The day of perturbation had been succeeded by a night of worry at
department headquarters. Dispatches full of grave import were coming in
from Gate City and Cheyenne. Old John Folsom, long time a trader among
the Sioux, and known and trusted by the whole tribe, had given warning
weeks before that serious consequences would attend the effort to build
another post along the Big Horn. Red Cloud and his hosts of warriors had
sworn to sweep it from the face of the earth and every man of its
garrison with it. All this had been reported by the General to his
superiors at Washington, and all this had been derided by the Indian
Bureau. Against the judgment, against the counsel of the department
commander, the work went on. A large force of laborers hired by Major
Burleigh at Gate City early in the spring had been sent to Warrior Gap
under strong escort, and the unseasoned timber and fresh-cut logs were
being rapidly dovetailed and mortised, and long wagon trains laden with
stores and supplies, purchased by Major Burleigh's agents, were pushing
out across the Platte.
"Indians, indeed!" said that experienced officer disdainfully. "They do
not presume to interfere!" and long since the whisper had been going the
rounds that Major Burleigh's interest in the construction of that new
post, involving an expense of some hundreds of thousands of dollars, was
something more than official. In vain John Folsom and veteran officers
of the fighting force had pointed out that Indians never do interfere
when they see huge trains of provisions and supplies coming just where
they want them. Orders were orders, and the building went on. John
Folsom said that any day the news might come that Red Cloud and his
braves had massacred every man and carried off every woman in the new
cantonment. Wives and children were there, secure, as they believed,
behind the stout hearts and far and fast-shooting new breechloaders,
trustful, too, of the Indians whom they had often fed and welcomed at
their doors in the larger and less exposed garrison.
"Two of our companies can stand off a thousand Sioux," said one gallant
officer, who based his confident report on the fact that with fifty of
the new breechloaders, behind a log breastwork, he had whipped a horde
of mountain braves armed only with lance and bow and old "smooth-bores"
or squirrel rifles.
"We came down through the whole tribe," said Burleigh, with swelling
breast. "I had only a small troop of cavalry, and Red Cloud never so
much as raised a yelp. He knew who was running that outfit and didn't
care to try conclusions."
It all sounded very fine among the barrooms and over the poker-table at
Gate City, where Burleigh was a patron and an oracle, but in distant
camps along the Platte and Powder rivers, and among troopers and
linesmen nearer home there were odd glances, and nudging elbows whenever
Burleigh's boastings were repeated. Even as far as department
headquarters the story was being told that the mere report of "Big band
of Sioux ahead" sent in by the advance guard, a report that brought
Loring and Stone leaping nimbly out of the ambulance, rifle in hand and
ready for business, sent Burleigh under the seat and left him there
quaking.
"Get your men down from the Big Horn," was John Folsom's urgent advice
to the department commander. "Get your men up there," was the order from
Washington, and no wonder the General was troubled. Then in the midst of
it all began to come these rumors affecting Burleigh's integrity; then
the determination to send Loring to look after this new boon companion
with whom Burleigh was consorting; then a dispatch from old Colonel
Stevens, "Old Pecksniff," as the irreverent youngsters called him, the
commander at Fort Emory on the outskirts of Gate City, telling of a
tremendous storm that had swept the Laramie plains and the range of the
Medicine Bow and Rattlesnake Hills, just after Lieutenant Dean had been
sent forth with a small party of troopers to push through to Warrior Gap
with a big sum of money, ten thousand dollars in cash, for the payment
of contractors and their men at the new post, and, what was of thrilling
import, there had been a deep laid scheme to head him off, ambuscade him
and get that money. Hank Birdsall and his gang, forty of the worst
toughs on the Western frontier, had "got the tip" from some one in the
secret in Gate City, and no one outside of the post commander himself
and one of Burleigh's confidential clerks, had the faintest inkling of
the transaction. Nothing but that storm could have defeated their
purpose. Several of the outlaws and many of their horses were drowned,
and one of the gang, rescued at the last minute by the mail carrier to
Frayne--rescued just in time to save his life, had gasped his confession
of the plot. Birdsall and his people were now scattering over the
territory, but "Old Pecksniff" felt that matters so serious demanded
full report to the department commander, and this full report had
reached Omaha the very night that Loring got his orders to leave.
Hastening to the office in compliance with the imperative summons, his
heart beating heavily despite his calm of manner, his thoughts reverting
to that well-known face and the appealing voice at his window despite
his utmost effort to forget them, Loring found the General with his
chief-of-staff and Captain Stone busy over telegrams and dispatches. One
of these the General handed to the Engineer. Then, as the latter read,
the veteran of three wars arose from his chair, took the young soldier
by the arm and led him aside, a proceding that caused Captain Stone to
glance up from the telegram he was swiftly copying, and to follow with
angering eyes, until suddenly aware that the adjutant-general was
observing him, then his pen renewed its scratching. It was not good that
a newcomer, a young lieutenant, should be preferred to him, and it was
too evident that between the General and the Engineer was a bond of some
kind the aid could not explain.
"Do you understand this?" asked the General, as he pointed to the letter
in Loring's hand.
It was brief enough. It was written by a clerk in Burleigh's office to a
fellow-clerk in that of the chief quartermaster at Omaha, and the latter
had felt it his duty, he said, to inform his immediate superior, who in
turn had laid it before the chief-of-staff. It read as follows:
"The old man's rattled as I never saw him before, and God only knows
what's amiss. Two young lieutenants came in and thrashed him right
before the whole of us, called him a liar, and all that. His friend
Newhall, that pulled him through the yellow fever, he says, was there at
the time drunk, and actually congratulated them, and though Burleigh
raved and swore and wrote no end of dispatches to be sent to Omaha
demanding court-martial for Lieutenant Dean, devil a one of them was
ever really sent. Not only that, but Burleigh was threatened and abused
by Newhall, and had to buy him off with a roll of greenbacks--and I saw
it. Who's Newhall, anyhow, and what hold has he on Burleigh? Nursing him
through yellow fever don't go. Newhall's gone, however, either over to
Cheyenne or out on the Cache la Poudre. There's something rotten in
Denmark, and I want to get out of this."
Loring read it carefully through twice, the General keenly studying his
face the while.
"I have determined to go to Gate City myself, even though time can ill
be spared, Loring," said he. "There is urgent need of my presence at
Laramie. Possibly I may have to go to Frayne, and shall need you with
me, but meantime this thing must be explained. Everything seems to point
to Burleigh's being in some unusual trouble. Everything indicates that
this Captain Newhall, who was one of his chums in New Orleans, has some
heavy hold on him, a gambling debt, perhaps, or knowledge of cotton
transactions during the war. I cannot but feel that you know something
of the man. Tell me, did you meet that fellow when he was here?"
Loring stood looking gravely, straight into the face of his superior.
Swiftly his thoughts sped back to that soft, warm evening when he and
the rector slowly ascended the gentle grade toward Mrs. Burton's
homestead, and there was unfolded before his eyes that picture he was
destined never to forget, the lovely tints of the clear northern sky,
the broad valley of the great river, with its bounding bluffs and
hillocks, hued by the dying day, the dark forms, slender and graceful
both, coming nearer and nearer, until in startled recognition of one at
least, he halted in dumb amaze, and therefore caught but flitting
glimpse of the other as it whisked jauntily away. He had his suspicions,
strong and acute, yet with nothing tangible as yet on which to base
them, and if he breathed them, what would be the result? The girl whose
identity he had promised not to betray "until sister Naomi could be
heard from," would beyond all question be called to account. To his very
door had she come within forty-eight hours of that strange evening,
which the rector's prattle had made public property, begged a minute's
interview without giving any name, and stepping down into the plainly
furnished little western parlor, there in the dim light of a single
kerosene burner, Walter Loring had come face to face with his old
love--Geraldine.
Mindful of all the harm she had done him in San Francisco, rather than
of what had passed before, he met her in stern silence. On his
generosity, his magnanimity she threw herself. She had deceived and
wronged him in ever engaging herself to him, she said, and would have
gone on to say more. "That is all past and done with," he coldly
interposed. "What is it now?" And then it transpired that good Mr.
Lambert had been the means of securing for Naomi an excellent position,
that Naomi had gone to enter on her duties and had sent for her sister
to come and live at Mrs. Burton's until she could better provide for
her, that Naomi was living under an assumed name, and that she prayed
that no one might know their unhappy past. The interview was cut short
by the curiosity of some member of the household who came in ostensibly
to trim the lamp.
"It shall be as you wish until you hear from your sister," said Loring,
bowing her out with punctilious civility and praying in secret that
there it might end, but end it did not. Within another forty-eight hours
she was there with another quest. The servant who announced her presence
in the parlor below did so with a confidential and impertinent grin.
"The same lady wants to see Lieutenant Loring," and this time he was
colder and sterner than before. Her evident purpose was to revert to the
relations that once existed, though her plea was only for news from
California. Had nothing ever been heard of the missing jewels? she
asked. Their need was so great. She had most excellent prospects of an
engagement in Boston if she could only have six months instruction under
Signor Calabresi, but his terms were so high and she would have to live
in New York, and people kept writing her that she and Naomi really ought
to make some effort to recover the value of that property, and she had
come, friendless as she was, to ask if he thought a suit against the
steamship company would result in their getting anything. Captain Pet--a
gentleman, that is, who had been most kind in San Francisco, had
promised to do something, but now that the General was dead what could
he do? There was no doubting the identity or intentions of that
gentleman, thought Loring as he gravely replied that they would only be
defeated in any such attempt. Then with swimming eyes she had bemoaned
her past, her fatal errors, her greed for wealth and position that had
led her to stifle her own heart throbs and deceive the one true friend
she had ever known, and Loring broke short the conversation by leaving
the room. Then she came again, alone, and he refused to see her. Then
she came with Mrs. Burton, and the house was in a titter, and he broke
up his establishment and moved back to the hotel, to the scandal of his
landlord, as has been said, who made loud complaint to the powers at
headquarters. Then she wrote that she was being followed and persecuted
by a man she never knew before, the man who was with her the night Mr.
Lambert said they met them in front of Mrs. Burton's, a dreadful man who
said that he believed that she loved Lieutenant Loring and made threats
against him. She implored Loring's protection, and Loring saw through
the flimsy device and returned the letter unanswered, and later letters
unopened, and then the woman seemed to take fire, and in turn she
threatened him.
And now she had brought Mrs. Burton to witness his cruelty to her, the
meek, suffering girl to whom he was pledged and plighted, who she had
followed to Omaha in hopes of softening his heart and winning back his
wayward love, as was the burden of her sorrowing song to that most
sympathetic of women, already burning with prejudice and fancied wrong
of her own. One "woman scorned" is more than enough for many a
reputation. Two, in double harness, would wreck that of Saint Anthony.
All this and more had sped through Loring's mind that night and was
uppermost in his thoughts as he stood there facing his patient
commander. The General's fine, clear-cut features clouded with anxiety
as he noted the long silence and hesitation. Again he spoke, with grave,
yet gentle reproof in his tone.
"Surely, Loring, if you know of the fellow, it is our right to know."
"I realize it, sir. But I can do better than tell a mere suspicion. Give
me authority to act and I'll land that man in jail and lay his whole
story on your desk."
"Then go and do it!" said the chief.