"You say you may have to prove it was not you. Don't you know you'll have to—if these witnesses are further sustained?"
"Fully, sir, and when my need is known there will be witnesses for the defense. The doctors tell me Rafferty may not come round in less than a week. When the time arrives I'll be ready."
And that was the way it had to be left. That was the condition of affairs when the eighth, and final, day of Lanier's close arrest arrived. Longer than eight, according to law, the colonel could not keep him in. Sooner than eight more, according to Larrabee, the doctors could not let him out. Yet there came a compromise and a change. "The idea of Bob Lanier spending Christmas in hospital!" said Mrs. Stannard. It was not to be thought of. A sunshiny room on the ground floor of the major's big house was duly prepared, and thither just before sunset on Christmas eve our young soldier was piloted by Schuchardt and Ennis, making the trip afoot across the rearward space, yet being remanded to a huge easy chair and partial bandages immediately on his arrival.
"Black Bill," with his incomplete report, had gone back to Omaha to further mystify the adjutant-general and to eat his Christmas dinner. The order for the court-martial hung fire until the preliminary investigation could be concluded. Fort Cushing set itself to enjoy the sweet festival as best it might, while such a problem remained unsolved. Veterinary Surgeon Mayhew had taken seven days' leave, an eastbound train, and at three p.m. the day before Christmas came a telegram from ---- Arnold, Esq., of Standish Bay, Massachusetts, announcing that he would leave forthwith for the West, bringing his sister with him. The Sumters told Mrs. Stannard, and she told Bob Lanier.
It has been said that this young gentleman was an outspoken fellow, with a hit-or-miss way of saying things when once his mind was made up, and by this time it would seem he had made up his mind.
"Mrs. Stannard, if you think a girl could stand the sight of such a Guy Fawkes as this, I would give much to speak ten minutes to Miss Miriam Arnold."
"You're not a Guy Fawkes," said Mrs. Stannard, with fluttering heart. "You've lost something of your mustache and eyebrows, but very little of your good looks. Only——"
"Only what?"
"Why, it's going to be so much harder to see her now than it was before—before she——" and Mrs. Stannard faltered.
"Before she saw me playing Saint Somebody or other at the back window, and screamed? Nobody knows I heard it except you, and you won't tell. Moreover, it isn't about that that I have to speak."