When they were gone to their deliberation and Ray was alone with his friend, he called for a scrap of note-paper, thought earnestly a few moments, and then rapidly wrote in pencil a few lines.
"Blake," he said, "take this to Mrs. Truscott and give it to her personally. There will probably be no answer. If you cannot see her, ask for Miss Sanford."
They were all in the parlor, Mrs. Stannard, Mrs. Truscott, and Miss Sanford, when he reached the house. Three sadder faces he had never seen. The first question was as to the verdict of the coroner's jury. Blake shook his head. "It can only be one thing." Indeed, was not that what Mrs. Whaling had been there to tell them already, with a simply maddening array of embellishments?
Mrs. Stannard's blue eyes were red with weeping, and Mrs. Truscott looked as though she had wept for hours. Indeed, she had been, long before the shot was fired. Marion Sanford alone was quiet and composed; her eyes were clear as ever, though deep dark rings had formed beneath them, and her soft lips were set in constant effort to repress emotion. Blake briefly told them how calm and brave Ray was, how he had refused to explain about the pistol, or to give any particulars of his quarrel with Gleason, merely saying it had been of long standing. There were many things that he, Blake, must attend to at once, and so, if they would excuse him, he wished to see Mrs. Truscott a moment, and she followed him to the piazza falteringly.
"Ray told me to give this note to no one but you, Mrs. Truscott, and I inferred that he wished you only to see it," said he.
To his surprise, she drew back her hand. Her lips began to quiver, her eyes to refill. She made no effort to take it. He looked at her wonderingly.
"Mr. Blake—I—I cannot take it. I cannot explain!" And then, abruptly turning, she rushed into the house and up the stairs.
Poor Blake stood one moment in dire perplexity and then went back.
"She wouldn't take it, Billy. She said she couldn't; but d—n me if I can fathom it."
Ray's eyes grew stony. Every vestige of color left his face. He covered it with his thin white hands, and the man who had braved death and torture to save his comrades, who had borne uncomplainingly, resolutely, patiently, the trying ordeal of his examination by a gang of suspicious men, who had suffered in silence the ignominy of a criminal charge rather than drag to light a defence that might involve a woman's name, now quivered and shuddered and turned to the wall with one low moan of agony, cut to the heart by the fragile hand he would have died to shield.
* * *
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE GRASP OF THE LAW.
To a man of Mr. Blake's temperament the next few days were hard to bear. He was worried half to death, and yet, when Mrs. Turner saw an opportunity, and with a suggestive glance at his lean legs, sympathetically inquired "if he wasn't afraid he'd lose all his flesh," he was fully able to appreciate the feminine dexterity and malice of the allusion. His quick wit could have suggested a deserved repartee; but even in his misery Blake would say no wounding word to a lady of the regiment. He had good reason to take very little comfort in her, however, as an exponent of the regimental feeling on which the —th had prided itself. Mrs. Turner was far too voluble on the subject of the awful disgrace that had been brought on their good name by this fearful tragedy, and while she hoped and prayed Mr. Ray might be innocent, it was evident that she was far from believing it a possibility. Just now her time was taken up with Mrs. Whaling and the infantry officers, for there was a blockade at number 11. The ladies had twice asked to be excused when Mrs. Whaling and Mrs. Turner called. Mrs. Truscott was feeling unable to see any one, said the servant, but Mrs. Stannard was with her.
But Blake had expected nothing better of Mrs. Turner, and attached little importance to her opinion. What had stung him to the quick was the sight of Ray's suffering when that note came back to him refused. He was amazed at Mrs. Truscott, for to his masculine mind and to Ray's worn and wearied senses only one construction of her conduct was apparent,—she believed him guilty, and shrank from his note as she would from his blood-stained hand. Of that desolate night neither he nor Ray could ever be brought to speak thereafter. Blake sat for hours by the bedside of his stricken friend listening in helpless misery and wrath to the occasional changing of the sentries, and watching, as a sorrowing mother might watch, Ray's wordless suffering. Most of the night he lay with his face buried in his arms; but Blake could see by the clinching hand, the shudders that often shook his frame, the constant, nervous tapping of his foot beneath the coverlet, that he was wide awake,—alive to all his sorrows. The doctor had come and prescribed sedatives, and promised to come again if he did not sleep. Ray had silently taken the medicine, and for one instant Blake had caught sight of the face that was now dear to him as any brother's. He threw himself on his knees and tried to draw the hands away as Ray once again turned to the wall.
"For God's sake, Billy," he wellnigh sobbed, "don't turn from me so! There ain't a man in all the —th could believe it of you. What need you care for what a nervous woman thinks?"
But Ray only pressed his hand a moment, and simply said,—
"I'll come round all right—after a while. Don't worry, old fellow."
But he hadn't "come round." At midnight Blake decided he must have a drink, and he offered Ray some whiskey, thinking to benefit him in some way. Ray heard, and said nothing, but put out his hand and gently pushed it away, shaking his head, and this capped the climax of Blake's perplexity. At one o'clock, seeing that Ray was still wide awake, he had decided to go and fetch the doctor. He was fearful of the effect of this long mental strain, but Ray seemed to divine his thoughts, and in a voice so soft and patient as to melt Blake's raging into tears, he begged him not to disturb any one. "I've got you, Blake; what do I want of a doctor?"
Along towards morning Blake dragged in his buffalo-robes, and spreading them on the floor by the bedside, soon dropped into a sleep of utter exhaustion. When he awoke Ray was standing at the window, cleanly shaved, dressed in his newest and neatest undress uniform, and listening calmly to Mr. Warner, who, in a voice plainly showing his agitation, was saying something that brought Blake to his feet with a single bound. A warrant had been issued as the natural result of the inquest, the officers of the law had come out from town, and it was the commanding officer's order that he be turned over to the custody of the civil authorities.
Blake would have burst into a fury of invective and denunciation, but Ray's hand restrained him. Still weak from his unhealed wound, from recent illness, from mental agitation and sleeplessness, Blake thought he never saw Ray so brave, so strong, as when he made his reply.
"It was my expectation to see the commanding officer this morning, Mr. Warner, as my dress indicates. Since he remands me to the charge of the civil authorities, what I had to say to him must be said to them. I shall be ready as soon as I can change to civilian dress."
And so, with only Blake to help stow away the few books and papers he desired to lock in his trunk,—for even faithful Hogan had been forbidden to enter the room,—Ray quietly made his preparations, and in a few minutes stood arrayed in a business suit that had been made for him years before, and was decidedly out of fashion. A carriage had driven to his door, and two heavily-built men were lounging at the gate. Blake, wild with nervousness and wrath, was making slow progress with his dressing, and Ray took from him the little hand-bag he was bunglingly striving to pack.
"I'll do this, Blake. You go on with your dressing. Of course I understand you mean to go in with me; but now let me say a word. I have had plenty of time to think, and this is just what I want, what I must have. Nothing short of a full trial can satisfy me now; and as for being handed over to the civil authorities,—well, is it any worse than what I have had to bear here?"
"By heaven! but there'll come a day of reckoning for that cold-blooded, soulless, bowelless, old block in the headquarters office. Just think of the kicking he'll get when the —th comes home! But, Ray, what I'm worried about is this,—bail, you know. You can't stay
there in jail, and I don't know any of these local plutocrats——"
"I've thought of all that. You are to ask no one. If I were out on bail I would have to come back here, and in all the world there is no spot where I have known such misery. I prefer the jail at Cheyenne to such freedom as this has been at Russell. In a few days my sister will reach me, and then we'll see. Now hurry, I want to get away before guard-mounting."
In a few minutes Blake was ready, and Ray told him to call in the officers. They entered the room, and the first one, as he did so, by an instinct which he could not himself explain, took off his hat as he caught sight of Ray standing quietly at the window; his followers, though evidently unused to such a display, followed suit. The leader began to read his warrant, but Ray raised his hand and smilingly checked him.
"Never mind it, my friend; it is all in due form, no doubt. You brought handcuffs, I suppose?"
And the man was already fumbling in his left pocket for them. Ray went on in the same quiet tone,—
"You won't need them, so keep them in your pocket. I am glad to go with you now if you are ready."
And the officer, who, like every man in Cheyenne, had heard all about the night ride that saved Wayne's command, and respected the "young feller" that made it, was glad to find an awkward question put out of his way. He had reddened with embarrassment, but was grateful to Ray for taking the trouble off his mind. As they left the house, and poor Hogan, looking over the banisters up-stairs, broke into an Irish wail of grief, and the corporal of the guard instinctively brought his left hand up to the shoulder in a salute that made his musket ring, a casual observer would have said that Mr. Ray was showing his visitors to their carriage. The door shut with a snap, the horses started with a crack of the whip, and in another moment the silent quartette were whirled away through the east gate before anybody "up the row" was fully aware of what was going on.
Meantime, there had been a night of misery elsewhere in the garrison. Mrs. Stannard had asked permission of the officer of the day to go to Ray with the doctor at nine o'clock; the officer of the day said he would go and see the colonel and let her know. He went, but did not return. At ten o'clock Mrs. Stannard wrote a note to the colonel, and that punctilious soldier replied through his adjutant at half-past ten. He was very sorry, but for several reasons he was compelled to refuse all applications to see Mr. Ray until the morrow. Mrs. Stannard in her indignation could hardly find words to thank Mr. Warner for the courtesy he personally displayed in the matter. She sent a servant to the corporal of the guard to ask him to say to Mr. Blake that she desired earnestly to see him a moment; the corporal said he would as soon as he had posted the next sentry; but he forgot it until long after eleven, owing to an excitement over in the band quarters, and then Blake thought it best to wait until morning, and so it happened that one woman whose heart was full of faith in and sympathy for Ray was balked of her desire to send him full assurance of her thought for him. She could not sleep, however, and at midnight walked alone down the row and asked the soldier at the gate to give this little note for Ray to the sentinel within, but the man came sadly and respectfully back. The sentry dare not pass it in: it was against his orders. She looked wistfully at the dim light showing through the curtains of the front room, but turned wearily away. A dim light was burning, too, in Mrs. Truscott's room up the row, and she tapped softly at the door, thinking that, like herself, they might be still awake; but no answer came, and, at last, she went to her own lonely quarters. Oh, how she longed for her brave, blunt, outspoken Luce that night! He could find a way of helping Ray, and would do it despite all the official trammels that the post commander could devise. She was sick at heart, but next door lay a woman whose unrest was greater still, whose trouble seemed more than she could bear. Mrs. Truscott had arrived at the conclusion before ten o'clock that night that she was the most miserable woman on the face of the globe.
Jack's letter arriving the day previous was as kind, as well expressed, and as thoughtful a screed as ever mortal husband penned, but, being like other husbands, only mortal, he had failed to bring about the exact effect which was intended. Whether this was his fault or hers could not be determined entirely by an inspection of a copy of the letter, since letters may be read with a thousand different inflections, and the most passionate heart-offering be made to sound like a torrent of sarcasm. Perhaps it is neither here nor there whose fault it was. Grace read the letter with burning self-reproach. It was the second time he had had reason to find fault with her. True, she had acted as she supposed for the best, and after consultation with Mrs. Stannard. Mrs. Stannard's letter was to go by the next mail and explain the whole thing to the major, who, if he deemed advisable, would carry everything to Truscott; but, as we have seen, that explanatory letter had never reached the regiment. It, with bags full of other letters, was lying in the wagons at Goose Creek, while the —th was on the chase away to the Yellowstone, and Grace had the misery of believing that Jack's last thought of her as he rode off to battle was that she had had some sentimental scene with Ray, had been surprised in the midst of it, and had concealed it from him. She had spent a distracted afternoon, had written Jack page after page, in which amid tears and kisses she had recorded her determination never to let another man see her alone an instant, never to receive a note of any kind from Ray or anybody else, never to speak to a man if she could help it; she hated them all,—all but one, whom she had wronged and deceived, and whom she adored and worshipped now, and heaven only knows what all! She felt comforted somehow when she had slipped that letter into the box at the adjutant's office late that night, and had gone so soundly asleep that she might not have known of the murder until morning but for Marion. And then, that next afternoon,—that very next afternoon, after she had written all her impulsive, wifelike, loving promises to Jack, what should come but a note from Ray to be delivered privately to her. Let any young wife of less than a year's disenchantment put herself in Mrs. Truscott's place and say what she would have done. Of course, dear madam, I hear you say, vous autres, "She needn't have made such a fool of herself! She might have explained or—something!" I quite agree with you. That is what all of us think who have survived the delirium of the honeymoon, that mielle de la lune-acy which all of us must encounter as our children do the measles; but, you see, Mrs. Truscott was not yet through with it, and what is more, I have heard you remark on several occasions that she was an awfully weak sort of a heroine and would make Jack wretched yet. Bless your womanly hearts! I never pretended that she was a Zenobia, or a Jeanne la Pucelle, or a Susan B. Anthony. She was absurd, if you will, but she was utterly in love with her husband, as Mrs. Turner said, and thought far more of him than the rest of mankind put together, which is more than some of you can say, though I'm bound to admit that she had better reason than most of you, placens uxor mea frankly included.
She had rushed up-stairs for a fresh burst of tears, and presently Marion, all love and sympathy, came to see her, and the result of that interview complicated matters in a way that baffles description. So far from upholding her course, Miss Sanford had looked first grave, then frightened, then indignant. In plain words she told her that at such a time, when the man who had saved her life,—saved her honor,—showed himself her best friend, her husband's best friend, stood charged with a foul crime of which she well knew him to be guiltless, and had sent her a simple note that could have no possible purpose other than to say that now, at last, he might, to save his own name, have to tell of Gleason's fiendish conduct towards her—to refuse it, to send it back—"Oh, Grace, Grace, you don't mean you could have done that! Oh, it was monstrous! it was shameful!"
And Marion Sanford had rushed into her own room, banged—yes, banged the door, locked it, put a chair against it, would have moved the washstand up against it, but her strength gave out, and she hurled herself upon the bed in a tempest of passionate tears.
Ah, well! even now—ten years after—it is no easy thing to write or tell of those days. It was part o
f our purpose to go around the garrison and show how other people looked at the matter, but it may be as well to say that, except Blake, Warner, and the surgeon, every officer thought Ray guilty. So, too, did most of the men except over in the band quarters, where there was the excitement that night. It was caused by the snare drummer, a pugnacious young Celt, who burst in upon his comrades at eleven o'clock with a loud defiance of "doughboy" justice, and an oath that he know'd the man as shot Gleason and suspicioned Ray, and he'd have him at the gallows yet.
Reporters and special correspondents had been at the fort interviewing everybody who would talk and, after the manner of their kind, making the dumb speak in a way that would put to the blush the miracles of holy writ. There seemed but one theory among those in authority,—that Ray was guilty. This was duly heralded to an eager public, and the evening extra and the morning journals in columns of detail had prepared all minds for the culprit's coming. A crowd that blocked the street had gathered in front of the building in which were located the offices of the marshal, the sheriff, and other legal magnates, and Ray's pale, sad face looked out upon a host of curious eyes, in which his own, brave and unflinching, caught not one gleam of sympathy. Deadwood Dick, a ruffian who had murdered a soldier for his money, went in through that door-way a fortnight before amid many shouts of encouragement and the buoyant reflection that no local jury had yet found a verdict of guilty against a citizen of Wyoming where the offence committed was against the peace or property of Uncle Sam. But a jury that would triumphantly acquit the self-styled "Scourge of Sandy Bottom" on the ground of temporary insanity would be apt to look less leniently upon one of those swells at the fort. Had there been a man to raise the à la lanterne of rejoicing democracy,—had not the murdered man been himself one of the official class, Blake and his revolver would probably have stood alone between the accused and lynching. As it was, but for the one faithful comrade of all who had loved and believed in him, realizing it all, yet calm, sad, and self-possessed, Ray stood at the bar of justice practically friendless.
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