The little squad from the San Saba camp came spurring along the beaten trail, betrayed by the cloud of dust that rose above them. Young Connolly, the guidon-bearer of Barclay's troop, unfurled his color and set it flapping in the rising breeze in trooper challenge; and down the column set and haggard faces lighted up with the gleam of soldier joy.

It was to be a race,--a race to the rescue. Six-thirty, and over a low ridge went Brooks and Winn, close followed by their orderlies; far away, midway up the opposite slope, stretched a slender, twisting, traversing seam,--the winding trail to Crockett's. The black dots in the lead were now three in number, darting towards two others, black dots, too, some four miles away and to the right front, right in among the hills. "Keep it up, lads! the quicker to water and rest!" are the major's words now, and spurs set home again, despite equine grunts in protest. Six-forty, and the dots in front are blacker and bigger and popping about, three of them, at least, in lively motion, checking suddenly, then darting to and fro, and the cry bursts from the leader's lips, "By G.o.d, they're at it!

Now, lads, for all you're worth, come on!" Six-forty-five, and, rounding a projecting spur, a shoulder from the range, Brooks, Winn, and the doctor burst in view of a scene that banishes the last thought of weariness. Barely a mile or so away, a rocky ledge lies beyond and parallel with the trail. Its jagged crest is spitting smoke and fire.

Its smoother slopes, towards the east, are dotted in places by the bodies of dead or dying horses, and in places, too, by other, smaller forms, apparently stiff and motionless. Off the trail, as though dragged there by affrighted and agonized animals, lies an overturned ambulance, its six draught-mules outstretched upon the turf about it; so, too, are other quadrupeds, troop-horses evidently. Well back of the ruined wagon, some trusty soul has rallied the remaining troop-horses, while most of their riders, sprawled upon the turf or behind improvised rifle-pits, stick manfully to their duty. "Friday's" ambuscade, in the still hours of the night, has cost the government heavily in horses, men, and mules, but old Pennywise's precious safe is guarded still, and every rush the outlaws make to get it is met by relentless fire. Six-fifty, and, leaving on the field six outlawed forms that will never fight again, the baffled relics of the Fridays are scurrying away into the fastnesses of the range before the labored rush and sputtering fire of Brooks's men, and Galahad, with his corporal comrade, far in the lead, gets the last compliments of the departing gang. Another gallant horse goes down, and Galahad's for the time goes free, his rider falling fainting from exhaustion and loss of blood.

CHAPTER XIII.

Old Frazier's face was sad to see when, two days later, all the harrowing details of that night's work were received at Worth. Hours before, in answer to courier from Crockett's, Dr. Collabone, with steward, attendants, and such ambulances as there were, had been put _en route_ for the Springs. Two other troops had been hurried to the field, and Mrs. Blythe, with streaming eyes, was straining to her heart two motherless children, now orphaned by that "one more square fight in Texas." Gallant Ned Lawrence! Far on the way to Cramer's bewildered force they found his body, shot from ambush through and through in two places. Yet, said his weeping orderly, he had clung to the saddle nearly a mile. Oh, the wrath at Department Head-Quarters and along the line of posts and camps against that gang, made up, as so many knew it must be made, mainly of the thugs and deserters offscoured from the army in days when moral character as vouched for was no requisite before enlistment!

Among the dead upon the field was found the body of a once trusted sergeant of Lawrence's troop; but the other outlaws were Mexicans or jailbirds, strange to the soldiers who turned them curiously over.

Pennywise, scared half to death and dreadfully shaken by the capsizing of his wagon, was otherwise unscathed; his clerk was shot, his driver sorely wounded; two of the San Saba escort were killed, and others. .h.i.t.

Brooks, with Captain Haines from the San Saba, pushed on until at noon he reached Cramer's people, now reinforced by Fuller and his men and by the shame-stricken Mullane. By nightfall his exhausted horses were drinking their fill from the stream. The two wounded officers, Barclay and Cramer, with half a dozen troopers, were being made as comfortable as possible.

By dawn of the next day Mullane's pleading had overpowered Brooks, whose heart was wrung at the contemplation of such unrequited losses, and, taking Lieutenant Winn and forty troopers with him, the Irish captain, given a chance as he prayed to redeem himself, marched away westward from the cantonment at Crockett's, bent on overtaking the outlaws in the Apache mountains, whither they had gone, burdened by half a dozen wounded, so said the one prisoner, who, unable to bear the torment of jolting along on horseback with an arm bullet-smashed at the elbow, had begged to be left behind. He was a mere boy, whose elder brother had been for years a fugitive from justice and of late a prominent member of the gang, and it was by the side of that mortally wounded ruffian they found the youngster weeping, more from grief than from pain, only a mile away from the scene of the second ambuscade.

Verily the men who planned those death-traps were masters of their villanous trade! "Concentrate all your first shots on the officers,"

were the instructions; "get them down, and the men will be helpless as sheep." Cramer, his doctor, and his first sergeant had fallen at the first fire, and that little command was paralyzed. Vigilant bushwackers, schooled for years in Indian fighting, watching the Crockett trail against the coming of other leaders, had easily recognized Lawrence as he rode galloping on at the head of his half-dozen, and the "one more square fight" proved but a one-sided affair after all. Poor Ned knew he had his death-wounds at the instant, yet whipped out his revolver and ordered, "Charge!" and charge they did upon the scattering, cowardly crew that fled before them on their fresh horses until the trooper leader tumbled from his saddle, dead without a groan; and then, at safe distance, his a.s.sa.s.sins turned and jeered their helpless pursuers. How the veterans of "D" Troop cl.u.s.tered about their old-time captain's lifeless form that night, and, weary though they were after forty hours of sleepless chase and scout and battle, implored the major to let them start at once upon the outlaws' trail! The same tactics that had halted Cramer's men and murdered Lawrence had been played on the escort from San Saba. Riddling the ambulance at the first volley, yet in the dim moonlight missing the lieutenant commanding, who happened to be riding at the moment on the flank of his column instead of at the head, the sudden volley felled a sergeant, but left the subaltern full of fight, and he rallied his temporarily stampeded troopers not four hundred yards away, and charged back on the Fridays with a splendid dash that drove them helter-skelter to the rocks. Then, dismounting, he had stood them off superbly until rescue came.

Not for another forty-eight hours could old Pennywise be induced to go on to Worth. Though there was rea.s.surance in the fact that the Fridays were scattered over far Western Texas by that time (some never stopping, as it turned out, until safe from pursuit beyond the Bravo), the veteran money-changer's nerve was sorely shaken. He had not half the pluck of his punctured clerk, who, though shot by a Henry rifle bullet through the left arm and across the breast outside the ribs, declared himself fit to take even a hot and feverish drive and go with the payment.

Fuller and his ranchmen stuck manfully to that much desired safe, and announced their intention of protecting the paymaster at all hazards.

The wounds of Cramer and Barclay had been most skilfully treated by the young doctor before Collabone reached them; thanks to the perfect habits and vigorous const.i.tution of the latter, there was nothing to prevent his transportation by easy stages back to Worth at the end of the week, and thither he seemed strangely eager to go. Thither they had borne the remains of poor Lawrence, and there with all military honors had they buried all that was mortal of the loved yet luckless comrade. There, her own heart sorely wrung, Mrs. Blythe was doing her utmost to comfort weeping Ada, whose burly little brother was fortunately too young to feel the desolation of their position. But, flat on his back, Barclay had pencilled to the loving-hearted woman a little note that bore her a world of comfort, despite the suffering imposed by a mandate to reveal its contents to no one but her husband; for when a woman has news--good news, great news--to tell, a husband falls far short of the demands of the situation.

Barclay's wound had been dangerous at the time, mainly because the bullet had grazed an artery below the knee and brought on profuse bleeding that, unnoticed in the excitement of the running fight, sapped him of his strength and left him swooning; but Collabone and his a.s.sistant declared it healing perfectly and that not even a limp would remain to betray it. One week from the day of the spirited skirmish in which he had played so prominent and gallant a part, Sir Galahad was lifted into the ambulance and started for Worth at the very moment the general commanding the department was forwarding to Washington his report of the affair, urgently recommending the bestowal of a brevet upon the new captain of "D" Troop and a pension upon the children of his whole-souled, hapless predecessor; but, coupling his recommendations with ill-considered yet natural reference to the injustice with which Captain and Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel Lawrence had been treated, he succeeded only in entombing the paper in some private pigeon-hole, whence it was resurrected long months after, too late to be of use.

After the manner of the army, the garrison at Worth had ceased all outward sign of mourning by the time Barclay reached the post, and almost everybody was ready to devote himself or herself to the amelioration of his condition. Mrs. Frazier, with a motherly eye to business, had lost no time in urging upon her liege the propriety--indeed, the imperative necessity--of his riding out to meet the wounded officer and moving him at once under the shelter of their roof. Amanda could and should give up her room (she was only too glad to), and the girls could sleep together; then the mother and daughters would have sole charge of the nursing of this most eligible young man.

What might not be accomplished by such a matron and such dear girls under such exceptional circ.u.mstances? Indeed, Frazier was given to understand that he must do it, for if Barclay was allowed to return to his own quarters right next door to the Winns'--and Mr. Winn away--who could say what couldn't be said?--what wouldn't be said? "Everybody knew that Laura Winn had been doing her best," said Mrs. Frazier, "to reset her nets and lure her whilom lover within the meshes," and this would give her opportunities immeasurable. Frazier had a sleepless night of it. He could not combat his wife's theories, though he would not admit the truth of all she a.s.serted. "But," said he, "everybody will see through the scheme at a glance."

"I don't care if they do. I don't care what they say," said his energetic and strategic spouse. "The end justifies the means. Something must be done for the girls you've buried out here in this wilderness.

As for Laura Winn, better a sneer at my precautions than a scandal for lack of them."

But Frazier remonstrated: "Barclay isn't the man to get mixed up in a scandal," said he.

"But Laura Winn wouldn't flinch at it," said she, "and it's the way the woman acts--not the man--that sets people talking;" wherein was Mrs.

Frazier schooled beyond the sphere in which she moved. At her bidding, Frazier sent for young Brayton, who had marched back with the detachment not sent in chase, told him of Mrs. Frazier's benevolent plans for his captain's comfort, and suggested that such of Barclay's things as he might need be sent over beforehand,--"so as to have everything ready, you know."

The youngster looked embarra.s.sed, said he would attend to it, but immediately sought Major Brooks, who was doing a good deal of resting at the time. "What am I to say to Colonel Frazier, sir?" he asked. "The colonel tells me Mrs. Frazier has a room all ready for Captain Barclay and wishes me to send over a lot of things, and I have a message from the captain saying he will probably arrive day after to-morrow and to have his room ready; and, he adds, in case any one plans to put him elsewhere, to decline in his name."

"Oh, wise young judge!" growled Brooks to himself. Every day was adding to his respect for Galahad.

"I can't decline the commanding officer's invitation, can I, sir?" asked Brayton, in conclusion.

"No, you can't with safety," said the major, "but I'll speak to Collabone---- No," he added, abruptly, as he reflected that Mrs. Frazier might eventually hear of it, Collabone being a man who knew no guile and told everybody anything he knew. "No. You tell Collabone what the captain wishes, and let him fix it." And so between the three it was arranged, through the couriers at that time going back and forth every day, that Barclay should be notified of the honor in store for him. And notified he was, and gravely pa.s.sed the letter over to aesculapius Junior.

"Help me out of this, doctor, in some way," he said. "I wish to be n.o.body's guest." And so, when old Frazier did actually mount a horse and, with Amanda in a stylish habit beaming at his side, did actually ride forth--the first time he'd been in saddle in a year--and meet Barclay's ambulance full a thousand yards out from the post, and bade him thrice welcome to the room they had prepared for him, Barclay beamed back his thanks and appreciations, and bade the colonel believe he would never forget his kindness and Mrs. Frazier's, but that he had every possible comfort awaiting him at his own quarters, and could never consent to incommoding Mrs. Frazier or the young ladies. Indeed, the doctor had made other and very different plans for him,--as indeed the doctor had. And Frazier rode back vaguely relieved, yet crestfallen. He knew Barclay and the doctor were right. He knew he himself shrank from such throwing of his daughters at a fellow's head; and then he quailed at the thought of Mrs. Frazier's upbraidings, for she, honest woman, felt it a mother's duty to provide for her precious lambs, the more so because their father was so culpably indifferent, if not shamefully negligent.

A balked and angered woman was Mrs. Frazier at the captain's politely veiled refusal to come and be nursed and captured under her roof.

Tartaric acid tinged the smiles of her innocent children the next few days, and if ever there was a time when it behooved Laura Winn to be on her guard and behave with the utmost reserve as regarded her next-door neighbor, it was here and now. She could have read the danger signal in the Fraziers' greeting at parade that very evening, as, most becomingly attired, she strolled languidly down the line at the side of aesculapius Junior, who, after seeing his patient comfortably stowed in bed, came forth to find her on the piazza, full of sympathetic interest and eager to know what she could do or make or have made in the way of appetizing dainties for the sufferer. Nor did she let him free until he found refuge in the midst of the deeply interested group in front of the colonel's quarters.

This was Tuesday evening, and only Brooks, Blythe, and Brayton were permitted to intrude upon the invalid after the long hours' trundle over the prairie roads. On the morrow the paymaster was to take his ambulance, escort, and emptied safe on the back track to Crockett's, and Barclay was to be allowed to see Mrs. Blythe; but, for the night, rest and quiet were enjoined. In answer to his queries, he was told that the latest news reported Mullane, Winn, and Bralligan scouring the Apache range, while Captain Haight, with forty men, was patrolling towards the Bravo. The post was flush with money. Fuller's bar was doing a rousing business, and Lieutenant Trott, guarding the stores turned over by Winn, was wondering when and in what shape the money value of the stores not turned over was to be paid to him, for the time was past, Winn was far, far away, no package of money had come for him, and Mrs. Winn calmly said it was no affair of hers and she had no knowledge when or by what hand it would be forthcoming. It was conceded at Worth that, in view of the danger in which her husband stood, both afield and at home, more anxiety and less adornment would better have become the lady, as she outshone all other women present when the line of infantry officers broke ranks at dismissal of parade.

CHAPTER XIV.

A week rolled by, a week little Jim Lawrence and other small boys long remembered for the good things they had to eat and drink; and now Galahad was sitting up again at his quarters, doing very well, said both doctors, so well that he could be out on the shaded piazza in a reclining chair, said Brayton,--but wouldn't, said Blythe,--and for good reasons, said the Fraziers feminine, "because then there'd be no dodging Laura Winn, if, indeed, he has succeeded thus far." True, he had not ventured outside his doors, and no one had seen her venture within them.

True, Mrs. Frazier, Mrs. Blythe, and other motherly women had been to visit him,--Mrs. Frazier frequently,--and Mrs. Winn had been most particular in her daily inquiries,--"most persistent," said the Frazier girls. Those were days in which milk was a luxury in far-away Texas, but the delicate custards, whips, creams, and what the colonel's Hibernian orderly described as "floating Irelands," which that messenger bore with Mrs. Frazier's love, or Miss Frazier's compliments, or Miss 'Manda Frazier's regards and hopes that the captain was better this morning, could be numbered only by the pa.s.sing days. What Mrs. Frazier was prepared to see or hear of was similar attention on the part of Mrs.

Winn; but Mrs. Winn's attentions took a form more difficult to see, and, even in a frontier, old-time garrison, to hear of.

What Mrs. Frazier was not prepared to see was Mrs. Blythe in frequent confidential chat with the officer whom the colonel's wife chose to consider her own invalid. She had always fancied Mrs. Blythe before, but now she met her with that indescribable tone suggestive of unmerited yet meekly, womanfully borne injury, which is so superior to either explanation or resentment. Mrs. Winn was frequently on her piazza chatting with Mr. Brayton or Dr. "Funnybone," as the wits of the post had designated Collabone's right bower, "who has more brains in one head," said Collabone, "than the mess has in ten;" but she greeted Mrs.

Frazier with an austere and distant dignity even more p.r.o.nounced than Mrs. Frazier's manner to Mrs. Blythe, which plainly showed that Laura had not "been raised in the army for nothing," and that she had a will and temper and pluck that would brook no airs and tolerate no aspersions on Mrs. Frazier's part. Aspersions there had been, for her friend Mrs.

Faulkner had not failed in that sisterly duty which so many women so reluctantly yet faithfully perform, and everything Mrs. and the Misses Frazier had even hinted, and some things they even hadn't, were duly conveyed to Laura's ears. She was angered at the Fraziers for daring to say such things, at Mrs. Faulkner for daring to repeat them, and at Barclay for daring to keep her beyond the possibility of their being true. Never before had she known what it was to strive for a look or word of admiration and to meet utter indifference. Yet those blue eyes of Barclay's had once fairly burned with pa.s.sionate delight in her girlish beauty, and his words had trembled with their weight of love for her. No other woman, she believed, had yet come into his life and banished all memory of her; and, now that her beauty was but the riper for her years, she rebelled in her soul against the whisper that it could no longer move him.

Wedded though she was to Harry Winn, loving him after the fashion of her shallow nature so long as there was no man at the post from whom she sought to exact homage, she had time and again within the year felt towards her husband a sense of injury. What business had he had to woo her if he was so poor? What right had he to subject her to the annoyance of dunning letters, of suggestive inquiries on the part of her neighbors? Why should she submit to parsimonious skimping and cheese-paring, to living with only one servant when several other women had two, to all the little shifts and meannesses poor Harry had declared to be necessary? It was his business to provide for her needs. Her father had always supported her in style; why couldn't Harry do the same? True, she knew when she married him he had nothing but his pay. He told her everything, but she had never taken thought for the morrow, though she had taken perhaps too much thought of what she should wear or eat or drink. Laura loved the good things of this life, and had been freely indulged throughout her petted girlhood; and now, in the days when every woman seemed turning against her, purse, cellar, and larder were empty and her husband gone on a stupid foray to the mountains. None could say when he would return, or what new sorrow would meet him then.

Other men managed to earn money or make money somehow outside their pay.

Why should she, whose tastes, she said, were so much more refined, be mated with one who could only spend?

There is a time when many a homely face becomes radiant with a beauty too deep for sallow skin or heavy features to hide, and when a really winsome face becomes well-nigh angelic; but, even as Laura Winn bent over her sleeping child or nestled the unconscious little one in her bosom, the sullen fire of discontent, thwarted ambition, and wounded self-love smouldered in her deep, slumberous eyes. There were hours now when Baby Winn was left to the scant care of the household nurse, while the mother took the air upon the piazza during the day or flitted about from parlor to parlor along the row at night. She was restless, nervous, as all could see. She frequently a.s.sailed Brayton with queries for news, always decorously asking first if couriers had come or were expected from the command afield, yet speedily coming back to the real object of her constant thoughts, the now much honored officer, her next-door neighbor. For three days after he was p.r.o.nounced able to sit up she did not succeed in seeing him at all, though so many other and, it should be explained, much older women did; but that did not abate one whit her determination that he should speedily see her.

Just what her object was she herself could not have told. It was an instinct, an impulse, a whim, perhaps; but he who had been her lover and was rejected had dared to gaze into her face with eyes serene and untroubled, had met her but half-veiled references to old days with polite but positive indifference. She had nothing to ask of him, she told herself; she meant no disloyalty to Harry, no wrong of any kind.

Not a bit of it! She had treated Barclay very badly. She had done him a wrong that was much greater in her own estimation than it was in that of any one of her neighbors, among whom the women, at least, considered the loss of his inamorata a blessing in disguise; but Laura fully believed that Barclay's heart must have been crushed in the depth of his woe, and that it was now her duty to make friends again,--perhaps in some way to console him; not, of course, in any way to which Harry could object, not, of course, in any way to which the post ought to object, but--well, even to herself, as has been said, she could not entirely and satisfactorily explain her motives; it was impossible, therefore, that she could hope to do so to anybody else; and yet she had dared to write to him. It was only a little note, and yet, with all its inconsistencies, it said so much:

"DEAR CAPTAIN BARCLAY,--I cannot tell you my distress at hearing of your again being severely wounded, especially at a time when I had hoped to have you meet and better know my husband, but now in his distressing absence I, who more than any woman at this post am anxious to show my sympathy and sorrow, am practically helpless. Do tell me if there is anything I can do,--though I am sure I can't see what is left for me, with no cook or kitchen, and Mrs. Frazier and the Misses Frazier sending such loads of things. I really envy them and Mrs. Blythe the privilege of their years in going to see you personally, for am I not at least

"Your oldest friend, "L. W."

This ingenuous note was sent by Hannibal at an hour when the captain was alone, and when, had he been disposed, he might have hobbled to the door and answered in person; but hobble he did not, nor did he answer until after long thought. He received the little missive with surprise, read it without a tremor of hand or lip, but with something of shame and pity that overspread his face like a cloud. Was he only just beginning to know her, after all?

"Pray do not give my scratch a thought," he answered, in writing, late that afternoon, "and believe, my dear Mrs. Winn, that I have every comfort that one can possibly desire. Every one is most kind. I expect to be out with my men in a week, and shall be delighted to take the field and send Mr. Winn back to you forthwith.

"Most sincerely."

And that was how, with polite but positive indifference, he had treated her reference to old times and old friends. Shallow as she was, Laura Winn was deep enough to see that he meant to hold himself far aloof from her. He could hardly have told her more plainly he would have none of her. He had even dared to say it would be a pleasure to go, that he might send her husband back to her arms. And this was the man she once thought she loved, the man who, she believed, adored her and would never outlive the pa.s.sion of his sorrow at losing her!

Even now the foolish heart of the woman might have accepted its lesson; but it was time for friends again to come, and, as Laura expressed it, "pry and prod and preach," and that brought on a climax.

Mrs. Faulkner had dropped in and dropped out again, and Laura, who seemed forever going to the porch these days, followed and called her back.

"One thing you said I don't understand," she began, and Mrs. Faulkner's pretty face showed plainly there had been something of a storm.

"I said this, Laura," her friend responded, permitting her to go no further, but turning at the step and looking up into her indignant eyes.

"You do yourself injury by showing such concern about Captain Barclay.

Everybody says so, and it's all wasted as far as he's concerned. He never notices your messages in any way."