The fact that the post was cut off from the rest of the world, that
neither runner from the field columns, courier from Prescott, nor mail
rider from McDowell had succeeded in getting in, while 'Tonio, head
trailer, had easily succeeded in getting out, was a combination
calculated to promote serious reflection on part of the garrison this
ideal Sunday morning. Perhaps it did, but so far as talk was concerned
a very different fact ruled as first favorite. It was known all over
the barracks by breakfast time that Case, the bookkeeper, had bluffed
out the young swell from the Columbia who had come down to teach them
how to play poker and fight Apaches. "Willett stock" among the rank and
file had not been too high at the start, had been sinking fast since
the affair at Bennett's Ranch, and was a drug in the market when the
command, as was then the custom of the little army, turned out for
inspection under arms, while Willett was turning in for a needed nap.
Strong, his official host, knew instinctively where Willett must be,
when he tumbled up to receive the reports at morning roll call and
found the spare bed untouched. He said nothing, of course, even at
guard mounting, when, together, he and Captain Bonner walked over to
the office, where sat the post commander anxiously awaiting them. It
seems that even after Bonner's friendly hint the game had not ceased at
once. Willett had played on another hour in hopes that luck would
change, but by seven Craney called a halt, said that he and Watts must
quit, and intimated that Willett ought to. Case, though well along in
liquor, still kept his head and lead, and would have played, but by
this time Willett was writing I.O.U.'s. The prospector's cash was gone.
The hitherto modest, retiring, silent man of the desk and ledgers had
won heavily from the officer, yet only a trifle from his employers, and
Craney suggested a recess until night. "Then we'll meet again--and
settle," said Willett, half extending his hand.
"You bet we'll settle," said Case, the bookkeeper, wholly ignoring it,
and even then the fact was noted and thereafter remembered.
"I think I won't go up t-o the post just now," said Willett to Craney.
"Perhaps you have----"
"Certainly, Mr. Willett. Come right in here," said the trader
hospitably, leading the way into a darkened room. "Take a good nap;
sleep as long as you want to. I'll send you in a tub if you like." The
tub was gratefully accepted, and then they left him. At noon when the
general asked Strong if Willett "wasn't feeling well," Strong said
Willett had been up late and was probably still asleep. Bonner, it was
known, had not turned in again after two o'clock, and the discovery
that 'Tonio was missing. He was dozing on the porch in his easy-chair
when first call sounded for reveille, and Lilian, like gentle-hearted
Amelia, lay dreaming of her wearied knight as having kept vigil with
the sentries to the break of day that she and those she loved might
sleep in security, and now, of course, he must indeed be wearied.
Therefore there came a surprise to her, and to the fond and watchful
mother, when toward four o'clock in the afternoon Mrs. Stannard dropped
in to chat with them awhile, and to tell about Harris, by whose bedside
she had been sitting and reading for nearly two hours. Mrs. Archer
welcomed the news. The doctor had promised to let her know as soon as
he considered it wise for her to go, and the general was so anxious and
disturbed on Mr. Harris's account. It so happened that the general,
with a small escort, had ridden over to search the valley with glasses
from the peak, and then the first thing Mrs. Stannard said was, "I
thought that Mr. Willett might have been glad to go with the general."
"And did he not?" asked Mrs. Archer, after one quick glance at Lilian's
averted eyes.
"Why, no," and now Mrs. Stannard hesitated; "I saw, at least I think I
saw, him coming up from the river a little while ago. He may have been
following 'Tonio's trail, you know. It was easy enough in the sand,
they said, but once it reached the rocks along the stream-bed they lost
it." Then wisely Mrs. Stannard changed the subject.
But if she and they knew not where and how Willett had spent the night
and hours of the day, they and Harris, by this time, were the only ones
at Almy in such ignorance. Moreover, Almy was having a lot of fun out
of it. No one had ever heard of Case's playing before in all the time
he had silently, unobtrusively, gone about his daily doings at the
post. Three weeks out of four he sat over the books and accounts, or
some writing of his own, saying nothing to anybody unless addressed,
then answering civilly, but in few words. The other week, just as
quietly and unobtrusively, he was apt to be busy with his bottle,
sometimes in the solitude of his little room, sometimes wandering by
night down along the stream, sometimes stealing out to the herds,
petting and crooning to the horses, sometimes slyly tendering the herd
guard a drink, and always accompanied by a pack of the hounds, for by
them he was held in reverence and esteem. He never accosted anybody,
never even complained when a godless brace of soldier roughs robbed him
of his bottle as he lay half-dozing to the lullaby of the babbling
stream. He simply meandered a mile and got another.
From this plane of inoffensive obscurity Case had sprung in one night
to fame and, almost, to fortune. A single field had turned the chance
of war, and the placid Sunday found him the most talked of man at the
post. Rumor had it that he had quit five hundred dollars ahead of the
game, and the most conservative estimate could not reduce it more than
half. For the first time Camp Almy awoke to the conclusion that an
experienced gambler was in their midst--one who had spared the soldier
and his scanty pay that he might feed fat, eventually, on the officer.
Rumor had it that Case's trunk contained a roulette wheel and faro
"layout." In fine, long before orderly call at noon, in the whimsical
humor of the garrison, he was no longer Case, the bookkeeper, but
"Book, the Case Keeper," and every frontiersman, civil or military, in
those days knew what that meant.
And even as they exalted Case, who toward afternoon had disappeared
from public gaze, refusing to be lionized, so would they have abased
Willett, who likewise had concealed himself, on the plea of needed
sleep, yet had done but little sleeping. Willett was haunted by a
memory, and not pleasantly. The fact that he had lost over a month's
pay troubled him less by far than that he had lost repute. He had
suffered much in pocket, but more in prestige. He had been a successful
player in the Columbia country, too much so for the good of scores of
comrades, but especially himself. He could have found it in his heart
to throttle that guffawing clown, whose rude bellow of rejoicing over
Case's brilliant bluff and his own defeat, had brought even the dago
and his fellows in staring wonderment to the open door. He would have
pledged another month's pay could he have throttled the story he knew
now would be going the rounds. He was even more humiliated--far
more--than they knew. They all would have shouted had they seen the
hand he laid down, but he had striven to carry it off jocosely, to say
_he_ had only been bluffing, and was very properly caught at his own
game. Oh, he had shown a game, sportsman-like front, and had striven to
pass it all off as a matter that worried him not in the least, but
Craney, clear-headed, believed otherwise, and Case, muddle-headed as he
was by noon, knew better, and had his reasons for knowing--reasons as
potent as were those that moved him wholly to ignore Willett's
half-proffered hand.
Case had nothing in particular to do all day, and could sleep if so
minded. Willett, not knowing what moment he might be called upon to
take active part in stirring service, should sleep, and so prepare
himself, yet could not. Case's personality, and Case's one reference to
Vancouver, two years previous, haunted and vexed him sorely. Where and
under what circumstances had he seen the man? Only for three weeks had
he been at the fine old post referred to, while a big court-martial was
there in session, and he, with other subalterns, had come as witnesses.
There had been dinners and dancing and fun and flirtation, both at the
post and in Portland. There had been card-playing in which he was easy
winner, and not a little of his winnings had gone for wine. There had
been foolish things said in pink little ears, and even written in silly
missives that now he would have been glad to recall, but--but no harm
to him as yet had come from them. There had even been a girl whom he
had never seen before nor since that visit, nor wanted to see again,
nor hear from, yet from her he _had_ heard, and more than once--piteous,
imploring little letters they were. But, heavens! he was busy hunting
Indians when they began to come, and then they had ceased to find him,
rather to his relief, but none of these episodes or epistles in any way
included Case, yet somewhere he had seen him, somewhere he had heard
his voice, and somewhere Case had marked his method of play. Case said
Vancouver, but though two or three steep games had there or thereabouts
occurred--games in which his soldier comrades had withdrawn as too big
for them--he, with his luck and brilliancy, had dared to pursue to the
end and came out envied as a winner. And still this did not seem to
point to Case.
Not two hours' sleep did Willett get that Sunday morning. He was awake,
hot, feverish, and athirst at noon, craving ice, which could be seen in
the mountains only a day's march away, but had never yet been made to
last through the homeward journey. Craney brought him a cool and
dripping canteen and some acetic acid, the best he could do, and had
proffered bottled beer, cooled in the big olla and retailed at fifty
cents, but Willett sought information rather than sleep, and indirectly
inquired as to Case's antecedents. Inferentially, he wished Craney to
understand that he believed Case to be a professional, and Craney
blamable for permitting him to play. Craney saw the move and checkmated
at once. "Case has had dozens of chances to play--dozens of 'em--since
I brought him here from Prescott, and never before has he sat into
anything bigger'n a dollar limit. He never _would_ play in the other
room. He came out as quartermaster's clerk, nearly two years ago. With
whom? Why, Major Ballard brought him out and had to turn him loose for
drinking. No, Ballard was never at Vancouver. Then my bookkeeper got
shot in a pay-day row and left the books in a muddle. I _had_ to
hire Case to come and balance them--best accountant and bookkeeper I
ever had--square to the marrow, though he wants one week off a month,
and is absolutely stalwart t'other three, but he will not talk of his
past. Ballard told me he came with tiptop letters from officers of rank
in San Francisco, who said he was incorruptible, even when he drank,
whereas my clerk, who had been a model of sobriety, robbed right and
left. Case has gone off now, somewhere down among the willows, I
reckon. He'll be drunk for three days, sobering three days, and
straight the seventh. If you hadn't started him last night he'd be
sober now. And if you hadn't come into it that family game would have
stopped at one, with nobody the worse nor wiser. You said you had no
use for a dollar limit game."
There was no comfort, therefore, in Craney's visit. Willett took
another cool bath, dressed about two, and being shown the path Case
generally followed, sauntered away, quite as though he had nothing on
his mind, and was presently lost beyond that same willowy screen. He at
that time, at least, was not thinking of 'Tonio and the lost trail.
At five the general, with Strong and Bonner, could be made out four
miles away, riding back from the peak. "I'll go a moment and inquire
for Mr. Harris," said Mrs. Archer, "and ask the doctor when _we_ may
visit him." So, leaving Lilian with Mrs. Stannard, and intending to be
gone but a few minutes, the gentle, anxious-hearted woman, sunshade in
hand, went forth from the shelter of the low veranda into the slanting,
unclouded rays, and presently tapped lightly at the doctor's open door.
There was no answer, yet from somewhere within came sound of masculine
voices. Entering the dark hall, she tapped again at the entrance to the
doctor's sitting-room, or den. A Navajo blanket hung like a _portiere_
across the open space, for door there was none, and, as no one came in
answer to her modest signal, she ventured to push the curtain a bit to
one side and peer within. The room was but dimly lighted, all windows
but one on the north side being heavily draped. The doctor's reclining
chair and reading table, the latter littered with books, pamphlets and
pipes, were visible through a reminiscent haze of not too fragrant
tobacco smoke, for the old predominated over the new. A rude sideboard
stood over against her, between the northward windows, and thereon was
stationed a demi-john of goodly proportions, with outlying pickets in
the way of glasses. Bentley himself, though one of the old school, was
an abstemious man, and therefore enabled to have at all times a supply
of reliable stimulant for such of his callers as were of opposite
faith. That some of that ilk had recently favored him was presumptively
evident, no more by the sideboard display than by the sound of voices
from an inner room, where two or three were uplifted in discussion, and
neither was the doctor's.
Now, Mrs. Archer much wished to see young Harris, to assure him of
their deep interest in his welfare, of their desire to be of service to
him, and their reason for not earlier intruding. Gentle and unselfish
though she was, there was distinct sense of chagrin that Mrs. Stannard,
or any woman, should have anticipated her coming. The doctor had
promised to say just how soon he could approve her seeing his patient,
and it was the doctor's fault she had come no sooner. Not until days
thereafter did she know that Harris had asked for Mrs. Stannard. Not
for even a Christmas home-going would Mrs. Stannard have let her know
it--but Mrs. Stannard was a rare, rare woman.
But if the doctor thought it unwise that his patient should receive the
visits of ministering angels such as she and they, what, said Mrs.
Archer to her stupefied self, could Dr. Bentley mean by permitting the
visits of such disturbers as these whose angering words came distinctly
to her ears? She stood, half-dazed, unable for a moment to determine
what to do--whether to enter at once--enter, and in the name of her
husband, the commanding officer, enter emphatic protest against such
exciting language at such a time, in such a presence--or whether to
retire at once and hear no more of it. One voice, at the moment low and
guarded, was that of a stranger--she had never heard it before. The
other, however, she knew instantly as that of Harold Willett. No wonder
she stood amazed, never doubting they were addressed to Harris, at the
first words--Willett's words--to reach her ears!
"You are in no condition now to talk to a gentleman, and I refuse to
listen. You came here to lie about me--to undermine me, and I know it,
and the quicker you go----"
"I came here to speak God's truth and _you_ know it!" came the instant
answer, and in instant relief she knew it was not the voice of Harris.
"As to undermining--by God, it's to block _your_ undermining another
and a better man I've come! If that isn't enough for you--to block your
doing here--what you did to that poor girl at Portland----"
But a rush and a scuffle, the sound of a blow, broke in upon the words,
just as the attendant, affrighted, came running out, just as Dr.
Bentley, astounded and indignant, came hurrying in. Mrs. Archer, in
bewilderment, fell back into the sunshine, only presently to see
Willett, flushed and furious, hasten forth from the rear door and turn
straightway to the adjutant's quarters adjoining--only to be overtaken
in a moment by the attendant, panting: "The doctor said would Mrs.
Archer please come back one minute, he'd like to speak with her." And
Mrs. Archer turned again and went.