V
As Captain Sumter said, the ladies had gone no further than the surgeon's quarters that memorable Saturday, and with Sumter's full consent they had not gone even that far. Friday afternoon he had wired his protest to the father of Miriam Arnold, and with startling emphasis the reply had come early Saturday morning: "I repeat that I desire my daughter to return at once." It angered this honest gentleman and soldier. The tone was abrupt, if telegrams can be said to have either tone or manner, but that "wire" settled the matter. Miriam said she must obey, and nothing short of Doctor Larrabee, senior surgeon of the post, had prevailed against her decision. He himself had met the covered vehicle at his gate, and with calm but forceful courtesy had insisted on their alighting. "Your train is half a day late," said he. "You'll be wiser waiting here than at the frowsy station. Besides, I wish to see this young woman again." So saying, he fairly lifted Miss Arnold from the fur-robed depths of the dark interior, and deposited her on the wind-swept path. "Run in," said he, then similarly aided Mrs. and Miss Sumter. Their hand luggage and wraps came next, and Sumter drove away, saying he'd be back to them in abundant time for the train—which he was, though not until Tuesday morning. It was Thursday before the road was open or the telegraph again at work.
Less than half an hour the trio spent under the doctor's hospitable roof. Before two o'clock the wind had increased to a gale. The snow was driving swift and hard. "I checked you just in time," said he. "There'll be no train either way this night." And so by two o'clock, and just as the paymaster was driving away down the front of officers' row, Mrs. and Miss Sumter, with Miss Arnold, escorted by the two medical officers, were struggling across the open space between the surgeon's houses and the rear fence of the long line, and presently entering the back gate at Sumter's.
It was an odd arrangement, somewhat peculiar to frontier stations of the day. The enclosure of Fort Cushing was diamond-shaped. The entrance gate was at the eastern apex. The hospital and surgeons' quarters stood on a line with this gate, their front perpendicular to the long axis of the diamond. Their "rear elevations," therefore, were not far from officers' row. From the front of Sumter's house, around by way of the main gate to the doctor's door—the first to the left (north) of the post traders's—was quite a walk. From back door to back door, however, it was less than two hundred paces. "We are near neighbors," Doctor Larrabee had been saying, "though my wife thinks it a long walk on a windy day. I could reach you day or night, almost in a minute. As for Schuchardt and Bob Lanier, they could talk to each other out of their back windows this morning, but you couldn't hear a bugle across there now."
"Is he sitting up?" Mrs. Sumter inquired. "I thought, from what we heard, Doctor Schuchardt was trying to keep him in bed."
"He won't stay," was the brief answer. "I doubt if he slept a wink last night."
But Schuchardt was even less communicative. In answer to Mrs. Sumter's appeal, that young but gifted physician had looked perturbed, and finally answered: "Mr. Lanier's hurt is more mental than physical, therefore the more difficult for me to reach."
"You've seen him this morning?"
"Twice, Mrs. Sumter, and I'm going again as soon as we've seen you home."
And the moment they reached the rear storm-door, and their fur-hooded, fur-mantled charges were safely within, Schuchardt excused himself, Miriam Arnold's eyes following with a mute message that he felt, if he did not hear.