"Then you mean that you failed to go on after Davies,—failed to support him?—that you haven't seen him since I gave those orders? My heaven, Captain Devers! I told you never to let him out of your sight."
"Oh, he wasn't out of sight until darkness,—that is, he was frequently in sight. I not only saw, but communicated with him until that time."
"Thank God for that, at least! If he wasn't attacked before dark he's probably safe,—Indians are cowards in the dark. He ought to be coming along presently, I suppose. He couldn't have been more than a mile or so east of you."
But to this observation, half query, half self-consolation, Captain Devers made no verbal response. He bowed his head as he took a long swig at his can of coffee, and then a big bite into a ham sandwich of portentous size. The major and one or two others considered it a nod of assent, and ascribed to ravenous hunger the captain's failure to respond by word of mouth. Partially relieved of his anxiety on Davies's account and unwilling to spoil a gentleman's first supper after such long deprivation, the battalion commander turned away, saying,—
"Well, eat and drink till you're comforted, anyhow, captain, then we can hear all about it. I'll take a smoke meantime." Truman and Hastings joined him at a fallen Cottonwood a few yards away, and the three puffed their pipes and thanked Providence for the mercies that had come with the close of the day. And then the officer of the guard appeared to ask a question about the posting of the pickets, and, leaving the others with Devers, the major strode off with the officer through the timber to satisfy himself as to the security of the horses for the night, and when he returned—not having been gone ten minutes—Devers had disappeared.
"I wanted to hear his report," said Warren, "and told him so. I supposed he understood." To which neither of his subordinates made reply. When ten minutes more elapsed and Devers did not come, Hastings, noting the major's impatience, called to the orderly trumpeter sitting at the neighboring fire,—
"Raney, go and see if Captain Devers is over with his troop anywhere,—the major desires to see him." Raney was gone full ten minutes, and when he returned it was to say that Devers's first sergeant said the captain had given orders that all talk must stop so that the worn-out men could rest, and the captain himself, rolled in his blanket, was already sound asleep.
"Well, I swear!" exclaimed the major. "Didn't you understand me to say I wanted to hear all about his march as soon as he finished supper?"
"I certainly did," replied Captain Truman, with an accent on the I that meant volumes.
"So did I," growled Hastings; but he never could bear Devers, who was persistently distorting or misunderstanding the orders the adjutant was compelled to convey to him.