They did not tell Field this at the time. The doctor went at once with the messenger, and in five minutes had taken in the situation. Field's rooms had been entered and probably robbed. There was only one other occupant of the desolate set that so recently had rung to the music of so many glad young voices. Of the garrison proper at Frayne all the cavalry officers except Wilkins were away at the front; all the infantry officers, five in number, were also up along the Big Horn. The four who had come with Flint were strangers to the post, but Herron, who had been a classmate of Ross at the Point, moved into his room and took the responsibility of introducing the contract doctor, who came with them, into the quarters at the front of the house on the second floor. These rooms had been left open and unlocked. There was nothing, said the lawful occupant, worth stealing, which was probably true; but Field had bolted, inside, the door of his sleeping room; locked the hall door of his living room and taken the key with him when he rode with Ray. The doctor looked over the rooms a moment; then sent for Wilkins, the post quartermaster, who came in a huff at being disturbed at lunch. Field had been rather particular about his belongings. His uniforms always hung on certain pegs in the plain wooden wardrobe. The drawers of his bureau were generally arranged like the clothes press of cadet days, as though for inspection, but now coats, blouses, dressingsack and smoking jacket hung with pockets turned inside out or flung about the bed and floor. Trousers had been treated with like contempt. The bureau looked like what sailors used to call a "hurrah's nest," and a writing desk, brass-bound and of solid make, that stood on a table by a front window, had been forcibly wrenched open, and its contents were tossed about the floor. A larger desk,—a wooden field desk—stood upon a trestle across the room, and this, too, had been ransacked. Just what was missing only one man could tell. Just how they entered was patent to all—through a glazed window between the bed-room and the now unused dining room beyond. Just who were the housebreakers no man present could say; but Mistress McGann that afternoon communicated her suspicion to her sore-headed spouse, and did it boldly and with the aid of a broomstick. "It's all along," she said, "av your shtoopin' to dhrink wid them low lived salvages at Hay's. Now, what d'ye know about this?"
But McGann swore piously he knew nothing "barrin' that Pete and Crapaud had some good liquor one night—dear knows when it was—an' I helped 'em dhrink your health,—an' when 'twas gone, and more was wanted, sure Pete said he'd taken a demijohn to the lieutenant's, with Mr. Hay's compliments, the day before he left for the front, and sure he couldn't have drunk all av it, and if the back dure was open Pete would inquire anyhow."
That was all Michael remembered or felt warranted in revealing, for stoutly he declared his and their innocence of having burglariously entered any premises, let alone the lieutenant's. "Sure they'd bite their own noses off fur him," said Mike, which impossible feat attested the full measure of halfbreed devotion. Mistress McGann decided to make further investigation before saying anything to anybody; but, before the dawn of another day, matters took such shape that fear of sorrowful consequences, involving even Michael, set a ban on her impulse to speak. Field, it seems, had been at last induced to sleep some hours that evening, and it was nearly twelve when he awoke and saw his desk on a table near the window. The attendant was nodding in an easy chair; and, just as the young officer determined to rouse him, Mrs. Dade, with the doctor, appeared on tiptoe at the doorway. For a few minutes they kept him interested in letters and reports concerning his father's condition, the gravity of which, however, was still withheld from him. Then there were reports from Tongue River, brought in by courier, that had to be told him. But after a while he would be no longer denied. He demanded to see his desk and his letters.
At a sign from the doctor, the attendant raised it from the table and bore it to the bed. "I found things in some confusion in your quarters, Field," said Waller, by way of preparation, "and I probably haven't arranged the letters as you would if you had had time. They were lying about loosely—"
But he got no further. Field had started up and was leaning on one elbow. The other arm was outstretched. "What do you mean?" he cried. "The desk hasn't been opened?"
Too evidently, however, it had been, and in an instant Field had pulled a brass pin that held in place a little drawer. It popped part way out, and with trembling hands he drew it forth—empty.
Before he could speak Mrs. Dade suddenly held up her hand in signal for silence, her face paling at the instant. There was a rush of slippered feet through the corridor, a hum of excited voices, and both Dr. Waller and the attendant darted for the door.
Outside, in the faint starlight, sound of commotion came from the direction of the guard-house,—of swift footfalls from far across the parade, of the vitreous jar of windows hastily raised. Two or three lights popped suddenly into view along the dark line of officers' quarters, and Waller's voice, with a ring of authority unusual to him, halted a running corporal of the guard.
"What is it?" demanded he.
"I don't know, sir," was the soldier's answer. "There was an awful scream from the end quarters—Captain Ray's, sir." Then on he went again.
And then came the crack, crack of a pistol.
* * *
CHAPTER XVIII
BURGLARY AT BLAKE'S
The doctor started at the heels of the corporal, but was distanced long before he reached the scene. The sergeant of the guard was hammering on the front door of Blake's quarters; but, before the summons was answered from within, Mrs. Ray, in long, loose wrapper, came hurrying forth from her own—the adjoining—hallway. Her face was white with dread. "It is I, Nannie. Let us in," she cried, and the door was opened by a terrified servant, as the doctor came panting up the steps. Together he and Mrs. Ray hurried in. "Robbers!" gasped the servant girl—"Gone—the back way!" and collapsed on the stairs. Sergeant and corporal both tore around to the west side and out of the rear gate. Not a sign of fugitives could they see, and, what was worse, not a sign of sentry. Number 5, of the third relief, should at that moment have been pacing the edge of the bluff in rear of the northernmost quarters, and yet might be around toward the flagstaff. "Find Number 5," were the sergeant's orders, and back he hurried to the house, not knowing what to expect. By that time others of the guard had got there and the officer-of-the-day was coming,—the clink of his sword could be heard down the road,—and more windows were uplifted and more voices were begging for information, and then came Mrs. Dade, breathless but calm.
Within doors she found the doctor ministering to a stout female who seemed to have gone off in an improvised swoon—Mrs. Blake's imported cook. Up the stairs, to her own room again, Mrs. Blake was being led by Marion Ray's encircling arm. Three women were speedily closeted there, for Mrs. Dade was like an elder sister to these two sworn friends, and, not until Mrs. Dade and they were ready, did that lady descend the stairs and communicate the facts to the excited gathering in the parlor, and they in turn to those on the porch in front. By this time Flint himself, with the poet quartermaster, was on hand, and all Fort Frayne seemed to rouse, and Mrs. Gregg had come with Mrs. Wilkins, and these two had relieved the doctor of the care of the cook, now talking volubly; and, partly through her revelations, but mainly through the more coherent statements of Mrs. Dade, were the facts made public. Margaret, the cook, had a room to herself on the ground floor adjoining her kitchen. Belle, the maid, had been given the second floor back, in order to be near to her young mistress. Bitzer, the Blakes' man-of-all-work,—like McGann, a discharged soldier,—slept in the basement at the back of the house, and there was he found, blinking, bewildered and only with difficulty aroused from stupor by a wrathful sergeant. The cook's story, in brief, was that she was awakened by Mrs. Blake's voice at her door and, thinking Belle was sick, she jumped up and found Mrs. Blake in her wrapper, asking was she, Margaret, up stairs a moment before. Then Mrs. Blake, with her candle, went into the dining room, and out jumped a man in his stocking feet from the captain's den across the hall, and knocke
d over Mrs. Blake and the light, and made for her, the cook; whereat she screamed and slammed her door in his face, and that was really all she knew about it.
But Mrs. Blake knew more. Awakened by some strange consciousness of stealthy movement about the house, she called Belle by name, thinking possibly the girl might be ill and seeking medicine. There was sound of more movement, but no reply. Mrs. Blake's girlhood had been spent on the frontier. She was a stranger to fear. She arose; struck a light and, seeing no one in her room or the guest chamber and hallway, hastened to the third room, and was surprised to find Belle apparently quietly sleeping. Then she decided to look about the house and, first, went down and roused the cook. As she was coming out of the dining room, a man leaped past her in the hall, hurling her to one side and dashing out the light. Her back was toward him, for he came from Gerald's own premises known as the den. In that den, directly opposite, was one of her revolvers, loaded. She found it, even in the darkness and, hurrying forth again, intending to chase the intruder and alarm the sentry at the rear, encountered either the same or a second man close to the back door, a man who sprang past her like a panther and darted down the steps at the back of the house, followed by two shots from her Smith & Wesson. One of these men wore a soldier's overcoat, for the cape, ripped from the collar seam, was left in her hands. Another soldier's overcoat was later found at the rear fence, but no boots, shoes or tracks thereof, yet both these men, judging from the sound, had been in stocking feet, or possibly rubbers, or perhaps—but that last suspicion she kept to herself, for Mrs. Hay, too, was now among the arrivals in the house, full of sympathy and genuine distress. The alarm, then, had gone beyond the guard-house, and the creators thereof beyond the ken of the guard, for not a sentry had seen or heard anything suspicious until after the shots; then Number 8, Flint's latest addition, declared that from his post at Hay's corral he had distinctly heard the swift hoofbeats of a brace of ponies darting up the level bench to the westward. Number 5 had turned up safely, and declared that at the moment the scream was heard he was round by the flagstaff, listening to the night chorus of a pack of yelping coyotes, afar out to the northwest, and then he thought he heard scrambling and running down at the foot of the bluff just as the shots were fired. Investigation on his part was what took him out of sight for the moment, and later investigation showed that one marauder, at least, had gone that way, for a capeless greatcoat was found close down by the shore, where some fugitive had tossed it in his flight. This overcoat bore, half erased from the soiled lining, the name of Culligan, Troop "K;" but Culligan had served out his time and taken his discharge a year before. The other overcoat was even older, an infantry coat, with shorter cape, bearing a company number "47," but no name. Both garments savored strongly of the stable.
Then, before quiet was restored, certain search was made about the quarters. It was found the intruders had obtained admission through the basement door at the back, which was never locked, for the sentry on Number 5 had orders to call Bitzer at 5:30 A. M., to start the fires, milk the cow, etc.,—Hogan, Ray's factotum, being roused about the same time. The marauders had gone up the narrow stairway into the kitchen, first lashing one end of a leather halter-strap about the knob of Bitzer's door and the other to the base of the big refrigerator,—a needless precaution, as it took sustained and determined effort, as many a sentry on Number 5 could testify, to rouse Bitzer from even a nap.
It was no trick for the prowlers to softly raise the trap door leading to the kitchen, and, once there, the rest of the house was practically open. Such a thing as burglary or sneak thieving about the officers' quarters had been unheard of at Frayne for many a year. One precaution the visitors had taken, that of unbolting the back door, so that retreat might not be barred in case they were discovered. Then they had gone swiftly and noiselessly about their work.
But what had they taken? The silver was upstairs, intact, under Mrs. Blake's bed; so was the little safe in which was kept her jewelry and their valuable papers. Books, bric-à-brac,—everything down stairs—seemed unmolested. No item was missing from its accustomed place. Mrs. Blake thought perhaps the intruders had not entered her room at all. In Gerald's den were "stacks," as he said, of relics, souvenirs, trophies of chase and war, but no one thing of the intrinsic value of fifty dollars. What could have been the object of their midnight search? was the question all Fort Frayne was asking as people dispersed and went home,—the doctor intimating it was high time that Mrs. Blake was permitted to seek repose. Not until he had practically cleared the house of all but her most intimate friends, Mrs. Dade and Mrs. Ray, would Waller permit himself to ask a question that had been uppermost in his mind ever since he heard her story.
"Mrs. Blake, someone has been ransacking Mr. Field's quarters for letters or papers. Now,—was there anything of that kind left by the captain that—someone may have needed?"
Nannie Blake's head was uplifted instantly from Marion's shoulder. She had been beginning to feel the reaction. For one moment the three women looked intently into each other's faces. Then up they started and trooped away into Gerald's den. The doctor followed. The upper drawer of a big, flat-topped desk stood wide open, and pretty Mrs. Blake opened her eyes and mouth in emulation as she briefly exclaimed—
"It's gone!"
Then Waller went forthwith to the quarters of the commander and caught him still in conference with his quartermaster and the guard, four or five of the latter being grouped without. The major retired to his front room, where, with Wilkins, he received the doctor.
"Major Flint," said Waller, "those overcoats belong to Mr. Hay's stablemen,—Pete and Crapaud. Will you order their immediate arrest?"
"I would, doctor," was the answer, "but they are not at the corral. We know how to account for the hoofbeats in the valley. Those scoundrels have got nearly an hour's start, and we've nobody to send in chase."
Then it presently appeared that the post commander desired to continue conference with his staff officer, for he failed to invite the post surgeon to be seated. Indeed, he looked up into the doctor's kindling eyes with odd mixture of impatience and embarrassment in his own, and the veteran practitioner felt the slight, flushed instantly, and, with much hauteur of manner, took prompt but ceremonious leave.
And when morning came and Fort Frayne awoke to another busy day, as if the excitements of the night gone by had not been enough for it, a new story went buzzing, with the first call for guard mount, about the garrison; and, bigger even than yesterday, the two details, in soldier silence, began to gather in front of the infantry quarters. Major Flint had ordered sentries posted at the trader's home, with directions that Mrs. Hay was not to be allowed outside her gate, and no one, man or woman, permitted to approach her from without except by express permission of the post commander. "General Harney" and "Dan," the two best horses of the trader's stable, despite the presence of the sentry at the front, had been abstracted sometime during the earlier hours of the night, and later traced to the ford at Stabber's old camp, and with Pete and Crapaud, doubtless, were gone.
That day the major wired to Omaha that he should be reinforced at once. One half his little force, he said, was now mounted each day for guard, and the men couldn't stand it. The general, of course, was in the field, but his chief of staff remained at headquarters and was empowered to order troops from post to post within the limits of the department. Flint hoped two more companies could come at once, and he did not care what post was denuded in his favor. His, he said, was close to the Indian lands,—separated from them, in fact, only by a narrow and fordable river. The Indians were all on the warpath and, aware of his puny numbers, might be tempted at any moment to quit the mountains and concentrate on him. Moreover, he was satisfied there had been frequent communication between their leaders and the household of the post trader at Fort Frayne. He was sure Mrs. Hay had been giving them valuable information, and he expected soon to be able to prove very serious charges against her. Meantime, he had placed her under surveillance. (T
hat she had been ever since his coming, although she never realized it.) Fancy the sensation created at Omaha, where the Hays were well known, when this news was received! Flint did not say "under arrest," guarded day and night by a brace of sentries who were sorely disgusted with their duty. He had no doubt his appeals for more troops would be honored, in view of his strenuous representations, but the day passed without assurance to that effect and without a wired word to say his action regarding Mrs. Hay had been approved. It began to worry him. At 3 P. M. Mrs. Hay sent and begged him to call upon her that she might assure and convince him of her innocence. But this the major found means to refuse, promising, however a meeting in the near future, after he had received tidings from the front, which he was awaiting and expecting every moment. He had reluctantly given permission to visit her to Mrs. Dade, Mrs. Ray and two or three other women whose hearts were filled with sympathy and sorrow, and their heads with bewilderment, over the amazing order. Indeed, it was due to Mrs. Dade's advice that she so far triumphed over pride and wrath as to ask to see the major and explain. She had received tidings from her husband and Nanette. She was perfectly willing to admit it,—to tell all about it,—and, now that Pete and Crapaud had turned out to be such unmitigated rascals, to have them caught and castigated, if caught they could be. But all this involved no disloyalty. They had always been friendly with the Sioux and the Sioux with them. Everybody knew it;—no one better than General Crook himself, and if he approved why should a junior disapprove? Indeed, as she asked her friends, what junior who had ever known Mr. Hay and her, or the Indians either, would be apt to disapprove so long as the Indians, when on the warpath, received no aid or comfort from either her husband or herself? "And if they had," said she, further, waxing eloquent over her theme, "could we have begun to give them half the aid or comfort—or a thousandth part of the supplies and ammunition—they got day after day through the paid agents of the Interior Department?"
A Daughter of the Sioux Page 16