II.

The night before had been unusually dark. A thick veil of clouds

overspread the heavens and hid the stars. Moon there was none, for the

faint silver crescent that gleamed for a moment through the

swift-sailing wisps of vapor had dropped beneath the horizon soon after

tattoo, and the mournful strains of "taps," borne on the rising wind,

seemed to signal "extinguish lights" to the entire firmament as well as

to Fort Sibley. There was a dance of some kind at the quarters of one of

the staff-officers living far up the row on the southern terrace.

Chester heard the laughter and chat as the young officers and their

convoy of matrons and maids came tripping homeward after midnight. He

was a crusty old bachelor, to use his own description, and rarely

ventured into these scenes of social gayety, and, besides, he was

officer of the day, and it was a theory he was fond of expounding to

juniors that when on guard no soldier should permit himself to be drawn

from the scene of his duties. With his books and his pipe Chester whiled

away the lonely hours of the early night, and wondered if the wind would

blow up a rain or disperse the clouds entirely. Towards one o'clock a

light, bounding footstep approached his door, and the portal flew open

as a trim-built young fellow with laughing eyes and an air of exuberant

health and spirits came briskly in. It was Rollins, the junior second

lieutenant of the regiment, and Chester's own and only pet,--so said the

envious others. He was barely a year out of leading-strings at the

Point, and as full of hope and pluck and mischief as a colt. Moreover,

he was frank and teachable, said Chester, and didn't come to him with

the idea that he had nothing to learn and less to do. The boy won upon

his gruff captain from the very start, and, to the incredulous delight

of the whole regiment, within six months the old cynic had taken him

into his heart and home, and Mr. Rollins occupied a pleasant room under

Chester's roof-tree, and was the sole accredited sharer of the captain's

mess. To a youngster just entering service, whose ambition it was to

stick to business and make a record for zeal and efficiency, these were

manifest advantages. There were men in the regiment to whom such close

communion with a watchful senior would have been most embarrassing, and

Mr. Rollins's predecessor as second lieutenant of Chester's company was

one of these. Mr. Jerrold was a happy man when promotion took him from

under the wing of "Crusty Jake" and landed him in Company B. More than

that, it came just at a time when, after four years of loneliness and

isolation at an up-river stockade, his new company and his old one,

together with four others from the regiment, were ordered to join

head-quarters and the band at the most delightful station in the

Northwest. Here Mr. Rollins had reported for duty during the previous

autumn, and here they were with troops of other arms of the service,

enjoying the close proximity of all the good things of civilization.

Chester looked up with a quizzical smile as his "plebe" came in:

"Well, sir, how many dances had you with 'Sweet Alice, Ben Bolt'? Not

many, I fancy, with Mr. Jerrold monopolizing everything, as usual. By

gad! some good fellow could make a colossal fortune in buying that young

man at my valuation and selling him at his own."

"Oh, come, now, captain," laughed Rollins, "Jerrold's no such slouch as

you make him out. He's lazy, and he likes to spoon, and he puts up with

a good deal of petting from the girls,--who wouldn't, if he could get

it?--but he is jolly and big-hearted, and don't put on any airs,--with

us, at least,--and the mess like him first-rate. 'Tain't his fault that

he's handsome and a regular lady-killer. You must admit that he had a

pretty tough four years of it up there at that cussed old Indian

graveyard, and it's only natural he should enjoy getting here, where

there are theatres and concerts and operas and dances and dinners--"

"Yes, dances and dinners and daughters,--all delightful, I know, but no

excuse for a man's neglecting his manifest duty, as he is doing and has

been ever since we got here. Any other time the colonel would have

straightened him out; but no use trying it now, when both women in his

household are as big fools about the man as anybody in town,--bigger,

unless I'm a born idiot." And Chester rose excitedly.

"I suppose he had Miss Renwick pretty much to himself to-night?" he

presently demanded, looking angrily and searchingly at his junior, as

though half expecting him to dodge the question.

"Oh, yes. Why not? It's pretty evident she would rather dance and be

with him than with any one else: so what can a fellow do? Of course we

ask her to dance, and all that, and I think he wants us to; but I cannot

help feeling rather a bore to her, even if she is only eighteen, and

there are plenty of pleasant girls in the garrison who don't get any too

much attention, now we're so near a big city, and I like to be with

them."

"Yes, and it's the _right_ thing for you to do, youngster. That's one

trait I despise in Jerrold. When we were up there at the stockade two

winters ago, and Captain Gray's little girl was there, he hung around

her from morning till night, and the poor little thing fairly beamed and

blossomed with delight. Look at her now, man! He don't go near her. He

hasn't had the decency to take her a walk, a drive, or anything, since

we got here. He began, from the moment we came, with that gang in town.

He was simply devoted to Miss Beaubien until Alice Renwick came; then he

dropped her like a hot brick. By the Eternal, Rollins, he hasn't gotten

off with _that_ old love yet, you mark my words. There's Indian blood in

her veins, and a look in her eye that makes me wriggle, sometimes. I

watched her last night at parade when she drove out here with that

copper-faced old squaw, her mother. For all her French and Italian

education and her years in New York and Paris, that girl's got a wild

streak in her somewhere. She sat there watching him as the officers

marched to the front, and then _her_, as he went up and joined Miss

Renwick; and there was a gleam of her white teeth and a flash in her

black eyes that made me think of the leap of a knife from the sheath.

Not but what 'twould serve him right if she did play him some devil's

trick. It's his own doing. Were any people out from town?" he suddenly

asked.

"Yes, half a dozen or so," answered Mr. Rollins, who was pulling off his

boots and inserting his feet into easy slippers, while old "Crusty"

tramped excitedly up and down the floor. "Most of them stayed out here,

I think. Only one team went back across the bridge."

"Whose was that?"

"The Suttons', I believe. Young Cub Sutton was out with his sister and

another girl."

"There's another damned fool!" growled Chester. "That boy has ten

thousand a year of his own, a beautiful home that will be his, a doting

mother and sister, and everything wealth can buy, and yet, by gad! he's

unhappy because he can't be a poor devil of a lieutenant, with nothing

but drills, debts, and rifle-practice to enliven him. That's what brings

him out here all the time. He'd swap places with you in a minute. Isn't

he very thick with Jerrold?"

"Oh, yes, rather. Jerrold entertains him a good deal."

"Which is returned with compound interest, I'll bet you. Mr. Jerrold

simply makes a convenience of him. He won't make love to his sister,

because the poor, rich, unsophisticated girl is as ugly as she is

ubiquitous. His majesty is fastidious, you see, and seeks only the

caress of beauty, and while he lives there at the Suttons' when he goes

to town, and dines and sleeps and smokes and wines there, and uses their

box at the opera-house, and is courted and flattered by the old lady

because dear Cubby worships the ground he walks on and poor Fanny Sutton

thinks him adorable, he turns his back on the girl at every dance

because she _can't_ dance, and leaves her to you fellows who have a

conscience and some idea of decency. He gives all _his_ devotions to

Nina Beaubien, who dances like a _coryphée_, and drops _her_ when Alice

Renwick comes with her glowing Spanish beauty. Oh, damn it, I'm an old

fool to get worked up over it as I do, but you young fellows don't see

what I see. You haven't seen what I've seen; and pray God you never may!

That's where the shoe pinches, Rollins. It is what he _reminds_ me

of--not so much what he _is_, I suppose--that I get rabid about. He is

for all the world like a man we had in the old regiment when you were in

swaddling-clothes; and I never look at Mamie Gray's sad, white face that

it doesn't bring back a girl I knew just then whose heart was broken by

just such a shallow, selfish, adorable scoun--No, I won't use _that_

word in speaking of Jerrold; but it's what I fear. Rollins, you call him

generous. Well, so he is,--_lavish_, if you like, with his money and his

hospitality here in the post. Money comes easily to him, and goes; but

you boys misuse the term. _I_ call him selfish to the core, because he

can deny himself no luxury, no pleasure, though it may wring a woman's

life--or, more than that, her honor--to give it him." The captain was

tramping up and down the room now, as was his wont when excited; his

face was flushed, and his hand clinched. He turned suddenly and faced

the younger officer, who sat gazing uncomfortably at the rug in front of

the fireplace.

"Rollins, some day I may tell you a story that I've kept to myself all

these years. You won't wonder at my feeling as I do about these

goings-on of your friend Jerrold when you hear it all, but it was just

such a man as he who ruined one woman, broke the heart of another, and

took the sunshine out of the life of two men from that day to this. One

of them was your colonel, the other your captain. Now go to bed. I'm

going out." And, throwing down his pipe, regardless of the scattering

sparks and ashes, Captain Chester strode into the hall-way, picked up

the first forage-cap he laid hands on, and banged himself out of the

front door.

Mr. Rollins remained for some moments in the same attitude, still gazing

abstractedly at the rug, and listening to the nervous tramp of his

senior officer on the piazza without. Then he slowly and thoughtfully

went to his room, where his perturbed spirit was soon soothed in sleep.

His conscience being clear and his health perfect, there were no deep

cares to keep him tossing on a restless pillow.

To Chester, however, sleep was impossible: he tramped the piazza a full

hour before he felt placid enough to go and inspect his guard. The

sentries were calling three o'clock, and the wind had died away, as he

started on his round. Dark as was the night, he carried no lantern. The

main garrison was well lighted by lamps, and the road circling the old

fort was broad, smooth, and bordered by a stone coping wall where it

skirted the precipitous descent into the river-bottom. As he passed down

the plank walk west of the quadrangle wherein lay the old barracks and

the stone quarters of the commanding officer and the low one-storied row

of bachelor dens, he could not help noting the silence and peace of the

night. Not a light was visible at any window as he strode down the line.

The challenge of the sentry at the old stone tower sounded unnecessarily

sharp and loud, and his response of "Officer of the day" was lower than

usual, as though rebuking the unseemly outcry. The guard came scrambling

out and formed hurriedly to receive him, but the captain's inspection

was of the briefest kind. Barely glancing along the prison corridor to

see that the bars were in place, he turned back into the night, and made

for the line of posts along the river-bank. The sentry at the high

bridge across the gorge, and the next one, well around to the southeast

flank, were successively visited and briefly questioned as to their

instructions, and then the captain plodded sturdily on until he came to

the sharp bend around the outermost angle of the fort and found himself

passing behind the quarters of the commanding officer, a substantial

two-storied stone house with mansard roof and dormer-windows. The road

in the rear was some ten feet below the level of the parade inside the

quadrangle, and consequently, as the house faced the parade, what was

the ground-floor from that front became the second story at the rear.

The kitchen, store-room, and servants' rooms were on this lower stage,

and opened upon the road; an outer stairway ran up to the centre door at

the back, but at the east and west flanks of the house the stone walls

stood without port or window except those above the eaves,--the dormers.

Light and air in abundance streamed through the broad Venetian windows

north and south when light and air were needed. This night, as usual,

all was tightly closed below, all darkness aloft as he glanced up at the

dormers high above his head. As he did so, his foot struck a sudden and

sturdy obstacle; he stumbled and pitched heavily forward, and found

himself sprawling at full length upon a ladder lying on the ground

almost in the middle of the roadway.

"Damn those painters!" he growled between his set teeth. "They leave

their infernal man-traps around in the very hope of catching me, I

believe. Now, who but a painter would have left a ladder in such a place

as this?"

Rising ruefully and rubbing a bruised knee with his hand, he limped

painfully ahead a few steps, until he came to the side-wall of the

colonel's house. Here a plank walk passed from the roadway along the

western wall until almost on a line with the front piazza, where by a

flight of steps it was carried up to the level of the parade. Here he

paused a moment to dust off his clothes and rearrange his belt and

sword. He stood leaning against the wall and facing the gray stone gable

end of the row of old-fashioned quarters that bounded the parade upon

the southwest. All was still darkness and silence.

"Confound this sword!" he muttered again: "the thing made rattle and

racket enough to wake the dead. Wonder if I disturbed anybody at the

colonel's."

As though in answer to his suggestion, there suddenly appeared, high on

the blank wall before him, the reflection of a faint light. Had a little

night-lamp been turned on in the front room of the upper story? The

gleam came from the north window on the side: he saw plainly the shadow

of the pretty lace curtains, looped loosely back. Then the shade was

gently raised, and there was for an instant the silhouette of a slender

hand and wrist, the shadow of a lace-bordered sleeve. Then the light

receded, as though carried back across the room, waned, as though slowly

extinguished, and the last shadows showed the curtains still looped

back, the rolling shade still raised.

"I thought so," he growled. "One tumble like that is enough to wake the

Seven Sleepers, let alone a love-sick girl who is probably dreaming over

Jerrold's parting words. She is spirited and blue-blooded enough to have

more sense, too, that same superb brunette. Ah, Miss Alice, I wonder if

you think that fellow's love worth having. It is two hours since he left

you,--more than that,--and here you are awake yet,--cannot sleep,--want

more air, and have to come and raise your shade. No such warm night,

either." These were his reflections as he picked up his offending sword

and, more slowly and cautiously now, groped his way along the western

terrace. He passed the row of bachelor quarters, and was well out beyond

the limits of the fort before he came upon the next sentry,--"Number

Five,"--and recognized, in the stern "Who comes there?" and the sharp

rattle of the bayonet as it dropped to the charge, the well-known

challenge of Private Leary, one of the oldest and most reliable soldiers

in the regiment.

"All right on your post, Leary?" he asked, after having given the

countersign.

"All right, I _think_, sor; though if the captain had asked me that half

an hour ago I'd not have said so. It was so dark I couldn't see me hand

afore me face, sor; but about half-past two I was walkin' very slow down

back of the quarters, whin just close by Loot'nant Jerrold's back gate I

seen somethin' movin', and as I come softly along it riz up, an' sure I

thought 'twas the loot'nant himself, whin he seemed to catch sight o' me

or hear me, and he backed inside the gate an' shut it. I was sure 'twas

he, he was so tall and slim like, an' so I niver said a word until I got

to thinkin' over it, and then I couldn't spake. Sure if it had been the

loot'nant he wouldn't have backed away from a sintry; he'd 'a' come out

bold and given the countersign; but I didn't think o' that. It looked

like him in the dark, an' 'twas his quarters, an' I thought it _was_

him, until I thought ag'in, and then, sor, I wint back and searched the

yard; but there was no one there."

"Hm! Odd thing that, Leary! Why didn't you challenge at first?"

"Sure, sor, he lept inside the fince quick as iver we set eyes on each

other. He was bendin' down, and I thought it was one of the hound pups

when I first sighted him."

"And he hasn't been around since?"

"No, sor, nor nobody, till the officer of the day came along."

Chester walked away puzzled. Sibley was a most quiet and orderly

garrison. Night prowlers had never been heard from, especially over here

at the south and southwest fronts. The enlisted men going to or from

town passed across the big, high bridge or went at once to their own

quarters on the east and north. This southwestern terrace behind the

bachelors' row was the most secluded spot on the whole post,--so much so

that when a fire broke out there among the fuel-heaps one sharp winter's

night a year agone it had wellnigh enveloped the whole line before its

existence was discovered. Indeed, not until after this occurrence was a

sentry posted on that front at all; and, once ordered there, he had so

little to do and was so comparatively sure to be undisturbed that the

old soldiers eagerly sought the post in preference to any other, and

were given it as a peace privilege. For months, relief after relief

tramped around the fort and found the terrace post as humdrum and silent

as an empty church; but this night "Number Five" leaped suddenly into

notoriety.

Instead of going home, Chester kept on across the plateau and took a

long walk on the northern side of the reservation, where the

quarter-master's stables and corrals were placed. He was affected by a

strange unrest. His talk with Rollins had roused the memories of years

long gone by,--of days when he, too, was young and full of hope and

faith, ay, full of love,--all lavished on one fair girl who knew it

well, but gently, almost entreatingly, repelled him. Her heart was

wrapped up in another, the Adonis of his day in the gay old seaboard

garrison. She was a soldier's child, barrack-born, simply taught,

knowing little of the vice and temptations, the follies and the frauds,

of the whirling life of civilization. A good and gentle mother had

reared her and been called hence. Her father, an officer whose sabre-arm

was left at Molino del Rey, and whose heart was crushed when the loving

wife was taken from him, turned to the child who so resembled her, and

centred there all his remaining love and life. He welcomed Chester to

his home, and tacitly favored his suit, but in his blindness never saw

how a few moonlit strolls on the old moss-grown parapet, a few evening

dances in the casemates with handsome, wooing, winning Will Forrester,

had done their work. She gave him all the wild, enthusiastic,

worshipping love of her girlish heart just about the time Captain and

Mrs. Maynard came back from leave, and then he grew cold and negligent

_there_, but lived at Maynard's fireside; and one day there came a

sensation,--a tragedy,--and Mrs. Maynard went away, and died abroad, and

a shocked and broken-hearted girl hid her face from all and pined at

home, and Mr. Forrester's resignation was sent from--no one knew just

where, and no one would have cared to know, except Maynard. He would

have followed him, pistol in hand, but Forrester gave him no chance.

Years afterwards Chester again sought her and offered her his love and

his name. It was useless, she told him, sadly. She lived only for her

father now, and would never leave him till he died, and then--she prayed

she might go too. Memories like this _will_ come up at such times in

these same "still watches of the night." Chester was in a moody frame of

mind when about half an hour later he came back past the guard-house.

The sergeant was standing near the lighted entrance, and the captain

called him:

"There's a ladder lying back of the colonel's quarters on the roadway.

Some of those painters left it, I suppose. It's a wonder some of the

reliefs have not broken their necks over it going around to-night. Let

the next one pick it up and move it out of the way. Hasn't it been

reported?"

"Not to me, sir. Corporal Schreiber has command of this relief, and he

has said nothing about it. Here he is, sir."

"Didn't you see it or stumble over it when posting your relief,

corporal?" asked Chester.

"No indeed, sir. I--I think the captain must have been mistaken in

thinking it a ladder. We would surely have struck it if it had been."

"No mistake at all, corporal. I lifted it. It is a long, heavy

ladder,--over twenty feet, I should say."

"There _is_ such a ladder back there, captain," said the sergeant, "but

it always hangs on the fence just behind the young officers'

quarters,--Bachelors' Row, sir, I mean."

"And that ladder was there an hour ago when I went my rounds," said the

corporal, earnestly. "I had my hurricane-lamp, sir, and saw it on the

fence plainly. And there was nothing behind the colonel's at that hour."

Chester turned away, thoughtful and silent. Without a word he walked

straight into the quadrangle, past the low line of stone buildings, the

offices of the adjutant and quartermaster, the home of the

sergeant-major, the club and billiard-room, past the long, piazza-shaded

row of bachelor quarters, and came upon the plank walk at the corner of

the colonel's fence. Ten more steps, and he stood stock-still at the

head of the flight of wooden stairs.

There, dimly visible against the southern sky, its base on the plank

walk below him, its top resting upon the eaves midway between the

dormer-window and the roof of the piazza, so that one could step easily

from it into the one or on to the other, was the very ladder that half

an hour before was lying on the ground behind the house.

His heart stood still. He seemed powerless to move,--even to think. Then

a slight noise roused him, and with every nerve tingling he crouched

ready for a spring. With quick, agile movements, noiseless as a cat,

sinuous and stealthy as a serpent, the dark figure of a man issued from

Alice Renwick's chamber window and came gliding down.

One second more, and, almost as noiselessly, he reached the ground, then

quickly raised and turned the ladder, stepped with it to the edge of

the roadway, and peered around the angle as though to see that no sentry

was in sight, then vanished with his burden around the corner. Another

second, and down the steps went Chester, three at a bound, tip-toeing it

in pursuit. Ten seconds brought him close to the culprit,--a tall,

slender shadow.

"You villain! Halt!"

Down went the ladder on the dusty road. The hand that Chester had

clinched upon the broad shoulder was hurled aside. There was a sudden

whirl, a lightning blow that took the captain full in the chest and

staggered him back upon the treacherous and entangling rungs, and, ere

he could recover himself, the noiseless stranger had fairly whizzed into

space and vanished in the darkness up the road. Chester sprang in

pursuit. He heard the startled challenge of the sentry, and then Leary's

excited "Halt, I say! Halt!" and then he shouted,--

"Fire on him, Leary! Bring him down!"

Bang went the ready rifle with sharp, sullen roar that woke the echoes

across the valley. Bang again, as Leary sent a second shot after the

first. Then, as the captain came panting to the spot, they followed up

the road. No sign of the runner. Attracted by the shots, the sergeant of

the guard and one or two men, lantern-bearing, came running to the

scene. Excitedly they searched up and down the road in mingled hope and

dread of finding the body of the marauder, or some clue or trace.

Nothing! Whoever he was, the fleet runner had vanished and made good his

escape.

"Who could it have been, sir?" asked the sergeant of the officer of the

day. "Surely none of the men ever come round this way."

"I don't know, sergeant; I don't know. Just take your lamp and see if

there is anything visible down there among the rocks. He may have been

hit and leaped the wall.--Do you think you hit him, Leary?"

"I can't say, sor. He came by me like a flash. I had just a second's

look at him, and--Sure I niver saw such runnin'."

"Could you see his face?" asked Chester, in a low tone, as the other men

moved away to search the rocks.

"Not his face, sor. 'Twas too dark."

"Was there--did he look like anybody you knew, or had seen?--anybody in

the command?"

"Well, sor, not among the men, that is. There's none so tall and slim

both, and so light. Sure he must 'a' worn gums, sor. You couldn't hear

the whisper of a footfall."

"But whom did he _seem_ to resemble?"

"Well, if the captain will forgive me, sor, it's unwillin' I am to say

the worrd, but there's no one that tall and light and slim here, sor,

but Loot'nant Jerrold. Sure it couldn't be him, sor."

"Leary, will you promise me something on your word as a man?"

"I will, sor."

"Say not one word of this matter to any one, except I tell you, or you

have to, before a court."

"I promise, sor."

"And I believe you. Tell the sergeant I will soon be back."

With that he turned and walked down the road until once more he came to

the plank crossing and the passage-way between the colonel's and

Bachelors' Row. Here again he stopped short, and waited with bated

breath and scarcely-beating heart. The faint light he had seen before

again illumined the room and cast its gleam upon the old gray wall. Even

as he gazed, there came silently to the window a tall, white-robed form,

and a slender white hand seized and lowered the shade, noiselessly.

Then, as before, the light faded away; but--she was awake.

Waiting one moment in silence, Captain Chester then sprang up the wooden

steps and passed under the piazza which ran the length of the bachelor

quarters. Half-way down the row he turned sharply to his left, opened

the green-painted door, and stood in a little dark hall-way. Taking his

match-box from his pocket, he struck a light, and by its glare quickly

read the card upon the first door-way to his right:

"MR. HOWARD F. JERROLD,

"----_th Infantry, U.S.A._"

Opening this door, he bolted straight through the little parlor to the

bedroom in the rear. A dim light was burning on the mantel. The bed was

unruffled, untouched, and Mr. Jerrold was not there.

Five minutes afterwards, Captain Chester, all alone, had laboriously and

cautiously dragged the ladder from the side to the rear of the colonel's

house, stretched it in the roadway where he had first stumbled upon it,

then returned to the searching-party on "Number Five."

"Send two men to put that ladder back," he ordered. "It is where I told

you,--on the road behind the colonel's."