The court-martial that met at Camp Cooke in compliance with orders from
division headquarters at 'Frisco had, three weeks later, practically
finished the case of Brevet-Captain Nevins, and that debonair person,
who had appeared before it on the first day, suave, laughing, and almost
insolently defiant, had wilted visibly as, day after day, the judge
advocate unfolded the mass of evidence against him. All that Nevins
thought to be tried for was a charge of misappropriation of public funds
and property, and it was his purpose to plead in bar of trial that he
had offered to make complete restitution, to replace every missing item,
and doubly replace, if need be, every dollar. This, indeed, he had lost
no time in doing the moment he was handed over to the post commander,
two days after the exciting episode at Sancho's, but he coupled with
the offer a condition that all proceedings against him should be
dropped, and the veteran major commanding, while expressing entire
willingness to receipt for any funds the accused might offer, would
promise nothing whatever in return. That Nevins should be charged with
desertion and breach of arrest the accused officer regarded as of small
importance. He was merely going to Tucson fast as he could to get from
business associates, as he termed them, the money deposited with them,
and owed to him, and this must also excuse his having borrowed the
major's best horse. His friends in congress would square all that for
him, even if the court should prove obdurate. That grave charges should
have followed him from a former sphere of operations, that his record,
while retained in the volunteer service until the spring of '66 and
assigned to some mysterious bureau functions in the South, should all
have been ventilated and made part and parcel of the charges, that it
should be shown that he, as a newly commissioned officer of the army,
had made the journey from New Orleans to the Isthmus and thence to San
Francisco with men whom he knew to be deserters from commands stationed
in the Crescent City, that he should have gambled with them and
associated with them and brought one of them all the way with him to
Yuma and concealed from the military authorities his knowledge of their
crime, that it should be proved he was a professional "card sharp,"
expert manipulator and blackleg he never had contemplated as even
possible, and yet, with calm and relentless deliberation "that
cold-blooded, merciless martinet of a West Pointer," as he referred to
the judge advocate at an early stage in the proceedings, had laid proof
after proof before the court, and left the case of the defense at the
last without a leg to stand on. And then Nevins dropped the debonair and
donned the abject, for the one friend or adviser left to him in the
crowded camp, an officer who said he always took the side of the under
dog in a fight, had told him that in its present temper that court, with
old Turnbull as one of its leaders, would surely sentence him to a term
of years at Alcatraz as well as to dismissal from the military service
of the United States. Dismissal he expected, but cared little for that.
He had money and valuables more than enough to begin life on anywhere,
and the pickings of his accustomed trade were all too scant in Arizona.
He needed a broader field, and a crowding population for the proper
exercise of his talents; and the uniform of the officer, after all, had
not proved to be so potent in lulling the suspicions of prospective
victims as he had expected it might be. But Alcatraz! a rock-bound
prison! a convict's garb! hard labor on soft diet! that was indeed
appalling.
"That man Loring has made you out an innate blackguard, Nevins. You've
got to plead for mercy," said his shrewd adviser, and Nevins saw the
point and plead. He laid before the court letters from officers of rank
speaking gratefully of his aid during the prevalence of yellow fever in
the Gulf States. He begged the court to wait until he could show them
the affidavits of many statesmen and soldiers, whom it would take
months to hear from by mail, and there was then no telegraph in Arizona.
He begged for time, for pity, and the court was moved and wrote to Drum
Barracks for instructions, and adjourned until the answer came, which it
did by swift stage and special courier within a week. "Advices from
Washington say that the congressional backers of the accused have
declared themselves well rid of him and suggest the extreme penalty of
the law," and this being the advice of Washington it was simply human
nature that the court should experience a revulsion of feeling and
consider itself bound to see that the poor fellow was not made to suffer
martyrdom. Most of the members were men from the volunteers or from the
ranks. West Pointers were the exception, not the rule, in the line of
the army for years after the war. Most of the court had been the
recipients of Nevins' exuberant hospitality at one time or other. He had
objected to the few who had lost heavily to him at cards, and the
objection had been sustained, and when the last day for the long
session arrived and a sad-eyed, pale-faced, scrupulously groomed and
dressed accused arose before the dignified array and the little line of
curious spectators, to make his last plea, a silence not unmixed with a
certain sympathy, fell upon all hearers, as in low voice and faltering
accents the friendless fellow began his story. Partly from manuscript,
which he seemed to find hard reading, but mainly as an extemporaneous
effort, his remarks were substantially as follows:
"I've come to make a clean breast of it, gentlemen. I'm not fit to wear
your uniform. I never was. I never wanted to. It was practically forced
upon me by men who ought to have known better, who did know better, but
who didn't care so long as they got me out of the way. My father as much
as owned more than one congressman in York State. The Honorable Mr.
Cadger, of the Military Committee, couldn't 'a been renominated if it
hadn't been for him, and he didn't want me round home any more. He got
me kept on bureau work long after all but a few volunteers were
mustered out and shoved me down to New Orleans, where I'd often been
steamboating before the war. I had the fever there when I was only
twenty. Perhaps he thought I could get it again, and that would be the
end of me. If there's a worse place for a young officer to start in than
that infernal town was just after the war it ain't on the map o' these
United States. I had the luck and the opportunities of the devil for
nigh onto a year. I got more money and learned more ways of getting it
than I knew how to use, and then I got married. A homeless woman, a
woman with brains and good looks and education, married me for the
position I could give her, I suppose. They told me afterward she did it
out of spite or desperation; that she was a Northern girl who had been
employed as governess in an old Southern family that was ruined by the
war; that she had a younger sister in New York whom she was educating, a
girl who had a magnificent voice and wanted to go on the stage, and all
the money she could save went to her. She got employment when Ben Butler
took command, for she knew all the Southern families, and who had money
and plate and jewels, and who had nothing but niggers. She fell in love,
they told me afterward, with a swell colonel who came there on staff
duty, for he cut a dash and made desperate love to her until his wife
got wind of it and came down there all of a sudden just after the
smash-up of the Confederacy, and put a stop to his fun. That was in May,
and I got there in July. We were married that winter, and I loaded her
with the best I could buy and gave her all she could spend on her sister
until she found out how my money was made there--in cotton and cards.
She thought, and I'd let her think so, that I had big property in the
North. It was another woman gave her the tip, and then the trouble
began. She swore we must give up the house we lived in, the horses and
carriage, and go to a cheap boarding-house. She got the jewelers to take
back the watch and every trinket I'd given her--at their own valuation,
about a quarter of what they cost me. She argued and pleaded and prayed,
and swore she'd confess the whole thing to General Sheridan, who came
there right after the riots of '66 and took command, and that would have
sent me to the penitentiary. There were regular officers in the deals
beside me, and they got wind of it and tried to bribe her; and she'd cry
all night and mope all day, and swore she'd leave me unless I cut loose
from the whole business and restored what I'd made. By God, I couldn't!
I'd spent it! I was no worse than three or four others who had eyes open
to their opportunities--two of 'em in the regular army now--bang-up
swells, and at last I couldn't stand it and got to drinking, and then I
lost my card nerve and the money went with it, and it made me desperate,
crazy, I reckon; for one night when I came home drunk and she made a
scene I suppose I must have struck her, and then she took sick and got
delirious, and I was horribly afraid, and so were my partners, that
she'd give up the whole business; so they got me leave of absence. They
saw me aboard the steamer for New York. My money was running short, and
they gave me enough to place her in a sanitarium on the Hudson and get
her sister with her, and then I came back, and bad luck followed. I was
strapped when the old man told me I'd have to go out and join my
regiment, for he'd got me appointed in the regulars. Why, some of
Sheridan's officers when they saw my name in the papers, wrote to stop
it, but it was no use. The military committee in congress couldn't go
back on Mr. Cadger, and he daren't go back on my father. But they got me
sent out here to be as far away as possible; and yes, there were three
deserters from Cram's battery aboard the steamer, so I learned, and one
of them, the man you call Higgins, who was betrayed to Lieutenant Blake
by another deserter just as bad as him, was staking the other two, for
he had money in plenty until after I had done with him. What my life's
been out here you know well enough; same as it was in New Orleans--all
luck and plenty at first, then all a collapse. I'm ruined now. When I
had hundreds and thousands I helped everybody who wanted it. There are
men in Yuma and Tucson now whom I set on their pins, and they give me
the cold shoulder. All that offer to the major was a bluff. They've got
all my money. I haven't a cent anywhere, and so far as I'm personally
concerned I don't care. If there was no one on earth dependent on me I'd
as lief you'd shoot me to-morrow.
"But, gentlemen, there's the rub. I own it now. There's my poor wife and
her sister. I've lied to them both. She got well at the sanitarium.
She's believed my promises and she's come all the way to San Francisco,
and was expecting me there when--when the bottom fell out of the whole
business. She's there now, she and her sister. They've got enough to pay
their expenses perhaps a month or so, and that's all. I can make a
living, I can get along and provide for her if you'll only give me a
chance. I know I deserve dismissal. That's all right; but for God's
sake, gentlemen, don't send me to Alcatraz--don't put me in jail, leave
me free to work. There's men in this territory that owe me nearly a
thousand dollars to-day. Let me gather that up and go to my
wife--I--I--She's a good woman, gentlemen--" and here the tears came
starting from the pleading culprit's eyes, and one or two sympathetic
souls about the rude tables sniffed suspiciously. "It ain't for me to
talk of such things. Perhaps you won't believe me, but--" and he
fingered the leaves of the blue-bound copy of the regulations that lay
to the left of the judge advocate's elbow, "I--I love that woman and I
want to care for her, and take good care of her. Look here," he
continued, as with sudden, impulsive movement he unbuttoned his
trim-fitting, single-breasted frock coat and displayed a snowy shirt
bosom on which sparkled and glistened a great diamond set in the style
much affected by the "sporting gent" of the day. "See this diamond. It
cost eleven hundred dollars in San Francisco six months ago; and here,
this solitaire," and he produced from an inner pocket an unquestionably
valuable ring and, with trembling hands, laid them upon the table in
front of the judge advocate; "and here," and he whipped from the
waistband of his trousers a massive and beautiful watch. "There are all
the valuables I have in the world. These I place in the hands of the
worthy officer and gentleman who has only done his duty in representing
the government through this long and painful trial. These I publicly
turn over to him with the request that he personally hand them to my
poor wife as soon as he reaches San Francisco as earnest of my intention
to lead an honest life and to care for her in the future. And now,
gentlemen, I've nothing to ask for myself--nothing but liberty to go and
work for her. I'm not fit to sit with such as you."
He finished and, quivering as with suppressed emotion, turned his back
upon the court, pressed his handkerchief to his streaming eyes and
groped his way to the little table set apart for him a few yards to the
left of the judge advocate. The silence among the members and along the
benches whereon were seated the dozen spectators was for a moment
unbroken by a sound except a little shuffling of feet. Then one veteran
member cleared his throat with a "hem" of preparation to speak, yet
hesitated. The junior officer of the court, a lieutenant of cavalry,
slowly stretched forth his hand, picked up the solitaire and eyed it
with an assumption of critical yet respectful interest. The president, a
grizzled, red-faced veteran, presently stole a glance at Turnbull, who
sat with stolid features immediately on his right. One by one the nine
members (two of the original eleven having been challenged and excused)
began to look cautiously about them. A captain of infantry was observed
to be very red about the eyelids, but--that might have been, and
possibly was, the result of cocktails. Loring alone remained in the same
position. He had half turned his back to Nevins when the latter began to
speak, rested his left elbow on the table, and his head on his hand, his
eyes shaded under the curving palm against the glare of light that came
from without. There was no room or building big enough for the purpose
at the post, and the court had held its session under a brace of
hospital tent flies stretched on a framework adjoining the office of
the major commanding, and Camp Cooke, as a rule, looked on from afar.
The spectators who ventured beneath the shade were officers of the
little garrison, the sutler and half a dozen "casuals" of the civilian
persuasion, among whom, if not among the members of the court, Nevins'
harangue had created undoubted sensation, for glances indicative of
surprise if not of incredulity passed among them.
At last as though he felt that something must be said rather than that
he knew what was appropriate to say, the presiding officer addressed the
member who had cleared his throat.
"You were about to say something, major?"
"I--er--should like to ask the accused whether--his wife is informed of
his--er--predicament?"
And Nevins, slowly turning, answered, "I wrote last week confessing
everything. It will be a relief to her that I am no longer in the army.
She said she could never look an officer in the face." There was another
pause, then Nevins spoke again. "I hope I have not imposed too much on
the judge advocate. I have asked because he is the only gentleman here
who is not entirely a stranger to my wife."
Then all eyes were on Loring as he slowly dropped his hand and looked
with undisguised astonishment at the accused. Blake, a spectator,
suddenly drew his long legs under him and straightened up in his seat.
It was needless for Loring to speak. His eyes questioned.
"I do not mean that Mr. Loring knows my wife, but--she has heard of him
from her sister. They hoped to find him in Frisco."
Loring had picked up a pencil as he turned. Its point was resting on the
pine-topped table. He never spoke. His eyes, still steadily fixed upon
the twitching face of Nevins, questioned further, and every man present
strained his ears for the next word.
"I should explain--her sister is Miss Geraldine Allyn."
And with a snap that was heard all over the assemblage the lead of
Loring's pencil broke short off. He sat staring at Nevins, white and
stunned.