"What did the old officers say?" asked Leonard, with a twinkle in his black eyes, but not the vestige of a grin under his heavy moustache.
"They? Oh, I don't remember their saying anything about him. They said lots of lovely things about Percy."
"Yes. That's right. I can understand their omitting no opportunity of doing that. One learns to be something of a courtier even in Chicago, when on staff duty, and as for Washington, service there is a liberal education in diplomacy. One never knows who may have the strongest pull with the President in the event of a vacancy in the staff corps."
"Leonard," said the chaplain, gravely, "you're a born cynic and a pessimist to boot. Have we no generous impulses in the army?"
"Lots of 'em. Lots of 'em, chaplain, especially in the line and on the frontier, where we can afford to pat a fellow on the back, since we know that's about the extent of the reward he'll ever get. It's when we're in big society in the East, above all in Washington, one has to be guarded in what he says, or first thing he knows he'll be hoisting some fellow over his own head in a moment of enthusiasm. No. I know just how you regard me, but I spent six weeks of a three months' leave in Washington last winter, and sat night after night at the club, or day after day among the army crowd at the Ebbitt, or in some fellow's den at the Department, and never once did I hear one word of frank, outspoken, fearless praise of some other fellow's work or deeds, unless it were to his face. Ask a man flat-footed if that wasn't a capital scout of Striker's last winter in the Tonto Basin, or if Jake Randlett hadn't done a daring thing in going all alone through the Sioux country to drum up Crow scouts for Crook's command, or what he thought of Billy Ray's cutting his way out through the Cheyennes to bring help to Wayne last June, and ten to one he'll hum and haw and say yes, he did hear something about that, and now that I mentioned it he believed Striker or Jake or Billy had really behaved quite creditably, but the whole tone was significant of nothing like what some other fellow I might mention, modesty only forbidding, would have done under similar circumstances.' It's just the damnation of faint praise. The trouble with the whole gang of those fellows seems to be a mortal dread lest somebody's eyes should be deflected from the valor of the warriors at Washington to that of the warriors on the plains. What recognition do you suppose Ray will ever get for that feat? General Crook says it's useless to recommend him for brevet, because the Senate wouldn't confirm it, and the reason they won't is that those hangers-on about the capital don't mean to let such rewards be given to the men on the frontier. And yet this sort of thing doesn't happen only in Washington. It was a cavalry officer who said of that very affair that Ray was simply a reckless fellow under a cloud, with everything to gain and nothing to lose, and that doing a reckless thing was just as much a matter of instinct with him as battle is to a bull-dog."
It was unusual to see Leonard warm up in this way. Besides the chaplain and the silent host, there were three officers in the dreary little bachelor den at the moment. Each and every one seemed surprised at the adjutant's outbreak, but not one of them at the concluding revelation.
"No need to ask who that was," said Captain Hay, with a prefatory "Humph." "It savors of Devers from first to last. That man is a born iconoclast. He pulls down everybody's idols and sneers at what he cannot pull down,—our ideals."
"Well, now let me ask you," said the chaplain, a man whose broad charity led him at any and all times to the defence of the absent. "Without detracting in the faintest degree from the heroism and value of Mr. Ray's exploit, are there not degrees of personal bravery, are there not possibilities of an order of courage higher even than his? As I recall him, he was what I should term a fearless man, brave to a fault; but have we not in the army tens and perhaps hundreds of honorable gentlemen who are as keenly susceptible to the thrill of danger as Ray is apparently dead to it? Have I not heard man after man say how his own knees trembled or his comrade's cheek blanched at the whistle of the first bullets of the battle? And as for this Indian campaigning, can there be a warfare imagined in which the percentage of peril is so great, the possibilities of ambush, surprise, sudden death in the midst of fancied security so constant, the daily and nightly circumstances so full of incessant nervous strain? Now, who is the better soldier,—the really braver, or, perhaps better, the more courageous man,—he who rides the trail utterly reckless of or insensible to its peril, or he who, sighting danger in every bush, scenting death on every breeze, looking every instant for the war-whoop, the death-wound, nevertheless so bears himself with all his faculties in hand as to seem calm, serene, confident, and stands ready for death or duty at any moment? I have always held that the Christian gentleman was the highest type of the highest order of courage; the man who replaced the fatalism of the Mahometan with the sustaining faith of the soldier of the Cross. But I see you think I'm in the pulpit and preaching again," said he, smiling at Leonard. "We both warmed up to our hobby."
They were silent a moment. Across the wintry night the trumpets were singing the lullaby of the crowded garrison, and hurrying footsteps told of belated subalterns speeding to their companies to supervise the roll-calls. Leonard rose to his full height and threw his cloak over his broad shoulders.
"We are more in accord in this matter than you think, perhaps, chaplain; only the man doesn't live who could be insensible to the danger of cutting his way through a band of encircling Cheyennes. I've heard of no braver deed in many a year than Ray's. I doubt if we'll hear of truer grit or courage in many more."