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MARION'S FAITH.
BY THE AUTHOR OF
"THE COLONEL'S DAUGHTER."
CAPT. CHARLES KING, U.S.A.,
AUTHOR OF "KITTY'S CONQUEST," ETC.
PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
1890.
Copyright, 1886, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
Copyright, 1887, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
TO
The Memory
OF
EMMET CRAWFORD,
CAPTAIN THIRD REGIMENT OF CAVALRY,
ONE OF THE NOBLEST MEN, ONE OF THE KNIGHTLIEST SOLDIERS, AND ONE OF THE
MOST INEXCUSABLE SACRIFICES IN THE HISTORY OF OUR ARMY,
THIS STORY
OF SCENES WHEREIN HE WAS LOVED AND HONORED,
IS DEDICATED.
PREFACE.
The kind reception accorded "The Colonel's Daughter" was a surprise and
delight to the author, nevertheless it was a long time before he could
be induced to write this sequel.
When Mr. Sam Slick, at the first essay, shot the cork out of a floating
bottle some thirty yards away, he had the deep sagacity never to pull
trigger again, well knowing he could not improve on the initial effort,
and so Prudence whispered that with the Finis to the story of Jack
Truscott and sweet Grace Pelham there had best come a full stop.
But many a plea has been received to "Tell us more about the --th," and
at last the motion prevailed. Thackeray has said, "It is an unfair
advantage which the novelist takes of the hero and heroine to say
good-by to the two as soon as ever they are made husband and wife, and I
have often wished that we should hear what occurs to the sober married
man as well as to the ardent bachelor; to the matron as to the blushing
spinster." And so, many of the characters of the old story reappear
upon the scene. That they will be welcomed for the sake of auld lang
syne has been promised, and that they and their associates may find new
interest in the eyes of the indulgent reader is the prayer of
THE AUTHOR.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--TWO TROOPERS 5
II.--GARRISON TALK 20
III.--HEROINES 43
IV.--IMPENDING SHADOWS 59
V.--MARION SANDFORD 72
VI.--AT THE FRONT 84
VII.--WAR RUMORS 100
VIII.--AT RUSSELL 112
IX.--RAY TO THE FRONT 125
X.--A JUNE SUNDAY 147
XI.--THE WOLF AND THE SHEEPFOLD 162
XII.--A SERANADE 177
XIII.--SURROUNDED 189
XIV.--RAY'S RIDE FOR LIFE 207
XV.--RESCUE AT DAWN 222
XVI.--HOW WE HEARD THE NEWS 232
XVII.--A COWARD'S DEED 246
XVIII.--DESERTION 257
XIX.--IN CLOSE ARREST 272
XX.--A CORNERED RAT 286
XXI.--RAY'S TROUBLES 296
XXII.--A SHOT AT MIDNIGHT 309
XXIII.--IN CLOSER TOILS 322
XXIV.--THE GRASP OF THE LAW 334
XXV.--WHOSE GAUNTLET? 345
XXVI.--REVELATIONS 359
XXVII.--VINDICATED 373
XXVIII.--THE COLORS ENTWINE 396
XXIX.--A CAVALRY WEDDING 419
MARION'S FAITH.
A SEQUEL TO THE COLONEL'S DAUGHTER.
CHAPTER I.
TWO TROOPERS.
"Ray, what would you do if some one were to leave you a fortune?"
"Humph! Pay for the clothes I have on, I suppose," is the answer, half
humorous, half wistful, as the interrogated party, the younger of two
officers, glances down at his well-worn regimentals. "That's one reason
I'm praying we may be sent to reinforce Crook up in the Sioux country.
No need of new duds when you're scouting for old 'Gray Fox,' you know."
"I thought you wanted to take a leave this summer and visit the old home
in Kentucky," says the major, with a look of rather kindly interest from
under his shaggy eyebrows.
"Want must be my master, then. I couldn't pay my way home if they'd take
me as freight," replies the lieutenant, in the downright and
devil-may-care style which is one of his several pronounced
characteristics. "Of course," he continues presently, "I would like to
look in on the mother again; she's getting on in years now and isn't
over and above strong, but she has no cares or worries to speak of; she
don't know what a reprobate I am; sister Nell is married and out of the
way; the old home is sold and mother lives in comfort on the proceeds;
she's happy up at Lexington with her sister's people. What's the use of
my going back to Kentuck and being a worry to her? Before I'd been there
a week I'd be spending most of my time down at the track or the stables;
I could no more keep away from the horses than I could from a square
game, and she hates both,--they swamped my father before I knew an ace
from an ant-hill. No, _sir_! The more I think of it the more I know the
only place for me is right here with the old regiment. What's more, the
livelier work we have in the field and the less we get of garrison grind
the better it is for me. I almost wish we were back in Arizona to-day."
"Why, confound it! man, it isn't a year since we left there," breaks in
the major, impatiently, "and we haven't begun to get a taste of
civilization yet. You let the women in the regiment hear you talk of
wanting to go back there, or what's worse, going up to join Crook in
Wyoming, and they'll mob you. Who was it your sister married?" he
suddenly asks.
"A man named Rallston,--a swell contractor or something up in Iowa. I
never saw him; indeed, it's nearly nine years since I saw her; but she
promised to be a beauty then, and they all say she grew up a beauty; but
Nell was headstrong and always in mischief, and I'm glad she's settled
down. She used to write to me when she was first married, four years
ago, and send me occasional 'tips' for Christmas and birthdays, and she
was going to give me a Lexington colt when I came East, but she's quit
all that, because I was an ungrateful cub and never answered, I suppose.
She knows there's nothing I hate worse than writing, and oughtn't to be
hard on me. It's all I can do to send a monthly report to the mother."
"Did you say you never saw her husband?" asks the major after a pause,
in which he had been apparently studying the quick-tripping hoofs of
Ray's nimble sorrel.
"No; never set eyes on him. It was a sudden smite,--one of those
flash-in-the-pan, love-at-first-sight affairs. He was down in Kentucky
buying horses, saw her at a party, and made no end of fuss over her; had
lots of money and style, you know, and the first I heard of it they were
married and off. It was our first year in Arizona, and mails were a
month old when they got to us."
"How long is it since you heard from her?" says the major, after another
pause.
Mr. Ray looks up in some surprise. He hardly knows what to make of this
display of curiosity on the part of his ordinarily indifferent
companion, but he answers quietly enough,--
"Over a year, I reckon. She was in Omaha then and Rallston was away a
good deal,--had big cattle interests somewhere; I know that mother used
to ask if Nell told me much about him, and she seemed anxious. Nell
herself said that mother was much opposed to the match,--didn't seem to
take to Rallston at all,--but she was bound to have him, and she did,
and she's just that high-strung sort of girl that if disappointed or
unhappy would never let on to the mother as long as she lived."
They are riding slowly in from troop-drill, the battalion commander and
a pet of his, Mr. Ray, of the --th Cavalry. It is one of those exquisite
May mornings when the rolling prairies of Western Kansas seem swimming
in a soft, hazy light, and the _mirage_ on the horizon looks like a
glassy sea. The springy turf is tinted with the hues of myriads of wild
flowers, purple, pale blue, and creamy white; the mountain breeze that
is already whirling the dust-clouds on the Denver plains has not yet
begun to ruffle the cottonwoods or the placid surface of the slow-moving
stream, and in many a sheltered pool the waters of the "Smoky Hill"
gleam like silvered mirror, without break or flaw. Far out on the gentle
slopes small herds of troop-horses or quartermaster's "stock," each with
its attendant guard, give life to the somewhat sombre tone of the
landscape, while nearer at hand two or three well-filled cavalry
"troops" with fluttering guidons are marching silently in towards the
little frontier garrison that lies in a shallow dip in the wide,
treeless prairie.
Bits of color are rare enough, save the faint hues of the
flowerets,--almost as indistinguishable in the general effect as their
fairy fragrance on the air. Aloft, the sky is all one blaze of sunshine,
that seems to bleach it into palest, most translucent blue. Far to the
west some fleecy clouds are rolling up from the horizon, wafted from the
peaks of the hidden Rockies. Down in the "swale," the wooden barracks,
stables, quarters, and storehouses are all one tint of economical brown,
brightened only by the hues of the flag that hangs high over the scene.
Beyond the shallow valley and across the stream, looking only long
rifle-shot away, but a good two miles when one comes to walk it, a brick
school-house with glistening cupola stands sentinel in the centre of the
scattering frontier town; there, too, lies the railway station, from
which an ugly brown freight-train is just pulling out Denverwards,
puffing dense clouds of inky smoke to the sky. Space, light, and air
there are in lavish profusion. Shade there is little or none, except
close along the winding stream; but shade is a thing neither sought nor
cared for, as the sun-tanned faces of the troopers show. Every now and
then a trumpet-call floats softly over the prairie, or the ringing,
prolonged word of command marks some lazily-executed manoeuvre on the
homeward way. Drill is over; the sharp eyes and sharper tongue of the
major no longer criticise any faulty or "slouchy" wheel; the drill
proper has been stiff and spirited, and now the necessary changes of
direction are carried out in a purely perfunctory manner, while the
battalion commander and his subaltern, troops and all, amble back and
give their steeds a breathing spell.
Typical cavalrymen are those two, who, chatting quietly together, are
riding somewhat in advance of the returning companies. The major is a
man a trifle over forty, short, stout, with massive shoulders, chest,
and thighs, a neck like a bull, a well-shaped head covered with
straight, close-cropped, brown hair, innocent of kink or curl; a florid
face, bronzed and tanned by years of life in sun and wind and storm;
clean-shaven but for the drooping brown moustache that conceals the
rugged lines of his mouth, and twinkling blue-gray eyes that peer out
with searching gaze from under their shaggy brows. Firmness, strength,
self-reliance, even sternness, can be read in every line; but around the
gathering crowsfeet at the corners of his eyes, and lurking under the
shadow of the grim moustache, are little curves or dimples or something,
that betray to the initiated the presence of a humorous vein that
softens the asperity of the soldier. Some who best know him can detect
there a symptom of tenderness and a possibility of sentiment, whose
existence the major would indignantly deny. The erect carriage of the
head, the square set of the shoulders, the firm yet easy seat in the
saddle, speak of the experienced soldier, while in the first word that
falls from his lips one hears the tone of the man far more at home in
camp than court. There is something utterly blunt and abrupt in his
manner, a scathing contrast to the affected drawl brought into the
regiment by recent importations from the East, and assiduously copied by
a professed Anglo-maniac among the captains. Rude indeed may he
sometimes be in his speech, "and little versed in the set phrase of
peace," but through it all is the ring of sturdy honesty and
independence. He uses the same tone to general and to private soldier
alike; extending the same degree of courtesy to each. No one ever heard
of "old Stannard's" fawning upon a superior or bullying an inferior; to
all soldiers he is one and the same,--short, blunt, quick, and to the
point. Literally he obeys the orders of his chiefs, and literally and
promptly he expects his own to be obeyed. He has his faults, like the
best of men: he will growl at times; he is prone to pick flaws, and to
say sharp and cutting things, for which he is often ashamed and sorry;
he can see little good in the works or words of the men he dislikes; he
absolutely cannot praise, and he is over-quick to blame; but after all
he is true as steel, as unswerving as the needle, and no man, no woman
could need a stancher friend than the new major of the --th, "old
Stannard."
As for Ray, no officer in the regiment is better known or more talked
about. Ten years of his life he has spent under the standard of the
--th, barring a very short but eventful detail at "the Point." Nebraska,
Kansas, and Arizona he knows as well as the savannas of his native
blue-grass country. He has been in more skirmishes with the regiment and
more scrapes of his own than any fellow of his age in service, but he
has the faculty of "lighting on his feet every time," as he himself
would express it, and to-day he rides along as buoyantly and recklessly
as he did ten years ago, and the saddle is Ray's home. Ephemeral
pleasure he finds in the hop-room, for he dances well; perennial
attraction, his detractors say, he finds at the card-table, but Ray is
never quite himself until he throws his leg over the horse he loves. He
is _facile princeps_ the light rider of the regiment, and to this claim
there are none to say him nay. A tip-top soldier too is Ray. Keen on the
scout, tireless on the trail, daring to a fault in action, and either
preternaturally cool or enthusiastically excited when under fire. He is
a man the rank and file swear by and love. "You never hear Loot'nant Ray
saying 'Go in there, fellers.' 'Tis always, 'Come on, boys.' That's why
I like him," is the way Sergeant Moriarty puts it. Among his comrades,
his brother officers that is to say, opinions are divided. Ray has
trusty friends and he has his bitter enemies, though the latter, when
charged with the fact, are prone to say that no one is so much Ray's
enemy as Ray himself,--an assertion which cannot be altogether denied.
But as his own worst enemy Ray is thoroughly open and above-board; he
has not a hidden fault; his sins are many and they are public property
for all he cares; whereas the men who dislike Ray in the regiment are of
the opposite stamp. Among themselves they pick him to pieces with
comparative safety, but outside their limited circle, the damnation of
faint praise, the covert insinuations, or that intangible species of
backbiting which can,
"Without sneering, others teach to sneer,"
has to be their resort, and for good reason. Ray tolerates no slander,
and let him once get wind of the fact that some man has maligned him,
there is a row in the camp. Minding his own business, however
unsuccessfully, he meddles with the affairs of no one else, and thinking
twice before he alludes once to the shortcomings of a comrade, he claims
that consideration for himself, but doesn't get it. There be men who
outrival the weaker sex in the sinister effect they can throw into the
faintest allusion to another's conduct, and in the dexterity with which
they evade the consequences, and of such specimens the --th has its
share. There was Crane, whom Ray had fearfully snubbed and afterwards
"cut" in Arizona; there was Wilkins, whom Ray had treated with scant
courtesy for over a year, because of some gossip that veteran had been
instrumental in putting into circulation; there was Captain Canker, who
used to like and admire Ray in the rough old days in the cañons and
deserts, but who had forfeited his esteem while they were stationed at
Camp Sandy, and when they met again in Kansas, Ray touched his cap to
his superior officer but withheld his hand. Canker felt very bitterly
towards Ray, claiming that there was no officer in the regiment whom he
had treated with such marked courtesy, and to this, when he heard it,
Ray made response in his characteristic way. He would have no middleman.
He went straight to Canker and said his say in few terse words: "You
consider me unjustified in refusing to treat you as a friend, Captain
Canker; now let us have no misunderstanding whatever. Your conduct
towards _my_ best friend, Captain Truscott, and towards--towards another
good friend of mine at Sandy, was an outrage in my opinion, and I have
yet to learn that you have expressed regret or made amends. That's my
position, sir; and if you care for my friendship, you know how to regain
it." Canker was too much astonished by such directness to make any
reply. Other officers who happened to be standing near maintained an
embarrassed silence, and Ray faced about and walked off. "For all the
world," said Wilkins, "as though he had that d----d chip on his shoulder
again and was begging somebody to knock it off." Canker was hit in a
sore place. Long before this occurrence he realized that several
officers of the regiment had withdrawn every semblance of esteem in
their intercourse with him. He well knew why, but the officer whose
cause Ray so vehemently championed was away on detached service, and
Canker really did not know just what to do, and was too proud and
sensitive to seek advice. He was a gallant soldier in the field, but a
man of singularly unfortunate disposition,--crabbed, cranky, and
suspicious; and thus it resulted that he, too, joined the little band of
Ray haters, despite the fact that he felt ashamed of himself for so
doing.
Then there was Gleason,--"That man Gleason," as he was generally alluded
to, and to those familiar with army life or army ways the mere style is
indicative of this character. For good and sufficient reason Mr. Ray had
slapped Mr. Gleason's face some years back, when the --th was serving in
Arizona, and there was no possible reason for his failure to seek the
immediate reparation due him as an officer, no possible reason except
the absolute certainty of Ray's promptly according him the demanded
luxury. The --th was commanded by a colonel of the old school in those
days, one who had observed "the code" when a junior officer, and would
have been glad to see it carried out to this day; but Gleason was not
made of that stuff, and to the scandal of the regiment and the
incredulous mirth of Mr. Ray, Gleason pocketed the blow as complacently
as he did the money he had won from the Kentuckian by a trick which was
transparent to every looker-on, and would have been harmless with
Ray--had he been himself. Those were the rough days of the regiment's
campaign against the Apaches; officers and men were scattered in small
commands through the mountains; in the general and absorbing interest of
the chase and scout after a common foe there was no time to take up and
settle the affair as something affecting the credit of the entire corps;
many officers never heard of it at all until long afterwards, and then
it was too late; but to this day Gleason stood an unsparing, bitter, but
secret and treacherous enemy of the younger officer. He hated Ray with
the venom of a snake.
So far as the regiment was concerned, the enmity of a man of Gleason's
calibre could hardly be of consequence. Like Canker, he had come into
the --th from the "supernumerary list" at the time of the general
reorganization in '71. Scores of infantry officers left out of their
regiments by consolidation were saddled upon the cavalry and artillery,
and in many instances proved utterly out of their element in the mounted
service. All the cavalry regiments growled more or less at the enforced
addition to their list of "total commissioned," and the --th had not
been especially fortunate. Many a fine soldier and excellent comrade had
come into the cavalry in this way, and of them the --th had found a few;
but a dozen or more, valuable neither as soldiers nor comrades, had
drifted into the mounted service, and of these the regiment had, to say
the least, its full share. "All I've got to remark on the subject," said
old "Black Bill," the senior major at that eventful period,--"all I've
got to remark is simply this: those infantry fellows showed profound
discrimination in getting rid of their chaff, but they had no mercy on
us. When a man ain't good enough for a doughboy officer he ain't fit for
anything."
Now, it by no means resulted from inefficiency on their part that so
many of the transferred officers had left their own regiments. Many had
requested the move; many more were rendered supernumerary as being the
juniors of their grades; but there were others still who ranked well up
in their old regiments, and yet were mysteriously "left out in the
cold." And of such was "that man Gleason." Six years had he served with
the new regiment in the field, and not a friend could he muster among
the officers,--not one who either liked or respected him,--not one who
more than tolerated him except among the two or three who daily and
nightly haunted the card-room at the trader's store; but to hear Gleason
talk one would fancy him to be on terms of intimacy with every "solid"
man of the regiment, and the casual visitor at the garrison would be
more than apt to leave it with the impression that Gleason was the
figure-head of the commissioned element. He had fair manners; his
appearance was prepossessing; he was bland and insinuating among daily
associates, confidential and hospitable with strangers. A visitor could
go nowhere without meeting Gleason, for his social status was just so
balanced between adverse influences that one could neither forbid nor
welcome him to his home. No matter who might be the entertaining
officer, the first to call and pay his respects to the guest would be
that objectionable Gleason, and very sprightly and interesting could he
be. Ten to one the chances were that when he took his departure he had
left a pleasant impression on the mind of the new arrival, who would
find himself at a loss to account for the evident perturbation with
which his host proper regarded his acceptance of Gleason's hospitable
invitations. Gleason's horse, Gleason's dogs or guns or rods were
promptly at the door for him to try, and when others sought to do him
honor, and other invitations came to hunt or ride or dine, Gleason had
the inside track, and somehow or other it seemed to make the better men
of the --th retire into their shells when they heard of it. This had
been the way with visiting officers from other posts and regiments when
in Arizona, and the same thing was being repeated here in Kansas. The
--th did not like it, but could not exactly see how to help it. The only
vulnerable and tangible points upon which he could be "sent to Coventry"
were shady transactions at cards or horse-racing that had occurred in
Arizona, and his failure to resent Ray's blow; but two and three years
had elapsed since these occurrences; the scattered condition of the
regiment had prevented regimental notice of them at the time, and it was
generally held that now it was too late for any such action. With any
other man coldness, distance of manner, or at the least the pronounced
snubs that greeted Gleason, would have long since had effect, but he was
proof against such methods, and no sooner detected them than he found
excuses to force himself upon the attention or conversation of the
officer, and in so insidious a way as to disarm resistance. He would
fairly beam with cordiality and respect upon the commanding officer who
was short and gruff with him; he would invade old Stannard's quarters to
ask his advice about the purchase of a horse or the proper method of
dealing with some one of his men,--and the major had a soft side in
looking after the rights of the rank and file; he would drop in to ask
Mrs. Stannard the name of a new flower he had picked up out near the
targets. He cared no more for flowers than she did for him, but it gave
him temporary admission, generally when other ladies had called for a
morning chat, and though she cordially disliked him, Mrs. Stannard was
too thorough a lady to show the least discourtesy to an officer of her
husband's regiment. Gleason well knew it, and laid his plans
accordingly. For a long time, indeed, there were ladies who could not
understand why Mr. Gleason should be so contemptuously spoken of by the
officers. He was so thoughtful, so delicate, and then he was so lonely.
Gleason was a widower, whose eyes would often overflow when he spoke of
the little woman whom he had buried years ago down in Connecticut; but
when Mrs. Turner once questioned Captain Baxter, who knew them when they
were in the old infantry regiment in Louisiana, and referred to its
being so sad and touching to hear Mr. Gleason talk of his dead wife and
their happy days among the orange-groves near Jackson Barracks, the
captain astonished her by an outburst of derisive laughter. "Happy,
madam?" said he; "by gad! if ever a woman died of neglect, abuse, and
ill-treatment Mrs. Gleason did, and next time he attempts to gull you
with sentiment, just you refer him to me." But then, as Mrs. Turner
said, poor Captain Baxter's finer sensibilities seemed to have been
blunted by a lifetime in the quartermaster's department, and for quite a
while Mr. Gleason was one of her favorites,--quite a devotee in fact,
until the disastrous day when she discovered that so far from having
been ill and unable to ride with her, as he claimed, he had been
spending the afternoon in the fascinations of poker. One by one the
ladies of the --th had learned to trust Mr. Gleason as little as did
their lords, but there was no snubbing him. "Snubs," said the senior
major, "are lost on such a pachydermatous ass as Gleason," and however
tough might be his moral hide, and however deserved might have been the
applied adjective, the major was in error in calling Gleason an ass.
Intriguing, full of low malice and scheming, a "slanderer and
substractor" he certainly was, but no fool. More's the pity, Mr. Gleason
was far too smart for the direct methods and simple minds of his
associates in the --th. He never in all his life failed to take full
note of every slight or coldness, and though it was his rôle to hide the
sting, and "smile and smile and be a villain still," never was it his
purpose to permit the faintest snub to go unpunished. Sooner or later,
unrelentingly but secretly he would return that stab with interest ten
times compounded. And sooner or later to the bitter end he meant to feed
fat his ancient grudge on Ray.
Up to this time he had scant opportunity. For two or three years
preceding their removal to the East Gleason had been stationed in
Southern Arizona, while Ray, after months of lively service in the
mountains, had been sent to regimental headquarters, and marched with
them when they came into Kansas. Now once more six companies were
gathered at the post of the standard,--two were tenting on the prairie
just outside the garrison, the other four were regularly in barracks,
and the concentration there boded a move or "business" of some kind.
"Old Catnip," the colonel, was East, but the lieutenant-colonel was
commanding, and the junior major was there. Drills were incessant, but
scouts were few, and after the years of "go-as-you-please" work in
Arizona the --th was getting rapidly back into soldierly shape. The
little frontier fort was blithe and gay with its merry populace. All
the officers' families had joined; several young ladies were spending
the spring in garrison and taking their first taste of military life;
hops and dances came off almost every night, a "german" every week;
rides, drives, hunts, and picnic-parties were of daily occurrence; the
young officers were in clover, the young ladies in ecstasy, the young
matrons--perhaps not quite so well pleased as when they had the field to
themselves in Arizona, where young ladies had been few and far between,
and all promised delightfully for the coming summer,--all but the
war-cloud rising in the far Northwest.