The snow had gone from all the foot-hills and had long since
disappeared in the broad river bottom. It was fast going from the
neighboring mountains, too--both the streams told plainly of that, for
while the Platte rolled along in great, swift surges under the Engineer
Bridge, its smaller tributary--the "Larmie," as the soldiers called
it--came brawling and foaming down its stony bed and sweeping around
the back of the fort with a wild vehemence that made some of the
denizens of the south end decidedly nervous. The rear windows of the
commanding officer's house looked out upon a rushing torrent, and where
the surgeon lived, at the south-west angle, the waters lashed against
the shabby old board fence that had been built in by-gone days, partly
to keep the children and chickens from tumbling into the stream when
the water was high, partly to keep out marauding coyotes when the water
was low. South and west the bare, gray-brown slopes shut out the
horizon and limited the view. Eastward lay the broad, open valley
beyond the confluence of the streams,--bare and level along the
crumbling banks, bare and rolling along the line of the foot-hills.
Northward the same brown ridges, were tumbled up like a mammoth wave a
mile or so beyond the river, while between the northern limits of the
garrison proper and the banks of the larger stream there lay a level
"flat," patched here and there with underbrush, and streaked by a
winding tangle of hoof- and wheel-tracks that crossed and re-crossed
each other, yet led, one and all, to the distant bridge that spanned
the stream, and thence bore away northward like the tines of a
pitchfork, the one to the right going over the hills a three days'
march to the Indian agencies up along the "Wakpa Schicha," the other
leading more to the west around a rugged shoulder of bluff, and then
stretching away due north for the head-waters of the Niobrara and the
shelter of the jagged flanks of Rawhide Butte. Only in shadowy clusters
up and down the stream was there anywhere sign of timber. Foliage, of
course, there was none. Cottonwood and willow in favored nooks along
the Platte were just beginning to shoot forth their tiny pea-green
tendrils in answer to the caressing touch of the May-day sunshine.
April had been a month of storm and bluster and huge, wanton wastes of
snow, whirling and drifting down from the bleak range that veiled the
valley of the Laramie from the rays of the westering sun; and any one
who chose to stroll out from the fort and climb the gentle slope to the
bluffs on that side, and to stand by the rude scaffolding whereon were
bleaching the bones of some Dakota brave, could easily see the
gleaming, glistening sides of the grand old peak, fully forty miles
away,--all one sheen of frosty white that still defied the melting
rays. Somebody was up there this very afternoon,--two somebodies. Their
figures were blacked in silhouette against the sky close by the Indian
scaffolding; but even at the distance one could see they were not
Indian mourners. That was not a blanket which the tall, slender shape
had just thrown about the slighter form. Mrs. Miller, the major's wife,
who happened to be crossing the parade at the moment, knew very well
that it was an officer's cape, and that Randall McLean had carefully
wrapped it about Nellie Bayard lest the keen wind from the west,
blowing freely over the ridges, should chill the young girl after her
long spin across the prairie and up the heights.
A good-hearted woman was Mrs. Miller, and very much did she like the
doctor's sweet and pretty daughter, very much better than she fancied
the doctor himself, although, had she been pressed for a reason for her
distrust of the senior medical attendant of the garrison, Mrs. Miller
might have found it hard to give satisfactory answer. He was a widower,
and "that made him interesting to some people," was her analysis of the
situation. She really knew nothing more detrimental to his character,
and yet she wished he had not lost his wife, and her wishes on this
point were not entirely because of Elinor's motherless state. It was
the first year the girl had spent in garrison since the death of that
loving mother nearly a decade before. There were not lacking hearts
full of sympathy and affection for the weeping little maiden when that
sore affliction befell her. She had been taken to her mother's old
home, reared and educated, and possibly over-indulged there, and
sometimes gladdened by visits from her handsome and distinguished
father. A marked man in his profession was Dr. Bayard, one of the
"swells" of the medical corps of the army, and rapturously had he been
loved by the beautiful and delicate woman whose heart he had won,
somewhat to the sorrow of her people. They did not like the army, and
liked it still less in the long years of separation that followed.
Bayard was a man who in his earlier service had secured many a pleasant
detail, and had been a society leader at Old Point Comfort, and
Newport, and Boston Harbor, and now, in his advancing years and under
an administration with which he had lost influence, he was taking his
turn at frontier service, and heartily damning the fates that had
landed him at Laramie. His dead wife's father was a man whose dictum
was law in the political party in power. The doctor appealed to him to
urge the Secretary of War to revoke the orders which consigned him to
the isolation of a Wyoming post, but the old gentleman had heard more
than one account of his widowed son-in-law's propensities and
peccadilloes. It was his conviction that Newport was not the place for
handsome Dr. Bayard; he rather delighted in the news that the doctor
promptly sent him; but, though a power in politics, he was in some
things no politician, for, when his son-in-law begged him to use his
influence in his behalf, the old gentleman said no,--and told him why.
That gloomy November when Dr. Bayard left for the West he took his
revenge on the old people, for he took his daughter with him.
It was a cruel, an almost savage blow, and one that was utterly
unlooked for. Fond as he had been of Elinor's mother, and proud as he
was of his pretty child, the doctor had been content to spend only
occasional holidays with her. Every few months he came to visit them,
or had her run down to New York for a brief tour among the shops, the
theatres, and the picture-galleries. She was enthusiastically devoted
to him, and thought no man on earth so grand, so handsome, so
accomplished. She believed herself the most enviable of daughters as
the child of so fond and indulgent a father. She gloried in the pride
which he manifested in her success at school, in her budding beauty and
graceful ways. She welcomed his coming with infinite delight, and was
ever ready to drop any other project when papa's brief letters and
telegrams summoned her to the city. Whatever their feeling toward the
doctor, her grand-parents had never betrayed them to her or sought to
undermine--or rather undeceive--her loyal devotion; but never had it
occurred to them as a possibility that he would assert his paternal
claim and bear away with him the idol of their hearts, the image of the
cherished daughter he had won from them so many years before. Proud old
judge and senator as he was, the grandfather had never been so sore
stricken. He could not plead, could not humble himself to unbend and
ask for mercy. For good and sufficient cause he had denied his
son-in-law the boon that had been so confidently demanded, and in his
chagrin and exasperation Dr. Bayard had taken his revenge. It was too
late now to prepare their little Elinor for characteristics of which
she had never dreamed, too late to warn her that her superb father was
not the hero her fancy painted. In utter consternation, in wretchedness
of spirit, the old couple saw her borne away, tearful at leaving them,
yet blissful at being with papa, and going once more to the army, and
they could only pray heaven to guard her and to comfort them.
But, if Dr. Bayard was incensed at being ordered to so distant a
station as Laramie, in the first place, his discontent was greatly
augmented with the coming of the new year. It was a crowded post when
he and Elinor arrived in the early winter, but long before the snows
had begun to disappear all the cavalry, and all but two companies of
infantry there on duty, were ordered northward into the Sioux country,
and his assistant was taken with the field column, leaving to the older
man the unwelcome task of caring for the families of all the absentees
as well as for the few men in the hospital. The sight of Dr. Bayard,
dignified, handsome, elegant in dress and manner, tramping about in the
deep snow around the laundresses' quarters was one that afforded rather
too much malicious delight to a few of the denizens of the club-room at
the store; but the contemplation of his own misfortunes was beginning
to bring the doctor himself to a state of mind still less justifiable.
All his life he had shunned the contemplation of poverty and distress.
He was now for the first time seeing sickness and suffering in
surroundings that had nothing of refinement, and he shrank, like the
sensitive and selfish creature that he was, from such contamination.
It was hard news for Laramie when the telegraph flashed the tidings of
the savage fight up among the snows in the Powder River country, but it
was comfort to Dr. Bayard. He had begged for an assistant to replace
the young surgeon who had been taken to the front, and his request was
declined on the ground that the size of the present garrison did not
warrant the detail of an additional medical officer. Bayard ground his
teeth, and swore, when the paper came back to him, "Respectfully
transmitted with attention invited to the endorsement of the medical
director,--which is approved." He could have testified under oath now,
so strong was his conviction, that his father-in-law, the surgeon-general
of the army, and the medical director of the department were all in
league to annoy and humiliate him to the verge of distraction--or
resignation from the service. But the fight with Crazy Horse's band of
Sioux brought unexpected aid and comfort to the doctor in greatly
adding to his responsibilities; a large number of wounded and frozen
soldiers were being brought in as fast as ambulance and _travois_
could haul them, and now he was shrewd enough to know that an
assistant would have to be sent, and he did not even ask. The young
doctor who came back with the wounded was himself so badly frozen when
only two days' march away that he could be of no further aid. Bayard
went forward through the snow-drifts up the Platte to meet his new
patients, saw them safely housed in hospital, and gave himself up to
the devoted efforts in their behalf. The moment the assistant arrived
he was given instructions to take entire charge of the soldiers'
families and the "hangers on" of the post.
And now the 1st of May was come; many of the wounded were well enough
to be hobbling around the fort in search of air and sunshine; many
additional troops had passed Laramie on their way up to the front and
many more were expected, but there still remained only the two infantry
companies to "hold the fort." At the earliest intimation of trouble
there had come back from the East, where he had been spending the first
long leave he had enjoyed in some years of service, a stalwart young
lieutenant by the name of McLean. Border warfare had no more charm for
him than it had for any other soldier who remembered that it was one in
which the Indian had everything to win and nothing to lose. He had seen
not a little of it, with hard marching, scouting, and suffering,
through winter's cold and summer's heat, in more than one campaign in
the recent past. It was hard to give up the leave, but harder to have
his regiment take the field without him. It was with a sense of having
been defrauded in some measure, therefore, that he found himself
retained at the fort, simply because his own company happened to be
kept back on guard. The column had gone when he succeeded in reaching
the post, and his chagrin was bitter when he found that, so far from
following and overtaking them on the trail to the Big Horn, he was
ordered to assume command of his company in the place of Captain Bruce,
who, though present at the fort, was rapidly breaking down with
rheumatic trouble that confined him to his quarters. McLean went to the
major commanding, he also wrote to his colonel and telegraphed to the
adjutant, but all to no purpose. There must be an officer with each
company, even though it be only a post-guard, and it was his ill-luck
to have to be the man.
And yet, three weeks after his return, Mr. McLean was by no means the
disgusted and unhappy subaltern he declared himself, and it was a fact
patent to all the garrison that Nellie Bayard was the source of comfort
which reconciled him to the situation.
The fort was crowded with officers' families at the time. A large force
had been maintained here during the winter, and when the troops took
the field in March the ladies and children remained,--a sacred charge
for Major Miller and his two companies of "foot." Not only was this the
case, but such was the threatening and truculent bearing of all the
Sioux and Cheyenne Indians remaining at the agency on White River to
the north-east, that a few of the officers on duty at Fort Robinson
(the post established there to overlook and overawe (?) the savages)
had sent their families back to Laramie under escort, and those gentle
refugees were received and housed and welcomed with a hospitality and
warmth that one never sees outside the army. Every set of officers'
quarters, therefore, was crowded to its full capacity, and a thing that
never before had happened in the chronicles of the old frontier post
was now a matter of course. Even "Bedlam," the ramshackle, two-story
frame rookery, once sacred to the bachelor element, had now two
families quartered therein, and one of these comprised the wife, maiden
sister, and three children of Captain Forrest, of the cavalry,--"refugees
from Robinson." For several days after their arrival they had been
housed under Major Miller's roof,--all the other quarters, except Dr.
Bayard's, being crowded,--and Nellie Bayard had begged her father to
invite Mrs., Miss, and the little Forrests to make his house their
home. The doctor willingly accorded her permission to invite Miss
Forrest, but drew the line at her unattractive sister-in-law and the
more than unattractive trio of youngsters. Before she had known Miss
Forrest three days, however, Nellie Bayard felt less eagerness to ask
her to be her guest, and Mrs. Miller, as kind and generous a soul as
ever lived, had gone so far as to say to her, "Don't."
And yet it seemed so unkind, so utterly lacking in hospitality or
courtesy. After his second call at the commanding officer's, and a
sprightly chat with this beaming, bright-eyed, vivacious young woman,
Dr. Bayard had rather pointedly inquired,--
"Nellie, dear, I thought you were to invite Miss Forrest to pay you a
visit; have you done so?"
"No, papa," was the hesitating answer. "I did mean to--but--don't you
expect Dr. and Mrs. Graham early next week? You know you'll have to ask
them."
"Oh, I know that, child, but the house is big. There are two spare
rooms, and even if we had to take in more, you two might share your
room awhile, might you not?"
"We might, papa dear; but--I'm afraid I don't like her. That is, she
doesn't attract me as she did at first. I thought her charming then."
"Tut, tut, tut! Why, what on earth's the matter with my little woman?"
asked the doctor, bending down over her as they were walking home. "It
isn't like you, Nell, to be censorious. What's she been doing?--making
eyes at young McLean?"
He might have judged better than that, had he reflected an instant. He
never yet had thought of his daughter except as a mere child, and he
did not mean for an instant to intimate that her growing interest in
the young lieutenant was anything more than a "school-girl" fancy. She
was old enough, however, to take his thoughtless speech _au serieux_,
and it hurt her.
"Papa!" was her one, indignant word of remonstrance. She would not even
defend herself against such accusation.
"I know!--I understand--I didn't mean it except as the merest joke, my
child," he hurriedly interposed. "I thought you'd laugh at the idea."
But she would not speak of it, and he quickly sought to change the
subject, never even asking other reason for her apparent aversion to
Miss Forrest. It was true that the speedy coming of Dr. and Mrs. Graham
would make it necessary that he should open his doors to an officer of
his own corps and profession.
For a few days, however, that thoughtless speech seemed to rankle in
his gentle daughter's soul. Never before had she known hesitancy or
embarrassment in her daily, hourly chat with that fondly loved father.
Now there was a topic that she could not approach. Hitherto she used to
tell him all about her walks and talks with Mr. McLean. That young
gentleman, indeed, had accompanied them the evening they went to the
major's to call upon the latest arrival among the refugees, but now she
shrank from mentioning either Miss Forrest or him. For several days
after that talk it seemed as though she avoided not only the subjects,
but the two persons themselves. At least both of them would have sworn
to the latter part of the statement, and McLean was at his wit's end to
account for it.
Meantime, there being nowhere else to go, the Forrests had moved into
"Bedlam" in the same hall-way with the family of Lieutenant Post, also
refugees from Robinson; but while the Posts occupied rooms on the lower
floor, the Forrests took the four chambers overhead. Two young cavalry
officers were the occupants up to the outbreak of the campaign, but
all their furniture and "traps" were summarily moved over to the
quartermaster's storehouse by order of the commanding officer,--and one
trip of one wagon did the entire job,--for the emergency was one that
called for action, and Major Miller was a man to meet it. The Forrests
and the Posts, therefore, were now sole occupants of the south end of
"Bedlam," and Lieutenant McLean's two rooms were on the ground-floor of
the north end. The hall-ways ran entirely through from east to west,
giving on the west side into court-yards separated from each other by a
high board fence and completely enclosed by one of similar make. On the
east side, fronting the roadway, were broad verandas on both first and
second floors, and these were common property of the occupants of both
halls. By the rear or west door they could not pass from one hall to
the other, on account of the intervening fence. By the east door the
veranda on either story formed a convenient thoroughfare. McLean
occupied the two rooms on the north side of this hall, and a brother
infantryman, also a bachelor, occupied the two above him. The opposite
rooms on both floors were the garrison homes of married officers now in
the fields with their commands, and their doors were kept locked by the
quartermaster. The Forrests and Posts, with the Bedouin-like ease of
long experience on the frontier, had established a dining-room in
common on the ground-floor of the south end, and the temporary kitchen
was knocked up in the back yard. The south division, therefore,
contained a lively colony of women and children; the north halls, only
empty rooms and two lone bachelors.
This very May-day afternoon on which our story opens, as Lieutenant
McLean and Miss Bayard started forth on their stroll, Miss Forrest,
with a shawl hugged woman-fashion around her shapely form, was taking a
constitutional up and down the upper gallery. She came to the railing
and bent down, beaming, smiling, and kissing her hand to them,--and a
winsome smile she had,--then, as they passed out along the walk by the
old ordnance storehouse, she stood for a time looking after them.
That night, just after dusk, when Mr. McLean came bounding up the front
steps, intent on getting an album from his quarters, and then returning
to Mrs. Miller's, where he was spending the evening, he was surprised
to find the lamp extinguished. All was darkness as he opened the front
door. So, too, on the second floor there was no light in the hall, and
yet he could have sworn that both lamps were burning when he went out
at eight o'clock, half an hour before. In his own room, the front one,
however, the very opposite was the case. He had turned the lamp low the
last thing before starting, and closed the front of his standing desk,
turning the key in the lock. He always did these things when leaving
his quarters at night. Now the hanging lamp was throwing a steady light
all over the simple, soldier room, and the desk was wide open.
The rear room, his bedchamber, was dark as usual, and his first thought
was for his papers. These were in their pigeon-holes, undisturbed. Two
drawers had been pulled open; one was now half closed, while the other
remained with almost its full length, lying, tipped out, upon the
shelving desk. It was filled with Lynchburg tobacco, a bright-colored,
fragrant brand much affected by pipe-smokers at that time, and an idea
occurred to him. He stepped out into the hall and shouted up the
stairs,--
"Hat!--O-o-o, Hatton! You been here?"
No answer.
Mr. McLean shook his head in perplexity. He and his comrade, Lieutenant
Hatton, were intimates who smoked many a pipe together out of that same
drawer. He had many a time bidden the latter to come in and help
himself whenever he wanted to. Bachelor doors are always open in the
army, and the desk key was generally in the lock. Still it was not like
Hatton to leave things in disorder behind him, even if he were to take
McLean at his word. No! It wasn't Hatton, unless something very
unforeseen had suddenly called him away. Stepping quickly back into the
room he felt a draught of cool air, and saw that the portiere that hung
between the two rooms was bulging slightly toward him. Instantly he
stepped into his bedroom, where all was dark, struck a match, and saw,
the moment its flash illumined surrounding objects, that the one door
he generally kept locked was now ajar. It led into the hall, and
thither strode McLean. Up to this instant not a sound had he heard.
Now, fairly flying up the old, creaky stairs, light as kittens', quick
as terriers', yet stealthy, almost noiseless, he distinctly heard
slippered footfalls. They whirled at the head of the stairs, and
flashed through the hall-way overhead and out on the front veranda, and
he, instead of pursuing, stood stone still, rooted to the floor, his
heart beating hard, his hands clinching in amaze. What stunned him was
the fact that with the footfalls went the swish of dainty silken
skirts.