AGAIN THE SALOON
For a man of philosophic temperament, one who seldom worried other
people or himself, Colonel Stone had been having a nerve-racking time of
it. He was troubled in the first place about the condition of affairs
military in his big command, which the general himself had referred to
as "a sad falling off," and which Stone saw no way under the law to
correct. The number of men absent without leave, absent unaccounted for,
probably in desertion, or absent "in the hands of the civil
authorities," had increased alarmingly since the closing of the Canteen.
"Skid" and his abominable community across the fords had been doing a
thriving business, and were vastly enjoying the situation. Men by dozens
who had been content, after their sharp drills or when the day's work
was done, with mild and palatable beer, now sat sullenly about their
barrack steps in the summer evenings, or, out of sheer disgust, wandered
off by twos and threes (and a new footbridge erected by Skidmore), to
spend their leisure hours and scanty cash over the reeking counters of
the saloon, deeming themselves robbed of a right accorded every other
wageworker throughout Christendom, and saying things of their Congress
it wasn't safe for their officers even to think. They did not so much
blame the women who had started the movement that spoiled their soldier
homelife--how could women of the Fold be expected to know anything about
the conditions on the frontier?--but, said our sergeants and corporals
and sturdy men-at-arms, the soldier had a right to expect that Congress
would look before it voted. Possibly had the soldiers, too, been voters
their side of the case might have met some consideration; but, being
politically on the same plane with "Indians not taxed," it was safe, at
least, to similarly fix their social status and restrictions. Forbidden
by the people he was sworn to serve, to take his temperate drink at
home, but permitted by the same people to drink his fill of fiery stuff
abroad, abroad the thirsty soldier went, and with him went many a man
who had been content with mighty little, but resented it that he should
be discriminated against, denied the right of the humblest citizen, and
declared the only white man in America fit only to be ruled as is the
red.
The morning list of prisoners at Minneconjou was something over which
Stone was nearly breaking his heart. Every night now, in numbers, the
men were sneaking off across the stream, lured by the dance music, the
sound of clinking glass and soldier chorus and siren laughter. However
well the colonel might know his own profession, he was powerless under
the law to deal with this question. Here "Skid" had him and the garrison
by the throat. With the knowledge that his men were drinking, dicing,
and going generally to the devil within those ramshackle walls across
the stream, he could neither remove the victims nor dislodge their
tempters. Patrols he could send to search the roads, the open prairie,
the river bottom, but Skidmore had declared that no armed party could
legally cross his threshold, and the courts had backed him. Soldiers
roistering in the roadway in front of the dive would dart within doors
at sight of the patrol, and the officer, sergeant, or private that
entered there left hope behind of fair treatment in the civil courts.
Stone tried sending a big sergeant and six stalwart men unarmed, and
they came back eventually without coats, collars, or character, none of
them without bruises, some of them not without aid. Stone marveled that
so many of his men turned up in town drunk, helpless, and in the hands
of the local police, with fines imposed by the local magistrates, but
that, too, was presently explained. Skid kept a big, twelve-seated "bus"
that on busy nights, as the soldiers got well fuddled and completely
strapped, he would load up with the drugged and drowsy victims and,
instead of driving them over to the fort, would trundle them to town,
dump them in front of some saloon, there to be run in by a ready police,
and locked up until sober and abject. Then would come their arraignment
and the invariable "Five dollars or thirty days." Then their officers
would be notified. The fines at first were paid, until it dawned upon
Stone that Skid and Silver Hill, both, were in the swindling
combination, that after Skidmore had got the last cent of the men there
was still a way of squeezing more from the officers. As soon as the fort
realized the fact the town ceased to realize the funds, and Skidmore was
told to send no more castaways to Silver Hill, so he simply turned them
out to take their medicine where once they took their comfort--at the
post.
But Skid's was a menace in yet another way, and, so long as his "ranch"
was far over to the southeast, the fort had not felt it. The noble
redman likes liquor, and the low-caste and half-breed crave it. There
were always a shabby lot of hang-dog, prowling, ill-favored
off-scourings of the Sioux lurking about Skid's premises day and night,
bartering when they had anything to barter, but generally begging or
stealing. A drunken soldier, sleeping off his whisky in the willow
patches, was ever fair game, and sometimes now soldiers were found
throttled, and robbed of their very boots and shirts. Serious clashes
had occurred, and were of almost daily happening, to the end that
officers, out fishing or shooting, had been insulted and threatened by
Indians who had sworn vengeance against the soldier, and knew no
discrimination. "We'll have trouble from that yet," Stone had told his
general, and the grave, lined face of the latter showed how seriously he
regarded the possibility. Sandy Ray, riding far out to the southwest one
summer day, had met a brace of young braves who insolently ordered him
to turn back or fight, and this when he had not so much as a pocket
pistol or an inkling that trouble was brewing. Knowing a little of their
"lingo," and something of the sign language, he demanded an explanation,
and got for answer that two of their brothers had been worsted in
conflict with him and his party. Sandy protested he had had no trouble
with any of their people, and got a prompt answer, "Fork tongue!"
"Liar!" and other expletives not printable, and he turned back before
their revolvers, wrathful, helpless, and wondering. He told his tale to
the colonel, and Stone looked solemn:
"Sandy," said he, "you--take chances riding out that way. I--I've been
getting anxious about you--have been on the point of speaking--before."
Whereat Ray suddenly went crimson, through his coat of sun tan, and bit
his lip to control its quiver. "There's mischief brewing with those
people, I fear. Their agent has written me twice. One drunken brawl at
Skid's has led to clashes where whisky wasn't the inciting cause. He
says two of his young men were set upon by some of our troopers here,
and it isn't safe to meet them alone. Indeed, Sandy, I wish you'd ride
in--some other direction."
It was what his mother had very gently said to him but yester morning,
before he had heard of any sign of Indian trouble. How _was_ he to hear,
since he seemed to avoid the society of his kind and to prefer to live
alone? Ray left the colonel's presence with his nerves a-tingle. Had it
come to this then, that his father's old friend should say to his
father's son that--he was riding the wrong way?
Yes. This was another matter that was giving Stone sore trouble. Mrs.
Stone was a woman who paid, ordinarily, little heed to garrison talk.
She and her colonel were the best of chums, and one reason was that,
even when she heard she would never carry to him the little spiteful
rumors often set astir by the envious or malicious. When, therefore,
Mrs. Stone came to him with a story at the expense of man or woman, the
colonel knew there was something behind it. Now, though Mrs. Dwight's
pretty phaeton usually _started_ eastward, it speedily "changed
direction." The country about Minneconjou was very open, almost all
rolling, treeless prairie, and its hard, winding roads could be seen
criss-crossing the gray-green surface in many a mile. It seemed wicked
that Mrs. Dwight should care to stay out so long when her husband had
been so very seriously ill and was still confined to his room. Even
though he did not desire her presence, and was sore angered at and
presumably estranged from her, Minneconjou said she ought not to be
abroad, especially if it involved her meeting a young officer once
thought to have been deeply smitten with her charms. True, no one had
seen them together except from a long distance, and then it appeared
that the horseman rode for a few moments only by the side of the pretty
equipage. But, for what else could she go thither, and why, if bent on
going thither, should she thrice start by way of the east gate and then
make long, wide circuit of the prairie roads?
Mrs. Stone had heard enough to convince her she ought to speak to Mrs.
Dwight, but first she must consult her husband. Stone had heard just
enough to convince him he ought to speak to Sandy, when they had their
conference, this admirable couple, and that day he spoke.
And that day, as it happened, Sandy Ray had ridden home, saying to
himself "this must be the last."
One morning, the first meeting since that of the runaway, she had
surprised him mooning at the cottonwoods, his horse tethered and
cropping the bunch grass, he himself stretched at length at the edge of
the stream lost in deep and somber reflection. Just where she expected,
there she found him, but not as she expected. In spite of her
effusiveness the day of the drive, he was grave, distant, unresponsive,
though she sat beaming on him from the phaeton, Felicie beside her, an
unhearing, unheeding, uncomprehending dummy. The next time Inez took the
air in that direction she saw him afar off, and he her, and rode away.
That evening she promenaded quite an hour on her veranda, and later he
got a little missive:
Will Mr. Ray, if not too busy, come to me one moment? There is a
matter on which I much desire his aid.
(Signed) INEZ DWIGHT.
Ray was slowly crossing the parade, after an hour at the sergeants'
school. He could not stay home, where mother might possibly ask the
questions she sometimes looked, but he need not have feared. Dwight's
one soldier groom came speeding with the note and the word, "Mrs.
Dwight's at the gate now, sor" And at the gate she was, in diaphanous
muslin or _pina_ or _justi_--how should a man know? Ray neither knew nor
cared. His head was set against her, though his heart was throbbing
hard. He had listened just one day to her soft speeches, quivered under
her melting glance, and thrilled under her touch. Then he saw his danger
and swore he would shun it, coward or no coward. On that following day,
afar up the valley, he had set his face against her when she came in
search of him. Now he could not so affront her, though she had tricked
and affronted him. Again he was civil or coldly courteous, but he held
aloof and would not see her extended hand, whereat her underlip began to
tremble, and she laid her hand upon his arm.
"Am I _never_ to have a kind word, Sandy?" she pleaded, and there was
intoxication in the glance, the touch, and trembling lip. "Will you
never listen to my story, and know how I was tricked--how--how I lost
you?"
And bluntly he had answered, "I do not care to know. If that is all you
wish to see me about, good-night," then turned and left her. He was
raging at the thought of her flirtation with Foster. He could not
forgive that, though for a few hours, in the amaze, bewilderment, and
vague delight with which he had heard her waking words, and read the
alluring message in her eyes, and felt the warm throb of her heart,
almost against his, as they homeward drove, with Priscilla stern and
silent at the reins, he had forgotten. He had been carried back, in
spite of all, to the thrill and glamour of those wondrous days and
almost deliriously blissful nights, sailing over moonlit summer seas,
wandering under starry summer skies, with the soft breeze laden with the
perfume of the cherry blossoms stirring her dusky hair and blowing it
upon his warm young lips. But that was far, far in the past now. He
could have listened, _might_ have listened, but between her pleading
eyes--those beautiful, uplifted eyes--and him there stalked the effigy
of Stanley Foster, with that sneering, smiling, insolent, triumphant,
possessive look upon his evil face; and, though Ray hated it, it was
what he needed. Let it be remembered of him, then, that in the stillness
of the summer night when they two stood almost face to face and utterly
alone, despite her restraining hand, her beseeching touch and tone, he
turned sturdily away.
But alas for human frailty, that was not the last appeal! The summer
night was young, there was a soft wind blowing from the wrong direction,
the southeast, and the strains of music, mellowed and tempered by
distance, had been wafted fortwards from beyond the stream, soon to give
way to louder, harsher strains, and be punctuated by jeering laugh or
drunken yell. It was barely ten o'clock, yet the broad walk and many a
veranda along the row seemed deserted. Walking stiffly homeward, Ray met
only one couple, and never heeded a hail or two from vine-screened
porches. He was in no mood for chat or confidence. He wished to reach
his own room, and reach it unmolested. He breathed a sigh of relief that
there was no one to detain him as he neared his own doorway. The little
parlor, too, was deserted. Mother and Priscilla had apparently gone to
some one of the neighbors. The lights were turned down on the lower
floor and all was darkness above. Doors and windows, army-fashion, stood
wide open, and, as he struck a match on reaching his little room, the
white curtains were fluttering outward under the stir of the gentle air
that swept through from the hall. He had no thought of staying. He meant
to leave his books and papers, to bathe his face and hands, for they
seemed burning, and then--he had no definite plan; he only wished to be
alone.
At the foot of the stairs, as he reached the lower hall, he heard his
mother's voice. She was at the gate, Priscilla and Captain Washburn,
too, and Sandy turned, tiptoed through the hall, the dining-room, the
deserted kitchen, for the domestics had gone gossiping about the
neighborhood. Back of the kitchen, in the narrow yard, ran the
one-storied shed, divided by partitions into laundry, storeroom, coal
and woodshed, and Hogan's sleeping-room and sanctuary, and a dark form
issued from Hogan's doorway at the instant that Sandy, tiptoeing still,
came forth from the kitchen. "Hogan!" he hailed, but it was not Hogan.
It was someone of his own size and build, someone who started, then
stopped short and faced him with punctilious salute.
"It is Blenke, sir."
"And what the devil are you doing--there?" demanded Ray, suspicious,
irritated, nervously angered against everything, everybody; never,
moreover, approving of Blenke, and knowing well how Hogan disapproved of
him.
But Blenke's voice was gentle melancholy, mingled with profound respect.
"Looking for Hogan, sir. I had promised Miss Sanford to return some
books. I didn't presume to enter the house, and thought to leave a
message with him. I desired, too, to see the lieutenant, sir. My
application for transfer to the cavalry has been disapproved, and--I
hoped that he might say just a word to help me."
"After that exploit of yours--last month?" And Ray's eyes grew angrier
yet. "We have too many questionable characters as it is."
"Lieutenant," spoke the soldier, almost imploringly, "I am doing my best
to live down that--most deplorable affair. I was drugged, sir. There can
be no other explanation, but my captain still holds it against me, and
at the very time I most needed to be here, he has picked me out for
detached duty--to go to the wood camp in the Sagamore to-morrow."
And at the instant Priscilla's crisp, even tones were heard at the rear
door. "Oh, Blenke? I _thought_ I knew the voice. One moment and I'll
strike a light!"
And in that moment Sandy made his escape.
His mother was sitting up waiting for him when, an hour later, he came
in. Tenderly, fondly, she kissed him, and for a moment he clung to her.
Then, looking in her face, he saw impending question.
"Not--not to-night, mother, darling," he hurriedly spoke. "I _do_ want
to talk with you--to tell you, but not to-night. Bear with me just a day
or two, and"--then again his arms enfolded her--"trust me."
Her silent kiss, her murmured blessing, was his good-night. Then she
went slowly to her room, leaving him to extinguish the lights and close
their little army home to await the coming of another day.
But, somewhere about twelve there was trouble down toward the fords, and
Sandy, in no mood for sleep, went forth to inquire. The sentry on No. 3
was standing listening to the distant jumble of excited voices. "I don't
know what it was, sir. They took some fellow up to the guard-house, and
they're hunting the willows for more." Then No. 4, behind them, set up a
shout for the corporal, which No. 3 echoed, and Sandy, not knowing what
to expect or why he should go, trudged westward up the sentry post and
found No. 4 fifty paces beyond the last quarters, the major's, and
wrathful because "some fellers," he said, had sneaked in across his
post. The corporal came panting on the run, and Ray scouted on along the
bluff, saw nothing, found nobody, turned to his right at the west gate,
glanced upward where the night light burned dimly in the patient's room,
at the closed blinds and shades of the room he knew to be hers, and all
was hushed and still within the sleeping garrison as a second time he
walked slowly homeward along the row, unseen of anybody, probably, from
the moment he left the corporal and No. 4, who had some words over the
sentry's report, and parted in ill humor. "Don't you yell for me again
until it's business, d'ye hear?" was the corporal's last injunction.
Less than fifteen minutes later No. 4 was startled by a sudden sound--a
woman's half-stifled scream, followed by commotion at Major Dwight's.