Starlight Ranch, and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier

by Charles King

  CHAPTER VIII.

  CAPTURED.

  How the tidings of that timely rescue thrill through every heart at oldFort Warrener! There are gathered the wives and children of theregiment. There is the colonel's home, silent and darkened for that onelong week, then ringing with joy and congratulation, with gladness andthanksgiving. Miriam again is there, suddenly lifted from the depths ofsorrow to a wealth of bliss she had no words to express. Day and nightthe little army coterie flocked about her to hear again and again thestory of Philip's peril and his final rescue, and then to exclaim overRomney Lee's gallantry and devotion. It was all so bewildering. For aweek they had mourned their colonel's only son as dead and buried. Thewondrous tale of his discovery sounded simply fabulous, and yet wassimply true. Hurrying forward from the railway, the little party hadbeen joined by two young frontiersmen eager to obtain employment withthe scouts of Stanley's column. Halting just at sunset for brief rest atBox Elder Springs, the lieutenant with Sergeant Harris had climbed thebluffs to search for Indian signal fires. It was nearly dark when ontheir return they were amazed to hear the sound of fire-arms in thecanyon, and were themselves suddenly attacked and completely cut off fromtheir comrades. Stanley's horse was shot; but Sergeant Harris, thoughhimself wounded, helped his young officer to mount behind him, andgalloped back into the darkness, where they evaded their pursuers byturning loose their horse and groping in among the rocks. Here they hidall night and all next day in the deep cleft where Lee had found them,listening to the shouts and signals of a swarm of savage foes. At lastthe sounds seemed to die away, the Indians to disappear, and thenhunger, thirst, and the feverish delirium of the sergeant, who wastortured for want of water, drove Stanley forth in hopes of reachingthe canyon. Fired at, as he supposed, by Indians, he was speedily back inhis lair again, but was there almost as speedily tracked and besieged.For a while he was able to keep the foe at bay, but Lee had come just inthe nick of time; only two cartridges were left, and poor Harris wasnearly gone.

  A few weeks later, while the --th is still on duty rounding up theIndians in the mountains, the wounded are brought home to Warrener.There are not many, for only the first detachment of two small troopshad had any serious engagement; but the surgeons say that Mr. Lee's armis so badly crippled that he can do no field work for several months,and he had best go in to the railway. And now he is at Warrener; andhere, one lovely moonlit summer's evening, he is leaning on the gate infront of the colonel's quarters, utterly regardless of certaininjunctions as to avoiding exposure to the night air. Good Mrs. Wilton,the major's wife,--who, army fashion, is helping Miriam keep house inher father's absence,--has gone in before "to light up," she says,though it is too late for callers; and they have been spending a longevening at Captain Gregg's, "down the row." It is Miriam who keeps thetall lieutenant at the gate. She has said good-night, yet lingers. Hehas been there several days, his arm still in its sling, and not oncehas she had a word with him alone till now. Some one has told her thathe has asked for leave of absence to go East and settle some businessaffairs he had to leave abruptly when hurrying to take part in thecampaign. If this be true is it not time to be making her peace?

  The moonlight throws a brilliant sheen on all surrounding objects, yetshe stands in the shade, bowered in a little archway of vines thatoverhangs the gate. He has been strangely silent during the brief walkhomeward, and now, so far from following into the shadows as she halfhoped he might do, he stands without, the flood of moonlight fallingfull upon his stalwart figure. Two months ago he would not thus haveheld aloof, yet now he is half extending his hand as though in adieu.She cannot fathom this strange silence on the part of him who so longhas been devoted as a lover. She knows well it cannot be because of herinjustice to him at the Point that he is unrelenting now. Her eyes havetold him how earnestly she repents: and does he not always read hereyes? Only in faltering words, in the presence of others all toointerested, has she been able to speak her thanks for Philip's rescue.She cannot see now that what he fears from her change of mood is thatgratitude for her brother's safety, not a woman's response to thepassionate love in his deep heart, is the impulse of this sweet,half-shy, half-entreating manner. He cannot sue for love from a girlweighted with a sense of obligation. He knows that lingering here isdangerous, yet he cannot go. When friends are silent 'tis time for chatsto close: but there is a silence that at such a time as this only bids aman to speak, and speak boldly. Yet Lee is dumb.

  Once--over a year ago--he had come to the colonel's quarters to seekpermission to visit the neighboring town on some sudden errand. She hadmet him at the door with the tidings that her father had been feelingfar from well during the morning, and was now taking a nap.

  "Won't I do for commanding officer this time?" she had laughinglyinquired.

  "I would ask no better fate--for all time," was his prompt reply, and hespoke too soon. Though neither ever forgot the circumstance, she wouldnever again permit allusion to it. But to-night it is uppermost in hermind. She _must_ know if it be true that he is going.

  "Tell me," she suddenly asks, "have you applied for leave of absence?"

  "Yes," he answers, simply.

  "And you are going--soon?"

  "I am going to-morrow," is the utterly unlooked-for reply.

  "To-morrow! Why--Mr. Lee!"

  There can be no mistaking the shock it gives her, and still he standsand makes no sign. It is cruel of him! What has she said or done todeserve penance like this? He is still holding out his hand as though inadieu, and she lays hers, fluttering, in the broad palm.

  "I--I thought all applications had to be made to--your commandingofficer," she says at last, falteringly, yet archly.

  "Major Wilton forwarded mine on Monday. I asked him to say nothing aboutit. The answer came by wire to-day."

  "Major Wilton is _post_ commander; but--did you not--a year----?"

  "Did I not?" he speaks in eager joy. "Do you mean you have notforgotten _that_? Do you mean that now--for all time--my firstallegiance shall be to you, Miriam?"

  No answer for a minute; but her hand is still firmly clasped in his. Atlast,--

  "Don't you think you ought to have asked me, before applying for leaveto go?"

  Mr. Lee is suddenly swallowed up in the gloom of that shaded bower underthe trellis-work, though a radiance as of mid-day is shining through hisheart.

  But soon he has to go. Mrs. Wilton is on the veranda, urging them tocome in out of the chill night air. Those papers on his desk must becompleted and filed this very night. He told her this.

  "To-morrow, early, I will be here," he murmurs. "And now, good-night, myown."

  But she does not seek to draw her hand away. Slowly he moves back intothe bright moonbeams and she follows part way. One quick glance shegives as her hand is released and he raises his forage cap. It is _such_a disadvantage to have but one arm at such a time! She sees that Mrs.Wilton is at the other end of the veranda.

  "Good-night," she whispers. "I--know you _must_ go."

  "I must. There is so much to be done."

  "I--thought"--another quick glance at the piazza--"that a soldier, onleaving, should--salute his commanding officer?"

  And Romney Lee is again in shadow and--in sunshine.

  * * * * *

  Late that autumn, in one of his infrequent letters to his devotedmother, Mr. McKay finds time to allude to the news of Lieutenant Lee'sapproaching marriage to Miss Stanley.

  "Phil is, of course, immensely pleased," he writes, "and from all I hearI suppose Mr. Lee is a very different fellow from what we thought sixmonths ago. Pennock says I always had a wrong idea of him; but Pennockthinks all my ideas about the officers appointed over me are absurd. Helikes old Pelican, our battery commander, who is just the crankiest,crabbedest, sore-headedest captain in all the artillery, and that issaying a good deal. I wish I'd got into the cavalry at the start; butthere's no use in trying now. The --th is the only regiment I wanted;but they have to go to reveille and stables before br
eakfast, whichwouldn't suit me at all.

  "Hope Nan's better. A winter in the Riviera will set her up again.Stanley asks after her when he writes, but he has rather dropped me oflate. I suppose it's because I was too busy to answer, though he oughtto know that in New York harbor a fellow has no time for scribbling,whereas, out on the plains they have nothing else to do. He sent me hispicture a while ago, and I tell you he has improved wonderfully. Such aswell moustache! I meant to have sent it over for you and Nan to see,but I've mislaid it somewhere."

  Poor little Nan! She would give many of her treasures for one peep atthe coveted picture that Will holds so lightly. There had been temporaryimprovement in her health at the time Uncle Jack came with the joyoustidings that Stanley was safe after all; but even the Riviera fails torestore her wonted spirits. She droops visibly during the long winter."She grows so much older away from Willy," says the fond mamma, to whomproximity to that vivacious youth is the acme of earthly bliss. UncleJack grins and says nothing. It is dawning upon him that something isneeded besides the air and sunshine of the Riviera to bring back thedancing light in those sweet blue eyes and joy to the wistful littleface.

  "The time to see the Yosemite and 'the glorious climate of California'is April, not October," he suddenly declares, one balmy morning by theMediterranean; "and the sooner we get back to Yankeedom the better'twill suit me."

  And so it happens that, early in the month of meteorological smiles andtears, the trio are speeding westward far across the rolling prairies:Mrs. McKay deeply scandalized at the heartless conduct of the WarDepartment in refusing Willy a two-months' leave to go with them; UncleJack quizzically disposed to look upon that calamity as a not utterlyirretrievable ill; and Nan, fluttering with hope, fear, joy, and dread,all intermingled; for is not _he_ stationed at Cheyenne? All these longmonths has she cherished that little knot of senseless ribbon. If shehad sent it to him within the week of his graduation, perhaps it wouldnot have seemed amiss; but after that, after all he had been through inthe campaign,--the long months of silence,--he might have changed, and,for very shame, she cannot bring herself to give a signal he wouldperhaps no longer wish to obey. Every hour her excitement andnervousness increase; but when the conductor of the Pullman comes tosay that Cheyenne is really in sight, and the long whistle tells thatthey are nearing the dinner station of those days, Nan simply losesherself entirely. There will be half an hour, and Philip actually thereto see, to hear, to answer. She hardly knows whether she is of thismortal earth when Uncle Jack comes bustling in with the gray-hairedcolonel, when she feels Miriam's kiss upon her cheek, when Mr. Lee,handsomer and kindlier than ever, bends down to take her hand; but shelooks beyond them all for the face she longs for,--and it is not there.The car seems whirling around when, from over her shoulder, she hears,in the old, well-remembered tones, a voice that redoubles the throb ofher little heart.

  "Miss Nannie!"

  And there--bending over her, his face aglow, and looking marvellouslywell in his cavalry uniform--is Philip Stanley. She knows not what shesays. She has prepared something proper and conventional, but it has allfled. She looks one instant up into his shining eyes, and there is noneed to speak at all. Every one else is so busy that no one sees, no oneknows, that he is firmly clinging to her hand, and that she shamelesslyand passively submits.

  A little later--just as the train is about to start--they are standingat the rear door of the sleeper. The band of the --th is playing somedistance up the platform,--a thoughtful device of Mr. Lee's to draw thecrowd that way,--and they are actually alone. An exquisite happiness isin her eyes as she peers up into the love-light in his strong, steadfastface. _Something_ must have been said; for he draws her close to hisside and bends over her as though all the world were wrapped up in thisdainty little morsel of womanhood. Suddenly the great train beginsslowly to move. Part they must now, though it be only for a time. Hefolds her quickly, unresisting, to his breast. The sweet blue eyes beginto fill.

  "My darling,--my little Nannie," he whispers, as his lips kiss away thegathering tears. "There is just an instant. What is it you tell me youhave kept for me?"

  "This," she answers, shyly placing in his hand a little packet wrappedin tissue-paper. "Don't look at it yet! Wait!--But--I wanted to sendit--the very next day, Philip."

  Slowly he turns her blushing face until he can look into her eyes. Theglory in his proud, joyous gaze is a delight to see. "My own littlegirl," he whispers, as his lips meet hers. "I know it is my love-knot."