"Oh, shut up, Dad! His people did wire him that his mother was desperately ill. They merely wanted to get him away from the campaign. He'd been gambling, the pesky little fool, with some of the Rawhide crowd, was all out of cash and dared not tell his guardian. That's all there was to it. Soon's he gets his money he'll square up—thought perhaps he had, since Rawdon had enough to marry on. Lowndes owed him ten times what he owed me, I reckon."
To them, thus engrossed in confidential chat, there suddenly entered the two doctors. "Black Bill," the inspector, it seems, had given notice that he must needs have speech with the culprit, if that bandaged, blistered, and unprincipled young man were in condition to see him. "Black Bill" and his host had been having a night of it. Button was in high fettle over the amazingly truthful and unlooked-for articles in the Mail, and as eager to know and reward their author as he had been to apprehend and punish the earlier detractor. Button had begun to "wobble," as Bill expressed it, in his spleen against Lanier until so suddenly "braced" by the truculent stand of Captain Snaffle, whose half-drunken words the previous night were by this time known all over the post.
The matter was now in the hands of Colonel Riggs, however, and it was his to determine what further action to take. Snaffle had named as his witness Sergeant Fitzroy, Private Kelley (who, though drunk on duty, had not been so drunk, said Snaffle and Fitzroy, that he could not recognize an officer when he saw him), and the third witness, to the amaze of Barker and the derision of Ennis, when told of it, was no less a person than poor Tom Rafferty, Lanier's own "striker" and hitherto devoted henchman. And to the consternation of Stannard, Sumter, and others, Captain Snaffle had been able to back his words. Riggs sent for the two availables, Fitzroy and Kelly, and the two had declared they could not be mistaken; that they had heard Miss Arnold's scream, followed instantly by the crash of glass. Fitzroy admitted that he was at the moment at Captain Snaffle's back door; said he ran round to the Sumters' gate; that he distinctly saw the figure of a man in a soldier's overcoat and fur cap leaping and sliding down the roof, and that a moment later he grappled with it in the dark woodshed, dropping his hold only when angrily ordered to do so, the voice adding instantly, "I'm Lieutenant Lanier." Kelly was ready to swear to practically the same facts, though he "thought there was two of them," which, under the circumstances, was not to be wondered at. Fitzroy declared that a moment later Rafferty rushed to the spot, recognized the lieutenant, and by him was sternly ordered to leave. As yet Rafferty was in no condition to affirm or deny. The excitement of the fire had brought on a relapse, and the wild Irishman was wilder than ever, "raving-like," as the steward said, in the big post hospital.
And these statements, presently, did Colonel Riggs lay before Lieutenant Lanier, in presence of Doctors Larrabee and Schuchardt, as well as Lieutenant Ennis. "I've known you three years, young sir," said he, "and I've believed in you from the first. I have reminded Sergeant Fitzroy of his previous allegations against Trooper Rawdon, as to the scuffle and assault, and, so far from showing confusion, Fitzroy promptly said, 'Certainly, that took place barely half a minute later and within ten yards of the spot.' He says his whole idea first was to drive Rawdon from the scene, and prevent his finding his officer in so humiliating a plight. He says he sought in every way at first to shield the lieutenant, but when all these other facts came out about the cap, the clothing, the lieutenant's absence from his quarters, his lacerated hand, etc., there was no help for it. He finally yielded to the pressure of Captain Snaffle's questions and told the truth. Kelly miserably admitted his knowledge of it and when Rafferty came to his senses, he, too, was to be catechised."
"Now, Mr. Lanier, there's the situation. Do you care to say anything to me, or would you prefer to take counsel?"
And Bob Lanier leaning on his elbow, looked quietly up in the colonel's bearded face and answered:
"Colonel Riggs, I reckon both those men think they're telling the truth, and I may have to prove they're not."
"Do you mean—you were there?" queried old Riggs, in genuine concern.
"There, sir? Of course I was there—quick as I could get there, but not quick enough by any manner of means."
Riggs looked grave indeed.