"Don't be hard on him, man. If he's taking care of a sick friend give 'm a chance."

Then the sergeant tried to explain matters. "I can't help myself, gentlemen," said he; "orders are orders, and mine are to find this recruit and fetch him back to camp. He's two days over time now."

"Oh, I wish I knew what it meant!" anxiously exclaimed Mrs. Frost's companion. "I'm sure he needs help." Then with sudden joy in her eyes--"Oh, good! There goes Colonel Crosby. He'll see what's amiss," and as she spoke a tall man in the fatigue uniform of an officer of infantry shouldered his way through the crowd, and reached the blue-coated quartette in the center. Up went the hands to the shouldered rifles in salute, and the young soldier, the cause of all the gathering which the police were now trying to disperse, whirled quickly, and with something suspiciously like tears in his fine dark eyes, was seen to be eagerly speaking to the veteran officer. There was a brief colloquy, and then the colonel said something to the sergeant at which the crowd set up a cheer.

The sergeant looked pleased, the young soldier most grateful, and away went the four along the sidewalk, many of the throng following.

And then the colonel caught sight of the ladies in the carriage, saw that one was signaling eagerly, and heard his name called. Hastening to their side, he raised his cap and smiled a cordial greeting.

"Oh, I'm so glad you came, colonel, we are so interested in that young soldier. Do tell us what it all means. Oh! I beg your pardon, Mrs. Frost, I surely thought you had met Colonel Crosby--let me pre-- Why, Nita!

What's-- Are you ill? Here, take my salts, quick!"

"No--no--go on--I--I want to hear! Where are they taking him?" faintly murmured Mrs. Frost.

"Try to control yourself," said her companion. "I'll tell you in one moment." Meantime from without the carriage the colonel continued, addressing Nita's companion:

"He tells a perfectly straight story. He says he has an old friend who is here so desperately ill and out of money that he got a doctor for him and had been nursing him himself. Those things he carried are medicines and wine that the doctor bade him buy. All he asks is to take them to his friend's room and get a nurse, then he is ready to go to camp and stand his trial, so I told the sergeant I'd be responsible."

"Oh, thank you so much! Do see that the poor fellow isn't punished. We'll drive right round. Perhaps we can do something. It is Red Cross business, you know. _Good_-afternoon, colonel. Please tell our driver to follow them."

But, to her consternation, no sooner had they started than she felt Nita's trembling hand grasping her wrist, and turning quickly saw that she was in almost hysterical condition.

"My poor child, I had forgotten you were so worn out. I'll take you home at once--but then we'll miss them entirely. Oh, could you bear----"

"Oh! No! No!" moaned Nita, wringing her little hands. "Take me--anywhere.

No! Take me home--take me home! and promise me not to--not to tell my husband what we saw."

CHAPTER XI.

For a man ordinarily absorbed in his own command, Colonel Stanley Armstrong had become, all on a sudden, deeply engrossed in that of Colonel Canker. The Frosts had been gone a week, via Vancouver--the expedition only about sixteen hours--when he appeared at Gordon's tent and frankly asked to be told all that tall Southerner knew of the young soldier Morton, now gone from camp for the third, and, as Armstrong believed, the last time.

"Why, that young fella's a bawn gentleman," drawled Gordon, as he offered the colonel a chair and cigar. "He was behavin' tip top, steady as you please until about a month ago. He's only been with us since the first of May--came with a big batch of recruits--a regular athlete, you know. Then after he'd drilled awhile I nailed him for headquarters clerk. I never knew him to be off an hour until about four weeks ago. The men say another young fella came out here one night, had a talk with Morton, and they went out together. He got regular permission. n.o.body has set eyes on his friend out here since that time, but Morton got three pa.s.ses to town in ten days, and Squeers happened to want him, and gave orders _he_ should have to be consulted hereafter. 'Bout a fortnight since, by Jove, Morton lit out suddenly and was gone forty-eight hours, and was brought back by a patrol, perfectly straight, and he said he had to go on account of a friend who had been taken very ill and was a stranger here. Squeers let him off with a warning, and inside of three days he begged for a twenty-four-hour pa.s.s, and Squeers wouldn't give it. He went without it, by George! It was just about the time the Prime family arrived, looking up the boy they heard was in your regiment. This time there was big trouble. The patrol sent for him went directly to the lodgings of his sick friend, and there they found him and he laid out two of our best men for forcing a way into the room. They told me your carriage nearly ran over him the day of the review. Then came that dam fool charge about his being mixed up in this robbery. Then his escape from under Billy Gray's nose, by George, and that's the last of him. Canker sent a party in to look him up at the usual place, and both birds had flown, both, by George! The sick man was well enough to be driven off in a carriage, and there's nothing further to tell as yet."

"I wish I had known about him earlier--before the Primes came," said Armstrong thoughtfully, knocking the ashes off his cigar. "Of course you divine my theory?"

"That Morton's the missing son and heir? Of course. Now that I've seen Miss Prime the family resemblance is strong. But if he wanted to soldier, what's to prevent. Those tents yawnduh are full of youngsters better educated than I am," and Gordon arose, tangling a long, lean leg in the nearest campstool, which he promptly kicked through the doorway into the sailing fog outside. It was barely eleven o'clock, but already the raw, wet wind was whistling in over the barren, sandy slopes and dunes, and the moisture dripped in big drops from the sloped rifles of the men marching st.u.r.dily in from drill.

"Yawnduh comes the Prime carriage now, by George," continued the adjutant, as he limped to the entrance. "Ole man seems all broke up, don't he?" Armstrong had promptly risen and came striding to his comrade's side.

"Naturally," was the answer. "He had hoped much from this visit. The boy was just under twenty-one when he enlisted, and, as his father's consent was lacking, a discharge could have been ordered. It may have been fear of that that drove the youngster off. Where is the carriage--and your gla.s.s?" continued the colonel, looking about until he found a binocular.

"Comin' right down the road back of the officers' tents. Reckon it's another visit of condolence to Gray. You know I shouldn't wonduh if this arrest of his proved a blessin' in disguise for that lucky boy."

No reply coming to this observation, Gordon glanced over his shoulder.

Armstrong was replacing the gla.s.ses. Again the adjutant hazarded.

"I--I was sayin' this arrest may be, after all, the biggest kind of blessing in disguise for that lucky Billy. _Yes_, by Jove! They're comin'

to his tent. _That's_ a splendid girl, ole man!"

"Miss--Prime, you mean?" calmly queried Armstrong, striking match after match in the effort to light a fresh cigar, his face averted.

"Miss Prime I _don't_ mean," answered Gordon, glancing curiously at the senior officer. "Not but that she's a most charming young lady and all that," he hurriedly interpolated, Southern chivalry a.s.serting itself.

Then with a twitch about the lip: "By the way, ole man, those cigars light better from the other end. Take a fresh one."

Armstrong quickly withdrew the ill-used weed from between his strong, white teeth, gave it one glance, and a toss into the waste-basket.

"No, I've smoked enough. But how can they see him? How about that sentry over Gray's tent?"

"Huh! Chief made him take it off directly he heard of it," grinned Gordon. "Moses! But didn't Squeers blaspheme!" And the adjutant threw his head back and laughed joyously over the retrospect. "Yes, there's that curly pate of Billy's at the tent door now. Reckon he was expectin' 'em.

There they are, ole Prime, too. Don't be in a hurry, colonel."

They had known each other years, these two, and it had been "Armstrong"

and "Gordon" when they addressed each other, or "ole man" when Gordon lapsed into the semi-affectionate. To the adjutant's Southern sense of military propriety "ole man" was still possible. "Armstrong" would be a soldierly solecism.

"I am to see the General before noon," said Armstrong gravely, "and it's time I started. If you should hear of your runaway let me know. If you shouldn't, keep our views to yourself. There's no use in rousing false hopes." With that Armstrong turned up the collar of his overcoat and lunged out into the mist.

Gordon watched him as he strode away, the orderly following at the conventional distance. The shortest way to general headquarters was up the row of company officers' tents in front of the still incarcerated Billy; the longest was around back of the mess tent and kitchen.

Armstrong took the latter.

That escape of prisoners was still the talk of camp. Men had come by battalions to see the tunnel, observing which Canker promptly ordered it closed up. Opinion was universal that Canker should have released the officers and men he had placed under arrest at once, but he didn't. In his bottled wrath he hung on to them until the brigade commander took a hand and ordered it. Canker grumblingly obeyed so far as the sergeant and sentries were concerned, but entered stout protest as to Gray.

"I still hold that officer as having knowledge of the scheme and aiding and abetting. I can prove that he telephoned for that carriage," he said.

"At least there's nothing to warrant the posting of that sentry at Mr.

Gray's tent, Colonel Canker," said the brigadier, with some asperity.

"Order him off at once. That's all for to-day, sir," and the man with the starred shoulders "held over" him with the silver leaves. The latter could only obey--and objurgate.

But Canker's knuckles came in for another rasping within the hour. The brigadier being done with him, the division commander's compliments came over per orderly, and would the colonel please step to the General's tent. Canker was fuming to get to town. He was possessed with insane desire to follow up that boarding house clue. He believed the landlady could be bullied into telling where her boarder was taken, and what manner of man (or woman) he was. But down he had to go, three blocks of camp, to where the tents of division headquarters were pitched, and there sat the veteran commander, suave and placid as ever.

"Ah, colonel, touching that matter of the robbery of your commissary stores. Suspicion points very strongly to your Sergeant Foley. Do you think it wise to have no sentry over him?"

"Why--General," said Canker, "I've known that man fifteen years--in fact, I got him ordered to duty here," and the colonel bristled.

"Well--pardon me, colonel, but you heard the evidence against him last night, or at least heard of it. Don't you consider that conclusive?"

Canker cleared his throat and considered as suggested.

"I heard the allegation sir, but--he made so clear an explanation to _me_, at least--and besides, General"--a bright idea occurring to him--"you know that as commissary sergeant he is not under my command----"

"Tut, tut, colonel," interrupted the General, waxing impatient. "The storehouse adjoins your camp. Your sentries guard it. Captain Hanford, the commissary, says he called on you last night to notify you that he had placed the sergeant under arrest, but considered the case so grave that he asked that a sentry be placed over him, and it wasn't done."

"I dislike very much to inflict such indignity on deserving soldiers, General," said Canker, stumbling into a self-made trap. "Until their guilt is established they are innocent under the law."

"Apparently you apply a different rule in case of officers," calmly responded the General, "_vide_ Mr. Gray. No further words are necessary.

Oblige me by having that sentry posted at once. Good-morning, sir."