“No, no, boys. I take no responsibility. You chose to listen to that gal over yonder, and now she’ll have to get you out of the snarl. I’ve naught to do with it. I told you not to make such a fuss about that boy; that it would end in harm. I’ll take no command of a mob like this. Go to your lady friend.”
And Big Bill Harrod was still more emphatic.
“I tell yer, boys, that Frank’s the sassiest little cuss ever I seen, and a good whipping would do him good. Ef yer think he’s wuth more than cunnel, let him go; but ef yer don’t, jest yer go over to that thur young lady, and ax her to go arter the cunnel, and tell him as how ye made a mistake, and ax his pardon. I guess he won’t be hard on little Frank, ef she begs fur him, and it’s my notion that nary a man in this hyar camp kin fotch him back so quick as that thar gal.”
The rough captain’s words were not without their effect on his audience, who involuntarily turned toward Ruby.
The girl was standing where she had been, but entirely deserted by the very men who, a moment before, had been cheering her. She seemed to realize that her brief reign of popularity was over, and that she too had made a mistake. As the soldiers timidly proffered their request, the august beauty yielded to it with grace, mounted her horse without a moment’s delay, and set off at full gallop after Clark, bearing the commander’s sword with her.
CHAPTER XXI.
RUBY’S MISSION.
Colonel Clark had already cleared the outskirts of the town, and was alone in the wild prairie, a swell of land hiding him from view. He rode slowly along, buried in painful and bitter thoughts. He began to see that he had been hasty in his first explosion of anger against the adjutant. Had it been possible to have recalled it, he would have done so; but now that mutiny had boldly established itself, he felt that he must be firm, right or wrong. His resignation of authority, though it seemed as if wrung from him in desperation, was in reality nothing but a return of his old tact and management.
That the movement had taken his men by surprise he felt sure from the dead silence which followed his words. He fully expected that a message would come after him, but he expected it from his officers, at whom he felt very angry for not having given him their support.