In brief, it was about as follows: He was mad with rage at the treatment he had received at the hands of Lieutenant Gleason, and at a deed of his which he would not detail,—Lieutenant Ray knew, and that was enough. He himself had only one thought,—to follow at once on the trail, to find him alone if possible, and to compel him to fight him as gentlemen fought, à outrance, in the old country. He took Ray's pistol, and after getting some papers and some clothing he needed from the band barracks, he went to the stables, raised the shutter, and crept into the window of the stall which held his horse, led him noiselessly out over the earthen floor to the rear entrance, which was easily opened from the inside, and long before dawn was on the road to Fetterman, in pursuit of the stage. He had no fear of ranch people betraying him as a deserter. They knew nothing but what he was carrying despatches. He had received plenty of money but a short time before through friends in Dresden; he hoped to secure fresh horses, and overtake the stage before it reached a ranch where they stopped for meals several hours south of Fetterman. His plan was wild and impracticable, enough to throw doubts on his sanity, but he only thought of revenge, he said; he was determined to waylay Gleason and force him to fight. But his plan failed. His horse gave out long before he could get another; he left him at a cattle ranch finally, and went ahead on a borrowed "plug," but to no purpose. Gleason reached Fetterman ahead of him, and by the time he neared there he knew that his desertion had been telegraphed. Still he thought to follow as a scout or teamster, and bought rough canvas and woolen clothing; hung around the neighborhood, but avoided all soldiers; learned of Gleason's going with Webb, and actually crossed the Platte and followed on their trail, until he met him coming back at the head of the little escort. Keeping his eager lookout far ahead, he had easily hidden himself and his horse where he could watch them as they went by, and had recognized his victim, turned on his tracks, and once more trailed him back; had lost him and followed the wrong "buckboard" from Fetterman, and had gone towards Rock Creek before he found out that Gleason went by way of Fort Laramie. A countryman going in to Laramie City had taken, some days previous, the note with its enclosure to Ray,—he could not steal, he said, and at last, having recovered his horse, he returned by night to Cheyenne, easily learned of Lieutenant Gleason's presence at Russell, and that very night rode out across the prairie, tied his gray to a post near the northeast corner of the hospital enclosure, and stole to Gleason's back-yard. Not for an instant had he ever flinched in his purpose. He knew the lieutenant was officer of the day, and that he would be out to visit his sentries after midnight; but it occurred to him he would have no weapon but the sabre, and he meant to offer him fair fight. A light was burning in the rear room. He peeped through the blinds and saw him undressing as though to go to bed. He could wait no longer. He opened the kitchen door, which Shea had left unlocked, entered the house, and rapped at Gleason's door. The lieutenant supposed it to be Shea, probably, and opened it himself. "Behold the man you have outraged, I said. I give you one instant only to get your pistol. We fight here to the death. He sprang back, still facing me; he was livid with fear; he called for help, help! he ordered me to leave, he was a craven and would not fight; he called louder, and then I fired; he gave a scream and fell towards me on his face. I had hurled my gauntlet at him as I challenged, but there was no time to pick it up. I turned and fled. Some one seized me at the back gate, but I hurled him aside and ran on tiptoe to my horse. I heard voices coming, but no one could hear me. I led my horse some distance; then mounted and galloped madly this way. Near town he stumbled, fell, and rolled on me, and I knew no more till I heard them say he was dead and that the Herr Lieutenant had killed him. Then I strove to escape, and we had a fearful fight. They overcame and drugged me, I think, but again I came to, and begged to be let to see you. They keep me for the reward, perhaps, but they see me dying, and the police come at last."
In the solemn hush of the darkened room, far from the land where he had been known and loved, where doubtless his gifts had been valued, and his life, until wrecked by that duel, was honored, the Saxon soldier lay breathing his last. Mad or sane, there was no one there to rightly judge. The one trait that shone to the end was the strong love of the profession which he could have adorned so well. His glazing eyes looked wistfully into Ray's pale face; his tremulous hand sought that of the young officer, who knelt there by his side; in faint, broken accents he spoke his last earthly plea:
"I was a gentleman once, Herr Lieutenant. I am soldier—even now. You are the soldier the men all love. May I not take your hand?"
* * *
CHAPTER XXVII.
VINDICATED.
Life at Russell had lost for the time being so much of its customary gayety as to warrant Mrs. Turner's discontented descriptive of "poky." With all but three or four officers absent on campaign; without even letters or news from them; with Mr. Gleason's tragic fate and Mr. Ray's romantic and mysterious connection therewith, there was too much of solemn and shudder-inspiring element in the daily talk to render conversation at all cheerful. All sorts of odd things had happened since the death of that deserter, Wolf, and Mrs. Turner was at her wit's end to make her conclusions fit together. She had by no means ceased to jump,—that saltatory satisfaction at least remained to her,—but she missed the mark so often as to seriously impair, for a while at least, her confidence in her theories, and nothing but a series of serious shocks could have achieved that result. She, too, had her sorrows, poor lady, for her regimental companions in number eleven had shunned her society to such an extent as to set the whole garrison talking about it, though it took very little to accomplish that.
To begin with, Mrs. Truscott rarely went out at all, and had denied herself to visitors on many occasions. Mrs. Stannard and Marion were all the companions she cared to see much of, though, to Mrs. Turner's incredulous wrath, Mrs. Wilkins was admitted on the very days when she, herself, had called and penetrated no farther than the parlor. Mrs. Wilkins had enjoyed—we use the term advisedly—a furious quarrel with the wife of the commanding officer, and had driven that exemplary and forgiving woman from the field in utter dismay. There had been no love lost between them from the first, but Mrs. Wilkins had hotly resented Mrs. Whaling's lamentations over Ray's prospective conviction and his undeniable guilt, and had given the venerable black silk a dusting the very day that Ray was carried off to prison. Then came the electrifying intelligence that Wolf's dying confession had completely exonerated Ray, and both Mrs. Whaling and Mrs. Turner had flown to Mrs. Stannard to assure her that neither one of them could have believed in his guilt had it not been for the other. Mrs. Whaling was positive that she had never spoken of him except in the love and charity she would have used towards her own son, and nothing but Mrs. Turner's accounts of his wildness and dissipation would have shaken her faith in him for a moment. She had always admired his frank and fearless character, and so had "the general," who was heart-broken to think he had been so outrageously imposed upon by Ray's enemies. Mrs. Turner vowed that she had really loved Mr. Ray like a brother, but that Mrs. Whaling had told her of the positive evidence the general had against him, and so what could she think? Mrs. Stannard listened to both with uncompromising and decidedly chilling silence, and each withdrew discomfited.
Colonel Rand spent much of the morning after Wolf's revelation in overhauling papers with Colonel Whaling, but his visit to the ladies at number eleven was of unusual length and cordiality. He left only in time to see Ray and Blake a few moments in town before taking the eastern train. It had been Mrs. Stannard's intention to drive thither to call on Mrs. Rallston, but she was too late. Mr. Green's telegraphic message from Denver had warned him that Rallston was delirious with fever, and after the rapturous interview between brother and sister that followed upon his return from Wolf's bedside, Ray had gently broken the news to her of her husband's illness, and before the coming of train time on the following day Rand had obtained telegraphic authority for him to escort her to, and remain with her in, Den
ver. His release by the civil authorities would have had about it something of the nature of an ovation, when at noon on that day the full details of Wolf's confession were "spread upon the records," but by ingeniously circulating the story that he would return to the fort at sunset, Blake managed to throw the public off the track. His arrest was suspended by the telegram from division headquarters. Rand was ordered to come thither at once with his documentary proofs of the falsity of the charges against Ray, and the latter went quietly off to Denver with a ten days' leave, conducting his sister to her husband's bedside. He saw no one at Russell before going, but we have reason to believe that the plethoric missive he sent to Mrs. Stannard derived much of its bulk from an enclosure that was not meant for her eyes at all, and Blake went back to Russell to the lionizing he deserved.
But the gloom at the garrison was dispelled perforce by the arrival of troop after troop, company after company, from east, west, and south, fast as cars could carry them,—all bound for the Black Hills to meet and support Crook, who was reported fighting his way southward through unknown regions and unknown numbers of the red men. Nothing had been heard even by telegraph from the —th from any source whatever since the steamer came down to Bismarck with sick and wounded, and the news that they had pushed out again for the Little Missouri country the last of August, and here it was beyond mid September. A whole regiment of cavalry encamped for a day or two on the prairie, then marched northward. Natty artillerymen from San Francisco dropped in to pay their respects on their way to "the Hills;" not a day passed without the arrival of strange officers, scores of men, and squadrons of horses. Russell had suddenly blossomed into first rank as a great supply depot, and in all the excitement of greeting the new-comers, and sending messages and missives to the dear ones at the front, the pall of tragedy was lifted from the post. Gleason and Wolf were, alike, wellnigh forgotten.
And then with sudden thrill the news tore through the post, and flashed over the wires in every direction, that a courier had ridden down from the northern limits of the hills bringing despatches from Crook, and announcing that, though half starved, ragged, and practically dismounted, the followers of the Gray Fox had reached the Belle Fourche, and would soon be able to push on to the agencies. They had dashed upon the Sioux villages at Slim Buttes, capturing hundreds of their fat ponies (and greedily eating many of them that very night), had found the lodges crammed with the spoil of the Custer battle, had killed several warriors and burned every ounce of Indian stores or provisions they could not use, and had two days' ringing, spirited fighting with Crazy Horse and his charging hosts among the fog wreaths and dripping crags of those strange, picturesque upheavals; then burying their dead and bringing away their wounded, they were once more within reach of supplies, though it might be weeks before they could come home. "Another battle and we not there," was Blake's sympathetic despatch to Ray at Denver; but now the last seemed to be recorded. Another week and letters might be expected. Another fortnight and it was known that all the forces were concentrating at Red Cloud to disarm the disaffected bands near the agencies. And then Blake and Ray, too, had both sped northward again to join their regiment. Ray's affairs had been summarily settled in this wise.
Rallston's illness had been severe, and Ray and Nell had been constantly at his side. When the fever broke and consciousness returned, and the patient realized where he was and who were his nurses, the man's remorse and shame were something pitiable. Of him, as an impartial historian, it is difficult to write, since long association with Stannard had forcibly impressed his views as to Rallston's character. Perhaps we were as reluctant to hear of his subsequent behavior and to believe in his contrition as Mrs. Whaling with all her meek and lowly piety was to conceive of Ray's innocence of the various charges laid at his door; but, in the absence of proof to the contrary, we simply place before the patient reader Nellie Ray Rallston's own statement: that her husband emerged from that trying illness a very different man, that he humbly begged Will's forgiveness and hers, and that when he was well enough to be moved home he had grown so fond of Will that he could not bear to have him out of his sight, and that he was rejoiced when orders came for Will to go to Chicago, as it enabled him to travel with them as far as Omaha. But you must remember, we feel bound to say, that she was of that loyal loving Kentucky nature—singularly like her brother for that matter—that having once given itself in its entirety to the service of lover or friend, is apt to stick to it through thick and thin. We may be pardoned—we worldlings—for doubting as yet the depth and sincerity of Rallston's repentance. "When the devil was ill, the devil a saint would be," etc. You know the application; but, for the time being, Mrs. Rallston went home happier than she had been for ages.
And Ray went on to division headquarters at Chicago, wondering what on earth was up now. He was still on leave, still clamoring to be tried, that he might be cleared of those charges and allowed to rejoin his regiment. His wound had healed, though he was still thin and worn, and he could not bear to think that there might be any more fighting for the dear old —th and he not there.
But Rand had taken Rallston's letters and some other papers with him to Chicago, as directed, and the commanding general had seen in less than no time what an outrageous case had been built up against a young officer whose record up to date had been one that appealed to all his sympathies. Ever since that daring night ride Ray had been an object of the liveliest interest to the general,—himself the cavalry leader par excellence of his day,—and when Rand laid before him all the papers in the case there was an eruption that made the rafters ring.
But when it came to cooling down and acting on the case, much as the general might think Ray deserved a triumphant vindication at the hands of a court, there were a dozen things to make it impracticable. To begin with, the court had been ordered before it looked so black for Crook's command and the Black Hills settlers, and all those infantry officers who were on the original detail were now plodding up to Red Cloud. The division was wellnigh stripped of everything but staff-officers, and if a court did meet, what a scoring it might give old Whaling and to his own staff-officer, who took all that hearsay talk down around Leavenworth and never gave Ray's friends a chance. It ended in the general's impetuously directing that the court be dissolved, and that Ray be ordered there post-haste. "I'll vindicate him!" he said.
And he did. Ray's pale, anxious face turned all sorts of colors when the general jumped up from his chair and griped his hand like a vise, and looked into his brave young eyes and said things to him that filled them with tears and his soul with confusion. Ray had no words, but his heart was full of a delight that none but soldiers know, and the lionizing he got that day at division headquarters would have spoiled many another fellow. The general could, indeed, "vindicate" him. He showed him the draft of the letters sent to the regiment, and asked with a smile if he didn't think that would do as well as the "not guilty" of a court; and that evening Ray took the westward train so as to stop over in Omaha one night and see Nell, and then hurry on by the Union Pacific to Cheyenne. His heart was bounding with hope, with pride, with gratitude and joy; but through it all there was a sense of something strange and new to him that tempered every feeling of exultation. He had been tried as by fire, and humbled, softened, chastened by the fierceness of the flame. Even bitterness and resentment seemed expelled from his soul. Ray was a changed, a graver man. All that was truthful, gallant, loyal in his nature was there yet, but the recklessness of the past was gone.
Many letters had come to him in the few days he had spent at Denver by Rallston's sick-bed, and while Mrs. Stannard had frequently written to tell him how they all were, and the colonel sent a courteously-worded expression of his regret at the credence he had given to the statements of a brother officer and what he termed the "misunderstandings" of the summer, Ray was most touched at Warner's "solid" and earnest appeal to be regarded as a friend and not as one of the opposition.
He answered promptly and cordially everything M
r. Warner wrote with a single exception. The young adjutant was requested by Colonel Whaling to put in a word or two for the Hibernian quartermaster whom Blake had cut dead, and who was perturbed in spirit over the prospect of being otherwise lacerated when Ray got back. Warner thought that the colonel or the quartermaster himself should make the proper amende in this case, but the latter was a poor hand at epistolary expression, and the former had long been a pronounced adherent of that "divine right of" commanding officers which makes the adjutant the transmitter and medium of all correspondence involving matters of delicate or diplomatic import. If the result be successful, all right. It was written by direction of Colonel So and So, and is presumably his own wording. If it fail, then anybody can see that failure is due solely to the clumsy and blockheaded manipulation of the adjutant.
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