To begin with, Mrs. Truscott rarely went out at all, and had denied herself to visitors on many occasions. Mrs. Stannard and Marion were all the companions she cared to see much of, though, to Mrs. Turner"s incredulous wrath, Mrs. Wilkins was admitted on the very days when she, herself, had called and penetrated no farther than the parlor. Mrs.
Wilkins had enjoyed--we use the term advisedly--a furious quarrel with the wife of the commanding officer, and had driven that exemplary and forgiving woman from the field in utter dismay. There had been no love lost between them from the first, but Mrs. Wilkins had hotly resented Mrs. Whaling"s lamentations over Ray"s prospective conviction and his undeniable guilt, and had given the venerable black silk a dusting the very day that Ray was carried off to prison. Then came the electrifying intelligence that Wolf"s dying confession had completely exonerated Ray, and both Mrs. Whaling and Mrs. Turner had flown to Mrs. Stannard to a.s.sure her that neither one of them could have believed in his guilt had it not been for the other. Mrs. Whaling was positive that she had never spoken of him except in the love and charity she would have used towards her own son, and nothing but Mrs. Turner"s accounts of his wildness and dissipation would have shaken her faith in him for a moment. She had always admired his frank and fearless character, and so had "the general," who was heart-broken to think he had been so outrageously imposed upon by Ray"s enemies. Mrs. Turner vowed that she had really loved Mr. Ray like a brother, but that Mrs. Whaling had told her of the positive evidence the general had against him, and so what could she think? Mrs. Stannard listened to both with uncompromising and decidedly chilling silence, and each withdrew discomfited.
Colonel Rand spent much of the morning after Wolf"s revelation in overhauling papers with Colonel Whaling, but his visit to the ladies at number eleven was of unusual length and cordiality. He left only in time to see Ray and Blake a few moments in town before taking the eastern train. It had been Mrs. Stannard"s intention to drive thither to call on Mrs. Rallston, but she was too late. Mr. Green"s telegraphic message from Denver had warned him that Rallston was delirious with fever, and after the rapturous interview between brother and sister that followed upon his return from Wolf"s bedside, Ray had gently broken the news to her of her husband"s illness, and before the coming of train time on the following day Rand had obtained telegraphic authority for him to escort her to, and remain with her in, Denver. His release by the civil authorities would have had about it something of the nature of an ovation, when at noon on that day the full details of Wolf"s confession were "spread upon the records," but by ingeniously circulating the story that he would return to the fort at sunset, Blake managed to throw the public off the track. His arrest was suspended by the telegram from division headquarters. Rand was ordered to come thither at once with his doc.u.mentary proofs of the falsity of the charges against Ray, and the latter went quietly off to Denver with a ten days" leave, conducting his sister to her husband"s bedside. He saw no one at Russell before going, but we have reason to believe that the plethoric missive he sent to Mrs.
Stannard derived much of its bulk from an enclosure that was not meant for her eyes at all, and Blake went back to Russell to the lionizing he deserved.
But the gloom at the garrison was dispelled perforce by the arrival of troop after troop, company after company, from east, west, and south, fast as cars could carry them,--all bound for the Black Hills to meet and support Crook, who was reported fighting his way southward through unknown regions and unknown numbers of the red men. Nothing had been heard even by telegraph from the --th from any source whatever since the steamer came down to Bismarck with sick and wounded, and the news that they had pushed out again for the Little Missouri country the last of August, and here it was beyond mid September. A whole regiment of cavalry encamped for a day or two on the prairie, then marched northward. Natty artillerymen from San Francisco dropped in to pay their respects on their way to "the Hills;" not a day pa.s.sed without the arrival of strange officers, scores of men, and squadrons of horses.
Russell had suddenly blossomed into first rank as a great supply depot, and in all the excitement of greeting the new-comers, and sending messages and missives to the dear ones at the front, the pall of tragedy was lifted from the post. Gleason and Wolf were, alike, wellnigh forgotten.
And then with sudden thrill the news tore through the post, and flashed over the wires in every direction, that a courier had ridden down from the northern limits of the hills bringing despatches from Crook, and announcing that, though half starved, ragged, and practically dismounted, the followers of the Gray Fox had reached the Belle Fourche, and would soon be able to push on to the agencies. They had dashed upon the Sioux villages at Slim b.u.t.tes, capturing hundreds of their fat ponies (and greedily eating many of them that very night), had found the lodges crammed with the spoil of the Custer battle, had killed several warriors and burned every ounce of Indian stores or provisions they could not use, and had two days" ringing, spirited fighting with Crazy Horse and his charging hosts among the fog wreaths and dripping crags of those strange, picturesque upheavals; then burying their dead and bringing away their wounded, they were once more within reach of supplies, though it might be weeks before they could come home. "Another battle and we not there," was Blake"s sympathetic despatch to Ray at Denver; but now the last seemed to be recorded. Another week and letters might be expected. Another fortnight and it was known that all the forces were concentrating at Red Cloud to disarm the disaffected bands near the agencies. And then Blake and Ray, too, had both sped northward again to join their regiment. Ray"s affairs had been summarily settled in this wise.
Rallston"s illness had been severe, and Ray and Nell had been constantly at his side. When the fever broke and consciousness returned, and the patient realized where he was and who were his nurses, the man"s remorse and shame were something pitiable. Of him, as an impartial historian, it is difficult to write, since long a.s.sociation with Stannard had forcibly impressed his views as to Rallston"s character. Perhaps we were as reluctant to hear of his subsequent behavior and to believe in his contrition as Mrs. Whaling with all her meek and lowly piety was to conceive of Ray"s innocence of the various charges laid at his door; but, in the absence of proof to the contrary, we simply place before the patient reader Nellie Ray Rallston"s own statement: that her husband emerged from that trying illness a very different man, that he humbly begged Will"s forgiveness and hers, and that when he was well enough to be moved home he had grown so fond of Will that he could not bear to have him out of his sight, and that he was rejoiced when orders came for Will to go to Chicago, as it enabled him to travel with them as far as Omaha. But you must remember, we feel bound to say, that she was of that loyal loving Kentucky nature--singularly like her brother for that matter--that having once given itself in its entirety to the service of lover or friend, is apt to stick to it through thick and thin. We may be pardoned--we worldlings--for doubting as yet the depth and sincerity of Rallston"s repentance. "When the devil was ill, the devil a saint would be," etc. You know the application; but, for the time being, Mrs.
Rallston went home happier than she had been for ages.
And Ray went on to division headquarters at Chicago, wondering what on earth was up now. He was still on leave, still clamoring to be tried, that he might be cleared of those charges and allowed to rejoin his regiment. His wound had healed, though he was still thin and worn, and he could not bear to think that there might be any more fighting for the dear old --th and he not there.
But Rand had taken Rallston"s letters and some other papers with him to Chicago, as directed, and the commanding general had seen in less than no time what an outrageous case had been built up against a young officer whose record up to date had been one that appealed to all his sympathies. Ever since that daring night ride Ray had been an object of the liveliest interest to the general,--himself the cavalry leader _par excellence_ of his day,--and when Rand laid before him all the papers in the case there was an eruption that made the rafters ring.
But when it came to cooling down and acting on the case, much as the general might think Ray deserved a triumphant vindication at the hands of a court, there were a dozen things to make it impracticable. To begin with, the court had been ordered before it looked so black for Crook"s command and the Black Hills settlers, and all those infantry officers who were on the original detail were now plodding up to Red Cloud. The division was wellnigh stripped of everything but staff-officers, and if a court _did_ meet, what a scoring it might give old Whaling and to his own staff-officer, who took all that hearsay talk down around Leavenworth and never gave Ray"s friends a chance. It ended in the general"s impetuously directing that the court be dissolved, and that Ray be ordered there post-haste. "I"ll vindicate him!" he said.
And he did. Ray"s pale, anxious face turned all sorts of colors when the general jumped up from his chair and griped his hand like a vise, and looked into his brave young eyes and said things to him that filled them with tears and his soul with confusion. Ray had no words, but his heart was full of a delight that none but soldiers know, and the lionizing he got that day at division headquarters would have spoiled many another fellow. The general could, indeed, "vindicate" him. He showed him the draft of the letters sent to the regiment, and asked with a smile if he didn"t think _that_ would do as well as the "not guilty" of a court; and that evening Ray took the westward train so as to stop over in Omaha one night and see Nell, and then hurry on by the Union Pacific to Cheyenne.
His heart was bounding with hope, with pride, with grat.i.tude and joy; but through it all there was a sense of something strange and new to him that tempered every feeling of exultation. He had been tried as by fire, and humbled, softened, chastened by the fierceness of the flame. Even bitterness and resentment seemed expelled from his soul. Ray was a changed, a graver man. All that was truthful, gallant, loyal in his nature was there yet, but the recklessness of the past was gone.
Many letters had come to him in the few days he had spent at Denver by Rallston"s sick-bed, and while Mrs. Stannard had frequently written to tell him how they all were, and the colonel sent a courteously-worded expression of his regret at the credence he had given to the statements of a brother officer and what he termed the "misunderstandings" of the summer, Ray was most touched at Warner"s "solid" and earnest appeal to be regarded as a friend and not as one of the opposition.
He answered promptly and cordially everything Mr. Warner wrote with a single exception. The young adjutant was requested by Colonel Whaling to put in a word or two for the Hibernian quartermaster whom Blake had cut dead, and who was perturbed in spirit over the prospect of being otherwise lacerated when Ray got back. Warner thought that the colonel or the quartermaster himself should make the proper _amende_ in this case, but the latter was a poor hand at epistolary expression, and the former had long been a p.r.o.nounced adherent of that "divine right of"
commanding officers which makes the adjutant the transmitter and medium of all correspondence involving matters of delicate or diplomatic import. If the result be successful, all right. It was written by direction of Colonel So and So, and is presumably his own wording. If it fail, then anybody can see that failure is due solely to the clumsy and blockheaded manipulation of the adjutant.
Mr. Warner conveyed a hope that the quartermaster might be included in the general amnesty, but to this Ray made no response. He drew the line at those who had been unkind to Dandy.
And now he was hurrying back to Russell to conduct a large body of recruits and horses up to "the Hills" to meet the regiment; and a party of young officers had joined, many of them graduates of that very year"s cla.s.s at the Point, young fellows whom Mrs. Truscott had known well but a few months previous, when they wore the gray under Jack"s tuition at squadron drill and riding-hall work. Their regiments being in the field on active campaign, they abandoned much of the leave of absence due them and hastened to report for duty. Their services were most needed in getting the recruits into shape, and here they were at Russell enthusiastic at the prospect of seeing Captain Truscott again, devoting themselves to the ladies at his army home, and eager to a man to see and know Ray, whose name was on every lip, whom every man of them envied, and who would arrive at noon on the morrow.
Mrs. Stannard"s piazza was the scene of a levee this lovely, sunshiny autumn afternoon. She was there with Miss Sanford and Mrs. Truscott, who was reclining in a comfortable wicker chair, and vastly enjoying the sunshine, the bracing air, and above all the merry chat of these young troopers, and envying them their northward march. Would they not be with Jack in a fortnight? Half a dozen of the "boys" were flocking around the ladies, and Blake was there sprawling over the railing as was his wont, and convulsing the a.s.semblage every now and then with his outrageous travesties and declamatory outbursts. Blake was in the wildest possible spirits. He was bubbling over with fun and the milk of human kindness, except for that poor devil of a quartermaster, at whom he scowled diabolically whenever they met. He had forgiven Mrs. Turner, who was quick to see where the "gang" had gathered that afternoon, and was early on hand to lure the new victims. Already she was making a deep impression on Mr. Corry, who was gazetted to her husband"s troop, and was fetching him farther into the meshes with every glance of her eyes.
And then came Mrs. Whaling, whom Blake hastened to meet, and with elaborate genuflexions to usher into the circle, where she was speedily seated and regaling the company with her views on the chances of the campaign. It being the ardent desire of every cavalry lady in garrison that the --th should be ordered thither for winter quarters, Mrs.
Whaling was full of information which "the general" had received from confidential sources going to prove that a great infantry post was to be established there, which he would command, while the cavalry remained in the Hills until spring. Blake noted the silence among the young officers and the anxious look in Mrs. Truscott"s face (Mrs. Stannard had long since ceased to be influenced by Mrs. Whaling"s statements), and he determined on a diversion. He felt morally certain that the only "confidential" communication the veteran post commander had received from any superior in a week was the stinging rap from division headquarters anent the bungle he had made in Ray"s affair, and on general principles he felt that he couldn"t let an opportunity slip.
"Oh, come now, Mrs. Whaling, don"t crush all the hopes we had of spending the winter with you here. "Lady, you are the cruellest she alive" if you will lead us to believe such ill report, and here we were all rejoicing that Ray comes to-morrow."
"Oh! Mr. Ray, to be sure! and how delightful it is to think that he has justified all our confidence in him! He returns like--a--the Bayard of old; _the chevalier sans peur et--et_----"
"_Sans culotte?_" suggested Blake.
"Ah, yes; thanks! Mr. Blake. As though I _could_ have forgotten it for a moment! Quite like the chevalier _sans peur et sans culotte_. Such a knightly fellow as he always was!"
"Oh, Lord, yes! _All_ nightly, especially when the luck ran his way."
"Now, Mr. Blake, how you distort my meaning!"
"Madame, you do me wrong, notorious wrong! I did but echo the words you spake a week agone. You marvel at my meaning. Nay, then, "tis not less strange and weird than the tongue in which you tell of his perfections; less _bizarre_, if you _will_ have French."
"Mr. Blake, you tilt at wind-mills." ("Gad! that"s neat!" quoth he, _sotto voce_.) "I never said anything about a bazaar, though that reminds me that every one of you gentlemen should go to town and do something for the church before you leave. The fair has been going on two days now, and not one of you has spent a cent there. And they so need an organ----"
"Mrs. Whaling, tell them to have Jarley"s waxworks, and you"ll be Mrs.
Jarley--or Mrs. Partington; I"ll be John or Ike,--I don"t care which,--and their fortune"s made," said Blake, shaking with laughter; so, too, was Mrs. Stannard behind the palm-leaf fan which concealed, at least, her face. Miss Sanford, biting her lips, looked reproachfully at Blake, and Mrs. Truscott hid her face in her hands.
"Now, _Mr._ Blake!" protested Mrs. Turner, "you never have been in town to church since your coming here, and it"s shocking the way you officers neglect it. I"m sure I"ve offered to drive you in with me a dozen times."
"True, fair lady; but those eminently safe animals of yours take an hour to traverse the intermediate league. I have to get up too early."
"But Mr. Ray went once; though, to be sure, Miss Sanford and Mrs.
Stannard brought that about."
"Oh, yes! and came home sold. He never would have gone only he heard that the text was to be from the Sermon on the Mount, and he thought it was some new wrinkle in cavalry tactics."
"Mr. Blake, you are simply outrageous!" "Wretch!" "Shocking!" and a volley of like exclamations greeted this outburst. Mrs. Stannard rose from her chair and shook her fan at him.
"You shall not teach so irreverent a doctrine here! Mr. Ray went gladly, and was far more devout and reverential in church than some of the ladies."
"Any man could be devout sitting next to Miss Sanford," he persisted; but seeing no sign of levity in her face, and that her blue eyes were bent upon him "in pity rather than anger," he abruptly changed his tone to one of melodramatic gravity.
""Lady Clara Vere de Vere, I cannot stand and face thy frown."
I"m not appreciated. I must betake myself to other fields. Ladies, when I get in a gale it takes something sterner than feminine rebuke to stop me. I"ll away and see Mrs. Wilkins. She likes it. If aught I"ve said to wound thee," he continued, bowing with hand on his heart in front of Miss Sanford, "remember, Miss De Vere, in the words of your favorite Tennyson,--
"The cold upon your old stone gates, Is not more lyin" to you than I.""
"Did you ever know such a rattlepate?" exclaimed Mrs. Turner, as the long legs went striding down the row, and the young officers sat gazing after him in wonderment.
"Never," replied Mrs. Stannard; "and yet he has as true a heart and as tender a nature as almost any man I know. There was no fun in him while Mr. Ray was in trouble; and no more devoted and loyal friend could he find. I _like_ Mr. Blake, and always have liked him."
But Mrs. Whaling shook her head. "No right-principled young man could speak so lightly of sacred things. Ah! here comes the orderly with the mail." And as she spoke the trim young soldier entered the gate carrying his budget of letters. Mrs. Whaling stretched forth her hand to take the packet.
"Please, ma"am," said he, "I left yours at the colonel"s, and my orders is not to give the others to anybody but them as they belongs to."
"I will distribute them here, orderly," she replied, with a superior smile, "as I know all these ladies and gentlemen and you do not." She was determined to see who received letters and from whom, if a possible thing, and she carried her point. Most of them were for the officers.
Nothing came as yet from the regiment. Mrs. Truscott received two or three letters from the East, which were not handed her until the self-appointed postmistress had scrutinized the superscriptions; so, too, she inspected the bills and billets that came to the young subs, and two letters for Miss Sanford,--one from New York, the other, addressed in a bold, vigorous hand, was from Headquarters, Division of the Missouri, Chicago. At this, through
"All her autumn tresses falsely brown,"
she shot sidelong daggers, indeed, as she pa.s.sed it with significant smile.
"I thought he"d write even though to-morrow would bring him here himself," she said; and Miss Sanford bit her lip and colored far more in indignation than in confusion; but, rallying like the little heroine she was, and bent now on baffling the schemes of the wily interloper, she quickly leaned forward and took the letter, glanced brightly at Mrs.
Stannard, and exclaimed, with all the delight and _navete_ of genuine surprise,--
"Why, it _is_ for me, Mrs. Stannard! Now you shall not see a line of it, for you would not show me yours." And then with provoking coolness, while Grace gasped in admiration and astonishment, Marion opened and read with beaming smile her letter from Ray,--the only one he had time to write in Chicago.
It was very brief, yet when "twas finished she wished, with all her heart, she could escape to her own room and read it once again, all by herself. It was the first letter--in the least like it--she ever received. It made her pulses bound, and it put her mettle to the test to turn at once to conversation with the one youth who had received no letter. It made her long for stable-call to sound that she might be alone and read it again and again, and yet it was very, very simple and direct. The trumpets rang their signal soon enough. The young cavalrymen doffed their caps and scurried away. Mrs. Stannard, smiling knowingly, said she would take a walk with Mrs. Turner, and then the two school friends were left alone.
"Maidie, what does he say?"