But once back at Scott, where she could sport the lovely toilets with which her hopeful aunt had supplied her, Mira went the way of the empty-headed. Admiration, adulation were to her as the breath of life. So long as she was perfectly innocent of wrong intent how could people—how dare people rebuke her? She told Willett the horrid things Mrs. Darling, Mrs. Plodder, and Mrs. Stone were reported to have said, and he replied that it was all because they envied her her beauty and were jealous of the attentions she won. She almost told him what the chaplain said, but that sent the burning blushes to her forehead, yet she dreaded what the old soldier of the cross might have written to her husband. She knew he would surely condemn the renewal of her association with Mr. Willett, but so long as he wasn't there to say so, and so long as she intended the association to be purely platonic, as a rebuke to all who had rebuked her, she proposed to assume that no objection existed.
The news that he had been sent for and was coming in as a witness in Captain Devers's court startled her inexpressibly, despite her conscious rectitude. She told Willett that very evening, as they were driving slowly among the willow-wooded islands, and he looked imploringly into her eyes, and Mrs. Flight and Mr. Burtis on the back seat could see that he was talking eagerly, earnestly, pleadingly, and that her eyes were downcast, her cheeks aflame, and still they did not take alarm. "She's too much in love with herself and her own good looks ever to do that foolish thing," said Mrs. Flight to those who asked her why she didn't warn her. Willett himself, so Burtis afterwards declared, had said in answer to some friendly words of remonstrance on the Sunday night preceding the meeting of the court, that the girl was as heartless and cold as a stone. No one need worry on her account. It was plain to Burtis that the young fellow was well-nigh insane about her, and he had sent a letter ten days before to Langston urging him to come and look after his kinsman; but Langston was far away at the time and never knew that Willett had quit the sea-shore and gone back to the charmer in mid-continent,—never knew, indeed no one ever knew until too late, that it was she herself who baited the line that drew him there.
There was a gathering at the post on Tuesday evening and all the few society men were out from Braska. The ladies, in their summer toilets, sat on the verandas and told one another and their visitors from town how dreadful it was to be so long bereft of their husbands and protectors, and Mrs. Flight and Mrs. Darling said they wished with all their hearts the court had called some witnesses from the infantry. Surely they knew as much about the matter as some of the cavalry who had been summoned. There was Mrs. Davies who could expect her husband within the week, while it might be months before they set eyes on theirs. They seemed to take comfort in harping on this theme for Willett's benefit, He sat near Mira's side, as she reclined languidly in her wicker chair, his eyes glowing, his hands and lips twitching at times, listening and occasionally addressing low-toned, eager words to her. "Mr. Davies will have finished his testimony by Thursday at the latest," said Mrs. Flight, decisively; "I heard Mrs. Leonard say so to the chaplain to-day," and here she glanced meaningly at Mira; "so what's to prevent his being here early Friday morning? I know I'd let no grass grow under my feet."
And Mira could only say she surely hoped so, but she couldn't tell. The last letter from him was away up near the mouth of Powder River somewhere, and he thought then they mightn't be home before November; but she was plainly unwilling to discuss the matter, and with evident relief took Willett's arm when the musicians presently were heard tuning up at the hop-room.
But it was noticed then how flushed and excited she looked, how quickly she seemed to tire of the dance and went out on the veranda for cooler air, and presently they were missed and were gone from the room the rest of the evening, so that the hop broke up early, and the anxious women hurrying homeward were incensed to find her in a dark, vine-covered corner of the veranda of the quarters, Willett in close attendance. "I didn't feel like dancing," was her sole explanation. "I begged Mr. Willett to go back to you, but he wouldn't." And Burtis, later, had to shout angrily for him before he could get him into the wagon and off for town.
She slept that night in the room adjoining Mrs. Flight's, and slept but little, said that lady later. She seemed ablaze with nervous excitement and utterly unlike her usual self,—placid and satisfied except when subjected to reproof. She had gone thither right after the departure of the men and shut her would-be mentor out. Mrs. Flight afterwards declared she saw the coming catastrophe and was determined to avert it if a possible thing, but Mira said she had a dreadful headache and wouldn't talk. Mrs. Flight, considering that she had a duty to perform, began, however, from outside. The result was a quarrel and Mira's announcement from behind the door that she would not speak to Mrs. Flight again. When Wednesday came she refused to leave her room. It had been arranged that three of the ladies were to drive to town with the sole cavalier left at the post, a lieutenant of the Fortieth, and Mira was one of them, but they supposed she had abandoned the plan. To the surprise of everybody she appeared, satchel in hand, arrayed in sober travelling garb, and asked the driver of the ambulance to help their servant bring out her trunk, and took her seat in the Concord while it was being tossed into the boot. It was Mrs. Darling who ventured to ask what it meant, and Mira calmly explained. She had determined to go and meet her husband in Omaha. They were amazed, yet what could they do or say? It was after luncheon-time and she merely urged that they should drive rapidly so as to get her to the bank before it closed, and then she left them, saying she would remain at the hotel at the station until her train arrived. It was due soon after midnight.
Before returning to the post the others, Mrs. Darling and Mrs. Plodder, called upon Mira at the hotel, for they were oppressed with strange fears. They strove to remonstrate with her, pointed out that Mr. Davies would be with her in three days. Mira said it might not be for a week. Well, wasn't it unusual for a lady to be going alone? Not at all. She would sleep all the evening in her room, and the landlord would place her in charge of the conductor. Surely Mrs. Plodder had come from Omaha alone. That was different, said Mrs. Plodder, in rueful recognition of the fact that a plain woman is exempted from annoyances which a beauty has to suffer, yet would suffer indefinitely rather than be plain. "But, dear Mrs. Davies, is it not very expensive?" said Mrs. Darling. "Not when I have passes all the way to Chicago," said Mira. So they had to return to the fort at dusk, though Mrs. Plodder did suggest staying all night and seeing her off. They had not set eyes on Willett. They both entertained, though neither expressed, a hope that he was not to be of the party. They asked for Willett casually when they met Mr. Burtis. Burtis said with perfect truth that he was out at the ranch, that he had hoped to be here to meet the ladies, but was called out by urgent business.
It was dark, and they were tired, hungry, and worried when they got back to the post, and the lieutenant on escort found the ladies strangely preoccupied and silent. The first thing on reaching home was to go in search of the chaplain. As a devoted friend of Mr. Davies he should be informed of this odd freak of Mira's, and, if there were any grounds for their fears, there was still time to avert what would bring such awful scandal about their social circle. They assumed that they were coming back with sensational news, forgetful of the fact that garrison servants helped pack Mira's trunk, and garrison eyes had seen it start with her for town. The chaplain's wife knew all about it before two o'clock, and the chaplain would have known it, too, had he not been long miles away at the death-bed of an old soldier turned cow-boy. Not until after the east-bound train was whistling far down the valley and the dawn was in the sky did an inkling reach him. Somebody said he thought the least Mr. Willett could have done was to come over and see how his best "puncher" was getting on, and somebody else replied, in low tone, that any one could see Willett had no thoughts for anything or anybody outside of Fort Scott, whereupon somebody Number 1 replied that Willett had been at his "shack" most of the afternoon, packing some things and burning others, and had taken the midnight train at Duncan Switch, ten miles west of Braska.
And even while the news of his going was bringing strange comfort to the good old man, who rejoiced that this wolf in the sheepfold was even temporarily out of the way, there came a messenger from the distant post and a packet was handed in for him. Some letters and a note from his wife.
"Expecting you home during the evening, I did not send these, but they may be important. Mrs. Davies suddenly made up her mind to go to Omaha this afternoon, and was to take the night train at Braska." Here the other letters dropped to the floor, and the reader's eyes filled with sudden consternation and dismay. Not until his ambulance had been hitched and brought to the door did he cease his restless pacing to and fro. Kneeling a brief moment at the bedside of the unconscious and fast-failing sufferer, he bade his fellows hurried adieu and drove with speed to town, a long eight miles. It was then broad daylight, but he stirred up the sleepy telegraph operator and asked about wiring after the train. "Grand Island's the place to catch 'em," said the operator. "They breakfast there at seven." And the chaplain flushed and glanced keenly at the man. Why should he speak of catching anybody or anything? Was all the valley already aware of this shameful flight? The hotel stood not a stone's throw away. There must be no unnecessary scandal about this business. He needed to see the proprietor, and roused him, too. Boniface came down anything but smiling, yet thawed a trifle at sight of the man whom all Nebraska seemed to know and swear by. Certainly, Mrs. Davies spent the evening at the hotel in her room, and he put her aboard the sleeper at 12.20, the moment the train came in. He had wired to Pawnee and secured her section and checked her trunk to Omaha. She had her tickets, she said. Was Mr. Davies aboard or—anybody else to meet her? Not that the landlord knew of. The porter showed her in and said her section was ready. Everybody else was sound asleep, apparently, but there were some soldiers in the forward cars. Some of them got out and had a cup of coffee at the stand, and "piled aboard as she pulled out." They had a prisoner, a deserter, in manacles. Then the chaplain wired to Duncan Switch, and the answer came that Mr. Willett left there, bound for Omaha, at midnight, and then he wired the conductor of the train at Grand Island, and later to Leonard at Omaha, then sat him down to wait and watch and pray.