A War-Time Wooing | Page 8

surely you wrote to--to us all this last year--letter after letter about my boy--my Guthrie."
There is an instant of silence that is almost agonizing. The colonel stands like one in a state of shock. The old doctor, trembling from head to foot, looks with almost piteous entreaty; with anguish and incredulity, and half-awakened wrath, into the pale and distressed features of the young soldier.
"I bitterly grieve to have to tell you, sir," is the sorrowful answer, "but I know no such name. I have written no such letters."
Another instant, and the old man has dropped heavily upon the bench, and buried his face in his arms. But for the colonel he might have fallen prone to earth.

II.
An hour after sundown and the rattling old cabriolet has two occupants as it drives back to town. Colonel Putnam comes forth with the old gentleman whom he had so tenderly conducted to the farmhouse but a few moments after the strange scene out on the bank, and is now his escort to Frederick. The sergeant of the guard has been besieged with questions, for several of the men saw the doctor drop upon the bench and were aware of the melodramatic nature of the meeting. Lieutenant Abbot with a face paler than before, with a strange look of perplexity and smouldering wrath about his handsome eyes, has gone over to his own tent, where the surgeon presently visits him. The colonel and his civilian visitor are closeted together over half an hour, and the latter looks more dead than alive, say the men, as he feebly totters down the steps clinging to the colonel's arm.
"What did you say was the name of the officer who was killed--his son?" asks one of the guards as he stands at the entrance to the tent.
"Warren--Guthrie Warren," answers the sergeant, briefly. "I don't know whether the old man's crazy or not. He said the lieutenant had been writing to him for months about his son, and the lieutenant denied having written a line."
"He lied then, by----!" comes a savage growl from within the tent. "Where is the old man? Give me a look at him!" and the scowling face of Rix makes its sudden appearance at the tent-flop, peering forth into the fire-light.
"Be quiet, Rix, and go back where you belong. You've made more than enough trouble to-day," is the sergeant's low-toned order.
"I tell you I only want to see the old man," answers the teamster, struggling, "Don't you threaten me with that bayonet, Drake," he growls savagely at the sentry, who has thrown himself in front of the opening. "It'll be the worse for you fellows that you ever confined me, no matter by whose order; but as for that stuck-up prig, by----! you'll see soon enough what'll come of his ordering me into the guard-tent."
His voice is so hoarse and loud with anger that the colonel's attention is attracted. He has just seated Doctor Warren in the vehicle, and is about to take his place by his side when Rix's tirade bursts upon his ear. The words are only partially distinguishable, but the colonel steps promptly back.
"What is the matter with your prisoner, sergeant? Is he drunk or crazy, that he persists in this uproar?"
"I don't think it either, sir," answers the sergeant; while Rix, at sight of his commanding officer, pops his head back within the tent, and shuts the narrow slit. "He's simply ugly and bent on making trouble."
"Well, stop it! If he utters another insubordinate word, have him bucked and gagged at once. He is disgracing the regiment, and I won't tolerate it. Do you understand?"
"I do, sir."
The colonel turns abruptly away, while the prisoner, knowing his man, keeps discreetly out of sight, and correspondingly silent. At the gate the older officer stops once more and calls to a soldier who is standing near.
"Give my compliments to Lieutenant Abbot, and say that I will be out here again to-morrow afternoon. Now, doctor, I am with you."
The old gentleman is leaning wearily back in his corner of the cab; a strange, stunned, lethargic feeling seems to have come over him. His eyes are fixed on vacancy, if anything, and the colonel's attempt at cheeriness meets no response. As the vehicle slowly rattles away he makes an effort, rouses himself as it were from a stupor-like condition, and abruptly speaks:
"You tell me that--that you have seen Lieutenant Abbot's mail all summer and spring and never saw a--our postmark--Hastings?"
"I have seen his mail very often, and thought his correspondents were all home people. I am sure I would have noticed any letters coming frequently in one handwriting, and his father's is the only masculine superscription that was at all regular."
"My letters--our home letters--were not often addressed by me," hesitates the doctor. "The postmark might have