'Laramie', Charles King [books for new readers txt] 📗

had made a passage for the commanding officer and afterward for the post surgeon, but that was before it had attained its present proportions. Now when Mr. Roswell Holmes paused at the outskirts with Corporal Zook by his side, some of the loungers looked around with their hands in their pockets; some of the cowboys who had earned their dollars on his ranch nodded cheerily at sight of their employer; but this was the United States post-office, these were sovereign citizens, and every man or woman of them, except the half-dozen enlisted men whose mail was always taken to barracks, had just as much right there as the capitalist from Chicago,—and knew it. So did Mr. Holmes. He returned the greetings as cheerily as they were given; made no attempt to push through, and probably would have remained contentedly until the crowd dispersed and let him in, had not the notes of the infantry bugle sounding first call for tattoo summoned Zook and the other soldiers to make their way to barracks.

"I'm a thousand times obliged to you, Corporal Zook, for all you've told me, and I assure you I'm as proud of the lieutenant as you are. Now, I may not be here when the troop gets back to-morrow,—I may have to go back to see if all is well at the ranch; but after their ride they'll all be thirsty, and when I'm very thirsty there's nothing I like better than a glass of cool lager. There is plenty of it on ice at the trader's, and,—you do the entertaining for me, will you?" And the corporal found his palm invaded by a fold of crisp greenbacks.

"If it's for the troop, sir, I can't say no," answered Zook, with dancing eyes. Pay-day was some weeks off after all, and he knew how "the fellers" would relish the trader's beer. "Now, if you would like to sit down, why not go around to the other side and away from this crowd? There are empty benches at the stage-office. I must run, sir; so good-night, and many thanks."

The office-window had just been thrown open and the distribution was just begun. It would be some time before his turn would come. Holmes knew perfectly well that, only for the fun of the thing, some of those teamsters and scouts would form a "queue," and, with unimpeachable gravity, march up to the window and inquire if there was anything for Red-Handed Bill, or Rip-Roaring Mike, or the Hon. G. Bullwhacker, of Laramie Plains. He wanted time to think a bit before he returned to the doctor's house, anyhow. He had drawn from Corporal Zook a detailed account of McLean's spirited and soldierly conduct in the fight; learned that it was he who killed the second warrior in what was practically a hand-to-hand struggle, and that his wounds were painful and severe, despite his effort to overcome and hide them when the pursuit began. Hatton's remarks had been echoing time and again through his memory. It would indeed be comfort to McLean to hear how shocked and painfully stricken was Nellie Bayard at the news of the fight and his probable death. If it proved half the comfort to McLean that it was sorrow to his elderly rival, thought Holmes with a deep sigh, "he'll soon be well, and 'twill be high time for me to vanish."

Pacing slowly up the road, he turned an angle of the old wooden building, and found himself alone in a broad, square enclosure. The stars were shining brightly overhead, but there was no moon and the darkness in this nook among the storehouses and offices was simply intense. The only light came through the slats of the shutter at a side-window back of the post-office. Merely glancing at it as he passed, Holmes walked on with bowed head and hands clasped behind him, thinking deeply over the situation. Had he come too late to win that sweet, youthful, guileless heart, or had he come only just in time to see it given to another? Had he, in the light of what he had seen and heard, any right to speak of matters that had gravely distressed him? Was it his bounden duty to disclose certain suspicions, display certain proofs? Or was it more than all his, the man's, part to stay and help to sweep aside the web that was unquestionably weaving about that brave-faced, clear-eyed, soldierly young subaltern? Despite Bayard's detractions; despite Mrs. Miller's whispered confession that there was a thief in their midst; despite the fact that his wallet was stolen from the overcoat-pocket when no one, to his knowledge, but McLean himself had been there; despite the discovery on the floor—in front of his bureau—of a handkerchief embroidered with McLean's initials; despite the fact that it was known that he had been placed heavily in debt by the stoppage of his pay,—Mr. Roswell Holmes could not find it in his heart to believe that the young soldier could be guilty of theft. He would not believe it of him, even as a rival.

Then there was another thing. Who was the silken-skirted woman he met in the darkness but an hour or so before,—the woman whom he had attempted to accost, but who slipped past him like a will-o'-the-wisp—in silence? How was it that the door to Hatton's hall was closed and locked, when Hatton told him it was always open? Why was it that the light in that lower hall was extinguished, and by whom was it done? Had he not gone thither almost immediately after recovering from the surprise of his encounter on the veranda, and found the hospital attendant grumblingly relighting it? The man had heard some queer, swishing sound, he explained, as he sat by Mr. Blunt's bedside, and "something that sounded like drawers being opened in the room below." He stepped out in the hall, he said, just in time to hear the lock of the front door hastily turned, and somebody go stealthily and quickly out on the veranda, "swishing" all the way. The ladies had been over along the upper gallery two or three times, to bring cool drinks to Mr. Blunt's door and inquire how he was getting on,—Mrs. Post and the young lady, Miss Forrest, he meant,—but they wouldn't want anything in Mr. McLean's rooms down-stairs. The man looked curiously up at Mr. Holmes as he told his tale. Holmes was puzzled too, but bade him keep quiet. Some one of the servants, perhaps, who wanted a match, he suggested; but the little soldier shook his head. Servants didn't wear dresses that "swished" like that.

The crowd was beginning to thin considerably, as Holmes could tell by the sound of receding voices. He decided that it was about time for him to move and get his own mail, when he became aware of something dark and shapeless crouching along close under the post-office end of the building and slowly and cautiously approaching the window from which the light was streaming. At first he thought it some big dog scratching his side along the cleats of the wooden wall, but as he stood silently observing the dim shadow it was evident that no quadruped was thus warily creeping toward him. Holmes stood leaning against a storehouse platform in the deepest shade of an over-hanging roof; the figure was perhaps twelve or thirteen yards away, and, as it neared the window, the vague outlines of the mysterious creature became more easily discernible. Immediately under the beams of light that shot across the dark enclosure the figure paused; slowly raised itself; a hand went up to the head and whipped off a cap just as the crown was tinged by the gleam from within. Holmes distinctly saw the reflection of the light on the brightly polished brass of the device, but could not make out whether the device itself was the crossed rifles of the infantry or sabres of the cavalry. Then the hand was laid upon the sill, the body slowly unbent, and the head was raised until two beady eyes, under a low forehead and a crop of thick, dark hair, could peer in between the slats. One lingering scrutiny of every person and object visible in the room, then down he crouched, and, almost on all-fours, slipped away to the corner of the building, Holmes now briskly striding in pursuit. Half-way back across the court, just as he entered the beam of light, the latter's foot came down upon the edge of one of those tough and elastic hoops, such as are sure to be lying about in the yards of commissary and quartermaster storehouses, and in the twinkling of an eye it whirled up and struck him with a sharp and audible snap. In an instant the crouching figure shot to its full height and darted out of sight around the corner. When Holmes reached the front of the building, not a man in uniform was visible. Cowboys and a scout or two remained. The stage-driver was again the centre of attraction, and all were grouped about him on the low piazza. Holmes called one of the ranchmen to one side, and asked him if he had seen or heard anything of a soldier who came suddenly around the corner, but the man shook his head. Stepping inside the office he met the major and his host, Dr. Bayard, while a tall, well-formed, colored girl stood in front of the little wicket, and a number of loungers still hung about the place. The officers stopped and said they would wait until he got his letters, and, as he took his place near the window, Mrs. Griffin was just handing a little packet to the colored girl. The light fell on the topmost letter, addressed in bold, legible hand to Miss Fanny Forrest; and Holmes could plainly see the post-mark and device on the upper corner, showing that it came from the Red Cloud Agency, and old Camp Robinson. "Halloo!" thought he to himself, "I had forgotten that we were as good as cut off from them now, and they are sending around by way of Sidney and Cheyenne." Quickly the girl turned over the letters, made some laughing remark expressive of disappointment at getting nothing from her beau; then, facing Mr. Holmes and showing her white teeth, with a coquettish toss of her head accosted him: "Good-evening, Mr. Holmes. S'pose you don't know me; I'm Celestine,—Miss Forrest's girl. Miss Griffin, yere's Mr. Holmes waitin' for his mail. Ain't no use you lookin' for anything for this trash," she said, contemptuously indicating the two or three intervening frontier folks. "Han' it to me an' I'll give it to him."

But just at this moment there was a stir at the door. The loungers who had never budged an inch for Mr. Holmes drew promptly back, making way for a tall young lady, who entered, all aglow from a rapid walk, her dark eyes gleaming, her fine, mobile lips wreathed with pleasant smiles the instant she caught sight of the doctor, who, cap in hand, advanced to meet her. It was Miss Forrest herself, and behind her came her escort, the adjutant.

"I thought I heard Celestine's voice," she said, looking questioningly around; and Holmes quickly noted that the girl had suddenly slunk back behind a little group of camp-women. Finding it useless to evade the searching glance of her young mistress, the girl came forth.

"Yes, Miss Fanny. I got your letters, miss," she said, but the confident tone was gone. Holmes marked the look in Miss Forrest's flashing eye as she took the little packet with no gentle hand. He was near enough, too, to hear the low-spoken but clearly enunciated words:

"And I told you never again to touch my letters. This must be the last time."

XI.

Four days had passed since Terry's fight down the river. McLean, painfully wounded, but very quiet and plucky, had been re-established in