THE WOLF IN THE SHEEPFOLD
A week rolled on and matters at Minneconjou had become electric. The
weather was superb. The sun rose in a cloudless sky long hours before
society, as represented at our frontier city and station, followed suit,
shook off the fetters of sleep and began bestirring itself for the day.
And days were long in that northern latitude, long enough for even the
most ambitious and enthusiastic of commanding officers intent on the
instruction and development of the force intrusted to his care. Yet the
days seemed hardly long enough for Oswald Dwight, whose first difference
with the post commander was on the subject of morning gunfire and the
reveille. To the scandal of the cavalry service, let it be recorded that
in the point at issue, without exception the members of Minneconjou's
mounted service sided with the easy-going infantryman at the head of
affairs, and against their own immediate leader--the over-energetic, the
nervously pushing, prodding, spurring, stirring squadron commander.
During the sweet summer months, all along the broad lands of the
Dakotas, the morning gun thundered its salutation to the newborn day as
the hands of the clock so nearly lapped at half-past five. What Dwight
demanded of Colonel Stone was permission to rout out the cavalry at
half-past four. It was broad daylight, said he. It was the cool and
beautiful time of the day. The men could have their coffee at once, then
march to stables, lead to water,--the steeds having been already fed by
the stable guard,--groom for twenty minutes, march back to barracks, get
their matutinal scrub, a hearty breakfast and be out to squadron drill
when all was still fresh, sparkling and exhilarating before the mountain
breeze, the lowland dust, or indeed before garrison society, was astir;
then they could all be back in time for guard-mounting and the
multifarious drills and duties of the morning. Dwight found his people
well up in saddle work, as was to be expected of men long led by so
genuine a trooper as "Billy" Ray, but they were correspondingly slack in
foot and sabre drill, and Dwight in his day had been one of the famous
drillmasters of the --th, and seemed beset with desire to keep up the
record now. "What would you be doing from nine to noon?" asked Stone,
strumming the desk with his finger tips and studying curiously the pale,
keen, eager face of the cavalryman.
"Company drill afoot, sabre drill, setting up--almost anything!" was the
impatient answer. "These men are soft, sluggish, torpid. Troopers should
be all wire and catgut. I want to put those four commands in perfect
trim for anything, Colonel, and I can't do it under five hours' drill a
day."
But Stone shook his head. There was no occasion he maintained, for
robbing them of an hour of their sleep. They had to work harder than his
men, anyhow, and, if anything, should be given more sleep, not less.
"Then put them to bed at ten o'clock--or nine, if need be," said Dwight,
impatient of demur; but Stone proved obdurate. "I see no reason for so
radical a change," said he, to the relief of the juniors, who feared
Dwight's vehement onward nature might prevail over the placidity of
Stone; and so the new-made major was fain to content himself with
sounding mess call right after reveille, then "Boots and Saddles" in
place of "Stables," and, by dispensing with morning grooming, getting
his troops into line on the flats to the south and starting a humming
squadron drill before seven o'clock.
Time had been in the long-ago happy days when it was quite the thing for
Mrs. Ray, Mrs. Truscott, Margaret Dwight, and other women of the old
regiment to ride, drive, or stroll out to the ground and watch their
soldier-husbands through much of the morning's dashing drill. The effect
was good in more ways than one. It keyed up the pride of the men and
kept down the profanity of their mentors, some of whom, as was a way in
the old days of the mounted service, _would_ break out with sudden and
startling blasphemy when things went wildly amiss. It is easy on foot to
bring instant order out of apparent chaos. The stark command "Halt!"
does the business; but, given tenscore, high-strung, grain-fed, spirited
steeds, tearing at their bits and lunging full gallop in mad race for a
charge, it often happens that neither voice nor trumpet, nor tugging,
straining bridle arm can prevail, and it is then the air rings with
expletives. No one ever heard Truscott swear. He was a model of
self-control. Dwight, too, had been renowned for the success with which
he handled horses and men and maintained his personal serenity. But
Marion Ray more times than a few in the earlier days of her married life
had cause to blush for Billy, who, the idol of his men and perhaps the
most magnetic drillmaster and troop leader in the regiment, so lost
himself in the enthusiasm and dash of squadron drill at the trot or
gallop, that his Blue Grass exhortations could be heard over the thunder
of a thousand hoofs, to the entire delight of the sorrel troop, the
sympathetic joy of their rivals and the speechless dismay of the pious.
"Tut-tut-tut!" was a dear old chaplain wont to say; "is it not strange
that so good a man can use such very bad language?" Yet Captain Ray in
private life shrank from profanity as he did from punch. On mounted
drill it rippled from his lips with unconscious, unpremeditated fluency.
Just as in the old days, therefore, wives, sisters, and sweethearts of
the dashing horsemen of Minneconjou were now riding, driving, or
strolling out to the edge of the drill ground and enjoying the spirited
scene. It gave them an hour of bracing air and sparkling dew and early
sunshine and a wonderful appetite for breakfast. Mrs. Ray did not go.
Neither her husband nor her son had now any part in the panorama, and,
looking from her window she could see all she cared to see of what might
be going on--and more. The sound of Sandy's boot-heels overhead told her
that he, too, was up and observant, though Sandy, when Priscilla, as
usual precipitate, managed to refer to it at the breakfast table,
parried the tongue thrust with a tale about "best light for shaving."
No, there were none of Mrs. Ray's little household who went forth to see
the early squadron drill, but there were others--many others--and most
observed, if not most observant of these, was the beautiful young wife
of the squadron commander and her invariable escort, Dwight's former
fellow-campaigner, their fellow-voyager of the _Hohenzollern_, and now
their very appreciative guest, Captain Stanley Foster, only just
promoted to his troop in the --th Cavalry and waiting orders at
Minneconjou.
Mrs. Dwight was not much given to walking. She could dance untiringly
for hours, but other pedestrianism wearied her. Mrs. Dwight was as yet
even less given to riding. She explained that the major preferred she
should wait a while until her horse and English horse equipment came.
Lieutenant Scott, who had met her in Manila, said he had a little
tan-colored Whitman that would just suit her, whereat Mrs. Dwight,
between paling and coloring, took on something of a tan shade over her
dusky beauty and faltered that "the Major preferred the English--to the
forked-seat--for a lady." It would seem as though she desired it
forgotten that her normal way of riding was astride, whereas more than
half her auditors, the officers at least, regarded that as the proper
and rational seat for her sex. Mrs. Dwight, caring neither to walk nor
to ride, therefore was quite content to appear for two or three
successive mornings in a lovely little phaeton with a pony-built team in
front, a pygmy "tiger" behind and a presentable swain beside her. The
fourth morning brought a rain and no drill, the fifth no rain nor Mrs.
Dwight, nor did she again appear at that early hour despite the fact
that the drills daily became more dashing and picturesque. Her interest,
she explained, had been rather on her husband's account, but she knew so
little about such matters she felt her inferiority to _real_ army ladies
who had been born and bred to and understood it, and then after dancing
so late she wondered how anybody _could_ be up so early.
The major himself, probably, could not have stood it, but he, not being
a dancing man, had taken to skipping away to bed at or before eleven on
such nights as Minneconjou tripped the light fantastic toe, but "Inez so
loved to dance" he considerately left her to finish it, with Foster to
fetch her home; which Foster did.
But, of the few elders at Minneconjou who had personal knowledge of
Dwight's prowess as a cavalry drillmaster in by-gone days, and of the
many who, being told thereof, had gone forth to see and to enjoy, there
lived now not one who had not suffered disappointment. So far from being
the calm, masterful, yet spirited teacher and leader, clear and explicit
in his instructions and serene and self-controlled where men and horses
became nervous and fidgety, Dwight proved strangely petulant and
querulous. His tone and manner were complaining, nagging, even snarling.
Nothing seemed to please him. Troop leaders, subalterns and sergeants
were forever coming in for a rasping, and each successive day the
command paced slowly, sedately homeward, cooling off after a hot drill,
looking more and more sullen and disgusted. Officers dismounted at the
Club, quaffed "shandygaff" and sometimes even "Scotch and soda" in
silent sense of exasperation. The men rode away to stables, rubbed down
and, as they plied the wisps, said opprobrious things between their set
teeth. As for the horses, they took counsel together when turned out to
herd and settled it to their satisfaction that something was sorely
amiss with the major--who had at last begun to swear.
And something was sorely amiss with Dwight, as anyone who noted his
brilliant, restless eyes, his haggard face and fitful manner could not
fail to see. It was at this stage of the proceedings, as Stone squarely
owned up later, that he as post commander should have taken Dwight to
task, even to the extent of administering correction. But the strongest
soldier is sometimes disarmed at sight of a fellow's suffering, and, for
fear of adding one pang, will suppress a needed word. Thus it happens
that occasionally a commander passes unrebuked a soldier's fault. Thus
it happens time and again that men, stern and unflinching in dealing
with their fellows, submit in silence to years of a woman's abuse,
because "she's such a sufferer."
But here was something Stone might, and possibly should, have done and
thereby measurably cleared the social sky and surely earned Dwight's
silent gratitude, and this Stone did not do, even though spurred thereto
by a clear-visioned wife, and that was--say a word of admonition to
Captain Foster.
He deserved it. All Minneconjou was a unit on that head. He was as
utterly out of place there as a cat in a creamery. They who had heard
the story of his attentions to Mrs. Dwight during the _Hohenzollern's_
run from Gibraltar to Governor's Island were disturbed by his sudden and
unheralded appearance at the post, and distressed that Dwight should be
among the first to welcome him, and the one, and at first the only one,
to invite him to a room under his roof. Men looked every which way but
at each other and held their tongues when it was announced that Foster
was the guest of the Dwights. Women looked into each other's eyes and
gasped and said all manner of things as the news went round. Yet what,
at first at least, was there to block the plan? The infantry officers
felt that _they_ must not take the initiative; it was purely a cavalry
affair. Dwight and Foster had served together several years. Dwight
possibly did feel, as he too often took occasion to say, more than
grateful to Foster for "his courtesy to Mrs. Dwight while I was cooped
up in my stateroom." Two or three cavalry chums, taking secret counsel
together, hit upon a blundering, clumsy, best-intentioned scheme, and
Washburn, who couldn't bear Foster and had never foregathered with him,
was deputed, as the only captain with spare rooms and no family, to take
the bull by the horns and the unwanted visitor to his ingle nook, which
Washburn did with simulated joviality and about as follows:
"Say, old man, _you_ don't want to be roosting in a dove-cote while the
birds are billing and cooing. You can't have any fun at Dwight's. You'll
get nothing but Apollinaris between meals. Come to my shack, where
there's a room--and a demijohn--all ready for you," which bid proved,
unhappily, none too alluring. Foster thanked him with a glint in his
eye. "Dwight asked me long ago," said he, which was the petrified truth,
though Dwight's words were perfunctory, and the invitation one of those
things so often said to a man when the sayer hopes to Heaven he's seeing
the last of him.
But now that Foster _was_ here, his guest, nothing could exceed the glow
of Dwight's hospitality. It was painful to note the eagerness with which
he sought to assure all Minneconjou of his long-standing friendship for
Foster in face of the fact that some of the squadron well knew they had
never met in Margaret's day, and were never really comrades thereafter.
Moreover, they were men of utterly divergent mold and temperament.
Dwight had been reared in the shadow of the flag, a soldier by birth,
lineage and education. Foster had come in from civil life, after a not
too creditable career at college. He had come, moreover, with the repute
of being a Squire of Dames in "swagger" Eastern society. He danced well,
dressed well, and talked well--when he felt like it. He "knew a lot,"
said men who knew little outside of the army.
He knew enough, at all events, to realize that army society would be far
less tolerant of a "squire" of his kind than had been that of Gotham,
and during his decade of service that, at least, had not been held as
his principal fault. A semi-cynical manner, a propensity for stirring
fellows on their sore points, a pronounced selfishness and an assumed
intimacy with men who disliked him were the things that most conspired
to make him unpopular. He had ability; he could be agreeable, but
indolence and indifference dwarfed his powers. It was not until he came
under the spell of this dark girl's grace and beauty that Stanley Foster
had succeeded in doing anything worthy of mention. Now he was being
mentioned far more than he wished, and, though he heard it not, he knew.
But they went to a dance the night of the day he came, and Dwight gave a
dinner the next night, and another the next. Then there had to be others
given in return, and morn, noon, afternoon and evening, Foster found
himself at the side of Mrs. Dwight. What could she do? He came to stay
only three days, but the week went by, and so, possibly, did his orders.
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday they were out at morning drill. Then the
pretty phaeton and its lovely occupant and her vigilant convoy came no
more. Inez said she "looked like a fright at that hour of the morning,
anyway," in which statement most women agreed. Possibly it was that that
stayed her.
However, a second Sunday had come since Foster's advent, and the
squadron was having a rest and the chaplain holding service, and Major
Dwight, as was his wont, came, book in one hand and little Jim clinging
fondly to the other, to kneel among the worshipers, to reverently follow
the beautiful service, his boy snuggling to his side and reading aloud
from the same page. It was the service Margaret had loved, and taught
her husband to honor, and had won his promise that Jimmy should ever be
led to it, and loyally, devoted, had the father fulfilled the promise,
even after the young wife came to wean him from much that Margaret had
inspired. Inez this day came not with them. To begin with, Inez had been
reared in the fold of the Mother Church, and, though years had served to
loose the bonds and possibly sap what little she ever had of faith, she
had sought, at least, no substitute. Obediently had she gone at first
with her soldier-husband and looked, in the eyes of his kith and kin,
the picture of meek piety and adoration as she followed the new, strange
ritual. But, once away from family observation, Inez had found refuge in
hebdomadal headaches that came with the Lord's Day and kept her from
church. She was "feeling far from well this morning," said Dwight, in
answer to queries, and had been persuaded to remain in bed. So he and
Jimmy had come to church and Foster had gone to the Club to write some
letters and wire to Washington, and all were "present or accounted for,"
as Captain Washburn grimly announced at the Club. It was a lovely warm
Sunday, too, and the old chaplain was effective as a reader. The choir
was capital, despite Priscilla's criticisms, and the attendance was
large. Army folk, as a rule, flock but sparsely to the sanctuary, but
Minneconjou had not a few devout church people, even in the ranks,
Blenke being so earnest in his piety that when detailed for Sunday guard
he never failed to effect an exchange, even though it cost him two tours
for one. Furthermore, it was communion service, and unusually long.
Marion Ray had entered early--Sandy, pale-faced and thin, at her side;
and together they had knelt, mother and son, and then sat silently
awaiting the "Processional." When Dwight and Jimmy walked up the aisle
and took a pew on the other side and nearer the altar, Marion had smiled
fond greeting to the little fellow, and he had answered. Twice as she
gazed at them later, Dwight's arm about Jimmy's curly head, his sinewy
hand resting on the further shoulder and drawing him to his side, heavy
tears welled up into the blue eyes of the tender-hearted woman. Never
yet had that strong, sinewy hand been uplifted to inflict the lightest
chastisement on Margaret's beloved boy. Only the day before on his
regular visit, nestling to her knee and telling her laughingly how
Sergeant Shock, the schoolmaster, had walloped Scotty Burns, the band
leader's eldest hope, Jimmy had looked up suddenly into her eyes. "Why,
Aunt Marion," he said, "only think! I've never known what it was to be
whipped. Can you fancy daddy's ever using a strap on me?"
"God forbid!" she shuddered, not knowing why, thinking perhaps only what
agonies that would have cost Margaret, and then Priscilla had come in
and their confidences ceased. Priscilla was firm in her theory that
children were too much petted and coddled nowadays, and that more of the
rod and less of rhubarb was what they needed.
Suddenly, just after the second lesson, while the rich ringing voices of
the soldier choir were chanting the "Gloria," little Jim was seen to bow
his head and burrow for his handkerchief. Dwight looked down, bent over
him, whispered a word or two, smiled encouragement and fond assurance,
and, blushing very much, with downcast eyes and his face half hidden in
cambric, the lad came forth and hastened down the aisle and out into the
brilliant sunshine beyond.
"Nose-bleed," whispered Dwight to Mrs. Stone, who leaned back,
sympathetically, from her pew. "It sometimes seizes him just that way."
And the stately service went uninterruptedly on, and Jimmy over home,
and little more was said of the incident until the coming of another
day.