THE FIRST CALL
Fort Reynolds, as has been told in the earlier story of George Graham's
cadet days, lay among the eastward foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains,
with a bustling little frontier city only six miles away down the
winding valley of what was, in the early eighties, a clear, cold, and
beautiful mountain stream that shone in the sun like molten silver.
Silver Run it was called when Uncle Sam built the picturesque frontier
fort of hewn logs and unseasoned pine soon after the Civil War. Silver
Run, cold, pure, and glistening, it remained when Fort Reynolds became
an important military post. Then the --th Cavalry took station at
Reynolds, and there Geordie Graham found them when, with his father and
mother and "Bud," he had come from cold Montana to the finest station
they yet had known, and to the firmest friends, many of whom they had
met before, when Geordie, as a little boy, was "Corporal Pops" to every
man at old Camp Sandy.
But Silver Run, though it ran more silver than it ever knew before, was
beautiful no longer. Mines of remarkable value, mines of gold and
silver, had been discovered twenty and thirty miles back in the
mountains. Mining towns had sprung up along the steep and rocky banks.
Mining methods had turned a limpid stream into a turbid torrent. Two
railways had run their lines, hewing, blasting, boring, and tunnelling
up the narrow valley, first to reach the mines and finally to merge in
a "cut-off" to the great Transcontinental, so that now huge trains of
Pullmans went straining slowly up-grade past the site of old Fort
Reynolds, or came coasting down with smoking tires and fire-spitting
brake-shoes, and between the loss of the water for his horses, and the
hemming in of his rifle-ranges by rail right of way, Uncle Sam
declared Fort Reynolds no longer tenable for cavalry. The regiment had
been sent elsewhere, and only a quartermaster-sergeant and a squad of
men remained.
Yet Reynolds stood in the midst of thriving industries and swarming
men. The First National Bank in town had now a marble front and a
thousand depositors. The town was now a city and a railway centre, and
the backbone of its business was no longer cattle, but mines and
mining, full of fabulous wealth for those "on the inside," but of dark
and devious measures for those "on the outside" or away, and of these
were half a dozen army officers who had been dazzled by the easily
acquired dollars of the earliest arrivals, and of these officers was
one of the last men his friends thought possible to mislead--shrewd,
calculating, cautious, canny old "Sawny" Graham, post surgeon at Fort
Reynolds in the late eighties.
Yet prospectors and explorers ten years earlier had declared gold would
be found up the banks of Silver Run. In the glorious park country back
of Squaw Cañon, where Geordie and Bud had camped and fished and hunted
as boys, the signs of the restless scouts of the great army of miners
were to be seen at every hand. And then finally, in the very September
that followed the return of Graham and Connell to take up the last half
of their course at the Academy, there came sudden and thrilling
announcement of "big finds" along Lance Creek, the upper tributary of
Silver Run; then even finer indications on the Run itself, and the West
went wild. All of a sudden the mountain-sides bristled with armed men
and their _burros_. Camps sprang up in a night and shafts were sunk in
a day. Yampah County, from primeval wilderness, leaped to renown, with
a population of ten thousand. Gold and silver came "packed" down the
trails to the First National. Then, faster than the precious metal came
down, costly machinery, and prices, went up. Fortunes were declared in
a week. Officers and men at Reynolds caught the craze.
Many an old sergeant took his discharge and his savings and went to the
mines; and young troopers without discharges took their lead and
followed suit, and the colonel wired the War Department that if the
regiment wasn't ordered away there wouldn't be anything left to order
in the spring. Luckily, heavy snow-storms came and blocked the trails,
and there was a lull at the mines, but unluckily, not before the few
officers at Reynolds who had saved a dollar had invested every cent of
their savings in the shares of the Golconda, the White Eagle, the
Consolidated Denver, and especially the Silver Shield, and the man who,
through frugality and good management, had the most to invest, and who
had invested all, was Major Graham. When he left there for West Point
the August following he had refused four times what he paid for his
shares, and saw fortune smiling on his pathway to the Hudson. Now, less
than ten months thereafter, on the borders of the Hudson, he saw ruin
staring him in the face.
For there had been assessments, and he had borrowed to meet them. There
had come rumors of "leaks" and he had kept them to himself. McCrea,
his boy's best friend in the regiment, had consulted him only ten days
back as to whether it were not wise to realize on a portion at least of
their holdings, and Graham, dreading a "bear" movement on the market,
had said, "Hold fast."
And now McCrea had turned back. He must go at once, he said, to the
telegraph office. So Graham, his sorrowing wife, and his silent boys
went on. She led him into their cheery quarters, and seated him in his
old arm-chair and came and nestled beside him.
"What is there to grieve about, dear?" she pleaded. "What does it
really matter to us? We have health, home, our boys, each other--quite
enough to live on--Why should it so distress you? Indeed, I almost
cried aloud, 'Is that all?' when you showed me the message. I feared so
much worse. Why, think, Graeme, in all the gay crowd that comes here
every day, is there a woman half as happy as I am? Is there one of them
really as rich as we are--we who have so many blessings?"
"It's for 'Bud' I'm thinking most now," was the mournful answer. "There
can be no Columbia for him. I've borrowed money to meet the
assessments, and the money's got to be paid. This isn't like having
one's house burned, or his ranch blown away, his herds scattered, by
the act of God. This is being robbed of the savings of years by
organized, legalized swindlers, men who claimed to be our friends. It's
that--and my helplessness--that hurts."
The boys had remained without, talking in low, grave tones, Bud's
boisterous spirits suddenly quenched. Presently the sound of their
murmuring died away. There was no answer when Mrs. Graham called. Going
to the door she looked anxiously about her. From up the roadway to the
north came the sound of merry voices and the shuffle of many feet--the
battalion hurrying down the broad stone steps of Grant Hall and forming
for the march back to camp. The young "first captain" called them to
attention and gave the commands that swung them into column of platoons
and striding away under the leafy arch to the open plain. Oh, with
what pride had she not listened, night after night, from September to
mid-June, to Geordie's ringing, masterful tones, _her_ Geordie,
foremost officer of the Corps! And now all that was ended with the
graduation to which he had so long looked forward, and now, when but
half an hour ago he had so rejoiced in his assignment to the regiment
of his choice--now must come this cloud upon his young life, his and
blithe-hearted Bud, who so adored him. She knew well that his first act
would be to set aside a certain portion of his scanty pay for her use,
and for her own part she would not so have it.
But where were the boys, and why had they gone? It was some minutes
before Bud returned, alone.
"Where is Geordie?" she asked.
Bud dropped his cap on the hall table, looking dispirited and troubled.
"Gone to the hotel, mother--wants to see"--with a gulp--"McCrea--and
I'm of no use to anybody."
"You can be and will be," was the gentle answer, as the mother wound an
arm about and led him within. There in silence and semi-darkness they
sat awhile. The doctor had gone into his little library to look over
memoranda and accounts. It was nine o'clock when Geordie's quick,
soldierly step was heard on the walk without. He came bounding up and
in, alert, virile, and vigorous.
"You saw Mr. McCrea, Geordie?"
"Yes, mother. He's going to Newburg to catch the Pacific express on the
Central, and, mother--I'm going with him."