Under Fire

by Charles King

"Robideau is an old trader and trapper, but he and his people are honest and respectable as any in Braska, and the young man with them was supposed to be paying attention to the daughter. Robideau and his family went back to Kearney that night after a week's visit to friends up here in Braska. The daughter, Angie, had been here some time visiting a school friend. We feel sure you have made no such statement to Mr. Sanders without some strong ground of suspicion. May I ask how you heard it so soon after your arrival?"

"I heard it before I got here," said Davies, quietly, "though when it was told me I had no idea my wife was one of the party. My orderly was cold and tired and we stopped at the Scott station at the point where the road crosses the railway to give him a cup of coffee and water the horses. There were some trappers and plainsmen in there, and one of them was telling with much gusto of the performances of a soldier of our troop who deserted that night,—how he had chartered the adjoining room to that in which the officers and ladies were dancing and had a whirl to the officers' music with some ladies of his own choosing, and the girls lassoed a waiter and hauled him into their room and got a bottle of the officers' champagne——"

"Pardon me, Mr. Davies, but do not these plainsmen rather like to tell big stories at the expense of the officers,—the bigger the better?"

"I believe so, and paid little attention to it at first, but among the listeners was a scout who went through last summer's campaign with us and did good service. He rode over to the post with me, and on the way we met a sergeant and two men of 'A' Troop, returning from an unsuccessful pursuit of deserters. They told the same story with some additions, and said the fellow openly boasted in Braska that afternoon that he was going to the dance. Then the scout admitted reluctantly that he had heard the story from several sources, and gave the names of the women who were said to have been introduced there, and they were not Robideau's family. The sergeant had heard just what the scout had as to the identity of the intruders. Then on my arrival at home I learned that Mrs. Davies was one of the fort party, and Mrs. Stone and other ladies who were present referred to some rude creatures in a neighboring room who peeped and stared at the dancing. There was also awaiting me with my mail an anonymous letter, which I burned without reading through. Next I learned that the man who frightened them on the homeward way and then deserted after a fracas with Mr. Willett was Howard, of 'A' Troop, and that man's associations in town are matters of notoriety. That was the chain that led to my belief in the story."

Langston looked grave. "And Howard was probably Robideau's friend, though Cresswell didn't know it! He had been paying court to Robideau's daughter during her visit to Braska, always in civilian dress and always claiming to be a civilian clerk in the quartermaster's department with a salary of twelve hundred a year. I have seen her friends in town where she visited, and they are very plain, honest, and well-to-do people, whose daughter was sent to Illinois to school and met Angeline Robideau there. They had another friend living in Cheyenne, and when they were up there visiting her for a few days they said Mr. Powell was coming up to spend one evening,—Powell is the name they all knew him by, and the belief is that Angie was much fascinated by him, and had met him East before meeting him here. Mr. Davies, I am glad to relieve your mind of one uncomfortable theory in connection with this affair. I wish I could extenuate or explain Willett's conduct as easily, but that young man is a fool of the first magnitude."

Davies had taken the note handed him by Langston and was mechanically turning it and twisting it in his fingers. His impulse was to toss it, as he had the anonymous billet, into the fire. There was something about the handwriting of the former that was vaguely familiar to him even through its disguise, but Willett's scrawling superscription he had never seen. Something told him, however, that anything of which a man of Langston's calibre chose to be the bearer was entitled to consideration. He made no reply to Langston's closing words. He had fully made up his mind as to what his course should be, and what was the extent of Mira's misdoing. Just as he said to her, he blamed those who should have been her advisers and protectors far more than he blamed her, and as to this popinjay who had become infatuated with her beauty, though the lieutenant's blood boiled in wrath and indignation, his calmer judgment and his disciplined spirit tempered any and every expression. He had spent long, wakeful, prayerful hours in the silence and solemnity of the night, and no man knew the story of the struggle. He had trained himself to meet this man who had so openly and persistently shown himself a worshipper at the feet of his wife, and to meet him with cool contempt, yet the same hot blood that rioted in his veins when, long years before, he had downed the village scoffer who had ventured to ridicule his aged mother, now prompted him to horsewhip Willett should he venture again to visit the fort.

It was relief, therefore, to hear that he had gone.

At last he opened and read the note, a clumsy, cubbish attempt to explain his language in Sanders's room, and to say the package was absolutely nothing but some violets, to apologize for any and every annoyance he might have caused Mr. and Mrs. Davies, for whom he entertained nothing but sentiments of the most profound respect and esteem, and begging if ever they met again to be regarded as most sincerely their friend, etc.

"There is no answer," said Davies, as he finished it, a smile of contempt on his lips. "You must have known there couldn't be, did you not?"

"Well, I fancied as much. He had no friend to carry it for him unless I would, and the young idiot has gone off feeling profoundly wretched about the whole business, as he deserves to. Had I been here, as an old friend of his family, it would have been my right to warn him weeks ago, and to put a stop to his foolishness if he was not to be advised. More than that, Mr. Davies, I wish to say that ever since I met you on the train last June I felt an interest in you that would have prompted me to stand your friend in your absence whether I felt any interest in him or not. I should like to know you better and to convince you that I meant what I said when we parted there."