BLENKE COVERS HIS TRACKS
Priscilla Sanford in the next few days, despite the fact that most of
her pupils were gone, found her duties increasing. She had seen Blenke,
but only through enlisting the interest of his captain, who directed
Blenke to call upon Miss Sanford and give account of his stewardship or
be sent thither in charge of a sergeant. Blenke appeared at last in the
dusk of evening and the depth of despond. He wrung his white hands, he
bowed his shapely head in shame. He could hardly speak, such was his
humility, but he stuck to it that his story was true. She knew enough of
his past (at least she should know, since he had told her so much of it)
to believe that he had enjoyed the benefits of travel, prosperity, and
education. He had trusted, however, where he should have guarded, and
devotion to his fellows had resulted in his financial ruin. A man who
owed him hundreds, and had promised to pay, was in Rapid City, and came
thence to find him here at the very time Blenke started to find him
there. The failure of this man to keep his promise had involved Blenke
shamefully. He had borrowed much more than the ten dollars he still owed
his benefactress. It was shame and worry, resulting in prostration and
insomnia, that drove him forth at night, that led to his taking Skid's
prescription, for Skid, who was so very grateful for Blenke's conduct at
time of the fire, did not, however, come forward with offer of financial
aid. He was going to do that, he said, when he got his insurance money,
which was still suspiciously withheld. Skidmore gave Blenke Scotch ale,
warranted to produce sleep. It at least led to oblivion, the
disappearance of his watch, and the train of miserable, disgraceful woe
that followed. How could Blenke ever face Miss Sanford again? Not until
ordered could he bear the ordeal, even though her letters had assured
him of forgiveness and further aid and confidence. As to his being with
those Indians, lurking in that tortuous ravine, the explanation was
simple. The man who had tricked him, a contractor, was said to be over
at the reservation--Indians had so told him. They were forbidden to come
to the fort or be seen about Skidmore's. They could only meet him out of
sight of the post and its slum suburb. He and a comrade met them to hear
their report at the crossing of the old road from Fort Siding by way of
Castle Butte to the Belle Fourche country, and catching sight of
Lieutenant Ray, riding slowly along the edge of the timber, the Indians
had led on into the ravine, where they had hardly dismounted and turned
loose their ponies when the phaeton flashed into view around a point of
bluff, almost running them down, then running away. Startled as he was,
Blenke would have grabbed a pony and galloped to Miss Sanford's aid, but
their ponies, too, took fright and stampeded. The Indians went in
pursuit, and by the time Blenke could again see the phaeton it was
quietly descending the little ramp to the river bottom, and all seemed
well. Then Lieutenant Ray's horse was seen galloping away toward the
fort, and that was another reason why he, a poor private, should not
presume to intrude when an officer was presumably there. He went in
pursuit of the horse. Lieutenant Ray, he said, had never liked him,
while he, Blenke, could almost lay down his life to serve Lieutenant
Ray.
So Priscilla could say nothing but "Go and sin no more," and come back
to the choir, which Blenke promised faithfully to do.
Then Major Dwight was at last sufficiently recovered to be pronounced
convalescent, and there had been the meeting with his beloved boy, the
first few minutes of which had been witnessed only by Dr. Waring and
Mrs. Ray, who presently, reassured by his calm, withdrew and left father
and child together. It had been followed by a regular visit each day,
limited to less than an hour for the time being. There had been two
interviews, Dr. Waring only being present and that not all the time,
between Dwight and his wife. From both of these Inez came forth weeping
convulsively, to be comforted by Felicie--and a pint of Pommery Sec.
That something had been sent to the importunate Farrells the doctor had
knowledge, and that something had been said to their daughter to plunge
her in grief inexpressible the garrison was speedily informed. "She
should leave him, this angel," said Felicie, "but she is of a devotion,
my faith, the most incomparable--the most indomitable."
Then Dwight begged that Mrs. Ray should come to him, and there had been
a long talk, a reconciliation, an understanding that brought comfort to
his heart and rejoicing to hers, and then as convalescence advanced, and
his mind demanded food, Priscilla had come to read to him, and from
reading, first rather less than an hour, she was reading daily now as
much as two. It gave Madame a frightful _migraine_, said the explanatory
and fruitful Felicie, to read aloud at all.
But the projected alliance, the prospective friendship so desired by
Mrs. Dwight of the elder--the highly gifted--maid had progressed no
further. From the moment of their return from that memorable drive
neither party to the proposed arrangement again referred to it.
Priscilla, who preferred to call at any other house within the limits of
Minneconjou, was now a daily visitor. Sandy Ray, who found himself
longing to go thither, could not go at all. His arrest forbade it, and
he was asking himself what might be his course were his arrest to end,
for a rumor was current at the post that a separation was
threatened--that Captain and Mrs. Dwight were certainly estranged. There
were those who considered it most indelicate under the circumstances
that an unmarried woman should appear upon the scene even as a reader to
an aging and broken man. Perhaps it was, but the doctor smiled approval.
The colonel said "Go ahead." Mrs. Ray considered her niece quite old
enough to judge for herself. Mrs. Dwight declared it angelic, and
Priscilla said nothing at all. Priscilla, who had been prone to speak on
slight reflection, had become as silent or secretive as she had once
been censorious, for never once had she mentioned to her aunt, never yet
had she made known to Sandy, that she had heard the strange words which,
with returning consciousness, Inez, the wife of Oswald Dwight, had
murmured looking up into the pallid face of Sanford Ray. Yet Ray knew,
and soon Inez, that Priscilla had heard and not forgotten.
It had so happened the day of that memorable drive and catastrophe that
Sandy Ray, dismounting to the aid of Mrs. Dwight, whose slender and
lovely form lay huddled by the roadside, while Priscilla and the ponies
started on their circuit, had given no thought to his own steed, which
fact enabled that inconsiderate brute to trot away homeward. Then when
Inez came to herself (though not to her senses, else would she have said
such shocking things when Priscilla was within earshot?) there arose a
question of transportation. It was only four miles to the fort, but in
his still somewhat crippled condition that was far for Sandy to walk. It
was characteristic of Priscilla that she should promptly suggest her
driving Mrs. Dwight home at once; then, if need be, sending Hogan back
with the horse. Priscilla herself was a famous pedestrian, priding
herself on sometimes "footing" it to and from town, but never once did
Priscilla now suggest that Sandy drive Mrs. Dwight or Mrs. Dwight drive
Sandy. Priscilla, indeed, behaved with some little asperity as well as
impatience when she assured Mrs. Dwight that she had the ponies now
under complete control, and all Mrs. Dwight had to do was to get in at
once. But this required Sandy's aid and encircling arm. Then when Inez
was fairly in her reclining seat, she could not release the hand. "But
surely _you_ are coming? Your horse is gone! What--walk, Miss Sanford?
Indeed, he shall not, and after having carried poor me all that
distance." (For a woman in a dead faint Inez was oddly alive to what had
been going on.) "You are coming right in here, Mr. Ray!" and she edged
vigorously over against the stout structured Priscilla in determined
effort to make room for Sandy beside her. So there he rode, saying very
little, but tumultuously thinking, Heaven only knows what, for Inez had
then eyes, ears, aye--lips, had he dared--only for him. She nestled
close and confiding in the arm trembling about her slender shoulders. He
felt the contact of her rounded form. His head was in a whirl, his heart
was in a tumult, when at last Priscilla reined in at the major's gate,
and again Sandy had almost to carry the lovely burden up the major's
steps and, with one, long, melting gaze from her glorious eyes, with
five murmured words from her exquisite, parted, passionate lips, with a
thrilling pressure from both her little hands, he delivered her into the
waiting arms of Felicie, to become again a limp and prostrate being, to
require at once her handmaid's best services--and champagne. The
quantity of Pommery Sec consumed in that house during the major's
confinement thereto, said Felicie afterwards, was, _o ciel_, of the most
incredible!
It can readily be conceived that Priscilla could not soon forget the
incidents of that day's drive, the last she ever took with Inez Dwight.
What with the apparition of Blenke and the blanketed Indians at the
ravine, the runaway of the ponies on the prairie, and the astounding
revelation that followed, the honest-hearted girl was utterly at a loss
as to her duty in the premises. Six weeks back she would not have
hesitated. She would have known infallibly just what to say and do, and
unflinchingly would she have said and done it. But, all was different
now. Her faith was strong as ever, firm and unshaken, but her
self-confidence was gone. She had made some of the worst mistakes of her
thirty years within the last three months. She had justly offended her
fondest, truest friends; had brought dire distress, untold suffering, on
a most loving and devoted father, and cruel punishment to an innocent
and trusting child. Her head had been bowed to the dust in
self-condemnation, in humility unspeakable. She could have dragged
herself upon her knees every inch of the road from their door to
Dwight's, and with streaming eyes and clasping hands, a well-nigh broken
and all contrite heart, could have bathed his feet with her tears and
implored his forgiveness. It was characteristic of Oswald Dwight,--the
old Oswald Dwight coming once again through this hell of suffering and
from the very threshold of the other world into the kingdom of
self-search and self-dominion,--that he should send for her,--beg that
she should be brought to him,--that he might lift from her mind a moiety
at least of its weight of self-accusation. It was characteristic of him
thereafter that, after the first few hours with his blessed boy--and God
alone knows what intensity of prayer, petition, love, and resolve surged
through the heart and soul of the almost re-created man--he should try
to show Priscilla Sanford that he blamed himself alone, not her; that he
honored her, respected her, believed in her, and that he rejoiced to see
the friendship that was daily growing between her and his beloved little
son. The readings that seemed so long to the censorious were not all
reading, after all, for presently and little by little the book would be
dropped, the page would be discussed, and, once away from her hobby of
original, sin and universal damnation--the Calvinistic creed of that
stern, pure-hearted if Puritanical woman--there was much that appealed
to the stern, true-hearted soldier nature of the even maturer man. A
famous Covenanter--a Roundhead after Cromwell's own heart--might Oswald
Dwight have been had he dwelt in Merry England, where sunstrokes were
unknown and dark-eyed sirens seldom heard of. As for Priscilla, she
needed but the garb to fit her for the austere duties of the sect whence
sprung her mother and her name. But it was a chastened, softened,
subdued Priscilla that now wrestled in spirit with the problem set
before her. She knew no woman in all Minneconjou except Aunt Marion with
whom to take counsel, and how could she wound, terrify, Aunt Marion with
her growing suspicion! She knew but one man in all Minneconjou on whom
she felt a longing to lean the burden of her deep trouble, and how could
she bring herself to mention it to him!
For within the week that followed the day of that drive and disaster the
level-headed soldier in command of the department had been to Fort
Wister; had held an official inspection and a personal investigation at
Minneconjou; had interrogated and, it was whispered, instructed Captain
Foster, with the result that, though deeply injured and properly
incensed, that officer, while urging continued effort to bring to
justice his unknown assailants, decided it was unwise to press further,
for the present at least, his charges against Lieutenant Ray. Much to
Ray's disgust, therefore, he was released from arrest without the full
and entire clearance he had hoped for, and now, with the Canteen closed
and no longer demanding his supervision, with little to do at the
Exchange, still unfit for drill or soldier duty, with his soul raging
and dissatisfied, his heart stirred anew with strange and turbulent
emotion, and his brain in a whirl,--nervous, restless, sometimes
sleepless the livelong night,--Sandy Ray had again taken to riding long
hours to get away from himself,--from everybody, as he told his anxious,
watchful, but silent mother. (How little did Priscilla dream how much
that mother knew! How little did that mother know how much Priscilla
dreamed!) And in Ray's avoidance of everything, everybody, he rode never
to town, but ever to the west and often to the clump of cottonwoods
opposite the mouth of that crooked ravine where Inez Dwight, with the
look, the touch, the temptation of the unforgotten days at Manila and
Nagasaki, had come again into his life, and whither Inez Dwight,
decorously accompanied by her sheepdog of a maid, found means to drive,
no matter which way she started, and there or about there, to meet
him,--to see him four days out of the seven,--until the climax came.