"Yes, Ray made no end of fuss about getting off—until the orders came; since then I haven't heard much—that is, I haven't seen anything of him."
"He couldn't well get to the regiment without going through here, could he?"
"No; but he hasn't gone, and he won't be going in any great hurry."
It was evident to Mrs. Stannard that Gleason was striving to be questioned. Whatever he knew he was ready to tell, provided some one would ask. Mrs. Truscott and Miss Sanford stood silently by, still looking at the photograph, when Mrs. Stannard again spoke.
"Well, Mr. Ray was never behind in any previous campaign, and I'll venture to predict he isn't far behind now. Now, Mr. Gleason, I'm going to send you home, for these ladies are tired out with their long journey."
He would fain have put in another word about Ray, but she was vigilant and checked him. He hoped for an invitation to breakfast, but it did not come. He plead with languishing eyes for a few moments more at the side of the lady he desired to fascinate, but Miss Sanford was still looking at the photographs and would not return his glance. Go he had to, and it was plain to him that in striving to belittle Ray he had damaged his own cause. It made him bitterer still as he strode through the darkness down to the beacon-lights of the store. Gleason drank more and talked more before he went to bed than was good for him; but no seed is so easily sown as that of slander.
CHAPTER IX.
RAY TO THE FRONT.
It has been said that Major Stannard told his wife that he proposed going down to camp, hunting up Mr. Wilkins, and getting from him "flat-footed" the authority he had for his insinuations at Mr. Ray's expense the day before the regiment marched for the Black Hills. The major went as he proposed; but at the very moment he reached camp the object of his search was unpacking Mrs. Wilkins's trunks up in the garrison. Stannard left word with the officer of the day that he wanted to see Mr. Wilkins on important business right after "retreat" (sunset) roll-call; and Wilkins was quick to divine that the major had already heard of his morning's mischief at the store. He stood in awe of the battalion commander, and knew well that when it came to a face to face encounter with him there could be no dodging. He must swallow his words or give his authority. Wilkins, therefore, had important business of his own or his able wife's devising which kept him from going to camp during the evening, and Stannard, being only the major, could not order him thither in the face of the colonel's permission to be absent. He trudged back across the prairie in no amiable mood, therefore, and swore in stalwart Anglo-Saxon to Captain Merrill that he would bring Wilkins to the scratch if he had to go to his quarters to do it. They looked in at the store, and Wilkins wasn't there, so together they walked up the row until they came to the cottage into which the lares and penates of the Wilkins family had so recently been carried, and Mrs. Wilkins herself met them at the door. She was afraid of nobody, and had doubtless been requested (he never directed) by her husband to see who was knocking. Now Mrs. Wilkins was as fond of Major Stannard as her husband was afraid of him. She liked his blunt, sturdy, unaffected ways, and many a time and oft she had held him up to her submissive lord as the sort of soldier he ought to be. She knew nothing of the affair at the store as yet, and Wilkins was afraid to tell her. With her keen insight she had long since discovered that her husband's associates and intimates in the regiment were not the strong or the good men, and she had warned him at Sandy that whatever he might have against such men as Truscott or Ray, he had better stamp it out and seek to re-establish himself in their good opinion. Such men as Gleason, with whom he consorted, would soon get him into trouble. Poor Wilkins heard the major's blunt salutation at the door and his wife's cordial invitation to walk in; but the major declined with thanks. "Ask Mr. Wilkins to come out here on the piazza, please; I want to see him on business," was his request; and when Mrs. Wilkins came puffing up-stairs supplementing the message with a "Hurry now; the major isn't the man for you to keep waiting," the hapless veteran wished himself anywhere out of Wyoming; but down he went with rather a hang-dog look. Stannard had met him with unexpected kindness of manner. "I'm worried about the story told of Ray, Mr. Wilkins, and I've come to get the authority from you. Of course you must have had something to base such statements upon," and being fairly cornered, Wilkins said his informant was Gleason. Being asked to show the letter, Wilkins declared that he had burned it, and would never have alluded to it but for Blake's manner, which he declared had goaded him into the remarks. Then he told Stannard that Gleason wrote in so many words that Ray was with Rallston night and day, and intimated that the latter kept him at cards and wine most of the time, and that if some scandal did not result when it came to paying for the horses he would be surprised. Still, he could not quote the language; but he gave his impressions. Stannard had called Merrill to witness the statement; then, giving Wilkins injunctions to say nothing more to anybody on the subject, and pledging Merrill to reticence, he had gone home, written brief and hurried letters to Ray and to Gleason, told his wife that he had heard the stories, and that until Ray had a chance to explain would regard them as baseless rumors, or at the worst as exaggerations, for which Gleason was responsible; then he had slept the sleep of the just until the corporal of the guard came banging at the door at four a.m. to say the reveille had sounded out in camp. Two hours later he had jogged away at the head of his battalion.