“Didn’t I give you personal and positive orders not to let anything or anybody occupy this space after the baggage was got aboard, sir?” he demanded.
“You did, sir,” said the unabashed lieutenant, pulling a folded paper from his belt, “and the Red Cross got word to the general and what the Red Cross says—goes. Look at that!”
The colonel looked, read, looked dazed, scratched his head and said: “Well, I’m damned!” Then he turned to his adjutant. “You were with me when I saw the general last night and he told me to put this guard on and keep this space clear. Now, what d’you say to that?”
The adjutant glanced over the penciled lines. “Well,” said he, “if you s’pose any order that discriminates against the Red Cross is going to hold good, once they find it out, you’re bound to get left. They’re feasting the first company now, sir; shall I have it stopped?” and there was a grin under the young soldier’s mustache. The colonel paused one moment, shook his head and concluded he, too, would better grin and bear it. Taking the paper in his hand again he heard his name called and saw smiling faces and beckoning hands in an open carriage near him, but the sight of Stanley Armstrong, signalling to him from another, farther away, had something dominant about it. “With you in a minute,” he called to those who first had summoned him. “What is it, Armstrong?”
“I wish to present you to some friends of mine—Miss Lawrence—Miss Prime—Mr. Prime—my old associate, Colonel Stewart. Pardon me, Mrs. Garrison. I did not see you had returned.” She had, and was once more perched upon the step. “Mrs. Garrison—Colonel Stewart. What we need to know, Stewart, is this: Will all your men board the ship by this stage, or will some go aft?”
“All by this stage—why?”
But the colonel felt a somewhat massive hand crushing down on his own and forebore to press the question. Armstrong let no pause ensue. He spoke, rapidly for him, bending forward, too, and speaking low; but even as she chatted and laughed, the little woman on the carriage step saw, even though she did not seem to look, heard, even though she did not seem to listen:
“An awkward thing has happened. The General’s tent was robbed of important papers perhaps two days ago, and the guardhouse rid of a most important prisoner last night. Canker has put the officer-of-the-guard in arrest. Remember good old Billy Gray who commanded us at Apache? This is Billy Junior, and I’m awful sorry.” Here the soft gray eyes glanced quickly at the anxious face of Miss Lawrence, who sat silently feigning interest in the chat between the others. The anxious look in her eyes increased at Armstrong’s next words: “The prisoner must have had friends. He is now said to be among your men, disguised, and those two fellows at the stage are detectives. I thought all that space was to be kept clear.”
“It was,” answered Stewart, “yet the chief must have been overpersuaded. Look here!” and the colonel held forth a scrap of paper. Amy Lawrence, hearing something like the gasp of a sufferer in sudden pain, turned quickly and saw that every vestige of color had left Mrs. Garrison’s face—that she was almost reeling on the step. Before she could call attention to it, Armstrong, who had taken and glanced curiously at the scrap, whirled suddenly, and his eyes, in stern menace, swept the spot where the little lady clung but an instant before. As suddenly Mrs. Garrison had sprung from the step and vanished.