So that evening brought release that, in itself, brought much relief to the commanding officer and the friends who still stood by him.
Thirty-six hours now had Natzie been a prisoner behind the bars, and no one of those we know had seen her face. At tattoo the drums and fifes began their sweet, old-fashioned soldier tunes. The guard turned out; the officer of the day buckled his belt with a sigh and started forth to inspect, just as the foremost soldiers appeared on the porch in front, buttoning their coats and adjusting their belts and slings. Half their number began to form ranks; the other half "stood by," within the main room, to pass out the prisoners, many of whom wore a clanking chain. All on a sudden there arose a wild clamor—shouts, scuffling, the thunder of iron upon resounding woodwork, hoarse orders, curses, shrieks, a yell for help, a shot, a mad scurry of many feet, furious cries of "Head 'em off!" "Shoot!" "No, no, don't shoot! You'll kill our own!" A dim cloud of ghostly, shadowy forms went tearing away down the slope toward the south. There followed a tremendous rush of troop after troop, company after company,—the whole force of Camp Sandy in uproarious pursuit,—until in the dim starlight the barren flats below the post, the willow patches along the stream, the plashing waters of the ford, the still and glassy surface of the shadowy pool, were speedily all alive with dark and darting forms intermingled in odd confusion. From the eastward side, from officers' row, Plume and his white-coated subordinates hastened to the southward face, realizing instantly what must have occurred—the long-prophesied rush of Apache prisoners for freedom. Yet how hopeless, how mad, how utterly absurd was the effort! What earthly chance had they—poor, manacled, shackled, ball-burdened wretches—to escape from two hundred fleet-footed, unhampered, stalwart young soldiery, rejoicing really in the fun and excitement of the thing? One after another the shackled fugitives were run down and overhauled, some not half across the parade, some in the shadows of the office and storehouses, some down among the shrubbery toward the lighted store, some among the shanties of Sudsville, some, lightest weighted of all, far away as the lower pool, and so one after another, the grimy, sullen, swarthy lot were slowly lugged back to the unsavory precincts wherein, for long weeks and months, they had slept or stealthily communed through the hours of the night. Three or four had been cut or slashed. Three or four soldiers had serious hurts, scratches or bruises as their fruits of the affray. But after all, the malefactors, miscreants, and incorrigibles of the Apache tribe had profited little by their wild and defiant essay—profited little, that is, if personal freedom was what they sought.
But was it? said wise heads of the garrison, as they looked the situation over. Shannon and some of his ilk were doing much independent trailing by aid of their lanterns. Taps should have been sounded at ten, but wasn't by any means, for "lights out" was the last thing to be thought of. Little by little it dawned upon Plume and his supporters that, instead of scattering, as Indian tactics demanded on all previous exploits of the kind, there had been one grand, concerted rush to the southward—planned, doubtless, for the purpose of drawing the whole garrison thither in pursuit, while three pairs of moccasined feet slipped swiftly around to the rear of the guard-house, out beyond the dim corrals, and around to a point back of "C" Troop stables, where other little hoofs had been impatiently tossing up the sands until suddenly loosed and sent bounding away to where the North Star hung low over the sheeny white mantle of San Francisco mountain. Natzie, the girl queen, was gone from the guard-house: Punch, the Lady Angela's pet pony, was gone from the corral, and who would say there had not been collusion?
"One thing is certain," said the grave-faced post commander, as, with his officers, he left the knot of troopers and troopers' wives hovering late about the guard-house, "one thing is certain; with Wren's own troopers hot on the heels of Angela's pony we'll have our Apache princess back, sure as the morning sun."
"Like hell!" said Mother Shaughnessy.
Chapter XXVI - "Woman-Walk-No-More"
*
More morning suns than could be counted in the field of the flag had come, and gone, but not a sign of Natzie. Wren's own troopers, hot on Punch's flashing heels, were cooling their own as best they could through the arid days that followed. Wren himself was now recovered sufficiently to be told of much that had been going on,—not all,—and it was Angela who constantly hovered about him, for Janet was taking a needed rest. Blakely, too, was on the mend, sitting up hours of every day and "being very lovely" in manner to all the Sanders household, for thither had he demanded to be moved even sooner than it was prudent to move him at all. Go he would, and Graham had to order it. Pat Mullins was once again "for duty." Even Todd, the bewildered victim of Natzie's knife, was stretching his legs on the hospital porch. There had come a lull in all martial proceedings at the post, and only two sensations. One of these latter was the formal investigation by the inspector general of the conditions surrounding the stabbing at Camp Sandy of Privates Mullins and Todd of the —th U. S. Cavalry. The other was the discovery, one bright, brilliant, winter morning that Natzie's friend and savior, Angela's Punch, was back in his stall, looking every bit as saucy and "fit" as ever he did in his life. What surprised many folk in the garrison was that it surprised Angela not at all. "I thought Punch would come back," said she, in demure unconcern, and the girls at least, began to understand, and were wild to question. Only Kate Sanders, however, knew how welcome was the pet pony's coming. But what had come that was far from welcome was a coldness between Angela and Kate Sanders.
Byrne himself had arrived, and the "inquisition" had begun. No examinations under oath, no laborious recordings of question and answer, no crowd of curious listeners. The veteran inspector took each man in turn and heard his tale and jotted down his notes, and, where he thought it wise, cross-questioned over and again. One after another, Truman and Todd, Wren and Mullins, told their stories, bringing forth little that was new beyond the fact that Todd was sure it was Elise he heard that night "jabbering with Downs" on Blakely's porch. Todd felt sure that it was she who brought him whisky, and Byrne let him prattle on. It was not evidence, yet it might lead the way to light. In like manner was Mullins sure now "'Twas two ladies" stabbed him when he would have striven to stop the foremost. Byrne asked did he think they were ladies when first he set eyes on them, and Pat owned up that he thought it was some of the girls from Sudsville; it might even be Norah as one of them, coming home late from the laundresses' quarters, and trying to play him a trick. He owned to it that he grabbed the foremost, seeing at that moment no other, and thinking to win the forfeit of a kiss, and Byrne gravely assured him 'twas no shame in it, so long as Norah never found it out.
But Byrne asked Plume two questions that puzzled and worried him greatly. How much whisky had he missed? and how much opium could have been given him the night of Mrs. Plume's unconscious escapade? The major well remembered that his demijohn had grown suddenly light, and that he had found himself surprisingly heavy, dull, and drowsy. The retrospect added to his gloom and depression. Byrne had not reoccupied his old room at Plume's, now that madame and Elise were once more under the major's roof, and even in extending the customary invitation, Plume felt confident that Byrne could not and should not accept. The position he had taken with regard to Elise, her ladyship's companion and confidante, was sufficient in itself to make him, in the eyes of that lady, an unacceptable guest, but it never occurred to her, although it had to Plume, that there might be even deeper reasons. Then, too, the relations between the commander and the inspector, although each was scrupulously courteous, were now necessarily strained. Plume could not but feel that his conduct of post affairs was in a measure a matter of scrutiny. He knew that his treatment of Natzie was disapproved by nine out of ten of his command. He felt, rather than knew, that some of his people had connived at her escape, and though that escape had been a relief to everybody at Sandy, the manner of her taking off was to him a mystery and a rankling sore.
Last man to be examined was Blakely, and now indeed there was li
ght. He had been sitting up each day for several hours; his wounds were healing well; the fever and prostration that ensued had left him weak and very thin and pale, but he had the soldier's best medicine—the consciousness of duties thoroughly and well performed. He knew that, though Wren might carry his personal antipathy to the extent of official injustice, as officers higher in rank than Wren have been known to do, the truth concerning the recent campaign must come to light, and his connection therewith be made a matter of record, as it was already a matter of fact. Wren had not yet submitted his written report. Wren and the post commander were still on terms severely official; but, to the few brother officers with whom the captain talked at all upon the stirring events through which he and his troop had so recently passed, he had made little mention of Blakely. Not so, however, the men; not so Wales Arnold, the ranchman. To hear these worthies talk, the Bugologist, next to "Princess Natzie," was the central figure of the Red Rock campaign—the one officer, "where all had done so well," whose deeds merited conspicuous mention. Byrne knew this better than Wren. Plume knew it not as well as Byrne, perhaps. Sanders, Lynn, and Duane had heard the soldier stories in a dozen ways, and it stung them that their regimental comrade should so doggedly refuse to open his lips and give Blakely his due. It is not silence that usually hurts a man, it is speech; yet here was a case to the contrary.
Now just in proportion as the Wrens would have nothing to say in praise of Blakely, the Sanders household would have nothing but praise to say. Kate's honest heart was hot with anger at Angela, because the girl shrank from the subject as she would from evil speaking, lying, and slandering, and here again, to paraphrase the Irishman, too much heat had produced the coldness already referred to. Sanders scoffed at the idea of Natzie's infatuation being sufficient ground for family ostracism. "If there is a man alive who owes more than Wren does to Blakely, I'm a crab," said he, "and as soon as he's well enough to listen to straight talk he'll get it from me." "If there's a girl in America as heartless as Angela Wren," said Mrs. Sanders, "I hope I never shall have to meet her." But then Mrs. Sanders, as we know, had ever been jealous of Angela on account of her own true-hearted Kate, who refused to say one word on the subject beyond what she said to Angela herself. And now they had propped their patient in his reclining-chair and arranged the little table for "the inquisitor general," as Mrs. Bridger preferred to refer to him, and left them alone together behind closed doors, and had then gone forth to find that all Camp Sandy seemed to wait with bated breath for the outcome of that interview.
Sooner than was believed possible it came. An hour, probably, before they thought the colonel could have gathered all he wished to know, that officer was on the front piazza and sending an orderly to the adjutant's office. Then came Major Plume, with quick and nervous step. There was a two-minute conference on the piazza; then both officers vanished within, were gone five minutes, and then Plume reappeared alone, went straight to his home, and slammed the door behind him, a solecism rarely known at Sandy, and presently on the hot and pulseless air there arose the sound of shrill protestation in strange vernacular. Even Wren heard the voice, and found something reminiscent in the sound of weeping and wailing that followed. The performer was unquestionably Elise—she that had won the ponderous, yet descriptive, Indian name "Woman-Walk-in-the-Night."
And while this episode was still unexpired the orderly went for Lieutenant Truman, and Truman, with two orderlies, for a box, a bulky little chest, strapped heavily with iron, and this they lugged into Sanders's hall and came out heated and mystified. Three hours later, close-veiled and in droopy desolation, "Mademoiselle Lebrun" was bundled into a waiting ambulance and started under sufficient escort, and the care of the hospital matron, en route for Prescott, while Dr. Graham was summoned to attend Mrs. Plume, and grimly went. "The mean part of the whole business," said Mrs. Bridger, "is that nobody knows what it means." There was no one along the line, except poor Mrs. Plume, to regret that sudden and enforced departure, but there was regret universal all over the post when it was learned, still later in the afternoon, that one of the best soldiers and sergeants in the entire garrison had taken the horse of one of the herd guard and galloped away on the trail of the banished one. Sergeant Shannon, at sunset parade, was reported absent without leave.
Major Plume had come forth from his quarters at the sounding of the retreat, accurately dressed as ever, white-gloved, and wearing his saber. He seemed to realize that all eyes would be upon him. He had, indeed, been tempted again to turn over the command to the senior captain, but wisely thought better of it, and determined to face the music. He looked very sad and gray, however. He returned scrupulously the salute of the four company commanders as, in turn, each came forward to report the result of the evening roll-call; Cutler and Westervelt first, their companies being the nearest, then Lieutenant Lynn, temporarily in charge of Wren's troop, its captain and first lieutenant being still "on sick report." The sight of this young officer set the major to thinking of that evening not so many moons agone when Captain Wren himself appeared and in resonant, far-carrying tone announced "Lieutenant Blakely, sir, is absent." He had been thinking much of Blakely through the solemn afternoon, as he wandered nervously about his darkened quarters, sometimes tiptoeing to the bedside of his feebly moaning, petulant wife, sometimes pacing the library and hall. He had been again for half an hour closeted with Byrne and the Bugologist, certain letters being under inspection. He hardly heard the young officer, Lynn, as he said "Troop 'C,' all present, sir." He was looking beyond him at Captain Sanders, coming striding over the barren parade, with import in his eye. Plume felt that there was trouble ahead before ever Sanders reached the prescribed six paces, halted, raised his hand in salute, and, just as did Wren on that earlier occasion, announced in tones intended to be heard over and beyond the post commander: "Sergeant Shannon, sir, with one government horse, absent without leave."
Plume went a shade white, and bit his lips before he could steady himself to question. Well he knew that this new devilment was due in some way to that spirit of evil so long harbored by his wife, and suffered by himself. All the story of the strife she had stirred in the garrison had reached him days before. Downs's drunkenness and desertion, beyond doubt, were chargeable to her, as well as another and worse crime, unless all indications were at fault. Then there was the breach between Carmody and Shannon, formerly stanch friends and comrades, and now Carmody lay buried beneath the rocks in Bear Cañon, and Shannon, as gallant and useful a sergeant as ever served, had thrown to the winds his record of the past and his hopes for the future, and gone in mad pursuit of a worthless hoyden. And all because Clarice would have that woman with her wherever she might go.
"When did this happen?" he presently asked.
"Just after stable call, sir. The horses were all returned to the corral except the herd guard's. The men marched over, as usual, with their halters. Shannon fell out as they entered the gate, took young Bennett's rein as he stood ready to lead in after them, mounted and rode round back of the wall, leaving Bennett so surprised that he didn't know what to say. He never suspected anything wrong until Shannon failed to reappear. Then he followed round back of the corral, found the sergeant's stable frock lying halfway out toward the bluff, and saw a streak of dust toward Bowlder Point. Then he came and reported."
Plume, after a moment's silence, turned abruptly. He had suffered much that day, and to think of his wife lying stricken and whimpering, professing herself a sorely injured woman because compelled at last to part with her maid, angered him beyond the point of toleration. Tossing his saber to the China boy, he went straightway aloft, failing to note in the dim light that two soft-hearted sympathizers were cooing by the gentle sufferer's side.
"Well, Clarice," he broke in abruptly, "we are never to hear the end of that she-cat's doings! My best sergeant has stolen a horse and gone galloping after her." It is always our best we lose when our better half is to blame, nor is it the way of brutal man to minimize the calamity on su
ch occasions. It did not better matters that her much-wronged ladyship should speedily reply: "It's a wonder you don't charge the Indian outbreak to poor Elise. I don't believe she had a thing to do with your sergeant's stealing."
"You wouldn't believe she stole my whisky and gave it to Downs, though you admitted she told you she had to go back that night for something she'd dropped. You wouldn't believe she married that rascally gambler at St. Louis before her first husband was out of the way! You shielded and swore by her, and brought her out here, and all the time the proofs were here in Blakely's hands. It was she, I suppose, who broke off—"
But here, indeed, was it high time to break off. The visitors were now visibly rising in all proper embarrassment, for Mrs. Plume had started up, with staring eyes. "Proofs!" she cried, "in Blakely's hands! Why, she told me—my own letters!—my—" And then brutal man was brought to his senses and made to see how heartless and cruel was his conduct, for Mrs. Plume went into a fit and Mrs. Lynn for the doctor.
That was a wild night at Sandy. Two young matrons had made up their minds that it was shameful to leave poor Mrs. Plume without anybody to listen to her, when she might so long for sympathetic hearers, and have so much to tell. They had entered as soon as the major came forth and, softly tapping at the stricken one's door, had been with her barely five minutes when he came tearing back, and all this tremendous scene occurred before they could put in a word to prevent, which, of course, they were dying to do. But what hadn't they heard in that swift moment! Between the two of them—and Mrs. Bridger was the other—their agitation was such that it all had to be told. Then, like the measles, one revelation led to another, but it was several days before the garrison settled down in possession of an array of facts sufficient to keep it in gossip for many a month. Meanwhile, many a change had come over the scene.
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