The closing week of March was marked by a furious snow-storm that swept
the big prairie like a besom, but plugged up every _coulée_ and ravine.
For four days no communication had been held with the Ogallalla Agency.
The wires were down, the road impassable, and Mrs. Davies had reached
her new harbor of refuge none too soon. The quartermaster's ambulance
bore the couple half-way to the new station, and Cranston's Concord came
to meet and carry them the rest of the way. Mira's parting with her
devoted lady friends at Scott was cut short by a start at early dawn,
against which she rebelled faintly, but to no purpose. It had taken only
two days to pack their few belongings. They spent the last night of
their stay in Scott under Leonard's roof, and Mrs. Leonard did her best
to cheer and gladden the mournful bride. It was of little avail,
however. Almira was dimly beginning to see that her conduct had cost her
the respect of those women most worth knowing, and that although the
dreaded interrogatories which Percy was to put to her as soon as she was
stronger were still in the future, his faith in and love for her,
whatsover they might have been, were seriously shattered. In manner he
was still grave, kind, and gentle almost as before, but everything like
tenderness had vanished. One question he said he must ask her before
they left Scott. Had she ever accepted any gifts or letters or anything
from Mr. Willett? And Almira answered that once he had sent her just a
few violets with a note inviting Mrs. Darling and her to drive with him
the next day, but she had tossed them into the fire long ago. Nothing
more, nothing else at any time? asked Davies, gravely, and Almira
answered no. How could he torment her with such unjust suspicions? Far
better would it be to let her return to the father and sisters who
longed for and missed her, to her peaceful home where down in the bottom
of her heart Mira knew she was not wanted by either father or sisters or
step-mother. Davies looked graver, but questioned no longer. The day
before their start Mr. Langston came out from Braska and inquired for
Davies, and told him how glad he was to renew his acquaintance, and
Davies greeted him with much reserve. This was the man who was
travelling with Willett the June gone by, and just as it had at first
affected Miss Loomis, so did the recollection now prejudice the officer
against him. Langston saw it, but went quietly on with the business in
hand.
"I am the bearer of a note to you from Mr. Willett, whose people, at
least, are old friends of mine. He has gone home, at my advice, and it
will be against my advice if he return here within a year. If he should
do so, I wash my hands of him. It is not to make excuses for him or
Burtis that I have come, but to ask you about one matter. On his way
back to the agency your comrade Mr. Sanders came to town and heaped
reproaches on Willett and on the proprietor of the restaurant, alleging
that certain disreputable people were allowed to occupy the adjoining
dining-room while the party from the fort was dancing. Cresswell was
very indignant at the charge. He says that the party in the adjoining
room was the family of old Pierre Robideau, from Kearney,--just himself,
his wife and daughter, with a friend whom they called Mr. Powell, and it
was Mr. Powell who paid the bill.
"Robideau is an old trader and trapper, but he and his people are honest
and respectable as any in Braska, and the young man with them was
supposed to be paying attention to the daughter. Robideau and his family
went back to Kearney that night after a week's visit to friends up here
in Braska. The daughter, Angie, had been here some time visiting a
school friend. We feel sure you have made no such statement to Mr.
Sanders without some strong ground of suspicion. May I ask how you heard
it so soon after your arrival?"
"I heard it before I got here," said Davies, quietly, "though when it
was told me I had no idea my wife was one of the party. My orderly was
cold and tired and we stopped at the Scott station at the point where
the road crosses the railway to give him a cup of coffee and water the
horses. There were some trappers and plainsmen in there, and one of them
was telling with much gusto of the performances of a soldier of our
troop who deserted that night,--how he had chartered the adjoining room
to that in which the officers and ladies were dancing and had a whirl to
the officers' music with some ladies of his own choosing, and the girls
lassoed a waiter and hauled him into their room and got a bottle of the
officers' champagne----"
"Pardon me, Mr. Davies, but do not these plainsmen rather like to tell
big stories at the expense of the officers,--the bigger the better?"
"I believe so, and paid little attention to it at first, but among the
listeners was a scout who went through last summer's campaign with us
and did good service. He rode over to the post with me, and on the way
we met a sergeant and two men of 'A' Troop, returning from an
unsuccessful pursuit of deserters. They told the same story with some
additions, and said the fellow openly boasted in Braska that afternoon
that he was going to the dance. Then the scout admitted reluctantly that
he had heard the story from several sources, and gave the names of the
women who were said to have been introduced there, and they were not
Robideau's family. The sergeant had heard just what the scout had as to
the identity of the intruders. Then on my arrival at home I learned that
Mrs. Davies was one of the fort party, and Mrs. Stone and other ladies
who were present referred to some rude creatures in a neighboring room
who peeped and stared at the dancing. There was also awaiting me with my
mail an anonymous letter, which I burned without reading through. Next
I learned that the man who frightened them on the homeward way and then
deserted after a fracas with Mr. Willett was Howard, of 'A' Troop, and
that man's associations in town are matters of notoriety. That was the
chain that led to my belief in the story."
Langston looked grave. "And Howard was probably Robideau's friend,
though Cresswell didn't know it! He had been paying court to Robideau's
daughter during her visit to Braska, always in civilian dress and always
claiming to be a civilian clerk in the quartermaster's department with a
salary of twelve hundred a year. I have seen her friends in town where
she visited, and they are very plain, honest, and well-to-do people,
whose daughter was sent to Illinois to school and met Angeline Robideau
there. They had another friend living in Cheyenne, and when they were up
there visiting her for a few days they said Mr. Powell was coming up to
spend one evening,--Powell is the name they all knew him by, and the
belief is that Angie was much fascinated by him, and had met him East
before meeting him here. Mr. Davies, I am glad to relieve your mind of
one uncomfortable theory in connection with this affair. I wish I could
extenuate or explain Willett's conduct as easily, but that young man is
a fool of the first magnitude."
Davies had taken the note handed him by Langston and was mechanically
turning it and twisting it in his fingers. His impulse was to toss it,
as he had the anonymous billet, into the fire. There was something about
the handwriting of the former that was vaguely familiar to him even
through its disguise, but Willett's scrawling superscription he had
never seen. Something told him, however, that anything of which a man of
Langston's calibre chose to be the bearer was entitled to consideration.
He made no reply to Langston's closing words. He had fully made up his
mind as to what his course should be, and what was the extent of Mira's
misdoing. Just as he said to her, he blamed those who should have been
her advisers and protectors far more than he blamed her, and as to this
popinjay who had become infatuated with her beauty, though the
lieutenant's blood boiled in wrath and indignation, his calmer judgment
and his disciplined spirit tempered any and every expression. He had
spent long, wakeful, prayerful hours in the silence and solemnity of the
night, and no man knew the story of the struggle. He had trained himself
to meet this man who had so openly and persistently shown himself a
worshipper at the feet of his wife, and to meet him with cool contempt,
yet the same hot blood that rioted in his veins when, long years before,
he had downed the village scoffer who had ventured to ridicule his aged
mother, now prompted him to horsewhip Willett should he venture again to
visit the fort.
It was relief, therefore, to hear that he had gone.
At last he opened and read the note, a clumsy, cubbish attempt to
explain his language in Sanders's room, and to say the package was
absolutely nothing but some violets, to apologize for any and every
annoyance he might have caused Mr. and Mrs. Davies, for whom he
entertained nothing but sentiments of the most profound respect and
esteem, and begging if ever they met again to be regarded as most
sincerely their friend, etc.
"There is no answer," said Davies, as he finished it, a smile of
contempt on his lips. "You must have known there couldn't be, did you
not?"
"Well, I fancied as much. He had no friend to carry it for him unless I
would, and the young idiot has gone off feeling profoundly wretched
about the whole business, as he deserves to. Had I been here, as an old
friend of his family, it would have been my right to warn him weeks ago,
and to put a stop to his foolishness if he was not to be advised. More
than that, Mr. Davies, I wish to say that ever since I met you on the
train last June I felt an interest in you that would have prompted me to
stand your friend in your absence whether I felt any interest in him or
not. I should like to know you better and to convince you that I meant
what I said when we parted there."
And Davies at last held out a cordial hand.
This was the afternoon before his early start, and though he left the
post feeling that he had gained a friend worth having, Davies did not
fully realize how dangerous a thing it was to leave a community of
women, none of whom he had sought to placate and some of whom he had
offended. Mrs. Darling had declared war against him, and Mrs. Stone, if
not Mrs. Flight, was in full sympathy with her. How dare he say they
were responsible for Mrs. Davies's flirtation? How dare he insinuate
that they had led her to the forbidden shades of Cresswell's? There was
a tempest in a teapot among Mrs. Stone's friends and associates over
Mrs. Darling's account of his rebuke to her, for Mrs. Darling had
deftly managed to include Mrs. Stone and Mrs. Flight in the scope of his
condemnation, and very possibly old Peleg might have been wrought up to
pitch of sympathetic resentment but for the fact that he was
concentrating all of his shattered faculties on the mysterious robbery
of the adjutant's desk.
Captain Devers, relieved at last from command of the post and
overshadowed by vague sense of official condemnation, was now, in
hopeful imitation of the Homeric Achilles, sulking in his tent. Invited
by Colonel Stone to appear at the office and give his counsel as to the
matter, Captain Devers had replied that in view of the discourtesies to
which he had been subjected at the hands of the adjutant he could hardly
be expected to care to visit the building except when compelled to do
so, and having been relieved from command under circumstances indicative
of disapproval of his methods, he should consider it indelicate on his
part to say what he thought of the matter in question.
But the orderly trumpeter had told the sergeant-major that Captain
Devers was on the piazza looking in the adjutant's window when the
gentlemen were there examining the map, and that he entered the
hall-way. The sergeant-major told Mr. Leonard, and Leonard was actually
startled. He conveyed the information to Pegleg, and Pegleg sent his
compliments to Captain Devers with the information that his immediate
presence was desired, so Devers came, and shrewdly guessed what was the
cause. Certainly, he said, he went to the office to get certain papers
that he had left in the commanding officer's desk. He did look in for
one instant through the adjutant's window, attracted by the unusual
sight of the adjutant, the chaplain, and his own subaltern, of whose
services he had been deprived, in apparent consultation. They were so
absorbed in talk that they did not hear him as he entered his own office
or when he left. Certainly he lit no candle; he needed none. He knew
just where his papers were, got them, and came away. Did he leave before
or after the others? Really, that was a matter he couldn't answer. He
was absorbed in his own reflections when he came out and couldn't say
whether the other gentlemen were there or not.
Pegleg asked whether he had any theory as to the disappearance of the
batch of papers from Leonard's desk, and Devers said he had none
whatever, he didn't know how the matter could be supposed to interest
him. He did not inquire the means resorted to, but perhaps that was
unnecessary, as the drawer had evidently been forced by a heavy chisel
and the woodwork about the lock was crushed. Leonard glowered at him
with stormy eyes during the brief interview but, true to his notions of
subordination, asked no questions whatever. It was the colonel who
presently gave it up as a hopeless job and dismissed the cavalryman with
a brief, "Well, that will do, captain; I see you can't help us," and
Devers left with livid, twitching face. He had no fear of Stone,
weakened as he evidently was both physically and mentally by his recent
shock. It was that silent, gloomy thunder-cloud of an adjutant he
dreaded, and with good reason. There was an unsettled account between
these men and one that Devers would have been glad indeed to drop, but
Leonard was a man who never let go. "I hate to have you leave just now,"
he said to Davies, "for I know we shall need you presently."
But once more there was a week of no communication with the Ogallalla
agency. Three days of blizzard and three of repairs before the flimsy
telegraph line could be used again. Mrs. Davies, busily occupied in
putting her new house in order, was aided by Mrs. McPhail and one of the
ladies from the cantonment, who, happening to be visiting the agent's
wife when the storm broke, found it pleasanter to remain there than go
back to the log huts across that mile of blast-swept prairie. The
Indians, with the stoicism of their race, huddled in their foul, smoky
tepees instead of swarming about the agency, and except Davies's
detachment none of the command appeared. It was therefore a rather busy
time for Mira, as there was abundant opportunity for conversation, and
both Mrs. McPhail and Mrs. Plodder rejoiced in so interested a listener.
The three seemed to be getting along together famously, a fact which
Davies noted with the same half-dreamy, half-amused smile. It was a
relief in seeing her really interested in setting her little house to
rights, but it was as evidently a relief to her that the otherwise
inevitable visitors were blockaded by the storm. Davies really did not
know which she dreaded most, the Cranstons or the Indians.
It was the latter who were the first to call. The gale went down with
the sun one night, and the morning dawned clear and fine. Up with the
sun, true to his cavalry teaching, Davies had been out superintending
the grooming and feeding of his horses. He and Mira were at breakfast
and Mrs. Plodder had come to help. Trooper Gaffney was the household
cook for the time being, and a good one. The coffee was excellent,
despite the fact that Gaffney could get no cream, and condensed milk was
the only substitute obtainable. The steak was juicy and tender, as the
finest of the contractor's beef was sure to go to the agency itself, and
Gaffney's soda biscuits were enticing, whatsoever might be the
after-effect. The two ladies were chatting in very good spirits when one
considers the depths of woe from which Mira had so recently emerged, and
the lieutenant was beginning to take some comfort in the outlook, when
all on a sudden Mira turned a chalky white, screamed violently, and
cowered almost under the table, her face hidden in her hands. Davies's
instant thought was of the repeated whisper of warning that came to him
regarding Red Dog, but Mrs. Plodder's merry peal of laughter reassured
him, as he whirled to confront what proved to be the foe. There on the
porch without, crouching low, shading their eyes with their broad brown
paws, their painted faces almost flattened against the window, three
Indians, a brave and two squaws,--all innocent of any violation of
etiquette or decorum, but just as their kith and kin and instincts
taught them,--were staring hungrily into the room. To Eastern readers it
would have seemed bare, homely, plain in the last degree; to the
untutored minds of these children of the prairie it spoke of wealth,
luxury, and plenty. Peering over the shoulders of one of the squaws,
from its perch on her toil-bowed back, was a wee pappoose, its beady
little black eyes gleaming, its tiny face expressive of emotions that
in later years it would speedily learn to suppress,--wonderment and
interest. A thinly-clad girl of five or six clung to the mother with one
hand and clutched her little blanket with the other. They all looked
cold and hungry, and the big eyes wore that dumb, professionally
pathetic look which these born beggars are adepts in assuming.
"Go 'way! Scat!" called Mrs. Plodder, with appropriate gesticulation as
she waved them aside. "You're darkening the room." But for answer the
visitors only huddled the closer and mournfully patted and rubbed the
region of their stomachs. Davies, laughing, went to the door and called
them in, which signal they promptly obeyed, and came trooping smilingly
after the stalking warrior, who took the lead as he would have taken
anything else. Mira by this time had backed into a corner, where she
cowered in terror, but Mrs. Plodder laughingly shook hands with the man
as Davies passed them in, and then blockaded him in an opposite corner
where he could not lay hands on anything they might give the squaws and
children. He wanted to shake hands with Mira, too, but she implored them
to keep him away. Davies took the little girl by the arm and led her to
his wife. "Do look at her, dear, and see what a pretty, intelligent face
she has. I want you to know how really friendly they mean to be." And
still Mira shrank and trembled. The younger woman was a Minneconjou
girl, with frank, attractive, almost pretty face. She dropped her
blanket from her head and let it fall about her calico-covered
shoulders, smiling affably about her, but eying the breakfast things
appreciatively. Davies held out a lump of sugar to the baby, which that
embryo warrior grasped eagerly and thrust into his ready maw, and then
buttering one of Gaffney's biscuits and calling for a fresh supply, the
lieutenant, with Mrs. Plodder lending active aid, began feeding their
unbidden guests. Gaffney came in with a heaping platter of his
productions and a pitcher of maple syrup. "This is what they like, mum,"
said he to the lady of the house. "Give that little kid a molasses
sandwhich and she'll be your friend for life. Heap walk? heap hungry?"
he continued, addressing the head of the family, in sympathetic tone.
"Heap walk--plenty heap hungry," was the warrior's prompt response, with
appropriate pantomime and immediate lapse of dignity. Mrs. Plodder had
cut off a big slice of the steak and handed it to the mother with
reassuring gesture, but that well-disciplined wife passed it immediately
on to her lord, and in eloquent silence pleaded with open hand and eyes
for more. "The heathens!" exclaimed Mrs. Plodder. "We'd cure them of
that notion in no time, wouldn't we, Mrs. Davies?" But Mira was watching
the Minneconjou maiden, forgetful even of the adulation in the eyes of
the little five-year-old girl now licking the syrup off her slab of
soldier bread and gazing adoringly up into the shrinking donor's face.
Miss Minneconjou had caught sight of her own winsome face in a mirror
that hung in a stained-wood frame opposite Mira's seat, and with no
little shy giggling was revelling in the study of her charms even while
busily munching the big biscuit in her slender brown hand. Here was a
trait that formed a bond of sympathy, and Mira took courage. It is not
the contemplation of their nobler qualities, but their weaknesses, that
puts us on easy terms with our fellow-men. Breakfast promised to last a
long time. Gaffney, with the adaptability of the trooper of years of
service on the frontier, had been worming something of their visitors'
story out of them. The average Indian never wants to tell his name, but
gets a friend to give it for him. It proved, however, to be
Bear-Rides-Double who, with his wife, sister, and little ones, had
honored them with this early visit, and after riding double long years
among his people, this young chief had come afoot long miles to see the
Great Father's man and lodge a complaint. He had actually walked from
the Minneconjou village, five thousand yards away down-stream. But for
the chance of making a theatrical _coup_ Bear-Rides-Double could easily
have borrowed a pony, even though his own were gone to pay a poker debt
incurred within thirty-six hours, and when he waked up the morning after
the protracted play he found that Pulls Hard and the half-breed "squaw
man" with whom he had been gambling had not only played him with cogged
dice, but plied him with drugged liquor, and then gone off with his war
ponies as well as the rest. He wanted the Great Father to redress his
wrongs, recover his stock, and give him another show with straight
cards, and then he'd show Pulls Hard and Sioux Pete a trick or two of
his own. Davies had proffered chairs during this recital, which Gaffney
managed between the sign language and a species of "pidgin English,"
called "soldier Sioux," to interpret for him, but the family preferred
to squat on the floor. Mrs. Plodder, tiring of the diplomatic features,
took Miss Minneconjou into Mira's room to show her the pretty gifts the
pale-face bride had brought with her, and Mira, with her five-year-old
friend toddling alongside, speedily followed. Davies strove to make the
double equestrian understand that he had no authority in the premises,
and that McPhail was the proper person to apply to, but the warrior
wished to deal only with his kind,--a heap brave chief,--the conqueror
of the redoubtable Red Dog. He could get more to eat through him in any
event, and in the midst of it all Gaffney came in from a brief visit to
his kitchen to say that Sioux Pete, the malefactor in question, was
actually in the corral at that moment trying to sell two ponies to the
sergeant of the guard. Leaving Gaffney to the duty of entertaining his
guests, Davies went out to investigate. Pete had come over from Red
Dog's camp with some of his plunder, and had no idea the complainant had
forestalled him. Pete spoke English,--that is, plains English,--but he
shrank a little at sight of the tall, grave-faced young officer of whom
Red Dog's people spoke with bated breath.
"You want how much for these ponies?" asked the lieutenant, as though he
had heard the talk.
"Tirty dollar."
"Where are the others?"
"No got."
"You rode off with four ponies from the lodge of Bear-Rides-Double two
nights ago. Where are the other two?"
Pete turned sickly gray. Could this white-faced soldier read visions
and dreams and thoughts? Was he a medicine-man?
"No got," he sullenly answered once more.
"You will leave these two with me for safe-keeping," said Davies, "and
go and fetch the others at once, even if you have to take them from
Pulls Hard, and get back here with them at noon without fail. No, you
need not appeal to the agent, or I'll tell him that you loaded Bear with
drugged liquor and marked cards and cogged dice. Off with you, Pete," he
continued, and the half-breed rode away on his Cayuse pony with scared
face, and told in the camp of Red Dog that the young chief Davies was a
seer, a mind-reader as well as a brave who feared not to grapple their
war chief; and when he was gone, Bear-Rides-Double was summoned and
bidden to ride double if he could, but to go and sin no more with cogged
dice, and the Minneconjou looked with evident awe and wonderment upon
the grave, reticent cavalryman, and went away homeward on one of the
recovered ponies, his women-folk, laden with Mira's discarded finery and
leading the other, trudging contentedly along behind him afoot.
"You'll be a heap bigger man among the Indians than the agent can ever
hope to be, lieutenant," said Gaffney, with an Irish grin.
But Davies said nothing. Had he overstepped his authority? Would McPhail
approve? The point was soon settled. Through the hangers-on about the
store McPhail heard rumors flitting like lightning among the villages.
The young officer was a medicine-man, a mind-reader, and far and wide
the Indians spoke of him in fear and reverence. It might be a good
thing, said the canny Scot, to back him up and reap the benefit. "Just
so long as I can keep him here in charge of the guard we can run things
to suit ourselves, for no red-skin will dare buck against him."