Lashed tight to the heavy picket rope, the horses were revelling in the keen morning air and slanting sunshine, nipping at each other's noses, challenging, with sparkling eye and tip-tilted ear, each well-known face and form of officer or man to caress or frolic, snapping and squealing at each other across the line, occasionally rearing and plunging in uncontrollable jollity. Bending to their work in their white stable frocks and overalls, the men were making brush and currycomb fly over the shining coats of their pets, carefully guarding, however, the long, thick winter crop of hair, for no man could say how soon they might have to take the field and face unsheltered the keen Dakota blasts. The frosty quadrangle was merry with musical tap, tap of the metal comb, and the snort and "purr" and paw of hoof of the spirited bays. Little Sanders, an enthusiastic horseman, was darting in and out among his charges, praising this man's work, condemning that, and occasionally seizing brush and comb himself and giving a practical lesson to some comparative novice. And, leaving matters for the nonce to his subaltern, Cranston paced gravely up and down, Davies by his side, absorbed in close converse. Captain Devers left his line to Mr. Hastings and did not appear at stables at all. "That means he's concocting an epistle," said Hastings, with a grin. "He's hobnobbing with his new pet, Howard, and somebody'll get the benefit of an official letter this morning."
"We expect you to breakfast," said Cranston, as he bade the lieutenant good-by at the gate, "and I hope Mrs. Davies is feeling all right now."
But Mrs. Davies was not. She was so far from well that she had decided to remain in bed. No, she wanted no breakfast, no doctor, no anybody. All the same, Mrs. Cranston sent her a dainty tray on which was displayed a most appetizing little feast, and Almira's resolution gave way at sight of it. Wisely Mrs. Cranston refrained from calling, but other women were presently on hand to cheer and sympathize when at ten o'clock the commanding officer's orderly appeared with the commanding officer's compliments and he desired to see Mr. Davies at the office.
"Precisely as I told you," said Cranston, who was waiting for him on the walk without. "It was best to let Devers make the attack. Now for the defence."
Colonel Stone was at his desk. "Come in, Cranston," he called, as he caught sight of the soldier he so much liked. "I want to see you, too. Er,—come in, Mr. Davies," he added in a tone less cordial and more official. "Orderly, ask Mr. Leonard to step in here. Then shut the door and remain outside. Er—sit down, gentlemen, er—sit down."
And then in came Leonard, silent, even saturnine; a massive fellow with a mind as broad as his shoulders, a head full of reading and research and knowledge of his profession, but the quietest man in the garrison withal, and Leonard simply bowed to the new-comers, dropped into the chair indicated by his commander, then dropped his eyes upon the floor and waited.
Pegleg dandled a pencil, end for end, between his fingers a minute, reflectively studying a knot-hole in the floor that yawned through a corresponding breach in the matting. Then he flung the stump of a cigar into a sawdust spittoon and began.
"Mr. Davies, I sent for you and I also invited in Captain Cranston because I want to hear your side of a singular case. In an official letter to the post adjutant, Captain Devers charges that you went to the post hospital last night, ordered the attendant out of the room, and proceeded to usurp control of a patient under the doctor's care,—that you deliberately overthrew his authority and actually told the attendant his orders were of no account. This, if true, is a most serious matter, but I have learned that there are many sides to a story. What is yours?"
"As briefly as possible, colonel,—and just as I answered Captain Devers,—I deny every such allegation."
"Well, you certainly went to the hospital?"