"Life is full of ups and downs," mused the colonel, as he laid on the littered desk before him an official communication just received from Department Head-Quarters, "especially army life,—and more especially army life in Texas."
"Now, what are you philosophizing about?" asked his second in command, a burly major, glancing over the top of the latest home paper, three weeks old that day.
"D'ye remember Pigott, that little cad that was court-martialled at San Antonio in '68 for quintuplicating his pay accounts? He married the widow of old Alamo Hendrix that winter. He's worth half a million to-day, is running for Congress, and will probably be on the military committee next year, while here's Lawrence, who was judge advocate of the court that tried him, gone all to smash." And the veteran officer commanding the —th Infantry and the big post at Fort Worth glanced warily along into the adjoining office, where a clerk was assorting the papers on the adjutant's desk.
"It's the saddest case I ever heard of," said Major Brooks, tossing aside the Toledo Blade and tripping up over his own, which he had thoughtfully propped between his legs as he took his seat and thoughtlessly ignored as he left it. "Damn that sabre,—and the service generally!" he growled, as he recovered his balance and tramped to the window. "I'd almost be willing to quit it as Pigott did if I could see my way to a moderate competence anywhere out of it. Lawrence was as good a soldier as we had in the 12th, and, yet, what can you do or say? The mischief's done." And, beating the devil's tattoo on the window, the major stood gloomily gazing out over the parade.
"It isn't Lawrence himself I'm so—— Orderly, shut that door!" cried the chief, whirling around in his chair, "and tell those clerks I want it kept shut until the adjutant comes; and you stay out on the porch.—It isn't Lawrence I'm so sorely troubled about, Brooks. He has ability, and could pick up and do well eventually, but he's utterly discouraged and swamped. What's to become, though, of that poor child Ada and his little boy?"
"God knows," said Brooks, sadly. "I've got five of my own to look after, and you've got four. No use talking of adopting them, even if Lawrence would listen; and he never would listen to anything or anybody—they tell me," he added, after a minute's reflection. "I don't know it myself. It's what Buxton and Canker and some of those fellows told me on the Republican last summer. I hadn't seen him since Gettysburg until we met here."
"Buxton and Canker be—exterminated!" said the colonel, hotly. "I never met Buxton, and never want to. As for Canker, by gad, there's another absurdity. They put him in the cavalry because consolidation left no room for him with us. What do you suppose they'll do with him in the —th?"
"The Lord knows, as I said before. He never rode anything but a hobby in his life. I don't wonder Lawrence couldn't tolerate preaching from him. But what I don't understand is, who made the allegation. What's his offence? Every one knows that he's in debt and trouble, and that he's had hard lines and nothing else ever since the war, but the court acquitted him of all blame in that money business——"
"And now to make room for fellows with friends at court," burst in the colonel, wrathfully, "he and other poor devils with nothing but a fighting record and a family to provide for are turned loose on a year's pay, which they're to have after things straighten out as to their accounts with the government. Now just look at Lawrence! Ordnance and quartermaster's stores hopelessly boggled——"
"Hush!" interrupted Brooks, starting back from the window. "Here he is now."
Assembly of the guard details had sounded a few moments before, and all over the sunshiny parade on its westward side, in front of the various barracks, little squads of soldiers armed and in full uniform were standing awaiting the next signal, while the porches of the low wooden buildings beyond were dotted with groups of comrades, lazily looking on. Out on the greensward, broad and level, crisscrossed with gravel walks, the band had taken its station, marshalled by the tall drum-major in his huge bear-skin shako. From the lofty flag-staff in the centre of the parade the national colors were fluttering in the mountain breeze that stole down from the snowy peaks hemming the view to the northwest and stirred the leaves of the cottonwoods and the drooping branches of the willows in the bed of the rushing stream sweeping by the southern limits of the garrison. Within the enclosure, sacred to military use, it was all the same old familiar picture, the stereotyped fashion of the frontier fort of the earliest '70s,—dull-hued barracks on one side or on two, dull-hued, broad-porched cottages—the officers' quarters—on another, dull-hued offices, storehouses, corral walls, scattered about the outskirts, a dull-hued, sombre earth on every side; sombre sweeping prairie beyond, spanned by pallid sky or snow-tipped mountains; a twisting, winding road or two, entering the post on one front, issuing at the other, and tapering off in sinuous curves until lost in the distance; a few scattered ranches in the stream valley; a collection of sheds, shanties, and hovels surrounding a bustling establishment known as the store, down by the ford,—the centre of civilization, apparently, for thither trended every roadway, path, track, or trail visible to the naked eye. Here in front of the office a solitary cavalry horse was tethered. Yonder at the sutler's, early as it was in the day, a dozen quadrupeds, mules, mustangs, or Indian ponies, were blinking in the sunshine. Dogs innumerable sprawled in the sand. Bipeds lolled lazily about or squatted on the steps on the edge of the wooden porch, some in broad sombreros, some in scalp-lock and blanket,—none in the garb of civil life as seen in the nearest cities, and the nearest was four or five hundred miles away. Out on the parade were bits of lively color, the dresses of frolicsome children to the east, the stripes and facings of the cavalry and artillery at the west; for, by some odd freak of the fortunes of war, here, away out at Fort Worth, had come a crack light battery of the old army, which, with Brooks's battalion of the cavalry, and head-quarters' staff, band, and six companies of the —th Infantry, made up the garrison,—the biggest then maintained in the Department immortalized by Sheridan as only second choice to Sheol. It was the winter of '70 and '71, as black and dreary a time as ever the army knew, for Congress had telescoped forty-five regiments into half the number and blasted all hopes of promotion,—about the only thing the soldier has to live for.
And that wasn't the blackest thing about the business, by any means. The war had developed the fact that we had thousands of battalion commanders for whom the nation had no place in peace times, and scores of them, in the hope and promise of a life employment in an honorable profession, accepted the tender of lieutenancies in the regular army in '66, the war having broken up all their vocations at home, and now, having given four years more to the military service,—taken all those years out of their lives that might have been given to establishing themselves in business,—they were bidden to choose between voluntarily quitting the army with a bonus of a year's pay, and remaining with no hope of advancement. Most of them, despairing of finding employment in civil life, concluded to stay: so other methods of getting rid of them were devised, and, to the amaze of the army and the dismay of the victims, a big list was published of officers "rendered supernumerary" and summarily discharged. And this was how it happened that a gallant, brilliant, and glad-hearted fellow, the favorite staff officer of a glorious corps commander who fell at the head of his men after three years of equally glorious service, found himself in far-away Texas this blackest of black Fridays, suddenly turned loose on the world and without hope or home.
Cruel was no word for it. Entering the army before the war, one of the few gifted civilians commissioned because they loved the service and then had friends to back them, Edgar Lawrence had joined the cavalry in Texas, where the first thing he did was to fall heels over head in love with his captain's daughter, and a runaway match resulted. Poor Kitty Tyrrell! Poor Ned Lawrence! Two more unpractical people never lived. She was an army girl with aspirations, much sweetness, and little sense. He was a whole-souled, generous, lavish fellow. Both were extravagant, she particularly so. They were sorely in debt when the war broke out, and he, instead of going in for the volunteers, was induced to become aide-de-camp to his old colonel, who passed him on to another when he retired; and when the war was half over Lawrence was only a captain of staff, and captain he came out at the close. Brevets of course he had, but what are brevets but empty title? What profiteth it a man to be called colonel if he have only the pay of a sub? Hundreds of men who eagerly sought his aid or influence during the war "held over him" at the end of it. Another general took him on his staff as aide-de-camp, where Lawrence was invaluable. Kitty dearly loved city life, parties, balls, operas, and theatres; but Lawrence grew lined and gray with care and worry. The general went the way of all flesh, and Lawrence to Texas, unable to get another staff billet. They set him at court-martial duty at San Antonio for several months, for Texas furnished culprits by the score in the days that followed the war, and many an unpromising army career was cut short by the tribunal of which Captain and Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel Lawrence was judge advocate; but all the time he had a skeleton in his own closet that by and by rattled its way out. Time was in the war days when many of the men of the head-quarters escort banked their money with the beloved and popular aide. He had nearly twelve hundred dollars when the long columns probed the Wilderness in '64. It was still with him when he was suddenly sent back to Washington with the body of his beloved chief, but every cent was gone before he got there, stolen from him on the steamer from Acquia Creek, and never a trace was found of it thereafter. For years he was paying that off, making it good in driblets, but while he was serving faithfully in Texas, commanding a scout that took him miles and miles away over the Llano Estacado, there were inimical souls who worked the story of his indebtedness to enlisted men for all it was worth, and, aided by the complaints of some of their number, to his grievous disadvantage. He came home from a brilliant dash after the Kiowas to find himself complimented in orders and confronted by charges in one and the same breath. The court acquitted him of the charges and "cut" his accusers, but the shame and humiliation of it all seemed to prey upon his spirits; and then Kitty Tyrrell died.
"If that had only happened years before," said the colonel, "it would have been far better for Lawrence, for she conscientiously believed herself the best wife in the world, and spent every cent of his income in dressing up to her conception of the character." Once the most dashing and debonair of captains, poor Ned ran down at the heel and seemed unable to rally. New commanders came to the department, to his regiment, and new officials to the War Office,—men "who knew not Joseph;" and when the drag-net was cast into the whirlpool of army names and army reputations, it was set for scandal, not for services, and the old story of those unpaid hundreds was enmeshed and served up seasoned with the latest spice obtainable from the dealers rebuked of that original court. And, lo! when the list of victims reached Fort Worth in the reorganization days, old Frazier, the colonel, burst into a string of anathemas, and more than one good woman into a passion of tears, for poor Ned Lawrence, at that moment long days' marches away towards the Rio Bravo, was declared supernumerary and mustered out of the service of the United States with one year's pay,—pay which he could not hope to get until every government account was satisfactorily straightened, and this, too, at a time when the desertion of one sergeant and the death of another revealed the fact that his storehouses had been systematically robbed and that he was hopelessly short in many a costly item charged against him. That heartless order was a month old when the stricken soldier reached his post, and then and there for the first time learned his fate.
Yes, they had tried to break it to him. Letters full of sympathy were written and sent by couriers far to the north; others took them on the Concho trail. Brooks and Frazier both wrote to San Antonio messages thence to be wired to Washington imploring reconsideration; but the deed was done. Astute advisers of the War Secretary clinched the matter by the prompt renomination of others to fill the vacancies just created, and once these were confirmed by the Senate there could be no appeal. The detachment led by Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel Lawrence, so later said the Texas papers, had covered itself with glory, but in its pursuit of the fleeing Indians it had gone far to the northeast and so came home by a route no man had dreamed of, and Lawrence, spurring eagerly ahead, rode in at night to fold his motherless little ones to his heart, and found loving army women aiding their faithful old nurse in ministering to them, but read disaster in the tearful eyes and faltering words that welcomed him.
Then he was ill a fortnight, and then he had to go. He could not, would not believe the order final. He clung to the hope that he would find at Washington a dozen men who knew his war record, who could remember his gallant services in a dozen battles, his popularity and prominence in the Army of the Potomac. Everybody knows the favorite aide-de-camp of a corps commander when colonels go begging for recognition, and everybody has a cheery, cordial word for him so long as he and his general live and serve together. But that proves nothing when the general is gone. Colonels who eagerly welcomed and shook hands with the aide-de-camp and talked confidentially with him about other colonels in days when he rode long hours by his general's side, later passed him by with scant notice, and "always thought him a much overrated man." Right here at Fort Worth were fellows who, six or seven years before, would have given a month's pay to win Ned Lawrence's influence in their behalf,—for, like "Perfect" Bliss of the Mexican war days, Lawrence was believed to write his general's despatches and reports,—but who now shrank uneasily out of his way for fear that he should ask a favor.
Even Brooks, who liked and had spoken for him, drew back from the window when with slow, heavy steps the sad-faced, haggard man came slowly along the porch. The orderly sprang up and stood at salute just as adjutant's call sounded, and the band pealed forth its merry, spirited music. For a moment the new-comer turned and glanced back over the parade, now dotted with little details all marching out to the line where stood the sergeant-major; then he turned, entered the building, and paused with hopeless eyes and pallid, careworn features at the office doorway. His old single-breasted captain's frock-coat, with its tarnished silver leaves at the shoulders, hung loosely about his shrunken form. The trousers, with their narrow welt of yellow at the seam, looked far too big for him. His forage-cap, still natty in shape, was old and worn. His chin and cheeks bristled with a stubbly grayish beard. All the old alert manner was gone. The once bright eyes were bleary and dull. Neighbors said that poor Ned had been drinking deep of the contents of a demijohn a sympathetic soul had sent him, and half an eye could tell that his lip was tremulous. The colonel arose and held out his hand.
"Come in, Lawrence, old fellow, and tell me what I can do for you." He spoke kindly, and Brooks, too, turned towards the desolate man.
"You've done—all you could—both of you. God bless you!" was the faltering answer. "I've come to say I start at once. I'm going right to Washington to have this straightened out. I want to thank you, colonel, and you too, Brooks, for all your willing help. I'll try to show my appreciation of it when I get back."
"But Ada and little Jim, Lawrence; surely they're not ready for that long journey yet," said Frazier, thinking sorrowfully of what his wife had told him only the day before,—that they had no decent winter clothing to their names.
"It's all right. Old Mammy stays right here with them. She has taken care of them, you know, ever since my poor wife died. I can keep my old quarters a month, can't I?" he queried, with a quivering smile. "Even if the order isn't revoked, it would be a month or more before any one could come to take my place. Mrs. Blythe will look after the children day and night."
Frazier turned appealingly to Brooks, who shook his head and refused to speak, and so the colonel had to.
"Lawrence, God knows I hate to say one word of discouragement, but I fear—I fear you'd better wait till next week's stage and take those poor little folks with you. I've watched this thing. I know how a dozen good fellows, confident as yourself, have gone on to Washington and found it all useless."
"It can't be useless, sir," burst in the captain, impetuously. "Truth is truth and must prevail. If after all my years of service I can find no friends in the War Office, then life is a lie and a sham. Senator Hall writes me that he will leave no stone unturned. No, colonel, I take the stage at noon to-day. Will you let Winn ride with me as far as Castle Peak? I've got to run down and see Fuller now."
"Winn can go with you, certainly; but indeed, Lawrence, I shall have to see you again about this."
"I'll stop on the way back," said Lawrence, nervously. "Fuller promised to see me before he went out to his ranch." And hastily the captain turned away.
For a moment the two seniors stood there silently gazing into each other's eyes. "What can one do or say?" asked the colonel, at last. "I suppose Fuller is going to let him have money for the trip. He can afford to, God knows, after all he's made out of this garrison. But the question is, ought I not to make poor Lawrence understand that it's a gone case? He is legally out already. His successor is on his way here. I got the letter this morning."
"On his way here? Who is he?" queried the major, in sudden interest. "They didn't know when Stone came through San Antonio ten days ago."
"Man named Barclay; just got his captaincy in the 30th,—but was consolidated out of that, of course."
"Barclay—Barclay, you say?" ejaculated the major, in excitement. "Well, of all the——"
"Of all the what?" demanded the colonel, impatiently. "Nothing wrong with him, I hope."
"Wrong? No, or they wouldn't have dubbed him Galahad. But, talk about ups and downs in Texas, this beats all. Does Winn know?"
"I don't know that any one knows but you and me," answered the veteran, half testily. "What's amiss? What has Winn to do with it?"
"Blood and blue blazes! Why, of course you couldn't know. Three years ago Barclay believed himself engaged to a girl, and she threw him over for Winn, and now we'll have all three of them right here at Worth."
