Within the fortnight came poor Ned Lawrence back to Worth, and men who
rode far out on the Crockett trail to meet the stage marvelled at the
change three months had made in him. He had grown ten years older, and
was wrinkled and gray. Winn was of the party, and Winn, who a month gone
by was looking haggard, nervous, miserable, now rode buoyantly, with
almost hopeful eyes and certainly better color than he had had for
months, despite the fact that he had lost both flesh and color during
his illness. Something had happened to lighten his load of dread and
care. Something must have happened to enable Lawrence to take that long,
long journey back to Texas. Fort Worth indulged in all manner of
theories as to where the money was coming from, and Barclay, of course,
was suspected, even interrogated. The frankest man in some respects that
ever lived, Captain Galbraith Barclay was reticent as a clam when he saw
fit to keep silent, and men found it useless to question or women to
hint. As for Winn, he had but one classmate at the post, Brayton, who
had never been one of his intimates at the Point, and, being rather, as
was said, of the "high and mighty," reserved and distant sort with the
subalterns he found at Worth on joining three winters before, Winn had
never been popular. Lawrence was his one intimate, despite the disparity
in years. And so no man ventured to ask by what means he expected to
meet the demands thus made upon him. The board of survey ordered to
determine the amount of the loss and fix the responsibility had no
alternative. Winn and his few friends made a hard fight, setting forth
the facts that the count had been made every month as required by orders
and regulations, and that except by bursting open every bale, box, and
barrel, and sifting over the contents, it would have been impossible to
detect Marsden's methods. On some things the board was disposed to dare
regulations and raps on the knuckles, and to let Winn off on several
others; but what was the use? "the proceedings would only be sent back
for reconsideration," said their president; and as it transpired that
Winn had not exercised due vigilance, but had trusted almost entirely to
his sergeant, they decided to cut the Gordian knot by saddling the young
officer with the entire responsibility, which meant, sooner or later, a
stoppage of nearly three thousand dollars of his pay.
It is a sad yet time-honored commentary at the expense of human nature
that the contemplation of the misfortunes of our fellow-men is not
always a source of unalloyed sorrow. There was genuine and general
sympathy for Lawrence, because he had been poor and pinched and humbled
for years, had worn shabby clothes, and had sought all possible field
duty, where "deeds, not duds," as a garrison wit expressed it, seemed to
make the man. He had frankly spoken of his straits and worries to such
as spoke to him in friendship, and this, with his deep and tender love
for his children, and his capital record as a scout leader, had won over
to him all the men who at one time were envious and jealous and had
cherished the linesman's prejudice against the fellow whose duties for
years had kept him on the staff. The women were all with him, and that
meant far more than may seem possible outside the army. There was many a
gentle dame in the old days of adobe barracks who could be an Artemisia
in the cause of a friend.
No one knew just what object Ned Lawrence had in coming back to Dixie.
Every one knew he had indignantly refused the second lieutenancy,
despite the fact that one or two men with war service and rank almost
equal to his own had meekly accepted the grudgingly tendered
commission, and others were said to be about to follow suit,--all,
presumably, with the hope that their friends and representatives in
Congress assembled would speedily legislate them back where they thought
they belonged. No one knew where Ned Lawrence had made a raise of money,
but raise he certainly had made, for, to Blythe's indignation, there
came a draft of one hundred dollars to cover the expenses, he said, of
his children and old Mammy and to pay the latter some of her wages. The
balance he would settle, he wrote, when he arrived. Blythe would far
rather he had waited until his accounts were adjusted; then, if Lawrence
were in funds, Blythe could have found no fault with this insistence on
at least partially defraying the expenses incurred in providing for the
little household. Lawrence hoped to have his accounts adjusted, his
letter said, and he had reason to believe, from what friends in
Washington told him, that he would find his successor willing to receipt
to him for missing items, trusting to luck and the flotsam and jetsam of
the frontier to replace them in course of time. Lawrence, indeed, was
curious now to meet and know Captain Barclay, for he had been told many
things that had gone far to remove the feeling of unreasoning antagonism
he had felt at first.
Only one thing did he say to Blythe that threw light on his future
plans. "I am dreadfully sorry," he wrote, "to hear such ill tidings
about Harry Winn. I was always fearful there was something wrong about
that fellow Marsden, and sometimes strove to caution him,--I, who could
not see the beam in my own eye,--I, with two scoundrels in my
orderly-room, trying to warn him against the one in his! Winn is a
proud, sensitive, self-centred sort of fellow, whom wealth perhaps might
have made popular. He is no better manager than I. He has a wife who
could never help him to live within his means, as poor Kitty certainly
tried to do with me." (Oh, the blessed touch of Time! Oh, the sweet
absolution of Death! Kitty was an angel now, and her ways and means were
buried with all that was mortal of her.) "And, worse than all, poor Hal
has no one, I fear, to help him now, as--I write it with blinded eyes,
dear Blythe--it has pleased God I should find in many friends in the
days of my sore adversity,--you and your blessed wife, and the colonel,
and Brooks,--even rough old Follansbee and our dilettante De Lancy, and
that inimitable Collabone. My heart overflows, and my eyes, too, at
thought of all you and they have done and said and written for me and
mine. And here, too, where in my bitterness I thought I was deserted of
all, here is gallant old Front de Boeuf (you remember how we swore by
him in the Valley after Davy Russell was killed). He has housed and fed
and nursed and cared for me like a brother, and Senator Howe and even
old Catnip--God bless him!--have worked hard for me; and, though my
soldier days seem over for the time at least, my stubborn spirit has had
to surrender to such counsellors and friends as they have been to me.
They all say Congress will surely put me back next winter, and meantime
'Buffstick' says I'm to have a salaried position in a big company with
which he is associated, and to begin work as soon as my health is
re-established and my accounts straightened out."
"Who is Buffstick?" queried Mrs. Blythe, at this juncture.
"Buffstick? Oh, that was our pet name for Colonel Dalton, of the --th
Massachusetts, Lawrence's friend and host in Washington; a magnificent
fellow, dear, with a head and chest that made some lover of Scott liken
him to Front de Boeuf,--out of 'Ivanhoe,' you know. But he was a
stickler for neatness in dress and equipments, and his regiment called
him Buffstick, and grew to love him all the same. He commanded a brigade
after Cedar Creek, and now,--just think of it!--he's a capitalist."
"Does he know Captain Barclay, do you think?" she asked, after a
reflective pause.
"I'm sure I don't know. Probably not," was the answer. "They never
served in the same part of the army. Why do you ask?"
"Oh, I was wishing--I couldn't help thinking--how much Mr. Winn needed
some good friend, too."
"Winn and Lawrence are very different men," said Blythe, gravely.
"Lawrence has made friends, while poor Winn has only enemies, I fear,
and, really, none worse than himself."
Mrs. Blythe sighed as she turned away. It was much as her husband said.
The Winns had come to the regiment after a round of receptions, dinners,
and dances in their honor all the way from Washington to Worth, and had
"started with a splurge," as the chroniclers declared. Laura's gowns and
airs and graces won her no end of prominence, but very few friends.
Winn's "high and mighty" ways, so they were termed by all the garrison,
in which at that time only two or three West Pointers could be found,
had alienated all the subs, most of the seniors, and many of the women.
Their extravagance during the first year of service, the explanations
and excuses tendered by Laura in the next, and Harry's increasing
moodiness and distraction, served only to widen the breach. Men and
women both, who began by envying, turned to openly decrying. Cutting
things were said to Laura, whose mendacities provoked them. Sneering or
at least suggestive things were often said in presence of Winn, if not
exactly to him; for there was one quality about the swell the garrison
had to respect,--his cheerful and entire readiness to fight on very
small provocation, and those were the days when the tenets of the "code"
were not totally forgotten, and there still remained in the army a
sentiment in favor of the doctrine of personal responsibility for
disparaging words. There would be fewer courts-martial to-day were there
more of it left. But when women heard the stories about the big bill at
the sutler's and others that came by mail, and made little icy comments
about some people being able to afford much more than _they_ could,
Laura laughed off the allusions to their superior style of living by
stories of an indulgent papa, until papa's death left her without
further resource from that quarter. Then she set afloat a fabrication
about a doting aunt of Harry's who had no children of her own,--an
amiable old widow who was to leave him all her money. He did have an
aunt of that description, but she didn't have the money, and there were
men who were malicious enough to refer in Winn's presence to their wish
that they had wealthy fathers-in-law or doting dowager aunts, thereby
giving some other fellow a chance to say, "And so does Fuller, no
doubt."
Indeed, so practically friendless were the Winns that among nine out of
ten families along officers' row there was a feeling of lively curiosity
to note the effect of this supposably crushing blow on the unhappy pair,
and a consequent sentiment, only partially veiled in many cases, of keen
disappointment when the news flew around the garrison that Mr. Winn had
announced his readiness to meet the demand in full.
"Why, it can't be true," said many a woman. "I'll believe it when I see
the money," said many a man. "Do you suppose--he could have accepted it
from--Captain Barclay?" asked, in strictest confidence, Mrs. De Lancy of
Laura's erstwhile intimate, Mrs. Faulkner.
"Not _Harry_ Winn, probably," answered Mrs. Faulkner, in confidence
equally inviolable, "but----" and the pause that followed was
suggestive. Follansbee and Bellows bolted down to the sutler's with the
surprising news, wondering if Fuller could have been ass enough to
advance the money. There was a time when he would have done so, perhaps,
for he was one of the first to be enthralled by young Mrs. Winn's grace
and beauty, and lavished presents upon her--and upon Winn, of
course--for a month, until Winn put a stop to the presents and Mrs.
Fuller came post-haste back from San Antonio and put a stop to other
manifestations. But Fuller had long since become estranged from the
Winns,--the presentation of his bill at inopportune times having later
widened the apparent breach. His jaw fell and his mouth opened wide when
he heard the news, for Fuller had begun to believe that he would never
get his money, and resented it that Uncle Sam should be luckier.
"Send up another 'bill rendered' by Ikey to Mr. Winn this afternoon," he
bade his clerk, as the investigators departed to follow other clues.
Fuller had gone down into his pockets, unbeknown to the post, and had
actually pressed on Lawrence a loan of three hundred dollars, and bade
him come for more when that was gone, but not a cent would he put up for
Harry Winn,--not he; "the damned supercilious snob," was what Fuller now
called him, not so much because he thought him a snob or supercilious or
even deserving of damnation, as because he had allowed himself to be
robbed of three thousand dollars' worth of goods that might otherwise
have been purchased of him, Fuller, for double or treble the money. No,
plainly, Fuller was not the angel that had come to the rescue of Winn,
nor could Follansbee or Bellows or the rest of the fellows find out who
had. The mystery of Gilgal was outdone. Even Frazier and Brooks did not
know, and when some one, possibly Mrs. Frazier, suggested to the colonel
that as the commanding officer he really ought to know, the colonel did
send for his new quartermaster and say to him, "Mr. Trott, as you are to
receipt to Mr. Winn for the money value of his shortage, it would be
well to be very circumspect. He probably cannot have that much in
currency here. How does he propose to pay it?"
"I don't know, sir," said the man of business, promptly. "He says he
will be ready to cover the entire amount on or before the 20th of May. I
didn't like to ask him where it was to come from."
Neither did Frazier, despite no little prodding at home. Only one man
ventured to speak of it to Winn, and, the resultant conversation having
been variously and exaggeratively reported, the truth should here be
told. It was at the club-room, which, for the first time in weeks, Mr.
Winn entered. He asked for Major Brooks, and, finding him absent, turned
to go out with no more than a nod to the party at the poker-table. That
party was made up mainly of the class that was numerous in the army in
those days and is as rare as an Indian fight now. The least responsible
among them at the moment was Lieutenant Bralligan, ex-corporal of
dragoons, who could no more have passed the examination exacted of
candidates to-day than a cat could squeeze through a carbine. "Hwat d'ye
warrnt of the meejor, Winn?" he shouted. "Sure ye've got permission to
ride out wid us to meet Lawrence."
Winn vouchsafed no answer. Bralligan and he were things apart, a
reproach to each other's eyes, and the evil blood in the Irishman,
inflamed already by whiskey, boiled over at the slight. "It's Barclay
ye're looking for, not Brooks!" he shouted, in tempestuous wrath.
"Faith, if ye want anything out o' the Quaker, let yer wife do the----"
Instantly a brawny hand, that of Captain Follansbee, was sprawled over
the broad, leering mouth. Instantly there was a crash of chair-legs
hastily moved, of grinding boot-heels as men sprang to their feet, of
poker-chips flying to the floor,--a sound of oaths and furious
struggles, for two of the party, with the attendant, had hurled
themselves on the half-drunken lieutenant and were throttling him to
silence, while Captains Bronson and Fellows sprang to head off Winn, who
with blazing eyes and clinched fists came bounding back into the room.
"What did that blackguard say?" he demanded. "I did not catch the
words."
"Nothing, nothing, Winn, that you should notice," implored Bronson.
"He's drunk. He doesn't know what he is saying. He's crazed. No, sir,"
insisted Bronson, sternly, as Winn strove to pass him. "If you do not
instantly withdraw I shall place you under arrest. Be sure that this
poor devil shall make all reparation when he's sober enough to realize
what has happened. Go at once.--You go with him, Fellows."
And so between them they got Winn away, and others soused Bralligan with
_acequia_ water and locked him up in his room and had him solemnly sober
by afternoon stables, while, vastly to their relief, Winn with two or
three cavaliers rode away at three o'clock to meet Ned Lawrence
somewhere afar out on the Crockett trail. Greatly did Follansbee and
Fellows congratulate Bronson, and Bronson them, on the fact that they
had happened to be looking on at the game when Winn happened in and
Bralligan broke out; for thereby they had stopped what might have been a
most tremendous row. "All of which mustn't be known to a soul," said
they.
But Bralligan's voice was big and deep. It was one of the causes of his
unhallowed preferment in the days when second lieutenancies were
showered on the rank and file the first year of the war. Bralligan's
taunting words, only partially audible to Winn as he issued from the
front of the building, were distinctly heard by domestics lying in wait
for a chance to borrow of the steward and pick up gossip at the back. By
stables that evening the story was being told high and low all over the
post; even the children heard with eager yet uncomprehending ears; and
so it happened that just as the drums of the infantry were sounding
first call for retreat parade, and the women-folk were beginning to
muster on the porches, and the warriors of the Foot along the opposite
side at the barracks, and as Captain Barclay, a light rattan stick in
his hand, came strolling back from stables, Lieutenant Brayton at his
side, little Jim Lawrence made a dash from a group of children, and, in
the full hearing of several officers and half a dozen women, a shrill,
eager, childish voice piped out the fatal words,--
"Uncle Gal--Uncle Gal--what did Mr. Bwalligan mean by telling Mr. Winn
to send his wife to you for money?"
Laura Winn herself was on the nearest piazza at the moment, stunningly
handsome, and posing for a bow from her next-door neighbors as they came
by. She and every other woman there distinctly heard the words and
marked the effect.
Sir Galahad's face flushed crimson. He caught his little friend up in
his arms and held him close to his burning cheek. "Hush, Jimmy boy. He
meant nothing, and soldiers never repeat such nonsense. Run to sister
Ada and help her get everything ready for papa's coming. Think, Jimmy,
he'll be here by tattoo." And with a parting hug he set the youngster
down at his doorstep and started him on his way. Then, courteously
raising his cap to the gathering on the nearest porch, and noting, as
did they, that Mrs. Winn had disappeared within her hall, Barclay
quickly entered his own portal, and nabbed Brayton as he was making a
palpable "sneak" for the rear door. The youngster found escape
impossible. Will he, nill he, the boy told the story as it had been told
to him, Barclay standing looking straight into his eyes, as though
reading his very soul, yet never saying a word beyond the original, "You
heard what Jimmy said. It is another instance of 'out of the mouths of
babes and sucklings,' Brayton. Now, tell me exactly what you know."
It was a warm May evening. A hot south-wester had been blowing from the
broad valley of the Rio Bravo, and the few men in the club-room at nine
o'clock were demanding cooling drinks. Bralligan was there, looking
somewhat solemn and sheepish. He knew that nothing but the presence of
senior officers had prevented a serious fracas as the result of his
asinine bray that morning, but, now that Winn was out of the way and the
matter in the hands of his captain, he had no dread of the thrashing he
deserved, and was disposed to an exhibition of bravado. A drink or two
added to his truculence, as well as to his desire to resume the game
interrupted that morning. There were always in those days a few reliable
gamblers at the big frontier posts, and presently Bralligan, in his
shirt-sleeves, was contemplating a sizable pile of chips and bantering a
burly captain to "see his raise," when suddenly he became aware of a
distracted look in the eyes of the group about the table, and, glancing
towards the door, his own blood-shot orbs lighted upon the trim figure
of Captain Barclay, standing calmly surveying the party,--Barclay, who
never smoked, drank, or played cards, and who was reported to have
started a movement for prayer-meetings among the enlisted men. His very
presence in that atmosphere was ominous, especially as the gaze of his
usually soft brown eyes was fixed on Bralligan. One or two men said,
"Good-evening, captain," in an embarrassed way, but the Irish subaltern
only stared, the half-grin on his freckled face giving place to an
uneasy leer. On a bench to the left of the entrance stood a huge
water-cooler, with gourds and glasses by its side. Underneath the spigot
was a big wooden pail, two-thirds full of drippings and rinsings.
Without a word, the new-comer stepped quietly within the room, picked up
the bucket, and, striding straight to the table before Bralligan could
spring to his feet, deftly inverted the vessel over the Irishman's
astonished head, deluging him with discarded water and smashing the rim
well down on his unprotected shoulders. An instant more, and Bralligan
sent the bucket whirling at his assailant's head, which it missed by a
yard, then, all dripping as he was, followed it in a furious charge. Sir
Galahad "side-clipped" with the ease and nonchalance of long but
unsuspected practice, and let fly a white fist which found lodgement
with stunning crash straight under the Irishman's ear, felling him like
an ox.