“Put him under guard!” he ordered, when Stevens was brought before him.
“Are you going to hold me for this?” Stevens roared in wrath.
“Put him under guard!” was the answer, and Stevens, still boiling with rage, was led away.
The girl was then told by Barlow that she might go where she willed, within the boundaries of the fort, but that she could not depart until the colonel had arrived and passed on her case.
As if to salve this wound, Barlow conducted her to the rooms of Mrs. McGee, who was the “mother” of the fort; so considered by all the young soldiers, whom she mothered and petted when they were ill, and at other times treated as if they were children. Even the officers feared her when she was angry. She was the only woman at the fort now; the other women—the colonel’s wife and daughter—being away.
Mrs. McGee was red-faced and brawny; she had arms and muscles like a man, and sometimes she proved that she had a temper; but she had a kind heart.
When she saw the suffering girl and heard her story she was roused into indignation.
“There—there!” she said soothingly. “Whin the colonel comes he’ll make it all right. And now you wait here a bit, while I go down and give to that blackguard Joel Barlow a bit av me mind.”
The “bit av her mind” which she gave to Barlow was peppery and fierce. She wasted no words in telling him what she thought of him for keeping the girl there in the fort on such a charge.
“She’s the angel, she is, and it’s yersilf is the brute and the blackguard!” she cried. “Was yer mother a lady? If she was, let this girl go in reminbrance av yer mother, and be ashamed of yersilf fer havin’ thought fer a minute av doin’ annythin’ else.”