Chapter XVII

An odd despatch was that which went by the single wire of the military telegraph line to Fort Fetterman late that night. It was known that a small escort would leave that point early in the morning, going through with a staff-officer _en route_ to join the field column now busily engaging the hostile Indians along the northern foot-hills of the Big Horn range. Major Miller asked the commanding officer at Fetterman to hold back a brace of horsemen to await the arrival of a courier just leaving Laramie, and bearing an important and confidential letter to the general commanding the department, who was with his troops in the field. It was over eighty miles by the river road; the night was dark and the skies overcast. There might be Indians along the route; there certainly were no soldiers, for, with the exception of eight or ten men, all of Captain Terry's troop were with him scouting on the north side of the Platte and over near the Sioux reservations. All the same, a single trooper, armed only with the revolver and unburdened by the usual blankets and field kit,--riding almost as light as a racer,--was to make the run and reach Fetterman the next afternoon.

This was the result of the interview with Lieutenant McLean, a conference at which were present Major and Mrs. Miller, Dr. Bayard, and the adjutant. Why Mrs. Miller, the wife of the commanding officer, should have been present in any capacity, it is not the province of the narrator to defend. She had been assiduously nursing and caring for the young officer in his weak and wounded condition. She had him where he could not escape her shrewd and relentless questionings. She was enabled to tell him much that Hatton had told her and a few things she certainly thought he had and therefore said he had. She was further enabled to tell him of the letters from Robinson and all they portended; of Mr. Holmes's loss and what she had seen in the mirror; of her own meeting with Miss Forrest in the darkness of the doctor's hall; of the registered letters sent away when everybody knew Mrs. Forrest hadn't a penny except the captain's pay, and that she had openly and repeatedly announced that her sister-in-law had now come to be a burden, too, having quarrelled with her relatives in the East. And so, little by little, she had drawn from McLean the story of Hatton's farewell words and the discovery of the card in the handkerchief. Then, fortified with this intelligence, and firmly convinced that she could not be mistaken in the guilt of her Majesty of Bedlam, Mrs. Miller reopened the subject and prodded the major into immediate action. She meant well. She intended no public exposure, no unnecessary disgrace. She merely wanted that Captain Forrest should come at once, compel his much-afflicted sister (for, of course, kleptomania was the sole explanation) to make restitution, and then remove her to some safe retreat in the distant East. Miller decided to see McLean at once, taking his adjutant to jot down the statements made, and Dr. Bayard because of his rank in the service and his professional connection with the officer in question. Mrs. Miller decided to be present because of McLean's great reluctance to tell what he knew and because she conceived it her duty to prompt him; and this was the quartet that swooped down upon the poor fellow in his defenceless condition late that sunshiny afternoon. No wonder his recovery was delayed!

The most stunned and bewildered man of the party while the painful interview was in progress was Dr. Bayard. He had gone in the confident expectation that McLean was to be confronted with the evidences of his guilt, and offered the chance of immediate resignation. His patient was sufficiently removed from the danger-line to enable him to sustain the shock, and he had not interposed. It was too late, therefore, to put an end to matters on that plea when to his horror-stricken ears was revealed the evidence against the woman who had so enthralled and piqued him. Miller led him away in a semi-dazed condition after the close of the conference, and then at last the doctor's vehement emotions found tongue.

"And all this time you have been suspecting that poor young fellow!" said the major, with a touch of reproach in his voice.

There was silence an instant. The doctor stopped short and leaned against the fence in front of the adjutant's quarters, his face purpling with wrath and indignation, his lips twitching, his hands clinched. Miller looked at him in amaze, and then came the outburst:

"Suspect him! By heaven, sir! What it was before is nothing to what I feel now! That in his depravity he should have stolen was bad enough; but that now, to cover his tracks, he should accuse and defame a defenceless woman is infamy! Look at his story, and tell me could anything be more pitiful and mendacious? Her handkerchief was found in his bureau the night of the robbery. Where is the handkerchief now? He burned it! He found a note on a card from her hidden in the handkerchief she had given Hatton to replace in the drawer. Where is the card? He burned it! He 'purposely destroyed all evidence against her.' A sham Quixote! Who found her handkerchief in his bureau? Who saw the burning? Who put the handkerchief in the drawer? Who told him of her confession? Who heard her beg that you should be delayed in your investigation? Who, in fact, is corroborating witness to everything and anything he alleges, but the man he believes, and I believe, you can never reach again. Hatton is failing rapidly."

"How could he have heard that?" asked Miller, with mingled wrath and stupefaction in his face,--wrath at the doctor's contemptuous disregard of all other opinions, and stupefaction at the suddenly presented view of the case.

"The attendant, sir, was down at the telegraph office when the news came in, and he had to tell McLean; the latter insisted on being told the truth. Weeks fears blood-poisoning, and if that has set in nothing can save him. Then where will be your evidence against this most foully wronged lady?"

"Hush!" exclaimed Miller, quickly, with a warning, sidelong glance toward Bedlam. "Come with me!" And, following his commander's look, the doctor saw, standing close together, leaning on the southern balustrade and gazing down upon them in evident interest and equally evident surprise, Fanny Forrest and Mr. Roswell Holmes. Silently he turned and accompanied the major until he reached his own gateway, and then stopped.

"I presume there is nothing further I can do just now, and, with your permission, sir, I will leave you. I want to think this all over."

"Do so, doctor. And, when you are ready, come and see me. Let me only say this to you: You have hardly known McLean at all. We have known him nearly five years, and he has ever been in our eyes the soul of honor and truth."

"The soul of honor and truth, sir, would not be writing love-letters and destroying the peace of mind of a young and innocent girl when all he has to offer her is a millstone of debt and a tarnished name." And with this parting-shot the doctor majestically turned away.

"So that's where the shoe pinches!" thought Miller, as he entered his quarters, where presently he was joined by his excited wife.

"He isn't half as prostrated as you thought he'd be," she instantly exclaimed, as she entered the room. "Of course it wouldn't be Mac if he were not greatly distressed, but I have promised him that not a word shall leak out until Captain Forrest gets here, and that then he is to see him himself. Isn't it dreadful about Mr. Hatton? Can nothing be done?"

"I am to see Bayard again by and by. This affair has completely unstrung him, for he is evidently deeply smitten; I never dreamed it had gone so far. Now that letter must be written to the general, and I am going to the office. You must not know a thing about it, or about this affair. Of course you will be besieged with questions." And so the major sallied forth.

Darkness was settling down. The sunset-gun had been fired just as they left McLean's. By this time the doctor should be entertaining his guest at dinner, and Miller wondered how even "Chesterfield" would rally to the occasion and preserve his suavity and courtliness after the shock of the last hour. But Miller had no idea that it was the last of three shocks that had assailed him in quick succession and with increasing severity that very day, and never dreamed of the gulf of distress in which poor Bayard was plunged. He had gone at once to his library and thrown himself in the easy-chair in an attitude of profound dejection, barely paying attention when Chloe entered to say that Miss Nellie begged to be excused from coming down to dinner, as she felt too ill. Then Robert entered to ask should he serve dinner or wait until Mr. Holmes came in. "Wait!" said Bayard, bluntly. But five minutes passed; the dinner would be overdone; so Robert slipped out in search of the truant, and Miller saw him going over to Bedlam. But the upper gallery was empty; Mr. Holmes and Miss Forrest had disappeared; the adjutant came striding up from the guard-house, and together the two officers turned away.

"Orderly," said the major, to the attendant soldier following at his heels, "find Sergeant Freeman, who is in charge of the cavalry detachment, and tell him I want him at once. Then go and get your supper."

Meantime, realizing that the dinner-hour was at hand, and knowing the punctilious ideas of his host, Mr. Holmes had somewhat abruptly bidden adieu to the young lady with whom he had been in such interesting conversation. "I must see you again about Hatton if possible, and just as soon as I have found out what this means. If all the four were together at McLean's room the mischief is probably done, but I'll see him at once unless it be forbidden." He was turning away without more words, when something in her deep, dark eyes seemed to detain him. He held forth his hand.

"Miss Forrest, I cannot tell you how I appreciate the honor you have done me in this confidence. It may be the means of my making more than one man happy. One word, where is Celestine now?"

"She should be in the dining-room, setting the table for tea. Good-by, then, till tattoo. See him if you can."

"Indeed I will," he answered, and bowing over the slender, richly-jewelled hand she so frankly placed in his, he slowly released it, and turned away.

"In the dining-room, is she?" muttered Holmes to himself, as he ran lightly through the hall and down the stairs. "If that was not Miss Celestine I saw this moment scurrying in from the direction of the wood-piles out yonder, I'm vastly mistaken, and she was talking with a soldier there. I saw the glint of the sunset on the brasses of his forage-cap. I thought they all had to be at retreat roll-call, but this fellow missed it."

Turning at the foot of the stairs, he strode to the rear door, and looked out through the side-light upon the unpicturesqueness of the yards, the coal- and wood-sheds, the rough, unpainted board fences; the dismantled gate, propped in most inebriate style against its bark-covered post, and clinging thereto with but a single hinge. At this half-closed aperture suddenly appeared the mulatto girl, stopped, turned, gave a quick glance at the various back windows of Bedlam, waved her hand to a dim, soldierly form just discernible in the twilight striding toward the northern end of the garrison, then she came scurrying to the door, and burst in, panting.

"Ah, Celestine! That you?" asked Holmes, pleasantly. "I thought to find you in the dining-room, and stopped to ask for a glass of water."

At sight of him the girl had almost recoiled, but his cheery voice reassured her.

"Laws, Mr. Holmes! I done thought 'twas a ghost," she laughed, but turned quickly from him as she spoke and hurried into the dining-room, filling a goblet with a trembling hand. He drank the water leisurely; thanked her, and strolled with his accustomed deliberation through the hall and out across the piazza, never appearing to notice her breathlessness or agitation. Once outside the steps, however, his deliberation was cast aside, and with rapid, nervous strides he hastened up the walk,--out past the old ordnance storehouse and the lighted windows of the trader's establishment, turned sharply to the west, and, sure enough, coming toward him was a brisk, dapper, slim-built little soldier in his snugly-fitting undress uniform. Holmes stopped short, whipped out his cigar-case and wind-matches, thrust a Partaga between his teeth, struck a light as the soldier passed him and the broad glare from the north window fell full upon the dapper shape and well-carried head. There was the natty forage-cap with the gleaming cross-sabres; there was the dark face, there the heavy brows, the glittering black eyes, the moustache and imperial, the close-curling hair, of the very man he had seen peeping into the parlor windows back of Mrs. Griffin's little post-office the night of his talk with Corporal Zook.

Ten minutes later and he was tapping at McLean's door. It was opened by the hospital attendant,--slowly and only a few inches.

"Can I see the lieutenant?" he asked.

"I am very sorry," whispered the man, mindful of the visitor's prodigality in the past and hopeful of future favors. "I have strict orders to admit nobody to-night until the doctor sees him again. The lieutenant isn't so well, sir, and Dr. Bayard had to administer sedatives before he left. I think he is sleeping just now, though he may only be trying to."

Holmes paused, reluctant and a little irresolute.

"Is there nothing I can do or say, sir, if he wakes?" asked the attendant.

"Can you give him a letter and say nothing about it to anybody?"

"Certainly I can,--if it's one that won't harm him."

"It will do him good, unless I'm mistaken; and he ought to have it to-night: he'll sleep better for it. I'll give it to you at tattoo.--Ah, Robert! I might have known you'd be in search of me and that I was delaying dinner. Say I'll be there instantly."

Meantime, Sergeant Freeman had reported to Major Miller as directed, and was standing attention, cap in hand, at that officer's desk, while the adjutant was scratching away across the room, his pen racing over the paper as he copied the despatch his commander had slowly and thoughtfully dictated.

"You say that Parsons is the best man to send, sergeant?"

"I don't say that, sir, exactly; but he's the lightest man in the troop and has the fastest horse now in the post. He could make it quicker than anybody else, but----"

"But what? Doesn't he want to go? Is he afraid?" asked the major, impatiently.

The sergeant flushed a little, as he promptly answered,--

"It isn't that, sir. He wants to go. There's no man in the troop, sir, that would be safe in saying he didn't want to go."

"Then why do you hesitate?"

"Because we don't know Parsons well, sir; he hasn't been with us more'n a year. He was Lieutenant Blunt's striker till the lieutenant was wounded, but Captain Terry had him returned to the troop because we were so short of men and had so much scouting to do. Then Parsons got into the office as company clerk, and that's where he is now, sir. He writes a fine hand and seemed to know all about papers."

"Where had he served before joining you?" asked the major.

"Nowhere, sir. He says he learned what he knows in the adjutant's office at St. Louis barracks, where they had the cavalry depot. He's been a barber, I think, on a Mississippi steamboat, but he can ride well."

"Well, let Parsons be the man. If he wants to go I see no reason why he shouldn't. Tell him to report here mounted and ready at tattoo."

But it was nearly ten o'clock before Parsons was ready,--a singular fact when it is remembered that he wanted to go,--and Mr. Holmes, who had stopped a moment to speak with Miss Forrest as the bugle ceased playing tattoo, found sufficient interest in their chat to detain him until just as the signal "Lights out" was ringing on the still night-air. Then a horse came trotting briskly into the garrison and over to the adjutant's office. Holmes caught a glimpse of the rider as he shot under the gallery and through the gleam from the lower windows. That face again!

Ten minutes afterward this inquisitive civilian was at the store, and, singling out one of half a dozen cowboys who were laughing and drinking at the bar, he beckoned him to come outside. The others followed, for the barkeeper, in obedience to post orders, was closing up his shop. Holmes led his silent follower beyond earshot of the loungers at the door-way.

"Did you see the soldier who rode past here just now?"

"Yes, sir."

"Drake, I've picked you out for service that I can intrust to no one else. You've never failed me yet. Are you ready for a long ride to-night?"

"Anything you want, Mr. Holmes."

"That man's orders are to go with all speed to Fetterman and, after resting there twenty-four hours, to take it easily returning. He'll go there all right, I believe, but what he does there and after he leaves there I want to know, if you have to follow to Cheyenne. Here's fifty dollars. If he jumps the track and starts for the railway after quitting Fetterman, let him go; wire me from Chugwater, but don't lose track of him. I'll join you at Cheyenne or Laramie City, wherever he goes, and the moment you strike the settlements put the sheriff on his trail."