were quick and elastic; but his eyes were hidden by those colored gla.s.ses, and his forehead by the slouch of that broad-brimmed felt hat.

At the station, while awaiting the answer to his despatch, Armitage had questioned the agent as to whether any man of that description had arrived by the night train from the north. He had seen none, he said, but there was La.r.s.en over at the post-office store, who came down on that train; perhaps he could tell. Oddly enough, Mr. La.r.s.en recalled just such a party,--tall, slim, dark, dark-bearded, with blue gla.s.ses and dark hat and clothes,--but he was bound for Lakeville, the station beyond, and he remained in the car when he, La.r.s.en, got off. La.r.s.en remembered the man well, because he sat in the rear corner of the smoker and had nothing to say to anybody, but kept reading a newspaper; and the way he came to take note of him was that while standing with two friends at that end of the car they happened to be right around the man.

The Sat.u.r.day evening train from the city is always crowded with people from the river towns who have been up to market or the _matinees_, and even the smoker was filled with standing men until they got some thirty miles down. La.r.s.en wanted to light a fresh cigar, and offered one to each of his friends: then it was found they had no matches, and one of them, who had been drinking a little and felt jovial, turned to the dark stranger and asked him for a light, and the man, without speaking, handed out a little silver match-box. It was just then that the conductor came along, and La.r.s.en saw his ticket. It was a ”round trip”