from the toime we shtarted till we got back, and it’s the love av God that we ever got back at all. And it’s breaking me hearrt, sorr, to see HIM goin’ round with the black looks of everybody upon him, and he a-twirlin’ his moustache and purtending not to mind.”
“What do you mean?” said Peter, uneasily.
“Oi mane to be tellin’ you what happened, sorr,” said Cassidy stoutly. “When we shtarted out Oi fell three files to the rear, as became me, so as not to be in the way o’ their colloguing, but sorra a bit o’ stragglin’ was there, and Oi kept them afore me all the toime. When we got to Post Oak Bottom the leddy p’ints her whip off to the roight, and sez she: ‘It’s a fine bit of turf there, Misther Forsyth,’ invitin’ like, and with that she gallops away to the right. The leftenant follys her, and Oi closed up the rear. So we rides away innoshent like amongst the trees, me thinkin’ only it wor a mighty queer place for manoovrin’, until we seed, just beyond us in the hollow, the smoke of an Injin camp and a lot of women and childer. And Mrs. Lascelles gets off and goes to discoursin’ and blarneying wid ‘em: and Oi sees Mr. Forsyth glancin’ round and lookin’ oneasy. Then he goes up and sez something to your sister, and she won’t give him a hearin’. And then he tells her she must mount and be off. And she turns upon him, bedad, like a tayger, and bids him be off himself. Then he comes to me and sez he, ‘Oi don’t like the look o’ this, Cassidy,’ sez he; ‘the woods behind is full of braves,’ sez he. ‘Thrue for you, leftenant,’ sez Oi, ‘it’s into a trap that the leddy hez led us, God save her!’ ‘Whisht,’ he sez, ‘take my horse, it’s the strongest. Go beside her, and when Oi say the word lift her up into the saddle before ye, and gallop like blazes. Oi’ll bring up the rear and the other horse.’ Wid that we changed horses and cantered up to where she was standing, and he gives the word when she isn’t lookin’, and Oi grabs her up—she sthrugglin’ like mad but not utterin’ a cry—and Oi lights out for the trail agin. And sure enough the braves made as if they would folly, but the leftenant throws the reins of her horse over the horn of his saddle, and whips out his revolver and houlds ‘em back till I’ve got well away to the trail again. And then they let fly their arrows, and begorra the next thing a BULLET whizzes by him. And then he knows they have arrms wid ‘em and are ‘hostiles,’ and he rowls the nearest one over, wheelin’ and fightin’ and coverin’ our retreat till we gets to the road agin. And they daren’t folly us out of cover. Then the lady gets more sinsible, and the leftenant pershuades her to mount her horse agin. But before we comes to the fort, he sez to me: ‘Cassidy,’ sez he, ‘not a word o’ this on account of the leddy.’ And I was mum, sorr, while he was shootin’ off his mouth about him bein’ lost and all that, and him bein’ bully-ragged by the kernel, and me knowin’ that but for him your sister wouldn’t be between these walls here, and Oi wouldn’t be talkin’ to ye. And shure, sorr, ye might be tellin’s the kernel as how the leddy was took by the hysterics, and was that loony that she didn’t know whatever she was sayin’, and so get the leftenant in favor again.”
“I will speak with the colonel to-night,” said Peter gloomily.
“Lord save yer honor,” returned the trooper gratefully, “and if ye could be sayin’ that the LEDDY tould you,—it would only be the merest taste of a loi ye’d be tellin’,—and you’d save me from breakin’ me word to the leftenant.”
“I shall of course speak to my sister first,” returned Peter, with a guilty consciousness that he had accepted the trooper’s story mainly from his previous knowledge of his sister’s character. Nevertheless, in spite of this foregone conclusion, he DID speak to her. To his surprise she did not deny it. Lieutenant Forsyth,—a vain and conceited fool,—whose silly attentions she had accepted solely that she might get recreation beyond the fort,—had presumed to tell her what SHE must do! As if SHE was one of those stupid officers’ wives or sisters! And it never would have happened if he—Peter—had let her remain at the reservation with the Indian agent’s wife, or if “Charley” (the gentle Lascelles) were here! HE would have let her go, or taken her there. Besides all the while she was among friends; HIS, Peter’s own friends,—the people whose cause he was championing! In vain did Peter try to point out to her that these “people” were still children in mind and impulse, and capable of vacillation or even treachery. He remembered he was talking to a child in mind and impulse, who had shown the same qualities, and in trying to convince her of her danger he felt he was only voicing the common arguments of his opponents.
He spoke also to the colonel, excusing her through her ignorance, her trust in his influence with the savages, and the general derangement of her health. The colonel, relieved of his suspicions of a promising young officer, was gentle and sympathetic, but firm as to Peter’s future course. In a moment of caprice and willfulness she might imperil the garrison as she had her escort, and, more than that, she was imperiling Peter’s influence with the Indians. Absurd stories had come to his ears regarding the attitude of the reservation towards him. He thought she ought to return home as quickly as possible. Fortunately an opportunity offered. The general commanding had advised him of the visit to the fort of a party of English tourists who had been shooting in the vicinity, and who were making the fort the farthest point of their western excursion. There were three or four ladies in the party, and as they would be returning to the line of railroad under escort, she could easily accompany them. This, added Colonel Carter, was also Mrs. Carter’s opinion,—she was a woman of experience, and had a married daughter of her own. In the mean time Peter had better not broach the subject to his sister, but trust to the arrival of the strangers, who would remain for a week, and who would undoubtedly divert Mrs. Lascelles’ impressible mind, and eventually make the proposition more natural and attractive.
In the interval Peter revisited the reservation, and endeavored to pacify the irritation that had sprung from his previous inspection. The outrage at Post Oak Bottom he was assured had no relation to the incident at the reservation, but was committed by some stragglers from other tribes who had not yet accepted the government bounty, yet had not been thus far classified as “hostile.” There had been no “Ghost Dancing” nor other indication of disturbance. The colonel had not deemed it necessary to send out an exemplary force, or make a counter demonstration. The incident was allowed to drop. At the reservation Peter had ignored the previous conduct of the chiefs towards him; had with quiet courage exposed himself fully—unarmed and unattended—amongst them, and had as fully let it be known that this previous incident was the reason that his sister had not accompanied him on his second visit. He left them at the close of the second day more satisfied in his mind, and perhaps in a more enthusiastic attitude towards his report.
As he came within sound of the sunset bugles, he struck a narrower trail which led to the fort, through an oasis of oaks and cottonwoods and a small stream or “branch,” which afterwards lost itself in the dusty plain. He had already passed a few settler’s cabins, a sutler’s shop, and other buildings that had sprung up around this armed nucleus of civilization—which, in due season, was to become a frontier town. But as yet the brief wood was wild and secluded; frequented only by the women and children of the fort, within whose protecting bounds it stood, and to whose formal “parade,” and trim white and green cottage “quarters,” it afforded an agreeable relief. As he rode abstractedly forward under the low cottonwood vault he felt a strange influence stealing over him, an influence that was not only a present experience but at the same time a far-off memory. The concave vault above deepened; the sunset light from the level horizon beyond streamed through the leaves as through the chequers of stained glass windows; through the two shafts before him stretched the pillared aisles of Ashley Church! He was riding as in a dream, and when a figure suddenly slipped across his pathway from a column-like tree trunk, he woke with the disturbance and sense of unreality of a dream. For he saw Lady Elfrida standing before him!
It was not a mere memory conjured up by association, for although the figure, face, and attitude were the same, there were certain changes of costume which the eye of recollection noticed. In place of the smart narrow-brimmed sailor hat he remembered, she was wearing a slouched cavalry hat with a gold cord around its crown, that, with all its becomingness and picturesque
