"I wasn't goin' to tech them gals," lisped Matthews. "I ain't no city tough."
"We shan't need your services at Brannon any longer. You light out."
After that, mess went merrily on. "Didn't know you had it in you, Fraser," marvelled one officer. "By crackey!" added a second. "How you can slug!" The surgeon sighed. "No one has ever understood Robert," said he, "but women, critters, and kids."
And now Matthews' blood was up, and under his sloping forehead the grey-matter was bubbling and boiling like the soup in the sutler's pot. He hurled out terrible oaths—against the shack, against Captain Oliver, against Fraser, against the old pilot. Dallas Lancaster had made a cheap spectacle of him; the commanding officer had ordered him to leave Brannon; the "unlicked calf" of a lieutenant had whipped him out of hand; and the man most ready to guzzle his liquor had gone through the barracks a-blabbing.
He hurried to his room to pack his belongings. "I'll fix 'em, I'll fix 'em," he raged. "I'll git even with the hull crowd."
He halted at a window and looked across the Missouri at the little shack. "When the reds go to the reservation, that'll do for you," he said. "But—how can I soak them damned shoulder-straps?"
It was then that a change in his plan came to his mind. Why wait until the Indians were sent, if——
The more he thought of the change, the better he liked it. "One deal, and everybody fixed. Land'll be mine, and there'll be some court-martiallin'."
He determined to get into the stockade for a last talk with the hostages. If they approved what he proposed, he would promise them his services. Yes, he would. The value of the quarter-section had made him fight for the Bend. But this was a horse of another colour. His pride had been outraged—for that he would have his quits.
His conduct earlier in the day, and the fight at the sutler's, gave place, that afternoon, to other and more direful news. A steamer touched on its way down the river and told of the Custer massacre. Not a trooper at Brannon but had lost a friend; not an officer but had lost several. Gloom settled upon the post, and Matthews was forgotten.