Collabone went through it twice with blinking eyes. "That's the bravest thing you ever did, Winn," said he, as he laid it carefully down. "That ought to stop court-martial proceedings."
"That," answered Winn, "is a different matter. I don't ask any mercy. I would have been better off this minute if he or Brayton had shot me on the spot."
There was silence a moment as he turned away and presently seated himself at the little table, his head dropping forward on his arms. Then Collabone stepped up and placed a hand upon his shoulder.
"Winn, my boy, I should lie if I said you ought not to feel this, but there's such a thing as brooding too much. You'll harm yourself if you go on like this. You—— Here! let me take that in to Barclay. Let him speak for me; I'm damned if it isn't too much for me!"
But Winn's head was never lifted as the doctor went his way.
Later that night the post adjutant dropped in. He and Winn had never been on cordial terms, but the staff officer was shocked and troubled at the increasing ravages in the once proud and handsome face of the cavalryman. "Winn," he said, in courteous tone, "the colonel directs extension of your limits to include the parade, and—and to visit Captain Barclay, who wants to see you this evening, if you feel able. It's only next door, you know," he added, vaguely. Then, "Isn't there anything I can do?"
That night just after taps old Hannibal admitted the tall young officer, and ushered him into a brightly lighted room, where, rather pale and wan, but with a kindly smile on his face, Galahad Barclay lay back in his reclining chair, and held out a thin, white hand.
"Welcome, Winn," was all he said, and then the old negro slid out and closed the door.
"There are Oirish and Oirish," as, quoting Mulvaney, has been said before. Once assured that no further proceedings were to be taken against him for his iniquitous lapse the day of the rush to Crockett Springs, Captain Mullane concluded that he must stand high in favor at court and that further self-denial and abstinence were uncalled for, especially in view of the successes achieved for him by the small detachment of his party led by Lieutenant Winn. Mullane was a gallant soldier in the field, from sheer love of fighting, and the same trait when warmed by whiskey made him a nuisance in garrison. Not a week was he home from his successful scout when he broke out in a new place, and this time he found instant accommodation.
Little of the stolen property was recovered by the searching squad sent out as the result of Marsden's revelations. That voluble scoundrel was in the guard-house, awaiting trial by general court-martial. Cavalry drills were resumed again, and after each morning's work the officers gathered in considerable force at the club-room. There had been, both in the infantry and in the cavalry, vast speculation as to the outcome of Winn's arrest and Barclay's mishap. But men, as a rule, spoke of the matter with bated breath. Mullane, Bralligan, and the one or two Irish ex-sergeants in the command, known locally as the Faugh-a-Ballaghs, however, waxed hilariously insolent in their comments. Nothing short of dismissal should be Winn's sentence, and nothing short of a challenge be Barclay's course. It was with something akin to amaze that Mullane received on the sixth day after Winn's arrest official notification of his release and restoration to duty. It was with something akin to incredulous wrath that an hour later he caught sight of the liberated lieutenant issuing from Barclay's quarters, not his own, and with Barclay leaning trustfully on his arm.