Chapter VI: At the Fort

It was a glorious November morning, not yet cold in the latitude of the fort. Though there was a large wood fire in the sitting-room of the colonel’s quarters, the front windows were open, admitting the fresh air as well as the bright sunshine.

The colonel’s wife sat in her sewing-chair beside her work-stand at some little distance from the open window and nearer the fire, engaged in making a frock for one of her younger girls.

Judy sat at the window with a book in her hand, dividing her attention between the open page and the open view.

There was no one else in the room. The colonel and his eldest son, “Jim,” were at the adjutant’s office. All the younger children were in the schoolroom under the charge of their eldest sister, “Betty,” who was their teacher.

Judy had been three months separated from her brother, and from her betrothed, and under the exclusive care of Mrs. Moseley. Quick, witty, imitative and anxious to improve, Judy had made rapid advances. She had recovered all the half-forgotten book knowledge taught her at the convent school, and had progressed considerably beyond that. Hearing only good English spoken about her, she had gradually dropped her sweet dialect, which both Col. Moseley and Mr. Jim declared to be a lost charm, and only occasionally, under emotion or excitement, she would suddenly fall into it again. She was also better dressed than formerly; though again the colonel and his son declared not so picturesquely.

Mrs. Moseley had judiciously expended a portion of the money left by Mike for the benefit of his sister, and her short, red skirt and black jacket had given place to a brown dress with white cuffs and collars, exchanged on Sundays for a fine, dark blue one with embroidered frills.

The mail came twice a week to the fort, and every mail brought Judy two or more letters from Ran; for he wrote nearly every day. The desire to answer all Ran’s letters was a great spur to improvement in Judy, who, showing all her compositions to Mrs. Moseley, begging her to correct the spelling, grammar and punctuation, and then carefully studying these corrections before making the clean copy that finally went to her betrothed, made greater progress in her education than she could have accomplished under any other circumstances.

Ran kept her advised of everything that happened to him, and his latest communications assured her that his cause was going on swimmingly, though, of course, there were, necessarily, “law’s delays.”

To corroborate this, Mrs. Moseley received occasional letters from her old schoolmate, Mrs. Samuel Walling, who gave her chapter after chapter of what she called this romance in real life; how much the hero of it was admired by all to whom she had introduced him; how from his dark beauty and grace he was dubbed the Oriental Prince; how he was taken up by every one in society except the Vansitarts, who, in the interests of their late governess and favorite, and with idiotic obstinacy, disallowed a claim that every one else was forced to admit; last of all, how young Randolph Hay had discovered a lovely cousin, and sole surviving relative, in Palma Hay Stuart, the only child of his late Uncle James Jordan Hay, and the wife of Cleve Stuart, a man of fortune from Mississippi.

Much of this information—all of it, in fact, except that which concerned his “lionizing”—Ran had faithfully imparted to Judy. And she rejoiced in his present prosperity and future prospects.

Judy had but one source of anxiety—her Brother Mike! Three letters she had received from him since he took leave of her in September; but these had reached her at intervals of a week or ten days apart, and since the last of these three, two months had passed and she had heard nothing.

There were times when she grew very much distressed, and felt almost sure that the party of adventurers to which Mike belonged had been massacred.

On this splendid November morning Judy, sitting at the window, with her grammar in hand, was more than usually downcast.

First, there was the news that had come to her from her betrothed, that he was to sail for England about the first of December with Mr. Will Walling, to go through certain forms, preliminary to taking possession of the Hay estate and ousting the present usurper; his absence must be indefinite; but he would return as soon as possible—he hoped in two months’ time at the furthest. That news depressed the girl very much; but that was not all. The mail that brought Ran’s letter brought none from Mike. It was at least her twentieth disappointment, but she felt it as bitterly as if it had been her first.

“What is the matter, Judy?” at length inquired the colonel’s wife, noticing the dejected countenance of her protégée.

“Oh, ma’am, it’s about Mike! I am sure the Indians must have—— Oh, ma’am, I can’t spake it!” the girl answered, breaking off with a sob.

“My poor child, there is really no cause for such keen anxiety. Your brother and his party have gone far beyond the mail route in their search for silver. He cannot send a letter to you from his present camp, except by the chance of some one returning toward the mail routes. Be patient and hopeful, Judy.”

“I do try, ma’am; but it is awful to lose one’s brother in such a—void!”

“There is no void in which any creature can be lost, Judy; for the Creator is everywhere, and He is our Father as well, and none of His children can stray out of His presence. It must be dreadful to have any beloved one disappear mysteriously, but it is certain that the Lord knows where he or she is, and will take care of His child, living or dead!”

“I believe that, ma’am,” said Judy, trying to rally her spirits.

She returned to the study of her book; but her thoughts were too distracted for concentration, and her eyes wandered from the page to the open window. The great gates of the fort were directly in front of the colonel’s quarters and about a hundred yards distant.

Presently Judy, looking out toward them, dropped her book, started up and exclaimed:

“Why! What!”

And then she stopped and gazed through the window.

“What is it, my child?” inquired the lady.

“A strange officer, ma’am, and several strange soldiers coming in at the gate.”

Mrs. Moseley laid down her work and came and joined Judy at the window.

A small troop of horsemen, about ten men in all, with an officer at their head, marched through the gate, wheeled to the right, and rode up to the adjutant’s quarters, where they all dismounted.

The officer, attended by an orderly, went into the office.

The men remained outside, standing by their horses.

“What does it mean, ma’am, do you think?” inquired Judy.

“I don’t know. It may be some small reinforcement on their way to some other fort. We shall hear when the colonel comes in.”

As the lady spoke the orderly came out of the adjutant’s office and spoke to the dismounted men, who immediately dispersed, leading their horses away.

The two women stood a few minutes longer at the window, and then, as there was nothing more to be learned by looking out, each returned to her employment.

Even after that, Judy continued to glance from her lesson in syntax, through the open window that commanded the great gates and a broad sweep of the fort grounds; but nothing occurred to reward her vigilance or satisfy her curiosity.

At length she grew tired of watching, and gave her undivided attention to her lesson.

Two hours passed, and the colonel might have been seen coming from the adjutant’s office to his own quarters, with a brisk step and a radiant face, with full twenty years taken off his fifty.

“Good news, Dolly, my dear!” he said, bursting into the sitting-room. “Good news! Dispatches from Washington. Call all the children together to hear the good news.”

“Go, Judy, dear, and bring them,” exclaimed Mrs. Moseley in eager anticipation.

Judy flew to do her bidding, and soon the room was filled with the progeny of the military patriarch.

“Where’s Jim?” demanded the colonel, looking around.

“Here I am, father,” said the eldest son, entering the room at that moment.

“And Betty?”

“Here, father, behind you. So close to you that you can’t see me!”

“And Baby Lu?”

“Right there between your feet, father. If you look down you will see her.”

“Hadn’t you better call the roll, dad? Then you will be sure that we are all here!” cried Master Clin.

“Hold your tongue, you young scamp, and listen!” exclaimed the colonel, laughing. Then turning to his wife gravely, almost tearfully, he said:

“Dolly, my dear, it has come at last! It has been a long time coming. I have got my promotion and six months’ leave!”

Mrs. Moseley jumped from her chair.

“Oh, Moses! Moses! I am so glad! So thankful! I never expected it in our lifetime—never! I looked that we should live and die among the frontier forts, with no change but from one to another. Oh, thank Heaven! Thank Heaven!”

“Maj. Lawson will succeed me in command here. Capt. King, who brought the dispatches, remains here with the ten new recruits who are to take the places of as many of our soldiers whose terms of service are drawing to a close. There, children, there is my good news. Now be off with you and rollic over it!” he added, turning to the young people.

“Oh! father dear, are we really going East? Really going to the cities and to civilization?” breathlessly demanded Betty, thinking this news much too good, too wonderful to be true.

And the faces of all the other children eagerly seconded their elder sister’s question.

“Really and truly, my dear ones. And my pleasure in going is immeasurably heightened by the joy the anticipation of the change gives you all. Now run away; I wish to speak to your mother,” he said, smiling on them.

“Tell us one thing, dad, do!” said Master Clinton.

“Well, what is it, my boy?”

“When are we going?”

“In a very few days. I cannot tell you yet what day. Now run away.”

The boy scampered off, and his army of brothers and sisters followed him.

Judy also would have left the room, but Mrs. Moseley stopped her.

“Stay, my dear girl. We only sent the children away that they might give vent to their joy in the open air, as you hear them doing. Now, Moses!” said the lady.

“Well, my dear, it is only this: King will dine with us to-day, and I have invited Lawson, and Hill, and Perry to meet him. Is it too late to make some suitable addition to our family spread?” anxiously inquired the colonel.

“Oh! no, not if we put back the dinner an hour. There is a fine haunch of venison, a buffalo tongue, and a bunch of prairie fowl that I have just bought from an Indian. And then I will open my preserve jars in honor of the occasion, though I did not intend to touch them until Christmas.”

“You are a tower of strength, Dolly, my dear, but we shall not be here at Christmas. Now I have something to do over at the office. I will be back with King a little while before dinner,” concluded the colonel as he left the room.

“What is the matter, Judy? You look very grave, my dear,” said Mrs. Moseley, who was at last at leisure to observe her protégée.

“Oh, ma’am!” said the girl in a broken voice, being almost in tears; “oh, dear, ma’am, it is not that I am not glad and thankful for the good fortune that has come to you and the dear colonel and the childer——”

“Children, Judy.”

“Yes, ma’am, children, to be sure, only sometimes I do forget.”

“Well, you were saying——”

“Yes, ma’am, I was saying I am glad and thankful to the Lord and all the saints for the blessing and the prosperity that have come to you; but, but, but——”

“But what, Judy?”

The girl did not answer, but burst into tears and sobbed aloud.

“Judy! Judy! Judy! What is all this? Are you crying because you are doubtful of what is to become of you?” tenderly inquired the lady, laying her hand on the girl’s curly, dark hair.

“It’s the parting with yeez a’, ma’am! And the thought what will I do at all, at all, when ye lave this! Oh, sure it is a silfish wretch that I am to be graiving for meself, instid of rejoicing with yeez!” wept the girl, backsliding hopelessly into her dialect.

“Judy, dear, do you think we would leave you behind? No, dear, not one of us would think of such a cruel thing. We must take you with us, Judy, my poor child!”

“Oh, ma’am, sure and it’s a hivinly angel av goodness ye are and always was, and meself always said it. And I’d go with you, willing, and glad, and grateful, only there’s me poor Mike. If Mike should write to me, or come to see me, what wud he do not to find me?”

“My girl, we would leave word with the adjutant to forward any letters that might come for you, and if your brother should appear in person, to tell him where you were to be found. There! will that do? And remember we are going to New York, and you will see Ran before he sails for England. Come, now! will that do?” archly inquired the colonel’s wife.

“Oh, yis, ma’am! Yis, sure!” exclaimed Judy, her eyes sparkling through her tears. “And sure meself will be the thankful craychur!”

“Creature, Judy.”

“So it is! Creature, ma’am, thank you, and I will learn after a while.”

Mrs. Moseley then left the sitting-room and went to the kitchen to give directions to the soldier’s wife who filled the place of her cook.

Judy laid aside her book and began to put the room in order for the visitors.

Punctually at about fifteen minutes before the dinner hour the colonel came in with Capt. King, a fine, tall, stalwart-looking man with dark complexion, black hair and mustache, and about thirty-five years of age. He introduced the strangers to Mrs. Moseley, who received him cordially, and to “Miss Man,” who only bowed.

They were soon joined by the major, the adjutant and the surgeon, and then all went in to dinner. Judy scarcely opened her lips in speech during the meal, for fear of falling into her dialect. The impromptu dinner party passed off very successfully, and the evening passed gayly.

The next day being Tuesday, preparations for leaving the fort were commenced by the colonel and his family.

They fixed the ensuing Monday for their departure.

Mrs. Moseley, in the midst of her packing, found time to write to her friend, Augusta Walling, announcing their return to the East, and asking her to find a large furnished house suitable to their large family and moderate income, somewhere in an inexpensive suburb of New York, and to have it ready for them to enter on their arrival, to save the cost of going to a hotel with their numerous party.

Every one was happy except Judy, who was grieving to go away without having heard from her missing brother, even though she was going where she would be sure to meet her betrothed.

With distressful anxiety she watched for the one remaining mail that would come in before they would leave the fort.

Thursday, the next mail day, came and brought her letters from Ran, telling her of the progress of his business and the passing of his time, and that he had at length secured apartments in the same building with his cousins, and had left his hotel to establish himself there until he should sail for England.

Judy was satisfied so far as her lover was concerned; but she was so bitterly disappointed and distressed at not getting any news of her brother by this last mail that she felt as if her last hope for him had died out, almost as if she might mourn him as dead, and she went away to her own tiny room to have her cry out by herself.

Then she wrote a long letter addressed to her brother, in which she explained to him the necessity of leaving the fort with the colonel’s family, and begging him to write to her or come and see her.

This she placed in the adjutant’s hands, begging him to give it to Mike if he should come to the fort.

By Friday night all the preparations for departure were completed. It had been a heavy week’s work to get ready a family of fifteen for a removal and a long journey, but the task was finished at last, and the colonel said:

“We may now take two Sabbaths’ rest, the Jewish and the Christian, before setting out on our pilgrimage.”

And that night the whole family went to bed tired enough to enjoy the two days’ rest to come.

The next day—Saturday—was a beautiful day, clear, and bright, and mild. Fine fires were burning in all the fireplaces, but all the windows were open.

Mrs. Moseley was distributing to the few soldiers’ wives that were in the camp many household articles that she would not want. Also she was receiving informal visits from officers’ wives, who were sorry to have her leave the fort.

Judy, having nothing on earth to do, was walking up and down on the piazza of the colonel’s quarters, thinking of her brother, Mike, and his too probable fate.

On this day, people were coming in and going out of the fort gates continually; but Judy took no notice of them.

Presently there came through the gates another troop—not a troop of horse as on the preceding Monday, but a very small troop on foot, consisting of some half a dozen of the most ragged, dirty, forlorn and Heaven-forsaken looking tramps that Christian eyes ever beheld.

Judy, pacing up and down the piazza, never saw them. She was muttering to herself:

“I know he is dead, but I shall never know how he died, or where he died, or how much he might have suffered before he died. And this will be a sorrow to me worse than death itself! A life-long sorrow that even me darlint Ran can nivir comfort me for.”

“Judy!”

A familiar voice called in her ear, a hard hand clapped her on the shoulder.

She sprang as if she had been shot, gazed for an instant as if she had gone mad, and then, with a great cry, flung herself in her brother’s arms.

Mike was worn out with his wearisome tramp, so he sat down on one of the wooden benches, drew his sister on his knees, and held her to his bosom, where she lay sobbing in a great paroxysm of emotion.

Her cry had brought Mrs. Moseley and several other members of the family to the door. They saw Mike sitting there with his sister’s face hidden on his bosom. Mike lifted his old rag of a hat to the lady, who smiled and returned into the house with all who had followed her to the door. She would not disturb such a joyful meeting. She was as much delighted as surprised that it had come so opportunely.

It was some time before Judy was composed enough to speak. And even then her first utterances were incoherent ejaculations of thankfulness, delight and affection. At length she said, falling into her old dialect:

“It’s an answer to prayer! It’s a blissing come down from the Mither av Hivin. Oh, sure me harrt was breaking in me brest to lave this, an’ yoursilf away, and me unbeknownst of whativir hed become av ye!”

“Wheriver were ye going, Judy?” he asked.

“Oh, sure ye didn’t know! How should ye?” she said. And then she told him the situation, and inquired, in her turn, how it was that he came so happily to see her, before her departure.

“That Silver Moon Mine was jist the most misfortunate ventur’ as ivir was made! Iviry one of the bhoys as went from Grizzly have come back, hed to, ilse we wud ha’ perished in the snow there, this winter. What a differint climit this is! Why, it’s almost like simmir here compared to there. So we’s all going back to slow and sure old Grizzly. All, lasteways, ixcipt Longman and Dandy, who are going back to the ould counthry.”

“Oh, Mike, are you going back to Grizzly?”

“Yis, sure! Where ilse wud I go?”

“Oh, Mike, don’t let us be parted! Go with me to New York! Ran is going to England about the first of December; wouldn’t you like to see him once more before he goes?”

Mike hesitated, then he said slowly:

“Sure, and I wud like to go with ye, Judy, and I wud like to see Ran, but——”

“Oh, don’t say but, Mike. Draw out the bit of money ye left in the savings bank at ’Frisco, and come with us.”

“Yis, but what the divil will I do before I get to ’Frisco without a cint av money or a dacint suit av clothes?”

“Oh—I’ll—I’ll—I’ll spake to the colonel’s leddy!” said Judy, springing up impulsively and running into the house to lay the case before her benefactress.

Mrs. Moseley was all sympathy and kindness, and soon devised a plan by which Mike should have an outfit and transportation to San Francisco, where he might draw his savings from the bank, and repay all advances.

That day and the next, through the kindness of the colonel and his officers, the footsore, starved and wearied tramps were fed and rested at the fort.

On Monday the determined miners went on their way to Grizzly, well provided with food and drink for their journey through the woods.

At the same time a train of ambulances and army wagons, containing the colonel and his numerous family, the discharged soldiers, with Longman, Mike, Dandy and much goods, filed out of the fort gates and took the road to St. Agnetta, where they were all to take the train to San Francisco, en route for New York.