THE GRASP OF THE LAW.
To a man of Mr. Blake's temperament the next few days were hard to bear.
He was worried half to death, and yet, when Mrs. Turner saw an
opportunity, and with a suggestive glance at his lean legs,
sympathetically inquired "if he wasn't afraid he'd lose _all_ his
flesh," he was fully able to appreciate the feminine dexterity and
malice of the allusion. His quick wit could have suggested a deserved
repartee; but even in his misery Blake would say no wounding word to a
lady of the regiment. He had good reason to take very little comfort in
her, however, as an exponent of the regimental feeling on which the --th
had prided itself. Mrs. Turner was far too voluble on the subject of the
awful disgrace that had been brought on their good name by this fearful
tragedy, and while she hoped and prayed Mr. Ray might be innocent, it
was evident that she was far from believing it a possibility. Just now
her time was taken up with Mrs. Whaling and the infantry officers, for
there was a blockade at number 11. The ladies had twice asked to be
excused when Mrs. Whaling and Mrs. Turner called. Mrs. Truscott was
feeling unable to see any one, said the servant, but Mrs. Stannard was
with her.
But Blake had expected nothing better of Mrs. Turner, and attached
little importance to her opinion. What had stung him to the quick was
the sight of Ray's suffering when that note came back to him refused. He
was amazed at Mrs. Truscott, for to his masculine mind and to Ray's worn
and wearied senses only one construction of her conduct was
apparent,--she believed him guilty, and shrank from his note as she
would from his blood-stained hand. Of that desolate night neither he nor
Ray could ever be brought to speak thereafter. Blake sat for hours by
the bedside of his stricken friend listening in helpless misery and
wrath to the occasional changing of the sentries, and watching, as a
sorrowing mother might watch, Ray's wordless suffering. Most of the
night he lay with his face buried in his arms; but Blake could see by
the clinching hand, the shudders that often shook his frame, the
constant, nervous tapping of his foot beneath the coverlet, that he was
wide awake,--alive to all his sorrows. The doctor had come and
prescribed sedatives, and promised to come again if he did not sleep.
Ray had silently taken the medicine, and for one instant Blake had
caught sight of the face that was now dear to him as any brother's. He
threw himself on his knees and tried to draw the hands away as Ray once
again turned to the wall.
"For God's sake, Billy," he wellnigh sobbed, "don't turn from me so!
There ain't a man in all the --th could believe it of you. What need you
care for what a nervous woman thinks?"
But Ray only pressed his hand a moment, and simply said,--
"I'll come round all right--after a while. Don't worry, old fellow."
But he hadn't "come round." At midnight Blake decided he must have a
drink, and he offered Ray some whiskey, thinking to benefit him in some
way. Ray heard, and said nothing, but put out his hand and gently pushed
it away, shaking his head, and this capped the climax of Blake's
perplexity. At one o'clock, seeing that Ray was still wide awake, he had
decided to go and fetch the doctor. He was fearful of the effect of this
long mental strain, but Ray seemed to divine his thoughts, and in a
voice so soft and patient as to melt Blake's raging into tears, he
begged him not to disturb any one. "I've got you, Blake; what do I want
of a doctor?"
Along towards morning Blake dragged in his buffalo-robes, and spreading
them on the floor by the bedside, soon dropped into a sleep of utter
exhaustion. When he awoke Ray was standing at the window, cleanly
shaved, dressed in his newest and neatest undress uniform, and listening
calmly to Mr. Warner, who, in a voice plainly showing his agitation, was
saying something that brought Blake to his feet with a single bound. A
warrant had been issued as the natural result of the inquest, the
officers of the law had come out from town, and it was the commanding
officer's order that he be turned over to the custody of the civil
authorities.
Blake would have burst into a fury of invective and denunciation, but
Ray's hand restrained him. Still weak from his unhealed wound, from
recent illness, from mental agitation and sleeplessness, Blake thought
he never saw Ray so brave, so strong, as when he made his reply.
"It was my expectation to see the commanding officer this morning, Mr.
Warner, as my dress indicates. Since he remands me to the charge of the
civil authorities, what I had to say to him must be said to them. I
shall be ready as soon as I can change to civilian dress."
And so, with only Blake to help stow away the few books and papers he
desired to lock in his trunk,--for even faithful Hogan had been
forbidden to enter the room,--Ray quietly made his preparations, and in
a few minutes stood arrayed in a business suit that had been made for
him years before, and was decidedly out of fashion. A carriage had
driven to his door, and two heavily-built men were lounging at the gate.
Blake, wild with nervousness and wrath, was making slow progress with
his dressing, and Ray took from him the little hand-bag he was
bunglingly striving to pack.
"I'll do this, Blake. You go on with your dressing. Of course I
understand you mean to go in with me; but now let me say a word. I have
had plenty of time to think, and this is just what I want, what I must
have. Nothing short of a full trial can satisfy me now; and as for being
handed over to the civil authorities,--well, is it any worse than what I
have had to bear _here_?"
"By heaven! but there'll come a day of reckoning for that cold-blooded,
soulless, bowelless, old block in the headquarters office. Just think of
the kicking he'll get when the --th comes home! But, Ray, what I'm
worried about is this,--bail, you know. You can't stay there in jail,
and I don't know any of these local plutocrats----"
"I've thought of all that. You are to ask _no_ one. If I were out on
bail I would have to come back _here_, and in all the world there is no
spot where I have known such misery. I prefer the jail at Cheyenne to
such freedom as this has been at Russell. In a few days my sister will
reach me, and then we'll see. Now hurry, I want to get away before
guard-mounting."
In a few minutes Blake was ready, and Ray told him to call in the
officers. They entered the room, and the first one, as he did so, by an
instinct which he could not himself explain, took off his hat as he
caught sight of Ray standing quietly at the window; his followers,
though evidently unused to such a display, followed suit. The leader
began to read his warrant, but Ray raised his hand and smilingly checked
him.
"Never mind it, my friend; it is all in due form, no doubt. You brought
handcuffs, I suppose?"
And the man was already fumbling in his left pocket for them. Ray went
on in the same quiet tone,--
"You won't need them, so keep them in your pocket. I am glad to go with
you now if you are ready."
And the officer, who, like every man in Cheyenne, had heard all about
the night ride that saved Wayne's command, and respected the "young
feller" that made it, was glad to find an awkward question put out of
his way. He had reddened with embarrassment, but was grateful to Ray for
taking the trouble off his mind. As they left the house, and poor Hogan,
looking over the banisters up-stairs, broke into an Irish wail of grief,
and the corporal of the guard instinctively brought his left hand up to
the shoulder in a salute that made his musket ring, a casual observer
would have said that Mr. Ray was showing his visitors to their
carriage. The door shut with a snap, the horses started with a crack of
the whip, and in another moment the silent quartette were whirled away
through the east gate before anybody "up the row" was fully aware of
what was going on.
Meantime, there had been a night of misery elsewhere in the garrison.
Mrs. Stannard had asked permission of the officer of the day to go to
Ray with the doctor at nine o'clock; the officer of the day said he
would go and see the colonel and let her know. He went, but did not
return. At ten o'clock Mrs. Stannard wrote a note to the colonel, and
that punctilious soldier replied through his adjutant at half-past ten.
He was very sorry, but for several reasons he was compelled to refuse
all applications to see Mr. Ray until the morrow. Mrs. Stannard in her
indignation could hardly find words to thank Mr. Warner for the courtesy
he personally displayed in the matter. She sent a servant to the
corporal of the guard to ask him to say to Mr. Blake that she desired
earnestly to see him a moment; the corporal said he would as soon as he
had posted the next sentry; but he forgot it until long after eleven,
owing to an excitement over in the band quarters, and then Blake thought
it best to wait until morning, and so it happened that one woman whose
heart was full of faith in and sympathy for Ray was balked of her desire
to send him full assurance of her thought for him. She could not sleep,
however, and at midnight walked alone down the row and asked the soldier
at the gate to give this little note for Ray to the sentinel within, but
the man came sadly and respectfully back. The sentry dare not pass it
in: it was against his orders. She looked wistfully at the dim light
showing through the curtains of the front room, but turned wearily away.
A dim light was burning, too, in Mrs. Truscott's room up the row, and
she tapped softly at the door, thinking that, like herself, they might
be still awake; but no answer came, and, at last, she went to her own
lonely quarters. Oh, how she longed for her brave, blunt, outspoken Luce
that night! He could find a way of helping Ray, and would do it despite
all the official trammels that the post commander could devise. She was
sick at heart, but next door lay a woman whose unrest was greater still,
whose trouble seemed more than she could bear. Mrs. Truscott had arrived
at the conclusion before ten o'clock that night that she was the most
miserable woman on the face of the globe.
Jack's letter arriving the day previous was as kind, as well expressed,
and as thoughtful a screed as ever mortal husband penned, but, being
like other husbands, only mortal, he had failed to bring about the exact
effect which was intended. Whether this was his fault or hers could not
be determined entirely by an inspection of a copy of the letter, since
letters may be read with a thousand different inflections, and the most
passionate heart-offering be made to sound like a torrent of sarcasm.
Perhaps it is neither here nor there whose fault it was. Grace read the
letter with burning self-reproach. It was the second time he had had
reason to find fault with her. True, she had acted as she supposed for
the best, and after consultation with Mrs. Stannard. Mrs. Stannard's
letter was to go by the next mail and explain the whole thing to the
major, who, if he deemed advisable, would carry everything to Truscott;
but, as we have seen, that explanatory letter had never reached the
regiment. It, with bags full of other letters, was lying in the wagons
at Goose Creek, while the --th was on the chase away to the Yellowstone,
and Grace had the misery of believing that Jack's last thought of her as
he rode off to battle was that she had had some sentimental scene with
Ray, had been surprised in the midst of it, and had concealed it from
him. She had spent a distracted afternoon, had written Jack page after
page, in which amid tears and kisses she had recorded her determination
never to let another man see her alone an instant, never to receive a
note of any kind from Ray or anybody else, never to _speak_ to a man if
she could help it; she hated them all,--all but one, whom she had
wronged and deceived, and whom she adored and worshipped now, and heaven
only knows what all! She felt comforted somehow when she had slipped
that letter into the box at the adjutant's office late that night, and
had gone so soundly asleep that she might not have known of the murder
until morning but for Marion. And then, that next afternoon,--that
_very_ next afternoon, after she had written all her impulsive,
wifelike, loving promises to Jack, what should come but a note from Ray
to be delivered privately to her. Let any young wife of less than a
year's disenchantment put herself in Mrs. Truscott's place and say what
she would have done. Of course, dear madam, I hear you say, _vous
autres_, "She needn't have made such a fool of herself! She might have
explained or--something!" I quite agree with you. That is what all of
us think who have survived the delirium of the honeymoon, that _mielle
de la lune-acy_ which all of us must encounter as our children do the
measles; but, you see, Mrs. Truscott was not yet through with it, and
what is more, I have heard you remark on several occasions that she was
an awfully weak sort of a heroine and would make Jack wretched yet.
Bless your womanly hearts! I never pretended that she was a Zenobia, or
a Jeanne la Pucelle, or a Susan B. Anthony. She was absurd, if you will,
but she was utterly in love with her husband, as Mrs. Turner said, and
thought far more of him than the rest of mankind put together, which is
more than some of you can say, though I'm bound to admit that she had
better reason than most of you, _placens uxor mea_ frankly included.
She had rushed up-stairs for a fresh burst of tears, and presently
Marion, all love and sympathy, came to see her, and the result of that
interview complicated matters in a way that baffles description. So far
from upholding her course, Miss Sanford had looked first grave, then
frightened, then indignant. In plain words she told her that at such a
time, when the man who had saved her life,--saved her honor,--showed
himself her best friend, her husband's best friend, stood charged with a
foul crime of which she well knew him to be guiltless, and had sent her
a simple note that could have no possible purpose other than to say that
now, at last, he might, to save his own name, have to tell of Gleason's
fiendish conduct towards her--to refuse it, to send it back--"Oh, Grace,
Grace, you _don't_ mean you could have done _that_! Oh, it was
monstrous! it was shameful!"
And Marion Sanford had rushed into her own room, banged--yes, _banged_
the door, locked it, put a chair against it, would have moved the
washstand up against it, but her strength gave out, and she hurled
herself upon the bed in a tempest of passionate tears.
Ah, well! even now--ten years after--it is no easy thing to write or
tell of those days. It was part of our purpose to go around the garrison
and show how other people looked at the matter, but it may be as well to
say that, except Blake, Warner, and the surgeon, every officer thought
Ray guilty. So, too, did most of the men except over in the band
quarters, where there was the excitement that night. It was caused by
the snare drummer, a pugnacious young Celt, who burst in upon his
comrades at eleven o'clock with a loud defiance of "doughboy" justice,
and an oath that he know'd the man as shot Gleason and suspicioned Ray,
and he'd have him at the gallows yet.
Reporters and special correspondents had been at the fort interviewing
everybody who would talk and, after the manner of their kind, making the
dumb speak in a way that would put to the blush the miracles of holy
writ. There seemed but one theory among those in authority,--that Ray
was guilty. This was duly heralded to an eager public, and the evening
extra and the morning journals in columns of detail had prepared all
minds for the culprit's coming. A crowd that blocked the street had
gathered in front of the building in which were located the offices of
the marshal, the sheriff, and other legal magnates, and Ray's pale, sad
face looked out upon a host of curious eyes, in which his own, brave and
unflinching, caught not one gleam of sympathy. Deadwood Dick, a ruffian
who had murdered a soldier for his money, went in through that door-way
a fortnight before amid many shouts of encouragement and the buoyant
reflection that no local jury had yet found a verdict of guilty against
a citizen of Wyoming where the offence committed was against the peace
or property of Uncle Sam. But a jury that would triumphantly acquit the
self-styled "Scourge of Sandy Bottom" on the ground of temporary
insanity would be apt to look less leniently upon one of those swells at
the fort. Had there been a man to raise the _à la lanterne_ of rejoicing
democracy,--had not the murdered man been himself one of the official
class, Blake and his revolver would probably have stood alone between
the accused and lynching. As it was, but for the one faithful comrade of
all who had loved and believed in him, realizing it all, yet calm, sad,
and self-possessed, Ray stood at the bar of justice practically
friendless.
It was early when Mrs. Stannard came down from her room after an almost
sleepless night. First call for guard-mounting was just sounding as she
stepped out on the piazza and noted little knots of men here and there,
all gazing intently towards the east gate, where the dust as of a
recently passing vehicle was settling back to earth. She opened Mrs.
Truscott's door, and saw Marion Sanford slowly descending the stairs,
her face very white and wan. Out in the dining-room could be heard
voluble voices, weeping, and Irish expletives of mingled wrath and
grief,--and then, with eyes dilating with horror, with streaming hair,
with pallid lips and a ghastly look in her white face, Grace Truscott,
clad in a morning wrapper, came rushing through the little parlor into
the hall, gave one glance at her girl friend, and then, stretching forth
her arms, she cried,--
"Oh, Maidie, Maidie! It's all my doing. They--they've ca-carried him off
to jail!"
And then prone upon the stairs she threw herself, burying her face from
sight of all.