And then did the Eleventh arise in its wrath. Good old Tintop had been gathered to his fathers by that time. Riggs was rusting out of active service, Pegleg was buried and Mrs. Pegleg was married again,—a lieutenant this time; but there was no lack of men to remember how he had managed by political influence at Washington to secure the acceptance of his resignation the moment he saw how surely, if brought to trial, the case would go against him, and the Eleventh published a memorial, signed by almost every surviving officer who was with it in the old days. The bill if passed would make Devers a major well up on the list, for Warren was now lieutenant-colonel of the —th, Truman major of the Fourth, Cranston senior captain, Boynton and Hastings were junior troop commanders, Sanders a senior first and regimental quartermaster. All these and other names appeared attached to the remonstrance, and that bill was never even reported in committee. It was learned that in the course of some years of differing with his business associates, the gentle Devers, though still a colonel on his native heath, had nearly wrecked the "Mirror" and his fortune with it, and so bethought him of this scheme of restoration to the army. Leonard was by this time an assistant adjutant-general, and prompt to act. There was a jubilee at Ransom the evening after his despatch was received reporting arrival of the regimental protest and the remarks thereon by members of the military committee. The officers gathered in the club-room and drank long life to Leonard and confusion to Devers, and then little Sanders tuned up his guitar and sang. He was just back from leave, and a popular lyric of the day was one they called "The Accent On," for the last line of every verse was "with the accent on" some syllable of the last word of the previous line. There was nothing especially poetic or refined about the composition, but the newspapers were ringing the changes on it. A popular comedian had sung and made much of it, and its composer had presumably made something if not much out of it, and Sanders was sure of laughter and applause when he sang it at the "stags." One verse was of a man who came home in a maudlin state and his wife remarked, "Well, you are beautiful. With the accent on the full." Another was of a man who wanted unlimited credit at a bar and was told, "I like not your arithmetic. With the accent on the tick." All very poor literature, perhaps, but it amused, and this night after singing three verses of the old song, Sanders "turned loose" on a verse of his own which, when heard, the mess applauded and chorused to the echo, and broke up singing again and again Sanders's telling hit in the last line:
We had a cap in our corps
Who left us years ago,
Who never said a manly word
Nor struck a manly blow.
He never faced when he could dodge,
He only spoke to slur,
And now he is a colonel,
But the accent's on the cur.
And that was Devers's requiem in the Eleventh Horse as well as in the house of Congress. He never vexed them more.
One of the old names was lacking on the list that accompanied the remonstrance,—that of the man of whom, nearly a decade before, Devers "only spoke to slur." Lieutenant Davies would not sign. He was with the regiment too, but, just as of old, eschewed the club-room and all gatherings of the kind. They had taken the paper to him and he read, pondered, and said no. Gray it was, now captain of "I" Troop, with which Davies was on duty as first lieutenant, who draughted the paper, and confidently presented it to his subaltern. "Why not?" said he, in surprise. "No man ever did more to injure you except perhaps——" And here Gray broke off short in sudden confusion.
"Perhaps that is why I prefer not to be quoted against him," said Davies, quietly. And mentally kicking himself, as he expressed it, for making such a "break" as in his bungling half allusion to the exception, Gray hastened away to tell of it. His story came to unsympathetic ears.
"In my opinion," said Sanders, "if you mean that other fellow, he didn't injure Parson half as much as he hurt himself."
That, too, was an old story in the Eleventh by this time. Six long months was Davies absent from the regiment on his map-work at division head-quarters. Then came the customary call to the field for another season of scouting and campaigning, and he rejoined his troop, somewhat pallid and graver looking, the result probably of long days of toil over his drawing board. He was only a few hours at Ransom before they marched, but the ladies wanted to know all about Mrs. Davies and what she was to do in his absence. Mrs. Davies would remain at Urbana, said he, where her father and sister dwelt, and those were indeed his injunctions to her, and for a month after his departure she observed them, then repaired to Chicago and Aunt Almira's roof. Davies by this time was with his troop scouting near Yellowstone Park, far beyond reach of telegrams or letters. Society was unusually gay that summer. There was dancing, boating, dining, summer resorting, and one of the loveliest of summer resorts within an hour's run of the great city was Forest Glen, the seat of the famous seminary where Agatha Loomis was enjoying the quiet of her vacation, and one night, strolling with Mrs. Forrester over to the hotel to watch the dancers and hear the lovely music, she came face to face in the soft moonlight with a couple so absorbed in their conversation that not until they were actually brushing by did they look up, and even Mrs. Forrester saw the sudden confusion and dismay in their faces. The man turned white and made a hurried movement as though to lift his hat. The woman flushed, almost angrily. Miss Loomis bowed calmly and coldly and passed on without a word.
The next day, however, she called at the Glen House, where the two Almiras, aunt and niece, were spending the week, and asked for Mrs. Percy Davies. Mrs. Davies was out. Miss Loomis wrote a few words in pencil, slipped them into an envelope, sent that up, and the next day called again, and Mrs. Davies begged to be excused. Miss Loomis sadly went home, penned a long letter to Mrs. Davies, and on the following morning sent it. In half an hour her messenger and note returned. Mrs. Davies had left for home that morning. Urbana was not far away, and two days later Miss Loomis was there inquiring for Mrs. Davies on her native heath. She had not returned. She was visiting her aunt at Forest Glen, and then Agatha knew she had come too late. She had striven to prove to the poor empty-headed, empty-hearted girl that she had at least one friend. She had hoped to plead, to point out the right, and, if possible, save her from herself and the impending step, but all to no purpose. Two years later, among the papers of her unhappy boy, a sorrowing mother found two little notes written, like Beatrix Esmond's, to lure her lover on. One was dated Fort Scott in the summer of '77. "We are desolate again with all our soldiers in the field, but we pray for happier days. Have you no new waltz music for us?" And this reached him at the sea-shore. The second was posted on the railway and addressed to his club in New York. "I am even more desolate than last year. Shall I never hear from you again?" It contained a self-addressed envelope. And that was why her boy postponed until later in the summer the voyage his physician had advised, and why he lived apart from friends and kindred, in Paris most of the time, until the death of his wretched companion within a year of their flight. Then Langston, at his mother's prayer, went over and fetched him home. It had been a year soon given over to recrimination, bitter reproaches, and frequent and increasing estrangement. Willett was but the moody wreck of his old self when restored to the one faithful friend who clung to him as only mothers will, in spite of all.
The Eleventh was a thousand miles or so away the summer of poor Mira's final escapade, and not until she was across the sea did the news reach her husband. She wrote a few words of farewell such as would be expected of her. "You never loved me," she said, "never understood me, and in every way I was made to feel that I was only a burden, only a doll. You have mured me here in prison, where I have no soul to sympathize with me, and I can bear it no longer. You will not miss me. Indeed, I know too well how soon you will find solace, and where. Henceforth I dedicate my life to one who adores me, whose soul responds to every thought of mine. Adieu."
It was predicted about this time that Davies would resign, shoot Willett, or study for the ministry. Many men thought that he bore his wrongs so meekly that he had mistaken his calling. One man, a sergeant, said as much in Corporal Brannan's presence, and the result was a scene that called for the intervention of the guard and the adjudication of a court-martial. Brannan lost his chevrons, but gained an enthusiastic friend and champion in Cranston, who sifted out the cause of the fight,—a matter scrupulously hidden from the court. Brannan went into the Ute campaign the following year a sergeant, and out of the army with an Indian bullet through his arm and into his chest, where the doctors couldn't find it. Little by little the doting mother at home began to learn how very far away that longed-for commission might be. Her boy himself flouted the idea. "I haven't the education," he said, "and would be ill at ease and out of place among them." And so the magnate was steadily importuned, and when at last the young fellow came home after the Milk River campaign, and generals like Sheridan and Crook praised his pluck and devotion, and the doctors said he simply couldn't go back to service, they got him his discharge,—a medal of honor came later,—and presently in the long list of railway officials of the Q. R. and X. appeared his name as assistant general passenger agent, and for a couple of years the way that great corporation dealt out passes to the army was a matter that finally came up at directors' meeting and led to a preliminary to the Interstate Commerce Law of '87, and a restriction of the powers of the assistant. But there was no longer any hitch in the maternal schemes for elaborate dinners to generals and staff. They enjoyed meeting "the sergeant," as he rejoiced in being called, as much as he could wish, and if they did not quite look upon him as she did, as the central figure, the one Prince Paramount of the late campaign, there was at least warmth and cordiality and comradeship enough to gratify even a mother's heart.