Starlight Ranch

by King, Charles

  How the tidings of that timely rescue thrill through every heart at old Fort Warrener! There are gathered the wives and children of the regiment. There is the colonel's home, silent and darkened for that one long week, then ringing with joy and congratulation, with gladness and thanksgiving. Miriam again is there, suddenly lifted from the depths of sorrow to a wealth of bliss she had no words to express. Day and night the little army coterie flocked about her to hear again and again the story of Philip's peril and his final rescue, and then to exclaim over Romney Lee's gallantry and devotion. It was all so bewildering. For a week they had mourned their colonel's only son as dead and buried. The wondrous tale of his discovery sounded simply fabulous, and yet was simply true. Hurrying forward from the railway, the little party had been joined by two young frontiersmen eager to obtain employment with the scouts of Stanley's column. Halting just at sunset for brief rest at Box Elder Springs, the lieutenant with Sergeant Harris had climbed the bluffs to search for Indian signal fires. It was nearly dark when on their return they were amazed to hear the sound of fire-arms in the cañon, and were themselves suddenly attacked and completely cut off from their comrades. Stanley's horse was shot; but Sergeant Harris, though himself wounded, helped his young officer to mount behind him, and galloped back into the darkness, where they evaded their pursuers by turning loose their horse and groping in among the rocks. Here they hid all night and all next day in the deep cleft where Lee had found them, listening to the shouts and signals of a swarm of savage foes. At last the sounds seemed to die away, the Indians to disappear, and then hunger, thirst, and the feverish delirium of the sergeant, who was tortured for want of water, drove Stanley forth in hopes of reaching the cañon. Fired at, as he supposed, by Indians, he was speedily back in his lair again, but was there almost as speedily tracked and besieged. For a while he was able to keep the foe at bay, but Lee had come just in the nick of time; only two cartridges were left, and poor Harris was nearly gone.

  A few weeks later, while the —th is still on duty rounding up the Indians in the mountains, the wounded are brought home to Warrener. There are not many, for only the first detachment of two small troops had had any serious engagement; but the surgeons say that Mr. Lee's arm is so badly crippled that he can do no field work for several months, and he had best go in to the railway. And now he is at Warrener; and here, one lovely moonlit summer's evening, he is leaning on the gate in front of the colonel's quarters, utterly regardless of certain injunctions as to avoiding exposure to the night air. Good Mrs. Wilton, the major's wife,—who, army fashion, is helping Miriam keep house in her father's absence,—has gone in before "to light up," she says, though it is too late for callers; and they have been spending a long evening at Captain Gregg's, "down the row." It is Miriam who keeps the tall lieutenant at the gate. She has said good-night, yet lingers. He has been there several days, his arm still in its sling, and not once has she had a word with him alone till now. Some one has told her that he has asked for leave of absence to go East and settle some business affairs he had to leave abruptly when hurrying to take part in the campaign. If this be true is it not time to be making her peace?

  The moonlight throws a brilliant sheen on all surrounding objects, yet she stands in the shade, bowered in a little archway of vines that overhangs the gate. He has been strangely silent during the brief walk homeward, and now, so far from following into the shadows as she half hoped he might do, he stands without, the flood of moonlight falling full upon his stalwart figure. Two months ago he would not thus have held aloof, yet now he is half extending his hand as though in adieu. She cannot fathom this strange silence on the part of him who so long has been devoted as a lover. She knows well it cannot be because of her injustice to him at the Point that he is unrelenting now. Her eyes have told him how earnestly she repents: and does he not always read her eyes? Only in faltering words, in the presence of others all too interested, has she been able to speak her thanks for Philip's rescue. She cannot see now that what he fears from her change of mood is that gratitude for her brother's safety, not a woman's response to the passionate love in his deep heart, is the impulse of this sweet, half-shy, half-entreating manner. He cannot sue for love from a girl weighted with a sense of obligation. He knows that lingering here is dangerous, yet he cannot go. When friends are silent 'tis time for chats to close: but there is a silence that at such a time as this only bids a man to speak, and speak boldly. Yet Lee is dumb.

  Once—over a year ago—he had come to the colonel's quarters to seek permission to visit the neighboring town on some sudden errand. She had met him at the door with the tidings that her father had been feeling far from well during the morning, and was now taking a nap.

  "Won't I do for commanding officer this time?" she had laughingly inquired.

  "I would ask no better fate—for all time," was his prompt reply, and he spoke too soon. Though neither ever forgot the circumstance, she would never again permit allusion to it. But to-night it is uppermost in her mind. She must know if it be true that he is going.

  "Tell me," she suddenly asks, "have you applied for leave of absence?"

  "Yes," he answers, simply.

  "And you are going—soon?"

  "I am going to-morrow," is the utterly unlooked-for reply.

  "To-morrow! Why—Mr. Lee!"

  There can be no mistaking the shock it gives her, and still he stands and makes no sign. It is cruel of him! What has she said or done to deserve penance like this? He is still holding out his hand as though in adieu, and she lays hers, fluttering, in the broad palm.

  "I—I thought all applications had to be made to—your commanding officer," she says at last, falteringly, yet archly.

  "Major Wilton forwarded mine on Monday. I asked him to say nothing about it. The answer came by wire to-day."

  "Major Wilton is post commander; but—did you not—a year——?"

  "Did I not?" he speaks in eager joy. "Do you mean you have not forgotten that? Do you mean that now—for all time—my first allegiance shall be to you, Miriam?"

  No answer for a minute; but her hand is still firmly clasped in his. At last,—

  "Don't you think you ought to have asked me, before applying for leave to go?"

  Mr. Lee is suddenly swallowed up in the gloom of that shaded bower under the trellis-work, though a radiance as of mid-day is shining through his heart.

  But soon he has to go. Mrs. Wilton is on the veranda, urging them to come in out of the chill night air. Those papers on his desk must be completed and filed this very night. He told her this.

  "To-morrow, early, I will be here," he murmurs. "And now, good-night, my own."

  But she does not seek to draw her hand away. Slowly he moves back into the bright moonbeams and she follows part way. One quick glance she gives as her hand is released and he raises his forage cap. It is such a disadvantage to have but one arm at such a time! She sees that Mrs. Wilton is at the other end of the veranda.

  "Good-night," she whispers. "I—know you must go."

  "I must. There is so much to be done."

  "I—thought"—another quick glance at the piazza—"that a soldier, on leaving, should—salute his commanding officer?"

  And Romney Lee is again in shadow and—in sunshine.

  * * *

  Late that autumn, in one of his infrequent letters to his devoted mother, Mr. McKay finds time to allude to the news of Lieutenant Lee's approaching marriage to Miss Stanley.

  "Phil is, of course, immensely pleased," he writes, "and from all I hear I suppose Mr. Lee is a very different fellow from what we thought six months ago. Pennock says I always had a wrong idea of him; but Pennock thinks all my ideas about the officers appointed over me are absurd. He likes old Pelican, our battery commander, who is just the crankiest, crabbedest, sore-headedest captain in all the artillery, and that is saying a good deal. I wish I'd got into the cavalry at the start; but there's no use in trying now. The —th is the only regiment I wanted; but they have to go to
reveille and stables before breakfast, which wouldn't suit me at all.

  "Hope Nan's better. A winter in the Riviera will set her up again. Stanley asks after her when he writes, but he has rather dropped me of late. I suppose it's because I was too busy to answer, though he ought to know that in New York harbor a fellow has no time for scribbling, whereas, out on the plains they have nothing else to do. He sent me his picture a while ago, and I tell you he has improved wonderfully. Such a swell moustache! I meant to have sent it over for you and Nan to see, but I've mislaid it somewhere."

  Poor little Nan! She would give many of her treasures for one peep at the coveted picture that Will holds so lightly. There had been temporary improvement in her health at the time Uncle Jack came with the joyous tidings that Stanley was safe after all; but even the Riviera fails to restore her wonted spirits. She droops visibly during the long winter. "She grows so much older away from Willy," says the fond mamma, to whom proximity to that vivacious youth is the acme of earthly bliss. Uncle Jack grins and says nothing. It is dawning upon him that something is needed besides the air and sunshine of the Riviera to bring back the dancing light in those sweet blue eyes and joy to the wistful little face.

  "The time to see the Yosemite and 'the glorious climate of California' is April, not October," he suddenly declares, one balmy morning by the Mediterranean; "and the sooner we get back to Yankeedom the better 'twill suit me."

  And so it happens that, early in the month of meteorological smiles and tears, the trio are speeding westward far across the rolling prairies: Mrs. McKay deeply scandalized at the heartless conduct of the War Department in refusing Willy a two-months' leave to go with them; Uncle Jack quizzically disposed to look upon that calamity as a not utterly irretrievable ill; and Nan, fluttering with hope, fear, joy, and dread, all intermingled; for is not he stationed at Cheyenne? All these long months has she cherished that little knot of senseless ribbon. If she had sent it to him within the week of his graduation, perhaps it would not have seemed amiss; but after that, after all he had been through in the campaign,—the long months of silence,—he might have changed, and, for very shame, she cannot bring herself to give a signal he would perhaps no longer wish to obey. Every hour her excitement and nervousness increase; but when the conductor of the Pullman comes to say that Cheyenne is really in sight, and the long whistle tells that they are nearing the dinner station of those days, Nan simply loses herself entirely. There will be half an hour, and Philip actually there to see, to hear, to answer. She hardly knows whether she is of this mortal earth when Uncle Jack comes bustling in with the gray-haired colonel, when she feels Miriam's kiss upon her cheek, when Mr. Lee, handsomer and kindlier than ever, bends down to take her hand; but she looks beyond them all for the face she longs for,—and it is not there. The car seems whirling around when, from over her shoulder, she hears, in the old, well-remembered tones, a voice that redoubles the throb of her little heart.

  "Miss Nannie!"

  And there—bending over her, his face aglow, and looking marvellously well in his cavalry uniform—is Philip Stanley. She knows not what she says. She has prepared something proper and conventional, but it has all fled. She looks one instant up into his shining eyes, and there is no need to speak at all. Every one else is so busy that no one sees, no one knows, that he is firmly clinging to her hand, and that she shamelessly and passively submits.

  A little later—just as the train is about to start—they are standing at the rear door of the sleeper. The band of the —th is playing some distance up the platform,—a thoughtful device of Mr. Lee's to draw the crowd that way,—and they are actually alone. An exquisite happiness is in her eyes as she peers up into the love-light in his strong, steadfast face. Something must have been said; for he draws her close to his side and bends over her as though all the world were wrapped up in this dainty little morsel of womanhood. Suddenly the great train begins slowly to move. Part they must now, though it be only for a time. He folds her quickly, unresisting, to his breast. The sweet blue eyes begin to fill.

  "My darling,—my little Nannie," he whispers, as his lips kiss away the gathering tears. "There is just an instant. What is it you tell me you have kept for me?"

  "This," she answers, shyly placing in his hand a little packet wrapped in tissue-paper. "Don't look at it yet! Wait!—But—I wanted to send it—the very next day, Philip."

  Slowly he turns her blushing face until he can look into her eyes. The glory in his proud, joyous gaze is a delight to see. "My own little girl," he whispers, as his lips meet hers. "I know it is my love-knot."

  * * *

  The Worst Man in the Troop.

  Just why that young Irishman should have been so balefully branded was more than the first lieutenant of the troop could understand. To be sure, the lieutenant's opportunities for observation had been limited. He had spent some years on detached service in the East, and had joined his comrades in Arizona but a fortnight ago, and here he was already becoming rapidly initiated in the science of scouting through mountain-wilds against the wariest and most treacherous of foemen,—the Apaches of our Southwestern territory.

  Coming, as he had done, direct from a station and duties where full-dress uniform, lavish expenditure for kid gloves, bouquets, and Lubin's extracts were matters of daily fact, it must be admitted that the sensations he experienced on seeing his detachment equipped for the scout were those of mild consternation. That much latitude as to individual dress and equipment was permitted he had previously been informed; that "full dress," and white shirts, collars, and the like would be left at home, he had sense enough to know; but that every officer and man in the command would be allowed to discard any and all portions of the regulation uniform and appear rigged out in just such motley guise as his poetic or practical fancy might suggest, had never been pointed out to him; and that he, commanding his troop while a captain commanded the little battalion, could by any military possibility take his place in front of his men without his sabre, had never for an instant occurred to him. As a consequence, when he bolted into the mess-room shortly after daybreak on a bright June morning with that imposing but at most times useless item of cavalry equipment clanking at his heels, the lieutenant gazed with some astonishment upon the attire of his brother-officers there assembled, but found himself the butt of much good-natured and not over-witty "chaff," directed partially at the extreme newness and neatness of his dark-blue flannel scouting-shirt and high-top boots, but more especially at the glittering sabre swinging from his waist-belt.

  "Billings," said Captain Buxton, with much solemnity, "while you have probably learned through the columns of a horror-stricken Eastern press that we scalp, alive or dead, all unfortunates who fall into our clutches, I assure you that even for that purpose the cavalry sabre has, in Arizona at least, outlived its usefulness. It is too long and clumsy, you see. What you really want for the purpose is something like this,"—and he whipped out of its sheath a rusty but keen-bladed Mexican cuchillo,—"something you can wield with a deft turn of the wrist, you know. The sabre is apt to tear and mutilate the flesh, especially when you use both hands." And Captain Buxton winked at the other subaltern and felt that he had said a good thing.

  But Mr. Billings was a man of considerable good nature and ready adaptability to the society or circumstances by which he might be surrounded. "Chaff" was a very cheap order of wit, and the serenity of his disposition enabled him to shake off its effect as readily as water is scattered from the plumage of the duck.

  "So you don't wear the sabre on a scout? So much the better. I have my revolvers and a Sharp's carbine, but am destitute of anything in the knife line." And with that Mr. Billings betook himself to the duty of despatching the breakfast that was already spread before him in an array tempting enough to a frontier appetite, but little designed to attract a bon vivant of civilization. Bacon, frijoles, and creamless coffee speedily become ambrosia and nectar under the influence of mountain-air and mountain-exercise; but Mr. Billings had as
yet done no climbing. A "buck-board" ride had been his means of transportation to the garrison,—a lonely four-company post in a far-away valley in Northeastern Arizona,—and in the three or four days of intense heat that had succeeded his arrival exercise of any kind had been out of the question. It was with no especial regret, therefore, that he heard the summons of the captain, "Hurry up, man; we must be off in ten minutes." And in less than ten minutes the lieutenant was on his horse and superintending the formation of his troop.

  If Mr. Billings was astonished at the garb of his brother-officers at breakfast, he was simply aghast when he glanced along the line of Company "A" (as his command was at that time officially designated) and the first sergeant rode out to report his men present or accounted for. The first sergeant himself was got up in an old gray-flannel shirt, open at and disclosing a broad, brown throat and neck; his head was crowned with what had once been a white felt sombrero, now tanned by desert sun, wind, and dirt into a dingy mud-color; his powerful legs were encased in worn deer-skin breeches tucked into low-topped, broad-soled, well-greased boots; his waist was girt with a rude "thimble-belt," in the loops of which were thrust scores of copper cartridges for carbine and pistol; his carbine, and those of all the command, swung in a leather loop athwart the pommel of the saddle; revolvers in all manner of cases hung at the hip, the regulation holster, in most instances, being conspicuous by its absence. Indeed, throughout the entire command the remarkable fact was to be noted that a company of regular cavalry, taking the field against hostile Indians, had discarded pretty much every item of dress or equipment prescribed or furnished by the authorities of the United States, and had supplied themselves with an outfit utterly ununiform, unpicturesque, undeniably slouchy, but not less undeniably appropriate and serviceable. Not a forage-cap was to be seen, not a "campaign-hat" of the style then prescribed by a board of officers that might have known something of hats, but never could have had an idea on the subject of campaigns. Fancy that black enormity of weighty felt, with flapping brim well-nigh a foot in width, absorbing the fiery heat of an Arizona sun, and concentrating the burning rays upon the cranium of its unhappy wearer! No such head-gear would our troopers suffer in the days when General Crook led them through the cañons and deserts of that inhospitable Territory. Regardless of appearances or style himself, seeking only comfort in his dress, the chief speedily found means to indicate that, in Apache-campaigning at least, it was to be a case of "inter arma silent leges" in dead earnest; for, freely translated, the old saw read, "No red-tape when Indian-fighting."