CHAPTER II.

Big with importance was Mrs. Captain Raymond when the mail from Prescott finally came in on this hot September evening and there was placed in her hands a letter from no less a personage than “Lady Pelham,” as the —th was accustomed to designate the portly matron who shared the joys, sorrows, name, and much more than shared the stipend of the jolly colonel.

Seldom was it that her ladyship saw fit to honor the lesser lights of the regiment with letters written in her august hand. “Never indeed,” said Mrs. Wilkins, who was not one of her ladyship’s satellites, “unless she has an axe to grind or wants chestnuts pulled out of the fire.” Mrs. Wilkins was rich in metaphor, but limited in elegance, and from the first had made an unfavorable impression on the new colonel’s wife; but none the less was Mrs. Wilkins eager to hear the purport of her ladyship’s communication, and so postponed her departure for tea, barely restraining her impatience until Mrs. Raymond had finished the eight closely-written pages and looked up, expectant of question. “What does she say about Grace and Mr. Glenham?” was the first propounded.

“W—ell,” replied the recipient, slowly. “You mustn’t mention it to a soul, because she says I’m not to allude to it; but, as you were here when the letter came, why, I can’t see how she can expect me to say that she did not mention the subject when she did; but you mustn’t breathe it. They are _not_ engaged.”

“Oh, of course I knew that all along,” persisted Mrs. Wilkins; “but what does she _say_?”

And so after much interchange of solemn promises never to tell a soul or betray one another, Mrs. Raymond read to Mrs. Wilkins an extract pretty much as follows from the last page of her ladyship’s letter:

“Oh, I knew there was something else I wanted to speak about. You know Mr. Glenham, of course, and very probably you have heard some silly rumor connecting dear Grace’s name with his. Now let me assure you, my friend, there is absolutely nothing in it,—that is, of course, nothing definite. He was perfectly devoted to her at West Point, and evidently very much in love; but Grace is so young, you know, so perfectly childlike, that his marked attention seemed to make no impression upon her, and no child of mine shall ever be coerced in a matter of the affections. Such things I look upon as criminal in a mother. Of course with his fine character and attainments, not to mention his means, it might not be a bad match for Gracie, though she _could_ look much higher. You have no idea how lovely the child has grown, and only I can say how utterly sweet and lovable a daughter she is; but she is very sensitive, and with regard to Mr. Glenham is painfully nervous at times about meeting him again. She gave him no encouragement at all, and assured me that her heart was untouched, but, as I say, she was very young and inexperienced, and no one can predict what may come of it. Now with your known tact it will be an easy matter to give people to understand (without letting it be known that I wrote you) that there is no engagement, but that any allusion to the matter in Gracie’s presence would be prejudicial”—“Yes, she has written prejudicial, then scratched it out and written painful,” said Mrs. Raymond—“painful to her in the last degree. Some women are so heedless and others so malicious that it would be just like——” And here Mrs. Raymond stopped short with an embarrassed cough and “Well, that’s about all,” which Mrs. Wilkins did not at all believe, but went off homeward, confident that her ladyship had made a most uncomplimentary allusion to herself in the very line where Mrs. Raymond balked, which, in fact, she had.

“Don’t tell me any such stuff,” soliloquized the irate lady, as she banged the door of her own domicile behind. “That woman will bow down to and worship money wherever she sees it, and she’ll just make that girl marry him. See if she don’t.” And at an early hour that evening Lieutenant Wilkins made his appearance at the card-room down at the store, a circumstance that by this time had become the generally accepted signal at Sandy that the wind was in the east at “Castle Wilkins,” as that subaltern’s quarters were dubbed by the “society” of the post.

To just how many more of her intimates that and other portions of her ladyship’s letter were read by Mrs. Raymond is not of sufficient importance to relate. That she had revealed the chapter on Grace to one was sufficient to insure its speedy transmission throughout the garrison, not perhaps with strict accuracy as to detail, but with those unavoidable embellishments with which the sex succeeds at most times in quadrupling the proportions of any story.

Mid-October came, and the blazing sun disappeared at an earlier hour behind the range to the west, and crimsoned and gilded the lofty battlements of Squaw Peak down the valley even as the evening recall from herd and fatigue duty was echoed from the mesa across the stream. With each succeeding day old Pelham waxed more jolly and jubilant, and huge were the preparations being made at the commanding officer’s mansion for the reception of her ladyship and the sole daughter of his house and name.

“They sail from San Francisco to-morrow!” he shouted one evening to the knot of officers coming in from retreat roll-call, and waving the brown envelope of his dispatch, the colonel soon gathered his adherents about him. “They sail to-morrow. Come in everybody. Let’s drink their health and wish them God-speed!” And the glad-hearted veteran set before them the unaccustomed luxury of fruity Cucumungo wine, the nectar of Californian vintage, and clinked his glass with one and all in joyous recognition of their cordial good wishes.

“I go all the way to the Colorado to meet them,” said he. “They will reach Yuma by Tuesday fortnight, and the general has given me his own teams and ambulance to bring them to Prescott, and there all of you who can must come up to the ball the staff are to give them. We’ll have lots of good times, and escort them down here in style.”

Why was it that in his rejoicing the honest-hearted old fellow put forth his hand and rested it kindly on young Glenham’s broad shoulder, and that he looked into the boy’s flushed and eager face with eyes suffused with unbidden tears? Every man in the party noted the fact, and even there some smiled significantly.

That night Truscott turned over lazily in his bed, where he had lain for some time listening for the regular breathing, placid as a baby’s, that generally marked Glenham’s slumber. Then he hailed through the open doorway, “Glenham, I wish you’d go to sleep and snore; I miss my lullaby. I’ve fixed it all with Wilkins that he is to take your duty for a week, so that you can have all that time in Prescott when the Pelhams come. Now do go to sleep, and don’t toss about there any longer.” And without another word or caring to hear Glenham’s confused expression of thanks, Truscott turned his face to the wall again and was lost in his own reflections.

Early in November the “Newbern” was telegraphed at the mouth of the Colorado, and Colonel, Mrs., and Miss Pelham were the guests of the commanding officer at Yuma. Six days more and, their long drive across the desert completed, they would be at Prescott. It did not require half an eye at Sandy to mark how eager, nervous, and absent-minded Glenham had become. It had been arranged that six of the officers, including Truscott and himself, were to leave for Prescott as soon as the Pelhams arrived there, and that as many of the ladies of Camp Sandy were to accompany the party to take part in the festivities at headquarters Grand times were anticipated. The staff of the commanding general were to give a ball in honor of the arrival of so noted an army lady as Mrs. Pelham and so lovely an army girl as her daughter. Then the infantry officers of Fort Whipple were to give another, and there would be a series of dinner-parties, rides, drives, picnics, and possibly hunts in the neighboring mountains. The band of the infantry was daily practising the latest and most attractive music, imported from New York expressly for the occasion, and their energetically eccentric leader was grinning and capering and writhing himself into the verge of convulsions in his efforts to make them throw _espressione_ into the waltz composed and most respectfully dedicated to her Excellenza Signora Colonel Pelham by her most humble and admiring servant Paolo Bianchinnetti. Bandmaster Paolo was always composing and dedicating waltzes to the ladies of the senior officers, and trusting to luck to secure the kindly graces of the younger ones, in which course he was wiser in his generation than many a native, for while the dancing subalterns swore at him for his execrable time, the elders swore by him, and they held the balance of power.

The time was fast approaching. Captains Raymond, Turner, and Tanner, with their wives and the three young lady relatives who were to make up the party, were to drive in two large ambulances over the mountain roads to Prescott, while Truscott, Crane, and Glenham escorted them on horseback. The command of the post in Pelham’s absence had devolved upon Captain Canker, a martinet in his way, and a man whom a little brief authority would transform into a nuisance. The party was to start on Monday morning, and on Sunday night, after parade, Mr. Wilkins came to Truscott with an air of profound embarrassment. “Jack, I’ve got to go to Prescott after all. Mrs. Wilkins has set her heart on going within the last ten days, and I cannot get out of it.” Truscott said not a word, so Wilkins stumbled painfully on, “I never wanted to go, and I know that it will disappoint Glenham, as I had promised to take his duties.”

“You were to have taken his tour as officer of the day Tuesday, and to have attended his stable and company duties during the week,” said Truscott. “When did you decide to go?”

“Not until this morning.”

“Why didn’t you tell me then?”

“Well, I thought Mrs. Wilkins would change her mind.”

“When did you tell Captain Canker?” asked Jack, and a set look came into his face as he gazed straight into the eyes of the other.

“I told him this morning, and he said it was all right.”

“That’s all I want to know,” said Truscott, and turning abruptly, he walked over to his office. Just as he expected, Captain Canker was seated there overhauling some late muster-rolls, and as Truscott entered, the temporary commander accosted him with, “Mr. Adjutant, you will notify Mr. Glenham that he cannot go to Prescott to-morrow as Mr. Wilkins is entitled to the preference, and he has decided to go.”

Truscott replied, quietly, “Very good, sir,” and seated himself at his desk as though the matter were definitely settled.

Now, Canker hated his colonel, who had on several occasions interfered with his harsh and arbitrary system as troop commander; he heartily disliked, yet respected, Truscott, because he was the colonel’s loyal and trusted staff-officer, and he was at all times as discourteous and fault-finding with his second lieutenant, Glenham, as he dared be at a post where the colonel was always ready to listen to any appeal for justice, either from officer or man; but Canker was weak withal, and, finding that Truscott would ask no questions or express no opinion as to his action in Glenham’s case, he proceeded to do just what Truscott was morally certain he would do, defend it. “You see, Jack,” said Canker, “I must have at least two subalterns here this week. I would be very glad to oblige Mr. Glenham by taking stables, recitations, and the like, but we must have four officers for officer-of-the-day duty. If anybody were here to take his place, I would be delighted to let him go.” Truscott continued his calm occupation of conning over some company returns, and merely bowed in acquiescence, so Canker continued: “It is very disagreeable to me to have to interrupt so pleasant a programme, but you see yourself that we ought to have four officers for duty, do you not?”

“Undoubtedly,” says Truscott, imperturbably. “We ought to have a dozen.”

“I’m glad you agree with me,” says Canker. “Mr. Glenham is prone to think me extremely exacting and capricious where he is concerned, and will be more apt to complain than ever.”

“Doubtless he will be much disappointed,” says Jack; “but he will see the real reason as quick as the rest of us, and, as he would not think of asking any one else to give way in his favor, he will take it as it is meant.” And the adjutant looks squarely at his superior as he says it.

Canker doesn’t half like the ambiguity of the reply; but after scrutinizing the features of his junior in a quick, furtive glance, he says, hurriedly,—

“Of course, certainly; but if any of the subaltern officers who are going were to remain here in his stead, then I would be willing to let Glenham go. However, I suppose every man has set his heart on attending those balls, and there will be no chance of that.”

“Every man, to my knowledge, _is_ very eager to go,” replies Jack, “but I presume I may say to Glenham that if some one of the lieutenants will stay and take his place, he can leave with the party at reveille.”

“Oh, certainly, certainly,” replies Canker. And with that and the conviction that nobody will make any such quixotic offer, he presently says “good-night,” and goes off homeward.

His footsteps are no sooner out of hearing than Truscott rises and strolls out upon the piazza. The silence of night has fallen upon Camp Sandy. The bright stars are twinkling aloft through the rare, cloudless atmosphere. Here and there along the company quarters a gleam of light streams out through open doorway or window upon the parade, and some half-dozen of the men are droning a sentimental ditty in a style uncultivated, but apparently satisfactory to themselves. Far across the parade, along officers’ row, the lights are more frequent, and an occasional burst of musical laughter, the soft tinkle of a guitar, and the deeper voices of some of the garrison beaux, floating on the still night-air, tell where the usual party has gathered on some one of the broad piazzas for the evening’s ration of gossip and small talk. Truscott sticks his hands deep in his pockets, and, fixing his eyes on the toe of his boot, gives himself to solitary reflection. Two or three of the greyhounds rise, stretch, yawn, then come up to their friend and poke their cool muzzles against his wrists, and mutely plead for recognition. He draws his hands from their ambush, and bestows a few absent-minded pats upon their sleek heads, emboldened by which, two of the lithe creatures place their paws upon his breast and strive to lick his face. “Down, Hualpai! down, Verde!” he protests, as he brushes them off; then seeing their crestfallen looks as they slink away, he whistles them back, whereupon they come, bounding, and Truscott laughs to himself, as he covers their heads and flanks with hearty slaps of endearment. “Good boy, Wally! good boy, Verde! _You’d_ miss me, at any rate. By Jove, I’ll do it!” Another minute and he stepped into the telegraph-office, took a couple of blanks from the desk, placed them in the ordinary brown envelope, closed it, then turned to the soldier operator,—

“Corcoran, several officers will breakfast in the mess room at reveille to-morrow. Address this envelope to me, and bring it to me there at that time; do you understand?” and with that he left.

Long before the sun came peeping over the Mogollon range (locally known as the Mogeyone) on the following morning, and even as the mellow notes of the cavalry trumpets floated upward with the flag through the balmy air, hailing the dawn with stirring reveille, a busy group, horses, mules, and men, were preparing for the start from officers’ row. A large ambulance, with its frisky four-in-hand of sleek, well-fed mules, was loading up with baskets, satchels, and trunks in front of Captain Tanner’s quarters, another, similarly supplied and occupied, stood at the Raymonds’ door. In front of bachelor’s hall were the favorite “mounts” of Truscott, Glenham, and Crane, and those of the two orderlies who were to accompany the party. The orderlies themselves were busily strapping on the saddle-bags and ponchos of their leaders; for while it rarely rained at Sandy, as has been said, it might pour in torrents before they reached the Agua Fria. In the mess-room three or four officers in riding dress were hastily sipping their coffee, when Glenham, feverishly impatient as all could see, rose hurriedly from the table, and bidding the others make haste, strode to the door, and there bumped up against the telegraph operator.

“For the adjutant,” said the latter, saluting and answering the inquiry in the lieutenant’s eye.

Truscott received the brown envelope without a word, slowly opened and drew forth the contents, which he glanced over with a slight uplifting of the eyebrow, and then silently rose and walked off towards his office.

“_Now_, what’s up?” said Crane. “Two to one that means that a scout’s to be sent out right away,—those cussed Tontos must be jumping the reservation again.”

“If that were the matter the order would come to the ‘C. O.,’ not to the adjutant,” said Glenham; “but we can’t wait; it’s time we were off. I’ll hail Jack and see what’s the matter.” With that he called his orderly, who came up leading the lieutenant’s horse. Glenham quickly mounted, and cantered across the garrison after Truscott, overtaking him at the office.

The adjutant turned, and, without giving his friend time to question, held out his hand. “Glenham, you and Crane go ahead; I can’t leave now, but I’ll follow as soon as it is possible for me to get away. Just tell the orderly to leave my saddle-bags at the house and take ‘Apache’ back to the stable. Off with you, old boy,” as Glenham hesitated, “and good time to you; I’m going right to the telegraph-office.”

“One second, Jack: nothing serious, is it?”

“Nothing at all, Glenham; go ahead.”

The ambulances, with cracking whip and plunging mules, were rattling out of the north gate; fluttering white handkerchiefs signalled “come on;” Crane and his party were mounting; the hounds, leaping, yelping, and excited, were rushing about the parade in anticipation of a chase up the valley. So with one uneasy, half-dissatisfied glance at his friend, Glenham suddenly struck spur to his horse, wheeled, and, with a wave of his hand, galloped off in pursuit. Truscott stopped at the door and gazed after the stout, bulky young knight, who “bobbed” clumsily in his saddle as he rode. A smile half amused, half sorrowful, stole over his face. “Poor Arthur, ten times three years in the riding hall couldn’t have made him a horseman.”

Three hours later the commanding officer _pro tem._ sat in state to receive the report of the officer of the day. The trumpets were “turning off” the old guard, and two tall subalterns entered girt with sabre and precise in dress. Acknowledging the salute of the first, and reaching out his hand to receive the guard report book, Captain Canker looked up in amaze at the familiar face and form of the adjutant, who calmly raised hand to cap visor and remarked, “I report as new officer of the day, sir.”

Canker reddened and stammered for a moment, then hurriedly stuttered, “You are not required to perform guard duty, sir. It is Mr. Glenham’s turn. Where is he, sir?”

“Well on his way to Prescott, captain. You were so good as to say that he could go if any one of the subalterns would remain and take his duties. I do that, sir.”