Lanier of the Cavalry Part 5

Almost immediately, without waiting for the coming of the attendants with their hand-bags, Miss Arnold fled up-stairs, followed, at a glance from her mother, by Kate.

"You see how wretchedly nervous she continues," said Mrs. Sumter. "How could we have let her go alone?"

"How should we let her go at all?" said Larrabee. "Indeed"--with a glance from the clouding window over the storm-swept parade--"I repeat, there will be no going anywhere for anybody just now. Has--has she--told you anything, as yet?"

Mrs. Sumter was gradually emerging from her winter coat of furs. For a moment she hesitated, then closed the door leading back to the dining-room and returned to him as he stood there, warming his hands at the great parlor stove then indispensable in our frontier homes. His fine, intellectual face, in its silver-gray fringe of crisp curling hair, was full of sympathy and interest. It was a face to confide in, and all Fort Cus.h.i.+ng swore by its senior surgeon. "Doctor," said she, calling him by the t.i.tle he best loved, "Miriam says she believes it was all a mere delusion--a dream. She blames herself bitterly and--begs us to think no more of it--to forgive her, but----"

"But?" and the kind dark eyes studied the gentle, matronly face.

"But--oh, why should I attempt to conceal it? You know, and we have reason to know, she _did_ see some one--some one right there in her room. Some one who went out like a thief, through the window, and down the roof to the shed, and away in spite of sentries or--or anybody--some one who was in there when they so unexpectedly got home. _You_ saw----"

"Yes, I saw the tracks in the fresh snow on the roof. I could see them when I came hurrying over," murmured the doctor.

"Captain Sumter had the snow swept off before reveille. What was the use of advertising it further? Mr. Barker and Mr. Blake saw it, too. They hold it was some garrison sneak-thief, looking for jewelry. Yet not so much as a ring, or a pin, was touched--only her desk."

"Did _she_ tell of that?"

"No, Kate was the first to see it. She flew up-stairs when she heard the scream; found Miriam a senseless heap on the floor, the desk open on the little table by the window, the contents scattered, the window up, and somebody bounding and slipping away in the moonlight. Then she heard the challenge and scuffle outside and thought the guard had him, and gave her whole attention to Miriam, until Mr. Barker shouted from the lower hall. Oh, yes, cook and Maggie both declare they were in their room, but--I believe they were next door at the Snaffles'. I believe the back door was left open for--whoever it was."

"And nothing is missing?"

"Nothing. He was frightened off evidently. But Captain Sumter wished to have it all kept quiet until he could confer with the detectives in town. He has a theory of his own."

She had lowered her voice, and now walked to the hall door, as though listening for sounds from aloft, whither Kate and Miriam had vanished.

"Miss Kate has a level head," presently spoke Larrabee. "What does _she_ say?"

"Doctor, that is what troubles me! Kate won't say--anything. It's the first time she ever kept a secret from me." And now tears of genuine distress were welling in Mrs. Sumter's eyes.

It was half after two, and the wind was shrieking through the open s.p.a.ce back of the line, when Doctor Larrabee, bending almost double, managed to fight his way homeward. Schuchardt, occupant of the adjoining set to his own, had not yet returned. At Sumter's gate the senior surgeon encountered the corporal-of-the-guard, nearly blind and well nigh exhausted. He had been sent round to relieve the men on post and bid them make the best of their way to the guard-room. He was even then searching for Number Five, who had most justifiably, in fact, involuntarily, taken refuge as previously explained. Had he not been blown into the Snaffles' kitchen, he might, like Barker's cow, have been blown away.

"You will probably find Doctor Schuchardt at Lieutenant Lanier's quarters," shouted Larrabee at the corporal, with kindly intent. "Take Number Five in there and get thawed out. Tell him I think a nip of whiskey advisable under the circ.u.mstances."

And thus it happened that two storm-beaten soldiers presently shoved their way through Lanier's back gate and banged at the kitchen door.

n.o.body answering, they presently entered, pa.s.sed through that deserted apartment, and, hearing voices further on, the corporal ventured into the dark hallway leading through the little frame house, now fairly quivering in the blast. Here he caught sight of two officers--big, powerful men, in fur caps and canvas overcoats, just pus.h.i.+ng forth through the front door into the fierce blast without. One was Doctor Schuchardt, the other Lieutenant Ennis, joint occupant with Lanier of the tiny premises. As Corporal Ca.s.sidy later expressed it, he felt "like I'd lost a bulging pot on an ace full." He couldn't run after and beg them to come back, yet he and his comrades were stiff from cold and almost breathless from exhaustion. Suddenly Number Five's carbine slipped from his frozen glove and fell with a crash on the kitchen floor. The next instant the voice of Lieutenant Lanier was heard.

"Who the devil's that?"

"Corporal Ca.s.sidy, sir. The post surgeon told me to bring Number Five in here and thaw him out. We'd find Doctor Schuchardt. But the doctor's just gone, sir, and----"

But by this time Mr. Lanier himself appeared in the hall, his feet in warm woollen slippers, his hands in bandages. "Well, I should say! Come right in here, you two. Pull off your gloves and get out of those caps and things. Man alive"--this to Number Five--"why didn't you come before? This is no time to stand on ceremony--or stay on post, either.

My striker's stormbound somewhere. I'd help you if I could, but I can't.

Help yourselves now, best you can; rub and kick all you want to; _dance_ if it'll warm you." And all the time he was crowding them up about a roaring stove, where presently he made them sit while he bustled about at a buffet in the adjoining room. "You'll have to help me, corporal,"

presently he cried. "One hand can't mix and pour and lift. There's sugar; there's hot water on the stove; there's gla.s.ses and here's whiskey. Mix it hot, and down with it!"

And so hospitably and heartily, after the manner of old frontier days and men, the young officer administered to his humbler comrades; cheered, and warmed, and insisted on their eating with their second tumbler, and when in course of half an hour the two stood before him, glowing, grateful, and resuming their buffalo coats and fur caps and gloves, honest Ca.s.sidy tried to say his say:

"'D' Troop's fellers never can brag enough about their lieutenant, sir, and though we don't belong to 'D' Troop, it hasn't taken this to tell us why. If ever the time comes when me or Quinlan here can do the lieutenant a good turn he'll--he'll know it."

After which they were gone, rejoicing in their new-found strength, yet reaching the nearest barracks only after severe struggle, and, later still, the crowded, suffocating guard-room,--where now some thirty men were huddled in a s.p.a.ce intended for twenty at most--where Ca.s.sidy and Number Five were speedily telling to eager, appreciative ears their unusual and rejoiceful experience.

"Well, ain't he the dandy lieutenant, though?" queried Casey, of "F"

Troop. "And did he give you yer new cap, too, Quinlan? Sure the wan you marched on wid had the mange!"

Ca.s.sidy s.n.a.t.c.hed it from his comrade's head. "Mother av Moses! If he hasn't lifted the lieutenant's----" But he broke off short. One glance he had given the band within. A sudden cloud swept over his face. There was an instant of indecision, then he whipped his own cap from his head and thrust it on Quinlan.

"I'm a liar," said he; "it's me own he's had."

"Then you wear two sizes, Jim Ca.s.sidy, an' both different." Quinlan had pulled the headpiece down, and was staring in at the soft lining.

"What's this?" he began, when the corporal's fingers closed like a vise on his arm.

"Shut up, Quinlan. The whiskey's gone to yer noddle. Come here!" And Ca.s.sidy led him, wondering, to the barred corridor without and slammed the door behind them. "Not a word do you whisper of this to any man, Pat Quinlan," said he, never relaxing his grasp. "You heard what that c.o.c.kney Fitzroy was swearin' to this morning? Sure--you'd never say the word to back that whelp--an' harm the lieutenant!"

VI

"G.o.d helps those who help themselves," quoth Lieutenant Blake, on hearing of the incident at Lanier's quarters, "but G.o.d help those who help other fellows, unless 'the Old Man' likes it." Blake was but a "casual" at Fort Cus.h.i.+ng at the moment, summoned thither as a witness before a general court-martial then in session, but there was nothing casual in his friends.h.i.+p for Bob Lanier. Two years' campaigning in Arizona and one in Wyoming had made these subalterns fast friends, despite the difference of ten years in their ages and nearly twenty "files" in rank, Blake being one of the senior and Lanier one of the junior lieutenants of the regiment. Blake was no pet of the post commander. Blake had a way of saying satirical things of seniors whom he did not fancy, and b.u.t.ton was one of these. Blake should have returned to his proper station the day after the dance, but, like everybody else, so far as heard from, he had been held by the storm, and therefore happened to be in the club-room at the store along toward eleven o'clock on Tuesday, watching the distant deployment over the southeastward slopes of the barren upland. Fully half the mounted force of the garrison was on search for the paymaster's "outfit," and with Blake stood half a dozen infantry officers and two or three of the --th.

To them, on his way to rejoin his searching troop, had entered big Jim Ennis, Lanier's chum and cla.s.smate, and Ennis looked the picture of smothered wrath. Half an hour previous he had been seen trotting up from stables to the adjutant's office, summoned thither by the orderly of the commanding officer. A few minutes later that same hard-worked orderly had been seen sprinting to the surgeon's quarters, and Doctor Larrabee, wrapped in furs and meditation, obeyed the summons, stood in the presence of an irate commander not more than fifty seconds, came forth wrapped in gloom, and took the short cut back of the major's house to his own bailiwick at the hospital.

About the only officer not to put in an appearance that morning out of doors, afoot, in saddle, or adrift in snow, was Lieutenant Lanier. About the first officer b.u.t.ton wished to see was Bob, and about the last was Blake. Yet such was the freakishness of Fate that the first man to hail him, with ill-timed jocularity, was Blake, and the last of his officers whom he was destined that day to set eyes on was Bob Lanier, whom Schuchardt, in answer to the commander's summons, had earlier declared unfit to leave his quarters.

If it had not been for the startling announcement about the paymaster, Colonel b.u.t.ton would have fought that matter out with the doctor then and there. First, however, he had to send forth his mounted men by scores in search of the missing officer and party. This done, he had once more summoned Schuchardt. Then he sent for Ennis, and had what they termed a "red hot row."

In his exasperated frame of mind, b.u.t.ton had been ready to believe almost any story at the expense of Lanier, and, such is the perversity of human nature, it added to rather than diminished his wrath that his revered senior surgeon should promptly corroborate the statements of both Schuchardt and Ennis, and further a.s.sume personal and entire responsibility for the episode of Sat.u.r.day afternoon in Lanier's quarters. That episode had started many a tongue, and one of b.u.t.ton's henchmen, thinking to win favor at the fountain-head by mention of new iniquity on the part of the culprit, had deftly enlarged upon it.

Snaffle, of course, was the fellow at fault, and he justified it on the plea that Lanier was demoralizing two men of his troop. The story he told was that Lanier had been carousing at his quarters with certain enlisted members of the guard. When told of it b.u.t.ton was furious, so much so that for the time he forgot about Sumter and the ladies of the Sumter household, and the north dormer window of Sumter's quarters, reported "stove in by the storm."

Nor had Sumter himself much time for domestic duties before the order came for him and his troop to turn out to aid in the search. He found the family fairly tranquil under the circ.u.mstances. He had sent a messenger galloping out from town, to a.s.sure his wife of his safety, when Tuesday's dawn showed the storm sufficiently abated. A devious course the rider took, for the road was blocked in a dozen places, and every ravine and hollow was packed to the brim with snow. But he bore glad tidings and banished all anxiety on account of the husband and father. Their anxieties now were mainly for Miriam, their guest.

Mrs. Sumter had not half finished what she had to say concerning Miriam when the summons came that called the captain forth to join the searching squadron, but he had heard enough to increase the anxiety in his fine, soldierly face. He went up with Mrs. Sumter and looked critically over the damage to the window, in what had been Miriam's room. She had moved, per force, to the front--to Katherine's--room Sat.u.r.day night, for toward sunset the storm-sash was torn out of the north dormer, and the window blew in with a crash. By dark the room was bank full of snow that Sergeant Kennedy and a brace of loyal troopers had been shovelling out since seven that Tuesday morning, without making any great addition to the huge drifts at the back. Front, flank, and rear, most of the houses along the line were packed solidly to the attic windows. On several the boys and girls were already coasting from the peak of the roof down over the back yards, sheds, and fences and out toward Larrabee's half-submerged hospital.

It was easy to see how and why the storm-sash had failed to withstand the buffeting. In his frantic haste and panicky flight the intruder of Friday night had wrenched a hinge from its fastening. The sash had sagged at the windward end, and the rest was easy for rude Boreas.

"That sash is probably somewhere down in the back yard, sergeant,"

Sumter quietly remarked to faithful Kennedy. "It's under fifteen feet of snow, but when it comes to tunnelling, look after it, see that it isn't injured, and call me as soon as you find it."

Mrs. Sumter looked quickly at her lord. She well knew the reason of his instructions.

"Did you show that sc.r.a.p of lining?" she asked, a moment later, as they stood alone before the parlor fire.

"They have it," was the answer. "I expect two of them out any moment."

And then had come the sudden summons to turn out, and with only brief greeting to his daughter, and a hurried kiss and caress, Captain Sumter had mounted and spurred away.

It must have been after twelve, for orderly call and mess had sounded in front of the adjutant's office, when one of the hospital attendants came floundering up the row from Lanier's, and made his way to Sumter's door, a little note in his hand. He would wait, he said, for an answer, and the maid bade him step inside while she ran up-stairs. Mrs. Sumter answered her knock at the door of Miss Kate's room, into which the damsels were now doubled. To the disappointment of that somewhat volatile domestic, Mrs. Sumter closed the portal before proceeding to open the missive, but her announcement, "From Mr. Lanier," caused Miriam Arnold to sit bolt upright.