Landor sat at the centre table and went over requisition blanks by the
light of a green-shaded student lamp. The reflection made him look livid
and aging. Felipa had noticed it, and then she had turned to the fire
and sat watching, with her soft eyes half closed, the little sputtering
sparks from the mesquite knot. She had been immovable in that one
position for at least an hour, her hands folded with a weary looseness
in her lap. If it had not been that her face was very hard to read, even
her husband might have guessed that she was sad. But he was not thinking
about her. He went on examining the papers until some one came upon the
front porch and knocked at the door. Then he got up and went out.
It was the post-trader, he told Felipa when he came back, and he was
asking for help from the officer-of-the-day. Some citizens down at the
store were gambling and drinking high, and were becoming uproarious.
Landor sent for a squad of the guard and went to put them out. It was
just one of the small emergencies that go to make up the chances of
peace. He might or he might not come back alive; the probabilities in
favor of the former, to be sure. But the risks are about equal whether
one fights Indians or citizens drunk with liquor and gaming.
The men went away, however, without much trouble beyond tipsy protests
and mutterings, and the sutler rewarded the guard with beer, and
explained to Landor that several of the disturbers were fellows who were
hanging round the post for the beef contract; the biggest and most
belligerent--he of the fierce, drooping mustachios--was the owner of the
ranch where the Kirby massacre had taken place, as well as of another
one in New Mexico.
Landor paid very little attention just then, but that same night he had
occasion to think of it again.
It was his habit to go to bed directly after taps when he was
officer-of-the-day, and to visit the guard immediately before reveille
the next morning. But the requisitions and some troop papers kept him
until almost twelve, so that he decided to make his rounds as soon as
the clock had struck twelve, and to sleep until sunrise. Felipa had long
since gone off to bed. He turned down the lamp, put on his cape and cap,
and with his revolver in his pocket and his sabre clicking a monotonous
accompaniment went out into the night.
It was not very dark. The sky was thick with clouds, but there was a
waning moon behind them. The only light in the garrison was in the
grated windows of the guard-house.
Visiting the guard is dull work, and precisely the same round, night
after night, with hardly ever a variation. But to-night there occurred a
slight one. Landor was carrying his sabre in his arm, as he went by the
back of the quarters, in order that its jingle might not disturb any
sleepers. For the same reason he walked lightly, although, indeed, he
was usually soft-footed, and came unheard back of Brewster's yard.
Brewster himself was standing in the shadow of the fence, talking to
some man. Landor could see that it was a big fellow, and the first thing
that flashed into his mind, without any especial reason, was that it was
the rancher who had been in trouble down at the sutler's store.
It gave cause for reflection; but an officer was obviously at liberty to
talk to whomsoever he might choose around his own premises, at any hour
of the day or night. So the officer of the day went on, treading
quietly. But he had something to think about now that kept off
drowsiness for the rest of the rounds. Brewster's fondness for the
society of dubious civilians was certainly unfortunate. And the
conjunction of the aspiring beef contractor and the commissary officer
was also unfortunate, not to say curious. Because of this. The beef
contract was about to expire, and the commandant had advertised for
bids. A number of ranchers had already turned their papers in.
Furnishing the government's soldiers with meat is never an empty honor.
The bids, duly sealed, were given into the keeping of the commissary
officer to be put in his safe, and kept until the day of judgment, when
all being opened in public and in the presence of the aspirants, the
lowest would get the contract. It was a simple plan, and gave no more
opportunity for underhand work than could be avoided. But there were
opportunities for all that. It was barely possible--the thing had been
done--for a commissary clerk or sergeant, desirous of adding to his
pittance of pay, or of favoring a friend among the bidders, to tamper
with the bids. By the same token there was no real reason why the
commissary officer could not do it himself. Landor had never heard, or
known, of such a case, but undoubtedly the way was there. It was a
question of having the will and the possession of the safe keys.
There were only the bids to be taken out and steamed open. The lowest
found, it was simple enough for the favored one to make his own a
quarter of a cent less, and to turn it in at the last moment. But one
drawback presented itself. Some guileful and wary contractors, making
assurance twice sure, kept their bids themselves and only presented them
when the officers sat for the final awarding. Certainly Brewster would
have been wiser not to have been seen with the big civilian. During the
two days that elapsed before the awarding of the contract, Landor
thought about it most of the time.
It came to pass in the working out of things that the commandant elected
to spend the night before the opening of the bids, in the small town
some miles away, where one of the first families was giving a dinner.
This left Landor, as next in rank, in temporary command. It had happened
often enough before, in one way or another, but this time the duties of
the position seemed to weigh upon him. He was restless and did not care
to sleep. He sent Felipa off to bed, and sat watching where her lithe
young figure had gone out of the door for some minutes. Then he ran his
hand across his mouth contemplatively, stroked his mustache, and finally
went out of the house and down to Ellton's quarters.
When the baby began to cry, as it was always quite sure to do sooner or
later, and Mrs. Ellton went up to it, Landor spoke. "If I should come
for you at any hour to-night, I wish you would hold yourself in
readiness to go out with me immediately."
He was not the sort of a man of whom to ask explanations. Ellton said
"Very well," and proceeded to talk about the troop's hogs and gardens,
both of which were a source of increase to the troop funds.
Mrs. Ellton returned before long, and Landor went back home.
"I shall be in and out all night, more or less," he told Felipa. She
reached her hands from the bedclothes and stroked the deep lines on his
forehead, the lines she had had most to do with putting there. But she
did not ask for confidences. She never did. It was not her way. He
kissed her and went out into the night again, to sit upon his porch at a
spot where, through the cottonwood branches, he commanded a view of
Brewster's front door and of the windows of the commissary office.
The silence of the garrison was absolute. Over in the company clerk's
office of one of the infantry barracks there was a light for a time.
Then, at about midnight, it too was put out. A cat came creeping from
under the board walk and minced across the road. He watched it absently.
When he looked up again to Brewster's house, there was a chink of faint
light showing through a curtain. He got up then and went down to
Ellton's quarters.
Ellton himself answered the muffled knock. "I didn't turn in," he said
to the mysterious figure, shrouded in a cape, with a visor down to its
peering eyes.
Landor told him to get his cap and come out. He followed the shadows of
the trees near the low commissary building, and they stood there, each
behind a thick cottonwood trunk. Landor watched the light in Brewster's
window. It disappeared before long, and they held their breaths. Ellton
began to guess what was expected to happen. Yet Brewster himself did not
come out.
Landor had almost decided that he had made an ungenerous mistake, when
Ellton came over with one light spring and, touching him on the
shoulder, pointed to the window of the commissary office. A thick, dark
blanket had evidently been hung within, but the faintest red flicker
showed through a tiny hole.
Then Landor remembered for the first time that there was a back door to
Brewster's quarters and to the commissary. He crept over to the
commissary and tried the door gently. It was fast locked. Then he went
to the window. It was a low one, on a level with his chest, with
wide-apart iron bars. He ran his hand between them now, and, doubling
his fist, broke a pane with a sudden blow. As the glass crashed in, he
grasped the gray blanket and drew it back. Brewster was standing in
front of the open safe, the package of bids in his hands, and the big
rancher was beside him holding a candle and shading it with his palm.
They had both turned, and were staring, terror-eyed, at the bleeding
hand that held back the blanket.
"Can you see, Ellton?" Landor asked in his restrained, even voice. He
evidently meant that there should be no more noise about this than
necessary, that the post should know nothing of it.
"I can see, sir," the lieutenant answered.
Then Landor spoke to the commissary officer. "You will oblige me, Mr.
Brewster, by returning those bids to the safe and by opening the door
for me." He dropped the blanket, drew back his cut hand, warm and wet
with blood, and wrapped it in a handkerchief very deliberately, as he
waited.
Presently the front door opened. The commissary officer evidently had
all the keys. Landor and Ellton, who were commandant and adjutant as
well, went through the close-smelling storeroom, which reeked with
codfish and coffee, into the office.
The citizen was still there, still holding the candle and shading it,
scared out of the little wits he had at the best of times. He was too
frightened as yet to curse Brewster and the wary scoundrel back in
Arizona, who had set him on to tampering with the military, and had put
up the funds to that end--a small risk for a big gain.
Landor pointed to him. "Who is this?" he asked.