The Shades of the Wilderness: A Story of Lee's Great Stand, Joseph A. Altsheler [new reading txt] 📗

fools making military guesses. If I'm not too old to dance to the tune of the shells I'm not too old to dance to the tune of the fiddle and the bow. That's a glorious air floating in from the ballroom. I think I can show some of these youngsters like Kenton here how to shake a foot."

"After you, General," laughed Bathurst. "We know your capacity on both the field and the floor, and how you respond to the shell and the bow. Come on! The ballroom is calling to us, and I doubt whether we'll explain to the satisfaction of everybody why we've been away from it so long. You, too, Harry!"

They rose in a group and went out hastily. Harry was last, and his hand was on the bolt of the door, preparatory to closing it, when the general turned to Bathurst and said:

"You've that diagram of ours, haven't you, Bathurst? It's not a thing to be left lying loose."

"Why, no, sir, I thought you put it in your pocket."

The general laughed.

"You're suffering from astigmatism, Bathurst," he said. "Doubtless it was Colton whom you saw stowing it away. I think we'd better tear it into little bits as we have no further use for it."

"But I haven't it, sir," said Colton, a veteran colonel, just recovering from a wound in the arm. "I supposed of course that one of the others took it."

An uneasy look appeared in the general's eyes, but it passed in an instant.

"You have it, Morton?"

"No, sir. Like Bathurst I thought one of the others took it."

"And you, Kitteridge?"

"I did not take it, sir."

"You surely have it, Johnson?"

"No, sir, I was under the impression that you had taken it away with you."

"And you, McCurdy?"

McCurdy shook his head.

"Then Kenton, as you were the last to rise, you certainly have it."

"I was just a looker-on; I did not touch it," said Harry, whose hand was still on the bolt of the partly opened door.

The general laughed.

"Another case of everybody expecting somebody else to do a thing, and nobody doing it," he said. "Kenton, go back and take it from the table. In our absorption we've been singularly forgetful, and that plan must be destroyed at once."

Harry reentered the room, and in their eagerness all of the officers followed. Then a simultaneous "Ah!" of dismay burst from them all. There was nothing on the table. The plan was gone. They looked at one another, and in the eyes of every one apprehension was growing.

"The window is partly open," said the general, affecting a laugh, although it had an uneasy note, "and of course it has blown off the table. We'll surely find it behind the sofa or a chair."

They searched the room eagerly, going over every inch of space, every possible hiding place, but the plan was not there.

"Perhaps it's in the court," said the general. "It might have fluttered out there. Raise the sash higher, Kenton. Let nobody make any noise. We must be as quiet as possible about this. Luckily there's enough moonlight now for us to find even a small scrap of paper in the court."

They stole through the window silently, one by one, and searched every inch of the court's space. But nothing was in it, save the grass and the flowers and the rosebushes that belonged there. They returned to the room, and once more looked at one another in dismay.

"Shut the window entirely and lock the door, Kenton," said the general.

Harry did so. Then the general looked at them all, and his face was set and very firm.

"We must all be searched," he said. "I know that every one of you is the soul of honor. I know that not one of you has concealed about his person this document which has suddenly become so valuable. I know that not one of you would smuggle through to the enemy such a plan at any price, no matter how large. Nevertheless we must know beyond the shadow of a doubt that none of us has the map. And I insist, too, that I be searched first. Bathurst, Colton, begin!"

They examined one another carefully in turn. Every pocket or possible place of concealment was searched. Harry was the last and when they were done with him the general heaved a huge sigh of relief.

"We know positively that we are not guilty," he said. "We knew it before, but now we've proved it. That is off our minds, but the mystery of the missing map remains. What a strange combination of circumstances. I think, gentlemen, that we had best say nothing about it to outsiders. It's certainly to the interest of every one of us not to do so. It's also to the interest of all of us to watch the best we can for a solution. You're young, Kenton, but from what I hear of you you're able to keep your own counsel."

"You can trust me, sir," said Harry.

"I know it, and now unlock the door. We've held ourselves prisoners long enough, and they'll be wondering about us in the ballroom."

Harry turned the key promptly enough and he was glad to escape from the room. He felt that he had left behind a sinister atmosphere. He had not mentioned to the older men the faint shadow that he thought he had seen crossing the courtyard. But then it was only fancy, nothing more, an idle figment of the brain! There was the music now, softer and more tempting than ever, an irresistible call to flying feet, and another dance with Rosamond Lawrence was due.

"I thought you weren't coming, Lieutenant Kenton," she said. "Some one said that you had gone into the smoking-room and that you were talking war with middle-aged generals and colonels."

"But I escaped as soon as I could, Miss Rosamond," he said—he was thinking of the locked door and the universal search.

"Well, you came just in time. The band is beginning and I was about to give your dance to that good-looking Lieutenant Dalton."

"You wouldn't treat me like that! Throw over your cousin in such a manner! I can't think it!"

"No, I wouldn't!"

Then the full swell of the music caught them both, and they glided away, as light and swift as the melody that bore them on.

CHAPTER XI A VAIN PURSUIT

Youth was strong in Harry, and, while he danced and the music played, he forgot all about the incident in the smoking-room. With him it was just one pretty girl after another. He had heart enough for them all, and only one who was so young and who had been so long on battlefields could well understand what a keen, even poignant, pleasure it was to be with them.

Those were the days when a ball lasted long. Pleasures did not come often, but when they came they were to be enjoyed to the full. But as the morning hours grew the manner of the older people became slightly feverish and unnatural. They were pursuing pleasure and forgetfulness with so much zeal and energy that it bore the aspect of force rather than spontaneity. Harry noticed it and divined the cause. Beneath his high spirits he now felt it himself. It was that looming shadow in the North and that other in that far Southwest hovering over lost Vicksburg. Serious men and serious women could not keep these shadows from their eyes long.

The incident of the smoking-room and the missing map came back to him with renewed force. It could not have walked away. They had searched the room and the court so thoroughly that they would have found it, had it been there. The disappearance of a document, which men of authority and knowledge had built up almost unconsciously, puzzled and alarmed him.

It was almost day when he and Dalton left. They paid their respects to Mr. and Mrs. Curtis, and said many good-bys to "the girls they left behind them." Then they went out into the street, and inhaled great draughts of the cool night air.

"A splendid night," said Dalton.

"Yes, truly," said Harry.

"I hope you didn't propose to more than six girls."

"To none. But I love them all together."

"I'm glad to hear it, because you're entirely too young to marry, and your occupation is precarious."

"You needn't be so preachy. You're not more'n a hundred years old yourself."

"But I'm two months older than you are and often two months makes a vast difference, particularly in our cases. I notice about you, Harry, at times, a certain juvenility which I feel it my duty to repress."

"Don't do it, George. Let's enjoy it while we can, because as you say my occupation is precarious and yours is the same."

They stopped at the corner of the iron fence enclosing the Curtis home, in which many lights were still shining. It was near a dark alley opening on the street and running by this side of the house.

"I'm going to see what's behind Mr. Curtis's house," said Harry.

Dalton stared at him.

"What's got into your head, Harry!" he exclaimed. "Do you mean to be a burglar prowling about the home of the man who has entertained you?"

Harry hesitated. He was sorry that Dalton was with him. Then he could have gone on without question, but he must make some excuse to Dalton.

"George," he said at last, "will you swear to keep a secret, a most important one which I am pledged to tell to nobody, but which I must confide in you in order to give a good reason for what I am about to do."

"If you are pledged to keep such a secret," replied Dalton, "then don't explain it to me. Your word is good enough, Harry. Go ahead and do what you want to do. I'll ask nothing about any of your actions, no matter how strange it may look."

"You're a man in a million, George. Come on, your confidence is going to be tested. Besides, you'll run the danger of being shot."

But Dalton followed him fearlessly as he led the way down the alley. Richmond was not lighted then, save along the main streets, and a few steps took them into the full dark. The brilliant windows threw bright bands across the lines, but they themselves were in darkness.

The alley ran through the next street and so did the Curtis grounds. They were as extensive in the rear of the house as in front, and contained small pines carefully trimmed, banks of roses and two grape arbors. Harry could hear no sound of any one stirring among them, but people, obviously the cooks and other servants, were talking in the big kitchen at the rear of the house.

The street itself running in the rear of the building was as well lighted as it was in front, but Harry saw no one in it save a member of the city police, who seemed to be keeping a good watch. But as he did not wish to be observed by the man he waited a little while in the mouth of the alley, until he had moved on and was out of sight.

"Now, George," he said, "you and I are going to do a little scouting. You know I'm descended from the greatest natural scout and trailer ever known in the West, one whose senses were preternaturally acute, one who could almost track a bird in the air by its flight."

"Yes, I've heard of the renowned Henry Ware, and I know that you've inherited a lot of his skill and intuition. Go ahead. I promised that I would help you and ask no questions. I keep my word."

Harry climbed silently over the low fence, and Dalton followed in the same manner. The light from the street and house did not penetrate the pines and rosebushes, where Harry quickly found a refuge, Dalton as usual following him.

"What next?" whispered Dalton.

"Now, I do my trailing and scouting, and you help me all you can, George, but be sure you don't make any noise. There's enough moonlight filtering through the pines to show the ground to me, but not enough to disclose us to anybody twenty feet away."

He dropped to his hands and knees, and, crawling back and forth, began to examine every inch of ground with minute care, while Dalton