TRUTH STRANGER THAN FICTION
There was wrath mingled with the rejoicing that thrilled all through the
garrison that afternoon. Scattering far and wide, the ring-leaders, the
more prominent braves engaged in the revolt at the agency, were seeking
the refuge of kindred bands, leaving the old men and many Indian
households to explain the situation and secure eventually the peace
always so readily accorded. Placing a guard over the unconsumed
property, and sending most of the cavalry in pursuit of the renegades,
Stone telegraphed brief statement to department headquarters, lauding
Ray and his plucky detachment as they deserved, and Dwight and the
squadron as well, for their swift and skillful dash to the rescue. By
sunset the few dead, the several wounded and many homeless women and
children had been conveyed to the fort, Silver Hill turning out in
force, and the Argenta and rival stables contributing rigs in abundance.
Major Dwight was again beneath the same roof with little Jim, the father
well-nigh as helpless as the fever-stricken boy, for, the excitement
over, his duty done and splendidly done, and he himself shocked and
shaken by the fall of his horse, shot down almost at the last moment of
the charge, Dwight was brought back in the ambulance and assisted again
to his reclining chair in the den. Home he quietly refused to go. Mrs.
Dwight, as was proper and decorous, so soon as she could rally, under
the ministrations of Felicie, from the prostration that befell as a
result of seeing her adored, though deluded, husband riding off to
battle without ever a word or kiss to his suffering one, lost little
time in coming to implore her Oswald to return to his own room and her
arms. But Dr. Waring gravely told her it was then impossible, and
persuaded her, deluged in tears, to leave him in peace. Her parents, he
said, would soon be with her. They had been telegraphed for, and were to
start at once. Every provision should be made for their comfort and
hers, and, he added, for her future; but she must understand that for
the time being Major Dwight begged to be permitted to give his entire
attention to his son, whose case was desperate.
So Inez, veiled and leaning heavily on the arm of Felicie, went sobbing
homeward through the dusk of the closing and solemn day, followed by
many curious eyes, and was once more within doors before Sandy Ray had
been restored to his mother's arms. Not until the last of his "forlorn
hope" had been gathered up and shipped back to Minneconjou would Sandy
consent to be driven thither himself, to find almost every door at the
post open to welcome him except his own, where there were now three or
four more denizens than there were beds. Stone himself was on hand to
say that Mrs. Stone had one of their spare rooms all prepared for him,
and this, too, in spite of the fact that Stone had stowed away, where
none could see, a certain letter that, unexplained, might yet render
Sandy Ray ineligible to residence under any roof at Minneconjou for all
time to come.
But, unbeknowst to the colonel, the matter of Sandy's billet had been
settled beforehand. Lieutenant Purdy, of the Sixty-first, a near
neighbor, had met the "conquering hero" almost halfway, with the
information that his room was ready for him; his mother had already been
in to see and to approve, and there he must make himself at home, close
to his own quarters; and possibly Stone was grateful.
There were several things in connection with the day's work for which he
could give no thanks whatever, and one of these was the news that
finally came from the wood camp. Black Wolf's thunderous harangue of the
early morning was not all an empty lie. Only the poor remains of the
sergeant, seven of his little guard, and several of the workmen, each
body surrounded by empty cartridge shells, mute witnesses of their
desperate battle for life, were left of those who had so cheerily
marched away; and, Blenke being safe lodged within the post, there were
still three absent unaccounted for. Blenke himself seemed crushed by the
tragic fate of these comrades whom he had vainly risked his life to
save. There was great sympathy expressed for Blenke throughout the
depleted garrison that night. There was talk of his daring essay all
over the post. There was whispering of it even in the dim-lighted wards
of the hospital, where lay the wounded and the scorched and seared.
Possibly it was the torment of his burns that made Skelton toss, mutter,
and finally blaspheme outright, but blaspheme he did at each successive
mention of Blenke, and, presently, with frightful, spiteful vehemence
and virulence. The steward in charge thought him delirious, and Skelton
said perhaps he was. 'Twould make a cat laugh and a man stark mad to
have to listen to such infernal rot, and this, as in duty bound the
steward told to Wallen at his earliest appearance, whereat that wise
young practitioner looked long at Skelton and--wiser still before he
came away.
With all the official turmoil that grew and throve at Minneconjou in the
week that followed, this narrative has nothing to do. The general came
and went, and lots of troops and dozens of officers. Even Wister, far to
the west, was called upon for its contingent for field service in
rounding up the renegades, and Stanley Foster's troop, Stanley and all,
came over the Sagamore by special delivery, so to speak, and detrained
at Fort Siding, whence a detail sped to the fort for such supplies as
were needed, and the troopers marched at dawn, a wearied-looking captain
at their head. There was much to do in the field; there was much ado at
the fort. This last, which barely escaped becoming official, had to do
mainly with these, our _dramatis personae_, and may now briefly be
recorded, and then our story is done.
The center of human interest, of local interest, at least, was for a
memorable week shifted from the major's quarters to those where lay our
little Jimmie, tossing night and day in fever that threatened to burn
out everything but itself, tended night and day by gentle hands, by
devoted women, by one especially whose pluck and patience never gave
out, and whose physical powers proved indomitable--Priscilla Sanford.
There were days in which they could not induce the father to remain
below. His whole being seemed centered in that desperate fight for life,
wherein he, a soldier of many a heady fight, could wield no weapon for
the cause for which he would instantly have laid down life itself could
it but insure that of his only son. There came one awful day in which,
as he bent over the stricken form, his lips moving in piteous prayer to
Heaven, his eyes imploringly fixed upon the flushed and fevered little
face, suddenly a gleam of recognition seemed to flash from the now
dilating eyes, and as he and Priscilla leaned eagerly forward, in
shuddering terror the writhing form shrank from his touch, the sobbing
cry, startling in its utter amaze, incredulity--its imploring appeal
burst from the burning lips, "Don't strike me, daddy; _please_ don't!
Indeed, _indeed_ I didn't lie!" And with a groan of anguish unspeakable
Oswald Dwight dropped upon his knees and, sobbing aloud, buried his face
in his quivering hands. It was Priscilla who finally raised him to his
feet, and Waring led him, exhausted, from the room. From that hour, in
which it seemed as though Heaven itself had directed the final lesson
should be given, and through him, the patient victim of human
fallibility, the boy began to mend; and one day Waring and Wallen,
coming forth together, stopped and solemnly shook hands at the head of
the stairs and left the chastened father and that dauntless nurse
silently communing in the presence of the fluttering, yet reawakened,
life the one had so nearly imperiled, the other had so indomitably
battled to save.
And all this while there were other lives and other fates and other
fortunes almost as desperately entangled and endangered. The general had
summoned Stone to follow him afield. It was hard work finding those
scattered wards of the nation, those lambs of the flock fled afar from
the agency, and Stone left with the fate of his three wood guards still
undetermined, for the soldiers had searched in vain. He left, too, with
most of his men, while Major Layton, ordered up from Niobrara, took
temporary command of the post, Dwight being, as yet, unfit for duty of
any kind. Stone was a week away, scouting through the Sagamore and over
toward the Belle Fourche, and brought back with him some four-score
"reds" of various ages and sexes, and two well-nigh starved and
exhausted men, two of French's devoted band, who, they said, had been
sent out the night before the attack to build and fire a beacon on the
summit of a tall, sharp, pine-crested height a mile away from camp.
French thought the signal might bring help from the post. They never
reached that crest. They heard the Indians shouting to each other in
pursuit. They made their way farther into the hills and lived on what
they had in their haversacks, hiding by day, for the hills seemed full
of redskins. They were taken to hospital to recuperate, and meantime,
while Stone's battalion settled down again into quarters, and business
at Skidmore's resumed its normal aspect, and the guard and prisoners
their abnormal number, Major Layton returned to Niobrara after imparting
to Colonel Stone a story he had succeeded in tracing back to three
sentries, a story he could neither stifle nor throttle, and that he left
with Colonel Stone to deal with as best he might; and Stone, thinking
again, as he had thought a thousand times before, of that letter in
feminine hand, and in his private desk, felt his heart go down to his
boots. In brief, the story was that twice during the week a young and
slender officer had issued from the rear gate of Lieutenant Purdy's
quarters, made his way in the black shadows of the fence-line to the
rear gate of Major Dwight's, where once, at least No. 4 could swear, it
was nearly an hour before he reappeared.
Stone took council that very evening with Waring, the senior surgeon.
Waring had just come from Rays', saying little Jim, though dreadfully
weak and emaciated, was surely convalescing--that Dwight, with all his
joy, seemed humbler than a little child. "I believe, by gad, that in his
present frame of mind he'd forgive her, that incomprehensible little
wretch of a wife of his, no matter what she'd done, if she'd come and
ask him now."
Whereupon Stone abruptly said, "By ---- he sha'n't! Come in here," and
he closed the study door behind them. Within twenty minutes thereafter
Dr. Waring had mastered the contents of three precious papers. First,
Major Layton's memorandum of the sentry's statements; second, a little
note that said, "at the usual place and time" and informing somebody of
the writer's intention of quitting "Minneconjou--and him--forever";
third, a note explanatory of the second, and this note was type-written
and without signature:
The inclosed was found in a notebook belonging to Lieutenant
Sanford Ray, which had been dropped last night at the rear entrance
to the quarters of Major Dwight. The major will know who wrote the
inclosed, and should know for whom it was written.
Two nights thereafter, toward one o'clock, Major Dwight, with the post
adjutant and Dr. Waring in attendance, knocked for admission at his own
front door and knocked repeatedly before Felicie could be induced to
appear with the to-be-expected plea that Madame had but just composed
herself after nights of sleepless weeping, and surely she could not now
be disturbed. Dwight demanded instant admission and, finding parley
useless, Felicie unbarred the door and unloosed her tongue. "Shut up,
you Jezebel!" said the doctor impolitely. "Sit down there and be quiet."
Dwight was already mounting the stair, and presently could be heard
demanding admission to his wife's room. There was whimpering appeal in
the response, but the door was speedily unlocked, and the voice of Inez
could be heard in tones suggestive of unspeakable shock and grief and
sense of indignity and injustice. Presently Dwight came down again.
"Unbolt that dining-room door--and the back!" said he curtly to the
trembling maid, and when she would have demurred, seized her not too
gently by the arm, almost as he had seized little Jim, and propelled her
ahead of him into the dining-room. It was significant that the adjutant
remained at the front door. It was more significant that when the rear
door finally swung open there stood a silent sergeant of the guard,
while the waning moon glinted upon the bayonets of certain soldiers on
the level below. Felicie shrank at the announcement, yet could hardly
have been unprepared for it: "Someone opened from within a moment ago,
sir, and darted back at sight of the cap and buttons."
"Bring two men and come in," was the brief answer, and then with lighted
candles and a lantern a search began, a search for many minutes utterly
without result, though another sergeant came and the officer of the day,
and all this time Felicie was begging to be restored to Madame, who
would assuredly again be prostrated and in need of her, and Dwight said,
"Let her go," whereat, as was noted, she darted first to her own room,
not to Madame's, and presently the search began again on the second
floor; and, to the amaze of the domestics aloft, soon invaded the very
garret itself, where first there was found the print of stocking feet on
a dusty plank, just as from under a box in the kitchen a pair of shoes
were pulled forth never worn by any authorized inmate of those quarters.
Then more lanterns went up the back stairs and more prodding followed in
the loft, and presently the watchers below heard stifled sounds of
excitement and scurry, and then, wild-eyed and striving to be strictly
professional, Sergeant Jennison descended and said: "We've got him, sir.
He's chokin' like."
And presently again, limp, half-suffocated, smeared with dust and dirt,
in shirt sleeves and trousers coated with cobwebs and lint, there was
lowered to the second floor and shoved out on the landing at the head of
the stairs an almost unrecognizable creature, still struggling for
breath. "No man that wasn't made of rubber instead of flesh and bones
could have doubled himself in where he was," said the corporal to the
silent group, and, indeed, it looked as though he were doubling up
again, for the knees gave way, the head fell forward, and but for
restraining arms down would he have gone. The sergeant propped him up
again. The doctor plied a wet sponge, and Felicie, at the door of her
mistress' chamber, gasped in amaze: "_Mon Dieu!_ the miscreant who has
terrified Madame!" Whereat the dull eyes of the miscreant began slowly
to burn, and then to blaze; and, finally, as a faint color showed in his
sallow cheek, and the officer of the day, his official captor, bluntly
demanded explanation of his being in this house and at this time of
night, and both he and Waring and the adjutant, too, as it later
appeared, had all swiftly decided that the one explanation, the only
one, conceivable would be burglarious intent, to the utter amaze of
every man present, to the dismay of Felicie, who screamed aloud, the
head went suddenly up and back--oh, how well those who knew the Rays
knew that gesture!--the dark eyes flashed in hate and rage, and the
"miscreant's" voice rang out in defiance, triumph, almost exultation:
"What explanation? I'd have you know I'm the only man in this post who
has legal right in that room. Ask the lady herself."
Dwight's jaw was drooping. Slowly he turned to where Felicie, after one
short, half-stifled scream, stood staring wildly upon the prisoner, her
hands clasped to her frizzled head. "Ask--this--woman, you mean?" he
faltered, in the midst of almost breathless silence.
"That woman? No! _Ask my wife, who lies in that room!_"
Then, before any man could lay hand on and stop him, Dwight had sprung
forward and struck the miscreant down.
Next morning the guard report bore the name, as a prisoner under sentry
in hospital, of Private Blenke, of Company "C," and next night did
Private Skelton, another patient, a precious tale unfold.
It was true that Skelton had once served in the old --th Cavalry, and,
in common with many a man in his troop, had detested his first
lieutenant, Foster. It was true that there were now in the garrison of
Fort Minneconjou--two in the infantry and one in the cavalry--three men
who had an ancient grudge against that officer. It was true that the
sight of his hated face, hovering ever about the major's wife, had
revived all the old rancor. Two of the number had sworn that if ever a
time came when they could wreak their revenge upon him they would do it.
He had robbed one man of his sweetheart and two of their liberty, and
had driven these two into desertion. Skelton had once been rather
well-to-do, but drink and this trouble had ruined him. He had known
Blenke as much as a year, had been a "super" in a traveling show company
of which Blenke was a member. Blenke was a gymnast and trapeze performer
of some note, and not a bad actor in dialect and minor roles. The
company stranded. They were hundreds of miles from "home," without
money, hope, or credit. Skelton steered Blenke to a recruiting office,
and, once arrived at Minneconjou, Blenke became ambitious. He knew
nothing of the regular army before; now he was determined to become an
officer. Skelton alone knew anything of Blenke's past, and Skelton
promised not to "split." The coming of Mrs. Dwight brought a remarkable
change in Blenke, and when Captain Foster followed her and hung about
her all day long, Skelton saw there was something much amiss. Blenke
seemed going crazy through watching that lady and that man. Blenke had
some clothes of Lieutenant Ray's that he kept hidden at Skidmore's, and
Skelton felt sure that when the story went round about Lieutenant Ray's
being seen at night, prowling back of the major's quarters, that Blenke
was the real culprit. They were talking one day--Skelton and his former
chums--of the chance they'd have now of waylaying the captain, and
Blenke twitted them of not daring, even if they had the chance. They
vowed then that if he would only show them a way, he could count on
their doing it, and they did. Blenke had a plan matured, when suddenly
the captain left, after the row with Lieutenant Ray, and then Blenke
seemed just to take fire. He sent for them and unfolded another. The
Captain's train was five hours late and he knew a way to lure him out on
the road. He hated him, too, he said, and "we were beginning to see why.
He was so dead gone on the lady himself." He fixed the whole business,
got a note to the captain, he said, the captain couldn't tell from her
own writing, and it fetched him out just as was planned, and the rest
was pretty much as the captain told it. Skelton at first didn't much
care that an officer got credit for it all; Blenke had seen to that.
Blenke seemed to hate Lieutenant Ray--though he was forever copying
him--most as much as he hated Foster; but when Skelton got to the
agency, got to know Ray, got knocked down at the pow-wow and rescued by
Ray, got shot and left to roast to death at the agency, and was again
rescued by Ray, Skelton made up his mind that he'd sooner go to
Leavenworth for life, if he lived, or to hell if he didn't, than permit
Mr. Ray to suffer another day in suspicion. It was Blenke who wore his
dress at night and copied his very limp. It was Blenke that kept
prowling about the major's, lallygagging with that French maid. It was
high time Blenke himself was in limbo, and now they'd got him, they'd be
wise to keep an eye on him.
And so, with the case--the two cases--against Sandy Ray abruptly closed,
the colonel, the surgeon and the adjutant, who had heard the confession,
seemed also to think; for the sentry at the bedside of the mournful-eyed
invalid received orders to bayonet him if he attempted to budge.
And all in vain, for, with the dawn of a bleak to-morrow, Private
Blenke, no one could begin to say how, had slipped by his possibly
drowsing guard and escaped. The prairie, the Minneconjou valley, the
trains, were fruitlessly searched. The agile prisoner had fled from the
wrath to come.