Chapter V

As Captain Sumter said, the ladies had gone no further than the surgeon's quarters that memorable Saturday, and with Sumter's full consent they had not gone even that far. Friday afternoon he had wired his protest to the father of Miriam Arnold, and with startling emphasis the reply had come early Saturday morning: "I repeat that I desire my daughter to return at once." It angered this honest gentleman and soldier. The tone was abrupt, if telegrams can be said to have either tone or manner, but that "wire" settled the matter. Miriam said she must obey, and nothing short of Doctor Larrabee, senior surgeon of the post, had prevailed against her decision. He himself had met the covered vehicle at his gate, and with calm but forceful courtesy had insisted on their alighting. "Your train is half a day late," said he. "You'll be wiser waiting here than at the frowsy station. Besides, I wish to see this young woman again." So saying, he fairly lifted Miss Arnold from the fur-robed depths of the dark interior, and deposited her on the wind-swept path. "Run in," said he, then similarly aided Mrs. and Miss Sumter. Their hand luggage and wraps came next, and Sumter drove away, saying he'd be back to them in abundant time for the train--which he was, though not until Tuesday morning. It was Thursday before the road was open or the telegraph again at work.

Less than half an hour the trio spent under the doctor's hospitable roof. Before two o'clock the wind had increased to a gale. The snow was driving swift and hard. "I checked you just in time," said he. "There'll be no train either way this night." And so by two o'clock, and just as the paymaster was driving away down the front of officers' row, Mrs. and Miss Sumter, with Miss Arnold, escorted by the two medical officers, were struggling across the open space between the surgeon's houses and the rear fence of the long line, and presently entering the back gate at Sumter's.

It was an odd arrangement, somewhat peculiar to frontier stations of the day. The enclosure of Fort Cushing was diamond-shaped. The entrance gate was at the eastern apex. The hospital and surgeons' quarters stood on a line with this gate, their front perpendicular to the long axis of the diamond. Their "rear elevations," therefore, were not far from officers' row. From the front of Sumter's house, around by way of the main gate to the doctor's door--the first to the left (north) of the post traders's--was quite a walk. From back door to back door, however, it was less than two hundred paces. "We are near neighbors," Doctor Larrabee had been saying, "though my wife thinks it a long walk on a windy day. I could reach you day or night, almost in a minute. As for Schuchardt and Bob Lanier, they could talk to each other out of their back windows this morning, but you couldn't hear a bugle across there now."

"Is he sitting up?" Mrs. Sumter inquired. "I thought, from what we heard, Doctor Schuchardt was trying to keep him in bed."

"He won't stay," was the brief answer. "I doubt if he slept a wink last night."

But Schuchardt was even less communicative. In answer to Mrs. Sumter's appeal, that young but gifted physician had looked perturbed, and finally answered: "Mr. Lanier's hurt is more mental than physical, therefore the more difficult for me to reach."

"You've seen him this morning?"

"Twice, Mrs. Sumter, and I'm going again as soon as we've seen you home."

And the moment they reached the rear storm-door, and their fur-hooded, fur-mantled charges were safely within, Schuchardt excused himself, Miriam Arnold's eyes following with a mute message that he felt, if he did not hear.

But Larrabee lingered. Stamping and shaking off the snow, he followed into the warm and cozy army quarters. Cook and housemaid both looked astonished at the unexpected procession through the kitchen. Mrs. Captain Snaffle's "chef"--like her mistress, of Hibernian extraction--sprang up in some confusion from her chair and the cup of "tay" over which the three had been chatting, as is the way of our domestics at such times and places,--she had reason to know the mistress of the house did not well approve of her, or of these frequent visitations. "We shall probably dine at home," said Mrs. Sumter, somewhat coldly, to her own retainers, and bestowing no notice upon their visitor. "There may be no train till to-morrow;" and with that led the way to the parlor.

Almost immediately, without waiting for the coming of the attendants with their hand-bags, Miss Arnold fled up-stairs, followed, at a glance from her mother, by Kate.

"You see how wretchedly nervous she continues," said Mrs. Sumter. "How could we have let her go alone?"

"How should we let her go at all?" said Larrabee. "Indeed"--with a glance from the clouding window over the storm-swept parade--"I repeat, there will be no going anywhere for anybody just now. Has--has she--told you anything, as yet?"

Mrs. Sumter was gradually emerging from her winter coat of furs. For a moment she hesitated, then closed the door leading back to the dining-room and returned to him as he stood there, warming his hands at the great parlor stove then indispensable in our frontier homes. His fine, intellectual face, in its silver-gray fringe of crisp curling hair, was full of sympathy and interest. It was a face to confide in, and all Fort Cushing swore by its senior surgeon. "Doctor," said she, calling him by the title he best loved, "Miriam says she believes it was all a mere delusion--a dream. She blames herself bitterly and--begs us to think no more of it--to forgive her, but----"

"But?" and the kind dark eyes studied the gentle, matronly face.

"But--oh, why should I attempt to conceal it? You know, and we have reason to know, she _did_ see some one--some one right there in her room. Some one who went out like a thief, through the window, and down the roof to the shed, and away in spite of sentries or--or anybody--some one who was in there when they so unexpectedly got home. _You_ saw----"

"Yes, I saw the tracks in the fresh snow on the roof. I could see them when I came hurrying over," murmured the doctor.

"Captain Sumter had the snow swept off before reveille. What was the use of advertising it further? Mr. Barker and Mr. Blake saw it, too. They hold it was some garrison sneak-thief, looking for jewelry. Yet not so much as a ring, or a pin, was touched--only her desk."

"Did _she_ tell of that?"

"No, Kate was the first to see it. She flew up-stairs when she heard the scream; found Miriam a senseless heap on the floor, the desk open on the little table by the window, the contents scattered, the window up, and somebody bounding and slipping away in the moonlight. Then she heard the challenge and scuffle outside and thought the guard had him, and gave her whole attention to Miriam, until Mr. Barker shouted from the lower hall. Oh, yes, cook and Maggie both declare they were in their room, but--I believe they were next door at the Snaffles'. I believe the back door was left open for--whoever it was."

"And nothing is missing?"

"Nothing. He was frightened off evidently. But Captain Sumter wished to have it all kept quiet until he could confer with the detectives in town. He has a theory of his own."

She had lowered her voice, and now walked to the hall door, as though listening for sounds from aloft, whither Kate and Miriam had vanished.

"Miss Kate has a level head," presently spoke Larrabee. "What does _she_ say?"

"Doctor, that is what troubles me! Kate won't say--anything. It's the first time she ever kept a secret from me." And now tears of genuine distress were welling in Mrs. Sumter's eyes.

It was half after two, and the wind was shrieking through the open space back of the line, when Doctor Larrabee, bending almost double, managed to fight his way homeward. Schuchardt, occupant of the adjoining set to his own, had not yet returned. At Sumter's gate the senior surgeon encountered the corporal-of-the-guard, nearly blind and well nigh exhausted. He had been sent round to relieve the men on post and bid them make the best of their way to the guard-room. He was even then searching for Number Five, who had most justifiably, in fact, involuntarily, taken refuge as previously explained. Had he not been blown into the Snaffles' kitchen, he might, like Barker's cow, have been blown away.

"You will probably find Doctor Schuchardt at Lieutenant Lanier's quarters," shouted Larrabee at the corporal, with kindly intent. "Take Number Five in there and get thawed out. Tell him I think a nip of whiskey advisable under the circumstances."

And thus it happened that two storm-beaten soldiers presently shoved their way through Lanier's back gate and banged at the kitchen door. Nobody answering, they presently entered, passed through that deserted apartment, and, hearing voices further on, the corporal ventured into the dark hallway leading through the little frame house, now fairly quivering in the blast. Here he caught sight of two officers--big, powerful men, in fur caps and canvas overcoats, just pushing forth through the front door into the fierce blast without. One was Doctor Schuchardt, the other Lieutenant Ennis, joint occupant with Lanier of the tiny premises. As Corporal Cassidy later expressed it, he felt "like I'd lost a bulging pot on an ace full." He couldn't run after and beg them to come back, yet he and his comrades were stiff from cold and almost breathless from exhaustion. Suddenly Number Five's carbine slipped from his frozen glove and fell with a crash on the kitchen floor. The next instant the voice of Lieutenant Lanier was heard.

"Who the devil's that?"

"Corporal Cassidy, sir. The post surgeon told me to bring Number Five in here and thaw him out. We'd find Doctor Schuchardt. But the doctor's just gone, sir, and----"

But by this time Mr. Lanier himself appeared in the hall, his feet in warm woollen slippers, his hands in bandages. "Well, I should say! Come right in here, you two. Pull off your gloves and get out of those caps and things. Man alive"--this to Number Five--"why didn't you come before? This is no time to stand on ceremony--or stay on post, either. My striker's stormbound somewhere. I'd help you if I could, but I can't. Help yourselves now, best you can; rub and kick all you want to; _dance_ if it'll warm you." And all the time he was crowding them up about a roaring stove, where presently he made them sit while he bustled about at a buffet in the adjoining room. "You'll have to help me, corporal," presently he cried. "One hand can't mix and pour and lift. There's sugar; there's hot water on the stove; there's glasses and here's whiskey. Mix it hot, and down with it!"

And so hospitably and heartily, after the manner of old frontier days and men, the young officer administered to his humbler comrades; cheered, and warmed, and insisted on their eating with their second tumbler, and when in course of half an hour the two stood before him, glowing, grateful, and resuming their buffalo coats and fur caps and gloves, honest Cassidy tried to say his say:

"'D' Troop's fellers never can brag enough about their lieutenant, sir, and though we don't belong to 'D' Troop, it hasn't taken this to tell us why. If ever the time comes when me or Quinlan here can do the lieutenant a good turn he'll--he'll know it."

After which they were gone, rejoicing in their new-found strength, yet reaching the nearest barracks only after severe struggle, and, later still, the crowded, suffocating guard-room,--where now some thirty men were huddled in a space intended for twenty at most--where Cassidy and Number Five were speedily telling to eager, appreciative ears their unusual and rejoiceful experience.

"Well, ain't he the dandy lieutenant, though?" queried Casey, of "F" Troop. "And did he give you yer new cap, too, Quinlan? Sure the wan you marched on wid had the mange!"

Cassidy snatched it from his comrade's head. "Mother av Moses! If he hasn't lifted the lieutenant's----" But he broke off short. One glance he had given the band within. A sudden cloud swept over his face. There was an instant of indecision, then he whipped his own cap from his head and thrust it on Quinlan.

"I'm a liar," said he; "it's me own he's had."

"Then you wear two sizes, Jim Cassidy, an' both different." Quinlan had pulled the headpiece down, and was staring in at the soft lining. "What's this?" he began, when the corporal's fingers closed like a vise on his arm.

"Shut up, Quinlan. The whiskey's gone to yer noddle. Come here!" And Cassidy led him, wondering, to the barred corridor without and slammed the door behind them. "Not a word do you whisper of this to any man, Pat Quinlan," said he, never relaxing his grasp. "You heard what that Cockney Fitzroy was swearin' to this morning? Sure--you'd never say the word to back that whelp--an' harm the lieutenant!"