A Wounded Name | Page 5

was finished?
Well did Sancho recall his own wrath and that of his brother at this

unlicensed interference with their special business, and the surprising
liberality, too, with which the Señor Capitan had silenced their
remonstrance. Rascal though he was, Sancho had sense enough to
know that such proceedings were not seemly in a man bearing the
commission of an officer. But Sancho little knew how many a
congressman along at the close of the war, finding himself compelled
to provide some kind of living for political "heelers," or some
impersonal reward for services rendered, had foisted his henchmen into
the army, then being enlarged and reorganized, and Nevins was one of
the results of the iniquitous system.
Commissioned a first lieutenant of a regiment that had had a proud
record in the regular division of the Army of the Potomac, and had
been hurried at the close of the war to the Pacific coast, Nevins had
joined at Fort Yuma and served a few weeks' apprenticeship as a
file-closer, just long enough to demonstrate that he knew nothing
whatever about soldiering and too much about poker. All his seniors in
grade, except the West Pointers graduated in '65, had brevets for war
service, and Nevins' sponsor was appealed to to rectify the omission in
the lieutenant's case. Nevins had held a commission in a volunteer
regiment in the defenses of Washington the last few months of the war,
and that was found amply sufficient, when a prominent member of the
committee on military affairs demanded it, to warrant the bestowal of a
brevet for "gallant and meritorious services." Hence came the title of
captain. Then, as company duty proved irksome, and Nevins' company
and post commander both began to stir him up for his manifold
negligences and ignorances, the aid of his patron in congress was again
invoked. A crippled veteran who could do no field service was in
charge of a supply camp for scouting parties, escorts, detachments, etc.,
and, to the wrath of the regimental officers, this veteran was relieved
and Lieutenant and Brevet-Captain Nevins by department orders was
detailed in his place. This made him independent of almost everybody,
beside placing in his hands large quantities of commissary and
quartermaster stores which were worth far more to the miner,
prospector and teamster than their invoice price. The stories that began
to come into Yuma and Drum Barracks, and other old-time stations, of
the "high jinks" going on day and night at Nevins' camp, the orders for

liquors, cigars and supplies received at San Francisco and filled by
every stage or steamer, the lavish entertainment accorded to officers of
any grade and to wayfarers with any sign of money, the complaints of
victims who had been fleeced, the gloomy silence of certain fledgling
subalterns after brief visits at "Camp Ochre," as Blake had dubbed it,
all pointed significantly to but one conclusion, that, so far from living
on his pay, Nevins was gormandizing on that of everybody else, and
doubtless "raising the wind" in other ways at the expense of Uncle Sam.
Even in Arizona in the days of the Empire it could not last forever.
Easy come, easy go. Nevins had lavishly spent what was so lightly won.
Tucson and Yuma City were within easy stage ride, even San Francisco
had twice been found accessible. Dashing associates of both sexes were
ever at hand. The sudden turn of the tide came with the order that broke
up the supply camp, required him to turn over his funds and stores to
the quartermaster at Camp Cooke, and report for duty in person at that
post. Then came the expected discovery of grievous shortages in both
funds and property, the order for the arrest of the delinquent officer and
his trial by court-martial. Colonel Turnbull, inspector-general of the
department, was hurried out from the shores of the Pacific to sit as one
of the senior members of the court. Lieutenant Loring, vainly striving
along the Gila to find some resemblance between its tracing on a
government map and its meanderings through the desert, was selected
to perform the duties of judge advocate. The court was authorized to sit
without regard to hours, and to sift the official career of the protégé of
the house committee of military affairs without regard to consequence,
when that volatile and accused person took matters into his own hands,
and between the setting and rising of the sun, disappeared from the
brush, canvas and adobe shelters of old Camp Cooke and left for parts
unknown, taking with him the best horse in the commanding officer's
stable, and, as genius has ever its followers, the admiration if not the
regard of much of the garrison.
But other followers were needed at once. "That man must be