RAY'S TROUBLES.
"Here we are, Billy! Whoop! What did I tell you? Official communications
disrupt bad grammar. The chief sends back your letter. Wants it changed
again, I suppose. It's the old, old story,--
'You can and you can't,
You will and you won't;
You'll be damned if you do,
You'll be damned if you don't.'"
Ray took the paper with a hand that was hot and flushed. For a week he
had been in close confinement, and that and a complication of annoyances
and worries had combined to make him fretful; then some grave anxieties
were added to his troubles; and then, his quick, impetuous nature had
done the rest. He had no cool-headed adviser in Blake, who had taken up
the fight with him, and now he was involved in an official tussle with
the post authorities that added greatly to his fevered condition. He was
sore in body, for the wound in his thigh was now beginning to trouble
him again. He was sore at heart, for, except the impolitic Blake, he did
not seem to have a friend in the world. There had come one or two kind
little notes from the ladies "up the row," as they called the
Stannard-Truscott household when they did not care to be more explicit;
but these had ceased, and what was worse, in his days of worry and
trouble and heartsickness, Ray had sought comfort in an old solace, that
had done no great harm when he was living his vigorous out-of-door life,
but was playing the mischief with his judgment and general condition now
that he was penned up in the narrow limits of his quarters. Very, very
anxious had Mrs. Stannard's face become; very wistful and anxious, too,
was Miss Sanford's; and very sympathetic was Mrs. Truscott's. The first
few days of his arrest they used to stroll down the line, and make it a
point to go there and chat with him on his piazza; and this exasperated
old Whaling, who was indignant that the cavalry ladies should make a
martyr of their regimental culprit. The third day of his arrest, they
were all seated there on the piazza, while Ray sat at his open window,
and Hogan, his orderly, had led Dandy around to the front, and the
pretty sorrel--the light of his master's eyes until eclipsed by one
before which even Dandy's paled its ineffectual fire--was cropping the
juicy herbage in the little grass plat in front of the piazza and being
fed with loaf-sugar by delicate hands. Blake was sprawled over the
railing, limp and long-legged, chatting with Mrs. Truscott. Miss Sanford
was seated nearer the window, where Ray's eager eyes seemed to chain
her, and Mrs. Stannard was doing most of the talk, for they seemed
strangely silent. It was a pleasant picture of loyalty and _esprit de
corps_, thought Mr. Warner, as he came down from the office; but to old
Whaling, coming home crabbed from the store, where his post
quartermaster had beaten him several games of pool, it was a galling
sight. The ladies bowed in quiet, modified courtesy,--there was no
cordiality whatever in it. Blake straightened up and saluted his
superior in a purely perfunctory style that had nothing of deference and
little of respect in it, and the colonel and his quartermaster both
raised their caps in evident embarrassment. They looked back at Dandy
after they had passed on a few rods, and Blake muttered,--
"Now, Billy boy, they'll be sending you a note to keep your horse out of
your front yard hereafter." But Blake had undershot the mark.
That evening there came bad news. Rallston had been named as one of the
principal witnesses, and Ray had telegraphed and written to his sister
at Omaha asking where he was. His letter explained the situation he was
in, and, though he would say nothing to accuse her husband, he told her
that one of the allegations was that he had accepted five hundred
dollars from him as a bribe to induce him to "pass" certain horses. The
facts were these: Rallston had been among the first to welcome him to
Kansas City, had taken him to his own rooms, had been most cordial and
kind, had brought all manner of loving inquiries from sister Nell, and
an invitation from her to visit them at Omaha before his return. Ray did
not and would not drink anything beyond a little wine at dinner, nor
could he be induced to touch a card at play, though every evening some
of Rallston's friends were there playing poker, and Ray was a laughing
and interested spectator. In the course of two or three days Rallston
had grown very confidential, and had finally, most gracefully, told Ray
that he had disliked to mention it until he felt he knew him well, but
that Nelly had told him her brother had some outstanding debts; he owed
money to several different parties and it worried him; they were dunning
him all at the same time, and he could only meet their claims
successively. "Now," said Rallston, "why not let me be your banker? Let
me hand you the amount you owe these fellows. Pay 'em off at once, and
then you're a free man. You can repay me when you choose, and if you
never do, why, it's all right--it's Nell's present to you. I've got
several thousand dollars in the bank this moment that I've no use for;"
and Ray had thanked him from the bottom of his heart and accepted. Later
there began to grow a breach. Rallston had quickly seen how keen an eye
Ray had for defects in horseflesh, and had striven to get him to accept
some horses he knew to be "off color." Ray had firmly refused. Then,
later, he asked Ray to sign an I. O. U. for the five hundred dollars,
which was done, and the next thing he noticed Rallston was consorting
with Gleason; and when the board adjourned there was no Rallston to say
good-by. Ray went to Omaha and saw his sister, who was rejoiced to hear
how generously her husband had behaved, but Ray was a trifle worried
then at her repeated questions about him, though Nell was brave and
buoyant as ever. She was living at the hotel until his return, and he
did not return up to the time Ray left for the regiment. Ray had written
to him and received no reply. Now he had written to her asking where he
was, and then she broke down and told him. She had not seen her husband
for a month, and had only an occasional line. She needed money at that
moment and knew not where to find him. She thanked God they had no
children.
This was one letter to cause Ray bitter anxiety. Another came that he
read with infinite surprise, turned over the enclosure in his hand, rose
and looked through his bureau-drawer, and then, with a long whistle of
consternation and perplexity, shoved the note and enclosure into his
pocket.
All that night he was restless and feverish. The next morning brought a
new trouble. Once let a fellow get in arrest and all the buzzing
contents of Pandora's box will be turned loose upon his unlucky head. He
had risen late, could eat no breakfast, and his wound was troubling him.
There came a knock at the door, and the orderly with the commanding
officer's compliments,--"Was that horse of the lieutenant's private or
public property?"
"Why, public, of course," said Ray; "but say to the colonel that each
officer of the --th Cavalry has been allowed to use one horse for
campaign purposes to be considered as his own."
Blake had gone off somewhere. It was too early for the ladies. Ray
fretted and worried, wondering what this new move could portend, when he
heard a row in the back-yard; and in came Hogan, full of fight and
wrath.
"There's a doughboy sergeant out there, sir, as says he's ordered to
take Dandy to the quartermaster's stables, an' I told him to go to
blazes, an' whin he shtepped by me an' into the paddock an' began
untyin' him, I told him he had a right to shpake to you furrst, an' he
said he'd slap me into the gyard-house if I gave him any lip, and I
turned the kay on him, sir, an' here it is. I locked 'em both in, sir.
Shure they couldn't take the lootenant's horse without his knowin' it,
sir."
Ray took the key and hobbled out to his back door, simply telling Hogan
to come with him. He was thunderstruck at the idea of their taking Dandy
from him. He never thought of that as a possibility--Dandy, who seemed
after that wild night-ride to be part of himself.
"Go and open the door, and tell the sergeant to come here," said Ray.
But the instant the sergeant was released, he rushed out with fury in
his eye, fell upon Hogan, seized him by the collar, and, with rage in
every word and expletive, ordered him to go with him to the guard-house,
swearing he'd teach him to resist an officer in the discharge of his
duty. Hogan clinched his fist and looked first as though he would knock
the sergeant into the next yard, which he was physically able to do, but
discipline prevailed; he lifted neither hand nor voice, but simply
looked appealingly at his own officer as the sergeant marched him past.
Ray called to the irate infantryman to hold on a moment, he would
explain; but Ray was in arrest and could give no orders. The sergeant
knew that for the time being he was virtually the superior. He simply
did not choose to hear the lieutenant, but went on with his prisoner
across the parade, lodged him in the guard-house, then went to the
quartermaster's and reported that he had been violently resisted by
private Hogan, locked up by him in the paddock with the horse, and that
as soon as he could get out he had "arrested private Hogan and confined
him by your order, sir," the customary formula in such cases made and
provided.
Meantime, Dandy, finding himself untied and the stable-door open, had
ventured forth from the paddock while his master had hurried through the
house to again fruitlessly call to the sergeant from the front door, and
as the sorrel sniffed the mountain breeze and felt the glow of the
sunshine on his glistening coat, all his love for a wild gallop had
possessed him; he trotted out on the triangle in rear of the houses,
looked triumphantly about him a second or two with his head high in air,
his nostrils quivering, and his eyes dilating, then with a joyous snort
and two or three exuberant plunges, with streaming mane and tail he tore
away northward, and went careering over the prairie. Miss Sanford,
seated near her window in an arm-chair--and a revery, heard the thunder
of hoofs, and ran to see what it meant. She stood some minutes watching
Dandy racing riderless over the springy turf before she knew that Grace,
too, was by her side gazing from the same window. If Billy Ray could
have seen those two faces when Marion turned to her friend--the quick,
hot flush on one, the speaking eyes of both--he would never have done
what he _did_ do,--turn back to his room with a bitter imprecation on
his lips, with anger and desolation in his heart, and, raising his hands
in almost tragic gesture of impotent wrath as he glared around at the
walls of his undeserved prison, he heartily damned the fates that had
consigned him to the unsympathizing limits of an infantry garrison; he
heartily included the colonel and quartermaster in his sweeping
anathema; and then--oh, Ray! Ray! it was so weak, so pitifully weak!--he
dragged forth the old demijohn, filled and drank a bumper of rye, hurled
the goblet into flinders against the door, and threw himself upon his
bed in an ecstasy of pent-up wrath and misery, just as Blake came
tearing in to tell of Dandy's escapade. Yes, it was wofully weak, but as
wofully human.
That the breach between the post authorities and the cavalry officers
was widened by the day's occurrences goes without saying. Blake went and
asked for Hogan's release on the ground that as a cavalryman he had done
perfectly right in refusing to let the horse go until he had seen his
own officer, but the colonel properly replied that that by no means
justified or explained his locking up the sergeant, and in plain
language said that Hogan should be tried forthwith. Blake then urged
that Dandy, being a regimental horse, should be returned to Mr. Ray, as
the colonel well knew the circumstances that had endeared them to each
other; but the colonel replied that an officer in arrest had no use for
a horse, and that Mr. Ray had no right to a public animal anyway. Again
had the colonel law and right on his side. Then Blake declared that the
whole regiment would resent such an action, and the colonel was
punishing Ray before he was even tried; and the colonel, who was meek as
Moses in the presence of his wife, and who preferred peace to war when
there was any chance of becoming personally involved, but knew his
strategical strength in this contest and was prepared to use it, most
properly, pointedly, and justifiably told Mr. Blake that unless he, too,
desired to figure as the accused before a court-martial for
insubordinate conduct, he would mend his ways forthwith; meantime, to
leave the office. And Blake went.
If Blake had been wise as Gleason he would have cultivated Mrs.
Whaling's society instead of dropping her, as he did in this critical
state of affairs. When the good lady called to see the ladies of the
cavalry the next morning, she referred with poignant sorrow to the fact
that those two misguided young men were drowning their sorrows in the
flowing bowl. Mrs. Stannard ventured a disclaimer, but Mrs. Whaling had
her information straight from the quartermaster, and was not to be
downed. Mrs. Stannard wrote a few earnest words to Mr. Ray, making no
mention of what she had just heard, but begging him not to lose heart at
having to part with Dandy, and saying they would all be down to see him
the next afternoon, and he must be sure and be ready to welcome them.
Ray and Blake _had_ been drinking confusion to the doughboys together
during the evening, and the former was very feverish and excitable when
the letter came. He knew well that somebody had already been telling her
of his weakness, and it only angered him. He wrote no answer until later
in the day; but when he did, it was to say that while he would be glad
to see them to-morrow as suggested, he could not but feel disappointed
that they had not come this very afternoon. But as they had not come, he
and Blake proceeded to get into more mischief.
It almost broke Ray's heart when that morning Dandy was led past his
window, and presently he saw the post quartermaster, a bulky youth of
some forty summers, climb on his back, get a rein in each hand, and
with knees well hunched up and elbows braced, settle himself according
to his ideas of equestrianism in the big padded saddle. As Dandy felt a
trifle fresh, and chafed under the weight of the heavy rider and heavy
dragoon bit, he switched his tail and tossed his head, being instantly
rewarded by a fierce jerk on the huge curb and a shout of "whoa there!"
that stung him into amazed and suffering revolt and drove poor Ray
almost distracted. Dandy's mouth was tender as a woman's. Ray rode him
with the veriest feather touch on the rein, and to see his pet tortured
by such ignorance was more than he could stand. He flew to the door, and
shouted,--
"For God's sake, man, don't use that curb! He'll go all right if you
give him his head." But the infantryman only glared, probably did not
hear, he was so busy trying to keep his seat; and paying no attention to
Ray, went alternately jerking and kicking up the row, while Dandy,
startled, amazed, tortured, and high-strung, backed and plunged and
tugged at the bit. A mother who sees her child abused by some ruffian of
a big boy knows what Ray suffered from that scene. Only to such, and to
the trooper who loves the horse who has borne him through charge after
charge, who has been his comrade on campaign after campaign, shared
wounds and danger and hunger and thirst with him, will Ray's next move
be conceivable; he threw himself upon his bed, buried his face in his
arms, and broke down utterly.
He and Blake concocted between them later in the day a letter to the
colonel expressive of their views as to Dandy's rights; but the letter
was so pointed a protest against their seizing a regimental horse for
quasi-quartermaster's purposes, and so deep a sarcasm on infantry
horsemanship, that it came back with a stinging reprimand. Even Warner
felt it a slur. Then Blake tried another: setting forth that as neither
the commanding officer nor the quartermaster had been in saddle since
the war of the Rebellion,--if they had then, the latter being a
promotion from the ranks,--they could not be expected to know what they,
as cavalrymen, were required to know, that a horse of spirit was not to
be ridden like a cast-iron mule; but luckily for Mr. Blake's chances for
future usefulness the post surgeon dropped in just then, and casting his
eye over the screed, coolly took and tore it up, sent Blake over to the
hospital for the steward, chatted pleasantly with Ray while he dressed
the wounded thigh, pointed significantly to the demijohn, saying,
"There's where much of this fever comes from. No more of it, Ray." And
then when Blake came back, took him out and gave him a rasping; told him
that his hot-headedness was only making matters worse for Ray, and that
he must take things quietly. He knew that Ray hadn't been treated right
about the horse, but old Whaling couldn't be expected to have any more
sentiment on such matters than his stolid quartermaster, and by fighting
them he was simply doing harm. In fact, said the doctor, Ray is now in a
very feverish and excitable state, and if this continue I cannot say
what will result. So a more temperate letter was written, and Ray bowed
to the yoke, and meekly signed a civil explanation to the quartermaster
of the horse's character and the proper way of handling him; but that
worthy had meantime represented to the colonel that Mr. Ray had come to
his door and sworn at him when he mounted that morning, and he would
have no advice; and so by direction of the commanding officer a
communication was sent to Mr. Ray to the effect that as he was no longer
responsible for the care of the horse he would refrain from interference
with or suggestions to the post quartermaster. This was the letter that
Blake had brought in with a flourish; and that morning--all that day
from eight A.M. until late in the afternoon, without water, without his
customary feed, saddled and bridled, poor Dandy stood in the hot sun
tied to a post in front of the quartermaster's house, in full view of
Ray's front windows. The quartermaster was too stiff and chafed after
yesterday's experiences to attempt to mount to-day, but he could worry
the horse and madden Ray by keeping him tied there switching the flies
from his scarred flanks, and wistfully neighing and pricking up his ears
every time any one approached along the walk.
Blake had gone to town early in the morning after giving that letter to
Ray. Hogan was in the guard-house a prisoner. Ray was penned to the
limits of his house in arrest. He could only see and hear the suffering
of his pet and not relieve him. Late in the day he called to a soldier
going by and offered him a dollar to go to the horse and tie him to a
post ten yards nearer where there was a little shade. The soldier untied
and was leading him away while Dandy tripped gratefully after, when the
quartermaster's Hibernian accents were heard thundering an order to
"come back wid dthat harrse." The soldier saluted and said Mr. Ray had
asked him just to move him into the shade, and the officer damned the
man for not knowing better. Then Ray came to the door and asked the
soldier to take Dandy a bucket of water, and as the man carried it and
the horse pawed and whinnied at the welcome sight, the quartermaster
appeared on his piazza, and shouted in wrath to the soldier not to
interfere again or he'd "have him in the lock-up." And poor Dandy, like
an equine Tantalus, was robbed of the needed fluid. Ray could bear no
more. He kept one foot inside the door-way as his arrest demanded, but
leaning far out, with blazing eyes and clinching fist he hurled his
challenge at the quartermaster in a voice that rang along the row like
the "to arms" of the trumpets.
"You cowardly brute! I'll horsewhip you before the whole garrison the
moment I'm free!" The surgeon heard it and came hurrying to him. Mrs.
Turner heard it and feared poor Mr. Ray must have been taking too much.
The colonel heard it far up the row and incorporated it in the
additional charge and specifications he was drawing up against Mr. Ray;
but the ladies "up the row" were busy dressing to come down according to
promise and see him, and they did not hear. Ah, no! Nine out of ten of
those who read this may say it was all improbable, impossible, or, if
true, that there was nothing but drink to explain poor Ray's frantic
outburst; but ask any cavalryman who deserves the name, and we will rest
the defence with him.
The ladies came as Mrs. Stannard had promised, and with anxious face
the doctor met them at the gate. Mr. Ray was in no condition to see any
one.
That night Mrs. Stannard returned with the doctor to his bedside. Ray
was delirious, in a raging fever.