"I have twice sent to ask that Mr. Loring should come to see me," railed Nevins. "I have important matters—papers and messages from my wife, and he holds aloof. By God, Gleason! you tell him for me that if he can't treat me decently, and come to see me before tattoo this night, I demand that he hand back those diamonds and things! Do you understand?"
And that message Mr. Gleason, who of all things loved a sensation, faithfully promised to deliver and fully meant to, but the game at the sutler's developed into a big one that eventful night. Jackpots were the rule before the drums of the infantry hammered out first call for tattoo, and in the absorbing nature of his occupation he never thought of Nevins' charge except as something to be attended to later, and not until guard-mount of another day, when his head was muddled with the potations of an all-night session and the befogging cocktails of the morning, did Mr. Gleason approach the engineer upon the subject, and then there was a scene.
Loring was standing at the moment in front of the rude brush and adobe quarters of Major Starke conversing with two or three officers, or rather listening in silence to their observations. Turnbull was seated under the shelter of a sort of arbor made of framework and canvas signing some papers. The president of the court had disappeared and a rumor was flitting about the post that early in the morning, before the dawn, in fact, that hardy veteran had pushed ahead in saddle, escorted by most of Blake's troop, which had unexpectedly returned during the previous night, but merely unsaddled and, after a "rub-down, feed and water," had gone on again. If that were true, they had left as silently and mysteriously as they came, and only a corporal's guard remained. Had Gleason been intent on anything but the manner in which he could make his communication most public and significant, if not offensive, he would have noticed that both Turnbull and Loring were in riding dress. But while it could not be said of him that in his condition he was capable of seeing only one thing at a time, those things which he did see were duplicate images of the same object, and he lurched up to the dual Loring and the hazy figures that seemed floating about him, and, with an attempt at majestic impressiveness, thickly said: "Mr. Loring, I'm bearer of a message from my fren' Mr.—Captain Nevins, d'manding the me'dy't r'turn of the diamon's an' valu'bles he placed in your p'ssession."
Other officers within earshot heard, as Gleason intended they should hear, and turned instantly toward the group, all eyes on the two—the flushed, swaying subaltern in fatigue uniform; the calm, deliberate man in riding dress. A faint color, as of annoyance, quickly spread over Loring's face, but for a moment he spoke not a word. Angrily the post, commander came hurrying forth, bent on the prompt annihilation of his luckless subaltern, and was about to speak, but Loring interposed.
"One moment, sir, I beg." Then turning again on Gleason the engineer looked him calmly over from head to foot a second or two and then as calmly said:
"Too late, sir, they've gone."
CHAPTER VII.
Three days after the adjournment of Nevins' court Camp Cooke had dropped back to the weary monotone of its everyday life. Everybody was gone except the now sullen and complaining prisoner and the little garrison of two companies of infantry. Vanished even were all but two or three of the colony of gamblers and alleged prospectors, who occupied, to the annoyance of the commanding officer and the scandal of the sutler, a little ranch just outside the reservation lines whither venturesome spirits from the command were oft enticed and fleeced of the money that the authorized purveyor of high-priced luxuries considered his legitimate plunder. By this time Camp Cooke waked up to the fact that it had been dozing. While its own little force of cavalry was scouting the valleys of the Verde and the Salado to the east and Blake's troop had been rushed up the Hessayampa to the north, and there was no one apparently to do escort duty through the deserts along the Gila, Camp Cooke and the outlying prowlers believed that those costly trinkets which Nevins had begged Mr. Loring to take to his wife would not be withdrawn from the quartermaster's safe, much less sent forth upon their perilous way. Not until after Colonel Turnbull and the engineer had ridden off southward, escorted by a sergeant with six tough-looking troopers; not until after Loring's announcement that the jewels themselves had been sent ahead; not until after Mr. Gleason had been remanded to his quarters to "sober up," and the adjutant dispatched to Captain Nevins with the intimation that if his too audible imprecations were not stopped he and his tent would be transferred to a corner of the corral, did Camp Cooke learn that Major Starke had sent a fly-by-night courier after Blake, recalling the troop, that it had halted on that stream ten miles above the post, resting all afternoon and evening, had ridden silently in toward camp an hour after midnight and, after receiving certain instructions from Starke and a visit from Loring, had gone on southward, silently as it came, accompanied by the presiding officer of the court, who hated day marches and the sun-scorched desert, and leaving escort for those who were still to follow. There was mild surprise in camp, but untold wrath and vituperation along the line to Sancho's, for from far and near the choicest renegades of Arizona had been flocking to the neighborhood only to find themselves outwitted by the engineer. Not half an hour after the burst of blasphemy from Nevins' tent informed the camp that something more had happened to agitate anew his sorely ruffled temper, and the story flew from lip to lip that it was because the precious jewels were already on their way to 'Frisco, guarded presumably by Blake and forty carbines, a swarthy half-breed courier spurred madly southward from the outlying roost on the borders of the reservation, with the warning that it would be useless risk to meddle with the Teniente Loring's party when it came along—there were no valuables with them; they had been sent with the cavalry hours before the dawn.
Yes, even the sealed record of the court must have been sent at that time, too, for at ten o'clock in the morning, when Colonel Turnbull and Mr. Loring mounted and gravely saluted the cap-raising group of officers as they rode away from the major's quarters, it was observed that Loring had not even saddle-bags, and the major's striker admitted that he had hoisted the lieutenant's valise to the pommel of a trooper's saddle at two o'clock in the morning. Various were the theories and conjectures at the sutler's all the rest of the day as to the information possessed by Lieutenant Loring which led to such extreme precaution. The major was close-mouthed, and, for him, rather stern. He held aloof from his juniors all day long and seemed to be keeping an eye and an ear attent on Nevins. That officer's conduct was a puzzle. Six months before he was the personification of all that was lavish, hospitable, good-natured, extravagant. Everybody was apparently welcome to the best he had. Then came the collapse, his arrest, his flight, his capture and confinement, his laughing defiance of his accusers until he found how much more they knew than he supposed, his metaphorical prostration at the feet of his judges, his humility, repentance, suffering and sacrifice, his pledge of future atonement, his protestations of love for his long-suffering wife, his surrender of his valuables for her benefit, his meekness of mien until the court had concluded his case and gone. Then, his sudden resumption of bold, truculent, defiant manner, his midnight breach of arrest, which had leaked out through the guard that was promptly sent forth to fetch him in; then his demand for the return of his property, and his furious outburst on learning that Loring had taken him at his word and sent it without delay by the safest possible hands.