But life had little sunshine in it for one of his warped, ill-conditioned nature. There was a profound conviction in the minds of the company officers that the mere sight of happiness or content in the face of a subordinate was more than enough to set Canker"s wits to work to wipe it out. There was no doubt whatever in the minds of the subalterns that the main reason why Squeers was so manifestly "down on" Billy Gray was the almost indestructible expression of good nature, jollity and enthusiasm that had shown in the little fellow"s face ever since he joined the regiment. "If we call the old man Squeers we should dub Billy Mark Tapley," said Gordon one day, when the lad had laughed off the effect of an unusually acrimonious rasping over a trivial error in the Guard Report book. "He"s no end kind when a fellow"s in a fix," said Gray, in explanation, "and all the time he was soaking me I was thinking how he stood by Jimmy Carson in _his_ sc.r.a.pe"--a serious sc.r.a.pe it was, too, for young Carson, detailed to escort certain prisoners to Alcatraz and intrusted with certain funds to be turned over to the chief quartermaster of the department, had unaccountably fallen into a deep sleep aboard the train and awoke to find both funds and prisoners gone. Explanations were useless. The commanding general would listen to no excuse; a court-martial was ordered, and a very worthy young officer"s military career seemed about to close under a cloud, when "Old Canker" threw himself into the breach. He had long suspected the sergeant who had accompanied the party in immediate command of the little guard. He hated the commanding general with all his soul, and, how it came about no one could thoroughly explain, but one day Canker turned up with indubitable proof that the sergeant was the thief--that he was bribed to bring about the escape of the prisoners, and that he had drugged the fresh spring water he brought in to the young officer after the burning heat of the desert was left behind in the dead of the summer night. Canker even recovered most of the stolen money, for there was a woman in the case, and she had safely stowed it away. Carson was cleared and Canker triumphant. "See what the man can do when his sense of justice is aroused," said the optimists of the army. "Justice be blowed," answered the cynics. "He never would have raised his finger to help Carson but for the joy of proving the General unjust, and a regimental pet--the sergeant--a thief."
Yet Gray reverted to this episode as explanation of his tolerance of Canker"s harshness and thereby gave rise to a rejoinder from the lips of a veteran company commander that many a fellow was destined to recall before the regiment was two months older:
"In order to settle it, somebody"s got to find his life or his commission in jeopardy. Maybe it"ll be you, Billy, and I"m betting _you_ won"t find Squeers a guardian angel."
Yet on this sunshiny summer morning, with hope and sunshine and confidence in his handsome, boyish face, Lieutenant Gray came bounding up to the presence of the regimental commander as though that sour-visaged soldier were an indulgent uncle who could not say him nay. A stylish open carriage in which were seated two remarkably pretty girls and a gray-haired, slender gentleman, had reined up in the street opposite the entrance to the row of officers" tents and Canker had ripped out his watch, with an ugly frown on his forehead, for three of his companies had just marched in from drill, and three of their young lieutenants, on the instant of dismissal, had made straight for the vehicle and he half-hoped to find they had lopped off a minute or so of the allotted hour. The sound of merry laughter seemed to grate on his ears. The sight of Gray"s beaming face seemed to deepen the gloom in his own. Instinctively he knew the youngster had come to ask a favor and he stood ready to refuse.
"Colonel, I"d like mightily to go over and see that review this morning, sir; and Mr. Prime is good enough to offer me a seat in his carriage. May I go, sir?"
"You can"t go anywhere, sir, with the tents of your company in that disgraceful condition. Just look at them, sir,--as ragged as a wash line on a windy day!" And Canker scowled angrily at the young fellow standing squarely at attention before him.
"I know that, colonel, but the sun did that while we were out at drill, and the men will straighten everything in ten minutes. I"ll give the order now, sir." And Billy looked as though refusal were out of the question.
"You"ll stay and see it done, sir, and _when_ it"s done--to my satisfaction--will be time enough to ask for favors. Mr. Gordon, send word to the company commanders I wish to see them here at once,"
continued the senior officer, whirling on his heel and terminating the interview by so doing. It was in Gray"s mind for a brief minute to follow and plead. He had made it tell many a time with an obstinate university Don, but he knew the carriage was waiting--the carriage load watching, and deep down in his heart there was keen disappointment. He would have given a big slice of his monthly pay to go with that particular party, occupy the seat opposite Amy Lawrence and gaze his fill at her fair face.
He well-nigh hated Squeers as he hurried away to hail his first sergeant and give the necessary orders before daring to return to the carriage and report his failure. His bright blue eyes were clouded and his face flushed with vexation, for he saw that the rearmost regiment was even now filing into the Presidio Reservation afar off to the north, and that no time was to be lost if his friends were to see the review. The distant measured boom of guns told that the General in whose honor the ceremony was ordered was already approaching the appointed spot, and away over the rolling uplands toward the Golden Gate a cavalry escort rode into view.
Billy ground his teeth. "Run and tell them I cannot get leave," he called to a fellow sub. "Squeers has set me to work straightening up camp. Turn out the company, sergeant! Brace the tent cords and align tents," and a mournful wave of his forage cap was the only greeting he dare trust himself to give, as after a few minutes of fruitless waiting the vacant seat was given to another officer and the carriage rolled rapidly away. A second or two it was hidden from his sight behind the large wall tents along the line of fence, then shot into full view again as he stood at the end of the company street looking eagerly for its reappearance. And then occurred a little thing that was destined to live in his memory for many a day, and that thrilled him with a new and strange delight. He had never been of the so-called "spooney" set at the "Varsity. Pretty girls galore there were about that famous inst.i.tute, and he had danced at many a student party and romped through many a reel, but the nearest he had ever come to something more than a mere jolly friendship for a girl was the regard in which he held his partner in the "Mixed Doubles," but that was all on account of her exuberant health, spirits, general comeliness of face and form, and exquisite skill in tennis. But this day a new and eager longing was eating at his heart; a strange, dull pang seemed to seize upon it as he noted in a flash that the seat that was to have been his was occupied by an officer many years his senior, a man he knew only by sight and an enviable reputation, a man whose soldierly, clear-cut face never turned an instant, for his eyes were fixed upon a lovely picture on the opposite seat--Amy Lawrence bending eagerly forward and gazing with her beautiful eyes alight with sympathy, interest and frank liking in search of the sorely disappointed young officer. "There he is!"
she cried, though too far away for him to hear, and then, with no more thought of coquetry than a kitten, with no more motive in the world than that of conveying to him an idea of her sorrow, her sympathy, her perhaps pardonable and exaggerated indignation at what she deemed an act of tyranny on part of his commander, with only an instant in which to express it all--her sweet face flushed, her eyes flamed with the light of her girlish enthusiasm and in that instant she had kissed her hand to him. Colonel Armstrong, turning suddenly and sharply to see who could be the object of interest so absorbing, caught one flitting glimpse of Billy Gray lifting his cap in quick acknowledgment, and the words that were on the tip of Armstrong"s tongue the moment before were withheld for a more auspicious occasion--and it did not come too soon.
It was only four days after that initial meeting in the General"s tent the foggy evening of the girl"s first visit to camp, but both in town and on the tented field there had been several young ladies. Junior officers had monopolized the time and attention of the latter, but Armstrong was a close observer and a man who loved all that was strong, high-minded and true in his own s.e.x, and that was pure and sweet and winsome in woman. A keen soldier, he had spent many years in active service, most of them in the hardy, eventful and vigorous life of the Indian frontier. He had been conspicuous in more than one stirring campaign against the red warriors of the plains, had won his medal of honor before his first promotion, and his captaincy by brevet for daring conduct in action long antedated the right to wear the double bars of that grade. He had seen much of the world, at home and abroad; had traveled much, read much, thought much, but these were things of less concern to many a woman in our much married army than the question as to whether he had ever loved much. Certain it was he had never married, but _that_ didn"t settle it. Many a man loves, said they, without getting married, forgetful of the other side of the preposition advanced by horrid regimental cynics, that many men marry without getting loved. Armstrong would not have proved an easy man to question on that, or indeed on any other subject which he considered personal to himself. Even in his own regiment in the regular service he had long been looked upon as an exclusive sort of fellow--a man who had no intimates and not many companions, yet, officers and soldiers, he held the respect and esteem of the entire command, even of those whom he kept at a distance, and few are the regiments in which there are not one or two characters who are best seen and studied through a binocular. Without being sympathetic, said his critics, Armstrong was "square," but his critics had scant means of knowing whether he was sympathetic or not. He was a steadfast fellow, an unswerving, uncompromising sort of man, a man who would never have done for a diplomat, and could never have been elected to office. But he was truthful, just, and as the English officer reluctantly said of Lucan, whom he hated, "Yes--d.a.m.n him--he"s brave."
The men whom he did not seem to like in the army and who disliked him accordingly, were compelled to admit, to themselves at least, that their reasons were comprised in the above-recorded, regretable, but unmistakable fact--he didn"t like them. Another trait, unpopular, was that he knew when and how to say no. He smoked too much, perhaps, and talked too little for those who would use his words as witnesses against him. He never gambled, he rarely drank, he never lent nor borrowed. He was a bachelor, yet would never join a "mess" but kept house himself and usually had some favored comrade living with him. He was forty and did not look thirty-five. He was tall, erect, athletic, hardy and graceful in build, and his face was one of the best to be seen in many a line of officers at parade. His eyes were steel-gray and clear and penetrating, his features clear-cut, almost _too_ delicately cut, thought some of the best friends he had among the men. His hair was brown, sprinkled liberally with silver; his mouth, an admirable mouth in every way, was shaded and half-hidden by a long, drooping mustache to which, some men thought and some women said, his tapering white fingers paid too much attention, but I doubt if a knowledge of this criticism would have led to the faintest alteration in the habit. Generally the expression of Armstrong"s face was grave, and, on duty, a trifle stern; and not ten people in the world were aware what humor could twinkle in the clear, keen eyes, or twitch about the corners of that mobile mouth. There were not five who knew the tenderness that lay in hiding there, for Armstrong had few living kindred and they were men. There lived not, as he drove this glorious August morning to the breezy uplands beyond the camps, one woman who could say she had seen those eyes of Armstrong"s melt and glow with love. As for Amy Lawrence, she was not dreaming of such a thing. She was not even looking at him. Her thoughts at the moment were drifting back to that usually light-hearted boy who stood gazing so disconsolately after them as they drove away, her eyes were intent upon an approaching group that presently reclaimed her wandering thoughts.
Coming up Point Lobos Avenue strode a party of four--all soldiers. One of these, wild-eyed, bareheaded, dishevelled, his clothing torn, his wrists lashed behind him, walked between two armed guards. The fourth, a sergeant, followed at their heels. Miss Lawrence had just time to note that the downcast face was dark and oval and refined, when it was suddenly uplifted at sound of the whirring carriage wheels. A light of recognition, almost of terror, flashed across it, and with one bound the prisoner sprang from between his guards, dove almost under the noses of the startled team, and darted through the wide-open doorway of a corner saloon. He was out of sight in a second.
CHAPTER IV.
The review that morning had drawn a crowd to the drill grounds that baffled the efforts of the guards. Carriages from camps and carriages from town, carts from the suburbs, equestrians from the parks and pedestrians from everywhere had gradually encroached within kicking distance of the heels of the cavalry escorting the general commanding the department, and that official noted with unerring eye that the populace was coming up on his flanks, so to speak, at the moment when the etiquette of the service required that he should be gazing only to his immediate front and responding to the salutes of the marching column.
Back of him, ranged in long, single rank, was drawn up what the newspapers unanimously described as a "brilliant" staff, despite the fact that all were in sombre campaign uniform and several had never been so rated before. In their rear, in turn, was the line of mounted orderlies and farther still the silent rank of the escorting troop. Sentries had been posted to keep the throng at proper distance, but double their force could have accomplished nothing--the omniscient corporal could not help them, and after asking one or two stray officers what they would do about it, the sentries gave way and the crowd swarmed in. It was just as the head of the long tramping column came opposite the reviewing point, and the brigade commander and his staff, turning out after saluting, found their allotted station on the right of the reviewing party completely taken up by the ma.s.s of eager spectators. A minute or so was required before the trouble could be remedied, for, just as the officers and orderlies were endeavoring to induce the populace to give way--a thing the American always resists with a gay good humor that is peculiarly his own--a nervous hack driver on the outskirts backed his bulky trap with unexpected force, and penned between it and the wheels of a newly-arrived and much more presentable equipage a fair equestrian who shrieked with fright and clung to her pommel as her excited "mount" lashed out with his heels and made splinters of the hack"s rearmost spokes and felloes. Down went the hack on its axle point. Out sprang a tall officer from the open carriage, and in a second, it seemed, transferred the panic-stricken horsewoman from the seismatic saddle to the safety of his own seat and the ministrations of the two young women and the gray haired civilian who were the latest arrivals. This done, and after one quick glance at the lady"s helpless escort, a young officer from the Presidio, he shouldered his way through the crowd and stood, presently, on its inner edge, an unperturbed and most interested spectator. Battalion after battalion, in heavy marching order, in the dark-blue service dress, with campaign hats and leggings, with ranks well closed and long, well-aligned fronts, with accurate trace of the guides and well-judged distance, the great regiments came striding down the gentle slope, conscious, every officer and man, of the admiration they commanded. Armstrong, himself commander of a fine regiment of volunteers in another brigade, looked upon them with a soldier"s eye, and looked approvingly. Then, as the rearmost company pa.s.sed the reviewing point and gentlemen with two stars on each shoulder extended their congratulations to the reviewed commander with one, Armstrong also made his way among the mounted officers in his calm, deliberate fashion, heedless of threatening heels and crowding forehands, until he, too, could say his word of cordial greeting. He had to wait a few minutes, for the general officers were grouped and talking earnestly.
He heard a few words and knew well enough what was meant--that quant.i.ties of stores intended for the soldiers--even dainties contributed by the Red Cross Society--had been stolen from time to time and spirited off in the dead of night, and doubtless sold in town for the benefit of a pack of unknown scoundrels enlisted for no better purpose. In his own regiment his system had been so strict that no loss was discoverable, but in certain others the deficit was great. Complaints were loud, and the camp commander, stung possibly by comments from the city, had urged his officers to unusual effort, and had promised punishment to the extent of the law on the guilty parties whenever or wherever found.
Even as he was exchanging a word with the brigadier, Armstrong heard the exclamation: "By Jove--they"ve caught another!" for with a grim smile of gratification the camp commander had read and turned over to his adjutant-general a brief dispatch just handed him by a mounted orderly who had galloped part.
"One of _your_ irreproachables, Armstrong," said one of the staff, with something half-sneer, half-taunt as he too read and then pa.s.sed the paper to the judge-advocate of the division.
Armstrong turned with his usual deliberation. There was ever about him a quiet dignity of manner that was the delight of his friends and despair of his foes.
"What is his name?" he calmly asked.
"One of those society swells of whom you have so many," was the reply.
"That does not give his name--nor identify him as one of my men," said Armstrong coolly.
"Oh, well, I didn"t say he belonged to your command," was the staff officer"s response, "but one of the kid-glove crowd that"s got into the ranks."
"If you mean the recruits in the --teenth Infantry, I should be slow to suspect them of any crime," said Armstrong, with something almost like a drawl, so slow and deliberate was his manner, and now the steel-gray eyes and the fair, clear-cut face were turned straight upon the snapping eyes and dark features of the other. There was no love lost _there_. One could tell without so much as seeing.
"You"re off, then! That commissary-sergeant caught one of "em in the act--he got wind of it and skipped, and to-day came back in handcuffs."
"All of which may be as you say," answered Armstrong, "and still not warrant your reference to him as one of my irreproachables."
By this time much of the crowd and most of the vehicles had driven away.
The generals still sat in saddle chatting earnestly together, while their staff officers listened in some impatience to the conversation just recorded. Everybody knew the fault was not Armstrong"s, but it was jarring to have to sit and hearken to the controversy. "Don"t ever twit or try funny business with Armstrong," once said a regimental sage. "He has no sense of humor--of that kind." Those who best knew him knew that Armstrong never tolerated unjust accusations, great or small. In his desire to say an irritating thing to a man he both envied and respected, the staff officer had not confined himself to facts, and it proved a boomerang.
And now, Armstrong"s eyes had lighted for an instant on the alleged culprit. Seated opposite Miss Lawrence as the carriage whirled across Point Lobos Avenue, and watching her un.o.btrusively, he saw the sudden light of alarm and excitement in her expressive face, heard the faint exclamation as her gloved hand grasped the rail of the seat, felt the quick sway of the vehicle as the horses shied in fright at some object beyond his vision. Then as they dashed on he had seen the running guard and, just vanishing within the portals of the corner building, the slim figure of the escaping prisoner. He saw the quivering hands tearing at their fastenings. He turned to the driver and bade him stop a minute, but it took fifty yards of effort before the spirited horses could be calmed and brought to a halt at the curb. To the startled inquiries of Mr. Prime and his daughter as to the cause of the excitement and the running and shouting he answered simply: "A prisoner escaped, I think," and sent a pa.s.sing corporal to inquire the result. The man came back in a minute.
"They got him easy, sir. He had no show. His hands were tied behind his back and he couldn"t climb," was the brief report.
"They have not hurt him, I hope," said Armstrong.
"No, sir. He hurt them--one of "em, at least, before he"d surrender when they nabbed him in town. This time he submitted all right--said he only ran in for a gla.s.s of beer, and was laughing-like when I got there."
"Very well. That"ll do. Go on, driver. We haven"t a minute to lose if we are to see the review," he continued, as he stepped lightly to his seat.
"I saw nothing of this affair," said Miss Prime. "What was it all about?"
"Nor could I see," added her father. "I heard shouts and after we pa.s.sed saw the guard, but no fugitive."
"It is just as well--indeed I"m glad you didn"t, uncle," answered Miss Lawrence, turning even as she spoke and gazing wistfully back. "He looked so young, and seemed so desperate, and had such a--I don"t know--_hunted_ look on his face--poor fellow."
And then the carriage reached the entrance to the reservation and the subject, and the second object of Miss Lawrence"s sympathies, evoked that day, were for the time forgotten. Possibly Mrs. Garrison was partly responsible for this for, hardly had they rounded the bend in the road that brought them in full view, from the left, or southern flank, of the long line of ma.s.ses in which the brigade was formed, than there came cantering up to them, all gay good humor, all smiles and saucy coquetry, their hostess of the evening at the General"s tent. She was mounted on a sorry-looking horse, but the "habit" was a triumph of art, and it well became her slender, rounded figure.
No one who really a.n.a.lyzed Mrs. Frank Garrison"s features could say that she was a pretty woman. No one who looked merely at the general effect when she was out for conquest could deny it. Colonel Armstrong, placidly observant as usual, was quick to note the glances that shot between the cousins on the rear seat as the little lady came blithely alongside. He knew her, and saw that they were beginning to be as wise as he, for the smiles with which they greeted her were but wintry reflections of those that beamed upon her radiant face. Prime, paterfamilias, bent cordially forward in welcome, but her quick eyes had recognized the fourth occupant by this time, and there was a little less of a.s.surance in her manner from that instant. "How _per_fectly delicious!" she cried. "I feared from what you said yesterday you weren"t coming, and so I never ordered the carriage, but came out in saddle--I can"t say on _horse_back with such a wreck as this, but every decent horse in the Presidio had to go out with the generals and staffs, you know, and I had to take what I could get--both horse and escort," she added, in confidential tone. "Oh!--May I present Mr. Ellis? He knows you all by name already." The youth in attendance and a McClellan tree two sizes too big for him, lifted his cap and strove to smile; he had ridden nothing harder than a park hack before that day. "Frank says I talk of nothing else. But--where"s Mr. Gray?
Surely I thought _he_ would be with you." This for Armstrong"s benefit in case he were in the least interested in either damsel.
"Mr. Gray was detained by some duties in camp," explained Miss Prime, with just a trace of reserve that was lost upon neither their new companion nor the colonel. It settled a matter the placid officer was revolving in his mind.
"Pardon us, Mrs. Garrison," he said briefly. "We must hurry. Go on, driver."
"Oh, _I_ can keep up," was the indomitable answer, "even on this creature." And Mrs. Garrison proved her words by whipping her steed into a lunging canter and, sitting him admirably, rode gallantly alongside, and just where Mr. Prime could not but see and admire since Colonel Armstrong would not look at all. He had entered into an explanation of the ceremony by that time well under way, and Miss Lawrence"s great soft brown eyes were fixed upon him attentively when, perhaps, she should have been gazing at the maneuvers. Like those latter, possibly, her thoughts were "changing direction."
Not ten minutes later occurred the collision between the hack and the heels that resulted in the demolition of one and "demoralization" of the rider of the victor. While the latter was led away by the obedient Mr.
Ellis lest the sight of him should bring on another nervous attack, Mrs.
Garrison was suffering herself to be comforted. Her nerves were gone, but she had not lost her head. Lots of Presidio dames and damsels were up on the heights that day in such vehicles as the post afforded. None appeared in anything so stylish and elegant as the carriage of the Prime party.
She was a new and comparative stranger there, and it would vastly enhance her social _prestige_, she argued, to be seen in such "swell"
surroundings. With a little tact and management she might even arrange matters so that, w.i.l.l.y nilly, her friends would drive her home instead of taking Colonel Armstrong back to camp. That would be a stroke worth playing. She owed Stanley Armstrong a bitter grudge, and had nursed it long. She had known him ten years and hated him nine of them. Where they met and when it really matters not. In the army people meet and part in a hundred places when they never expected to meet again. She had married Frank Garrison in a hand gallop, said the garrison chronicles, "before she had known him two months," said the men, "before he knew her at all,"
said the women. She was four years his senior, if the chaplain could be believed and five months his junior if _she_ could. Whatever might have been the discrepancy in their ages at the time of the ceremony no one would suspect the truth who saw them now. It was he who looked aged and careworn and hara.s.sed, and she who preserved her youthful bloom and vivacity.
And now, as she reclined as though still too weak and shaken to leave the carriage and return to saddle, her quick wits were planning the scheme that should result in _her_ retaining, and his losing the coveted seat.
There was little time to lose. Most of the crowd had scattered, and she well knew that he was only waiting for her to leave before he would return. Almost at the instant her opportunity came. A covered wagon reined suddenly alongside and kind and sympathetic voices hailed her: "Do let us drive you home, Mrs. Garrison; you must have been terribly shaken." She recognized at once the wife and daughter of a prominent officer of the post.
"Oh, how kind you are!" she cried. "I was hoping some one would come.
Indeed, I _did_ get a little wrench." And then, as she moved, with a sudden gasp of pain, she clasped Miss Lawrence"s extended hand.
"Indeed, you must not stir, Mrs. Garrison," said that young lady. "We will drive you home at once." Miss Prime and her father were adding their pleas. She looked up, smiling faintly.