and she never forgave ridicule. He declared he meant to kiss Mrs. Wilkins good-by, and dared Mrs. Stannard to come down and see him do it; but when it was really time to ride to the head of his troop of recruits, he bowed to Miss Sanford with a knowing look in his eye, and bent low over her hand.
"'Love sought is good, but given unsought is better;'
and yet, fair lady, you fail to see the overpowering advantages of accepting mine. In the language of Schillerschoppenhausen, Ich habe geliebt und gelebt, which being interpreted means, I've loved and got left. Fare ye well." And away he rode, bestriding his horse like a pair of bent dividers on a broad grin.
And Ray,—though pale from recent illness and confinement and lack of the old open air life,—never had he looked so full of hope and buoyancy and life as, after one thrilling little squeeze of her hand, he swung into saddle, doffed his broad-brimmed hat to all, and went bounding away to take his place in front of the long mounted line that awaited his coming. Then his voice rang out clear and firm and true, and with the daisy nestling in his breast he galloped to the head of column. Duty, Loyalty, and Hope were leading on before.
Two long weeks of marching it took to carry them to the romantic valley in the Black Hills where the old —th so eagerly awaited them, and meantime letters were flying to and fro. Ray meant to bring his new riders and new horses in perfect trim to their regiments, and so made short marches and constant inspection of his stock. Heavens! what a gloom had settled over the regiment that miserable day, when one of their number, having ridden into Deadwood, came back with a several days' old Cheyenne paper giving the fearful details of Gleason's death and Ray's probable guilt. It was three days more before they met the mail-stage fairly laden down with bags of letters for them. Stannard had been almost sick, Truscott sad, silent, but incredulous. There had been a difference between him and Billings, for the latter was inclined to believe the story true, and Truscott said that he was prepared to hear this from other men in the regiment but not from him. Eager as lovers and husbands to get their mail, every man had dropped the letter he happened to be reading when young Hunter, searching a later Cheyenne paper, set up a whoop that made the pine-crested heights echo again and again. Then waving his paper and dancing like a madman, the youngster yelled at the top of his voice,—
"Ray's innocent! Ray's acquitted! 'Twas a deserter, Wolf, who did it! He's confessed. Now, Crane. By heaven, swallow your words! Wh-o-o-o-p!"
Officers and men, the whole regiment sprang to their feet and came tearing to the spot, and such a scene of hand-shaking and shouting and jubilee the Black Hills never knew before or since. It was easy enough for the officers to hurry back to their letters from wives and children or sweethearts, but for hours the men kept up their hurrah; Ray had been their hero for years, and the affair of the July fight of Wayne's command had simply intensified the feeling.
Naturally, the letters bearing the postmarks of latest dates were those first opened. Fancy the faces of Stannard and Truscott as they read, letter by letter, backward through that summer's record. Turner looked as sad and anxious as ever; almost the first one he opened said, "If you have not already seen and read those that precede this, please burn them without reading. I was mistaken;" and Turner well knew that when his wife got so far as to admit that she had been mistaken, it meant that in some way she had been playing the mischief. He never read, therefore, all her graphic details of Ray's mysterious flirtation with Mrs. Truscott, or of the thrilling evidence in Mrs. Turner's possession of his guilt. A good fellow was Turner, a loyal soldier and husband, who loved his pretty and capricious better half, and deserved a still better one.
That night when the first keen frosts of October made the camp-fires doubly welcome, old Stannard and Jack went off among the pines and built a little blaze all by themselves, and there talked gravely over the strange events of the summer now so fully set before them in those volumes from Russell. All Wolf's wild infatuation. All Gleason's cunning malice, and—ah! De mortuis nil nisi bonum. May God forgive him! All Ray's loyal and devoted services, and his cruel suffering and wrongs. What wonder was it that for days the regiment could talk of nothing but Ray? What wonder that they could not fathom the secret of the tie that made Stannard and Truscott inseparable now? What wonder that those two officers obtained permission to ride forward a day's march and meet Ray and his command, and that when they came upon him cantering gayly up through Buffalo Gap, he hardly knew them, so gaunt, worn, and ragged were they; they hardly knew him, so radiant was the halo of hope and love around his once devil-may-care face; so earnest, so grave, yet so joyous had become his once flippant, reckless mien. Yet, in their very greeting, Ray well knew that deep and faithful as had been the old trust, there was new born from the harsh ordeal of this strange, sad summer a friendship firmer, deeper, than ever earthly menace could shake—a trust and loyalty that was registered in heaven. Not one word for hours was interchanged between Jack and Ray as to that scene in which he carried to Grace the letter Gleason had stolen, or found. Together, with Blake occasionally injecting his rattling comments, they talked over all the sea of troubles through which he had passed, and together they would have mourned it all anew but for Ray.
"No, major. No, Jack. I see well that it was all for the best. God knows I have been ten times rewarded for anything I may have suffered then. There was a lesson I had to learn, and did learn: that there are hundreds of people who think that when a man drinks at all there is no crime that may not properly be lodged at his door. It has been a hard siege, but every hour has been inestimable in result and in reward."