Not two hours' sleep did Willett get that Sunday morning. He was awake, hot, feverish, and athirst at noon, craving ice, which could be seen in the mountains only a day's march away, but had never yet been made to last through the homeward journey. Craney brought him a cool and dripping canteen and some acetic acid, the best he could do, and had proffered bottled beer, cooled in the big olla and retailed at fifty cents, but Willett sought information rather than sleep, and indirectly inquired as to Case's antecedents. Inferentially, he wished Craney to understand that he believed Case to be a professional, and Craney blamable for permitting him to play. Craney saw the move and checkmated at once. "Case has had dozens of chances to play—dozens of 'em—since I brought him here from Prescott, and never before has he sat into anything bigger'n a dollar limit. He never would play in the other room. He came out as quartermaster's clerk, nearly two years ago. With whom? Why, Major Ballard brought him out and had to turn him loose for drinking. No, Ballard was never at Vancouver. Then my bookkeeper got shot in a pay-day row and left the books in a muddle. I had to hire Case to come and balance them—best accountant and bookkeeper I ever had—square to the marrow, though he wants one week off a month, and is absolutely stalwart t'other three, but he will not talk of his past. Ballard told me he came with tiptop letters from officers of rank in San Francisco, who said he was incorruptible, even when he drank, whereas my clerk, who had been a model of sobriety, robbed right and left. Case has gone off now, somewhere down among the willows, I reckon. He'll be drunk for three days, sobering three days, and straight the seventh. If you hadn't started him last night he'd be sober now. And if you hadn't come into it that family game would have stopped at one, with nobody the worse nor wiser. You said you had no use for a dollar limit game."
There was no comfort, therefore, in Craney's visit. Willett took another cool bath, dressed about two, and being shown the path Case generally followed, sauntered away, quite as though he had nothing on his mind, and was presently lost beyond that same willowy screen. He at that time, at least, was not thinking of 'Tonio and the lost trail.
At five the general, with Strong and Bonner, could be made out four miles away, riding back from the peak. "I'll go a moment and inquire for Mr. Harris," said Mrs. Archer, "and ask the doctor when we may visit him." So, leaving Lilian with Mrs. Stannard, and intending to be gone but a few minutes, the gentle, anxious-hearted woman, sunshade in hand, went forth from the shelter of the low veranda into the slanting, unclouded rays, and presently tapped lightly at the doctor's open door. There was no answer, yet from somewhere within came sound of masculine voices. Entering the dark hall, she tapped again at the entrance to the doctor's sitting-room, or den. A Navajo blanket hung like a portière across the open space, for door there was none, and, as no one came in answer to her modest signal, she ventured to push the curtain a bit to one side and peer within. The room was but dimly lighted, all windows but one on the north side being heavily draped. The doctor's reclining chair and reading table, the latter littered with books, pamphlets and pipes, were visible through a reminiscent haze of not too fragrant tobacco smoke, for the old predominated over the new. A rude sideboard stood over against her, between the northward windows, and thereon was stationed a demi-john of goodly proportions, with outlying pickets in the way of glasses. Bentley himself, though one of the old school, was an abstemious man, and therefore enabled to have at all times a supply of reliable stimulant for such of his callers as were of opposite faith. That some of that ilk had recently favored him was presumptively evident, no more by the sideboard display than by the sound of voices from an inner room, where two or three were uplifted in discussion, and neither was the doctor's.
Now, Mrs. Archer much wished to see young Harris, to assure him of their deep interest in his welfare, of their desire to be of service to him, and their reason for not earlier intruding. Gentle and unselfish though she was, there was distinct sense of chagrin that Mrs. Stannard, or any woman, should have anticipated her coming. The doctor had promised to say just how soon he could approve her seeing his patient, and it was the doctor's fault she had come no sooner. Not until days thereafter did she know that Harris had asked for Mrs. Stannard. Not for even a Christmas home-going would Mrs. Stannard have let her know it—but Mrs. Stannard was a rare, rare woman.
But if the doctor thought it unwise that his patient should receive the visits of ministering angels such as she and they, what, said Mrs. Archer to her stupefied self, could Dr. Bentley mean by permitting the visits of such disturbers as these whose angering words came distinctly to her ears? She stood, half-dazed, unable for a moment to determine what to do—whether to enter at once—enter, and in the name of her husband, the commanding officer, enter emphatic protest against such exciting language at such a time, in such a presence—or whether to retire at once and hear no more of it. One voice, at the moment low and guarded, was that of a stranger—she had never heard it before. The other, however, she knew instantly as that of Harold Willett. No wonder she stood amazed, never doubting they were addressed to Harris, at the first words—Willett's words—to reach her ears!
"You are in no condition now to talk to a gentleman, and I refuse to listen. You came here to lie about me—to undermine me, and I know it, and the quicker you go——"
"I came here to speak God's truth and you know it!" came the instant answer, and in instant relief she knew it was not the voice of Harris. "As to undermining—by God, it's to block your undermining another and a better man I've come! If that isn't enough for you—to block your doing here—what you did to that poor girl at Portland——"
But a rush and a scuffle, the sound of a blow, broke in upon the words, just as the attendant, affrighted, came running out, just as Dr. Bentley, astounded and indignant, came hurrying in. Mrs. Archer, in bewilderment, fell back into the sunshine, only presently to see Willett, flushed and furious, hasten forth from the rear door and turn straightway to the adjutant's quarters adjoining—only to be overtaken in a moment by the attendant, panting: "The doctor said would Mrs. Archer please come back one minute, he'd like to speak with her." And Mrs. Archer turned again and went.
CHAPTER XII.
Ten minutes later, when the general and his little escort came dustily into the garrison, his first question on dismounting was for Willett, and it was Lilian who had to answer that she believed he was at Mr. Strong's. So thither, with but brief, though kindly, word with Mrs. Stannard, and as brief an expression of his satisfaction that Mrs. Archer had gone to see Harris, the veteran took his way. The horses were led to stables. The other officers, hastening homeward, bowing in hurried, perfunctory fashion to the ladies, turned again at sound of his voice, and all three together entered the adjutant's house, an orderly remaining at the door. Lilian looked anxiously after them and Mrs. Stannard inquiringly. "They have seen something, I know," said the girl, "and something father is puzzled about. He would not have come and gone without a kiss." Already Mrs. Stannard had noted his fond custom, had marked its omission now when, ever since luncheon, he had been away, and she, too, divined that he was preoccupied, even perplexed. But once already she had too quickly spoken her thoughts, and there must be no more of that. In three minutes the little party came forth again, Willett with them now, and, field-glasses in hand, away they strode to the northward edge of the plateau and went speedily along toward a point at the back of the hospital where there stood a little platform, railed about with untrimmed pine, a rustic lookout much affected by the men in the long evenings, but seldom visited when the sun was up. It took no time at all for half the remaining garrison to turn out and, at respectful distance, stand curiously watching them, and little more for the other half to come flocking out of doors. "Seen somethin' from way up on the Picacho," explained the orderly, as he jogged by with the heated horses, "an' came back akiting!"