CHAPTER IV
THE SIGN OF THE BAR SHOE
Many a time has it happened in the old days of the old army that thepost adjutant has begged to be allowed to go with some detachment sentafter Indians. Rarely has it happened, however, that, without anyrequest from the detachment commander or of his own, has the postadjutant been ordered to go. No one could say of Beverly Field that hehad not abundantly availed himself of every opportunity for activeservice in the past. During his first two years with the regiment he hadspent more than half the time in saddle and afield, scouting the trailsof war parties or marauding bands, or watching over a peaceable tribewhen on the annual hunt. Twice he had been out with Ray, which meant aliberal education in plainscraft and frontier duty. Twice twenty times,probably, had he said he would welcome a chance to go again with CaptainRay, and now the chance had come, so had the spoken order, and, so farfrom receiving it with rejoicing, it was more than apparent that heheard it with something like dismay.
But Webb was not the man to either explain or defend an order, even to ajunior for whom he cherished such regard. Field felt instinctively thatit was not because of a wish expressed in the past he was so suddenlybidden to take the field. Ray's senior subaltern, as has been said, wasabsent, being on duty at West Point, but his junior was on hand, and Rayreally did not need, and probably had not applied for, the services ofMr. Field. It was all the major's doing, and all, reasoned he, becausethe major deemed it best that for the time being his young adjutantshould be sent away from the post. Impulse prompted Field to ask whereinhe had offended or failed. Reflection taught him, however, that he wouldbe wise to ask no questions. It might well be that Webb knew more ofwhat had happened during the night than he, Beverly Field, would care tohave mentioned.
"You can be ready, can you not?" asked the major.
"I am ready now, sir," was the brief, firm reply, but the tone toldunerringly that the lad resented and in heart rebelled at the detail."To whom shall I turn over the post fund, sir?"
"I do not care to have you transfer funds or--anything, Field. This isbut a temporary affair, one that will take you away perhaps afortnight."
"I prefer that it should be permanent, sir," was the young officer'ssudden interruption, and, though his eyes were blazing, he spoke witheffort, his face still white with mingled sense of indignity andindignation.
"Gently, Mr. Field," said Webb, with unruffled calm, even whileuplifting a hand in quiet warning. "We will consider that, if need be,on your return. Meantime, if you desire, I will receipt to you for thepost fund or any other public money."
"That is the trouble, sir. The best I can do is give you an order forit. Post treasurers, as a rule, have not had to turn over their funds atfour o'clock in the morning," which statement was true enough, howeverinjudicious it might be to bruit it. Mild-mannered commanding officerssometimes amaze their subordinates by most unlooked for and unwelcomeeruptiveness of speech when they feel that an unwarrantable liberty hasbeen taken. Webb did not take fire. He turned icy.
"The quartermaster's safe can be opened at any moment, Mr. Field," saidhe, the blue gray eyes glittering, dangerously. "I presume your fundsare there."
"It was because the quartermaster would _not_ open it at any moment thatI took them out and placed them elsewhere," hotly answered Field, andnot until then did Webb remember that there had been quite a fiery talk,followed by hyperborean estrangement, between his two staff officers,and now, as the only government safe at the post was in the office ofthe quartermaster, and the only other one was Bill Hay's big "Phoenix"at the store, it dawned upon the major that it was there Mr. Field hadstowed his packages of currency--a violation of orders pure andsimple--and that was why he could not produce the money on the spot.Webb reflected. If he let Ray start at dawn and held Field back untilthe trader was astir, it might be eight o'clock before the youngstercould set forth. By that time Ray would be perhaps a dozen miles to thenorthward, and with keen-eyed Indian scouts noting the march of thetroop and keeping vigilant watch for possible stragglers, it might besending the lad to certain death, for Plodder had said in so many wordsthe Sioux about him had declared for war, had butchered three ranchmenon the Dry Fork, had fired on and driven in his herd guards and woodchoppers, and, what started with Lane Wolf's big band, would spread toStabber's little one in less than no time, and what spread to Stabber'swould soon reach a host of the Sioux. Moreover, there was anotherreason. It would give Field opportunity for further conferencewith--inmates of the trader's household, and the major had his own gravereasons for seeking to prevent that.
"Your written order will be sufficient, Mr. Field," said he. "Send mememorandum of the amounts and I will receipt at once, so that you can gowithout further thought of them. And now," with a glance at the clock,"you have hardly half an hour in which to get ready."
Raising his hand in mechanical salute, Field faced about; cast one lookat Blake, standing uncomfortably at the window, and then strode angeringaway to his quarters, smarting under a sense of unmerited rebuke yetrealizing that, as matters looked, no one was more to blame thanhimself.
Just as the first faint flush of coming day was mantling the pallideastern sky, and while the stars still sparkled aloft and the big,bright moon was sinking to the snow-tipped peaks far away to theoccident, in shadowy column a troop of fifty horse filed slowly from TheSorrels' big corral and headed straight for the Platte. Swift andunfordable in front of Frayne in the earlier summer, the river now wentmurmuring sleepily over its stony bed, and Ray led boldly down the bankand plunged girth deep into the foaming waters. Five minutes more andevery man had lined up safely on the northward bank. In low tone theorder was given, starting as Ray ever did, in solid column of fours. Indead silence the little command moved slowly away, followed by the eyesof half the garrison on the bluff. Many of these were women andchildren, who gazed through a mist of tears. Ray turned in saddle as thelast of his men went by; looked long at the dim light in the upperwindow of his home, where, clasping her children to her heart, hisdevoted wife knelt watching them, her fond lips moving in ceaselessprayer. Dimly she could see the tried leader, her soldier husband,sitting in saddle at the bank. Bravely she answered the flutter of hishandkerchief in farewell. Then all was swallowed up in the shadows ofthe distant prairie, and from the nursery adjoining her room there rosea querulous wail that told that her baby daughter was waking,indifferent to the need that sent the soldier father to the aid ofdistant comrades, threatened by a merciless foe, and conscious only ofher infantile demands and expectations. Not yet ten years wed, thatbrave, devoted wife and mother had known but two summers that had nottorn her husband from her side on just such quest and duty, for thesewere the days of the building up of the West, resisted to the bitterend by the red wards of the nation.
The sun was just peering over the rough, jagged outline of the eastwardbuttes, when a quick yet muffled step was heard on the major's verandaand a picturesque figure stood waiting at the door. Scout, of course, astranger would have said at a glance, for from head to foot the man wasclad in beaded buckskin, without sign of soldier garb of any kind.Soldier, too, would have been the expert testimony the instant the dooropened and the commanding officer appeared. Erect as a Norway pine thestrange figure stood to attention, heels and knees together, shoulderssquared, head and eyes straight to the front, the left hand, fingersextended, after the precise teachings of the ante-bellum days, the righthand raised and held at the salute. Strange figure indeed, yet soldierlyto the last degree, despite the oddity of the entire make-up. Thefur-trimmed cap of embroidered buckskin sat jauntily on black and glossycurls that hung about the brawny neck and shoulders. The buckskin coat,heavily fringed as to the short cape and the shorter skirt, was thicklycovered with Indian embroidery of bead and porcupine quill; so, too,were the fringed trousers and leggings; so, too, the moccasins, soledwith thick, yet pliant hide. Keen black eyes shone from beneath heavyblack brows, just sprinkled, as were the thick moustache and imperial,with gray. The lean jowls were closely
shaved. The nose was straight andfine, the chin square and resolute. The face and hands were tanned bysun and wind well nigh as dark as many a Sioux, but in that strangegarb there stood revealed one of the famous sergeants of a famousregiment, the veteran of a quarter century of service with the standard,wounded time and again, bearing the scars of Stuart's sabre and ofSouthern lead, of Indian arrow and bullet both; proud possessor of themedal of honor that many a senior sought in vain; proud as the Luciferfrom whom he took his Christian name, brave, cool, resolute and everreliable--Schreiber, First Sergeant of old "K" Troop for many a year,faced his post commander with brief and characteristic report:--
"Sir, Chief Stabber, with over thirty warriors, left camp about threeo'clock, heading for Eagle Butte."
"Well done, sergeant! I knew I could count on you," answered Webb, inhearty commendation. "Now, one thing more. Go to 'F' Troop's quartersand see how Kennedy is faring. He came in with despatches from FortBeecher, and later drank more, I fancy, than was good for him, for whichI assume all responsibility. Keep him out of mischief this morning."
"I will, sir," said the sergeant, and saluting turned away while Webbwent back to set a dismantled pantry in partial order, against theappearance of his long-suffering house-keeper, whose comments he dreadedas he did those of no inspector general in the army. For fifteen years,and whithersoever Webb was ordered, his bachelor _menage_ had beenpresided over by Mistress Margaret McGann, wife of a former trooper, whohad served as Webb's "striker" for so many a year in the earlier daysthat, when discharged for disability, due to wounds, rheumatism andadvancing years, and pensioned, as only Uncle Sam rewards his veterans,McGann had begged the major to retain him and his buxom better half attheir respective duties, and Webb had meekly, weakly yielded, to the endthat in the fulness of time Dame Margaret had achieved an ascendancyover the distinguished cavalry officer little short of that she hadexercised over honest Michael since the very day she consented to becomeMistress McGann. A sound sleeper was she, however, and not until morningpolice call was she wont to leave her bed. Then, her brief toiletcompleted, she would descend to the kitchen and set the major's coffeeon the fire, started by her dutiful spouse an hour earlier. Then sheproceeded to lay the table, and put the rooms in order against themajor's coming, and woe betide him if cigar stubs littered the bachelorsittingroom or unrinsed glasses and half empty decanters told of evenmoderate symposium over night. Returning that eventful morning from hisoffice at first call for reveille, after seeing the last of Ray'sgallant troop as it moved away across the dim vista of the northwardprairie, Webb had been concerned to find his decanter of Monongahelahalf empty on the pantry table and the _debris_ of a hurried feast onevery side. Kennedy, who had begun in moderation, must have felt theneed of further creature comfort after his bout with the stalwart Sioux,and had availed himself to the limit of his capacity of the major'sinvitation. Webb's first thought was to partially remove the traces ofthat single-handed spree; then, refilling the decanter from the bigfive-gallon demijohn, kept under lock and key in the cupboard--forMichael, too, had at long intervals weaknesses of his own--he wasthinking how best to protect Kennedy from the consequences of his,Webb's, rash invitation when Schreiber's knock was heard.
Ten minutes more and the sergeant was back again.
"Sir, I have to report that Trooper Kennedy has not been seen about thequarters," said he.
"Then try the stables, sergeant," answered the veteran campaigner, andthither would Schreiber next have gone, even had he not been sent. And,sure enough, there was Kennedy, with rueful face and a maudlin romauntabout a moonlit meeting with a swarm of painted Sioux, over which thestable guard were making merry and stirring the trooper's soul to wrathungovernable.
"I can prove ut," he howled, to the accompaniment of clinching fists andbellicose lunges at the laughing tormentors nearest him. "I can whip thehide off'n the scut that says I didn't. Ask Lootn't Field, bejabers! Hesaw it. Ask--Oh, Mother of God! what's this I'm sayin'?"--And there,with stern, rebuking gaze, stood the man they knew and feared, everysoul of them, as they did no commissioned soldier in the ----th,Sergeant Schreiber, the redoubtable, and Schreiber had heard the insaneand damaging boast.
"Come with me, Kennedy," was all he said, and Kennedy snatched hisbattered felt headgear down over his eyes and tacked woefully after hisswift-striding master, without ever another word.
But it was to his own room Schreiber took the unhappy Irishman, not tothe quarters of Company "F." He had heard words that, coupled withothers that fell through the darkness on his keenly listening ears sometwo hours earlier, had given him cause for painful thought. "Lie downhere, Kennedy. Pull off your boots," said he, "and if you open your foolhead to any living soul until I give you leave, py Gott--I'll gill you!"It was Schreiber's way, like Marryatt's famous Boatswain, to begin hisadmonitions in exact English, and then, as wrath overcame him, to lapseinto dialect.
It was but a few minutes after seven when Major Webb, having previouslydespatched a messenger to the post trader's to say he had need to seeMr. Hay as soon as possible, mounted his horse and, followed by SergeantSchreiber and an orderly, rode quietly past the guard-house, touchinghis hat to the shouted "Turn out the guard--commanding officer" of thesentry on Number One. Mr. Hay was dressing hurriedly, said the servant,so Webb bade Schreiber and the orderly ride slowly down to the flats andawait him at the forks of the road. It was but five minutes before Hayappeared, pulling on his coat as he shot from the door, but even beforehe came the major had been carefully, cautiously scanning the blinds ofthe second story, even while feigning deep interest in the doings of alittle squad of garrison prisoners--the inevitable inmates of theguard-house in the days before we had our safeguard in shape of thesoldier's club--the post exchange--and now again in the days that followits ill-judged extinction. The paymaster had been at Frayne but fivedays earlier. The prison room was full of aching heads, and Hay'scoffers' of hard-earned, ill-spent dollars. Webb sighed at sight of thecrowded ranks of this whimsically named "Company Q," but in no wiserelaxed his vigilance, for the slats of the blind of the corner windowhad partially opened. He had had a glimpse of feminine fingers, andpurposely he called Hay well out into the road, then bent down over him:
"All your horses in and all right, this morning, Hay?"
"None have been out," said Hay, stoutly, "unless they've gone within thehour. I never let them have the keys, you know, over night. Pete broughtthem to me at eight last evening and got 'em at six this morning, theusual time."
"Where does he get them--without waking you?" asked Webb.
"They hang behind the door in my sleeping room. Pete gets them when hetakes my boots to black at six o'clock."
"Come over to the stables," said the commanding officer, and, wondering,Hay followed.
They found the two hostlers busily at work grooming. In his box stall,bright as a button, was "Harney," Hay's famous runner, his coat smoothas satin. Hay went rapidly from stall to stall. Of the six saddlersowned by him not one gave the faintest sign of having been used overnight, but Webb, riding through the gangway, noted that "Crapaud," theFrench halfbreed grooming in the third stall, never lifted his head.Whatever evidence of night riding that might earlier have existed hadbeen deftly groomed away. The trader had seen suspicion in the soldier'seye, and so stood forth, triumphant:--
"No, Major Webb," said he, in loud, confident, oracular tone, "no horseof mine ever gets out without my knowing it, and never at night unlessyou or I so order it."
"No?" queried the major, placidly. "Then how do you account for--this?"
Among the fresh hoof prints in the yielding sand, with which the policeparty had been filling the ruts of the outer roadway, was one never madeby government horse or mule. In half a dozen places within a dozen rods,plain as a pikestaff, was the print of a bar shoe, worn on the off forefoot of just one quadruped at the post--Hay's swift running "GeneralHarney."