Morning dawned over the bivouacs along the stream in hilarity unknown
for previous weeks. The sun that for a fortnight had refused his face,
and sent wet skies to weep in sympathy with the hungering column, now
that the troopers no longer cared a rap whether he sulked or shone, came
forth in all his glory to surround and beam upon and shower
congratulation as do mundane friends who hold aloof when days are dark
and troublous, yet swarm like bees when dazzling and unexpected
prosperity bursts upon the lately fallen. Merrily rang the reveille as
"jocund day" came riding o'er the misty mountain-tops. With joke and
song and laughter answered the war-worn men, scores of whom had
alternately dozed and cooked and eaten and drunk all the live-long
night. Vain were counsels of captains and doctors. Soldier stomachs that
could tackle mule and horse meat could stand any load, said the boys,
and loaded accordingly. Cheer and laughter and merry-making, fun and
chaff and jollity, ran through the ranks, where all, but another sun
agone, was silence and despond. The rough campaign was practically over.
Only scattered bands of hostiles remained, in this part of the country
at least. Rest and recuperation for those "tatterdemalions" would be the
enforced order of the day for a month to come, for while they might
readily and speedily build up, it would take many a week to remount the
column or restore such horses as remained. Here among the Cottonwoods,
with fire and water and food at hand, the men could have loafed in
comfort and content a month, if need be; but here was no grass, and
barely a nibble of oats could be distributed for each surviving horse
from the scanty supply hurried forward the previous day. Before noon,
therefore, after another morning devoted principally to breakfasting,
the trumpets were sounding "boots and saddles." No need to sound "The
General" with its stirring summons to "Strike your tents and march
away," for tents had long months before been struck--by the pen of the
commander--from the list of camp equipage to be taken to the field. "We
were only waiting for Warren to come on," explained an aide of the
general to a regimental commander, "and we've sent him word to meet us
on the Birchwood farther up among the hills. We'll camp there to-night.
What kept him, do you suppose?"
But the colonel couldn't imagine. Away down the valley to the eastward
Warren's men had slept, as they had marched, much later,--those of them
who could sleep at all, for all through the night there had been cause
of disturbance to more than a few of the command. It was late before the
demands of hunger were appeased. Little fires blazed all through the
timber, and men cooked and ate until they could eat and drink and cook
no more. Then the luxury of tobacco kept many awake. Then came advanced
troopers to say Devers was coming in, and despite the fact that two good
and gallant comrades would no more gather with them about the camp-fire,
there went up a cheer of welcome, and many men ran to meet the worn
arrivals, to take their horses to feed and water so that the masters
might be fed at once, and the major's first thought had been to welcome
his subordinate and fill him with comfort before requiring of him
detailed account of the day's doings. "I hardly expected you so soon,"
he said; "but here's coffee all ready, baker's bread fresh in town
yesterday,--think of it!--and bacon and flapjacks. Your men must be
pretty tired."
"They're about used up," said Devers; "but of course when we got your
instructions to come on we came."
"Oh, I didn't mean you to come on if you were in camp for the night. Our
men would rather eat than sleep and we thought yours would; but
here--swallow this," said he, hospitably. "This is no time for business.
I haven't tasted anything so good as that coffee in years."
"Thanks," said Devers, pulling gratefully at the steaming tin. "That
_is_ good. I'm glad, for my part, you told us to come along," he went
on, reverting again to the subject of the major's note. "We shouldn't
have done anything of the kind, of course, otherwise,--especially with
Davies still out."
"_What!_ Isn't Davies with you?" asked Warren, with sudden anxiety and
suspicion. "Why, I thought----"
"Well, we couldn't wait for him, you know, in face of your directions,"
said the captain, his eyes glancing quickly, almost furtively, from one
to another of the bearded faces about him, for Truman, Hastings,
Calvert, and all the officers of the little command had gathered. "Of
course, I sent couriers right out to guide him----"
"Why--what I meant was for you to bring him along," said the major,
gravely, yet not unkindly. "I felt sure, of course, you were within
communicating distance at least, even if he hadn't come in. What did
that smoke turn out to be when you got a closer look at it?"
"We--didn't get any closer look," answered Devers, in apparent surprise.
"You ordered me to bury my dead and then go on. We had just buried them
when your next orders reached us,--to join you at once. These, of
course, superseded the others."
There was profound silence. The major stood by the camp-fire, his hands
clasped behind his back, looking full in the face of the troop
commander, all the old sayings that he had ever heard with regard to
Devers crowding upon him now. When promoted to the regiment only just in
time to join it on this hard campaign, and when assigned to the command
of this battalion in which Devers was senior captain, the colonel
himself had said, "Be on your guard with Devers. He's the trickiest of
subordinates." Old Riggs, lieutenant-colonel commanding the Twelfth, had
remarked, "So Devers is in your battalion, is he? Well, when you want
him to do anything you stand over him while he's at it, or else do it
yourself." An intimate friend and classmate whom he had not seen for
years had given the new major this significant pointer: "There's a man
who could be one of the most valuable officers in service if he devoted
to obeying an order one-tenth the energy he throws into finding a way of
avoiding it." Yet, in the honesty and earnestness of his own character,
Warren was slow to suspect a fellow-soldier of disloyalty. The campaign
had gone on without special friction, though he remembered that he had
heard Hastings swearing _sotto voce_ more than once at Devers's
cantankerous ways, and he recalled now two or three incidents--little
things--in which Devers claimed to have misunderstood instructions; but
this was so glaring, so gross a departure from both the spirit and
letter of the orders he had given when face to face with the captain,
that for a moment or two he was at a loss what to say. He was indignant,
too, but it was a rule of his to control his temper and never speak to a
subordinate in wrath. He had broken it that morning and was sorry; so
when at last he trusted himself to speak, he said,--
"It must have been more than six hours ago that I told you to bury those
two men and then go on. Surely, captain, you could not have taken all
this time."
"It was nearly five o'clock, sir, when you ordered me to bury my dead as
well as I could, and only a little after eight when we finished it;
meantime, we had to march seven or eight miles before we could find a
place where we could bury them at all well."
"Why, I meant you to bury them right then and there, just where you
were, not go marching in search of a place."
"But we couldn't bury them there; major, I had no tools to dig graves in
a hard prairie----"
"Then you mean that you failed to go on after Davies,--failed to support
him?--that you haven't seen him since I gave those orders? My heaven,
Captain Devers! I told you never to let him out of your sight."
"Oh, he wasn't out of sight until darkness,--that is, he was frequently
in sight. I not only saw, but communicated with him until that time."
"Thank God for that, at least! If he wasn't attacked before dark he's
probably safe,--Indians are cowards in the dark. He ought to be coming
along presently, I suppose. He couldn't have been more than a mile or so
east of you."
But to this observation, half query, half self-consolation, Captain
Devers made no verbal response. He bowed his head as he took a long swig
at his can of coffee, and then a big bite into a ham sandwich of
portentous size. The major and one or two others considered it a nod of
assent, and ascribed to ravenous hunger the captain's failure to respond
by word of mouth. Partially relieved of his anxiety on Davies's account
and unwilling to spoil a gentleman's first supper after such long
deprivation, the battalion commander turned away, saying,--
"Well, eat and drink till you're comforted, anyhow, captain, then we can
hear all about it. I'll take a smoke meantime." Truman and Hastings
joined him at a fallen Cottonwood a few yards away, and the three
puffed their pipes and thanked Providence for the mercies that had come
with the close of the day. And then the officer of the guard appeared to
ask a question about the posting of the pickets, and, leaving the others
with Devers, the major strode off with the officer through the timber to
satisfy himself as to the security of the horses for the night, and when
he returned--not having been gone ten minutes--Devers had disappeared.
"I wanted to hear his report," said Warren, "and told him so. I supposed
he understood." To which neither of his subordinates made reply. When
ten minutes more elapsed and Devers did not come, Hastings, noting the
major's impatience, called to the orderly trumpeter sitting at the
neighboring fire,--
"Raney, go and see if Captain Devers is over with his troop
anywhere,--the major desires to see him." Raney was gone full ten
minutes, and when he returned it was to say that Devers's first sergeant
said the captain had given orders that all talk must stop so that the
worn-out men could rest, and the captain himself, rolled in his blanket,
was already sound asleep.
"Well, I swear!" exclaimed the major. "Didn't you understand me to say I
wanted to hear all about his march as soon as he finished supper?"
"I certainly did," replied Captain Truman, with an accent on the I that
meant volumes.
"So did I," growled Hastings; but he never could bear Devers, who was
persistently distorting or misunderstanding the orders the adjutant was
compelled to convey to him.
"Well, let him sleep," said Warren, finally. "I suppose he's tired out,
and very probably Davies will speedily come in."
But midnight came and no Davies. Out on the prairie--now dimly lighted
by the rays of the waning moon--the pickets at the east had descried no
moving objects. Every now and then the yelp of a coyote on one side of
camp would be echoed far over at the other. These, with an occasional
paw or snort from the side-lined herd, and the murmuring rush of the
river over its gravelly bed, were the only sounds that drifted to the
night-watchers from the sleeping bivouac. Towards one o'clock the
sergeant of the guard came out to take a peep. Later, about two,
Lieutenant Sanders, officer of the guard, a plucky little chap of whom
the men were especially fond, made his way around the chain of posts and
stayed some time peering with his glass over the dim vista of prairie to
the eastward.
"I declare I thought I saw something moving out there," he muttered,
after long study. "Are you sure you've seen or heard nothing?" he
inquired of the silent sentry.
"Not a thing, lieutenant, beyond coyotes or Indian signals, I can't tell
which. They keep at respectful distance, whatever they are."
"Well, even if Mr. Davies's horses were too used up to come, the
couriers ought to have got back long ago. Tell them to find me as soon
as they come in," said he, and went back to his saddle pillow in the
heart of the grove. At its edge a solitary figure was standing gazing
out into the night.
"That you, Sanders?" hailed a voice in low tone.
"Yes," answered the lieutenant, shortly, for he recognized Devers and he
didn't like him.
"Isn't Davies in yet?"
"No, and it's two o'clock."
"Oh, he'll turn up all right," said the captain, in airy confidence. "It
was all absurd sending him out to scout a smoke,--as if we hadn't seen
and smelled smoke enough this summer to last a lifetime. He's probably
camped down the valley somewhere, and they're all waiting for morning.
I'm not worrying about him."
"No, I judge not," muttered Sanders to himself, as he trudged on in the
dark. "You're simply keeping awake for the fun of the thing." But even
Devers got to sleep at last, and when he woke it was with a sudden
start, with broad daylight streaming in his eyes, and stir and bustle
and low-toned orders and rapid movement among the men, and Hastings was
stirring him up with insubordinate boot and speaking in tones suggestive
of neither respect nor esteem.
"Come, tumble up, captain; we're all wanted; Davies has been cut off and
massacred."
Already his orderly had led up the captain's horse, pricking his ears
and sniffing excitedly around him, and with trembling hands the young
German was dragging out from among the blankets the captain's saddle,
the hot tears falling as he stooped. His own brother was of Davies's
party. Devers was on his feet in an instant, dismayed, and, buckling on
his revolver, he went striding through the trees to where Warren stood,
pale and distressed, questioning a haggard trooper,--one of the
couriers sent on for Davies the previous evening. Devers burst in with
interrupting words, and was instantly coolly checked.
"Never mind now, captain. Mount at once and get your men in saddle." Nor
would Warren see or speak with him, as with a hundred troopers at his
heels--all whose horses were even moderately fit for a ten-mile
trot--the major led the way down the valley, a few eager scouts
cantering on before. All Devers could learn as they jogged along was
that Tate, one of the couriers, had ridden in at seven on an exhausted
mule to say that not until after dawn had they found Davies's
party,--seven of them,--stone dead, stripped, scalped, gashed, mutilated
almost beyond recognition, far out on the slopes east of that fatal spur
over which the September sun had risen before he came, leaving his
stunned comrade trailing hopelessly behind.