"You bet we'll settle," said Case, the bookkeeper, wholly ignoring it, and even then the fact was noted and thereafter remembered.
"I think I won't go up to the post just now," said Willett to Craney. "Perhaps you have——"
"Certainly, Mr. Willett. Come right in here," said the trader hospitably, leading the way into a darkened room. "Take a good nap; sleep as long as you want to. I'll send you in a tub if you like." The tub was gratefully accepted, and then they left him. At noon when the general asked Strong if Willett "wasn't feeling well," Strong said Willett had been up late and was probably still asleep. Bonner, it was known, had not turned in again after two o'clock, and the discovery that 'Tonio was missing. He was dozing on the porch in his easy-chair when first call sounded for reveille, and Lilian, like gentle-hearted Amelia, lay dreaming of her wearied knight as having kept vigil with the sentries to the break of day that she and those she loved might sleep in security, and now, of course, he must indeed be wearied.
Therefore there came a surprise to her, and to the fond and watchful mother, when toward four o'clock in the afternoon Mrs. Stannard dropped in to chat with them awhile, and to tell about Harris, by whose bedside she had been sitting and reading for nearly two hours. Mrs. Archer welcomed the news. The doctor had promised to let her know as soon as he considered it wise for her to go, and the general was so anxious and disturbed on Mr. Harris's account. It so happened that the general, with a small escort, had ridden over to search the valley with glasses from the peak, and then the first thing Mrs. Stannard said was, "I thought that Mr. Willett might have been glad to go with the general."
"And did he not?" asked Mrs. Archer, after one quick glance at Lilian's averted eyes.
"Why, no," and now Mrs. Stannard hesitated; "I saw, at least I think I saw, him coming up from the river a little while ago. He may have been following 'Tonio's trail, you know. It was easy enough in the sand, they said, but once it reached the rocks along the stream-bed they lost it." Then wisely Mrs. Stannard changed the subject.
But if she and they knew not where and how Willett had spent the night and hours of the day, they and Harris, by this time, were the only ones at Almy in such ignorance. Moreover, Almy was having a lot of fun out of it. No one had ever heard of Case's playing before in all the time he had silently, unobtrusively, gone about his daily doings at the post. Three weeks out of four he sat over the books and accounts, or some writing of his own, saying nothing to anybody unless addressed, then answering civilly, but in few words. The other week, just as quietly and unobtrusively, he was apt to be busy with his bottle, sometimes in the solitude of his little room, sometimes wandering by night down along the stream, sometimes stealing out to the herds, petting and crooning to the horses, sometimes slyly tendering the herd guard a drink, and always accompanied by a pack of the hounds, for by them he was held in reverence and esteem. He never accosted anybody, never even complained when a godless brace of soldier roughs robbed him of his bottle as he lay half-dozing to the lullaby of the babbling stream. He simply meandered a mile and got another.
From this plane of inoffensive obscurity Case had sprung in one night to fame and, almost, to fortune. A single field had turned the chance of war, and the placid Sunday found him the most talked of man at the post. Rumor had it that he had quit five hundred dollars ahead of the game, and the most conservative estimate could not reduce it more than half. For the first time Camp Almy awoke to the conclusion that an experienced gambler was in their midst—one who had spared the soldier and his scanty pay that he might feed fat, eventually, on the officer. Rumor had it that Case's trunk contained a roulette wheel and faro "layout." In fine, long before orderly call at noon, in the whimsical humor of the garrison, he was no longer Case, the bookkeeper, but "Book, the Case Keeper," and every frontiersman, civil or military, in those days knew what that meant.
And even as they exalted Case, who toward afternoon had disappeared from public gaze, refusing to be lionized, so would they have abased Willett, who likewise had concealed himself, on the plea of needed sleep, yet had done but little sleeping. Willett was haunted by a memory, and not pleasantly. The fact that he had lost over a month's pay troubled him less by far than that he had lost repute. He had suffered much in pocket, but more in prestige. He had been a successful player in the Columbia country, too much so for the good of scores of comrades, but especially himself. He could have found it in his heart to throttle that guffawing clown, whose rude bellow of rejoicing over Case's brilliant bluff and his own defeat, had brought even the dago and his fellows in staring wonderment to the open door. He would have pledged another month's pay could he have throttled the story he knew now would be going the rounds. He was even more humiliated—far more—than they knew. They all would have shouted had they seen the hand he laid down, but he had striven to carry it off jocosely, to say he had only been bluffing, and was very properly caught at his own game. Oh, he had shown a game, sportsman-like front, and had striven to pass it all off as a matter that worried him not in the least, but Craney, clear-headed, believed otherwise, and Case, muddle-headed as he was by noon, knew better, and had his reasons for knowing—reasons as potent as were those that moved him wholly to ignore Willett's half-proffered hand.
Case had nothing in particular to do all day, and could sleep if so minded. Willett, not knowing what moment he might be called upon to take active part in stirring service, should sleep, and so prepare himself, yet could not. Case's personality, and Case's one reference to Vancouver, two years previous, haunted and vexed him sorely. Where and under what circumstances had he seen the man? Only for three weeks had he been at the fine old post referred to, while a big court-martial was there in session, and he, with other subalterns, had come as witnesses. There had been dinners and dancing and fun and flirtation, both at the post and in Portland. There had been card-playing in which he was easy winner, and not a little of his winnings had gone for wine. There had been foolish things said in pink little ears, and even written in silly missives that now he would have been glad to recall, but—but no harm to him as yet had come from them. There had even been a girl whom he had never seen before nor since that visit, nor wanted to see again, nor hear from, yet from her he had heard, and more than once—piteous, imploring little letters they were. But, heavens! he was busy hunting Indians when they began to come, and then they had ceased to find him, rather to his relief, but none of these episodes or epistles in any way included Case, yet somewhere he had seen him, somewhere he had heard his voice, and somewhere Case had marked his method of play. Case said Vancouver, but though two or three steep games had there or thereabouts occurred—games in which his soldier comrades had withdrawn as too big for them—he, with his luck and brilliancy, had dared to pursue to the end and came out envied as a winner. And still this did not seem to point to Case.