A Soldier's Trial: An Episode of the Canteen Crusade

For a while she waited irresolute, vaguely distressed, then, finally, returned to the upper floor and once again entered Sandy's room and gazed wistfully about her. All was darkness, but the faint flutter at the west window told her the light curtain was blowing outward, so she went thither, drew it in and fastened it, then stepped to the other opening to the south and looked out over the dark valley of the Minneconjou, the sharp ridge that spanned the far horizon, and the brilliant, spangled sky above. And while she gazed, she listened, hoping every minute to hear the sound of his coming, even though it was no longer the light, quick, springy step that before his wound was so like the step she so well remembered – his father's, in the old days of the – th. She was just turning away disappointed when far up at the west she heard the shrill cry, "Corporal of the guard, No. 4!" heard the prompt echo of No. 3, the more distant calls of 2 and 1, and, even before these last, had heard the swift footfalls of the summoned guardian taking the short cut across the parade. Two – three minutes she waited, listening for the explanation. Vaguely, dimly, she could make out the form of No. 3 standing at the edge of the sloping bluff, listening, apparently, like herself, for explanation of the call. None came. Then the sentry stepped swiftly along his post in the direction of the sound, as though something further had caught his eye or ear. Then he was lost to view, and still she waited. Then she heard a voice that was probably the sentry's, low and indistinct, yet like the challenge and the "Advance for recognition". Then, a moment later, a hurried footfall, almost at a run – a halting, uneven footfall, as though one leg was not doing its share, and that then surely meant Sandy, and Sandy would know all that had passed and would tell her. Yes, there he came, so vague, so shadowy, now that, had she not heard the sound, she would not have looked for the shadow. She saw the dark form dive quickly through the gate, then pause. Instead of coming further, Sandy had stopped and, leaning at the gate-post, was peering up along the fence line outside. How unlike Sandy that seemed! Why should her son seek shelter and then turn and look back from a safe covert along the path he came? Something urged her to softly call his name, but, with a moment's thought, she decided against that. She would go down, meet him, welcome him, see if there were not something he needed, see him to his room, kiss him again good-night; and so she took her candle to the lower floor, left it on the dining-room table, and finally reached the rear door, even as her son came slowly up the steps. At that instant began at the guard-house the call of half-past twelve.

CHAPTER XXI
LOVE'S LAST APPEAL

Going, as usual, next day to read an hour or so to the invalid major, still under injunctions not to tax his eyes, Miss Sanford became conscious of an undercurrent of something akin to sensation, something approximating unusual excitement. Both doctors had earlier been there, and Wallen came again. The hospital attendant seemed abnormally anxious and officious. Félicie, infelicitously named, if it was her name, fluttered upstairs and down, in and out of my lady's chamber, effusively greeting the neighbors who somewhat significantly began coming in with anxious inquiry, tender of sympathy, etc. "Couldn't help noticing the doctor had been over three times, so fearing the major might have had a turn for the worse," etc., etc., but it wasn't the man so much as his wife of whom they hoped for tidings. But Félicie could fence, and would not favor even the adroit with the desired information. Madame was still reposing herself. Madame would assuredly promenade at horse or in vehicle later. Madame adored the fresh, free air, and though Madame was desolate that, alas, her physicians, these medicines, adjured her that it was the most important she should at this time live hours in the air and sunshine, and she was forbidden the bliss of sharing her husband's confinement and alleviating his ennui, it was for his sake more than her own and for the sake of their cherished hope that she meekly yield to their mandates; and was it not a circumstance the most felicitous that the charming Mademoiselle should be so ever-ready to read to Monsieur the Commandant?

With all its graceful, polished pleasantries at the expense of the unmarried sister of thirty and upwards, the social world that professes to regard her matrimonial prospects as past praying for, and herself as oddly unattractive, is quick to take alarm when, apparently accepting their unflattering view, she likewise accepts duties denied, as a rule, to those who are attractive. The very girls who giggled behind "Aunt Priscilla's" back and pitied her undesired lot were promptly and properly aggrieved that she should prove to be so forward, so unmaidenly. Because the right man does not happen to come into a woman's life until so late, or because the wrong one happened in and won her fresh young heart all too early, it results that many a better, wiser, lovelier woman lives unmated to-day than many a woman married in her teens. Lucky is the man the Indian summer of whose life is blessed by the companionship of such. Minneconjou laughed at Priscilla so long as she read to the man in hospital or the bed-ridden dames in the married quarters; but it shied violently at her spending an hour or more each day in reading to Dwight, even though the attendant was never away, and Mrs. Ray, with her needlework, was often present. Was Minneconjou already consigning the present incumbent to outer darkness and thinking of prescribing another mate for Oswald Dwight?

Not only did Priscilla note the incessant flittings about the house, but presently she saw that Dwight's attention was wandering. From the adjoining room the muffled sound of voices, in petulant appeal or expostulation, was at times distinctly audible. Félicie wished Madame to do something, apparently, which Madame was determined not to do.

Félicie came once or twice with Madame's devoted love to ask if there was anything Monsieur desired or lacked, and to flash guarded malevolence at Priscilla. Félicie came again to say Madame was recalcitrant. She feared Monsieur had not rested well cette nuit, and she wished well to postpone her promenade, but the doctor he had prescribed and Monsieur he had desired that Madame neglect no opportunity to take the air, and would not Monsieur again conjure Madame? Madame was deaf to these the protestations of her most devoted. Dwight rose slowly from his reclining chair and, excusing himself to the patient reader, was gone but a moment or two, and Madame was ravishingly gowned and most becomingly hatted and veiled when, just for a moment, as the day's session was closing and the fair reader about departing, Madame rustled in to archly upbraid Monsieur for his cruelty in ordering her to take her drive when it was impossible for him to be at her side. "Ah, but next week – next week!" – this, doubtless, for the benefit of Priscilla – "we shall see!"

The phaeton was at the door and Priscilla walked silently, thoughtfully, homeward. Aunt Marion was at her desk, writing pages to the soldier-husband and father in the distant Philippines. The sweet face was looking grave and careworn. There were traces of tears, there were dark lines, about the soft blue eyes, as Priscilla bent and tenderly kissed her. "Do come down and let me make you a cup of tea," she pleaded. "You've been writing – and I reading – long. I'd like some, too. Is – is Sandy home?"

"Riding," said Aunt Marion briefly, and Priscilla knew.

Ordinarily, half a dozen women would come drifting in to Mrs. Ray's during the summer afternoon. To-day there were none. They heard voices on the walk, voices that seemed to hush as the gate was neared, and only to resume in low tone after it was passed. Priscilla could not account for the unusual depression that had seemed to possess Aunt Marion even when struggling against it herself. At breakfast time Aunt Marion had been unusually silent, unusually watchful of Sandy, who, before he would touch his fruit or sip his coffee, had gone forth to the bench in rear of quarters, searching, he said, for some memoranda he might have dropped out there at night. He had hunted all through the pockets of his khaki rig, that he happened to be wearing at that time, and to no purpose. He must have whipped it out with his handkerchief, he said – "just that little flat memorandum book" they had often seen him have, with a few loose pages – no earthly use to anybody but him, no great consequence, and yet, after breakfast, he was searching again, and had Hogan searching, and again he returned and hunted all through his room, and investigated cook and housemaid, and again went forth. Priscilla found herself unable to cast it from her mind or to cause her aunt to forget it. Sandy had been gone an hour when she returned, and had said not to wait dinner; he might ride late and long and far.

"But not toward the reservation," he assured his mother, seeing the trouble in her face. "Though I'd more than like to ride over there with the troop and round up those blackguard reds that turned me back."

"Those blackguard reds" were forbidden by their agent to set foot north of the Minneconjou, where the ranchers and settlers and miners were frequent. But still the mother was anxious, filled with dread she could not speak, and even as she now sat, absently toying with her teaspoon, the maid came in with a note. "A soldier friend of Blenke" had just brought it for Miss Sanford.

So Priscilla opened and read:

Miss Sanford will pardon, I pray, the liberty I probably take in presuming to address her, but our plea to the captain was fruitless. He insists on my going with the detachment to the wood camp; so, long before this reaches Miss Sanford we shall have started, and it may be days before relief will come. Meantime, with my assurance that with Heaven's help I shall yet redeem myself in her estimation, I remain Miss Sanford's grateful and humble servant,

 

P. Blenke.

Verily, the young man wrote with a pen of the courtier and scholar of olden time rather than the rude trooper. Verily, Blenke was a man of parts – and played them.

"Where is that wood camp?" asked Aunt Marion, with languid interest, relieved, she knew not why, that Blenke should be gone.

"Far up the foothills – west. It seems that lately the Indians have been threatening and abusive," said Priscilla. "That's why the guard was sent. They march soon after reveille, and – he was so unwilling to go just now, when he hoped to arrange matters about his – commission," and Miss Sanford's clear gray eyes, much finer and softer they seemed without the pince nez, were lifted again, half timidly, half hopefully.

"How could he expect or hope for such a thing now?" answered Mrs. Ray, with some asperity. "What officer would recommend him after that – that exhibition?"

Priscilla colored. That episode was a sore point, but not a settler. "He said it depended little on the officers, auntie," was the gently forceful answer, "so long as he had the senator behind him." Whereupon Aunt Marion arose and peered through the one window in the little dining-room that opened to the west. She was forever peering up the valley now, and Priscilla well knew why. The maid again appeared. "Phelps, ma'am, Blenke's friend, came back with this," and she held forth a letter. "He said it was found on sentry post up the bench."

Mrs. Ray turned quickly and held forth her hand. Silently Miss Sanford passed the letter to her. It was an ordinary missive, in business envelope, addressed to Lieutenant Sanford Ray, Fort Minneconjou, and it had been opened. The torn flap revealed the fact that there were two or three separate inclosures. For a moment Mrs. Ray turned it in her slender fingers, thinking intently, then, suddenly recollecting, told the maid to give her thanks to the soldier if he were still waiting. She wished to ask had anything else been found, but that, if he cared to, was for Sandy to do when he came. Then she took the letter to her room, and stowed it in a pigeonhole of her desk against her boy's return – then sat her down to wait.

Meanwhile the object of so much thought and love and care had ridden many a mile, his brain in a whirl of conflicting emotions. There had come to him the previous night, in the interval between that brief interview with Blenke and the later meeting with his mother, a messenger with a note. It was the same messenger, Butts, the soldier groom, who had only a short time earlier met him with her note upon the parade. Ray, fleeing from a possible meeting with Priscilla, had left her and her soldier protégé together, and slipping out of the rear gate had gone walking up the bluffs. It was not quite time for taps and the sentries to begin challenging. He could have gone through the yard of any one of the adjacent quarters and so reach the front, the promenade walk and the wide parade, but he wished to be alone, under the starry skies. He needed to think. What could she have meant by saying, "How they tricked me – how I lost you?" He had blamed her bitterly, savagely, for her cold-blooded, heartless jilting of him, without ever a word of explanation. It was so cruel, so abominable a thing that, perhaps, even Inez Farrell could not, without some excuse or reason, be guilty of it. And now she was striving to tell him, to make him understand; now she was alienated from her husband and not, so Dwight's own references to Foster would go to prove, not because of this affair with Captain Foster. She said it was her right to be heard. Perhaps it was. If she had been tricked, deceived, wronged – such things had happened – the story was old as the Deluge and might be true, and if true, was it decent to treat her with studied contempt? If she had been tricked into throwing him over – if, if she had been true in saying she loved him, as fervently she swore that last sweet night under the cherry blossoms in Japan, was it manly to – to crush and scorn her now?

He was again, with downcast eyes, slowly pacing the bluff and in rear of the major's quarters when, far over toward the guard-house, the soft, prolonged notes of "Lights out" were lifted on the night, and he almost collided with a man coming quickly forth from the gate. The rear door had closed with a bang but the moment before, and Félicie's voice, in subdued tone, had been faintly audible. The man proved to be the same who had come to him so short a time before, and the mission was practically the same, "A note for the lieutenant."

Ray took it to the west gate and read it under the lamp.

I ask for only five minutes, at the old place, about the same hour to-morrow. I will never ask again, for I am to leave Minneconjou – and him – forever.

Startled, stunned, he read her words. Was it then so very serious as this would imply? Was it her doing, or her husband's, that she should leave? Was it possible that he, Sandy Ray, was even remotely a cause? He could not fathom it. He would not rudely refuse. That would be simply brutal. But why could she not see him here at home on the veranda? Why must the meeting be so far from the post – so close to the – clandestine? Mother had said – Then suddenly he bethought him that mother wished to speak with him, that he had promised her to be home about taps, and, even though he could not, dare not, talk with her to-night, he could and should go to her at once.

He started; then, hearing laughing voices and light footsteps along the walk ahead of him, hesitated. Some of those teasing, tormenting garrison girls, of course! He could not face them. Abruptly he turned again, passed round in rear of Dwight's, stowing the note in a little notebook as he sped and the book in the breast pocket of his khaki tunic. Some backstair flirtation was going on in the dusk of the summer night, not ten paces ahead, for there was sound of playful Hibernian pleading, a laughing, half-repelling, half-inviting "Ah, g'wan now!" followed by a slap. A trim young trooper leaped backward from a gateway to avoid another shock – and met it on Ray's stout shoulder. The collision startled one and staggered both. The Irish lad, all confusion, sprang for his officer's hat and restored it with, "Beg a thousand pardons, Lieutenant," and blessed his young superior's kindly, "No harm done, Kelly," as, whipping out his handkerchief, Ray sped along, dusting off the felt.

And that harm had been done he never knew till later.

He had managed to put mother off until the following day; had gone forth a second time, as has been told; had passed a second time the gate where earlier in the evening she had awaited him. All at the moment was apparently quiet. He had almost reached home when the sound of harsh voices out beyond the east gate caught his ear – more poor devils coming or being dragged home from the hog ranch. Suddenly there came the sound of muffled curses and blows. Sandy wondered why No. 2 did not call the corporal. He hastened onward and out beyond the gate and came upon the explanation: no need to call the corporal when two were already there, with several of the guard, striving hard to lug peaceably to the prison room a sextette of soldier revelers who resented being either lugged or persuaded. The guard couldn't bear to hurt their fellows: who could say but that conditions and parties might be reversed within the week? The row subsided with the sight of Lieutenant Ray, but not until it had prevented his hearing the call for the corporal that came from No. 4. He found the front door bolted when he got back to the house, and, remembering having bolted it, passed round to the rear steps and then – met his mother at the door.

She had even more to ask him then, yet once more he pleaded: "Wait until to-morrow night." So wait she did, patiently, prayerfully, trustfully, until the morrow's night; and then, not so patiently, but, oh, even more prayerfully, longer, very much longer.

CHAPTER XXII
THE LOST FOUND

"At the usual place and about the usual hour" the pretty phaeton, with its fair charioteer and her black-browed companion, drew up that afternoon under such shade as the cottonwoods afforded and waited for the coming of a rider who, starting some time ahead, was now some time behind. Nor did he seem to hasten when finally he came suddenly into view at the mouth of that well-remembered ravine, and rode straight but slowly to the rendezvous. She, the charioteer, exquisitely gowned as we saw her parting from her invalid husband, watched him with dilating eyes, alighted as he neared the grove, walked a dozen yards or so to meet him and by his side as he led his mount to a point beyond earshot of the carriage. "You may trust that woman, Mrs. Dwight," said he, "but I do not. I have come at last and against my judgment to hear – "

"Mrs. Dwight!" she began, with pouting reproach. "Are we at the hop room, Sandy, or are we," – and the dark eyes slowly lifted, – "are we back again at Nagasaki?"

"We are never that!" was the quick reply, as he bent and knotted the reins about a sapling at the brink; then, suddenly facing her: "I said I should not meet you here again. I have come for this last time solely at your urging. Never until this week have I shrunk from my mother. Never after this day shall I do it again. You say I have wronged you – hurt you – inexpressibly, and you wish to tell me why. Go ahead!"

With that he pulled his hatbrim well down to his eyebrows, folded his arms, crossed one spurred heel over the tan-booted mate and leaned against a sturdy cottonwood. There was just a spice of the theatrical about it all, but he was young, sore-hearted and hurt. It left no support for her, unless she leaned on him, which nothing in his attitude seemed to invite. Inez had no use for folded arms. To her they should be either outstretched or enfolding.

"You are harsh and cold and bitter, Sandy. You make it so much harder for me to begin," she whimpered, pathetically, prettily, like a spoiled child sure of ultimate triumph. "Why did you never answer my letter from San Francisco?"

"I never got it."

"Then even that early he had begun to doubt me and to fear – you," and again the lovely eyes were making play. "And now he hates me, because he himself was a brute to his boy. He upbraids me for that, and – and for Mr. Foster."

"God! I should think he might!"

"Sandy, Sandy!" she cried, stepping impetuously a pace nearer. "Do you, too – do you dare think me so base – me, when at Naples I would not even let you stay – you whom I longed to speak with? Ah, how unjust! – how mean! how cruel! And now, when I am almost friendless, you who professed so much —you are the first to turn from me." Indeed, he was turning, and his face was growing very white again – his eyes were gazing anywhere but at her, and she saw it, and with both her firm little hands seized his left arm as though to turn him back. "Sandy, you shall hear me, for I'm desperate, starving, and that man, he – he tells me I lied to him; and I did, I did lie —for you! He talks to me of a – settlement – of sending me home. Why, I have no home! I have no father. My own was buried years ago. I have no mother, for she has no thought but for him – who has disgraced us all and robbed Major Dwight of thousands and dared to threaten me —me, because the major would not send more. Oh, you shall listen! It's for the last time, Sandy, and you shall know the truth! Oh, how can you so humiliate a woman who – who —Look at me, Sandy, look, oh, my soldier boy, and see for yourself! They robbed me of you, my heart's darling! They stole every letter. They never let me see you, and they – Oh, you think this the old worn-out story of the cruel parent and the suffering child, but I will convince you!" And now her hands quit their hold upon his arm and tore at the bosom of her dainty gown – tore it open to the filmy lace and ribbon underneath – tore off the driving glove from her right hand, hurling it to the ground, and then the slim, nervous little fingers went burrowing within. "You dare doubt I love you!" she cried, and now her eyes were ablaze, her rich, red lips were parted, her breath came panting through the pearly gate, her young bosom was heaving like a troubled sea. "I told you I had burned your letters – such as I had. They burned them for me, but they could not burn your picture —I did that – I, with my mad kisses, Sandy!" And from its warm nest she drew it, the very one he had given her in Manila, the brave, boyish face in its tiny frame of gold, moist and blurred as though indeed her lips, her tears, had worn it dim. "You will not look?" though one quick glance he shot, then, with the blood surging through his veins, he turned again and covered his eyes with his arm. "Then hear – this – and this," and long, passionately, repeatedly she kissed the senseless, unresponsive counterfeit, and then, letting it hang by its slender chain, once more seized his arm and burst into a passion of tears. Then suddenly, fiercely, she thrust him aside, turned, started swiftly away, took but four tottering steps and, finally, almost as she did the day of the drive, toppled headlong.

When Félicie thought it time to take another decorous look, Mr. Ray was kneeling by that fair, prostrate form, lifting the lovely head upon his knee, one arm about her neck, the other drawing her to his breast, and he was raining kiss after kiss upon the sweeping, long-lashed eyelids, upon the pallid cheek, upon the exquisite mouth, and presently a slender arm stole languidly about his neck and drew and held his lips to hers.

It was nearly five that evening when the pretty phaeton whirled homeward through the west gate. It was nearly nine when Lieutenant Ray came slowly up-hill from the stables and, climbing the short flight to the rear doorway, found his mother and Priscilla awaiting him in the dining-room. He had eaten nothing since a late breakfast, and an appetizing supper was in readiness. He looked very pale, very tired, and to the fond and anxious eyes uplifted hopefully at first, very ill – too ill, perhaps, to note how ill she looked, the loving and tender and faithful one, who long hours had been waiting, watching, listening for his step, praying for his safe return, hoping for the promised confidence. She knew when the phaeton came, though she said naught of it to her niece. Nearly a mile of the valley road could be seen from Sandy's window, where she hovered much of the time until the sun went down. Now she quickly rose and went to him, and with her soft hands on his temples kissed his forehead, for he bowed his head, and for the first time in his life his lips dared not even touch her cheek. "I – I'm about used up, mother," he faltered. "I – can I have some tea? Then I'll get a warm bath, please, and go to bed. Has – anyone been here for me – inquired for me?"

The sudden upward look, the anxiety in his tone, might well have warned her, but there was something she had to know, something that ever since evening gunfire had been preying on her mind. No. 4's story had spread by this time all over the post, growing, probably, with each repetition. There had been a tragic scene of some kind at Major Dwight's shortly after midnight. Jimmy had prepared her for that much. No. 4 had heard screams; then lights went flitting to and fro, and there was sound of scuffling and running about, and the guard had almost arrested someone who came dashing from the rear gate and was lost in the darkness and the yards below. No, nobody had come to ask for Sandy! It seemed strange that so very few of the officers had even passed that way. Everybody had business at the office, the Club, the barracks, the guard-house; even at Dwight's there had been a sort of impromptu conference, but nobody had been there to disturb them in any way – no officers, at least; but Sandy read the impending truth in his mother's eyes. She was talking nervously, with hardly a pause, as though she wished him to know all she knew before he could speak, and, even as Priscilla moved noiselessly about, brewing his tea and arranging his supper, Marion, the mother, talked rapidly, wretchedly on.

Yes, there was something. The notebook had been found and brought home. She would get it for him. It was right there in her desk. Priscilla handed it, and he almost snatched it from her, swiftly turning the leaves; then, seizing it by the back, shook it vehemently. A few scraps and clippings fluttered to the floor, but not the paper he needed.

"Who brought it? How did it come?" he demanded, a world of trouble, almost terror, in his eyes.

"Major Dwight's man," she answered, her blue eyes almost imploringly fixed upon his face.

"Dwight's man! But how, how, mother? Was there no word? Was it wrapped, or – ?"

"Just as you see it, Sandy. He merely said it had been picked up and left at the house. He brought it here when he heard it was yours."

The tea stood untasted before him. He had not even taken his seat. Pale to his lips, and with hands that trembled almost as did her own, Sandy stood facing his mother, and Priscilla stepped quietly from the room.

"Did he say who found it – and where?" he asked.

"He finally said it was – picked up at Major Dwight's," was her answer, and imploringly still the blue eyes searched his face, and for an instant lighted with hope.

"But I never set foot at Major Dwight's – I've never been inside his gates since I called there with you. The nearest I've been was the front gate, and then, this couldn't have been with me."

"Why, Sandy?"

"Because it was in the breast pocket of my khaki – the thing I wore when we said good-night; but it seemed to grow chilly – or I did. I changed to the blue coat before going out at twelve. Lucky, too, for I had to go out front and help with some poor devils brought in from Skid's. I saw your light when coming home over the parade and wondered if the row had kept you awake."

"You – came in the front way, Sandy?" And the blue eyes seemed to implore him to stop, to reflect, to remember.

"Why, certainly, mother. I was afraid you'd hear me trying the front door or hobbling round on the planks. What brought – Why, mother!"

With her heart almost stilled, with her hands on her breast, with a blanched face and stricken eyes, Marion slowly found her feet, then rested one hand upon the table before she could steady herself to speak:

"Sandy, think! Do you mean you were not —there when the sentry No. 4 called; that you did not come hurrying home and stop there – at the back gate?"

"Mother, dear, what can you mean? When I met you at the door I had just come round from the front, from over near the guard-house. The officer of the guard had his hands full and – Priscilla, quick!"

And Priscilla came at speed, and, after one swift look as they lifted the drooping form to a sofa, whispered: "The doctor! Run!"

And though running was beyond him, Sandy limped in frantic haste, for the mother's heart and health had seemed failing her for weeks, and this was most alarming. Even at ten o'clock she had not fully regained consciousness, but was mending, and by that time both doctors had come to her, and Mrs. Stone was at her bedside, while Priscilla, calm, grave and self-poised, was answering the many anxious, sorrowful inquiries, for no woman at Minneconjou was loved and honored more than Marion Ray, who, believing the evidence of her own senses sufficient to confirm an ever-growing, dreadful suspicion, had gone down under the blow.

There had been, as was said, some kind of conference during the late afternoon. The colonel, the post surgeon, two or three wise-heads among the field and senior line officers and that indispensable adjutant. There had come quite late an aide-de-camp of the department commander, who had been at Wister and at some investigation over at the Minneconjou agency, who had something to say concerning the state of mind in which he found Captain Foster, which was bad; the state of mind in which he found the redmen – which was worse; and finally the state of things on both sides of the stream at Minneconjou – which was worst of all. Foster's rancor against Ray was venomous as ever, and he claimed to have new evidence, the mention of which made both Stone and the surgeon look grave. The agent's worry as to his turbulent charges was doubled by new events, and he demanded immediate aid. The post guard reports and the ranch-keeper's defiance told all too vividly how the devil had triumphed at Minneconjou. The colonel, the chaplain, the commissioned force, were helpless against the Act of Congress that had taken away their best hold on the men and turned the men over to the enemy. The situation, so far as Skid and his saloon and satellites were concerned, was past praying for. But there were "some things, thank God," said Stone, in which he could still strike for the good name of his garrison. Foster's new evidence should be investigated, said he, and as for the agent, he should have his guard, and a strong one, forthwith.