XI
Friday again, and late in the day, and Bob Lanier's arrest lacked but a few hours of its first full week, and Bob was in bandages and bed in a sunny room of the hospital. Ennis, after a long night in saddle and a short "spat" with the colonel, was taking a much needed nap. Stannard and his wife had gone down to Doctor Mayhew's to meet Mrs. Osborn, who had come to spend the afternoon. Paymaster Scott was up and about, and, in his independent way, had been saying unrelishable things to Button, who was in most peppery frame of mind. A wire had come from department headquarters to say an inspector would follow. "Instead of ordering a general court to try Lieutenant Lanier, they have ordered a colonel out to try me, by gad!" said Button. "For that's just what it all amounts to."
And of all colonels to investigate matters at Cushing, there wasn't one in the army Button would not rather have had than the very one who was coming—bluff, blunt, rasping old Riggs, best known to fame and Fort Cushing, as "Black Bill."
"Why," said Button, to Scott, "this sending one field officer of cavalry to sit in judgment on the official deeds of another is nothing short of—of infamous, and I'm amazed at Crook's doing it."
"It ain't Crook," said Scott, not without a little malicious delight in Button's disgust. "He's away up at Washakie, and of course his adjutant general don't want to act or even advise until he knows all about it. You've seen fit to charge Lanier with all manner of things, and I don't wonder headquarters are staggered."
"But—Bill Riggs—to come and overhaul my regiment, when it's notorious he never could command even a two-company camp without having everybody by the ears! Such men aren't fit to be inspectors!"
Indeed, there was much to warrant poor Button's disgust. He had preferred most serious charges against Lanier. He had accused him of quitting camp on campaign, quitting his guard in garrison, quitting his quarters when in arrest, failing to quit himself of a money obligation, drinking and consorting with enlisted men, and in his letter of transmittal he had intimated that there were other misdeeds he might yet have to uncover. All, said Button, on the information of veteran officers and sergeants of the regiment—notably Captains Curbit and Snaffle, Lieutenants Crane and Trotter, Sergeants Whaling and Fitzroy—and now here were both medical officers, both of his majors, two of his best captains, seven of his subalterns, and nine-tenths of the women folk at Fort Cushing taking sides with Lanier and issue with him—their colonel and commander. And here, too, were Lieutenant and Mrs. Foster, highly connected, influential, wealthy, insisting that his most active and important witness, the unimpeachable Sergeant Fitzroy, had corrupted their coachman, run off with their sleigh, and ruined (this was Mrs. Foster) their horses.
Foster, first lieutenant of Snaffle's troop, seldom on speaking terms with his captain, had discovered the deed at morning stables just five minutes before the aggrieved sergeant drove in with the missing property and Lieutenant Ennis as escort. Foster was in a fury over it, the more so because Fitzroy had maintained, respectfully enough but most stubbornly, that the circumstances were such that he felt justified in making immediate use of any property under his care or charge, that he would explain everything to his captain and the colonel, but begged to be excused in the lieutenant's present frame of mind from arguing the matter with him.
And the story Snaffle told Button before Foster could reach him went far to strengthen Fitzroy's position. Snaffle said that so far from Fitzroy's corrupting the coachman, the boot should be on the other foot, were Fitzroy corruptible—that Foster would find his coachman a double-dyed liar when he came to the truth of that runaway the night of the dance—that Foster's sleigh and carriage and driving horses had no right in a Government stable anyhow—were only there on sufferance (which was true, for Foster kept saddlers besides—all the law allowed him)—and that under the circumstances, when, as was well known, at least twenty officers and troopers on Government mounts had gone forth at night in violation of standing orders, without the commanding officer's knowledge or consent—all on the plea of rescuing Mayhew's daughter, Lieutenant Foster ought to be ashamed of himself for abusing Fitzroy for taking the sleigh in hopes of having a warm nest to fetch the poor girl home in as soon as he'd found her. "Sure, did Mr. Ennis expect her to ride back on his cantle on so bitter a night? Faith, Fitzroy was worth the whole pack of 'em put together, if they'd only let him alone."
And that, at nine o'clock, when Ennis was sent for, was the colonel's way of looking at it. Moreover, he had a rasp up his sleeve for our massive young friend on half a dozen other counts.