Fifteen minutes later, Hatton resolved on a bold move. Mounting his wounded men on mules, and leading his little party, soldiers, teamsters, and quadrupeds, he slipped away from the hillock, and, keeping well to the east of the road, groped through the darkness back to the high range overlooking the valleys of "Old Woman's Fork" of the South Cheyenne and Hat Creek to the eastward; and morning found him bivouacked at a little spring not ten miles from the stockade. Thither, of course, the Indians trailed and followed at daybreak. There again they attacked and besieged and were repulsed, again and again; and there at dawn on the second day, after an all-night march, the trumpets of the cavalry rang the signal of rescue, and the charging troopers sent the Sioux whirling in scattered bands over the bold and beautiful upland. The little detachment was safe, but its brave commander was prostrate with a rifle-bullet through the thigh and another in the shoulder. Dr. Weeks declared it impossible to attempt to move him back to Laramie; and in a litter made with lariats and saddle-blankets the men carried their wounded leader back to the stockade at the head of Sage Creek, and there, wrote Weeks, he might have to remain a month, and there, unless otherwise ordered, the other wounded men would remain with him, Weeks himself attending them in his improvised field-hospital.

Major Miller and Dr. Bayard, after brief consultation, had decided that the young surgeon's ideas were sound. The stockade was well guarded and provisioned. Medical and surgical supplies were promptly forwarded under strong cavalry escort, and that same day the entire cavalry battalion struck its tents and moved away northward over the route Hatton had taken. Once more was Laramie left with only a handful of men and hardly a company officer for duty.

Old Bruce turned out, despite his rheumatics, and announced that he was game for any garrison service under the circ.u.mstances. Roswell Holmes, who had stowed a box of wine and several boxes of cigars in the supply-wagons, with his compliments to Dr. Weeks and his patients, and who had remained at Laramie instead of going to the front solely because of an odd turn in local events, now declared that he must be considered a brevet second lieutenant, and besought Dr. Bayard's permission to visit his patient, Mr. McLean, to solicit the loan of his uniforms, sword, etc. Major Miller laughed gleefully at the idea, and all the garrison was beginning to pluck up heart again, for Hatton's wounds were p.r.o.nounced not dangerous, though painful, and all the infantry people were proud of the way he and McLean had upheld the honor of their corps. Jeannie Bruce and Elinor had had long hours of who knows what delicious confidence and tearful exchange of sympathy.

McLean was reported doing very well; Blunt was improving; Miss Forrest was taking the air on the gallery. Everybody seemed in better spirits, despite a certain constraint and mystery that overhung the garrison,--everybody, with one exception--Dr. Bayard.

"Mr. McLean is improving so rapidly that he is able to sit up already and will need his uniform himself," was his response to Holmes's laughing suggestion, but both Major Miller and the gentleman addressed looked at the speaker in surprise. One might have hazarded the a.s.sertion that it was a matter of regret to the post surgeon that his patient was on the mend. Miller eyed him narrowly. Ever since the strange conversation held with the doctor, the post commander had become almost distrustful of his motives. What could he mean by intimating that McLean was the guilty party in these recent mysterious larcenies? What could have put such ideas into his head? For the first time in several days the major was tempted to reopen the subject which he had practically forbidden his wife to mention again. He longed to know what she would say or think if she knew that the surgeon was trying to divert suspicion from Miss Forrest to the wounded and unsuspecting officer. Now that the cavalry had gone out to the front and more troops were marching up from the railway, all anxiety as to his immediate surroundings was dispelled, and the major could not avoid drifting back to the strange complications in which two of the prominent people of his military bailiwick were involved. He had taken a great liking to Mr. Holmes, and had striven to open the way for that gentleman in case he had the faintest inclination to speak of his losses; but, though the civilian instantly saw what the simple-minded old soldier was aiming at, he changed the subject, and it presently became plain to the commander that he would not speak about the matter at all. Miller could not well seek his advice without telling of the other thefts of which he believed Mr. Holmes to know nothing, and yet he felt that as commanding officer it was his duty to say to the visitor how much he regretted the occurrence and how earnestly he was striving to discover the offender. But Holmes would not give him a chance. He was doing a little ferreting on his own account.

As for the doctor, two things had conspired to make him blue and unhappy. Miss Forrest was up and out on her gallery, as has been said, but was never in her sister's room when the doctor called; declined his professional services with courteous thanks and the a.s.surance that no physician was necessary, yet begged to be excused when he sent a message by Celestine asking if she would not see him. Then he wrote her a note, and, remembering her antipathy to the mulatto girl, he sent it by Robert, charging him to take it to her door if she was not in the sitting-room, but to deliver it in person and wait for an answer.

Robert found her promenading with Mrs. Post on the upper gallery, and people who had been saying that Mrs. Post had nothing to do with her at Robinson were surprised at the growing intimacy between them now.

Robert presented the note with a grave and courtly Virginia bow, then withdrew to a little distance and respectfully awaited her answer. Over at the Gordons' a group of ladies, old and young, watched the scene with curious and speculative eyes. Everybody knew that Miss Forrest had declined to see Dr. Bayard during her illness. Everybody had noted that, while the entire feminine element of the garrison flocked to inquire for Nellie in her invalid state, n.o.body went to see f.a.n.n.y Forrest. Now, what could this strange girl be doing with letters from "Dr. Chesterfield"? Even Mrs. Post watched her narrowly as she hurriedly read the lines of the doctor's elegant missive. Her eyes seemed to dilate, her color heightened and a little frown set itself darkly on her brow; but she looked up brightly after a moment's thought, and spoke kindly and pleasantly to the waiting messenger,--

"There is no answer, at least not now, Robert. Thank the doctor and tell him I am very much better."

And so, empty-handed, he returned to his master, who waited expectant in his study. The message was almost an affront,--such was his pride and self-esteem; and for nearly an hour he sat there pondering over the strange characteristics of the girl who, despite the story of her poverty and dependence, had so fascinated him. It cut him to the quick that she should so avoid him, when he knew well that between her and Mr. Holmes there had been an exchange of notes. Mr. Holmes had seen fit to preserve a mysterious silence as to this significant circ.u.mstance, and finally, apparently by appointment, Mr. Holmes had called at Bedlam the evening after his arrival, and had enjoyed a long and uninterrupted conversation with Miss Forrest out on the upper gallery. Now what did this portend? It was Celestine who gave him this very interesting information as he entered the lower hall, and, despite his repellant mien, that enterprising domestic was sufficiently a judge of character to venture on a low and confidential tone of voice in addressing him.

He had scowled malignantly at her and had bidden her hold her peace as he pa.s.sed her by, but Celestine was in no wise dismayed. She knew her man. It was on his return from his visit that he sent his note, and then, in the gloom and silence of his library, pondered over the palpable rebuff. Over across the hall he could hear the soft voices of his daughter and her now intimate friend Jean. They were cooing and murmuring together in some girlish confidences which he was in no mood to appreciate, and with which he could feel no sympathy whatever. Then in came Holmes from the sunshine of the parade; and he heard him cheerily enter the parlor, and in hearty, cordial tones announce that he had just come from Mr. McLean's room, that that young gentleman was doing finely, and would be able to sit out on the piazza in a day or two, and that Mrs. Miller was nursing him like a mother. For a time the chat went blithely on, Jeannie Bruce and Holmes being the princ.i.p.als, and then came a message which called that young la.s.sie homeward.

Presently Bayard heard the manly voice growing deeper and softer. The words were indistinguishable, but there was no misjudging the tone, such was the tremor of tenderness of every syllable. Faint, far between, and monosyllabic were Nellie's replies, but soon the father knew she was answering through her tears. It did not last long. Holmes came to the hall, turned and spoke once more to her,--no touch of reproach, no tinge of pleading, but with a ring of manly sympathy and protecting care in every word; Bayard could not but hear one sentence: "It makes me only more firmly your friend, little girl,--and his, too."

And then he strode forth into the breeze and sunshine again, and no man who met him knew that he had tempted his fate and lost. Something had told him, days before, that Miss Forrest's words were prophetic,--Nellie Bayard would prefer one nearer her own years.

It was to satisfy himself that Randall McLean was that enviable somebody that he had sought this interview; and, though she had admitted nothing and he had not questioned, he had read in her tears and blushes a truth that only recently had she tremblingly admitted to herself. Now he saw his way clearly to the end.

But to Bayard the abrupt close of the murmured interview meant a possibility that filled him with double dismay. That one hope should be dashed to earth this morning was an evil sufficient unto the day. That it should be followed by the conviction that his daughter had utterly declined to consider this wealthy and most estimable gentleman as a suitor for her hand was a bitter, bitter disappointment; but that she should have refused Roswell Holmes, with all his advantages, because of Randall McLean--with what?--was more than he could bear.

Just as she was hurrying to her room, still weeping, he interposed.

"My little Nell!--my precious!" he cried, in tenderest tones, as he folded her in his arms. "Is it so hopeless as this? Is it possible that my little daughter's heart has been stolen away--right under my eyes--and I never saw it?"

For an answer she only clung to him, hiding her bonny face, weeping the more violently. Speak she could not.

"Nell! Nellie!" he pleaded, "try and tell me, dear. You don't know what it means to me! You don't know what fears your silence causes me! My child--tell me--that it isn't Mr. McLean."

No answer--only closer nestling; only added tears.

"Nell, my own little one! If you knew with what awful dread I waited!

If you knew what this meant to me--to you--to us all! Speak to me, daughter. Tell me it isn't that unhappy young man."

And now, startled, shocked, she lifts her br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes in wonderment to her father's face, gazing at him through the mist of tears.

"Why unhappy?" she almost gasps. "Why--why not Mr. McLean, papa?"

For a moment Bayard stands as though stunned. Then slowly relaxes the clasp of his arms and turns drearily away, covering his face with his hands.

"My G.o.d!" he moans. "This is retribution, this is punishment! Blinder than the veriest mole have I been through it all. Nellie!" he cries, turning suddenly toward her again as she stands there trembling at his melodramatic misery. "There is no engagement! There has been nothing said, has there? Tell me!"

"Not a word,--from me," she whispers low. "He sent me a little note yesterday through Jeannie. Indeed, you can see it, papa; but I have not answered. It doesn't ask anything."

"Then promise me no word shall go, my child! Promise me! I cannot tell you why just yet, but he is not the man to whom I could ever consent to give you. My child! my child! his name is clouded; his honor is tarnished; he stands accused of crime. Nellie--my G.o.d! you must hear it sooner or later."

But now she draws away from him and leans upon the bal.u.s.ters, looking into his face as though she doubted his sanity.

"Father!" she slowly speaks at length, "I could no more believe such a thing of him--than I could of you."

A quick, springy step is suddenly heard on the wooden walk without, the rattle of an infantry sword against the steps, an imperative rat-tat-tat at the door. Elinor speeds away to hide her flushed cheeks and tearful eyes in the solitude of her room. Bayard quickly composes his features to their conventional calm and recedes to the gloom of the library. Robert majestically stalks through the hall and opens the door.

"Dr. Bayard in?" asks the brusque voice of the adjutant. "Ah, doctor,"

continues that officer, marching straightway into the den, "Major Miller is at the gate and on his way to visit Mr. McLean. He begs that you will be present at the interview, as it is on a matter of much importance."

"Very well, Mr. Adjutant," answers Bayard, gravely, as though divining the solemn import of their errand. "I am at your service at once."

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 hors.e.m.e.n 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 a.s.siduously 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 rest.i.tution, 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 bal.u.s.trade and gazing down upon them in evident interest and equally evident surprise, f.a.n.n.y 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.