Chapter 4

"Confound you, Sloat, _I_ wouldn't rout _you_ out in this shabby way. Why couldn't you let a man sleep? I'm tired half to death."

"What have you done to tire you? Slept all yesterday afternoon, and danced perhaps a dozen times at the doctor's last night. You've had more sleep than I've had, begad! You took Miss Renwick home before 'twas over, and mean it was of you, too, with all the fellows that wanted to dance with her."

"That wasn't my fault: Mrs. Maynard made her promise to be home at twelve. You old cackler, that's what sticks in your crop yet. You are persecuting me because they like me so much better than they do you," he went on, laughingly now. "Come, now, Sloat, confess, it is all because you're jealous. You couldn't have that picture, and I could."

Chester fairly started. He had urgent need to see this young gallant,--he was staying for that purpose,--but should he listen to further talk like this? Too late to move, for Sloat's answer came like a shot:

"I bet you you _never_ could!"

"But didn't I tell you I had?--a week ago?"

"Ay, but I didn't believe it. You couldn't show it!"

"Pshaw, man! Look here. Stop, though! Remember, _on your honor_, you never tell."

"On my honor, of course."

"Well, there!"

A drawer was opened. Chester heard a gulp of dismay, of genuine astonishment and conviction mixed, as Sloat muttered some half-articulate words and then came into the front room. Jerrold followed, caught sight of Chester, and stopped short, with sudden and angry change of color.

"I did not know _you_ were here," he said.

"It was to find where _you_ were that I came," was the quiet answer.

There was a moment's silence. Sloat turned and looked at the two men in utter surprise. Up to this time he had considered Jerrold's absence from reveille as a mere dereliction of duty which was ascribable to the laziness and indifference of the young officer. So far as lay in his power, he meant to make him attend more strictly to business, and had therefore come to his quarters and stirred him up. But there was no thought of any serious trouble in his mind. His talk had all been roughly good-humored until--until that bet was mentioned, and then it became earnest. Now, as he glanced from one man to the other, he saw in an instant that something new--something of unusual gravity--was impending. Chester, buttoned to the throat in his dark uniform, accurately gloved and belted, with pale, set, almost haggard face, was standing by the centre-table under the drop-light. Jerrold, only half dressed, his feet thrust into slippers, his fingers nervously working at the studs of his dainty white shirt, had stopped short at his bedroom door, and, with features that grew paler every second and a dark scowl on his brow, was glowering at Chester.

"Since when has it been the duty of the officer of the day to come around and hunt up officers who don't happen to be out at reveille?" he asked.

"It is not your absence from reveille I want explained, Mr. Jerrold," was the cold and deliberate answer. "I wanted you at 3.30 this morning, and you were not and had not been here."

An unmistakable start and shock; a quick, nervous, hunted glance around the room, so cold and pallid in the early light of the August morning; a clutch of Jerrold's slim brown hand at the bared throat. But he rallied gamely, strode a step forward, and looked his superior full in the face. Sloat marked the effort with which he cleared away the huskiness that seemed to clog his larynx, but admired the spunk with which the young officer returned the senior's shot:

"What is your authority here, I would like to know? What business has the officer of the day to want me or any other man not on guard? Captain Chester, you seem to forget that I am no longer your second lieutenant, and that I am a company commander like yourself. Do you come by Colonel Maynard's order to search my quarters and question me? If so, say so at once; if not, get out." And Jerrold's face was growing black with wrath, and his big lustrous eyes were wide awake now and fairly snapping.

Chester leaned upon the table and deliberated a moment. He stood there coldly, distrustfully eying the excited lieutenant, then turned to Sloat:

"I will be responsible for the roll-call of Company B this morning, Sloat. I have a matter of grave importance to bring up to this--this gentleman, and it is of a private nature. Will you let me see him alone?"

"Sloat," said Jerrold, "don't go yet. I want you to stay. These are my quarters, and I recognize your right to come here in search of me, since I was not at reveille; but I want a witness here to bear me out. I'm too amazed yet--too confounded by this intrusion of Captain Chester's to grasp the situation. I never heard of such a thing as this. Explain it, if you can."

"Mr. Jerrold, what I have to ask or say to you concerns you alone. It is _not_ an official matter. It is as man to man I want to see you, alone and at once. _Now_ will you let Major Sloat retire?"

Silence for a moment. The angry flush on Jerrold's face was dying away, and in its place an ashen pallor was spreading from throat to brow; his lips were twitching ominously. Sloat looked in consternation at the sudden change.

"Shall I go?" he finally asked.

Jerrold looked long, fixedly, searchingly in the set face of the officer of the day, breathing hard and heavily. What he saw there Sloat could not imagine. At last his hand dropped by his side; he made a little motion with it, a slight wave towards the door, and again dropped it nervously. His lips seemed to frame the word "Go," but he never glanced at the man whom a moment before he so masterfully bade to stay; and Sloat, sorely puzzled, left the room.

Not until his footsteps had died out of hearing did Chester speak:

"How soon can you leave the post?"

"I don't understand you."

"How soon can you pack up what you need to take and--get away?"

"Get away where? What on earth do you mean?"

"You _must_ know what I mean! You _must_ know that after last night's work you quit the service at once and forever."

"I don't know anything of the kind; and I defy you to prove the faintest thing." But Jerrold's fingers were twitching, and his eyes had lost their light.

"Do you suppose I did not recognize you?" asked Chester.

"When?--where?" gulped Jerrold.

"When I seized you and you struck me!"

"I never struck you. I don't know what you mean."

"My God, man, let us end this useless fencing. The evidence I have of your last night's scoundrelism would break the strongest record. For the regiment's sake,--for the colonel's sake,--let us have no public scandal. It's awful enough as the thing stands. Write your resignation, give it to me, and leave,--before breakfast if you can."

"I've done nothing to resign for. You know perfectly well I haven't."

"Do you mean that such a crime--that a woman's ruin and disgrace--isn't enough to drive you from the service?" asked Chester, tingling in every nerve and longing to clinch the shapely, swelling throat in his clutching fingers. "God of heaven, Jerrold! are you dead to all sense of decency?"

"Captain Chester, I won't be bullied this way. I may not be immaculate, but no man on earth shall talk to me like this! I deny your insinuations. I've done nothing to warrant your words, even if--if you did come sneaking around here last night and find me absent. You can't prove a thing. You----"

"What! When I saw you,--almost caught you! By heaven! I wish the sentry had killed you then and there. I never dreamed of such hardihood."

"You've done nothing but dream. By Jove, I believe you're sleepwalking yet. What on earth do you mean by catching and killing me? 'Pon my soul I reckon you're crazy, Captain Chester." And color was gradually coming back again to Jerrold's face, and confidence to his tone.

"Enough of this, Mr. Jerrold. Knowing what you and I both know, do you refuse to hand me your resignation?"

"Of course I do."

"Do you mean to deny to me where I saw you last night?"

"I deny your right to question me. I deny anything,--everything. I believe you simply thought you had a clue and could make me tell. Suppose I _was_ out last night. I don't believe you know the faintest thing about it."

"Do you want me to report the whole thing to the colonel?"

"Of course I don't. Naturally, I want him to know nothing about my being out of quarters; and it's a thing that no officer would think of reporting another for. You'll only win the contempt of every gentleman in the regiment if you do it. What good will it do you?--Keep me from going to town for a few days, I suppose. What earthly business is it of yours, anyway?"

"Jerrold, I can stand this no longer. I ought to shoot you in your tracks, I believe. You've brought ruin and misery to the home of my warmest friend, and dishonor to the whole service, and you talk of two or three days' stoppage from going to town. If I can't bring you to your senses, by God! the colonel shall." And he wheeled and left the room.

For a moment Jerrold stood stunned and silent. It was useless to attempt reply. The captain was far down the walk when he sprang to the door to call him again. Then, hurrying back to the bedroom, he hastily dressed, muttering angrily and anxiously to himself as he did so. He was thinking deeply, too, and every movement betrayed nervousness and trouble. Returning to the front door, he gazed out upon the parade, then took his forage-cap and walked rapidly down towards the adjutant's office. The orderly bugler was tilted up in a chair, leaning half asleep against the whitewashed front, but his was a weasel nap, for he sprang up and saluted as the young officer approached.

"Where did Major Sloat go, orderly?" was the hurried question.

"Over towards the stables, sir. Him and Captain Chester was here together, and they're just gone."

"Run over to the quarters of B Company and tell Merrick I want him right away. Tell him to come to my quarters." And thither Mr. Jerrold returned, seated himself at his desk, wrote several lines of a note, tore it into fragments, began again, wrote another which seemed not entirely satisfactory, and was in the midst of a third when there came a quick step and a knock at the door. Opening the shutters, he glanced out of the window. A gust of wind sent some of the papers whirling and flying, and the bedroom door banged shut, but not before some few half-sheets of paper had fluttered out upon the parade, where other little flurries of the morning breeze sent them sailing over towards the colonel's quarters. Anxious only for the coming of Merrick and no one else, Mr. Jerrold no sooner saw who was at the front door than he closed the shutters, called, "Come in!" and a short, squat, wiry little man, dressed in the fatigue-uniform of the infantry, stood at the door-way to the hall.

"Come in here, Merrick," said the lieutenant, and Merrick came.

"How much is it you owe me now?--thirty-odd dollars, I think?"

"I believe it is, lieutenant," answered the man, with shifting eyes and general uneasiness of mien.

"You are not ready to pay it, I suppose; and you got it from me when we left Fort Raines, to help you out of that scrape there."

The soldier looked down and made no answer.

"Merrick, I want a note taken to town at once. I want _you_ to take it and get it to its address before eight o'clock. I want you to say no word to a soul. Here's ten dollars. Hire old Murphy's horse across the river and _go_. If you are put in the guard-house when you get back, don't say a word; if you are tried by garrison court for crossing the bridge or absence without leave, plead guilty, make no defence, and I'll pay you double your fine and let you off the thirty dollars. But if you fail me, or tell a soul of your errand, I'll write to--you know who, at Raines. Do you understand, and agree?"

"I do. Yessir."

"Go and get ready, and be here in ten minutes."

Meantime, Captain Chester had followed Sloat to the adjutant's office. He was boiling over with indignation which he hardly knew how to control. He found the gray-moustached subaltern tramping in great perplexity up and down the room, and the instant he entered was greeted with the inquiry,--

"What's gone wrong? What's Jerrold been doing?"

"Don't ask me any questions, Sloat, but answer. It is a matter of honor. _What_ was your bet with Jerrold?"

"I oughtn't to tell that, Chester. Surely it cannot be a matter mixed up with this."

"I can't explain, Sloat. What I ask is unavoidable. Tell me about that bet."

"Why, he was so superior and airy, you know, and was trying to make me feel that he was so much more intimate with them all at the colonel's, and that he could have that picture for the mere asking; and I got mad, and bet him he _never_ could."

"Was that the day you shook hands on it?"

"Yes."

"And that was her picture--_the_ picture, then--he showed you this morning."

"Chester, you heard the conversation: you were there: you know that I'm on honor not to tell."

"Yes, I know. That's quite enough."

V.

Before seven o'clock that same morning Captain Chester had come to the conclusion that only one course was left open for him. After the brief talk with Sloat at the office he had increased the perplexity and distress of that easily-muddled soldier by requesting his company in a brief visit to the stables and corrals. A "square" and reliable old veteran was the quartermaster sergeant who had charge of those establishments; Chester had known him for years, and his fidelity and honesty were matters the officers of his former regiment could not too highly commend. When Sergeant Parks made an official statement there was no shaking its solidity. He slept in a little box of a house close by the entrance to the main stable, in which were kept the private horses of several of the officers, and among them Mr. Jerrold's; and it was his boast that, day or night, no horse left that stable without his knowledge. The old man was superintending the morning labors of the stable-hands, and looked up in surprise at so early a visit from the officer of the day.

"Were you here all last night, sergeant?" was Chester's abrupt question.

"Certainly, sir, and up until one o'clock or more."

"Were any horses out during the night,--any officers' horses, I mean?"

"No, sir, not one."

"I thought possibly some officers might have driven or ridden to town."

"No, sir. The only horses that crossed this threshold going out last night were Mr. Sutton's team from town. They were put up here until near one o'clock, and then the doctor sent over for them. I locked up right after that, and can swear nothing else went out."

Chester entered the stable and looked curiously around. Presently his eye lighted on a tall, rangy bay horse that was being groomed in a wide stall near the door-way.

"That's Mr. Jerrold's Roderick, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir. He's fresh as a daisy, too,--hasn't been out for three days,--and Mr. Jerrold's going to drive the dog-cart this morning."

Chester turned away.

"Sloat," said he, as they left the stable, "if Mr. Jerrold was away from the post last night,--and you heard me say he was out of his quarters,--could he have gone any way except afoot, after what you heard Parks say?"

"Gone in the Suttons' outfit, I suppose," was Sloat's cautious answer.

"In which event he would have been seen by the sentry at the bridge, would he not?"

"Ought to have been, certainly."

"Then we'll go back to the guard-house." And, wonderingly and uncomfortably, Sloat followed. He had long since begun to wish he had held his peace and said nothing about the confounded roll-call. He hated rows of any kind. He didn't like Jerrold, but he would have crawled _ventre à terre_ across the wide parade sooner than see a scandal in the regiment he loved; and it was becoming apparent to his sluggish faculties that it was no mere matter of absence from quarters that was involving Jerrold. Chester was all aflame over that picture-business, he remembered, and the whole drift of his present investigation was to prove that Jerrold was _not_ absent from the post, but absent only from his quarters. If so, where had he spent his time until nearly four? Sloat's heart was heavy with vague apprehension. He knew that Jerrold had borne Alice Renwick away from the party at an unusually early hour for such things to break up. He knew that he and others had protested against such desertion, but she declared it could not be helped. He remembered another thing,--a matter that he thought of at the time, only from another point of view. It now seemed to have significance bearing on this very matter; for Chester suddenly asked,--

"Wasn't it rather odd that Miss Beaubien was not here at the dance? She has never missed one, seems to me, since Jerrold began spooning with her last year."

"Why, she _was_ here."

"She was? Are you sure? Rollins never spoke of it; and we had been talking of her. I inferred from what he said that she was not there at all. And I saw her drive homeward with her mother right after parade: so it didn't occur to me that she could have come out again, all that distance, in time for the dance. Singular! Why shouldn't Rollins have told me?"

Sloat grinned: a dreary sort of smile it was, too. "You go into society so seldom you don't see these things. I've more than half suspected Rollins of being quite ready to admire Miss Beaubien himself; and since Jerrold dropped her he has had plenty of opportunity."

"Great guns! I never thought of it! If I'd known she was to be there I'd have gone myself last night. How did she behave to Miss Renwick?"

"Why, sweet and smiling, and chipper as you please. If anything, I think Miss Renwick was cold and distant to her. I couldn't make it out at all."

"And did Jerrold dance with her?"

"Once, I think, and they had a talk out on the piazza,--just a minute. I happened to be at the door, and couldn't help seeing it; and what got me was this: Mr. Hall came out with Miss Renwick on his arm; they were chatting and laughing as they passed me, but the moment she caught sight of Jerrold and Miss Beaubien she stopped, and said, 'I think I won't stay out here; it's too chilly,' or something like it, and went right in; and then Jerrold dropped Miss Beaubien and went after her. He just handed the young lady over to me, saying he was engaged for next dance, and skipped."

"How did she like that? Wasn't she furious?"

"No. That's another thing that got me. She smiled after him, all sweetness, and--well, she _did_ say, 'I count upon you,--you'll be there,' and he nodded. Oh, she was bright as a button after that."

"What did she mean?--be 'where,' do you suppose? Sloat, this all means more to me, and to us all, than I can explain."

"I don't know. I can't imagine."

"Was it to see her again that night?"

"I don't know at all. If it was, he fooled her, for he never went near her again. Rollins put her in the carriage."

"Whose? Did she come out with the Suttons?"

"Why, certainly. I thought you knew that."

"And neither old Madame Beaubien nor Mrs. Sutton with them? What was the old squaw thinking of?"

By this time they had neared the guard-house, where several of the men were seated awaiting the call for the next relief. All arose at the shout of the sentry on Number One, turning out the guard for the officer of the day. Chester made hurried and impatient acknowledgment of the salute, and called to the sergeant to send him the sentry who was at the bridge at one o'clock. It turned out to be a young soldier who had enlisted at the post only six months before and was already known as one of the most intelligent and promising candidates for a corporalship in the garrison.

"Were you on duty at the bridge at one o'clock, Carey?" asked the captain.

"I was, sir. My relief went on at 11.45 and came off at 1.45."

"What persons passed your post during that time?"

"There was a squad or two of men coming back from town on pass. I halted them, sir, and Corporal Murray came down and passed them in."

"I don't mean coming from town. Who went the other way?"

"Only one carriage, sir,--Mr. Sutton's."

"Could you see who were in it?"

"Certainly, sir: it was right under the lamp-post this end of the bridge that I stood when I challenged. Lieutenant Rollins answered for them and passed them out. He was sitting beside Mr. Sutton as they drove up, then jumped out and gave me the countersign and bade them good-night right there."

"Rollins again," thought Chester. "Why did he keep this from me?"

"Who were in the carriage?" he asked.

"Mr. Sutton, sir, on the front seat, driving, and two young ladies on the back seat."

"Nobody else?"

"Not a soul, sir. I could see in it plain as day. One lady was Miss Sutton, and the other Miss Beaubien. I know I was surprised at seeing the latter, because she drove home in her own carriage last evening right after parade. I was on post there at that hour too, sir. The second relief is on from 5.45 to 7.45."

"That will do, Carey. I see your relief is forming now."

As the officers walked away and Sloat silently plodded along beside his dark-browed senior, the latter turned to him:

"I should say that there was no way in which Mr. Jerrold could have gone townwards last night. Should not you?"

"He might have crossed the bridge while the third relief was on, and got a horse at the other side."

"He didn't do that, Sloat. I had already questioned the sentry on that relief. It was the third that I inspected and visited this morning."

"Well, how do you know he wanted to go to town? Why couldn't he have gone up the river, or out to the range? Perhaps there was a little game of 'draw' out at camp."

"There was no light in camp, much less a little game of draw, after eleven o'clock. You know well enough that there is nothing of that kind going on with Gaines in command. That isn't Jerrold's game, even if those fellows _were_ bent on ruining their eyesight and nerve and spoiling the chance of getting the men on the division and army teams. I wish it _were_ his game, instead of what it is!"

"Still, Chester, he may have been out in the country somewhere. You seem bent on the conviction he was up to mischief here, around this post. I won't ask you what you mean; but there's more than one way of getting to town if a man wants to very bad."

"How? Of course he can take a skiff and row down the river; but he'd never be back in time for reveille. There goes six o'clock, and I must get home and shave and think this over. Keep your own counsel, no matter who asks you. If you hear any questions or talk about shooting last night, you know nothing, heard nothing, and saw nothing."

"Shooting last night!" exclaimed Sloat, all agog with eagerness and excitement now. "Where was it? Who was it?"

But Chester turned a deaf ear upon him, and walked away. He wanted to see Rollins, and went straight home.

"Why didn't you tell me Miss Beaubien was out here last night?" was the question he asked as soon as he had entered the room where, all aglow from his cold bath, the youngster was dressing for breakfast. He colored vividly, then laughed.

"Well, you never gave me much chance to say anything, did you? You talked all the time, as I remember, and suddenly vanished and slammed the door. I would have told you had you asked me." But all the same it was evident for the first time that here was a subject Rollins was shy of mentioning.

"Did you go down and see them across sentry post?"

"Certainly. Jerrold asked me to. He said he had to take Miss Renwick home, and was too tired to come back,--was going to turn in. I was glad to do anything to be civil to the Suttons."