And now the winter is gone, the glad spring-time has come, the voice of
the turtle would doubtless be heard in the land if that sort of melody
were in vogue in these days of scepticism, and the promotion, which we
are biblically assured cometh neither from the east nor from the west,
nor from any source whatever, as is beginning to be the creed in our
veteran army, has nevertheless come to Jack Truscott.
A vacancy has occurred in a popular staff department. Applicants for
that majority are numbered by the dozen. Senators and Representatives
in Congress assembled swarm about the White House to advocate the
claims of captains by the score, of lieutenants by divisions, and there
are majors in the line who wouldn’t mind losing a year or two of rank
to get out of frontier duty and into an easy office chair, with clerks
and check-books and cigars _ad libitum_. There are old captains who
have commanded divisions or brigades during the great war, fellows with
unimpeachable records and undoubted ability and not a few battle-scars
and gray hairs and grandchildren; old soldiers, who would gladly turn
over their small squad of a company to some young and vigorous and
unencumbered enthusiast, in whose breast hope springs eternal; old
soldiers, who would lend dignity and honor to the department in which
the vacancy has occurred, and would thrice welcome the opportunity to
see a prospect of a home before them and school for the youngsters.
Congress is in session, important measures are up for discussion,
yet the newspapers give daily a quarter of a column to telegraphic
speculations as to whom the President will appoint to the vacancy
in that department. Captain A. is warmly backed by Senator B. Other
captains, with undeniable war records, are backed by the delegations
of their States; but Captain C., who is a first cousin of a prominent
inmate of the White House, has a capital chance, unless the President,
in despair at having to choose from so many admirable war histories,
should decide on Lieutenant D., only a few years out of the Point, and
whose numerous friends at Washington are confident of his success.
At last the announcement is made. “The President has determined that
the appointee shall represent the fighting branch of the service, and
it is now known that his excellency will nominate a gallant officer of
a distinguished cavalry regiment that has for years past been doing
arduous and bloody work among the savages of Arizona.” And eminently
proper this seems to the army at large and to the general public, who
have no personal interest in the candidates. And so it results that our
gallant friends of the —th are recognized, and the promotion falls upon
a distinguished officer of that distinguished regiment; and Captain
Wormley, of the District of Colombia for years past, and known to the
—th only upon its monthly returns, but having a wide circle of admiring
friends in the Capital City, where he has been for years on some
mysterious staff duty, becomes Major Wormley of the —’s department.
He is son of a statesman, nephew of a cabinet officer’s lady, brother
of a Congressman’s wife, cousin of a War Department official, and
cousin-german, so to speak, to half the pretty girls in Washington.
Welcome, major, to your leaves and laurels, and long may you live to
lord it over subsequent appointments by telling them that you “came in
from the cavalry”!
“But it gives Jack Truscott the double-hurdles on his straps,” shouted
Mr. Ray, in huge delight. “Let’s send him a royal old telegram of
congratulation.” And that evening, as he sits at dinner and receives
the hearty greetings of the officers’ mess on the far-away banks of the
Hudson, Jack’s heart turns to the old crowd in the —th, now marching in
from Arizona. Their message had reached him.
So has another,—a letter from his loyal friend, the general’s wife, who
long since assured him that she knew “it would all come out right.” So,
too, has another still; for only this very day has he heard from Mrs.
Tanner, and it must be admitted that Jack’s thoughts wandered more upon
what they had written than upon the elevation he had so unexpectedly
attained. Extracts may be of interest to those who have found anything
of interest in our story.
“Didn’t I tell you so?” wrote the first. “Grace Pelham’s engagement
is broken at last. She never cared—she never _could_ care for such a
humdrum creature as Mr. Glenham. Why, Jack, when she came up here after
you went East, he followed too, and it just used to make me sick the
way he moped and whined around after her. She has tried a dozen times
to get him to release her, so everybody says, but he wouldn’t. That
mother of hers made her stick to her word (although I hear she had
mighty small regard for her own), and the colonel of course would not
interfere. Once they thought Mr. Ray was going to cut in and win her
away; but _I know_ that was just a real frank liking she had for him.
Anyhow, the engagement’s broken, and I have heard he’s going to resign
when they get East. She left here for San Francisco, with her mother,
Mrs. Turner, and Mrs. Raymond, all under Ralph’s charge, three days
ago. Mrs. Wilkins swears she’s going to march across the continent with
the boys.
“Well, we’re mighty sorry to lose the —th, though it did seem to run
down-hill after you left. I’m not the only one that says so, Jack; so
you needn’t laugh. They will have better stations and all that sort of
thing in the East, but all the ladies will join now, I suppose, and
then won’t there be fun?
“And now, Jack, you may say it’s none of my business, but if you don’t
very soon write to me that you have succeeded in consoling a certain
young lady for the loss of much valuable time and one lover, I shall be
a disappointed woman.”
Upon the same subject Mrs. Tanner wrote from her home in Massachusetts:
“Letters from the old regiment bring me most interesting news. There
is no doubt that Mr. Glenham has at last released Grace Pelham from
her engagement. Both Mrs. Wilkins and Mrs. Turner write to the same
effect. She has been very unhappy in this tie to a man who was greatly
her inferior, and the rupture of the engagement must be a relief
inexpressible.
“Of course, both letters are filled with gossipy details as to how it
was brought about; but, knowing your horror of all that sort of talk, I
refrain. One thing, however, seems certain. It was _his_ doing and is
final.
“Jack, dear friend, I grew to know her so well and to love her dearly
in those sad days at Sandy, but there were some matters of which we
never spoke. You know how I grieved over the wrong done you by my own
kith and kin years ago, and how I _must_ want to see you happy. There
was something more than suspicion in my mind that you and sweet Grace
Pelham had been ruthlessly separated by misunderstanding—perhaps by
design—at Sandy. There was some garrison talk of a letter of yours that
never reached her, and yet was delivered _for_ her to Mrs. Pelham, and
in some way I found it was generally known that she had sent back your
spurs without a word of explanation. Have you those spurs yet, Jack?
I fancy that if they were to find their way into her hands again, you
might find it difficult to reclaim them.”
That April evening a warm south wind was sweeping up the Hudson, and
moist and sweet, bearing the faint perfume of the early lilacs upon its
bosom, it played through the curtains of Truscott’s open window. He had
early left the mess, and separated from the officers who had strolled
homeward with him. “Had letters to write,” he explained, and yet, half
an hour afterwards, when three or four lively comrades stopped under
the window in the “Angle,” and looked up, they abandoned the project of
rushing in “to give Truscott a rattle over his promotion,” for, said
they, “he must be out.” There was no light in his room.
No light burning from jet or lamp, perhaps, but Jack was there, and a
light of hope, love, and deep thankfulness was burning in his heart of
hearts, and he was thinking—thinking. Well he recalled that last night
at Sandy. How old Pelham had walked home with him from the Turners’,
and in deep embarrassment had told him of Ralph’s letter. Tears of
gratitude and of deep emotion stood in the colonel’s eyes and his
voice was broken, his hand tremulous. That night all the old trust and
affection was restored between them, but not a word was said of Mrs.
Pelham or Grace until Jack reminded him that he had to go and see Mrs.
Tanner a little while, and then it came out.
“I’ve got one thing I _must_ ask you, Truscott. I’ve overheard some
talk about a letter you sent to our house for Grace before you went out
on that scout. She never got it, I understand. Did you ever send such a
letter?”
“Yes, colonel, once, and no reply ever reached me.”
“Then depend upon it, Jack, it never got to Grace; she was ill you
know, and it—it must have been mislaid.”
But now it was too late: the mischief was done. The colonel did not
dream how much depended upon that little note, and not until long
afterwards did he know the truth, that Mrs. Pelham had shown it to
Arthur Glenham, and he had been weak—mean enough to read it. Then it
was that under the influence of that indomitable woman he had removed
from Truscott’s quarters and afterwards accused him of treachery.
Well Jack recalled her sweet face and animated manners as Grace sat
conversing with Ray that night, and his sense of utter desolation as
he left the garrison at sunrise. No one but he really knew that he
expected to be met at Prescott by telegraphic orders to proceed at once
to the Military Academy for duty in the department of tactics, and he
dreaded the formal “good-byes” that would have to be undergone were the
order to reach him while still at Sandy. And now he understood why she
had never replied to that urgent little note of his, and bitterly he
blamed himself for ever permitting the thought that she had received
and had trifled with it as she had with his love. Over an hour he sat
there plunged in deep thought, for even in his new-found hope and
happiness he dared make no false step. Then he rapidly wrote a short
letter, and on the following evening Mrs. Tanner received this query:
“Where will a letter reach Miss Pelham?” On the third day the answer
came: “Care of Adjutant-General, Division of the Missouri, Chicago.
They are visiting friends there while waiting for the regiment to come
in. Then they go to Fort Hays. They may visit Mrs. Treadwell there for
a while.”
* * * * *
One rainy, dripping, depressing morning a week later, while a damp,
smoke-laden, coal-blackened fog had settled down on the wicked
city of Chicago, and the minds of its denizens were more than ever
disposed towards the inevitable ills that life in such an atmosphere
must generate, three ladies of or beyond medium age sat yawning and
disconsolate under the lighted chandelier in a comfortable parlor; a
fourth—young, sweet, and vastly attractive—sat somewhat listlessly at
the piano, her slender hands wandered over the keys, and Schubert’s
beautiful, dreamy “Praise of Tears” softly rose and fell in plaintive
melody through the silence of the room.
“For goodness’ sake, Grace,” exclaimed one of the elder ladies,
pettishly, “_do_ stop that dismal thing and play something lively! You
will drive us all into our shrouds with such funeral stuff as that.”
In vain the others protested it was lovely, and begged Grace Pelham
to continue. Mamma had resumed her sway, and Grace, away from the
supporting voice of her father, and no longer the prospective Mrs.
Arthur Glenham, with a fortune at her disposal and a fool at her feet,
had meekly, resignedly fallen back into her old habit of uncomplaining
obedience.
A servant entered with the mail, handing to Mrs. Pelham two or three
bulky letters, in which she immediately became engrossed, and to
Grace a small parcel, at which the young lady glanced curiously, then
eagerly, and then fled from the parlor.
Once safely in her own room, and with the door locked between her and
would-be pursuers, she carried her prize to the window. It was small,
compact, firmly wrapped in strong white paper, strongly tied, sealed,
and registered. It was post-marked West Point, and needed only a glance
at the superscription to tell her the sender’s name. For an instant
she held it, trembling from head to foot, then cut the strings, opened
the little box, unrolled with quivering fingers and beating heart the
dainty wrapping of tissue-paper, and came upon something white and
soft, tied with ribbon. On it was a card.
“These are yours. The spurs you won at Sandy; the handkerchief you
dropped at my door at Prescott, and in faith and constancy I have
worn it till now.
“If you value that which you have won, hold it, and return to me the
only semblance of the tie that has bound me to you, and it shall bind
forever. If your prize be worthless to you, send it back, and in so
doing break the tie. _Comme—fidèle._
“J. G. T.”
And Grace Pelham read till the tears blinded her eyes, dashed them
away, then read again, tore open the little packet in which lay two
silver spurs rolled in a snowy kerchief, which was rent and torn
inexplicably, and which bore in white embroidery in the corner the
simple name, “Grace.”
And then she sank upon her knees, burying her bright, beautiful head in
the pillow, and wept unrestrainedly, but oh! so humbly, so gratefully,
so joyously, holding her treasures to her heart.
And three days more the torn handkerchief was back in Truscott’s breast.
“Colonel,” said he to the commandant of cadets the following morning,
“I want a week’s leave. It is an unusual time for one of the department
to be away, but, as you know, I cannot leave in the summer. My regiment
is just back in Kansas, and I want to run out to Fort Hays and see
them. Mr. X., with your consent, will take charge of my duties. I will
be back for muster on the 30th.”
And the leave was granted. It would give him just time, provided there
was no detention, to speed westward to St. Louis, thence to Kansas
City, and so on to Fort Hays, to spend twenty-four hours there, and
then rush back the way he came. Not much satisfaction, possibly, for so
long a journey, but he went.
* * * * *
Headquarters and four troops, with the band, had arrived at the little
frontier post of Fort Hays, officers and men being still encamped
upon the open prairie alongside, while those ladies who had hurried
thither to meet their returning lords were hospitably entertained by
the families in the garrison who had not yet moved away, and here
it was that Mrs. Treadwell had thrown open the large and commodious
quarters of the commanding officer to Mrs. and Miss Pelham. Here, too,
were our old acquaintances, Mrs. Raymond and Mrs. Turner. Here were
other ladies of the regiment whom it has not been the felicity of the
reader to meet. Here, too, were three or four young ladies, gathered
from neighboring posts, and ready and eager to put up with scant
accommodation, for would there not be two bands at Hays for a while,
and was there not to be given a grand ball by the outgoers to the
incomers, and was not that big, empty barrack, with its polished wax
floor, “the loveliest place in the world for a German”? Oh, bright and
bonny and sunshiny and jubilant was everything and everybody at Hays
in that glorious, radiant spring weather, and who more bright, who so
bonny, who half so radiant and lovely as Grace? The colonel wondered at
her brilliant color and sparkling eyes, marvelled at the lightness of
her step, at the ringing music of her sweet voice. Sing! Why, she sang
from morn till night.
“And yet,” said one of the visitors, “you tell me she has been jilted
by that young man with ten thousand a year who has just resigned. I
would be down in sackcloth and ashes.”
Would he write? Would he come? One or other she knew it would be, and
that right soon. And so when Major Bucketts came stumping into the
Treadwells’ parlor one evening waving a despatch and beaming with
delight, she felt sure what was coming before her father burst out
with,—
“By Jove! that _is_ good. Jack Truscott will be here to-night.”
There was an impromptu dance going on, and thither Grace could not but
wend her way, and her escort, a deeply-smitten youth of the infantry
persuasion, was impatiently awaiting her. Dozens of young people were
blithely dancing to the strains of sweet music from the tireless
orchestra, and, though she danced unceasingly, joyously, the hours
seemed to drag. It would be near midnight before the train from the
East reached the station. Would it be late? Would the dance break up
before he could come? Would Major Bucketts be stupid and take him off
to his own quarters instead of bringing him there? Would he speak to
her then? Could she see him? Could she look in his face and not betray
to every soul in the room the glowing secret that seemed bursting from
heart and brain? Eleven o’clock came at last, and then the minutes
stretched into hours, and midnight lay a century away. Yet she was
striving to be calm, striving to be bright and “entertaining” with her
round of partners. Oh, how she tired of their chatter! their utterly
vapid efforts to amuse her! How she wished Ray were there! He would
let her dance, or sit in silence and wait and think and dream, keeping
vigilant guard lest others interfere, as he had learned to do for
her in Arizona, yet interfering not himself; but Ray was far to the
westward. Fate had assigned him elsewhere,—and midnight came at last.
To her misery, the hop was breaking up, the dancers going home. Some
had already left.
“Oh, can’t we have just one more waltz?” she implored, and obediently
the leader signalled to his sleepy bandsmen. Then there was a rush and
commotion at the doorway. Young officers were dropping their partners
and precipitating themselves on a new arrival; a dozen glittering
uniforms were crowding about a tall, soldierly-looking fellow in
civilian’s dress who was being half dragged, half pushed, then carried,
nearly smothered, into the hall. Mesdames Raymond and Turner rushed
rapturously upon him, other dames followed suit. The younger damsels
gazed with decorous curiosity, and Miss Pelham’s infantry escort, with
misguided jocularity, inquired, “Who may be this lengthy party in cits?
I suppose we may venture to dance, may we not?” And had he been a youth
of brain he might have learned a lesson from the manner of her reply.
“Not just now. It’s Captain Truscott, our old adjutant.”
“Oh! That’s Jack Truscott, is it?” was all the crestfallen youth could
say, and then they stood still and watched, and the band stopped
playing.
Is the world made up of idiots? Could no one see how his eyes were
wandering over their heads about the room? Had not those little
whip-snappers of boys more sense than to know that it was not on
their account he had come all that distance? Would they never let him
go? Would those absurd women never release him? Must he stand there
patiently striving to answer a dozen questions asked at once while she
stood waiting? And when he did break through, and came towards her with
quick, eager step and a glorious light in his dark eyes, could they not
even then see through it all? must they still hang to his skirts with
idiotic inquiries of no earthly importance? Only for an instant could
Grace glance up in those glowing hazel eyes, while her cheeks burned
with their shy delight.
“I’m so glad to see you again,” was all she had time to falter in
response to his tremulous voice breathing only her name. Then he was
dragged off, and she homewards. He to Bucketts’s quarters, where his
old comrades crowded around him till late towards morning; she to wait,
with trembling joy, for the coming day.
Yet what did that bring? She was out at guard-mounting, so was he, and,
breaking loose from the group surrounding him, came at once to meet
her, and the wooden-headed imbeciles flocked instantly about them,
and not a word alone had he in the hour they were together. Then came
madame, with Mrs. Treadwell, and the carriage to take a drive. She
had not known when to expect him, had promised to go, and could not
now avert it. It was nearly one when they returned, and then they had
to dress for luncheon at the doctor’s. And he had been dragged off to
stables by the colonel to see the new horses by the time they came
back, and the colonel did not release him until near retreat. Nor was
he one instant alone with him. Even _his_ placidity was sorely tried.
“But never mind,” he thought, “I dine at the Treadwells’, and there,
at least, there will be opportunity.” Nevertheless, at parade, finding
it impossible to separate her from the swarm of feminines who flocked
about her, and the officers who gathered in clusters the instant they
were dismissed from their duties, he turned to Bucketts.
“Old man, have the ambulance at Treadwell’s at ten o’clock to take me
to the station. Put my valise in, _and do all you can to keep the crowd
away from there to-night_.” And Bucketts understood.
Even at dinner all went wrong. Oh, Mrs. Treadwell, either your tact had
deserted you, or Lady Pelham’s malign influence had been again at work.
Grace was seated beyond his reach. He could not even see her, for she
was on his side of the table, and there were other guests between them.
Dinner was long, frightfully long.
“Jack, must you go to-night?” called the colonel to him. “Can’t you
wait until to-morrow’s train? You will reach the Point by the 30th even
then.” And Truscott could only shake his head.
Would that ghastly dinner never end? It was nearly nine o’clock when
they rose and strolled into the parlor. Then he went at once to her
side. Two young officers were speaking to her then, but time was
precious. She half moved forward to meet him.
“Must you go to-night?” she murmured, looking almost tearfully up in
his eyes.
“Yes, at ten. Yet I cannot——”
“Captain Truscott, _Captain_ Truscott, didn’t you hear? Colonel
Treadwell says won’t you smoke?” And Mrs. Turner was pulling at his
coat-sleeve. (Smoke at such a time!) “How ungallant you’ve grown! You
used to be the soul of—why, _I_ don’t know—_devotion_, and here I had
to call you twice—three times.”
“_Did_ you see Mrs. Tanner? Isn’t it lovely she’s so well off? Do you
think she’ll marry again?” Mrs Raymond was firing at him from the other
side.
“_Do_ tell us about West Point. Is Mrs. Ruggles there now? _Why_ do you
have to go to-night? How stupid of you to come for so short a time!”
Mrs. the doctor was having her say.
The other men, except two or three youngsters, were still in the
dining-room smoking. What _could_ be done? He was surrounded by these
chattering magpies, and Grace was fairly driven from his side. Mrs.
Pelham had called her. Mrs. Treadwell was asking her to sing. Then
the women turned on her and _implored_ her to sing. Everybody knows
that right after dinner is the very time of all others one feels like
singing. Grace had to sing, and it was half-past nine before the
oldsters came out, and then tattoo drew several of the younger people
away.
“_Surely_, you are going to the hop-room, Grace?” Mrs. Pelham was heard
to say. “I heard Mr. Roberts asking you.”
And Grace looked imploringly at her father.
“Indeed, she’s not. Truscott’s got to go in twenty minutes, and I want
to see him, so does Grace,” that veteran answered, stoutly.
Still there were a dozen people in the parlor, and time was spinning
away. Grace was implored to sing again, and sing she had to. Mrs.
Treadwell and Mrs. Pelham were chatting with the doctor at a distant
end of the room. The colonel and Treadwell, lolling back in their
easy-chairs, were beating time and enjoying the music. The doctor’s
wife and Mesdames Raymond and Turner were pestering Truscott with
questions even as she sang. Grace was at the piano, and he had eagerly
stepped to her side to turn over the leaves for her, but they called
him away as the song ceased, and nervously looking at his watch,
pulling savagely at his moustache, Jack Truscott commenced pacing
rapidly up and down the parlor. How odd of him! How excitable for one
ordinarily so calm!
Listening eagerly to his every word, listening in torture to
their senseless chatter and questioning, Grace Pelham sat running
dreamily over the exquisite music, the accompaniment of Kucken’s
“Good-night,—Farewell,” an accompaniment that is a lovely song in
itself.
“Yes indeed, Mr. Truscott—Captain Truscott, I mean,” Mrs. Turner was
saying, “we’ve been hearing all manner of accounts of you at West
Point. I quite expected long ere this to hear of your being in love
somewhere, and (coquettishly) forgetting all your old friends in the
—th. _Of course_ now, with your captaincy, you will be seeking a wife?”
“Of course,” he answered, with a sudden resumption of preternatural
calmness, but still striding up and down.
“You mean to be married, _really_?” Vividly interested were the ladies
now, and the sweet accompaniment went tremulously on.
“Certainly, I do.”
“You _have_ fallen in love, then?”
“Long ago.”
“Oh, Mr. Truscott!” “Why, Captain Truscott!” “Oh, when?” “What a
surprise!” “Who is she?” “_Do_ tell us!” came in general chorus, even
Pelham and Treadwell pricking up their ears.
“Are you really, _really_ in love? _very_ much?”
“I am—deeply.”
“Then when are you to be married?”
[Breathless silence.]
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t know! Why not?”
“Because I’ve never asked her yet.”
“How absurd! Why haven’t you? Doesn’t she love you?”
“I’ve never asked her.”
“Preposterous! What do you mean?”
“She knows you love her, does she not?”
“Yes.”
“Then why don’t you ask her? Why haven’t you——”
“I have never had a chance, and at this rate never expect to get one.”
(The accompaniment had wellnigh died away. Grace was bending blindly
over her piano.)
“What can you mean? _Who_ is it?” persisted that eminently brilliant
cross-examiner, Mrs. Turner, though others with gradually expanding
ideas were beginning to take in the situation.
He had stepped close by the piano, his watch again in his hand. The
wheels of an ambulance rattled up to the door. Proudly, almost
defiantly, he turned and faced them all, then bent over the beautiful,
bowed head, the trembling form that drooped over the keys. A wonderful
depth of love, reverence, tenderness, passion thrilled through every
word, as he murmured—
“Gracie. It is my only opportunity; but, before the world, if need be,
I would say it proudly, I love you.”
The accompaniment had ceased. The sweet, blushing face was hidden by
his arm. Before them all he had wooed and won her.
“All the world loves a lover” (unless it be the lady’s younger brother,
when she has one). If not, how did it happen that on this particular
evening that express train on the Kansas Pacific should be telegraphed
as two hours late, and that Bucketts should find it out just in the
“nick of time,” and bring word to Truscott as he was coming forth to
drive to the station, taking leave of his sweet betrothed, even as he
had had to plead his cause—before them all? Will it be believed that
when the quartermaster appeared with his glad tidings and called out,
“Jack, old boy, that train won’t be along till after midnight, so I’ll
send the trap back to the corral,” Mrs. Turner absolutely proposed
staying and making up a party to see him off, and was indignant because
her husband spirited her off homewards? Then the others followed, and,
thanks to Pelham’s resolution, Jack Truscott and his _fiancée_ were
left in peace. Mrs. Pelham, a martyred wife and mother, was sent to
bed, and the colonel and Treadwell retired to the dining-room to smoke
another cigar. It was the happiest night the colonel had known in ever
so long.
And now the minutes flew like seconds; the blessed two hours whirled
away. Once more ’twas almost time for the ambulance to rattle up to
the house, and this time there could be no postponement. They were
standing under the hanging-lamp in the centre of the room, the bright
light shimmering through her rippling hair, and shining back from the
beautiful eyes ever and anon raised so happily, so trustingly to his.
“There is something I want to ask you,” she said, shyly, as another
reference to his watch showed that they had but a few moments more to
call their own. He was looking smilingly down into her bonny, blushing
face.
“What is it, Gracie?”
“About the packet you sent me with the spurs. Was my handkerchief
really so torn when I dropped it?”
“It was not torn at all.”
“Then how did you come to abuse it so frightfully, sir? Is that the way
you treat my property?”
He was smiling mischievously now.
“I kept it in as safe a spot as I could find,” he answered.
“Where?” and her head drooped as she asked it.
“Very near to my heart, Miss Pelham.”
“Then how came those jagged rents, I’d like to know?”
“An arrow did that, mademoiselle, the morning of Tanner’s fight down in
Tonto basin,—a day or two after you jilted me, to be explicit.”
And for all response she could only bury her face upon the breast
where, at that moment, her torn treasured handkerchief was lying.
“What else have you to ask?” he questioned, as she presently glanced up
into his eyes again.
“What does _comme_—_fidèle_ mean?”
“Where is your French, Miss Pelham?”
“I never did know so very much, and this is utterly beyond me,” she
answered, laughingly. “You wrote it so queerly: _comme_, then a dash,
then _fidèle_. There is no sense to it that I can see.”
He drew her closer to his heart, and bent until his lips almost brushed
the soft, perfumed ripples of her hair. “It has its meaning, though,
and a deep one. It is my pledge to you, my darling,—_Fidèle—à la fin,
comme—au commencement_.”
Presently the ambulance once more was heard, and old Pelham came
blithely in.
“Grace dear, I’m going to drive over to the station with Truscott,
and I want somebody with me coming back,—to keep the wolves away, you
know,” he added, with a Weller-like wink, very unbecoming such rank and
dignity. “Run and wrap up warm, daughter.”
Then, as she obediently went, the two men clasped hands and looked into
each other’s eyes.
“Does it occur to you that it was about time I asked your consent, sir?”
“You have had it—all along. God bless you, Jack!”
Will she ever forget that ride to the station, I wonder? How those
scamps of bachelor officers poured forth from Bucketts’s tent over in
camp and surrounded the ambulance ostensibly to bid “him” good-by; the
stage-whispers which passed between them.
“Good-by, Jack. We all meant to come over to the station to see you
off, but the colonel gives us fits if we’re up after midnight now.”
“Take care of yourself, old man. _Say_, don’t let the colonel see you
go into Tommy Dunn’s. _What!_ Miss Pelham, you here too!”
She sat in the dark corner of the carriage, where she could dimly see
his form as he leaned forward talking earnestly with her father as they
drove rapidly over the smooth prairie roads. Not a word did she speak,
but an inexpressible content and joy possessed her. He was going. It
might be many a long weary month before she could see him again, but
her heart went with him, and his?—ah, had it not been in her keeping
for months past?
They reached the station; dark and still it looked: one faint light
burning in the station-master’s office; but thither the colonel found
it necessary to go. The ambulance and its driver went off, oddly
enough, and “hitched” directly in front of the very establishment Jack
had been warned to shun. And then on the dark platform, lighted only by
the glowing stars above, the red and green signal-lamps up and down the
track, Grace Pelham and her lover were alone.
All too soon, far up the line the brilliant head-light of the train
came sweeping into view. They were pacing slowly along the platform,
her hands clasped upon his arm. She stopped suddenly.
“You have never asked me why—why Mr. Glenham broke our engagement, and
I thought it was something you ought to know,” she said, falteringly.
“I never intended to ask, Gracie, nor do I care to question you about
any of that wretched experience at Sandy,” he said, tenderly.
“But it was something I want you to know, and I cannot tell you unless
you ask.”
“Then, I do ask,” he answered, smiling.
“He told me two months ago that he knew I cared nothing for him, and
asked me whom I did love?”
“And you told him——”
“That I loved you, Jack.”
Both his arms were round her in an instant, his head bent down over the
sweet face now buried on his breast. She _had_ to raise it shyly and
glance up into his eyes in answer to his appeal, then his lips sought
hers, and their fervent pressure was answered. One moment more and he
was eastward bound.
* * * * *
Many a letter came flying back to Hays. The daily mail was never
without its missive for Grace, and even in separation some delight is
found.
“Two weeks now I have been back at the Point,” he wrote one May
afternoon, “and never has the dear old spot looked so beautiful. It is
hard to realize that these scenes, so familiar to you, so very familiar
to me, have never been viewed together; that there ever has been a time
in my life when I looked out upon that glorious reach up the river, and
around upon the rocky heights, and knew not this now incessant longing
to have you at my side. Time was when all my hope, ambition, pride,
and pleasure were centred in the coming summer, with camp or furlough,
when May with its verdure and sweet balmy breath was a foretaste of
Paradise. _Now_, I wait with eager impatience for the coming again of
autumn, for the keen frosts that will shiver leaf and flower and rob
the landscape of all this vernal beauty. Welcome, November, with frost
and fog and gale, for none can chill the light and glory of my life,
for with them comes its crowning blessing, for with them, and despite
them, I shall welcome you, my wife, my darling, my queen.”
And Truscott had many letters, congratulatory, exclamatory, and
otherwise satisfactory. This was from Ray:
“DEAR JACK,—News just reached me. Bad news travels fast, you know.
I’m cut up—cut out—and never was cut out for anything better. With
all my heart I congratulate you, and wish it was _me_. As I can’t
walk to singing-school with her myself, please may I sit on the fence
and watch out for you to go by? Anyhow, may the Fates deal you no
end of blessings, and me, two or three full hands for the wedding
present! There goes stable-call. _Toot à toi._
“RAY.
“See here, Jack, I may not have had a clear idea on the subject before,
but isn’t this last capture of Miss Pelham’s a new thing in ‘_Winning
his Spurs_’?”
THE END.
—————————————————
Transcriber’s Note (continued)
Errors in punctuation and simple typos have been corrected without note.
Archaic or variant spelling, inconsistent hyphenation, etc., has been
left as it appears in the original publication unless as noted in the
following:
Page 114 – “decalogue” changed to “Decalogue” (half the sins in
the Decalogue)
Page 187 – “’7” changed to “’71” (the old road to Prescott as it lay
in ’71)
Page 286 – “Eskiminziu” changed to “Eskiminzin” (Advices just received
from Stryker prove Eskiminzin)
Page 365 – “Arrapahoes” changed to “Arapahoes” (the Sioux, Cheyennes,
and Arapahoes)