But ten, twenty minutes sped and no Willett. Pegleg's horses, being homeward bound, had possibly made phenomenal time, and Willett, probably, was in no hurry. "It's about his last chance to have Mrs. Davies beside him," laughed Mrs. Stone, "so he's making the most of it." It was 12.30 when at last the bells of the New Yorker's sleigh were heard tinkling faintly at the corner, and presently the party came slowly into view. Only three now, and three silent, embarrassed if not evidently agitated people, for they seemed to whip up and hurry by the little knot of anxious faces gathered at the colonel's gate.
"Where's Mr. Sanders?" was the cry.
"Tell you in a minute!" shouted Willett, as he drove straight by to No. 12, where he sprang out, lifted Mira from the sleigh and almost bore her to the gate, Mrs. Darling following. Already Mr. Darling was hastening up the road to join his wife. At the door Willett simply had to turn back to his spirited team, as they were standing unhitched, and Mrs. Darling disappeared with Mira into the hall.
"Where's Sanders? What kept you?" panted Darling, hastening up.
"Hush! Don't make any fuss," muttered Willett. "He jumped out half a mile back. Some drunken men, or soldiers perhaps, gave us a little trouble. I'm going back after him now."
"Hold on one minute till I see my wife and I'll go with you," sang out Darling, as he ran into the house, where Mira had sunk nerveless into a big chair and was wildly imploring Mrs. Darling not to leave her.
CHAPTER XXII.
The Cranstons were ready to start on the 23d, but nothing was in readiness at Mrs. Davies's. On the contrary, that lovely and most interesting young woman was, according to her own account, as transmitted to the garrison by her now devoted friend and nurse, Mrs. Darling, in a state of prostration and could do nothing at all. Mr. Davies had been telegraphed for and was coming, and Dr. Rooke said she must be kept very quiet meanwhile,—so at least Mrs. Darling reported to sympathetic friends who called to inquire and possibly hoped to see. Bluff old Rooke himself was besieged with questions as to his fair patient, the nature of her malady and the cause of the sudden shock, and Rooke told some people not to bother her, others not to bother him, and others still not to bother themselves about her. She'd come out all right if left alone. It was Mrs. Cranston and Miss Loomis to whom he delivered himself of the last mentioned. He liked them both, which was more than he did most people, for this Æsculapian countryman of Carlyle had much of that eminent writer's sharpness of vision and bluntness of speech together with even more of his contempt for the bulk of his fellow-men. "No, Mrs. Cranston," said he, "don't wait a day for her. Start just as soon as you are ready, and don't give a thought to this little flibberty gibbet." And so the Cranstons, with Miss Loomis, bade farewell to Scott, and one radiant winter morning drove buoyantly away, almost all of the officers and ladies being out to wave them adieu. Hastings, with a brace of troopers, trotted alongside as they crossed the Platte and reported the camp wagon well on its way to Dismal River. "I never was so glad to leave a place in all my life," said Margaret to her friend, as they glanced back from the crest of the distant ridge that spanned the northern sky. "I never have been at a post where there were so few people I cared for." The driver halted his strong team at a level spot after a long, tortuous climb, and let the mules breathe a moment while his passengers took their final peep at the dim, dingy patch, far away upon the southward slopes beyond the willow-fringed river, which indicated the site of old Fort Scott. Already the snow had disappeared on many an open tract and lay deep only in the ravines and gullies, on the ice coat of the stream and in the dense undergrowth of the islands. To right and left for miles the broad valley lay beneath their eyes, the rigid line of the railway cutting a sharp, narrow slit across the level prairie in the lowlands, straight away eastward until all was merged in the misty, impenetrable veil at the horizon, while westward near the forks of the river, in long, graceful curve, it swept around an elbow of the snow-mantled stream and disappeared among the roofs and spires of far-away Braska. The boys, with the agile energy of their kind, had leaped out to scamper about on the rimy buffalo-grass, dull gray, dried and withered, yet full of nutriment for the little droves of horned cattle already browsing placidly along the slopes where but a few years before the Sioux and Cheyenne chased great herds of bison. Hastings and his men were riding along a hundred yards or so in front, and the two women were left to their own low-toned confidences.
"I cannot help it," said Mrs. Cranston, "it may be uncharitable, unkind, but I am simply glad she could not go with us. She does not like us,—me at least. She has pointedly avoided me, and I half believe it was to avoid going with us that she was taken ill. I only hope Wilbur will not misunderstand the matter."