CHAPTER XXXV
THE YOKE
When we started to the south on the following morning, I rode far at therear, under guard. I recall little of our journey toward Laramie, savethat after a day or two we swung out from the foothills into a shortgrass country, and so finally struck the steady upward sweep of a valleyalong which lay the great transcontinental trail. I do not know whetherwe traveled two days, or three, or four, since all the days seemed nightto me, and all the nights were uniform in torture. Finally, we drovedown into a dusty plain, and so presently came to the old frontier fort.Here, then, was civilization--the stage coach, the new telegraph wire,men and women, weekly or daily touch with the world, that pryingcuriosity regarding the affairs of others which we call news. To me itseemed tawdry, sordid, worthless, after that which I had left. The noiseseemed insupportable, the food distasteful. I could tolerate no roof,and in my own ragged robes slept on the ground within the old stockade.
I was still guarded as a prisoner; I was approached by none and hadconversation with none until evening of the day after my arrival. When Iate, it was at no gentleman's table, but in the barracks. I resentedjudgment, sentence and punishment, thus executed in one.
Evening gun had sounded, and the flag had been furled on my second dayat Laramie, when finally Colonel Meriwether sent for me to come to hisoffice quarters. He got swiftly enough to the matters on his mind.
"Mr. Cowles," said he, "it is time now that you and I had a talk.Presently you will be leaving Laramie. I can not try you by courtmartial, for you are a civilian. In short, all I can say to you is togo, with the hope that you may never again cross our lives."
I looked at him a time, silently, hating not him personally as much as Ihated all the world. But presently I asked him, "Have you no word for mefrom her?"
"Miss Meriwether has no word for you," he answered, sternly, "nor everwill have. You are no longer necessary in her plans."
"Ah, then," said I, "you have changed your own mind mightily."
He set his lips together in his grim fashion. "Yes," said he, "I havechanged my mind absolutely. I have just come from a very tryinginterview. It is not necessary for me to explain to you the full natureof it--"
"Then she has sent for me?"
"She will never send for you, I have said."
"But listen. At least, I have brought her back to you safe and sound.Setting aside all my own acts in other matters, why can you not rememberat least so much as that? Yet you treat me like a dog. I tell you, Ishall not leave without word from her, and when I leave I shall make nopromises as to when I shall or shall not come back. So long as onechance remains--"
"I tell you that there is no longer any chance, no longer the ghost of achance. It is my duty to inform you, sir, that a proper suitor long agoapplied for my daughter's hand, that he has renewed his suit, and thatnow she has accepted him."
For a time I sat staring stupidly at him. "You need speak nothing butthe truth with me," I said at last. "Colonel Meriwether, I have nevergiven bonds to be gentle when abused."
"I am telling you the truth," he said. "By God, sir! Miss Meriwether isengaged to Lieutenant Lawrence Belknap of the Ninth Dragoons! You feelyour honor too deeply touched? Perhaps at a later time LieutenantBelknap will do himself the disgrace of accommodating you."
All these things seemed to dull and stupefy me rather than excite. Icould not understand.
"If I killed him," said I, finally, "how would it better her case?Moreover, before I could take any more risk, I must go back to Virginia.My mother needs me there most sadly."
"Yes, and Miss Grace Sheraton needs you there sadly, as well," heretorted. "Go back, then, and mend your promises, and do some of thoseduties which you now begin to remember. You have proved yourself a manof no honor. I stigmatize you now as a coward."
There seemed no tinder left in my spirit to flame at this spark. "Youspeak freely to your prisoner, Colonel Meriwether," I said, slowly, atlength. "There is time yet for many risks--chances for many things. Butnow I think you owe it to me to tell me how this matter was arranged."
"Very well, then. Belknap asked me for permission to try his chance longago--before I came west to Laramie. I assigned him to bring her throughto me. He was distracted at his failure to do so. He has been out withparties all the summer, searching for you both, and has not been backat Laramie more than ten days. Oh, we all knew why you did not come backto the settlements. When we came in he guessed all that you know. Heknew that all the world would talk. And like a man he asked the right tosilence all that talk forever."
"And she agreed? Ellen Meriwether accepted him on such terms?"
"It is arranged," said he, not answering me directly, "and it removes atonce all necessity for any other arrangement. As for you, you disappear.It will be announced all through the Army that she and LieutenantBelknap were married at Leavenworth before they started West, and thatit was they two, and not you and my daughter, who were lost."
"And Belknap was content to do this?" I mused. "He would do this afterEllen told him that she loved me--"
"Stop!" thundered Colonel Meriwether. "I have told you all that isnecessary. I will add that he said to me, like the gentleman he is, thatin case my daughter asked it, _he_ would marry her and leave her atonce, until she of her own free will asked him to return. There isabundant opportunity for swift changes in the Army. What seems to youabsurd will work out in perfectly practical fashion."
"Yes," said I, "in fashion perfectly practical for the ruin of her life.You may leave mine out of the question."
"I do, sir," was his icy reply. "She told you to your face, and in myhearing, that you had deceived her, that you must go."
"Yes," I said, dully, "I did deceive her, and there is no punishment onearth great enough to give me for that--except to have no word fromher!"
"You are to go at once. I put it beyond you to understand Belknap'sconduct in this matter."
"He is a gentleman," I said, "and fit to love her. I think none of usneeds praise or blame for that."
He choked up. "She's my girl," he said. "Yes, all my boys in the Armylove her--there isn't one of them that wouldn't be proud to marry her onany terms she would lay down. And there isn't a man in the Army, marriedor single, that wouldn't challenge you if you breathed a word of whathas gone between you and her."
I looked at him and made no motion. It seemed to me go unspeakably sad,so incredible, that one should be so unbelievably underestimated.
"Now, finally," resumed Colonel Meriwether, after a time, ceasing hiswalking up and down, "I must close up what remains between you and me.My daughter said to me that you wanted to see me on some businessmatter. Of course you had some reason for coming out here."
"That was my only reason for coming," I rejoined. "I wanted to see youupon an important business matter. I was sent here by the last messagemy father gave any one--by the last words he spoke in his life. He toldme I should come to you."
"Well, well, if you have any favor to ask of me, out with it, and let usend it all at one sitting."
"Sir," I said, "I would see you damned in hell before I would ask acrust or a cup of water of you, though I were starving and burning. Ihave heard enough."
"Orderly!" he called out. "Show this man to the gate."