"Colonel Whaling's compliments, sir, and could you tell him when Lieutenant Ray will be here?"
The ladies looked up in surprise. The officers—all of whom remembered the name in connection with what had been said by Messrs. Crane, Wilkins, and Gleason himself—listened for his reply. Gleason was quick to note the silence and to divine its cause.
"Give my compliments to the colonel, and say that I do not know. I have not seen or heard—rather, I have not seen Mr. Ray since leaving Kansas City," he replied.
For a moment no one spoke. Then, as the orderly walked away, Mrs. Stannard, coloring slightly, turned full upon the lieutenant. "Mr. Gleason, it seems strange that you should know nothing of Mr. Ray's movements. You are generally well informed, and the major writes me how pleasantly they are looking forward to Ray's coming. You know that out in the regiment they expect him by 'pony express,'" she laughingly said, for the benefit of her silent auditors.
Gleason well divined her object. It was to convey to the garrison officers that Ray was popular among his comrades at the front, however he might be regarded by those at the rear. He had already committed himself in presence of several of those now in the party, and he answered,—
"I'm afraid some people will be disappointed, then. To begin with, there is no way of his reaching the regiment until Truscott and Webb go up with their companies. He could get no farther than Laramie by stage even were he here to try; but he isn't here,—and he isn't likely to be, either."
"Will you tell me why?" asked Mrs. Stannard, paling now, but looking fixedly at him with a gleam in her blue eyes that made him wince.
"Well, I'd rather not go into particulars," he muttered, looking uneasily around.
"Is it illness, Mr. Gleason?"
"No; I don't know that it is."
"Then, for one, I feel confident that he will be here in abundant time to go by first opportunity," she said, with quiet meaning.
"Who may this swell be?" languidly remarked one of the officers, looking down the road towards the gate. All eyes followed his in an instant.
Speeding at easy lope upon a spirited sorrel a horseman came jauntily up the row. The erect carriage, the perfect seat, the ease and grace with which his lithe form swayed with every motion of his steed, all present could see at a glance. Mrs. Stannard rose quickly to her feet; her gaze becoming eager, then joyous.
"Look!" she almost cried. "It's Mr. Ray himself!"
In another minute, throwing himself lightly from the saddle, and tossing the reins to a statuesque orderly, the horseman came beaming through the gate, and Mrs. Stannard, to Miss Sanford's mingled amaze and approbation, was warmly grasping both his hands in hers. Mrs. Truscott, blushing brightly and showing welcome and pleasure in her lovely eyes, but with the reserve of younger wifehood, had held forth one little hand. Then she heard the voluble gush with which Mrs. Turner precipitated herself upon him, and, while he remained captive—as he had to—in that fair matron's hands, laughingly answering her thronging questions, Marion Sanford had her first look at the young officer who had been the subject of such varying report. First impressions are ever strong, and what she saw was this: a lithe, deep-chested, square-shouldered young fellow, with nerve and spring in every motion, standing bare-headed before them with the sunlight dancing on his close-cropped hair and shapely head. His eyes were dark, and heavily shaded with thick brows and long curling lashes, but the eyes brightened with every laughing word,—were full of life and health and straightforwardness and fun. She could not but note how clear and brave and wide-open they were, despite the little wrinkles gathered at the corners and a faint shading underneath. His forehead, what could be seen of it when he tossed aside the dark, wavy "bang" that fell almost as low as her own, was white and smooth, but temples, cheeks, the smooth-shaven jaws, and the round, powerful throat were bronzed and tanned by sun and wind, and his white teeth gleamed all the whiter through the shading of the thick, curling, dark moustache, and the lips that laughed so merrily were soft and pink as any woman's might be; at least they were when he bowed and smiled and spoke her name when introduced to her, and when he nodded companionably to the bowing group of officers, to whom Mrs. Stannard presented him with marked pride, "Mr. Ray—of Ours," but how, for a second, his eye flashed and how rigid a spasm crossed his lips when Gleason's name was mentioned. To him he merely nodded, and instantly turned his back. All this and more Miss Sanford noted by that electric process which was known to women long before lightning was photographed, and enabled the sex to see in a quarter-second intricate details of feminine costume that it would take the nimblest tongue ten minutes to describe. She noticed his dress, so unlike the precise attire of his comrades, who wore, to the uttermost detail, the regulation uniform. He had tossed a broad-brimmed, light-colored scouting hat upon the little grass plat as he entered, and now stood before them in the field rig he so well adorned. A dark-blue, double-breasted, broad-collared flannel shirt, tucked in at the waist in snugly-fitting breeches of Indian-tanned buckskin, while Sioux leggings encased his legs from knee to ankle, and his feet were shod substantially in alligator-skin. Mexican spurs were at his heels; a broad leather belt bristling with cartridges, and supporting knife and revolver, hung at his waist; a red silk handkerchief was loosely knotted at his throat, and soft brown gauntlets covered his hands until they were discarded as he greeted them. If ever man looked the picture of elastic health and vigor it was Mr. Ray. This, then, was something like the cavalry life of which she had heard so much. Marion Sanford, despite Eastern education and refinement, was so unconventional as to find something more attractive in Mr. Ray in this same field rig than in Mr. Gleason in faultlessly accurate uniform.
"Why, Mr. Ray, how very well you look!" was Mrs. Turner's exclamation, "and somebody said you had been ill."
"I? No indeed! I never felt better in my life."
"But where have you been? When did you come? Why didn't you write?" were some among the countless questions thrust upon him.
"I had a few days' delay, you know; came by way of Omaha to see my sister; just arrived at one to-day; left my trunks with the quartermaster at the depot; got into field rig in fifteen minutes; packed my saddle-bags and slung them on Dandy, who has been waiting for me ever since the regiment marched; galloped out here to say good-by to you, and in half an hour I'll be off for Laramie."
"Why, Mr. Ray! What can be the hurry? Why start this evening?"
"Why not?" he laughed. "Dandy and I can reach the Chug and put up with old Phillipse to-night, and gallop on to Laramie to-morrow. Once there, it won't take me long to find my way out to the regiment."
"Why, the whole country is full of Indians!" expostulated Mrs. Stannard. "The major writes in this very letter that no one ventures north of the Platte."
"How did the letter come in, then? and how is communication kept up?" asked the lieutenant, showing his white teeth in his amusement.
"Oh! couriers, of course; but they are half-breeds, and have lived all their life in that country."
"Well, I can wriggle through if they can. One thing is certain, it won't be for lack of trying. So, whatever you may have to send to the major, get ready; the lightning express leaves at 4.30. I must go and report my movements to the commanding officer, and then will come back to you. Is the adjutant here?" he asked, looking around at the party of infantrymen who were standing waiting for a chance to excuse themselves, and leave the ladies to the undisputed possession of their evident favorite. Mr. Warner bowed:
"At your service, Mr. Ray."
"Will you come and present me to the colonel? I will be back in ten minutes, Mrs. Stannard; and, Mrs. Truscott, remember it is over a year since I saw you last,—and you gave me good luck the last time I went out scouting." With that, and a general bow by way of parting courtesy, Mr. Ray took himself and the post adjutant off. For a moment there was silence. Everybody gazed after him except Gleason.
"Isn't that just too characteristic of Mr. Ray for anything?" exclaimed Mrs. Turner. "I
wonder if any other officer would be in such a hurry to risk his scalp in chasing the regiment? You wouldn't, would you, Mr. Gleason?" she added, with the deliberate and mischievous impertinence she knew would sting, and meant should sting, and felt serenely confident that her victim could not resent. He flushed hotly:
"My duties are with my troop, Mrs. Turner, and Mr. Ray's with his. When my troop goes I go with it. When his went—he didn't. That's all there is to it."
"But he couldn't go, Mr. Gleason, as you well know," replied Mrs. Turner; and evidently Mrs. Stannard, too, was eager to ask him what he had to say now about Mr. Ray's staying behind. To tell the truth, he was more dismayed by Ray's appearance than he dare admit even to himself. He was startled. He had grave reason for not wanting to meet him again, and as the officers were scattering he seized a pretext, called to one of them that he wished to speak with him a moment, and hurried away. When Ray returned from the colonel's quarters, he had the field to himself, and that they might have him—their regimental possession—to themselves, Mrs. Stannard begged the younger ladies to usher him into the parlor, where they could be secure against interruption until he had to start.
Gleason's business with his infantry friend was of slight moment, apparently, as he speedily left him and wended his way to the quarters of the commanding officer. Old Colonel Whaling was just coming forth, and they met at the gate.
"You sent me an inquiry a few moments ago, sir, which I could not answer at the time," said the lieutenant, in his blandest manner. "I see that Mr. Ray has arrived to speak for himself. May I ask if he was wanted for anything especial?" And Gleason looked very closely into the grizzled features of the commandant.
"Some letters for him had been sent with my mail—and a telegram. I inferred that he must be coming, and thought you might know. Rather a spirited young fellow he seems to be. I was quite startled at his notion of riding alone in search of the regiment. How soon does he start? I see his horse there yet."
"He spoke of going in a few moments, sir. You see we have been so much accustomed to this sort of thing in Arizona that there is nothing unusual in it to us. Still, I hardly expected Mr. Ray would be going—or rather—there were some matters which he left unsettled that I supposed would prevent his going. You didn't happen to notice where his letters were from, I suppose?" asked the lieutenant, tentatively.
The colonel would have colored had he been younger, but his grizzled old face had long since lost its capacity for blushing. He felt that it grew hot, however, and Gleason's insinuation cut, as Gleason knew it would. Old Whaling was morbidly inquisitive as to the correspondence of his officers, and could rarely resist the temptation of studying postmarks, seals, superscription, and general features of all letters that came through his hands.
"Not—not especially," he stammered.
Gleason saw his advantage and pursued it. He spoke with all apparent hesitancy and proper regret.
"I feared that he might have been recalled, or his going arrested by orders from division headquarters, or from Fort Leavenworth. Some things with regard to the purchase of one lot of horses, of which I disapproved, were being looked into when I came away, and when——Well, colonel, it is against the rule of our regiment, to talk to outsiders of one another" ("Like—ahem!" was old Whaling's muttered comment as he recalled what he had heard of Gleason's revelations at the store), "and I would not allude to this but that, as commanding officer, you will be sure to hear of it all. You see the principal dealer with whom we did business is a brother-in-law of Mr. Ray's,—a fellow named Rallston,—and some of his horses wouldn't pass muster anywhere; but—well, Ray was with him day after day, and kept aloof from Buxton and myself, and there was some money transaction between them, and there's been a row. At the last moment Rallston came to me to complain that he had been cheated, and what I'm afraid of is that Ray promised to secure the acceptance of a lot of worthless horses by the board for some five hundred dollars cash advanced him by Rallston. He was hot about it, and swore he would bring matters to General Sheridan's notice instantly. That is what made me so guarded in the reply I sent you. I owe you this explanation, colonel, but trust you will consider it confidential."
Whaling looked greatly discomposed but unquestionably interested. He eyed Gleason sharply and took it all in without a word.
"I thought some of his letters might have been from Leavenworth," said Gleason, after a pause.
"One of them was,—that is, I think I saw the office mark,—but nothing official has reached me on the matter. I'm sorry to hear it, very; for both your colonel and Major Stannard spoke in highest terms of Mr. Ray when they were here."
"Oh, Ray has done good service and all that sort of thing, but when a fellow of his age gets going downhill with debts and drinking and cards—well, you know how it has been in your own regiment, colonel."
"He don't look like a drinking man," said the colonel. "I never saw clearer eyes or complexion in any fellow."
"Ye-es; he looks unusually well just now."
And just at that moment as they stood there talking of him, Mrs. Stannard's door opened and he came forth, the three ladies following. He did look well,—more than well, as he turned with extended hand to say good-by. "Dandy," his lithe-limbed sorrel, pricked up his dainty, pointed ears and whinnied eagerly as he heard his step on the piazza, giving himself a shake that threatened the dislocation of his burden of blankets, canteen, and saddle-bags. The ladies surrounded him at the gate. Mrs. Stannard's kind blue eyes were moistening. How often had she said good-by to the young fellows starting out as buoyantly as Ray to-day, thinking as she did so of the mothers and sisters at home! How often had it happened that they came back maimed, pallid, suffering, or—not at all! She had always liked Ray, he was so frank, so loyal, so true, and more than ever she liked now to show her friendship and regard since he had been slandered. Mrs. Truscott and Miss Sanford stood with arms entwined about each other's waist,—the sweetest and best of them have that innate, inevitable coquetry,—and Mrs. Stannard bent forward to rearrange the silken knot at his throat, giving it an approving pat as she surveyed the improvement. Ray smiled his thanks.
"Do you remember the night at Sandy, Mrs. Truscott, the last scout we started out on, and how you came to see us off and wish me good luck?"
"As well as though it were only yesterday," she answered.
"We had good luck. It was one of the best scouts ever made from Sandy, and the Apaches caught it heavily. It was a success all through except our—our losing Tanner and Kerrigan. Jack's hit was to be envied."
She shuddered and drew closer to Miss Sanford's side.
"Oh, Mr. Ray! I cannot bear to think of that fight. I won't wish you good luck again. You always expect it to mean unlimited meetings with the Indians. I pray you may not see one."
"Then I appeal to you, Miss Sanford. Shall I confess that your name is one I have envied for the last five years? No, don't be amazed! We Kentuckians always associate it now with two of our grandest horses,—Monarchist and Harry Bassett. Why, I'm going to ride the old Sanford colors myself this summer. See,—the dark blue?" he laughed, pointing to his breast.
"Then you should be among the first coming home," she answered, brightly, "and that isn't your custom, I'm told."
"But in this case the whole regiment will be wearing the dark blue; so there will be no distinction. I won't beg for a ribbon. It's bad luck. I stole the tassel of Miss Pelham's fan in Arizona and wore it on the next dash; we never saw an Indian, and she married a fellow who stayed at home. All the same, Miss Sanford, if you hear of the —th doing anything especially lively this summer, remember that one fellow in the crowd rides his best to win for the sake of your colors. Au revoir. Come, Dandy, you scamp; now for a scamper to the Chug."
He sprang lightly into saddle, waved his hat to them, then bent low, as by sudden impulse, and held out his hand.
"God bless you, Mrs. Stannard!" he said; and looking at her in half surprise, they saw her eyes were brimming with tear
s.
Another moment and he had turned Dandy's head to the west, and was tripping up the road past the adjutant's office. They saw him raise his gauntleted hand in salute to the post commander, and heard his voice call out, ringingly, "Good-day, colonel." They saw that between him and Mr. Gleason no sign of recognition passed, and they stood in silence watching him until, turning out at the west gate, he struck a lope and disappeared behind the band quarters, out on the open prairie.
When Mr. Gleason touched his cap to the colonel and started to rejoin the ladies, they saw him coming. Nobody said a word, but the three ladies re-entered the house, Mrs. Truscott last; but it was Mrs. Stannard who turned back in the hall and shut the door. When Gleason reached the front gate he concluded not to enter, but went on down the row.
* * *
CHAPTER X.
A JUNE SUNDAY.
It is a cloudless Sunday morning, the longest Sunday in that month of longest days, warm, balmy, rose-bearing June. Only a few hours' high is the blazing god of day, but his beams beat fiercely down on a landscape wellnigh as arid as the Arizona our troopers knew so well. Not a breath of air is stirring. Down in the shallow valley to the right, where the cottonwoods are blistering beside the sandy stream-bed, a faint column of smoke rises straight as the stem of a pine-tree until it melts into indistinguishable air. The sandy waste goes twisting and turning in its fringe of timber southeastward along a broad depression in the face of the land, until twenty odd miles away it seems brought up standing by a barrier of rugged hills that dip into the bare surface at the south, and go rising and falling, rolling and tumbling, higher and raggeder, to the north. All the intervening stretches are bare, tawny, sun-scorched, except those fringing cottonwoods. All those tumbling heights are dark and frowning through their beards of gloomy larch and pine. Black they stand against the eastern sky, from the jagged summits at the south to where the northernmost peak,—the Inyan Kara,—the Heengha-Kaaga of the Sioux, stands sentinel over the sisterhood slumbering at her feet. These are the Black Hills of Dakota, as we see them from the breaks of the Mini Pusa, a long day's march to the west. Here to our right, southeastward, rolls the powdery flood of the South Cheyenne, when earlier in the season the melting snows go trickling down the hill-sides. But to-day only in dry and waving ripples of sand can we trace its course. If you would see the water, dig beneath the surface. Here behind us rolls another sandy stream, dry as its Dakota name implies,—Mini Pusa: Dry Water,—and to our right and rear is their sandy confluence. Southward, almost to the very horizon, in waves and rolls and ridges, bare of trees, void of color, the earth unfolds before the eye, while, as though to relieve the strain of gazing over the expanse so illimitable in its monotony, a blue line of cliffs and crags stretches across the sky line for many degrees. Beyond that, out of sight to the southeast, lies the sheltered, fertile valley of the upper White Earth River; and there are the legal homes of thousands of the "nation's wards," the bands of the Dakotas—Ogallalla and Brulé, led by Red Cloud and Spotted Tail. There, too, are clothed and fed and cared for a thousand odd Cheyennes. Just over that ridge at its western end, where it seems to blend into the general surface of upland prairie, a faint blue peak leaps up into the heated air,—"Old Rawhide,"—the landmark of the region. Farther off, southwestward, still another peak rises blue and pale against the burning distance. 'Tis far across the Platte, a good hundred miles away. Plainsmen to this day call it Larmie in that iconoclastic slaughter of every poetic title that is their proud characteristic. All over our grand continent it is the same. The names, musical, sonorous, or descriptive, handed down as the heritage of the French missionaries, the Spanish explorers, or the aboriginal owners, are all giving way to that democratic intolerance of foreign title which is the birthright of the free-born American. What name more grandly descriptive could discoverer have given to the rounded, gloomy crest in the southern sierras, bald at the crown, fringed with its circling pines,—what better name than Monte San Matéo—Saint Matthew,—he of the shaven poll?
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