CHAPTER XI.
The fact that the post was cut off from the rest of the world, thatneither runner from the field columns, courier from Prescott, nor mailrider from McDowell had succeeded in getting in, while 'Tonio, headtrailer, had easily succeeded in getting out, was a combinationcalculated to promote serious reflection on part of the garrison thisideal Sunday morning. Perhaps it did, but so far as talk was concerneda very different fact ruled as first favorite. It was known all overthe barracks by breakfast time that Case, the bookkeeper, had bluffedout the young swell from the Columbia who had come down to teach themhow to play poker and fight Apaches. "Willett stock" among the rank andfile had not been too high at the start, had been sinking fast sincethe affair at Bennett's Ranch, and was a drug in the market when thecommand, as was then the custom of the little army, turned out forinspection under arms, while Willett was turning in for a needed nap.Strong, his official host, knew instinctively where Willett must be,when he tumbled up to receive the reports at morning roll call andfound the spare bed untouched. He said nothing, of course, even atguard mounting, when, together, he and Captain Bonner walked over tothe office, where sat the post commander anxiously awaiting them. Itseems that even after Bonner's friendly hint the game had not ceased atonce. Willett had played on another hour in hopes that luck wouldchange, but by seven Craney called a halt, said that he and Watts mustquit, and intimated that Willett ought to. Case, though well along inliquor, still kept his head and lead, and would have played, but bythis time Willett was writing I.O.U.'s. The prospector's cash was gone.The hitherto modest, retiring, silent man of the desk and ledgers hadwon heavily from the officer, yet only a trifle from his employers, andCraney suggested a recess until night. "Then we'll meet again--andsettle," said Willett, half extending his hand.
"You bet we'll settle," said Case, the bookkeeper, wholly ignoring it,and even then the fact was noted and thereafter remembered.
"I think I won't go up t-o the post just now," said Willett to Craney."Perhaps you have----"
"Certainly, Mr. Willett. Come right in here," said the traderhospitably, leading the way into a darkened room. "Take a good nap;sleep as long as you want to. I'll send you in a tub if you like." Thetub was gratefully accepted, and then they left him. At noon when thegeneral asked Strong if Willett "wasn't feeling well," Strong saidWillett had been up late and was probably still asleep. Bonner, it wasknown, had not turned in again after two o'clock, and the discoverythat 'Tonio was missing. He was dozing on the porch in his easy-chairwhen first call sounded for reveille, and Lilian, like gentle-heartedAmelia, lay dreaming of her wearied knight as having kept vigil withthe sentries to the break of day that she and those she loved mightsleep in security, and now, of course, he must indeed be wearied.
Therefore there came a surprise to her, and to the fond and watchfulmother, when toward four o'clock in the afternoon Mrs. Stannard droppedin to chat with them awhile, and to tell about Harris, by whose bedsideshe had been sitting and reading for nearly two hours. Mrs. Archerwelcomed the news. The doctor had promised to let her know as soon ashe considered it wise for her to go, and the general was so anxious anddisturbed on Mr. Harris's account. It so happened that the general,with a small escort, had ridden over to search the valley with glassesfrom the peak, and then the first thing Mrs. Stannard said was, "Ithought that Mr. Willett might have been glad to go with the general."
"And did he not?" asked Mrs. Archer, after one quick glance at Lilian'saverted eyes.
"Why, no," and now Mrs. Stannard hesitated; "I saw, at least I think Isaw, him coming up from the river a little while ago. He may have beenfollowing 'Tonio's trail, you know. It was easy enough in the sand,they said, but once it reached the rocks along the stream-bed they lostit." Then wisely Mrs. Stannard changed the subject.
But if she and they knew not where and how Willett had spent the nightand hours of the day, they and Harris, by this time, were the only onesat Almy in such ignorance. Moreover, Almy was having a lot of fun outof it. No one had ever heard of Case's playing before in all the timehe had silently, unobtrusively, gone about his daily doings at thepost. Three weeks out of four he sat over the books and accounts, orsome writing of his own, saying nothing to anybody unless addressed,then answering civilly, but in few words. The other week, just asquietly and unobtrusively, he was apt to be busy with his bottle,sometimes in the solitude of his little room, sometimes wandering bynight down along the stream, sometimes stealing out to the herds,petting and crooning to the horses, sometimes slyly tendering the herdguard a drink, and always accompanied by a pack of the hounds, for bythem he was held in reverence and esteem. He never accosted anybody,never even complained when a godless brace of soldier roughs robbed himof his bottle as he lay half-dozing to the lullaby of the babblingstream. He simply meandered a mile and got another.
From this plane of inoffensive obscurity Case had sprung in one nightto fame and, almost, to fortune. A single field had turned the chanceof war, and the placid Sunday found him the most talked of man at thepost. Rumor had it that he had quit five hundred dollars ahead of thegame, and the most conservative estimate could not reduce it more thanhalf. For the first time Camp Almy awoke to the conclusion that anexperienced gambler was in their midst--one who had spared the soldierand his scanty pay that he might feed fat, eventually, on the officer.Rumor had it that Case's trunk contained a roulette wheel and faro"layout." In fine, long before orderly call at noon, in the whimsicalhumor of the garrison, he was no longer Case, the bookkeeper, but"Book, the Case Keeper," and every frontiersman, civil or military, inthose days knew what that meant.
And even as they exalted Case, who toward afternoon had disappearedfrom public gaze, refusing to be lionized, so would they have abasedWillett, who likewise had concealed himself, on the plea of neededsleep, yet had done but little sleeping. Willett was haunted by amemory, and not pleasantly. The fact that he had lost over a month'spay troubled him less by far than that he had lost repute. He hadsuffered much in pocket, but more in prestige. He had been a successfulplayer in the Columbia country, too much so for the good of scores ofcomrades, but especially himself. He could have found it in his heartto throttle that guffawing clown, whose rude bellow of rejoicing overCase's brilliant bluff and his own defeat, had brought even the dagoand his fellows in staring wonderment to the open door. He would havepledged another month's pay could he have throttled the story he knewnow would be going the rounds. He was even more humiliated--farmore--than they knew. They all would have shouted had they seen thehand he laid down, but he had striven to carry it off jocosely, to say_he_ had only been bluffing, and was very properly caught at his owngame. Oh, he had shown a game, sportsman-like front, and had striven topass it all off as a matter that worried him not in the least, butCraney, clear-headed, believed otherwise, and Case, muddle-headed as hewas by noon, knew better, and had his reasons for knowing--reasons aspotent as were those that moved him wholly to ignore Willett'shalf-proffered hand.
Case had nothing in particular to do all day, and could sleep if sominded. Willett, not knowing what moment he might be called upon totake active part in stirring service, should sleep, and so preparehimself, yet could not. Case's personality, and Case's one reference toVancouver, two years previous, haunted and vexed him sorely. Where andunder what circumstances had he seen the man? Only for three weeks hadhe been at the fine old post referred to, while a big court-martial wasthere in session, and he, with other subalterns, had come as witnesses.There had been dinners and dancing and fun and flirtation, both at thepost and in Portland. There had been card-playing in which he was easywinner, and not a little of his winnings had gone for wine. There hadbeen foolish things said in pink little ears, and even written in sillymissives that now he would have been glad to recall, but--but no harmto him as yet had come from them. There had even been a girl whom hehad never seen before nor since that visit, nor wanted to see again,nor hear from, yet from her he _had_ heard, and more than once--piteous,imploring little letters they were. But, heavens!
he was busy huntingIndians when they began to come, and then they had ceased to find him,rather to his relief, but none of these episodes or epistles in any wayincluded Case, yet somewhere he had seen him, somewhere he had heardhis voice, and somewhere Case had marked his method of play. Case saidVancouver, but though two or three steep games had there or thereaboutsoccurred--games in which his soldier comrades had withdrawn as too bigfor them--he, with his luck and brilliancy, had dared to pursue to theend and came out envied as a winner. And still this did not seem topoint to Case.
Not two hours' sleep did Willett get that Sunday morning. He was awake,hot, feverish, and athirst at noon, craving ice, which could be seen inthe mountains only a day's march away, but had never yet been made tolast through the homeward journey. Craney brought him a cool anddripping canteen and some acetic acid, the best he could do, and hadproffered bottled beer, cooled in the big olla and retailed at fiftycents, but Willett sought information rather than sleep, and indirectlyinquired as to Case's antecedents. Inferentially, he wished Craney tounderstand that he believed Case to be a professional, and Craneyblamable for permitting him to play. Craney saw the move and checkmatedat once. "Case has had dozens of chances to play--dozens of 'em--sinceI brought him here from Prescott, and never before has he sat intoanything bigger'n a dollar limit. He never _would_ play in the otherroom. He came out as quartermaster's clerk, nearly two years ago. Withwhom? Why, Major Ballard brought him out and had to turn him loose fordrinking. No, Ballard was never at Vancouver. Then my bookkeeper gotshot in a pay-day row and left the books in a muddle. I _had_ tohire Case to come and balance them--best accountant and bookkeeper Iever had--square to the marrow, though he wants one week off a month,and is absolutely stalwart t'other three, but he will not talk of hispast. Ballard told me he came with tiptop letters from officers of rankin San Francisco, who said he was incorruptible, even when he drank,whereas my clerk, who had been a model of sobriety, robbed right andleft. Case has gone off now, somewhere down among the willows, Ireckon. He'll be drunk for three days, sobering three days, andstraight the seventh. If you hadn't started him last night he'd besober now. And if you hadn't come into it that family game would havestopped at one, with nobody the worse nor wiser. You said you had nouse for a dollar limit game."
There was no comfort, therefore, in Craney's visit. Willett tookanother cool bath, dressed about two, and being shown the path Casegenerally followed, sauntered away, quite as though he had nothing onhis mind, and was presently lost beyond that same willowy screen. He atthat time, at least, was not thinking of 'Tonio and the lost trail.
At five the general, with Strong and Bonner, could be made out fourmiles away, riding back from the peak. "I'll go a moment and inquirefor Mr. Harris," said Mrs. Archer, "and ask the doctor when _we_ mayvisit him." So, leaving Lilian with Mrs. Stannard, and intending to begone but a few minutes, the gentle, anxious-hearted woman, sunshade inhand, went forth from the shelter of the low veranda into the slanting,unclouded rays, and presently tapped lightly at the doctor's open door.There was no answer, yet from somewhere within came sound of masculinevoices. Entering the dark hall, she tapped again at the entrance to thedoctor's sitting-room, or den. A Navajo blanket hung like a _portiere_across the open space, for door there was none, and, as no one came inanswer to her modest signal, she ventured to push the curtain a bit toone side and peer within. The room was but dimly lighted, all windowsbut one on the north side being heavily draped. The doctor's recliningchair and reading table, the latter littered with books, pamphlets andpipes, were visible through a reminiscent haze of not too fragranttobacco smoke, for the old predominated over the new. A rude sideboardstood over against her, between the northward windows, and thereon wasstationed a demi-john of goodly proportions, with outlying pickets inthe way of glasses. Bentley himself, though one of the old school, wasan abstemious man, and therefore enabled to have at all times a supplyof reliable stimulant for such of his callers as were of oppositefaith. That some of that ilk had recently favored him was presumptivelyevident, no more by the sideboard display than by the sound of voicesfrom an inner room, where two or three were uplifted in discussion, andneither was the doctor's.
Now, Mrs. Archer much wished to see young Harris, to assure him oftheir deep interest in his welfare, of their desire to be of service tohim, and their reason for not earlier intruding. Gentle and unselfishthough she was, there was distinct sense of chagrin that Mrs. Stannard,or any woman, should have anticipated her coming. The doctor hadpromised to say just how soon he could approve her seeing his patient,and it was the doctor's fault she had come no sooner. Not until daysthereafter did she know that Harris had asked for Mrs. Stannard. Notfor even a Christmas home-going would Mrs. Stannard have let her knowit--but Mrs. Stannard was a rare, rare woman.
But if the doctor thought it unwise that his patient should receive thevisits of ministering angels such as she and they, what, said Mrs.Archer to her stupefied self, could Dr. Bentley mean by permitting thevisits of such disturbers as these whose angering words came distinctlyto her ears? She stood, half-dazed, unable for a moment to determinewhat to do--whether to enter at once--enter, and in the name of herhusband, the commanding officer, enter emphatic protest against suchexciting language at such a time, in such a presence--or whether toretire at once and hear no more of it. One voice, at the moment low andguarded, was that of a stranger--she had never heard it before. Theother, however, she knew instantly as that of Harold Willett. No wondershe stood amazed, never doubting they were addressed to Harris, at thefirst words--Willett's words--to reach her ears!
"You are in no condition now to talk to a gentleman, and I refuse tolisten. You came here to lie about me--to undermine me, and I know it,and the quicker you go----"
"I came here to speak God's truth and _you_ know it!" came the instantanswer, and in instant relief she knew it was not the voice of Harris."As to undermining--by God, it's to block _your_ undermining anotherand a better man I've come! If that isn't enough for you--to block yourdoing here--what you did to that poor girl at Portland----"
But a rush and a scuffle, the sound of a blow, broke in upon the words,just as the attendant, affrighted, came running out, just as Dr.Bentley, astounded and indignant, came hurrying in. Mrs. Archer, inbewilderment, fell back into the sunshine, only presently to seeWillett, flushed and furious, hasten forth from the rear door and turnstraightway to the adjutant's quarters adjoining--only to be overtakenin a moment by the attendant, panting: "The doctor said would Mrs.Archer please come back one minute, he'd like to speak with her." AndMrs. Archer turned again and went.