A Wounded Name

by Charles King

Something was wrong with the prosecution anyway. It had begun with truculent confidence. It was unnerved by the serene composure of the accused, and his refusal to object to anything, to cross-examine, to avail himself of any one of the privileges accorded the defense. This could have only one interpretation, and Nevins, twitching with nervous dread, was worrying the judge advocate with perpetual questions as to the witnesses for the defense. When were they to be produced? Who were they? And the judge advocate did not know. Very unfairly had he been treated, said he, for the list of witnesses for the defense not only had not been furnished him, but he had never been "consulted." Two or three "stuck-up" Engineers had come out from St. Louis and Detroit, and Loring and they had been actually hobnobbing with the department commander. But the mere fact that the meeting of the court was delayed until the end of September proved that they must be coming from the Pacific coast, at which announcement Petty looked perturbed and Nevins twitched from head to foot. He didn't suppose, he said, the United States would stand the expense of fetching witnesses way from California, transportation and per diem would cost more than the whole business was worth.—and the judge advocate was wishing himself well out of it when, on a sunny Friday morning, the third day of the court, the president rapped for order and the big roomful of spectators was hushed to respectful silence. The defense had made its first request, that the principal witness for the prosecution, Nevins, should be present, and there he sat, nervous and fidgety, as Loring was serene.

In halting and embarrassed fashion, very unlike the fluent ease with which he opened the case, the judge advocate announced that, owing to the impossibility of compelling the testimony of witnesses on whom he had relied, he was obliged to announce that the prosecution would here rest. The defense, of course, he said, vaguely, would wish to be heard, though he had not been honored with any conference or even a list of the witnesses. Then he looked inquiringly at Loring, and every neck in the thronged apartment, the biggest room at headquarters, was "craned" as Loring quietly handed him a slip of paper.

The judge advocate read, looked puzzled, glanced up, and cleared his throat.

"You mean you want these summoned?"

"No, they're here, in my office."

The judge advocate turned to the orderly of the court, a soldier standing in full dress uniform at the door. The hallway, even, was blocked with lookers-on. The windows to the south were occupied by curious citizens, gazing in from the wooden gallery. Those to the north, thrown wide open to let in the air, were clear, and looked out over a confused muddle of shingled roofs and stove-pipe chimneys. Hardly a whisper passed from lip to lip as the orderly bustled away. Members of the court fidgeted with their sash tassels, or made pretense of writing. Nevins, the sheriff's officer, in close attendance, sat staring at the doorway, his face ashen, and beginning to bead with sweat. Presently the people in the hall gave way right and left, and all eyes save those of Loring were intent upon the entrance. He sat coolly looking at the man whom six months before he had convicted in Arizona. There was a stir in the courtroom. Half the people rose to their feet and stared, for slowly entering upon the arm of a tall, slim, long legged lieutenant of infantry, a stranger to every man in the court, came a slender, shrinking little maid, whose heavy eyelashes swept her cheeks, whose dark, shapely head hung bashfully. Behind them, in the garb of some religious order, unknown to all save one or two in the crowded room, came a gentle-faced woman, leaning on the arm of a field officer of the Engineers, at sight of whom the president sprang from his chair, intending to bow, but the silence was suddenly broken by the quick, stern order, "Look out for your prisoner!" followed by a rush, a crashing of overturned chairs, as court and spectators, too, started to their feet—a general scurry to the northward windows, shouts of "Halt!" "Head him off!" "Stop him!" in the midst of which a light, supple form was seen to poise one instant on the sill, then go leaping into space. "He's killed!" "He's not!" "He's up again!" "He's off!" were the cries, and with drawn revolver the deputy sheriff fought his way through the throng at the door and with a dozen men at his heels, darted down the hallway in vain pursuit of Nevins, now out of sight among the shanties half a block away.

Of all that followed before the court when at last it came to order, there is little need to tell. The judge advocate would have been glad to drop the case then and there, but now the defense had the floor and kept it, though not a word of evidence was needed. The first witness sworn was Lieutenant Blake, who told of the trick by which he and his men, Loring's guards, had been lured from the camp at Sancho's ranch, and of their finding Loring senseless, bleeding and robbed on their return. The next was little Pancha, and Loring sat with his hand shading his blue eyes as the pallid maid, with piteously quivering lips at times, with brave effort to force back her tears, in English only a little better than that in which she had poured out her fears to Blake that eventful night at Gila Bend—sometimes, indeed, having to speak in Spanish with the gray sister sworn as her interpreter—told the plaintive story of her knowledge of and connection with Sancho's wicked band. Her dear father and her stepmother were ruled by Sancho. She had seen Nevins there often, "him who had fled through the window." She gathered enough from what she heard about the ranch to realize that they were planning to rob the officer, "this officer," before he could get away with the diamonds. Nevins had ridden in with six men, bad men, that very night, and she heard him planning with Sancho and her father, and she had tried to warn the officers, and "this gentleman" (Blake this time) had come, and before she could tell him she was followed and discovered. But then her stepmother had later whispered awful things to her—how they were going to rob the stage and kill the passengers, and bade her take her guitar and try to call the officer again, and tell him to take his soldiers and go to the rescue, and this she had done eagerly, and then when they were away her mother seized her and drew her into the room and shut her there, but she heard horsemen rush into the camp, and a minute later Nevins, jeering and laughing in the bar, and that very night they took her away—she and her father and the stepmother, and Nevins was with them. They went by Tucson to Hermosillo and to Guaymas, and her mother told her she must never breathe what she knew—it would ruin her father, whom she loved, yes, dearly, and whom she would not believe had anything to do with it. And at Hermosillo Nevins had the watch, the diamond ring, the diamond stud, these very ones, she was sure, as the valuable "exhibits" were displayed. But at San Francisco when the lady superior told her of the accusations against "this gentleman" (even now her eyes would not look into Loring's) and of all his trouble, she forgot her father's peril, forgot everything but that Lieutenant Loring, who had been so good and kind and brave, was wrongfully accused, and she told all to the lady superior and went with her and repeated it to the General, the General who had died. And when at last she finished her trembling, tearful story, Loring rose before them all, went over and took her hand and bowed low over it, as though he would have kissed it, and said, "Thank you, señorita." And the judge advocate declined to cross-examine. What was the use? But the defense insisted on other witnesses—a local locksmith who had sold Nevins keys that would open any trunk, a hotel porter who swore that the blinds to Loring's room had been forcibly opened from without, a bell boy who had seen Nevins on the gallery at that window three nights before the search of the luggage was made. And the court waxed impatient and said it had had more than enough. Every man of the array came up to and shook Loring by the hand before they let him leave the courtroom, and Blake hunted high and low through Omaha until he found poor Petty and relieved his mind of his impressions, and finally the order announcing the honorable acquittal of Lieutenant Loring, on every charge and specification, was read to every command in the department fast as the mails could carry it.

Brought to by a bullet in the leg, George Nevins was recaptured down the Missouri three days later, and sent for his wife that she might come and nurse him. Though everybody said no, she went and did her best, and if nursing could have saved a reprobate life he might still have remained an ornament to society such as that in which he shone. But Naomi wore a widow's veil when late in October she returned to Folsom's roof; the good old trader had stood her friend through all.

There were some joyous weddings in the Department of the Platte the summer that followed, Loring gravely figuring as best man when Dean, of the cavalry, was married to Elinor Folsom, and smiling with equal gravity when he read of the nuptials of Brevet Captain Petty and the gifted and beautiful Miss Allyn. He had reverted to his original idea, that of waiting in patience until he had accumulated a nest egg and had acquired higher rank than a lieutenancy in the Engineers; and so he might have done if it took him a dozen years had not orders carried him once more to the Pacific coast, after the completion of the Union Pacific railway.

Regularly every month he had written to Pancha, noting with surprise and pleasure how rapidly she learned. Gladly he went to see her at the gray sisters the day after his arrival. He had meant to laughingly remind her of his good-by words: "You know we always come back to California," but he forgot them when she came into the room. He took her hands, drew her underneath the chandelier and looked at her, and only said: