"Yet there are others!" laughed Mrs. Garrison, waving a dainty handkerchief toward the troops now breaking into column of twos and slowly climbing the stage. "Who would want to go with that blessed old undertaker? Good-by—bon voyage, Geordie," she cried, blowing a kiss to the lieutenant at the head of the second troop, a youth who blushed and looked confused at the attention thereby centered upon him, and who would fain have shaken his fist, rather than waved the one unoccupied hand in perfunctory reply. "When I go I'll choose a ship with a band and broad decks, not any such cramped old canal boat as the Portland."

"Oh! I thought perhaps your husband—" began the lady dubiously, but with a significant glance at the silent faces about her.

"Who? Frank Garrison? Heavens! I haven't known what it was to have a husband—since that poor dear boy went on staff duty," promptly answered the diminutive center of attraction, a merry peal of laughter ringing under the dingy archway of the long, long roof. "Why, the Portland has only one stateroom in it big enough for a bandbox, and of course the General has to have that, and there isn't a deck where one couple could turn a slow waltz. No, indeed! wait for the next flotilla, when our fellows go, bands and all. Then we'll see."

"But surely, Mrs. Garrison, we are told the War Department has positively forbidden officers' wives from going on the transports"—again began her interrogator, a wistful look in her tired eyes. "I know I'd give anything to join Mr. Dutton."

"The War Department has to take orders quite as often as it gives them, Mrs. Dutton. The thing is to know how to be of the order-giving side. Oh, joy!" she suddenly cried. "Here are the Primes and Amy Lawrence—then the regiments must be coming! And there's Stanley Armstrong!"

Far up the westward street the distant roar of voices mingled with the swing and rhythm and crash of martial music. Dock policemen and soldiers on guard began boring a wide lane through the throng of people on the pier. A huge black transport ship lay moored along the opposite side to that on which the guns and troopers were embarked, and for hours bales, boxes and barrels had been swallowed up and stored in her capacious depths until now, over against the tables of the Red Cross, there lay behind a rope barrier, taut stretched and guarded by a line of sentries, an open space close under the side of the greater steamer and between the two landing stages, placed fore and aft. By this time the north side of the broad pier was littered with the inevitable relics of open air lunching, and though busy hands had been at work and the tables had been cleared, and fresh white cloths were spread and everything on the tables began again to look fair and inviting, the good fairies themselves looked askance at their bestrewn surroundings. "Oh, if we could only move everything bodily over to the other side," wailed Madam President, as from her perch on a stack of Red Cross boxes she surveyed that coveted stretch of clean, unhampered flooring.

"And why not?" chirruped Mrs. Garrison, from a similar perch, a tier or two higher. "Here are men enough to move mountains. All we have to do is to say the word."

"Ah, but it isn't," replied the other, gazing wistfully about over the throng of faces, as though in search of some one sufficient in rank and authority to serve her purpose. "We plead in vain with the officer-of-the-guard. He says his orders are imperative—to allow no one to intrude on that space," and madam looked as though she would rather look anywhere than at the animated sprite above her.

"What nonsense!" shrilled Mrs. Garrison. "Here, Cherry," she called to a pretty girl, standing near the base of the pile, "give me my bag. I'm army woman enough to know that order referred only to the street crowd that sometimes works in on the pier and steals." The bag was duly passed up to her. She cast one swift glance over the heads of the crowd to where a handsome carriage was slowly working its way among the groups of prettily dressed women and children—friends and relatives of members of the departing commands, in whose behalf, as though by special dispensation, the order excluding all but soldiers and the Red Cross had been modified. Already the lovely dark-eyed girl on the near side had waved her hand in greeting, responding to Mrs. Garrison's enthusiastic signals, but her companion, equally lovely, though of far different type, seemed preoccupied, perhaps unwilling to see, for her large, dark, thoughtful eyes were engaged with some object on the opposite side—not even with the distinguished looking soldier who sat facing her and talking quietly at the moment with Mr. Prime. There was a gleam of triumph in Mrs. Garrison's dancing eyes as she took out a flat notebook and pencil and dashed off a few lines in bold and vigorous strokes. Tearing out the page, she rapidly read it over, folded it and glanced imperiously about her. A cavalry sergeant, one of the home troop destined to remain at the Presidio, was leaning over the edge of the pier, hanging on to an iron ring and shouting some parting words to comrades on the upper deck, but her shrill soprano cut through the dull roar of deep, masculine voices and the tramp of feet on resounding woodwork.

"Sergeant!" she cried, with quick decision. "Take this over to the officer in command of that guard. Then bring a dozen men and move these two tables across the pier." The cavalryman glanced at the saucy little woman in the stunning costume, "took in" the gold crossed sabres, topped by a regimental number in brilliants that pinned her martial collar at the round, white throat, noted the ribbon and pin and badge of the Red Cross, and the symbol of the Eighth Corps in red enamel and gold upon the breast of her jacket, and above all the ring of accustomed authority in her tone, and never hesitated a second. Springing to the pile of boxes he grasped the paper; respectfully raised his cap, and bored his stalwart way across the pier. In three minutes he was back—half a dozen soldiers at his heels.

"Where'll you have 'em, ma'am—miss?" he asked, as the men grasped the supports and raised the nearmost table.

"Straight across and well over to the edge," she answered, in the same crisp tones of command. Then, with total and instant change of manner, "I suppose your tables should go first, Madam President," she smilingly said. "It shall be as you wish about the others."

And the Red Cross was vanquished.

"I declare," said an energetic official, a moment later, leaning back on her throne of lemon boxes, and fanning herself vigorously, "for a whole hour I've been trying to move that officer's heart and convince him the order didn't apply to us. Now how did—she—do it?"

"The officer must be some old—some personal friend," hazarded the secretary, with a quick feminine comprehensive glance at the little lady now being lifted up to shake hands with the carriage folk, after being loaded with compliments and congratulations by the ladies of the two favored tables.

"Not at all," was the prompt reply. "He is a volunteer officer she never set eyes on before to-day. I would like to know what was on that paper."

But now the roar of cheering and the blare of martial music had reached the very gateway. The broad portals were thrown open and in blue and brown, crushed and squeezed by the attendant throng, the head of the column of infantry came striding on to the pier. The band, wheeling to one side, stood at the entrance, playing them in, the rafters ringing to the stirring strains of "The Liberty Bell." They were still far down the long pier, the sloping rifles just visible, dancing over the heads of the crowd. No time was to be lost. More tables were to be carried, but—who but that—"that little army woman" could give the order so that it would be obeyed. Not one bit did the president like to do it, but something had to be done to obtain the necessary order, for the soldiers who so willingly and promptly obeyed her beck and call were now edging away for a look at the newcomers, and Mrs. Frank Garrison, perched on the carriage step and chatting most vivaciously with its occupants and no longer concerning herself, apparently, about the Red Cross or its tables, had the gratification of finding herself approached, quite as she had planned, by two most prominent and distinguished women of San Francisco society, and requested to issue instructions as to the moving of the other tables. "Certainly, ladies," she responded, with charming smiles. "Just one minute, Mildred. Don't drive farther yet," and within that minute half a dozen boys in blue were lugging at the first of the tables still left on the crowded side of the dock, and others still were bearing oil stoves, urns and trays. In less time than it takes to tell it the entire Red Cross equipage was on its way across the pier, and when the commanding officer of the arriving regiment reached the spot which he had planned to occupy with his band, his staff and all his officers, there in state and ceremony to receive the citizens who came in swarms to bid them farewell, he found it occupied by as many as eight snowy, goody-laden tables, presided over by as many as eighty charming maids and matrons, all ready and eager to comfort and revive the inner man of his mighty regiment with coffee and good cheer illimitable, and the colonel swore a mighty oath and pounced on his luckless officer-of-the-guard. He had served as a subaltern many a year in the old army, and knew how it was done.

"Didn't I give you personal and positive orders not to let anything or anybody occupy this space after the baggage was got aboard, sir?" he demanded.

"You did, sir," said the unabashed lieutenant, pulling a folded paper from his belt, "and the Red Cross got word to the general and what the Red Cross says—goes. Look at that!"

The colonel looked, read, looked dazed, scratched his head and said: "Well, I'm damned!" Then he turned to his adjutant. "You were with me when I saw the general last night and he told me to put this guard on and keep this space clear. Now, what d'you say to that?"

The adjutant glanced over the penciled lines. "Well," said he, "if you s'pose any order that discriminates against the Red Cross is going to hold good, once they find it out, you're bound to get left. They're feasting the first company now, sir; shall I have it stopped?" and there was a grin under the young soldier's mustache. The colonel paused one moment, shook his head and concluded he, too, would better grin and bear it. Taking the paper in his hand again he heard his name called and saw smiling faces and beckoning hands in an open carriage near him, but the sight of Stanley Armstrong, signalling to him from another, farther away, had something dominant about it. "With you in a minute," he called to those who first had summoned him. "What is it, Armstrong?"

"I wish to present you to some friends of mine—Miss Lawrence—Miss Prime—Mr. Prime—my old associate, Colonel Stewart. Pardon me, Mrs. Garrison. I did not see you had returned." She had, and was once more perched upon the step. "Mrs. Garrison—Colonel Stewart. What we need to know, Stewart, is this: Will all your men board the ship by this stage, or will some go aft?"

"All by this stage—why?"

But the colonel felt a somewhat massive hand crushing down on his own and forebore to press the question. Armstrong let no pause ensue. He spoke, rapidly for him, bending forward, too, and speaking low; but even as she chatted and laughed, the little woman on the carriage step saw, even though she did not seem to look, heard, even though she did not seem to listen:

"An awkward thing has happened. The General's tent was robbed of important papers perhaps two days ago, and the guardhouse rid of a most important prisoner last night. Canker has put the officer-of-the-guard in arrest. Remember good old Billy Gray who commanded us at Apache? This is Billy Junior, and I'm awful sorry." Here the soft gray eyes glanced quickly at the anxious face of Miss Lawrence, who sat silently feigning interest in the chat between the others. The anxious look in her eyes increased at Armstrong's next words: "The prisoner must have had friends. He is now said to be among your men, disguised, and those two fellows at the stage are detectives. I thought all that space was to be kept clear."

"It was," answered Stewart, "yet the chief must have been overpersuaded. Look here!" and the colonel held forth a scrap of paper. Amy Lawrence, hearing something like the gasp of a sufferer in sudden pain, turned quickly and saw that every vestige of color had left Mrs. Garrison's face—that she was almost reeling on the step. Before she could call attention to it, Armstrong, who had taken and glanced curiously at the scrap, whirled suddenly, and his eyes, in stern menace, swept the spot where the little lady clung but an instant before. As suddenly Mrs. Garrison had sprung from the step and vanished.



CHAPTER VII.

Billy Gray was indeed in close arrest and the grim prophecy was fulfilled—Colonel Canker was proving "anything but a guardian angel to him." The whole regiment, officers and men, barring only the commander, was practically in mourning with sorrow for him and chagrin over its own discomfiture. Not only one important prisoner was gone, but two; not only two, but four. No man in authority was able to say just when or how it happened, for it was Canker's own order that the prisoners should not be paraded when the guard fell in at night. They were there at tattoo and at taps "all secure." The officer of the guard, said several soldiers, had quite a long talk with one of the prisoners—young Morton—just after tattoo, at which time the entire guard had been inspected by the commanding officer himself. But at reveille four most important prisoners were gone and, such was Canker's wrath, not only was Gray in arrest, but the sergeant of the guard also, while the three luckless men who were successively posted as sentries during the night at the back of the wooden shell that served as a guardhouse—were now in close confinement in the place of the escaped quartette.

Yet those three were men who had hitherto been above suspicion, and there were few soldiers in the regiment who would accept the theory that any one of the three had connived at the escape. As for the sergeant—he had served four enlistments in the —teenth, and without a flaw in his record beyond an occasional aberration in the now distant past, due to the potency of the poteen distilled by certain Hibernian experts not far from an old-time "plains fort," where the regiment had rested on its march 'cross continent. As for the officers—but who would suppose an officer guilty of anything of the kind—a flagrant military crime? And yet—men got to asking each other if it were so that Bugler Curran had carried a note from the prisoner, Morton, to Mr. Gray about 2:30 that afternoon? And what was this about Gray's having urged Brooke to swap tours with him an hour later, and what was that story the headquarters clerks were telling about Mr. Gray's coming to the adjutant and begging to be allowed to "march on" that evening instead of Brooke? It wasn't long before these rumors, somehow, got to Canker's ears, and Canker seemed to grow as big again; he fairly swelled with indignation at thought of such turpitude on part of an officer. Then he sent for Gray—it was the afternoon following the sailing of the ships with the big brigade—and with pain and bewilderment and indignation in his brave blue eyes the youngster came and stood before his stern superior. Gordon, who sent the message, and who had heard Canker's denunciatory remarks, had found time to scribble a word or two—"Admit nothing; say nothing; do nothing but hold your tongue and temper. If C. insists on answers say you decline except in presence of your legal adviser." So there was a scene in the commander's tent that afternoon. The morning had not been without its joys. Along about ten o'clock as Gray sat writing to his father in his little canvas home, he heard a voice that sent the blood leaping through his veins and filled his eyes with light. Springing from his campstool and capsizing it as he did so, he poked his curly head from the entrance of the tent—and there she was—only a dozen feet away—Major Lane in courteous attendance, Mr. Prime sadly following, and Miss Prime quite content with the devotions of Captain Schuyler. Only a dozen feet away and coming straight to him, with frank smiles and sympathy in her kind and winsome face—with hand outstretched the moment she caught sight of him. "We wanted to come when we heard of it yesterday, Mr. Gray," said Amy Lawrence, "but it was dark when we got back from seeing the fleet off, and uncle was too tired in the evening. Indeed we are all very, very sorry!" And poor Billy never heard or cared what the others said, so absorbed was he in drinking in her gentle words and gazing into her soft, dark eyes. No wonder he found it difficult to release her hand. That brief visit, filled with sweetness and sunshine, ought to have been a blessing to him all day long, but Canker caught sight of the damsels as they walked away on the arms of the attendant cavaliers—Miss Lawrence more than once smiling back at the incarcerated Billy—and Canker demanded to be informed who they were and where they had been, and Gordon answered they were Miss Lawrence of Santa Anita, and Miss Prime of New York—and he "reckoned" they must have been in to condole with Mr. Gray—whereat Canker snarled that people ought to know better than to visit officers in arrest—it was tantamount to disrespect to the commander. It was marvelous how many things in Canker's eyes were disrespectful.

So he heard these stories with eager ears and sent for Gray, and thought to bully him into an admission or confession, but Gordon's words had "stiffened" the little fellow to the extent of braving Canker's anger and telling him he had said all he proposed to say when the colonel called him up the previous day. The result of that previous interview was his being placed in close arrest and informed that he should be tried by general court-martial once. So he had taken counsel, as was his right, and "counsel" forbade his committing himself in any way.

"Then you refuse to divulge the contents of that note and to say why you were so eager to go on guard out of your turn?" said Canker, oracularly. "That in itself is sufficient to convince any fair-minded court of your guilt, sir." Whereat Gordon winked at Billy and put his tongue in his cheek—and Billy stood mute until ordered, with much asperity, to go back to his tent.

But there were other things that might well go toward convincing a court of the guilt of Lieutenant Gray, and poor Billy contemplated them with sinking heart. Taking prompt advantage of his position as officer of the guard, he had caused the young prisoner to be brought outside the guardhouse, and as a heavy, dripping fog had come on the wings of the night wind, sailing in from the sea, he had led the way to the sheltered side, which happened to be the darkest one, of the rude little building, and had there bidden him tell his story. But Morton glanced uneasily at a sentry who followed close and was hovering suspiciously about. "I cannot talk about—the affair—with that fellow spying," he said, with an eager plea in his tone and a sign of the hand that Gray well knew and quickly recognized. "Keep around in front. I'll be responsible for this prisoner," were his orders, and, almost reluctantly, the man left. He was a veteran soldier, and his manner impressed the lieutenant with a vague sense of trouble. Twice the sentry glanced back and hesitated, as though something were on his mind that he must tell, but finally he disappeared and kept out of the way during the brief interview that immediately followed. The prisoner eagerly, excitedly began his explanation—swiftly banishing any lingering doubts Gray might have entertained as to his innocence. But he had come from a stove-heated guardroom into the cold sea wind off the Pacific—into the floating wisps of vapor that sent chill to the marrow. He was far too lightly clad for that climate, and presently he began to shiver.

"You are cold," said Gray, pityingly. "Have you no overcoat?"

"It's at my tent—I never expected to spend this night here. I've been before the summary court, fined for absence, and thought that would end it, but instead of that I'm a prisoner and the man who should be here is stalking about camp, planning more robberies. Yet I'd rather associate with the very worst of the deserters or dead beats inside there," and the dark eyes glanced almost in horror—the slender figure shook with mingled repulsion and chill—"than with that smooth-tongued sneak and liar. There's no crime too mean for him to commit, Mr. Gray, and the men are beginning to know it, though the colonel won't. For God's sake get me out of this before morning—" And again the violent tremor shook the lad from head to foot.

"Here—get inside!" said Gray impulsively. "I'll see the adjutant at once and return to you in a few minutes. If you have to remain until the matter can be investigated by the General it might be——"

"It would be—" vehemently interrupted Morton, then breaking off short as though at loss for descriptive of sufficient strength. He seemed to swell with passion as he clinched his fists and fairly stood upon his toes an instant, his strong white teeth grinding together. "It would be—simply hell!" he burst in again, hoarse and quivering. "It would ruin—everything! Can't the General give the order to-night?" he asked with intense eagerness, while the young officer, taking him by the arm, had led him again to the light of the guardhouse lamps at the front. The sergeant and a group of soldiers straightened up and faced them, listening curiously.

"It may be even impossible to see the General," answered Gray doubtfully. "Take Morton into the guardroom till I get back, sergeant, and let him warm himself thoroughly." Don't put him with the prisoners till I return, and so saying he had hastened away. Gordon, his friend and adviser, had left camp and gone visiting over in the other division. The lights at general headquarters were turned low. Even now, after having heard proofs of the innocence of the accused soldier, Gray knew that it was useless to appeal to the colonel. He could not understand, however, the feverish, almost insane, impatience of the lad for immediate release. Another day ought not to make so great a difference. What could be the reason—if it were not that, though innocent of the robbery of the storehouse, or of complicity in the sale of stolen goods, some other crime lay at his door which the morrow might disclose? All the loyalty of a Delta Sig was stretched to the snapping point as Gray paused irresolute in front of the adjutant's tent, his quest there unsuccessful. The sergeant-major and a sorely badgered clerk were working late over some regimental papers—things that Morton wrote out easily and accurately.

"I suppose, sir, it's no use asking to have the prisoner sent up here under guard," said that jewel of a noncommissioned officer. "Yet the colonel will be savage if these papers ain't ready. It will take us all night as things are going."

Gray shook his curly head. "Go ask, if you like, but—Morton's in no shape to help you——"

"Has he been drinking, sir?" said the sergeant-major, in surprise. "I never knew him——"

"Oh, it isn't that," said Gray hastily, "only he's—he's got—other matters on his mind! Bring me his overcoat. He said it was in his tent," and the young officer jerked his head at the patch of little "A" tents lined up in the rear of those of the officers.

"Get Morton's overcoat and take it to him at the guardhouse," snapped the staff sergeant to the clerk. "Be spry now, and no stopping on the way back," he added—well aware how much in need his assistant stood of creature comfort of some surreptitious and forbidden kind. The man was back in a moment, the coat rolled on his arm.

"I'll take it," said Gray simply. "You needn't come."

"Go on with it!" ordered the sergeant as the soldier hesitated. "D'ye think the service has gone to the devil and officers are runnin' errands for enlisted men? An' get back inside two minutes, too," he added with portent in his tone. The subaltern of hardly two months' service felt the implied rebuke of the soldier of over twenty years' and meekly accepted the amendment, but—a thought occurred to him: He had promised Morton paper, envelopes and stamps and the day's newspapers—the lad seemed strangely eager to get all the latter, and vaguely Billy remembered having heard that Canker considered giving papers to prisoners as equivalent to aid and comfort to the enemy.

"Take it by way of my tent," said he as they started, and, once there it took time to find things. "Go back to the sergeant-major and tell him I sent you," said Gray, after another search. "He needs you on those papers."

And when the officer of the guard returned to the guardhouse and went in to the prisoner, the sergeant saw—and others saw—that, rolled in the soldier's overcoat he carried on his arm, was a bundle done up in newspaper. Moreover, a scrap of conversation was overheard.

"There's no one at the General's," said the officer. "I see no way of—fixing it before morning."

"My God, lieutenant! There—must be some way out of it! The morning will be too late."

"Then I'll do what I can for you to-night," said Mr. Gray as he turned and hurriedly left the guardroom—a dozen men standing stiffly about the walls and doorway and staring with impassive faces straight to the front. Again, the young officer had left the post of the guard and gone up into camp, while far and near through the dim, fog-swept aisles of a score of camps the bugles and trumpets were wailing the signal for "lights out," and shadowy forms with coat collars turned up about the ears or capes muffled around the neck, scurried about the company streets ordering laughter and talk to cease. A covered carriage was standing at the curb outside the officers' gate—as a certain hole in the fence was designated—and the sentry there posted remembered that the officer of the guard came hurrying out and asked the driver if he was engaged. "I'm waiting for the major," was the answer.

"Well, where can one order a carriage to-night without going clear to town?" inquired Gray. "I want one—that is—I wish to order one at once."

And the driver who knew very well there were several places where carriages could be had, preferred loyalty to his own particular stable away in town, and so declared there was none.

"You can telephone there, if you wish, sir," he added.

"And wait till morning for it to get here? No! I'll get it—somehow."

And that he did get it somehow was current rumor on the following day, for the sentries on the guardhouse side of camp swore that a closed carriage drove down from McAllister Street for all the world as though it had just come out of the park, and rolled on past the back of the guardhouse, the driver loudly whistling "Killarney," so that it could be heard above the crunching of the wheels through the rough, loose rock that covered the road, and that carriage drew up not a hundred yards away, while the lieutenant was out visiting sentries, and presently they saw him coming back along the walk, stopping to question each sentry as to his orders. Then he returned and inquired if all was quiet among the prisoners, and then went and put out his light in the tent reserved for the officer of the guard, and once more left his post, briefly informing the sergeant of the guard he was going to the officer of the day. Then it was ascertained that he had visited half a dozen places in search of that veteran captain, and appeared much disturbed because he could not find him. In half an hour he was back, asking excitedly of the sentry in rear of the guardhouse if a carriage had come that way. It had, said the sentry, and was waiting down the street. Gray hurried in the direction indicated, was gone perhaps three minutes, and returned, saying that the sentry must be mistaken, that no carriage was there. But the sentry reiterated his statement that it had been there and had been waiting for some time, and must have disappeared while he was temporarily around at the opposite side of the building. This was about 11 P.M.

Then when Gray appeared at reveille Morton had disappeared.

"It's not the sergeant let them fellers out," said the regimental oracles. "This is no ten-dollar subscription business." And so until late in the afternoon the question that agitated the entire range of regimental camps was: "How did those fellows break away from the prison of the —teenth?" Then came a clue, and then—discovery.

By order of Lieutenant-Colonel Canker a board of officers had been convened to investigate the matter, and after questioning everybody whom "Squeers" had already badgered with his assertions, threats and queries, they went to the guardhouse and began a thorough inspection of the premises. The wooden building stood in the midst of a waste of sand blown in from the shore line by the strong sea wind. It was perched on something like a dozen stout posts driven into the soft soil and then the space between the floor level and the sand was heavily and stoutly boarded in—thick planks being used. Between the floor and the sand was a space of about eighteen inches vertical, and a dozen men could have sprawled therein—lying at full length—but to escape would have required the connivance of one or more of the sentries surrounding the building and the ripping off of one or more of the planks. In his keen anxiety Canker accompanied the Board on its tour of investigation—a thing the Board did not at all like—and presently, as was his wont, began running things his own way. It had been found useless to question the soldiers of the guard. Not a man could be found to admit he knew the faintest thing about the escape. As for the prisoners, most of them reckless, devil-may-care rascals, they grinned or leered suggestively, but had nothing to tell.

"We'll have this boarding ripped off," said Canker decisively, "and see what they've got secreted under there. I shouldn't be surprised to find a whisky still in full blast, or a complete gambling outfit—dash, dash 'em to dash and dashnation! Send for a carpenter, sergeant."

The carpenter came, and he and two or three of the guard laid hold of one end of the plank after its nails were drawn, and with little exertion ripped it off the other posts. Then everybody held his breath a minute, stared, and a small majority swore. So far from its being open to cats, cans and rubbish, the space on that side was filled solid with damp, heavy sea sand—a vertical wall extending from floor to ground. Canker almost ran around to the opposite side and had a big plank torn off there. Within was a wall as damp, solid and straight as that first discovered, and so, when examined, were the other two sides provided. Canker's face was a study, and the Board gazed and was profoundly happy.

At last the colonel exploded:

"By Jupiter! They haven't got away at all, then! There isn't a flaw in the sand wall anywhere. They must be hiding about the middle now. Come on, gentlemen," and around he trotted to the front door. "Sergeant," he cried, "get out all the prisoners—all their bedding—every blessed thing they've got. I want to examine that floor."

Most of the guardhouse "birds" were out chopping wood, and Canker danced in among the few remaining, loading them with bedding belonging to their fellows until every item of clothing and furniture was shoved out of the room. One member of the Board and one only failed to enter with his associates—a veteran captain who read much war literature and abhorred Canker. To the surprise of the sentry he walked deliberately over to the fence, climbed it and presently began poking about the wooden curb that ran along the road, making a low revetment or retaining wall for the earth, cinders and gravel that, distributed over the sand, had been hopefully designated a sidewalk by the owners of the tract. Presently he came sauntering back, and both sentries within easy range would have sworn he was chuckling. Canker greeted him with customary asperity.

"What do you mean, sir, by absenting yourself from this investigation, when you must have known I was with the Board and giving it the benefit of the information I had gathered?"

"I was merely expediting matters, colonel. While you were looking for where they went in I was finding where they got out."

"Went in what? Got out of what?" snapped Canker.

"Their tunnel, sir. It's Libby on a small scale over again. They must have been at work at it at least ten days." And as he spoke, calmly ignoring Canker and letting his eyes wander over the floor, the veteran battalion commander sauntered across the room, stirred up a slightly projecting bit of flooring with the toe of his boot and placidly continued. "If you'll be good enough to let the men pry this up you may understand."

And when pried up and lifted away—a snugly fitting trapdoor about two feet square—there yawned beneath it, leading slantwise downward in the direction of the street, a tunnel through the soft yielding sand, braced and strengthened here and there with lids and sides of cracker-boxes. "Now, if you don't mind straddling a fence, sir, I'll show you the other end," said the captain, imperturbably leading the way, and Canker, half-dazed yet wholly in command of his stock of blasphemy, followed. At the curb, right in the midst of a lot of loose hay from the bales dumped there three days before, the leader dislodged with his sword the top of a clothing box that had been thickly covered with sand and hay—and there was the outlet. "Easy as rolling off a log, colonel," said old Cobb, with a sarcastic grin. "This could all be done without a man you've blamed and arrested being a whit the wiser. They sawed a panel out of the floor, scooped the sand out of this tunnel, banked it solid against the weather boarding inside, filled up the whole space, pretty near, but ran their tunnel under fence and sidewalk, crawled down the gutter to the next block out of sight of the sentries, then walked away free men. Those three thieves who got away were old hands. The other men in the guardhouse were only mild offenders, except Morton. 'Course he was glad of the chance to go with 'em. I s'pose you'll release my sergeant and those sentries now."

"I'll do nothing of the kind," answered Canker, red with wrath, "and your suggestion is disrespectful to your commanding officer. When I want your advice I'll ask for it."

"Well, Mr. Gray will be relieved to learn of this anyhow. I suppose I may tell him," hazarded the junior member, mischievously.

"Mr. Gray be ——. Mr. Gray has everything to answer for!" shouted the angered colonel. "It was he who telephoned for a carriage to meet and run those rascals off. Mr. Gray's fate is sealed. He can thank God I don't slap him into the guardhouse with his chosen associates, but he shan't escape. Sergeant of the guard, post a sentry over Lieutenant Gray's tent, with orders to allow no one to enter or leave it without my written authority. Mr. Gray shall pay for this behind the prison bars of Alcatraz."



CHAPTER VIII.

Social circles at West Point at long, rare intervals are shocked by a scandal, and at short ones, say every other summer—are stirred by some kind of a sensation, and the "Fairy Sisters" were the sensation of the year '97. They came in July; they went in September, and meanwhile they were "on the go," as they expressed it, from morn till late at night. Physically they were the lightest weights known to the hop room. Mentally, as their admirers in the corps expressed it, "either of them can take a fall out of any woman at the Point," and this was especially true of the elder—Mrs. Frank Garrison—whose husband was on staff duty in the far West. Both were slight, fragile, tiny blondes with light blue eyes, with lighter, fluffy hair, with exquisite little hands and feet, with oval, prettily shaped faces, and the younger—the maiden sister, had a bewitching mouth and regular, snowy dots of teeth of which she was justly proud. Yet, as has been previously said of Mrs. Frank, while the general effect was in the case of each that of an extremely pretty young girl, the elder had no really good features, the younger only that one. They generally dressed very much alike in light, flimsy gowns, and hats, gloves and summer shoes all of dazzling white—sometimes verging for a change to a creamy hue—but colors, except for sashes or summer shawls, seemed banished from their wardrobes. They danced divinely, said the corps, and preferred cadet partners, to the joy of the battalion. They rode fearlessly and well, and had stunning hats and habits, but few opportunities for display thereof. They came tripping down the path from the hotel every morning, fresh and fair as daisies, in time for guard mounting, and at any hour after that could be found chatting with cadet friends at the visitors' tent, strolling arm in arm about the shaded walks with some of their many admirers until time to dress for the evening hop, where they never missed a dance, and on rainy days, or on those evenings when there was neither hop nor band practice, they could be found, each in some dimly lighted, secluded nook about the north or west piazza or on the steps leading down to the "Chain Battery Walk," sometimes surrounded by a squad of cadet friends, but more frequently in murmured tete-a-tete with only one cavalier. In the case of Mrs. Frank no member of the corps seemed especially favored. She was just the same to every one. In the case of her younger sister—Miss Terriss—there presently developed a dashing young cadet captain who so scientifically conducted his campaign that he headed off almost all competitors and was presently accorded the lead under the universally accepted theory that he had won the little lady's heart. Observant women—and what women are not observant—of each other?—declared both sisters to be desperate flirts. Society at the Point frowned upon them and, after the first formal call or two, dropped them entirely—a thing they never seemed to resent in the least, or even to notice. They were never invited out to tea or dinner on the post—solemn functions nowhere near so palatable as the whispered homage of stalwart young manhood. "Nita is yet such a child she infinitely prefers cadet society, and I always did like boys," explained Mrs. Garrison. Some rather gay old boys used to run up Saturday afternoons on the Mary Powell and spend Sunday at the Point—Wall Street men of fifty years and much lucre. "Dear old friends of father's," Mrs. Frank used to say, "and I've simply got to entertain them." Entertained they certainly were, for her wit and vivacity were acknowledged on every side, and entertained not only collectively, but severally, for she always managed to give each his hour's confidential chat, and on the Sundays of their coming had no time to spare for cadet friends. Moreover, she always drove down in the big 'bus with them Monday morning when the Powell was sighted coming along that glorious reach from Polopel's Island, and stood at the edge of the wharf waving her tiny kerchief—even blowing fairy kisses to them as they steamed away. No wonder Nita Terriss was frivolous and flirtatious with such an example, said society, and its frowns grew blacker when the White Sisters, the Fairy Sisters—the "Sylphites," came in view. But frowns and fulminations both fell harmless from the armor of Mrs. Frank's gay insouciance. Nita winced at first, but soon rallied and bore the slights of the permanent and semi-permanent residents as laughingly as did her more experienced sister. Nita, it was explained, was only just out of school, and Mrs. Frank was giving her this summer at the Point as a great treat before taking her to the far West, where the elder sister must soon go to join her husband. Everybody knew Frank Garrison. He had long been stationed at the Academy, and was a man universally liked and respected—even very highly regarded. All of a sudden the news came back to the Point a few months after his return to his regiment that he was actually engaged to "Witchie" Terriss. Hot on the heels of the rumor came the wedding cards—Lieutenant-Colonel and Mrs. Terriss requested the honour of your presence at the marriage of their daughter Margaret to Lieutenant Francis Key Garrison, —th U. S. Cavalry, at the Post Chapel, Fort Riley, Kansas, November —, 1894—all in Tiffany's best style, as were the cards which accompanied the invitation. "What a good thing for old Bill Terriss!" said everybody who knew that his impecuniosity was due to the exactions and extravagancies of his wife and "Witchie."—"And what a bad thing for Frank Garrison!" was the echo. His intimates knew that he had "put by" through economy and self-denial about two thousand dollars, the extent of his fortune outside of his pay. "She'll make ducks and drakes of it in the six weeks' honeymoon," was the confident prophecy, and she probably did, for, despite the fact that he had so recently rejoined the regiment, "Witchie" insisted on a midwinter run to New Orleans, Savannah and Washington, and bore her lord, but not her master, over the course in triumph. To a student of human nature—and frailty—that union of a faded and somewhat shopworn maid of twenty-seven to an ardent and vigorous young soldier many moons her junior was easy to account for. One after another Witchie Terriss had had desperate affairs with half a dozen fellows, older or younger, in the army and was known to have been engaged to five different men at different times, and believed to have been engaged to two different men at one time. Asked as to this by one of her chums she was reported to have replied: "Do you know, I believe it true; I had totally forgotten about Ned Colston before Mr. Forman had been at the post a week. Of course the only thing to do was to break with both and let them start fresh." But this Mr. Colston, whose head had been somewhat cleared by a month of breezy, healthful scouting, accepted only in part—that part which included the break. Forman had the fresh start and a walk over and held the trophy just two months, when it dawned upon him that Margaret loved dancing far more than she did him—a clumsy performer, and that she would dance night after night, the lightest, daintiest creature in the hop room, and never have a word or a look for him who leaned in gloomy admiration against the wall and never took his eyes off her. He became jealous, moody, ugly-tempered and finally had the good luck to get his conge as the result of an attempt to assert himself and limit her dances. She was blithe and radiant and fancy free when Frank Garrison reached the post, a wee bit hipped, it was whispered, because of the failure of a somewhat half-hearted suit of his in the far East, and the Fairy bounded into the darkness of his life and fairly dazzled him. Somebody had said Frank Garrison had money.

There is no need to tell of the disillusion that gradually came. Frank found his debts mounting up and his cares increasing. She was all sympathy and regret when he mentioned it, but—there were certain comforts, luxuries and things she had always been accustomed to, and couldn't live without. Surely he would not have her apply to papa. No, but—could she not manage with a little less? He was willing to give up his cigars (indeed, he had long since done so) and to make his uniforms last a year longer—he who was in his day the most carefully dressed man at the Point. Well—she thought perhaps he ought to do that—besides—men's fashions changed but slowly, whereas women's—"Well, I'd rather be dead than out of style, Frank!"

And so it went.

But if she did not love her husband there was one being in whom her frivolous heart was really bound up—Nita—her "baby sister," as she called her, and when Terriss, the colonel, went the way of all flesh, preceded only a few months by the wife of his bosom, the few thousands in life insurance he had managed to maintain went to the two daughters. Not one penny was ever laid out in payment of the debts of either the father or husband. Nita was sent to an extravagant finishing school in Gotham, and along in May of the young girl's graduating year, blithe little Mrs. Garrison arrived, fresh from the far West, and after a few weeks of sightseeing and shopping the sisters appeared at the Point, even half-mourning by this time discarded. Thirteen years' difference was there in the ages of the Fairy Sisters, and not a soul save those who knew them in former days on the frontier would have suspected it. Mrs. Frank in evening dress didn't look over twenty.

One lovely evening early in August, just about the time that Cadet Captain Latrobe began to show well to the front in the run for the prize, the two sisters had gone to their room at the hotel to dress for the hop. It was their custom to disappear from public gaze about six o'clock and when they came floating down the stairs in filmy, diaphanous clouds of white, the halls were well filled with impatient cavaliers in the natty cadet uniform, and with women "waiting to see." Then the sisters would go into the dining room and have some light refreshment, with a glass of iced tea—and no matter how torrid the heat or how flushed and dragged other women might look, they were inviting pictures of all that was ever fresh, cool and fragrant. The two fluffy blonde heads would be huddled close together a minute as they studied the bill of fare, and virtuous matrons at other tables, fanning vigorously, would sniff and say: "All for effect. They know that supper bill by heart. It never changes." All the same, at the bottom of this public display of sisterly devotion and harmony and in spite of occasional tiffs and differences, there was genuine affection on both sides, for as a child Nita had adored Margaret, and there could be no doubting the elder's love for the child. Some regimental observers said that every bit of heart that eldest Terriss girl had was wrapped up in the little one. Neither girl, even after Margaret's marriage, would listen to a word in disparagement of the other, but in the sanctity of the sisterly retreat on the third floor of the old hotel there occurred sometimes spirited verbal tilts that were quite distinctly audible to passers-by in the corridor, provided they cared to listen, which some of them did. On this especial August evening Mrs. Frank was in an admonitory frame of mind. They had known Mr. Latrobe barely three weeks, and yet as Mrs. Frank was sauntering around a turn in Flirtation Walk, leaning on the arm of the cadet adjutant, there in the pathway right ahead stood Nita, a lovely little picture with downcast eyes, and "Pat" Latrobe bending over her with love and passion glowing in his handsome face, pleading eagerly, clinging fervently to both her tiny, white-gloved hands. Mrs. Garrison saw it all in the flash of a second, the adjutant not at all, for with merry laughter she repeated some words he had just spoken as though they were about the wittiest, funniest things in the world, and looked frankly up into his eyes as though he were the best and brightest man she had met in years—so his eyes were riveted, and the tableau had time to dissolve. All the same that sight gave Mrs. Garrison rather more than a bad quarter of an hour. She was infinitely worried. Not because Pat Latrobe had fallen desperately in love with her charming little sister—that was his lookout—but what—oh, what might not happen if the charming little sister were to fall in love with that handsome soldier boy. At all hazards, even if she had to whisk her away to-morrow, that had to be stopped, and this very evening when they went to their room Margaret spoke.

"Nita, if it were only for Mr. Latrobe I should not care a snap of my finger, but it's you—you! I thought you had more sense. I thought you fully understood that you couldn't afford to lose yourself a moment, and yet if ever a girl looked like yielding you did this very afternoon. For my sake, for your own sake, Nita, don't let it go any further—don't fall in love—here—whatever you do."

The younger sister stood at the dressing table at the moment, her face averted. The Mary Powell was just rounding the Point, and the mellow, melodious notes of her bell were still echoing through the Highlands. Nita was gazing out on the gorgeous effect of sunset light and shadow on the eastern cliffs and crags across the Hudson, a flush as vivid mantling her cheeks, her lip quivering. She was making valiant efforts to control herself before replying.

"I'm not in love with him," she finally said.

"Perhaps not—yet. Surely I hope not, but it looked awfully like it was coming—and Nita, you simply mustn't. You've got to marry money if I have to stand guard over you and see you do it—and you know you can this minute—if you'll only listen."

The younger girl wheeled sharply, her eyes flashing. "Peggy, you promised me I shouldn't hear that hateful thing again—at least not until we left here—and you've broken your word—twice. You——"

"It's because I must. I can't see you drifting—the way I did when, with your youth and—advantages you can pick and choose. Colonel Frost has mines and money all over the West, and he was your shadow at the seashore, and all broken up—he told me—so when we came here. Paddy Latrobe is a beautiful boy without a penny—"

"His uncle—" began Nita feebly.

"His uncle had a sister to support besides Paddy's mother. His pay as brigadier in the regular service is only fifty-five hundred. He can't have saved much of anything in the past, and he may last a dozen years yet—or more. Even if he does leave everything then to Latrobe, what'll you do meantime? Don't be a fool, Nita, because I was. I had to be. It was that or nothing, and father was getting tired. You heard how he talked."

The younger sister was still at the dressing-table diligently brushing her shining, curly tresses. She had regained her composure and was taking occasional furtive peeps at Mrs. Frank, now seated at the foot of the bed, busy with a buttonhook and the adjustment of a pair of very dainty boots of white kid, whose buttons gleamed like pearls. The mates to them, half a size smaller, peeped from the tray of Nita's new trunk.

There came a footstep and a rap at the door. "See what it is, Nita, there's a love—I don't want to hop."

It was a card—a new arrival at the hotel.

"Gentleman said he'd wait in the parlor 'm," said the bellboy, and vanished. Nita glanced at the card and instant trouble stood in her paling face. Silently Mrs. Garrison held out her hand, took the card, and one quick look. The buttonhook dropped from her relaxed fingers. The card read:

"Mr. Gouverneur Prime."

For a second or two the sisters gazed at each other in silence.

At last the elder spoke: "In heaven's name, what brings that absurd boy back here? I thought him safe in Europe."



CHAPTER IX.

One of the most charming writers of our day and generation has declared that "the truest blessing a girl can have" is "the ingenuous devotion of a young boy's heart." Nine mothers in ten will probably take issue with the gifted author on that point, and though no longer a young girl in years whatever she might be in looks, Margaret Garrison would gladly have sent the waiting gentlemen to the right about, for, though he was only twenty, "Gov" Prime, as a junior at Columbia, had been ingenuously devoted to the little lady from the very first evening he saw her. A boy of frank, impulsive nature was "Gov"—a boy still in spite of the budding mustache, the twenty summers and the barely passed "exam" that wound up the junior year and entitled him to sit with the seniors when the great university opened its doors in October. Studies he hated, but tennis, polo, cricket, riding and dancing were things he loved and excelled in. Much of his boyhood had been spent at one of those healthy, hearty English schools where all that would cultivate physical and mental manhood was assiduously practiced, and all that would militate against them was as rigorously "tabooed."

At the coming of his twentieth birthday that summer his father had handed him his check for five thousand dollars—the paternal expression of satisfaction that his boy had never smoked pipe, cigar or cigarette—and the same week "Gov" had carried off the blue ribbon with the racquet, and the second prize with the single sculls. It was during the "exams," the first week in June, when dropping in for five o'clock tea on some girls whom he had known for years, he was presented to this witching little creature whose name he didn't even catch. "We met her away out at an army post in Wyoming when papa took us to California last year," was whispered to him, "and they entertained us so cordially, and of course we said if ever you come to New York you must be sure to let us know—and she did—but—" and there his informant paused, dubious. Other callers came in and it began to rain—a sudden, drenching shower, and the little stranger from the far West saw plainly enough that her hostesses, though presenting their friends after our cheery American fashion, were unable to show her further attention, and the newly presented—almost all women, said "so very pleased" but failed to look it, or otherwise to manifest their pleasure. She couldn't go in the rain. The butler had 'phoned for a cab. She wouldn't sit there alone and neglected. She deliberately signaled Mr. Prime. "The ladies are all busy," she said, with a charmingly appealing smile, "but I know you can tell me. I have to dress for dinner after I get home, and must be at One Hundred and Tenth Street at 7:30. How long will it take a carriage to drive me there? Oh, is that your society pin? Why, are you still in college? Why, I thought——"

That cab was twenty-five minutes coming, and when it came Mr. Prime went with it and her, whom he had not left an instant from the moment of her question. Moreover, he discovered she was nervous about taking that carriage drive all alone away up to One Hundred and Tenth Street, yet what other way could a girl go in dinner dress. He left her at her door with a reluctantly given permission to return in an hour and escort her to the distant home of her friends and entertainers. He drove to the Waldorf and had a light dinner with a half pint of Hock, devoured her with his eyes as they drove rapidly northward, went to a Harlem theater while she dined and forgot him, and was at the carriage door when she came forth to be driven home. Seven hours or less "had done the business," so far as Gouverneur Prime was concerned.

It was the boy's first wild infatuation—as mad, unreasoning, absurd, yet intense as was ever that of Arthur Pendennis for the lovely Fotheringay. Margaret Garrison had never seen or known the like of it. She had fascinated others for a time, had kindled love, passion and temporary devotion, but this—this was worship, and it was something so sweet to her jaded senses, something so rich and spontaneous that she gave herself up for a day or two to the delight of studying it. Here was a glorious young athlete whose eyes followed her every move and gesture, who hung about her in utter captivation, whose voice trembled and whose eyes implored, yet whose strong, brown, shapely hand never dared so much as touch hers, except when she extended it in greeting. He was to accompany his father and sister to Europe in a week, so what harm was there: He would forget all about it. He knew now she was married. He was presented to Nita, but had hardly a word and never a look for her when Margaret was near. He was dumb and miserable all the day they drove in the park and later dined at Delmonico's with Colonel Frost. He was sick, even when mounted on his favorite English thoroughbred and scampering about the bridle path for peeps at the drives, when she was at the park again with that gray-haired reprobate, that money shark, Cashton—a Wall Street broker black-balled at every decent club in New York. Why should she go with him? He had been most kind, she said, in the advice and aid he had given her in the investment of her little fortune. She told the lie with downcast eyes and cheeks that burned, for most of that little fortune was already frittered away, and Cashton's reports seemed to require many personal visits that had set tongues wagging at the hotel, so much frequented of the Army, where she had taken a room until Nita should have been graduated and they could go to the seashore. She had promised to be at home to her boy adorer that very evening and to go with him to Daly's, and he had secured the seats four days ahead. Poor "Gov" had trotted swiftly home from the park, striving to comfort himself over his bath and irreproachable evening clothes, that there, with her by his side, the wild jealousy of the day would vanish. Sharply on time he had sent up his card and listened, incredulous, to the reply: "Mrs. Garrison has not yet returned." He would wait, he said, and did wait, biting his nails, treading the floor, fuming in doubt and despair until nearly ten, when a carriage dashed up to the ladies' entrance and that vile Cashton handed her out, escorted her in and vanished. She came hurrying to her boy lover with both little hands outstretched, with a face deeply flushed and words of pleading and distress rushing from her lips. "Indeed I could not help it, Gov," she cried. "I told him of my engagement and said we must not go so far, but away at the north end something happened, I don't know what, a wheel was bent and the harness wrenched by too short a turn on a stone post at a corner. Something had to be repaired. They said it wouldn't take ten minutes, and he led me out and up to the piazza of that big hotel—you know, we saw it the day I drove with you—" ("He was a blackguard to take you there!" burst in Prime, the blood boiling in his veins.) "Then we waited and waited and he went to hurry them, and then he came back and said they had found more serious damages—that it would take an hour, and meantime dinner had been ordered and was served. He had telephoned to you and the butler had answered all right." "He's a double-dyed liar!" raved "Gov," furiously. "And so what could I do, Gov? The dinner was delicious, but I couldn't eat a mouthful." (This time it wasn't Cashton who lied). "I was worrying about you, and—and—about myself, too, Gov. I had set my heart on going with you. It was to be almost our last evening. Oh, if you only didn't have to sail Saturday, and could be here next week, you dear boy, you should have no cause for complaint! Won't you try to forgive me?"

And, actually, tears stood in her eyes, as again she held out both hands. They were the only people in the parlor, and in an instant, with quick, sudden, irresistible action he had clasped and drawn her to his breast, and though she hid her face and struggled, passionate kisses were printed on her disheveled hair. It was the first time he had dared.

And then he did not sail Saturday. Prime Senior was held by most important business. They gave up the Saturday Cunarder and took the midweek White Star, and those four additional days riveted poor "Gov's" chains and left her well-nigh breathless with excitement. The strain had been intense. It was all she could do to make the boy try to behave in a rational way in the presence of others. When alone with her he raved. A fearful load was lifted from her spare little shoulders when the Teutonic sailed. Even Nita had worried and had seen her sister's worry. Then no sooner did "Gov" reach Europe than he began writing impassioned letters by every steamer, but that wasn't so bad. She had several masculine correspondents, some of whom wrote as often as Frank, but none of whom, to do her justice, got letters as often as he did, which, however, was saying little, for she hated writing. "Gov" was to have stayed abroad three months, piloting the pater and sister about the scenes so familiar to him, but they saw how nervous and unhappy he was. They knew he was writing constantly to some one. Mildred had long since divined that there was a girl at the bottom of it all, and longed and strove to find out who she was. Through the last of June and all through July he resolutely stood to his promise and did his best to be loving and brotherly to a loving and devoted sister and dutiful to a most indulgent father. But he grew white and worn and haggard, he who had been such a picture of rugged health, and, in her utter innocence and ignorance as to the being on whom her brother had lavished the wealth of his love, Mildred began to ask herself should she not urge her father to let "Gov" return to America. At last, one sweet July evening, late in the month, the brother and sister were wandering along the lovely shore of Lucerne. He had been unusually fitful, restless and moody all day. No letter had reached him in over a fortnight, and he was miserably unhappy. They stopped at a grassy bank that ran down to the rippling water's edge, and she seated herself on a stone ledge, while in reckless abandonment he threw himself full length on the dewy grass. Instantly the last doubt vanished. Bending over him, her soft hand caressing his hair, she whispered: "Gov, dear boy, is it so very hard? Would you like to go to her at once?"

And the boy buried his face in her lap, twined his arms about her slender waist, and almost groaned aloud as he answered. "For pity's sake help me if you can, Mildred, I'm almost mad."

Early in August the swiftest steamer of the line was splitting the Atlantic surges and driving hard for home, with "Gov" cursing her for a canal boat. The day after he reached New York he had traced and followed the White Sisters to West Point, and Margaret Garrison stared in mingled delight, triumph and dismay at the card in her hand. Delight that she could show these exclusive Pointers that the heir to one of the oldest and best names in Gotham's Four Hundred was a slave to her beck and call. Dismay to think of the scene that might occur through his jealousy when he saw the devoted attentions she received from so many men—officers, civilians and cadets. Old Cashton came up now as regularly as Saturday night came around—and there were others. Margaret Garrison was more talked about than any woman in Orange County, yet, who could report anything of her beyond that she was a universal favorite, and danced, walked, possibly flirted with a dozen different cavaliers every day of her life? There were some few among her accusers, demure and most proper—even prudish—women, of whom, were the truth to be told, so little could not be said.

"Gov" Prime took the only kind of room to be had in the house, so full was it—a little seven by ten box on the office floor. He would have slept in the coal bin rather than leave her. He saw her go off to the hop looking radiant, glancing back over her shoulder and smiling sweetly at him. He rushed to his trunk, dragged out his evening clothes, and stood at the wall looking on until the last note of the last dance—he a noted German leader in the younger set and the best dancer of his years in Gotham. Not so much as a single spin had he, and he longed to show those tight-waisted, button-bestrewed fellows in gray and white how little they really knew about dancing well as many of them appeared on the floor. His reward was tendered as the hop broke up. She came gliding to him with such witchery in her upraised face. "Now, sir, it is your turn. I couldn't give you a dance, for my card was made out days ago, but Mr. Latrobe was glad enough to get rid of taking me home. He is daft about Nita, and of course she can't let him take her to more than one hop a week. Mr. Stanton is her escort to-night."

Then she placed her little hand on his arm, and drew herself to his side, and when he would have followed the others, going straight across the broad plain to the lights at the hotel, turned him to the left. "I'm going to take you all the way round, sir," she said joyously. "Then we can be by ourselves at least ten minutes longer."

And so began the second period of Gouverneur Prime's thralldom. A young civilian at the Point has few opportunities at any time, but when the lady of his love is a belle in the corps, he would much better take a long ocean voyage than be where he could hear and see, and live in daily torment. One comfort came to him when he could not be with Mrs. Garrison (who naively explained that "Gov" was such a dear boy and they were such stanch friends, real comrades, you know). He had early made the acquaintance of Pat Latrobe, and there was a bond of sympathy between them which was none the less strong because, on Prime's side, it could neither be admitted nor alluded to—that they were desperately in love with the sisters, and it was not long before it began to dawn on Prime that pretty little Nita was playing a double game—that even while assuring her guardian sister that she had only a mild interest in Latrobe, she was really losing or had lost her heart to him, and in every way in her power was striving to conceal the fact from Margaret, and yet meet her lover at hours when she thought it possible to do so without discovery. As the friendship strengthened between himself and Latrobe they began using him as Cupid's postman, and many little notes and some big ones found their way to and from the Fourth Division of cadet barracks. Mrs. Frank was only moderately kind to her civilian adorer then, granting him only one dance at each hop, and going much with other men, but that dance was worth seeing. Prime's was the only black "claw-hammer" in the room, and therefore conspicuous, and cadets—who know a good thing when they see it—and many a pretty girl partner, would draw aside to watch the perfection of their step and the exquisite ease with which they seemed to float through space, circling and reversing and winding among the other dancers, he ever alert, watchful, quick as a cat and lithe and strong as a panther—she all yielding lissome airy grace. That dance was "Gov" Prime's reward, and almost only reward for hours of impatient waiting. Other women, charming and pretty and better women, would gladly have been his partners. Some two or three whom he met at the hotel even intimated as much. But not until Lady Garrison told him he must—to protect her from scandal—did he ask another to dance. At last came the end of the summer's encampment, the return of the corps to barracks and studies, one blissful week in which he was enabled to spend several uninterrupted hours each day at her side, and then a cataclysm. A letter intended only for Nita's hands fell into those of her sister. It was bulky. It was from Latrobe. She hesitated only a moment, then, with determination in her eyes, opened and read—all. Two days after Nita was whisked away to New York, and within another week, leaving two most disconsolate swains on the Hudson, the sisters, one of them bathed in tears, went spinning away to the West, where Frank Garrison was on duty at department headquarters. Prime was permitted to write once a fortnight (he sent a volume), and Latrobe forbidden, but already the poor boy owned a thick packet of precious missives, all breathing fond love and promising utter constancy though she had to wait for him for years. For a month Nita would hardly speak to her sister, but in October there were lovely drives, picnics and gayeties of all kinds. There were attractive young officers and assiduous old ones, and among these latter was Frost, with his handsome gray mustache and distinguished bearing, and that air of conscious success and possession which some men know so well how to assume even when their chances are slimmer than my lady's hand. The sisterly breach was healed before that beautiful month was over. Frost dined at the Garrison's four times a week and drove Miss Nita behind his handsome bays every day or two. In November he asked a question. In December there was an announcement that called forth a score of congratulations around headquarters, and in January the wedding cards went all over the Union—some to West Point—but to Latrobe, who had been looking ill and anxious for six weeks, said his classmates, and falling off fearfully in his studies, said his professors, only a brief note inclosing his letters and begging for hers. At reveille next morning there was no captain to receive the report of roll call from the first sergeant of Company "B." "Where's Latrobe?" sleepily asked the officer of the day of the cadet first lieutenant. "I don' know," was the answer, and to the amaze of Latrobe's roommate, who had gone to bed and to sleep right after taps the night before, they found evidence that "Pat" had left the post. He had not even made down his bedding. His cadet uniforms were all there, but a suit of civilian clothes, usually in a snug package up the chimney, that had been used several times "running it" to the hotel after taps in August, was now, like its owner, missing. After three days' waiting and fruitless search, the superintendent wired Latrobe's uncle and best friend, old General Drayton, and that was the last seen or heard of "Pat." In the spring and ahead of time his class was graduated without him, for the war with Spain was on. In the spring an irate and long-tried father was upbraiding another only son for persistent failures at college. "Gov Prime will get the sack, not the sheepskin," prophesied his fellows. And then somehow, somewhere the father heard it was a married woman with whom his boy was so deeply in love, and there were bitter, bitter words on both sides—so bitter that when at last he flung himself out of his father's study Gov Prime went straight to Mildred's room, silently kissed her and walked out of the house. This was in April. The next heard of him he had enlisted for the war and was gone to San Francisco with his regiment with the prospect of service in the Philippines ahead of him, but that was full four months after his disappearance. Thither, late in July the father followed, bringing Mildred with him and—the reader knows the rest.



CHAPTER X.

One of Colonel Frost's consuming ambitions was to be the head of his department, with the rank of brigadier-general, but he had strong rivals, and knew it. Wealth he had in abundance. It was rank and power that he craved. Four men—all with better war records and more experience—stood between him and that coveted star, and two of the four were popular and beloved men. Frost was cold, selfish, intensely self-willed, indomitably persevering, and though "close-fisted," to the scale of a Scotch landlord as a rule, he would loose his purse strings and pay well for services he considered essential. When Frost had a consuming desire he let no money consideration stand in the way, and for Nita Terriss he stood ready to spend a small fortune. Everybody knew Mrs. Frank Garrison could never dress and adorn herself as she did on poor Frank Garrison's pay, and when she appeared with a dazzling necklace and a superb new gown at the garrison ball not long after Frost and his shrinking bride left for their honeymoon, people looked at her and then at each other. Nita Terris was sold to "Jack" Frost was the verdict, and her shrewd elder sister was the dealer. Mrs. Frank knew what people were thinking and saying just as well as though they had said it to her, yet smiled sweetness and bliss on every side. Frankly she looked up into the faces of her sisters in arms: "I know you like my necklace. Isn't it lovely? Colonel Frost's wedding present, you know. He said I shouldn't give Nita away without some recompense, and this is it."

But that could have been only a part of it, said the garrison. An honorarium in solid cash, it was believed, was far the greater portion of the consideration which the elder sister accepted for having successfully borne Nita away from the dangers and fascinations of the Point—having guarded her, drooping and languid, against the advances of good-looking soldier lads at headquarters, and finally having, by dint of hours of argument, persuasion and skill, delivered her into the arms of the elderly but well-preserved groom. All he demanded to know was that she was fancy free—that there was no previous attachment, and on this point Mrs. Frank had solemnly averred there was none. The child had had a foolish fancy for a cadet beau, but it amounted to absolutely nothing. There had been no vows, no pledge, no promise of any kind, and she was actually free as air. So Frost was satisfied.

They made an odd-looking pair. Frost was "pony built" but sturdy, and Nita seemed like a fairy—indeed as unsubstantial as a wisp of vapor, as she came down the aisle on his arm. They were so far to the south on this honeymoon trip as almost to feel the shock and concussion when the Maine was blown to a mass of wreckage. They were in Washington when Congress determined on full satisfaction from Spain, and Colonel Frost was told his leave was cut short—that he must return to his station at once. Going first to the Arlington and hurriedly entering the room, he almost stumbled over the body of his wife, lying close to the door in a swoon from which it took some time and the efforts of the house physician and the maids to restore her. Questioned later as to the cause she wept hysterically and wrung her hands. She didn't know. She had gone to the door to answer a knock, and got dizzy and remembered nothing more. What became of the knocker? She didn't know. Frost inquired at the office. A bellboy was found who said he had taken up a card in an envelope given him by a young feller who "seemed kind o' sick. Mrs. Frost took it and flopped," and a chambermaid ran in to her, and then hurried for the doctor. "What became of the letter or note or card?" asked Frost, with suspicion and jealousy in his heart. Two women, mistress and maid, and the bellboy swore they didn't know, but the maid did know. With the quick intuition of her sex and class she had seen that there was or had been a young lover, and sympathy for Nita and a dislike for Frost, who gave no tips, prompted her to hide it until she could slip it safely into Nita's hand; Nita who read, shuddered, tore it into minute scraps, and wept more, face downward on the bed. They had reached their winter station before the cable flashed the stirring tidings of Dewey's great victory in Manila Bay, and within half a week came telegraphic orders for Colonel Frost to proceed at once to San Francisco, there to await instructions. The first expedition was organizing when he arrived, his pallid little wife by his side, and there were his instructions to proceed to Manila as chief of his department—an independent position, and yet it was a horrid blow. But there was no recourse. Nita begged that she might stay with her sister. She could not bear the idea of going. Frost knew that no women could accompany the expedition, and, shipping his chest and desks by the transport, he had secured passage for himself and wife to Hongkong on one of the splendid steamers of the English line from Vancouver, and so informed her. It dashed Nita's last hope. They were occupying fine rooms at the Palace Hotel. The city was thronged with officers and rapidly arriving troops. Other army women, eager to accompany their husbands, were railing at the fate that separated them, and Nita had been forced to conceal the joy with which she heard their lamentations. But she had yet to learn how exacting Frost could be. It had never occurred to her that he could obtain permission to go except by transport. It had not seemed possible that he would take her with him. "You should have known," said he, "that even if I had had to go by transport, you would have gone by the Empress of India. It is only sixty hours from Manila to Hongkong, and I could have joined you soon after your arrival. As it is I shall see you safely established there—I have letters to certain prominent English people—then shall go over to join the fleet when it arrives in Manila Bay."

That night she wrote long and desperately to Margaret. "He swore he would follow me wherever we went until I granted him the interview. You know how he dogged me in Washington, followed me to Denver, and any moment he may address me here. F. will not let me return to you. He insists on my going to Hongkong, where he can occasionally join me. But Rollin holds those letters over me like a whip, and declares that he will give them into Frost's hands unless I see him whenever he presents himself. You made me swear to Frost I never cared a straw for my darling that was. O God, how I loved him! and if these letters ever reach the man to whom you have sold me, he would treat me as he would a dog, even if he doesn't kill me. Meg—Meg—you must help me for I live in terror."

And that she lived in terror was true, some women were quick to see. Never would she go anywhere, even along the corridor, alone. If the colonel could not come to luncheon she was served in their rooms. If she had to go calling or shopping it was in a carriage and always with some army woman whom she could persuade to go with her.

One day, just before their intended departure, she drove out paying parting calls. It was quite late when the carriage drew up at the Market Street entrance, the nearest to their elevator. The door boy sprang across the sidewalk to open the carriage, and as she stepped wearily out, a tall young man, erect and slender, dressed in a dark traveling suit, fairly confronted her, raised his derby, and said: "You can give me ten minutes now, Mrs. Frost. Be good enough to take my arm."

Bowing her head she strove to dodge by, but it was useless. Again he confronted her. Piteously she looked up into his pale, stern face and clasped her hands. "Oh, Rollin," she cried, "give me my letters. I dare not—see you. Have mercy—" and down again she went in a senseless heap upon the stone. Colonel and Mrs. Frost did not sail with the Empress of India. Brain fever set in and for three weeks the patient never left the hotel. Frost made his wife's dangerous illness the basis of an application to be relieved from the Manila detail, but, knowing well it would be late summer before the troops could be assembled there in sufficient force to occupy the city, and that his clerks and books had gone by transport with the second expedition in June, the War Department compromised on a permission to delay. By the time the fourth expedition was ready to start there was no further excuse; moreover, the doctors declared the sea voyage was just what Mrs. Frost needed, and again their stateroom was engaged by the Empress line, and, though weak and languid, Mrs. Frost was able to appear in the dining-room. Meanwhile a vast amount of work was saddled on the department to which Frost was attached, and daily he was called upon to aid the local officials or be in consultation with the commanding general. This would have left Mrs. Frost to the ministrations of her nurse alone, but for the loving kindness of army women in the hotel. They hovered about her room, taking turns in spending the afternoon with her, or the evening, for it was speedily apparent that she had a nervous dread of being left by herself, "or even with her husband," said the most observing. Already it had been whispered that despite his assiduous care and devotion during her illness, something serious was amiss. Everybody had heard of the adventure which had preceded her alarming illness. Everybody knew that she had been accosted and confronted by a strange young man, at sight of whom she had pleaded piteously a minute and then fainted dead away. By this time, too, there were or had been nearly a dozen of the graduating class in town—classmates of Rollin Latrobe—their much-loved "Pat"—and speedily the story was told of his devotion to her when she was Nita Terriss, of their correspondence, of their engagement to be married on his graduation, which in strict confidence he had imparted to his roommate, who kept it inviolate until after her sudden union with Colonel Frost and poor "Pat's" equally sudden disappearance. Everybody, Frost included, knew that the young man who had accosted her must be Latrobe, and Frost by this time knew that it must have been he who caused her shock at the Arlington. He raged in his jealous heart. He employed detectives to find the fellow, swearing he would have him arrested. He became morose and gloomy, for all the arts by which Mrs. Garrison persuaded him that Nita looked up to him with admiration and reverence that would speedily develop into wifely love were now proved to be machinations. He knew that Nita feared him, shrank from him and was very far from loving him, and he believed that despite her denials and fears and protestations she loved young Latrobe. He wrote angrily, reproachfully to Margaret, who, now that her fish was hooked, did not greatly exert herself to soothe or reassure him. That he could ever use violence to one so sweet and fragile as Nita she would not believe for an instant. Then the nurse, still retained, heard bitter words from the colonel as one morning she came to the door with Mrs. Frost's breakfast, and while she paused, uncertain about entering at such a time, he rushed angrily forth and nearly collided with her. Mrs. Frost was in tears when the nurse finally entered, and the breakfast was left untouched.

Late that afternoon, just after the various trunks and boxes of the Frosts that were to go by the transport were packed and ready, and Mrs. Frost, looking stronger at last, though still fragile, almost ethereal, was returning from a drive with one of her friends, the attention of the two ladies was drawn to a crowd gathering rapidly on the sidewalk not far from the Baldwin Hotel. There was no shouting, no commotion, nothing but the idle curiosity of men and boys, for a young soldier, a handsome, slender, dark-eyed, dark-complexioned fellow of twenty-one or two, had been arrested by a patrol and there they stood, the sergeant and his two soldiers fully armed and equipped, the hapless captive with his arms half filled with bundles, and over the heads of the little throng the ladies could see that he was pleading earnestly with his captors, and that the sergeant, though looking sympathetic and far from unkind, was shaking his head. Mrs. Frost, listless and a little fatigued, had witnessed too many such scenes in former days of garrison life to take any interest in the proceeding. "How stupid these people are!" she irritably exclaimed. "Running like mad and blocking the streets to see a soldier arrested for absence from camp without a pass. Shan't we drive on?"

"Oh—just one moment, please, Mrs. Frost. He has such a nice face—a gentleman's face, and he seems so troubled. Do look at it!"

Languidly and with something very like a pout, Mrs. Frost turned her face again toward the sidewalk, but by this time the sergeant had linked an arm in that of the young soldier and had led him a pace or two away, so that his back was now toward the carriage. He was still pleading, and the crowd had begun to back him up, and was expostulating, too.

"Awe, take him where he says, sergeant, and let him prove it."

"Don't be hard on him, man. If he's taking care of a sick friend give 'm a chance."

Then the sergeant tried to explain matters. "I can't help myself, gentlemen," said he; "orders are orders, and mine are to find this recruit and fetch him back to camp. He's two days over time now."

"Oh, I wish I knew what it meant!" anxiously exclaimed Mrs. Frost's companion. "I'm sure he needs help." Then with sudden joy in her eyes—"Oh, good! There goes Colonel Crosby. He'll see what's amiss," and as she spoke a tall man in the fatigue uniform of an officer of infantry shouldered his way through the crowd, and reached the blue-coated quartette in the center. Up went the hands to the shouldered rifles in salute, and the young soldier, the cause of all the gathering which the police were now trying to disperse, whirled quickly, and with something suspiciously like tears in his fine dark eyes, was seen to be eagerly speaking to the veteran officer. There was a brief colloquy, and then the colonel said something to the sergeant at which the crowd set up a cheer. The sergeant looked pleased, the young soldier most grateful, and away went the four along the sidewalk, many of the throng following.

And then the colonel caught sight of the ladies in the carriage, saw that one was signaling eagerly, and heard his name called. Hastening to their side, he raised his cap and smiled a cordial greeting.

"Oh, I'm so glad you came, colonel, we are so interested in that young soldier. Do tell us what it all means. Oh! I beg your pardon, Mrs. Frost, I surely thought you had met Colonel Crosby—let me pre— Why, Nita! What's— Are you ill? Here, take my salts, quick!"

"No—no—go on—I—I want to hear! Where are they taking him?" faintly murmured Mrs. Frost.

"Try to control yourself," said her companion. "I'll tell you in one moment." Meantime from without the carriage the colonel continued, addressing Nita's companion:

"He tells a perfectly straight story. He says he has an old friend who is here so desperately ill and out of money that he got a doctor for him and had been nursing him himself. Those things he carried are medicines and wine that the doctor bade him buy. All he asks is to take them to his friend's room and get a nurse, then he is ready to go to camp and stand his trial, so I told the sergeant I'd be responsible."

"Oh, thank you so much! Do see that the poor fellow isn't punished. We'll drive right round. Perhaps we can do something. It is Red Cross business, you know. Good-afternoon, colonel. Please tell our driver to follow them."

But, to her consternation, no sooner had they started than she felt Nita's trembling hand grasping her wrist, and turning quickly saw that she was in almost hysterical condition.