The General thought for a moment.

"How soon could you go?"

"First train, sir."

It was then too late for the single pa.s.senger express that daily went clanking over the prairies toward Cheyenne. But that afternoon was held a long conference at department headquarters, which caused some wonderment among the officers not included, Stone especially, and there were many eyes on Loring's grave face as he finally came forth from the General's room, and without a word of explanation went straight to his own.

"Wonder what _he's_ been doing," said a man from the garrison, who had happened in in search of news.

Stone shrugged his shoulders, offered no explanation, but looked volumes. An aide-de-camp should never reveal what he knows of other officers' affairs--much less that he knows nothing.

The night came on, warm and stifling almost as the day. The window of Loring's room opened on the crude wooden gallery that ran the length of the hotel, and he kept it open from the bottom for such air as could be obtained. A note lay on the mantel shelf when he returned from the office late in the afternoon. This he had taken downstairs, inclosed it, unopened, in one of the coa.r.s.e hotel envelopes, addressed and sent it by a messenger to Mrs. Burton's. At ten o'clock at night, in his shirt sleeves, he was packing a valise, when at the open window, on the gallery without, there appeared suddenly a slender, graceful, girlish form; a fair face gazed appealingly, imploringly in, and a soft voice p.r.o.nounced his name.

Starting up, he stepped quickly toward the apparition. One instant the lovely face lighted with hope, joy, triumph, then changed to sudden wrath before the shade, pulled vehemently down, shut it from sight.

Even as she stood there, baffled, "a woman scorned" in the presence and hearing of another, who nevertheless stepped quickly forward to express her opinion of such heartless, soulless conduct despite the interposing shade, there came a sharp, imperative rap on Loring's door, and the summons "Wanted at headquarters at once, sir!"

And, weeping as though bereaved and forsaken, the younger woman threw herself upon the broad and sympathizing bosom of the elder.

"There, there, poor darling! Don't cry. Wait till Mr. Lambert and the General hear how he has treated you," said Mrs. Burton, "and we'll see what'll happen."

CHAPTER XXI.

The day of perturbation had been succeeded by a night of worry at department headquarters. Dispatches full of grave import were coming in from Gate City and Cheyenne. Old John Folsom, long time a trader among the Sioux, and known and trusted by the whole tribe, had given warning weeks before that serious consequences would attend the effort to build another post along the Big Horn. Red Cloud and his hosts of warriors had sworn to sweep it from the face of the earth and every man of its garrison with it. All this had been reported by the General to his superiors at Washington, and all this had been derided by the Indian Bureau. Against the judgment, against the counsel of the department commander, the work went on. A large force of laborers hired by Major Burleigh at Gate City early in the spring had been sent to Warrior Gap under strong escort, and the unseasoned timber and fresh-cut logs were being rapidly dovetailed and mortised, and long wagon trains laden with stores and supplies, purchased by Major Burleigh's agents, were pushing out across the Platte.

"Indians, indeed!" said that experienced officer disdainfully. "They do not presume to interfere!" and long since the whisper had been going the rounds that Major Burleigh's interest in the construction of that new post, involving an expense of some hundreds of thousands of dollars, was something more than official. In vain John Folsom and veteran officers of the fighting force had pointed out that Indians never do interfere when they see huge trains of provisions and supplies coming just where they want them. Orders were orders, and the building went on. John Folsom said that any day the news might come that Red Cloud and his braves had ma.s.sacred every man and carried off every woman in the new cantonment. Wives and children were there, secure, as they believed, behind the stout hearts and far and fast-shooting new breechloaders, trustful, too, of the Indians whom they had often fed and welcomed at their doors in the larger and less exposed garrison.

"Two of our companies can stand off a thousand Sioux," said one gallant officer, who based his confident report on the fact that with fifty of the new breechloaders, behind a log breastwork, he had whipped a horde of mountain braves armed only with lance and bow and old "smooth-bores"

or squirrel rifles.

"We came down through the whole tribe," said Burleigh, with swelling breast. "I had only a small troop of cavalry, and Red Cloud never so much as raised a yelp. He knew who was running that outfit and didn't care to try conclusions."

It all sounded very fine among the barrooms and over the poker-table at Gate City, where Burleigh was a patron and an oracle, but in distant camps along the Platte and Powder rivers, and among troopers and linesmen nearer home there were odd glances, and nudging elbows whenever Burleigh's boastings were repeated. Even as far as department headquarters the story was being told that the mere report of "Big band of Sioux ahead" sent in by the advance guard, a report that brought Loring and Stone leaping nimbly out of the ambulance, rifle in hand and ready for business, sent Burleigh under the seat and left him there quaking.

"Get your men down from the Big Horn," was John Folsom's urgent advice to the department commander. "Get your men up there," was the order from Washington, and no wonder the General was troubled. Then in the midst of it all began to come these rumors affecting Burleigh's integrity; then the determination to send Loring to look after this new boon companion with whom Burleigh was consorting; then a dispatch from old Colonel Stevens, "Old Pecksniff," as the irreverent youngsters called him, the commander at Fort Emory on the outskirts of Gate City, telling of a tremendous storm that had swept the Laramie plains and the range of the Medicine Bow and Rattlesnake Hills, just after Lieutenant Dean had been sent forth with a small party of troopers to push through to Warrior Gap with a big sum of money, ten thousand dollars in cash, for the payment of contractors and their men at the new post, and, what was of thrilling import, there had been a deep laid scheme to head him off, ambuscade him and get that money. Hank Birdsall and his gang, forty of the worst toughs on the Western frontier, had "got the tip" from some one in the secret in Gate City, and no one outside of the post commander himself and one of Burleigh's confidential clerks, had the faintest inkling of the transaction. Nothing but that storm could have defeated their purpose. Several of the outlaws and many of their horses were drowned, and one of the gang, rescued at the last minute by the mail carrier to Frayne--rescued just in time to save his life, had gasped his confession of the plot. Birdsall and his people were now scattering over the territory, but "Old Pecksniff" felt that matters so serious demanded full report to the department commander, and this full report had reached Omaha the very night that Loring got his orders to leave.

Hastening to the office in compliance with the imperative summons, his heart beating heavily despite his calm of manner, his thoughts reverting to that well-known face and the appealing voice at his window despite his utmost effort to forget them, Loring found the General with his chief-of-staff and Captain Stone busy over telegrams and dispatches. One of these the General handed to the Engineer. Then, as the latter read, the veteran of three wars arose from his chair, took the young soldier by the arm and led him aside, a proceding that caused Captain Stone to glance up from the telegram he was swiftly copying, and to follow with angering eyes, until suddenly aware that the adjutant-general was observing him, then his pen renewed its scratching. It was not good that a newcomer, a young lieutenant, should be preferred to him, and it was too evident that between the General and the Engineer was a bond of some kind the aid could not explain.

"Do you understand this?" asked the General, as he pointed to the letter in Loring's hand.

It was brief enough. It was written by a clerk in Burleigh's office to a fellow-clerk in that of the chief quartermaster at Omaha, and the latter had felt it his duty, he said, to inform his immediate superior, who in turn had laid it before the chief-of-staff. It read as follows:

"The old man's rattled as I never saw him before, and G.o.d only knows what's amiss. Two young lieutenants came in and thrashed him right before the whole of us, called him a liar, and all that. His friend Newhall, that pulled him through the yellow fever, he says, was there at the time drunk, and actually congratulated them, and though Burleigh raved and swore and wrote no end of dispatches to be sent to Omaha demanding court-martial for Lieutenant Dean, devil a one of them was ever really sent. Not only that, but Burleigh was threatened and abused by Newhall, and had to buy him off with a roll of greenbacks--and I saw it. Who's Newhall, anyhow, and what hold has he on Burleigh? Nursing him through yellow fever don't go. Newhall's gone, however, either over to Cheyenne or out on the Cache la Poudre. There's something rotten in Denmark, and I want to get out of this."

Loring read it carefully through twice, the General keenly studying his face the while.

"I have determined to go to Gate City myself, even though time can ill be spared, Loring," said he. "There is urgent need of my presence at Laramie. Possibly I may have to go to Frayne, and shall need you with me, but meantime this thing must be explained. Everything seems to point to Burleigh's being in some unusual trouble. Everything indicates that this Captain Newhall, who was one of his chums in New Orleans, has some heavy hold on him, a gambling debt, perhaps, or knowledge of cotton transactions during the war. I cannot but feel that you know something of the man. Tell me, did you meet that fellow when he was here?"

Loring stood looking gravely, straight into the face of his superior.

Swiftly his thoughts sped back to that soft, warm evening when he and the rector slowly ascended the gentle grade toward Mrs. Burton's homestead, and there was unfolded before his eyes that picture he was destined never to forget, the lovely tints of the clear northern sky, the broad valley of the great river, with its bounding bluffs and hillocks, hued by the dying day, the dark forms, slender and graceful both, coming nearer and nearer, until in startled recognition of one at least, he halted in dumb amaze, and therefore caught but flitting glimpse of the other as it whisked jauntily away. He had his suspicions, strong and acute, yet with nothing tangible as yet on which to base them, and if he breathed them, what would be the result? The girl whose ident.i.ty he had promised not to betray "until sister Naomi could be heard from," would beyond all question be called to account. To his very door had she come within forty-eight hours of that strange evening, which the rector's prattle had made public property, begged a minute's interview without giving any name, and stepping down into the plainly furnished little western parlor, there in the dim light of a single kerosene burner, Walter Loring had come face to face with his old love--Geraldine.

Mindful of all the harm she had done him in San Francisco, rather than of what had pa.s.sed before, he met her in stern silence. On his generosity, his magnanimity she threw herself. She had deceived and wronged him in ever engaging herself to him, she said, and would have gone on to say more. "That is all past and done with," he coldly interposed. "What is it now?" And then it transpired that good Mr.

Lambert had been the means of securing for Naomi an excellent position, that Naomi had gone to enter on her duties and had sent for her sister to come and live at Mrs. Burton's until she could better provide for her, that Naomi was living under an a.s.sumed name, and that she prayed that no one might know their unhappy past. The interview was cut short by the curiosity of some member of the household who came in ostensibly to trim the lamp.

"It shall be as you wish until you hear from your sister," said Loring, bowing her out with punctilious civility and praying in secret that there it might end, but end it did not. Within another forty-eight hours she was there with another quest. The servant who announced her presence in the parlor below did so with a confidential and impertinent grin.

"The same lady wants to see Lieutenant Loring," and this time he was colder and sterner than before. Her evident purpose was to revert to the relations that once existed, though her plea was only for news from California. Had nothing ever been heard of the missing jewels? she asked. Their need was so great. She had most excellent prospects of an engagement in Boston if she could only have six months instruction under Signor Calabresi, but his terms were so high and she would have to live in New York, and people kept writing her that she and Naomi really ought to make some effort to recover the value of that property, and she had come, friendless as she was, to ask if he thought a suit against the steamship company would result in their getting anything. Captain Pet--a gentleman, that is, who had been most kind in San Francisco, had promised to do something, but now that the General was dead what could he do? There was no doubting the ident.i.ty or intentions of that gentleman, thought Loring as he gravely replied that they would only be defeated in any such attempt. Then with swimming eyes she had bemoaned her past, her fatal errors, her greed for wealth and position that had led her to stifle her own heart throbs and deceive the one true friend she had ever known, and Loring broke short the conversation by leaving the room. Then she came again, alone, and he refused to see her. Then she came with Mrs. Burton, and the house was in a t.i.tter, and he broke up his establishment and moved back to the hotel, to the scandal of his landlord, as has been said, who made loud complaint to the powers at headquarters. Then she wrote that she was being followed and persecuted by a man she never knew before, the man who was with her the night Mr.

Lambert said they met them in front of Mrs. Burton's, a dreadful man who said that he believed that she loved Lieutenant Loring and made threats against him. She implored Loring's protection, and Loring saw through the flimsy device and returned the letter unanswered, and later letters unopened, and then the woman seemed to take fire, and in turn she threatened him.

And now she had brought Mrs. Burton to witness his cruelty to her, the meek, suffering girl to whom he was pledged and plighted, who she had followed to Omaha in hopes of softening his heart and winning back his wayward love, as was the burden of her sorrowing song to that most sympathetic of women, already burning with prejudice and fancied wrong of her own. One "woman scorned" is more than enough for many a reputation. Two, in double harness, would wreck that of Saint Anthony.

All this and more had sped through Loring's mind that night and was uppermost in his thoughts as he stood there facing his patient commander. The General's fine, clear-cut features clouded with anxiety as he noted the long silence and hesitation. Again he spoke, with grave, yet gentle reproof in his tone.

"Surely, Loring, if you know of the fellow, it is our right to know."

"I realize it, sir. But I can do better than tell a mere suspicion. Give me authority to act and I'll land that man in jail and lay his whole story on your desk."

"Then go and do it!" said the chief.

CHAPTER XXII.

Another week and all Wyoming was awake and thrilling. There had been dreadful doings on the Big Horn, and John Folsom's prophecy had come true. Enticing one detachment after another out from the stockade at Warrior Gap by show of scattered bands of braves, that head devil of the Ogallallas, Red Cloud, had gradually surrounded three companies with ten times their force of fighting men and slaughtered every soldier of the lot. There had been excitement at Gate City during a brief visit of the General and his aid inspecting the affairs of Major Burleigh, who, confined to his bed by nervous prostration, and forbidden by his doctor to see anybody, had nevertheless sent his keys and books and bank account, and to the mystification of the chief, more money was found in the big office safe at the depot quartermaster's than was necessary to cover his accountability. The General and his inspector were fairly puzzled. They personally questioned the bank cashier and the quartermaster's clerks. They ransacked that safe and pored over the books, both there and at the bank. The only queer thing discovered was that a large sum of money, five thousand dollars or so, had been withdrawn from the bank in cash one day and within the week replaced.

Then the General had to turn back to Cheyenne and hasten thence to the forts along the Platte, to expedite the sending of his soldiers to the relief of the beleaguered posts along the Big Horn, the tidings of the ma.s.sacre reaching Gate City and plunging Fort Emory in mourning only a few hours after his departure.

Then came still another excitement at Gate City. Major Burleigh had suddenly become endowed with new youth and energy. He who was declared by his physicians to be in a critical condition, one demanding the utmost quiet, he who could not even see the department commander, and of whom the doctor had said it might be weeks before he was again fit for duty, had sprung from his bed, dictated certain letters, wired important news to the chief quartermaster at Omaha, demanded of the railway authorities an engine and caboose to bear him over the newly-completed mountain division to Cheyenne, had taken every cent from his private safe, had entered his office at an early hour, satchel and safe key in hand, was confounded by the sight of two clerks there smoking forbidden pipes, and turning, without a word, had fled. One of these was the young man who so recently had written to a confidant in Omaha, telling of Burleigh's queer doings and his own desire to get from underneath.

It transpired later that Burleigh went back to the bank, presented a check for the balance to his credit and demanded currency, but the cashier had become alarmed by the investigations made by the General and had temporized--said he must consult the president, and asked the major to call two hours later, whereat Burleigh had taken alarm. He was looking ghastly, said the cashier. It was apparent to every one that mentally, bodily, or both, the lately debonair and successful man of the world had "lost his grip."

And before even the swift-running engine could have landed the fugitive in Cheyenne, the truth was known. The package purporting to contain ten thousand dollars in currency for the payment of the workmen at Warrior Gap, sealed in Burleigh's office and sent at incredible risk by the hands of a young cavalry officer, with only ten troopers through the Indian lines, borne intact to the commanding officer of the new post, though its gallant guardians had run the gauntlet at the cost of the blood of more than half their number, was found when opened to hold nothing but waste paper. Then indeed was explained Burleigh's insistence. Then indeed was apparent why he had not pressed his charges against the officer who had publicly horsewhipped him. Then indeed was explained why good old John Folsom had withdrawn so large a sum in cash from his bank and how Burleigh was enabled to replace what he himself had taken. Then did it begin to dawn on people where Hank Birdsall, "The Pirate of the Plains," as he had been alliteratively described, had got the "straight tip" which enabled him to instantly enlist the services of so many outlawed men in a desperate game. Gradually as the whole scheme became evident and the truth leaked out, Gate City woke up to a pitch of pious fury against its late popular and prominent "boomer"

and citizen. Gradually it dawned upon them that, in jealous hatred of the young soldier whom Folsom's lovely daughter seemed to favor, he had first sought to undermine him, then to ruin and finally to make way with, even while at the same time covering the tracks of his own criminality. It was Elinor Folsom's lover, Lieutenant Dean, who horsewhipped him for good and sufficient reasons. It was Elinor's father who bribed him with a big and sorely-needed loan to prefer no charges against the boy. It was Burleigh who almost immediately after this tremendous episode had secured the sending of Lieutenant Dean on a mission so fraught with peril that the chances were ten to one against his ever getting through alive. Who could have "posted" Birdsall but Burleigh? Who could say what the amount of his shortage really was? The key of the big safe was gone with him, and in that safe at the time of the general's visit were at least fifteen thousand dollars. "Old Pecksniff," commanding officer at Fort Emory, had wired to department headquarters. An expert safe-opener was ordered out from Chicago, and right in the midst of all the turmoil there suddenly appeared upon the scene a blue-eyed young man, with pale features, clear-cut and strong, a light brown mustache that shaded his mouth, and, though he wore no uniform, the rumor went round that this was Lieutenant Loring of the Engineers. Infantry and cavalry, commissaries and quartermasters, doctors and sutlers, the denizens of Gate City well knew as attachments of the army, but what the mischief was an Engineer? Loring put up at Gate City's new hotel, simply registering as from Omaha, but that he bore credentials and was a man of mark, Gate City learned from the fact that Colonel Stevens himself had met him on arrival and wished to take him out to the fort, and was ill-pleased when Mr. Loring explained that his business would be best performed in town. Gate City followed the young man with eager eyes, confident that Engineer must be the army name for detective. He studied the hotel register. He curiously examined all relics of the late lamented Newhall, who disappeared before Burleigh. He questioned the clerks at the corral, reconnoitered the neighborhood, asked what were their means of defense, turned inside out a worn yet shapely boot that had been the captain's, bade man after man to describe that worthy, and finally walked away from the depot, having picked up lots of information and imparted none. He spent some time at Folsom's that evening. He drove out to the fort in the afternoon, "and what do you think he wanted?" said Old Pecksniff, whose command had been cut down to one company and the band, "wanted me to post a strong guard over the quartermaster's depot, lest that d.a.m.ned marauding gang of Birdsall's should gallop in some night with Burleigh's safe key and get away with the funds. I asked him if those were the General's orders and he said no. I asked him if they were anybody's orders and he said no. I asked him if it was anybody's idea but his own and he said no, and then I told him, by gad, I hadn't men enough to guard the public property here at the post. The quartermaster's depot was responsible for most of them being away, let them take care of their own."

Gate City Hotel was alive with loungers that night waiting for the Engineer. At half-past nine he had come from the quartermaster's corral, and after a few minutes had gone away with Mr. Folsom, who drove up in his carriage. He was up at the old man's now, said the impatient ones, fooling away the time with the girls when he ought to be there answering their questions and appeasing their curiosity. The talk turned on the probable whereabouts of Burleigh and his "pals." So had the mighty fallen that the lately fawning admirers now spoke of the fugitive as a criminal. He couldn't follow the Union Pacific East; everybody knew him, and by this time officers were on the lookout for him all along the road. He had reached Cheyenne, that was known, and had driven away from there up the valley of Crow Creek with two companions. Loring himself had ascertained this in Cheyenne, but it was the sheriff who gave out the information. He was in hiding, declared the knowing ones, in some of the haunts of Birdsall's fellows east of Laramie City, a growing town of whose prowess at poker and keno Gate City was professionally aware and keenly jealous. He might hide there a day or two and then get out of the country by way of the Sweet.w.a.ter along the old stage route to Salt Lake or skip southward and make for Denver. Northward he dare not go. There were the army posts along the Platte; beyond them the armed hosts of Indians, far more to be dreaded than all the sheriffs' posses on the plains. Half-past ten came and still no Loring, and the round of drinks were getting monotonous. Judge Pardee, a bibulous and oracular limb of the law, had been chosen inquisitor-general, with powers to call for all the news that was stowed away in that secretive "knowledge-box" on the shoulders of the Engineer. Gate City had resolved and "'lowed" that a man reputed to know so much should be held up and compelled to part with at least a little. Jimmy Peters, the landlord's boy, scouting out to Folsom's, came back on the run, breathless from three-quarters of a mile of panting through that rare atmosphere, to say that he had just seen a couple of officers ride away to the fort, and old man Folsom with "the Engineer feller" were coming out the front gate. They'd be along in a few minutes. So in their eagerness some of the loungers strolled out in front and gazed westward up the long, broad, hard-beaten street on which, in many a spot, the bunch gra.s.s of the prairie still lingered. It was a lovely summer night, warm, starlit, but the baby moon had early sunk to rest, and the darkness was intense. Yet the first men to come forth could have sworn they saw two hors.e.m.e.n, dim and shadowy, go loping across the broad thoroughfare from north to south, at the first cross street. There was nothing remarkable in hors.e.m.e.n being abroad at that hour; horses were tethered now in front of the hotel. What _was_ strange was that they pa.s.sed within a mile of Peter's bar and didn't stop for a drink. Men who are capable of that neglect of opportunity and the attendant privilege of "setting em up" for all hands, could be nothing less than objects of suspicion. Two minutes later and somebody said, "Shut up!" a frontierism for "hush," and all ears were turned expectant.

No, there was no sound of brisk, springy footsteps on the elastic wooden walk. Already men had noted that quick, alert, soldierly gait of the new officer. But "shut up" was repeated when audible murmurs were made.

"There's more fellows a-horseback up yonder. Who in 'ell's out to-night?" queried the citizen with the keenest ears. "Jimmy, boy, run up there and scout--I'll give you a dime."

And Jimmy, nothing loath, was off, swift and noiseless as an arrow. It was time for Loring and "old man Folsom" to be getting there if they were coming, and the boy was athrill with excitement and interest.

Bending low, as he knew the Indians went on scout, springing along the plank walk he shot like a flitting specter up the street, stooping lower and glaring to left and right at the first crossing, but seeing n.o.body.

A noiseless run of a third of a mile brought him to a corner, where, looking southward by day, one could see the flagstaff and the big white gateway, and beyond it the main office of the quartermaster's corral.

Staff and gateway were invisible now, but beyond the latter gleamed two lights, each in a separate window of that office. Jimmy knew they never worked that late. Why should the curtains be up now? Why, indeed! It was a question that interested other prowlers beside himself, for, as he paused for breath, close at hand he heard the stamp of a horse's hoof, followed by a muttered curse, and evident jerk of the bit and jab with the spurs, for the tortured creature plunged and stamped in pain.