But to Canker's dismay the officer of the guard made prompt report. The sentry was sent, but the sergeant's tent was empty. The colonel's pet had flown. This meant more trouble for the colonel.

Meantime Stanley Armstrong had hied him to General Drayton's headquarters. The office tents were well filled with clerks, orderlies, aides and other officers who had come in on business, but this meeting was by appointment, and after brief delay the camp commander excused himself to those present and ushered Armstrong into his own private tent, the scene of the merry festivities the evening of Mrs. Garrison's unexpected arrival. There the General turned quickly on his visitor with the low-toned question:

"Well--what have you found?"

"Enough to give me strong reason for believing that Morton, so-called, is young Prime, and that your nephew is with him, sir."

The old soldier's sad eyes lighted with sudden hope. Yet, as he pa.s.sed his hand wearily over his forehead, the look of doubt and uncertainty slowly returned. "It accounts for the letters reaching me here," he said, "but--I've known that boy from babyhood, Armstrong, and a more intense nature I have never heard of. What he starts in to do he will carry out if it kills him." And Drayton looked drearily about the tent as though in search of something, he didn't quite know what. Then he settled back slowly into his favorite old chair. "Do sit down, Armstrong. I want to speak with you a moment." Yet it was the colonel who was the first to break the silence.

"May I ask if you have had time to look at any of the letters, sir?"

"Do I look as though I had time to do _any_-thing?" said the chief, dropping his hands and uplifting a lined and haggard face, yet so refined. "Anything but work, work, morn, noon and night. The ma.s.s of detail one has to meet here is something appalling. It weighs on me like a nightmare, Armstrong. No, I was worn out the night after the package reached me. When next I sought it the letters were gone."

"How long was that, General?"

Again the weary hands, with their long, tapering fingers, came up to the old soldier's brow. He pondered a moment. "It must have been the next afternoon, I think, but I can't be sure."

"And you had left them----?"

"In the inside pocket of that old overcoat of mine, hanging there on the rear tent pole," was the answer, as the General turned half-round in his chair and glanced wistfully, self-reproachfully thither.

Armstrong arose, and going to the back of the tent, made close examination. The canvas home of the chief was what is known as the hospital tent, but instead of being pitched with the ordinary ridgepole and uprights, a substantial wooden frame and floor had first been built and over this the stout canvas was stretched, stanch and taut as the head of a drum. It was all intact and sound. Whoever filched that packet made way with it through the front, and that, as Armstrong well knew, was kept tightly laced, as a rule, from the time the General left it in the morning until his return. It was never unlaced except in his presence or by his order. Then the deft hands of the orderlies on duty would do the trick in a twinkling. Knowing all this, the colonel queried further:

"You went in town, as I remember, late that evening and called on the Primes and other people at the Palace. I think I saw you in the supper room. There was much merriment at your table. Mrs. Garrison seemed to be the life of the party. Now, you left your overcoat with the boy at the cloak stand?"

"No, Armstrong, that's the odd part of it. I only used the cape that evening. The coat was hanging at its usual place when I returned late, with a ma.s.s of new orders and papers. No! no! But here, I must get back to the office, and what I wished you to see was that poor boy's letter.

What can you hope with a nature like that to deal with?"

Armstrong took the missive held out to him, and slowly read it, the General studying his face the while. The letter bore no clue as to the whereabouts of the writer. It read:

"March 1st, '98.

"It is six weeks since I repaid all your loving kindness, brought shame and sorrow to you and ruin to myself, by deserting from West Point when my commission was but a few short months away. In an hour of intense misery, caused by a girl who had won my very soul, and whose words and letters made me believe she would become my wife the month of my graduation, and who, as I now believe, was then engaged to the man she married in January, I threw myself away. My one thought was to find her, and G.o.d knows what beyond.

"It can never be undone. My career is ended, and I can never look you in the face again. At first I thought I should show the letters, one by one, to the man she married, and ask him what he thought of his wife, but that is too low. I hold them because I have a mad longing to see her again and heap reproaches upon her, but, if I fail and should I feel at any time that my end is near, I'm going to send them to you to read--to see how I was lured, and then, if you can, to pity and forgive.

"ROLLIN."

Armstrong's firm lips twitched under his mustache. The General, with moist eyes, had risen from his chair and mechanically held forth his hand. "Poor lad!" sighed Armstrong. "Of course--you know who the girl was?"

"Oh, of course," and Drayton shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, we'll have to go," and led on to the misty light without.

Over across the way were the headquarters tents of a big brigade, hopefully awaiting orders for Manila. To their left, separated by a narrow s.p.a.ce, so crowded were the camps, were the quarters of the officers of the --teenth Infantry, and even through the veil of mist both soldiers could plainly see along the line. Coming toward the gate was Mr.

Prime, escorted by the major. Just behind them followed Mildred and the attentive Schuyler. But where was Miss Lawrence? Armstrong had already seen. Lingering, she stood at Billy's tent front, her ear inclined to his protruding pate. He was saying something that took time, and she showed no inclination to hurry him. Miss Prime looked back, then she and Schuyler exchanged significant smiles and glances. There was rather a lingering handclasp before Amy started. Even then she looked back at the boy and smiled.

"H'm!" said the General, as he gazed, "that youngster wouldn't swap places with any subaltern in camp, even if he _is_ under charges."

There was no answer from the strong soldier standing observant at his elbow. But when the chief would have moved Armstrong detained him. "One more question, General. In case you were away and wanted something you had left in this tent, you would send an aide--or orderly, or--would an order signed by one of your staff be sufficient?"

"H'm, well--yes, I suppose it would," said the General.

CHAPTER XII.

Opinion was divided at Camp Merritt as to whether Billy Gray should or should not stand trial. Confident as were his friends of his innocence of all complicity in Morton's escape, there remained the fact that he had telephoned for a carriage, that a carriage had come and that a carriage with four men, apparently soldiers, had driven rapidly townward along Point Lobos Avenue. It was seen by half a dozen policemen as it shot under electric light or gas lamp. Then there was the bundle inside his rolled overcoat that Gray had personally handed Morton when a prisoner.

Everybody agreed he should have sent it by orderly--everybody, that is, except some scores of young soldiers in the ranks who could see no harm in it having been done that way, especially two "Delta Sigs" in the --teenth. Then there were the long conferences in the dark. What did they mean? All things considered the older and wiser heads saw that, as the lieutenant could or would make no satisfactory explanation of these to his colonel, he must to a court--or take the consequences.

"You've made a mess of the thing and an a.s.s of yourself, Billy," was Gordon's comprehensive if not consolatory summary of the matter, "and as Canker has been rapped for one thing or another by camp, division and brigade commanders, one _after_ another, he feels that he's got to prove that he isn't the only fool in the business. You'd better employ good counsel and prepare for a fight."

"Can't afford it," said Billy briefly, "and I'm blowed if I'll ask my dear old dad to come to the rescue. He's had to cough up (shame on your slang, Billy) far too much already. I tell you, Gordon, I'm so fixed that I can't explain these things unless I'm actually brought to trial.

It's--it's--well--you have no secret societies at the Point as we do at college, so you can't fathom it. I'm no more afraid of standing trial than I am of Squeers--and be d----d to him!"

"Good Lawd, youngster--you--you aren't quite such an a.s.s as to suppose a court is going to regard any schoolboy obligation as paramount to that which your oath of office demands. Look hyuh, Billy, your head's just addled! _I_ can't work on you, but somebody must!"

And Gordon went away very low in his mind. He liked that boy. He loved a keen, alert, snappy soldier on drill, and Billy had no superior in the battalion when it came to handling squad or company. The adjutant plainly saw the peril of his position, and further consultation with his brother-officers confirmed him in his fears. Schuyler, the brigade commissary, being much with the --teenth--messing with them, in fact, when he was not dancing attendance on Miss Prime--heard all this camp talk and told her. Thus it happened that the very next day when he drove with the cousins (Mr. Prime being the while in conference with the detectives still scouring the city for the young deserter, who the father now felt confident was his missing boy), Miss Lawrence looked the captain full in the face with her clear, searching eyes and plumped at him the point-blank question:

"Captain Schuyler, do Mr. Gray's brother-officers really consider him in danger of dismissal?"

"Miss Lawrence, I grieve to say that not one has any other opinion now."

There could be no doubt of it. Amy Lawrence turned very pale and her beautiful eyes filled.

"It is a shame!" she said, after a moment's struggle to conquer the trembling of her lips. "Has--is there no one--influential enough--or with brains enough" (this with returning color) "to take up his case and clear him?"

They were whirling through the beautiful drive of the Golden Gate Park, pa.s.sing company after company at drill. Even as Amy spoke Schuyler lifted his cap and Miss Prime bowed and smiled. A group of regimental officers, four in number, stood, apparently supervising the work, and as Miss Lawrence quickly turned to see who they might be, her eyes met those of Colonel Armstrong. Five minutes later, the carriage returning drew up as though by some order from its occupants, at that very spot. Armstrong and his adjutant were still there and promptly joined them.

Long weeks afterward that morning lived in Stanley Armstrong's memory. It was one of those rare August days when the wind blew from the southeast, beat back the drenching Pacific fogs, and let the warm sun pour upon the brilliant verdure of that wonderful park. Earth and air, distant sea and dazzling sky, all seemed glorifying their Creator. Bright-hued birds flashed through the foliage and thrilled the ear with their caroling. The plash of fountain fell softly on the breeze, mingled with the rustling of the luxuriant growth of leaf and flower close at hand. It was not chance that brought the stalwart soldier instantly to Amy's side. Her gaze was upon him before the carriage stopped, and irresistibly drew him. The man of mature years, the hero of sharp combats and stirring campaigns with a fierce and savage foe, the commander of hundreds of eager and gallant men, obeyed without thought of demur the unspoken summons of a girl yet in her teens. There was a new light in her clear and beautiful eyes, a flush upon her soft and rounded cheek, a little flutter, possibly, in her kind and loyal heart. Heaven knows his beat high with an emotion he could not subdue, though his bearing was grave and courteous as ever, but about that sweet and flushing face there shone the halo of a woman's brave determination, and no sooner had be reached the carriage side than, bending toward him, she spoke. Mildred Prime could not repress a little gasp of amaze.

"Colonel Armstrong, will you kindly open the carriage door? I want to talk with you a moment."

Without a word he wrenched the handle and threw wide the door. Light as a bird she sprang to the ground, her fingers just touching the extended hand. Side by side they strolled away across the sunlit lawn, he so strong, virile, erect, she so lissome and graceful. Full of her purpose, yet fearful that with delay might come timidity, she looked up in his face:

"Colonel Armstrong, I have heard only to-day that Mr. Gray is in really serious danger. Will you tell me--the truth?"

Just what Armstrong expected it might be hard to say. The light that had leaped to his eyes faded slowly and his face lost something of the flush of robust health. There was a brief pause before he spoke as though he wished time to weigh his words.

"I fear it is true," he gravely said. Then in a moment: "Miss Lawrence, will you not take my arm?" And he felt her hand tremble as she placed it there. It was a moment before she began again.

"They tell me he should have counsel, but will not heed. I have not seen him to-day. There is no one in his battalion, it seems, whom he really looks up to. He is headstrong and self-confident. Do you think he should--that he needs one?" And anxiously the brave eyes sought the strong, soldierly face.

"It would seem so, Miss Lawrence."

She drew a long breath. She seemed to cling a little closer to his arm.

Then--straight came the next question: