A sleepless night had old John Folsom, and with the sun he was up again
and hurriedly dressing. Noiseless as he strove to be he was discovered,
for as he issued from his room into the dim light of the upper hall
there stood Pappoose.
"Poor Jess has been awake an hour," said she. "We've been trying to see
the troop through the glass. They must have started before daybreak, for
there's nothing on the road to Frayne."
"It disappears over the divide three miles out," he answered vaguely,
and conscious that her clear eyes were studying his face. "I didn't
sleep well either. We shall be having news from Hal to-day, and the mail
rider comes down from Frayne."
She had thrown about her a long, loose wrapper, and her lustrous hair
tumbled like a brown-black torrent down over her shoulders and back.
Steadfastly the brown eyes followed his every move.
"It is hours to breakfast time, Daddy dear; let me make you some coffee
before you go out."
"What? Who said I was going out?" he asked, forcing a smile; then, more
gravely: "I'll be back in thirty minutes, dear, but wait a moment I
cannot. I want to catch a man before he can possibly ride away."
He bent and kissed her hurriedly, and went briskly down the stairs. In
the lower hall he suddenly struck a parlor match that flared up and
illumined the winding staircase to the third story. Some thought as
sudden prompted her to glance aloft just in time to catch a glimpse of a
woman's face withdrawing swiftly over the balcony rail. In her hatred of
anything that savored of spying the girl could have called aloud a
demand to know what Mrs. Fletcher wanted, but strange things were in the
wind, as she was learning, and something whispered silence. Slowly she
returned to Jessie's side, and together once more they searched with the
glasses the distant trail that, distinctly visible now in the slant of
the morning sun, twisted up the northward slopes on the winding way to
Frayne. Not a whiff of dust could they see.
Meantime John Folsom strode swiftly down the well-known path to the
quartermaster's depot, a tumult of suspicion and conjecture whirling in
his brain. As he walked he recalled the many hints and stories that had
come to his ears of Burleigh's antecedents elsewhere and his
associations here. With all his reputation for enterprise and wealth,
there were "shady" tales of gambling transactions and salted mines and
watered stocks that attached perhaps more directly to the men with whom
he foregathered than to him. "A man is known by the company he keeps,"
said Folsom, and Burleigh's cronies, until Folsom came to settle in Gate
City, had been almost exclusively among the "sharps," gamblers, and
their kindred, the projectors and prospectors ever preying on the unwary
on the outer wave of progress. Within the past six months he had seen
much of him, for Burleigh was full of business enterprises, had large
investments everywhere, was lavish in invitation and suggestion, was
profuse in offers of aid of any kind if aid were wanted. He had gone so
far as to say that he knew from experience how with his wealth tied up
in real estate and mines a man often found himself in need of a few
thousands in spot cash, and as Folsom was buying and building, if at any
time he found himself a little short and needed ten or twenty thousand
say, why, Burleigh's bank account was at his service, etc. It all
sounded large and liberal, and Folsom, whose lot for years had been cast
with a somewhat threadbare array of army people, content with little,
impecunious but honest, he wondered what manner of martial man this was.
Burleigh did not loudly boast of his wealth and influence, but impressed
in some ponderous way his hearers with a sense of both. Yet, ever since
that run to Warrior Gap, a change had come over Burleigh. He talked more
of mines and money and showed less, and now, only yesterday, when the
old man's heart had mellowed to him because he had first held him wholly
to blame for Dean's arrest and later found him pleading for the young
fellow's release, a strange thing had happened. Burleigh confided to him
that he had a simply fabulous opportunity--a chance to buy out a mine
that experts secretly told him was what years later he would have called
a "bonanza," but that in the late sixties was locally known as a
"Shanghai." Twenty-five thousand dollars would do the trick, but his
money was tied up. Would Folsom go in with him, put up twelve thousand
five hundred, and Burleigh would do the rest? Folsom had been bitten by
too many mines that yielded only rattlesnakes, and he couldn't be lured.
Then, said Burleigh, wouldn't Folsom go on his note, so that he could
borrow at the bank? Folsom seldom went on anybody's note. It was as bad
as mining. He begged off, and left Burleigh disappointed, but not
disconcerted. "I can raise it without trouble," said he, "but it may
take forty-eight hours to get the cash here, and I thought you would be
glad to be let in on the ground floor."
"I've been let in to too many floors, major," said he. "You'll have to
excuse me." And so Burleigh, with his Louisiana captain, had driven off
to the fort, where Newhall asked for Griggs and was importunate, nor did
Griggs's whisky, freely tendered to all comers of the commissioned
class, tend to assuage his desire. Back had they gone to town, and then
came the cataclysm of noon.
In broad daylight, at his official desk, in the presence and hearing of
officers, civilians and enlisted men, as the soldier lawyers would have
it, a staff official of high rank had been cowhided by a cavalry
subaltern, and that subaltern, of all others, the only brother of
Folsom's fair guest, Jessie Dean--the boy who had saved the lives of
Folsom's son and his son's imperiled household, and had thereby endeared
himself to him as had no other young soldier in the service. And now,
what fate was staring him in the face? Released from arrest but a day or
so before upon the appeal of the officer whom he had so soon thereafter
violently assaulted, Marshall Dean had committed one of the gravest
crimes against the provisions of the Mutiny Act. Without warrant or
excuse he had struck, threatened, assaulted, etc., a superior officer,
who was in the discharge of his duty at the time. No matter what the
provocation--and in this case it would be held grossly inadequate--there
could be only one sentence--summary dismissal from the army. Just as
sure as shooting, if Burleigh preferred charges that boy was ruined.
And for mortal hours that afternoon it looked as though nothing could
hold Burleigh's hand. The man was livid with wrath. First he would have
the youngster's blood, and then he'd dismiss him. Folsom pointed out
that he couldn't well do both, and by two o'clock it simmered down to a
demand for instant court-martial. Burleigh wrote a furious telegram to
Omaha. He had been murderously assaulted in his office by Lieutenant
Dean. He demanded his immediate arrest and trial. Folsom pleaded with
him to withhold it. Every possible _amende_ would be made, but no!
Indeed, not until nearly four o'clock could Folsom succeed in the last
resort at his disposal. At that hour he had lent the quartermaster
fifteen thousand dollars on his unindorsed note of hand, on condition
that no proceedings whatever should be taken against Mr. Dean, Folsom
guaranteeing that every _amende_ should be made that fair arbitration
could possibly dictate. He had even gone alone to the bank and brought
the cash on Burleigh's representation that it might hurt his credit to
appear as a borrower. He had even pledged his word that the transaction
should be kept between themselves.
And then there had been a scene with that drunken wretch Newhall. What
possible hold had he on Burleigh that he should be allowed to come
reeling and storming into the office and demanding money and lots of
money--this, too, in the presence of total strangers? And Burleigh had
actually paid him then and there some hundreds of dollars, to the
stupefaction of the fellow--who had come for a row. They got him away
somehow, glad to go, possibly, with his unexpected wealth, and Burleigh
had explained that that poor devil, when he could be persuaded to swear
off, was one of the bravest and most efficient officers in the service,
that he was well to do, only his money, too, was tied up in mines; but
what was of more account than anything else, he had devotedly and at
risk of his own life from infection nursed his brother officer Burleigh
through the awful epidemic of yellow fever in New Orleans in '67. He had
saved Burleigh's life, "so how can I go back on him now," said he.
All this was the old trader revolving in mind as he hastened to the
depot, all this and more. For two days Marshall Dean and "C" troop had
stood ready for special service. Rumor had it that the old general
himself had determined to take the field and was on his way to Gate
City. It was possibly to escort him and his staff the troop was ordered
kept prepared to move at a moment's notice. On Burleigh's desk was a
batch of telegrams from Department Headquarters. Two came in during
their long conference in the afternoon, and the quartermaster had
lowered his hand long enough from that lurid welt on his sallow cheek to
hurriedly write two or three in reply. One Folsom felt sure was sent in
cipher. Two days before, Burleigh had urged him to protest as vehemently
as he could against the sending of any money or any small detachment up
to the Big Horn, and protested he had strenuously. Two days before,
Burleigh said it was as bad as murder to order a paymaster or disbursing
officer to the Hills with anything less than a battalion to escort him,
and yet within four hours after he was put in possession of nearly all
the paper currency in the local bank a secret order was issued sending
Lieutenant Dean with ten picked men to slip through the passes to the
Platte, away from the beaten road, and up to ten P.M. Dean himself was
kept in ignorance of his further destination or the purpose of his
going. Not until half-past ten was a sealed package placed in his hands
by the post quartermaster, who had himself received it from Major
Burleigh and then and there the young officer was bidden by Colonel
Stevens, as the medium of the department commander, to ride with all
haste commensurate with caution, to ford the Sweetwater above its
junction with the Platte, to travel by night if need be and hide by day
if he could, to let no man or woman know the purpose of his going or the
destination of his journey, but to land that package safe at Warrior Gap
before the moon should wane.
And all this Burleigh must have known when he, John Folsom, shook his
hand at parting after tea that evening, and had then gone hopefully to
drive his girls to Emory to see his soldier boy, and found him busy with
the sudden orders, received not ten minutes before their coming.
Something in Burleigh's almost tremulous anxiety to get that money in
the morning, his ill-disguised chagrin at Folsom's refusal, something in
the eagerness with which, despite the furious denunciation of the moment
before, he jumped at Folsom's offer to put up the needed money if he
would withhold the threatened charges--all came back to the veteran now
and had continued to keep him thinking during the night. Could it be
that Burleigh stood in need of all this money to cover other sums that
he had misapplied? Could it be that he had planned this sudden sending
of young Dean on a desperate mission in revenge that he could not take
officially? There were troops at Frayne going forward in strong force
within the week. There were other officers within call, a dozen of them,
who had done nowhere near the amount of field service performed by Dean.
He, a troop commander just in from long and toilsome marches and from
perilous duty, had practically been relieved from the command of his
troop, told to take ten men and run the gauntlet through the swarming
Sioux. The more Folsom thought the more he believed that he had grave
reason for his suspicion, and reason equally grave for calling on the
quartermaster for explanation. He reached the corral gate. It was
locked, but a little postern in the stockade let him through. One or two
sleepy hands appeared about the stables, but the office was deserted.
Straight to Burleigh's quarters he went and banged at the door. It took
three bangs to bring a servant.
"I wish to see your master at once. Tell him I am here," and as the
servant slowly shambled up the stairs, Folsom entered the sitting-room.
A desk near the window was open and its contents littered about. The
drawers in a heavy bookcase were open and papers were strewn upon the
floor. The folding doors to the dining-room were open. Decanters,
goblets, cigar stumps and heel taps were scattered over the table. Guest
or host, or both, had left things in riotous shape. Then down came the
servant, a scared look in his eyes.
"The major isn't in, sir. His bed hasn't been occupied, an' the
captain's gone, too. Their uniforms are there, though."
Five minutes later, on a borrowed horse, John Folsom was galloping like
mad for home. A door in the high board fence at the rear of his house
shot open just as he was darting through the lane that led to the
stable. A woman's form appeared in the gap--the last thing that he saw
for a dozen hours, for the horse shied violently, hurling the rider
headlong to the ground.