Marion"s Faith.
by Charles King.
PREFACE.
The kind reception accorded "The Colonel"s Daughter" was a surprise and delight to the author, nevertheless it was a long time before he could be induced to write this sequel.
When Mr. Sam Slick, at the first essay, shot the cork out of a floating bottle some thirty yards away, he had the deep sagacity never to pull trigger again, well knowing he could not improve on the initial effort, and so Prudence whispered that with the Finis to the story of Jack Truscott and sweet Grace Pelham there had best come a full stop.
But many a plea has been received to "Tell us more about the --th," and at last the motion prevailed. Thackeray has said, "It is an unfair advantage which the novelist takes of the hero and heroine to say good-by to the two as soon as ever they are made husband and wife, and I have often wished that we should hear what occurs to the sober married man as well as to the ardent bachelor; to the matron as to the blushing spinster." And so, many of the characters of the old story reappear upon the scene. That they will be welcomed for the sake of auld lang syne has been promised, and that they and their a.s.sociates may find new interest in the eyes of the indulgent reader is the prayer of
THE AUTHOR.
MARION"S FAITH.
A SEQUEL TO THE COLONEL"S DAUGHTER.
CHAPTER I.
TWO TROOPERS.
"Ray, what would you do if some one were to leave you a fortune?"
"Humph! Pay for the clothes I have on, I suppose," is the answer, half humorous, half wistful, as the interrogated party, the younger of two officers, glances down at his well-worn regimentals. "That"s one reason I"m praying we may be sent to reinforce Crook up in the Sioux country.
No need of new duds when you"re scouting for old "Gray Fox," you know."
"I thought you wanted to take a leave this summer and visit the old home in Kentucky," says the major, with a look of rather kindly interest from under his s.h.a.ggy eyebrows.
"Want must be my master, then. I couldn"t pay my way home if they"d take me as freight," replies the lieutenant, in the downright and devil-may-care style which is one of his several p.r.o.nounced characteristics. "Of course," he continues presently, "I would like to look in on the mother again; she"s getting on in years now and isn"t over and above strong, but she has no cares or worries to speak of; she don"t know what a reprobate I am; sister Nell is married and out of the way; the old home is sold and mother lives in comfort on the proceeds; she"s happy up at Lexington with her sister"s people. What"s the use of my going back to Kentuck and being a worry to her? Before I"d been there a week I"d be spending most of my time down at the track or the stables; I could no more keep away from the horses than I could from a square game, and she hates both,--they swamped my father before I knew an ace from an ant-hill. No, _sir_! The more I think of it the more I know the only place for me is right here with the old regiment. What"s more, the livelier work we have in the field and the less we get of garrison grind the better it is for me. I almost wish we were back in Arizona to-day."
"Why, confound it! man, it isn"t a year since we left there," breaks in the major, impatiently, "and we haven"t begun to get a taste of civilization yet. You let the women in the regiment hear you talk of wanting to go back there, or what"s worse, going up to join Crook in Wyoming, and they"ll mob you. Who was it your sister married?" he suddenly asks.
"A man named Rallston,--a swell contractor or something up in Iowa. I never saw him; indeed, it"s nearly nine years since I saw her; but she promised to be a beauty then, and they all say she grew up a beauty; but Nell was headstrong and always in mischief, and I"m glad she"s settled down. She used to write to me when she was first married, four years ago, and send me occasional "tips" for Christmas and birthdays, and she was going to give me a Lexington colt when I came East, but she"s quit all that, because I was an ungrateful cub and never answered, I suppose.
She knows there"s nothing I hate worse than writing, and oughtn"t to be hard on me. It"s all I can do to send a monthly report to the mother."
"Did you say you never saw her husband?" asks the major after a pause, in which he had been apparently studying the quick-tripping hoofs of Ray"s nimble sorrel.
"No; never set eyes on him. It was a sudden smite,--one of those flash-in-the-pan, love-at-first-sight affairs. He was down in Kentucky buying horses, saw her at a party, and made no end of fuss over her; had lots of money and style, you know, and the first I heard of it they were married and off. It was our first year in Arizona, and mails were a month old when they got to us."
"How long is it since you heard from her?" says the major, after another pause.
Mr. Ray looks up in some surprise. He hardly knows what to make of this display of curiosity on the part of his ordinarily indifferent companion, but he answers quietly enough,--
"Over a year, I reckon. She was in Omaha then and Rallston was away a good deal,--had big cattle interests somewhere; I know that mother used to ask if Nell told me much about him, and she seemed anxious. Nell herself said that mother was much opposed to the match,--didn"t seem to take to Rallston at all,--but she was bound to have him, and she did, and she"s just that high-strung sort of girl that if disappointed or unhappy would never let on to the mother as long as she lived."
They are riding slowly in from troop-drill, the battalion commander and a pet of his, Mr. Ray, of the --th Cavalry. It is one of those exquisite May mornings when the rolling prairies of Western Kansas seem swimming in a soft, hazy light, and the _mirage_ on the horizon looks like a gla.s.sy sea. The springy turf is tinted with the hues of myriads of wild flowers, purple, pale blue, and creamy white; the mountain breeze that is already whirling the dust-clouds on the Denver plains has not yet begun to ruffle the cottonwoods or the placid surface of the slow-moving stream, and in many a sheltered pool the waters of the "Smoky Hill"
gleam like silvered mirror, without break or flaw. Far out on the gentle slopes small herds of troop-horses or quartermaster"s "stock," each with its attendant guard, give life to the somewhat sombre tone of the landscape, while nearer at hand two or three well-filled cavalry "troops" with fluttering guidons are marching silently in towards the little frontier garrison that lies in a shallow dip in the wide, treeless prairie.
Bits of color are rare enough, save the faint hues of the flowerets,--almost as indistinguishable in the general effect as their fairy fragrance on the air. Aloft, the sky is all one blaze of sunshine, that seems to bleach it into palest, most translucent blue. Far to the west some fleecy clouds are rolling up from the horizon, wafted from the peaks of the hidden Rockies. Down in the "swale," the wooden barracks, stables, quarters, and storehouses are all one tint of economical brown, brightened only by the hues of the flag that hangs high over the scene.
Beyond the shallow valley and across the stream, looking only long rifle-shot away, but a good two miles when one comes to walk it, a brick school-house with glistening cupola stands sentinel in the centre of the scattering frontier town; there, too, lies the railway station, from which an ugly brown freight-train is just pulling out Denverwards, puffing dense clouds of inky smoke to the sky. s.p.a.ce, light, and air there are in lavish profusion. Shade there is little or none, except close along the winding stream; but shade is a thing neither sought nor cared for, as the sun-tanned faces of the troopers show. Every now and then a trumpet-call floats softly over the prairie, or the ringing, prolonged word of command marks some lazily-executed manoeuvre on the homeward way. Drill is over; the sharp eyes and sharper tongue of the major no longer criticise any faulty or "slouchy" wheel; the drill proper has been stiff and spirited, and now the necessary changes of direction are carried out in a purely perfunctory manner, while the battalion commander and his subaltern, troops and all, amble back and give their steeds a breathing spell.
Typical cavalrymen are those two, who, chatting quietly together, are riding somewhat in advance of the returning companies. The major is a man a trifle over forty, short, stout, with ma.s.sive shoulders, chest, and thighs, a neck like a bull, a well-shaped head covered with straight, close-cropped, brown hair, innocent of kink or curl; a florid face, bronzed and tanned by years of life in sun and wind and storm; clean-shaven but for the drooping brown moustache that conceals the rugged lines of his mouth, and twinkling blue-gray eyes that peer out with searching gaze from under their s.h.a.ggy brows. Firmness, strength, self-reliance, even sternness, can be read in every line; but around the gathering crowsfeet at the corners of his eyes, and lurking under the shadow of the grim moustache, are little curves or dimples or something, that betray to the initiated the presence of a humorous vein that softens the asperity of the soldier. Some who best know him can detect there a symptom of tenderness and a possibility of sentiment, whose existence the major would indignantly deny. The erect carriage of the head, the square set of the shoulders, the firm yet easy seat in the saddle, speak of the experienced soldier, while in the first word that falls from his lips one hears the tone of the man far more at home in camp than court. There is something utterly blunt and abrupt in his manner, a scathing contrast to the affected drawl brought into the regiment by recent importations from the East, and a.s.siduously copied by a professed Anglo-maniac among the captains. Rude indeed may he sometimes be in his speech, "and little versed in the set phrase of peace," but through it all is the ring of st.u.r.dy honesty and independence. He uses the same tone to general and to private soldier alike; extending the same degree of courtesy to each. No one ever heard of "old Stannard"s" fawning upon a superior or bullying an inferior; to all soldiers he is one and the same,--short, blunt, quick, and to the point. Literally he obeys the orders of his chiefs, and literally and promptly he expects his own to be obeyed. He has his faults, like the best of men: he will growl at times; he is p.r.o.ne to pick flaws, and to say sharp and cutting things, for which he is often ashamed and sorry; he can see little good in the works or words of the men he dislikes; he absolutely cannot praise, and he is over-quick to blame; but after all he is true as steel, as unswerving as the needle, and no man, no woman could need a stancher friend than the new major of the --th, "old Stannard."
As for Ray, no officer in the regiment is better known or more talked about. Ten years of his life he has spent under the standard of the --th, barring a very short but eventful detail at "the Point." Nebraska, Kansas, and Arizona he knows as well as the savannas of his native blue-gra.s.s country. He has been in more skirmishes with the regiment and more sc.r.a.pes of his own than any fellow of his age in service, but he has the faculty of "lighting on his feet every time," as he himself would express it, and to-day he rides along as buoyantly and recklessly as he did ten years ago, and the saddle is Ray"s home. Ephemeral pleasure he finds in the hop-room, for he dances well; perennial attraction, his detractors say, he finds at the card-table, but Ray is never quite himself until he throws his leg over the horse he loves. He is _facile princeps_ the light rider of the regiment, and to this claim there are none to say him nay. A tip-top soldier too is Ray. Keen on the scout, tireless on the trail, daring to a fault in action, and either preternaturally cool or enthusiastically excited when under fire. He is a man the rank and file swear by and love. "You never hear Loot"nant Ray saying "Go in there, fellers." "Tis always, "Come on, boys." That"s why I like him," is the way Sergeant Moriarty puts it. Among his comrades, his brother officers that is to say, opinions are divided. Ray has trusty friends and he has his bitter enemies, though the latter, when charged with the fact, are p.r.o.ne to say that no one is so much Ray"s enemy as Ray himself,--an a.s.sertion which cannot be altogether denied.
But as his own worst enemy Ray is thoroughly open and above-board; he has not a hidden fault; his sins are many and they are public property for all he cares; whereas the men who dislike Ray in the regiment are of the opposite stamp. Among themselves they pick him to pieces with comparative safety, but outside their limited circle, the d.a.m.nation of faint praise, the covert insinuations, or that intangible species of backbiting which can,
"Without sneering, others teach to sneer,"
has to be their resort, and for good reason. Ray tolerates no slander, and let him once get wind of the fact that some man has maligned him, there is a row in the camp. Minding his own business, however unsuccessfully, he meddles with the affairs of no one else, and thinking twice before he alludes once to the shortcomings of a comrade, he claims that consideration for himself, but doesn"t get it. There be men who outrival the weaker s.e.x in the sinister effect they can throw into the faintest allusion to another"s conduct, and in the dexterity with which they evade the consequences, and of such specimens the --th has its share. There was Crane, whom Ray had fearfully snubbed and afterwards "cut" in Arizona; there was Wilkins, whom Ray had treated with scant courtesy for over a year, because of some gossip that veteran had been instrumental in putting into circulation; there was Captain Canker, who used to like and admire Ray in the rough old days in the canons and deserts, but who had forfeited his esteem while they were stationed at Camp Sandy, and when they met again in Kansas, Ray touched his cap to his superior officer but withheld his hand. Canker felt very bitterly towards Ray, claiming that there was no officer in the regiment whom he had treated with such marked courtesy, and to this, when he heard it, Ray made response in his characteristic way. He would have no middleman.
He went straight to Canker and said his say in few terse words: "You consider me unjustified in refusing to treat you as a friend, Captain Canker; now let us have no misunderstanding whatever. Your conduct towards _my_ best friend, Captain Truscott, and towards--towards another good friend of mine at Sandy, was an outrage in my opinion, and I have yet to learn that you have expressed regret or made amends. That"s my position, sir; and if you care for my friendship, you know how to regain it." Canker was too much astonished by such directness to make any reply. Other officers who happened to be standing near maintained an embarra.s.sed silence, and Ray faced about and walked off. "For all the world," said Wilkins, "as though he had that d----d chip on his shoulder again and was begging somebody to knock it off." Canker was. .h.i.t in a sore place. Long before this occurrence he realized that several officers of the regiment had withdrawn every semblance of esteem in their intercourse with him. He well knew why, but the officer whose cause Ray so vehemently championed was away on detached service, and Canker really did not know just what to do, and was too proud and sensitive to seek advice. He was a gallant soldier in the field, but a man of singularly unfortunate disposition,--crabbed, cranky, and suspicious; and thus it resulted that he, too, joined the little band of Ray haters, despite the fact that he felt ashamed of himself for so doing.
Then there was Gleason,--"That man Gleason," as he was generally alluded to, and to those familiar with army life or army ways the mere style is indicative of this character. For good and sufficient reason Mr. Ray had slapped Mr. Gleason"s face some years back, when the --th was serving in Arizona, and there was no possible reason for his failure to seek the immediate reparation due him as an officer, no possible reason except the absolute certainty of Ray"s promptly according him the demanded luxury. The --th was commanded by a colonel of the old school in those days, one who had observed "the code" when a junior officer, and would have been glad to see it carried out to this day; but Gleason was not made of that stuff, and to the scandal of the regiment and the incredulous mirth of Mr. Ray, Gleason pocketed the blow as complacently as he did the money he had won from the Kentuckian by a trick which was transparent to every looker-on, and would have been harmless with Ray--had he been himself. Those were the rough days of the regiment"s campaign against the Apaches; officers and men were scattered in small commands through the mountains; in the general and absorbing interest of the chase and scout after a common foe there was no time to take up and settle the affair as something affecting the credit of the entire corps; many officers never heard of it at all until long afterwards, and then it was too late; but to this day Gleason stood an unsparing, bitter, but secret and treacherous enemy of the younger officer. He hated Ray with the venom of a snake.
So far as the regiment was concerned, the enmity of a man of Gleason"s calibre could hardly be of consequence. Like Canker, he had come into the --th from the "supernumerary list" at the time of the general reorganization in "71. Scores of infantry officers left out of their regiments by consolidation were saddled upon the cavalry and artillery, and in many instances proved utterly out of their element in the mounted service. All the cavalry regiments growled more or less at the enforced addition to their list of "total commissioned," and the --th had not been especially fortunate. Many a fine soldier and excellent comrade had come into the cavalry in this way, and of them the --th had found a few; but a dozen or more, valuable neither as soldiers nor comrades, had drifted into the mounted service, and of these the regiment had, to say the least, its full share. "All I"ve got to remark on the subject," said old "Black Bill," the senior major at that eventful period,--"all I"ve got to remark is simply this: those infantry fellows showed profound discrimination in getting rid of their chaff, but they had no mercy on us. When a man ain"t good enough for a doughboy officer he ain"t fit for anything."
Now, it by no means resulted from inefficiency on their part that so many of the transferred officers had left their own regiments. Many had requested the move; many more were rendered supernumerary as being the juniors of their grades; but there were others still who ranked well up in their old regiments, and yet were mysteriously "left out in the cold." And of such was "that man Gleason." Six years had he served with the new regiment in the field, and not a friend could he muster among the officers,--not one who either liked or respected him,--not one who more than tolerated him except among the two or three who daily and nightly haunted the card-room at the trader"s store; but to hear Gleason talk one would fancy him to be on terms of intimacy with every "solid"
man of the regiment, and the casual visitor at the garrison would be more than apt to leave it with the impression that Gleason was the figure-head of the commissioned element. He had fair manners; his appearance was prepossessing; he was bland and insinuating among daily a.s.sociates, confidential and hospitable with strangers. A visitor could go nowhere without meeting Gleason, for his social status was just so balanced between adverse influences that one could neither forbid nor welcome him to his home. No matter who might be the entertaining officer, the first to call and pay his respects to the guest would be that objectionable Gleason, and very sprightly and interesting could he be. Ten to one the chances were that when he took his departure he had left a pleasant impression on the mind of the new arrival, who would find himself at a loss to account for the evident perturbation with which his host proper regarded his acceptance of Gleason"s hospitable invitations. Gleason"s horse, Gleason"s dogs or guns or rods were promptly at the door for him to try, and when others sought to do him honor, and other invitations came to hunt or ride or dine, Gleason had the inside track, and somehow or other it seemed to make the better men of the --th retire into their sh.e.l.ls when they heard of it. This had been the way with visiting officers from other posts and regiments when in Arizona, and the same thing was being repeated here in Kansas. The --th did not like it, but could not exactly see how to help it. The only vulnerable and tangible points upon which he could be "sent to Coventry"
were shady transactions at cards or horse-racing that had occurred in Arizona, and his failure to resent Ray"s blow; but two and three years had elapsed since these occurrences; the scattered condition of the regiment had prevented regimental notice of them at the time, and it was generally held that now it was too late for any such action. With any other man coldness, distance of manner, or at the least the p.r.o.nounced snubs that greeted Gleason, would have long since had effect, but he was proof against such methods, and no sooner detected them than he found excuses to force himself upon the attention or conversation of the officer, and in so insidious a way as to disarm resistance. He would fairly beam with cordiality and respect upon the commanding officer who was short and gruff with him; he would invade old Stannard"s quarters to ask his advice about the purchase of a horse or the proper method of dealing with some one of his men,--and the major had a soft side in looking after the rights of the rank and file; he would drop in to ask Mrs. Stannard the name of a new flower he had picked up out near the targets. He cared no more for flowers than she did for him, but it gave him temporary admission, generally when other ladies had called for a morning chat, and though she cordially disliked him, Mrs. Stannard was too thorough a lady to show the least discourtesy to an officer of her husband"s regiment. Gleason well knew it, and laid his plans accordingly. For a long time, indeed, there were ladies who could not understand why Mr. Gleason should be so contemptuously spoken of by the officers. He was so thoughtful, so delicate, and then he was so lonely.
Gleason was a widower, whose eyes would often overflow when he spoke of the little woman whom he had buried years ago down in Connecticut; but when Mrs. Turner once questioned Captain Baxter, who knew them when they were in the old infantry regiment in Louisiana, and referred to its being so sad and touching to hear Mr. Gleason talk of his dead wife and their happy days among the orange-groves near Jackson Barracks, the captain astonished her by an outburst of derisive laughter. "Happy, madam?" said he; "by gad! if ever a woman died of neglect, abuse, and ill-treatment Mrs. Gleason did, and next time he attempts to gull you with sentiment, just you refer him to me." But then, as Mrs. Turner said, poor Captain Baxter"s finer sensibilities seemed to have been blunted by a lifetime in the quartermaster"s department, and for quite a while Mr. Gleason was one of her favorites,--quite a devotee in fact, until the disastrous day when she discovered that so far from having been ill and unable to ride with her, as he claimed, he had been spending the afternoon in the fascinations of poker. One by one the ladies of the --th had learned to trust Mr. Gleason as little as did their lords, but there was no snubbing him. "Snubs," said the senior major, "are lost on such a pachydermatous a.s.s as Gleason," and however tough might be his moral hide, and however deserved might have been the applied adjective, the major was in error in calling Gleason an a.s.s.
Intriguing, full of low malice and scheming, a "slanderer and substractor" he certainly was, but no fool. More"s the pity, Mr. Gleason was far too smart for the direct methods and simple minds of his a.s.sociates in the --th. He never in all his life failed to take full note of every slight or coldness, and though it was his role to hide the sting, and "smile and smile and be a villain still," never was it his purpose to permit the faintest snub to go unpunished. Sooner or later, unrelentingly but secretly he would return that stab with interest ten times compounded. And sooner or later to the bitter end he meant to feed fat his ancient grudge on Ray.
Up to this time he had scant opportunity. For two or three years preceding their removal to the East Gleason had been stationed in Southern Arizona, while Ray, after months of lively service in the mountains, had been sent to regimental headquarters, and marched with them when they came into Kansas. Now once more six companies were gathered at the post of the standard,--two were tenting on the prairie just outside the garrison, the other four were regularly in barracks, and the concentration there boded a move or "business" of some kind.
"Old Catnip," the colonel, was East, but the lieutenant-colonel was commanding, and the junior major was there. Drills were incessant, but scouts were few, and after the years of "go-as-you-please" work in Arizona the --th was getting rapidly back into soldierly shape. The little frontier fort was blithe and gay with its merry populace. All the officers" families had joined; several young ladies were spending the spring in garrison and taking their first taste of military life; hops and dances came off almost every night, a "german" every week; rides, drives, hunts, and picnic-parties were of daily occurrence; the young officers were in clover, the young ladies in ecstasy, the young matrons--perhaps not quite so well pleased as when they had the field to themselves in Arizona, where young ladies had been few and far between, and all promised delightfully for the coming summer,--all but the war-cloud rising in the far Northwest.
CHAPTER II.
GARRISON TALK.
It was a picturesque group that a.s.sembled every pleasant morning on the veranda of the colonel"s quarters. There had been a time in the not very distant past of the regiment when the ladies gathered almost anywhere else in preference, but that was when Colonel Pelham had retained the command, and when his wife sought to rule the garrison after methods of her own devising. However successful may be such feminine usurpation for a time, it is at best but a temporary power, for women are of all things revolutionary. The instances where some ambitious matron has sought to a.s.sume the control of the little military bailiwick known as "the garrison" are numerous indeed, but the fingers of one hand are too many to keep tally of the cases of prolonged and peaceful reign. Mrs.
Pelham"s queendom had been limited to a very brief fortnight,--so "twas said in the regiment,--despite the fact that the more prominent members of the social circle of the --th had been quite ready to do her every homage on her first arrival,--provided the prime ministry were not given to some rival sister. But Mrs. Pelham"s administration had been fraught with errors and disasters enough to wreck a const.i.tutional monarchy, and, as a result, affairs were in a highly socialistic, if not nihilistic condition for some months after the return of the regiment from its exile in Arizona. Only a few of the officers had taken their families thither with them, for the journey in those days was full of vast discomfort and expense, and life there was an isolation; but those ladies who had shared the heat and burden of the Arizona days with their lords were not unnaturally given to regarding themselves as ent.i.tled to more consideration as regimental authorities than those of their sisterhood who had remained in comfort in the East. Then, too, there was a little band of heroines who had made the march "cross country" with the --th, and held themselves (and were held by the men) as having a higher place on the regimental unwritten records than those who were sent home by way of the Pacific, San Francisco, and the one railway that then belted the continent. Of these heroines Mrs. Pelham was not, and when she rejoined at Fort Hays, got her house in order and proceeded, though with inward misgiving, to summon her subjects about her, she found that even the faint rally on which she had counted was denied her.
The ladies who knew her at Camp Sandy had thrown off the yoke, and those who were joining for the first time had been unmistakably cautioned by the determined Amazons of the homeward march. Courtesy, civility, and a certain degree of cordiality when in their social gatherings, the ladies were willing to extend to the colonel"s wife, but the declaration of independence had been signed and sealed,--they would have no more of her dominion.
To a woman of her character garrison life was no longer tolerable to Mrs. Pelham; the colonel, too, was getting tired of it, was aging rapidly and no longer able to take his morning gallops. Then, too, he was utterly lonely; his one daughter, the light of his old eyes, had married the man of her choice during the previous year; his sons were scattered in their own avocations, and the complaints and peevishness of his wife were poor companions for his fireside. The officers welcomed him to their club-room, and gladly strove to interest him in billiards or whist, to the exclusion of the Gleason clique and concomitant poker, which was never played in the colonel"s presence; but even this solace was denied him by his wife. She was just as lonely at home, poor lady, and she had to have some one to listen to her long acc.u.mulation of feminine trials and grievances, otherwise the overcharged bosom would burst. We claim it an attribute of manhood that "to suffer and be strong" is an every-day affair; but the best of men feel infinite relief in having some trusted friend who will listen in patience to the oft-told story of their struggle. To suffer, be strong, and be silent is a task for the stoutest of our s.e.x, but woman triumphs over nature itself in accomplishing the triple feat, and undergoes a torture that outrivals martyrdom. Suffer Mrs. Pelham could and did, if her voluble lamentations could be credited; strong she deemed herself beyond all question, in not having succ.u.mbed to the privations and asperities of Western life, but silent? ah, no! Poor old Pelham"s life had become a perennial curtain-lecture, so Lieutenant Blake expressed it, and when January came, and with it an opportunity to accept a pleasant detail in the East, the colonel lost no time in taking his departure. He left the --th with a sorrowful heart, for officers and men were strongly attached to the old soldier who had for years past shared every exile with them, but they could not bear his domineering wife, and many a fellow who hadn"t told an appreciable lie for six months gulped unconscionably when it came to saying good-by to Mrs. Pelham. How could an honest man say he regretted her going? Stout old Bucketts, the quartermaster, looked her straight in the eye and wished her a pleasant journey and a long and happy visit East, whereat several ladies gasped audibly, yet told it over and over afterwards with infinite delight. The majority of the officers contented themselves with saying that the garrison would not be the same place without the colonel and herself, which was gospel truth despite its ambiguity, but Gleason came in from a hunt purposely to say farewell, and was most effusive in his regrets at her ladyship"s departure, and as for the ladies of the regiment. Ah, well! Why should they be any different, any more frank in garrison than out of it? There was not one of their number who did not inwardly rejoice at Mrs.
Pelham"s going, but they clouded their gentle faces in decorous mourning; they grouped about her on the piazza when the hour for parting came, looking infinitely pathetic and picturesque, and the soft voices were touching in their subdued sorrow; there were even eyes that glistened with unshed tears, and both Mrs. Raymond and Mrs. Turner begged that she would write to them, and heaven only knows what all. Who that saw it could doubt the forgiving nature of the gentler s.e.x? Who dare asperse the sweet sincerity of feminine friendship?
But Lady Pelham had gone, and gone for good they hoped; the lieutenant-colonel had arrived and a.s.sumed command, and Major and Mrs.
Stannard made their first appearance at regimental headquarters. A new era had dawned on the --th; the staff sent in their resignations, and were promptly and pleasantly notified by the new commander that he hoped they would not deprive him of services that had been so valuable to his predecessor; whereat they resumed duty with lighter hearts. It was all well enough where Bucketts was concerned; he had been quartermaster for years and no one expected anything else, but there were those in the regiment who hoped there might be a change in the adjutancy. The office was held by one of the senior lieutenants, to be sure, and one who possessed many qualifications which were conceded, but his appointment had been something of an accident.
He, too, had come into the --th by transfer in "71 for the avowed purpose of seeking service on the Western frontier with the cavalry. As it was the artillery which he abandoned for that purpose, the --th admitted that here was a fellow who might be worth having, but, to the scandal of the entire regiment, no sooner was the order issued which doomed them to a five years" exile in Arizona--then overrun with hostile Apaches--than the newly transferred gentleman accepted a detail as aide-de-camp on the staff of a general officer, and the --th went across to the Pacific and presently were lost to recollection in the then inaccessible wilds of that marvellous Territory. Here they spent four long years of hard scouting, hard fighting, and no little suffering, while the aide in question was presumably enjoying himself in unlimited ball and opera in a gay Southern capital. Suddenly he turned up in their midst just in time to take part in the closing campaign which left the Apaches for several years a disarmed and subjugated race; he happened to get command of a well-seasoned and thoroughly experienced "troop," and through no particular personal merit, but rather by the faculty he had of seeking the advice of the veteran sergeants in the company, he had won two or three lively little fights with wandering bands of hostiles, and had finally been quite enviably wounded. It was all a piece of his confounded luck, said some of the --th not unnaturally. Many a gallant fellow had been killed and buried, many another wounded and not especially mentioned, and all of them had done months of hard work where Billings had put in only so many days, but here he came in at the eleventh hour, and they, who had borne the heat and burden of the campaign and received every man his penny, couldn"t help a few good-natured slings at the fact that Billings"s penny was just as big and round as theirs. The department commander had been close at hand every time that fortunate youth came in from a scout, and even Ray, who was incessantly seeking the roughest and most dangerous service, could not repress a wistful expression of his views when he heard of the final scrimmage far up towards Chevelon"s Fork. "Here we fellows have been bucking against this game for nigh onto four years now, and if ever we raked in a pile it"s all been ante"d up since, and now Billings comes in fresh--never draws but he gets a full hand--and he scoops the deck. He has too much luck for a white man." The remark was one that, said by Ray himself in his whimsical and downright manner, was dest.i.tute of any hidden meaning, and Billings, who had not seen Ray for years, would never have misunderstood it, but when he first heard it six months afterwards, and while Ray and himself had yet to meet, it was told semi-confidentially, told as Ray never said it, told in fact--by Gleason; and Billings, who was of a nervous, sensitive disposition, as outspoken in a way as Ray was in his, was hurt more than a little. He had known Ray a dozen years before when both were wearing the gray as cadets at the Point, but they were in different cla.s.ses and by no means intimate. Each, however, had cordially liked the other, and Billings would have been slow to believe the statement as told him for a single instant except for two things,--one was that Gleason was a new acquaintance of whom up to that time he knew nothing really discreditable; the other was that just before the regiment came East from Arizona the adjutancy became vacant, Lieutenant Truscott, who had long held the position, was detailed for duty at West Point and speedily promoted to his captaincy; Billings was brought in wounded and sent off by sea to San Francisco as soon as he could travel, and so heard little of the particulars of some strange mystery that was going on at regimental headquarters, and when, some months later, he rejoined the regiment in Kansas, it was with much mental perturbation that he received from "Old Catnip" the offer of the still vacant adjutancy.