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

is a member of Captain Bruce's company and very much attached to the lieutenant; so I infer from what Weeks tells me. Even if he had heard anything that ought not to leak out, it is not likely this particular man would betray it; he would say nothing that might ever harm McLean."

"Well, no! Not McLean, perhaps. Very possibly he might not know how it would harm him to have his ravings repeated. I was thinking—I could not help thinking—that Mac had been talking about—these recent thefts in garrison."

"And there have been more than this one at our house?" asked the doctor, with concern and surprise mingled in his handsome face.

"Yes, two or three more, I regret to say, but I have not full particulars yet and cannot speak of them."

Bayard clasped his hands with one of the melodramatic gestures so peculiar to him.

"My God!" he muttered. "It was bad enough as I supposed it, but I had no idea it had come to such a pass as this."

"Bayard," said the major, after a moment of earnest thought, "this is a matter that must be handled with the utmost care and circumspection. Not a vestige of suspicion must be permitted to circulate if we can prevent it. I have strictly enjoined secrecy upon my—my informant, and I desire you to regard this talk as confidential. Tell Weeks I appreciate and sustain him in this caution and thank him for his efforts to stifle any possible scandal. Poor Mac! The youngster would be horror-stricken if he knew what secrets he had been blabbing."

"His troubles must have been weighing on his mind a long time," said the doctor, "and yet I never suspected it. I don't know that I ever saw a blither young fellow until about the time the finding of that board of survey was announced. He didn't seem to expect that at all."

"Well,—neither did I. Of course, technically it had to go against him, but we never dreamed it would result in stoppage of his pay."

"And yet his funds were all right, I'm told," said the doctor, musingly. "One would suppose that if he had any tendencies that way they would have cropped out when he had so much public money passing through his hands."

"Tendencies what way, doctor? I don't follow you."

"Why, in the way these—these little thefts and his delirious utterances would seem to indicate," said Bayard, hesitatingly.

Miller fairly sprang up from the rail on which he was leaning, his eyes distended with wonderment and pain.

"In God's name, Bayard, what are you talking about?" he gasped.

"About this sad case of McLean's, major, as I supposed you were."

"You don't mean that your theory involves him? You don't mean it—it is of himself, of his connection with these thefts, that he has been telling in his delirium?"

"Why, Major Miller, I supposed of course you understood—I—I, of course, accuse nobody, but of whom could he have been talking about but himself? That was certainly my understanding of it."

For one moment the old major stood there looking into the staff-officer's eyes,—amaze, consternation, distress, all mingled in his florid, weather-beaten face. Then without a word he turned and stumbled away down the steps and hurried from the gate. The trim, spruce orderly, standing on the walk without, raised his gloved hand in salute and stood attention as the commanding officer passed him, then "fell in" ten paces behind and followed in his tracks. But for once in his life the major neither saw nor returned a soldier's respectful salutation.

XIV.

The fever had left him, and Randall McLean, very white and "peaked" looking, was sitting propped up in bed and enjoying the wine-jelly Mrs. Miller had brought with her own hands. She had hoped to find him in better spirits, and was distressed to see how downcast and listless he was. Just what evil spell had fallen upon the garrison Mrs. Miller could not explain. The major for two or three days had been utterly unlike himself, and would give her no good reason. The cavalry battalion that had reached the post and gone into camp down on the flats to the north was almost ready to push on toward the Black Hills, and though she had twice reminded him that he ought at least to invite the field and staff officers to dinner, her usually social spouse had declined, saying he felt utterly unequal to it. The lethargy and gloom at post "head-quarters" seemed to pervade the entire garrison. Nobody felt like doing anything to dispel it. The band played blithely enough at guard-mounting and again in the sunshiny afternoons, but nobody came out and danced on the broad piazzas as used to be the way at Laramie. Nellie Bayard was beginning to sit out on the veranda in a big easy-chair with Janet Bruce as her constant companion, and the Gordon girls, those indomitably jolly creatures, as occasional visitors; but as Miss Kate, the elder, expressed herself, "Laramie is nothing but one big hospital now. The women and children are the only able-bodied men in it." Nellie was kind and civil, and tried to be cordial to them, but they were "smart" enough to see she had no heart for rattling small talk and crisp comments on matters and things at the post, and much preferred to be left alone to her undisturbed confidential chats with "Bonnie Jean." Blunt was slowly mending, and Dr. Weeks was having a little rest after an anxious week, when his services were demanded for another patient in Bedlam,—no less a person than the queen herself.

In view of the fact that Dr. Bayard was the recognized family physician and had been and was still assiduously attending Mrs. Forrest, it was considered nothing short of an intentional slight on the young lady's part that she should send for Weeks. It was Mrs. Post who came over to Blunt's door when she knew the junior doctor was there, and asked him to come with her and see Miss Forrest. For two days the latter had been confined to her room refusing to see any physician, and declaring that in Mrs. Post's ministrations she found all the physic she needed, but now the time seemed to have come when medical aid was really necessary. Dr. Bayard's face, when he was told by Mrs. Post that Weeks was summoned and in attendance, was a study worth seeing. It was not a serious ailment at all, said Mrs. Post. Miss Forrest had caught cold and neglected it, and now the cold had developed into fever, and she had been persuaded to keep in bed for a day or two.

But Mrs. Miller was puzzled over still another matter. The evening of the day Mr. Holmes so unexpectedly reappeared at Laramie, he and Miss Forrest met on the board-walk near "Bedlam," had a few moments' conversation there just before gun-fire at retreat, and then, to the surprise of many lookers-on, she was observed to take his proffered arm, and for over half an hour they strolled around the deserted parade talking earnestly together. It was the hour when most of the garrison families were in the dining-rooms, at dinner or tea as might be the custom of the household; but more than one good lady found it necessary to pop up from the table and go to the front window to see if Mr. Holmes and Miss Forrest were still walking and talking together. It was the morning after this mysterious consultation that the cold developed; and those kindly spirits who had promptly decided that the handsome but penniless New York girl was setting her cap to cut out Nellie Bayard with the Chicago millionaire were balked in their hopes of seeing further developments by the circumstance of her keeping her room and not again meeting Mr. Holmes, who, after two or three days' visit, departed as suddenly and unexpectedly as he came. The presence of a large battalion of cavalry had the effect of warning the Indians away from the neighborhood and made travel again comparatively safe.

And now, having patted up his pillows and settled him carefully back upon them, Mrs. Miller had begun the attempt of cheering her "pet lieutenant," as the major had called him. First she strove to rouse his interest by detailing the terms in which Captain Terry had officially commended his gallantry and zeal in the fight down at Royall's Ford; but he had heard it all before through Dr. Weeks, and, though appreciative, he did not beam with the comfort she expected. Then she tried to tell him of Major Miller's warm-hearted and commendatory endorsement in forwarding Terry's report; but he had heard of that too; the adjutant had told him about it, and there was nothing new in it. What did it amount to, after all? said Mac to himself. What good result can follow? No matter how zealously a fellow may serve in the field,—no matter what dangers he may encounter, hardships he may endure, wounds he may receive, Indians he may kill or capture,—in this blessed republican land of ours the principle is too well established that promotion in the line goes only by seniority, and to the staff—like kissing—mainly by favor. Not even a "brevet," he well knew, could be won by daring conduct in action against savage foes; and, to sum the matter up in a few words, the men who stood the best chance for advancement in the army were those who studiously avoided excitement of any kind, especially that to be found in Western campaigns. They all understood this thing at Laramie just as well as he did, and therefore appreciated his soldierly conduct for what it was really worth.

"But the major thinks it may be the means of removing that stoppage against your pay, Mr. McLean," said Mrs. Miller. "Surely the general will do something to secure recognition or reward."

"I fear not, Mrs. Miller," was the doleful answer; "that is just about the last thing this government of ours is apt to do; what I've got before me is the prospect of having to live for a year or more on 'board wages,' and see my pay raked in month after month to make up for the stealings of a rascal too sharp for any of us even to suspect. It would be hard at any time, but—it's rough now, and no mistake." And poor Mac turned his head away as he spoke.

There was silence a moment. The womanly heart was touched at his despair and suffering, yet impotent to cheer him. Suddenly she bent over him as he lay there, so white and weary looking.

"Mac, don't, don't worry so. I can't bear to see you troubled. I know—I can't help knowing—what's the matter; and indeed,—indeed I think you have cause to hope rather than despair. Did you know he had gone away again?"

"Yes. Weeks told me."

"She cares nothing whatever for him. Janet Bruce is with her all the time, Mac, and she told me she almost shrank from him. Now, if he were simply her father's friend, she could not but like him. Everybody likes him, Mac, and I have reason to know what a considerate and thorough gentleman he is. But it is because he has attempted to be more that she has turned against him, and Janet says she knows he has seen it and made up his mind to accept it as final. The last two days of his visit he avoided her all the time, only conversed with her when they were unavoidably thrown together, and was then simply bright and laughing and friendly. Janet says that Nellie seemed inexpressibly relieved by the change in his manner. Come, old fellow, cheer up and get well, and let us have you out in the sunshine a day or two, and then we'll see if a few long talks with her won't help matters. She's a child yet, and almost too young to fall in love