Frances looked her indignation and censure into Major King"s hot eyes.
"Mr. Macdonald has defended me like a gallant gentleman, sir! Those ruffians didn"t run because they heard you coming, but because he faced them out here in the open, single-handed and alone, and drove them to their horses, Major King!"
The troopers were looking Macdonald over with favor. They had seen the evidence of his stand against Chadron"s men.
"You"re deceived in your estimation of the fellow, Miss Landcraft,"
the major returned, red to the eyes in his offended dignity. "I arrived at the ranch not an hour ago, detailed to escort you back to the post. Will you have the kindness to mount at once, please?"
He stepped forward to give her a hand into the saddle. But Macdonald was before him in that office, urged to it by the quick message of her eyes. From the saddle she leaned and gave him her warm, soft hand.
"Your men need you, Mr. Macdonald--go to them," she said. "My prayers for your success in this fight for the right will follow you."
Macdonald was standing bareheaded at her stirrup. Her hand lingered a moment in his, her eyes sounded the bottom of his soul. Major King, with his little uprising of dignity, was a very small matter in the homesteader"s mind just then, although a minute past he had fought with himself to keep from twisting the arrogant officer"s neck.
She fell in beside Major King, who was sitting grim enough in his way now, in the saddle, and they rode away. Macdonald stood, hat in hand, the last sunbeams of that day over his fair tangled hair, the smoke of his conflict on his face, the tender light of a man"s most sacred fire in his eyes.
CHAPTER XVII
BOOTS AND SADDLES
When Major King delivered Frances--his punctilious military observance made her home-coming nothing less--to Colonel Landcraft, they found that grizzled warrior in an electrical state of excitement. He was moving in quick little charges, but with a certain grim system in all of them, between desk and bookcases, letter files, cabinets, and back to his desk again. He drew a doc.u.ment here, tucked one away there, slipped an elastic about others a.s.sembled on his desk, and clapped a sheaf of them in his pocket.
Major King saluted within the door.
"I have the honor to report the safe return of the detachment dispatched to Alamito Ranch for the convoy of Miss Landcraft," he said.
Colonel Landcraft returned the salute, and stood stiffly while his officer spoke.
"Very well, sir," said he. Then flinging away his official stiffness, he met Frances half-way as she ran to meet him, and enfolded her to his breast, just as if his dry old heart knew that she had come to him through perils.
Breathlessly she told him the story, leaving no word unsaid that would mount to the credit of Alan Macdonald. Colonel Landcraft was as hot as blazing straw over the matter. He swore that he would roast Saul Chadron"s heart on his sword, and s.n.a.t.c.hed that implement from the chair where it hung as he spoke, and buckled it on with trembling hand.
King interposed to tell him that Chadron was not at the ranch, and begged the colonel to delegate to him the office of avenger of this insult and hazard that Frances had suffered at the hands of his men.
For a moment Colonel Landcraft held the young officer"s eye with thankful expression of admiration, then he drew himself up as if in censure for wasted time, saluted, took a paper from his desk, and said with grave dignity:
"It must fall to you, Major King, to demand the reparation for this outrage that I shall not be here to enforce. I am ordered to Washington, sir, to make my appearance before the retiring board. The department has vested the command of this post in you, sir--here is the order. My soldiering days are at an end."
He handed the paper to Major King, with a salute. With a salute the young officer took it from his hand, an eager light in his eyes, a flush springing to his pale face. Frances clung to her father"s arm, a little trembling moan on her lips as if she had received a mortal hurt.
"Never mind, never mind, dear heart," said the old man, a shake in his own voice. Frances, looking up with her great pity into his stern, set face, saw a tear creeping down his cheek, toughened by the fires of thirty years" campaigns.
"I"ll never soldier any more," he said, "the politicians have got me.
They"ve been after me a long time, and they"ve got me. But there is one eas.e.m.e.nt in my disgrace--"
"Don"t speak of it on those terms, sir!" implored Major King, more a man than a soldier as he laid a consoling hand on the old man"s arm.
"No, no!" said Frances, clinging to her father"s hand.
Colonel Landcraft smiled, looking from one to the other of them, and a softness came into his face. He took Major King"s hand and carried it to join Frances", and she, in her softness for her father, allowed it to remain in the young soldier"s grasp.
"There is one gleam of joy in the sundown of my life," the colonel said, "and that is in seeing my daughter pledged to a soldier. I must live in the reflection of your achievements, if I live beyond this disgrace, sir."
"I will try to make them worthy of my mentor, sir," Major King returned.
Frances stood with bowed head, the major still holding her hand in his ardent grasp.
"It"s a crushing blow, to come before the preferment in rank that I have been led to expect would be my retiring compensation!" The colonel turned from them sharply, as if in pain, and walked in marching stride across the room. Frances withdrew her hand, with a little struggle, not softened by the appeal in the major"s eyes.
"My poor wife is bowed under it," the colonel spoke as he marched back and forth. "She has hoped with me for some fitting reward for the years of service I have unselfishly given to my country, sir, for the surrender of my better self to the army. I"ll never outlive it, I feel that I"ll never outlive it!"
Colonel Landcraft had no thought apart from what he felt to be his hovering disgrace. He had forgotten his rage against Chadron, forgotten that his daughter had lived through a day as hazardous as any that he had experienced in the Apache campaigns, or in his bleak watches against the Sioux. He turned to her now, where she stood weeping softly with bowed head, the grime of the dugout on her habit, her hair, its bonds broken, straying over her face.
"I had counted pleasurably on seeing you two married," he said, "but something tells me I shall never come back from this journey, never resume command of this post." He turned back to his marching, stopped three or four paces along, turned sharply, a new light in his face.
"Why shouldn"t it be before I leave--tonight, within the hour?"
"Oh, father!" said Frances, in terrified voice, lifting her face in its tear-wet loveliness.
"I must make the train that leaves Meander at four o"clock tomorrow morning, I shall have to leave here within--" he flashed out his watch with his quick, nervous hand--"within three-quarters of an hour. What do you say, Major King? Are you ready?"
"I have been ready at any time for two years," Major King replied, in trembling eagerness.
Frances was thrown into such a mental turmoil by the sudden proposal that she could not, at that moment, speak a further protest. She stood with white face, her heart seeming to shrivel, and fall away to laboring faintness. Colonel Landcraft was not considering her. He was thinking that he must have three hours" sleep in the hotel at Meander before the train left for Omaha.
"Then we shall have the wedding at once, just as you stand!" he declared. "We"ll have the chaplain in and--go and tell your mother, child, and--oh, well, throw on another dress if you like."
Frances found her tongue as her danger of being married off in that hot and hasty manner grew imminent.
"I"m not going to marry Major King, father, now or at any future time," said she, speaking slowly, her words coming with coldness from her lips.
"Silence! you have nothing to say, nothing to do but obey!" Colonel Landcraft blazed up in sudden explosion, after his manner, and set his heel down hard on the floor, making his sword clank in its scabbard on his thigh.
"I have not had much to say," Frances admitted, bitterly, "but I am going to have a great deal to say in this matter now. Both of you have gone ahead about this thing just as if I was irresponsible, both of you--"
"Hold your tongue, miss! I command you--hold your tongue!"
"It"s the farthest thing from my heart to give you pain, or disappoint you in your calculations of me, father," she told him, her voice gathering power, her words speed, for she was a warrior like himself, only that her balance was not so easily overthrown; "but I am not going to marry Major King."
"Heaven and h.e.l.l!" said Colonel Landcraft, stamping up and down.
"Heaven _or_ h.e.l.l," said she, "and not h.e.l.l--if I can escape it."
"I"ll not permit this insubordination in a member of my family!"
roared the colonel, his face fiery, his rumpled eyebrows knitted in a scowl. "I"ll have obedience, with good grace, and at once, or d.a.m.n my soul, you"ll leave my house!"
"Major King, if you are a gentleman, sir, you will relieve me of this unwelcome pressure to force me against my inclination. It is quite useless, sir, I tell you most earnestly. I would rather die than marry you--I would rather die!"