The Irishman boils up with wrath. The idea of Major Mildmanners pitching into him—him, that was once the pride of the Second Dragoons!—and praising that white-livered parson! Whurroo! Mullane at the moment could have flung commission and conscience to the wind, everything but that canteen. Nothing but the stern and icy stare in Brooks's usually benignant eye represses the outburst trembling on the tangling tip of his tongue.
"If you knew—what I know, sorr, that man'd not be ridin' wid his betthers," he begins, "and it's this night that'll prove me wurrds."
CHAPTER XI.
It was at four o'clock of a blistering afternoon, twelve hours from the time of their start from the post, that the leaders in the long-extended column hove in sight of a patch of green down in a distant depression to the south that marked the site of Crockett Springs. Beyond it, hemming the broad, shallow valley, there rose a long wave of bare, desolate heights, rounded and billowing in soft and graceful contours as they rolled away northeastward, abrupt and jagged towards the south and southwest, where the stream seemed to have torn a pathway for the sudden torrents of the springtide that foamed away towards the broader valley of the Bravo. At the point where, rounding the nose of a low ridge, the trail twisted into view of Crockett's, the major halted to look back over his command, still tripping steadily onward in little bunches, each a dozen strong, each followed by its own little dust-cloud, each independent, apparently, of the others, yet moving as part of one harmonious train. Foremost, the group at the head of column had received accessions. Fuller, the sutler, finely mounted and bristling with arms of the latest and most approved pattern, backed by two sun-tanned Texans from his ranch, had overtaken the command at noon, bent on sharing its fortunes in the tussle anticipated with the outlaws; and they were now riding with "head-quarters," from which, on the other hand, two figures were missing,—Lawrence and one of the orderlies. As early as two o'clock the ex-captain had pushed on ahead, a double object in view, to warn Cramer's troop of the coming of the Worth command and the tidings they bore of the Friday gang, also to have a little party mount at once and gallop northeast, ten miles to the Saba trail,—a short cut from Worth to the San Saba Pass, used by horsemen in the rainy season. Captain Cramer might or might not have received warning of the appearance of the gang in the valley below his camp at the Springs; but the "Fridays," whoever their leader, would certainly have friends and confederates on the watch near Worth, friends who would probably take that very short cut and gallop at speed to warn the gang of the coming vengeance. Oddly enough, it was not Brooks nor Lawrence who was first to think of this, but Barclay. It was his modest suggestion at the noon halt, a suggestion that was put in form of a question, that had opened the major's eyes. "I remember, sir," said he, "that the Springs lie in a sort of elbow; the trail runs nearly east and west for many miles beyond them, and nearly north and south on this side. Is there no way in which scouts could gallop across our left and give warning to those fellows?"
"By Jove!" said Brooks, "there's the old San Saba cut-off. What had we better do, Lawrence?" And Lawrence said, "Send at once a sergeant with a set of fours to the left, until they cut the trail, in order to prevent information going to the gang that way, and to report if any horsemen have already passed, which latter any old frontiersman can tell at a glance." Mullane, lurching drowsily in saddle all through the last stage, had thrown himself on the turf and gone sound asleep the moment the column halted. Only with extreme difficulty could he be aroused and made to understand what was wanted. Mr. Winn, standing silently by, turned his back on his temporary commander. He knew the Irish captain was well-nigh swamped with liquor, and he had no wish to bear witness against him. Those were days so close to the war that officers, old and new, still thought more of what a man had done than of what he was doing, and Mullane had been a gallant trooper. "You 'tind to it, sergeant," was again the Irishman's comprehensive order to his first sergeant when at last he grasped the significance of Brooks's words, and five horsemen rode away at the lope to the left front the moment the column again mounted. Again did Brooks see fit to caution his leading troop commander. "I am afraid you have sampled that whiskey once too often, Mullane. No more of it now, or you'll go to pieces when you are most needed," he muttered, then rode on to the head of column.
And the prediction came true. At the very next halt Mullane had fallen into a stupor so heavy that it was found impossible to rouse him. The assistant surgeon with the column made brief examination, then unslung and removed the canteen at the captain's pommel, and whispered his conclusion,—"Better leave his horse and orderly here with him."
"Then," said the major, briefly, "Winn, you command 'L' Troop." And when again the column mounted, Barclay rode back and directed his leading section to incline to the right, so that they passed the lonely little group, the two horses placidly cropping at the scant herbage, the orderly squatting with averted face, filled at once with shame and sympathy, the recumbent figure sprawled upon the prairie, its bloated red visage buried in the blue-sleeved arms. Barclay's rearward sections instinctively followed the lead, and only furtive glances were cast, and no audible comments made. The ranks were full of tough characters in those days, yet imbued with a strange fidelity in certain lines that reminds one of the dog immortalized by Bret Harte at Red Gulch,—the dog that had such deep sympathy for a helplessly drunken man. There was nothing in their code to prevent their stealing from Uncle Sam, their captain, or any other victim, but to hint that an officer or a friend was drunk would have been the height of impropriety.
Winn, not Mullane, therefore, led "The Devil's Own," as Mullane's troop—together with others, no doubt—had been appropriately designated. Barclay followed at the head of "D." When nearing Crockett Springs at five o'clock, a dim speck of courier came twisting out upon the trail to meet them, and Brooks long after recalled the thought that came to him as he read the despatch that reached him there. It was from Lawrence: