Marion's Faith. Charles King

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СКАЧАТЬ is just pulling out Denverwards, puffing dense clouds of inky smoke to the sky. Space, light, and air there are in lavish profusion. Shade there is little or none, except close along the winding stream; but shade is a thing neither sought nor cared for, as the sun-tanned faces of the troopers show. Every now and then a trumpet-call floats softly over the prairie, or the ringing, prolonged word of command marks some lazily-executed manœuvre on the homeward way. Drill is over; the sharp eyes and sharper tongue of the major no longer criticise any faulty or "slouchy" wheel; the drill proper has been stiff and spirited, and now the necessary changes of direction are carried out in a purely perfunctory manner, while the battalion commander and his subaltern, troops and all, amble back and give their steeds a breathing spell.

      Typical cavalrymen are those two, who, chatting quietly together, are riding somewhat in advance of the returning companies. The major is a man a trifle over forty, short, stout, with massive shoulders, chest, and thighs, a neck like a bull, a well-shaped head covered with straight, close-cropped, brown hair, innocent of kink or curl; a florid face, bronzed and tanned by years of life in sun and wind and storm; clean-shaven but for the drooping brown moustache that conceals the rugged lines of his mouth, and twinkling blue-gray eyes that peer out with searching gaze from under their shaggy brows. Firmness, strength, self-reliance, even sternness, can be read in every line; but around the gathering crowsfeet at the corners of his eyes, and lurking under the shadow of the grim moustache, are little curves or dimples or something, that betray to the initiated the presence of a humorous vein that softens the asperity of the soldier. Some who best know him can detect there a symptom of tenderness and a possibility of sentiment, whose existence the major would indignantly deny. The erect carriage of the head, the square set of the shoulders, the firm yet easy seat in the saddle, speak of the experienced soldier, while in the first word that falls from his lips one hears the tone of the man far more at home in camp than court. There is something utterly blunt and abrupt in his manner, a scathing contrast to the affected drawl brought into the regiment by recent importations from the East, and assiduously copied by a professed Anglo-maniac among the captains. Rude indeed may he sometimes be in his speech, "and little versed in the set phrase of peace," but through it all is the ring of sturdy honesty and independence. He uses the same tone to general and to private soldier alike; extending the same degree of courtesy to each. No one ever heard of "old Stannard's" fawning upon a superior or bullying an inferior; to all soldiers he is one and the same—short, blunt, quick, and to the point. Literally he obeys the orders of his chiefs, and literally and promptly he expects his own to be obeyed. He has his faults, like the best of men: he will growl at times; he is prone to pick flaws, and to say sharp and cutting things, for which he is often ashamed and sorry; he can see little good in the works or words of the men he dislikes; he absolutely cannot praise, and he is over-quick to blame; but after all he is true as steel, as unswerving as the needle, and no man, no woman could need a stancher friend than the new major of the—th, "old Stannard."

      As for Ray, no officer in the regiment is better known or more talked about. Ten years of his life he has spent under the standard of the—th, barring a very short but eventful detail at "the Point." Nebraska, Kansas, and Arizona he knows as well as the savannas of his native blue-grass country. He has been in more skirmishes with the regiment and more scrapes of his own than any fellow of his age in service, but he has the faculty of "lighting on his feet every time," as he himself would express it, and to-day he rides along as buoyantly and recklessly as he did ten years ago, and the saddle is Ray's home. Ephemeral pleasure he finds in the hop-room, for he dances well; perennial attraction, his detractors say, he finds at the card-table, but Ray is never quite himself until he throws his leg over the horse he loves. He is facile princeps the light rider of the regiment, and to this claim there are none to say him nay. A tip-top soldier too is Ray. Keen on the scout, tireless on the trail, daring to a fault in action, and either preternaturally cool or enthusiastically excited when under fire. He is a man the rank and file swear by and love. "You never hear Loot'nant Ray saying 'Go in there, fellers.' 'Tis always, 'Come on, boys.' That's why I like him," is the way Sergeant Moriarty puts it. Among his comrades, his brother officers that is to say, opinions are divided. Ray has trusty friends and he has his bitter enemies, though the latter, when charged with the fact, are prone to say that no one is so much Ray's enemy as Ray himself—an assertion which cannot be altogether denied. But as his own worst enemy Ray is thoroughly open and above-board; he has not a hidden fault; his sins are many and they are public property for all he cares; whereas the men who dislike Ray in the regiment are of the opposite stamp. Among themselves they pick him to pieces with comparative safety, but outside their limited circle, the damnation of faint praise, the covert insinuations, or that intangible species of backbiting which can,

      "Without sneering, others teach to sneer,"

      has to be their resort, and for good reason. Ray tolerates no slander, and let him once get wind of the fact that some man has maligned him, there is a row in the camp. Minding his own business, however unsuccessfully, he meddles with the affairs of no one else, and thinking twice before he alludes once to the shortcomings of a comrade, he claims that consideration for himself, but doesn't get it. There be men who outrival the weaker sex in the sinister effect they can throw into the faintest allusion to another's conduct, and in the dexterity with which they evade the consequences, and of such specimens the—th has its share. There was Crane, whom Ray had fearfully snubbed and afterwards "cut" in Arizona; there was Wilkins, whom Ray had treated with scant courtesy for over a year, because of some gossip that veteran had been instrumental in putting into circulation; there was Captain Canker, who used to like and admire Ray in the rough old days in the cañons and deserts, but who had forfeited his esteem while they were stationed at Camp Sandy, and when they met again in Kansas, Ray touched his cap to his superior officer but withheld his hand. Canker felt very bitterly towards Ray, claiming that there was no officer in the regiment whom he had treated with such marked courtesy, and to this, when he heard it, Ray made response in his characteristic way. He would have no middleman. He went straight to Canker and said his say in few terse words: "You consider me unjustified in refusing to treat you as a friend, Captain Canker; now let us have no misunderstanding whatever. Your conduct towards my best friend, Captain Truscott, and towards—towards another good friend of mine at Sandy, was an outrage in my opinion, and I have yet to learn that you have expressed regret or made amends. That's my position, sir; and if you care for my friendship, you know how to regain it." Canker was too much astonished by such directness to make any reply. Other officers who happened to be standing near maintained an embarrassed silence, and Ray faced about and walked off. "For all the world," said Wilkins, "as though he had that d——d chip on his shoulder again and was begging somebody to knock it off." Canker was hit in a sore place. Long before this occurrence he realized that several officers of the regiment had withdrawn every semblance of esteem in their intercourse with him. He well knew why, but the officer whose cause Ray so vehemently championed was away on detached service, and Canker really did not know just what to do, and was too proud and sensitive to seek advice. He was a gallant soldier in the field, but a man of singularly unfortunate disposition—crabbed, cranky, and suspicious; and thus it resulted that he, too, joined the little band of Ray haters, despite the fact that he felt ashamed of himself for so doing.

      Then there was Gleason—"That man Gleason," as he was generally alluded to, and to those familiar with army life or army ways the mere style is indicative of this character. For good and sufficient reason Mr. Ray had slapped Mr. Gleason's face some years back, when the—th was serving in Arizona, and there was no possible reason for his failure to seek the immediate reparation due him as an officer, no possible reason except the absolute certainty of Ray's promptly according him the demanded luxury. The—th was commanded by a colonel of the old school in those days, one who had observed "the code" when a junior officer, and would have been glad to see it carried out to this day; but Gleason was not made of that stuff, and to the scandal of the regiment and the incredulous mirth of Mr. Ray, Gleason pocketed the blow as complacently as he did the money he had won from the Kentuckian by a trick which was transparent to every looker-on, and would have been harmless with Ray—had he been himself. Those were the rough days of the regiment's campaign against the Apaches; officers and men were scattered in small commands through the mountains; in the general and absorbing interest of the chase СКАЧАТЬ