Ray's Daughter. Charles King

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СКАЧАТЬ well-cooked food, with abundant hot coffee. They thanked him gratefully, did many of the young fellows, and hoped they might meet more such officers. An elderly passenger who had quietly noted the outlay of money to which Mr. Stuyvesant had been subjected strolled up to the manager. "That young gentleman has had to pay too much to-day. Just receipt the bill if you please," said he, and drew forth a roll of treasury notes. Stuyvesant went in search of this new benefactor when he heard of it. "There was really no necessity, sir," said he, "though I fully appreciate your kindness. The company will doubtless reimburse me for any such outlay."

      "If they will reimburse you, my young friend," said the veteran traveller drily, "they'll reimburse me. At all events, I know them better than you do, and I don't intend to let you bear all the risk." The lieutenant argued, but the elder was firm. As the men shuffled back to the train with full stomachs and brightened faces, Murray hulking by them with averted eyes and Mellen tendering a grinning salute, the manager came forward. "There's one man shy, sir, even counting the dinners sent aboard," said he, and Hunt, hearing it, turned back and explained.

      "It is Foster, sir. He said he wasn't hungry and couldn't eat. I reckon it's because he wouldn't turn out in such looking clothes as were given him."

      Yet when Stuyvesant went to the car to see whether the young soldier could not be induced to change his mind, it was discovered that he had turned out. His berth was empty. Nor did he appear until just as the train was starting. He explained that he had stepped off on the outer side away from the crowd for a little fresh air. There was plenty of bread and cheese left from luncheon. He didn't care for anything, really. And, indeed, he seemed most anxious to get back to his berth and away from the lieutenant, in whose presence he was obviously and painfully ill at ease.

      Stuyvesant turned away, feeling a trifle annoyed or hurt, he couldn't tell which, and swung himself to the platform of the sleeper as it came gliding by. At last he could hope to find opportunity to thank Miss Ray for her attention to the injured men and incidentally her ministrations on his own account. Then, once arrived at San Francisco, where he had friends of rank and position in the army, he would surely meet someone who knew her father well and possibly herself, some one to present him in due form, but for the present he could only hope to say a conventional word or two of gratitude, and he was striving to frame his thoughts as he hastened into the brightly lighted car and towards the section where last he had seen her.

      It was occupied by a new-comer, a total stranger, and the three women recently sharing her section and more than sharing her cherries were now in animated chat across the aisle. In blank surprise and disappointment, Stuyvesant turned and sought the porter.

      "Miss Ray! Yes, suh. She done got off at Sacramento, suh. Dere was friends come to meet her, and took her away in the carriage."

      Once more Stuyvesant found himself constrained to seek the society of the maiden of uncertain years. Her presence was forbidding, her countenance severe, and her voice and intonation something appalling. But she might know Miss Ray's address; he could at least write his thanks; but he found the vice-president of the Order of the Patriotic Daughters of America in evil mood. She didn't know Miss Ray's address, and in the further assertion that she didn't want to know too readily betrayed the fact that her petulance was due to her not having been favored therewith.

      "After all I did for her last night and to-day 'twould have been a mighty little thing to tell where she was going to stop, but just soon's her fine friends came aboard she dropped us like as if we weren't fit to notice."

      The irate lady, however, seemed to find scant sympathy and support in the faces of her listeners, some of whom had long since wearied of her strident voice and oracular ways. It was well remembered that so far from being of aid or value in caring for the injured men, she had pestered people with undesired advice and interference, had made much noise and no bandages, and later, when an official of the company boarded the train, had constituted herself spokeswoman for the passengers, not at all to their advantage and much to his disgust. Then, finding that Miss Ray was looked upon as the only heroine of the occasion, she had assumed a guardianship, so to speak, over that young lady which became almost possessive in form, so passively was it tolerated.

      She had plied the girl with questions as to the friends who were to meet her on arrival in San Francisco, and Miss Ray had smilingly given evasive answers.

      When, therefore, they neared Sacramento and the vice-president announced her intention of sallying forth to see to it that proper victuals were provided for her soldier boys, Miss Ray had a few minutes in which to make her preparations, and the next thing the vice-president saw of her supposed ward and dependant, that young lady was in the embrace of a richly dressed and most distinguished looking woman, whose gray hair only served to heighten the refinement of her features. Just behind the elder lady stood a silk-hatted dignitary in the prime of life, and behind him a footman or valet, to whom the porter was handing Miss Ray's belongings.

      And what the vice-president so much resented was that Miss Ray had not only never mentioned her purpose of leaving the train at Sacramento, but never so much as introduced her friends, at whom the vice-president smiled invitingly while accepting Miss Ray's courteous but brief thanks for "so much attention during the afternoon," but who merely bowed in acknowledgment when she would have addressed them on the subject of Miss Ray's being of so much help to her when help was so much needed, and who spirited the young lady away to the handsome carriage awaiting her.

      The vice-president was distinctly of the opinion that folks didn't need to slink off in that way unless they were ashamed of where they were going or afraid of being found out, whereat Stuyvesant found himself gritting his teeth with wrath, and so whirled about and left her.

      It was after midnight when they reached the pier at Oakland. There, under the great train-shed, track after track was covered with troop cars and a full regiment lay sleeping.

      An alert young officer of the guard raised his hand in salute as Stuyvesant addressed him. No, there were no ambulances, no soldiers from the Presidio. They might be waiting across the ferry.

      But how was he to get the injured men across the ferry, thought Stuyvesant. Two of them would have to be carried.

      The long train, except that recruit car, was now emptied. The throng of passengers had gone on through the waiting-rooms and up the stairway to the saloon deck of the huge ferry-boat. If he purposed going, no time was to be lost, and the porter bearing his hand-luggage ventured a word to that effect.

      Stuyvesant looked back. There were protruding heads at many of the windows of the recruit car, but, obedient to the instructions given by Connelly, no man, apparently, had left his place, and Connelly, though suffering, had evidently resumed control, much benefited by the services of another physician who had boarded the train in the late afternoon and renewed the bandages and dressings of the injured men. Then Stuyvesant became suddenly aware of a messenger-boy with a telegram. It was addressed to "Lieutenant Stuyvesant, AD C., Train No. 2, Oakland." Tearing it open, he read as follows:

      "Report by wire condition of Recruit Foster. If serious, have him conveyed to St. Paul's Hospital. Commission as lieutenant and signal officer awaits him here."

      It was signed by the adjutant-general at department head-quarters, San Francisco.

      But the boy had still another. This too he held forth to Stuyvesant, and the latter, not noticing that it was addressed "Commanding Officer U. S. Troops, Train No. 2," mechanically opened and read and made a spring for the car.

      The message was from Port Costa, barely thirty miles away, and briefly said: "Any your men missing? Soldier left car here believed jumped overboard return trip ferry-boat."

      One man was missing. Recruit Foster, СКАЧАТЬ