Chapter II

Nearly six long months went the regiment afield on the hardest campaign of its history. Then at last by way of reward it had been ordered in to big Fort Cushing for the winter. It was close to town, close to the railway--things that in those days, thirty years ago, seemed almost heavenly. The new station was blithe and merry with Christmas preparations and pretty girls. All the married officers' families had rejoined. Half a dozen fair visitors had come from the distant East. The band was good; the dancing men were many; the dancing floor was fine, and the dance they were having on Friday night, December 16, was all that even an army dance could be until just after eleven o'clock. Then something happened to cast a spell over everybody.

Bob Lanier was officer-of-the-guard. Bob had asked the colonel to let him turn over his sword to a brother officer, who, being in mourning, could not dance, and the colonel had curtly said no. The colonel's wife was amazed; she did not dream he _could_ do such a thing. Six girls were sorrowful, three were incensed, and one was cruelly hurt. She was under parental orders to start for home on the morrow. It was to be her last dance at the fort. She liked Bob Lanier infinitely more than she liked her father's dictum that she must like him not at all. As for Bob Lanier, the garrison knew he loved her devotedly even before she knew it herself.

Of course she came to the dance. As the guest of Captain and Mrs. Sumter she even had to go up and smile on the colonel and his wife, who were receiving. She and Kate Sumter had been classmates--roommates--at Vassar, and Kate, born and reared in the army, had never been quite content until her friend could come to visit the regiment--her father's home.

A winsome pair they were, these two "sweet girl graduates" of the June gone by, while the regiment was stirring up the Sioux on the way to the Big Horn and Yellowstone. Everybody had lavish welcome for them, and to Miriam Arnold the month at Fort Cushing had been quite a dream of delight, until there came a strange and sudden missive from her father, bidding her break off a visit that was to have lasted until February, _and_ all relations with Lieutenant Robert Ray Lanier.

Up to this moment these relations had been delightful, yet indefinite. For reasons of his own Mr. Lanier had made no avowal of his love to her, even though he had disclosed it to every one else. He was a frank, fearless, out-and-out young soldier, a prime favorite with most of his fellows. Bob had his enemies--frank men generally have. He could hardly believe the evidence of his ears when, just after sunset roll-call, he had confidently approached the colonel with his request and had received the colonel's curt reply. Time and again during the recent campaign the veteran soldier now in command had shown marked liking for this energetic young officer. Then came the march to the settlements, and sudden, unaccountable change. Twice or thrice within the past ten days he had shown singular coldness and disfavor; to-night strong and sudden dislike, and Lanier, amazed and stung, could only salute and turn away.

Everybody by half past ten had heard of it, and most men marvelled. Nobody at eleven o'clock was very much surprised when, in the midst of the lovely Lorelei waltz of Keler Bela, a group of young maids, matrons, and officers near the doorway opened out, as it were, and Bob Lanier, officer-of-the-guard, came gracefully gliding and circling down the room, Miriam Arnold's radiant, happy face looking up into his. It was a joy to watch them dance together, but not to watch the colonel's face when he caught sight of them. Except Lanier, every officer present was in full uniform, without his sabre. Lanier was in the undress uniform of the guard, but with the sabre--not the long, curved, clumsy, steel-scabbarded weapon then used by the cavalry, but a light, Prussian hussar sword that he had evidently borrowed for the occasion, for it belonged to Barker, the adjutant, as everybody knew--as Barker realized to his cost when in less than ten seconds the commander summoned him.

"Mr. Barker, you will at once place Mr. Lanier in arrest for quitting his guard and disobeying my orders."

"I shall have to--get my sabre, sir," stammered the adjutant, meaning the regulation item over at his quarters.

"There it is, sir, before your eyes. Mr. Lanier, at least, can have no further use for it until a court-martial acts on his case."

"Good Lord!" thought Barker, "how can I go up to Bob and tell him to turn over that sword so that I can properly place him in arrest--and here, too--and of all times----"

But the colonel would brook no delay. "Direct Mr. Lanier to report to me in the anteroom," said he, marching thither forthwith, and that message the luckless adjutant had to deliver at once.

Bob saw it coming in Barker's sombre visage. The girl on his arm understood nothing (but noted the hush that had fallen, even though the music went on; saw Barker coming, and something told her it meant trouble, and turned her sweet face white).

"Miss Arnold, may I offer myself as a substitute for the rest of this dance? Bob, the chief wants to see you a second," was the best that Barker could think of. They praised him later for his "mendacity," yet what he said was true to the letter. It took little more than a second for the colonel to say:

"Mr. Lanier, go to your room in arrest," and Bob saluted, turned, and went, unslinging the sword on the way.

Now, that was the first touch to spoil that memorable December night, but it was only a feather to what followed. The waltz soon ceased, but the colonel called for an extra, and led out a lady from town, the wife of a future senator. "Keep this thing going," he cautioned his adjutant and certain of his personal following, which was large, and loyally they tried, but the piteous face of the girl he had left at the door of the ladies' dressing-room and in the hands of Mrs. Sumter was too much for Barker. Moreover, he much liked Lanier and bemoaned his fate.

Colonel Button was "hopping mad," as the quartermaster put it, and as all men could see, yet at what? Lanier's offence, when fairly measured, had not been so grave. It had happened half a dozen times that the officer-of-the-guard, making his rounds and visiting sentries in the course of a dance evening, would casually drop in by one door and out by another, taking a turn or two on the floor, perhaps--"just waltzing in and waltzing out," as they said--and no one the worse for it, even when the colonel happened to be present. Nor could men now see what it was that so angered the commander against Lanier.

"Disobeyed his orders flatly," suggested Captain Snaffle, who stood by the colonel on every occasion when not himself the object of that officer's satire or censure.

"Disobeyed no order," said Sumter, as stoutly. "Simply did what many another has done, and nobody hurt. Nor would Lanier have been noted, perhaps, if he had not first asked to turn over his sword to Trotter."

But even that could not fully account for the colonel's rancor, and, though the music and dance went on, men and women both, with clouded faces, found themselves asking the question: "What could have angered him so at Lanier?" And in a corner of the ladies' dressing-room two pretty girls, with difficulty soothed by Mrs. Sumter, were vainly striving not to cry their eyes out--Kate Sumter dismayed at the almost uncontrollable grief of her friend, who, strange to military measures, imagined that Bob's arrest was but the prelude to his being shot at sunrise, or something well nigh as terrible.

Not ten minutes after Lanier went out, and went silent but in unspeakable wrath, Paymaster Scott came dawdling in, and though but a casual visitor at the post, just back that day from a tour of the northward camps and forts along the Indian border, he saw at a glance that something had gone amiss. The colonel was laboriously waltzing; three or four couples were mechanically following suit, but most of the men were gathered about the buffet, and most of the women huddled at the dressing-room door, and Scott, marching over to pay his respects to the colonel's wife, and explain his coming at so late an hour, noted instantly the trouble in her serious face. He had known her long and liked her well, as, despite occasional differences at whist, he did her husband. Captain Snaffle was speaking with her at the moment. Mrs. Snaffle was at her side. "Why did they tell her at all?" Mrs. Snaffle was asking, with much spirit and obvious effort to control a racial tendency to double the final monosyllables. "Sure they might have known 't would sc--frighten the life out of her."

"Sc--frighten _who_?" asked Scott, who was friends with everybody and, for more reasons than his office, a welcome guest wherever he went. Snaffle shot a warning glance at his wife, which fell, as he said, "unaided."

"It's Bobby Lanier, meejor, only you mustn't sp--refer--to it." Mrs. Snaffle, when self-controlled, discreetly shunned such vowels as betrayed her origin, a totally useless precaution, since all men knew it and liked her none the less.

"Lanier? Oh, yes, I thought it was Bob I saw a while ago streaking it across the parade. It's bright as day in the moonlight with the snow. What's Bob got to do with frightening folk?" And now he was shaking hands with all three.

"Something very unfortunate has happened, major," said Mrs. Button. "Mr. Lanier was officer-of-the-guard and asked to attend the dance, Mr. Trotter offering to take charge of the guard. Colonel Button felt compelled to decline, and--he came any way. You know, of course, _that_ couldn't be overlooked."

"H'm," said Scott gravely and reflectively. "And who is so frightened?"

"Miriam Arnold; a very charming girl who is visiting the Sumters. Indeed, it looks as though she cared for him. It's no secret that he's in love with _her_."

"Ah, yes. Well, then, it was she I saw getting into the Fosters' sleigh at the side door."

"Oh, I think not! I _hope_ not!" cried Mrs. Button, a flush mounting to her face. "I wanted to say a reassuring word after a little----"

But at the moment Mrs. Sumter was seen coming forth from the dressing-room. Half a dozen women were upon her at once with sympathetic inquiries. To these she spoke briefly, yet courteously, and, escaping on the arm of the regimental quartermaster, came straightway to Mrs. Button.

"You will forgive my girls for not saying good-night," she cordially spoke. "Miriam has been quite upset by a letter from home; and this little--episode--this evening, which she cannot understand as we do, has so unstrung her that Mrs. Foster offered to send them over home in her sleigh. The side door had been barred, but Mr. Horton pried it open for them, so they had no need to come this way, and face everybody--and explain."

"You know how sorry I am," said Mrs. Button. "Of course they are excusable for leaving as they did. Why, where are the others going?"

The music had suddenly stopped. There was a scurry on the part of the men at the anteroom. Several had run to the entrance. Others were following. Some one among the women, with startled eyes and paling face, sprang up saying, "It's fire"--always a dread at wind-swept Cushing. Almost at the same instant the colonel and Scott reached the veranda without. A dozen officers were there, intent and listening. "I tell you I heard it plainly," said one of their number, "and the Foster sleigh isn't back."

"Heard what, sir?" demanded the colonel. "What's the trouble?"

"A cry for help--or something, over yonder. Barker and Blake are gone. There was a stir at the guard-house, too."

And as though to confirm this much, at least, there presently appeared round the corner of the building the sergeant of the guard, in his fur cap and overcoat, and with him a burly soldier, bleeding at the nose and bristling with wrath. One hand covered a damaged eye; with the other he saluted Captain Snaffle, who had edged to the front of the group.

"Sir, I have to report Trooper Rawdon assaulting a non-commissioned officer."

For an instant there was silence. Then Major Scott gave tongue.

"Trooper Rawdon!" cried he, "why he's been with me nearly a month, and now has a month's furlough from General Crook. He's the best man of the escort."

"Refused to obey my orders to go to his quarters, sir, and assaulted me when I tried to enforce 'em. Sergeant Blunt says he won't confine him unless Captain Snaffle orders it."

"One moment, sergeant," interposed Colonel Button. "Has any disturbance--any cry for help--been heard at the guard-house,--or was this the explanation?" And he looked with disfavor on the battered complainant.

"Number Five, sir, hasn't called off half past 'leven. I've sent the corporal to see what's the matter."

"Number Five!" cried two or three men at the instant, and without a word Captain Sumter hurried away, on a bee line across the snow-covered parade, following the tracks of the adjutant.

"Number Five!" repeated the colonel. "That's just back of Sumter's quarters;" and he stepped out into the moonlight for clearer view.

Afar over across the glistening level a few lights glimmered faintly in the row of officers' quarters, bounding the northward side of the garrison, but neither along their front nor that of the westward row was there sign of moving humanity. The moon at its full, in that rare, clear atmosphere, illuminated the post, the frozen slopes beyond, and the dazzling range of the Rockies, with a radiance that rendered objects visible almost as at midday. Only the hurrying form of Captain Sumter could be seen half way across the parade. The Fosters' sleigh, that by this time should have been back at the assembly room, was nowhere in sight. Sumter's quarters were about the middle of the row. Lanier's were at the eastward end. For the moment the complaint of the aggrieved sergeant was ignored. All men stood waiting, watching. Then, on a sudden, two or three black forms darted from the shadow of the middle quarters. One came running out across the parade, hardly slackened speed at the hail of Captain Sumter, pointed back with one hand, shouted something that doubled Sumter's pace, but hurried onward toward the group.

It was Conroy, corporal-of-the-guard. "The adjutant orders me to report Number Five sick, sir," he panted to the colonel. "I found him all doubled up in the coal-shed back of the major's. 'T wasn't him hollered. 'T was somebody at Captain Sumter's. They got the steward over from the hospital, but they want the sergeant and some of the guard to search the back buildings."

"_Who_ wants them?" demanded the colonel.

"The adjutant, sir. Lieutenant Blake's with him. There has been some prowlers--and the young ladies were frightened."

"They are safely home?" asked the colonel. "Then where's the sleigh?"

"They're home all right, sir, and the sleigh went on out of the east gate--to the store, I suppose. Number Six didn't stop it----"

"One moment," interposed the colonel. "Sergeant-of-the-guard, take four of your men and report to Captain Sumter; or to the adjutant. Now, corporal, when was this cry heard?"

"Just after the young ladies got home, sir--leastwise that's what I was told. We didn't hear it at the guard-house."

"Was the officer-of-the-guard over there?"

"Not the--new one, sir, but----" And then the corporal suddenly stopped, contrite and troubled.

"But what?" demanded the colonel, instant suspicion in his eyes and tone. "Do you mean that Lieutenant Lanier was there--out of his quarters?"

"Out of his head, if he was," growled the paymaster, who loved him well and was deeply concerned over his trouble.

"I--I didn't see him, sir," answered the young soldier, but in manner so confused that it simply added to the commander's suspicion.

"Come with me, Horton," said the colonel to his quartermaster, and turning back for his cap and overcoat. Then once again the voice of the aggrieved and importunate sergeant was heard, this time with convincing appeal.

"I beg the colonel's pardon, but if he wants to get the truth as to this night's business, it would be well to arrest Trooper Rawdon, or he'll be off for good and all."

"Find him, then, sergeant-of-the-guard, and have it done," said Button. "Report it to the officer-of-the-day as my order."