In the busy week that followed Lieutenant Stuyvesant had his full share
of work and no time for social distraction. Appointed to the staff of
General Vinton, with orders to sail without delay for Manila, the young
officer found his hours from morn till late at night almost too short
for the duties demanded of him.
The transports were almost ready. The troops had been designated for the
expedition. The supplies were being hurried aboard. The general had his
men all the livelong day at the rifle-ranges or drill-grounds, for most
of the brigade were raw volunteers who had been rushed to the point of
rendezvous with scant equipment and with less instruction. The camps
were thronged with men in all manner of motley as to dress and no little
variety as to dialect. Few of the newly appointed officers in the
Department of Supply were versed in their duties, and the young regulars
of the staff of the commanding general were working sixteen hours out of
the twenty-four, coaching their comrades of the volunteers.
The streets were crowded with citizens eager to welcome and applaud the
arriving troops. Hotels were thronged. Restaurants were doing a thriving
business, for the army ration did not too soon commend itself in its
simplicity to the stomachs of some thousands of young fellows who had
known better diet if no better days, many of their number having left
luxurious homes and surroundings and easy salaries to shoulder a musket
for three dollars a week.
Private soldiers in blue flannel shirts were learning to stand attention
and touch their caps to young men in shoulder-straps whom they had
laughed at and called "tin soldiers" a year agone because they belonged
to the militia--a thing most of the gilded youth in many of our Western
cities seemed to scorn as beneath them.
In the wave of patriotic wrath and fervor that swept the land when the
Maine was done to death in Havana Harbor, many and many a youth who has
sneered at the State Guardsmen learned to wish that he too had given
time and honest effort to the school of the soldier, for now, unless he
had sufficient "pull" to win for him a staff position, his only hope was
in the ranks.
And so, even in the recruit detachments of the regulars, were found
scores of young men whose social status at home was on a plane much
higher than that of many of their officers. But the time had come when
the long and patient effort of the once despised militiaman had won
deserved recognition. The commissions in the newly raised regiments were
held almost exclusively by officers who had won them through long
service with the National Guard.
And in the midst of all the whirl of work in which he found himself,
Lieutenant Stuyvesant had been summoned to the tent of General Drayton,
commanding the great encampment on the sand-lots south of the Presidio
reservation, and bidden to tell what he knew of one Walter F. Foster,
recruit --th Cavalry, member of the detachment sent on via the Denver
and Rio Grande to Ogden, then transferred to the Southern Pacific train
Number 2 _en route_ to San Francisco, which detachment was burned out
of its car and the car out of its train early on the morning of the
---- of June, 1898, somewhere in the neighborhood of a station with
the uncouth name of Beowawe in the heart of the Humboldt Desert, and
which Recruit Foster had totally disappeared the following evening,
having been last seen by his comrades as the train was ferried across
Carquinez Straits, thirty miles from Oakland Pier, and later by
railway hands at Port Costa on the back trip of the big boat to the
Benicia side.
There was little Stuyvesant could tell. He hardly remembered the man
except as a fine-featured young fellow who seemed shy, nervous, and
unstrung, something Stuyvesant had hitherto attributed to the startling
and painful experience of the fire, and who, furthermore, seemed
desirous of dodging the lieutenant, which circumstance Stuyvesant could
not fathom at all, and if anything rather resented.
He explained to the general that he was in no wise responsible for the
care of the detachment. He had only casually met them at Ogden, and
circumstances later had thrown him into closer relation.
But the veteran general was desirous of further information. He sat at
the pine table in his plainly furnished tent, looking thoughtfully into
the frank and handsome face of the young officer, his fingers beating a
tattoo on the table-top. The general's eyes were sombre, even sad at
times. Beneath them lay lines of care and sorrow. His voice was low, his
manner grave, courteous, even cold. He was studying his man and
discussing in his mind how far he might confide in him.
Obedient to the general's invitation, Stuyvesant had taken a chair close
to the commander's table and sat in silence awaiting further question.
At last it came.
"You say he left nothing--no trace--behind?"
"There was nothing to leave, general. He had only a suit of underwear,
in which he escaped from the car. The men say he had had money and a
valise filled with things which he strove to keep from sight of any of
his fellows. They say that he befriended a tough character by the name
of Murray, who had enlisted with him, and they think Murray knows
something about him."
"Where is Murray now?" asked the chief.
"In the guard-house at the Presidio. He gave the corporal in charge a
good deal of trouble and was placed under guard the morning they reached
the city. They had to spend the night with the Iowa regiment at Oakland
Pier."
Again the gray-haired general gave himself to thought. "Could you tell
how he was dressed when he disappeared?" he finally asked.
"A young man in the second sleeper gave him a pair of worn blue serge
trousers and his morocco slippers. Somebody else contributed a _neglige_
shirt and a black silk travelling cap. He was wearing these when last
I spoke to him at Sacramento, where he would not eat anything. I--I had
wired ahead for dinner for them."
"Yes," said the general with sudden indignation in his tone, "and I'm
told the company refused to reimburse you. What excuse did they give?"
"It's of little consequence, sir," laughed Stuyvesant. "The loss hasn't
swamped me."
"That's as may be," answered the general. "It's the principle involved.
That company is coining money by the thousands transporting troops at
full rates, and some of the cars it furnished were simply abominable.
What was the excuse given?"
"They said, or rather some official wrote, that they wouldn't reimburse
us because they had already had to sustain the loss of that car due to
the carelessness of our men, and their own train-hands, general, knew
there was no smoking and the men were all asleep. Foster had a very
narrow escape, and Corporal Connelly was badly burned lugging Murray
out."
The general took from a stack of correspondence at his right hand a
letter on club paper, studied it a moment, and then glanced up at
Stuyvesant. "Was not Colonel Ray's regiment with you at Chickamauga?" he
asked.
"It was expected when I left, general. You mean the --th Kentucky?"
"I mean his volunteer regiment--yes. I was wondering whether any of his
family had gone thither. But you wouldn't be apt to know."
And Stuyvesant felt the blood beginning to mount to his face. He could
answer for it that one member had not gone thither. He was wondering
whether he ought to speak of it when Drayton finally turned upon him and
held forth the letter. "Read that," said he, "but regard it as
confidential."
It was such a letter as one frank old soldier might write another. It
was one of a dozen that had come to Drayton that day asking his interest
in behalf of some young soldier about joining his command. It was dated
at Cincinnati five days earlier, and before Stuyvesant had read half
through the page his hand was trembling.
"Dear Drayton," it said, "I'm in a snarl, and I want your help. My
sister's pet boy came out to try his hand at ranching near us last
year. He had some money from his father and everything promised
well for his success if he could have stuck to business. But he
couldn't. Billy Ray, commanding my first squadron, was stationed
with me, and the first thing I knew the boy was head over ears in
love with Billy's daughter. I can't blame him. Marion, junior, is
as pretty a girl as ever grew up in the army, and she's a brave
and winsome lass besides--her Dad all over, as her mother says.
"Walter's ranch was thirty miles away, but he'd ride the sixty six
times a week, if need be, to have a dance with Maidie Ray, and the
cattle could go to the wolves. Then came the war. The Governor of
Kentucky gave Ray the command of a regiment, and that fool boy of
mine begged him to take him along. Ray couldn't. Besides, I don't
think he half liked Walter's devotions to the girl, though he
hadn't anything against him exactly. Then I was retired and sent
home, and the next thing my sister, Mrs. Foster, came tearing in
to tell me Walter had gone and enlisted--enlisted in the regulars
at Denver and was going to 'Frisco and Manila, as he couldn't get
to Cuba. She's completely broke up about it.
"Foster went to Washington and saw the President and got a
commission for him in the signal corps,--volunteers,--and he
should be with you by the time you get this, so I wired ahead.
"He isn't altogether a bad lot, but lacks horse sense, and gave
his parents a good deal of anxiety in his varsity days abroad.
He was in several scrapes along with a boon companion who seems
to have been so much like him, physically and morally, that,
mother-like, Mrs. Foster is sure that very much of which her
Walter was accused was really done by Wally's chum. I'm not so
sure of this myself, but at all events Foster made it a condition
that the boy should cut loose from the evil association, as he
called it, before certain debts would be paid. I don't know what
soldier stuff there is in him--if any--but give him a fair start
for old times' sake.
"I need not tell you that I wish you all the joy and success
the double stars can bring. I'd be in it too but for that old
Spotsylvania shot-hole and rheumatics. My eagles, however, will
fold their wings and take a rest, but we'll flap 'em and scream
every time you make a ten-strike.
"Yours, as ever,
"Martindale."
Stuyvesant did not look up at once after finishing the letter. When he
did, and before he could speak, the general was holding out some
telegrams, and these too he took and read--the almost agonized appeals
of a mother for news of her boy--the anxious inquiries, coupled with
suggestions of the veteran soldier concerning the only son of a beloved
sister. Drayton's fine, thoughtful face was full of sympathy--his eyes
clouded with anxiety and sorrow. Martindale was not the only old soldier
in search of son or nephew that fateful summer.
"You see how hard it is to be able to send no tidings whatever," he
said. "I sent to you in the hope that you might think of some possible
explanation, might suggest some clue or theory. Can you?"
There was just one moment of silence, and then again Stuyvesant looked
up, his blue eyes meeting the anxious gaze of the commander.
"General," he hazarded, "it is worth while to try Sacramento. Miss Ray
is there."