CHAPTER VII.
Within the fortnight came poor Ned Lawrence back to Worth, and men whorode far out on the Crockett trail to meet the stage marvelled at thechange three months had made in him. He had grown ten years older, andwas wrinkled and gray. Winn was of the party, and Winn, who a month goneby was looking haggard, nervous, miserable, now rode buoyantly, withalmost hopeful eyes and certainly better color than he had had formonths, despite the fact that he had lost both flesh and color duringhis illness. Something had happened to lighten his load of dread andcare. Something must have happened to enable Lawrence to take that long,long journey back to Texas. Fort Worth indulged in all manner oftheories as to where the money was coming from, and Barclay, of course,was suspected, even interrogated. The frankest man in some respects thatever lived, Captain Galbraith Barclay was reticent as a clam when he sawfit to keep silent, and men found it useless to question or women tohint. As for Winn, he had but one classmate at the post, Brayton, whohad never been one of his intimates at the Point, and, being rather, aswas said, of the "high and mighty," reserved and distant sort with thesubalterns he found at Worth on joining three winters before, Winn hadnever been popular. Lawrence was his one intimate, despite the disparityin years. And so no man ventured to ask by what means he expected tomeet the demands thus made upon him. The board of survey ordered todetermine the amount of the loss and fix the responsibility had noalternative. Winn and his few friends made a hard fight, setting forththe facts that the count had been made every month as required by ordersand regulations, and that except by bursting open every bale, box, andbarrel, and sifting over the contents, it would have been impossible todetect Marsden's methods. On some things the board was disposed to dareregulations and raps on the knuckles, and to let Winn off on severalothers; but what was the use? "the proceedings would only be sent backfor reconsideration," said their president; and as it transpired thatWinn had not exercised due vigilance, but had trusted almost entirely tohis sergeant, they decided to cut the Gordian knot by saddling the youngofficer with the entire responsibility, which meant, sooner or later, astoppage of nearly three thousand dollars of his pay.
It is a sad yet time-honored commentary at the expense of human naturethat the contemplation of the misfortunes of our fellow-men is notalways a source of unalloyed sorrow. There was genuine and generalsympathy for Lawrence, because he had been poor and pinched and humbledfor years, had worn shabby clothes, and had sought all possible fieldduty, where "deeds, not duds," as a garrison wit expressed it, seemed tomake the man. He had frankly spoken of his straits and worries to suchas spoke to him in friendship, and this, with his deep and tender lovefor his children, and his capital record as a scout leader, had won overto him all the men who at one time were envious and jealous and hadcherished the linesman's prejudice against the fellow whose duties foryears had kept him on the staff. The women were all with him, and thatmeant far more than may seem possible outside the army. There was many agentle dame in the old days of adobe barracks who could be an Artemisiain the cause of a friend.
No one knew just what object Ned Lawrence had in coming back to Dixie.Every one knew he had indignantly refused the second lieutenancy,despite the fact that one or two men with war service and rank almostequal to his own had meekly accepted the grudgingly tenderedcommission, and others were said to be about to follow suit,--all,presumably, with the hope that their friends and representatives inCongress assembled would speedily legislate them back where they thoughtthey belonged. No one knew where Ned Lawrence had made a raise of money,but raise he certainly had made, for, to Blythe's indignation, therecame a draft of one hundred dollars to cover the expenses, he said, ofhis children and old Mammy and to pay the latter some of her wages. Thebalance he would settle, he wrote, when he arrived. Blythe would farrather he had waited until his accounts were adjusted; then, if Lawrencewere in funds, Blythe could have found no fault with this insistence onat least partially defraying the expenses incurred in providing for thelittle household. Lawrence hoped to have his accounts adjusted, hisletter said, and he had reason to believe, from what friends inWashington told him, that he would find his successor willing to receiptto him for missing items, trusting to luck and the flotsam and jetsam ofthe frontier to replace them in course of time. Lawrence, indeed, wascurious now to meet and know Captain Barclay, for he had been told manythings that had gone far to remove the feeling of unreasoning antagonismhe had felt at first.
Only one thing did he say to Blythe that threw light on his futureplans. "I am dreadfully sorry," he wrote, "to hear such ill tidingsabout Harry Winn. I was always fearful there was something wrong aboutthat fellow Marsden, and sometimes strove to caution him,--I, who couldnot see the beam in my own eye,--I, with two scoundrels in myorderly-room, trying to warn him against the one in his! Winn is aproud, sensitive, self-centred sort of fellow, whom wealth perhaps mighthave made popular. He is no better manager than I. He has a wife whocould never help him to live within his means, as poor Kitty certainlytried to do with me." (Oh, the blessed touch of Time! Oh, the sweetabsolution of Death! Kitty was an angel now, and her ways and means wereburied with all that was mortal of her.) "And, worse than all, poor Halhas no one, I fear, to help him now, as--I write it with blinded eyes,dear Blythe--it has pleased God I should find in many friends in thedays of my sore adversity,--you and your blessed wife, and the colonel,and Brooks,--even rough old Follansbee and our dilettante De Lancy, andthat inimitable Collabone. My heart overflows, and my eyes, too, atthought of all you and they have done and said and written for me andmine. And here, too, where in my bitterness I thought I was deserted ofall, here is gallant old Front de Boeuf (you remember how we swore byhim in the Valley after Davy Russell was killed). He has housed and fedand nursed and cared for me like a brother, and Senator Howe and evenold Catnip--God bless him!--have worked hard for me; and, though mysoldier days seem over for the time at least, my stubborn spirit has hadto surrender to such counsellors and friends as they have been to me.They all say Congress will surely put me back next winter, and meantime'Buffstick' says I'm to have a salaried position in a big company withwhich he is associated, and to begin work as soon as my health isre-established and my accounts straightened out."
"Who is Buffstick?" queried Mrs. Blythe, at this juncture.
"Buffstick? Oh, that was our pet name for Colonel Dalton, of the --thMassachusetts, Lawrence's friend and host in Washington; a magnificentfellow, dear, with a head and chest that made some lover of Scott likenhim to Front de Boeuf,--out of 'Ivanhoe,' you know. But he was astickler for neatness in dress and equipments, and his regiment calledhim Buffstick, and grew to love him all the same. He commanded a brigadeafter Cedar Creek, and now,--just think of it!--he's a capitalist."
"Does he know Captain Barclay, do you think?" she asked, after areflective pause.
"I'm sure I don't know. Probably not," was the answer. "They neverserved in the same part of the army. Why do you ask?"
"Oh, I was wishing--I couldn't help thinking--how much Mr. Winn neededsome good friend, too."
"Winn and Lawrence are very different men," said Blythe, gravely."Lawrence has made friends, while poor Winn has only enemies, I fear,and, really, none worse than himself."
Mrs. Blythe sighed as she turned away. It was much as her husband said.The Winns had come to the regiment after a round of receptions, dinners,and dances in their honor all the way from Washington to Worth, and had"started with a splurge," as the chroniclers declared. Laura's gowns andairs and graces won her no end of prominence, but very few friends.Winn's "high and mighty" ways, so they were termed by all the garrison,in which at that time only two or three West Pointers could be found,had alienated all the subs, most of the seniors, and many of the women.Their extravagance during the first year of service, the explanationsand excuses tendered by Laura in the next, and Harry's increasingmoodiness and distraction, served only to widen the breach. Men andwomen both, who began by envying, turned to openly decrying. Cuttingthings were said to Laura, whose men
dacities provoked them. Sneering orat least suggestive things were often said in presence of Winn, if notexactly to him; for there was one quality about the swell the garrisonhad to respect,--his cheerful and entire readiness to fight on verysmall provocation, and those were the days when the tenets of the "code"were not totally forgotten, and there still remained in the army asentiment in favor of the doctrine of personal responsibility fordisparaging words. There would be fewer courts-martial to-day were theremore of it left. But when women heard the stories about the big bill atthe sutler's and others that came by mail, and made little icy commentsabout some people being able to afford much more than _they_ could,Laura laughed off the allusions to their superior style of living bystories of an indulgent papa, until papa's death left her withoutfurther resource from that quarter. Then she set afloat a fabricationabout a doting aunt of Harry's who had no children of her own,--anamiable old widow who was to leave him all her money. He did have anaunt of that description, but she didn't have the money, and there weremen who were malicious enough to refer in Winn's presence to their wishthat they had wealthy fathers-in-law or doting dowager aunts, therebygiving some other fellow a chance to say, "And so does Fuller, nodoubt."
Indeed, so practically friendless were the Winns that among nine out often families along officers' row there was a feeling of lively curiosityto note the effect of this supposably crushing blow on the unhappy pair,and a consequent sentiment, only partially veiled in many cases, of keendisappointment when the news flew around the garrison that Mr. Winn hadannounced his readiness to meet the demand in full.
"Why, it can't be true," said many a woman. "I'll believe it when I seethe money," said many a man. "Do you suppose--he could have accepted itfrom--Captain Barclay?" asked, in strictest confidence, Mrs. De Lancy ofLaura's erstwhile intimate, Mrs. Faulkner.
"Not _Harry_ Winn, probably," answered Mrs. Faulkner, in confidenceequally inviolable, "but----" and the pause that followed wassuggestive. Follansbee and Bellows bolted down to the sutler's with thesurprising news, wondering if Fuller could have been ass enough toadvance the money. There was a time when he would have done so, perhaps,for he was one of the first to be enthralled by young Mrs. Winn's graceand beauty, and lavished presents upon her--and upon Winn, ofcourse--for a month, until Winn put a stop to the presents and Mrs.Fuller came post-haste back from San Antonio and put a stop to othermanifestations. But Fuller had long since become estranged from theWinns,--the presentation of his bill at inopportune times having laterwidened the apparent breach. His jaw fell and his mouth opened wide whenhe heard the news, for Fuller had begun to believe that he would neverget his money, and resented it that Uncle Sam should be luckier.
"Send up another 'bill rendered' by Ikey to Mr. Winn this afternoon," hebade his clerk, as the investigators departed to follow other clues.Fuller had gone down into his pockets, unbeknown to the post, and hadactually pressed on Lawrence a loan of three hundred dollars, and badehim come for more when that was gone, but not a cent would he put up forHarry Winn,--not he; "the damned supercilious snob," was what Fuller nowcalled him, not so much because he thought him a snob or supercilious oreven deserving of damnation, as because he had allowed himself to berobbed of three thousand dollars' worth of goods that might otherwisehave been purchased of him, Fuller, for double or treble the money. No,plainly, Fuller was not the angel that had come to the rescue of Winn,nor could Follansbee or Bellows or the rest of the fellows find out whohad. The mystery of Gilgal was outdone. Even Frazier and Brooks did notknow, and when some one, possibly Mrs. Frazier, suggested to the colonelthat as the commanding officer he really ought to know, the colonel didsend for his new quartermaster and say to him, "Mr. Trott, as you are toreceipt to Mr. Winn for the money value of his shortage, it would bewell to be very circumspect. He probably cannot have that much incurrency here. How does he propose to pay it?"
"I don't know, sir," said the man of business, promptly. "He says hewill be ready to cover the entire amount on or before the 20th of May. Ididn't like to ask him where it was to come from."
Neither did Frazier, despite no little prodding at home. Only one manventured to speak of it to Winn, and, the resultant conversation havingbeen variously and exaggeratively reported, the truth should here betold. It was at the club-room, which, for the first time in weeks, Mr.Winn entered. He asked for Major Brooks, and, finding him absent, turnedto go out with no more than a nod to the party at the poker-table. Thatparty was made up mainly of the class that was numerous in the army inthose days and is as rare as an Indian fight now. The least responsibleamong them at the moment was Lieutenant Bralligan, ex-corporal ofdragoons, who could no more have passed the examination exacted ofcandidates to-day than a cat could squeeze through a carbine. "Hwat d'yewarrnt of the meejor, Winn?" he shouted. "Sure ye've got permission toride out wid us to meet Lawrence."
Winn vouchsafed no answer. Bralligan and he were things apart, areproach to each other's eyes, and the evil blood in the Irishman,inflamed already by whiskey, boiled over at the slight. "It's Barclayye're looking for, not Brooks!" he shouted, in tempestuous wrath."Faith, if ye want anything out o' the Quaker, let yer wife do the----"
Instantly a brawny hand, that of Captain Follansbee, was sprawled overthe broad, leering mouth. Instantly there was a crash of chair-legshastily moved, of grinding boot-heels as men sprang to their feet, ofpoker-chips flying to the floor,--a sound of oaths and furiousstruggles, for two of the party, with the attendant, had hurledthemselves on the half-drunken lieutenant and were throttling him tosilence, while Captains Bronson and Fellows sprang to head off Winn, whowith blazing eyes and clinched fists came bounding back into the room.
"What did that blackguard say?" he demanded. "I did not catch thewords."
"Nothing, nothing, Winn, that you should notice," implored Bronson."He's drunk. He doesn't know what he is saying. He's crazed. No, sir,"insisted Bronson, sternly, as Winn strove to pass him. "If you do notinstantly withdraw I shall place you under arrest. Be sure that thispoor devil shall make all reparation when he's sober enough to realizewhat has happened. Go at once.--You go with him, Fellows."
And so between them they got Winn away, and others soused Bralligan with_acequia_ water and locked him up in his room and had him solemnly soberby afternoon stables, while, vastly to their relief, Winn with two orthree cavaliers rode away at three o'clock to meet Ned Lawrencesomewhere afar out on the Crockett trail. Greatly did Follansbee andFellows congratulate Bronson, and Bronson them, on the fact that theyhad happened to be looking on at the game when Winn happened in andBralligan broke out; for thereby they had stopped what might have been amost tremendous row. "All of which mustn't be known to a soul," saidthey.
But Bralligan's voice was big and deep. It was one of the causes of hisunhallowed preferment in the days when second lieutenancies wereshowered on the rank and file the first year of the war. Bralligan'staunting words, only partially audible to Winn as he issued from thefront of the building, were distinctly heard by domestics lying in waitfor a chance to borrow of the steward and pick up gossip at the back. Bystables that evening the story was being told high and low all over thepost; even the children heard with eager yet uncomprehending ears; andso it happened that just as the drums of the infantry were soundingfirst call for retreat parade, and the women-folk were beginning tomuster on the porches, and the warriors of the Foot along the oppositeside at the barracks, and as Captain Barclay, a light rattan stick inhis hand, came strolling back from stables, Lieutenant Brayton at hisside, little Jim Lawrence made a dash from a group of children, and, inthe full hearing of several officers and half a dozen women, a shrill,eager, childish voice piped out the fatal words,--
"Uncle Gal--Uncle Gal--what did Mr. Bwalligan mean by telling Mr. Winnto send his wife to you for money?"
Laura Winn herself was on the nearest piazza at the moment, stunninglyhandsome, and posing for a bow from her next-door neighbors as they cameby. She and every other woman there distinctly heard the words andmarked the effect. br />
Sir Galahad's face flushed crimson. He caught his little friend up inhis arms and held him close to his burning cheek. "Hush, Jimmy boy. Hemeant nothing, and soldiers never repeat such nonsense. Run to sisterAda and help her get everything ready for papa's coming. Think, Jimmy,he'll be here by tattoo." And with a parting hug he set the youngsterdown at his doorstep and started him on his way. Then, courteouslyraising his cap to the gathering on the nearest porch, and noting, asdid they, that Mrs. Winn had disappeared within her hall, Barclayquickly entered his own portal, and nabbed Brayton as he was making apalpable "sneak" for the rear door. The youngster found escapeimpossible. Will he, nill he, the boy told the story as it had been toldto him, Barclay standing looking straight into his eyes, as thoughreading his very soul, yet never saying a word beyond the original, "Youheard what Jimmy said. It is another instance of 'out of the mouths ofbabes and sucklings,' Brayton. Now, tell me exactly what you know."
It was a warm May evening. A hot south-wester had been blowing from thebroad valley of the Rio Bravo, and the few men in the club-room at nineo'clock were demanding cooling drinks. Bralligan was there, lookingsomewhat solemn and sheepish. He knew that nothing but the presence ofsenior officers had prevented a serious fracas as the result of hisasinine bray that morning, but, now that Winn was out of the way and thematter in the hands of his captain, he had no dread of the thrashing hedeserved, and was disposed to an exhibition of bravado. A drink or twoadded to his truculence, as well as to his desire to resume the gameinterrupted that morning. There were always in those days a few reliablegamblers at the big frontier posts, and presently Bralligan, in hisshirt-sleeves, was contemplating a sizable pile of chips and bantering aburly captain to "see his raise," when suddenly he became aware of adistracted look in the eyes of the group about the table, and, glancingtowards the door, his own blood-shot orbs lighted upon the trim figureof Captain Barclay, standing calmly surveying the party,--Barclay, whonever smoked, drank, or played cards, and who was reported to havestarted a movement for prayer-meetings among the enlisted men. His verypresence in that atmosphere was ominous, especially as the gaze of hisusually soft brown eyes was fixed on Bralligan. One or two men said,"Good-evening, captain," in an embarrassed way, but the Irish subalternonly stared, the half-grin on his freckled face giving place to anuneasy leer. On a bench to the left of the entrance stood a hugewater-cooler, with gourds and glasses by its side. Underneath the spigotwas a big wooden pail, two-thirds full of drippings and rinsings.Without a word, the new-comer stepped quietly within the room, picked upthe bucket, and, striding straight to the table before Bralligan couldspring to his feet, deftly inverted the vessel over the Irishman'sastonished head, deluging him with discarded water and smashing the rimwell down on his unprotected shoulders. An instant more, and Bralligansent the bucket whirling at his assailant's head, which it missed by ayard, then, all dripping as he was, followed it in a furious charge. SirGalahad "side-clipped" with the ease and nonchalance of long butunsuspected practice, and let fly a white fist which found lodgementwith stunning crash straight under the Irishman's ear, felling him likean ox.