Neither did Frazier, despite no little prodding at home. Only one man ventured to speak of it to Winn, and, the resultant conversation having been variously and exaggeratively reported, the truth should here be told. It was at the club-room, which, for the first time in weeks, Mr. Winn entered. He asked for Major Brooks, and, finding him absent, turned to go out with no more than a nod to the party at the poker-table. That party was made up mainly of the class that was numerous in the army in those days and is as rare as an Indian fight now. The least responsible among them at the moment was Lieutenant Bralligan, ex-corporal of dragoons, who could no more have passed the examination exacted of candidates to-day than a cat could squeeze through a carbine. "Hwat d'ye warrnt of the meejor, Winn?" he shouted. "Sure ye've got permission to ride out wid us to meet Lawrence."
Winn vouchsafed no answer. Bralligan and he were things apart, a reproach to each other's eyes, and the evil blood in the Irishman, inflamed already by whiskey, boiled over at the slight. "It's Barclay ye're looking for, not Brooks!" he shouted, in tempestuous wrath. "Faith, if ye want anything out o' the Quaker, let yer wife do the——"
Instantly a brawny hand, that of Captain Follansbee, was sprawled over the broad, leering mouth. Instantly there was a crash of chair-legs hastily moved, of grinding boot-heels as men sprang to their feet, of poker-chips flying to the floor,—a sound of oaths and furious struggles, for two of the party, with the attendant, had hurled themselves on the half-drunken lieutenant and were throttling him to silence, while Captains Bronson and Fellows sprang to head off Winn, who with blazing eyes and clinched fists came bounding back into the room.
"What did that blackguard say?" he demanded. "I did not catch the words."
"Nothing, nothing, Winn, that you should notice," implored Bronson. "He's drunk. He doesn't know what he is saying. He's crazed. No, sir," insisted Bronson, sternly, as Winn strove to pass him. "If you do not instantly withdraw I shall place you under arrest. Be sure that this poor devil shall make all reparation when he's sober enough to realize what has happened. Go at once.—You go with him, Fellows."
And so between them they got Winn away, and others soused Bralligan with acequia water and locked him up in his room and had him solemnly sober by afternoon stables, while, vastly to their relief, Winn with two or three cavaliers rode away at three o'clock to meet Ned Lawrence somewhere afar out on the Crockett trail. Greatly did Follansbee and Fellows congratulate Bronson, and Bronson them, on the fact that they had happened to be looking on at the game when Winn happened in and Bralligan broke out; for thereby they had stopped what might have been a most tremendous row. "All of which mustn't be known to a soul," said they.
But Bralligan's voice was big and deep. It was one of the causes of his unhallowed preferment in the days when second lieutenancies were showered on the rank and file the first year of the war. Bralligan's taunting words, only partially audible to Winn as he issued from the front of the building, were distinctly heard by domestics lying in wait for a chance to borrow of the steward and pick up gossip at the back. By stables that evening the story was being told high and low all over the post; even the children heard with eager yet uncomprehending ears; and so it happened that just as the drums of the infantry were sounding first call for retreat parade, and the women-folk were beginning to muster on the porches, and the warriors of the Foot along the opposite side at the barracks, and as Captain Barclay, a light rattan stick in his hand, came strolling back from stables, Lieutenant Brayton at his side, little Jim Lawrence made a dash from a group of children, and, in the full hearing of several officers and half a dozen women, a shrill, eager, childish voice piped out the fatal words,—
"Uncle Gal—Uncle Gal—what did Mr. Bwalligan mean by telling Mr. Winn to send his wife to you for money?"
Laura Winn herself was on the nearest piazza at the moment, stunningly handsome, and posing for a bow from her next-door neighbors as they came by. She and every other woman there distinctly heard the words and marked the effect.