CHAPTER VII.
Within the fortnight came poor Ned Lawrence back to Worth, and men who rode far out on the Crockett trail to meet the stage marvelled at the change three months had made in him. He had grown ten years older, and was wrinkled and gray. Winn was of the party, and Winn, who a month gone by was looking haggard, nervous, miserable, now rode buoyantly, with almost hopeful eyes and certainly better color than he had had for months, despite the fact that he had lost both flesh and color during his illness. Something had happened to lighten his load of dread and care. Something must have happened to enable Lawrence to take that long, long journey back to Texas. Fort Worth indulged in all manner of theories as to where the money was coming from, and Barclay, of course, was suspected, even interrogated. The frankest man in some respects that ever lived, Captain Galbraith Barclay was reticent as a clam when he saw fit to keep silent, and men found it useless to question or women to hint. As for Winn, he had but one classmate at the post, Brayton, who had never been one of his intimates at the Point, and, being rather, as was said, of the "high and mighty," reserved and distant sort with the subalterns he found at Worth on joining three winters before, Winn had never been popular. Lawrence was his one intimate, despite the disparity in years. And so no man ventured to ask by what means he expected to meet the demands thus made upon him. The board of survey ordered to determine the amount of the loss and fix the responsibility had no alternative. Winn and his few friends made a hard fight, setting forth the facts that the count had been made every month as required by orders and regulations, and that except by bursting open every bale, box, and barrel, and sifting over the contents, it would have been impossible to detect Marsden's methods. On some things the board was disposed to dare regulations and raps on the knuckles, and to let Winn off on several others; but what was the use? "the proceedings would only be sent back for reconsideration," said their president; and as it transpired that Winn had not exercised due vigilance, but had trusted almost entirely to his sergeant, they decided to cut the Gordian knot by saddling the young officer with the entire responsibility, which meant, sooner or later, a stoppage of nearly three thousand dollars of his pay.
It is a sad yet time-honored commentary at the expense of human nature that the contemplation of the misfortunes of our fellow-men is not always a source of unalloyed sorrow. There was genuine and general sympathy for Lawrence, because he had been poor and pinched and humbled for years, had worn shabby clothes, and had sought all possible field duty, where "deeds, not duds," as a garrison wit expressed it, seemed to make the man. He had frankly spoken of his straits and worries to such as spoke to him in friendship, and this, with his deep and tender love for his children, and his capital record as a scout leader, had won over to him all the men who at one time were envious and jealous and had cherished the linesman's prejudice against the fellow whose duties for years had kept him on the staff. The women were all with him, and that meant far more than may seem possible outside the army. There was many a gentle dame in the old days of adobe barracks who could be an Artemisia in the cause of a friend.
No one knew just what object Ned Lawrence had in coming back to Dixie. Every one knew he had indignantly refused the second lieutenancy, despite the fact that one or two men with war service and rank almost equal to his own had meekly accepted the grudgingly tendered commission, and others were said to be about to follow suit,—all, presumably, with the hope that their friends and representatives in Congress assembled would speedily legislate them back where they thought they belonged. No one knew where Ned Lawrence had made a raise of money, but raise he certainly had made, for, to Blythe's indignation, there came a draft of one hundred dollars to cover the expenses, he said, of his children and old Mammy and to pay the latter some of her wages. The balance he would settle, he wrote, when he arrived. Blythe would far rather he had waited until his accounts were adjusted; then, if Lawrence were in funds, Blythe could have found no fault with this insistence on at least partially defraying the expenses incurred in providing for the little household. Lawrence hoped to have his accounts adjusted, his letter said, and he had reason to believe, from what friends in Washington told him, that he would find his successor willing to receipt to him for missing items, trusting to luck and the flotsam and jetsam of the frontier to replace them in course of time. Lawrence, indeed, was curious now to meet and know Captain Barclay, for he had been told many things that had gone far to remove the feeling of unreasoning antagonism he had felt at first.
Only one thing did he say to Blythe that threw light on his future plans. "I am dreadfully sorry," he wrote, "to hear such ill tidings about Harry Winn. I was always fearful there was something wrong about that fellow Marsden, and sometimes strove to caution him,—I, who could not see the beam in my own eye,—I, with two scoundrels in my orderly-room, trying to warn him against the one in his! Winn is a proud, sensitive, self-centred sort of fellow, whom wealth perhaps might have made popular. He is no better manager than I. He has a wife who could never help him to live within his means, as poor Kitty certainly tried to do with me." (Oh, the blessed touch of Time! Oh, the sweet absolution of Death! Kitty was an angel now, and her ways and means were buried with all that was mortal of her.) "And, worse than all, poor Hal has no one, I fear, to help him now, as—I write it with blinded eyes, dear Blythe—it has pleased God I should find in many friends in the days of my sore adversity,—you and your blessed wife, and the colonel, and Brooks,—even rough old Follansbee and our dilettante De Lancy, and that inimitable Collabone. My heart overflows, and my eyes, too, at thought of all you and they have done and said and written for me and mine. And here, too, where in my bitterness I thought I was deserted of all, here is gallant old Front de Bœuf (you remember how we swore by him in the Valley after Davy Russell was killed). He has housed and fed and nursed and cared for me like a brother, and Senator Howe and even old Catnip—God bless him!—have worked hard for me; and, though my soldier days seem over for the time at least, my stubborn spirit has had to surrender to such counsellors and friends as they have been to me. They all say Congress will surely put me back next winter, and meantime 'Buffstick' says I'm to have a salaried position in a big company with which he is associated, and to begin work as soon as my health is re-established and my accounts straightened out."
"Who is Buffstick?" queried Mrs. Blythe, at this juncture.
"Buffstick? Oh, that was our pet name for Colonel Dalton, of the —th Massachusetts, Lawrence's friend and host in Washington; a magnificent fellow, dear, with a head and chest that made some lover of Scott liken him to Front de Bœuf,—out of 'Ivanhoe,' you know. But he was a stickler for neatness in dress and equipments, and his regiment called him Buffstick, and grew to love him all the same. He commanded a brigade after Cedar Creek, and now,—just think of it!—he's a capitalist."