"Ray arrested. Horse board charges cooked up here by Gleason. Court ordered from Chicago. All staff or infantry officers. Make Gleason name authorities before regiment.
Stannard had thrust his head forward and his hands into his breeches-pockets.
"Now, isn't that simply damnable?" he asked.
"You do not believe Ray guilty, do you?" was Truscott's response.
"No, I don't," though there was hesitating accent on the don't. Stannard hated to be thought unprepared for any trait in a fellow-man—good or bad. "What can the charges be? Ray told me he had neither gambled nor drank."
"Something has been received at the colonel's. Billings was there opening and reading despatches when you called me." And Truscott nodded thither.
"Come on. I'm going to see this thing through now," said Stannard, and together they walked to headquarters.
The colonel, wrapped in his overcoat, was sitting up at the head of his camp-bed noting with a pencil a few memoranda, while Billings was reading aloud in a low voice some long despatches. Outside the tent were grouped half a dozen officers, waiting for such news as the colonel might give. Beyond them were the scattered and smouldering fires, the rude shelter-tents of the men, the white tops of the army wagons; beyond these the dark outlines of the massive hills; above them all the brilliant, placid stars; around them the hush of nature, broken only by the drowsing swish and plash of rapid, running waters, the stir of the night wind in the scattered trees, the stamp and snort of some startled troop-horse, the distant challenge of the night sentries. Something important had come, and the group looked eagerly at Stannard and Truscott as they approached.
"Have you heard anything?" was the question.