"Not from Leonard, sir, I warrant you," interposed Cranston, hotly.
"No, not from Leonard, for Leonard never talks against anybody, but from officers at Scott who seem to speak by the card. There is general indignation because of his affront to the wife of one of our number. If your friend is so far above suspicion, and did not feel some sense of the sentiment against him, why did he utterly shun the society of every officer at the post-except the chaplain? It reminds me of that English snob who was sent to Coventry for abandoning the Prince Imperial, and then took refuge in the prayers of the Church."
"Major White, there are reasons for Davies's conduct for which I will be answerable, and which you could not fail to respect. The fault, sir, lay on the other side. This is something that can't be discussed here, for a woman's war is mixed up in it, but if I have any place in your esteem, let me urge you to suspend judgment. While the responsibility for the original wrong done Davies must rest in my regiment, there have been later wrongs done him in yours, and I learn it for the first time to-day."
It was an impressive scene, this impromptu gathering at the foot of the flag-staff while anxiously awaiting further tidings from the agency. Over among the quarters the humid eyes of frightened women peered from many a door-way, watching with fluttering hearts for sign of action. Stacking arms in front of their barracks, the infantry had been sent in to a hurried dinner, and the cavalry horses, saddled, still stood at the lines, watched by a few troopers, while the rest were packing saddle-bags and taking a bite on their own account. The sentries to the eastward kept gazing over toward the grim stockade and the clustering groups of Indian lodges far away down-stream. Ten minutes since a party of a dozen troopers had been seen to ride slowly away from the agency in the direction of White Wolf's tepees, a mile beyond; "Davies going to demand the surrender" were the words that passed from mouth to mouth and gave the text for the startling conversation that had just taken place, a topic which was now by common consent dropped as having reached a point where the utmost caution should be observed. Everybody seemed to know in some mysterious way that the circulators of the new and unflattering stories about Davies were not so much the invalid colonel or Messrs. Flight and Darling of the Fortieth as their more voluble, active, and dangerous helpmeets. Indeed, the very day Trooper Brannan arrived, transferred by regimental orders from "A" to "C" troop, he brought one letter from Mrs. Leonard to Mrs. Cranston, and two or three, each, of the missives of Mesdames Stone, Flight, and Darling to ladies at the cantonment. Mrs. Leonard's letter said that her husband, the adjutant, had been summoned by telegraph to General Sheridan's office in Chicago, and he expected to be gone a week. No trace had been found of the papers stolen from his desk, but it was undoubtedly on that business that he had been sent for, and Mrs. Leonard felt confident that when he returned it would be with news that full justice would at last be awarded Mr. Davies for his conduct during the campaign as well as at the agency, and Mrs. Leonard could not control the impulse to add, "If justice could only be meted out to his accuser!—but will that man ever get his deserts?"
It must be owned that Mrs. Leonard had good grounds for being doubtful on that point.
Meantime how fared it with the embassy to White Wolf? Smarting under the injury to his pride and person, McPhail had decided to inflict severe humiliation on the red men prominent in the affair. First, White Wolf's boy should be made to suffer, and then Thunder Hawk, who had dared to oppose his views, should be ironed as an inciter of riot and placed under guard. Knowing the feeling of veneration, almost of awe, with which Davies was regarded by many of the Indians, he desired to avail himself of the fact and send him to make the arrest, and at last Davies asserted himself. Calmly, but positively, he refused. "My orders are simply to protect the agency and the agent and his family from attack," said he, "not to act as the agent's police."
"Do you refuse to obey my orders?" asked McPhail, angrily.
"You are not empowered to give me any orders, Mr. McPhail,—above all, such orders. It is no question of obedience or disobedience."
"Then I'll ask to have you relieved and sent to your regiment, and some man sent here who will do his duty," said McPhail.
"You cannot do it too soon, sir," was the answer. "It has been most unwelcome from the start, and I shall now ask to be relieved in any event."