His voice is so hoarse and loud with anger that the colonel's attention is attracted. He has just seated Doctor Warren in the vehicle, and is about to take his place by his side when Rix's tirade bursts upon his ear. The words are only partially distinguishable, but the colonel steps promptly back.
"What is the matter with your prisoner, sergeant? Is he drunk or crazy, that he persists in this uproar?"
"I don't think it either, sir," answers the sergeant; while Rix, at sight of his commanding officer, pops his head back within the tent, and shuts the narrow slit. "He's simply ugly and bent on making trouble."
"Well, stop it! If he utters another insubordinate word, have him bucked and gagged at once. He is disgracing the regiment, and I won't tolerate it. Do you understand?"
"I do, sir."
The colonel turns abruptly away, while the prisoner, knowing his man, keeps discreetly out of sight, and correspondingly silent. At the gate the older officer stops once more and calls to a soldier who is standing near.
"Give my compliments to Lieutenant Abbot, and say that I will be out here again to-morrow afternoon. Now, doctor, I am with you."
The old gentleman is leaning wearily back in his corner of the cab; a strange, stunned, lethargic feeling seems to have come over him. His eyes are fixed on vacancy, if anything, and the colonel's attempt at cheeriness meets no response. As the vehicle slowly rattles away he makes an effort, rouses himself as it were from a stupor-like condition, and abruptly speaks:
"You tell me that—that you have seen Lieutenant Abbot's mail all summer and spring and never saw a—our postmark—Hastings?"
"I have seen his mail very often, and thought his correspondents were all home people. I am sure I would have noticed any letters coming frequently in one handwriting, and his father's is the only masculine superscription that was at all regular."