"What is it, sweet one? tell me."
"I had been thinking of all you had written me of your past, and of all your troubles and wrongs this summer, and wondering—wondering how any one could think of the loyalty you had always shown to those you loved,—how any one could look into your eyes and say you would ever disappoint—my faith."
CHAPTER XXIX.
A CAVALRY WEDDING.
And now the —th were all in from the field, and the wives and families of those officers who were there to be stationed were arriving by every train, and the post was all bustle and confusion and rejoicing. Some changes had occurred, as had been predicted by the colonel, but many of our old friends and several of later date were ensconced within the homely walls, and preparing for the combined rigors and comforts of a Wyoming winter in garrison. Here again were old Stannard and his loyal, radiant wife: here were the Turners and Raymonds and Webbs and Waynes and Truscotts and Heaths and Freemans, and others of whom we have not heard, and stanch old Bucketts, the sorely badgered but imperturbable quartermaster, and Billings, the peppery adjutant, and Mrs. Billings (whom their next-door neighbor Mr. Blake epitomized forthwith, to the lady's vehement indignation, as Billings and Cooings), and Mr. and Mrs. Wilkins and the little Wilkinses, and a "raft of youngsters," as the junior bachelor officers were termed, and with Blake was his sworn friend and ally Billy Ray, now the senior lieutenant of the regiment. Life was gayety to all but him, for Marion—the light of his very existence—had returned to the East. For ten days before the arrival of the regiment Russell was paradise. There were long, joyous, exquisite interviews in the dear little parlor at the Truscotts'. There were rides and drives over the boundless prairie; there were plannings and promises, and—I fear for once in his life Ray felt no great joy in the arrival of the old regiment, for on that day Major Taylor's family went East for the winter, and under their escort Miss Sanford departed. Bright and gay as was the winter that followed to all the ladies and most of the officers, there was one fellow at least to whom hops and dinners and germans had faint attraction. Routine duty at a cavalry post soon palls on the most enthusiastic. The endless round of roll-calls, stables both morning and evening, of drills and guard-mount, boards of survey and garrison courts, recitations and rifle-practice,—all serve to keep up constant demands on time and attention. There is just one thing that will throw about them all a halo of romance and interest,—the presence at the garrison of the girl you love; and when such a blessing has once been enjoyed and then is suddenly taken away, the utter blank is beyond description. Only to a few has it happened that the love of their lives has been found in garrison, and only they will quite realize what life at Russell became to Ray after Marion Sanford went East. He had greatly changed as every one saw. Not that he was less buoyant and brave, but that he was far more thoughtful, grave, and earnest. He was exact and punctilious in the performance of every military duty, was always ready to "bear a hand" at the entertainments and parties, but the haunts where he had once reigned supreme knew him no more. The post trader was heard regretfully to remark that Ray wasn't half the man he expected to find him, and there were rattle-pates among the youngsters in the regiment to whom "Ray's reformation" was a source of outspoken regret. "If that's the effect of getting all over in love," said Mr. Hunter, "I don't want any of it in mine."
Poker, too, languished as a popular pastime; the demand for morning cocktails had unaccountably fallen off; the bar-keeper would fall asleep at the club-room from sheer lack of employment during the afternoons and early evenings, for many of the married ladies had brought maiden relatives as friends to spend the winter with them, and half a dozen new romances were starting; and the colonel had his eye on some of the old habitués of "the store," and Wilkins and Crane and one or two other formerly reliable patrons were kept too busy to spend time or money at that once seductive retreat, and with the injustice of embittered human nature it was their wont to ascribe it all to Ray's backsliding, a matter of which that young gentleman was for some time in ignorance. He spent his off-duty hours in writing or reading or long chats with Truscott and romps with Baby Jack; he always dined with them on Sunday, and was in and out between their house, the Stannards', and "Saint's Rest" (as Blake had named the bachelor ranch which he and Ray occupied in partnership) at all hours of the day or evening; he was properly attentive at the colonel's, and called frequently upon the young ladies visiting the Waynes' and Heaths' and Billings' (Mrs. Turner never would have young ladies with her, they were too distracting), and of course he was subjected to incessant queries about Miss Sanford. It was too absurd to deny the engagement, said the garrison, for everybody knew he wrote regularly and she answered. Nevertheless, Ray, Truscott, Stannard, and, of course, Mrs. Truscott and Mrs. Stannard, denied that any engagement existed. Ray and Marion had quietly decided, as has been indicated, that there should be none, until—until he could offer her a little army home. But denials only stimulated the womenfolk into hazarding ingenious questions and suggestions, and the men to various conjectures more or less wooden-headed. At first it was theorized that he had proposed and been rejected; that was disposed of by her frequent letters. Then that "she had him on probation," and would marry him if he could keep clear of the old temptations a year,—two years or so,—unless some fellow came along meantime and swept her off. Bets were hazarded on the different events, and there was no end of talk about it, and Ray was the object of much sentimental interest among the ladies. One thing, however, was clearly observable. They, the ladies, with the confiding, caressing, insinuating, and delicious impertinence of the sex, could and would hazard their suggestions to him in person, and were laughingly parried; but if any one among the men were ass enough to suppose that all the old Ray had vanished he had only just to attempt to be jocularly familiar or inquisitive with him on that or a kindred subject, and get a Kentucky kick, as Blake called Ray's snubs, that would make him red in the face for a week. Poor Crane was the victim of the final experiment, and it was his last attempt to be facetious for many a weary month. It was a snapping December morning, one of the Advent Sundays, Truscott was officer of the day, and Ray had escorted Mrs. Truscott to church in town, and it so happened that a number of officers were in the club-room (for the colonel and Billings had gone away to North Platte on a court-martial, and the major did not care to haul in on the reins while the chief was absent), and looking out on the wintry prairie as they came driving into the garrison. There was some little sly comment, thoroughly good-natured, over the metamorphosis which a year had made in Ray, when suddenly the door opened and he bounded in.
"Give me a flask of good brandy, Muldoon; our driver is almost frozen."
Of course there was a ripple of laughing chaff over the unchristian spirit which prompted people to search the Scriptures in such weather and freeze the helpless victims of their piety,—the drivers. All this Ray parried in his old jaunty way, his white teeth gleaming and his eyes twinkling with merriment over some unusually good hit; but as ill luck would have it Mr. Crane had been up too late or too early—or both—and had managed to drink more than was prudent. He had always smarted under the scoring Ray had given him in Arizona, and he saw, or murkily thought he saw, a chance to say a stinging thing. The bar-keeper had just wrapped the flask in paper and was handing it to Ray, when Crane thickly began,—
"Makes a heap of difference in a man this gettin' spooney, don't it? Year ago Ray would have sneered at fellow's going to church, an' now he's doin' it—self. Next thing, by George, he'll be havin' 'ligious scruples 'bout goin' Indian-fighting."