Under Fire Part 20

When Sanders, with solemn face, turned to meet the general and report his discovery, the difference between the young and the old campaigner was told in their own words.

"I'm afraid we're too late to save 'em, sir. Everything's wiped out but the stockade."

"If the stockade's left, they've saved themselves," was the answer, and the Gray Fox was right. Long before the column reached the lowlands of the valley hors.e.m.e.n could be seen spurring eagerly forward to meet it, and the first-comer was Trooper O'Brien, who saluted the general with all soldierly grace and the rest of the array with a sociable grin.

"We're all right, general,--leastwise most of us is. Two of the boys is killed, and Loot'n't Boynton's wounded,--and four others,--but the women's all safe, and the agent--bad scran to him! Is there a doctor along?" A doctor was along,--Burroughs,--riding with the senior captain commanding the battalion, and Burroughs was hurried forward with Sanders and a squad of men, while O'Brien, proud of his prominence, rode by the general's side and told the story of the sharp and sudden fight.

"They came down on us like a crowd of gra.s.shoppers so soon as it was light enough to see anything, but they couldn't get near us without our bowling over bucks and ponies. The prairie's dotted with the corpses of the poor beggars, sir,--the ponies, that is; they never left an Indian.

We stood 'em off first rate. Loot'nant Boynton and Loot'nant Davies was everywhere at once, and after trying two dashes the Indians gave it up and kept at long range. They was a thousand strong at least, and Elk came in with a white flag for a parley, and Mr. Boynton ordered him back, but McPhail let him in. He said we must give up Red Dog or they'd burn the agency over our heads and ma.s.sacre every man, and McPhail was for letting him go then, but Mr. Boynton and he had words over it, and they kept him. That night was cloudy and the moon was hid, and sure enough at ten o'clock they crawled in on the storehouse side and heaped up timber under them flimsy pine boards, and no one could see them on that side until everything was in a broad blaze. It was when trying to bucket out the fire the lieut'nant was shot, and it was a roaring conflagration in five minutes, and from that it spread to the agency and the other shebangs, and it was all we could do to get the women and children out of the cellars and into the corral, and them bucks firing from every sage brush for a mile around. The whole thing was down by midnight, but it didn't do them no good: we was really better off with less to take care of and more men to do it with, and we had wather in the well and rations for all hands, and the agent and his non-combatants under cover in one corner of the stockade, and Red Dog tied up in another. All Sunday they kept up a long-range fire, and five or six times made as though they was going to charge, but Loot'nant Davies was on all four sides of that square from dawn till dark, sir, and they never got within four hundred yards that we didn't drop them. Sure it was just pie, general. The only trouble was, could they set fire to the stockade at night? The loot'nant had buckets of water all around inside, and every little while a patrol ran round on the outside, and half the fellows kept watch at the loop-holes while the others slept, and Mr.

Davies had the office side of the stockade battened up with old wagons and boxes and things to fill the gap. Faith, sir, he never seemed to close an eye night or day until this blessed morning, when the valley was clear of Indians and we knew it meant that the general was coming."

And as...o...b..ien told his tale to attentive ears, others of the little garrison, lately beleaguered, joined the battalion, still steadily in march, and found eager auditors everywhere along the jogging column.

Every one sorrowed at hearing of Boynton's serious wound, for he was a soldierly, faithful fellow, albeit a trifle blunt and unsociable, but as man after man spoke in lavish praise of Davies, of his plucky grapple with the most redoubtable chief in the rebellious tribes, of his calm, cool vigilance and skill in the conduct of the defence after the command devolved upon him, Cranston's eyes sparkled, and Hay and Truman joined in the chorus of congratulation.

When at last the battalion unsaddled at the stream and the officers pressed into the stockade to shake hands with the defenders, they found Boynton and the wounded feebly rejoicing in Burroughs's hands and Davies tucked away in a corner under an old wagon, rolled in agency blankets, sleeping the dreamless sleep of a tired child.

"Don't disturb him for anything," said the general, with moistened eyes.

"They tell me he hasn't had an hour's rest since Friday. He's behaved like a trump."

That night our old friend Tintop came trotting in at the head of eight strong troops of horse, some of his own, others of the --th Cavalry.

Behind them, with the wagons, came the infantry, supplementing the little detachment of the Fortieth already on the ground,--the st.u.r.dy trampers from Fort Scott. Next day the agent and his household, with the other women and children, were bustled off to Braska until new quarters should be built for them, and his red wards be rounded up, run down, and returned to the arms of Uncle Sam by their natural oppressors, the cavalry. Sending Red Dog in irons and Boynton and the wounded back to Scott by easy stages, leaving four companies of the Fortieth to build cantonments for themselves and their comrades, the Gray Fox took the field with the residue of his force and set forth upon a winter campaign in search of the now scattered and despondent Indians. The oratory of Red Dog had borne its fruit. Four truculent bands had joined in the outbreak at the agency and lost their leader, half a score of mad-brained young warriors, scores of their best war ponies, but, what was of most consequence, had burned up the whole store of agency provisions and, with their squaws and children, were now lurking among the trackless Bad Lands to the north, outcasts upon the face of the frozen earth.

The only Indians whose condition was not made materially worse as a result of this ebullition were the Brule band of Two Lance, who had taken advantage of the general confusion to slip away to their old head chief Sintogaliska. He might not be able to feed or clothe them, and the agent at Sheridan might say he had no authority to help, but they would at least be getting as much comfort as was accorded them at Ogallalla, and less abuse.

And then, while the soldiers were stalking the renegades, the commissioner of Indian affairs sent out to stalk the soldiers.

Investigation as to the cause of this inexplicable outbreak was demanded. Those very chiefs had left the capital in unbounded good humor not two months before, and who was responsible for this sudden and baleful change of heart? It was a matter soon and easily settled. In the absence of military testimony to the contrary and the presence of so unanimous a party as the agent and his a.s.sistants, the fault was laid on the broad shoulders of the troopers. Devers rode over from Scott to Braska to hear the evidence, Boynton being still in surgical bandage and bondage, and without committing himself to anything absolutely derogatory to Messrs. Boynton and Davies, was certainly understood to raise no dissenting voice to the often expressed theory that but for the impetuosity and interference of those two officers the whole trouble could have been amicably settled by the authorities of the Indian bureau. And with this most satisfactory conclusion the commissioner returned to Was.h.i.+ngton. Red Dog was ordered released and restored to the bosom of his family, and when the general had finally succeeded in bringing in the scattered starvelings and the cavalry reappeared at the site of the agency, the first thing whispered to Davies was, "Be on your guard every moment. Look out for Red Dog!"

The general never swore. He was in this respect the mate of Grant, his old-time friend and regimental comrade, but he could "look swear words by the gallon," said the adjutant of the Eleventh, whose own chief was in no wise tongue-tied. It fell to the lot of Mr. Gray, sent forward from the Bad Lands to announce the coming of the field column with all its humbled captives, to be the first on returning to announce to the Gray Fox that Red Dog had been released from durance at Fort Scott, equipped anew by McPhail at Braska, and had ridden to the cantonment to harangue such Indians as were already rea.s.sembling there, and to thunder furious threats at the officers of the Fortieth. Three bitter weeks had the Gray Fox and his faithful men been scoring the wild, wintry fastnesses along the Wakpa-Schicha, and, just as the Indians obtained through the bureau the vast supplies of ammunition with which to battle the soldiers through the summer past, so now, while the War Department was running down the renegades in the field, the Interior Department was running down the soldiery at home. The troops came in with the conviction that they had been seeing some hard and trying service, many of them with frosted fingers, toes, or ears, and thinking they deserved rather well of their country for having finally rounded up a thousand warriors with all their families, ponies, and unsavory impedimenta, and the general so informed them, and leaving a command of eight companies, equally divided among the horse and foot, to occupy the cantonments on the Chasing Water and thereafter keep the Indians in check, he hastened away to attend to important business in another lively section of his big department. The agency buildings were being rapidly restored, which was much more than could be said of its influence for good among the red men, and presently McPhail and his family reappeared on the scene, shook hands all around with the warriors who burned him out several weeks before, slapped Elk at Bay on the back and called him a bully boy, and promptly requested of the commanding officer of the new cantonment, which was a mile away up stream, a guard of a lieutenant and twenty-five men to be stationed at the agency itself. The major demurred, and the agent wired to Was.h.i.+ngton with the usual result. Whatsoever slur upon his actions McPhail had seen fit to cast at the expense of Mr. Davies during the investigation recently referred to, he had heard enough to convince him that the Indians spoke of that officer with awe and reverence and as "heap brave," so the man he urgently asked for to command his guard was the very one whom he had maligned. The adjutant-general of the department could only transmit the order that came from superior head-quarters within the week, and Lieutenant Davies, just as he was expecting brief leave of absence to visit his wife at Fort Scott, was detailed to the command of the permanent agency guard.

The Ides of March had come.

And how had it fared with Mira and her sympathetic friends at Scott during all these weeks of toil and march and scout? Two at a time the officers had been allowed to run in thither for a few days as soon as their men and horses were made fairly comfortable at the cantonments.

Cranston and Hay went first, then Truman and Jervis, then came the turn to which Sanders and the patient Parson had been looking forward, and Sanders went alone. Already some of those fearless frontierswomen, the amazons of the Fortieth, had come ahead with bag, baggage and babies and moved into the log huts of their lords as contentedly as they would have taken quarters at the Grand Central in Omaha, but Mesdames Flight and Darling were not of the number. Indeed, there was no reason why they should be, as it was settled that their companies were those designated presently to return to Scott; so was Hay's troop, so presumably would be the detached members of Devers's Troop, "A," as soon as he wrote and called attention to the fact that nearly one-half his men were detained eighty miles away where there was now an abundance of other soldiery, and the truly remarkable thing was that he, always. .h.i.therto so quick to find fault with or criticise the actions of his superiors, was keeping utter silence, and so long as he made no protest no one else could.

Colonel Stone, still weak and dazed, was just beginning to hobble about the post, and for six wonderful weeks had Devers succeeded in retaining the command.

"Your husband will be home any day," said Mrs. Darling to Mira, when they got the news of the triumphant return of the command to the cantonments. "He belongs here with his troop, so he's sure to come, and then," she added, archly, "what will poor Willett do?"

That was a question occurring to many another mind and falling from many another tongue. The rapture of Cranston's home-coming one sharp evening in late February was dashed only by the sight of a blooming face at Willett's side behind that stylish Eastern team. In the windings of the road among the willow islands in the Platte he had come suddenly upon them, he riding at rapid gallop, they dawdling with loosened reins.

Willett was bending eagerly toward her, talking earnestly. She sat with downcast eyes that never saw the swift rider until he had almost pa.s.sed them by. Mrs. Darling, chatting with Mr. Burtis on the rear seat, was the first to announce his coming, and with rare presence of mind to turn and send sweetest smiles and beaming glances and the welcome of a waving hand after the grim, bearded face that had no smile for their civilian escorts and only grave courtesy for the ladies themselves. He would not mar the joy of his home-coming by the faintest reference to what he had seen, but Margaret read his honest eyes as she read her boys', and knew that he must have met them on the way. For weeks she had seen the rapid growth of the new intimacy and deplored it, and had no one to confer with about it except Agatha, but Agatha flatly refused to open her lips upon the subject. It was a mercy that Wilbur at last came home and unloosed her tongue. As she pathetically said, "I simply could not contain myself any longer."

But if Mrs. Cranston had held her tongue, there was no lack of others who had not, and foremost of these was Mrs. Flight, who spoke by the card. For a fortnight or so the devotion of these two ladies, Mrs.

Flight and Mira, to one another had been of that seething and tireless character that rendered them incapable of spending an hour apart, and then came the little tiffs and coolnesses that betokened that this, too, was inevitably going the way of all such feminine intimacies. Up to the day of Mira's coming Mrs. Flight and Mrs. Darling had been inseparable for as much as a week at a time. Both were young, pretty, and empty-headed; neither was burdened with children nor ideas. Both were healthy, one was wealthy, neither was wise. Mrs. Darling had the advantage over Mrs. Flight in that she was able to entertain lavishly, whereas Mrs. Flight could only entertain by personal charm and sprightly chat. They were the reigning belles at Scott, and not only the young officers at the post, but the young civilians in town, found great pleasure in their society. There was capital sleighing for several weeks, and Willett and Burtis came as often as every other day to take the ladies an airing. At first it had been Mesdames Flight and Darling, then the bride had to be invited because she was the bride, then because she was a beauty, and finally because Willett would have no one else.

Then as it was generally at Darlings' they lunched, dined, danced, supped, were wined and warmed and welcomed, it transpired that Mrs. Flight found herself very frequently dropped from the sleigh-rides,--only invited semi-occasionally, perhaps once in ten days, when Burtis pointed out to Willett that they really must, you know, to which the now infatuated Willett merely responded, "All right. You ask her, then, and let her sit with you." No one but Mrs. Davies shared the sleigh man's seat.

During the fortnight that followed the departure of Lieutenant Davies, Mrs. Flight had been devotion itself to her dear, bereaved friend, and, having wept with her, slept with her, sleighed with her, bared her innermost soul to her, and made herself, as she supposed, indispensable, it was to be expected that Mrs. Flight could not look with equanimity upon the discovery that she was not so indispensable after all. She had started Mira on the road to conquest, never dreaming that she herself would be the first overtaken and supplanted. She had thought hitherto no possible harm could come of their taking an occasional drive with their friends, especially as Mr. Flight expressed himself so grateful for the attention shown his wife, and as she and Mrs. Darling seemed chosen rather to the exclusion of the other women, but when Mira and not herself became the invariable occupant of the seat by the swell civilian's side, the indiscretion, not to say the impropriety of the affair, became glaringly apparent. It is rarely from the contemplation of our own, but rather from the errors of our neighbors, that our moral lessons are drawn, and now that in all its nakedness the scandalous nature of Mira's conduct was forced upon her attention, Mrs. Flight reasoned, most logically, that she could be no true friend if she failed to remonstrate and, if need be, admonish and reprove. She did so, and Almira pouted and was grievously vexed. She didn't think so at all, neither had Mrs. Flight until--until she began to be counted out. This led to war, and from pointing the moral Mrs. Flight now turned to adorning the tale with what "everybody was saying." Mira challenged her authorities. "I know who you mean,--Mrs. Cranston and Miss Loomis. They hate me and would say anything mean of me." Now, it was not Mrs.

Cranston and Miss Loomis at all. They had no more intimacy with Mrs.

Flight than they had with Mira, nor as much. They looked upon Mrs.

Flight as responsible in great measure for Almira's wrong start. They under no circ.u.mstances would confide to Mrs. Flight what they thought of Mrs. Davies, and Mrs. Flight knew it, still she was not unwilling to let Mira suppose that she was now enjoying their confidences even while she referred to other authorities by the dozen as condemning or deploring Mira's conduct, and a stormy scene followed, ending in tears and reproaches,--much heat, followed by chilling cold.

For the following fortnight Almira's intimacy was transferred to Mrs.

Darling, and from going to spend the night with Mira, Mrs. Flight took to revolving in mind her singular observations while she was there.

There had been a thrilling, a delicious, a mysterious and romantic occurrence. Somebody twice came and whistled a strange, soft melody under the window and tapped as with a cane, gently, stealthily, a signal that sounded like Rattat _tat_, rattat _tat_, just once repeated, and Mrs. Davies trembled all over and grew icily cold, and begged Mrs.

Flight to go to the window and say, "Go away, or I'll call the guard,"

and when pressed for explanation Mira moaned hysterically and said, but Mrs. Flight must never, never tell, that there was once a young man whom she had known long before who had got desperate on her account, for she couldn't return his love, and he had run away from home and enlisted, and she feared that he was there now, though she had never seen him and never wanted to see him, and it became Mrs. Flight's belief that it was no one less than that handsome young fellow, Brannan, who Captain Devers said was drinking himself to death. And now that Mira had withdrawn from her the confidences of the month gone by and was recklessly driving the road to ruin, flouting her admonitions, what more natural than that Mrs.

Flight should forget her own vows of secrecy and conclude it time to seek other advice? Mrs. Darling would have been her first confidante in this revelation, but they, too, had once been devotedly intimate and had now drifted apart. They were no longer on anything more than merely frigidly friendly terms, smiling and kissing in public and hiding womanfully their wounds, yet confiding to friends how much they had been disappointed in the other's character, if not actually deceived. Mrs.

Flight found a confidante in the chaplain's wife, a woman simply swamped under an overload of best intentions. It was Bulwer who declared that "It is difficult to say who do the most harm, enemies with the worst intentions or friends with the best," but Bulwer, who had reason to know what he was talking about, never lived at Scott in the Centennial times or at old Camp Sandy in the Arizona "days of the empire," for then he would have known no such difficulty in deciding. Just as the stanch old chaplain was just such another G.o.d-fearing, G.o.d-serving, devil-downing man as Davies's father, so was the chaplain's wife a counterpart of Davies's mother, filled with the milk of human kindness still unturned, and overflowing with best intentions uncontrollably effervescent. Had she told her husband all might have been stopped right there, but, as the demon of ill luck would have it, he had gone to a distant convention. So she sallied forth, br.i.m.m.i.n.g with eagerness to s.n.a.t.c.h this lovely brand from the burning, to turn this fair, motherless, guideless, possibly guileless girl to the contemplation of her dangers, to the knowledge of her peril, to banish Willett from the dove-cote,--wily hawk that he was,--and settle forthwith the fate of that young scamp Brannan.

She did not find Almira until after dark, but meantime told her thrilling tale to Mrs. Stone (now full panoplied for further social triumphs, the colonel being on the mend, and herself so young as not to have looked unmoved on those famous sleigh-rides, nor without envy on Almira's blooming cheek), and from her side sped the chaplain's wife to hunt up Captain Devers. In him she found a listener indeed in whom there was no end of guile.

This was just before Cranston's return. The ball to be given by the townsfolk had been indefinitely postponed in deference to Colonel Stone's condition and the absence of so many dancing men in the field, but the weekly hops, although with thinned attendance, went regularly on. Now there were several households who did not attend at all, among them Cranston's, Leonard's, and Hay's. More civilians came out from town, whom Devers welcomed affably and Hastings and the resident "doughboys" entertained as best they could. No need to trouble themselves: the visitors came to "dance with the gra.s.s widows at the fort," and had no embarra.s.sment other than richness. There were always wall-flowers, but never in the person of pretty Mrs. Davies, to whom "Phaeton" Willett's devotion was now the talk of all.

It was just at this time, too, that there came to Braska a middle-aged lawyer with all the ear-marks of the soldier about him, including a white seam along his cheek that told of a close call his intimates knew to have occurred at Spottsylvania. His name was Langston, and his first visit to the post was the result of a letter of introduction to Captain Cranston from a cla.s.smate in the East. Cranston had driven over to Braska to seek him out on receipt of the letter enclosing Langston's card, bade him hearty welcome to the West, and was surprised to hear that his practice brought him frequently to the neighborhood. He asked him out to dinner two weeks later, Captain and Mrs. Hay, Mrs. Davies, and Mr. Hastings being invited to meet him, for almost his first question had been for that soldierly young officer, the hero of the riot on the train. Mrs. Davies pleaded previous engagement, but Captain and Mrs. Cranston took the trouble to call and explain that this Mr.

Langston especially admired and asked for her husband, Mr. Davies, and so Almira simply had to go. Hastings called for and escorted her. He was a blunt fellow, who held that when the husband was away and the lady of the house alone, no other man ought to set foot within the threshold, and he waited on the porch. But the lady was not alone. Willett's sleigh was in the trader's stable, and Willett himself biting his nails and swearing in Almira's parlor while Mrs. Darling was putting the finis.h.i.+ng touches to Almira's toilet. Willett had driven out _solus_ this time, thinking to persuade Mrs. Davies to take a drive, with some other dames playing propriety on the back seat, and, finding she was engaged for dinner and could not go, lost a chance of scoring a point by asking the other women anyhow, for by this time his infatuation had utterly overcome his senses. Katty again appeared and begged the lieutenant to step in wid Mr. Willett, and Hastings turned fiery red, scowled malevolently, said "No," and took himself outside the gate, pacing up and down like the orderly in front of Devers's quarters, a short pistol-shot away, until Almira came fluttering out, Willett in close attendance, Mrs. Darling mercifully following. Hastings bade the others a gruff good-evening, silently tendered Mrs. Davies his arm, and led her away with the sole remark "Aren't we late?" which gave her a chance to talk the rest of the way.

And though Langston sat on Mrs. Cranston's right, with the pretty bride on his other side, so that he might descant about the absent Percy to his heart's content, his eyes ever wandered across the simple table and dwelt on Agatha Loomis's n.o.ble face. She had recognized him at once as the one of the two civilians on the sleeper the previous June who had not been suggestively and impertinently intrusive, yet she welcomed him only formally even now because of that a.s.sociation. Langston had heard the first mention of a Mrs. Davies with an inexplicable little pang, and the further description of her with quick reaction, for his instant thought was of Miss Loomis. The dinner dragged, despite every effort, for Almira was distinctly and determinedly unresponsive. Margaret was glad when it was over, glad when Almira early went home, for matters brightened somewhat with her disappearance. Langston paid his dinner call with surprising prompt.i.tude, and then overjoyed "the ladies" with a box of rarest roses expressed from Margaret's own beloved home. "I know how many of these are meant for me," she said, with almost fierce rejoicing. "Oh, Wilbur!" she cried that evening, as she nestled in his arms in front of their cheery fire, "if only he is all they say of him, and she should----"

"Should what, Meg?" he densely queried.

"Should--why, you know just as well as I do, and he has such a fine practice, and comes from such an admirable family and all that."

"Undoubtedly,--but where does Agatha come in?"

"Wilbur, you are just as provokingly sluggish as our own Chicago River,--what wouldn't I give for a sight of its dirty face sometimes when--when you're away! Now, be honest. Don't you know he never could have sent all that way for all those roses--just for me?"

"_I_ would."

"Oh, you,--you are----" but the entrance of Miss Loomis herself with sorrow in her face blocked the conference.

"Captain Cranston," she said, "Brannan has been sent to the guard-house again. I know he has not been drinking. What can it possibly mean?"

It meant, said Captain Devers, when respectfully approached upon the subject in the morning, that on very strong circ.u.mstantial evidence he had discovered the ident.i.ty of the night prowler. Brannan certainly answered the description given by the chaplain, despite the chaplain's a.s.surance that he didn't believe it was Brannan, and Brannan, said Devers, when not in the guard-house or hospital, had frequently been out of his quarters at midnight.

CHAPTER XXI.

Cranston's six days home-keeping sped all too swiftly away. It was now definitely settled that his troop and Truman's were to remain indefinitely on duty at the agency. The general hated the idea of building cantonments there, and had urged that all the Indians be concentrated at the White River reservation, but without avail,--the Interior Department would have its way. Troops had to be drawn from all the posts along the railroad to make up the new command at the Ogallalla, and out of his own pocket Cranston was adding to the log quarters a.s.signed to him, for Margaret had promptly announced that she would not remain at Scott, that where he dwelt was her dwelling, and they had known far greater isolation and danger in the past. Indeed, there was little danger of their going now, for in the presence of so strong a force the Indians would be meek enough. Two log huts were connected and thrown into one as rapidly as possible, and it was fully decided that by the 25th of March Mrs. Cranston, Agatha Loomis, and the boys were to join him at the cantonment. It was not a very difficult trip for such heroines as lived in those days in the army. Cranston's strong spring wagon, fairly lined with buffalo-robes and blankets, would carry them in perfect comfort from camp to camp. They would have an escort and a baggage-wagon, spend the first night at Dismal River, the next at Niobrara. Hastings would escort them, for he longed to get away from Scott for a while and visit his comrades in the field. There was nothing in the least unusual in it, said Margaret, in her home letters,--for this had she married a soldier. The boys, of course, gloried in the opportunity and bragged about it, or would brag about it when they next got away from their kind in the army to their kind in civil life,--boys who could only vainly long for such opportunities and vaguely loathe those who had enjoyed them. As for Agatha, she accepted the change of station with serene and philosophic silence until cross-questioned as to her own intentions. "Why, certainly I mean to go with Mrs. Cranston," she replied, with clear, wide-open eyes. "She will have more need of me there than here--and I of her." Mr. Langston, who drove out again to spend Sunday at the post, heard of the decision with grave concern in his soldierly face, but in silence equal to her own.

Some others of the ladies whose lords were thus detached to Ogallalla preferred, however, to wait until the snow was gone. There was now abundant room at Scott,--why leave it, with its warmth, its comfort, its society and all, to go to a mud-c.h.i.n.ked hovel at that ghastly spot where the Indians danced and coyotes howled the live-long night? Of course if there were quarters in which a woman could live with even reasonable comfort, that would be very different. Then their remaining at Scott would be inexcusable. Mrs. Flight and Mrs. Darling were women who were at variance on very many points of late, but openly in accord on this.

Indeed, almost every woman at Scott had all of a sudden been seized by some strange lingual epidemic that manifested itself in the persistent repet.i.tion of such expressions as "Of course no woman who could see her way to any kind of a civilized house would be justified in not joining her husband there instead of staying here." It was sure to attack them, too, whenever Almira happened to be within ear-shot, for the news came down one March morning that one officer at least was to have a very comfortable little frame cottage,--the commander of the agency guard. It would be finished in a week or two, and even the stoves, fuel, and much of the furniture would be provided by the Indian bureau. Again did Mrs.

Cranston go and call on Mrs. Davies and warmly congratulate her, and say that Captain Cranston's men who were packing up the troop property would gladly box and pack her furniture too and send it out by their wagons, and then she said there were six inside seats in the big Concord wagon and it would afford so much pleasure if Mrs. Davies would go with them.

But Almira faltered unresponsively. Mr. Davies had not fully decided. It was such a shock to her,--his being detained there. She had never dreamed of his being away more than a week or ten days, if she had she would have returned home to Urbana, but now it was nearly two months, and really Mr. Davies would have to come down and look after the household affairs and matters that she didn't fully understand.

Davies understood them well enough when he got the commissary and grocer and butcher and baker and other bills that Mira had managed to run up, both at Scott and at Braska. He went with grave face to Cranston. "I'm afraid Mrs. Maloney and Katty have been taking advantage of my wife's inexperience," said he, "and ordering all manner of things in all possible quant.i.ties, and possibly, or probably, stocking the Maloney larder at my expense. I simply cannot pay these and my home a.s.sessments too."

Cranston was a man of few words. "Davies," said he, after looking over the accounts, "Mrs. Davies has been cheated right and left by those people, but in any event you cannot keep up two establishments. Break up the house at Scott at once, let her come out with my people and leave the Maloneys and Barnickel--and Scott behind. Let my Braska banker be yours for the present. A few mouths here will float you well above water."

And though Davies declined the offer of pecuniary aid, the very night of Mrs. Cranston's visit the agency telegraph flashed to Mira a despatch directing her to get ready to come on with them, whereat Mira fled in tears to Mrs. Darling,--Mira, who, it may be remembered, longed to come and cook and bake and darn and sweep and sew and share the merest hovel with her Percy so long as she thought it just possible that he might yet change his mind and leave his simple village maid no fate but lonely grief and an early grave. Mira's enthusiasm for the bliss of frontier life fled at the contemplation of the utter isolation at the agency,--with wild Indians and animals all around, and without Mrs.

Darling, without the lovely, cosey fireside confidences, without the band, the hops, the sleigh-rides, not to mention the glowing devotions of Mr. Willett.