Under Fire Part 24

"Go there with whom?" said Davies, grasping the rail of the fence and breathing hard.

"Why, with Willett, of course; he was the only fellow that had a good turnout. He used to come for them, I believe, and sometimes he had Mrs.

Darling and Mrs. Davies--he and Burtis--and sometimes Mrs. Flight."

"And do you mean that they--that these four, went there to Cresswell's?

Do you know this, Sanders?"

"Well," said Sanders, "they were all talking and laughing about it, never dreaming of anything harmful or unbecoming. Why, Parson, old man, you mustn't be too strait-laced out here. You know it's the way of the West."

But Davies threw out his hand as though imploring silence, seemed about to speak again and ask another question, but finally turned without another word, and leaving Sanders standing dejectedly at the gate, re-entered his hall and closed the door behind him.

CHAPTER XXIV.

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, l.u.s.trous 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 fas.h.i.+on? 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 ma.s.sacre 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, a.s.suming 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 s.h.i.+ning 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, ma.s.sive, 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, ma.s.sive 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."