The sutler's "shack" at Camp Cooke was crowded with officers that
evening and the episode of Nevins' address was the talk of all tongues.
Certain civilians were there, too, frequenters of Sancho's place, but
they were silent, observant and unusually abstemious. To say that Nevins
had astonished everybody by an exhibition of feeling and an access of
conscience would be putting it mildly. But the fact was indisputable. He
himself, after adjournment, exhibited to the interrogative major two
long letters, recently received from San Francisco, in graceful feminine
hand, and signed "Your sad but devoted wife, Naomi." One of these
referred to Lieutenant Loring, "whom Geraldine met at West Point and saw
frequently the summer and fall that followed his graduation."
There were members of the court who sought to hear what Loring had to
say on the subject, but he proved unapproachable. All men noted the
amaze--indeed, the shock--that resulted from Nevins' public and somewhat
abrupt mention of the sister's name. The judge advocate sat for a moment
as though stricken dumb, his eyes fixed and staring, his face pallid,
the muscles of his compressed lips twitching perceptibly, his hand
clinched and bearing hard upon the table. There were few army women at
Camp Cooke in those days, only two or three veteran campaigners and one
misguided bride, but had the post been full of them there could hardly
have been curiosity more lively than was exhibited by most of the court
all that long afternoon and evening. Conjecture, comment, suggestion
passed from, lip to lip. One or two men even went so far as to drop in
at the tent assigned to the lonely accused and after expressing interest
and sympathy and a desire to see that he got "fair play and a fresh
start," they ventured to inquire if Nevins knew why Mr. Loring had been
so much astonished, if not overcome, by the mention of the name of
Nevins' sister-in-law. Nevins didn't know, but at that moment he would
have given his hopes of mercy to find out. He was writing to his wife
when his visitors came, and demanding explanation. He could think of
several possibilities, any one of which in his unenlightened mind might
give him a claim, even a hold on the hitherto intractable West Pointer.
Why, why had he not heard or dreamed before this long trial came to its
dramatic close that there was some strong and mysterious connection
between him and Loring, between prosecutor and accused? The one
plausible theory was that Loring and Geraldine were or had been
affianced. From all his wife had told him in their few days of moderate
content and apparent bliss, he knew Geraldine to be beautiful, gifted
and attractive to any man, despite her poverty. That she had been petted
and spoiled, that she was selfish to the core, grasping and ambitious,
he had never heard, yet might have inferred from Naomi's faltering pleas
on her sister's behalf early in the days of their wedded life. In his
eagerness to learn something of the truth he sent a messenger during the
afternoon, after the final adjournment, and begged that Mr. Loring
should come to see him. The reply was that Mr. Loring would do so later.
Only two men succeeded in seeing Loring that afternoon and evening, the
post commander, Major Stark, at whose quarters he was housed, and the
veteran president of the court. On the plea of being very busy writing
the record of the week's session, he had excused himself to everybody
else. There had been something of a scene before the adjournment that
morning. The court was ordered to try "such other prisoners as might
properly be brought before it," and it was understood that two
deserters, captured at Tucson, had announced their intention of pleading
guilty and throwing themselves on the mercy of the court. Higgins had
been sent to Fort Yuma. It would take long weeks to get the evidence in
his case from New Orleans, but the two victims at Cooke knew well that
their case was clear. There was no use in fighting. The sooner they
were tried the shorter term would they serve as prisoners. Nevins
finished at ten o'clock. Loring's brief stupefaction was conquered not
without evident effort. Vouchsafing no response to the plea of the
accused for mercy, he announced that he submitted the case without
remark, and the president nodded to Nevins the intimation that he might
retire. Nevins slowly gained his feet, took a long look about the silent
array, hesitated, and then with his eyes on Loring said:
"I should like to be assured that the judge advocate accepts the trust.
It will be two or three months before the orders in my case can get back
from Washington, meantime my pay is stopped and has been for three
months back. My wife must have means to live on, and that's all I have
to offer. There is no other way of getting it to her that I consider
safe."
Loring's white hand was trembling visibly, but his head was bowed as
though in painful thought. The president had to speak. "I presume you
will not refuse, Mr. Loring?"
For another moment there was silence. At last, slowly, the judge
advocate looked up, turned to the accused and said, "Write Mrs. Nevins'
address on that," holding forth as he did so a heavy official envelope.
Wrapping the pin and ring together in note paper he stowed them in a
smaller envelope, moistened the gummed flap, closed it and slid it
within the heavier one which Nevins, after addressing, laid before him.
Then turning to the president, Loring calmly bowed and said, "I will
accept, sir."
Five minutes later, cleared of all persons except the members and the
judge advocate, who in those days did not withdraw during the
deliberations of the court, this open-air temple of military justice was
given over to the discussion on the findings and the determination of
the sentence. In low, grave tones those members who had opinions to
express gave utterance to their views. The votes on each specification
and to the various charges were recorded, and finally the sentence was
arrived at. By 11:30 the case of Brevet-Captain Nevins was practically
concluded and the president, eager as were his associates to finish
their work after their long detention at this hot, barren, yet not
inhospitable post, looked briskly up at the silent, somber young officer
at the opposite end of the long table.
"Shall we take ten minutes' recess and have a stretch before you go on
with the next case, Mr. Judge Advocate? I understand both victims plead
guilty and we can do 'em up in thirty minutes."
Nevins' watch was going the rounds of the court at the moment, its
beautiful and costly case and workmanship exciting general admiration.
Again the judge advocate was slow and hesitant in his reply, utterly
unlike the prompt, alert official whose conduct of the trial had won
golden opinions from every man, old or young, in the service. It was
nearly half a minute before he spoke, and then only after the president
reminded him that several officers wished to start that afternoon for
the Gila so as to meet the eastward stage at Sancho's two days later.
"Give me an hour, sir. I cannot go on sooner."
Out under the canvas shelter at the adjutant's office stood the two
prisoners with their guards. For an hour or more they had been waiting
their turn. A shade of disappointment stole over one or two faces, but
the president's answer was prompt.
"Certainly, Mr. Loring. The court owes it to you," and the recess was
declared accordingly. The post quartermaster was one of the junior
members and Loring detained him. Bidding the orderly remain in charge of
the premises he turned to this official.
"You have a safe at your office. Will you permit me to place these in
it?--and come with me until I do so?"
"Certainly. Come right along. It's but a step."
Wrapped in a silken handkerchief Nevin's watch, with the envelope
containing the diamonds, was stored in a little drawer within the safe
and securely locked. "You need a drink," said the quartermaster to the
engineer, noting again his pallid face.
"None, I thank you," said Loring briefly, and without another word he
took himself straightway to Major Starke's. At 12:30 when court
reconvened the judge advocate went swiftly and methodically through his
work, read the orders, propounded the usual questions, swore the court,
took his own oath, read the charges and recorded the pleas without loss
of a second of time or use of a superfluous word. At 1:15 the court
stood adjourned _sine die_, leaving the president and judge advocate to
finish and sign the record. By 3 P. M. five of its members, in the one
"four-mule" road wagon belonging at Cooke, were speeding southward,
hoping to catch the stage to take them to their posts lying far to the
east. By midnight the record was well-nigh complete, and Loring, locking
up the papers, stepped softly out into the starlight.
Over across the contracted parade a lamp was burning dimly at the guard
tents and several others flared at the brush and canvas shack of the
sutler. Everywhere else about Camp Cooke there was silence and slumber.
The muttered word of command as the half-past-twelve relief formed at
the guard tent, the clink of glasses and murmur of voices, sometimes
accentuated by laughter, came drifting on the night from the open
clubroom. Beyond the guard tents the dim walls of the corral loomed
darkly against the dry, cloudless, star-dotted sky that bordered the
eastern horizon. The sentry, slowly pacing his beaten path along the
_acequia_ that conducted the cool waters of the Yavapai, from the
northward hills to the troughs in the corral, moved noiseless, dim and
ghostly, and Loring, listening for a moment to the faint sounds of
revelry at the shack, turned away to the north, passed the rude shelters
which had been built by the labor of troops for the accommodation of the
officers and the few families there abiding, and found himself presently
on the open plain full a hundred yards out from the buildings and beyond
the post of the sentry on that flank, who, far over at the west end of
his long beat at the moment, was dreaming of the revels he'd have when
his discharge came, and neither heard nor saw the solitary officer whose
one desire was to get away by himself to some point where he could
calmly think. He needed to be alone. Even Blake, whom he had grown to
like and whom he believed to be still at the camp, would have been in
the way.
A strange fellow was Loring, a man grown, so far as judgment and
experience were concerned, when at the age of twenty he entered West
Point, and from the very start became one of the leaders of his class in
scholarship, and later one of the prominent officers of the battalion of
cadets. In scientific and mathematical studies, indeed, he had no
superior among his comrades, but languages and drawing, as taught in
those days at the academy, threw him out of the head of the class, but
could not prevent his landing a close second to the leader in general
standing. Never a popular man in the corps, he commanded, nevertheless,
the respect and esteem of the entire battalion, and little by little
won a deeper regard from his immediate associates. He was a man of
marked gravity of demeanor. He rarely laughed. His smile was only a
trifle more frequent. He was taciturnity personified and for two years
at least was held to be morose. Of his antecedents little was known, for
he never spoke of them and seldom of himself. He was methodical in the
last degree, exercising just so long in the gymnasium every morning
during the barrack days and putting on the gloves for fifteen minutes
every evening with the best middleweight in the corps. There were times
in his early cadet days when he was suspected of having an ugly temper,
and perhaps with reason. Exasperated at some prank played at his expense
by a little "yearling" toward the close of his first--the
"plebe"--encampment, Loring actually kicked the offender out of his
tent. The boy was no match for the older, heavier man, but flew at him
like a wildcat then and there, and Loring suddenly found himself in a
fierce and spirited battle. The little fellow had pluck, science and
training, and Loring's eyes and nose were objects to behold in less than
a minute. For that moment, shame-stricken, he fought on the defensive,
then, stung by the taunts of the swift-gathering third classmen, he
rushed like a bull, and two heavy blows sent the yearling to grass and
that fight was ended. But challenges rained on him from "men of his size
and weight," and the very next evening he went out to Fort Clinton with
one of the champions of the upper class and in fifteen minutes was
carried away to a hospital a total wreck. It was ten days before he was
reported fit for duty. Then camp was over and barrack life begun. Not a
word would he or did he say about his severe defeat, but systematically
he went to work to master "the noble art of self-defense," and two years
from that time the corps was treated to a sensation. Loring, back from
cadet furlough, had been made first sergeant of Company "D," in which as
a private and first classman was the very cadet who had so soundly
thrashed him. Loring proved strict. Certain "first-class privates"
undertook to rebel against his authority, his former antagonist being
the ringleader. Matters came to a crisis when Loring entered the names
of three of the seniors on the delinquency book for "slow taking place
in ranks at formation for dinner." It was declared an affront. His old
antagonist demanded satisfaction in the name of the aggrieved ones, and
that fight was the talk of the corps for six months. Loring named the
old battle-ground at Fort Clinton as the place, and in ten minutes
utterly reversed the issue of his plebe effort, and the first classman
was the worst whipped victim seen in years, for he fought until fairly
knocked senseless. That was Loring's last affair of the kind. He went
about his duties next day as seriously and methodically as ever, without
the faintest show of triumph, and when the vanquished cadet finally
returned from hospital, treated him with scrupulous courtesy that,
before the winter wore away, warmed even to kindliness, and when the
springtime came the two were cordial friends. The summer of his
graduation Loring was ordered on temporary duty as an instructor during
the encampment of cadets. He did not dance. He cared little for society,
but one evening at Cozzens' he was thrilled by the sweetness of a
woman's song, and gazing in at her as she sang to an applauding audience
in the great parlor, Loring saw a face as sweet as the voice. Several
evenings he spent on the broad veranda, for every night she sang and ere
long noticed him; so did prominent society women and read his unspoken
admiration. "Let me present you to her, Mr. Loring," said one of the
latter. "She is a lovely girl, and so lonely, you know. She is engaged
as companion, it seems, to Miss Haight--a dragon of an old maid who is a
good deal of an invalid and seldom out of her room. That is why you
never see the girl at the 'hops' at the Point, yet I know she'd love to
go."
Loring felt that he blushed with eagerness and pleasure, though he
merely said "please," and so Miss Geraldine Allyn met Lieutenant Loring
of the engineers, and within the fortnight he knew, though he strove to
hide it, that he was madly in love with her. Such beauty, such a voice,
such appealing loneliness were too much for him. Six long weeks, though
he became her shadow, Loring struggled against his passion. He had
planned that for years he should remain single until he had saved a
modest nestegg; then, when he had rank and experience, had moved in the
world and had ample opportunity to study women, he would select for
himself and deliberately lay siege to the girl he thought to make his
wife.
But when his duties were completed with the twenty-eighth of August and
he should have gone to his home, Loring remained at the Point
fascinated, for Miss Haight and her musical companion stayed at Cozzens
through September. In October they were to go to Lenox, and before the
parting Loring's ring was on that little finger. She had promised to be
his wife. Home then he hurried in response to the pleading of his
sister, but the moment the Lenox visit was over and Miss Haight
returned to New York thither went Loring to find his _fiancée_ at the
piano, with a middle-aged, somewhat portly civilian bending eagerly over
her and so engrossed that he never saw or heard the intruder. This was
November fourth. The engagement was barely six weeks old, but Loring's
ring was not on her finger as she rose in confusion to greet him. More
than that, she wrote a piteous letter to him, begging for her release.
She "really had not known her own mind." Loring gave it without a word
to or without other sight of her, packed his trunk, and left New York on
the morning train. There was a sensation at the Point when it was
announced that Miss Allyn was to marry Mr. Forbes Crosby, a wealthy
"board-of-trade man" of forty. Loring reappeared no more. He got his
orders for San Francisco and sailed late in the fall, and barely had he
gone than the story spread from lip to lip that Mr. Crosby had broken
the engagement, that Miss Haight had decided to go abroad and would not
require a companion what was more, that Forbes Crosby had been making
very judicious investments for Miss Haight herself, and people really
wouldn't be surprised if--and then Geraldine Allyn, too, disappeared
from New York and was next heard of living very quietly with a married
sister, herself an invalid, a Mrs. Nevins, whose husband was said to be
somewhere in the army.
And so that girl whom Loring had so deeply loved was sister to the wife
of this military castaway, this unprincipled gambler, swindler and
thief, and he, Loring, had charged himself with a commission that might
bring him once more face to face with her who had duped him.
Circling the camp at wide distance, he had crossed the _acequia_ and
reached the Gila road. To the north now lay the camp, and the twinkling
lights of the sutler's bar, and between him and these twinkling lights
two dark objects bobbed into view some thirty yards distant, and, as
plain as he could hear his own heart beat, Loring heard a voice say:
"Then I'll count on you not to let him out of your sight," and the
voice was that of Nevins--Nevins who was supposed to confine himself,
day and night in arrest, to the limits of the garrison.