An anxious day was that that followed the departure of Captain Terry
and his "grays" on their midnight ride down the Platte. The river was
so high and swollen that it was certain that the Indians could have
forded it only among the rocks and shoals up at Bull Bend, a day's
march to the north-west, and that in getting back with their plunder to
the shelter of their reservation there was only one point below Laramie
where they could recross without having to swim, and that was full
twenty-five miles down stream. As particulars began to come in of the
fight with Blunt's little detachment the previous day, the major waxed
more and more wrathful. It would seem that there were at least fifty
well-armed and perfectly-mounted warriors in the party, many of them
having extra ponies with them, either to carry the spoil or to serve as
change-mounts when their own chargers tired. It was next to impossible
that such a force should get away from the reservation without it being
a matter of common talk among the old men and squaws, and so coming to
the ears of the agent, whose duty it was to notify the military
authorities at once. But in this case no warning whatever had been
given. The settlers in the Chugwater Valley had no signal of their
coming, and two hapless "freighters," toiling up with ranch supplies
from Cheyenne, were pounced upon in plain view of Hunton's, murdered
and scalped and mutilated just before Blunt and his little command
reached the scene. Despite the grave disparity in numbers, Blunt had
galloped in to the attack, and found himself and his troopers in a
hornet's nest from which nothing but his nerve and coolness had
extricated them. Most of his horses were killed in the fight that
followed, for Blunt promptly dismounted his men and disposed them in a
circle around their wounded comrades, and thereby managed to "stand
off" the Indians, despite their frequent dashes and incessant fire.
After some hours of siege-work the savages had given it up and gone
whooping off up the valley, and were next heard of shooting into the
stage-station at Eagle's Nest. If he only had a hundred cavalry,
thought Miller, he could head them off and prevent their return to the
reservation, where, once they crossed the lines, they were perfectly
safe and could not be touched. All told, however, Terry could only take
with him some thirty men, and he was glad indeed to have McLean as a
volunteer.
It was about noon when the ambulances came in from the Chugwater,
bringing Mr. Blunt and the other wounded. The assistant surgeon of the
post had ridden out with them at midnight, soon after the receipt of
the news; and now, while the soldiers were taken to the post hospital
and comfortably established there, Mr. Blunt was carried up-stairs in
the north hall of "Bedlam" and stowed away in the room opposite
Hatton's. Mrs. Forrest, poor lady, nearly went into hysterics as the
young soldier was lifted out of the ambulance. Day and night her soul
was tortured with the dread that at any moment news might come that her
husband was either killed or wounded,--and in the art of borrowing
trouble she was more than an adept. Her lamentations were so loud and
voluble that Miss Forrest quietly but very positively took her by the
arms and marched her off the piazza into her own room, where Celestine
was "trotting" the baby to sleep and nodding on the verge of a nap on
her own account. The first thing Mrs. Forrest did was to whisk the
half-drowsing infant out of her attendant's arms, clasp it frantically
to her breast, and then go parading up and down the room weeping over
the wondering little face, speedily bringing on a wailing accompaniment
to her own mournful plaint. It was more than Miss Forrest could stand.
"For mercy's sake, Ruth, don't drive that baby distracted! If you
cannot control your own tears, have some consideration for the
children. There!" she added, despairingly, "now you've started Maud and
Vickie, and if, between the four of you, poor Mr. Blunt is not made mad
by night-time, he has no nerves at all." And as she spoke the hall-way
resounded with the melodious howl of the two elder children, who,
coming in from play on the prairie and hearing the maternal weepings,
probably thought it no less than filial on their part to swell the
chorus. Miss Forrest made a rush for the door:
"Maud! Vickie! Stop this noise instantly. Don't you know poor Mr. Blunt
is lying in the next hall, badly wounded and very sick?"
"Well, marmar's crying," sobbed Maud, with unanswerable logic; while
Victoria, after stuttering enunciation of the words, "I'm crying
because he's going to die," wound up with sudden declaration of rights
by saying she didn't care whether auntie liked it or not, she'd cry all
she wanted to; and, taking a fresh start, the six-year-old maiden
howled afresh.
It was too much for Miss Forrest's scant patience. Seizing the little
innocents in no gentle grasp, she lugged them down into the vacant
dining-room on the south side of the lower hall, turned the key in the
door, and bade them make themselves comfortable there until she chose
to let them out. If they must howl, there was the place where they
would be least likely to disturb the sufferer at the other end of the
building. After which unwarrantable piece of assumption of authority
she returned to her unhappy sister-in-law.
"I declare, Fanny, you have absolutely no heart at all," sobbed that
lachrymose lady, as she mingled tears and sniffles with fruitless
efforts to hush her infant.
"Wh--what have you done with my children?"
"Shut them up in the dining-room until they stop their noises,"
answered Miss Forrest, calmly.
"You have no right whatever to punish my babies," indignantly protested
Mrs. Forrest (and every mother will agree with her). "You are always
interfering with them, and I shall write to Captain Forrest this very
day and complain of it."
"I wouldn't if I were you, Ruth, because yesterday your complaint was
that I never took any notice of them, no matter what they did."
"Well, you don't!" sobbed the lady of the house, abandoning the
original line of attack to defend herself against this unexpected
sortie. Then, suddenly recalling the more recent injury, "At least you
don't when you should, and you do when you should not. Let me go to
them instantly. Celestine, take baby." But Celestine had vanished.
"Give me the baby, Ruth, and go by all means. Then we can restore quiet
to this side of the house at least,"--and she took with firm hands the
shrieking infant from the mother's arms. Mrs. Forrest rushed down the
hall and melodramatically precipitated herself upon her offspring in
the dining-room. In two minutes' time the baby's wailings ceased, and
when Mrs. Forrest reappeared, ready to resume the attack after having
released the prisoners, she was surprised and, it must be recorded, not
especially pleased to see her lately inconsolable infant laughing,
crowing, and actually beaming with happiness in her sister-in-law's
arms.
"I suppose you've been feeding that child sugar," she said, as she
stopped short at the threshold.
"The sugar is in the dining-room, Ruth, not here."
"Well, candy, then, and you know I'd as soon you gave her poison."
"And yet you sent Celestine to my room for some for this very baby
yesterday."
"I didn't!"
"Then, as I have told you more than once, Ruth, Celestine's statements
are unreliable. I found her in my room, and she said you sent her for
some candy for little Hal, and I gave it to her. I do not at all like
her going to my room when I'm not there."
"You are down on Celestine simply because she is mine, and you know it,
Fanny. It is so with everything,--everybody that is at all dear to me.
That is enough to set you against them. My dear old father rescued
Celestine from bondage when she was a mere baby (a favorite paraphrase
of Mrs. Forrest's for describing the fact that one of that damsel's
parents had officiated as cook at a Southern hospital where the
chaplain happened to be on duty in the war-days). Her mother lives with
his people to this hour, and she has grown up under my eyes and been my
handmaiden, and the nurse of all my children, and never a word has any
one ever breathed against her until you came; and you are always doing
it."
"Pardon me, Ruth. I have only twice referred to what I consider her
shortcomings. She was very neglectful of you and the children at
Robinson, and was perpetually going out in the evening with that
soldier in Captain Terry's troop, and now she is getting to be as great
a gad-about here. That, however, is none of my affair, but it is my
right to say that I do not want her prowling about among the trunks and
boxes in my room, and if you do not exert your authority over her I
must find some other means of making her respect my wishes."
"I suppose you will try and blacken her character and have her sent out
of the post, and so rob us of the last relic I have of my home and
f-f-friends," and Mrs. Forrest began to sob afresh.
"Hush! Ruth. I hear the doctor in the hall below. For goodness' sake,
do try and look a little less like a modern Niobe when he comes up.
Here, take baby," and she hugged the little fellow close and imprinted
a kiss upon his dimpled cheek. "I must run down and detain him a moment
until you can get straightened out."
Nothing loath was Dr. Bayard to spend some moments in _tete-a-tete_
converse with Miss Forrest. She ushered him into the dining-room,--the
only reception-room the two households could boast of under the stress
of circumstances, and most graciously received his compliments on the
"conquests" of the previous evening. "Not only all eyes, all hearts
were charmed, Miss Forrest. Never even in the palmiest days of
Washington society have I seen more elegant and becoming a toilet, and
as for your singing,--it was simply divine." The doctor looked, as
well as spoke, his well-turned phrases. He was gallant, debonair,
dignified, impressive,--"a well-preserved fellow for forty-five," as
he was wont to say of himself. He anxiously inquired for her health,
deplored the state of anxiety and excitement in which they were
compelled to live, thanked heaven that there were some consolations
vouchsafed them in their exile and isolation, and begged her to be
sure and send for him should she find the strain was telling upon her
nervous system; it was marvellous that she should bear up so well; his
little daughter was really ill this morning and unable to leave her
room, but then she was a mere child. If it were not for the
incomparable pleasure he--they all--found in her presence he could
almost wish that Miss Forrest were once more under the shelter of her
uncle's hospitable roof in New York and "free from war's alarms." By
the way, where was Mr.--a--her uncle's residence?
"Mr. Courtlandt's?" she answered, promptly supplying the name. "In
Thirty-fourth Street, just east of the avenue."
"To be sure; I know it well," answered the doctor. "A most refined and
aristocratic neighborhood it is, and I'm sure I must have met Mr.
Courtlandt at the Union Club. He is near kin, I think, to the Van
Cortlandts, of Croton, is he not?"
"Not very near, doctor, though I presume there is some distant
connection."
"Ah, doubtless. I recall him only vaguely. He belonged to a much older
set and went very little into general society. A man of the highest
social connections, however, and of much wealth." And the doctor
glanced keenly at her as he propounded this tentative.
"Yes, Mr. Courtlandt is nearly sixty now, and, as you say, doctor, he
goes very little into general society. He prefers his library and his
books and an occasional canter in the park to any other entertainment.
In fact, except his game of whist with some old cronies, that is about
all the entertainment he seeks. His wife, my Aunt Laura, is quite an
invalid."
"And they have no children?"
"Yes, one; a son, who is now abroad. Shall we go up and see Mrs.
Forrest now, doctor? She is looking for a visit from you. Mr. Blunt's
appearance was a great shock to her."
It was growing dusky as they passed through the hall-way. The sun was
well down in the west, and heavy banks of rain-clouds obscured the
heavens. Miss Forrest turned the knob and threw open the door leading
into the unpicturesque yard at the rear of the quarters. "A little
light here will be an improvement," she said. "Why! who can that be?"
As she spoke, a soldier, who had apparently been seated on the back
steps, was striding hurriedly in the direction of the gate. He had
started up just as she opened the door.
"Ah, my man, halt there!" called the doctor; and obediently the soldier
turned and stood attention, raising his hand in salute. He was a dark,
swarthy fellow, with glittering eyes and rather flat features. He wore
the moustache of the trooper, and had permitted his chin whiskers to
grow. The crossed sabres of the cavalry and the letter and number of
the troop and regiment, all brilliantly polished, adorned his
forage-cap, and his undress uniform was scrupulously neat and
well-fitting. The moment he turned, Miss Forrest recognized him.
"Oh, it is Celestine's soldier friend!" she said.
"What are you doing here, my man?" asked the doctor, loftily.
"Nothing, sir," was the reply, both prompt and respectful. "The doctor
probably doesn't remember me. I came in with the wounded to-day at
noon,--Mr. Blunt's striker, sir."
"Well, Mr. Blunt's room is in the other division, and you ought to stay
there."
"I know, sir. I've only been here a moment," was the respectful answer.
"I wanted to ask Celestine to let me have a little ice if she had any,
but there's no one around the kitchen."
"Go over to my quarters and tell my man Robert to give you a big lump
of it. My house is yonder at the corner. Tell him Dr. Bayard sent you."
The soldier saluted, faced about, and moved away, a trifle wearily this
time.
"He looks very tired," said Miss Forrest.
"I believe he is," answered the doctor. "Hold on a moment there!" he
called. "Were you out with Mr. Blunt's command?"
"Yes, sir. All yesterday and last night. I had to sit up with the
lieutenant all night, sir, to bathe his wound."
"True, true. And of course you hadn't a wink of sleep. Go to your
barracks and get a nap. I'm going back to Mr. Blunt in five minutes,
and I'll send the ice over right afterward."
"I thank the doctor, but I'm not sleepy. I'll get rest enough
to-night," was the reply, and again the soldier saluted and turned
away.
"How faithful and devoted those rough-looking fellows can be to their
officers!" said Miss Forrest.
"Yes," answered the doctor, musingly, as he gazed after the retreating
form. "Yes, very. Some of them are models,--and yet, somewhere or other
I think I have seen that man before. Do you know his name?"
"No. I'll ask Celestine, if you wish to know. She ought to be up-stairs
with the children now. May I not run over and see Miss Bayard
presently."
"My Nellie? We shall be charmed. If you will only wait a moment until I
have seen Mr. Blunt, I shall be delighted to escort you. She is all
alone unless Mrs. Miller has returned to her, and the house is deserted
down-stairs. Mr. Holmes is out somewhere with the major."
But Miss Forrest did not wait. No sooner had the doctor finished his
brief visit to her sister-in-law than the young lady threw a light wrap
over her shoulders, and, just as the bugle was sounding first call for
retreat, she walked rapidly to the big house at the south-west corner,
noiselessly opened the door without the formality of ringing for
admission, and in the gathering darkness of the hall-way within, where
she had to grope a moment to find the banister-rail, she came face to
face with Mrs. Miller.