The day following Jimmy's seizure, Major Dwight appeared in public again for the first time since his strange attack. He had ever been of spare habit, but now he was gaunt as a greyhound, and his uniform hung flabbily about his wasted form. He looked two shades grayer and ten years older. His eyes were dull and deep-set. His face was ashen. He was not fit to be up and about, said the doctors, but could not be kept at home. Mrs. Dwight was in semi-hysterical condition, requiring frequent sedatives and unlimited Félicie. There had been—yes, in answer to direct question, the physicians had to own—there had been a scene between the aging husband and the youthful wife and, though the details were fairly well known to these gentlemen, they were almost as fairly kept inviolate. But for the voluble, the invaluable Félicie, Minneconjou might have been kept guessing for ten days longer. Dwight spent his waking hours mostly at the Rays', wistfully watching the doctor and pleading to be admitted to the bedside of the burning little patient, a thing they could not permit, for Dwight was still too weak to exercise the needed self-control. It seemed as though he had forgotten the existence of Inez, his wife, the existence of Foster, the existence of Sandy Ray and everybody and anybody beyond Jimmy and those who were ministering to him. Mrs. Ray, once again moving, though languidly, about her household duties (for Priscilla was utterly engrossed with the boy) had made the major as comfortable as he would permit in the little library below stairs, where he had an easy chair in which he could recline, and books, desk, writing material, but no one to read to him; and, as it turned out, he would do nothing but move restlessly about, listen for every sound from the upper floor where Jim lay in Sandy's bed, and waylay the doctors or anybody who might have tidings. Once or twice, there or at home, he had to see the colonel, the adjutant or his own second in command, Captain Hurst, but the lawyers came no more. All proceedings were called off for the time being. Everything in his mind hinged on the fate of Jimmy, and, one thing worth the noting, Madame and the phaeton went no more abroad.
But if he had apparently forgotten, Félicie had not, the incidents of that stormy meeting, the episode that led to it and the consequences to be expected. Félicie felt that the public should be enlightened and public opinion properly aroused as to the major's domestic misrule. It was high time all Minneconjou was made to know this monster and "the hideous accusations he make against this angel, and this angel's the most devoted myself that to you speak." From the torrent of her tirade, occasionally, drops of information seemed to accord with the rumors dribbling about the garrison. Minneconjou knew that the well-named and impenetrable post commander was in possession of facts he could impart to nobody; that he had been questioning and cross-questioning corporal and men, the latter recent occupants of sentry posts Nos. 3 and 4; that these gentry had been ordered by him to hold no converse with anybody; that he had again called up two of the three men incarcerated at the time of the assault upon Captain Foster, and it was now definitely known that these two had both served under Foster in the —th Cavalry, although both now protested they always considered him a model officer and a perfect gentleman. To offset this was the statement of Sergeant Hess, of the Sixty-first, who said he had once served at the same post with them, though not in the cavalry, and knew they bore bad characters and would bear watching. Then he was sent for, and then it transpired that No. 3 of the suspected trio had gone with the guard to the agency, and he, said Hess, had been the worst of the lot. His name to-day was Skelton, but in those days they knew him as Scully. Had it not been that a dozen other men were out the night of that assault, this might have clinched the case against them. It was enough, at least, to keep them under surveillance.
But other stories, readily confirmed by Félicie, were to the effect that Dwight had accused his wife of deliberate falsehood in denying that she had met Mr. Ray at Naples; of deliberate intent to make him believe Jimmy a liar when adhering to his story that Mr. Ray had come and spoken to her (a dream! a vision! declared Félicie); of deliberately accusing him of rudeness, insolence, affront to Captain Foster and herself in refusing to deny he had seen them together in the parlor during church time ("a mere incident of the most innocent," said Félicie, "of which this infant terrible would have made a mountain"). Moreover, the monster had "accused Madame of all manner of misdoings with this most amiable the Captain Fawstair," and Félicie's humid eyes went heavenward at the retrospect; "and of lying to him, her husband, about, ah, ciel, that man!" And then to think that he should demand of Madame in her condition that she confess the truth about that midnight affair when her scream aroused the household! It was she, Félicie, who screamed. Madame could not sleep. She needed a composing draught. She, Félicie, had gone down to prepare it, had unbolted the back door, and was passing to and fro between the kitchen and the refrigerator in the addition without, and she could not find the cork-screw, and could not open the—Apollinaris, and Madame had become impatient, nervous, and had herself wandered down; and just as Félicie was returning they encountered at the doorway and, to her shame be it said, she screamed, so was she startled, "and Madame uttered too a cry, because I cry, but it was nothing, nothing!"
Nevertheless, Minneconjou was hearing of a slender form seen skulking along the back fence, hurrying away from Dwight's, and of items picked up at dawn near Dwight's back steps, and of a notebook sent to Lieutenant Ray, who had himself been out searching very early and very diligently. Then, something or other, picked up early that morning, had been sent to the colonel, for it came with his mail; and the adjutant and the orderly heard his exclamation, saw the consternation in his face, and the orderly told of it—told Kathleen at the doctor's; then had to tell other girls or take the consequences. Then there were these drives up the valley and the meetings at the cottonwoods. People who called to ask after the presumably lonely mistress of the house began asking after something Félicie had hoped no one had noticed.
For in upbraiding Inez, his wife, Major Dwight not once had mentioned her meetings near Minneconjou with Lieutenant Ray, who, as all this was going on at the post, stood facing a condition that called for the exercise of all his nerve and pluck and common sense. The Indian leaders, three days after his coming, had mustered their force and demanded the instant withdrawal of himself and his men, leaving all horses and arms and certain of their charges behind them.
CHAPTER XXIV
CRISIS
There had been frequent communication with the agency by courier and by telephone. Ray held the fort, he said, and though there had been some bluster and swagger on part of a few Indians, the agent seemed relieved, reassured. They no longer crowded, bullying, about his office. "They are obviously," wrote the agent (not Ray), "impressed by the firm stand I have taken, and now I shall proceed to arrest the ring-leaders in the recent trouble, employing the lieutenant and his troopers for the purpose, in order that the Indian police may see that I am entirely independent of them." Stone received this by mounted messenger about nine o'clock of a Wednesday night, and Mrs. Stone knew the moment his lips began to purse up, as she expressed it, and to work and twist, that he much disliked the letter. "I'll have to go over to the quartermaster's," said he, "and call up Ray by 'phone. This agency man will be making mischief for us, sure as—sure as the reds are making medicine." But the last words were muttered to himself, as he took his cap, and leave.
Stone had served many a year on the plains, and knew the Indian, and had his opinion as to the value of civil service in dealing with him. Stone had served two years in the South in the so-called reconstruction days, and in his mind there was marked similarity between a certain few of the Indian agents he had met and an uncertain number of the deputy marshals of the "carpet-bag" persuasion, then scattered broadcast over the States "lately in rebellion." If there was one thing more than another the deputy loved and gloried in, it was riding about his bailiwick, with a sergeant and party of dragoons at his back, impressing the people with the idea that he had the army of the United States at his beck and call. Now, here was a new man at the business over a thousand-odd Indians, many of whom had fought whole battalions of troopers time and again, and were not to be scared by a squad, and this new man reasoned that, because the Indians had been undemonstrative for two days, they were ready to surrender their leaders and be good. Stone knew better.