CHAPTER XVII
A RIFLED DESK
Events moved swiftly in the week that followed. Particulars of theaccident to General Field, however, were slow in reaching Fort Frayne;and, to the feverish unrest and mental trouble of the son, was now addeda feverish anxiety on the father's account that so complicated thesituation as to give Dr. Waller grave cause for alarm. Then it was that,ignoring every possible thought of misbehavior on the part of the youngofficer toward the gentle girl so dear to them, not only Mrs. Blake andMrs. Ray, but Mrs. Dade herself, insisted on being made ofuse,--insisted on being permitted to go to his bedside and there tominister, as only women can, to the suffering and distressed. Wallerthought it over and succumbed. The lad was no longer delirious, atleast, and if he revealed anything of what was uppermost in his mind itwould be a conscious and voluntary revelation. There were some things hehad said and that Waller alone had heard, the good old doctor wishedwere known to certain others of the garrison, and to no one more thanMrs. Dade; and so the prohibition against their visiting the wounded ladwas withdrawn, and not only these, but other women, sympatheticallyattracted, were given the necessary authority.
There was other reason for this. From the commanding officer of thesupply camp at Rock Springs had come, finally, a letter that was full offoreboding. General Field, it said, was sorely injured and might notsurvive. If the department commander had only been at Omaha or Cheyenne,as the anxious father hastened to reach his son, the mishap would neverhave occurred. The general would gladly have seen to it that suitabletransportation from the railway to Frayne was afforded his old-timecomrade. But, in his absence, Field shrank from appealing to anyoneelse, and, through the train conductor, wired ahead to Rock Creek for astout four-mule team and wagon, with a capable driver. The conductorassured him that such things were to be had for money, and thateverything would be in readiness on his arrival. Team, wagon and drivercertainly were on hand, but the team looked rickety, so did the wagon,so did the driver, who had obviously been priming for the occasion. Itwas this rig or nothing, however; and, in spite of a courteousremonstrance from the two officers at the supply camp, who saw andcondemned the "outfit," General Field started on time and returned on animprovised trestle three hours later. The "outfit" had been tumbled overa ledge into a rocky creek bottom, and with disastrous results to allconcerned except the one who deserved it most--the driver. The ways ofProvidence are indeed inscrutable.
A surgeon had been sent from Fort Russell, and his report was such thatWaller would not let it go in full to his patient. They had carried theold soldier back to camp, and such aid as could be given by the rudehands of untaught men was all he had for nearly twenty-four hours, andhis suffering had been great. Internal injuries, it was feared, had beensustained, and at his advanced age that was something almost fatal. Nowonder Waller was worried. Then Flint took alarm at other troublescloser at hand. Up to this year he had been mercifully spared allpersonal contact with our Indian wards, and when he was told by hissentries that twice in succession night riders had been heard on thewestward "bench," and pony tracks in abundance had been found at theupper ford--the site of Stabber's village--and that others still were tobe seen in the soft ground not far from Hay's corral, the major was morethan startled. At this stage of the proceedings, Sergeant Crabb of theCavalry was the most experienced Indian fighter left at the post. Crabbwas sent for, and unflinchingly gave his views. The Sioux had probablyscattered before the squadrons sent after them from the north; had fledinto the hills and, in small bands probably, were now raiding downtoward the Platte, well knowing there were few soldiers left to defendFort Frayne, and no cavalry were there to chase them.
"What brings them here? What do they hope to get or gain?" asked Flint.
"I don't know, sir," answered Crabb. "But this I do know, they areafter something and expect to get it. If I might make so bold, sir, Ithink the major ought to keep an eye on them blasted halfbreeds atHay's."
It set Flint to serious thinking. Pete and Crapaud, paid henchmen of thetrader, had been taking advantage of their employer's absence andcelebrating after the manner of their kind. One of his officers, newlike himself to the neighborhood and to the Indians, had had encounterwith the two that rubbed his commissioned fur the wrong way. A sentry,in discharge of his duty, had warned them one evening away from the reargate of a bachelor den, along officers' row, and had been told to go tosheol, or words to that effect. They had more business there than hehad, said they, and, under the potent sway of "inspiring bold JohnBarleycorn" had not even abated their position when theofficer-of-the-day happened along. They virtually damned and defied him,too.
The officer-of-the-day reported to the commanding officer, and thatofficer called on Mrs. Hay to tell her he should order the culprits offthe reservation if they were not better behaved. Mrs. Hay, so said theservant, was feeling far from well and had to ask to be excused, whenwho should appear but that ministering angel Mrs. Dade herself, and Mrs.Dade undertook to tell Mrs. Hay of the misconduct of the men, even whenassuring Major Flint she feared it was a matter in which Mrs. Hay waspowerless. They were afraid of Hay, but not of her. Hearing of Mrs.Hay's illness, Mrs. Dade and other women had come to visit and consoleher, but there were very few whom she would now consent to see. Eventhough confident no bodily harm would befall her husband or her niece,Mrs. Hay was evidently sore disturbed about something. Failing to seeher, Major Flint sent for the bartender and clerk, and bade them saywhere these truculent, semi-savage bacchanals got their whiskey, andboth men promptly and confidently declared it wasn't at the store.Neither of them would give or sell to either halfbreed a drop, and oldWilkins stood sponsor for the integrity of the affiants, both of whom hehad known for years and both of whom intimated that the two specimenshad no need to be begging, buying or stealing whiskey, when Bill Hay'sprivate cellar held more than enough to fill the whole Sioux nation."Moreover," said Pink Marble, "they've got the run of the stables nowthe old man's away, and there isn't a night some of those horses ain'tout." When Flint said that was something Mrs. Hay ought to know, PinkMarble replied that was something Mrs. Hay did know, unless she refusedto believe the evidence of her own senses as well as his, and Pinkthought it high time our fellows in the field had recaptured Hay andfetched him home. If it wasn't done mighty soon he, Pink, wouldn't beanswerable for what might happen at the post.
All the more anxious did this make Flint. He decided that the exigenciesof the case warranted his putting a sentry over Hay's stable, withorders to permit no horse to be taken out except by an order from him,and Crabb took him and showed him, two days later, the tracks of twohorses going and coming in the soft earth in front of a narrow side doorthat led to the corral. Flint had this door padlocked at once andWilkins took the key, and that night was surprised by a note from Mrs.Hay.
"The stablemen complain that the sentries will not let them take thehorses out even for water and exercise, which has never been the casebefore," and Mrs. Hay begged that the restriction might be removed.Indeed, if Major Flint would remove the sentry, she would assume allresponsibility for loss or damage. The men had been with Mr. Hay, shesaid, for six years and never had been interfered with before, and theywere sensitive and hurt and would quit work, they said, if furthermolested. Then there would be nobody to take their place and the stockwould suffer.
In point of fact, Mrs. Hay was pleading for the very men against whomthe other employes claimed to have warned her--these two halfbreeds whohad defied his sentries,--and Flint's anxieties materially increased. Ittaxed all his stock of personal piety, and strengthened the belief hewas beginning to harbor, that Mrs. Hay had some use for the horses atnight--some sojourners in the neighborhood with whom she mustcommunicate, and who could they be but Sioux?
Then Mistress McGann, sound sleeper that she used to be, declared to thetemporary post commander, as he was, and temporary lodger as sheconsidered him, that things "was goin' on about the post she'd neverheard the likes of before, and that the meejor would never put up with
a minute." When Mrs. McGann said "the meejor" she meant not Flint, buthis predecessor. There was but one major in her world,--the one shetreated like a minor. Being a soldier's wife, however, she knew thedeference due to the commanding officer, even though she did not chooseto show it, and when bidden to say her say and tell what things "wasgoin' on" Mistress McGann asseverated, with the asperity of a woman whohas had to put her husband to bed two nights running, that the time hadnever been before that he was so drunk he didn't know his way home, andso got into the back of the bachelor quarters instead of his own. "Andto think av his bein' propped up at his own gate by a lousy, frog-eatin'half Frinchman, half salvage!" Yet, when investigated, this proved to bethe case, and the further question arose, where did McGann get hiswhiskey? A faithful, loyal devoted old servitor was McGann, yet Webb, aswe have seen, had ever to watch his whiskey carefully lest the Irishmanshould see it, and seeing taste, and tasting fall. The store had ordersfrom Mrs. McGann, countersigned by Webb, to the effect that her husbandwas never to have a drop. Flint was a teetotaller himself, and notedwithout a shadow of disapprobation that the decanters on the sideboardwere both empty the very day he took possession, also that the cupboardwas securely locked. Mrs. McGann was sure her liege got no liquor therenor at the store, and his confused statement that it was given him by"fellers at the stables," was treated with scorn. McGann then was stillunder marital surveillance and official displeasure the day after Mrs.McGann's revelations, with unexplained iniquities to answer for when hishead cleared and his legs resumed their functions. But by that timeother matters were brought to light that laid still further accusationat his door. With the consent of Dr. Waller, Lieutenant Field had beenallowed to send an attendant for his desk. There were letters, he said,he greatly wished to see and answer, and Mrs. Ray had been so kind as tooffer to act as his amanuensis. The attendant went with the key and cameback with a scared face. Somebody, he said, had been there before him.
They did not tell Field this at the time. The doctor went at once withthe messenger, and in five minutes had taken in the situation. Field'srooms had been entered and probably robbed. There was only one otheroccupant of the desolate set that so recently had rung to the music ofso many glad young voices. Of the garrison proper at Frayne all thecavalry officers except Wilkins were away at the front; all the infantryofficers, five in number, were also up along the Big Horn. The four whohad come with Flint were strangers to the post, but Herron, who had beena classmate of Ross at the Point, moved into his room and took theresponsibility of introducing the contract doctor, who came with them,into the quarters at the front of the house on the second floor. Theserooms had been left open and unlocked. There was nothing, said thelawful occupant, worth stealing, which was probably true; but Field hadbolted, inside, the door of his sleeping room; locked the hall door ofhis living room and taken the key with him when he rode with Ray. Thedoctor looked over the rooms a moment; then sent for Wilkins, the postquartermaster, who came in a huff at being disturbed at lunch. Field hadbeen rather particular about his belongings. His uniforms always hung oncertain pegs in the plain wooden wardrobe. The drawers of his bureauwere generally arranged like the clothes press of cadet days, as thoughfor inspection, but now coats, blouses, dressingsack and smoking jackethung with pockets turned inside out or flung about the bed and floor.Trousers had been treated with like contempt. The bureau looked likewhat sailors used to call a "hurrah's nest," and a writing desk,brass-bound and of solid make, that stood on a table by a front window,had been forcibly wrenched open, and its contents were tossed about thefloor. A larger desk,--a wooden field desk--stood upon a trestle acrossthe room, and this, too, had been ransacked. Just what was missing onlyone man could tell. Just how they entered was patent to all--through aglazed window between the bed-room and the now unused dining roombeyond. Just who were the housebreakers no man present could say; butMistress McGann that afternoon communicated her suspicion to hersore-headed spouse, and did it boldly and with the aid of a broomstick."It's all along," she said, "av your shtoopin' to dhrink wid them lowlived salvages at Hay's. Now, what d'ye know about this?"
But McGann swore piously he knew nothing "barrin' that Pete and Crapaudhad some good liquor one night--dear knows when it was--an' I helped 'emdhrink your health,--an' when 'twas gone, and more was wanted, sure Petesaid he'd taken a demijohn to the lieutenant's, with Mr. Hay'scompliments, the day before he left for the front, and sure he couldn'thave drunk all av it, and if the back dure was open Pete would inquireanyhow."
That was all Michael remembered or felt warranted in revealing, forstoutly he declared his and their innocence of having burglariouslyentered any premises, let alone the lieutenant's. "Sure they'd bitetheir own noses off fur him," said Mike, which impossible feat attestedthe full measure of halfbreed devotion. Mistress McGann decided to makefurther investigation before saying anything to anybody; but, before thedawn of another day, matters took such shape that fear of sorrowfulconsequences, involving even Michael, set a ban on her impulse to speak.Field, it seems, had been at last induced to sleep some hours thatevening, and it was nearly twelve when he awoke and saw his desk on atable near the window. The attendant was nodding in an easy chair; and,just as the young officer determined to rouse him, Mrs. Dade, with thedoctor, appeared on tiptoe at the doorway. For a few minutes they kepthim interested in letters and reports concerning his father's condition,the gravity of which, however, was still withheld from him. Then therewere reports from Tongue River, brought in by courier, that had to betold him. But after a while he would be no longer denied. He demanded tosee his desk and his letters.
At a sign from the doctor, the attendant raised it from the table andbore it to the bed. "I found things in some confusion in your quarters,Field," said Waller, by way of preparation, "and I probably haven'tarranged the letters as you would if you had had time. They were lyingabout loosely--"
But he got no further. Field had started up and was leaning on oneelbow. The other arm was outstretched. "What do you mean?" he cried."The desk hasn't been _opened_?"
Too evidently, however, it had been, and in an instant Field had pulleda brass pin that held in place a little drawer. It popped part way out,and with trembling hands he drew it forth--empty.
Before he could speak Mrs. Dade suddenly held up her hand in signal forsilence, her face paling at the instant. There was a rush of slipperedfeet through the corridor, a hum of excited voices, and both Dr. Wallerand the attendant darted for the door.
Outside, in the faint starlight, sound of commotion came from thedirection of the guard-house,--of swift footfalls from far across theparade, of the vitreous jar of windows hastily raised. Two or threelights popped suddenly into view along the dark line of officers'quarters, and Waller's voice, with a ring of authority unusual to him,halted a running corporal of the guard.
"What is it?" demanded he.
"I don't know, sir," was the soldier's answer. "There was an awfulscream from the end quarters--Captain Ray's, sir." Then on he wentagain.
And then came the crack, crack of a pistol.