She looked bravely up in his eyes. Her own were full of unshed tears.
Her sweet face was lovely in the pale moonlight, and as once more she saw the worship in his eyes, the flush of joy, pride,--of what else could it be?--again mantled her soft cheeks. She made no effort to withdraw her hand.
"I have no right to be startled, Mr. Ray. I could not but see something of this all in your letter, though that might have been attributed to a very unnecessary grat.i.tude. But I would not have you think anything like--like this due to me because of my interest in all that has taken place this summer. We all thought--Mrs. Stannard and Grace and I--that you had been most outrageously wronged, and it did seem as though everything had turned against you, and I made Mr. Blake buy Dandy because that seemed the only way to save him, too, from being abused. I couldn"t bear it. Oh, Mr. Ray, the letter did not half prepare me for all this! I _have_ liked you. I _do_ like you better than any man I know," she said; and now her swimming eyes were fixed full on his, and his lips were quivering in their eagerness to kiss away the tears, but he drew her no closer.
"That in itself is more than I had a right to hope, that in itself nerves me to tell you this. I go back to my duty with a stimulus and to my temptations with a safeguard I never knew before. I never have been worthy your faintest thought, much less your love."
"Mr. Ray, don"t say that! I know well that no man who has been such a friend of Mrs. Stannard"s, such a friend to Captain Truscott and Grace, _could_ be what you paint yourself. Oh, don"t think--don"t think for an instant I undervalue the gift; you--you shall not speak of yourself that way! Do you think any woman who deserves a thought could fail to glory in such a name as you have won? Oh, Mr. Ray, Mr. Ray, I hardly realize that it is possible that you care for me! You, so brave and loyal and daring."
His eyes were blazing with a rapture he could not control. It was so infinitely sweet to hear her praise.
"You make me hope in spite of yourself, Marion," he murmured, with trembling eagerness. "Oh, think; look way down into your heart, and see if you cannot find one little germ of love for me,--one that I may teach to grow. Try, my darling, try. Ah, heaven! am I mad to-night?"
And now her head was drooping again and her heart beating. She felt that since it had come she could not bid him go comfortless.
"Only within the last day or two," she whispered, "have I been thinking that--that--I"ve been wondering how I dared write to you as I did when you were--in Cheyenne, wondering whether--if Dandy were not yours to-day--I could find courage to say what I did to Mr. Blake.
Does--that--tell you anything, Mr. Ray?"
"Marion! Marion! Oh, my darling! let me see your face."
She struggled one instant. She even hid it upon his breast, and the helmet cords made their mark upon her blushing forehead; but quickly he took her face between his strong, trembling hands, gently but firmly raised it until his eyes could drink in every lovely feature, though the fringed lids still hid from him the eyes he longed to see.
"Marion, sweet one. _Maidie!_ with all my life and strength I love you.
Have you not one little word for me?"
"What--must I say?" she murmured, at last, still shrouding her eyes.
"Say,--"Will, I think I love you just a little.""
No answer. Only beating hearts, only quick-drawn breath, only the distant call of the sentry, "Half-past eleven o"clock;" only the dying strains of the "Immortellen" wafting out through the open cas.e.m.e.nts.
"Try, Maidie," he whispered, eagerly. "Try before the call comes back to the guard-house. Try before the last notes of that sweet waltz die away for good and all. Try, sweet love,--"Will, I think I do.""
A moment"s pause, then--then--
"Will, I--I _know_ I do."
And the strong, straining arms clasped about her under that blessed cavalry cape, and the bonny face was hidden on his breast, and Ray"s trembling lips were raining pa.s.sionate kisses on that softly rippling bang, just as the last thrill of the "Immortellen" dreamed away, and the rich, ringing, soldierly voice of the sentry on number one echoed far out over the moonlit prairie the soldier watch-cry, "All"s well."
What a gem of a morning was the morrow when they rode away northward!
After the command had filed out of the garrison, led by the band on their placid grays, and the ladies all along the row had waved their good-byes and kissed their dainty white hands, and the children had hurrahed and shouted and rushed out among the horses" hoofs in their eagerness to have one more farewell shake of the hand from some favorite officer or man, and two or three dames and damsels had stolen away to the back rooms up-stairs, Marion Sanford stood with tear-dimmed eyes at the window, gazing far out over the prairie at the long blue column disappearing in the dust over the "divide." By her side stood Grace Truscott, twining her arms around that slender waist and clinging to her with a new and sweeter sympathy. Who, who was the cynic that wrote that even as she stood at the altar plighting her troth to the husband she had chosen, no woman yet forgave the man whom, having rejected, she knew to have consoled himself with another? Grace never for a moment admitted that Ray had been her lover in Arizona; he had been devoted to her--always--for Jack"s sake; but there were those who thought that only a little encouragement would have tumbled Mr. Ray over head and heels in love with her in those queer old days. But all that was past.
There was no doubt that Mr. Ray was desperately, deeply in love now, and that two women in that garrison--Mrs. Stannard and Mrs. Truscott--knew it well, and rejoiced that his love was requited. But, late as it was, Ray had had a very happy yet earnest talk with Marion on their return from the hop. He told her plainly that he had a term of probation to serve, and that not until he had freed himself from his burden of debt and furnished his quarters, so that he might not be utterly ashamed to welcome her to such a roof as even frontier cottages afforded, he would not ask her to be his wife; he would not ask her to consider herself even engaged to him. He had no right, he said, to speak to her of his love, much less to plead for hers; but that was irresistible,--"twas done. Long engagements are fearful strains, and our social license of questionings renders them wellnigh intolerable to men and women, who naturally shrink from speaking of matters which are to them so sacred.
Ray declared that she should not be hara.s.sed by any such torturing talk and prying and questioning as that which has to be undergone by almost every girl whom civilized society fancies to be engaged. She could never doubt him for an instant, he felt a.s.sured, and he--well, he couldn"t begin to realize his blessed fortune at all, so she must excuse _his_ incredulity; but he declared he would leave her utterly untrammelled.
There should not even be an "understanding." He would not ask her to accept his cla.s.s-ring, all he had to offer, but write to her he _would_.
Grace and Mrs. Stannard should know if she saw fit, and Truscott, but no one else at Russell. Then, if she came to her senses when she went back to New York and her friends the Zabriskies in November, and met some fellow worthy her acceptance, why--but here a little white hand was laid firmly upon his lips; he said no more, but compromised by kissing it--rapturously.
But he, and Dandy, too, had come to say good-by before marching, and Dandy"s coat shone like silk, and he arched his pretty neck and looked at her with his soft brown eyes as though he wanted to tell her he knew all about it, as indeed he did. Had not Ray gone into the stable early that morning while he was crunching his oats and whispered it all, and ever so much more, into that sensitive ear? A famous confidant was Dandy on the long march that followed, for Ray used to bend down on his neck and talk about her to him time and again, to the wonderment of his "sub." Ray breakfasted at Mrs. Stannard"s the morning of the start, and when he came away and it was time to mount, he wore in the b.u.t.ton-hole of his scouting-shirt a single daisy--Marion"s own flower--and a tiny speck of dark-blue ribbon. The yellow facings of the cavalry were linked with the Sanford blue.
And wasn"t Blake in a gale that morning? Rattling with nonsense and misquotation and eagerness to be off, he strode from gallery to gallery with his Mexican spurs clattering at his heels. He had bought in town a little china match-safe, which he gravely presented to Mrs. Whaling as a slight addition to the collection of what she termed her brick-a-braw.
He implored Mrs. Turner to sing to him just once, for singing was a doubtful accomplishment of hers, and she had already good reason to know that he had paraphrased one of her songs, because of her defective enunciation, into--
"Some day, some day, some day I shall meat chew,"
and she never forgave ridicule. He declared he meant to kiss Mrs.
Wilkins good-by, and dared Mrs. Stannard to come down and see him do it; but when it was really time to ride to the head of his troop of recruits, he bowed to Miss Sanford with a knowing look in his eye, and bent low over her hand.
""Love sought is good, but given unsought is better;"
and yet, fair lady, you fail to see the overpowering advantages of accepting mine. In the language of Schillerschoppenhausen, Ich habe geliebt und gelebt, which being interpreted means, I"ve loved and got left. Fare ye well." And away he rode, bestriding his horse like a pair of bent dividers on a broad grin.
And Ray,--though pale from recent illness and confinement and lack of the old open air life,--never had he looked so full of hope and buoyancy and life as, after one thrilling little squeeze of her hand, he swung into saddle, doffed his broad-brimmed hat to all, and went bounding away to take his place in front of the long mounted line that awaited his coming. Then his voice rang out clear and firm and true, and with the daisy nestling in his breast he galloped to the head of column. Duty, Loyalty, and Hope were leading on before.
Two long weeks of marching it took to carry them to the romantic valley in the Black Hills where the old --th so eagerly awaited them, and meantime letters were flying to and fro. Ray meant to bring his new riders and new horses in perfect trim to their regiments, and so made short marches and constant inspection of his stock. Heavens! what a gloom had settled over the regiment that miserable day, when one of their number, having ridden into Deadwood, came back with a several days" old Cheyenne paper giving the fearful details of Gleason"s death and Ray"s probable guilt. It was three days more before they met the mail-stage fairly laden down with bags of letters for them. Stannard had been almost sick, Truscott sad, silent, but incredulous. There had been a difference between him and Billings, for the latter was inclined to believe the story true, and Truscott said that he was prepared to hear this from other men in the regiment but not from him. Eager as lovers and husbands to get their mail, every man had dropped the letter he happened to be reading when young Hunter, searching a later Cheyenne paper, set up a whoop that made the pine-crested heights echo again and again. Then waving his paper and dancing like a madman, the youngster yelled at the top of his voice,--
"Ray"s innocent! Ray"s acquitted! "Twas a deserter, Wolf, who did it!
He"s confessed. _Now_, Crane. By heaven, swallow your words!
Wh-o-o-o-p!"
Officers and men, the whole regiment sprang to their feet and came tearing to the spot, and such a scene of hand-shaking and shouting and jubilee the Black Hills never knew before or since. It was easy enough for the officers to hurry back to their letters from wives and children or sweethearts, but for hours the men kept up their hurrah; Ray had been their hero for years, and the affair of the July fight of Wayne"s command had simply intensified the feeling.
Naturally, the letters bearing the postmarks of latest dates were those first opened. Fancy the faces of Stannard and Truscott as they read, letter by letter, backward through that summer"s record. Turner looked as sad and anxious as ever; almost the first one he opened said, "If you have not already seen and read those that precede this, please burn them without reading. I was mistaken;" and Turner well knew that when his wife got so far as to admit that she had been mistaken, it meant that in some way she had been playing the mischief. He never read, therefore, all her graphic details of Ray"s mysterious flirtation with Mrs.
Truscott, or of the thrilling evidence in Mrs. Turner"s possession of his guilt. A good fellow was Turner, a loyal soldier and husband, who loved his pretty and capricious better half, and deserved a still better one.
That night when the first keen frosts of October made the camp-fires doubly welcome, old Stannard and Jack went off among the pines and built a little blaze all by themselves, and there talked gravely over the strange events of the summer now so fully set before them in those volumes from Russell. All Wolf"s wild infatuation. All Gleason"s cunning malice, and--ah! _De mortuis nil nisi bonum._ May G.o.d forgive him! All Ray"s loyal and devoted services, and his cruel suffering and wrongs.
What wonder was it that for days the regiment could talk of nothing but Ray? What wonder that they could not fathom the secret of the tie that made Stannard and Truscott inseparable now? What wonder that those two officers obtained permission to ride forward a day"s march and meet Ray and his command, and that when they came upon him cantering gayly up through Buffalo Gap, he hardly knew them, so gaunt, worn, and ragged were they; they hardly knew him, so radiant was the halo of hope and love around his once devil-may-care face; so earnest, so grave, yet so joyous had become his once flippant, reckless mien. Yet, in their very greeting, Ray well knew that deep and faithful as had been the old trust, there was new born from the harsh ordeal of this strange, sad summer a friendship firmer, deeper, than ever earthly menace could shake--a trust and loyalty that was registered in heaven. Not one word for hours was interchanged between Jack and Ray as to that scene in which he carried to Grace the letter Gleason had stolen, or found.
Together, with Blake occasionally injecting his rattling comments, they talked over all the sea of troubles through which he had pa.s.sed, and together they would have mourned it all anew but for Ray.
"No, major. No, Jack. I see well that it was all for the best. G.o.d knows I have been ten times rewarded for anything I may have suffered then.
There was a lesson I _had_ to learn, and did learn: that there are hundreds of people who think that when a man drinks at all there is no crime that may not properly be lodged at his door. It _has_ been a hard siege, but every hour has been inestimable in result and in reward."
But before they rolled in their blankets that night Truscott looked him in the eyes one moment, then held out his hand.
"Is it necessary for me to say how I value what you did and bore for Grace and me, Billy?"
"Not a word, Jack."
Then came the march to meet the regiment, the royal, ringing welcome, a day devoted to lionizing Ray, greeting the new officers, choosing horses, a.s.signing recruits to companies, and then a dash down the Cheyenne, a week"s ride in the glad October sunshine, and, one brilliant evening as they returned, heading in toward the agencies, there met them the courier with despatches and letters, and Ray"s heart went bounding up into his throat as four dainty envelopes, all addressed in the same hand, were lifted up to him as he sat on Dandy, and then Jack Truscott came riding quickly to his side, his eyes glowing, though wet with emotion, his lips compressed, yet a world of joy and grat.i.tude shining in his face. Ray looked up eagerly, and their hands clasped.
"I have a son, Billy, and all is well,--thank G.o.d!"
And then came the day when with the long skirmish lines deployed, far as eye could see, the --th, with the comrade battalions of the other regiments that had shared the rigors of the Yellowstone campaign of "76, came sweeping over the open prairies from the north, and whirling in ahead of them the sullen, scowling, blanketed bands of old Machpealota; "herding" them up the valley of the White River towards the agency, and penning them between the glistening crags of Dancer"s b.u.t.te and the barrier bluffs on the other side, while MacKenzie"s troopers, trim and fresh in their natty garrison dress, "rounded them up" from the south and west, and by night the work of disarming and dismounting the silent Indians was begun. New forces were all there ready to take the field against the hordes of Cheyennes still lurking in the mountains; but for the --th the campaign of the centennial year was virtually over. A few days of rest and jubilee and greeting of old and new friends among the regiments there a.s.sembled, and then they turned their horses" heads southward, gave one backward look at the valley where they turned the tables on the Cheyennes, where Wayne had so nearly sacrificed his whole command, where Ray had run the gauntlet of death by torture to save them, where Truscott"s night dash to the rescue had brought him charging just in time, and over the rolling prairies they marched to seek far to the south their winter homes.
Thither had Ray and Truscott already gone. The summer"s work was done.
The campaign was ended, and there came by telegraph from Cheyenne a notification that Lieutenant Ray would be needed as a witness on the trial of the owners of that gambling-den in which the soldier Wolf had been done to death. The "Gray Fox" was sending in his ambulance and a staff-officer at that very moment. He sent for Ray to bid him good-by and offer him the welcome lift. And just as Truscott was writing some hurried lines to Grace, cheering her with the news that in two weeks he could reach her, the colonel laid a quiet hand upon his shoulder,--an unusual demonstration, and one that meant a good deal,--and said, "It has occurred to the general that you might like to go ahead with Ray, captain; he appreciates the circ.u.mstances under which you hurried to join us, and thinks that now Mrs. Truscott is ent.i.tled to claim you, so Mr. Billings will send your orders after you by mail." He did not say that he had himself gone to the general to ask this indulgence for Truscott, but so it happened that long before sundown the three old comrades, Truscott, Ray, and Mr. Bright, of the staff, were whirling ahead towards Laramie, and that the precious inmates of number eleven at Russell were electrified by the news that Jack and Will,--"Jack and Will!" would be there ten days ahead of the antic.i.p.ated time.