One of the first inquiries made by Mr. Davies was for Trooper Brannan.
"He is with the detachment up at the reservation," said Mr. Hastings.
"That's our Botany Bay. That's where Differs ships his bad eggs. Not
that Brannan was a bad egg, but that Differs so regarded him."
"Had he been drinking or in any trouble?"
"Well, not exactly trouble," said Hastings. "He didn't get along with
one or two of the sergeants. They made frequent complaint of his 'lip,'
and the old man seemed suspicious of him." Only one new hand or recruit
had been selected to go to the agency with Boynton's detachment, and
that was Brannan. He was sent to replace Fogarty, who broke his leg,
just about the time the other troops came. When Davies reported to his
troop and battalion commander for duty, Captain Differs received him
with much grave dignity,--with a certain air in which majestic courtesy
was mingled with that of forgiveness for injuries received, as though he
would say, "Let by-gones be by-gones. We'll make a fresh start, and in
consideration of your ills, inexperience, and the like, I'll try to
overlook your shortcomings in the field." Davies had never set eyes on
him from the moment of their parting at dusk that gloomy Dakota evening
to the northwest of the Springs,--from that evening to that of his
return. Totally ignorant of much that had taken place during his
illness, he was ready to serve his captain faithfully, even though he
felt that he could not like or trust him. They had but brief converse.
"Take all the time you need to get your quarters ready, Mr. Davies. You
and Hastings can divide the detail work of stables and roll-call between
you," said Devers. "Just remember we've got an infantry adjutant here
who's only too anxious to find fault and stir up trouble between us and
the post commander."
Going into the troop office the day after his return, Davies was
surprised to see a dark-eyed, dark-haired, rather handsome young
soldier at the clerk's desk. He recognized him as one of the recruits
whom he had brought out in July, but of whom he had seen very little
during the campaign.
"That's our new company clerk," said Hastings. "One of Differs's latest
pets. There are better clerks and better men in the troop. He relieved a
better man when he sent Moran up to the agency. But what Devers is
driving at is past finding out. There's been a total shaking up since
that--well, since the campaign."
And that this was true Davies could see for himself. Never having known
the troop, except in the field on the worst of campaigns, it took him a
few days to become accustomed to the change. Some of the most prominent
of the troop sergeants were still on duty with it, but in their
spick-and-span uniforms and clean-shaven cheeks and chins he found them
greatly altered. The first sergeant was the same, and the relationship
between him and the captain seemed closer than ever. Haney recognized no
middleman in his dealings with the troop commander, and had long been
allowed to consider himself as of far more importance than a junior
lieutenant, a theory in which, perhaps, there was much to sustain him.
The manner of this magnate to the two subalterns, therefore, was just a
trifle independent. Two veteran corporals had stepped up to an
additional stripe vice Daly killed and McGrath missing in September.
Some new corporals had been "made." None of those whom Davies best knew
and most noticed during the summer were among them. He missed two or
three of the old hands and asked for them. Sergeant Lutz had gone to
the agency. Corporal O'Brien had been reduced for a spree on the
home-coming and was serving as private in Boynton's detachment, and
Privates Sercomb and Riley were up there, too. The resultant vacancies
in the troop had been filled by raw recruits who were being
energetically licked into shape.
When Cranston was asked why he supposed it had pleased Captain Devers to
send a recruit like Brannan up to the bleak and unwholesome life at the
agency, Cranston replied by saying, "Differs said it was to keep him out
of harm's way. Up there he couldn't get liquor, down here he could."
When Davies asked if Brannan had shown a disposition to drink since
getting back from the campaign, Cranston again used Devers's authority.
"Differs said he had,--two or three times." But when Cranston wrote to
Boynton, Boynton replied that young Brannan declared that he had been
totally abstemious since the day after they reached the post. The day of
their coming in, he arrived half frozen and all tired out, as he had
been kept back on wagon guard, and he was offered liquor by Sergeant
Haney himself, and drank several times, and was wretchedly ill all the
next day as a consequence,--so ill that it frightened him, and he swore
off more solemnly than before. Hastings said, in fact, that there was a
set in "A" troop, a clique that "stood in" with the first sergeant and
some of his favorites, and that no man outside of it could hope for
recognition and no one in it fear punishment. Brannan was not in it.
It was a Wednesday night, as has been said, that Davies arrived, and
not until the following Wednesday could they be installed in their
quarters, which were being simply but prettily furnished. Private
Barnickel had assumed the duties of striker, and Mrs. Maloney's
strapping daughter Katty was now presiding in Boynton's kitchen as cook
and maid-of-all-work. A tenant had been found for the old house at home,
who was to pay a certain rental to Squire Quimby, which sum was to be
supplemented by a monthly payment from his son-in-law's scanty purse.
"We must live very simply and economically, my wife," said Davies. "At
the very least it will take me two whole years to pay principal and
interest and set us foot free; but we have few other debts. We can be
warm and comfortable. You have all the clothing you will be apt to need
for a good while, and I will get along with what I have." And Mira had
received the suggestion with all wifely grace. They went to chapel
together that first crisp, sunshiny, wintry Sunday, and all Fort
Scott--at least all that happened to be there assembled--remarked on
Almira's rich color--and furs--and on Davies's reverent manner. He was
the only man in the little congregation who actually knelt. The old
chaplain rejoiced that afternoon when the tall lieutenant came in at
Sunday-school, and, taking immediate charge of the most turbulent of his
classes,--the big boys,--held them both interested and respectful until
the close of the session. Almira came too, and made an impression on the
juvenile minds of some of the laundresses' children, who studied her
pretty face and new hat and garments with close attention; but it gave
her a headache and she would rather not go to the evening service, she
said,--a service held more especially for the benefit of the soldiers
and their families, and but sparsely attended otherwise. Davies went,
however, and when he came home to their temporary quarters, found
Almira, all animation, chatting with Mrs. Flight and Mrs. Darling, to
whom she had been showing the contents of her big trunk. They were
called for presently by Mr. Sanders and his classmate Jervis, both of
whom had known the "Parson" in his cadet days, but from the somewhat
immeasurable altitude of a two years' start, yet they were the younger
looking now, gay, debonair bachelors, pillars of the social gatherings
at the post and most delightful partners, and, having completed their
duties with tattoo roll-call, they were now in search of these reigning
belles and an opportunity to talk over the hop projected for the coming
Wednesday night. Of course Mrs. Davies would come, said Jervis, but
Sanders's warning kick brought him to consciousness. "At least I
hope--we all hope you'll very soon be able to attend our parties, Mrs.
Davies. I suppose you've reformed the Parson and taught him to waltz."
Mira looked at her husband, and she knew not just what to say.
Davies smiled gravely and said no, he feared that he was too old and
awkward to learn even at the Point, but that Mrs. Davies was very fond
of dancing, and by and by, perhaps, they would attend. Then the chat
flowed merrily on, of the lovely time that they had all enjoyed,--that
is, the garrison people had enjoyed all summer, and the pleasant
associations they had formed with the gentlemen from town, and how much
lovelier it would be now. And while they were talking, through the thin
partition which separated Mr. Boynton's official and personal quarters
from those of Lieutenant and Adjutant Leonard there came the sound of
sacred music,--Mrs. Leonard at her piano, her clear, true voice blending
with the deep resonant bass of her soldier husband and the sweet treble
of the children, and Davies stopped to listen. It was a hymn his father
loved, one they often sang at the old church at home,--
"Son of my soul, Thou Saviour dear."
It brought sweet and sacred memories. It spoke of home and holy
influences, of mother love and father's blessing and children's hope and
faith. It filled his heart with reverence and his eyes with tears. The
babble and chat for an instant were silenced, and then Mrs. Darling
spoke.
"The worst of these army quarters is that you can hear just what's going
on next door; but," she added, cheerfully, "you'll soon be where you
won't be bothered on one side, at least."
Sanders gave a queer, quick glance at the speaker and then at Davies.
Jervis plunged into an immediate rhapsody on the subject of Mrs.
Leonard's children, whom he declared to be the best little beggars he
ever knew, unless it was Cranston's. "Of course," he added,
diplomatically, "I can safely praise them in your presence, ladies, as
you have none of your own."
Then conversation languished, for Davies was silent and Mrs. Davies
uninspired. The visitors left and went laughing down the row, their gay
voices ringing in the frosty air.
"How long had they been here, dear?" asked Davies as he returned to the
fireside.
"The ladies? Oh, I don't know. Quite a little while. They were so
interested in everything,--so friendly. I quite forgot my headache while
they were here. Now it seems to be coming on again, and if you don't
mind I think I won't sit up,--unless somebody else is coming."
"There will hardly be any more callers to-night," he answered, gravely.
"If your head aches you might be better for going early to bed, and I
will sit here and read awhile."
But the wandering thoughts refused to be chained to the page before him.
His heart was full and vaguely troubled. "I shall be better for a turn
in the cold air," he thought, and so, throwing his cape over his
shoulders, he quietly left the house.
It was just after ten, a still, sparkling winter's night. Across the
snowy level of the parade the long rows of wooden barracks lay dark and
silent, no lights burning except in the window of some company office or
first sergeant's room. Those were the days of "early to bed and early to
rise," and every man was supposed to be sleeping by ten so as to be up
and doing stable duty--or nothing--at dawn. Officers and ladies, the
privileged class of the army, made their own regulations as to domestic
hours of retiring. The enlisted man slept or was supposed to sleep "by
order." Mr. Davies, finding it essential to his comfort to sally forth
and imbibe free air, had no one to say him nay,--Mrs. Davies having
retired,--and might wander the live-long night about the post at will.
Trooper Blaney or Private Rentz, on the contrary, might toss for hours
on sleepless pillow, and could only grin and bear it. It meant so many
dollars "blind," or such other punishment as a court-martial might
inflict to a soldier caught out of barracks after the sound of the
signal to extinguish lights.
Already, in the quarters of his next-door neighbor, the adjutant, the
parlor was darkened, and except for the studious head of the family, now
poring over some precious volume in the privacy of his den, the
household had gone aloft. Davies paused a moment, irresolute. To his
right the walk extended only a short distance. There were but two more
houses. To his left lay the main length of the line,--the colonel's, the
surgeon's, the cavalry commander's, and most of the captains'.
Cranston's roof, however, was one of the two to the right, and thither
Davies turned. Dim lights were burning in the little army parlor, as he
could see through the half-drawn curtain. A shadow flitted across the
dormer window above him,--Mrs. Cranston's. The other windows in the
upper floor were dark. He wanted to go in and commune with Cranston, the
man of all others whom he most liked, but he shrank from ringing their
bell at so late an hour. Elsewhere along the row many a window was
brilliantly illuminated and the social life of the post seemed in full
flow. The Cranstons were home-keeping folk as a rule, "not at all
sociable," said some of the dames of the Fortieth, and yet they were
highly regarded throughout the garrison.
Except for a mere bow, as they were going to morning service, he had not
met Mrs. Cranston or Miss Loomis since the dinner of Thursday
evening,--the evening of Almira's provincial display of endearments, for
between Katty and Striker Barnickel they had been enabled to breakfast
at Boynton's quarters, and had lunched and dined elsewhere among the
many hospitably disposed throughout the garrison. Davies wanted to see
and talk with the captain, but to-night he shrank unaccountably from
meeting either of the ladies. It is under such circumstances that many a
man finds Fate unkind. Even as he stood there the hall door flew open
and a bright beam from the astral lamp within shot athwart the road. A
blithe voice called back in answer to some presumable remonstrance.
"What nonsense, Margaret! I can run over there as well as not and be
back in a moment." The door closed, and muffled in her long fur-lined
cloak, Miss Loomis was at the gate. "Why! Mr. Davies!" she exclaimed in
surprise.
"I was just wondering whether I might venture to ring and ask for the
captain," he hesitatingly said. "I wanted very much to see him."
"Captain Cranston is out. That is how it happens that _I_ am going out,"
she spoke, with prompt and cheery tone. "Old Sergeant Fritz is very low
to-night, and you'll find the captain there," and she indicated the way
to the married men's quarters over to the southwest. "I have to run over
to the hospital, for Louis's cough is very troublesome, and we happened
to be entirely out of medicine."
"Well, my talk with the captain can wait, Miss Loomis. Let me be your
orderly for to-night. What can I get for you?"
"Indeed you shall not!" she answered, with quick decision. "I'm
accustomed to doing my own errands. Good-night." And with that she
turned independently away to where the dim lights in the hospital
glimmered at the eastward.
"Then your ex-patient may at least trot along as escort," said he, as
promptly placing himself by her side and, army fashion, tendering his
arm.
"No, thank you," she answered, resolutely muffling her cloak about her
and rebelling against the rising impulse of vexation, "I do not need
support, and indeed, Mr. Davies, I need no escort. I'm quite accustomed
to going about the post by myself. I--I would very much rather you went
on to see Captain Cranston, as was your intention."
"And I would very much rather walk with you to the hospital," he
answered, with calm decision. "Come."
She had stopped as though striving to dismiss him from her side, but he
ignored her wishes entirely. His lips were curving into something very
like a smile of amusement, and it nettled her.
"To be perfectly frank with you, Mr. Davies, I wish now that I had made
a reconnoissance before venturing out so boldly. If there is anything I
hate it is this idea of burdening a man with escort duty. Just as though
one needed to be guarded at every step. It is the dependence of the
thing I despise,--a dependence that is entirely forced upon us."
"Well, so long as the escort is not forced upon you, I hope you will
not despise it. I am going with you because, as it's after taps, you may
need help in rousing the steward. He was up all last night, I'm told,
with Fritz, and may be abed now."
And so her protests, not her scruples, were silenced. Down the row they
rapidly walked, under the sparkling heavens, through the keen,
exhilarating air of the wintry prairie, passing, door by door, the
quarters of the officers of the garrison, some still brightly lighted,
others dark and silent. She was talking fast and with a nervous impulse
as they hurried by the colonel's, the broad portals of whose official
residence were just then thrown open to admit another party to join the
little circle sure every evening to be surrounding Mrs. Stone, and
welcoming voices and laughter floated out on the night. The moment
before they passed the gate whence he had issued forth barely three
minutes earlier. The hall light burned low as he left it, the parlor
shades were down. Almira presumably was nursing her headache in the
sanctity of the chamber at the rear. Boynton's upper story was occupied
by a junior subaltern of the Fortieth, who was believed to sleep there
at odd hours, but was generally to be found almost anywhere else.
"Mrs. Davies looked so well to-day," remarked Miss Loomis. "I hope she
finds her welcome pleasant."
"She is very well, except for a headache that sent her early to bed
to-night," he answered. "And her welcome from everybody has been most
kind and cordial, and from none more so than from Mrs. Cranston and
yourself. You are always adding to the obligations I am under."
"I shall quarrel with you some day if you talk of obligations, Mr.
Davies. But I'm so sorry to hear of her headache," she went on, quickly,
as though to prevent argument on the point. "The chapel does get very
hot and stuffy by evening service. Ought they not to air it after
Sunday-school?"
"It would be a good plan. But my wife did not go to-night. Her headache
began earlier in the day. I thought the close atmosphere of the chapel
would only increase it and so counselled her remaining home."
He remembered, however, that he had counselled her going early to bed,
but found her engrossed in her volatile callers on his return. It was
all very natural. Upon spirits like Almira's, communion with such gay
and frothy natures acted like champagne. He was trying to believe he was
glad she could be so readily benefited. The houses grew darker as they
approached the east end. Even the hall lamp was extinguished at Devers's
quarters, though there were lights aloft. Devers had a storm-door,
another instance of his individuality, as even the colonel's quarters
were not so embellished. It was a perfectly still night, not a whiff of
wind astir, and yet Davies could have sworn the storm-door swung slowly
open a foot or so as they neared the gate, then suddenly shut to. What
was more, he felt that his companion had seen and noted the same
circumstance, for she drew an instant closer to his side, then as
quickly seemed to recollect herself and edged away.
Davies looked back over his shoulder. So certain was he that the
storm-door had been opened and closed by some unseen hand within the
wooden casing that he would have turned to investigate, but for his
companion. He could not well leave her. They had now reached the east
end, right in front of the set of quarters which were so soon to be his
own. The hospital loomed up dark and massive across an open space two
hundred yards away. Only a narrow foot-path had been cleared from the
end of the sidewalk to the main entrance of the big building. He had not
thought to put on his over-shoes, and so, letting Miss Loomis lead,
Davies fell behind. Now that they were away from ear-shot of the
quarters their talk languished. Davies at least was thinking of that
mysterious door and wondering if he should not have looked into the
matter then and there. Now it was too late. If some garrison prowler
were the cause, he had doubtless by this time taken alarm and slipped
away; if Captain Devers or any of his household were the "power behind,"
then it was none of Davies's business. Hurrying up the creaking,
snapping steps of the hospital, they found the office-door locked. "I
more than suspected you would need me," said Davies. "Will you wait one
moment?" He tiptoed away through the long corridor, found the drowsy
attendant in the big ward, and learned that the steward had gone to his
little home in Sudstown, but would return in five minutes. It was nearer
fifteen when he came, and meantime Miss Loomis and her escort seated
themselves in the warm corridor and chatted in low tone as befitted the
time and place. In one of the little wards a suffering soldier was
moaning, evidently in penance for recent spree, and weakly imploring
drink of a stolid nurse.
"Don't make a fellow mad with misery," they heard him plead. "You know
where to get it. You know it's worse than hell to have to choke off
short."
"Of course I do," was the brutal answer. "If I'd never knew it before,
I'd learned it that night on the train when you could have sent me help
and wouldn't."
"My God, Paine! you asked me to steal from the captain's flask. I simply
ask for what's my own----"
But the voice was suddenly hushed, for, springing to his feet, Mr.
Davies hurried to the door. "Who is this--who have you here?" he asked.
"You--you? Brannan!"
And then, as a slender, graceful, womanly shape came noiselessly in and
appeared by the lieutenant's side, quivering, shaking in an agony of
shame and misery and nervousness, the lonely patient threw himself over
towards the wall, and burying his distorted face in his arms, burst into
a passion of tears, the attendant meantime slinking out into the hall.
"Come back here, my man," ordered Davies, in low, stern voice, while
Miss Loomis, without one instant of hesitation, threw off her cloak,
drew a chair to the bedside, and laid her soft white hand upon the
tumbled head of the wretched boy. Unwillingly, sullenly, the man obeyed.
"You are Paine, of 'A' troop, are you not?"
"Yes, sir. And the captain's orders and the doctor's were that he
shouldn't have a drop."
"Never mind that. When did he get here? How did he come?"
[Illustration: "COME BACK HERE, MY MAN."
Page 180.]
"With the mail-carrier this morning, from the agency, sir, and he'd been
drinking on the way and got to going harder as soon as he reached the
post. The captain ordered him confined and the doctor sent him here. But
my orders was----"
"Never mind your orders. What I want to know is, who detailed you, and
when were you detailed for hospital duty?"
"The captain sent me over, sir, after Brannan was taken in, and he's
been begging like that for a drink for an hour back."
Meantime, with great sobs shaking his form, Brannan lay there saying no
articulate word. Miss Loomis gently drew an arm from underneath his
head. "Let me have your wrist, Brannan," she gently said. "You know your
old nurse of last summer, don't you?" And in another moment her
practised touch was on the sufferer's pulse. In silence Davies awaited
the result. Her eyes filled with grave anxiety as she counted the feeble
fluttering,--a mere shadow of the vigorous throb of a soldier's heart.
"This man ought not to be here--neglected," she murmured to Davies.
Then, rising, she turned to the attendant. "Go at once to Dr. Burroughs
and say that Miss Loomis asks him to come here as quick as he can."
And Private Paine concluded it best to go without further words. The
steward, returning to his post, was met at the steps by the young
contract surgeon coming over from his corner on the run. A moment more
and the two stood in presence of the sufferer and of his nurse. She
smiled kindly upon the new-comers. "I sent for you, doctor, because I
knew you had not been informed of Brannan's state. His pulse----" and
here she lowered her voice so that only Burroughs and Davies could
hear,--"is so thin and wiry as to be almost gone. My father would say he
needed stimulant at once, and treatment later. See for yourself."
And the daughter of the well-known and beloved old army surgeon knew her
ground and never faltered. Burroughs made brief examination and no
remonstrance. In another minute the steward was administering brandy and
water in a tablespoon while, anxious to re-establish himself, the young
doctor was explaining. "I had no previous knowledge of the case," he
stammered. "Captain Devers told me of the man's arrival and downfall,
and I ordered him into hospital at his request, and,--yes,--I did say no
stimulants of any kind. The captain so urged, and of course that would
be the customary mode of treatment in most cases, but in a case like
this, of course, had I been aware----"
"Oh, certainly," she interposed, with the same gracious smile and
manner. "It was because I knew you hadn't been made aware. Now we'll
soon be able to make him comfortable, and then when he's on his feet
again he can tell us how it all happened." Again her white hand was laid
upon the haggard forehead. "Courage, Brannan. Don't worry. We'll get you
to sleep presently. Now, doctor, I want to send some medicine and a note
to Mrs. Cranston. With your permission I mean to stay here a while."
"I will be your messenger, Miss Loomis," said Davies, "as the attendant
doesn't seem to have returned, and then I can let Mrs. Davies know that
I shall come here again, myself."
As he sped along the row, note and medicine phial in hand, Davies was
surprised to see his captain's storm-door wide open and a light shining
through the transom within. A light was moving through the parlor, too,
but Davies paid no further heed, left the note and medicine in Mrs.
Cranston's hands with brief explanatory word, then hurried back to
Boynton's quarters. He had turned down the light when he went out for
his walk and had left his wife in the darkness of her room, trying,
presumably, to go to sleep. He found the lights turned on again, and
Almira, a heavy shawl bundled about her shoulders, sitting with white,
scared face, trembling and twitching, at the big coal base-burner in
what was called the parlor.
"Why, Mira!" he cried. "What has happened? Are you ill?" And he bent
over as though to fold her in his arms, but she shrank away.
"Don't!" she cried. "I was frightened. You--you were gone so long. I
thought you'd never come back." Then to his utter amaze she burst into a
wild fit of hysterical weeping. "Oh, take me away,--take me away from
this dreadful place, or I shall die,--I shall die!"