'Laramie' by Charles King (best short novels txt) 📕

"They knew him in Chicago,—met him there on the way out," said the younger. "I heard the doctor say so. Now, look! Here come Fanny Forrest and Mr. Mayhew, and she wants to know who the stranger is; if she doesn't she's the first person I've met who didn't ask."

But Miss Forrest proved an exception to the rule, so far as questions were concerned, at least. She stopped in front of the gate, looking beamingly up at the group on the piazza.

"Mrs. Gordon," she said, "Mr. Mayhew has invited me to walk down to the camp of the battalion, and, as I haven't been outside the limits of the post since we came, I should like to go. They are to have inspection in 'field kits' in half an hour. Don't you want to come with the girls? He says there are half a dozen young gentlemen down there who are eager to see them——"

"Oh, mamma, do!" implored both girls in a breath.

"Why, I hardly know, Miss Forrest," answered Mrs. Gordon, hesitatingly. "Cannot Mrs. Forrest go?"

"Ruth is never ready to go anywhere," answered Miss Forrest, half laughingly, yet with a certain rueful emphasis. "She is a slave to her babies, and as for Celestine, the nurse, she is no help to her whatever."

"Of course you girls must have a 'matron,'" said Mrs. Gordon. "How long will you be there, Mr. Mayhew?"

"Oh, just about half an hour or so, Mrs. Gordon. Then inspection will be over, and we fellows can all come back with you. It's just for the walk, you know, and the pleasure it will give a raft of second lieutenants." (Mr. Mayhew was a first lieutenant of one year's standing.) "They'll bless me for bringing them down."

"Do let the girls go with us, Mrs. Gordon, and if you are too busy I'll see Ruth at once. I can make Celestine stay home and look after the children, though she cannot; and here come Mr. Hatton and Mr. McLean. One of them, at least, will be glad to join us," said Miss Forrest, with the confidence of handsome womanhood. "Perhaps both of them. No. They are turning off across the parade. Call them, Mr. Mayhew. Let no guilty man escape."

Obediently Lieutenant Mayhew shouted to the two young officers who had just come forth from the presence of the major commanding. Both were in undress uniform and sword-belts; both had caught sight of the tall girl at the Gordons' gate at the same instant, and, had any one disposed to be critical been looking on, that somebody would have been justified in saying they "sheered off" the very next instant so as not to pass her by within speaking distance. Mrs. Miller, sitting where she could see the whole affair, was struck by the sudden change in their line of direction, and watched them in no little curiosity as they halted in recognition of Mayhew's call.

"What is it, Mayhew?" sung out Hatton.

"Come over here a minute, you and McLean. I have a scheme to unfold."

"Can't; I'm officer of the day."

"Well, you come, McLean. Miss Forrest wants to speak with you."

"Mac, there's no way out of it," growled Hatton between his set teeth; "you've got to go."

"Be at the house in ten minutes, then. I'll join you there," said McLean, glancing over his shoulders at his comrade as he started across the springy turf to obey the summons. "What is it, Miss Forrest?" he inquired. "Good-morning Mrs. Gordon—Mrs. Wells—everybody," he continued, as, with forage-cap in hand, he made his obeisance to the various ladies of the party.

"I want you to prove how we Bedlamites stand by one another by placing yourself under my orders for a whole hour. You have no duty or engagement, have you?"

McLean would have given—he knew not what—to be able to say he had; but this rencontre was something utterly unlooked for. He could easily have pleaded letters, or company duty, but evasion was a trick he could not brook. "I have none," he quietly answered.

"Then, for the honor of Bedlam, offer your services to these young ladies and be their escort down to camp, where they are dying to go."

"Why, Fanny Forrest! how dare you?" gasped Kate Gordon, the elder.

"Indeed, Miss Forrest, I will not have a detailed escort," indignantly protested Jeannie, the younger.

"What illimitable effrontery!" was the muttered comment of Mrs. Wells, while poor Mrs. Gordon hardly knew what to say or do in her amaze and annoyance. McLean himself had flushed crimson under the combined influence of embarrassment and the recollection of the long talk he and Hatton had had but two nights before. Mayhew, too, could hardly control his surprise, but he declared afterward, when the matter came up for comment down at camp, that he would "give a heap to have that man McLean's self-possession," for with hardly an instant's delay the latter's voice was heard above the voluble protests of the two young ladies,—cordial, kindly, even entreating.

"I should like it, of all things. I want to run down and see the First in the new field rig. Do let the girls go with me, Mrs. Gordon. Come, Miss Kate; come, Miss Jeannie. I'll leave my sword at my quarters as we go."

"Didn't I tell you, Mr. Mayhew?" said Miss Forrest, with heightened color and a confident smile as she took his arm. "It is something to be a queen, if it's only the queen of Bedlam."

And though, rather than create a scene, Mrs. Gordon and her daughters joined the party, and Mrs. Wells and Miss Bruce decided to go, it was noticed then and referred to afterward that Mr. McLean never so much as looked at Miss Forrest or noticed her in any way at the time of this occurrence. It was hardly night before the story had gone all over the garrison, and added to Miss Forrest's growing unpopularity; and it was kind-hearted Mrs. Miller herself who exclaimed, on hearing the details in the inevitably exaggerated form in which all such narrative must travel, "I declare! the title she has assumed seems to fit her,—Queen of Bedlam, indeed!"

IV.

The doctor was giving a little dinner in honor of his friend Mr. Holmes. Two days now had that gentleman been in garrison, where his advent had created more of a flutter than the coming of an inspector-general. He had a large cattle-range farther to the south, beyond the Chugwater and comparatively removed from the scene of Indian hostility and depredation; but such had become the laxity of discipline on the part of the bureau officials, or such was their dread of their turbulent charges at the reservations, that, from time to time, marauding parties of young warriors had been raiding from the agencies during the month of April, crossing the Platte River and dashing down on the outskirts of the great cattle-herds south of Scott's Bluffs and in the valleys of Horsehead and Bear Creeks. One party had even dared to attack the ranches far up the Chugwater Valley at the crossing of the Cheyenne road; another had ridden all around Fort Laramie, fording the Platte above and below; and several of them had made away with dozens of head of cattle bearing the well-known brand of Mr. Holmes of Chicago. It was to see what could be done toward preventing the recurrence of this sort of thing that brought Mr. Holmes to Laramie. At least he said so, but there were ladies in the garrison who were quick to determine that something worth more to him than a few hundred head of cattle had prompted him to take that dangerous ride up from the railway. "He would never have thought it worth while," said Mrs. Wells after a day of quiet observation, "had Nellie Bayard not been here."

Another thing to give color to this theory was the fact that, yielding to the importunities of Major Miller and his frequent telegraphic reports of Indian dashes on the neighboring ranches, the division commander had ordered a troop of cavalry back from patrol duty around the reservation, and "The Grays" had marched in the very night before. A scouting party of an officer and twenty troopers rode forth that morning with orders to look over the Chugwater and the intervening country around Eagle's Nest. If Mr. Holmes were in a hurry to get back to business, here was excellent opportunity of driving half the way to Cheyenne under escort. But Mr. Holmes, who had been somewhat emphatic in his announcement that he could only stay one day, was apparently well content with his comfortable quarters under the doctor's roof. He might now stay longer, he said, for while up in that part of the country he might just as well look over some mines in the Black Hills, provided there were a chance of getting thither alive. Except for heavily guarded trains, all communication was at an end between the scattered settlements of the Hills and the posts along the Platte and the Union Pacific Railway. The Indians swarmed out from the reservations, attacking everything that appeared along the road, and sometimes capturing the entire "outfit"; after plundering and scalping their victims they built lively fires of the wagons, and cheerfully roasted alive such of their prisoners as had the ill-luck not to be killed in the first place. The road to the Black Hills, either from Sidney or by way of Fort Laramie, was lined with the ashes of burned wagons, and, in lieu of mile-posts, was staked with little, rude, unpainted crosses, each marking the grave of some victim of this savage warfare; and Mr. Holmes was quite right in his theory that it would be far safer and pleasanter to stay at Laramie until some big party went up to the Hills. The doctor was most hospitable in his pressing invitation for him to make his house a home just as long as it might please him. Nellie was glad to win her beloved father's praise by doing what she could to make the army homestead attractive to his guest; the guest himself was courteous, well-bred and cordial in manner, readily winning friends all over the garrison; and the only man to whom his protracted visit became a matter of serious disquietude was poor Randall McLean. With a lover's intuition he saw that the wealthy Chicagoan was deeply interested in sweet Nellie Bayard, and that her father eagerly favored the suit.

Up to the hour of Mr. Holmes's arrival, there was not a day on which the young fellow had not enjoyed a walk or one or more delightful chats with the doctor's pretty daughter. He had no rivals; there were at the moment no other bachelor officers at the post, with the exception of Hatton, who, besides having a chivalrous disposition not to cut in where his comrade was interested, was popularly supposed to be the peculiar property of Miss Janet Bruce.

Now, however, since Mr. Holmes had taken up his abode under the Æsculapian vine and fig-tree, McLean found it simply impossible to see the lady of his love except in general company. The Chicago capitalist, despite his thirty-eight years, was rarely out of reach of the little pink ear, and, though courteous and unobtrusive, it was patent to McLean that he meant no other man should charm it with a lover's wooing until his own substantial claims had had full consideration. No matter at what hour the lieutenant called, there was Roswell Holmes in the parlor; and, when he sought to engage her for a walk, it so happened that papa and Mr. Holmes had arranged to go calling at that very time, and papa had expressed his wish that she should go too. It began to look very ominous before the end of that second day, and when the evening of the dinner came Mr. McLean was decidedly low in his mind. He was not even