The review that morning had drawn a crowd to the drill grounds that baffled the efforts of the guards. Carriages from camps and carriages from town, carts from the suburbs, equestrians from the parks and pedestrians from everywhere had gradually encroached within kicking distance of the heels of the cavalry escorting the general commanding the department, and that official noted with unerring eye that the populace was coming up on his flanks, so to speak, at the moment when the etiquette of the service required that he should be gazing only to his immediate front and responding to the salutes of the marching column. Back of him, ranged in long, single rank, was drawn up what the newspapers unanimously described as a “brilliant” staff, despite the fact that all were in sombre campaign uniform and several had never been so rated before. In their rear, in turn, was the line of mounted orderlies and farther still the silent rank of the escorting troop. Sentries had been posted to keep the throng at proper distance, but double their force could have accomplished nothing—the omniscient corporal could not help them, and after asking one or two stray officers what they would do about it, the sentries gave way and the crowd swarmed in. It was just as the head of the long tramping column came opposite the reviewing point, and the brigade commander and his staff, turning out after saluting, found their allotted station on the right of the reviewing party completely taken up by the mass of eager spectators. A minute or so was required before the trouble could be remedied, for, just as the officers and orderlies were endeavoring to induce the populace to give way—a thing the American always resists with a gay good humor that is peculiarly his own—a nervous hack driver on the outskirts backed his bulky trap with unexpected force, and penned between it and the wheels of a newly-arrived and much more presentable equipage a fair equestrian who shrieked with fright and clung to her pommel as her excited “mount” lashed out with his heels and made splinters of the hack’s rearmost spokes and felloes. Down went the hack on its axle point. Out sprang a tall officer from the open carriage, and in a second, it seemed, transferred the panic-stricken horsewoman from the seismatic saddle to the safety of his own seat and the ministrations of the two young women and the gray haired civilian who were the latest arrivals. This done, and after one quick glance at the lady’s helpless escort, a young officer from the Presidio, he shouldered his way through the crowd and stood, presently, on its inner edge, an unperturbed and most interested spectator. Battalion after battalion, in heavy marching order, in the dark-blue service dress, with campaign hats and leggings, with ranks well closed and long, well-aligned fronts, with accurate trace of the guides and well-judged distance, the great regiments came striding down the gentle slope, conscious, every officer and man, of the admiration they commanded. Armstrong, himself commander of a fine regiment of volunteers in another brigade, looked upon them with a soldier’s eye, and looked approvingly. Then, as the rearmost company passed the reviewing point and gentlemen with two stars on each shoulder extended their congratulations to the reviewed commander with one, Armstrong also made his way among the mounted officers in his calm, deliberate fashion, heedless of threatening heels and crowding forehands, until he, too, could say his word of cordial greeting. He had to wait a few minutes, for the general officers were grouped and talking earnestly. He heard a few words and knew well enough what was meant—that quantities of stores intended for the soldiers—even dainties contributed by the Red Cross Society—had been stolen from time to time and spirited off in the dead of night, and doubtless sold in town for the benefit of a pack of unknown scoundrels enlisted for no better purpose. In his own regiment his system had been so strict that no loss was discoverable, but in certain others the deficit was great. Complaints were loud, and the camp commander, stung possibly by comments from the city, had urged his officers to unusual effort, and had promised punishment to the extent of the law on the guilty parties whenever or wherever found.
Even as he was exchanging a word with the brigadier, Armstrong heard the exclamation: “By Jove—they’ve caught another!” for with a grim smile of gratification the camp commander had read and turned over to his adjutant-general a brief dispatch just handed him by a mounted orderly who had galloped part.
“One of your irreproachables, Armstrong,” said one of the staff, with something half-sneer, half-taunt as he too read and then passed the paper to the judge-advocate of the division.
Armstrong turned with his usual deliberation. There was ever about him a quiet dignity of manner that was the delight of his friends and despair of his foes.
“What is his name?” he calmly asked.
“One of those society swells of whom you have so many,” was the reply.
“That does not give his name—nor identify him as one of my men,” said Armstrong coolly.
“Oh, well, I didn’t say he belonged to your command,” was the staff officer’s response, “but one of the kid-glove crowd that’s got into the ranks.”
“If you mean the recruits in the —teenth Infantry, I should be slow to suspect them of any crime,” said Armstrong, with something almost like a drawl, so slow and deliberate was his manner, and now the steel-gray eyes and the fair, clear-cut face were turned straight upon the snapping eyes and dark features of the other. There was no love lost there. One could tell without so much as seeing.
“You’re off, then! That commissary-sergeant caught one of ’em in the act—he got wind of it and skipped, and to-day came back in handcuffs.”
“All of which may be as you say,” answered Armstrong, “and still not warrant your reference to him as one of my irreproachables.”
By this time much of the crowd and most of the vehicles had driven away. The generals still sat in saddle chatting earnestly together, while their staff officers listened in some impatience to the conversation just recorded. Everybody knew the fault was not Armstrong’s, but it was jarring to have to sit and hearken to the controversy. “Don’t ever twit or try funny business with Armstrong,” once said a regimental sage. “He has no sense of humor—of that kind.” Those who best knew him knew that Armstrong never tolerated unjust accusations, great or small. In his desire to say an irritating thing to a man he both envied and respected, the staff officer had not confined himself to facts, and it proved a boomerang.
And now, Armstrong’s eyes had lighted for an instant on the alleged culprit. Seated opposite Miss Lawrence as the carriage whirled across Point Lobos Avenue, and watching her unobtrusively, he saw the sudden light of alarm and excitement in her expressive face, heard the faint exclamation as her gloved hand grasped the rail of the seat, felt the quick sway of the vehicle as the horses shied in fright at some object beyond his vision. Then as they dashed on he had seen the running guard and, just vanishing within the portals of the corner building, the slim figure of the escaping prisoner. He saw the quivering hands tearing at their fastenings. He turned to the driver and bade him stop a minute, but it took fifty yards of effort before the spirited horses could be calmed and brought to a halt at the curb. To the startled inquiries of Mr. Prime and his daughter as to the cause of the excitement and the running and shouting he answered simply: “A prisoner escaped, I think,” and sent a passing corporal to inquire the result. The man came back in a minute.
“They got him easy, sir. He had no show. His hands were tied behind his back and he couldn’t climb,” was the brief report.
“They have not hurt him, I hope,” said Armstrong.
“No, sir. He hurt them—one of ’em, at least, before he’d surrender when they nabbed him in town. This time he submitted all right—said he only ran in for a glass of beer, and was laughing-like when I got there.”
“Very well. That’ll do. Go on, driver. We haven’t a minute to lose if we are to see the review,” he continued, as he stepped lightly to his seat.
“I saw nothing of this affair,” said Miss Prime. “What was it all about?”
“Nor could I see,” added her father. “I heard shouts and after we passed saw the guard, but no fugitive.”
“It is just as well—indeed I’m glad you didn’t, uncle,” answered Miss Lawrence, turning even as she spoke and gazing wistfully back. “He looked so young, and seemed so desperate, and had such a—I don’t know—hunted look on his face—poor fellow.”
And then the carriage reached the entrance to the reservation and the subject, and the second object of Miss Lawrence’s sympathies, evoked that day, were for the time forgotten. Possibly Mrs. Garrison was partly responsible for this for, hardly had they rounded the bend in the road that brought them in full view, from the left, or southern flank, of the long line of masses in which the brigade was formed, than there came cantering up to them, all gay good humor, all smiles and saucy coquetry, their hostess of the evening at the General’s tent. She was mounted on a sorry-looking horse, but the “habit” was a triumph of art, and it well became her slender, rounded figure.
No one who really analyzed Mrs. Frank Garrison’s features could say that she was a pretty woman. No one who looked merely at the general effect when she was out for conquest could deny it. Colonel Armstrong, placidly observant as usual, was quick to note the glances that shot between the cousins on the rear seat as the little lady came blithely alongside. He knew her, and saw that they were beginning to be as wise as he, for the smiles with which they greeted her were but wintry reflections of those that beamed upon her radiant face. Prime, paterfamilias, bent cordially forward in welcome, but her quick eyes had recognized the fourth occupant by this time, and there was a little less of assurance in her manner from that instant. “How perfectly delicious!” she cried. “I feared from what you said yesterday you weren’t coming, and so I never ordered the carriage, but came out in saddle—I can’t say on horseback with such a wreck as this, but every decent horse in the Presidio had to go out with the generals and staffs, you know, and I had to take what I could get—both horse and escort,” she added, in confidential tone. “Oh!—May I present Mr. Ellis? He knows you all by name already.” The youth in attendance and a McClellan tree two sizes too big for him, lifted his cap and strove to smile; he had ridden nothing harder than a park hack before that day. “Frank says I talk of nothing else. But—where’s Mr. Gray? Surely I thought he would be with you.” This for Armstrong’s benefit in case he were in the least interested in either damsel.
“Mr. Gray was detained by some duties in camp,” explained Miss Prime, with just a trace of reserve that was lost upon neither their new companion nor the colonel. It settled a matter the placid officer was revolving in his mind.
“Pardon us, Mrs. Garrison,” he said briefly. “We must hurry. Go on, driver.”
“Oh, I can keep up,” was the indomitable answer, “even on this creature.” And Mrs. Garrison proved her words by whipping her steed into a lunging canter and, sitting him admirably, rode gallantly alongside, and just where Mr. Prime could not but see and admire since Colonel Armstrong would not look at all. He had entered into an explanation of the ceremony by that time well under way, and Miss Lawrence’s great soft brown eyes were fixed upon him attentively when, perhaps, she should have been gazing at the maneuvers. Like those latter, possibly, her thoughts were “changing direction.”
Not ten minutes later occurred the collision between the hack and the heels that resulted in the demolition of one and “demoralization” of the rider of the victor. While the latter was led away by the obedient Mr. Ellis lest the sight of him should bring on another nervous attack, Mrs. Garrison was suffering herself to be comforted. Her nerves were gone, but she had not lost her head. Lots of Presidio dames and damsels were up on the heights that day in such vehicles as the post afforded. None appeared in anything so stylish and elegant as the carriage of the Prime party. She was a new and comparative stranger there, and it would vastly enhance her social prestige, she argued, to be seen in such “swell” surroundings. With a little tact and management she might even arrange matters so that, willy nilly, her friends would drive her home instead of taking Colonel Armstrong back to camp. That would be a stroke worth playing. She owed Stanley Armstrong a bitter grudge, and had nursed it long. She had known him ten years and hated him nine of them. Where they met and when it really matters not. In the army people meet and part in a hundred places when they never expected to meet again. She had married Frank Garrison in a hand gallop, said the garrison chronicles, “before she had known him two months,” said the men, “before he knew her at all,” said the women. She was four years his senior, if the chaplain could be believed and five months his junior if she could. Whatever might have been the discrepancy in their ages at the time of the ceremony no one would suspect the truth who saw them now. It was he who looked aged and careworn and harassed, and she who preserved her youthful bloom and vivacity.
And now, as she reclined as though still too weak and shaken to leave the carriage and return to saddle, her quick wits were planning the scheme that should result in her retaining, and his losing the coveted seat. There was little time to lose. Most of the crowd had scattered, and she well knew that he was only waiting for her to leave before he would return. Almost at the instant her opportunity came. A covered wagon reined suddenly alongside and kind and sympathetic voices hailed her: “Do let us drive you home, Mrs. Garrison; you must have been terribly shaken.” She recognized at once the wife and daughter of a prominent officer of the post.
“Oh, how kind you are!” she cried. “I was hoping some one would come. Indeed, I did get a little wrench.” And then, as she moved, with a sudden gasp of pain, she clasped Miss Lawrence’s extended hand.
“Indeed, you must not stir, Mrs. Garrison,” said that young lady. “We will drive you home at once.” Miss Prime and her father were adding their pleas. She looked up, smiling faintly.
“I fear I must trouble you,” she faltered. “Oh, how stupid of me! But about Stanley Armstrong—I haven’t even thanked him. Ah, well—he knows. We’ve been—such good friends for years—dear old fellow!”
