Marion's Faith Part 10

Mini Pusa--Dry Water--have the Dakotas called for ages the sandy stream that twists and turns and glares in the hot suns.h.i.+ne down here in the vale behind us. "Muggins's Fork," some stockman said he heard it called a month ago. Far over there to the east--almost under the black shadow of the hills--we see another slender thread of questionable green; cottonwoods again, no doubt, for nothing but cottonwoods or sage-brush or grease-wood--worse yet--will grow down in the alkaline wastes of this Wyoming valley; and that thread or fringe betokens the existence of a stream in the spring-time,--one that the Sioux have ever called the Beaver, after the amphibious rodent who dammed its waters, and thereby rescued them from a like fate at the hands of modern residents. Far to the southeast, miles and miles away, dim and hazy through the heatwaves of the atmosphere one can almost see another twisting string of shade, the cottonwoods on the banks of the winding War Bonnet; at least so the Sioux named it, after their gorgeous crown of eagle feathers, but 'twas too polysyllabic, too poetic for the blunt-spoken frontiersman, who long since compromised on Hat Creek. We are in the heart of the Indian country, but the wild romance has fled. We are on dangerous ground, for there, straight away before our eyes, broad, beaten as a race-course, prominent as any public highway, descending the slope until lost in the timber of the South Cheyenne, then reappearing beyond, until far in the southeast it dwindles in perspective to a mere thread, and so dips into the valley of the War Bonnet and Indian Creek,--there lies the broad road from the reservations to the war-path. It is the trail over which for years the "Wards of the Nation" have borne the paid-up prices of their good behavior to sustain their brethren renegados in the Powder River Country far up here to the northwest. Over this road all winter long, all the spring-tide, and to this very week in June, arms, ammunition, ponies, bacon, flour, coffee, sugar, clothing, and warriors have been speeding to the hosts of Sitting Bull. The United States is sending to-day three or four thousand men at arms, equipped and supplied by the Department of War, to try conclusions with about twice that number of trained warriors similarly provided for by the Department of the Interior. It is odd, but it is a fact. Camping along the banks of the Rawhide, the first stream on the Indian side of the Platte, the officer in command of the advance-guard of the --th was surprised to see a train of wagons and without apparent escort. Galloping down to their fires, he accosted the wagon-master, who smilingly a.s.sured him that he and his train were in no danger from the Indians,--they were bringing them supplies. What supplies? Why, metallic cartridges, of course, Winchester and Henry, for their magazine-rifles, don't you know? Oh, yes. He understood well enough that they were all going out on the war-path, but he couldn't help _that_. He was paid so much a month to haul supplies from Sidney to Red Cloud agency, and if it happened to be powder and lead, 'tweren't none o' his business. How much had he? Oh, three or four hundred thousand rounds, he reckoned. To whom consigned?

Why, the trader,--the Indian store at Red Cloud, of course,--Mr. ----'s.

In speechless indignation the officer rides off and reports the matter to the colonel, and the colonel goes down and interviews the imperturbable "boss" with similar result, and more; for he comes back with a shrug of the shoulders and some honest blasphemy, for which may Heaven forgive him. (The fine inflicted by army regulations has not yet been collected.) "We can do nothing," he says. "That fellow has his papers straight from the Interior Department. He has been hauling cartridges all spring." And now, here is the advance-guard of the --th again far up on the Mini Pusa, just arrived, and that slender column of smoke rising from among the cottonwoods tells of a tiny fire where the men are boiling their coffee, while, miles away to the southwest, the rising dust-clouds proclaim the coming of the regiment itself. Out on the distant heights, on either side, other smokes are rising. Indian signals, that say to lurking warriors far and near, "Be on your guard; soldiers coming;" and so, here on the breaks of the Mini Pusa on this scorching Sabbath morn, the vanguard of the --th has reached and tapped the broad highway of Indian commerce. The laws of the nation they are sworn to defend prohibit their interfering with the distribution of ammunition by that same nation to the foes they are ordered to meet. The nation is impartial: it provides friend and foe alike. The War Office sends its cartridges to the --th through the ordnance officer, Lieutenant X. The Indian Bureau looks after its wards through Mr. ----at Red Cloud. And now the --th is ordered to stop those cartridges from getting to Sitting Bull up on the Rosebud. That is what brings them here to the Mini Pusa, and we see them now riding down in long dusty column into the valley, heedless of the dust they make, for the Indians have hovered on their flanks, out of sight, out of range, but _seeing_, ever since they crossed the Platte; and here they are, "old Stannard" and Billings with the advance, lying p.r.o.ne on their stomachs and searching through their field-gla.s.ses for any signs of Indian coming from the reservations, while with the column itself, in their battered slouch hats and rough flannel and buckskin, bristling with cartridges and ugly beards, burned and blistered and parched with scorching sun and winds tempered only with alkali dust, ride our Arizona friends,--many of them at least. Old Bucketts with his green goggles; Turner with his melancholy face and placid ways; Raymond, stern and swart; Canker, querulous and "nagging" with his men, but eager for any service; Stafford, who won his troop _vice_ the n.o.ble-hearted Tanner whom we lost among the Apaches; Wayne, who is loquacity itself whenever he can find a listener, and who talks his patient subaltern almost deaf through the long day marches; and Crane and Wilkins, who are a good deal together at every halt, and consort more with Canker than other captains; and then there is the jolly element that ever cl.u.s.ters around Blake, whose spirits defy adversity, and whose merry quips and jests and boundless distortions of fact or fancy are the joy of the regiment. With Blake one always finds Merrill and Freeman and some of the jovial junior captains, and, of course, the boys,--Hunter, Dana, Briggs; and here they are on this blessed Sabbath of the Centennial June, sent up to stop Mr.

----'s cartridges, _after_ they have become the property of "Mr. Lo;"

and once a cartridge becomes Indian property, there is only one way of stopping it. The wealth of France is inadequate to purchase of Alfred Krupp a single gun from his shops at Essen, because his love for Fatherland will not let him place a power in the hands of the hereditary enemy. It takes enlightened England and free America to supply friends and foes alike with the means to kill.

Stannard closes his gla.s.s with a grunt of dissatisfaction, and turns to Billings. "None of those cartridges get through here _this_ day anyhow; but how many do you suppose Mr. ---- has sent up there already?" And he points as he speaks to the far northwest.

Under that blue dome, cloudless, glaring; under the sentinel peaks of the Big Horn s.h.i.+mmering there in the distance, over the rolling divide in that glorious upland that heaves and rolls and tosses between the Rosebud and the swirling stream in the broad valley farther west, another regiment--that of which we spoke, whose leader is famed in song and story--is riding rapidly this still Sunday morning in search of Mr.

----'s cartridges. Some say the tall, blue-eyed, blond-bearded captain who leads that beautiful troop of bays is Mr. ----'s brother. Odd! yet how can the Indian Bureau know that Crazy Horse and Two Bears and Kicking Mule want to buy Mr. ----'s bullets to kill his brother with?

How, indeed, should Mr. ---- know? Army officers, 'tis true, have warned them time and again; but when were army officers' statements ever potent in the Interior Department against the unendorsed a.s.sertion of Crazy Horse or Kicking Mule that he only wanted to kill buffalo? Indeed, is not Mr. ---- himself eager to go bail for the purchaser, since his profits are so high? Over the divide, hot on the broad, beaten trail goes the long column. How different are they from our sombre friends of the --th, who, miles and marches away to the southeast, are dismounting and unsaddling under the cottonwoods! Years in Arizona have robbed the latter of all the old love for the pomp and panoply of war. There is not a bit of finery in the command, there is hardly a vestige of uniform; but look here, look here at the brilliance of the Seventh. Bright guidons flutter at the head of every troop; bright chevrons, stripes, and b.u.t.tons gleam on the dress of many an officer and man; the steeds, though worn and jaded with an almost ceaseless trot of thirty-six hours, are spirited and beautiful; some are gayly decked. Foremost rides their tried leader, clad from head to foot in beaded buckskin. "The Long Hair"

the Sioux still call him, though now the long hair waves not on the breeze, and an auburn beard conceals the handsome outline of the face all troopers know so well. Near him rides his adjutant, dressed like himself in their favorite buckskin, so too are others among the officers, though many wear the jaunty fatigue uniform of the cavalry, and the rank and file are all, or nearly all, in blue. But a short way back they have come upon the scaffolding sepulchre of Indian warriors lately slain in battle; but a few miles ahead they see a broad valley from which, far from south to north, a vast dust-cloud is rising, and for this there can be but one explanation,--thousands of Indian ponies in excited motion. Ay, scouts in advance already sight indications of the near presence of a great Indian community, and the column resolves itself into three, trotting in parallel lines across the treeless upland a mile or so apart. With the northernmost, the largest, rides now the leader of all, while between them gallop couriers carrying rapid orders.

Every face sets eagerly westward. Every heart beats high with the thrill of coming battle. Some there are who note the immensity of the dust-cloud, who reason silently that for miles and miles the valley before them is covered by the scurrying herds; ten thousand ponies at least must there be to stir up such a volume; then, how many warriors are there to meet these seven hundred? No matter what one thinks, not a man falters.

Far to the south the snow peaks glisten over the pine-crested range of the Big Horn. Nearer at hand deep, dark canons burrow in towards the bowels of the mountains. Then from their bases leap the rolling foot-hills, brown and bare but for the dense growth of the sun-cured buffalo-gra.s.s. Westward, open and undulating sweeps the broad expanse of almost level valley beyond the bluffs, close under which is curling the fatal stream,--the "Greasy Gra.s.s" of the Dakotas. Far to the north in the same endless waves the prairie rolls to the horizon, beyond which lies the shallow river where the transports are toiling up-stream with comrade soldiery. Behind the column, eastward, dip the sheltered valleys of the Rosebud and the breaks of the Tongue among the Cheetish Mountains; and there, not fifty miles away as the crow flies, the soldiers of the Gray Fox, over two thousand strong, are camped, awaiting reinforcements before renewing the attempt to advance upon these lurking bands of Sitting Bull. Not two days' march away, on both flanks, are four times his numbers in friends and allies; not two miles away, in his front, are ten times his force in foemen, savage, but skilled; yet all alone and unsupported, the Long Hair rides dauntlessly to the attack, even though he and his well know it must be battle to the death, for Indian warfare knows no mercy.

There be those who say the a.s.sault was rash; the speed unauthorized; the whole effort mad as Lucan's launch of the Light Brigade at Balaclava; but once there in view of the fatal valley, the sight is one to fire the brain of any trooper. Galloping to a little mound to the right front, the broad expanse lies before the leader's eyes, and far as he can see, out to the west and northwest, the dust-cloud rises heavily over the prairie; here and there, nearer at hand, are the scurrying ponies and, close down by the stream, excited bands of Indians tearing down lodge after lodge and preparing for rapid flight. But one conclusion can he draw. They are panic-stricken, stampeded. They are "on the run" already, and unless attacked at once can never be overhauled. They will scatter over the face of the wild Northwest in an hour's time. He cannot see what we know so well to-day: that only the northern limits of the great villages are open to his gaze; that the sheltering bluffs hide from him all the crowded lodges of the bands farthest to the south, and that while squaws and children are indeed being hurried off to the west, hundreds, thousands of exultant young warriors are galloping in from the western prairies, herding the war-ponies before them. He cannot see the scores that, rifle in hand, are rus.h.i.+ng into the willows and cottonwoods along the stream, eager and ready to welcome his coming; he sends hurried orders to the leaders of the little columns on his left: "Push ahead; cross the stream; gallop northward when you reach the western bank, and attack that end of the village while I strike from the east."

He never dreams that behind that solid curtain of bluff Ogallalla, Sans Arc, Uncapapa, and Blackfoot lurk in myriads. "The biggest Indian village on the continent!" they say, he shouts to the nearest column; but only the northern limits of it could he see. Far, far away in the East the church-bells are ringing out their glad welcome to the G.o.d-given day of rest. Mothers, sisters, wives, lift up a prayer for the loved ones on the savage frontier. Aloft the sun in cloudless splendor looks down on all. Westward press the comrade columns, until, reaching the head of a shallow ravine that leads northwestward towards the stream, the Long Hair spurs to the front,--Oh, those beautiful Kentucky sorrels! Oh, those gallant, loyal hearts!--and the eager, bearded faces, the erect, athletic forms, the fluttering guidons, one by one are lost to view as they wind away down the coulee; one by one they disappear from sight, from hearing, of the comrades now trotting down the bluffs to the west. Take the last look upon them, fellows,--five fated companies. Obedient to their leader's order, loyal, steadfast, unmurmuring to the bitter end, they vanish once and for all from loving eyes. Only as gashed, lifeless, mutilated forms will we ever see them again.

Who has not read the story of the Little Horn? Why repeat it here? Who that was there will ever forget the sight that burst upon the astonished eyes of Reno's men when, breaking through the willows along the stream and reaching the level bench, they saw, not five miles away to the north, as was the first idea, but here in their very front, only long rifle-shot away, the southern outskirts of the great Indian metropolis that stretched away for miles to the north. G.o.d of battles! was this a position, was this a force to be a.s.sailed by one regiment? Why linger over it?--the half-hearted advance of the dismounted skirmish line; the hesitating rally; then the volley from the willows; the flanking warriors on the west; the sudden consciousness of their pitiful numbers as against the hordes now swarming upon them; the mad rush for the bluffs, with the yelling Indians dragging the rearmost from their steeds and butchering them as they rode; the Henrys and Winchesters pumping their bullets into the fleeing ma.s.s; the plunge into the seething waters; the panting scramble up the steep and slippery banks; the breathless halt at the crest, and then, then the backward glance at the field and the fallen. Who will forget McIntosh, striving to rally the rearmost, dragged from the saddle and hacked to death upon the sward?

Who will forget Benny Hodgson's brave young face,--the pet, the pride of the whole regiment? Even the daring and devotion of his men could not save him from the hissing lead of those savage marksmen. Then the strained suspense, the half-hour's listening to the fierce, the awful volleying to the north that told of a fearful struggle. The flutter of hope that it might be the stronger battalion fighting its way through to the relief of theirs, the weak one; the blank faces that gazed one into another with awe-stricken inquiry as trumpet blare and rallying shout and rattling volley receded, not approached; died away, not thundered anew in coming triumph; the pall of certainty that fell on every man when silence so soon reigned in the distance, and pandemonium broke out afresh around them. Back from their b.l.o.o.d.y work, drunk with blood and victory, came by thousands the savage warriors to swell the forces that had driven the white soldiers to cover. Up, thank G.o.d! not an instant too soon, came the comrades from the distant left, and Benteen and MacDougall riding in with four full companies and the needed ammunition gave them strength to hold out. Through the hours of fierce battle that followed, through that dread "running the gauntlet" for water that the wounded craved, through the stern suspense and strain of the day and night that intervened before the rescuing forces of Terry came cautiously up the valley, and the Sioux melted away before them, ah! how many a time was the question asked, "What can have become of Custer?"

Far, far to the east this still Sabbath afternoon, seeking shelter from the glare of the same blazing sun, seeking sympathy from each other's words, seeking hope and comfort from Him who alone can aid, a little group of women gather at the frontier fort on the banks of the Missouri.

They are the wives of the officers who that morning ride "into the Valley of Death" with their soldier leader. Fair young matrons and mothers, whose thoughts have little room for the glad jubilee in the still more distant East, whose world is with that charging column. Only a few days since there came to them the evil news that the Indians had forced back the soldiers of the southern Department,--that meant harder work, fiercer fighting for their own. And this dread anxiety it is that cl.u.s.ters them here, lifting up sweet voices in their hymn of praise to the Heavenly Throne, pleading, pleading for the life and safety of those who are their all in all. Oh, G.o.d! there is prophecy in the very words of their mournful song, though they know it not. Pitying Father, listen, and be merciful.

"E'en though it be a Cross That raiseth me."

Vain the trembling hope, vain the tearful pleading. Far out on the slopes of the Little Horn those for whom these prayers are lifted have fought their last battle. G.o.d has, indeed, asked of these women that henceforth "they walk on in the shadow and alone."

CHAPTER XI.

THE WOLF AND THE SHEEPFOLD.

The glorious Fourth has come and gone. The Centennial anniversary has had its completed category of parade and picnic; speech and song; fun and fireworks. The thronging cities of the East have rejoiced with unusual enthusiasm, especially Philadelphia, whose coffers are plethoric with the tribute of visiting thousands. Out on the frontier we have celebrated with modified _eclat_, since the national celebrants are mostly absent on active service, and have no blank cartridges to dispose of. The big garrison flags have been duly hoisted and saluted. The troops have been paraded where there were any to parade, as only a few infantrymen remain to take care of the forts and the families. The Declaration of Independence has been read in one or two of the bigger posts, where enough remains of defenders to make up a fair-sized demonstration. One of these is far up on the Missouri, where the cavalry ladies are all invited to hear the infantry orator of the day--and go.

No news has come for some time from husbands and lovers on the war-path, and it is best to be hopeful and cheery. They make a lovely picture, a dozen of them in their dainty white dresses, their smiling faces, their fluttering fans and ribbons. They applaud each telling point with encouraging bravos and the clapping of pretty hands. How free from care, how joyous, how luxurious is army life! How gleeful is their silvery laughter! How beaming the smiles with which they reward the young gallant who comes among them for their congratulations! _Vanitas, vanitatum!_ They are nearly all widowed, poor girls, but they don't know it--not yet. The steamer laden with the wounded and the fell tidings of disaster is but a few hours away. Before the breaking of another day there will be none to smile in all their number. Verily, "In the midst of life we are in death."

And Russell, too, has had its jubilee--on a more extensive scale, for here are Webb and Truscott with their fine troops of horse, the band, the infantry companies, and a brace of old howitzers, with which they make the welkin ring. No tidings of any account have come from the front. The Gray Fox is puzzled at the situation. The Indians are out there somewhere, as he finds every time a scout goes forth, but they appear to be engrossed in some big council over at the Greasy Gra.s.s. One thing is certain, he can get no word through to Terry on the Yellowstone, and he cannot afford another tussle with such force as they show when he does come out. The --th is still down near the Black Hills.

Busy? Oh, yes. Busy is no word for it! They are scampering all over the south Cheyenne country after small bands of Indians, whose fleet ponies keep them just out of range of the carbines and just out of reach of the horses, who, grain-fed all winter, are now losing speed, strength, and bottom on the scant and wiry gra.s.s they find in the sandy valleys.

Truscott and Webb are eager to go forward, but orders say wait. Mrs.

Truscott is again almost in heaven. Jack has been with her nearly a fortnight. They are domiciled in their new quarters. Mrs. Stannard is their next-door neighbor; much of their furniture has come, and the army home is beginning to look lovely. Mrs. Whaling and Mrs. Turner can never see enough of it, or say enough.

Large numbers of recruits have been sent to the post to be drilled and forwarded to the cavalry at the front. They are having riding-school all hours of the day, and the cavalry officers are in saddle from morn till night teaching them. Mr. Gleason is a.s.siduous in this duty. Whatever Captain Truscott has heard to the gentleman's discredit in the past, he admits to himself that it has prepared him for agreeable disappointment.

No lieutenant could be more attentive or subordinate, more determined to please. Captain Truscott cannot but wish that Mr. Gleason were less attentive to Miss Sanford, but that young lady is evidently fully able to keep him at a very pleasant distance. It excites the captain's admiration to see how perfectly lady-like, how really gracious is her manner to the aspiring widower, and yet--how serenely unencouraging. No one understood this better than Mr. Gleason himself. Finding her deeper, less impressionable than he at first supposed, he simply changed his tactics. He avoided the store, he shunned conversations on dangerous topics, he cultivated the society of Colonel Whaling, and deeply impressed that veteran with the depth of his information on dogs, horses, and military affairs. He dexterously lost small sums to the post commander at pool and billiards; enough to keep the old gentleman in cigars--and good-humor. He became "serious" in his conversation with the colonel's amiable wife, whose exemplary habit it was to be always found seated at a little table behind a very big Bible when visitors called; though the garrison _did_ say, as garrisons will, that occasionally they had to knock or ring half a dozen times before the summons could be heard; not because the good lady was so deeply plunged in religious meditation, but because the clatter of angry tongues made all demonstration from without simply inaudible.

The long-suffering and short-serving domestics who successively reigned in the Whaling kitchen and chambers were wont to say that it was nag and scold from morn till dewy eve,--sometimes later,--and that in the midst of wrathful tirade the lady of the house would only be brought to instant silence by the announcement of "some one at the door." A certain Miss Finnegan, who served a brief apprentices.h.i.+p in the household, acquired lasting fame in the garrison for the mimetic power which enabled her to portray "Mrs. Gineral's" instantaneous change from a posture of fury to one of rapt devotion. She could look like Hecate Hibernicized, and in one comprehensive second drop into a chair, "smooth her wrinkled front" and side curls, shake out her rumpled draperies, and rise from an instant's searching of the Scriptures with features expressive of the very acme of Christian peace and benediction. "Mrs.

General" was a pet-name the lady had won from a wifely and lovable trait that prompted her to aggrandize her placid lord above his deserts. Him she ever addressed (in public), and of him she ever spoke, as "the general," irrespective of the fact that the rank was one he never had or never would attain, even by brevet, for the Senate drew the line at the man who had been in the army through three wars and never heard a hostile bullet whistle. His regiment had not been required in the Florida business. He himself was put on other duty when they went to Mexico, and, finally, in the great war of the Rebellion, there was constant need of regulars to act as mustering and disbursing officers at the rear. Such had been old Whaling's career, and, so long as he himself was utterly unpretentious,--never claimed to have done any war service, and was content to drift along and draw his pay,--n.o.body would have said much in detraction had it not been for his wife's persistent pus.h.i.+ng. He was merely second in command of his regiment, but the lady spoke of him as "the general" on all occasions, and alluded to his immediate superior, who had led corps and divisions in his day, as Colonel Starr.

Others--of equal rank and with the brevets of major-generals--she similarly belittled. They were merely field-officers. She admitted the existence of no greater man than "the general," her husband, and whatever might be the sorrows of other parents with their children, or housewives with their servants, Mrs. Whaling pitied,--even condoled,--but could not sympathize. With uplifted eyes she would thank the Giver of all good that He had blessed her with sons so n.o.ble and distinguished, with daughters so lovely and so dutiful, with servants so singularly devoted. In the various garrisons in which the good lady had flourished, what mattered it that her boys were known to be graceless young scamps whom cudgelling could not benefit, or that her gentle daughters squabbled like cats and flew to the neighbors to spread the tales of their wrongs and mamma's injustice? What mattered it that her paragons of servants left her one after another and swore they couldn't stay in a house where there was so much spying and fault-finding? There was no shaking Mrs. Whaling's Christian determination to run with patience the race thus set before her.

Gleason found in converse with her so much that reminded him of the mother he had lost, alas! so many years ago, and Mrs. Whaling welcomed him to the consolations of her sanctified spirit. Together they deplored the frivolity and vices of the younger officers (Ray came in for a good showing-up just there, no doubt), and together they projected the reformation of some of her favorites in the garrison. A wise man was Gleason. She and her meek and lowly husband could be useful--very useful in time of need. And did he abandon his devotions to Miss Sanford? No, indeed! but they were modified as became the subject. He called less frequently; he became less personal, less aggressive in his talk; he had naught but good, or silence, for his comrades, and charity for the world. He threw into his every look and word a deference and a respect that made his manner proof against criticism; and yet, one and all, they could not welcome him. Truscott, his captain, had never yet dropped the "Mr." before the surname of his subaltern,--that well-understood barrier to all army intimacy,--and Gleason, who stood among the very first on the lineal list of lieutenants, hated him for the restriction, but gave no sign.

It was necessary that some one of the cavalry officers should be placed in charge of the newly-arrived recruits, and this duty fell to Gleason's lot. It relieved him from service with his troop and made him independent of his captain. Webb and Truscott, if consulted, would have named a far better instructor among their lieutenants, but Colonel Whaling issued the order from post headquarters, and there was nothing for it but obey. Gleason lent his best efforts to the work, and he and his drill sergeants were ceaseless in their squad instruction. Several old cavalrymen had come among the dozens of green hands, so had a small squad transferred by War Department orders from West Point. Among these men were competent drill-masters, and among the drill-masters the most active and efficient was the Saxon soldier, Sergeant Wolf.

Mr. Gleason had invited the ladies to walk out on the prairie east of the post one lovely morning late in June, that they might see the skirmish drills of the two cavalry troops. Often as she had been a spectator before, Mrs. Truscott never tired of watching Jack and his men, and Miss Sanford was greatly interested at all times in the martial exercises, especially the mounted. Strolling homeward about ten o'clock, having been joined by one of the young infantry officers, Mr. Gleason suggested their stopping at the store and refres.h.i.+ng themselves with a lemonade. Miss Sanford would have declined with thanks, but silently waited for her hostess to speak; and Mrs. Truscott, who remembered how papa had sometimes called her into the club-room when she was a child, and who knew that the garrison ladies frequently accepted such invitations, hesitatingly a.s.sented. It must be confessed that Mrs.

Truscott sometimes acted before she thought, and this was one of the times. Truscott himself rarely, if ever, entered the club-room, and had never thought it necessary to say anything to his wife on the subject.

The door stood invitingly open; the attendant was lolling thereat in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves admiringly scanning the approaching group. As soon as he saw they were heading for the club-room instead of the gate, he slipped behind the bar and put on his coat. Miss Sanford hung back as Mr.

Gleason threw open the portals, and called out encouragingly,--

"Come right in, ladies; there's no one here but the bar-keeper."

Mrs. Truscott stepped lightly over the threshold, and glanced with smiling curiosity around. The first thing that caught her eye was a placard hanging at the entrance of a little alcove-like s.p.a.ce beyond the rusty old billiard-tables. Within were two or three green baize-covered card-tables and rude wooden chairs. On the placard, roughly stencilled, was the legend,--

"He who enters here leaves soap behind."

Mrs. Truscott's eyes expressed wonderment and mirth commingled.

"How utterly absurd! Who did that, Mr. Gleason?"

"That? Oh! That's some of Blake's work, I believe! Ah--are you not coming in, Miss Sanford?"

"Thanks, no, Mr. Gleason; I believe I'll wait here," was the reply, pleasant but decided.

"Why, Marion! Do come in!" cried Mrs. Truscott, hastening to the door.

Miss Sanford's face was flus.h.i.+ng slightly, but her voice was gentle as usual.

"I'll wait for you, Grace; but I do not care for a lemonade, and--would rather not go in."

"Indeed, I don't care for one either. I only said yes because I thought, perhaps, you would like it--or would care to see the club-room," Mrs.

Truscott protested, as she hurriedly came forth. "We are just as much obliged to you, Mr. Gleason, but--not to-day." And with that they resumed their homeward stroll. Once through the gate Mr. Gleason slackened the pace, so as to detain his fair companion a moment.

"Why would you decline my invitation?" he asked, in a tone of what was intended to be tender reproach.

"I prefer not to visit--the club-room, as I believe it is called."

"You would soon get used to it if you were in the Army," he ventured awkwardly.

"But I am not in the Army," she began, self-restrainedly enough; then, as though she could not repress the words, "Nor would I be if, as you say, I had to get used to that."

She has a temper then, quoth Gleason to himself, ruefully noting that he had made a bad move. It gave him an opportunity of putting in what was generally considered a pretty effective piece of work, however,--one that had been often employed on somewhat similar occasions, and will be again.

"Ah, Miss Sanford, were there more women like you, there would be fewer places like that."

But to this she made no reply whatsoever. If anything, its effect was to quicken her pace.

Arriving near their quarters, a small party of enlisted men, apparently recruits, were observed cl.u.s.tered about a wagon loaded with boxes. A spruce, handsome, blond-moustached young soldier stepped suddenly into view from behind the wagon, where he had been superintending the unloading of some of the goods. At sight of him Miss Sanford stopped short. Looking wonderingly at her, Mr. Gleason saw that her face had paled, and that she was gazing intently on the approaching soldier and on Mrs. Truscott, who, absorbed in laughing talk with her escort, had apparently not observed him. As he halted and saluted, Mr. Gleason could not but note that she started, then that she had flushed crimson. He glanced quickly from one to the other,--the pale girl by his side, the startled young matron in front, and the statuesque soldier, respectfully standing with his hand at the cap visor.