"Never mind, Webb. Don't speak a word; of course it is all easily explained. No man on earth is more welcome at my home than Ray, and my wife is one of his warmest friends. What I have to say is to you," said Truscott, turning fully upon his subaltern. "If I needed one further proof to assure me that you were the lowest and most intriguing scoundrel that walks the earth, you have given it this night. Gentlemen, you are witness to my words." And with that he walked away.
"And I say, Mr. Gleason, that if ever I lose a chance of showing you up in your true colors before this regiment, may the Lord forgive me! We're booked for the campaign now; but if you don't appear before that court with credentials that would damn even an Indian agent it won't be the fault of the —th Cavalry: and I mean to start about it to-night."
And he did. Old Stannard had a stormy interview with the colonel forthwith, and stirred up Bucketts, the quartermaster, and Raymond and Turner and Merrill among the captains, and even thought of rousing Canker, but concluded not to; and they raked out their pencils, and when the escort started back next morning with Mr. Gleason, the sergeant was intrusted with a batch of letters to various staff-officers setting forth in unequivocal terms Gleason's reputation as opposed to Ray's brilliant and gallant, if somewhat reckless, record. Even the colonel, inspired by Stannard's fiery eloquence, sent a few lines to the general commanding the division, expressing the desire in the regiment that there should be a suspension of proceedings against Ray until they could get in from the campaign. Even Billings turned to at Stannard's urging, and wrote personally to Ray and to the officer who was named as judge-advocate of the court, and everybody felt glad to be rid of Gleason as he rode homeward in gloomy silence. Everybody felt that he would be powerless for harm, little dreaming how ineffectual those letters would be as far as the present case against Ray was concerned; little dreaming how his going was but the means of coiling still more closely the folds of suspicion and dishonor around the gallant comrade whom all so gloried in for his summer's work; little dreaming of the days of doubt and darkness and tragedy that were to envelop those they left behind at Russell; little dreaming that from them and from friends at home there was coming utter isolation,—that before them lay days and weeks of toil and danger and privation, of stirring fight, of drooping spirits, of hunger, weakness, ay, starvation, wounds, and lonely death; little dreaming that when next they reached a point where news from home could come to them one-half their gallant horses would be gone, broken down, starved, or shot to death; many of their own number would have fallen by the way, and that of the bold, warlike array that rode buoyantly in among the welcoming comrades in the camp of the Gray Fox, only a gaunt, haggard, tattered, unkempt shadow would remain, when, eight long weeks thereafter, there came to them the next sad news of Ray.
CHAPTER XXI.
RAY'S TROUBLES.
"Here we are, Billy! Whoop! What did I tell you? Official communications disrupt bad grammar. The chief sends back your letter. Wants it changed again, I suppose. It's the old, old story,—
'You can and you can't,
You will and you won't;
You'll be damned if you do,
You'll be damned if you don't.'"
Ray took the paper with a hand that was hot and flushed. For a week he had been in close confinement, and that and a complication of annoyances and worries had combined to make him fretful; then some grave anxieties were added to his troubles; and then, his quick, impetuous nature had done the rest. He had no cool-headed adviser in Blake, who had taken up the fight with him, and now he was involved in an official tussle with the post authorities that added greatly to his fevered condition. He was sore in body, for the wound in his thigh was now beginning to trouble him again. He was sore at heart, for, except the impolitic Blake, he did not seem to have a friend in the world. There had come one or two kind little notes from the ladies "up the row," as they called the Stannard-Truscott household when they did not care to be more explicit; but these had ceased, and what was worse, in his days of worry and trouble and heartsickness, Ray had sought comfort in an old solace, that had done no great harm when he was living his vigorous out-of-door life, but was playing the mischief with his judgment and general condition now that he was penned up in the narrow limits of his quarters. Very, very anxious had Mrs. Stannard's face become; very wistful and anxious, too, was Miss Sanford's; and very sympathetic was Mrs. Truscott's. The first few days of his arrest they used to stroll down the line, and make it a point to go there and chat with him on his piazza; and this exasperated old Whaling, who was indignant that the cavalry ladies should make a martyr of their regimental culprit. The third day of his arrest, they were all seated there on the piazza, while Ray sat at his open window, and Hogan, his orderly, had led Dandy around to the front, and the pretty sorrel—the light of his master's eyes until eclipsed by one before which even Dandy's paled its ineffectual fire—was cropping the juicy herbage in the little grass plat in front of the piazza and being fed with loaf-sugar by delicate hands. Blake was sprawled over the railing, limp and long-legged, chatting with Mrs. Truscott. Miss Sanford was seated nearer the window, where Ray's eager eyes seemed to chain her, and Mrs. Stannard was doing most of the talk, for they seemed strangely silent. It was a pleasant picture of loyalty and esprit de corps, thought Mr. Warner, as he came down from the office; but to old Whaling, coming home crabbed from the store, where his post quartermaster had beaten him several games of pool, it was a galling sight. The ladies bowed in quiet, modified courtesy,—there was no cordiality whatever in it. Blake straightened up and saluted his superior in a purely perfunctory style that had nothing of deference and little of respect in it, and the colonel and his quartermaster both raised their caps in evident embarrassment. They looked back at Dandy after they had passed on a few rods, and Blake muttered,—