A pleasant welcome awaited Mr. Walter Loring, of the Engineers, when he
opened his office and got settled down to work at his new station. Here
was a commanding general who knew something of his past, whose nephew
was with him at the Point, and one at least of whose aides had found
reason to respect him highly, even though they had differed as to the
site for the new post, and the Engineer had seemed to take far more
kindly to the companionship of an unheard-of sub in the cavalry than he
did to the society of two men so distinguished in the department as
Major Burleigh, depot quartermaster at Gate City, and Brevet-Captain
"Omaha" Stone, the aide in question. Burleigh had surprised the aide by
a display of great interest in and an impatience to meet the newcomer,
who had hurried out from Omaha with not a day's delay, and who overtook
them at Fort Frayne, after riding by night through the mountainous
region of the Medicine Bow, with only a single trooper as attendant and
escort. Burleigh had been oddly inquisitive, thought Stone, and had
plied the taciturn Engineer with question after question about officers
whom he knew and matters he seemed to know along the Pacific slope. Mr.
Loring was evidently a bit surprised, yet replied courteously, though
very briefly. Burleigh did all the talking the first day's drive in the
big ambulance over the rolling open prairies north of the Platte, giving
Stone no chance at all. He enlivened the occasion and relieved the
tedium of the journey with anecdotes of the General whose command Loring
had recently left, and Strain, his chief-of-staff, and Petty--"that
damned fool Petty," he called him, and Burleigh had nothing good to tell
of any of them, and much that was derisive, if not detrimental, of all.
Loring listened with neither assent nor dissent, as a rule, though when
appealed to he said he had no opportunity to study the characteristics
as described by Burleigh, as he had spent most of his short service
there surveying in Arizona and saw little and knew less of the officials
in San Francisco. One man of whom Burleigh spoke with regard and regret
was stanch old Turnbull, whose sad death by drowning in the surf off
Pinos, the quartermaster referred to several times. He seemed familiar,
too, with the story of Loring's conduct the night of the collision at
sea and the sinking of the Idaho, and referred to that more than once in
terms of commendation. They stopped for luncheon and to bait the mules
and to give the cavalry escort a brief respite, and it was after this
that Burleigh, as though suddenly reminded of something, began--
"I don't know what made me think of it unless it was Stone's speaking of
New Orleans a moment ago, but did you meet a long-legged fellow named
Blake in Arizona? I knew the girl that drove him out there. One winter
she was in New Orleans while her father was commanding the monitors
moored at Algiers--Miss Torrence. Saw her afterwards in New York. She
married old Granger, you know." Granger was about Burleigh's age, but
Burleigh was a widower and desirous of being considered young. And Stone
wondered why Loring should look disquieted if not embarrassed.
"I met Blake, yes," was, however, his prompt reply.
"How's he standing it? He was a good deal cut up at first. They were to
have been married last summer. He was regularly engaged to her, and
never knew she'd thrown him over until he met Granger in St. Louis."
Then Loring did a thing they both noted was unlike him. Ordinarily he
listened courteously until the question was finished. This time he broke
in:
"Blake is in his element doing cavalry duty. We had a lively chase
together after an officer who was deserting to Mexico."
"So you did," said Burleigh, with interest. "I remember hearing of it.
You were on his court, weren't you? Why! what was the fellow's name? I
remember having met him in New Orleans, too, when I read the order to
the court. Let's see, you were judge advocate, weren't you?"
"Yes. And his name was Nevins."
"Ah, yes. Dismissed, I believe. What ever became of him? There was a
rumor that he had died."
"So the consul at Guaymas reported," was Loring's brief reply.
"Well, was it never settled? Wasn't it proved in some way? I heard a
story that his wife had followed him out there. She was a damned sight
better lot than he was. I met her more than once in New Orleans. She
came of good family, but she was stranded down there by the war. They
say she had a younger sister who bled her to death, a girl she was
educating. I remember Nevins told me something about her. That fellow
had some good points, do you know, Loring? He behaved first rate during
the fever epidemic; nursed more'n one fellow through. He said that that
sister was a beauty and selfish to the core, and he wished to God she'd
marry some rich man and let them alone. Didn't you--didn't I hear that
they were out there, and that he made some dramatic scene before the
court, and sent his wife his valuables, or something of that kind?"
Loring was slowly reddening. He more than half believed that Burleigh
had heard the story set afloat by the gossips in San Francisco, and was
trying to draw him out. His tone, therefore, was cold and his answer
brief.
"They were there, but I never saw them. Pardon me, major, your rifle is
slipping," and leaning forward the Engineer straightened up the
endangered weapon and braced it with his foot. "A dreary landscape
this," he added, glancing out at the barren stretches of rolling prairie
extending to the horizon.
"Very. All like this till you get over towards the mountains, then it's
fine. But, isn't it really believed out there that Nevins is dead? What
became of his wife?"
"She went back to New Orleans, I was told. If Nevins isn't dead, he at
least hadn't been heard of up to the time I left."
And several times again that long afternoon did Burleigh return to the
charge and speak of Nevins, and more than once during the busy days that
followed, but by the time they started on their return he had probably
concluded that Loring really knew no more about him, and once or twice
when Blake and his love affairs were mentioned Loring seemed unwilling
to hear. Stone pondered over it not a little before they got to Reno on
the back track, and there it was that Burleigh had demanded to be sent
right on to Frayne, despite fatigue, for something had come to him in
this mail that filled him with dismay, as the major commanding told them
a dozen times over. Moreover, Mr. Omaha Stone became gradually convinced
that Loring was in partial possession of the secret of Burleigh's
stampede. Unless Stone was utterly in error, Loring had seen somewhere
before the handwriting of the superscription of the envelope Burleigh
had dropped in his nerveless collapse. But Stone might as well have
cross-questioned the sphinx. Loring would admit nothing.
Yet it was of this very matter the Engineer was thinking one soft still
evening soon after his return to department headquarters. His boxes had
just arrived. He had found a fairly comfortable room away from the
turbulent section of the new and bustling town, and equally distant from
the domicile of Stone and his particular set. Loring never gambled and
took little interest in cards. He was still "taking his rations" at the
hotel, but much disliked it, and was seriously thinking of seeking board
in some private family. The barracks were too far out, and the roads
deep in mud, or he would have lived and "messed" out there. The few
boarding houses were crowded, and with an uncongenial lot as a rule.
Private families that took two or three table boarders were very few,
but some one suggested his going to see the rector of the new parish,
himself a recent arrival.
The sun had gone down behind the high bluffs at the back of the
straggling frontier town. The plank sidewalks were thronged in the
neighborhood of the hotel with picturesque loungers as the young officer
made his way westward, and soon reached the outlying, unpaved,
deep-rutted cross streets. He readily found the rector, a kindly,
gentle-mannered widower he proved to be, whose sister had come to keep
house for him, and never before had either of them lived in a community
so utterly primitive, if not uncouth. It was plain to be seen that he
was a Southerner, and in the joy of a few minutes' conversation with a
young man whose language and manners bespoke the gentleman, Mr. Lambert
speedily made known to him that his health had suffered in New Orleans
and his physicians had insisted on total change of climate, and the
great Northwest was a new, untrodden field for the sons of the cross, of
his sect at least. He had read with admiration of the missionary work
accomplished among the savage Indians by the church of Rome, but there
were heathen rather more intractable than they, said he, with a sigh.
Mr. Loring was sympathetic, but already informed on that point. What he
wished to learn was, did the rector know of any family among his
parishioners at whose table he could find his daily bread for a
reasonable consideration. Loring, as has been seen, was a man to whom
the converse of his fellow-men, as found upon our frontier, was neither
edifying nor improving. He preferred the society of his own thoughts.
The rector, the General (Colonel Newcome, it will be remembered, always
accorded the head of column to the church), the adjutant-general of the
new department and one solitary subaltern of cavalry were the only men
he had met since reporting at Omaha whom he found really congenial. But
then it must be remembered that it was the early summer, and the troops
were all afield.
The rector brought the tips of his fingers together and bowed his gray
head, his characteristic attitude in reflection and repose. Yes, he knew
of one, a woman widowed but a year ago, who was striving to keep her
home by taking boarders, and who perhaps could find room for him at her
table. Already she had given shelter to a most estimable woman, a widow
like herself, a woman of many sorrows, whom he had well known during
the troublous days in New Orleans, a gentlewoman, he might say, whose
birth and breeding were apparent to the most casual observer, a Mrs.
Fletcher, who had come to him for advice, and who, through his
recommendation gladly given, had recently gone to a good position--a
lucrative position--and a home at Gate City. Loring was politely
interested, but could the rector direct him to the house? He would call
at once and make inquiries. The rector could, of course, but he was
aging, and he loved a listener. He hated to let a hearer go. Might he
ask if Mr. Loring was any connection of the General of that name so
conspicuous in the service of the South in the defense of their beloved
old Creole city before the hapless days of Butler, though he must
concede to General Butler that his vigorous administration of municipal
affairs had cleansed and quarantined the city as they had never seen it
done before. The similarity of name had suggested the--
"None whatever that I know of," said Loring, finding it necessary to
interpose; "and where is Mrs. Fletcher's?"
"Ah, to be sure. Mrs. Fletcher is the name of the lady who boarded there
awhile, but she has gone to Gate City. Mrs. Burton it is--a worthy soul.
Perhaps, indeed I think, a breath of air will do me good. I might walk
around there with you."
So despite the remonstrance in his sister's eyes and Loring's respectful
protest, the rector got his hat and linked his arm in that of the young
athlete on his left, and led forth into the gloaming, prattling all the
way. Soon they reached the cross street that led northward, parallel
with the bluff line at the west, and against the twilight of the
northern sky, the scattered houses, the few straggling saplings
hopefully planted along the gutter, even the silhouetted figure of a
long-legged dog, trotting across the road, were outlined sharp and,
clear, black against a lemon horizon that shaded away imperceptibly into
a faint violet. Long years after Loring could see the picture, and how,
right in the midst of it, there rose slowly into view two black dots,
the heads, evidently, of two pedestrians like themselves, ascending from
the north, with the whole wide Missouri valley at their backs, the
pathway he and his genially chatting conductor were threading from the
south, with only this gentle rise between them, perhaps fifty yards
away. It was interesting to the Engineer to watch the gradual
development of the shadows against the sky, coming slowly into view as
the fairies rise to sweet, thrilling melody, from underneath the stage
in the transformation scene of the last act of the pantomime and
spectacular drama beloved of our youth. Courteously inclining his ear to
the monologue at his right, he kept his keen eyes fixed upon those
coming figures. Slowly they rose, one that of a slender, dapper man, the
other that of a slender, graceful girl, and the long arms of the former
as they swung in sight were in energetic motion, in emphatic gesture.
Little by little the murmur at Loring's right dulled over his senses.
Little by little the slowly approaching figures sharpened and fixed
themselves upon his sight, until when the pair could not have been more
than fifty feet away, the rector looked suddenly up in alarm, as Loring
halted short.
"My dear young friend, how thoughtless I am! Are you not well? What is
wrong?"
A big wooden house, in whose windows the lights were feebly shining,
stood just a few paces back of the fence, back of the gate where now the
pair was standing, in low whispered talk, eager and impetuous on part of
the man, doubtful and reluctant on part of the girl. Then the former
became suddenly aware that two men were standing only a short distance
away, observing:
"Then, good-night," he said. "You think it over;" and, without raising
his hat, turned sharply and went striding back the way they came.
Only one glance did Loring give that receding figure, but his eyes
followed that of the girl, who skimmed lightly up the steps and into the
house, banging the door behind her.
The rector was clinging to his arm and looking into his face with much
concern when Loring pulled himself together.
"This is Mrs. Burton's," said he. "Let us enter. Surely you need a glass
of wine, or--water," he added vaguely.
"Thank you, Mr. Lambert, not--there. Let us turn about."