That night Dr. Rooke called twice at No. 12, and went away both times
saying opprobrious things about his fellow-men and women. The chaplain,
who had gone over to see Davies about three o'clock, presently went back
for his wife, and that good-hearted woman remained until late at night.
Mrs. Darling coming over in the early evening to congratulate dear Mira
again on her husband's return and invite them both to dinner on the
morrow, was met by Davies himself at the door, but not invited in. Her
sweet smiles and words of greeting and proffers of hospitality were
checked at sight of his stern, sad face. In brief words he told her Mrs.
Davies was too ill to receive callers or accept invitations, and in
response to her flurried "Is there anything in the world I can do?"
coldly answered that Mrs. Darling had already done--too much.
In her natural and justifiable indignation, Mrs. Darling at once sought
Mrs. Stone and Mrs. Flight. "They had an awful scene, I'm sure," said
she, "for his face was as black as a storm, and I knew how it would be.
Some one's been blabbing and making matters infinitely worse than they
really were. What do you suppose will happen when he and Willett really
meet?"
"They _have_ met," cried Mrs. Flight, forgetful of her determination to
keep at odds with Mrs. Darling in the bliss of imparting exciting
news,--"they _have_ met at Sanders's quarters, and there must have been
something dreadful, because Willett came out, oh, with such a face! and
went right over to the store and drove off to town. Sanders is all
broken up about something. Flighty says he wouldn't tell anybody." And
by "Flighty" the lady referred to her consort.
The awful scene of Mrs. Darling's imagination was really not very
tragic. Almira had shut herself in her room in preparation for the
coming visits of the doctor and Mrs. Darling. Her tea-gown being a most
becoming garment, she was still enveloped in its soft and clinging
folds, and had let her long, lustrous hair fall rippling down her back.
She had once seen a queen of the emotional drama similarly gowned and
groomed and a lasting impression was the consequence. The tea-gown and
tumbling hair became Mira's conception of the proper make-up for wronged
and injured and deeply-suffering wifehood. She had prepared to deluge
the doctor with symptoms and Mrs. Darling with tears, but nearly an hour
went by and neither came. Katty was clearing away the luncheon table,
and to her Almira faintly appealed for tidings, and Katty said that the
masther had come in for a minute and walked up and down in the parlor
and gone to the front door himself to meet Mr. Sanders, and they were
talking out in front. When the second time her husband entered the house
she prepared to hide her face and refuse him a word, but he did not come
near her. She heard him pacing up and down, up and down, at first with
quick nervous stride and at last more slowly. Then he seemed to sit at
his desk and write. She could hear him sigh heavily. What business had
he to sigh? She was suffering for lack of sympathy, nursing, tender
care. Why should he sit there sighing in that absurd fashion? She heard
him go to the kitchen and tell Barnickel to take that note to the
chaplain, and then he came back to write some more. She grew impatient,
lonely. She determined to bring him to her side, and if possible to her
feet again. Other men were abject enough; why should she be lorded over
in this way? She threw herself again upon her bed and covered her eyes
with her filmy handkerchief and faintly called "Percy!" As he did not
hear she tried again, louder, and still he did not seem to be at her
door listening for the slightest sign, and she was compelled to sit up
and call loudly, not for him but for Katty.
And Katty, being out among the pots and pans and kettles, didn't hear
her at all; so Davies went and summoned the girl, instead of going to
Almira himself, as Almira thought he should have done. Presently Katty
came out. The misthress wanted to know was the doctor ever coming--and
Mrs. Darling? Then Davies entered the room and closed the door.
"Dr. Rooke has not yet returned, Mira," he said. "Mrs. Darling with my
consent will not visit you again until you are experienced enough to
know right from wrong. You never told me of these visits with her to
Cresswell's or I should have forbidden them utterly. It never occurred
to me that you would be tempted to go thither or I should have warned
you. I do not blame you so much, my wife, as I do those who have so
misled you. There are some things I have been told that are past my
understanding, and that when you are well again I shall have to ask you
to explain. Now rest as well as you can. The doctor will come to you
just as soon as he returns to the post. Is there anything I can do to
help you?"
But Mira burst into a wail. She didn't wish to see anybody--anybody but
the doctor and Mrs. Darling. It was cruel, heartless, brutal on his part
to come in and taunt and torment her when she was so helpless and ill.
It was wicked to cut her off from the only friends she loved or who had
been kind to her. She would have died of loneliness and misery while he
was gone if it hadn't been for Mrs. Darling and for her friends. _His_
friends hadn't come near her,--hadn't done anything for her, and now he
was angry because, when she was neglected and scorned by them, others
like Mrs. Darling had been good and kind to her. Oh, why couldn't she go
home to her dear old father and the sisters who loved her, and weep her
heart out on her m-m-mother's grave? Davies sadly realized that neither
argument nor appeal would help matters. He heard the chaplain's ring at
the outer door, and went to him with sore-laden heart. Later the two
left the fair invalid to the care of the chaplain's wife and went in
search of Leonard. Boynton, still unable to walk about, was occupying
his old quarters next to the adjutant's, and, propped up in an
easy-chair near the window, caught sight of his comrade, the captor of
Red Dog, and eagerly beckoned him in. Davies had to go and shake hands,
though at the moment he wished that he might avoid almost everybody.
"Why, Parson, old boy, you can't stand that agency work. It's making an
old man of you now before half your time. You look ten years older. I
hope you're not ill."
"No, not ill; a little tired and worn perhaps," said Davies. "We were
just going in to see Leonard."
"Well, I wish you'd fetch him in here the first evening you can. There
are some things that I want to talk over with you two, things that
affect us both. Have you seen Differs?"
"No, not yet. I'll report to him at guard-mounting in the morning. The
regulations say the first orderly hour, don't they?"
"Yes,--but you'd better report your arrival to him the moment he comes
out of his house or else go to the office and do it. We've got a bone to
pick with him, Parson, and I don't want you to get into any outside
tangle. I'll be up and about in a couple of days, then we'll settle it
with him."
For a man who had striven conscientiously to do his duty, it seemed to
Davies, as he rejoined the chaplain, that he had become involved in
tangles enough without seeking new ones. His friend had already rapped
at Leonard's door and been informed that the adjutant was over at his
office, so thither went the two, many eyes following them as they
crossed the broad, brown level of the parade. The snow had disappeared
entirely except in dirty hummocks along the pathways and walks whither
it had been shovelled after the heavy fall. The post looked even less
cheery and attractive than before. The few men moving about had the
listless air of soldiers with nothing to do, going fat and "soft" for
lack of vigorous exercise. Over in front of the colonel's quarters his
sedate bay team was waiting, and presently that veteran, with Mrs. Stone
and Tommy Dot and a striker in attendance, was aided down the steps and
into his open carriage for a drive.
"Is it not late for them to take him out?" asked Davies. "Why don't they
make an earlier start?"
"Ordinarily they have done so. To-day, though, he has been having a
conference with your captain; rather an extended and trying one, I
fancy, and not agreeable to either party. Captain Devers was leaving
there as I returned to yours. Davies, my friend, there is a man who is a
veritable Ishmael. His hand seems against every one and every man's hand
against him. You could never have wronged him,--what on earth has set
him against you?"
"Indeed," was the earnest answer, "I do not know;" and then, solemnly,
Davies added, "Trouble seems the lot of many of us, yet even in one's
saddest hour it is impossible not to feel sorrow and pity for one like
him, who stands before his fellows an utterly friendless man."
The adjutant rose with an eager light in his dark eyes at sight of the
two. "I have been hoping to see you, Davies," said he, "yet I knew you
would have much to detain you at home. Mrs. Davies is better, I hope?"
"Mrs. Davies is not well, but I think the matter is not serious. I came
first to report my arrival from the reservation. Mrs. Davies will go
there with me just as soon as we can pack. Then the chaplain and I want
to consult you personally about some important matters. Have you a spare
half-hour?"
"Frankly, Davies, I haven't, and won't have until tattoo. There are some
reports here that will occupy me pretty much every minute. Is it
business that can wait until then?"
"It will have to," said Davies.
"Then let me get at once to the reason of my desiring to see you before
to-night. Captain Devers has been called upon by department
head-quarters to explain some discrepancies in an official report or
two, and I was present at the long interview between him and the colonel
this afternoon. Davies, have you ever seen a map or sketch of that
ground north of Antelope Springs where you had your adventure last
September?"
"No," said Davies, wondering.
"Then I want you to look at this, compare it with your recollections,
and tell me how accurate it is, especially as to the tracing of the
trails of the various parties."
The short winter day was already waning and the light in the dingy
office growing dim. Leonard called for candles, then stretched a huge
white blotter upon a wide-topped stand and spread open upon it the filmy
sheet of tracing paper. An almost exact copy of Devers's map was thrown
into bold, black relief, and for the first time Percy Davies saw the
plan on which was based the report that, exonerating his captain,
inferentially held him accountable for the massacre of his comrades at
Antelope Springs.
"Why! when was this made?" he asked, in grave surprise. "Whose work is
this?"
"It was made while you were lying ill at Cranston's up at the old post,"
said Leonard, calmly. "Had you never heard of the investigation?"
"Never."
"The general sent Mr. Archer of his staff up there to go over the ground
with Devers and let him explain, if he could, why he got so far away
from you and your people as to permit that tragedy to occur, especially
after the orders he'd received from Major Warren. Devers cleared himself
by proving to Archer's satisfaction that he obeyed his orders exactly
and marched right along the ridge here. This trail, the one that runs
due south, just west of the summit of the divide, was made by Devers's
main command moving in support of you and your detachment. This one off
here"--and Leonard's pencil rode lightly along another that skirted a
ravine apparently two miles away from the ridge--"this one was made by
his command the next day after you had been found by Warren's men," and
Leonard was narrowly eying Davies as he spoke.
"Pardon me, Mr. Leonard, it was just the other way," said Davies,
assuming that the adjutant in his personal ignorance of the facts was
stating a theory. "Captain Devers never approached the ridge that
evening. He was going farther away from it all the time. I had to gallop
to catch him. This, out here to the southwest, is what might be called
an approximation to his trail. I finally overtook him away out over here
somewhere, across the ravine," and Davies indicated with the point of a
pencil.
"Well, then who made this trail up here on the ridge? You must have
crossed it twice before dark."
"There was no such trail there, sir, nor was there any party to make it.
Everything in the battalion except my own little squad was away off to
the southwest, anywhere from two to ten miles."
"You could swear to that, Davies? You remember it distinctly--despite
your illness?"
"Swear to it? Certainly, sir," said Davies, with wonderment in his eyes.
"So could McGrath, who was with me, if he were only alive. So could
Devers himself, or Haney, or Finucane, or a dozen others of the command
who must know that wasn't their trail."
"I fear me, Davies," said Leonard, gravely, "that some of the very men
you name have told it, if not sworn to it, the other way, and that your
captain has allowed it to be accepted as the basis of his release from
accountability."
In the gloomy office the darkness was gathering thicker. At the head of
the table, his coat thrown over his arm, his hat in his folded hands,
stood the strong figure of the chaplain, his thoughtful brow shining in
the light of the candles the clerks had placed upon the board. His was
the first face to be seen by one entering the room from the hall-way, or
peering in at the window, for the figures of Leonard and Davies, their
backs to the entrance, were thrown in black silhouette against the
glare; but as Leonard spoke the two who had been bending over the work
drew slightly apart and gazed silently, significantly, into each other's
faces, Leonard calm, massive, masterful, Davies searching, questioning,
the light of a new and grave suspicion in his troubled eyes.
And looking on this picture,--on this triumvirate,--there stood on the
porch without, close to the uncurtained window, a fourth form, heavy,
massive almost as Leonard's, but far less soldierly. Then noiselessly
this latter turned to the hall-way, and with cautious step drew near the
open office door; the heavy arctics, which it was Devers's habit to wear
so long as the weather was even moderately cold, deadened the sound of
his footfalls, and now with beating heart the troop commander stood
listening to what he could catch of the conversation within.
"It is absolutely false and misleading," said Davies, "and if it has
been used, as you say, to clear him or anybody else, it should be
exposed at once."
"That," said the adjutant, in his deep, deliberate tone, "is precisely
what I believe, but needed your evidence to establish. Now you will
excuse me from further talk about this or anything else until, say,
after office hours to-morrow morning. I have much to attend to. If you
and the chaplain will meet me at ten o'clock, we can settle various
matters. Meantime I'll lock these papers in my desk." Across the dim
hall-way, as the two friends left the office, stood the door of the
sanctum of the post commander. It was just ajar, but there was no light
beyond, and to all appearances the room was as deserted as it was dark.
Rooke was just coming out of No. 12 as they returned thither.
"I'm glad you're home, Mr. Davies, and I'll be gladder when you've got
that pretty little bunch of nerves and nonsense off my hands and off
this military reservation."
"She will be well enough to travel--when?" asked Davies, as placidly as
he could. Even when the wife of one's bosom has been behaving
outrageously it isn't pleasant to hear it from one's neighbors,
unasked.
"She could go to-morrow and be the better for it," said Rooke, bluntly.
"What she needs is a firm hand and a change of scene--and surroundings.
We're too volatile hereabouts." And this it seems was practically what
he had told Almira herself, much to her scandal and dismay. She
piteously asked why she couldn't see Dr. Burroughs; and was unfeelingly
told that there was no reason whatever, provided she started to-morrow;
that he was at Ogallalla and would be very glad to see her. "Once up
there," said the old cynic, "you can have Burroughs and lollipops to
your heart's content."
"Oh, doctor, but think of the peril, the danger," she moaned.
"Tut, woman, you'll be in no such danger there as here," he answered
brusquely; and Davies found her weeping dejectedly, but weeping to no
purpose. When morning came Barnickel and Katty were boxing up the lares
and penates, and toward nightfall Mira herself was meekly, though not
resignedly, bearing a hand. This indeed was not what she had pictured
army life to be. Davies and the chaplain were to have joined Leonard as
planned at ten o'clock. At nine the orderly came to the door of No. 12,
and said that Mr. Leonard would be very much obliged if Mr. Davies would
come to the office at once, and Davies went. Colonel Stone, as had been
arranged, was once more restored to his desk in the office, and though
looking gray and ten years older, was "on deck." He was absorbed in
turning over some official papers, so Davies did not disturb him. He
went into Leonard's den. The officer of the day was comparing the list
of prisoners in the guard report with some memoranda on the adjutant's
desk, but presently finished, shook hands with Davies and said welcome
back to Scott, then went his way.
The moment he was gone Leonard whirled about in his chair. "Davies, you
remember our locking those papers in this drawer last night?"
"Certainly."
"Well, look at it now, and as I found it ten minutes ago."
The drawer was absolutely empty.